by Roz Watkins
Her face showed a moment of confusion. Why wasn’t I saying more about the brutality accusation? Then, ‘Last night, from Mum’s phone.’
‘And how did he seem?’
‘Okay, I think. Maybe not quite himself?’
She seemed almost embarrassed. I assumed the police brutality thing had been the lawyer’s idea.
‘Not quite himself in what way?’
She was still bouncing and tapping feet and fingers, and had angled herself towards the door as if planning to make a run for it. She looked brittle and light, as if you could push her and she’d topple over. ‘I don’t know. He’s been a bit secretive recently, and angry with me for no reason. Complaining about me working too hard, that sort of thing.’
It sounded like the familiar story of the angry adulterer – finding fault with his wife so he could feel better about his own behaviour.
‘What job do you do?’ I asked.
‘Accountant. It can be busy sometimes but he was being unreasonable.’
Her voice was one-dimensional. She was hiding something, but this wasn’t at the heart of it.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I noticed a window open in your bedroom. Is that normal?’
‘I can’t sleep with the window shut. Phil complained at first but now he’s the same.’
‘And, we were wondering, it looked like someone had taken a shower soon before we arrived at your house this morning. Was that you?’ I spoke casually as if it didn’t really matter. Of course she knew it did, but sometimes if you got the tone right, they’d subconsciously follow your suggestion, and things would pop out before the conscious mind caught up.
Rachel wasn’t falling for it, but she was giving me something anyway. A flash of electricity. She stopped both the leg and finger tapping, and her eyes were wide. ‘No. Of course not. I didn’t get back until after you arrived. Maybe Abbie had one.’
Abbie had been covered in blood when I’d seen her, including in her hair, which had otherwise been dry. She didn’t look like she’d had a shower. Rachel may have been going through a similar thought process. ‘Or Phil could have had one late the night before.’
The lawyer sat forward on his seat, eyes flicking to and fro, mouth open ready to intervene if Rachel started to say anything too rash.
‘Phil’s drawings and sculptures – they were interesting.’ I pictured the carved girl with her heart missing. That one had seared its way into my brain. ‘They’re very . . . well, dark?’
There was something there. A crackle in the air. Something around the artwork. ‘Are they? I didn’t really think about it.’
The lawyer deflated a little. He hadn’t noticed.
‘Had Phil always been interested in art?’ I asked.
A tiny intake of breath. ‘I suppose so. Only as a hobby.’
‘And you had some mental health problems a few years ago?’
She relaxed – a slight shifting downwards of her weight, the energy that seemed to spin around her dropping a little. ‘After Jess died? I was upset but I wouldn’t say I had mental health problems. Who told you that? I had an infection and they couldn’t get to the bottom of it. And I was worried about Abbie. How could I not be worried when she could have died too?’
‘So, did everything improve once Abbie had the transplant?’
There it was again. She tapped her fingers repeatedly against her knee. Then spoke fast and somewhat mechanically, speedy- robot style. ‘Yes. I mean, we’re still worried about her, but it’s much better.’
‘Except for the night terrors? That must have been upsetting for Phil, particularly?’
‘Well, for both of us.’
‘What was she scared of?’
‘I don’t know, nothing in particular. She was just getting scared in the night. It happens.’ I could hear the dryness of her mouth. She hadn’t mentioned the dreams about Phil, or the theory about Abbie’s heart. Maybe she was embarrassed. Thought it would sound crazy.
‘But she was scared of Phil, wasn’t she?’ I said.
Rachel stood up. ‘I have to get back to Abbie.’
‘Why did you think she was having such bad dreams?’
‘I don’t know! She’d had a heart transplant! It’s scary. And Phil stupidly told her a horrible story about our house.’
On the face of it, this had absolutely nothing to do with Phil Thornton’s death. But if Karen Jenkins had been telling the truth, then Rachel was covering up the fact that Abbie had been terrified of her father. I decided not to mention what Karen had said, and see what more she came out with. The lawyer narrowed his eyes as if wondering what I was up to. Something was afoot.
‘But it was bad enough for you to take her to see a psychiatrist?’ I said.
She spun round and looked at her lawyer. My pulse whipped high. This was something.
A sharp knock on the door and Jai poked his head round. ‘Can I have a quick word?’
Rachel jumped up. ‘Can I go?’
Jai gave a rapid shake of his head.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll only be a minute or two.’ I stepped outside the interview room and pulled the door closed. ‘What have you found?’
Jai kept his voice low. ‘We got the ANPR data. She drove towards their house at seven thirty, not nine thirty like she said. Then she left again, and came back when you were there.’
‘Did the CCTV actually show that she went to the house?’
‘There’s no CCTV to the house. But she went along the main road just before the turning to her house.’
‘So, in theory she could have driven past and gone somewhere else, and then come back?’
‘But why lie about that?’ Jai said. ‘She told us she came straight from her mother’s house.’
‘I know, I know. She’s dodgy as hell. What about in the night? Have we found her on the CCTV then? Around the time of death.’
‘No. She could have avoided it then. Gone round the lane off the main road.’
‘But then why not avoid it later?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t avoid it deliberately.’
I pushed the door open and walked back into the interview room. Rachel was still standing. I looked towards her chair. ‘You’d better sit down.’
She glanced at me and then at her lawyer, who nodded. She sat down.
The room seemed very quiet, its air thick.
‘We’ve got the CCTV footage,’ I said. ‘You need to tell us the truth now. You went back home earlier this morning, didn’t you?’
A muscle below her eye fluttered, and she gripped her hands together. ‘What? No. What have you seen on the CCTV?’
‘How about you tell us what happened?’
The lawyer shifted as if to put himself between me and Rachel. ‘Could we have a moment?’ he said.
Rachel spun round to face her lawyer. ‘It’s fine. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. I must have forgotten. I nipped into Eldercliffe to go to the shops, and then went home.’
‘That’s not true, is it? You don’t appear on the CCTV going into Eldercliffe.’
‘We need a moment,’ the lawyer said.
‘I went to the other shop.’ Rachel sounded as if she was about to burst into tears.
‘Which one?’
Silence.
I was okay with silence. Rachel wasn’t. She picked at a piece of skin on her finger. The lawyer sat looking stressed but seemed to have given up trying to restrain her.
‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘I did go home first. I couldn’t get the landline to work and there’s no mobile signal so I drove off to call for help.’
‘But you didn’t call for help.’
‘I couldn’t get a signal so I came back.’
‘Over an hour later? You’re not a great liar. You know we’re going to find out. I’m sure you had reasons for what you did. It would be in your interest to tell us now.’
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Okay.’ She dropped her head forward and a tear splashed onto her jeans-clad leg.
The lawyer was poised like a cat about to pounce.
‘I got home and he was there. Already dead.’
‘So why didn’t you call an ambulance? Or the police?’
‘He was definitely dead. There was no point calling an ambulance. And I was worried you’d think I did it. I panicked.’
‘And left your child in the house with your dead husband?’
‘I know. I’m sorry. She was on sleeping pills. I never thought she’d wake up. Of course I regret now what I did. But I didn’t want you to think I did it. We’ve been having a few problems . . . ’ She let out a sob. ‘I thought you’d think it was me. It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill him.’
*
‘You took on the case then?’ Jai sat briefly on the chair by my desk, then stood up and leant against it. Why would no one sit on that chair? Were they so traumatised by experiences in Richard’s chair that they shunned anything remotely similar? It was as if they were playing a strange game with me – counting all the ways they could avoid sitting on the damn thing.
‘Richard left me very little choice. If we can make enough progress in the next week, you guys can carry on while I’m away and Richard won’t have to ship Dickinson in.’
‘Did you tell him you’d delay your time off?’
‘Sort of. But I can’t.’ I folded my arms and shivered. It was freezing. Our work-place had no temperate zone – there were either monkeys swinging from the door frames or polar bears ambling over the eco-carpets.
Jai leant forward to pull a few dead leaves from the spider plant that hovered on the edge of death on my desk. ‘Mary managed to do the PM today, but there was nothing too surprising. Throat slit with a sharp, pointed knife, twice in quick succession, using a stabbing motion. He was almost certainly asleep, and he’d taken one of his own sleeping pills. He hadn’t fought back, at least not in any way that injured him.’
‘Anything under his nails?’
‘No. No defence injuries. Everything was pretty much as we’d thought. She said he’d had a heart transplant in the past. It wasn’t the neatest of surgeries, but it had been doing its job.’
‘Any sign of the knife?’
Jai shook his head. ‘We’re waiting for fibre analysis and fingerprints. And we’ve got a warrant to search Karen Jenkins’ house. But my money’s on the wife now.’
‘Yes. Why the hell would she run off and not call anyone if she’s innocent? And I’m sure she wanted to get into the house when I was there, and mess up the scene. What was she afraid of us finding? Was Mary sure about the time of death?’
‘She was reasonably confident it was between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.’
‘Rachel Thornton could have driven from her mother’s house,’ I said. ‘At three-ish. Then killed him, and driven back, taking the route round the lanes that avoids the CCTV, either deliberately or for some other reason. Her mother could have remembered wrong. Or she could be lying about the loo visit. You know what mothers are like where their children are concerned.’
‘But why would Rachel go back there at half seven, and then leave again?’
‘Maybe she remembered she’d left some evidence. Or maybe she wanted to check Abbie was okay.’
‘I suppose she could have gone off to dispose of the knife and her clothes and then come back to Abbie. But then she left again.’
‘She might have realised there was something else she needed to get rid of,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to talk to Abbie. She was covered in blood when I found her so she must have gone into the bedroom and found her father while Rachel was out, poor kid. But she might have seen something. Maybe she remembers now.’
‘At least we’ve got a couple of good leads. Maybe it’ll work out okay with your gran.’
I twitched and glanced into the corridor. Nobody was around but I still whispered. ‘Richard doesn’t know what I’m doing, remember. But yes, fingers crossed.’
Jai leant closer to me and spoke quietly. ‘Are you okay? It must be pretty shitty.’
I smiled. ‘That’s an accurate analysis of the situation.’
He jumped up and pushed my door shut, then came back and actually sat on the spare chair. ‘When are you going to Switzerland?’
‘Thursday. I’ll spend Wednesday helping Mum get ready. And trying to spend some time with Gran.’
Jai looked down and laced his fingers together. ‘Craig said something about a brutality accusation? What’s that about?’
‘Oh, I know. It’s all I need, with Richard already on at me about my professionalism.’
Jai examined his fingernails as if they held the answer to the meaning of life. ‘But you’d done nothing wrong, had you?’
‘Of course not. Bloody woman. If anyone was brutal, it was her. She punched me.’
‘Why didn’t you report it?’
‘Because I’m an idiot. I suppose I didn’t want Craig to know she hit me.’ I looked at Jai’s despairing face. ‘I know, I know, he knows now anyway. And I shouldn’t let him get to me.’
Jai sighed. ‘It’s best to ignore him.’
A complaint was bad news for us, even if it had no basis, especially with the worry about us ignoring the stalker. Besides, the thought of someone complaining about me gave me a hollow, depressed feeling inside. I reached into my drawer for my stash of organic chocolate. ‘Here.’ I broke off a couple of chunks and shoved the rest at Jai.
I could see Jai coveting the whole bar, but he glanced at the price label. ‘Jesus.’
‘It’s cultivated by happy, fairly paid people in far-off lands,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t come cheap.’
Jai took a couple of squares. ‘Okay. I won’t take much. I’ll get an exploitative Yorkie bar from the machine on the way out.’ He jumped up. ‘Don’t work too hard.’
*
After another hour of researching, pondering, chocolate eating, and general fretting, I finally drove myself home and got in around ten, letting myself in to the accompaniment of an extremely loud commentary from Hamlet. He jumped onto the shelf in the hallway, knocked a pile of books and the phone onto the floor, and fell on top of them.
‘Jesus, Hamlet, aren’t cats supposed to be graceful? Nature’s supreme athlete or something.’
He righted himself, gave me a contemptuous look, and stalked off in a cloud of black and white fur, as if it had all been part of his plan. He was sulking at my lateness, but I’d arranged for a neighbour to feed him at six, so he hadn’t missed out.
I reached to pick up the phone, and saw the answer-phone light flashing.
Mum. I’d forgotten to call her back. With a hollow feeling, I pressed the button. Her voice was shaky and upset. ‘Love, I don’t know if we’re doing this too soon. She seems better today. Can you phone me?’
I dialled Mum’s number. She picked straight up. ‘Where have you been?’
‘At work, Mum. There’s been a murder. How’s Gran?’
‘You’re not taking on a big case, are you, Meg? We talked about this.’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘Because you said you’d definitely take that time off. You specifically said you wouldn’t take on any big cases.’
‘Don’t worry. What’s going on?’
‘Oh Lord, she’s started eating again. Maybe it’s because she knows she doesn’t have much longer, but she seems to have rallied. Are we doing the right thing?’
I sank onto the stairs.
This was the nightmare of the situation. If we left it too long, Gran could end up in agony, permanently sick, vomiting twenty times a day. And it would be too late – she wouldn’t be able to travel. But if we did it too soon, Gran could lose weeks or maybe even months of life.
Hamlet butted his face against my knee. I got up and walked to the kitchen; put Mum on speaker-phone while I fed him.
‘What does she want to do?’ I asked.
‘She says she’s had enough. But she doesn’t want t
o get you into trouble.’
‘Look, Mum, it’s all booked. Let’s just see how she is. If we end up not going, it’s only money, isn’t it? I think it’s too late to cancel the plane tickets anyway. I’ll get over to see you as soon as I can.’
6.
I dreamt of Abbie Thornton. She was running through the woods, blonde hair streaming behind her, hidden by trees, almost out of sight. When I caught up with her, it was Gran who’d been running away, not Abbie.
My alarm shrilled into the dream. The images faded away.
I smacked the clock and lay for a moment listening to the rain pummelling the window. The duvet was twisted round my feet. I kicked it clear and imagined what it would feel like to stab a knife into someone’s throat, to feel the resistance of the flesh, the moment when the artery burst and blood exploded into the bedroom. It would be quick. It would be better than the agonising, nauseous decline that was probably in store for Gran, if we didn’t get her to Switzerland.
I dressed and breakfasted quickly in my freezing kitchen, Hamlet curling around my ankles and demanding three breakfasts before retreating to his ridiculously indulgent heated bed. Sleet battered the windows that never shut properly, and a small dribble of water had seeped inside and plopped onto the tiled floor.
I donned boots and my best coat, gave Hamlet a backward glance, wondered why I couldn’t be a cat, and opened the front door. A blast of sleety air whipped into the hallway, lifting unread bills and flipping the pages of books I’d left on the hall shelf. The weather was so bad, it was almost invigorating, allowing me to feel slightly heroic just by leaving the house. I stepped out and pulled the door firmly shut behind me.
*
Abbie looked even younger than her ten years, skinny in too- baggy clothes, dark shadows under huge eyes. We’d put her in our special interview room – made officially child-friendly through the presence of smaller chairs, a couple of pictures so completely lacking in content that no human could be upset by them, regardless of the traumas they’d suffered, and walls where the shade of puke-yellow had been toned down a notch.
