Now they worked in the rear reception room where the hospital bed remained. She heard grumbling about the futility of the search, particularly as she’d had the cleaner in since last week. Surely nothing useful could be found. Look anyway, Conn instructed.
Roberta listened with one ear as she watched the evening news. She had watched a lot of news in recent days; it was becoming a habit, adding punctuation to her routine. The newsreaders had become familiar, their names, their mannerisms, their turns of phrase. On a few occasions she had caught herself mimicking the female presenters, the tilt of their head, the pitch of their voice, the shape of their mouth. An old habit from her childhood, distant as that now seemed, the taking on of others’ tics and quirks.
On the television, Peter’s house appeared, and the church. Police officers wandering in and out. Just like here, she thought, as she heard two pairs of shoes climb her stairs. Searching the bedroom next. It didn’t matter. They would find nothing there. Everything she had worth hiding was nowhere near this house.
The television caught her attention again.
‘George,’ she said as her brother-in-law filled the screen with his loping frame and country-handsome face. She had spotted him at the funeral, lurking at the back, keeping his head down. She had pretended not to see him. Not that she cared, anyway.
The reporter caught George on the doorstep of some shabby terraced house – his home, presumably, since his wife had kicked him out – and questioned him about his brother’s possible murder.
‘I don’t know what I can say,’ George mumbled in that blunt-edged country way of his. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever get to the truth of it. There’s more to this than will ever come out, but that’ll be up to the police, and them that knows what really happened. And them that does know, I hope their conscience will guide them. If it doesn’t, then I pity them.’
He glanced at the camera lens, and Roberta knew he spoke to her.
‘They’ll have to live with this and everything else that’s gone on. I don’t think they’ll have a peaceful night’s sleep as long as they live. And I know I couldn’t live too long with that hanging over me. That’s all I have to say.’
The report cut back to the studio, and she threw the remote control at the screen, making it flicker.
‘Fuck you,’ she said. ‘Fuck you.’
‘Is everything all right, Mrs Garrick?’
She spun to the voice. DCI Conn in the kitchen doorway, concern on his face.
‘Fine,’ she said, offering a regretful smile. ‘It’s fine. It’s been a difficult time, that’s all.’
He nodded and said, ‘Of course.’
She went to the door, closed it behind him as he left. Alone now, she rested her forehead against the cool wood. No good. This wouldn’t do at all. She was nearly through it, almost out the other side. All she had to do was keep control.
Her hand shot to her mouth, stifling a cry, as her mobile phone trilled and vibrated on the granite worktop. She went to it, saw the number, thumbed the green icon.
‘Jim,’ she said.
‘Roberta,’ he said.
Then nothing. She could picture him at the other end, mouth moving like a goldfish as he reached for the words.
‘Say what you want to say.’
‘I just . . .’
‘Come on,’ she said, her patience flaking away.
‘I don’t think we should see each other any more,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I think you’re probably right.’
‘I want you to stay away from me,’ he said.
‘That won’t be a problem.’
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Stay away. I’ve deleted all those photographs. Don’t send any more. Don’t call me. If you do, I’ll . . .’
‘You’ll what?’
Call the police, she thought. It was clear he suspected, but he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. A weak man, even weaker than Peter had been, weaker still than her dead husband.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘You’ll do nothing. That’d be better for everybody, don’t you think?’
‘Just keep away from me,’ he said, and the phone died.
46
Flanagan followed the satnav’s directions, skirting the town of Magherafelt, heading south towards the village of Moneymore. A long steep descent down a hill, pastureland all around, deep greens and cattle and sheep. The smell of the countryside, thick and heavy in the air. She passed a tractor coming the other way, towing a slurry tank, slow on the incline, half a mile of traffic backed up behind it. Drivers with angry faces, impatient for the tractor to pull in and let them past.
A thirty-mile-per-hour limit sign as she entered the village. She slowed the Volkswagen, shifted down to fourth gear, noted the newbuild houses climbing the hillside to her left, older dwellings to her right. A busy filling station that doubled as a supermarket. A sweeping bend and a small roundabout brought her into the heart of Moneymore. A typical Ulster plantation village, lacking the quaint charm of an English equivalent but pleasant in its own way. Austere functional buildings, painted rendering rather than attractive stonework, bunting and Union flags still lingering from the dying summer’s marching season.
She followed the road through a sharp bend, passing an Orange Hall and a Presbyterian church, obeyed the satnav’s command to go straight on, the signs guiding her in the direction of Cookstown. A quarter mile outside the village, the satnav told her to take the next right, a narrow lane, its junction barely visible until she was on top of it.
Another quarter mile, and the Baileys’ house was up ahead, on the apex of a bend. A large open gate leading to a modest bungalow set in half an acre of well-tended lawns and outbuildings. As she steered onto the short driveway, she saw a chicken pen to the rear of the house. Somewhere at the back, a dog barked at her arrival.
Flanagan shut off the engine and checked her mobile phone. No signal out here. She had intended on texting Alistair to apologise for missing dinner, but that would have to wait.
As she got out of the car, the front door opened, and a white-haired man stared out at her. Mid sixties, she thought, neatly dressed, wearing a tie for no apparent reason in the way that country Protestant men did.
‘How’re ye,’ he said, a wary look on his face.
‘Good evening,’ Flanagan said with as friendly a smile as she could manage. ‘Are you Mr Bailey?’
‘Aye,’ he said, giving a single nod, his expression impassive.
Flanagan wondered had he been a reservist, a part-time soldier or policeman; many of his generation had been during the Troubles. Not very long ago, a strange car pulling up at a reservist’s home meant danger, shots fired through windows, doors broken down, men killed in front of their children. He said nothing more and remained watchful.
She reached into her bag, produced her wallet and the warrant card within, brought it to his doorstep. With quick blue eyes, he read it as she spoke.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Bailey,’ she said. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Serena Flanagan, based at Lisburn. You can call to verify, if you’d like.’
She hoped he wouldn’t. No one knew she had come here, and Purdy would rip her to shreds if he found out.
‘That’s all right,’ he said, looking from the card to her face, a flicker of worry in his eyes now. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘Nothing for you to be concerned about,’ she said. ‘I wanted to have a word with you and Mrs Bailey about your daughter, Roberta.’
‘Roberta?’ he asked, his brow creased.
‘Yes, if you can spare a few minutes.’
He stepped back, opened the door fully. ‘You’d better come in.’
‘Thank you,’ Flanagan said as she entered.
Mr Bailey reached behind the open door, lifted the double-barrelled shotgun he had propped there and put it into a closet. ‘I’ve got a licence for it,’ he said. ‘There’s still some bad boys abou
t the country. Maisie’s just doing the dishes. Go on in the living room and I’ll get her.’
Flanagan heard water running, the clatter of cutlery. The house smelled of beef and potatoes and boiled vegetables, warm homey scents that sparked a memory of her grandmother, even though she barely remembered what Granny Jane looked like.
She thanked Mr Bailey once more and walked through the open door into the living room where a log burned red and grey in the hearth. A plush three-piece suite, small bookcases, a china cabinet, figurines, brassware. A carved wooden elephant on a sideboard.
On the mantelpiece above the fire, a framed photograph of a young girl, fiery red hair, pretty, someday beautiful. A school portrait, and Flanagan imagined the young Roberta Bailey, the first flush of puberty about her, sitting for a photographer in an echoing assembly hall while a line of children waited their turn.
She turned a circle, looking for more pictures. There were a few, all of her as a youngster, smiling. A little girl who was loved.
What happened to you? Flanagan thought. What went wrong?
Mr Bailey entered, followed by his wife, a sturdy woman showing little sign of going grey, still more copper in her hair than silver. A redhead like her daughter. High cheekbones like Roberta’s, but the face rounded with age. She dried her hands on a towel and tucked it into the pocket on the front of her apron.
‘Hello,’ Mrs Bailey said. ‘Would you take a cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you,’ Flanagan said. ‘I don’t want to use up any more of your time than I have to. Do you mind if I sit down?’
‘Not at all,’ Mrs Bailey said. ‘Go ahead.’
Flanagan took the armchair, and the Baileys sat on the couch, both watching her with a mix of curiosity and worry. She readied her notebook and pen.
‘As I said, I wanted to ask you about your daughter, if you don’t mind.’
The Baileys looked at each other, then back to Flanagan.
‘Ask away,’ Mr Bailey said, that knot of caution still on his brow.
‘She was a pretty girl,’ Flanagan said, indicating the picture over the fireplace.
‘Aye, she was,’ Mrs Bailey said, a sadness in her voice. ‘She was gorgeous.’
‘How was she as a girl?’ Flanagan asked. ‘Was she well-behaved or did she give you any trouble? Was she sociable? Was she shy?’
‘She was a good girl,’ Mrs Bailey said. ‘She was a wee bit shy, I suppose, but she had plenty of friends. The teachers always liked her at school. She loved school, so she did.’
‘So never any problems,’ Flanagan said.
‘No, never.’
‘I’m curious, then, what happened later on? Why did she become estranged from you?’
Mr and Mrs Bailey looked at each other again, then back to Flanagan.
‘What do you mean?’ Mr Bailey asked.
‘I know there was a falling out when she was older,’ Flanagan said. ‘That she got into some trouble later on. Can you tell me about that?’
They stared at her. Tears welled in Mrs Bailey’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Bailey said. ‘You’ve made a mistake.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Flanagan said.
‘Our Roberta’s dead,’ he said, a waver in his voice. ‘She died in March 1993. Meningitis. Two other children at her school died around the same time.’
Flanagan’s skin prickled. Her mouth dried.
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I must have made a mistake. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
She reached for her mobile phone, saw there was still no signal.
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ she said, ‘do you think I could use your landline?’
47
‘This is good coffee,’ DCI Conn said, raising his cup to her.
Roberta smiled and said, ‘I can’t take credit. The machine did the work.’
‘Still, it’s very good,’ Conn said. ‘Thank you.’
He took a sip and set the cup on the black granite. She sat opposite, on the other side of the island, nursing her own cup. Conn looked tired, stubble darkening his jawline. The other police officers had left more than an hour ago, but he had remained, going through the wardrobe and drawers in the back room, looking for God knows what.
He was a tall man, not bad looking, though he had a meanness about him. The kind of man who enjoyed petty victories, held on to anger at every small defeat. She could read men that way, always had done, a talent she’d developed when she was barely a teenager. How easy it had been to manipulate the boys with their crude and simple impulses. And they never grew out of it. They never learned to let their brains do their thinking. Even the smartest of them. When everything was stripped away, they were all the same, from the highest to the lowest, animals whose sole drive was to rut with her.
And here she was, alone with this man. He wore a wedding band, but she had noted how he toyed with it, sliding it from knuckle to knuckle. And how he glanced at her body, thinking himself sly and unnoticed. It would be so easy to take him, just move closer, fingertips, delicate butterfly touches, let him feel the heat of her.
‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.
She snapped back into the moment. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘You were smiling,’ he said.
‘Was I?’ She let the smile spread, felt it light up her face. He couldn’t help but reflect it back to her. ‘I was just thinking about something,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just a memory.’
He nodded, smiled once more, and took another sip of coffee.
‘You’ve been very kind,’ she said. ‘I hardly knew you were here today. Very professional. Not like that Flanagan woman.’
Conn cleared his throat. ‘Well, she has her own way of doing things.’
Roberta saw the way he bristled at the name, the tightening of his jaw. She caught a scent, followed it.
‘She was so . . . hard,’ she said. ‘Do you know what I mean? And rude. What’s the word? Abrasive? Yes, abrasive, that’s it.’
He gave a shallow smile, looked at her, looked away. ‘I can’t really comment.’
She saw the angle, honed in on it.
‘Call me old-fashioned,’ she said, ‘but women in jobs like that. They overcompensate, don’t you think? They think they have to out-man the men. It makes them bitchy and mean, doesn’t it?’
He shrugged, laughed, raised his hands in a motion of surrender. ‘If I said that out loud to anyone, they’d have me off on one of those equality awareness courses.’
Got him, she thought.
‘I’m glad you’ve taken over,’ she said. ‘I feel better having you around, Brian. Can I call you Brian?’
She reached across the worktop, almost let her fingertips brush his.
‘I suppose,’ he said, his cheeks reddening, his eyes flicking to her and away, over and over.
Like a schoolboy, she thought. So easy.
Reel him in or let him go?
Conn’s mobile phone chimed, making the decision for her. What might have been relief broke on his face as he reached for his breast pocket. He looked at the display and said, ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’
‘Of course,’ she said as she drew her hand back to her side of the island.
He brought the phone to his ear and said, ‘DCI Conn.’
She heard a metallic voice, words she could not discern.
‘Yes, I’m at the Garrick house now.’
His features slackened. He looked at her, eyes blank, then looked away again.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Give me twenty minutes, half an hour.’
When he hung up, she asked, ‘Is everything all right?’
He lowered himself from the stool, slipped the phone back into his pocket. ‘Fine, fine,’ he said. ‘They need me over at the church is all. There’s something they need me to see. Thank you for the coffee. I can let myself out.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said
as he hurried out of the kitchen.
She listened to the front door open and close, the bark and rumble of an engine. As it faded, a cold finger touched her heart.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing.’
Yet the chill remained. A warm bath would help. Yes, she thought, a soak to wash the day away. She finished her coffee, set the two cups in the sink, and made her way upstairs. In the master bathroom, she plugged the tub, turned on both taps, adjusted until the temperature was just so. Added a generous dose of bubble bath.
She went to her bedroom, into the walk-in wardrobe, and selected a nightdress and gown, brought them out and laid them on the bed. As she set about unbuttoning her blouse, she glanced up at the wall over the antique dresser.
The child stared back down at her.
Roberta crossed the room, took the picture from its hook. She opened the dresser’s top drawer, placed the picture inside, and slid it closed again. Her hand against the wood, she held the drawer in place as if the image of the child might try to climb out again.
‘Now be quiet,’ she said.
48
Flanagan knocked on Purdy’s office door and entered without waiting for an invitation. She found Conn pacing the floor, Purdy sitting behind his desk. DS Murray sat in the corner, his arms folded across his chest. They all looked to her as she closed the door behind her.
‘When do we bring her in?’ Flanagan asked.
Conn and Purdy exchanged a glance.
‘Not tonight,’ Purdy said.
‘Why not?’
‘All we have right now is the suspicion – suspicion, mind – of identity theft. The best we could do is some sort of fraud, and even that isn’t straightforward.’
Flanagan approached the desk. ‘She’s been ghosting for years. Surely that’s enough to arrest her on.’
‘In itself, yes,’ Purdy said. ‘But is that really all you want her for? Ghosting on its own will be a minor offence. It’s what she did with the identity that counts, not just that she’s used it.’
‘So what do we do?’ Flanagan asked.
‘We wait,’ Purdy said. ‘First of all, we need to find out who she really is. Let’s hope that Isle of Man account can tell us something. If there’s a name attached, we reference that back to the credit reference agency, find any other accounts connected to it. We’ll have to go through the Attorney General’s Office, but we should have that information some time tomorrow morning, maybe afternoon, and young Murray here will go through it. Then we can look at her history under the fake identity. Any bank account she has in the name Roberta Bailey or Garrick is a financial fraud, even more serious if she’s taken out a credit card or a loan.’
So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2) Page 22