Problems with Girls (DI Sloane Book 2)

by Kelly Creighton

  ‘When I said that to her, “You can save someone but not everyone,” Chloe was uncharacteristically angry at me,’ Prof. Lundy told us. ‘Chloe said she had as much right to help as girls in Pakistan have to read and learn. I told her she was no good to anyone dead.’ June sighed.

  ‘Before the Quetta attacks, Chloe was upset about the veils. We talked about that before she left, I pointed out that world leaders wear veils and they are not the most oppressed; that women who have never seen the light of education, they need help and there are plenty here, on her doorstep. It was important Chloe got her own education sorted before she went off fighting for other women’s rights.’

  ‘Fabulous things you told her,’ said Hewitt, sounding insincere.

  ‘Chloe was determined to go back some day.’ Professor Lundy looked me dead in the eye. ‘I know she would have carried on and made a difference, she was an agent of change. Oh, I am sorry you never got to know her. You would have loved her. She was what this world needs more of.’

  ‘These times correspond with when Chloe’s family say she was travelling in Europe,’ I said, flicking back through my notes.

  ‘She didn’t tell them?’ asked Hewitt, not looking so caught-up on events now.

  ‘Possibly not,’ I said. ‘Professor Lundy, did Chloe ever say much about her dad?’

  ‘Only to say he didn’t like that she’d taken this detour in her studies, he wanted Chloe to get her shit together.’

  ‘Her brother?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any siblings.’

  ‘Mother?’ I ventured.

  ‘I’m sorry, Detective, I have nothing more to add on the personal side.’

  ‘Boyfriend or girlfriend?’ asked Hewitt.

  ‘Again, no. I’m here for my students but I set clear boundaries. Unless there are problems, which there were a couple of years back with Chloe, then we don’t get into the personal. And she was an adult, entitled to a private life.’

  *

  Hewitt said, ‘Everyone has something different to say about Chloe.’

  ‘That means she had good interpersonal skills,’ I said. I had started to feel this huge warmth for Chloe.

  I could not protect her now, no one could, but I could stand up for her. She did it for strangers, didn’t she? ‘Don’t we all change who we are depending on who we are with?’ I asked Fleur.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said.

  Maybe you should, I thought, but I knew Fleur already did whether she could see it herself or not. She had treated Prof. Lundy with respect, even if it was sycophantic respect; she spoke to our Chief with respect, warmly, verging on unprofessional; and Fleur disliked me, and couldn’t help but be a bitch, and I had been to an all-girls school. I understood it well.

  Chief Dunne called Superintendent Hewitt and told her to head to the Taylors’ house. They were quite the little team. He had barely acknowledged me since I’d returned and now I had to put up with their closeness.

  I was driving as I heard his instruction and headed towards Stormont direction, to Chloe’s home. I noticed a missed call from Mike Birch, so I called him back once I’d parked up. He was mine, I decided, not giving Fleur the chance.

  Birch began to tell me that a letter addressed to Chloe had been left at the PACT office and that he had given it to her father.

  ‘Maybe I should have given it straight to you, or binned it,’ Mike said down the line. ‘But Jackie opened it in front of me.’

  ‘Yes?’ I looked at the door, there Jackie was waiting for us.

  ‘It was vile. Hate mail, if you like,’ said Mike.

  ‘We’re at Jackie’s house now,’ I said. ‘He’ll show us the letter.’

  ‘Do you think I should have binned it?’ Mike asked me.

  ‘No, you did the right thing.’

  ‘Jackie was upset, and rightfully so.’

  ‘If any more letters for Chloe arrive,’ I said, ‘bring them to us, or we can pick them up. We’re always passing by the office.’

  Mike thanked me, swore at himself and ended the call.

  Inside the house, the letter sat on the dining table for us. Jackie stayed away from it and from us. I sensed now was not the time to tell him about Chloe’s secret trip to Pakistan.

  The envelope read: Chloe Taylor DRIP, PACT offices, Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast.

  ‘Drip?’ asked Hewitt, like maybe it was a local saying she was not familiar with.

  As far as I knew drip meant a soppy, overly-sentimental or weak character flaw. I could only shrug. I opened the envelope, the letter read:

  Bye Chloe,

  This is what you get when you want to behave like a man. Women are put on this earth to be soft, sensual and sexy. I’m sick of seeing men being oppressed and victimised. Well, look who is oppressed now. You’ve made yourself the victim. Too bad!

  DRIP (Don’t rest in peace)

  ‘Drip?’ said Hewitt, ‘That’s a new one on me.’

  ‘What sicko fuck sends this kind of thing to a dead girl,’ Jackie said.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Hewitt. ‘We just need to locate said sicko fuck.’

  A tight smile registered on Jackie’s face. He prefers her to me, I thought.

  We took the letter with us. Outside Daniel ‘Terry’ Hamilton was pulling up. He took his mower from his trailer and started pulling it over next door’s grass, all the time looking our way. If it had been up to me I’d have gone straight back to the Renal Unit at the Ulster Hospital to check out his dialysis alibi, but Hewitt palmed me off when I suggested it. I had a feeling that if I said the sky was full of clouds, she’d have said it was the hottest, clearest day on record.

  ‘We’re heading back to the station,’ she said. ‘I want a word with the chief, then I’ll decide where we go after that.’

  I started the car and thought, come back Carl Higgins, all is forgiven.

  Chapter 16

  Fleur was looking cosy with the chief again by lunch, so I called the renal unit. They were reluctant to give out any details over the phone, data protection, GDPR, and similar shite. Then Fleur eventually came out of his office and the chief soon after. Dunne told us to get to Belfast Met, where Thomas’ art teacher, Cyn Dockrill, had reported receiving hate mail because of Thomas’ art.

  ‘I want to see a copy of the Irish News,’ he said. ‘Grab one on your travels.’

  I went online as he spoke and saw the front page. The paper read, Slain Activist’s Brother’s Sick Art Capitalises on Murder. The image was too small to make out. I knew that Chief Dunne’s eyesight was failing and he wasn’t a lover of glasses.

  ‘Cyn Dockrill says that Thomas’ work has caused a stir,’ he said and paused. ‘She wants someone to come and take the hate mail away. Get a copy of the Irish News while you’re at it.’ His repetition was my cue to leave, followed by his impatient cough.

  ‘Yes, Chief. You said,’ I told him.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Fleur.

  *

  Cyn had curly blond hair and a gap in her front teeth that showed when she smiled. The smile soon faded when she produced the letter and set it out on her desk among dried paint and a mess of papers and materials.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said, getting a glove from my bag and putting it on, then holding the letter up to the light.

  ‘Apologies,’ said Cyn. ‘Typical artist’s desk.’

  I smiled past the letter at her, then went back to read it, it said:

  Bye Chloe,

  Can’t even let sleeping dogs lie now, you still must be shoved down our throats with your exploits. You are sick in the head, my dear, and I am disgusted that people are allowing your damaging agenda to get out there. You deserved everything you got.

  DRIP (Don’t rest in peace!)

  I gave Hewitt ‘the look’ that said, here we go again. Same person.

  ‘Can you show us this artwork?’ asked Hewitt.

  ‘Sure,’ said Cyn, ‘follow me through to the hall.’

  She walked slightly ahead of
us and led us to a long rectangular room where there was an exhibition set up. The exhibit she stopped at was intricate, a cluster of artwork, all oversized. Paintings and drawings, all different kinds of media and materials.

  First was the heading of this exhibition.

  By Thomas Taylor.

  ‘I’ll let you look, and then I can tell what I know, how does that sound?’ asked Cyn.

  ‘Spot on,’ said Hewitt.

  One shot or two

  The first painting was a charcoal drawing of a girl lying dead on the ground. The girl looked a lot like Chloe. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

  Fridge

  The second certainly looked like Chloe’s face on the body of a small girl. The girl was holding a smaller girl with a younger version of Chloe’s face. They were in a trailer that was attached to the back of a bicycle, the ground around them covered with rubbish.

  The trailer instantly made me think of Hamilton the gardener heaving his mower away and the look he had given us.

  Shower

  The third was a mixed-media collage. The subject in it was a girl with blue hair, she was wrapped in a sarong and holding a jug of water on her head, a line of women behind her, all of them were Chloe, getting steadily younger and smaller. Russian dolls.

  The name Shower made me think of Hamilton too, him and Chloe having words when he turned off her water. Her in a towel instead of a sarong.

  Man-flu

  The fourth piece of art was a shaded drawing of a pregnant woman lying on a hospital bed, the veins in her skeletal arms protruding. Her eyes closed. That face was Chloe’s again. I was starting to feel quite ill, taking a visceral reaction to the artwork.

  Slow as Hell

  The fifth image was a print of a girl writing at her desk by candlelight. The face was recognisable again as being that of the artist’s sister.

  Below it flowers, lots of them, little notes tagged on: R.I.P.; sleep tight.

  As we were looking, three young people came into the room, ignored all the other displays and stood beside us. They whispered about Thomas’ art.

  Hewitt turned and asked everyone to clear out. She asked that Cyn not let anyone else into the hall. Cyn guided the young people out as I took photos on my phone of the art work individually, and of the whole scene.

  ‘That title,’ said Hewitt. ‘First what, hen? First born?’

  ‘Is he obsessed with her?’ I asked, not expecting an answer, knowing Hewitt did not have one.

  Glynis had hinted he was. Then I remembered Thomas bringing a large board upstairs the night I first went to the house. The night of the day Chloe died.

  I had not seen the other side of the board. He was holding it facing away, so I would not. I did not know if it already contained a picture of his dead sister then. Or which one of these pieces it was. Or if it was simply another board, perhaps blank, waiting to capture her image again. To immortalise his sister.

  Cyn sidled up to us. ‘I’ve locked the door to give you some privacy,’ she said. ‘Do you have any questions for me, because like all art, this lacks meaning without context?’ She held her hand sideways, her fingers splayed like a crab about to jump on the boards. ‘I had suggested putting up cards to explain but Thomas was against it.’

  ‘So that title,’ said Hewitt. ‘First?’

  ‘First World Problems,’ said Cyn. ‘Thomas liked First, alone. He wanted his exhibit to be obscure, foggy, thought-provoking. He wanted people to question what they were looking at.’

  ‘These are not the questions he wanted, surely,’ said Hewitt, ‘to add to the discomfort?’

  ‘He wanted a dialogue,’ said Cyn. ‘Well, maybe not to be part of it, but to hear it, at least.’

  ‘Why choose his sister?’ I asked.

  ‘He chose Chloe as a subject because of her activism. Thomas wanted to show everyone about privilege and birthright. They can’t see themselves in people’s shoes until they see themselves in other peoples’ shoes, in the literal. At one point he wanted to have a pair of Chloe’s shoes there. He thought his sister wouldn’t approve of that part. She needed them then.’

  I watched Hewitt eye the boards as Cyn spoke, she looked at each piece and I had to say they were entrancing, unsettling.

  But the detail and his skill made them beautiful. And maybe if his subject was not Chloe – Chloe dead or ill or suffering – and if I had not only seen her dead, I would not have had the same reaction. Cyn was right about context.

  ‘It made sense to Thomas to use Chloe as his model and muse,’ said Cyn. ‘Here is a reasonably well off white girl carrying water on her head. That visual jars for the onlooker, doesn’t it?’

  ‘The titles are provocative,’ I voiced. ‘One shot or two?’

  ‘Yes, initially this was called: My Starbucks latte came with one shot instead of two,’ said Cyn. ‘Then Fridge: this one shows street kids, it’s about how kids in the first world whine to their parents, ‘‘There’s nothing in the fridge’’. These kids in other parts of the world have no fridge.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Man flu, is more than a nod to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the developing world. And in relation to first world problems, you know how we joke about man flu. First world problems, see? I think it’s clever and socially conscious.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hewitt, almost sleepily.

  ‘The women carrying water, Shower … there’s no hot water left for a shower. They are a dialogue about suffering set against simple complaints that seem hideous when you look at what is going on in the world.’

  ‘And Slow as Hell?’ Hewitt asked.

  ‘This download is show as hell. A girl doing homework by candlelight because she has no electricity.’

  ‘It’s really deep stuff,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Thomas is a deep kind of kid,’ said Cyn. ‘But that’s artists for you. That’s teenagers for you. Put them both together, what have you got?’

  ‘A bit of a mess,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Okay, we’ll talk to him,’ I said.

  ‘He’ll clam up,’ Cyn warned us. ‘Thomas is extremely introverted, so I wanted to let you know what the meanings are. He has it all up here.’ She pointed to her head. ‘But he isn’t an articulator. And I know how it looks, how the papers and the hate mail make it look. Thomas isn’t capitalising in a financial sense. These aren’t for sale. They will be graded, that’s all. That reaction is the danger with provocative art. Once it’s made it no longer belongs to the artist. The viewer makes of it what they will. They bring their own prejudices, experiences …’

  *

  ‘Jackie didn’t mention the paper,’ said Hewitt when we were going to buy a copy.

  ‘I doubt he buys the Irish News,’ I said.

  ‘Is this a catholic/protestant thing?’ she asked.

  ‘It is. It was …’

  ‘People probably feel uncomfortable to tell him, too.’

  We went into a Centra facing the Grand Opera House for a takeaway coffee. ‘Oh fuck,’ I said under my breath when I saw her: the chief’s wife, Jocelyn Dunne. I was trying to escape when Hewitt shouted, ‘Ah, of all the places.’

  ‘You know her?’ I asked in a low voice. Was she that much a part of Greg’s world?

  ‘Who, Jocelyn?’ Hewitt said. They chatted while I tried to walk away.

  ‘Harriet,’ Jocelyn said. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Good,’ I said, feeling an unfamiliar blush on me that I never feel, only in anger. Maybe seeing Jocelyn made me angry. Or that she and Fleur seemed so comfortable together. Or that I was put on the spot. I grabbed a copy of the Irish News and folded it over.

  ‘Hey, I believe there was the pitter-patter of tiny feet, times two,’ said Jocelyn.

  ‘Yes yes,’ I said. ‘Busy busy. We probably need to be on our way,’ I said to Fleur. ‘Lovely to see you … ah,’ I pretended to have forgotten Jocelyn’s name.

  ‘I suppose you are busy,’ she replied warmly. ‘I wanted to chat to you at Christmas b
ut we were at different tables, and Greg tells me so little. Before you head off, quickly, show me a photo.’

  ‘A photo of?’

  ‘The babies!’ She smiled fully.

  ‘Oh. I …’

  I could feel Hewitt analysing my face as she relieved me off the paper and paid for it and our coffees.

  I quickly showed Jocelyn the screen saver on my mobile. ‘They’re precious, Harriet,’ she said. ‘Names?’

  ‘Jared and Rowan.’

  ‘Gorgeous. We have a Jared, too.’

  ‘You do?’ I asked; I hadn’t known. Her husband must have said at some point. Then I wondered if he knew our babies’ names; he had never asked me the question. Did Greg know that he had two sons with the same name? Had I known? Had I done that subconsciously? How ridiculous. How embarrassing.

  ‘My Jared’s thirty. You’ve good taste in names.’

  But bad taste in men, I thought, we have that in common too.

  ‘We must head on,’ I said.

  ‘They don’t look like you.’ Jocelyn still held the phone. ‘They must be their daddy’s double.’

  ‘Hmm, not really,’ I said. ‘Paul is blond. I think they have that black shiny hair like the men in my family. My eldest brother especially.’

  Now I remembered the Christmas do, and Greg and Jocelyn dancing together. How I had managed to dodge her all night, and how I had forgotten who I was too, long enough to stick the lips on Carl after he and his band played their session.

  ‘How do you juggle everything? You’re like Wonder Woman!’ said Jocelyn smiling again.

  Then Hewitt and I left the shop. My face was on fire. Hewitt was enjoying my discomfort.

  ‘Are you overheating?’ she asked in the car. ‘You’re beetroot, even though the air con’s on.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  Sarge Simon texted to say I’d had a call from the hospital, and I was thankful I could read it out and we didn’t have to talk about what had just happened.

  But all I could think was, they know each other. Hewitt is new but to Jocelyn I am the strange and interesting one. Hewitt hummed the Wonder Woman theme tune while sipping her coffee and looking at the front page of the paper.