Deep Cover

by Leigh Russell

  The grass had been partly covered by a recent light snowfall which would have concealed any tracks. Around the tree, however, the ground had been somewhat protected by branches, and the churned-up slush that had been there for a few days told a different story. A layer of slushy mud behind the tree had recently been trampled by large feet. The size of the prints suggested they had been made by a man wearing trainers. They had definitely not been made by Vanessa’s shoes. At one point the indentations were slightly deeper, indicating the man had been standing still behind the tree for some time. The picture built up from the footprints was further borne out by a thread of cotton caught in bark behind the tree which didn’t match anything Vanessa was wearing. The thread could have been there already, so the evidence didn’t prove beyond doubt that a man had been standing behind the tree when Vanessa had arrived, but it was a distinct possibility. That suggested that whoever he was, he had been waiting for her. Geraldine recalled the young scene of crime officer’s speculation that someone might have been hiding behind the tree, concealing his presence until she arrived. It seemed he might have been right.

  Eileen set up a team to check all the CCTV footage in the area, but Vanessa had lived only a few doors from where her body was found, and there was no CCTV along the street facing the waste ground. Another team was tasked with carrying out door-to-door questioning in case anyone living along there had seen someone entering or leaving the waste ground. So far no one had come forward with any information at all. It was as though Vanessa and her attacker had been invisible.

  While Vanessa’s neighbours were being questioned, Geraldine was sent to inform Vanessa’s sister about her death. For Geraldine, sharing news of the death of a loved one was the worst part of any investigation. She found it far more difficult than dealing with the dead, who were beyond grief and suffering. At the same time, she was keen to discover as much as she could about the dead woman. Louise Gibson was married, living with her husband and two children out towards Driffield. Geraldine approached the front door across a small but neatly cultivated garden. The bell chimed loudly when Geraldine rang, and a woman opened the door and peered warily out. Three years older than Vanessa, Louise looked so much older than her forty-four years that Geraldine wondered if she was ill.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’ Louise asked.

  ‘I’ve come to speak to you about Vanessa.’

  ‘Is my sister up to her tricks again?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  Louise shrugged. ‘Just that she’s always on at me for money. She can’t hold a job down, can’t get on with people. If she’s not been paying her rent, that’s not my problem. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep bailing her out, you know. Whatever mess she’s got herself into, she’ll have to get herself out of it. That’s just how it is.’

  She began to close the door, but Geraldine held it open with the flat of her hand. Louise looked faintly worried but she didn’t resist.

  ‘Can we go inside?’ Geraldine asked, introducing herself.

  ‘The police?’ Louise asked, her frown deepening. ‘You’re from the police? Why? What has she done?’

  Geraldine was interested to note that Louise immediately assumed her sister had broken the law, rather than fearing she had met with an accident. That possibility occurred to Louise next before Geraldine could answer, because in her next breath, Louise asked if her sister was all right.

  ‘Can we go inside?’ Geraldine asked again, more gently this time.

  ‘What is it? You can tell me here.’

  Once she heard that Vanessa was dead, Louise’s demeanour altered completely. No longer angry and defensive, she broke down in tears. Her shoulders slumped; she flapped her hand at Geraldine, gesturing for her to enter. Standing in the narrow hall, she spoke in jerks between her sobs.

  ‘Dead? She’s dead? Vanessa dead? But I don’t understand. I spoke to her yesterday and she was perfectly fine. She was talking about taking me on holiday.’ She broke off to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. ‘Was she run over?’ Her eyes gleamed suddenly. ‘Did you get the bastard who did it? Was he drunk?’

  ‘She wasn’t run over.’

  ‘Then, what–? Oh my God, it wasn’t – did she–’

  ‘Did she what?’

  ‘Was it – suicide?’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘No, it was nothing like that.’

  She wondered what might have prompted Louise to suspect that Vanessa had killed herself.

  Louise drew in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Then what happened? Tell me. Please, I want to know.’

  ‘We’re investigating the circumstances of your sister’s death,’ Geraldine said slowly. ‘We don’t yet know what happened. Did Vanessa suffer from depression?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’

  ‘What made you think she might have taken her own life?’

  But Louise just shook her head, too overcome to speak. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered at last. ‘I don’t know. I mean, you never know, do you? You never really know how someone else is feeling, do you? She was always so up and down, I was always afraid something like this might happen.’

  ‘Something like what?’

  ‘I mean, I was afraid she might take her own life.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s much comfort to you to know that she didn’t,’ Geraldine answered helplessly.

  ‘We were never that close,’ Louise sobbed. ‘But she was my sister. I wish I’d told her.’

  ‘Told her what?’

  ‘How much I love her.’

  Watching Vanessa’s grief, Geraldine felt a spasm of guilt about her own adoptive sister with whom she had not spoken for several weeks. She resolved to call her that evening to ask how she was. Although they had been brought up together, they had never been really close, but they were still sisters. She couldn’t imagine life without her.

  31

  ‘So when’s the wedding?’ Geraldine asked when she and Ariadne were settled with their drinks. ‘I need to make sure it’s in my diary.’ She smiled at her friend. ‘I’ve never attended a Greek wedding.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ariadne smiled back. ‘You’ll be there. In fact, I promise you’ll be one of the first to receive an invitation. I wouldn’t want to get married without you there to witness the ceremony. You’ve always been there for me,’ she added, becoming serious. ‘I want you to be at my wedding.’

  ‘Well, as long as you don’t expect me to be a bridesmaid and wear a frilly frock.’

  They both laughed. It made a change from talking about the murder investigation. They were having a quiet drink together in a pub just outside the town centre, where they were unlikely to run into any of their colleagues.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to see anyone else from work,’ Ariadne had explained, when she had invited Geraldine to join her for a drink. ‘It’s just that it would be really nice to have a private natter once in a while. I miss our chats.’

  Before Ian had moved in with Geraldine, she and Ariadne used to go out together quite regularly. Somehow, once Geraldine had no longer been living alone, her socialising with Ariadne had lapsed. Now Geraldine was on her own again and she had been pleased when Ariadne had suggested going out together.

  ‘So,’ Geraldine repeated, ‘when’s the happy day? Are you getting excited?’

  Ariadne smiled uneasily. ‘We haven’t agreed when it’s going to be yet,’ she admitted. ‘My mother keeps on at me, asking me if we’ve fixed a date and whether we’ve started looking at venues, and have we settled on a caterer, and chosen a photographer and a florist, and God knows what else besides, and she’s desperate to come with me to choose a wedding dress.’ Ariadne sighed. ‘The trouble is, we really only want a small wedding with immediate family and a few close friends, but my mother’s set on our having a huge traditional affair, with all my aunts and uncles and cousins. There are
nearly fifty of them. Fifty! Can you imagine? And that’s without Nico’s family and any friends. I hardly even know some members of my extended family, and I don’t like most of the ones I do know. In any case, Nico and I don’t want to have anything like such a huge affair, but my mother’s impossible. She’s always been overpowering to say the least, but honestly, since I told her we’re getting married, she’s gone completely mental. She keeps sending me wedding magazines and brochures. Honestly, Geraldine, she’s determined to wear me down. It’s really hard, because she’s got these really fixed ideas about what we ought to be doing, but it’s not what I want.’

  ‘It’s your wedding,’ Geraldine said firmly. ‘It’s up to you what you do.’

  ‘I know, I know. I’m a forty-year-old detective sergeant. Direct me to make an arrest, and I’ll be as fierce as you like. No one puts one over on me, no one throws me off balance. You know it’s true, Geraldine. Whatever needs to be done, I’m there and I’ll do the job, whatever it takes. But when my mother gets started, I’m like a child, and she takes charge of my life. I know she means well, and I don’t want to upset her, but she’s making this whole wedding thing impossible.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think she’s been sending out invitations.’

  ‘You have to talk to her.’

  ‘I’ve tried, but she won’t listen. And when she does listen to me, she cries. I know she’s just being manipulative, but what am I supposed to do? She’s completely set in her views. “This is what we’ve always done in our family,” she says. It’s true, actually. There are family traditions that go back generations. But so what? You’d think I was committing treason, the way she goes on about it.’

  ‘You’re happy with Nico, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am. He’s a good man.’ Ariadne paused and stared earnestly at Geraldine. ‘You miss Ian, don’t you?’

  Caught off guard, Geraldine took a gulp of her pint and fidgeted with her glass, aware that Ariadne could see she was procrastinating.

  ‘No, not especially,’ she replied untruthfully. ‘I mean, I do miss him, of course. We’re good friends. We’ve known each other for more years than I care to remember.’

  ‘So do you know where he is right now?’

  ‘Me? No, of course not. Why would I?’ Conscious that she was sounding defensive, she added, ‘As far as I am aware, no one knows where he’s gone. Do you know?’

  Ariadne shook her head. ‘There was a rumour he’d gone to London.’

  ‘Listen,’ Geraldine said, keen to change the subject.

  Ariadne sat forward. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you sure about Nico?’

  ‘What do you mean, sure about him? He’s a hundred per cent committed.’

  ‘Yes, but I meant you. I mean, you had a fling, didn’t you?’

  ‘Which lasted one night,’ Ariadne replied, looking worried and shifting uncomfortably on her chair. ‘And I ended it straight away. It was a mistake, Geraldine, no one else knows about it. You mustn’t ever say anything to Nico. Not to anyone. You have to promise me. If Nico ever found out, it would be over between us, I know it would. It’s not like he’s weirdly possessive or anything, he’s just old-fashioned.’

  ‘I understand,’ Geraldine assured her. ‘I’d be just the same. But don’t worry. You know you can rely on me to be discreet.’

  ‘Which is why I don’t know whether to believe you when you say you don’t know where Ian is.’

  They sat in awkward silence for a minute, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

  ‘There’s more snow forecast,’ Geraldine said at last, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

  ‘Yes, it’s supposed to get worse. We’re lucky Vanessa was found when she was,’ Ariadne replied.

  ‘Yes, the footprints might have been completely covered if we’d got there a few hours later,’ Geraldine agreed. ‘It’s been snowing on and off all day.’

  They engaged in desultory chat about the case while they finished their pints. Wistfully, Geraldine realised that Ariadne had reached out to her, but somehow the opportunity to be close again had faltered. They had made each other feel uncomfortable. Ariadne clearly regretted having confided in Geraldine about her fling with a colleague, while Geraldine couldn’t bring herself to share details about her own private life with anyone, not even Ariadne. It wasn’t much of a friendship, really, with neither of them comfortable confiding in the other. They speculated idly about Vanessa’s killer, but it was more to fill the silence between them than for any other reason, and their remarks were vacuous.

  ‘It could have been someone she knew, or a random stranger,’ Geraldine remarked.

  ‘Whoever it was, he appeared to have been hiding behind a tree,’ Ariadne replied. ‘Was he waiting for her specifically, do you think?’

  They finished their pints. Neither of them suggested another one.

  ‘Well, I have to be up early,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘Nico will be waiting for me.’

  Hearing Ariadne’s words brought home to Geraldine how lonely she was now Ian had left her. Somehow, the faintest hint of intimacy and she seemed to shrivel up inside and feel a need to escape. She got on well enough with her adoptive sister, but they lived two hundred miles apart and only saw one another occasionally, and in any case Geraldine couldn’t speak freely to a sister who didn’t understand her work at all. Ian was the only person she had ever felt able to be completely honest with and now he had gone, driven away by her reluctance to get close to anyone. By the time she reached her empty flat, Geraldine felt like crying. The evening had been a harsh disappointment. Telling herself she was just hungry, she made an omelette, and had an early night, but she couldn’t sleep. Thinking about Vanessa, dying alone on the snowy ground, she wondered where Ian was, and if she would ever see him again. It was four days since she had heard from him, and for all she knew he might already be dead.

  32

  ‘The only link so far between the two bodies is that they were both killed within around two weeks of each other and they were found only a few miles away from each other. It’s a bit tenuous, but we have to consider there could be a connection between them,’ Eileen said. ‘In the meantime, we have to focus on gathering evidence. So far we’ve found nothing to connect them while they were alive.’

  Geraldine sighed. Once again, it was frustrating that everything seemed so uncertain. Of course it usually was at this early stage in an investigation, but she was finding it harder than usual to cope with so much that was unresolved at work when her own life was such a mess. She sat at her desk all morning with her head down to avoid looking at Ariadne. At lunchtime, Ariadne stood up and left her desk without inviting Geraldine to join her. She might have had plans to meet someone else, but her abrupt departure felt rather pointed. Geraldine wondered miserably whether it had been a mistake to make friends with a colleague, let alone fall in love with one. She wished she had never set eyes on Ian, and hoped she wouldn’t also regret becoming friends with Ariadne.

  ‘You’re looking down in the dumps,’ Matthew remarked as he caught up with her in the corridor after her solitary lunch. ‘Looking about as cheerful as I feel, in fact.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she replied, ‘we’ve got a visit to the mortuary to look forward to. That’s bound to cheer us up.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh yes, nothing like a trip to the mortuary to raise the spirits, eh? Are you ready?’

  Remembering how Ian used to hate going to the mortuary, Geraldine felt a twinge of nostalgia, but she pulled herself together at once. This was not the time to wallow in self-pity. Thrusting her shoulders back and lifting her head, she forced a smile as she accompanied Matthew to the car. On the way there, they discussed what they knew so far about how Vanessa had died.

  ‘Apart from the bumps on the head, there don’t seem to be any similarities that I can see, not in the way they lived or in the way they died,’ Matt
hew said.

  Jonah nodded at them as they entered.

  ‘You lot are keeping me far too busy for my liking,’ he grumbled. ‘Another body. That makes two in as many weeks. Can’t you do something about all this killing? You’re supposed to be keeping the streets safe, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you’re paid to do?’ He held up a bloody scalpel. ‘If you lot can’t do any better, I’m going to have to start carrying this around with me.’

  ‘What do you suggest we do?’ Matthew retorted, clearly stung by the criticism. ‘We’re doing everything we possibly can, but with all the cutbacks we’re down to a skeleton staff as it is.’

  ‘Please don’t mention skeletons,’ Jonah interrupted him, waving a bloody hand in the air and rolling his eyes. ‘You know how squeamish I am.’

  Geraldine burst out laughing. ‘Don’t take any notice of anything Jonah says. He’s just trying to wind us up. Now, Jonah, be serious. What have you got for us? And it had better be good, after you upset Matthew like that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Jonah replied. ‘Let’s make up. Shake?’ He held out his bloody hand and Matthew started back, laughing.

  ‘All right, let’s take a look at this, shall we?’ Jonah said, turning to the body lying on the table. ‘She’s been waiting patiently for some attention. Unusual in a woman, eh?’ He looked up at Matthew and winked. ‘Here goes. Female, mid to late forties.’

  ‘Forty-one,’ Geraldine corrected him.

  Jonah raised his eyebrows. ‘She hasn’t aged well,’ he murmured. ‘Liver’s all shot to pieces so it was probably the drink, and from the state of her lungs I’d say she was a heavy smoker. That would account for her raddled appearance. So, a forty-one-year-old, but not a healthy one,’ he added, glancing at Geraldine with a mischievous glint in his eyes.