When the Dead Speak

by Sheila Bugler

  ‘Nan? Eccentric. And very opinionated. Thought she was cleverer and better than other people. She had a sharp tongue and was very judgemental. But all of that just made me laugh when I was a kid. She drank far too much – something my mother thoroughly disapproved of. Kept a bottle of gin under the sink that she used to put in her tea.

  ‘She loved telling me about Graham. Used to say I looked just like him. She told me he’d been killed by bad men, but she knew who they were and she was going to make them pay for what they’d done. I believed her, Dee. I was only a kid, and I loved her.’

  ‘Do you remember when she died?’

  ‘God yes. My mother couldn’t face telling me and Nessa the truth. She told us that Gran had been killed in a car accident. It wasn’t the cleverest thing she’d ever done, but she was trying to protect us. Back then, in the days before the internet, it was easier to think you could get away with keeping a secret like that.’

  ‘But it didn’t work,’ Dee said.

  Ed shook his head, but didn’t expand. He didn’t have to. There were too many ways he could have discovered the truth. All it took was one careless conversation. A story like that would spread through the community. Dee tried to recall if she’d ever heard any rumours when she was growing up. It was quite possible she had, but back then Ed Mitchell was so far off her radar she wouldn’t have retained that information for too long.

  ‘For a while, I became obsessed with Mary’s murder,’ Ed said. ‘I had this idea that I needed to finish what Nan had started. I spent days in the library, reading all the archived news stories. Desperate to find anything that would prove my uncle wasn’t a murderer. But I never found a single thing. After a while, I stopped trying. Life got in the way, I suppose. My mum died, Nessa went off the rails and that sort of took over everything else for a bit. I stopped thinking about Mary and Graham and started focusing on trying to save my sister. Then Nessa sorted herself out, I became a detective and life moved on. But I always felt guilty for giving up.’

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Dee drank some of her wine and wondered what it would be like to grow up in a family full of secrets that no one ever spoke about.

  ‘So what happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to know the truth,’ Ed said. ‘It’s all I can think about. I feel like I’m that kid again, trying to clear my uncle’s name and make my grandmother proud of me. I’ve barely thought of anything else since Lauren’s murder. I know I did the right thing taking myself off the investigation, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and do nothing. I need to find out who killed her. I owe it to Lauren, and my own family, to find out what really happened.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you leave it to Rachel and her team?’ Dee said.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Ed said. ‘You’d do the same thing in my position. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Okay,’ Dee said, after a moment. ‘You’re right, I probably would do the same thing.’

  His face cleared. He reached out and pulled her into his arms.

  ‘Have I ever told you what an amazing woman you are?’ he said.

  ‘Not often enough,’ Dee replied.

  She rested her head on his chest while she thought about how she could help him.

  ‘Has Rachel spoken to you about the investigation?’ she asked.

  ‘She refuses to do that,’ Ed said. ‘I’ve tried speaking to her but she shut me down right away.’

  ‘I may know something that could help,’ Dee said. ‘I went to see Kyle. Don’t say anything, I know you didn’t think that was a good idea.’

  ‘How you do your job is none of my business,’ Ed said. ‘I should have kept my mouth shut.’

  ‘Glad we both agree on that,’ Dee said. ‘Anyway, Kyle told me that Lauren found something at her grandmother’s house that made her change her mind about the story she was writing about Mary.’

  Ed pulled back and looked her.

  ‘You mean Annabelle’s house – Nigel’s mother?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What did she find?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Dee tried to remember Kyle’s exact words. ‘But whatever it was, it caused a huge row between Lauren and her father.’

  ‘That’s why she got in touch!’ Ed extricated himself from Dee and jumped up, pacing back and forth as he spoke. ‘She wanted to tell me what she’d found. Why didn’t I do the right thing and agree to meet her? She could still be alive, you know.’

  ‘Ed.’ Dee spoke sharply and it worked. He stopped pacing and stared at her.

  ‘Can you please sit back down?’ She reached for the bottle of wine and refilled their glasses. ‘Have a drink and calm the fuck down. Please.’

  ‘Such an eloquent way with words,’ Ed said, doing as he was told. ‘What else did Kyle say?’

  ‘Nothing. Lauren wouldn’t tell him what she found.’

  ‘But it caused a row between her and Nigel. Jesus.’ Ed put his head in his hands. ‘She worked it out. Somehow, Lauren uncovered the truth about Mary’s murder. You know what this means, don’t you? It means she was about to prove that Graham didn’t kill Mary. But now she’s dead and her father’s doing all he can to cover it up. Why? I need to speak to Rachel. Make sure she knows about this.’ He looked around the room. ‘Where’s my damn phone?’

  ‘Listen to me.’ Dee put her hand on his arm. ‘I know this is all very personal for you. But you’re making some pretty big assumptions based on very little information.’

  ‘I must have left it in the car,’ Ed continued, not seeming to notice that she’d spoken. ‘I’m going outside now to call Rachel.’

  The wine Dee had drunk sloshed inside her stomach, refusing to settle. This wasn’t the rational, reasonable Ed she’d fallen for. This man was someone else. Someone who was starting to scare her.

  ‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘Rachel will be asleep, and we should be too. She’ll have already interviewed all of Lauren’s family. I’m sure if Lauren found something, Rachel already knows about it. And if she doesn’t, you can tell her. But wait until the morning, okay? Get some sleep and tomorrow we can decide – together – what to do next.’

  She thought he was going to refuse. But after a moment’s hesitation he nodded his head and said ‘Okay.’ She hoped that might be the end of it. That a good night’s sleep would calm him down and give him a sense of perspective.

  But when she woke up the following morning, the space beside her in the bed was empty. She went into the kitchen, but he wasn’t in there either, and he wasn’t outside on the deck where he sat some mornings if he woke up before her. She walked around to the front of the house, and saw an empty space where he’d parked his car last night.

  Ed was gone.

  Nineteen

  The sensible thing was to do nothing. Steer clear of the investigation and trust Rachel to do her job. But Ed couldn’t do that. His uncle, his grandmother and now Lauren. They haunted his dreams and chased him during his waking hours. The sense of responsibility weighed him down. He owed it to these people to uncover the truth.

  Rachel would say that was her job. But Rachel didn’t have a family who’d been destroyed by Mary Palmer’s murder. She couldn’t understand what it was like to spend your whole life wanting to rewrite your family’s past, and suddenly be given the opportunity to do just that.

  So he’d made his decision. While Dee was still sleeping, he’d got up and driven across town to Meads. Nigel and Maxine Shaw lived on Baslow Road, one of Eastbourne’s most sought-after, and expensive, streets, leafy and hilly with large detached Victorian mansions and far-reaching views to the sea and the South Downs. As much as Ed liked to scoff at Meads, and the majority of its blue-rinse, right-leaning residents, he could see the appeal of living somewhere like this.

  He’d driven past the house countless times since Lauren’s murder. Until a few days ago, there had been a group of reporters hanging around the entrance. Men and women, with cameras and microphones and recording equipme
nt, all crowded around the entrance gates to the house.

  Today, the street was quiet. A sad sign of how quickly the media moved on from one tragedy to the next. Ed didn’t know what today’s big story was, and he didn’t want to know. It would involve some other poor family’s life being ripped to pieces by a media that didn’t give one damn about the people involved.

  He parked on the street outside the house and walked through the open gates, across the gravelled driveway, past a silver Lexus and a red Mazda, up the flight of stone steps that led to the green front door.

  He rang the doorbell. While he waited, his mind slipped back to the week after his grandmother’s funeral. Ed was twelve years old, and still struggling to deal with the grief of losing her so suddenly and unexpectedly. She’d been a constant presence in his life, and he’d never imagined a time when she wouldn’t be there for him. He’d been walking home at the end of his first day back at school. Walking slowly because he couldn’t face going home and seeing his mother. Her grief and loss too much for her twelve-year-old son to bear.

  He hadn’t even seen them until it was too late. Nigel Shaw and two of his loyal sidekicks. Nigel was the ringleader, of course. He’d had it in for Ed for as far back as Ed could remember.

  ‘Here he is,’ Nigel crowed, shoving Ed against the wall of the building he was trying to walk past. ‘Little granny’s boy has lost his granny. Boo hoo, Eddie boy. How does it feel knowing she didn’t love you enough to stick around?’

  The rage came from nowhere. A burning, blinding, scalding thing that rose up inside him and demanded he do something. He went for Nigel, roaring so hard his throat hurt for days afterwards. Punching and kicking, shoving Nigel to the ground and throwing himself on top of him. Relishing the crunching sound the bones in his hand made as they connected with Nigel’s face. But there were three of them and only one of him. He’d barely started on Nigel when the other two pulled him off. They all laid into him after that, punching and kicking and jeering and laughing. He curled into a ball, pulled his hands over his head. An instinctive move that protected his face, but couldn’t protect his stomach and kidneys and back and groin. Pain rained upon pain and part of him welcomed it while another part knew he would die if it went on for much longer. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. He heard a sound and realised it was coming from him – a low groaning that turned into a sob.

  Someone grabbed his hair and pulled his head up, the pain making him scream even though the last thing he wanted was to let them know how badly they’d hurt him. And then Nigel’s face appeared, pushing itself so close to Ed’s he could smell the sweat on Nigel’s body and the stink of onion on his breath.

  ‘What’s it like, Eddie?’ Nigel hissed. ‘Knowing Granny hates you so much she had to kill herself to get away with you.’

  Nigel let go and Ed’s head fell, his face smashing into the ground. His face exploded in pain and his mouth filled with the taste of metal. Nigel’s words, repeating over and over in his head like some nightmare melody. Trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.

  It was the first time anyone had told Ed the truth about how she’d died. His parents and extended family of aunts and uncles had all rigidly stuck to the same story: that his grandmother had been involved in a tragic car accident.

  When Ed told his mother he knew the truth, she’d broken down, sobbed and said she was sorry for lying. Told Ed she’d been trying to protect him, and begged him to forgive her. It took time, but eventually he forgave his mother, who had, after all, had his best interests at heart. But he’d never forgiven Nigel Shaw for what he’d done that day.

  The front door opened, and Ed was face to face with his old enemy. The last time he’d seen Nigel was at the golf club about a month earlier. Then, Nigel had been red-faced and jovial. Surrounded by a group of his cronies, all of them speaking in that loud, braying manner so common in men like that. Men who’d grown up privileged and secure, unquestioningly accepting of their elite place in the world.

  Today, there was no trace of that bluff bravado. Nigel was more like a ghost than a real person. His skin was pale with a yellow tinge to it; bloodshot eyes and the rank stink of stale booze and unwashed body.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said.

  ‘To offer my condolences,’ Ed said.

  ‘Well I don’t want your pity,’ Nigel said. ‘So you can piss off back to whatever rock you crawled out from under.’

  He started to close the door, but Ed pushed himself into the gap so that Nigel had no choice but to step back and let Ed into his house.

  ‘If you don’t leave I’ll call one of your colleagues,’ Nigel said. ‘You’ve got no right to be here. You’re not part of the investigation. I made sure of that. I told your superiors I wanted someone competent dealing with it.’

  ‘It was my choice not to be part of the investigation,’ Ed said. ‘There’s a clear conflict of interest.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Nigel said. ‘Your uncle, the murdering bastard.’

  ‘Not because of Graham,’ Ed said. ‘The conflict is Lauren.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She sent me an email, Nigel. The week before she was killed.’

  ‘So bloody what?’

  ‘She was looking into Mary’s murder, wasn’t she?’

  A flash of pain across Nigel’s face, so sharp and real that Ed felt a twinge of sympathy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This must be so terrible for you both.’

  ‘How would you know what it’s like for us?’ Nigel said. ‘No one in the world can imagine what we’re going through right now.’

  He should go. He should thank Nigel for his time, turn around and leave the man to mourn in peace.

  ‘I think the two things are connected,’ he said instead. ‘I think whatever Lauren found out about Mary’s murder, someone didn’t want that information to get out and that’s why she was killed.’

  ‘Listen to yourself,’ Nigel said. ‘Still obsessed with trying to save your family’s reputation. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.’ He stepped forward. ‘My daughter is dead. She has been murdered and it’s got nothing to do with your uncle or your family.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ Nigel said. ‘Your uncle killed Mary. That’s a fact, whether you like it or not. My daughter is dead. That’s another fact. And you’re using this tragedy – my tragedy – to try to salvage your own family’s reputation. You’re disgusting, Ed Mitchell.’

  He pushed the door shut, forcing Ed to step back before it slammed into him. He stared at the green wood, half-tempted to ring the doorbell again, and keep ringing until Nigel opened the door again. But there was no point. Nigel wasn’t going to suddenly change his mind and speak to Ed.

  Which meant Ed would have to find another way of getting the information. Because if Lauren had found something that proved Graham Reed’s innocence, Ed would find it. One way, or another.

  * * *

  Dee was tidying up after breakfast when Ella arrived to collect Jake.

  ‘Excuse the mess,’ Dee said. ‘We made pancakes and things got a bit out of hand.’

  ‘He likes to try to flip them,’ Ella said. ‘Sorry. I should have warned you.’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Dee said. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact. We had fun. How about you? Good night?’

  ‘The best,’ Ella said, beaming. ‘Wine, dinner, dancing and lots of laughs. God, it was so good to get out and let my hair down for once. Thank you so much, Dee!’

  ‘Any time,’ Dee said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I know.’ Ella bent to kiss Jake, who was watching TV and had barely acknowledged her arrival. ‘Did you miss me, darling?’

  ‘We made pancakes, Mummy,’ Jake said. ‘Look!’ He pointed to the ceiling, where a half-cooked pancake was stuck solid.

  ‘How will you get it down?’ Ella asked Dee.

  ‘Hopefully it will come down by itself
,’ Dee said. ‘If not, that’s what ladders are for.’

  ‘Let me get it down now for you,’ Ella said. ‘Where do you keep your ladder?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Dee said. ‘Come on. Sit down and have a coffee. You can tell me all about last night.’

  Ella shook her head.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got a tonne of housework that I’ve been putting off for days. Tom’s home this evening, but he goes away again tomorrow morning.’

  ‘How long will he be away for this time?’ Dee asked.

  ‘Just two nights,’ Ella said. ‘Then he’s home with us for two whole weeks. I can’t wait.’

  ‘I bet you can’t,’ Dee said. She frowned, thinking of something. ‘Does that mean Tom won’t be here Friday?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ Ella said. ‘But don’t worry. Some of the girls are coming around with their kids. They’re all staying for a sleepover. It should be fun.’ She must have noticed the disappointment on Dee’s face, because she stopped speaking. ‘Oh Dee, I’m sorry. In all the rushing around, it didn’t occur to me to let you know.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Dee said, waving her hand in the air, trying to give the impression she didn’t mind in the slightest. Friday nights were one of the highlights of her week, and this was the second one in a row that Ella had cancelled.

  ‘I thought you’d be relieved,’ Ella said. ‘You can spend your Friday night with Ed for a change. Instead of taking care of all of us.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Dee smiled. ‘It’ll be nice to do something different.’

  ‘You sure?’ Ella said.

  ‘Positive,’ Dee said. ‘Now then, let’s find Jake and you can get home and face into that housework.’

  She helped Ella gather up Jake’s belongings and said goodbye to them both, holding Jake for a little longer than normal when he ran to give her a hug. As she watched them leave, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were slipping away from her. She didn’t like it. She’d let her guard down with Jake and Ella, allowed them to become important to her. Even though she must have known – hadn’t she? – that life moved on and the closeness they’d once shared wouldn’t last for ever.