While Jade had been talking to Sonia Poole, DI Bell had left a message for her. Shit about coming in to make a statement. Not to her, though. The DI seemed hell bent on keeping Jade out of the running. But the boss needed to know what Jade had found out. And now. Did anyone even know Martin Harris’s son was their Man A? Had they picked up Dale Harris as well as Oliver Poole? The boss needed to see and hear the evidence. To let Jade back into the team so she could help take down Harris, along with the killers he’d been shielding.
She’d turn up at the boss’s office and refuse to leave until the boss had heard her out. What was the worst that could happen? Jade getting arrested? Possibly. Obtaining information under false pretences. Impersonating a police officer. Jade ran her fingers over her warrant card, the card she should’ve surrendered. What if there were measures in place to stop her getting into the building? And Harris. If Harris was there . . .
Shit.
Instead of driving to the official car park she left her vehicle a couple of blocks away in the multi-storey at the Great Northern shopping centre.
Nearing the station she grew self-conscious, felt anxiety grip her, expected to hear her name shouted out at any moment, to hear the rush of footsteps after her.
She lifted her head higher and dropped her shoulders, made herself walk a fraction slower but just as purposefully. Owning the street.
The car park was at the back of the station. Through the chainlink fence she clocked immediately that Harris’s Merc wasn’t there. She looked more slowly for the boss’s Volvo but that was missing too.
The boss had to come back here sooner or later but Jade could only hang about for so long before attracting attention.
Picking at her fingers, she winced as she caught a raw edge.
She looked up at the building. There, on the fourth floor, the Major Incident Team would be focusing on interviews with Oliver Poole.
Why wasn’t the boss here? Had something come up already, some lead that required the personal attention of the senior investigating officer? What could be more important than overseeing the interview?
Jade stifled the urge to duck out of sight when she saw people passing the windows on the fourth-floor corridor.
Which gave her an idea.
The biggest hurdle would be getting through the front desk if they’d been alerted to Jade’s new status (which was what? Nut-job? Head case?). Only one way to find out. If she was pulled up she’d tell them she had an appointment with HR on the first floor. Just hope no one wanted to escort her there in person.
She waited at the corner of the building, pretending to study her phone until she saw a group of uniforms, three of them, headed for the entrance. She tagged on behind them. Even so, when one of the men on the desk looked over and saw her she felt her legs weaken and her head buzz. Then he gave her a quick nod and she went through after the others.
From the third floor (home to offices for Crime Reduction, policy and administration, training and neighbourhood policing), in a seat near the drinks machine, she had a good view of the car park. Now it was just a question of waiting. Waiting and watching until the boss got back.
Donna
Donna was replaying the interview with Dale Harris in her head as she was driven to the hospital. He had come across as more collected than Oliver, none of the sweating or trembling. His replies were delivered in a steady monotone with only occasional hesitation.
Replies that painted the same picture as his friend had. Often using the same phrases. How the two of them had wandered around town, drunk and drugged up. How they’d heard cries and screams and discovered Mahmoud Bishaar sexually assaulting Allie Kennaway. How their attempts to protect her had enraged Bishaar and how he had forced them at knifepoint to kick the prone girl. And threatened them on pain of death to keep silent and to destroy evidence.
The thought of Martin Harris coaching them, telling them how to account for each element of the evidence, the shoe marks on the body, the skin under his son’s fingernails, the spittle on Allie’s face, made Donna feel murderous.
And while Donna didn’t believe a word of it, it was hard to know what a jury would make of it. The word of two previously law-abiding young men versus that of a destitute African Muslim asylum-seeker.
Juries were always tasked with considering the evidence and only the evidence, and expected to leave all prejudices, assumptions and bias at the courtroom door, but in real life the behaviour of juries was nigh on impossible to predict. A serious crime of murder or manslaughter required the standard of proof to be beyond any reasonable doubt. If it came down to who was believed, to two against one, Donna wasn’t sure a jury would convict.
* * *
The driver dropped her at A and E and she told him she’d call when she was ready to be collected around midday. Twenty minutes would be enough.
When she found the right ward and right bay, Jim looked even worse than he had the day before. The bruising on his face was a darker colour, the cuts had crusted over, and there was a lump on his forehead. His leg was encased in plaster up to the thigh. His eyes were shut.
She had brought him a wash-bag, toiletries and a dressing-gown. It would be some time before he needed other clothes.
Donna moved the chair round to face the bed, which roused him.
He asked after the kids and she told him they wanted to visit. She’d bring them that evening.
‘They miss you,’ she said. ‘Me too.’ Did she? Did she miss him? Really miss him, or just miss the convenience of him being there to look after the family? The thought was like a barb, caught under her skin. What was wrong with her? This was her husband, the man she’d shared twenty years of her life with, but what she felt for him now was closer to pity than love. She struggled to act normal. ‘Is there anything you want bringing?’ she said.
‘Don’t think so.’ He seemed slow. Perhaps it was the painkillers.
‘Have you seen the cardiologist?’
‘Not yet. So maybe tomorrow.’
She took a breath. ‘Jim, Sergeant Williams rang me this morning,’ she said. ‘They’ve released the man’s name.’
‘Right.’ He screwed up his mouth.
She took his hand. ‘You want to know?’
‘Yes.’ He blinked.
‘He was Aaron Drummond. He had a wife and two children. He was twenty-eight years old. A customer service assistant.’
He turned his head away from her. She saw his chest rise and fall slowly. Once. Twice. Thought of the heart in there, frail, damaged. ‘Right,’ he said eventually.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Curt. What was he doing? Trying to be brave? To be stoic?
Donna gave his hand a squeeze and he withdrew it, reaching for water at the bedside.
When he’d had a drink, Donna said, ‘They’ll want to take your statement, the police. Soon, probably. While it’s still fresh.’
‘I don’t remember a thing,’ he said. ‘I left the ring road and next thing I’m in hospital. Nothing.’
‘Then tell them that. It’s all you can do. It was an accident,’ she reminded him. ‘A horrible accident.’
Jim didn’t ask about her work and she didn’t volunteer anything. She struggled to fill the last few minutes of visiting time with snippets about the kids. He was distracted. It was an uphill battle to get any reaction.
She put the chair away and he lay back, eyes closing.
She kissed his forehead, careful not to touch the cuts or the egg over his eye.
She thought about saying she loved him but the words wouldn’t come. Why? Because she wasn’t sure of her feelings for him any more? Because she was a coward and feared he’d not reply in kind? Had he stopped loving her? Was that the reason for the gulf between them? A gulf she didn’t know how to bridge. Or was it her fault that she no longer felt any sexual attraction to him, any passion? Just familiarity, a vague fondness. Christ! She shouldn’t be thinking like this. Not now.
Work was wait
ing for her. Overwhelming as it was, fucked up as it seemed to be today, work was where she wanted to be. Work was easier, safer than this.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she said, and touched his hand.
She was calling her driver before she reached the main corridor.
Sonia
She shivered. Her arms were cold. She was cold all over. She rubbed at her arms, then her thighs. There was a fog in her head, dense, and every so often thoughts penetrated, sharp and dangerous as lightning.
The cat was yowling outside. Standing, Sonia felt stiff, as if her bones had been filled with concrete.
The cat slipped in and circled her feet. Sonia looked at the feeding bowls. There were still some nibbles left. ‘Finish that first,’ she said.
The cat sniffed at the remains, then walked away, tail held high.
An image kept coming to her of Oliver in a cell, huddled on a bench, knees drawn up, head down. Oliver, alone and frightened.
All she wanted was to see him. But DC Bradshaw had explained she wouldn’t be allowed to. No one could have any contact with a person in custody, not until they were either released or charged. The detective had told Sonia that Oliver could be held for four days at the very most before they’d have to either let him go for lack of evidence or bring charges. ‘If he is charged, he’ll go to prison on remand. Probably Manchester.’
‘Strangeways?’ Sonia had said.
‘Yes. Then you can arrange to visit him,’ DC Bradshaw had said.
‘Could he get bail?’ Sonia had asked.
‘Not for a charge this serious.’
Eighteen years of growing, of learning, of discovering the world. Eighteen years of care and love, of having a home, food on the table, friends and family. All lost. For what? What had led him to do such a thing? To hurt someone, to deliberately gang up on someone? When had he become the sort of person who did that?
He’s not, she thought. He’s not. She knew him better than anyone. There had to be some mistake, a proper explanation. Something that would actually add up, would make sense and fit the character of the boy she’d raised.
If he was guilty, if they found him guilty, he’d be locked up for years.
Everyone would know. They would look at her and nudge each other and say, ‘Her lad was one of them that killed Allie Kennaway.’ And because she was his mother, she would share some of the blame. There’d be gossip about whether she’d let him run wild or neglected him, saying she’d not been tough enough on him. She’d be doubly to blame for being a single parent. Comments about the lack of a man, no father figure in the household. Would it make any difference that she’d gone to the police? Tried to turn him in? That she’d tried to do the right thing?
Who would want to know her? People would hate her for having a son who had killed someone. A murderer. People would hate her for betraying her own flesh and blood to the police. She might have to move, leave everything and everyone she knew and live somewhere else. Tell lies when she was asked if she had kids. Hide her visits to him.
She was almost out of cigarettes. No way could she face Aseef at the corner shop so she’d have to go to the petrol station. If she hung on until dark there’d be less chance of running into someone who’d stop her for a natter. Sonia couldn’t trust herself to do that and not shatter, crumble into a million gibbering pieces. She felt trapped – cold, lonely and trapped.
She picked up the phone and, before she could have second thoughts, called Rose.
‘Hi, you any better?’ Rose said.
‘Can you come?’ Sonia said. ‘I need you, Rose. I just—’ She choked and began to sob.
‘I’ll come as soon as I can,’ Rose said, swift and clear, not even asking for an explanation. ‘I’ll sort Dad out and then I’ll come round. OK, darling? It’ll be all right.’
Steve
Steve left Teagan at his parents’ and drove from there to his sister’s. Emma worked from home, doing business translation for two large clients. She was fluent in Italian and French. One thing they had in common, Steve thought, a love of languages. And Emma sometimes travelled, too, but not as widely as Steve did with his patents work. He’d been worrying lately about how the Brexit referendum might affect his work. Not that a leave vote was likely. Now that seemed so irrelevant, part of his life that no longer had meaning.
Emma’s house was small and smart. A modern townhouse in a row of six, opposite a park. It had an integral garage and curious stained glass in rectangles, green and yellow, which Steve could never decide whether he liked or not.
Her husband had moved out four years ago just before Sarah was diagnosed. There hadn’t been anyone else involved in the break-up. Emma always claimed it was mutual; the marriage wasn’t working any more.
She opened the door to him, glasses on top of her head, and he wondered if she’d slam it shut on him, echoing his treatment of her yesterday.
‘Can we talk?’ he said.
‘Come in.’ She gave a rueful smile.
The ground floor was open plan, kitchen area at the back, dining in the middle, lounge at the front. Emma had redecorated after Troy had left, replacing the beige and brown with pale blue walls and gold-coloured curtains. The sofa was pale blue leather. A sandcoloured rug filled the living area. Desert colours. It looked fresh and welcoming and extremely tidy. Magazines were lined up neatly on a side table, cushions set at perky angles on the sofa.
‘Tea? Coffee?’ Emma said.
‘Tea would be great, thanks.’
Steve sat on the rocking chair while she made their drinks. She had some photographs propped on the TV stand. One of her and her friends at a party, probably back in her university days, another of Steve and family after Teagan was born, and one of their parents on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Steve had an identical copy of that one at home.
Was she lonely? Now Troy wasn’t here? She seemed to have a busy social life by all accounts.
‘You don’t want sugar?’ she said.
‘No, thanks.’
She brought the drinks, passed him his, put hers on the side table, on a coaster, and sat on the sofa. He held his cup between his palms until the heat grew too fierce.
‘I want to talk to you about Allie,’ he said. ‘About yesterday. Why I reacted like I did. So you can understand.’
‘I do understand,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said.
‘You seem to think—’
He heard criticism, spiky, in her tone, and interrupted, irritation blooming: ‘Emma. Please. Hear me out. Just let me talk until I’m done and then you can say whatever you need to say.’
‘If you’re here to lecture me—’
‘For God’s sake.’
There was a painful silence. Triple-glazing insulated the room so the only sound was from inside, the fabric of Emma’s clothes rustling as she moved her legs, the creak of the rocking chair under Steve’s weight.
He looked at her. ‘Will you listen? Please? Will you just listen?’
‘OK.’ She pursed her lips, crossed her ankles.
‘It’s true Allie had been confused for a while, about how she felt. And frightened. She was miserable, depressed, even. Times she’d break down in tears. It was horrible. Sarah and I, we didn’t know how to help. But the counselling Allie had helped her through. Finding someone who got it, who understood, who completely accepted her. After that, Allie was clear. She was so clear. And so much happier. She knew who she was, she knew what she wanted, and how she wanted to change herself physically . . . outwardly . . . to reflect what was true inside. The fear about whether she was crazy or freaky or sick to want this had gone. The only fear then was about the rest of us, about how the world would react. What we would say and do.’ He took a breath, rubbed his hands along the smooth wood of the chair arms. ‘Look, the things you said in the paper – things you’ve said in the past, like feeling uneasy about it, thinking she was too young, misguided, hoping it was a phase – I thought them too. All of those things. And oth
ers. How could she do that? How could she want to deny all those years of being a boy? Of being my son? And the prospect of . . . I don’t know, some alien creature taking her over. Some parody of a woman that people would ridicule. And the worries about her health, the risk of side-effects when she finally started on the hormones. All of that.’
‘So why did you go along with it?’ Emma said.
Steve looked up, stared at the lampshade, a golden globe. The room was airless, a tomb. A smell caught at the back of his throat, air freshener or some cleaning fluid. He was stifled. ‘Because it wasn’t about me or Sarah,’ he said. ‘Or you. Because the most important thing in the world was Allie’s happiness. And she’d been so desperately, profoundly unhappy. And then to see her—’ He couldn’t speak. He took a gulp of tea, then another, as he framed his thoughts. ‘I’ve made mistakes. Of course I have. And I’ll make more.’ Did he sound pompous? He didn’t want that. ‘What I’m trying to say is we can’t control how we feel, we can’t police our emotions, I get that. But we can take responsibility for what we say and what we do. Do you see the difference?’
‘So I’m not allowed to speak freely?’ Emma said.
Christ. He couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t get beyond the posture, the little England outrage, to anything deeper. Humility, she had no humility.
‘What if Allie was black?’ he said.
‘What?’ Emma said.
‘What if she was Jewish, I don’t know . . . Would you still want to be able to say whatever you liked?’
‘Apart from the fact that that’s impossible, I’m not racist or anti-Semitic. Besides, people don’t choose their race or their religion. They’re born into it.’
‘Allie didn’t choose this. It’s not some lifestyle choice.’
‘I don’t agree,’ she said.
‘Can’t you see—’
‘It’s taking things to extremes. It’s not natural. It’s just following some bizarre fashion, some trend. Teenagers always like to shock.’
He couldn’t sit any longer. ‘My daughter is dead. Your niece is dead. Very likely because of who she was and for no other reason. Don’t you see how it all connects?’
The Girl in the Green Dress Page 24