The Girlfriend: A Josie Cloverfield Detective Novel

by Jack Carteret

  “Look, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” I said hurriedly when the Hannah look-a-like seemed set to turn her back on me once more.

  “What about?” She said, scowling.

  “About a girl who used to work here.”

  “Hannah.” She said, flatly.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you press, then?” She said, her eyes lighting up a little. “’Cos if you were, you’d have to pay me for information.”

  “No, I’m not press.”

  “Copper? You lot have already been. My dad told me as much.”

  “I’m not a copper.” I said, keeping my voice low and wishing that she would do the same. It struck me that, rather like the Dalton Arms, this was not a place where you would want to be mistaken for a police officer.

  “Who the hell are you then?” She seemed to sneer and the effect struck me as far more menacing than anything Hannah could have slung at me in the canteen.

  I must admit, I felt a little bit scared of this girl.

  “My name’s Josie. I was at uni with Hannah.”

  “Oh, la-di-bloody-da!” She said, starting to laugh, but not in a humorous way.

  “No, actually, not la-di-da. Well, not me, anyway.” I said, instantly regretting the little snap in my temper.

  I was so used to being sneered at for being a wee bit on the poor side that I bridled inexplicably at being accused of being quite the opposite.

  I guess it doesn’t actually matter where you are on the socio-economic scale; if someone is being rude to you, they’re just being rude to you. Not on, in either direction, apparently.

  The result of my snippy retort was that the girl raised her eyebrows a little defensively. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I decided to capitalise on it.

  “And Hannah Davenport didn’t mind pointing it out one little bit.”

  “Oh.” She said, seeming to thaw a little as she looked over the counter and gave me a top to toe. I shivered; it felt so horribly familiar. “I see it now. You’re a bit, well…. charity shop, aren’t you?” She smirked and I felt insulted once more.

  A girl in a fluffy gillet was taking the mickey out me. I wonder what she would have made of the wolves-on-the-prairie fleece that was all set for de-bobbling.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” I said, with a scowl of my own. “And I don’t give a damn what you think of my clothes, any more than I did when Hannah used to give me the once over.”

  “Yeah, well, she could be bitchy.” She said, with a shrug. And you can’t? “So, why are you asking questions then?”

  “Because for one thing, I found Hannah’s body, and for another, my friend is currently in the nick being questioned about it.”

  “Oh, the boyfriend, right?” She said, eyebrows raising with keen interest.

  “Yes, the boyfriend. And my best friend. My innocent best friend.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, it’s normally the boyfriend in these cases, isn’t it?” I didn’t like what she was saying, but at least she was talking to me.

  “Well, not in this case. He had only been seeing her for a few weeks, and neither one of them was really that interested in the other. He’s just been dragged in because we come from the Moss Park Estate and the copper in charge is too damn lazy to investigate properly. The DI in charge couldn’t even find her. I did!” I felt a little bit puffed up at that point, before I remembered that there was a very real dead girl at the root of all this.

  “So, how did you find her?” She said, leaning over the bar, totally hooked.

  “Well, she had a spare Facebook account in her stripper name from here.”

  “Trixie Sunday?” The girl said, her eyes wide with inappropriate excitement.

  “Yes, anyway, I hacked into it and found a string of messages from someone who wanted to meet her in a derelict building on the day she disappeared.”

  “So, you went and found her?”

  “Yes.” I could feel it getting away from me; I felt like I was the one being interviewed by an amateur private investigator, not the other way around.

  “Cool.” She said, her admiration grudging but obvious.

  What did puzzle me was her seeming lack of feeling for Hannah. Surely, they were related.

  “Are you related to Hannah. I mean, you really look like her.”

  “Cousins.”

  “What’s your name?” I said, with a smile. Seeing her scowl suspiciously, I added, “You want a drink?”

  “Oh, go on then. I’ll have a lager.” By which she meant a full pint.

  She started to pour me out another vile gin and tonic before I had a chance to protest. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t choke the awful stuff down, I just didn’t want to pay for it.

  “Seven forty.” She said, and thrust her hand out again. I wanted to dissolve with grief.

  “Here you go.” I said, smiling in what was probably a weirdly frozen way as I handed over yet more cash.

  “Kellie.” She said, without explanation.

  “Huh?”

  “Me! I’m Kellie. But most people just call me Kel.” She smiled and I suddenly warmed to her.

  “I’m Josie.” I said, still smiling.

  “You already said.”

  “Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I.” I chuckled as best I could. “So, did you and Hannah not get on too well?”

  “I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Noooo.” I said, starting to laugh. “That’s not what I meant.” Unbelievably, she started to laugh too.

  “It’s funny, you sort of feel guilty in a weird way when something like this happens.” She shrugged. “No, we didn’t get on. She was proper snooty, and she lorded it over me a bit.”

  “So, did she work here for long?”

  “No, just a few weeks, eight maybe. She wanted to get back at her snobby old hypocrite of a mother.”

  “Why?” This was warming up; I was getting the good stuff.

  “Oi! Kel!” Came a great booming voice from God alone knew where.

  I looked all about me for the source and, to be honest, I was glad when it didn’t materialise.

  I looked back to Kellie and was shocked to see just how scared she looked. In that moment, I felt awful for her.

  “Who was that?” I whispered.

  “My dad.” She said, her eyes wide and wild looking.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Not if he catches me nattering. Look, the pub’s filling up now. You’d better go.”

  “Kel, I need your help. There might be something that the police didn’t ask your dad. They’ve been really sloppy. Please.” I could not have been more beseeching if I’d thrown myself to the beer-soaked carpet and clung to her legs.

  “Oh, there was loads he didn’t tell them. Dad’s like that; he hates the police. They’re always locking him up. They don’t even know that my dad was married to Hannah’s aunt.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. They didn’t ask so he didn’t tell. That’s what he’s like.”

  “Kel!” The voice came again. I was already getting up off my seat.

  “Look, I’ve got to go. Just get out of here.” Kellie looked truly troubled.

  “Meet me tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “Please. Look, when can you get out? Meet me at Mama Mia’s pizza place.”

  “You’ll buy me pizza?” Her face lit up a little as my heart sank utterly.

  “Yeah, of course. What time?”

  “Three o’clock. That’s when the stripper’s on. Nobody buys beer then, they’re too busy goggling. I get two hours off.”

  “Kel! Get down here now!” The voice seemed to be growing louder.

  The only people in the pub who seemed perturbed by it were Kellie and me. The rest of them couldn’t have cared less. I wanted out as soon as possible, despite the fact I felt terrible about leaving the poor woman there.

  “I’ll see you there.” I said, and smiled before dashing off for the door.

&
nbsp; Chapter Nineteen

  By the time I’d made it back home, I was feeling pretty low about Kellie. She looked so much like Hannah, yet their lives could not have been more different.

  Hannah had been brought up with everything from gymkhanas and Labradors to jewellery and the best clothes. Kellie had a fluffy gillet, a dad with a mangy old strip-pub, and something of a kicked-around-the-world-a-bit attitude.

  Still, I suppose Kellie was the one who got to live, in the end.

  It was way beyond teatime when I shrugged my duffle coat off and listened intently for any signs of my mum in the house, breaking her bail conditions. Silence; a silence I was most grateful for.

  I was hungry and keen to eat something substantial enough to soak up the awful gin and tonic. I didn’t actually feel like it had touched me, but it had given me something of a headache and an empty feeling in my belly. I opened all the usual cupboards and, when I saw the customary array of dried noodles and crisps, I knew I needed something with a little more heft to it; the chippy was calling me.

  To be honest, I normally eat a little better than I was doing. Not expensively, but pretty well. But, somehow, everything in my world seemed to have been swallowed up by everything in Hannah’s. Had it really only been a week?

  Well, less than that, really. Hannah had last been seen on Monday afternoon, and it was only Saturday. It felt like forever. This cloud of uncertainty which had turned into sadness and horror, had clung to us all, somehow permeating everything that was once normal.

  I vaguely wondered if I was slipping behind in my classes. In all honesty, I hadn’t missed much, and I knew I’d catch up easily anyway. Still, that wasn’t really the point. Sooner or later the world would have to return to normal.

  As I hung on the cupboard door and continued to stare pointlessly in at the Euro-Saver noodles, a kind of melancholy crept over me. So, that’s what happened in the end; a person died and the world kept turning.

  All that promise of a life snuffed out, then that was that. Everyone else just kept going, and all that promise turned to dust in the very act of forgetting. You see, I’d seen news reports before.

  Young people, women and girls mostly, it has to be said, murdered. Everyone is full of outrage and pain and promises never to forget; lessons must be learned. And then, they’re gone.

  That young life which so affected you with its sudden cessation, becomes a distant memory or, worse, forgotten entirely. Everyone else goes on with their lives, whilst they are stuck there; frozen in time. Left behind at the point their lives were taken away from them. No promise come to fruition, or achievement; only ever remembered for being a murder victim.

  I started to feel a bit nauseous and honestly didn’t know if it was fatigue, delayed shock, or the gin and tonic on an empty stomach.

  With a sigh, I shut the cupboard door much harder than it was really built for, and headed off upstairs for a shower. I’d liven myself up a bit, then head off into the early evening darkness to the chippy.

  As I stood in the shower, I wondered what, if anything, I could do that night. I knew I had Kellie the next day, but was there something else I could be looking at? Was there a vital bit of investigating that I could be doing in the meantime?

  Maybe I’d got as far as I was going to get when I’d found Hannah. But then, I wasn’t looking for Hannah anymore; I was looking for her killer. I shuddered a little at the thought.

  I mean, I’m bright enough, and the thought had been there ever since I had decided to go on with my own investigations after I’d found Hannah’s body, it’s just that I hadn’t exactly acknowledged it.

  In trying to clear Liam’s name, all I could really do was find the person who had actually killed Hannah.

  As I wrapped myself in the least thread-bare of our bath towels, I hoped that I would be able to find the killer in a passive way; you know, just find irrefutable proof and send it DI Thorn’s way.

  Above all things, I did not want to come face to face with the person who had choked the life out of a young woman. I so very much did not have the stones for that kind of caper.

  So, after firstly depressing myself, then frightening myself, I switched on every light between the bathroom and my bedroom.

  It was like Christmas on the first floor, without any of the spirit. I almost wished my mum was there. Almost. I certainly wished that Liam was there. As I wandered about my bedroom, pulling clean clothes from the wardrobe, I felt a bit teary again.

  I wondered what Liam was going through and just when he would be released. Hadn’t Betty said they could only hold him twenty-four hours without charge? With a possibility for up to ninety-six if they had something a bit more than groundless suspicion.

  As much as Betty had made me feel better with her explanation, I started to think about the sort of copper DI Thorn really was. I doubted he’d lose too much sleep if he over-egged something to a judge just to get his ninety-six hours.

  If Liam was going to be held for ninety-six hours, I wouldn’t set eyes on him again until Tuesday afternoon. That was if they didn’t charge him with something. Something?

  If they were going to charge Liam with anything, it could only be Hannah’s murder. What else was there to charge him with? I felt a horrible swooping sensation in the pit of my stomach.

  I knew I was making things worse; dwelling on the worst-case scenario. I wouldn’t be doing that if I had company; if Liam was here. I started to cry, all the while trying not to. I hadn’t cried when Betty was here.

  I hadn’t felt so very negative in Rich Richard’s company, despite a tear or two. I supposed that was because their very presence staved off murky thoughts such as the ones I was running in my head.

  As I pulled my plimsoles on, I heard a noise from downstairs.

  “Oh, not again!” I breathed almost silently. I listened hard. Someone was trying the back door handle in the kitchen. Surely not the intruder again? What could he want this time?

  He already had Hannah’s diary, and didn’t know about the photocopy….. at least, I didn’t think he did. My heart began to race as the noise from the kitchen door grew louder. Whomever was trying to get in was really intent about it. Well, this time, I didn’t have to worry about calling the police.

  I had nothing to lose. I got to my feet and searched silently through my rucksack. I was shaking like a leaf and couldn’t find the phone anywhere. In sheer panic, I tipped the contents of my rucksack out on the bed.

  My phone wasn’t there. I continued to stare at the collection of objects, almost as if my panic was blinding me somehow to the phone’s very real presence. Then, with a truly sinking feeling, I remembered that I had been checking my emails on the bus ride home and, when the bus had pulled up on the edge of Moss Park, I’d slid the phone into the pocket of my duffle coat.

  The very same duffle coat that was hanging up downstairs on the pegs by the front door.

  In a heartbeat, I was up on my feet and running downstairs. I needed to get through the kitchen, through the living room, and out of the front door before the intruder finally burst into the kitchen.

  If I didn’t get out right then, I’d very likely be trapped inside the house with him or her.

  With just one plimsole on, I sprinted for the stairs.

  I ran down them so fast I almost lost my footing. Breathing harder than an athlete at the end of a 10-K, I wheezed my way through the brightly lit kitchen.

  As I passed the door, it flew open and a figure fell in; a great big figure who took me down to the floor as he fell. I hit the ground hard and tried to scream, but every ounce of air had been forced out of my lungs with the impact.

  I tried to draw in a breath, knowing that a big scream was very much going to be needed here, but just couldn’t. For some reason, I just couldn’t get the air in. I felt my head start to pound painfully, and had the awful feeling I was about to die.

  Not at the hands of the intruder who had me down on the floor, but because my own body was going to let me d
own when I needed it most.

  Without the air I needed, I could feel myself start to get weak. Maybe it was just the panic, who knows? I couldn’t even struggle against the intruder although, in truth, he didn’t seem to have a hold on me anymore.

  The person who had knocked me to the floor was grumbling and trying to get up. Even though the light was on in the kitchen, the intruder was behind me and I just did not have the strength left to even turn around.

  The room was starting to darken, and I thought I must be about to pass out. In the very moment when I stopped trying to breath, I was taken seriously aback by a great rush of air which shrieked in through my throat, making the most awful noise.

  It was a scream, but on the in-breath, rather than an out-breath. It was the worst and most eerie sound I’d ever heard in my life, and I could hardly believe it was me making it. Seriously, the makers of horror movies need to try this one out as a sound effect; it is truly horrible.

  Anyway, after that first breath went in, there came a series of shorter ones, and I was panting like a pooch. As a phenomenon, being winded is not something I hope to ever repeat and, to each and every one of you who has experienced it and survived, I salute you my friend.

  The room was bright again and I regained a fully functioning, if somewhat shocked, body. I scrambled to my feet, ready to fight like a lion for my survival.

  My head was still pounding and I felt suddenly furious. I was not going to be strangled in my own kitchen, and that was that! I spun around, fist pulled way back, hay-maker style.

  “Oi!” Came a great shout, and slowly, very slowly, I took in Liam’s face.

  “What the hell….?” I said, finally getting the shakes and gasping again.

  “Just turn the lights out Josie.” Liam said, racing for the switch and plunging the kitchen into darkness. “And the ones upstairs.” I couldn’t speak, and instead just made curious guttural noises.

  “Are you alright, Josie?” Liam said, as if the whole bundling me to the deck thing hadn’t happened. Without waiting for an answer, he shot off upstairs and, suddenly, it was no longer Christmas on the first floor.