Outside Looking In

by Michael Wood

  ‘You bastard, Jonathan Harkness. Why the fuck did you have to inflict all these on me? I’m going to burn the fucking lot of them!’

  Matilda opened her eyes. She was surrounded by darkness but there was something piercing the black, something flashing.

  ‘Matilda?’

  ‘James?’ she answered.

  ‘Matilda, it’s me. Are you all right?’ Adele turned on the light in the hallway. She’d used her key to gain entry.

  She dropped her bag onto the floor and ran over to Matilda who was on the floor – half in the hallway and half in the lounge.

  ‘What happened? Have you collapsed?’ She helped her up and onto the sofa. ‘You look shattered.’

  ‘I … I …What time is it?’

  ‘Just after eight o’clock.’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘At night,’ she laughed. ‘Matilda, what happened? You were on the floor.’

  ‘I ran into the boxes and fell over. I couldn’t be bothered to get up. I just lay there and I must have nodded off.’

  ‘But you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes I’m fine. Well, apart from the phone call.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘I don’t know. A man. He said I was dangerous. He said I was just like Jonathan Harkness and that people die around me.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. Matilda, don’t let him get to you. It’s just some sick individual with nothing better to do than try to scare people. You can’t let them win. Don’t let them see that it’s getting to you.’

  ‘But he’s right,’ she said, looking up at her friend. ‘Carl Meagan, Joseph Glass, Scott Andrews. Look at what’s happened to them.’

  ‘Joseph and Scott are not dead and nobody knows what’s happened to Carl.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Matilda said, sitting up straight. ‘What if the caller is the kidnapper? Maybe he’s making contact, taunting me, telling me he’s got Carl. He knows he won’t get the ransom money now so he’s playing with me, trying to keep the upper hand.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Matilda,’ Adele said. Like the majority of people, Adele thought Carl Meagan was probably dead. Once the kidnappers fled without their money they would have killed Carl and dumped his body somewhere. It was just a question of where.

  ‘You don’t know that.’ She stood up. ‘There could be … what’s happening outside?’ She pointed to the window at the reflection of the flashing blue lights.

  ‘Matilda, sit back down.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘What do you know about your neighbours?’

  ‘Very little. I’m never here. Why?’

  ‘The police had a phone call about half an hour ago from a woman saying she had killed her husband.’

  ‘What? Surely not. She’s in her eighties.’

  ‘The other side. Jill Carmichael.’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘She says her husband has been hitting her for years and she just snapped. Matilda, she’s stabbed her husband.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘She’s asking to speak to you.’

  Matilda had never been in Jill Carmichael’s house before, she had no cause to, and, for some reason, expected it to be a mirror image of her own. She was wrong. Adele led her into the living room, which was a buzz of activity: uniformed officers and white-suited scene of crime officers were milling around while DI Christian Brady, looking harassed, was aimlessly looking around.

  ‘Matilda, thank God. I didn’t realize you lived next door until Adele mentioned it,’ Brady said.

  ‘Christian. What’s happened?’

  ‘Jill is asking for you. She won’t speak to anyone but she says you’ll understand.’

  ‘Understand what? I don’t know them. We say hello on the doorstep when we meet, that’s about it.’

  ‘Well she won’t talk to anyone else.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  ‘Right. OK.’

  Christian led the way into the kitchen at the back of the house, half the size of Matilda’s. Jill was sitting on a pine chair. She was visibly shaking and staring into the distance. There was a red stain of blood on her chest. A female uniformed officer was standing next to her with a cup of tea in her hand.

  ‘Jill,’ Matilda said quietly to rouse her from her stupor.

  She jumped. ‘Oh my God, Matilda, thank God you’re here.’ She was crying, her tears falling freely down her red, stained face. ‘I’m so sorry, Matilda. I tried to tell you so many times. I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t. I kept thinking of everything you’d been through lately. You wouldn’t want to put up with my problems too. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Jill, calm down. Sit back down and tell me what happened.’

  The police officer helped her back into the chair. Jill wiped her nose with her sleeve and tried to compose herself.

  ‘My husband hits me. He has done for years. I haven’t taken up kick-boxing again. This is from him,’ she pointed to her left eye. ‘I thought he’d stop when we had a baby. He didn’t touch me at all when I was pregnant so I thought it was all over with. He started again the other week. He called me fat and pathetic. He said I’d be a terrible mother and that maybe I should go back to work, and his mother would move in and look after her. I couldn’t have that. I’m the mum.’

  Jill became uncontrollable; the sobs and the words mingled to make a heart-wrenching sound. Matilda pulled her close and wrapped her arm around her.

  Quietly, Matilda said to DI Brady. ‘I did notice a bruise on her eye the other day. She said she’d been kick-boxing. I should have known something was wrong.’

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘I noticed the black eye too,’ Adele said. ‘I didn’t think anything of it.’

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ Matilda asked.

  ‘Her sister lives in the next road. She came and took her.’

  ‘What happened here tonight?’ Matilda turned back to the shaking Jill.

  ‘I was in the kitchen feeding Judi. He came home and asked why I didn’t have any dinner ready. I told him I’d do it as soon as I’d finished. He hit me on the back with his briefcase. I screamed. You should have seen Judi’s face. She looked so terrified. Her little nose wrinkled and her eyes widened. I thought about what kind of a house she would grow up in if I didn’t do something about it. I didn’t want her to have the same life I had. I just grabbed the nearest thing I could find and hit him with it. What did I hit him with?’

  Brady and Matilda looked at each other with worried glances.

  ‘You stabbed him, Jill,’ Matilda said.

  ‘Stabbed him? With a knife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ she lied, looking to Christian who just shook his head. ‘Look, Jill, I’m going to leave you with DI Brady here. He’ll look after you.’

  ‘OK. Will you feed my cat for me?’ She looked up. Her tears had stopped but her face was stained and pale.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ Matilda asked, pulling Brady to one side.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll get a doctor to take a look at her. We’ll go from there. A good lawyer will get her off with self-defence.’

  ‘I can’t believe this. I cannot believe this was going on right next door and I had no idea.’

  ‘Do you know your neighbours well?’

  ‘Not really. We say hello when we see each other and send Christmas cards. That’s about it.’

  ‘Then don’t blame yourself.’

  ‘They seemed like such a happy couple. When they were out together they were always smiling, holding hands.’

  ‘That was the husband controlling the wife. She was probably screaming inside.’

  ‘She had looked strange lately. I thought she was suffering from some sort of post-natal depression. She was obviously wanting to tell me about Sebastian, what he was doing to her. How many cases of d
omestic abuse have I dealt with over the years? I should have noticed it.’

  ‘Christian’s right, Mat,’ Adele said. ‘You can’t blame yourself. When you’re on the outside looking in you see things a lot differently.’

  Matilda moved away and slowly headed for the exit. She bumped into a scene of crime officer but didn’t apologize. Her mind was full of dark thoughts.

  ‘Mat, where are you going?’ Adele asked.

  ‘I need a drink.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  Matilda hadn’t been able to sleep much. She didn’t fall asleep so much as lose consciousness and woke just three hours later lying face down on top of the duvet, still wearing her clothes from the previous day.

  She couldn’t get Jill Carmichael out of her head. They seemed like such a happy couple; hard-working, friendly, loving parents – they were the ideal neighbours; like the Cravens and the Hardakers. They never had late-night parties, never made any noise and didn’t allow their garden to grow into a wild abandon, unlike Matilda. They didn’t stand out in any way, which is why they managed to slip under the radar and the horrific domestic abuse Jill suffered went unnoticed.

  ‘I’ve taken up kick-boxing again. I’m trying to lose the last few pregnancy pounds.’

  Those words echoed around Matilda’s mind in the hours of darkness. She should have seen through such an obvious lie. Had Jill been trying to communicate with her on a subconscious level, crying out for help?

  Matilda pictured Jill standing next to her car, clutching the baby to her chest. She gave her excuse for the black eye, but was there something else; an underlying statement that should have been obvious to a detective? Did she widen her eyes? Did she mouth something? Was she pleading to Matilda to probe further? It had been dark though and Matilda had other things on her mind. She always had other things on her mind, usually her own worries. She was letting her grief and paranoia flood her mind and stop her from seeing the more important things going on around her. Her neighbour had killed her husband and Matilda should have seen it coming.

  Things were going to change. While showering, Matilda made the decision that she would have to put James and Carl Meagan on the back-burner. She had a very disturbing case to try and solve and needed to be one hundred per cent focused. There was no room for error.

  After a quick breakfast, and her prescription medication flung into her bag in case she needed an extra kick at some point in the day, she drove to work. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt strong, determined, motivated. Today she was going to make a real breakthrough in the case. She knew it. She could feel it.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Darke?’

  Matilda heard her name being called the second she climbed out of her car at the front of the police station. She turned at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Standing at the entrance to the station was a casually dressed young man: dark jeans, check shirt and loose tie.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  The man approached holding out his hand for her to shake. ‘Alex Winstanley. Sheffield Star. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.’

  The fake smile Matilda had been wearing suddenly dropped. She refused to shake his hand. Was this the journalist who had been causing all the trouble? He was a child.

  ‘I don’t think I have anything to say to you, Mr Winstanley.’

  ‘Alex, please. How’s the investigation into the double shooting going?’

  ‘You will receive updates on that as and when we are able to give them,’ she said, making her way to the main entrance of the station.

  ‘I hear you’ve had a problem with some of your officers.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She stopped on the steps and turned to face her young inquisitor.

  ‘DC Glass and DC Andrews were involved in accidents,’ he said, giving stress to ‘accidents’ as if he was using air quotes.

  ‘DC Glass was injured in the line of duty. DC Andrews suffered minor injuries due to a speeding car.’

  ‘A double shooting. A series of extremely violent burglaries. Two DCs admitted to hospital while on duty. Sheffield appears to be a very dangerous place to live at the moment, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘No I would not.’

  ‘Look, Detective Chief Inspector, I’ll level with you. I’m new to this area. I’ve only been in Sheffield a few months and I don’t intend to spend my entire career working on a local newspaper. I’ve spent a lot of time researching you and you interest me a great deal. We could help each other out here.’

  ‘How can you help me?’ Matilda asked folding her arms.

  ‘It’s obvious you need a positive article written about you right now to show people you’re perfectly capable of keeping them safe. I could do that. I could write a feature about you: what makes you tick; how you go about solving your cases, etcetera. In return you could give me a few advanced snippets on the double shooting and the burglaries. Give me a heads-up.’

  ‘Do you honestly expect me to feed you information about current cases?’

  ‘You scratch my back.’

  ‘Mr Winstanley—’

  ‘Alex, please.’

  ‘Mr Winstanley, I have absolutely no desire to scratch your back. You can write anything about me in your newspaper and it won’t bother me in the slightest. I, and my bosses, know I am capable of performing my duties to the best of my abilities. I chase criminals and I catch them. I don’t need someone like you, a boy in a man’s world, writing an obvious feature so transparent that the most simple-minded individual could see straight through it. Now, run along, or you’ll be late for PE.’

  She found it hard to hide her smile as she turned and went into the building. As she disappeared through the doors, she could feel the death rays Alex Winstanley was shooting out of his eyes burning right through her. She couldn’t fail to admire his ambition, but he had chosen the wrong person to try and wrap around his grubby little finger.

  The atmosphere in the Murder Room seemed lighter. Maybe it was Matilda being in a more confident frame of mind that gave the world around her a brighter tinge.

  She went into her office at the back of the room and had just settled into her chair behind the desk when Sian knocked on the door and walked in.

  ‘Morning Matilda, are you OK?’

  ‘Yes I’m fine. Why?’

  ‘I heard about what happened with your neighbour.’

  ‘Bloody hell, this place is like a call centre. Did you want anything specific?’ Matilda was keen to get off the subject of what was happening to her outside of working hours.

  ‘I’ve had George Rainsford’s wife on the phone—’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘He found Lois and Kevin on Clough Lane,’ Matilda nodded her understanding. ‘Apparently, George isn’t coping well with what he witnessed and she wondered if someone could go around and see him. I remember the counsellor we had working here a couple of years ago left in the budget cuts, but did we replace her?’

  Matilda thought for a second. ‘I’m not sure.’ She opened the top drawer of her desk and looked around for something. Finding it, she handed Sian a business card. ‘Tell his wife to give this woman a call. She will definitely be able to help.’

  Sian looked at the card. ‘Doctor Sheila Warminster, psychotherapist. Is she any good?’

  ‘She is actually,’ Matilda said. ‘What’s wrong with Rory?’ Matilda looked past Sian and out into the main office. She didn’t want her probing into Matilda’s knowledge of psychotherapists.

  ‘Nothing, why?’

  ‘He’s got a face like a slapped arse. He’s usually so bubbly and annoying. I think this is the first time I’ve seen him without a gormless grin on his face.’

  ‘Oh. It’s nothing. He and Amelia have had a bit of a row. He wants to get married this year; she thinks they should wait. It’s a storm in a teacup.’

  ‘Fair enough. Any news from the hospital about DC Glass?’

  ‘No. I called first thing and he’s still in a coma. I spoke
to his mum and she says the doctors say there’s no medical reason why he won’t wake up.’

  ‘Strange. Have they said how long he’ll be like that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘What about brain damage?’

  ‘They don’t know yet. I suppose until the brain is active it’s difficult to tell. We’re holding a whip-round if you want to donate anything.’

  Matilda took her purse out of her bag and looked inside. It was the usual mess of screwed up receipts and store cards. She only had two notes in there, both twenty pounds. She handed them over to Sian.

  ‘What are you planning on buying?’

  ‘I don’t know. Me and Aaron were talking and, depending on how much we raise, we might just give it to his parents for them to buy anything he may need.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  There was a commotion coming from the main incident room. Matilda looked out of her window and saw everyone crowding around DC Scott Andrews who had just walked in. She opened the door and went to join them.

  ‘Scott, nice to see you back. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m fine thanks. Glad to be back.’ He looked embarrassed to be the centre of attention and his cheeks blushed.

  ‘Have you been to see the ACC?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve just come from there.’

  ‘Look at that gash on your forehead,’ Rory said. ‘That’s going to leave a great scar. The girls love a scar.’

  ‘Do we?’ Sian asked.

  ‘Of course you do. You love it when you know a man’s been all heroic and macho. It’s a huge turn on.’

  Matilda and Sian exchanged glances. ‘I don’t know what magazines you’re reading Rory, but I’d give them up if I were you,’ Sian said moving back to her desk.

  While the attention was off Scott, he slinked away over to his desk. He made eye contact with Matilda, who gave him a smile and mouthed ‘welcome back’. He even blushed at that.

  ‘Right then, that’s enough fun for now. Can everyone settle down please?’

  Matilda, standing at the top of the room in front of the whiteboards, looked out upon the troop assembled before her. Not exactly a troop, more of a small gathering of concerned parties. Despite the ACC promising to have more officers drafted in to the MIT they seemed conspicuous by their absence.