by Alison Bruce
He stopped mid-anger and looked surprised. ‘I know you don’t think like that, and I’m not angry at you, Sue. I discovered that there was a connection between Shanie and Rosie. Then I remembered finding Rosie dead, and it came back to me in such detail that I didn’t understand how I could have ever put it out of my head. Whenever I talk to Matt and Libby, I can’t escape the feeling that there’s something lurking.’
‘Lurking’s an odd word. People lurk, not things.’
‘Something adrift then. Like a fracture in a picture.’
Gully understood that: the cracked mirror, the multiple perfect reflections with none of them quite lining up to the rest. Fine when you looked at the individual sections, flawed and distorted as a whole.
Just because no one else could see the cracks, didn’t mean they weren’t there. She turned towards the wall, stepping back behind the nearest chair so that she could view it in its entirety.
Gary had drawn a box representing the student house in the bottom third of the wall and above showed the Brett, Faulkner, Stone family groupings.
He’d even noted his own head injury, with the date, and put in lines connecting it to Rob Stone and Charlotte.
‘Thought you’d brushed over that?’
‘I’m adding everything, and I’m not dismissing a thing until I can stand where you are and look at the picture as a whole. Besides, it hurt.’
‘Okay, here’s the plan.’ She said it in a tone that was meant to instil confidence and make him pay attention to what she was about to say next. Problem was, until she heard the words come out of her mouth, she hadn’t been too sure what they were going to be.
‘I’m going to tell Marks about Phil, Meg and Shanie. I believe he’ll be seeing Shanie’s parents again, so give me any questions you’d like asked and I’ll put them to Marks as my own thoughts. Then I’m going to do my best to gather up any details that I have: legitimate access to help you fill your wall. I’m not copying documents and I’m not going after anything that you couldn’t have got yourself if Marks hadn’t banned you from the case files.’
He began to thank her, but she held up her hand to stop him.
‘I know being told you can’t look has never stopped you before, but in return please, please, drop this as soon as you come back, and get yourself assigned to something else.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Seriously now, don’t you think this is all a bit obsessive?’
They both stared at the wall and neither spoke.
Gary broke the silence. ‘Compulsive, maybe, but I don’t think it works to leave too much unanswered. I don’t actually want someone on my conscience because I failed to be thorough in the first place.’
‘Nice theory, Gary, but you know we can’t be expected to carry burdens like that.’
‘Unanswered questions don’t go away.’
‘You could decide they’re not worth asking.’
‘Or why not just ask? For example, why have you only put mascara on one eye?’
It was the one question from Gary that she couldn’t answer at that very second.
FORTY-ONE
Goodhew locked the front door behind Gully, muted the phones and drew the curtains in his grandfather’s library. He had more to add to the wall. He switched on the table lamps, the standard lamp, and turned the dimmer switch on the overhead lights until every shadow was washed away.
He’d already reached the point where everything he knew about all the people connected to Shanie Faulkner was displayed on the wall. What came next was deciding which information was missing.
He stood up close, pen in hand, then backed up until he’d put the greatest possible distance between himself and the wall. It was still no good; even when he was too far away to read some of the smaller words, his focus remained on them rather than the blank patches of emulsion in between.
He turned his back, and caught the eye of the Girl on the Punt as she stared out from her frame on the adjacent wall. She spent her days in a state of near chaos; caught in a precarious and unbalanced moment that threatened to dunk her in the Cam. Still she looked at him in amusement.
Coffee might be worth a try.
He went upstairs to the kitchen in his flat to boil the kettle, and that was when he realized what his grandfather’s library had always been missing: music.
He sent Bryn a text, finished making two coffees and made it down the flights of stairs to the front door just as Bryn pulled up to the kerb outside in his Zodiac.
It took twenty minutes to move Gary’s jukebox from his sitting room to the floor below. Bryn paused for a moment to look at the busy wall and commented, ‘Graffiti works better with an aerosol.’
‘Thanks, but it’s my first time.’
‘So you really didn’t write Miss Muir is sexy above the urinals at primary school?’
‘I don’t think anyone did.’
Bryn pulled a face. ‘I quite liked that stern schoolteacher thing she had going.’ Then he winked. ‘I also like that concerned visitor thing your friend Charlotte had going on. Shame you missed it.’
‘I didn’t miss anything.’
‘You’d have missed it if you’d been conscious at the time. And that’s one more example of how we’re wired so differently. I’d have assumed I’d made an impression, the moment she cared enough to call an ambulance . . .’
‘You’re delusional.’
‘Yep, happily delusional,’ Bryn grinned.
Goodhew ushered him back to the mugs of tepid coffee. Goodhew drank his quickly, Bryn didn’t hurry. ‘I know you’re rushing me. Don’t tell me – things to do?’
‘Something like that. Sorry.’ Goodhew accompanied Bryn as far as the library door, leaving him to find his own way out.
Bryn glanced over his shoulder, flashing one of his best pseudo-hurt expressions. ‘You blatantly use me then fob me off with a bad coffee and a quick goodbye.’
‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ Gary quipped.
‘Damn it, I’m starting to feel like one of my own girlfriends.’
A few seconds later, Goodhew heard the front door close behind his friend, then the throaty and unmistakable sound of the Zodiac firing up. Goodhew shut himself in the library. The lights were still as bright, but now chrome from the Bel-Ami glinted in the corner. He selected random play and full volume, and before the end of the first track the outside world had vanished.
This was entirely the point; he needed to break free of the constraints of what he was allowed to look into – forget the job, forget the official verdict, just allow himself to detach and explore every angle signposted from the wall full of notes.
He worked through the night like that, diving on to his computer, trawling newspaper archives, sending emails and texts. Making notes. Adding comments to the wall. Scrubbing out questions, adding lines and arrows and more questions until the first light of morning began to show through the hundreds of watts burning in the library. His concentration broke then. He killed the jukebox, pulled back the curtains and stared out at the greyest of Cambridge mornings.
‘The weather’s crap.’
He spun round and found his grandmother standing in the now open doorway.
He wanted to ask how long she’d been there, whether she’d seen him in the throes of concentration.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Insomnia?’
‘No, that’s when you want to sleep, but can’t.’
‘Case fever, then?’
‘Case fever? Did you just make that up?’
‘No, I just saw you demonstrate it. It looked kind of intense.’
Questions answered.
‘Breakfast, Gary?’ She held up a bag.
‘I was about to go over to Parkside.’
‘Another day, another desk to ransack?’
‘Who told you I was working through the night?’
‘You mean there’s more than one of your friends who has had their sleep disturbed by you?’
Her evasiveness made hi
m smile. ‘You’re a tricky person to deal with sometimes.’ Suddenly, the smell of Danish pastries and coffee hit him.
His grandmother changed topic. ‘Will Marks be in yet?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Twenty minutes then?’ She said it with the certainty of a woman who wasn’t used to being turned down. ‘You can show me your art wall.’ She swivelled the nearest chair next to the one Gully had occupied the night before. They both sat and she passed Goodhew a cappuccino and a cinnamon swirl.
After several minutes of silently studying the entire display, she pointed to a dotted line that connected Shanie’s mum, Sarah, with Amanda Stone. ‘When will you get that answer?’
‘I searched the local papers in Merrillville and Indiana, without luck, then texted Gully and emailed Sarah Faulkner directly.’
‘Was that a good idea?’
‘In the middle of the night it seemed fine.’
Behind them, a message arriving clicked into his inbox. ‘Maybe we’re in luck.’
He crossed the room. His grandmother stayed seated but watched closely for his reaction as he opened the email. ‘It’s not about that,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s from Sheen.’
‘At this time of the morning?’
‘He’s like that,’ Goodhew replied, choosing not to glance up to catch the pointed look that was undoubtedly being thrown in his direction at that moment. Instead he brought the laptop over to her, and reread the message at the same time as she was viewing it.
Towards the centre of the wall were written the original four names: Rosie, Nathan, Shanie and Meg. He’d drawn a different coloured ring around each of them, then used those four colours to indicate connections between them and other events and people.
Sheen would have been proud of him.
But Goodhew wasn’t looking at just those four names now; his eyes were following a wider arc. The widest. His grandmother’s gaze was travelling a similar path.
‘Oh,’ she said finally.
Oh, indeed.
If he drew an embracing circle now, it would extend around the whole wall.
Sheen was already at his desk; he had papers spread across every inch. ‘I’ve made a pile for each case,’ he said.
Goodhew couldn’t see any visible sign that the mass of A4 sheets, notes and photographs was any less random than it looked. He spotted a photograph of the stitches inserted in his own scalp and reached towards it.
‘Don’t touch,’ Sheen snapped.
‘Sorry.’
‘So you should be. I know you’ve been in here out of hours, Gary.’
This time he didn’t apologize; that would have been too much like promising not to do it again.
‘You can try putting everything back exactly where you found it, but I’ll still know. Why didn’t you just ask me?’
‘You weren’t here.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Honestly, it was the middle of the night.’
Sheen paused to shove a totally dubious look at Goodhew. ‘I’m not a fan of slang. Phat’s suddenly yesterday, and this week it’s peng. It’s all a pain in the tush, but whoever decided that whatever said it all was a genius. Next time, ask.’
Goodhew nodded. ‘I will.’
‘Stand there fidgeting as much as you like, Gary, it’ll save you time in the long run if you’re properly organized.’ Sheen sorted a few more pages with an unrealistically patient expression plastered across his face. ‘Fire, aim, then ready in your time, not mine.’ Sheen slid a raft of pages on to his lap, and shuffled them into a neater pile before replacing them on his desktop, then followed suit with each successive cluster of paperwork. He placed each pile on top, and at a 90-degree angle to the previous one. When he had finished, he rested his hand flat on the top of them all, and Goodhew silently prayed he wouldn’t need to resort to a snatch-and-grab to finally get them from Sheen.
‘Each bundle is a death, sorted alphabetically by surname. Do your best to return them.’
Goodhew grabbed the pile. ‘Thank you,’ he grinned.
Sheen remained serious. ‘And preferably in the same order, Gary.’
The door to Marks’s office was closed as Kincaide stood waiting outside already.
‘Is he with someone?’ Goodhew asked, arriving.
‘On the phone.’
Goodhew leaned back against the corridor wall and silently ran through the list of names of all the people mentioned in the files filling his arms. He wanted to be fluent with the facts when he saw Marks. Within seconds he gave up though, feeling sure the names would come to him automatically. This just couldn’t wait.
‘Have you tried knocking?’ he asked Kincaide.
‘What do you think? I opened the door, he looked pissed off and waved me back out.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Fucking hell, Gary, you’re going to need to wait till I’ve seen him first.’
‘This is urgent.’
‘Urgent filing? Come on.’ Kincaide’s gaze skewed off to somewhere over Goodhew’s right shoulder. ‘Hey, Gully, hasn’t Goodhew done wonders with the filing?’
Gully stopped in front of Goodhew, a single Post-it note in her hand. ‘Wow, Gary, do you run errands too? Can I send you out for Jaffa Cakes?’
‘Depends.’
She stuck the Post-it note on to the top of the top file, too close to his face for him to see it in focus. ‘Half right, half wrong.’
‘How?’
‘Sarah Faulkner’s American born and bred.’
‘But?’
‘Dad in the military, spent almost five years in the UK – same school class as Amanda Stone.’
Gully gave him the tiniest wink, and he guessed Kincaide hovered, quietly simmering in the edge of her peripheral vision, just as he was in Goodhew’s own.
Kincaide waited until she’d gone. ‘You’re not supposed to be working on the Faulkner case.’
‘I know.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘Filing for Marks.’
‘On that case?’
‘Yes – and some interesting details about people connected to it.’ Goodhew finally turned to face Kincaide fully.
‘Like who?’ Kincaide’s tone was casual. Artificially so.
Goodhew heard Marks finishing his call. He shrugged. ‘I really think it would be better if I saw him first.’
Kincaide hesitated, about to speak, when Goodhew pushed open the office door then kicked it shut in his wake. He expected Kincaide might hurry in after him, but nothing interrupted the sound of the paperwork thumping down on the desk.
‘Sit, Gary.’
Goodhew dropped into the nearest chair.
Marks nodded towards the paperwork. ‘What is this?’
‘Every case connected to Shanie Faulkner. I’m sure she was murdered.’
Marks stared hard at Goodhew for several seconds before he spoke. ‘I had some reservations about her death. Everything seemed on the level, and I might have put my doubts down to my other . . .’ he paused to choose the next word ‘. . . preoccupations, except I couldn’t quite overlook your instinct to look further into it. In situations like that, you’re like some persistent yapping puppy.’
Goodhew’s gaze drifted on to the files, not sure if Marks had paused to let him speak.
But Marks spoke immediately. ‘Congratulations, Rin Tin Tin, because your yapping made me push for further tests on both Shanie Faulkner and Meg DeLacy. Meg DeLacy remains a suicide. Faulkner, on the other hand, was killed with an overdose of insulin – administered intravenously. The case is to be reopened with immediate effect.’ Marks stared at Goodhew expectantly; whatever reaction he’d expected from him he clearly wasn’t seeing. ‘What is in that pile, Gary?’
Goodhew reached for the first one. ‘More. Lots more,’ he replied quietly. He laid his right hand on the top of the pile. ‘See how these papers are bundled together? All but one relate to a death, and all of them are connected.’
Marks started counting
.
‘Ten deaths.’ Goodhew pre-empted him. He lifted the first two piles. ‘These concern Shanie Faulkner and Meg DeLacy, both suspected suicides and both sharing a house with Libby Brett, whose brother and sister had both killed themselves.’
Marks looked as though he was about to point out that they already knew this, but Goodhew pressed on.
‘What I didn’t know, until this morning, is that Shanie’s mother, Sarah Faulkner, was a schoolfriend of both Matt’s mother, Amanda Stone, and Libby’s father, Tony Brett.’
He moved on to the next two piles.
‘I was attacked outside the Carlton Arms – as was Joey McCarthy, who was also at the same school with Sarah, Amanda and Tony Brett.’
‘And three of the four lived locally,’ Marks interjected, ‘within the catchment area of their old school, so the fact that they all attended is hardly a coincidence.’
Goodhew nodded. He understood the point but didn’t agree. More importantly, he was prepared for this response. Amanda Stone’s notes came next, and he extracted a printout from her pile.
Marks frowned. ‘I hope you’re not going to suggest there was anything untoward about Amanda Stone’s death?’
‘No, just that her close friendship with Sarah Faulkner was the reason Shanie happened to lodge with the other students.’ Goodhew passed the paper over to Marks. ‘This is the list of pupils from a particular year,’ he continued. ‘Those four didn’t just go to the same school; they were all there at the same time. After that, I pulled all records on suicides, accidents and suspicious deaths from then until now, and there are a couple of other instances where two siblings died.’
‘Why did you look for that particular pattern?’
For the first time Goodhew hesitated, as he knew exactly what was coming next. ‘I made a list and realized that was the case, then with Rosie and Nathan Brett, I—’
‘You decided to fit the data to the situation?’
‘No.’ It was actually a yes but he drew breath and ploughed on. ‘The first two were former pupils called Aiden and Becki Stacy.’ Goodhew pointed at the list in front of Marks. ‘They were the children of Len Stacy, same school year. The other pair, John and Vincent Wren, were still at school and were the younger brothers of Rob Stone’s current employer and old schoolfriend, Colin Wren.’