Under Parr

by Andrea Bramhall

  “The remains of an elderly gentleman have been found not far from here. He was between the ages of sixty and eighty, and we suspect he would have been a resident here until the fifth of December 2013. Could you have a look through the records, please?”

  “I can certainly take a look.” She cracked her knuckles and pulled the computer keyboard closer. “I take it you don’t have a name?”

  “Oh, if only life were that simple, Sister,” Kate said with a chuckle.

  “Okay. Let’s start with anyone leaving on or shortly after that date then.” She clacked away at the keys and frowned at her screen. “A man, you said.”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I’ve got a woman who died on the fifth, but no man. No man checking out all the next week either.” She wiggled her fingers over the keys as she seemed to think. “Let me try earlier that week. Just in case.” She crunched the keys some more. “No. The last man we’ve got leaving is Edward Bale in November. Could it be him?”

  Kate shook her head. “No, he was buried by his family. Not missing.”

  “Can I ask why you think he was a resident here?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give out the details of an ongoing case.”

  “But perhaps there is a simple explanation for whatever you think makes him a resident here when he never was.”

  Kate leaned back in her chair. “Well, if you can come up with a different explanation, I’m all for it. How would you explain our man being found wearing the dentures of Annie Balding, whom you mentioned died on the fifth, and the underwear of Edward Bale? Whom you also mentioned.”

  Sister Lodge raised an eyebrow, but her face remained impassive. “Mysterious, indeed, Detective.”

  “How many members of staff do you have here, Sister?”

  “Let me think. We have six full-time nurses, twelve care workers, three catering staff, three cleaners, and a laundry woman. Then we have some bank staff, and of course the ever-present agency staff that we all are pretty much reliant on these days.”

  “How many of your permanent staff were here in December 2013?”

  “I’d have to check the records, but I can work you up a list.”

  “I’d appreciate that. I don’t suppose you can get me a list of agency staff who worked here regularly at that time too?”

  “Define regularly?”

  “Regular enough to have a chance of recognising a picture.”

  “I’ll probably have to go back through old payroll and time sheets to get those details for you. It’ll take me some time.”

  “I’d really appreciate it.” Kate handed her a card. “My e-mail address is on there.”

  Sister Lodge squinted at it and sighed. “I’ll send it over as soon as I’ve got it together. You’ll have to give me a few days, though.”

  Kate held up her hands. “Of course. Thank you.”

  “Do you know how he died?”

  Kate shook her head. “I’m afraid not. There is evidence of trauma, though.”

  “Trauma? Like an accident?”

  “Possibly.”

  Sister Lodge scratched her head. “But you don’t think so, do you, Detective?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that, Sister. I can only comment on what I can prove.”

  “Fair enough.” Sister Lodge tapped at her keyboard again, then clicked the mouse. The printer churned to life and quickly spat out a small sheaf of pages. “The names and addresses of all the staff who were working here in 2013. Including those who no longer work here and who left shortly before December.”

  Kate held out her hand. “Thank you.”

  “Find out who he is, Detective.”

  Kate cocked her head to the side as she looked at her. “I’ll do everything I can.”

  “No one deserves to die and just be forgotten.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t think of anything worse.”

  “My gran told me once that immortality lay not in the afterlife but in how we’re remembered in this life after we are gone. That as long as one person remembers us, we’re not dead.”

  “And do you believe that, Detective?”

  Kate shrugged. Do I? She thought about all those she’d loved and lost. The mother she never knew. The father who blamed her for her mother’s death. The gran who had battled for every last breath. All dead. All gone. Who’s left to remember me when it’s my turn to kick the bucket? “It’s a nicer thought than being buried and becoming worm food.”

  Sister Lodge laughed. “True. A damn shame, but true.”

  * * *

  Jimmy was quiet as Kate drove them away from the care home. Seemingly lost in thought.

  “Penny for them?” Kate asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “You were miles away. Anything interesting?” She indicated right on to the A149 heading for Hunstanton on the coast road.

  “Was it just me or did it seem like she was hiding something?”

  “It wasn’t just you. There was definitely more to why she’d been brought in to that place.”

  “What do you think’s going on there?”

  Kate shrugged. “Don’t know yet, Jimmy.” She checked her rear-view mirror and pulled out to avoid a car parked on the road. “But tomorrow I intend to find out.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Can you leave the light on in the hall?” Sammy’s voice was quiet as she pulled the duvet over her shoulder and shifted her head on her pillow. Her blue eyes looked even bigger than normal, scared, as she watched Gina approach the door.

  Gina turned and crossed the room. She perched on the edge of Sammy’s bed and ran her fingers through her recently brushed but already unruly blond hair. “If that’s what you want, kiddo.”

  Sammy nodded, her gaze fixed on the doorway.

  “Why?”

  “S’nuffink.”

  “You promised no more secrets. Remember?”

  Sammy looked up at her and Gina wanted to weep for the sadness, fear, and pain she saw etched on her little girl’s face. “I remember.”

  “So why do you want me to leave the light on?”

  “It’s so I can see when I wake up and it helps me not be scared so much.”

  “Doesn’t the light keep you awake?”

  Sammy shook her head. “No.”

  The dark circles under her eyes were more than enough evidence that something was keeping her awake. And as much as Gina suspected what that was, she knew that Sammy needed to admit it, to both of them, before she could begin to move forward and heal.

  “Then what does, Sammy?”

  “Connie,” Sammy whispered and seemed to shrink in her bed.

  “What about Connie?”

  Sammy seemed to struggle to find the words.

  Gina wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t know them or just didn’t want to voice them. “Tell me, sweetheart.”

  Sammy sniffed. “I see her face.”

  “Okay.”

  “After she got shot.”

  Gina continued to stroke her fingers through Sammy’s hair, sensing that she needed a little space to get the words out, and hugging her would only stop her saying what she needed to.

  She hated that Sammy had seen Connie’s body after she’d been shot. Gina had only seen a picture, and it had been enough to make her throw up. Connie’s face had literally been gone. There were no distinctive features. No nose, no eyes, no mouth. Just a mangled mass of bloody tissue, bone fragments, and brain matter. And her nine-year-old daughter had seen it with her own eyes.

  I still wish I could string her father up by his testicles for this. Knowing that Matt Green was going to prison for the foreseeable future and would never again see his daughter on his own didn’t feel like nearly enough punishment to her. After all, Sammy was going to be dealing with the consequences of his thoughtlessness and disregard for the rest of her life.

  Connie had been someone Sammy had looked up to and respected. And for three days she’d believed she’d killed her. All because her ir
responsible father had sent her out on the salt marsh—alone—to shoot him a rabbit for his tea.

  “Is it a dream?”

  Sammy nodded.

  “Do you have the dream every night, Sammy?”

  Sammy nodded again, and a tear snaked its way down her cheek.

  “And what do you do when you have the dream?”

  “I try to…not be scared and go back to sleep.”

  “Okay, and how do you do that? What helps you not be scared?”

  “I dunno, Mum. Nuffink works. Even Sir Galahad doesn’t help.” She grabbed the one-eyed bear and held him out. His red coat was torn and falling off one shoulder, and his ear was holding on by a thread. Again. Gina had lost count of the number of times she’d sewn that ear back on over the years.

  Sir Galahad was Sammy’s favourite stuffed toy. She’d slept with him on or in her bed since she was five. She remembered when Sammy had picked the name for him, after Gina had told her some of the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Sammy had decided that her bear, just like Sir Galahad, was the best and bravest in all of England and deserved to be knighted just as Sir Galahad had been. She’d even conducted the ceremony herself.

  “I fink I’m always gonna be scared now.”

  Gina’s heart broke, and she finally pulled Sammy on to her lap and held her close. “Next time you have the dream, I want you to come and wake me up. You don’t need to do this on your own, kiddo.” She soothed her hand over Sammy’s head and back. “Do you understand? I’m your mum, I’m here to help with stuff like this. Okay?” She felt Sammy’s head move against her shoulder.

  “But Ally hurt you. Aren’t you scared too?”

  Terrified. “I’m a grown-up, sweetheart. You have to pass tests and all sorts of stuff to get your grown-up card. And one of those tests is a bravery test.” She pretended to buff her nails on her shirt. “I passed that one with flying colours, I’ll have you know.”

  Sammy grunted a small laugh. “Fibber.”

  Gina smiled. “Made you laugh, though.”

  “That wasn’t a laugh. It was a hiccup.”

  Gina chuckled. “You keep telling yourself that, kiddo.” She ruffled Sammy’s hair and helped her lie back down. “I’m going to leave the light on, but if you wake up, I want you to come and wake me up.”

  “And you can make me not feel scared?”

  “I hope so, kiddo.” She kissed Sammy’s head. “It might take a while, but we’ll get there.” She smoothed the duvet over her chest. “I promise. Me and Sir Galahad won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Sammy shifted on to her shoulder, wrapped her arm around Sir Galahad, and held out her little finger. “Pinky swears?”

  Gina wrapped her own little finger around her daughter’s. “Pinky swears,” she whispered solemnly. “Now go to sleep.”

  Sammy closed her eyes, and Gina slowly left the room. She left the door open a crack and the light on in the hallway.

  The stairs creaked beneath her feet and she hurried through the downstairs corridor. She hated being in there and wished to God she could afford to move them to another house. But right now, that wasn’t an option.

  Instead, every time she walked through her hallway, she couldn’t help but see herself bound, her arms tied over her head with the rope looped over the upstairs banister as Ally Robbins had sliced her flesh open with a fish knife. She ran a hand over her stomach and tugged at the high collar on the turtleneck jumper she’d begun to favour.

  Sammy wasn’t the only one fighting demons. But she was determined to get Sammy past her nightmares. Her own…well, just like the scars on her breasts, they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  The doorbell rang as she put the kettle on to boil. Her heart pounded in her ears and she could feel a trickle of sweat run down her neck. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Eight o’clock. She moved closer to the block of knives on the kitchen counter.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “It’s Kate.”

  Gina smiled and tried to ignore the tightening in her belly as she crossed the hallway again. She pulled open the door and quickly ushered Kate into the kitchen, taking the time to admire her as they went. It was certainly a pleasant distraction from the memories. Kate’s jeans clung tight to her backside and her knee-high leather boots creaked softly as she walked. Her red hair tumbled down her back like a sheet of burnished copper, swaying along with her hips. Gina licked her lips. Lovely distraction, indeed. “I was just making a brew. Would you like one?”

  “Lovely, thanks,” Kate said with a gentle smile. “How are you?”

  Gina blew out a huge breath, and Kate chuckled. “That good, hey?”

  “Something like that.” She put coffee and milk in Kate’s cup before pouring the water and joining her at the table.

  “Tell me,” Kate said, accepting the coffee with a bob of her head.

  Gina had wondered if Kate would immediately want an answer to the text message she still hadn’t responded to. That she still hadn’t figured out how she was going to respond to. To have Kate walk in and not mention it felt like Gina was off the hook. For the moment, at least. She knew Kate would need an answer eventually. She needed to give her one. After all, Kate hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been doing everything right.

  Gina took a seat next to Kate, wrapped her cold fingers around the hot mug, and smelled the steam rising off the liquid. “Sammy’s teacher called me in for a chat today.”

  “What happened? Is she okay?”

  Gina loved the way Kate cared about Sammy. She had from the first time she’d met the child. While Gina had gone overboard with a bottle of Rioja trying to drown her sorrows, Kate had offered Sammy comfort the night Connie had been killed.

  “She’s being bullied.”

  “The little bastards.” Kate put her cup down and pushed away from the table. “Give me their names, I’ll go and put the fear of God—”

  Gina put a hand on her arm to still her. “That won’t help.”

  “I’ll make sure it will.”

  Gina shook her head and slipped her hand into Kate’s, twining their fingers together, and caressed her hand with her thumb. It wasn’t enough. She lifted Kate’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “Thank you,” she whispered against her skin. “And as much as I share the sentiment, the teachers at school have a plan. One that Sammy agrees with and will work better in the long run. We think.”

  “It’d better.”

  “If it doesn’t, then I’ll put her in a different school.”

  “And I’ll incarcerate the little sods.”

  “That’s kind of the problem.”

  Kate frowned. The confusion clear in her green and gold eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “The kids that are picking on her. You’ve locked up their dads.”

  Understanding dawned on Kate and she frowned. “Oh, Gina, I’m so sorry. I can’t not do my job, but what can I do…”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing at all. It isn’t really you that’s the problem. If anything, it’s her dad.”

  “Because he ratted them out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And they’re tarring her with the same brush? They’re nine, for God’s sake. Nine-year-olds don’t think like that.”

  “They do if that’s what their parents tell them. Or more if that’s what they overhear their parents saying.”

  Kate sipped her coffee. “So what’s the plan?”

  Gina quickly filled her in on what Mrs Partridge and Mrs Eastern planned to do.

  Kate whistled. “It’s a good plan, but it’s going to take a while, and there are no guarantees it will work.”

  “No, but it may be better in the long run. Even if I take Sammy out of school at Brancaster and move her to Wells or Docking primary school, she’s still going to end up running into some, if not all, of these kids again in a couple of years when she goes to secondary school. Short of leaving the area completely, I can’t thin
k of a way of getting her away from this forever.” Gina twisted her cup in her hands, trying to draw warmth from the hot liquid inside. “And I’m not sure that’s the kind of message I want to give Sammy.”

  “What?”

  “Running away from your problems isn’t solving them. If I teach her that running when things get hard is okay, then what’s to say she won’t run from everything?”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit, I don’t know, overdramatic?”

  “She’s having nightmares.”

  “Still?”

  Gina nodded. “Every night.”

  “Shit.”

  “This afternoon, she blew up in the meeting with her teachers when one of them told her she’d have to talk to her about everything that happened. I thought she was actually going to attack the woman.”

  Kate paled. “She didn’t?”

  “No. She stopped just short. Called her a lot of nasty names—which she apologised for—and kicked and beat the floor.”

  “But the counsellor at Victim Support signed her off.”

  “Because Sammy refused to talk. She couldn’t make any progress with her. She didn’t sign her off because Sammy was fixed, Kate.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Still think I’m being overly dramatic?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. I’m used to dealing with horrible stuff at work every day. I see the worst that humans can throw at each other, and I forget that this isn’t every day stuff for you and Sammy. This is change-your-life stuff.” She knelt beside Gina’s chair. “Forgive me?”

  “Nothing to forgive.”

  Kate reached over and kissed Gina’s cheek. “I’m still sorry for being thoughtless.” She paused and stroked her fingers down Gina’s jawline. “I was thinking about stuff today and I think, well…I think there may be other things I’ve been thoughtless about. Haven’t there?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Kate smiled gently. “I think you do.” She cast a glance down towards Gina’s chest.

  Gina couldn’t help but flinch under her gaze.

  Kate took hold of Gina’s hand and slowly threaded their fingers together. “Maybe Sammy isn’t the only one who needs to talk to a counsellor.”