Under the Ice

by Rachael Blok

  ‘What? What is it?’ She’s frightened. Her grasp on Finn feels as though it’s slipping. ‘What have I said? Have I said something?’

  Jansen and Deacon exchange glances and Azeem says again, ‘I demand that we take a break.’

  Jenny feels his authority radiating. She had been wrong to take so little notice of him.

  Jansen leans back, tilting his head to the side. He glances down at his pad, on which he has scribbled notes, and he looks up at her and then nods to Azeem. ‘You’re right. Let’s take a break. No more for now. Just think about this, Mrs Brennan, please.

  ‘You told us that Becky’s eyes are green; you walked in the dark to her purse. You were out in the park the night Becky Dorrington was taken. You found her clothes on the waterwheel, you led us straight to her backpack. What do you expect us to think, Mrs Brennan? What are we supposed to think?’

  38

  ‘There’s a call from Rotterdam, sir.’ A PC stands in the corridor, just out from the main office.

  ‘Hang on.’ The noise buzzes around him.

  ‘What shall I do with Mrs Brennan?’ Sunny waits for an answer.

  ‘Give her a room with her lawyer for half an hour…’

  ‘Then the holding room, sir?’ Imogen says.

  Maarten hesitates. ‘Yes, I suppose. We need to go over her statement before we can proceed. Find out where she was the first night – when Leigh was killed. See if it’s just her husband who we’ve got down as her alibi. I don’t trust it.’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ Imogen says.

  ‘Do you want the call transferred, sir? Shall I take a message?’ The PC is still standing next to him.

  ‘Transfer it upstairs. I’m going up now. I’ll leave it with you, Imogen. Give her some food, drinks. Smile. We haven’t charged her with anything yet. We don’t want to go too hard, too soon. Meet upstairs in my office, but give me half an hour.’

  39

  ‘They’re going to ask you where you were.’ Azeem sits across from her in the room they’ve been given, right leg crossed over left, iPad on the desk, notebook out. He scribbles quickly on the pad in front of him, jotting down questions.

  ‘What do you mean, where I was?’

  ‘Jenny, you’ve just told them you were outside in the park the night Becky went missing. You’ve told them where to find evidence. You’ve no obvious motive, no obvious connection, there’s no real evidence, but you have means. You could have been there. Now, can Will vouch for you?’

  Would he? Would he lie for her? It was too late for that. She’d already told them he didn’t know she’d been outside.

  ‘But I don’t know what to tell them. I was walking; I came back. I didn’t kill the girls… of course I didn’t!’

  ‘Don’t get upset, it won’t help. You need to think carefully about the next steps. You could say nothing at all, but I think in this instance it would be better to be clear and get out of here.’

  ‘I need to get to Finn. He’ll be hungry soon.’ The thought of his fists, tiny, waving in her air, sucking his hands.

  ‘You will best help Finn by getting yourself out of here. You know on aeroplanes they say to put the child’s mask on after you’ve put on your own? This is that. You don’t help Finn without first getting yourself out. Now think. What did you do outside? Where did you go?’

  Jenny lifts her hands to her face and covers her eyes. She imagines the cold underfoot. Her feet in the snow. Shivering.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers.

  Sitting straighter, Azeem places a hand next to hers. He leans towards her. ‘Think, Jenny. You said you were in the park.’

  ‘Yes, I was in the park. I woke and I was near some trees. A willow.’ She remembers their rustling, the whispering.

  ‘And how long were you outside?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I realised where I was, I tried to come home. I was scratched.’ She touches her arms. ‘The branches scratched me. She pulls up her sleeves. ‘They’ve nearly gone.’

  They both look down. Her arms are covered, thin lines of scabs, snail trails of evidence.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She was there.’ The whisper is almost soundless.

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘The face.’ Closing her eyes, Jenny thinks of the black hair. In the lake, behind the willow tree. She had reached out, and the branches had taken their hold. She had reached through the trees. Reached for someone.

  ‘Who, Jenny?’

  ‘I see her, sometimes. I hear her voice. The night of the first murder. I saw her face…’

  ‘When Leigh died? You saw her face?’

  ‘I woke. I woke in bed, the sound, the cold. I woke and I reached for Finn, but he was asleep. I might have dreamt it, but it seemed real.’ She looks up at Azeem, thinking of the night. She hadn’t really thought of it before, remembered it, connected it; she had known and not known. Dreamt it. Saw it.

  ‘I watched her die. In a dream, by the lake. I watched her drown. Black hair.’ Had she? It had been, before all of this, just a dream.

  ‘In your dreams, Jenny. You don’t say you watched her. You had a dream. That’s not relevant here. Your dreams aren’t relevant. Focus on the facts.’

  ‘Her hair, it lay across the lake. I felt the wetness.’ Breath, sharp and sudden, fills her lungs, and Jenny grabs hold of Azeem’s wrist. Rocked, she needs him to hold herself steady.

  ‘What if… what if I didn’t dream it? What if I really was there? What if…’ Tears flow and she tightens her hold on his arm. His eyes are close to hers, and she looks into them, watching them fade from brown to green, to brown. ‘What if I have been there? Who would know? Will doesn’t wake… I could have been there, I could have let her drown. Maybe it was more than that… Jansen, he said so. If I know so much, maybe I…’

  ‘Listen.’ Azeem’s face is close to hers. Not oppressively, but his voice travels to her quietly, fiercely. ‘You had a dream. You say nothing. Not to me, not to Will, not to the police. You had a dream. Just a dream. And dreams are nobody’s business but your own. Say it to me, say it now.’

  ‘I…’ She stumbles, the hair on the lake, the (she had felt it) wetness, the death…

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘I had a dream. Just a dream.’

  40

  ‘Sir?’ Sunny puts his head round the door as Maarten finishes a list for the follow-up to the first interview.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘First results back from the phone. All calls and texts have been deleted and phone records not through yet. But there is a saved number on there. Just one number.’

  Maarten looks at Sunny. He can guess by the heightened colour, the fidgeting fingers, the wide eyes. He realises with a jolt it’s not what he expected.

  ‘It’s Jenny Brennan’s, sir. That’s the only number on the phone.’

  ‘Get everyone in here.’ Maarten looks down at the list, and draws a line through it. It’s time for a change of tack.

  *

  ‘Where is she now?’ Maarten taps the desk.

  ‘In the holding room. I’m sure it’s her. How do you want to play this? I think she’s hiding behind that child of hers.’ Imogen stands by the desk. She had refused to sit down. Maarten looks at her face, lit with certainty. Buzzing with conviction.

  ‘Right. Let’s give her an hour, and then we’ll go over everything. This number changes everything. Now we have a link. I just…’ What is it? His gut is still saying no. But it’s always about following the evidence. There’s no other way.

  He looks at Imogen. Her back is stiff, her face impassive.

  Adrika enters, followed by Sunny.

  ‘OK?’ he asks.

  ‘We can’t let her get away with that wish-washy bullshit. That other-worldly crap. There’s a girl dead, and now another one missing. It’s time to start calling it.’

  Imogen sits; her face set like stone.

  41

  The lines are clean. The space is small, but uncluttered. Somew
here to sit, to lie. Somewhere to use the loo. Jenny can’t sit, can’t lie down. Glancing upwards, the ceiling feels low, and as though it’s lowering further. The weight of the room, the building, presses down. She might suffocate.

  How did she end up in here? A police station. What happened? If she had to decide where it all started, she still couldn’t stick a pin in a timeline. Time has changed. Its softness, its malleability has pulled apart her ability to make sense of a day. In its fluency, it mocks the dead. It seems they can peer around the corners of the future, and fade back into the past. Her mother had never been more present to her than now – years after her death. The sense of her, the sound of her urgent voice, ‘Jenny! Jenny!’

  And the other voice: the whisper. A face in the trees. Black hair, bloated garments aslant, floating on the lake. Everything disconnected. If Jenny were to reach out her hand, in the night, when the world sleeps and time bends itself through half-consciousness, through dreams, what would she touch…

  Through a full mouth, brimming with pleas, with questions, bursting at the edges with desire, guilt, hope, fear, she will speak. She needs to get home. Her breasts burn with milk; her body aches.

  Not for someone else’s child. Her body weeps for only one baby. For Finn. Enough now. There’s only one child who matters.

  42

  Maarten leans back in his chair.

  ‘I imagine you’re quite keen to get back home, Mrs Brennan. And we’re keen to let you. How about we go over the events again, but this time, we will all be honest, lay our cards on the table. We’ll go over the facts.’

  He watches Mrs Brennan glance at her solicitor. His face is familiar, and Maarten’s sure he’s come across him in London before, when he was working for the Met. She will do well to listen to him. Hopefully it will make things smoother. He’s quite a string to be able to pull, to pluck at when needed.

  ‘Yes.’ Her face is dust grey.

  ‘On the night that Becky Dorrington went missing, and the following night, you have admitted that you were in the park, and that you were near where evidence has been abandoned. Would you like to go over the details?’

  ‘As I have said, after jumping into the river, to pull out what I thought was a girl’s body, I went home and slept. At one point, I woke in the park, beyond my back door. I must have sleepwalked there, and once I woke, I turned to go home. And I found the purse that I handed to you the next day.’

  The expression has changed on her face. It had been creased in fear. A patina of steel has settled over the turbulence. She speaks with resolve. He wonders if she is lying, but nothing betrays her. Her hands are still; her eyes hold his.

  ‘And the previous evening, when you found Leigh’s phone?’

  ‘I must have been sleepwalking on that occasion too. I woke in the park, and I returned home. I was wet. I put on my husband’s gym clothes, was embarrassed. I didn’t tell my husband, but I can’t have been gone for long or he would have noticed. I’m still feeding Finn, my baby, at night. If I was gone for any serious length of time, he would wake and scream.’ She lifts her chin and shakes her head a little. ‘I couldn’t…’

  Silence falls like a curtain.

  Maarten watches her, studies her. She had been about to say she couldn’t kill anyone, but she can’t say it. Despite the calmer attitude here, she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say she didn’t do it.

  ‘Well, thanks to finding the girl’s backpack this morning, we’ve a little more info on Becky Dorrington.’

  Maarten can feel the stillness of the room. Imogen beside him barely breathes, and the solicitor can sense it. He sees composed impassivity setting in, to deflect whatever Maarten is about to say.

  ‘We’ve plugged the phone in, and turned it on. We haven’t had time for thorough tests, but there was one number on the phone.’

  Still, nothing has crossed her face. She’s watching him, but he can’t shake the feeling that what he is about to say will come as a surprise to her. A shock.

  ‘It was your number, Jenny. It was your number on her phone. And only your number. Nothing else.’

  Watching, for even a flicker of guilt, there is a change, but what is it? Guilt? Confusion? Her face drops, and if Maarten were to bet, to lay his money all on red or black, he’d pick confusion. But beside him, he feels Imogen land the other way. Her exhale is one of satisfaction, of confirmation. Evidence, evidence, evidence. That’s what it comes down to.

  ‘But, I don’t understand. I’ve never met her. I’ve never seen her before.’

  Imogen leans forwards. ‘But you told us you saw her face in the water. If you didn’t know what she looked like, how did you know it was her?’

  ‘Well, I saw a face. That’s all I said; I saw a face in the water. I saw a body, struggling underwater, for a—’

  ‘My client has no comment. We need some time to discuss.’ The solicitor steps in.

  ‘But honestly, I’m not lying about this. Why would I lie? I didn’t know her, and I don’t know how I—’

  ‘No comment at this time. I need to speak to my client.’

  ‘Your number, Jenny. Only your number.’ Maarten keeps his tone clean, devoid of blame. ‘You led us to the bag. Your number on the phone. You’ve admitted you were in the park the night she went missing. You—’

  ‘I said enough.’ His chair scrapes back, and the solicitor rises with authority.

  Maarten nods. ‘For the sake of the tape, this interview is suspended.’

  43

  ‘Mr Brennan has just arrived, sir.’ Sunny appears round the door of the other interview room. Maarten sits with Imogen and Adrika, going over the details. The interview had lasted a while but produced nothing new. Nothing tangible.

  ‘Come in, Sunny,’ Maarten says.

  They sit, the four of them, and Maarten outlines the content of Mrs Brennan’s statement, so far.

  Sunny says. ‘A story and a half.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maarten says. ‘What do we think?’

  Sunny coughs onto the back of his hand, then frowns. ‘She’s guilty. It’s all there: the timings, the link to evidence. But what’s the motive? Where’s the link to the victim? She’d met Leigh once, yes? But not Becky. We haven’t come close to pinning it on her. I think she’s guilty, but we need more, don’t we?’

  ‘Adrika?’ Maarten turns to her.

  ‘I think she’s more confused and disorientated,’ Adrika says. ‘Yes, there’s a link to the evidence but…’ She dips her head, looking up again, reasoning, her face writing her thoughts. ‘I can’t…’

  ‘Go on,’ Maarten says.

  ‘She’s been sleepwalking, or maybe just escaping the house at night, not getting the rest she needs. As for her description of the victim, she possibly saw Becky’s photo from the press conference afterwards, and added it to her story.’

  Maarten thinks of the photo. She’d been all smiles, confidence, holding an ice cream, and wearing a pale blue T-shirt.

  Adrika continues. ‘We gave it to the media the afternoon she went missing. Mrs Brennan didn’t come in until the following day to give us her statement. What’s she actually done? What can we accuse her of?’

  ‘The number?’ Sunny says, shaking his head.

  ‘The number on the phone is hers, but if she wants attention, if she’s actually trying to claim attention, then we have to consider the possibility that she led us to a phone that she planted. If we’d found it, if it had turned up, that would be one thing. But she walked us to it, and gave it to us. All she had to do was hear about the first phone, get a similar one. If it is her, then why would she do that? Surely, surely she’d hide it, lose it… It’s too… it’s too easy.’

  Sunny interrupts: ‘Well—’

  ‘But really…’ Adrika continues, ‘she saw something in the water, dived in. Then sleepwalking again that night, came across the purse. She takes us back to the same spot, where we find the bag. What else has she said? That she heard a whisper in the trees? That she saw a figure in the
water? What does any of that mean anyway?’

  ‘I agree, I think…’ Maarten sits back, and rolls his head from right to left. He takes out a packet of pills and swallows two with the rest of his cold coffee; there’s not enough to wash them all the way down and they catch in his throat. His headache is back. He’s supposed to go in for a hospital check later, but he already knows he won’t bother.

  He says, ‘No motive, and the evidence won’t hold up until we get the phone records back – we need texts, calls. Until then it’s circumstantial and fanciful imaginings. There’s something here… but at times I feel sorry for her. She cowered earlier, when her husband was in full flow. And she gave us the evidence straight away, so she doesn’t appear to be hiding anything. It doesn’t add up. There’s more to it – maybe she’s covering for the husband? Or Connor Whitehouse – he’s her neighbour, and we haven’t ruled him out yet.’

  ‘Yes, sir. No connection to the victim, or at least the second victim. It doesn’t mean there isn’t one…’ Adrika sits back.

  ‘Or we haven’t found it yet?’ Sunny says.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, but either way it’s not enough to charge her. Walking in the park at night, on her own…’ Maarten raises his eyebrows, about to ask what Imogen thinks, when she jumps in, with emphasis.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t agree. How does she know what she knows? If we had someone with clear knowledge, a clear line of information to a crime, in any other circumstance, we would be on them in a flash. Surely her knowledge indicates that we just haven’t discovered how she knows the girls – you can’t argue with the facts. This flaky talk of sleepwalking and dreams. What kind of crap is that? Can you imagine that holding up in court?’

  ‘So you would charge her?’ Maarten looks at her, face shining with intent.

  ‘Well, admittedly, not today. But give me a day or so. I’m sure I can find something. Let’s get the phone records for both phones – they’re nearly there with Leigh’s – and if they don’t prove her guilt, then it’s Christmas drinks on me.’