When the Dead Speak

by Sheila Bugler

  ‘I’d hardly call it harassing.’

  ‘That’s not how Nigel sees it,’ Rachel said. ‘He came home while I was there, you know. Told me you’d been around to the house yesterday as well. Is that right, Ed?’

  When Ed didn’t say anything, she shook her head. ‘Can’t you see how crazy this is? And how much you’re undermining me? This is my first time as senior. You know how long I’ve waited to be SIO, Ed. I want to find Lauren’s killer. I’m doing everything I can to do that as quickly as possible. But everywhere I turn, you’re already there. It’s like you’re waiting for me to mess up.’

  ‘That’s not true. You’re doing a brilliant job, Rach. Heck, if I’m ever killed I’d want you leading the investigation,’ he said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘This has got nothing to do with you.’

  ‘You say that,’ Rachel said. ‘But you don’t mean it. If you really believed in me, you’d leave me to carry out this investigation in whatever way I choose. What do you think it’s like for me? Working with a tosspot like Barry who’s watching my every move, waiting for me to mess up? And then there’s you. Someone I thought was my friend, doing exactly the same thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ed said.

  ‘You mean that?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Yes,’ Ed said. ‘You’re completely right. I’ve been bang out of order, but it won’t happen any more. I swear.’

  ‘No more nasty surprises like finding you sitting in the kitchen of the victim’s family?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No more sneaky coffees in the canteen where you try to pump me for information?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Good.’ Rachel nodded. ‘Okay then.’ She pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. ‘I’ll have that beer now, thanks very much.’

  They drank a bottle of beer each and bitched about their colleagues for a bit, before moving on to their personal lives. Rachel and her partner, Grace, were getting married in October and the wedding plans were well underway. Even though, as Ed pointed out, October was seven months away.

  ‘Seven months is nothing,’ Rachel said. ‘I never realised there was so much organising to do. Thankfully, Grace seems to be doing most of it and doesn’t expect me to do much more than turn up on the day and say “I do”. You’ll be there, won’t you? And Dee, of course. We haven’t done invites yet but you’ll definitely be invited.’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Ed said. ‘And neither would Dee, I’m sure.’

  ‘Things going well with you guys?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Ed said.

  The truth was, he didn’t know. She’d definitely been in a mood after their walk. On the drive back, he’d tried to ask her what was wrong but she’d shut him down. Since then, he’d called her a couple of times and left messages but she hadn’t called him back yet.

  ‘We haven’t seen much of each other lately,’ he told Rachel. ‘My fault. I’ve been so caught up in other stuff.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve been such a pain in the arse?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Probably.’ Ed smiled. ‘Although I’m pretty sure you’ve been telling me I’m a pain in the arse ever since we started working together.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  Ed raised his eyebrows and Rachel held her hands up.

  ‘Apart from being part of the investigation,’ she said. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I know that’s not an option,’ Ed said. ‘And I know I’ve been a liability. Everything about this case, it’s too personal. I can’t see it objectively.’

  ‘You need to stop trying to see it at all,’ Rachel said.

  ‘You’re right.’ Ed drained his beer and stood up. ‘One for the road?’

  ‘I’d better be getting off,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve got another few hours of work to do before I can stop for the night. It was good to chat, though. Thanks, Ed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ed said. ‘Not many people would have been as understanding as you’ve been, Rachel. And I promise, no more interfering.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ Rachel leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘Enjoy your beer, buddy. I’ll see myself out.’

  He opened another beer and listened as Rachel left. When he was sure she was gone, he got his phone and checked his text messages. He still had Kyle’s mobile number from when he used to be his rugby coach. He’d sent him a message earlier, asking if they could meet up. So far, Kyle hadn’t got back to him.

  Ed’s thumb hovered over his screen as he tried to decide whether or not to send another text. He thought of the promise he’d just made to Rachel. A promise he had no intention of keeping. He felt bad lying to her. Of course he did. But this was more important than worrying about someone’s feelings. Besides, he’d already sent one text. Which meant he really couldn’t see what difference it would make if he sent another one now. And if Kyle still hadn’t replied by tomorrow, Ed would drive across to the house and make Kyle speak to him, even if he didn’t want to.

  * * *

  Dee’s eyes shot open. Something had woken her. The sound of glass smashing. A burglary. Not the first time it had happened. Foolishly, she’d let herself believe it wouldn’t happen again. She sat up, eyes adjusting to the darkness, heart pounding in her chest. She strained her ears, listening, but all she could hear was her own breathing – too fast, too loud – and the steady sound of the sea, crunching in and out over the shingle.

  Gradually, her heartbeat slowed down and her body started to relax. It was nothing. Her imagination, or a bad dream or a crash of thunder. Or any of the hundreds of sounds that we don’t notice during the day but seem amplified during the silent hours of night-time. Whatever it had been, there was no one else in her house.

  She went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. There was enough light from the moon for her to see. She got a glass and was midway through filling it when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement outside the window.

  She turned slowly and looked through the glass. A pair of eyes stared back at her. Screaming, she jumped back. The glass fell from her hand and smashed onto the tiled floor. Water splashed onto her bare feet and ankles. Another flash of movement and the eyes were gone. Replaced by a sound she recognised. Footsteps. Someone was on the wooden deck that ran along the back of the house.

  Her mind ran back over the last few days. The phone calls. The silence punctuated with the sick sound of someone breathing into her ear. A stalker. Maybe not. But she knew now, as clearly as she knew her own name, that those phone calls hadn’t been made by some random stranger. They were a message.

  She knew she needed to act, do something – anything – to protect herself. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the last time there’d been a stranger outside her house. She’d been attacked and beaten, and now her mind refused to move past that night. It was like she was back there again, lying face down on the beach, fighting for her life.

  She was frozen. Unable to move.

  A shrill sound cut through the silence, and suddenly she was running, shards of broken glass slicing through the bottoms of her feet. She’d reacted before her brain had time to register the noise. Her phone, ringing from the bedroom.

  She already knew who it was. No one else called her in the middle of the night.

  ‘Hello?’

  Nothing. And then, there it was – the heavy sound of someone breathing.

  ‘Who the fuck is this?’ she shouted.

  Throwing the phone down on her bed, she ran into the living room and pulled open the doors leading onto the deck. Gusts of freezing wind whipped into her. She stood at the top of the steps that led to the beach, peering into the darkness.

  ‘Who’s out here?’ she shouted.

  Inside the house, her phone started ringing again. At the same time, she heard something running along the shingle, footsteps crunching over stones. She couldn’t work out where the sound had come from. She peered into the darkness, scanning the beach, trying to see w
ho was there.

  Then two things happened at the same time. A hand shoved into her back, pushing her so she fell forward, into the empty space beyond the steps. And the world exploded in a burst of sound and light and colour.

  She landed on the stones, unable to get up as the ground reverberated beneath her and the sky above her burned bright and white, obliterating the moon and the stars and everything else.

  Twenty-six

  ‘Someone’s trying to scare me.’

  ‘Scare you about what?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Dee said.

  A fire had started in her car. The explosion she’d heard had been caused by the fire reaching the petrol tank. The sound had woken Ella and her friends, who had called the emergency services. By the time Dee had staggered to her feet, Ella was already there. Ed arrived twenty minutes later and had been here since.

  ‘We won’t know for sure what happened to your car until it’s been examined by forensics,’ Ed said. ‘There could be all sorts of reasons for the fire. Oil leaks can cause parked cars to go on fire.’

  ‘It wasn’t an oil leak,’ Dee said. ‘First I get a series of creepy phone calls, and now this? Plus, an oil leak doesn’t explain why I heard someone running around outside. Or why someone pushed me off the deck.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me about the phone calls.’

  ‘I didn’t think they were anything serious,’ Dee said.

  She wanted to add that they’d seen so little of each other recently, it was hardly a surprise she hadn’t told him.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I think they were a warning. Someone wants me to stop trying to find out what happened to Joana.’

  Ed started to say something, then stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear thinking someone would want to hurt you. I’ll make sure this is fast-tracked, Dee. I’ll get someone onto your phone records, see if there’s any way of tracing those phone calls. Getting anything back on your car’s going to take a while, I’m afraid. All of that work is outsourced now. There’s quite a backlog.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A few weeks, at least. But let me see what I can do, okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Ed.’

  ‘You’re lucky the car wasn’t closer to the house,’ he said. ‘You could have lost a lot more than just the car.’

  Dee didn’t feel lucky. The car, a battered old Volvo, had belonged to her mother. Now it was gone and, with it, Dee had lost another precious reminder of her mother’s life.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I know how much that car meant to you.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Dee wiped her face and stood up. ‘I need to get going, actually. I’m meeting Eliza, remember?’

  Eliza had called yesterday evening and told Dee she needed to see her. They’d arranged to meet this morning at a cafe on the seafront.

  ‘You’re not going ahead with that, surely? You’ve had a nasty shock, Dee. You need to stay indoors and give yourself time to recuperate. I’ve taken the day off work so I can look after you.’

  ‘I don’t need looking after,’ Dee said. ‘But thank you, anyway. And there is no way I’m going to let something like this scare me away. If anything, it’s made me more determined than ever. If someone’s trying to frighten me off, it means I must be getting close.’

  ‘It also means you could get hurt.’

  Dee closed her eyes and took several slow breaths. The last thing she wanted now was another argument.

  ‘I’ll need a lift.’

  She opened her eyes, then wished she hadn’t. The disapproval on his face was hard to stomach.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, sounding as if it was anything but. ‘I’ll give you a lift. But only if you tell Eliza you won’t be able to help her after today. I’m not going to let you get hurt over this, Dee. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘Joana’s not worth it?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Ed said. ‘You need to let the police take this over now. I’ll speak with Brian Douglas. He’s the detective who was looking into Joana’s disappearance when she was first reported missing. He’s a good detective.’

  ‘You can speak to Brian if you want to,’ Dee said. ‘But I am not going to let Eliza down now. I’m going to keep trying to find Joana, whether you like it or not.’

  She braced herself for his counter-argument, but it didn’t come. Instead, he shook his head, called her a stubborn bloody woman and told her to hurry up and get ready.

  ‘Thanks, Ed.’ She leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of his head. ‘You’re the best.’

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Dee and Eliza were walking along the seafront, their hands wrapped around the cups of hot chocolate Dee had insisted on buying for them.

  ‘I’m glad you called, actually,’ Dee said. ‘There’s something you should know. Last night, someone set fire to my car.’

  ‘Oh Dee, I’m so sorry. You’ve reported it to the police? Have they found the person who did it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Dee said. ‘But I think it might be someone who doesn’t want me asking questions about Joana.’

  ‘Shit.’ Eliza stopped walking. ‘This means you’re getting closer, yes? Ah. But it also means this could be dangerous for you. Maybe you should stop what you’re doing. I don’t want you to feel unsafe.’

  ‘I don’t feel unsafe.’ Dee linked her arm with Eliza’s. ‘I just thought you should know, that’s all. Maybe we both need to be a little more careful when we’re asking questions from now on.’

  ‘I wish there was more I could do,’ Eliza said. ‘I’m working so many hours. It’s the only way I can make enough money. This is a shit life, Dee. I plan to do one more year only before returning to my country. It’s too difficult for me here.’

  ‘I keep my ear out for any better-paying jobs,’ Dee said. ‘But there’s not much around at the moment.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Eliza said. ‘All I want now is to find out what has happened to Joana before I go home. I don’t know how I’ll bear it if we still haven’t found her by then.’

  ‘We’ll do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen,’ Dee said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Thank you, Dee.’

  ‘So, do you want to tell me why you wanted to meet?’

  ‘My boyfriend Marcel has a friend,’ Eliza said. ‘His name is Charlie. Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘No.’ Dee shook her head. ‘Why?’

  ‘Hang on.’

  Eliza took her phone from her jacket pocket. ‘Let me show you a photo. Ah. No internet. Can we walk back the other way? There’s a signal nearer to the restaurant.’

  They had walked west from the pier towards Holywell, where the mobile phone signal was poor to non-existent.

  ‘What do you want to show me?’ Dee asked as they turned back. It was the first sunny Sunday in a while and the seafront was busy, although Dee didn’t pass one person she recognised. So different to when she’d lived here as a teenager. Back then, she’d felt as if she knew every single person living in the town. At the time, she’d hated that. Now, she missed that feeling of belonging.

  ‘Charlie’s photo.’

  Eliza scrolled through her phone and handed it to Dee, who took the phone and studied the Instagram profile photo of someone called @ChefCharlie.

  ‘Never seen him before,’ Dee said, handing the phone back.

  ‘But you said you’d spoken with the people working at the hotel.’

  ‘I said I’d spoken to a few people,’ Dee said. ‘And left a copy of Joana’s photo and asked for it to be circulated to the rest of the staff. Why, Eliza? Who is this guy?’

  ‘He’s one of the chefs at the hotel,’ Eliza said. ‘And also a friend of Marcel’s. Marcel was in the Anchor on Friday night and Charlie was there too. And he started to tell Marcel about a journalist who had been visiting the hotel causing problems for his boss. He said the lady journalist is crazy, but Marcel told h
im no, you’re not crazy, you are helping us to find Joana. And I don’t know how, but Charlie didn’t know about Joana, so Marcel told him what had happened and about Joana going to the hotel to meet someone the night she disappeared. And then Marcel asked Charlie if he’d seen the photo and Charlie said no. So Marcel showed him a photo of Joana he has on his phone, and he said Charlie went really quiet and Marcel asked him what was the problem, but Charlie said there’s no problem. But he left soon after that, and Marcel hasn’t been able to contact him because Charlie isn’t answering Marcel’s messages.’

  ‘Slow down,’ Dee said, knowing that when Eliza started on a topic she would talk and talk until you forced her to stop and listen. ‘Are you saying Marcel thinks Charlie might have seen Joana at the hotel the night she disappeared?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Okay,’ Dee said. ‘Well if he works at the hotel, why don’t we go there now and see if he’ll talk to us?’

  ‘He’s not working today,’ Eliza said. ‘I’ve already called and asked to speak to him. They said he is off work sick. But I have his phone number. I was hoping you would try calling him, Dee? Or maybe you could find out where he lives and go and speak to him.’

  ‘Is there any chance Charlie was the person Joana was going to meet?’ Dee asked.

  ‘No. I mean, he’s a cute guy but he’s a chef. Joana was more interested in the men who stayed there, the ones with money. Unless Charlie was helping her get the job she told me about? That is a possibility all right. Do you think the police will listen to me if I tell them this?’

  ‘Let me try and speak to him first,’ Dee said. ‘If you go around shouting that Charlie has something to do with Joana’s disappearance, that’s the surest way of making sure he doesn’t tell me or anyone else what he knows.’

  ‘Promise you’ll speak to him?’

  ‘I promise,’ Dee said. ‘But only if you do something for me first.’

  ‘Of course,’ Eliza said. ‘Anything.’

  ‘I have this old coat I don’t wear any more.’ Dee opened her rucksack and pulled out the coat. It was black cashmere. She’d picked it up online in the M&S sale.