by Alison Bruce
Sheen interrupted. ‘Family name?’
‘Brett.’
Sheen nodded slowly. ‘Rosie and Nathan. I remember.’ He turned towards his new shelving and selected the third file from the right-hand end. ‘This is what my red book has become.’
Sheen had outgrown his red book at least a decade earlier, but at Parkside Station ‘Sheen’s Red Book’ was practically a brand name. He dumped the file on the desk, and flipped open the front cover. ‘Rosie and Nathan,’ he repeated. ‘You know I followed that at the time. Not Rosie’s death so much – she was the first.’ Sheen paused, studying Goodhew for several seconds before he spoke again. ‘It was you that went under that lorry, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you must remember Nathan?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’ Sheen didn’t look convinced. ‘I think of you as one of the people to ask about old cases – your brain files data just like mine does.’ He held up a photocopy of a newspaper article. ‘Don’t this ring a bell?’ The headline read Second Tragedy for Suicide Family. ‘Not very compassionate, is it?’
Goodhew frowned as he read it. The page was dated 6 December 2008, but was as unfamiliar to him as tomorrow’s news:
A teenager found dead beside the A14 has been named as 18-year-old Nathan Brett. Tests have shown that his death was the result of a drink and drugs overdose. His family were too upset to comment, but police have confirmed that his death is being treated as suicide.
It is the second tragedy for the family whose eldest daughter Rosie, 18, also died after falling from a bridge further along the same stretch of road.
Friends say that Nathan had become very depressed after his sister’s death. Police are not seeking anyone else in relation to the incident, but would like to hear from any witnesses who may have seen the teenager in the hours immediately before his death.
‘No one contacted us,’ Sheen added, as if he’d been reading at exactly the same pace as Goodhew.
‘I really don’t remember it.’
‘And why the current interest?’
‘The younger sister, Libby, is one of the flatmates sharing the house where Shanie Faulkner died. I’m just getting background so that I’ll be careful when I speak to her.’
‘You’re snooping, then. I’m not your DI, so you don’t have to be coy with me, you know.’
Goodhew flicked the page. ‘Is there any reason why you remember them so well?’
Sheen slipped his glasses back on and switched his attention to another press clipping in his folder. There was a photo this time: Rosie and Nathan both grinning at the camera like they were pretending to hate loving each other – or maybe the other way round. Whichever, Goodhew remembered similar moments with his own sister. It was a pose that shouted ‘siblings’ even more than their physical similarities, which seemed to stop at their shared features of straight noses and matching cowlicks at the left-hand side of their fringes.
Rosie’s expression had the kind of openness that said ‘volunteer worker’ or maybe ‘student representative’. Positive. Enthusiastic. Pleasant to meet.
Except in the crawlspace under a motorway pile-up.
She smiled broadly at the camera. Goodhew thrust the picture back at Sheen, who propped it against his telephone. ‘I’ve been here my whole career and I s’pose, now and again, I start to think about the kind of cases I’ve never come across, like a firearms rampage. Obviously I hope it never occurs here, but the fact of the matter is that it will happen again somewhere, one day. So whenever I hear a case like that in the news, I wonder whether it will be us next.’
‘You must be a riot at office parties.’
‘You poke fun, but we all have morbid thoughts, don’t we?’
‘Guess so.’
‘Bet you wouldn’t share yours, Gary, and I bet they’re darker than mine.’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Bridgend, remember that?’
‘A spate of teenage suicides, right?’
‘Yup – don’t ask me what makes ’em do it. I steer clear of all that psycho-whatever-it-is but I heard they often stick to the same method and so, when I saw that Nathan was found on the same stretch of road, I had the feeling he’d been heading for that bridge where his sister jumped. A bit too much Dutch courage though, and he doesn’t make it further than the grass verge.’
‘Two cases isn’t enough for a cluster.’
‘Cluster, eh? So you do know a bit. Nope, two ain’t a cluster. There were twenty-four in two years in Bridgend, but they couldn’t have had a third one until they’d had the second, now could they?’
Sheen’s logic was, as ever, a little on the straightforward side, but no less effective.
‘You’re not trying to link this new one, are you?’ Sheen asked him. ‘That’s quite a lot of time between deaths, you know. And a different method.’
‘Alcohol again.’
‘The rest of it though? Seems very different to me.’
Goodhew was still holding the notes on Rosie and Nathan as he stood up, but he knew better than to ask to borrow them. ‘Any chance you could keep these handy?’
‘They are not leaving this area though.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘And I’d think very carefully about linking your new suicide to these ones.’
‘It might not be a suicide.’
Sheen brushed the remark to one side. ‘If you link them together, the press will jump on it, and the last thing you want is other kids joining in. And you don’t want to be pissing your boss off at the moment, either.’
‘I think he expects it.’
‘Seriously, Gary, steer clear. You never know what stress is rumbling around at the top.’
TWENTY-THREE
The weather settled down to being warm and still. It was most likely a one-day wonder, and so Goodhew arranged to meet his grandmother for coffee at one of the outside tables at Don Pasquale’s on Market Hill.
He arrived first and had already been served with drinks and a selection of pastries by the time he saw her approaching from Rose Crescent. A man was running behind her, carrying a parcel. It was flat and square, and wrapped in brown paper. He called out and she turned to face him, halting him in his tracks. He seemed apologetic as he handed her the item. The man looked to be in his forties but, even from this distance, Goodhew could see there was a slight flirtatiousness in his manner.
And, as ever, he knew his grandmother would be warm but uninterested in equal parts. She accepted the package, no doubt declining his offer to carry it for her, and continued towards Goodhew.
His grandmother was quick witted, worldly wise, and could still turn on ‘glamorous’ better than many woman half her age. She exuded the kind of sensuality that still garnered frequent double-takes from men and women alike. She’d met Goodhew’s grandfather when she’d been in her early twenties, and Goodhew really knew little more than that, but could imagine his grandad must have pulled off something pretty darn sensational to have grabbed her attention.
Maybe a bank job.
That was a bad joke, even to himself. His grandfather had left him a large inheritance and, although he’d been assured by his grandmother that he didn’t need to worry about its origins, he doubted he’d feel comfortable until he knew for sure where it had come from.
He’d delved back as far as 1972, and now knew that the family wealth was older still. Bank robberies he’d neither looked into, nor ruled out. And anyway, he was pretty sure that his grandmother hadn’t married a man just for his money. Or vice versa, come to that.
He’d given up asking and, while she wasn’t to be drawn on that particular subject, she was willing to discuss any other that Goodhew chose.
She kissed him on the cheek, then took the chair opposite him, leaving the package on the one in between.
‘Guess what it is,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ he said slowly. ‘If you’d been in the gallery up there and purchased something today, I don’t think the guy wo
uld have needed to run up the street after you. You’re never that absentminded, so I think he saw you walking past and ran after you with a purchase that you’d been waiting for and was ready to collect.’
‘Which could have been something I bought there,’ she pointed out.
‘Unlikely.’ He shook his head. ‘You would have picked it up when you bought it, and you wouldn’t buy a painting without seeing it in the flesh. Unless of course they were framing it, too.’
‘Fair enough,’ she conceded.
He snapped his fingers. ‘I think,’ Goodhew added quickly, ‘it’s a black-and-white print of some local scene that you’ve taken in for framing.’
‘Because . . . ?’
‘It’s the same size as the photograph of Skaters’ Meadow hanging above the desk in your apartment, and there’s enough space beside it for another one. In which case you’d probably pick something similar – the same photographer even, local guy . . .’ For a moment the name escaped him. ‘Sean Crawford,’ he added finally. ‘How did I do?’
His grandmother shrugged. ‘Three out of ten for deduction, nine out of ten for insider knowledge. I refuse to be impressed. Now what insider knowledge are you hoping to get from me today, Gary?’
‘How good’s my memory?’
‘Well, dates and numbers, it’s pretty close to photographic. Names and faces?’ She thought for a moment before answering. ‘Trickier to say but above average, I’m sure.’
‘And events? Would you be surprised if I told you I’d attended a road accident but didn’t even recognize the victim’s name when I heard it mentioned a few days ago?’
‘Depends when the accident occurred.’
‘That’s not the point.’ They were seated just a few feet from customers occupying the next table, so he leaned forward and whispered, ‘I lay next to the body for hours. I wrote reports about it. I was a witness at the inquest.’
His grandmother smiled sadly. ‘Rosie Brett?’
‘You remember.’
‘You know how the brain filters out whatever it can’t deal with.’
Trusting his own judgement had become a cornerstone in Goodhew’s life, and he based his decisions on it. So how would that work if he couldn’t trust his own mind?
His grandmother put her coffee cup back on its saucer, then turned it so that it was completely square, with the handle pointing off towards home.
‘Sometimes,’ she continued, ‘I think it’s better that way. I like to tackle one obstacle at a time, and if that’s the only way my subconscious lets me deal with problems, I wouldn’t complain. Don’t lose track of the job at hand, Gary. Is Shanie Faulkner considered a suicide or not?’
That made Goodhew sit up. ‘You know which case I’m working on, then?’
‘I do like to keep abreast of the latest. So tell me.’
‘There’s no way of being sure what happened yet. On one hand, it’s hard to see a pattern of depression, or anything immediately stressful in her current situation but, you know what, it’s amazing how comparatively minor dramas escalate for teenagers.’
‘Well spoken, old man.’ A tiny smile touched his grandmother’s lips. ‘My sister killed herself.’
‘Did she? When?’
‘She was twenty.’
Bits of family knowledge were scattered throughout Goodhew’s memory. Maybe he had no worries about mental recall, after all, because on cue they tumbled from each recess and converged like iron filings heading towards a magnet.
An old black-and-white photo, two teenagers sitting on either side of the wheel of a continental kit fitted to an American convertible. His mate Bryn O’Brien would identify the vehicle instantly, probably with stats on engine size and a few appropriate anecdotes. As far as Goodhew could remember, it was sporty-with-chrome rather than huge-with-fins.
It was obvious that one of the two girls had been his grandmother, but less clear which one. They’d both been wearing Capri pants and thin angora sweaters. Their poses were wannabe Diana Dors, or maybe Lana Turner.
He’d once asked his grandmother about the photo, but she had smiled in the same way then as today and tucked the picture forever out of sight.
He reckoned that had been about ten years ago.
His paternal family tree stopped at his grandparents. He knew nothing about their childhoods, upbringing or schooling.
But now he remembered a battered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, the words Happy Birthday, Scout. Love, Mayella written on the title page.
And a plastic sailboat brooch amongst the real jewellery. And the uncharacteristic tears she’d shed at his sister Debbie’s twenty-first birthday photo.
Iron filings. Scattered and insignificant by themselves.
‘What was her name?’ he now asked.
She gave her head a tiny shake. ‘Her reasons made sense, but they weren’t good enough. It was nothing that wasn’t fixable, but it was too much for her at that moment.’
‘What did she do?’
Again no direct reply. ‘I tried to find a reason to believe she hadn’t done it, any excuse. But it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t murder. And it wasn’t a cry for help that had gone wrong. Sometimes the answer we want is the one we can’t have, and it took me a long time to accept that.’ She touched his hand. ‘Who she was and what she did won’t ever answer your questions about Shanie. Suicide doesn’t have to make sense to anyone except the person who commits it. I spent a long time wondering whether, on a different day, she might have chosen another option, but eventually I realized I had to let it go.’
‘How many years did it take for you to see it like that?’ A rhetorical question for both of them. ‘There’s nothing to point to murder, at the moment.’
‘But?’
Yes, there had been a definite but in his voice. ‘Something obvious, I think. Something that flashed into my head and back out again too quickly to pin down. It’s there like a half-remembered line of lyrics.’
‘Too few words to Google?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I hate it when that happens. I usually play something else, then my memory comes up with the goods as soon as I’m not consciously trying to think of the answer.’
Simple logic, simple philosophy. Goodhew spent the next ten minutes watching the nearby market: people, hundreds of them, crossing and recrossing the square, shopping, lunching, visiting. All of them driven by each one’s individual purpose. Time lapse would turn them into blurs, streaks of movement, patterns of activity in and out among the classic façades of the evolving city.
That was him and his grandmother too.
He pushed events along, while she respected that sometimes they only happen when the time is right. She stood still long enough to observe.
He saw again the student house in freeze-frame. The dust hung in the air, undisturbed. The fridge door stood wide open, revealing half-used cans, fresh yoghurt and out-of-date tomatoes.
Uneaten tuna dried on to a bowl.
Cold coffee in a mug in the sink.
Unwashed tea-towels on the windowsill.
Goodhew’s gaze swung round slowly. A pot plant. Takeaway cartons festering on the table. A fat fly licking its feet, a thousand inverted Goodhews being transmitted via its red apposition eyes. All this he let his imagination paint until its focus finally returned to his grandmother.
‘The smell of the body came and went, apparently.’
She shrugged.
The door fitted tightly. Someone went into her room at will. They had a key. Knew she was dead long before we were called.
Goodhew said a quick goodbye to his grandmother and left Don Pasquale’s, breaking into a run as he headed for Parkside Station. And all the way, he cursed himself for taking so long to notice something so very obvious.
TWENTY-FOUR
In the milliseconds before Tony Brett’s fist connected with his wife’s jaw, he felt a familiar rush of emotion: the pumping pressure over-bubbling when it could no longer be contained. Ev
en if that meant violence. Blood. Destruction of someone he now hated.
This wasn’t the first time either. He’d lost count of the times he’d hit her, and also the ways she’d damaged him. That wasn’t an excuse, but it was a fact. The damage she’d done and the damage he’d done to himself ran neck and neck.
Neither did he need analysis to educate him about triggers or warning signs or counting backwards from ten, or any other fucking precaution he was supposed to learn in order to resist beating the crap out of her once every few months.
He had a choice: fix the problem at its root, or not fix it at all.
He couldn’t now go back two and a half decades, and finally oblige his dad who had hoped that Tony would buck the family trend of no qualifications and manual jobs. Grab the chance of university, son. Make me proud.
But Tony hadn’t wanted to make anyone proud. He wanted to hang out with the older boys, bunk off school, drink cheap lager and loiter with intent. He could see them all now, feeling arrogant at the time but probably looking pathetic.
Scratch ‘probably’.
Undoubtedly.
He’d been making a point back then, asserting his independence, showing his dad that he would be doing things on his own terms. His dad acknowledged no respect for any of Tony’s so-called independence, and what should have been a two-week rebellion stretched into two terms. Enough to screw A-levels, never mind university.
Tony blamed his dad. Blamed Joey and Len for encouraging him to skip school, and Ross for joining him.
The front two knuckles were purpling already, and Vicky’s top lip had split. He blamed her too. Once she’d been pretty, in a brittle way. Sharp, demanding and cocky. She should have been the final push of the rebellion, the girlfriend he would love to shag, then love to hate when it turned sour.
Instead she got pregnant. He knew he’d got her pregnant, and he knew how he had a pattern of laying blame and never taking responsibility. He hadn’t really had to marry her. Or father two more children, or stick it out when their relationship turned 90 per cent sour, and 10 per cent spite.