Problems with Girls (DI Sloane Book 2)

by Kelly Creighton

  I called Simon, who said we finally got a call back from a senior ranking member doctor who confirmed that Daniel Terence Hamilton, the gardener, was undergoing dialysis and had been treated by him between ten-thirty and twelve-thirty on Wednesday, five days prior. By which time Chloe would have been killed and found.

  ‘Ah, that’s a pity,’ said Hewitt condescendingly. ‘That would have been nice to have an answer. And a nice neat bow.’

  Chapter 17

  All day I was trying to phone Thomas to ask him to meet up with us. There was still no reply. But we did have a call or two from Lizzie Donegan-Moat, who was an articulator. Lizzie had some information she thought might help us and help Chloe’s case.

  By three p.m. we were at hers. She met us in the porch way, and I don’t know why, but I was surprised to see how rundown the bungalow was inside. The décor was cheap and in red and black; everything felt neglected. There were pictures everywhere of her and Justin wrapped up in each other.

  ‘We haven’t met. Superintendent Hewitt,’ said Fleur.

  ‘Where is Sergeant Higgins?’ Lizzie asked, she was all dolled up in a frilly dress and a scarf around her hair, she looked like an Instagram picture. I could see her on that bicycle of hers with the basket, that dress, á la Bardot. A little grey kitten. A stiff French stick.

  ‘Higgins is on leave … holiday,’ Hewitt snuck in before I had a chance to respond.

  ‘Is this a good time to take himself off?’ asked Lizzie.

  ‘It’s never a good time. But we need holidays, too,’ I said, still sporting my tan and pissed off that everyone back here in Belfast was just as brown.

  ‘More than most, I’d say,’ said Lizzie.

  Justin entered the room. There was a light sweat on him and he was wearing sports gear; a tight long-sleeved T-shirt and short shorts.

  ‘Going for a run, babe?’ Lizzie asked him.

  ‘Meeting a client,’ he replied. Nodded his hello to us.

  ‘So early?’ asked Lizzie.

  ‘What kind of client?’ asked Hewitt. I read into her tone ‘what kind of client do you service in that attire?’ I remembered Drew referring to his shorts as budgie smugglers. He wasn’t wrong.

  ‘Aren’t you a building constructor?’ I said, trying to show that I knew more about him and the case overall than Fleur Hewitt did, and still reeling from my pleasant run-in with Jocelyn Dunne.

  ‘Justin’s a personal trainer by night, usually by night,’ said Lizzie. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

  ‘He’s a good-looking guy,’ said Fleur dryly.

  ‘You’re both making me blush now,’ said Justin.

  If you could roll your eyes without rolling them that’s what I did. I was embarrassed for the lot of them, Fleur included; she was being unprofessional. If that was what got you the job of Super, I didn’t want it.

  Lizzie looked at me for an answer, I looked back at her. All I was interested in was this information she had for us that warranted us calling out when we had important things to do.

  ‘I start early on the building site,’ said Justin, ‘go out with clients in the afternoons, evenings, and weekends. Here and there.’

  ‘Good earner,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Mainly women,’ said Lizzie. ‘It’s no surprise why they’d take up his services, none of them are lookers. He takes a ‘before’ photo of them.’

  ‘Don’t mind her.’ Justin looked at Hewitt. ‘Liz just likes to see me squirm.’

  Lizzie laughed and there was an awkward silence.

  ‘And what do you do, Lizzie?’ asked Hewitt.

  ‘I work in a care residence for disabled adults.’

  ‘Which one?’ I asked.

  ‘Just down the road,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Which road?

  ‘Kings Road, Dundonald. I love it.’

  ‘You’re a nurse?’ said Hewitt.

  ‘I’m an activities planner. Art, bingo, you name it. It’s good craic.’

  ‘Go on yerself! Worked there long?’

  ‘After I got my Psychology Master’s I worked in the Regional College as a Psychology tutor but I hated it. I much prefer this. I’m made for planning and I love a challenge. You need a strong stomach and a good sense of humour.’

  ‘Like in this job,’ said Hewitt.

  I hated the way she was bonding with these two. There was rapport building and there was rapport building. This was a joke. Had they all forgotten about Chloe?

  ‘You have children, don’t you?’ I said, looking around. Lizzie stared at me. ‘You said you’re a mother … at the station,’ I reminded Lizzie and watched her clam up. Maybe Hewitt had something in her friendly ladette routine that I hadn’t got. Patience, humour, time to waste.

  ‘I lost my babies,’ said Lizzie, ‘two little boys, but I still think of myself as a mother.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. My stomach lurched.

  ‘You weren’t to know. I’m trying to talk Justin into having a baby. He’s steadfast, aren’t you, babe? Unlike any of my exes. I’d love to see my genes in a little girl.’

  ‘Mixed with mine, Queen,’ said Justin before he kissed her and they got a bit intense having a snog before he left.

  ‘I know they won’t have told you about Chloe,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Who?’ Hewitt asked.

  ‘Her family, they won’t have told you everything.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘That she spent time in a mental patient’s facility.’

  ‘We know Chloe had some issues, everyone has been open about that,’ I said.

  ‘There is still this stigma. They’ll dance around it, people like Jackie,’ said Lizzie.

  I shrugged.

  ‘Chloe had bipolar disorder,’ said Lizzie. ‘She was seeing a psychiatrist. They had this relationship. She talked about Martin all the time.’

  ‘Could it be innocent?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say this sooner, Lizzie?’

  ‘Because there are more obvious people who would hurt her, like Lewis Skelly, or that gardener.’

  ‘Was Chloe having a sexual relationship with the psychiatrist?’ Hewitt got to it.

  ‘She was in love with him.’

  ‘But was it reciprocated?’

  ‘I think so, but she was secretive lately. Let’s not gloss over it,’ said Lizzie. ‘Chloe had issues and she was seeing him a lot. And he liked her, too. I could tell.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked her.

  ‘I saw them together once.’

  We let her witter on and then Hewitt said we had to go.

  *

  ‘She is a time-waster,’ I said to Hewitt after. ‘If Lizzie doesn’t have one idea who it is, it’s the next one: Drew; Jackie; Terry Hamilton; Lewis Skelly; and now this Martin guy.’

  ‘She’s alright,’ said Hewitt. ‘See all those pictures on the wall of them two, and her eating his face off? Although, you wouldn’t say no, would you? Isn’t he gorgeous?’

  ‘Fleur, why did you say yes when she asked you?’

  ‘No point saying no, hen. I’m not a good liar.’

  I rolled my eyes properly this time.

  ‘He is a piece of prime real estate, I’m not going to deny it, Harriet.’

  I was tired. It was no joke working full-time with two babies. They weren’t bad sleepers, thank God. I adjusted the air conditioning and Fleur turned it off on her side, the passenger side.

  ‘We should have asked if Lizzie knew about Amnesty International and Pakistan,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s give LDM a wide berth,’ Hewitt said. ‘You and your wee pal Carl have wasted enough time on her and her attention seeking. It’s the artist we need to get a hold of, if he would ever answer his fucken phone.’

  Chapter 18

  That evening there was a call from Bethany Nursing Home’s manager to say that another letter had come.

  ‘Take a photo of it and text it to me,’ I said.

  The ha
te mail that had been coming for Chloe was still in my mind. I wanted to see if it was set out the same. This was what it said:

  Adelinde Sloane, you bitch, you should have died. I am going to make sure you suffer, expecially for everything you put me and my family through.

  So it wasn’t the same. And expecially? I knew the person who had sent it. I just didn’t understand his reason.

  I called him straight away. ‘About this new letter to the home,’ I said.

  ‘So, you care now?’ he said. ‘What are you going to do about it? Have you informed the police?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I will,’ he threatened.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘We can’t let someone come and harm her.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ I asked him but he was silent. ‘Informing the PSNI is all we can do.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he argued.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Daddy? People who send warnings are cowards, they won’t do anything.’

  He hung up on me.

  Chapter 19

  The next morning I dropped off the boys and went into work. ‘I’ve just been talking to Thomas,’ said Hewitt without looking in my direction. ‘He has class then he will meet us at three p.m.’

  After a whole day of trying to speak with Thomas the day before, we’d almost given up on him.

  ‘Can’t we get him sooner?’ I said. ‘It feels like he’s messing us around.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ said Hewitt.

  Shortly after, Cyn Dockrill the art tutor phoned me to say that the original letter of the hate mail she had received, had been left in the library photocopier. The librarian found it and took it to the head of the college.

  ‘We know who it was,’ Cyn said.

  ‘Who?’ I asked, expecting her to say Thomas, or any other student. Even Lewis, or a friend of his at that campus. I was surprised when Cyn told me there was a woman, a big woman, she liked using that detail, ‘A big Yorkshire woman called Lucinda Press who works as a cleaner here in Belfast Met. I’m astounded,’ Cyn continued. ‘I finish up my work in the afternoons and Lucinda is always outside in the corridor, mopping, singing operatic tunes. I’ve often said to her, ‘‘You’re wasted here.’’ If you could only hear her voice! Nothing like her talking voice. It is beautiful, really.’

  ‘People surprise you,’ I said. It was my mantra.

  ‘They most certainly do,’ Cyn agreed.

  ‘How can you be certain it was her?’ I asked.

  ‘Lucinda was in work first thing; the librarian can vouch that it was her. The students don’t leave originals behind. It was weird to see the cleaner in the library at all, and she is so big and tall, so she stands out, and she’s always singing.’

  Cyn had a Newtownabbey address for Lucinda that had been given to her from the college director. He wanted everything done away from his door. The annual art show had drawn enough bad attention. More police visits were not what the director wanted.

  We paid the letter writer a visit. Lucinda was at home in Newtownabbey, not expecting us. She was in her dressing gown and fluffy slippers. And she was tall, far taller than me and I’m tall. And she was broad. And warm, surprisingly. Extremely warm to begin with, for someone who had just been caught trolling a dead girl.

  She had small eyes and short sandy-coloured hair. A single mother to three grown up sons, the youngest lived at home and was eating his breakfast in the kitchen. A big-boned boy, he had black hair that hung down his back and when he stood his T-shirt proved too short. A little roll of belly fat hung over the top of his pyjama bottoms.

  Lucinda brought us through to the living room. A huge dreamcatcher on the wall split the windows in two. We asked her about her work and before we could quiz Lucinda on anything, she said, ‘I don’t think that young man should be exploiting the situation like that. The media has put their own spin on my letters and made my intentions something altogether different.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘Like I said, I thought that brother of hers was exploiting the girl’s death.’

  ‘Is that really the reason?’ asked Hewitt.

  Lucinda refused to reply.

  ‘Your original letter was found in the Met’s library photocopier,’ I said. ‘Why send it?’

  ‘I sent two,’ said Lucinda, smiling, ‘one to the politician at the PACT office.’ She was melting into one of the seats that was covered in throws and cushions.

  ‘Mike Birch?’

  Lucinda nodded. ‘Him.’

  ‘Okay, and the other was for the college?’

  ‘Yes, because I was appalled that they let that revolting dog muck get displayed like that.’

  ‘What was revolting about it?’ I asked, pissed off.

  ‘That I have to go into a job I love and have those images rammed down my throat.’ She became angry.

  ‘I think that if you knew the story behind it …’ I started.

  ‘I know what you’ll say,’ said Lucinda, ‘I know that you’ll say that it’s art and that it’s open to interpretation.’

  ‘Yes, I believe so.’

  ‘But he was trying to get a reaction and all I did was react.’

  Hewitt looked at me as if Lucinda had a point.

  ‘I’m not here to argue about the art display, Ms. Press,’ I said.

  ‘No, and I won’t argue either,’ she replied. ‘I know I’m right.’

  ‘I just want to see if you were sending the letters.’

  ‘I was,’ she said. ‘I’ll stop the whole thing, I promise. It’s very embarrassing, you calling like this.’

  ‘Why did you do it, harass the family of a dead girl?’ I asked.

  ‘I wasn’t harassing anybody, she’s dead.’

  ‘Ms. Press …’

  ‘Lucinda, please,’ she said to me.

  ‘Lucinda,’ Hewitt jumped in. ‘You have got to know that this type of behaviour is not acceptable.’

  ‘Chloe’s father doesn’t need this stress, not after everything else,’ I said.

  ‘I’m ashamed. I’ll tell him so. Can you put me in touch?’ Lucinda blinked her tiny eyes.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, not right now.’

  ‘Tell him then, please, that I’m sorry,’ said Lucinda. ‘It’s just that I was always taught to not draw attention to yourself.’

  ‘Unlike Thomas?’ I asked.

  ‘Unlike Chloe,’ she edited me. ‘It’s how girls were brought up in my family. Just traditional.’

  ‘I heard you have a wonderful voice,’ I said.

  Lucinda waved the compliment away.

  ‘Maybe you should have drawn attention,’ I said, feeling grumpier than usual, thinking, catch yourself on, woman; you are too old, too smart to act like this.

  ‘Draw attention to my voice? But then I wouldn’t be a cleaner,’ she said.

  I said nothing. I was done. We had caught her at least.

  ‘I enjoy cleaning,’ she said, still on the defensive. ‘Everybody cleans their own loo; I’m not doing anything that’s beneath anybody.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘That’s not me,’ said Lucinda, ‘to be the centre of attention, but thank you.’

  I had really pissed her off.

  ‘Maybe it’s yourself you should be angry with, not me,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not angry.’

  ‘Not to worry.’ I stood up and stretched.

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried, my dear,’ she said.

  ‘Okay,’ said Fleur, ‘we’ll be seeing you again, Lucinda, no doubt.’

  ‘I’ll let you out.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we can do that ourselves,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried,’ she said again, in madness, there was more than a glint of it. It made sense now; I often mistake madness for warmth.

  I felt the door brush my back ever so slightly as I left, I turned to look at her. Any harder and I’d have had her.

  ‘I’m no
t worried,’ she said again, barely audible through the door.

  ‘Not to worry, Ms. Press,’ I had to say again, for badness.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Hewitt as she walked to the car.

  ‘She’ll be the centre of attention now,’ I said.

  ‘Only if the media gets wind of it,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘She brought the media into it.’

  ‘She was alright, I thought,’ said Hewitt. ‘Humble, like.’

  ‘A whack-job more like,’ I said as I cut back towards the motorway.

  ‘Was she suitably embarrassed for you, Sloane?’

  ‘For me?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. I liked your little life coaching moment. ‘‘You could have been a professional singer.”’ Hewitt put on a posh Northern Irish voice.

  ‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘That sounds English.’

  Fleur laughed for the first time. ‘I’m pulling your chain, Harriet. I think you don’t get my sense of humour. Don’t worry, you’re not alone in that.’

  ‘Do you clean your own toilet?’ I asked her.

  She laughed again. ‘What? I’m a lady. I don’t even shit.’

  ‘Good, nice and ladylike. Lucinda would approve. What do you think she means by Chloe drawing attention herself?’ I pictured Erica McClelland as I said it. Drawing attention by being stabbed to death? Was that crime acceptable to Lucinda because Erica liked to take care of her appearance, because she, unlike Lucinda, made the most of what she had.

  ‘Who knows? She’s crazy,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘Ms. Press,’ she made fun of how I had addressed her, showing Lucinda the respect she had not shown any of the Taylors. ‘Lucinda wants to live in a world where she only sees what she wants to see. Sounds nice, huh?’

  ‘Sounds boring,’ I said.

  Sensing that Fleur Hewitt was warming to me I asked her about Janet Ward.

  ‘Come again?’ she said.

  ‘The woman who came from London asking you to reopen her sister’s case.’

  ‘Oh, yeah … Your pal.’

  ‘I just sat beside her on a flight.’

  ‘So, you’re practically related.’

  ‘She’s a nice person,’ I said.

  ‘Aren’t most people?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Lucinda turned pretty quickly.’