It’d broken her heart when they came to arrest him. When he was charged with armed robbery.
Rachel closed her eyes. ‘No,’ she said to Alison.
‘But Rachel if you’d only just-’ Alison tried to prolong the conversation. Rachel hung up. Armed robbery: a robbery where the defendant or co-defendant was armed with a firearm.
She opened a bottle of wine and closed the curtains. Sat there drinking and channel-hopping until the bottle was empty, the central heating had gone off, the cold was stealing into the room and she’d a halfway decent chance of getting a couple of hours’ kip.
On the drive home, Gill ran through arrangements for the following morning. Sammy needed to go into the fracture clinic and she was torn – she could take him herself but she needed to be with the team, not desert them when the case was feeling blocked. Or she could ask Dave – tell Dave – but then he might delegate the task to the whore. The whore would have to take the brat with her, too. And who knows how long they’d be there. Could be hours, long enough to go insane and start eating the other patients; certainly long enough to show Pendlebury the downside of stepmummyhood. In fact, she mused, maybe that was the solution: kill her with kindness.
By the time Gill had picked Sammy up from the friend he’d gone home with, making fulsome apologies for the lateness of the hour, she had decided to send Dave on hospital duty and see what materialized.
He wasn’t best pleased when she told him: ‘But it’s slap bang in the middle of the day!’
‘You can tell the time, very good!’
‘Can’t he get a taxi or something?’
‘You’d let him go on his own?’ she tried to shame him.
‘It’s not as if it’s an operation or anything,’ he said.
‘I’ll cancel it, shall I? Risk him having a wonky wrist for the rest of his life.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Dave said. ‘Tell him I’ll pick him up at break.’
Or your driver will? Gill thought of Pendlebury as a chauffeur girl. She was so young, could have been Sammy’s sister, Dave’s daughter. Gill wondered if anyone seeing Dave with the spawn-child assumed Dave was the granddad. Cherish that thought.
‘This murder you’re on,’ he said, ‘all very smash-and-grab.’ Implying that arresting then releasing two suspects in quick succession was chaotic in some way. ‘Lost your touch?’
Shows how much you understand. Gill hated it when he talked about her work, especially as she knew in her bones she was the better copper. Dave at chief superintendent grade was out of his depth, wearing armbands in a tidal wave.
‘Just remind me, Dave – how many murders you been SIO on? Three, wasn’t it, last count. Stick to what you know – then again, your division,’ she countered, ‘reported crime up two per cent, rest of us still on a decrease. There’s always early retirement, Dave.’ She hung up, then wondered if he knew when break-time was.
Sammy said goodnight. She pointed to her cheek, demanding a kiss.
‘How’s it feel now?’ she asked him.
‘Just a bit achy,’ he said. ‘What are we doing at Christmas?’
Not snowboarding, pal. ‘Grandma’s,’ she said, ‘I told you.’
‘Forgot.’
‘Why?’
‘Emma was asking.’
Was she now? Planning to poach him? ‘OK,’ she said brightly. ‘Well, that’s what we’re doing. And you can have your mates round one day in the holidays – be a break from all that revision you’ll be doing.’
Shouldn’t it be getting easier, Gill thought, the whole post marriage stuff? When she heard of people splitting up amicably, it was beyond her grasp. She couldn’t ever see a time when she and Sammy would play happy blended families, popping round to Dave’s for a jolly Christmas dinner or to celebrate New Year. Auld Lang Syne. Gill would sooner feed the tart mistletoe stuffed in her turkey and stick holly in Dave’s Y-fronts.
Dave’s little dig about the inquiry needled at her even as she tried to distract herself watching the rolling news programme. She thought her way through the evidence they’d now assembled, the timeline that had tightened, the forensics that gave weight to witness and suspect accounts. Preparation for the morning to come when she’d walk it through with the team and recalibrate the direction of the inquiry.
James Raleigh would walk. It would rankle with Rachel, but Gill hoped the girl would heed her advice, have the emotional maturity to accept the situation.
When she finally got to bed, the wind kept her awake, buffeting the house, sending something, a plant pot perhaps, rattling round the garden, then chucking hail like shotgun pellets against the window.
It was easy to feel self-doubt in the dark, in the wee, small hours. She hadn’t lost her touch though; that was just Dave being a dickhead. She’d show him; she’d show them all. It might take weeks or months, years even, but they would find Lisa’s killer and make it stick.
45
ROSIE’S FUNERAL WAS at Blackley crem. A public health funeral, which meant the state was picking up the bill. Rachel arrived late and the only people there were the three lads she’d seen at the canal. At least they’d come, even though they hadn’t a decent suit between them. In the daylight they had that pinched, spotty, malnourished look of kids half-feral, poor complexions courtesy of crap food and drug abuse.
They regarded her warily as she took a seat in the chapel, wondering maybe if she’d bust them. Not appropriate, in the circumstances.
The coffin, plain and unadorned, was at the front of the chapel. There was a small bunch of dark red roses in cellophane on top. The sort that have no scent. Rachel imagined the three lads clubbing together, or maybe nicking a tenner from one of their mums’ purses to get the bouquet. The generous wreath she clutched felt ostentatious now, as if she’d set out to outdo them, which was the last thing on her mind.
The minister was saying something about Rosie having a brief life but now being at peace. He didn’t make reference to her troubles or the manner of her death. Another person arrived, so Rachel wasn’t the last. Marlene. She sat with Rachel, which was a bit full on. Christ, there were enough empty seats.
Rachel kept her jaw clamped tight as the man asked them to remain silent for a moment and think about Rosie. What a sodding waste, was all Rachel thought. Steeling herself against those images that wouldn’t go away, highly coloured almost Day-Glo in her mind. The scale of scars etched on Rosie’s forearm, her eyes darting to the corners of the room, the still, silent figure on the ground, her gauzy dress fluttering, and the first sight she’d ever had of Rosie, curled and motionless in the bedroom, slippery with blood.
Then it was done. The minister explained that Rosie’s ashes would be put in the garden of remembrance and he thanked them for coming.
The boys got up and ambled out, self-conscious and awkward.
‘Is there any news?’ Marlene said to Rachel.
Rachel shook her head. Only bad. The fuckwit who raped her is Teflon-coated, nothing sticks. And we’re getting nowhere fast with Lisa Finn.
Rachel and Marlene placed their flowers on the coffin.
Outside the day was bleak, wintry, the trees bare of leaves, stirred in the wind, the sky grubby.
‘You were there when she died?’ Marlene said.
Rachel hunched up her shoulders, trying to get warm. ‘Yes,’ she said. Not that it’s any of your business.
‘Your boss told me. I’m sorry, that must have been awful.’
Rachel nodded briskly. There was something in her eye, a speck of dust or something. Thickness in her throat. She blinked and sniffed. The three lads had reached the gates, matchstick men.
‘She tried before,’ Marlene said, ‘when she was with us.’
Rachel looked at her, then away to the graves among the grass. ‘You’re saying it’s not my fault?’ She sounded bolshie, hadn’t meant to.