by Celina Grace
“What do you think?” asked Olbeck when they met in the canteen during a break in the interview.
Kate stirred her coffee.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “On the face of it, there’s everything to suggest it was him. Rejected ex-boyfriend, tempestuous relationship. The usual kind of thing. But—”
“I know what you mean,” said Olbeck. “I was watching him the whole time. He looked scared but not—not guilty, if you see what I mean.”
“A look is not evidence,” said Kate, tipping him a wink. “Isn’t that what you’ve said to me before?”
“Ha ha.” Olbeck tipped up his mug and drained it. “He’s got no alibi, as yet.”
“Are you going to charge him?”
“Not sure. Don’t think so. I don’t think we got enough for it to stick, quite frankly.”
“Have you quizzed him about the pregnancy?”
“Not yet. Anderton’s keeping that up his sleeve for now. We’ve swabbed him for DNA obviously.”
“Right.” Kate picked up her bag and keys and stood up. “I’m off back to the Duncans’ house. I need to have a look at Elodie’s bedroom.”
Kate braced herself before ringing the bell of Rawlwood Cottage. She fully expected Elodie’s mother to present the kind of bleached, transparent countenance that only grief could produce. When Genevieve Duncan answered the door, she was certainly pale, her eyes ringed with shadow, but there was something else about her, some other kind of emotion running through her that Kate couldn’t quite pinpoint. It shimmered around her like an aura.
“Yes, of course,” she replied when Kate asked her if she could see Elodie’s room. Mrs Duncan’s voice was blank, and her eyes were staring at something in the far distance visible only to her.
“I’ll leave everything as I find it,” said Kate.
Mrs Duncan nodded. She didn’t watch Kate walk up the stairs but instead drifted back into the living room, out of sight.
Elodie’s room was large and about as far away from her parents’ bedroom as it was possible to be, tucked up into the eaves of the roof. A former attic, the walls sloped sharply downwards from the ceiling, and the only window was small and many-paned. Kate stood in the doorway for a moment, getting the feel of it, snapping on her gloves. It was a pretty room, tastefully decorated. Kate could see that Elodie had stamped her personality over the space in a variety of ways. A huge poster of Jim Morrison covered almost all of one wall. Kate regarded it, feeling as if his dark eyes were watching her. Did teenagers really still listen to the Doors? There was a cork noticeboard next to the poster with a mass of ticket stubs and flyers pinned to it. Kate looked more closely. Glastonbury, Bestival, Isle of Wight festival tickets, some torn-off wrist bands and lots of smaller gig tickets were evident. Well, Elodie had been musical after all, nothing very surprising that she’d enjoyed going to see her favourite bands.
There were photographs on the walls, some framed, some just blu-tacked to the paint. Kate looked at one of Elodie and a girl she recognised as Amy Peters. Both girls looked younger, perhaps thirteen years old: still almost children. They had their arms slung about one another and were laughing, Amy facing the camera, Elodie looking off to the side.
Elodie’s violin was laid on the bed, still in its black case. Kate touched it tentatively, then unsnapped the locks and raised the lid. The violin was a beautiful thing, made of polished golden wood. Kate ran a finger softly over its strings. She had never learned to play a musical instrument, and at that moment, she felt the loss keenly. She’d always felt it was something she really ought to do, a skill everyone ought to have to be a fully-rounded person. Then she smiled. Even to herself, she sounded like Miss Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. “A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages...” She thought, Kate, you’ve got plenty of other accomplishments, Don’t do yourself down.
There were a few books by the bed, a rather incongruous selection of children’s classics. Winnie the Pooh, Watership Down, The Velveteen Rabbit. Strange bedtime reading for an eighteen-year-old girl. But perhaps they were just there because they’d always been there since Elodie was a child. Kate picked each book up and shook it upside down to see if anything fluttered out. Nothing. She got on her knees and looked under the bed. You could find surprisingly revealing things under a bed sometimes. Kate remembered the strange photo album that had been under poor Gemma Phillips’ bed back in the Charlie Fullman kidnapping case: her first case in Abbeyford. She remembered Charlie’s mother, Casey, the little blonde trophy wife. Briefly, Kate wondered what had happened to her. The Fullmans’ marriage hadn’t lasted much longer than their courtship, if she remembered correctly.
Kate blinked, bringing herself back to the present. There was nothing under Elodie’s bed except for an empty shoe box and plenty of dust. Kate got up, dusting off her trousers. She checked Elodie’s wardrobe, stood against the only flat, windowless wall at the end of the room. There was something so sad about the clothes of a person who’d recently died; they drooped from their hangers more emptily than normal. Kate moved the hangers apart, checking between each dress and coat and shirt. Shoeboxes were stacked on the floor of the wardrobe. She brought them out into the light, one by one, opening the lid and checking the contents. Nothing untoward. Nothing until she reached the last one, when she pulled off the lid to reveal a plastic bag wrapped tightly round on itself. She could smell the contents nonetheless. She unwrapped it gingerly.
A bag of marijuana, home-grown by the look of it. Kate hefted it in one hand. Several smaller plastic bags of pills. By far the biggest bag in the box was filled with white powder. Kate recalled the manic glitter in Elodie’s eyes the night they’d met. The night Elodie had died. Cocaine, then, or some such stimulant. She put all the drugs back in the cardboard box and folded it carefully into a large evidence bag. After a moment’s thought, she put the evidence bag into her handbag and zipped it up, hiding it away from Elodie’s mother’s eyes.
Chapter Nine
“Well,” said Olbeck when she showed him her find back at the station. “You can’t tell me that’s for personal use.”
“Not unless she was spending every hour of the day off her face. And I think that would have been obvious to anyone, don’t you?”
Olbeck took the bag from her. “We’d better get the usual tests done, just in case.”
“I know.”
“Find anything else? Anything at all? A diary, or something?”
Kate began to gather the various forms she needed to fill in.
“Teenage girls don’t keep diaries any more, do they?” she said. “They just post it all on Facebook.”
“True.” Olbeck leant back in his chair and pushed his hands through his hair. “The plot thickens. We’ve got a potential suspect in the ex-boyfriend, and now it seems that our murder victim was a drug dealer.”
“We really need to ask her parents about the pregnancy—and this.” Kate flourished the bag.
Olbeck nodded. “Let’s talk to Anderton. Right now.”
As they approached his office, the door stood ajar. Anderton was reclined in his chair behind the large desk, sitting still and staring into space. This was so unusual that Kate stopped dead herself, her hand raised to knock. She stopped short of touching the door as she took in the scene. Anderton was never still. Ceaseless, relentless energy was his defining characteristic. For a moment, Kate was infused with a sense of dread. Perhaps Anderton was ill. Really ill. He’d looked so tired lately: tired and somehow diminished.
“What’s wrong?” whispered Olbeck behind her.
Kate shook herself mentally.
“Nothing,” she said, and knocked.
Anderton took a moment to respond. Then he turned his head disinterestedly.
“Yes?” he asked, after a moment.
“We’ve had some new developments on the Elodie Duncan case,” said Olbeck, sounding a little uncertain. Kate knew he was wondering what was wrong w
ith Anderton just as she was.
There was a moment’s silence that hung between the three of them. Then Anderton seemed to take hold of himself.
“Right,” he said. He sprang up from his chair and Kate almost gave a sigh of relief. “Bring me up to speed then. What’ve you got?”
Kate told him of her find in Elodie’s wardrobe.
“Right, right,” he said, pacing to the window. He leant both hands on the sill for a moment before turning to face them. “Well done. This could be important.”
“We were going to question her parents again. See if they know anything.”
“Yes, do that. We’re due the tox tests any day now, so we’ll be able to see if our girl was partaking as well as supplying.”
Kate thought of something.
“Elodie’s baby,” she said, a little awkwardly. She didn’t like discussing things like this with either Olbeck or Anderton—they knew too much of her past. But it could be important…”Is it possible to get a DNA test done on the—the remains of the baby?”
Both men looked at her.
She added. “If we could, we could run the results through the database. See if there’s a match on record.”
“Mmm,” said Anderton. He tousled his hair. “Might be worth a try. Look into it.”
“I’ll speak to the pathologist,” said Kate.
Once they were outside Anderton’s room, Kate turned to Olbeck.
“Stop grinning.”
“I’m not. I’m smirking.”
“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” said Olbeck, innocently. “Sure it’s not just an excuse to talk to our young pathologist friend?”
Kate snorted and turned to march off.
“Not everyone’s as sex-obsessed as you,” was her parting remark, flung over her shoulder.
Olbeck said nothing else on the journey to Rawlwood Cottage but kept the same infuriating grin on his face, humming a little tune. Kate tried to ignore him. Then she asked him whether he knew if there was anything wrong with Anderton.
The grin dropped from his face immediately.
“Why do you ask?”
“You know,” said Kate. “He’s not himself. There’s something bugging him—or he’s not well.”
“I don’t know,” said Olbeck, worriedly. “He hasn’t said anything to me.”
“Hmm.” Kate drew up outside the Duncan’s house. “Okay, we’re here. Do you want to take the lead, or shall I?”
“Drugs?”
Mr Duncan looked as if someone had just punched him in the face. He had been standing, but at the word, he sat down suddenly on the sofa behind him, as if his legs had suddenly given way.
“I’m sorry, Mr Duncan,” said Olbeck. “I assume you weren’t aware that your daughter had a large quantity of drugs in her bedroom? That she could well have been supplying them to others?”
Mr Duncan was shaking his head from side to side slowly, seemingly dazed.
“I had—I had no idea,” he said. “I can’t—can’t believe it. Surely there must have been some mistake? Elodie…Elodie wasn’t like that.”
Kate was looking keenly at Genevieve Duncan.
“Mrs Duncan?” she prompted. The woman sat with eyes cast down, picking at the worn threads of the armchair once again. How many hours had she sat there, pulling threads from the arm in ceaseless anxiety?
“Mrs Duncan,” said Kate again, more firmly. “Is this news to you?”
For a moment, she thought the woman would refuse to answer. Mrs Duncan put her hand up to her face, covering her eyes in a characteristic gesture.
“Mrs Duncan?”
“I found something,” Mrs Duncan burst out. She lowered her shaking hand. “Just once. A plastic packet with something in it. I don’t know what it was. Some sort of white powder. I’m not stupid…I—” She pinched her trembling lips together for a moment with her fingers, and then released them. “I asked Elodie about it.”
“You asked her?”
“Yes. I had to, didn’t I? My own daughter…” Mrs Duncan slumped against the back of the chair, her hands falling limply to her lap.
After a moment, Kate asked, “What happened?”
Mrs Duncan stared into space.
“Mrs Duncan?”
“She got angry,” said Mrs Duncan, dully. “The way she always did. She had so much…rage inside her. I don’t know where it came from… She got angry, and then she laughed and said that I didn’t know anything. That I didn’t understand and never had.”
“Did you ever find anything else?”
“No. I never did. But I didn’t look. Who knows what else she had in her room, what she could have been hiding?”
Kate knew the time was right for the second question, but she quailed a little at asking it. You needed the hide of rhinoceros to do this job, sometimes. Was that what was wrong with Anderton? Could he just not face the emotional payback any more?
Olbeck pre-empted her. He did that sometimes, knowing almost telepathically when to take over and face the outcome, letting Kate gather her defences together once more.
“I’m sorry to cause you both any more distress, but I have another question for you. Where you aware that Elodie was ten weeks pregnant when she died?”
Mrs Duncan made a noise, a kind of half-grunt, half-shout. She flinched back as if Olbeck had shouted at her.
“Oh my God,” was all she said and then the tears began again. Mr Duncan gathered her into his arms, rocking and crooning to her like a child.
Olbeck gave them a couple of minutes. Then he asked the question again.
“No, of course I didn’t know,” Mrs Duncan almost shouted. Mr Duncan sat beside her, shaking his head.
“Mr Duncan? Did Elodie confide in you?”
He flinched. “No. No, she didn’t. I had no idea, no idea about any of this.” There was some kind of undercurrent to his voice, and it took Kate a few moments to realise what it was—anger. “I had no idea what she was up to. She didn’t tell me anything.” He glanced at his wife. “She didn’t tell us anything.”
“Who was it?” Mrs Duncan sat up, holding her arms across her body like a woman expecting a physical blow. Her voice was shaking so much it was hard for Kate to understand what she was saying.
“What do you mean, Mrs Duncan?” asked Kate.
“Who was the father?”
“We don’t yet know, I’m afraid.”
“Yet?” said Mr Duncan, his face grey. “You mean you will know?”
“No, we can’t promise that, sir, I’m sorry. There’s a possibility that we’ll be able to run various tests that might give us a DNA profile, but it’s not certain. I wouldn’t want to give you false hope. Even if we do get a DNA sample, there’s no way to know anything more unless we have an equivalent record on file.”
“I see,” said Mr Duncan. He put one shaking hand up to his forehead. “I don’t know how much more of this we can take.”
“We’re very sorry,” said Olbeck. “We’ll keep you informed every step of the way.”
Chapter Ten
“Can you drop me back at my place?” Kate asked as they were on their way home. “In fact, why don’t you come in? We’ll pick up Jay and take him back to the station to do his statement.”
Olbeck concurred. As they drew up outside Kate’s house, she realised someone else had parked in her driveway.
“That’s not your car, is it?” asked Olbeck.
“No, it’s not.” Kate got out of the car, puzzled. The car was a large estate car, old but well-kept. She didn’t recognise it. Halfway to the front door, it opened and out came someone she wasn’t expecting or prepared to see: her mother.
“Kelly!”
Her mum flung her arms around Kate. Taken by surprise, Kate could only manage a feeble “Hi, Mum. What are you doing here?” in response.
Her mother didn’t seem to notice her lukewarm greeting. She released Kate and stood back, beaming. Kate almost goggled. Her moth
er looked…well, groomed was the only word for it: her hair done, make-up on her face, her clothes different to the usual stained and worn tracksuit that Kate was used to seeing her wear. She looked smart, a word hitherto never associated with Mary Redman.
Kate pulled herself together.
“What are you doing here, Mum?” she asked. “Did Jay let you in?”
“Thought we’d see your new place, didn’t we? I said to Peter, ‘We may as well go and see Kelly while we’re here,’ and so we all came over. Very nice too, Kelly, shame you didn’t invite us over before.”
A man appeared in the doorway behind Mary. He was portly, middle-aged, with a neatly-trimmed beard. He was wearing brown cord trousers and a fisherman’s jumper.
“Here he is,” exclaimed Mary. “Here she is, Peter. This is Kelly.”
Kate forced a smile. She shook hands with Peter, debating whether to insist that he call her Kate. She realised Olbeck was standing behind her, and she introduced him to her mother and Peter. Thank God she’d already told Olbeck she’d changed her name in her teens. As it was, he was not above calling her Kelly when he wanted to annoy her.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Peter. He had a kind of tweedy, avuncular air about him, which was quite appealing. What was he doing with her mother? Kate found herself shepherding them all back into the house where she had a second surprise: her two younger half-sisters Courtney and Jade were in the garden with Jay, smoking cigarettes.
“It’s the full family contingent,” she said to Olbeck, trying to make a joke of it. He hadn’t met any of her siblings before except Jay.
“Alright, sis,” said Courtney, coming over and giving her a smoky hug. “When are you gonna get some real furniture?”
“What do you mean?” asked Kate, realising with a jolt that her seventeen-year-old sister was now taller than her. And Jade—she hadn’t seen Jade for nearly a year. Her youngest sister was now a large, plump young woman, and she was wearing a pair of straining leggings and a top that did nothing to hide a mountainous pair of breasts. Try as she might, Kate could not suppress the thought that her fourteen-year-old sibling looked cheap and tarty. She gave Jade an extra warm hug to try and atone for her thoughts.