Roz Watkins - Dead Man’s Daughter

Besides, my story was public now. Google my name and there it was. Poor me. Found my sister hanging from a beam, and I was only ten. Everyone knew. After I’d kept it to myself all those years. I felt like someone who’d fallen asleep drunk and woken up with no clothes on.

We sat together on the freezing bench, touched by our own individual horrors.

I hoped she might say more but she didn’t, and I decided not to push it for now. We’d need to get her in for a formal statement anyway.

‘Is Abbie’s heart okay?’ I asked.

‘She had a transplant last year.’

‘That’s why you can’t let her have pets?’

‘That’s right. She has a suppressed immune system.’

I pictured the needle marks on Abbie’s arms. Remembered her hugging the dog, then wrapped in his blankets and Carrie’s scarf, after nearly freezing to death. Not ideal.

‘Is she okay though?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Was there a problem with the transplant? Is that what your husband’s artwork’s about?’

‘Of course not. This has nothing to do with Abbie’s heart.’

I turned to look at Rachel’s face.

‘Do you mean your husband’s death?’ I asked. ‘Why would it have anything to do with Abbie’s heart?’

She blinked a couple of times and shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t. I didn’t mean anything. Abbie’s heart’s fine.’

4.

‘I can’t take on a big case,’ I said. ‘I spoke to the victim’s wife at the scene, but I’ll have to hand it over to someone else. It’s really bad timing for me.’

DS Jai Sanghera leant against the window in my room and hitched one leg up onto the sill in a bizarre yoga-style move. ‘Have you told Richard why you’re off next week?’

I took a step towards the door and lowered my voice. ‘He wants to see me now. I can’t tell him. I said I was spending time with family and catching up on some DIY and stuff.’

‘If you don’t take it on, he’ll ship someone else in. DI Dickhead from Nottingham.’

My stomach tightened at the thought of Abbie being grilled in one of our dispiriting interview rooms. ‘Maybe he’ll bring that woman in? She’s alright.’

Jai shook his head. ‘She’s tied up on a big case already. Human trafficking. No chance.’

I’d told Abbie I’d make sure she was okay. But I couldn’t let my family down. I swallowed. ‘I can’t delay my time off. You don’t know what it’s like.’

‘I know what it’s like to lose a grandparent. Tell him you can’t take the case. We’ll cope with Dickhead.’

*

It was only Monday afternoon, but I felt as if I’d had a full week at work. And I still hadn’t called Mum back. I shoved open the door to DCI Richard Atkins’ lair.

‘Ah, Meg.’ Richard’s customary greeting, whether he was bollocking or praising. ‘Sit down.’ He indicated his spare chair, famous for its ability to engulf the unwary. I suspected it housed the putrefied remains of previous DIs.

I stayed standing. ‘I can’t take on this case. I’ve got time off next week.’

Richard looked at me over piles of papers and the tiny cacti he used as paperweights. He rearranged them each morning and I was always looking for meaning in the arrangements, as if he was sending messages about his mood or the state of the world. He cracked his fingers. ‘You let the victim’s daughter fall into freezing water,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t be so careless. She could have been seriously hurt, and the evidence on her nightdress is compromised. What on earth were you thinking?’

‘It was an accident. She wanted to get the dog a drink, and – ’

‘The dog? You mustn’t let your love of animals affect your actions.’

I opened my mouth, so stunned by the unfairness of this that I didn’t know what to say.

Richard had put on weight, and was getting the look of a bulbous-nosed drinker. Did he know he was becoming a walking cliché? Eating unhealthily and turning to the bottle because his God-bothering wife had left him and was no longer providing healthy, vegetable-laden meals?

‘I’m very disappointed,’ Richard said. ‘And what’s this about the victim’s wife reporting a stalker and us ignoring it?’

‘We didn’t exactly ignore it, but she didn’t give us much to go on. And her phone calls stopped about six weeks ago. She hasn’t been in touch recently.’

‘It’s the last thing we need. Stalking’s hot at the moment. Pray to God it wasn’t the stalker that did for him.’

This was modern policing. It wasn’t so much the brutal throat-slitting that was tragic as the fact that we might get blamed. ‘If we’re asking any favours from deities,’ I said, ‘maybe pray we catch whoever did it and that no one else gets hurt.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. But the press’ll act like we went in with a lynch mob of Derbyshire detectives and cut his damn throat ourselves.’ Richard rubbed the slack skin on his neck. ‘And you shouldn’t have gone in without back-up.’

‘I know, but – ’

‘You could have been killed.’

‘I had to check – ’

‘You need to stick to procedure, Meg. No more doing your own thing. Especially when we’re already on the back foot with this bloody stalker fiasco.’

‘But someone could have been bleeding to – ’

‘There’s no excuse for putting yourself at risk.’

Christ, was he ever going to let me finish a sentence? I’d noticed that more senior people just talked over him, so they both ended up banging on at the same time, gradually increasing the volume until one of them gave up. I didn’t have the energy.

‘And I know your last murder case ended in a relatively good outcome. But, as we’ve discussed, you can’t behave like that again. What if you’d been seriously injured? Or killed?’

‘I know. It would have looked bad, wouldn’t it? But I was suspended, so it wouldn’t have been your fault if I’d drowned in a cave or plunged to my death in an old windmill.’

‘I’m not sure that’s how the press would have seen it.’

‘Good to know it’s my welfare you’re concerned about.’

Had he even heard me say I couldn’t take on this case?

‘You have to stick to the rules,’ Richard said. ‘Follow the evidence. This new case is a good opportunity. Show you can be a team player and do things properly.’

Clearly not.

‘I’m off from next Wednesday,’ I said. ‘It’s best I don’t take on this one.’

‘You’re not going away, are you? So you can delay your holiday if necessary.’

‘I don’t think I can do that.’

Richard narrowed his eyes. He knew how important work was to me, almost to the point of it being pathological. Why in God’s name had I not planned a convincing lie about a trip to Africa to save sick lions, or treatment for an obscure and terrifying gynaecological condition? I could feel my pulse quickening at the possibility that he’d work it out.

‘I’m trying to be fair here, Meg, but I’m a little confused. We could get Dickinson over from Nottingham, but I’m not sure about your level of commitment to the job if – ’

‘I’ll do it,’ I blurted. ‘I’ll delay my time off if necessary.’

‘Good. And I’d like you to work with Craig.’

‘Craig?’ I said weakly. ‘But . . . ’ I stopped. There was nothing I could say.

‘I’m not telling you you’ve only got six months to live, Meg. I’m asking you to work with a perfectly competent sergeant.’

‘Actually, Richard – ’

‘Right. Let’s do the briefing.’

*

The incident room felt hot and muggy, like somewhere you could catch malaria, despite the fact it looked ready to snow outside. A trace of ill-person’s sweat hung in the air, and cops coughed aggressively over one other. But the excitement of dealing with a murder fizzed through the air alongside the winter bugs. I shoved aside my worries about time off and family, and allowed myself to be swept along.