Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

The chief superintendent was happy to give them a twelve-hour extension to continue questioning Greg Tandy, given that the evidence now pointed to his possible involvement in those killings.

‘Or I could ask Lee,’ Gill said to Janet, ‘in case Elise wants-’

‘It’ll be fine but if I am needed I’ll hand things over to Lee. You won’t be all that long, will you, anyway?’

‘You’re right.’ Gill shuddered, wishing it could all be over.

She picked him up from his mother’s. His mother answered the door and didn’t seem to know what to say. Gill had no idea whether Dave had spoken to her in any detail about it all. Anyway his mother settled for, ‘It’s very good of you. He just needs a bit of breathing space.’ It must have been a nightmare for her, her middle-aged son suddenly going into a 40 per cent proof meltdown in her spare room, after years of independence.

Dave came downstairs carrying a suitcase, said hello with no warmth, flat and resigned. He gave his mother a brief hug then took his case outside. Gill followed, popped the boot. Once he’d stowed it away, he got in beside her.

The first part of the journey was in silence, the atmosphere strained.

‘My car,’ he said, as she reached the motorway heading south.

‘Don’t worry, I put it in the garage. It can stay there for now.’

‘Emma…’

The whore.

‘I’d rather she didn’t know I was-’ He nodded in their direction of travel.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Gill said. She’d no idea where things were up to with Dave and the whore. Had presumed that with his drinking and general fuckwittery he had queered his pitch and burned his bridges and hence the move back to his mother’s. Did Dave really imagine there might be life in that relationship? If he was hiding his treatment from the woman then it really didn’t sound like a match made in heaven. In sickness and in health. And what was all the bollocks about starting again with Gill? She didn’t care any more. They could fuck off into the sunset together if that’s what they wanted.

Gill pulled out into the fast lane, overtaking a trio of Morrison’s lorries. Tired of the silence, she switched on the radio, caught the news. ‘Manchester Metropolitan Police have announced there will be no criminal proceedings following the death of fifteen-year-old Olivia Canning at a party in Oldham on Saturday. Olivia is believed to have died from complications after taking the legal high known as Paradise. A spokesman for the police said, “We continue to caution the public against the use of any drug that is untested and can, as in this case, be potentially fatal. Policing the trade in so-called legal highs remains a minefield as small changes to the composition of the drug when a substance is banned means producers are able to avoid prosecution and continue to sell to the public. It’s a game of catch-up,” said Sergeant Phillip Whitaker, “we’ll never be able to identify and proscribe the drugs as fast as the chemists invent new ones.”’

‘Janet’s daughter Elise was with that girl,’ Gill said.

Dave grunted, stared ahead out of the window.

She made no further attempts at small talk. Part of her longed to confront him, to stop the car and drag him out and berate him for his thoughtless, selfish behaviour. But she bit her tongue. Letting rip wouldn’t help beyond getting rid of some of the tension wound up inside her. He was sick, raddled with alcohol. Bawling him out would probably serve to confirm whatever shitty thoughts he had running around his brain. Best to keep quiet, and later she would thump her pillows or break something or weep. Alone, with no one to worry about.

He needed support, in her head she understood that. At least he’d get it where he was going, she hoped. Taking him there was the most she could muster.

Another twenty minutes and they arrived. Gill pressed an intercom at the gates and gave his name before the barrier lifted. She parked and turned off the engine. He sighed then said, ‘Thanks,’ still with that level, unemotional tone. She watched as he dragged his case across the paving to the doors marked Reception. A tall man, broad-shouldered, the hair on his crown beginning to thin.

When he had disappeared inside, swallowed up by the automatic doors, she turned the engine on and reversed out of the parking space. Relief that he was gone, off her hands, washed over her, mingling with a deep sadness that it had come to this.

‘Janet,’ her mother sounded weird, ‘Elise has gone.’

‘Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?’

‘She was going home, but Taisie’s just rung up asking for her. She should be there by now.’

‘When did she leave?’ Janet said, her guts tightening.

‘An hour ago,’ Dorothy said.

Christ . It took fifteen, twenty minutes tops to walk the distance between the houses. ‘I could have collected her,’ Janet said, ‘or Ade. Why did you just let her go?’ She regretted saying it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Chucking blame at Dorothy was no solution.

There was a brief silence before Dorothy replied, the hurt clear in her voice. ‘She said she wanted to walk. I’m sorry.’

‘Look, Mum, it’s probably just-’ All the usual explanations… she’s called at Olivia’s, she’s with friends, she’s got something after school… no longer applied. ‘I’ll go look for her. I’ll ring Ade. You stay there in case she comes back.’

Janet told Lee she had to go, asked him to cover until Gill returned. She rang Ade, heard his phone go to voicemail as she clattered down the stairs. She wondered about leaving a message explaining to him what had happened but hated the thought of the alarm it might cause. Instead she just asked him to call her as soon as he’d picked up her message. When she tried Elise’s phone she got the automated response ‘unable to take your call’, suggesting the handset was either dead or off.

Janet drove as quickly as she dared. She decided to check in with Taisie first and then trace the route back to Dorothy’s. There were a handful of shops between the two, might Elise have stopped off in one of them?

Taisie was in tears, her face pinched with worry. Janet’s heart flipped over at the sight of her.

‘Hey,’ Janet pulled her close, ‘come here.’ No point in telling her not to cry. Of course she should cry if she felt like it. ‘I’m going to go look.’

‘Can I come?’ Taisie begged.

‘No, I need you here so you can let me know if she gets back. Keep trying her phone, yes, every ten minutes, you ring me if you hear anything – and ring round her friends, any you’ve got numbers for.’

Taisie sniffed, nodded. ‘OK.’ Taisie rarely cried, most often in anger, when she was frustrated with the world.

‘Good girl.’

‘Mum?’ Taisie became agitated again as Janet reached the front door, a high note in her question.

She needed reassurance, Janet saw. Olivia dead, now her big sister missing, the world must suddenly seem such a treacherous place. Janet didn’t usually lie to her girls, she felt it was part of her role as a parent to answer their questions about life with unflinching honesty. Now she took a breath, put her hands on Taisie’s head, a benediction, kissing her forehead. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said, ‘she’ll be fine.’

She prayed the lie would not come back and destroy them all.

Janet drove along the road to her mother’s and back twice, the knots in her stomach twisting tighter with each pass. At the back of her mind a question thrummed. She did her best to ignore it. It was like a drill boring into masonry, or a woodpecker hammering on a tree over and over. What if she’s done something stupid? It happened, Janet knew, too often, more usually to boys than girls but still… In the course of the job she’d attended some heartbreaking scenes. Pushing the images away, she turned into the side street close to the run of shops and parked.