Dead and Buried

by Anne Cassidy

  ‘I don’t know. He said he tried to ring you.’

  Rose tutted. Her phone had been on silent.

  ‘He’s in the kitchen. I gave him a drink. I’ll be upstairs. I’ll leave you to talk to him.’

  Rose walked towards the kitchen. Joshua was behind her.

  ‘Shall I go off home? This might be personal.’

  ‘It’s probably to do with the house in Brewster Road. Come on. It’ll include you as well.’

  Henry was in off-duty clothes: a checked jacket and brown trousers. He looked as though he’d dressed up to go to church. Rose wondered if he had, if he believed in God. He stood up as they came in.

  ‘You’re both together. That’s good. I just called at your flat, Joshua. When you weren’t there I took a chance and came here. I’ve got some information for you. Why don’t you sit down.’

  He was acting as though it was his house, not the place where Rose lived.

  Joshua pulled out a chair and sat on it, slouched. Henry’s face was drawn and Rose felt a pang of fear. She sat down on the edge of the chair. The thought came into her head that he had come because something had really happened to her mum or Brendan. They’d seen a Skype recording of them after Christmas and had a text message from them days later. They had been alive then. Could it be that something had happened to them since?

  ‘The detectives in East London have asked me to liaise with both of you regarding the situation at Brewster Road. I hope that’s agreeable. It saves them coming across to see you and as I know you, Rose, I thought you wouldn’t mind.’

  Rose felt a shiver of relief. It was to do with Daisy Lincoln, unconnected to their parents. She sat back, an image in her head of Daisy running across to the road to the car in which the love of her life was sitting. This picture of a girl she hardly knew seemed to have taken root in her thoughts.

  ‘The cause of Daisy Lincoln’s death is not clear. It’s hard after so much time to ascertain exactly how a person died. There was no bullet found near the body and the skeleton has no signs of violence, no broken skull or cracked bones,’ Henry said.

  ‘So we’ll never know?’

  ‘Strangulation, asphyxiation, poison. Until the crime is solved, the perpetrator found, it will be hard to identify the cause.’

  Henry was pulling something out of a bag on the floor that Rose hadn’t noticed. It was a black leather briefcase. He opened a file and took out a colour photograph and placed it on the table so that they both could see. Rose leant towards it. It was a picture of a man’s tie. It was mauve with blue stripes and there was a crest of some sort in the middle.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said.

  ‘It’s a West Ham tie,’ Joshua said.

  It looked scruffy, the edges of it dirty and frayed.

  ‘Do you recognise it?’ Henry said.

  Rose shook her head. ‘What’s this got to do with Brewster Road?’

  ‘If you could just have a good look at it. See if it rings any bells for either of you.’

  Rose looked closer. The tie had been laid on a white background, a table of some sort. It had been stretched out but still it seemed wrinkled in some places. It reminded her of the girls’ ties that hung in Lost Property in her old school; they looked as though they’d been through a mangle. She had no memory of this tie – why should she?

  Joshua started to speak.

  ‘I bought a tie like this for my dad one Christmas. He wasn’t really a West Ham fan. He supported Newcastle but he never went to their matches. He never went to any matches but he always watched Match of the Day on television and he said that West Ham were his second team so I bought it for him. He wore it a couple of times, I think.’

  ‘Like this tie.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly like it.’

  Henry put the photocopy back into the folder.

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you this but we believe that this is your father’s tie. We think this because DNA was extracted. It’s the DNA of Brendan Johnson.’

  There was a puzzled silence in the kitchen.

  ‘DNA?’

  ‘Yes, saliva, hairs, something of that sort.’

  ‘OK. So?’ Joshua said, a sudden surliness in his voice.

  ‘When the body of Daisy Lincoln was found some items of clothing had survived. A lot of natural materials, cotton, silk and so on would decay over time. This tie, made of synthetic fibres, did not. There were a couple of other items as well . . .’

  ‘What was Daisy Lincoln doing with my dad’s tie?’

  ‘Ah.’

  Rose stared at Henry. She was feeling irritated. Why couldn’t he just blurt it out, whatever it was?

  ‘We think that before Daisy was killed she had her hands tied behind her back. They were bound up with Brendan Johnson’s tie.’

  Joshua sat up, his forehead wrinkled, his shoulders straight.

  ‘Naturally this puts a different slant on things. It opens up the case to other interpretations. I felt it was only right that I should tell Joshua as soon as possible and you too, Rose. There may well be a completely innocent explanation about this and if there is the police will find it . . .’

  Henry’s voice seemed to dwindle and he stood up, grabbing his briefcase.

  ‘I gave you my number, Joshua, and Rose has it too. Get in touch with me if there’s anything you need to talk about.’

  Joshua was still silent, his eyes staring hard at the table. Rose followed Henry out of the room and into the hallway.

  ‘It’ll take a while for this to sink in, Rose. You know where I am.’

  Rose closed the front door. When she went back to the kitchen Joshua was standing up and looked as if he too was about to leave.

  ‘Josh, I . . .’

  He shook her arm off. ‘This is rubbish. It’s crap.’

  ‘I agree but . . .’

  ‘But nothing, Rose. My dad is not a murderer!’

  Rose stared at Joshua. His eyes looked dark and cold. The words he had just spoken hung limply in the air. There were things she wanted to say but didn’t. The truth hung around them like a bad smell.

  ‘My dad did not kill Daisy Lincoln. It’s because of murders like this that my dad . . . took the path he did. Decided to right wrongs, to get justice for the innocent.’

  ‘You’re making him sound like a superhero! He has killed people!’

  ‘Yes. Baranski. Someone who didn’t deserve to live!’

  She stepped back, startled.

  ‘But not Daisy Lincoln,’ he said, a crack in his voice. ‘Never some eighteen-year-old innocent girl. Never.’

  He walked away from her and she stood there and let him go. He opened the front door and closed behind him. From upstairs she could hear Anna humming. She thought of Brendan’s tie knotted around the wrists of Daisy Lincoln. She thought of Brendan, when they lived together, smiling at her. All right, Petal? He often picked up a packet of her favourite sweets when he bought a newspaper.

  She knew Brendan wasn’t capable of such a thing.

  He had killed Viktor Baranski and maybe others.

  But an eighteen-year-old girl?

  Brendan couldn’t do that.

  EIGHT

  In the corner of Rose’s study were her mother’s things which had been cleared out of the Blue Room. It had made the area temporarily untidy. Anna said that Rose should look through the paperwork and keep anything that she wanted. Rose had a feeling that she would keep it all, every sheet of paper, whatever it was.

  On Rose’s pinboard was a photo of her mother that she had recently put there.

  It was a head and shoulders close-up and for once she didn’t have her glasses on. Her hair hung round her face and she was wearing a black dress which was low at the front. Rose thought she must have been going somewhere formal. Around her neck was a pendant on a chain. The pendant was silver, quite heavy, in the shape of a heart. At the centre of it was a red gemstone. Rose remembered that this pendant had been a gift from Brendan but that her mother hadn’t liked it much. She’
d worn it now and then but had told Rose It’s not really my kind of thing. Don’t tell Brendan.

  Her mother’s jewellery box was on her desk. Rose had looked in it over the years when it sat in the Blue Room. Most of her mother’s jewellery was not valuable but it was still precious to her. It held an eclectic mix of rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Rose had looked at these from time to time, hoping for some connection to them, some stories to emerge from them but nothing much resonated. They were just items that she had bought or other people had bought for her. She looked at the photo again, at the pendant on her mother’s neck. The gemstone looked dark, the colour of a bead of blood. Rose had looked for this pendant over the years but hadn’t been able to find it. She wondered if, perhaps, her mother had secretly got rid of it.

  Rose closed up the jewellery box and tucked it away by the rest of her mother’s things. Then she stood up and walked across to the window and looked out into the street.

  Half an hour before Joshua had got into the Mini and driven away in anger. Now he would be at the flat in Camden, upset, disbelieving.

  Everything seemed to have come to a standstill.

  Over the last few months it seemed as though they were always moving towards something: some revelation or a reunion with their parents or simply the absolute truth about what had happened. But now everything was muddled. They seemed to be wandering alone, in circles. Now Joshua had another reason to be angry with her; she had failed to rise to Brendan’s defence.

  She bent down to her desk drawer and pulled out the brown envelope that held her statement. She slipped the red notebook out and opened it to a clean page. She moved her keyboard to the side of her desk to give herself space and she put a date as she had with the other entries. Then she began to write.

  For a while I’ve wondered exactly how much my mother is involved in the notebooks and the murders. I’ve had a feeling for some time, much stronger recently, that she was a reluctant participant. That she went along with it because she loved Brendan.

  Rose thought back to the Skype recording they’d seen around Christmas. Her mother and Brendan had been speaking directly to them. It was the first sight of them they’d had for over five years. The quality of the film hadn’t been good but still Rose had hung on to every moment, her eyes searching the screen for facial expression, eye contact, hand movements. Brendan had done most of the talking. He’d explained the life they’d taken on before and since disappearing; her mother behind his shoulder, in his shadow, had said very little. She’d looked strained and grim. Brendan had talked earnestly about their choice, about the things they had done, but her mother had just looked burdened by it all.

  Right from the beginning, Rose wrote, on the night they disappeared my mother left her glasses case behind in the restaurant. In it there’d been a card for a Bed and Breakfast place in Twickenham. It had seemed like a clue left on purpose. Then, the false surname they had used in the B and B had been Brewster, the name of the road we had lived in. On top of this my mother had not tried to disguise her handwriting when she’d signed the guest book, her ornate lettering giving away her true identity.

  It seemed as if she was leaving a trail for me to find.

  And then there was the Butterfly Murder.

  It was the crime that started the whole ‘mission’. Her mother had not been part of this. Rose turned back a few pages in the notebooks. There, a week or so before, she had written about it.

  The Butterfly Murder was the beginning of everything.

  In 2002 ten-year-old Judy Greaves was abducted and murdered, her body left in a room full of mounted butterflies. She was discovered by a policewoman. A man called Simon Lister had been arrested and tried but was acquitted through lack of evidence. Brendan’s brother, Stuart, had known the girl’s sister, and had become obsessed with this miscarriage of justice. He’d contacted his brother and asked him to look into the case but Brendan couldn’t. Brendan went up to Newcastle in 2004 to visit him, taking my mother, his new girlfriend, with him. Stuart had gone to Simon Lister’s house and stabbed him. He got back home with blood on his hands. Brendan had been shocked. In order to save his brother from a life sentence he’d rushed round to the crime scene, removing the weapon and any trace that his brother Stuart had been there.

  When the dead man was found the police searched his home and his computer and found evidence that he’d murdered Judy Greaves as well as others. They also found photographs and plans to abduct a further young girl.

  It seemed to them that the murder had been a good thing.

  The experience changed Brendan. Other police were involved in the cover-up and they must have stuck together. Policemen and women who were tired of criminals getting away with major crime. They decided that they would mete out justice and if that meant taking the lives of killers and those in organised crime then they would do it.

  When exactly had her mother become involved?

  Had she ever actually killed someone?

  The only murder they knew about in any detail was that of Viktor Baranski. And as far as Rose knew her mother had played no part in that case. She turned forward a couple of pages and found the section of her statement that dealt with it.

  The Second Notebook.

  The photograph at the front of this book was of Viktor Baranski, a Russian businessman. He was linked to people trafficking and in 2003 the bodies of five teenage girls were found in the back of a container lorry. They had suffocated and the youngest was thirteen. They were being smuggled into Britain in order to become prostitutes. Viktor Baranski was never charged with this crime although the Cold Cases team (who were already investigating Baranski for other crimes) were convinced that he was responsible.

  In 2006 he disappeared and his body was found near Cromer pier. His hands had been tied behind his back. It is my belief that Brendan Johnson and others carried out this assassination as a form of justice for the girls.

  How willingly had her mother become part of this group within the police force? This was the question that had begun to play on Rose’s mind. It had been Brendan’s brother who had committed the first murder, Brendan who went and tidied up the crime scene. It was Brendan who had been part of the group who killed Viktor Baranski.

  It was Brendan who did all of the talking on Skype.

  Had her mother simply been pulled along by Brendan?

  Did she regret her involvement?

  Did she wish she had never got involved?

  If only . . . Rose thought as she continued writing her statement.

  NINE

  Rose sat opposite Sara and Maggie before class started. Sara had an arm linked through Maggie’s. They looked like twin sisters but they were just friends who’d been around each other for a long time. Now and then they saw it as their job to look after Rose.

  ‘Come out with us on Friday to the Pink Parrot. It’ll be fun,’ Sara said. ‘They, like, have talent spots. People get up to five minutes on stage to show what they can do – comedy, singing, dancing . . .’

  ‘This guy read his poems out!’

  ‘I liked them.’

  ‘Embarrassing!’

  ‘He had the bluest eyes.’

  Rose looked from one to the other. ‘It doesn’t sound like my kind of thing.’

  ‘I’m sure you’d enjoy it. And, anyway, Jamie Roberts might come. He likes you.’

  ‘Jamie Roberts? From Law?’

  Maggie nodded excitedly. ‘He asked us about you. We told him that you’re, like, a special girl.’

  Rose had to smile. Sara and Maggie wanted Rose to live the kind of life that they did. They were both fiercely intelligent and they worked hard in their classes but outside they liked to play. They wanted Rose to have a boyfriend and come to the pub and go to parties. It was an alien life to Rose but they didn’t stop trying to persuade her.

  ‘Here’s a leaflet. The Pink Parrot is not a gay pub. Well, there might be, like, gay people in it, but you know what I mean. It’s in Kentish Town, a
bout two minutes from the tube. Loads of kids from college go there.’

  ‘Not the rough lot,’ Sara said. ‘Nor the druggies.’

  ‘Just intellectuals like us,’ Maggie said, smiling.

  Rose took the leaflet. The bell sounded for the last afternoon class and Sara and Maggie headed off while she sat finishing her tea. She looked at the piece of paper in her hand. Variety Night! Readings, Comedy, Drama, Singers, Dancers. All Welcome. Every Friday, 8.30 start. She couldn’t picture herself out on a night like this. Getting ready at home, deciding what to wear, meeting Sara and Maggie outside the tube, the three of them laughing and giggling on the way to the pub, getting a table or standing around watching the cabaret while keeping an eye out for Jamie Roberts from Law. Could she have a regular night out with college friends? With a frisson of possible romance thrown in?

  This wasn’t the sort of life that Rose lived.

  Sometimes she wished it was. Every now and again she longed to be ordinary, like Sara and Maggie. Each of them was comfortable in their long-term friendship, their days in college, their nights out in North London, their plans for university (the same one for both, of course). But Sara and Maggie didn’t have a history to carry round with them. How could she go out, have a laugh and joke with people, watch a show, flirt with Jamie from Law? How could she enjoy herself when these other things were happening in her life?

  She folded up the leaflet and put it in her pocket.

  Her phone beeped. She had a message from Joshua. It was two days since she’d seen him, since Henry had told them about Brendan’s tie. Two days of silence. She was apprehensive as she looked at the text. Come round to the flat after college. Something exciting to show you. BTW sorry for the other night. XXX

  Three kisses. She felt herself soften. She sent a reply. See you just after five. XXX

  She rang the bell to the flat and heard Joshua’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

  ‘Hi!’ he said. ‘Come up.’

  She followed him. In the kitchen he helped her take off her coat and put it and her bag on a chair. She looked round and saw, with dismay, that it looked bare. The pots and pans that Skeggsie had lined up on the shelves had gone. The pictures that had been on the wall were gone. The work surface was clear of his mugs and the giant see-through salt and pepper shakers. None of it was there any more. Joshua saw her looking.