SB01 Dead to Me

by Cath Staincliffe

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Sean?’

  ‘Wiped it clean, then sold it,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Who to?’ Janet said.

  ‘Bloke called Des Rattigan.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tuesday,’ he said.

  ‘What time?’

  He opened his mouth as if to complain about the string of questions, then thought better of it. ‘Seven-ish.’ All his answers tallying with what they had established already.

  ‘Can you tell me why you sold the phone?’

  ‘For the money.’

  ‘There may have been information on that phone of use to the investigation into Lisa’s murder. Information you deleted,’ she said.

  ‘There wasn’t,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know, do I, Sean? Because you destroyed it. And I have to ask myself whether that was because you had something to hide.’

  ‘No, I don’t, I didn’t,’ he said urgently, his dark eyes gleaming.

  ‘You also told me that you removed several bags containing clothes from the flat, but we now have evidence to show those items were never in the flat.’

  He swallowed.

  ‘Can you explain to me why you made that up?’

  ‘It’s just – you kept going on about the shopping, I just said it.’

  ‘Are you now admitting that there was no shopping?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘We know Lisa had stolen some clothing in town. Do you have any idea what she intended to do with that clothing?’

  ‘No,’ he said thickly, but with little conviction.

  ‘If I told you we have reason to believe Lisa traded those items for Class A drugs, namely heroin, what would you say?’

  He was still for a moment, though his eyes were jittery, darting here and there. ‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ he said. He was scared. Frightened of dobbing in Kasim, of any repercussions? Or of the prospect of a murder charge?

  ‘You have told me on several occasions that you went to the flat on Fairland Avenue at half past three to meet Lisa and that when you got there she was dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘You also told me that you covered Lisa with a duvet and rang the police – correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that call was not logged until five past four. Which would have given you time to take anything you wanted to from the flat and return home. It would have given you time to change your clothes and return to the flat and then to call the police.’

  The import of what she was saying provoked a strong response. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘Listen, I took the phone, that’s all.’

  And the cross and chain? Janet shook her head slowly, as though she didn’t believe a word of it.

  He ran on: ‘All right, I took the gear an’ all, the drugs. I couldn’t leave it there. I needed it, yeah?’ The desperation of an addict. ‘I never hurt her, I never touched her.’

  Janet went on, as if ignoring his admission: ‘We are currently searching your premises. If you are concealing anything from us, we will find it.’

  Sean sat back, arms folded tight.

  ‘What would you say to me if I told you that Lisa got home at just after one o’clock on Monday?’

  He frowned. ‘You’re lying,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘We have an independent witness who saw her arrive home.’

  ‘She said half three.’

  ‘So you keep telling me,’ Janet said. ‘But that doesn’t fit with what our eyewitness saw. And they would have no reason to make it up. Would Lisa have lied to you, Sean?’

  ‘No,’ he said, shuffling in his seat, but doubt rang clear beneath his rebuttal.

  ‘Or are you lying to us?’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said.

  ‘First you tell me that you did not take anything from the flat. Then you tell me you took a phone and some shopping and discarded it. When that proves to be untrue, you change your story again. Seems to me that you’ve been lying to us all along. Perhaps you’re lying about finding Lisa dead as well.’

  ‘I’m not, I swear,’ he said quickly, his hands trembling.

  ‘Why would Lisa not tell you the correct time of her arrival home? Was she sleeping with anyone else?’

  ‘No way!’ he retorted.

  ‘You see, I can’t understand why she would put you off. And we know she had sex not long before her death. And if that wasn’t you …’

  ‘It wasn’t.’ He was boxing himself into a corner. Whichever way he jumped caused problems.

  ‘Did you find out she had slept with someone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you argue? Things got violent?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. She was dead, just like I told you.’

  When Janet showed Sean Broughton the photograph of the cross and chain he began to weep. Janet thought they had him then. The moment when the strain of maintaining all the lies, of repeating a story concocted to hide his guilt, became too much to bear.

  There was usually a physical response before the words came. Not always tears; sometimes it was slumping in the chair, a letting go of posture, of muscle tension, other times head in hands or head flung back, throat exposed. Surrender.

  ‘We found this item, this cross and chain, at your house, in your room. Can you tell me how it got there?’

  His face had flushed, his mouth began to work, then he was crying. Janet let him cry. Waited until he quietened. Knew he would be forced to fill the silence. ‘I took it.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘From the flat.’

  ‘From Lisa?’ Janet said.

  ‘No, it was in the kitchen.’ Still trying to distance himself from the body, the violence.

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Just on the floor, in the kitchen.’ He sniffed, his nose blocked.

  ‘Was it broken?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘OK,’ Janet said. ‘I want you to tell me exactly what order you did things in from the moment you stepped into the flat.’

  He wiped at his face, but more tears kept leaking from his eyes. Janet almost felt sorry for him. They’d pulled together a little of his background in the days since the murder. Father in and out of prison for theft and burglary until he contracted hepatitis B and died as a result of complications. Mother suffering from early onset dementia in a care home in Wigan. No known siblings. Sean had left Wigan for the bright lights of Manchester as a sixteen-year-old. Probably because his father’s sister was here, Benny’s mum. She didn’t want anything to do with him – her new fella not interested in connections that pre-dated him, including Benny – so Sean ended up sharing Benny’s place and ducking and diving for a living. Watching his hopes for a fresh start disappear down the drain like so much dirty water. His universe contracting to Lisa and drugs. Heroin seducing him with that unbelievable high that made everything seem fabulous, beautiful. Then the comedown. And the longing. The grip of the drugs on him, savage.

  ‘I came in and called out …’ Distraught still, his words breaking up. ‘There was no answer.’

  ‘You were expecting Lisa to have something for you, after her trip?’

  He closed his eyelids. ‘Yes, some smack.’

  ‘Heroin?’

  He nodded. ‘I went into the living room—’

  ‘Not the bedroom?’ Janet interrupted.

  ‘I could see she wasn’t in there, like. The door was open.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She was just lying there, you know …’ He’d said it before but obviously didn’t like the word in his mouth.

  ‘Describe her to me.’

  He took a big breath and wiped at his nose. ‘I told you.’

  ‘I know, but we need to hear it all again, Sean, because a lot of what you’ve told us keeps changing.’

  ‘Not this,’ he said on a sob.

  ‘What did you see?’

  He huffed again and then spoke: ‘She was lying there by th
e sofa and there was blood on her and her eyes were stuck, not moving.’

  ‘Did you touch her?’

  ‘No. I went and got the duvet.’

  ‘Before that, what was Lisa wearing?’

  ‘Her Chinese dressing gown,’ he said.

  ‘Any underwear?’

  ‘No.’ His voice cracked.

  ‘Would she usually wear that by itself?’

  ‘No.’ His mouth stretched with emotion.

  ‘Carry on,’ Janet said.

  ‘I brung the duvet and put it on her,’ he said.

  ‘How? Did you kneel?’

  ‘No, I just dropped it down, like.’

  ‘And you didn’t touch her?’

  ‘I told you,’ he shouted, ‘I never touched her! How many more t— For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘What then?’ Janet remained calm.

  ‘The smack was on the floor, under the table. I picked it up. And her phone.’

  ‘What did you do after you picked up the phone?’

  ‘I went in the kitchen.’

  If this is true, Janet felt like shaking him, what were you thinking of? The person closest to you in the whole world, the girl that presumably you claim to love, lies dead in a slick of her own blood, and your second thought after covering her up is to nick everything that isn’t nailed down. ‘Why the kitchen?’

  He hesitated. ‘I don’t know, really, to see … I don’t know. The light was on … and I went in and saw her cross on the floor and picked it up and then went back home.’

  ‘Did you see a knife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the cross and chain, what were you going to do with them?’

  ‘See if I could sell ’em.’ Not even a keepsake. That was sad. ‘Lisa said it was gold. They pay more for gold now, like,’ he added. A man with his eye on the markets. There was shame in the way he said it and the cast of his eyes. Not your proudest moment. Janet felt he understood how low he had stooped, how low his addiction had brought him. But if all the other stuff was flannel and he had stabbed her before stealing from her, then those thefts paled into insignificance.

  ‘What did you do at home?’

  ‘I put everything in my room and I had a hit,’ he said.

  ‘You took heroin?’ Janet said.

  ‘Just a bit,’ he said. ‘I knew I had to ring the police, but I was freaking. Then I went back to the flat, like I said.’

  ‘Did you go into the living room?’

  ‘I couldn’t see her again,’ he shuddered.

  ‘Who would want to do that to Lisa?’ Janet said, thinking to herself that throughout the whole process he had never asked that question, or offered an opinion, unlike Denise.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t make no sense. They didn’t take anything, not even the brown an’ … look, I loved her, right, but she could be a right bitch when she got going. But she hadn’t crossed anyone, nothing like that.’

  Oh, what a eulogy. ‘She’d crossed you,’ Janet pointed out.

  ‘I didn’t know that, I swear.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about stealing the heroin and the cross?’

  ‘I didn’t want to go to prison,’ he said simply.

  ‘You’ve just said you took some heroin when you got home – what about the rest?’

  He bit his lip, swung his head from side to side. It was a test, the truth was all or nothing. He’d been giving it them it in instalments each time they pushed him into a corner, now she needed to see how open he really was being.

  ‘Where’s the rest?’ If he lied about this …

  ‘In the yard, at my house, behind some bricks,’ he said. Janet gave a nod. Something else they could verify.

  ‘Who was Lisa sleeping with?’ Janet said, hoping the sudden change of topic might catch him out.

  ‘She wasn’t sleeping with anyone,’ he flushed.

  ‘She’d had sex.’

  ‘Maybe they raped her, and then did it, like.’

  ‘Killed her?’

  He chewed at his thumb, a pained expression on his face. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The phone call you made, did Lisa get upset with you?’

  ‘No, she just said she’d not be home till half three. That was it,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe she’d had enough, Sean, wanted you out of her life, off her back.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not true, that’s lies!’ He raised his voice: ‘That’s fucking lies!’

  Over the next few hours Sean Broughton was taken through his story time and again and nothing changed. He was by turns sullen, defensive, distressed and resigned, but he never gave an inch when pressed on the murder and his motive. Janet tried every technique she knew and failed to trip him up. No contradictions, no blind spots. He gave full details of where he’d hidden the last of the drugs and when Mitch made a trip there he found them exactly as described.

  As things stood, they could charge him with theft and possession of illegal drugs.

  Either he was a lot cleverer than he seemed, or someone else killed Lisa Finn.

  26

  THE BOSS HAD told them they’d leave Sean to have his eight hours and review the situation in the morning. If it’d been up to Rachel, she’d have kept going, wear the bastard down, but they had to keep to PACE rules, or anything he did say wouldn’t be watertight. His defence would whinge about coercion or contravention of his human rights and a case could be chucked out of court: Section 76 of the PACE Act 1984 any evidence obtained by oppression must not be admitted in court. Oppression includes torture, inhuman and degrading treatment and the use or threat of violence.

  The lack of anything tangible linking Sean to the stabbing was a disappointment. They’d found a partial fingerprint on the cross, but it hadn’t been his. He’d not shown himself to be a particularly quick thinker (what with all the pratting about over the bins), so Rachel didn’t think he’d had some brilliant plan to hide bloody clothes and the knife. That in turn made her question if he was their man. After all, if Sean had killed Lisa and wanted to cover his tracks, wouldn’t he say he’d arrived at four p.m. and called them straight away? Not fess up to an awkward half-hour gap.

  If it wasn’t Sean, the only other whiff of where to look was in the link to Rosie Vaughan and Ryelands. Another bite of the cherry couldn’t hurt.

  At first Rosie wouldn’t open the door. That brought knobby neighbour out, and Rachel had to hold her breath so she wouldn’t breathe in his miasma.

  ‘You back? Can’t stay away, eh? I never forget a pretty face.’

  Rachel ignored him and banged on the door again. Heard movement inside. The door began to open, but as soon as Rosie was able to see who was there, she tried to shut it in Rachel’s face. Rachel had already edged her foot in the gap and kept pushing. The girl was pin thin, weak with neglect, it wasn’t a fair contest.

  ‘I just want to talk to you,’ Rachel said.

  ‘No! Leave me alone.’ Rosie’s eyes were sunken behind her glasses, her cheeks hollow. Was she starving herself, too? She wore a flimsy dress, cream and pink, handkerchief sleeves, with leggings and broken-down jewelled slippers. The flat was perishing.

  Rachel wondered whether she’d get further if she tried a different tack. ‘Let me get you something to eat,’ she said, moving towards Rosie along the small hallway. ‘Got some bread?’

  ‘Get out.’ Rosie was quaking. ‘It’s my flat, I don’t want you here.’

  Rachel passed the bedroom. The door was ajar so she could see into the room; light from the walkway outside bled through the windows. The room was bare, not a stick of furniture or any carpet. Nothing. It was there Rosie had suffered the rape, the worst of the beating. That’s where they found her.

  Rosie, still backing away, reached the door to the living room and Rachel could see the window at the far side, the tiny balcony.

  ‘Get out.’ Rosie lifted her arm: she held a knife, a large penknife. Rachel glimpsed the ladder of scars on the underside of her forearm.
Deliberate self-harm. Still doing it. No wonder.

  Rachel paused. She hadn’t got her body armour on, hadn’t got anything, gas or radio. She was meant to carry personal safety equipment at all times but didn’t bother. And this wasn’t strictly official business. Which meant nobody knew she was here.

  Rosie’s eyes glittered, she looked feverish.

  Rachel ignored the knife, acted as though there was nothing to be worried about, kept moving forward. Rosie stepped over the threshold into the living room, the knife shaking in her hand. In the centre of the living room was a low couch with a sleeping bag and cushions on it, and around it on the floor a bizarre array of cans and bottles and foil food trays. Not litter – arranged in a wide circle, strung together with wool. ‘What’s this?’ Rachel said, and then she understood: an early warning system, like the things people rigged up on their allotments to scare birds or cats. If anyone entered the room while the girl slept on the couch, they would trip over the wool and make a noise. Except they wouldn’t. It was easy to see, simple to step across. Pathetic.

  ‘You’ve told him, haven’t you? You’ve told him,’ Rosie repeated, the knife jerking as she spoke.

  Told him what? She was off her trolley.

  ‘He’s going to come back now. I promised.’

  ‘I can protect you,’ Rachel said, trying to get on the same wavelength. ‘I haven’t told anybody anything. It was Martin Dalbeattie, Rosie, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Martin?’ Bewildered, she gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘I shouldn’t have let you in,’ she said, little gulps as she spoke. ‘You shouldn’t have come – he’ll know, he’ll come back.’ She looked round the room, her eyes darting this way and that, seeing terrors at every turn. ‘You get out! You’ve brought them in.’ Them? Who’s them? Rosie jabbed the knife towards Rachel, who edged away. The angry cuts on the girl’s arm were slashes, but now she was making a stabbing motion. Her breath fast, and shallow, hyperventilating.

  Rachel was pretty sure she could overpower her, but whether she could do it and avoid Rosie injuring herself, she was uncertain. She was empowered under the Mental Health Act to detain someone for their own safety when they were in immediate risk of serious harm to themselves or anyone else. This was that sort of call. Rachel was no psychiatrist, but Rosie was mad as a box of frogs. ‘Will you come with me, Rosie?’ Rachel said simply, as though she needed her hand holding. ‘I can take you somewhere safe.’