Grave Decisions

by Claire Highton-Stevenson

  “What did Rachel say about it?”

  Sophie turned to face her again. “She asked me what brought that on? So, I told her.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That I needed to feel her…alive.”

  “And did she understand what you meant by that?”

  Whitton nodded.

  She walked back across the room and sat down again in the chair. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the conversation. “She said I could fuck her like that anytime, she wasn’t complaining. And then she said that she wanted to move in with me.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “I actually really want to…but not before I can control this anger.”

  “Have you made love since?”

  “Love? That wasn’t love!” Sophie shook her head, anger rising to the surface. “I love her so much but that, that wasn’t…if she hadn’t stopped me, I don’t know what I’d have done, how far I’d have pushed.”

  Dr. Westbrook considered that. “Have you been intimate since?” she tried again.

  Sophie nodded. “Yes.”

  “And on that occasion, was it making love?”

  Again, Sophie nodded. “Yes, that was when I told her about you and seeing her at crime scenes.”

  “And what did she say to that?”

  “She was happy that I told her.”

  “Using sex as a way to communicate isn’t uncommon.” Dr. Westbrook smiled and sat forward. “The problem is that you’re not communicating how you feel. Sophie, you’re suffering from PTSD. It’s perfectly normal for you to feel the way you do, and we’re going to find ways for you to deal with it. Opening up to Rachel about seeing me and your flashbacks, that’s a good start.”

  “I know, it’s just frustrating, you know? Yesterday I…”

  “Go on.”

  “I got really angry, like it just surged up and before I knew it, I had a colleague almost by the throat.”

  “What had he done to cause that anger?”

  Sophie crossed her arms again. “He’s just a perv, always staring at my…” She looked down at her breasts. “It’s not like I haven’t dealt with that kind of shit before, but with him…he just reminds me…” Her words drifted off as realisation hit home.

  Westbrook waited a moment and then pushed. “He reminds you of…”

  “Anthony, it’s how Anthony looked at me.” She looked up into the eyes of her doctor. “What do I do?”

  “I think that you need to carry on what you have started. Talk to Rachel, Sophie. Explain everything, let her talk to you. I have no doubt she is probably suffering from PTSD herself. Is she getting any counselling?”

  Sophie shook her head. “She didn’t want it.”

  “Well, as I say, there are things that you both need to talk to each other about. I want you to try something.”

  “Fine.”

  “When Rachel spends the night next, I want you to play a game.” Whitton rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I think you’ll like this. The rules are very simple. You can only undress each other if you have answered the question.”

  “What question?”

  “Whatever question the other wishes to ask.”

  “Let me get this straight. You want us to get into bed fully clothed and ask each other questions, to which an answer will win the person the right to remove an article of clothing?”

  Westbrook smiled across the desk. “That’s the rules. Intimacy and learning to talk to one another. Oh, and did I mention, you can’t have sex?”

  ~Grave~

  “What are you looking for?” Dale asked, finding Whitton in her office on the computer watching grainy CCTV.

  Without turning away from the screen, she mumbled, “Anything.” He remained silent and she looked up at him. “Anything from the news conference?”

  “Other than the usual nutters with nothing of interest? No.”

  Jeff had put together a video containing all the CCTV recordings of Anita Simmons and her potential whereabouts on the day she died. It was always a bit weird watching a dead person going about their business, unaware of what was to come. Grabbing a chair, Dale pulled it up beside her and plonked himself down. “Where’d you go earlier?”

  “Out.”

  “Obviously.” They both stared at the screen and watched as the general public went about its business. “Where?”

  “Dale, back off, alright?” Her voice stayed low, mindful of the others outside of the room. “I had an appointment; I’ve been and now I am back.”

  He held his hands up. “Fine, I was just concerned. You’ve disappeared a few times lately, and…”

  “Fuck’s sake, do I need permission from you? Last time I looked I was your superior.” She stood up, knocking her chair flying. “I am going home now, that okay with you?”

  “Soph, come on…that’s not…” But she was gone. The rest of the room was silent. “…what I meant,” he finished under his breath, picking the chair up and sliding it back under the desk. The low hum of voices murmuring filled the quiet, and he flopped down into his chair and resumed watching the video.

  ~Grave~

  Rachel pottered about the kitchen. She wanted to make sure that dinner would be ready for Sophie, whatever time she got home. It was just gone four p.m., so she wasn’t expecting her for a while. The radio was on, pumping out old school tunes, and Rachel found herself singing along.

  She had a leg of lamb slow roasting in the oven; Sophie’s favourite. The smell was delicious as it wafted through the tiny cottage. These were the days she hated most: being alone in the house. She kept herself busy and tried to keep her thoughts away from that awful event that almost took her life.

  When the doorbell rang, she instinctively flinched as memories of Anthony flooded her mind. Composing herself, she wiped her hands on a tea towel as she walked towards the door. Her lips curled at the edges as she heard Sophie’s key in the door. She had been doing that for a while now, always ringing the bell first after coming in one night and scaring the hell out of her.

  “Hey, what brings you here so early?” Rachel said, reaching out for her hand. Sophie let her take it. Dropping her satchel down on the floor, she kicked off one shoe and then the other.

  “I just needed you,” she replied honestly, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend.

  “Not that I am unhappy about that; in fact, I really like it, but are you okay?” Rachel asked, pulling back from her. There were times with Sophie where Rachel thought maybe she needed more from her.

  “Yes. No.” She sighed and sat down on the couch, pulling Rachel to sit on her lap. “I saw Dr. Westbrook today.”

  “Okay.”

  Her head fell back against the sofa, and Rachel brushed her hand through Sophie’s hair and around her ear to rest her palm on Sophie’s cheek. “I have homework,” Sophie admitted.

  Rachel pressed her lips to her neck and let them rest there, enjoying this closeness. She snuggled in and Sophie took her hand. Soft, gentle hands, Sophie thought.

  “I want to live with you. I love you and I want that with you.”

  “I feel a really big ‘but’ coming,” Rachel said quietly.

  “Yeah. I think before we can consider it, we both need to sort ourselves out.”

  Rachel sat up quickly, her eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, Rach.”

  “No, I’m fine.” She looked away.

  Sophie exhaled and licked at her lips. “Okay, well I’m not.” She shook her head and frowned. “I’m not dealing with it well and I wanna fix it; fix me. I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did with Yvonne.”

  For a moment there was silence. Sophie thought that Rachel might even be ignoring her, but then just as Sophie was about to speak again, Rachel spoke.

  “What’s the homework?”

  Sophie pinched the bridge of her nose, a thin-lipped smile appearing. “I told her about the other night.” At Rachel’s confused look, she continue
d. “How I got too rough with you.”

  “I didn’t say you were too rough.”

  “No, but that’s how I feel about it; I wasn’t in control.” She shook her head at herself, the darkness she lived in falling all around her. “I don’t want you to become something I use when I lose control.”

  “Babe, I know you wouldn’t do that.”

  “But I did, that’s what I did Rach. I felt like the only way that I could really feel you…the only way I could fully know that you were alive was to…was to dominate you like that, and I don’t like it.”

  Rachel thought about it, thought about herself and how she reacted to things now. She had just put it down to a normal reaction to what happened, but now she reconsidered. Was it normal to jump any time someone walked past her too closely and she hadn’t seen them? Was it normal for her to hate being alone in the house, but feel completely safe when she was alone at Sophie’s place? “What do we do?”

  “Just this, we talk about it. We talk about everything that bothers us.”

  “That’s it?”

  Sophie smirked. “We uh, well Westbrook says we can’t…we can’t have sex.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “What? Is she serious?”

  Sophie nodded; she already knew this wouldn’t be something that Rachel would like. “She suggests that we learn to be intimate together but without the sex. The idea is that we spend time together, fully clothed, and we talk, we ask questions, and with every answer, we can remove an item of clothing. We can cuddle and kiss, but that’s it. The point is that we learn to communicate in a way that doesn’t involve sex.”

  Sophie remained silent and waited for Rachel’s reaction. Her breathing felt calm, and she was quietly impressed with how relaxed she felt just getting this off her chest. She would have to apologise to Dale in the morning. The way she had reacted was not how she wanted to behave with her friend.

  “If we do this…can I move into your place?” Rachel’s voice sounded small and scared.

  “If you still want to.”

  Rachel nodded.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was foggy the following morning. Mist off the sea 40 miles away had rolled in and would linger until the heat of the sun burned its way through. Whitton arrived at the station early with iced coffees and a bag of muffins. She felt rested after the previous night. They’d gone to bed and continued to talk. The conversation was light, but it was better than the silent brooding that would begin and put an end to any sexual activity since The Doll Maker case.

  The office was empty this early as she placed a coffee down on Dale’s desk, the condensation dripping down the plastic cup, already forming a ring of water around it. Inside her office, she found a note stuck to her computer screen written in Dale’s messy scrawl.

  Fast forward to 13:24. Dale.

  Sucking cold coffee through the straw, she booted up the computer and felt that ripple of goosebumps marching up her arm in anticipation of finding a lead. The screen jumped to life, lighting up her face in the darkened room. When she heard the sharp knock, she looked up and found Dale in the doorway. “Safe to come in, I assume?” He grinned, holding up a peace offering: a chocolate muffin in a paper bag.

  “Yeah, sorry. I just have stuff going on.” She indicated a chair. “Shut the door.”

  He did as he was asked and pulled the chair out, sitting down gently. “You okay?” His concern warmed her, but that didn’t mean she found it easy to confide.

  Sitting back in her chair, she contemplated how much to tell him, deciding her usual blunt self would probably be best. “I’m seeing a counsellor.”

  Nodding, he said, “Okay.”

  “Unsurprisingly, I’ve got PTSD.”

  He nodded again. “Okay.” He took a sip of his drink. “If you need me to cover for you, just gimme the nod, alright?”

  “Thanks.” Thin lips pressed out a smile. “So, what did you find?” she said, jutting her chin towards the screen that was now alive and waiting for instructions.

  “I’m not sure, but at some point, Anita stops and talks to someone offscreen.” The video sped along through time as Whitton fast forwarded to the relevant point. “Look, right there. She stops and turns to her left. She’s sideways so it’s hard to make out what she is saying, but there is a conversation and it’s heated, but then she walks in that direction.” They watched as Anita Simmons turned left and right as though she were trying to decide something.

  “It’s a car, right? That’s the front wing of a black car,” Whitton said, pointing to the screen.

  “Yeah, but watch.” Anita Simmons then stepped out into the road and went off screen. The car didn’t move. They watched for five more minutes, and it stayed stationary.

  “Where has she gone?”

  “Dunno, but whoever she spoke to knows.” He slurped the last of his drink and tossed the cup into the recycle bin. “That’s Markham St, I thought we could go down there and see if anyone remembers anything?”

  ~Grave~

  Markham St was full of the kind of shops Whitton’s mother would call exotic. There was the Polish market and the Indian shop that sold every spice and ingredient you could think of. The powerful smell of curry powder, garlic, and coriander wafted out and transported you to the streets of Delhi. Whitton wasn’t much of a cook, but Rachel had dragged her down here a few times when she had found a recipe she wanted to try. Turkish, Iranian, and Italian delicatessens, and even a Chinese wholesaler could be found open to the public. It was outside of the Chinese place that Whitton and Saint worked out Anita had been standing. The black car was parked in the same spot.

  “So, where do you want to start?” Whitton looked across the road at the derelict sight. Builder’s boards surrounded what had once been a row of shops, now being knocked down for a luxury block of flats.

  “I guess we start in here?” Dale hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the wholesaler’s. A member of staff sat at the till directly in front of the window and would have had a good view of the area at any time of day.

  She pushed open the door and made her way around 10 kilogram bags of rice piled up in the middle of the aisle. A teenage girl sat idly at the till on her phone. The place wasn’t busy. It looked rundown and ramshackle, but that wasn’t Whitton’s concern.

  She held up her warrant card at the girl. Wide eyes now looked from the phone to the ID and then to Whitton and Saint. “Hi, DI Whitton and this is DS Saint, we were hoping we could talk to whoever was working the till on Monday.”

  “That was me,” the girl said nervously, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I work the day shifts Monday through till Friday.”

  “Right, and your name is?”

  “Nian Zang Chen.” Dale wrote it down. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No, we were just wondering if you noticed anything out of the ordinary?”

  The girl put her phone down on the till and considered it. “I mean, you’ve seen what it’s like around here, right? There is a lot of odd stuff happening.”

  “We’re interested in something that happened around one o’clock. Two or more people having a heated discussion?” Dale mentioned.

  Whitton smiled kindly and reached into her pocket. “Did you notice this woman?”

  Nian took the photo and studied it. “I think so, it’s hard to tell because the woman that was shouting had her back to me.” She handed back the photograph of Anita Simmons.

  “Okay, did you see who she was shouting at?”

  She nodded slowly. “It was a white guy, old, maybe like…fifties?”

  Dale felt the hair prickle in the back of his neck. “Anything else?”

  “He looked out of place, ya know? Like he really doesn’t work in overalls.” She shrugged. “He was standing over there.” She pointed to the opposite side of the road where there was a large tree. “I think he knew her; he was waving and she stopped, turned towards him and shouted something, but I couldn’t hear what it was. Then he beckoned her over, like this.” S
he used her right hand to bend her fingers back and forth. “She wasn’t having it though, but they chatted for a bit and she left smiling. He went the other way.”

  Whitton looked at Dale. “The one direction we have no CCTV for?”

  “He’s smart.” He turned back to Nian. “Do you think you’d be able to describe him to an artist?”

  “I’ll give it a go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “You know what I don’t get?” Dale said, sitting back in his chair and raising his arms behind his head. Sophie looked up from her file and placed her pen down on the desk. She waited expectantly. “No forensics. Nothing, nada, zilch. How can that be?”

  “People are savvier nowadays I suppose. They know what we are looking for. They know how to cover themselves.”

  “So, wouldn’t that person stand out more? If they’re all wrapped up, in this weather?”

  Something about that triggered a thought in Whitton. “Hold on, put that video back on.” Dale loaded up the file and waited for it to buffer. “I’m sure there was…” The scene on the screen showed Anita Simmons leaving the store. “Fast forward a bit.”

  They watched the world speed up, legs moving faster than would usually be the case as people went about their daily business, unaware of the drama that was unfolding around them. Anita moved into another shop, laughing and smiling with someone as she left. “There.” Whitton pointed. “Right there, who is that?”

  The screen filled with the image of a man, a tall, stocky man in blue overalls like a builder would wear. He wore a cap pulled down over his face. “Looks like a workman,” Dale offered. “Nian said he wore overalls.”

  “There isn’t a mark on him. Anytime I have met anyone wearing that getup, they have been covered in paint, oil, dust…They don’t buy new ones each time they have a new job.”

  “True.” Dale made a print of the image and then hit fast-forward again. Anita continued with her journey. She stopped to speak with a woman who warmly rubbed Anita’s arm with her palm. They were smiling at one another and chatted for several minutes. Nothing about it suggested alarm. Dale stopped the tape. “There.” He pointed to the background of the image. A grainy figure in blue, wearing a cap, stood watching.