Let the Dead Speak

by Jane Casey

  He reached out and took hold of Bethany’s arm, guiding her gently through the gate.

  ‘All right, love. Let’s get you into the car so you can have a sit down.’

  Bethany was limp, unresisting. The BTP officer supported her for the few stumbling paces it took her to reach his car. I watched him fold her carefully into the back seat, glad that he was being gentle. She needed care, not anger.

  ‘Do you feel up to giving us a statement?’ The other BTP officer was beside me, his notebook in hand.

  ‘Give her a chance,’ Derwent snapped.

  ‘No, it’s OK.’ I stood beside the officer and told him what had happened, as the workmen talked to the other officer and Derwent, then drifted back to work in ones and twos. The excitement was over. They’d be falling behind schedule. The work had to be done. I smiled thanks at them when I had the chance, especially the man who’d let me onto the embankment. He shook his head at me slowly.

  ‘Warned you.’

  ‘I take full responsibility.’

  ‘You better, because I ain’t gonna.’ He gave a wheezy laugh and passed through the gate with a wave.

  The BTP officer was serious, unsmiling and painstaking. This would mean paperwork, I assumed, and lots of it, so I let him take his time, ask his questions, tick his boxes. An ambulance arrived and they took charge of Bethany. They asked if I needed to be checked over and I said no. I had bruised a knee and pulled something in my shoulder, but it was minor. Better than being splattered over two hundred metres of track, anyway.

  Behind me, Derwent fidgeted and paced until at long last the officer was finished with me.

  ‘I’ll write it up and send you the statement to approve.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  He went back to his car and finally it was only Derwent I had to deal with; I would have slightly preferred another train. I looked around for him and found him staring down the track, his expression remote. I walked over.

  ‘I think that went well, considering.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No one died.’

  He looked down at his feet, frowning. ‘When you went under the bridge, I couldn’t see you. I could see the train coming. I could see the workmen by the track.’ An assessing glance from under lowered brows. ‘They thought you were fucked. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘So did I,’ I said lightly.

  He went back to staring into the distance, unsmiling. ‘Yeah. Well, I only had that to go on. And there was nothing I could do.’

  ‘I was careful.’

  ‘No, you weren’t.’

  ‘I’m here. I lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘Because you were lucky. You’re not going to be lucky every time.’

  ‘Look, I’m not actively hoping to risk my life when I come to work, but if I have to, I will. That’s the job.’

  A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘When I was in the army, I watched people die in front of me. Friends of mine. It fucking killed me, Maeve. You don’t know what that’s like, and believe me, you don’t want to know.’

  ‘I know what it’s like to lose a colleague. You might remember that.’ I tilted my head to one side, considering him. ‘These pals of yours – was it your fault that they died? Because if not, I think I still win this one.’

  ‘It’s not a competition,’ Derwent snapped.

  ‘Then why are you pretending you know more about this than me?’

  ‘Because I’ve taken all the risks. I’ve done all the stupid shit to be brave, to prove myself, to make up for the fact that I was still alive and my mates weren’t. I’ve been just as fucked up as you are now.’

  ‘And now you’re completely normal.’

  ‘I could do without the sarcasm. I’m trying to help you.’ His nostrils flared. ‘If you were drowning you’d be throwing punches at the lifeguard.’

  ‘You’re not saving me from anything.’

  ‘No. This is something you have to do yourself.’

  I said icily, ‘I’m coping fine.’

  ‘By being the best little detective sergeant you can possibly be.’ He looked down at me. ‘Do you know why I like working with you?’

  I thought about making a smart remark but shook my head instead. I genuinely wanted to know.

  ‘You do the job with all your heart. You really care. But you need to let your head make your decisions, not your heart. Your heart is big, but it’s stupid as shit.’

  I laughed because it was better than crying. He put his arms around me and hugged me. If I’d been shorter he would have rested his chin on my head, but he settled for leaning his head against mine.

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I know.’ I tried to pull away but his grip tightened to the point of being actually painful.

  ‘You could apologise.’

  ‘It wasn’t deliberate.’

  ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

  ‘And myself. Please don’t tell my mum.’

  ‘I won’t if you promise not to do it again.’

  I patted his back feebly. ‘I can’t breathe.’

  ‘If you do do it again, you’d better make sure you die. Because otherwise I’m going to kill you.’

  ‘Point taken.’ I had another go at freeing myself with the same result. ‘You know this is edging towards assault, don’t you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You still haven’t let go.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He released me eventually and walked off, back to the car. It was atrociously parked, at an angle with one wheel on the kerb.

  ‘You know “drive it like you stole it” isn’t supposed to apply to how you park. This looks like a classic decamp.’

  ‘I was in a hurry,’ he said. ‘And if you don’t like the way I drive, you can walk to the hospital.’

  I hurried to catch up with him, hiding a smile. I was glad that he was being rude to me again. It was comforting.

  It was normal.

  27

  At the hospital a Sri Lankan doctor with a heavy accent told us that we couldn’t speak to Bethany, that she had been in distress and he had sedated her.

  ‘When can we speak to her?’ I asked.

  ‘Not today. Maybe tomorrow.’ He beamed at me as if it was good news.

  ‘We really need to talk to her as soon as possible.’

  ‘Tomorrow. The next day.’ Another smile.

  ‘It’s just that it’s a murder investigation.’

  ‘Oh yes, I understand. But she’s my patient now. We do what’s best for her.’

  If he had been my doctor I would have appreciated him standing between me and harm. As it was I had to resist the urge to kick something.

  We were walking past the waiting room when Eleanor Norris leapt out at us like a wildcat.

  ‘What did you do to my daughter?’

  ‘DS Kerrigan saved her life,’ Derwent said before I could answer her.

  ‘She harassed her! She drove her to try to kill herself.’ Eleanor glared at me with mad eyes. ‘I’m making a formal complaint about your behaviour.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’

  I stepped back, my heel pressing on Derwent’s toe hard enough that he’d get the message. You’re not helping. Oliver came out of the waiting room, his face thunderous. He put his arm around Eleanor’s shoulders.

  ‘Leave them, darling. Don’t waste your time on them.’

  I ignored him. ‘Mrs Norris, I understand why you’re distressed.’

  ‘Distressed? What you said to her was wicked.’

  ‘If it helps, I don’t think that’s why she tried to harm herself.’ I had been thinking about what Bethany said, trying to remember the exact words. If only it had been in an interview so I could have a transcript, complete with every um and ah. ‘I told her it wasn’t her fault that Chloe died and that she shouldn’t blame herself. She said that wasn’t why she wanted to kill herself.’

  ‘Well, what then?’ Eleanor hugged herself, the stress rash beginning to
break out on her neck and chest. ‘Did she say?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Is it possible that she and Chloe might have acted together to murder Kate Emery?’

  ‘What? No! Why would they?’ Oliver demanded.

  ‘If Kate wanted to keep them apart.’

  Eleanor laughed harshly. ‘If that bothered them, they’d have killed Ollie, not Kate. She always encouraged them to spend time together. She drove them places, paid for outings, let Bethany spend every spare minute in her house …’

  I thought Eleanor was telling the truth. There was something matter-of-fact in the way she said it. She was silent for a moment, thinking about it. Then she burst out with, ‘I wish I’d kept them apart. I should have listened to you, Ollie.’

  He didn’t speak but his fingertips bleached white where he was pressing them into her shoulder.

  ‘Bethany said it was her idea for her to run away with Chloe. She said the idea was that they should stay away until it was all over. Do you know what she was talking about?’

  Eleanor stared at us, her face blank.

  ‘The investigation.’ Oliver sounded certain. ‘They were both finding it a tremendous strain to have you bothering them. Asking questions. Arresting me and Bethany’s uncle, for God’s sake – you don’t have to think for very long about why they might have wanted a break from it all.’

  ‘But she didn’t say that to me on the phone. She didn’t say that they’d run away so we would leave them alone.’

  ‘No, well, she wouldn’t. We’ve brought her up to be polite to her elders, even if they don’t deserve it.’

  I frowned, unconvinced. ‘Bethany said something like you don’t know what I am when I was talking to her.’ I saw Eleanor start, her eyelids flickering. ‘She said I shouldn’t even be here. I think that was the wording. Can you tell me what she might have meant?’

  Eleanor flushed deeply. ‘No. No idea.’

  ‘Mrs Norris,’ Derwent said gently. ‘Please.’

  She looked up at her husband’s face for a moment, communicating silently. He nodded and she turned back to us.

  ‘I think she must have meant that we had great trouble when we were trying to conceive her. We tried for a long time. There were tests, clinics … it was humiliating. We were told there was no chance at all.’

  ‘It was a miracle when Eleanor fell pregnant,’ Norris said, squeezing her shoulders again. ‘It was the happiest time of my life. We were concerned of course that she might not carry the pregnancy to term. We couldn’t believe we could be so lucky, to beat the odds that way. But Bethany was fine. She was perfect.’

  ‘She said it like it was a bad thing,’ I said.

  Oliver Norris shook his head. ‘I don’t know what she could have meant.’

  ‘She was loved and wanted from the start,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’ve always told her so. I’d have done anything for a child – for her – and in the end all I could do was pray. We were desperate. We’d exhausted every other option.’

  ‘And our prayers were answered,’ Norris said with a smile that set my teeth on edge.

  Derwent must have felt the same way. ‘That’s a hell of a burden to place on a kid, isn’t it? Telling her she’s a gift from God, or whatever it was you said to her. It puts her under a lot of pressure to be perfect.’

  ‘I disagree,’ Eleanor said coldly.

  ‘Of course you’d find some way to make us look bad.’ Oliver Norris was glaring at Derwent as if he wanted to murder him. ‘You want to pin it on us. It’s our fault our daughter is suicidal.’

  ‘You’ve spent a lot more time with her than DS Kerrigan,’ Derwent said with a glint.

  ‘Look, none of us knows precisely why Bethany’s here,’ I said quickly. ‘I think the best thing is to hear what she has to say.’

  ‘I forbid you to speak to her,’ Oliver Norris said.

  ‘Mr Norris, it’s not really up to you any more. She’s an important witness in a murder investigation and we have to be able to talk to her.’

  ‘Absolutely not. You’ve done nothing but harass my family since you started investigating what happened to Kate. And you don’t seem to be making much progress with it, I might add.’

  I felt my cheeks grow warm: Norris was right about that. And he wasn’t finished.

  ‘I think it would be best all round if you left.’ He glowered at us both in a way that left no room for negotiation. ‘If we can’t see her, you certainly can’t.’

  ‘So what now?’ Derwent asked as we walked out of the hospital.

  ‘Well, we have one thing we didn’t have before.’ I showed him the mobile phone I’d picked up from the railway embankment.

  ‘Is that Bethany’s?’

  ‘No, the Norrises don’t approve of them, remember? This is Chloe’s.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Have you looked at it?’

  ‘It’s locked. Password-protected. I was going to ask Bethany to tell me what the password was.’ I turned it over in my hand: a Samsung Galaxy with a custom cover featuring a close-up of Misty the cat. ‘Colin might be able to get something off it, but we’ll probably have to send it to the lab to get a full forensic download.’

  Derwent wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t want Colin trying out his skills on this. Too important. If we send it off, I think we can get to the top of the list with a bit of badgering. Potentially, that phone can tell us a lot about where the two girls went and why they ran away.’

  ‘What I’m wondering is why Bethany had the phone. We haven’t found any of Chloe’s stuff – her clothes, her wallet, anything that she took with her when she ran away. Just the phone, and we wouldn’t have known about that if Bethany hadn’t needed to use it.’

  ‘Maybe Chloe gave it to her.’

  ‘Why?’

  Derwent shrugged. ‘Because she knew we could track her if she had it.’

  ‘We tried that. It was switched off.’

  ‘See? They were aware that the phone could give them away.’ He tapped his head. ‘Savvy.’

  ‘I’d believe that of Bethany. I’m not so sure you could say that about Chloe.’

  ‘Maybe it was how Chloe was going to keep in touch with Bethany after they went their separate ways. She’s kept in the dark ages, technologically speaking, isn’t she?’

  I nodded. ‘No internet, no social media, no phone.’

  ‘And Chloe couldn’t exactly send her a postcard.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ I said. ‘I still think it’s worth searching Bethany’s house again in case there’s anything else she conveniently forgot to mention.’

  ‘That’ll need another search warrant.’

  ‘I’ll put in the request now.’ I looked past him. ‘Oh, that’s not a good idea.’

  Derwent turned to see William Turner hobbling across the car park towards us. ‘For shit’s sake.’

  I moved to intercept him. ‘William—’

  ‘I want to see her.’

  ‘If it’s Bethany you mean, no one can see her. Not us, not her parents. She’s in the mental health unit under sedation.’

  Turner’s eyes glittered and he turned away for a second, getting himself under control.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She tried to throw herself under a train.’ The unembellished version, courtesy of Derwent.

  ‘If you hadn’t told us she was in trouble, she’d probably be dead,’ I said. ‘You saved her life.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, DS Kerrigan saved her life,’ Derwent said reprovingly, as if Turner had claimed all the credit. Then, magnanimous as ever, he added, ‘But she couldn’t have done it without you.’

  ‘Why did she want to kill herself?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said. ‘Actually, you might be able to help with that.’

  I asked him the same questions I’d asked Bethany’s parents – what Bethany had meant by saying they were staying away ‘until it was all over’ and why she’d said ‘I shouldn’t even be here’. To
give him his due, Turner tried very hard to come up with an explanation but in the end he had to admit defeat.

  ‘Sorry. If I knew I would tell you.’

  I believed he was telling the truth. Derwent frowned at him. ‘Last time I saw you, you were half dead. What are you doing walking about?’

  ‘I discharged myself from A and E.’ He stared Derwent down, the effect slightly ruined by the bruising that kept one eye from opening properly. ‘I’ve spent enough time in there lately.’

  ‘Well, unless you want to be heading straight back there, I’d stay away from Bethany Norris. Her dad is up there and he’s spoiling for another fight. I’m serious. He’ll do you some damage.’

  ‘I need to talk to Bethany about Chloe.’ Turner faltered as he said her name. ‘I need to know what happened.’

  ‘Join the club,’ I said. ‘But as I said, no one is talking to her at the moment. Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘When, then?’

  ‘William, I don’t think you’ll be able to see her.’

  ‘It’s not fair. She’ll want to talk to me, not you.’ He sounded petulant and I caught that flash of arrogance I’d seen from him before: the kind of arrogance that had run rings around a good police officer when he’d been the main suspect in an investigation. I’d started to think of Turner as an ally when he was nothing of the kind, I reminded myself.

  ‘You’re way down the list, even if Bethany’s parents are all right with you speaking to her.’

  ‘You know they wouldn’t want me to talk to her.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ I kept my voice level and calm. ‘I think you should go home.’

  ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘It would be very tedious to try,’ I said. ‘But a lot of things I do for work are tedious, and I still do them.’

  He swung away from us, muttering something under his breath. Derwent took a step after him. I grabbed his arm and shook my head.

  ‘Not worth it.’

  ‘Little shit.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely.’ I watched Turner limp off across the car park. ‘I wish we could use him, though. Bethany is far more likely to talk to him than to us.’

  ‘You can win her round.’

  ‘No. I think I’ve burned my boats with the Norrises. I doubt any of them are going to trust me from now on.’