The Silence (Dc Goodhew 4)

by Alison Bruce

  ‘Okay.’ Libby didn’t actually seem at all put out by his slowness to grasp her theory. ‘If you’ve spent your whole childhood feeling like a misfit, don’t you, kind of, get used to that being the norm?’

  Goodhew shrugged. ‘I’m not sure about that.’

  ‘If you woke up one day and suddenly everyone treated you like a different person to the one you’d been all your life, that would seem odd, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Shanie was used to being the geeky, studious one. She wouldn’t have been surprised that we found her a pain in the backside at times, but we also made the effort to include her, and at the same time she is here doing a course that recognizes her ability. So this was probably the best time she’d ever had as a student. Now do you understand?’

  Goodhew nodded, but he didn’t agree. If only the steps to suicide were so clearly signposted before the event. In his experience the trigger usually came from problems that weren’t so obvious to everyone else.

  ‘And how was your relationship with her?’

  Libby bit her top lip while she considered the question. ‘The first couple of days she was here I couldn’t stand being in the same room. She asked daft questions about everything, from posting a letter to catching a bus. D’you know how some people get you helping them with simple things and before you know it you’re indispensible? My instincts told me not to let her latch on. Maybe I was wrong, but she didn’t seem quite on the same planet as the rest of us. She always dressed like a “before” on a makeover show, her hair needed trimming and she didn’t bother with make-up when it would have done her a favour.’ Libby threw up her hands. ‘I’m being honest and I sound like a bitch. But it didn’t take me long to realize that she didn’t pay attention to those things like other people, because they weren’t important to her. Whenever she stopped hiding behind her high IQ she could be pretty sweet.’

  ‘You liked her then?’

  ‘She grew on me enough that I would have felt something when she left. Left properly, I mean.’

  Goodhew dropped that line of thought abruptly. Instead, he looked down at his notepad until he was certain that the silence between them was beginning to seem uncomfortably long. Then with equal abruptness, he asked his next question. ‘How would you describe yourself?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sum yourself up in two or three words.’

  She looked confused.

  ‘For example, would you describe yourself as honest?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Tell me about your trip to London.’

  She shook her head. ‘This is crap.’

  She was right, but Goodhew’s aim was to give things a little shake just to see what, if anything, fell out. Hard facts and straight answers were just a bonus. ‘So you were in your room all the time, but you pretended to be out?’

  ‘That’s right. I didn’t want to be disturbed.’

  ‘Fair enough, but lying about a visit to London seems extreme.’

  ‘So is calling it “lying”.’ She looked as though she felt suspicious of him.

  Goodhew changed tack. ‘Is there a reason you and Matt have chosen to study in Cambridge? Most people don’t decide to stay in their home city, do they?’

  She shrugged. ‘Some do, I suppose. Maybe I didn’t want to move away.’

  ‘But neither of you wanted to live at home either.’

  She drew a new breath as if she was about to say something, but no words followed. ‘I decided I was old enough to move out,’ she muttered finally.

  ‘And that’s financially possible?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wasn’t about to volunteer anything further.

  ‘How do you afford it, Libby?’

  She hesitated. ‘Matt’s dad and my dad rented this house. With what the others pay, it’s almost covered. My mum and dad help out. Matt’s dad chips in a bit more so sometimes Matt pays for things.

  ‘And your relationship with Matt?’

  ‘Relationship? What is this, some kind of personal vetting? There is no “relationship”.’

  ‘So Matt was a stranger to you when you moved into the house on King Street?’

  She smiled at the surface of the desk, before looking back at Goodhew. ‘Sorry, I misunderstood.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ The sudden softening of her demeanour was interesting.

  ‘I’ve known Matt for years. We lived down the road from each other when we were kids. We’re good mates. Best mates.’

  Goodhew stifled the urge to point out that Matt had been such a good mate that he’d been sent texts claiming she was seventy miles away in London. ‘It says here that you are studying accountancy?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘You’re seventeen. Not a degree then?’

  ‘No, A-levels. They call it a foundation in accountancy but I know someone who took the course and it’s just a good combination of A levels.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘English? Social Science?’ She hesitated. ‘I realize I have a way to go before I qualify, but every step counts.’

  ‘You must be the youngest at the house.’

  ‘Yes, but you know that already, I’m sure.’

  If he’d been shown a photo of Libby and asked to guess her personality based on looks alone, he would have gone for timid. But if she had insecurities she hid them well. She seemed quietly self-assured; completely unflustered by this interview.

  ‘So tell me how you found yourself involved in a house-share with a group of degree students.’

  ‘Through Matt. He knew I was looking for somewhere.’

  ‘But you’re local – wouldn’t it have been cheaper and easier to live at home?’

  Libby shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

  Goodhew shrugged too. ‘It’s just background detail, part of putting together a bigger picture and making sure everything fits.’

  ‘My A-level choices have nothing to do with Shanie, or what happened to her.’

  ‘I would be surprised if they did, but understanding the people she lived with will help us understand her life from her perspective.’

  ‘And why she killed herself?’

  ‘At this stage—’

  She gave a short, dismissive snort. ‘I know – “ongoing enquiries”, “too soon to comment”, et cetera, et cetera.’

  ‘Can you think of anything you noticed that might indicate Shanie was depressed or upset?’

  ‘Some people don’t need a reason.’ Everything about her had stiffened suddenly, therefore Goodhew knew that he had touched a nerve.

  ‘Most do,’ he replied softly.

  ‘According to what source? Some police training guide?’ Her expression darkened further but her voice remained quiet. ‘Don’t you think it would be kinder to accept that suicide can happen for no good reason? Why should we be made to feel the guilt of wondering why Shanie killed herself and be left wondering whether there was anything we could have done to prevent it?’

  ‘No one is trying to put the blame on you – any of you.’

  ‘No. If she killed herself because something about living with us made her so fucking unhappy, then we wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t feel responsible. I’m sorry she’s dead, but if she did kill herself, I hope she did it for no reason whatsoever. I hope it turns out to be a purely selfish and illogical act that no one could have predicted or prevented. None of us deserve to be the victims of this.’

  When she had finished speaking, she drew her hands together, covering her stomach. As she did so, her expression returned to its earlier guarded state. He guessed that she had probably opened up more than she had intended, and consequently, would be better prepared next time, and less likely to do so again.

  FOURTEEN

  Matt Stone was a couple of inches taller than Goodhew. His frame was broad but he still managed to be lean in a way that indicated that his metabolism burned calories quicker than he was able to consume them. His eyes had a natural droop
at the outer corners, and Goodhew could see that even when Matt was happy, he would retain a rather soulful look.

  ‘Is Libby okay?’ were Matt’s first words.

  Goodhew replied with a brief nod. ‘How long have you two been friends?’

  ‘We grew up on the street.’ His voice sounded unnaturally taut, and he stopped after the first sentence to cough, as if making a deliberate effort to slow the question which followed. ‘What did Libby say?’ His shoulders were tightly hunched and he rocked ever so slightly as he spoke.

  If Matt could have managed any kind of cheerful smile, he would have had the kind of face that could have landed him a job as a kids’ TV presenter, and he would probably be blessed with boyish good looks into his thirties, if stress didn’t finish them off prematurely.

  Goodhew didn’t answer immediately. It was an odd question.

  The sitting room was completely square apart from the chimney breast which protruded by eighteen inches from the same wall that housed the door. The TV stood right in front of the fireplace, but the top of the mantelpiece was still visible and on it three framed photographs were displayed. There was an old school photograph each of Matt and his sister Charlotte, and in between stood a group picture of them with two adults who looked like their parents. It had been taken in a studio and was intended to be an informal shot of them sitting together on the floor. Matt’s dad looked uncomfortable, as though he’d registered the obvious farce of two adults and two uncooperative teenagers pretending that sitting in a tangled heap was an everyday event. While the others all gazed directly at the lens, he sat to one side and had been captured in the act of being absent.

  Finally Goodhew replied, ‘Was there something you were expecting her to say? Is there something in particular that she should have told me?’

  Matt shook his head.

  ‘You travelled back with her from the student house,’ Goodhew said. ‘Didn’t you ask?’

  ‘She didn’t speak much. No, actually she spoke but it was just chatter. She doesn’t like silences when she’s feeling stressed.’

  ‘But she spent Saturday quietly enough.’

  It was hardly noticeable, but for a second Matt’s face clouded. He shrugged. ‘It was an odd thing for her to do. I would have left her alone if she’d said. I mean, it’s not as if we hang out together every second of every day. I didn’t think it was like her to lie.’

  ‘Maybe she hasn’t been caught out before.’

  ‘No . . .’ Words began to form on his lips, but he wiped them away with the back of his hand. ‘No,’ he repeated more firmly. ‘She doesn’t play games. Not with me.’

  Tension had returned to his voice. The first time Goodhew had heard it, he attributed it to distress over Shanie and concern for Libby. But Goodhew now recognized it as rising panic. Matt’s distress hung around him as if it had been his companion for far longer than the brief period that had elapsed since the discovery of Shanie’s body.

  ‘I wanted to know whether she said anything about me?’ Matt demanded.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I thought she might say that I had expected something like this. And I thought, if she said that, then you’d be looking at me like I had forced the pills down Shanie’s throat.’

  ‘What pills?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Matt’s voice became quieter. ‘She’d do it like that if she had killed herself. She wouldn’t cut her wrists or hang herself, she wouldn’t have gone for the messy, chaotic “out”. She was talking recently about some actress who had killed herself with booze and pills.’

  ‘She discussed suicide?’

  ‘No, I think the topic was weird death stories, and Shanie mentioned this actress who thought she’d be found glamorously draped across the bed, but instead of that she vomited on the way to the bathroom, skidded in it and died after cracking her head on the toilet. Too much alcohol made Shanie vomit. So she wouldn’t have gone for that, but pills on their own? Maybe.’

  ‘You do believe she might have taken her own life, then?’

  Matt tilted his head to one side and surveyed Goodhew for a moment. ‘I’d never have predicted it, but now it’s happened, it doesn’t seem so mad. In some ways she wasn’t very worldly – always reminded me of a schoolkid even though she was older than me. Isn’t that the type who think they’re somehow going to be in on their own wake, their own book of condolence, and stuff like that?’

  Goodhew felt sceptical and Matt spotted it. ‘I’m not kidding. Some teenagers don’t have enough grasp on what permanent means; they don’t see suicide is forever.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘But you do?’

  Matt nodded.

  ‘And you were expecting “something like this”?’

  ‘I had a feeling . . . I’d had it for weeks, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Almost willed it to happen – not to Shanie, though. There was tension . . .’

  Goodhew looked up sharply, ‘In the house?’

  ‘No, I just felt it all around me but I don’t know why.’ Matt hung his head and stared at the carpet through the narrow gap between his knees. ‘It was probably all in my mind,’ he conceded. ‘I don’t remember very much of last Friday. I’d drunk way too much but was actually sobering up when I came home. Meg and Shanie were laying into each other, but Meg’s always confrontational. She likes to say things to get a reaction, and Shanie hadn’t learned to ignore her. Meg would be fine if she didn’t think she was a total princess.’

  ‘So they didn’t socialize with each other outside the house?’

  ‘None of us did much. Meg liked vodka shots, Shanie drank pints. Meg liked nightclubs, Shanie would go to a pub to read.’ It seemed to be Matt’s final word on Shanie and Meg’s incompatibility.

  ‘Which pubs?’

  Matt shrugged. ‘Definitely up our road. We made a joke one night about entering a team in the next pub crawl.’

  ‘The King Street Run?’

  ‘Even Meg said she’d be up for that.’ He gave a very small smile, but it was enough to transform his face for a moment. It vanished as quickly as it arrived, and for the rest of the interview Matt kept his elbows planted on his knees and his gaze fixed on the top of the coffee table between them.

  He used a lot of words to say very little; sometimes he struggled to find the right ones, picking his way through the minutiae of life in the student house, anxious not to misrepresent any of his housemates through a careless comment. Right now he was searching for a tactful way to ensure that his description of Meg’s casual sexual relationship with Phil didn’t sound like he was judging or insulting her.

  In the middle of a suspicious death investigation, did Matt really think that non-violent consensual sex would raise any eyebrows? Goodhew’s gaze drifted back to the three photos over the fireplace. His hour spent with Matt had coloured them differently.

  Meanwhile Matt’s search for the right words had petered into silence.

  Goodhew took the chance to fill the gap. ‘When did your mum die, Matt?’

  ‘Four years ago in May.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Cancer. It was advanced already when it was diagnosed. She seemed to vanish right in front of us.’

  ‘And you miss her?’

  ‘Shit.’ Matt slapped his palms on to his knees, then slumped back in the chair. ‘She was my mum – of course I miss her. She was too young, and I was too young, but d’you know what I’d say to her if she walked through that door now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’d tell her she picked a fucking stupid time to go. I’d tell her how it had opened the way for shit to flood over me from every side.’ With a single move, Matt was on his feet, poking an accusatory finger at Goodhew through the silence that suddenly filled the room.

  ‘Please sit back down, Matt.’

  ‘Always on your terms? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Matt.’ Goodhew’s voice hardly rose above a whisper. ‘Sit.’ And, in cont
radiction to his determination not to, Matt did exactly what he was told. ‘You’re in a pretty volatile condition, Matt, so I’d prefer to have someone else in the room with you.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Even Matt didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘He’s out at work.’

  ‘Gardening, Charlotte told me. I could find him.’

  ‘Gardening?’ Matt snorted. ‘He’s far more likely to be at the Carlton Arms. Drinking pints with his mates is his answer to everything, apparently. I don’t want him here.’

  ‘Okay,’ Goodhew said slowly. ‘Charlotte, then?’ She had brought her brother and Libby home, but Goodhew still wasn’t sure how well this suggestion would be met. She hadn’t offered to sit in at the start of the interview.

  ‘She’s with Libby. Can you talk to Charlotte, then to me? I don’t want Libby left alone, right now.’

  ‘What about her parents?’

  ‘They’re the last people she needs. Ask Charlotte why – she won’t get wound up like me.’ Matt crossed to open the sitting-room door, but stopped just short and turned back to Goodhew. ‘I’m sorry I get like that. I can’t help it. Have you ever had to keep reminding yourself how you ought to behave?’

  ‘How you should be reacting?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know that Shanie’s death should be traumatic, but I’ve ended up in this bubble where nothing quite gets through to me. Then, once in a while, something small makes me react. It’s like all my emotions blow up over the wrong things, and I’m not in control any more.’

  FIFTEEN

  When Charlotte returned to the room, Goodhew realized that she shared the same naturally cheerful features as her brother; she didn’t exactly exude joy but she certainly seemed less burdened than Matt. Whenever she smiled, it reached right up to her eyes, making them curve into warm crescents.

  ‘I’m glad you wanted to speak to me. I was actually hoping I could have a few minutes of your time.’

  ‘Your brother asked me to speak to you, actually.’

  ‘Okay.’ She paused to think for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she repeated, sounding as if she’d made a decision. ‘I didn’t really know Shanie. I’ve met her a couple of times, but nothing more than a “Hi”, and I’m not going to even begin to consider whether or not she was hated, depressed or irresponsible.’