by Paula Daly
Joanne waited. When Yvonne O’Riordan made no attempt to move, Joanne made a show of checking her watch.
When she still didn’t move, Joanne said, ‘What’ll it be, then?’ rubbing her hands together and flashing the woman a friendly smile. ‘Here or the station?’
Yvonne O’Riordan grudgingly took a step backwards.
They went into the lounge.
This was a house-proud woman. The room was decorated in a sickly tone of peach, not at all to Joanne’s taste, but it was clean and nicely furnished. Just about every available surface and wall space was covered with family photographs. There was also a sixty-inch TV, new sofas and a cream shag-pile carpet, freshly vacuumed.
‘I won’t offer you a drink,’ Yvonne said.
Joanne told her she’d not long had a coffee. Untrue, but Yvonne O’Riordan was not a woman to whom small talk came easily, and Joanne wanted to get her to relax.
Joanne removed her coat and took out her notepad. When she raised her head she saw that Yvonne was eyeing her sceptically. ‘So you say you’re a policewoman?’
‘Would you like to see my warrant card again?’
Yvonne nodded, so Joanne handed it over. She could only assume Yvonne O’Riordan thought she was an undercover DSS officer or something. ‘No uniform?’ Yvonne said, handing it back.
‘CID,’ explained Joanne.
‘What do you want with me? I’ve done nothing wrong.’
Joanne dropped her eyes to the group of photographs on the coffee table. ‘Lovely family,’ she said.
Yvonne waited, unsure.
‘How many grandchildren do you have?’ Joanne asked.
‘Eleven. No, twelve.’
‘You must be very proud.’
‘What’s this about? You’re making me nervous.’
‘No need to be nervous, Mrs O’Riordan. Like you say, you’ve done nothing wrong.’
She let the weight of her words settle and watched as Yvonne scowled back at her, saying, ‘That’s what I said, wasn’t it?’
‘I’d like to ask you a few questions about your sons, if I may.’
‘They’re not here.’
‘Yes, you said. I’m trying to find an address for Michael.’
Yvonne’s jaw started working overtime. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘My husband’ll be back in a bit. It’s probably best you talk to him. He’s my carer. I have a terrible memory and he’ll be able to help you out better than me. He’s a good man.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘He doesn’t really like me talking to people without him being here.’
Joanne smiled as though she understood. ‘Perhaps you have his address written down? Perhaps in an address book or something? It would save waiting for your husband,’ she said innocently. ‘Or do you mind if I just have a quick look around?’
‘I don’t think he’d like it.’
‘Won’t take a second,’ said Joanne, thinking she’d be a fool not to have a quick poke about the place before they got wind of the fact they were all wanted for questioning. ‘Then I can leave you in peace, Mrs O’Riordan.’
Joanne was on her feet. Yvonne O’Riordan’s face had become moist and pallid.
‘I’m not sure—’
Yvonne O’Riordan was the type of woman used to covering for her family, but she wasn’t particularly good at it. Joanne could envision the neighbours hauling her boys to her door, back when they were kids, Yvonne meeting them with those blank, innocent eyes, as if she really couldn’t imagine them doing any of the things they were accused of.
Joanne moved into the hallway and spotted the telephone table. She walked towards it. On it was a scented candle, an Audrey Hepburn calendar, a Penny Vincenzi paperback and a large Forever Friends address book. She studied October’s Audrey momentarily before opening the address book and flicking through the pages until—
‘Hey.’
A man’s voice. Joanne turned around to find the source of the voice that had seemingly come out of nowhere.
She was met by a gloved fist to the face.
Joanne had never taken a proper punch. Like a lot of women, she dreaded the day when it would happen, knowing she would be woefully unprepared for the pain and the instant incapacitating effect.
She fell. The small of her back hit the telephone table.
No time to save herself, the full weight of Joanne’s body smashed backwards into the wood and a white shock of pain travelled all the way up to her scalp. Slumped, all she could do was try to protect her face from further punches with her hands.
There was blood. Quite a lot of blood. Might she die?
She really hoped not.
For one thing, she had her least favourite suit on. The one from Dorothy Perkins that was a panic buy. She didn’t want to be condemned to wear it for all eternity (her ghost outfit, as it were). She didn’t want to spend for ever stuck in a shitty black suit that was beginning to sag at the knees.
Tentatively, Joanne touched her nose with the end of her ring finger and found all was not as it should be. It was as if her nose wasn’t quite there any more.
‘Please,’ she pleaded. She could hear her assailant breathing heavily nearby. She tried to open her eyes, but her vision swam and swayed.
She went to speak again but at the same time felt a belt of cold air hit her. She turned her head to the right and could sense light coming from the doorway.
‘Get out,’ the voice said. ‘Get out of here now.’
And so, pitiably, on her hands and knees, blood running down her chin, Joanne crawled away.
49
‘DOES THAT HURT?’ asked the nurse.
‘Yes,’ replied Joanne. But it came out sounding more like yeth. As though she was imitating that annoying ad from the eighties for Tunes lozenges…A thecond-clath return to Dottingham, pleath.
Oliver had found her kneeling on the pavement outside the O’Riordans’, head cocked back, trying to stem the blood flow, and had insisted on bringing her to the health centre. He’d wanted to call an ambulance, but Joanne had said no. Yes, her nose was probably broken. And, yes, she’d lost some blood. But hospital was overkill. ‘And it will take for ever to be seen by someone,’ she reasoned, ‘being half-term.’ The place would be full of kids with broken arms, sprained ankles, bangs to the head.
Oliver had relented. But once he’d called for back-up, cuffing Joanne’s assailant, arresting him for the assault of a police officer, he told Joanne they would be visiting her GP’s surgery, regardless of what she had to say about it, so she may as well just agree.
Joanne wasn’t trying to be brave. She didn’t especially like brave women. They were usually nurturing a particular kind of martyrdom which Joanne didn’t care for. No, she didn’t want to see a hospital nurse for three reasons: one, she was embarrassed. Quite mortified, actually, that she’d been caught so unawares, rifling through the O’Riordans’ address book. Two, she was in a lot of pain. And Joanne went feral when she was injured, taking herself off to a darkened room and curling up. She certainly did not want anyone touching her or poking at her. And three, and this was the really non-negotiable thing, it was Sonny O’Riordan who’d hit her. Sonny O’Riordan, all-round undesirable, whom Joanne had been trying to locate, but to no avail, before she had been switched to the Brontë Bloom case.
She’d found him.
Clever Joanne.
If she weren’t in so much pain, she would have done a little jig.
Joanne now lay with her head angled backwards on a treatment couch while the nurse shone a light up each nostril, trying to determine if Joanne’s septum had been damaged by the impact of Sonny O’Riordan’s fist. They didn’t straighten broken noses like they used to. Gone were the days when they manually pulled the thing back in line before it had time to set. ‘Not any more!’ sang the nurse when she first examined her, to Joanne’s considerable relief. ‘We get rid of the swelling and, if it is deemed to be broken, we make an appointment with the plastic surgeon in around two w
eeks’ time.’
‘Wonderful,’ sniffled Joanne.
‘I’m just not sure whether to refer you or not,’ she said, cleaning the end of her torch with an alcohol wipe. ‘Sit tight,’ she said, ‘while I get a second opinion.’
When she left, Oliver rose and came to stand at Joanne’s side.
‘How are you holding up?’ he asked.
‘Not bad. How do I look?’
Oliver grimaced. ‘You’ve looked better. You’ve got a couple of black eyes forming. And this one’s pretty bloodshot,’ he said, gesturing to her right.
‘I want to question him.’
Oliver sighed. ‘I know.’
‘No, seriously, Oliver. You can’t just go taking over because I’m injured. I’ve been after this kid for so long, and if it turns out to be his blood…you’ll have to lay off questioning until—’
‘Joanne,’ he said. ‘I won’t question him, okay? But you know it’s going to be Pat Gilmore who has the final say. And I really can’t see her letting you near him, not like this.’
Joanne closed her eyes. She felt like she had acid beneath her lids. She could feel the swelling glueing up her eyelashes.
What a fuck-up.
Sonny O’Riordan said he thought she was a burglar. That was his excuse. Not that he really needed one. He had come across a stranger inside his parents’ house, flicking through a book on the telephone table. ‘I thought me mam was in danger,’ he said innocently to Oliver. ‘You would have done the same, mate.’
‘What were you thinking, going through their stuff?’ Oliver asked her.
And she replied, ‘Please, don’t.’
Joanne had once had a boyfriend who would ask similarly annoying questions. If she should smash a glass: ‘What did you do that for?’ If she should burn her finger: ‘Why weren’t you being more careful?’ Joanne had put up with him for a short while before coming back with ‘Because I thought injuring myself would be exactly the right thing to do in this instance.’
They didn’t last long together after that.
The nurse returned, apologizing for the wait, saying the doctor had his hands full with another patient, and Joanne was about to say something in return when Noel Bloom appeared at her feet.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said to her. ‘What happened to the other guy?’
‘On his way to Kendal station,’ she said simply.
Noel’s eyes went wide. ‘Actually, I was joking. I assumed you’d fallen over. You really got hit in the face?’
Joanne nodded. ‘I really did.’ Then she winced as a needle of pain shot from her neck to the middle of her back.
Oliver stepped away, giving them some space, as Noel moved quickly to her.
‘Are you all right?’
His face was a worried mask of concern.
‘I didn’t think you’d be back at work yet,’ she said coldly. She was still annoyed at him for turfing her out of his house, calling a halt to the interview with Brontë. Now that Joanne knew it was Madeleine Kramer who’d taken the child, she wondered what had motivated Noel to do such a thing. Who was he trying to protect?
‘We were short-staffed,’ Noel explained. ‘We’ve been putting rather a lot on the locum recently, and she couldn’t make it in today. But I asked if you were all right, Joanne. Are you?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You don’t look fine. Are you injured anywhere else? I should really take a proper look at you.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ she said stiffly.
Oliver cleared his throat. ‘I’ll just be outside, Joanne,’ and he was out the door with discreet haste.
‘Joanne,’ Noel said, insistently.
‘Noel,’ she replied, flatly.
Joanne stole a look across to the nurse. She was busying herself among the boxes of Tubigrip, pretending not to listen.
‘It’s not what you think, you know…with Brontë.’
‘What do I think, Noel?’
‘I can’t…’ He bit down on his lower lip. ‘I’m just not able to tell you because…’ Noel dropped his voice to just above a whisper. ‘None of this is my fault. I swear to you, Joanne. It’s not.’
‘None of what is your fault?’ she asked, and Noel looked at her kind of helplessly. She looked away. ‘What is it you want from me, Noel?’
He went to speak but paused instead. ‘Cathy,’ he said to the nurse, ‘would you mind giving us a minute?’
The nurse turned slowly on the spot. ‘Of course,’ she said brightly. ‘Although,’ she said to Joanne, ‘you are entitled to a chaperone if you’re undressing, Miss Aspinall. It’s up to you. I can stay if you need me to.’
‘I won’t be undressing.’
The nurse gave something between a nod and a small bow: As you wish. Then she left them to it, closing the door behind her.
‘I didn’t think I’d get to see you again,’ Noel said.
‘Well, as you can see, I totally planned this.’
Noel smiled.
‘And there’s still the small matter of finding your wife’s killer, Noel.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. Here, let me look at you.’
‘You are looking at me.’
‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Let me examine you. There’s a lot of soft-tissue damage below your eye. It may need X-raying. Let me, Joanne. Please.’
Noel switched on an Anglepoise lamp above Joanne’s head. ‘Too bright?’ he asked.
‘It’s okay.’
He pulled on a pair of green surgical gloves. ‘This might hurt a bit…I’ll write you a prescription for some heavy-duty painkillers, and you’ll want to ice-pack your nose every few hours, for twenty minutes or so. Okay,’ he said, moving in, ‘here we go.’
Joanne closed her eyes at the sight of Noel’s face looming. She should really have asked to see another doctor. That would have been the sensible thing to do.
She could feel his touch, butterfly wings against her skin again, then a little deeper as he felt around her eye socket.
Noel stroked down the line of her nose, then ran his finger and thumb along, pinching a little as he went. Her eyes watered slightly but she didn’t move.
Be brave, she said to herself.
Then she sensed his touch on her lips. It was the oddest sensation, because her top lip had become partially numbed. It actually felt like…oh.
She realized he was kissing her.
‘Hello,’ she whispered softly.
‘Hello again,’ he whispered back.
50
IT WASN’T BROKEN. Neither was her anterior maxillary wall, nor her orbital rim. These were the things Noel wanted checked, asking the radiography department if they could push Joanne to the top of their list, as she had a suspect in custody who needed interviewing. ‘Of course, Dr Bloom,’ the receptionist had said. Noel had her on speakerphone. ‘Lovely to talk to you again, Dr Bloom,’ she giggled, and Joanne put two fingers in her mouth and pretended to gag.
By the time she got to the station, it was after six. She’d not eaten since lunch and so Oliver pushed a bruised banana her way and a cup of sweet tea to see her through the next couple of hours. She had to cut the banana up with a knife and fork and eat it in miniature pieces the size a doll would eat as opening her mouth wider than a small ‘o’ made her cheek throb like hell. And the painkillers weren’t helping. What she needed was whisky.
Sonny O’Riordan was still small and wiry. But he’d developed a neat musculature to his upper body that was absent in those Facebook photos she’d viewed of him. He’d been working out. His own nose was pushed over to one side, and Joanne assumed he boxed. That would also account for his good aim and well-timed punch.
‘Sorry about your face,’ he said, as she sat down opposite him.
Noel had fitted a dressing which ran across the bridge of her nose and underneath her right eye, ‘So you don’t frighten the children,’ he said. But the radiographer had difficulty reapplying it after her X-ray, so Joanne had discarded it.
‘But I’ve still not found out what you were doing inside me mam’s house,’ Sonny O’Riordan added.
Joanne opened up her notes. ‘We’ll come to that. How about you begin by telling me where you were on the afternoon of Tuesday, 20 October.’
‘No idea,’ he said, rather pleased with himself.
‘Karen Bloom went missing on that day and was later found murdered.’
He pantomimed shock. ‘And this affects me how?’
‘We have reason to believe that you were in the area of Karen’s murder at around the same time.’
‘What reason?’
‘I’ll come to that,’ Joanne said again. ‘Were you in the area?’
‘Of course I wasn’t.’
‘How well did you know Karen Bloom?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Not at all?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Windermere’s a small place, Mr O’Riordan. You must have stumbled across her once or twice in your lifetime.’
‘If I did I can’t remember. I expect we move in different circles.’
‘Even so.’
‘Even so,’ he repeated, smiling at her, his tone now mocking.
This was how your average, seasoned criminal behaved when being interviewed. They knew nothing, saw nothing, couldn’t give a shit what the police had to say. They knew their rights and liked to take the piss as much as possible. Something to relay to their buddies over a pint later. It was like dealing with a recalcitrant child.
‘Mind showing me your hands?’ Joanne asked.
‘I don’t mind,’ he said, but he didn’t offer them.
‘You right- or left-handed?’ she asked.
‘Right.’
Joanne got up. She moved around to Sonny O’Riordan’s side of the desk. ‘Can I take a look?’
He held out his right hand. Joanne turned it over, palm side up. She glanced at Oliver Black and gave a small nod. There, just shy of his heart line, was a raised pink line of flesh. The skin around it was white and flaking: damaged cells in the process of sloughing off.
‘You had yourself an injury here, Mr O’Riordan?’ she asked, releasing his hand.
And he shrugged as though he really couldn’t remember.