A Date With Death

by Mark Roberts

‘I want to go to the mortuary and see her body. I need to see my own daughter!’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Bobby. You’ve got enough stress going on at the moment.’ She glanced up at the ceiling and the sorrow pouring through it. ‘You need to stay right here to support your wife.’

  ‘I want to go to the mortuary.’

  ‘They won’t let you in, Bobby. Please. Let’s not go down that route any more. It’s not going to happen.’

  Clay stood up and walked to a formal framed picture of Annie, aged eighteen and in a sleeveless black prom dress. She picked out what she estimated was the greatest act of rebellion against her parents, the bluebird tattoo on her arm, and the mole she’d been born with. She engaged Bobby’s attention and indicated the picture on the wall.

  ‘You need to remember her like this.’

  He pushed himself up on the arms of the chair, hobbled over to the portrait and stood shoulder to shoulder with Clay. She listened to his laboured breathing and her head was filled with a recent memory of Annie’s scalped head and face on the bed of the River Mersey.

  ‘Did you see her body?’

  ‘Yes. I was the first officer to go directly to her.’

  ‘Was she wearing clothes?’

  ‘No.’

  She watched him wince, heard the quiet inarticulate sound of pain that went with it.

  ‘How did she die?’

  For a moment, she juggled in vain with words.

  ‘She was strangled. There was bruising around her neck. Distinctive fingerprints.’

  ‘If you won’t let me go to her, then you must describe the condition of Annie’s body to me, DCI Clay. I need to know.’

  The doorbell rang, a rising and falling scale.

  Bobby Boyd walked to the bay window and looked out.

  ‘I’ll let her in.’

  10

  10.54 am

  Alone in the living room, Clay scanned the walls and saw an uninspiring watercolour of the River Mersey at sunrise. She checked the signature, Annie Boyd, dated 2011, and worked out she must have been fifteen years of age when she painted it.

  She painted one of her own destinations en route to her grave, thought Clay, as the sound of a young woman’s voice came deeper into the house.

  The door opened and a woman in her mid twenties entered the room, her eyes wide with confusion and shock.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Bobby!’

  The young woman froze and looked at Clay as if she’d just materialised out of thin air. Clay showed the young woman her warrant card and she said, ‘Yes. Police. Of course. She’s dead? She’s definitely dead?’

  ‘This is DCI Eve Clay. DCI Clay, this is Cathy Jones, Annie’s best friend. They’ve been best friends since their first day in the reception class in St Austin’s, more than twenty years ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Clay as she computed the information about Cathy’s relationship to the victim. And that makes you beyond useful, she thought. ‘When did you last hear from Annie, Cathy?’

  ‘Six days ago. The day she went missing.’

  ‘Six days exactly?’ checked Clay as Annie’s father and Cathy sat close to each other on the sofa.

  ‘Thursday, 25 November,’ replied Cathy.

  ‘What time?’

  Cathy glanced at Annie’s father, a silent plea for Clay to change direction.

  ‘How about you, Bobby?’ asked Clay, pulling him back from the grief that sucked him under. ‘When was the last time you saw or heard from Annie?’

  ‘Annie? Six days,’ said Bobby. ‘The same. The longest silence from her. I – we knew she was dead.’

  ‘You knew she was dead?’ echoed Clay.

  The weak light of a winter’s day dissolved into deeper shadow as a cloud swallowed the pale sun.

  ‘We hoped for the best and prepared for the absolute worst…’

  Clay pressed record on her iPhone.

  ‘She was the perfect daughter, from the moment she was born until the last time I saw her…’

  In the same moment, Clay heard the click of the kettle as it turned itself off in the kitchen at the back of the house, and voices weaving through creaking floorboards above as Annie’s mother and her doctor walked towards the stairs.

  ‘We never had a moment’s trouble from her, not even when she was supposed to be difficult. There were no terrible twos. No awkward teens. Just that tattoo.’

  ‘That was my fault, Bobby. I got a tattoo and she copied me,’ said Cathy.

  He appeared not to hear.

  ‘She was just… good, all the time… good as gold.’

  ‘Bobby, tell me about the last time you saw Annie?’

  ‘It was on Thursday morning. She came into the kitchen, running late for work, which wasn’t like her. She was carrying a small bag, not one she usually took to school. I asked her what was in the bag. She told me she had a parents’ evening after school finished and that she was going out afterwards with her colleagues. She didn’t normally go on nights out with her colleagues.’

  The darkness of the day crept into his face.

  ‘She didn’t normally lie to us. When the head teacher called the next day to ask where Annie was…’ He turned to Cathy. ‘Do you know what she was up to?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue,’ replied Cathy, looking away from the man beside her.

  The door opened and Annie’s mother walked into the room. She looked directly at Clay. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Mary, this is the detective who found Annie,’ said Bobby.

  As she advanced towards her, Mary Boyd pointed at the iPhone in Clay’s hand.

  ‘Show me the pictures of her. Show me the pictures of her body. You found her. I know you’ve taken pictures of her. I’ve seen the pictures of her arms. Why can’t you show us the rest of her. Show me. So I know she’s definitely dead. You’re hiding something.’

  ‘I didn’t take pictures of your daughter’s body, Mrs Boyd,’ said Clay. ‘That’s not my job. That’s the job of our Scientific Support officers. I’m using the iPhone to record what’s being said. Mrs Boyd, which school did Annie teach in?’

  ‘St Jerome’s in the Dingle.’

  As Sergeant Green walked into the room with a tray of mugs, which she placed on the coffee table in front of the sofa, Cathy stood up and said, ‘Mary, please come and sit next to Bobby.’

  Clay took in the facial similarity between the middle-aged woman sitting next to her husband and the young woman in the framed portrait on the wall, and prepared the couple for the next piece of strangeness to come their way.

  ‘I’m going to be sending my officers round at some point today. They’re going to need to go into Annie’s room and remove some of her personal belongings.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bobby.

  ‘We’ll need to look through her laptop, any phones, diaries and address books Annie may have had.’

  Clay felt the buzz of an incoming message on her iPhone. She glanced at the screen and saw COLE.

  ‘I understand,’ Bobby replied. ‘Most murder victims know the person who killed them.’

  She turned off record and, opening the message from Detective Constable Barney Cole, felt a surge of energy.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Mary Boyd. ‘Why do you look so troubled?’

  ‘I’ve just received a message from my colleague. I’m sorry. I have to leave now.’

  Clay reached into her pocket and produced two contact cards, which she handed to Annie’s father and Cathy.

  ‘Cathy, a word please,’ she said. ‘Sergeant Green – please keep me posted.’

  ***

  Clay closed the door of the room and walked towards the front door.

  ‘Walk with me, Cathy.’ At the front door, Clay placed a finger against her lips and made a quiet shushing noise. ‘I’ve got to go now, Cathy. Call me on the number on the card you’re now holding so I can get back to you, and keep your phone on at all times. I need to talk to you really soon.’

  ‘I’ll do
everything I can to help you, of course I will.’

  ‘I understand you’re in shock right now but you’ve got to work hard at gathering all your thoughts together. We need to sit down and you must tell me everything about your last conversation with Annie, your last memories of Annie before she disappeared.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Can you just confirm something for me before I go? The internet dating site that Annie was on was Pebbles On The Beach. Right?’

  Cathy looked like a woman who had just heard the story of her life told by a complete stranger.

  ‘Pebbles On The Beach?’ persisted Clay. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘That – that’s exactly right. How did you know, DCI Clay?’

  Clay grimaced. ‘I’m afraid you’ll find out soon enough. I’m sorry for your loss, Cathy.’

  As Clay closed the front door behind herself and headed towards her car, she called Cole in the incident room in Trinity Road police station.

  ‘You messaged me to call you immediately, Barney. What’s happened?’

  ‘You’re on speakerphone, Eve. DCI Dave Ferguson, Warrington Constabulary, the SIO on the Sandra O’Day murder. He’s arrived at the station. He’s sitting next to me.’

  ‘Hello, Dave. Are you really early or have I got the times wrong?’

  ‘I’m early, Eve. I want to know what you know about your victim, your case, before I talk to your team.’

  ‘Not that much, but can you do that for me, Barney? Tell Dave everything we know.’

  ‘Will do.’

  For the first time that day, Clay smiled, as she ducked out of the rain and into her car.

  ‘I’m coming back right now.’

  She felt relieved as she drove away from Melbreck Road, a relief tinged with a shard of guilt because she was running away from people in their darkest moments.

  As she turned on to the roundabout leading on to Heath Road, Annie Boyd’s life flashed through her head in a split second in a series of framed pictures on the walls of her parents’ house, and came to a crashing halt as her body lay in the mud at the bottom of the River Mersey.

  Rain gathered on her windscreen and the wipers squealed as they pushed it away.

  Clay put her foot down on the accelerator and felt like the clouds were pressing down on her skull.

  11

  11.01 am

  Francesca Christie opened a brown paper bag and half-filled it with cherries; she took another bag from the greengrocer’s hook and selected five plums from the display in front of her – food for lunch and to snack on throughout the day.

  As she paid for her fruit, she watched the rain hitting the ground and heard the wind singing through the tarpaulin protecting the produce on display on the pavement outside the shop.

  Her iPhone rang out and, looking at the name on the display, she smiled and walked away from the till.

  James.

  ‘Hey, your change!’ The words followed her but in the moment they meant nothing.

  In the open doorway of the greengrocer’s, she stepped under the protection of the tarpaulin and connected the call.

  ‘Francesca?’ The surface of his voice was like liquid chocolate but beneath that sweetness there was a layer of stone that spoke to her of a unique inner strength. ‘Francesca, are you there?’ A smile crept into his words.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m here, James.’

  Slow down! Slow down! Slow down! she told herself.

  Looking around, she saw a pair of men struggling in the rain to carry a large mirror into the hairdressers two doors down from the greengrocer’s.

  ‘I love your new profile picture on Facebook. You’ve gone from being insanely pretty to downright beautiful.’

  She stared directly into the slanting rain and smiled.

  ‘You’re a sweet-talker.’

  He laughed and the sound was warm and kind.

  ‘Thank you for the picture you sent me. You’ve got such…’

  ‘Such what, Francesca? Such a nerve to surprise you?’

  ‘A surprise? For me? What is it?’

  ‘If I told you…’

  ‘It wouldn’t be a surprise.’

  Despite the cold wind that whipped the greengrocer’s shop front, Francesca felt her colour rising and something sweet and delicious rising from her core.

  ‘Where? Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m in a meeting room, waiting to go into the next round, Queen Elizabeth Crown Court.’

  ‘Which case is it?’

  ‘I’m fighting the deportation of an asylum-seeking woman and her three-year-old son back to Eritrea. She’s genuine. It’s pen-pushers versus humanity.’

  God, I’ve never met you but I’m so proud of you, so proud to have anything to do with you. She managed to keep the words from slipping out but felt her heart pound a little faster; and the world around her faded into a different place where a haze of endless dreams could come true.

  She heard the sound of a door opening at his end of the line and a woman saying, ‘The judge wants to see you in his chambers.’ Her voice dropped to conspiratorial. ‘I think you’re going to be pleased.’

  Francesca felt a sudden needle in her happiness. She didn’t like the tone of the woman’s voice, the familiarity, her closeness to him.

  In the moment before he had the chance to reply to the woman, Francesca analysed her voice more closely. It felt both familiar and strange in the same beat of time, and was filled with the weight of middle-age.

  ‘Thank you, Rhonda.’ The door closed behind her with an almost theatrical click, and Francesca dismissed the messenger. It was just a woman he worked with, after all.

  ‘Francesca, remember the deal we made?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We have to make a decision shortly…’

  ‘Friday, 3rd December,’ said Francesca. ‘Two days to go.’ She smiled and tried to sound bright but dreaded some demon stepping out of the shadows and causing the mutual decision to go against her profoundest wishes.

  ‘Maybe we could bring the date closer. Think about it. I’ve really got to go, Francesca. Francesca? Did you change your profile picture for my benefit?’

  ‘I – I did.’

  ‘Enjoy your surprise, angel.’

  Francesca found herself perfectly still on the middle of the pavement, not aware of how she took the four steps to get there. The rain poured down on to her head and she spoke quietly to herself. ‘Come on, Francesca, get yourself together.’

  She looked right and saw the workmen carrying another mirror into the refurbished hairdressers.

  ‘Fucking hell, it’s slipping out of my hands,’ said the man at the back.

  The man at the front stopped and lowered his end down to the pavement.

  ‘Gently, gently, that’s right.’ At both ends, the mirror rested safely on the pavement. ‘One, two, three, get a grip, up!’

  Francesca watched with morbid fascination as the workmen moved slowly through the rain to get the mirror to safety. She saw herself in the rain, a broad smile on her face, and, looking over the shoulder of her own reflection, she saw Norma Maguire on the pavement, an umbrella over her head, a statue in a manual wheelchair – a tiny detail in the background – watching from just outside the door of Maguire Holdings.

  Yes, yes, back to work, break time’s over… she commanded herself.

  As she turned a half-circle on the pavement, Norma was gone and, for a moment, she wondered if seeing her boss was an optical illusion caused by the giddy excitement of talking directly to James.

  Francesca walked back to the office through the rain, the ever-present stone in her soul crumbling into dust, and for the first time since she could remember, when she was a young child, she was excited and happy to be alive.

  12

  11.21 am

  As Detective Sergeant Gina Riley placed Annie Boyd’s two laptops into evidence bags, she looked around the dead woman’s bedroom and imagined the victim’s life flashing before her
eyes as she died at the hands of The Ghoul.

  Riley had gathered two of Annie’s old iPhones, a digital camera, a locked diary and an address book.

  She opened the wardrobe door and saw a row of neatly ordered clothes hanging from a rail and dozens of pairs of shoes stacked on racks with two empty sections that sang poignantly to Riley. The sensible shoes you wore for school, she thought, and the kind of heels for a date.

  Sliding the wardrobe door over, she stopped, her attention tripped by a dress at the left end of the rail, protected by a zipped plastic cover.

  She took the dress out and made a connection.

  It was a black dress. She recognised it from the framed photograph downstairs as the one Annie had worn for her prom. Riley looked at the silky fabric and the material was like a flag to blighted hope.

  The drawers of the dressing table contained nothing other than underwear. Riley dug her hands beneath the knickers and bras and found nothing hidden there, only the flat base of the drawer. The surface of the dressing table was uncluttered, with only a Jean-Paul Gaultier fragrance and a few less expensive brands of perfume, a hairbrush and a jewellery box that was half-full with a collection of costume jewellery and inexpensive bracelets and necklaces.

  She opened the bag on the dressing table and saw a range of mid-market make-up.

  Riley picked up the hairbrush and took it to the bed where Annie’s other belongings were bagged.

  Is Annie on the DNA database? she asked herself. Almost certainly, no.

  As she bagged the brush for the blonde hairs trapped between the tiny forest of teeth, she reasoned, If he’s got your scalp, your whole head of hair, those hairs may appear on his clothes, in the place he lives or works. This simple hairbrush could be the bridge between you and the fucker who did this to you.

  Riley sat on the stool and looked at herself in the mirror, imagined Annie sitting there and applying make-up as she prepared for a night out, her hopes rising as she wondered if this was going to be the night that she met a special man, the elusive Mr Right.

  In the mirror, over her right shoulder, Riley caught the reflection of the pillow on Annie’s single bed, the intimate sleeping place of a lonely woman with romantic dreams.