Dead Man's Daughter

by Roz Watkins

  ‘I’m sorry. I know this is hard,’ I said. ‘We really appreciate it. And, I know it seems like an odd question, but what colour swimsuit was she wearing?’

  Her words seemed not to want to leave her throat. ‘It was so cute with her lovely blonde hair. Pink dots on white.’

  15.

  ‘This is seriously creeping me out now.’ Jai bundled himself into the car, shaking snow onto the seat and onto me. ‘How the hell could Abbie have known that stuff about the donor? The pink spotty bathing suit? Ben and Buddy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was creeping me out too.

  ‘Do you think the girl’s father drowned her? And Abbie somehow remembered that?’

  ‘I think that’s one of the less likely explanations.’ The tyres slipped as I pulled out of the lay-by.

  Jai was on a roll. ‘And Abbie murdered her dad in her sleep, because she was dreaming about this girl’s father killing her?’

  ‘Good luck presenting that to the CPS.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  I gripped the wheel tightly, and flicked the wipers on. It was snowing properly now. ‘We’ve got to be really careful here, Jai. What we’re talking about – there’s no evidence it’s even possible. If it gets out that we’re pursuing this lead, the media are going to be on us like hyenas on a freshly slaughtered corpse.’

  I didn’t want to believe Abbie had killed her father, and as for the idea that her donor’s heart took her over, Exorcist-style? It was ridiculous.

  ‘But that picture Abbie drew when she was hypnotised? It was bloody spot on. It was the donor child’s death scene, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I want to know who else knew about the circumstances of Scarlett Norwood’s death.’

  ‘There were no details online. Not about the swimming costume, or her brother’s name, or the dog’s name. I checked.’

  ‘What about social media?’

  ‘There’s nothing public.’

  ‘It can’t have come from the heart, Jai. It’s not possible.’

  ‘I know it sounds unlikely but – ’

  ‘Michael Ellis said to speak to Gaynor Harvey. About cellular memory. I found an article about her, and she only lives in Bonsall. Maybe I’ll go and see her.’

  My phone started ringing and buzzing.

  ‘Can you see who it is?’ I fished in my pocket and shoved the phone at him. ‘I’m not super-safe talking on the hands-free and driving.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s so safe either,’ Jai said. ‘If you nearly swerve off the road delving around in your pocket. It’s Dr Li.’

  ‘Better answer it.’

  Jai picked up. A series of shocked Okays and Rights, and then, ‘Call 999. We’re on our way . . . Try and find him . . . Keep him talking.’

  I looked over at him. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘She thinks her son’s gone off to try and commit suicide. At the gorge.’

  My pulse quickened. ‘What? Her son who we met? The doctor?’

  ‘So she says.’

  ‘Why does she think that? Jesus.’

  ‘She said he left a note saying he couldn’t live like this any more or something like that. He’s been suicidal before, she says. She’s already called his primary care team and they’re on their way up there, but . . . ’

  ‘Oh God. She did say he’d been depressed since his accident. We’d better go up there too. Is it near Dead Girl’s Drop again?’ I pictured the sheer side of the gorge that I’d seen when I was with Dr Li by the Destroying Angels. The place up in the clouds where she’d said Tom liked to go.

  ‘The top car park. I know where it is. And she said you saw it the other day.’

  ‘Do you know how to get there by road?’

  ‘I’ll direct you.’

  I accelerated.

  The road from Ashbourne snaked through the valleys and past the ominous grey choppiness of Carsington Water. The snow was still light, but I could see it gathering on the hills to our left. The drive felt painfully slow.

  Finally, we skirted the edge of Eldercliffe and Jai pointed to a lane which headed steeply towards the rim of the gorge.

  ‘Not that one?’ I said. ‘It’s a goat track, not a road.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not ecstatic about it either,’ Jai said.

  I sighed and pulled onto the lane.

  We headed up and up, high into the clouds. There was snow here already – on the ground and swirling in the air. I slowed at the sight of a sheer drop on our left, separated from the road by a few feeble-looking bollards. I wished I’d put winter tyres on the car.

  Jai sat stiffly, right foot poised over an imaginary brake, glancing nervously out of his window. ‘You’re quite close to the edge, Meg.’

  ‘I know. I can’t get any closer on this side without driving into the snow. And then we’ll never get up there.’

  I drove on, eyes fixed on the road ahead, praying my little car would make it.

  We rolled into the car park and jumped out. There were two cars already there, but no people that we could see, and no sign of the primary care team. The air was bitterly cold and the wind blasted flecks of icy snow into our eyes. I felt disorientated and confused about where Tom would have gone.

  ‘I think it’s this way.’ Jai spat snowflakes from his mouth. ‘There are footprints.’

  The snow hid the path, and the air was so thick and white I worried we’d find ourselves on the edge of the gorge without even realising it.

  ‘Dr Li!’ I shouted. ‘Tom!’

  We followed the rapidly disappearing footprints. I sensed an emptiness next to us where the ground fell away into the gorge, but was relieved to see a stone wall running alongside the path.

  Jai pointed ahead. ‘Is that them?’ His voice was muffled as if I had earplugs in.

  I peered into the whiteness. A wheelchair, just visible. Empty.

  We hurried forward. The snow masked everything. Fen and Tom popped into my vision only when we were almost on top of them. My pulse quickened.

  Tom seemed to be draped over the wall. He’d somehow managed to drag one leg up so his shoulders and one foot sat on the top of it. The rest was set to follow. The wall was only around waist height. Easy to climb over, but we hadn’t had a big suicide problem – possibly because the drop wasn’t enough to reliably kill you.

  Fen stood behind Tom, her arms stretched forward helplessly.

  Tom looked round, his expression unreadable. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  ‘Please, Tom . . . ’ Fen reached her hand forward.

  ‘Stay back or I’m going over.’

  Fen retracted her hand.

  I took a breath and forced my brain into calm mode. We’d had training in dealing with jumpers. They were often in the middle of a psychotic episode, screaming and paranoid. The key was to get them talking. Tom on the other hand seemed coldly detached.

  ‘I’ve decided to do this,’ he said. ‘It’s my decision and it’s rational. I choose not to live like this.’ His foot was still on the wall. Flakes of snow had gathered on his back.

  ‘No!’ Fen reached towards him, but stopped short of touching him. She turned to us. ‘He doesn’t mean it. He’s been like this before. He’ll pull out of it. Please . . . ’

  Although Tom had said he’d decided to do it, I didn’t believe he was sure, or he’d have already jumped. But that foot was making me nervous. If we could get it off the wall, he’d really struggle to drag himself over. I could sense Jai looking at the foot too.

  ‘Please, Tom, let’s talk about it,’ Fen begged. ‘We can sort things out. Make your life better.’

  I indicated to Fen to move away a little. Relatives were loose cannons – often the accidental trigger that prompted a jumper to go over.

  If I could flip the foot off the wall, then Jai could grab his body. I was sure we’d be able to pull him back. I didn’t like to force him down but sometimes it was the best way. He probably wouldn’t even kill himself if he jumped, but would end up mai
med in hospital and even more depressed than before.

  Jai inched a little closer to Tom.

  ‘We’ll find a way to make things work, Tom.’ Fen sounded utterly desperate. ‘Just come down and give me a chance. Please.’

  Tom turned away. His shoulders tensed. He was going over.

  I lunged for his foot and knocked it off the wall. Jai leaped forwards and tried to grab his waist but he twisted round and shoved him in the face. Jai fell back. Tom was slipping away from me. I managed to get my hand into the waist of his trousers and yanked back as hard as I could, but he seemed to be stuck half over the wall. Fen grabbed hold of me from behind.

  I saw Jai in the corner of my eye. He jumped up, reached over the wall, grasped Tom round the neck and pulled him back. We all crashed down in a big bundle, my hip smashing onto the freezing ground, my mouth full of snow.

  I lay gasping and wiping snow from my face.

  I pulled myself to my feet. Tom lay immobile, horribly silent. Had we even done the right thing saving him? We didn’t know how hard his life was.

  Fen crouched and pulled Tom into a sitting position. ‘Come on. Let’s get you home and warmed up.’

  Jai scraped snow from the seat of the wheelchair, freed up the wheels and pushed it to Tom’s side.

  ‘Help me get in.’ Tom spoke to his mother, his voice breaking.

  Together we helped Tom into the chair, and Fen started pushing him, forcing him through the snow that had gathered on the path. She was strong, despite being small. ‘How can you do this to me?’ Her words burst out between panting sobs. ‘And you’re putting other people’s lives at risk.’

  We followed along behind Fen and Tom, trailing back to the car like soldiers after a battle. I was cold to my core, and felt strangely depressed, given the relatively good outcome. There was always a part of me that wondered if we should let people jump, if they wanted to. But I knew there had been times I’d been a whisker away from that state myself – when if I’d found myself on the edge of a cliff, I couldn’t swear I wouldn’t have gone over. And whilst for me, that might have been a blessed escape, the thought of the effect on Mum made me gasp for breath and thank something – whatever I thank that isn’t God – that I hadn’t done it.

  At the car park, the care team were arriving. I took one of them aside – a middle-aged woman who exuded competence – and told her in hushed tones what had happened.

  We stayed a while, checking Tom was okay and the care team had it all in hand. Fen stood apart from the group, arms folded.

  We got into our car and Fen plodded over. I wound the window down.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ she said. ‘He goes through these bad patches. I shouldn’t have involved you. I panicked, and I had your card to hand.’

  ‘Will you be okay?’ I was struck again by the horror of living with someone suicidal. Felt the crashing wave of relief that I was past that point.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ she said, switching abruptly to professional and business-like. ‘He’s done this before and he pulls out of it. Besides, you’ve got enough on your plate at work. I looked into it – there’s more to that cellular memory theory than I’d realised.’

  ‘You mean Abbie Thornton’s heart?’

  She nodded and gave a sad smile. ‘Talk to me again if you need to. I think in view of today, I won’t charge for a further meeting.’

  *

  Back at the Station, I pulled rank and left Jai sorting out paperwork for Tom’s attempted jump, while I headed to my room to see what had come in on Phil Thornton.

  After half an hour, I looked up to see Craig looming over me. ‘What’s that noise?’ he said.

  I forced my face into a smile, albeit a rather insipid one. ‘Sorry, Craig?’

  ‘Oh, I know. It’s the PACE clock ticking. It’s almost deafening me.’ He rubbed his ear and then looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Are we charging the kid?’

  ‘I know the clock’s ticking. Thank you, Craig.’

  A knock and Jai appeared. He saw Craig and rolled his eyes at me.

  ‘We should charge her,’ Craig said.

  Jai walked to the far side of the room and stood with his back to the window, arms folded. ‘Are we charging her?’

  I took a breath. ‘I don’t think we’ve got enough evidence.’

  ‘But do you think she did it?’ Jai said.

  I looked out of the sliver of window Jai hadn’t blocked. The sky was white again. ‘No. I suppose I don’t.’

  Craig put his face too close to mine. ‘She was lying by her father’s slaughtered corpse clutching a blood-soaked knife.’

  ‘Thanks, Craig.’ I eyed the door. ‘I’ll speak to you later.’

  He took a step towards the door, then hesitated and looked over his shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re up to leading a high- profile investigation?’

  ‘What made you like this, Craig?’ Jai said. ‘Did your daddy not give you enough praise as a child?’

  Craig’s faced flushed red. He glared briefly at Jai, and walked out of the door.

  Something about Craig’s expression had unsettled me. Maybe his parents really had been awful. Maybe he’d been bullied at school. Maybe it wasn’t about me at all.

  ‘Back to that ticking clock.’ Jai was silhouetted against the bright sky. I felt interrogated. Why was I putting my job on the line for Abbie Thornton?

  ‘Her mother has a history of somatic delusions,’ I said. ‘This heart thing could be another one. The girl is not possessed by the spirit of another child’s heart, Jai. She just isn’t.’

  ‘But Dr Li said there was more to cellular memory than she’d thought. And even regardless of motive, Abbie doesn’t deny doing it.’

  ‘She doesn’t remember a thing. Maybe she did have a knife in her hand, but someone could have orchestrated that. They’d tear it apart in court.’

  ‘She had arterial blood on her nightdress.’

  ‘Someone could have stabbed Phil, and Abbie could have run into the room while he was still bleeding.’

  ‘While she was asleep? And you know arterial spurt only lasts about thirty seconds.’

  ‘I know it’s unlikely, but every explanation is unlikely.’

  ‘Maybe only if you avoid the obvious one that Abbie did it. Maybe she was hypnotised by Harry Gibson or it was her heart or whatever, but she did do it.’

  ‘Come and sit over here, Jai. I can’t see you against the window.’

  Jai sat unwillingly in my spare chair. ‘I just wonder if maybe you like the kid a bit too much,’ he said. ‘She lost her sister, didn’t she . . . ’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I snapped. ‘Someone could have set this up so it looked like she killed her father.’

  ‘Framed her, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who’d want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yet.’

  ‘There’s no motive.’

  ‘But there’s no motive for Abbie to do it. It doesn’t happen, Jai. A ten-year-old stabbing her father to death in the middle of the night. No way.’

  ‘What about the heart transplant thing? Why do you keep ignoring that? What about the picture she drew? The things she said – Ben and Buddy . . . Come on, you were there when the donor child’s mother said those things. How the hell could Abbie have drawn that picture and said those things in her dreams if it’s not come from the heart?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I’ve got the geeks looking at Harry Gibson’s laptop again. But you know how long all that takes.’

  ‘You seem to be doing everything to avoid accepting that Abbie Thornton did it.’

  ‘Jai, please don’t get channelled down the Abbie did it route and ignore all the other possibilities.’

  ‘Seems to me like you’re doing the opposite, and avoiding the most obvious solution. I’m actually wondering if we should have another look at that drowning. Fiona agrees with me.’

  ‘It can’t be true,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe it. Assuming Richard�
�s okay with it, we’ll release her on police bail and I’ll have another talk with her and her mother over the weekend. There’s something else going on here.’

  ‘And Ben and Buddy and the pink spotty swimsuit?’

  ‘There’s another explanation. But I’m going to see that woman tomorrow. Gaynor Harvey. She thinks she’s taken on the traits of her donor. I tracked her down.’

  ‘Good,’ Jai said. ‘Science can’t explain everything.’

  ‘Seriously, Jai? We’re detectives. We have to rely on science, and evidence, and logic. Otherwise we have nothing.’

  I knew I’d find holes in Gaynor Harvey’s story, and it might give me a clue about how these ideas could arise. A memory of my dad popped into my head. He was angry; shouting at me. What had I done? It felt important. Something to do with Carrie.

  It came back to me. Some silly thing at school. A friend who’d said her mum had cured her cancer with crystals. I’d bounced home and told Carrie, and Dad had been furious. Disappointed in me, calling me stupid for believing something like that, something so unscientific.

  The door started edging open whilst simultaneously being knocked. Fiona’s head appeared from behind it. ‘Managed to get that name from the social workers at last,’ she said. ‘The first name of the mother who might have had a grievance against Phil Thornton.’

  ‘Oh? What was it?’

  ‘Elaine.’

  ‘Elaine.’ I looked up at my memory banks. ‘I know that name. Who else is called Elaine?’

  ‘The woman who found Abbie running through the woods,’ Fiona said. ‘It’s the same woman. She’s using a different surname. It’s Elaine Grant.’

  I jumped up. ‘Right. I’m going to see her. Can you check if she had any contact with Harry Gibson?’

  ‘Come on, Meg.’ Jai reached out his hand as if to pull me back. ‘There’s no way – ’

  ‘See you later.’

  I shot out before he had a chance to say any more.

  16.

  Elaine Grant placed a tray on a glass coffee table and sat opposite me in her moribund front room. ‘I hope the poor girl’s alright?’

  ‘Abbie’s fine.’ I pondered all the ways in which Abbie was not fine.