Make Believe

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘No. Where’s Phoebe?’ Luke said.

  ‘She’s going home with her mum,’ Janine said.

  ‘She’s all right?’ Luke said, his voice almost breaking with relief. Janine felt like hugging him, the poor, daft lad.

  ‘Yes,’ Janine said, ‘thanks for your help. Can you just wait outside for a minute, in the other room?

  Once Luke had left, Janine said, ‘The problems that Luke’s been having – they started after your wife’s death?’

  ‘What problems?’ Ken Stafford said with hostility.

  ‘Fighting, suspension from school and so on.’

  Ken Stafford looked uncomfortable, ‘He took it hard.’

  ‘Did you try and talk to him? Did he get any help?’

  Ken Stafford shuffled in his chair. ‘There’s no point in dwelling on it.’

  ‘So you did nothing,’ said Janine. ‘Are you aware that Luke’s struggling with depression?’

  ‘Kids that age—’

  ‘Mr Stafford this isn’t some teenage tantrum. Luke has been having suicidal thoughts.’

  ‘Who told you that,’ he said as though he didn’t believe it.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. What does matter, what is important is that Luke gets some support before it’s too late. He seems like a decent enough lad, he could make something of himself but that’s unlikely if he’s left to flounder.’

  ‘He wouldn’t—’ he said but the belligerence had evaporated. It was sinking in.

  ‘It happens,’ Janine said, ‘far too often. And sometimes for what seem to be the most trivial reasons. Losing a parent, that’s not trivial. Have you heard of CAMHS?’ she pronounced it calms. ‘Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’ll give you their details,’ Janine said, ‘they are very good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. He’d gone pale. Janine thought he probably needed some therapy himself. He’d clearly not got over the bereavement either. Still, one step at a time.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he shuddered, his thoughts obviously still on the awful prospect of suicide.

  ‘We’ll get those samples taken now,’ Janine said, ‘won’t take long and you can get home.’

  He nodded, got to his feet slowly, his earlier antagonism replaced by bewilderment.

  Chapter 21

  DCI Lewis was spitting mad. Butchers stood in her office and took it.

  ‘I’m a detective chief inspector not a bloody family therapist. You drag them in here, forcing me to take time away from two critical investigations. Neither of them have anything to do with it, except in your fevered imagination. You latched onto Luke Stafford, the whole teenage killers theory, and made it your mission because it was easier than dealing with personal stuff.’ She shook her head irritably. ‘We’ve all done it but it cocks things up. Here, and at home.’

  ‘Sorry boss,’ he said. ‘It’s all off – the engagement.’

  ‘Now, why am I not surprised? Happy?’

  Butchers shrugged. Relief if he had to put a name to it, blessed relief. ‘She was a bit of a slapper,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re a prat. Now, you did door-to-door at the Staffords, I want to review your original statements, see how objective they are. Get them now,’ she barked. ‘And don’t pull any stunts like this again. I decide who we pull in and when. Got it?’

  ‘Yes boss.’

  He was out of there.

  Pete arrived with her laptop in time to hear the tail end of Janine setting Butchers straight. Janine was still angry. With Butchers. With Pete. And her headache had grown worse not better.

  ‘Laying down the law?’ Pete said. ‘Looks like he’s done a few rounds with Amir Khan.’

  He held up the laptop and she took it and put it on the desk, plugged it in.

  ‘Thank you would be nice,’ Pete said.

  Any show of restraint that she had intended went out of the window. ‘Honesty would be nice,’ she snapped. ‘Were you ever going to say anything? Telling the kids and getting them to do it – how pathetic is that!’

  ‘I didn’t tell them,’ Pete said affronted, ‘it was Tina.’ It wasn’t me! Like a five-year-old.

  ‘Oh, so you were keeping the baby secret from all of us? Forgive me if I don’t congratulate you.’ She wanted to punch him, to slap him.

  ‘I don’t want another child,’ Pete said making eye contact, ‘you know that. It was never part of the plan. Look,’ he said more softly, ‘whatever happens I’m not going anywhere. The kids – I’ll be here for them.’

  ‘How are you going to fit it all in?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll have to find a way,’ he blustered.

  ‘So, is she going to want to get married?’ Janine said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pete said, as though he was fed up with the whole situation.

  ‘Oh, go on, Pete, take a wild guess. What is it? A commitment too far?’

  ‘It’s not just the baby,’ Pete said, ‘it’s just – I had options. See how things panned out.’

  Talk about pathetic.

  ‘And you can’t leave Tina now, can you?’ Janine said. ‘But no, hang on! You left me when I was carrying Charlotte. Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed principles. Options!’ She could feel the rage burning behind her breastbone, her temperature rising. ‘And what options did I have? Promotion, three kids and one on the way when you swan off. I didn’t choose this. It wasn’t in my plan.’ It came to her then, what she did want. She wanted rid of Pete, she wanted to seal the separation. He wasn’t ever coming back, things were never going to be how they used to be.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ Janine said.

  Pete was taken aback. ‘You’re upset,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t say! But I’ve had enough Pete. It’s been two years, it’s not complicated. This isn’t a marriage. It’s over.’ She knew how final it was. Felt a moment’s sadness that this was how it ended, with an ill-tempered squabble in her place of work, prompted by his cowardice and fuelled by him whining about his lot.

  ‘Janine—’ he said, moving closer as though to reason with her but she cut him dead, ‘I’ll set things in motion.’ She opened the laptop and sat down to work, ‘And I’ll tell the kids,’ she couldn’t resist adding as he moved to go.

  Janine read carefully through the statements. It wasn’t as bad as she feared, apparently Butchers’ years of experience in taking down factual information had served him well. The initial statements were quite bald, perhaps because, as Butchers had said and Janine could imagine, the Staffords were surprisingly uncooperative. Now she knew it wasn’t so much that they had an agenda, a reason to mislead the police but more that father and son were too bound up in their own misery to engage. Of course those initial statements were made at a time when everyone was imagining that the dead child was Sammy Wray.

  It was hard now to pull apart the two cases, as if the details resisted being untangled. It made any analysis more complicated.

  Janine froze, the skin on the back of her neck prickled and she took a quick breath. Woken by the builders. Wasn’t that a contradiction? She rifled through the statements. Yes. There. She found the other reference.

  She picked up the pages and went to the door of her office. Called out to the team. ‘Statements from Ken Stafford – second statement, quote: “Saturday, back from the night shift, just got off to sleep when the builders start up.” Luke Stafford tells us his dad complained about it.’ She pulled out the other page. ‘The initial door-to-door testimony from Ken Stafford, and I quote, “Don’t see them for days, then they’d turn up at the crack of dawn”. Join the dots. If they are so bloody lazy then why do they suddenly pitch up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning? Lazy builders on the job before daylight. It’s the builders we should be talking to. The bloody builders!’

  Chapter 22

  ‘Breeley and McEvoy,’ Janine said, ‘pull together everything we have so far, every whisper, every mention we have of them and do backgroun
d checks. I’ll give you half an hour then we’ll see what it tells us.’

  When they re-assembled Janine got the ball rolling. ‘Both men have been working on the site for six weeks. Owner’s abroad?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Lisa, ‘we spoke to him to verify that. And he’s hired them before and had no complaints.’

  ‘OK, starting with Joe Breeley,’ Janine said. ‘Breeley has an alibi for the early hours of Saturday morning from his wife. If it is him – his wife is covering. Breeley has an alibi, but Donny McEvoy doesn’t. McEvoy lives alone, no family.’

  ‘That make it any more likely?’ Richard said.

  ‘No-one keeping tabs on him,’ Janine said.

  ‘Has its advantages,’ Richard muttered. Although he was contributing, he kept giving her dirty looks and his manner was decidedly frosty. To do with last night, she assumed.

  ‘Breeley was fixing the car when we first went round,’ Richard said, ‘their car broke down, on the Friday afternoon, the eighteenth of April. AA were called out. Mandy was driving. So if that was out of action, if it was Breeley, he’d have used his van to move the body to the site.’

  ‘From?’ said Janine. Shrugs and shakes of the head. If only they knew. She thought about her visit to the Breeleys, had there been anything off-key?

  ‘Breeley had been on the sick,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Richard agreed, ‘that’s what he said at first then he changed his story, said that the weather was slowing work down at the house so he hadn’t been in.’

  ‘Bit odd,’ Janine said, ‘young family to feed, and he’s a steady reputation, wouldn’t you want to be bringing in the money?’

  ‘Might be paid for the job. Do the hours as and when,’ said Butchers. ‘Common enough in the building trade.’

  ‘Yes, he said as much,’ she remembered. ‘Anything else on Breeley?’

  No-one spoke. ‘ OK then, Donny McEvoy.’

  Shap said, ‘McEvoy was already at Kendal Avenue when Breeley turned up for work on that Saturday. Plus McEvoy was there when the body was recovered, he didn’t actually find the body but …’

  ‘He’s shown a very public interest in the case,’ Janine said. That type of close involvement was a feature of killers on occasion, a combination of fascination they had with the awful deed they’d committed, a need to be at the centre of attention but also a useful way they could keep tabs on what the police were doing. ‘Is he just after his fifteen minutes or is there more to it? He’s been eager to talk to us so far …’

  She looked at Shap who nodded.

  ‘Right see if he’s happy for us to take a look round his place.’

  ‘The murder scene?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘Worth a look,’ Janine said, ‘anything to suggest the victim was there. Or at the other site where McEvoy’s been working? Find out if he’s access there out of hours. We ask both men in turn about that early morning visit on Saturday nineteenth. Given the fact that McEvoy has no alibi and he’s been rubber-necking I think we have grounds to bring him in and talk to him here. Shake him up a bit. Let’s get cracking.’

  As the meeting broke up she was aware of the tension between herself and Richard. She could have ignored it but she didn’t want it to fester. ‘Richard?’ she said, ‘A word?’

  She moved with him to her office, made sure to shut the door, hoping for privacy.

  ‘Is this about last night?’ Janine said.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘This: the glacial tone, the moody stare? Did I pop your balloon?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘You were a right cow to Millie. You could barely say her name, ‘Millie,’ he mimicked Janine. ‘Patronising her, sticking your nose in. Maybe you don’t remember? That was just before you made a complete prat of yourself with the boss. What is your problem with Millie? Is she some sort of threat?’ Richard was livid, hands on hips, his eyes burning.

  ‘I work with her, I don’t have to like her,’ Janine said. ‘Have you seen today’s papers?’ They were making much of the confusion of the cases, pointing the finger at the police.

  ‘You’re blaming Millie for the coverage?’ he said, incredulously. ‘She’s doing her best in a very difficult situation. You know what that’s like, to be up against it. You’ve been there.’

  He was right. She had been there, got the DVD. She was being a cow because she was pissed off with Pete. Pete and bloody Tina. And Millie, with her poise and her brains, her youthful beauty and her claim on Richard, had been a handy target. She missed her mate Richard, she missed the buzz there used to be between them, the easy company, the patter and the unspoken support. She winced as she recalled bawling out Richard over talking to Millie about the case and then omitting to inform Millie about Felicity Wray’s arrest. Petty behaviour. She wasn’t being straight with him. Janine swallowed. She did not want to be like this, act like this. As if she was no longer in control.

  ‘It’s just,’ she said, ‘I’m just—’ she looked away, down the corridor.

  ‘What?’ he said irritably.

  ‘Tina’s having a baby,’ she blurted it out. ‘Pete always told me he didn’t want any more children. That was something we had. He didn’t even have the bottle to tell me himself,’ she said sadly, ‘I had to hear it from the kids. I hate the whole idea of it.’

  ‘But you and Pete, it’s finished, right?’ he said, some confusion in his eyes.

  She sighed. ‘I’ve told him I want a divorce.’

  He was still puzzled. He didn’t get it, he really didn’t get it. ‘Well, what d’you expect,’ he said, ‘you can’t have it both ways.’

  Janine was stung. Before she’d formulated a response Richard had walked out. Well, that went well, she told herself. She felt like crying but contented herself with kicking her desk, which brought tears to her eyes.

  She was startled by a knock on the door. Christ! Couldn’t she have five minutes peace? She sniffed hard, sat down. ‘Yes?’ she said.

  Millie opened the door. ‘I’d a voicemail from Richard, I thought he was here. Sorry to bother you,’ she said formally, making to leave again.

  ‘Come in,’ Janine said. ‘We’ve had a break, he probably wanted to tell you – Ken Stafford’s statement puts one of the builders at the scene early Saturday morning.’

  ‘Who?’ Millie said, alert.

  ‘Can’t eliminate either of them yet,’ Janine said.

  ‘Anything else?’ Millie said.

  Was she expecting an apology? Janine felt discomfited but decided that keeping it all professional was the best way forwards. ‘You could issue a statement: new information has given us some positive leads. I’m very hopeful.’

  ‘That true?’ Millie said.

  Was it? Hardly. Janine didn’t dare to be very hopeful any more. Hope was a scarce commodity. ‘No. It feels like I’m smacking my head against a brick wall, actually, but that doesn’t scan so well.’

  ‘I could dig around a bit, do an archive search?’

  Janine accepted the offer. It felt like an olive branch of sorts. ‘Thanks, that’d be great.’

  Janine watched her go. She was so pretty, young too, Janine guessed a good ten years younger than Richard and her. And obviously good at her job. And am I not, Janine asked herself. Where had all her confidence gone? All that energy and conviction?

  Chapter 23

  McEvoy sat beside a duty solicitor and Janine was sure he was still enjoying the attention. He made a show of watching keenly as she loaded the tape and did the preamble to the interview.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about your whereabouts on the nineteenth of April, the Saturday,’ Janine said. ‘In your statement you said you arrived for work at approximately nine am.’

  ‘That’s right,’ McEvoy said.

  ‘We have a witness who heard work start at Kendal Avenue much earlier,’ Janine told him and watched his face change, the expression of avid interest changing to one of consternation.

  ‘It can’t have been me. I didn’t get ther
e till nine,’ McEvoy insisted.

  ‘Were you the first?’ Janine said.

  ‘Yes,’ said McEvoy

  ‘When did Joe Breeley show?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Just after. You think he might have something to do with it?’ McEvoy leant forward, mouth forming a salacious smile.

  ‘You’re the one in the interview room,’ Richard pointed out.

  ‘That’s bollocks,’ McEvoy reared back. ‘I went round to sort out the flood on Monday, I was the one reported it. Why would I do that?’ He looked askance.

  ‘You tell me,’ Richard said.

  McEvoy said nothing and for the first time Janine felt he was taking on board the seriousness of the situation.

  ‘You’re a true crime fan, am I right?’ Richard said.

  McEvoy nodded.

  ‘You’ll know then, that there are some people who attract particular attention in a murder inquiry,’ Richard continued.

  McEvoy couldn’t resist showing off. He nodded eagerly, ‘Family and close friends.’

  ‘Also the last person to see the victim alive, the one who finds the body, anybody showing an excessive interest in the case and a person who returns to the scene of the crime,’ Richard said.

  ‘That’s three out of four,’ Janine said unsmiling.

  ‘No way,’ McEvoy shouted. ‘You’ve got it arse over tits. I was working there and I called in the flood. That’s just circumstantial that is.’

  ‘You’ve been trying to sell your story to the papers. What exactly is your story?’ Janine said.

  ‘It’s human interest, it’s in the public domain,’ he said. Then he became defensive. ‘I’m entitled—’

  ‘What vehicle do you use for work?’ Richard said.

  ‘An old transit,’ McEvoy said.

  ‘Diesel?’

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘Handy that – if you wanted to move something, hide something,’ Richard said

  ‘I’m not hiding anything,’ McEvoy said hotly.