Let the Dead Speak

by Jane Casey

  ‘Morgan?’ Derwent whistled. ‘Nothing like keeping it in the family, is there?’

  ‘It means you don’t have to explain away any awkward resemblance to the milkman. I think Eleanor was very clever about it, actually. She knew Morgan and Oliver were competitive with one another. She’d been involved with Morgan before she met Oliver, so she knew he was attracted to her – and she knew he’d do anything to get one over on his brother. I don’t think Morgan has much of a conscience at the best of times. She can’t have found it too hard to coax him into bed. She was unfinished business.’

  ‘I made a mistake. You were the one I preferred all along and now it’s too late,’ Derwent said.

  ‘Exactly that. And it explains why Eleanor was able to persuade Morgan to warn Kate off sixteen years later when it all came back to bite her in the arse. She must have thought there was no chance of anyone finding out and then Kate turned up, armed with evidence that Oliver was infertile. Kate didn’t know the whole truth, but she knew Eleanor wanted to keep it quiet. And Morgan wanted the same, or he’d have been out on the streets. He must have known how Oliver would react and he was depending on him for a roof over his head. Eleanor might have been being blackmailed but she has a good line in manipulating people herself.’

  ‘The thing is, it’s bullshit,’ Derwent said. ‘Norris is going on about how he’s not her father any more, but he is her dad. He’s the one who’s brought her up. He’s the one she loves.’

  ‘Like you and Thomas,’ I said, knowing it was dangerous territory.

  ‘Yeah. Like that.’ Derwent’s face was unreadable behind his dark glasses. ‘He’s mine now, whatever happens. There aren’t many people in the world I care about, but he’s on the list.’

  ‘Who else is on the list?’

  Derwent snorted. ‘Well, not you. You’re on the other list.’

  ‘What’s the other list?’

  ‘People who don’t listen to me. People who act like twats despite my advice.’

  ‘I didn’t have time to call for back-up,’ I said. ‘He was going to kill her.’

  ‘And he almost killed you.’ He reached out and lifted my chin, examining my neck.

  I jerked my head away. ‘You’d have done the same.’

  ‘I keep telling you that’s not a good thing.’

  I stood up. ‘Come on. Let’s get to the hospital. With any luck they’ll be able to tell us when the Norrises will be fit to be interviewed. The clock’s ticking.’

  39

  The clock was ticking in more ways than one. Before I had taken more than three steps Una Burt emerged from the church to inform us that justice, in the shape of the department of professional standards, had finally caught up with us.

  ‘You’re on restricted duties until further notice. I’ll contact you when the DPS are finished investigating what happened to Kate Emery.’

  ‘We know what happened to her. She ran off and got herself killed,’ Derwent said. ‘She was determined to see Oliver Norris. There was nothing we could have done.’

  ‘Then I’m sure the DPS will sign off on how you handled it.’ Her face softened. ‘Strictly between you and me, I think Georgia is the one who’s going to end up taking responsibility for it.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ I protested. ‘She was the most junior officer there. I shouldn’t have left her on her own.’

  ‘Kerrigan.’ There was a world of warning in Derwent’s voice but I ignored it.

  ‘I should have stayed.’

  ‘You thought Georgia was capable of looking after Kate in your absence. And she should have been,’ Una said.

  ‘Kate gave us the runaround from the very start of this investigation. She fooled all of us at different times,’ I pointed out. ‘And it was Georgia who found the reference to her previous employment that started us off on the right track. We’d never have known about the blackmail if it wasn’t for Georgia.’

  ‘She’s a talented officer in some ways but she has a lot to learn.’ Una sniffed. ‘I feel it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship for her if she learned it elsewhere.’

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ I said stubbornly. ‘We’ve all made mistakes during this investigation. She’ll learn.’

  ‘We’ll see what the investigators say.’ She checked the time. ‘In the meantime, I’m waiting for Chris and Pete to get here to handle the interview.’

  ‘What about Gareth Selhurst? Someone’s got to track him down,’ Derwent said.

  ‘Already done.’ Una Burt smiled a slow, catlike smirk. ‘They just picked him up at Luton Airport, on his way to Spain. He booked the flights yesterday. Strange how he felt called to preach there all of a sudden.’

  ‘God moves in mysterious ways,’ I murmured. ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘He said it was an accident. He swore they tried to save her.’

  ‘What about the fact that she was too out of it to know what was happening to her?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘Nothing to do with them, he said. They didn’t notice until it was too late. He said no one gave her anything to eat or drink, and if she was drugged it was before she came to the church.’

  ‘How convenient,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll see what he says in a proper interview,’ Una Burt said.

  ‘I think your main problem will be getting him to shut up. I’ve never met anyone who liked the sound of his own voice more.’

  ‘Well, we can deal with him while we’re waiting for Oliver and Eleanor Norris to be discharged from hospital,’ Una Burt said briskly. ‘Which means you two are free to go.’

  There was no point in arguing. I walked ahead of Derwent, more conscious of my neck hurting now that I had nothing else to think about.

  He caught up with me in the car park. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘What?

  ‘Georgia. Why are you sticking up for her? You don’t even like her.’ A patronising smile spread across his face. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? It’s because you don’t like her.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘You feel guilty about not liking her so you’ll end your career rather than let her take responsibility for what happened.’

  ‘This is not a career-ending incident,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ He held out his hand. ‘Car keys.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you shouldn’t be driving. I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home. I want to go to the office.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus, Maeve, take the rest of the day off. You’ve earned it.’

  ‘I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘And plenty of time to do them. Restricted duties, remember? You’re going to be bored shitless by the time the DPS get back to us. You might as well save up the paperwork.’

  ‘It’s not paperwork.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘I want to call Brian Emery. I think – I think it might help him to know what happened to Chloe. And I think it will definitely help if he knows the people responsible are in custody.’

  Derwent wanted to argue with me, I could tell, but he was a good police officer and a fair one, and he could see my point. ‘All right. But then I’m taking you home.’

  By the time Brian Emery picked up the phone I was regretting my devotion to duty. I had shut myself in Una Burt’s office so I had some privacy for what was going to be a difficult conversation, and once I was alone I found my hands were shaking. Don’t think about Oliver Norris, I told myself, and dialled Brian’s number firmly. But my throat ached and when I closed my eyes I saw Norris’s reddening face glistening with sweat as he tried to choke the life out of me.

  It didn’t take long to explain to Brian Emery what had happened that morning, but it took a long time to work through the details of the investigation. Once he had stopped crying he started asking questions, showing the steely mind and focus that he usually disguised behind his pleasant demeanour. I told him about Kate’s difficulties and her
efforts to protect Chloe as well as her illegal activities and he sighed.

  ‘She was a brilliant mother, Kate. She loved Chloe more than anything. Far more than she loved me, obviously. I wish she’d told me the truth about her financial situation. We could have worked something out.’

  ‘You were very generous to her,’ I said. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

  ‘No, but I could have done something to stop it, don’t you see? If she’d had money, she wouldn’t have needed to embark on this course of action and neither of them would be dead.’

  ‘You weren’t in possession of all the facts and you couldn’t have known how things would play out. Even Kate didn’t anticipate what happened to Chloe, and she thought of almost everything.’

  ‘She didn’t know about Nolan.’

  ‘No. No one knew except Chloe, and she didn’t tell the right people.’

  ‘She told Belinda.’ There was a world of sorrow and anger in those three words.

  ‘Mr Emery … I wanted to ask about Nolan and Nathan.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘I’m concerned about them. More specifically, I’m concerned about Nolan.’

  ‘He’s not a good kid,’ he said heavily. ‘Takes after his father.’

  ‘He needs help, Mr Emery.’ Or locking up. ‘He’s going to hurt someone if he carries on the way he has been behaving. If he’s lucky, he’ll only hurt himself.’

  ‘I just wonder,’ Brian Emery said evenly, ‘if it’s worth even trying.’

  ‘It’s always worth trying.’

  ‘What if he’s gone too far to be helped?’

  ‘Then at least you know you tried.’ I squeezed the bridge of my nose. I was thinking about Morgan and Oliver Norris, two brothers whose competitiveness had led them to behaviour that was literally lethal. ‘I don’t want anyone else to be harmed, Mr Emery – you, or your stepson, or your wife, or whoever Nolan comes across next.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said eventually.

  When my phone call ended I dragged myself out of Una Burt’s office. I missed being in at the kill. It would be interesting to know what Eleanor was saying in interview. It was funny how she had capitulated as soon as I accused her of being involved. Oliver, she had said, be careful. And then she had admitted it all. But it had to be a relief to her to tell the truth. Dishonesty came hard to her, blooming all over her skin. The strain of keeping secrets from her husband must have been intolerable.

  Well, it wouldn’t be my job to untangle the whole story, I thought, knowing that I would need to do it anyway, that I would have to chase down every niggle and every doubt until I was sure we had understood what had happened, and how, and why. I would do it even if it was on my own time. I would do it because I had to, because I needed to know the truth.

  What else did I have to do?

  What else was I, if I didn’t have that?

  Suddenly going home seemed like the best idea anyone had ever had and I looked for Derwent to see if his offer still stood. He was on the other side of the room, his head close to Liv’s as the two of them peered at something on her computer screen. I strolled across, stretching as I went.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  I wasn’t expecting the reaction I got. Derwent jumped up in a hurry, knocking his chair so it rolled back in my direction. I caught it without looking, my attention on the screen. It was a Facebook page, I registered, before Liv turned her monitor off.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I looked from Liv to Derwent and back again. She was red-faced. They were both silent, and it was the kind of silence that falls after something has been broken irretrievably. ‘What is it? Just tell me.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Liv said.

  ‘It’s not nothing.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Derwent had recovered himself. He dropped an arm around my shoulders and started drawing me towards the door. ‘Ready to go?’

  ‘No, I’m not, actually.’ I pushed his arm away and turned back to Liv. ‘What was that on your screen?’

  A look passed between Liv and Derwent – She saw too much/there’s nothing we can do – and then Liv reached out, very slowly, and switched her monitor back on.

  ‘I was just checking Facebook and this popped up.’ She swallowed. ‘You know how if you’re friends with someone you see pictures and posts that they’re tagged in.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ve got a friend who I used to work with when I first started in the job. She moved back to Manchester a few years ago and now she works on a murder investigation team there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She was out yesterday … to celebrate two of her colleagues on the team … um, getting engaged.’ Liv’s voice faltered and faded away to silence. She scrolled down and pointed at the screen, and I stepped closer to look.

  It was a photograph of a couple. The man was looking at the camera, while the woman was staring up at him adoringly. He was dark-haired, with blue eyes and a heavy beard. The beard was new but I recognised him all the same; I’d have known him anywhere. His smile lit up the photograph. The woman was petite, fair-haired, pretty – and nothing like me. She had one hand on her fiancé’s arm, showing off the large ring that glinted on the third finger of her left hand.

  The other hand was draped across the top of her small but noticeable bump: four months along, if I had to guess.

  My ex-boyfriend, Rob, who had disappeared without so much as a backward glance, and found a new job, a new girlfriend and a new life in short order.

  ‘Wow. Well, of course he would marry her,’ I said. ‘He’d do the right thing. Glad to see he looks so happy about it.’

  ‘Maeve,’ Liv said, her face stricken. ‘Maeve, I didn’t know.’

  ‘How could you know?’ I tried to smile, and knew it was a failure. ‘It’s fine. It’s a long time since he left.’

  They both knew it had been a long time and they both knew I’d been waiting, like the fool I was, for him to come back.

  ‘You’re better off.’ Derwent’s voice was rough.

  I could do this. I could hold it together. I could cope.

  I turned around and stepped blindly in Derwent’s direction, and felt his arms go around me.

  He held on to me so tightly it was as if he was trying to stop my heart from breaking by holding it together.

  The shock was so huge, the damage so absolute, that I didn’t manage to speak again until Derwent had driven most of the way to my flat.

  ‘I never thought I was good enough for him.’ I stared out of the window, not seeing anything we passed. ‘I didn’t know he wanted children. I didn’t know anything.’

  ‘You don’t know it was what he wanted. Accidents happen.’

  ‘He looked happy.’

  ‘Anyone can look happy in one photograph.’

  I looked at Derwent, curious. ‘Do you think I want him to be miserable?’

  ‘I don’t know. I, personally, wouldn’t mind if he was crying himself to sleep at night.’

  ‘She looks nothing like me.’ I felt as if I was disintegrating very slowly, losing tiny traces of myself with every movement, until eventually there would be nothing left at all. ‘Maybe I was never his type. Maybe we would never have gone the distance anyway, even if things hadn’t gone wrong.’

  ‘Don’t try to take the blame for this. He cheated on you and he ran away. He found someone else, knocked her up and he’s getting married and you haven’t had as much as a word from him to say sorry, let alone to let you know he’s moved on.’

  ‘Maybe he thought it would upset me,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe he was too scared. If only he’d known you’d find an excuse for him, whatever he did.’ Derwent frowned at me. ‘Where’s the fight, Maeve? Where’s the anger?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I felt so tired, weary in body and soul. ‘I hate myself for thinking it would all work out some day. I really believed it, too.’

  ‘That’s how you are. You want to make everything right. Y
ou want to believe in happy endings.’

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ I said softly. ‘There’s just life.’

  He shook his head but he didn’t say whatever he was thinking, and I was glad, on the whole.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ But when he looked at me, his eyes were doubtful.

  ‘It was safe – waiting for Rob to come back. It was the easy option. Now that I know he’s not coming back, I can move on. I’m free.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘You could at least try to sound like you mean it.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m doing my best here.’ Another glance. ‘I haven’t even said I told you so yet.’

  ‘Keep that up,’ I said. ‘Keep not saying that.’

  ‘You deserve better than him anyway.’

  He stopped the car near my flat, on some convenient double-yellow lines. ‘Do you want me to come in?’

  ‘No. Why would I want that?’

  ‘If you wanted some company? A friend, I mean?’ He was floundering, I was touched to see. This didn’t come naturally to him and I appreciated the effort he was making.

  ‘No. It’s OK. I need to be on my own for a bit.’ I looked up at the building and then back at him. ‘There is one thing you could do for me. But it’s a big favour.’

  ‘What?’ The wariness was turned up to eleven.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d rented your flat out yet.’

  He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I know someone who’s looking. She’s very reliable. Responsible job, good references, highly organised. Clean. Tidy.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like anyone I know.’

  ‘I can’t stay in Rob’s flat,’ I said. ‘Not now. I – I can’t bear to stay. I’ll pack up my things and move out as soon as I can. I have to find somewhere else and I don’t know how long it will take.’

  ‘London’s full of places to live.’

  ‘It could take weeks to find the right place.’ I bit my lip. ‘Please?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Derwent said.

  The look on his face was as good as a yes.

  40

  It was a beautiful day, the trees turning red and gold in the bright October sunshine. The zoo was busy with families and tourists taking pictures of the animals and each other, leaning over barriers, pointing, fighting, laughing: normal life.