No Place to Die

by Donoghue, Clare

  The sound of the young constable’s voice brought Jane’s thoughts back into focus.

  ‘When did you arrive home?’ the constable asked.

  ‘Today, about six-fifteen,’ Sue said. ‘We spoke last night, Mark and I, about what time me and the kids would be home – what we should have for tea. He was going to cook a lasagne.’

  Jane replayed her own conversation with Sue when she had arrived at the house in Bromley three hours ago. On the drive over from Lewisham she had run through as many scenarios as she could think of, trying to find an explanation for Mark’s disappearance. In Catford, with the dregs of the rush-hour traffic slowing her progress and horns blaring, she had toyed with the idea that Mark might be having some kind of mid-life crisis, arriving home with a new haircut and a Porsche. She had dismissed the idea as stereotypical and stupid. Mark was an ex-copper: ‘rational’ was his middle name. As she had passed Beckenham Hill and negotiated her way around a three-car shunt, she had thought about the obvious scenario: that Mark had found someone else. Again, it hadn’t felt right. Mark and Sue had been together for thirty . . . thirty-five years. They had met on the force in their early twenties, married within two years and then spent the next fifteen working their way up in their respective departments. Thomas, their eldest son, had been born on Sue’s fortieth birthday, and George had arrived two years later. By the time Jane passed Millwall training ground she was running out of ideas. She knew that Mark had suffered from anxiety attacks since his retirement from the force five years ago. The transition from a detective chief inspector in the murder squad to stay-at-home dad and retiree had been tough. Sue had told Jane on several occasions that Mark felt redundant – without focus, emasculated somehow. She rubbed her eyes, resisting the urge to shake her head.

  From the second Jane had crossed the threshold into Sue and Mark’s home she had known something was wrong. Despite the welcoming lights in the hallway, the plush Persian rug beneath her feet and the warm honey-coloured walls, there had been something ominous, a coldness. She thought about the blood in the utility room. Was it possible that Mark’s mental state was worse than Jane, or even Sue, had realized? Could this be a suicide? Sue’s eyes told her that the same thought had more than crossed her mind. It was a potential reality that seemed to be crushing the very breath out of her. Jane had pulled out a chair, sat down and taken her friend’s hand. ‘We’ll find him, Sue,’ she’d said, surprised by the assurance in her tone.

  ‘Can you take me through what happened after you arrived home, Mrs Leech?’ the constable asked, giving Jane a nod. She recognized the gesture from her own experience as a fresh-faced recruit. It was a silent thank-you from a young DC who felt way out of her depth.

  Sue took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Thomas and George went straight upstairs to play on their Xbox and I came into the kitchen, made a pot of tea and opened my mail.’ She gestured to a pile of half-opened post on the table.

  The constable scribbled in her notepad, nodding. ‘And did you notice anything out of place, out of the ordinary?’

  Jane watched as Sue looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for information. ‘No, not really,’ she said, squeezing Jane’s hand. ‘The boys called out when we first came in and, when Mark didn’t respond, I just thought . . . I can’t remember what I thought, but I wasn’t concerned. I guess I just assumed he was in his shed or out at the shops.’ A single tear rolled down Sue’s cheek and came to rest at the edge of her lips.

  ‘I know this is difficult, Mrs Leech, but anything you can tell us will help.’

  The reference to ‘us’ didn’t escape Jane’s notice. Part of her was tempted to intervene, give the girl a break and push on to the more salient information, but she resisted. The constable was right. Even the most insignificant detail could be crucial in cases of disappearance. Given the evidence in the utility room, treating this like a standard ‘missing person’ seemed ludicrous.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sue said, her tone almost soothing. She had been a senior DI before her retirement, working in the family unit. Cases like this would be all too familiar, but no amount of experience could help when it involved your own family. Jane knew that she herself would be a wreck if anything happened to Peter, but despite Sue’s tears there was a calmness to her demeanour that Jane couldn’t help but admire.

  ‘At what time, approximately, do you think you entered the utility room?’

  ‘About six-thirty,’ Sue said, looking down at her hands. ‘The cat needed feeding, and I wanted to put the boys’ football kit on to wash. That’s when I saw the blood on the floor.’

  ‘What made you think the substance was blood, Mrs Leech?’ the constable asked, her pen poised over her notebook.

  ‘I’m a retired police officer, not to mention a mother. It’s a familiar site in a house full of boys.’ The carefree comment seemed to catch her by surprise. Jane could almost feel the atmosphere shift in the room, as if the normality of Sue’s words had disturbed some negative ether surrounding them. ‘I just knew it was blood.’

  ‘Could you describe it, Sue?’ Jane asked, before she could stop herself.

  ‘It was about the size of a ten-pence piece,’ Sue said, holding up her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate. ‘It was to the left of the doormat. I was bending down to put the boys’ clothes into the machine. At first I thought it might be from one of the boys: a nose-bleed, or Mark had cut himself in the garden, but there was something – I don’t know what – there was just something about it that scared me. I didn’t even notice the marks on the wall until you guys got here.’

  Jane turned to look at the doorway to the utility room. There seemed to be a constant murmur from the SOCOs as they photographed and documented the scene. She wondered what she would have thought in the same situation. Sue wasn’t prone to panic, any more than Jane was. The job gave you gut instincts. Time and experience taught you how to interpret them. If Sue felt frightened when she saw the coin-shaped drop of blood, it was because somewhere deep inside she already knew what was to come.

  Jane listened as the constable changed tack with her questions, steering Sue back to the more mundane aspects of her discovery. It would be a technique she had been taught, to keep the witness talking, to keep them calm. Jane waited for Sue to respond, before standing and walking over to the utility room where all the activity was centred. She leaned into the small side-room.

  It was no more than eight foot by six. She stared at the nearside wall, above the peninsula where the washing machine and tumble dryer were kept. It looked as if someone had loaded a paintbrush with red paint, flicked it at the wall and then tried, in vain, to wipe it off. The result was numerous brownish smears. There were a few spots on the countertop, but the concentration of the staining was on the wall. As Jane looked, she wondered again about Mark’s mental state. Sue and the boys had been to Sue’s parents for the Easter weekend. They had only arrived back tonight, which meant that Sue must have taken the boys out of school for the extra day. Mark had chosen to stay home. Why? Sue hadn’t said. Could the amount of blood fit with a suicide? She shook her head. Mark was an ex-copper. He would have been to his fair share of suicides over the years. They were, without exception, horrendous. Not because of the body; the blood, vomit, faeces and urine. That was expected, part of the job. It was because of the face of the wife, mother, child, brother or whoever had been unlucky enough to discover the body. Jane couldn’t imagine Mark doing that to Sue or his boys. But it might explain why the blood had been washed off.

  She walked further into the room so that she could look at the wall face-on. She closed her eyes and imagined Mark standing next to the peninsula, maybe even leaning on it, cutting into his own flesh, testing the sharpness of the blade. Most suicide victims showed evidence of numerous cuts: nerves, uncertainty about the pain or how deep they needed to go made practice incisions common. If Mark had thrown his arm out, in shock at the pain or the resultant bleeding, he might have created a blood-spatter consistent with w
hat Jane was looking at. It was possible.

  ‘We’re almost done in here, Jane,’ one of the Scene of Crime Officers said. It was difficult to tell exactly who was who on the SOCO team, when they were working on-scene. They were in the full get-up: hooded white paper suits, boots and face-masks. One of the team flicked off the lights and turned on the four UV lamps positioned at each corner of the room. The smears of blood on the wall were unmistakable. They stood out like black scratches across the paintwork.

  Sue’s sobs dragged Jane from her thoughts. She walked out of the utility room. Sue was sitting alone at the kitchen table now, crying into her hands. Thomas and George had been taken back to Sue’s parents. Thomas was thirteen, George only eleven. They were both too young to see this – too young to support their mother or be exposed to this amount of grief. Jane thought about Peter. She had missed putting him to bed this evening, like so many other evenings. Then she thought about Lockyer. She needed to call him, to let him know what was happening. Since Sue’s call, Jane had only been able to brief him with the bare essentials. Mark and Lockyer were close, or had been, and given his current demeanour she knew Lockyer wouldn’t let up until Mark was found.

  She let her head fall back, relishing the pinch as her neck muscles pushed against her tired shoulders. It was then that she realized she wanted the blood to be Mark’s. She wanted his wounds to be self-inflicted. She was trying to force a suicide to fit the scene in front of her because the alternative was worse, much worse.

  CHAPTER THREE

  22nd April – Tuesday

  I can’t feel my legs. The numbness is spreading.

  At first it was just my feet. I reached down with cold fingers, stroking the soles, pinching my toes, but I felt nothing. It was like touching someone else’s freezing flesh. Even now the thought makes me shudder. I don’t know how long I have been here, but at the beginning – at the start of this nightmare – I would have given anything not to be alone. I screamed and cried out, hoping to hear an answer. Someone else in the dark with me. Someone to save me. But there is no one. I am alone. I don’t cry any more. There isn’t enough moisture left in my body to create tears. I’m empty.

  I curl up in a ball, reach down and run my hand over my left thigh. Nothing. I try the other leg. No feeling at all. Death is leaching under my skin, sliding into my bones, slithering up towards my heart. I roll my head back and forth on the hard ground. Coloured lights dance behind my eyelids. I think about my routine. Routine – it feels like an alien word down here, but it is the only thing I have to stop the madness. Before the numbness started I would crawl back and forth, my hands searching every inch of the space, touching the smooth mud, feeling for any inconsistency. I know the layout of my tomb better than I know my own face. The thought comforts me, though I don’t know why. I have tried to dig my way out. I dug until my fingers ran with blood. To know you are bleeding, without being able to see. A sensory game I am unaccustomed to playing. The pain familiar, but dulled by the cold. The smell metallic and sweet. The sensation as the slick warmth bathes my hands, dripping onto the floor of the space. There is no way out.

  I sleep, but there is no rest. Hours, or maybe days, ago I awoke to find I couldn’t crawl any more. I couldn’t move. My body had become a dead weight, pinning me down. I wailed and pleaded with the darkness. My routine was gone. Without it, madness would return and envelop me. As I rocked myself, I pushed my tired mind to find another escape, another regime I could follow. The numbness has been my answer. I use it to mark the time. Like the hours on a clock, it creeps inch by inch over my body.

  My time is running out. I can see the hourglass in my head. I can visualize each and every grain of sand dropping through the centre, as if in slow motion. Each grain is a nerve ending, an electron, a neuron – a basic-level gene that makes up my life. It is pouring away faster and faster. I remember my bed. I can almost feel the warmth of my duvet, thick and heavy on top of me. It’s pulled up over my head, my breath heating my face. I know I should get up. I know I need to get on, keep living, but the heat keeps me there, fixes me to the spot. I feel a pain in my stomach, dull and cramping. It travels up to my chest, squeezing my lungs.

  The numbness is spreading.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  23rd April – Wednesday

  Jane stared across the open-plan office at Lockyer. He was hunched over his desk studying something on his laptop. He hadn’t spoken all morning, not since she had told him about Mark’s disappearance. She had prepared herself for a barrage of questions, but instead he listened and nodded, before returning to his bubble of apathy. He didn’t even react when she told him that the DNA results on the blood wouldn’t be back until Friday, at the earliest. ‘You’ll just have to be patient,’ he had said in a monotone. Patience – a word no one in this office would associate with Lockyer, let alone hear him say aloud. She shook her head and put her hands over her ears, trying to block out the revving of engines and car horns invading the office from Lewisham High Street. She wasn’t sure she had the capacity to be patient as well as dealing with her caseload, her boss’s bad attitude and the constant noise of Lewisham traffic.

  She turned in her chair and looked out of the window. The station car park was the only view that greeted her: police vans and squad cars lined up in precision-spaced rows. The sun bounced off the windscreens, creating disco-ball patterns over the expanse of concrete. It wasn’t a green field with oak trees swaying in the breeze or an ocean view, but, like a lot of other things, she was stuck with it and it could be worse. She rubbed her eyes, remembering too late that she was wearing mascara. She peered into her computer screen and attempted to wipe away the black smudges on her cheeks. She felt like crying. There was still no movement on the missing girl from the Stevens case. The girl whose photograph Jane had memorized, though not from choice. Missing Persons were yet to come back with anything, and no one had called in after the press release. Cases were piling up around her: half-started, half-finished, half-arsed. She slumped in her chair and spun back around and resumed checking her emails. When she saw one from Lockyer, she pressed ‘Delete’ without thinking. He had withheld evidence relating to his brother – evidence that might have a serious impact on the Stevens case. That was bad enough, but it was the brother part that really stung. All the years they had known each other, worked side by side, Lockyer had never even told her he had a brother, let alone that he was autistic, like Peter. Didn’t he trust her? Her phone started ringing.

  ‘DS Bennett,’ she said, snatching up the receiver.

  ‘Hi, Jane, it’s Dixie. I’m working the front desk today and wondered . . . ’ There was a pause. ‘I wanted to see if . . . Are you dealing with Mark Leech’s disappearance?’

  Jane sat back and pushed her fringe off her forehead. ‘Well, officially it’s not a disappearance yet, Dix,’ she said, ‘but I guess the jungle drums are working. What can I do for you?’ This was the first call about Mark, but given how long he had worked in Lewisham, Jane knew it would be the first of many. In fact she was surprised it had taken this long for word to get around.

  ‘A call just came through. I thought it might be . . . relevant.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Jane said, reaching across her desk and snagging a pad and pen. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Derek Small, phone number: zero, double seven, three, nine . . . four, one, three, six, seven, eight. He lives at the southern end of Elmstead Woods. He’s found a trainer – brand unknown – in the woods. He thinks there might be blood on it.’

  Jane noted down what Dixie was saying. ‘Right. Anything else?’ She wanted to ask why this would be of interest to her, but sensed that Dix had more to say.

  ‘I told Mr Small to leave the item where it was and that an officer would be in touch. His dog picked it up, tried to take it home apparently, so Mr Small can’t be positive where in the woods the shoe was. Anyway he’s gone home now, but he said he’s happy to come back out whenever we can get a squad car over there.’ Dixie paused, it seemed, fo
r Jane to say something, but what could she say? A call-out about an unidentified trainer – blood or no blood – was a bit beneath Jane’s rank. ‘Anyway, I know you’re probably wondering why I’m bothering you with this,’ she said, as if Jane had spoken aloud, ‘but I just thought you ought to know that . . . I thought you might not know that Mark used to walk his dog in Elmstead Woods. He went there a lot. I mean, it would be a while ago now, as Barney died a few years back, but . . . I’m sorry, you must think I’m nuts. Mark was so good to me when Jason was ill. I wanted to help, if I could?’

  Jane took a deep breath and looked down at her pad. She had doodled crazy S-shapes all around Mr Small’s name and phone number. ‘It’s fine, Dix, I understand. I’ll get a car sent over there.’ She paused. ‘I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.’ She listened to Dixie apologize several more times, before hanging up and dialling through to Despatch. She relayed all the information and was about to hang up when the officer stopped her.

  ‘Actually, looking at the system, we’ve just had another call relating to Elmstead Woods,’ he said.

  ‘About the shoe?’

  ‘No. A caller – no name given – phoned in to say that a man . . . Hang on a second, let me get into the full phone log.’ Jane waited, drawing her pad closer to her, with her pen poised. ‘That’s right. A man, mid- to late fifties, dark hair, well built, about six foot, was hanging around the park and, quote, “walking funny”; seemed to be, and again I quote, “injured”,’ the officer said, with an air of disinterest. Jane figured he was angling for her to take both calls off the sheet. An image of Mark flashed into her mind. He wasn’t far off six foot. His hair was dark; thinning, but still dark. And he was certainly well built.

  ‘Assign the call to me,’ she said, logging on to her computer. ‘Email me the full sheet and I’ll deal with both calls.’