Saslow smiled. Anyone less plod-like than Vogel was hard to imagine. She supposed he had a point though and she understood his choice of an accompanying officer well enough. Polly was a sassy, young, black constable, five foot nothing and super skinny. She dressed streetwise and although actually twenty-four, only three years younger than Saslow, at a glance probably looked more like a teenager. She also had a brain like a bacon slicer and had been drafted into the major crimes unit at Kenneth Steele House six months earlier as a crime coordinator.
Saslow called her straight away. She knew Polly would be delighted to be asked to be actively involved in a murder inquiry. It would not be the first time she had been called on because of the way she looked, more than anything else, but nobody ever remarked on that.
All she said was: ‘Oh cool.’
‘I’ll pick you up in an hour,’ said Saslow. ‘Brief you on the way.’
Saslow dressed in tight, black jeans and a tan, leather jacket. It was the nearest she had to streetwise clothes.
Jenkins, with her braided hair, faded, denim jacket, short, black skirt and well-worn, silver trainers, looked rather more the part, as both Vogel and Saslow had known she would.
They arrived at Sally Pearson’s house just after 8.30. It was a semi-detached property in one of Bristol’s better suburbs. Saslow had been careful not to make it any earlier, even though Vogel might have wished for that. Two police officers calling much before 8.30 would smack rather too much of a dawn raid she thought. It was still earlier than she would have liked to make the call.
The girl’s mother answered the front door. She seemed anxious, but not altogether surprised, to be confronted by two police officers, even at that time in the morning.
‘Sally’s not up yet,’ she said, ushering the two women into the sitting room and gesturing for them to sit. ‘I’ll fetch her down. Though what she can tell you I don’t know. She’s ever so upset. We all are.’
Saslow and Jenkins made sympathetic noises. Saslow lowered herself onto the big, squashy sofa against the far wall. Jenkins sat in one of four upright chairs set around a small dining table by the window. It was ten minutes or so before mother and daughter reappeared. Sally was still wearing her pyjamas with a dressing gown over them, which was pink with a rabbit motif. Dressed like that, she looked like the child she really still was and she was clearly near to tears.
‘Please don’t worry about anything, Sally,’ Saslow began. ‘We just want an informal chat, to see if there’s anything you know that might help us catch whoever did this to Melanie. Sometimes people know things they don’t realise the importance of.’
Sally nodded unenthusiastically.
‘Look, why don’t you sit down here next to me.’
Saslow gestured towards the other half of the sofa she was sitting on.
Sally Pearson rather pointedly perched herself on the edge of an armchair as far away from Saslow as possible.
Nonetheless, Saslow persevered.
‘Why don’t you tell us again about the few days leading up to Melanie’s death? We think she may have arranged to meet someone that night, possibly a man. Do you know anything about that?’
Sally glanced towards her mother.
‘If you know anything, my girl, you tell this officer now,’ instructed Mrs Pearson. ‘I never understood what you were doing going around with Melanie Cooke anyway.’ Mrs Pearson glanced towards Saslow. ‘Not our sort of people,’ she said. ‘If you see what I mean.’
Then she looked at Polly Jenkins, as if seeing the black PC for the first time and blushed slightly.
Saslow was afraid that she saw what Mrs Pearson meant all right. Particularly as the woman very nearly sniffed as she made her last remark. It seemed hard to believe that she disapproved of Melanie Cooke and her mother because of their colour, but the glance towards Polly Jenkins had said a lot. In addition, there could be a misplaced sense of class superiority. Saslow knew that Mr Pearson was an insurance salesman and that Mrs Pearson worked part time as a doctor’s receptionist. They clearly saw themselves as aspiring middle class. The family home was spacious and well appointed and Mrs Pearson would consider it far superior to the Cooke’s little, terraced house, even though that was so well kept. No doubt she also saw her family set up as superior to that of Melanie Cooke, who came from — what Mrs Pearson would likely describe as — ‘a broken home’ and had a common, jobbing, brickie stepdad and a lorry driver for a father. The woman’s intervention was not helpful.
Sally’s lower lip began to tremble. She really did seem to be on the verge of breaking down.
It was then that Jenkins — who hadn’t reacted at all to Mrs Pearson’s not so subtle expression of racism, even though there was no chance that the sharp, young PC could have missed it — intervened for the first time.
‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of tea, is there, Mrs Pearson?’ she asked cheerily. ‘I missed breakfast this morning.’
Mrs Pearson looked uncertain. Saslow was doubtful too. Police officers were not really supposed to interview under 16-year-olds without the presence of an appropriate adult. But this wasn’t an interview, she reminded herself, just an informal chat, as she had told Sally.
Jenkins smiled her most girlish and matey smile.
‘All right,’ said Mrs Pearson, who clearly did not know quite what to make of the disingenuous PC and left the room for the kitchen.
Jenkins turned to Sally immediately.
‘You want us to get this bad arse off the streets, don’t you, Sally?’ she asked.
Sally nodded. ‘Course I do,’ she said.
Jenkins pulled her chair closer to Sally’s.
‘So please, darlin’, tell us what you know. You were besties with Melanie. I’ll bet there wasn’t much she got up to you didn’t know about. I remember when I was your age I told my bestie everything and me mum nothin’!’ Jenkins grinned disarmingly. At that moment, Saslow thought, Jenkins would almost have passed for a fourteen-year-old herself.
Like Saslow, Polly Jenkins was a local girl who spoke with more that a hint of Bristolian in her voice. Sometimes a regional accent could be reassuring, thought Saslow, comforting even.
Sally sniffed away her tears. She even managed a small smile. It looked as if Jenkins might be working her magic.
But Sally said nothing.
‘She snitched on me in the end though,’ continued Jenkins.
Something seemed to stir in Sally.
‘That’s terrible,’ she said.
Jenkins shrugged.
‘I didn’t have a home like yours, Sally,’ the PC continued. ‘Me mum didn’t care who I was seeing, girl or boy, as long as I wasn’t bothering her, and she had a boyfriend who wouldn’t leave me alone.’ Jenkins paused. ‘You know what I mean?’ she asked Sally.
Sally nodded, colouring slightly.
‘My bestie was the only person in the world I told. I swore her to secrecy, but in the end she told her mum. I remember how frightened I was when the social services came round. And me mum still didn’t want to know. She either wouldn’t believe it or didn’t care. I never knew which. I was twelve. I was taken into care and eventually put with a foster family, who did care. I don’t know what would have happened to me if my bestie hadn’t snitched.’
Sally stared silently at Jenkins for what seemed like a very long time.
‘I can’t tell,’ she said eventually. ‘I can’t. Mum’ll kill me.’
‘No she won’t,’ said Jenkins. ‘But your best friend has been killed. Murdered, Sally.’