The first time I was honked at, I dismissed it. The second time I assumed it was meant for someone else. The third time I took the car back to the dealer, insisted the garage they used for warranty repairs check the lights (I’d once owned a car in which the parking lights came on every time I braked), the tyres, and the exhaust pipe (although I’d already ascertained they were fine), thinking something externally visible was causing people to blare their horns, flash their lights in what I presumed was a warning, or purposely wind their window down to deliver a stream of expletives at me without provocation. The garage confirmed my suspicions. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s a good car.’
But I can no longer deny the awful truth. Whoever is doing this to me knows who I am, because they remember the person I used to be.
They’ve made their statement clear: they are willing to go to any length to end my life, even if that means others get hurt in the process. The only problem is, there are far too many potential suspects to consider and I’ve no idea where to begin looking.
HONOUR
Croydon, London
Grief comes in waves. You feel guilty for smiling and angry if others do. You feel sad for most of the day, mind constantly looking back over the past and anxious at night, worrying for the future. I don’t sleep anymore, and I’ve lost two stone in weight. Not so long ago I might have considered that a good thing. I suffer from anaemia, and now the only food I’m consuming is carbohydrates. I feel faint every time I stand, so I spend most of my time seated in the armchair staring at the sofa where my son should be, his gaze set on the screen of his mobile phone, ignoring my commands to join reality.
Not through choice do I return to the salon and open it up, but out of necessity. After a telling-off from my sister I reluctantly agreed I needed the income and a focus. Losing the house and becoming homeless would be far worse than a visit from the bailiffs wanting to remove the television and furniture, and I’m already close to that occurring, having gone over my overdraft weeks ago. Although I haven’t purposely spent any money since I’ve barely eaten, the direct debits have continued to leave my account, the bills need to be paid, and even though she hasn’t said anything yet, I can tell my neediness is starting to upset Faith. She’s the practical one, not typically driven by emotion, unlike me. And soon she will be begging me to get out there and fight for what is left of my lonely existence.
I can’t deny my sense of purpose has gone along with the loss of Steven, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to regain it. The only thing that is preventing me from tipping over the edge into despair is routine, the repetitive activities of everyday tasks. Doing things is distracting me from my dark thoughts. I leave the bed mid-morning after a restless sleep. Faith brings a readymade lunch round, heats it in the microwave, and sticks it on a plate before dumping it on a tray and settling it on my lap. I eat. Thirst and dehydration force me to boil the kettle. I drink. And after brushing my teeth, going to the toilet, showering, eating and drinking some more, feeling tired I go to bed for another round of catch twenty-two, and wake up to find that another day has passed.
The minister’s wife at the Evangelical church I frequent every Sunday arrived with a bouquet of lilies and chrysanthemums, a condolence card, and a hug. She told me that I should live each minute as it comes until they turn into sixty then go from there. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I can’t bear to think past an hour.
I need to stay breathing because I have got to know what motivated the person who ended my son’s life that day.
‘I only need to live long enough to know he’s been caught, arrested, charged, and prosecuted,’ I tell myself. Repeating the mantra each time I feel like giving up and succumbing to thoughts of necking a bottle of sleeping pills and closing my eyes, so we can be together again. My first thought upon waking and my last at night is my son. Steven’s face is there each time I close my eyes.
Steven was a quiet kid. Easy to feed, hit his milestones on time, and never caused trouble when he reached the ‘terrible twos’. Unlike his cousin Kanesha, who I remember Faith constantly threatening to return to the hospital she was born in because she was acting like ‘a little shit’. Steven was polite, he followed rules, and was sensitive to others’ needs though he wasn’t easily led, unlike his father who left when he was four to pursue his dreams at the suggestion of a friend. It didn’t appear to bother Steven that his father was no longer around because by then he’d grown used to Dejuan’s emotional distance, and he rarely returned home. When he did, Dejuan was civil and friendly, but he never acted like a father to Steven. He was more like an older brother. By the time he walked out on us, I’d already taken on the role of two parents.
At the age of three, Steven knew how to read and write his name, could recite the alphabet, and was able to count to one hundred, recognising the numbers with a little help from a V-Tech toy his father had bought him from the Early Learning Centre during a trip to the city centre one Saturday.
During his time at the local infants’ school he excelled in maths and English, made friends easily, and behaved impeccably towards his teachers. His primary school reports always mentioned his respectfulness, often concluding with a personal comment stating something along the lines of ‘a bright, happy child who is a pleasure to teach.’ Then he entered secondary. And things changed drastically.
Steven had always been sociable. His warmth and genuineness were what made him popular. It was those traits that attracted Jerome to become his friend.
Struggling to find a high school close by with a good reputation and a great Ofsted report, I enrolled him in a comprehensive a thirty-minute bus journey away due to the school’s ‘excellent’ reviews. Jerome transferred to Deptford Green at the start of year eight and remained a steadfast confidant. He caught the same bus as Steven, living with his mum and sister in the tower block behind the houses, opposite our street. They were positive influences on each other and spent much of their spare time together, after school and during the weekend hanging around the local playground, the shopping precinct, or when it rained, the youth club at the community centre. They were inseparable, so their recent bickering had been a surprise. But their fallout had been the catalyst in a short list of recent incidents that left Steven inconsolable. Alone, they hadn’t seemed that important but put together I can see that they were signs Steven had been struggling with puberty.
The first was a phone call from his deputy head informing me that Steven had left the school grounds to buy lunch, something only year ten students were permitted to do. Except he had returned an hour late. The second was his direct moodiness when asked to perform the most basic of tasks, like tidy his room, return home on time, stay in touch when leaving the estate, or eat all the food I cooked for him. Things that could easily be explained away by teenage hormones. But the most recent incident left its mark on Steven.
I found him in his bedroom, the door closed. I knocked and received an ‘I’m not hungry,’ before I could open my mouth to tell him that dinner was ready. I inhaled deeply, preparing myself for a moment with my son, who had just begun to display the signs typically expressed by fifteen-year-old boys: shrugging shoulders, grunts, and complaints for an increase in pocket money. But I hadn’t expected to see tears slipping down his cheeks as he looked up at me to explain and said, ‘I can’t eat.’
I put my hand on his forehead and felt his quickened pulse at his temple. ‘You don’t have a temperature, but your heart’s beating fast.’ I retracted my palm and lay it flat on the bed. ‘What’s happened?’ He inhaled sharply and let it all out in a puff of exasperation. ‘Marcus punched Leighton in the face and told him to quit hanging round with his girlfriend. I tried to stick up for him, but Marcus flipped out and told me and Jerome to stay out of it or watch our backs.’
My stomach tensed. Marcus was eighteen months his junior and had a mile-long history of causing trouble. He’d been suspended from school twice, for graffitiing the walls and swearing at a
teacher, and I’d been half-expecting him to be expelled before the summer holidays, but it hadn’t happened.
Three weeks before learning about his threats to Steven and Jerome, I heard that Marcus had struck Leighton for ‘bad-mouthing’ him despite the lack of evidence to prove him responsible for informing their form tutor he’d been smoking marijuana behind the bicycle shed during his lunch break. I knew Steven wouldn’t tolerate the same treatment, but he was often too quick to offer his peers a second chance. And that’s what worried me.
‘I know you won’t, but you really ought to explain the situation to the art teacher. You know, the one you get along with? I’m sure he’d understand. And I’m positive he’ll sanction Marcus.’
‘I’m not a grass.’
‘Are you scared of him?’
He shook his head and said ‘no,’ though his features told me otherwise.
‘You’ll work it out, I’m sure. Just don’t let his behaviour affect your schoolwork and promise you’ll let me know if he gives you any more bother?’
He nodded his assent.
But as time wore on, I began to suspect Marcus was the reason Steven had spoken about quitting football practice, deeming it uncool. The only worthwhile thing his father had done was sign him up after he started infants’ school. And he’d kept at it for the years since Dejuan had returned to Jones Town, Kingston.
Dejuan’s move home to Jamaica wasn’t a surprise. He told me often enough that he missed his mum, his brother, and the Caribbean Sea. His dream was to own a bar over there. He managed to secure the next best thing.
After he left, he posted regular parcels including birthday cards spelt badly due to his dyslexia, comics, and toys, and as Steven grew older, he sent a couple of thousand pounds into my PayPal account intermittently, until the money stopped coming and we lost contact. The last time I heard from him was via a phone call in the early hours of the morning on 12th September three years ago. Dejuan was serving ten years in prison for the armed robbery of a convenience shop. He’d aimed a sawn-off shotgun at a female cashier while high on crack cocaine.
Dejuan’s mum had died the previous year, so he’d started drinking to numb the pain, fought with his brother Shamar and lost his job running the beach bar Shamar owned. He told me he’d got off his face and acted on impulse. ‘A made a mistake. A shouldn’a done it.’
I wondered why he was calling me, considering he’d not bothered to contact me at all in months. And I hadn’t seen a pound in child support for almost a year.
‘Da guards won’ le’ me sneak tru no smokes.’
Despite the overwhelming lack of police officers – violence against women is a huge problem on the island – jail terms for threatening the life of a female was a kickable offence behind the cell walls. He didn’t need cigarettes, he needed to pay an inmate not to beat him up. I wired him the money. The transaction took an hour to clear. I never heard from him again.
With his mother deceased, his father having long ago deserted her, the only person I could contact was his brother who’d moved to the sun-hot city of Miami, Florida. ‘Mi not ’eard nuttin, cyattie.’
Shamar’s upbeat voice and positivity was the reason he’d secured a job within weeks of entering the US. He didn’t have a qualification or a vocation to his name, but had no problem attracting women with his charm. Though he couldn’t settle down, he was currently living with his latest bedpost knocker in her apartment duplex located ‘coast-side,’ under the impression Shamar was a well-known DJ holidaying it in the US for a few months on his non-existent extensive earnings.
Shamar promised to call me the moment Dejuan contacted him, but he never did. I knew the second he needed money he wouldn’t hesitate to let me know, so I wasn’t in the least concerned for Dejuan’s wellbeing. He’d shown clearly his ability to land himself in the shit with the law. I considered him mature enough to get himself out of it.
Steven knew none of this, of course. I wasn’t going to taint his memories of the father who’d kicked a ball about the field with him or offered him advice on how to score a good shot. The man who’d taught him to stand up for himself, to respect women, and to speak out against injustice. His favourite saying was ‘don’t follow the pack, lead them.’
We were a two-person family. We had a routine we rarely deviated from. And we got along with each other most of the time.
I’d recently noticed Steven’s grades slipping, but not enough to arouse debate over the dinner table. And his occasional outbursts of teeth sucking and the cuss words that rolled easily from his tongue he expected me to yell at him for were normal according to Faith. ‘He’s a boy, innit. Dat’s what dey do. Gotta let ’im work through ’is attitude. Betta than holdin’ it inside.’
I trusted Steven. We shared everything: our thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, and goals. He was an honest kid. Sincere. Loyal. But I suppose what I taught him had created an unprecedented problem. Because it wasn’t only me, his mother, who he confided in. His friends too, had relied on his dependability, his allegiance. And it seems Natalie is especially devoted to the group’s ethos of confidentiality.
Since learning from DS Maguire that Natalie, who I suspect is the female the witness saw standing on the corner, had been within metres of Steven during his attack, had witnessed the male responsible for plunging the knife nine times into my son’s torso, had failed to intervene or disclose details relevant to the discovery of the individual who’d murdered Steven, her brother’s friend no less, I felt motivated to confront her mother.
I’m stood on the doorstep of the twelve-storey tower block overlooking the estate. Though I can hear their Staffordshire bull terrier barking inside which means Carmen is in, she doesn’t answer.
Since the Grenfell fire there has been a mass retrofit of fire-resistant sheeting to the external bodies and the installation of sprinklers inside the council-owned properties within the borough. Unfortunately, it hasn’t extended beyond social housing to the housing associations; so many of the privately owned buildings using the same hazardous material haven’t met the inspectorate’s regulations despite the knowledge they have gleaned since the tragic preventable loss of so many lives. I can see two of the inauspicious eyesores glaring at me now.
It’s windy as I cross the balconette walkway of the high-rise, feeling the gentle late summer breeze on my face and neck.
If Natalie knows more than whatever she has admitted to the police I will extract it from her, whatever the cost. Her mum can hide behind concern for her selfish daughter’s future – a criminal record is likely at this stage if the police find enough evidence to bring her in to custody and charge her – but she won’t be able to keep Natalie off school if she’s granted bail, which according to what I’ve read online is probable.
As my late mother Constance used to say, ‘patience surprises the guilty.’ And I must admit I can’t wait to confront Natalie and wipe the smug smile off her pretty little face.
DS MAGUIRE
Croydon, London
Having just been informed that Natalie was signed out of police custody on bail pending notice of an official court date, I pass Rawlings in the corridor. He glances at Pierce then gives me a knowing look and says, ‘She’s returned home. Did you get anything of value from her?’
‘The car and the man.’ I give Pierce a warning look and he blinks in response. We’re in agreement that for now, Rawlings doesn’t need to know we’re looking for a vehicle and a male in direct opposition to the descriptions Natalie gave to us.
‘Okay. Go chase them up.’
‘Any idea how many black Golfs and Polos are driven around London every day?’
‘No, but if you start looking at roadside camera footage surrounding the scene, you’ll have a few registration plates to get you started on your search.’
‘No need to state the obvious, Inspector.’
‘What’s the problem then?’
‘There’s a Volkswagen dealership a mile away from the chicken place.
At least twenty vehicles, Golfs being the most popular model, are test-driven in the area every day.’
‘You’d better get cracking then.’
*
My eyes blur from two hours in front of the computer screen staring at the still images of CCTV recordings. I blink hard, rub the heels of my hands across my lids to regain my focus, and turn to Pierce who, to save time has decided to contact the dealership to create a list of trade plates for both Golfs and Polos that were signed out for test drives the day of Steven’s murder for elimination purposes. Some of them are loaned for twenty-four hours, which means their temporary owners wouldn’t have had to return them until the following day.
As I’m glancing away from his monitor at the list of recently sold cars that he’s now collating, I notice the grainy image on my screen of a vehicle rounding the corner of a street backing the main road approximately one kilometre away from where the fast food restaurant is situated. The black Volkswagen Golf swipes the kerb and zips past a speed camera. The split-second flash tells me how I might find the owner of the car, if the individual turns out to be the man we’re looking for.
My phone call to the DVLA gives me the vehicle registration number, a man’s name, and an address, which incidentally isn’t far from Miss Bennet’s property. The man on the phone adds, ‘The speeding ticket was issued automatically through the computer software programme, generating an Automatic Number Plate Recognition notification. The three points would have been immediately displayed on the system with the Met.’
I Know You (DI Emma Locke) Page 4