by SJI Holliday
‘Crisp,’ Davie says. ‘It’s fine, we’ve got plenty to be getting on with here. We’ll go and see him when we’re finished up. Hopefully he’ll be feeling a bit better by then.’
Polly bites her lip and looks away. She can feel Louise staring at her.
‘Brian, you and Pete can go now, if you like.’ Davie addresses the janitor and his assistant, who they have already questioned. ‘We’ll follow up with you later if there’s anything we’ve missed.’
‘Grand. Not a bother,’ Hennessy says. ‘Come on now, lad.’ His voice has a gentle Irish lilt, and he has huge brown eyes, like a puppy. A sad puppy. Polly doesn’t know him at all. Doesn’t remember him from before, but there’s no reason she would. There will be lots of new people here since she last lived in the town. She doesn’t know Pete, either. But she remembers something Jon told her about him being the local councillor’s son. Martin someone. Brotherstone, that’s it. He’s a lumbering lad of about twenty, with a quirky way about him that Polly can’t quite put her finger on. He’s staring straight ahead, but she can’t tell if he’s deliberately trying not to make eye contact with anyone or if he’s just zoning out of the situation. Anyway, he clearly doesn’t know anything – not if Davie is telling him and his boss they can go.
‘Eva, Anya, Gillian – you can go, too. We’ll be in touch if we need you.’
Polly watches as the three dinner ladies make their way out of the room. Two older women, one young. The younger one has a streak of blue hair escaping from her regulation hair net.
Polly sits down on the sofa, in the space left by the janitor.
‘Bit of a shock this, on your first day,’ Louise says, sitting down beside her. ‘Hardly had a minute to settle and you’ve been thrown into this. You know, it’s a good job that you’re here. We’ll need you when we start questioning the kids. The fact that you don’t know any of them might work to our advantage. They might be more likely to talk to a stranger, don’t you think? Rather than someone who knows all their dark deeds?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Polly says. ‘In my experience, kids open up more when they’re dealing with an adult they can trust. It can take a long time to build that trust. I’m hoping they might talk to me when I tell them I went to this school, that . . .’ She glances over at Davie. ‘That I’ve been questioned by the police myself. You know, when that terrible accident happened down at the burn. I was only a child myself . . .’
She lets her sentence trail off. Why did she bring that up, of all things? Polly catches another glance passing between Louise and Davie.
‘Jon,’ Davie says, ‘why don’t we start with you? Shall we pop through to your office? Polly can look after the others in here. Maybe get a bit of insight into which kids we might need to speak to. Polly?’
‘Sure. Sure. That’d be fine,’ she says.
Fuck, she thinks. They’re talking to Jon on his own. What’s he going to say about Lucas? More and more, Polly wishes that she hadn’t let the man go home.
She has a horrible, horrible feeling about it, but right now there’s absolutely nothing she can do.
22
Louise
Louise takes the seat opposite the headmaster. ‘So, Mr Poole—’
He cuts her off. ‘Jon. Please.’
‘Jon, any ideas what’s going on? Anyone you think we need to be speaking to?’
‘Did Katie have any enemies?’ Davie says. He is looking at the certificates on Jon Poole’s walls. Louise knows he’s leaving her in the hot seat, as it were. Hoping she might be able to get something more out of Jon, making it look like she’s just having some general chat when really she is observing everything he says and does.
Jon rubs a hand over his face. Sighs. ‘She was a good student. Very good. It’s not very PC of me to say this, but her family aren’t the best. Her younger sister is a troublemaker. The brother is a bit – how can I say? – lost. I’m not sure their mother has much to do with them, to be honest. Katie seemed to bear the brunt of bringing them up.’ He stares down at the pile of papers that are neatly stacked in the middle of his desk. He picks up a pen and places it back down, parallel to the stack of papers.
‘What about her friends?’ Louise says. She glances at Davie and he gives her a look that says push it. ‘Have you been made aware of any fallings out recently? It’s not a huge school – if Katie was well known, I imagine these things would be noticed . . .’
Jon sits up straight. ‘I don’t really take too much notice of that sort of thing. You’d be better asking some of her teachers, maybe—’ There’s a sharp knock on the door and he stops talking. ‘Come in!’
Polly, the brand-spanking-new guidance counsellor, sticks her head round the door. ‘Jon, sorry to interrupt. The others are wondering if you still need them, or if they can go? People are tired. They need to absorb all this. Might be best if we talk more in the morning?’
Davie clears his throat. ‘Good idea, Polly. Why don’t you all get off? We’ll finish up here. Talk to you all again tomorrow. Maybe you could have a look at the student lists tonight, then tomorrow we can start to chat to the classes too?’
Polly nods, gives them a small smile. She retreats back through the gap and closes the door behind her.
Jon lets out a long, slow sigh.
‘Difficult day . . .’ Louise says.
Jon rubs a hand over his head, leaves his hair sticking up in tufts. ‘That’s the understatement of the year. Listen, you know I’ll do anything I can to help here. Just ask.’
‘We will,’ Davie says. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’
* * *
Back in the car, Louise leans back into her seat and starts picking at her cuticles. ‘What about this Lucas Crisp? What do we think about him going home early?’
Davie slaps her hand gently and she stops picking. ‘I’d like to go and talk to him now, but if he’s ill we’re not going to get much out of him. Let’s go round and see if he’s up to it, then we can go back to the station, try and work out where we are so far. We need updates from Steph Benedict and the uniforms back at the house anyway. And I need to talk to Malkie.’
Louise starts the engine. ‘What about all the first twenty-four hours is critical in a murder investigation bit? Shouldn’t we be talking to everyone who knew her?’
‘Not tonight, Lou. Tonight we need to get back and regroup. See what the others have got. Work on a plan to decide who’s doing what. It’s been a long day. Nothing immediately obvious has jumped out at us yet, has it? Besides, I need to make a few phone calls.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘That lad in there – Pete . . .’
‘The janitor’s assistant?’
‘Aye, him. I don’t want to jump the gun, but, well, there’s been a few things about him in the past. He was questioned about approaching a wee girl in a park a few years ago. He had a bit of an obsession with my friend, Anne. And then he turned up with a piece of key evidence during all the business with the girls being scared up at the Track last summer.’
‘But he didn’t have anything to do with any of it, did he?’
‘Nothing proven at the time, but I’ve always had my doubts. Problem is, his dad is Martin Brotherstone.’
‘As in Councillor Martin Brotherstone, local Tory candidate?’
‘For his sins. Makes it difficult to get anything concrete about Pete. But then again, now that Chief Inspector Hamilton has retired he’s got no man on the inside, as it were. I might be able to push a bit harder. I know Malkie will agree. He always hated Hamilton and anyone associated with him.’
Louise’s stomach flips. Pete Brotherstone. He’d been mentioned in the case notes from the investigations into what happened at Black Wood. Always a cloud hanging over the lad, but no one had ever been able to make anything stick. Interesting. It’d be nice if it could be this simple.
‘Anyway,’ Davie says, as Louise pulls out onto the main road, ‘before all that I need to pop home. I need to eat, and so does the bloody cat.
You coming with me?’
Louise feels a fluttering in her chest. ‘Um, I was going to ask Malkie if I could borrow one of the pool cars to get myself back home—’
‘You brought a bag, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, but that was for an emergency – like if I had to kip at the station or something . . .’
Davie laughs. ‘I’m not going to twist your arm, Lou, but I’ve got a comfy bed in the spare room, and half a tray of leftover lasagne in the fridge. I might even be able to rustle up some garlic bread and a bit of salad. Plus, it would give us more time to talk about things . . .’
Things? Jesus, did he know? Was she that bloody obvious?
‘The case? We’re still trying to solve a murder, in case it had slipped your mind.’
She realises she’s been holding her breath. Lets it out in a whoosh. ‘That sounds great, Davie.’
23
Polly
Polly flicks on the kettle and drops two pieces of bread into the toaster. She should be eating better. She knows this. She did a big shop on Sunday, filling the fridge with salads and yoghurts and chicken. The fruit bowl on the worktop is full to the brim with oranges and apples, a couple of bananas on top already starting to brown.
What she’d really like is a large glass of wine. A bottle, even.
Was it a mistake to come back here?
The house is warm, the darkness thick outside the windows. But the place feels empty and hollow. Memories of her childhood trapped in the walls.
Someone else’s memories, too. The man who lived here before. The one who was killed at Black Wood cottage. He deserved it, and yet it still feels wrong. The man who caused so much pain, living here in this house – her house. Sleeping in her bed. She would have to buy a new bed. But money wasn’t really free-flowing at the moment. She was still paying half the mortgage for the place in Edinburgh, even though Simon was there alone and could well afford it. Still, a small price to pay for being away from him.
So why does she miss him?
She checks her phone again. Nothing. No ‘hope your first day went well’. No ‘hope you’re OK there on your own’. Why should he care? She left him. She’s the one with another man’s child in her belly – although he doesn’t know this. Not yet.
She spreads a thick layer of Philadelphia on the toast and pours milk into the tea. Adds two heaped sugars. If she can’t have wine, she’ll have to get buzzed some other way. She takes a bite of the toast and leans back into the cushions on the sofa. Her mum made these cushions, years ago. She’d helped, holding the pins while her mother tacked the edges.
A small tear runs down her cheek and she wipes it away, angrily.
Fuck you, Simon.
If he’d just cared a little bit more. Thought about her instead of his bloody job all the time. Not to mention the golf. Jesus. Could there be a sport more boring than golf? Walking round a field chasing after a little ball? Discussing it over too many gins in the clubhouse where women were still forbidden to enter?
She rubs her belly. At least he isn’t like that. He is nothing like that at all. For one, he doesn’t drink. Isn’t particularly interested in sports, either. He loves music, like she does. Books too. American boxsets. Walks in the woods.
She stares out of the window, towards the bridge that leads down to the woods where Claire and Jo had gone that day. Feels another tear slide down her face. This time she leaves it there.
She sends a text: Did you hear what happened today?
Stupid bloody question. Of course he’ll know. She sips her tea; the sickly thickness of the sugar coats her throat. Waits.
Yes. Do you want me to come round?
Wind whistles through the air vent on the kitchen window. A high-pitched squeal: long, drawn out. A flurry of snow patters against the window.
The weather is awful. Don’t come out in this.
He lives at the other end of the town. He doesn’t have a car. She doesn’t want him freezing to death out there.
Don’t be stupid. I’m on my way.
She wants to reply, tell him to stay at home. Stay warm. She needs to think. Is it too soon? Does she want people to find out the real reason she came back to the town? Who she came back for? It’s too complicated now – with what’s happened. Mandy Taylor is back in her life. She’s going to have to talk to her children. The two that she has left . . . And while she knows that they are not his children, he was there when they were little. She imagines that Mandy might need him more than she does right now. But she needs to feel his arms around her. She needs to tell him about the baby. Before it becomes too difficult to hide.
She swivels around, lies down on the sofa. Feels herself sinking in deep. The dream comes to her before she is even asleep. The woods. Darkness.
She doesn’t hear the door opening. Doesn’t feel the icy blast of air that he brings in with him. When he lies down beside her, holding her tight, she lets his coldness mix with her warmth and, finally, she feels safe.
TUESDAY
24
Louise
Louise bites into the bacon roll and feels the ooze of butter running down her chin. The diet is fucked for now, obviously. Lasagne and wine at Davie’s, and now a breakfast of carbohydrate, saturated fat and too much salt. Bloody good, though. It’s eat when you can and eat what’s available, and thankfully Rav, one of the uniforms assigned to their team, had gone down to one of the local cafés – Landucci’s? An Italian name, anyway. Something like that – and brought them all back their breakfast. If anyone was veggie, they were screwed, but judging by the happy faces munching away no one was disappointed with the choice.
‘Right,’ Malkie says. ‘I’m assuming that you’ve all had some sleep, and you’re now being well fed, thanks to PC Singh, so let’s get on with it. Yesterday’s developments . . .’ He pauses, flips the cover of the giant pad on the easel. He’s clearly been busy with his theories, as the whole thing is covered in names, connecting lines. Some of the names are underlined, a couple have big red circles drawn around them. The team look on eagerly, desperate to get on with the day’s work – desperate to find the bastard responsible. ‘So,’ he continues, ‘here’s the skinny. Door to door – that’s Rav Singh and Al Patterson – spoke to all but one of the neighbours on Katie’s street. So far, nada. A lot of them are elderly, and they were in bed early on Sunday night. Some of them were up early on Monday morning, but no one noticed anything suspicious. Problem is, the time of year – no one opens their curtains at 6 a.m. when it’s still dark. According to the coroner, Katie was killed sometime between 5 and 7 a.m. – based on the bruising and the fact that she was only just going into rigor when the GP arrived on the scene.’
‘What about the neighbour that no one spoke to?’ Louise asks.
Malkie nods at her. ‘Coming to that. Rav and Al are heading back there this morning, hoping we get an answer. The neighbour is a Mr Cooper Pembrey – he works at the carpet factory in Portobello. He often works double shifts, but it seems that he’s something of a man of mystery. Sometimes he’s not back for a couple of days at a time, according to the neighbour on the other side – Mrs Kendal – someone who was seemingly gutted not to have overheard anything. The street’s gossip, apparently. Shame she’d gone to bed with earplugs and a sleeping pill after a dodgy stomach brought on by her Sunday evening meals-on-wheels. Anyway, we don’t know if Mr Pembrey was around on Sunday night or Monday morning yet, but fingers crossed.
‘Next: who’s in the frame? Family first. The current stepfather, Brooke and Brett’s dad, is locked up and he definitely hasn’t escaped. We checked. We can’t rule out the mother . . .’
He is cut off by a series of groans and murmurs from the team.
‘Come on, lads. You know how this works. I agree, she seems genuinely distraught, and we know she was working a shift at Barrett’s on Sunday night, but we only have her word about what time she got back – her shift finished at seven, she says she got home at eight-thirty, finding the house empty ex
cept for Katie – who was still in bed. Already deceased. Plus, there’s the kids. Brooke and Brett. Where were they all of yesterday morning? We’re still trying to establish this. We’re going easy because of their age, but don’t be fooled. There are plenty of damaged kids out there – they wouldn’t be the first to do something horrific and run away.’
Another groan. Louise has a question to ask, but she’s saving it. Something that kept her awake half the night. She and Davie had talked for hours, sitting together on the small sofa. She’d taken her shoes off, curled her legs up. Felt the heat of his thighs on the soles of her feet. He’d moved a bit closer then, or maybe she’d imagined it. She went to bed, stared up at the ceiling. Thought about Davie. Thought about Lucas Crisp. The teacher who’d gone home early. What about him? They’d gone round, but there’d been no answer at his door. He must’ve been asleep. They’d decided to leave him to it. Something had been niggling at her, but she’d shaken it away. She tries to focus.
‘Just stating the facts. Next: boyfriend. We’ve still to properly question the boyfriend, Neil Price. Another likely candidate – lovers’ tiff? Then there’s the school – friends, teachers, anyone who’s had any contact with Katie recently, or at all, even. In fact, it’s the ones who haven’t been in contact you might want to focus on. Who has she fallen out with recently? Talk to the kids. Get the school counsellor involved – you can use her as the appropriate adult, or you can let her take the lead. Karen and Sarah can deal with this. Louise – step in, if needed. See how it works best. Don’t push them too hard, but find out what they know.’ He pauses, takes a bite of his roll and washes it down with a glug of tea. ‘Someone knows something, right? This is a small community. Use Davie as your point of contact – he knows better than anyone what this place is like. Banktoun’s turning into bloody Midsomer these days. Let’s get this sorted out, soon as. Your sub-teams and tasks are on the whiteboard.’
