Burnt Paper Sky

by Gilly MacMillan

  I saw Katrina emerge from a room at the far end of the corridor. She stepped out, then turned and closed the door gently behind her. She stood for a second or two, looking back into the room, her hand against the window. She wasn’t aware of me.

  ‘Katrina,’ I said. I hardly dared to look into the room, and when I did I saw that John looked barely alive. He lay on his back, his head was heavily bandaged, an oxygen mask was over his mouth and what I could see of his face was swollen and disfigured by bruising. He was connected to tubes everywhere. Two nurses were tending to him.

  ‘Hello,’ Katrina said softly and I was disarmed by her humility and vulnerability. Her face was taut with exhaustion and shock. She looked very, very young, just as she had at her house a few days earlier.

  ‘They want to do some checks,’ she said. ‘I was in the way.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He has bleeding and swelling on the brain,’ she said. ‘They hope the swelling will reduce. They say he’s stable.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘Nobody can say. And nobody can say what damage it’ll leave.’

  I put my hand on the glass, palm pressed against it.

  ‘Did you see what happened?’ she asked me.

  ‘Somebody threw a brick through the window and he ran out onto the street after them. He was chasing them. I didn’t see what happened after that. We found him just round the corner. He was already hurt, he was lying on the ground.’

  ‘The doctor said it looks as though he was kicked in the head repeatedly.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Who would do a thing like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  We stood side by side like sentries, watching him, and it was long moments before we were interrupted by brisk footsteps. It was a nurse, and the soles of her shoes squeaked on the linoleum.

  She gave some leaflets to Katrina. ‘I grabbed what I could,’ she said. ‘The ward’s miles away and I got paged as soon as I got there so I hope they’re what you need.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Katrina. She took the leaflets hastily, held them against her stomach. She was trying to hide them from me, but there was no point. I’d already seen enough. ‘Folic Acid’ I’d read as they were handed over, ‘An essential ingredient for making healthy babies’.

  ‘You need rest,’ said the nurse, ‘and you need to keep your strength up. Would you consider going home and getting some sleep? We don’t expect to see any change in him today.’

  Katrina nodded, and it satisfied the nurse. ‘I’ll see you later no doubt,’ she said. She disappeared the way she’d come, still squeaking.

  ‘You’re pregnant,’ I said. My words sounded soft, and distant, as if they’d drifted in from elsewhere, but she heard me.

  ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this. I’m sorry.’

  I turned away from her, and looked at John. The nurses were in conference, standing at the end of the bed, annotating his notes. He was motionless, apart from the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest under the sheet.

  ‘Does he know?’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  Now I let my forehead fall gently onto the glass of the window. I wanted the cool, hard surface to counteract a spreading numbness in my head.

  ‘Congratulations.’ I said it flatly, and I didn’t mean it to sound hurtful, though it might have done.

  ‘He hasn’t coped,’ she said, indicating John. ‘This. Ben. Everything. It’s destroying him. He thinks this wouldn’t have happened if you and he had stayed together.’

  I had to try very hard. The numbness was everywhere, threatening to make me callous. Something about her touched me though. It could have been her vulnerability, or perhaps the fact that she was carrying a new life.

  ‘John’s a good father,’ I said.

  I put my hand out to touch her but the impulse died before I made contact and my arm dropped.

  I turned and walked away and, as I did so, I noticed that my shoes weren’t squeaking on the floor, they were tapping, in a beat that was painfully slow. I counted my steps as I walked.

  It was all I could do.

  JIM

  Addendum to DI James Clemo’s report for Dr Francesca Manelli.

  Transcript recorded by Dr Francesca Manelli.

  DI James Clemo and Dr Francesca Manelli in attendance.

  Notes to indicate observations on DI Clemo’s state of mind or behaviour, where his remarks alone do not convey this, are in italics.

  FM: I’m very interested in something you wrote when you described your childhood memory.

  JC: Don’t put too much store in that.

  FM: Do you mind if we discuss it?

  JC: If you like.

  FM: You said, and I’m just going to refer to it directly here, because the way you phrased it interested me. You said, ‘It was telling me that people aren’t always what they seem.’

  JC: Yes.

  FM: So does that mean that your father wasn’t who people thought he was?

  JC: He was everything they thought he was, people respected him, you should have seen the turnout at his funeral, but he had another side too. People do.

  FM: Was your father violent?

  JC: He was a different generation.

  FM: Meaning?

  JC: They did things differently then.

  FM: Including hurting his children?

  JC: It was just a slap here and there. Did nobody give you a slap when you were growing up?

  FM: I’d rather not comment on my upbringing.

  JC: I bet they did. Everybody did it, before the internet started policing our lives. My dad was just part of his generation.

  FM: What your sister saw, do you think what he was doing was legal?

  JC: I don’t know.

  FM: Did you ever speak to your sister about that incident?

  JC: No. We weren’t close. She left home soon after that anyway.

  FM: What do you think she witnessed?

  JC: I’ve no idea. She was a hysterical teenage girl. She was always kicking off. You’re putting too much significance on this. I shouldn’t have written it. I only wrote it because it’s what you look for when you’re working, that person who’s not who you think they are. That was a stupid example, I’m not even sure I remember it right anyway. I was a kid.

  I’m not sure I believe this, I think he’s obfuscating. I wait for him to continue, to fill in the silence.

  JC: Look, I admired my dad. He had people’s respect because he’d earned it. He was one of the best detectives of his generation. Can we move on?

  FM: How did he earn respect?

  JC: He had a saying: ‘You can’t put the shit back in the donkey.’

  FM: Meaning?

  JC: Meaning you try not to fuck up, you don’t let things get out of your control.

  FM: Was it hard to grow up in his shadow?

  JC: It made me want to be a detective, and to do well, if that’s what you mean.

  FM: Was that a good thing?

  JC: It was better than dossing, or pimping, or boozing, or raping old ladies for kicks, or getting so shitfaced that you think it’s OK to smash your wife’s head against a wall until she loses her teeth as well as her self-respect. What do you mean ‘Was that a good thing?’

  FM: I’m interested that my question is making you feel angry.

  JC: Because it’s a joke! It’s actually insulting.

  FM: I think it might mean that being a successful detective was a matter of honour for you?

  JC: Yes! Yes, it was, it is, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

  He’s displaying a level of anger that I feel is excessive, though he’s trying to disguise it.

  FM: Would it be fair to say that at this point in the case you were under almost intolerable personal pressure in addition to the pressure the case was putting on you?

  JC: You’re totally missing the point.

  FM: What was the point then? Tell me.

  JC: Ben
edict Finch was the fucking point. Finding Benedict Finch. Giving him safely back to his mother. That was the only thing that mattered. Why can’t you see that?

  His fists are clenched, his teeth gritted. I thank him for coming and say that I’ll see him next week. I don’t wish to be cold with him but he is challenging, and I need him to understand how important it is for him to open up completely during our discussions. Our time together is running out.

  RACHEL

  My cab driver on the way home didn’t want to talk any more than I did and I was grateful for that. I sat noiseless and motionless in a corner of the back seat, seeing John’s still body and his disfigured face, thinking about his new child.

  The cabbie dropped me off around the front and a uniformed police officer clambered stiffly out of his squad car to ensure that I got in safely.

  Inside the house, a silence deeper than any I’d ever experienced before. A void where everything that I’d ever lived for should have been.

  A buzz from my phone was a pull back to reality. A text from Laura:

  Love, I’m so sorry about being pissed yesterday when John called and I’m so so sorry about what I said to you. I’m not supporting you well and I’m being a shit friend, it’s just such a big thing and I’m frightened too, but I’m here now if you need me, I promise, and I hope you’re not too angry with me.

  I deleted it, appalled by it, by her self-absorption.

  There was another text, which I hadn’t seen earlier, from Nicky:

  How are you doing today? Fine here, and I should be able to head back to you in a day or two, I’ll call later today. Thinking of you ALL the time xxx

  How to reply? Faced with a decision about what to tell her, and how to tell her, I bottled. Trust is like that. Once you lose it, you begin to adjust your attitudes towards people, you put up guards, and filter the information you want them to know.

  I wasn’t prepared to actively hide things from Nicky, or to be completely open with her, as I might have been three days ago. So I didn’t reply. She’d said she would call me, and I decided I would tell her everything then.

  There was nothing from the police. Not a word. Part of me wanted to phone them, to ask what they’d thought of the schoolbooks, but the night’s events seemed to have raked out of me any last bits of fight that I might have had left.

  They’ll phone me if there’s news, I thought, but as I thought it, it felt somehow defeatist, as if I was letting hope ebb away.

  I went to Skittle, who was in his bed. I sank to the floor beside him and sat there, my hand in his fur. I shut my eyes, and let my head fall back against the wall behind me and I allowed myself to imagine a reunion with Ben. The feel of him in my arms, the expression in his eyes, the scent of his hair, the sound of his voice, the silky perfection of the moment I’d been longing for all week, and as I imagined it I wept quiet hot tears that felt as though they’d never stop.

  JIM

  We had the TA in an interview room at Kenneth Steele House.

  His mother, her face drained of colour, had spoken to him quietly and fiercely in the hallway of their home, telling him that she’d call their family solicitor, while he shouted at her that she always thought the worst of him, that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that he wasn’t being arrested.

  ‘Not yet,’ Bennett had muttered under his breath. ‘But it won’t be long, sonny boy.’

  He’d come with us voluntarily, but odds were that we weren’t going to let him leave. We knew that, but he didn’t yet. He sat slumped in a chair looking like a bad boy. His chin was at a defiant tilt, and his pupils were pinpricks swimming in irises that were the palest blue.

  We had enough to arrest him, but we were debating when to do that, because, as soon as we did, the clock would start ticking until the deadline to release him, unless we could come up with evidence or a confession.

  Fraser’s view was simple: ‘I think we should caution him now.’

  ‘He’s come in of his own volition.’

  ‘I don’t want him talking when he’s not under caution and us not being able to use it in court later.’

  ‘Solicitor will tell him to keep schtum.’

  ‘It’s a risk that I think we’re going to have to take. Otherwise he could walk out of here and do a disappearing act. What’s this I hear about an Anderson shelter in the garden?’

  ‘Empty, boss, apart from a lawnmower and some bags of compost.’

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘He was near the scene, he’s lied to us, he knows Ben well, and we’ve got the schoolbooks.’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘Don’t know enough about him yet.’

  ‘What’s the mother like?’

  ‘Angry with him.’

  ‘Get Bennett to caution him, and get her in for an interview while we’re waiting for his brief. And is somebody getting hold of his lying girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Good work, Jim.’

  I had a spring in my step as I went back to the incident room. It might have been adrenalin fuelled, but that was good enough for me. I wanted to be thoroughly prepared for the interview, not one little pebble left unturned. I knew the real work started now because we only had twenty-four hours to charge him.

  I sat down at my desk and got on with reading all the background we had on Lucas Grantham. I thought back to when I’d first met him at the school, the way he’d seemed gormless, a bit pathetic. I’d had no inkling then that he’d been lying to us, though Woodley had thought he was a bit shifty. I didn’t want to think I’d missed something I should have noticed.

  But I never got to finish my research, because we had another turn-up. Nicky Forbes’s husband arrived. Unexpectedly. Asking for me.

  Simon Forbes was as posh as I might have expected. I’d Googled his wine company the day before. It was high end, the website slick and impressive, and he was obviously very well connected. He was a tall bear of a man, with very dark hair that was greying at the temples and red veins on his nose, which probably came from years of wine tasting. He was dressed in corduroy trousers, a checked shirt and a tweed jacket, the kind of thing that people wore at the country shows my mum used to take us to when we were growing up.

  ‘It’s very kind of you to come in,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t necessary.’

  I’d found somewhere to take him and we’d just sat down opposite one another.

  ‘What I have to tell you might be best said face to face,’ he said. ‘It’s about my wife, but it’s a very delicate situation because I have four daughters to consider.’

  There was a quality of warmth about him that I hadn’t anticipated. He had a kind, patient manner that was appealing, even under the circumstances.

  ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that you might have been under the impression that my wife was living at our family home in Salisbury?’

  ‘Entirely under that impression, because that’s what Mrs Forbes informed us.’

  ‘I’m afraid that she hasn’t been living at that address for just over a month. She moved out at the end of September.’

  He spoke quietly and clearly while my mind frantically tried to process what this meant.

  ‘Do you know where your wife moved to?’

  ‘She’s living in the cottage where she grew up. It’s in the Pewsey Vale, about a forty-five-minute drive north of Salisbury.’

  ‘Did your daughters go with her?’

  I wondered if this had been an acrimonious separation, if he was here to cast blame on a wife he loathed, to muddy the waters around her in advance of a custody dispute.

  ‘No. Nicky didn’t just leave me; she left all of us.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘The specific occasion was –’ he cleared this throat – ‘the specific catalyst for her to actually pack her bags and leave was an argument we had.’

  ‘What did you argue about?’

  ‘It’s a bit complicated, but we had recently talked about having another child.’r />
  ‘A fifth child?’

  His reply bounced off my surprise.

  ‘Yes. I’m aware that some people might think that five children is an excessive number, but Nicky wanted to try again, and I’d previously agreed to support her wish, happily I might say, because of something she’d suffered. I felt I should support her. Do I need to explain about her background?’

  ‘We know about that.’

  ‘So you understand she has a longing for a son. To replace Charlie.’

  Those words felt solid to me, like a remnant jettisoned from an explosion, a twisted shard of metal, turning in mid-air, glinting.

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘You said you’d previously agreed to having another child, so had something changed? Did you no longer feel that way?’

  He looked like a man who was having to haul up strength from a great depth.

  ‘My wife gives the appearance of coping, always coping, she makes a career of it, but it takes its toll. She’s become very controlling of our time. That was the source of the argument. I was trying to ask her to relax, to give us space to breathe in the house. This scheduling of the girls’ time down to the last minute affects them, and affects us too. In my view, life had become a bit joyless. We had no time to do things together as a couple, or a family, ever, and I told her that I’d begun to wonder if another baby would be too much, for both of us.’

  ‘How did she react?’

  ‘Badly. Very badly. She felt that I’d betrayed her.’

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘She did. She freaked out, for want of a better expression. I’ve never seen her so angry, or distraught. And I’m afraid I lost my temper, I was at the end of my tether, and I told her that I thought we might need some space from each other.’