Free Dusty Death by J. M. Gregson Page A

down wonderingly at the black trousers of his evening dress, as if he could not comprehend how different his life was now from those almost forgotten days. ‘It seems like another world, now. It seems more than thirteen years ago. Another world entirely.’
    As he repeated himself, they saw just how exhausted he was. They were going to have to come back to him, to press him hard for every detail they could get. They weren’t going to get much more from him tonight. Peach said softly, ‘Sunita, you said. What was the girl’s second name?’
    Matthew shook his head wearily. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I ever knew. We didn’t give away much about ourselves. I was just Matt. She was just Sunita.’
    â€˜That doesn’t sound English.’
    â€˜She was Asian-English. Brought up here from birth, I think, but her parents were immigrants. Pakistanis, I think. Well, I’m sure they were.’
    â€˜From Brunton?’
    â€˜No. Not far away, though. Lancashire, somewhere, I’m sure. I think it might have been around Bolton.’
    It tallied. They were getting nearer to an identification. Peach gave no hint of his excitement as he asked calmly, ‘You’re sure you don’t recall a second name?’
    Matthew shook his head exhaustedly. ‘No, and I won’t get one, however long you give me to think. I don’t think I ever knew her second name. I told you, we kept our own secrets. And what people didn’t tell you, you didn’t ask too much about. It’s one of the rules, in a squat.’
    He could hear the final movement of the seventh symphony thundering out triumphantly now, even through the walls and the closed doors. That showed how silent it was in here. ‘The apotheosis of the dance’, Wagner had called this symphony; a fanciful idea which seemed a long way from his examination by these two watchful adversaries in this private cell of interrogation.
    Peach looked at his man, wondering how much more he could take, deciding that he had probably got beyond the stage where he was capable of any elaborate deceit. But there was still one highly important area to be explored. ‘Mr Hayward, you’ve admitted you were driving around the area because you thought the corpse which had been discovered might have been this girl Sunita. Why did you think that? Why, when you heard that the body of a woman had been found during excavations, did you immediately think that it might be this particular girl?’
    They’d come back to that, when Matthew thought they’d left it and moved on. He wanted to construct some elaborate and convincing reason for his journey to the site, but he was beyond it now and he knew it. He said dully, ‘She disappeared. One day she was with us, the next day she was gone. No one knew where.’
    â€˜You asked the others about it, at the time?’
    â€˜Yes, I asked. No one knew.’
    â€˜Do you think that someone did know, but was concealing the information from you?’
    â€˜No.’ He shook his head hopelessly in his fatigue. ‘I don’t know, do I? It’s a long time ago. I think I decided eventually that Sunita had just gone away. People did that, all the time.’
    â€˜But in all probability she didn’t, did she? If we assume for a moment that this body is that of Sunita, she died at twenty-six Sebastopol Terrace or very near to it. That is where the corpse was unearthed on Monday.’
    Matthew stared unseeingly at his casual clothes on the hanger on the wall. ‘How did she die?’
    â€˜How long were you there after she disappeared, Mr Hayward?’
    â€˜I don’t know. A month, maybe two months. I can’t be accurate about the detail, all these years later.’
    â€˜We’ll need the fullest possible details of the people who were in that house with you.’
    â€˜I can’t recall much about them. People came and went, and