The woman nodded her understanding but held her arms out, fingers opening and closing around empty air. Gill knew that powerful urge, had seen it before, the desire to clasp the person, to hold them close. She had witnessed it at murder scenes where a relative or sometimes even the culprit clung to the victim, raining kisses on them, rocking them, willing them back to life. At road traffic accidents where parents cradled shattered children or drivers held hands with their lifeless passenger. And when she had accompanied the bereaved to funeral parlours and seen them stroke their loved one’s hair or cheek. A tactile way of understanding that the person was dead and gone. That the essence of them wasn’t there any more. Their heat and vitality and spirit had departed.
‘Do you need a moment?’ Gill asked, eager to get Margaret back to the station, to move things forward, aware of time passing from the metronome ticking in her pulse. For somewhere out there were Cottam and his children, at grave risk of death.
Margaret Milne turned to face her, slowly wiped her cheeks with her fingers and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said numbly.
Gill dipped her head and turned and led them out of the mortuary into the bright of the day.
5
‘But won’t it be weird for you?’ Rachel said, cramming half a sausage roll into her mouth and swallowing before she continued, ‘me being a sergeant and you still a DC?’ Snatching a break at the station before their respective interviews. A snack at their desks. She hadn’t had breakfast earlier, couldn’t face it, so had spent all morning with her stomach feeling as if her throat had been cut. An image of Michael Milne flashed into her mind. The napkin of blood across his chest. And the sickening powerlessness as Nick stooped over her in the dream, slid the knife under her throat.
‘Why should I?’ Janet said, ‘Gill’s my boss, our boss, several rungs up, and I can handle that.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘What?’ said Janet.
‘She’s your age.’
‘Ancient, you mean?’
Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘And she’s years of experience. But me—’
‘Elbowing us oldies out, queue jumping,’ Janet tutted, ‘all mouth and attitude, still wet behind the ears.’
Rachel grinned. ‘Something like that.’ She ate the rest of her snack.
Janet took a drink. ‘You’ll be a good sergeant, I’m a great DC. No problem.’
Then Rachel thought of the trial, and Mr dickhead barrister Nick Savage, and everything went cold and hard again.
‘What?’ Janet said.
Rachel sighed, about to speak, but Kevin came through then, his arms full of exhibits from the crime scene. Everything to be logged and kept safe. ‘Skiving again?’ Kevin said as he drew close. Rachel considered sticking out her foot, tripping him arse over elbow, serve the snidey little tosser right, but that might damage the exhibits and it’d be her in trouble, never mind the risk to the case.
‘Pencil first, Kevin,’ she said, ‘then you can rub out all your mistakes.’
‘Comedian,’ he sneered.
Once he was out of earshot, Rachel glanced up at Janet, who was still patently waiting for an explanation. Rachel pressed her fingertips on to the crumbs of pastry on the paper bag. ‘It’s just . . . when we go to trial, Nick – he could take me down with him, Janet. I’d lose my job. My warrant card.’ The prospect of that, like a bloody great pit, waiting to swallow her. She had always known it would come to this, something like this, no matter how far she’d come, run, from her shitty life and her scrappy family, no matter how much she studied and trained, no matter the hours or the commitment or the fact that this was all she had ever, ever wanted; sooner or later she knew she’d be found out, failed, chucked out. End up on a bench in the precinct with a can of cheap cider, spouting crap like her miserable excuse for a father. Or missing presumed couldn’t-give-a-fuck like her mother, who swanned off when three kids and a feckless feller got too much for her.
‘It’s an offence, perjury,’ Rachel said. ‘I could get sent down.’ Join her sad-sack little brother who was behind bars for armed robbery. Some irony there, given she’d not exchanged a word with him since he was caught. Janet didn’t know about that, about Dom or her mum and dad, but she knew about the perjury.
Janet said, ‘Look, I grant you, he’s a nasty piece of work, and I told you—’
‘You told me,’ Rachel echoed bitterly.
‘But he is charged with attempted murder, with trying to kill you, and if he even mentions that it’ll backfire because it’ll show Nick was colouring outside the lines. Using you to get confidential information that he’d then manipulate to try and get his slimy client off.’
One professional to another, that’s how Rachel had seen it. What’s said in the bedroom stays in the bedroom. She’d told him of her elation at nicking notorious crime lord Carl Norris and the jibe she’d made as she put Norris in the custody suite: ‘Who’s laughing now, pretty boy?’ But Nick broke the rules. Months later, the relationship in tatters, Rachel had been summoned to give evidence as arresting officer at Norris’s trial. And was horrified to discover Nick acting as Norris’s barrister. Cross-examining her, Nick sought to undermine the basis for the arrest and flung the phrase back at her in court. Which she then denied. Lying under oath. A stick to beat her with. And Norris walked.
But when Rachel found out, just by chance, that Nick had been shagging one of the jurors during that trial, she’d some leverage of her own. By then, though, Nick had turned over a new leaf, she’d given him a second chance (maybe third – she wasn’t counting). All seemed hunky-dory until she was nearly mown down.
‘The evidence against him is overwhelming.’ Janet’s blue eyes beaming intelligence, reassurance, at her.
The tape recording. Rachel’s stomach turned over at the thought of it again. Nick Savage in a car with big-shot career criminal Carl Norris. Nick oh so carefully explaining how Rachel might be a ‘problem’ seeing as she’d found out Nick was screwing a juror during the trial where Nick was defending Carl Norris. And clever-dick Norris oh so carefully taping the whole conversation. For the police.
‘Chop chop!’ Gill swept in, clapped her hands together.
‘Any more on the ANPR?’ Janet asked.
‘Not as yet.’
‘His phone?’ said Rachel.
‘Not using it. Not switched on, our telecoms reckon. Update at the briefing.’
Sod Nick Savage. Maybe Janet was right and he wouldn’t derail her career. He’d go to trial and get found guilty and spend the next ten to fifteen years banged up with a load of low-lifers, bored out of his skull or too anxious to sleep. Posh boy like Nick wouldn’t exactly be one of the lads inside, and without Carl Norris watching his back he’d be fair game.
Rachel sank the last of her coffee and grabbed her bag. If she was quick she’d have time for a fag before sitting down with the witness from the Larks.
Rachel had gone through Tessa’s account with her once and was now reworking it, seeing if there was any more useful detail to be gained. Taking the bare bones and adding flesh to them. Some witnesses felt frustrated by the process, sure they’d told you everything, and were then surprised that a carefully phrased question suddenly illuminated fresh information.
‘You said it was still dark when you saw the dog,’ Rachel said. ‘Were there any lights on at the pub?’
Tessa considered the question. ‘I don’t remember seeing any, but the light in the hall came on just before Owen answered the door.’
So it sounded as if Owen Cottam had been upstairs when Tessa called and he’d put the light on to answer the door.
Rachel had seen the plans of the property. The separate entrance to the family’s first-floor accommodation led into a short hallway with a flight of stairs. A second doorway off the hall gave access into the pub itself. That had been locked when police arrived.
‘The dog went past Owen and up the stairs,’ Rachel said. ‘How long would you estimate you were at the door for?’
‘How long had you waited for him to answer the door?’
‘A couple of minutes. I’d knocked twice. No one answered at first so I tried again. I thought they might be asleep.’ Tessa blanched.
‘How did he appear, Owen?’
Tessa swallowed. ‘A bit breathless,’ she said. ‘I thought it was the stairs.’
‘Anything else? Try and picture him.’
‘Not drowsy but tense,’ she said, then pulled a face, ‘but maybe I’m saying that because I know now—’
Rachel interrupted, not wanting her playing mind games with herself. ‘See him at the door. What’s he wearing?’
‘Erm, sweatshirt . . . green . . . yes, bottle green, and, er . . . jeans, I think.’
‘Shoes?’
‘Yes.’ She sounded surprised.
‘Fully dressed?’
Because he hadn’t been to bed, Rachel wondered? Or had he got dressed ready to leave the house? The first seemed most likely, especially if his original intention had been to wipe out the whole family including himself.
‘How does he seem tense?’ Rachel said, deliberately using the present tense to help Tessa recapture the memory.
Tessa tilted her head back in concentration. ‘His eyes,’ she said, straightening up. ‘They were sort of darting around. That, and the way he was breathing, and I felt like he was itching to get shot of me. But then—’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, we weren’t that pally. He was a bit like that anyway.’
‘Like what?’ Rachel said.
‘Impatient, practical,’ she said, ‘I don’t quite know how else to describe it.’
‘That’s fine,’ Rachel said. ‘Could you hear any other noises from the house?’
‘No, not till the children—’ She choked on the word, coughed and recovered. ‘Till they came and called out.’
‘Before that,’ Rachel drew her back a step, ‘tell me anything else you can remember about Owen. Any marks on his hands or his clothes?’
‘No.’
Two minutes would give him time to wash his hands, Rachel thought.
‘Any smell?’ Blood say, or sweat? Sweaty work, murder. He might have avoided any major blood spatter but there would almost certainly be microscopic traces on his clothes.
‘I think . . . there was a smell of alcohol but I couldn’t say if that was from him or just with it being the pub.’ You’d want a drink, wouldn’t you, Rachel thought. Or several. Before embarking on the grisly task. Dutch courage.
‘Okay, the children . . . ?’
‘The little one, Harry, he called out “Daddy” before I saw him at the top of the stairs. Owen, he . . . I don’t know how to describe it, like he, like he flinched, like he was really irritated.’
‘Show me,’ Rachel said.
‘Sort of . . .’ Tessa drew back her lips exposing her teeth, a snarling movement, blinking her eyes. More of a grimace than a flinch. She coughed and laughed and then blushed deeply. ‘I feel ridiculous.’
‘Don’t, this is really helpful,’ Rachel said. ‘What was Harry wearing?’
‘A sleep suit. Blue and white, some pattern.’
Details which would be fed through to the team. A check would be made to establish if the item was still at the scene, and meanwhile someone would scour children’s clothes designs to find a match. If the garment was missing then an image of that item would be used in the search and could assist when investigating alleged sightings.
‘Then Theo came after him,’ Tessa said. ‘He was sort of whining a bit.’
‘But you’d not heard that before you saw him?’
‘No. He was rubbing his eyes, just tired, cranky. You know how they get?’
Not really, Rachel thought. Whinging kids she’d rather avoid like the plague. Even if she had decided to go ahead and keep Nick’s baby when he wanted her to get rid of it. Lost it anyway. All for the best. Sure was now. Yes, babe, Daddy tried to get Mummy killed. That’s why we never see him.
‘He had pyjamas on, Theo. Tiger stripes. It’s his nickname.’ Her voice shook now, almost breaking. ‘Tiger, they call him.’
‘You all right to carry on?’ Rachel said, not wanting particularly to give her the option. Learning from Janet and Andy that recognizing distress was important to acknowledge but needn’t be an exit sign. ‘Have some water if you like?’
‘I’m fine. The kids got halfway downstairs before I left. Owen said, “Thanks, I best . . .” and nodded his head to the kids.’
‘So most of the conversation took place before the children came down?’
‘Yes.’
‘You went straight home from there?’
‘That’s right,’ Tessa said.
‘Is there anything else you can think of?’
‘No.’
Rachel thought about the fact that she knew the little kid’s nickname. ‘How well did you know the family?’
‘To say hello to and through Billy, really. He drinks in the pub and takes the dog with him. That’s why I suggested asking if they’d have Pepper while he went into the Royal. Pamela and Owen and me, I wouldn’t say we were friends or anything. I used to go along when they had quiz nights, a few years back now, if I wasn’t on shift. But that’s dropped off.’
‘How did you find them, Owen and Pamela?’
She shook her head, shrugged. ‘Normal, ordinary. Pamela was the chatty one. I’d say I knew her best. Just normal,’ she said again. ‘Busy with running the place and the kids.’
‘And Penny?’
‘Nice girl. They all were.’
‘What about Michael?’
‘He was very shy, blushed if you spoke to him—’ Then her face was crumpling again. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘You’re fine,’ Rachel answered. ‘Take your time.’ Normal, Rachel thought, normal family man. Neighbour on the doorstep and upstairs three corpses still warm. How the fuck did he hold it together? Dog barrelling past him, kids mithering. The plot unravelling. Yet he appeared normal enough to send her on her way with no clue as to what had happened in the rooms above.
The soft interview room was designed to be comfortable and homely: sofas and low coffee tables, boxes of toys for times when youngsters accompanied a parent or carer. Proper lamps instead of fluorescents.
Not that any of this would register with Margaret Milne, mother of Pamela Cottam and Michael Milne. Janet knew she would be knocked sideways with shock, with bursts of grief, still trying to absorb the nightmare her world had become.
Janet brought in tea, biscuits, tissues, water. She had her notebook and pen.
Margaret Milne sat at one end of the three-seat sofa but from her eyes Janet could see she was a million miles away. It was Janet’s job to drag her back to the here and now and hoover up all the information she had about her family.
‘My name is DC Janet Scott,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to call me Janet. Can I call you Margaret? Is that okay?’
Margaret Milne gave a nod, blinking as if the light was too bright. First names, the first part of the contract, the bond that Janet would build. The more Margaret trusted Janet, the more fruitful the conversation would be.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ Janet fixed her eyes on Margaret, who turned away momentarily, looking into the corner of the room, away from the sharp sting of reality. Janet kept talking, softly and slowly. ‘I can only imagine how devastated you must be and I wish none of it had happened and we didn’t have to do this, but I need your help. We need your help to try and find Owen and Theo and Harry.’
Margaret nodded. Janet needed her to start vocalizing, to speak, for the longer she stayed mute the harder it would be to draw answers from her. But she wouldn’t exert any pressure. Outside the room, teams were racing against the clock, scurrying around furiously as the manhunt unfolded, but in here time stood still for Janet while she got Margaret Milne to share her stories, to unravel the tangle of her family’s life and perhaps reve
al clues as to why Owen Cottam had acted as he did and where he might be.
‘Tell me about Pamela,’ she said.
Margaret took a breath. ‘She’s a lovely girl.’ She tripped over the tense. ‘Never any trouble.’ A pause. Janet waited, gave half a smile.
‘Always in work.’
Janet thought momentarily of her own mother. If Geoff Hastings had succeeded, how her mum would have framed it. Couldn’t wish for a better daughter but I never wanted her to join the police. She could have done anything: teaching or law or been a professor. Very bright – but she wouldn’t listen. Went her own sweet way. And now. And her two girls . . . Janet squashed the voice in her head and concentrated on Margaret, who was now finding her stride, her words a little less jerky. Forty years of a life to convey, forty birthdays, three children, all those milestones and setbacks and the level times in between.
‘They met in the Lake District,’ Margaret was saying. Then she hesitated. ‘He was managing the bar at the hotel—’
‘Owen,’ Janet murmured, seeing the name was becoming poisonous to Margaret. But censorship would not help the flow.
She nodded. ‘Owen.’ Her chin trembled. ‘Pamela was maître d’ – in the restaurant. They got married up there, in the Lakes, and Penny was born. They had a little house in the grounds. It was lovely,’ she said, then again as if puzzled by the senseless reversal of circumstances, ‘it was lovely.’ No doubt thinking, how did we get from there to here, from that to this?
‘Penny was born in 2000,’ Janet nudged her gently.
‘After that they took over a pub in Birkenhead. And when that closed they moved here. To the Journeys.’
Janet knew that they were tenant landlords, and that the tenant leased the premises and the equipment and stood any profit or loss. She also knew that pubs were closing in epidemic proportions.
‘Theo was born in 2009 and then Harry the year after,’ Margaret said.
‘Any reason for the gap – nine years after Penny?’ Janet asked.
Margaret shook her head. ‘It just didn’t happen. I think they wanted to get on their feet at first, so they waited a while, and then when they did try again . . .’
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