by Rachael Blok
The DI nods and smiles at Jenny and Will, shaking her head at the offer of coffee.
Standing anyway, Jenny observes the DCI is much younger than she would have expected. Roughly forty, his tall frame seems amplified in the cottage room. Wearing dark, thick-rimmed glasses, she can imagine him on an adult scooter, in pop-up restaurants, paying a fortune for a tiny plate and talking tech. His hand, extended to shake, isn’t calloused, but smooth like stone: desk hands. He doesn’t fit with murder. He seems untouched.
‘I believe you’ve heard the news?’ DCI Jansen begins. That accent, a soft lilt she can’t place.
They both nod.
‘Well, I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but the body of a young girl was pulled out of the lake at about nine thirty this morning, and we believe she was taken down Lake Lane at around two a.m. We are anxious to interview you because we’ve had a sighting of her in The Lanes.’
Jenny bites a sliver of frustration. It’s slick, this delivery. ‘Taken’ can’t be the right word. The girl must have been screaming for her life. Out loud she says, ‘Really? Outside our house?’
The DCI nods and smiles again. Will indicates to the sofa and they all sit, sinking into the nearest chair, holding themselves upright. A tea party.
‘We don’t really have a clear picture of what took place. It would help a great deal if you could just run through what you were doing yesterday, any details you can think of, no matter how insignificant.’
Jenny glances at Will, who catches her eye.
‘I don’t think we can be much help, I’m afraid. We were in bed by about ten. We watched something on TV and then Finn, our son, woke for a feed. Jenny looked after him and I cleared up; then we both went to bed.’
‘And earlier in the evening, sir?’ Imogen Deacon is speaking now, her legs cross, smoothly. ‘Did you happen to walk down to the lake at any point?’
Jenny watches her movements, controlled, elegant.
‘Not in the evening. We took a walk by the lake in the afternoon, then I went for a run, but back about four-ish?’ Will looks again at Jenny.
‘Yes,’ says Jenny. She speaks to the DI. ‘We had dinner. It was cold outside, and with a baby we don’t do much in the evenings.’
‘No, I can imagine not,’ says DCI Jansen. The smile again. Bland, slippy.
Jenny wonders if it is a real smile. It has a practised air. His accent is a mix of German and South African. She almost asks him, but holds back. The meeting feels awkward. The body could be in the room and someone may comment on the weather, or compliment the curtains.
‘Any chance you saw any vehicles driving down the lane yesterday at any point?’
‘Not that I know,’ Jenny says, eventually.
Will takes a minute longer, his brow furrows in earnest. ‘Actually, I might have done – I went to the car when we got back from the lake to put some blankets, shovel, et cetera, in there. We were planning to drive down to my parents first thing and I was worried about getting stuck with the snow. There was a black car. It was going quite fast for the icy road, and I jumped out of its way.’
‘Did you see who was driving?’ asks DCI Jansen.
Jenny catches his quick glance to the DI.
‘No, I don’t think so. I looked at the driver’s window, but I didn’t really see him.’
‘You say “him”?’ asks Imogen Deacon.
‘Yes, it was a man, I think… assumed,’ Will says. ‘Roughly our age? Maybe because of the car he was driving – it was a grown-up car – something driven by a professional, not a teenager. I think it was a BMW. But other than that, I really didn’t see much. The sun was quite bright and reflected off the windows.’
‘Was there anyone else in the car, sir?’ asks Jansen.
Will sits a little straighter. ‘You mean it might have been the girl? I’m not sure. I think there might have been someone in the passenger seat… I don’t know. It was only for a second.’
‘Any chance you remembered the number plate, sir?’ asks the DI.
‘Sorry. I didn’t even look. I jumped up onto the pavement, in case he slid into me, and then he was gone. Do you really think that might have been them?’
‘You say about four p.m.?’
Will nods. Like a boy scout. Pleasing the nice policemen, thinks Jenny.
‘Well, at this stage everything counts. We need to build a complete picture of events. It would be helpful if you could come down to the station to give us a statement? Either now, or in the morning?’
‘Now is fine, I think.’ Will looks at Jenny. ‘Jen?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She doesn’t want to sit in on her own and think of a murderer driving down the lane outside, but she wants to help. There is a tightness around her chest that hasn’t fully disappeared since she heard the news.
‘Can I leave you my card?’ DCI Jansen stands up. ‘If you think of anything, we’d really appreciate it if you could give us a call.’
Jenny looks at the card. Usually a card is a signal for a handshake. She hasn’t stood up and feels compelled to do so. She takes the card, but he’s already started moving away before she can pocket it. His poise wrong-foots her.
‘Thank you both so much for your time.’
‘Of course,’ Will says.
‘How old was she?’ Jenny asks, unable to help herself. It comes out in a blurt.
‘She was fourteen.’ DCI Jansen speaks. He stops to turn and meet her eye. This time there’s no smile. Her frustration turns cold. His dark eyes are unreadable. Her ears fill with the noise a seashell makes when held to the ear: the hollow sound of the swoosh of water, washing overhead.
The room blurs before her and she makes no move to follow the police to the hall. She hears Will say he’s forgotten something. He comes in and hugs her.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I won’t be long. Go to bed – I’ll clear up when I come in.’
Tears spill.
Will pulls away and gently helps her sit down, topping up her wine glass.
‘If anything like that… ever…’
‘Well it won’t,’ Will says. ‘We’re going to make sure it doesn’t. He’s upstairs, fast asleep. Come on… I’d better go.’
Later, fetching a glass of water, she glances through the window, looking out over the park. There are snowmen of all shapes scattered around the sloping hill. Someone has built a snowgirl: she wears a pink woolly hat and a necklace made out of twigs, pasta shells, pebbles. Instead of lumps of coal for a mouth, she’s decorated with a grin of red berries. A flower sits in her hand and she smiles glaringly through the falling snow, lit by the moonbeams. Just as the sky becomes heavy with clouds, the moon sends out a lighthouse beam. The berries dare to stand out, demanding to be noticed, bright scarlet in the soft light. Garish. Violent.
4
15 December
‘How long until you have post-mortem details?’
‘Any word on whether this is linked to Sunderland?’
‘Have there been other deaths in the lake?’
‘Over here, please, over here!’
Maarten leans forward into the microphone, catching the full glare of the media’s blinding, obliterating eye.
‘As I said, we will be taking questions later. I thank you for respecting the privacy and grief of the family at this time.’
‘Over here, over here!’
It doesn’t stop. He pushes out of the room quickly, disorientated, striding for firmer ground and the solidity of detail-seeking. He nods at the superintendent as he passes.
‘I need to speak to you, Maarten,’ the super says.
Maarten nods again, making his way upstairs, unwilling to stop. The paperwork requesting references will have arrived. He can’t avoid talking about it. He’s been dodging it at work, not wanting to start the process. He hasn’t spoken to Liv since last night.
Footsteps sound behind him and he turns.
‘I know you’re busy, Maarten.’ The super has followed him.
‘Y
es, sir. I’m just on my way to speak with the parents before they go home.’
‘Yes, can’t imagine what they’re going through. Look…’ Standing a head shorter than Maarten and lower still now as he stands a few stairs down, Maarten fights the urge to step down to his level. It will only prolong the exchange.
‘Look, about this job offer you’ve had.’
‘I haven’t done anything about it yet, sir. It only came through a week or so ago and we’ve been busy.’
‘I know, but I just wanted to say that, obviously, I won’t stand in your way, but I do want you to know that we’d be sorry to see you leave. You’ve made a great start here.’
Nodding, Maarten thinks of how to say little, not to commit himself. The urge to reassure is pointless. He’s going to consider it. Is considering it. ‘Thank you.’
‘You go. Think about it, though. You’ve a very strong future here. Particularly if you can get this case cleared up. The chief super is here later; she is taking an interest… with all this press…’
‘I know, sir. The team are working hard.’
Watching him walk down the stairs, out of sight, Maarten hears the footsteps become lighter before disappearing. Slight, greying, it would be a mistake to dismiss him. Neither a kind nor an unkind man – Maarten knows kindness doesn’t come into it at all. It’s about the law, and how the law is perceived. The gentle warning, gentle incentive, was loud in the brief exchange.
Striding up the steel stairs, he pushes open the heavy door and takes out his phone. It has been ringing all morning. About sixty emails have come in since he stood outside in the cold, before heading into the conference room.
It is a crazed public event. The national news channels have picked it up and the press are crowded like ants over a rotten apple, swarming in their armies for nibbles. He glances out of the window and watches them, clustering outside. The British – reserved on so many occasions – have, at times, the capacity to dangerously overspill.
The public display over, he pauses before pushing the door to where the parents sit. The press ordeal has been bad for him. For them? He envisions the room: tea, biscuits, drenched tissues, waiting for him to enter. Coming to terms with the press conference, waiting to be told whoever has done this has been caught and that some sort of reckoning is just around the corner.
His eyes ache. He didn’t sleep well and the day stretches ahead like a marathon. The phone buzzes again in his hand: Liv. He doesn’t open the text, despite the urge to ground himself, to reach out to her. He needs to call Rotterdam by tonight, and he needs to speak with her, but first this.
There is nothing they have yet that will offer any sort of resolution for the parents. Not yet. Undigested rage tastes like bile. Tea and biscuits can do little to temper that. They wait for information he doesn’t yet have.
‘Hello,’ he says. The heavy door clicks closed behind him; the hush envelops.
It is bare and softly lit: the victim room. Imogen sits quietly at the corner of the table. Her expression of sympathy is fixed. She looks up at him and it doesn’t waver, just a flicker in her eyes, as his meet hers.
‘Is it true?’ Tessa, the mother asks. Her voice is quiet and high. Her throat sounds raw. Her pale face, lined with vivid pain. Her coat is pulled tightly around her, despite the close heat of the windowless room.
‘Which bit?’ he asks, forcing himself to smile gently when he speaks. He sits down opposite so that he can lean towards her, look directly at her.
‘You said you would catch whoever has done it. Whoever did it, to Leigh. Leigh,’ she cries quietly. ‘Our Leigh.’
John, the father, cloaks his arm around her and she turns her face to his shoulder. She melts against him, bending like warm candle wax. The intimacy in the gesture is compelling, and Maarten averts his gaze briefly: a very private grief.
‘You will, won’t you?’ John asks. ‘When I think of her… calling for us. Screaming, needing us… I can’t shake it from my head. Every time I close my eyes… our little girl…’ His voice, barely above a mutter. ‘Sorry, like.’ His gaze drops to the table. ‘She’s our little girl. I should’ve looked after her. When I think…’
Maarten shakes his head gently in response, and Tessa says, ‘John,’ only just audible, the effort of speaking exhausting her.
Nodding a reply to Tessa, Maarten says, ‘Yes, yes we will.’ But he’s irritated with himself for promising. ‘We’ll find them. I’m sorry we haven’t caught whoever did this yet. I wish that we had.’
‘That was pretty rough outside. Tessa, are you OK?’ Imogen asks. Maarten watches her exclude the father. She has a tendency to assume the worst of fathers. John hasn’t been ruled out yet, but looking at his face, the trembling – Maarten’s mind wends to other avenues, to further suspects.
Maarten leans forward to echo her words, speak to both of them. ‘Have you any questions about what happened, or about the media?’
She shakes her head.
‘John, how about you?’
The man is heavyset and tall, hair cropped close, and beneath his blue shirt he wears a chain. His wrist has some dates drawn in tattoo ink, with initials. Maarten doesn’t stare, but he guesses the dates and initials include Leigh’s.
‘I heard them ask something about Sunderland; what was that about, like? Is there something we should know? I’m from Newcastle.’
Maarten had guessed the north-east. The vowels are flat, more pronounced today than he heard yesterday.
‘No, nothing to do with you. There was a murder in Sunderland last August: another young girl, but older than Leigh, a student. A drowning.’
‘Might it be the same man?’ Tessa asks.
‘No. An arrest was made; an ex-boyfriend who had had too much to drink. They’re linking it because they’re looking for anything, and because I worked up there.’ He looks up as the tea enters the room, pushed on a trolley. They pause as it’s poured.
The silence kills him and he makes small talk as they stir sugar into cups.
Maarten doesn’t need to mention that the press are searching for any link, digging into the Hoarde family, the brother in jail; the assumptions, that everyone would search for connections – the microscope they would find themselves under.
Tessa’s shoulders sink and she begins to sob.
John’s voice is harsh. ‘I just keep thinking about why she left the house, about why I didn’t ask her where she was going; why nobody stopped her – what if…?’ He dips his head, his hand pulling roughly down over his face. ‘When I think back, I bloody wish I’d stayed up later that night…’
Tessa’s weeping gathers pace, softly. Imogen passes her a tissue.
‘What if I was too busy to see if there was something wrong? I’ve been rammed with work… making a bit extra to pay for Christmas. What didn’t I see?’
His voice cracks, and his words slow. Gravel and sandpaper, Maarten thinks, as he listens to the voice wind down.
Did this man kill his daughter? They need to cross him off. The innocence seems clear writ: his hands tremble, his eyes red, and the tattoo ink calligraphy… But there’s an anger in there. There’s something. Imogen’s eyes are clear and dry as she watches his distress.
John begins again, more slowly. ‘Who would do this? What kind of sick… fuck…’
The words rasp from within, and it’s time to end the session. To leave them to their naked grief. Each syllable, spoken and unspoken, bare.
‘I found this.’ Tessa, tentative, introduces a notebook, which she holds above the table. She doesn’t place it down, and its cover – backed with pictures of a boyband Maarten recognises but doesn’t know the name of – has scribbles over the front. Sharpie doodles, with a teenage hand.
John places his hand on Tessa’s, and teases the book from hers. ‘Tessa wants you to have this – we want you to have this. We want you to catch him. But… well, we only found it this morning. And we haven’t read it yet – couldn’t.’ He places it on the table, and Maarte
n reads the title upside down, as the book is laid flat: Leigh’s notebook.
‘There’s not much in there, she didn’t keep a diary as such; we couldn’t read it – it was too… raw. But you have to promise you will look after it.’ John leans, and the rasp is there again. It’s a voice about to break, or scream. ‘We’ve got nothing left now. Nothing of her.’
Maarten nods. But John isn’t finished.
‘Look at us, at her, at Leigh. Too late to change our minds about anything now. Too bloody late. If I could go back… protect her. She was a tiny wee thing when she was born – almost fitted into the palm of me hand. Our little girl. Our bairn…’
Imogen glances his way, and Maarten speaks gently. ‘I will have a car brought to the front for you. When the post-mortem is finished… we will come as soon as we hear anything.’ He watches them both shaking: rage, dolour… It’s contained in this room. It will be unleashed later.
‘Too late.’ John speaks, without looking at Maarten, without any acknowledgement of the others. He looks away at the wall, and rubs his again face with his hand, pulling his large palm downwards over his eyes and to his chin. ‘Too fuckin’ late.’
5
Hollyhocks is rammed. The morning is crisp outside, but all the wet clothes and boots have turned the warm air in the café moist. It’s like a humid greenhouse. Jenny has Finn strapped to her chest and she wilts once through the door.
‘Got you a latte,’ mouths Sam, or shouts, from her table at the far end. Her words are gathered up and dispersed long before they reach Jenny.
The noise is like a cocktail party in full swing.
Will is working from home, trying to concentrate, so out she has come. She needs air too. The house has felt even smaller today. She has roamed rooms putting away clothes, pacing a cage. The lounge door has taken to swinging closed on its own and banging loudly if she forgets to push in the doorstop. It has created a tiny pulse in her head that has hammered into her calm all morning.
The relief of the walk to the café has pushed outwards her ever-decreasing circles.