Let the Dead Speak

by Jane Casey

  She was very pretty when she wasn’t screaming her head off, and probably good at her job. She certainly didn’t seem to be put off by the bloody smears all over the kitchen, which I put down to lack of imagination rather than heartlessness. The state of the house jangled my nerves though. I should have been used to it, but I wasn’t.

  Something else was bothering me, too. ‘When you say you’re here at the request of the owner, who do you mean? Kate Emery?’

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ She looked from me to Derwent. ‘She was only the tenant. The house never belonged to her.’

  ‘It didn’t?’ Derwent frowned. ‘So who does it belong to?’

  ‘A lady named Phyllis Charnock. I think she’s Kate Emery’s aunt? Between you and me, she’s an old witch. She lives down in Cornwall somewhere in a massive house. She must be in her seventies.’ Neela said it as if that was unimaginably old. She herself was probably twenty-five at the most.

  ‘So she heard her niece was dead and decided to put the house on the market?’ Derwent shook his head. ‘People will never cease to amaze me.’

  ‘No, that’s the thing. She’d already decided to put it on the market. She retained us months ago. She’d given her niece formal notice to quit and everything.’ Neela grinned. ‘Can’t deny it would have been easier to sell the house before someone was murdered in it. It’s a good thing I like a challenge. But at least the tenant looked after the place. She renovated it, actually.’ She ran her hand over the kitchen counter, avoiding the blood. ‘These kitchens don’t come cheap. That’s a Corian worktop she put in and they cost a fortune. She’s kept the house lovely. She looked after it like it was her own, she said.’

  ‘So Kate wasn’t pleased about moving out,’ I said.

  ‘This is the first time I’ve been able to have a proper look at the place. Every time I called round before she told me to bog off.’ Neela rolled her eyes. ‘I was just doing my job. It’s not my fault her aunt wants to sell up. I know she’s dead, but she could have been a bit nicer about it.’

  ‘Do you have a phone number for Phyllis Charnock?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ She flicked through her folder of notes and found a page of contact information. ‘But don’t tell her I gave it to you, OK? She’s a difficult client and I’m doing my best to stay on the right side of her.’ A dazzling smile. ‘So far so good.’

  Within two minutes of starting a conversation with Phyllis Charnock (‘Miss Charnock, please’) I’d revised my opinion of Neela Singh from ‘good at her job’ to ‘miracle worker’. Miss Charnock had apparently been waiting all morning for the chance to pick a fight with someone, and I was offering her a golden opportunity.

  ‘It is impertinent of you to ask why I want to sell my property. It’s my house and I am entitled to do exactly what I wish with it.’ Her voice grated in my ear, granite-hard.

  ‘Yes, of course. I was just wondering if there was a specific reason for selling it now. You haven’t lived in it for some time, I gather.’

  ‘I’ve never lived in it. I’ve barely even seen it. I don’t like London. I inherited the house from my godmother.’

  My godmother had left me a pair of earrings. I tried not to mind that it hadn’t been a million-pound house.

  ‘That was quite a legacy.’

  ‘It was kind. Then again, she had no one else to leave it to. And of course I was grateful, at first, in spite of the tax implications. I rented it out for a time but that was a disaster. I thought it was quite a stroke of genius to invite my niece to live in it. After the failure of her marriage she had nowhere else to go. It made it much easier to have a tenant who could be trusted to keep an eye on the house.’

  ‘Of course,’ I murmured, looking around the living room at the tasteful wallpaper, the expensive curtains and the carpets that had to have been laid in the last couple of years. ‘Was Kate paying rent?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ She sounded truly affronted at the suggestion. ‘She was my only living relative and I felt it was my duty to help her. In return, she kept the house in a good state of repair and made whatever improvements she felt might be necessary.’

  ‘She must have spent quite a lot of money on it.’ More than rent, I thought. A lot more.

  ‘That was her choice.’ Her voice became even more severe. ‘I never asked her to invest in the house. There was no suggestion on my part that she could look forward to owning the house one day. I helped her out of charity and family feeling, and it was a great shock to me that she didn’t feel the same way.’

  ‘Did Kate know you were planning to sell it?’

  ‘She said she had no idea. She was living in a fool’s paradise if she thought she could just keep the house. I set her straight.’

  ‘She must have been very upset.’

  ‘Oh, she was furious. She had the nerve to say she deserved half of whatever it fetched.’ Miss Charnock snorted. ‘I was very quick to tell her that she had no legal claim over it whatsoever.’

  ‘But if she put in a new kitchen—’

  ‘There was a kitchen already. And a perfectly good attic, which apparently she turned into a bedroom.’ She said it as if no one had ever done a loft conversion before. ‘Two of them living in the house and four bedrooms.’ A sniff. ‘Ridiculous. Her trouble was that she had champagne tastes and a lemonade income.’

  Whereas you are bitter lemon all the way. ‘When did you tell her you were planning to sell the house?’

  ‘April. I gave her six months to find somewhere else to live. She’d had years to save her money,’ Miss Charnock said peevishly. ‘She might have known she would need a deposit for a house one day. But she spent the lot. Easy come, easy go. My brother was the same. He was penniless when he died. Kate was only a child. One might have thought that growing up in poverty would have taught her to be more careful about money.’

  I winced, imagining Kate coming up against this implacable lack of sympathy. ‘Six months isn’t a long time.’

  ‘It was plenty of time. I had waited long enough. Her daughter is an adult now. I had done what I could for them. And there was no question of letting the daughter inherit it.’

  ‘You mean Chloe.’

  ‘I think that was the name. I only met her once, when she was eight or nine.’ From her tone, Miss Charnock hadn’t enjoyed the experience. ‘A very unmanageable little girl.’

  ‘Miss Charnock, you may not know this and I’m sorry to break the news to you over the phone, but Chloe died two days ago.’

  ‘Oh.’ She absorbed the news for a moment while I waited in respectful silence. ‘Well, thank goodness for that.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Her mother always said she found life difficult, that she couldn’t cope on her own. If she couldn’t be independent, what quality of life could she expect as she got older? And of course because of what happened to poor Kate she was in a very difficult position. She was slow, you know. She should have been in a home. That’s what I said to Kate, when she said she wasn’t able to live on her own.’

  I frowned. That wasn’t the impression I had had of Chloe. It seemed to me that everyone who knew Chloe – except her mother – thought she was far more able than Miss Charnock was suggesting. And Kate had had her own reasons for wanting Chloe to be dependent on her. I found myself thinking of all the specialists she had visited and discarded when their version of Chloe didn’t fit in with Kate’s narrative. She had remade her world to suit herself and the facts of her financial and personal situation had seemed like nothing more than an inconvenience.

  ‘Chloe was a beautiful girl,’ I said.

  ‘Looks aren’t everything. I couldn’t let my inheritance go to an imbecile. If Kate had had a normal child it might have been different, but no.’ Her voice sounded fretful all of a sudden. ‘I have no one, you know. I’m on my own. My income has been very badly affected by low interest rates in the last few years. My investments aren’t performing as well as I expected. I have to think of my future.�
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  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I had thought – I mean, I expected that Kate would come down to look after me. But she made it very clear that she wouldn’t do anything of the kind. After all I’d done for her, too. She needed to be with her daughter, she said. No family feeling for me whatsoever. I thought it was the least she could do, but she told me I could afford to pay for a nursing home.’

  The vindictive edge in her voice was beginning to make sense. Selling the house was designed to punish Kate as well as reorganising Miss Charnock’s finances. I got off the phone as quickly as possible, and not just because talking to Phyllis Charnock was depressing.

  The clock was ticking for Kate, from the moment Miss Charnock announced she was selling the house. There would have been no possibility of negotiating with her aunt, I thought, even if they had been on good terms. Six months to find a home, having sunk all of her money into the house she thought she’d inherit. Her business had failed comprehensively. Chloe was still dependent on her and they were both dependent on Brian Emery’s financial support. No wonder she was so keen to secure a lump sum from him.

  And he’d said no.

  In the kitchen, Derwent said something that made Neela laugh, a long peal of pure amusement. Either she had a very different sense of humour to me or he was trying harder than usual.

  When I walked in I found him sitting at the breakfast bar, his expression innocent. The only sign he had been misbehaving was that one of his knees was jumping, and only I would know it was a giveaway. I glanced at Neela, who was bright-eyed and inclined to blush as well as giggle. He couldn’t help it, I thought. Especially when Melissa was turning out to be hard work. A little diversion here and there. Could I blame him?

  I could, and I did.

  ‘I think we’re finished here,’ I said coldly. To Derwent, I said, ‘We need to get back to the office.’

  The smile disappeared from his face. ‘Why?’

  Like I’m going to say anything more in front of your estate-agent friend. I raised my eyebrows at him.

  He slid off the stool, coming to heel like a dog that knows it’s pushed its luck too far.

  ‘How was Miss Charnock?’ Neela asked.

  ‘I think she’s enough to put off any buyer, even one who doesn’t mind about the murder.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She sighed. ‘I’m definitely going to earn my commission on this one.’

  30

  ‘Is that everything?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s one more box.’ Derwent dumped the one he’d been carrying on the floor and went out again.

  Teetering piles of paper almost filled the meeting room table already. I started trying to put it in order, swearing under my breath at the scale of it all.

  ‘What’s this?’

  I looked up to see Una Burt standing in the doorway. ‘The files we took from Kate Emery’s house and everything we’ve pulled together since. All the paperwork, basically.’

  ‘Why?’

  I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand. ‘Did you hear about the house?’

  She nodded. ‘Her financial situation was far worse than we thought.’

  ‘Which makes me wonder if she was doing anything to try to get more money.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Extra work? Cash in hand? Something illegal? She knew about drugs. She had a supplier for the herbal stuff she sold as a fertility aid. Maybe she started importing something else. A dealer might have objected to her invading their territory.’

  ‘Then where did the money go?’

  I shrugged. ‘She hid it too well. Or maybe Chloe went to find it and they followed her. Take the money, kill the only witness.’

  Burt looked at the table. ‘It’s going to take you a while to go through all that on your own.’

  ‘I was wondering if I could get some help – Colin, ideally. Or Liv?’

  ‘They’re busy working on Chloe’s murder. But you’ve got Derwent.’

  ‘I do.’ I pulled a face. ‘It might be more help if you took him away.’

  Slightly unexpectedly, she laughed. ‘All right. I’ll find something for him to do to keep him off your back.’

  I sat down at the table and began picking through Kate’s life again, looking for any variations in the usual patterns. Most people had fairly predictable lives: a handful of jobs over the years, a couple of bank accounts, a dip into the red now and then. There was a rhythm to their spending: an uptick in December for Christmas presents and in July for holidays, paring outgoings to the bone in January. They paid off car loans and invested in their pensions and got a good deal on a new TV and the whole tale of their lives was laid out like the Bayeux tapestry once you knew how to read their financial documentation.

  Kate’s bank accounts told a different story.

  ‘Find anything?’ Derwent, leaning over my shoulder with a mug of tea. His, it became apparent when he sipped it a split second before I thanked him for making it for me.

  ‘Cash.’

  ‘What about it?’

  I flipped back through the statements, pointing to the figures I’d highlighted. ‘She started taking out cash in May. Phyllis told her in April the house was going to be sold. She gave her niece six months to get herself organised. I’d have expected Kate to cut down on her spending and increase her savings so she could manage a rental deposit but she started taking out the maximum from cash machines between three and five times a week. Different machines, different places. Always the maximum.’

  ‘So? Maybe she started using cash so she’d be more careful with her spending. Makes a difference when you see the money go, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But she never used it. All her spending was still on her debit and credit cards. Even small sums.’

  ‘OK. So what was she doing with it? Paying someone off? Hiding it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But I know we didn’t find it.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Nothing yet. Give me a chance. I’ve only just started.’

  ‘You need some help,’ Derwent said.

  ‘Not from you.’

  ‘Wasn’t offering. Hold on a second.’ He strolled out and a couple of minutes passed before Georgia appeared in the doorway.

  ‘DI Derwent told me you needed me.’

  I suppressed a sigh and filled her in on what we’d learned about Kate.

  ‘So she had no money. Why didn’t she get a job?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘She was a nurse, wasn’t she? Before she set up her company, I mean.’

  ‘She’d let her registration lapse.’

  ‘I think she was still working in that area, though, wasn’t she?’ Georgia started burrowing through the files, frowning. ‘I’m sure I saw something when I was looking for the child psychologist reports. Here.’ She handed me a letter on headed paper.

  ‘A short-term contract at the Rosebery Clinic, whatever that is.’ I checked the date. ‘But this is from two years ago.’

  ‘That’s the last mention of a real job I found. If you’re looking for work, you start off by going back to the places you’ve worked before, don’t you? Unless you fucked up.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I found my phone and called the number on the letter.

  ‘The Rosebery Clinic, Anita speaking, how may I help you?’ She sounded smoothly professional, her voice unapologetically posh.

  I identified myself and explained I was ringing because of an active murder investigation. The silence on the other end of the line was charged with reluctance to get involved, but there was curiosity too.

  ‘I’m not sure if we can help.’

  ‘Is the Rosebery Clinic a medical clinic?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Specialising in …’

  ‘Reproductive healthcare. Fertility, specifically.’

  ‘IVF?’ That was all I really knew about fertility treatments.

  ‘Amongst other therapies. All of this information is available on our website. Now, if that’s all�
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  Other therapies. And Kate had been selling supplements to help couples with their fertility.

  ‘Do you know of a woman named Kate Emery? Did you ever work with her?’

  There was a tiny intake of breath. ‘Hold on. Give me your number and I’ll call you back.’

  She hung up before I could ask anything else.

  ‘What did she say?’ Georgia’s eyes were bright with interest.

  ‘She’s calling me back.’ I stood up and paced around the room, too excited to sit still. ‘I wish she’d hurry up.’

  After a couple of minutes my phone rang: an unknown number.

  ‘You were asking about Kate Emery.’ No preamble, and this time Anita’s voice was distinctly more down-to-earth. I could hear traffic; she’d obviously left the building to talk to me. ‘I saw in the paper she’d disappeared. Murder, you said.’

  ‘It is a murder investigation, yes.’

  ‘God, poor Kate.’

  ‘You knew her.’

  ‘She used to work at the clinic. She was a nurse there, donkey’s years ago. Oh, it must be fifteen years ago. More. She quit when she found out her daughter wasn’t well. Such a shame. She was a brilliant nurse.’

  ‘Had you heard from her since?’

  ‘A few times. It was hard for her to go out, you know, with her daughter.’ A sigh. ‘She was great fun, Kate. Trouble with a capital T. Always up to something. She’d do anything for a laugh. Play jokes on people. Say anything. Bold as brass, that’s what I used to say to her.’

  ‘What about boyfriends?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Did she take risks with boyfriends? Sleep with people she didn’t know?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. Is that what you’ve found out?’ Avid curiosity.

  ‘It’s one line of enquiry,’ I said. ‘Did you know about her business?’