Dead To Me

8

‘DC RACHEL BAILEY, Manchester Metropolitan Police. We sent you a request yesterday evening for call data on a missing phone.’

‘Nothing for you, yet,’ said the man on the other end.

‘You do realize this is a murder I’m dealing with here?’ Rachel complained. ‘Can’t you get your finger out?’

‘You do realize that this is the police liaison department?’ the man said frostily. ‘All we deal with is murders. I’ve a stack of requests here. You wait your turn.’ And he hung up. Rachel looked at the receiver for a moment, taken aback. Then she made a note in her daybook about the call.

Rachel was miffed at the way Godzilla had talked to her, making her look stupid in front of everyone. She had brought her into the syndicate and now she was being snotty to her. Making her tag along for the formal identification, for fuck’s sake.

It had snowed in the early hours, not much, but enough to mottle the landscape with patches of white, a piebald effect. Slush already on the main roads. On the drive over to the mortuary Janet had explained it was policy to have two FLOs in the initial stages of an inquiry, before they knew what flavour it was. You didn’t know how many next-of-kin might come crawling out of the woodwork, you didn’t know if there was bad blood. Things might kick off.

‘One time,’ Janet said, ‘we had the father at the mortuary, he had been easy to trace. The mother had done a runner years before, leaving the kids…’

Rachel looked out of the window; she knew what that was like, aware of the old twist in her stomach, the anger just underneath. How could she, the bitch? Didn’t want to think about her. Waste of space, waste of time. Dead. Good as.

‘… but,’ Janet went on, turning into the car park near the mortuary, ‘mother pitches up, completely trollied, seen the death on the news, and attacks the father. Only one FLO there and yours truly, trying to pull them apart. I got a smack in the face for my trouble.’

Rachel still thought this was overkill, Denise Finn at the mortuary along with the FLO and two detectives. Three to one. Plus the mortuary staff. Janet obviously thought so, too. ‘You can wait in the car?’ she said when they arrived.

‘You’re all right,’ Rachel replied.

‘Frightened you’ll miss something?’ The woman thought she was a mind reader now.

So they waited, while Denise Finn stood in front of the viewing area where her daughter’s body was laid out. The pale blue sheet pulled up to her neck. Blood washed away, her scuzzy hair combed – they’d have done that for the post-mortem, collecting trace material that might lead to her attacker. Denise Finn wore the same clothes as the previous evening, perhaps she had not slept. Perhaps she was a mucky one. She was huffing and puffing, a tissue balled in her hand. The FLO, Christopher Danes his name was, asked her the question: ‘Can you tell me if this is your daughter, Lisa Anne Finn?’

‘Yes,’ Denise said in a sob, her shoulders heaving. The FLO put his hand on her shoulder, suggested she sit down for a minute. She stared at him, looking lost, he repeated the question and she nodded. He showed her into the visitors’ room and came back out. The mortuary assistant closed the blinds. Rachel heard the squeal of the trolley as he wheeled it to the freezer.

Rachel’s phone went. Alison calling. She let it go to voicemail. Her sister could talk for England; she went on about how overstretched she was at work, how big her caseload was, yet she still found time to make social calls in the day.

Janet spoke to the FLO: ‘We’d like to talk to her again.’

He nodded. ‘We’re going back to the house now.’

‘How’s she been?’ Janet said.

‘Not said much,’ he said. ‘Dumbstruck.’

‘She fit to talk?’ Janet checked.

‘Just about. She’s on sedatives, as it is. GP’s been, given her some sleeping tablets.’

‘I get to listen again?’ Rachel said on the way up, hoping she was wrong.

‘I think that’s wise,’ Janet answered. ‘You’re not exactly going to be her favourite person, are you?’

‘She’ll have forgotten by now,’ Rachel objected, ‘with all she’s got going on.’

‘You think?’ Janet gave her a knowing look. ‘You don’t give a toss, do you?’

‘We’re police officers, not agony aunts,’ Rachel said. ‘She can’t be much of a mother, can she? If Lisa was taken into care.’

‘Maybe Lisa was hard to handle. You can’t go making assumptions. We don’t know these people, we don’t know what their lives are like.’

‘Got a pretty good clue – trash.’

‘An interview is a conversation,’ Janet said, ‘whether it’s a witness or a suspect, it is a conversation – not a confrontation.’ Repeating it as if it were some mantra she’d learnt. ‘They need to trust us, we show respect, we listen, we don’t judge.’

‘I know.’ Rachel flung her head back against the headrest.

‘I don’t think you do,’ Janet said steadily. ‘Your body language, your tone of voice… If you’re sat there thinking, “What a slimebag, what a pitiful excuse for a human being”, and you let it show, then you won’t get that conversation.’

Rachel got her phone out, had enough of the lecture, listened to her voicemail from Alison. Hi, it’s me. We’ve got vouchers for BOGOFs for the new Vietnamese place in Moston, use by the end of the month. Thought maybe you and lover-boy would like to make a foursome. You can’t keep him hidden for ever. She gave a grating laugh. Or are you ashamed of us?

Yes. Truly, madly, deeply. It would be a horror show, Alison and Tony talking school admissions and tracker mortgages and offers on patio furniture from Wickes, and Nick strangling her with his eyes. Cottoning on that this was the Bailey family. With their tiny little lives. This was where Rachel had come from. The underclass, grotty estate on the wrong side of Middleton. She didn’t want him to think of her that way. She was different from Alison, from Dom. Hadn’t even told him of Dom’s existence. And she was way different from her parents, who didn’t even deserve the title. Langley was the past. She’d locked the door on it, she didn’t need Alison blurting stuff out now. Amusing anecdotes of free school meals and scraping by in hand-me-downs, and knock-offs from the market. Rachel was making something of herself. Her dad was still knocking around Middleton. No fixed abode. Half a chance she’d get a call-out one day and find him. Sudden death. Wouldn’t be that sudden really, been killing himself for years on the booze and the fags. Alison tried sorting him out every once in a while. Get him in a flat, take him to the hospital. Playing happy families. Same as Alison kept visiting Dom. Deluded.

If she ignored it, Alison would keep nudging: Did you get the message? Have you decided?

Rachel sent a text: No can do, him away, me overtime.

Best kept separate. Some things wouldn’t mix, like putting lemon juice with milk: whole thing curdles.

The small room smelled sickly, stale, fruity of booze. There was a glass, sticky with fingerprints, and a bottle of sherry on the side table. The air was humid, condensation on the windows, a towel on the radiator.

The FLO left as they arrived, aiming to sort out some nebby neighbours whose offers of help were simply a way of having a good nosy.

‘Can you tell me about Lisa?’ said Janet, starting wide, letting Denise choose where to begin, what tack to take, which memories to share.

‘What about her?’ Denise asked.

‘You told me yesterday that she had been in bother, messing with drugs.’

‘That’s right, and Sean, he put her up to it.’

‘Did he? Why do you say that?’

‘She wasn’t doing so bad till she started going with him. It’s his fault,’ Denise said.

‘What’s his fault?’ Janet said.

‘That this… that she…’ It wasn’t unusual for those left behind to blame whoever was at hand. ‘I told her to get shot of him. He’s a junkie,’ Denise said. ‘He dragged her down in the muck with him. They was offering her rehab, but she wouldn’t listen… If she can just…’ She ground to a halt. Janet saw it almost like a truck hitting a wall. The impact striking the woman again, the reality. Lisa. Dead.

‘How would you describe their relationship?’

‘A bloody disaster,’ Denise said. She cast about, found her cigarettes and lit one. Janet waited.

‘Mrs Finn, do you have any reason to think Sean had some involvement in Lisa’s death?’

‘He hit her,’ Denise said angrily, fanning the flames. ‘I seen her black and blue. He’s a right nasty piece of work.’

‘Did you have a lot of contact with her?’

‘She’s my daughter,’ Denise replied.

‘How often did you see her?’ Janet rephrased the question, aware that Denise had sidestepped it.

Denise gave a bitter laugh. ‘More before he came on the scene. And then he sends her up here to scrounge. Expecting me to give them drug money.’ She shook her head.

‘Lisa was in Ryelands House until this April?’

‘I couldn’t manage. I tried…’ Janet sensed the woman’s shame at her inadequacy. ‘My sister took Nathan, but she couldn’t cope with the baby as well.’

‘When did Lisa first go into care?’ Janet said.

‘Four months.’

An infant. ‘Was she in care all her life?’

‘No,’ Denise tapped the ash off her cigarette. ‘Only till I sorted myself out. I got her back when she was six, then… the end of primary and she just went wild. Running away, going missing, drinking.’ Taisie’s age, thought Janet. At least we’ve not had any of that to deal with. ‘I tried everything, but I couldn’t handle her. I’d school attendance on my back and your lot every five minutes. I thought it was for the best, but Ryelands – there’s more drugs in there than there is on the streets. Same as prison. Paedos hanging round an’ all,’ she said. ‘Some of the kids in there’ll do anything for twenty quid.’

Janet knew Rachel would follow up on this when she spoke to Lisa’s personal advisor. Get details, help them sort out fact from fiction. But from what Denise said, it sounded as though Lisa had been experimenting with drugs before she hooked up with Sean. Janet brought the question round to recent contact again.

‘Have you seen Lisa recently?’

Denise’s eyes filled. She was in bits. ‘No.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘My birthday – in October.’

‘Had you spoken to her on the phone?’

‘Yes, well… I tried, but, because she knew I didn’t want her with him, then she wouldn’t always pick up. Talk to her personal advisor,’ Denise said. ‘He’ll tell you, same as I have, Sean was bad news, every which way.’ She played with the tissue, unfolding it then crushing it again.

‘Can you remember when you last spoke to Lisa on the phone?’

‘Yesterday.’ Her voice cracking. ‘She said she was busy. She hung up.’

Oh, God. Janet could imagine the ‘what ifs’ piling up in Denise’s head. If only I had insisted, gone round there, got her to talk to me. Changed the future. Interrupted the sequence of events. ‘Do you remember what time that was, Denise?’

She pressed the tissue to her eyes. ‘Why?’ She turned on Janet, distraught, her face a mess of snot, lips cracked and swollen, the cigarette burned down to the filter now, an awful stench in the room. Janet saw she didn’t want to think about the phone call, didn’t want to be reminded of how things might have been different.

Because we want to get a time of death as close as we can, Janet thought. But said quietly, ‘It’ll help us with the investigation.’

‘After dinner.’

Dinner being the midday meal in these parts, tea the food you had at the end of the working day. ‘Could you tell where she was when you spoke to her?’ Janet asked.

‘She was out.’

‘Did she say where?’

‘No, but it was noisy.’

‘What sort of noises?’

‘I don’t know!’ she snapped, her patience thinning. The questions distracting her from her grief.

‘People, traffic, music…?’ Janet suggested.

‘Traffic.’

‘It was after dinner, long after dinner? Could we check on your phone perhaps?’

‘It’s dead,’ Denise said. A shocked silence in the room. And Janet saw the stumble, the echo that came back at Denise like a boot in the face. Dead phone. Dead daughter. ‘I’ll put it on charge,’ Denise whispered, ‘get it for you then.’

‘Thank you,’ Janet said. ‘You told me Lisa said she was busy. How did she sound otherwise?’

Denise took another cigarette and lit it. Janet thought she’d die from asphyxiation. If only they could open the window. But it was cold and bleak out there, sky the colour of grubby white sheets. Maybe more snow coming.

‘Did she sound tired or anxious or frightened?’

‘No,’ Denise said.

‘Did you get the sense that she was with anyone else?’

‘Erm, no.’

‘OK, is there anyone you know who might have wished her harm?’

Denise pressed her lips tight together, shaking her head slowly. ‘I did my best,’ she said, her voice quaking with emotion. ‘I always…’ She couldn’t continue.

They heard the door go, the FLO returning. ‘Denise…’ He entered the room, heading for the scullery kitchen at the back of the house, took in the scene. The weeping woman. ‘Denise, a cup of tea?’

She didn’t respond, too far gone for politeness. Janet caught his eye. ‘We’ll be on our way.’ Signalling with a tilt of her head that she wanted a word.

He stepped outside with them. A woman across the street with twins in a double buggy stopped to gawp.

‘Take a picture,’ Rachel muttered.

‘Keep a close eye,’ Janet said to the FLO. ‘The woman’s lost both her kids, she’s already struggling, too fond of a drink, on tablets for her nerves, she’s a wreck.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I will. SIO tells me there was some problem at the scene.’

‘Bit of rearranging of the furniture that shouldn’t have happened. Can you get Denise’s phone charged, check her calls.’

‘Will do,’ he said. ‘What you after?’

‘Call she made to Lisa early afternoon. We need the time.’

‘Should have been sterilized,’ Rachel said as they buckled up, ‘not fit to raise a goldfish.’

Janet looked at her. Was the girl doing this to wind her up? Trying to shock? Negative attention better than being ignored? Like Taisie when she was being gobby.

‘What?’ Rachel demanded. ‘I’m entitled to an opinion.’

Janet shook her head, started the engine and pulled out. She wouldn’t waste her breath.