The Doll's House: DI Helen Grace 3

by M. J. Arlidge

  Ruby’s despair was total, her mood black – those early hopes that she might bargain with him, bribe him, were now in tatters. She had cried and cried, the pain of her recent tattoo amplified by her feelings of hopelessness. She realized now that she was his toy. She was his plaything in this doll’s house where everything that looked real was fake.

  She had examined every inch of her surroundings now. There was little else to do in the long hours alone and she had spent the time hunting for anything that could be used as a weapon, should the need arise. Though she tried to deny it, she had seen the intense emotion that gripped him when he looked at her, had felt his eyes crawl over her body. If he did force himself on her, how would she fight him off?

  There was a kettle on the rickety sideboard, but that was made of plastic and would be cumbersome to wield. There were other strange additions to the room – framed pictures on the walls, a calendar from 2013 and hooks on the walls on which to hang a hat or coat – but nothing of any use. She had tried to rip the hooks off the wall, but they were sealed in concrete and impossible to budge. Why were they there in the first place? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to visit. So why? Why go to such trouble to create a picture-perfect room that was just for show? Ruby buried her face in the sheets, trying to stem a rising wave of nausea.

  Try and stay calm. Don’t give in. Ruby forced herself to think of happier things once more. She had only been here a couple of days, but already her anxiety about going mad in this hole was real. Total despair would lead to insanity, Ruby felt sure of that, so she once more turned her thoughts to her family. It was Sunday – what would they be doing? The washing-up from Sunday lunch would have eventually been done by Conor and Cassie – begrudgingly, as always – and Mum and Dad would have taken Max out for a walk –

  It hit Ruby like a train, suddenly and without mercy. Her mum. It was her mum’s birthday in two days’ time. She would miss her mum’s birthday …

  What would she go through this year? Ruby could picture the stifling mood of anxiety and distress, the total absence of presents or cards, the paralysing awfulness of a birthday spent missing a daughter who wasn’t there to give her a birthday hug. The horror of it took Ruby’s breath away. This was real. This was happening. She had been ripped from the heart of a family who loved her far more than she deserved and would probably never see them again.

  Swallowing down her tears, Ruby tried to conjure up their familiar faces again. To relive those moments of family happiness that already seemed a lifetime ago. It was desperate stuff – her family existing only in these pointless imaginings – but this was her lot now. Retreating inside her memory, Ruby felt empty but oddly comforted. This would be her cocoon now.

  33

  ‘My client has told you as much as he knows –’

  ‘Your client hasn’t told us a single thing,’ Helen barked back, already irritated by the by-the-book primness of Price’s duty brief. ‘And let me give you both a piece of advice. “No comment” is not a good defence. It makes you look guilty.’

  Helen stressed the last word.

  ‘Do you know what you get for abduction and murder, Nathan?’ she continued, determined to keep the pressure up. ‘Fifteen to twenty minimum. How does that sound?’

  ‘I think we should take a break now,’ the brief resumed predictably.

  ‘We still have time,’ interjected Lloyd dismissively. ‘More importantly, we still have questions. The same questions. What happened in those two hours, Nathan? Did you let yourself into Ruby’s flat? Overpower her? Or had you already slipped something into her drink at the club?’

  Still nothing in response.

  ‘Your client should know,’ Lloyd carried on, ‘that we have impounded his van. We found some interesting things in the back. The usual pots, tools, building stuff of course, but also a bedroll and several blankets. What are the blankets for?’

  ‘I sleep in there sometimes when I work. I need blankets,’ Nathan replied.

  ‘Four of them? In the height of summer? There were hairs on the bedroll, black hairs. You look to me like you’re a natural blond, Nathan, so why are there black hairs there?’

  A long pause. Nathan’s brief shot a look at him, clearly waiting for his next move.

  ‘I’ve nothing to say,’ he eventually replied.

  ‘So I suggest you charge or release my client,’ his brief followed up quickly.

  ‘We’re just getting started,’ Lloyd replied, his professional politeness falling away now.

  ‘You’ve got nothing. You know that, we know that –’

  ‘Let’s see what the forensics team turn up in the van, shall we?’ Helen replied abruptly. ‘Silly to count our chickens before then. I make it we still have … almost forty hours left to hold your client. Which I’d say is more than enough time for a night in the cells, wouldn’t you, Nathan?’

  Not for the first time that day, Helen enjoyed wiping the smile off Nathan Price’s face.

  34

  Night was slowly stealing over Southampton. The landmarks that had looked unfamiliar and work-a-day in the daylight now took on a more sinister appearance. From his viewpoint on the fourteenth flour, Daniel Briers looked out over the city. To some, the twinkling lights against the night sky would have looked exciting, full of promise. To him, it was just a world of shadows. He imagined all sorts of depraved characters out there – murderers, rapists, thieves – exploiting the darkness, using the cover of night to commit numerous unspeakable crimes.

  Pippa had come here and been swallowed by this place. Though he was compelled to stay here now, to see justice done, he already hated Southampton with a passion.

  Since Helen had left him, the day had seemed to drag on and on. He had made the necessary phone calls immediately, but they had been brief. He couldn’t trust himself to hold it together during a long conversation. There was no question of him trying to analyse events with others yet. He just imparted the dreadful news and made his excuses. As soon as he had finished the calls, he turned his mobile off, had a whisky and tried to get some rest.

  He was exhausted from a sleepless night and the awful events of the day, but he couldn’t switch off. A kaleidoscope of images and memories swirled round his mind – Pippa’s birth, her bitter grief at her mother’s passing, the way she used to make him ‘Dad of the Year’ cards when she was small, her pride in her school prizes, the later arguments and recriminations – most of which had been his fault he now realized. An endless carousel of thoughts and feelings, some bad, but mostly very, very good. His Pippa living on, as she would have to now, in his memory.

  Was it a wise move to stay here? Kristy, his wife, clearly wasn’t sure – ‘Wouldn’t you be better off here with me and the boys?’ – though she left the final decision up to him. It was hard for her, Daniel now thought to himself. Kristy was deeply shocked by Pippa’s death, as they all were, but she didn’t really like Pippa – Kristy felt she was self-oriented and needy – and her grief was necessarily compromised by her feelings, whatever she might say to the contrary.

  Even now Pippa was a source of tension between them – someone Kristy didn’t much care for but whom Daniel couldn’t give up on. The ties that bind a parent to a child can never be broken, however awful their relationship might be, those ties just are. Even in death, that doesn’t change, which is why Daniel had to stay. There would be many awful things he’d have to face here – he hadn’t yet been to the beach where they found her – and he hoped he would have the strength to see it through, for Pippa’s sake if not his own.

  But looking out over the bleak vista of Southampton, his courage wavered. This place was so alien to him, so threatening. And hanging over everything was the terrible knowledge that out there somewhere, shrouded in darkness was the person who stole, killed and buried his only child.

  35

  It was chaos. As she had expected it would be. A wall of noise assaulted Emilia Garanita as soon as she entered the hall – a cacophony of shouts, recriminat
ions, laughter and more. Knackered, she plonked her keys down on the hall table and made her way towards the source of the anarchy.

  Her father was serving out the remainder of a lengthy prison sentence and her mother had done a bunk nearly a decade ago, meaning that Emilia – the eldest of six children – had been in loco parentis now for more years than she cared to count. She was still young herself, shy of thirty, but she felt much older, particularly today. The briefing at Southampton Central had yielded nothing concrete and the rebuff from Helen Grace had rankled, setting her on edge for the rest of the day. Some days were like that – fruitless, irritating and depressing.

  She entered the kitchen to a litany of accusations and counter-claims. The youngest of her five siblings was only twelve, the closest in age to her not twenty-five, so there were lots of fragile, over-sized egos to create conflict and consternation. As ever, Emilia’s presence calmed things and slowly the grievances of the day were put to bed. As the family sat down to eat together – pork and Chorizo stew, a legacy of their Portuguese heritage – Emilia’s mood slowly began to improve. As exasperating as her family were, they nevertheless loved and accepted Emilia for what she was, warts and all. Some people didn’t like her character, other people despised her because of her job and everyone reacted to her face, half of which was badly scarred following an acid attack by her father’s drug-dealing employers. She had learnt to ignore it, then later took advantage of it, deliberately testing people with her disfigurement to see if they’d react. But, as bullish as she was, the frowns her face provoked still hit home. Not here though – not at home – where she was abused, teased and cherished just the same as everyone else.

  Slowly, the younger children sloped off to bed. Her closest sister, Luciana, kept her company through Game of Thrones, then she too called it a day. Leaving Emilia alone with her thoughts.

  Her career – her life – had stalled. Her disloyalty in selling the sensational Ella Matthews story to the Mail, rather than to her employers, had not gone down well and she had very nearly lost her job at the Southampton Evening News. The job that had been promised at the Mail never materialized, leaving Emilia in the undignified position of having to beg to keep her old job – a job which she still thought was beneath her. She had always hoped regional crime reporting would be a stepping stone to greater things and even her worst enemies couldn’t deny that she was good at her job. But here she was, still stuck in Southampton, with much less chance of getting promotion than she had had before.

  She needed a scoop. Something big that could put her front and centre again. The body on the beach had sounded exciting at first, but would probably end up being some depressing drugs murder or the like. And Helen Grace – the one police officer round here guaranteed to create news – was determined to give her nothing. As she drained the last of her wine, Emilia felt sure that the answer to her present conundrum lay with Helen Grace.

  She had to get her back onside – by means fair or foul.

  36

  Charlie took a deep breath and stepped inside the pub. She had been inside the Crown and Two Chairmen so many times – this drinking hole was a second home to most Southampton Central coppers – but tonight she felt nervous. As she made her way through the crowds towards the knot of familiar faces in the corner, she felt the colour rising in her face, the heat of the pub mingling with her anxiety to give her a distinctly pink hue.

  Charlie was greeted with warmth and affection, every man and woman there trumpeting, patting and generally drawing attention to her enormous bump. Charlie smiled and received their enquiries in good humour, but in truth she felt uncomfortable and ridiculous. The baby was particularly active tonight, pummelling her from the inside, pressing down hard on her pubic bone in agonizing fashion. Charlie felt uncomfortable, unattractive and dispirited. She had hoped a night out would raise her spirits, but just getting to the pub had exhausted her and now she found herself chatting to people she barely knew. Helen smiled over at her, but was kept at a distance by the persistent attention of Detective Superintendent Harwood, who was clearly grilling her about operational matters.

  The cause of all the merriment was DC Grounds, a career copper soon to retire from the Force. He was a solid, old-fashioned kind of policeman whom you couldn’t help liking – a sort of dad to the team, persistently uncool but well intentioned. It was being spun that they were rewarding him with retirement after twenty-five good years of service, but Charlie saw it differently. Grounds was being elbowed out to make room for fresh blood.

  Charlie knew that this was at Harwood’s instigation. Over the last two years, most of Helen’s allies had gone or been sidelined. Mark of course – Charlie pushed that thought away quickly – Tony Bridges, Charlie herself and now Bob Grounds too. They had been replaced by shiny, fast-track coppers of the type beloved by Harwood – Lloyd Fortune, DC ‘Call me Ed’ Stevens and the person Charlie now found herself talking to – DC Sarah Lucas.

  The ambitious, shiny Lucas only increased Charlie’s discomfort. She was young, slender, university-educated and going places. She had joined the police late, having completed a degree in Criminal Psychology at Durham, one of the new breed of fast-track CID officers. Harwood had come across Lucas at her previous station and had fought hard to get her transferred to Southampton Central. The rumour was that she was Harwood’s heir apparent. Charlie could well believe it – like her superior, she had no discernible sense of humour and little more sincerity.

  ‘You look amazing, Charlie.’ It was Lucas’s third lie in as many minutes.

  ‘I feel horrible,’ Charlie countered, smiling bravely.

  ‘How long is it till … ?’

  ‘Any day now.’

  ‘I’m not surprised’ was the neutral reply, as Lucas eyed Charlie’s bump.

  The conversation carried on in this fashion until Charlie feigned a weak bladder to make her escape. To her consternation, on returning from the loos she was cornered by Harwood, who felt duty-bound to engage her in some small talk. They talked about birth, babies and child-rearing, Harwood full of helpful tips that she had no doubt picked up from her nanny. The conversation continued pleasantly enough, but was an exercise in window dressing. Charlie had crossed swords with Harwood a year ago and hadn’t been forgiven. Would she ever make it back into the golden circle? Tonight Charlie seriously doubted it.

  DC Sanderson was making her excuses and as Charlie glanced over Harwood’s shoulder at the thinning crowd of revellers, she noted few friendly faces. Helen was of course the notable exception but Charlie now realized that her former boss was no longer present. As Harwood bored on, Charlie suppressed a smile – Helen hated these things even more than she did and if someone was to escape the forced bonhomie and excessive drinking, Charlie was glad it had been Helen. Typical of her to slip away unseen though, Charlie thought to herself.

  Forever the enigma.

  37

  Hurrying through the night air, Helen felt herself relaxing once more. Harwood had been particularly persistent tonight, interrogating her about the Pippa Briers case. Harwood had heard rumours of a connection to the Ruby Sprackling investigation and clearly suspected Helen of withholding information from her. Harwood was right, she was, but Helen had worked hard to convince her superior that there was no established connection yet and no cause for alarm. Since they had first started working together, Harwood had been convinced that Helen looked for these connections, as if obsessed with serial offenders and somehow willing to manufacture them if they didn’t actually exist. It said something about Harwood’s insecurity that she believed Helen would ‘create’ serial killers just to burnish her already impressive reputation.

  ‘You had a lucky escape, Harry,’ Helen offered breezily, as she buzzed herself back into Southampton Central. ‘If you see any of my team propping up the lamp posts tonight, do me a favour and sling them in the cells, will you?’

  ‘It will be my very great pleasure,’ Harry replied, grinning.

  Helen wa
s soon on the seventh floor and back in the incident room. For a moment she paused to look at the board. Pippa’s young face stared back at her, full of promise, but now snuffed out. Helen couldn’t help wondering what Daniel was up to right now. He was in a Hell of grief and bitter self-recrimination and it would be incredibly hard for him to find some kind of normality again. Dark thoughts would eat him up for months and years to come, torturing him with ‘what ifs’. It was the mystery of Pippa’s last few months that was torturing her father now – as she stared at the board, Helen vowed privately to uncover the truth of this poor woman’s final days and see that justice was done.

  She grabbed her bag from her office and was about to leave the empty incident room, when she paused. It was stupid really, worse than that it was pointless, but still something compelled her to sit down at the vacated computer terminal and log into the system. She used DC Lucas’s personal codes this time, which wasn’t on, but needs must. She typed Robert Stonehill’s name into the PNC and hit Search. Why did she do this to herself? She blamed herself entirely for ruining this innocent young man’s life, but even so, what was achieved by this endless trawling? It was a fruitless search, which always ended in bitter disappointment.

  Except tonight it didn’t. The computer suddenly came alive with times, dates and more importantly a case number.

  There was a match. Robert Stonehill. The nephew whom she had loved and lost was back from the dead.

  38

  He slipped the key into the lock and turned it silently. He had stayed out late – and drunk too much – and he didn’t want to wake his father by crashing around. Stepping inside the door, Lloyd Fortune listened. He had expected, and hoped for, silence, but the TV in the living room was still on, despite the late hour.