Concrete Evidence by Conrad Jones

Special Constable’s wage.
    “Photographs can be deceiving,” Annie lied. “That’s why we always ask for distinguishing marks, tattoos and the like.”
    “I’m not stupid, Inspector.” Deep lines creased her face when she frowned. “It would be much simpler to use the photograph unless her face was so disfigured that it made it useless.”
    Annie sighed and felt a little embarrassed, “I know you’re not stupid. I can’t talk about the details. The long and short of it is that the victim didn’t have the tattoo that you described on her toe.”
      “Are you telling me that Jayne is not dead?” her thin lips quivered as she spoke.
    “No,” Annie said frankly. “I’m not telling you that at all but the victim in the bedroom was not Jayne.”
    “Of course, you can’t say much more can you?” As she spoke, her hand touched her face, wrinkled by age and coloured with dark liver spots. She was a pretty woman for her years. There were deep lines at the corners of her eyes but her cheeks were smooth. Only her hands gave away clues to her age. Annie put her closer to sixty-five than fifty. “I don’t understand, Inspector.” She jumped visibly as the roof of the house collapsed in on itself. A deep rumble echoed across the street. Burning embers, smoke and steam spiralled skyward. “She could be in there couldn’t she?” Another tear broke free and rolled down her face. “Buried beneath all that rubble.”
    Annie looked at the notes that the liaison officer had made. “Listen, Elsbeth,” she said. “May I call you that?”
    “Beth,” she sniffed. “Everyone calls me Beth.”
    “Okay, Beth. The facts are that the body we found didn’t have a tattoo and her feet were too small to be Jayne’s,” Annie explained. “The other thing to consider is that her car is missing. Can you think of any reason why it wouldn’t be parked on the drive?”
    Beth thought about her comments and shook her head. “She didn’t drink so she never left it anywhere else.”
    “Then the chances of her being in there,” Annie looked at the smouldering shell, “are very slim. We didn’t have a lot of time in there but a preliminary search was done by the responding officers. There was no sign of another victim.”
    “I’m not sure that’s a good thing, Inspector,” Beth smiled thinly. Her eyes had intelligence behind them. “Whoever killed that poor woman probably took Jayne with them.” She watched Annie’s face for a reaction. “At least that’s what I would be thinking if I was in your position. She could be lying dead somewhere while we’re sat here discussing her couldn’t she?”
    Annie nodded and sighed. “She could be but we don’t know that for a fact. A neighbour saw her going out on Saturday night. Who did Jayne socialise with?”
    “Jayne didn’t have many friends,” Beth said staring at what was left of her daughter’s home. “Might be my fault that she was awkward around people.”
    “How so?”
    “I had her very late in life you see,” she explained. “I’d turned forty. Her father died when she was a baby, heart attack and I wrapped her in cotton wool. I was a little over protective.” A tear formed and spilled from her left eye. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath. “Do you have children?”
    “No,” Annie smiled. “They’re not conducive with being a DI.” In her head she added ‘and now that I’m a one-eyed freak, I’m hardly likely to have much choice in the matter’ but she didn’t say it aloud.
    “Yes that must be difficult to get a balance.” Her voice drifted off as if she was in deep thought. A tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. “Don’t leave it too late like I did. Every woman should have a child, it makes them complete.”
    Annie didn’t agree. Some of the mothers that she encountered on a daily basis should never have been allowed to breed. It wasn’t a debate that she needed to get into. She didn’t want to lose