SB01 Dead to Me

by Cath Staincliffe

GILL WORKED TILL half eight then called it a day. Drove home and found Sammy playing on the Xbox, his friends gone. She thought she could smell the faint trace of tobacco, but wasn’t sure enough to challenge him.

  ‘Revision?’ she asked.

  ‘Done a bit.’

  ‘Enough?’

  He nodded his head.

  ‘OK.’

  She put the fresh tuna on the griddle and dug out some salad, emptied leftover potatoes into a dish for the microwave. She had got into the habit of making extra food to use up the following day and save herself time.

  The kitchen wasn’t too messy, though the waste bin was overflowing with plastic pop bottles and pot noodle containers. Why was it beyond Sammy to make use of the recycling bins? She took the bottles outside. The temperature had plummeted and the cold nipped at her fingers and nose. She could see lights glowing from the windows of the farmhouse on the moor. Above, the cloud had cleared and she could make out some stars. Not many, not like on holidays. That was one of the things that was so memorable about trips away, so vivid. The wealth of stars under foreign skies. Sitting on a veranda with Dave while Sammy slept soundly, exhausted by the day’s snorkelling or skiing. Gill relishing their time together. They had some brilliant holidays – not many, it had been a nightmare getting their diaries in synch for time off. Especially as they had to go in school breaks. So when they could pull it off, they went all out. Splurged on the Maldives, the Rockies, or a safari in Kenya. Scuba-diving. White-water rapids. They worked so hard the rest of the time. ‘We deserve it,’ Dave would say. And she agreed.

  All that had changed. No fancy holidays now.

  She dashed back in and put the food on her plate. Once she’d finished eating she dug out the chocolate from its hiding place in the top cupboard. As if by magic, Sammy wandered in.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, seeing the slab.

  ‘Mine.’ Gill narrowed her eyes.

  ‘One piece – go on.’

  She gave him a black look, broke off a bit and handed it to him. ‘Give you spots,’ she warned.

  ‘I’ve already got spots,’ he said. ‘Oh, it was well good …’ his eyes lit up, ‘in the Russian test, the one before ours, this girl said she felt ill and the teacher said she couldn’t leave the room and she just barfed, like threw up everywhere. And the worst thing was’ – his face animated, relishing the memory – ‘the rest of them had to stay there and do the test after that!’

  ‘They cleared it up?’ Gill said.

  ‘Yeah, but you could still smell it. We could even smell it in the afternoon. They should give us extra marks.’

  ‘In your dreams, matey.’

  ‘A bit more?’ He nodded at the chocolate.

  ‘No. You’ll be sick.’

  ‘Har har.’

  ‘Want me to test you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Gonna watch Peep Show.’

  ‘You start.’

  They shared a love of good comedy and there wasn’t much else they watched together. Sammy liked extreme sports and adventure stuff. Gill’s guilty pleasure was costume drama. Something a million miles away from work, that she could deride and poke fun at, but that felt cosy, comforting, the televisual equivalent of hot chocolate. She heard Sammy laughing from the other room. He was a good kid.

  Three years since she and Dave split up. Sammy wasn’t doing so bad, but Gill still couldn’t tell whether he was putting a brave face on things for her sake. She had done her best not to slag Dave off in front of Sammy, always referring to him in a civilized tone, but the boy wasn’t a fool, he knew Dave had wrecked the marriage, that it was Dave who had been shagging around and who now lived across town with the uniform from Pendlebury. Sammy had been hurt; he missed his dad, although recently they had got into the routine of weekend visits together.

  It was Janet who Gill had turned to for help in the wake of walking in on Dave and said uniform. Her own house, her own bed, her own so-called husband, arse in the air, blonde bimbo with a fake tan, cooing, ‘Ooh, Dave, ooh, Dave!’ as Gill stood there, sick, seething.

  There had been a vase of lilies on the dressing table: big, white, waxy flowers, a heavy, thick glass vase. Gill had grabbed it, hurled with all her might before escaping downstairs and out of the house. Beside herself with fury and the pain. To tell Janet. To get drunk.

  ‘I can’t sling him out,’ Gill had said to Janet. ‘I’m back in Grimsby on Monday on the dock job – nearly done but I can’t blob now.’ A double murder, body parts recovered from tea chests on the dockside. North Yorkshire force had got nowhere in nine long months so asked the crime faculty for input.

  ‘The packing case?’ Janet said.

  ‘Hah!’ Gill laughed at the pun. Thinking: How can I laugh? How is it possible to laugh? Why is something still functioning when I feel so broken? ‘He’ll have to look after Sammy. But I can’t stay with him, not in the long run. I won’t.’

  ‘Have you talked to him?’ Janet said.

  ‘No.’ Gill shook her head. ‘I can’t look at him, can’t bear the sight of him.’

  ‘You have to talk to him,’ Janet said.

  ‘I know. She can’t be more than twenty-five, the whore.’ Gill groaned: ‘I feel such a fool.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  Gill pressed her hands to her temples. Took a breath, exhaled slowly. ‘I knew.’

  ‘What?’ Janet had peered at her, surprised.

  ‘Maybe not name, rank and badge number, but … the flirting … the charm offensive. Easy to pretend that’s all it was, but—’ She thought of all the moments, little jarring moments, like missteps in a dream. Over the years, so many glances from Dave to … well, pick a woman, any woman. Then there were those occasional phone calls: Is Dave there? Her thinking, and who the fuck are you? Smelling deceit, but playing the game. Years of lies about where he’d been or who he’d seen. With Gill traipsing around the country, he had free rein. ‘You remember when I started at the faculty? Ten years ago. I thought he was having an affair then. Sammy was four at the time. I came back for the weekend and Dave had changed the sheets?’

  ‘You thought the nanny had done it,’ Janet said.

  ‘That’s right, thanked her, not part of her job. She hadn’t. I couldn’t let it go. He swore there was nothing going on. Then he got the hump. Slung his phone at me, diary, the lot. ‘Look at it,’ he said, ‘all of it.’ And I didn’t. I chose to believe him. I didn’t want to know, Janet.’

  Janet nodded, a wry smile on her face.

  ‘Same way I’ve tuned out the gossip over the years. Little snippets. Bastard! In our bed! In our house!’ She wanted to punch something. Rip up his clothes, batter his car with a sledgehammer, superglue his cock to his arse, cut off his balls and post them to Pendlebury. She wanted to weep. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘That he was having an affair? No,’ Janet said.

  ‘Affairs plural,’ Gill asked. ‘You knew he was putting it about?’

  Janet paused. Gill trusted her to be honest, they’d been through too much together not to be. ‘Like you say, there were rumours,’ Janet said.

  ‘But you never came to me. You didn’t think I should know?’ Gill asked her, anxious now, fearful of losing Janet, too. Of feeling betrayed by everyone that mattered.

  ‘They were rumours, Gill. If there had ever been something concrete staring me in the face, then I would have told you. Of course I would.’

  Gill nodded, relieved. But the anger and the sense of humiliation flooded back through her. ‘I can just imagine it when word gets out.’ She dragged a hand through her hair. ‘All the clichés. I’m a walking fucking cliché. Wifey the last to know. Cat’s away and the mice – fuck!’

  ‘You’ll be all right. It doesn’t feel that way now, but you will.’

  ‘I hope she gives him herpes. I hope they get scabies too, and that everything they touch turns to shit. This is killing me. I can’t do it. It’ll kill me.’ She caught the twinkle in Janet’s eyes, saw Janet fighting not to laugh. Gill pu
nched her in the arm. ‘I’m allowed to be melodramatic,’ she said. ‘If ever there was a time for melodrama, this is it.’

  ‘I’ll give you that.’

  ‘I am not going to be that woman who stands by her man, smile glued in place,’ Gill said.

  ‘Whatever happens, you’ll be all right. You’ve got a fantastic job, you’ve got Sammy, you’ve got mates.’

  ‘And a big fuck-off house,’ Gill added. ‘He’s not getting his paws on that.’

  ‘Can you afford to buy him out?’

  ‘Probably not, but I’m not losing that house. I’ll live on bread and dripping first. Take in lodgers, anything. But I’ll keep that house.’

  ‘Good,’ Janet said.

  And I have, Gill thought now. Still here, living and breathing. She opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of milk. Took it through and sat down on the sofa. Sammy moved over, raising his feet so she could massage them.

  ‘You showered?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Forget it then.’

  He laughed and slid his legs off her knees.

  Gill smiled and turned her attention to the screen where one of the characters was going into meltdown. She should make a date with Janet. Hard with so much on, but you let things slide and when you finally look up your social life has curled up in a corner and died. Yes, she’d do that. Time they had a proper catch-up.

  15

  RACHEL AND KEVIN walked the streets around Shudehill, identifying cameras before visiting the monitoring centre to download the relevant files. Lee, as exhibits officer, checked the downloads in and then Rachel and Kevin settled in for the duration. Sitting side by side, with a screen each, running film from different cameras, aiming to retrace Lisa’s movements back through town. Rachel found her on the footage within ten minutes of starting, found Kasim’s cab first, on Shudehill at 13.06, opposite the bus station. Played the tape backwards to see Lisa stepping out of the taxi, with a load of shopping bags in her hands. The taxi reversing away and Lisa setting the bags down on the pavement. Rachel’s pulse gave a jump. Yes! ‘Someone’s had fun,’ she said.

  That was by far the easiest part of the task. It had taken another hour and a half, by which point Rachel’s back was killing her and she was gagging for a smoke, to find Lisa coming out of the Arndale, down the big steps, on Cross Street. To trace the movements inside the complex, they needed to view the separate footage from the retailers’ cameras. Kevin rang and put in a request via the security manager there.

  Rachel could have gone home then, she knew she probably should have gone home then, but should was a word she refused to kowtow to. It’s worth checking out, she told herself. All my own time. If it’s a dead end who’s to know?

  She could still remember where Rosie Vaughan had lived, a block of flats in New Moston. She could still remember her first glimpse of the girl, the misshapen face, the bloodied eye, split lips, the bruises that marked her body. The smell of shit. Rosie had soiled herself in the course of the beating.

  A neighbour had called them – not the pervy one but the tenant below who had heard shouts and screams above the noise from the television. Unable to get a response and with reason to believe there was a risk of harm, the police had broken in. The assailant had gone by then.

  Now Rachel parked and made her way to the entrance, didn’t have to wait long for someone to leave the building and let her into the foyer. Once inside she chose the stairwell over the lift. Stepped over the chip papers and lager cans that littered the half-landings. She could smell the concrete and piss and a trace of gunpowder. Kids messing with fireworks.

  Rachel knocked on the door and listened. Heard only vacant silence. And from somewhere down below a dog barking, rapid and gruff.

  She knocked again, louder, and the door across the hall opened, the pervy bloke appeared. ‘She’s probably out,’ he said, narrowing his eyes. Was he trying to place her? Rachel hadn’t ever interviewed the man, she’d dealt with Rosie mainly.

  ‘Rosie?’ Rachel said, needed to check she still lived in the block, that they were talking about the same person.

  ‘You can come in and wait,’ he leered, scratching at his chest.

  Jesus, she could smell him from here. The sweet stench of human grime. His fingernails were black with dirt. Food crumbs in his beard. Rachel tensed, ready to run, or knee the bloke if he lunged for her. ‘Where would she be?’

  He’d mad eyes, glittering like beads. ‘The canal, or maybe the old chapel.’

  Rachel walked off, not too quickly, not prepared to let him think he’d rattled her, but on her toes, ready. He didn’t follow.

  She reached the canal on foot, it ran behind the flats. The street lighting was brutal, an attempt to improve security. The water between the stone banks looked oily in the glare. Smelled pungent in the cold air. The canal was full of rubbish, plastic bags and bottles, chunks of polystyrene. There was no one about, but ahead on the left she saw the bridge and a glow of yellow flickering in the tunnel underneath. A fire.

  She walked, as quietly as she could, along the towpath and drawing closer made out a group of people huddled round the flames. Three lads, and at the far side of the semicircle, Rosie. Stick thin, ginger hair, glasses, a denim jacket. She didn’t even have a hat on, though it was close to freezing.

  Rachel considered the lads: older teenagers, their hoodies and tracksuits shabby, nothing new. Edging nearer, she could see a giant-sized bottle of cheap wine. A smoke was doing the rounds. Weed, maybe? Yes, she could detect the distinctive heady smell of cannabis. Sudden laughter. And Rosie kicked out at one of the lads.

  ‘Rosie?’

  The group stilled, one of the lads jumped up. ‘What d’you want?’ he said. Rachel stared at his face, noted the jut of his chin, the slack expression, mouth breather. ‘A word with Rosie there, all right, pal?’ Not frightened of him.

  Rosie got up, she stumbled, and Rachel saw she was very drunk.

  ‘You’re police?’ said one of them.

  Rosie hesitated, Rachel was worried she’d topple in the canal if she didn’t move away from the edge. But the lads shuffled back and the girl walked past, skirting the fire.

  ‘Youse the cops?’ the lad said again.

  ‘Shut it, Dec,’ said his mate.

  Rosie came closer, her eyes bleary, the bones of her cheeks and her clavicle jutting out.

  Rachel walked her along a few metres to where there was a simple plank bench. ‘You remember me?’ she said. ‘Here,’ Rachel offered the girl a cigarette, took one herself. Lit them. ‘How’ve you been?’ Needing to start somewhere, though she could see the kid was half off her head.

  ‘’Kay.’ Looking back to her mates, to the fire. She shook with cold.

  ‘The assault, the rape …’ Rachel said, seeing the girl stiffen immediately. ‘It was someone you knew?’

  ‘No,’ the girl said quickly.

  Rachel didn’t believe her. ‘I think it was,’ Rachel said. ‘That’s why you refused to make a statement, why you wouldn’t press charges. You were frightened of him. Frightened he would make you pay if you shopped him.’

  The girl shook her head, then sucked hard on the cigarette.

  A train rattled past somewhere close, making it difficult to hear anything else. As the racket faded away, Rachel said, ‘I’m investigating another case. It might be the same bloke.’ She studied the girl, who just sat shivering, staring across the canal, tapping nervously at the end of her cigarette with her thumbnail. ‘Does the name Sean Broughton mean anything to you?’

  Rosie shook her head slowly. No reaction, no increase in stress as far as Rachel could see.

  ‘This other girl, she was in Ryelands, too.’ Rachel caught the flinch that the name of the home provoked and felt her own heartbeat quicken. ‘Was it someone you knew from Ryelands?’ Rachel asked. ‘Just tell me that. I don’t need a name, I can find out.’ Speaking fast, rushing to convince her.

  Rosie turned. ‘No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t,�
� she cried. ‘Why have you come back?’ Her face white with anxiety, eyes wide, the pupils huge from the drugs or the drink. She was shuddering, her breath catching and uneven. ‘I didn’t see his face. I just want to forget it, I told you before.’

  ‘How? Look at the state of you,’ Rachel said. ‘You’ve not forgotten. You let them get away with it. And now they might have hurt someone else.’ All things she should have kept to herself, unhelpful, unprofessional. ‘We can protect you,’ Rachel went on.

  ‘I never seen him,’ Rosie shouted. ‘Just go, will you, fuck off.’ She leapt to her feet and walked unsteadily back to her friends, and Rachel heard the hubbub of questions and remarks as she reached the tunnel.

  Rachel lobbed her cigarette into the canal, retraced her steps. Rosie didn’t know Sean, she trusted her on that, but Ryelands? There was something there, but she needed to find a way to introduce it to the inquiry without getting a total bollocking or being laughed out of court.

  16

  JANET WAS SHATTERED at the start of the day. She’d arrived home the night before to find Elise and Taisie going at it like something off Jerry Springer. Ade out at a leaving do for someone at school. As Janet came through the door, she could hear thumping from upstairs and Taisie screaming, ‘Give it me back, you slag. You bitch. Give it me now.’

  ‘Oy!’ Janet called out. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Give it me!’

  Janet got halfway upstairs in time to see Taisie land a kick on Elise’s bedroom door. Taisie was incandescent, her face red with exertion, eyes wild.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Janet said again.

  Taisie, only now aware of her there, rounded on her mother, as though Janet was also to blame: ‘She’s got my phone and she won’t give it back!’

  ‘Elise?’ Janet called. ‘Open the door.’

  ‘She tried to hit me,’ Elise said, slightly muffled. ‘Tell her off.’

  ‘Why did you hit her?’ Janet asked Taisie, who was unable to stand still, seething with outrage.

  ‘I didn’t, I missed,’ snapped Taisie. ‘And she took my phone, I told you, dumbo.’