Roz Watkins - Dead Man’s Daughter

Silence.

I was okay with silence. Rachel wasn’t. She picked at a piece of skin on her finger. The lawyer sat looking stressed but seemed to have given up trying to restrain her.

‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘I did go home first. I couldn’t get the landline to work and there’s no mobile signal so I drove off to call for help.’

‘But you didn’t call for help.’

‘I couldn’t get a signal so I came back.’

‘Over an hour later? You’re not a great liar. You know we’re going to find out. I’m sure you had reasons for what you did. It would be in your interest to tell us now.’

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Okay.’ She dropped her head forward and a tear splashed onto her jeans-clad leg.

‘Thank you, Rachel,’ I said quietly. ‘It’ll be for the best.’

The lawyer was poised like a cat about to pounce.

‘I got home and he was there. Already dead.’

‘So why didn’t you call an ambulance? Or the police?’

‘He was definitely dead. There was no point calling an ambulance. And I was worried you’d think I did it. I panicked.’

‘And left your child in the house with your dead husband?’

‘I know. I’m sorry. She was on sleeping pills. I never thought she’d wake up. Of course I regret now what I did. But I didn’t want you to think I did it. We’ve been having a few problems . . . ’ She let out a sob. ‘I thought you’d think it was me. It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill him.’

*

‘You took on the case then?’ Jai sat briefly on the chair by my desk, then stood up and leant against it. Why would no one sit on that chair? Were they so traumatised by experiences in Richard’s chair that they shunned anything remotely similar? It was as if they were playing a strange game with me – counting all the ways they could avoid sitting on the damn thing.

‘Richard left me very little choice. If we can make enough progress in the next week, you guys can carry on while I’m away and Richard won’t have to ship Dickinson in.’

‘Did you tell him you’d delay your time off?’

‘Sort of. But I can’t.’ I folded my arms and shivered. It was freezing. Our work-place had no temperate zone – there were either monkeys swinging from the door frames or polar bears ambling over the eco-carpets.

Jai leant forward to pull a few dead leaves from the spider plant that hovered on the edge of death on my desk. ‘Mary managed to do the PM today, but there was nothing too surprising. Throat slit with a sharp, pointed knife, twice in quick succession, using a stabbing motion. He was almost certainly asleep, and he’d taken one of his own sleeping pills. He hadn’t fought back, at least not in any way that injured him.’

‘Anything under his nails?’

‘No. No defence injuries. Everything was pretty much as we’d thought. She said he’d had a heart transplant in the past. It wasn’t the neatest of surgeries, but it had been doing its job.’

‘Any sign of the knife?’

Jai shook his head. ‘We’re waiting for fibre analysis and fingerprints. And we’ve got a warrant to search Karen Jenkins’ house. But my money’s on the wife now.’

‘Yes. Why the hell would she run off and not call anyone if she’s innocent? And I’m sure she wanted to get into the house when I was there, and mess up the scene. What was she afraid of us finding? Was Mary sure about the time of death?’

‘She was reasonably confident it was between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.’

‘Rachel Thornton could have driven from her mother’s house,’ I said. ‘At three-ish. Then killed him, and driven back, taking the route round the lanes that avoids the CCTV, either deliberately or for some other reason. Her mother could have remembered wrong. Or she could be lying about the loo visit. You know what mothers are like where their children are concerned.’

‘But why would Rachel go back there at half seven, and then leave again?’

‘Maybe she remembered she’d left some evidence. Or maybe she wanted to check Abbie was okay.’

‘I suppose she could have gone off to dispose of the knife and her clothes and then come back to Abbie. But then she left again.’

‘She might have realised there was something else she needed to get rid of,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to talk to Abbie. She was covered in blood when I found her so she must have gone into the bedroom and found her father while Rachel was out, poor kid. But she might have seen something. Maybe she remembers now.’

‘At least we’ve got a couple of good leads. Maybe it’ll work out okay with your gran.’

I twitched and glanced into the corridor. Nobody was around but I still whispered. ‘Richard doesn’t know what I’m doing, remember. But yes, fingers crossed.’

Jai leant closer to me and spoke quietly. ‘Are you okay? It must be pretty shitty.’

I smiled. ‘That’s an accurate analysis of the situation.’

He jumped up and pushed my door shut, then came back and actually sat on the spare chair. ‘When are you going to Switzerland?’

‘Thursday. I’ll spend Wednesday helping Mum get ready. And trying to spend some time with Gran.’

Jai looked down and laced his fingers together. ‘Craig said something about a brutality accusation? What’s that about?’

‘Oh, I know. It’s all I need, with Richard already on at me about my professionalism.’

Jai examined his fingernails as if they held the answer to the meaning of life. ‘But you’d done nothing wrong, had you?’

‘Of course not. Bloody woman. If anyone was brutal, it was her. She punched me.’

‘Why didn’t you report it?’

‘Because I’m an idiot. I suppose I didn’t want Craig to know she hit me.’ I looked at Jai’s despairing face. ‘I know, I know, he knows now anyway. And I shouldn’t let him get to me.’

Jai sighed. ‘It’s best to ignore him.’

A complaint was bad news for us, even if it had no basis, especially with the worry about us ignoring the stalker. Besides, the thought of someone complaining about me gave me a hollow, depressed feeling inside. I reached into my drawer for my stash of organic chocolate. ‘Here.’ I broke off a couple of chunks and shoved the rest at Jai.

I could see Jai coveting the whole bar, but he glanced at the price label. ‘Jesus.’

‘It’s cultivated by happy, fairly paid people in far-off lands,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t come cheap.’

Jai took a couple of squares. ‘Okay. I won’t take much. I’ll get an exploitative Yorkie bar from the machine on the way out.’ He jumped up. ‘Don’t work too hard.’

*

After another hour of researching, pondering, chocolate eating, and general fretting, I finally drove myself home and got in around ten, letting myself in to the accompaniment of an extremely loud commentary from Hamlet. He jumped onto the shelf in the hallway, knocked a pile of books and the phone onto the floor, and fell on top of them.

‘Jesus, Hamlet, aren’t cats supposed to be graceful? Nature’s supreme athlete or something.’

He righted himself, gave me a contemptuous look, and stalked off in a cloud of black and white fur, as if it had all been part of his plan. He was sulking at my lateness, but I’d arranged for a neighbour to feed him at six, so he hadn’t missed out.

I reached to pick up the phone, and saw the answer-phone light flashing.

Mum. I’d forgotten to call her back. With a hollow feeling, I pressed the button. Her voice was shaky and upset. ‘Love, I don’t know if we’re doing this too soon. She seems better today. Can you phone me?’

I dialled Mum’s number. She picked straight up. ‘Where have you been?’

‘At work, Mum. There’s been a murder. How’s Gran?’