Under Parr

by Andrea Bramhall

  Gina snatched her hand away. “I’m fine.”

  Kate raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  “Then why have you changed the type of clothes you wear? Why all the turtlenecks, and roll-neck collars? Hoodies zipped up to your chin all the time.”

  “It’s winter and it’s cold.”

  “Not in here, it isn’t.”

  “I haven’t been in long.”

  “Is Sammy wearing one to bed?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I’m not the one being ridiculous, Gina. It’s completely understandable that what happened will affect you. That’s normal. Just like it’s normal that it’s affecting Sammy. You don’t want to teach her that running away from her problems is the way to deal with them?” Kate took hold of her hand again. “Then teach her that you won’t do that either. Show her that you can deal with what Ally did, and she’ll do the same.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kate Brannon.”

  “Don’t I?” She leaned in closer and covered Gina’s lips with her own. The kiss was long and slow, but every caress of her tongue was filled with passion, and Gina responded. She couldn’t stop herself.

  God, she wanted this woman. Gina slipped her hands to Kate’s shoulders and tugged her closer. Kate’s fingers cupped her cheeks, holding her still, then they disappeared. Gina felt them through the thick wool of her jumper, slipping down her chest and over her breasts.

  She froze. The feel of Kate’s fingers closing in on the pink and puckered scar tissue along the edges of her breasts was too much. She pulled back as far as her chair would allow her to.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. But why? Why didn’t you tell me?” Kate whispered. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I…I…can’t.” She turned her face away and squeezed her eyes closed. So this was how it was going to end. This was how she would lose Kate. Bloody Ally Robbins. Is there nothing in this village you haven’t destroyed?

  “If I bring you the number of a counsellor tomorrow, will you talk to her?”

  Gina opened her eyes quickly and stared at Kate. “Excuse me?”

  “I think you need to talk to someone, Gina. Someone professional who can help you come to terms with what happened and how it’s changed you. I’ll do whatever I can, but I don’t know what you need. What’s going to help you.” She stroked her fingers down the length of Gina’s jaw. “I’ve already told you that they don’t matter to me. That you’re just as beautiful as before. More, even.”

  Gina closed her eyes, and looked down at her chest. “They matter to me.”

  Kate nodded. “I realise that now.” She held Gina’s hand again. “I’m sorry I’m so slow on the uptake.”

  “You aren’t leaving me?” Gina glanced up and held Kate’s gaze. Those expressive green eyes were filled with so much emotion. Concern, guilt, anger, confusion, and the lingering remnants of lust.

  Kate bent her head forward, shaking it as the curtain of her red hair slipped over her shoulders and framed her face. “Leaving you?” She looked up from under her hair. Her jaw was clenched tight. “Is that what you thought I’d do?”

  Gina looked down again at their joined hands. “It’s what I’m scared you’ll do.”

  Kate leaned back. “I thought we’d been through this, Gina. I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me you don’t want me here. That you don’t want to be with me. I’ll grant you, you’ve been giving off mixed messages for the past month or so. A lot of mixed messages. Hot one second, and then ice-cold the next.” She held her hands up to forestall any argument. “But I understand that now. I can work with that now.” She took a deep breath and held Gina’s hands. “If you want to?”

  “Yes.” Gina smiled and felt a weight tumble from her shoulders. She hadn’t realised how worried she’d been about potentially losing Kate. “Definitely, yes.”

  “Okay then. So will you call her?”

  Gina pulled in a deep breath. “Do I have a choice?”

  “You always have a choice, Gina. It might not be one you like, but you always have one.”

  “So what’s the choice?”

  “Talk to her and get better, or don’t.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then it’s going to make it really hard for us to really enjoy each other.” Kate’s voice dropped as she moved forward and kissed her again. Nipping and tugging Gina’s bottom lip between her teeth before caressing the tiny hurt with her tongue, then pulling away. “But it’s your choice.”

  “I say again,” she whispered and wrapped her arms around Kate’s shoulders, pulling her in for another kiss. “What choice do I have?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Kate stared at her computer screen then glanced back at the page resting on top of a two-inch stack. The records of each employee working at Brancombe House Nursing Home during 2013. Some were clean. Nothing more impressive than a parking fine or three points on their licence for speeding. One or two others were a little more circumspect. A drunk driver here, a drunk-and-disorderly there, and one chap with a long record of police being called to domestic disturbances, but no record of a single arrest or charge brought against him.

  She looked at the picture Sister Lodge had provided with his employee record. Bald, missing front teeth, and a tattoo visible on his neck. He looked like the poster boy of football hooliganism rather than a care worker with an exemplary work record. “Angel at work, devil at home, hey, Mr Warburton?”

  She glanced at her watch and sighed. Ten o’clock in the morning and still no sign of the facial reconstruction. She knew time was running out. Without an ID and a recorded open verdict, Timmons was going to have to cut back resources on the case. Without something to justify the cost of the investigation, this case was very soon to become another John Doe case gathering dust on the cold case files.

  She picked up the phone and punched the buttons for Len Wild. “Where’s my picture?” she said, smiling, when he picked up the phone.

  He chuckled. “Good morning to you too, Detective. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, enough with the chit-chat. Where’s that picture, Len? It was supposed to be here yesterday afternoon.”

  “And you’ve not got it?”

  “Wouldn’t be bugging you if I had. Honestly, Len, we’re going absolutely nowhere without it.”

  “Okay. Let me see what’s holding up our young Mr Grimshaw and get back to you.”

  “Thanks.” Kate hung up and shifted to the next employee on the list. She’d decided to concentrate on those still working there and those who’d left close to the time of their victim’s death. Those still there after all this time must care, and those who’d left, well maybe they’d remember something significant from that time. Or maybe they’d left because there was something wrong at Brancombe House that they didn’t want to be a part of.

  The phone rang. She reached for it, knocking her coffee cup over as she did. “Bollocks,” she shouted and reached for the box of tissues she kept in her drawer.

  “Well, that’s uncalled for,” Len said down the line.

  “Sorry. Sorry.” Kate mopped up hot, dark liquid. “Spilt my coffee.”

  “You want to be more careful.”

  “I’ll try and remember that, mother.”

  “Ooh, someone’s tetchy this morning.”

  “Len, I’m warning you, if the next words out of your mouth have anything remotely to do with PMS, I’m going to come back to King’s Lynn and introduce your tonsils to your testicles.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “See what I mean?” he said with a chuckle. “Get another coffee and it’ll all get better.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m e-mailing you the file with the facial reconstruction now.”

  “Thanks. What was the hold up?”

  Len chuckled. “Grimshaw got PMS.”

  “Huh?”

&
nbsp; “Or rather his computer did. He did tell me the technical information about a cascade failure and some sort of blue screen of death, and how he spent all night rebuilding his architecture and bolting on additional hardware and software support before he could run the reconstruction software again for you. But I’m not sure you’d want to hear it all.” He paused. “You still awake, Kate?”

  “Just about.” Her e-mail program pinged. “Got it,” she said as she clicked open the file.

  He was just a man. Just a normal, elderly man. His nose was straight, not too big, not too small. His cheekbones were a little wide and his forehead fairly high, but there was nothing about him that stood out. Nothing to make you notice him. The true downside to facial reconstruction was the guesswork that had to come into play. Yes, the depth markers and muscle placement was a science and it was accurate. The basic shape of this face was correct. But they had no way of knowing what colour his eyes were. How he wore his hair. Did he have a beard or was he clean-shaven? Was he fat or thin? How wrinkled was his skin? Did he have jowls? Glasses? A scar? Was he missing his eyebrows? Did he have freckles, or moles, or liver spots?

  There were so many unknowns. So many guesses. But at least they had something to start showing around. See if anyone recognised him.

  “Thanks, Len.”

  “No bother. Sorry for the delay.”

  “It’s fine. Thank Grimshaw for me. Sounds like he had a hell of a night trying to get this done.”

  “Will do.”

  She hung up and sent the file to the printer. The machine clunked and hummed its way to life before spitting out half a dozen copies. She placed one on each of their desks and stuck the other up on the whiteboard next to the clear, crisp lettering spelling out John Doe. “Right then, mister, let’s see if we can find you a name.”

  The door to the office swung open and Collier stormed in. His face was red, his shoulders hunched up tight to his ears. He grabbed the back of his chair and spun it around violently before dropping into it heavily and folding his arms across his chest.

  Tom scowled as he entered the room behind him. “Knock it off, pretty boy. You’ve got a lot to learn about this job, and if you can’t take a bit of advice, a bit of constructive criticism, then perhaps you should think about what it is you’re doing here,” he said. “You can’t talk to people like that and expect to get anywhere with them.”

  “I didn’t ask anything wrong. It was a legitimate question.”

  Tom nodded. “It wasn’t what you said that got his back up so much. It was how you said it. You can’t ask delicate questions with a sneer on your face. If people think you’re looking down on them or judging them, they won’t talk to you. Full stop. And if people won’t talk to you, you’re poison in this job.”

  Collier didn’t say anything. He just got up and walked towards the door.

  “Running off doesn’t help matters,” Tom shouted behind him. “Real mature, prick.”

  “I’m not. Is it all right if I go for a piss, grandad, or do I have to run that by you too?” He stormed away, not waiting for a response.

  Stella whistled. “Trouble in paradise?”

  Tom leaned against the wall and crossed one ankle over the other, folded his arms over his chest, and dropped his head. “I’m sorry, sarge,” he said to Stella. “I can’t teach him.” He ran his hands over his shaved head, then leaned back against the wall, looking up to the ceiling.

  “Why not?”

  “He won’t listen to a word I say. He’s hostile. All the time. He clearly has no respect for me, and nothing I’ve tried so far has made a blind bit of difference.”

  “Is it him or just a personality clash?”

  “In all honesty, sarge, at this point I couldn’t tell you.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tom was a seasoned detective with hundreds of hours of mentoring junior officers under his belt. For him to admit that he couldn’t get through to Collier was not a good sign. Kate knew they had limited options now, but most the likely one was going to be pairing her or Stella with Collier, and Jimmy with Tom for a while. If it was a personality clash, then the switch in personnel would soon sort it out. If not, then they’d have a better idea of what was going wrong with Detective Constable Collier.

  “Okay,” Stella said, “when he gets back, we’ll have a word.” She indicated her head in Kate’s direction.

  Kate nodded in return. “In the meantime, we have a face.”

  “About bloody time,” Tom said, looking over at the board. “Have we run it through the databases yet?”

  “Not yet. It’s literally just come in,” Kate said.

  “I’ll get that started.” Jimmy spun his chair to face his computer and clacked away on the keys. “You want the usual, sarge?”

  “Yeah. Police records and missing persons too. Just because we didn’t get a hit off our search parameters doesn’t mean he might not be in there. Then hit the DVLA records, government employees, armed forces. Anything that stores picture IDs,” Kate said.

  “Yup. The usual. It’ll take a while, as always, but that’s started.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy,” Kate said. “It’s worth a try.”

  “Want to fill us in on the nursing home last night?” Stella asked.

  “Hm. That’s an interesting one, actually. There’s definitely something not quite right there.”

  “Meaning?” Stella prodded.

  “Too soon to tell really. And to be honest, it could be all sorts.” Kate sat down again, leaned her chair back, and propped her feet on her desk. “The sister, Sister Lodge, was hired about six months ago to deal with ‘issues’ in the place.” She curled her fingers in the air as she said issues. “She started just after her predecessor left due to illness and then died.”

  “What kind of issues? And died of what?” Stella asked.

  “She was vague about them. She mentioned shoddy paperwork, poor standards of patient care, issues with medications, theft from residents, as well as a high mortality rate. And she just said illness. I was going to check that today and see what happened there.”

  “So basically anything that could be wrong in a place like that?” Stella said.

  “Pretty much.”

  “And?”

  “It felt like too much of a coverall.”

  Stella frowned at her. “Explain.”

  “It felt like she was saying that she knew there were things wrong in there. But I’m not sure she knows exactly what it is. Otherwise why mention everything? Why not just mention the one thing you’re dealing with? The one thing she was brought in to sort out?”

  Stella tapped a pencil to her lips. “And what do you think’s going on in there?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, too soon to be sure yet.”

  Stella smiled. “Okay, back covered. Now tell me what you really think.”

  Kate smirked. “Fraud or embezzlement, maybe. Shoddy paperwork was the first thing she mentioned.”

  “Yeah, but she also mentioned that she’d already investigated the high mortality rate,” Jimmy added. “So that indicates it was the first thing to deal with when she got there.”

  “Yes, but she ruled that out,” Kate said.

  “Her investigation ruled it out,” Jimmy said. “But maybe she didn’t go deep enough. I mean, she’s not the police, is she?”

  “Very true, Jimmy. Okay, I see your point. Don’t let other people do a poor job of our work for us.” Kate settled her feet back on the floor and reached for her notebook. “So we need to start looking at the deaths in the home as well as speaking to all these employees and ex-employees to see if we can ID our victim.”

  “Are we sure we need to start poking into this? These deaths?” Stella asked.

  “Why? What’re you thinking?”

  “I’m having a Harold Shipman nightmare right now,” Stella said.

  “Christ, don’t go there on me,” Tom said. “I had a friend—we trained together—he worke
d in Tameside when they started looking into all that. He aged ten years in the first six months, and he’s never gone to see a doctor since.” He shuddered.

  “Yeah, no one wants to come across something like that again, but if anything, that’s more of a reason to make sure we look into this sort of thing. We can’t—well, I can’t—in good conscience ignore it now that it’s come to my attention.”

  Stella sighed. “I know. I wasn’t suggesting that we do. I was just meaning do you really think we’ve got enough justification to start poking around in this? It’ll probably turn out to be nothing.”

  “All the better. But yes, I do. We’ve got dentures and clothes from multiple people from this place on our victim. All of them died there in the last three years. One on the night we know our victim died too. It’s just too much of a coincidence, Stella. And before we all start worrying that there’s something nefarious going on—”

  “Ooh, big words,” Tom crooned.

  “Quiet in the cheap seats,” Kate said and continued. “Even if there is more to the high mortality rate, it could be all sorts of reasons. We don’t automatically have to suspect the worst possibility.”

  “Such as?” Stella asked.

  Kate pursed her lips. “I’d be putting my money on negligence. Overworked staff, someone sleeping on the night shift.” She tapped her lips with her forefinger. “I mean, if they’re short-staffed like Diana Lodge indicated they were, then I’d suspect corners were being cut left, right, and centre. Staff is always the biggest cost. Minimise the staff, and you can keep them down.”

  “But patient care suffers as a result, and things get missed,” Stella added, following Kate’s line of thinking.

  “Exactly. A patient doesn’t get the best care, picks up an infection.” She shrugged. “Nothing malicious, but definitely wrong. Negligence. I’d put money on it.”

  Jimmy held up a mug, the one that was never used for anything except their betting money. “Tenner, ladies and germs, gets you into the party.”

  Kate dipped into the pocket of her jeans and fished out a note.

  “Ten pounds for the sarge on negligence. You, Tom?”