‘Vaughan – did he stab her?’
Rachel shook her head.
‘That it?’
Rachel wished she’d never raised it now.
‘There’s thin and then there’s non-existent,’ Janet said.
‘But two attacks within eighteen months, both girls from-’
‘They’re not the same,’ Janet insisted. ‘Besides, you run an analysis of crime stats and feed in that demographic and you know what you’ll get. The very fact that they were in care increases the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime, including a victim of serious sexual assault, several times over. Dig enough and you could find more rapes, domestic violence, assaults – it doesn’t mean we’re looking for a serial offender.’ Janet looked at her, face screwed up in disapproval. Snotty cow. ‘Did you have anyone in the frame?’
‘The neighbour, for a while. He’d done a stretch for previous and he’d been hassling her, but we had nothing. She refused to press charges, wouldn’t tell us who’d done it. She knew him, I’m convinced of that. Sean Broughton picked Lisa up when she was still in Ryelands. Maybe he’d done the same with Rosie. You’re going there anyway, to Ryelands, aren’t you? It wouldn’t do any harm to ask if Sean was known to them back then.’
‘DNA?’
‘The rapist used a condom. We had traces in the flat from the neighbour, but that could have been from a previous visit. He used to call round for a cup of tea, he said, watch porn together. We’d unidentified DNA too – hair and skin cells, no hits. Case is still on file. She was a fruitloop, anyway. The whole thing was a mess.’
Janet was shaking her head. ‘Sean’s in the system. If he was your rapist, there’d have been a match.’ Rachel could see it in her eyes, on a hiding to nothing, mind made up. Maybe someone made a mistake, Rachel thought, it has been known. She gave it one last try. ‘Look, I could at least find out if Rosie knew him.’
‘You could,’ Janet said flatly, ‘or you could actually do what you’re supposed to be doing.’
When Rachel got back to her desk, she’d an email through from Lisa’s phone company, a document attached, with the cell-site locations. She pulled up the mapping software and entered the coordinates. The first call, to Speedy Cabs, was made close to the end of Cross Street, near the Arndale Centre and the big wheel. The other calls, the ones Lisa received from Sean and Denise, were both taken at points along Oldham Road on the way to Fairland Avenue. It dovetailed with their information so far. Rachel felt a glow of satisfaction.
Rachel went and knocked on her ladyship’s door. Her Maj waved her in, impatient rather than welcoming. Rachel held up the printout. ‘Cell-site locations, it’s all good.’
Gill nodded, pointed to a tray on the table by the filing cabinet. Returned to her screen.
You’re welcome and fuck you too, ma’am.
Kevin was waiting for her as she came out. ‘We’d better get going. You and me, a dark room, popcorn…’ He gave a sleazy grin.
‘Zip it, pal,’ Rachel said, ‘or I’ll zip it for you,’ letting an edge of the streets through. And she was that close; another inane bleat and she’d lamp him. ‘I’m off for a fag, see you in the car park.’
Luckily for Kevin, luckily for Rachel’s prospects in the Manchester Metropolitan Police, he took heed. Sidled off muttering something about lezzies under his breath.
13
RYELANDS HOUSE WAS a converted Edwardian manse set in its own grounds near Phillips Park in Newton Heath. It would originally have been the mill owner’s property, built away from the cluster of narrow streets on the other side of the park. Nice view over the trees to the gasworks.
Janet had had dealings with the institution back when she was on Division. Mainly petty burglaries that led to the kids there.
The place was well maintained, with landscaped gardens and a play area in the large front plot. Shiny red double doors between the pillars of the porch leading into the house. Double-glazed and carpeted.
Marlene was the manager, had been for years. She remembered Janet and they exchanged pleasantries before getting down to business.
‘I liked her,’ Marlene said, ‘and she didn’t make it easy. I think, with more support, if she had been able to stay off the drugs, she might have done all right, but…’ she sighed. ‘The boyfriend, Sean Broughton – worst thing that could have happened. Lisa didn’t let anyone get close, trusted no one, and then rolled out the red carpet when he came along.’
‘What about the family? She spent some time with her mum?’ Janet had read through Rachel’s report on the interview with James Raleigh, noting the key facts ahead of this visit.
‘The mother tried, but, well, not exactly gifted with parenting skills. The acting out at the onset of puberty – Lisa wanted attention, she needed boundaries. The early disruption had left her quite damaged. Denise Finn didn’t have the wherewithal. Problems of her own. Then the brother’s suicide…’
‘He hung himself,’ Janet said.
‘From a lamppost outside his mother’s house.’
‘Oh, God.’ Janet tried to imagine it, opening the door or the curtains and seeing that, facing that, Taisie or Elise swinging. She squashed the thought. But how would you ever forget the image? The rope or the belt, the body suspended, still, the face distorted. How did you ever reach a place where the earlier, innocent photos of school and holidays came into your head, instead of the ghastly death mask?
Janet had sat with victims’ relatives in the past, heard them say, I just can’t get it out of my head, seeing her that way. Every time I close my eyes… One distraught young son had seen his mother beaten to death with a poker by her ex-husband: It’s stuck there, he cried, I can’t remember what she really looked like, she’s just gone. At least with Joshua, he’d looked peaceful, as if he was sleeping. Janet swallowed, fixed on what Marlene was saying.
‘Nathan had problems of his own, was off his head on everything going. He’d started shooting up, stealing off Denise, mugging people. We offered Lisa bereavement counselling. I think she went a couple of times.’
‘Tell me about Lisa’s drug use when she was here,’ Janet said.
Marlene raised her hands, a gesture of frustration. ‘It’s impossible to police. We’re a home, not a secure unit. Drugs are out there, they get in here. Lisa was caught with aerosols, glue, weed – well, most of them try weed,’ she said as an aside.
‘Any Class A?’
‘That only started once Sean came on the scene. We could see the signs. But she was never found with any.’
‘He supplied it?’
‘That’d be my guess,’ Marlene said.
‘James Raleigh had been talking to her about rehab,’ Janet said.
There was a scuffling sound at the door and it swung wide open. An Asian girl wearing an outsize tracksuit and a red baseball cap burst into the room. ‘Marlene? Oh, soz.’
‘I’ll be a few more minutes, Punam.’
‘Cool.’ The girl flicked a peace sign in their direction and left. Janet smiled; the energy, the liveliness, reminded her of Taisie on a good day.
‘She’s a doll,’ Marlene said. ‘She’ll make it.’ She stretched in her seat. ‘Lisa’s social worker, Martin Dalbeattie, retired this spring. We’ve still got his number – I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you, if you needed to know any more details about her time here.’
Janet thanked her and would have left it at that, but Rachel’s persistent questions meant she had to ask. Just to convince herself there was nothing to it. ‘Sean Broughton – had he been around here before he latched on to Lisa?’
‘Don’t think so.’ Marlene thought harder. ‘No.’ She leaned forward, her head tilted, as if she’d share a confidence. ‘And I am the all-seeing-eye,’ she laughed.
It was a miracle Denise Finn was still talking and walking, given the trauma she’d been through. Where did she summon the strength to carry on? Perhaps after Nathan had died, she kept going for Lisa. But now? I couldn’t do it, Janet thought, I would just lay down and die, a bit of help maybe, from the car exhaust, stones in pockets, pills and booze. But it wasn’t true. She’d weathered hard times, survived. Not only with the baby, but before then. When she got ill.