What You Left Behind

by Samantha Hayes

  Gil nodded. “I will give my girlfriend a ring.” He held out the knuckles of his right hand and flashed a signet ring. “I will give her this one.”

  “Did you see Dean’s girlfriend’s face?” Lorraine asked.

  Lana squirmed and glanced at her parents. I’m sorry, Mum, I’m so sorry …

  Tony stepped in. “What you have to understand about Gil, Detective, is that his mind doesn’t work quite like ours,” he said reasonably. “He is severely autistic. He doesn’t filter things the same way we would. Think of him as a collector of information, a hoarder of such minuscule detail that you or I wouldn’t even notice, let alone file away to draw upon later. He can’t help it. He also puts way more value on brief acquaintances than is appropriate.”

  “Dean was my best friend,” Gil said, staring at Burnley earnestly.

  “My point exactly,” Tony said. “He’d only met Dean a couple of times but is still grieving as if he’s lost a brother. Fabrications help him come to terms with that.”

  Lana drew a deep breath in readiness.

  “Do you remember what you did when the milkman passed away, Gil?” Tony went on.

  “Don’t tell them Tony. Please don’t tell them about that.” Gil rocked fervently.

  Tony shrugged at the detective.

  “But Dean’s girlfriend ran away from the crash,” Gil continued, suddenly reanimated. He looked at Lana, but she turned away. “She didn’t help Dean.”

  “And that’s when you found the visor, Gil?” Lorraine asked.

  “Yes. I thought I could mend it. I’m good at mending things.”

  “But you couldn’t identify Dean’s girlfriend?” Burnley asked. His impatience was palpable.

  Gil didn’t reply.

  “Even though you were able to see her ring.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you explain more?”

  “Dean was my friend. He didn’t kill himself—”

  “Don’t explain from the beginning again, for Christ’s sake,” Burnley interrupted. “How come you were close enough to see the ring yet not the girl’s face?”

  Gil’s breath rasped in his chest. He was agitated. “She was wearing the helmet but—”

  “Stop!” Lana yelled.

  Everyone stared at her as she stood by the door, dogs to heel, the leads yanked tight as she clamped her arms across her chest.

  “It was me,” she stated calmly. “I was the other person on the motorbike.”

  25

  Lana looked dejected and empty, her eyes huge in her white face.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she’d said to Lorraine as they followed Detective Inspector Burnley through the building. They ended up in a small interview room.

  “Just tell us the truth, love” was Lorraine’s reply.

  They’d gone to the Justice Center in separate cars, Burnley agreeing that Lorraine could accompany Lana. It was an informal interview, but that could change without notice, he’d warned with a sour expression.

  “So,” he said, squeezing into the small space between the table and the wall, half standing again to adjust his trousers and jolting the table. “Tell me everything, then.”

  Lorraine was sitting beside Lana. The interview wasn’t being recorded but there was another officer present taking notes.

  Lana glanced up at the mirrored glass set into the wall. “Is there anyone behind there?” she asked.

  Lorraine shook her head. “Even if there was, it doesn’t matter. We’re on your side, love. We just want to know what happened. Start with the night you claim you were on the motorbike. Tell us about that.” She smiled, wanting to reach out and squeeze her hand, but knew it would set Burnley off.

  “Claim?” Lana said softly. She tipped her head sideways and squinted at Lorraine. “It’s not a claim, it’s the truth.”

  “From the beginning,” Burnley said coldly. He leaned forward on short, folded arms.

  “Dean and I, you know, we liked each other. It was his idea, the bike. I think he wanted to show off. He wanted to …” Lana paused and drew in a big breath. “He wanted to show me a good time.” It came out as a sigh.

  “Can you remember what you were wearing?” Lorraine asked.

  Burnley stared across at her as if she were mad, then stretched back his head and rubbed his neck.

  Lana shrugged. “Not really. It was a warm night. I usually live in my denim shorts, a T-shirt, and my Converses in the holidays.” She looked down at her current attire. “Maybe something like this?” It came out as a question.

  “So Dean stole the motorbike,” Burnley said.

  Lana nodded. “It was so easy.” She tucked back her hair. “I was scared, but he said we’d bring it back later so I thought that would be OK.”

  “Where did you steal it from?” Burnley asked.

  “A pub somewhere, I think. I can’t remember much. I hit my head.”

  Lorraine wanted to keep moving forward. “So you got on the bike …”

  “Yeah, and we, like, went off. He knew how to ride it. Said he’d been messing with bikes since he was a kid.”

  “Did you have a helmet?” Lorraine asked.

  Lana suddenly looked panic-stricken. “Helmet?” she said, frowning. “I was wearing one.” She paused. “Yeah, Dean insisted I wear it. There was only one, you see.”

  Burnley pushed back in his chair until his shoulders hit the wall. “Tell me about the motorbike. Can you remember what make or color it was?”

  “It was dark,” Lana said slowly. “I don’t really know. It was just a bike. It was quite big, maybe blue. I don’t know. And I don’t know what color the helmet was either. Dean put it on me before I saw it.”

  “Who was driving the bike when you stole it?” Burnley asked.

  “Dean.”

  “Had you ever been on a motorbike before this?”

  Lana shook her head. “Not unless a quad bike counts. We have one at home. Dad uses it to get about the land. I’ve driven that before.”

  Burnley nodded. “Where did you go first?”

  Lana frowned again. “Just around. I was a bit scared. He was going fast. He took us down the lanes, through some villages.”

  “And what happened next?” Lorraine asked, watching her intently.

  “I can’t recall very well.” Lana touched the side of her head. “We were at Devil’s Mile, going really fast, and then …” Her hand went over her eyes. “And then I just remember waking up. Everything hurt. Then I saw Dean and he was really badly injured. I panicked and didn’t know what to do …”

  She gave a loud sob. Lorraine noticed there were no tears.

  “So you ran away,” Lorraine said.

  “It was stupid and cowardly, I know, but I was so scared. I ran back home and pretended it had never happened.”

  “DO YOU BELIEVE her?” Lorraine asked Burnley later, with the familiar sounds of a busy department going on around them—a cacophony of ringing phones, layers of chatter, people sliding past each other in the narrow walkways between the rows of desks. Someone had brought in a tray of cakes—a birthday perhaps.

  “No, I don’t,” Burnley replied.

  Lorraine reckoned it was the first time she’d ever heard him sound genuine.

  She agreed with him, but kept it to herself.

  “She was clueless,” Burnley continued, blowing ripples across the top of his coffee. “Covering up for someone, or something.”

  “And Freddie? You believe her about that?”

  That had come right at the end of the interview and was the most important revelation as far as Lorraine was concerned. She hadn’t phoned Jo yet, but it gave her hope that they would find him soon. She hadn’t known whether to hug or shake Lana when she’d confessed that she’d discovered Freddie sleeping at New Hope that morning.

  Burnley was leaning across his desk. He looked like a bulldog, Lorraine thought. All neck and bad breath.

  “You know what? I think I do believe her about that.” He grinned. “I’ve a
lready got some officers working on the town’s CCTV but six of the cameras are down currently. Have been for months.”

  “I reckon he’s still local. This shouldn’t be difficult.”

  Lorraine was conscious that Lana was waiting for her downstairs. She’d been left in the care of a female officer, who’d taken her to get a drink.

  “What’s the stupid lad playing at, Fisher?” Burnley sounded almost compassionate. “You know him better than me. Everything OK at home?”

  Lorraine sighed. “His mum’s just split up with his stepdad. Freddie was very close to him.” She paused, reluctant to reveal personal information about Jo, but it had to be done. “And when I spoke to Lana early this morning she told me Freddie’s been having a hard time with some local kids. Online bullying, trouble at school.”

  Burnley yawned, erasing any notion of compassion. “Interesting,” he remarked.

  “One more thing …” She was probably pushing her luck, but since she’d seen the CCTV footage of the bike leaving the pub and heard Lana’s confession, she couldn’t let it go. “The Dean Watts file. I noticed there was no report about the suicide note that was found.”

  “Correct,” Burnley said.

  “You didn’t think it was worth a handwriting analyst taking a look?”

  “Nope.”

  A young constable ducked into the office bearing a tray and Burnley grabbed a cube of yellow sponge cake. Lorraine shook her head at him politely.

  “Then you won’t mind if I do?” she said.

  Burnley stared at her, his mouth full. He’d stopped chewing, as if thinking took up all his brain’s capacity. “I thought you were on holiday. Do you have a hard time relaxing?”

  “I do when I see incomplete investigations prematurely closed. And I do when new evidence is made available and ignored. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to get out of here and be with my family but, if you remember, I spent seven months of my life chained to your cock-ups, so it would seem remiss of me now not to make certain you are keeping your new house in order.”

  They stared at each other until Lorraine touched her lip pointedly and raised her eyes. Instinctively, Burnley drew the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “And while we’re at it, what did the pathology report reveal about Lenny Jackman? And the other scene forensics? There were plenty.”

  She stood up to leave, trying to contain her thumping heart. She’d not wanted to become involved in these cases, and if it had been anyone, anyone, but Greg Burnley on the other side of that desk, she’d have left well enough alone.

  “Nothing’s available yet,” he stated. “I’ll let you know when it is.”

  He picked up his desk phone and jabbed a few numbers. “Jane, bring the Dean Watts file to my office immediately, please.” He hung up. “I’ll get you copies of the suicide note and you can analyze it to your heart’s content.” That laugh was back again. “Comparing it to what, though, I have no idea. That’s your problem.”

  IT WAS NEARLY midnight but Lorraine couldn’t sleep. The guest room was hot and humid, the thick stone walls of Glebe House hanging onto every shred of the day’s heat and transmitting it back at night like a giant storage heater.

  “The stupid thing is, this place is freezing in winter,” she said to Adam, remembering nights from her childhood bundled up in sweaters and woolly socks.

  She slipped off her T-shirt and pulled the sheet up under her arms.

  Adam smiled and raised his eyebrows.

  “Stop it,” she said, shoving him in the shoulder. “It was weird in the station,” she added after a short pause. “Lana seemed relieved, as if a great weight had been lifted from her. Sonia was in a right state when I took her back though.”

  When Lorraine dropped Lana home Sonia had been standing at the door, waiting for them. Lorraine wondered if she’d been there since the moment they’d left.

  “For God’s sake, what have you done?” were her first words to her daughter after they’d gone inside.

  “It wasn’t that bad, Mum,” Lana had said. “Chill out.”

  “Chill out? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Sonia had seemed more fragile and thin than usual, her movements even more erratic, her mental state more frantic.

  “The detective was really nice, actually.”

  Lorraine had stifled a noise at this point.

  “What, do you think he’s going to put you on his Christmas card list? Wave if we bump into him in the supermarket? For God’s sake, Lana, you’ve just confessed to killing someone. You’ve ruined your entire life.”

  “You know,” Lorraine said to Adam, “Sonia seemed more concerned with Lana’s medical school application being turned down because of a police record than anything else.”

  “She’s been through a lot” was his drowsy reply.

  “God, it’s too hot in here.” Lorraine got out of bed and opened the window in the hope there might be a breeze.

  The whole house seemed to creak and groan as she tried to settle again. She wondered if Jo had fallen asleep yet. The prospect of another night without Freddie filled them all with dread.

  “At least we know now where Freddie was last night,” she went on. “I just don’t understand why Lana didn’t tell us sooner.”

  “Kids don’t snitch on each other, remember? Anyway, it’s clear that Freddie chose to leave home of his own accord. The question is why.”

  Adam pulled up the floral bedspread. Lorraine kicked it off again.

  “Jo’s still out of her mind with worry,” she said, “although she was comforted to know that Freddie had been at the shelter. I stopped off at the Job Center in Wellesbury on the way home and managed to get copies of forms with Dean Watts’ handwriting on them. Something for our friends at the university to analyze tomorrow. I’ll drive out and see Bill.”

  Adam sighed and rolled over to face her. “Has this all become a distraction for you, Ray, or do you really think there’s some kind of a link?”

  “Adam, the Watts case has new evidence. It needs re-examining. After what I went through last time I can’t watch Burnley fuck up again. I’m hovering over the Lenny Jackman death like a hawk too. As for a link, unless Freddie does something stupid”—she sighed—“then I don’t see one. Even so, it’s only a matter of time before some zealous reporter picks up the story. Two homeless lads kill themselves in a month, same area as the Wellesbury Six. It’s too soon after that to ignore.”

  “But if Dean’s death was an accident, as Lana claims, then it’s hardly the start of another spate, is it? Lenny whoever-he-was gets lumped in with the couple of hundred other railway jumpers each year, and on its own it isn’t remarkable. Even in this area. You’d think Burnley would prefer to take the stolen-bike-and-accident option.” Adam curled an arm round her waist. “Do you believe Lana was on the motorbike?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest,” Lorraine said. “But one thing’s for certain: either Lana’s lying or Dean’s suicide note is. I just don’t know why she would confess to something she didn’t do.”

  “And if Lana is telling the truth, who wrote the note?”

  They lay in silence for a few minutes, breathing in the night’s thick heat. Adam batted away a mosquito.

  “Earlier, at the Manor, Sonia implied Lana was protecting Gil by confessing, to save him from any inquiry.” Lorraine rubbed her eyes. She was tired but knew sleep was still a long way off.

  “That sounds unlikely,” Adam said. “Why not just defend him rather than implicate herself? Also, where are her injuries?”

  “It’s unlikely, yes, but not impossible,” Lorraine responded. “As for her injuries, Gil said she fell off, didn’t he? She could have been thrown clear before impact, landed on soft ground. We don’t know that she hasn’t recently suffered a bad back or a stiff neck or even cuts and bruises. The incident was a month ago now, kids are good at concealing things, and they heal quickly.”

  She yawned.

  “S
he wasn’t wearing a ring like the one in Gil’s picture, though I guess she could have got rid of it.”

  Adam nodded. “Confessions can take their time coming, especially if she reckoned she could get away with it to begin with. It was the dead of night, no witnesses—or so she thought—she panicked and ran.”

  “It fits with what she said. Ever since her brother killed himself, Jo told me that Lana has been hot-housed for a medical career, almost like a replacement.”

  “So doctor-in-the-making falls in love with the wrong boy. A homeless boy. There’s no way her parents would approve.”

  “Agreed,” Lorraine said. “The pressure gets too much and she turns bad girl for a night—drinks, smokes weed, drives a stolen bike. Let’s face it, our kids aren’t always who we think they are.” She recalled what Grace had been through the previous year, and the problems she and Adam had had coming to terms with it.

  “So Dean died instantly and there was nothing Lana could do. Her career was over before it had even begun. She panicked. She ran.”

  “She could be covering up for someone else, but who, and why? Dean’s real girlfriend?” Lorraine suggested, answering her own question. “Let’s face it, Lana with a homeless lad is pretty improbable, even as a rebellious strop.”

  “Perhaps someone’s blackmailing her.” Adam sounded sleepy. He eased himself down the bed. “My gut says we should believe her for now.”

  “Your gut?” Lorraine said sarcastically. “That’s ironic coming from the man who refuses to base anything on assumptions. Ever.”

  “This is different,” Adam replied, glancing at his watch before unbuckling it and putting it on the bedside table.

  “Why?”

  “It’s not my case.”

  ADAM HAD FALLEN asleep within minutes, but Lorraine remained awake. At least she didn’t think she’d dropped off: every so often she jerked upright and tried to focus on the small display of the bedside clock. She couldn’t recall fretting over the time after 3:27, so when she opened her eyes after being woken by a noise downstairs she was dismayed to see light seeping in around the curtains already.