Problems with Girls (DI Sloane Book 2)

by Kelly Creighton

  I could feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.

  ‘Excuse me, a moment.’ I went outside and called Sylvia. ‘Everything, okay?’

  ‘I can’t settle Rowan,’ she said.

  I sighed. ‘Have you read to him? Fed him?’

  ‘He’s upset. His cheeks are piping hot.’

  ‘Take a layer off him and give him his teething ring out of the fridge.’

  ‘I don’t have it in the fridge.’

  ‘But I said earlier to put it in the fridge.’

  ‘You said a lot of things, it’s a lot to take on board.’

  Charly, my twin, would know, I thought, only she had done her time with five kids and now was getting her youngest into a special school. These days Charly spent lunching with friends, and I felt a surge of bitterness. For her, motherhood started earlier and she was reaping the rewards by having something of a break now.

  But I was also bitter at Sylvia. She had begged me to let her look after the babies, and before that she had a life of swanning about, being a mini celebrity of sorts within their congregation. The First Lady of the Church. Now she was stopping me from working too. But my boys, would they have no respect for me if I was to stay at home, like Glynis had to?

  ‘Give him Calpol,’ I said. ‘I really have to go back to work.’

  But she had already succeeded in guilting me, and the rest of the day a heaviness lay in my heart.

  *

  Back at the station Higgins asked why I’d brought up social media to Glynis.

  ‘Chloe was getting nasty messages, remember? We should really look at them.’

  ‘Could Glynis have been sending her messages? Her own biological daughter?’

  ‘Glad you had a perfect upbringing, lots haven’t,’ I snapped, stressed.

  ‘Oh … Sorry if I offended you. I didn’t realise …’

  ‘Not me, Carl! Lots of people we work with. Sorry, I’m just stressed with my childcare arrangement.’

  He pursed his lips like, here we go; she’s going to start expecting special treatment.

  ‘I’ll get it sorted,’ I said. ‘Teething problems. Literally.’ I picked up my phone as it rang again. Sylvia.

  ‘I know I said that I would give you a month,’ she simpered, ‘a month to see if you were happy, but I’m prepared to do without that notice period.’

  ‘Are you?’ I laughed loudly.

  ‘Harriet, they are your boys, not mine.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ I said then hung up on her.

  I told Higgins to wait, that I’d be back ASAP. I gave Greg Dunne the death stare on the way through. It was all so easy for him. Beyond fucken easy.

  I called my sisters while driving. Charly was at an appointment with Timothy, which made me feel bad for thinking she had things easier, when she didn’t and might never. She’ll always have Timothy to care for, even when her other four children have grown and left home.

  Then I phoned my older sister, Coral. Her phone kept going to voicemail, so I called her partner Rose.

  ‘We’re in London,’ Rose said, ‘on a surprise getaway for our anniversary.’ She promised she would get Coral to call me back when she came back from the hotel lobby. I told her not to worry, to enjoy herself and not to tell Coral I called.

  I stared at the driftwood heart Sylvia had hanging from a nail on the front door. I ignored the jingly church-sounding doorbell and thumped the glass panel beside it, waited for her to appear. With her nose in the air. Like I knew it would be. She was trying to give me an authoritative look. I noticed she was shaking.

  ‘The best place for them is with their mother,’ she tried twice to convince me, once for each baby.

  I had to bite my tongue to stop myself asking if she would give up on her potential adopted child so easily. I’d been their character witness for the adoption agency even though I’d always found her characterless, standing there with her frazzled grey hair in a low ponytail. I rarely colour my hair, or do anything with it, but her premature old lady style drove me mad.

  I said nothing. I carried the babies out of hers while she stood limply holding their bags.

  Inside the car I blasted the air conditioner and again had to bite my tongue when she came to the car, saying, ‘They’re your kids, Harriet, they’re not my responsibility.’ Bit my tongue to stop me saying, ‘I’m only trying to do my job, why are you punishing me?’ and to stop myself from saying, ‘Maybe your god won’t give you a baby because you don’t deserve one.’ I muttered it under my breath instead, I don’t think she heard. If she did she never brought it up after. Which I’m glad of. It was a cruel thing to mutter.

  Chagrined, Sylvia went inside and I tried to phone Paul. He was in theatre with a patient so his phone went straight to voicemail. I left him a shitty message.

  Then I remembered there was a day nursery in the street beside the police station, so I drove there and parked around the corner. I could not bring the babies into work, I just couldn’t. I cried in the car for a minute. It is not often I cry and I wasn’t sad, just frustrated as hell.

  I went into the nursery, a boy on each hip.

  ‘Usually there is a waiting list of months, but two babies have just left,’ said one member of staff excitedly, the one who had greeted me at the locked door I’d been struggling to open.

  ‘Great, can you take them?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, from Monday. And that is very lucky.’

  ‘No, now,’ I said, not feeling very lucky, but I knew under it all I was lucky to have the boys, lucky to have children that were healthy and who were in my life at all.

  She left to get the manager, Joanne, a tall willowy woman with a bowl haircut.

  ‘May I speak to you in confidence?’ I said to Joanne, as I saw her poise herself to give me bad news, to rescind her colleague’s offer of starting the boys from Monday. ‘I’m a Detective Inspector,’ I said quickly, fixing Jared higher on my hip. ‘I’m working on that case, Chloe Taylor, the young woman who was murdered in the PACT office.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Joanne.

  ‘Joanne, my family can’t help and my sitter has let me down.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but …’

  ‘I’m trying to help a family that has lost their daughter and sister. She was murdered, not far from here, in broad daylight.’

  There was nothing coming back to me from Joanne’s expression. She was stone cold.

  ‘Glad to see you have the doors locked,’ I reached for scare tactics.

  ‘They are always locked. It’s our policy,’ said Joanne.

  ‘Well, I’m still glad to see it, for everyone’s safety,’ I said. ‘I need to find the perpetrator as soon as I can. I’m in charge of the case. The buck stops with me, Joanne.’

  ‘I thought that murder was random,’ she said, ‘are you saying that it could happen again, in this area?’ She pointed at her feet.

  I was stuck; to say yes would mean that she and her staff might refuse to work there for a time. But Jared saved me from answering anyway, he smiled at stone-faced, bowl haircutted Joanne and she smiled, melted and said, ‘Okay. But I am breaking all the rules.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ I said, then, fearing I had gone too far, ‘thank you, I am really indebted.’

  ‘One of the babies is off sick, and it’s all down to room ratios, you see. There are guidelines; I didn’t make them up. I can take one of the boys up to the toddler room, just this once. Anyway, they are probably walking by this age.’ She lifted her head and I realised it was a question.

  ‘Yes. Practically,’ I said. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ I worried about them being separated for the first time in their short lives but I’d been gone from work for an hour already. ‘I should have just come here in the first place, instead of letting that sitter keep them,’ I said, ‘she’s a flake.’

  Joanne took the boys from me and I zoomed through the numerous paperwork, then went out and wept in the car with relief. I tapped face powder over the red blotches that had appear
ed high up on my cheeks.

  I put on my engine and the window down. Lizzie, Chloe’s best friend, was walking past my car.

  ‘Hi! Did you find that gardener?’ she asked me through the window. She wasn’t as glam now, but in blue striped trackie bottoms and grubby grey trainers with fluorescent pink laces.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you go over to the station, and I’ll be with you in ten.’

  I drove into the car park, past the high metal sheet fencing. Had a moment to calm down in the loo, then came out to meet her.

  ‘Jackie doesn’t care,’ Lizzie threw at me, ‘that’s what it looks like, but I want to make sure someone goes down for this.’

  ‘But it can’t be just anybody,’ I said. ‘That’s not how it works. It takes time to find the culprit.’

  ‘Obviously,’ she said. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘A coffee?’

  ‘No. You look like you could do with one, though.’

  ‘Yes, Lizzie. Let me get one and we’ll get back to this.’

  ‘In that case I will join you. Milk, no sugar.’

  I left to make them and watched her in the monitor, Lizzie was looking around the room. She rested her chin in her hand and propped her elbow on the table.

  ‘Here you go,’ I said, and put the cup in front of her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lizzie said, flicking her hair. ‘I have helmet hair,’ she said.

  I smiled at her. ‘Cyclist’s burden,’ I said, but then remembered she’d been on foot at the top of the hill outside the day nursery.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she replied with a slight laugh. ‘I went for a ride today, but on a horse, not a bike.’

  ‘Do you own the horses out the back of your house?’

  ‘I wish I had that land, or any land. I wish! The owner lets me go riding for free, if I help out mucking out the horses in return.’

  ‘How many do they have? Two?’ I asked with curiosity. I have always loved horses. Such beautiful, intuitive creatures. How nice would it be for my boys to have horses, to live in the country, I thought.

  ‘Two.’ Lizzie nodded. ‘There were three until recently. One of them died. He’d had seizures for a long time. It was shocking to see the dead corpse of an animal, so much bigger than a human. It seemed more tragic.’

  ‘Well, nice day to be out for a ride.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m getting off subject.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said, sipping my coffee. I was glad to talk about something normal for a minute. Not murder. Not the murder that finding adequate childcare was proving to be.

  ‘The gardener …’ Lizzie prompted.

  ‘Yes, the gardener. He has previous,’ I said then kicked myself for being too open. I took another sip of my drink.

  ‘Oh, what previous has he?’ said Lizzie, all wide-eyed, wrapping one hand around her cup.

  ‘He has served a prison term,’ I said then I stopped. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. He is known to the police, we’ll just say.’

  ‘Has he hurt a woman before?’

  I refused to speak.

  ‘Oh my god.’ Lizzie took my silence for a yes.

  ‘Lizzie, I … I presume you have something to tell us.’

  ‘Not really. I like to check how investigations are progressing.’

  ‘I appreciate that but I can’t say very much and I will keep the family informed.’

  ‘I was much closer to her than they were,’ she said looking bruised.

  ‘I appreciate that, too. I’ll let you know when we make progress.’

  ‘Thanks so much, Detective Sloane. Harriet, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you, Harriet. Have you spoken to that gardener yet?’

  ‘I can’t give out information on the case.’

  ‘I just want to know that things are moving.’

  ‘They’re moving.’

  ‘You’re doing a great job.’ She smiled at me.

  ‘Just give us time, and take time for yourself. This has been a massive shock.’ I knocked back my coffee, Lizzie didn’t touch hers. ‘If that’s all …’

  ‘Before I go, can I just say … Maybe it’s something and maybe it’s nothing, but Drew …’

  Now she had my full attention.

  ‘Drew Taylor,’ Lizzie said, ‘Chloe’s cousin. He’s a bad lot.’

  ‘We’ve been acquainted.’

  ‘There isn’t a pie he doesn’t have a finger in.’ She pulled a face. ‘Oh, that sounds filthy.’

  ‘What about Drew?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, he’s dodgy, isn’t he?’

  ‘Lizzie, I’d like to run something past you.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Lewis said that he would lend Chloe money.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad you got speaking to Lewis!’

  ‘Twice,’ I said.

  ‘And what did you think?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Lewis.’

  ‘I’m mentioning that, Lizzie, because I wonder if you know of any debts Chloe had to anyone?’

  She looked disappointed. ‘So you must think Lewis had nothing to do with it? You like him.’

  ‘Lizzie …’

  ‘You’re on it … You can’t divulge. Fine.’ She smiled at me. ‘But you’ll look into Drew? Drew and that gardener?’

  ‘Look, Lizzie, leave it to us,’ I said. ‘Just let us do our jobs.’

  ‘Before I go, can I just say that I wouldn’t expect much from Drew in the way of truth? He was standing there telling bare-faced lies in the house.’

  ‘Which house do you mean?’

  ‘Chloe’s, that night. The night of the day she died. You were there,’ she said.

  ‘What did he lie about?’

  ‘Drew made out that he hadn’t seen Chloe in months.’

  ‘Had he seen Chloe recently?’

  ‘Very recently. She called him and he came to my house that last night.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The night before. Tuesday just past.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Why did Chloe call Drew?’

  ‘For one of his pies. Drew’s a dealer.’

  ‘Drug dealer?’

  ‘Come on!’ Lizzie said, ribbing me. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Do you know if he ever lent Chloe money?’

  ‘Not that I know of, he brought some weed though.’

  ‘Did Chloe have a problem? An addiction?’

  ‘She did like it a lot. I’d have my chardonnay and she’d have a smoke to calm her. She lived on her nerves. Everyone knows someone like that.’

  ‘Would Drew stay, or would he drop and dash?’

  ‘He’d sit and have a smoke, yeah.’

  ‘How about the night in question? Tuesday just past?’

  ‘He didn’t hang around.’ Lizzie shook her head meaningfully.

  ‘Was there bad blood between them?’

  ‘There always was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh God, I have no idea, but does Drew Taylor have good blood with anyone? He scares the shit out of me.’

  I let the picture reconfigure.

  ‘Are they yours?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘What?’ I looked around the desk.

  ‘The babies?’ she asked with a great big grin.

  I was surprised she’d seen them. I had been inside the nursery for ages.

  ‘They look young.’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘You need time to be you, too.’

  ‘Yes.’ I stood up. ‘Well, thanks, Lizzie, for coming in.’

  ‘You’ll speak to Drew again?’

  ‘I will speak to everyone I can, me and my partner, Sergeant Higgins.’

  ‘I know you will now, Harriet, because you and I are mothers. We’ll get justice for Chloe.’

  When Lizzie left I had time to breathe again. My boys were in a safe spot, one where I wouldn’t have to worry about them. And
I liked the look of that manager Joanne, she was not the type to flap. Unlike Sylvia.

  Chapter 10

  By mid-afternoon that Friday, I called the mobile phone listed for Dan Hamilton of the gardening company. A man answered and when I introduced myself as a DI and asked to speak with him in person, he hung up.

  When Higgins, a little later, called him pretending to be a customer, Hamilton told him he wasn’t taking on many more customers.

  ‘It’s just for a small job,’ Higgins said, ‘a little yard.’

  To which Hamilton reluctantly told him he would be working in the Kings Road area the next day; Saturday. And if he wanted to, he could call and see the flower bed Hamilton was putting in there. As for a home address, we had no luck in finding out where he lived.

  *

  Higgins and I had spoken about Lizzie’s information some more and decided she couldn’t have been her only friend, that Chloe must have had a broader social circle than just one person. What about friends from university? What about the girls she joined on her gap year travelling? Where were they now?

  Around six p.m. we went to meet Beatrice Carnduff from Feminist Complex, Belfast in a café beside Castle Court Shopping Centre. Beatrice sat over a stack of syrupy pancakes. She had perfectly spidery eyelashes and an emerald nose stud.

  ‘I believe Chloe was an active member of FCB,’ I said.

  ‘She would dip in and out,’ said Beatrice. ‘But when she was involved she was very involved.’

  ‘Chloe liked to protest?’

  ‘Is like the right word? She protested in April, after the Belfast Rape Trial, and the awful treatment of the victim.’

  Beatrice was referring to the case against two local rugby players who were on trial for the rape of a young woman. In court her alcohol levels, choice of clothing, language and much more were called into question. Although the rugby players were ultimately acquitted, their stories were questionable and well-aligned.

  No one could claim they hadn’t acted disgracefully, even in the way they spoke about the young woman in their WhatsApp groups.

  Beatrice had used the word victim, and I didn’t think that anyone who had followed the nine-week trial, as it was hard to miss – and the media still used it as clickbait – could realistically not think that she had been victimised, if even by the legal process.