by Alison Bruce
Stone swilled the last couple of inches of beer around in the bottom of his glass. ‘If that’s all you want me for, I’ll get off home now.’
‘I was asking about Shanie Faulkner remember?’ Goodhew prompted.
‘Shanie’s like the others, there to share the costs and helping Matt and Libby put a couple of miles between them and home.’ He drifted off subject immediately. ‘It’s bollocks.’
Stone finally drained the glass then thrust it towards the landlord. ‘Matt’s grieving. I don’t know how a teenager starts to get their head round it. I’m his dad and I don’t know where to start. Stupidly big hole Mandy left behind, you know what I mean?’
Everybody’s grief was different, but Goodhew looked at Stone and was pretty sure he did know.
‘And if Matt’s way is to lash out, who am I to tell him he’s doing it wrong? Better than this, eh?’ He pointed at his empty pint. ‘I know Mandy and Sarah messaged each other right up till the end, so when she phoned me, I really wanted to help.’
‘You’ve lost me. Who’s Sarah?’
‘Shanie’s mum. Dead Shanie from America.’
‘So Shanie came to stay because your wife and her mum were friends?’
‘BBFs or BFFs or whatever it is.’ Again, the laugh.
‘A favour to your wife?’ Goodhew said it almost to himself, trying to pin down the uneasy feeling lurking in the shadows of his mind; as if someone with the whole picture was watching him struggle to make something up from just the first few fragments.
Stone leaned towards him, close enough that his heavy features filled Goodhew’s entire field of vision. ‘Sarah will be like me now. You don’t just lose the one you love. Friends care, but they don’t know what to say and it comes out stilted. Or else they don’t say anything at all.’ He continued his list of those he’d lost, along with his wife, including Matt, but not Charlotte. As hard as Goodhew tried to keep up with the list of colleagues, old schoolfriends and assorted relatives, his thoughts kept drifting back to Mandy, and the preoccupation she’d never shared with her husband. Perhaps it involved him. Maybe she’d discovered something about him that she wasn’t supposed to know. Or maybe it was the other way around, and she’d been afraid of telling him something about herself. He wondered whether she would have confided in Sarah about this.
Goodhew turned to leave, then hesitated. Shanie was dead and the only reason she’d been in that house at all was because of Mandy. Who was also dead. And however Shanie had died, there had to be a reason.
He would later struggle to remember much more about his visit to the Carlton Arms. He had asked Stone more questions; he must have done because Goodhew could remember himself sitting on one of the bar stools. And later watching Stone leave.
Then he had left too. But somewhere between the front entrance and his car, he heard a heavy crack. A splitting sound. The gravel rose to meet him.
He blacked out before he hit the ground.
The next thing he saw were several men, and behind them the approaching flash of a blue light blinking in the darkness.
He heard a woman’s voice. ‘Gary, can you hear me? Gary? The ambulance is here.’
TWENTY-SIX
Regaining consciousness in hospital usually meant that the first thing visible was the ceiling. Recessed lighting, tiles embossed with a little squiggly pattern, and a powder-coated curtain track. Maybe there was a patient’s suggestion box where he could ask them to add a sign up there that said Welcome to Addenbrookes.
He blinked slowly . . . and when he opened his eyes again he realized that the sun streaming through the blinds had moved on by an hour or two.
‘Keep them open this time, Gary.’
He twisted his head to the left and found his grandmother sitting on one of the visitors’ chairs holding an open copy of Maxim.
‘Am I concussed or are you really reading that?’
‘Both. How are you feeling?’
‘Coming round slowly.’ He pulled himself into a sitting position, moving very slowly, waiting for something to hurt. Nothing actually did for the first few seconds, then a dull thudding kicked in just above his right ear. He reached to touch it.
‘Stitches.’ She put the magazine on to his lap. ‘Interesting article on Scarlett Johansson.’
‘Did you buy this for me or yourself?’
‘Neither. Bryn dropped it by.’
‘He’s been in?’
‘Yup, and Gully too. Even Kincaide.’
‘Why Kincaide? Did he think I wasn’t going to pull through?’
‘Very funny. Came for a statement. Fat chance. And Bryn said you had another visitor here when he arrived. A young woman with, and I quote, “a dazzling smile and rampant curls”.’
‘Charlotte?’ That made sense, it was her voice he’d heard in the car park.
‘Bryn seemed to like her.’
‘But he would.’
‘Exactly.’
His conversation with Rob Stone remained hazy, but as his head began to clear he thought about Mandy and Sarah. Sarah Faulkner’s flight was about to land.
‘What time is it?’ He asked the question out loud even though there was a clock clearly visible in the corridor. It was a white analogue, and though it told him it was seven it didn’t seem as though either the morning or evening option could be correct.
‘Quarter to seven,’ she confirmed.
‘Evening?’
‘Yep, you were out for about twenty hours. Not bad for an insomniac.’
‘I need to get back to Parkside.’
Maybe it’s just that a parent and grandparent have different attitudes, or maybe that was just his own grandmother, but he didn’t either expect or receive the stay-in-bed-and-rest dialogue. Instead, ‘I’ll call a taxi,’ was all she said.
And in less than ten minutes they were heading towards the city centre.
‘And Marks sent you a text.’
Goodhew checked his phone. Don’t go feral. I want to speak to you as soon as you are fit to be discharged.
He guessed his grandmother had already read it. ‘Did the doctor say I was fit to be discharged?’
‘I didn’t hear him say so.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Problem is, Gary, I texted him back and told him you were leaving in any case. He’ll be waiting in the incident room.’
‘Thanks.’ Gary pulled up the Internet on his phone, and used the last few minutes of the journey to search online images.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The display of photographs connected to Shanie’s death had grown since Goodhew last looked.
Marks sat with his back to the door, simultaneously facing the photographs and Goodhew’s reflection in the window beyond. He swivelled his chair around slowly. ‘So what happened to you last night?’
‘Obviously someone hit me, but beyond that, I don’t have a clue.’
‘What did the doctor say? Or did you leave the hospital before you found out?’ Marks glared.
Goodhew realized that his previous tone had sounded a few shades too indifferent. ‘I started looking into the background of one of the other students, and I let myself get distracted.’
‘Remind me what you were supposed to be doing?’
‘Tracking down Shanie Faulkner’s sweatshirt.’
‘And?’
‘I believe it came from Giles and Co. on Trinity Street. That design is one of their own and it appears that they are the only place to stock it. They sell them online too. I’ll go in and try to work out who bought it, and when. It will have to be tomorrow now though.’
‘Hallelujah, Goodhew remembers an instruction.’
‘Sir?’
‘Theoretically you could have still been in a very serious condition today. You were bleeding heavily when you were found. A few hours like that and I would have been down by one whole time equivalent.’
‘It’s so comforting to be thought of as a manpower statistic.’
‘It comforts me if you’ve f
inally recognized that it is exactly what you are. The young woman who found you?’
‘Charlotte Stone.’
‘Why was she there?’
‘I don’t know. I’d been speaking to her father there, so maybe she turned up to find him?’
‘No matter, Kincaide’s going over to take her statement later. You’ll also need to make one.’
A little more of the conversation with Rob Stone was coming back to Goodhew now. ‘Did Shanie’s parents arrive?’
He nodded. ‘They came into the station first thing. Shanie was their only child.’ Marks picked up a folder, tipped out some loose pages, tapped them into a neat pile, then placed them back inside, before closing the flap. Again he was distracted and again Goodhew’s thoughts were drawn to Emily Marks, his only child.
Goodhew nudged him. ‘Were they aware of Shanie displaying any suicidal tendencies in the past?’
‘No, not at all. But her mother . . .’ Marks sighed. ‘She’s one of those women who kept questioning why Shanie had done it to her personally.’
‘And the suicide note leans that way.’
‘That’s true.’ Marks’s voice tailed away. ‘She didn’t come across as a tremendously maternal woman, left me with the feeling that it could have been difficult for Shanie to confide in her if she was having problems.’
‘But she was upset?’
‘Yes, absolutely. No suggestion of anything less than heartfelt grief. Have I ever told you about Emily’s cat?’
This abrupt change of subject threw Goodhew for a moment, but it didn’t really matter; Marks often asked a question without expecting a reply.
‘He’d originally been a stray and one night he decided to curl up under the warm bonnet of a parked car shortly before the car’s owner drove to work. The lady pulled over when she heard unidentified bumping and squealing, and rushed the injured animal into the nearest vet’s. It lost a leg and most of its right ear. It was malnourished, flea ridden and worm infested – and do you know what they wanted to call it?’ He paused, but only for effect. ‘Lucky. Personally I could think of far more appropriate names. My wife suggested Mangle . . . The point is, Gary, I could call you Lucky after last night. Lucky your injuries weren’t worse. Lucky you didn’t bleed to death, and so on.’
Goodhew knew where this was going and nodded slowly. ‘But you can think of far more appropriate names?’
‘You leave here on a hunt for the stockists of a purple sweatshirt displaying crests of the various Cambridge colleges, and somehow that turns into one arrest and one hospitalization at the first address you decided to visit, and your own hospitalization at the second. Officially I abhor the way you behave, but I enjoy seeing what gets flushed out in the process.’ Before he could say anything else, his mobile rang. It vibrated on the desk, and wriggled an inch or so before Marks snatched it up.
‘Yes?’ Marks stared at the desk-top for several seconds, then at Goodhew. ‘The same house?’ he asked the caller.
Goodhew strained to hear, but Marks turned away and stood with his attention now fixed on the street below. For several minutes the stillness of the room was punctuated only by monosyllabic questions.
‘We’re coming,’ he said finally and snapped the phone shut.
Goodhew knew instantly that Marks had reverted to his usual official persona. ‘Another death,’ his boss revealed.
‘Who?’
Marks shook his head. ‘In the car.’ Goodhew found himself following him down the corridor, proceeding at slightly less than a jogging pace.
‘Phone Gully and pass the sweatshirt thing on to her. How are you feeling?’
‘Fine.’
‘Right, you’re coming with me. Don’t screw up – or bleed in my car.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
So one of them was dead.
Goodhew waited until they were in the car park before he considered repeating his question. On the way down the stairs he’d gone through the list of occupants.
Which one?
Trying to guess felt like a macabre game, like a game of dead pool where he was the only player. A niggle of superstition warned him against it: would the wrong choice be like willing something fatal on that person? He decided it wasn’t a game he wanted to play but, even so, two names had risen to the front of his mind by the time he and Marks had reached the car.
Libby and Meg.
He told himself he’d just picked the two most fragile-looking housemates. He knew nothing of Meg’s background, but in the last forty-eight hours had become over-familiar with Libby’s.
‘Who died?’ he finally asked again.
‘Meg DeLacy.’
‘How?’
Marks pulled out of the car park and executed the two left turns that took him on to East Road before he replied. ‘From the little I know, it sounds as though there are similarities to the Shanie Faulkner case. She’d been quiet and some of the others became worried so they broke in and found her lying on her bed. They called an ambulance immediately, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. That’s it, so far.’
TWENTY-NINE
Her dad was out but Charlotte Stone still answered the knock at the front door without stopping to consider who might be there. She felt her welcoming expression close down and shrink away when she saw DC Kincaide.
He spoke first. ‘DI Marks sent me to take a statement.’
‘Great.’ She was no expert at fake smiles but aimed for something sour and sarcastic and was fairly confident that she pulled it off.
‘You alone?’
‘Unfortunately.’ She stepped back, pushing the door further open with her shoulder, and left him to close it behind him.
She led Kincaide into the kitchen, preferring the formality of straight-backed chairs and a table between them. She directed him to the nearest chair, then bought herself a few minutes’ breathing space by making instant coffee. She didn’t look at him again until she passed him his coffee.
‘So why you?’
‘Luck of the draw.’ He shrugged. ‘So what happened at the Carlton Arms?’
She settled in the seat opposite him, relieved that Kincaide’s focus seemed to be purely professional. ‘I went to look for my dad, but instead I found your mate in a puddle of blood.’
‘Colleague,’ he corrected sharply.
‘So he’s the one you don’t like?’ She knew that the last thing she should be doing was referring, however obliquely, to her past conversations with Kincaide.
He acknowledged nothing further. ‘Let’s get this over with, right?’
‘Absolutely.’ She meant it, as she said it, but there was an added tension in Kincaide’s voice now, and she found it irresistible not to poke at it. ‘So what’s wrong with Goodhew, then?’
Kincaide pretended to ignore the question, so she asked it a second time. He worked his tongue around his top teeth, as though the answer was wedged between his right premolars. Finally he replied, ‘Your dad is a regular at the Carlton, right?’
‘You know that already.’
‘So why did you go down there?’
She glared, remembering all too clearly just how much she disliked Michael Kincaide. He had bitterness buried deeply inside him, but he was capable of hiding it well. ‘I worry when he stays out too late. I wanted to be certain that nothing had happened to him.’
‘So you weren’t being controlling?’
‘No, I don’t think so – but then I would say that, wouldn’t I? Why don’t you ask my dad whether he thinks his daughter’s a manipulative bitch.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t say that today.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Charlotte, I just want to know why you were in the car park. I need to find out what happened to DC Goodhew and whether you witnessed anything, however small or insignificant.’
‘Now I know why they sent you. “Let Kincaide go, he’s the expert on small and insignificant”.’
‘You used me.’
Charlotte w
as on her feet so abruptly that the table trembled and coffee slopped from the mugs. ‘Get out.’
‘Sit down. Now.’
‘You manipulated me. You never had any intention of helping us. You abused your position.’
Charlotte saw his expression change instantly. Gone was the hurt vanity, the dented ego that showed itself in his macho posturing. She’d cut deeper this time. Those last four words had done it: he’d taken them as a personal threat.
A single swift move of his hand and she found herself thrown back into the chair. It rocked back on two legs and for a moment she was sure she was about to go sprawling across the floor. She grabbed at the edge of the table and managed to keep herself upright.
Kincaide remained on his feet, with his right fist close to her head, until she had made it clear she had no plans to get up again.
They stared at each other uneasily.
‘Do you think that’s acceptable?’ Her tone was quiet, cowed even, but she refused to let the moment pass without saying something. Kincaide didn’t react at first, then he dropped back into the chair opposite, and briefly hung his head.
‘I’ve never done that before,’ he said.
‘Well, the trick will be to avoid doing it again, won’t it?’
‘I’m sorry.’
She hesitated, keen not to reignite anything, but at the same time determined that she wouldn’t be left fuming at what she had not had the guts to say. ‘You just came very close to crossing a line. You need to make sure you don’t kid yourself that the line’s moved a bit, next time you get near it.’