Cath Staincliffe - Dead To Me

It had snowed in the early hours, not much, but enough to mottle the landscape with patches of white, a piebald effect. Slush already on the main roads. On the drive over to the mortuary Janet had explained it was policy to have two FLOs in the initial stages of an inquiry, before they knew what flavour it was. You didn’t know how many next-of-kin might come crawling out of the woodwork, you didn’t know if there was bad blood. Things might kick off.

‘One time,’ Janet said, ‘we had the father at the mortuary, he had been easy to trace. The mother had done a runner years before, leaving the kids…’

Rachel looked out of the window; she knew what that was like, aware of the old twist in her stomach, the anger just underneath. How could she, the bitch? Didn’t want to think about her. Waste of space, waste of time. Dead. Good as.

‘… but,’ Janet went on, turning into the car park near the mortuary, ‘mother pitches up, completely trollied, seen the death on the news, and attacks the father. Only one FLO there and yours truly, trying to pull them apart. I got a smack in the face for my trouble.’

Rachel still thought this was overkill, Denise Finn at the mortuary along with the FLO and two detectives. Three to one. Plus the mortuary staff. Janet obviously thought so, too. ‘You can wait in the car?’ she said when they arrived.

‘You’re all right,’ Rachel replied.

‘Frightened you’ll miss something?’ The woman thought she was a mind reader now.

So they waited, while Denise Finn stood in front of the viewing area where her daughter’s body was laid out. The pale blue sheet pulled up to her neck. Blood washed away, her scuzzy hair combed – they’d have done that for the post-mortem, collecting trace material that might lead to her attacker. Denise Finn wore the same clothes as the previous evening, perhaps she had not slept. Perhaps she was a mucky one. She was huffing and puffing, a tissue balled in her hand. The FLO, Christopher Danes his name was, asked her the question: ‘Can you tell me if this is your daughter, Lisa Anne Finn?’

‘Yes,’ Denise said in a sob, her shoulders heaving. The FLO put his hand on her shoulder, suggested she sit down for a minute. She stared at him, looking lost, he repeated the question and she nodded. He showed her into the visitors’ room and came back out. The mortuary assistant closed the blinds. Rachel heard the squeal of the trolley as he wheeled it to the freezer.

Rachel’s phone went. Alison calling . She let it go to voicemail. Her sister could talk for England; she went on about how overstretched she was at work, how big her caseload was, yet she still found time to make social calls in the day.

Janet spoke to the FLO: ‘We’d like to talk to her again.’

He nodded. ‘We’re going back to the house now.’

‘How’s she been?’ Janet said.

‘Not said much,’ he said. ‘Dumbstruck.’

‘She fit to talk?’ Janet checked.

‘Just about. She’s on sedatives, as it is. GP’s been, given her some sleeping tablets.’

‘I get to listen again?’ Rachel said on the way up, hoping she was wrong.

‘I think that’s wise,’ Janet answered. ‘You’re not exactly going to be her favourite person, are you?’

‘She’ll have forgotten by now,’ Rachel objected, ‘with all she’s got going on.’

‘You think?’ Janet gave her a knowing look. ‘You don’t give a toss, do you?’

‘We’re police officers, not agony aunts,’ Rachel said. ‘She can’t be much of a mother, can she? If Lisa was taken into care.’

‘Maybe Lisa was hard to handle. You can’t go making assumptions. We don’t know these people, we don’t know what their lives are like.’

‘Got a pretty good clue – trash.’

‘An interview is a conversation,’ Janet said, ‘whether it’s a witness or a suspect, it is a conversation – not a confrontation.’ Repeating it as if it were some mantra she’d learnt. ‘They need to trust us, we show respect, we listen, we don’t judge.’

‘I know.’ Rachel flung her head back against the headrest.

‘I don’t think you do,’ Janet said steadily. ‘Your body language, your tone of voice… If you’re sat there thinking, “What a slimebag, what a pitiful excuse for a human being”, and you let it show, then you won’t get that conversation.’

Rachel got her phone out, had enough of the lecture, listened to her voicemail from Alison. Hi, it’s me. We’ve got vouchers for BOGOFs for the new Vietnamese place in Moston, use by the end of the month. Thought maybe you and lover-boy would like to make a foursome. You can’t keep him hidden for ever . She gave a grating laugh. Or are you ashamed of us ?

Yes. Truly, madly, deeply. It would be a horror show, Alison and Tony talking school admissions and tracker mortgages and offers on patio furniture from Wickes, and Nick strangling her with his eyes. Cottoning on that this was the Bailey family. With their tiny little lives. This was where Rachel had come from. The underclass, grotty estate on the wrong side of Middleton. She didn’t want him to think of her that way. She was different from Alison, from Dom. Hadn’t even told him of Dom’s existence. And she was way different from her parents, who didn’t even deserve the title. Langley was the past. She’d locked the door on it, she didn’t need Alison blurting stuff out now. Amusing anecdotes of free school meals and scraping by in hand-me-downs, and knock-offs from the market. Rachel was making something of herself. Her dad was still knocking around Middleton. No fixed abode. Half a chance she’d get a call-out one day and find him. Sudden death. Wouldn’t be that sudden really, been killing himself for years on the booze and the fags. Alison tried sorting him out every once in a while. Get him in a flat, take him to the hospital. Playing happy families. Same as Alison kept visiting Dom. Deluded.

If she ignored it, Alison would keep nudging: Did you get the message? Have you decided ?

Rachel sent a text: No can do, him away, me overtime .

Best kept separate. Some things wouldn’t mix, like putting lemon juice with milk: whole thing curdles.

The small room smelled sickly, stale, fruity of booze. There was a glass, sticky with fingerprints, and a bottle of sherry on the side table. The air was humid, condensation on the windows, a towel on the radiator.

The FLO left as they arrived, aiming to sort out some nebby neighbours whose offers of help were simply a way of having a good nosy.

‘Can you tell me about Lisa?’ said Janet, starting wide, letting Denise choose where to begin, what tack to take, which memories to share.

‘What about her?’ Denise asked.

‘You told me yesterday that she had been in bother, messing with drugs.’

‘That’s right, and Sean, he put her up to it.’

‘Did he? Why do you say that?’

‘She wasn’t doing so bad till she started going with him. It’s his fault,’ Denise said.

‘What’s his fault?’ Janet said.

‘That this… that she…’ It wasn’t unusual for those left behind to blame whoever was at hand. ‘I told her to get shot of him. He’s a junkie,’ Denise said. ‘He dragged her down in the muck with him. They was offering her rehab, but she wouldn’t listen… If she can just…’ She ground to a halt. Janet saw it almost like a truck hitting a wall. The impact striking the woman again, the reality. Lisa. Dead.

‘How would you describe their relationship?’

‘A bloody disaster,’ Denise said. She cast about, found her cigarettes and lit one. Janet waited.

‘Mrs Finn, do you have any reason to think Sean had some involvement in Lisa’s death?’

‘He hit her,’ Denise said angrily, fanning the flames. ‘I seen her black and blue. He’s a right nasty piece of work.’