The Backs (2013) (10 page)

‘Did you see her face?’

‘Briefly. I slowed a bit and she turned her head towards me.’

‘Did you speak to her at all?’

A hesitation.

‘Mr Tolhurst?’

‘I lowered the window and I asked her if she was all right. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d said “no” . . . given her a lift maybe.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing. She just stared at me, shook her head, then kept walking. I assumed I’d scared her, so I drove on. I thought of doubling back at the next roundabout but, when I got there, I just didn’t.’

‘Can you describe her any further than that? Height? Build? Anything?’

‘Above average height, I’d say – not towering but maybe five foot seven. She would have hit six foot in those heels, though. Lithe, too, looked womanly.’ He pulled himself up short. ‘Sorry, inappropriate way to describe her, perhaps, but I had this stupid feeling, the moment I opened the window, that having her in the car with me would have looked inappropriate, too. I’m an estimator for a drainage company, no one would really care what I do.’

‘And her face?’

‘Big eyes, make-up smudged like she’d been crying. Reminded me of Twiggy . . . or that
Clockwork Orange
eye. Her legs were bare, streaked with mud, and her hands looked dirty too. So I guessed she’d fallen over. Long hair, kind of Scandinavian-looking . . . I couldn’t describe her any more than that.’

Melody Chukwu and Rod Skinner were less forthcoming. They’d rung out of civil duty, nothing more: Melody in case the girl had been in an accident, Skinner in case she actually caused one. Tall, blonde and in a mess: these remained the common denominator.

‘David Searle?’

The voice at the other end had a long-time smoker’s rasp. ‘He’s out, I’m Mrs Searle.’

Goodhew introduced himself, then continued, ‘I’m ringing regarding your husband’s report of a “distressed woman” beside the A1307 on 28 July . . .’

‘Woman? She looked only about seventeen, too young to be out alone like that. I was driving, and I told him to ring. I insisted.’ She coughed and her lungs rattled. ‘She was asking for trouble, but how would we both have felt if something bad had happened to the girl?’

‘But you didn’t stop?’

‘We were keen to get home and anyway we weren’t the only ones driving up there. So did you find her?’

‘Not yet. I’m hoping that you or your husband may be able to remember something that might help us identify her.’

She fell silent for several seconds, and Goodhew waited, listening to the tobacco tin opening and the almost silent ritual of rolling her next cigarette. ‘She obviously got herself home in one piece, or else you’d know who she was by now. My husband thinks there’s a murderer on every corner, so, no, we didn’t stop. And, from my experience, nothing much happens in real life to girls like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Daughters who go unsupervised turn into women who need watching.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Typical man, you are. Let’s just say she looked like the type who was used to being out alone at night.’

‘Can you describe her for me?’

She ignored the question. Or perhaps, in her own eyes, she didn’t. ‘Ten-a-penny trollops.’ Pause. Puff. ‘Go in any newsagent’s and they’re there, glossy women with wholesome faces and fake smiles. Making men think that there are women out there who really love sex. They’ve become the modern role models, you know.’ Puff. ‘When did the quest for women’s equality become twisted into a game of who has most notches on her bedpost? When?’

Goodhew sagged into his chair and waited until the rolling of the next cigarette temporarily silenced the ranting. No wonder this woman’s husband had gone out.

‘Not that many years ago a decent man wouldn’t have tattooed hands. That meant he could cover up the tattoos when he went job hunting. Larry says the army used to burn them off squaddies’ hands before discharge, so they could look OK at any interview in a shirt and tie.’

He’d obviously missed the start of this particular outpouring. ‘She had a tattoo?’

‘Tattoos are for men and, in my opinion, women with tattoos make themselves look like whores.’

‘And this woman had one?’

‘Across her foot and up her ankle.’

‘And you could see this without slowing?’

‘I slowed down a little.’ She sniffed, and that made her cough. ‘I always notice tattoos, because they disgust me. It was just one of those flimsy daisy trails, but I noticed it all right.’

Sometimes finding a person with the right specialist knowledge could be tricky, but locating an attractive young woman with a pretty tattoo? That was a relatively easy dilemma. Goodhew next phoned Bryn, who might not have the exact answer but would have many,
many
ideas about where to look. He promised him an all-he-could-eat takeaway meal, and found him already waiting on the doorstep by the time Goodhew returned to his flat.

‘It’s being delivered,’ he assured Bryn as they climbed the stairs to his grandfather’s former library.

‘Fantastic. I had a sub and a Mars Bar this afternoon, but apart from that I haven’t eaten since lunch.’ Bryn was a couple of inches shorter than Gary, and undoubtedly more solid, though never close to being actually overweight, no matter what he ate.

Goodhew left Bryn in the room and carried on up to his flat under the roof. When he returned with some beer, he found his friend happily selecting tracks on the jukebox. ‘Couldn’t you swap this machine for one that plays CDs? There would be more choice then.’

Goodhew handed Bryn a bottle but didn’t even bother to reply.

‘Or maybe a picture of a jukebox and an iPod. Seriously, was it an heirloom or something?’

‘No. I bought it when I was eighteen. And if it’s so crap, why do you keep fiddling with it?’

Bryn patted the glass front. ‘I love it, but I just don’t understand why you’d keep this thing when you could sell it and buy a car.’

Bryn was capable of many variations of the same conversation. What he clearly wasn’t capable of was accepting that Goodhew did without a car through personal choice. ‘You’ll change your mind one day, Gary.’

‘And talking about changing your mind, are you still thinking about a tattoo?’

‘I was, then I wasn’t, now I am again.’ Bryn leant back against the jukebox and the record jumped. ‘That was a rubbish change of subject, by the way.’

‘Well, I’ve got a tattoo question for you – and I still don’t want a car. And how can you keep changing
your
mind about something as permanent as a tattoo?’

Bryn swigged his beer then held the bottle in front of him, probably positioning it so it looked as though Gary was trapped in the bottle with his head sticking out. If there was a mirror in the room Bryn would have drawn a smiley face on it by now. ‘I checked out half a dozen tattooists, and it turns out the tattoo shop round the corner from the garage is the one I like best. I went in one lunchtime but, when I saw the photos of everyone else’s tattoos, I couldn’t decide what to go for.’

‘But now you have?’

‘No, I haven’t and that’s the problem. There’s this girl working in there . . .’

Goodhew fought to stop his eyes from rolling.

‘Don’t pull that face, Gary. I think she might be
the one.’

Goodhew blinked. ‘The one?’

‘Yes, the one that’s next.’ Bryn grinned. ‘Anyway, I was thinking of a tattoo and she has a few – a whole graveyard scene across one shoulder for a start – so she’s not going to be impressed with my virgin skin.’

‘And she’s worth getting tattooed for?’

‘I really had no idea I found tattoos on women so sexy, and I was planning on getting one anyway.’

‘But then you weren’t.’

Bryn waved Goodhew’s point aside. ‘I love women, right? So I’m going to have a hula girl from here to here – ’ he drew invisible top and bottom lines near the top of his arm and just above his elbow. ‘Last year’s Hawaiian calendar had some hula girls. Do you still have it somewhere?’

Goodhew waved his hand in the vague direction of the bookcase in the corner of the room. ‘Probably somewhere over there.’ If he had kept it at all, it would most likely be with a collection of Hawaiian photos kept in the lower cupboard. ‘Just take it if it’s useful.’

‘There are plenty of women who appreciate the female form, Gary, so what a great ice breaker, eh?’

‘Amazing,’ he replied flatly.

Bryn put the bottle down and sighed. ‘What’s your question, then?’

‘I’m looking for a woman who has a daisy tattoo running across her foot and up her ankle. I have no idea whether she had it done locally, but that’s my only starting point.’

‘So what’s your question?’

‘How can I find her, from that particular tattoo?’

‘Is that her only one?’

‘The only one I know of.’

‘But you know what she looks like?’

‘Tall and blonde, late teens or maybe a little older, which means that even if she’s had the tattoo done when she was under age, there are good odds that it was within the last couple of years.’ As Goodhew explained all this he realized how little chance there was of finding her this way.

Bryn was more to the point. ‘That’s impossible.’

It was true, for even if he found the right tattooist, the odds of them actually knowing her name or address were slimmer than slim. Goodhew wondered how he’d initially jumped at information that was now such an obvious dead end.

Bryn tugged open the bookcase door. ‘Of course, if you had all of Cambridge gathered in one room, it would be easier. You could inspect their ankles, then let most of them go again.’

The sound of the doorbell chimed up to them. Goodhew grabbed his wallet, hurried down to the front door, and returned with two carrier bags, bulging with takeaway cartons. By the time he’d made it back upstairs, Bryn was sitting on the floor in front of the bookcase, flipping through the calendar he had mentioned.

Halfway back up the stairs, Goodhew had been overtaken by a familiar restlessness. ‘I need to go out,’ he explained, as he handed Bryn the food.

‘I thought you were hungry?’

Not now.
Goodhew shook his head. ‘Leave me the balti. I’ll have it when I get back. Let yourself out after you’ve eaten.’

‘Really? And I’ve found some pictures.’

‘Pictures?’

‘Hula girls?’

‘It’s fine, Bryn, take whatever you want.’ Goodhew could feel himself being drawn away. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s something I just don’t want to leave until tomorrow.’

Daisy Tattoo. It sounded like a stripper’s name or maybe a burlesque act. During the previous hour it had inadvertently become Goodhew’s name for the woman on the Gogs. It was a bad thing to do, turning her into a fictional persona which, in the worst case, could taint his impression of the real woman and make her even harder to find.

This thought had occurred to him halfway up the stairs, just as he’d started to wonder why Bryn was expending so much effort on a mere drawing of a woman, rather than the real thing. It had been swiftly followed by a much more important thought:
Jane’s need to find her mother was real, so why wasn’t he chasing that instead?
He’d checked his watch – 8.30 p.m. – and decided it was still early enough to do something, and he knew he’d lie awake later if he didn’t.

He’d hurried on up to his sitting room, which nestled in the loft space. He had left his laptop on the sofa and he sat down next to it, pen and paper ready, as it booted up.

Originally he’d occupied only the rooftop flat here in his grandparents’ former home but, after discovering that he had inherited the whole building, he’d then moved his jukebox and a few items of furniture into his grandfather’s library, and hadn’t yet considered expanding into any of the other rooms. He guessed he wasn’t ready yet to see them changed.

He’d already slid his hand into the magazine rack and retrieved a slim Seagate external drive from his hollowed-out hardback of
The Maltese Falcon.
Over the years he’d bought several copies, and all but one had met the same fate. He now plugged the drive into the laptop. It contained details of anything workwise that he thought to be of special interest: photos he’d taken, documents he’d copied, notes, ideas and contact details – in short, information he wanted but would not officially be allowed to keep.

There he’d found the phone numbers and addresses of Jane’s father and brother, saved them directly to his mobile, and headed downstairs again, calling out goodbye to Bryn as he reached the street door.

Jane’s father lived in Newnham Road, close to Goodhew’s own grandmother, Daniel lived in Castle Street, closer to Jane. The two properties were about a mile away, but in different directions. Goodhew had doubted there’d be time to visit both without risking complaint that he was disturbing them too late at night.

When he rang Gerry Osborne’s mobile, the call had been answered swiftly.

‘Mr Osborne?’

‘How did you get my number?’ Gerry Osborne’s voice had been immediately familiar. The man had participated in TV interviews, as a sculptor, sometime before his daughter’s death, and again several years afterwards, and stayed silent in between. One sentence from him was enough for Goodhew to picture him standing there bearlike and glowering.

As Goodhew identified himself, Osborne’s tone seemed to improve.

Minutely.

‘I have a couple of questions, so I’d like to drop in and see you. There’s no need to worry, though.’

‘Yes, I realize that. From my previous experience, terrible news comes with no warning, just a sudden knock at the door.’

‘I can be with you in about fifteen minutes.’

‘I’m visiting my son.’

‘And I can see you there? He’s still on Castle Street?’

And, shortly afterwards, Goodhew waited outside the narrow Edwardian terrace houses, as the fuzzy outline of a child fiddled with a set of keys on the other side of the frosted glass. A larger figure soon loomed behind and the door was opened by a woman in her early thirties. She reminded Goodhew of an advert for something healthy, like spring water or mountain bikes or apple shampoo.

The little girl at her side was a scaled-down version of the same. ‘Are you the policeman?’ the child asked.