by Deborah Bee
‘I’ll send Chapman. She seems to like it up here,’ she goes.
‘When?’ I say, grabbing her by her arm.
‘Sal,’ she says, ‘just give me a couple of hours, right. That girl’s doing my head in.’
‘What, Clare?’ I say.
‘No! Cinder-fucking-rella,’ she goes, shaking off my hand. ‘Who’d you think? Somebody’s messing with my mind here, and when I find out who . . .’
‘It’s not Clare,’ I say as she’s going out towards the front door. ‘She’s been tricked. That guy’s a psycho. Seriously. She’s lucky to be alive.’
‘Well, someone’s a psycho,’ she says. ‘One of them, that’s for sure.’
‘Look, I’ve known you a long time, Sue,’ I say. ‘You can trust me. She’s not lying. She’s a great girl.’
‘How to spot a psycho number one: emotional manipulation!’ she says.
‘It’s not possible to emotionally manipulate me,’ I say. ‘I’ve been round the block too many times.’
‘Not as many times as I have, Sal. Listen,’ she says, and stops trying to race out the door and looks at me properly. ‘You should see how spotless that house is. The wedding picture. If you saw his laptop – stuffed with emails to his friends saying how happy he is with his gorgeous wife. If you saw the amount of documents he’s downloaded about how to treat bipolar – all the meds, plus all the fucking tree roots and flowers and shit that’s never going to work in a trillion years and the journal . . .’ She runs out of steam.
‘How to spot a psycho number one,’ I say.
She turns on her heel and strides out. I watch her climb into the passenger seat, and Chapman drive her away.
‘I didn’t know you two were friends,’ says Kitty, swinging on the banister at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Ah, Kitty,’ I say. ‘Not tap-dancing today?’
‘Contemporary jazz,’ she goes. ‘Where’s Clare?’
‘Listen, Kitty. Can we have a quick chat about Clare? You see, the thing is, I don’t know if you realise or not, but I don’t like you, not at all, not even slightly, not one bit. I think you’re cold and manipulating and you’re up to something and I don’t know what it is, but really, girl, whatever your game is, just quit, will you?’
‘I don’t . . .’ she says.
‘Don’t bother, Kitty. I’m not interested in hearing anything you have to say.’
‘I’m sure. What I was about to say, before you so rudely interrupted, was that I don’t give a shit what you think. However, I am interested in why you and Policeman Plod are so matey. Go way back, do you? Clare know you’re mates, does she? Bet she doesn’t. All her little secrets being passed on to who knows . . .’
I brush past her and go back up the stairs.
‘I won’t tell her. But if I need a favour, I’ll be asking.’
‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous, Kitty. That shite doesn’t work on me.’
*
‘So now Kitty knows,’ I tell Sue later, at the station, after Chapman has come back and picked me up and dumped me in the underground car park at the back.
‘Little tramp.’
Sue’s office is also at the back of the station. I wouldn’t usually be allowed in there, but I’m zero risk to them, I guess, which once upon a time would have made me feel a little dull, but I guess once upon a time I wasn’t.
‘What I don’t understand is how she managed to get into York Gate in the first place – Kitty, I mean.’
‘Played the system, that’s how,’ Sue goes.
‘Surprise, surprise,’ I say.
‘To be fair, it didn’t go totally her way. She cried wolf once too often.’
‘What d’ya mean?’
‘She used to hang out in some student bar in Manchester. She’d get off her face, like all of them do, but she got into the habit of sleeping with the students then running to the police saying she’d been raped. And the story was always the same from the lads; that she’d been up for it at the time, but next morning she’d gone mental on them.’
‘What, so she didn’t get raped?’
‘Well, not to start with – not in the way she described, anyway. She’d cry rape then she’d get paid off by the lads’ parents just to keep it out of court. However, one night it seems she comes into Greenheys nick and she tells the copper she’s been raped, again, and he sends her off home. Tells her to stop wasting police time. The copper’d seen her before. Wasn’t about to take any more of her crap.’
‘Is this before or after she was in the looney bin?’
‘You mean the child psychiatric unit. After. She’d just got out. Gone to live with her granny, poor woman. Anyway, the copper sends her home and she goes straight up to A & E and tells them the same story, gets tested. Turns out this time she had actually been raped, by three of the fourteen lads she’d accused in the first place. Seems like they were very pissed, saw her out on the pull and thought, “Been accused of it, may as well get our money’s worth”. So, they all got sentences, and the copper got early retirement.’
‘She’s such a conniving piece of work.’
‘She told the court that she felt “at risk” from the other eleven men she’s accused, so they gave her free accommodation at a women’s refuge, for a year. They had to, really. Save face.’
‘And she chose York Gate, cos it’s in the middle of London and she gets to treat it like a hotel?’
‘Yup. In a nutshell.’
‘I don’t think she’ll say anything to Clare, not yet, cos she’ll wanna keep it as a bargaining chip. Terry used to do that. Might be best to come clean with Clare, though, don’t you think? She’s gonna blow a gasket if she thinks I’ve been feeding you stuff.’
‘Well, as it turns out, you’re defending her rather than snitching on her anyway.’
‘She wouldn’t hurt a fly, Sue, honest she wouldn’t.’
‘I’m not so sure. And you haven’t seen the journal.’
‘You can’t show it to me?’
‘No, I can’t,’ she goes. ‘Not at all,’ she says, opening the middle drawer on her side of the desk and pulling out a large leather book, posh black leather like you get in shops in Bond Street that make wedding invites and the like. It’s smooth. Like a baby’s bum. Padded.
She pushes it over the desk and turns it to face me.
‘See what you make of that,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back in an hour. Anyone asks, say you’re assessing the grammar.’
‘His English is probably better than most of the exam papers I get to look at,’ I say.
‘Shame your expertise doesn’t do anything for your accent,’ she says, closing the door behind her.
‘Ditto,’ I shout back.
*
The cover of the journal is plain, so I don’t know why everyone is calling it a journal.
But then, on the first right-hand page, in the middle, written in black fountain pen, it says, JOURNAL, and it’s been underlined with a ruler and there’s a small smudge at one end. So that’s why everyone is calling it a journal, because he’s calling it a journal.
Blimey, that’s what they call grandiosity, and bloody typical narcissist, if you ask me. I’ve read a lot about narcissistic personality disorder over the years. And borderline. And psychopathy. Especially psychopathy. After Terry.
And then, after that, all the way through, every date is handwritten, in the same black ink, with the same fountain pen, with an italic nib I’d guess, and roughly the same amount of words, in the same large curly script. Controlled.
April 3rd 2017
For more than 25 years, I’ve been keeping a journal. I started when I was about nine, squirrelling away thoughts, hoping that someday I would be able to look back and laugh at my young mind . . .
Nah, as Big Debbie would say. Grandiose, but these aren’t the words of a narcissist. Too much empathy. I flick through some more pages, and there’s more of the same.
April 28th 2017
There�
��s no stopping me with this journal. I’ve worked out that I’ve accumulated 10,000 journal-writing hours in my lifetime and I truly believe it has saved me on many occasions. It has become my therapist and my dear friend. Someone I can turn to in the darkest hours when I have toxic feelings and emotions that . . .
Nah. Again. Doesn’t sound like a narcissist or a psycho. Doesn’t even sound like a man, for that matter. Too self-aware for a man. I flick to the back.
February 21st 2018
Today I found out that Coco hasn’t been taking the medication that Doctor Short recommended and I can see that her moods are swinging out of control. It’s the worst I’ve seen her. Talked about our wedding plans.
Says she wants just me and her. No relatives. No friends. I think she won’t do it if it’s not just me and her. She chose a dress. It’s Italian silk. The best I can afford. Actually, I’m not even sure if I can afford it, but Jerry said he can loan me a couple of thousand till August. She tried on every dress in the shop, I think. That really made her smile. Like old times. Before she got sick.
March 9th 2018
My wedding day. I Gareth James, do solemnly swear that I take thee, Clare Chambers . . . Today was the happiest day of my life – just me and Coco and a couple of witnesses we dragged off the street. I managed to book this tiny register office in West Yorkshire. Really quaint and romantic. Coco looked divine in her silk dress. Like an angel. My angel. I’ve never seen her so happy.
March 26th 2018
I had a bout of serious depression about five years ago and I discovered I was completely unable to absorb vitamin B-12 into my bloodstream. As much as a third of the population cannot absorb B-12 from food or supplements due to a lack of intrinsic factor, or, as in the case of older adults, a lack of stomach acid. Intrinsic factor is a protein secreted by the stomach that joins vitamin B-12 in the stomach and escorts it through the small intestine to be absorbed by your bloodstream. Without intrinsic factor, vitamin B-12 can’t be absorbed and leaves your body as waste. Without intrinsic factor, vitamin B-12 can’t be absorbed and leaves your body as waste.
He repeated a sentence there. Odd.
I was totally unable to sleep. Despite eating food sources and taking B-12 supplements my B-12 levels measured extremely low. Fortunately, injections restored levels which I have continued to maintain via sublingual B-12 supplements which are inexpensive (they dissolve under the tongue which allows for absorption directly into the blood through the extensive capillary system under the tongue).
Took Coco to see Dr Short and he’s gonna sort her out with some shots and some B-12 supplements, like I used to get.
Nah, nah, nah, different style altogether.
Sue walks back in.
‘You want a cup of tea?’ she says, going out again.
‘There’s something not right about all this,’ I say when she returns and plonks the mug down in front of me.
‘Tell me about it!’ she goes. ‘Clare told me a very different story about the wedding dress shop, for a start. She said they went there soon after they first started going out. He says it was six weeks ago. She says they never got married; he’s got a bloody great wedding picture above the mantelpiece.’
‘Does the picture over the mantelpiece look two years old?’
She gets out her phone. ‘Impossible to tell. The veil doesn’t help. What do you think?’
I shrug.
‘She does look happy. I mean, it looks like she’s having the time of her life, just like he said. What did your lot say about the book?’
‘They’re digitising it.’
‘How?’
‘Some poor sod is copying it word for word. Emma said that the style changes throughout. Said if she couldn’t see it was the same handwriting, she’d think it was different people.’
‘Multiple personalities?’
‘You’re getting good at this. Yes, I thought that, but Emma says if it’s multiple personalities you’d see a change in the handwriting. Everything would change, not just the tone of voice.’
‘Psycho, then?’ I say.
‘Or an honest guy trying to help his sick girlfriend.’
I’m about to interrupt but she stops me.
‘I want to believe her, Sal,’ she says.
‘Something’s so fishy, it smells like Albert Dock,’ I say.
‘That could just be my tea,’ says Sue. ‘You should go back.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be telling me about Terry?’
‘Oh yeah, sorry.’ She shrugs. ‘His mum told a couple officers that they were the C word yesterday, but apart from that . . .’
‘Still got her faculties, then.’
‘Still got a mouth like a fishwife, more like,’ says Sue.
‘Fishwife means something else now. Means the wife of a man who’s a homosexual.’
‘Really?’ says Sue. ‘Who knew?’
‘I looked it up on Urban Dictionary, and they do the definition and everything, then they show the word in common parlance, you know. And it said, hang on while I remember it, it said “Melissa is married to Steve, but she’s a fishwife, cuz (spelt C-U-Z, by the way,) cuz everyone knows Steve sucks cock like a hoover”.’
Sue spat her tea onto the desk she was laughing so much. ‘You have to be kidding me. It said that in a dictionary?’
We stop when we’ve drunk our tea and Sue’s put the book back in the drawer.
‘How long is it going to go on, do you think?’
‘Listen, Sal, Terry’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he? He’ll surface. And when he does he’ll go back inside and we’ll start again. He’ll get an extended sentence. Another five years, maybe. Then, after that, we go through all this again.’
‘Would have been better to get him killed,’ I say.
‘You don’t think that.’
I don’t tell her that I do, that it would have been better for me, for my life, to have had him wiped out. Back then you could have got it done for two hundred quid.
‘I have to say, you’re in the safest place. Look how quick the fire services got there. All for an aerosol!’
‘Cigarette.’
‘You what?’ Sue says.
‘Kitty.’
Thirty-Nine
DS Clarke
DS Clarke doesn’t like to work Sundays and as a rule she doesn’t. She gets her washing and ironing done for the week. Sorts the recycling. Does a shop if she can be bothered. Gets the car cleaned if she hasn’t managed to persuade one of the lads at the car park to do it.
But this morning DS Clarke decides to go into work.
That Kitty girl is trouble, she thinks, worrying that Sal might have some explaining to do if Clare gets wind of their friendship.
She pings an email to PC Chapman, asking her to look further into her background.
‘Not now,’ she finishes the email. ‘Tomorrow is soon enough.’
DS Clarke is also struggling to work out how to get hold of digital data and realises that what she really needs is someone at least twenty years younger than her to help.
‘Hi, Mark? You wouldn’t be able to put me through to IT, would you?’
PC Mark Corkett is on reception.
‘I’m sorry, there’s no one in IT today, sarge. It being a Sunday. Strict nine-till-fivers, those guys, Monday through Friday.’
‘OK, thanks, Mark. Of course.’
Who needs IT anyway, she thinks.
‘SECTION 22(4) OF THE REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS’, DS Clarke reads off her email. ‘Google Inc, C/O Custodian of Records, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043.’
She scrolls down.
‘Describe the communications data to be acquired specifying, where relevant, any historic or future date and/or time periods sought’
Her phone buzzes.
‘Sarge. Thought you’d like to know that the IT department ARE in today. They’re re-platforming and they’re at critical, so they’ve all been called in.’
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‘Critical what?’
‘I don’t know. It’s only amber though, not red. So, you should be all right.’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Mark.’
‘It means . . . well, it means they’re here, sarge. That’s all you need to know.’
‘Who’s in charge?’
‘Tom.’
‘Tom Boring, the world’s geekiest geek with the wife he bought in Thailand?’
‘Bohrer.’
‘Whatever. Can you get him in here?’
It’s all very well, she thinks, Sal saying that Gareth’s not the type to write a journal, but what the fuck – she’s not even met him.
Note to self, stop swearing.
Is swearing still swearing if it’s only in your head?
A tall, gangly youth with crooked teeth and no smile whatsoever, puts his head around her door.
‘Tom. Hi. Thanks for stopping by. Did you get my request about the laptop?’
Good grief, she thinks. He really is the most unfortunate-looking bloke. It was the children in the main office who said he bought his wife. To his face. He doesn’t dispute it.
‘Yes, DS Clarke. We got that on Friday. Ticket number 38729. Reference 42317, Clare Chambers.’
On a trip to Bangkok, apparently.
‘So, Tom, how’s it going?’ she says.
No one would willingly marry that.
‘For our own records, Detective Sergeant Clarke, could you please describe the communications data that you require, specifying, where relevant, any historic or future date and/or time periods sought.’
‘What does that mean exactly, Tom?’
‘WYSIWYG, Detective Sergeant Clarke!’
‘Wizzy what?’
‘‘WYSIWYG, Detective Sergeant Clarke. What you see is what you get, DS Clarke. Specify what you want and that’s what you’ll get.’
‘You’ve got the email addresses?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go away and find out anything you can then.’
‘The DCG Grade 3 – SPoC will require reasons for requesting the data. Full disclosure.’
‘We’ve filled out the form, Tom. Isn’t that enough?’ DS Clarke reads off the form. ‘Explain the reason for requiring this data, and we’ve put: “The above email addresses relate to evidence in a serious crime. A laptop is held in evidence containing emails to and from the above addresses. The owners of these accounts may have crucial information and could potentially, be important witnesses.” Does that cover it?’
