by Deborah Bee
‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ I say.
‘I don’t think there can possibly be any more bad news,’ Clare goes, with a sigh, as she reaches the top step. ‘Go on.’
‘We have wine,’ I say, ‘special thanks to our lady of the loose morals, Prashi.’
‘Well, I don’t drink much, but I agree it’s not bad news. So, what’s the bad news?’
‘No corkscrew.’
‘I thought they all had screw tops these days?’
‘Not this one.’
‘Can’t you ask Mrs Henry?’
‘Drinking’s not allowed,’ I say. ‘Well, they say it’s “tolerated” but because there’s so many drug dependencies in the building, they prefer it if we don’t have it. But today being a special day . . .’
‘How come?’ she goes.
‘The police have admitted that Terry’s officially gone missing. The police are after him for breaking his release agreement. I mean, he does twenty years and then he’s gone and done something else before he’s even had chance to warm up his bed.’
‘Well, I guess we do have something to celebrate. Gareth’s still missing too. I don’t know what he’s up to. Something, that’s for sure.’
‘Like what?’
‘Gareth is always up to some scam or other. The house is spotless, Susan says. That’s unheard of for him. He never cleans up. She says the laundry room is newly painted. Like properly nice. Says there’s nothing broken. No bottles. No paraffin. And a bloody big wedding picture that he must’ve got done ages ago. Why do I get the impression that Susan hates me? She certainly doesn’t believe anything I say.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything anymore. Even I don’t believe me. Sometimes I wonder if he had this planned all along,’ she says, ‘totally set me up and now he’s just done a runner with all my money.’
‘If you had any,’ I say and laugh, thinking of the state of my savings account.
‘My dad had loads of friends in insurance,’ she goes, ‘and I think that when they all started he tried to help them by taking out life assurance policies.’
‘So?’
‘So, when he died, I inherited the house, the car, all his savings – and two million pounds in insurance claims.’
‘What the fuck!’ I say. Jesus, what I could do with £2 million. ‘But Gareth didn’t know that when he met you, did he?’
‘No. I mean, I didn’t blurt it out straight away, did I?’
‘You’ve got two million quid? Wow. I’ve never met a millionaire.’
‘I used to have two million quid. I don’t know what I’ve got now.’
‘How come?’
‘I think I signed stuff. I know I shouldn’t have. I can’t remember. I don’t know what’s real and what’s a bad dream. I know some days I felt so ill I couldn’t even get out of bed and it was days like those that he’d say I needed to sign things in case anything happened to me.’
‘But didn’t you see a doctor?’
‘Gareth said it was normal to have mood swings and just to keep taking the vitamin supplements.’
‘And did you?’
‘I told you. They just made me worse.’
‘You definitely didn’t tell him you had two million quid when you met him, though, right? I mean, he wasn’t just some freeloader?’
‘No, I definitely didn’t to start with. But I wonder if he’d read the article in the paper. And put two and two together. I mean, it did kind of spell it out. Poor little orphan. No relatives. Well-off local builder.’
‘You don’t think . . .’ I start but she wanders off into her bedroom with her stuff and then when she comes back she’s in pink rabbit pyjamas and chucks a pen at me.
‘The old pen trick,’ she says. ‘I’ll get some glasses from downstairs.’
I’m worrying about her bare feet on the floorboards but she comes back with two plastic children’s beakers.
‘No glasses. They’re banned like the cutlery.’ She shrugs. ‘First time I met Gareth, he gave me his card and told me I must meet him for a drink. Not, would you like to go for a drink? It was an order.’
I push the pen through the foil top and start to press down on the cork. Clare comes and holds the bottle steady on the floor.
‘So, the next day I called him, right, and it was like he had no idea who I was. He kept saying “Who? Who? Who is it?” down the phone. ‘And I said, “Clare. You know, from The Adelaide pub. Coco, you called me Coco.” He used to call me Coco. All the time, Coco. Like Clare was too prosaic or something.’
The pen suddenly shoots the cork into the bottle and a large glug of Sauvignon Blanc spurts onto the carpet.
‘Clare’s prosaic, is it?’ I say.
‘Common, he said.’
‘Should have got a load of me then, shouldn’t he,’ I say giggling into my drink.
‘Finally, when he twigged who it was,’ she says, swigging from her My Little Pony plastic beaker, ‘he said he might be able to meet me later. “Might”, only if he had time. And he started asking me all these questions like . . . Where was I? Who was I with? How old was I? What kind of work did I do? Who pays the bills? Who do I live with? Where’s my house? What number house, even. And I was back-footed by that, if you know what I mean. I was just handing over all these details. Like I was stupid or something. I don’t even know why. And then he says “Gotta go” and hangs up. Just like that.’
She tops up her beaker.
‘When we did meet, maybe a couple of days later, I was all over the place. He was so good-looking and everyone was staring at him. All these women, like bees round a honey pot. He kept staring over my shoulder the entire time, asking me questions, but never really caring what I answered because there was always something way more interesting behind me. So, in the end, I got up to leave. I’d had enough of being humiliated.
‘ “You’re quite pretty,” he said, while I was putting my coat on. He looked quite surprised. He stood up too and stared down into my eyes, and for some reason I felt dizzy, like I was drunk on him looking at me. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said. “I can see your fear in them.”
‘That was the point I should have run. That exact point. I look back and think that was the first time he did it; flatter me and shatter me in the same sentence.’
‘Look, I know this sounds mean,’ I say, slopping some more wine into my cup, ‘but if he was like that on your first date, how come you didn’t see it all coming?’
‘I don’t know. By the time I realised he was a proper psycho, I was in too deep. Don’t judge me, Sally,’ she says, drawing her eyes away from the window and looking at me like she is so ashamed. ‘Please don’t judge me. If you’re really my friend, you won’t. Even though he was stealing my money, controlling me to the point that I was his slave, starving me, raping me. I was too in love. I was so afraid he would leave me. I was like one of those dogs that gets kicked and kicked and kicked but still ends up loyal to their master. I would do anything he said. I loved him and hated him. Half of me just wanted to die for him. The other half wanted to kill him. Sometimes I used to dream about killing him.’
Thirty-Three
DS Clarke
DS Clarke prides herself on running a tight ship.
When she hears of any figure in a senior position described as ‘firm but fair’ she likes to think that that’s how she would also be described.
Calm, but tenacious.
Approachable, yet professional.
After the case briefing meeting, she picks up the phone and dials reception.
‘Joanna,’ she barks. ‘This witness report, you just emailed through.’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean, yes, sarge,’ she barks again. ‘Come up to my office and tell me about it.’
There is a photo of Terry, looking older, fatter but as tight-lipped as you’d expect him to look.
‘Do not approach . . .’ it says next to t
he image. ‘Report any sighting immediately to Camden Road Police.’
The email accompanying the ID said:
A PHOTOFIT ID OF MR TERENCE MANSFIELD WAS POSTED AROUND THE CAMDEN HIGH STREET/ CAMDEN LOCK / PARKWAY AREA AT 3 P.M. ON 13th APRIL.
DS Clarke’s landline starts ringing as PC Joanna Lee sidles into the chair facing her.
‘Hi? DS Clarke, it’s Celia Barrett.’
‘Celia, yes.’
‘I’m just following up on our meeting with Clare Chambers.’
‘I see. Thank you for that. How did you feel the meeting went?’
‘I’m concerned, Detective Sergeant, that Clare is becoming more emotionally unstable.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
‘She seems . . .’
‘No, sorry, what I meant was, Celia – she is indeed becoming more emotional, but that emotion is most probably anxiety. She is getting more anxious, and I’m not in the least bit surprised that she’s anxious, Celia, because if I was her, I would also be getting more anxious. Her story is unravelling before our eyes, wouldn’t you say?’
‘No, DS Clarke, sorry, I didn’t mean she was anxious. I meant more that she seems disturbed and disorientated. Periods when she appears to dissociate.’
I think ‘dissociate’ has become my favourite word ever, thinks DS Clarke to herself. I think if I dissociated more often I wouldn’t get so stressed.
‘Did you also notice,’ DS Clarke says aloud, ‘how much she blushed when she accidentally said “was” instead of “is”? Seems like she’s written Gareth off, don’t you think?’
‘I know that she—’
‘What about her clothes, Celia? Don’t you think that’s a bit strange? All that new stuff. Clobber.’
‘I’m talking about the periods when she wasn’t speaking, DS Clarke. When she seemed to be reliving the past. This is dissociative behaviour that we would normally—’
‘And she was very quick to dismiss the subject of the clothes, wasn’t she,’ she says. ‘And you heard her call me a bitch. I’m not sure even Clare knows which side she’s on anymore.’
‘I think, in these circumstances that it’s important for you to evaluate the state of—’
‘Thanks, Celia. I’m very well aware of what’s important for me to evaluate.’
‘But—’
‘You can go, Celia.’
‘What?’
‘You can go. You heard.’
And DS Clarke smacks the phone down.
PC Lee is still sitting opposite DS Clarke, examining her new acrylics, looking like she would rather be just about anywhere.
DS Clarke has only just noticed her.
‘Joanna? What is it?’
‘You asked to see me about the witness statement?’ says PC Lee, curling her fingernails underneath her laptop.
‘Which witness statement?’
‘The one you just rang me about?’
‘I do work on more than one case at a time, Joanna,’ says DS Clarke, breathing out slowly.
‘The photo ID of Mr Terry Mansfield, case number 423145,’ PC Lee reads from her laptop.
‘Yes, what about it?’
‘Well . . .’ begins PC Lee.
‘When did the ID go out?’ barks DS Clarke.
‘Didn’t you see it? I thought you approved its release.’
‘If I’d approved its release, I wouldn’t be asking you about it.’
‘Oh, look, it says here that Detective Walker signed it off. Yup, it says so here.’
‘Right! Next question. Who is Mrs Carol Pringle, the witness, and when did she come in?’
‘Oooh, was it about an hour ago?’
DS Clarke is trying hard not to sigh audibly.
‘Who is she?’
‘Who is she?’ PC Lee repeats back. She refers to her laptop again. ‘She lives in, um, Oak Road. Says so here.’
‘Your name is on the statement, Joanna. Did you take the statement?’
‘I do a lot of reports.’
‘This one was an hour ago! Can’t you remember back that far?’
‘Oh, that one. Yeah, Carol Pringle. Actually, Rach and I did that one together.’
‘Rach?’
‘Detective Walker.’
Ah, the utterly stupid leading the utterly stupid.
‘Do you think you could ask Rach to come in to fill in the gaps?’
‘I think she may have popped out.’
‘Do you want to ask her to pop back?’
PC Lee starts tapping away at her phone.
‘On her way.’ She smiles, hopefully.
DS Clarke is trying hard not to lose her mind.
*
‘So, Walker, you met Carol Pringle, did you?’ says DS Clarke when DC Walker eventually drifts into her office.
‘Yes, sarge. She presented as a witness at the station this morning. She claims to have seen a man matching the description of Mr Terry Mansfield at the Sheephaven Bay pub, the one on the corner of Mornington Crescent, at 20.00 hours on the thirteenth of April.’
What else did she say?’
‘Sarge, it says it all in the statement. She saw him approach a group of blokes outside the pub and he bought them all a drink. They were all sat outside for a while. She thought they might be louts. You know, homeless.’
‘Do you have her contact details? Either of you?’
They are looking at each other. Gormless.
‘Neither of you.’
PC Lee blushes.
‘I didn’t actually meet her, sarge,’ Joanna says. ‘I was only sending out the report for Rach cos she—’
‘What you throwing me under the fucking bus for?’ says DC Walker, furious.
‘So, you didn’t even meet her, Joanna, despite your name being on the report?’
DS Clarke is tapping her index finger rapidly on her desk.
‘No.’
‘You can go. Expect a disciplinary. DC Walker, you can stay, and perhaps you’d like to describe Mrs Pringle? Old, young? Short, tall?’
‘She was around fifty, I guess. Brown hair. Wearing sweat pants. Adidas. She mentioned she had a daughter.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ says DS Clarke, smiling. ‘That should make it an awful lot easier to find her. We need more on Terry. Oak Road is only a mile long. Door to door. Get a move on. Oh, and when you’re done, can you go back to the house in Oval Road and photograph the laundry room again. Before it gets dark. And then can you go over to the shop where they bought the wedding dress and find out if the shop staff remember Clare and Gareth. We are getting absolutely fucking nowhere here.’
That wedding photo is beginning to get right up my arse, DS Clarke thinks to herself.
Just one of those days.
Thirty-Four
Clare
I go down for breakfast.
Kitty is there again.
She’s got an apron on over her black Topshop jeans with busted out knees. I used to have some like that.
And she’s got rubber gloves on.
She’s waving a can of kitchen bleach.
Bleach makes me shudder.
And a pan scrubber.
‘Only use the left-hand-side of the kitchen for now,’ she says to no one in particular, ‘I’m doing a deep-clean.’
‘What’s a deep-clean?’ I say, thinking of Gareth and his love of sterilising.
A love of me sterilising.
He never did anything.
That is so typical of you.
Half do the job.
If you’re not going to bleach it properly, don’t bother.
Because you’ll just end up having to do it again.
Not with gloves on.
You can’t do it properly if you’ve got gloves on.
‘I’m doing it properly for a change,’ she says, marching about and slamming stuff.
She slams the cutlery drawer so all the plastic cutlery rattles.
She smacks the mugs and tumblers so hard on the side you’d
think they’d break.
‘Can you NOT . . .?’ she shouts at Prashi as she goes to put something in the dishwasher. ‘I’m doing a deep-clean.’
‘Looks to me like it’s less of a deep-clean and more of a fucking big song and dance about it being your turn on the rota,’ growls Big Debbie.
She stomps over the kitchen floor, on the right side, and puts her plate in the dishwasher.
You’ve got to love Big Debbie.
‘If everyone bothered as much as I do, properly sterilised all the surfaces, then I wouldn’t even need to do a deep-clean. People should do it every day. Keep up with it.’
‘That’s what the fucking rota’s for,’ says Big Debbie, stomping back again.
She lets the kitchen door slam behind her as she leaves the room.
‘I just want to make a black coffee,’ says Sarah. ‘I won’t get in anyone’s way. I never bother with breakfast, Just a black coffee. That’s all.’
‘What you mean is, you never have any MORE breakfast after the Sausage and Egg McMuffin you crawl out for every morning at seven,’ shouts Kitty.
She’s got her back to Sarah.
She’s not even looking at her.
She’s not even bothered what her reaction will be.
She’s just polishing the fridge door.
Like she’s trying to prove something.
No one knows what it is.
We all keep half giggling.
Sarah’s not.
Sarah has turned the colour of tomato ketchup.
‘I don’t . . . I think . . . YOU’RE A LIAR!’ she says.
She gives up on the coffee, slamming the spoon down on the counter.
‘Listen, Sarah,’ says Kitty, before she’s had chance to go.
She puts her cloth down. Takes off her Marigolds. Gives her hands some air. Flexes her fingers.
‘No one actually gives a fuck what you eat. Apart from you, Sarah Fat Murray. That’s what we all call you. Sarah Fat Murray. Sarah Lard-Arse Murray. You go around telling everyone that you have a hormonal imbalance. You tell everyone that you don’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive. You say you can’t have fat. And you can’t have carbs. And you can’t have sugar. And then you go off and binge on chocolate and McDonald’s. You eat chocolate in bed, for fuck’s sake. Who eats chocolate in bed? Chocolate plus McDonald’s equals shit diet. And guess what, Sarah Fat Murray? That’s why you’re fat! Nothing to do with hormones. Nothing to do with imbalance. It’s called eating too much shit. Geddit?’
