Slowly, Denise turned her head. Her eyes were heavy and dull, a frown marked her brow.
Rachel’s heart beat too fast. ‘We need to sort this out now.’ She tried to sound calm, like Janet would: ‘Where’s the knife?’ Rachel heard the intake of breath as Janet prepared to speak. Hand still behind her, Rachel splayed her fingers, moved her hand down in a patting motion: Quiet! She waited, every muscle taut, not daring to move, to speak, willing Denise to answer.
‘Under the sink,’ Denise said simply. ‘Behind the bin bags.’
Rachel’s stomach clenched and there was a whining in her ears. She looked at Janet then inclined her head a fraction: Go look.
Janet turned, still holding the coffee. Rachel listened to her footsteps recede. Denise had her eyes closed, brow still furrowed. Her glass with a little drink left in it, pressed to her chest. There was the rustle and clatter of Janet moving things about, then a pause. Footsteps. Janet came back in, her face stark. She gave a nod.
For the second time that week, Rachel Bailey arrested someone for the murder of Lisa Finn. This time it was her mother. This time they had the murder weapon.
‘She just confessed?’ Gill had them all in the meeting room.
‘Not straight out,’ Rachel said. ‘She was raving, you know, going on about Sean then Lisa. Then she said this stuff about how she died like a tart, half naked. We never told her that.’
‘Right,’ Gill agreed.
‘Then when I told her we were testing the chain, it was as though she knew the game was up. She was saying how Lisa had slagged her off and said stuff about Nathan. That’s when I asked her where the knife was.’
‘You jammy sod,’ Gill said.
‘She doesn’t even like you,’ said Janet.
‘She was that drunk, she could barely work out who I was,’ Rachel said.
‘None of it’s under caution,’ Andy pointed out.
‘No,’ Rachel said, ‘but it’s on record in my daybook and it’s on the custody record and she signed both those and that’s after caution. With the knife, the phone call, the fingerprint on the cross – even if she goes not guilty, we’ll have her.’
‘Got to wait till she’s sober,’ Gill said. ‘Then, Janet, you interview her.’
What the fuck! ‘Why can’t I?’ Rachel said. ‘I got the confession.’
‘Janet’s doing it,’ Gill said.
‘But I want-’
Gill glared. ‘Shut it, Sherlock.’
‘It was me she told,’ Rachel said. This is way out of order.
‘Listen, I don’t have to explain my decision to you. But, for the record, Janet is my best interviewer, she has years of experience and this will be an interview requiring a high degree of sensitivity, empathy and neutrality. Qualities you’re well short of. This woman killed her daughter. How can you possibly imagine what that’s like?’
Everyone listening. Rachel felt her cheeks burn. Bitch. ‘And Janet can? Why’s that then, she kill someone an’ all, did she?’
Janet rolled her eyes and Lee put his hand to his head. Rachel felt embattled, knew she was making things worse.
‘No, but she has life experience and skills, the ability to communicate with Denise as though she is a human being deserving of humane treatment, whatever she has done.’
‘I did that with Raleigh,’ Rachel objected.
‘Barely,’ Gill spat the word. ‘You are the wrong person for Denise Finn. Grow up. This is not a debate.’
Smarting, Rachel forced herself to sit there while the discussion continued.
‘We have traces of blood on the knife, matching Lisa,’ Gill said.
‘What did Christopher say?’ Andy asked.
‘Gobsmacked,’ Gill said. ‘She’d not let anything slip to him, just kept on about how difficult Lisa was, how Sean had ruined her.’
‘She’d have let him take the fall,’ said Pete, ‘if we’d charged him.’
‘Could be,’ Gill replied. ‘Shifting the blame: “If he hadn’t been feeding her the drugs, I wouldn’t have got into a barney with her.” Justification. Was the row about drugs?’ Gill asked Rachel.
‘She didn’t say, just that Lisa said evil things about her and Nathan.’
‘Who was also on drugs before he killed himself,’ Mitch said.
‘Families, eh? Who’d have ’em? Right, we’re aiming for five p.m. for interview, and I’m not issuing a press release as yet, so no blabbing about it to all and sundry. Get cracking.’
‘Grab a bite?’ Janet asked Rachel as she stood up.
Rachel hesitated.
‘Don’t sulk,’ Janet chided her. ‘It’ll give you frown lines.’
‘Like I care.’
‘Grapes in ten?’
They were doing Christmas dinner on offer. Two for nine ninety-nine.
‘It’s what we do as a team that counts,’ Janet said, ‘we’re not in competition.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s just… I got nowhere with Raleigh.’
‘Not true; you established his involvement with the victim and eliminated him from the inquiry.’
‘But Rosie-’
‘I know,’ Janet said. ‘We don’t always win, Rachel.’
It’s just not fair. ‘And she’s so bossy,’ Rachel added, ‘she really gets on my tits.’
‘She’s the boss, it’s her job to be bossy,’ Janet said.
‘Nothing ever gets to you, does it?’ Rachel said. ‘All water off a duck’s back. How do you do that?’
‘Underneath I’m paddling like buggery. Besides – our little car crash? I lost it then, you forgotten already?’
Rachel let her have it. She looked across for the waitress, starving now. Thought of Denise, carrying the knife home on the bus, sitting in and waiting for the police to come knocking. ‘Why do you think she did it?’
Janet shrugged. ‘Don’t know, but I’m aiming to find out.’
47
‘YOU UNDERSTAND THE allegation against you?’ Janet began, having done all the preliminaries for the video recording.
‘Yes,’ Denise said. Her fingers were knotted. She was shivering occasionally, though the room was an even temperature.
‘Will you tell me what happened?’ Janet asked. Leaving the territory wide open for her.
Denise took a breath and released it. She held her head in her hands. Janet guessed that the enormity of the story, the task of telling it, defeated her. She didn’t know where to start.
‘You rang Lisa on Monday the thirteenth, at lunchtime,’ Janet prompted.
‘Yes,’ Denise said with a sigh. ‘I wanted to ask her if she’d done anything about getting into rehab, but she bit my head off.’
Janet imagined it: Lisa in the cab, almost home, craving a fix, having scored the drugs she needed, and expecting a visit from James Raleigh. She lied to Sean, needing to keep the coast clear, and next thing her mother’s on the phone. ‘What did she say?’
‘She went off on one, didn’t want me telling her what to do, sick of me interfering. I wasn’t interfering.’ She raised her eyes to meet Janet’s. ‘I wanted to help her. I wanted her to get help.’
Janet nodded slowly, giving her the space to continue.
‘She said she didn’t want to see me any more, that was it, she didn’t want me in her life.’ Denise closed her eyes briefly. ‘I was in a state, really upset. She’s all I have-’ She broke off. ‘I tried to put it… to forget… in my head… thinking of Nathan… I’d done… and she…’ Denise was almost incoherent until she said, ‘She was always pushing me away. I wasn’t going to sit back and let her ruin her life. Find her dead from an overdose, or sent to prison. She was all I had left-’ She broke off again, coughed and cleared her throat. ‘I couldn’t settle. I had a drink, a couple, but it didn’t touch me. In the end I went round there.’