by Lisa Cutts
Chapter 11
I pulled up outside Stan’s house. It was a beautiful place. He loved his garden and, even at this time of year, hundreds of pink roses spilled across the porch roof. The scent hung all around me as I rang the doorbell.
On the way over I’d tried to work out what he might be about to tell me, but I’d been a coward and put it out of my mind. I’d rather face it head-on.
A light went on in the hallway and I heard footsteps coming towards me. Same footsteps as all those years ago; totally different circumstances. But this time felt just as terrifying, only now I had a frame of reference for it.
The door opened on an ashen-faced Stan. I dropped my handbag on the porch and put my arms around his waist. Stan started to cry. The tears were silent. He shook slightly as he tried to hold it together. After a minute he pulled away from me and said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ That was another surprise; he’d usually uncorked a good red well ahead of my arrival. I followed him through the hallway along its plush, heavy carpet, to his vast kitchen. I watched him walk over to the range and busy himself with tea, coffee, chocolate, sugar, sweetener. He fussed over arranging the mugs on a tray. I sat at the table. I’d deliberately chosen one of the chairs closest to the range – didn’t want to put any distance between us. As a retired police officer, Stan was bound to pick up on that, but I thought that he would appreciate the gesture.
I waited for him to speak again.
‘Sugar?’ he asked.
I had never taken sugar and he knew it. I didn’t answer. I waited for him to look in my direction. When he turned around to look at me, I simply shook my head. He didn’t meet my eyes.
At last, he brought the tray and the superfluous sugar. He sat next to me on the corner so we faced each other but at an angle, not head-on. Less confrontational that way, just as we’d been taught over the years in interview training.
Stan placed his hands palms-down on the table, took a deep breath, and said, ‘I have prostate cancer.’
I was out of my seat with my arms around him before I realised I’d done it. It was my turn to cry. I really tried not to. It wouldn’t help Stan, it wasn’t about me, it was about him, but what would I do without him? He hadn’t just rescued me, he’d set me on a course for the rest of my life. I had a career, I had friends, a pension, a purpose. No Stan, no purpose. I had so many questions but I knew the answers might not be the ones I wanted. My mind was racing. Stan would not have been so insistent that I come over so late at night if this wasn’t serious. Other than his face being pale, though, he looked just the same. I couldn’t comprehend that he had cancer.
‘Now, Nina. It’s not that bad, you know. I need to have surgery and quite soon.’
‘When?’ I managed to say as I broke away from him. ‘Need a drink, Stan.’ I looked around at the wine rack built in to the dresser in the corner.
He got up and selected a bottle, taking an age to study the label. Just pour it, I wanted to scream.
Now that Stan had something to occupy his hands again, he seemed more comfortable talking about it. I let him carry on, as it calmed us both. Or it would calm me once he opened the bloody bottle.
‘Next week,’ he said. ‘I have what they call “locally advanced prostate cancer”. That means that the cancer has spread outside the prostate but not anywhere else. Surgery should remove it, but there is the option of radiotherapy afterwards.’
Stan continued to tell me how he’d come to get tested, avoiding my eye when it came close to revealing anything too personal. He was my friend but still a bloke I respected, and some things really weren’t for sharing. We talked about the options open to him, how long he’d known, what Samantha’s reaction had been.
‘Who was that woman who answered the phone earlier?’ I asked.
‘Deirdre. She lost her husband to prostate cancer and runs some sort of support group. She came round to see if she could help in any way.’
I grinned at him. ‘You dirty old git.’
‘Language, Nina.’
Chapter 12
21st September
Another hangover, another day at work. I’d stayed at Stan’s until the early hours and, although while there I’d only had a couple of glasses of wine, I’d gone home and drowned my sorrows. It wasn’t just the alcohol, it was the lack of sleep, and this was day eight on duty. I was already tired when I got to work.
I sat through that morning’s briefing taking in all the information we had so far on the murders of Amanda Bell and Jason Holland, but distracted by the previous evening’s events and the dull thud in the left side of my head. I didn’t have much to add. The enquiries Wingsy and I had finished before we’d gone home yesterday hadn’t moved matters on at all. Other colleagues had more important and relevant information to impart. I listened and made notes. An update was given on David Connor, who was being charged after the briefing with football-related GBH, plus possession of a few offensive weapons, but bailed regarding Operation Guard. It seemed we hadn’t amassed enough evidence on him. The scale of work in store for the team was breathtaking.
An hour and a half later, when the briefing finished, there was the usual stampede for the toilets and tea machine. I found Pierre coming out of the kitchen with two mugs of tea.
‘Made you one,’ he said, handing me the cup. ‘There’s no sugar in it.’
‘Thanks. That’s good of you,’ I said, thinking that he was pretty thoughtful as well as decent-looking. I hoped that my eyes weren’t still bloodshot; that might put him off.
We took our drinks to a couple of spare computers in the middle of the Incident Room. The position was hardly ideal, but the room was full of DCs and DSs trying to gather their paperwork and sort out the logistics of their day.
Pierre told me a bit about himself and how long he’d been on the squad. He made me laugh a few times and I had to check myself to make sure I wasn’t doing my over-the-top giggling. I didn’t want to look like an idiot or far too keen. While we were chatting, Pierre passed me names and addresses to enter into the system so that we could research our witnesses for the day. Once we were armed with everything we needed, we gathered up our files and equipment and went in search of a car. That was our first stumbling block. Forty minutes later, having negotiated some keys from someone else, we made our way to the yard and found our newly allocated car for the day.
Our first visit was to see a woman called Josie Newman. She was an old friend of Amanda Bell’s and lived about eight miles away from the nick. Pierre drove and I did a recap of what we had been able to find out about her. ‘She lives with her mum and there’s a suggestion that they were once a mother-and-daughter prostitute team. Previous for drugs, which would figure due to the prostitution. Nothing much else on them, though.’
We decided which of us would speak to the mum in case they were both at home, and ran over what we wanted to ask. With that out of the way, I started to pry into Pierre’s private life. I thought I’d try a subtle approach to begin with, revving it up if the need arose.
‘Had a bit of a late one last night,’ I said as casually as possible.
‘Oh, yeah. Did you go anywhere good?’ he asked, glancing over at me.
‘A very old friend needed a visit. It was great to see him but I stayed longer than I intended to.’ Why had I said that?
‘Lucky you, Nina,’ came the reply.
‘Oh, no. No, he really is an old friend. And he’s old. Very old. We were just catching up. What about you? Did you get up to much last night or did you have a late finish at work?’
‘I left at about eleven. Just went home and tried to get some sleep. It’s going to be a very long couple of weeks.’
‘Yeah. As great as it is to have a few extra quid at the end of the month, right now sleep seems more important.’
We were nearly at our destination and I still hadn’t confirmed if he was single. I must be slipping. Eight miles used to be plenty to get a feel for a man.
At the address, Pierre walk
ed beside me to the front door. I could smell his aftershave. He knocked and we waited. A woman in her mid-sixties came to the door. She was wearing a green velvet dressing gown tied with a gold cord, red lipstick on her lips bleeding on to her face, and a jet-black wig, which was wonky on her head.
Pierre said, ‘Mrs Newman? Police.’ We both showed our identification.
She didn’t look down at the warrant cards, but walked back along the hallway, saying, ‘Come in, come in.’
Pierre and I looked at each other and followed her inside. I noticed that on her left foot was a red slipper and on her right a green one. We hastened after her into the lounge, a pleasant if musty room. So far, she didn’t seem too bothered about why there were two police officers in her house, but that could have been because she was crazy. As a police officer I wasn’t qualified to make a medical or psychological diagnosis, but I wasn’t about to turn my back to her.
She indicated that we sit on the sofa opposite the armchair she had just taken.
‘Thank you,’ said Pierre as we sat down. ‘Can I just confirm that you are Mrs Newman, Josie Newman’s mother?’
‘Yes,’ she answered with a nod. The wig inched forward. ‘I’m Susan Newman.’
‘Is Josie here?’ asked Pierre.
‘No, she’s not. She lives abroad now.’ Susan was sitting upright in the chair, leaning back against the headrest. ‘She had to get away once little Josh died, things were so bad for her. She went to France with a boyfriend.’
‘Josh…?’ said Pierre.
‘Her son, my grandson. He fell into the fishpond in the garden when he was two. He was only out of our sight for a minute.’ Her mouth dropped as she said this, accentuated all the more by the lipstick. I’d found the Baby Jane impression pretty hilarious at the front door. It didn’t seem so funny now.
Pierre and I persevered with our questions but after half an hour we weren’t really sure that we were getting anywhere. Taking contact details for Josie and giving her our cards, we got up to leave.
Susan stood up too. Her wig remained in the chair. It must have been caught on the chair-back cover. She didn’t seem to notice and we were too embarrassed to say anything. Her head was almost entirely bald. Just a few white, wispy strands remained.
As we walked back along the hallway, she said, ‘Pierre Rainer. Are you French?’
We looked round at her and saw she was holding our business cards, one in each hand.
Pierre winked at me. ‘Yes, Mrs Newman, I am.’
‘Thought so. You have that garlic look about you.’
Chapter 13
Once back in the car, we set off for our next visit.
‘Sad, a little kid dying like that. Wonder if she was barking mad before he died?’ I said to my colleague for the day.
‘Don’t know but, as you said, it’s sad. You got any kids, Nina?’
Here we go, I thought to myself: this might have just got easier. ‘No, just me. No one to please or worry about. You, Pierre?’
‘No. I do want kids but it’s not looking likely in the near future. I split with my partner about two months ago.’
‘You never know – you just have to meet the right person.’
‘I thought I had, but it turned out he didn’t want the same things in life.’
For crying out loud. I really was losing my touch. Might as well rip into the Galaxy bar in my handbag now.
I searched through my bag for the chocolate and offered Pierre a chunk to show there were no hard feelings. ‘Were you together long?’ I asked.
‘Four years. We still speak but, you know…’
Yeah, I did know. Knew that the smell of his aftershave was getting on my nerves. I opened a window.
As we drove, I tried Josie Newman’s number several times, but got no reply. Finally, towards the end of the afternoon, with several other dead-end enquiries out of the way, we got a reply. Pierre spoke to her on speakerphone as I wrote down the content of the conversation.
I got the impression that Josie had been expecting the call. I guessed that she’d already been warned by her mother, and Josie confirmed this was the case. She was in another country so there was little we could have done to prevent them contacting each other, which was a shame: it was always better to catch someone off guard if possible, as they were more likely to give something away, even if it was just the way they looked at you. On the phone, all I could glean was that she had a very soft lisp and was well-spoken. That revealed little.
‘Mother has lost it a bit,’ she said. ‘She may have appeared to be somewhat, shall I say, eccentric? I gather that you were asking about Amanda. Such a shock. What can I help you with?’
‘It’s a bit sensitive over the phone really,’ explained Pierre as tactfully as he could. ‘We are aware that you, your mother and Amanda were all involved in prostitution. I know that’s in your past but, as this is a murder investigation, we have to speak to those who may have information. Is there anything you can tell us that may help lead us to the person or people who stabbed Amanda?’
There was a short pause. Pierre and I looked at one another.
‘Silly Amanda. She was such a bad judge of character. We did all work as prostitutes but I’ve not taken part in anything of the sort for a number of years. Neither has my mother.’
That at least was good news. I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing. From the shaking of Pierre’s shoulders, I could see he was finding the thought of Mrs Newman and her wig turning tricks fairly funny too. Getting it caught on the back of a chair would be the least of her worries.
Josie, unaware of our silent merriment, continued, ‘I left England some time ago and settled in the South of France six years ago. I’ve made a new life for myself. I’ll help however I can but I haven’t seen or spoken to Amanda since I left. I read about her online. Her little boy – he’ll be about eight years old now, won’t he? Is his father looking after him?’
‘Yes, he is, Josie,’ said Pierre.
We took the rest of her contact numbers from her, and requested that she call us if she thought of anything else at all, and then Pierre and I started winding down for the end of the shift. I’d enjoyed the day working with Pierre, despite my disappointment at the lack of progress in my love life. And that he kept eating my chocolate.
My headache had subsided and I fancied a drink.
Chapter 14
22nd September
I had offered to work on my rest day but, under the guise of health and safety, I was told to take the day off. The truth centred around an already overspent budget. Forensics alone was costing tens of thousands. I drank heavily, slept heavily and woke up feeling lousy. I drew up a list of chores I had to pack into one day off, before seeing an old friend in the afternoon and then heading off to meet Laura for a drink later that evening.
First, I worked my way through the jobs I could achieve without leaving the house. It made sense to prioritise telephone and internet tasks. Besides, I was probably still over the limit.
A couple of hours later, having demolished a pot of tea and a bacon sarnie, I got into my old, slightly worse-for-wear BMW and drove to the supermarket, where I bought the usual essentials for myself and a couple of bags of luxuries for my old acquaintance, Annie Hudson. It was difficult to describe my and Annie’s relationship. I’d got to know her when I was working as a Metropolitan police officer in the area she’d lived in all her life; we’d met through some terrible domestic circumstances of hers. When I’d transferred to the neighbouring force where I now worked, although I’d moved home as well as changed job, I hadn’t been able to leave Annie behind. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I couldn’t shake loose of her. For over fifty years, Annie had barely been further than her estate or the local shops. Once a year she went to the out-of-town shopping centre for Christmas presents, and she had only been to the West End of London once in her life for a school trip to the theatre. She still referred to the play as ‘a load of poncy shit’. Now a
nd again, I would visit her and drop her shopping off, stay for an hour or so and listen to what she had to say.
Often the visits would leave me in a bad mood, other times grateful for the life I had. Stan’s situation had made me feel more benevolent so I tried to convince myself that today Annie would be of use to me. She wasn’t exactly a police informant; for a start, I paid her in coffee, butter and Italian meats. Sometimes she would pass on something of interest and I’d send it on to the relevant nick, marked ‘source anonymous’, but usually it was bored housewife drivel.
I parked around the corner from Annie’s council house in my usual spot; she ‘didn’t want the neighbours to know the filth had been’. The street was well kept in parts, an embarrassment in others. Annie must have seen me coming: she opened the door and said, ‘You’ve put on a bit of weight.’
I exhaled all of my benevolence on to the driveway. ‘And your moustache is coming along nicely, Tom Selleck,’ I replied.
She came towards me, took one of the bags from my hand and peered inside. ‘Is there Parma ham in here? Not that own-brand stuff you got me last time.’
‘Is the kettle on?’ I asked. It was like this most times I called on her. I quite enjoyed it, to be honest. That was the thing with Annie: you got the truth. Whether you wanted it or not, there was no dancing around an issue; she gave it to you straight. Sometimes it was not what you wanted to hear or was hurtful, but it was usually the answer you knew was correct.
‘You been on the piss?’ she said. ‘You look like something the cat dragged in.’
I followed her into the kitchen and set the second shopping bag down next to the one she’d put beside the fridge. Annie looked at me properly. ‘Something troubling you, girl?’
I felt the tears welling up and tried to speak. ‘It’s Stan,’ I managed to say. ‘He’s got cancer.’
She hugged me, and I hugged her back. Annie had never met Stan but I had told her bits about him over the years. I never revealed anything personal about him and I hadn’t told her about my sister and me. She was, however, aware of the huge influence he played in my life and the total trust I had in him.