All Things Nice

by Sheila Bugler

  ‘I’m going to see her later,’ Abby said. ‘Why don’t I ask her?’

  ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Of course,’ Abby said. ‘When was the last time you saw Kieran?’

  ‘Six months ago,’ Emer said. ‘We had a row. I don’t know if you need to know that or not. He was a scrounger, my brother. Always asking for loans of money which he never paid back. It used to drive Steve mad. Steve’s my husband, by the way. Normally I was a bit of a soft touch. Kieran knew that.

  ‘I was in London, I called to see if he was free for lunch. I was sort of surprised when he said yes, to tell you the truth. Usually when I wanted to meet he had some excuse or other.

  ‘Anyway, we met. I took him to a really nice restaurant. He spent the time criticising my lifestyle while also managing to eat all the food I’d ordered and drink the best part of the bottle of wine. At the end of the meal he let me pay, then had the cheek to ask me for a loan. I said no. First time I’d ever said no to him.’

  ‘He didn’t like that?’ Abby said.

  ‘Not one bit,’ Emer said. ‘Called me a stuck-up selfish bitch and stormed out on me. I didn’t hear from him again. I tried phoning but he never answered my calls. I got through to Freya once and she … well, she wasn’t very pleasant. She blamed me for not giving him the money he asked for. She said he needed it to pay his fees. And now he’s …’

  She started to cry, sobbing quietly.

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t even know why I’m so upset. Steve says it’s stupid of me.’

  Steve sounded like a piece of work, Abby thought.

  ‘It’s perfectly natural,’ she said. ‘He was your brother.’

  Emer wiped her face with the back of her hand and sniffed.

  ‘We were a whole family,’ she said. ‘Me, Mum and Dad, Kieran. And now all that’s gone and there’s only me left. I don’t know what to do.’

  Abby knew she had to ask more questions. Like where Emer was on Friday night and whether she could think of anyone who might want to kill her brother. Anyone like Steve, her husband, for example. But that could wait a few minutes.

  She reached across the table, patted Emer’s hand and told her to take as long as she needed. Emer held on to Abby’s hand, squeezed it tight while she cried, clinging on as if her life depended on it.

  * * *

  There were no parking spaces and Ellen had to drive around the block twice until she found a gap she was able to squeeze her car into. As she walked briskly up Ennersdale Road, she collided with a woman coming down the hill, walking just as fast.

  ‘Ouch!’ The woman jumped back, rubbing her shoulder. ‘Watch where you’re going, would you?’

  She was small and exquisitely turned out in a pea-green collarless woollen jacket, tight black leather jeans and patent red, knee-high, calf-hugging boots.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ellen said automatically, before she realised it hadn’t even been her fault. At least, she was pretty sure it hadn’t.

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I was distracted.’

  Ellen shrugged. ‘We’ll both survive.’

  ‘For now, at least.’ The woman grinned, exposing a set of perfectly white, perfectly symmetrical teeth. ‘Bye then.’ She winked at Ellen as she tottered past. A silver Porsche was parked near the end of the road. The woman pointed her keys at this, unlocked it and climbed inside. Ellen watched until she drove away then walked up to number 19. She saw Abby, walking towards the house, coming from the opposite direction.

  ‘I’ve just finished with Kieran’s sister,’ Abby said. ‘Poor woman’s really upset.’

  ‘Is she coming to see Freya?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Freya’s refusing to talk to her,’ Abby said. ‘Seems to blame Emer for not helping Kieran out when he had problems paying his college fees a few months ago.’

  ‘Is she a suspect?’ Ellen asked.

  Abby shook her head. ‘She and her husband were in the Canaries on Friday night. She said she rarely saw her brother and I believe her. How was the counsellor?’

  ‘Fine,’ Ellen said. Not wanting to talk about that, she rang the doorbell, hoping Abby would get the hint.

  Freya answered quickly, almost like she’d been expecting their visit.

  ‘I told you …,’ she began, then stopped and shook her head, face turning red. ‘Sorry. I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘Who?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Freya said. ‘I suppose you want to come in?’ She stepped inside and went upstairs, not bothering to see whether the detectives were following or not.

  Freya went into the sitting room and sat down. Ellen sat down, motioned for Abby to do the same, thinking if they waited for an invitation it might never come.

  ‘I’ve just seen Emer Dawson,’ Abby said.

  Freya snorted. ‘Suppose the stuck-up cow pretended to be upset?’

  ‘She is upset,’ Abby said. ‘She wants to see you.’

  ‘Well I don’t want to see her,’ Freya said. ‘You can tell her that. Save me the trouble of having to speak to her myself.’

  ‘We were hoping to speak to you about your mother,’ Ellen said.

  A flush spread across Freya’s cheeks and there was a flash of something in her eyes. Ellen thought it might be anger but she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘What about her?’ Freya asked.

  ‘I assume you’ve heard what happened,’ Ellen said.

  Freya leaned forward in her chair, eyes drilling into Ellen.

  ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ she said. ‘But that’s hardly a surprise, is it? You lot like to keep everything to yourself until you’ve got no choice about it. What’s happened? What’s she done?’

  ‘She hasn’t done anything,’ Ellen said. ‘I’m sorry.’ There she went again. ‘I just assumed …’ Stupid, stupid. Why should she have assumed anything? Wasn’t it totally possible that Charlotte Gleeson had deliberately concealed her accident to avoid causing her daughter any further distress?

  ‘Your mother had a slight accident,’ Abby said. ‘She’s fine, so please don’t worry. A bit bruised, that’s all.’

  Rather than being distressed, the news seemed to relax Freya. She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs.

  ‘I assume she was drunk? Oh, come on. You must have worked it out by now. My mother’s a pisshead. A raving, raging, pathetic alcoholic.’

  Ellen managed not to wince as a slew of memories came into sharp focus. Night after lonely night with nothing but wine for company. Using alcohol as a way of ignoring the things she was meant to be dealing with.

  ‘What?’ Freya asked. ‘You think I’m making it up? If you don’t believe me, speak to my father. Her drinking is the reason their marriage is so fucked up. It’s the reason … No. That’s not fair. I promised.’

  ‘Promised what?’

  Freya wouldn’t look at her. Kept her head turned to one side, staring at the bare mantelpiece.

  ‘She … look, it was only once and she was really wasted. It didn’t mean anything. I mean, she’s my mother for crying out loud.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  Freya waved a hand in the air, like she was already dismissing what she was about to say.

  ‘She made a pass at Kieran,’ she said. ‘But it’s not as bad as it sounds, I swear. She made a fool of herself, that’s all. Kieran was mortified, of course. We all were.’

  Ellen tried – and failed – to picture herself ever getting that drunk. Never. She thought of Jim O’Dwyer. How foolish she’d been, mistaking lust for something deeper.

  ‘Your mother must have been the most embarrassed,’ Ellen said.

  Freya smirked. ‘I don’t think she remembers. She’s never mentioned it and neither have I.’

  ‘What about Kieran?’

  ‘God, no,’ Freya said. ‘He certainly didn’t say anything to her. He just wanted to forget the whole thing had ever happened. I mean, it’s disgusting.’

  ‘It
can’t have been easy for you,’ Ellen said. ‘Has she always had a problem?’

  ‘Always,’ Freya said. ‘It’s my fault. That’s what she used to tell me. They were happy – supposedly – until I came along and ruined everything.’

  Ellen hated this. The secrets she uncovered as part of her job. People’s lives were so messy and horrible. She didn’t want to know about Charlotte Gleeson’s drink problem. She certainly didn’t want to know about a little girl who’d been brought up believing she was the cause of all the unhappiness in her family.

  She cleared her throat. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

  ‘I did,’ Freya said. ‘For the longest time, of course that’s what I believed. What child wouldn’t? Then I grew up and realised she was the fuck-up, not me. It was one of the most liberating moments of my life the day I worked that out.’

  ‘We need to ask you about last night,’ Ellen said, steering the conversation back to the reason she was here.

  ‘What about it?’ Freya asked.

  ‘Were you here all night?’

  Freya reared back, as if Ellen had tried to smack her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to know,’ Ellen said. ‘That’s why.’

  ‘Is this to do with my mother? I thought you said it was an accident.’

  ‘She fell down a flight of stairs,’ Ellen said. ‘She claims someone pushed her.’

  Freya smirked.

  ‘Claims? Of course she does. Well you can rule me out. I was here all night. Drinking wine, listening to music and generally feeling sorry for myself.’

  ‘Anyone able to prove that?’ Abby asked.

  When Freya shook her head, Ellen felt a pang of sympathy. She’d been there herself, using wine and music to deal with the impossible grief.

  ‘My dad was meant to come over,’ Freya said. ‘But he was caught up in work. You could ask him, I guess. I was here when he phoned me. Sorry. Stupid. He wouldn’t know I was here, right?’

  ‘Where was he?’ Ellen said.

  ‘Work,’ Freya said. ‘And he really was. I mean, I could hear the restaurant. You know, the noise and that. I know what it sounds like and I swear to you, that’s where he was.’

  Ellen asked what time they’d spoken on the phone but Freya claimed she didn’t remember, blaming the wine. Certain they’d got as much as they could for now, Ellen motioned to Abby that they should go.

  ‘One more question,’ Ellen said, on the way out. ‘We’ll be going through Kieran’s bank statements later. Is there anything in particular we should look out for? He hasn’t come into any money recently or anything like that?’

  Two blotches of colour appeared on each of Freya’s cheeks but when she spoke her voice was calm, uninterested almost.

  ‘We don’t have any money,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t important to us. My parents kept trying to force me to take handouts but that was the last thing I was going to do, believe me.’

  ‘And yet you were angry with Emer for not helping Kieran out when he asked for money?’ Abby said.

  ‘That was different,’ Freya said. ‘Kieran was asking for a loan, not a handout. He would have paid her back. We’re not the sort of people to take something for nothing.’

  She sounded so earnest when she said this, Ellen didn’t think she was lying. Or rather, she didn’t think Freya was the sort of person to take something for nothing. The problem was, she didn’t think she could say the same thing about Kieran.

  Eight

  Ger stood on the raised platform at the front of the room. Behind her, a projector screen displayed an image of Kieran Burton’s dead body. The shot had been taken at the crime scene and Burton’s lifeless eyes stared at Ellen.

  The briefing was for the benefit of every officer involved in the case, from the PCSOs and uniforms to the Special Investigations Unit detectives sitting alongside Ellen at the front. Ger had just finished going over everything they knew so far about the victim and their potential witnesses. Ellen, already familiar with every detail, only half-listened, more focussed instead on avoiding the question she still saw in Kieran’s eyes.

  When Ger finally finished, she invited Harry Grahame to come up. Harry was one of the station’s senior SOCOs and, like Ellen, a Lewisham old-timer. She liked Harry. More than that, she respected him.

  He stood at the front, waiting patiently for everyone in the room to quieten down and let him speak. His eyes scanned the room, making eye contact with those he knew. When he saw Ellen, he smiled. By the time she returned his smile, he had moved on and was already looking at someone else.

  Harry started by giving a summary of the different pieces of evidence they’d found at the crime scene. He spoke in detail about soil samples, tyre treads and footprints.

  ‘Then there’s the victim’s clothes,’ he said. ‘As you know, it’s standard procedure in a case like this for the clothes to be handed to us so we can examine them properly. I could go on for some time about the origins of the cotton used to make Kieran’s denim jacket and the brand of jeans he wore.’ He paused and everyone in the room smiled obediently. ‘But I’m sure you don’t want that so I’ll focus on the one particular piece of evidence we found. Take a look at this.’

  He lifted the remote control for the projector and Kieran’s face was replaced by a long strand of hair lying on its own on a white background.

  ‘This piece of hair was found on Kieran’s tee-shirt,’ Harry said. ‘You’ve all seen a picture of the victim and you’ll know he had short blonde hair. The chances of a long piece of hair like this drifting through the air and sticking to his tee-shirt are slim. It’s far more likely he was in physical contact with the person whose head this came from. And it’s likely – but not definite – that the physical contact happened close to the time of the murder. If it had happened earlier in the day, the hair would probably have fallen away. We have no way of knowing at this point if the hair came from a man or a woman. However, it has been sent off for testing. When the test results are back, we will know whether it was a male or female and we should also be able to see if its DNA matches any of our suspects.’

  Harry stopped speaking and a murmur spread across the room as people started to work out the implications from this single piece of evidence.

  ‘How long before we know the test results?’ a voice from the back of the room asked.

  ‘It could take up to a week,’ Harry said. ‘Maybe longer. We use a lab in Dartford for all our Forensic testing. They’re really good but because of that they’re also very busy. I promise you I’ll get any results back as quickly as we possibly can.’

  Ger thanked Harry and invited Jamala Nnamani, the team’s communications manager, to step forward.

  ‘We held a press conference earlier,’ Jamala said. ‘Lots of interest, as you’d imagine. Especially when we told them who the victim’s girlfriend was.’

  ‘We could have left the Gleesons out of it,’ Ger said. ‘But we figured someone would make the connection sooner or later. Jamala and I decided it was best to get in there first.’

  ‘Correct.’ Jamala nodded. ‘That way, we can control how they run with it. I imagine there’ll be something in today’s Evening Standard. We can expect the main news programmes will do a piece this evening. And then we’ve got the broadsheets tomorrow.’

  Jamala looked at Abby.

  ‘You may want to warn the family. They’re going to find themselves getting a lot of unwanted attention over the next few days.’

  Jamala went on to brief everyone on what they could – and couldn’t – say if they were approached directly by a journalist. Ellen let her mind drift, as she formed a picture of Kieran’s last few minutes alive. Had he gone to the laneway to meet someone? The hair on his tee-shirt could belong to Freya. A DNA test would confirm that one way or the other. But if it came back negative, did that mean Kieran met someone else in the laneway? Another woman?

  At some point during the question-and-answer session with Ger and Jamala, the projec
tor screen went into standby mode, leaving the screen blank. But when Ellen looked at it, she imagined Kieran’s face was still there, trying to work out who had killed him, and why. She remembered the question she’d seen in his dead eyes and imagined it would remain there, following her around, boring inside her head, until she knew who killed him. And why they’d done it.

  * * *

  On Monday, Ellen and the children had supper at Sean and Terry’s apartment in Limehouse. They ate homemade pizza and garlic bread. Like everything she’d ever eaten at the apartment, the food was delicious. Afterwards, Eilish persuaded Terry to put on some Katy Perry music and dance with her while Ellen and Sean tidied up.

  ‘Doesn’t look like he needed much persuading,’ Ellen said, watching Terry take Eilish’s arms and twirl her around the room. He danced well, unlike Eilish who had inherited her father’s utter lack of rhythm. Like Vinny, it didn’t stop her throwing herself into the dancing with an enthusiasm that bordered on manic.

  ‘Why don’t you join them?’ Ellen suggested. ‘Doesn’t take two of us to clear this up.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Sean said. ‘Besides, it means we can chat. I bumped into Jim the other day. He was asking about you.’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Ellen said. ‘He sees me often enough. If he wants to know how I am, he can ask me himself.’

  Sean touched her arm. ‘Don’t be like that, El.’

  She shook his hand off.

  ‘Leave it, Sean. Please?’

  She turned away from him before he could interrogate her any further and watched her daughter instead. Freckles and strawberry blonde hair. Limbs too long and out of proportion for a body that hadn’t caught up with them yet. The sunniest personality in the entire world. Often, Ellen wondered if any of her genes had made it in there at all. Eilish was like Vinny. Most times, this constant reminder of her husband was a blessing. Occasionally, like right now, the similarities brought their own kind of pain.

  At the beginning, the grief had felt like a huge animal devouring Ellen from the inside. Gobbling away at every part of her, hollowing her out, until there was nothing left. Gradually, moment by moment then day by day, the beast lost its strength. It never left her but it went into a sort of hibernation, still there but bearable. Just.