The Trophy Child

by Paula Daly

  It was raining. Not ideal, as Joanne had been hoping to perform her own search now that the CSIs were mostly done with the scene. The ground was already sodden and squelchy underfoot. Joanne wore hiking boots and jeans, but really, wellies would have been the better option.

  She performed a thorough fingertip search where the Volvo had stood and when she found nothing there she began to make her way towards the lake. It was eerily quiet. There was no sound from the road and all at once Joanne felt vulnerable out here on her own. She should have asked Oliver to come, too.

  The lake water was a muddied green. Its surface rippled in the light wind. A few minutes later a steamer passed. It was full of passengers, its windows fogged. A few of them were braving the open top deck in their waterproofs, and they waved to Joanne, happy to see some life other than the ducks, geese and swans, so she waved back. Someone might remember seeing her if she should disappear from here.

  Joanne tried to shake the thought from her head, and moved on. The rain grew heavier. She wondered if this was the start of the real rain. Usually, they would get another week of dry weather and would be well into November before it became what Joanne thought of as ‘monsoon season’. November was meant to be lived indoors in the Lakes. It was the time for open fires, thick stews and box sets. Most complained, but Joanne quite enjoyed it. There was a certain freedom of mind that came from knowing you couldn’t do anything constructive during the November rains and that you might as well surrender to the sofa for the duration.

  Joanne followed the path along the shore, checking behind her every few steps, as she was now a long way from the road and totally isolated. She headed to the point at which the scent had dried up for the dogs the previous day. To the left side of the path, beneath the shelter of trees, there were batches of leaves that had remained dry. Joanne picked up a branch to poke around with. Or to poke someone with if necessary.

  Ahead of her was a large holly, its branches filled with orange-red berries. As her boot crunched on the desiccated leaves, out of nowhere there was a loud clap of wings and three sets of wood pigeons flew in front of Joanne’s face.

  She spun to the left and stumbled a few paces. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart jackhammered inside her chest. A cold sweat sprang up between her shoulder blades.

  Then she saw it.

  To the left of where she stood, fifteen feet or so away from the path, was a silver birch.

  Joanne moved closer to examine it further. Something inside her stirred.

  Pulling on her gloves, she touched the bark carefully. Put her nose to it and inhaled.

  A blood smear. No prints that she could discern, but someone with a significant wound had grabbed on to this tree.

  And if this blood didn’t match the blood inside Karen’s car, then Joanne could very well have a suspect. And if that suspect was listed on the DNA database, then Joanne could have a name.

  She smiled, feeling rather pleased with herself.

  34

  ‘THREE DAYS? WHY three days?’ Joanne asked, furious.

  ‘That’s how long it takes.’

  She was on the phone to the lab. They’d come out to collect the sample and Joanne had called to find out how long it would be until they had the results, expecting them to say by the following morning at the latest.

  ‘But we’ve had samples back in a matter of hours before now,’ she said.

  ‘Good samples,’ the technician replied. ‘This is dried-out blood on the bark of a tree. It’s more complicated. To be honest, it’s going to be three days minimum.’

  Joanne cut the call and banged on the desk with her fist.

  ‘Not what you were hoping for?’ asked Oliver Black, without looking up.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘See, if this was CSI Miami,’ he said, flicking his pen between his fingers, ‘we’d have the suspect’s address, phone number and his mother’s maiden name by now. We’d be on our way to arrest him.’

  ‘And we’d have guns,’ she said.

  ‘We could wave them around when we entered his sleazy drug den,’ he said.

  ‘And shout, “Get on the fucking floor!” ’

  Joanne had never shouted ‘get on the fucking floor’ at a suspect in her life. Maybe she should, just to see how it felt. She could practise on Jackie.

  With the delay of the forensic evidence it meant they were back to standard detective work: knocking on doors, calling hospitals and surgeries to see if anyone had come in with a knife wound to the hand, speaking to Karen’s acquaintances, picking through her life, her computer, to see if anything strange stood out, contacting ex-boyfriends, ex-partners (they could locate only one for now, a bobby living in Belfast whom she’d dated when she was seventeen and could prove his whereabouts at the time of Karen’s disappearance). It was monotonous work, which would usually be covered by an officer junior to Joanne, but short of anything better to do, she and Oliver set out to try to find something of interest.

  ‘We could do with a body,’ Oliver said again.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Joanne again. ‘A body would be good.’

  —

  Oliver was driving, his long thin pianist’s fingers wrapped around the wheel. Joanne found herself thinking about Noel Bloom. Had she thrown herself at him that night at the bar?

  A little bit. But her blood had been running hot with good whisky, and she’d not had sex in…well, it had been a while.

  She gazed out of the window at the wet sheep, the low black cloud.

  ‘Filthy day,’ remarked Oliver.

  ‘Prepare yourself for another thirty at least,’ she said, but Oliver didn’t seem particularly put out. ‘Is Glasgow any better?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  They were on their way to interview Mrs Pia Nicholls. An acquaintance of Karen Bloom’s, she’d been identified as one of the last people to see Karen at around 1 p.m. on Tuesday and Joanne wanted to hear for herself what the woman had to say. Joanne wasn’t expecting Pia Nicholls to shed much light on Karen’s disappearance directly, but DC Hannah Gidley had reported Pia to be the kind of gossipy woman who knew everyone and anyone, and there was always a chance it would turn up something.

  ‘What kind of woman would you say Karen Bloom is?’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ replied Pia Nicholls.

  They were at Reid’s Grammar. Pia had agreed to meet but said she absolutely had to finish dealing with the prizes for the Christmas raffle and simply needed to meet on campus. Joanne said, ‘Bit early for that, isn’t it?’ and Pia had sounded horrified, saying, ‘Absolutely not,’ and that they were already way behind schedule.

  They were an enigma to Joanne, these types of women. The ones who made themselves indispensable for good causes that Joanne reckoned were not really good causes at all, because everyone involved seemed to have a hell of a lot more money than she did already.

  ‘It’s a straightforward question, Mrs Nicholls. What kind of woman is Karen Bloom?’

  ‘She’s…’ Pia paused, then sighed, before finally saying, ‘I’d say that she’s a good parent,’ as though that was the sum of Karen Bloom.

  Joanne waited.

  ‘Look,’ Pia said primly, ‘I’m not really sure what you’re asking. Do you want me to divulge things about Karen, because I can assure you, detective, I am not the type of woman to gossip, and—’

  Joanne held up her hand. ‘Gossip is exactly what I need in this instance, Mrs Nicholls. It just might save Karen Bloom’s life. She is missing and we need to find her, and to do that we need to know as much about her as possible. Things that she would tell her friends. Things that even her husband might not know.’

  Pia put down the book of raffle tickets and swallowed. On the table were a dozen bottles of champagne, a stack of leather-bound books and a hamper from Fortnum’s containing dry goods. All this as well as a voucher for seven courses at the Samling, a week’s accommodation in Corsica and a boxed Hermès scarf. Each item had a raffle ticket att
ached to it. It was a far cry from the Christmas raffle at the station. Last year she’d won a pair of tights.

  Pia turned to Joanne, and a shadow seemed to fall across her face. ‘Karen Bloom screwed my husband,’ she said tartly. ‘There, detective, is that gossip enough for you?’

  ‘She did?’ replied Joanne, surprised.

  ‘Yes. She did. Four times.’

  ‘Would you be able to tell me how you came about this information? If it’s not too much of an intrusion.’

  ‘Roger told me in a fit of guilt. That’s my fool of a husband.’

  ‘And you remained friends with Karen Bloom?’ Joanne was frowning. ‘That’s quite unusual.’

  Pia tried to shrug it off. ‘She doesn’t know I know.’

  ‘You never wanted to confront her?’

  ‘Of course I did. I hated her for it. I still hate her for it. But I had to think long and hard about what would happen. And the reality was that, if I said anything, everyone would know. The state of my marriage would become open season and I just wasn’t prepared to put myself, or my son, Hamish, through that kind of hell.’

  Joanne nodded.

  ‘Hamish applied to Oxford,’ Pia added, as if by way of explanation. ‘Roger promised it wouldn’t happen again. And I said it had better bloody not happen again. Then I told him that of course I would need a new kitchen. And that was the end of the matter.’

  Joanne phrased the next question as tactfully as she could. ‘Do you know if she slept with anyone else’s husband?’

  ‘I heard rumours. But Karen and I didn’t have the type of relationship in which we confided secrets.’

  ‘Did she have that kind of relationship with anyone?’

  Pia shook her head. ‘She was pretty cold. She liked to stay on the periphery.’

  ‘How did Karen seem to you when you saw her last?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘No different to usual.’

  ‘Worried? Harried? Anything like that?’

  ‘If she was she didn’t show it. We were talking about her son. He’s on drugs, you know. It’s terrible, really. Drugs tear families apart. Karen reported him to the police. So that’s who I’d be looking at if I were you…There was always something a little off about Ewan. Even when he was small he was a strange kid. I used to say to Roger, “That child is not right.” I could never relax when he was in the house…always thought I’d find him torturing the cat or something. Eerie, now I come to think of it, but I always got the impression he didn’t like his mother.’ Pia looked past Joanne towards the window. ‘Or maybe it was the other way around,’ she said, almost dreamily. ‘Maybe it was she who didn’t like him.’

  Joanne knew what Pia meant about Ewan. She didn’t think the kid was actually dangerous, but he had a look of danger about him. He reminded Joanne of a black-eyed boy who span the waltzers at the travelling fair which came to Bowness each August. He was usually shirtless, of course. And for three consecutive summers from the age of thirteen, Joanne felt the kind of keen longing that comes only from wanting a bad boy.

  Back in the car, Oliver said, ‘So Karen Bloom cheated on your Noel, then.’

  And Joanne snapped back, ‘What do you mean, my Noel? He’s not my Noel.’

  ‘Do you think he knows about it? ’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘He never mentioned it to you?’

  ‘What, like, my wife has been fucking someone else, Joanne. That’s why I’m fucking you right now. Strange, Oliver, but no. He never mentioned that.’

  ‘Well, at least we have a motive.’

  Joanne turned to him in her seat. ‘You think Noel Bloom killed his wife because she was sleeping around?’

  ‘People kill for less.’

  Oliver was right. They did. Human beings were so full of emotion. That was the problem.

  They could kill for a reason that to them felt like the only reason and to Joanne and the rest of the rational, thinking population felt like absolutely no reason at all.

  35

  FROM THE KITCHEN window Noel watched a cock pheasant pecking around in the soil near the hydrangea. Noel didn’t like hydrangeas. But every garden seemed to require one so, naturally, they had theirs. It was the only plant left with some colour on it and, really, that should have pleased him. But the grotesque purple flowers were turning an ugly combination of taupe and violet – corpse-coloured, in fact – and Noel was filled with the urge to grab the scissors he used for trimming the fat from rib-eye steaks and start deadheading the thing.

  The pheasant lived between their house and next door’s. It had taken, at around five every morning, to shouting and opening its wings in the branches of the large yew between the properties, which Noel didn’t really mind, and shitting on the lid of the wheelie bin, which he did mind.

  Perhaps he should shoot it, he thought. But then he never had been much of a shot.

  He’d heard a report on the lunchtime news that the lead shot from expended cartridges was poisoning wild birds in huge numbers – the birds ingesting the shot thought it was grit. This had darkened Noel’s mood considerably. Well, that, along with the discovery of the prospectus for that school in Inverness Karen had been so keen on for Verity. It had been inside Verity’s wardrobe, which meant she knew about it but had purposely said nothing. He’d been putting away some freshly washed clothes when he found it stashed beneath her sweaters on the top shelf. He didn’t know what to do. Should he talk to her? Tell her he’d never considered it as an option? It all seemed a bit late in the day now.

  Noel grabbed a teaspoon from the drainer and stirred the last dregs of his tea before downing it. He turned around and saw Bruce eyeing him suspiciously over the top of his reading glasses, which was nothing new. Bruce had been eyeing him suspiciously for years; at least now he had a real reason, Noel thought. Bruce seemed to feel this way, too, as where, once, he would slip in some small talk after a period of prolonged staring, now he no longer felt the need.

  ‘Can I get you another drink, Bruce?’ Noel asked, and Bruce shook his head.

  ‘I’ve had enough bloody tea.’

  ‘Something to eat, then?’

  Bruce didn’t answer. Instead he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and resumed reading the Westmorland Gazette.

  It would be time to collect Brontë shortly. Noel had quite enjoyed playing taxi, kissing his girls as they left him that morning, watching as Brontë ran to meet her friends, little girls that surely he should be familiar with but wasn’t.

  Noel often heard parents talk of play dates, sleepovers. Was it normal not to allow them for Brontë? Not that there were such things in Noel’s day. You went outside and found someone to play with, and tried your best to avoid getting beaten up by a bigger kid from the Protestant primary. When he was with Jennifer, their home had often been filled with troops of little girls at the weekends, all in various shades of pink. Jennifer would arrange sleepovers, marching them to the Co-op in their pyjamas to buy marshmallows to toast, or else laying treasure hunts around the house which they had to follow using only a torch.

  It wasn’t right to boycott the company of other children for the sake of music practice. He’d said as much to Karen and she’d shut him down, saying he had no idea of the level of dedication needed, and this wasn’t some whim, Noel. Brontë was talented.

  Of course, with Karen gone now, he could do what the hell he liked.

  These past few years, even when Karen wasn’t in the house he could feel her presence. It was subtle: the slight feeling of dread in his stomach, a heaviness across his upper trapezii that never seemed to lift, regardless of how many times he rolled his shoulders or stretched out his neck. When Karen left a room, the air was charged. And Noel would find himself with the urge to leave but without any logical reason why.

  Now all that had stopped. Even with Bruce and Mary here, he felt lighter, suddenly able to breathe. And he had to refrain from sucking in great lungfuls, declaring, ‘Ahhh. Smell that? Fresh air at last.’


  Bruce closed his newspaper. ‘Why aren’t you out looking for her?’ he said abruptly.

  Noel thought carefully before answering. ‘Her car was found next to the lake, Bruce,’ he said. ‘You do understand that they think she might be in there?’

  ‘That’s according to you,’ Bruce replied dismissively. ‘I’ve not been told that.’

  ‘So you think I’m making it up?’

  ‘What I think is that you seem to have accepted the disappearance of my daughter rather readily. I can’t accept that she’s dead in that lake. Not in any way, shape or form until…until…’ Bruce removed his glasses and dabbed at his right eye. ‘We can’t accept anything until we have evidence,’ he said.

  ‘Bruce,’ he said wearily, ‘I’ve not accepted Karen’s disappearance at all. I can’t bear not knowing where she is. But I have to collect the girls soon and I need to stay strong. What good would trailing around by the lake do? She could be anywhere. The police really have no idea what’s happened to her.’

  ‘What about her phone?’ Bruce said. ‘Why can’t they trace her through that?’

  ‘Her phone was in her handbag. Along with her wallet and keys. It was left inside the car,’ Noel said gently.

  ‘So she has nothing at all with her? Nothing she needs?’

  Noel shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘So she wasn’t robbed, then?’

  ‘No.’

  Bruce pinched the top of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, trying his best to push back the tears. ‘But why would someone want to hurt her?’ he said. ‘Why hurt Karen? It just doesn’t make any sense.’