Dead Dream Girl Read online

  She sat in sullen silence, gazing with unfocused eyes along a street just beginning to edge into twilight. Crane sensed an old envy she couldn’t shake off. She was plain, her sister had been a stunner, even going by the grainy newspaper pictures he remembered. He glanced at her face again. She had decent bone structure, but that was it, beneath the frightful hairdo and thick coating of make-up. Maybe she’d come into her own a bit more when she was older. A mature comeliness. Even if she did he didn’t think it would be much comfort to her, not whenever she thought of her sister. Dying young had meant she’d be a stunner for ever.

  ‘She asked for it, Frank,’ she said at last in a low voice.

  ‘You could say that about plenty of young women, provocatively dressed, when the clubs start to empty. It excuses nothing.’

  ‘You know why Joe Hellewell kept her on at Leaf and Petal? She didn’t know one plant from another, not even when she’d been there six months. I’d have done anything for a chance like that. He kept her on because they fancied her rotten, the old married men the wives trailed round. If they had to go to a bleeding garden centre they’d go to the one Donna was at, with her big come-on smiles. She loved it. That’s why he kept her on through the winter, when no bugger goes. Apart from wanting to get into her knickers himself, nasty creep.’ Her voice rasped with grievance, but Crane had found that that was how the real truth often came wrapped.

  ‘You’re saying she hadn’t a genuine future there?’

  ‘She only had a future till Hellewell got his eye on someone else. He wasn’t keeping her on for what she knew about flowers, that’s for sure, as she couldn’t tell a dahlia from a frigging geranium.’

  ‘This Clive Fletcher—’

  ‘Well, you know what he’s all about, don’t you? Starts off with glamour pics for the catalogues and magazines and then it’s why not just one or two with your tits showing, darling, and then it’s skinflicks, right?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s only ever him and the girl there when he tries it on. And if they give him the nod he gets the camcorder going. He pays well, so they keep their traps shut. And he tells them that if anything gets out about it they’d better start worrying about their looks.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘You get it together. You pick up the whispers at the Goose.’

  ‘You told DS Benson about it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Clive’s respectable, what you can see of the evil swine. He does normal things most of the time: babies, weddings, family groups. Mam and Dad were always there when Mr Benson was asking about Donna’s contacts. I didn’t want them to hear any rumours she might be into …’ She let the sentence dangle.

  ‘Do you think she was? Nude photos, porn videos?’

  ‘No. I think he wanted to try for the straight stuff first. I honestly think he felt he could get her face going big time. If they’ve already done nudies, the agencies don’t want to know. I think he thought if that didn’t work he could get her into the other stuff later.’

  ‘But you’re not sure she wasn’t already into the other stuff?’

  ‘No. She was really, really secretive, even with me, though we always got on all right. She liked the smackeroonies. Clothes, jewellery, the latest mobile. She had a nice little Mini. It wasn’t too old but she was sick for a convertible.’

  ‘These other blokes that Mahon thought she was two-timing with …’

  ‘He wasn’t wrong. She liked posh restaurants and Bobby couldn’t afford them. Not with being on the Social and what he could make pushing.’

  ‘Why bother with a bloke who’d take a swing at her?’

  She sighed, shrugged. ‘You tell me, with looks like she had. And Bobby wasn’t all bad. He’d come to the house with flowers now and then, fill her tank, pay for repairs when he had the bread. But Donna could aggravate a bloody saint. Forget what they say. I’ve heard her and Bobby rowing. She could latch on to all those things you didn’t want to hear about yourself, the things that really, really bug you. She’d throw that cruddy family in his face, and how no one would ever give a dork like him a decent job, and what a total arsehole he looked with the pony-tail. And Bobby would take it for long enough, take it for a bloody sight longer than most of the blokes round here, and then she’d go that bit too far and he’d lash out. Funny,’ she said then in an almost musing tone, ‘she seemed to get off on it.’

  Crane watched her. She’d summed up the relationship with skill. What woman would have risked Donna’s kind of looks with a man she knew she could provoke to violence unless she was hooked on the dangerous thrill? Perhaps that was how she’d liked to live her life: on the edge, taking chances, tempting fate. Perhaps she really had asked for it, death at Tanglewood.

  Tears suddenly began to well along her eyelids. She shook her head irritably. ‘Christ, I’m so sick of it,’ she said, in a low harsh voice. ‘Donna, Donna, bloody Donna! It was always her when she was alive and it’s just the same now she’s dead. She had everything, every mortal thing: looks, blokes, jobs, anything she wanted. And me and Marvin, we could forget it. If they’d given us a bit more attention I know we’d have done better. Know what I’ve been this last four years? A bloody checkout. That’s about all I’m good for. And whoever looked at me when she was around?’

  The bitter tears made her eyeliner run, which had done nothing for her looks anyway. Crane reluctantly put a hand on hers. He felt he’d coped with enough emotion for one night. But he was learning things from her he guessed he’d not get from others. And he felt sorry for the poor, blokeless kid with the tousled hair and the plain Jane looks who, life being the callous bastard it was, had given her Donna for a sister.

  ‘I loved her too,’ she whimpered. ‘God’s honest truth. Even though she had everything and I had sod all. She was such a pretty baby. I think Mam and Dad couldn’t figure out how people who looked like them could have had someone who looked like her. I’d help to push her buggy and dress her and play with her. We were always together. It was when she began to grow up. She changed. When the blokes came sniffing around. I told her to go canny, over and over, she could get herself into serious bother. She just thought I was putting the mockers on. Maybe I was, a lot of the time. I still loved her but there were times when I hated her as well. God, I’ve felt so guilty since. That’s why I can’t bring myself to knock poor Bobby like they do, even if he did do it.’

  ‘Don’t take on Patsy.’ He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘That’s what families are like, nearly all of them, and I’ve been involved with dozens. It’s all hate and love and loyalty and guilt. You know what they say: you can choose your friends but you have to make do with the family you’re given.’

  Benson was sitting at the bar when Crane got there, smoking as usual and sipping a half of bitter. Dave, behind the bar, didn’t need to be told to set up a gin and tonic for Crane.

  ‘I was with the Jacksons last evening.’

  Benson nodded. They got on a little better these days, but Crane knew the Donna Jackson business was going to cause resentment. Knew why and to some extent could sympathize. ‘Yes, well,’ he said, ‘they’ll not let it go, and if they’re hell-bent on using a private man it had better be you.’

  ‘I just wish they didn’t have to break into their bit of savings.’

  Benson sighed. ‘We wanted a result on Donna more than anything we did last year, well, you’ve seen what decent people the Jacksons are, salt of the earth. But we got nowhere and neither will you, Frank. That’s not sour grapes.’

  But it was, partly. Crane said, ‘Why did it take this youngster to find the body? Surely strollers must have seen it? In summer, vertical sunlight?’

  ‘Too murky. That’s why they don’t want kids swimming in it. You can only see clearly for five or six feet. It must be ten, twelve deep.’

  ‘Just how was the body weighted?’

  ‘Plastic sack, full of biggish stones.’

  ‘Does that mean he’d taken the stones with h
im? Which would mean it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing.’

  ‘No, there were plenty of stones available. There are two reservoirs at Tanglewood, yes? One above and beyond the other. Well, they buttress the banks at the sluice-way end of each reservoir with tons of stones, all a nice handy size. So we don’t think it needed to be premeditated. He’d probably need to go back to his car for the sack to put the stones in and the cord to attach the sack to the body, but plenty of blokes carry stuff like that around in the boot.’

  ‘Agreed, but if he throttled her on the spur of the moment he showed plenty of presence of mind in getting shot of the body. She was strangled, I seem to remember?’

  Benson nodded grudgingly. He didn’t much like any of this, but he reported to Terry Jones, and Terry Jones would have told him to tell Crane anything he wanted to know.

  ‘They can prove that, if nothing else. Her being in the water for three months did nothing for the forensics. You’re right, he did know how to use his noddle in a tight situation. But the low life we had in the frame could have scored on both counts. Capable of losing it and doing her in and finding the bottle to make a fair fist of getting shot of the body.’

  ‘We’re talking Bobby Mahon?’

  ‘We know it’s him. We both know most homicides are by people connected to the victim: lovers, spouses, offspring, neighbours. He fits the pattern like a wet T-shirt. Known to be crazy jealous and too handy with the dukes. We’ve seen everyone else that Donna knew that we could trace, but none of them had reason to be with her at Tanglewood the night she went missing and they all had alibis anyway.’

  ‘Where does Mahon say he was?’

  ‘At home, breaking out the six-packs. And his mum, his dad and three of his mates were breaking them out with him, and they all give him the get out.’

  ‘So they’re all lying?’

  ‘We’re talking people who are never in. And on a Saturday? Do me a favour. And with his dad being that evil, lying scrote Dougie Mahon—’

  ‘Not Dougie the Fence?’

  ‘See what I mean? And Myrtle Mahon, she does her pocket money tricks on Saturdays. Can you see her in the house Saturday night playing knock-out whist? Well, we can’t put the bugger inside without any kind of evidence, but we know it’s him. I didn’t say this, but we stopped looking for anyone else months ago. But no one on the Willows thinks it was anyone but Mahon. Not just us.’

  ‘Late evening,’ Crane said, ‘the gays drift into the reservoir area. Did you give any of them a shake? One of them might have seen Mahon.’

  ‘Christ, you were in the force. They’re like the toms, blind, deaf and dumb unless it concerns one of their own. They don’t even admit to going there, not to us. Apart from that they do their cruising on the upper level. The kid was dumped on the lower.’

  Crane felt like sighing but didn’t. Benson would love any sign of how impossible he felt it was to wring any more from a case a bunch of skilled policemen and women had given up on so long ago. ‘You want another drink, Ted?’

  ‘Best not. Said I’d try and be in early tonight. The kids …’

  One day, maybe they would buy each other drinks as they’d done in the past, and only then would Crane know their old close friendship was genuinely on the mend. He said, ‘I had a private word with Patsy Jackson last night. She mentioned a Marvin.’

  ‘The brother. Comes between Patsy and Donna age-wise. He has a very nice dark suit he wears for court appearances.’

  ‘He’s done time?’

  ‘Burglary, more than one conviction. He mixes with the Dougie Mahon mob too. The rotten apple in the Jackson barrel, the others are as straight as a stick.’

  ‘And he doesn’t figure in any of this? Wouldn’t he know where Bobby really was that night if he’s in bed with the Mahons?’

  ‘We don’t think so. We had him in, Christ, we had half the Willows in. But he wasn’t at the Mahons that night and checks out, and the Mahons aren’t pretending he was one of the ones who was. There’s nowhere to go, Frank.’

  Crane wasn’t prepared to agree, not if he was going to take the Jacksons’ money. ‘Donna herself, Ted. Patsy reckoned she might already have been living a dodgy life.’

  ‘We’re certain she was putting it about, but no definite proof. I mean, he’s seriously bad news that photography bloke, Clive Fletcher. We know he’s into video filth, but we can’t prove that either, and that’s another story. As far as Donna goes, he checks out. But we got bad vibes about her, felt she might have been her own worst enemy.’

  It was the second time Crane had heard similar words. ‘What about Hellewell? Leaf and Petal man?’

  Benson said, ‘He seemed kosher. Good looker. I reckon he had the hots for her. He wasn’t alone, not by a long shot. But he looked to be in a stable marriage and his story for where he was that night’s as tight as a crab’s arse.’ He stubbed out his final cigarette, prepared to go. ‘Do you know Geoff Anderson?’

  ‘Standard’s crime reporter? Took over from old Harold? The Jacksons mentioned him.’

  ‘He gave it the column inches. It was a story that had everything going for it anyway, but he was like a dog with a bone. He’s young, bright, very ambitious. Sharp – he couldn’t have been more than five minutes behind us at the SOC.’

  ‘How could he manage that?’

  ‘He sweet-talks the WPCs into dropping him the word. Charm the knickers off a Carmelite nun. Anyway, he lived and breathed the story. Can’t be faulted for following it up either. Rings every week: any developments?’

  ‘The Jacksons think it might help to have a word with him.’

  ‘He went into the background of everyone involved with a toothcomb. What he doesn’t know about the Jackson killing isn’t worth knowing.’

  ‘I’ll look him up.’

  ‘All the best,’ Benson said flatly. ‘All you need to do is break Mahon’s alibi.’

  Crane was to remember those words before very long with a wry smile.

  TWO

  The Standard’s library was both state-of-the-art and user friendly. There was a small room where people wanting to study back numbers could sit at a VDU undisturbed.

  Crane was rapidly able to key to the relevant editions, scroll through the pages and bring up the reports on Donna’s death. He started with the front page splash, when Liam Patterson, the underwater swimmer, had touched first a plastic bag that seemed full of something hard and uneven, which was connected by a cord to something soft and smooth. ‘DONNA’S BODY FOUND’, the headline blared.

  A body was discovered in the lower of the Tanglewood reservoirs, a well-known local beauty spot, and has been identified as that of Donna Jackson missing from home for three months. The discovery was made by an eleven-year-old boy swimming in the reservoir, despite being forbidden to do so on many occasions by rangers. The police, while taking a strong line on this dangerous practice, admit that in this case it has enabled them, however tragically, to bring their long, dedicated search for Donna to an end. They can reveal that they are to begin immediately re-interviewing everyone known to have been in contact with her, and are optimistic of being able to make an early arrest of the person responsible for the savage killing of this pretty and popular young woman …

  There was a quarter-page photo of Donna Jackson’s face. The expert lighting and technique indicated professionalism. Maybe the man called Fletcher had taken it. She really had been incredibly attractive. Smooth, silky, shoulder-length hair in a highlighted honey colour, perfect regular teeth, a small, well-shaped nose, big round eyes that would have seemed luminous even without a key light. The eyes riveted. They seemed to hint at an odd soulful quality, a refinement, an innocence even, that seemed well out of synch with what Crane was beginning to learn about her. He held an old envelope over the left side of her face, then transferred it to the right. Each side seemed a perfect, near geometrical match for the other. He’d read that this precision of feature in an already attractive woman was an extra subliminal turn-on for
men.

  The man he kept hearing about, Geoff Anderson, was bylined at the head of the report, and on the ones that followed. They became briefer as the search for the killer went on, and though a man was reported to be ‘helping the police with their enquiries’, no other reference was made to him.

  Earlier reports, those published when Donna had simply been missing, included interviews Anderson had had with the Jacksons, plus several with various of Donna’s friends and work mates. He’d described her more than once as a high-spirited and outgoing eighteen-year-old with dazzling looks, who was highly regarded at the Leaf and Petal garden centre, and quite possibly on the verge of a brilliant career as a fashion model. She liked to be out and about a lot, but had never been in any kind of trouble and had always been seen at home as an ideal and much-loved daughter and sister.

  Crane sat back sceptically. It was all too anodyne. He’d been given the impression Anderson had his ear to the ground. The young woman he was writing about could have been any one of the bright kids you could see most nights in the city pubs and clubs. But there’d been a darker side to Donna Jackson. A Donna who was streetwise and needed no lessons in pulling the men. A Donna who seemed to have a dangerous fascination for being handed a bunch of fives. No hint of any of that in Anderson’s reports, though he was said to have researched her background intensively. Could that mean he’d taken Connie and Malc’s rose-tinted view of their younger daughter at face value? Acrime reporter supposed to have a hard nose?

  ‘I’d not read on. They never do get their man.’ Crane turned around. ‘Geoff Anderson, Mr Crane. I saw your name in the book. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.’

  Crane gave a crooked smile. ‘None of it good, I daresay.’