by Vicky Jones
Bradley held his hand up. “No, Mr. Davies. It’s about your son. Callum?”
Davies’ face darkened. “Not interested. Now, if you don’t mind? I’m a busy man.” He turned to walk away.
“He’s been gone a year now, Mr. Davies. His shoe was left by Canning Dock. You identified it at the time as belonging to him, right? Are you not in the least bit worried about him?” Chloe said. Bradley held his arm out to stop her following Davies back into his garage.
“Easy, Sharp. We want answers, not to piss him off,” Bradley said. But her words had angered Davies into turning back around and walking straight up to her. His eyes were like fire.
“Now, you listen to me, love. That little shit fucked off last year and left me here in the lurch running this place. Got his bird up the duff and panicked most likely, thinking he had to grow up finally. Said before he went that he was depressed and couldn’t handle life anymore. Never even thought that I might have problems of my own to deal with. He’s probably at the bottom of Canning Dock, and could be for all I care. He always was a waste of space, that lad. Wasn’t my fault his mother died when he was two. I did my best for the boy. If you find him, tell him he’s dead to me. Now, fuck off, the pair of you.”
In the glorious May evening sunshine, Katie looked out on to the English Channel and held the small brown urn close to her chest. Feeling the sharp grey pebbles on Brighton beach dig into her sandaled feet, she breathed in a huge lungful of sea air and steadied herself as the cold water lapped at her toes. Tom walked up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Doris and Violet are here now. Dawn’s just locking her car and heading down the boardwalk. How are you holding up?” he said in a soft voice. Katie looked into his clear green eyes, moist with unfallen tears.
“I think I’m ready.” She looked over his shoulder and saw the two older ladies from the funeral, both of them decked out in summer dresses and light macs, each a different pastel shade. Doris waved a handkerchief-laden hand, then dabbed her eyes. Approaching behind them was the rushing figure of Dawn.
“Sorry I’m late, Katie,” Dawn called over. “Are we ready to start?”
Tom looked at Katie, who nodded. The group approached and Katie took out a piece of paper and began reading.
“Auntie Joan loved the sea. She loved it here in Brighton. Lived here all her life. In that house over there.” She inclined her head to the row of Victorian terraces bordering the quiet stretch of road just outside the main town centre. “Her last wishes were for me to scatter her ashes here. On this spot. Where her husband Sam, God rest his soul, proposed to her in 1981, at this exact time on her twenty-first birthday. Auntie Joan had a good life. When her sister-in-law, my mother, died twenty-two years ago now, I was only five.” Katie stopped, realising how much time had passed since that day. She looked at the ripple of waves in the distance for a moment, then refocused and continued. “I was sent down here to live two years after. Auntie Joan never judged me. Never put too much pressure on me to fit in with life down here. I didn’t settle straight away. But she gave me the time and understanding to become who I wanted to be in life. I just wish she could have lived to see me start my own family. See my children grow up. Sixty years old. Far too soon to be taken.” Katie looked down at the urn and unscrewed the cap. “Auntie Joan, I will always remember you for your kindness, understanding, and you being a mum to me. I love you and I miss you so much. Goodbye.” Katie waited for the small group to gather close behind her before taking two steps forward into the swell of the waves. Reaching down, she emptied the contents of the urn, watching as they mingled with the white foam and tiny thin strings of greeny-black seaweed. The wave carrying the ashes receded, washing away all trace of her auntie.
“She’ll be looking down on you, proud as anything of you, Katie,” Dawn said, walking up to hug her.
“I hope so.”
“Any news on Jenny yet?” Dawn asked.
“Actually, you’ve just reminded me,” Katie said. She handed Dawn the now-empty urn and fished into her jacket pocket, taking out her mobile phone. “Nothing.” She heaved a huge sigh. Then, Katie began typing out a message.
“What are you putting?” Dawn asked.
“I’ll tell you if I get anything back,” Katie replied before clicking on send.
“We’d better get back. It’ll be getting dark soon,” Tom announced, looking down at their lengthening shadows.
“Goodbye, Auntie Joan. Thank you for everything,” Katie whispered to the ocean before turning around and following the little group away.
When they returned home, Katie couldn’t help but notice that Tom seemed agitated. He walked through the front door and into the kitchen, taking a bottle of beer out of the fridge. He snipped the cap off and slammed the bottle opener down on the counter.
“”You OK, babe?” Katie asked from the kitchen doorway.
“What was all that about, you saying to Dawn, ‘I’ll tell you if I get anything back’? From who? About what?” He took a slurp of beer and glared at her.
“Jenny. I just want to delve a little deeper into something, that’s all. Nothing sinister for you to worry about.”
“Listen. If it’s about this ‘Mollie’ business, maybe Jenny doesn’t want you to know about it. You’re not exactly close. If she doesn’t want to talk to you about it then you should just accept it. We’ve got other things to be planning, not you sticking your oar in where it’s clearly not wanted.” His green eyes were cold and angry, for the first time Katie could remember seeing them this way. She slammed her keys down on the counter near the door.
“I don’t know who I am anymore. Can’t you understand that? I have no roots, no family and no sense of belonging here anymore. I came down here when I was so young. I can’t even remember my life in Liverpool, let alone remember any friends I might have had. Have you any idea how that feels? I don’t hear from my dad and don’t have a mum. Fucking hell, Tom, I don’t even share the same accent with Jenny, let alone anything else. And to top it all off, my own niece thinks I’m a total stranger. I just want answers from Jenny. Is that so bad? I just need something to anchor myself to.”
“And you think your sister is it?” Tom replied through tight lips.
“I don’t know. I just want to find out a bit more about where I grew up. About Jenny. And who this mysterious ‘Mollie’ is.”
“She’s been the one ignoring you, remember. Maybe she’s not interested,” Tom snapped
“She’s grown up alone too. She might not have understood why Dad couldn’t cope with the two of us. Maybe she feels guilty that she got to stay and I was sent away. I think she’s just protecting herself.”
“From what?”
“Our past.”
Tom picked up his beer and nodded, his tongue pressing into his cheek. “Right, well, I guess if you have to do this then you will. I know better after five years together to try and talk you out of anything.” He walked past her in the doorway and stopped just long enough to kiss her lightly on the cheek.
Chapter 8
Rachel strode into the buzzing incident room, past the junior detectives who were writing case notes on whiteboards at either side of the room and the admin clerks filing their notes in cabinets beside them, and placed her takeaway coffee down on Mags’ desk. “Have you managed to find the other statements from the Davies case?”
Mags looked up from her phone. “The which case?”
Rachel looked at Mags’ phone screen and inwardly sighed when she saw her Facebook timeline full of holiday photographs. “The Callum Davies case? Young lad? New father? The case we’re working on?” She spread her arms.
“Oh, bloody hell, yes. Of course. Right.” She put her phone face down on the desk and scrabbled through the piles of paper cluttered up around her. “Um…leave it with me. It’s on my list to organise these by lunchtime.”
Rachel nodded and picked up her coffee. Three steps away from Mags’ desk, she turned back. “Oh, and did yo
u get a chance to contact that social worker we spoke about in yesterday’s briefing?”
“She doesn’t work there anymore. I tried her office and her mobile. Nothing.”
“Where does she work now?”
“Oh, I forgot to ask. I just thought we had enough statements already from that agency, that hers wouldn’t be that important.”
“Mags, come on,” Rachel said, sighing at length. “You’ve been in this game long enough to know every statement is important.”
The young PC, Mick, walked over to Mags’ desk, grinning broadly.
“How’s my work mum this morning?” He reached around the desk to embrace Mags.
“Hiya Mick, my little honey bun. Still with that girly?”
Rachel looked to the heavens and turned to head into her office. Waiting for her at the door was Superintendent Jenkins, his arms folded, his watchful eyes narrowed.
“You’ve got Laurel and Hardy all wrapped up in one there, Morrison,” he said, giving her a sardonic little smile.
Rachel forced a smile back.
“In all seriousness, she’s a good copper, Mags. She cares. Never wanted to rise through the ranks, but that’s only because she was always more of a team worker than a leader. Just make sure you tap into her experience. She’s good at what she does.” He turned to leave.
“With respect, sir, why was she assigned to me?” Rachel’s question was politely put, but her tone was accusing.
“We thought you might work well together. That’s why I brought in DC Sharp. Youth added to experience, all girls together, that kind of thing.”
His laugh annoyed Rachel, but her professionalism reminded her to remain deferential. Jenkins seemed to have forgotten about her own extensive experience including her years in the Met down in London. Fuming, she left the office and headed into the ladies’ toilet and began splashing her face with water from the sink.
“Oh, hello again,” a timid voice piped up from the sink next to Rachel’s. Rachel lifted her wet face and reached for a paper towel. A plump woman of around fifty stood staring expectantly at her. She was about six inches shorter than Rachel, with long ginger hair that was slightly curly, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on a string around her neck. “Remember me? Tina Saunders. I work in admin. We met on your first day here. I sorted out your ID.” Tina’s hazel eyes fixed on Rachel, who finally placed her and nodded.
“Of course. Hi.”
They stood in awkward silence for a few moments while Rachel dried her hands and reapplied her dark red lip gloss. Tina lingered by her side.
“Was there something I can help you with, Tina?” Rachel asked as she screwed the top back on her lip gloss and smacked her lips to spread the gloss out evenly.
“Well, yes, there was,” Tina replied, scrunching her paper towel over in her pudgy, clenched hands. “I notice a lot around here. Have done for years. And you seem like a lovely girl. I saw that from the first day. I said to myself, ‘Tina,’ I said, ‘you keep an eye on that girl. She doesn’t know half of the things that go on here. The characters who work here. The lies.’”
Rachel held her hands up. “Tina, what is it? I need to get back to my desk.” She spoke as gently as her rapidly waning patience could allow her to.
Tina’s stare hardened, her voice more determined and focused now. “Watch your back here, Detective Inspector. Not everyone is as friendly as they seem.”
Tina turned and left the ladies’ toilet, with Rachel left in a weird mix of confusion and disbelief. Have I just been warned? she thought.
Tom sloped barefoot down the soft, white carpeted stairs rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He yawned loudly as he entered the kitchen, stopping when he saw Katie sat at the oak breakfast bar nursing a half-drunk cup of coffee.
“You’re up early,” he said. He nodded down to her cup. “Want a refill?”
“No thanks. I’m not feeling too good, actually. I’ve called in sick.”
“Called in sick?” Tom repeated. “You’ve never done that in the whole time you’ve worked there. What’s wrong?”
“Not sure. Maybe I’m due on or something? You know when I’m stressed my cycle goes up the wall. It feels like a period pain, but without the period, if you know what I mean? Just feel hot and bothered.”
Tom placed a palm on her forehead. “Maybe you should go back to bed then. You probably got cold at the beach last night. Want me to call in at the boatyard? I can stay home and look after you? Might even be some homemade soup in it for you?” He smiled and wrapped his arms around her neck. But Katie squirmed away.
“No, it’s OK. I’ll just go take a bath and get back into bed or something. Hot water bottle and some crap telly and I’ll be fine. Plus, you’ve already taken too much time off. You can’t lose that job, Tom.”
“OK then. If that’s what you want,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ll go run you a bath.”
He walked back upstairs and left Katie in the kitchen. Looking back, he noticed her scrolling through her phone and frowning each time her thumb stopped moving.
The atmosphere inside Rachel’s office was one of pure concentration. Heads were down, analysing old police statements with a fine-toothed comb, gentle murmurs rippling around the rectangular table in the corner. Every now and again, eyes locked and nods followed. Mags had her glasses on the end of her nose as she pored over one statement in particular and made a few notes on her pad. Chloe and Rachel sat next to each other, looking down at a file and sharing their hypotheses. DC Bradley was in the other corner of the office speaking in hushed tones on his phone. Outside, Supt. Jenkins was peering into Rachel’s office through the gap in the blinds, not noticing ACC Clifford walking quietly up behind him.
“How’s my crack team getting on?” ACC Clifford said, his deep voice vibrating in Jenkins’ ear.
“Great so far. A couple of cases already boxed off, and the next being worked on as we speak.”
Clifford smiled and rocked back on his heels. “I had to twist some arms to get that funding. I don’t want it wasted. You hear what I’m saying?” He gave Jenkins a sharp look.
“Loud and clear, sir,” Jenkins replied.
“Results, Graham. That’s what we all want. We’re on a time press, remember.”
Jenkins flashed Clifford a confused look. “But what about any cases that don’t get solved in time?”
“Those ones will have to remain unsolved. Or better yet, buried.”
“The IPCC would never let us get away with that. Not to mention the press, and the families of those mispers,” Jenkins said, shaking his head.
“I know. It will look much better for us all if all of those unsolved cases get put to bed once and for all. One way or another. Otherwise it’s not just my arse on the line, it’s yours too.”
Lying back on her couch, Katie pulled her blue bathrobe tightly around her. An hour in a hot bubble bath had relaxed her only to a point, but as she scrolled through her messages to Jenny, her hackles began to rise again. A text from Tom flashed up on the screen, breaking her concentration. After a quick text back to tell him she didn’t need any painkillers picking up, she clicked back into the sent messages folder.
“What did I say wrong?” she asked herself as she read over the wording of all her messages. Her thumb hovered over the Facebook app on her phone. She tapped it and scrolled through Jenny’s timeline. “Active one fucking hour ago?” she raged at the screen. “Right, plan B then.” She scrolled through Jenny’s list of friends and clicked on the top picture, the woman Katie knew was Jenny’s best friend. “Right, ‘Hayley Whittaker’, let’s see what you’re about then.” To her surprise, Jenny appeared in this woman’s profile picture, pouting at the camera as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Seeing Hayley’s privacy settings allowed strangers to private message her, Katie typed out a message and pressed send.
Hi Hayley, hope you’re well? I know that you’re my sister Jenny’s closest friend and I was just a bit worried about her. She seemed to get
upset the other day when I mentioned a ‘Mollie’. Do you know anything about this girl?
Within a minute, Katie read Hayley’s curt reply.
It’s not my place to say. You need to speak to Jenny about this. Thanks.
“What the fuck?” Katie said, her face frozen in disbelief, feeling more confused and in the dark than ever.
Jenny’s yoga studio was a small, simply decorated room in a converted warehouse unit near the Albert Dock. Its white walls and soft marble effect linoleum flooring gave the room a calmness that befitted its purpose. The amber glow from the uplighters fixed to the walls radiated warmth and peace. Jenny, barefoot and wearing purple Lycra leggings and a matching vest top, stood at the front of the small group that had arrived for their class and switched on the relaxation music. She smiled at them.
“Good morning, everyone. So today, we’re going to start with some gentle stretching and—.”
“Sorry we’re late,” two breathless voices sounded from the doorway. The two older ladies dropped their bags by the coat hooks and ripped their coats off, revealing their matching Lycra outfits. They took their shoes and socks off.
“That’s OK, Jean. Why don’t you and Flora just join at the back there,” Jenny replied, pointing to an empty space behind the back row of the group. They did so, and, just as Jenny was about to press play on the docking station, her phone lit up with a notification. Gazing down at it, she saw it was from Hayley.
Your sister has been asking about Mollie. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her anything. But just wanted to give you the heads-up.
“Um…Jen? Are we starting soon?” a dark-haired young woman from the front row said in a meek voice.
