by Luca Veste
He grinned at her, showing he wasn’t being serious. It did nothing to quell the feeling bubbling inside her. Louise started to answer, but decided against her first instinct. She took a second instead. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t listening properly. I was just thinking of that woman in the hospital. What she’s gone through.’
‘Oh,’ Shipley said, his voice growing quiet. The reality of the situation coming back now. ‘Listen, we’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. It’s probably exactly what it always is. Some horrible little scrote of a boyfriend, who’s decided to do a number on her. She doesn’t want him arrested, so makes up a story instead. Same old, same old. I don’t think it’s going to be some fairytale we used to tell each other as kids, do you?’
‘Suppose not,’ Louise replied, but she didn’t trust her own words. ‘What’s the plan then? We just ignore it, or do we at least look into her claims?’
‘We’ll take a look around, but from the word I’ve received from the ground, the blood trail didn’t lead any further than the road. Not into any woods or the like,’ Shipley said, after thinking for a few seconds. ‘Not that we’ll be able to see much at the moment. Not in this light. If we hadn’t been stuck in that hospital for hours, maybe we’d have had time. I’ll let uniform know it’s an area of interest for now. Do a proper search in the morning.’
Louise went back to staring out of the passenger window as the streetlights began to slowly disappear. The road went from two normal-sized lanes to the less wide country lanes. She knew the scenery outside would have become more interesting too, if she could have seen it.
She thought of what the woman had said. How scared she had been. As if everything she had ever considered to be real had been stripped away.
Louise knew that feeling well.
‘What are we going to be looking for exactly?’ Louise said, filling the silence between them. ‘There’s not likely to have been much left behind, if she was telling the truth—’
‘She isn’t telling the truth,’ Shipley cut in, his tone probably an attempt to lighten the mood, but just coming across to Louise as patronising. ‘She can’t be.’
‘What if she is though? What if someone was keeping her somewhere and she escaped?’
‘Well, I bet he panicked. Left everything behind and went on the run. Which means there’ll be evidence – wherever the scene is. If she’s telling the truth, we could be looking for a needle in a haystack and I don’t like our chances. Given how little she’s actually told us.’
Louise took her phone from her pocket, bringing the screen alive, then tutting when she saw the percentage of battery remaining. She left a finger over the home button, allowing the phone to read her fingerprint, then clicked on the Maps icon.
‘Tracing her steps?’
‘Something like that,’ Louise replied, finding the road where Caroline had been discovered wandering, then scanning back down to where she guessed she had walked from. ‘There’s a number of fields nearby, but they wouldn’t give you much privacy. I think we’ll be looking more for some kind of woodland. Trees to give you cover, if you’re keeping someone captive.’
‘Could have been a back garden for all we know. It’s not like we can rule out the idea that she may have been confused.’
‘Here,’ Louise said, zooming in on her phone to the closest wooded area she could find to where Caroline was found. She had been right. No more than a mile from the spot on the street where she’d collapsed. ‘Next to the canal. Drive to the bottom of Tithebarn Lane, near the Bootle Arms pub. You can access it from there.’
Once the road had widened a little Shipley pulled the car over, then looked at the phone screen as Louise pointed it in his direction. ‘I know that area,’ he said after a pause, turning back to the road and pulling away again. ‘There’s no chance we can cover any of that alone. Not to any useful extent. We’ll have to wait until morning and get a few uniforms sent that way.’
Louise said nothing, just moved around the map on her phone a little more for show. Silence fell on them once more, until Shipley turned in her direction again.
‘You’re not going to argue.’
It was a statement, rather than a question, but Louise chose to answer anyway. ‘No, you’re right. It wouldn’t really be a good idea to go traipsing around in the dark now. We wouldn’t find anything and if there is something there, we could end up missing it.’
‘Still, it’s unlike you not to argue against doing something like that.’
There was a slight tremble to Louise’s hands as she keyed the lock button on her phone and placed it in between her legs, so it didn’t fall to the floor of the car. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. It’s been quiet recently, as you know. Not used to being out this late. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll drop you off,’ Shipley said, checking his mirror, then turning around in the road. ‘We’ll need a few hours’ kip before the morning, if we’re going to be spending tomorrow looking for that needle. I’ll ring through to the uniforms still around. Get them to make a start on the search. You should get some rest.’
Louise was about to argue, but decided against it. There was a finality to his tone that she recognised as being useless to argue with. She eyed him from the corner of her vision. The few-days stubble, dark with patches of grey. The tanned skin that she now knew to be natural, rather than from a bottle or bed. The two-inch white scar that ran down the side of his neck, almost invisible unless you were looking for it.
The memory of how it had happened came to her then. As it did often.
Pounding steps on concrete. Her legs screaming in protest, as she desperately tried to keep up with Shipley ahead of her. The guy they were chasing even further ahead. Disappearing around a corner out of sight.
She wanted him to slow down, wait for her before rounding that blind corner, but she didn’t say a word. Simply kept running, trying to keep up.
A shout.
A sound. Thud. A body dropping to the ground.
She had slowed as she reached the end of the alley, turning the corner away from the wall.
Shipley was on the ground, lying still, his chest rising and falling hard. In the distance, the suspect was becoming a dot on the landscape. She only glanced in that direction, instead focusing on the figure over Shipley. His hand to the side of his neck. Holding a knife against the skin. He was shouting at Shipley, but she couldn’t hear the words. She was only focused on the blade, piercing his skin. His neck.
Shipley began to struggle, as blood appeared, but it didn’t matter.
By that point, Louise was already on him.
Louise remembered the fear she’d felt as she had caught up to Shipley, seeing him lying on the ground, the blade against his skin.
The fear, then the anger. Some bloke waiting around a corner as they chased his brother from a crime scene. Angry, or stupid, enough to think stabbing a detective would allow his brother to escape. Both of them ended up locked up for a long stretch. Shipley received some kind of award for it all, but hated talking about it. She shook the memories off and concentrated on the road ahead of them.
Ten minutes later, she was standing at the edge of the path outside her house, waiting for Shipley to peel away from the kerb. She gave him a wave, sensing him having an internal battle about whether to wait until she made her way inside or to play it cooler. She turned her back, took a few steps and then stopped as she heard the car’s engine kick in, then fade away.
She listened for any sound, her breathing coming in short bursts. She wanted to close her eyes and control it, but the darkness was too much.
Louise tried to recall the last time she had been afraid of going inside her own home. A ridiculous feeling, but one she struggled to ignore. Still, she stood there on the path, listening to her own breathing. No other sound, other than the wind as it rustled the small hedge around the edges of what she laughably called a front garden. There was no light within her house that she could see. She willed herself to walk a few steps, feel
ing more confident with every movement. Her keys were out already and when she reached the door, she took another breath, then unlocked the door and watched it swing inwards. Waited a few seconds on the doorstep, then stepped inside.
Louise flicked on the hallway light, feeling better as soon as the darkness was eliminated. Took off her shoes and began shedding the detective costume she wore during the day. She moved upstairs, filling the wash basket with the clothes she’d been wearing, then walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
The house was silent. Devoid of any noise other than the ones she made.
After she’d washed away the day’s events, she sat on the edge of her bed, holding her mobile phone in her hand. A few months earlier, she would have called someone. Just for a chat. Simply to hear the sound of someone else’s voice in the quiet of her small home, even if it was only on the other end of the phone.
Now, she was alone. The last non-police friend she’d had not answering her calls any longer. That’s what she did. She got close to people, then found a way to destroy it.
The contacts list in her phone was filled with them all.
Carla – Two years since they had spoken. Fell out over who had bought the most drinks in a pub. Louise could still easily find the anger at being taken for a fool over that. Like she didn’t always end up paying for most of the rounds on a night out.
Harriet – Going on four or five years. Louise had told her the truth about her boyfriend. How he’d tried to feel her up in the kitchen at a house party, which was how he’d really ended up with a broken wrist. Harriet hadn’t believed her. Another friendship dead.
Sarah – Six months. She hadn’t appreciated Louise’s tone of voice when someone had cut them up in traffic. Or the fact she’d got out of the car and pounded on the bonnet of the car in front, when they reached the same set of lights seconds later. It wasn’t Louise’s fault that Sarah’s baby had been in the backseat and started crying as soon as he’d heard the raised voices.
Louise thought about deleting all these memories of not being alone, but instead she locked her phone and tossed it onto the bed beside her. The closest person she had to a friend now was Paul Shipley, which was a sobering thought. She thought about the man as she dried off and changed into pyjamas. The way he looked at her sometimes, the jokes he would tell the others in the office. He was a mix of old-school and new man. Someone who wanted to do right. Someone who would enjoy putting his boot through a door, but listen to every word the person on the other side would have to say afterwards.
She thought of the others at the station. The way people would think they would be like a family. All the men and women in blue, together as brothers and sisters.
It wasn’t really like that, of course, but it was the closest she was going to have right then.
Her family was dead. The last one – her grandmother – had gone three years earlier.
She was the only one left.
Five
There was a sense of an atmosphere change overnight among the uniforms, now spread out across the land near where Caroline had been found the previous day. A possibly thankless task, which Louise could see was being made more difficult by the fact that there were very few of them doing it. She could see three from where she was standing; others, she assumed, might have made it further into the undergrowth.
‘We’re not going to get very far without being given a better indication of where this place might be,’ Shipley said, sidling up to her and handing over a Styrofoam cup of what she hoped was coffee. ‘Could have been the other way for all we know. She might have got turned around somewhere and become even more confused. That’s if she was in the woods at all, of course.’
‘She seemed pretty adamant that’s where she was.’
‘Yeah, well, who are we to argue,’ Shipley replied, removing the lid on his own cup and blowing on the liquid inside. ‘Except being detectives who have heard stories like this for years. You know, if that counts for anything.’
‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not exactly invested in Caroline’s story?’
Shipley took a swig of his drink, pretending he hadn’t burned his mouth doing so as he turned towards Louise. ‘It seems straightforward to me, but the rest of it . . . no. I get it, I do. Young woman found badly assaulted. It’s not like we haven’t seen that kind of thing before. It just becomes much harder to deal with when they make up a story. Are we supposed to believe everything she’s said so far? The Bone Keeper is suddenly a real-life person, who she escaped from? Come on.’
Louise kept quiet, wrapping her hands around the cup and staring into the fields in front of her. She knew they would be going back to speak to Caroline soon enough. She would let him talk for now. He’d picked her up that morning – her car was still parked near the original crime scene – without needing to be asked. It had become the norm more recently, him picking her up on the way to work.
She hadn’t complained or questioned it, despite her knowing it wasn’t exactly on his way.
‘Besides, it’s hardly rocket science is it,’ Shipley continued, turning away a little and blowing on his coffee again. ‘We know how these things usually end. We’ll pick up some bloke, who’ll say she had it coming or some such rubbish. I know it and so do you. What makes you so sure this time is different?’
‘I never said I was,’ Louise said, lifting the coffee cup to her mouth and risking a taste. ‘We need to be thorough though.’
Shipley snorted in response, but didn’t argue with her any further. She was glad of that. She wasn’t sure she could take any more arguing that morning. She stifled a yawn, hoping he didn’t notice.
‘Didn’t get much sleep last night?’
No such luck, Louise thought. ‘Not really, no. I was thinking about all of . . . this.’
‘We’ve been working together how many years now?’
Louise turned to Shipley, eyebrows raised, waiting for the punchline. He didn’t continue, so she prompted him. ‘Three. At least.’
‘Right, three,’ he replied, nodding his head. ‘We work together well, don’t we?’
The question was so out of the ordinary, Louise was stumped for a few seconds. They had been shoved together a few years earlier, when Louise finally made detective. He was the rank above her, but never made that apparent. Instead, he’d looked out for her over the years. Kept her sane, without ever realising that had become his role.
She knew he would stare at her every now and again, running through scenarios in his mind. She’d seen the looks before, many times. Only occasionally did she succumb to them.
Sometimes, she needed to feel normal.
‘I think we complement each other,’ she said eventually, when the silence became too much. ‘I’m the one who likes to do things thoroughly, you prefer to go off half-cocked. We meet in the middle and that’s usually the best way.’
Shipley said nothing for a second, then smiled. ‘You’re probably right with that assessment.’
‘What makes you ask?’
She watched as Shipley thought for a few seconds, wondering what was going through his mind. He sighed, then took another sip of his coffee.
‘I don’t really know anything about you,’ Shipley said finally, turning back to her. ‘You know, outside of work. Your family, your friends. After this long, you’d think I’d know that much by now.’
‘There’s not much to tell,’ Louise replied, looking away, over the field. ‘Can’t imagine you would be very interested.’
‘I am. That’s my point. We’ve been working together, side by side, for at least three years, and I don’t know the first thing about your life, other than the fact you live alone and never mention anything personal. What about your family, friends . . . boyfriend?’
‘Maybe there’s just nothing to tell.’
‘I doubt that,’ Shipley said, a short laugh escaping his lips. ‘We all have stories to tell. You know I’m from a large family. You know about my brothers, their wiv
es, their kids. You know my parents are getting older and more annoying. What about yours?’
‘Maybe there’s nothing to tell because they’re not around to be annoying,’ she tried again, hoping he would drop the subject. She knew the moment the words passed her lips that it wouldn’t.
‘You’ve lost your parents?’
Louise thought for a second, wondering if it was the right moment to let him in. He was right – they had shared so much professionally over the years, but she had never really talked about anything other than work with him. She, of course, had listened to him drone on for hours about his own family. ‘Yeah, both gone. My grandparents brought me up.’
‘Brothers, sisters?’
‘No,’ Louise replied, feeling the familiar feeling in her chest. The tightening, restricting, choking sensation. Air slowly dissipating around her, thickening the atmosphere. She bit down on the inside of her lower lip, experiencing the pain through the fog.
Fire burned around her for a split second, before she closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again to reality. She could feel the air lighten around her, once more easing into her lungs without effort.
‘No siblings,’ she said, knowing it had only been a second or two, but also feeling as if it had been much longer. ‘It’s just me.’
‘And you’re enough,’ Shipley replied, smiling at her. ‘See, wasn’t it nice to share after all this time.’
‘Maybe you’ve just never asked before.’
Shipley shrugged his shoulders, the smile fading as he stared out across the grassland stretching out in front of them.
Louise stared at the side of his face for a moment longer, then turned back to face the open fields. Thankfully, they hadn’t been asked to join the search. She wasn’t sure she could face traipsing through the woodland right at that moment.
Knowing what could be out there.
Instead, Louise waited for as long as she thought was necessary, before pulling Shipley aside and saying it was time to go and speak to Caroline again.