Crying Out Loud (11 page)

This was what Libby had found a couple of hours later, coming to meet her lover, running late, eager to tell him her good news: that they were having a child. The future full of promise. Opening the cottage door, snapping on the light. The shock, like a brick wall. Her world collapsing.

‘What else do you remember?'

‘I felt sick, nearly was sick there. I know the bloke's dead. I wanna get out of there.' Damien lowered his voice. ‘I check his pockets.'

‘Which ones?'

‘Just his jeans, the one that's easy to reach, at the right, and his back pocket. Empty.'

‘What does he feel like?'

He was outraged. ‘What sort of question's that?'

‘Was he cold, stiff?'

‘I dunno,' he said hotly. ‘I didn't touch him, innit?' Was his agitation because this was all make-believe and in truth Damien had stabbed Charlie then rooted through his clothes while the man lay dying? Or shame at scavenging from a corpse? Or some insecurity about his sexuality? That he'd been touching a man, and a dead man at that.

‘Why are you so bothered by that?' I asked him.

His face closed down. ‘I'm not,' he said flatly.

‘What happened then?'

‘I used the lighter to have a look round.' He sounded calmer.

‘The cottage?'

‘Just the kitchen. Seen the wallet on the worktop. Flick it open and there's tenners in there, some change. I'm out of there.'

‘Wait,' I said.

‘What?'

‘Anything else in the room?'

‘Car keys, next to the wallet.'

‘You could have taken the car?' I was surprised he hadn't.

‘Oh, yeah, and get stopped for dangerous driving,' he sneered.

‘You a bad driver?'

‘Never learnt. Couldn't afford to. It shows.'

‘But you like cars; you remember the makes and models.'

‘And?' he scowled.

Now I was the one veering off course. ‘OK, in the kitchen – can you see a knife?'

‘No.'

‘But you knew he'd been stabbed?'

‘All that blood. There was blood on his hands, on his shirt where he's holding his stomach, you know? His shirt is blue and yellow check but there's this massive patch on his front, on his sleeve. And the floor. Obvious. And they said on the news later—'

‘Stick with what you actually saw. No knife?'

‘No knife.'

‘Then you came out  . . .'

‘Yeah, fast.'

‘Did you shut the door?'

‘Yeah, I think.'

It would make sense if he'd been running away; like Geoff Sinclair said, the impulse to hide the victim. ‘And then?'

‘Went for the bus—'

‘Whoa! Slow it down.' He'd talked about being sick last time. And I expected him to have stronger sense memories after the shock of finding the body (or killing the man) than before. Adrenalin's a powerful hormone; it increases the heart rate and blood flow and primes us to fight or flee. Heightened sensory perception would be part of that response.

‘You come out of the house. Close your eyes.'

‘I was freaking, like it's some bad trip, I'm speeding, it's not real. Like I'm gonna pass out.'

‘What else do you feel?'

‘Cold.'

‘Colder than in the house?'

‘Yeah,' he said.

‘Can you see anyone, hear anything?'

‘No.' Then he corrected himself, adding quickly: ‘Ticking.'

A clock? Inside his head. ‘What?' I asked him.

‘The car,' he said.

‘The car's ticking?'

‘Like it's cooling down.' He frowned, looking as puzzled as I felt. ‘It was warm,' he went on slowly. ‘I put my hand on it; I was gonna throw up. I put my hand on the bonnet.'

I couldn't work out what this meant but it seemed out of place. Not wanting to interrupt his flow I motioned for him to continue.

‘Then I got to the gate and threw up. It was rank, man.'

‘Then?'

‘I go down the hill and sit in the bus shelter. I didn't see anyone. Some cars pass by and the bus comes and I get back into town. Go and score.'

Why didn't you report it if you really were innocent? I wondered still. If the incident had shaken him as badly as he said, wouldn't he have been desperate to tell someone?

‘The smell,' he said, ‘that was the worst, and the blood. After that I was really using a lot, anything I could get down my neck, trying to wipe it out. I was in a bad place, a really bad place.' He began to rock as he talked, his arms wrapped tight about his stomach, another in the repertoire of his nervous tics but this spoke to me of a deeper trauma. ‘I got slung out of the flat I was staying. Chloe didn't want to know. In the end, when the coppers picked me up and started going on about it, it just seemed easier to go along with it. Give them what they wanted and get rid. It could have happened like I told them. And they feed you in here, clothe you. That's where I was at. But it's not like that. Prison, it's—' He broke off. ‘I can't do time.' He echoed the words from our first meeting. ‘See that?' Urgently he pulled up his sleeve, revealed an angry gash, crusted with scabs, maybe half a centimetre wide, six or seven long on his forearm. ‘Cut with a broken biro.'

‘Who did it?'

‘Me.' He rolled down his sleeve. ‘That's how it gets you, you know.'

‘But you've arranged to see the doctor?'

‘Yeah,' he said dully, ‘takes for ever. What now?' He nodded at my notes.

‘I need to think about what you've told me.'

His face blanched. ‘You still don't believe me?' He looked hurt.

‘I've got more to go on than before. But it's not what I believe that matters; it's whether there is anything here that might stand as fresh evidence as far as the lawyers are concerned. That's what I need to work on.'

He didn't say anything else. He leant forward at the table, laid his head on his arms. Shattered or sulking. I put my head out and called the prison officer to take him back to his cell.

Collecting my mobile and car keys, I stepped back through the security centre and out of the prison. The outer gate clanged shut behind me and I walked across the car park to my car beneath the wide, bleak sky.

TEN

‘
H
ow's she been?'

‘Still asleep,' said Diane.

Jamie was exactly where I'd left her. While on the table, the sofa and around the edge of the carpet were large, thick sheets of drawing paper covered in charcoal sketches of the baby.

‘Still life,' I observed. ‘They're great.'

‘Easy subject,' Diane said. ‘Perfect artist's model. Like the quiff.' She referred to Jamie's spike of dark hair.

Some of the drawings showed Jamie and the carry-seat, others were close-ups. One I particularly liked: a very simple head and shoulders sketch, three-quarter profile, caught her exact likeness. I asked Diane if I could have it.

‘To you, fifty quid,' she joked. ‘Hang on.' She grabbed a spray can, got the picture from the sofa and disappeared into the backyard. I sat down. I could hear her rattling the aerosol, then the sibilance of the spray. Jamie stirred, her face working, legs twitching.

Diane brought the drawing back; there was a smell like glue. ‘Fixative,' she said, ‘to stop it smudging.' She moved the sketches from the sofa and put them with my one on the table. ‘How was your meeting?'

Jamie opened her eyes and smacked her lips a couple of times. I reached down and stroked her cheek. ‘Not sure – need to think it through.'

Diane cocked her head, interested.

‘Remember the Charlie Carter murder? Man stabbed in his second home – in Thornsby.'

‘A builder?' she checked.

‘Yeah, he did loft conversions. The man I've just been to see confessed to the crime: he was caught with Carter's bank cards and the police could prove he was at the scene. But now he's saying he's innocent after all. And he's looking for grounds to launch an appeal.'

‘So, what, you're working for his defence lawyer?' Diane knew more about my work than just about anyone, so she knew I often collect evidence and check statements for solicitors. Saves them the shoe leather.

‘No,' I said, ‘not that simple.' Jamie gave a little shriek and waved her fists about. ‘I was hired by the dead man's lover who wants reassurance that the bloke behind bars should stay there.'

‘Never a dull moment,' Diane smiled.

‘I'd better make tracks.' I gestured at Jamie. ‘She'll want feeding, then changing before long. Thanks for having her.'

I lifted the carry-seat and Jamie beamed at me. I caught sight of a crumb of something in her mouth and went to slip it out, running my finger along her gum. There was something hard, sharp. I peered closer, saw the translucent bluey bump, like a fragment of seashell. ‘Oh, wow, look.' I turned to Diane. ‘Her first tooth!'

Diane was looking at me, not the baby. She shook her head.

‘What?' I asked her.

She shrugged. ‘Don't you think you're getting a bit too involved?'

My face flushed with heat and I felt my pulse quicken. ‘No!' I could hear how defensive I sounded. ‘It's a milestone, that's all. You wouldn't understand.'

Diane regarded me steadily; it felt like a challenge.

I muttered something about having to go, and went.

Leaving the drawing behind.

I squabbled with the voices in my head all the way home and while I fed and changed Jamie. She was an engaging baby, pretty, reasonably settled given she'd been thrust into the care of strangers. What was I supposed to do? Keep her at arm's length, deny her any warmth or affection because she'd only be here a few days?

By the time I got round to making my own lunch I was ravenous, and hadn't resolved any of the edgy feelings that Diane's comment had awoken.

While I stirred a couple of blocks of frozen spinach and some spring onions into boiling water, I sifted through my reactions – trying to unpick the reasons behind them.

It was fair to say having Jamie had made me think anew about my relationship with Ray. And her appearance in my life had made me a little broody but that was a fancy, like window shopping, rather than a powerful driving need. True, I felt quite close to the child but wouldn't anyone who'd shared the isolation of broken nights and been the one she relied upon?

I'd seen some childcare guru on the telly who advocated keeping handling to a minimum, leaving babies alone apart from set feeding times, letting them cry if need be, in order to establish a fixed routine. She told stories of infants who slept for a straight ten hours at night, who never fussed or fretted. But that type of regime wasn't my style. It seemed cold and inflexible. And I'd be incapable of ignoring a crying child.

Was I too involved? Would I miss Jamie when she went? I scooped a spoonful of miso paste, made from fermented soya beans, mashed it with a little water and added it to my soup, sprinkling chilli flakes on top. Yes, I'd miss her a bit, but I had plenty of other stuff going on: I had a life, a job, a child, a lover, a business. I wasn't praying that Jamie would stay. I'd like to catch up on my sleep for starters. Realistically, even if her mother never returned, I wouldn't be able to keep her indefinitely. At some point I would have to inform social services.

I ate my broth with the last crust of home-made bread. When food prices had gone up we'd invested in a bread-making machine and never looked back. But the extra time the baby demanded had disrupted some of our everyday chores, like baking bread. I cleared my plates and got out the flour and yeast and seeds. I finally admitted to myself that my overreaction to Diane was because she'd put her finger on something I'd been trying to ignore. And rather than 'fess up and admit that the little girl had won me over and it would be a wrench when she went, I'd scrabbled to deny any such bond.

I took the baby round to the office with me, intent on working through my interview with Damien Beswick and making recommendations for Libby. It was chilly in the cellar room and I turned up the heating and switched on the table lamp. Before I started, I called Diane.

‘Hey,' I said, ‘sorry if I was a bit prickly back then. Felt like you and Ray were ganging up on me.'

‘I don't want to see you get hurt,' she said.

‘I won't. I can handle it. She's a nice baby, but that's all. Honestly. And I forgot the drawing.'

‘I'll hang on to it for you.'

We said our goodbyes and I concentrated on the case. There were a number of items in Damien's account that interested me or raised questions – though I couldn't tell yet whether they had any bearing on establishing his guilt or innocence.

First, why had Charlie been in the cottage with the lights off but the door unlocked? If he'd gone for a sleep, surely he'd have locked up. If someone had been there before Damien (as he wanted me to believe) had that person switched off the lights when they were leaving? Why? A primal need to obscure what they'd done – in the same way that Damien had instinctively shut the door to hide the horror? After all, anyone coming to the cottage in the dark, like Libby, would be surprised to find the place in darkness. Leaving the lights on would actually make the place appear more normal, so attract less attention. As I mulled this over, I scribbled the gist of my ideas down in my notepad.

Damien had been uncomfortable when I asked him if he'd touched the body. What I'd been trying to find out was whether Charlie's skin was cool to the touch – or warm. It would be in the police case notes; the pathologist called to the scene would have taken the temperature of the victim and estimated time of death. Maybe Geoff Sinclair would be able to remember? I made a note to phone him. Charlie couldn't have been there for very long; he'd not left home till four.

The second thing that puzzled me was Damien's description of Charlie's car: how it had been ticking as the metal contracted, how the bonnet felt warm. Cars cool down pretty quickly anyway and it was November time so the temperatures would be lower; that suggested that Charlie had used it very shortly before his death, before Damien arrived.