These Little Lies

by GRETTA MULROONEY

  ‘Kanken’s an expensive brand. Dead cool. My son blagged one for his birthday. Maybe the killer just wanted to make sure we didn’t get her phone and it was quicker to take the bag. Talk later.’

  Wooton had a point about the phone. Maybe Lauren’s killer had been in contact with her and had set up a meeting at the river. She punched the button for tea with lemon, imagining the scene. Someone had come to the river intending to kill. But to murder one or both of the victims? Rimas had been fishing. Had he heard a sound in the trees? Perhaps he’d had to die because he’d seen the killer. Both victims had been taken by surprise with no chance to fight back, given the apparent lack of defence wounds. And who took a photo of a child with them when they intended to stick a blade in someone? How did Lauren connect to the girl?

  A thought crossed her mind. Back at her computer, she searched for Lauren and Rimas on the national database. She’d wondered if either of them had ever harmed a child but no trace came up. They were both squeaky clean as far as the police were concerned.

  Chapter Seven

  Siv was drinking her lemon tea when Ali arrived back. He chucked his jacket off, yanked a chair out and sat down heavily, catching at her desk to steady himself.

  ‘I’ve met Filip Mazur and his mother,’ he told her. ‘They’re Lithuanian too. Matis Rimas was renting a room from them in a social housing place. Illegal subletting, I suspect. You should have seen it — it was poky. And it smelled of fish. I think I do now.’

  ‘I can only smell the fag smoke,’ Siv said. ‘What did Mazur tell you?’

  ‘He works on a building site. He met Rimas last autumn on a housing development out at Harfield and they got friendly. Rimas was a plasterer. He was sharing a room with two other guys, so when Mazur offered him a room at his place, he jumped at it. That must have been a real dump if he thought Mazur’s was an improvement. Mazur was really upset about the murder, said Rimas had become one of the family, played with the baby and so on. He had tears in his eyes.’ He’d talked to Mazur, a giant of a man, in an overheated Portakabin. When Ali told him of his friend’s death, he’d gone pale and seemed in danger of toppling over. It would have been like an oak tree falling.

  ‘Why did Rimas have his car?’

  ‘He wanted to go fishing this morning. He loved fishing and regularly contributed fish for the family’s meals. I asked Mazur who would have known that Rimas was going to Lock Lane this morning. He said his mum knew but he didn’t know who else might have.’

  ‘Rimas could have told his other workmates. We need to check that out.’

  ‘Sure. Mazur was getting a lift from a mate, so Rimas borrowed the car for the day. Mazur said he heard him leave about six forty-five. I spoke to Mazur’s mate and he confirmed that he picked Mazur up from his place at ten past seven this morning and waved to his mum. Mazur said that Rimas was a bit of an innocent.’

  ‘What did he mean? A learning difficulty?’

  ‘No. I got the impression that he was just immature.’

  ‘Did Mazur know where Rimas was working?’

  ‘He said he was doing a month on a house extension on the Cherryfield estate. Small local builders, Johnstone. Mazur agreed to identify the body. I’ll arrange that for tomorrow.’

  ‘Did he have any information about Rimas’s family?’

  ‘Only that they live in Krosna, a wee town. I’ll see if I can find any contact details for them this afternoon. I asked Mazur if he or Rimas knew a woman called Lauren Visser. He looked completely blank when I showed him her photo. Same response when I showed him the wee girl. Going by what Mazur said, he’d have arrived at the river soon after seven.’ He stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles. His shirt rode up and Siv caught a glimpse of soft brown belly.

  She leaned forward on her desk. ‘This has to be about the child. She must be at the centre of it, otherwise why leave her photo? I wondered about paedophilia or some other child related crime but neither of them has any record on HOLMES. Lauren was a nursery nurse so she’d have had a DBS check anyway. This tea is weird, it tastes like cough sweets.’

  ‘It all comes out of the same tube so who knows what the machine decides. What was Visser like?’

  ‘Angry. A rigid man. Seemed genuinely upset. The hotel he was at yesterday confirms his attendance into the evening. He says he stayed at a friend’s in London last night but said friend left for a Buddhist retreat in Valencia this morning and I can’t raise him.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I have to get going. I said I’d take Visser to the morgue. There’s fruit here on my desk and sugar-free granola bars. Help yourself.’

  ‘Ta, guv. Oh, Dr Anand emailed. PMs start tomorrow afternoon at two thirty.’

  ‘Thanks. Conference meeting at nine tomorrow — can you tell the team?’

  * **

  Climbing the four metal steps to her front door felt like a tremendous effort. Siv rested against the rail for a moment. It was almost dark but she could still make out the soft greens of the meadow and the pale clusters of wild flowers: agrimony, cornflowers, foxgloves, white campion and meadowsweet. Smoke was drifting lazily from Corran and Paul’s chimney in the light breeze. She pictured them sitting at their big table, eating homemade pasta and discussing the day.

  As soon as she was inside, her legs began to tremble. When she’d first trained in the Met, colleagues would talk about shaking leg syndrome, often experienced at or after post-mortems or vicious crime scenes. She threw her bag down and sank onto the sofa beneath the window. She closed her eyes and breathed, visualizing the shoreline of the sea: in, out, in out. The trembling slowly subsided. She wanted to stay where she was but if she did, she’d start thinking about Ed because this was the time, around sunset, when his shade joined the evening shadows. It wasn’t cold in the wagon but she wanted the reassurance of a fire, so she made herself get up and light the wood burner.

  Once the fire was crackling, she went into the bedroom, shrugged off her work suit and pulled on leggings and Ed’s green sweatshirt. She sat on the edge of the bed and texted Ali Carlin.

  Positive ID at morgue. See you tomorrow.

  Visser had been silent during the drive to the morgue, where there’d been a forty-five-minute delay. He’d paced up and down, stopping now and again to rest his forehead against the pale green wall. Once he’d kicked it, his foot jarring. She’d watched him, glad to have the distraction of his prowling. She didn’t want to think about the last time she’d been in a morgue. They’d done their best with Lauren but it was a difficult viewing. Visser had expressed no emotion as he looked through the screen, just confirmed that it was his wife. Siv drove him home, another silent journey. He got out of the car, and leaned in through the window.

  ‘I’ll give you two weeks to find who did this. If you’ve nothing by then, I’ll take steps myself.’

  She’d replied quietly, ‘We’ll find who murdered your wife, Mr Visser.’

  ‘Take note. The clock’s ticking for you.’

  ‘I’ll need to speak to you tomorrow. Will you be at home?’

  ‘You’ve got my fucking car. Where can I go?’

  He’d stalked away up his path. She’d never seen a back express so much fury.

  In the kitchen, she reached into the fridge, took out a bottle of cold akvavit and poured a glass, relishing the kick of caraway and spices. One of the best things to come from Finland. She ate a handful of pistachio nuts and looked in the fridge again for inspiration. There wasn’t a lot: a packet of serrano ham, flatbreads, tomatoes and olives and several bottles of akvavit. The awful realization struck her that this could be her mother’s fridge, sparse on food but with a generous quantity of alcohol. So this was what had happened. On her own, left to her own devices, she was turning into Mutsi. The old adage about women morphing into their mothers was true. She laughed out loud, and then clamped her hand over her mouth. A sandwich then, maybe toasted. She heard a tap at the door. It was Corran, holding a round foil package.

  ‘Hi, Siv. Sorry to disturb you bu
t we had baked potatoes for supper and as usual, I made too much so I thought after your first day back at work . . .’ He held out the foil. He had small, deft hands, in keeping with the rest of his frame. She thought of him as pocket sized. He had a posh voice, courtesy of public school. Paul was from Liverpool and teased him about his drawn-out vowels. At Corran’s school, there was great emphasis on bowels and vowels, he’d told her.

  ‘That’s so kind of you. Come in.’ She was hoping he’d refuse and was relieved when he did.

  ‘No, no. I have goat related things to do and I’m sure you’re tired.’ He turned as if to head down the steps, and then halted. ‘Ahm . . . a lady rang today. She said she was your mother.’

  She almost dropped the warm foil. It was as if by thinking of her mother, she’d unwittingly summoned her. ‘What?’

  He gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘It was early afternoon. She wanted to speak to you. I told her I thought you were at work.’

  ‘I see. Was that it?’

  ‘She asked me for your mobile number. Said she’d lost it. I said I couldn’t give it to her but I’d let you know she’d called.’

  Siv knew her mother only too well. Corran wouldn’t have got off that lightly. ‘What else did she say?’

  He glanced up at her cautiously. ‘Some stuff about her youngest daughter living in a field, like a gypsy. Asked if I had the cheek to charge you for an old wagon. Said she’d had an uncle in Finland who used to keep chickens in one like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Corran. I hope she wasn’t too rude.’

  ‘No, no, that’s okay. Actually, I thought she sounded quite a character.’

  Her heart sank. The last thing she needed was her mother trying to befriend Paul and Corran, even by phone. They didn’t deserve it. ‘She is. Quite a character. But not in a good way.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay. No worries. Is she Finnish, then?’

  ‘Yes. Siv’s a Scandinavian name.’ The same as her mother’s, unfortunately.

  ‘I know. Paul looked it up. Hope you don’t mind, we’d never come across it before.’

  ‘Of course not. Thanks for the supper,’ she called again as he headed home into the falling dusk.

  She locked the door and the world out, knocked her drink back and refilled her glass. As far as she was concerned, a taste for akvavit was the only gift her mother had ever given her. Bloody woman, bloody interfering crap excuse for a parent, she muttered as she unwrapped the potato. Her mother had lied, as usual. She didn’t know either of her daughters’ phone numbers and Siv hadn’t told her about the move. She must have been looking at this place on the internet if she knew it was in a meadow, and had found Corran’s mobile number.

  Siv glanced out of the window, half expecting to see her mother outside, staring back at her with her ingratiating smile. How did she know her whereabouts and more importantly, why the attempt at contact? It was months since she’d last been in touch. Well, at least she hadn’t tried to gate-crash the funeral. She’d sent a belated sympathy card with lilies and gold lettering on the front: Sorry For Your Loss and inside the trite handwritten message, There will be sun after the storm. Love from Mutsi.

  She stuck the potato on a tray featuring scenes of the Sussex coast and sat with it on her lap by the stove. It was delicious, crammed with cheese, ham and grainy mustard. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she started wolfing it down. When she’d finished she licked her fingers and put the tray on the wooden floor. She reached for the akvavit bottle — it was so handy having everything at arm’s length, she didn’t understand why she’d ever lived anywhere bigger than this — put it beside her and sat back with her feet up on the top of the stove. She buried her nose in the sleeve of her sweatshirt and sniffed. The scent of Ed.

  She still couldn’t quite believe that she was here, living this unexpected life. This time last year, she and Ed had been working in London, living in their flat in Greenwich. Content, full of plans. She was accustomed to the constant hum of traffic, the bumps and crashes from the cousins in the flat below who threw things at each other when they argued. There’d been long walks in the park at weekends, always stopping to chat to the deer, an afternoon visit to the Picture House on Sunday after a lazy brunch, stopping at a delicatessen to buy a diabetic-friendly dessert, usually almond torte. Ed calling her Sivster. He was forever misplacing things and his voice would echo from the hallway or kitchen. Sivster, have you seen my keys/wallet/helmet/work pass/gloves/phone?

  She’d been promoted to DI. Ed had got a job as head of science at a huge academy school. They’d had a meal at a posh fusion restaurant to celebrate and a lot of wine. It’s all good, Sivster, it’s all good, he’d said, smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear.

  Then, one Tuesday morning she’d had the call. Ed had been riding his bike to work along Romney Road when a lorry hit him. He’d died before the paramedics got there. He’d kissed her goodbye, tasting of toast and honey, reassured her that his blood sugar was on target and cycled out of her life for ever. The next time she’d seen him had been in the morgue, and that wasn’t Ed at all.

  Throughout the funeral, she’d sworn at him under her breath. Luckily, no one seemed to realize that her sorrow was half despair, half fury. You wouldn’t fucking listen, would you, Ed? How many bloody times did I ask you not to cycle in that traffic? They’d talked about it so often. She’d pleaded with him, citing the number of fatal accidents on London roads, bus and lorry drivers failing to see vulnerable cyclists. He’d been reassuring, persuasive. You know I’m really careful and it’s great exercise for me, helps me deal with the stress of the job. I hate gyms and keeping fit’s important for my blood sugar. So she’d back off until the next horror story about a terrible accident. And then Ed was the story.

  For months, she’d lived a kind of bewildered half-life. At times she raged at him and then she’d weep for hours. She’d tried to go to back to work but had panic attacks. Her scalp would start prickling and then the top of her head would feel as if it was lifting off. The first time her scalp started to lift, she was interviewing a man who’d murdered his brother and she thought she was having a stroke.

  The doctor signed her off and kept signing her off. The skin on her forearms felt as if someone had scrubbed it with harsh soap. She developed a red rash on her chest, little whorls of bright colour. Her brush was suddenly thick with loose hair. She spent time sitting in stuffy rooms with occupational health nurses, never the same one. Some were useful, some not. One had a habit of murmuring sympathetically, which irritated her so much she wanted to grab the woman by the throat. They were all kindly and nodded a lot, handed her tissues when required and gave her flat-tasting water in plastic cups.

  She began to think that grief was like a negative of falling in love: the same interrupted sleep, loss of appetite, racing heart and deep longing but paired with desolation instead of joy. When she woke in the mornings, her first thought was of how many days it had been since Ed died and she’d count aloud: 45 . . . 56 . . . 62.

  Other cyclists and friends of Ed took up arms. There were vigils and protests with banners. They kept telling her about these demonstrations, as if they thought that would help her grief. A white ghost bike was left at the side of Romney Road where he died. Bunches of flowers and candles kept appearing there. She felt as if by dying, Ed had become public property and was nothing to do with her any more.

  She drifted around the flat, going out only after dark so that she wouldn’t have to accept any sympathy. She didn’t have many friends, had never been the kind of woman with a female coterie. It was something to do with all the moving from place to place as she was growing up. There was never time to cement relationships. Then she’d met Ed in London when she was nineteen and had just applied for police training. And that was it. He became the family she’d always needed — sibling, parents and lover all rolled into one. She thought she’d got too lucky, she didn’t quite trust her good fortune. Turned out she was right not to.

  D
ays and weeks merged. She couldn’t concentrate to read or even watch a film. She felt Ed’s presence all the time but it was no comfort. She was like one of those people who have a leg or an arm removed yet can feel the phantom limb, as if it’s still attached.

  She took up origami again and spent hours looking at designs, working out her own and folding paper. This was what occupational therapists did with people to help them, she thought. They got them to make things. If your hands were busy and your brain side-tracked from the usual thought treadmill, you found a kind of temporary peace. Doing something, focusing and losing herself in folding, eased the pain.

  Finally, she knew that she couldn’t stay in London. Ed was everywhere. She never knew when she would turn a corner and see a restaurant, pub, cinema or park they’d spent time in. The city was scattered with ghost bikes draped with flowers and she couldn’t bear to see one more. She asked if there were any vacancies in Berminster, struck lucky, put the flat on the market, sent most of her things to storage and moved into her circus wagon.

  She topped up her glass. So, Ed. Here I am, living in my miniature world. Survived day one and didn’t disgrace myself. But I’m ragged now. Two corpses and working with people I barely know. You wouldn’t like the colour scheme in here, too busy. It’s so quiet during the day but at night I can hear foxes barking in the dark and other sounds: yowls and screams of animals killing each other. I notice the weather more here than I did in London. I suppose because the sea’s nearby. I can taste salt sometimes. Ali Carlin smokes Gitanes, so what with his diabetes, he’s a bit of a candidate for heart disease. Funny how I hate smoking but I love the smell of Gitanes. What’s that about? Ali’s got a great expression, open and optimistic. I wonder if Lauren had a baby before she met Visser, one that she didn’t reveal to her husband. Seems unlikely these days. That’s the kind of secret women used to have to keep but not now, surely. Mutsi’s on the prowl, sniffing around. She must want something. As if I haven’t got enough on my plate.