Dead To Me

by Staincliffe, Cath

  ‘Yes, well … I tried, but, because she knew I didn’t want her with him, then she wouldn’t always pick up. Talk to her personal advisor,’ Denise said. ‘He’ll tell you, same as I have, Sean was bad news, every which way.’ She played with the tissue, unfolding it then crushing it again.

  ‘Can you remember when you last spoke to Lisa on the phone?’

  ‘Yesterday.’ Her voice cracking. ‘She said she was busy. She hung up.’

  Oh, God. Janet could imagine the ‘what ifs’ piling up in Denise’s head. If only I had insisted, gone round there, got her to talk to me. Changed the future. Interrupted the sequence of events. ‘Do you remember what time that was, Denise?’

  She pressed the tissue to her eyes. ‘Why?’ She turned on Janet, distraught, her face a mess of snot, lips cracked and swollen, the cigarette burned down to the filter now, an awful stench in the room. Janet saw she didn’t want to think about the phone call, didn’t want to be reminded of how things might have been different.

  Because we want to get a time of death as close as we can, Janet thought. But said quietly, ‘It’ll help us with the investigation.’

  ‘After dinner.’

  Dinner being the midday meal in these parts, tea the food you had at the end of the working day. ‘Could you tell where she was when you spoke to her?’ Janet asked.

  ‘She was out.’

  ‘Did she say where?’

  ‘No, but it was noisy.’

  ‘What sort of noises?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ she snapped, her patience thinning. The questions distracting her from her grief.

  ‘People, traffic, music …?’ Janet suggested.

  ‘Traffic.’

  ‘It was after dinner, long after dinner? Could we check on your phone perhaps?’

  ‘It’s dead,’ Denise said. A shocked silence in the room. And Janet saw the stumble, the echo that came back at Denise like a boot in the face. Dead phone. Dead daughter. ‘I’ll put it on charge,’ Denise whispered, ‘get it for you then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Janet said. ‘You told me Lisa said she was busy. How did she sound otherwise?’

  Denise took another cigarette and lit it. Janet thought she’d die from asphyxiation. If only they could open the window. But it was cold and bleak out there, sky the colour of grubby white sheets. Maybe more snow coming.

  ‘Did she sound tired or anxious or frightened?’

  ‘No,’ Denise said.

  ‘Did you get the sense that she was with anyone else?’

  ‘Erm, no.’

  ‘OK, is there anyone you know who might have wished her harm?’

  Denise pressed her lips tight together, shaking her head slowly. ‘I did my best,’ she said, her voice quaking with emotion. ‘I always …’ She couldn’t continue.

  They heard the door go, the FLO returning. ‘Denise …’ He entered the room, heading for the scullery kitchen at the back of the house, took in the scene. The weeping woman. ‘Denise, a cup of tea?’

  She didn’t respond, too far gone for politeness. Janet caught his eye. ‘We’ll be on our way.’ Signalling with a tilt of her head that she wanted a word.

  He stepped outside with them. A woman across the street with twins in a double buggy stopped to gawp.

  ‘Take a picture,’ Rachel muttered.

  ‘Keep a close eye,’ Janet said to the FLO. ‘The woman’s lost both her kids, she’s already struggling, too fond of a drink, on tablets for her nerves, she’s a wreck.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I will. SIO tells me there was some problem at the scene.’

  ‘Bit of rearranging of the furniture that shouldn’t have happened. Can you get Denise’s phone charged, check her calls.’

  ‘Will do,’ he said. ‘What you after?’

  ‘Call she made to Lisa early afternoon. We need the time.’

  ‘Should have been sterilized,’ Rachel said as they buckled up, ‘not fit to raise a goldfish.’

  Janet looked at her. Was the girl doing this to wind her up? Trying to shock? Negative attention better than being ignored? Like Taisie when she was being gobby.

  ‘What?’ Rachel demanded. ‘I’m entitled to an opinion.’

  Janet shook her head, started the engine and pulled out. She wouldn’t waste her breath.

  9

  ‘HOW WAS IT?’ Gill rang Sammy.

  ‘Not bad, I only just finished the last question, though.’

  ‘Did you get Mussolini?’ He was doing his AS practice papers and Gill thought it was touch and go whether he’d meet his target grades. It was hard weighing up how much to push and how much to trust him to get his course work and revision done under his own steam. Harder because she was dealing with it on her own. Thanks to Captain Arsehole.

  ‘Yeah, that was good.’

  ‘What you doing now?’ Gill said.

  ‘Going back to ours with Craig and Joe.’

  ‘OK. Watch the china.’

  ‘One thing!’ His voice rose in mock indignation. ‘We broke one thing. It wasn’t even a nice lamp.’

  Smiling to herself. ‘And that’s why skateboards are designed for outside use only.’

  ‘I know, Mum.’

  ‘Food in the fridge; don’t eat the fish.’

  ‘Minging. Laters.’

  He was pretty self-sufficient. Had to be, given that both his parents worked all hours. Sammy had been three, nearly four, when Gill saw the job advertised with the National Crime Faculty. It was a fantastic opportunity, but she’d known it would mean a lot of travelling away from home. Could she make it work?

  ‘What about Sammy?’ Dave’s first words when she told him she was thinking of applying. Not Brilliant! or You go for it! or even When’s the closing date? but straight into obstacles, disincentives.

  He was jealous. It hit her with a shock. He was actually jealous. There had always been a healthy competition between them. At least, she had imagined it to be healthy. Who could get the sergeant’s exam first, who’d pass the tier three interview course quickest. But now she was confident enough to have a shot at working on a national level, knew she had a reasonable chance of getting selected, and he hadn’t even considered applying. He begrudged her.

  She’d tried to be diplomatic, no need to rub his nose in it, but she wasn’t about to let Dave’s resentment colour her decision. ‘We’d have to get a nanny.’

  ‘We’re already struggling with the mortgage.’

  The house had been bought off plan. One of a development of individually designed properties on the outskirts of Shaw near Oldham. It had been a roller-coaster of meetings and design discussions, site visits and fallings out with the builders, but now it was theirs. And it was beautiful. Not overly ostentatious, but quality workmanship, everything from the York flags on the patio and the wooden-framed windows to the tiles in the bathrooms and the kitchen with its black marble and beech fittings had been chosen by them. Gill adored it. And it worked perfectly as a family home. Double garage. Enough space for Sammy to have a playroom that could be adapted to a den as he got older. There was a sun terrace outside their bedroom window at the back with an uninterrupted view over the farms and moorland up to the reservoir. Gill often brought work home and, unless it was freezing, it was a place she loved to sit while she did it.

  ‘We’re not struggling, Dave. That’s not struggling. We’re just having to be careful. Besides, I’d be on a bigger salary, from the start.’

  ‘If you get it,’ he pointed out. She bit her tongue. ‘Sounds as if you’ve already made your mind up,’ he complained.

  ‘Your mum or mine can come over in emergencies. They’d love to help. We can make this work.’ That was Gill’s mindset: decide what you want, plan a strategy to get you there, and get on with it.

  ‘He’s only little,’ Dave said. ‘Maybe in a few years …’

  Feeling a prickle of annoyance, Gill got up, walked to the French windows, looked out at the garden, the cherry blossom, Sammy’s Jungle Gym. Turned to face him.
‘I might not get the chance again,’ she objected. ‘You know how limited jobs at the faculty are. If I don’t jump at—’

  ‘All I’m saying,’ Dave cut her off, putting on his reasonable voice, ‘is that your priorities—’

  ‘My priorities? My priorities.’ She laughed, not in the slightest amused. ‘Would we be having this conversation if it was you?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, not even thinking about it.

  ‘No,’ she said, brusquely, ‘we wouldn’t. “He’s only three, Dave, wait until he’s at school, till he’s bigger, he needs his father here”, she mimicked. ‘No way!’ She felt close to losing her temper, her skin hot, harsh words, dangerous words crowding her throat. ‘But I’m expected to put things on hold because we have a child. Takes two to tango,’ she said. ‘I need you to back me on this. So I’ll think about my decision while you think about that.’ She’d walked out then. Agitated, disappointed.

  Janet had listened to her recounting the discussion with Dave over a bottle of wine in a bar in the town centre.

  ‘You can’t not apply,’ Janet told her, ‘you’d never forgive yourself. You’re meant for this, you know you are. Supercop,’ she added drily. ‘You go, girl.’

  ‘I’d be back in between jobs anyway,’ Gill argued, ‘have reasonable leave.’

  Janet laughed. ‘It’s not as if you’d be going off to the Antarctic or something. This is the twentieth century, nearly the twenty-first. There’s a girl in records, Indian, she’s left two kids with her mum in Delhi while she makes some decent money over here for them all. We don’t know we’re born half the time.’

  ‘I think he’s miffed,’ Gill said, raising her glass. ‘Me doing it and not him.’

  Janet raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s a big lad, he’ll get over it. You know you could hack it. Maybe he couldn’t.’

  Gill looked at her for a moment. Janet always had this precise, understated way of telling the truth. No flag waving or drum rolls. Straight to the point, measured, sensible, incisive. ‘Maybe that’s gonna be a problem,’ Gill said.

  ‘He’ll do all right for himself,’ Janet said. ‘He’s ambitious enough.’

  ‘What about you, though?’ Gill held up the bottle and Janet accepted a top-up. ‘You’ve never thought of moving into an MIT?’

  ‘I’m fine as I am,’ Janet said.

  ‘So, you’re going to stay on Division all your life. Not had enough of burglaries and assaults yet?’ Gill asked.

  ‘I get pulled on to the odd murder now and again when they need an extra detective. Not as if I never get a look-in. I’m not sure I’d want to do it all day every day.’

  ‘Give it time.’

  Gill was dragged back to the present by a knock on her office door, as Phil Sweet the CSM came in to discuss the implications of Sean Broughton moving the duvet.

  ‘Snafu?’ Gill asked.

  ‘You could say that.’

  10

  JAMES RALEIGH, LISA’S personal advisor, was tall, maybe as tall as Mitch, six foot two or three with blond hair, blue eyes. Made Rachel think of a tennis player. He was her sort of age, she guessed, late twenties, early thirties. He worked out of the neighbourhood office in Newton Heath, an old stone building, modernized offices inside.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ he said, after offering her coffee, which she refused; if this place was anything like the nick, the coffee would be revolting. ‘Can’t believe it. I understand you want some background?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rachel. ‘As much as you’ve got.’

  ‘Well, I’ve only been seeing Lisa since she left Ryelands in April. When she turned seventeen. Usually the social worker stays on the case for a while so there’s some continuity, but Lisa’s social worker was retiring at the time. A lot of the background I’ve picked up from the assessment reports.’ He flipped open the file on his desk. Rachel wondered if Alison knew him, both being in social work, though Alison was doing geriatrics at the moment, dealing with old people at Oldham General.

  ‘Lisa first came into care in August 1993, as a four-month-old. Mum on her own, not managing. Dad left during the pregnancy. Older sibling, two-year-old boy, went into the care of an aunt.’

  ‘She just couldn’t hack it?’ Rachel asked. Thinking of her own mother, fleetingly.

  ‘History of depression and alcohol dependency, no record of a problem with the first child, but two was obviously more than she could manage. Lisa remained in care, with periods in foster care, until she was six. Contact maintained with the mother and brother. Her brother Nathan returned home in 1996, when Lisa would have been three.’

  ‘Must have been hard for her to understand, Nathan’s at home and she’s not.’

  ‘Yes, it would,’ he said. ‘It’s always difficult. In an ideal world the children are kept together, whether that’s in foster care or the family home, but in reality …’ He pulled a face. ‘Age six to eleven, she was back in the family home. Then things deteriorated.’ It all matched what Denise Finn had told them. He turned over the pages in the file. ‘Pattern of risk-taking behaviour, absconding, solvent abuse, picked up for disorderly conduct, vandalism.’ He looked up. ‘Got into bad company, went off the rails. That’s when the decision was made to put Lisa in Ryelands. The aim was to move her back home once Mrs Finn was deemed capable.’

  ‘Which never happened?’

  ‘No, Lisa stayed at Ryelands until April. You’ve heard about Nathan’s death?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Lisa took it very hard. Even though she and Nathan had been apart a lot, he was a significant person, only sibling. Her big brother.’

  Dom, Rachel thought, my little brother. It was two years now, more, since she’d seen him. He’d written at first. She’d burnt the letters.

  ‘Was Nathan living at home, then?’

  ‘Yes. You can imagine, Lisa’s gearing up to leave Ryelands, starting out on her own, and Nathan dies. Very difficult for her.’

  ‘Lisa was using drugs?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Heroin?’

  ‘Amongst others,’ he said.

  ‘Her mother thought she had been introduced to drugs while she was in care.’

  ‘It happens,’ he said. ‘We’re dealing with very vulnerable kids. Drugs can be a way of fitting in, buckling under peer pressure, or an escape, a way of checking out for a bit. Most teenagers experiment, ours even more so.’ His phone rang.

  ‘Do you need …’ Rachel said.

  ‘Voicemail’s on.’

  ‘What can you tell me about Sean?’

  ‘He wasn’t helping, that’s for sure.’ James Raleigh closed the file and sat back in his chair. ‘They’d met before she began living independently. He was known as a small-time drug user. We got her the flat on the understanding that it was a sole tenancy, so he couldn’t just move in there wholesale, but he had his feet under the table from the get-go.’

  ‘And their relationship?’ Rachel said.

  ‘He was an enabler. Without Sean, Lisa might have kicked the drugs into touch. An outside chance. With Sean, forget it. Like trying to stop smoking when someone’s waving a full pack of King Size in front of your face, lighter at the ready.’

  Rachel instantly craved a cigarette. ‘We’ve had reports of domestic violence,’ she said.

  He gave a nod. ‘According to her records, Lisa had a reputation for violence when she was in Ryelands. Now and then she’d explode. A lot of anger.’

  ‘Can’t think why,’ Rachel said.

  He smiled. ‘Sean, I don’t know so much about, but he doesn’t have any compunction about hitting a woman.’

  ‘But it wasn’t necessarily Lisa who was the punchbag?’

  ‘No, though he’d be stronger than her.’

  Rachel agreed. He wasn’t a big lad, but he wasn’t a weed either, and Lisa had been slightly built. ‘Did Lisa ever use a knife?’ She thought of the crime-scene album, the blood. Had Lisa gone for Sean and he’d wrested the weapon fro
m her, used it?

  ‘Not that I’ve come across. Anything to hand, I’d imagine. You think he might have done it?’ Raleigh asked.

  ‘Too early to say,’ Rachel said. ‘Would it surprise you?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ he said frankly.

  ‘OK. Lisa was signing on?’

  ‘That’s right, we were looking at access courses and improving her literacy and numeracy skills. Getting Lisa into a job and getting shot of Sean would have been the way to turn it all around, but it’s hopeless out there. That age especially. Dozens of kids after every minimum-wage vacancy.’

  Rachel tried to imagine the girl on the mortuary trolley in a job interview. Failed.

  ‘Things weren’t great between Lisa and her mother. It was all or nothing. Denise veered from being a wreck unable to cope with anything to wanting to be best buddies. That inconsistency, it’s very difficult for a child. Denise would get drunk and emotional and ring Lisa, and either Lisa would hang up or they’d end up in a shouting match. Our aim is to keep families together as much as is possible, but sometimes the family isn’t a healthy unit. The relationships get stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle that doesn’t help anybody.’

  ‘Sounds hopeless,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Sometimes I think it is, but I’m not a complete pessimist.’ He smiled. ‘With the right sort of intervention, sustained and well resourced—’

  ‘Throw money at it,’ she said.

  ‘Couldn’t the same be said in crime prevention? Early intervention, working with the family as a whole? Tough love?’ He was smiling, teasing her.

  ‘How often did you see Lisa?’

  ‘Every fortnight at first, then once a month. She could phone in between if there were problems.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Couple of times. Cock-ups with the housing benefit, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Was she involved in any other sexual relationships?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘No.’ He looked curious.

  ‘Prostitution?’

  ‘No. Though she wouldn’t necessarily tell me.’

  ‘She didn’t confide in you?’

  ‘Not much. Conflicting view of social workers. She knew I was there to help, to give her support, but that can be read as bossing her about.’ His phone rang again and he glanced at his watch. ‘Timewise …’