Jayne was pleased with her day’s work so far. She was certain it was of some use, but she wanted to know more before she went to Dan with it. She’d discovered a link between Peter Box and Sean Martin, so she wanted to find out more about Peter.
The news about Pat going missing had shocked her, but she didn’t know him what well and it could mean anything. All she knew was that Dan was worried, which was enough to spark her own concern.
She put Pat’s disappearance to the back of her mind and dug around in her papers for Peter’s address, where he’d lived before he was arrested. It was only a short drive, and when she arrived there, it looked totally unremarkable.
Until his arrest, Peter Box had lived on a terraced street. It was a grade higher than the old industrial terraces that filled so many parts of Highford with long strips of grey stone right against the pavement. The small bay window of Peter’s house overlooked a front garden, and a neat grass verge divided the pavement from the road.
But that was as far as the neatness extended. Someone had smeared BEAST over the front in red paint and the windows had been boarded up, no doubt to protect the building from further vandalism.
There was a shop at the end of the street, a small grocer’s that sold the usual mix of newspapers and alcohol. They might know more about him.
The door tinkled as she went in.
The man behind the counter was portly and bald, rough-shaven. There was a stale smell in the shop, as if he’d stopped caring too much about the place. Jayne introduced herself, but the man’s expression was impassive.
‘I’m trying to find out more about Peter Box. Was he one of your customers?’
‘I’ve told the police all I know.’
‘Which is?’
‘That he came in sometimes and that I’ve known him since he was a boy. I’ve been here thirty years.’
‘What is he like?’
‘Polite, shy. I used to ask him how he was, because I remember his parents dying and I knew he lived on his own. He gave the same answer each time. That he was fine.’
‘Hard to get to know?’
He shrugged. ‘Just shy. Never given me a problem, even when he was younger.’
‘What do you mean?’
The first sign of a smile. ‘We’re all foolish when we’re young. You’ve got a full set of balls for the first time and you think you can rule the world. You soon get over it. Like me. I got this place expecting to build an empire. Now? I’m just hoping the Co-op will come along and make me an offer I can’t refuse.’
‘Does Peter have any friends around here? Or interests?’
He put his head back and thought for a few moments. ‘He was a customer. I don’t know what his hobbies are. He was friendly with a woman a couple of streets away. Mrs Henderson. I think she knew his parents. One of those people you call auntie even though you aren’t related. He used to pay her paper bill sometimes.’
‘Who is she? Which street?’
‘Who are you again?’
‘I’m working for his lawyer.’
‘Did he do it? Did he murder that woman?’
‘I hope not.’
He nodded to himself and then scribbled an address on a scrap of paper. ‘Don’t tell her I sent you.’
The houses became a little grander as she walked away from Peter’s street, set further back from the road and with driveways. The house she was looking for was the most unkempt. Moss was growing on the roof and the curtains looked faded. The other driveways were wide and neat and filled by cars, often more than one, but all Mrs Henderson had was a strip of cracked tarmac with weeds poking through. The door was old and wooden, dark in contrast to the gleaming white PVC doors everywhere else.
Jayne knocked and waited.
She thought no one was going to answer, but just as she stepped away the door opened.
The woman was old and stooped, her grey curls thinning so that the pinkness of her scalp showed through. Her cardigan was faded and threadbare, her trousers so cheap and shiny that they looked like they might make sparks when she walked.
Once Jayne introduced herself, she was shown through to a living room that was warm enough to send someone to sleep, with gas flames roaring over fake coals, even though it was warm outside. It was welcoming though, with family photographs on every wall, showing off grandchildren and family weddings.
The woman sat down and put her head back against the high back of her chair.
‘Mrs Henderson, I want to talk about Peter Box.’
‘Please, call me Evelyn. But why do you want to talk about Peter?’
‘I work for the firm representing him in court. I just want to know more about him, some background to help his case.’
‘It makes me so sad, this court case. He was such a lovely boy. So quiet, so gentle. I wrote to him, to ask if I could see him, just to understand it a bit more, but I don’t even know if he got my letter. How is he?’
‘All right, I think, but nervous about his trial, obviously.’
‘You do a good job. Peter wouldn’t do what they said he did. Not Peter.’
‘It sounds like you know him well.’
‘I’ve known him all his life. He was such a good boy for his parents, but things were difficult for him around here.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because he’s different. Not sporty or loud, but quiet and thoughtful, and kids don’t like that sometimes. It made him seem weak. He put up with a lot, did Peter.’
‘Bullying?’
‘Yes, but there’ll always be bullies, and they pick on the quiet ones, the ones who won’t fight back. And everyone else goes along with it because they’re just glad it isn’t them.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just how it is.’
‘What did the bullies do to him?’
‘Mean stuff, like trapping him behind a classroom door and throwing heavy books over the top, or making him walk through a windmill of bags. Sometimes, people would hit him, like bang smack on the nose, and he’d go home like that, walk the streets with blood streaming from his nose. I saw him once. Made him come into the house to clean up.’
‘What did his parents do about it?’
‘It upset his mother, really broke her heart, but his father was a tough man and so unlike Peter that people wondered whether his mother had been having it away with someone else. His father used to say that it’s a tough, tough world, so you’ve got to be tough in return, but Peter wasn’t like that.’
‘I heard he visited you.’
‘Oh, all the time. We’d sit and chat and he was such a comfort to me.’
‘Has anyone ever said that he could be violent or nasty?’
‘Not Peter. Too gentle.’
‘Did you ever meet his girlfriend, Emily?’
‘I remember her. She was nice. I liked her.’
‘Did he have many girlfriends?’
Evelyn chuckled. ‘Emily was the only one I met, lovely girl, but I just don’t think it was the right time for them.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He seemed so… I don’t know how to phrase it. Fragile, probably.’
‘Did he say why they broke up?’
‘Not to me, but why would he? He was the sort of boy who kept things to himself. But I could tell he wasn’t all right even before they broke up, though, and I told him to go see a doctor. He wasn’t sleeping or eating. I mentioned it to his parents too; it was as if he didn’t notice anyone. Dark circles around his eyes and haunted-looking. Do you know what I thought? Drugs. It gets a lot of them round here. Horrible stuff. His girlfriend left him in the end, and who could blame her?’
‘How was he when she left him?’
‘Just the same – maudlin. But I don’t think it was because of her.’
‘Did he ever mention anyone called Sean Martin?’
She frowned. ‘I’ve heard that name.’ She tapped her finger on the chair arm as she thought. ‘Isn’t he the man who went to prison for killing his stepdaughter?’
‘Yes, that’s him, although he got out after his appeal.’
‘Ah, well, don’t they all? Why do you ask?’
‘Peter knew him. Did he ever mention him?’
Evelyn shook her head. ‘No, sorry. I’ve heard the name on television and seen it in the papers, but that’s all.’
Jayne thanked her and went to the door. As Evelyn followed her, she said, ‘Say hello to Peter for me. If he’s done what they say he’s done, he should pay for it, but I don’t think he would. Not Peter.’
Once she left the cloying warmth of the house, Jayne took a detour along the canal. She parked in a small retail park and cut through, just to try and get a feeling of what had happened there.
As she looked along the towpath, she couldn’t see the pub where Lizzie had been drinking the night she died. It was in a converted warehouse and it crowded the water, but a road bridge leading from the town centre blocked it out, the pub recognisable in the distance only by a couple of benches and a table visible. Further on, boats were moored, smoke billowing out of one. The canal curved out of sight and disappeared between high walls. There were no ways off the towpath. Between where she was and the pub, Lizzie would have had nowhere to go, except back the way she’d come, back to where Liam was prowling.
It was between the same pub and where Jayne was standing right now that Rosie Smith was killed too.
Jayne turned the other way. The sweep was different. The part of the canal where Lizzie had been fatally assaulted was on a long and gentle curve, the towpath always visible, bordered by high fences, so that there’d be no opportunities for her to escape, a housing estate on the other side.
Jayne remembered the small marina Sean had driven to after Dan’s visit. It was further along, just a couple of miles in the same direction. From the marina, it wouldn’t have taken Sean long to get to where Lizzie had died, away from the traffic jams and the New Year revellers and the CCTV cameras. Just a boat chugging gently, the sound of the engine almost lost amongst the late-night din of the town centre. The taxis, the screams of drunks, the repetitive thump of loud music every time a pub door opened.
An idea was forming.
She called Dan. Before she could say anything, he barked, ‘Come to my place,’ and hung up.
She stared at the phone for a few seconds before she went back to her car. Whatever was behind his bad mood, she needed to let him know what she’d found out.