Simeon's Bride (29 page)

Beyond the window of Owen Griffiths’ office, early morning traffic moved down the road as sluggishly as the rubbish swilling against the pavement beside the bus stops, washed by remnants of the night’s rain draining from the mountain and through the city streets. McKenna leaned against the window ledge, weariness dulling his eyes.

‘When will Eifion Roberts know how Jamie died?’ Owen Griffiths asked.

McKenna shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Why don’t you ask him?’

‘Because that’s your bloody job! You’ve got Stott locked up in one cell and his missis being questioned under caution in another. What d’you propose doing with them if you don’t know they had anything to do with Jamie Thief?’

McKenna lit another cigarette, the third, Jack counted, since this meeting began. Jack watched him, noting the crêpey skin beneath his eyes, the hollowed cheeks.

‘And why don’t they have the same solicitor?’ Griffiths added. ‘Why has Stott got one and his wife another? It’s all adding to the cost.’

‘Conflict of interest. Stott will be expected to give evidence against her.’

‘Will he? What’s she being charged with?’

‘I intend to charge Gwendolen Stott with extortion, perverting the course of justice, procuring a minor, and permitting the minor to be abused. And if Jamie and that Cheney woman weren’t out of the way, I’d charge her with conspiracy, as well.’

‘Don’t you think it might be a good idea to make sure Prosser and the girl’s father didn’t molest her before you go committing us to a particular course of action?’

‘I am sure.’

‘How? I’m not. We’re not equipped to deal fully with allegations of sexual abuse, let alone make decisions. Those are jobs for the social workers and Crown Prosecution.’

‘Nobody’s made such an allegation. Least of all Jenny Stott.’

‘Yes, she has,’ Griffiths argued. ‘She said the Cheney woman touched her up. But only after you’d raised the issue. Can’t you see how conveniently it’s all been put together? Stott tells you first, to pre-empt anything his wife might say. Then the girl throws a wobbler when you ask
her about it, and gives you a first-rate reason for not making the allegation herself. Fortunately for both of them, Romy Cheney’s not around to say yea or nay to anything.’

‘What reason did Jenny give?’

‘What she said about how other people regard girls who get molested by their father. That’s enough to keep any girl’s mouth shut a damned sight tighter than her legs, isn’t it?’

Distaste soured McKenna’s face. ‘Do you believe what you’re saying? Or are you playing Devil’s advocate?’

‘Neither. I’m pointing out the way we need to look at this mess. You’ve got to consider every angle. Say for the sake of argument that Stott did molest her, and maybe Prosser as well. So what happens? Gwen Stott somehow finds out. She tells her mate Romy, asks her advice. Romy challenges Stott, tells him to leave the kid alone. And then Stott gets the wind up. He kills Romy, and sets up this great big smokescreen.’

‘And what does Gwen Stott do?’ McKenna asked. ‘And Jenny?’

‘They go along with it. You know how families cover up as well as I do, McKenna. They stick together, because they think there’s less to lose that way.’

McKenna ground out his cigarette in the ashtray, and immediately lit another. ‘If Stott hadn’t told me, we would never have known.’

‘You can’t say that because you’ve no idea what his wife would’ve said.’

‘She hasn’t said anything so far, ‘Jack pointed out.

‘That’s not to say she won’t. In any case, I get the impression Jenny Stott doesn’t like her mother very much, so she’s hardly likely to drop her father in the shit, even if he belongs there. And for all we know, she might be wanting revenge on her mother for something.’

‘D’you really think either the girl or her aunt would protect Stott if he had abused the girl?’

‘I’m saying,’ Griffiths said with mounting impatience, ‘that we don’t know. And buggering around the way we are doing, leaping to conclusions just because they suit us, won’t find out. We must adopt the proper
procedures
. Social Services must be told, because they’ve got the expertise to deal with child abuse, and Jenny Stott must be medically examined.’

‘No,’ McKenna said. ‘If we do that, we’ll set in motion exactly the train of events Stott and Prosser jumped through Gwen Stott’s hoops to avoid.’ He drew savagely on the cigarette. ‘Don’t you understand all this happened to protect the child in the first place?’

‘You’re letting your sensibilities interfere with your work, McKenna. Not to say cloud your judgement as well. A quick and simple medical examination is all that’s needed to find out if Jenny Stott is still a virgin.’

‘A quick and simple medical,’ McKenna said. ‘Is that how you see it? All over and done with in a few minutes, and no backlash? You wouldn’t mind, then,’ he went on, staring at the superintendent, ‘if one of your
girls had a ‘quick and simple medical’ to see if she was
virgo
intacta
?’ He turned to Jack. ‘Would you mind? Would you and Emma be happy for one of the twins to be subjected to that kind of interference in such
circumstances
? Medical examinations like these can be as much an abuse as the other, with equally dreadful consequences. Look at what happened in Cleveland and elsewhere. And you,’ he added, turning to face the superintendent, ‘don’t seem to know very much about girls. If a doctor is looking for evidence of abuse which occurred several years ago, all he can hope to find is a broken hymen. And many girls of Jenny’s age and younger will not have an intact hymen, simply because they take part in sports like gymnastics. And if she’s ever sat on a horse, the result will be the same.’

‘You like causing problems, don’t you?’ Griffiths asked.

‘I am simply trying to point out the likely outcome. We could put Jenny through a most dreadful trauma, for no valid reason, and be no wiser in the end … we could ruin her life, in fact, or what’s left to ruin after her mother’s finished with her. Jenny Stott is a person with rights, not simply part of a detective puzzle, or a potential social-work case. She
categorically
denies that her father or Prosser ever touched her. She has a right to be taken seriously.’

‘And where does that leave us?’

‘Where we were. Gwen Stott will be charged, and she will have every opportunity to state her case.’

‘I only hope you can make it stick,’ Griffiths said. ‘And I only hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces.’

‘If it does, it does. It’s a risk I’d much rather take.’

‘What about the furniture that went missing? The car? Maybe money, as well?’

‘We can’t prove theft, so there’s no point in trying.’

‘I see. Well, that just leaves us with the small matter of a murder, doesn’t it? Or maybe two,’ he said with some asperity. ‘And who d’you intend to charge with that?’

‘Who would you suggest?’

 ‘I don’t intend to discuss McKenna,’ Owen Griffiths said. ‘He’s been ill, and he’s bound to be despondent about Denise. That’s not to say things can be allowed to go haywire indefinitely. I daresay he’s getting on your nerves as much as anyone’s, but people like him exact a price at the best of times. I expect you to heal the rift, not make it deeper, so just behave as if there’s nothing amiss. Pretend if needs be. McKenna’ll come round sooner or later. Now, how are you getting on with Mrs Stott? Dewi Prys calls her “gwenny Gwen”. Says it’s local argot for dowdy and dated and dull. Suits her down to the ground, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Not today, I wouldn’t, ‘Jack said. ‘You haven’t seen her. She’s got up to the nines in some posh new outfit, make-up plastered all over her face, perfume stinking out the interview room.’

‘What’s the perfume? Carnations?’

‘No. Probably what they call power perfume … By the way, I interviewed Jamie’s mother yesterday. She claims she knows nothing, says he’s been doing his own thing without consulting anyone since he was so high, and she doesn’t really want to know what he might’ve been up to because it will only lead to more grief for her one way or another.’

‘Sound like she’s relieved to have him off her hands. You wonder if some people have proper feelings, don’t you? Then again, folk can only take so much … What’s Mrs Stott got to say about Jamie?’

‘Nothing much. Says she was sorry for him, enough to help him out now and then with the odd five quid or so … she reckons he was getting his leg over Romy.’

‘What about him being suddenly dead?’

‘She arranged her face into one of those horrified looks and said he must’ve fallen foul of a criminal gang from England, like it said on the TV news. Then she did a bit of muttering about the wages of sin until her solicitor told her to shut up.’

‘What’s she got to say about her ladyfriend?’

‘She’s still swearing blind she didn’t know Romy was dead, but as she is, she reckons Christopher Stott and Trefor Prosser must be responsible.’

‘Those two sound like very handy scapegoats. Not that I’d want McKenna to hear me say that. Where was Gwen Stott yesterday afternoon?’

‘I haven’t asked her yet, though I daresay she’ll tell me she went for a walk or took the bus to B&Q to look at new wallpaper for the bedroom or went to a car boot sale or sat on the pier watching the boats, and had her fortune told at one of the booths by Gipsy Jane.’ Jack grinned. ‘I don’t think she’s going to say she was up by Dorabella Quarry putting out Jamie’s light. Do you?’

‘You never know, Jack. You might strike lucky for once in a blue moon.’ Griffiths paused, chewing at his pen. ‘I’m still in a real quandary over this abuse allegation. I’ve a nasty feeling in my guts we’re not handling it right … maybe even letting ourselves be led up somebody’s garden path. The problem is, I’ve an even nastier feeling we could make things worse. McKenna’s remarks about medical exams really hit home.’

‘That’s the harsh reality. It’s a no-win situation. If we don’t believe Jenny, and she’s telling the truth, we really screw up her life. If we believe her and she isn’t telling the truth, one child abuser at least gets off scot free.’

‘And do we place her at further risk if we don’t act? That’s what worries me. Should we bring in the social workers?’

‘She’s away from both her parents and Prosser for now. I think we should leave the sleeping dogs be until we know a little more about Gwen Stott. She’s the lynch pin to all this, one way or another.’

‘You should be telling the chief inspector, Dr Roberts,’ Jack said into the telephone.

Eifion Roberts sniffed. ‘I’m telling you, aren’t I? You can tell McKenna.’

Cast now in the role of go-between, Jack sighed. ‘And what shall I tell him?’

‘Got a pen handy?’

‘Of course.’ Jack drew a notepad towards him and picked a yellow ballpen from the holder on his desk.

‘First of all, fingernail scrapings. Debris on clothing and skin, although not all the results are back yet. I found a deal of skin and blood and fibres under Jamie’s nails … quite long, his nails were, far too long for a bloke. Anyway, the skin and blood don’t belong to him.’

‘He was in a fight, was he?’

‘I suppose you could call it that….’

‘What else?’

‘Time of death as I told McKenna on Sunday night. Between noon and three in the afternoon of Sunday, probably nearer three.’

‘D’you know how he died yet?’

Dr Roberts ignored the question. ‘There’s faint bruising on his throat and face, and more pronounced marks, like somebody thumped him, on his ribs and chest. And grazes on his shins … and a few marks on his wrists.’

‘Maybe somebody kicked him.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Cause of death?’ Jack waited, pen poised.

‘There are all the signs of chronic alcohol abuse in his system, and the residue of some other substance, possibly crack.’

‘And that killed him?’

‘No,’ Dr Roberts said. ‘No, that didn’t kill him. You might say he met his match. Somebody sat on his chest and suffocated him to death.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘There’s considerable literature on it in our trade, Jack. Used to be called “Burking”, because it was favoured by Burke and Hare so that corpses they sold to the medics weren’t too battered.’

‘I see.’ Jack wrote down “Burking” on his pad, and “suffocation” in brackets alongside. ‘What about the fight he had?’

‘He fought with the Devil, didn’t he?’

‘Oh, come on! That’s more McKenna’s line of talk.’