‘Must have been after she got home,’ Rachel said. ‘There’s no point in the shopping trip when she had an opportunity to take drugs.’
‘Is that why she put off Sean coming round sooner?’ Janet said. ‘Hogging it?’
‘Or sharing it with someone else? Her dealer?’ said Pete.
‘She had sex with someone,’ Kevin said.
‘Or was raped,’ said Rachel. Still wanting to factor in the Ryelands link, even if only in her own head as yet. That won her a look from Janet.
‘We’ve not got Sean supplying, as such,’ Pete said.
‘So who was?’ Janet said.
Gill’s phone went and she took the call. Held up a hand to quieten the room. ‘Andy?’ she listened, eyes alert, raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s one for the mix!’ She ended the call, looked at them. ‘Neighbour opposite swears blind that there were no shopping bags when Lisa got out of the cab. How does that work?’
‘She made a detour en route, visited a fence,’ said Janet.
‘Then the cabbie’s lying,’ said Rachel.
‘Was he a scrote?’ Gill asked Janet.
‘Not on first impressions – regular bloke. But if the neighbour’s right,’ Janet went on, ‘Sean’s telling us he left the flat with non-existent shopping.’
‘OK,’ Gill said quickly, ‘when would someone admit to a crime they didn’t commit?’
‘Cover up something else,’ Janet said.
Like murder, thought Rachel.
‘Misdirect us,’ said Pete.
‘Protect someone else,’ Lee said.
‘Now I really need some more time,’ Janet said.
‘Too right,’ Gill said. ‘And our rodent friend has described Sean Broughton selling the phone, so you can chuck that into the mix. OK? I’ll get busy on an arrest strategy.’
Gill sought Janet out. ‘For all he’s yanking us about, we’ve still no physical evidence tying Sean Broughton to the murder itself. We’ve found him present and correct all over the body, but he can still argue innocence. They were a couple. The lubricant, the condom…’ Gill said, something she’d been musing over. ‘Suppose Lisa did have someone else in the flat. She puts Sean off, shags mystery man, who leaves, then Sean rolls up, puts it together, kills her in a jealous rage…’ She waited for Janet to raise objections.
‘If she fenced the shopping, we can assume that’s to buy drugs.’
‘Likely,’ said Gill.
‘Lover boy may have been her dealer – or it was another way to make some dosh,’ said Janet.
‘She’d gone on the game?’
‘Would he care?’ Janet said. ‘If they could buy gear as a result, he wouldn’t really mind, would he?’
‘Find out,’ Gill said. Hard to know. A lot of lowlifes pimped out their girlfriends. Sex being the only currency they had. Those without a girl to hand would sell themselves if they got desperate enough. Sex’n’drugs’n’rock’n’roll – nothing glamorous about the scene in north Manchester. Gill checked her watch. ‘If we do go for an arrest, then we go early doors tomorrow.’
Janet said, ‘Dawn raid in December, eh?’
‘Wear your thermals,’ Gill said. ‘Hey, when things are less frantic, we should get out, make a night of it.’
‘I’d like that,’ Janet said.
‘Work round any plans you and Ade have.’
‘No plans,’ Janet said, sounding a bit flat. ‘Can’t remember when we last had plans – least not plans that weren’t about school concerts and dental check-ups.’
‘You do need to get out,’ Gill said, surprised at the tone in Janet’s voice. Janet and Ade had been together for ever, high school sweethearts. And though, in later years, Janet sometimes joked about how mundane her homelife was, it was done in good humour; disparaging, but with affection. Now, there was a bitter edge.
Gill remembered her first meeting with Janet. Janet was in shock. Full-blown shock. The sort that sent the body into physiological protection mode. Gill only had to look at Janet to see: face white as flour, lips tinged blue, the body channelling all available resources to preserve the most basic functions – the beating heart, the blood flow to the brain, the central nervous system. Janet’s pupils were dark as pitch, so that there was only a ring of bright blue iris visible. Her skin, when Gill touched her hand, was clammy, fingers waxen.
When Gill had arrived she was still trying to revive the baby. Kneeling on the floor, the baby on the bed, blowing soft breaths into his mouth and nose. Massaging his chest with the tips of her fingers. Standard first aid.
The doctor was there and a paramedic, but it was finally Gill whose words seemed to reach her. ‘The doctor needs to check Joshua now, Janet, see if anything can be done.’ They all knew it was too late; Janet herself probably did, but Gill saw that so long as she acted as if salvation was possible she did not have to admit the terrible, terrible truth.
Janet had paused in her efforts, turned her stark face, bottomless eyes, to Gill and given the fraction of a nod.
The doctor had calmly assessed the baby, ensuring there was no blockage in the airways, listening for the heartbeat, checking the pulse, conferred quietly with the paramedic for a moment, who then left the room.
‘I am so sorry, Janet, Adrian,’ the doctor said. Ade stood against the wall, his face a mask of pain. He didn’t need telling. ‘But Joshua is dead.’
Janet had closed her eyes, rocked back on her heels.
‘We’ll give you a little time together,’ Gill said.
Janet had climbed up on to the bed and scooped the infant up, one hand behind the boy’s head, the other under his bottom. His limbs were floppy, offering no resistance as she moulded him to herself.
Gill had insisted on medical help, understanding immediately that the needs of the police inquiry were secondary to the safety and the well-being of the young couple.
Gill had not had any children herself back then. It was another four years before Sammy had been born. But she understood Janet’s visceral grief. She’d had no idea Janet was a fellow officer when they first met, Gill responding to the report of a sudden unexplained death, twelve-month-old boy. The death was judged to be due to SIDS. A catch-all for deaths of infants where there was no discernible cause.
Gill was soon working on other jobs, but she kept in contact with Janet, dropping in on her way home from work, imagining the evenings must be hardest. All those hours without the demands of feeding and bedtime and the long, bleak nights when once you would have prayed not to be disturbed, prayed that the child would sleep through.
It was Gill who brought with her tales of police work that permeated the barrier of Janet’s indifference. Only a year apart in age, the women shared the experience of being young female coppers in the 1980s when it was still very much a macho zone.
Ade always welcomed Gill warmly. ‘It really helps,’ he told her one time, ‘you coming.’
As their friendship grew, Janet sometimes opened up to Gill about the impact of losing the baby. ‘My greatest fear was always losing my mind,’ she said once in that plain, quiet way of hers, ‘but this has been worse. What puzzles me is why didn’t it drive me mad? Why haven’t I ended up in the loony bin?’
Gill hadn’t had any slick answers to that. But as she learned about what Janet had been through as a teenager, she thought perhaps the breakdown had left her stronger. It was Gill who coaxed Janet back to work, arguing with her when she questioned whether she was still cut out to be a police officer. ‘I’d say this will only make you better at the job,’ Gill said.
‘You know I never put it on my application form – that I’d been in a psychiatric hospital.’