Cath Staincliffe - Bleed Like Me

He glared at her, then away.

‘Mr Cottam, I will sit here asking you these questions all day and all night for however long it takes. My duty as a police officer is to preserve life, to prevent crime. I’m committed to saving the lives of two tiny little boys who, through no fault of their own, have been abandoned. I hope Theo and Harry are still alive. I’m not prepared to accept otherwise unless you give me proof. So I will continue to act as if they are alive. I’m asking for your help. You can do the right thing, as a loving parent would do, and end this now. Tell me where to find them.’ She sat and let the silence swell to fill the room till the pressure in the air seemed to alter, making it dense and oppressive, but still Owen Cottam sat impassive and unyielding.

A cordon had been erected preventing public access to Kittle Lake and a dive team from the fire and rescue service were preparing to search. Gill had spoken to Mark Tovey, who told her that the biggest problem would be limited visibility. It always was with water. The lake was not particularly deep but silt would soon cloud the water and the search would be as much a tactile as a visual exercise. They had three hours of daylight left, at best. Only enough to cover a fraction of the area. She wanted someone from her team down there, a direct conduit, able to shortcut questions if the divers found anything.

She called Rachel into her office. ‘If I task you with attending the search at Kittle Lake can I trust you not to turn it into some extreme sports event? You won’t try and join in? No misguided heroic stupidity?’

Rachel had the grace to flush. ‘You can trust me, boss.’

‘Have you completed your written report on the Porlow incident?’

‘Yes, boss.’

She chewed at her lip, stared at the floor.

‘Sometimes you act like you’re bullet-proof, Rachel. You’re not; none of us are. You saw what happened to Janet. I thought that might have taught you a lesson. Stab us and we bleed. In this job we need three hundred and sixty degrees thinking. A situation like that, there is you,’ Gill demonstrated with her hands, ‘and there is the suspect. You,’ Gill pointed at her, ‘you think in a straight line, like a dog after a rabbit. But if that dog is running through a minefield then it’s boom! Pedigree Chum. Three hundred and sixty degrees; not just your target but what’s either side. Who’s behind you. Who has your back. You have to think of other people. Impact assessment. Risk assessment. Not there for fun or because some wanker with a set of shiny pencils wants to make life harder. There for a reason. How do I drum it into you?’

‘I know, boss, I’m sorry. Have you decided what-’

‘No. When I have you’ll be informed.’

‘Yes, boss.’

The lake was reached by a narrow track from the car park, where a sign told visitors that the fishing rights belonged to the Lundfell Angling Association and gave a phone number to ring.

Rachel met the man coordinating the search, Mark Tovey, who took her to see the tread mark which a simple cast had proved to be a match to the front nearside tyre on the Mondeo.

The extent of the lake was visible from the shore where she stood, larger than she’d expected and oval in shape. At the far end the land rose up and was covered in trees and the right bank above the car park was wooded too. But the left-hand side was bare scrubland. A path circled the water and small wooden platforms here and there marked fishing spots. A large flock of Canada geese, maybe twenty, seemed unruffled by the activity and continued to peck at the fringes of the lake and the grassland around and leave curds of greeny-brown shit everywhere. There were some sort of seagulls too, squawking away. The sky felt low. Fat grey clouds moved overhead, pushed by the wind that sent waves rippling across the surface of the water, breaking up the reflections there.

Rachel watched from the lakeside as the dive team went about their work. There were no buildings in sight, which was an added attraction if you were looking for somewhere to dispose of a body, or two. Rachel kept coming back to the bin liners. If the children had already drowned, why buy bin bags? Unless he’d drowned them in very shallow water and now had two corpses to dispose of. It only took a couple of inches, didn’t it? Toddlers drowned in the garden pond, in the bath. As a beat copper, way back, Rachel had once been sent to exactly such a scene. A grandmother it was, babysitting, and the granddaughter playing in the bath. ‘Two minutes,’ the woman kept saying over and over, ‘I was only out of the room two minutes, to answer the phone.’ The phone call had been the child’s mother, calling to check if everything was all right, to say night night. Away with friends at a hen party. Two minutes. And the child was dead.

Mark Tovey told Rachel it would be a slow, methodical operation, and after watching for a while longer she decided to wait in her car, out of the cold. There she’d be out of sight of the lake itself, so she asked him to come and get her if anything turned up. She spent some time working through her notebook, then phoned the funeral home. When the man answered she said, ‘I spoke to you yesterday. Bailey. You quoted two thousand pounds for a basic cremation, fees and the coffin and everything. We’d like to go ahead, next Friday if you can.’

‘We can do ten thirty,’ he said. ‘Would you want extra cars?’

‘No, just one, to the crematorium.’ She gave Alison’s address.

She rang Alison at home, expecting to get the answerphone with it being office hours, but instead got Alison herself.

‘Oh, hi, it’s me,’ Rachel said. ‘You skiving?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Alison retorted. ‘Little one’s been throwing up all night. Playing nurse.’

‘Right, it’s all sorted, set for ten thirty a week tomorrow. Car will come to yours about quarter past. Buffet after.’

‘Okay,’ Alison said. ‘I’ve been trying to think if there’s anyone else we need to tell.’

‘Such as?’ Rachel said.

‘His mate Henry. Do you remember Henry?’ Alison said.

‘No.’ The name meant nothing to Rachel.

‘I don’t know if he’s still around.’

‘What’s his surname?’ Rachel said.

‘Don’t know, he was always known as Big Henry. Look, maybe Dad had an address book in his room. Is his stuff still at the B &B?’

‘Not sure,’ Rachel said. She’d a hazy memory of Tintwhistle saying that the B &B wanted the room clearing.

‘We should find out, see what there is,’ Alison said.

We again. Trying to rope Rachel in. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anything there,’ Rachel said. ‘You can always tell them just to get rid.’

‘Without even going through it?’ Alison said.

Rachel thought of the cuttings. Her stomach twisted at the idea of Alison poring over those, where that might lead, lectures about how much he cared really and loneliness and favouritism and whatever else.

‘Leave it with me,’ Rachel said. ‘If I find Big Henry or anyone else, I’ll let you know. I just wanted to tell you about the funeral. And it’s all paid for.’

‘Thanks. What do I owe you?’ Alison said.

Rachel told her.

‘Bloody hell!’

‘There’s no rush,’ Rachel said.

‘Right, okay.’

‘Got to go,’ Rachel said. ‘See you later.’

Her phone rang immediately. Godzilla. ‘Boss?’

‘Rachel. No news, I assume?’

‘Nothing. They’ve not been in long, though,’ Rachel said.

‘We’ve soil analysis from Cottam’s footwear, different make-up from that found in the Mondeo tyres.’

‘Well, he had been driving around in the Hyundai, hadn’t he, different places, to the retail park and that,’ Rachel said.