Let the Dead Speak

by Jane Casey

  ‘Put that down,’ I said, pointing to the coffee table, and after a moment he did so. Trained to obey instructions. Posh schooling was good for some things.

  I knew he was eighteen but he looked older, his face bloated and red. He had a long straight nose and full lips; there was potential there for him to improve if he got a better haircut and lost some weight, but I couldn’t tell which way he would go. When he looked at me, his eyes were sullen.

  ‘Nolan, do you know why we want to talk to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s about Chloe, your stepsister.’

  He laced his fingers and looked at Harry Miles for guidance. Miles looked back blandly.

  ‘Where did you go last night, Nolan?’

  ‘What?’ He hadn’t been expecting it. ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘You left school before midnight and you got back at half past two.’ I looked up from my notes. ‘That’s a long time to be nowhere.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with Chloe.’ His face was reddening. ‘It was … personal.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m not saying any more.’

  ‘Did you go to London, Nolan?’

  ‘No.’

  I turned to Pettifer. ‘Do you think he thought of changing the plates?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘So we’ll get him on ANPR.’

  ‘What’s ANPR?’ Nolan’s eyes flicked from me to Pettifer.

  ‘Automatic number plate recognition software. It means we can trace anyone who’s been using major roads,’ Pettifer said. ‘We’ve got cameras everywhere.’

  It was a slight exaggeration, but Nolan believed it. ‘I didn’t go to London.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘Oxford.’

  ‘Where in Oxford?’

  ‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’

  ‘You’re already in trouble,’ I snapped. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘A house off the Iffley Road.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To buy drugs.’ He dropped his head down to his chest and took two or three deep breaths.

  ‘For your personal use?’

  ‘Don’t answer that,’ Miles said and Nolan looked up at him, surprised.

  ‘What kind of drugs?’ Pettifer asked.

  ‘E.’

  ‘Ecstasy?’ I checked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you taken it?’ If he had, there was no point in going on with the interview.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Upstairs in my room.’

  Which meant I was going to need to seize it before I left. Nolan was making work for me with every answer he gave. ‘How did you know where to find a dealer?’

  He looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘They’re on Facebook.’

  Of course they were. ‘Why didn’t you say this before?’

  ‘I’d get expelled. There’s a no-drugs policy at my school.’

  ‘But according to your stepfather, you’ve been expelled already,’ Pettifer said.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not my fault really, so much, at the moment. They don’t know where I was. So it’s not so bad. I could get into another good school, probably.’ He snorted. ‘Brian will pay any money to get me out of the house.’

  ‘Now, now.’ The chill in Harry Miles’ voice turned the air around them to ice.

  ‘Tell me about Chloe,’ I said.

  Nolan’s face darkened. ‘I don’t like her.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She tells lies. She said to my mum that I’d been groping her.’ His fingers clamped together: white plump hands, bitten nails. Ugly hands.

  ‘Had you?’

  ‘It was her imagination. She was half asleep.’

  ‘Was this the last time she was here?’

  A nod.

  ‘Were you in her room?’

  ‘Yeah. I went in to – to borrow something. She woke up and started screaming.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What did you want to borrow at two in the morning?’ Pettifer asked, frank disbelief on his face.

  ‘Wait a moment. Has Chloe made a formal statement?’ Harry Miles asked smoothly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you’re fishing.’

  I smiled at him pleasantly. ‘I wanted to know why she ran away the last time she stayed here. Something sent her back to London in the early hours of Sunday morning. And I heard from a friend of hers that it was because of Nolan here.’

  ‘That’s not evidence.’ Miles turned to Nolan. ‘You don’t have to answer any more questions.’

  His face was red, his neck flushed too. ‘She made me out to be a pervert. She told my mum I was a freak.’

  ‘Was it the first time you’d done it?’ I asked.

  He glared at me, his eyes hostile. ‘I’m not going to say yes because then that’s like saying I did it. And I’m not going to say no because that’s like saying I did it a lot.’

  ‘It’s not a riddle. I want you to tell me the truth.’

  ‘I’d never touched her before, and I didn’t touch her then.’ He looked straight at the bridge of my nose as he said it: a liar’s trick.

  ‘Then why was she so upset? Why did she run away very early in the morning without talking to anyone?’

  ‘Because she knew she was going to get shit from Mum.’ A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Mum was fucking livid when she went whingeing to her. And it is her fault, really, because she’s always wearing skimpy clothes and acting like a slut.’

  I unclenched my jaw to say, ‘I thought nothing happened.’

  ‘Er, what?’ He looked over to Harry Miles for reassurance and got a cold stare.

  ‘So what was her fault?’ I asked. ‘If nothing happened, I mean.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you have enough for the moment?’ Harry Miles asked me.

  ‘I think so. I’d better have a word with Nathan too.’ I smiled at his brother. ‘Just to be fair.’

  ‘Nathan doesn’t know anything.’ Nolan sniffed, his eyes suddenly wet. ‘Nathan thinks it’s funny that I’ve been expelled. He did last time too.’

  ‘You’ve been expelled before?’

  ‘Three times.’ Another sniff. ‘Mum says it’s their fault for not understanding me.’

  He was lucky to be rich, I thought, as Nolan shambled out of the room, his head down. If he’d been born poor, he’d have been in prison early and often. But Brian’s money would pay for good schools, fine solicitors, top briefs, sympathetic psychologists’ reports, expensive rehab. And Nolan would go on taking drugs and taking advantage of women, taking what he wanted, assuming it was his right.

  Nathan was a cut-down version of his older brother, wide-eyed and childish rather than sullen but with the same drawl, the same expectation that what he wanted was what should happen, the same veneer of manners over a self-centred personality.

  ‘Why do I have to talk to you? I was watching TV.’

  ‘Because it’s police business.’ Harry Miles glared at him. ‘So answer their questions unless I tell you not to.’

  In fairness to Nathan, he did his best, but he couldn’t add much to what Nolan had told us. Except one detail he added to my picture of Chloe, a detail that, much to my surprise, corroborated what Turner had said.

  ‘She showed me her – you know. Tits, I suppose.’ He giggled.

  ‘On one occasion or more often?’ I asked.

  ‘Once. I didn’t ask her to. She was jumping on the trampoline and she saw me watching her. She got off and she lifted up her top.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He looked scandalised. ‘I’m fourteen.’

  ‘Did you tell your parents?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nolan?’

  ‘No way. He’d have taken the piss out of me.’

  ‘Do you know why she did it?’

>   He wrinkled his nose. ‘Because she’s mental?’

  When he left the room, Harry Miles behind him, I fell back against the perfect cushions and groaned. ‘What the hell was going on in this family?’

  ‘Nothing good.’ Pettifer got to his feet with a grunt. ‘Do you know what surprises me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That there was only one murder. I can think of two or three candidates and I’ve only just met them.’

  23

  I walked into the office on Monday morning in a Monday-morning mood, and I wasn’t the only one. I could hear Derwent holding forth even before I got through the door. He was in Una Burt’s office, the door closed, but the view through the window told me he was furious.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Liv.

  ‘No idea.’

  The two of us stood and watched for a minute, like tourists on safari watching a bloody kill. I tried to pick out individual words. Derwent was doing all the talking – well, shouting. I moved to see Una Burt’s expression: bored, largely. She caught sight of me and beckoned to me imperiously.

  Shit.

  I trudged across to her office and opened the door. Derwent wheeled around.

  ‘Oh, you’ve made it into work, have you?’

  ‘I’m not late,’ I said, knowing that I wasn’t, resisting the urge to check my watch anyway. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘They NFA’d Oliver Norris.’

  NFA stood for No Further Action; it meant that the coppers who’d arrested him had decided there was no point in charging him or investigating further.

  ‘How come? William Turner was in shreds. Not to mention that he hit you.’

  ‘Yeah, I did notice that.’ The bruise was bluish purple and looked painful.

  ‘Josh decided not to make a statement about it.’ There was no judgement in Una Burt’s voice but Derwent took it badly anyway.

  ‘Only because I thought it would be a waste of time to get him charged with assaulting me. He’d beaten the tar out of Turner.’

  ‘And you didn’t want to have the bother of getting him prosecuted for punching you,’ Una Burt said. ‘Very understandable.’

  ‘Look, I had more important things to do.’

  ‘Didn’t Turner give a statement?’ I had left him in the hospital, dozing, compliant. ‘I thought Norris would get charged with GBH.’

  ‘He said he didn’t see who hit him.’ Burt shrugged. ‘You can see his point. He has to live in the street. Not much fun when you’ve accused one of the neighbours of something that carries a heavy sentence.’

  ‘He has to live with a neighbour who was prepared to beat him to a pulp. I’d say that’s worse than a little social embarrassment.’

  Una Burt sighed. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it, Maeve.’

  ‘We witnessed some of the attack,’ I said. ‘What if we make statements about it?’

  ‘If Turner isn’t going to cooperate the CPS aren’t going to be all that keen to take it to court. It’s hard to explain why the victim doesn’t want to give evidence in a case like this. It makes juries think they’re not being told the whole story and they don’t convict.’

  I turned to Derwent. ‘What about you? You could make a statement now. That bruise has come up lovely.’

  He raised a hand to it, defensive. ‘Yeah, I could. But realistically he’s not going to be held in custody for thumping me, is he? He’ll be out on bail in an hour or two and we’ll be back to square one.’

  ‘So he’s back at home?’ I bit my lip. ‘What about Turner?’

  ‘They kept him in overnight but I think they’ll be releasing him today. He didn’t need surgery. It was concussion they were worried about.’

  ‘I think someone needs to pay Norris a visit to remind him to stay away from Turner,’ I said.

  ‘I volunteer,’ Derwent said grimly.

  ‘That’s not a good idea,’ Una Burt said.

  ‘Oh, come on. I’m not going to pick a fight with him. But he’s not going to listen to Kerrigan asking him nicely not to cause any trouble, is he?’

  ‘Much as it grieves me to say it, he’s right. Norris isn’t the sort of man who pays much attention to women at the best of times.’

  ‘Fine,’ Burt said. ‘But go with him, Maeve. And I don’t want to get any complaints about your behaviour, Josh. I’m still filling out forms from the last time.’

  Derwent blinked, innocent. ‘I told you, that was all a misunderstanding.’

  ‘You did say that, yes.’ She flipped open a file and started reading. ‘Off you go.’

  I parked a short distance from Oliver Norris’s house and walked back with Derwent. In spite of the horrors the street had seen, normal life was reasserting itself. This was the Valerian Road Kate Emery had known – window cleaners, Ocado delivery vans, scaffolders slinging metal poles and bad language about as they built a framework around a house.

  Normal, privileged, middle-class life.

  And behind door number one: blood-soaked carpets, bloodstained walls.

  Behind door number two: bruised knuckles, empty beds, the word of the Lord.

  Behind door number three: fractures, stitches, fighting for breath, fighting for life.

  What private hell would I find if I knocked on door number four? Or five?

  It was Oliver Norris himself who came to the door.

  ‘What do you want?’

  It took me a second to respond. I was distracted by the way Norris looked: his hair dishevelled, his eyes puffy and red as if he’d been crying. Stubble darkened his chin and a sour smell emanated from him: rank sweat. He was squinting at the sunlight as if he hadn’t slept much, or at all. Somewhere in the house, music was playing: a gospel choir. Even as I noticed it, the sound was turned up.

  ‘Is everything all right, Mr Norris?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He seemed to pull himself together. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We popped round to give you a few words of advice,’ Derwent said. ‘About Mr Turner.’

  Norris nodded. ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘You need to stay away from him. Don’t talk to him, don’t look at him, don’t cross to the same side of the street as him. Pretend he doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  Derwent didn’t move or speak, but something in his expression made Norris take a step back. ‘OK. OK, I get the picture. I’ll ignore him.’

  ‘You’ve been very lucky not to be charged with some serious, serious offences. If there’s any reason for Mr Turner to make a complaint about you, I will make sure that you are prosecuted properly and promptly for anything I can think of.’

  ‘Noted.’ Norris cleared his throat. ‘Sorry about your face. It looks painful.’

  ‘About as painful as your hand, I’d say.’

  Norris looked down at his knuckles, flexing his hand. They were swollen and bruised, his skin scratched. ‘Yeah. I made a bit of a mess of myself yesterday. Lesson learned.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said.

  He flicked a look at me and I wasn’t imagining the hostility. I had challenged him and he had lost, after all. I was surprised I hadn’t been struck down by a bolt of divine lightning.

  ‘Thanks for calling round.’ He started to close the door and two things happened: the choir fell silent and I stuck my foot in the door.

  ‘Hold it. What’s that?’ There were six, maybe seven seconds of silence before the organ thundered into life again, and in that time I heard, very clearly, the sound of sobbing.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Norris said.

  ‘Someone is crying,’ I said.

  ‘I heard it too.’ Maybe Derwent had and maybe he hadn’t, but he wasn’t about to let me down. ‘What’s going on?’

  Norris’s shoulders slumped. ‘I’d hoped – I wanted – look, she got back very late last night. I don’t think she’s in any condition to speak to you.’

  ‘Who got back? Bethany? With Chloe? Where were they? Why didn’t you tell us?’ T
he questions were tumbling out of my mouth and Derwent brushed the back of my hand with his knuckles, so subtly that Norris would never have noticed it.

  ‘It’s Bethany. Bethany came home.’

  ‘Not Chloe?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Eleven – twelve. Some time like that.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone? The police?’

  ‘No.’ Norris shook his head. ‘I rang the officer we’d spoken to about her disappearance but he wasn’t on duty. I did leave a message for him.’

  Which he would have received in four days, given the usual shift pattern: two earlys, two lates, two nights, four off. I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. ‘They are still looking for her. And Chloe. Didn’t it occur to you that Bethany might be able to help us find Chloe?’

  ‘She doesn’t know anything.’

  ‘She knows more than I do about why Chloe disappeared in the first place. She knows where she last saw Chloe, and when. She might know where Chloe intended to go.’

  ‘We need to speak to her,’ Derwent said, cutting across me. ‘Right now.’

  ‘She’s not well enough.’ Norris started to close the door again. ‘She can’t.’

  ‘I’m going to have to insist,’ I said.

  ‘And I’m going to have to insist on you leaving us alone.’ Norris’s face had gone red.

  ‘Ollie.’ Eleanor appeared behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Let me handle this.’

  ‘Of course.’ She bowed her head. ‘I didn’t mean— but if they need to speak to her.’