Nothing to Lose

by Anna Legat

  ‘Try me. And Jon?’

  ‘Yes, Gillian?’

  ‘Stop playing hard to get! I’ve four deaths to account for.’

  ‘You’re hurting my feelings.’

  Riley has no feelings to hurt, but Gillian has no time or inclination to point it out to him. ‘I want you to run some background checks. Luke Orwin.’

  ‘Don’t you have DC Webber to do the dirty work for you?’

  ‘Unlike you, Webber and I are flat out. We’re off to the Adams’ house in Poulston. I’ll see you later.’

  She doesn’t wait to hear the rest of Riley’s smart-arsed innuendoes about the Addams Family House, and rings off.

  *

  Victor and Margaret Adams have been running their household with military precision. Not an ounce of sentimentality. Their garden – front and back – is pebbled over in its entirety, fairly new decking sprawls at the back, the few plants live in pots, rigorously trimmed and dead-headed. In the garage, which has been left open, shelves have been erected along the stretch of the walls and those shelves are populated with a variety of meticulously labelled tool boxes, jars and containers. A weedkiller bottle bears a large handwritten caption saying, DO NOT TOUCH! Inside the house, the tidiness is equally oppressive and similarly labelled. Gillian recalls Alison May saying her father suffered from dementia. That could account for the proliferation of label naming and explaining the purpose of basic household utilities.

  The house is a large, two-storey detached, but life seems to have been concentrated on the ground floor. The smaller reception room has been converted into a bedroom, the dining room into a study, whilst the conservatory has become the dining room for two: only two chairs at the opposite ends of a long glass table that could sit six. Nothing on the table, not even salt and pepper, just a gleaming clean surface.

  ‘Look, they even labelled the family photos!’ Webber is in the sitting room, puzzling over the collection of faces, each with a name: MATTHEW, OUR GRANDSON; ALEX, OUR GRANDSON; ALISON, OUR DAUGHTER; JONATHAN, OUR SON-IN-LAW; RUBY, OUR DAUGHTER’S DOG and so on...

  ‘Victor Adams had dementia. I suppose he had to re-learn his whole life every morning.’

  *

  It is the study that is most up to date. It has a computer and a printer and a landline telephone. Gillian scrapes through box files, dozens of them. They are full of accounts for The Holy Trinity Church, Poulston, all labelled with the same hand as the rest of the household items, and going back, year by year, to 2001. The latest box carries the current year's date.

  ‘It looks like Margaret Adams did the accounts for the local church,’ Gillian says. ‘Still working at seventy!’

  ‘I hope I can last until forty and not burn out.’

  ‘Forty is where it all starts,’ Gillian tells Webber, trying to instil some optimism into his prematurely aged psyche. ‘The kids are old enough to fly the nest...’ That brings Tara to mind. She hasn’t quite flown. She is trying to, but it looks more like limping than flying. Something is not right with her, only she won’t share her troubles with her mother. So Gillian will have to find out for herself. Perhaps she simply has to spend more time with her child, get closer to her and win back her confidence? She only has her for a week and after that it will be back to the sporadic indecipherable text messages and countless missed phone calls. Gillian will have to make an effort. She will go home at lunchtime, surprise Tara. Make lunch. Eat it together. At the table. Talk.

  Margaret Adams has been filing every bill, every bit of correspondence, every bank statement, even a few advertising leaflets from the local handyman or gardener. It appears to Gillian that Margaret was already a widow, managing on her own, holding it all together, a lonely woman in a huge house with a ghost of a husband rattling about.

  In a lever arch file titled MEDICAL, Gillian finds two sections, one for Victor and the other one for Margaret. Victor’s section is overflowing with letters and reports about the unstoppable progression of his illness. Margaret’s section is almost empty, except for one letter. It is a letter from the Western National Hospital, confirming an appointment with Dr Vineshi, an oncologist. Gillian passes the letter to Mark. ‘We’ll have to check that. What was the outcome of that appointment? It was over six months ago and there is nothing in this file. Margaret was a stickler for filing.’

  *

  Armed with two bags of fresh produce, Gillian heads home for lunch. She cannot remember the last time she has done that. Police work takes over your life, leaving no time for the statutory meal and refreshment breaks. Only the brief moments stolen in front of the vending machine or in the canteen keep Gillian alive. But today is different. It’s not just Gillian who needs to be kept alive.

  She is planning bacon and mushroom omelettes with chips and salad. She will make the omelettes from scratch, and will take no shortcuts, not even with the chips. All homemade, Mother’s hearty cooking. This week – she only has this one week to put it all right – there will be cooking galore. She will get Tara into the habit of eating again.

  *

  ‘Mum, what brings you home? Has something happened?’ Tara is genuinely taken aback to see her mother, which doesn’t do much for Gillian’s confidence. Has she really let her daughter down so badly over the years of merciless juggling between grandma and school clubs while Gillian gallivanted around town, solving cases that could wait until the next morning?

  ‘Oh, hello, Gillian!’ Sasha is here, too. Looking grown up and a bloody healthy size fourteen at the very least! She has ample breasts and an arse to go with them; she has a pair of bristling thighs screaming to get out of her skinny jeans. Tara’s jeans are empty in comparison.

  Gillian makes an attempt at sounding upbeat, ‘Good to have you both here! We’re having lunch. Homemade by yours faithfully! Bacon and mushroom omelette, and chips!’

  ‘We’re just going, Mum,’ Tara is quick to stop Gillian’s hopes from getting off the ground.

  Sasha however looks sympathetic to the cause. ‘We could stay –’

  ‘No, Sash! I want to catch the twelve thirty bus to Wensbury!’

  *

  It is the despair that sends Gillian to Tara’s room on a wild goose chase. The room is in immaculate condition: everything has its place, everything aligns with the clean lines and corners of the furniture. Tara has never been this tidy, but now she is and that is yet another out-of-character development. It seems like she has an impulse to control every tiniest aspect of her life. Every aspect that is within her control. Again, Gillian cannot pinpoint the moment when Tara acquired this borderline obsessive-compulsive personality. Was it after Charlie Outhwaite? An antidote to throwing caution in the air and letting herself be ruled by, let’s face it, the unruliest emotion of them all – infatuation. Or was it after she went to university? New people, new life, new chaos that needed urgent attention. Is this clinical tidiness Tara’s way of making sense of the world?

  Gillian must make sense of Tara. She knows she shouldn’t be snooping through her daughter's things. She knows she is gathering evidence which she will never be able to use out in the open. Inadmissible evidence. She knows that if ever Tara were to find out –

  There it is. In the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, under Tara’s neatly organised socks and tights. The most likely place in the world! A battery of drugs. Gillian removes one after another, turning each carefully in her hands, reading out labels, ingredients, dosage: Glucomannan Plus, Xivital, Raspberry Ketones Pure, Magnesium Citrate, Califig Syrup... Appetite suppressants. Laxatives. Metabolism-enhancing supplements.

  *

  Slumped over the kitchen table, Gillian is crushed under the weight of her discovery. What is she supposed to do with this knowledge? What can she do? She cannot confront Tara about it. That’s the last thing she should do. She cannot report her find to the police. It would be nice if she could – someone else would take this problem off her hands, someone else would get to the bottom of it, someone else... But all of the supplements in
Tara’s secret stash are legal. Though, as far as Gillian is concerned, they are bloody lethal too! They can be bought over the counter, on the internet – ease of access, ease of use.

  It occurs to Gillian that a doctor should take a look at Tara, but how is she to achieve that? Her utter, miserable helplessness is crippling. She has to do something. Anything!

  She does the least logical thing she can possibly do: she goes back to Tara’s room and removes her entire medical arsenal, takes the lot to the wheelie bin outside, and slams the lid on it.

  *

  The station is the last place where you can do any meaningful detective work. For one it is infested with people like Beatrice Pennyworth. Gillian feels the woman's beady eyes burning into the back of her head as soon as she arrives, and within seconds the PR poodle is down to the business of ankle-biting.

  ‘DI Marsh!’ The poodle, her step much more assured on the even surface of carpeted floor, pounces on Gillian from behind. ‘Superintendent Scarfe needs to see you. There’s been a complaint made against you.’

  ‘What complaint?’ Gillian feels like biting back. She isn’t called the pit bull terrier of Sexton’s CID for nothing. And she can take on a mere poodle, no problem.

  ‘You’ve been harassing Mrs Orwin in her own home. And traumatising her daughter, who is only four. Did it occur to you to consider the circumstances of how you informed Mrs Orwin about her ex-husband’s death, and more to the point – who was listening? The girl is only four!’

  ‘You don't say.’

  ‘Your people skills leave a lot to be desired. Especially now that we are under public scrutiny following the tragedy –’

  ‘I thought it was Superintendent Scarfe who wanted to talk to me about it.’

  ‘He does, indeed.’

  ‘Then I wonder why you’re wasting your breath. Don’t you have more important things to do?’ If Pennyworth thought Gillian lacked in people skills before, now she could be sure of it.

  ‘DI Marsh, I think you would be well advised –’

  Gillian picks up her car keys. ‘I’m sure I would be, but I must dash. Things to do.’

  ‘Superintendent Scarfe...’

  ‘If you could tell him I’ll make a formal apology to Mrs Orwin, I’d be much obliged.’

  *

  While Webber is putting pressure on Forensics for reports on the vehicles involved in the collision, and getting nowhere, Gillian pays Jon Riley a personal visit. The man never ceases to amaze her. He seems to have grown his hair even longer than it used to be and keeps it in a bun on the nape of his neck, which is uncannily identical to the way Gillian’s grandmother used to keep hers. With only a few small differences: Grandma’s hair was silkily grey and clean, Jon’s is greasy and brown; Grandma used hair pins, Jon opts for chopsticks. The smell around his desk is trademark Jon: stale and distinctively evocative of roadkill. A Chinese takeaway tray, less the chopsticks which are now holding Jon’s coiffure in place, litters his desk alongside two large Costa coffee cups, stacked on top of each other.

  When he spots Gillian approaching, he pushes himself in his wheelie chair away from his desk, and opens his arms in a gesture of cordial greeting, ‘Long time, no see! Do we really need a heavy body count for the pleasure of your visits?’

  ‘Cut the crap, Jon,’ Gillian can’t help but smile. ‘Is there anything of significance you care to share with me, other than your innuendos?’

  ‘Oh dear, dear, do I detect a tantrum? Is it that time of the month again, DI Marsh?’

  ‘I’ve already had Pennyworth to fend off today. I could give her something to do – I could have you for workplace sexual harassment.’

  ‘Or you could just have me!’ The mischievous grin on his face would disarm an army of suffragettes.

  ‘I’ll pass. Down to business. What did you find out about Luke Orwin?’

  ‘Good ol' Luke first, huh? Let us see...’ Jon’s dextrous fat fingers play over his keyboard and conjure a screen with Orwin’s background check results. ‘Where do we start? Chronologically speaking... brought in for questioning on domestic violence charges fifteen years ago. Complainant: his first wife, Tanya Orwin. Charges subsequently dropped. That was followed two years later with a child molestation report amidst what looked like a seriously acrimonious divorce. The stakes were high – two girls, Orwin’s daughters with Tanya: Clara and Louise. Social Services got involved. Sessions with a psychologist, medicals, all that malarkey. Nothing was found to support the complaint, and again the complainant withdrew her original statement. Then, nothing until about six months ago. Police were called by a neighbour, Melanie Brown, to a domestic at 12B Sparrow Rise. Samantha Orwin, Luke’s then wife, confirmed the complaint. Orwin was cautioned and released without a charge. That’s Mr Orwin in a nutshell. Happy?’

  ‘Don’t know. May have to talk to his first wife to get a clear picture. Where do I find her?’

  ‘Glasgow.’

  ‘Brilliant! Webber is half Scottish. May enjoy a trip to his ancestral land.’

  ‘Ready for the next bit?’ Jon looks positively excited. ‘My virtual reconstruction of the accident. Flaming stuff! No pun intended... Have a look here!’ His fingers walk rapidly over the keyboard and the computer displays a bird’s eye view of the scene. Five vehicles appear, perfectly three-dimensional. ‘So going by the position of each vehicle immediately after the collision, this is what I think happened. Freaky, if you ask me!’

  ‘OK, if you say so, Jon. Shock me.’

  ‘So here, on top of the hill, is the Aston Martin driven by Trevor Larkin. He was in front, got a little push from the tanker explosion, but that was the aftermath of the collision. Let’s look at the other three. Where the action is... White Vauxhall van, travelling east, rolls off the road. Going by the skid marks and the trajectory, the driver, Giacomo Vitoli – Italian, right?’

  Gillian nods.

  ‘I thought so. Bloody reckless! He was doing well over seventy miles an hour, and came off the road not as a result of the collision, but before that. Just swerved off the road and into the field, rolling up and round till he came to a standstill on the roof. Interestingly here,’ Jon points to a red vehicle travelling against the traffic on the right-hand side of the carriageway, ‘he was being overtaken by Emma Rydal in an Audi, which obviously means she was speeding too, knowing damn well that there was a great big BP tanker coming at speed from the opposite direction. That was our friend, Luke Orwin. If that wasn’t enough, we have the blue Ford Fiesta attempting to overtake the lorry, heading straight at the white Vauxhall van! Judging by how the Fiesta was caught under the offside wheel, there is no doubt about it – the old geezers were speeding too, overtaking downhill. All in all, Gillian – and this is the crux, it really does my head in – it looks like they all had a death wish!’

  MONTHS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT - GIACOMO

  Only fifteen years ago – and his wedding photographs can testify to that fact – his hair was jet black: a full head of black locks and the hair on his chest, black too. He used to be virile and knew damn well how to turn ladies’ heads in this pale and lukewarm land. Only fifteen years ago this Italian stallion had scored himself a crumpet of a wife, and she thought him nothing short of a love god. All her girlfriends were swooning at his feet, offering themselves for easy pickings. If only Giacomo had wanted to take his pick, he could have any of them at the click of his fingers. But he didn’t want to. He had Megan.

  He could do it with her twice a night, seven nights a week, without breaking sweat. Wiry and brisk, he was quicksilver. She was a soft, wide valley – receptive, moist and smooth as butter. She loved his black hair, loved tousling it, telling him about its lustre. Like a black mirror, she used to say.

  She had been twenty-one; he approaching forty-five.

  What damage can fifteen years do to a man! Giacomo pondered the cruelty of time. He was still wiry in his own way, but his stomach was bloated and out of shape. Must be the liver! The skin didn’t fit his body like it use
d to, either. It was like tissue paper – wrinkly. And then there was his hair – the biggest traitor! Over the years Giacomo had become grey as a pigeon. If it wasn’t for the hair, he could still pass for someone half his age, someone Megan’s age.

  He wouldn’t take age lying down. He owed it to Megan. Especially tomorrow. They didn’t see Megan’s family often, Megan being housebound due to her phobia. Agoraphobia, it was called, Giacomo had read up on the subject. But tomorrow, phobia or not, they had to attend a party. It was Megan’s brother’s fortieth.

  Giacomo had bought a bottle of hair dye. Black. It was his natural colour. No good making himself Nordic blond if he wasn’t one, though perhaps his chest hair would match Nordic blond much better than jet black these days. It mattered not – his chest hair wouldn’t be on display. His head would.

  He locked the bathroom door and sat on the toilet seat. No way could he risk Megan walking in on him! He put on his glasses and read the instructions carefully. He had never done it before. It was a bloody messy job. Blobs of black dye dripped to the floor, making stains Giacomo would have to deal with later. He was to wait for twenty minutes, but for stubborn greys, which he reckoned his greys were bound to be, the instructions were to give it up to forty minutes. So Giacomo did just that. Forty minutes of being cooped up in the bathroom, squatting on the toilet, with Megan outside asking him if something was wrong with his stomach!

  When the wait was over and he rinsed off the dye, he put the towel on his head and tiptoed to the bedroom to borrow Megan’s hairdryer. He had never used a hairdryer in his life, but he felt he needed help drying not just his hair, but all that extra paint too.

  It was then that Megan, looking for her slippers, walked in and stood in shock, staring at her naked husband, his face pale as a sheet and his hair black as death itself. It must have been then that she started doubting her love for him. ‘What the fuck have you done to yourself?!’ she cried. Fuck was one world she had never used before. Until now.