Cath Staincliffe - Dead To Me

‘Door latch is faulty,’ Pete chipped in, ‘anyone could just waltz in.’

‘Lisa is killed in the living room. There is little sign of a struggle. Suggesting…?’

‘She didn’t know she was in danger,’ said Rachel.

‘It wasn’t a prolonged attack,’ added Lee.

‘Yes. Forensics tell us Lisa was stabbed in the chest once and whoever held the knife moved back into the kitchen, leaving drops of blood on the floor. The cross and chain was torn from Lisa’s neck and found in the kitchen by Sean Broughton, who stole it. We are awaiting DNA results for Angela Hambley, who had possible motive, but until those results are in I want to be discreet. Dig around, see what we can find on Angela. Need a swab and prints from Denise, too. We know she handled the jewellery in the past. Contact the rest of Raleigh’s phone contacts – have we any other members of his harem to consider? Talk to Sean again. What was Lisa doing in the days before her death, who was she-’

‘Doing,’ Mitch interrupted.

‘Ha, ha! Seeing,’ Gill said, ‘in the weeks before her murder. Who visited the flat? Who knew the door was broken?’

‘She didn’t let them in,’ Rachel said suddenly. ‘She’d have got dressed, least put her kecks on.’

A flash of insight again, the sort of contribution that made Gill’s pulse beat faster.

‘Unless it was a punter and she was on the game,’ Kevin said.

‘Nothing to support that,’ Andy said.

‘So we are likely looking for someone who’d been to the flat before. Talk to Benny Broughton too, see if he’s heard anything.’

Once Gill had established that everyone was on track with their reports and their tasks for the day, she asked Rachel to stay behind.

‘You can’t make it personal,’ Gill said. ‘You need to come to terms with it, or it’ll eat you up.’

‘I’m all right,’ Rachel said crossly.

‘No, you’re not, you’re steaming because that twat is going home any minute, because we can’t touch him for the rape.’

‘He did it,’ Rachel said. ‘I know he did it.’

‘You’re probably right. Hand on heart, I’d find him guilty – but we are not the jury. All we can do is find evidence and build a case. There isn’t a case to answer here; the victim’s dead, she never pressed charges or gave us a statement, the DNA wouldn’t stand scrutiny, he can claim he left it there on another occasion, his expert would argue the same. No witnesses, nada. You need to let it go.’

Rachel blinked, set her jaw, resistant.

‘We still have a case to investigate – Lisa Finn. I want you putting everything into that.’

‘And just forget about Rosie?’ Rachel said.

‘Forgetting’s not easy. But pack it up and stick it on a shelf somewhere, otherwise it’s a distraction. It will compromise your effectiveness in my syndicate. And it’ll make you bloody miserable. See a counsellor, if you have to…’

Rachel snorted at that.

‘… take up yoga, sky diving – whatever floats your boat. But you stop lugging this around like some rock tied to your leg. Got it?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Now, go with Janet, get a swab and fingerprints from Denise – nicely!’

A SECOND MAN has been questioned and released by police investigating the murder of seventeen-year-old Lisa Finn. The twenty-eight-year-old - Rachel wished they’d change the radio station. They’d stopped off to grab lunch, Janet had gone to drop something at the dry cleaners, and Rachel was buying sandwiches when she heard someone say her name. ‘Rachel? Rachel Bailey?’ A woman in the queue behind her. ‘I knew it were you. Bloody hell. How long is it?’

Not long enough. Shit. Beverley Buckshotter. Neighbour. They were the ones got the table-football set.

‘How’s your Dom doing? How long’s he got left?’

Beverley. One of Dom’s conquests, for all of five minutes.

‘Good, yeah,’ Rachel blagged, ‘a while longer, yet.’ One eye on the window, purse at the ready, praying that Janet wouldn’t be back just yet.

‘You’re still in the police?’ Beverley prattled on. ‘You did all right for yourself. I see your Alison now and again. Lovely girl, isn’t she?’

Rachel peered over the counter. What was the shop girl doing, for fuck’s sake, milling the flour and slaughtering the pig?

‘Lovely family,’ Beverley said. Rachel smiled weakly, trusting she meant Alison’s lot. Their own family would never have been dubbed lovely, not even by the most charitable of observers.

Rachel stood on tiptoe; she was putting the bacon on now. Come on, come on, move it!

‘I’m still on Langley, got twins now.’

‘Really?’

‘Lads. Drive me round the fucking bend,’ Beverley confided, patting Rachel’s arm. Rachel resisted the urge to pat her back, good and hard, send her flying.

‘It’s not worth working, you know,’ Beverley added.

Always was a lazy cow. Janet was there now, crossing the road. Fuck!

‘Cost of childminding – it’s a joke. You got any?’

‘No,’ Rachel said. The girl was cutting the sandwiches, slowly, making a ceremony of it, like the Chinese people in the park with their slow-motion exercises. Sliding them into the bag now. Shift yer arse.

‘We had a right laugh, didn’t we, down the rec?’ Beverley hooted.

Freezing cold, sharing cheap wine and cheaper fags. Miserable.

Janet came in the door.

‘Drinks?’ the girl said.

No, ta.’ Rachel thrust a tenner at her, took the sandwiches. Bit her tongue while the girl got change.

‘See you then,’ Beverley said. ‘Give Dom my love, yeah?’

Rachel intercepted Janet: ‘Hi.’ Kept walking so Janet had to follow.

‘Friend?’ Janet must have caught Beverley’s last bit.

‘Lunatic,’ Rachel said out the side of her mouth. ‘Nutter thinks she knows me. Never seen her before in my life. Fruitloop.’ And she kept walking, not giving Janet a chance to see she’d not got any coffees.

Denise did look ten years older, Rachel thought. She peered at them, the alcohol fumes coming off her strong enough to set light to. If she fires up a fag, she’ll go up like a bonfire.

‘Hello, Denise,’ Janet said, ‘may we come in?’

Rachel had a flashback to the evening they delivered the death message, only nine days ago, how she had really not taken to Janet. Snotty cow. She’d had her wrong. First impressions perhaps not Rachel’s strongest suit.

‘Christopher rang, said you let the other bloke go, too,’ Denise said. She walked with exaggerated care down the hallway, hands raised slightly in case she needed to brace herself, a gait that Rachel recalled from her youth. Her dad, taking a beat too long to do anything, the stage immediately before he lost all control and turned into a witless human wrecking ball.

‘That’s right,’ Janet said, behind Rachel. Rachel turned and made a face to Janet, tongue jutting, eyeballs swivelling. She’s bladdered. Janet caught on, nodded.

‘Who was he?’ Denise said, the words slurred.

‘We can’t tell you that. Would you like a coffee?’ Janet offered.

‘Trying to sober me up?’ Denise said. ‘Go on then.’ She sat down heavily in her usual place on the sofa. Rachel thought she could smell vomit underlying the cigarette fug and the stink of booze.

Janet went into the kitchen. Rachel had the bag with her, the fingerprint and DNA kit. She set it on the floor by her feet. Looked again at the photographs of Lisa and Nathan. They hadn’t bothered with school photos in the Bailey family. Always a struggle to get payment and the slip signed in time. ‘Who needs a photo?’ he’d say. ‘Got your ugly mugs to look at whenever I feel like it.’