Stop Dead

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Where the hell have you – oh,’ she broke off and raised her eyebrows, pulling her silk dressing gown more tightly around her substantial frame. ‘What do you want? George isn’t here. And before you ask, I don’t know where he is. He had nothing to do with that murder you’re investigating so why don’t you leave him alone? He was with me, all the time –’

  ‘Desiree, I’m afraid I have to tell you there’s been another murder.’

  ‘Another murder? Well, it’s got nothing to do with George so you can just –’

  Desiree stopped abruptly, her eyes anxiously searching Geraldine’s face.

  ‘Why are you here? Where’s George?’

  Desiree’s emotional outburst degenerated so rapidly into hysteria that Geraldine feared for the girl’s mental stability as she howled without restraint, bending over forwards to clutch her stomach. She allowed Geraldine to close the front door and steer her back into the apartment.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ Geraldine urged, manoeuvring the weeping girl into the living room.

  When Desiree finally calmed down enough to listen, Geraldine explained something of the circumstances of George’s death but she was circumspect, wary of setting the girl off again. Desiree was clearly shaken to hear that he had been murdered.

  ‘What? Like Patrick, you mean?’ she asked, her voice punctuated by hiccups.

  ‘Did you know Patrick Henshaw?’

  ‘No. That is, I’d met him a few times, when I was with – with George, but I never really spoke to Patrick much myself. I just sat there while they talked, you know.’

  ‘What did they talk about?’

  Desiree shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know. They were always talking about the restaurant. I wasn’t even listening most of the time. Menus, complaining about the chef, and the staff, problems with the plumbing, that sort of thing. And they talked a lot about money, but I didn’t understand any of it.’

  Geraldine thought about the balding paunchy man she had met and wondered what had inspired such devotion from the attractive young woman in front of her.

  ‘Tell me about George,’ she said gently.

  Desiree sniffed.

  ‘We never meant it to happen, him and me, but sometimes you can’t help these things, can you? He said it was love at first sight for him.’

  ‘And for you?’

  Desiree shrugged.

  ‘I was in a bad place, I’d just come out of a bad relationship.’

  She sighed.

  ‘You know how it is. I’d been a complete idiot. Oh, he was drop-dead gorgeous and I fell for him, didn’t I, only turns out he was a rat, stringing me along, me and I don’t know how many others. Even when I knew he was messing me around I didn’t finish it straight away because you keep hoping, don’t you? I didn’t want anything more to do with men after that, only then George turned up and he was different, a real gentleman, treated me nice and – he was kind to me.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘He just bought me a drink when I’d finished my act, and we started talking –’

  ‘Finished your act? Are you a dancer then?’

  ‘Like a pole dancer, you mean? God no, nothing like that. Look at me! I haven’t got the figure for it. No, I’m a singer. Desiree. I used to do gigs all over the place, where I could, and that’s how I met George, when I was singing at the restaurant one night. It was pouring and I’d forgotten to take a coat so he offered to give me a lift home. He was kind like that –’

  Without warning Desiree burst into tears again. Geraldine felt sorry for the girl who was barely more than a child, but needed to press on with her questions.

  ‘Is there a friend, or a family member, who can come here to be with you tonight?’

  Desiree shook her head and blew her nose noisily.

  ‘No, I’ll be alright. I’ll phone my sister.’

  Geraldine waited while Desiree made a tearful call.

  ‘She’s coming straight over. You don’t need to wait, I’ll be OK. She’ll be here soon.’

  Amanda Corless lived in Bexley, on the outskirts of South East London near the Kent border. The journey was likely to take an hour, even on a Sunday, so Geraldine set off as soon as she could. Although George and his wife hadn’t been living together for three years, they were still married; nominally George, his wife and their two children had remained a family. His son and daughter had both left home and were no longer financially dependent on him. Nevertheless, he had continued to treat them generously, perhaps because he had left their mother when they were both in their late teens.

  It was easy to see that George had a ‘type’ as soon as Geraldine set eyes on Amanda Corless. The woman who opened the door had voluptuous curves now run to fat, and shoulder length, unnaturally blonde hair. It was almost like looking at an older version of Desiree, but where the young woman’s blue eyes were trusting, Amanda’s were shrewd and wary.

  ‘What do you want?’

  She glared at Geraldine who introduced herself.

  ‘May I come in, Mrs Corless?’

  Amanda made no move to admit her.

  ‘Why? What’s this about?’

  ‘It’s about your husband.’

  ‘George? Listen, I’ve no idea what he’s done and I don’t want to know either. Whatever it is, it’s nothing to do with me. He doesn’t live here any more. You’ll have to speak to him. Leave me out of it. I can give you his address if you want.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Corless. We have his details.’

  Geraldine took a deep breath.

  ‘Mrs Corless, I’m here to tell you that your husband is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  Geraldine nodded.

  ‘Now may I come in?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to hear about it. He’s caused me enough grief.’

  She frowned and took a step back, raising a hand to close the door.

  ‘We’re not together any more, so what makes you think I’d give a toss? Go and tell his whore. See if she cares. I don’t. Why should I? He walked out on me for some tart and now –’

  She broke off, her lips trembling.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  Geraldine insisted she needed to ask a few questions. Amanda seemed shocked to hear that her husband had been murdered, but she insisted she was unable to help the enquiry into his death.

  ‘You can’t think of anyone who might have wanted to harm your husband?’

  ‘What? George? No. I mean, I was mad at him, of course, when he walked out on me for some young floozy.’

  She laughed, her expression bitter.

  ‘I could have killed him then, alright, and the kids were mad at him too for what he did. But that’s all over and done with. I don’t have anything to do with him any more but he still sees the children. At the end of the day he is their father.’

  Geraldine waited and Amanda drew a sharp breath.

  ‘He was a selfish bastard and he walked out on me. So what? Am I supposed to fall apart now he’s dead?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I finished crying over that bastard years ago.’

  She made to close the door, her eyes glittering with repressed fury, or tears, it was impossible to discern which.

  ‘All of this has nothing to do with me and, if you must know, he had it coming. Whatever happened was no worse than he deserved.’

  ‘Mrs Corless –’

  ‘Like I said, I stopped crying over him a long time ago. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.’

  She slammed the door.

  CHAPTER 30

  Geraldine had arranged to visit an old school friend, Hannah, that Sunday evening, as she was already half way to Kent. In her twenties Geraldine had allowed herself to become obsessed with work to the exclusion of everything else. With growing maturity – or perhaps just declining energy – she was trying to pace herself by making time in the week for some distraction from her job. She was conscious that her former detective chief inspector had suffered
a coronary brought on by the stress of the job. So far the alteration in Geraldine’s work-life balance hadn’t proved detrimental to her work. On the contrary, what would once have felt like a dereliction of duty now seemed increasingly essential to her performance. Viewing another body had dampened her mood that morning, but her spirits rose as she left London and the pressures of the investigation behind her. It was a sunny afternoon and she sang along to an old Madonna CD as she drove, the window wound down so she could feel the breeze on her face. She felt invigorated, and excited about returning to Kent.

  After the usual greetings: ‘I love what you’re doing to your hair these days,’ and ‘You’re looking tired, not overdoing it in the big city, are you?’ they sat round the table for dinner. To begin with Hannah’s husband was quiet but he became quite expansive after an excellent dinner, talking at length about cricket, a passion he shared with his cherubic round-faced ten-year-old son. As soon as she set eyes on the girl, Geraldine understood why Hannah had been so concerned about her thirteen-year-old daughter lately. It was nearly a year since Geraldine had last seen her, and Eleanor had grown up almost beyond recognition. Her features had sharpened and her blue eyes had a shrewd look that was slightly disturbing in a thirteen-year-old. The girl moved her body with precocious consciousness of her own sexuality. Tight clothes exaggerated her well-developed figure, displaying a cleavage that was bound to attract attention from teenage boys, if not older men. She could easily have been mistaken for eighteen, her knowing expression accentuated by dark eye shadow and thick mascara framing the sullen eyes of a disaffected teenager.

  ‘Look at you,’ Geraldine greeted her, ‘you look really grown up.’

  Eleanor glared and Geraldine felt embarrassed at having addressed her in such patronising terms. Clearly it was no longer appropriate to address Eleanor like a child. She decided against asking about school, choosing instead to converse in more general terms.

  ‘So how’s things, Eleanor?’

  The girl muttered incoherently.

  ‘You’re not supposed to call her that any more,’ her brother interjected. ‘She doesn’t want to be called Eleanor.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? God, the fuss. I’ve changed my name. I’m entitled to change my name if I want to. I don’t know why you have to be so immature about it. Just because you’re a stupid –’

  ‘Now, now,’ their father interrupted. ‘We’ve got a visitor. Let’s have some manners.’

  ‘Well he doesn’t have to diss me. I’m allowed to change my name. There’s no law against it.’

  Geraldine learned that Hannah’s daughter wanted to be addressed by her middle name, Jessica. Eleanor explained that she hated her first name, had always hated it, hated her parents for saddling her with such a pathetic name, and hated her brother for refusing to call her by her preferred name. Throughout lunch the adults all addressed her as Jessica. Her brother persisted in calling her Eleanor at every possible opportunity, and she deliberately ignored everything he said to her.

  ‘Pass the salt, Eleanor.’

  ‘Hurry up, Eleanor.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat that, Eleanor?’

  Neither of their parents paid any attention to the sibling squabble which Geraldine found both irritating and amusing.

  It was a relief when the two youngsters scurried off to their rooms after dinner. Jeremy offered to clear up.

  ‘Which means he’ll dump the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and leave them for me to sort out later,’ Hannah laughed.

  ‘This isn’t London,’ Jeremy replied, smiling at Geraldine. ‘None of your metrosexual men here out in the sticks. Not yet, at any rate.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hannah laughed. ‘He’s joking.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to stack the dishwasher now, won’t I?’ he grinned.

  Hannah and Geraldine settled down for a chat over another glass of wine while Jeremy clattered about in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t want to hear any details of your latest gruesome case,’ Hannah said and they both smiled.

  ‘So tell me how it’s all going here,’ Geraldine replied. ‘Because I haven’t really got anything to talk about except work and to be honest I’m more than happy to get away from all that for an evening.’

  Hannah complained about her exasperating daughter and Geraldine sipped her wine and made sympathetic noises. Hannah’s family life felt reassuringly normal, the kind of existence Geraldine had once envisaged for herself.

  ‘She’ll grow out of it,’ she assured her friend.

  She felt herself unwinding.

  ‘But listen to me jabbering on,’ Hannah said at last. ‘What about you? How are you finding life in London?’

  Geraldine considered. Ian had asked the same question. Both her friends spoke of London as though the capital was a foreign country, although it was less than two hours’ drive away. When the roads were quiet she could make the journey in just over an hour.

  ‘Well,’ she hesitated. ‘It’s not that different really, but it feels different. It’s hectic. Everyone seems busy, all the time, and everywhere feels crowded. People rush around all the time, with no time for anything, so it’s not what you’d call friendly – although I’m making friends on the force,’ she added quickly, noticing concern in Hannah’s face. ‘There’s a more obvious ethnic mix, and it takes longer to feel you belong because everyone’s so busy.’

  ‘I can’t say you’ve sold it to me yet.’

  ‘No, but I like it. It’s very exciting. There’s always something going on.’

  Hannah poured another glass of wine, and Geraldine made up her mind to take the plunge.

  ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘Well? Is it a man?’ Hannah grinned.

  ‘No, no, it’s more complicated than that. It’s hard to explain.’

  ‘You’re not ill are you?’ Hannah asked, putting her glass down and leaning forward, suddenly anxious.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’

  ‘You haven’t done anything – anything … ’ Hannah paused at a loss what to say.

  ‘It’s about my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  Hannah looked baffled. Geraldine’s mother had died nearly a year earlier.

  Geraldine paused.

  ‘The thing is, the woman who brought me up, the mother you knew – she wasn’t my mother. Not really. Not at all, in fact.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I was adopted.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Hannah looked relieved, then frowned.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me before? And why are you telling me this now?’

  Geraldine explained she had only discovered the truth about her birth after her adoptive mother’s funeral.

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it until last year when the mother you knew died. It explains a lot. My sister being blonde while I’m so dark. She always looked like Mum; you could see the resemblance. I never looked like either of my parents, not really.’

  ‘You mean Celia wasn’t –?’

  ‘Celia was our mother’s biological daughter but after Celia was born there were complications and Mum couldn’t have any more children so they adopted a baby.’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me.’

  Hannah stared at her for a moment.

  ‘And they never told you?’ she asked at last.

  Geraldine shook her head and tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  ‘Celia knew. She says she thought Mum had told me and, to be fair, I suppose it wasn’t Celia’s place to tell – but my mother never breathed a word.’

  Geraldine broke off, afraid she might become emotional.

  ‘Oh my God, you poor thing. So how did you find out?’

  Briefly Geraldine told her how Celia had passed on the paperwork pertaining to her birth and adoption after their mother’s death.

  ‘So Celia really thought you knew.’
<
br />   Hannah looked stricken for an instant then shrugged.

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference to anything though, does it? I mean, she was still your mother.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘And she was a wonderful woman.’

  Reminded that Hannah had always liked her adoptive mother, Geraldine decided not to say anything about her unsuccessful attempts to persuade her case worker to reunite her with the birth mother who had refused all contact with the daughter she had abandoned at birth.

  The conversation moved on and soon they were giggling over anecdotes from school.

  ‘Remember that geography teacher? What was her name?’

  ‘Miss Crackpot.’

  They both laughed at the nickname.

  ‘She put me in detention for leaving the dining room eating a chicken nugget!’

  ‘And do you remember that chemistry test when we all just made up answers?’

  ‘Except Swotty Morgan.’

  ‘Oh my God, Swotty Morgan. I wonder what she’s doing now.’

  ‘Probably running the civil service.’

  ‘Or MI5.’

  ‘I heard she went off the rails at uni and now she’s a pole dancer.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  Hannah laughed.

  ‘Well, she had the figure for it.’

  They collapsed in giggles, like the school girls they had once been.

  CHAPTER 31

  That night Geraldine slept fitfully, and went into work early on Monday. Nick wasn’t in that morning so she had the office to herself but even that consolation palled after a couple of hours. She found herself struggling to concentrate, and wished she had lingered in bed longer, realising she could have done with another hour’s sleep. She wandered along to the canteen but didn’t recognise any of the other officers in there. Nostalgia for her old station hit her. In Kent she had known just about every officer on the force but London was very different.

  A subdued Guy Barrett was escorted to the station. The constable who brought him in reported that he hadn’t appeared surprised when he opened the door and saw a uniformed policeman on the doorstep, and he had accompanied the constable to the waiting car without argument.