NEVER CAME HOME an addictive crime thriller with a twist you won't see coming (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 2)

by Gretta Mulrooney

  ‘What about Lily? How was she during those months after your dad left?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She was doing A levels and she spent a lot of time with Pearce. She and Mum had terrible rows.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Pearce, mainly. Lily met him soon after Dad left, and they’d decided to get married. Mum didn’t approve, because Lily said she wasn’t going to uni. She’d got accepted at Brighton. I remember Mum saying that Lily was too young and it was all happening too quickly. Lily was wasting her talents and throwing away her education, that sort of stuff. She said she didn’t want Pearce in the house. She went ballistic once when she came home and found him here.’

  ‘How did you get on with Pearce back then?’

  ‘Me? Dunno, really. He was okay, I s’pose. I didn’t talk to him much.’

  ‘How did Pearce react when your mum came home and got angry?’

  He glanced away. ‘I don’t like talking about this. Doesn’t seem right. I mean, I can’t speak for other people and it seems a long time ago.’

  She was unsure if the discomfort was about Pearce or a mixture of shock and shyness. She reached for a large pad of lined paper on the table, tore a page out, smoothed it and started to fold creases. Adam watched, his chin cupped in his hand as she made four squash and petal folds, pressed edges together, creased two legs and executed reverse folds. There was silence in the room. She stretched the back legs she had formed and paused. ‘Recognise it?’

  ‘A frog?’

  ‘Right. Now watch.’ She blew into the slit at the base to inflate the frog’s body, and then pressed her finger on the base to make it hop across the table. It was a tad childish but then Adam seemed young for his age and it was just a way of easing the atmosphere.

  Adam grinned. ‘Cool. How did you learn to do that?’

  ‘I took up origami years ago. It keeps me sane, because I can lose myself in it. Cheaper than seeing a shrink and I have something beautiful at the end of the process. The frog’s dead simple — it was one of the first things I learned. I make my own designs now, and I do commissions sometimes.’

  ‘So why are you a detective? Origami must be way more interesting.’

  ‘I like the discipline of an investigation and the process of finding solutions. It’s very satisfying. Must be my mathematical brain, and I suppose it’s a bit like origami in that you have to see patterns and make sure pieces are in the right place. Adam, when we’re trying to find a murderer we have to ask difficult questions. Embarrassing ones, sometimes. Nothing’s off limits and we intrude on people’s privacy.’

  ‘I get that. It’s just . . . everything was so horrible for so long and now it’s no way ideal, but sort of like . . . a negotiated truce.’

  ‘But hostilities could break out at any time?’

  ‘Something like that. I don’t want to cause trouble for Lily.’

  ‘I understand that. Unfortunately, causing trouble is exactly what I have to do sometimes, and whoever strangled your mum and deprived you of her deserves all the trouble that comes their way.’

  He jumped the frog across the table. ‘S’pose.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll make you any shape you ask for now, and you just tell me whatever you can about the situation with Lily and Pearce.’

  He hummed. ‘A helicopter. I was supposed to go up in one with Dad for a charity jump next week, but he cancelled it after we heard about Mum.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll need scissors to make that.’ She tore another piece of paper while he fetched them, and then she cut an oblong and started folding.

  Adam went back to picking at the label. ‘Pearce was okay with Mum that time she was shouting at him and Lily. He stayed calm, said he didn’t want to cause trouble and he wouldn’t come round again. I remember him saying to Lily that Mum had a lot on her plate, and it was best to back off. He had his own flat so, after that, Lily would just go there. She stayed over sometimes, and then Mum would blow up at her. She went round there once and caused a fuss. Own goals. It just made Lily more determined.’

  ‘Must have been tough for you, all of that.’

  ‘Yeah. Mum would get all emotional over Lily after a row and try to make up with her, but Lily wouldn’t have it. Then Lily would go mental when she saw some of the stuff Mum put on Facebook — photos of her and Lily together, saying that people mistook them for sisters. Pathetic, really. Mum was funny in the head because of . . . everything.’

  Siv stopped folding. ‘Understandable.’

  ‘Yeah. She’d buy a load of new clothes and make-up and stuff. She’d try it all on when she came home, and ask Lily and me for our opinion. Lily usually said something catty.’

  ‘Was your mum dating at all?’

  He watched her fingers and then shook his head. ‘I don’t remember anything like that.’

  ‘Did you — do you like Jeff Downey?’

  Adam smiled broadly for the first time. ‘Yeah, because he does great barbecues. Dad always calls him a scrounger, because he borrows things and keeps them for ages. He bought Mum flowers once after Dad left, and when he’d gone she put them in the bin. She said some men eyed any woman on her own as fair game.’

  ‘Jeff’s still next door?’

  ‘Yeah. He still asks to borrow stuff.’

  ‘There.’ Siv launched the helicopter and they watched it spin downwards. ‘I believe there’s a stand-off between Lily, your grandad and your dad. That sounds complicated.’

  He blushed again, picked up the helicopter and fiddled with it. ‘I try to stay out of it. I don’t see Papu much, or Lily. Papu’s a narrow-minded bigot, always has been, and Lily just believes whatever Pearce tells her. She’s always been Papu’s favourite. Mum used to say that he idolised her, spoiled her, and it was because she looks like Yaya, my dead grandmother. He’s always buying her presents. If she ever told him she wanted something, he got it for her. I once heard Dad ask him not to buy Lily so many things, because it wasn’t good for her and it wasn’t fair on me. Papu said he was a grandad, he could be indulgent if he liked, and he just ignored Dad and carried on. If anything, the presents got more extravagant — riding lessons, expensive vouchers, a TV for her room.’

  Adam didn’t sound grudging. Perhaps that was because of the age difference between the siblings. By the time he’d arrived, Papu’s gifts to Lily would have been well established. Siv wondered why Lily’s parents hadn’t been more forceful about the grandfather’s behaviour. Maybe Theo had been frightened of his father and unable to stand up to him. That would explain a lot about the family dynamics. ‘Sounds like your grandad’s a law unto himself.’

  ‘Yeah. So’s Lily.’ He yawned. ‘To be honest, I’d rather not talk about that crap. I’m sorry for my dad. I’m just trying to get on with my own life.’

  ‘Going back to that night when your mum disappeared — have you remembered anything you didn’t at the time? Sometimes a shock like that freezes you, and stuff comes back afterwards.’

  He drew the frog to him and cradled it in his hands, focusing on it. A row of five bonsai trees stood in pots on a window ledge by the back door. They were clipped and trained into different shapes, some with wire supporting them. Siv had never liked bonsais and found the stunted, twisted forms disturbing, tortured. She recognised a dark green yew in the centre. The branches had been trimmed to a triangular silhouette above peeling bark. She frowned, uneasy, and turned back to Adam.

  He rubbed at the creased skin between his bushy brows. ‘It was a weird kind of day, because Lily was here with her friends getting ready for the prom. Mum was as wired as Lily about it. She kept hovering around the girls, getting in their way. Lily snapped at her a couple of times. The house was strange, everything on edge and out of place. I didn’t like it much. I suppose I felt a bit ignored.’ He had a faraway expression, as if he was back in that afternoon.

  ‘I was relieved when Lily and the others left. We were outside and Jeff asked if we wanted to go round for his barbecue. I was hoping Mum woul
d agree, because I was hungry and it smelled good. She said no, because she’d prepared something for dinner.’ He stopped, did some mouth-breathing. ‘She hadn’t, though. That was a fib, because she hadn’t been cooking. She made me a sandwich and said she had to nip to the shop. I was watching Toy Story. When it finished and she hadn’t come back, I got scared so I went and told Jeff. He drove me to Smart Mart but they hadn’t seen Mum. It started to pour and I was worried that Mum must be getting soaked.’ He made a vague gesture. ‘Then Dad arrived.’

  ‘Did anyone else call round that day or phone your mum?’

  ‘I don’t really remember. I try to keep a kind of photo in my mind of that last time I saw her. When she put her head around the door to say she wouldn’t be long, she’d brushed her hair out from the ponytail she’d had it in all day, and she’d used hair mousse.’

  These small details that might mean something or nothing. ‘How would your mum usually have worn her hair to go to Smart Mart?’

  ‘Tied back, out of the way.’

  ‘But she hadn’t changed her clothes.’

  ‘No. She was wearing a yellow dress. It was new, from Next. When she tried it on upstairs, she made this comment . . . that if Dad saw her in it, he’d regret what he was missing. She just didn’t seem to get it, Dad being gay. I wonder if she hoped he might change his mind. Mental.’

  ‘I suppose she was struggling and trying to boost her confidence.’ Siv had kept an important topic until last. ‘How about Monty, how do you get on with him?’

  Adam grew still and his expression tightened. ‘Okay, I s’pose.’

  She was picking at scars. It was the part of her job she liked least, but it had to be done. ‘It must have been strange when he moved in here — after everything that had happened.’

  ‘Yeah, it was.’

  She got the impression he was holding something back. ‘I understand that Monty and your dad were at home together the night your mum went missing.’

  ‘Yeah. Watching telly, Dad said.’ He rose and gestured at a pile of textbooks. ‘I’ve got homework to do now.’

  ‘Okay, thanks for the talk.’ She passed one of her cards to him. ‘If you recall anything else, get in touch. What charity were you going to jump for?’

  ‘Cancer Research.’

  He spun the helicopter over the table, distracted by it. He seemed so immature. Siv went into the hall and called to Theo Dimas. He came down with a weary tread, carrying a laundry basket.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, well . . . I contacted a funeral home today. They were helpful. I wasn’t sure that Adam should go to school but he insisted and maybe it was better for him to have the distraction . . .’

  ‘That works best for some people.’

  ‘Do you want to talk to me now?’

  ‘No, that can wait. I’ll be in touch. Although, what’s your opinion of Mr Downey next door?’

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘He’s a nerd. I’ve always assumed he must be deeply insecure because he puts on all that bravura. He’s forever borrowing stuff and forgetting to return it. Monty calls it middle-class theft.’

  ‘What did Lyn make of him?’

  ‘She said he was a bit coarse at times, saying off-colour things in front of the kids. We used to dread being invited to his barbecues and having to listen to his heavy attempts at humour.’

  She pointed through the doorway, at the sketch of Dimas. ‘Who’s the artist?’

  ‘My father. Obviously, that was done when he still regarded me as his son, before he decided I was beyond the pale.’

  ‘How did you and Lyn get on with your father?’

  He took a breath. ‘She had a better relationship with him than me. He prefers women to men in general, although there are exceptions, such as the “properly masculine” Pearce. I’ve never ticked the right boxes for my dad, even before I was sent into exile as a pervert.’

  Chapter 7

  Ali sat at a table by the kitchen in Nutmeg, the restaurant where his wife was the chef. He made his way through the plate of lemon chicken she’d given him. At the diabetes clinic, they’d told him to eat slowly and savour every mouthful, but he couldn’t. When you’d grown up as the youngest of five brothers, you learned to eat fast so that you could get seconds, and your plate had to be cleared before seconds or pudding. He shovelled the food down, licking the fork with relish.

  Ali didn’t like his own company and got fretful if he went for an hour without talking to anyone. If Polly was on an evening shift and he was home alone, he’d be watching TV while flicking through his phone or, more often than not, ringing one of his family in Derry. Three of his brothers still lived on the family farm, two with their families in houses they’d built on land their parents had given them. When he phoned, he could easily while away the time chatting to them about the sheep and crop yields, or with his mother about her poultry and the gossip from the close-knit rural community. His parents had offered him his own piece of land to build on when he’d got engaged. He’d been based in Belfast then, in a homicide team, but Polly had been set on returning to Sussex after her restaurant training. She’d had no intention of settling on a farm in a remote area, and told him that if he wanted to stay in the police force, there was no way she wanted him doing that in Northern Ireland, even if peace had more or less broken out.

  Truth was, he hadn’t wanted to move back to Derry. It wasn’t an easy place to have his skin colour, especially as a cop. His Mauritian mother had met his father in Derry during her nurse training but had abandoned her studies when she got pregnant. He’d never got on well with his father, who was a tough, pedantic man. He still missed the easy company and chat of a big family, though. If no one was available to talk to at home, he’d spend time on Facebook, popping out to the garden for too many Gitanes, or he’d drift into Nutmeg and sit at the bar with a coffee, reading the paper while Polly bustled in the kitchen.

  He and the guv were chalk and cheese. She liked her own company, he was alarmed by silence. Maybe that’s why they got on well, although tonight, he was still smarting from the comment she’d made in the car about him craving sweet things. He’d told Polly, who was watching him eat on her break. She did fuss over him but he liked it, really. He didn’t understand why she was so besotted with him, though, when he was such a pain with his smoking and his penchant for fattening foods. He was chaotic if left to his own devices. He needed Polly and her unflagging efforts to keep him on the dietary straight and narrow.

  ‘It’s not like you to take a daft comment like that to heart,’ Polly said. ‘I’m sure Siv didn’t mean anything by it. She’s a plain talker, but I’ve never heard her being snide.’

  ‘Hmm, well . . . maybe I wasn’t in the mood.’

  ‘Or maybe what she said hit home,’ Polly said. She pointed at her husband’s tubby middle. ‘Sometimes, the truth hurts.’

  Ali narrowed his eyes at her and changed the subject to what they’d do at the weekend, until it was time for her to get back to the kitchen. He glanced at his watch and saw that he’d better make a move. He wanted to talk to Monty Barnwell on his own, and had agreed to meet him when he came off shift at the hospital at 9 p.m.

  He paused by the car to have a fag. He’d promised Polly he’d cut down, but it wasn’t going so well. He lit up and sucked in deeply. Happy days!

  Barnwell was waiting in the hospital café, which was quiet at this time of night. It had been revamped and was decorated with bright collages done by local schoolchildren. A group of papier mâché monkeys swinging through acid green trees bordered their table. Despite the freshly painted walls, the place had that underlying institutional whiff of boiled cabbage and cooking fat.

  ‘I don’t care much for all this,’ Barnwell said, nodding at the wall, ‘but I suppose it’s better than the scabby landscapes that used to hang there.’

  They both drank bottled water. Barnwell was tall and hefty with thick, stro
ng forearms. Ali was pleased to see that the man had a bigger gut than he did. He had a long, sweaty nose and short upper lip, which made his face appear out of proportion.

  ‘It must be tough at home at the moment,’ Ali said.

  ‘Indeed. We always hoped that Lyn would be found, but not like this . . .’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘No, we’d never met until she came to the hospital one day and confronted me. It will be in the interviews from 2013.’

  Ali had read about it. It had been combustible. ‘Talk me through what happened.’

  Barnwell yawned and pinched the end of his nose. ‘Sorry — that was a long, busy shift and an agency nurse didn’t turn up.’ He sighed. ‘It was about three weeks after Theo moved in with me. Lyn found out where I worked, and she came steaming into the unit asking for me. Then she threw a wobbly in front of everyone, called me a home-breaker and a degenerate.’

  ‘That must have made you angry.’

  ‘Up to a point, although I laughed when she said “degenerate” because it was so ridiculous, and that made her madder. The worst bit was when she yelled that I had AIDS. She was telling people that about Theo, too. That was very upsetting. I couldn’t get a word in, and I could see that if I did try to say anything, I’d only provoke her more. In the end, one of the doctors pointed out to her that there were very ill patients nearby, and she was causing them distress. He managed to persuade her to step outside.’

  The accusation might well give anyone enough of a motive for murder. ‘What happened afterwards?’

  ‘I had to talk to hospital managers. They accepted that what had occurred wasn’t my responsibility. It was a tough time, though. Most of my colleagues were okay, but there was a chill in the air with some. Even in the health service, where people should be better informed, you still get prejudice about HIV.’