Dead Man's Daughter

by Roz Watkins

  She looked so tiny. She took a gulp of air and swallowed. ‘Since I got the new heart, it’s been . . . ’ She tailed off.

  ‘It’s been?’

  ‘Mum said I’ve been screaming in the night. Screaming about Dad.’

  So much of this seemed to be coming from Rachel. Could she have implanted these ideas into her daughter’s head?

  ‘Do you remember what you were dreaming?’

  ‘I was scared. Scared of Daddy. He did something bad.’

  ‘What do you mean, Abbie, what did he do?’

  She shook her head.

  I tried to keep myself as un-threatening as possible. ‘Do you remember anything more about that night?’

  ‘My heart isn’t right and it’s made me do this.’

  The lawyer and the social worker twitched in unison, as if choreographed. The lawyer’s face was pink. ‘She doesn’t necessarily know what she’s saying here.’

  Abbie turned and spoke to him. ‘I’m not going to lie. I’m telling her the truth. If I killed my dad . . . ’ She paused and took a deep breath, looking agonisingly young. ‘If I did it, then I didn’t mean it. But I’m not lying. And I don’t care what you say.’

  I felt a wave of affection for Abbie. She was being so brave. She didn’t know what had happened, but she wasn’t going to lie or try to cover it up. I had a sudden flash of memory. Me discovering my sister, Carrie. Getting home from school and rushing up to her room to apologise for saying a terrible thing to her that morning. Seeing her feet. Hanging where feet shouldn’t be. Blaming myself. But I’d kept it secret that it was my fault. I hadn’t told Mum or Dad what I’d said to her. What I’d done was too appalling. I hadn’t wanted them to hate me, so I’d carried the secret with me for twenty-five years.

  How much worse to believe you’d actually killed your own father, who loved you dearly. To think you’d taken a knife and cut his throat, without even realising what you were doing. To wake up bathed in blood, a knife in your hand. I could hardly bear to think about it. But Abbie wasn’t trying to cover it up. She was being honest with us. My chest felt tight.

  ‘Thank you, Abbie,’ I said. ‘I promise if you tell the truth, we’ll do our absolute best to . . . ’ I hesitated, not sure what I could promise her. ‘We’ll find out what really happened.’

  Her mouth twisted and a tear dropped onto the table. ‘I want a different heart. I don’t want this heart inside of me any more.’

  ‘Does the heart feel different, Abbie, or is it just because of what your mum and dad said?’

  A moment of confusion. ‘I’m different. I can draw really well now. I never used to be any good at drawing. But I have nightmares too.’

  ‘Do you remember anything from the nightmares?’

  ‘Not much. Daddy was bad.’

  ‘What made you think he was bad?’ I said.

  ‘Daddy was a murderer.’ She blinked. ‘Dad . . . No, I can’t remember any more.’

  I could feel my heart pounding. Even the lawyer and the social worker shut up.

  ‘What do you mean, Abbie?’ I said. ‘How was your daddy a murderer?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t remember. I was scared.’

  ‘Can you tell us any more about what you dreamed?’

  ‘I must have got confused.’ She raked her hands through her tangled hair. ‘Daddy did a terrible thing, I must have got confused.’

  ‘Okay.’ The social worker had sprung back into life. ‘She’s getting upset.’

  Abbie clenched her small hands into fists. ‘I’m alright,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Abbie,’ I said. ‘Can you remember anything else?’

  She shook her head, and whispered, ‘He was bad.’

  The room was silent. My thoughts swirled, desperately trying to make sense of this. Had Phil Thornton done something, or was it to do with the folk tales, or Abbie’s imagination about her heart donor?

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Abbie. A few more questions before we finish.’

  ‘Alright.’ She pushed her fists against one another, her arms tense.

  ‘Can you remember going to bed the night before this happened?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Dad, I’m sorry. I must have got confused.’

  ‘Sometimes you call him dad and sometimes daddy,’ I said. ‘Why’s that, Abbie?’

  The lawyer shoved his arm half in front of Abbie. ‘I think that’s enough for today.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Abbie grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked at it, as if she wanted to pull it from her scalp. ‘My sister died too. It’s me. People keep dying. If you get a new heart, someone has to die. It’s the way it works.’

  ‘Oh, Abbie,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault.’ I’d got so used to saying that to myself, it just popped out. But was it true?

  The social worker turned to Abbie. ‘You don’t need to say anything else.’

  Abbie ignored her and looked straight at me. ‘The last thing I remember, Dad gave me my pills and I read my book for a bit and that’s all I know.’

  ‘How were you feeling about your dad?’

  ‘I was scared in my dreams. Not in real life. I never meant to do anything. I never meant to kill him.’

  *

  We ran across the waterlogged car park, Craig splashing through the puddles and spraying me, like a large vehicle drenching pedestrians.

  He squeezed himself into my car and dragged the seatbelt over his gut. I slid into the driver’s seat and pulled away. There was something about his presence that always made me drive badly, as if I had to fulfil his expectations about women. It was pathetic.

  The rain had turned into a fine sleet which drifted over the valley as we headed back towards the Station. The hills seemed to have hunkered down like hibernating animals. My windscreen wipers smeared a thin sheet of ice over the outside of the screen for extra danger points. I should have replaced them months ago.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked in a neutral tone.

  ‘I’ve seen it all now. Little kiddy like that taking out her dad with a carving knife. And she looks like a friggin’ angel.’

  ‘Do you think she did it then?’

  ‘Don’t see who else could have done it. You’ve not got a loony theory, have you?’

  I braked a little too hard, throwing Craig forward. ‘Oops.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Craig shuffled his belly back into place. ‘Watch it. The roads are icy.’

  ‘We haven’t exactly explored all the options, have we?’

  ‘If that paedo abused her, it could have caused the bad dreams and made her violent.’

  ‘I don’t want to rule anything out at the moment, but she was having the bad dreams before they went to see Dr Gibson. I’d like you to look, please, for anything in Abbie’s past that could have made her think her dad was a murderer, or was trying to hurt her, or anyone else for that matter. Rachel might not know – it could have been from before she and Phil got together. And look into the death of Rachel’s daughter again. Is there any suggestion it wasn’t an accident? And check out Phil Thornton’s ex-wife’s death. There’s too much death in that family, and now his daughter’s calling him a murderer. Maybe it’s nothing to do with her heart.’

  ‘We looked at his ex-wife. Definitely an accident. Head-on collision with another car on the A515 south of Ashbourne. No organ donation, by the way. And the kid admits she killed her dad.’

  ‘Didn’t that all seem to come from her parents? She doesn’t remember anything. She has no idea if she did it or not. She’s relying on what her mother told her.’

  ‘Yeah, but the blood splatter was all over the kiddy.’

  ‘Blood spatter, Craig. Spatter.’

  Craig pointedly wiped condensation off the inside of the windscreen in front of him. I turned the blowers up, and the screen instantly misted up more. How did that happen? I slowed the car, and leaned forward to rub it with my sleeve.

  ‘Your heating
system’s screwed,’ Craig said. ‘Why do women never maintain their cars? Or clean them?’

  ‘Because we have a life?’

  I could feel a headache coming on. I couldn’t conduct a high- profile investigation like this with the assistance of the lump of meat that was Craig. I drove in silence for the rest of the journey.

  *

  Back at the Station, I hid in my room with a cup of tea, mulling over what Abbie had said. She couldn’t really remember her donor’s death. It made no sense. But I couldn’t get it out of my head.

  My fingers seemed to act of their own volition – creeping towards the keyboard and googling ‘remember memories of heart donor’. There were plenty of results. I wasn’t the only person wondering about this. Most of the websites had an air of fruit-loopery about them. I clicked on the least mad-looking.

  Cellular memory. It sounds bizarre – the idea that your emotions and memories could be stored in organs other than the brain. But there is mounting evidence that it could be true, with some very strange consequences.

  Here are some examples from heart transplant patients:

  A woman in her forties suddenly starts craving beer and junk food, despite never having eaten it before, and dreams the name of her donor (who turned out to be a junk food and beer addict).

  A five-year-old girl runs up to her donor’s parents and calls them Mummy and Daddy.

  A confirmed meat eater can no longer touch meat after being given a vegetarian’s heart.

  A man not only starts craving his donor’s favourite foods, but marries the donor’s widow and then shoots himself in the head just as the donor had.

  A white man receives a young black man’s heart and worries he’ll start liking rap music. Instead he’s strongly drawn to classical music, and only later discovers that the black man played classical violin.

  A nine-year-old girl dreams of being murdered, and helps the police catch the murderer of her donor.

  The last one touched a nerve, but there were no references. I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. These people had to be kidding themselves. It couldn’t be possible for a heart to have its own food tastes, let alone memories of a murder. I pictured Abbie, so small and innocent-looking, thinking her heart had made her kill her father.

  A knock on the door and I jumped so violently I spilt my tea. Jai appeared. I hurriedly closed my browser.

  ‘More forensics on Phil Thornton,’ he said. ‘There’s evidence that Karen Jenkins has been in his bedroom. Other than that, family only.’

  ‘Oh.’ It hit me how much I wanted there to be another explanation – anything other than Abbie. I wiped tea off my desk with my sleeve.

  Jai strolled over and leant against the back of my spare chair. ‘Fiona put Craig in his place yesterday, didn’t she?’

  I smiled. ‘Have you met her brother?’

  Jai shook his head. ‘She gets on well with him, but he lives in London.’

  ‘Doesn’t she get on with the rest of her family?’

  ‘They seem to be a bit of a non-subject. Not sure why.’ Jai didn’t seem to trouble himself about this kind of thing, whereas I found myself wondering if something bad had happened in Fiona’s past. Why would she not want to talk about her family? Maybe she was just being professional and I was projecting my crap onto her.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Have we ruled Karen Jenkins out? We know she was having an affair with him, so the fact she’s been in his bedroom doesn’t mean much.’

  ‘No trace of anything at her house. No sign of her on CCTV near Bellhurst House that day. And it’s not her clothes that have arterial blood all over them. It was Phil Thornton’s blood on the nightdress. Abbie’s nightdress. And Abbie’s prints on the knife.’

  I sighed. ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you and your lovely assistant speak to Abbie?’ Jai said.

  ‘Yes. She thinks she did it, but she can’t actually remember. And she’s blaming the new heart.’

  Jai sank onto my spare chair. ‘God, this is going to be crazy when it gets out. Do you reckon the new heart did affect her?’

  I wheeled myself away from the computer and rubbed my eyes. ‘Seems highly unlikely. Did you find out any more about the immunosuppressant?’

  ‘Not much. Fiona searched and searched, and she couldn’t find any more info online. She’s trying to track down Michael Ellis from the details on Thornton’s phone.’

  I stood and stretched. Abbie was just a little girl. How could a ten-year-old girl kill someone? And could she even be held responsible if she was asleep?

  ‘I was wondering . . . ’ Jai said. ‘Do you think you could hypnotise a person to make them kill someone? I think Derren Brown did something like that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I think so. What if Harry Gibson hypnotised Abbie into killing her father?’

  ‘Why though?’

  ‘Maybe someone blackmailed him. Found out he liked children, threatened to expose him if he didn’t do as they asked.’

  ‘Oh God, Jai, I just can’t see it – that someone could control your mind like that. To make you kill someone in your sleep, I mean. There has to be a different explanation.’

  11.

  Richard was in his room, leaning forward in his chair, squinting at his computer screen, shoulders somewhere around his ears.

  I gave him an abridged summary of the situation, including what Abbie had said about her heart. He took a tissue from a pack on his desk and wiped his face. ‘My God, what have you got us into?’

  As if it was my fault.

  ‘Did they pursue that complaint about me?’ I asked.

  ‘Not as yet.’

  I waited for something positive or reassuring.

  Waited a bit longer.

  Oh well.

  Richard coughed. ‘It was clearly a little awkward for him, which is why he didn’t say anything at first, but Craig saw what happened.’

  A sick feeling inside. I’d so hoped Jai had been wrong. ‘What? You mean with Rachel Thornton on that first day? He wasn’t even there.’

  ‘He said as he drove up he saw you push her quite hard, and she fell on the floor.’

  I took a step back. ‘I don’t believe this. He wasn’t there. She actually got up and punched me before he turned up.’

  ‘She punched you? Why didn’t you say anything? None of this looks good, Meg. You need to be more careful.’

  I felt a flush rising up into my face. ‘What’s Craig’s problem with me? He’s making this up.’

  ‘It seems they’re not pursuing it, so let’s leave it for now. But be more careful in future. What did you want to say?’

  I leant against Richard’s dodgy guest chair, my mind full of Craig. I was furious but also upset that he seemed to hate me so much. I took a breath and tried to compose myself.

  ‘Are we ready to charge the child?’ Richard said.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say so. If she did it, she was asleep at the time. And the only motive we have is that her drugs made her homicidal or she remembers the death of her heart donor. It’s not exactly CPS-friendly stuff.’

  Richard reached round to the back of his neck and massaged his shoulder blades. ‘Isn’t it pretty apparent that she killed him though? As I understand it, everything points to that. She was found on the floor covered in arterial blood, with a knife in her hand, and she’s confessed. What more do you want, Meg?’

  ‘You want to charge her now? She hasn’t really confessed. She doesn’t remember what happened.’

  ‘We’ve got enough. Don’t you think?’

  ‘No. I don’t think we have. Abbie’s memories are very unclear. Her mother could have put it into her head that she was holding the knife or even put the knife into her hand. Rachel has a motive to kill her husband if she found out he was having an affair. And we haven’t eliminated Karen Jenkins either.’

  ‘But there’s arterial blood on the girl’s nightdress,’ Richard said.

  ‘You know that’s not conclusive. We ha
ven’t even had the full blood-spatter analysis back. And the girl has no history of violence. It’s completely out of character. And she’s cute. It would be damn hard to persuade a jury she did it, unless there’s a reason.’

  ‘Maybe we need to consider whether her new heart did have an effect on her. Or the medication.’

  ‘There are rumours about the medication she was on,’ I said. ‘That it might cause some weird side effects. But nothing concrete.’

  Richard sighed. ‘You’ve spoken to Dr Li, haven’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘The forensic psychiatrist.’

  ‘Talk to her in more detail. See what she thinks about the drugs, and this heart memory business. She’s very knowledgeable and down to earth – I’ve been impressed with her in the past. If this is all fanciful rubbish, she’ll make it clear.’

  *

  I wanted nothing more than to confront that slimy toad, Craig, but I knew I’d end up shouting at him and possibly resorting to violence. He was in the incident room surrounded by other cops and I could just imagine how he’d play it up to make me look like the maniac. And deep down I knew yelling at him wasn’t the answer. I needed to be more strategic. For now, I was too consumed with fury for strategy, and Jai wasn’t around to talk to either. So I decided to put it out of my mind and see if I could get some more information from Dr Li. On my own.

  I drove through brutal sleet to Eldercliffe, trying to keep Craig’s squat face out of my mind, and pulled into the parking area outside the White Peak Clinic. There were a couple of other cars, each worth more than a small house. I half expected a security guard to rush out and tell me I couldn’t park my old heap next to them, but all was quiet.

  Tom Li was sitting behind the desk in the sparkly reception area. ‘Ashley’s off this afternoon,’ he said, ‘so I’m doing Meet and Greet, although I’m not sure I have the nails or teeth for it.’

  I laughed. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Ashley’s inhuman levels of personal grooming.

  ‘Do you need to see my mother?’ Tom asked.