Blood on the Marsh Page 9

  CHAPTER 7

  She was there at the game today. Hayes and Yeading in the FA Trophy. It was a rubbish game, but we won 1–0. I saw her with my binoculars. I always take them to a game. That way if there’s an incident I can get a good close look. Like if someone is injured, or if I think the ref is going to send someone off. And especially if we get a penalty. If they get a penalty, I always shut my eyes, but when we get one I use my binoculars to watch. So I used my binoculars to look at Dad and Vickie in the executive box. I wish it had been Dad and David up there, but he said there were only two tickets. And, of course, Vickie is his real daughter, whereas I am just his pretend son. He didn’t say that, but that’s what he thinks. I know.

  But guess who else was there? It’s unbelievable. Mother! Not Mum, but Mother. My real mother. Why was she there? I don’t understand. Dad said it was a special treat organized by someone at Sunnymede where Nan Nan was. They had hired a whole executive box for the game. He was given two tickets because he has been working there. So how come Mother was there? Has Mother told them? She said we shouldn’t, not yet. So how come she was there? Are they plotting something? Maybe Mother isn’t my real mother at all. Maybe she’s been lying to me all along. I need to be careful, really careful. None of them love me. They only pretend.

  ‘G … G … God!’ Roy Hillerby was excited. He stammered when he was under stress and he stammered when he was excited. And right now he sure as heck wasn’t under stress. ‘D … d … did you see his face? Of c … course you did. It was an absolute cl … cl … cl … classic!’

  ‘Calm down, Roy.’ Bella Sinclair spoke firmly, as if trying to control a hyperactive kid. ‘Just take a moment and calm down.’

  Hillerby took not a moment, but a swig from his can of lager. It was only a small one, out of Bella’s fridge, but he’d had a couple of pints before the game, and then one at half time, and it was all starting to have an effect. He couldn’t hold his alcohol as well as he liked to pretend.

  He could see it all, as clear as day. It had been priceless – the look on Greenleaf’s face when he walked into the executive box with Bella as his guest. He was glad she had been up for it. Why the hell shouldn’t she come with him? The fact that she’d been suspended meant nothing. Innocent until proven guilty, wasn’t it? He smiled to himself, his eyes still shut. Not that Bella Sinclair was a little Miss Innocent. God no! Maybe she’d let him stay tonight. She’d better. God she’d better, after everything he’d done for her.

  Greenleaf had followed him to the loo at half time, and they’d stood there side by side, pissing the beer away. ‘What the hell are you playing at, bringing Bella?’ he’d hissed. ‘She’s suspended from work.’

  And he’d grinned back. ‘This ain’t work! And she’s my guest anyway. I’m entitled, as much as anyone.’

  ‘You’ll regret this!’ he’d hissed again.

  ‘I think you’ve got a bit of splashback there, my friend.’ And he’d laughed because Greenleaf’s pale chinos were speckled with urine.

  Jim had been there too. He was a good laugh. Brought his daughter along too. Twelve going on eighteen. Legs up to her arse. She wouldn’t be a little Miss Innocent either for long. Played the shy one, kept looking down, but that only made look her look like a tease.

  ‘What are you grinning about, Roy?’ The words were real, not the product of his memory and imagination. Hillerby opened his eyes and saw Bella watching him.

  ‘Just reliving every little detail. Reliving and savouring it.’

  ‘Greenleaf won’t forget, you know. You want to watch your back.’

  Hillerby nodded, and took another swig. ‘I know.’ His voice was suddenly serious. ‘You need to watch yours too, Bella.’

  ‘Thank you, Einstein, for your words of wisdom.’ Her tone was sarcastic, belittling, designed to keep him at a distance.

  They both fell silent. Hillerby downed the last of his pint. She sipped at her ginless tonic, her eyes on him, but her thoughts elsewhere.

  ‘Can I stay over?’ he said, grasping at the straws of opportunity.

  She frowned as she considered this. And then her mobile rang, saving her the need to answer.

  ‘David!’ She was genuinely surprised. She had given him her number, but she hadn’t expected him to call. She had hoped he would, of course, hoped that he would choose to make contact, but she hadn’t really thought he would. Not yet.

  Hillerby saw the delight in her face, and felt a surge of jealousy. He wished he could listen in. There was a torrent of words from the caller. That much Hillerby could hear. But not what those words were.

  ‘I can explain, David,’ Bella was saying firmly. ‘Just calm down….’

  But there seemed to be no prospect of David calming down. Hillerby belched loudly, angered by the intrusion. It had been going so well. Why did the creep have to ring now?

  ‘Why don’t you come round to my flat?’ Bella was saying. ‘We can talk about it over some food?’

  The torrent stopped.

  ‘You live in Barns Road, don’t you David? Well you’re only a few minutes’ walk from my flat.’ She spoke calmly, soothingly, in a manner that was familiar to Hillerby. She used that tone with him sometimes, when she wanted him to do something for her.

  ‘Well that’s settled, then,’ she said, winding down the conversation. ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes.’

  She looked across at Hillerby. ‘Sorry, Roy. My son is coming round. I think you’d better go.’

  ‘I thought.…’ But his sentence died before it could take form. She had spoken to him in the tones she had used with David. Softly, firmly, and – as he knew from experience – implacably.

  ‘I just need a pee first,’ he said, conceding defeat. ‘Then I’ll shove off.’

  ‘Thanks, Roy,’ she purred. ‘You’re a star.’

  Once inside her flat, Ania Gorski dropped her bag on the floor and went to the bathroom. She locked the door and sat on the toilet.

  There was no real need to lock the door. It was her flat, and only she had keys to it. Sometimes, she deliberately left the bathroom door not only unlocked, but wide open while she urinated. It felt good, liberating even. But not today. Today she slammed the door shut and locked it, and sat on the toilet. She didn’t urinate. She had not, she thought, had even a glass of water since she got out of bed. She should drink, she knew that, but her nausea was too overwhelming, and it was only as she sat there, that it finally began to recede. Locked inside her bathroom, locked inside her flat, she felt something approximating to safety. In the car with him, as he had driven her back to Oxford, she had been unable to think. She had shut her eyes in the hope that he would not try and talk to her, and had prayed for everything to be better – whatever that might be. She was not a praying person. She called herself a Catholic when required to fill in a form with the religion question on it, but that was as far as it went. For her parents and for her, that was all it had ever been.

  She needed help. Not divine help, but practical, human help. That is to say, advice. Guidance. Someone to tell her: Do this or do that; dump him or – God forbid – don’t dump him; go to the police or don’t go to the police. There was only one person she could think of. She was older and surely wiser than her. She had always been kind to her. She was, she supposed, a friend. She would ring her.

  She stood up. The nausea, she realized, had receded. She knew what the next step was, and that in itself was a huge relief. She unlocked the door, and went through into the living room. Her bag was where she had dropped it. She kicked off her shoes, and knelt down on the floor next to it, scrabbling around inside until she had found her mobile. She found the number she wanted, and rang it, oblivious to the irony that as she did so she was on her knees.

  ‘I’ve been praying.’ It was the first thing Mrs Holden said when her daughter reappeared at 5.35 p.m. that Sunday evening. She was sitting in the chair by the side of her hospital bed, and her face was beaming.

  The detective inspector smiled w
eakly in reply. Such comments by her mother still had the capacity to catch her off guard. ‘What about?’

  ‘That the doctors will let me home tomorrow.’

  ‘What do the nurses think?’

  ‘Sister says they very likely will. They need the bed space, anyway. But there’s nothing like a bit of prayer to move things along.’

  Her daughter nodded, but said nothing. Her mother’s tendency to speak in such terms was both disturbing and a little embarrassing. She looked around the ward, in case anyone should be listening. The woman opposite was asleep, the woman next to her was watching TV, and the fourth bed in the area was empty.

  ‘Well,’ her daughter said finally, ‘the question then is: how are we going to get you better? I think I’ll have to ask for some compassionate leave and—’

  ‘No, you most certainly will not!’

  Susan Holden was taken aback by the sharpness of her mother’s intervention. ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because you’re in the middle of a case. And what do you think your Superintendent Collins will say? You’ve only just had six months off….’

  ‘My sergeant can handle the case. It’s only an old—’ Holden ground quickly to a halt, suddenly conscious of what she had started to say.

  ‘It’s only an old lady,’ her mother said quickly. ‘An old lady who would have died sooner or later anyway. Isn’t that what you mean? So it doesn’t matter if she was murdered or not.’

  ‘Of course it matters.’

  But her mother had not finished. ‘Suppose it was me. Suppose I had been that old lady. Would I be worth only a sergeant?’

  Holden shook her head. ‘That’s not what I meant. What I meant was, it’s important that you are properly looked after when you get home.’

  ‘Don’t worry. That’s all arranged. Doris came in earlier, and she is going to take charge of me and organize a rota.’

  Holden bowed her head in submission. Of course, the redoubtable Doris Williams would have been in to see her. And of course within minutes they would between them have organized a complete recovery programme. And no doubt after that they would have prayed for every other poor soul in the ward.

  ‘So all you need to do is get me home tomorrow, and make sure there’s some fresh milk in the fridge. Do you think you can manage that?’

  Holden felt her hackles rise. What was it about her mother that even in these circumstances, she had the capacity to drive her nuts. ‘Of course I can, Mother.’

  Her mother smiled and settled back into her chair. ‘Well, that’s settled then.’

  ‘And I am going to find out who killed Nanette Wright. You can be damn sure of that.’

  ‘Good!’ There was another beatific smile. ‘That’s my girl.’

  CHAPTER 8

  I told them at the end of Sunday lunch. I had just eaten my pudding – apple crumble with custard – and I was licking my spoon clean like I always do. But it wasn’t just food in my stomach. Have you seen the film Alien, where a thing bursts out of the chest of one of the spacemen? Well I felt like that would happen to me too if I didn’t tell them, if I didn’t bring it out into the open.

  So I said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, David,’ she said. But she wasn’t looking at me. It was like she was humouring me.

  ‘I bet you’ll be cross,’ I said. I wanted to get her attention.

  ‘I bet I won’t,’ she said.

  ‘It depends what you tell us,’ Dad said.

  I didn’t look at him. I try not to look at him. I looked across the table at Vickie. She was making a face at me. Not a silly face, a serious one. I think she knew what I was going to say, and she didn’t want me to. But I’m grown up now, and I can say what I want.

  ‘I’ve met my mother,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ This time, Mum did look at me.

  ‘I mean what I said.’ It felt good. I was telling them. ‘The other day I met my real mother, the one who gave birth to me.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ Dad said. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘You shouldn’t swear,’ I said. It was one of the rules in Mum’s house. No swearing.

  ‘It’s my fucking house, so I’ll do what I want in it.’ He glared at me. His face was red, and so were his stupid sticky-out ears.

  ‘Shut up, Jim,’ Mum shouted. She hardly ever shouted, so I knew she was upset. Then she turned towards me and smiled her comforting smile.

  ‘David, how do you know she’s your real mother?’ she said.

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘Did she?’ Mum smiled again. ‘David, darling, are you sure? You know how it is – people sometimes make fun of you and fib and—’

  ‘She’s my mother. She gave birth to me.’ I was shouting now. Why do people never believe me? ‘She wouldn’t lie. She’s lovely.’

  ‘Lovely?’ Dad bellowed. He suddenly stood up at the end of the table and slammed his fist down on it. ‘Lovely? The woman who gave birth to you wasn’t lovely. She was a crack head. Why do you think you were adopted? Not because she was a lovely mother!’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I shouted.

  ‘Well, it’s true. I can tell you a lot more.’ And he did. More lies came pouring out of his mouth, while Mum burst into tears and shouted at him to stop.

  But he didn’t stop and I wasn’t stopping. I wasn’t going to listen to his lies any more. I jumped up and ran out of the room. I ran to the front door, and then I ran all the way to my flat. And I locked myself in, and I turned off my phone.

  When DS Fox arrived at Cowley police station on Monday morning, and found a yellow sticker on his monitor with the words ‘Ring Holden’ on it, his immediate assumption was that there had been complications with her mother. That was his first thought, and it proved to be an accurate one.

  ‘They kept her in all weekend,’ Holden confirmed, ‘and now I’ve got to wait and see the consultant whenever it is that he does his rounds. But hopefully they’ll be letting her out later today.’

  ‘So you’ll be in tomorrow?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  After the tedium of Friday, when he had uncovered nothing of interest at Oxford Waste Ltd, Fox felt an unaccustomed sense of disappointment. The investigation was slowing down, and he realized, with sudden insight, that it might not be going anywhere. An old woman who would have died soon enough has died from a morphine overdose, and the chances of them finding out who was responsible are reducing with every passing day. And in the greater scheme of things, did it really matter? In any case, one day very soon the chief super would ring up, mutter about budgetary constraints, and move them on to other things.

  Fox went to the loo, got himself a coffee, and returned to his desk. His mobile, which he had left on his desk, was apparently able to detect his approach, for it beeped politely as he walked in. It was a text message, from Holden: ‘Check out Featherstone!!!’ A smile crept across Fox’s face. Three exclamation marks! He liked that. He liked the fact that Holden was getting bored with sitting in the hospital and so was resorting to sending him texts and telling him what to do. Others might have resented it, but he grinned as he replied with three of his own exclamation marks: ‘Will do, Guv!!!’

  Three was also the number of hours that passed before he actually followed up her orders. The first was taken up with emails, the second with a fire alarm which went off and then proved to have been a false alarm with no obvious cause, and the third drifted by as he read right through several sheets of paperwork relating to an adjustment in his pension arrangements. He then he went to get another coffee via the loo (again). He is, he knows, putting things off. He checks his mobile. There are no new messages. Fox is not a man to encourage messages, but he rereads Holden’s again. What does she mean by ‘Check out Featherstone’? He isn’t psychic. Check out his history? His personal life? His movements on the day of Nanette’s death? Could Feathertsone have wanted Nanette dead? Or is he an incompetent doctor covering his
tracks?

  Well the place to start is Sunnymede. He gets up and instantly feels better. He will spend the rest of the day snooping round Sunnymede, asking question and checking records. And he will start in reception.

  Twenty minutes later, he is chatting to Mary. Mary likes to chat. It was one of the qualities that got her the job as receptionist. After he has signed himself in, he answers her questions, about where he lives, what he does when he’s not being a policeman, and whether he prefers the football or the dogs. He answers happily, until she asks him what his star sign is. Only then does he bring himself back to the job in hand.

  ‘Mary,’ he says, ‘does everyone who comes in here have to sign in?’

  ‘Of course,’ she smiles. ‘In case there’s a fire.’

  ‘Does that include the postman, for example?’

  ‘No. There’s no need. He comes in, leaves the mail, and goes.’

  ‘Suppose he needs to use the loo?’

  ‘Then I write him on a yellow Post-it note, and when he comes out I throw it away. I am very organized.’ She smiles as she says this last thing. But it is not the cheery welcoming smile she had employed when he arrived, but one that challenges him to prove her wrong.

  ‘Can I see the list for Tuesday 1 December?’

  She has a large folder open in front of her. She turns back through several pages and then turns it round.

  ‘There you are.’

  There are names, times in and out, car registration numbers, and the name of the person being visited. He runs his finger methodically down the list, and stops near the bottom. Dr Featherstone had come in that day at 4.05 p.m. and had left at 5.35 p.m. But there was no car registration number recorded, and no person visited.

  ‘We know which his car is,’ Mary says quickly when he remarks on this. ‘There’s no need for him to write it down every time.’

  ‘It’s not his usual visiting day.’