The Trophy Child

by Paula Daly

  ‘What do you think of Dr Bloom?’ Joanne asked carefully.

  ‘What do I think of him with regards to what?’ Jackie replied.

  ‘Just, you know, generally.’

  Jackie shrugged. ‘Seems all right. Not like that pompous bastard Ravenscroft.’

  ‘Ravenscroft’s not pompous, he’s just old-school. He’s been my doctor my whole life and I’ve never had a problem with him.’

  ‘He thinks the whole of Applemead should bow to greet him when he turns up. I hear him bellowing along the hallway and I head in the other direction. Bloom’s much better. Doesn’t speak to me like I’m an idiot. Doesn’t speak to the inmates like they’re idiots either…He still thinks a lot of his wife.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Not his wife wife. His ex-wife. The one with MS.’

  ‘Oh,’ Joanne said, remembering now. The one Verity Bloom had been visiting the day her sister disappeared.

  ‘He comes to talk to her now and then. Jennifer can’t say much back, but sometimes he sits with her for hours. Sometimes he isn’t even talking. I take him a cuppa and he’ll be in a kind of trance.’

  ‘Do you think he still loves her?’

  Jackie shrugged as if to say, How would I know. ‘He just seems really sad,’ she said.

  Joanne drank some tea and looked out of the kitchen window to the small enclosed back yard beyond. ‘Interesting,’ she said.

  And Jackie raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it?’

  —

  Joanne was behind the wheel, heading towards Kendal via Ings, driving directly into the rising sun. She rummaged around in the glove compartment, trying to locate her sunglasses, to no avail, and had to make do without. The trees were a riot of colour. All that sunshine in late summer had brewed some dazzling shades, and the leaves were just beginning to fall, peppering her windscreen.

  She passed a ‘For Sale’ sign, and another, and then another. You could be forgiven for thinking everyone wanted to move away from the Lake District, but they didn’t. People still wanted to live here, to retire here. The area never lost its pull. But the sharp rise in house prices that had started around thirteen years ago – with some properties doubling, some tripling, in price – meant that a lot of older people were sitting on properties with an overinflated value. And with the tightening of the restrictions by mortgage lenders in the last few years, younger buyers couldn’t borrow the money to buy them. The Lakes was now full of big houses becoming more dilapidated by the month, belonging to people who wouldn’t slash the asking prices to something reasonable because they were so pissed off at having their pension funds robbed by the banks.

  Joanne wondered how long it would go on for. Till they died, she supposed. The elderly could be stubborn like that.

  Her phone was ringing, so she pulled off the road at the petrol station at Plantation Bridge. ‘Joanne? It’s Pat Gilmore. Are you on your way in?’

  ‘I am,’ Joanne said.

  ‘Listen, you’ll need to double back. A car’s been set on fire on the Newby Bridge road, next to the lake, a little past Storrs Hall. It’s a botched job, but there’s blood on the front seat.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And, Joanne?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The car belongs to Karen Bloom.’

  —

  A number of things went through Joanne’s head when she received information about a potential crime scene. And she tried to ignore all of them as promptly as she could.

  Of course – because this wasn’t just any crime scene – her brain was making leaps, her thoughts heading off at all sorts of crazy tangents. Joanne had done a meditation class once – with Jackie. Well, it was half yoga, half meditation, and Jackie had dragged her along because she thought it might help her achieve a full night’s sleep. The instructor (a woman in her fifties whom Joanne had picked up once for peeing drunkenly next to the Baddeley Clock) told them not to try to empty their brain of all thoughts completely but to watch them pass through as though you were just a casual observer. Joanne was asleep within five minutes, dog-tired as she was from a fifteen-hour shift the day before. But Jackie, wrestling with her overactive mind for a full hour, declared meditation to be next to useless, because all she did was lie there thinking of all the things she had to do and didn’t have the time.

  Joanne indicated right and cut through on Ratherheath Lane, past the pond where lads and dads liked to fish, past the static caravan park and on to the Crook Road. Here, she put her foot down, knowing the bends and curves of the road better than any other, and she tried to think about anything but the crime scene. Her aim was to process the facts as they were presented to her without her judgement being coloured.

  When she arrived, there was a knot of people next to the road. There were no CSIs yet – it would take them over an hour to arrive from their base – and the area was being taped off. Joanne was briefed by a couple of uniforms and told that Pat Gilmore had said that Joanne’s first priority should be to interview the witness who had found the car.

  The Volvo wasn’t visible from the road – a laurel hedge had been allowed to grow as tall and wide as a gypsy caravan – so she needed to know what would bring a person to this spot. Very few were brave enough to walk along the Newby Bridge road. Banked by dry-stone walls, with no pavement, this popular thoroughfare was not for the faint-hearted. Cars travelled along it fast. Much faster than they ought to.

  Without getting too close, Joanne looked at the Volvo. The back door on the driver’s side had been left open slightly and, according to DS Jason Weaver, the fire had been started on the rear seat. It hadn’t spread far, though. Absence of a combustible, Joanne assumed.

  Kids, perhaps? Maybe.

  Underfoot, the ground was hard and covered with dried leaves. It was unlikely they would find any footprints or drag marks.

  Joanne headed towards the lake. This morning the water was blue-black. It would be the obvious place to dump a body if Karen Bloom was, in fact, dead.

  Many bodies had been found in the lake over the years. Most tended to resurface within four to seven days. A dead human body is heavier than water and so sinks immediately upon submersion. Those poor witches. All innocent, as it turns out.

  Without obstruction, a body will continue to sink all the way down to the lake bed. It’s only after the bacteria inside the gut have worked through the process of decay (the body fills with carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide) that a body floats back up. Freezing temperatures slow this process, but the lake had had all summer to heat up so the water was not especially cold. At a rough estimate, if Karen Bloom’s body was in there, and the divers didn’t find her, Joanne thought they could expect to see her bobbing about on Monday. Tuesday at the latest.

  Unless she’d been weighed down, of course.

  Two bodies had been found in the lake since Joanne had joined the CID. Both young men. Both the result of drunken nights out gone horribly wrong. If Joanne had a teenager at home, she would have two rules: no motorbikes (Joanne wondered how on earth the Organ Donor Register would function without the constant offerings of body parts from dead motorcyclists); and no drinking alcohol next to water.

  Other than that, she reckoned she’d be pretty laid back.

  Both of the drowned men had been found face down, which was another quirk of the drowning process. Men would resurface from the depths face down, whereas most women would be found face up, the gases collecting inside their fatty breast tissue. Joanne hoped she wouldn’t be the one to find Karen Bloom floating face up in Windermere.

  Joanne checked the bank for footprints, but as she had suspected, with the ground dry and hard, there was nothing.

  Really, what she needed to do now was establish whether Karen Bloom was still missing. But that would mean calling Noel. And if his wife hadn’t come home, then this news of the dumped Volvo should really be delivered face to face.

  Ideally, delivered by her. Since you really wanted to gauge the reaction of a person when there wa
s evidence of foul play.

  For now, though, that would have to wait. She had a witness to interview.

  28

  NOEL AWOKE AND looked at the empty bed beside him.

  He should have called Karen’s parents. He should have called them last night. Why hadn’t he? Because he’d carried on drinking, that’s why.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered, seeing the time. He’d slept later than he’d meant to. He’d slept through his radio alarm. He could just about hear Rod Stewart singing ‘In a Broken Dream’ through his hangover. Shit.

  The song ended with the DJ thanking the listener for sending in their favourite movie track. Noel tried to place what film the song was in. ‘Breaking the Waves,’ he said to the ceiling, thinking, Not a happy watch. Not exactly a date movie.

  He turned his head from side to side and his brain seemed to slosh around inside his skull. How much had he drunk? No point in thinking about it. It didn’t make it any better. Noel had learned over time that the best way to cure a hangover was to drink a pint of milk and do some vigorous exercise, all the while ignoring the voice inside his head lambasting him for his excesses. Guilt and hangovers were such unhappy bedfellows.

  He got up. Last night, stumbling up the stairs to bed, his plan had been to rise at six thirty and jog to Bowness to collect his car – two birds, and so forth. Now, he wouldn’t have time for that, as he needed to get Brontë and Verity off to school and himself to work.

  He also needed to report his wife officially missing. A quick call to Joanne Aspinall probably wouldn’t suffice, and he was guessing that was going to take a little longer than a couple of minutes. And he needed to call Bruce. Tell him he didn’t know where his daughter was.

  He showered fast, and shaved, cursing when he nicked the tender skin just below his left ear.

  ‘She’s still not back?’

  Noel turned around to find Verity. She was dressed in her school uniform and wore a curious expression. Mischievous, perhaps, but trying not to be.

  ‘She’s not back,’ he said.

  ‘Where d’you think she is?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘But she will come back?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  Noel splashed cold water on his face, rinsing away the shaving foam.

  ‘Do you want some crumpets?’ Verity asked.

  ‘That’d be lovely. Feed your sister, too, while you’re at it. I’m running a little late.’

  ‘Already have.’

  The three of them could walk down to get the car together. That would be the best thing to do. He cleaned his teeth, taking extra care to brush the back of his tongue – something he never found easy – gagging loudly, dry-heaving dramatically, like a cat being sick, before rubbing a little more toothpaste on to his teeth to mask the smell of booze. Mouthwash was no use in these circumstances. The high alcohol content made you stink even worse. He took out a clean shirt.

  Staring at his collection of ties, he wondered which one to wear. Black was too funereal, and might give the wrong impression when one’s wife hadn’t come home, but he couldn’t very well wear one of his jaunty ones either. He settled on the maroon with the thin blue stripes. Not his favourite, by any stretch, but appropriate, he decided. Then he made his way downstairs, making a mental note to call Ewan when he got to work. He didn’t have time to go up there now.

  Noel had called in to the flat above the garage last night to tell Ewan his mother hadn’t come home, and Ewan had looked like he’d not moved for three days. ‘Your mum hasn’t come home,’ Noel had said, and Ewan, barely looking up, said simply, ‘Oh.’

  Ewan wasn’t speaking to Karen, on account of her arranging for the police to pop in the week before and have a quiet word about the quantity of weed being smoked on the premises. Noel had told her it wasn’t a great idea, but she’d gone ahead all the same, telling him to keep his nose out. Ewan was her son, she said. She wasn’t going to sit around and watch him waste his life any longer. It was high time he contributed.

  Contributed to what, Noel wasn’t sure. The household expenses? The conversation? The economy?

  Verity had prepared the crumpets just the way he liked them: browned to the point of being almost burnt, laden with enough butter so that it dripped down the side of his wrist. She’d also made him an extra-large milky coffee, which he gulped down gratefully. And she made a face as if to say, Thought you might need that.

  She was now brushing Brontë’s hair, and Brontë wore a peaceful, noble expression, not unlike a horse enjoying a good groom.

  ‘We’ll need to head off early,’ he told them. ‘I left the car in Bowness, so we’ll walk to collect it. I’ll drop you both at school from there.’

  Verity glanced his way. ‘Fine by me,’ she said. ‘What time do we need to go?’

  ‘If we leave here in the next five minutes, we should make it in plenty of time and—’

  There was a knock at the front door.

  Odd, he thought, that the caller hadn’t used the bell. Though he did hate that bell. Hated the silly tune it played. He wiped his buttery hands on a piece of kitchen towel and dabbed at his chin before answering.

  ‘Can I come in, Noel?’

  It was DS Joanne Aspinall. She looked grave.

  ‘The girls are in the kitchen,’ he said, glancing behind him briefly to check if one or other of them had followed him to the door.

  ‘I need to talk to you. Is there somewhere we could go?’

  Noel saw the solemn determination in her eyes and opened the door wide to allow her in. ‘The office,’ he said.

  He walked after her along the hallway, feeling his heart begin to pound faster. Once inside the office, door closed, she asked him to sit down, and then asked if Karen had returned home.

  Noel shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t.’

  ‘Then, I’m really sorry to inform you of this,’ she said, not taking her eyes off his for a moment, ‘but we’ve found her car.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the side of the lake.’

  ‘And Karen?’

  ‘She’s not in it.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So you’ve not found a body, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So she could have just left it there,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’ he repeated.

  ‘There are traces of blood on the front seat.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘And there had been an attempt to set the car on fire.’

  ‘Oh,’ again.

  ‘Which leads us to think that she didn’t just abandon it.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Noel, I need to ask you when it was that you last saw your wife?’

  ‘Yesterday morning.’

  ‘Did you speak to her after that?’

  ‘I didn’t, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And besides the problems she was having with the internet trolls and so forth, can you think of anyone that may have wanted to harm her?’

  Suddenly, Noel felt like he was watching a movie. Can you think of anyone who would want to harm your wife? the detective asked, and the respondent would say, No! Horrified. She was liked by everyone.

  Noel looked at Joanne sadly, and said, ‘Yes, I would think there are a few people capable of hurting Karen.’

  ‘What about ex-boyfriends? Any problems in her past that you can think of?’

  ‘Not that she mentioned.’

  ‘What about Ewan’s father? Is he around?’

  Noel shook his head. ‘Do you think she’s in the lake?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s too early to speculate.’

  ‘But if you had to speculate?’

  ‘Then I would say she could be in the lake.’

  Noel weighed up this information. He studied his fingers. The vitiligo was spreading again. It happened in times of stress. He didn’t like to admit it, but it was true. When Ewan was small, his friends had been fascinat
ed by the disease. Why is your skin patchy like that, Dr Bloom? And he would tell them his flesh had been burnt to a crisp when he was rescuing a baby from a burning building.

  Dale was the only one who still believed that story.

  ‘Mind if I look around?’ Joanne said.

  ‘Here?’ replied Noel.

  ‘Yes, here.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said.

  Then he looked at Joanne. ‘You’ve changed your hair,’ he said.

  29

  YOU’VE CHANGED your hair.

  Joanne couldn’t imagine someone saying such a thing after being told that their wife may be rotting at the bottom of the lake.

  She drove back to the crime scene, where Oliver Black would be working by now. Her witness had not given her anything interesting. He was an unemployed tree surgeon, which Joanne thought was interesting in itself, since there was nothing but trees around here. He must have been pretty terrible at his job, or else downright dangerous, not to be employed. He wore a camouflage fleece, and a red neckerchief on his head. The neckerchief was knotted at the nape of his neck in much the same way Joanne’s mother used to wear one, back in the seventies when she worked in the garden, or had the stepladder out for something.

  When Joanne questioned her witness about his work situation he became hostile and defensive, telling her that his last boss was an absolute twat, and that if he went around accusing his best workers of stealing the machinery, then he could shove his job. All this to say that he was temporarily employed to dog-sit for an elderly couple who owned the land on which the Volvo was parked and who were currently holidaying in Santorini. He had been walking their four dogs when he found the car.

  ‘Did you touch it?’ she asked, and he shot back, ‘No.’ Fast. A little too fast for Joanne’s liking.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t touch the car?’ she said. ‘Because we’ll be taking prints and we’ll need to eliminate you from our inquiries.’