Sarah and Dales followed Mrs Hargreaves up the stairs. Mrs Hargreaves opened the door, leaving the photograph outside before going in. On the far side of the room was a large painting of baby Jesus being cradled by his mother.
There wasn’t much to search. Sheila’s clothes were plain and simple; nothing else matched the black dress. Her bookshelf was mostly chick lit and books that had been turned into movies, all sporting their original covers. No notes, no photos, no journals.
‘Don’t see many collections like this anymore.’ Dales held a handful of fashion magazines he’d found in her bottom draw. Elle, Marie Claire and their sisters filled the space between her socks and underwear.
‘Some people prefer the physical pages in their hands rather than reading online. Like with books.’ Sarah tried to ignore Mrs Hargreaves watching her every move.
‘There’s no Internet in this house. My husband stumbled on some things on there that shows you why the world is the way it is. We protected her from it too; she wasn’t allowed a computer.’
Dales passed the magazines to Sarah, who flicked through them for any notes, highlighted articles or circled photos. Mrs Hargreaves snatched them from her hands.
‘I’ll take those.’ She piled them up and placed them outside on the landing. ‘They’ve got no place in here.’
‘Some of her clothes, the ones towards the end of the rack, still have price tags. Any idea when she bought them?’ Sarah pulled the rest of the clothes towards one side, exposing the four hanging garments at the end.
‘She didn’t; I did. I must have forgot to take the tags off. Never get old, that’s what I say.’ She laughed, pulled the tags from the clothes and placed them in the front pocket of her apron.
‘As gifts?’
‘No, not as gifts. The family are visiting this weekend, so the room has to be ready before then.’ Mrs Hargreaves ruffled the garments back into place, pulling the arms out into a neat, pristine line. ‘I’ve got these to put up yet.’ She pulled two framed oil paintings from a cardboard box. One was a beach scene: blue hues, an orange sun and a long sandy coastline stretching into the distance and a family playing with sandcastles in the foreground. The other was of Paris in the spring with the Eiffel Tower in the background and a man and a woman sharing a glass of red at a cafe. ‘They’ll go perfectly above the headboard, won’t they?’
‘Mrs Hargreaves, how many of these things actually belonged to Sheila?’ asked Sarah.
‘This is Sheila’s room. It’s all hers. It’s just not finished yet.’
Sarah tried another tact. ‘Are there any more of her belongings anywhere else in the house?’
‘There are some boxes in the attic.’
Dales pulled the rope on the ceiling above the landing and the attic steps descended to the floor. Mrs Hargreaves couldn’t manage the climb, but didn’t move from the bottom whilst they were upstairs. It was hot, dusty and hard to see.
‘There’s a cord up there for the light.’ Sarah waved her hands in front of her until she felt the string. With the light on, the attic felt bigger than she’d first thought. There were boxes upon boxes, old table lamps, curtain fabrics and bed sheets in various states of organisation. Jesus hung on the wall, keeping an eye on the cluttered collection from the family’s past. ‘It should all be right by you. No further in than a few feet. No need to go any further than that.’
The first box was full of clothes. Scrunched up jumpers and chinos, collared blouses and jeans, a few baggy hoodies all in subdued single-block colours. There were two boxes of books: mostly chick lit, a couple on Buddhism, a series of small Introduction to Philosophy books on various subjects from Neitzsche to Utopia and a couple of cookbooks: Amazing Meals for One and Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat. The latter had a Level One cooking certificate dated six months ago marking Triple Cheese Lasagne. Cooking wasn’t the only thing she’d been studying. Underneath the cookbooks were papers for enrolment onto an evening fashion course. It was due to start in two weeks.
The photos were at the bottom of the box. Sarah pulled out the yellow ring-bound album and handed Dales the brown A4 envelope below it. There were no photos on the first page, just a hand-drawn American flag above two female stick figures. One with blonde lines for hair on the left and the other with brown curls on the right. Inside, there were selfies on top of the Empire State Building, pictures of the two women on the Las Vegas strip, smiling as they bent backwards over the Grand Canyon.
Sarah held the album up to show Dales. ‘Seems very happy.’
He looked closely at her partner and back down at the photos from the envelope. ‘Sheila was quite the looker in her day. What do you reckon? Early twenties in that shot.’ He held up a picture of Sheila sitting next to the brown, curly-haired girl. ‘Same woman.’ The woman’s face had You’re everything I wish I could be. I miss you. written in red next to it.
‘Maybe they broke up? Could be the history she referred to in her texts.’ She went through the album once more looking for a name. The final photo, a shot of the two women leaning backwards over the Empire State Building, had two lipstick marks beneath it and was signed Sheila and Roxy.
‘What’s taking so long?’ Mrs Hargreaves hadn’t moved from the bottom of the steps.
‘Just coming down now.’
‘Wait. Take this.’ Mrs Hargreaves held up the photo of her daughter’s dress, and Sarah reached down and took it. ‘Put in the box with the rest of those things. It’s got no place down here.’
Sarah looked at the black dress. Sheila had spent her life being put into a box. She’d been judged by those around her for who she was, who she had no other way of being. She’d had happy moments, been in love, all things her mother would never know. Going back into education at forty-four was something anyone could be proud of, although Mrs Hargreaves probably hadn’t bothered to ask and Sheila most likely hadn’t wanted to tell her. It just wouldn’t have been good enough. That weekend, her family would come and be told about a different woman, one that never lived except in her mother’s fantasies. Sarah pushed down the rolled and crumpled clothes and made space at the top of the box. The dress belonged here, with her. It had made her feel good about herself, feel sexy, feel a part of something long held up just out of reach, and her family didn’t deserve to see her like that anyway. Sarah placed the photograph inside the box and sealed it.
They walked down the steps.
‘I expect you’ll have questioned my sister. I’ve tried speaking to her without much luck as usual. Stubborn old witch.’
‘Your sister?’ asked Sarah.
‘Valerie. At the hotel.’
‘That woman’s poor husband.’ Dales tuned the knob to Talk Sports Radio.
‘Poor Sheila. I couldn’t spend any longer in that house, felt like all those pictures were watching me. I think we’ve got a few questions for our old friend Valerie. Like why neither she nor Semples mentioned Sheila was her niece.’ Sarah took the bank statements out of the envelope. ‘These bank statements only go back three months. Nothing too unusual. Some high-value card payments at online retailers.’
‘Do I have to come?’
‘Surely frail, old Valerie Goddard doesn’t intimidate the big bad DS Dales?’ Sarah strapped herself into the passenger seat.
‘Pfft. I just think you’ll get more out of her without her having me to stare at. In any case, I got in touch with the drugs unit about Dibbles. Looks like he’s still active after all and they’re running an operation on him at the moment. They’ve got some photos of Dibbles’s punters. Fiver says Moretti’s one of them. I’ll head there whilst you see what you can get out of Valerie.' Dales phone rang. ‘Gov? Okay, what's the cause of death? Strychnine? The file’s in Sarah’s tray. I’m sure it’s all up-to-date.’ He looked at Sarah. She nodded, assuming Hargreaves’s PM results were in. ‘I’ll check in with you when I get back.’ Dales put the phone down.‘Strychnine. Used to cut cocaine in some circles. In lower doses it’s a stimulant, but take enough of it a
nd it’ll kill you.’
‘That’s the second murder made to look like a suicide this week.’
‘Let’s not jump the gun. It may just be a dodgy batch. Manford is looking at the file and is going to make a call on it this afternoon.’
Fourteen
James Golders sat on his sofa. The dark circles around his eyes stood out against his pale complexion. He looked undernourished and under slept.
‘Scott was a nice guy. Had a lot going for him, you know. Next minute, you get the call. I’d like to help, but I answered all the officer’s questions last time. Not sure what I can add.’
‘There’s just a couple of things I’d like to clarify with you.’ Joel Johnson sat opposite him. Hayward was supposed to be there to observe him taking a witness statement, but when the time came to leave, he was nowhere to be found. Joel came alone rather than be late. DS Bosden over at MCT was collating the evidence in the Scott Enderson murder and had asked Joel to stay on the case, something he was glad to do. ‘As I’m sure you know, you were Scott’s closest friend, so I need to be as thorough as possible with you.’
‘Only friend. Only real friend, anyway.’
‘Why is that? Out of interest.’
‘He was never a people person.’ Golders made an inverted commas gesture with both hands. ‘He didn’t make friends easily. Wasn’t good with women either. Not real women, anyway.’
‘You guys meet through school?’
‘Yeah. Same class. Had been for years before we became friends.’
‘And what made you start hanging out?’
‘We had the same hobbies.’ Golders nodded and looked away. Just saying ‘hobbies’ may have sent a clear hint not to ask for further details were this a social setting, but it wasn’t.
‘Hobbies? Like what?’
‘World of Warcraft. Online games.’ Golders looked a little sheepish.
‘Nothing to be shy about. There are plenty of worse things you could be doing with your time.’ Joel stopped himself before finishing with as long as it doesn’t affect your studies. He was still too young to be doling out fatherly advice.
‘This whole thing has made me think about what I’m doing with my life. It’s like an addiction, you know. You don’t realise how long you’re playing until you stop, feel bad about it, only to go back on the following day.’
Joel had been raised outdoors. His mother always encouraged him and his friends to play outside. Possibly to give him an appreciation of nature, exercise and old-fashioned social interaction; possibly to get him out from under her feet. Either way, staring at a screen for hours on end was not something he’d ever seen as entertainment.‘Did Scott spend a lot of time on there?’
‘Far more than me.’ Golders was quick to concede the gaming endurance throne to his deceased friend. ‘Hours and hours a day.’
‘Just on that one game? Surely he completed it?’
‘You can’t really complete it. It just goes and goes. You can always find new things and new monsters to kill.’
‘Right. I take it something like that isn’t a one-off payment. What’s the subscription cost?’
‘Tenner a month. You can pay more for extras too.’ Joel realised he was probably sounding incredibly out of touch.
‘When Scott died, he hardly had a penny to his name. Do you know how much he was spending online?’
‘Not that much. Subscriptions, a few perks here and there. A hundred pounds in a regular month, I reckon. He’d gift a few things from time to time to his girlfriend.’
‘He’d gift? With real money?’ Joel wondered if it could get any stranger. He played the occasional game on his phone, but avoided anything that was over a few pounds. The idea of buying a video game, then spending real money to buy items within it that don't exist, was a little beyond him.
‘Yeah, weapons, armour, items, even game time.’
‘His girlfriend? Thought he wasn’t too good with women?’ Now I'm really lost.
‘Virtual girlfriend. He could never get a girl like Jaina in real life. I’m not sure there are girls like Jaina in real life.’
At twenty-seven, Joel wasn’t completely out of the loop when it came to modern lifestyles. He was on a dating site himself, but with the full intention of meeting someone offline for a ‘real world’ relationship. The idea of a virtual girlfriend, living in a computer game, had never crossed his mind.
‘I take it that wasn’t her real name?’ He tried anchoring the conversation to some level of normality before these bizarre concepts ran away with all sense of reality.
‘We never knew her real name. Well, if Scott did, he didn’t let on. Jaina Wilde was her character’s full name, if that helps.’
‘Is she still playing?’
‘I logged on a few hours after hearing the news. I waited for her to come online so I could tell her, but she hasn’t been on since his death. Just checked again this morning, in fact. No sign. Why are you so interested?’
‘If they were partners, virtual or otherwise, she may know more about the events leading to Scott’s death. You know how much he was buying her?’
‘Hard to say, but she was always wearing new gear, despite being a terrible player. She brought the team down, but he was determined to have her along all the time.’ Golders looked genuinely upset about this.
‘Do you have any way at all to get in touch with her? Anyone else on your gaming team who may know?’
‘No. Can’t think of anyone. I’ll keep checking if she comes back online, but other than that, can’t think of anything.’
‘Let me know if she does.’ Joel wasn’t hopeful.
Fifteen
Sarah called Semples on the way over to the study session. When she’d finally got hold of him, he told her Valerie was refusing to see anyone, but he’d try his best to convince her. She called Dales and let him know, so he could feed it up the chain to Manford prior to any decision being made about how to proceed with the case.
Sarah hadn’t enjoyed her seminars at university. Sitting around and discussing ideas was only productive if the people you sat around with had something to add. Most of the students in her year didn’t take the course as seriously and, if they did, they hadn’t been willing to share—not until the final year, of course. In the final year, as the impending fear of being released into the free fall of their early twenties with no job and without the safety net of academia to push them along, they all started to pay a little more attention to their education. Most did at least, some stragglers remained of course.
Sarah was considered anything but a straggler in the detective’s exam study group. She was a fast tracker and the looks the rest of them gave suggested they knew that fact all too well. As important as her studies were, and as crucial the looming exam, she struggled to think of anything aside from her husband’s connection to a hotel receptionist. A hotel receptionist that up until three days ago was a complete stranger.
‘Right. I think everyone’s finally here, so let’s get started. The exam is tomorrow. This will be your last chance to ask any questions and clear up any niggling concerns your revision has raised.’ The study-group sergeant was one of those friendly old-timers that often ended up in the training department. He’d gone to great pains in the first session to explain his career and experience. Direct experience was highly valued in the police and was easily noticed when absent. The idea that the only officers that took training posts couldn’t hack it on the streets was another relic of the hard-as-nails days, but was still prevalent. Day one introductions at the training centre often involved unnecessary bleeding-heart anecdotes detailing various achievements and overblown sentiment, in an attempt to avoid being labelled as a training department layabout.
Sarah sneaked in and sat at the back corner nearest the door, so as not to disturb the other eighteen officers who’d arrived on time, books open and pens ready. Joel turned around and smiled from the front row.
‘Let’s start by opening it up, what burning question
s do you have? And I don’t mean just about arsons.’ The officers murmured a laugh. A sideline as a stand-up hadn’t been part of the sergeant’s achievement list. He stood in front of a whiteboard on wheels, holding an uncapped blue pen and waiting for questions. A flurry of hands shot up into the air. People asked about the likely question split, hoping to spend the final evening focusing on the biggest topics, as well as the possibility and expected dates of any re-sits and what happened if you were sick on the day. Others asked about various nuances of the law and police procedure. A long discussion about PACE clocks ensued. The conversation became distant and, as her attention flagged, she found herself doodling on her A4 pad rather than taking anything in. Terms like ‘relevant clock times’ and ‘PACE extension procedure’ were repeated over and over in a conversation that sounded like it was happening further down the hall rather than all around her.
‘Sarah?’ The tutor sergeant stood over her. She’d fallen asleep.
‘Sorry, Sarge.’ She sat straight. ‘Long shifts at the office.’
‘Ah yes, the fast trackers have already been posted. This is what you have to look forward to students, the long hours and hard life of a detective.’ A slight derogatory tone suggested he wasn’t a fan of the programme and the sniggering from the other students suggested they agreed. ‘There’s still time to change your minds.’
They continued discussing the ins and outs of various police procedures, the confusion around when the law sees a seventeen-year-old as an adult and when it sees them as a child, and the specific intent required to prove a grooming offence. Sarah felt a little lost throughout it all. She’d put in the hours: hours staring at the textbooks, making notes in a variety of colours, looking over charts and tables, mind maps and flow diagrams. They'd all stayed on the page, refusing to sink in, and if they had, refusing to be recalled. She had questions but didn’t know where to start, so didn’t raise her hand to ask.
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