The Valley of Longing 18

Mitchell and Melissa nodded in unison. ‘I didn’t see you in church this morning, Melissa,’ Louise said disapprovingly to her granddaughter as she let the two officers in and then shut the door behind them. Melissa flushed. ‘I was busy, nana, I had to work,’ she said, not happy with how much like an excuse it sounded. ‘I’ll go as soon as I have I have a chance.’ Thankfully, nothing more was said about her absence from church, instead her grandmother left the two of them to get comfortable in the living room while she went to make them all some tea. Louise returned after about five minutes, bearing a tray she gratefully surrendered when Melissa leaped to her feet to take it from her. Nothing was said by any of them while the tea was being poured; only when the three of them were settled did any of them speak. ‘So, how can I help you, Venter?’ Louise asked of the sergeant between sips of tea. ‘You said you have some questions you want to ask me.’ ‘That’s right, Louise. I want to ask you about Friday afternoon; I know I spoke to you yesterday about it, but I need to confirm a few things,’ Mitchell said, putting his cup back on its saucer and then setting it down on the coffee table. ‘I hope that’s okay.’ When Louise nodded, he got down to business. ‘Can you remember what time it was when you saw Lily Potgieter leave Mr Wild’s place on Friday afternoon?’ Louise made a sincere effort to remember, but was forced to shake her head. ‘I’m sorry, I know it was sometime between three o’clock and half past, but I can’t be any more exact than that.’ ‘That’s okay, Mr Wild wasn’t able to give us an exact time either,’ Mitchell said. ‘Can you tell us what happened after you saw Lily leave Mr Wild’s?’ He saw the unhappy look on Louise’s face and anticipated what she was going to say. ‘Mr Wild has said he didn’t leave the house after Lily left, and his lawyer has suggested that because of your age, you might have been mistaken about what you saw; that’s why I had to let him go. I need to make absolutely certain of what you saw, so I can add it to whatever other evidence we’re able to find, and make an airtight case against him.’ ‘His lawyer doesn’t know you like we do, gran,’ Melissa said, almost choking on a large mouthful of fruitcake as she tried to swallow it quickly so she could speak. ‘She thinks because you’re a bit older, you must have problems with your eyes. Even if you did, it’s not like you can’t recognise a Mercedes when you see one, you might not be able to say what model it is, but when it’s been parked next door for months you know it when it goes past.’ Louise nodded, but then said, ‘It wasn’t that fancy car of Mr Wild’s I saw on Friday though.’ ‘I beg your pardon,’ Mitchell felt his heart sink. ‘So it wasn’t that fancy thing of Mr Wild’s you saw. You are certain it was Mr Wild you saw driving down the road after Lily, though, aren’t you?’ He couldn’t help it, he found he was holding his breath while he waited for the answer from Melissa’s grandmother, and when it came his heart dropped even lower, sinking into the pit of his stomach. ‘Of course I’m sure,’ Louise said. ‘Even with the sun in my eyes I know my neighbour.’ ‘The sun was in your eyes?’ It was several long moments before Mitchell could bring himself to say anything more than that. Louise nodded. ‘It was that sort of a day,’ she said. ‘It Didn’t seem to matter where I stood, or which way I turned, the sun was constantly in my eyes, fairly blinded me, it did. I’m not likely to make a mistake about seeing my neighbour drive down the road, though, even when I couldn’t see him all that well. I mean, who else could it have been in that Land Rover.’ It took every ounce of self - control that he could muster, to keep Mitchell from swearing, loudly and repeatedly. The situation was going from bad to worse, and he could only wonder what his witness was going to say next to further scupper the case he was trying to put together. ‘To my knowledge,’ he began , picking his words as carefully as he could to avoid drawing barbs from Louise sharp tongue. ‘There are three Land Rovers in the village, and probably more in the local area, that look almost identical to Mr Wild’s, it could have been any one of them if you couldn’t see who was behind the wheel properly. ‘Did you see the licence number, or anything about the vehicle that would enable you to pick it out as Mr Wild’s ahead of any of the others in the village?’ A shake of Louise’s head answered the question. ‘I’m sorry, I wish I could say I had but I didn’t. Who else could it have been, though?’ she asked. ‘Danny Stuart has no business being over this way, I would never have thought it was Mr Wild if it was Christopher Pikes - even with the sun in my eyes, I can tell the difference between a man and a woman, and I saw Cecil Wright head down the road in his other Land Rover earlier, before two that was.’ ‘Could you perhaps describe any of the clothes worn by the driver?’ Mitchell asked hopefully. ‘Maybe we can identify Mr Wild that way.’ ‘Well that was a waste of time,’ Mitchell said as he unlocked the patrol car he an Melissa were using. He could not keep the frustration he was feeling from his voice, though he did hold it in until Louise had closed the front door and he was reasonably sure he was not going to be overheard. ‘Your gran can’t be certain it was Mr Wild she saw driving down the road after Lily, which mean’s we’ve got nothing we can pin on him but a bunch of coincidences, If we try and arrest him again without getting some real evidence, that lawyer of his is going to eat us alive.’ Melissa felt some sympathy for the predicament Mitchell was in, but couldn’t help thinking that if he had waited until he had evidence, rather than rushing to a conclusion he couldn’t support, he would not be in his current position. ‘Hopefully the post - mortem will give us some evidence we can use,’ Melissa said, speaking over the top of the car. ‘Or the forensics team will find something; they had most of yesterday at the two crime scenes, and all the ground between and around them, and they were back again today. Whoever killed Lynne and Lily, whether it’s Mr Wild or someone else, I can’t see that they will have managed to avoid leaving any evidence at all, it’s just a matter of time before it’s found.’ ‘And how many girls could he have attacked before that evidence is found?’ Mitchell wanted to know. ‘No girl in the Dorpie is going to be safe until Wild is behind bars.’ Melissa couldn’t help wondering what Mitchell would do if they got Jack Wild behind bars and another girl was attacked while he was there. She did not voice her thoughts, however; she was sure that doing so would only provoke a sharp response, instead she voiced another thought that had popped into her mind, ‘Why Don’t we take a walk down the road and see what we can see. We know that Lily didn’t make it as far as the Dorpie, at least not as far as we’ve heard; that means she must have been grabbed between here and the church. We might be able to find something that will tell us what happened to her and where.’ Mitchell considered the idea for only a brief time before he agreed that it was a good one. He had been about to suggest that they go and get some lunch and consider the next thing they should do, but they could do that after searching the area for clues, which he doubted would take them long. ‘I’ll take this side of the road, if you take the other,’ he said, locking the car again. Melissa nodded, pleased that he thought her idea worth going along with. Leaving the car, she had taken just a couple of steps, her eyes on the ground at her feet, when she absently reached into her pocket for one of the chocolate bars she kept about her person. She tore open the wrapper and chewed noisily on the chocolate as she scrutinised the ground before and around her; she didn’t want to say as much, but she had very little idea of what she was looking for, and could only hope that whatever evidence there was to be found would leap out at her. Mitchell reached the end of the row of three houses before he realised that Melissa was not keeping pace with him. Looking around, he saw that she was about ten meters back, standing at the gate in the wall and looking down the path that ran alongside the field. He glanced in the direction Melissa was looking, but could see nothing to explain why she had paused in her search of the road. ‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Have you spotted something?’ ‘NO,’ Melissa admitted. ‘There’s nothing along the road, not that I’ve seen, anyway, but I was just thinking ,we’ve assumed Lily was grabbed between here and the church, within about five minutes of her leaving Mr Wild’s, because she would have been seen if she made it as far as the church or the Bar. What if we’re wrong, though, what if she didn’t head for the village; Lily would have made it home in about half the time if she cut across the fields and followed the river a bit, and if she did take the shortcut, she could have been grabbed at any point between here and the other side.’ Mitchell considered that theory, as he again looked over the gate at the field and the dirt path. ‘Would Lily take the shortcut?’ He asked finally. ‘It might save her twenty minutes or so, but would she really have crossed the fields to do so?’ ‘I don’t see why not, it’s not like she’s afraid to get dirty, and if the outfit she was wearing really was the sort that would actually get a reaction from her parents, she’s have wanted to get home before them, so she could get changed,’ Melissa said. ‘I think it’s more likely that she did go across the fields than down the road towards the village; whoever it is that grabbed her, Mr Wild or whoever,’ she added quickly when she saw that the sergeant at her side was about to say something. ‘Would have been taking a hell of a risk in grabbing her off the road - anyone could have come along and seen him, especially since she would have been nearly at the church by the time he could have caught up to her. Going across the fields would have given her attacker more time to grab her, without being seen. He could have taken her to wherever it is he killed her then, which he’s got to have done by car, because it’s three and a half a km from here to where she was found, and probably longer from wherever she was grabbed.’ Mitchell was not happy that the idea had come from Melissa, rather than him, but he couldn’t deny that it had merit. ‘we’ll continue on down to the church, checking the ground between here and there, then we’ll come back up and start a search of the field,’ he said. ‘If we find anything, we’ll mark the spot for forensics.’ Melissa was pleased to have come up with two ideas that the sergeant thought worth following up on. The search of the road revealed nothing - Mitchell and Melissa made it as far as the church and the Bar, which faced one another across the road, without finding anything to suggest that Lily Potgieter had ever been that way - so they returned to the field. Before the idea that they were wasting their time could solidify into a firm thought, they hit pay - dirt, at least Sergeant Mitchell did. Melissa was scrutinising the left side of the dirt track, from the middle to where the rows of half - grown maize began. Mitchell was checking the right, from the middle to the low stone wall that separated the field they were in from the one neighbouring it. Mitchell had gone about a hundred and fifty steps, when he spotted something up ahead in the narrow strip of scrub grass that grew alongside the wall. He hurried forward and dropped to his knees the moment he reached the object he had seen; it was a book, and he saw that there were several others nearby. He was about to pick up the nearest of the books, so he could take a closer look at it, when he saw the name on the cover - Jack Wild, a quick glance at the other books revealed that they were all by his one an only suspect, and when he used a pen to flip open one of the covers without disturbing any evidence, he saw that the book had been autographed by the author. ‘It looks like you were right, Mel,’ Mitchell called out, more annoyed than before that checking the field had not been his idea, though he was glad that the evidence had been found. ’This seems to be the spot where Lily was attacked; Wild said he autographed several books for her before she left his place.’ Melissa was pleased that her idea had borne fruit, and hurried over to join Mitchell. The moment she reached him, she saw the books; several were piled together, while the others were scattered alongside the wall and almost concealed by the scrub grass in which they lay. She also saw the remnants of the bag they must have been in, and something else. ‘Sergeant, I think you should see this.’ Following the example set by her superior, she used a pen to lift the item she had found from the clump of grass it lay in. Mitchell was surprised by the note of revulsion in his subordinates voice, she sounded just as she had upon catching sight of Lynne’s body. When he saw what it was Melissa had found, he understood her tone. Dangling from the pen Melissa held was a scrap of cloth, bright orange, and so lacy as to be sheer, a scrap cloth that had once been a thong. He knew, without thinking, without asking, that the once - thong had been Lily’s, and that it had been ripped from her body when she was grabbed by the man who went on to kill her. ‘Jesus!’ Was all Mitchell could bring himself to say for quite some time. He had been told by the inspector what condition Lily’s body was in when it was found, along with the fact that she was naked, which had led to his guessing - just as he had when he saw Lynne’s body - that Lily had been raped before being murdered; there was something about the sight of an item of intimate clothing, so obviously torn from the body, that made his guess seem so much MORE real. ‘Are you okay to stay here and keep an eye on the area, while I go and arrange for the forensics people to come back out?’ he asked once he recovered the ability to speak. Melissa nodded hesitantly, not trusting herself to speak, SHE wasn’t about to say as much, but the ideas of staying alone where someone had been attacked, and possibly raped and murdered; made her feel distinctly uncomfortable……