Peter Robinson: Friend of the Devil

The sound of Winsome’s car door closing shattered the silence and sent three fat crows soaring up into the sky from a gnarled tree. They wheeled against the gray clouds like black umbrellas blowing inside out.

Winsome checked the address as she walked past a pub and a couple of houses with “Bed and Breakfast” signs swinging in the wind, VACANCIES cards displayed in their bay windows. Three grizzled old men leaning on their walking sticks and chatting on the old stone bridge, despite the weather, fell silent and followed her with their eyes as she walked by. Winsome supposed they didn’t often see a six-foot black woman in Swainshead.

The wind seemed to be blowing from all directions, and with it, like a part of it, came the sleet, stinging her eyes, seeping through her black denim jeans, tight around the thighs, where her jacket ended. It wouldn’t do the suede jacket much good, either, she realized, thinking she ought to have worn something more practical. But she’d been in a hurry, and it was the first thing she touched in the hall cupboard. How was she to know it was going to be like this?

Winsome found the house and rang the doorbell. A dour constable answered, tried unsuccessfully to cover up his surprise at the sight of her, and led her into the front room. A woman who looked far too young to have a daughter the victim’s age sat there, staring into space.

“Mrs. Daniels?” Winsome asked.

“McCarthy. Donna McCarthy. But Geoff Daniels is my husband. I kept my maiden name for professional reasons. I was explaining to the constable here that Geoff’s away at the moment on business.”

Winsome introduced herself. She noticed with approval that Donna McCarthy showed neither surprise nor amusement at her appearance.

Mrs. McCarthy’s eyes filled up. “Is it true, what he told me? About our Hayley?”

“We think so,” Winsome said, reaching for the plastic bag that held the address book Banks had given her. “Can you tell me if this belonged to your daughter?”

Donna McCarthy examined the cover, with its William Morris pattern, and the tears spilled over. “She’s not my real daughter, you understand,” she said, voice muffled through the handkerchief. “I’m Geoff’s second wife. Hayley’s mother ran off twelve years ago. We’ve been married for eight.”

“I see,” said Winsome, making a note. “But you can definitely identify that address book as belonging to Hayley Daniels?”

Donna nodded. “Can I have a peek inside?”

“I’m afraid you can’t touch it,” said Winsome. “Here, let me.” She took out the latex gloves she had brought for just such an eventuality, slipped the address book out of its bag and opened it to the flyleaf. “Is that Hayley’s handwriting?”

Donna McCarthy put the handkerchief to her face again and nodded. Winsome flipped a few pages, and she kept on nodding. Finally, Winsome put the book away again and took off her gloves and crossed her wet legs. “Any chance of rustling up some tea?” she asked the constable. He gave her a look that spoke volumes about a man like him being asked to do such a menial task by a black woman of equal rank, albeit a detective, and sloped off, presumably toward the kitchen. Miserable bugger. Winsome touched the woman’s hand gently with her own. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “But I do need to ask you a few questions.”

Donna McCarthy blew her nose. “Of course,” she said. “I understand.” She seemed a slight desolate figure alone on the sofa, but Winsome could see that she was also fit, almost muscular in her shoulders and arms. She had pale green eyes and short light-brown hair. Her clothes were casual, jeans and a plain white T-shirt showing the outline of her bra over small firm breasts. It stopped just short enough to show an inch or so of flat stomach.

“Do you have a recent photograph of Hayley?” Winsome asked.

Donna McCarthy got up and rummaged through a drawer, coming back with a snapshot of a young girl standing by the market cross. “That was taken about a month ago,” she said.

“Can I borrow it?”

“Yes; I’d like it back, though.”

“Of course. When did you last see Hayley?” Winsome asked.

“Yesterday evening. It must have been about six o’clock. She was going to catch the bus to Eastvale to meet some friends.”

“Was this something she did often?”

“Most Saturdays. As you probably noticed, there’s not a lot to do around here.”

Winsome remembered the village where she had grown up, high in Jamaica’s Cockpit mountains above Montego Bay. “Nothing to do” had been an understatement there. Nothing but a one-room schoolhouse and a future in the banana-chip factory, like her mother and grandmother, unless you went down to the bay, as Winsome did at first, and worked at one of the tourist resorts. “Can you give me the names of her friends?” she asked.

“Maybe a couple of them. First names. But she didn’t talk about them to me, and she didn’t bring them back here to meet us.”

“Were they friends from work? School? College? What did Hayley do?”

“She was a student at Eastvale College.”

“She went by bus every day? It’s a long way.”

“No. She drove. She’s got an old Fiat. Geoff got it for her secondhand. It’s his business.”

Winsome remembered the driving license Banks had found in the girl’s handbag. “But she didn’t drive last night?”

“Well, no, she wouldn’t, would she? She was off drinking. She was always careful that way. Wouldn’t drink and drive.”

“How did she plan on getting home?”

“She didn’t. That’s why… I mean, if I’d expected her home, I’d have reported her missing, wouldn’t I? I might not be her birth mother, but I did my best to love her as if I was, to make her feel…”

“Of course,” said Winsome. “Any idea where she planned on staying?”

“With one of her college friends, as usual.”

“What was she studying?”

“Travel and Tourism. National Diploma. It was all she wanted to do, travel the world.” Donna McCarthy started crying again. “What happened to her? Was she…?”

“We don’t know,” Winsome lied. “The doctor will be examining her soon.”

“She was such a pretty girl.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

The constable returned bearing a tray, which he plunked down on the table in front of the two women. Winsome thanked him.

“Anything else?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“No,” Winsome said. “You can go now, if you like. Thanks.”

The constable grunted, ignored Winsome and made a bow toward Donna McCarthy, then left.

Donna waited a moment until she heard the front door shut, then said, “No one in particular. Not that I know of. A lot of kids today like to hang around with a group rather than hitch themselves up to just one lad, don’t they? I can’t say I blame them. Having too much fun to start going out with anyone seriously, aren’t they?”

“I don’t mean to pry,” said Winsome, “but had there been anyone?…I mean, was Hayley sexually active?”

Donna McCarthy thought for a moment, then said, “I’d be surprised if she wasn’t, but I don’t think she was promiscuous or anything. I’m sure she tried it. A woman can tell these things.” The central heating was turned up, and it was too warm in the small room. A sheen of moisture glistened on Donna’s brow.

“But you don’t know the name of the boy?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Never mind.” Winsome thought she probably had enough to go on. She’d track Hayley’s friends through the college’s Travel and Tourism Department and take it from there. “You said earlier,” she went on, “that you kept your maiden name for professional reasons. Might I ask what they were?”