‘You’ve done the right thing,’ the man said. ‘Have you any idea where Oliver might be?’
‘No. We’ve no family in the area, and I don’t know these new friends.’
‘It’s clearly a very worrying situation for you but thank you for coming in and alerting us. If Oliver comes home or contacts you, please let me know immediately. Day or night. I’ll give you my direct line.’
‘I’m worried he might have hurt himself,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘If he was involved then . . . Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know that he could live with it. He’s not that sort of person. I think there’s been some awful mistake. He’s a good boy. He really is.’
‘It’s impossible to be sure what the facts are at this stage,’ the detective said. ‘And that’s what we deal with at the end of the day, hard facts. Until we speak to Oliver we simply don’t know the whole truth of the situation. I can tell you that your visit here will remain confidential. It will only be shared with those staff on the investigation.’
‘Will you be giving his name out?’ she said. She imagined the shock as that news ripped through her community, her friends and neighbours, the staff at the supermarket, Rose and Cynthia.
‘We’ll be making every effort to find him but, Mrs Poole, our priority is to make sure no further harm is done. To Oliver or anyone else. So, for now we won’t release his name. I can’t go into any details at this stage but I can tell you we are currently questioning someone else about the incident.’
The other man? Had they found the other man? Was he one of Oliver’s friends? ‘Oh, God.’ The room tilted. ‘Other people, people who know us, they’ll have seen the pictures in the news.’ She could hear herself babbling. ‘What if anyone asks me?’
‘It’s important the information you’ve given me is not shared with anyone else,’ he said, looking deadly serious. ‘It could compromise our work. We want to make sure everything happens according to proper protocol. You understand?’
Did she? What was he saying?
‘I’m not—’ She stumbled to a halt.
‘As far as anyone else is concerned, you’ve not been here. Oliver’s off with friends for a few days or something like that.’
Keep it all secret? Could she do that? Go home and drive herself mad with worry? She thought coming here would be the end of it in some way and now it felt like the beginning. ‘I don’t know if I can do that.’
‘We would appreciate your cooperation,’ he said. ‘What we do in a situation like this is proceed with care and caution. We wouldn’t want to panic Oliver, for example, and push him into doing something stupid. It sounds like he’s vulnerable, as it is. I do understand it’s not easy, but if you can do as I ask, at least until we’ve found Oliver and have had a proper talk. Meanwhile if he does come home, call me straight away. And as soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ But she was deflated, the anxiety still gnawing away at her, the fear for Oliver just as strong.
They exchanged numbers and he thanked her again for coming in.
Their goodbyes in the reception area were stiff, made more awkward when a young Asian woman wearing a leather jacket opened the door from upstairs onto Sonia and almost knocked her over.
Back outside, the sun beat down, harsh, malign, and a band of pain tightened around Sonia’s head in response.
The lad who had been begging had gone.
She lit a cigarette and walked towards the tram stop.
Had she done the right thing? If she had, why did she still feel so guilty and distressed? Why did she still feel so very scared?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Steve
Yun Li’s phone rang. He picked it up and moved to the kitchen out of earshot.
Teagan was petting Dix and browsing on her phone. She stilled, alert, waiting to see if there was news. Her attention, her vigilance worried Steve. ‘We should take that animal out for a walk,’ he said. ‘He’s not had one all week.’
‘It’s raining,’ Teagan said.
‘If it stops.’
Yun came back in and took a seat. ‘The inquest will be opened tomorrow.’
Steve drew in a breath. ‘What time? When do we need—’
‘You’re not expected to attend,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ Teagan was frowning.
‘It’s a formality,’ Yun said. ‘Because there’s an ongoing investigation, the coroner will open and adjourn the inquest until that’s complete. Once it is, a full inquest can be held. At that stage families and friends usually do attend. It’s entirely up to you.’ He opened his palms. ‘But nothing more will happen tomorrow.’
‘What’s it for, though, if the police are finding out what happened anyway?’ Teagan said.
‘The inquest looks to establish who the deceased is, when, where and how they died but not who was responsible. That’s for the courts to decide, if a case comes to trial.’
‘That’s stupid,’ Teagan said.
‘It might feel like that.’ Yun smiled. He turned to Steve. ‘The coroner will send an interim death certificate to the registrar and that’s important because it means the coroner will be able to release Allie’s body in due course.’
Steve swallowed, pressed his hands between his knees. ‘Soon?’ he said.
‘Not necessarily.’ Yun looked apologetic. ‘It’s usual to wait until the police have charged someone because the defendant . . .’ He hesitated, glancing at Teagan.
‘Go on,’ Steve said. He couldn’t imagine anything Yun Li said now could be harder for Teagan to handle than what she’d already heard over the last few days.
‘The defendant has the right to arrange an independent postmortem.’
Oh, God.
Teagan gave a sharp sigh.
‘And what if you don’t charge someone? What if you can’t find them?’ Steve was angry – irrationally so, because he knew the family liaison officer had nothing to do with the rules of the law or even the hunt for the suspects.
‘In a complicated case, where we can’t establish who is responsible so no charges are brought, a decision can be made to carry out a second independent post-mortem anyway and release the body.’
‘Why do they have to do two?’ Steve said.
‘The post-mortem supplies forensic evidence, scientific evidence, but at trial there might be different interpretations applied to that evidence,’ Yun said.
‘Like what?’ Teagan said.
Yun paused for a moment. ‘A bruise on someone’s knee, say. Did someone hit them or could it have been caused by them tripping and falling?’
Teagan was intent on him, dark eyes solemn beneath her fringe, brown hair framing her face, apparently wanting more. She needed to understand, Steve could see that. She needed to find sense in the middle of this senseless mess.
‘Or if someone had been hurt with a knife,’ Yun added.
‘Stabbed?’ Teagan said.
‘Stabbed, and say the police found a knife at the defendant’s house. They’d want to see if the independent post-mortem raised any doubts about that being the weapon.’
‘How can they tell?’ Teagan said.
‘From the shape of the wound. But expert witnesses might disagree about that.’
‘And if there was blood on the knife?’ Teagan said.
‘That would strengthen the prosecution case,’ Yun said, ‘if it was the right blood.’
Steve didn’t like to think about the blood, about Allie’s injuries. He knew he needed to face it eventually – hiding from the facts wasn’t sustainable: the horror would only divide and multiply, a canker in the dark of his imagination – but he wasn’t ready, not yet.
Yun was still talking: ‘But perhaps the defendant would say the victim attacked him so he got the knife to protect himself and the victim fell on the knife. Then the experts might use the post-mortem findings to debate whether the stab wound might have happened like that or not.’
>
Teagan seemed satisfied. She rolled over and tickled Dix between his ears.
‘We can expect some press coverage tomorrow,’ Yun said.
‘It can’t be any worse than Emma’s little intervention,’ Steve said.
‘What?’ Teagan sat bolt upright.
‘Emma was interviewed about Allie in one of the papers,’ Steve said.
‘What did she say?’
‘A load of rubbish.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Teagan said, standing, hands on her hips.
‘I didn’t not tell you,’ he said, ‘I just—’ He looked at Yun. ‘Have you got it there?’
He went to fetch it.
‘And before you get upset or cross about it, I’ve already had a go at her,’ Steve said. He was shattered. He rubbed at his chin, the stubble rough. When had he last shaved?
When Yun returned with the paper, Teagan took it from him and disappeared upstairs.
Minutes later, music blared from her room. David Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’ at full volume. Teagan’s riposte to her aunt.
When they were first going out, Steve and Sarah had danced to that song, and years later he’d watched Allie dance to it too. Bowie, one of those icons who had played with gender and sexuality, who’d shaken things up. Outrageous to some at the time, a lifeline for others. Back in January, when Bowie had died unexpectedly, his Greatest Hits album had been on repeat in their house for days.
It was hard to listen to the music now. Bittersweet. His throat ached but he couldn’t cry any more. He went and closed the door, muffling the song, though the beat still thrummed in his head, like the pulse of his blood.
Jade
Down in Reception, on her way to grab a sandwich, Jade nearly smashed into DS Harris and the woman with him. The woman looked stressed out, shaky, her face a mask of worry.
As Jade waited in the coffee shop, she wondered who the woman was. Another witness? Or maybe someone else with suspicions about Anthony Mayhew, like the callers to the hotline. If only they could find some evidence to contradict Mayhew’s alibi that he was at home shagging his girlfriend.
Coming back into the station with her lunch, Jade asked at the front desk who the woman was. Sonia Poole. The reception staff wouldn’t know all the ins and outs of the woman’s visit so she sought out DS Harris. She found him sitting at his desk, bent over his work. She saw the roll of flesh spilling over his shirt collar, his thick neck. The broad shoulders. Did he have to shop at one of those specialist outsize shops?
‘Any news?’ Jade said.
He turned from his paperwork slowly, seemingly reluctant to break off. ‘No.’
‘The woman downstairs?’ Jade asked.
‘A waste of time.’
‘How come?’
‘A psychic, reckoned she could lead us to the killer. The victim was talking to her, along with a bunch of angels and a side order of leprechauns. Complete nutter.’
‘Oh.’ Jade was disappointed. ‘Have you come across her before?’
‘No. Why?’ He spoke sharply. A flare of annoyance lit his eyes a penetrating blue, the colour of gas flames, and Jade felt her cheeks warm.
‘Just I heard they made a habit of it,’ she said, ‘psychics, pitching up and offering their services.’
He didn’t reply but went back to his work. Jade should have left it at that. She knew she should let him be but she kept talking. Wanting to provoke. Poking the bear. ‘What did she say about him? The killer? Did she only mention one person?’
‘It was a load of shite, which I am in the middle of copying up, if I could only get a minute’s peace.’
‘Right,’ Jade said.
‘A coffee might help.’ His tone softened and now he was smiling at her.
Jade wanted him to get his own fucking coffee or maybe fetch him one and throw it in his big, fucking face but knew that wouldn’t be a wise career move. Teamwork, Jade. ‘How do you have it?’ Jade said.
‘Milk and sugar.’ He held out a fiver. ‘And your own.’
‘Ta.’
The vending machine was on the other side of the building. The windows along the corridor gave views over the city centre. A mishmash of fancy Victorian stone edifices and modern glass and steel creations, all hazy with rain. A plane was circling south towards the airport. Trams and trains carved their way between the buildings.
What had Bishaar made of the place when he arrived from Somalia? Thankful to be alive, she guessed. But the weather, the damp and the cold, would have been a shock. And the city itself? Presumably he’d lived in a town or city over there, if he worked in graphic design. Not much call for that in the desert or plains or whatever they had. Jade found it hard to imagine an African city with coffee shops and cinemas, malls and traffic jams. All you ever saw on the news were images of soldiers and trucks, goats and scrubland, shacks and huts, and people with malnutrition, AIDS or Ebola.
Back in the incident room she saw the DS was with the boss in her office. She put his coffee on his desk.
Had the results of Mayhew’s DNA test come through? Could they match him to the crime scene?
At her own terminal, she opened the investigation log but there was nothing about it there. She clicked through to reports of information received, wondering how the sergeant had described Sonia Poole, what language he’d used to sum up the unreliability of the woman and the pointlessness of looking into her claims. Mentally challenged? Mental-health issues?
When Jade couldn’t find any entry she searched the other folders, then checked back chronologically. Nothing. She tried using ‘Poole’ as a search term. No results. Perhaps DS Harris had given up, not even bothered to enter the most basic facts. He was a detective sergeant, maybe he had that discretion. But it ran counter to all Jade had been taught. Everything was potentially valuable until the investigation revealed otherwise. So every item of information had to be documented, recorded and kept on file. If someone like Jade neglected to upload an informant’s details like that, she’d be in deep shit, given a right rollicking, if anyone ever found out.
He might have been interrupted. If the boss had called him in as soon as Jade had gone for coffee, he might not have had time to register the entry.
A psychic. You heard stories of coppers who lost it, who ended up in thrall to clairvoyants when proper police work had failed to get results. Poor bastards. What a scam. The dead were dead and gone, as far as Jade was concerned. Spirits, good or evil, gods or ghosts, were the product of a delusional mind, along with tooth fairies and vampires and Father Christmas.
Donna
‘You got a minute?’ Martin said.
‘DNA?’ Donna took her glasses off.
‘No.’
She saw worry in his expression. Trouble at home? Something wrong with his wife, Fran? Would that account for how washed out he looked?
‘Come in, sit down,’ Donna said.
He closed the door and sat, squeezing his large frame into the office chair.
Donna waited. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Jade Bradshaw. Have there been any problems?’
Not what Donna had expected. She thought for a moment . . . Jade blowing hot and cold, her tendency to go off and do her own thing, arguing with Donna, the sulking. ‘What sort of problems?’
‘With anyone on the team?’ Martin said.
‘Not that I’m aware of. Why?’
Martin picked a large paperclip from her desk, turned it end over end as he spoke. ‘I hoped to sort it out myself. I’d rather that than add to everything you’ve got on your plate but I’m not sure that’s going to be possible.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ Donna said. ‘Is there a problem with Jade’s work?’
‘Yes,’ Martin said. ‘And that’s not the half of it. Her work, her attitude, her behaviour.’
Oh, hell. Jade was prickly, truculent at times, but as far as Donna could see she’d made a good enough start as a DC.
‘I have tried talking to her about it but . . .’ He shook his
head, twisted open one end of the paperclip. ‘Let’s just say that made it worse.’
Donna was still trying to understand. What exactly had Jade been doing? Was it a clash of personalities or approaches? Donna could imagine it: Jade, young and impulsive, wanting to rush at things, Martin trying to rein her in, set her straight, Jade taking that as criticism. ‘I need specifics,’ she said. ‘Her work?’
‘Sure. Half the time she’s not sticking to the task she’s given. She’s making it up as she goes along. She’s uncooperative.’
Donna recalled Jade bringing in Bishaar, her failure to inform herself, or anyone else, of her plan until it was a fait accompli. Jade pushing herself forward to interview him. Her resentment when Martin had gone to get the CCTV from the Cavalier.
‘I’m not saying she hasn’t got what it takes as a detective but at the moment she’s cherry-picking. Take the grunt stuff,’ Martin said. ‘She’s sloppy, disorganized. I asked her to take the tape from Fredo’s to the evidence store and get it booked in, even though it’s neither use nor ornament to us. She said she would. Next thing I find out that it’s missing.’
Oh, Jesus.
‘And Jade’s denying she ever had it. Crazy.’ He shook his head. ‘I tried talking to her about it and she went ballistic—’
‘You couldn’t have got the wrong end of the stick?’ Donna said, eager to find an explanation, a way to put this right.
‘She lied to me, Donna. You can check with the evidence store. They never got it.’
‘Of course.’
‘And then she was—’ He broke off, exhaled loudly. ‘God, I hate this.’
‘She was what?’ Donna said, a chill inside her.
‘If I could have handled it myself—’
‘She was what?’ Donna repeated.
‘She was abusive. Badmouthing you, the way you run the inquiry, the way you dress, everything. Saying you had a little clique, you gave all the best work to your mates and they got the recognition for it, and you didn’t give a toss for anyone else. Said you were a bitch with a reputation for bullying other women. That you couldn’t stand the competition.’
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