Dead Guilty

by Michelle Davies

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘But it never showed up, when her body – the post-mortem . . .’

  Philip stared at his wife, surprised at how her shock was rendering her inarticulate. She returned his gaze. Both of them were stunned their daughter could’ve gone through something so monumental without them realizing.

  ‘Well, we know the Spanish weren’t thorough with their investigation,’ said Declan. ‘They obviously didn’t pick up on the fact she’d previously been pregnant. It was early days when she had the termination, just seven weeks.’

  Patricia turned to him. ‘That’s what was mentioned in the email?’

  He nodded. ‘But here’s the thing: we didn’t tell anyone. Not you, not my parents, not George or Tamara, not a soul. So when I got this email repeating details only Katy and I had been privy to, I knew it had to be genuine. Because the only way the sender could’ve found out was from her.’

  ‘I think you’re romanticizing my daughter’s reluctance to gossip,’ said Patricia and the snippiness of her tone made Philip’s heart constrict. Knowing about the pregnancy would tarnish his wife’s memory of her now. She’d put Katy on a pedestal from the moment she was born and to know she wasn’t perfect would be a damning blow. ‘She could easily have told a friend other than Tamara,’ Patricia finished.

  ‘We made a pact not to say anything. You know how loyal Katy was – she wouldn’t have told anyone once we’d decided not to.’

  Philip had to agree with that: his sweet, trustworthy daughter probably took many secrets to her grave.

  ‘It doesn’t explain why, even knowing what they did, you think the person who sent you the email is her killer,’ said Patricia.

  ‘He pretty much said so, like he was boasting. Then he said something along the lines of they could’ve had something beautiful together, but that she had disappointed him and he had to teach her a lesson.’

  Philip coughed loudly as bile rose up and scorched the lining of his throat. Patricia shot him a look of distaste.

  ‘Was there anything about where she was in the week she was missing?’ she asked Declan. ‘Any clues as to where he kept her?’

  There had been many days since Katy died that Philip would rank as the worst of his life – the day her remains were flown back to Britain, the day of her funeral, the day he should’ve been toasting her eighteenth birthday but instead laid flowers on her grave – but those seven days between her going missing and her body being found were by far the cruellest. Each day saw their emotions see-sawing as reported sightings of Katy raised their hopes of her being found, only to have them dashed hours later when the police had ruled them out as false. The not knowing was excruciating and still gave him nightmares now. Was Katy kept alive in that week, did she suffer before she was killed . . . did she call for him, her dad, asking him to save her, and cry when he never came?

  ‘No, there’s no mention of where she was.’ Declan paused, then looked solemnly at the parents who might’ve been his in-laws eventually but were now strangers to him. ‘But he said she died on their third date.’

  The bile rose to Philip’s mouth this time and Patricia was equally ashen.

  ‘You need to pass the email to the police. DCI Walker, I can call him,’ she said.

  Declan nodded. ‘I think we should, because I’m worried about what might happen if we don’t take it seriously.’

  Philip was suddenly gripped by fear.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he croaked.

  Declan looked directly at Patricia. ‘The last line of it . . . it was a promise to save you a sun lounger on the beach when you’re back in Saros next week.’

  ‘Me?’ Patricia repeated slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Declan. ‘I think her killer is planning to be there for the memorial too.’

  5

  It was agreed Declan would travel separately to Saros, for reasons of practicality more than anything else. The only flight he was able to book at such short notice was one leaving at 5.25 a.m. from Stansted on Monday, whereas the Popes were flying out on Friday afternoon from Gatwick, the closest airport to their home in Crystal Palace in South London.

  The issue of accommodation had been less easily addressed. Declan had recoiled in shock when Patricia breezily informed him they were staying in an apartment at Orquídea, a luxury complex a couple of minutes’ walk from the expansive golden beach of Saros – and also the place where Katy’s dismembered remains were recovered, after they’d been dumped in the huge ornamental ponds in the grounds.

  ‘Why on earth would you stay there? Of all the places,’ he’d said, aghast at the idea.

  Patricia had dodged the question while Philip mumbled something about availability. Declan left saying he would arrange his own accommodation.

  ‘I don’t know how you can set foot in that place, let alone eat and sleep there,’ he’d hissed at Philip as he was shown out to the front door.

  ‘It’s what Patricia wants,’ Philip had replied, embarrassingly aware of the hollowness of the statement. ‘You do know the memorial service is to be held in the grounds, by one of the ponds?’

  Declan was even more horrified.

  ‘I thought it would be on the beach, where she went missing. Not where her torso, head or whatever was found!’

  There were eight blocks in the Orquídea complex, hosting six apartments within. Each block had its own private swimming pool for guests, and interspersing each of them were landscaped lawns and gardens and a series of ornamental ponds. It was across six of the ponds that the killer had deposited Katy’s remains, weighted down by chains beneath the lilies. An unlucky child called Luke discovered them: he’d been using a stick to poke the lilies to scare the carp that swam under them and in doing so had dislodged her left leg.

  Philip shared Declan’s revulsion at them staying there but his loyalty to Patricia would not allow him to admit it.

  ‘It’s all arranged now,’ he’d said lamely. ‘Does that mean you won’t come?’

  Declan had thought for a moment, clearly conflicted by the prospect.

  ‘No, I’ll come,’ he’d said, but grudgingly. ‘I still want to be there for the service.’

  Philip could hear Patricia ranting even from the garden. He’d gone outside to escape her latest tirade and now her poor sister Nell was getting it in the neck, albeit over the phone. The source of his wife’s ire was, once again, DCI Walker, and his refusal to drop everything and come to the house to discuss the email Declan had been sent. She could not understand why the officer in charge of Operation Pivot did not share her urgency at investigating it.

  ‘I do appreciate he is busy preparing for the trip,’ she said, which had made Philip smile to himself because in reality Patricia seemed to appreciate nothing about Walker. ‘But how can I take him seriously if he won’t do his job properly?’

  Philip nodded as though to affirm her complaint, but secretly he thought Walker was doing a marvellous job. It certainly wasn’t an easy one, with the weight of Patricia’s expectations on his shoulders and the limitations in budget and manpower he faced. But he’d been diligent in re-examining every lead in the case when he’d been appointed to Operation Pivot two years ago and had even made a breakthrough with the amethyst and silver ring Katy wore on her right hand, something none of his predecessors had. The ring was a present from them for her sixteenth birthday, but was missing when her body was recovered. Walker had managed to track down a jeweller in the city of Palma, the island’s capital, who remembered a man coming into his store a few weeks after she was murdered and asking how much he could get if he sold one matching the description.

  Unfortunately, because of the time that had elapsed, the jeweller couldn’t remember what the man looked like, but knowing when he’d gone into the shop was useful. Assuming it was the killer, it meant he must’ve stayed on Majorca as the original police investigation got underway, an audacious move. The jeweller said he hadn’t come forward previously because it hadn’t been published anywh
ere that Katy’s ring was missing.

  Patricia had been withering in her response to the jeweller’s admission: had the Majorcan police had been more vocal in searching for the ring in the first place he might’ve heeded the appeals for information and come forward sooner. But the local detective in charge at the outset, Chief Inspector Galen Martos, had withheld the information from public knowledge, believing it might one day prove instrumental in nailing the killer.

  Philip moved further away from the house and the sound of Patricia’s braying. To distract himself, he set about pulling up the weeds threatening to choke the bed of buddleias at the foot of the garden. This was his sanctuary, a place of shelter where he could almost satisfy his craving for silence. Almost, because their road was a thoroughfare between the Crystal Palace triangle and neighbouring Gipsy Hill and could be busy at times.

  Patricia never understood why he hankered for quiet so much, why working in the hushed great rooms of the National Gallery had been the dream job he’d never wanted to leave until she insisted he retire, like her. Katy had, because she was exactly like him: much happier with her nose stuck in a book than listening to music at top volume. Her brother, George, took after Patricia: so loud you always heard his presence long before you saw it.

  Philip smiled with affection as he thought of his rambunctious son. He had often said to Patricia that as a family unit they worked a treat, two yangs versus two yins, the quiet versus the loud. Now, without Katy, the unit felt painfully lopsided, with him the odd one out. Yet despite their differences, George had been Philip’s rescuer when his initial grief threatened to pull him under; when the breakdown finally did, George had taken charge of family matters so his father didn’t have to. As the years passed Philip had secretly hoped George might settle down with a young woman who was reserved like his sister, to even out the family unit again, but his son was only thirty, consumed by his job and, unlike his old friend Declan, content to play the field for now.

  Philip couldn’t get his head round what Declan had told them about Katy getting pregnant. It was distressing to think of his little girl in that way. He didn’t want to believe it, and the fact that her post-mortem never revealed signs of her ever conceiving meant he simply couldn’t believe it. Declan was lying, he had to be.

  Patricia stuck her head out of an upstairs window.

  ‘Nell said I should’ve demanded Walker came round,’ she hollered down to him.

  Philip raised a hand in acknowledgement and smiled to himself. Of course Nell had. She’d said what Patricia wanted to hear, because that’s what they all did for the sake of a quiet life. But he was glad DCI Walker had dug his heels in, because the thought of discussing the email right now made his blood run cold. He couldn’t believe it was true – any of it.

  6

  It was nearing seven when Maggie left the station, the journey home taking her one stop on the Northern Line from Angel to King’s Cross, then six stops on the Piccadilly to Turnpike Lane, the closest stop to her flat. She’d finished the Curtis statement then briefed her boss about Lara Steadman. He agreed it was a matter for the police in Saros but ordered her to contact DCI Walker at Operation Pivot, the special investigation team still looking into the Pope murder, outlining what Lara had said. Maggie offered to write up the statement in full but her boss said no: if Walker wanted to take it further, he should re-interview Lara himself. So Maggie wrote a detailed email to Walker then called it a day.

  She hurried from the main Tube exit at Turnpike Lane and turned left, scooting alongside the green expanse of Ducketts Common which, despite evening descending, was still thrumming with activity, the basketball courts packed with groups of young men playing and the outdoor gym equipment being put to good use by a few pensioners. Less welcoming was the sight of a passed-out drunk in the middle of the grass, empty vodka bottle resting on his tummy.

  Her new neighbourhood was known as Harringay, which had confused her at first because the borough itself was Haringey. Living there had taken some getting used to after the relative calm of her old town, Mansell; the level of deprivation in some parts of the borough was eye-opening, particularly as it sat shoulder-to-jowl alongside the multimillion-pound houses of Crouch End and Muswell Hill. The street where she lived straddled both sides of the divide: expensively renovated family homes terraced next to council-run flats that had seen better days. The rent she received from letting out her own two-bedroom flat in Mansell was short of what she needed to cover the monthly cost of a one-bedroom flat in Harringay, but her salary saw to the rest.

  Tonight she wasn’t going straight home, though. Her boyfriend, Will Umpire, had been in London for the day on a training course and they’d arranged to meet at a bar near her flat. She relished the chance to see him after months of sustaining their relationship at weekends either in London or in Trenton, a town in the north of Buckinghamshire where Umpire served as a DCI with her old force. Conducting their relationship long distance was tough at times, but what kept them going was the fact that, eighteen months on from when they first got together, they both agreed it was worth the effort. Maggie saw her long-term future with Umpire, he with her.

  The bar where they’d arranged to meet was a short walk from her flat and, like her, a relatively new addition to the neighbourhood. Loved by hipsters, it stood out like a sore thumb amongst Green Lane’s infamous Turkish restaurants, jewellers, hardware shops and the imposing Salisbury pub, but she liked it because the atmosphere was laid-back and it served great burgers.

  Reaching the entrance, she wished there was time to nip home and freshen up – or at the very least brush her hair and teeth. She didn’t want Umpire to think she couldn’t be bothered to make an effort.

  A blast of music hit her as she dragged open the heavy glass door. Her eyes needed a moment to focus on the room, so low was the ambient lighting, and when her gaze fell upon Umpire sitting in the corner, nursing a pint, the corners of her mouth lifted and her weariness began to seep away. Then she saw he wasn’t alone and her face fell. Next to him, staring at her murderously, were his kids.

  7

  Maggie fought to keep her expression neutral as she picked her way across the room to reach their table. Why hadn’t Umpire warned her the children would be with him? More to the point, why were they? He didn’t normally have them on a Tuesday evening.

  Flora and Jack lived with their mother, Sarah, Umpire’s ex-wife, in North Finchley, which was about a twenty-minute drive away. Yet Maggie had only met the children a handful of times in the eighteen months she and their father had been together. Flora, who was fourteen, had taken an instant dislike to her and demonstrated it by being surly and unresponsive in her company, so meetings were now kept to a minimum. Jack, two years younger, was initially receptive but now aped his sister’s behaviour rather than end up on the receiving end of Flora’s temper, which exploded whenever she thought he was being too nice to their dad’s girlfriend.

  Maggie hesitated as she reached the table. Kissing Umpire hello would unleash a spiteful response she felt too tired to handle right now, but fortunately he had no such compunction and rose to his feet to greet her. As their lips met, Maggie saw Flora out of the corner of her eye pretending to retch so she tried to pull away, but Umpire held her close so he could whisper in her ear.

  ‘I’m sorry. The kids found out that I was in London today and asked to see me. I couldn’t say no to them tagging along. I’ll have to take them home later, so I can’t stay tonight.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Maggie murmured back, even though it wasn’t.

  She lowered herself into the seat next to Jack.

  ‘This is a nice surprise,’ she lied.

  Jack flashed her a wary smile. ‘Dad says the burgers here are brilliant.’

  ‘They are,’ said Maggie, shrugging off her jacket. ‘They also do great milkshakes.’

  ‘If you don’t mind getting fat,’ said Flora, giving Maggie a pointed look.

  Here we go, Maggie sighed to herself.
She understood it must be difficult for the children to see Umpire with someone other than their mum, but she had no idea why Flora was quite so resentful as her parents had split up long before she came on the scene. Whenever Umpire raised it with his daughter, Flora claimed the reverse, saying Maggie was cold towards her and she must obviously hate children.

  Luckily Umpire knew that wasn’t true, because he’d seen at first-hand Maggie’s close relationship with her two nephews, Scotty and Jude, and her niece, Mae, who were her sister Lou’s children. From the moment they were born – aside from a period of estrangement last year – Maggie had been a de facto guardian to the kids and doted on them. These days the children lived near Portsmouth with Lou, but Maggie saw them often.

  Thinking Flora might be fearful of what she represented, Maggie had followed the textbook advice and made it clear she wasn’t trying to take their mum’s place, but even that assertion had fallen on deaf ears. She’d also addressed the age gap between her and their dad – Umpire was forty-four to her thirty-one – but Flora had pulled a face like the very mention had disgusted her, so Maggie let it drop.

  ‘I’m going to have a chocolate one,’ said Jack, ignoring his sister for once. ‘What will you have, Dad?’

  ‘I’m sticking to this,’ he said, raising his pint. ‘What do you want, darling?’ he asked Maggie. ‘Beer, wine, cocktail?’

  Automatically she glanced at Flora, expecting another reaction to him calling her ‘darling’, but the girl was absorbed in reading a message on her phone.

  ‘Glass of dry white wine, please.’ She shot him a look. ‘Make it a large one.’

  Umpire took their food orders as well and went to the bar to pay. Maggie felt awkward left alone with the children and scrabbled for something benign to talk about.

  ‘How’s football going?’ she asked Jack.

  ‘Good. I scored two goals on Saturday.’

  ‘Well done you.’