by John Harvey
When she rang the bell, Karen half-expected it to be answered by a maid, not the cap-and-frilly-apron kind, but someone overqualified and underpaid from Croatia or Brazil. In fact it was Estelle Cooper herself, Estelle Robinson as she'd been when Kennet knew her; Mrs Cooper now, alone at home with the Mail and daytime TV until the school run, parents sensible round here and taking it in turns so as not to clog up the roads; Jake and Amber were being collected today by Tara's mum from number 35.
'Mrs Cooper? I'm Detective Chief Inspector Karen Shields. This is my colleague, Mr Elder.'
They followed her through a parquet-floored hallway into a long living room at the rear of the house, French windows leading out into a diamond-shaped conservatory, large tubs of geraniums brought inside to protect them from the frost. There were photographs of the children above the fireplace and on an oval table at the side of the room, mostly those school photos with pristine uniform and artificial lighting that had always seemed to Elder, where Katherine and her friends were concerned, to transform them into distant cousins of the kids they really were.
Estelle Cooper sat small in the centre of a wide high-backed settee, the print dress she wore in danger of getting lost amongst the busy flowers of the upholstery. She had a sharp face with a downturned mouth and faded eyes, like a doll that had been played with, discarded and left, most of the life and stuffing gone.
'Would you like some tea?' she asked. 'I wasn't sure…'
'It's fine, Mrs Cooper, thanks,' Karen said. 'We won't take any more of your time than's necessary.'
'Estelle,' she said, 'please call me Estelle.'
'Very well, then. Estelle. Estelle, you had a relationship with Steven Kennet…'
Elder thought she flinched at the sound of his name.
'That was a long time ago,' she said.
'I know. I wonder, can you tell us a little about that relationship? How it ended, for instance?'
'Ended?' She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. 'Badly. But then I suspect you know.'
'Please tell us in your own words.'
'All right.' Her eyes rested on Karen, then slid away till she was looking at the floor. 'I started going out with Steven in 1989. I was working in central London, Holborn, as a legal secretary. I hadn't gone to university … well, I had, at least I'd started, but somehow, I don't know, I just hadn't seemed to be able to get on. Anyway, I was working for this firm and I started seeing Steven. I met him through a friend, a mutual friend, and he was … well, it was wonderful at first. He was considerate, you know, and kind and — this sounds a terrible thing to say — but for someone who did what he did, building work, you know, working with his hands, he was, well, not intellectual exactly, but interested in things, cultural things. We'd go to the theatre occasionally, foreign films, galleries.'
'When all this was happening,' Karen said, 'you were living together?'
'Yes. Steven wanted me to move in with him more or less from the start. And finally, well, he was… he could be very persuasive.'
'And how was that? Living together.'
'It was fine at first. At least, at least I thought it was. I'd never lived with anybody before. I suppose you could say I was a bit naive.' She was fidgeting with the material of her dress. 'Sometimes he got angry when I wouldn't…' She looked at Karen again as if looking for some kind of understanding, sympathy. 'He asked me to do things…'
Her voice slid away.
Karen glanced across at Elder; waited. 'On these occasions,' she said, her voice soft, almost a croon. 'On these occasions when he got angry, did he ever hit you?'
Estelle Cooper's eyes were closed.
'Did he hit you, Estelle?'
'Yes.'
'Often?'
Eyes still closed, Estelle turned her head aside.
Karen looked across at Elder again.
'Did you ever talk to anyone about what was happening?' Karen said. 'Ask for help?'
'I tried to, but I didn't know… it wasn't easy. In the end I plucked up courage and spoke to my mother, but at first she just wouldn't, she wouldn't listen. She stood there with her hands clasped over her ears and then, when I persisted, she said, "You silly little cow, why don't you stop complaining and just do what he says.'"
She was sobbing now, her arms locked tight across her chest, rocking slowly forwards and back. Karen went over and leaned towards her and at the first touch of a hand on her shoulder, Estelle stiffened and gasped.
Elder went in search of the kitchen and when he returned with a glass of water the two women were sitting on the settee side by side.
Estelle drank the water in small sips, like medicine.
'Take your time,' Karen said quietly.
Her hand not quite steady, Estelle gave Elder back the glass.
'When finally I found the courage to tell him I was leaving him,' she said, 'he just said no. As though there wasn't any room for argument. I'll change, he said. I won't do it any more, you see. And for a long time, months, almost a year, that was what he did. It was like it had been before, when we started going out together, and then, suddenly, without reason, it happened again, he hit me, so badly I had to go to hospital, in the middle of the night, to Accident and Emergency, and I said, "Right, this time I am leaving you, I really am" and he said, he said, "I'll kill you if you do.'"
There was a clock ticking somewhere that Elder hadn't noticed before.
Karen reached across and took one of Estelle's hands in hers. 'You believed him,' she said.
'Yes. Of course.'
'What did you do?'
'I told my father this time. I hadn't dared tell him before. And he was wonderful. He came round when Steven was out and helped me pack my things, and then he went with me to the police. They asked me if I would make a formal complaint about Steven, apply for a restraining order against him, and I tried to say no, just tell him to keep away from me, but my father said, "You've got to sign a complaint", and in the end I did.'
'But, in the event, it never went that far?'
'No.'
'It never got to court.'
'No, I… I changed my mind. The thought of standing up in front of a magistrate, other people, and having to talk about… I couldn't go through with it. And besides, by then I thought Steven would have calmed down, found somebody else.'
She laughed nervously, as if something had suddenly struck her as amusing.
'I lived with my parents for six months or so before finding a flat of my own and that's when he started to turn up again. Just once or twice at first. I'd see him, you know, in the supermarket, or across the street, but then it was more and more. He'd be waiting there when I finished work, wanting to give me a lift home, things like that, and I told him it had to stop, I didn't want to see him again, and then one evening I came back home and he was there, in the flat, he'd got in somehow, I don't know how he'd got in…'
Pulling away from Karen, she pressed both hands hard against her face.
'I went back to the police and they said if I wanted anything done I would have to go through the whole process again, and this time I said I would. I'd had enough. My nerves were in tatters. But then — I don't know if Steven knew, about the police, I mean — but he just stopped. Following me. Coming round. I didn't see him again. Not after that. Not once.' Her eyes lowered. 'I assume he'd met someone else.'
'I'm sorry,' Karen said, 'to make you go through all this.'
'It's all right,' Estelle said. And then: 'Steven, has he … has he done something?'
'We don't know,' Karen said.
'He has, hasn't he? He's done this to someone else.'
'We really don't know.'
Estelle looked towards the window; before long it would be dark outside. 'The children will be home soon.'
Karen got to her feet, Elder following suit.
'I'm sorry for bringing all that back,' Karen said at the door. 'I really am.'
Estelle smiled the best smile she could. 'I hope it's done some good.'
'I'm sure it has. Thank you again.'
She stood there, watching them go. Jake and Amber would soon be chasing each other to the door. Biscuits and a warm drink to keep out the cold. How was school today and then probably a video before tea.
Karen stopped alongside her car, keys in her hand. Her face had lost its glow. 'I need a drink and I don't want to sit in a pub on my own. Maybe we could stop and pick up a bottle of Scotch?'
'How about Irish?' Elder said. 'I've got some back at the flat.'
'Okay, I'll follow you.'
They drove along Whetstone High Road towards North Finchley, the traffic congealing around them, Elder wondering why Estelle's story had affected Karen as much as he thought it had.
25
'Jesus!' Karen said. 'Don't you have any heating in here?'
Elder smiled. 'It's that underfloor thing. Comes on automatically, as far as I can tell.'
'No thermostat? Override?'
'What looks like a thermostat in the bedroom. Doesn't seem to work.'
Karen looked at him, eyebrow raised. 'How about the living room? Is it any warmer in there?'
'I doubt it, but I'm not sure. I seem to spend most of my time in here.'
In the kitchen were a dining table and two chairs and little else. Karen wandered off to check the living room, while Elder rinsed two glasses and wiped them dry. Still wearing her coat, Karen returned and looked idly along the kitchen shelves.
'This is how it works, then? They set you up in one of these places, what, rent free?'
Elder nodded.
'Plus salary?'
'Some kind of daily rate.'
'Overtime?'
'We didn't discuss it.'
'Maybe I should apply for early retirement now.'
'What? Before you make superintendent?'
'Yeah. And hell freezes over.'
Elder was holding the bottle of Jameson's over Karen's glass. 'Say when.'
'Say it for me.'
He poured them both a good shot, considered, then poured a little more.
'Cheers.'
They clinked glasses and stepped back.
'You want to sit?'
'Why not?'
The chairs were made from some kind of moulded plastic, less uncomfortable than they looked, though it was a close thing.
'It really got to you, didn't it?' Elder said. 'This afternoon.'
Karen shrugged. 'Kind of thing you hear all the time.'
Elder thought there was more to it than that, but he let it ride.
'How come you drink this?' Karen said. 'And not Scotch?'
'Habit, I suppose.'
Karen tried a little more. 'If you had to drink it blindfold, you think you could tell the difference?'
'I doubt it.'
'Kennet,' she said a few moments later, 'what do you reckon? You reckon he's our man?'
Elder made a face. 'We've got no forensics, nothing that places him at the scene.'
Karen nodded. 'Plus the little matter that he was still in Spain when Maddy was killed.'
'You said that had been checked?'
'We saw a print-out from the airline — electronic ticketing, isn't that what it's called? But did we go rifling through flight manifests and so on? No, I don't think so.' She sighed and shook her head and drank some more whiskey. 'We fucked up, right?'
'We don't know that.'
'No,' laughing despite herself. 'Not yet. But chances are looking pretty good.'
'Like I say, we don't know it was Kennet at all.'
'We know what he does when someone tries to walk away.'
'That was different, they were living together.'
'I'll kill you, that's what he said.'
'Situations like that, stakes are raised, people say that all the time. Doesn't mean they're going to follow through.'
Karen looked at him. 'Have you?'
'Ever said, I'll kill you?'
'To someone you were involved with, yes.'
'No. No, I honestly don't think I have.' But he'd thought it, more than once. Joanne. Martyn Miles. When first he'd learned the truth.
'Kennet didn't just say it,' Karen said. 'He beat her up. Put her in hospital.'
'That doesn't mean he killed Maddy.'
'You're backing away from this now?'
'No. Not at all. I just think we shouldn't get too —'
'What? Too excited?'
'Yes.'
'Chance would be a fine thing.' She drained her glass and slid it across the table towards him. 'Tunnel vision, that's what you're supposed to guard against, isn't it? When you're leading an investigation. I've been to bloody lectures on it, for God's sake.'
'It isn't easy,' Elder said. 'Everything starts to point one way, you get dragged along.'
'Frank,' pointing her finger, 'don't you fucking patronise me.'
'I'm sorry, I wasn't. I didn't mean to.'
Karen held his gaze.
'I held on to an idea for a dozen years once,' Elder said. 'Case I'd been working on. Girl who'd disappeared. Sixteen. So certain I was right about who'd murdered her I almost got my own daughter killed in the process. And I was wrong. Couldn't have been more so.'
Karen didn't speak straight away. 'Whoever it was, killed the girl, you found them in the end?'
'She's wasn't dead. She was alive. The other side of the world.'
'And your daughter? How's she now?'
Instead of an answer, Elder slid the bottle back in her direction. 'You ever had any kids?'
Karen shook her head.
'Before Katherine was born, when Joanne was pregnant, people would tease us, you know, half-joking, about sleepless nights, how your life's never going to be your own. What they don't tell you, how the minute they take their first step, kids, away from you, on their own, you've got this fear about what's going to happen to them. I don't mean paedophiles, things like that, just ordinary everyday things like stepping off the kerb at the wrong moment, falling off the top of the slide and cracking their head open. And then you start to worry about yourself. Mortality. Dying. Stuff you'd hardly thought about before. Like what happens if you're running up this hill, pushing them in the buggy, just the two of you in the park, and suddenly you have a heart attack and they're left alone.'
Karen topped up Elder's glass and then her own.
She'd affected not to notice the tears that had come momentarily to his eyes.
'She is all right, though? Your daughter? Katherine, is that what you said she was called?'
'Katherine, yes.'
'And she's okay?'
'That depends.'
'Something like that, it can't be easy. Not for either of you.'
'I don't know how to talk to her. Not now. Perhaps I never did. No. No, that's not true. I think we got on pretty well. Even after Joanne and I had split up. We could talk to one another then. But now, I don't know what to say to her, how to be with her, even, and as far as she's concerned, the less she has to do with me the better.'
Karen smiled with her eyes. 'You know what, Frank?'
'No, what?'
'You're feeling sorry for yourself.'
'Probably.'
'More so than you are for her.'
'That's not true.'
'It's the way it comes across.'
'Too bad.' Angry, he pushed back his chair and went towards the window.
Karen sat where she was, head down, then went to join him. 'I didn't mean to upset you.'
'You didn't.'
Her breath was warm on his face.
'I think I'm a little drunk, Frank.'
'Most likely.'
'How about you?'
'Me? I'm fine.'
'Earlier, when you asked about this afternoon. Letting it get under my skin ...'
'You don't have to tell me, you know.'
'No, it's okay.' She took another taste from her glass. 'When I was younger, not long out of school, doing some part-time college thing, I started going with this guy. Older t
han me. Quite a bit. He was a musician. Well, not even that. More a hanger-on, you know. Scarcely played at all. Did a bit of DJing, nothing special. But me, I was just a kid. What did I know? There's all my mates, you know, want to watch out, he's just out for what he can get. Well, he had that, didn't he, and we still carried on seeing one another. I'd go round, sleep over, stay weekends. My parents — I was still living at home — they were going ballistic, but I didn't care. Get your nose out of my business, let me live my own life, all that bullshit. Course, they were right. I turned up late one night, somewhere I was supposed to be meeting him, this club. All right, I was fifty minutes, nearly an hour late. He smacked me round the mouth, right there in front of everyone. Smacked me round the mouth and made it bleed. Next day he came round, all apologies, bought me this bracelet, expensive, you know, not cheap. Talked about moving in together, getting engaged.'
A wan smiled crossed Karen's face. 'Was a whole month before he hit me again. At a party this time. In front of all these people we knew. As if he needed to show he could.'
'You stopped seeing him,' Elder said. 'After that.'
'Not soon enough.'
'I'm sorry.'
Karen shook her head. 'That poor woman, in that huge great bloody house.'
'She got away,' Elder said. 'Started a new life.'
'Did she?'
'People do,' Elder said, knowing, even as he spoke, he was wishing that, for Katherine, it was true.
'I'd better phone for a taxi,' Karen said. 'Pick up my car tomorrow.'
'I could drive it in for you.'
'Okay.'
Neither of them moved.
His arm was not quite touching hers. And then it was.
Leaning forward, she kissed softly him on the mouth, then stepped away, 'This isn't going to happen, Frank. I'm sorry.'
A slow release of breath. 'Okay.'
Fishing her mobile from her bag, she punched in a number, spoke and listened, broke the connection. 'Twenty minutes.'
'I'll make coffee.'
'Good.'
Twenty minutes was fifteen. 'Kennet,' Karen said at the door. 'Tomorrow morning we'll see his girlfriend. The one he went with to Spain.'
For some time after she had gone, Elder could smell her scent in the room, recall the warmth of her arm, the slight pressure of her lips, barely opening. Foolish to pour himself a nightcap before turning in, but who was to know?
