The Girlfriend: A Josie Cloverfield Detective Novel

by Jack Carteret

  Again, I looked all around me. There was nobody about; this might be my one and only chance. Taking a deep breath, I ducked a little and scooted up to the gap. With a final look over my shoulder, I threw myself into the dense bush.

  I did, as it turned out, have the right spot. There was that kind of loopy wire fencing behind the foliage. It was the kind that the Council puts up everywhere. Anyway, the bushes had grown tall, covering most of it, and the leaves and shoots were quite well intertwined with the wire.

  The gap in the wire fencing had been cut, no doubt about it. The edges were sharp and, as I darted through, I caught on the sleeve of my coat. The duffle of ages suffered some minor cosmetic damage as a result, but nothing that I couldn’t sort with a bit of rough needlework.

  Once I was in, I stood as still as a statue as I looked about me. I was in an area of ugly wasteland, that was for sure. It was thoroughly screened off from the rather nice Weatherby Road, so well done to Grantstone Council for that shrewd move.

  There were two old wrecks of buildings, one of which seemed to be barely holding its own. The closest one to me had very little by way of a roof, and most of the tiles were scattered far and wide throughout the overgrown wasteland.

  The second building was one of those rather utilitarian square-looking affairs with a flat slab roof. I realised that I had seen the flat roof from the bus before now, but had never really paid it any heed. Why would I?

  Beyond the buildings was a little more wasteland, fenced in by a thick swathe of trees. I tried to get my bearings, and wondered what was on the other side of those trees, but I really couldn’t place it.

  I was tempted to get out my smart phone and check mapping, but I realised immediately that I was procrastinating. I just didn’t want to take another step.

  Not a thing had moved since I had been staring about me, not even me, so I felt reasonably certain that I was on my own. After all, who else would be wandering around in what looked like a bomb-site on a Friday morning?

  I took my first tentative steps, watching very carefully where it was I placed my feet. This was the sort of place where unidentified sharp rusty objects protruded from the earth with no good reason, ready and waiting to pierce the foot of a plimsoll wearing interloper.

  I reached the first building and looked up at it doubtfully. It really did seem to me to be too dangerous to enter.

  What was left of the rafters were dangling precariously and I didn’t much fancy being on the wrong end of one of them if it broke free. I kind of thought that Dirty Harry and Trixie Sunday might well have come to the same conclusion.

  I therefore decided to have a poke around in building number two first. If I found nothing of note, I’d risk my limbs in the first building; or, at least, I might.

  I wobbled my way through the hard, dry grass and bits of tile and rubble to the next building. As I stood at the door of it, I could see that it was certainly not fully closed. My mouth went a bit dry.

  After all, if I had made my way through the gap with ease, no doubt countless others had gone before me, and I was not keen to breath in, or step on, whatever they had left behind. But there was something else gnawing at my senses too. Had Hannah really been here?

  I noted somewhat inconsequentially that a squinty plaque on the wall next to the door indicated that this building once belonged, or even still belonged to, the water company. For a brief moment, I hoped they wouldn’t mind my intrusion.

  I pushed the door cautiously, and it swung inwards. At that moment I would have given anything for it to be locked; I could have gone home convincing myself that I’d done everything I could, right?

  Feeling myself begin to shake a little bit, I had to forcibly put one foot in front of the other and keep walking. The whole place had that tower-block lift smell; you know the one, the caught-short-after-a-few-pints eyewatering stench. I winced a little, but knew I couldn’t let a little thing like a vile pong hold me back.

  As I looked around, I could see that the building must once have been used as an office base of some kind; maybe for the water company workers.

  I took the first opening on the right. I say opening, because the door was totally off its hinges and laying in the corridor outside. I had to walked over the door to make my entrance.

  Apart from yellowing papers and other such similar debris scattered all over the floor, there was nothing else to see. I didn’t hang about; I knew I had to keep moving before my nerve went altogether.

  I went through room after room. Some had old desks and chairs in, all had the carpet of old papers everywhere. None had anything of note, at least, as far as an untrained and rather bumbling private detective could see.

  I made my way to the stairs. They were of the pre-cast concrete variety, so I could not back out of it all, claiming the stairs might give way at any moment.

  I set off really slowly, almost creeping up the stairs one by one. My heart was thundering and, as I reached the final few steps, I could smell something vaguely unpleasant, and very different from the smell downstairs.

  It wasn’t terribly strong, it has to be said, but it was enough to make me cover my nose and mouth with one of my woollen mittens. It was a weird kind of a smell; like nothing I’d ever smelled before, and it gave me an appalling sense of dread. I had never been frightened by a smell before, and had no idea that something like that was even possible. Breathing hard, I reached the top of the stairs. The odour was growing stronger, although it was still not strong. Perhaps if it had been the middle of summer, instead of January, then things might have been a little different.

  I stood on the landing at the top of the stairs for several minutes. There were four doors to choose from, all of them slightly ajar. My heart was pounding harder still, and I almost thought I could hear it in the deathly silence.

  And it was silent; I couldn’t even hear a bird signing anywhere, despite the fact that one or two of the windows were broken.

  Knowing that I couldn’t just stand there all day, I wondered how the hell I could coax my trembling frame to take a look in the rooms. I really was frightened, and I don’t mind admitting it.

  I knew that, whatever that smell was, it could not be good. It was a decaying sort of a smell; maybe a dead animal of some kind, or even worse.

  As I set off bravely for door number one, and entered at speed as a means of making myself do it, I realised that it was, in fact, worse. There, laying in the centre of the room was Hannah Davenport, and she was very definitely dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It’s weird, but I didn’t do any of the things you might imagine happen when a person finds a dead body in a deserted building. I didn’t throw my hands up to either side of my face and scream right into the camera for an hour and a half.

  I didn’t scream briefly, and then run from the room, tripping and falling as I went. I didn’t collapse to the floor in a dead faint.

  I just stood there staring. I was kind of staring in wonder for what must have been a minute or more.

  Hannah looked like a wax-work figure from Madame Tussauds. Her eyes were open and staring up at the ceiling. The strangest thing was that she didn’t look to be uncomfortable. I know that seems like a dumb thing to say, but she looked more like she was resting, you know?

  She was just laying, quite neatly, on the floor. She didn’t look like she’d been flung there, or even landed there after a struggle of some kind. It was almost as if she had just laid down, and that was that.

  It oddly reminded me of the portrait Matty Jameson had painted of her; it was as if she was there, but had forgotten something. In the painting, she had forgotten that she was not dressed. In that abandoned building, it was almost as if she had forgotten she was alive. She had forgotten to keep breathing.

  I was still standing very much in the doorway. I knew what I had to do next; call the Police. I was so shocked that I couldn’t even think of a self-preservation story to furnish them with when they arrived. Unfortunately, the truth would
have to do.

  Still, before ringing them, I thought I should take a closer look at things, in case there was anything of note that I needed to know later on; something that might turn out to be useful.

  I stepped towards Hannah, marvelling at the fact I was still able to stand, let alone walk. I walked carefully over to her, watching my step in case I was treading on evidence.

  I decided against walking around her, but chose instead to get close enough to be able to see all around without having to move.

  Hannah seemed to be fully dressed, and her clothing did not look in any way disarranged. I realised that truly might not mean she had not been molested in any way, I just hoped that was the case. She looked unharmed, barring the dark bruising around her neck. Had she been strangled?

  Her hair was as glossy as ever and, apart from her pallor, bruising, and blank expression, she was still very like the girl in the giant photograph on the tripod in the middle of the Grantstone University Quad.

  But as I got closer, as I studied the sightless eyes, I could see that Hannah’s expression, her very demeanour in death, was very much like that of her naked oil portrait. That unknown sadness was there, even if life was not.

  Hannah had died with as much sadness in her as when she had sat for the portrait. It struck me as a pain that was beyond the reach of whatever physical and mental anguish was visited upon her in her last moments. It was a pain that remained; unchanged by any other which had been heaped upon it afterwards.

  Something about her eyes made me think of betrayal. Betrayal? I don’t know why, but the feeling was strong.

  Everything seemed to be sinking in all at once. Hannah was dead. Hannah, not yet twenty years old, had been stopped in her tracks. Her life would not go beyond this point. Its crowning conclusion had not been a successful university career, a job in the arts, a family, or any one of a million routes a person’s life can take.

  Instead it had been an untimely death at the hands of another in a stinking old water company office building, two hundred yards back from a busy bus-stop. Nobody should end this way, no matter who they were.

  No matter how they had treated me and my friend. No matter how our lives and views differed. Hannah was just a young woman; a young woman like me. I felt sick and suddenly devastated, not only by the horror of it all, but the sadness; the tragedy.

  After so many minutes alone in a room with a dead girl, the tears, when they came, were strangely unexpected. I don’t know if it was simply the shock wearing off, or if it was the very tangible realisation that no life should be extinguished by another.

  Maybe it was the guilt of knowing that I had never truly liked the girl laying lifeless at my feet. And yet, I could not change that. It was a fact, and one that was already in existence.

  I couldn’t go back now and change it. And maybe, just maybe, I didn’t need to. I could feel sadness, anger and horror at Hannah’s murder without having to mentally re-write history. I didn’t have to like Hannah to be devastated by her death.

  The tears began to flow faster, and my breathing was uncontrollably ragged. I was sobbing; actually sobbing in a way that I hadn’t done since I was a child. I needed to get out of that room but, at the same time, I didn’t want to leave Hannah there all alone.

  After some minutes, I realised that my sentimentality was futile; Hannah was dead. She was beyond caring whether or not I stayed with her.

  Once outside the room, I took my phone out of my pocket and dialled with trembling fingers. Not 999; it was too late for that. I called Grantstone Constabulary switchboard and asked to speak to DI Malcolm Thorn.

  By the time Thorn arrived, I was starting to feel really, seriously unwell. Initially, he stormed past me and straight up the stairs of the building. It was as if he needed to see Hannah for himself before he would ever dream of taking my word for it that she was dead.

  He was gone for some time, leaving me to sit on a grass-covered mound of earth outside and silently watch the uniformed constables cordoning off the area, the gap in the fence included. Briefly, I wondered how I was ever going to get out.

  I had been somewhat relieved to see the first wave of uniformed officers arrive. Clearly DI Thorn had mobilised them before he, himself, was able to attend. An officer, who had been instructed to get a first account from me, was staring at me, pen and small pocket notebook poised, as he had waited for me to answer his questions.

  I was very shaken, and the poor guy had to ask everything at least four times before it would sink in.

  I knew Dale and Betty were on nights, so there was no hope they would turn up. They would both be sleeping peacefully.

  “Do you want a cuppa or something, love?” The officer asked.

  He was a man of about fifty with grey hair and kindly blue eyes. I looked around somewhat confused; where on earth was he going to magic a cup of tea from?

  “No, but thank you for asking.” I said, letting him off the hook with gratitude, but wondering what he would have done if I’d said yes.

  “Just sit tight, love. The DI will be with you soon.” He smiled, as if the idea that the DI was coming might actually bring me comfort.

  Still, the kindly officer had no idea of the history between Thorn and me.

  “Thanks.” I smiled genuinely at him.

  It was my default setting when someone was nice to me, even if they didn’t actually make me feel better. Still, as he wandered away, I instantly felt his loss. I felt it acutely actually, in a hanging-on-to-his-leg kind of a way.

  With the kindly officer gone, my next human contact would undoubtedly be the awful DI Thorn.

  “Miss Cloverfield.” I nearly tumbled off my grassy knoll; my nemesis had crept up on me.

  “Detective Inspector.” I said, summoning up every molecule of respectful behaviour I had in me.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do young lady.” He started off almost kindly, probably taking in my pasty chops, but could not help but taper off into the arena of the condescending by the time he got to the whole young lady part.

  “Yes, I suppose I do.” I said, as flatly as I truly felt.

  “But not here. You’ll have to come down to the station.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And I hope you haven’t contacted your friend Liam.” I could see the beginning of the old antagonism, and I had no doubt it would be back up and running on all four cylinders by the time we reached Grantstone nick.

  “No, I haven’t.” I said, truthfully. In fact, in amongst all the shock, I had barely thought of Liam.

  Not in any kind of dismissive way; I was just so disorientated by everything that all I could do was stare at the cops as they went about their business.

  “Well, I can check your phone for the truth of that, can’t I?”

  I stopped myself saying under what legislation can you seize a witness’ phone and interrogate it? Instead I simply looked blankly at him. Let him seize my phone if he liked; it would give me much needed ammunition at a later date.

  “Let’s go, young lady.”

  Ok, you patronising fool.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "So, tell me again, how was it you realised that Hannah Davenport had an extra Facebook address?"

  "Account." I could not help myself; I just kept correcting DI Thorn by some sort of self-destructive instinct.

  "What?" DI Thorn, despite being maybe only somewhere in his fifties, was clearly one of the countless thousands of the terminally confused middle-aged when it came to the basics of email and social media.

  "Hannah had an extra Facebook account, not an address. She had an extra email address. It was the one linked to the Facebook account."

  Thorn rose from his seat in a kind of elderly way, grunting a bit, followed by a long sigh before he wordlessly left the room. I was left with one of the CID Neanderthals of canteen fame, who stared at the desk without saying a word, almost like I wasn’t there at all. It was like he was unplugged from the mains just because his boss h
ad gone out for a wee.

  "Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" Thorn said, riding the wave of a truly massive sigh as he re-entered the room, as if his total lack of understanding was entirely my fault.

  I had to fight a really strong urge to let my head drop down onto the desk; the man was completely exasperating.

  "DI Thorn." I began, and instantly regretted my talking-down-to-a-five-year-old tone of voice. "I found a notebook when I was out the other day. It had no name and address in it, so I put it in my bag to hand in at the police station enquiry desk when I was next passing."

  "Did you know there's an offence of Theft by Finding?" Thorn said, as if his lack of IT know-how had spurred him on to find some other form of victory over me.

  "Yes, of course." I said, totally lying through my teeth but had a fair idea I could wing it, as it were. "But, of course, for that particular offence to be complete, you would have to prove that I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of taking the notebook into the police station. Since it has been only forty-eight hours since I found it, and since it was stolen from me in less than twelve, I think you might struggle to prove that my intention was to keep the thing. Still, you must do what you must, Detective Inspector."

  Why oh why could I not speak to this man without patronising him? What the hell was wrong with me? Talk about keep digging, Josie.

  "So, you found this notebook, did you?" He said, with an accusatory tone.

  "Yes." I said simply, since it was the truth.

  "Where?"

  "On the canal footpath, just at the back of Westmorland Drive. I was out for a walk. I saw it kind of wedged in the hedgerow there."

  "Out for a walk, were you?"

  "Yes."

  "Found it in the hedgerow, did you?"

  "Yes." I really couldn't begin to fathom what exactly DI Thorn hoped to achieve with his rather parrot-like style of questioning.