Girl Seven

by Hanna Jameson

  ‘How are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘The clothes, he said.’

  ‘Right…’

  For a second, I was worried she might faint.

  I heard a car pull up outside and she put a hand to her eyes. ‘Oh God, where the fuck is Pat…?’

  There was a knock, a pause, and then the sound of the doorbell. I moved aside so she could pass me, rubbing her eyes as she opened the door.

  The officers were in uniform, young and grave.

  ‘Mrs Dyer?’

  She nodded but said nothing. She didn’t invite them in so they carried on talking.

  ‘We’re very sorry, but we need either you or your husband to come with us to identify a body that was recently found.’ The officer glanced at me over her shoulder, hovering three steps up, trying to stay out of sight. ‘If both of you—’

  ‘I’m not Pat Dyer,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m… a friend.’

  I could feel the fear emanating from her in cold waves.

  ‘Do you have any way of getting in contact with Mr Dyer?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he’s not answering his phone.’

  ‘I can drive you,’ I offered. Why, I didn’t know. It came out like an attack of Tourette’s.

  She wasn’t looking at me but she nodded.

  It was quarter past three.

  Welcome to hell, indeed.

  We were taken to the viewing room. Hospitals all had the same smell as prisons. I looked over my shoulder out of habit, into all the rooms, sizing up the inmates as I had in juvie.

  Clare hadn’t spoken in the car and she didn’t speak now.

  The outline that we could see through the pane of glass, under the white sheet, looked smaller than I had expected. I felt sick all of a sudden. She might have looked older in the photograph but she was only a child, really. They always looked their age when they were dead.

  They pulled the sheet back and Clare recoiled.

  I stepped forwards. The first thing I noticed, which drew me towards the glass in fascination, was that her face was gone. This wasn’t the usual purple bruising and fractures; it was total obliteration. I tried to focus on the point where her jaw ended and her neck began but, even with the blood cleaned away as best they could, I failed to find it.

  Clare had only needed to look once.

  She started crying with her back to the glass and I stayed silent, hanging back. I had tried my best to warn her of what she was going to see in the car but she probably hadn’t heard me.

  The officers moved away to give us space that I didn’t want.

  ‘No no no no no no…’

  I saw her knees buckle and managed to get to her in time to slow her descent to the floor. I was on my knees, holding her and unable to stop. I felt her tears stain through my shirt. It should have been Pat here instead of me and I hated him for it. Hate, fear and some alien feeling caught in my throat, making it hard to breathe. I went on to autopilot, doing what I thought other people would do with another man’s wife shuddering with grief in their arms; stroking her hair, soft as I had thought it would be; saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right…’ even though it wasn’t. It was never going to be all right.

  I didn’t know how long I went on telling her that before I saw the officers returning and knew it was time for us to go.

  ‘Come on, let’s go home.’

  No response.

  I glanced at the officers, nodded as if to say ‘Give us a second’ and took a breath.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, looking down at her. ‘Hey, um… Clare.’

  She looked at me but there was only a flicker of acknowledgement in her face.

  My breath stopped in my chest and I swallowed. ‘Come on, we need to get you home. Can you stand for me?’

  Slowly, she nodded.

  I helped her up and half walked, half carried her out.

  In the car there were no words from either of us. She rested her forehead against the window, watching yellow lights go by.

  The clock on the dashboard said 05:48.

  As we approached the house I saw that the Mercedes was back. I opened the car door for her and walked her to the front door. Pat answered on the second ring of the bell, stood up too straight in his suit, looking as though he was trying his hardest not to lean on anything.

  Clare left my side and slapped him.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t even meet her eyes.

  She looked him up and down, her lip shaking, and walked inside.

  I could still smell her perfume on my clothes.

  Pat took a long breath through his nose and said, ‘You Nic?’

  I nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

  His face contorted. ‘You can… you can go… I’ll call you.’

  As I walked back down their path I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head. An unforgiving wind started howling and when I got into my car the temperature read –4. No one was going to find comfort tonight.

  3

  When I woke up I could feel sunlight on my face and my eyelids were encrusted with sleep. My shoulders were aching, propped up with cushions, and when I managed to prise my eyes open I realized I had fallen asleep on the sofa.

  I sat up and Emma’s diary slid off my stomach on to the floor.

  ‘Ah, fuck.’

  I looked at my watch.

  ‘Wo.’

  It was almost midday and the shock propelled me to my feet. I wavered, blinking, until the room came into enough focus for me to locate my mobile on the coffee table. There were no messages from Russia. My flatmate, Mark Chester, had been away for over a month now and I only had five texts to show for it.

  I turned in the direction of the kitchen for coffee, decided that I didn’t have time, and went into the bathroom instead. It wasn’t good. I had a meeting with Edie Franco about a new job in forty-five minutes, and turning up looking like the casualty of a cheap stag weekend wasn’t how I wanted to project my professional image.

  ‘Jesus…’

  I dashed some water on my face, took off my shirt and noticed I’d written something on the back of my hand.

  ‘Who is K?’

  A recent section of Emma’s diary came back to me.

  ‘Went for another p/u with K. Imagining Dad’s face, LOL.’

  I looked at the reminder again before washing it off, and sprayed some deodorant over the lingering smell of sweat and perfume.

  Edie Franco owned one of Mark’s favourite nightclubs: the Underground. Direct, impossibly blonde and built like a Valkyrie, she came across as the sort of woman with whom you would be lucky to survive a sexual encounter. She was winking at forty, but you couldn’t tell.

  I was half an hour late but, as I should have expected, she was later. I managed to drink two cups of coffee at the bar before she arrived with a gust of sleet and freezing wind. She was wearing a red coat that covered everything down to her knees and her handshake was more of a firm stroke.

  ‘I missed those swimming-pool-blue eyes!’

  ‘Edie.’ I pulled away briskly after she kissed me on the cheek. ‘You want anything to drink?’

  There was no apology for the time. ‘Coffee, black.’

  I nodded at the barman. ‘I’ll have the same.’

  ‘Move to the sofas?’ She indicated her head and started walking.

  I followed her to a spot away from the doors and sat down opposite her. It felt better to have a table between us.

  ‘Haven’t heard from you in a while?’ I said.

  ‘Life’s been sweet, what can I say? You get married, you have a kid, you open a club, you think about another kid…’ She crossed her legs, slipped off her coat. ‘Get divorced, call up a beautiful man… don’t worry, that’s not where you come in…’

  The barman came over and put down two coffees.

  I looked at mine, smiling, but didn’t touch it. ‘I’m, er… sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Sorry about the divorce or the beautiful man?’ Sh
e raised her eyebrows and her expression became coy, wide eyes blackened with theatrical make-up. ‘Well, sometimes people just grow away from each other, or too close to other people, or several, whatever.’

  I smiled.

  ‘You ever wanted to have kids, Dominic? Pass on that hot side-profile?’ She turned her head so I could admire hers, the same nose and full lips.

  ‘Looks better on you,’ I said, picking up my coffee.

  Another festive song was playing. I looked up at the fake holly pinned to the spirit shelf. There was still a month to go but Christmas was everywhere.

  ‘Sad, isn’t it? Working over Christmas.’ There was a pause as she followed my eyeline up to the lights. ‘Sometimes the evenings look so beautiful from my office I can barely stand to walk home alone… I rarely do, that’s probably why we’re here, huh?’

  ‘Sidney.’ It had dawned on me what the job was. Who it was. ‘It’s Sidney, isn’t it? Something to do with the divorce?’

  Silence.

  I shook my head. ‘Damn, Edie, you know I don’t like to—’

  ‘You don’t like to know why. Isn’t that how you work?’

  I put the coffee down, too high on caffeine already and unable to look at her directly. ‘Domestic disputes, come on, I thought you were above this sort of thing?’

  ‘He wants my son. What am I above? Love?’

  I pointed a finger. ‘Now that’s what I don’t like to work with!’

  ‘I can’t go to court.’

  ‘You mean you w—’

  ‘I can’t go to court!’

  ‘You—’

  ‘I won’t win!’ Her fist slammed on to the table and coffee dashed across the polished surface. ‘I… won’t win.’

  The background chatter waned for a moment and I looked over my shoulder, worried about how much attention we were drawing to ourselves.

  Edie sat back, touched her hair and looked at the spilt coffee. When she spoke again every word was controlled.

  ‘I won’t win in court.’

  ‘You’re the mother, you always win.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  There was an intensity in her face that I found difficult to match. It was why she was such a good businesswoman; every expression was inherently threatening.

  ‘Why?’ I asked, even though I didn’t want to, even though I could have done it without knowing.

  ‘He had someone follow me, for quite a while, recording… things. If it gets out, which he has threatened it will, I’ll never see Scott again.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do? Just destroy the recordings?’

  ‘I’ll pay for whatever you need to do to stop them getting out. Anything. Understand?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You want anything upfront?’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’ I picked up my bag and got out ten pounds for the coffees.

  ‘Who are you walking home with?’ she asked.

  I shook her hand and smiled when she held on to it for much longer than was necessary. ‘I’m not going home, and I could do without any dodgy internet tapes.’

  ‘Worked for Paris Hilton.’

  ‘I’ll give it some thought.’ I kissed her hand. ‘Merry Christmas.’

  Red Café, Kentish Town.

  I stirred four sugars into my tea with a stiff shoulder when my mobile rang.

  HARRIET MOBILE.

  I ignored it. I always did my best to ignore my sister and it wasn’t difficult. She spent most of her time on the floors of council flats injecting smack nto her thighs.

  My older brother, Tony, was also unreachable but for different reasons. He was flying helicopters in Afghanistan and rarely found the time to call. The last time he had tried I had been on a job and had my phone switched off, and since then I’d heard nothing.

  It was for the best really, that we had grown so far apart as adults. We all had our shame to hide. Namely the fact that despite our relatively privileged upbringings, fully functional parents and decent educations, our method of rebellion seemed to be single-handedly fucking our lives up.

  Brinks arrived with rain and grease in his hair.

  ‘Why here?’ he asked, shaking water off his coat.

  ‘They do great sausage sandwiches.’ I pushed one of the plates across the table at him. ‘Cumberland, they use.’

  Brinks put a folder down next to the plate, fidgeting in the chair. ‘I got some of what you wanted. Most of the photos and some of the initial statements.’

  Already Brinks was earning his money. The man was a natural double agent and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an extensive list of people paying him for information. If he was classier, less desperate and more educated, he could be doing a lot more with his talent.

  I flicked through the folder but decided against taking out the photos yet.

  ‘DNA?’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  My hand hovered over the folder again. ‘Toxicology?’

  ‘Shit, it’s early days, Nic, calm down.’

  I warmed my hands around my tea. ‘Can you talk me through the statement? Taxi driver, you said?’

  ‘I can’t give you his name yet, not until we’ve charged him or released him, but he’s a strong suspect even beyond what we’d assume anyway. And there’s no point looking at me like that. I’m not going to tell you because I’d actually like a chance to question him before you’ – he gestured in mid-air – ‘do your thing.’

  ‘Do my thing?’ I raised my eyebrows even higher. ‘What? Strut my funky stuff?’

  ‘Stop being a dick.’

  It was like winding up a precocious child. I got out my tobacco and started rolling a cigarette. ‘Have you talked to the parents yet?’

  ‘I actually just came from there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘To be expected. Mother’s a state, the father’s aggressive; all in all not the nicest way to spend the morning.’ He looked out of the window at the rain. ‘How well do you know Pat Dyer?’

  ‘I wouldn’t really say I know him.’ I started dissecting my sandwich with the cigarette behind my ear, willing him to shut up and leave me alone to look at the folder. ‘Seen him around a few times but nothing intimate, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  I couldn’t help smirking. ‘Stop trying to talk like a DCI, Geoff, it really doesn’t suit you.’

  Brinks looked back at the window with hurt pride in his eyes. Looking at him was like watching for the onset of rigor mortis in a living human.

  I asked, ‘You want some tea?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  He got up and walked out.

  The man behind the counter brought over another mug.

  I smiled at him and got out the photos, face down. When I was sure no one could see them but me I turned them over one by one and ran my eyes over them in detail.

  One of her hands had fallen open around a can of Pepsi. None of her nails were broken but her chest was concave, collapsed, as if someone had stamped on it over and over. Her face was the same and her neck, crushed. There was something about the lack of blood, and the way her body had fallen, that made me uneasy. I would have expected more from a head shot.

  Everything about it looked rushed, amateurish and chaotic. Why hadn’t the killer disposed of her clothes properly for a start? Why leave her in a place that was so easy to access? All that had shielded her from the end of the alleyway was a scattering of bin liners and a skip. She’d been dropped there with the carelessness of someone throwing away dead batteries.

  My mobile started ringing and I put the photos back in the folder.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is this a good time?’ Pat sounded more docile than he had a day ago.

  ‘Fine, fine.’

  ‘Can you make it round to mine?’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need more time to…?’

  ‘More time to what?’

  Silence.

  I faltered. ‘What time is best for you?
’

  ‘Anytime. I’ll be here.’

  For a second, the dislike gave way to pity.

  ‘OK, I’ll be over in a couple of hours.’

  I hadn’t expected a call this soon. Denial didn’t usually set in this early, but Pat struck me as the sort of person who powered through life that way, dealing with adversity by filling his schedule and frantically ticking days off the calendar.

  I put the folder into my bag to look at later, wishing that I had switched off my phone and let Edie walk me home.

  4

  Pat answered the door with a glass in his hand and stubble on his chin.

  I suspected that the clear liquid wasn’t water. ‘You wanted to talk?’

  ‘Yeah… yeah, come in.’

  The air inside the house was thick and hot. Pat went into the huge kitchen and refilled his glass. He hadn’t changed out of his suit; it was more creased and carried a heavy stench of smoke.

  I dropped my bag by the door and followed.

  ‘Want any?’ he asked.

  ‘Bit early for me, thanks.’

  ‘Bet you’ve seen the reports and all… in your line of work?’ Grey eyes glared over the rim of the glass. ‘You’ve seen the photos?’

  ‘I’ve seen a few. Most of it I haven’t been able to see yet.’

  ‘But you’ve seen the photos?’

  I knew what he was thinking. No father would ever want another man to see his daughter like that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ he sneered. ‘I’ve always wondered about your types. Do you enjoy looking at stuff like that?’

  I stayed silent but my chest tightened.

  He was rubbing his eyes, trying to rub the image of his daughter out of them.

  ‘How’s your wife?’ I asked, the question like a lead weight on my tongue.

  ‘Upstairs.’ He didn’t answer the question but refilled his glass, downing it and refilling it again. ‘Did you see what he did to her?’

  ‘I know, it’s sick.’

  ‘Fucking cunt puts his hands on her… on my baby…’ Downing the glass and refilling it with shaking hands. ‘I want you to find him. I’ll pay you anything, I just want you to find him.’

  Any words of sympathy or comfort were strangled. It wouldn’t help.