Jane Casey - Let the Dead Speak

‘You can’t come, Bethany. The police need to speak to me on my own. Anyway, you don’t want to hear about what happened.’

‘If I don’t know, I’ll imagine worse things. I won’t be able to sleep. I’ll be terrified.’

‘Bethany.’ Gareth Selhurst shook his head at her. ‘It’s not your place to tell your father what to do.’

‘No, I know, but—’

‘Stay here and pray with us. Talk to God.’ Selhurst stretched out his hands, cupping the air. He closed his eyes, his expression blissful. Morgan Norris was shaking his head, his arms folded. Not a member of the flock, I guessed.

The girl put her hand down onto the chair beside her and I realised the cat was there, a cloud of grey fur knotted into a tight ball. She stroked the cat, watching her father’s face, seeing the little shudder of revulsion he couldn’t quite hide.

‘Why don’t you like me touching Misty, Daddy?’ She sounded more like a child than ever. ‘What’s wrong, Daddy? She’s very friendly. She’s purring.’

Under the tan, Norris had gone very pale. To me, he said, ‘Let’s go into the sitting room. We won’t be disturbed there.’

The sitting room was dark when we went in, and Norris fussed about putting on lamps, clearing armchairs of folded shirts so Georgia and I could sit down.

‘Sorry. My wife was doing the ironing in here earlier but she got distracted when I came back with Chloe. Left the place in a bit of a mess.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. There’s no need to tidy up.’ And stop blaming your wife for the mess she made while she was ironing your shirts. I could feel myself bristling with dislike, spiky as a sea urchin. I hoped it didn’t show.

He abandoned the shirts on the ironing board and threw himself into a chair, one hand to his mouth. ‘Sorry.’

‘Are you all right, Mr Norris?’

He nodded but his eyes were closed and I could see a tremor in his fingers. ‘It’s been a bit of a shock.’

‘Do you know the Emerys well?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He blinked rapidly. ‘I mean, how well do you know your neighbours? When we moved in Bethany made friends with Chloe, which was fine, of course. We didn’t mind them spending time together.’ He said it as if other people would have minded, which intrigued me.

‘Why would you mind?’

‘Oh, because of Chloe being the way she is. She’s – I forget the politically correct term. Simple. Mentally not all there. Beautiful girl but a few sandwiches short of a picnic.’ He looked from me to Georgia. ‘I’m not saying it to be offensive. You’ve spoken to her. The lights are on but there’s no one home.’

‘So Chloe and Bethany are friends. What about you and Mrs Emery? Would you describe her as a friend?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He straightened up, settling his shoulders against the back of the chair, his nausea forgotten. ‘We were friendly. Neighbourly.’

‘What sort of a person is she?’

‘Pleasant. Energetic. She ran her own business, you know. She was involved in local issues. She knew everyone. Friends with everyone, that kind of thing.’

Past tense all the way, I noted. ‘Did you go to her house?’

‘I’ve been in her house,’ he said carefully. ‘I helped her with things like a tap that wouldn’t stop dripping and a light fitting that needed replacing. When she needed a man’s help, Eleanor volunteered me.’

‘Do you like that kind of thing, Mr Norris? Would you say you’re a bit of a handyman?’ I was looking around at the room where we sat, where two light bulbs had burned out of the fitting in the ceiling and a large chip was missing from the plaster on the corner of the chimney breast.

‘No. Not really.’ A smile. ‘But when the wife tells me to go and help out a neighbour, I go. Couldn’t let her down.’

‘So you help lots of the neighbours.’

‘If they need help,’ he said evenly. ‘Kate was on her own.’

‘Was?’

‘Is. Was. I don’t know. Did they find a body?’

‘A body,’ I repeated.

‘I assume they’re looking for a body. I didn’t see one in the house.’ He shifted in the chair. ‘I didn’t go looking for it.’

‘You walked around quite a lot, I gather. The crime scene technicians found a few of your footprints in the hall.’

‘I was in a bit of a panic. I didn’t think. I saw all the blood …’ He was back to looking green. ‘I don’t like blood. I’m not used to seeing things like that. I went in to see if I could help but I couldn’t see Kate. Then I thought it was probably better to take Chloe out of the house and call you lot. And that’s all I know.’

‘Why were you there?’

‘Chloe forgot her bag. Left it in my car. I didn’t want her to worry about it so I carried it across the road for her. As soon as she opened the door I saw that something was wrong.’

‘What did you see that made you think that?’

‘You’ve been in the house,’ he said with a flash of anger. ‘What do you think I saw? Blood. A lot of it.’

‘How did you know what it was?’

He shrugged. ‘What else could it have been? Ketchup? It looked like an abattoir in there. And my stomach went, I can tell you. I was heaving. I couldn’t even speak. It was like an instinct. I just knew.’

‘So what did you do?’

He looked up at the ceiling, remembering. ‘I went in. I made myself go in, even though I didn’t want to. I didn’t realise the blood was dry at first. I thought maybe Kate was injured and needed help.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Into the hall and then on a bit further, to check. I looked into the sitting room. I looked through to the kitchen and saw blood there but no body.’ He pulled at his lower lip, affecting to be shamefaced. ‘I put my hand on the counter in the kitchen, I’m pretty sure. I might have touched a few other places too.’

‘Did you go upstairs?’

‘Yeah. I think so. It’s all a bit of a blur. I mean, I’ve been upstairs in the house before, so if you find fingerprints of mine that doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Don’t worry, Mr Norris.’ I smiled at him, bland as cream. ‘We have excellent technicians. They’ll be able to tell if a fingerprint was made before, during or after the attack. So it’ll be easy enough to tell if you’re in the clear.’

He swallowed once, convulsively.

Not so confident now, are you?

‘What were you looking for, Mr Norris?’

‘A body. A killer.’ He laughed. ‘Glad I didn’t find either, really. That’s your job.’

‘Whose body did you expect to find?’

‘Kate’s. Who else?’ He looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘Chloe was there. She was fine.’

So he didn’t think of Kate as a possible aggressor. I didn’t know enough about her to make that judgement.

‘Go back a bit for me,’ I said. ‘When was the last time you saw Kate Emery?’

‘I don’t know. During the week some time.’ He frowned. ‘I saw her on Friday evening, I think.’

‘Friday evening. Are you sure?’

‘No. That’s why I said I think it was Friday.’ He wasn’t bothering to try to charm me any more, which was a relief.

‘What was she doing?’

‘She was in her sitting room looking out of the window.’

‘You’re sure it was her.’

‘Yeah. I was walking past on the other side of the road and I waved.’

‘And you think this was Friday evening.’

‘I’m fairly sure. I know I was looking forward to getting home from work and having a cold beer to start the weekend, if my thieving brother had left any in the fridge.’

‘Your brother Morgan?’

He nodded. ‘I only have one, thankfully.’

‘Does he live here?’ I asked.