Learning to Love

by Sheryl Browne

  Ashley had never had that bond as far as Rebecca knew. She was alone, on her own in a world she was ill-equipped to ever function in. She was also family. With her ebony hair, brushed to a silken sheen, and almond-shaped eyes the colour of rich cognac, she could almost be Matthew’s child. She was beautiful. Fragile, yet from the set of her jaw, strong, Rebecca sensed. Heaviness settling in her chest, she found herself physically hurting for the girl, who must feel so alone. Poor thing, thirteen years old and already she’d been abandoned, abused and neglected, starved of affection; how heart-breaking was that?

  More so for Matthew, who’d tried so hard to find his sister, searching for her in places that most people wouldn’t feel safe. Finally locating her, he’d persuaded her home twice, securing places for her in rehab. Twice she’d left again, her craving for alcohol driving her. Why had she waited until now to tell Matthew she had a daughter, Rebecca wondered? An attempt to shock him into not caring for her possibly, so she would be free to do what she liked? Or was it because Kristen too was hurting from the loss of a child and was somehow trying to reach out to Matthew? They would never know, Rebecca supposed. Most of the time she made little sense, Matthew said. And even having told him that much of her painful past life, Kristen refused to try and change it.

  Yet still, Matthew tried, attempting to check up on her, though he, above most people, knew she could only be helped if she wanted to help herself. He was a good man, a man hurting. Rebecca wished he’d share that hurt more with her instead of channelling it into his work. She swallowed back another tight lump in her throat. Then almost shot out of her skin as Matthew, who’d obviously realised there was something he’d forgotten before driving off, shouted, ‘Ditto, always,’ through the letterbox.

  Matthew pulled in a tense breath, as he climbed out of his car. ‘Is it Brianna?’ he asked his detective sergeant, who walked towards him from the short alley that led from the back of the Thai restaurant.

  ‘No official ID yet, but …’ DS Steve Ingram hesitated. ‘It looks like it, yes.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Matthew grated, knowing what no official ID meant. ‘Right.’ He blew out a sigh and steeled himself to walk back with Steve to see for himself.

  Brianna Phillips? Matthew couldn’t believe it. He’d only spoken to her yesterday. Scared witless and refusing to say why, she’d come to him and asked him outright if he could offer her protection in exchange for certain information. Videos, she’d hinted, directed by Patrick scum-of-the-earth Sullivan, Matthew was willing to bet. He’d been out of prison, what, five months? And he was as free as a bird to do what he liked, to whoever he liked, peddling his crap, coercing underage kids to star in those videos. For what he’d done to Lily, the bastard should have been banged up forever. Or, better still, met an excruciatingly painful demise while he was in there.

  Parasitic scum. Matthew’s jaw tensed, his lungs tightened, as he tried, and failed, to still the images that played over and over, his child, the light in her eyes fading, his world disintegrating. Again, he recalled the evil intent in Sullivan’s eyes when he’d informed him of his equally sadistic brother’s demise. Heard the words that spilled from the disgusting piece of scum’s mouth. ‘How’s that pretty young wife of yours, DI Adams?’

  It had been a threat. Matthew had been sure of it. A threat the murdering psychopath had eventually attempted to have carried out. And Matthew had been able to do nothing about it. The bastard was out now though, wasn’t he, no bars to provide him with an alibi. Not for long, Sullivan. Not for long. If it was the last thing he did, Matthew aimed to make sure Sullivan was taken off the streets.

  Dammit. He should have done something more when Brianna had come to him. There was no way he’d have been able to make promises, offer her a safe house, but he should have done something, found her some kind of accommodation, stayed on it, before it came to this. Matthew swallowed again, hard.

  ‘Visual ID not possible then?’ he asked, tugging his collar loose.

  ‘Afraid not.’ Steve shot him a wary glance. He didn’t offer details. He didn’t need to. He’d know Matthew would be filling in the blanks. Matthew was, graphically. Closing his eyes, he counted silently. At five, he managed to get a tenuous grip on his emotions.

  ‘Timing?’ he asked, feeling the abject sense of failure he always did when one of these girls turned up drugged and beaten, raped, or worse.

  ‘Not sure yet. Last night at a guess,’ Steve offered. ‘The body wasn’t discovered until they opened up shop and, er …’ He stopped and gauged Matthew cautiously again.

  ‘Put the trash out?’ Matthew finished sardonically.

  Steve puffed out a breath and nodded slowly. ‘Pathologist and scene of crime officers are present,’ he went on, professionally following protocol, outwardly calm. Not detached though. Matthew eyed his colleague – a rugby-playing brute of a bloke – and noted the faint odour of vomit sympathetically. Steve was what, twenty-eight? Keen. About to get married. Matthew had met his fiancée, a stunning girl, and judging by the love-struck look on Steve’s face when he’d introduced her, she was enough to keep him content at night. Matthew guessed Steve wouldn’t be looking elsewhere. It was an iron-willed man or woman who didn’t succumb in some way to the seedy world of sex and drugs, though, sometimes getting sucked in, sometimes getting psychologically screwed. Detachment was a requisite part of the job if you wanted to sleep nights. Matthew only wished he could attain it.

  Sighing, he braced himself as he headed around to the back of the restaurant. It was her. Matthew noted the bleeding heart tattoo on the girl’s upper arm immediately. Gulping back the sour taste in his mouth, he took in the lifeless, broken body of the teenager in a succession of sordid, stomach-churning snapshots. Face down, her head twisted to one side, she was almost unrecognisable. Her eyes swollen like two overripe plums. Her nose and lips split. Right arm fractured, judging by the impossible angle. One shoe missing. The other a red stiletto that looked brand new. Clothes … in brutal disarray. Matthew glanced away.

  Nodding a greeting at one of the SOCOs taking requisite photos of the surrounding area, he noticed a fat bluebottle buzzing over the nondescript grey bin the girl was sprawled in front of. His stomach turning over and a distinct wheeze in his chest, Matthew tried hard not to breathe in the pungent stench of rotting oriental food and dead flesh.

  ‘I take it this is our crime scene?’ He turned back to the pathologist, who was busy making an external examination of the body.

  ‘Judging by lividity,’ the pathologist indicated the dark purple discoloration on the underside of the girl’s torso, ‘I’d say, yes.’

  Matthew nodded. ‘Any idea of the timeframe?’ he asked, nurturing a faint hope that there might have been witnesses.

  ‘From the body temperature and degree of rigor mortis, I’d say post mortem interval is about eight hours.’

  ‘Cause of death?’ He glanced at the deceased girl’s eyes, now grey, opaque and empty, trying to remember what colour they were.

  ‘Asphyxiation, ligature.’

  After suffering what kind of humiliation and terror, Matthew wondered, nausea sweeping over him.

  ‘Can we rush this one through, Nicky?’ He shrugged hopefully, knowing she was probably backed up.

  The woman studied him for a second, and then, ‘I’ll do my best,’ she offered. Obviously, she’d picked up on the hint of desperation Matthew had heard in his own voice.

  Matthew nodded his thanks, outwardly trying for composed, inwardly broiling with hot, impotent anger.

  ‘Anything under the fingernails?’ he asked, praying there might be something they could go on.

  ‘Looks like they’re clean,’ she said, going back to her painstaking evidence-collecting. ‘Very clean.’ She glanced meaningfully at him again. ‘The autopsy might yield something, but I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘No, nor would I.’ Matthew smiled bitterly, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. God really would have to be in his h
eaven, wouldn’t he, he thought cynically, for there to be enough DNA present to give him the bastard on a plate. Clearly, the assailant had cleaned up after himself. Clearly also, he’d known he wouldn’t be interrupted, meaning his minions had been on lookout or, possibly, doing his cleaning for him.

  The pathologist paused in her bag sealing and vialing and sat back on her haunches. ‘Matthew,’ she asked, ‘are you okay?’

  Matthew’s gaze flicked back to her face. Nicky had been the pathologist who’d established cause of death after Lily, and therefore one of the few people who would guess that Matthew was very much not okay; that this kind of crap got to him, more and more every day.

  ‘Yep, never better.’ He smiled tightly, glossing it over, because it was simply the only way he could get through it. ‘Ring me, will you, Nicky?’

  She nodded and went back to her task as he turned away.

  ‘Sir?’ His DS followed him as Matthew headed back to his car, his stride purposeful, belying the sinking helplessness he felt inside.

  ‘Matthew?’ Steve called again. ‘Shall I stick around?’ Oversee the preliminary examination until removal of the body, he meant, always keen to follow rules and do things exactly by the book.

  Sometimes, though, when murdering scumbags walked around scot-free, flouting the law, Matthew couldn’t help wishing he could throw the rule book away.

  ‘Do that.’ He nodded despondently over his shoulder. ‘And keep me posted, particularly as to the whereabouts of the missing shoe.’

  Dragging a hand over his neck, Matthew pondered as he walked, trying to get his head around someone as devoid of feeling as Sullivan calmly checking he’d left no evidence. But then, the bastard has always been meticulous, making sure to cover himself when he’d decided he needed to teach people a lesson. Concocting alibis if ever one of his girls found courage enough to point the finger at him, alibis mostly provided by other young girls too terrified not to lie when he asked them to. Even the piece of scum’s wife lied for him, obviously preferring to turn a blind eye than give up the luxurious lifestyle her husband’s businesses afforded her.

  Vermin! Matthew’s fist hit the brick wall without process of forethought. His chest heaving, counting silently in an attempt to control his fury, he studied his stinging knuckles as globules of rich, red, fresh blood popped through the wounded flesh. Focus, he warned himself, groping ineffectually for some kind of detachment, trying hard to still the almost overwhelming desire to go directly to the ‘respectable’ Amersham home of the shit-dealing, pimping bastard who’d prostituted that young girl, abused her, used her, raped her probably, and – as sure as the sun rose in the east – murdered her. Patrick Sullivan. Pat to his friends, Pit-bull to those who crossed him, the man would never let go a grievance.

  Matthew wasn’t about to either.

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