The Silent Girls Read online

  At first the significance of it didn’t register, so she had a necklace, so what? It was only when she took it off and held it up next to the picture of Sally Pollett that he realised. He had stared at that picture for so many years that the details of it were engraved on his brain, yet he didn’t entirely make the connection until the girl spoke and made it for him.

  ‘It’s the same one. The same as in the picture. Edie gave it to me last night because it has the S on the back… S for Sophie, S for Sally. I think you might be onto something bud. I mean, the scarf could be a one off, but this too? I don’t believe in coincidences, do you?’

  She handed him the locket, it was still warm from the touch of her skin. He turned it over in his hand and checked it against the image on the wall, and the one engraved in his mind. She was right, it was the same item. ‘Where did you say this came from?’

  ‘Edie gave it to me, it was in with Dolly’s old jewellery.’

  Matt sat back down on the bed and stared at the locket. ‘They were friends – her and Sally Pollett – went to school together, hung around together. There’s a transcript in one of those files of the statement she gave to the police when Sally’s body was found. They interviewed her and she testified against my father, but she never mentioned this.’

  The girl sat back in her chair and reached for the coffee he’d made her, though it must be cold by now. ‘Perhaps she gave it to her, as a present or something?’ she said, more of a vague hope than a question.

  Matt shook his head. ‘It was her eighteenth birthday present, her parents bought it for her. That’s in the file too. When they found the body, it was significant by its absence. Apparently she never took it off.’

  The girl shuddered. ‘Fuck me! I wish I’d never put it on. That’s really creeped me out that has.’

  If that was the term, it had really creeped Matt out too. The locket was the nearest he had come to ever proving a connection between the residents of Number 17 and the murder of Sally Pollett, though he had long suspected that the Morris family had been involved.

  When he had walked into the bedsit earlier and found Sophie there he hadn’t been entirely sure what to do, but she was staying in that house and he wanted access. Rather than pitching a blue fit and calling the police, or throwing her out bodily and changing that bloody ridiculous lock, he’d decided to hedge his bets and try to get her on side. He hadn’t bargained for her coming up trumps so quickly. The most he’d been hoping for was the chance that she would let him in the house when Edie’s back was turned. Edie, poor woman, she hadn’t anticipated all of this when she’d come back. He needed to think, he needed to ponder this and work out his next move. ‘Can I keep this?’ he said, already moving to pin the locket up next to Sally’s picture.

  ‘Hell yes, I don’t want the bloody thing – not if it came off a dead person!’ Sophie said, adding another exaggerated shudder.

  Something about the face that she was pulling triggered the inkling of a memory for Matt. A brief flash of a contorted face – he’d like to have said in the throes of passion, but the memory didn’t bring that back, instead all he remembered was urgency, desperation and embarrassment. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Sophie, Sophie Hedley, why? You changed your mind already about reporting me to the police?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, it’s just that I think I might have known your mother, Karen isn’t it? You look like her.’

  Sophie glowered at him for a moment, then gave one of her trademark shrugs. ‘Well, if you grew up round here you probably did, everybody did – well, every bloke anyway. When you say you knew her, are we talking, like, in the biblical sense?’

  Matt felt himself begin to blush and he turned away, not wanting to admit to this child that yes, he ‘knew’ her mother. He was loath to go into details about a dim and distant knee trembler down a back alley nearly a quarter of a century ago.

  ‘You bloody did, didn’t you?’

  The girl was smirking, he could sense it, and it was fuelling the flush of shame that he could feel seeping into his face.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it mate, you and every other bloke in a mile radius of the square.’ She had started to swing in his office chair, clearly thinking she had got one up on him by insulting her mother, and therefore him. ‘Hey, we should do a DNA test, you could be my dad!’

  He bristled at the suggestion, no doubt some poor sucker had spawned this guttersnipe but he doubted it was him. What the girl said was true, Karen had been the town bike. Who had fathered her progeny was anybody’s guess, not least of all Karen’s, if what he remembered about her was correct. ‘You’re not serious are you? It’s hardly likely.’ He said with more indignation than he had intended. At forty-eight he had been pretty careful not to leave any little time bombs in his past, one popping up now was the last thing he needed.

  Sophie flapped her hand at him. ‘Nah, don’t worry, I’m only winding you up. I’m pretty sure she would have remembered you, being the son of a murderer and all.’

  He shot her a look of what he hoped was stern and mature censure, though she clearly interpreted it as contempt.

  ‘Sorry mate, I know you think he was innocent and all, it just kind of slipped out.’ She said, not looking remotely sorry.

  It didn’t matter, he was used to it. ‘Please stop calling me mate. We’re hardly mates, given that you broke in. My name is Matt.’ Christ, he sounded like a right idiot. This kid was a piss taker and he was beginning to regret having been so easy-going with her. Had he got so desperate to find out the truth that he was willing to put up with shirty kids taking the micky out of him to get it? Maybe. He’d probably put up with anything to end this tortuous obsession. Comfort and familiarity were beginning to breed a brooding contempt.

  ‘Right Sophie, now that you have tried your damnedest to emasculate me with your rapier wit, are you going to help me or not?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ she was gripping the arms of the chair again and staring at him through eyes that were narrowed and suspicious. She really did look just like her mother.

  ‘Just keep your eyes open for anything that might add to the evidence. There has to be more in that house. Oh, and get me get in there at the soonest opportunity, I want to have a poke around and I don’t think Edie is going to let me over the doorstep.’

  Sophie pondered it. ‘OK, but I’m not doing anything that will upset Edie, she’s been good to me and I’m staying there for now. I’ll look for stuff that might interest you, but I’ll have to see about letting you in.’

  Matt nodded, at least the kid was showing some integrity. ‘Fair enough, oh and if you want to come here again, use the door like normal people will you? I don’t have anything to hide, but I kind of like my privacy just like everyone else.’ He noticed that she had the good grace to blush. ‘Now, let’s go through what I’m looking for so that you’ll know what I’m asking you to find.’

  Chapter Ten

  Bernard Sellars cast an eye over his ancient stock and contemplated the seemingly pointless task of dusting it. He often wondered why he hadn’t gone into the scrap metal business, all he seemed to do these days was weigh and measure little scraps of gold and silver for the price it might fetch when it was melted down. He hadn’t sold so much as an earring for weeks. His father, Derek Sellars, (proud founder of Sellars and Son, Jewellers of Distinction) doggedly hung on to the shop as if he still believed that their lives depended on it. Bernard knew different – their livelihood came not from selling trinkets, but from buying scrap, repairing clocks and the odd insurance pay out when someone tried to rob them. Even that hadn’t happened in a while, even the robbers were turning their noses up at the tarnished tat that sat dusty and unsellable in the window behind the reinforced wire shutters. Bernard didn’t blame them, even he wouldn’t have given houseroom to the gaudy baubles that his father had chosen. Still, it wasn’t his shop, he just worked there – if reading the paper and fielding the drunks and druggies
who came in to pawn or sell the things they had stolen counted as work. When Derek went, things would be different, he’d close the shop and go and work in McDonalds if he had to. Anything but spend another year in this miserable, tawdry little emporium, which was beginning to look like a dusty shrine to other people’s unwanted kitsch. Last week he’d gone out to get the paper and his father had bought a silver plated coffee set from some woman down on her luck and short of cash. It was sitting there now, in the cabinet, a hundred and twenty-five pounds’ worth of waste of time. Nobody wanted that kind of crap now, despite the workmanship that his father had raved over. Bernard would stake another hundred quid that the coffee set would sit in that cupboard and never sell – it would outlive him, let alone his father. Quite frankly it was bloody depressing.

  Just as he was dwelling on how low it was possible to go, the shop door opened – triggering the ruddy bell that was the bane of his life. A woman wandered in, scanning the cabinets and looking more like a potential customer than anyone had in what felt like an age. Bernard’s heart leapt with hope. ‘Can I help at all, madam?’ Oh God, she was rummaging in her bag…

  ‘Do you do valuations?’

  Bernard suppressed the weary sigh that was trying to push past his lips. ‘Of course madam.’

  She brought out a wad of what looked like kitchen roll – nothing exciting there then, Bernard assumed.

  ‘I have no idea whether any of this is worth anything at all. It’s all a bit old-fashioned.’ She said it as if it was an apology for wasting his time. She probably was, but at least she was polite about it.

  ‘Let’s take a look shall we?’ He watched as she unrolled the paper. It seemed like your typical junk, a few nice pieces from what he could see, but mostly scrap. ‘The gold and silver items will be scrap value only I’m afraid, but the cameo is nice, there’s quite a market for antique brooches.’ He smiled at her. ‘You have quite a bit there, I might need to take it out back and examine it a bit more closely. I can issue a receipt if you like, and for a small holding fee we can insure against loss while we make a thorough evaluation.’ He had neither the time nor the patience to sort through it now. Well, he had the time, but not the inclination. The fifteen pound holding fee would at least soften the blow and ease the boredom of looking through this latest pile of junk. She had some particularly tawdry diamante pieces that he didn’t relish examining, but his father would be intrigued. There was a market for paste, and if it was good it was worth more than people might assume. ‘Cleaning of all items is included in the fee.’ He added, eyeing the grubby grey stones.

  ‘OK, that seems sensible.’ She said, reaching for her purse.

  Bernard loved it when a plan came together, and reached for his receipt pad. ‘I’ll just need to take a few details for the insurance. If you can leave me a contact number I’ll call you when we’ve completed the valuation.’

  She gave him her details and waited patiently while he listed the pieces. He did his usual and occasionally glanced up, giving the customer a reassuring smile. There had been a time when he might have engaged in a little light conversation, but these days he saved that for people who were buying, not looking to sell. Bernard’s charm was free, but only with a purchase. ‘Right, I think that’s everything, if you’d like to check and sign?’

  She merely glanced at the form and signed. He could have left half the items off and she wouldn’t have noticed. But that wasn’t Sellars and Son’s reputation; Derek and Bernard prided themselves on their honesty and sense of fair play, if not on their stock and customer service.

  After she had gone Bernard dumped the items onto a tray and took them out to the back room. His father could take a look, Bernard had better things to do, like finish his newspaper and pontificate on his disappointments.

  Sam waited impatiently for his mother to pour the tea, she was like a damned geisha with it, all ceremony and pot warming and fiddling about. Why she couldn’t use teabags in a mug like normal people was beyond him. She was a creature of ritual and habit, and sometimes it really irritated him, but what had irritated him most was that Edie had taken the spare keys for next door to give to that scumbag she had taken in. Lena’s set of keys had been his easy way in, and now the silly old cow had given them away, and she was mouthing off about him showing an interest. He’d thought she liked Edie and would have been pleased that he was planning on taking her out, but no, she couldn’t have been more against it if she’d tried, or more stubborn about explaining why. She was wittering on now – about Edie having just got divorced and about her not sticking around, and why couldn’t he find a decent local girl to take out. He’d made her bristle by pointing out that there were no decent local girls. Decent would be the last word he would use to describe the women of the square, unless whoring, drug taking and drunkenness were now considered parlour pursuits. The trouble with his mother was that she lived in a fantasy world, she seemed to believe that as long as she kept scrubbing the front door step and polishing the brass that she’d be able to stave off the tide of decay that had beset her beloved square.

  ‘You going to pour that tea or what?’ he said, drumming his fingers on the table while she faffed with milk jugs and sugar bowls.

  ‘Hold your horses boy, I’m doing it. I don’t know what’s got into you today, you’re like a monkey on a hot shovel.’

  ‘Things on my mind Ma, that’s all, and I’m spitting feathers here.’

  ‘Will you stop that bloody drumming on the table and jiggling your bloody leg like that, you’re putting me on edge!’

  Sam would have said that she was on edge anyway and had been ever since Dolly had died. Why she had such affection for that dotty old minger was beyond him, the woman had been a bloody disgrace. But Dickie had had his uses. Shame the old sod had died, Sam’s life would have been so much easier now if Dickie was still alive. Now, because of his own stupidity, he was stuffed. He’d scared Dickie and Dolly into being security conscious for his own ends, and now the window locks and security bolts were working against him. If he’d not been away when the old bird had died he wouldn’t be facing this problem now. He had to get into that house, and the only way he was going to do it was with Edie’s blessing – if his mother didn’t like it, well, he just wouldn’t tell her.

  Edie arrived back to discover Sophie in the kitchen drinking tea and regarding an enormous bouquet of flowers that almost swamped the small table. ‘Where on earth did those come from?’

  ‘Dunno who brought them, they were on the back doorstep, but they’re from him next door. Wants to take you out to dinner apparently.’ Sophie said with a dismissive sniff.

  ‘You read the card?’ Of course she had read the card, Edie would have liked to think that she wouldn’t have done exactly the same, but she knew she would have.

  Sophie shrugged. ‘Just making sure they were for here. Not the kind of place that posh florists deliver to, is it?’

  Edie looked at the flowers, they were indeed expensive and the arrangement lavish. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘So, you going to go?’

  Edie sighed, she really didn’t know. Dinner with a man seemed so far out of her sphere at the moment.

  ‘You should, it would do you good to get a break out of this place. Besides, by the look of those it’ll be a right good nosh out. I’d go.’

  Edie sat down, retrieved the card that accompanied the flowers and read it. “Hoping these will cheer you up, how about dinner? Call me. Sam. X”. Edie hadn’t been aware that she had been particularly unhappy. ‘Do I come across as miserable?’ she asked.

  Sophie sighed. ‘Well, let’s just say that you’re not exactly little miss sunshine, shall we?’

  Edie thought she had just been being her normal self, perhaps that was her normal self – miserable, unhappy and shut down. And Sam found that attractive?

  ‘So, are you going to call him or what?’

  Edie eyed Sophie with suspicion. ‘Are you trying to get rid of me? What’s the plan, a wild party?�
�� It would be what Will would have done if she had ever given him the chance.

  ‘Of course not! I just figured if you get the chance to do something nice, you should. I’d go, but he didn’t invite me, or send me flowers. Come to think of it, no one’s ever bought me flowers.’

  Edie plucked a rose out of the arrangement and passed it over the table. ‘All women should get flowers once in a while.’ But never when it was as an excuse or an apology, which had been Simon’s habit. For every affair there had been lilies, for every beating carnations. Edie couldn’t abide carnations, just the smell of them made her bones ache.

  Maybe she would go out to dinner with Sam, it had been such a long time since someone had been nice. ‘I’ll ring him in a minute.’ She said, noting Sophie’s triumphant smile. ‘But for now, we need to tackle the hellhole that was Dolly’s room.’

  Sophie’s smile quickly mutated into a grimace. ‘If we must.’

  ‘Yes, we must.’

  The biggest issue in Dolly’s room was the hair, it floated on the air with the slightest movement and clung to the skin like gossamer, tickling and making the flesh crawl. Sophie was becoming more and more irritated by it, spitting, rubbing, wiping and finally shouting. ‘Aaargh! This bloody stuff is driving me mad! Can’t we hoover it up or something?’

  ‘Have you seen the hoover? It’s older than I am. Take a break, go and make us a drink or something.’ Edie said, her own irritation only a notch or two below Sophie’s. She had been scooping up whole hanks of the stuff for half an hour and felt that the task would never end. She had gathered half a bin bag full, but the stuff seemed to be breeding all over the room. It was as if someone had torn through the place like a tornado, scattering the strands of hair and letting them settle like a moving blanket over everything. God knows what Dolly had been thinking; as Edie recalled she had always been extremely precious about her collection, keeping it pristine and separated in the huge cabinet that stood next to the wardrobes. No one had been allowed to touch the cabinet, or the wigs, though as a child Edie had coveted the stage pieces, elaborately coiffed with tightly coiled ringlets – making her own thin, home cut bob a joke. She had longed to try them on and parade about and live for a while in the world of her imagination. Those days were long gone, and the wigs and hair had just become yet another thing to dispose of. Intact, the hair would have had value. The wigs still did, but Edie didn’t want money for them and instead had contacted the Winfield Amateur Dramatic Society and offered them for nothing, a woman was coming to collect them the next day. While she waited for Sophie to make tea, Edie gathered up the wooden blocks, which were remarkably less terrifying in daylight, and placed them into boxes complete with full heads of hair. She wasn’t sure whether to be amused or repulsed by the fact that Dolly had drawn crude faces onto some of them and had scrawled names under the hairlines and across the foreheads. She recalled that there had been some film with Tom Hanks, where he’d become lost on a desert island and had made a ‘friend’ from a volley ball – Edie wondered if Dolly had become so lonely that she had done something similar with the wig blocks and had personified them to keep her company. The thought of such loneliness and desperation triggered the now familiar flush of guilt that was threatening to saturate Edie’s psyche. How cruel had she been to ignore her family for all these years?