Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin

by Alice Clark-Platts

  Shorty noticed us then. He said something to Nick, who looked over, a red flush seeping across his skin like a rash. Shorty laughed and brought his wine glass to his lips, mimicking a cheers to Emily.

  ‘Come on,’ Emily whispered urgently, moonwalking backwards towards the door we had come in. I couldn’t seem to move though. I stood my ground as Nick pushed back his chair. He said something to the table and then meandered through the dining room to where Emily and I stood.

  ‘Hi, Emily,’ Nick said sheepishly.

  She looked at him, her eyes limpid, her mouth slightly open, the effects of the grappa evident by the smudging of her mascara at the edges of her eyes. She swallowed. ‘Hi, Nick. How are you?’

  He smiled and flicked his head back in the direction of his table. ‘Good, thanks. Shorty’s cousin’s in town so we got dragged into taking her and a friend out for dinner.’

  I wanted to laugh. I glanced over at Emily, expecting her to scoff, raise her eyebrows in disbelief, but she was still standing motionless, filled with as much emotion as a jellyfish. Her face was pale with an unhealthy sheen to it. A tiny bubble of spittle rested at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Come on, Emily, let’s get out of here,’ I said to break the silence. I gave Nick a brief nod then took Emily’s arm and moved her around towards the door. As we walked out, she twisted her head round to look back at Nick, but he was already returning to the table. We made our way outside into the air, and the shock of its chill seemed to sting Emily, galvanize her into speaking at last.

  ‘What a stupid idea. I can’t believe we just did that.’

  ‘Did what? What did we do?’

  ‘We looked so stupid. Standing there like a couple of losers. What must they have thought?’

  I faced her, feeling angrier by the minute. ‘What must they have thought? Maybe that they shouldn’t be having dinner with other girls when one of them’s been sleeping with you.’

  Emily narrowed her eyes.

  ‘All that rubbish about his cousin …’ I continued, before trailing off lamely in the spotlight of Emily’s glare.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Emily spat at me before making to walk away.

  ‘Emily!’ I yelled after her. ‘Emily – wait!’ She stalked off, refusing to look back. I carried on after her, pleading with her. I was pathetic. ‘Emily, please. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to look after you. Can’t you see? I just want to be your friend.’

  ‘No, you don’t. That’s rubbish. It’s too much. You’re all over me, all of the time. I can’t breathe! I just want you to leave me alone. Seriously, it’s too much.’

  I saw it spinning away from me, this evening. There it went, rolling down the hill in front of me. All of my plans, my hopes and wishes. My expectations. All dashed to hell. I breathed in deeply. I couldn’t let that happen.

  ‘Okay, okay. You’re right. I like you, all right? I mean, you know that. But that’s okay, isn’t it? I don’t expect anything. I swear. Emily. I really and truly just want to be your friend.’

  Emily was silent, so I took the chance she was at least listening and continued. ‘Let me help you. I can help you. Think about it. You want Nick. I know you do. But you’re going about it wrong. Let me help you. I can. I swear.’

  Emily paused. We were midway over Elvet Bridge by this time. The bass thump of Sixes had started already, wending its way through the frozen night, the din of its thunderous hooves of the drink-sodden apocalypse that would rent a thousand brains before the night was over. Her head was turned towards it, as she thought about what I’d said. I willed her silently, urged her to take me on, not to abandon me to the cold Durham streets alone. She raised her head, her ponytail flicking against the back of her shoulders, presumably whisking away her doubts as her fingers beckoned down by her thighs.

  ‘Come on then,’ she said, resigned. ‘Let’s go to Sixes.’

  We walked up the interminable flights of concrete steps in the club as dry ice from inside drifted out to shake hands with the fog of our freezing breath. Emily walked straight to the bar and, after shouting at the barman, handed me a plastic pint glass filled with a greenish liquid.

  ‘Blastaway,’ I think she said. It was the first drink she had ever bought me. I sipped it cautiously, but it was actually quite nice, it tasted of pineapple. Emily’s eyes were skipping around the small room we were stood in. All the occupants were doused in an ultraviolet light which flashed and popped irregularly. Emily’s eyes lit up as she saw someone she knew. She motioned to the dance floor and moved off, sucked into the crowd of dancers that swarmed in the semi-darkness. As she left me, her shape was silhouetted for a second with smoke-filled blue light behind her, flashes of green lasers caught in her hair. She was a goddess, really, I thought, as she was sucked into the pod.

  I turned back to the bar and leaned against it. The barman, a local guy, gave me a look which meant you’re just as out of place here as me. I ignored him and turned back to the dance floor. I could no longer see Emily. I looked at the door of the club just as Nick and Shorty came in. They didn’t see me, of course, and went round to the other side of the bar, which jutted into the dance floor like the prow of a ship. There they stood, hips stuck out, cocks on parade, the irritating grins they always seemed to wear plastered on their faces. They appeared to have lost the ‘cousins’.

  I was feeling slightly drunk. This pineapple drink was obviously more potent than I had thought. I didn’t know what to do. Emily had disappeared, it seemed, and the pitter-patter of panic was starting its rhythm again. She just would not be pinned down. I threw my hand in the air at the barman and he plonked a pint of lager in front of me. ‘Thought you’d prefer it,’ he said with a raised eyebrow. He was right. I swigged at it, trying to sober myself up with the familiar taste of hops. Now I was pissed off and pissed, it seemed. I edged away from the security of the bar, craning my neck to try and spot Emily in the crowd. The people on the dance floor had bloomed into a sort of flower shape, pulsing in and out, a circle of bodies, holding hands, a shape in the middle of them doing an ironic dance. In the blur of faces, I suddenly saw Emily. She was next to Nick, they were standing close, together.

  I lost it. I pushed my way through the circle until I was the one in the middle. Now the crowd were clapping in time, stomping their feet as I stood there, frozen in the lights. I shook my head, trying to clear it of that pineapple.

  ‘Come on!’ a girl in a tight dress screamed at me. Her face leered in as a guitar chord twanged over and over again. I spun around, trying to find Emily as the circle moved faster around me, a spinning dream machine under the lights. I thought I saw her and moved to grab her, lurching dizzily forwards. I tripped and that would have been it – any last vestige of dignity I had, eradicated by a fall in the middle of the dance floor at Sixes. But she caught me. Emily caught me by the elbow, hauled me back up to standing. To the tanked-up minds of the throng, it could have looked like a sardonic dance move. She pushed me towards the door and out to the top of the steps. The bottom of them loomed up at me vertiginously.

  ‘What was in that drink?’ I managed to slur.

  ‘A double vodka,’ Emily snapped. ‘I thought you needed loosening up.’

  I leaned against the wall as the door swung to a close, muffling somewhat the din within. I shut my eyes, feeling the first clutches of nausea deep in my gut.

  ‘Oh, just leave, will you? You don’t belong here.’

  I opened my eyes and looked at her. She had a hard look on her face, her lips pinched, hands on her hips, a Dickensian madam with an inappropriately short skirt.

  ‘You’re nothing but a tart,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Fuck off.’

  We stared at each other. I knew she cared, though. I could see it in the pulse which throbbed in her temple. She exhaled then as if she were a balloon, wrinkling sadly at the end of a birthday party.

  ‘Oh, it’s hopeless.’

  ‘If you’re hot, he’ll want you.’ I didn’t k
now where that came from. I found myself continuing, ‘If you show him that others want you, he’ll follow. He won’t be able to resist.’

  She looked into my eyes then. My Emily. We didn’t know what we were doing, what we were playing with. We stared at each other with pupils dilated from booze as a couple of rugby players burst out of the club doors, barging past us, smoke and noise trailing after them as they stumbled acrobatically down the stairs.

  ‘Is it your choice?’ I asked her. She knew what I meant. Was it her decision to take the photo, to be in the video? ‘Is it really yours? Or is it Nick’s – or,’ I shook my head, couldn’t get my thoughts organized. ‘Is it everyone here? You know, like …’

  She thrust her hand on my arm to stop me rambling over the din inside. ‘I’m like them,’ she slurred before nodding as if to convince herself. ‘I am. It is my choice. I want to do it.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, despairing, reality dropping like a sober stone into the lake of my sodden stomach. ‘Why in God’s name do you want to do it?’

  Emily’s eyes dipped then, and she swayed on her feet. ‘Because otherwise I’m nothing,’ she murmured. ‘Who am I otherwise?’ she seemed to ask herself. ‘Nobody, that’s who.’

  I saw the tears spark on her lashes as she lifted her head to look at me. I knew, even in my drunken haze, I knew. There was no turning back. Whatever she wanted, I would give it to her.

  35

  Wednesday 24 May, 3.05 p.m.

  Flinging open the entrance doors to the police station, Martin stepped out into the afternoon. Sean Egan stood on the pavement, breathing out cigarette smoke into the road, where a traffic jam was beginning to build.

  ‘Egan?’ Martin exclaimed.

  ‘Martin,’ he replied with a grin. ‘So you got my message?’

  ‘You sent that text just now?’ She frowned. ‘And the one yesterday?’

  ‘I did indeed. Thought we should have another one of our chats.’

  Martin exhaled, cold disappointment sliding out from her pores. She glared at Egan. ‘I’m busy. I don’t have time to feed your sick brain.’

  ‘Come on, Martin. You know I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘You’re not, though, are you? You’re making things up and stirring trouble. You could actually be helping this investigation, trying to get accurate information out to the public.’

  ‘But you don’t have any information. Or do you, Martin? Come on. We’re old friends now, aren’t we?’ Egan said with a glimmer of malice.

  ‘No comment,’ she replied wearily. ‘Have you got anything of use to tell me or are you just here to waste my time?’

  Egan ground his cigarette out on the pavement and folded his arms. ‘Ask yourself where I’ve been getting my information, Martin. It’s not from Mason, that’s for sure.’

  She stared him down like a cat until he gave another grin. ‘One boy, one girl. Think about it,’ he said before walking away from her up the street towards The Sun.

  Martin shook her head, a thought emerging in the back of her brain.

  The little shit.

  Martin sat in her car on the boundary of the sports ground at Maiden Castle. The weather had turned once more, and a May squall was sitting low in the sky, waiting to shed its load. She got out of the car and pulled her jacket round her. Sean Egan’s taunts of a secret source had prompted her to come and seek it out: it was time to speak to Annabel Smith.

  Martin had initially gone to the girl’s house but she had been informed by a seemingly stoned and inarticulate housemate that Annabel had gone for a run.

  Martin drove there in less than ten minutes. The track was deserted apart from a tracksuited figure hauling itself around the running track. Annabel had a hood over her head and something about her was familiar to Martin, although she couldn’t place it. Eventually the girl noticed she was being observed and came to a stop at the finishing line, where Martin stood with her hands under her armpits to try and keep them warm.

  ‘You should have joined me,’ Annabel puffed. ‘Would help with the cold.’

  Martin raised her eyebrows but ignored the sass, looking at Annabel in silence. The girl began chewing at her fingernail, disconcerted. ‘What? What do you want?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Martin.’ She gave an easy smile.

  ‘I know who you are,’ Annabel answered in a flat voice.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about Emily,’ Martin continued. ‘I think you’ve already spoken to my sergeant about your movements on the day of the Regatta?’

  Annabel nodded, still chewing.

  ‘I need some more information. About what was going on with Emily online.’

  Annabel dragged her foot along the asphalt of the track. She pushed the hood back off her face, and the wind lifted her hair, revealing a broad forehead, shining with perspiration. She had plucked her eyebrows badly, Martin observed.

  ‘What stuff online?’ she said lamely.

  ‘Well, let’s see. Shall we take a short walk?’ Without waiting for an answer, Martin began to stroll slowly around the track. After a pause, Annabel fell in with her.

  ‘Do you know who killed Emily?’ Martin asked, light as air.

  Annabel looked at her sharply then gave a loud sigh, something approaching a sob attached to the end of it. She swallowed to control it and shook her hands to warm them up. She was quiet for a while before shaking her head. ‘No. No I don’t.’

  Martin looked over at the girl as they continued walking. ‘What was she like? Emily? You were friends, right?’

  Annabel said nothing, her eyes turned to the clouds. Jones had said she was childish.

  ‘We know she had something going on with Nick Oliver,’ Martin persisted. ‘How about you? Did you fancy Nick too?’

  A puff of air escaped from Annabel’s mouth. ‘Nick’s a friend, that’s all.’

  ‘So you were happy for Emily, that she’d started a relationship with him?’

  A laugh escaped from Annabel before she recovered, putting her hand over her mouth to prevent further fugitive emotions.

  ‘Why the laugh?’ asked Martin. ‘What’s funny about that question?’

  ‘Relationship?’ Annabel said. ‘If that’s what you want to call it, I was fine about it.’ She didn’t sound fine. Her face was a study in petulance. ‘No one’s close to anyone here, and you’re an idiot if you think they are.’ Annabel gave another affected laugh. ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world here, Inspector. And don’t I know it.’

  Martin winced. She sounded like a kid from one of those American television shows they show on Sunday mornings – earnest yet entirely disingenuous. ‘Tell me about it then, Annabel. What’s so awful about this world? Looks pretty good from where I’m standing, I have to say.’

  ‘Really?’ Annabel tossed her head and then stopped abruptly and faced Martin, her arms folded. ‘You think it’s good to have your life documented and spread out and dissected on the internet and iPhones for all the world to see? Never knowing what’s going to show up next. Not being able to trust anyone.’ Her eyes filled with genuine tears. ‘Ever?’

  Martin was silent, taken aback by this outburst. She put her hand on Annabel’s arm. ‘That sounds like the stuff I’ve been reading in the press. Have you been talking to journalists, Annabel?’ she asked the girl gently. Annabel pulled her hood back up defensively, and Martin had a flash of where she’d seen her before. ‘You were watching me, weren’t you?’ she asked. ‘When I went into Emily’s room? You were on the other side of the road.’

  Annabel nodded, and tears began to fall down her cheeks. ‘I saw her. Emily, I mean. I was running that morning. I saw her when the police arrived.’ She stared at Martin in utter distress. Gone was the articulacy of a dispossessed teenager, Martin thought. Here instead was a grieving and confused young girl. Jones was right: she was just a child.

  ‘I didn’t want to talk to him, that Egan guy.’ Annabel cried. ‘But he read what I’d been saying online. Before Emily was … you know. And I thought it wo
uld be fun. To be interviewed by a paper. In a scandal type thing …’

  Martin sighed internally.

  ‘But as soon as I knew that Emily had … had died. I tried to stop him. I texted him that morning and told him not to print it. But he didn’t listen.’

  Martin cleared her throat, waiting a moment for Annabel to compose herself before continuing. ‘This stuff on the internet … Tell me more about it. How often does it go on?’

  ‘All the time,’ Annabel replied in a tired voice, turning to walk again. ‘Every single fucking day somebody will do something.’

  ‘And is there anyone you can talk to about it? Any adult?’

  ‘Stephanie Suleiman, I suppose. She’s the counsellor. Yeah, right.’ Her laugh was filled with disdain. ‘Call her as many times as you like, but she never even picks up the phone.’

  They turned a corner of the track, walking into the rising wind. Martin’s words bumped into themselves as she caught her breath against it. ‘Right. But the photos … Emily seems to have consented to them. Why would she do that?’

  Annabel rubbed her hand over her nose and sniffed loudly. ‘She wanted to be like them, I think.’

  ‘Like them?’

  ‘The boys.’

  Martin bent her head, thinking this through.

  ‘But she couldn’t be like them. It doesn’t work that way,’ Annabel continued, giving a sarcastic smile. ‘Obviously. It just meant that all the girls hated her and all the guys wanted to fuck her.’ She stared at Martin in provocation.

  Martin made a face: not impressed. ‘So there’s a culture of trolling and spying and people using information against each other. I can see how that would be stressful. No escape from it, really.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘How far up did it go? Was it just the Freshers? Or are the older years involved?’