What I Left Behind (The gripping prequel to the DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series)

by Jacqueline Ward

  Lauren sighs and stretches. We walk up the street to her car and I think about my grandmother. She lived in a terraced house like this, in Ashton. I used to stay with her when my parents were arguing, when times were bad, which meant more and more as my childhood progressed. I loved it there, cosy and warm. It’s what I think about when I can’t sleep, my grandmother’s lounge.

  The police car is already parked outside when we reach the flat. Four officers get out as Lauren parks up. Before we get out of the car she turns to me with a worried look on her face.

  ‘Tina’s mum didn’t seem bothered, did she? Not really shocked or surprised that her daughter had taken someone else’s child. No offers to rush round or to talk to her or anything?’

  It’s been bothering me too. She was angry about Tina’s relationship with Glen and how she treated Jennifer, but she hardly mentioned the fact that her daughter was on the run with a kidnapped one year old. No real sign of worry or surprise. I slump back into my seat.

  ‘Yeah. Makes me wonder if she knew something. Knew there was something wrong and was used to it. She mentioned Tina’s flat. We might find something there.’

  We walk over to the flat. It’s a ground floor, one bedroomed standard council accommodation. The neighbours are already out and I ask two of the officers to take any statements that are forthcoming, but not to mention why we’re here. Lauren shows the warrant to enter to one of the officers and he promptly rams through the door.

  The first thing that hits us is the noise. It's The Red Shoes, booming out loudly. I go to the stereo player to turn it down and see it is on a loop. It must have been playing over and over for four days or so. Everyone covers their ears except me. I know only too well the decibels required to numb the brain into submission.

  The second thing that hits us is the smell. It’s an overpowering smell of bleach and lemons. Tina’s mum said that it would be a mess, but it’s the opposite. It’s more than clean. It’s practically sterilised. Every inch of this flat has been scrubbed. There are tell-tale dried bleach marks on the tiled kitchen floor, the kind you usually see in the autopsy room after hours. I check the bedroom. The bedding smells fresh and clean and the bed is expertly made. Jennifer’s cot is pristine and her toys stacked neatly in a box.

  The only thing that makes this place look any different from any other flat is the hundreds of dolls. They’re everywhere. Chains of little dolls hanging from the ceiling like all-year-round Christmas decorations. All the dolls are white and look like they have been cut from sheets for notepaper. There are some larger cardboard versions sitting on the mantelpiece, different shapes this time and quite well formed. And all their feet are painted red. Tina’s obviously had a lot of practice.

  The noise is quieter in the background now and we settle into the search of the flat. I pull on my gloves and sort through two black bin bags in the kitchen. There’s a single cup on the draining board, and I pick it up. It smells strongly of bleach. The usual supplies of basics in the fridge are stacked in extremely neat piles. Every tin on the cupboard has its label turned outwards. It all gives the appearance of something unreal. And it is. I’ve seen it before. It’s someone putting things straight before they go away for good. Tina’s mother said that the flat was a mess but Tina knew that someone would come here and she wanted to leave a good impression. Be in control. I turn to Lauren. She’s opening drawers and examining the contents and she holds up a jotter.

  ‘This could be the pad that the dolls were made from.’

  I go into the bedroom and open a cupboard. I already know what will be inside, but my stomach still lurches when I see them. Dozens of pairs of red shoes. All lined up in neat rows. Boots, wellingtons, slippers. All red.

  I phone into SMIT and ask for SOCO to attend.

  ‘Not much more we can do here, Lauren.’

  She tuts and folds her arms.

  ‘This isn’t what I was expecting at all. I thought there’d be half eaten pizza and shitty nappies everywhere.’

  I hear the doubt in her mind, the slight suspicion that Tina might not be as unbalanced as we think.

  ‘No. It’s not what I was expecting either. It’s worse.’ I pick up a picture of Tina and Jennifer. It reminds me of the picture in Maisie’s bedroom. All smiles and cuddles. But when I look more closely, Tina is wearing earphones. Even in a posed photograph she’s listening to the morbid words of the story. She looks different on this picture. Carefully curled hair, her make-up less bold and her nails bitten to the quick. But the anger is still in her eyes. She’s wearing a plain t-shirt and I can just about see the start of a tattoo on her shoulder. Even the multiple earrings she wore on the Magellan intelligence photographs have been replaced by neat pearls.

  I look around the flat. Beyond the clean façade she’s created for us, through the distraction of the music and behind even the guardian paper dolls, I can feel her. Tina. Someone who’s life has changed beyond all recognition. Someone who’s environment and everyday has morphed into something she cannot bear, for whatever reason. She’s here. Somewhere, underneath a top layer of obsessive cleaning, she’s bound to have left clues to her mission.

  I open bedroom drawers and sort through. No diary. No notebooks. Just a pile of bills. All paid up. I look through everything and, as usual, what’s not there is more obvious than what is. There is no paperwork to indicate Jennifer was ever here. No birth certificate or hospital tags, no first locks of hair or first size baby clothes. Just a baby capsule wardrobe for a one year old, a cot and some toys. Like Jennifer’s existence has been frozen in a slice of time.

  My thinking is interrupted by my personal mobile ringing. I check the display and it’s Jean. I can hear Kirby barking in the background and my heart jolts.

  ‘Oh hello, Janet love. I just wanted you to know that there’s been a man asking after you. He just asked where you lived. I told him I didn’t know. Is that alright love?’

  Bastards. I know they won’t harm Jean or Graham. It’s not their style.

  ‘Yes. It’s all right, Jean. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Only the other thing is, I thought I saw your bathroom light go on and off about half an hour after he came round. I wanted to phone the police, but I phoned you instead because, well, you are the police.’

  She sounds confused and I’m devastated that she has to go through this.

  ‘Don’t worry Jean. You did the right thing. We’ll deal with this now. Just don’t go near the house. I’ll send someone up there.’

  I end the call and Keith calls me before I can call him.

  ‘I heard all that, Jan. This is getting serious now.’

  I think hard. We’re so near to finding Tina but I need to protect Jean and Graham.

  ‘Can you send someone inconspicuous to sit with Jean please? House behind mine. Perps will be long gone now so don’t bother to send anyone into my house. And please log all this to do with me in a separate file to the Maisie Lewis case. I’d like a transcript of everything in that file.’

  It’s true. They’d be long gone before anyone got near. Someone would be watching every approach route. They’re experts at it. Keith’s quiet except for the tapping of his keyboard. I listen to the story, on its fourth loop by now, turned down to a reasonable volume now, and try to blank out the image of someone sneaking around in my house, touching my possessions. Looking at my photographs. Wishing I had brought my most precious things with me. Like Tina must have done. Unlike me, she’s made sure that she has everything she needs is with her. Her ID, Jennifer’s ID and papers, anything that is remotely personalised. As I wait for Keith to reply I casually open drawers and cupboards. No photographs, except the carefully posed, framed one.

  It’s always in moments like this, when I have a lot on my mind I see deep into the soul of the world and understand. As I stand in the ordered chaos of Tina’s stage-managed flat I glance into her bedroom and see a series of what was eight pictures hanging on the wall opposite Tina’s bed. There are seven pictures left. Thr
ee of them are framed photographs of Tina outside her secondary school. Another is a framed photograph of Tina and her mother and father outside what I recognise as a farm in Uppermill. The next photograph is missing and my eyes scan quickly along the next three.

  My worst fears are not borne out, because the next three pictures are of her outside her mother’s current home, and with Glen and Jennifer in Trafalgar Square and on The Mall. She hasn’t taken any of them. My eyes stray back to the space on the wall, the empty hammered-in tack where the missing picture used to hang. These pictures are in chronological order. A timeline of her life, with all the things that are important to her. Whatever that missing picture shows is very important to Tina at a time between being a small child and moving to Ancoats.

  But no one else would know what it was as Tina appeared to have no one to turn to. Her mother clearly hadn’t been here for some time and seemed unconcerned and Glen had another lover. No one seemed very forthcoming outside the flat when asked for a statement. It seems Tina is all alone at a time when she hardly knows who she is. And I can empathise with that. Keith finally speaks, interrupting my train of thought.

  ‘OK. All done. Completely separate. Someone’s on their way up there now. I’ve got someone to look in on your place too.’

  ‘That’s OK. They’ll see anyone approach and vacate. Then go back when they’ve gone. They’ll expect me to go home at some point. Everyone has to go home, don’t they? They usually send one team to do the job. And they don’t give up until it’s finished. But thanks anyway.’

  I can hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

  ‘Fucking hell, Jan.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. Let’s see what happens.’

  I end the call and get back to Lauren. She’s looking at Tina’s stereo player.

  ‘A music player and no CD’s.’

  I stop the track and everyone turns around. The story was calming and hypnotic and I can see why Tina listened to it. I open the CD drawer and pluck out the disc.

  ‘One CD. All she needs. On a loop.’ I pick up the picture. ‘She’s listening to this all day and night. Blocking out the world. Blocking out Jennifer. And now blocking out Maisie.’

  Lauren sniffs and grimaces.

  ‘I still can’t get over this flat. It’s so clean. Unnaturally clean. I was expecting a right dump, like her mother said. Doesn’t fit with someone who’s depressed, does it, Jan? Doesn’t profile onto someone unbalanced and unable to manage their lives?’

  I look at her. She’s not critiquing me, but theorising.

  ‘No. But what if she’s done this for a reason? What if this place was a culmination of all her depression and being overwhelmed and suddenly she had the solution? What if she knew that she wasn’t coming back and she decided to leave the place like she found it? Damage limitation in her own mind. A way to redeem herself? She’s taken all her personal belongings.’

  Lauren stares at me.

  ‘Well where do you think she was going then? Back to Glen? Did she drive to London thinking she could get back with him?’

  I look around the room at the dolls. Each one has a smiley face drawn on, all cheerful holding hands across Tina’s flat. The cardboard cut-out ones sit with their legs hanging over the edge of the mantle, hands under chins.

  ‘I don’t think so. I think she went to give Jennifer to Glen. I think she went to London to give Jennifer to her father. She’s taken most of Jennifer’s clothes and all her baby things. It’s like she’s lifted Jennifer and all her history out of this place. But Tina wasn’t coming back here. And she knew we’d come looking for her. This clean-up was her way of saying goodbye.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  I lie in the back of Lauren’s car again and she drives to the station. When we arrive she opens the side door and the boot and gets my shopping out as I crawl back into the side door. The door where criminals are often taken for their own protection. As we reach the SMIT suite I see Petra. She nods and smiles at us.

  ‘I got your results for the soother, Jan. It has DNA in common with the child you found in the hotel room.’

  I feel a surge of optimism. At least this closes the circle and places Tina and Jennifer at the crime scene.

  ‘And there were traces of the chemicals found in the hotel room too. We’re just testing Jennifer’s clothes for them.’

  ‘Thank you Petra. That’s really helpful. I sent you the notes to bring you up to date, but this just confirms things.’

  Her expression suddenly changes.

  ‘What about you, Jan? Where will you stay? You can gladly stay with me. Anytime.’

  Lauren reciprocates.

  ‘Or me. Although with the kids we don’t have much room.’

  It’s good of them to offer me a place to stay. They’re willing to put their own lives at risk to help me. I know Lauren doesn’t want me there of course, but she still offered. But there’s no need. I know what I have to do. Petra puts her head on one side, the way she does when she’s deeply concerned.

  ‘But you can’t go home on your own, Jan. You can’t. Your neighbours will look after Kirby, I know, but you can’t stay in a hotel on your own either. And not indefinitely.’

  ‘I know. But while I’m working on this investigation I’ll be fine. When that ends, well, I’ll think again. Things have a funny way of changing very quickly.’

  Lauren laughs nervously. She’s clearly worried for me.

  ‘But when there’s a contract out on you it doesn’t go away, does it? You need to do something, Jan, in the short term.’

  Petra knows this is dangerous ground for me and tries to diffuse the fire she saw light in me.

  ‘Just as you were getting settled from last time. But you managed it then and you will manage it again.’

  Lauren gives up and moves over to operations to see what the social networking is saying about the case. I feel the burning of my situation and Lauren’s assessment doesn’t help. I know this has to end somewhere but I don’t know where that end point is. They can chase me forever, but I can’t hide forever. Not if I want to carry on doing the job that I love.

  I go to a side room and review the case notes. All resources have been sent up to a ten mile area around Greenfield. I picture the narrow roads and the open moorland that scowls over the deep valley dips. Most of the area is very open and, even from a distance. It would be easy to spot a big silver Range Rover on the moor.

  But I know as well as anyone else who comes from that area that, if you want to hide you can. If you know where to go. There are abandoned barns and huge rocky outcrops that Tina would know about, as well as the planted pine forests that are dense at the top, but negotiable at the bottom. They’d been planted that way so that the men who go there each year to hack them down for Christmas could reach them easily, even at the centre.

  Even so, it’s with one eye on my phone that I think about Tina and who she is. I’d gone through the details with Lauren, but something else that her mother said stuck in my mind. Her mother had said that she couldn’t let go of Glen. That she’d strategized to get him back. That she’s been disturbed after she had Jennifer. So much so that her mother noticed. And the headphones. She couldn’t face her baby crying so she blocked it out. If she was anything like me, she blocked out her pain with loud comfort music. But she wasn’t like me. She was obsessed with the Red Shoes. The over-zealous cleaning. And her fascination with dolls becoming an obsession.

  I know where it all points. She’s unbalanced. Maybe in denial. Or depressed. It can happen after a lot of change. She’d had a baby that stopped her being who she was and her boyfriend had dumped her. Had she resented Jennifer so much that she’d used the story to pretend she wasn’t there? If so, why take another baby? Surely not to swap her? For another child? But what if the other child was the same? Then what?

  My heart sinks. Then what? What did she plan to do with Maisie now? In my psychology undergraduate classes we’d studied post natal depression, but I hadn’t encount
ered it until one of my school friends, one of the girls at the wedding the other day, Anna, had left her baby outside a shop one day and gone home. Everyone had laughed it off as an accident, just careless, until two members of her family saw her shopping alone in Selfridges in Manchester on a Tuesday lunchtime. When they asked where Jackson, her son, was, she calmly said that she had left him at home asleep. He’d be fine until she got back. She’d done it before.

  She’d been leaving him for one day every week just to survive. She literally couldn’t face every minute of the day with her baby. In the end she got help and she and Jackson are close. She told me that she had never stopped loving Jackson. It was more that she felt that she couldn’t be close to him, because she wasn’t good enough. So she reasoned with herself and did what she could to cope, however irrational it seems to the rest of us.

  Everything points to this. Tina leaving Jennifer, her unreasonable focus on Glen. But where did her taking Maisie fit in? I look at the comms phone. Nothing more since the last call. I know that Keith’s got it on a five second delay to screen out anyone who’s going to abuse the number. The question is, do I front Tina with this? Do I face her with what she has done, tell her what I think and then tell her I can help her? Maybe it will resonate enough with her to bring Maisie back unharmed.

  The alternatives are unthinkable. I don’t even know if Steve and the rest of the team are going to buy this. Steve doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for mental illness – a crime’s a crime to him. He reckons that even if people are mentally ill they still have a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, unless they are a psychopath. He’s more likely to treat Tina like the terrorist he thinks she is.