Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) - Lynda La Plante Page 0,43

had glugged most of her water, she said, ‘Why are you interested in that? I don’t think I’ll remember much, but go on.’

Her voice was soft, husky and very sexy, with the slightest hint of a Liverpool accent. Jack recalled the twenty-year-old photo of Connie on the evidence board . . . That was the woman who suited the voice he was listening to now.

‘I’d like to know what you remember about the train robbery.’

‘Terrible, it was. I couldn’t believe it had actually happened. We didn’t know anything about it until the police hammered on the door in the early hours. I understand why they came to us first but, well, as soon as they walked in, they knew they’d made a mistake. Still searched the place though, inside and out. Dolly said, “You damage it, you pay for it!” ‒ ’cos we’d had trouble before with some coppers taking the door off its hinges. Do you know about that?’

‘I do, yes. The report says they were looking for guns.’

‘Another mistake. It seems that once you’ve got a police record, there’s no leaving it behind.’ Connie finished her water. ‘I love this view. Don’t you?’

‘It’s impressive,’ Jack agreed. Then he got back on track. ‘How did you end up at The Grange?’

‘Ester Freeman invited me. She said Dolly Rawlins was getting released and she had a project she needed help with. She wanted to open a kids’ home. We all knew each other from inside and, well, I suppose Ester thought we all needed an opportunity to be better. That’s what it was, really. An opportunity to start again, give something back, look after troubled kids before they turned into us, you know.’ When Connie smiled, her dimples appeared, and her eyes sparkled. She dipped her gaze and looked up at Jack through her long black eyelashes. He couldn’t help but warm to her. ‘We all got on really well . . . or at least, I thought we did.’

‘Why do you think Ester shot Dolly?’

‘Money? Maybe even something less important than that. Ester lashed out at all of us at one time or another. Mostly verbal, but she couldn’t half slap hard as well. She called me a whore once, so I said something back and she whacked me. Have you met Ester?’ Jack’s smile told Connie that he had. ‘She’s a strange one, isn’t she? I mean . . .’ Connie’s face became serious as she thought back to the day Dolly died. ‘Dolly had made mistakes, but she’d paid for them. She was trying to do a good thing with the kids’ home and Ester, because of money or whatever, took that away. Took it away from all of us.’ She reflected for a while and Jack didn’t attempt to fill the pause. ‘You know when . . . like, something’s the best and worst all at the same time? The Grange was that. For me, anyway, I can’t speak for the others. It was exciting to be literally building our future ‒ which is why it hurt so much when we lost it.’

Jack nodded. ‘Talking of building, tell me about John Maynard.’

Connie blushed slightly, but still chose to look him straight in the eyes as she responded.

‘My, my, you have been doing your homework. I was a 20-something woman stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other women so, yes, me and John had a bit of a thing. Have you got my mugshot from back then, DC Warr?’ she teased. ‘I was a good catch, don’t you think? Even in a photo taken under your harsh police station strip lights.’ Connie sat up straight and leant towards Jack. ‘When a lady’s got no one to look good for, Jack, this happens. John was nice. Before him, I was with Lennie ‒ he’d beat me senseless, quite randomly. Training, he called it.’ She looked at him with her gentle smile and her dimples, and he could see tears pooling in the bottom lids of her striking, pale blue eyes. ‘What were those dogs called that were trained to think about food every time they heard a bell ring? Have I got that right?’

‘Pavlov’s dogs.’

‘That’s them. Within a couple of months of being with Lennie, he’d stopped hitting me ‒ but every time he walked into the room I’d shake, and sweat, and my heart would beat out of my chest. The memory of the beatings was enough by then, you see. That’s what kept me in my place. The fear.’ A