Cath Staincliffe - Dead To Me

One year the kids had got a photo done for his birthday. That must have been Alison’s idea. Gone to the studios in town after school. Alison would have been thirteen or so, Rachel and Dom still in primary. The photographer had sat them sideways in a row, in height order. Alison had gone in the following week to collect it and bought a frame off the market to fit. He’d been pleased as punch, stuck it on the wall above the fireplace. A few months later the glass got cracked when Dom was mucking about with a bouncy ball. No one ever fixed it.

‘She was a right handful,’ Denise said out of the blue.

‘Really?’ Rachel wasn’t sure what else to say. Let her ramble on until Janet came back with the coffee. What excuses did her own mother make for running off? Couldn’t manage the three of them – they were better off with their dad. Yeah, right.

‘Wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t ever listen.’ Denise shook her head and the skin on her neck trembled like an old woman’s. ‘You shouldn’t have let him go,’ she said to Rachel.

‘Sean?’

‘Yes, Sean. Who else? Whether he held the knife or not, she’d still be alive if it wasn’t for him.’

Rachel didn’t follow the logic. If he hadn’t held the knife, then how was it his fault? Didn’t stack up. Unless Denise thought he’d hired a hitman. But it didn’t matter; the woman was talking to herself. Rachel just happened to be in the room. Denise lifted her glass, took a drink. Brownish liquid. Sherry? Rum? There were bottles of both on the side table.

‘But she wouldn’t have it. Shacked up with a druggie. He were using her, that’s all it was. When I think of her,’ Denise began to gasp, ‘dying like that, when I think of her-’ Denise waved her glass, her eyes watery, her face flooded with colour.

Don’t then. ‘Maybe it’s best if you-’

‘Like a little tart, half-naked, like some prossie.’

Rachel felt something grab her spine. Her blood beat in her ears. How did she know? She swallowed. The crime-scene photos, the one where the duvet had been removed. Lisa with her Chinese dressing gown rucked up beneath her, baring all. Like a little tart . No one had told Denise any of the graphic details. How could she know? Unless… Rachel felt it all slot together like a pool player clearing the table, dropping one ball after another: the DNA on the cross and chain was Denise’s – not from months ago but last week when she tore it off her daughter; the phone call in the taxi when Kasim overheard Lisa telling someone to get off her back, stop telling her what to do: it had been her mother she was yelling at.

‘The things she’d say,’ Denise cried.

Rachel got carefully to her feet, anxious not to break the spell. She needed her to keep talking while she was still addled with drink and uninhibited. She crouched down closer to Denise. ‘She pushed you too far,’ Rachel said, her heart in her throat.

Denise took another drink, some of it dribbled down the side of her mouth. Then Rachel’s words seemed to reach her. Rachel saw Denise begin to recoil, retreat.

‘We tested the cross and chain,’ Rachel said quietly. ‘That’s why we’re here, to take your fingerprints. We know, Denise.’ Rachel felt too warm, dizzy, the swirl of excitement making her nauseous.

She heard movement from over her shoulder, Janet returning. Rachel held her arm out behind her back, palm showing: Stop . Didn’t risk looking away from Denise. The movement sent a sharp pain from the wound on her hand. A picture in her head of the cut on Lisa’s arm; the cut Denise had inflicted.

‘What did she say?’ Rachel held her breath.

‘Terrible things,’ Denise said, staring ahead, seeing nothing but perhaps her child, the slut, the junkie, her impossible daughter. ‘Evil things, evil things about Nathan, about me,’ she gulped. ‘She wouldn’t stop.’

Janet moved. Rachel knew she was about to interrupt, to talk about cautions and procedure. Rachel couldn’t let her. ‘I know,’ Rachel whispered. ‘Terrible things. She shouldn’t have done that.’ She could feel the tick of blood in her temples, hear the click of saliva in Denise’s mouth. ‘Where’s the knife, Denise?’

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.