In her dream, Danny was back there. It was a perfect reconstruction. All her recall was superb, even down to the words which passed between Joe and his then wife.
Danny woke abruptly and for once did not lose the dream. It was there with her, vivid and exact.
‘ Jesus, Jesus.’ She threw the duvet off and got into her dressing-gown. She dashed downstairs, cursing herself for not keeping a pen and paper next to the bedside. She found both in the kitchen odds and sods cupboard and scribbled down the words.
Suddenly they all made sense.
The memory must have hurt the girl. Since speaking those last words she had lapsed into a vague silence, blankly staring through the window.
‘ What do you know, Tracey?’ Myrna asked softly, unable to stand it any longer.
Tracey jumped like a charge had been passed through her. She raised a thin finger and pointed to Myrna’s desk. ‘The newspaper… can you get the newspaper?’
Myrna placed her coffee down, crossed the office and peeled the wet paper from her desk blotter and carefully carried it back, handing it over to Tracey. She took it and laid it on the sofa. She did not open the paper, as Myrna expected her to, simply pointed to the headlines.
‘ What? You know something about that?’
Tracey nodded.
Myrna twisted her head and skimmed through the story underneath the headlines. It was all about the discovery of a girl’s body in some woodland in the North of England. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill story in national newspaper terms and had only made headlines because other good news was scarce, and the way in which the body had been discovered was obviously of great interest to many people. Lovers frolicking in a woodland glade don’t often find bodies — but when they do they can rest assured the whole world will want to know and so will their legal partners.
‘ What do you know?’ Myrna asked.
‘ I know the girl who was murdered… Annie Reece. She was my friend.’ Her voice faltered. ‘And I know who killed her.’
‘ Go on,’ said Myrna
‘ His name is Charlie Gilbert. You know him too… he was one of the men who were defiling that girl the other night.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘ A sodding dream?’ Henry exclaimed with mixture of contempt and amusement. ‘You want to go and investigate something because you had a dream? I need you here, not gallivanting across the county on some cockamamie goose chase.’
Danny rubbed her face and held her thumb and forefinger at the bridge of her nose in an effort to alleviate the monstrous headache she had as a result of the lack of sleep. ‘I know it sounds whacky, Henry, but I think it’s worth following up.’
‘ Tell me what the dream was and I might let you go.’
‘ It was… oh God,’ she began hesitantly. The images which had been so alive had now faded away to nothingness. It was a good job she had written some of the words down. ‘Words. I just remembered some words I’d heard years ago and I think there might be some connection with Claire.’
‘ And how many years ago did you hear those words?’ There was a hint of mockery in his voice.
‘ Fifteen.’
‘ And Claire was only eleven, right?’
‘ I know it sounds completely stupid and my mind is like a little ball of cotton wool at the moment, which doesn’t help matters.’ She was pacing Henry’s office. ‘But humour me. Give a sucker an even break.’
She stood across the desk from Henry. Pale, tired, drawn. She had not even bothered to put on make-up, which was very unusual. She looked ill.
‘ Okay,’ he relented. ‘Although I don’t know how I’ll justify it if anyone asks me — “my DS is following up a lead from a dream”. Sounds like something from The X-files.’
‘ Thanks, Henry. I’m grateful.’
‘ You’ve got until five today, then it’s back to reality, Danny — and take a mobile with you, just in case we need you back here.’
She shot out of the office before he finished speaking.
Tracey was sleeping now, curled up on the sofa with Myrna’s overcoat laid over her thin body. She twitched constantly and moaned, sometimes fearfully, as though demons were chasing her.
Myrna leaned back in her big office chair, feet on the edge of the desk, her half-closed eyes on Tracey, working through the horror story Tracey had spent a couple of hours relating in minute detail.
The sound of police sirens on the streets below permeated through the triple-glazed windows.
The big question for Myrna was — what was the next step to take? Or even, did she believe what Tracey was saying? Or was it simply revenge?
Myrna believed it was true. It was other people, she guessed, who would have to be convinced. She flicked open her electronic organiser and tabbed through the directory to find the phone number she required.
Within thirty minutes of leaving Henry’s office, Danny, in a plain CID car, was leaving the motorway and heading east towards Blackburn. She bore left towards Clitheroe and passed British Aerospace at Salmesbury, the classic English Electric Lightning guarding the gates like a huge Airfix kit. Even compared to jet-fighters today, the Lightning still looked the biz.
Minutes later she turned left off the main road and cut down towards Osbaldeston.
In fifteen years the place had changed little. She drove straight to the large house which had once belonged to Joe Lilton. Apart from a new colour for the woodwork, the house looked exactly the same. A large Mercedes was on the driveway, the same colour as Danny’s somewhat older model had been. She experienced a tinge of sadness at the thought of her lovely car, but was thankful the insurance meant that in the not-too distant future, there would be a brand-spanker on her drive.
As she walked to the house this time there were no sounds of people arguing. A couple of dogs barked when she rapped on the door, which opened after a short wait. Two black Labradors bounded out and surrounded her in a friendly way.
‘ Can I help?’ asked the lady with them.
She was in her fifties with a ruddy complexion, a large aquiline nose and sharp, angular face. Danny knew instantly it was not Joe Lilton’s former wife. She sighed inwardly, knowing she’d been a bit optimistic to hope to still find her here.
‘ I’m looking for an old friend,’ Danny said, thinking that introducing herself as a cop might complicate matters. ‘She lived here, ooh, a good fifteen years ago. We lost touch when I moved south. Her married name was Lilton.’
The woman considered the information, then shook her head. ‘No, doesn’t ring a bell. We’ve been here five years; bought the place from a family called Rice. I think the house had been through several hands before that. Sorry.’
‘ Okay, thanks. It was a long shot.’
Danny drove away and pulled up under some trees in a country lane. Even for a cop, finding someone fifteen years on is not necessarily easy. She thought for a few minutes, then had a brainwave. She used the mobile phone Henry had made her take (bless him) and dialled Lancashire Police HQ and asked to be put through to the pensions department in Human Resources.
She explained who she was and what it was she wanted.
Less than five minutes later, the woman gave Danny the information she required: Robert Neville, Police Constable, had retired eleven years ago. She gave Danny his address and telephone number. Danny was pleased to discover he still lived in Blackburn.
Neville was the officer who had regularly worked the mobile beat covering Osbaldeston fifteen years before — the beat Danny had been allocated for that one day when he had been off sick.
It took Myrna two hours to contact Karl Donaldson at the FBI office in London. He had been in a breakfast meeting with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the head of the Maltese Police, discussing a particular drugs problem involving an American gang.
When he returned to his office, he had skimmed through his messages, saw the one from Myrna timed at 8 a.m. and was immediately interested. He put her message to the top of the pile, then went to get a coffee. First things first.