The Backs (2013) Read online

  ‘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.’

  THIRTEEN

  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.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  She looked disappointed. ‘Oh.’

  Her mother scooped her up and turned her round to face the stairs. ‘Go on up, Reba. I’ll be right there.’ She turned back to Goodhew and smiled. ‘She was expecting at least a uniform. And a police dog would have made her day.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Five-and-a-half.’ She rolled the four words into one as though she’d said this a thousand times. ‘I’m Roz, by the way. Come on in. The men are out in the workshop.’

  The polished wood flooring had been laid with the boards running towards the back of the house. Although narrow, the property turned out to be deceptively long. As she led him through the hallway, it looked as though they were heading down one of the lanes at a bowling alley.

  ‘Gerry’s been here a lot since Jane returned. She doesn’t want to see him, but I think he wants to stay close. It’s sweet.’ She opened the back door and, on the other side of a small courtyard garden, he saw a single-storey workshop similar in age to the original structure of the house. ‘There you go.’

  Based on this particular father-and-son pairing, family resemblances seemed less of a trait on the male side of the Osborne clan. Dan shared his father’s height and his stubborn jawline, but that was about it.

  A large sculpture dominated the interior of the workshop. It appeared to be made of stone, metal and leather, but Goodhew couldn’t even begin to guess whether it was now finished or not. Gerry sat on a tatty kitchen chair beside it. The rest of the set of chairs were in the room, but Goodhew wasn’t offered a seat. Dan hesitated near the door. ‘Do you want me to go?’

  ‘No need. Either of you may be able to help. We need an address for your mother,’ he turned from Dan to Gerry, ‘your ex-wife.’

  Gerry’s expression darkened and he rose from the chair. ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to contact her.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  Jane Osborne had not asked him to either admit or deny that this request had come at her instigation. On balance, however, Goodhew preferred discretion. ‘Your daughter’s return highlighted the fact that Mary Osborne’s details were no longer up to date. It’s merely routine.’

  ‘That’s bollocks. It’s Jane, isn’t it? She’s asked you to find her mother.’

  So much for trying discretion.

  Gerry Osborne’s face was tanned like a gardener’s, but, behind the deep brown, he visibly reddened. ‘Having that woman back in Cambridge is the last thing we need.’

  ‘Dad . . .’

  ‘No, Dan, your sister is deluding herself . . . and you.’ He glowered at Goodhew, his right hand making a fist as he spoke. He clenched it tightly, until it trembled, ‘You people . . .’ His words trailed away.

  Dan stepped slightly closer. ‘We are still angry over the failure to secure a murder conviction against Greg Jackson.’ Dan sounded angry, too, but clearly kept his feelings on a tighter rein. ‘His release has been hard for all of us, especially Dad.’

  ‘Thank you, Dan, but I am here in the room and capable of speaking for myself.’ The older man’s eye colour was either an extremely dark shade of brown or his pupils were dilated to their maximum. ‘Detective Goodhew, I appreciate you coming in person, which either demonstrates the existence of some degree of respect or a cynical ploy by your senior officer. Either way I am not prepared to share information with you about that woman.’

  ‘Jane would like to contact her mother, to let her know that she is safe and well.’

  ‘She’s had years to do that. Why come back and then immediately screw it up by letting Mary back in?’

  ‘Surely that’s her choice to make?’

  ‘And mine to stop it from happening.’

  After Gerry stopped speaking, Goodhew let the silence lengthen and become heavy. It was Dan who spoke again first. ‘She’s in France.’

&n
bsp; ‘Do you have an address?’

  ‘No, but we’ve had a couple of postcards, and they both have the same postmark. Would you like to see them?’

  The same heavy silence returned as soon as he’d gone. It was less comfortable, and this time it was Goodhew who broke it. ‘Greg Jackson spoke to you recently?’

  Gerry set his jaw and folded his arms across his chest. For a few seconds Goodhew thought he wasn’t going to get a response. Then Gerry dipped his head in the briefest of nods. ‘He came to see me, yes.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m curious.’

  ‘Good, then stay curious. He came to tell me he’d never killed Becca.’ Gerry took a couple of steps back, with lips now tightly shut. For a while, his chest rose and fell with heavy breathing. ‘What a fool,’ he then continued. ‘Does he think I don’t know him? I was full of bile towards that man long, long before he murdered my daughter.’

  Dan returned, postcards in hand. Gerry glared at him. ‘I really hoped you’d have the sense to come back in and say you’d lost them.’

  Dan looked down at the cards, as he spoke. ‘Sorry, Dad, but she’s still my mum. I don’t want to get in touch with her, but I understand why Jane does.’

  Gerry Osborne thrust his hand towards Goodhew, an abrupt and unexpected move. ‘I appreciate your time.’ His grip was hard.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ Goodhew replied. Gerry then left without another word to either of them. The moment the door closed, Dan held out the two postcards. They were typical Brit-goes-to-Paris tourist fare: one an aerial view of the Arc de Triomphe, and the other a night shot of the Eiffel Towel emblazoned with firework-style writing that read Bonjour de Paris. Goodhew turned them over.

  ‘They’re both postmarked Limoges,’ Dan explained.

  ‘Yes, I see that. The dates are hard to read, though. When did they arrive?’

  ‘This one’ – he tapped the Arc de Triomphe – ‘came last year, and the other one about a year before.’

  ‘And any before that?’

  ‘About one each year, I guess, but I wouldn’t know where to find them right now. Assuming we still have them, that is.’