Sorrow Bound

by David Mark

  “Up here. Playing fields.”

  Ahead, several acres of untended grass stretch away: a playground in one direction, and some form of stone memorial in the other. A police car sits abandoned in the road, among half a dozen vehicles parked haphazardly around a corner terraced house. The cars look as though they have arrived at speed and been abandoned.

  Pharaoh and McAvoy step from the car. As McAvoy arranges his clothes and makes himself a little more presentable, he peers over the wall that marks the boundary of the park. Old gravestones have been laid against the far side of it, their inscriptions mossed over and names lost to wind and time.

  “Shall we?”

  McAvoy takes a deep breath. He has done this too many times. Sat in too many rooms with too much grief; felt too many eyes upon him as he made his promises to the dead.

  They head toward the house. It sits on the far side of a low flower bed which carries nothing but dry earth and hacked-back stumps. Beyond that is a footpath, its surface a camouflage pattern of different tarmac patches.

  “Poor lass,” says McAvoy again, pushing open the gate.

  The house where Philippa Longman lived is the nicest in the row. Freshly painted black railings edge a driveway of neat bricks, upon which sits a tastefully varnished shed with double locks, and a child’s plastic playhouse. There are two hanging baskets by the double-glazed front door, and the front window carries posters for a charity coffee morning and a reading initiative at a local nursery school.

  Pharaoh reaches up to knock on the door, but it opens before she can do so. In the hall is a family liaison officer whom McAvoy remembers having met before. He is pushing forty, with receding hair and slightly crooked teeth set in a face that always looks to be squinting against harsh light. He’s a nice enough guy, who understands what he is there for. His job is not to heal these people or make sense of it. He’s just there to show that the police are doing something. That these people matter. That this death is important.

  “They’re in the lounge,” he says, his accent broad Hull. “Husband. Jim. Nice old boy. Two sons, one furious, one falling apart. Couple of daughters-in-law. A neighbor. A sister, too, if I got the family tree straight. Eldest daughter bolted about twenty minutes ago. Took the nippers to the park, I think. Boy and a girl. A cousin, too. Was all too much. Inspector Moreton and PC Audrey Stretton are holding the fort. Family know Mum isn’t coming back. They know that we found a body that matches her description. They had called her in as missing about five this morning.”

  Pharaoh turns to McAvoy, and without a word passing between them, he turns away from the house. The FLO opens the door to the living room, and as Pharaoh continues inside, McAvoy hears the soft patter of emotionless conversation, pierced by a wet, choking wail . . .

  He makes his way over to the entrance to the playing fields and follows the footpath through the long, straggly grass to the play area beyond a line of oak trees. Quercus robur, he remembers, unprompted, and has a sudden image of sitting at the kitchen table, breathing in peat smoke and wood shavings, mopping up potato soup with a hunk of soda bread: his dad washing pots at a deep stone sink and softly imparting facts over his broad shoulder at his eight-year-old son. “They call it ‘petraea’ in some places. Flowers in May and leaves soon after. Sometimes they have a second flush of leaves if it’s been a bad year for caterpillars. They call it Lammas growth. Can you spell that? You write it down and I’ll check it. Best charcoal for making swords, the oak. Burns slow. They use the bark for tanning, Aector. High-quality leathers, especially . . .”

  He shakes himself back to the present. Looks ahead. It’s a modern playground, with a protective rubber surface and plenty of padding. He remembers mentioning to Roisin that playgrounds seem a little too safe these days. Said he couldn’t see the point of bubble-wrapping all of the equipment when children have such a habit of banging their heads into one another. He had predicted crash helmets becoming compulsory on merry-go-rounds within five years.

  There are several adults in the playground but McAvoy spots Philippa Longman’s daughter immediately. She is pushing a child on a swing, and between each shove she is raising her hands to her face to cuff away tears that have turned her fleshy cheeks red and sore. She is wearing a denim skirt and a green tank top; her hair pulled back in a ponytail to leave a severe fringe at the front. It doesn’t suit her. Hers is a warm, open face that looks as though it contains a pleasant smile.

  She sees McAvoy approaching. Immediately identifying him as a policeman, she gives a slight nod and then grabs the swing to halt its momentum. She lifts the toddler out and gives him a gentle pat on the bottom, before pointing at a climbing frame where an older child is dangling upside down. She tells him to go play with his cousin. He wobbles off, and the woman extends her hand.

  “Elaine,” she says, and her voice catches. “Elaine,” she says again.

  “I’m Aector,” says McAvoy, taking her hand in his. It’s cold, tiny, and birdlike in his large, fleshy palm. “I’m a detective.”

  “The house is over there,” says Elaine, waving vaguely. “They’re all in there. Crying and bloody carrying on. I couldn’t take it.”

  McAvoy recognizes her voice from Philippa’s voicemail. She had left the most messages. By the last, her voice was just a staggered breath, broken up around the word “please.”

  “People are different,” says McAvoy, leading Elaine to a bench that overlooks the park. “Some need company, others need space. It’s agony whatever you do.”

  Elaine meets McAvoy’s eyes. Holds his gaze. He watches as tears spill afresh.

  “I don’t know what to do,” says Elaine, looking away. “Last night I had a mum. Little Lucas had a grandma. It was all normal, you know? I watched a DVD and had a bottle of white wine and I tucked in my son and I went to bed. Dad woke me up, ringing. Mum hadn’t come home. Was she with me, had I heard from her, did I know where she might be. I rang her, as if he hadn’t already tried that. Nothing. Phoned her work and there was nobody there. I got Lucas up and we went to her shop. Walked her route. Christ, I must have walked right past where she was bloody lying . . .”

  A shudder racks her body.

  “What if he was doing it as I walked past? What if I could have saved her . . .”

  Elaine dissolves. She shrinks inward, a creased fist of pain and despair. Her head falls forward, tears and snot pouring unimpeded down her face, and it only takes the slightest of touches on the back of her head before she is steered into McAvoy’s arms, where he feels her shudders like those of a dying animal.

  McAvoy had not meant to hold her. He knows officers who have no difficulty with the professional detachment encouraged in the national guidelines. But McAvoy cannot witness pain without providing comfort.

  “Oh my God, oh my God . . .”

  He senses her words as much as hears them; whispered against his skin. Gently, as if she is made of shattered porcelain, he lifts her back into a seated position and tries to raise her head to look in her eyes. She ducks from his gaze and then, unexpectedly, gives a little pop of laughter.

  “Your shirt, I’m so sorry . . .”

  McAvoy looks down at his waistcoat, and the mess of mucus and tears.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Here, I have a tissue . . .”

  “Your need is greater than mine.”

  She stops talking then. Just looks at him. Then she uses her wrists to dry her eyes, and pulls a tissue from the pocket of her skirt. She dabs her nose.

  “Don’t. Give it a proper blow,” says McAvoy.

  Elaine blows her nose. Folds the tissue. Blows it again.

  “You’re a dad, then?” she asks, tucking the tissue away. She manages a smile, at a memory. “My dad always speaks to me like that. Still takes my arm when we cross the road. What you got?”

  “Boy and a baby girl.”

  She looks h
im up and down. “Bet the lads won’t give her any trouble when she’s older, eh? You could snap them in two.”

  McAvoy smiles. “She’ll be able to look out for herself. That’s what you want for your kids, isn’t it? That they’re good people. Responsible. Able to take care of themselves.”

  Elaine nods and presses her lips together. “I think Mum did okay with us. Did her best, anyway. There’s me and my two brothers. Two grandkids now. Mine and Don’s. Don’s the middle kid, if you need to know that.” She stops herself. “What is it you need to know? Really? I’m no good back at the house. Don’s wife’s such a bloody drama queen. If I go in there I’ll say something. Dad doesn’t need all that around him. He doesn’t know what to bloody do, either, but once he’s stopped making everybody cups of tea this is going to kill him, too. They were together thirty-three years, you know. Got married as soon as she found out she was pregnant with me. Dad could have done a runner, couldn’t he? But he didn’t. Married her in a flash. Last time they agreed on anything was when they both said ‘I do,’ but they love each other.”

  Elaine falls silent. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands so just holds them in her lap. McAvoy looks past her. The other parents in the park have drifted together and the pair of them are receiving repeated glances. McAvoy wonders if they already know what has happened to Philippa, or whether they think he is some hulking great brute of a boyfriend who has just made his girl cry.

  “Mum helped get the funding for this park,” says Elaine, gesturing at the assemblage of brightly painted swings and slides. “Badgered the council until they couldn’t say no . . .”

  McAvoy looks around him. Wonders whether it is too soon to suggest they name it after the dead woman. He tries to find something to say but finds his gaze falling on Elaine’s son, sitting on a merry-go-round and hoping somebody will come and give him a push. McAvoy stands up and walks over to the merry-go-round. He smiles at the toddler, and then gently gives it a push, walking around at the same speed in case the child topples over and falls. He feels a presence beside him and turns to see Elaine, smiling weakly.

  “What am I going to do without her? What will he?”

  McAvoy reaches down and picks up the boy. He tickles his tummy, then under his chin, and is rewarded with a delicious peal of laughter.

  Still holding the boy, he chooses his words carefully. “Elaine, the unit I work for deals with organized crime. There is some suggestion that your mother was a little outspoken about some of the more unsavory elements in the neighborhood.”

  Elaine’s expression doesn’t change. “Is that something to do with this?”

  “We don’t know.”

  She turns away and stares across the grass in the direction of her mother’s home.

  “I don’t live around here,” she says after a time. “I live up Kirk Ella. Nice little place, just the two of us. I didn’t grow up here, either. We’re from Batley. West Yorkshire. Dad came over here for a job about fifteen years ago, and they bought this place. I can’t say I thought much of the area, but Mum said the people seemed nice. She made it a lovely home. Well, you can see that, can’t you? And she was never one to keep to herself. Couldn’t help but get involved. She’d lived here a year and she’d started a neighborhood association. Even ran for the city council as an independent. The papers used to come to her for a quote and she was always good value. Told them this was a nice neighborhood but that a few rotten apples were spoiling it for everyone. She meant that, too.”

  “Did she ever name names?”

  “I don’t think she knew any,” says Elaine. “Everybody on this estate knows how to buy a bit of this or that, but Mum was no threat to anybody’s business. Not really. She was probably a nuisance, if anything. She used to give your lot hell about the lack of police patrols and not seeing any policemen on the streets anymore, but it was busybody stuff, really. She wasn’t some informer. She worked in a bloody convenience store, for goodness’ sake . . .”

  “And she always walked home? It’s quite a hike.”

  “That’s my fault,” says Elaine, kicking at a clump of grass that is pushing through a crack in the spongy surface of the park. “We started this health challenge a couple of years ago. You have to do a certain amount of steps each day and enter the number on this website, and it tells you how far around the world your team has got. She was well into it. They gave us pedometers, and we both lost a bit of weight chalking up the miles. I packed it in when I got pregnant but Mum stuck with it. Said she wanted to be able to say she had walked to Mexico. Worked out that if she walked to and from work for her shifts and did a big walk on a weekend, she could be there before she was sixty.”

  “So anybody who knew her would know she always walked, yes? Anybody waiting for her would know.”

  Elaine reaches out and takes Lucas, holding him like a teddy bear.

  “This isn’t anything to do with drugs or gangs,” she says softly. “It can’t be.”

  “Do you know anybody who would want to harm her?”

  “She was a good person. My best friend . . .”

  “Elaine, this is a very early stage in the investigation, but we need to build up as clear a picture of your mum as possible. Did she have any enemies? Had she ever been threatened?”

  The dead woman’s daughter shakes her head. “She was everybody’s friend. She was a lifesaver. There was—”

  Elaine stops herself, her hand raised to her mouth.

  “Darren,” she says.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Elaine puts down her son. Tells him to go play.

  “My ex.”

  “Elaine?”

  She grabs a handful of her fringe, eyes suddenly alive with more than tears.

  “Shit, I didn’t think . . .”

  McAvoy takes her shoulders and turns her eyes to his. Tries to make it okay.

  “Elaine, you can tell me.”

  She sobs, and covers her mouth with her hand.

  “He said if he ever saw her again he would kill her. That he would tear her heart out the way I tore out his . . .”

  THREE

  Lemon-scented.”

  Helen Tremberg walks back to the car and pokes her head through the open window.

  “Sorry, ma’am?”

  Sharon Archer punches the steering wheel with the flat of her hand. When she speaks, it is through bared teeth and unmoving lips, and for a moment she takes on the look of a psychotic ventriloquist.

  “I said lemon fucking scented.”

  Tremberg presses her lips down hard on the smile that is threatening to become a snigger. It is an act as hard as calling a woman two years older than herself “ma’am.”

  “Sandwich, or anything?”

  Archer’s eyes flash fury as she turns.

  “Do I look like I’m in the mood for a fucking snack?”

  Tremberg turns away and heads for the pharmacy that represents the only chain-store name on this little parade of independent shops and salons. She pauses for a moment to look at the display of cupcakes in the window of a bakery, but an angry blaring of the car horn indicates that Archer is watching her in the rearview mirror and is not in the mood for waiting.

  “Okay, okay,” she mutters, accepting that, for now, there is no time for cake.

  It’s cool inside the brightly lit store, and for the first time in days Tremberg’s skin goose-pimples as the sweat turns cold upon her bare arms. It’s rare that she exposes any flesh while on duty, but today she has acquiesced to a short-sleeved blouse, which she has not tucked into her pin-striped trousers.

  “Wipes, wipes . . .”

  She finds the right shelf but pretends she can’t see the lemon-scented ones. She picks the packet with the most overtly chemical smell, then heads to the counter, where a short Asian lady gives her a bright smile.

  “It’s two for one
,” the lady says conspiratorially. “Special offer.”

  Tremberg shrugs. “They’re for my boss. She can make do.”

  The lady grins, and Tremberg hands over the five-pound note Archer had given her. “Put the change in the charity box,” she says, scrumpling the receipt.

  “We don’t have one.”

  “Then get yourself an ice cream.”

  Tremberg heads for the exit, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror behind the makeup display. She’s at ease with what she sees. At thirty-one, she’s happily single and rarely lonely, and though she may be a little more broad-shouldered than she would like, there is nothing offensive about her round face with its narrow features, or her simply styled brown hair.

  He’ll like it, she tells herself. Get up the courage to suggest a drink. And stop checking your phone!

  For the past few weeks, Helen has been receiving increasingly colorful messages from a solicitor she met while waiting for a court case. His e-mails are her favorite part of her day, and she has taken to checking her phone almost obsessively. Although she is no stranger to relationships, she is nervous about proactively being the first to get in touch each day. It seems important to her that she is the respondent to his overtures, rather than making the running herself.

  Helen emerges back into the muggy air and takes in the view. She’s never got out of the car on this stretch of road before and wonders if she ever will again. It’s no shabbier than anywhere else, and there are only a few untenanted shops. Each of the parking spaces by the side of the road is taken, and there is a steady procession of shoppers wandering from store to store, filling shopping bags with fruit and veg, bread rolls, sliced meat, saying hello over the noise of the traffic, and thinking about how best to jazz up the salad they are considering for tonight’s meal. It reminds Tremberg of the Grimsby neighborhood where she grew up. Normal folk. Normal people. Bit broke by the third week of the month, and a week in Benidorm each June. Fish-and-chips on a Friday, and six-packs of supermarket lager in front of the Grand Prix on a Sunday. The people she became a copper for. The people worth protecting.