The Girl in the Green Dress

by Cath Staincliffe

  Jesus! Donna felt the sting of outrage, then an eddy of uncertainty. I’m not like that, am I? I don’t operate like that. I don’t. Do I? She’d prided herself on being scrupulously fair, on mentoring the younger women in her team, on setting an example. Her mind flew back over her recent interactions with Jade. Had Donna been bitchy? She was worried about Jim, stretched to her limits by the case, but had she said anything, done anything Jade could have read as bullying? She had been, perhaps, a little sharp with her last night over who would check out the CCTV at the Cavalier, but this morning she hadn’t sensed any lingering resentment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Martin said. ‘Then she starts claiming I’m racist.’

  Donna groaned, put her head in her hands. I really do not need this.

  ‘I know,’ Martin said. ‘I couldn’t reason with her.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘This morning. There’d been a few moments before that, when there was something a bit off.’ He bent open another leg of the paperclip. ‘I couldn’t see why she was acting like that. No boundaries, no professionalism. Like some sort of kamikaze mission. Bizarre.’

  Donna thought of Jade, her face going blank when she was disappointed or denied something she wanted, her eyes lighting up when they made a break. Yes, there were shifts, and there was something mercurial about her, but the backstabbing, the negligence Martin described, came as a complete shock and a very nasty one. Jade had indeed needed reining in, needed guidance, but Donna had admired the younger woman’s appetite for the work, and her eagerness. She had savoured that energy, believed Jade showed promise, if she could improve her social skills and learn nuance and patience.

  Could Martin have misread the situation in some way? Donna knew he could be blunt at times, forceful. If Jade had felt patronized, or intimidated, she might have let rip, saying things she didn’t mean. It didn’t explain the lost evidence, though. That was disturbing. Donna needed to talk to her, see if Martin had got things out of proportion. If she had an explanation for the tape getting lost. Perhaps Martin felt threatened by her, her youth, her gender or ethnicity. It wouldn’t be the first time an old-school copper had found the diversity within the ranks hard to handle. Was he exaggerating?

  ‘Well, I say it’s bizarre,’ Martin said, ‘but then I found something that made sense of it all. But I was out of my depth. I know there are procedures to follow, and it’s all in the handbook, but I wasn’t sure whether to instigate anything myself or whether it’d be best coming from you.’

  There was more? ‘Go on,’ Donna said.

  The paperclip was one straight length of wire. Martin folded it in half.

  ‘She’s on medication,’ Martin said heavily. ‘Olanzapine. It’s an antipsychotic. I went to borrow her stapler and it was there in full view. Almost like she wanted to be found out.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Martin said.

  ‘Of course I didn’t. She wouldn’t be here if I knew.’

  ‘She’s ill,’ Martin said. ‘It explains it all. Nothing on her medical?’

  ‘No, she’d not have made it through,’ Donna said. That first day on the case, Donna had wondered if Jade was bulimic. Then there was the way she couldn’t stand still, the reckless behaviour. On Monday Donna had speculated whether Jade was high, and put it down to excitement about her collaring Bishaar. Antipsychotics?

  ‘You’re sure they’re hers?’ Donna said.

  Martin held out his phone, showing a photograph of the medicine, Jade’s name visible on the pharmacy label along with the prescription date, just last month.

  Christ! ‘This is confidential, Martin. We have to deal with it so carefully. The last thing we want is a wrongful-dismissal case or anything like that.’

  ‘Yes, totally. But it all adds up, the trouble concentrating, the paranoia. She thinks you and I are out to get her. If this came out . . . her health status or what happened with the tape . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Donna said. Her staff had to be competent, fit for work; they had to follow procedure to the letter, be beyond reproach. Any breach, any failure – for example, to protect the chain of evidence – could be seized on by the defence to undermine a prosecution. Thank Christ the tape wouldn’t form part of their case for the prosecution.

  ‘If it had been anything more significant than a false sighting on the tape . . .’ Martin echoed her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, if I could have dealt with it, I would.’

  ‘You did right to bring it to me. Bugger!’ she said. ‘She’s a lot to offer on paper and it wasn’t all plain sailing but this . . .’ She felt nauseous, her mouth sour. Jade badmouthing her and accusing Martin of racism were cause for concern, her losing evidence even more so, but her being mentally unwell was the most serious issue. Jade had concealed the fact, lied in effect. The situation was untenable. The medication was an irrefutable problem.

  ‘I’ll have to talk to her, get her version of events,’ Donna said.

  ‘Of course,’ Martin said.

  ‘I’d like to think there’s some other explanation for it all. But I can’t see how she can justify coming to work on a script for anti-psychotics. She must know that’s a red card.’

  Donna’s email pinged. She tore herself away from the conversation and squinted to read the subject heading. ‘DNA,’ she said. Her eyes scanned the message and the hope for a match between one of the crime-scene profiles and Anthony Mayhew guttered and died. Her stomach sank. ‘Shit. Mayhew’s clear on that score, no match,’ she said. ‘But let’s cross all the Ts. You get Bishaar to look at a photo ID parade with Mayhew in the mix. If Bishaar IDs him, we talk to Mayhew again under caution.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’ Martin said.

  ‘We eliminate Mayhew. Send him on his way.’ That was what Donna thought would happen. A key candidate for the killing was steadily losing plausibility. ‘Three people named him as of interest. Why would anyone do that if there wasn’t some truth to it?’ she said.

  ‘Revenge? Drop him in it. Make life difficult,’ Martin said.

  Murder inquiries did attract hoaxers, giving misleading information. Hoping to see their enemies or rivals take the blame for an offence. But three separate people? That must have been coordinated. And in all probability it meant the team had wasted precious time on a dead end.

  She sat back. ‘So, Jade. I’ll deal with it. Well – I’ll talk to her, see what she has to say for herself, then pass it on to HR.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Martin said.

  ‘Yeah. Don’t say a word – to anyone,’ Donna told him.

  ‘Of course not.’

  When he left, Donna reached over, picked up the mangled paperclip and dropped it into the bin.

  She could see through the window to the outer office that Martin was leaving. Jade was still at her desk, fingers twisting the strands of hair at the nape of her neck.

  The prospect of confronting her weighed heavily on Donna. The shitty side of managing people. How to tackle it? The overriding concern was Jade’s use of medication for a mental-health problem. That in itself rendered her unfit to work – unfit for police work anyway. It was the key issue. If at all possible, Donna would avoid getting into Jade’s abusive remarks about her leadership and the accusations of cronyism, racism and misogyny. And perhaps the girl would come up with reasons to satisfy Donna, though for the life of her Donna couldn’t think what they might be.

  Fully aware she was procrastinating, Donna decided to update the investigation log before doing anything else. Maybe she’d have lunch next, then deal with Jade. No, she chided herself, lunch afterwards. Face the nastiness first, then get out of the building for half an hour, walk, breathe, debrief.

  Bargain made, Donna put on her glasses and began to type, trying to ignore the worm of apprehension in her belly.

  Martin

  Martin had been tempted, sorely tempted, to steer Bishaar towards fingering Mayhew as Man A. There were strict rules to an ID parade, covering everything from the
laying out of the six numbered photographs to the way the question was framed. And the whole event was filmed to prevent any coercion. So the only way Martin could have rigged the result was if he’d had the chance to bribe Bishaar beforehand, offer him an opportunity of escape, or immunity from deportation. (Not that Martin could guarantee any sort of immunity, no way.) Interfering in that aspect of the investigation could all too easily come back and bite him on the arse. Bishaar might refuse the bribe or suspect a trap. And having the man at large was a risk – he might be caught again and betray Martin. All speculation now. Martin was waiting to be called into the ID suite, any chance to intercept Bishaar, before he arrived from the remand centre, long gone.

  Martin took a swig of the antacid he’d bought, his guts aflame with bile, his mind roaming round, lumbering into all the problems that still threatened Dale, and by extension himself. Focus, he cautioned himself, prioritize. Bishaar wouldn’t pick out Mayhew, and Mayhew would be sent home, but at least putting the man in the ring had bought Martin some time. Time to think through the strategy of damage limitation.

  All their cards rested on preventing the identification of Dale or his mate Oliver. If they could spin that indefinitely, then as long as neither of them ever crossed the line and got picked up by the police, they could carry on with their lives, no one any the wiser.

  Oliver’s mother was a potential spanner in the works but she’d no real proof her son had done anything. And Oliver had denied it all, thank fuck. Though the lad wasn’t too bright in other regards. At least Dale had had the sense to destroy everything he’d been wearing, knowing it could so easily incriminate him. Yet when Martin had asked Oliver about his clothing and his shoes, when they were sitting in the car in wasteland near the Ship Canal, far from cameras or prying eyes, Oliver had said, ‘I washed it all.’

  Washed it, for fuck’s sake. ‘Burn it, or bury it somewhere no one will ever think to look,’ Martin said. ‘There’ll be blood in the seams of your trousers, in the stitching on your shoes. The tiniest trace is all we need. Do you get it?’

  Oliver nodded.

  ‘Phones,’ Martin said, holding out his hand.

  ‘My life’s on that—’ Dale started.

  ‘Your life’s on the fucking line,’ Martin snapped. ‘These show where you were, who you talked to, what sites you visited, text messages sent and received. From now on you use these.’ He gave them each a cheap handset, paid for in cash from a place in Rusholme. He’d bought them along with the ones he’d used to tip off the hotline.

  ‘You don’t go home,’ he said to Oliver, ‘not yet. You don’t talk to your mum.’

  ‘Suits me,’ Oliver said. He was crashing on a friend’s sofa. The friend worked nights handling baggage at the airport. It sounded like a good arrangement to Martin, the lads seeing little of each other. Oliver had sacked off his apprenticeship. Martin had considered telling him to go back, carry on as normal, but then the lad’s mother might go looking for him there and ruin everything.

  He gave Oliver fifty quid for food and told him to find something cash-in-hand, try the car-wash places and the takeaways. Off the books was better for now. Had the kid the gumption to sort out some work? Maybe going hungry would concentrate his mind, as long as it didn’t send him home, crying to his mother.

  Dale looked to be sulking about the phone. Martin felt his temper simmering, coming to the boil. ‘You sure you want to do this?’ he asked them both. ‘Because I can drive you both to the nick right now and hand you over. Your choice. You got any doubts, any problem with my way of handling things, any yen to confess, you tell me now and I start the car. Yes?’

  ‘No,’ Dale said. Oliver echoed him.

  ‘This is not a game,’ Martin said. ‘I’m risking my own neck, my livelihood, my reputation, my fucking pension for you, so you do exactly as I say. You put a foot wrong, you’ll pay for it. I have a lot of friends, a lot of contacts. Not all good people.’

  Dale shifted in his seat and Oliver nodded quickly, his eyes moist, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. Martin saw beads of sweat on the lad’s upper lip and his forehead. Had he the balls to get through this? To stay loyal? He was an unknown quantity but they were saddled with him.

  Martin let the silence hang for a moment, then said, ‘I want to see you again tomorrow night. Oliver, get yourself to Trafford Bar for eight. I’ll pick you up there.’

  ‘What for?’ Dale asked.

  ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow,’ Martin said. ‘Now, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter – either of you put anything on there?’

  ‘No,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Glad to hear it. Stay clear, keep your heads down. Anyone talks to you about the murder, you play innocent, then change the subject.’

  Now his chain of thoughts was broken as he was called to the room for the ID parade. He went through the motions. The African looked at the photographs and shook his head, said no, for the recording, he couldn’t see either of the people he’d witnessed during the attack on Friday night in the photographs shown to him.

  As they sat there, Martin did his best to conceal his hatred. If Bishaar hadn’t been dossing on the streets, living here illegally, like a parasite, evading the authorities, then no one would have a real clue about the Kennaway killing. It was him and his fucking Good Samaritan act, then his Leonardo da Vinci number, that had screwed everything up. And even if he were out of the picture, even if Martin did manage to get to him, get shot of him somehow, his written statement and his sketches could be used in his absence at any trial. There was no way round it.

  Bishaar nodded politely after the ID parade was finished and Martin felt like decking him. Muslim scum. He’d been at the scene. He’d witnessed the murder. He’d a coherent account of what had happened and it matched the forensics. But, and it was a very useful but, he had fled the scene. He was a criminal, a destitute. So, if push came to shove and Martin’s plans unravelled, if Dale or Oliver was apprehended, then those facts just might be given a different spin. Plan B. That was why Martin would spend another evening in the car, in the dark, with Dale and Oliver. Walking through Plan B, in case everything else went tits up.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Steve

  ‘She’s your sister. You can’t avoid her for ever,’ Steve’s mum said, pushing the newspaper back across the table to him.

  ‘Pity,’ he murmured. ‘She just never seems to learn. She’s got her view of how things are, and if anything doesn’t fit into that, it’s wrong. Sarah thought she was a narcissist.’

  His mother raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Has she spoken to you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ She didn’t elaborate.

  ‘I can imagine,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t listen to reason. I’m overreacting. I wouldn’t let her explain. I shut the door in her face. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ his mum said. ‘I’m not getting in the middle of it. It never does any good.’

  His dad arrived, dressed in a boiler suit and gumboots.

  ‘What have you come as?’ Steve said.

  ‘Thought I’d have a go out there.’ He nodded to the garden. ‘Tidy up.’

  ‘Isn’t it raining?’ Steve said.

  ‘Slackening off.’

  Clearly he needed to keep busy. Steve wished he could join in, find some sanctuary in simple, manual work, but he knew he hadn’t the wherewithal. Each time he made a start on something, with the washing, say, or clearing the fridge, mindless tasks he’d done a thousand times before, he kept losing track, his concentration shot. Not just mental incapacity but physical too: his coordination was off, his muscles weak. Diminished.

  ‘Where’s Teagan?’ his dad said.

  ‘Upstairs,’ Steve said.

  ‘I’ll see if she wants to help.’

  ‘Have you thought at all about the funeral?’ his mum said.

  Steve shook his head. ‘We don’t know when they’ll release the body.’ He hated describing her like
that, ‘the body’, but how else to put it? Allie’s body?

  ‘That doesn’t mean you have to wait,’ his mother said. ‘You can still make plans. It’ll give you something to do.’

  ‘You think I need something to do?’ Steve said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘Remember when Sarah died, making all the arrangements? It’s a way of doing something for the person, thinking about how to . . . celebrate them.’

  That period of intense, frantic activity had been a blur, so much to sort out, and when it all stopped after the funeral it was like he crashed and fell. He’d found himself in an awful yawning chasm of loneliness and desolation. He’d hauled himself through it, hour by hour, for Allie and Teagan. And his daughters had been stunned, stripped raw. Nights of weeping. The endless seesaw moments when normal life tipped into wretched unhappiness. Teagan howling, pushing him away, small fists beating at him. Raging against the universe. Allie, withdrawn, impassive, the light gone from her eyes. They’d pulled through, stumbled forward together. And now this. He wanted to weep. He knuckled his eyes. ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘You can’t control anything else,’ she said, ‘the papers, this investigation. But you and Teagan can work out what you want for Allie.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘She’s busy.’ His dad came through the kitchen.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Steve said.

  ‘Writing something.’ He let himself out of the back door.

  ‘I don’t even know what Allie would want,’ Steve said. ‘Cremation or burial. She was eighteen. It’s not something you ask your kids, is it?’ There was anger bubbling deep inside beneath the sorrow.

  ‘Would she want to be with her mum?’

  Sarah had been cremated and they’d taken her ashes to Lathkill Dale, a valley in the Derbyshire Peak District. It was where Steve had proposed to her. Later it had been a place for picnics and walks with the children. Sarah had chosen the spot, making her wishes known once they’d been told no treatment could save her.