‘Yes. He wanted to make up for the fighting in the holidays, I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘It was fine. He turned around and drove straight back.’ She looked up at me. ‘How are you, anyway? How’s things at Nightingale?’
‘Oh, you know. Same. Working. Not doing much else.’ I looked about me, albeit I was completely unaware of my surroundings as we walked. ‘So …’ I floundered a little bit then. How to approach it? ‘Have you seen Nick since you’ve been back?’
‘It’s only been a couple of days,’ she said. Did I discern a melancholy in that remark? She seemed to brighten then, though. ‘I love this weather, don’t you? It’s so fresh, galvanizing really!’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I thought she sounded fake, cheerleading her way through her life. I thought for a moment and found a topic she’d be interested in: ‘Are you going to Sixes on Friday?’
Emily wrapped her arms around herself and nodded. ‘’Sposed to. Annabel wants to go. I guess Nick and that lot will be there. I don’t know …’
‘Don’t know what?’
‘I don’t know if I want to do it any more. After I saw you in the holidays …’ She looked up and smiled at me again. ‘I just feel like last term was a bit of a nightmare, you know? Maybe I should just put it all behind me, start again afresh.’ She laughed ironically. ‘Actually do some work?’
I stared at her as we walked. Emily tottered somewhat on a patch of icy leaf mulch and reached out for my arm, which I gave to her. I needed to think about this. Emily starting afresh was not something I had considered. An Emily without Nick. Without Annabel. Available to be my friend without any of the trappings of the rest of the bollocks. I stopped and turned her to face me.
‘Yes, Emily! That’s exactly what you need to do. Start anew. Ignore them all, leave them to it. We can work together. I can help you.’ I could feel the earnestness of my face reaching epic proportions. I tried to rein it in. ‘Tell you what. How about we both go to Sixes on Friday? You come with me. We’ll have a few drinks, nothing crazy. Then you can have a good time and you’re not dependent on them. You can leave when you want and just go home.’ What I was saying was, Look, I’m fun too! We can have fun together! I’m not just about boring old work and slog. I can let my hair down like the best of them. But I also know when to stop – I’m good like that!
Emily looked disconcerted, but – I knew her so well – I could see the peaks of her deepest worries lurch across her face. She was scared that maybe I was now her only friend. ‘All right,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Let’s do it.’ We’d reached Prebends Bridge by that stage. I will always remember her standing at the end of it, framed by the stone archway that marked the beginning of the climb up the Bailey to Joyce. She had a pink beret on, one side of which covered her left ear. Her cheeks were rosy from the walk, and she wore big white mittens. She looked like a child. She seemed to cling on to me then with her eyes. I saw it. I was her anchor. She waved and ran in the other direction to me, up the slope to where the vultures awaited her.
31
Tuesday 23 May, 9.46 p.m.
Stephanie was still in her office. It was late and she checked her phone. Three texts from Rosena. She sighed and picked up the phone, still standing.
‘Hi, darling. Yes, I’m sorry. Something came up.’ She frowned as she listened to her daughter’s complaints. ‘Didn’t you find the spaghetti bolognese in the fridge? What? Yes, I meant for you to just heat it up in a bowl in the microwave.’ She twisted the telephone wire across her desk so she could sit down and did so, planting her feet up on the desk. ‘I’ll be about another hour. I’m sorry, Rosie.’ She nodded and listened some more, frowning a little. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise,’ she paused. ‘I love you,’ she said finally, before replacing the handset.
Stephanie took her feet down and reached for her bag. She withdrew the tape and opened a drawer in her desk, taking out a small Dictaphone recorder. Putting the tape in, she leaned back in her chair and massaged her eyes with her fingers. It had been a long day. What to do about Daniel, she thought. She was risking serious opprobrium from the police in concealing her knowledge of him, if not a criminal charge. Stephanie leaned forwards and pressed play. A loud hiss of static filled the room, and she quickly moved to turn down the volume. As the balance settled, she could hear her own voice. She shivered slightly before pulling a purple shawl draped over the back of her chair around herself. She closed her eyes and listened.
‘How are you feeling, Emily? Okay? If at any time, you want me to turn this off, I can. If you get uncomfortable with it.’
The sound of a creaking chair.
‘I want to record you in this session because it will help me in my analysis of you. Sometimes, things are said which are missed, and I don’t want that with you. Okay? Okay. Now. Tell me. How are you feeling today? What’s this week been like?’
A pause, then: ‘Awful. Dreadful. I don’t know what’s happening any more.’
Sound of quiet sobbing.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m doing things I would never …’
Silence apart from soft crying.
‘What things, Emily? What things are you doing that are upsetting you so much?’
A sniff.
‘I can’t seem to stop myself. He says if I stop, people will think less of me. That I don’t have the balls.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think he’s right. It’s gone too far now. The way people look at me.’
Sound of hiccuping.
‘Would you like a tissue? Here.’
Pause.
‘Emily, I want you to think back. I know it’s hard. But think back to when this first started. What did you feel then?’
‘Ha, what did I feel? I don’t know. Embarrassed? Ashamed?’
‘This was the first photo with Nick, in the beginning?’
‘Yeah.’
Sound of short laugh.
‘I thought I was in love with him. I thought he liked me. So I wanted to please him. Keep him with me. I would have done anything.’
‘And so that’s how it started. And has it stayed like that? Or have things changed? Have you changed?’
Sound of water being poured.
‘I didn’t ask to be a girl. It’s shit being a girl. Always on the outside. Even if you’re on the inside. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Uh, it’s like – you can never be in on it. The joke. They’re always one step ahead of you. You try and be like a boy, laugh at sex, drink loads, get your tits out like you don’t care. And then …’
Pause.
‘I can understand how that would be very hard, Emily. That’s a lot of pressure.’
Sound of sniffing.
‘Yes, it is. But it doesn’t work. They look at you, and you’re still a girl. Nothing more than a walking shag. I tell them – I get on better with boys than girls. They pretend they agree, that they like it. But until …’
Pause.
‘Yes?’
‘Until I can play sports and fuck girls, I’ll never be one of them.’
‘Why do you need to be one of them?’
Sound of sighing.
‘Because they run it. The boys.’ Pause. ‘Girls like Annabel. She doesn’t care. She’s happy to be their hanger-on. But I want to be as good as them. I want to be them. I need them to like me, I guess. The more attention they give me, the more they must like me.’ Sound of faint laughter. ‘God, I’m pathetic.’
‘I think you’re doing really good work here. I think you’re dealing with all of this really well.’
‘Yeah. Well … Sometimes I wonder, you know. What my life would be like here if I hadn’t done it. Hadn’t decided to take those photos.’
‘The first one wasn’t your fault.’
‘I know. But the others … If I hadn’t thought it was a good thing.’
‘Why did you, Emily? Why did you think it was a good thing?’
‘I see the
m looking at magazines. Once I was with them – in the JCR – and they were passing one round. And it was like … it was like I wasn’t even there. They were looking at these women’s bodies as if it had nothing to do with me. As if I wasn’t a woman. That, essentially, they were ogling at what I look like underneath my clothes. And they just didn’t get it. It was like that body was their property … But for that moment, all they were thinking about was her. Nobody else … And I wanted to be that … My dad does these events. These girls, they wear bikinis; they stand there. They get paid for doing nothing. It’s easy. I see the way men look at them. And, really, what’s the difference between a photo I didn’t know was being taken and one which I did?’
Pause.
‘What is the difference, Emily?’
‘At least I chose. It was my choice.’
‘Do you feel like it was really your choice?’
Sound of sighing.
‘If I hadn’t have done it, I would have always been that girl who Nick ripped off. The loser who everyone laughed at.’
‘And who are you now?’ Pause. ‘Emily? Are you okay? Look, let’s take a break.’
‘No, I don’t need a break. You want to know who I am now? I’m fucking known.’ Pause. ‘They know me. They don’t like me. They want to fuck me but they don’t like me. But at least they fucking know who I am.’
Martin let herself into the redbrick 1980s terraced house she shared with Jim in Chester-le-Street, a market town not far from Durham where rents were cheaper and the atmosphere was less cloistered: less world heritage site than the university city.
In the kitchen, a note sat on the marble-topped island. She read it and murmured something to herself before pinging on the microwave without checking what was inside it. After two minutes, she eased the plate out with a tea towel and stood up at the counter, fork in hand, staring off in to the middle distance as she shovelled leftover pad thai into her mouth. She jumped as Jim appeared in the doorway.
He blinked at her, hitching up his pyjama bottoms. ‘What time is it?’
‘Late.’ Martin turned to put the plate in the sink. ‘Sorry.’
Jim opened a cupboard and took a glass down. ‘Water?’
‘Thanks.’
He filled the glasses and handed one to her. ‘How’s it going?’
Martin put her glass down and hoisted herself on to the island, her legs dangling. ‘Getting there, I think,’ she said, taking a sip of water.
‘The bloke who confessed?’
‘Maybe.’ She put the glass down again carefully and reached for her husband. ‘I’m not sure yet.’
Jim took Martin’s hands and came to stand between her legs. He rubbed his stubble where water had dribbled and then took hold of her waist.
‘How was work?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Good. Interesting.’
‘Found the cure for cancer yet?’
‘When are you going to learn what it actually is I do for a living, Erica?’
Martin gave a weak smile. ‘I know what you do, you idiot.’ She nuzzled into his neck, wanting some contact. ‘I’m tired.’
Jim stroked her back. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Long days.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back earlier.’
No answer came from Jim, just the warmth of his breath on her head.
‘Shall we have sex?’ Martin said into his hairline, not able to look him in the eye to hear the rejection.
‘Honestly? Not really,’ Jim said sadly. ‘It’s late, and I’ve got to be up at six to get in for seven.’
Martin nodded, mute, as Jim straightened. ‘Rain check?’ he asked, kissing her lightly on the lips.
She stifled a yawn. ‘Yep. No problem.’
Martin jumped down and followed him to the kitchen door, looking back for a while at the island where they’d been standing. Jim had already gone upstairs by the time she switched off the light.
32
Wednesday 24 May, 8.43 a.m.
Martin looked over at Jones. ‘Is that what you’re wearing?’
‘What do you mean?’ Jones replied as she sipped at a cappuccino. She and Martin were in the cafe three doors down from the Durham police station.
‘To the memorial?’
Jones was wearing a black T-shirt and trousers with a denim jacket. ‘Suit’s back at the station, boss. I’ll get changed when I get back from getting the forensics report.’
Martin nodded. ‘Good. Can’t say I’m looking forward to the memorial. Especially after what I saw yesterday.’ She sighed, toying with her toast. ‘It looks like Michael Brabents was the violent sort. The cleaner says there had been arguments. There’d been blood in the house, and apparently they’d been having fights down the pub; he was seen pushing Rebecca. Pub landlord says Brabents and Emily were unnaturally close. The main thing, though,’ she said as she considered her empty mug on the table, ‘is the photos I found in the garden shed.’
‘Christ. What?’ Jones asked.
Martin shook her head. ‘Not porno. Just loads of Emily. Stacks of them. All fully clothed, nothing particularly untoward. But the question is,’ she said, dusting her palms of toast crumbs, ‘why would you hide photos of your own child in the garden shed? In a locked drawer?’ She stood up, hoisting her handbag over her shoulder. ‘Doesn’t make sense. You could just pop into the study and look through photo albums, couldn’t you? Why keep them under lock and key?’
‘Unless …’ Jones said as she pushed back her chair and gave a wave to the waitress.
‘Unless you wanted to look at them by yourself. In private.’ Martin finished for her.
‘Exactly,’ Jones agreed as they walked out into a warm and bright morning. ‘Makes him look like a pervert.’
‘The landlord says Michael and Emily had a weirdly close relationship too. But we’d get annihilated in court based on that alone. We need more.’ The women headed in the direction of the station. ‘We’ll need to get a warrant for the house. We need proper evidence of the abuse, the secret perversion. Speaking of which …’
Jones thought fast, keeping up. ‘Mason?’
‘Mmmm,’ Martin said, looking about as the noise of a metal shop shutter being flung up screeched into the quiet of the morning. ‘I’m going to go and see him now. We still haven’t got to the bottom of that yet. There’s still Nick to see about the video and I want to talk to Annabel Smith myself.’
‘So when we will get Brabents in for questioning?’ Jones queried.
‘Depending on what Mason says, straight after the memorial,’ Martin answered. ‘In the meantime, let’s knock this mysterious friend on the head. Can you head to Student Admin, get to the bottom of Daniel Shepherd?’
‘I’m having problems with Daniel Shepherd,’ Jones said. ‘I can’t find him. He’s disappeared off the planet.’
‘Really? I got a weird text from someone when I was in Whittington, asking me to meet them. I’m wondering whether that was Daniel.’ Martin paused. ‘Apart from Facebook, though, how do we connect him to Emily? What do her friends say?’
Jones shrugged. ‘Not a lot.’
‘So we’ve got him making comments online and we think that he might be the friend down at the gig in London with Emily. We’ve got the mysterious “D” on the note on Emily’s door, which seems likely to be him – as opposed to anyone else – and that he arranged to meet her on the day of the murder. But there was no time on the note so it could have been any time that day.’ Martin raised her eyebrows. ‘But there’s nothing concrete, is there?’
‘Nope,’ Jones replied as they reached the building. ‘The other thing about Shepherd …’
‘What?’
‘I’ve already been to Student Admin. I went yesterday afternoon, when you were in Whittington.’
‘And?’
Jones shook her head, a puzzled look on her face. ‘They don’t know him. I mean,’ she swallowed, ‘I should clarify …’
Martin stood on the steps outside the station and turned
to face Jones. ‘Clarify what, Jones? Spit it out.’
‘There is no student called Daniel Shepherd at Durham.’
Martin looked at her.
‘Whoever he is,’ Jones said, ‘he isn’t a student here. He might be a local lad, might be a friend of Emily’s out of town, but he isn’t a student. They were quite sure about it. Daniel Shepherd is not at the university here.’
Martin left Jones at the station while she made her way on foot up the Bailey to Joyce. She breathed in the morning air, sunlight hitting the rooftops of the Durham colleges, the majority of which were set next to each other higgledy-piggledy, in a Victorian jigsaw all the way to the top. This city was beautiful, she thought as she walked. She was getting used to its hills and its greens, the viaduct stretching across it all like a rainbow, a constant reminder of the divide between the red roofs of the townsfolk and the ivory towers of the university. Martin liked that juxtaposition. Something in her understood it. The battle between the old and the new, between gravitas and frivolity. She reached Joyce, looked up again at its stern exterior, the imposing portico straining to batten down the mulch of humanity which writhed within it.
Mrs Earl was again in her cubby hole and nodded in a friendly manner to Martin as she entered the Joyce reception.
‘He’s expecting me,’ Martin called as she took the stairs two at a time, denying Mrs Earl a chance to stop her. She strode down the corridor, reached Mason’s door and knocked briefly before walking in without waiting for a response.
Mason was on the phone, which he put back in its handset quickly as Martin plonked herself down in the chair in front of his desk. Struggling to rearrange his features, he quickly composed himself and put his hands in their usual position of a prayer on the desktop.
‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Martin?’ Mason asked in a controlled voice.
Martin smiled, relaxed. ‘Something’s bothering me, Mr Mason, I must admit. We all know what’s being said about Joyce. Sexual bullying rife between the students, a culture of online harassment.’ She leaned forwards towards the principal. ‘And we know, of course, from your own statement, about your unhealthy interest in Simon Rush.’
Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) Page 18
