The Girl in the Green Dress

by Cath Staincliffe

  Ain’t going to happen. She was not about to start being a housewife and stay-at-home mother. Besides, there was absolutely no way she was giving up her role leading the Major Incident Team in the middle of a murder inquiry.

  ‘I was thinking we might need help,’ she said.

  ‘What sort of help?’ Kirsten said suspiciously.

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Could she ask Bryony to take it on? And what was it? Meals to be sure. Donna could sort out packed lunches for the little ones. They could all get their own breakfast so it was teatimes. And the twins could do all the dishwasher loading and emptying. And the bins. They were meant to load the dishwasher anyway but invariably ‘forgot’.

  ‘Can we go and see Dad?’ Matt said.

  ‘Soon, not today,’ she said.

  ‘Aw,’ Kirsten complained.

  ‘He’d love to see you but they’re moving him today and we have to wait and find out when visiting hours are.’

  Donna could cover the laundry, even if it meant loading the machine when she got in from work. Fit in a big shop at the weekend, fill the freezer. How hard could it be?

  After they’d eaten, she laid out her plan and got them to agree to their various roles. After some dissension from Kirsten about walking home (and a swift veto on bikes from Bryony), it was agreed that if it was raining they could get a taxi and if dry they would walk.

  ‘It’ll be good exercise,’ Donna said.

  ‘Why don’t you walk to work, then?’ Kirsten said.

  ‘That’s, like, ten miles,’ Rob said.

  ‘Is it?’ Kirsten said.

  ‘More like seven,’ Donna said.

  ‘What’s that in kilometres?’ Matt said.

  ‘Work it out, dummy,’ Kirsten said.

  ‘There’s something else I need to tell you,’ Donna said, lowering her voice so they stopped bickering and paid attention. ‘Dad’s accident happened because he had a heart attack. He’s all right,’ she went on quickly, seeing panic on Kirsten’s face, ‘and the doctors will be checking his heart to see what they can do so it doesn’t happen again.’

  ‘Like a bypass?’ Lewis said.

  ‘Yes, or medication,’ Donna said. ‘It depends what they find. So, anyway, he lost control of the car and hit someone, a man, and hurt him very badly, and he died.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Bryony said.

  ‘Will Dad go to prison?’ Matt said.

  ‘No, stupid, it was an accident,’ Kirsten said.

  ‘You’re not stupid,’ Donna said to Matt. ‘And it was an accident so they won’t punish Dad. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t do anything wrong. But because someone died they have to have an investigation and explain what happened for the man’s family.’

  Was he married? Had he children? Even now the coroner would be giving permission for a post-mortem, and the police would be tasked with getting a formal identification. All the same steps as happened with a murder, with any sudden death.

  ‘He won’t be able to do his driving lessons, though?’ Matt said.

  ‘Not till he’s better,’ Donna said. How badly would this hit his insurance premium?

  ‘When can we see Dad?’ Bryony said.

  ‘Tomorrow, all being well. But they won’t let us all in at once. They have rules. Two or three visitors at a time.’

  ‘We’ll have to take turns,’ Matt said.

  ‘Yes.’

  The disruption to ordinary routine meant the children hung around the living room longer than usual, clinging together instead of separating off into their rooms or, in the case of the older ones, going out to see friends.

  With Masterchef on the television, Donna’s thoughts returned to work. Their early success in finding Bishaar, in getting descriptions of the attack and the assailants, had led her to expect a swift conclusion, especially given the plethora of DNA from the scene. But now, with Anthony Mayhew eliminated, the whole inquiry had stalled.

  On top of that, tackling Jade had been every bit as unpleasant as she’d feared. At one point she’d thought Jade was going to physically attack her. Donna had sensed the aggression, the change in the air. It was a sad business, but thank God it had come to her attention before any more harm had been done.

  Calls were still coming in, in response to photo-fits and the appeal, so perhaps they just needed to wait it out until one of them came up trumps.

  What else have we got? she asked herself. What’s solid? Nothing yet on CCTV, which was disappointing, the recording from Fredo’s being irrelevant (even if it did turn up again after Jade had lost it) and the one from the Cavalier non-existent. But we do know what they look like. We have their DNA. We can trace most of their movements before and afterwards. We have a chillingly detailed account of the killing from an eyewitness. All we need now are the suspects’ names but, given they’re not on the system . . .

  It came to her then – another way to approach the problem.

  She went upstairs for privacy and made the call.

  ‘Harold Jenkins. Hello?’

  ‘Sir, this is DI Bell. Sorry to call so late.’

  ‘Not at all, Donna. What can I do?’

  ‘You remember you said if I needed more resources for the Allie Kennaway murder . . . ?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, we’ve not been able to put names to our suspects yet. They’ve no existing criminal records and no one has identified them so far.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I know it’s a long shot but I’d like to go back to the lab, sir, and order familial DNA testing. Perhaps we might find a relative on the database and trace the suspects that way.’

  Martin

  ‘You training again, Dale?’ Fran said. ‘You should have a day off. You don’t want to overdo it.’

  ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Martin said. ‘Tonight I can give him a lift. Tomorrow could be tricky.’

  ‘He doesn’t need a lift – he can get the bus, or he could just go round the park if all he needs is a run.’

  ‘When did you get your coaching certificate?’ Martin said.

  ‘Oh, go on, then,’ Fran said. ‘I just don’t know why you’re ferrying him about all of a sudden.’

  ‘I don’t often get the chance. Anyway, it’s no bother,’ Martin said. He wished she’d keep her nose out but knew he mustn’t react in any way that increased her curiosity or aroused suspicion.

  Martin drove in silence. Dale was quiet too, probably sensing his father was in no mood for any blather.

  The evening was dry and dull, no sunset visible, only a fading of the light through various shades of grey.

  Oliver was waiting, as instructed, and Martin pulled in long enough for him to slip into the back. He drove to the outskirts of the Trafford Park, a spot on the edge of the sprawling industrial zone, with its factories and warehouses, shipping containers and cranes. He used to come here to meet one of his community informants back when he was investigating vice. Then, Martin knew, there had been no cameras along the road; now, he drove up and back double-checking before he parked the car.

  ‘You found a job?’ he said to Oliver.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Try harder. Now – question for you, the pair of you. What are you going to do if you’re arrested?’

  Dale threw back his head.

  ‘Are they going to arrest us?’ Oliver said.

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ Martin said. ‘But if they do, what do you say?’

  ‘No comment?’ Dale said uncertainly.

  Martin scoffed. ‘Yeah, right. Any better ideas?’ he said to Oliver.

  The lad blushed as he spoke. ‘We didn’t do it. We weren’t there.’

  ‘That right?’ Martin leant in closer towards the back seats. ‘Your DNA is at the scene, and we’ve an eyewitness saw you clear as day – he could pick you out of a line-up with his eyes half closed. Your kick marks are on the victim’s body. We know you were there. We can prove it.’ Martin turned to Dale. ‘Prove you kicked him, spat on him, tracked his blood into a c
ab.’

  Dale glanced back at his mate, then stared ahead out of the front windscreen. ‘So we’re fucked,’ he said. ‘If they arrest us.’

  ‘Well and truly,’ Martin said.

  ‘We could go abroad,’ Oliver said.

  Martin stared at him. ‘What the fuck do you think this is? The bleeding Bourne Conspiracy?’

  ‘So what are we doing here?’ Dale said hotly. ‘Is this just so you can make us feel like shit?’

  Martin moved forward swiftly and Dale jerked away. ‘The reason we’re here is that you two stupid pricks kicked someone to death. You think I want to be dragged into this fucking mess? But here we are. And if you do get arrested, either of you, there’s some things you need to understand. First, and most importantly, we never had this conversation, or any conversation. I never knew anything about your part in the crime or your attempts to cover your arses. Clear?’

  Both boys nodded.

  ‘I am pure as driven snow. If you are arrested . . .’ he looked at Dale, who was nervous, twitchy, a muscle working on the edge of his jaw ‘. . . I’ll have to step down from the investigation. You’ll be on your own. It’ll be down to you two.’

  ‘What will?’ Dale shook his head. ‘You just said we’d be fucked. So what can we do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. You listen to me. I’m going to tell you what happened on Friday night and you learn this step by step. And we none of us go home tonight until you have. Off by heart and back to front. So, first off, you go into town, you have the meal, your other mates go off to the party – they’re on the guest list, you two weren’t. Next, you walk down to the Cavalier . . .’

  Their eyes were on him, soaking up every word. If the world smiled on him, they’d never need to repeat any of it. But if everything went to shit, then learning this story, sticking to it line by line, insisting it was the truth, would be their only chance to escape conviction.

  Steve

  He should go to bed. He knew that. He ignored the thought and poured another measure into his whisky glass.

  By the light of the table lamp, he’d been attempting to go through the emails that had piled up in his inbox. Finding himself overwhelmed by the task, he closed his laptop.

  Beside him on the sofa, Allie’s A–Z of Being T lay open. Lola – a song from the olden days (1970) by The Kinks. A young man meets the beautiful Lola in a London . . .

  He didn’t usually drink whisky but they were out of beer so he’d brought the bottle down from the top of the fridge. It had been a Christmas present. This year? Last year? Either from his parents or his sister.

  Emma. Just thinking of her lit a small flame of indignation in his solar plexus.

  You can’t avoid her for ever.

  Couldn’t he? Other people were happily estranged from members of their family. He wouldn’t care if he never saw her again.

  Had there ever been a time when there’d been peace between them? Hard to recall one. As children, their fights had been protracted and bitter. With only two years between them they might have been playmates, but all their energies were directed into rivalry, into trying to get the better of each other or the rival into trouble. It must have driven his mother to distraction. She was the only one around, most of the time, to dispense discipline or arbitrate. Emma had a facility for crying at will and was able to switch on the outrage. She’d a Machiavellian mind, quick-thinking and opportunistic, could dream up justifications and downright lies in a heartbeat. Tactics that left Steve speechless, impotent to challenge the injustice of it all.

  His mother wasn’t a fool and could often see through Emma’s histrionics but other adults were regularly conned. Was it simply jealousy – the cliché of Emma’s nose being put out of joint when Steve came along, resulting in a lifelong competition for love and attention?

  Still, he let her get under his skin. Five minutes’ contact and he was four years old and bawling because she’d wrecked his line of cars, so carefully arranged to follow the pattern on the dining-room carpet. Or he was six and she’d ruined his birthday party, winning Pass the Parcel and Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and leaping to join in when he didn’t blow all of the candles out in one go. And sneering when he got upset.

  Fights consisted of Steve shouting and Emma mimicking him, calling him a cry-baby, a cissy. They were reasonably matched for strength and it usually took an adult to prise them apart as thumps, kicks and slaps were exchanged.

  Would it have been different if Emma had been a boy? Or Steve a girl? They said sisters fought but in the next breath claimed to be the best of friends. And brothers, they could be vicious rivals, couldn’t they? From Cain and Abel down to the pair in Oasis, the Gallagher brothers, with their well-publicized slanging matches.

  He drank some of the whisky and felt it warm his gullet. The house was quiet, only the occasional snoring of the dog and the ticking of the joists as they settled with the cooling night.

  He didn’t want to waste his time, his energy, dwelling on Emma. He was sick of it. Sick of his Pavlovian responses.

  The things she’d said about Allie. Young boys needed stronger role models. Men needed to retain respect and authority. Implying what? That Steve had failed in some way. That he was a loser, not enough of a man? His thoughts jumbled. What did it even mean nowadays to be a man? In his father’s time most of the workforce in his section at the plant were male, the women given different jobs. Work was men together, sports too – the football or the cricket – pub the same, save for weekends when wives and girlfriends joined in.

  But that world was long dead. At work Steve had equally good relationships with men and women. Probably a quarter of his clients were women.

  In his schooldays, a boy’s worth was gauged by strength but also by skill. A boy with a comic wit and a facility for making the class laugh was valued, or the one who led the soccer team or played in a band. There were anxieties about height, penis size, acne and being thought homosexual (no one came out back in his day, not at his school anyway). A real man wasn’t queer.

  He drained the whisky, wincing as he swallowed. He should eat something. He should go to bed.

  He’d never questioned his manhood, his masculinity or his sexuality. He’d asked Sarah once if she’d ever been attracted to women.

  ‘Lesbian tendencies? No, not really. Maybe I’ve not met the right woman.’ She laughed. ‘As a kid I wanted to be a boy – I wished I’d been born a boy.’

  ‘Why? I’m glad you weren’t.’

  ‘The usual. Boys had more fun, fewer rules. They could go off exploring while the girls had to bake bloody cakes or entertain the aunties or whatever.’

  ‘Chained to the kitchen?’ Steve said.

  ‘Not exactly that but there was a line. My father never used the washing-machine, never cooked a meal. If I’d had a brother he’d never have lifted a finger either.’

  ‘Does it matter, in a relationship, if you’re happy with the arrangement?’ Steve said.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘there’s the rub. I bet you’d get different answers from men and women about that.’

  All the stereotypes: men don’t do housework, women aren’t good drivers, men are no good with feelings, women can’t wire a plug. Women are from Venus, men are from Mars.

  What role model had Allie had in mind when she’d talked about changing gender? What was a woman in her eyes? The only image Steve had in his head of trans women back then came from drag queens, who seemed to play up the stereotype of the ultra-feminine at a time when many women were trying to break away from all that.

  It’s hard to know how much he was doing it for attention. Why was it so hard to forget about Emma, to put her and her snide comments in a box marked ‘Reactionary Claptrap’ and lock it away out of sight? To let it go.

  He refilled the tumbler.

  A narcissist: that was what Sarah had said, a personality type that could never be persuaded by anyone else’s opinion if it didn’t reflect their own. No real sense of empathy.

 
But why couldn’t he have some perspective on it? He knew the truth was there, behind the fog in his mind. The reason his feelings about his sister were so powerful, why he overreacted. If only he could dig it out, like a pebble in the mud. All the things she’d said. He was still a child . . . putting himself in danger . . . He closed his eyes, rooted around some more, grasping at possibilities. Then he had it. The answer to why her comments hurt so. The reason he objected so vehemently, out of all proportion, was because in the first unguarded, untutored moments, in the immediacy of learning about Allie’s desires, her intentions, her real identity, Steve had experienced those exact same thoughts. How can a fourteen-year-old boy really know what he wants? The health risks alone. Loathed himself for it. And suppressed them.

  He sighed and rubbed his face with one hand. He ought to put the glass down, switch off the lamp and go to bed. In a minute, he promised himself. In a few minutes.

  Jade

  A note had been slipped under her door. Mina’s shopping list. Shit. It was too late to go now so she’d have to try to fit it in first thing. She should never have suggested it. There were home helps out there for that sort of thing. But after finding Mina breathless, lugging carrier bags up to their floor and giving her a hand time and again, there’d been one day when Jade was late for work. Rushing to get the woman and her groceries up the stairs, she had snatched a bag, which had split, sending tins and potatoes and milk bouncing down the stairs. Jade had wanted to chuck the rest down after it. And Mina too.

  Instead she’d said, ‘Next week I’ll do the shopping. You write a list.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t—’

  ‘You could. You will. I’ve got the car and that’s the end of it.’

  Now Jade put the note into her bag and shook off her jacket. She was wired, her head buzzing and pulse tripping fast. Nowhere near ready for sleep. But she had plenty to be getting on with.

  First she opened the styrofoam container, wolfed down the kebab and chips she’d brought from the parade, choking when some pitta caught in her throat. The smell of raw onions filled the flat. She washed her hands. Then, sitting cross-legged in the old armchair, she connected her phone to her tablet and uploaded the files she’d got from the Cavalier.