by Rachael Blok
17
The phone buzzes and Maarten answers. It’s Liv. He pauses before the double doors that lead outside, on his way to the car.
‘Maart, you need to speak to Nic.’
‘I haven’t got time…’ he begins. Her voice disappears.
‘Papa?’
‘Nic, schatje, how goes it?’ He leans against the wall, letting the door he’d started to push open fall closed.
‘Papa, I’m worried about the girl. I’m so worried – I had a dream last night… Papa, I’m scared. But Mama said you will find out what happened. You can stop it happening again?’
Maarten closes his eyes. He flashes to a memory of Nic crying when she’d been three, because grey bunny had fallen under the bed. And all he’d had to do was lift him back up. ‘I will do my best, Nic. I will do my very best. Now tell me what you’re doing today.’
‘I’m planning my party with Becky; you remember we’re sharing our birthdays? What do you think about a painting pottery party? Becky really likes Star Wars but I don’t, so we can paint whatever we like and it doesn’t matter.’
‘Sounds great. Make sure you plan lots of balloons. You know how good Papa is with balloons.’
‘Ten’s a bit old for balloon animals!’ She laughs.
The sound of her laugh takes some of the sting away. And he looks at his watch. He has to get going.
‘OK, schatje, well, you sign me up for any job you like. And I promise you have nothing to worry about.’
‘I love you, Papa.’
‘Love you too.’
God, what they must be going through. The worry. Every noise, shadow.
‘You’re only ten once so have a think about what present you’d like. Put me back on the phone to Mama and I will try to get back early tonight, for a story at bedtime.’
He blows his kisses down the phone. Nic’s birthday is less than a month away. He is hoping to feel like celebrating before then. Christmas is counting down: nine days to go.
18
The corner before Hollyhocks is slippery. Hanging onto the buggy handle Jenny only just manages to stay upright.
‘Fuck it! I’m sorry!’
She feels a sharp pain in her right ankle, and the ground disappears beneath her in a whoosh.
‘Ow!’
‘Fuck, I’m so, so sorry. Shit, here, let me help.’
‘The buggy!’
Jenny watches as the buggy rolls forwards and bumps gently into the wall, threatening to bounce out and disappear round the corner.
A man on the ground next to her is pulling himself up. He lurches forward and grabs the wheel, to stop it moving further and slipping out of view.
‘It’s OK, I’ve got it,’ he says.
She scrambles up, but buckles slightly as she stands.
‘Sorry, sorry! I just slipped,’ he says, panting with the effort of his lurch. ‘The fucking ice with these cobbles is lethal. Where’s the grit, eh?’
He rights himself, brushing his jacket before turning to her with a face full of concern.
‘Did I hurt you? I kicked you as my legs went.’ He pauses. ‘Here.’ He holds out his hand, and she takes it, righting herself.
Jenny looks quickly at Finn, who doesn’t appear to have noticed a thing; her heart pounds. He is chewing on his toy giraffe and looking at the man with interest. She takes a breath, calming herself. The man looks familiar, but she can’t place him.
‘Hang on, didn’t we meet recently?’ He looks confused, and then his face clears. ‘Some idiot in a café pulled his chair out and I spilt coffee over him. You passed me tissues. Yesterday.’
She remembers now. He had been undeterred by the aggression of the man in the suit.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I’m Matt. What an idiot. I should have been going more fucking carefully.’
‘Didn’t you have a camera with you last time?’ She feels a bit steadier. Nothing seems to have been hurt, but her ankle still throbs. She places a hand against the wall for support as she picks up the bag she’s dropped. She leaves Matt holding the buggy.
‘Yeah. I’m covering this case. You know, the murder.’
He’s about her age, or maybe younger. His clothes are put together, considered.
‘Jenny,’ she says, following his introduction.
‘It’s a big story. Not sure we’ll be staying much longer though. Not much headway.’
She takes the buggy handle, and he bends to collect a few bits that have spilled from his pockets.
‘No. I wish they would catch him,’ she says. Then adds, ‘My husband saw the car, he thinks, near our house. I hate that it happened so close.’
She shifts her weight onto the ankle she has been holding gingerly, and she flinches.
‘Oh fuck, look, I’ve hurt you.’
‘No, honestly. It’ll be fine in a second.’
‘Were you heading inside? I was – can I buy you a coffee?’
Jenny is taken aback. ‘Well…’
‘Please, let me. You’re obviously heading inside and it’s the least I can do. Fucking idiot that I am. You don’t have to sit with me if you don’t want to.’ He grins.
She walks slowly, leaning against the buggy. The café is half empty.
Finn is chattering when Matt comes back with drinks and muffins.
‘Thanks,’ she says, picking one up.
‘So, your husband saw the car?’
‘Hmm. We live near the lake. It might not have been “the” car.’
‘Bet it was. I’ve heard of the sighting – they think it’s the real deal.’
Jenny chews. He’s got dark hair; he wears a silver chain round his neck, and he’s got one earring at the top of his ear lobe. Will would rather slice off his ear.
‘It’s a right old fucking mess.’ He slings his coat over the back of his chair.
‘Do they have any leads? Do they think they know who it might be?’
‘Nah. No leads, as far as I know. Loads of suspicion. The father has been checked out. Got a brother in jail, been arrested himself before for something minor. But murder? Different ball game. Jury’s out there.’
‘The father? God, it can’t have been Tessa’s husband. I’ve met him.’
Matt looks at her, one eyebrow skirting an upwards curve.
‘You knew them?’
‘No, I didn’t know them, not properly. She took a class in town that I went to a few times.’ Jenny gestures at Finn. ‘A baby one. He came in once to collect her and the stuff for the class.’ She thinks back. She had vaguely recognised him when she’d seen him on TV. It had been Sam who had reminded her where they’d met.
‘Small fucking town, this one.’ Matt gulps his coffee, the mug spilling as he bangs it back down.
‘You live in London?’
‘Yeah, we’ve all been commuting up here, but I reckon today will be the last day, or maybe tomorrow. If nothing else comes up. It’s a nice place. Really pretty – quaint. But fucking cold.’
‘Let’s hope not all the time,’ she says, and smiles. ‘I suppose you know quite a bit about the investigation, then?’
‘A bit. So, there’s this teacher at her school they’ve been grilling. “Down with the kids” type. A right posh, sweaty tosser, by all accounts. Been seen hanging round clubs with the sixth formers. On all their Facebook pages. Not sure if he did it but he’ll get the sack before Christmas.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, plus the dad, and there’s a bloke from her school, in year ten, who she’s been out with a few times, a boyfriend. He’s definitely higher up on the list for motive, I reckon. But it’s so fucking planned – if it was a straightforward fight or something – but the car, the lake… it’s got all the marks of someone older. Some fucked up nutter.’
The faceless figure Jenny has held in her head twists and morphs.
‘Have you met Jansen? The copper?’
She nods.
‘He’s a bit of an odd one. New down here. He’s f
rom Rotterdam, but moved over to the Met for a few years and then worked up north for a bit, then he was out for a while – suspended. All cleared in the end, but not sure if he’s got the goods to sort this out.’
‘Really?’ Jenny says again. ‘What did he do?’
‘Can’t remember. But I can find out. Want me to let you know?’
He’s smiling at her. She likes him. It’s interesting to talk about the case. To be able to talk about it with someone who thinks of it as a job. And not a horror story.
‘Yes please.’ She thinks of Jansen, of the instinctive recoil she felt, still feels. His plastered smile and his sharpness; his shiny intellect that seemed so transparent and flimsy in the face of the death. ‘I didn’t know what to make of him.’
Matt glances at his watch. It’s brightly coloured – lime green with a huge square screen. ‘Look I’ve got to get going. There’s another press conference this morning and then we’re heading back down to London this afternoon. Here, give me your number and I can let you know about Jansen, if you like? And maybe I can give you a call, and find out if your husband remembers anything else?’
Jenny scribbles it down, and seconds later her phone has beeped with a missed call.
‘There’s mine,’ Matt says. ‘Really sorry I hurt you. You’re OK to get home?’
She had forgotten about her ankle. ‘Yes, it’s fine. Honestly, don’t worry about it.’
‘I’ll be more fucking careful next time,’ he says. And he’s off.
19
The car pulls through the snowy lanes. The roads have been cleared but the grey sky is lying low, threatening to open its jaws, hurling down hail upon the slushy roads. Imogen drives the car carefully and Maarten stares out of the window, watching the snow banks darken as the car sprays up muck from the wet, black roads. He taps his foot quietly and impatiently, but doesn’t allow himself to urge her to drive faster.
They are moving out from St Albans to Abbey-Ville, the optimistically named suburban village where Leigh lived. It lies on the outskirts of the city and Maarten watches the landscape turn from a littering of picturesque churches to built-up housing estates, put in place for those who have been slowly squeezed out of the increasingly expensive city. They are only about five miles away but the journey is taking longer than expected, as cars move cautiously through the countryside.
Maarten doesn’t mind taking longer to arrive. He is in no rush to tell the family of the murdered girl how she died. It’s always like the first time. His hands are warmer than usual, his mouth a fraction drier. It is always and never the same.
They pull up outside the house, which looks much like any other on the street. Empty bins are covered with snow, waiting to be moved back to where they belong now the bin men have left. Lights are blinking in the gloom from across the street, where life-sized reindeer stand on the lawn, flashing on and off. Santa on his sleigh, drawn out in multicoloured lights and wire, sits on the roof next door. Dull Christmas music plays out; the drone of a department store lift, jarring at festivity.
As they knock on the door, the sound rings sharply into the frosty air, as it would have done a month ago. And yet, as the door opens, Maarten can see the signs of a home so fractured that the peal of the doorbell shivers; bricks may crumble.
He hesitates as he steps onto the doormat. Such vivid grief has the ability to paralyse, and he is determined not to stall, or forget his words.
‘Come in, officers. Please.’
The hollow eyes of the family gather quickly around them. Tea is made and pressed into their hands. There is a grandmother, from which side no one mentions, and someone’s sister is there too, along with friends or neighbours. The house isn’t huge, and the expectant faces fill the room.
Maarten watches the older family members eye him with suspicion, looking his long, dark, expensive coat up and down, and two young children nudge each other, pointing at his glasses. His discomfort with groups, his inability to make small talk, presses on him.
He says nothing, until there is something to say.
A man stands next to John’s seated figure. He is bending as Maarten enters the room, and rises as Maarten nods a hello. The look is cold, appraising. His hand lingers on John’s shoulder, and he steps away, glancing back at John. ‘Think on,’ he says quietly, and Maarten watches John’s face flitter from anguish to anger, to anguish. Traffic-light grief.
‘Have you found him yet?’ asks John. He hasn’t shaved and his eyes are red. Maarten watches the fingers of his fists uncurl and then curl again.
‘John, let the inspector speak,’ says Tessa, sitting next to him. She too has red eyes, and her face is a pale grey. She doesn’t fidget; she sits as though she is reeling from a punch, occasionally wilting to one side, and then pulling herself upright. She holds a cup of tea that has been administered by one of the relatives in the room. Maarten holds the same. Both are untouched.
‘We have Leigh’s post-mortem results,’ he says.
The room is hushed. Even the small children, who will not understand what he has just said, are stilled.
Maarten, his voice neutral, nods to the children. ‘I wonder if maybe Tessa and John might like to listen alone, and certainly the children might be better off playing in another part of the house?’
There is a flurry of activity, and a woman, looking very similar to Tessa, her sister he guesses, drips tears over John and Tessa as she hugs them, marking a watery, salty trail as she leaves the room. The man Maarten assumes is her husband pulls her away. He is broad, and he leans once again to John, and mutters something in his ear. Maarten watches as John’s fists, curling and uncurling, firm up and lock. Huge and weighty.
Beginning, Maarten allows his voice to drop a decibel. The facts are clear, and he doesn’t falter over the words ‘attempted sexual assault’, but waits for a moment, to allow for a reaction.
Tessa, Leigh’s mother, whimpers at the term. Her tea remains upright in her hands, but her eyes close.
‘What did that bastard do to her?’ demands John. The rage in his voice vibrates.
Maarten glances at Imogen. She has been sitting to the right of him throughout.
She leans forward and looks gently at the parents. Her red hair tied back, professional; brown eyes sympathetic.
‘What did he do?’ he demands, this time of Imogen.
She explains it all: assault, restraint, blows. She explains that Leigh fought back. That she might not have been conscious or in distress when she died, there is no way of knowing. It is likely she was unaware.
Maarten resists the urge to offer sympathy, to lean forward and put his arms around the mother. There are people better placed in the house for that, but he never gets over the feeling that to pass on such bald news, without offering comfort, feels inadequate. Her eyes remain closed for a good few minutes.
They discuss the case. Maarten answers questions, Imogen reassures; and it’s time for them to leave. Grief is spilling over.
On their way to the car, parked down the street, Maarten stills, hearing a scuffle. It comes from further up the street, outside the house they have just left.
‘John, no!’ It is Tessa, screaming into the street, arms outstretched and being held up by the sister. The two men, John and the brother-in-law from the room, jump into a car, and the doors slam as the engine revs. The tyres screech on the black road as the car pulls out of the street. It veers dangerously to the right, skidding on the ice, but recovers, and tears away. Another couple of men also jump into another car, and Maarten runs towards the house as the blue exhaust fumes kick out, dirty and noxious. He runs through the stench of burning tyres and old engines.
‘Where are they going? What’s happening?’
His strides are long, and he allows his height to rear up over the heads of a group of the younger men, aged about twenty, who kick their toes into the snow and don’t want to answer him, mute with defiance and belligerence.
‘Where are they going?’ Maarten says. This
time he raises his voice, and the boys quake, eyeing each other and unsure of what to say.
‘They’re going to see that perv,’ one of them says. He carries a can of Red Bull and a cigarette in the other hand. His knuckles are carved with a single letter tattoo on each rise.
‘What?’ Maarten says, taming the roar he can sense in his throat.
‘You know, that fucking perv, Pickles. We know you’re talking to him. We know it was him. Fucking cunt.’ He spits. ‘Fucking foreign coppers,’ he mutters to his kicking toes. Loud enough for his mates to hear, but quiet enough to not dare to provoke.
Spinning on his heel, Maarten runs back to the car.
‘Get backup out to Tim Pickles’ address,’ he shouts.
Imogen jumps into the passenger seat, pulling out her phone.
Maarten powers the car and the heavy tyres, expensive and with a traction that can equal the weather, whirl and plunge forward. His grandfather owned a farm just outside Rotterdam. These streets have nothing on the snow in rural Holland.
Imogen speaks into the phone. ‘… we’re en route, we believe two cars are headed to the home address. I need that address now.’
‘Turn left,’ she says, as the car surges out of the housing estate. ‘We’re heading back to St Albans. North – near The Field.’
Maarten changes gear quickly, steering past a lorry that is stuck, and as the car begins to skid he turns the wheels into the skid and they pull out of it, opening up onto the long open country lane that connects the village to the town. Snow begins falling.
‘Sir!’ Imogen screams, as the car spins too wide around a corner.
He ignores her. The car is holding up well.
The Field is another suburb, but this time built with money to meet the rising demand of housing for young professionals. People flock here. They aren’t pushed. This landscape is different to the last: expensive cars, smarter gardens, smaller, boxy new-build houses. Lights decorate trees but there are no life-size Santas.
Entering the street, as Imogen shouts the final direction, Maarten skids the car to a halt and runs towards the house. It is clear to where they should run. Both cars from the Hoardes’ house are parked, doors left open in the snow, abandoned in the cul-de-sac turn, and the four men are piled, fists flailing, on the lawn of a small, smart house. A few neighbours stand worriedly around, one or two on phones. Someone is shouting, ‘Call 999!’ as Maarten reaches the men.