Dead and Buried

by Anne Cassidy

  Now Rose sat up in bed. It was 1.03 a.m. She absolutely couldn’t sleep. She put her dressing gown on and went through her study and into the hallway. She intended to go downstairs and make a hot drink but was distracted by a glow further along the corridor. It was coming from the Blue Room. The door was slightly open and there was light spilling out. She walked quietly towards it and heard an odd sound. She waited outside. It was Anna. She was sniffing and blowing her nose. And then she recognised the sound. Her grandmother was crying.

  Rose stepped inside.

  Anna was holding a child’s nightdress. It was pink with drawings of rabbits all over it. It looked old-fashioned and had lace around the neck and sleeves; real lace that someone had crocheted. Anna looked up.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Rose said, walking across.

  On the ground, in front of her grandmother, was an open wooden chest. Inside it were toys and clothes and books.

  ‘Katherine’s childhood things,’ Anna said. ‘I collected them together. One day I thought I might show them to her, give them to her. But she left when she was eighteen and I never saw her again . . .’

  Anna stopped and hugged the nightdress fiercely.

  ‘I never got the chance to tell her . . . anything.’

  Rose put her hand out and laid it on Anna’s shoulder.

  ‘You could give them to me,’ she said.

  Anna turned and stared at Rose. In an instant she seemed to pull herself together. ‘You’re a sweet girl, Rose. I haven’t always been able to say how nice it has been . . .’ She stood up, wiping her face with a hanky. ‘I’m so sorry, did I wake you?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I thought I might make a hot drink. Do you fancy a coffee?’

  ‘That would be good. A latte, I think.’

  Rose let Anna walk out of the room first. Then she glanced back at the wooden box, its contents unpacked, the nightie left lying over the side. Her mother’s childhood possessions, left behind, just like all the stuff at Brewster Road.

  FIVE

  Henry Thompson made the arrangements for Rose and Joshua to go to the house in Brewster Road. Joshua drove there in the Mini and parked the car at the other end of the road away from the crime scene tape and the police cars and vans.

  They sat for a few minutes while Rose told Joshua about Munroe’s visit to her grandmother’s. It had been four days since it happened and she’d considered telling him by text or email but both seemed too inflammatory. She was afraid that he might go back to Munroe’s offices in Chelsea and have a row with him. So she waited to tell him in person. His eyes closed with annoyance as she described the things that Munroe had said to her. She left out the part where he’d hurt her hand. This, she thought, might enrage Joshua. She wanted as little to do with Munroe as possible.

  ‘Just more proof of his guilt,’ Joshua said. ‘He’s worried about what we might do. He’s keeping his eye on us. One day he’ll trip up and then we’ll have him.’

  Rose didn’t answer. It was fantasy. Munroe had them where he wanted them. There was nothing they could do to him.

  They got out of the car and headed towards the crowds. They walked along, weaving in and out of people who seemed to be simply milling round, pointing and looking in the direction of the house. They went up to a uniformed officer at the edge of an area that was cordoned off.

  ‘Excuse me, we are due to meet Inspector Wendy Clarke. She made an arrangement with us for ten o’clock,’ Rose said.

  Before the officer could speak a woman who was nearby turned round and marched towards them. She was small, wearing dark trousers and a Puffa jacket. She had jaw-length ginger hair. She smiled and thrust out her hand to Rose.

  ‘Rose Smith and Joshua Johnson?’

  She shook their hands warmly, as though she was an old friend.

  ‘Hi,’ Rose said.

  ‘I’m Wendy Clarke. Thank you so much for coming. If you don’t mind waiting for a few moments while I make arrangements for you to go into the house . . .’

  ‘Sure,’ Rose said.

  Wendy Clarke walked off in the direction of 49 Brewster Road. Rose watched her go and shifted her position to see if she could glimpse around the cars and people to the front of her old house. She could not. In any case the road looked completely different because of the commotion. It didn’t look at all like the place she remembered living in. She was disappointed. She’d expected the trip to be an emotional one. She’d actually looked forward to seeing the houses and gardens and feeling the familiarity of her childhood surroundings. But standing here just felt strange as if it were any old place.

  Joshua was quiet. Rose wondered if he was worrying about James Munroe. In daylight his hair was shorter than she’d thought, his skull showing through, his ears looking bare and cold. He was wearing a corduroy jacket that was lined with fake fur. He’d bought it in a charity shop in Camden. It replaced an overcoat he’d bought in the market just before Christmas. He’d got rid of it because it had been stained with Skeggsie’s blood.

  ‘Right.’ Wendy Clarke was standing next to them again. ‘I’ll take you into the house. The family who live there now are in hotel accommodation for the rest of this week but I would ask you to respect their home and their privacy. Follow me.’

  Joshua went first and Rose followed. They made their way through officers and people in plain clothes. When they got to the front of the house Rose felt a shock of recognition. Beside the front door was the metal number plate that her mum had found at a car boot sale. What’s the chance of that? she’d heard her say. A number plate for sale and it’s the number of our house! Karma. I have to buy it!

  ‘This way,’ Wendy Clarke said.

  They followed her into the hallway. Rose noticed immediately that it had been carpeted and the walls painted a dark colour. The place looked considerably smaller or maybe she’d just got bigger. They walked past the front room door into the kitchen-diner. This room had also undergone extensive change. Where it had been wood everywhere it was now a white shiny kitchen with a black tiled floor. Rose felt like a stranger.

  ‘We’ll go out into the garden in a moment. We won’t be going down to the crime scene but you’ll glimpse it from a distance. I should say one or two things to you before we go. Firstly,’ Wendy Clarke rubbed her eyelids with the tips of her fingers, ‘I’m aware of your history and the tragedy of your parents’ disappearance. I’m also aware that the press have tried to link the two cases. While we’re not ruling anything out the information we have been given by the team who originally investigated your mother and your father’s disappearance seems to suggest that there is no link.’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘The second thing I wanted to say was this; you two lived in this house when Daisy was buried here. You may have been out or away on holiday but still, when you came back, this young girl was in her grave not more than thirty metres away from you. If that makes you feel awful, then I’m sorry but the truth is it’s not your feelings I’m interested in. I want to find out who did this to Daisy. I will find out and I’m hoping you will help me. I want to know anything you remember about that summer, no matter how small it is. I don’t expect you to tell me anything today, just think on it.’

  Wendy Clarke opened the back door. The first thing that Rose saw was a tent that had been erected down the back of the garden. It was white and went from fence to fence. It looked like a marquee; as if there were preparations for a party going on.

  The three of them walked out on to the yellow paving stones, still there, a little brighter as if they’d been cleaned up. There was a smart garden table and chairs as well as a patio heater, standing like a standard lamp above it all. The garden itself had been worked on, the lawn flat and even, the shrubs neat, the earth around them dark and soft.

  ‘The owners planned to build an outbuilding at the rear of the garden, a kind of office, I think. The builders were digging foundations when they found Daisy. She was well hidden. It was a properly dug grave, not something someo
ne could just stumble on. Plus there was an old rockery nearby and a lot of the stones had been used to cover up the space.’

  Rose frowned. She had no memory of a rock garden. She rarely went down to the overgrown end of the garden. She hadn’t liked the buzzing insects and the foliage and the grass was always too long and seemed damp and mulchy. She preferred to stay up on the patio.

  ‘Did you ever use the door at the end of the garden?’

  Rose shook her head.

  ‘Not often,’ Joshua said. ‘It did open but it was stiff and anyhow we hardly ever used that part of the garden. Dad hated gardening. He liked barbecues but that was as far as it went with gardens. I went out of it a few times, on my bike. There’s an alley there that runs down the back of the houses.’

  ‘Do you think someone brought the body in that way?’ Rose said.

  ‘It’s too soon to tell,’ Wendy Clarke said.

  The detective looked as if she was going to go off but then she placed her bag on the table and took a small tin out of it. Taking the lid off she picked out a roll-up. Rose could see several other home-made cigarettes there. Wendy lit it with a lighter. She inhaled.

  ‘So, either of you two remember Daisy?’

  ‘I saw her around a bit. She worked in a newsagent’s on the High Street. She was mates with our old babysitter, Sandy Nicholls. She lived too far along to be a neighbour, you know, someone you see going in and out of their house,’ Joshua said.

  Wendy Clarke nodded. She held the cigarette tightly with her thumb and forefinger. It looked fragile – as if it might crumble at any moment.

  ‘And you, Rose?’

  ‘I saw her a few times. I’ve got a vague memory of her with Sandy out on the street but I never spoke to her. I was eleven. She wasn’t someone who moved in my orbit.’

  ‘Orbit,’ Wendy repeated, nodding her head.

  She blew out smoke and used the fingers of her other hand to pinch the end of the roll-up, putting it out. She replaced it in the tin as though she was saving it for later.

  ‘OK, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to let you two sit here for a short while. You absolutely mustn’t come any closer because this is a crime scene. You shouldn’t really be here, in this garden, at all. Your parents are gone, though, and you’re the only two witnesses I have left so I’m pretty desperate. I’ll be over there and I’ll take you back out in a few minutes. That OK with you? Oh, here’s my card, by the way. In case you need to get in touch with me.’

  She gave one to each of them. On it was her name, email and a mobile number. Then she put the tin into her bag and walked off down the garden. She shouted out ‘Tony!’ and pulled back a section of the tent and slipped inside.

  They sat down at the table, next to the patio heater. It felt strange to be there. It was not at all familiar and yet there was no doubt they had lived there; she had walked back and forth across that patio day in, day out; Joshua had fixed his bike there, turning it upside down, taking bits off and putting them back on.

  ‘What do you remember about that summer?’ Joshua said.

  ‘It was my last summer before Big School. Mum and I shopped a lot for my uniform.’

  She was reminded, fleetingly, of the denim cut-offs, edged with sequins, that she had lived in that summer; she had loved them and had hardly ever worn anything else.

  ‘I remember you were supposed to look after me when Mum and Brendan were both at work.’

  ‘I did look after you!’

  Those mornings or afternoons when Joshua was in charge of her brought a sudden smile to her face. Joshua was always asking if she wanted anything to eat, as if she might go hungry during the time they were together. He allowed her to play games on his computer and sometimes they would watch Star Wars movies. One afternoon they’d made strawberry ice cream with her mum’s ice cream maker that had never been out of its box. Those days seemed full of sunshine, waiting for her mum to come home from work and Brendan to walk through the door, see her in the living room, and say, Hi, Petal!

  ‘And then I used to play with a couple of girls from my primary school. They lived in the next street and I was allowed to walk round there on my own. That was when Mum bought me my first mobile. It was silver and opened up like an old-fashioned powder compact. And I stayed overnight with them a few times.’

  There was a raised voice. It came from inside the tent at the bottom of the garden and it made her feel instantly guilty. Thirty metres away from where they were sitting reminiscing there was a hole in the ground where a girl had been dumped. Grave was too nice a word for it. Rose stared at the tent, still and calm on the outside and yet inside were police and forensic officers searching painstakingly to find a strand of hair or a spot of blood that would have the killer’s name on it.

  ‘That mobile phone,’ Joshua said. ‘You never remembered to charge it.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about that summer?’

  ‘Apart from having a massive crush on Daisy Lincoln?’

  ‘I noticed you didn’t mention that to the detective.’

  ‘Too embarrassing. In any case I had crushes on lots of girls that summer. I was fourteen and just finding out that there were other things in life than fixing bikes and playing computer games.’

  ‘I don’t remember any of this.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you!’

  Wendy Clarke had come out of the tent, her mobile ringing. She turned her back on them as she answered it. A conversation followed and Rose tried not to listen.

  ‘I do remember Dad being away a few times. I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about that summer. In my head it’s all lumped in with Before, you know, Before they went missing. And the reason I remember him being away is that I was allowed to stay at Jon Kerrigan’s house. He was my best friend until I went and lived in Newcastle. Anyway, I spent quite a few nights at his house. Dad went on courses, I think, and Dad and Kathy went away on a short holiday. I remember that.’

  ‘Yes, I remember Mum and Brendan being away. They brought presents back.’

  Wendy Clarke had finished her phone call and was walking up the garden towards them.

  ‘I have to go now,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you out. Don’t forget my number’s on the card I gave you.’

  They stood up and followed Wendy Clarke back through the carpeted house, past the unfamiliar prints and wall decorations, past the hallstand that held a host of different coats. Then they were out on the street on the other side of the cordon and the police officer was walking away towards a car.

  They made their way down the street. The number of people who had been hanging round had dwindled. Rose stepped aside to avoid bumping into a young woman with a pushchair. She walked on.

  ‘Sandy?’ Joshua said.

  Rose looked round and saw that Joshua had stopped and was talking to the woman with the pushchair.

  ‘I thought it was you! It’s Josh Johnson. And here is Rose.’

  It was Sandy, the girl who had babysat for them when her mother and Brendan went out at night. Rose looked at her with surprise. When she was younger Rose had idolised her, her trendy clothes and her spiky fringe and talon-like nails. She used to spend most of the evening staring at her and listening to stories about her love life. She was babysitting for them on the evening their parents disappeared. Now she was in her early twenties but she looked older. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail and she had no make-up on.

  ‘God! Joshua and Rose. You’re here because they found Daisy’s body? How awful. How are you both? You left in such a hurry no one had time to say anything to you.’

  In the pushchair was a baby, fast asleep. It looked young.

  ‘This is Jade. She’s three months old and quite a handful. I have to walk the pushchair round to get her off to sleep.’

  ‘She’s yours?’ Rose said.

  Sandy nodded. ‘You’ve grown up, Rose. You’re so pretty. And Josh! A man now.’

  Rose felt her cheeks flush with em
barrassment. She looked down at her shoes. Sandy continued talking.

  ‘Poor Daisy. We were in the same groups at college. We were quite friendly for a while then her mum moved to Chingford and I never saw her again. We heard she’d left home, of course. One of the girls in my class told me that she had run away with a man old enough to be her father but I don’t know if that was true or not.’

  Sandy put her hand into the pushchair, straightening the blanket that was over her baby.

  ‘You still live round here?’ Joshua said.

  ‘Yes,’ she pointed to the sleeping baby. ‘Jade wasn’t a planned thing. Her dad doesn’t know she exists so I live with my mum.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that . . .’

  ‘Don’t be. I didn’t like him. Well, I must have liked him at one time . . . Rose, you’re so quiet. When I looked after you you never stopped talking.’

  Rose gave a shrug. ‘We ought to go.’

  ‘Bye. Oh, I suppose I should say this even though it all happened so long ago. I was really sorry about Kathy and Brendan. I liked both of them a lot.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Joshua said.

  ‘You should come and see me some time. It’s not like you don’t know where I live!’ Sandy said.

  ‘Bye.’

  They walked on and a second later Rose heard the sound of someone running up behind them. She turned just as a man with a camera took several rapid photos of Joshua and her. It only took a fraction of a second to put her hand in front of her face but by then he’d managed to get a number of pictures.

  Joshua swore at him and turned away, pulling Rose by the arm.

  ‘Have you any comments on the discovery of a body in the garden of your parents’ house? Was this girl’s murder the reason that they disappeared?’ a voice called out.

  They walked swiftly on, heads down, away from the reporter. When they turned the corner and it was clear that he hadn’t followed them they slowed up. Rose blew air between her teeth. She looked at Joshua. He shook his head.