There was a climbing frame in the garden and Rachel could see a toddler scaling one of the sides, bundled up in a bright red padded all-in-one. She had a sudden rush of fear that the child would fall, felt sweat break across the back of her neck and her mouth fill with saliva. Get a grip.
‘Of course, once our kids move out we wouldn’t necessarily know what’s going on,’ Marlene said. ‘Some of them move away or lose touch, even though social services have a duty of care to continue assisting the most vulnerable.’
‘It wouldn’t be anyone with a criminal record,’ Janet said. ‘Whoever this person is, they’re not on the database.’
‘I can’t see anyone here I’d have any doubts about,’ Marlene said, turning back from the computer.
‘Would you be happy to send us the names,’ Janet said, ‘so we can double check?’
‘Sure.’
‘Did Rosie and Lisa know each other?’ Rachel asked.
‘Yes. Not friends, though. Rosie was chummy with a girl called Angela – they were the same age, and Lisa was a couple of years younger. In fact, Lisa and Angela had a few scraps.’
‘Where’s Angela now?’ Rachel said. Rosie knew her rapist, Rachel was sure. If Angela was close to Rosie, perhaps she’d have an idea who it might have been.
‘I can get her last address for you.’
‘Could you send us a list of all the girls who were resident here, same dates, 2008 onwards?’ Janet asked.
‘And those that are here now?’ Marlene said.
‘Yes, please: names and dates of birth,’ Janet said.
Marlene nodded in agreement.
‘Can you think of anyone from outside the home who knew both Lisa and Rosie? Boyfriends, hangers-on, dealers?’ Janet said.
‘No one I knew about. There are a lot of problems with gangs targeting care homes, grooming girls for sex, but so far we’ve escaped that.’
‘What about the staff?’ Rachel said baldly. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Janet wince, heard her draw in a short breath of air.
Outrage sparked in Marlene’s eyes and her face set like a mask. ‘Our staff are all CRB checked and trained to rigorous standards,’ she said frostily.
‘Martin Dalbeattie was their social worker,’ Rachel pointed out, ‘both of them.’
Marlene looked as if she’d explode. ‘Martin worked with us for almost twenty years. He was an exemplary worker, hugely well respected. You can’t barge in here, making libellous and completely groundless allegations on some sort of fishing expedition—’
‘I’m sure Rachel didn’t mean—’ Janet started her peacemaker routine.
But Rachel wasn’t going to let it drop. ‘If he had an alibi …’ she said.
‘Rachel!’ Janet glared at her. ‘I do apologize,’ she said to Marlene.
‘Not on my account,’ Rachel said. The kid outside was on top of the climbing frame and bawling.
‘Will you just—’ Janet shot at her.
‘Look, having a fistful of qualifications is no bar to crime. The world’s full of nutters who deliberately work in places like this—’
Marlene leapt to her feet. ‘We have never, ever,’ her eyes glittered, ‘had one allegation of sexual impropriety brought against any member of staff. I live in the real world, I know what goes on. Hell, half the kids in here come from that sort of horror show – and we look after them.’ Really losing her rag.
Janet spoke quickly, ‘We’re aware of that and we are not here to ask about staff. I’m sorry. If you could send through those names, we’d appreciate it. You’ve got my email. We can check if any others have come to harm since leaving care.’
Marlene’s eyes were hard, her nostrils flaring. Like a horse with a cob on. Rachel half expected her to whinny and start pawing the ground. ‘Certainly,’ she said, squeezing out the word like it’d kill her.
‘Jesus! What charm school did you go to?’ Janet muttered as they reached the car, out of earshot of Marlene, who stood on the front steps, arms folded, lips pursed, obviously intent on seeing them off the premises.
‘She shouldn’t be so touchy,’ Rachel said.
‘Rachel, you were suggesting, without any grounds, that her colleague, a man she respects and admires, is a potential rapist and murderer. That’s outrageous. You know what it’s like when someone accuses a cop of being dirty?’
They got in the car. ‘Sometimes they are,’ Rachel pointed out.
‘Yeah, but we hate it, don’t we? The possibility that someone’s joined the other side. It’s sickening.’ Janet started the engine, buckled her seat belt. ‘And if someone starts putting it about that a good cop is corrupt, it’s a total nightmare. Try and see it from her point of view.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a bit of bloody empathy’ – Janet was riled now – ‘will get you a damn sight further than slinging your weight around. We want her cooperation. I know Marlene; she’s brilliant at what she does, so your little party piece won’t put her off doing the best she can to protect those kids and get justice for them, and she’ll come through with the list. But a different face, a different day and we’d be whistling for it. Acting the way you did is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. You need to improve your communication skills.’
Rachel stifled a yawn, stared out of the window and let her drone on for a bit, wondering how she could establish Martin Dalbeattie’s whereabouts on the day of Lisa’s murder without anyone finding out.
34
‘MUM?’
‘Sammy?’ Expecting him to ask about a sleepover or money to go to the cinema.
‘I’m at hospital.’
‘What?’ Gill’s heart bucked in her chest. ‘Why?’
‘I’m OK – broke my wrist.’
‘How? What happened?’
‘Argument with a car.’
Her blood ran cold. I should have been there. ‘Which hospital?’
‘The General, A and E.’
‘Right, stay there. I’m on my way.’
Gill asked Andy to step up. Hopefully she’d be back in the saddle soon enough.
‘Anything I can do?’ Janet asked when Gill gave her the news on her way out.
‘No, ta.’
Her mind was spinning fantasies as she drove: what if he had internal injuries too? They didn’t always present themselves immediately. What car? Some pillock taking the lane too fast, fifty-five in a thirty-mile zone? Had they even stopped? Which hand? If it was his right hand, how would he cope at college? Hit and run? Had anyone else been hurt? Oh, God. He’d have said, wouldn’t he? Would he?
The car park was chock-a-block, so she pulled in near the ambulance bay. Where had he been when it happened? He must have already had an X-ray if he knew it was broken. Why hadn’t he called her earlier?
She spotted him straight away, on the chairs in the waiting area, talking to another patient or relative, an older bloke.
‘Sammy, you OK?’
‘Hi, Mum, it’s cool.’ He looked relieved she was there. One wrist, the left, was in a basic sling, but not cast or bandaged. His fingers were cut and grazed and she saw the denim on both his knees was torn, with traces of blood and dirt there. She sat beside him, touched his right shoulder gently. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘They should give you something,’ she said. Leaving him to suffer!
‘Said they will, after I’ve had the bandage on, then I’ve to come back to the fracture clinic in a few days for the plaster.’
Gill shook her head. ‘Did the car stop? Where were you?’
‘This is Matthew,’ he said, indicating a man on the other side of him.
What did she care?
‘It was his car,’ Sammy said.
‘Really?’ She’d break Matthew’s wrists, both of them, then his ankles.
‘He brought me here.’
‘Oh, how kind,’ she sneered.
‘Mum,’ Sammy said.
‘Runs you over but at least he
stops, eh?’
‘Your son was skateboarding, in the dark,’ Matthew said crisply. ‘I didn’t see him until I was on top of him. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.’ He was blazing, but containing it – just. A craggy face, greying hair. Well spoken.
Gill was mortified. She turned to Sammy. ‘I have told you—’
‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘I didn’t realize it was so dark. It wasn’t when I started.’
‘What were you doing on the fucking road,’ she hissed. Aware of heads turning, of voyeurism rippling around them.
‘It’s the best surface,’ he said.
‘We’ve a whole driveway, Sammy.’
‘It’s not as smooth.’
She glared at him and he shut up.
‘I do apologize,’ Gill said to Matthew.
He gave a stiff nod. ‘It’s the distal radius, simple fracture, I’d say. I’m a GP,’ he added.
‘It must have been an awful shock,’ Gill said.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, relaxing a little now as he realized she did understand the situation.
‘You—’ Gill shook her head at Sammy, lost for words. She could imagine what Chief Super Arsehole Dave would make of it: Sammy running wild, getting in harm’s way, no supervision while Gill was at work. He’s sixteen, she said to herself. He could marry, join the army, live independently … so why hasn’t he got the sense not to go skateboarding on the road in the bleeding dark? When she thought of what might have happened, her stomach turned over. She felt a rush of love and exasperation in equal measure. She didn’t know whether to kiss him or kick him. Did neither.
Dave had left her to it, to all intents and purposes, but never missed a chance to criticize her. She had called his bluff a few months ago, during the school holidays. She’d done her utmost to pull together a hotchpotch of activities, trips, and visits so Sammy wouldn’t be left to his own devices too often. Even so, there were days when she had no choice but to leave him home alone. And she trusted him to be OK, but Dave got to hear of it and took her to task. Rang her up and started flinging accusations at her.
‘You do it then,’ she had said.
‘What?’
‘You have him. Stick him in with what’s-its-face – bunk beds or whatever. Sammy would love that.’ Not.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Dave snapped.
‘What’s ridiculous? If you don’t like how I’m coping with him, then pull your bloody finger out for once. He can live with you, come here the odd weekend. You see how easy it is.’
‘Gill—’
‘No, you don’t want that, do you? You just want to stand on the sidelines, taking cheap shots. Well, you can go to hell.’
‘Your car?’ Gill said to Matthew now.
‘Bodywork, headlight.’
‘BMW,’ Sammy said.
Shit. ‘Send me the bill,’ Gill said, ‘please. Here’ – she got out one of her cards – ‘the email will reach me, or …’ She scribbled her address on the back.
He took it. ‘I’m just down the road. The barn conversion.’
‘That’s you? How’s it going?’
‘Slowly. Camping out, but it’ll be fabulous when it’s finished.’
‘Nice views.’
‘Sammy Murray,’ a nurse called out. They all got up.
‘Thanks,’ Gill said to Matthew. ‘And I am sorry.’
‘Just glad it’s only a broken wrist.’ He smiled and nodded farewell.
It might only have been a broken wrist, but it made everything – eating, dressing, going to the toilet – a major operation. Sammy had a dicky fit when Gill offered to help him get changed. ‘I’ve seen it all before,’ she argued.
‘No way!’ His face red.
She told him to put something loose-fitting on, trackie bottoms or pyjamas, no zips or buttons.
‘What about college?’ he said.
‘Soon as you can manage it, you’re going in. You can’t afford to miss stuff now. I’m going to burn that bloody skateboard.’
‘Mum!’
‘Then you get lights and a helmet and pads, the works.’
‘I won’t go on the road again.’
‘Too right. Ever. Sworn in blood. Skate park or the drive, that’s it.’
Janet rang and Gill filled her in. ‘Never a dull moment, eh?’ Janet said.
‘Know what I’ve got him for Christmas?’
‘Go on.’
‘Sodding snowboarding session.’
Janet laughed, ‘Can you get a refund?’
‘Serve him right if I didn’t. Good job it was a doctor. He gave him a lift to the hospital.’
Janet sucked in a breath, ‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ she said, mock worried, ‘getting into a stranger’s car.’
‘Shut up!’ said Gill.
‘You sure you don’t want us in tomorrow?’ said Janet.
‘You hoping for some overtime, bit of spends for Santa?’
‘No – I can get my ironing done.’
‘I’d rather save the budget for when we really need it,’ Gill said. ‘There’s nothing we have to do at this stage where time is of the essence.’
‘OK, see you Monday.’
The whole business had obviously worn Sammy out and he was in bed by ten. Gill tidied up and poured herself a generous glass of wine and then rang Dave.
It was late, which was no bad thing; mess up the whore’s beauty sleep or wake the brat. It was Pendlebury answered. Dave was out. Oh, you poor cow, Gill thought, resisting the temptation to ask where, see what lies he’d spun her. ‘Just tell him Sammy’s broken his wrist, will you?’ Gill said matter-of-factly. ‘And Dave’ll need to help out next week.’
‘Oh,’ she said, disconcerted, and before she could frame a more comprehensive response, Gill said, ‘Bye.’
Gill did wonder about texting Dave, a little interruption to his shagfest, but couldn’t be arsed. She set their own phone to take messages, eager to banish Dave for tonight, and curled up on the sofa. You never knew what was round the corner, did you? Why was it so hard to remember that? Given that her job involved the sudden rupture in people’s lives, she shouldn’t have been surprised at the pitfalls and accidents in her own, but she was. Natural optimist. What was the alternative, some sort of premonition anxiety all the time? Walking along with one eye half-closed, shoulder raised, waiting for the blow to strike?
Who’d be a mother? Default position: guilt, responsibility. The first reaction when Sammy called, as if she was at fault, to blame, could have prevented it. Guilt was useless, Gill knew; certainly free-floating, groundless guilt was, and she didn’t dwell on it. Men – Dave, to be specific – it would never occur to him to feel guilty. He’d immediately be apportioning blame, not claiming any. She thought briefly of Denise Finn, losing first her son, then her daughter, to drugs, to violence. Herself a victim of her own mother’s inadequacy. A circle going on and on. Now they’d released Sean, who’d represented everything evil that had befallen Lisa. Denise would have no one to rail against, to blame.
Going up to bed, Gill heard a fox barking, the noise high and raw, like a scream. She looked out of her bedroom window, left the lamp off, but still couldn’t spot the animal. Over the way, she could make out a light in the velux of the barn. Matthew’s house. Thank God it was him Sammy tangled with and not some nutjob boy-racer or a little old lady who’d have had a heart attack. Close escape.
She was asleep in minutes, dreaming of tobogganing and chasing foxes in the snow.
35
COMING HOME TO Ade, Janet felt sure he’d sense that she had lied, someone who knew her so well, for so long, who knew her inside out and had watched her go from a scared schoolgirl to a woman and a mother. How could he not tell? Not smell it on her, hear it in the spaces between her words?
‘Good do?’ he asked.
‘Same as ever,’ she replied. ‘The buffet was better though, think they got a new caterer in. How’s Elise?’ Changing the subject. Elise had come down with a bug. Sick daughter
, loyal husband – and where’d she been? Tucked up with another man in a smart hotel in town. Jezebel. Ade didn’t ask her anything else about the evening and she dared to think she’d got away with it.
She went up to see Elise, who was in bed with the telly on. She looked feverish but if she could cope with the telly she couldn’t be too bad. Janet felt Elise’s forehead. Hot and dry. ‘You had some paracetamol?’
‘At four.’
‘More soon then. Like a drink?’
Elise shook her head.
‘It’s good to drink.’
‘I had one.’ Her eyes were heavy.
‘Food?’
‘No. Can you top up my phone?’ she said.
‘What do you do with it all?’ Janet said.
‘Speak to people, text people – it’s a phone, Mum, what do you think I do with it? God.’ Dripping with sarcasm. Elise ill was a mixture of martyrdom and bad temper.
‘OK,’ Janet agreed. ‘Poor thing,’ she sympathized and Elise assumed an expression of such suffering that Janet had to work very hard not to snigger at her.
‘Where were you last night?’
A clutching sensation in her belly. ‘Works party, stayed at Rachel’s.’
‘Who’s Rachel?’
‘New woman at work.’ Janet felt uncomfortable lying. She’d picked Rachel because Ade hadn’t met her, didn’t know her, unlike Gill. Less chance of him ever catching on. How could she think like this? ‘So, half an hour, take the tablets. Early night, eh?’
‘Don’t forget the phone.’
‘I’ll do it now.’
Janet tried to imagine how she would feel if Ade cheated on her. But it just didn’t seem realistic. Who’d have him? Morose, set in his ways, dull. When had he become that man? Safe, yes, reliable; qualities she had craved, had valued. But how close was safe to dull, reliable to boring?
And she’d be shocked to the core if Ade slept with someone else. He wouldn’t do that. He just wouldn’t. He loved her, for all his faults. He loved her and the girls. He’d never dream of doing something that might jeopardize all that. And nor would she, in the normal course of things. It made her feel ill. She’d betrayed her own morals, her personal code of conduct. Yes, it was only one night, a single night, and never to be repeated. A lot of people would think she was ridiculous to condemn herself so harshly for one slip. Get over yourself. Chalk it up to experience and move on. But that wasn’t how she was wired. And although she kept trying to forget, she could not find a way to forgive herself.
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