Come and Find Me (DI Marnie Rome Book 5)

by Sarah Hilary

  ‘You’re forgetting shift patterns and arse-covering.’

  ‘Damn, yes.’

  They smiled at one another. A clock was ticking somewhere in the house, but Marnie filtered it out. Six years ago, when she’d needed it, she had refused help of this kind, someone who’d listen without passing judgement or coercing action. She wanted to give Harry what she’d denied herself.

  ‘Mum’s not been well in years. If I’m honest, she never recovered after Dad died.’ He studied the bandage on his hand. ‘I’ve been short-tempered with her lately, before I knew she was ill. She was accusing me of everything, this shopping online, all the rubbish arriving through the post. I was to blame, using her credit cards, stealing from her. I should’ve realised she wasn’t well.’ He drew a breath, a white wrenched look at the edge of his mouth. ‘A couple of weeks ago, after I was out of hospital, she hit me. Not hard, but she’s never done that before. Ever. That’s when it dawned on me that she must be sick. Some detective I turned out to be. I was an idiot to leave it so long.’

  ‘You were doing your best.’

  ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’

  ‘You were doing your best,’ Marnie repeated. ‘I know you well enough to know nothing’s ever half measures with you. You’re doing what you can.’

  ‘Thank you, for that.’ He moved his hand to hers, pressing his thumb to her palm, which was soft and hot from the washing-up, and she thought—

  This isn’t me. My hands aren’t soft. I’m not clean floors and stacked dishes. I’m calluses and black ink at my hips. I’m broken edges you need to wrap twice or risk cutting yourself—

  ‘Marnie . . .’

  She blinked the heat from her eyes. ‘Yes. I’m okay. Sorry.’

  ‘This isn’t us,’ Harry said. ‘I know. It isn’t me, and it isn’t you. Not really. Otherwise how could we do the jobs we do? I don’t want you to think—’

  ‘It’s all right.’ She closed her hand around his for a second before letting it go. ‘It’s good. Tell me something happy about your mum. A memory. Tell me – the story of the photo on the fridge.’

  The boy in the pink dress, smoking a pipe.

  ‘Oh Christ, the fridge. I always forget the bloody fridge.’ His eyes brimmed with real laughter. ‘I was six and it was a school thing. I was Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.’

  ‘Yes.’ Marnie nodded gravely. ‘Yes, you were.’

  ‘Mum made the dress, after Dad failed to talk me out of going as Jed. There was some debate about whether or not the pipe cancelled out the effect of the dress. I’m not sure we resolved that.’

  ‘She made you the dress?’

  ‘It took hours. I wasn’t very good at standing still while she was pinning it, I remember that. But I can honestly say I’ve never been happier than when I put it on.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Make of that what you will.’

  ‘You haven’t any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘Just me. Just me and Mum since Dad died, six years ago now.’ He reached for a refill of coffee. ‘Losing her to this madness is far harder than I imagined. Dad’s cancer was cruel, but this is worse. She’s here but she’s not. These last few weeks I’ve not known what I’ll find when I come round. Sometimes she’s my mum, working in the garden or reading a book, sometimes she’s a stranger. Or I’m the stranger. She’s scared of me, or she hates me.’ He retraced the patterns on the table. ‘It’s not as if we ever had the perfect mother-son relationship, we were never weirdly close, but we’ve always known we love one another. Seeing that just – gone. Or worse, seeing it replaced by fear or hate, and knowing how frightening it must be for her to have this stranger in her home, to have lost any sense of being safe here, or happy, or loved. It’s horrible. Violent.’ He stopped, flinching. ‘I’m sorry. That was— Not what I meant to say. What you went through, I know—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Marnie said. ‘You’re right. Violence is horrible. We think we’re equipped for it because of what we do. But the violence isn’t meant to come home with us. It’s not meant to be all our lives. Just the part we put on a uniform for, or a suit.’

  ‘God, I miss my uniform.’ He was steering back to safe ground, trying to make her laugh again. ‘I can say that, right? After the revelation about the dress, I’m guessing anything’s a bonus.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ She gave a steady smile. ‘You can talk about it. I get a lot of silence. Respectful, or sensitive. It’s pretty wearing after a while.’

  Harry searched her face for a second. Then he said, ‘I’m afraid of how it’s changing me. I didn’t know how much I relied on that stability. Home. How much I took it for granted. The kids I see on the streets, the ones in gangs or being wooed by gangs, I tell myself if I’m good at my job it’s because I can count my blessings when they can’t. It’s sympathy not empathy, but it works. They get hostility but they don’t get a lot of sympathy, so it goes a long way.’ He gave a quick frown. ‘Okay, I need to edit the self-pity. I can’t compare this with kids who’ve never known a mum, or only known abuse or neglect.’

  ‘You can’t compare it with anything. It’s too personal. And it’s not self-pity, it’s self-awareness.’ Marnie reached for her coffee, conscious she was speaking words she’d never spoken to anyone, not even Ed. ‘I wish I’d had that self-awareness, six years ago. I wasted a lot of time pretending it hadn’t changed me.’

  ‘But here you are.’ He crooked his mouth, admiringly. ‘The best detective in London.’

  ‘Tell that to Michael Vokey.’

  ‘Oh, I think he’ll find it out for himself, soon enough.’

  ‘DS Kennedy, you’re very good for my self-esteem.’

  ‘Just paying it forward.’ He curled his good hand at the back of his neck, watching her. ‘I needed this, thank you. And I’m guessing your day was long enough.’

  ‘I wasn’t ready to go home,’ she said simply. ‘You know how it is sometimes. The more you need it, the less ready you are.’

  Harry returned her smile then looked at his bandaged hand. ‘When I see her tomorrow, she’ll probably give me a lecture about getting myself into trouble again. She wasn’t too impressed by the knife attack. I hope she thinks this was done by a stranger. I don’t want her remembering what she did, or what she said.’ His gaze wandered in the direction of the fridge. ‘Too bad we can’t edit our memories in any useful way. I hate that she’s forgotten the happy stuff.’

  Marnie understood. For a long time she’d been struggling to retrieve the good memories, the ones which proved Stephen was lying about his motive for murder. He’d blamed her parents, their bid to bring his birth mother back into his life, insisting they’d forced him into a corner. But Marnie’s parents weren’t bad people. They were just people, made of good and bad, courage and cowardice, faults and strengths. Stephen didn’t own her memories, however much he might wish he did. It was in her power to make peace with her past, she was the only one who could do that. And it didn’t require photographic evidence or empirical truths. It was a leap of faith. Forgiveness, if she could achieve it, wouldn’t be about Stephen. Forgiveness would be an act of kindness to herself.

  Harry’s mother would be horrified to find him hurt again, with no memory of having inflicted the damage. Marnie thought of the fierceness of mothers, all the ways in which they battle for their children, all the ways in which it can go wrong. Did Stella Keele know her son Stephen was in hospital, fighting for his life? Was Anita able to sleep, knowing her son Darren was about to be questioned by the police and possibly charged with offences which would put him in prison for a long time? How soon until Fabian and Hannah Chorley could be with their mother, keeping her safe from the havoc of her own isolation? How long until Noah’s mother forgave him for Sol’s arrest?

  Underneath everything else, turning like the wheels in a watch—

  Where is Michael Vokey?

  30

  I’ve been thinking I should tell you what I saw that time in B spur’s showers. I’ve been thinkin
g a lot about Stephen Keele since his sister showed up here at the hospital again tonight. Detective Inspector Marnie Rome. I thought she was here for me, but it turns out she’s his sister. That’s what I heard her telling my lucky nurse. Not a very clever lie to tell if you’re a detective. She looks so serious, DI Rome, it makes me want to answer her questions about what happened the day of the riot, how the corridor became an abattoir, ankle-deep.

  ‘I’m his sister.’ For a second, I think she’s trying to scam her way in here without showing her badge, by pretending to be my sister when I don’t have one. No siblings, no parents, no next-of-kin. Then I hear his name, ‘Stephen Keele,’ and I realise she’s his sister. She doesn’t seem too happy about it, any more than Alyson is about Mickey. I remember the names of the people Stephen murdered. Rome. Greg and Lisa Rome. That’s why she’s here. She’s his sister, and he murdered her parents.

  I see her eyes, the sadness and anger there, like smoke. Smoke kills more people than fire, that’s how it happened at Cloverton. The fire was nothing, it was the smoke sliding under doors, rolling through the ventilation shafts, making our eyes run. A tide of smoke and when it retreated, the black spittle of soot over everything. Mickey started the fire, no doubt about that, his T-shirt smeared with fat from the meal trays, week after week until the cell started to stink. That’s one thing we can all agree on: Mickey Vokey’s an arsonist. He started the fire which sent the smoke into Stephen’s lungs and blinded the rest of us so that no one really knows whose fists and thumbs did the worst damage. But he’s out now, just like the fire, and I’m in here with Stephen Keele two doors down. That’s why she keeps coming back. Not for me, although wouldn’t it be nice if I could clear up at least a little of this mess for her? She’s here for him, for Stephen. She’s angry and sad, and she can’t work out which emotion’s the right one. He killed her parents, that’s bad, that’s anger. But he’s in here breathing on a machine because smoke filleted his lungs. She’d have to be a monster to be glad about that, and she’s not a monster. She catches monsters, hunts them down, does all her best work on the edge of the abyss which means she’s looked into it enough times to be worried about how often it’s looked back. How much of her hard work goes into making sure she doesn’t turn into what she’s hunting?

  ‘I’m his sister.’ The monster’s sister. I’d tell her about B spur’s showers, if I could.

  I’d missed the main performance, the full cast was gone by the time I arrived, but Stephen had hung around, for the blood. Someone has to clean up and he was nearest, being on the floor already. Not the first time he’d been assaulted, I saw that from the way he moved, keeping his back to the wall. I couldn’t see the whole of him, because the corner was in the way. I didn’t want to see in any case. From certain things Aidan had said, I knew to stay wide of Stephen Keele, not to get involved. Some people you don’t go near.

  ‘Don’t—’ He puts a hand on the wall and spits on the tiles, red. His hand’s blue at the knuckles, but it’s not bleeding. There’s a sound like beads falling. He’s weeping.

  I move away, to the sinks. I need to wash because I’ve been at the chicken grit, its itch lodged under my fingernails.

  ‘Don’t— Stay still.’ Very low and quiet. I haven’t heard him use that voice before. He spreads his hand on the wall. ‘Just stay still. It won’t hurt as much in a minute.’

  Sobbing again, but it’s not Stephen. He’s not the one who’s weeping. I move to get a sightline, see an elbow, and a pair of skinny legs in grey sweats, bare feet. Not anyone I recognise, just a kid, closer to Stephen’s age than mine. One of the new intake, fresh pickings. He’s been done properly by the sound of it, full welcoming committee, wide arms.

  Stephen’s hand is on the wall. ‘It won’t be so bad in a minute.’

  His other arm’s out of sight, holding the kid’s hand? I don’t trust what I’m seeing, already finding excuses for it, putting it into the context of what I’ve heard about Aidan’s cellmate.

  Stephen did this, and he’s making sure the kid keeps quiet. That’s one explanation. Or Stephen’s grooming the kid, for worse. That makes even more sense.

  But when I see her here in the hospital, DI Rome – being his sister, battling her demons – I have to wonder what she’d do if she’d seen what I saw that day. If she’d heard his voice, the soft way he spoke to the kid on the ground. Would it make it easier or harder to hate him? Because you have to hate your parents’ killer. You can’t not do that, especially when you’re police. Her choices, the way I see it, are limited.

  My nurse shakes her head at the questions, no need for words. No news of Stephen, or none that’s good. His sister thanks her, moves away. I can’t see her now, but it stays in the corridor after she’s gone. Her sadness, her anger. Like smoke.

  31

  ‘Michael was born bad, that’s what Mum always said.’ Alyson looked bigger in the bed than she’d looked on the floor of her house, covered by the hospital’s white waffled blanket and with her fading blonde hair freshly brushed. ‘He wasn’t like me. We were both naughty children, I was far from perfect but she could reason with me, or else bribe me with sweets and stories. She said Michael was unreachable. He liked sweets, but he’d rather steal them than earn them. And he hated other people’s stories, only ever liked his own. He’d plenty of stories to tell to anyone who’d listen, which wasn’t enough people or not often enough.’ She closed her eyes, her voice falling to a sigh. ‘But he’s harmless, really. Underneath it all, there’s nothing to him. It isn’t that he’s bad, whatever Mum had to say about it. He’s just missing. A piece of him’s missing.’

  It was how psychologists described psychopaths. Not as high-functioning human beings but as people with a piece missing. Joe sat in silence at Alyson’s bedside, waiting for her to be able to tell him about the accident which had put her here, stitches in her head, bruises on her legs, her face swollen and discoloured from the surgery.

  ‘He’s always falling in with the wrong crowd,’ she murmured. ‘Trying to fit in, find his tribe. He isn’t bad, not really. He’s just lost.’

  It wasn’t the version of Michael Vokey that Joe had been expecting. It wasn’t the version DCS Ferguson would want to hear, although Joe suspected DI Rome would have more sympathy for it.

  ‘Mum did her best with him, but she struggled.’ Alyson’s words were slurred by the painkillers. ‘And of course he saw how she was with Dad, that was a difficult thing to go through as kids. It taught Michael some bad habits about how you can take control of a situation. I loved Mum to bits, but she wasn’t very good at compromising. It was all or nothing with Dad, so in the end it was nothing. That was hard on Michael. He was forever watching the pair of them to see how he was meant to behave, as if he couldn’t figure it out for himself. After Dad left, there was only Mum to watch and she was too good at getting her own way, or else freezing you out. I could see a lot of what she did was selfish. Michael needed more help than most to figure out what was right and wrong, how to behave.’ Alyson moved stiffly in the bed, giving a lopsided smile. ‘It’s why I’ve never had kids. All that responsibility and power, so many ways it can go awry.’

  Joe thought of Bobby, and the new baby who must surely be arriving soon. It made no sense that he was the one here in hospital while Annie was sitting at home with her bags packed, waiting for Bobby’s brother to make his move.

  ‘I don’t remember the fall,’ Alyson said. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t. If you’re worried it was Michael, it wasn’t. Not the sort of thing he’d do. He wouldn’t bother hurting me, why would he?’

  ‘We wondered about the house,’ Joe said gently. ‘In London.’

  ‘Mum’s house?’ Alyson looked confused. ‘I told Michael we’d sell it, split the proceeds.’

  ‘How did he feel about that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never know with Michael. I don’t think he cares much one way or the other.’

  Joe waited a beat before he said, ‘The thing is, the police
in London went to the house after he escaped from the prison. He had photos pinned to the walls, hundreds of them.’

  ‘He liked taking photos,’ Alyson agreed. ‘And drawing, have you seen his pictures? He’s very good.’ She moved her hands vaguely at her sides. ‘A proper artist, whatever else he is.’

  Joe watched her, on the alert for signs that the interview was tiring her out. He’d been warned to take it slowly, not to outstay his welcome. ‘The police wondered who else had access to the house. They’d thought it was empty, you see.’

  ‘It is empty. But we’ve keys, Michael and I, of course. Mum kept one hidden round the back too. He used that when he was a teenager and came home late. I’m not sure we remembered to put it away, after she died. Michael would know.’ The confusion crept back into her voice. ‘Are the police saying he went back there after he escaped?’

  ‘Not after, no. Before he was sent to prison, while he was out on bail.’ Joe needed to ask about the grave in the cellar but if she couldn’t remember the fall, how could they be sure Michael didn’t attack her? How could Joe be sure the grave wasn’t dug for her? ‘So the fall was an accident?’

  ‘Not quite.’ She shut her eyes. ‘It’s been coming on for a while, weakness in my right leg. It won’t do as it’s told. And my voice, the slurring. It’s not drugs, in case that’s what you’re thinking.’ Her fingers plucked at the sheet. ‘I hadn’t talked to anyone about it because I know what it is and – I’m scared.’ Her voice broke. ‘I’m scared to hear them say it. Isn’t that odd? I know what it is but I can’t bear the thought of anyone saying it out loud.’

  Joe wanted to hold her hand, but he had to be a detective first. ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘I talked to the doctor here. I had to.’ Hot tears slid from her eyes. ‘They’ll test me now and then they’ll tell me what I already know. A death sentence, it’s a death sentence. PSP. Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.’ She gave a firm nod, as if underlining the words she’d been afraid to speak. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell Michael. He went to pieces when Mum died. I’ll be in a bungalow for as long as I can be living alone. I can’t ever go back to the house. Michael’s welcome to it.’