The Girlfriend: A Josie Cloverfield Detective Novel

by Jack Carteret

  “Mum, be honest. I have hardly seen you since you took up with Snatcher Harris. For the last few weeks I’ve been here alone, so I’m not sure how you’ve managed to get so much worrying done.” I said in a flat tone.

  Betty peered over at me and gave me a huge and warm smile.

  “Hey, how are you doing, Josie?” She said, keen to let my mum know that she probably saw more of me than my drunken parent.

  “Tired really. And so worried about Liam and Hannah and everything. But thank you for asking.” I smiled back. I loved Betty.

  “Oh yeah. Poor little Liam. Trust me, he wouldn’t hurt a hair on that girl’s head. He adored her.” My mum added, speaking with drunken authority on a subject about which she knew absolutely nothing.

  Still, I stopped myself from correcting her and saying out loud that Liam did not, in fact, adore Hannah Davenport.

  “So, what’s happening?” I said, torn between not wanting to know and, well, seriously not wanting to know.

  “It appears that your TV has gone missing, Josie.” Betty said with an apologetic shrug, almost as if she herself had stolen it.

  “Not missing, darlin’; stolen! By that no-good piece of……” She began, kind of rounding on Betty as if my mum’s dubious taste in men was entirely the fault of the Grantstone Constabulary. “I’m telling you, Snatcher Harris took it. Now get over to his place and lock him up.” My mum finished, with a wave of her hand which made her seem like she was dismissing a servant.

  “First things first, Mrs Cloverfield.” Betty began, coolly. “I need to get some evidence together before I go locking anybody up.”

  “I just told you he did it!”

  “That is not evidence. I need a statement, then I need to get the CSI unit down to get fingerprints. The doors haven’t been forced, so I need to know if he had a key. I also need to know if you saw him take it. Those things are evidence.”

  “I ain’t giving no statement to the Police!” My mum said, very much on her dignity as if Betty had just asked her to strip on national television.

  “Oh? Why is that?” Betty said, still keeping her voice low and her temper so very level.

  By this stage in the proceedings, my mother has usually irritated the attending officer beyond repair. Betty was just cut from different cloth.

  “’Cos cops are all liars! I wouldn’t be seen dead giving a statement to the Police!”

  “And I wouldn’t be seen dead arresting somebody without evidence.” Betty retorted. I almost cheered. “So, I’ll say goodnight, Mrs Cloverfield. You obviously don’t need my help.”

  “Do something, Josie!” My mum screamed at me.

  “Look, mum, can’t we do this inside for a change? Why do we always have to do everything in such a humiliatingly public way?”

  “Oh, get her!” Once again, my mum had turned to Betty as some sort of ally. The wonders of alcohol! “Five minutes at university and she thinks she’s clever.”

  “I am clever, Mum. I was clever before I went to university.”

  “Well more fool you. Where do you think it’s all going to get you?” Mum was now standing, with one hand on her hip, her head wobbling from side to side quite vigorously, very much in the style of some poor devil on the Jeremy Kyle show who thinks they’ve delivered the final and definitive statement, truly declaring their own victory.

  I am, of course, referring to Jeremy himself.

  “Well, it will most likely ensure that I am never screaming drunkenly in the street because my one-toothed drug-addict of a boyfriend has stolen my telly! I’ll probably be too busy with a job and what-have-you!”

  Betty grinned. She liked me, and I liked that she liked me. I still wanted Betty to be my mum.

  “You little…..” And then mum ran at me, her just-empty bottle of Euro-Saver vodka raised high above her head.

  In the very second before my own mother rendered me unconscious in the street with a bottle, PC Betty Butler, faster than a speeding bullet, had her arm up her back and one hand-cuff already on.

  In the time it took Betty to do all of that, I was still standing with my mouth open. I’ve got to tell you, it had been a while since my mum had gone for me in a drunken outrage, but that was the first time she’d come at me with a weapon!

  “Lorraine Cloverfield, I’m arresting you for Affray. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court, and anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  “Affray?” My mum screamed at the top of her lungs. “What the hell is affray?” She sounded very much on the back foot.

  My mum was used to being locked up to Prevent a Breach of the Peace and released scot-free the following morning. Affray had a big, stinky whiff of court about it, and even my drink-addled parent could smell it a mile off.

  “Thank you, Betty.” I said, genuinely.

  “Look, I’ll get her in the van then come back inside to speak to you, ok?”

  “Don’t you dare give them a statement, baby.” My mum squealed, as if her very life rested in my hands.

  Funny, one minute I’m being threatened with a bottle and the next I’m my mum’s baby. Who knew?

  “Oh, and I will be giving you a statement, Betty. And I can fill in the DV forms with my eyes shut.” I really wanted to hurt my mum.

  I needed to take some sort of action that would stop me crying in the street at the final horror of it all. As hardened as I was and as much as I keep telling you all that I hated her, I was still truly gutted that my mum had been prepared to hit me with a bottle.

  “What are DV forms?” Mum was asking, suddenly all sweetness and light as if we were having some sort of discussion over afternoon tea, best china and everything.

  “Domestic Violence forms, Mum. I have been filling them in since I was old enough to write.”

  “Domestic violence?” She said, incredulously. “But you have to be married for that! Don’t be silly, Jose!” She began to laugh, clearly indicating just how stupid she thought I was.

  “I’ll be inside, Betty.” I said, unable to keep it together a moment longer.

  As Betty forcibly folded my mum neatly into the back of the Police van, I scooted into the house. No sooner had I got in through the door than I was sobbing.

  I was exhausted and sorely wishing that I had taken Rich Richard up on his offer of a place to stay for the night, or that I had never stormed out of Liam’s place. I needed Liam right then, and there was no way I could call him.

  I’d pushed Rich Richard away and put Liam in his place and, as a result, had successfully isolated myself. Taking my multi-purpose woollen mitten out of my pocket once more, I dragged it across my face in an attempt to stem the tide running down my soggy red chops. I hoped Betty wouldn’t be back for a good few minutes.

  “Hey, Josie!” The voice came from behind me and I almost screamed. I had thought I was alone in the house.

  “Dale! For God’s sake! I thought you were off-duty! And why the hell are you creeping up on me again?” I was nearly, but not quite, shouting.

  “I’m on nights. I started at ten. This is my first shout.” He said, apologetically. “I’ll make sure I let you know my work schedule next time I see you.” He was clearly trying to cheer me up, but then fully took in my appearance. “Oh God, sorry! What’s happened?”

  “Mum just tried to hit me with her vodka bottle outside.” I sniffed. “Betty has locked her up for affray.”

  “Affray? Well, it is an affray, but I’ll dial it down to Breach of the Peace, if you would prefer it. Anything you want. But it really is an affray. Just tell me what you want.”

  “Affray it is.” I said, quietly defiant. For an odd moment, I thought of Amelia Ledbetter. “If Betty hadn’t stopped her, she would have hit me with the bottle. Right on the head, actually.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Josie.” Dale was with me in one big stride, and he scooped me into his arms.

  For the second t
ime in two days, I balled all down the front of his immaculate body armour.

  “Look, Jose. This time it will end up in court.” It was a statement of fact.

  I’d heard all sorts in the past from other officers hoping and praying I’d just accept the whole Breach of the Peace thing without making their work-load any bigger. I’m afraid it’ll end up in court, love. And you’ll have to give evidence, and they won’t go easy on you….but with a Breach of the Peace… But that wasn’t what I was hearing from Dale, and I knew it. “And I’ll be right there with you, ok? You’re doing the right thing. She’s gone way too far this time, and if you let it go, it’ll become her new big thing; her new M.O.”

  “I know, Dale.” I murmured into the heavy zip of his body armour. “And I will go through with it.” I was so tired that I was actually leaning on him.

  Seriously, if PC Dale Webb had stepped back, I’d have fallen face down onto the balding carpet, without even bending in the middle or putting my hands out to break my fall.

  “Good for you, Josie. We’ll need the statement tonight. Are you up to it?”

  “Yeah, just about.” I said, straightening myself up. “And give me one of the DV forms, I’ll start filling it in while you sort your paperwork out.”

  “Oh, Josie. You know way too much about all this.” Dale said sadly, putting his arms around me again.

  I hugged him back this time. He was such a nice bloke.

  “Ok, let’s get started. I’m just knackered.” I smiled up into his handsome and familiar face.

  I was so glad that it was him and Betty there, and not some other Grantstone bobby with a superior attitude and a penchant for dealing with working class domestic violence by way of a simple Breach of the Peace, as if the victims didn’t bloody matter.

  “I wish Betty was my mum.” I said, as if from nowhere. “She was ace.”

  “I wish Betty was my mum too.” Dale laughed, and I was glad he didn’t mock me for my silliness. “Even if she does scare me a little bit.”

  The whole business of statement taking and form filling was over surprisingly quickly. Betty, despite being right there at the scene, asked me to tell her it all in my own words, and wrote a thorough statement which was entirely faithful to what I had told her. And she did it in record time. Betty really was amazing.

  As they left, Dale assured me that, should my mum get bail, she would be bailed to a different address with conditions not to approach me, which meant not to approach the house either. That was just fine by me.

  When I finally fell into bed, I could think no more. My mum, Hannah, Liam, Rich Richard, Fliss and Amelia, the diary…. It would all have to wait until I’d slept off the preceding twenty-four hours. And as for the intruder? Let him come in, if he thought he was hard enough!

  Chapter Eleven

  After sleeping like a corpse for several hours, I woke up at around seven the following morning. It was still dark and it took longer than normal for me to figure out if it was a school day, so to speak.

  Remembering that it was Friday and that I had promised myself a nice lay in, I had that lovely I’m going back to sleep feeling commonly associated with Saturdays. That was until my brain began to let the rest of my memories filter through.

  I have to be honest that the serious upset I’d felt the night before seemed to have diminished with sleep. The idea that my mum would have bail conditions not to return to the house gave me a curious lightness of being.

  I’m not fickle in my emotions, they’ve just been stretched to breaking point over the years and the whole thing is much too complicated to try to explain.

  Then, of course, I thought about Liam. That he had totally deserved my wrath, well, mini-wrath, was without question. However, that did not stop me missing him.

  So, feeling rested enough that I knew I didn’t really need to return to the dark world under the duvet, I took my smart phone out from inside my pillowcase. I know my mum was detained in the Grantstone Custody suite at the time, but old habits die hard.

  Anyway, I was missing my good buddy and I was going to have to do something about that. I checked my text messages and was totally dismayed to see I had none. I had been kind of hoping to find some sheepish missive from Liam, and felt like I’d swallowed a rock when it didn’t appear.

  Sighing, I opened my emails. Lo and behold, at the top of the list, Liam Attwood! Phew!

  “Alright Dude.

  I know you told me to go to hell, but I thought I’d do that Facebook research you asked me to do before I pack my things and leave. (What does one wear to Satan’s fiery abode?) Anyway, it’s thorough but boring. Two lists. Just the sort of thing that appeals to a totally unimaginative left-brainer like you. Most of the people in the list of Hannah’s “friends” that I know, are known to you also, so no surprises there. The rest of them are a mystery to me. All female, and all a bit fancy looking. High fashion and way too many of those wide-eyed and pouting selfie profile pictures. I seriously don’t know any of them, and I don’t think Hannah did particularly either, because there’s never anything on her wall from any of them. I’ve even gone back through my own wall and can only see things from Rich, Fliss and Amelia which Hannah has liked and shared and what-not. Anyway, here’s the two lists for you to do your detecting with. That is, if you’re still detecting and not throwing the towel in and leaving me to my fate.

  Ring me later, like about lunchtime. This has taken me until four in the morning and I need my beauty sleep.

  I’m sorry, Dude, by the way. I was a git and I know I was. Please say you’ll still be my Dude because I love ya… and you know you love me too. How could you not? If all else fails, remember the colouring book.

  See you later (hopefully)

  Liam x”

  There followed two lists; one really short, and one really long. How sad that the longest list of so-called friends were really just vague acquaintances. Still, there was no time for that sort of wondering; I had work to do. So, I shot off downstairs to make myself a cup of tea and a bowl of Euro-Saver honey clusters. Let me tell you, if there’s any real honey in them, then I’m a bumble bee.

  With my clusters eaten and the beginnings of a sugar rush starting up, I sat up in bed with my tea on the cabinet, my phone in my hand, and my notebook and pen at the ready.

  Just as I was about to open my emails again and scribble down Liam’s list of un-knowns, my phone bleeped. I had a text message. At just half past seven in the morning, it surely wasn’t Liam. No, indeed, it was Dale.

  “Sorry for early text. I’m just off duty and going to bed. Just wanted to check you are ok. If you need anything, or to talk about your mum, just ring me. I don’t mind if you wake me up. Dale.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Now there was an officer who could teach most of Grantstone Constabulary a thing or two about community policing!

  “Thanks old bean. I’m doing much better now I’ve slept. Still determined to go ahead with the affray thing. I should be ok, so I’ll try not to rocket you awake with a call! Thanks again, Dale. You and Betty were ace!”

  Wow. I’d crawled into bed the night before feeling isolated and totally crestfallen. By half seven in the morning, I’d got my best friend back and had a pastoral care message from Grantstone’s finest. That’ll do for me.

  I hastily copied the list of unknowns into my notebook whilst my tea was cooling. There were forty-seven of them. It could have been a lot worse. Some people have, like, thousands of Facebook friends. I silently thanked Hannah for her discernment, even if she didn’t really know too many of the forty-seven.

  I noted down each name and left a good chunk of writing space to note down whatever I found of interest in each of their profiles. I then opened Facebook on my phone and clicked onto Hannah’s profile.

  Fortunately, she was one of the many who didn’t bother with any sort of security measures, and I had instant access to her list of friends.

  By the time I’d reached number seven in the list, I was alre
ady bored. They seemed, so far, to be an assortment of girls Hannah had been at school with, most of whom seemed to have plumped for universities elsewhere. Either they had never really been close in the first place, or the distance and new way of life they had now had made them all rather careless about old friends.

  Regardless, I had found nothing which made me spill my tea all over the duvet. In truth, I don’t really know what I had been expecting. This was like grunt work. I was doing it for the sake of doing it, without any kind of aim or intuitive reasoning. Still, that was probably what a lot of police work was all about.

  But I wasn’t a police officer, I was an unpaid and unofficial private detective! I could veer away from the methodical if I wanted, surely.

  If I was honest, the very idea of that went totally against the Josie Cloverfield grain; but Lordy I was bored.

  Flipping back through my notebook, I scanned the brief notes that I’d made from Hannah’s diary. As I sat up in bed, I sorely wished I had kept the heavy photocopy with me; it would probably have been much more productive from an investigatory viewpoint.

  I looked at the Emjay stuff for a while; somehow it seemed like old news. But was it?

  Was Matty Jameson as clueless about Hannah’s disappearance as he claimed to be? I scanned through Hannah’s friend list, just in case Liam had missed one.

  Of course, he hadn’t, and of course Matty Jameson wouldn’t be there on her list of friends for all the world to see.

  As I continued to wonder about the woolly-haired lecturer, my eye was drawn to the e-mail address I had written down. Trixie1234@hotmail.com. I read through Liam’s list of unknowns, finally trusting that he had made a thorough job of it all. I knew there were no Trixies in there. I’d have made the connection immediately.