Dead Alone

by Gay Longworth

  Mark went straight for Clare. ‘She’s breathing,’ he said. ‘She’s got a nasty bump on the head.’

  Jessie put her bag on the floor. ‘Cut?’

  ‘It’s a bit sticky, but it’s not bleeding badly.’

  ‘I don’t mean her head, I mean like that –’ she shone the torch on the oozing wound on Ray’s thigh. A long, clean, deep incision glistened in the torchlight.

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ve got to stem this bleeding,’ said Jessie.

  ‘I’ll call for back-up.’

  ‘We don’t have time. Come here, I need that bottle of whiskey.’

  ‘What whiskey?’

  ‘The one in your pocket. Quick.’

  Mark looked bewildered as Jessie accepted the quarter-bottle.

  ‘Get him down, Mark. Make a tourniquet with your tie and pen around the top of his thigh and raise the leg up, above his heart.’

  Jessie snapped a Bic biro in half. She pulled out the ink tube and threw it aside. With the torch in her mouth, she dipped the end section of the biro into the whiskey then poured a little over her hands. The flow of blood had slowed because of the tourniquet and the elevation of the leg. Jessie slipped the biro over one end of the exposed artery and with her other hand fed the severed artery down inside the biro.

  ‘Now, gently undo the tourniquet, just enough to keep a fresh blood supply to the leg. That way he might not lose it.’ They watched the see-though biro fill with blood.

  ‘It’s weeping a bit, but I think it’ll work,’ said Jessie. ‘Okay, now call for back-up.’

  ‘Where the hell did you learn to do that?’ said Mark.

  ‘That would be telling.’

  ‘Very impressive,’ said Mark. Except this time his lips didn’t move.

  Jessie turned round in time to see the door close. She threw herself against it, but the person outside was too quick. The door was bolted. She kicked it. The steel jarred against the sole of her foot and reverberated up her leg.

  ‘Stupid kids,’ said Mark, not sounding as confident as he’d like.

  ‘That wasn’t kids,’ said Jessie, watching the sliver of light under the steel door slowly disappear.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Mark, jumping over Clare and hitting the door. ‘Hey!’

  Jessie was watching their airway disappear.

  Mark took out his phone. She didn’t need him to tell her there was no signal in the lead-lined mausoleum, his face in the beam told her everything she needed to know. The torch started fading, so she switched it off. ‘Damn,’ said Jessie. Paul and Ty had run the batteries down and she didn’t have any spares.

  Mark lit his lighter. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Batteries. How’s the wound?’

  Mark passed the small blue flame over Ray’s leg. ‘Holding. What the fuck is going on?’

  ‘I don’t know. This doesn’t fit the pattern,’ said Jessie. ‘I was so sure it was a mother-son thing, but Joshua wasn’t sleeping with Ray St Giles –’

  ‘Ow!’ Mark dropped the lighter. ‘Shit!’ Jessie could hear Mark’s breathing shorten. ‘I can’t find it!’ He was scrabbling around in the dust furiously. ‘Oh Christ, he moved!’

  Jessie crouched down in the darkness. ‘Mark,’ said Jessie softly. ‘Take my hand – here. Now stand up with me. There’s plenty of room in here. See, here’s the door, I want you to lean against it. Don’t move, just breathe slowly.’

  Mark’s hand was clammy and he was struggling to control his breathing.

  ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t …’

  ‘Yes, you can. In for four, out for six. Keep going.’ Jessie slowly let go of his hand.

  ‘Don’t leave me. I can’t, I can’t see …’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m here. I’m going to pass you the torch. Then you know you have it if you need it.’ Jessie pressed the torch into his other hand. He clicked it on, pointed it to the floor. ‘There, my lighter.’

  Jessie bent down and retrieved it. In the fading light, she looked at Clare. Mark must have moved her as he was frantically searching for the lighter. Her arm was stretched across Ray St Giles’ leg, her body was no longer curled up in a ball. Mark clicked the torch off as Jessie stood up again.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Mark, taking her hand again.

  ‘Claustrophobia is a horrible thing.’

  ‘It isn’t that, it’s the dark.’

  They stood in the echoing blackness holding hands. Total darkness was not something Jessie experienced often. It made her feel very closed-in while at the same time very small.

  ‘We were poor,’ said Mark quietly. ‘Mum had to work after the old man left. It was a different time, there wasn’t the help. She didn’t know what to do with me.’

  Jessie squeezed his hand.

  ‘It was for my safety,’ said Mark. ‘I couldn’t come to any harm in the closet, but it was so dark and she was away for so long. I …’

  ‘It’s okay. They’ll find us. The surveillance team know about the roses, someone will put it together.’

  ‘Not as fast as you did.’

  Jessie smiled in the darkness. ‘You’re not going soft on me, are you?’

  Mark didn’t respond.

  ‘Will you be all right? I want to check Ray’s wound.’

  He handed the torch back and took the lighter. Jessie shone the pale orange light at Ray’s leg.

  ‘I think the biro must have slipped,’ said Jessie. ‘His pulse is barely there. Mark, we’re losing him.’

  ‘Him we can afford to lose,’ said Mark. ‘It’s the three of us I’m worried about.’ He passed Jessie the whiskey. She let the stringent blend sit on her tongue until it burned. The darkness in the tomb was overwhelming. Heavy. It bore down on them. She didn’t allow herself to think of the cold spreading through her own limbs or the man slowly bleeding to death beside her. She thought instead of Henrietta Cadell, of Joshua and of Clare Mills. She thought long and hard and when she stopped Ray St Giles was dead. She heard the long exhalation. His last breath. She had failed. Her bag of tricks had failed. She couldn’t get them out of this and she felt utterly demoralised.

  ‘I should have let you call for back-up –’

  Mark put his arm around Jessie. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

  ‘I should have got Clare out first, I should have known.’

  ‘Known what? We thought Ray was a suspect, not a victim.’

  ‘He isn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jessie, listening to the silence.

  ‘Hey,’ said Mark, flicking his lighter on. ‘I won’t have you falling apart – not the unsinkable Jessie Driver.’

  ‘I’ve made a cock-up of this, Mark.’

  ‘Rubbish. You’ve done what detectives are supposed to do: examine every avenue, and never apologise if it’s a dead end.’

  ‘I think I can smell burning skin.’

  The flame went out, leaving its imprint floating around in front of Jessie’s eyes.

  ‘Mark, your mum, was it just the two of you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you never told her you were afraid.’

  ‘How could I? She was doing her best. I was her little man, men are brave, so I put up with it, but took it out on everyone else. I probably still am. Especially on women. It’s not easy to trust women after the one who loved you the most locked you in a cupboard and left you in the pitch-black.’

  ‘Is that why you never got married?’

  ‘Oh I got married – to seventy-odd blokes in the Met. And I’m not angry with Ma. She didn’t do it to be cruel, she did it to be practical. Even then I knew the difference.’

  ‘And if it had been cruelty?’

  ‘I’d be one of the many fucked-up souls we deal with every day.’

  ‘Mark, do you think there are always extenuating circumstances?’

  ‘No, not always. Some people are born with a black hole where their heart should have been.’

  As Jessie shifted
her weight, the door behind her and Mark suddenly opened. They fell back squinting at the sudden brightness. A figure was standing over them.

  ‘Clare!’

  It was Irene. She ran straight for the bundle on the floor as Jessie and Mark got unsteadily to their feet. And Irene had not come alone. She had brought Fry and he had brought back-up and medical help. Jessie watched her cradle Clare. Irene had a bruise on the side of her face that almost matched Mark’s. Jessie wondered if it had anything to do with Irene’s recent absence.

  Irene looked very briefly at Ray.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mark. Jessie didn’t begrudge Irene the relief that was palpable on her face. Her nemesis was dead. As Fry carried Clare out, she came round. He lay her on the ground and let Irene hold her and whisper to her reassuringly, keeping her close. Jessie watched the two women as the medical team swarmed the stone crypt. Clare seemed very calm; concussion could do that. What it couldn’t do was leave no physical mark. Clare Mills had no bruise.

  Jessie had to move fast. She directed her first question to Irene. How had she known they were there? The answer was straightforward enough. The crypt was where Ray used to meet Veronica. It was the first place she thought to look. She knew Clare was missing because she had telephoned the station. When it became known that Jessie and Mark had disappeared and that Ray had last been seen carrying yellow roses, Irene put the pieces together and told DC Fry to meet her at the cemetery. It was a neat explanation, thought Jessie.

  ‘Did you see anything, Clare?’

  She shook her head, then frowned. ‘I saw him put those roses on her grave. I couldn’t believe it, I thought maybe he just happened to be passing, and had seen the flowers, so I rang you and you told me everything I needed to know. Ray and my mother were …’ Clare shuddered.

  ‘I’m so sorry, love,’ sobbed Irene.

  Clare clutched Irene’s wrist. Jessie noticed the blood on Clare’s fingers. ‘I saw red. I ran at him screaming, he turned around and hit me.’ She touched her head and winced. ‘I must have hit my head on something. I managed to get on to my hands and knees. I tried to crawl away. But I couldn’t get away quick enough. I remember seeing his feet.’ Clare started to cry. ‘I thought he was going to kill me. I begged him for mercy. Him. I should have spat in his face. I don’t know what happened next.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else?’

  Clare frowned again. ‘Maybe I saw a man, I can’t remember. He’d gone by the time I’d finished talking to you.’

  ‘A man?’

  Clare nodded. ‘Tall, white skin. Dark hair, I think.’

  ‘Are you sure, Clare?’

  Clare stared back at Jessie, then slowly shook her head. ‘No, not completely. I was too angry.’

  ‘But you think you did?’

  Irene squeezed Clare’s hand.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘He looked like a ghost.’

  CHAPTER 86

  Jessie returned to the station to see Frances Leonard. She was expecting a woman possessed with rage at having been duped into leaving her shrine. All dressed up and no hero to meet. Instead, Frances was sitting quietly in the corner with her dress folded neatly on her lap.

  ‘You’re back,’ said Frances, smiling. ‘I am so sorry I messed with your bike. When I get angry, I can’t seem to control what I’m doing. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Will I get into trouble?’

  ‘None of that matters,’ said Jessie, pulling up a chair. ‘But I do need you to answer those questions now.’

  ‘I know. P.J. told me. He was very kind and explained a lot of things. I have to leave him alone, he has some private things to deal with. But my goodness, it was so nice to talk to him.’

  Jessie nodded in a way she hoped was noncommittal. If she imagined P. J. Dean had come to see her, good, now Frances would talk. Jessie needed one question answered very quickly. She pulled out a photograph of Henrietta Cadell and her son and showed it to Frances. Frances nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s him. I saw him.’

  So, thought Jessie, she was getting warmer. ‘What did you see him do, Frances?’

  ‘He went to the house in Barnes. He was doing it with Verity.’

  ‘That wasn’t all though, was it?’

  Frances screwed up her face but said nothing.

  ‘Frances, you said you’d seen who killed Verity Shore, remember? Someone hit her over the head. Was it him?’

  Frances chewed her lip.

  ‘Frances?’ said Jessie, getting angry. ‘You said –’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I did see him once. But I don’t know if it was him exactly. He looked different.’

  ‘But it was a man?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I wanted to see P.J. They always lie and say he’s coming, and he never does, so why shouldn’t I tell lies? But you took me seriously. You really did send P.J. to see me.’

  The woman was conveniently using her fantasy to absolve her from the trouble she’d got herself in. ‘Frances, I am very angry with you. I thought you were reliable. You’ve given me nothing to go on. P.J. will be angry with you too. He wants to see the killer caught as much as I do.’

  ‘I did see that man there,’ pleaded Frances. ‘And the woman. Not in Barnes. At the church in Richmond. She had a big fight with Eve Wirrel.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few days before she died.’

  ‘Frances, the person who hit Verity, was he tall, like this man?’

  ‘Yes. He had dark hair too.’

  Jessie stood up. She explained that the next people to come into the room were there to help her. Frances smiled. She knew, she said, P.J. had told her about them too. Jessie passed the mental health worker as she ran to the yard.

  The garage were just delivering her mended bike. They couldn’t untie it from the truck quickly enough.

  CHAPTER 87

  Jessie returned to the Cadells’ house, she kept her finger on the bell until it was answered by Henrietta herself, then she barged in.

  ‘Where is Joshua?’

  ‘Don’t you possess manners?’

  ‘I am moments away from arresting you, I suggest you answer my questions.’

  ‘No one speaks to me like that. If you had any sort of evidence then you would have already arrested me. So please don’t insult my intelligence with your vain threats.’

  ‘Why did you argue with Eve Wirrel? Was it because you discovered she was screwing your son? She also painted him naked – it’s hanging in the station. Quite a sight it is, too.’

  ‘Knowing that the girl was a jumped-up, talentless exhibitionist is one thing. Killing her is quite another.’

  ‘You said you didn’t know her.’

  ‘I don’t. I was trying to protect Joshua. She was a headline-hunting whore; Joshua is too sweet, he doesn’t see it. She would have gone to the papers and dragged my name through the mud in order to get herself a little exposure. Well, I wasn’t having it. Joshua had to be told.’

  ‘Your son has killed four people. Not as sweet as you think.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Get out of my house!’

  Jessie started to walk along the hallway, tapping the wall beneath the stairs.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘One of the themes of these murders has been secrecy. Hidden doorways, secret tunnels. Very mediaeval, wouldn’t you say? Where do you think the murderer would have got an idea like that?’

  ‘I am too busy for this nonsense.’

  ‘When did you separate the basement from the rest of the house, Henrietta?’ Jessie ran her hand along the underside of the stair tread. She found a cold copper button and pressed it. A panel in front of her popped open.

  ‘You don’t have a search warrant.’

  ‘You let me into your house. We’re still in it.’ The staircase disappeared into the baseme
nt.

  ‘If you take another step, I shall call your superiors.’

  ‘What have you got to hide?’

  ‘Nothing. This is an invasion of privacy and you know it.’

  ‘I am a fast-tracked detective. I’m bound to make some mistakes.’

  The basement flat was tidy to the point of disorder. All the pens on the desk were lined up. The books exactly even. The cushions were plump and the carpet had been hoovered in lines. Sitting in an armchair by an unlit but neatly laid fire was Christopher Cadell.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in Joshua’s flat?’ demanded Henrietta.

  Christopher looked at his wife with melancholic eyes and sighed loudly. ‘Thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Well, get out. You know he doesn’t like you being down here.’

  ‘No, Henrietta. He doesn’t like anyone being down here.’ Christopher looked at Jessie. ‘Joshua introduced me to Verity. Not my wife.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Jessie. Henrietta was unlikely to grace Verity Shore with a nod, let alone an introduction to her philandering husband.

  ‘Shut up, Christopher. You can’t be effectual, but please don’t try and be actively destructive.’ Henrietta turned to Jessie. ‘He has always been jealous of Joshua. It was not my fault he loved me more.’

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Jessie, looking at Christopher.

  ‘NOT YOUR FAULT!’ shouted Christopher, standing up. ‘I could have forgiven the affairs, I could have forgiven you for letting the world know I wasn’t a real man, but telling Josh, when he was just a child. That was unforgivable.’