Rush of Blood

by Mark Billingham

‘So you were at the mall for what, a couple of hours?’

  ‘We were back about three,’ the husband said. ‘We dropped the shopping off in the cabin then went back to the pool and met up with the others.’

  ‘The others being …?’

  ‘Marina Green and Dave Cullen.’

  ‘And the Finnegans,’ the wife said. ‘Barry and Angela.’

  ‘You’ve all become friends by the sound of it,’ Jenny said. ‘I gather you’ve been meeting up since you got back from Florida.’

  ‘Well, we’ve had dinner once,’ the husband said. He had that laugh in his voice, which Jenny had noticed a few times already. He clearly thought he was being charming, but more often than not it sounded patronising. He was good-looking, no question about that, but he acted like he knew it. Like he knew that you knew it. He’d held eye contact a couple of seconds too long when shaking hands at the door and Jenny had seen his eyes flash to her chest a couple of times since. She knew there was plenty to see beneath the cream blouse she had chosen to wear with the sensible grey two-piece, though she guessed that as far as Ed Dunning was concerned, almost any breasts would seem enormous compared to his wife’s.

  ‘So, you got back to the Pelican Palms at three o’clock …’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you it was three exactly,’ the wife said. ‘But that’s what time we reckoned it was when we were all talking about it later.’

  ‘You talked about it?’

  ‘Obviously,’ the husband said. No laugh this time. ‘It was pretty big news and we were all out having dinner together. We’d seen the girl and we’d spoken to her mother, so …’

  ‘We were upset,’ the wife said. ‘Anyone would be.’

  ‘What did you think of the girl?’ Jenny asked.

  The couple exchanged a look. The wife said, ‘Sorry?’

  Jenny looked at the husband. ‘You’d spent some time with her.’

  ‘Well, not really.’

  ‘Spoken to her.’

  ‘For a few minutes, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t see what this has got to do with anything,’ the wife said.

  ‘What do you mean, “think” of her?’ The husband put the laugh back into his voice. ‘She seemed like a nice enough girl. I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘She had learning difficulties,’ the wife said, nodding down at the paperwork Jenny had spread out. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She was very trusting. Not shy at all, you know? We were having dinner one night and she just walked right up and started talking to us.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Remember?’

  ‘That night at the Oyster Bar?’

  ‘There was a man,’ the wife said. ‘Talking to the girl’s mother.’

  ‘What man?’ Jenny asked.

  The wife leaned forward, animated suddenly. ‘I remember pointing him out to Marina, or it might have been Angie. The girl was at our table and when I looked around for her mother, I could see her down on the street talking to this man. They looked like they were pretty friendly, you know? When I looked again a minute or so later, he wasn’t there any more. I didn’t think about it until now and I mean it’s probably nothing …’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  The wife described the man she claimed to have seen and Jenny wrote it all down, then read it back to the woman to make sure she had got everything right.

  ‘Worth checking out, I would have thought,’ the husband said.

  ‘We’ll check everything out,’ Jenny said.

  While Jenny was writing, the husband said, ‘So, is this the first time you’ve worked with the American police?’

  Jenny nodded, hummed a yes.

  ‘It’ll be funny when they get your reports,’ he said. ‘I mean, presumably they’ll have to change all the spelling. Colour and grey or what ever. Plus it’s “homicide” over there, isn’t it? Homicide instead of murder.’

  ‘We call it homicide too,’ Jenny said.

  ‘How much longer is this going to take?’ the wife asked. ‘I just need to know if I’ll have time to get dinner sorted or if we should forget it and get a takeaway.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ll be out of your way in a minute,’ Jenny said, smiling. She spent a few more seconds writing, then glanced up and said, ‘What did you get, by the way?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the wife asked.

  Jenny was already writing again. She did not look up. ‘At the Westfield mall. What did you buy when you were shopping?’

  The wife turned to her husband. He shrugged, then laughed and threw up his arms. ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘As a bloke I’m genetically programmed to forget everything where shopping’s concerned.’

  ‘I can barely remember myself,’ the wife said. ‘A couple of T-shirts, I think. A sweater. It wasn’t the only time I was there, so I can’t be sure what I got when.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter.’ Jenny scribbled a final word or two and began to gather up the paperwork. ‘Done,’ she said. ‘Sorry it’s taken so long. I’ll leave you a card with my number on, in case anything else comes back to you.’

  Walking back to the front door, Jenny said, ‘It’s all a lot cheaper over there, isn’t it? Clothes and stuff.’

  ‘Way cheaper,’ the wife said.

  ‘Depends a bit on the exchange rate,’ the husband added.

  The wife leaned past him to open the front door for Jenny. ‘Still less than over here though.’

  ‘Well, that’s because this bloody country’s one big rip-off,’ the husband said. ‘Almost everything costs more than it should. Clothes, electrical gear, and don’t get me started on the price of petrol.’

  ‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Jenny said. She fished in her bag and took out her notebook again. ‘What car were you driving in Sarasota?’

  The husband stared at her. ‘Car?’

  ‘Your hire car.’

  ‘God, I don’t know,’ the wife said. ‘It was a white one. Ed …?’

  Jenny waited, stared back at the husband. ‘We’re just getting our ducks in a row, Mr Dunning, that’s all.’

  ‘It was a Chevy Impala,’ the husband said. He saw Jenny hesitate, her pen poised. ‘Chevrolet Impala.’ He smiled. ‘You want me to spell it?’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  ‘I wanted a Dodge Charger, but the rental company didn’t have any left. Chevy’s pretty good though …’

  ‘Well, thanks for your time,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll let you know if I need anything else.’ She shoved her notebook back into her bag, pushing aside the packet of tampons that was sitting near the top. She looked up, hoping that the husband hadn’t seen it.

  He was leaning against the door. ‘Right. If you’ve got any more ducks that need straightening up.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As usual, at lunch they talked about anything but work – sports, music, the rumours about an affair between two of the detectives who were not there – but once the majority of his colleagues were on their way back across the road to the office, Gardner stepped outside the still noisy delicatessen, sat down at one of the tables and called Atlanta.

  ‘Yeah …?’

  ‘Patti, it’s Jeff Gardner.’

  She said, ‘Yeah,’ again, a little quieter this time, and in the pause that followed Gardner could hear the click of a lighter, the crackle of the cigarette as it met the flame. The first desperate inhalation.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  Then the long breath out. ‘Peachy,’ she said.

  Even with sunglasses on, Gardner had to squint a little against the brightness. He had taken off his jacket as soon as he had left the comfort of the deli’s air-con behind, but already he could feel the hot sheen of sweat building across his face and neck. The day was a killer and this would be the worst part of it, in every sense.

  ‘I just wanted to call to see how you were holding up,’ he said. ‘You know? Let you know what’s happening here.’

  ‘So, wh
at’s happening there, Jeff?’

  ‘You mean with regard to the investigation? Or—?’

  ‘With regard to getting Amber-Marie home.’

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t be too much longer. I’m afraid that’s the best I can tell you, right now.’

  ‘Was it really worth calling?’ she said. ‘Just to tell me that?’

  Using his shoulder to hold the phone in place, Gardner began to roll up his sleeves. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. When he was finished, he took the phone from his ear and quickly wiped the sweat from it. ‘I’m doing everything I can to speed things up here.’

  A little over two weeks now, since Amber-Marie’s body – or what was left of it – had been found and recovered from the mangrove tunnels down near Casey Key. Gardner had taken the call. He had made sure he was on the spot as the body was lifted from the water. He had been there when it was transported to the morgue at Sarasota Memorial Hospital and had witnessed the post-mortem.

  But he had let someone else tell Patti Lee Wilson.

  Gardner had found himself something that urgently needed to be done when the moment came to make the call. He had walked away and let his sergeant tell Patti that they had found her daughter’s body in the water. That they were sorry for her loss and that they would be happy to put her in touch with the appropriate counselling service.

  The standard stuff.

  He thought the guilt would ease off, but it had continued to bubble and burn. He had met Patti at the airport the following morning, when she had flown in to formally identify her daughter’s body, and that evening he had driven her back to put her on the last flight home to Atlanta. By then there had been a deal of strong drink taken and, sitting in the lounge at the airport, she had leaned against him and wept while he kept his eyes on the departures board. Between sobs, she had talked about getting that call, told him she had known what was coming before she’d picked up the phone.

  ‘Only thing is,’ she had said, ‘I always imagined it would be you.’ Now, if anything, he felt even worse. Making small talk when the truth was he could not even tell this woman when her daughter’s body would be released for burial.

  Burning with the guilt, because it was all just a question of paperwork.

  The post-mortem showed that Amber-Marie Wilson had been strangled to death, but gleaning almost anything else had been impossible due to the state of the body. Those eight weeks in the water had provided plenty for crabs and fish to feast on, but had destroyed any forensic evidence there might have been. While Gardner and the rest of the team strongly suspected a sexual assault, there was nothing to support it. There was no trace of stranger DNA. They all knew perfectly well that, as things stood, Amber-Marie’s remains would not reveal any more about how she had died or who might have killed her.

  Now, it was just about a process. Moving through a system that was notoriously slow and which took no account of grief.

  ‘I’m pushing them as hard as I can, Patti,’ Gardner said. ‘I swear to God.’

  ‘I know you are. I didn’t mean to be so sharp.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘You want the truth,’ she said. ‘I ain’t holding up any better or worse than I was the last time you called.’

  Her words were starting to sound just a little slurred. Gardner was relieved that he had not left this until the end of the day. ‘No worse has got to be good, right?’

  ‘I guess. But we both know it can’t get any better until I get my baby back.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘’Til I can say goodbye.’

  ‘I’ll keep at them,’ he said. ‘Make sure there’s no hold-ups.’

  ‘I know you will,’ she said.

  He felt that burn crank up another notch in his gut, the warm sweat running in ticklish trails between his shoulder blades and down from his chest to his belly. He needed to be back inside. ‘Listen, Patti …’

  ‘How are you holding up anyway, Jeff?’

  Gardner pushed his chair back, turned and lifted his jacket from the back of it. ‘It isn’t about how I’m feeling,’ he said.

  After a few seconds of silence there was another long intake of breath, then a ragged, smoky laugh when it was released.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Jenny worked on her report for three hours without a break and was still buzzing and not a little breathless by the time she had finished. She had been heady with excitement since leaving the Dunnings’ place in Southgate just before five o’clock, by which time there had been no point in going all the way back to the station. Instead, she had travelled – via two different underground lines and a horribly crammed overground train – back to her flat. She had said hello and goodbye to her flatmate, carried tea and a packet of digestives through to her bedroom and got down to work.

  By the time she looked up from her computer, it was almost nine-thirty. Jenny was shocked to see that it was dark outside, oddly thrilled that the time had gone so quickly. Half the packet of biscuits was gone too, but she was still starving.

  She went out to the kitchen and stuck three slices of bread in the toaster.

  She shared a flat in New Cross with a nursing student who, like Jenny, preferred to keep herself to herself. It was a convenient arrangement, not least financially and, though the pair of them might share a bottle of wine once a month, swapping gory tales and gossip from cop shop and hospital, they were not particularly close. Jenny was fine with that. She had Steph, and work was full-on and she certainly did not need any more friends.

  Not more female friends, anyway.

  When her toast was ready, she slathered Marmite on two of the slices, jam on the other – so it would count as pudding – and grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge. She wondered if that would be enough, then remembered that the biscuits were still on her desk. She took the hastily improvised supper back to her room and ate it quickly while reading through her report again.

  Interview with Edward and Susan Dunning. 29 June, 16.00.

  Jenny had exceeded the limits of her brief somewhat, she knew that very well, but she felt good about it. Better than good. It would have been easy enough to get in and out of the Dunning place in ten minutes; to get the dates and times, to tick only the boxes she had been told to get ticked and be curled up in front of Desperate Housewives by now, if that had been what she wanted.

  That wasn’t the kind of copper she was. Or ever wanted to be.

  E.D. Superficially charming. Likes to be in control. Over-compensating for something??

  S.D. Seems happy to play the little woman. Less concerned with being likeable. Poss anorexic??

  There had of course been no need for Jenny to describe how she had felt about her interviewees, but however routine this particular job might be, she had been trained not to ignore these first impressions. Taught that almost anything could turn out to be important: an offhand remark; a glance; a hesitation.

  A joke.

  All the information that had been requested was there of course, front and centre. Confirmation of exactly what the subjects had said when originally questioned. The required details. Required or not, when talking to those same subjects herself there were … other questions that had seemed to Jenny entirely appropriate. Now, seeing the answers in black and white in her draft report, she felt sure that she had done the right thing in asking them.

  Chevrolet Impala (White).

  Having read everything that Detective Gardner had sent across, it had become obvious to Jenny that Amber-Marie Wilson had got into a car with someone. How else could she have been spirited away into thin air so quickly? Asking for a make and model of car – and she fully intended to ask the other two couples the same question – made complete sense, surely. It was not information that anyone had instructed her to acquire, but that was not the point.

  ‘Any idiot can be organised,’ one of the DCs had said to her once. They were in a pub near the station. He had bought her a tomato juice and when he leaned in she could smell Stella and Polo Sport.
‘You want to be a notch above “competent”, you need to show a bit of initiative …’

  Maybe if you’d shown a bit that night! That’s what Steph would have said. Then another copper wouldn’t think you were a lesbian, would he?

  The sound from her flatmate’s television was bleeding through the wall, so Jenny put on a CD to drown it out. An Adele album she knew every word of. She took one more biscuit and pushed the packet to the far side of the desk. She saved her report as Wilson Homicide Interviews: 1, then opened up Google.

  She typed in Jeffrey Gardner. Sarasota Police Department.

  There was no shortage of hits. The detective’s name mentioned in connection with any number of cases. Robberies, rapes and murders. Halfway down the third page, there was a report about him winning some kind of bravery medal and when Jenny opened the page there was a picture of Gardner shaking hands with the Chief of Police.

  She was surprised to see that Gardner was black, then surprised at herself for being surprised. For thinking, even for a moment, that he hadn’t ‘sounded’ black. She knew she was being ridiculous, that she didn’t ‘sound’ Irish, even if an odd accent tended to appear from nowhere when she was talking to her mother.

  ‘Jennifer Quinlan, I don’t know what you think you sound like …’

  He looked like Denzel Washington, she thought, trying and failing to zoom in on the picture. A little bit heavier maybe, but he carried it just fine, and that voice seriously suited him. Sweet and deep like molasses in a mineshaft.

  ‘What can I do for you, ma’am?’

  Jenny pointed the remote and turned Adele up a notch or two. ‘Someone Like You’. She opened up the next page of search results, then stretched across the table and helped herself to one last biscuit.

  TWENTY-SIX

  It had been good of Jeff Gardner to call. He was a great guy. With a lot of the cops, she felt like they were just saying shit they’d said too many times before and there was no real feeling in it, but he was different. Like it still meant something.

  Patti sat on the floor, her back against the couch, some comedy show on the TV she didn’t remember switching on turned up loud. The rain was coming down in sheets outside. Still plenty warm enough in the house because the ice in her martini pitcher was almost melted, though she could not be bothered to get off her ass and go to the refrigerator.