When She Was Good

by Robotham, Michael

  In my experience, people tend to talk at me rather than to me. They preach or they lecture, or they hear what they want to hear. But that’s not the reason I don’t answer. I don’t trust the truth. The truth is a story. The truth is a habit. The truth is a compromise. The truth is a casualty. The truth died long ago.

  ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ says the smug one.

  I want to laugh. There’s no such thing as an easy way.

  ‘What did you do with the engagement ring?’

  ‘My client didn’t take any ring,’ replies Caroline. ‘She was helping look for it.’

  ‘Your client should answer my question.’

  ‘She’s denying your allegation.’

  ‘Does she actually speak? Maybe she’s a mute.’

  ‘I speak when I have something to say.’

  The undertaker props his elbows on the table, chin resting on his hands. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I tried to call up your juvenile record, but the files were sealed. Even the bare bones have been redacted. No birthplace. No next-of-kin. No health records. We gave you one phone call and a barrister shows up from London. All of which makes me think you’re somebody important. What is it? Witness protection? Or are you some politician’s idiot child?’

  Caroline Fairfax interrupts his speech. ‘Do you have a question for my client?’

  ‘I asked her a question.’

  ‘You know her name and her age and her current address.’

  The undertaker ignores her, concentrating on me.

  ‘If I put in a request for access to your complete file, what am I going to find?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replies Caroline.

  ‘That’s the point, though, isn’t it? She’s a protected species. Why is that?’

  ‘I’m a Russian spy,’ I say.

  Caroline hushes me, but I ignore her.

  ‘I’m a mafia moll. I’m Donald Trump’s love-child. I’m the shooter on the grassy knoll.’

  Somebody knocks on the door and saves me from myself. The officers are summoned outside. I can hear them murmuring in the corridor but can’t make out what they’re saying.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asks Caroline.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘This will be over soon.’

  ‘I didn’t steal anything.’

  ‘I know.’

  Caroline glances at her mobile phone, like she’s waiting for a message. Only one of the officers returns to the room. The undertaker.

  ‘You’re free to go,’ he says.

  ‘What’s happened?’ asks Caroline.

  ‘New information has come to light.’

  ‘What information.’

  ‘Residents of the retirement home have made previous complaints of property going missing. We are interviewing an employee of the home.’

  ‘Ha! I knew it!’ I say, sounding cocky.

  Caroline tells me to be quiet.

  ‘I told you he was lying.’

  ‘Shush, Evie.’

  ‘Did you find June’s engagement ring?’ I ask.

  ‘I can’t go into the details,’ says the undertaker. ‘But I think you should count yourself lucky.’

  Lucky! I want to scream. In what universe am I lucky?

  Caroline shoots me a glance that says, Don’t say anything.

  I follow her to reception where Davina is waiting. She does exactly what I expect her to do, wrapping me in her big fleshy arms and smothering my face between her breasts until I think I might suffocate. I hate being touched, but I let her hug me and make this strange noise in her throat like I’m going to be the death of her.

  I’ll get a red card for what happened today. I’m the queen of red cards. I’m a royal flush. Hearts and diamonds. I’ll have to spend next weekend at Langford Hall, cleaning the bogs or weeding the garden or washing out plastic tubs or scrubbing the frying pans.

  Why? Because I’m just so fucking lucky.

  5

  Cyrus

  Six police cars are parked outside the old brick factory, which is built alongside a bleak strip of dark water. The Tame is a shitty excuse for a river, more solid than liquid, obscured by weeds and debris and overhanging branches. A canal intersects the river, separated by large metal doors with leaking seals. In another thousand years they might wear away, and the oily water will find a way to the sea.

  In other places, industrial ribbons like this have been cleaned up and turned into golden real estate, but maybe this one is too contaminated with heavy metals or too expensive to remediate.

  Driving across a patch of waste ground, I park beside a chain-link fence. Nearby, a battered supermarket trolley bears the sign: PLEASE RETURN TO ASDA.

  A handful of boys, high-school age, are knocking a football around the vacant lot, juggling it on knees, feet and heads. They’re watching the police at work and I can feel their energy and excitement. This is new. Different. Worth sharing. Their phones come out occasionally, as they check the status of their posts.

  Three detectives are smoking beside a coroner’s van. Two of them I recognise. One is Whitey Doyle and the other is Alan Edgar, who gets called Poe because they all have nicknames. The third officer is new to me but has a similar pallor and waistline, caused by a poor diet and lack of sleep.

  A drone is hovering above them, taking photographs of the location. In the modern age of policing, a jury has to be put at the heart of the crime scene and made to feel like it is taking part in a reality TV show or a gritty fly-on-the-wall documentary.

  I sign the scene log and show my credentials before entering the cool of the factory. Parts of the roof are missing – torn off by a storm or salvaged by scrap-metal merchants. The holes create shafts of light that angle God-like from above. One of them is illuminating a silver Maserati Quattroporte nosed hard against a concrete block.

  Lenny Parvel breaks away from a group of technicians, who are lifting a wrapped body on to a trolley. In other circumstances we might hug or kiss cheeks. Instead, we bump fists.

  In her mid-forties, with short dark hair, Lenny is dressed in her usual Barbour jacket and knee-high boots, which make her look like a no-nonsense lady-of-the-manor out walking her dogs.

  Lenny isn’t her real name. She was christened Lenore and burdened with a plethora of middle names because grandparents had to be placated and traditions maintained. I’ve known her since I was thirteen and she was twenty-seven. She was the officer who found me after my parents and sisters were murdered. I was hiding in our garden shed wearing bloody socks and holding a pickaxe. I had come home from football practice to find my mother’s body on the kitchen floor, lying next to a spilled bag of frozen peas. My father lay dead in front of the TV. Esme and April perished in the bedroom they shared upstairs.

  I hid in the garden shed, listening to the sirens getting closer. Lenny found me. She was a young constable, still in uniform, and she stayed with me, asking me about school, what position I played in my football team. She offered me a Tic Tac and held my hand steady as she shook them into my palm. To this day, I cannot smell breath mints without thinking of that moment.

  ‘Who found him?’ I ask, glancing at the car.

  ‘A group of lads.’

  ‘The ones outside.’

  ‘Yeah. They use this place to play football. We think he died last night.’

  ‘You said he was one of yours.’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Hamish Whitmore. He retired on medical grounds six months ago. Stress and anxiety.’

  ‘Depression?’

  ‘We’re checking.’

  I notice a nylon rope snaking across the floor. One end is tied to a metal pole and the other is lying near the back wheels of the Maserati.

  Lenny explains her thinking. ‘Looks like he pulled the rope through the driver’s side window and looped it around his neck. Then he buckled up and hit the accelerator.’ She moves towards the car. ‘When he reached the end of his rope, the noose severed hi
s head. The car kept rolling until it hit the wall.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘We might have met once at a bio-security conference in London. Nice guy. Old school.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Manchester.’

  I’ve reached the Maserati, a prestige car, in pristine condition. Expensive. Loved. Inside is a different story. Blood covers the windows, seats and dashboard. I will dream about this tonight, picturing the bodies of my mother and father and sisters. I will wake with a scream dying on my lips, unsure if the sound has stayed in my head or set the neighbourhood dogs barking again.

  I walk around the car, crouching at the open doors, careful not to touch anything. I lean inside the driver’s door, noticing how the seat is clean where Whitmore’s body was pressed against it.

  ‘The keys were still in the ignition,’ says Lenny. ‘The engine kept running until it ran out of gas.’

  ‘What did you find in the car?’

  ‘Usual stuff. His wallet. Driver’s licence. Registration papers. Phone.’

  ‘What about a suicide note?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he married?’

  ‘Separated.’

  ‘Any kids?’

  ‘A daughter. Grown up.’

  I look admiringly at the car. ‘This is a seventy-thousand-pound motor.’

  ‘He must have been doing OK,’ says Lenny.

  ‘On a police pension?’

  ‘He was driving part time; hiring himself out as a chauffeur with security experience. He did some work for a film company based in London.’

  I study the footwell of the car. The brake pedal is covered in blood, but not the accelerator. His foot must have stayed in place until the last possible moment, when it slipped off, although it doesn’t explain the small patch of clear carpet to the right of the pedal, unless something else was resting on the accelerator.

  I point out the satnav system. Lenny has already checked the list of destinations.

  ‘The last one was a pub called The Globe, less than two miles away,’ she says. ‘Maybe that’s where he bought the beer.’

  ‘What beer?’

  ‘He drank a six-pack. We found the empties on the floor. He was probably working up the courage.’

  Walking back across the factory floor, I pause to examine how the rope was looped and knotted around the pylon. The scene doesn’t make sense. It’s nothing overt. Instead, I notice small things. Anomalies. Discrepancies. Absences. Men usually choose more violent suicide methods than women. They use firearms, or hanging, or carbon monoxide poisoning; whereas women are more likely to take a drug overdose or open their wrists in a bath. Decapitation is an overt, outrageous statement. It isn’t a cry for help. It’s a roar of pain.

  Even without knowing Hamish Whitmore, I sense that he had an ordered mind. I’d have expected him to choose something neater. Cleaner. More clinical.

  There isn’t a single scratch or stone mark on the Maserati. Every inch has been waxed and polished with expensive products. The alloy hubs gleam and the tyre walls have been painted black. Men often lavish more attention on a car than a wife or a girlfriend because it gives them a sense of dominion and freedom. Unlike a woman, a car comes with a key or remote ignition, and it usually starts first time. It doesn’t protest your decisions or ask for a greater commitment, or get jealous, or moody. A car can represent who you are or who you want to be. Wealthy. Stylish. Fast. Sporty. A man might never find his dream woman, but he can own his dream car.

  ‘It doesn’t feel right,’ I say, walking back to the Maserati. I point to the dashboard where the only blemish is a small tear in the leather to the right of the steering wheel. ‘A man who loves his car doesn’t open beer bottles on the dashboard or toss his empties on the floor.’

  ‘Maybe he was past caring.’

  ‘No. He loved this car.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I think he was dead when he was put behind the wheel,’ I say, pointing to the driver’s seat, which is pushed back too far. ‘When the rope took off his head, it covered everything in blood, including the steering wheel. Where are the handprints?’

  ‘Maybe he let go at the last moment,’ says Lenny.

  ‘Or his hands were in his lap.’

  I straighten and roll my neck, releasing the tension.

  ‘Were there fingerprints on the beer bottles?’

  ‘He wore gloves.’

  My look says enough. Lenny gives me a pained expression and turns away, striding to the doors of the factory. She yells to the detectives who are watching Hamish Whitmore’s body being loaded into the waiting van.

  ‘Get SOCO back here and widen the perimeter. I want a fingertip search of everything within three hundred yards of here and more teams knocking on doors.’

  ‘What are we looking for, Guv?’ asks one of them.

  ‘My sanity,’ says Lenny.

  6

  Cyrus

  Brake lights flare ahead of us, creating oily trails of light on the wet asphalt. It has been raining since we reached the outskirts of Manchester and the drizzle looks like beads of mercury falling through the headlights.

  Lenny is behind the wheel, but her mind is still on the factory, pondering the details. According to the satnav, Whitmore visited the pub, but the bar staff found no record of him buying beer and nothing showed up on the CCTV footage from the bar.

  ‘If he didn’t go inside, he must have met someone in the car park,’ says Lenny, talking to herself as much as to me. ‘When the victim is one of ours, a lot of things run through your mind. We make a lot of enemies in this job. People we put away. People who bear grudges.’

  ‘Do you have enemies?’ I ask.

  ‘Enough.’ She changes lanes. ‘What were you doing in Cornwall?’

  ‘Following up a case.’

  ‘Police business?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Lenny recognises that I’m not going to talk about it. We might be almost family, but we each have parts of ourselves that we keep private. Once a month we get together socially. Normally she invites me over to her place and cooks a family dinner for Nick, her husband, and his two boys, who Lenny has raised as her own.

  It’s almost six by the time we reach Hamish Whitmore’s house. Three cars are parked in the driveway. Visitors. That makes it more difficult. The front door is opened by a woman in her late twenties, red-eyed from crying. She’s heavily pregnant, dressed in maternity jeans and an oversized white shirt. A young man, bearded and shaggy-haired, joins her, putting his arm around her waist. His jeans are speckled with paint or plaster.

  ‘I’m looking for Eileen Whitmore,’ says Lenny, slightly unsure of herself. Something isn’t right.

  ‘That’s my mum,’ says the young woman. ‘I’m Suzie and this is Jack.’

  Lenny continues. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

  ‘If it’s about Dad, we already know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘This afternoon. A detective told us.’

  ‘I see. I’m sorry. I thought …’ Lenny doesn’t quite know how to react. ‘Can I speak to your mother?’

  We’re taken to a sitting room where an older woman is standing by the fireplace as though posing for a photograph. She has delicate features and short grey hair, swept back behind her ears. I notice the family photographs on the mantelpiece. Suzie as a baby … a child … a teenager … getting married. An earlier wedding photograph shows Hamish Whitmore in his dress uniform and Eileen wearing a white wedding dress with a split up her thigh.

  Seats are offered and chosen. Mrs Whitmore perches on the edge of an armchair, barely making a crease in the cushion.

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ says Lenny, who sits opposite. ‘He was a fine man.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘The other officer said he committed suicide.’

  ‘Does that surprise you?’ asks Lenny.

  ‘It shocks me.’

  ‘But h
e retired on health grounds. Depression was given as a reason.’

  Mrs Whitmore waves the information aside dismissively. ‘That’s what every officer says when he wants a medical discharge. Get a shrink to diagnose depression or PTSD and you can retire early.’ She glances at me. ‘I mean no offence.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘You and Hamish were estranged,’ observes Lenny.

  ‘We were living separately.’

  ‘Divorcing?’

  Mrs Whitmore looks offended by the suggestion.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘On the weekend. He came over to fix a broken drawer in the laundry. We had a cup of tea and talked about Suzie and the baby. We were both excited about becoming grandparents.’

  She dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘Where had Hamish been living?’ I ask.

  ‘In our spare room,’ answers Suzie. ‘He’s been helping Jack get the nursery ready and paint the place.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Yesterday morning. We had breakfast together. He was joking about my waters breaking early and how he’d organise a police motorcycle escort to the hospital with all the lights and sirens.’

  She gives her mum a sad smile.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask why you were living apart?’ asks Lenny.

  Mrs Whitmore stares at her hands. ‘When Hamish retired, he promised that we’d travel and visit old friends and fix up the garden, but he became fixated on old cases, trying to investigate them again. He called them his white bears.’

  Lenny looks puzzled.

  ‘Things that he couldn’t forget,’ I explain. ‘It comes from a famous psychological experiment into thought suppression. The more we try not to think about something – let’s say a white bear – the more the white bear keeps popping into our mind.’

  Lenny nods and turns back to Mrs Whitmore. ‘The detective who came earlier – did he give you his name?’

  ‘It was McGinn or McGann.’

  ‘Did he have a warrant card?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Why are you asking?’