Ruthless

14

‘Forensics have a present for us,’ Gill began, then broke off. ‘Where’s Janet?’

Rachel shook her head.

Peculiar. If Janet was ill or delayed she always let Gill know.

‘Rachel, you brief her when she’s in. So – chemical analysis of trace material on the footwear of Noel and Neil Perry shows the presence of an accelerant.’

Mitch grinned, Kevin raised a fist and Lee nodded, smiling.

‘And it gets better – the composition of the accelerant is compatible with the accelerant used in the Old Chapel. Petrol, and specifically Shell petrol as established by an analysis of the additives in the composition. Traces on all four items. So, Rachel, we go after them for that. Yes?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Gill hoped that by acting as though nothing untoward had happened the previous evening, in effect burying the fact that her knobhead ex-husband had come crashing into her incident room, as welcome as a fart at a funeral, Lee and Kevin would share her amnesia.

‘Superintendent review at nine and I’m optimistic we’ll get our next twelve hours’ detention, given the new evidence. More to talk to our suspects about. You all right, Rachel? Up for another bout or you want reassigning?’

‘He’s not getting shot of me that easy.’

‘A testing situation and, having seen the recording, I don’t think we’ll have any problems though you could have been more careful with your language. Might be construed as verbal abuse.’

Rachel’s mouth dropped open.

‘Fucking ridiculous,’ Gill added, ‘don’t know what the twats were thinking of but you know the rules.’

‘Pillocks,’ Kevin said. From somewhere Kevin had acquired an old-fashioned maths compass and was using the point to pick at his nails.

Gill stared at him, stopped speaking. Gradually the rest of them followed suit.

Kevin continued his efforts, head down, mining away for several seconds until he noticed the shift in atmosphere. He looked up quickly at Gill then his eyes flickered round the room. ‘Boss,’ he said weakly, perhaps thinking Gill had asked a question and was waiting for the reply.

‘Good of you to rejoin us, Kevin.’

‘I was just-’ He dried up.

‘Away with the fairies?’ Gill said. ‘Listen, Slack Alice, you want a French manicure and polish you do it in your own time.’

‘I was listening.’

‘I’m not arguing the toss with you, sunshine. I expect your undivided attention. Got it?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Kevin set the compass down then pushed it slightly further away, which Gill reckoned was a wise move. With the attention span of a gnat he would soon forget and if the thing was in reach it wouldn’t be long before he picked it up and started chiselling away at his nails again.

‘Meanwhile,’ she said, ‘I want Greg Tandy. Rachel, you go with Mitch.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘What more have we got on Richard Kavanagh?’

‘More of the same,’ said Lee. ‘No reports of him ever causing bother and no reported connection with criminals or criminal activity. People in the area generally tolerant. He spent some time in the hostel in town, they tried to get him into a programme with the Big Issue but he didn’t take it up. Hospitalized last winter with pneumonia, discharged himself before treatment was completed.’

‘Why?’ Gill said.

‘No booze on the ward?’ Rachel said.

Lee laughed, ‘In one.’

Gill felt a ripple of embarrassment, coughed and adjusted her notes while she recovered her composure. ‘We have any timeline for his last day?’

‘Near enough,’ Mitch said. ‘Sightings on Wednesday at eleven am and one-thirty pm walking round the estate. Latest sighting was four pm when he buys two tins of cheap lager from the Big Booze Bonanza. He was a regular there.’

‘Get that charted up and cross-referenced with any sightings we’ve got of the Perry twins,’ Gill said, ‘find any overlap.’

‘Already made a start,’ Mitch said. ‘Problem is people are a lot less forthcoming about seeing the Perry brothers, widely regarded as hard cases, sort of people who would break your face if you looked at them the wrong way. We do have them in the precinct mid-afternoon and on Low Bank Road which leads to the Old Chapel at twenty past seven.’

‘Reliable witness, that last one?’ Gill said.

‘Yes,’ Mitch said, ‘local councillor. Martin Bleaklow. Runs the car repair place further down Shuttling Way. Keen to improve the area.’

‘And those sightings fit with the one we already have from the resident, Mr Hicks, and from Rachel,’ Gill said.

‘Were they carrying anything?’ Rachel asked.

‘Possibly,’ Mitch said. ‘Bleaklow thought one of them was carrying a bag.’

‘With a can of petrol in it, bet you,’ Kevin said, smiling.

‘Excellent,’ said Gill. ‘So, bring me Greg Tandy, then let’s find out how the Perrys explain their clothes being awash with Shell FuelSave unleaded.’

Rachel tried Janet before she and Mitch left but it went to voicemail. Janet was probably driving in, couldn’t answer the phone, well – wouldn’t answer the phone – conscientious to a tee. The result of having a schoolteacher for a mother, Rachel reckoned, instead of a… the word slapper came to mind. Rachel felt a tinge of guilt. Sharon wasn’t exactly a slapper, or a slag or a tart, all names her dad threw about once Sharon had gone off and left them. Likes a good time, that’s all. Was that fair? Rachel was sick of thinking about it.

Greg Tandy’s address on Manton Road was a couple of minutes from the Manorclough precinct. To get there they took a turning just after the warehouse on Shuttling Way, fire engines at work there.

‘It’s not still burning?’ Rachel said to Mitch.

‘Probably be there as a precaution. You can get secondaries, somewhere cinders smoulder then they get going again. Could be an insurance job, the developer went bust last year. No one’s going to take it on in this climate.’

‘What was he developing?’ Rachel said.

‘Luxury housing,’ Mitch said.

Rachel snorted. ‘On Manorclough? They’d need bloody high fences, watchtowers and sub-machine guns to keep the lowlifes out.’

‘Concierge, gated. Even so, the demand’s not there. Places sitting empty in Manchester, aren’t there?’

‘Left after the bridge,’ Rachel said. ‘You don’t think it’s the Perrys, then, the warehouse?’

Mitch shrugged. ‘No idea. Maybe someone wants us to think that. Opportunistic.’

She could imagine them doing it though. Revved up after the murder and burning the chapel, wanting to see a bigger, fiercer fire. In the back of her mind a note of caution sounded – they hadn’t got proof yet that the Perrys had shot Richard Kavanagh. They were still only suspects. ‘Listen to your instincts but follow the evidence,’ that’s what the boss always said.

Tandy’s house was the end terrace, there was room to park close by. The place was in reasonable repair, clean net curtains at the windows, UPVC windows and doors, unlike those at some of the neighbours’ who still had wooden frames with peeling paint.

Mitch’s press of the doorbell produced a swift response. A woman with curly red hair, freckled complexion, smoker’s lips and crow’s feet answered. She’d a jacket on, bag in hand, as if she’d just got in or was about to leave.

‘Yes?’

‘Mrs Gloria Tandy?’ Mitch said.

‘Yes?’

‘DC Ian Mitchell and this is DC Rachel Bailey, Manchester Metropolitan Police. Is your husband in?’

Rachel caught the look, disappointment followed by resignation dulling her eyes. A slow blink. ‘No,’ she said.

‘When are you expecting him back?’

The woman took a breath, her nostrils flaring. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘Don’t know.’

A brick wall, thought Rachel. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Or any good for that matter.

‘We’re anxious to speak to him as soon as possible,’ Mitch said.

‘Course you are,’ she said sarcastically.

‘Perhaps you have a mobile phone number we can reach him on?’ Mitch was unruffled.

She moved abruptly, opened her bag and pulled out her phone, reeled off a number which Rachel entered into her own handset. The phone number which she had given them was not the same as the one that Neil Perry had used to call Greg Tandy. Tandy probably used a separate phone for anything illicit. Many criminals did, often throwaways, unregistered, dumped as soon as they’d served their purpose.

‘If your husband does come in before we manage to contact him, please ask him to get in touch.’ Mitch handed her his card; she took it without reading it.

‘You’re probably wondering what all this is about,’ Rachel said, because the woman hadn’t asked, hadn’t shown the slightest curiosity or made the usual gabby demands and defences that they heard so many times when talking to suspects’ families.

‘I’m not interested,’ she said bitterly. ‘Whatever it is, it’s between you and him.’ Not quite wifely solidarity.

There was a sound upstairs, footfall, and Rachel glanced quickly at Mitch.

‘Someone upstairs?’ Mitch said.

There was no shock or guilt in Mrs Tandy’s face as she said, ‘Our lad.’

Connor, Rachel remembered. The kid she had chased on Thursday, the gobby one with the bike. Knowing the kid was Tandy’s son made sense of his attitude when Rachel had first confronted him. The kid would’ve grown up with his father in and out of prison, mistrusting authority, with a bloody great chip on his shoulder about the police. Rachel was the law, the filth, the dibble, five-oh.

‘Perhaps we could see him?’ Mitch said.

Gloria Tandy waited a moment and Rachel could almost smell the resentment. She wasn’t obliged to comply. All these families knew their legal rights, forwards, backwards and upside down. But Mrs Tandy, rather than telling them to fuck off, cooperated, called, ‘Connor, come here a minute.’

Movement and then the boy, bare-chested, in bare feet, jeans hanging low, boxers visible, trotted downstairs. The scrape on his arm and the cut on his cheek scabbed over.

‘What?’

‘We’re looking for your dad,’ said Mitch.

‘Not here,’ the boy said.

‘You know where he is?’ Rachel asked.

A shrug, ‘No.’

He didn’t give a toss, Rachel thought, then she saw the bravado of his gaze slip momentarily and she realized he was unnerved, scared. She decided to push him.

‘I’ll ask you again, Connor, do you know where your dad is?’

‘No,’ he said hotly, ‘I told you.’

His mother intervened. ‘He doesn’t. I don’t. That’s the truth.’

Something off-key, Rachel thought. What? Do they really know where he is?

Mitch obviously picked up on the atmosphere too. ‘You won’t have any objection to me checking that Mr Tandy isn’t in the house?’

‘You calling us liars?’ Connor said.

‘Connor,’ his mother said sharply, ‘leave it! Go ahead,’ she said to Mitch.

Rachel followed and they scanned each room upstairs and down, finding no other occupants.

‘Look, I have to get to work,’ Gloria Tandy said.

‘Thanks, we’re done here,’ Rachel said.

‘There’s pizza in the freezer,’ his mother told Connor. ‘Here,’ she got money from her purse, ‘get some milk.’

She dithered for a moment, uneasy about leaving them with the boy. So Rachel nodded to Mitch and they made a move outside. Mrs Tandy got into her own car, a tatty-looking Ford, and turned the engine over several times before it started.

Connor emerged on his bike. He hesitated for a moment at the pavement’s edge then bounced his front wheel up and down.

‘What do you want him for anyway?’ he said, squinting a little. The sky was bright, the sun struggling to break through the clouds.

‘Just want to talk,’ Mitch said.

‘He might be able to help us,’ Rachel said.

‘About that murder?’

‘You heard anything about that?’ Rachel said.

‘I’m not a grass,’ the boy said quickly.

‘So you have?’ He looked down at his bike, twisted the handlebars this way and that. ‘You picked someone up, it said on the telly. Is it the Perrys?’

The names had not been disclosed but it must have been easy enough for Connor to guess the ‘two twenty-two-year-old men’ were the twins, given their reputations and previous conviction for arson.

‘Why would you think that?’ Rachel said, seeing if he’d let something slip.

‘A friend of mine, she seen them being arrested. Everyone knows it was them. It is, isn’t it?’

Neither Mitch nor Rachel replied.

Connor sniffed, ducked his head and hawked on the pavement. Nice.

‘How come people think the Perrys are involved?’ Rachel said.

He jerked his shoulders up and down in a quick shrug. ‘My dad goes up the King’s on Wednesdays.’

When he’s not inside?

‘Right,’ Rachel said. Was he trying to give his dad an alibi? Did he think he needed one? Did he imagine they wanted Tandy for the murder itself? ‘We just want to talk to him, you tell him when he gets back.’

As they watched Connor speed off over the cobbles, Rachel said to Mitch, ‘Greg Tandy, he’s only been out nine days and already he’s back in the life.’

‘Doesn’t know anything else,’ Mitch said.

‘That lad’ll go the same way most likely, in his father’s footsteps.’

‘That’s it, look on the bright side,’ Mitch joked.

She looked over to the ruined warehouse, across the strip of canal with junk floating on the surface.

What bright side? she thought. Buggered if I can spot it.

Close to dawn, Janet had gone back with Elise to Vivien and Ken’s. Ken, in the kitchen on the phone, had begun to alert the wider family to the tragedy. His deep voice rumbled in the background.

Vivien was agitated, exhausted too. Circles under her eyes, hands shaking. Her mother was on her way, their son, away at uni, was getting the first train.

We all want our mothers, Janet thought, when something like this happens. That comfort, that unconditional love.

‘She just collapsed?’ Vivien said, uncomprehending.

Elise looked at Janet. Janet nodded – tell her.

‘Like she had a fit,’ said Elise. ‘Her eyes… went back in her head and she was jerking about.’

‘You were out?’ Vivien asked Janet. Her face crumpled with incomprehension.

Out? ‘Still at work,’ Janet said, ‘Elise rang me at ten thirty.’

‘What about Adrian?’ Vivien said.

‘He was with Taisie at home,’ Janet said.

‘And the girls? Olivia was sleeping over.’

Janet’s heart sank. Elise closed her eyes, tensed her mouth, fighting tears.

‘We thought Elise was staying at yours after the party,’ Janet said. ‘We didn’t know you were away.’

‘What party?’ Vivien said.

Oh Christ. It just gets worse and worse. She should’ve checked, she should have rung and spoken to Vivien, she should not have taken Elise’s word for it. I trusted her. I trusted her and now this.

‘I’m sorry,’ Elise said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

It was mid-morning when Janet finally got Elise home and rang Gill.

‘All right,’ Gill answered breezily, ‘it’d better be good.’

A beat of silence, Janet thinking, Oh God. ‘Elise’s friend, Olivia, there was a party last night. Olivia died.’

‘Middleton Road,’ Gill said, quick as a flash, ‘drug-related.’

‘You heard?’

‘Division’s got it. Oh, Janet, I am so sorry. How’s Elise?’

‘You can imagine. So I probably need to stay with-’

‘Of course. Don’t even think about doing anything else. High profile,’ Gill said, ‘could get kicked up to MIT.’

‘I know,’ said Janet.

‘We couldn’t take it, I don’t think,’ Gill added, ‘not on top of everything else. If we did you wouldn’t be anywhere near it.’

‘I know that.’ A conflict of interest. With Elise a potential witness and Janet being close to the victim and family, any official involvement by Janet could prejudice the inquiry.

‘Legal high apparently. Fucking drugs, eh?’ Gill said. ‘The family have been informed?’

‘Her parents, yes, still people to contact,’ Janet said.

‘OK. I’ll let everyone know the situation.’

‘Thanks, Gill.’

Gill put the phone down, thinking of Elise, of the dead girl. All that promise, a whole life snuffed out. She thought of the lectures she herself had given Sammy. People equated legal with safe. But the drugs were anything but. Horse tranquillizers, plant food. A cocktail of chemicals untested and with unpredictable effects. The police, the law, were constantly playing catch-up, banning those substances linked to death or serious side effects, but it was always too little, too late. The manufacturers could take the same recipe, tweak it, alter one ingredient or the proportion of others and hey presto it was legal again. Potentially deadly.

Her phone rang. She sat up straighter and answered, ‘Gill Murray.’

‘Rita in forensics. Good news.’

‘Go on.’

‘As you know, there was no gunshot residue on the swabs from the two suspects, however-’

‘I love that word, however,’ Gill said.

‘However,’ Rita laughed, ‘we did find gunshot residue particles on the right-hand wrist cuff and sleeve seam of Neil Perry’s hooded jacket and on the right wrist cuff of Noel Perry’s jacket. The wrist is ribbed and particles were trapped there.’

Gill knew the physics. The act of firing a gun generated a powerful cloud of dust that settled on the hands, forearm and front of the person using it, but the residue was heavy and soon dropped off unless the structure or design trapped it. For that reason cuffs, pockets, seams, zips and buttons were all places worth examining. And if the suspects put their hands in their pockets they could transfer GSR there from the hands.

‘Of course, we can’t give you a time frame,’ the forensics woman said. ‘But it tells you they each fired a weapon at some point recently.’

‘Perfect,’ Gill said, ‘absolutely bloody perfect.’

15

Rachel began with the weapon. ‘Do you own a gun?’

‘No.’ The sore by Neil Perry’s mouth was bigger, more inflamed. She imagined him picking away at it all night in his cell.

‘Have you ever fired a gun?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Think carefully,’ she said.

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘You sure about that?’ Rachel said.

‘Yes.’

‘I am now showing the suspect document 15. This is a report from the forensic science lab. Tests were carried out on your clothing. The report notes gunshot residue on your hoodie. Can you explain that to me?’

There was a light in his eyes. He was enjoying it, the fucking toe-rag. Most of the scrotes she interviewed, there was resentment or rage, derision, but behind that there were flashes of fear and anxiety or horror at what they’d done. But with Neil Perry there’d been no whiff of that. It went beyond cocky. Something missing, Rachel reckoned, something wrong with his wiring.

‘No idea.’ He gave a slow shrug.

‘Not something you’re likely to forget, firing a weapon. Noisy, deafening actually. You still don’t remember?’

‘Nothing,’ he said.

She wanted to wipe the smile from his face. It seemed like the tighter the corner he was boxed into, the more he relished it.

‘This report also analyses the distribution of the gunshot residue particles. The greatest concentration are on the cuff of your right wrist, inside and out, and in the stitching of the lining up to the elbow. The only way you get that pattern of dispersal is when you fire a weapon. How do you account for that?’

‘Dunno,’ he said, ‘weird, innit?’

Rachel moved the report to one side, took a slow breath in and out then another. She placed a second report on the table.

‘I am now showing Mr Perry document 19. This is another report from our forensics lab, detailing trace materials found on your clothes. Tests found traces of accelerant, namely petrol, on your trainers and your jeans. How did that get there?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘There were splashes of the petrol on the front of your jeans. According to the forensic investigators, this pattern is consistent with what would be found when someone was throwing petrol from a container in order to start a fire. Is that how it got on your jeans?’ Rachel said.

‘Could’ve been a barbecue,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The petrol, maybe we used it to get a barbie going.’ He shrugged.

‘Did you?’

‘Don’t remember.’ A slack smile on his face.

He was pratting about but she knew she mustn’t let him get her back up and interfere with the agreed strategy for the interview. ‘Did you know Richard Kavanagh?’ Rachel said.

‘Who?’

‘The victim of the shooting in the Old Chapel.’

‘No.’ He shook his head.

‘You might have known him as Rodeo Rick.’

‘Didn’t know him,’ he said. Still the denial.

‘Tall man, long hair, wore a cowboy-type hat.’

‘I don’t know no manky dosser, they eat crap out of bins, full of fleas, in’t they. They eat roadkill.’ If Kavanagh had been anything like Rachel’s father, food would be an incidental, an add-on to be considered once the savage need for a bevvy had been attended to.

‘A quantity of illegal drugs were recovered from your room,’ Rachel said. ‘Can you tell me where you obtained them?’ They had debated whether to introduce the drugs or not. Godzilla thought they should. The possibility of a drugs war, robbery or a deal gone sour could still give them motive.

‘But we’ve nothing to put Kavanagh next to drugs,’ Rachel had argued.

‘Yet,’ the boss said. ‘Could be a dead end but we go down it and have a good root around and find out instead of just ignoring it.’

Neil Perry laughed and scratched again. Hope he’s got scabies, Rachel thought, and felt her skin prickle in response.

‘Was it your intention to supply drugs to others?’ she said.

‘No, personal use only,’ he said.

‘Excessive amounts for personal use.’

‘Bulk buy,’ he said, ‘like with the cash and carry, makes sense.’

So he’d cop for possession but Rachel wasn’t interested in that, she wanted him for murder.

‘Tell me about Wednesday,’ she said.

‘Went to my gran’s.’

‘We have an independent witness who saw you on Low Bank Road at twenty past seven in the evening,’ Rachel said.

‘Can’t have,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘We also have an independent witness who can place you in the grounds of the Old Chapel ten minutes later, at half past seven that evening.’

‘They’re lying.’

So it went on and on, round and round until Rachel felt dizzy.

Gill was preparing notes in support of the application for a warrant of further detention. The court, specially convened as it was a Sunday, would want to know what inquiries had been made and why more time was needed.

She sketched out her summary of the evidence, the narrative she would present.

She started with the eyewitness sightings of Noel and Neil Perry: Councillor Bleaklow placed them in the centre of Manorclough on Low Bank Road at twenty past seven, Mr Hicks in the chapel grounds at half past seven and Rachel had seen them in the alley at twenty past eight. All those sightings contradicted the alibis given by both mother and grandmother, which in turn contradicted each other.

However, Gill drummed her nails on the desk: eyewitness testimony rested to a great extent on the clothing worn by the suspects. And although the jackets were distinctive and had to be ordered specially online, they might not be the only ones in existence. But then what were the odds of two people, identical in height and weight, within five hundred yards of the Perrys’ flat and the scene of the murder, wearing similar jackets?

Next was the preparatory act, the meeting with Greg Tandy, a man out on licence after serving a sentence for firearms offences. That still begged many questions, not least what the meeting had been about. While the police suspected Tandy of supplying the gun to the brothers, it was only a suspicion, no hard evidence to support it.

Much stronger was the forensic evidence: gunshot residue on the clothing of both suspects indicated the use of a firearm. No time could categorically be given as to when the gun had been fired but Gill was sure that they would be able to secure expert opinion that, taking into account the amount of particles found, the incident had been recent, a matter of days rather than weeks or months.

The presence of petrol traces, in significant amounts, on the jeans and trainers of the brothers, petrol containing the same additives as in that used to start the fire, while not conclusive was persuasive evidence. They shared everything, she thought, the gunshots, one each, taking turns, chucking the petrol about. In it together.

What was still missing was motive. No known link between the parties. Could it be a stranger murder? They often occurred as a result of fights, fuelled by booze, testosterone and rampant stupidity. Men were twice as likely to be the victims. Or predator killings. Was this one of those? She would talk to Lee again about the psychology of the crime. He could do the next interview with Noel if Janet was still off. Focus on that line of questioning for a while.

Gill stretched her arms, reaching up towards the ceiling, flexing her fingers. She checked the time, texted Sammy that she wasn’t sure when she’d be home and not to save her any casserole, then she began to type up her report.

Rachel was on the doorstep, looking slightly sheepish.

‘I wasn’t sure whether to come,’ she said. ‘If now is not good-’

‘No, come in,’ Janet said, glad to see her.

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’

Taisie bobbed out from the kitchen. ‘Hi, Rachel.’

‘All right. How you doing?’ Rachel said.

Taisie adored Rachel, had a girl crush on her, and clung like a limpet whenever Rachel called round.

‘I’m good.’ Taisie nodded. ‘I’m in the school play. And I got on the football team.’

‘Get you!’ Rachel said and Taisie beamed and blushed; all the mardy, awkward, bolshie side of her had disappeared.

‘Who is it?’ Janet’s mum came into the hall from the lounge. ‘Oh,’ her voice fell with disappointment. If Taisie thought Rachel was the bee’s knees, Dorothy thought she was a walking disaster.

‘It’s Rachel, Mum.’ Dorothy just didn’t get the friendship. Not that Janet did all the time. She and Rachel didn’t always see eye to eye on things. They were at different stages of life, different backgrounds, but something just clicked.

‘We’re off to get some air,’ Janet said.

‘At this hour?’ Dorothy said.

‘They called it walking the dog in my day,’ Ade grumbled from the living room. In my day? He talked like an old fogey sometimes.

‘Won’t be long,’ Janet said, glancing at Rachel who looked lairy, wondering if she’d put her foot in it. Janet gave her a little nod, it’s OK. Grabbed her coat.

‘It’s raining,’ Dorothy said.

‘It’s stopped, actually,’ Rachel pointed out.

Dorothy rolled her eyes. Before there could be any more sniping Janet opened the front door and got them out of the house.

She took a gulp of air, cool, damp, and another.

‘How is she?’ Rachel took her arm.

‘Asleep now. Oh God, I need a drink. Come on.’ As they walked up to the junction where the pub was, Janet filled her in. ‘You know Elise never puts a foot wrong, quick to point the finger, moral high ground and all that, then… it’s like she’s fallen off a cliff, Rachel.’ She thought of the look on Elise’s face, the deep sadness but worse than that the shame. ‘She lied to us about everything, about this party, she said there was a group going and everyone’s parents had said yes. But Vivien and Ken, Olivia’s parents, had gone off on a romantic weekend in Edinburgh thinking Olivia was having a sleepover at our house. Next thing they know, Olivia is dead. And of course Elise had told us she was staying at Olivia’s.’

‘That’s an old one,’ Rachel said.

‘Yes,’ Janet said. Her own teenage years had been disruptive in a very different way, the breakdown at sixteen had seen her in a mental hospital for several weeks. Recovering from that, supported by Ade, she’d never really had the wild teenage rebellion other people did.

The pub was warm and not too busy. Janet and Rachel got seats in one of the old-fashioned booths, benches with wooden panelling and frosted glass above which afforded them some privacy.

Rachel went for drinks. Janet asked for a double gin and tonic. She closed her eyes for a moment, images from the last twenty-four hours crowding in her head, the shocked tableau of youngsters at the party, Olivia on the stretcher, Elise sobbing when she learned about the death, Vivien alternately bewildered and frantic.

‘Where did you get the drugs?’ Janet had asked Elise when they got home from the hospital. Ade there, looking thunderstruck.

Elise had tugged at her hair, stalling.

Janet waited. Something she was used to, practised in. One of the tools of her trade as an interviewer. Patience, silence.

Ade opened his mouth to speak, Janet moved her hand, don’t.

‘This girl came to the party, she had them. She went round seeing what people wanted, I wasn’t that bothered but…’

‘Go on,’ Janet said gently.

‘Olivia really wanted to try something. She wanted me to buy some Ecstasy.’

‘You bought them?’ Janet said.

‘I had the taxi money,’ she said in a small voice. For the mythical taxi home. Except they’d intended staying out all night. And Olivia wouldn’t have had extra cash with her parents unaware of the party plan.

‘I wasn’t sure about it,’ Elise said, ‘but the girl said she’d got some Paradise. Legal. It would be like taking an E.’

Ade’s face drained as he heard the casual reference. Janet shot him a warning look.

‘It was legal,’ she said, ‘that’s why we picked it.’

‘It was bloody stupid,’ Ade growled, ‘that’s what it was.’

‘I know that now!’ Elise cried. ‘But Olivia was so… she really wanted to take something and everybody else was.’

‘Who was this girl?’ said Janet.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.’

‘Not in school?’

‘No.’

‘Was she there when Olivia got sick?’ Janet said. ‘No, she went, she wasn’t there long, just while she was selling things. Will they arrest me?’ She looked terrified, fists clenched together, mouth wide with panic. Shaking.

‘No,’ Janet said. She had moved closer and held her daughter by the shoulders. ‘But they will want to talk to you and you must tell them everything, OK?’

‘Bought you some crisps,’ Rachel said, breaking Janet’s train of thought. ‘Keep your strength up.’

‘They’ll do the job,’ Janet said sarkily.

‘Be grateful,’ Rachel said, ‘or I’ll eat them.’ She studied her friend. ‘Do they know what she took?’

‘Not yet, probably some variant on meow meow. Elise described it as a small white tablet with a palm tree on, called Paradise. Sound familiar?’

Rachel nodded. ‘Like we found at the Perrys’. Town’s awash with it, according to the drug squad, it’s new on the scene.’

‘She kept saying it’s legal. I said to her so’s bleach and caustic soda and ground glass – it doesn’t mean it’s safe. They’d have been safer with something illegal. At least people know what to look out for, how to deal with it, and if there’s a dodgy batch around word gets out.’

‘Elise took it too?’

‘Yeah, she felt weird,’ she said, ‘but you would, wouldn’t you, when your mate-’ Sudden tears robbed her of speech. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Rachel chided.

‘What’s so awful is there is nothing, nothing Elise can do to make it right. It’s final. And she’ll have to live with that for the rest of her life.’

‘It wasn’t her fault though,’ Rachel said.

‘She lied-’

‘Yes, but she didn’t force Olivia to take the stuff, did she?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘She’d no idea it’d cause any harm, or she’d not have taken it herself,’ Rachel said.

‘OK,’ Janet agreed.

‘She got help as soon as she could, yes?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘So, it was an accident, you have to tell her that. How could she have known? No one could,’ Rachel said.

‘She’s so hard on other people, she’ll be the same with herself.’

‘Can’t think where she gets that from,’ Rachel said.

Janet put her glass down. ‘I’m not hard.’

‘Sure you are. Principled, you’d call it, conscientious.’

‘Fair-minded, maybe,’ Janet countered.

‘If you like. Keep my seat warm.’

Janet watched Rachel head off for a smoke. She was right. Horrible and tragic though Olivia’s death was, it was an accident, but Janet didn’t know how on earth she’d get Elise to accept that. Dorothy wasn’t helping matters. She regarded drug use with the same unreserved horror others might have for bestiality or cannibalism.

‘It’s part of the landscape,’ Janet tried to tell her. ‘Everyone who tries it doesn’t end up addicted to crack cocaine or turning tricks to fund a heroin habit.’

‘Some will,’ her mother had retorted. ‘You never messed about with drugs, did you?’

‘Only Librium and Mogadon,’ Janet said dryly.

‘Don’t be flip,’ Dorothy said. ‘You were ill. I mean for kicks.’

‘No, Mum, but these days I’d be a rare exception.’

Ade hadn’t said much at all up to that point but he chipped in, ‘She needs to take responsibility for her actions.’

‘How exactly?’ Janet demanded. ‘She’s torn apart with guilt, she’s lost her best friend. How does she take responsibility for that?’

He had evaded the question, he was blustering, and she saw that. He was worried for Elise, felt terrible about Olivia, but he didn’t know how to deal with it so he was talking rubbish. ‘I never wanted her to go in the first place.’

‘She’s too young,’ Dorothy had said.

‘We’re not doing this,’ Janet had said. ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing but it gets us absolutely nowhere. They went. It happened.’ Any further discussion was postponed by the arrival of Taisie, who had been sitting with Elise in a rare show of sisterliness.

Now Rachel came back into the pub smelling of cold air and tobacco smoke.

‘Has she been interviewed?’ she asked.

‘In the morning,’ Janet said.

‘It’s a lead story.’ Rachel showed Janet her phone. The tabloid headline: LEGAL AND LETHAL. OLIVIA’S TRAGIC DEATH.

Janet looked at the photo, the face she’d known so well. It wasn’t fair. That poor girl. Oh God. ‘Tell me about work, tell me something else, distract me.’

‘You don’t want to go back home?’

‘One more.’ Janet drained her glass.

‘Sure?’ Rachel stood up.

Janet nodded. Gestured to Rachel’s phone. ‘Can I? Mine’s charging.’

‘Course.’

She bent her head and began to read, gritting her teeth together, determined not to cry.

Dave’s mother answered the phone to Gill and went to fetch Dave without bothering to make any small talk.

The night before Gill had spoken to Sammy about his dad, tried to tread a careful line, not wanting to slag Dave off but needing to explain to Sammy that his father’s drinking was out of control.

‘How did he seem these last few visits?’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. Why?’

‘He’s drinking more than he should be. Drinking in the day too. If you find him like that – well… He needs some help.’

‘What, like rehab?’

‘Yes,’ Gill said.

Sammy nodded.

‘You’re not surprised?’

He wrinkled his nose. A look in his eyes. Guilt? ‘What?’ she said.

‘Last time, he was off his face,’ Sammy said. ‘I went round and he was crying and apologizing and talking about how he’d messed everything up. So I left and went round to Orla’s instead. Dad didn’t rearrange on Thursday, I just didn’t go. I couldn’t face it.’

‘Oh, Sammy, why didn’t you say?’

‘I don’t know.’ He gave a sigh. ‘It creeped me out.’

‘Look, you don’t have to put up with that, nobody does.’ She could imagine how distressing Sammy would’ve found it. His father sobbing and sentimental, full of self-pity and theatrics.

‘I’ll tell him you won’t be seeing him again until he’s straightened himself out if that’s what you want?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

Oh, you lovely, lovely boy. ‘Course I am,’ she said. She could see the man he was becoming, not just his father’s son or hers but his own person. See how the disaffection of the last couple of years was being replaced by engagement now he’d found something he wanted to do. Happy with Orla too. She was so proud of him. And she would not let Dave undermine all this. If it meant keeping them apart then so be it.

‘Dave, I’m coming round, OK?’

‘Sure, yeah.’

She couldn’t tell if he was sober or not. ‘About half an hour. See you then.’

‘We could go out,’ the first thing he said when he answered the door.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Gill said, stepping inside.

They went into the living room. There was no sign of Dave’s mother, which was a relief; the conversation Gill intended to have was best conducted in private.

‘You want a drink?’

Seriously? ‘No,’ she said, sitting in an armchair. He sat in the other one. His eyes were slightly bloodshot but he had shaved, and she could smell aftershave. Sprucing himself up for her?

The room was tidy enough, no bottles or glasses half drunk.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘about yesterday, your office.’

‘You remember, do you?’

He stopped, disconcerted, but ignored her question. ‘It won’t happen again.’

‘You’ve no way of knowing that.’

‘You have my word,’ he said, palm open, begging her to believe him.

‘Worth precisely nothing,’ she said.

He coloured. ‘If you came here to insult me-’

‘I came here to talk some sense into you. Your drinking is out of control, you are risking your job, your livelihood, never mind your health.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ he said, ‘it’s just been a rough patch.’

‘Hasn’t anybody said anything at work?’

‘I’ve a week’s leave.’

‘So what – this is your holiday? The lost weekend writ large? The bender of a lifetime? You need help.’

There was a pause. Dave stared at her, jaw working, temper in his eyes, then his expression softened. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve made a mess of things – you, Sammy, Emma, the little one. I know I’ve let everybody down.’ He took a breath. ‘It was a mistake, Gill, leaving you. But I think if you and Sammy, if we could just try again-’

Aw fuck no. ‘Stop there,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to waste my breath explaining to you all the many, many reasons why that is not going to happen. But it is never going to happen. It is over. Dead.’ How many times?

His mouth tightened. ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’

‘I’m here because whatever else you are, you are still Sammy’s dad and I don’t want you to chuck that away.’

‘I’m not chucking anything away.’

‘Dave, he doesn’t want to see you. You get pissed and emotional and it freaks him out.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about-’

‘He told me.’ She fought to keep her voice level. ‘You have a problem, accept it, and deal with it. You won’t see him until you do.’

‘You’re giving me a fucking ultimatum!’ He stood up, walked to the bay window, turned back to face her. ‘I can stop, I can cut down. You’re blowing it out of all proportion.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘How long before you fuck up at work and have that meeting with HR? How long before your mother kicks you out and you end up sleeping in some B &B?’

‘That’s never going to happen, I won’t let it happen,’ he insisted.

‘You won’t be able to stop it, not unless you stop drinking. This murder I’m working, that guy had a business, family, the works. He lost everything. He was living on the streets-’

‘That’s not me,’ he said.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Dave. You’re not that stupid. You’ve seen it happen, Willie Deason, Patrick Barker. Or what about Julia Dalloway?’ Officers they’d both known, two of them dead from drink-related illnesses, the third a recovering alcoholic, a dry drunk back on the job. ‘There’s a million excuses,’ she said, ‘boozy lunches, a snifter at sundown, something in the morning coffee, something to celebrate, to commiserate, a good day, tough day, take the edge off. I like a drink as much as the next person but you are drinking way too much. You’re off your face. Every day. Every time I see you.’

‘Look,’ he said angrily, ‘if you’ve said your piece-’

‘You pissed yourself,’ she said quietly.

He glanced down. Oh, sweet Jesus. ‘Not now. When you came to my office. You couldn’t stand, you fell over and you pissed your pants.’

He shut his eyes and walked back to the chair and sat down. He didn’t speak for long enough, his gaze lowered so she could not read it, and when he finally looked up she saw tears in his eyes. Gill’s stomach flipped over. Her instinct was to go to him, comfort him, but she knew that would be dangerous and could be misconstrued. Used to buoy up Dave’s fantasy of a second chance with her.

‘It’s all shit,’ he said gruffly.

‘That’s the booze talking,’ she said. ‘Sort it, Dave, AA, rehab, whatever you decide but don’t get in touch until you have. I mean it.’

He glanced at her then away, the tension in him gone, and an air of defeat in its place.

She left him sitting there. She could not judge whether anything she’d said had sunk in. Had no idea whether he’d heard the wake-up call or whether he had further to fall before he acknowledged his addiction and took action towards recovery.