Bleed Like Me

by Staincliffe, Cath

  ‘Stop them crying. Kids crying – you can’t think. There’s nothing worse,’ Janet said with feeling.

  There was a sudden blur of motion, the screech of brakes near the garage entrance. Rachel’s heart flew into her mouth and she started, jumping backwards, almost losing her balance. It was another news van.

  Janet looked at her and Rachel felt her cheeks glow. ‘Just jumpy,’ she said.

  ‘Since when?’ Janet wasn’t smiling, wasn’t cutting her any slack.

  ‘Just today,’ Rachel said, ‘since breakfast, which I didn’t have.’ She tapped her nose, showing Janet she was prying.

  ‘So it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the attempt on—’

  ‘No, nothing. Ready?’

  Janet laughed, shaking her head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not much of an advert, are we? Me with my cramps, you jumping at shadows. They should put us out to grass.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, Grandma, nowt wrong with me. Might get a snack on the way, though. Stop if we see anywhere.’

  They found a mini-market and Rachel went in.

  ‘Get me chocolate,’ Janet called after her.

  ‘Here you go,’ Rachel said when she came back. ‘I’m having this.’ She unwrapped her food and took a bite, hot and salty.

  ‘What is that supposed to be?’ Janet said.

  ‘All day breakfast. It was that or Hula Hoops. Thought you’d approve.’

  ‘I do,’ Janet said, ‘but open the window, will you? It smells revolting.’

  Janet was entering the details of her report on Rahid into the system when her phone went. Her mother, in full schoolmistress fashion. ‘Janet, tell me it isn’t true. Adrian says you are going to interview that man.’

  ‘Mum,’ Janet sighed, getting to her feet, preferring to take this call in the Ladies, away from twitching ears. She would brain Ade when she saw him. A low-down, sneaky trick enlisting her mother.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ her mother said. ‘After what he did to you?’

  ‘It’s my job, Mum.’

  ‘Someone else can do it. Let Rachel do it. Or did she put you up to it?’

  ‘Nobody put me up to it,’ Janet said.

  ‘You volunteered?’ her mother breathed in horror.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Janet leant looking into the mirror as she talked. The bags under her eyes looked bigger, the shadows darker. ‘I was asked, I thought about it – carefully. And I agreed.’

  ‘Talk to Gill,’ her mother said. ‘She’ll see sense, surely. Even if you can’t.’ Her mother idolized Gill, saw her as the epitome of what a professional woman could become and was always nudging Janet to be more like her.

  ‘It was Gill who asked me,’ Janet said, wondering whether Ade had told her mother that it had been at Geoff Hastings’s request.

  Stunned silence. But not for long. ‘I’ve a good mind—’

  ‘This is my job,’ Janet said. Rachel came into the Ladies as she went on, ‘Mum, can you imagine if some detective had tried to muscle in on you when you were teaching? You’d have soon shown them the door.’

  ‘I worry about you. And this seems so dangerous, so wilful.’

  Janet looked over to Rachel, who was leaning on the wall with her arms crossed, and rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘When it happens, if it happens, we’ll be in a secure environment with other officers on hand. He’s behind bars, Mum, and I’m going to make sure he stays there for the rest of his life.’

  A loud sigh.

  ‘And how are you?’ Janet said.

  ‘Not feeling all that great, to be honest.’

  Because of this? Janet felt a prickle of guilt. Her mother had always been solid as a rock whenever Janet needed her. But especially after the attack. Janet didn’t want to bring any pain or distress to her door. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Just out of sorts every way. Achy.’

  ‘There’s a lot of bugs going round,’ Janet said. ‘Maybe you’ve caught something. Taisie had one, Ade as well.’ She could hear a forced edge in her voice and tried to rein it in. Hard sometimes to remember that her mother was older now, beginning to need a little help with things after a lifetime of being a competent working wife and mother. Difficult to know how much had changed since Janet’s dad died. Her mum had seemed to weather it well but perhaps the strain was only showing now. Loneliness and grief leading to a lack of confidence.

  ‘Maybe,’ her mum said, not sounding very sure.

  ‘Have you taken anything for it?’

  ‘I don’t really like to,’ she said.

  ‘A couple of paracetamol won’t do any harm,’ Janet said. Sometimes her mother regarded a reliance on medicine as a craven weakness only a step away from crack cocaine or heroin addiction. A stoic edge to her character that could become martyrish if taken too far.

  ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘Always,’ Janet said. ‘I’ll ring you later in the week.’

  ‘You can always change your mind,’ Rachel said as Janet put her phone down.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Janet said. ‘I want to make him pay. Dig up every dirty detail on what he did to all those other women. They don’t get it, Ade, my mum. I could have been the latest on the list. It means we find out the truth for the people, the parents and the husbands and the kids. Truth and justice. That’s the point. They don’t get it. You get it, don’t you? I am making sense?’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘Good.’ Janet picked up her phone and went back to work.

  Gill read through the press release while Lisa, the chief press officer, waited in the doorway. Police repeated the request for the public to be alert to sightings of Owen Cottam, aged forty-five, wanted for questioning in connection with the deaths of his wife Pamela, Pamela’s brother Michael Milne and the Cottams’ eleven-year-old daughter. Cottam is white, of medium build, six foot tall, with dark hair and a moustache. He was last seen in the Ormskirk area, wearing jeans and a dark green sweatshirt. Cottam is understood to have left the family home yesterday morning with his two sons, aged two and a half years and eighteen months. He may be travelling in a blue Ford Mondeo. Police advise the public not to approach Owen Cottam but to contact them immediately on the following number . . .

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said. The next instalment in the story of the Cottam murder and disappearance, as far as the great British public was concerned, would be the appeal to his son by Mr Cottam senior and the issue of the press release. Gill would conclude the conference by saying they were hoping that the situation could be resolved satisfactorily. A catch-all that equalled no further bloodshed.

  ‘Same photo?’ Lisa said. ‘Only we have a different one, might help.’ She held up a copy. Cottam relaxed, a half-smile. ‘It’s a similar style top but I’m not so happy about the cap.’ A baseball cap. ‘What you think?

  Tempting as it was to start debating the merits, Gill was swamped so passed the ball back. ‘Your call,’ she said. ‘Long as we don’t confuse them.’

  ‘Everything’s ready for the appeal. I’ve booked the conference room. Dennis Cottam is on his way. Son and daughter-in-law are coming with. The son’s happy to sit in. Okay with you?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Gill said.

  ‘See you there.’ Lisa left.

  Gill went back to her files, reprising the new data coming in from the different arms of the inquiry and considering whether to make any changes to the direction, the strategy, of the investigation.

  A knock on her door: Kevin. ‘The CCTV that came in – I’ve found him going into Skelmersdale after leaving the petrol station.’

  ‘Show me.’

  In the viewing room, Kevin ran the tape. The Mondeo passing a traffic camera on the dual carriageway. It was clear but not clear enough to see the children. They’ll still be there, Gill told herself. He wouldn’t have had time to stop the car at any point since making his getaway after attacking Mr Rahid. ‘Show me on the map,’ Gill said.


  Kevin clicked on the desktop and opened a file which brought up a list of exhibits from the Pamela Milne crime scene. ‘Shit, sorry, boss.’ He closed that and clicked again.

  ‘Centre on Skelmersdale,’ Gill said. ‘Now zoom out.’ Her eyes ran over the map, scanning routes and destinations that Cottam might choose. ‘Work up new projections,’ she said: ‘possible distance travelled, potential locations, other likely CCTV sources. And pass this through to patrols on the ground straight away. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ He sat there, swivelling in his chair, pleased with himself.

  ‘Now!’ Gill said. ‘If not sooner.’

  Which got him moving.

  10

  ‘There’s someone downstairs for you,’ Pete said to Rachel.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t know. Desk just rang.’

  ‘Can’t you deal with it?’

  ‘Said they wanted to speak to you in person.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Rachel pushed herself away from her desk and marched to the stairs.

  If it was anything to do with the case they’d have been able to speak to anybody about it, so why her in person? What could it be about?

  Nick Savage! The trial? They usually notified witnesses by letter, a couple of weeks beforehand. Gave them a chance to visit the court and have their hands held by the witness service volunteers. Of course she didn’t need any of that. Been in court enough times to know the ropes.

  Or had Nick been mouthing off? Like a caged rat finding a weak spot to begin gnawing its way out from. That weak spot Rachel. Dobbing her in for lying in court so whoever was downstairs had come to arrest her. Shit! She could feel her heart burning in her chest, as though it was swelling like a bruise. Halfway down she thought she should have hidden in the Ladies, got Pete to say she was off duty, or had left for the day.

  She passed Mitch on the way up. ‘Have one for me, Sherlock,’ he said. He was on the Nicorette.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she said.

  Sherlock, her nickname. It stung her, the thought of her colleagues finding out what she’d done. Not only in bed with the barrister but blabbing to him about her daily work, feeding him titbits. Titbits that came back and bit her in the jugular. Forcing her to lie in court. Bastard. Mouth dry now, sweating under her arms, and her hair clinging to the back of her neck where it was damp.

  She reached the lobby. Just one person waiting there. A police constable. Suit and shiny buttons, cap in hand. Fuck! Rachel tempted for a split second to run. To scarper rather than stand meekly by while her career and her future were put to the slaughter. Forcing breath into her lungs, registering with some sick irony the poster on the wall behind him: Have You Got What It Takes? Did have, she thought, blew it. She stepped forward. ‘Rachel Bailey,’ she said, her voice sounding like she’d fallen down some well.

  ‘PC Martin Tintwhistle,’ he said. Not a flicker of warmth. Rachel could feel the tension in the back of her legs, in her neck, in the soles of her feet. ‘Based at Langley.’

  ‘Right.’ She watched his lips, waiting for the caution. Aware that the CCTV above the front desk would be filming it all in glorious technicolour. That in half an hour’s time the clip of him reading her the caution and snapping the cuffs on would provide a few minutes’ rest and relaxation for the officers embroiled in the investigation and the staff in the custody suite. Could go viral. YouTube. Except any dickhead did that and they’d be disciplined for unprofessional conduct or prejudicing an ongoing investigation.

  ‘You are related to Brian Bailey, date of birth fourth of November 1950?’

  What the fuck had that to do with anything? She wanted to deny it, disown the connection, lie about her parentage, but she just said yes. Irritability a useful mask for the fear drilling through her.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ the man said and she saw him draw back very slightly, putting a fraction more distance between them. Worried that she’d what? Thump him? Spit at him? Burst into tears and collapse on him?

  Bad news? Bad news wasn’t a usual lead-in to a caution on arrest.

  ‘What?’ Rachel snapped.

  ‘We were called to an address in Langley earlier today,’ the constable said, his voice dull and uninflected. ‘When the resident did not answer the door we gained entry to the premises.’

  Rachel was at sea. Why was he telling her this? She thought of the Cottams, the local bobbies breaking in, calling out, creeping upstairs. One potato, two potato, three potato . . .

  ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you . . .’

  She watched his lips. He’d got freckles on his face, one on his upper lip, a light brown stain. His teeth stuck out: no braces at that crucial age.

  ‘. . . but the occupant, whom we believe to be Brian Bailey, was unresponsive and subsequently pronounced dead.’

  Oh, God. Fuck. She felt something fall inside, a swirl of pain. Why had they come to her with this? Why not Alison? Alison was the one who still ran up the white flag every so often and mounted a mercy mission. Trying to get the old feller to have a proper wash and some clean clothes, dragging him to the GP or A&E, talking rehab. Pretending there was hope for five minutes until the old man sloped off back to his tins and his baccy and his helpless mess of a life.

  Tintwhistle, message delivered, was watching her.

  ‘Suspicious circumstances?’ Rachel said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, ‘thanks.’ Turning to go.

  ‘DC Bailey,’ he said, ‘we need you to formally identify the body.’

  ‘No.’ Rachel said it without thinking. She didn’t want anything to do with it.

  ‘I appreciate that it must be a shock—’

  ‘I’ve a sister,’ Rachel said, ‘she’ll do it.’ Talking over him, not wanting sympathy, not one bloody drop of sympathy. Why should she? She didn’t deserve it, didn’t warrant it. How long since she had seen her dad? Six years, maybe more. Ran into him one time when she was working sex crimes in the early days, investigating a rape, talking to potential witnesses outside a pub near Langley. The area a black hole disguised with a smattering of shops. Offie, mini-market, nail bar, launderette. Among those potential eye witnesses, a group of alkies who occupied a bench near the bus stop. And chief rabble-rouser, with what looked like sick down his coat, was her father. Back then Rachel had turned on her heel and told her colleagues she’d talk to the woman in the launderette then try the nail bar. Now she keyed in Alison’s number. And got her voicemail.

  ‘I’ve not really time,’ Rachel said but Tintwhistle stood there, batting his cap against his other hand.

  ‘It shouldn’t take very long,’ he said, ‘if you’d like to find somebody to accompany you.’

  Fuck no! Janet, who first came to mind, assumed Rachel had a quiet, dull, Janet and John family stashed away somewhere. An assumption Rachel had deliberately cultivated. The prospect of sharing this with anyone was even more sickening than the thought of doing it alone.

  She tried Alison again, just in case, got the same message.

  Her phone showed twenty past eleven. ‘I need to be back here before midday,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded, and put his hat on.

  She followed him to the car park, every bone in her body seething with resentment.

  Getting into the car she was struck by the thought that minutes earlier she was expecting to be escorted into the back seat, hand on her head easing her into place, wrists cuffed, wreathed in shame. So it wasn’t the worst that could have happened, was it? Not by a long chalk.

  ‘Where was he, then?’ she said. ‘You said Langley.’

  ‘B&B on St Michael’s Road.’

  She knew the place. B&B shorthand for dosshouse. Hostel, more or less. Scuzzy rooms at rock-bottom prices, sort of place that welcomed people on benefits. Not the type of B&B you’d see on Trip Advisor. Not a good base for exploring the cultural highlights of sunny Manchester. Full of people who had nowhere else to sleep: alkies or nut jobs, peop
le coming out of prison or heading back in. Breakfast was dished up in a canteen style kitchen. Only meal most of them ate. She knew all this because she had been in places like it countless times for work. Down with the pond life.

  The car dropped down the hill among the terraced housing, towards the jumble of dual carriageways that ringed the centre of Oldham. Godzilla had been here earlier with Margaret Milne. Christ, she hoped no one would recognize her from her job. This was personal, nothing to do with anyone else.

  How come they knew he was related to Rachel? A question she couldn’t get out of her head. Wasn’t like she kept in touch or she’d helped him pay his way or anything. What could possibly connect them? She’d severed every tie she could and that didn’t take much doing. Leaving home as soon as she got into the police. Alison already married. Dom still there. She hadn’t liked leaving Dom and made sure to stay in touch with him, showing him there was a life beyond Langley and the daily grind. Fat lot of good that did. Then Dom pulled his stupid trick and got locked up and she heard from Alison that the old feller had left not long after. Evicted.

  Riddled with curiosity and unable to figure it out she finally asked Tintwhistle. ‘How did you know to contact me?’

  ‘Cuttings in his room.’ Tintwhistle slowed behind a bus.

  ‘Cuttings?’ Rachel thought of fingernails and hair. Flashed back to her dad dabbing Brylcreem on his hair and running a comb through it, pocketing the comb, then heading out. How old was she then?

  ‘From the local papers,’ Tintwhistle said. ‘Features about you, sponsored run for that kiddies’ charity. And the half-marathon.’

  Rachel’s belly turned over as her vision darkened. Him sat in his chair, studying the paper from front to back, reading it all. News and then the racing pages. She blinked to clear her eyes. Stupid bastard, she thought. Why did he bother? Why the fuck did he bother? Her throat ached and the bus ahead slowed again, needling her with impatience. ‘Can’t you overtake?’ she snapped. ‘I haven’t got all day.’

  Gill met Dennis Cottam, his son Barry and his daughter-in-law Bev prior to the appeal. Lisa had assisted them in putting together a few lines which Dennis Cottam would read out.