So, fuck you, Greg.
The dead girl’s group?
He stopped on the narrow bridge above Northwood Road, a single line of traffic crawling beneath him, and called Diana.
‘That’s wonderful news,’ she said. ‘Will the others be coming?’
‘You’re the first person I’ve called,’ Tony said. He could hear a dog yapping in the background. Diana shouted at it to be quiet.
‘Thank you. For carrying on, I mean. I wasn’t sure you would.’
‘Oh, I was always going to continue with the sessions. It was just a question of when, that’s all.’
‘Well, you’ve made my day,’ Diana said. ‘Oh, and just so you know, things are still OK, touch wood. It’s been a few weeks, but they’ve all been good weeks…’
The next call went straight to voicemail, but Robin rang back before Tony had reached the other side of the bridge. He sounded equally enthusiastic.
‘I’m sorry for calling you at work,’ Tony said.
‘No problem,’ Robin said. ‘Best news I’ve had in ages.’
‘That’s nice to hear.’
‘I’m going to plenty of other meetings, obviously, and I know we had some ups and downs, but that group was special.’
‘I’ll see you at the session, then.’
‘Got plenty of biscuits in?’
‘Of course.’
‘Heather would have wanted us to carry on. Don’t you think?’
The ground on either side of the path rose rapidly as Tony walked on, and a few minutes later the portals of what were once the Highgate tunnels came into view. In the decades since the closure of the line nature had stepped in to reclaim the land and now a tangle of dark roots twisted up through the collapsing brickwork. Cherry, rowan and hawthorn trees lined the trackbed and Tony had seen a family of muntjac deer at this very spot a few years before. He remembered holding his breath, reaching gingerly for his phone, desperate to get a picture for Emma, but the animals had gone before he’d had the chance.
‘I’ll be there,’ Caroline said. ‘But don’t expect me to be in a good mood.’
‘Everything OK?’
‘Oh yeah, apart from being sacked everything’s brilliant.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Tony said.
‘Stupid cow said it was because of the police coming in, but she was just looking for an excuse, if you ask me. Not good for business, is it, having someone like me sitting at a till? Like a fatso at the checkout is going to stop people buying cakes.’
‘Sounds to me like you might have a case for unfair dismissal.’
‘Probably,’ Caroline said. ‘Can’t be arsed.’
Striding on towards Queen’s Wood, on a trail that would eventually bring him out on Muswell Hill Road, he arrived at another bridge, or what remained of it. He could smell mould and piss. Those bricks not lost beneath a wall of ivy were decorated with brightly coloured swirls of graffiti.
Leering faces and illegible messages; stars and smiley faces.
Doesn’t matter what the reason was. Just happy that you decided to come…
Tony stood in the shadow of the overhang, sweating slightly and suddenly aware of how spooky the place could be. He remembered telling Emma the tale of the dreadful Goat-man, a figure from urban myth who was supposed to haunt these unlit pathways which local kids dared one another to walk at night. She had been frightened and upset, and it had taken him a good while to convince her that it was just a stupid story.
He wasn’t expecting Chris to answer his phone, not when he saw who was calling, so he thought through his message for a minute or two before ringing and leaving it.
‘Chris, it’s Tony. I know things were a bit difficult for you at the last session and I hope you understand that you didn’t really give me a great deal of choice. But I wanted to let you know that the Monday night group’s starting up again, week after next probably, and I’d really like you to be there. Fresh start, OK? I hope you’re doing well and don’t worry, it’s fine if you don’t feel like you want to come along. If you do… great. Call me either way.’
Moving out of the semi-dark, Tony started slightly when he saw a figure crouched against the wall at the far side of the bridge. When he stepped closer it was clear that it was no ghostly Goat-man, and though there were no needles to be seen on the floor Tony did not need telling that the man was high: rocking slowly, his shaved head lolling, like he kept waking for a second or two before nodding off again.
Winos and drug addicts made good use of the place too. The so-called Friends of the Parkland did their best to move them on, to keep the place ‘clean’, but still, junkies were a lot more common than muntjacs.
Tony thought about Chris.
He really hoped he would make it to the meeting, but he wasn’t holding his breath. It would be understandable if Chris wanted to forget all about the group and the people in it. To pretend that the events of that last Monday evening had never happened.
For very different reasons, Tony wanted to do exactly the same thing.
… NOW
Tanner closed the file on her computer, sat back for a minute or two then began to tidy her desk. She straightened papers and lined up pens, opened each of the drawers in turn and rearranged the contents. Then, for the third time since sitting down, she drew a stapled set of documents towards her and began to read.
It didn’t take long. Still nothing…
‘Somebody got out the wrong side of bed,’ Susan had said. On her way to school, a few hours before, driving Tanner to the tube; negotiating the drizzle and the creep of rush-hour traffic in Hammersmith. ‘Got in the wrong side last night, thinking about it.’
Tanner couldn’t argue. Well, she could have said something about the fact that Susan could not possibly have known exactly what kind of mood she’d been in the night before. Not considering how much Pinot Grigio she’d put away in the course of the evening. Instead, she said, ‘I know, sorry. This bloody case.’
‘The girl in Victoria?’ Susan leaned on the horn, swore at a cyclist.
‘What?’ Tanner was staring out of the passenger window. The shop fronts drifting past, pedestrians mooching along, looking no keener to get to work than she was.
‘The drugs thing?’
They had not spoken about the Heather Finlay case since the discussion in the Chinese restaurant the week before. That night, Susan’s less than sympathetic views on drug addiction had caused a good degree of friction and had almost led to a row. Tanner thought that sometimes Susan wanted a row, enjoyed blowing away the cobwebs, certainly when drink had been taken. Tanner preferred a quiet life and refused to rise to the bait on such occasions. There was more than enough shit to wade through at work.
‘I thought I was on to something,’ Tanner said. ‘Well, I still do, but it’s not that… clear cut.’
It had taken longer than she would have liked to get De Silva’s notes. Because they were designated as ‘excluded material’ under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Tanner had been unable to obtain a warrant in the usual manner. The district court judge had accepted her application for seizure and readily granted the necessary order, but this gave De Silva seven days to produce the material and granted him the right to object to its use in court. Though he had raised no such objection, he had seemed in no huge hurry to hand the notes over, and after three days Tanner had run out of patience and sent a uniformed officer round to collect them. Photocopies had finally been delivered to Tanner’s house the night before.
Now those pages sat in the middle of her nice, tidy desk and they might just as well have been expenses forms or health and safety guidelines. Tanner had imagined marching into Ditchburn’s office and dropping them on to his desk, hard evidence of her suspicions at the very least and, at best, grounds for arrest.
The meeting had not exactly panned out that way.
She looked up to see Chall by her desk.
‘Not a lot in there, is there?’
‘There’s plenty,
but not what we need,’ Tanner said.
‘Has Ditchburn seen them?’
‘If you mean Detective Chief Inspector Ditchburn, yes, obviously.’
‘So…’
‘He was… disappointed,’ Tanner said. ‘He agreed it was a setback and suggested I concentrate on the other open cases I’ve got, each of which is every bit as important as this one.’
‘Right.’
Dead end was the phrase Ditchburn had actually used, more than once, and, as far as those other cases went, it had been rather more of an instruction than a suggestion. Tanner rubbed her temples. She could feel a headache gathering strength.
‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to work on my other cases, because that’s what the DCI told me to do.’
Chall nodded, but showed no inclination to move. ‘What about Heather Finlay?’
Tanner turned her head slowly to look at him. ‘Do you know what multitasking is, Dipak?’
‘Not really,’ Chall said, grinning. ‘I’m a bloke.’ He watched Tanner turn away from him and jabbed a finger towards the notes on her desk. ‘Bloody hell, though, I thought people like him were supposed to keep proper notes.’
‘Depends on the therapist, I suppose.’
‘So what, he’s just a lazy bastard?’
‘Lazy, pushed for time, who knows?’
‘When he’s talking about Heather’s story, there’s no names, no dates, nothing.’ Chall was expressing all the frustration, all the disappointment Tanner was doing her best to keep to herself.
‘Maybe she never mentioned them.’
‘Or maybe she did and he just chose not to write them down. Maybe all that information is inside De Silva’s head.’
Tanner thought about that.
‘We can get his crappy notes, but how can we make him tell us?’
When Chall eventually wandered away, Tanner picked up the sheaf of notes again. It was the lack of detail that was the issue, no question about it. But even the broad strokes of the therapist’s notes on that final session were enough to convince her that it was not quite a dead end, that as she’d said to Ditchburn, this was still their best bet. Best and only. There was certainly enough motive in Heather Finlay’s story for any number of killers.
Adultery, false accusation, murder.
Reading De Silva’s sketchy summaries one more time, she had little doubt that, whatever the details of Heather Finlay’s confession, it had seriously upset other members of that group, even before whatever had taken place in the pub later on. Made one of them angry enough to lose control perhaps and decide to take revenge.
Flipping back through the pages, it was apparent to Nicola Tanner that many of them were unstable enough already.
… THEN
It is no more than a few seconds before Diana speaks, from the moment she opens the door and the woman standing in front of her introduces herself, but it feels like far longer. Time slowing and stretching, like woozy minutes sinking slowly beneath the surface of a dark pool; fighting the urge to scream and take in that fatal lungful.
A few seconds during which she decides she will probably need a nice long day at Heal’s and John Lewis when this – whatever it turns out to be – is done with. She is already feeling that urge to spend, to acquire; to cram more things she will convince herself she wants into already overstuffed drawers and cupboards until she starts to feel better.
‘I know who you are,’ Diana says. Calm and cold, breaking the surface, sucking in air.
The woman… the girl, shows no sign of surprise, although they have never actually met. Diana knows her name, of course, and has always known what she looks like. More than once, especially in the early days, she had driven to the house this girl and her ex-husband are still sharing; sat in the car and waited for a glimpse. A shape drifting past a window, lowering a blind. Once Diana had watched the girl emerge from the house and drive away in a shiny new Range Rover. She had followed at a distance, a few cars back the way they do on TV shows, with no idea what she would do when the journey ended. Eventually she had lost the Range Rover at some lights and pulled into a side street to cry, the bottle in the glove compartment within easy reach.
‘I just thought we should talk.’
Diana says nothing.
‘Obviously you know about the baby, so…’ The girl shifts her weight from one foot to another as though she’s waiting for congratulations. She attempts a smile. ‘It can’t hurt to try and be civilised.’
Diana hopes that the scream is only inside her head. She says, ‘Civilised,’ and suddenly the word sounds very strange.
‘Yes, don’t you think?’
‘Does he know you’re here?’
‘It was his idea, actually.’
‘Well, that’s all right then.’ Diana’s grip tightens on the edge of the door. ‘Whatever’s best for him.’
‘So, can I come in?’
Diana stares past her, towards the enormous ash tree at the end of the drive. It seems like only a few weeks ago that its branches were bare, but now the familiar explosion of green is shading the front lawn. It might even need cutting back a little. From the corner of her eye she sees that the girl is about to speak again, so she stands aside to let her in.
God, the state of me. Why did I put on this hideous old skirt this morning? Why didn’t I get my hair done yesterday?
She walks past the girl and leads her into the kitchen, hearing the pleasing hum of admiration behind her at the first view of the garden. Or perhaps it is the Poggenpohl units.
‘It’s lovely,’ the girl says.
Diana half turns and acknowledges the compliment with a nod as she moves towards the table, but she knows very well what her visitor is really thinking.
I took him away from this.
‘You can barely swing a cat in our kitchen.’
He left it all for me…
Diana pulls back a chair for herself and watches as the girl hesitates. Had she been expecting the offer of a drink? A plate of cucumber sandwiches, for Christ’s sake? She stares, and sees the girl smile, every bit as embarrassed as she should be, before she walks to the table, her heels click-clacking on the terracotta tiles, and sits down.
‘Look, I don’t suppose we’re ever going to be friends.’
‘Oh, really? That’s a shame.’ The sarcasm is too heavy-handed and as she watches the girl’s face fall Diana silently chides herself for the loss of control. She says, ‘Sorry,’ and hates herself even more for the show of weakness. The gutless… Britishness.
‘It has been quite a while, after all.’
‘I’m well aware how long it’s been.’
‘So, don’t you think we should at least make an effort? The three of us, I mean.
‘What?’
‘For Phoebe’s sake if nothing else.’
‘Please don’t talk about my daughter.’
‘Well, she’s not just your daughter, is she?’ Now the girl is showing the steel that Diana has always known was in there. ‘It’s inevitable that I’ll be seeing a lot of her, and us being enemies is going to be hard on her, that’s all.’
Diana stares down at her hands.
Why didn’t I do my nails this week? I look terrible.
‘I’m only trying to help. Honestly.’
She must think I look like I’ve given up.
‘He’s always telling me what a fantastic mother you are.’
Diana looks up.
The girl nods. ‘Honestly. He knows very well you’re a better parent than he ever was. So, I thought, if we talked about things a bit, we might come to some kind of understanding at least, which would make things easier for Phoebe. Well… for all of us. Make a truce or whatever. I know we haven’t actually been fighting or anything, but you know what I mean…’
Diana realises suddenly that she has been staring at the girl’s chest, unblinking like a lecherous teenager, and that the girl is aware of it.
Comparing the girl’s
breasts to her own.
Imagining her ex-husband’s hands on them, remembering what that felt like.
She pushes her chair back. ‘Excuse me.’
She hasn’t actually been sick, but it had felt as though she was about to be and she had not wanted to take the chance. To risk the girl seeing her struggle; her cheeks bulging, her hand across her mouth.
Him and the girl, tucked up in bed…
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Seriously. She was staring at my tits and then you won’t believe what happened…’
She breathes deeply as she watches herself in the mirror, as she runs a tap quietly and splashes water on to her face. She dries her cheeks with a flannel then throws it into the cupboard beneath the sink.
‘You were right, darling. I think she’s finally lost it.’
She stares at the bottle of bleach and imagines her knees on the girl’s bony shoulders, forcing the neck of the bottle between those bee-stung lips, so much bigger and harder than her ex-husband’s sorry little manhood. She wonders how long it would take. The agony would be immediate, she supposes, then presumably a long lingering death as the insides are burned out.
She closes the cupboard door and wipes water spots from the granite with her palm. She steps across to flush the toilet she has not used, then goes back to the mirror to quickly do what she can with her hair.
‘We do PR for all sorts of people, actually. Arts organisations, charities, local authorities. All sorts.’
The girl is still sitting at the table, while Diana is busy making tea. Cups, not mugs. A tray, for pity’s sake. That damned Britishness refusing to stay buried.
‘I can’t really blame you for thinking that I’m some sort of gold-digger, so I just wanted you to know that I actually work bloody hard. You know, give you some idea of what I do.’
‘Do you take milk?’ Diana asks.
The girl says that she does. Just a dash. ‘We’ve got separate bank accounts too, in case you were wondering. It feels a bit weird telling you this stuff, but I want you to know that I pay my own way, that money’s got nothing to do with it.’
Die of Shame Page 29
