Festival, page 5
‘Mr Norton told me that you’d found someone who’d met her, and thought her name was Stella.’
‘Yes, that was a bit of luck. There was no ambulance available so Mr Norton agreed that she should go to hospital in his car. Naturally a small crowd collected as she was being lifted in, and a young man called out, “Surely that’s Stella”, or something like that. We took him to the police tent for questioning after she’d been carried off. He came quite willingly, didn’t call us pigs, and seemed ready enough to help if he could. But he couldn’t help much. He’d met her not actually at the festival, but at the Wick Episcopi pub the night before. You know they’ve got a big marquee up, with trestle tables and seats outside. It was a nice evening, and she was sitting at the end of one of the tables having a drink by herself. He went up to her and said, “Hello”, and she was quite friendly so he bought her a drink. Gin and tonic it was, and he remembered being shocked by the price of the tonic – he himself was drinking beer. Anyway, they chatted for a bit. He asked if she’d been at the festival since the first day, but she said she’d only just got there. He was going to ask where her tent was, or where she was sleeping, when a bunch of his friends came up and reminded him that a band they were interested in – it was called Blood Oranges – was on in half an hour, and that they’d better get back if they wanted to hear it. They wanted some cans of beer to take away with them, and he went into the marquee to buy his share. He’d meant to ask the girl to come back with them, but when he got out of the marquee she’d gone. He didn’t see her again until he saw her being lifted into Mr Norton’s car.’
‘You’ve got his name, I suppose.’
‘Yes, sir – Sid Castle, lives in Battersea and says he’s an electrician having a week’s holiday. I saw him myself, and I reckon he’s quite a decent sort, cleaner than a good many of them. He came down on his own motorbike, giving a lift to a pal of his called George Jenkins – lives in the same street in Battersea, but is out of work. We’ve interviewed Jenkins, who confirms that he came down with Sid Castle, and that he was with the bunch at the Wick Episcopi pub. He remembers seeing Sid talking to a girl at one of the tables, but didn’t take much notice of her. He was more concerned with getting Sid to buy beer – being in a job he’s got more money than some of the others.’
‘And the Castle youngster didn’t ask the girl where she came from?’
‘He says he didn’t, sir. Says he would have asked her if he’d had more chance of talking to her, but he didn’t get the chance.’
*
A constable came up to Piet and the inspector as they stood talking. ‘There’s a message for the inspector, sir, from the Swindon hospital,’ he said. ‘Detective Constable Rogers telephoned to say that the young woman who was taken to hospital yesterday has died without recovering consciousness.’
III
The Dead Girl
THE POLICE HAD a tent to serve as a temporary police station. The Post Office had run a telephone line there, a job made easier by the fact that the old Army camp had had telephones, and although the cables had long been removed, the holes for the wooden posts that had once carried the wires were still there, providing a surveyed route and ready means of putting up temporary poles. The police tent had both an outside line and its own R/T links, so it was quite well off for communications. Piet and Inspector Donaldson went there now, to find that the message from Swindon had come over the ordinary phone. A woman officer was in charge of communications. ‘Constable Rogers is still at the hospital,’ she said. ‘He is expecting a call with instructions for him.’
‘I don’t see that he can do much at Swindon,’ Inspector Donaldson said. ‘The death will be reported to the coroner, of course, and he will arrange for a pathologist’s report for the inquest. We can use Constable Rogers back here.’
Piet spoke on impulse. ‘If you don’t think I’m interfering I’d like to have a look at the girl myself,’ he said. ‘I’ll go over straight away, I think. It’s a nuisance for you to go on being a man short, but I’d be grateful if you could ask the constable to wait for me at the hospital. It would be helpful if he collects all the clothes when the body is taken to the mortuary, so that they can be ready for me.’
‘Of course, sir. As a matter of fact I’m thankful that you’re going to look into things, because I don’t feel that we are getting anywhere here.’
‘You haven’t had much time. And for my part, well, thinking about the girl helps to take my mind off other things.’
‘I know, sir. I haven’t said anything about it, because there’s nothing I can say, but every man and woman in the Force is feeling for you.’
‘There’s a message for you from headquarters, sir,’ the woman communications officer said to Piet.
He took the phone. The CID duty inspector was at the other end. ‘We’ve traced the owner of that Mini van – he’s a small greengrocer in North London,’ he said. ‘But it’s not much help because the van was reported stolen to the police at Finsbury Park four days ago. He hasn’t got a car park for his shop, and when he’s loaded or unloaded the van he leaves it in a side street one block away from the shop. It was stolen from the street.’
‘Get Inspector Lovell on the R/T – he’s probably up at the car park at the end of my road,’ Piet said. ‘Tell him about the greengrocer, and if the van’s still there ask him to look for signs of vegetables that it must have carried. It’s probably the stolen van all right, but we need to make sure.’
‘Right, sir. I’ll do that straight away.’
‘That girl who was found unconscious here yesterday has died in hospital in Swindon. I’m going over there to have a word with the pathologist. If there’s any urgent news for me, ring the hospital at Swindon and leave a message.’
*
The pathologist, Dr Alec Carless, was waiting for Piet at the hospital. ‘I thought you’d probably like to see the body before I start the autopsy,’ he said.
‘Yes, I should. And I’d be grateful if you could be present.’
*
Not for the first time, Piet was struck by the contrast between the fact and the imagining of death. However horrible the circumstances of dying, the dead are at peace, all life’s worries and frustrations ended. In old age death often smooths away the lines and scars of ageing, making old features seem curiously young again. This girl was not old enough to have lines on her forehead or face – her still body looked like that of a child. And, indeed, she was not much more than a child, in years probably over eighteen but no more than in her very early twenties, but spiritually, perhaps, a child yet, for all the experience she must have had, or had forced upon her.
‘You are not yet sure of the actual cause of death?’ Piet asked.
‘Not precisely. There was a heavy overdose of some narcotic drug, probably heroin, but I can’t be certain until I’ve analysed the organs. There is a bruise on the back of her head, the result of a considerable blow with some soft, heavy instrument, but not enough, I think, to have caused death.’
‘Could it have been inflicted when she fell?’
‘Possibly, though she would have had to fall really hard. If her head had hit a stone I should have expected the skin to have been broken, and at least some superficial bleeding. There isn’t any. To have hit the earth with sufficient force to cause such an extensive bruise would seem to me unlikely, though I suppose it is possible. There is another rather curious thing about the body.’
‘What is that?’
‘Well, I understand that this girl was brought in from the pop festival at Earl’s Down, and she was certainly suffering from the effects of a drug or drugs. But it is not a drug addict’s body. There is the mark of a hypodermic needle on her left arm, but it is a recent mark, probably from the injection which killed her. There are no old injection scars, such as one would expect to find on an addict sufficiently far gone to have taken a massive dose of heroin. And heroin is not usually a beginner’s drug – it tends to be the climax of a history of drug addiction.’
‘She could have been experimenting, and given herself an overdose by reason of her lack of experience.’
‘Possibly. That is for you to determine. I can speak only of the cause of death, and of the physical condition of the body. Was a hypodermic syringe found near her?’
‘At the moment I don’t know. I have had only preliminary reports of the case, and I came out at once to see you so that your work should not be held up.’
‘That was considerate. At the same time, if a syringe was found by the body it ought to have been sent here with her. It would have held traces of the drug actually used, which might have been important in treatment. In this case I think no treatment could have saved her life, but you might impress on your officers the importance of conveying any instrument that may have been used in a suspected drug case to the hospital or doctor concerned.’
‘That is already a routine instruction. Why it was not done in this case I don’t know – it may be that no syringe was found. I shall certainly go into it.’
*
Piet left the body to the mortuary attendants and the pathologist, and went with Constable Rogers to a small office where the dead girl’s clothes were placed tidily on a table. They seemed pathetically few – pants, tights, a faded blue denim cotton shirt, blue denim jeans, and a pair of shoes. There was no particular quality about the clothes –they could have been bought at any of hundreds of branches of multiple shops. But the shoes were good leather walking shoes, not much worn. A pocket of her jeans held four pound notes and 35p in coins. There was a pocket on her shirt, but it held only a small handkerchief. Piet was about to leave the clothes when he noticed a wisp of some darker blue material caught on one of the shirt buttons. On looking at it more closely he had a sudden stab of pain – it was exactly the same colour, and apparently from the same or very similar material, as a blue ribbon that Sally used for Jo’s hair. He extracted it carefully from the shirt button and put it in an envelope, which he labelled and dated.
Piet pulled himself together. There was no evidence to connect this dead girl with the kidnapping of Jo, and much that seemed to indicate that she could not possibly have been involved. He must not let the private agony of Jo colour his thinking. By itself the scrap of blue ribbon meant nothing – there must be millions of yards of it in the world, and when they found out who this girl was, and where she lived, probably they would find that she had some blue ribbon for her own hair. More important was the question of the syringe. Neither Norton nor Inspector Donaldson had mentioned the finding of a syringe. In a way there was no particular reason why they should; they suspected the girl of suffering from an overdose of drugs, and a syringe went naturally with drugs. Yet he would have expected such a piece of evidence to be mentioned to him. If no syringe had been found it gave a new and ugly twist to the case. An overdose of some self-inflicted drug is one thing, a drug not self-injected is something very different. Of course, the absence of a syringe by the body did not necessarily imply that the girl had not injected herself. But where or when could she have done so? No tent or caravan where the girl had slept had yet been discovered. Conceivably she had just slept rough, perhaps in one of the ruined buildings, though the stench there should have been enough to put off anybody, and judging by her clothes and general appearance this girl was not some dirty, hippy type. If no syringe had yet turned up they must concentrate on looking for it.
And what of the bruise on the back of the girl’s head? Again, neither Norton nor Donaldson had mentioned any bruise, but they might not have noticed it. The girl was not a body when they saw her, but an unconscious person needing to be got to hospital. The bruise was on the back of her head, hidden by her hair. The pathologist had observed it at once when he examined the body, but it would not have been particularly noticeable in life, and there was no blood. The tent pegs and ground where she fell must be gone over closely, to see if there was anything that might have caused the bruise. If not, the bruise, and the absence of a syringe, made the case of a presumably accidental overdose of drugs begin to look like one of murder.
Again Piet pulled himself up. There was simply no hard evidence of murder – everything could be explained quite reasonably. Doubtless the syringe would be found when they learned where the girl had injected herself, and there was probably a practical explanation for the bruise, too. She had not been taken to hospital by ambulance, but in a car – might not the back of her head have been hit against the dashboard or some part of the car when the men were struggling to get her in? There are padded hard surfaces in cars – the dashboard, for one: that might explain the soft, heavy instrument which had caused bruising without bleeding. If no other explanation turned up, it might have to be left at that – the ambulance men might not want to admit that they had hurt the girl’s head in putting her in the car, or it was possible that in their anxiety to get her away they might genuinely not have noticed that she had hit her head. It was also possible that her skull might have been peculiarly sensitive to bruising – the pathologist would look into that. Until there were some more facts, everything remained speculation.
But there were some facts, including one that had been nagging at the back of his mind, although it was hard to see how it could have any bearing on the girl’s death. She had been taken to hospital in Victor’s police car –perfectly proper, and a good mark for Victor in allowing his car to be used instead of sending off one of the other cars which might have been needed for routine police duties. Yet the picture seemed slightly out of focus, or rather it seemed focussed on something else. He must be careful here. He was concerned, and his Force would be concerned, to investigate the death of this unknown young woman – he must not let himself be obsessed by thoughts of Jo. There was no reason to suppose that Jo came into it, but there was an odd little puzzle about Jo that didn’t fit into the picture of events as it appeared to present itself at the moment. He ought to have asked Victor about it last night, but it hadn’t occurred to him then, because he had been obsessed by Jo, and he had not inquired in any detail about the mishap to the girl, then merely one of a number of casualties, most of them relatively minor, to be expected at such a festival. Victor had said that he hadn’t known about Jo until late in the afternoon because his car with his radio in it had been taking the girl to hospital. But that happened when Victor was wondering if he’d have time to eat his sandwiches before getting to the public meeting at Wick Episcopi. It was then about half-past one, but the police notice about Jo had been broadcast to all patrol cars an hour or so earlier, and it had been repeated several times. Yet apparently Victor had known nothing about it until after the meeting at Wick Episcopi.
Piet’s mind went back vividly to Victor’s call, to his sympathy, and decency in staying up all night in case there might be anything he could do about Jo. It seemed inconceivable that he could have wanted to mislead in any way, but it was almost equally hard to understand why he had not known about Jo within a few minutes of the police broadcast. Yet any attempt at deception seemed pointless – what difference could it make if Victor had in fact known about Jo rather sooner than he had admitted? The time of the finding of the unconscious girl, and of the car trip to hospital, were all recorded. They couldn’t be kept secret – what did it matter that Piet himself had not known of them last night, and had no occasion to ask about them? Was he making a mountain out of a microscopic molehill? Was there even a molehill of any description? As with everything else so far there were ordinary, rational explanations for Victor’s remarks. There could be a hundred reasons why he had not heard the news about Jo at once – or he might simply have made a mistake in describing things to Piet. His call was an emotionally charged visit – it could not have been anything else. Victor had a lot to do at Earl’s Down, and he might have put things the way he did to avoid hurting Piet’s feelings because he had not made his sympathy call sooner. There was an easy way to settle the problem – ask Victor about it. Well, yes, but in Victor’s place would he himself resent deeply the mere asking of such a question? Wouldn’t it imply at least a suggestion of some kind of suspicion? Did he in fact have any real suspicion? And if he did, dare he disclose it? He shivered slightly. He had never felt lonelier – these were problems he would have to work out for himself.
*
Piet was actually getting into his car when a girl clerk came running from the hospital to say that he was wanted on the phone. It was Inspector Lovell. ‘Thank goodness I’ve caught you, sir, because I think we may be on to something really important,’ he said. ‘We’ve just made a detailed examination of the Mini van and on the edge of the front seat there are some strands of what look like a child’s fair hair. I’ve seen your little girl a couple of times, and from what I recall this hair is very much like hers. Is there any way in which we could confirm it, or rule it out?’
‘Yes. There might be some strands of hair in Jo’s cot, or in the pram, but we don’t need to look for them because there’s a lock of her hair in her birthday book. One of her godmothers gave her a birthday book, and there’s a space for a lock of hair on every birthday up to twenty-one. Jo hasn’t actually had her first birthday yet, but she’s got lovely hair, and we thought we’d start off with a lock from it now. Sally cut it and tied it up with a bit of ribbon only a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Can I call at your house to get it, sir?’
‘Of course you can, but it will be so harrowing for Sally that I’d rather get it for you myself. I’m just leaving the hospital here, and I’ll come straight to my house. Can you wait till I come? Sally will be glad to see you – but don’t tell her yet about the lock of hair. Where is the van now?’
‘Still in the parking space. We had no call to go over it thoroughly yesterday. As I told you, sir, it was unlocked, and I just looked inside to make sure that there wasn’t a child there. Then this morning I got a message to say that the van had been reported stolen, and that it belonged to a greengrocer. That meant having a closer look at it. The rear compartment – I mean the van part, sir, where the camping things are – is fairly tidy, but on the floor I found a few onion skins and a couple of old Brussels sprouts. Short of some evidence to the contrary, that seems to confirm that it’s the greengrocer’s van all right. It was when I was going over the rest of the van that I found the little girl’s hairs.’
