Peter Guttridge - The Thing Itself

Cassidy fished out a cigarette from her coat pocket.

‘My daughter is very independent for her age.’

‘You didn’t mind her going out with a twenty-two-year-old man?’

‘She goes her own way.’

‘You didn’t mind she was probably having sex with a twenty-two-year-old man?’

‘Look, dear, I don’t know about you but I lost mine when I was twelve. To my dad. He’d been poking about before then but he’d always said he’d wait until I was a woman — you know, until I’d started my periods — before he gave me a proper seeing to. And I know you’re not supposed to say this these days about whatchamacallit — incest? — but he was quite good at it. I’d much rather a twenty-two-year-old who knows a bit than a pimply thirteen-year-old who can’t find the right hole to stick it in.’

‘Even if he murders and cuts up his flatmate?’

Cassidy adjusted her left breast unselfconsciously, lifting then releasing it.

‘Yeah, well, that came after.’

‘But he’s clearly a psycho.’

Cassidy thrust her face at Gilchrist.

‘Look, dear, I don’t know what la-di-da men you knock about with but we live on Milldean. Different world, different rules. All I’ve ever known is violent men. He was a bit rough round the edges but until he did what he did he seemed normal.’

Gilchrist slid back along the bench a few inches.

‘So you accept that what he did wasn’t normal?’

‘Course I bloody do — I’m not touched, you know.’

Gilchrist cleared her throat.

‘Who is Sarah Jessica’s father?’

Cassidy narrowed her eyes.

‘None of your fucking business; excuse my French.’

‘Sarah Jessica said he’d sort out her attackers.’

‘He probably will.’

‘So you know who they are?’

‘I’ve already said I don’t.’

‘But Sarah Jessica does?’

‘She says not.’

‘How long were you married? Were you married?’

Cassidy waggled her right hand. On her second finger she had an engagement ring and a gem-clustered wedding band.

‘Some detective you are.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘My Sarah Jessica’s expecting me.’ She stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

It didn’t take Sarah Gilchrist long to find the name of Donna Cassidy’s husband through her marriage certificate and Sarah Jessica’s birth certificate. She blinked at her computer screen.

‘Listen to this, Reg,’ she called across the office to DI Williamson, standing by the open window with a mug of coffee in his hand. He was peering intently down at something on the street outside, but she was pretty sure he was really standing there because he’d had a curry the previous night and they’d both been suffering the consequences. ‘Donna Cassidy’s husband is one Bernard Edward Grimes of Lewisham. Stated occupation “handyman”.’

Williamson turned to look at Gilchrist and raised an eyebrow.

‘Actual occupation “scumbag”. Last heard of in Milldean en route to the south of France.’

He walked over to peer at Gilchrist’s screen.

‘How the bloody hell did everyone miss that?’

The Milldean armed intervention that had gone so disastrously wrong the previous year had been designed to apprehend Bernie Grimes, dangerous armed robber. He was believed to be staying in a house in Milldean prior to taking the ferry to Dieppe en route to his hideout in the south of France.

He was not in the house they’d stormed. Other people were. These people had been shot and killed, though by exactly which of Gilchrist’s colleagues it was still not clear. There was no trace of Bernie Grimes in the house or any indication that he had ever been there.

‘The bastard wouldn’t need to stay in that house given his ex-wife and kid were living down the road. You and your guys were truly shafted.’

‘What’s her address — maybe it’s similar to that of the house we raided?’

Gilchrist tapped some keys, shook her head.

‘Nope. Donna Cassidy’s address and that of the house we raided are nothing like each other.’

‘How the bloody hell did everyone miss that?’ Williamson repeated. ‘I mean that’s major information.’

Gilchrist phoned the Met Police and after being passed around eventually reached a serious crime unit that had a particular interest in Grimes. She spoke to a detective sergeant for ten minutes, Williamson back at the window.

When she put the phone down, she walked over to join him.

‘They don’t have any information about Grimes having a wife and child — and certainly not one living in Milldean,’ she said.

Williamson gave her a long look.

‘They’ve got a rat in their unit, deleting stuff.’

‘That’s what the detective sergeant was realizing.’

‘So they’ll be heading down here.’ He reached for his jacket. ‘We’d better get to her first.’

Donna Cassidy was not pleased to see Gilchrist and Reg Williamson on her doorstep in Milldean.

‘I’m just going out,’ she said, her voice even throatier than Gilchrist remembered from the hospital.

‘We can do this down at the station if you want, love,’ Williamson said.

‘Who the fuck are you calling “love”, fatso? And stop staring at my tits.’

Gilchrist knew that Williamson was always imperturbable when faced with insults, especially about his paunch.

‘I’ll take that as an invite to enter the premises, shall I?’ he said, stepping forward.

Cassidy gave him a hard stare, then barked a laugh.

‘I’m not making you a bloody drink, though,’ she said, moving back into her entrance hall. They squeezed by a table piled with opened and unopened mail, past the open sliding door of a toilet under the stairs and into a large square living room.

‘You’ll know why we’re here,’ Gilchrist said as Cassidy walked over to a pink sofa and plonked down.

‘You’ve found the little monsters who tried to kill my daughter?’

‘We’ve found out who you’re married to,’ Williamson said, from the middle of the room.

‘I knew I’d said too much at the hospital,’ Cassidy said, glancing down at her breasts pushing out of her blouse.

‘We’re not interested in catching him,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Though there’ll be others coming from London to question you, I’ve no doubt, who will have other ideas. We just need to know when he was last in Milldean.’

Cassidy turned to look at her and almost snarled: ‘And you think I’ll tell you that?’

‘OK, not that,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Look, we’re not out to get him or you. But you know that Milldean thing last year?’

‘When you lot shot a house full of innocent people?’

‘We were there to arrest Mr Grimes.’

‘Shoot him more like, if what actually happened is anything to go by.’

‘Definitely not,’ Gilchrist said. ‘I was there. I was downstairs when it happened. I want to find out why and how it happened.’

‘And you want me to help how exactly?’

Gilchrist stepped closer.

‘We heard your ex-husband was staying in Milldean in that house en route to the south of France. Was he? Or was he staying with you? Or was he not in Milldean at all?’

‘Why should I tell you something like that?’

‘Because you owe DS Gilchrist the life of your child,’ Williamson said. ‘As does Bernie.’

Cassidy looked at him.

‘How do you reckon that, fatso? She just found her and called for help.’

‘It were a bit more than that-’

‘Reg-’ Gilchrist said.

‘Those girls were still attacking your daughter when DS Gilchrist, off duty, passed by. She saw off ten of them on her own, out of uniform. If she hadn’t, your Sarah Jessica would be dead.’