Pooh Bridge: conscience stricken Read online

Would a few days make any real difference?

  It was another nice day and the woods were now alive with early morning noises. There was still nobody about.

  I took down the tent and packed it and my other belongings away. Rejoining the track that ran through the woods by the river, I had a decision to make. If I turned right, I would head back towards Ashbourne, five miles away but if I turned left, it was thirteen miles to Buxton, my intended destination.

  I wasn’t normally indecisive but it took the toss of a coin to help me make up my mind.

  After turning left I found Ingrid’s body less than one hundred yards from where I had camped.

  There had been no attempt made to hide her.

  She lay like a rag doll a few yards inside the tree line, and on this occasion there wasn’t any doubt in my mind … she was dead. Her eyes were open and staring, and there was dried blood at the corners of her mouth. She was still wearing her anorak but her jeans, underwear and boots were missing, as was one of her socks.

  The bandage with which I’d dressed her wound was also missing. She looked a lot smaller than her five feet four inches, and very vulnerable, although her vulnerability would no longer affect her. Her stomach was bloody and there was a dark red patch on her anorak in the middle of her chest.

  An image of Belinda lying dead in bed flashed into my mind, but her death had been a release from the pain: she had ultimately wanted to die so she could be at peace. Ingrid had been scared and, as far as I knew, did not want to die.

  Somebody had tracked her down and murdered her, but why? The uncomfortable and restless night I had spent worrying about her was in vain; her young life had already ended.

  I put her rucksack next to her body and undid the pocket to locate her mobile phone. Fortunately, the phone was switched on but the battery was low.

  I pressed number nine three times and asked for the police.

  “I need to report a murder,” I informed the female voice at the other end of the line. The reception wasn’t good and she asked me to repeat what I’d said. “I’m phoning to report a murder.”

  “I see, sir,” the voice said in a casual tone. I would have expected the same reaction if I had been reporting a lost dog or a stolen car. “May I ask where you’re phoning from?”

  “I’m in the middle of some woods in Derbyshire and I’ve found the body of a dead girl.”

  “Right, sir. Can you give me your exact location, please, sir?”

  “Would you like a grid reference or directions?” I asked, looking around. There was every possibility the murderer was still in the vicinity and he might even be watching me. At that time in the morning it was unlikely there would be any other hikers about.

  “If you can give a grid reference, sir, that would be most useful.” After fumbling with the map, I gave her the ordnance survey map number and then the six-figure grid reference. “Thank you, sir. Can I have your mobile number, your name and address, please?”

  “I don’t have the number, it’s somebody else’s phone.”

  “That’s all right, sir, I can see the number on my screen. Your name and address, please?”

  I gave her both before asking: “Can you tell me how long it’ll take for someone to get here?”

  “I can’t at the moment, sir. Is there a nearby road where you can wait to give further directions when the police do arrive?”

  “Look I’m in the middle of a wood and I’d prefer not to leave the girl. She might be dead but –”

  “I understand, sir,” she said, interrupting me. “There’ll be an ambulance as well. How close can a vehicle get to where you are?”

  “If it’s four-wheel drive about one hundred yards., but a normal vehicle probably three-quarters of a mile.”

  “Thank you, sir. You are sure the girl is dead?”

  “Certain.”

  “The police will be with you as soon as possible and they may ring you once they’re in the area.”

  “All right.”

  It was a few minutes before eight. I checked up and down the track that ran north-south through the woods; there was nothing and nobody.

  Sitting down, I rested my back against the trunk of a tree and waited. Ingrid’s lifeless hand was inches from me and without thinking, I picked it up and held it in mine. Her hand was cold. The fingers – the webs between them a waxy-yellowish colour – were already showing signs of rigor mortis. I wanted to close her eyelids but knew that I must leave her as I had found her. I reached into my backpack and took out my towel, which was still damp from my morning swim, and draped it over her hips and thighs. She deserved some dignity even in death.

  I heard a plane fly over, the sound of a distant tractor starting up and the constant rush of the river running towards the second weir that was less than a hundred yards away. I turned Ingrid’s small hand over in mine and looked at her nails. They were manicured and quite long, and were painted with a colourless gloss.

  Why?

  If what she told me were true, there was no logical explanation as to why she was murdered. I weighed up the facts but they all seemed incongruous now.

  When trying to escape from a would-be attacker she knocked herself out. The bloke I had spoken to down by the car park had seen the driver of a large black car throw her rucksack into the undergrowth and then drive off. That had been shortly before I entered the woods for the first time, but I neither saw nor heard a car … nor did I realise somebody was watching me.

  When I got back to the tent after finding her rucksack, Ingrid had disappeared. Her rucksack contained what I assumed were cocaine and cannabis and finally she was murdered some time after I’d left her and only a matter of yards from where I was trying to sleep.

  I heard and suspected nothing.

  If I’d taken her with me when I went to look for her rucksack, she would still be alive. Unknowingly, I had left her to die.

  I must have nodded off. The mobile phone rang, jolting me back to consciousness.

  Ingrid’s hand was still in mine.

  “Mr Blythe?” a male voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Sergeant Cotton from the Ashbourne Police. You reported that you’d found a body.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still there?”

  “What, with the body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Can you give directions?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the car park down from the Izaak Walton Hotel.”

  It was the hotel I’d pretended to go towards when talking to the local man.

  “Leave the car park to the north, cross the field and then follow the track to the left of the river and you can’t miss me. It’s about three-quarters of a mile.”

  “Thank you, sir. We’ll be with you shortly.”

  I ended the call and looked down at Ingrid. Picking up her hand again, I lifted her fingers to my lips.

  “Goodbye,” I said. “I don’t know who you really are and why somebody wanted to kill you, but nobody deserves to die the way you did.”

  Lowering her hand to the ground, I reluctantly let go of it.

  Chapter Five

  There were five of them and I heard their progress along the track long before I saw the lead police officer. Two were in civilian clothes and the other three were in uniform, one a sergeant. They saw me waiting by the tree and slowed down, almost as though I was immediately on the suspect list, which meant I needed approaching with caution.

  I had thought about what I was going to say and I suppose I’d concluded that if I were the police I certainly wouldn’t take any account I proffered at face value, which explained why I understood their scepticism.

  All I could do was tell them the truth and let the evidence confirm my version of events. I believed in the British legal system and although the media constantly thrust injustices down our throats – and those found guilty when they weren’t had my utmost sympathy and support – for the va
st majority of the time I believed the system got it right.

  “Mr Blythe?” the uniformed sergeant asked as he approached.

  “Yes,” I answered, holding out my hand. He took it without hesitation. The others had spotted Ingrid’s body and were ignoring me.

  “Sergeant Cotton, sir. We spoke on the phone.” The sergeant took me by the arm and started to lead me further up the track. “Would you mind coming over here, sir?”

  “Sergeant, I have spent the last hour plus only a few feet from that poor girl. Taking me away from her now isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference.” I did not resist the pressure on my arm but I remained reluctant to hand Ingrid over to these strangers. Apart from her murderer, I was probably the last person she saw on this earth and I felt I owed her something.

  “I know, sir,” he replied, “but we don’t want to disturb any evidence.”

  I looked over my shoulder and the older of the two detectives was bending down over Ingrid’s body. Seeing him move the towel I had placed over her made me squirm. She was no longer a human being who warranted respect The other detective was looking around the immediate vicinity. The uniformed constables were already beginning to mark off the area. They each had rolls of tape and various other bits and pieces, obviously believing that I really had found a body and that I wasn’t some crank who enjoyed wasting police time.

  “Now, sir,” the sergeant said, moving in front of me, “can you tell me how you came across the victim?”

  I gave him a digest of the previous sixteen hours and he listened without interrupting. More fluorescent jackets appeared on the scene after about five minutes. They were paramedics who went straight down towards Ingrid’s body. An older man in civilian clothes carrying what could only have been a doctor’s bag accompanied them.

  “You were saying?” the sergeant asked, regaining my attention.

  “Sorry. That’s when I phoned for the police.”

  “I see, sir.” The older of the two detectives came up the slope towards us. “This is Detective Sergeant Matthews, Mr Blythe.” Although he was older, he couldn’t have been more than thirty and he was well dressed in a suit, white shirt and a floral tie. He had donned a pair of rubber boots. “Mr Blythe, Brian, he reported the incident.”

  DS Matthews offered me his hand before smiling laconically. “Mr Blythe.” He looked back over his shoulder. “So, you found her, did you?”

  “Yes.” The look in DS Matthews’ eyes suggested it would be wise if I restricted what I said to answering his questions, and not volunteer anything further until asked.

  “Would you mind repeating what you told me, Mr Blythe?” suggested Sergeant Cotton.

  When I had finished, DS Matthews scrutinised the notes he had taken and then, pointing his pen at me, he asked, “You said you found her the first time at about six-thirty yesterday evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where precisely was she?”

  I pointed back down the track towards the car park. “About one and fifty hundred yards further along the track.”

  “And she told you she’d been trying to escape from some would-be attacker?” His eyes never left me when he spoke. It was obvious what conclusions he had already drawn. I had told him exactly what had happened but I couldn’t offer any proof.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you report the incident straight away?”

  “I was going to, but when I discovered she was still alive, my priority was to do what I could for her and leaving her alone didn’t, at the time, seem the right thing to do.”

  “I see,” DS Matthews said, exchanging a look with Sergeant Cotton.

  The older man who had accompanied the paramedics down to Ingrid’s body approached us. He too was wearing a suit, but he had an old-fashioned trilby-hat on his head framing a face that communicated years of experience but little hardship. He nodded at me and then looked at DS Matthews.

  “Been dead approximately twelve hours, single stab wound, probably a narrow-bladed knife between her breasts and into the heart. I would estimate she took only a short while to die. Abdominal lacerations superficial by comparison, probability that she was sexually assaulted but, as usual, I’ll be able to tell you more once I can get to work on her. She was a pretty girl and young too, such a waste.”

  His final words, directed towards me, made me aware the police officers were watching me. The pathologist, if that’s what he was, nodded at me again, and without another word headed off back along the track towards the car park.

  “I’ll have to ask you to come to the station and make a statement, Mr Blythe,” DS Matthews told me.

  “I understand.”

  “As you are on foot I’m sure Sergeant Cotton will give you a lift.” Then, with a wave of his hand, he turned and started down the slope. He stopped when he was a few yards away. “Oh, Mr Blythe, the mobile phone you used to call us, you said it wasn’t yours. Do you still have it?”

  I felt in my anorak pocket. “Yes, I’m sorry,” I said handing the phone to him as he came back to me. “And the towel you found on the body, that’s mine.”

  “We’ll hang on to that if you don’t mind,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  “There’s nothing else?”

  “No, not that I can think of,” I told him.

  I walked out of Ashbourne Police Station six hours later. A Detective Inspector Rowlands and DS Matthews had interviewed me and to say that I received a grilling would be an understatement. Initially it was simply a repeat of what I’d already told Matthews and Cotton but then I suddenly remembered that I still had Ingrid’s passport and her letters in my anorak pocket. I had leafed through the passport but hadn’t read the letters therefore I had no idea what they contained, but for some reason the address on the envelopes had ingrained itself on my mind. On realising my oversight, I handed the passport and letters over and the detectives’ approach changed.

  Their looks implied that I had deliberately withheld critical evidence, they then backtracked over everything and their tone became hostile rather than receptive.

  Moreover, there were the drugs, or what I had assumed were cocaine and cannabis. Even though I explained how I had found the drugs in Ingrid’s rucksack – as the police did later – I had no proof that the drugs weren’t mine in the first place.

  Rowlands suggested quite forcibly and often, that after calling the police I didn’t want to be found in possession, so I had put the drugs in the rucksack to steer them away from the truth.

  Not believing the way the interview was going, it appeared as though Rowlands, in particular, wanted to pin something on me, no matter how tenuous. Fortunately, as I had no proof that I hadn’t put the drugs in Ingrid’s rucksack, the police had no proof that I had. My fingerprints would be on the wrappings because I admitted I had handled them, but…

  It was stalemate, but again fortunately and for the time being the law of the land was on my side.

  I didn’t know the rules that had to be applied to police interviews, but I’d seen sufficient pseudo-police dramas on television to know that I had to be offered a solicitor if they intended arresting me. There was no such offer, leading me to assume that, although their attitude changed, they had no evidence to support any charge they might try to bring against me.

  A swab was taken from the inside of my mouth but they didn’t actually accuse me of anything. However, they left me in little doubt as they brought the interview to a close that I should not leave the country.

  On leaving the police station, my accompanying smile was tinged with irony. Maybe I had been lucky, if I had been the police and was presented with the ‘facts’ perhaps I would have been equally suspicious.

  I was back where I started twenty-four hours earlier.

  The weather, which had become overcast and drizzly, mirrored the way I felt – downright miserable.

  When leaving Ashbourne the previous day, I was in high spirits, spurred on by my recent decisions I
was looking forward to the northerly leg of my journey back to Buxton.

  Now, at four o’clock in the afternoon, with the rain spattering on my face, the desire to spend another night in a cramped tent in a wet wood deserted me.

  My statement to the police contained my home address and telephone number but I explained to Rowlands that it was unlikely I would be there for at least another two weeks. No, I wasn’t going abroad but surely I could continue my ‘holiday’. He tried to suggest that I couldn’t but withdrew his objection when I asked for a justification. Understanding his concern, I did offer to phone him every couple of days to see if there was any further ‘assistance’ I could give with their enquiries.

  That seemed to appease him.

  I found a back-street hotel that turned out to be better than its position or its external décor suggested. After eating an early and wholesome, if not overly imaginative dinner, I bought a bottle of whisky from behind the bar and retired to my room. There was nothing on the television worth watching but I watched it anyway. It was a strange feeling … I didn’t want company of any sort, but I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts either.

  Lying on the bed with a tumbler of whisky within easy reach, I wished that I could relive the moments after first finding Ingrid – she would have been safe now, not lying in some refrigeration unit in the local morgue.

  It was all so wrong, so very wrong and only added to the melancholy that had brought me to the area in the first place.

  In my travels I had seen my share of death, squalor and sickness but I had also had the privilege to see and recognise the incredible determination that some people show under the most gruelling of circumstances. I had, rather hypocritically, worked alongside people who were the subjects of oppressive governments that squandered millions of pounds on projects that would not benefit the vast majority, governments that used force to suppress people who were actually their greatest asset, and governments that ignored corruption because to do otherwise would sever their own lifelines.

  I had seen, but fortunately not that frequently, corpses rotting by the roadside, their deaths caused by whatever the imagination conjured up. However, nothing I saw was personal. Belinda’s passing was extremely personal, and now Ingrid’s murder, was affecting me in the same way. I could do nothing about the horrific scenes I had witnessed but I could have done something about saving this young girl’s life.