Running Girl
Page 5
EILEEN DOW: Health visitor.
DI SINGH: Health visitor. And then you went down to Five Mile Centre, to meet your husband. And you arrived there at about six?
EILEEN DOW: Yes.
DI SINGH: What time did your husband get there?
EILEEN DOW: Same time. Mick’d been working at a property in Dandelion Hill.
DI SINGH: And you stayed at the Centre till what time?
EILEEN DOW: Seven. I think.
DI SINGH: Then you drove home. In Mick’s van?
EILEEN DOW: Yes.
DI SINGH: And Chloe wasn’t in when you got there?
EILEEN DOW: No. I told you. She’d gone already. There was just that note.
DI SINGH: On the living-room table?
EILEEN DOW: Yes. [Sound of crying]
DI SINGH: I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions. [Silence] Can we continue?
EILEEN DOW: Yes.
DI SINGH: Did you notice anything unusual in the house when you got there?
EILEEN DOW: Like what?
DI SINGH: Anything out of the ordinary. Signs of a disturbance. Things out of place. Things missing.
EILEEN DOW: No. Nothing like that. Mick keeps the house spotless.
DI SINGH: I see. Then you’ve told me [sound of pages being turned] what happened after that. You had tea, you plated Chloe’s tea and put it in the fridge. At nine you rang Chloe’s friends. I have a list of them [sound of pages being rustled]. A little after nine Mick went out in his van, looking for Chloe. When he got back, at half past ten, you called the emergency services. All that’s correct? Good. Now, Mrs Dow, I’d like to ask you just a few questions about Chloe. I’m sorry to have to do this. But it will help us to know more about her. Can I proceed?
EILEEN DOW: I suppose so.
DI SINGH: Was she happy?
EILEEN DOW [silence]: I don’t know why you ask me that.
DI SINGH: You mentioned [sound of pages being turned] you’d been having arguments.
EILEEN DOW: I wasn’t happy. Chloe was all right. They love it at that age. The arguments.
DI SINGH: Did you argue a lot?
EILEEN DOW: Yes. No more than usual. She could try my patience.
DI SINGH: What were the arguments about?
EILEEN DOW: Nothing much. The usual. Staying out late. Not telling us where she was.
DI SINGH: Boys?
EILEEN DOW: She didn’t have any trouble with boys, no. Girls, yes. Boys, no.
DI SINGH: She had arguments with her girlfriends?
EILEEN DOW: You know what girls are like. [Silence] Perhaps you don’t. Bitches. Bitchy to Chloe, anyway.
DI SINGH: In what way?
EILEEN DOW: Gossip. Lies. All the backbiting that goes on. She had stuff stolen, I know that. From her locker at school.
DI SINGH: Who were these girls?
EILEEN DOW: Ask her teacher. They know. I tried not to get involved. Jessica Walker was the worst. Two-faced little cow.
DI SINGH [sound of writing]: I see. To come back to boys for a second: did she have a boyfriend?
EILEEN DOW. No. She used to. Alex something. It wasn’t serious, not for her. She had other boyfriends, before that. She was always popular, with boys. I don’t remember them. Garvie Smith I remember. He’s nice, Garvie. A real charmer.
DI SINGH: That’s ... interesting. [Sound of writing] But Alex ... Had he been bothering Chloe?
EILEEN DOW: No. I don’t think so. A bit, maybe. He was upset. I suppose they argued. I don’t know. I didn’t involve myself.
DI SINGH: Did Chloe argue with her stepfather?
EILEEN DOW: ... Not really.
DI SINGH: No?
EILEEN DOW: Well, yes. But ...
DI SINGH: They did argue?
EILEEN DOW: No, but ... They never really ...
DI SINGH: Did they or didn’t they argue?
EILEEN DOW [angrily]: It hardly matters now, does it? It doesn’t make any bloody difference now, does it? [Sound of sobbing]
DI SINGH: I don’t want to upset you, but it will help if—
EILEEN DOW: She was jealous. If you must know.
DI SINGH: Jealous?
EILEEN DOW: Jealous of me. Ever since Mick and I married. I suppose she thought I didn’t give her as much attention. Or something. Actually, she was jealous of me being happy. That’s the truth.
DI SINGH: Was Mr Dow aware of this? Did it upset him?
EILEEN DOW: He doesn’t get upset. He’s very fair. He was always the peace-maker when ... [Sound of sobbing] I just keep asking myself why. You know. Why? [Sound of nose-blowing]. What have I done to deserve this? I know you’re not going to give me any answers. I know that. There aren’t any bloody answers. You don’t even—
Singh leaned forward abruptly and turned off the tape recorder with a click, and sat upright in his chair, in the sudden silence of the bare room. The interview studio was oppressive, a small white box harshly lit with electric light. It didn’t bother Singh. He’d been there since concluding the interviews two hours earlier. He sat gazing expressionlessly at the wall.
After a while he opened his notebook and wrote:
Father, motorcycle accident, 2002. Mrs D, medication? Stress-related, check records. Remarriage ‘saved her’. Arguments with C?
He sat motionless for a while longer. Then he wrote:
Manual. Big picture made up of little details.
Again he reflected. Finally, he wrote:
They are five. Kaam. Krodh. Lobh. Moh. Ahankar. And he carefully underlined Ahankar – egotism – the last and most prevalent of the five evils of the Sikh faith.
Pausing only to glance at his watch, he removed the tape from the old-fashioned police-issue recorder, and replaced it with another. He pressed Fast Forward, and listened, and pressed Fast Forward again.
For much of the interview Michael Dow had simply corroborated the events of Friday. Most of the day he had been working at a renovated council property on The Oval at Dandelion Hill. The carpenter and electrician who had been with him left at four o’clock, and he stayed on till five forty-five to finish a stretch of painting before driving to the Centre to meet his wife, as she had said. But his most interesting comments had come near the end of the interview.
Singh found the right place and pressed Play.
DI SINGH: Finally I’d like to ask you some general questions about Chloe, if I may.
[Silence]
DI SINGH: Is that all right?
MICHAEL DOW: It’ll have to be, won’t it?
DI SINGH: How would you describe your relationship with Chloe?
MICHAEL DOW [silence]: Not great.
DI SINGH: Not great how?
MICHAEL DOW: It was hard for her, me moving in. Hard for me too. But she didn’t like it. Too used to having her own way. [Silence] She didn’t like me.
DI SINGH: Did you like her?
MICHAEL DOW: I thought she’d been spoiled. I told her so. She didn’t like that, either.
DI SINGH: Did you argue?
MICHAEL DOW: No. She wanted to argue with her mum. I only got involved calming things down.
DI SINGH: You must have found it difficult.
MICHAEL DOW: Not as difficult as this. [Silence] She was only a kid.
DI SINGH: Yes. [Silence] I realize you’re angry, that’s only natural.
MICHAEL DOW: A bloody kid!
DI SINGH [pause]: I understand Chloe had problems with girlfriends.
MICHAEL DOW: No.
DI SINGH: Oh. Mrs Dow thought there had been instances of abuse, theft.
MICHAEL DOW: Nothing much.
DI SINGH: I see. What about boys, then? Did she have trouble with boys?
MICHAEL DOW: Yes.
DI SINGH: What sort of trouble?
MICHAEL DOW: A girl like that. What sort of trouble do you think she had?
DI SINGH: Harassment? Sexual harassment?
MICHAEL DOW: Half the bloody school were harassing her.
DI SINGH: Who?
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MICHAEL DOW: Ask at the school.
DI SINGH: Alex Robinson? Was he harassing her?
MICHAEL DOW: Yes.
DI SINGH: What was he doing?
MICHAEL DOW: What wasn’t he doing? After she dumped him he went psycho. Phone calls, texts ... he used to follow her around in the street till he started spending all his time getting whacked at that doss in Limekilns.
DI SINGH: Did you ever see him in your garden?
MICHAEL DOW: No. He used to keep clear of the house.
DI SINGH: Any other relationships? Current boyfriend?
[Silence]
DI SINGH: Was there someone?
MICHAEL DOW: I don’t know for sure.
DI SINGH But you suspect something?
MICHAEL DOW: She was behaving odd. These last few weeks. She wasn’t usually secretive but I think she was keeping something hidden. Like on Thursday night. You know, the night before she was—
DI SINGH: What happened on Thursday night, Mr Dow?
MICHAEL DOW: She came in late, about one, and I could hear her crying in her room. That wasn’t like her at all.
DI SINGH: Do you know what had upset her?
MICHAEL DOW: No.
DI SINGH: Did you ask her?
MICHAEL DOW: She wouldn’t let me in her room. She told me to eff off.
DI SINGH: I see.
MICHAEL DOW: That wasn’t like her, either, to be fair.
DI SINGH [sound of writing]: Do you know anything else about Thursday night?
MICHAEL DOW: No.
DI SINGH: Where she’d been? Who she’d been with?
MICHAEL DOW: No.
DI SINGH: You didn’t see anyone pick her up? Drop her back home?
MICHAEL DOW [silence]: No, but ... I don’t know about this, but ... When she came in I was still awake, and I got up and looked out of the bedroom window, and there was this car in the street. I might be wrong but it looked like it was just pulling away.
DI SINGH: What sort of car?
MICHAEL DOW: A Porsche. That’s why I noticed it.
DI SINGH: Are you sure?
MICHAEL DOW: Looked like it to me. And I thought to myself: what’s that doing in our street?
DI SINGH: What colour?
MICHAEL DOW: Black, I think. Can’t be sure. Something dark.
DI SINGH: You didn’t see the driver.
MICHAEL DOW: No. But I’m guessing it wasn’t a school kid.
DI SINGH: Someone older. You think Chloe was involved with an older man?
MICHAEL DOW: I don’t know. I can’t even be sure it was pulling away. Might just have been passing.
DI SINGH: Had you ever seen the car before? Or since?
MICHAEL DOW: No, never.
DI SINGH: Did you talk to Chloe about it?
MICHAEL DOW: How could I? I didn’t have chance. I didn’t even bloody see her again. [Silence] Jesus. As I said, she was only a kid. She didn’t think of the risks. They never do.
DI SINGH: Thank you, Mr Dow. You’ve been very helpful. I don’t have any more questions.
[Silence; noise of chairs scraping on the floor]
DI SINGH: Actually, there’s one more thing. I see you’ve had an accident of some sort.
MICHAEL DOW: I fell off a ladder at work. [Sound of paper rustling]
DI SINGH: What’s this?
MICHAEL DOW: Contacts for the chips and sparky I was working with. I wrote them down for you. You need to check everything out, don’t you?
DI SINGH: Yes. Thank you. Mr Dow?
[Silence]
DI SINGH: I know how hard this is for you. I said the same thing to your wife. I want to say how much I commiserate with you. Your stepdaughter had the whole of her life before her. I assure you we won’t rest till we bring her killer to justice.
MICHAEL DOW [sound of angry snort]
This time Singh left the tape running; it fizzed emptily in the quietness of the room. He picked up his pen and wrote a single word:
Porsche.
Then he got stiffly to his feet and walked away from the desk into the corner of the room, where he stood facing the wall as if in sudden despair. It was a strange, inexplicable thing to do. Then, after a moment, in a harsh mutter, he began to perform the rehras. It was a little after midnight.
9
‘SHE HAD HER whole life before her,’ Mr Winthrop, the head teacher, said.
Leading a special lunch-time assembly devoted to Chloe Dow, he stood on the stage of Main Hall, flanked by the head of year and Chloe’s form tutor, addressing Year Eleven, and Year Eleven sat in silence, listening.
Mr Winthrop was not by nature an emotional man, but as he spoke of Chloe’s talents and achievements, and of the contribution she had made to school life over the last five years, he twice came close to breaking down. His voice was both wavering and uptight. After he had finished speaking, Miss Bell, Chloe’s English teacher, read a poem, and she too showed signs of distress. Finally Miss Perkins, the head of year, a woman who usually never gave the slightest hint of emotion, made several announcements of a purely practical nature, and these too were delivered in a strange tone, hushed and angry.
Year Eleven were reminded that Chloe’s death, nearly a week earlier, was different. Not an ordinary tragedy. Not an illness or an accident. Murder.
They were reminded too that the police were on site conducting interviews with both staff and pupils. Interviewees would be notified. Other pupils should not offer statements unless they had something of vital importance to say. Conversations with the media were strongly discouraged.
Chloe’s funeral would be by invitation only. The privacy of her family was to be respected at all times. Cards of condolence should be sent through the postal system, not pushed through the letterbox. Unannounced visits to the Dows’ home were absolutely forbidden.
This atmosphere of almost religious strangeness persisted, and Year Eleven remained subdued until at last the special assembly ended and they left the hall; it was only then, as they went out of the building into the brisk April light, slowly fanning out in twos and threes along the concrete paths to their next lessons, that normality returned and people began to talk as usual.
‘She was still a cow,’ Smudge said. ‘I mean, it’s crap getting done in, but still. Chloe Dow, “extinguished hope of the future”. What’s that about?’
Felix said, ‘What do you want them to say? “Chloe Dow got throttled but let’s face it no one liked her”?’
‘But they were really choking up. Even Queen Bitch, and she hated Chloe’s guts.’
Jessica Walker came past. ‘Hi, Garvie.’
‘Hey, Jess.’
They all stopped to watch Jessica Walker slink across the yard towards Upper School and round the corner of C Block.
As she disappeared two policemen came round the corner the other way, heading towards the office.
‘Here already,’ Smudge said as they watched them. ‘They don’t usually move so quick. When my brother got that stuff nicked out of his van they were four months just logging his statement.’
Felix shrugged. ‘Yeah, well. This is a national murder inquiry, Smudge. And it turned out your brother had nicked that stuff in the first place.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘What’s the point, Smudge?’
‘Point is, Dow’s still getting people to jump for her even though she’s dead. Typical bloody Dow. When I’m interviewed I might just tell them what people really thought about her.’
‘No one’s going to interview you, Smudge – you don’t know anything.’
‘Don’t know anything about Chloe Dow?’
‘Don’t know anything about anything.’
After a brief but passionate assertion of his all-round knowledge, Smudge shambled off to science (though it wasn’t where he was meant to be), and Felix and Garvie sauntered on, across Bottom Pitch and up the grassy slope to Top Pitch. It was quiet up there. Beyond the touchlines the hawthorn trees were full of early May, t
hick and white as cheese, and when they got to the top they could see all the way across the city, vast and grey and ugly.
They lit up.
‘Smudge is right,’ Felix said. ‘No one liked her.’
‘Alex liked her.’
Felix exhaled smoke, squinted. ‘I know it’s not like she was always horrible, but even when she was being nice there was something not-nice about her. Like last week. It was MacAttack’s birthday, right, and she brought in these chocolate brownies she’d made, and when he was doing the register she goes up and does this presentation to him as if it’s on behalf of the whole class – she even kissed him on the cheek – and somehow it was all about her, not about him at all.’
‘Pushy,’ Garvie said. It was one of Chloe’s nicknames.
‘The brass girl.’
They sat looking across the city.
Garvie looked at his watch and said, ‘Where should you be?’
‘Geog.’
‘Are you going?’
‘Haven’t decided yet.’
‘I really think we should go and see Mrs Dow.’
Felix looked at him. ‘What, now?’
‘I think so.’
‘OK.’
They flicked away their butts and set off down the slope.
Felix said, ‘What are we going to see her for?’
‘To pay our respects, of course, Felix.’
‘Are you sure? She’s a bit insane, Garv. Specially now.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll catch a ride in Abdul’s limo and I’ll tell you what to do on the way.’
Felix looked at him sideways. ‘You all right about all this, Garv? I know you and Chloe—’
‘Forget it.’ Garvie’s face was a blank. ‘It’s a puzzle, Felix. A problem. Something to be solved, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. Sex or money, right? Though I guess it’s pretty obvious in this case.’
Garvie said nothing more, and together they walked down from Top Pitch, back through the main school, out of the front gate and, without a backward glance, headed for the taxi rank at the shops.
Abdul was from Morocco. He had cropped black hair, a narrow, stubbly face and the gentlest smile in Five Mile. When he arrived in the country he’d spent his first three months in hospital with a kidney infection, and Garvie’s mother had befriended him; she’d even helped him sort out some of his paperwork for Immigration. Ever since, he’d been a grateful friend of the family.