by Paula Daly
—
Mary was lying down in the upstairs guestroom when Noel returned home with Brontë and Verity in tow. Brontë had a double piano lesson booked for that evening and had asked Noel about whether she needed to go to it or not. To which Noel had replied, ‘Do you want to go?’ and she said she didn’t.
‘But you’ll still need to pay for it, Daddy,’ she said earnestly, and Noel thought, Actually, no, I don’t. Those bastards had drained enough money out of him over the years, preying on Karen’s deluded view of her daughter’s talent. They could sing for their money, as far as he was concerned.
He’d told the girls about the discovery of Karen’s car while they were still in the school car park. Verity had enough intelligence not to blurt out, ‘What? She’s dead?’ in front of her sister, but gave Noel a hard stare which he interpreted to mean the same thing, so he said, ‘I just don’t know, love.’
Now they were back at home and Noel wasn’t sure what to do next. Mary came downstairs, smelling of air freshener, her face puffed and doughy, her skin a washed-out white. She didn’t look capable of doing anything other than sitting still. But they would still need feeding in the next hour or two, so Noel suggested, ‘Fish and chips?’ and Bruce muttered, ‘I suppose so.’
Ewan and Dale joined them. Well, Dale actually had a jumbo sausage, and Bruce a sorry-looking steak pudding, but they all congregated together at the kitchen table for the meal. With food inside Mary, her colour was returning and she was able to say the odd word. Noel had tried to ply her with Scotch, saying the situation clearly warranted it, but Mary declined. Noel had seen her drunk only once. It was at a gathering for the launch of one of Bruce’s many businesses, and Mary had become unexpectedly girlish and flirtatious, lifting her dress above her knees as she sashayed around the room. Then she began dipping her index finger into her Slippery Nipple, or some dreadful cocktail containing Baileys, and popping it in her mouth suggestively. Noel didn’t witness Bruce’s ticking-off but he suspected it must have been pretty harsh because, notwithstanding the Christmas cakes, Mary hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since.
‘You’ve injured your hand,’ Mary said to Dale, as he sawed through his sausage.
‘Secateurs,’ Dale answered, and turned his palm over, showing Mary the full extent of the injury.
‘How did you manage to do that with secateurs?’ snapped Bruce, and Dale shrugged as though he had no idea, completely unoffended by Bruce’s tone.
Bruce was frowning hard at Dale, trying to work out what this slow-witted boy was doing at his daughter’s kitchen table, eating his way through sausage and chips, chewing with his mouth open.
‘I’m accident prone,’ Dale said helpfully.
And Bruce muttered, ‘Is that what they’re calling it nowadays.’
They ate in silence, none of them really sure what to say to one another, until Mary blurted out to nobody in particular, ‘The batter is ever so light on this fish.’ And since no one else saw fit to answer, Noel agreed with her that it was.
‘I’m not fond of the addition of beer to fish batter,’ she went on, and Noel said no, him neither.
‘Nor do I like goose fat on roast potatoes,’ she said. ‘It’s ever so expensive, and lard is just as—’
‘Jesus Christ, woman!’ Bruce yelled, slamming his fist down. ‘Give your witterings a rest for once.’
Scolded, Mary looked down and proceeded to eat in silence, cutting each chip in two before lifting the fork to her mouth. Noel caught Verity’s eye, and she mouthed, ‘Poor Mary.’
Bruce and Mary had never been ‘Granny and Grandad’ to Verity, as they were to Brontë and Ewan. Karen had encouraged it to start with, but Jennifer went apoplectic when she found out, saying, ‘What? Are you going to start calling Karen Mother now as well? They’re not your grandparents, so you’re not to call them that. They are NO RELATION.’
Noel looked at Mary. Poor Mary indeed.
Out of nowhere, Bruce said, ‘You know, this never would have happened if you were a better husband,’ and it took Noel a moment to realize he was referring to him. ‘All Karen ever needed was your support.’
‘Bruce,’ Noel said, ‘I—’
‘For all Mary’s faults and failings, I have never wavered in my support of her, because she is my wife. I’ve supported her one hundred and ten per cent.’
Noel, unsure of where Bruce was going with this, decided to stay quiet for the time being.
‘What did you do when Karen got all that abuse on the internet?’ he said. ‘What did you do, Noel? Because, from where I was standing, it looked like you didn’t do a bloody thing.’
‘I don’t know what I could have done.’
‘She dealt with it alone! Like she’s had to do everything. You didn’t once step up and say, “Enough! This is my wife!” No. You did what you always do, Noel. You buried your head in the sand and hoped it would go away.’
Noel thought about arguing the case, but Bruce was now shaking badly and his right eye had begun to water again.
‘She was loyal to you, and what did you give her in return? She worked tirelessly for the good of this family. She was devoted to each of you. And what did you do for her?’
Mary put down her knife and fork and placed her hand on top of Bruce’s. ‘Bruce, dear,’ she said to him, but he shook her away.
He pointed his knife at Ewan. ‘And you,’ he said. ‘My daughter did not raise you to be such a total waste of space. What is it that you actually do, anyway? Because no one ever seems to be able to answer that question.’
Ewan hung his head.
‘And you,’ he said, turning his attention to Brontë. ‘Your mother gives you everything. Everything. She puts all she has into securing a decent future for you. And how do you repay her? By running away? Do you know how much trouble you caused by doing that? Are you even aware?’
‘That’s enough, Bruce,’ Noel warned.
‘It’s not nearly enough,’ Bruce said.
‘Bruce, what’s your point?’
‘She deserved more!’ he yelled. ‘More from all of you!’
‘But I gave her everything I could,’ Noel said weakly.
‘You did?’ And, at this, he laughed. ‘You call hiding yourself in work, barely coming home to see your family, you call that everything? She was left to deal with her drug-addicted son alone. Your violent daughter alone. Raise your other daughter alone. Where were you, Noel?’
‘I—’
‘Did you even ask if she needed help? Or were you too busy chasing other women again?’
‘Bruce. Stop.’
‘What? You think they don’t know what their father is? You think this is news to them? Listen up, kids, Daddy here has a problem with women. And drink. And dealing with his responsibilities. And if he’d been here just a little bit more for Karen, then maybe she’d be here now.’
‘You’re saying I caused this?’
Bruce folded his arms in defiance. ‘That’s what I’m saying.’
Noel looked at each of the children, and they looked back at him, waiting for an explanation. Should he explain? He couldn’t explain. He didn’t know himself.
He exhaled. Sitting back in his chair, he ran his hand through his hair. Bruce was glaring at him hard, also waiting. Noel wasn’t sure if Bruce was planning to hit him, but he decided then and there that if Bruce went for him he would take the punch. He’d not been punched in over twenty years, but he reckoned he could withstand it.
‘Maybe she did deserve better from me,’ Noel said quietly. ‘Maybe I did let her down. You’re right, Bruce, I am a long way from being the husband and father I want to be.’
Dale rose in his seat.
Scraping his chair as he reached across the table for more ketchup, he said, ‘Aw, I think you’re a pretty good person, Dr Bloom.’ He was chewing loudly. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘Yeah, Dad,’ Verity agreed. ‘You’re a good guy.’
The kids were exchanging knowing glances
with one another and Noel wondered if he was missing something. They appeared tight. Together. All on the same team.
And Noel never did find out whether Bruce was planning to throw that punch or not. Because, seconds later, DS Joanne Aspinall was back at his front door, her hair wet from the rain, her expression grim.
‘I’m really sorry, Noel,’ she said to him, ‘but we’ve found her.’
36
JOANNE AND OLIVER Black had been exiting through the gates of Reid’s Grammar after interviewing Pia Nicholls when they received the call about Karen. They had been embroiled in a hot debate about private schooling. Oliver thought that private schools should be abolished, that the middle classes were taking over the entire country, and so forth, but Joanne’s view was: if you could afford it, why not? Not that she cared one way or the other. She didn’t have children, nor was she likely ever to have children, so how people chose to educate their offspring was their business.
It was raining again. Sheets of water blasted the car from the west, and Oliver set the wipers to super-fast to be able to see through the screen. Every few seconds, though, he would flick them back to a slower speed, as though the rapid setting were somehow emasculating, before switching once more to fast mode when he couldn’t make out the road in front.
They were at the water’s edge when they pulled Karen out. The divers had found her around twenty feet from the shoreline, at a point around fifty yards south of where the Volvo was abandoned. They were lucky. The lake is eleven miles long. One of the divers had followed a hunch. He told Joanne he felt like he was being guided to Karen Bloom by something otherworldly.
‘Karen’s ghost?’ Joanne suggested, faintly mocking, and he scratched his chin, replying, ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
The opposite bank of the lake was hardly visible in the murk and Joanne thought, What an unpleasant place to die. But then she supposed when compared with, say, being dumped inside a suitcase in the Thames, as one poor woman had been recently, it was not all bad. The water was at least clean here.
Joanne held on to her hood with her hand to prevent the wind sweeping it off her head as Oliver looked at her bleakly and said, ‘Stabbed.’
‘How many times?’
He was squatting at the side of Karen’s corpse. ‘I can see one in the neck. And one…no, make that two, here at the top of her chest.’
Three wounds. So not the wild, frenzied attack DI Gilmore had thought it would be, after all. Maybe this wasn’t a personal vendetta. Tech had examined Karen’s phone and computer, and there had been nothing to suggest she was planning to meet someone she knew. No arrangements had been made. Maybe she didn’t know her attacker. Karen was still fully dressed, so there was that. Joanne thought that being told your wife/daughter/mother had been murdered was one thing, but to be told she was first the victim of a sexual attack was quite another.
Of course, Karen may have been raped. But it was unlikely a killer would re-dress a victim afterwards, particularly if he was planning on disposing of her body in such a crude fashion as this.
‘The wound to the neck is probably what caused all the blood,’ Oliver said.
Forensics had found evidence of blood splatter on the Volvo’s dashboard, windscreen, sun visor and the internal casing of the driver-side door.
‘The carotid would do that,’ Oliver added.
Joanne squatted down next to Oliver and surveyed the body.
Karen’s lips and eyes were bulging madly. She was the colour of a beluga whale. Another day in the lake, and she probably would have resurfaced of her own accord.
‘Oh, Karen,’ said Joanne sadly. ‘Who did this to you?’
—
‘There couldn’t be some mistake?’ Bruce Rigby asked, and Joanne shook her head in response.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but no.’
‘Bodies are so changed when they’ve been submerged in water, couldn’t it be—’
‘It’s definitely Karen, Mr Rigby,’ Joanne said.
He started to cry then. His wife said nothing, too stunned to speak. So Joanne looked at Noel. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed silently.
‘Where is she now?’ asked Bruce.
‘On her way to the mortuary.’
‘At the hospital?’
Joanne shook her head. ‘The public mortuary linked to the coroner’s court.’
‘Can we see her?’ he asked.
‘Not right away.’
‘There’ll be a post-mortem?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she die?’ he asked.
‘Best to wait for the results of the post-mortem examination, Mr Rigby.’
‘Did she suffer?’
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything more than I already have.’
‘That means she did?’
‘No,’ Joanne said. ‘It means I just don’t have that information.’
Bruce Rigby seemed to accept this, so Joanne told him there would be a family liaison officer contacting them within the hour. ‘Jared Dockray,’ she said. ‘He’ll be able to assist you with the facts as they come in.’ And, with that, she stood. ‘Mr Rigby…Mrs Rigby…Dr Bloom,’ she said, addressing each of them in turn, ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’
—
Oliver Black handed Joanne a sherbet lemon. ‘The husband didn’t say a lot, did he?’
‘Not much,’ Joanne agreed.
‘It was as if he was expecting it.’
‘Maybe he was.’
‘You think he did it?’
‘His alibi checks out,’ she said. ‘He would’ve only had around forty minutes in which to kill her, dump her in the lake and get himself home and cleaned up. Not a lot of time.’
‘Enough time, though,’ Oliver said.
‘Yeah,’ Joanne replied. ‘Enough time.’
They dropped the pool car back at the station, listened to what Pat Gilmore had to say and then headed home. The post-mortem would be done some time the following day, so while they were waiting for the forensics she advised they get home early, ready to start at seven the next morning.
The moment had long since passed for Joanne to raise the subject of her and Noel Bloom’s encounter to Pat Gilmore. After interviewing Noel, she had thought of coming clean, owning up to what had happened.
I know I should probably have mentioned this sooner, but…
But the fact was she was still the best detective to investigate the case. She knew the family. She knew the victim. She knew the suspect (if, indeed, Noel became a suspect). She had a privileged insider’s view into the dynamics of the Blooms and she just wasn’t prepared to hand over the case to another detective simply because she’d had a one-night stand the details of which she could barely remember.
Okay, so she could remember some of it.
Most of it.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of doing her job, capable of doing it better than anyone else.
If she had to put Noel Bloom away for the murder of his wife, she would do it.
She would do it in an instant. Of course she would.
37
Saturday, 24 October
Verity found she couldn’t drag her eyes away from the square patch of pale paint where Jeremy Gleeson’s graduation picture had once hung. She assumed its removal meant it was over with his wife, as she had featured in the picture. He wasn’t crying, though, so that was good.
‘I didn’t expect to see you today,’ he said over his shoulder. He was searching through the filing cabinet beyond his desk to retrieve her notes.
Verity was perplexed. ‘Have I come at the wrong time?’
‘No, no. Just, what with…’
He let the sentence hang and Verity wasn’t entirely sure what he meant.
‘What with…?’ she repeated, hoping he might continue.
He seated himself and treated Verity to what she supposed was a concerned, sympathetic look but, somehow, he didn’t quite pull it off. It ended up appearing mildly scold
ing.
‘I thought you’d be with your family,’ he said. ‘Because of the discovery of…the body.’
‘Oh,’ Verity said, it dawning on her at last. He hadn’t expected her to keep her appointment because Karen was well and truly dead, dead for certain, the upshot being that Verity couldn’t attempt to strangle her any more.
Their sessions might now be considered superfluous.
Thinking about it, her dad had seemed surprised when she’d said she was on her way over to see Jeremy Gleeson. When she was halfway out of the door, he’d said, ‘You’re still going?’
And Verity said, ‘Yes. I think it would be useful to talk. Don’t you?’
She hadn’t been lying. She did want to talk. So there was that, and the fact that she needed to get out of the house. She had felt bad leaving Brontë. Brontë had asked her not to go, weeping a little when Verity said she would be out for a couple of hours. She had considered bringing her little sister with her, but in the end she had decided against it. Brontë was the main reason she was here, after all.
Jeremy Gleeson offered Verity a glass of water, something he’d not done in their previous sessions, and Verity wondered if this was a new thing. Like the folded blue waffle blanket at the foot of the couch was a new thing. She told him she wasn’t thirsty, thank you.
‘How are you, Verity?’ he asked.
‘Me? Oh, I’m fine.’
‘Really?’ he said sceptically. ‘You’re bearing up okay?’
She realized she’d sounded flippant, and she hadn’t meant to. What she meant was, compared to everyone else, she was doing okay, because ‘You do remember, Karen wasn’t my real mother?’
‘Certainly. But things can’t be easy for you right now, at home. It’s a very upsetting time for everyone, I imagine. Everyone – including you, Verity.’
Verity studied Gleeson. Was he testing her? Testing her reaction to Karen’s death?
‘I’m okay,’ she said again. Cautiously this time.
He nodded. Gave her a look as if to say, As you wish.
‘In fact, that’s pretty much the reason I’ve come here,’ she went on. ‘I did think about cancelling, but I thought you might be able to help me with something. Maybe give me some advice.’
