by Louise Voss
‘Davis did mention this, yes,’ Lincoln said, scratching his ear. ‘But I’m not sure that—’
Gemma interrupted him. ‘She was really freaked out when Mark – DS Davis recognised her.’ Flustered that she’d spoken over him, she rushed on: ‘And she’s got this massive scar – well, hole thing, really – on the back of her hand that she’s very cagey about. She just says she doesn’t like to talk about it and clams up. I Googled Cohen, and it turns out she quit the band really suddenly in’ – she consulted her notes – ‘ninety-five. When they were at the height of their success. She seems scared, and paranoid. I was wondering…’
Mavis was shooting daggers at her, presumably thinking that it should have been him who imparted this information. She gritted her teeth, hoping that the blush she could feel sweeping across her face wasn’t too obvious to everybody else. She willed her voice to stay firm as she continued:
‘…I was wondering if I could go and be her FLO for a few days? Partly because she’s in a state; she lives in this isolated cottage in the grounds of Minstead House, and I’m worried, if someone’s trying to target her, she could be next. But also so I can really get to know her better. Like, why is she working in a gift shop and renting a tiny cottage? She must have made a fortune during her time with the band. She might tell me whatever it is she doesn’t want us to know…?’
Lincoln coughed again, and Mavis pressed his lips together in a tight line of disapproval. Gemma stared at her hands, willing them to agree so that she didn’t look like a complete twat in front of everybody. It had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, to get herself involved in the investigation, but it wasn’t normal to assign Family Liaison Officers to anyone outside of family members of the victims.
‘Are you an experienced FLO?’ Lincoln scrutinised her, his head on one side.
‘Yes, boss. I’ve had more than twenty placements over the past five years. I’ve already met Meredith. I’m sure I could establish a good rapport with her. I know it’s not standard procedure to stay over, but under the circumstances I think it would be a good idea…?’
She didn’t dare to look around to see the scowl she knew would be on Mavis’s face at this. Meredith hadn’t warmed to him at that first interview, and he’d acted as if it was a personal affront ever since. And now she was suggesting that she broke official FLO protocols.
‘She’s got her brother. Why doesn’t he go and stay with her?’ said Mavis. ‘And surely she’s working during the day. What are you going to do, hang around her shop all day?’
Gemma stood her ground. ‘She told me she’s taking a few days off – compassionate leave. Her brother’s working – got some big commission to finish apparently, so he’ll be holed up in his workshop in Minstead Village. Just think how much intel I could get out of her if she’s at home alone for a few days. She trusts me, I know she does. She said before she’d only talk to me.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lincoln. ‘But first can you look at all the CCTV available from the day Ralph Allerton vanished? Let’s see if that throws anything up.’
Gemma had to avert her eyes in order not to throw Mavis a smug look. ‘Already done, boss. He’s not seen on camera coming down from his office that afternoon, but the cameras are only on the main staircase and external doors. He must have used the back staircase, the one the servants would have used, but Meredith Vincent said that wasn’t unusual – staff often use that one when the house is closed to the public. Cameras also picked up Meredith’s brother arriving on his bike at around eight-forty p.m., which tallies with her statement.’
‘What about interviews with all the staff working that day? Did anybody see Allerton leave?’
‘We haven’t done any other interviews yet. Of course we’d have done them straight away,’ Mavis said defensively, ‘if we’d known it was going to be a crime scene.’
If you’d realised it was a crime scene, you twat, thought Gemma, somewhat unfairly. There had been no reason at first to suspect that Allerton’s death was anything other than an accident.
‘So now that we know it is,’ said Lincoln, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, ‘I suggest you get back over there and do a search around the pond. Please tell me the pond was cordoned off in the golden hour?’
Mavis nodded, chastened. ‘Of course, boss. PC Khan here closed down the scene when he got there.’
Emad had opened his mouth to agree, nodding furiously, but Lincoln spoke first.
‘Well, that’s something at least. Get a team down there to do a thorough search of the area surrounding the pond again. If he was dumped, there should be footprints, tyre tracks, something. He was a big guy; he can’t have been that easy to transport. Mark, you go back and speak to the wife, tell her about these new developments.’
At the mention of tyre tracks, Gemma caught Emad glaring in an uncharacteristically confrontational way at Damian, who was studiously avoiding his eye. ‘There were wheelbarrow tracks,’ Emad blurted. ‘Deep ones, leading to the pond.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you put them in your report, then?’ Lincoln’s brows furrowed with irritation as he stabbed with a thick finger at the printout of Emad and Damian’s report about the scene.
Poor Emad, thought Gemma. His expression had reverted to its default one of humility, and it took her straight back to their schooldays, how cowed he looked when the teacher asked him a question he couldn’t answer.
‘It’s an area that the house’s gardeners go through a lot – the pond lies between the greenhouses and the vegetable gardens. But surely Allerton wouldn’t have fitted into a wheelbarrow?’ she said.
‘He could have done,’ Lincoln said grimly. ‘If he was already dead, and the person or people wheeling him were strong enough to lift him into it.’
‘Right,’ said Gemma. ‘We’ll talk to all the gardeners, see who was around that night. Emad, can you make a start on that?’
Emad nodded, opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Gemma smiled encouragingly at him, and Lincoln spotted it. ‘Was there something else, Emad?’
‘It might be nothing, sir,’ he said reluctantly, his voice barely audible over the judder of the elderly aircon unit, ‘but I was thinking: you mentioned that Meredith’s twin arrived at eight-fortyish on the night Allerton went missing. She said that she and Pete were going out for a drink but then decided against it. I was just wondering why he would have cycled all the way up to Minstead House? I mean, why didn’t she just meet him in the pub, if they’d intended to go out? The nearest pub’s the Ship in Minstead Village. No reason for him to go up to the house first. And she said he was “picking her up” for a drink, but he arrived on his bike. I don’t think he even has a car, does he?’
Gemma was about to agree, but Mavis jumped in: ‘I’m sure that’s no big deal, Emad. They probably hadn’t decided whether to go out or stay in, that’s all, so they’d agreed he’d come up to her and then they’d see how they felt.’
Chastened, Emad looked down, not meeting anybody’s eyes. Gemma made a mental note to congratulate him later for thinking of it. It was a good point. Why wouldn’t Pete have just gone to meet Meredith at the pub? The Ship was only up the road from Pete’s boat. It didn’t make sense. She would pay Meredith another visit and ask her.
26
1983
Meredith
When I remembered back, that birthday at Greenham marked the first major turning point of my life. It had been a day of firsts, both good and bad: first demo, first kiss, first arrest, first body search.
First time I learned what I’d been too self-obsessed to realise; that I was about to lose my dad.
I couldn’t take it in. In fact, to begin with, I thought it was some kind of sick joke; perhaps a punishment for me absconding to Greenham and getting arrested on my birthday, leaving just a note.
Samantha and I, and all the other women, had been released with a caution at 2.00 a.m. I’d rung home from a payphone outside the police station, reversing the charges. Dad h
ad answered, wearily, and hadn’t said a word while I apologised down the phone, suddenly mortified at my reckless behaviour. I saw myself from high above, a small, dirty bear in wellies, tear-stained and sobbing in a phone box.
Samantha waited outside, wandering a little way down the road when she heard my sobs. I was glad that she was still there, and more glad that she was being discreet. It was all so embarrassing, but a combination of delayed shock, tiredness and Dad’s familiar voice combined to set me off, and I cried so much that Dad had to keep telling me to take deep breaths as I ‘sorried’ until I almost puked. When I told him I’d been arrested and released with a caution for public-order offences, at first he assumed I had been arrested in Salisbury after a raucous birthday celebration with my friends.
‘Reading? Why did they bring you to Reading?’ I heard the alarm in his voice.
‘Because that’s the nearest police station to Greenham Common,’ I hiccupped.
‘Greenham Common?’
Mum, who’d obviously woken up and joined Dad at the phone at the bottom of the stairs, squawked in horror. I pictured her ear jostling for receiver space next to his.
‘Yes. I told you that’s where I was!’
‘No you didn’t!’ Mum shrieked. ‘What the hell were you doing there?’
‘I left you a note. In Pete’s room.’
‘Pete went straight out after dinner. We thought we heard you both come back about midnight, but it must just have been him.’
Oh shit. None of them had seen the note. They hadn’t even been aware I’d gone. This made me feel both better and worse.
‘So you thought I’d just ignored the birthday dinner?’
‘Yes,’ Dad said mildly down the phone. ‘For reasons we couldn’t quite fathom.’
I heard Mum snort at his restraint, and it made me cry harder. I’d have preferred her outraged censure to Dad’s understated disappointment.
‘Daddy,’ I said, even though I’d stopped calling him ‘Daddy’ when I was thirteen, ‘please could you come and pick me up?’
Bless him, he did come. He said he’d pick me up from Reading Police Station at four o’clock. Samantha and I drank stewed brown tea in an all-night cafe in town, talking nonstop, and then wandered back to wait outside the station at the appointed time. He arrived at bang on 4.00 a.m., pulling up in our bottle-green Ford Escort. I’d never been so pleased to see him. We dropped Samantha off at the camp – I’d been hoping she’d want to come back to Salisbury with me, but she said all her stuff was in her tent – and then embarked on the empty road home.
‘She seems like quite a character,’ Dad said, after Samantha had slammed the rear passenger door and chirped her goodbyes, telling me she’d see me soon, thankfully not trying to kiss me in front of him.
‘She is.’ I pulled off my wellies and put my sweaty feet up on the dashboard. They smelled, but Dad didn’t remark on it. ‘I only just met her, yesterday. She lives in Salisbury too; that’s how we got talking. She really looked after me, it was so kind of her. I – I left Pete’s rucksack there. She’s going to bring it back.’
Dad was silent for a while, an unlit pipe clamped between his lips as he drove carefully along the deserted duel carriageway.
‘I could ask you what you were thinking, and why you did it,’ he said. ‘Your mum was in tears earlier when she realised you’d gone out before your birthday dinner. She spent a long time cooking that for you, you know. Pete was there, but it wasn’t the same without you.’
My own tears immediately returned to my eyes. Mum and I had a fractious relationship, but I hated the thought that I had made her cry. I hadn’t thought she’d be that bothered.
‘I seem to be upsetting her a lot recently,’ I said, wiping the back of my hand under my nose. ‘I understand about the dinner, and I’m sorry. I’ll tell her I am. But why did she have a fit yesterday morning, about me not wanting to pick up that stupid magazine from the newsagents? And why’s she always yelling at me?’
Dad sighed. ‘That wasn’t about you. Not yesterday. She was upset about something else.’
‘What?’ I tried not to sound belligerent, but did anyway.
There was a long pause. Dad’s eyes were fixed on the dark road.
‘Dad, what is it? You’re not getting divorced, are you?’
‘It’s nothing like that, love.’ He sounded so sad.
‘Please, just tell me.’
‘Well, Mum wanted you to go out because we had to phone the hospital at eight-fifteen for some test results.’
‘On…?’
‘On me. I haven’t been feeling very well lately. You’ve probably noticed that I’m very tired at the moment and a bit yellow-looking? And I’ve had this awful backache?’
Apart from witnessing him clutching his back and groaning occasionally, I’d been oblivious, but I nodded.
‘I had a few tests at the Infirmary a couple of weeks ago. I can’t … I’m sorry, but…’
His voice suddenly sounded as if someone had their hand clamped around his throat while he was trying to be sick. My heart clenched with fear.
‘No,’ I whispered.
Dad changed down a gear to take a corner and the Escort shuddered.
‘Darling girl. I’m so sorry. When we rang up yesterday, they told us to come in. So we did. And the consultant told us. I’m afraid it’s … it’s cancer. Pancreatic cancer.’
I burst into tears again. I wanted to jump into his arms but he was driving, so I hugged myself instead, wrapping my arms tightly around my body till my hands were clutching my own shoulder blades.
‘But … but, they can operate, right? Can you have a … a transplant? A pancreas transplant?’
Dad smiled faintly. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It wouldn’t work. It’s already spread to my liver and kidneys and spine.’
‘No, no. No!’ I railed, rocking. This couldn’t be happening. ‘What else can they do?’
Over the engine noise, I heard the gulp as he swallowed hard.
‘Nothing, unfortunately. The trouble with this type of … of, cancer’ – he extruded the word with difficulty – ‘is that you don’t get any noticeable symptoms of it for a very long time. They think I’ve had it for months, maybe even years. And once it spreads, it’s impossible to treat. It’s really too late to do anything.’
‘Oh, Daddy.’ I plucked uselessly at the sleeve of his tweed jacket, almost howling, regretting every snappy word and stroppy flounce I’d ever said and performed. Every possible thing I’d ever done to cause him sorrow.
‘The dinner. My birthday dinner…’ I’d blown out what was probably the last birthday dinner Pete and I would ever have with him. ‘I wouldn’t have gone off to Greenham if I’d known. I swear I wouldn’t.’
‘Of course, darling girl. Of course.’
I cried the rest of the way home, pulling up my knees and sobbing into them until the fur was matted and humid with my tears.
Once Dad had finally killed the engine and coasted into our driveway, we both climbed stiffly out of the car, and I saw for the first time how thin and weary he looked, how hunched and pained. I ran into his arms, the tears still coming thick and fast, and we stood hugging each other outside the house in the pre-dawn chill, me still in wellies and the stupid bear costume.
‘Come on,’ he whispered eventually. ‘Get yourself to bed for a few hours. And, Meredith?’
‘Yes?’
‘Please … look after Mum for me. When I’m gone.’
‘I will, Dad, I promise.’
27
1983
Meredith
For the first time, I was disappointed not to smell Caitlin’s patchouli scent and hear the little bells jingling on her Indian skirt when I arrived at nine o’clock the Saturday after my birthday.
It had been a horrible week at home, now that the news was out about Dad. Mum was no longer trying to hide her emotions and would grab any of us who passed within arm’s reach i
n long, tight hugs that took every ounce of my self-restraint not to break out of. I’d never been a very huggy person – unless the bestower was Samantha, as I’d recently discovered.
Pete wouldn’t talk about it at all, and was in a massive mood with me for leaving his rucksack and sleeping bag at Greenham, even though I kept saying he’d get it back, and if he didn’t, I’d buy him new ones. Dad looked worse every day. Now that I knew, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before. It was as if he was shrinking before our eyes. I couldn’t take it in.
School was increasingly tedious, and I couldn’t concentrate on my A levels because my head was so full of panic: panic about Dad’s condition; panic about never seeing Samantha again – I hadn’t heard a word from her; panic about failing my exams…
So it was a relief to get to work on Saturday, and I’d been dying to compare notes with Caitlin about the teddy bears’ picnic.
The shop door was unlocked when I arrived, but the shutters were still down. Alaric, Sarum Discs’ owner, was behind the shop counter making himself a cup of tea from the kettle in the alcove. He didn’t offer to make me one. In fact, he had a face like a slapped arse – probably because he loathed getting up before eleven, especially on a Saturday.
‘Where’s Caitlin?’
He scratched his black stubble and scowled. ‘In prison.’
‘What?’
‘She only went and got herself arrested at Greenham Common last weekend.’
I ripped off my jacket, joined him behind the counter and hung it on the back of the battered swivel chair next to the till. ‘Oh my God! Actually, I got arrested there last weekend too.’ I couldn’t keep the pride out of my voice. ‘But how come she’s in prison? I got released with a warning. She doesn’t have any previous, does she?’
I said ‘previous’ oh-so-casually, the vocabulary of being arrested tripping off my tongue as if it was a regular occurrence.
