The Man in the House

by Emmy Ellis

  “No,” he said. “No, that can’t be right.”

  “I’m afraid it is. She was murdered.” Pissing hell, would this ever get any easier?

  He plopped down onto a chair at the table, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “I apologise for asking again, but the blanket…”

  “What colour was it?” he asked. Clearly, he was abrupt when upset.

  “Red and green.”

  He closed his eyes. “We had one of those when we used to go on picnics as kids, but I don’t see why that’s relevant now.”

  “And the pink bowl and strawberries?” Come on, Jacob, give me something.

  He nodded and opened his eyes. “Mum had pink Tupperware bowls. The strawberries… We’d gone to the beach. You know that bit down there where it’s grass, then it gives way to shingle? There. That’s where we were.”

  “Okay. Did anything significant happen?”

  He scrunched his eyebrows. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about it until you just asked, but Suzie went a bit weird.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’d gone for a walk to look for some crabs—Dad told her there wouldn’t be any, but she had to go and see for herself. The beach bends—you know the part I mean?”

  Helena nodded.

  “She was gone for a while, but she came running back, frightened-looking, and Dad asked what was wrong, and Suzie burst out crying and said nothing was up. I just thought she was being a bit dramatic, know what I mean? My sisters were prone to theatrics at times. Crying for no reason.”

  “So she never revealed what had happened?”

  “No, but she didn’t want to go back there for a picnic again, I know that much.”

  “Were other people around?”

  “There were loads. Plenty of families on the grass bit, plus on the shingle.”

  “Okay. Thank you. Dave will stay with you for a while, okay? Any questions, ask him. We need to get off now so we can continue the investigation. If you think of anything, tell Dave. He’ll get a message to me, okay?”

  “Do we still have to stay here?”

  “Yes, for the time being. We have no idea what will happen. This person may try again.”

  “Kill me, you mean.”

  Helena didn’t answer.

  He got up and returned to the living room. Helena followed to find Dave. He was on the sofa, one of the lads on his lap. The other sat with Robbie on the chair at the table.

  “We’re off now,” she said and, unable to stand seeing this broken family a minute longer, she left the flat.

  Out in the lobby, she leant against the wall next to Clive. Andy did the same beside her, and she stared at the stairs that led to the upper flats. A PC came down, and guilt twitched in Helena’s gut at her thought: Please, don’t talk to me. Just give me a second to process this. However, the officer came up to her.

  “Got some news?” she asked, weary.

  “No one heard anything,” he said. “I’m just going out to help with the other house enquiries.”

  “Okay, thanks. If you get something, let Clive know, all right?”

  He nodded, put gloves on so he didn’t touch the door, then disappeared out into the street.

  “You told them then?” Clive asked.

  “Yes.” She didn’t have any more words in her.

  Gathering her last reserves of energy, she put on fresh booties and gloves, as did Andy, then pointed at Suzie’s door. Clive unlocked it. Helena and Andy stepped inside, greeted with the sight of a swarm of SOCOs filling the rooms. She surmised Zach had arrived as well, so she went through the kitchen into the garden. More SOCOs were doing their thing, and she climbed through the now bigger gap in the fence and headed towards the tent that had been erected.

  “Something happened to her on that beach,” she said to Andy.

  “I thought the same. But is it related to this mess?”

  “No idea. Maybe we’ll never know.”

  They reached the tent, and Helena pulled the flap aside and entered. Zach was crouching beside Suzie, and he looked up.

  “Morning.” He smiled, and it was as though they were just work colleagues, nothing more.

  Helena was glad. She couldn’t be doing with any weirdness when they worked together. “Not a good one.”

  “No. I may as well get straight to the point. She was stabbed in the lung from the back—the knife punctured through to the front. And also, which is obvious, she had her throat slit. Estimated time of death, which is ballsed up because it’s so cold, anywhere from five this morning until eight. I can’t get any closer to that at the moment, I’m afraid.”

  “Where have the bowl and strawberries gone?”

  “Tom took them. He sent someone off to deliver them to the lab—better to get them down there as soon as possible.”

  “Good.”

  “There’s a braided piece of grass here that I found after Tom went back into the garden,” Zach said, pointing to it.

  Helena frowned. “That’s not something you’d normally see. Someone put that there.” It was resting beside Suzie, close to her thigh.

  “Yep, this person likes leaving gifts.”

  Helena sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Zach peeled her pyjama top up.

  “Oh fuck.”

  “I know.”

  Andy coughed, turned away, and heaved.

  Suzie no longer had a navel.

  Chapter Twenty

  The day was so hot, but being on the beach meant it was cooler, so Dad said. Something about the water making the warmth less intense. Suzie didn’t know anything about that. She was sweating and needed a drink.

  Mum unpacked the picnic bag, spreading the tartan blanket on the grass. Then she pulled out the lemonade and a stack of beakers. Drinks were poured, and Suzie drank hers down in one go. Callie and Emma sat on the blanket and set up Kerplunk. Mum walked off towards the sea while he, that horrible boy who’d come to live with them, stood staring at Suzie as though he hated her.

  “I’m going to look for crabs,” she said. That was all she could think of. She’d get away from him then, even if it was just for a little while.

  “There won’t be any,” Dad said. “There never is this time of year. The rock pools dry up in this sun.”

  “I’m going to see anyway,” Suzie said and, after another glare from the boy, she legged it across the grass and around the corner, weaving through other mums and dads, lots of children, and a few grannies.

  She headed for where the rock pools usually were and, sure enough, they were dried out. The crabs must have scuttled across the beach and back into the sea. Not wanting to go back yet, she wandered along until the grass led to a stand of tall reeds, higher than her, each reed more than an inch thick with dried-out edges. She went behind it and sat, alone at last, but the shrieks and laughter from those on the shingle let her know people weren’t too far away.

  She was safe here.

  She ripped a piece of reed at the base and peeled it into three strips, then tied a knot in the ends and plaited them. Every so often, she gazed up at the cliff. Finished with her plait, she made it into a necklace and put it on.

  A shadow fell over the grass, person-shaped, legs apart, arms akimbo. She knew that shape, the broadness, the absolute size of him. Suzie kept her head down.

  “A circle signifies never-ending love, so I was told,” he said. “Well, a wedding ring does anyway. Wasn’t much cop for my mum and dad, was it.”

  She didn’t need him telling her useless things. He was always showing off at the dinner table, going on about stuff no one cared about except for Mum and Dad. They seemed to like it and encouraged him. Why he couldn’t go and live with someone else, she didn’t know. She hated him.

  His arm came into her line of vision, and he snatched the grass necklace off her. It hurt a bit from the pressure before it snapped. He crouched and tickled her face with the end, then moved it lower.

  “At one of the
foster places I lived in,” he said, swirling the plait over her skin, “the mum had a thing about flowers. She had red rose bushes, pink tulips, and loads of these little lilac ones called forget-me-nots—that’s your flower, that one. She used to go and make me pick them for her when she wanted some in the house. Every time I did it, she hit me for picking her flowers.”

  Suzie didn’t care. He’d probably picked them without being asked and was making it look like the mum was mean.

  “Then her husband used to come into my room that night and paint my nails.”

  Suzie glanced up at him then, because she’d swear it sounded as though he was crying. His face was as obscure as his shadow, though, what with the sun beaming from behind him and directly in her eyes.

  “Go away,” she said, the memory of him coming into the cupboard under the stairs flashing through her mind.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” he said. “You know what will happen if you don’t do as you’re told.”

  “You didn’t tell me I had to be nice to you.”

  “Well, now you do. New rule.”

  She got up and pushed past him, running back towards her family, crying until she thought her heart would break. She slowed, swiping at her eyes, and watched her sisters giggling, Jacob and Dad playing cards, and Mum doling out the pink bowls ready to fill them with strawberries from their fruit patch back home.

  “What’s up, love?” Dad asked, frowning.

  She couldn’t tell him, otherwise he’d be dead.

  “Nothing,” she said, then burst into tears again.

  “No crabs?” he asked.

  “No.”

  She plonked down on the blanket beside Jacob, grabbing his arm and hugging it, his skin hot on her wet cheek. The horrible boy came back and sat opposite her. While they all ate their strawberries, he stared at her, and she thought that stare might just break her in two it was that hard.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Helena sat on the edge of Andy’s desk to address her team. “Got anything for me?”

  Olivia held up her pen. “The kids went to Smaltern Primary then Secondary. I’ve looked into their classmates—not quite done with that—and a few of them are on each of their social media friends lists. Some of the women are married, so that’s why I haven’t finished. I’m in the middle of matching maiden names to married.”

  “Okay, the next step will be to contact them and ask a few questions. I’ll leave that to you,” Helena said. “Phil?”

  “The camera outside the flats doesn’t show anyone hanging around during the night, so we’d have to assume they came from the back.”

  Helena nodded. “Easily done.” She explained the layout of the fields, copse, and the broken fence.

  “The camera in the lobby outside the safe flats, though…” Phil winced.

  “Don’t tell me it was a fucking resident,” Helena said.

  “No. Have a look at this.”

  Phil turned his monitor so they could all see it. Helena walked closer. He brought up a window, and a clear image of Kelvin sitting outside the flat doors in the lobby, illuminated from the overhead strip light, filled the screen.

  “He’s asleep!” Helena all but shouted. “Bloody wonderful! He’s there to keep them safe, and he’s having a sodding kip!” She stared at the ceiling. “He’s so in the shit for this. Yarworth will have his bollocks on a plate.”

  Andy grunted. “Yeah, the chief only comes out of the woodwork to dish out grief.” He glanced over his shoulder as though expecting Yarworth to appear and give him a rollocking.

  Helena was steaming angry. “Someone got killed because of Kelvin. If he’d been awake, he might have heard Suzie go outside and checked what was going on.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be him when he finds out he’s been caught sleeping on the job,” Phil said.

  “And the little shit said to Clive nothing was amiss.” Helena thumped her thigh. “God. He’d better not come anywhere near me. I’m likely to punch the twat. Give me two minutes.” She stormed to her office and flopped into her chair, more incensed than she’d ever been, even more than when Uthway and his buddy had treated her the way they had.

  Suzie was dead because of incompetence. Kelvin had blood on his hands, and all because he hadn’t been able to stay awake. She understood the monotony of lonely night shifts, but with this case being so important, he should have got up and paced or something. Jesus!

  Blowing out a shivering breath, she closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down. They had so much to do and nothing to go on. How did you find a killer who was so clever?

  She stalked back to the incident room. “Right. Anything else that might get my back up today?”

  Olivia bit her lip. “The Walkers were foster parents.”

  “Oh, for fu—” Helena thought about the streams of children who would have been through their household over the years. Could it be one of them? “Okay. And?”

  “They only fostered one kid, a lad called Franklin Marston.”

  Why does that name ring a bell? “Right…”

  “He stayed with them for almost ten years. He moved in when he was thirteen in ninety-six.”

  “What’s that make him now?” Helena couldn’t get her brain to work.

  “Thirty-six.”

  “And where is he these days?”

  “That’s just it,” Olivia said. “He went off the radar about ten years ago. He’s got a few priors, nothing too bad. Stealing and the like.”

  “Deed Poll?”

  “That’s next on my list.”

  “Okay, get on that—forget the classmates for now. Andy, you and me need to go back and talk to Jacob. Why the hell didn’t he mention this Franklin? Ten years he was there. It’s not something you’re likely to bloody forget is it?”

  She left the room and headed to the car park, rage building again. What was the problem with this family? Emma hadn’t wanted to talk about whatever was bothering her, Suzie had lied, and the pair of them and Jacob had left a massive chunk of their childhood out by not saying about Franklin Marston. Robbie hadn’t said a word either.

  In the car, she gripped the steering wheel and rested her forehead on her knuckles. If she didn’t get a handle on herself, she was likely to say something she’d regret once they arrived at the flats.

  Andy got in and squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll just sit for a minute or two, if you like.”

  She sat back. “What’s the matter with these people?”

  “I’m as stumped as you. Maybe Jacob didn’t think this Franklin was important.”

  “What? He shared a decade of his life with him. Do they still see him? Is he in the nick? Is he dead? Is it him doing this?” Her stomach growled, fuck it. “And we haven’t eaten since we were at the gym.”

  “Sandwich on the go?”

  She nodded and started the engine, driving to the local garage. Andy took her proffered twenty.

  “Get something for Clive as well, will you?”

  Andy disappeared inside the garage, coming back with manky-looking cheese sandwiches and cans of Coke.

  She stared at the Coke. “Really?”

  “What?”

  “You could at least have got diet.”

  “Be quiet. You’re turning into me, always moaning.”

  She smiled and opened her sandwich carton, then drove away, eating as she went. She’d finished by the time they reached the flats. In the lobby, she handed Clive his lunch. “Kelvin fell asleep.” Might as well be blunt about it.

  Clive reared his head back, eyebrows climbing upwards. “Oh.”

  “Can you let us in, please.” She was impatient to get this oversight cleared up, although ‘oversight’ was a bloody stretch.

  She walked into the flat, and once again, Dave poked his head out of the living room doorway. She entered when he stepped back to let her in.

  “Jacob, we need to talk to you again.” She’d sounded abrupt, but it was too late to change it now.

  He
shuffled behind her into the kitchen, and Andy closed the door. He leant against it, probably to give his poor gym legs a rest.

  Jacob sat at the table, resting his elbows on top. He wheezed a bit, and Helena wondered if he had asthma like Suzie.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “As well as I can be in this sort of situation.” He tsked.

  She realised her mistake. “No, I meant the wheezing.”

  “Oh. Yeah. It’s fine. Have you found something?”

  Helena folded her hands over her stomach. “Two words: Franklin Marston.”

  Jacob scowled, and he shifted from side to side, probably uncomfortable beneath her stare. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Or was that his sweating top lip? “What about him?” The words came out gruff, as though he was annoyed at being caught withholding information.

  “Why didn’t you, Suzie, or Emma tell me about him? He was part of your family.”

  “He’s a nasty piece of shit, that’s what he is.” He huffed, lips wobbling with the exhalation.

  “Do you still see him?” she asked.

  “From time to time. He shows up, I tell him to sling his hook.”

  “Why?”

  “Can’t stand him.”

  “What did your sisters think of him?”

  “They tolerated him. He visited them more than me.” His face told a story—that he didn’t like Franklin seeing his sisters.

  “Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Pardon?” Surely he had to be kidding here.

  “I don’t know!” He tunnelled his fingers through his hair.

  “Does he work?”

  “I don’t talk to him about anything like that. I try not to talk about him at all. When he moved in, things changed. I had to share a room with him, and he was…weird. Scary. So much bigger than us. Like a man. I was younger than him, and he was this thirteen-year-old beefcake who had a massive chip on his shoulder. He used to tell me at night, when we were in bed, that I had everything he wished he had, and if I didn’t do what he wanted, he’d take my family away from me.”

  Helena fought the urge to scream. “So when I asked you if anyone had a grudge, and you said no, you didn’t think that snippet of information was important? That someone basically threatening to take your family away wasn’t linked to your family actually being taken away?”