by Alice Castle
‘Stages, not targets,’ Maria corrected with a quick on-off smile which left Beth feeling like the slow kid at the back of the class. ‘We have a lot of empirical evidence showing good results from this method. I have to tell you that anorexia is recognised to be the deadliest of all psychiatric disorders. The effects of starvation on the heart and other organs, not least the brain itself, can lead to complex medical conditions, frequent relapses, and fatalities, even when the patient finally seems to be recovering. But, if all goes well, the outcome is positive and the family is often closer as a result of their struggle.’
There was a moment of silence. Beth had never realised how serious the disease could be. There had been a girl at her school – there was probably a girl at every school – who had mysteriously stopped eating and spent all her break times running round and round the playground. She wasn’t in her year and Beth hadn’t known her to speak to, but she’d been pointed out as a curiosity. She was universally considered ‘weird’ in that cruel way girls have of categorising those outside the mainstream. But then she had apparently recovered. Beth remembered that, ten or even fifteen years later, this same girl had died of a drug overdose. Had she been more vulnerable because of the strain she had put on her body as a teenager? Or was it evidence that, having taken one wrong turn in her youth, the girl never quite found the right path? Or even that her underlying anxieties and problems were never fully dealt with, either when she was young and troubled, or when she was adult and still troubled? How sad that thought was.
Beth dragged her mind back to the Wellesley system. She wondered how that would work in practice. One thing was for sure, it would be labour-intensive.
‘That sounds like a massive commitment for the family,’ she remarked. Feeding just one child was sometimes, frankly, a pain. Menus developed a certain tyranny, likes and dislikes loomed large, there was always shopping to be fetched and carried. Sometimes Beth wondered if there was a single fish left in all the oceans with its fingers intact, so many orange digits had she and Ben scoffed over the years. She imagined that catering for an endlessly picky and resistant child, hell-bent on starving themselves, must make every mealtime a purgatory. And everything would, necessarily, dance around the one affected child. Fine, in a way, if you just had the one, as she did – though parents might well feel all the more desperate about the war they were waging against an unseen foe, if it threatened their only progeny. But say you had several children. How would the other siblings feel? Or a needy partner? There would have to be strong bonds and resilient egos elsewhere for the group to withstand so much narrowing of focus onto one solitary member. Families in this predicament had her every sympathy.
‘It is a huge commitment, you are quite right, Beth.’ Maria permitted herself a smile tight as an elastic band. ‘But in a way the framework is a great comfort, and we know the results can be fantastic. With other conditions, we can be less sure of our ground, we can encounter other problems.’
‘Wait a minute, I’m not sure if you’re saying our group of girls is anorexic or whether they’ve got something else going on?’
‘The point is, Beth, that I cannot give you any details, as I think I have made very clear. In fact, I have now said more than enough. And,’ Maria glanced pointedly at the slim, expensive-looking watch on her wrist, ‘I now have another patient I must give my attention to. But you must feel free to come back if you have more questions. The receptionist can always find a time.’ With that, she started shuffling papers together on her desk in what was obviously a brush-off.
Beth looked at York and they both got reluctantly to their feet. The interview was over.
Outside the Wellesley, before they got back into the car, Beth put out a hand to York. ‘Before you drop me off, I just wondered whether you’d considered…’
York sighed. ‘What is it? When your sentences start tailing off like that, I just know there’s a whole world of trouble in store.’
‘It’s just that we’ve got so few people in the frame, really. Well, there are groups of people who might have drugged Simone, like the people at the drinks party. But neither the bigwigs who were having cocktails or the other waiters and waitresses seem to have had much reason to bump her off. Agreed?’
York, a master of the non-committal answer, merely twitched one shoulder.
‘Well, we were talking about her father before, in the café. Say she’d actually found out who he was; say she was blackmailing him…’
‘Whoa now! What have I told you about bandying about these accusations? Do you have any reason at all, the smallest bit of evidence, even to lead you to believe that Simone had got in touch with her father?’
‘Well no, not yet, but you’re better placed to do that sort of work. The important thing is it would be a reason for all this to have happened.’
York took a deep breath and leant against the car, arms crossed, while Beth faced him. Anyone looking on would probably have thought they were arguing about who was going to drive.
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ said York, his tones patient. ‘It’s frustrating. I get it. There are loads of people who might have administered something to Simone, yet there’s no obvious suspect unless you count the girl herself… But what about all that stuff on anorexia? Didn’t that make you think that the girl’s own peer group might have been involved? And don’t forget we’ve also got a second girl in hospital, now, and that’s very unlikely to be anything to do with Simone’s father, isn’t it? Meanwhile, we’ve got a bunch of troubled teens, all a bit doolally because they haven’t had a bite to eat for days. I really wouldn’t rule out those waitresses yet.’
It shouldn’t have been reassuring, but somehow the thought raised a smile from Beth. York unlocked the car and she was just about to hop in when he said, ‘And by the way, thanks for implying that the police can fabricate evidence to support any old crackpot theory of yours. I appreciate that one!’
‘Thought I’d slipped that past you,’ admitted Beth with a cocky grin, and ducked inside the car.
York took a moment, then she saw him give a tiny smile. She knew she infuriated him – but she also made him laugh. And, heaven knew, he probably needed that in his job.
Chapter Thirteen
York thought about Beth’s latest wild idea, back at the station, as he flipped through his notebook, trying to work out what he had to go on so far with this case. It wasn’t a lot.
His standard-issue, allegedly ergonomic chair creaked as he leant back, and his gaze lit irresistibly on the nasty polystyrene ceiling tiles someone had put up in the 1970s, which dearly wanted to cascade down on all their heads. The walls were smothered thickly in institutional magnolia, and the noticeboards everywhere were deep in curling posters, mugshots, and procedural updates, as though everyone at the station was an earnest scrapbooker trying to create the découpage from hell. In truth, no police worker ever threw anything away lightly, they were all so used to scouring around for evidence, not binning it. Any one of these flyers could turn out to be vital, might even crack a case. Well, that was the theory. Maybe he just needed to delegate someone to go round and rip down all the stuff that was more than five years old.
But it was comforting to work in the big, tatty, open-plan space. Some of his colleagues, he knew, found the jumble of desks, the low-level hum of conversation, the phone calls, and the perennial coffee corner gossip a big stumbling block to proper concentration. But he loved the white noise. He was entitled, now, to one of the partitioned-off offices that the high-ups used, but he much preferred to be out in the body of the room with the troops. There was a solidarity in working closely with colleagues. And also, if he was honest, he spent enough time on his own. He was a sociable type but, with no partnership at the station that really meshed for him work-wise yet, it was nice sometimes to have Beth along for the ride. Plus, her insider knowledge helped him cut some corners.
York turned determinedly from any detailed examination of his own motives to the much easier
, though flimsier, list of concrete leads in the case.
So. What had he got?
One dead body. That poor waif, Simone Osborne, whose still, pale form would haunt his dreams forever if he couldn’t find the bastard – or bastards – who’d fed her drugs.
Or had she just taken them herself? She could have done it in a moment that was maybe out of character for her, but all too typical of teenagers up and down the country. They felt they were immortal, or they succumbed to peer pressure, or they just thought ‘what the hell?’ and sought quick oblivion for an hour or two. Not for eternity, which was what Simone had got.
Meanwhile, he still had one other girl out for the count in hospital. Lulu Cox. He made a mental note to check up on her status, see what, if anything, could be gleaned about her circumstances. There must be similarities and connections with Simone. They had been friends. How close were they? Were they in the same friendship group, and who else was in it that was still conscious and questionable? Where had they all been recently? Could they have accessed drugs?
If the girls had not got hold of the drugs themselves, then who else could have supplied them, and with what intent?
As far as suspects went, he still had a ridiculous number, most of whom he’d ruled out on grounds of absurdity alone. Why would, for example, a Gallery trustee like the former director of programming at the BBC want to drug a teenage girl? Unless Beth was right, and the first girl’s parentage was somehow involved. Could Simone’s father have been present that night, and been unhappy about being unmasked? It was melodramatic, straight out of one of the books that, unbeknownst to Beth or his colleagues, he was addicted to. But he was willing to bet his entire collection of Margery Allinghams – including a pristine edition of the Tiger in the Smoke – that nothing as ornate lurked behind this killing spree. Plus, it didn’t explain the second girl’s overdose, unless the murderous father was trying to cover up the motive for the first?
He sighed. Deeply. The easiest way to put that side of the investigation to rest was to ask the mother. Little though he wanted to intrude on her grief, he needed to chase up this loose end and tidy it away. And, unfortunately, it was not the sort of interview that he felt happy about delegating to a subordinate. The woman was facing the most terrible loss a parent can confront. She had to be approached with great sensitivity.
Not for the first time, York wished that Beth actually was a member of his team, instead of just being an intermittent thorn in his side. She would have been great at an interview like this. She could do empathy, all right, but she also had an edge. And no-one found her threatening. He supposed that was a height thing. In a way, it was a perfect disguise. She was more or less the right size to fit in his pocket, but with an attitude that even this room couldn’t contain.
He flipped the notebook shut, cross with himself for going off at a tangent again. OK. He needed to focus, and he needed to get this done. No point in putting it off forever. A duty avoided was, in his experience, a duty that just loomed ever larger. He should get it out of the way now.
Just as he was finally collecting up his phone and scooping the loose change off his desk, the landline rang. He pounced on it in relief.
A couple of minutes later, he bounced out of the office with a spring in his step. Yes, it was unorthodox but, shoot him, he was going to take Beth along for the ride. She didn’t know it yet, she’d just requested one of her speciality coffee meetings at that God-awful place she always picked. He didn’t understand it; there were some decent places in Dulwich. But she chose the same appalling spot.
Well, this time, he was going to whisk her off to see Simone’s mum. She’d brought it on herself in a way. She’d been the one to suggest that the father might have played a part in the crime, never dreaming of course that she’d have to be in on confronting the mum. York, despite himself, was going to rather enjoy this. He had no desire to upset Jo Osborne all over again, but it might show Beth that throwing out crazy theories had consequences. You had to test them, and that often involved stepping on people’s toes, or in this case, the much more fragile feelings of a recently bereaved mother.
***
‘Ok, Ok, I realise that was all a totally pointless exercise, and so painful, too. Next time I have an idea like that, can you please just shoot me?’ said Beth, her fringe drooping over her face.
The last twenty minutes spent with Jo Osborne had been agony. The woman’s eyes were not just red-rimmed with prolonged crying, but seemed to have sunk back into her head. If it wasn’t for her little son, Lewis, York would have seriously worried about her. But keeping going for her one remaining child was giving Jo a reason to put one foot in front of the other.
Paula – the fresh-faced police Family Liaison Officer, or FLO – had left them to it pretty sharpish, legging it outside for some fresh air. It wasn’t that Jo’s place was stuffy. It was small but carefully kept. But grief hung around her and her surroundings like a pea soup fog. At least here, Paula didn’t have to act as the spy in the camp, befriending an ostensibly shattered family only to help build the case against them if it turned out that things were more sinister than they seemed. There was no suspicion that Jo had had the slightest involvement in Simone’s overdose.
But in a way, having been trained to play a double game, Paula seemed to have found watching sincere and harrowing grief, unalloyed with guilt, more taxing than trying to catch out a criminal. Her own eyes were red, a fact which York had noted. He’d sort it out when he got back to the station. There’d either be a change of officer or the decision that the family could manage from this point on.
From a budgetary point of view, the latter decision would be miles better, but he wasn’t sure that Jo could hack it quite yet. He’d get a nice lad in just for a day or two. Be good for the boy, Lewis, to have some male company, and Jo might get back on her feet with someone else to cook for. It sounded crass, but York had seen this sort of thing up close more times than he would have liked, and tasks that had to be performed – no matter how routine they were – really helped people from disappearing into depression. Things were going to be very tough for Jo for months to come.
One of the worst things she was going to have to face, and that would come quite soon, was the horrible realisation that they wouldn’t be able to have a funeral for Simone, possibly for some time. Until someone was brought to book, the girl’s body remained the most eloquent weapon at the disposal of the prosecution. And once someone was charged, the defence then had the right to conduct its own forensic tests. It was a last indignity, but one which all families in this position had to face, in the interests, he sincerely hoped, of justice.
When the time was right, he would suggest to Jo that she hold a service of remembrance or thanksgiving for her daughter, which would have to take the place of a funeral for now. He wouldn’t be dragging Beth with him to have that little chat, though, and he was sorely regretting his decision to take her with him this afternoon. He glanced over at her sympathetically. She still looked broken up.
‘Look, you were right. It was worth going into,’ said York reassuringly. ‘And now we know. Jo’s dad was just an ordinary shit of a lad, who scarpered the way the feckless ones do, all of 14 years ago. Luckily, he didn’t get so far away that we can’t check his whereabouts. But I’d say that not in a million years is the type of waster Jo described the kind of person who’d be on that St Christopher’s Hospice drinkies list, for sure.’
‘I’m surprised at Jo. But she didn’t know she was going to get pregnant, I suppose. It was just a fling. And she didn’t know he’d abandon her either. Poor woman. I bet that’s the last bad decision she made – apart from giving Simone the chance to go to the College School.’ Beth sighed again and stirred her cappuccino in lacklustre fashion. York was casting about for ways to cheer her up when she took up another thought.
‘Do you really think it might have been any of those other grandees that were there?’
‘It’s hard to believe,’ said York
. ‘But we’ll have a delve. I’ve got the team on it, and in fact they should be through pretty soon. You can imagine, a lot of the invitees have been quite shirty about being questioned. There’s nothing like a murder squad detective ringing you at work to piss off your average company director or banker. It’s cheered my DCs up no end, that little job. But honestly? I can’t see any of that bunch toting a drugs cocktail like the one Simone had rattling around inside her. A bit of coke, in the 1990s, maybe for that lot. But backstreet dirty drugs, fake MDMA, a nasty bit of acid? Nope, it’s not the kind of thing you get round the back of those Soho clubs that media types love, even nowadays.’
‘So, where does that leave us?’ said Beth. Her voice was monotone, her posture defeated. At least York had persuaded her to go to Jane’s instead of that dire place Aurora for a restorative coffee afterwards. They would both have felt like shooting themselves if they’d had to suffer the Aurora’s dishwater brew on top of the grim interview they’d just had.
‘Look, as you know, I’m a realist. There’s a lot of crime in London. There’s stabbings, robberies, drugs, terrorism, stuff going on every day. By the law of averages, we can’t clear everything up. Not with our own numbers going down, and our resources disappearing the same way. If I were to DNA test Simone’s dad, I’d have to scrimp somewhere else – not bother checking all the drinks party alibis, maybe. It’s a numbers game. Yes, I like catching the bad guys – that’s why I joined the force – but it’s naïve to think there’s always a neat explanation, or that we can always go on and on until we get to the solution.’
As he’d hoped, the familiar spiel about not expecting results riled Beth. Immediately, she was sitting up straighter, and there was the old fire in her eyes as she pushed her heavy fringe out of the way and gave him a piece of her mind.
‘You can’t tell me this is one of those random crimes! There’s no comparison between some gang-stabbing and the planning and cunning, and, oh, just sheer evil that was involved in draping Simone over that tomb. We have to stop this person, or they will do it again,’ she said, leaning forward and seizing York’s sleeve.