He pulled himself together. Put all those thoughts out of his mind. Gently he began to question Jenny.
He was a good interviewer, a natural. She was very articulate. She spoke in quotes. She was badly shaken, but calm. It was a great talk, and Mark knew it would make first-class copy.
When Mark and the snapper left, Jenny followed him out of the door and called after him. He turned back to her. She was silhouetted against the light from the house and her head was tilted slightly to one side. He could not see her face — just the shape of her standing there — but her body language was eloquent. She looked indignant and purposeful.
‘Why did you never contact me again after the dance?’ she asked quietly.
He was astonished. He didn’t know what to say.
She continued to interrogate him. ‘Why were you always out when I called your office?’
He knew he was mumbling and stumbling. How could she throw him like this? She was just a girl.
Eventually he found some words: ‘You were only fifteen, for Chrissake, you were jailbait,’ he said. ‘I was warned off. Heavily.’
‘I’m seventeen now,’ she replied.
The photographer had got into his car and switched on his headlights. As she spoke, Jennifer’s face was suddenly illuminated — one eyebrow raised as if in contempt. She parted her lips very slightly in that half smile. It was a mocking smile — and yet so seductive. She made him nervous. It was ridiculous, she was still only a kid. Mark heard himself giggle weakly. He almost ran to the Cooper, gunned the engine and shot off down the street. He could feel her eyes on the back of his neck as he drove away. It made his skin prickle with excitement.
Jennifer Stone made two decisions that night: firstly that she would have Mark Piddle. This time he wouldn’t get away. He would be the one to take her virginity. He had already very nearly done so after all. Soon, very soon, they would make love together. But this time it would be on her terms. When she chose. And somehow watching him work as a newspaperman had made her want him even more. She sensed the thrill that he got from his job and she wanted that too — which took her to the second decision. She would start writing to local papers tomorrow. She would become a journalist like Mark.
Strange that she could think that way on such a night. But she did.
Exhausted, she fell asleep. But in her dreams she found the body again, only this time it had no face. She woke screaming. It took her mother almost an hour and two more of the tranquillisers she had been given to calm her daughter down.
Six
Johnny Cooke’s mother heard on the six o’clock local news that the body of a girl, believed to have been murdered, had been found in the sea at Pelham Bay. She shook her head sorrowfully. ‘I don’t know,’ she said to herself. ‘What is the world coming to?’
Mrs Mabel Cooke had been born and brought up in Durraton. She knew everyone, and everyone knew her. She had that smugness about her found among certain people who live in a small town and are overly sure of themselves and their social standing.
She busied herself in the kitchen preparing a high tea. Neither Johnny nor her husband would be home much before seven, but Mrs Cooke liked to be prepared. She sliced meat from the lunchtime joint of pork, put tomatoes in a dish, laid the table with a selection of homemade pickles, and put three apple dumplings in the oven to warm gently. There were cold boiled potatoes and wrapped sliced bread to eat with the meat, tomatoes and pickles. Mrs Cooke did most of her own baking, but saw nothing incongruous in providing tasteless sliced bread along with her homemade delicacies. The apple dumplings she had baked the day before, using big green cooking apples wrapped in a thick layer of shortcrust pastry.
Soon after seven, her husband and son arrived. They sat at the kitchen table and waited for Mrs Cooke to brew the tea before touching the food. Then they ate quickly. After they had finished, Mr Cooke lit his pipe.
‘Did you hear about that murdered girl?’ he asked his wife.
‘I did. I tell you, Charlie, I don’t know what the world is coming to, that I don’t. Do they know who she is yet?’
Charlie Cooke shook his head. ‘Reg Stone’s maid found the body. Johnny ’eard ’er screaming, didn’t you boy?’
Johnny nodded.
Mrs Cooke rubbed her hands together mournfully. ‘I hope and pray it’s not a local girl, that’s all,’ she said.
‘Why?’ asked Johnny. ‘If it’s not a local girl, doesn’t her life matter then, Mother?’
‘Don’t be so cheeky, young man,’ snapped Charlie Cooke. ‘That’s your trouble, son. Too quick on the draw when you shouldn’t be and not quick enough when you should. You know full well what your mother means...’
Johnny picked up his cup of tea and headed for the sitting room.
‘And where do you think you’re going now?’ said his father.
‘Television. There’s a film...’
‘You get worse, boy, ’stead of better. No chance of you helping your mother wash up is there?’
‘Oh, leave the boy alone, Charlie. I’m happier doing it on my own. Let him be.’
Johnny slunk gratefully into the sitting room and buried his senses in the over-dramatic thriller just starting on ITV. It treated him to a car chase, a shoot-out, half a dozen killings and an armed robbery within the first few minutes.
Mr Cooke soon followed his son into the room and, lowering himself into his favourite chair, grumbled: ‘As if there isn’t enough bleddy violence in real life, you have to watch it on TV too.’
Johnny ignored him. His father grunted, picked up the Sunday Express and turned to the sports pages. When she had finished the washing-up, Mabel Cooke joined her husband and son in front of the TV. About half an hour later the phone rang. It was Mr Cooke’s Rotary Club policeman friend, Chief Inspector Ted Robson. The two men were on a committee together organising the annual fête, and, as they discussed final arrangements, Ted Robson described how he had been called out that afternoon when the body was discovered in Pelham Bay.
When Mr Cooke returned to the living room he remarked conversationally: ‘Ted says that dead woman worked out at the Royal Western Golf Club — behind the bar. Marjorie something or other, Ted said...’
Johnny stopped watching television. He looked blankly at his father.
‘You’ve played a bit there with your Uncle Len, Johnny,’ said his mother. ‘Did you know her?’
‘Know her?’ Johnny repeated vacantly. ‘Um. I’m not sure.’
Johnny’s father reached sideways and shook his son by the shoulder.
‘Wake up boy, will you? Your mother asked you a question. Did you bleddy know ’er or not?’
‘I... I suppose so. I saw her about the place. Yes.’
Johnny was twiddling a piece of hair around his fingers now.
‘Where was she from?’ his mother continued. ‘What was she like then?’
Johnny shook his head.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ his father asked.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Johnny got up and walked quickly to the door. ‘I’ve got to go out.’
‘I thought you wanted to watch this bleddy film,’ said his father.
‘I did, but I forgot something...’ Johnny was on his way out.
‘Where are you going?’ called his father.
Johnny had already slammed the front door shut behind him and was running down the road.
Seven
At the bottom of his street, Johnny stopped running, turned around and walked back up the alley leading to the rear of the house where he stealthily took his bicycle out of the garden shed. He cycled as fast as he could down to Pelham Bay, straight to the golf club. Two police cars stood in the car park. Johnny recognised one of the caddies, a boy who used to be at his school. As casually as he could manage, he asked what was going on.