‘Sit down, Frank,’ Connie said finally, on a near-strangled note. A small three piece had been crammed into the little room, which also had a sideboard and a stereo, as well as the television. The wall pictures were of the type that came from chain stores. Crane sat in one of the armchairs, Malc in the other, the women on the sofa. They seemed as packed together as people sitting in the corner of a crowded pub.
‘You will take it, Frank, won’t you?’ Connie spoke in a low urgent voice. ‘Mr Benson wouldn’t have mentioned your name if he’d not thought you could help.’
‘Worked the clock round, DS Benson,’ Malc said huskily. ‘Couldn’t have done no more. None of them lads could.’
Crane nodded, remembering the time when Benson had been grey with fatigue, when there’d been a task force, an incident room, endless overtime. He said, ‘I’m going to have to bring back painful memories. I know there’s been a question mark hanging over Donna’s boyfriend – Bobby Mahon, wasn’t it?’
‘He did it, Frank,’ Malc broke out. ‘No question. Even DS Benson said they weren’t looking for no one else in the end. I tell you, I’d have seen to the sod myself, except it’d only have brought more upset to Mam here and Patsy.’
‘Dad …’ Patsy put a hand on his trembling arm.
‘It’s the truth, Frank,’ Connie almost whispered, her eyes moist in declining sunlight. ‘She … she came home with bruises more than once, a black eye, a swollen face. We had to keep her out of Malc’s way till we got her looking right again, he’d have gone round there and smashed him.’
‘Too right,’ he muttered. ‘Too bloody right.’
‘He said she was two-timing him, that Mahon,’ Connie went on. ‘But she wasn’t. She was a bonny girl. She couldn’t help it if men couldn’t take their eyes off her.’
Crane caught Patsy’s glance. Her face was expressionless. She said, ‘Anyway, he was two-timing her. Seemed to think he could do as he chose.’
Crane said, ‘How did he take it … when Donna was found?’
‘Cracked on to be heartbroken,’ Malc said bitterly. ‘Round here every verse end when they had to let him go. Swearing it wasn’t him, over and over again. He could even turn the waterworks on. Crying. Always round here crying.’
‘I think it was genuine, Dad,’ Patsy said. ‘I’m sure he was upset, even if he did do it. That was Bobby’s trouble, it was just the same when he landed her one, pleading and sobbing for her to take him back.’
Crane glanced at her. It was a good point. He knew from experience that bad hats often did show remorse about a killing while stubbornly denying it was down to them. It didn’t mean the remorse was any less valid. He took out his notebook. ‘What was Donna’s job?’
‘She worked at Leaf and Petal.’
‘Garden centre, off Back Lane?’
‘That’s the one,’ Malc said heavily. ‘Helped in and among. Told folk where things were, worked a checkout, gave a hand in the café.’
‘She was doing grand,’ Connie said, wiping an eye with a knuckle. ‘She was doing grand. It’s seasonal for most of the young ones, what with the winter months being so quiet, but Mr Hellewell said he’d keep her on that last winter, teach her about the plants and the young trees. Told her she had a really good future.’
Patsy’s face was expressionless again.
‘Nice bloke, Joe Hellewell,’ Malc said. ‘Really took Donna under his wing.’
‘She did some modelling work as well,’ Connie added.
‘That was Clive,’ Malc told him. ‘Just calls himself Clive. Has that photography shop on Shilling Street.’
‘He was positive he could make a name for her,’ Connie said, with the same sad pride as before. ‘He was sending pictures of her to the people who do the mail-order catalogues. That would be a start, he told her, there was no telling where she’d end up.’
Crane didn’t need to check Patsy’s expression this time. He knew it would be stonier than ever.
‘So … she worked at Leaf and Petal during the day and did her modelling in her spare time … evenings, days off?’
They nodded. ‘She were never in,’ Malc said, trying to mask his pain with an indulgent smile. ‘Never in. Off to her work, off to her modelling, off clubbing. I used to say, “The only time you spend an evening with your mum and dad, young lady, is when you’re poorly.”’
‘And she hardly ever was poorly,’ Patsy added. ‘Can’t remember the last time she had a cold.’
‘Should have caught pneumonia,’ Malc said, forcing a chuckle, ‘some of the skimpy things she’d go off in, middle of winter.’
‘How long had she known Bobby Mahon?’
‘He’d always been around. Lives in the next road. She got to know him properly at the Goose and Guinea. We never liked her going, not with the class of riff-raff goes in there these days, but what can you do?’
‘Tanglewood,’ Crane said. ‘Did she ever go along by the reservoir before she …?’
‘They’d go Sunday afternoons now and then, to walk the Mahons’ dog. It’s popular with folk who keep a dog.’
‘Is it likely she’d go there after dark? Of her own free will?’
Malc sighed, clearly struggling for self-control. ‘Mahon … he could talk her into things.’
‘She’d not have gone, left to herself,’ Connie said harshly. ‘Apart from anything else, you don’t know who goes in there after dark.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Mam,’ Patsy said evenly. ‘She could be more than a bit wild, you know she could.’
‘She wasn’t wild, Patsy. She was just high-spirited, liked a laugh, that’s all. I’m positive she’d not have wanted to go in that spooky place after dark.’
‘Get me another drink, Patsy love,’ Malc said, his voice wavering. ‘I’m sorry, Frank, it’s always the same when we start talking about our precious little Donna.’
Patsy glanced at Crane’s glass. Seeing it was still half-full she went off without a word. Crane said, ‘I really am very sorry to have to put you through it all again.’
‘You need to know the details,’ Connie said, tears now trickling steadily down her hollow cheeks. ‘She was so pretty, Frank, so full of life. How anyone could …’
Crane worked hard to detach himself from the unhappiness of some of the people he dealt with, but didn’t always succeed when the emotion was this raw. ‘I … think I have everything I need to be going on with,’ he said. ‘I just needed an outline of her life and work.’
Patsy put Malc’s refilled glass into his trembling hand. She said, ‘There was a lot in the Standard about it.’
‘Yes, I remember the reports.’
‘The bloke who wrote them, they call him Geoff Anderson. He spent an awful lot of time on it. Came here once or twice to talk to Mam and Dad. Keen as mustard to see someone nailed. Might be worth your while having a word with him. Nice bloke.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘Lived and breathed it, Frank, same as DS Benson. Spent a long time with Mam and me, just going over her life so he could write it all up. There were times he could hardly get a word out himself, what with being that upset over Mam and me in tears, but Patsy managed to tell him what he needed to know.’
Crane stood up. ‘Well, I’ll do the best I can.’
‘You’ll work for us?’
‘I have to remind you, Malc, that a team of highly skilled policemen have spent a lot of time on Donna’s death. All I can really do is go over the ground again and see if there’s anything they might just have missed.’
‘You might be able to find enough for us to bring a private prosecution. Mr Benson explained that to us as well.’
‘You’d go that far?’
‘As far as it takes.’
‘All right, Malc. Now I must explain my charges.’
He gave them detailed figures, and an estimate of expenses. Even middle-class people usually winced at the bottom line, but the Jacksons took it without reaction. ‘Whatever it costs, Frank,’ Malc said, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. ‘As long as you don’t mind hanging on till the Pru poppies up. We’ll spend it all, if need be.’