by Penny Grubb
Annie shrugged. She had no landmarks when it came to assessing normal interactions between mother and daughter. ‘And the victim? Yates’s supposed witness? Did this Donna woman say who he was supposed to have abused?’
Jennifer nodded. ‘It’s been difficult. I haven’t pressed too hard. I don’t want it to look like I have a particular interest in the case.’
What is your interest in the case? Annie couldn’t bring herself to ask the question aloud.
‘But Charlotte’s mother named someone? Do you have any idea who?’
‘Well, yes.’ Jennifer paused as though not sure how to frame the words. ‘It seems ridiculous, but she named Charlotte as the victim.’
‘But Charlotte Liversedge isn’t a child. Was she saying he’d abused Charlotte when she was young?’
Jennifer shook her head. ‘I don’t think they knew each other when they were kids. And anyway, he’d have been a child too.’
Annie sat forward, elbows resting on the table, fingers steepled in front of her. Talking to Charlotte Liversedge had suddenly become more important than seeing Joshua Yates. But there were several reasons not to enlist Nicole. It didn’t matter. Now she had a name, it would be the work of a moment to track down Charlotte’s mother, the obvious intermediary to bring about a meeting.
Chapter 8
A neat, pale-brick house, with a good-sized garden and a car on the drive, stood beneath pristine pantiles that shone in the mid-morning light, displaying a military precision carried down through curtains hung just-so, to a garden with set-square corners and trimmed beds. One house amongst several dozen, part of a pattern of avenues, closes, walks and boulevards, making up what was considered to be a good corner of this estate.
Annie studied the house as she approached. Cold-calling this time, just as she must with Tim and Tracey Morgan later in the week, but they were the Longs’ case and this visit belonged to the file labelled Nicole Perks. Strictly speaking, it belonged to Brittany Booth because it was she Annie would bill the time to.
The house itself belonged to Donna Lambit.
This was the woman who had reported her daughter’s lover as a child abuser. And Charlotte as the abused child? That couldn’t be right. Jennifer must be wrong about that. After all, she’d been diffident in her enquiries, not wanting to be connected with the case.
Annie was determined to get to the bottom of this story, and do it quickly, because once the court reconvened for sentencing, Brittany Booth would pull out her resources and the case would be left hanging.
She pressed the bell and heard it chime inside the house. At once, the shadow of a hurrying figure shimmering in the pattern of the smoky glass came towards her from the back of the house. The door opened on a woman a few inches taller than Annie. Neat brown hair topped a smart, severe outfit of skirt and blouse in browns and reds.
Annie smiled. ‘Mrs Lambit?’
Even before the woman spoke, Annie knew she had been mistaken for someone else. ‘Yes, yes. Do come through. You’re on the ball. I thought I had ten minutes yet.’ Donna Lambit’s gaze flitted here and there, never once meeting Annie’s eye as, with a nervy laugh, she ushered her in.
Annie let herself be led into a small sitting room, neat as a showroom. The surfaces gleamed and the tang of polish hung in the air, ingrained in the fabric of the house. She turned and spoke, as though the thought had only just occurred to her. ‘But you can’t have been expecting me, Mrs Lambit. I was going to ring, but I couldn’t find your number.’
‘I’m not in the book. But aren’t you from the council?’
In the flurry of explanations, Annie saw suspicion and antagonism play around Donna’s face.
‘You’re press, aren’t you?’ Donna accused, still not looking her in the eye. ‘If you are, I’m calling your editor. And the police.’
‘No, I’m not.’ Annie held out her card, which Donna looked at but didn’t attempt to take. ‘Really, I understand how hard it must have been for you. I’m here because I want to find the truth. I want to make things easier for Charlotte.’
‘You know Charlotte? How is she? When did you last see her?’
‘No, I haven’t met her yet, but I’m hoping to be able to talk to her soon. I’ve been looking into her partner’s murder.’
‘Huh,’ Donna snorted. ‘You’re another one out to whitewash him. She’s better off without him. She knows it, and she’ll admit it before long, whatever lies you feed her.’
‘I’m not after feeding lies to anyone, Mrs Lambit. It isn’t Charlotte who’s paying me. I’m working for someone who wants me to get at the truth, pure and simple.’
This seemed to give Donna pause for thought. Eventually, she said, ‘Did you know Michael Walker?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
Annie looked at Donna, reading real hatred for Michael Walker, and wondered what secrets the dead man had hidden. Her time was leaking away. She must get to the point.
‘It must have caused serious friction between you and Charlotte when you reported Michael six years ago.’
‘How did you know about that? Well, of course it did. The police were hopeless. They had him and they let him go.’
‘But after all this time … I mean, he and Charlotte lived together for six years. Did he abuse her?’
‘I hope to God not. He knew someone was on to him. That stopped him.’
‘I meant did he abuse her when she was a child?’
‘Of course not! What are you saying? She didn’t know him then.’
‘But Charlotte was an adult when you reported Michael. You referred to a young girl in your complaint.’
‘Charlotte was a young girl six years ago. She was barely eighteen.’
‘Had there been other victims?’
‘Of course there had. A man like that!’
‘But who were they?’
‘It’s not for me to say.’
‘But do you know?’ Annie pushed. ‘I’m not asking for names, but do you know who they were?’
Donna remained stony faced and repeated, ‘It’s not for me to say.’
‘But can you tell me–?’
‘No,’ Donna cut across her. ‘I don’t want to talk to you any more. You push your way into my house, with all your questions, pretending to be someone else. You know nothing about Michael Walker, do you?’
‘Not yet, but I’ll get at the truth before I’m done.’
Donna, mouth open to speak, stopped as though weighing Annie’s words. ‘The truth,’ she murmured, then she looked Annie in the eye for the first time and said, ‘You want to see Charlotte, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I would like to.’
‘Give me your details again. I want to know exactly who you are. My daughter’s happiness is important to me.’
Annie passed her card across. ‘I’m just looking for the truth,’ she said again. ‘A lot of pain has been caused in all this. The people who’ve taken the brunt of it deserve to have the truth known.’
‘I want to have all the detail for Charlotte when I speak to her.’ Donna studied Annie’s card, and as she spoke, she stood up and walked across to the door, still turning the card in her hand. She paused at the doorway and looked back at Annie, signalling with a small smile and inclination of her head that the interview was at an end.
Annie rose. ‘Thank you–’ she began, but Donna interrupted, her tone even.
‘I want to have all your details for Charlotte so I can warn her off. I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Now get out of my house.’
Chapter 9
Annie lost the best part of an hour racing back to the office to pick up Pat’s car, inwardly raging all the way at another absurdity of this job. She had a car of her own and tried to kid herself it was her choice not to drive anywhere when she could avoid it, but the reality of the last year or two was that she couldn’t afford to run it. The tacit understanding held that if she needed a vehicle for work, she could use Pat’s, but when th
e unexpected cropped up and she needed to be somewhere fast, that plan fell apart. Donna Lambit had had ample time to warn her daughter.
She climbed out of the car now and looked around her. A soft breeze feathered her face and neck. She took in the intimacy of the street, recognized the house in front of her as a poor relation of the one she’d just left. It was smaller, bundled close to its neighbours in a terrace, no front garden. The ambience was not so neat, nor so prosperous, yet warmer. It wasn’t hard to imagine wartime housewives in a grainy black and white film, out on these front steps, swapping gossip, living each other’s lives.
Donna’s about-face sat in her mind; an irritant; something she should have seen coming. She had no plan of action, just a need to grab at the information before it flew from her grasp. This was where she should have come in the first place. Striding forward, she knocked at the door.
The young woman who answered was a softer, rounder version of Donna, her wispy fair hair escaping an elaborate hairclip in strands that she batted ineffectually aside as they wafted round her face.
Annie didn’t try to dissemble but held out her card. ‘I’m Annie Raymond. I’ve been working for Nicole Perks. I’m sorry to drop in unannounced, but I need to talk to you.’
‘Oh right.’ Charlotte Liversedge was not at all hostile. ‘Nicole’s told me about you. I’m glad to meet you. Come in.’
Charlotte seemed genuinely pleased to see her, but Annie knew she must get her cards on the table if she wanted a useful interview.
‘I should tell you I’ve just seen your mother. She didn’t want me to talk to you.’
‘Oh, take no notice of her.’ Charlotte laughed without warmth and led Annie inside.
The door let straight into a cheerless living room where an over-large settee piled high with clothes and magazines dominated the space. Charlotte led the way past an open staircase that divided the downstairs space and waved Annie to sit at a small kitchen table.
‘If I’m to get anywhere with this enquiry for Nicole,’ Annie said, ‘it’s important I ask you some questions. I don’t want to intrude; things must have been very difficult.’
‘No, no, don’t worry. I told Nicole I wasn’t ready to talk to you, but the truth is, I wanted to talk to you without her around. There are things I don’t want her to know. Will you have tea while you’re here? I’ve just made a pot.’
So there were secrets between Charlotte and Nicole.
‘Thanks … uh … any chance of a coffee?’
‘Yes, of course. We don’t drink coffee much but there’s some in. Michael drank coffee. Nicole said you’re from down south.’
‘Further north than here originally, but yes, I worked in London before I came to Hull.’
It was months since Michael’s death. Annie watched as Charlotte rummaged through a cupboard and wondered if it was too late to change her mind about having a drink at all when she saw the dusty jar, with its lid not properly closed, a bold label proclaiming it as value coffee powder. But shared drinks made for greater intimacy, more productive talk and the stale coffee that Charlotte was spooning out of the bottom of the jar was the price she must pay to get the best out of her.
‘I realize that Nicole doesn’t know about your mother reporting Michael, but I need to know more about it.’
‘Nicole’s made you sound like the sort of person who could be trusted. You will keep quiet about stuff, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. It goes with the territory. But you must appreciate that I’ve been asked to get evidence of the truth about Michael and I have to report back to my clients, the people who pay.’
‘Oh yes, I don’t mean that stuff. I just mean stuff that it’s better Nicole doesn’t know. They sent me to a counsellor after it happened, but I couldn’t talk to him.’
Annie felt awkward. Charlotte didn’t seem to appreciate that the details of the six-year-old allegation fell into the category of things Nicole would have a right to know. She looked at the pale liquid in the cup Charlotte put in front of her. No hint of coffee lingered in the stale aroma that reached her nostrils. She hoped she’d be able to stomach enough of it not to seem ungrateful. She knew if she had time, she could play Charlotte into revealing everything she knew, but time was scarce. Pat had asked around. The word was that they wouldn’t delay a second longer than necessary to get Joshua Yates safely sentenced and locked away, and once that happened, Brittany Booth would pull out and there would be no money to carry on.
‘Charlotte, what happened six years ago? Why did your mother do it? I gather she didn’t like Michael, but why … I mean, did she believe it?’
Charlotte plumped herself down in a chair at the table and picked up the teapot. ‘My mother never liked Michael. She never liked any of my guys. But things got serious quite quickly with Michael. We bought this house together. That’s as big a commitment as anyone makes these days, isn’t it?’
Annie smiled and nodded as she raised her cup to her lips, bracing herself not to react as the insipid liquid seeped over her tongue in a sickly trickle.
‘But I’d had enough. She’d broken up every one of my relationships and I wasn’t having it any more. I thought she’d come round; learnt her lesson to stop treating me like a little girl, but as soon as we got the house, she was at it again. See, I fell over a paint pot while we were decorating and she turned round and accused Michael of hitting me. Well, next thing we know, there’s been a complaint and Michael’s hauled in by the police.’
‘But they didn’t find anything in it, as far as I heard.’
‘No, of course not. But you wouldn’t have thought it when they first took him in. They had him in most of the night. They accused him of some dreadful stuff, said he was like the guy that killed those two little girls. He was in a terrible state when he got back. But they let him out without charge and we thought that was it. Then, next thing, they’ve hauled him off again. They said sorry later, well, one of them did, but they said they couldn’t take chances with something like that.’
‘And did you know it was your mother who’d reported him?’
‘Not at first. It was after they came back to take him the second time, that’s when I went to her. I went for help. That was stupid of me. She told me, then. She said it was her, that she was protecting me. You see, she thought because they’d come back, they must have found something.’
‘But why? What made her do it? Why that allegation? Not just to get at Michael, surely.’
‘Oh, she’d have jumped at anything to get me away from him, but I’ll tell you what was behind it. Senile old women gossiping.’
Without knowing what she’d expected Charlotte to say, Annie knew it hadn’t been that. ‘Tell me more.’
‘You know my mother’s a carer. She’s with an agency. They go round and look after people in their homes. Old people mostly.’
Annie hadn’t known, but she nodded as she put the cup to her lips and let another drop of liquid seep into her mouth, before murmuring, ‘It’s shift work, isn’t it?’ automatically trawling for information about someone she might need to question again.
Despite being at loggerheads with her mother most of her life, Annie guessed that constant battles were a necessary spice to both their lives. This estrangement, though inevitable after Donna’s action and its appalling sequel, was sapping the life from them.
‘One of my mother’s clients was a woman called May Gow. You know the sort, an old busybody, been around Hull forever. So she reckoned to know Michael’s family and all about him, that’s what my mother said. I didn’t believe her. She’d been going to that woman on and off all the time I was with Michael. Why would she suddenly remember it just when Michael and I got serious? She hadn’t said a word before.’
Annie could think of several reasons. Donna might have mentioned that her daughter and boyfriend were buying a house. Michael’s name would have cropped up. She imagined a bent old woman, with fluffy white hair and beady eyes. Michael Walker? she could almost he
ar the words. Now, is that the family from … isn’t he the one who…? and she thought of the detail in the note sent to the police.
To Charlotte, she just said, ‘Where does May Gow live?’
‘She had a house up my mother’s way, but she died a year ago.’
No information to be had from that source. ‘How long was your mother with her?’
‘Six or seven years.’
‘She knew her well, then?’ Annie made the words into a question, but noted that the timing was tight. Six or seven years? Donna probably didn’t know her well at the time she reported Michael.
‘No, not really,’ Charlotte said. ‘May Gow was never one of her principal clients. My mum’s often first stand-in when people are away or off sick. See, they’re always short-staffed. Young kids go into caring because there are no other jobs, but they soon move on. My mum’s one of the few who keeps the job on.’
For the first time, Annie heard a hint of warmth for her mother in Charlotte’s voice.
‘What exactly did May Gow say about Michael?’
‘That’s the thing. I don’t think she said anything, really. From what I heard, she was a stuck up old cow and I think all she said was that she didn’t think much of Michael’s family. Listen, about me keeping all this from Nicole; the complaint and it being my mum. I’ll tell her, next chance I have. She’ll get to know because of that cow, Brittany Booth. I wanted to talk to you first, but I’d like to tell her before she hears it from anyone else. She’ll go apeshit.’
A warning bell rang in Annie’s head. It seemed it wasn’t the six-year-old allegation that Charlotte wanted to keep from Nicole. And if not that, then what? The big connection between the two women was the business venture Nicole had alluded to. She gave Charlotte an encouraging smile. ‘Tell me about your business. Nicole explained it’s all on hold, but business opportunities don’t hang around, so I can understand Nicole wanting to get a move on with things.’
‘Is that what she said? Oh, I’d love to get it all up and running. I’ve held back because of Nicole.’
