Bleak Water

by Danuta Reah

  Suddenly he was working again. ‘Her landlord? Why?’

  ‘He phoned – he was worried about Maggie’s stuff. He said that there’d been kids or something hanging round the flat.’

  Farnham made a note to check. An empty flat, a bit of publicity – it could easily have attracted vandals or cranks. But he still wasn’t happy. ‘These papers, this stuff that got burned, what was it?’

  ‘Oh, letters and newspaper cuttings.’ She frowned. ‘And photographs. But I saved some of those. I brought a pile of them over a few days ago. Look –’ She pushed a photograph across the table to him. Eliza sat on a patch of grass, her long legs tucked underneath her. Beside her, smiling a gap-toothed smile at the camera, was a little girl – five? six? ‘Ellie,’ she said.

  He nodded. There didn’t seem much to say. But he needed to know more about this fire. ‘Whereabouts in the flat were they, these papers and things?’ He’d left instructions for as much as possible to be preserved, but he had a feeling that there wouldn’t be much, not of the kind of ephemera Eliza was describing.

  ‘On the table in the front room,’ she said. She was looking at the photograph, running her finger across its surface.

  Where the fire had been. ‘What were they about, the letters, the cuttings?’ She’d remember now, while her mind was focused on something else.

  ‘Mark Fraser. The court case. The appeal.’ She shrugged. ‘What you’d expect.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ He noticed that she was frowning, looking puzzled. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘There was something about drugs,’ she said. ‘About people dying, overdoses, something like that.’

  One of the overdose victims had led them to Ellie’s body. ‘And the letters?’ he said.

  ‘Mostly about the appeal,’ she said. ‘The campaign, trying to get support, you know.’

  So what would anyone want to destroy in that lot? Names? Addresses? Would any of it be duplicated in the stuff Eliza had here? Who would know she had it?

  The coffee was rich and strong, and he could feel the caffeine starting to work. ‘And the photographs?’ he said.

  ‘They were all Ellie. I’ve got some of them here, like I said. The ones at the flat were more recent, Ellie when she was a bit older.’ She was looking at the photograph she’d shown him, turning it round in her hands. ‘And there were the ones from that day. The day on the river.’

  The day Ellie Chapman disappeared. Anything? But the original investigation would have gone through those. There would be copies with the case files. Where would be the mileage in destroying those? ‘Good coffee,’ he said, to lighten the atmosphere. He needed to think.

  She refilled their cups. ‘Bad coffee is a crime against nature. I think we’ve both got a day ahead that needs a caffeine jolt.’ She got up from the table and went across to a small chest of drawers. ‘I just remembered something,’ she said. She was checking through the top drawer as she spoke. ‘Here –’ She had something in her hand as she came back across the room. She held it out to him. ‘These,’ she said.

  She gave him two photographs. He looked at them. In the first one, a fair-haired child was leaning over the side of a boat in a fine rainbow spray of water. The second one showed two girls standing on a boat. They were studies in colour, the blue of the water and the sky, the heavy shadows of the woods on the bank, the brightness of the children, the yellow of their hair, the flushed gold of their skin, the crushed-raspberry pink of their mouths.

  ‘Those must have got separated from the others,’ Eliza said. ‘I brought them across here on my first visit.’

  ‘And they’re…?’ The scene made it clear what they were, the boat, the river.

  ‘From that day.’ The camera had been set in date mode: 20.6.98. The day of Ellie Chapman’s disappearance. ‘There’s Ellie, look, and the other one must be Fraser’s daughter.’

  Kerry Fraser. It looked as though being Kerry Fraser’s friend was not a good long-term option.

  She was still looking at the pictures. ‘There’s something…’ she said. He waited. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can I take these?’ He wasn’t sure why he wanted them. It was the same feeling that she had expressed: there was ‘something’. He wanted time to think about it. But now he’d spent enough time on this. He hesitated. This was going to be a tricky moment to negotiate. ‘Look, I have to go. What are you going to do? You can’t stay here.’

  The flat had a warm and welcoming feel, but beyond the door, someone had left the relics of violent death, and below her, in the gallery where she spent her days, images of those deaths occurred and recurred on the walls around her. She couldn’t stay here.

  She bit her lip and looked away. ‘I think…No, I’m going to stay with a friend. She would have put me up last night, only I fell asleep at Maggie’s.’ She shook herself. ‘I can’t believe what happened. It’s just – it isn’t real somehow.’

  ‘What about now?’ he said. ‘Can I take you anywhere?’ Not that he really had the time. He needed to be back at the incident room.

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve got to go down to the gallery.’ She forestalled his objection. ‘I know we can’t open today, but there are things I’ve got to do. I don’t know where Jonathan is…’ She looked at him and he shook his head. ‘If Jonathan doesn’t come in, then I’m in charge. So…’ She shrugged.

  He wasn’t happy about it, but the gallery would be safe enough. His own people would be in and out for most of the day. ‘OK. But you won’t be here on your own at night?’

  ‘No. I’m going to Laura’s. Do you think…?’ She tried to frame the question, then left it open.

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Eliza,’ he said. ‘I think you shouldn’t be here on your own.’ It was time he was leaving. He needed to be careful now. He wanted to cool things back to – it couldn’t go back to investigating officer and witness, but away from the raw excitement that had caught them both in the sleep-deprived aftermath of the night.

  She walked to the fire-escape door with him. ‘I’ll need to lock it behind you once you’ve gone,’ she said. ‘Roy…’ He looked at her. ‘Thank you.’ She gave him a quick hug and stood back.

  ‘Eliza,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said again, but he had a feeling it wasn’t. As he went down the stairs, he reflected on the curse of professionalism.

  Tina sat at the back of the briefing room, keeping away from Farnham’s direct gaze. She didn’t know what to do. The look that Daniel Flynn had directed at her as she unlocked her car had been redolent with a meaning she had been unable to interpret. She wanted to go and see him, find out what he meant, what his plans were. But that would be the stupidest thing of all. Sense would send her to Farnham – a confession of the liaison, no need to mention the drugs – but it was too late for that. He wouldn’t forgive her silence.

  ‘…other contacts of Cara Hobson’s? DC Barraclough?’

  West nudged her and she jumped. Farnham had asked her a question. Cursing herself, she tried to reconstruct what he’d said. Cara Hobson, the interview with Denise Greene…Cara’s friend. ‘Sheryl,’ she said. ‘Sheryl Hewitt.’

  ‘Have you managed to track her yet?’

  Tina gathered her thoughts quickly. Sheryl Hewitt. ‘No, sir. I’ve been looking at the boats.’ Was she in the shit again?

  ‘OK,’ Farnham said, and Tina released the breath she had been holding. ‘But we need to give this priority now. We’re looking for a connection between Stacy McDonald and Cara Hobson. On the surface, there isn’t a lot. Stacy lived at home with her parents and her two sisters. She wasn’t one for going out, clubbing, anything like that. She seems to have been a pretty average thirteen-year-old. One other thing that may or may not be relevant: Stacy’s best friend was Kerry Fraser – Mark Fraser’s daughter. DS Martin…?’

  Tina watched the smart and efficient Judith Martin as she stood up. Martin was younger than she was, and she was a sergeant al
ready. ‘I talked to Kerry Fraser yesterday,’ she said. ‘Kerry says that Stacy played truant on Friday to meet a boyfriend in town. She claimed she didn’t know who the boyfriend was. She got upset when I pressed her…’ A murmur ran round the group. ‘She was genuinely upset,’ Martin said, ‘but I’m not sure exactly what was upsetting her. Kerry’s very hostile towards the police.’

  Tina had heard about the arrest of Mark Fraser. It had been botched. It had been violent and high key, reflecting the tabloid-fuelled rage the community felt about Ellie’s death. Nine-year-old Kerry had been in the house and had tried to fight the officers who were taking her father away.

  Farnham was speaking again. Now he was talking about the Ellie Chapman case. There’d been a fire at Maggie Chapman’s flat, and Eliza Eliot had been involved. Past cases, past deaths. Tina saw it again, that fleeting image, that glimpse that her eye couldn’t interpret until it was over, the shadow, falling like a bird from high above her…She shook herself back to the moment, and saw Farnham looking at her. ‘It’s on the canal,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Barraclough?’ Farnham said.

  ‘Sorry, sir. I was thinking about the Chapman case. Conisbrough is on the canal – it just seemed like another connection.’ She felt her face flush. She hadn’t been concentrating, and now it was obvious.

  But Farnham took her comment seriously. ‘Yes. Don’t forget that. As DC Barraclough pointed out, the Chapman case is linked to the canal. You’re actually on the river at Conisbrough, but it’s part of the same waterway, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation. And it’s a long way from these recent cases – about seventeen miles from here. But Ellie’s body was found close to where Cara Hobson was found. Like DC Barraclough says, it’s a link. OK…’ He allocated the tasks for the day.

  Tina tried to concentrate, but her mind kept drifting back to the Chapman case. She could vaguely remember the newspaper coverage. Maggie Chapman hadn’t attracted the usual amount of sympathy. She had been a bit too arty, a bit too bohemian, a potential home wrecker as well, given her relationship with Mark Fraser – there had been a subtext of suspicion to the early newspaper reports. It looked as though the investigating team, too, had had their doubts about her.

  Farnham’s voice interrupted her. ‘DC Barraclough?’

  She tensed, but he seemed unconcerned. ‘Sir?’

  ‘I want you to check something at the library.’ She relaxed. He told her about the cuttings Eliza Eliot had seen at Maggie Chapman’s house. ‘Apparently she was interested in the overdose cases as well. I’ve had the fire people on,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing left of those papers. I want you to try and sort out those newspaper reports, OK? I want the reports from the Chapman case, but I want those drug stories as well. Eli—, the Eliot woman said that they were from the local paper. I want to find out what Maggie Chapman’s interest was.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He was still looking at her with a slight frown. ‘Are you all right, Tina?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  He kept looking at her, and she could feel herself starting to go red, then he said, ‘OK. Get on with it.’

  FIFTEEN

  Eliza watched Roy disappear down the stairway, feeling strangely empty. She didn’t know what she wanted from Roy Farnham. Last night, he had seemed like a haven in a world that was proving increasingly unpredictable and dangerous. Fatigue and fear had left her spaced out, and she had wanted, needed, the surcease of sex, yes, but also the warmth and the closeness. But making a move – that had been a bad mistake. And now, she wondered if she was reacting to Daniel’s rejection, coming on to the nearest attractive man. What did she and Roy Farnham have in common?

  They were both involved in murder, that was what they had in common. But for a brief time, she had felt like she hadn’t felt since Madrid, had just wanted to abandon herself to his mouth, to his hands…She shook herself out of that reverie. Now, when she saw him, she was going to be tense with embarrassment. She remembered how she’d felt when she’d come back to the bed and found him sprawled out asleep. For a moment, she’d been angry, wanted to shake him awake, but she’d been aware earlier of his grey-faced exhaustion, and as she stood there looking at him, at the lines of tension on his face even when he was asleep, he’d seemed suddenly vulnerable, and her anger had vanished. She’d taken his shoes off, careful not to disturb him, and unbuttoned his shirt before covering him with one of the throws off the chairs. She’d slept for a short time herself, curled up in one of the chairs, but it had been a fitful, unrefreshing sleep.

  More than anything now, she wanted to lie down. Her body ached with fatigue, and she felt cold, a chill in the bone that radiators and warm clothes couldn’t touch. But she had the gallery to deal with. It was almost eight. She picked up the phone and keyed in Jonathan’s number. He answered after ten rings, as she was about to hang up. His voice sounded dull. No, he wasn’t coming in. There was no point. The gallery wasn’t going to be open. The exhibition was moving on in a few days. They’d missed the boat. He listened to her arguments for a minute, then said, ‘Do what you like, Eliza,’ and put the phone down.

  She sank into the chair. It wasn’t fair, she was too tired, she couldn’t cope. The thought of lying down for half an hour was almost irresistible, but she knew if she gave in to her tiredness now, she would sleep the clock round. She needed to get dressed. She noticed, with the detachment of fatigue, her clothes from yesterday lying on the floor by the bed where Roy had discarded them. She picked them up, noting the faint smell of musty dampness that had infused Maggie’s. She shoved them into the washer and went into the bathroom, dumping her dressing gown on the floor. Then she turned on the shower again, and stood underneath it for ten minutes, letting the cool water wake her up a bit.

  She needed to think, to make some decisions about the gallery. If everything got sorted today, there was no reason why they shouldn’t open tomorrow. People would want to see the exhibition, especially now. Eliza hadn’t seen the papers, but the link between Daniel’s exhibition and Stacy McDonald’s death would surely have been widely reported. She got dressed. Jeans would be fine for today. Her hair had dried in a tangle. She pulled the brush through it and tied it back. She was in the gallery by eight-thirty, to find a message from the agency that was supplying extra staff for the week of the exhibition. Suddenly, they had no one available. She wasn’t surprised, but it was something else that she needed to deal with urgently. It didn’t matter for today, but she couldn’t open the gallery tomorrow without the staff. She tried phoning Mel, but there was no reply.

  Farnham’s team were already at work in the exhibition gallery when she came downstairs from her flat. She watched through the door, letting the now familiar images draw her eye. The death armies, the fleeing children, the young girl with the haunted eyes, the hanging…She stopped. She needed to get to work. She walked briskly down the stairs, aware of the empty silence around her. Then she heard the sound of the entrance doors, and footsteps across the floor.

  Mel came in. She stopped when she saw Eliza. ‘What’s going on?’ she said. She looked wary. ‘Are you all right?’ she added after a moment.

  Eliza didn’t want to talk about it, particularly not to Mel. ‘Yes, thank you, I’m fine. We’ve got a lot to do. There’s only the two of us. We can’t open today. But we need to make contact with the people who are coming on Friday to move the exhibition, and there’s been a lot of press interest, and some TV, I think, so we need to let them know we’re available. I want you to check the e-mails and the messages, and sort them out for me to answer before lunch.’

  ‘Where’s Jonathan?’ Mel said after a pause.

  ‘He isn’t coming in. He’s ill.’ Eliza could hear her voice sounding abrupt, but she made no attempt to modify it. She was angry with Jonathan for folding, for leaving her to carry the can. ‘We just need to get through the essentials and then get off.’

  ‘Ill, how?’ Mel waited, then, when Eliza didn’t reply, made a face. �
�Is Daniel coming in?’

  ‘I don’t know. Come on, we need to get this lot sorted. I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.’ She didn’t need Roy Farnham’s warning to feel uneasy in the gallery now. She left Mel sullenly sorting through the post and went to her office, where she began to go through the proposed list of exhibitions for their next season. Having got The Triumph of Death, Eliza had ambitious plans for the artists they would be exhibiting in the future, unless their new notoriety would…but she didn’t need to worry about that. Whatever happened, the profile of the gallery was now raised. The artists would come. So she might as well make the most of it.

  Kerry spent the day in dread. Every class, every time the door opened, every time she saw a teacher coming towards her, she expected the words: Kerry Fraser, the police want to see you. She didn’t know why she hadn’t bunked off, except she didn’t want to be at home. Mum hadn’t even got up – it was going to be a bad day.

  But as the morning went on, no one came for her and she began to relax. When the maths teacher wasn’t looking, she reached into her bag and checked her phone. She’d turned the ‘audible alert’ off. But there was no message. She’d tried and tried to phone Lyn, but she wasn’t answering.

  There was something else in her bag, something she’d picked up off the mat this morning as she left for school. She hadn’t opened the letter. She didn’t want to, because she knew what it would be. It would be another piece of paper all about what happened to you in prison and people killing themselves. She’d look at it later.

  At lunch-time, she went and sat on the ground in the sun, her back against the wall. Out of the wind, it was warm.

  She could remember another sunny day.

  The castle had been boring. It was on top of a green hill and it was all falling down. But the water had been as blue as anything and Ellie had run up the green hill and Kerry had followed her, and they had slid down, rolling to the bottom, and they were both screaming, and Dad had called them a couple of big kids.