by Jane Casey
Pam, her hairdresser. Who said I wasn’t good at observing things?
She was looking down at the grave. ‘Are you responsible for those?’
Those were yellow roses, the stems long and spindly, the blooms tightly furled against the March cold. ‘What’s wrong with them? Genevieve loved yellow roses.’
‘They’re quite miserable, aren’t they? Quite pathetic. I don’t know what florist you used, but they saw you coming.’
My cheeks were hot. ‘It’s not a great time of year for roses. The man said—’
‘He said whatever he needed to say to persuade you to buy them and of course you fell for it.’ My mother ran a knuckle under her eyes carefully, in case her eyeliner had smudged. Her make-up was thick, layered on the way she’d been taught when she was cabin crew, before she gave up her job. I sometimes wondered if I’d missed the time in her life when she’d been happy – if it had been when she was travelling the world, trim in her air hostess uniform, beaming at businessmen, or if it had been when she was a new mum, or when Genevieve won her first gymnastics medal. All I could remember was this stiff, cold woman who had never got over the great tragedies of her life. The first was my father leaving her with two small daughters, preferring the boundless warmth and good humour of the plump colleague who had won his heart. He had left us behind without a second glance, my mother had reminded me every time I cried for him. He hadn’t cared to fight for custody of us. We would have got in his way. Instead, my mother was stuck with us, so she couldn’t have a life of her own. A familiar lurch of guilt made me put a hand to my stomach. It hadn’t been my fault, but I felt as if it was.
My mother’s second tragedy wasn’t my fault either. It was lying at our feet, six feet down.
‘Do you ever think about what she’d be doing if she was here?’ If cancer hadn’t taken her when she was twenty, my beautiful and clever and funny sister with her quick sense of humour and her endless energy …
Mum looked at me as if I was insane. ‘What would be the point of thinking about that?’
‘I just wonder if she’d have ended up being a police officer. If she’d have liked it, I mean. I wonder if the reality would have lived up to her expectations.’
‘She would have done it brilliantly.’ She bent to lay the lilies on the grave. ‘She did everything brilliantly.’
‘She did. But it’s a tough job. I’ve been working on a case that—’
‘Georgia, do you mind? I want to think about Genevieve today. It’s her day.’
I nodded, the words evaporating from my mind. I took a step back, and another, and then stumbled away to a small bench in the corner of the graveyard. I sat and watched her, ramrod straight and immaculate, heels together and toes at ten to two as she communed with her dead daughter. A memory made me cringe: the days after the funeral, and the uncontrollable howling misery that had consumed her. I’d sobbed too, crouching at the end of her bed, unable to help her or myself. Once, despairing, I’d cried, ‘I wish it had been me. I wish I’d died instead.’
That had got through to her. She’d rolled over and sat up to stare at me, wild-eyed, her hair frizzed around her head. ‘What did you say?’
I’d repeated myself, snivelling. I was waiting for comfort, for reassurance. I was waiting for her to wrap herself around me so we could share our misery.
What I got was a hiss of rage. ‘How dare you try to make this about yourself, Georgia? You are the most selfish girl. Get out of my sight. Get out.’
I’d crept away to my own room and wept all night until I was voiceless, my eyes puffy, my face bloated with misery.
She hadn’t noticed or cared.
I shivered, coming back to the graveyard to see her making her way towards me. I was hunched inside my coat, freezing. How long had I been sitting there?
‘Georgia.’ She put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Sit up straight. You look like an old woman.’
‘Sorry.’ I drew my shoulders back and lifted my head.
‘That’s better.’ Her eyes scanned my face, examining me. ‘You really need to look after your skin more carefully if you want to wear that light make-up. Every imperfection stands out. Unless you like to be blotchy.’
I looked down, frowning.
‘Still no proper boyfriend?’
‘No.’ Hardy came into my mind, as he tended to these days, but I pushed him away. I didn’t want to talk about him with her. Not that there was anything to talk about – except a look from him as I was saying goodbye that seemed to reach all the way to my heart. I had his contact details; I could speak to him whenever I wanted.
I hadn’t got beyond staring at the phone number so far.
My mother smiled thinly. ‘If you keep giving the milk away, dear, you can’t expect anyone to want to buy the cow.’
‘That’s not – that’s not what I do. That’s not how people think.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Her eyes were cold. ‘When are you going to make something of yourself, Georgia? When I think of all the opportunities you’ve had, I could cry.’
‘I am something,’ I said. ‘I’m a detective constable with the Met Police. I just worked on a case that was on the front page of every newspaper in the UK.’
‘I don’t know anything about that. I don’t read the newspapers.’ She pulled her coat around herself. ‘Seen anything of your father lately?’
‘No.’
‘No. You were never his favourite.’
I looked up at her dumbly. For the first time, I realised I’d learned that impulse to be cruel from her, as if lashing out and hurting other people did anything to help me. I wanted to ask her if it made her feel better, or if she regretted it later like I did.
‘You have lines on your face already.’ She rubbed her thumb over the skin between my eyebrows as if she could smudge them away. ‘I didn’t have wrinkles until I was at least a decade older than you, and I used to tan because we didn’t know any better. I’d have thought you would look younger for longer. I think it’s time to look into getting some Botox. Freshen up a little.’
‘Mum,’ I protested, and she shook her head.
‘The bloom is off the rose, Georgia. You’ll never get it back now. The best you can do is try to hide it.’ She sighed. ‘It’s some comfort to me that I didn’t have to watch Genevieve grow old. She died when she was at the peak of her beauty.’
Genevieve had been swollen-faced, yellow, wracked with pain, skeletal. I felt nausea rise like a tide, along with defiance.
‘That’s not how it was. I remember her when she was dying and she wasn’t beautiful. She was broken. She suffered so much.’
‘I don’t like to think about it.’ Her face was shuttered, withdrawn.
‘Of course you don’t, but that’s no reason to compare me with her. I never come out ahead.’ I swallowed. ‘Maybe for once you could try seeing the good things about me instead of listing all the bad things.’
‘Such as?’
I stood up and faced her. ‘Such as the fact that I’m good at what I do. I make a difference in the world. It doesn’t come easily to me but I don’t give up. I may not be the best, or the quickest, or the funniest or the prettiest, but I’m good enough, and I’m getting better all the time.’
I’d never challenged her before. I had no idea how she was going to react, and for a moment, neither did she. Eventually she managed, ‘What makes you think that’s true?’
I had an answer for that too.
‘My sergeant told me I was.’ I swallowed the knot in my throat that was making it hard to speak. ‘Her name is Maeve. And I know it’s true because she’s never wrong.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ my mother said faintly. And then, ‘Good for you.’
‘Thank you.’
To my surprise, she leaned in to give me a light, awkward hug.
‘Call me soon.’
‘I will.’
‘And get a manicure, won’t you? Your nails are a disgrace.’
I curled my hands into f
ists involuntarily. Then I straightened them again, defiant. Yes, that nail is broken, and my varnish is chipped, and I cracked that one during a search, and my cuticles are neglected. It’s because I have more important things to worry about.
She walked away without saying anything more. I watched her go. Then I stepped carefully around the graves until I reached Genevieve’s. Over my head, the blackbird began to sing again. This time it was a rippling, mellow sound, musical and joyous: a celebration instead of a warning. I stood there – alone, and not needing to be anything else – and listened to the birdsong floating up to the pale spring sky.
Keep Reading …
Read on for a sneak peek of The Cutting Place, the latest book in Jane Casey’s series following Maeve Kerrigan & Josh Derwent, out now!
1
For a few moments, it was the quietest place in London. The area under the footbridge was as hushed as a chapel while the black mortuary van was pulling away. A little group of us had gathered there to show our respects, photograph-still: uniformed officers, forensic investigators, a team from the Marine Police unit in their wetsuits, a pair of detectives and a small grey-haired woman in waterproofs and rubber boots standing to one side, her arms folded. Then the van disappeared from view and the picture dissolved into movement. Back to work. Life goes on.
The woman in waterproofs turned to me.
‘Is that it, then? Can I go?’
‘Not yet, if you don’t mind. I need to hear your account of what happened.’
Kim Weldon gave a deep, testy sigh. ‘I’ve been here for hours. I’ve told you everything I know already.’
She hadn’t told me, because I’d only been there for a few minutes, but I decided not to point that out. I was used to arriving at a crime scene last of all, the detective sergeant coming in with a notebook and a pen and an endless list of questions when everyone just wanted to go home. ‘I know it’s frustrating, Mrs Weldon, but we’ll try not to keep you for much longer. Do you need to let someone know you’re running late?’
She shook her head. ‘I live alone since my husband died. No one’s waiting for me. But I got here at five this morning and I’m tired.’
‘Early start.’ The comment came from over my shoulder, where DI Josh Derwent had apparently decided to take an interest in the conversation. ‘That’s keen.’
‘Of course. It’s the best time to be here. Before all of … this.’ She gestured at the footbridge over our heads, where the tide of commuters heading to work in the City formed a second river, flowing as ceaselessly as the Thames towards the great dome of St Paul’s. ‘It’s so busy now. I can’t even think.’
It seemed quiet enough to me, but Derwent nodded. ‘Let’s find somewhere more peaceful where we can talk. A café, or—’
‘The best place to talk around here is down there.’ She gestured over the wall to the foreshore, a strip of shingle a few metres wide that extended to the left and right along the river bank. ‘I can show you where I was. Easier than having to describe it all.’
‘How do we get down there?’ I asked.
‘There are steps.’ She set off towards them, moving briskly, and we followed her obediently. ‘But you’ll have to come down one at a time and mind how you go. It’s steep and it gets slippery.’
The steps were concrete and more like a ladder than stairs. The treads were so narrow I had to step sideways, juggling my bag and clipboard awkwardly, off balance. My long coat threatened to trip me up at every step. Kim Weldon was short and had a low centre of gravity, unlike me, so that explained why she had found it easy. On the other hand, Derwent was taller than me – just – and he had rattled down in no time, as light on his feet as a boxer despite his broad-shouldered build. He stood at the foot of the thirty or so steps and watched my progress, which didn’t help.
‘You could come down backwards.’
‘This is fine.’
‘Do you need a hand?’
‘I can manage.’
‘Only we all have other places to be.’
‘I know,’ I said through gritted teeth, concentrating on placing my feet carefully. The shingle below shimmered in the morning light, out of focus and dizzy-making.
‘Like a cat coming down a tree. I can call the fire brigade out to rescue you if you like. It’s not as if Trumpton have anything better to do.’
‘I’m fine,’ I snapped, and ignored the hand he reached up to help me down the last few steps. He stuck it back in his coat pocket with a grin that I also ignored as I made it to the shingle at last. Kim Weldon was watching us with interest. Considering I spent so much time assessing witnesses it shouldn’t have surprised me to remember it was a two-way process. I tried to see us as she might: officialdom in dark trouser-suits and polished shoes, Derwent’s hair cropped close to his head in a way that hinted at a military background, broodingly handsome. I was younger than him as well as junior in rank and aimed to be as neat, though my hair was already beginning to spiral free from the bun I’d trapped it in. We stepped around each other with the practised ease of longstanding dance partners. As a rule, Derwent was rude enough to me that even people who knew us well suspected we were sleeping together, or hated each other, or both. The truth was that we’d never slept together, and I only hated him from time to time. We were closer than most colleagues, it was fair to say – friends, after all we’d been through together. There was also the fact that he was my landlord. I currently lived in a one-bedroom flat he owned, though I fully intended to look for somewhere else to live. I just hadn’t got around to it yet. We bickered like children and trusted each other’s instincts without even thinking about it.
No wonder Mrs Weldon looked puzzled.
‘Where do we need to go?’ I asked her.
‘Along here.’ She gestured to the left of the bridge. ‘That’s the way I went this morning. I came down the steps around five, as I said. Sunrise is about half past five at this time of year but it was starting to get light. I could see well enough without a head torch.’
‘Do you do this often?’ Derwent asked.
‘Most days.’ She smiled, looking out across the river and breathing deeply. The air was fresh down by the water, and the hum of the city seemed to recede. Seagulls hovered overhead, peevish and mocking as they floated on the cool spring breeze. ‘This is my place. I’m a licensed mudlarker. I take what the river chooses to give me, whether it’s treasure or trash.’
‘Treasure?’ Derwent scuffed the shingle with the toe of his shoe. ‘What kind of treasure?’
‘Nothing valuable, exactly. But items of historical interest. And sometimes the trash is interesting too.’ She bent and picked up a small white tube. ‘What do you think this is?’
I peered at it. ‘A bit of china?’
‘It’s the stem of a clay pipe. I can’t date this without having the bowl, and the bowls are harder to find, but it could be from the 1600s. The pipes were in common use up to Victorian times. When they broke, they couldn’t be repaired and people would chuck them into the river.’
‘An antique fag end.’
She looked at Derwent sharply, her eyes bright. ‘You don’t see the appeal, Inspector. But that’s a little piece of London’s history. The man or woman who smoked it is long gone and forgotten, but we know they were here. I might be the first person to touch it since they flung it in the water.’
‘What sort of things do you find?’ I asked.
‘I’ve found Roman glass once or twice, and coins, and bits of pottery. Last year I found a medieval die made out of bone. How did it end up here? Maybe someone flicked it into the river because they’d had a run of bad luck, or maybe they stumbled as they boarded a skiff to cross to the other bank and it fell out of their pocket. There are a hundred possibilities, a hundred stories in one small scrap of history. My favourite was a bone hairpin that was a thousand years old. That’s in the Museum of London, now, with my name recorded as the person who found it. That pin will still be there long after I’m gone too.’
‘And people will know you were here,’ I said.
The fan of wrinkles around her eyes deepened as she grinned. ‘Everybody wants to leave a trace of themselves behind, after all – some evidence they walked the earth. One day someone might be grateful I was in the right place at the right time to find something special. That keeps me coming back.’
‘So what was different about this morning?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. Everything was the same as usual. At least it was until I found it. Then everything went sideways.’ A low chuckle. Kim Weldon struck me as the kind of person who didn’t allow herself to be unsettled by anything; if what she had found upset her, she had got over it by now.
But I noticed she said ‘it’, rather than what she had found.
‘Where were you when you saw it?’
She pointed. ‘See the white stripe on the wall? I was halfway between here and there. I always give myself a marker to reach because it’s too easy to get distracted and forget to keep an eye on the tide. You can get caught out – never happens to me but I’ve seen other people get soaked. So I always give myself a limited search area and then I go once I’ve covered it.’
A Thames Clipper barrelled past, ferrying commuters up the river, and the wake sent a wave that splashed over one of Derwent’s shoes. He stepped back quickly, swearing under his breath, shaking his foot.
‘It’s all right, the water is quite clean these days. They’ve even found seahorses down the river, near Greenwich, so it’s fresh. But you really need boots like mine, and you need to be more respectful of the river.’ She looked wistful. ‘I’ve seen grown men tipped over by a wave like that.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ From his tone of voice, I strongly suspected that he wouldn’t be returning to the foreshore any time soon if he could help it, boots or no boots.
‘This way.’ The slight, upright figure crunched away from us to where a wooden post stuck out of the shingle, frayed with age and the action of the water. ‘They used to tie up barges here.’ She pointed at the sandy edge of the river. ‘This is where it was.’
