Dead End

by Dead End (retail) (epub)

  ‘But why? It’s crazy. He killed himself.’

  ‘It’s procedure. Any unnatural death goes to the coroner’s office. I’m sorry.’

  Linda had bent her head and squeezed her eyes between her forefinger and thumb. She had a headache.

  Now, as she scrubbed, the vision of Xavier’s body kept coming back to her. She hadn’t heard any gossip in Watermillock, or further afield, and was confident that Paul Gaskill had kept his mouth shut. That must have killed him, she thought.

  Zachary hadn’t come back until one o’clock in the morning, and neither she nor Brian had asked where he’d been. By then, Xavier’s body had been removed from the house in a tough black bag. The undertaker and his assistant had worked silently and Linda had watched tight-lipped as the earl departed his house for the last time.

  The weekend had gone by in a blur of police cars and people wearing plastic suits and overshoes. Linda watched helplessly as they removed boxes full of items, including the rope and the stool. They could have been precious or personal, she didn’t know, and she had no right to ask. She was an employee, and that was all. It was Monday morning before the last uniform left Wasdale Hall and she was allowed in again. Her first job had ben to tackle the stain on the carpet, but three days later, she was still working on the damn thing.

  She’d opened all the windows, but the smell still lingered. The carpet was an arrangement of black and beige checks, and she’d worked furiously on the huge stain. At first she merely created a gloopy mess of stinking soap suds, but on the third attempt it was becoming easier. She’d changed the water twice again today.

  She stood up to assess her work and decided to leave it for now and have another go this afternoon. Deep down, she knew that her effort was merely nominal. A photograph caught her attention. Before last week, it had been a long time since she’d been in this room. She usually left the earl’s tea outside the door.

  The photograph was the only thing left on the desk. It was framed in silver, and upon closer inspection must have been left by the police because it was dusty. They wouldn’t need an old photo. She cleaned it and put it back. The woman in the photo was beautiful, that was undeniable. Xavier could go to her now, after all this time.

  As she gathered up her cleaning equipment, Linda shook her head.

  She hoped that he was finally at peace.

  Chapter 10

  ‘The brain pathology shows two separate events, ten minutes apart. Unconsciousness from strangulation can occur within minutes, but death takes much longer.’ Ted spoke into his phone. Kelly sat alone in her office, having dismissed the day shift. She was in no mood to go home just yet and would have to visit Wasdale Hall anyway. DC Emma Hide was due in to work the late shift and Kelly had plenty for her to do.

  She closed her computer and waited for Ted to continue.

  ‘The first incident lasted approximately one minute and produced unconsciousness; the hypoxy … sorry, oxygen starvation in the brain wasn’t sufficient to kill, but it knocked him out, so he would have been unable to induce the second episode, which was fatal.’

  ‘So someone staged it to look like suicide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How sure are you?’

  ‘It’s absolute. The first thing that niggled me was that Xavier suffered from arthritis in his hands; he simply couldn’t have done it.’

  ‘If he was strangled to unconsciousness beforehand, are there any physical signs? I’m thinking long-term, Ted, you know, like court appearance.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. Strangulation or choking to make someone pass out requires less violence than you might think, and rarely leaves obvious marks, especially when the neck is a mess anyway. It also might not have been done with a tourniquet-type item; it could have been simple suffocation with a pillow.’

  ‘So, he’d be unconscious but still breathing?’

  ‘Yes, he would also have been weighty and cumbersome. I would wager that it would have created a fair amount of noise getting him into position.’

  Kelly had scanned the report quickly and noted that the grandson had been the only one in the house at the time, while the gardener was outside. None of them had reported anything unusual – aside from the earl’s death – until the grandson found that the earl’s safe was missing.

  ‘Could he have tried to hang himself twice?’

  Ted exhaled. ‘If he was forty and fit, determined and organised, yes, I suppose so, but the actual hanging was extremely effective, so why get it so wrong the first time round? In any case, the brain pathology shows that he didn’t regain consciousness in between the episodes. Manual self-strangulation isn’t humanly possible because you’d pass out and regain consciousness before you died. There were none of the claw marks common in ligature strangulation cases, so my money is on suffocation followed by hanging when the victim was still unconscious. The rope mark is above his Adam’s apple, whereas in ligature strangulation it’s usually below it. The hyoid bone was also broken.’

  ‘Homicide.’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Kelly.’

  ‘Poor old bastard.’

  ‘Indeed. I knew him a long time ago; he was a good chap. There are plenty of rumours about the family that you might want to check out, although, I’m sure most of them are hogwash.’

  Kelly loved Ted’s old-school jargon and she realised that she missed him. It had been a while since they’d enjoyed a pint.

  ‘Thanks, Ted. Take care. I’ll call if I need any clarification. Are you down this way any time soon?’

  ‘I was just thinking the same thing.’

  ‘Give me a bell when you’re coming.’

  ‘I will.’ They hung up.

  Emma Hide was busy inputting data and knew to contact her boss should anything develop, and Kelly still needed to visit her mother. She had her laptop with her, and any automated updates would pop up instantly. She was hungry and realised that she hadn’t eaten all day. She couldn’t just turn up at her mum’s and expect food after not seeing her for almost a week, so she planned to grab a pasty or something quick at the small Co-op round the corner.

  Penrith wasn’t busy and she left the one-way system behind, driving past the red-stone castle and heading to the suburbs. The tourist season hadn’t really started, but a steady stream of walkers milled around, blocking pavements and generally getting in the way. Kelly was glad that she was driving in this direction, and she was glad that she’d chosen to live in Pooley Bridge.

  She parked her car and entered the Co-op, heading for the convenience aisle. She noticed a woman in the same aisle who seemed stressed and in a hurry. The woman moved closer, searching for something in particular, and Kelly stepped out of her way. That was when she realised that she looked familiar.

  ‘Michelle?’ She wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, but it looked like Michelle Hammond, who’d she’d gone to school with.

  The woman stopped. She blushed a little, and brushed her hair off her face.

  ‘Kelly?’

  ‘I thought it was you. Are you living in Penrith?’ It was a banal question, but Kelly didn’t know what else to say. It happened a lot. Whenever she found herself in this kind of situation, face to face with an old pal from decades ago, it threw her. Michelle looked worn out, as if life hadn’t been as kind to her as it had been to Kelly.

  ‘Er … yes. You look well, Kelly. Have you been on holiday? I heard you’d moved away.’

  ‘I worked in London for a bit. I’ve been back for almost two years now, though. You look … er … well too,’ Kelly lied. ‘Are you still with Tony?’

  Michelle laughed. ‘No! God! He pissed off when the first one arrived, bastard.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Kelly felt awkward. She wanted to reach around Michelle to get to the sausage rolls, but the two of them were stuck there, in some time warp that didn’t fit.

  ‘What are you sorry for? He’s a twat. I think he’s shacked up with someone down in Manchester,’ Michelle said.
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br />   Kelly didn’t know what to say next. Since she’d been back, she’d had a smattering of conversations just like this one where she simply had nothing in common with somebody she’d gone to school with.

  ‘How’s Dan?’ she asked. Dan, Michelle’s brother, was actually one liaison that Kelly wanted to forget, but she felt the need to make conversation and lighten the atmosphere. She’d had a drunken one-night stand with him after their sixth-form prom night. They’d staggered outside behind the soccer club, and he’d propped her up against a table. It had been rushed, fumbled and unpleasant. She’d fancied him since third year. The fumble never led to anything, and she’d realised that her affections had been misplaced. Still, it would be interesting to know how he’d done since then.

  Michelle’s mouth twitched at the corner and Kelly got the impression that she’d said something wrong.

  ‘You never heard?’ Michelle said.

  ‘No, what?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘He’s dead, Kelly. He was run over leaving the Rush Club one night after a skinful. He wandered into the road, and … Well, it was about five years ago now.’ Michelle looked at her feet.

  ‘Christ, Michelle, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you were busy in the big smoke, thinking you were better than the rest of us.’ The swipe came from nowhere and Kelly was caught off guard.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh fuck off, Kelly. Everyone knows you left because you thought yourself a cut above.’ The anger was palpable, Kelly could touch it, but she didn’t understand it.

  Michelle had already turned away. Kelly felt smacked across the face. This was the girl she’d giggled her way through maths with; they’d spent Saturdays buying sweets and make-up from Woolworths; writing lists of boys they fancied, scoring them out of ten; sharing secrets. She stood in the middle of the aisle, other shoppers walking around her, wondering what she’d done to offend someone she hadn’t seen for possibly twenty years.

  And Dan was dead.

  She felt like an impostor. In London, she’d been free; free from parochial nonsense about who fitted in and who didn’t. Here, time had passed but some people had stood still. Kelly felt assaulted by her old friend’s bitterness, and it hurt. Perhaps that’d been the real reason she’d left: because she’d never fitted in in the first place. From the age of thirteen she’d talked about wanting to go to London, and now she remembered Michelle pretending to be posh and intimating even then that Kelly would somehow betray her tribe if she left. And she had. She’d forgotten all of them and now expected to waltz back and make a success of it.

  Maybe she couldn’t just return to her old life after all. Nikki had said the same. She’d fooled herself into thinking that after two years she was beginning to belong. But now she felt the outsider again, like a gypsy with no roots and no homeland. She became aware of her surroundings and she saw that people were staring at her.

  Her feet began to move forward and she hastily grabbed a pie that she didn’t want and took it to the checkout. She couldn’t see Michelle. Her mood was oddly depressed, and she felt naked and exposed. Suddenly she wanted to cry, but she pushed the thought away as foolish. She swallowed hard. What had started out as a busy and perhaps exciting day had lost its lustre. She felt mortal, and she realised that she didn’t feel that way very often. Her life wasn’t usually punctuated by negativity and criticism, and she realised that this was another reason she’d left. She hadn’t been able to quantify it, or even vocalise it; she just knew she wanted to go. Nikki called it selfish, and Michelle called it getting above her station. If she hadn’t just heard it for herself, she’d laugh. She wondered if more people spoke about her like that. She badly wished Johnny was there.

  She didn’t hear the checkout operator ask for money; she just blindly entered her card number on the machine and walked out.

  Hannah Lawson and Sophie Daker entered her head again: they were friends, buddies – besties they called them now. Kelly realised that apart from Michelle, she’d never had a bestie or a buddy. Her best friend – her only friend – was work, and that had been her choice. Even Johnny was a loner: an anomaly, a drifter on the fringe, hiding from something; that was why they got on.

  She bumped into someone on her way out and dropped her bag. Without looking up, she muttered her apologies, scooped the bag up and rushed blindly back to her car.

  Chapter 11

  ‘But she said you were hard on her, Kelly. It’s only been a matter of months.’

  Wendy Porter was delivering her weekly lecture on the fractious nature of her daughters’ relationship. To Nikki, Wendy appeared to take Kelly’s side, and to Kelly, she appeared to take Nikki’s. Kelly sat on the arm of a chair in the lounge, a position she regularly assumed if she was uncomfortable or about to leave.

  ‘Mum, I get it, I really do. But it hasn’t been a few months, it’s been almost a year, and anyway, that doesn’t mean anything to her kids, who are really struggling. She needs to …’ Kelly hesitated.

  ‘What, Kelly? Just take it on the chin and move on? She’s not like you. She needs help.’

  ‘I know! But she won’t accept it; she’d rather complain about not getting it than go looking for it,’ Kelly said. She was frustrated and tired. She knew she was being hard on her sister, but twenty-odd years of bickering wasn’t going to go away overnight just because Nikki had been through a tough time.

  ‘I’m trying to be honest with you, Mum. I really am doing my best with her, but it doesn’t come easily. Just because—’

  ‘Just because she was nearly killed by a lunatic! Listen to yourself!’

  Kelly got up and paced up and down. She hadn’t come here for this. Nowadays their conflict seemed to escalate before she even got through the door, and it was always about Nikki: was she getting the help she needed? Had Kelly called a specialist? Had Kelly called her friends? Had Kelly checked on the children? Christ, it was as if Nikki had got herself kidnapped on purpose so she could milk it.

  Kelly breathed.

  She still had to drop by Wasdale Hall. She looked at her watch: it was 9.45 and she decided it could wait until morning. Forensics had searched the place and statements had been taken from the family. The earl was stone cold in the morgue. He had been dead a week. She was behind the power curve already.

  ‘Are you itching to go, Kelly?’ Her mother knew her well.

  ‘No, Mum, I’m sorry. I’m tired.’

  ‘You’re always tired. I’m going to trial a new drug,’ Wendy announced suddenly.

  ‘Really?’ This was something to be buoyant about, and Kelly’s interest was genuine. She sat on the sofa next to her mother. ‘That’s great news, Mum.’

  ‘Well, it’s early days, but they say I could get a few more years yet out of the old carcass,’ Wendy said. Kelly shook her head. The candour was positive but, like most children, she wasn’t quite ready to admit that her mother wouldn’t be around forever.

  ‘I told you, Mum, you’re bombproof. Does it have any horrible side effects?’

  Heart cancer was effectively a death sentence, or so they had thought, but Wendy’s last tests had shown less indication of spread, and even some signs of retreat in several sections of tissue. The doctors talked, talked and talked some more, and Kelly tried to keep up, for the sake of her mother, who asked incessant questions later. But she always missed something, or forgot to clarify a certain point. She found herself phoning the oncologist at the Penrith and Lakes Hospital on a regular basis to run through things with him. They were on first-name terms. He didn’t mind, he said, and they’d known each other already anyway, through a previous case. Now, he was almost part of the family. Kelly made a mental note to grill him about the new drug. Her mother wasn’t a guinea pig.

  ‘Mum, you shouldn’t be worrying about me and Nikki when you’re battling this.’

  ‘You can tell you haven’t got children of your own, Kelly Porter; until you do, you’ll never understand why we mothers worry. I’ll never
stop. One day you’ll both realise that it’s not worth hating each other.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Mum. I’ve always tried with her, but she’s just so critical, so … toxic about everything.’ She was back on the sofa arm, Michelle Hammond’s words stinging in her head.

  Thinking you were better than the rest of us …

  ‘I don’t know what I did wrong,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Mum, you did nothing wrong. We’re different, that’s all,’ Kelly lied. The fact was that their mother sided with Nikki as a default setting, or at least that was how Kelly saw it. Sometimes she failed to comprehend how she was related to any of her family members. Her drive, her attitude, her ambition: she had no idea where it all came from.

  ‘It’s as if we’re not even sisters,’ she said. She was thinking out loud, and her directness took Wendy by surprise.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean!’

  Kelly knew she’d gone too far. Why couldn’t she just keep her opinions to herself? A clock ticked in the background, and she looked at her mother. Wendy seemed miles away. Kelly followed her gaze, and it landed on an old photo in a frame that had stood there for perhaps thirty years. It was of Kelly and Nikki. They wore brightly striped tank tops over blouses with huge collars that swooped down over the wool. They both had missing teeth. Their haircuts were worthy of the Bay City Rollers. They didn’t look alike even then.

  ‘Mum?’ Kelly said.

  ‘I’m so tired suddenly,’ Wendy said. She stood up, but faltered a little, and Kelly went to her.

  ‘I’ll get you into bed. Have you had your tablets today?’

  Wendy nodded towards the kitchen. ‘Check my drawer.’

  Kelly left the room and found the tray that was set out each day with her mother’s pills; it was empty.

  ‘Looks like you have,’ she shouted from the kitchen. She went back into the lounge. ‘Can I get you anything to take upstairs, Mum? Have you eaten?’