Dead Man's Daughter Page 20

  ‘Could she have pets then?’

  ‘Before she was on the immunosuppressant drugs she could. So, they were playing up there, and it doesn’t have safe windows. They’re old Victorian ones. I mean, that’s why we put the lock on. Jess must have leant too far out. Abbie doesn’t remember exactly what happened or what she was doing, but she gets very upset. Jess fell.’ Rachel pushed her hair back. A tear shone on her cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  A click from the corridor and Rachel jumped from her chair. The thud of the front door closing. ‘Mum and Abbie. Are we done?’

  ‘Yes. I need a word with Abbie though.’

  Rachel left the room and I heard low voices in the corridor. I leant back in my chair and closed my eyes.

  The door banged open, bumping into the back of one of the chairs. I opened my eyes. ‘Hello, Patricia.’

  Patricia gripped the back of one of the dining room chairs. ‘Abbie was terrified in that place. The secure unit. You’re not taking her back there, are you?’

  ‘No, I just need a word with her. You can sit in if you like.’

  Minxy crept into the room and twined herself around Patricia’s ankles.

  ‘What do you want to say to her?’

  I smiled. ‘If you sit in, you’ll find out.’

  Patricia tutted and left the room. I leant and wiggled my fingers at Minxy, the universal language for Come here and I’ll stroke your head. Minxy was familiar with the lingo and walked over and butted my fingers. I rubbed under her chin. She looked up and jumped onto my knee.

  Patricia appeared in the doorway and saw Minxy on my knee. Her whole demeanour changed. I could almost hear her thinking, Oh well, if my cat likes you, you can accuse my granddaughter of murder, you can think my daughter’s psychotic . . . whatever you want is fine. ‘Isn’t she a lovely cat?’ she said.

  Minxy’s purr filled the room. I nodded. ‘Gorgeous.’

  ‘Come on then, Abbie.’ Patricia shuffled Abbie forwards. ‘Sit down and answer the detective’s questions.’

  Abbie sat on a chair opposite me and stared with eyes that looked even bigger than before. ‘Did I not do it then? I didn’t kill Dad?’

  My heart felt squeezed in my chest. ‘Have you remembered anything else, Abbie? About that night?’

  She shook her head glumly.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said.

  Minxy stepped off my knee onto the table, leaving behind a spectacular quantity of hair, and headed for Abbie.

  ‘Keep her away from the child,’ Patricia said. ‘She mustn’t get an infection.’

  I wasn’t sure I could influence Minxy in any way but she responded to my gentle suggestion to return to my knee.

  Abbie frowned. ‘Is it not my heart then?’

  ‘Your heart’s fine.’

  She visibly brightened, then sank into her chair again. ‘But Dad’s still dead. I don’t understand . . . I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Abbie, I’m sorry to ask, but do you remember when Jess fell from the window?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Patricia’s tone was sharp. ‘Why are you bringing all that back? It’s nothing to do with this.’

  Abbie looked up at me through her hair. ‘I remember a bit. Not much.’

  ‘Could you tell me what happened?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember exactly.’

  ‘What’s the last thing you do remember?’

  ‘We were in the attic and Jess fell and I can’t remember anything else. I can’t remember anything else.’

  ‘Come on now,’ Patricia said. ‘She’s getting upset. She can’t talk about it.’

  ‘No, I can’t talk about it,’ Abbie said. ‘Dad told me.’

  ‘What do you mean, Abbie? Your dad told you not to talk about it?’

  Abbie shook her head. She was saying nothing more.

  19.

  There was a message on my mobile from Fiona. Her voice came through clear and bright, despite the iffy signal. ‘Elaine Grant’s been seeing Harry Gibson. He’s her therapist too. And both Karen Jenkins and her husband are alibied out for Sunday night. A neighbour had a camera which covers their driveway. Caught them arguing outside the house early evening, which the neighbour took a dim view of. And then neither of them went out until the next morning. Hope you’re having a good weekend. Cheers. Bye!’

  Karen Jenkins was alibied out. I suppressed a stab of disappointment and put the phone away. So that was one less alternative to Abbie.

  I started the car and set off into the wintry afternoon gloom. My head felt foggy and not up to the job of untangling all the information. There was definitely something going on with Abbie’s sister. Why would her dad tell her not to talk about it? I remembered Karen Jenkins starting to say something about it, but then clamming up. Maybe I could get her to spill the beans with a little more persuasion.

  And Elaine Grant had been seeing Dr Gibson. Could she have seen his notes on Abbie? Could she even have blackmailed him? Got him to hypnotise Abbie into killing her father? Dr Li hadn’t seemed to think that was likely, but nothing in this case was likely.

  I would have loved to talk about the case with Jai but he had the day off. He’d be with his new girlfriend and would hardly be delighted to hear from me. I tried to picture him with her. I didn’t even know her name, let alone what she looked like. Maybe he’d pleased his family and gone for a Sikh? She was probably beautiful, with big brown eyes.

  I slammed my hand against the steering wheel. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop it!’ I realised I’d spoken out loud, to myself. I was becoming that person you avoid on the train.

  I knew what Jai would say about the case anyway. I heard his voice in my head. Everything leads to Abbie. Why are you chasing around after these other people? And why won’t you even consider that the heart could have affected her? You heard that Gaynor woman saying she’d had dreams from the heart’s perspective. Even Dr Li seems to think it’s possible.

  I turned the radio on loud. It was still only late afternoon, although the sky seemed to have collapsed onto the hills, pushing the light from the scene.

  I knew where I needed to go. I remembered the address from when we’d looked at the CCTV. A quiet middle-class street – the kind where it was okay to shout at your family as long as you kept the windows shut while you did it. There was a good chance she’d be at home herding children at this time.

  I drove there and parked under a cherry tree in the wide suburban road.

  Karen Jenkins opened her door, clutching the hand of a toddler. A look of alarm flitted across her face. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the kids.’

  As if to provide further evidence, a shriek ricocheted down the hallway. Something about Minecraft.

  ‘Can I come in?’ I said.

  Karen glanced up the road. ‘You’d better. We’ll have the Stasi, aka Neighbourhood Watch, on to us. But we’re going out. I only have ten minutes.’

  ‘Okay.’ I smiled and walked into the hallway. Lego crunched underfoot.

  A child of about eight shot into view. ‘Mum, it’s my turn!’ His face was red and tight like a balloon about to burst.

  Karen shouted into a room on our left. ‘Give your brother a turn.’ Then she bellowed up some stairs on our right. ‘Look after the boys. I’ve got Charlie. I need to talk to . . . ’ She glanced at me. ‘Just look after them.’

  She led me and the toddler into a large kitchen and shut the door firmly behind her. ‘I wish you’d warned me you were coming. I hope you’re not tied in with environmental health. It’s like running a zoo here. I don’t know how all my friends seem to keep things under control.’ The words spilled out in a nervous stream. She paused and removed a toy helicopter from a wooden chair. ‘Sit down anyway. Coffee? Tea?’ She released the hand of the toddler, who wandered in the direction of a large window overlooking a garden strewn with dead plastic things.

  ‘Tea please,’ I said, somewhat unwillingly. I really didn’t need more tea. ‘And don
’t worry, it’s fine.’ I glanced around. Piles of washing and stacks of papers sat on every surface, and toys littered the floor. ‘I’m always suspicious of people whose houses are too tidy. So many hours wasted.’

  ‘I just wish I could be a little more in control. But with them . . . ’ She gestured to the door. ‘Hopeless.’ She stuck the kettle on and turned to face me, leaning against the counter. ‘Can you believe I’ve got two-year-old twins. . .’ She nodded in the direction of the toddler. ‘At my age? Apparently I had double egg follicles in both ovaries or something ridiculously fertile. Like a closing down sale. Buy one, get one free.’

  I laughed. The over-share was a good sign, although I was conscious she’d said she only had ten minutes. Still, I couldn’t afford to steam-roller my way in and expect her to answer my difficult questions if I refused to drink her tea and discuss her reproductive prowess.

  So I chatted while she boiled water and dunked tea bags in chipped mugs, staying away from the tricky subjects, building rapport via our similarly chaotic lives. The nervous babbling calmed a little.

  Once the tea was made, Karen sat opposite me and slotted my mug into a space between some (possibly unwashed) socks and a packet of instant rice. I picked up the mug and took a sip.

  ‘What exactly happened with Ollie?’ I asked. ‘On the trip to the seaside.’

  A range of emotions flitted across her face. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was injured. The official record says Phil Thornton was supposed to be supervising. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there?’

  I glanced at the toddler. He was sitting down and smacking the floor with his palms.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Karen said. ‘Phil admitted it. He should have been supervising.’

  ‘You’d been drinking, hadn’t you? You’d have been sacked.’

  She was silent.

  ‘Did Phil threaten to tell your boss what really happened with Ollie?’

  ‘I didn’t . . . Oh my God. Do I need a lawyer?’

  ‘I’ll need you to come into the Station and make a statement. You’ll be entitled to a lawyer.’

  ‘Oh Christ. You’re on the wrong track. You’ve got it wrong. Yes, Phil was threatening to tell everyone it was my fault about Ollie. But I didn’t do anything . . . Oh God, I should have told you before. He made me promise not to say anything. I don’t know why I stuck to that promise – he’d been a shit to me, threatening to tell everyone about Ollie after he’d said he’d keep it quiet.’ She pushed her hair off her face, and I noticed a tiny muscle in her cheek twitching.

  I saw the toddler out of the corner of my eye. He stood and reached up towards the counter-top. There was a glass on the side above him. I didn’t want to interrupt Karen’s revelation, but . . . I jumped up and shifted the glass. ‘What should you have told me?’

  She didn’t seem to have noticed the near-glassing. I wondered about her suitability as a social worker.

  ‘He made me promise,’ she said. ‘On my mother’s grave. It never occurred to me you might think I killed him, for God’s sake.’

  ‘You promised, but now he’s dead. I think he’d urge you to go back on that promise.’

  ‘Yes, okay. I was protecting Abbie but . . . ’

  ‘Just tell me, Karen.’

  We sat looking at each other over the piled-high table, clutching our mugs like weapons.

  ‘I was protecting Abbie,’ Karen said again. ‘Oh God . . . Okay. She pushed her.’

  ‘Who pushed who?’

  Karen put her mug down with a shaking hand. ‘Abbie pushed Jess out of that window. He only told me recently.’

  My wrist went weak for a moment and I spilt a blob of tea on the table. Karen leant forward and wiped it with one of the socks.

  ‘He didn’t tell you at the time?’ I said.

  ‘No. But recently he thought Rachel might have found out.’

  ‘You’d better tell me exactly what happened.’

  ‘This is what Phil told me. The girls were both six. Abbie had been diagnosed with the same heart condition as Phil and she’d started developing symptoms. She was going to need a transplant at some point, and she got obsessed with the fact that someone had to die for her to get her new heart.’

  The toddler bashed his head against the window. And again. What were you supposed to do when they attempted self-harm? Karen didn’t seem to have noticed. I winced as he smacked his head harder. I jumped up and grabbed his hand. Led him back to the table, and looked for something he could safely destroy. ‘And this was four years ago?’ I said. ‘A few years before Abbie actually had her transplant?’

  ‘Yes. They knew she’d need one at some point but it wasn’t yet critical. Abbie killed Jess to try and keep her dad happy. She thought he was really upset she was going to die, and she killed Jess to try and make it better.’

  ‘She did it for her dad?’

  ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? But, you know . . . Do you have kids?’

  ‘No.’ That was why I had no clue what to do with hers when it head-butted a pane of glass – hadn’t she noticed?

  ‘Well, they can get the wrong idea about things at that age, and have some odd stuff going on in their heads. Phil wondered if it had something to do with that horrible folk tale. But I mean, I’m not saying I can imagine my kids doing that, but . . . I kind of can, at that age. They don’t fully understand the consequences.’

  ‘No. Six is pretty young.’

  ‘Yes. I mean, they shouldn’t even have been in the attic.’

  ‘So, did Abbie tell Phil she pushed Jess deliberately?’

  ‘I think so. I think she ran down and said something like, Daddy, I’ve done it. I can have a new heart now. Like she was expecting him to be pleased with her.’

  My insides felt solid and cold. ‘Was Rachel there?’

  ‘No. That’s the thing, you see. Obviously Phil rushed to Jess and called an ambulance, but she didn’t make it. And he told Abbie to say it was an accident and never tell anyone anything different. When the ambulance arrived, everyone just assumed it was an accident.’

  ‘And they kept it secret ever since?’

  ‘Yes. Abbie might even remember it as an accident. You know how you can manipulate kids’ memories.’

  I pictured Abbie in her grandmother’s dining room. What was it she’d said? I mustn’t talk about it. Dad told me.

  ‘Phil didn’t even tell Rachel?’

  ‘No. Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘But he thought she’d found out?’

  The door banged open. A thickset man was silhouetted against the light from the hallway. He marched in and scooped up the toddler. ‘For God’s sake, Karen, the babysitter will be here in a minute.’ He stormed out again, not waiting for Karen to respond, and completely ignoring me.

  Karen stood and shifted towards the door. She spoke quietly. ‘Phil wondered if Rachel had started to suspect. It was things Abbie said when she was hypnotised recently. The therapist mentioned them to Rachel and she started asking questions of Phil. That was when he spoke to me. He was quite upset and worried about it all. It was a terrible thing he’d done, and he didn’t know what Rachel would do if she found out.’

  *

  I drove to Hannah’s to pick up Hamlet. She swung the door open. ‘Come in. Fatso’s having some food.’

  I followed the piggy guzzling noises through to the kitchen. ‘He’s not the most polite eater, I’m afraid. He takes his food out of the bowl so he can eat it off the floor.’

  ‘Thanks, Meg. I discovered that. After I didn’t put a tray down for him.’

  I sat down to wait for Hamlet to finish chucking food on the shiny white floor.

  ‘I bought him some special stuff,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll get it for you.’ She fished a box from the cupboard and shoved it into my hands.

  I examined the box. ‘Tender morsels of gourmet-roasted beef in a rich sauce. Blimey, I wish I ate that well.’

  ‘I did hear about a woman who bought
dog food accidentally instead of pie filling,’ Hannah said. ‘Meaty chunks. Said it made a lovely Cornish pasty. I could whip us up some now if you like. Are you staying for tea?’

  ‘Not if you’re going to make me eat Cat Food Pasties.’

  ‘Just a cuppa then?’

  ‘No. If I have to drink any more tea, I’ll need a catheter. What are you up to anyway?’

  ‘A night with the girls.’ A reminder that she had plenty of other friends. I needed to make some more for myself. Stop working all the time.

  I waited for Hamlet to finish dining, and persuaded him into his carrier. He gave me a look of utter loathing.

  Hannah laughed. ‘Oh dear. Look at his little face.’

  ‘He’s such a prima donna.’ It came over me in a wave how much I loved the little sod. I’d become a cliché. Single-woman- with-cat. Supposedly this made me very sad, but in reality I wasn’t. I certainly wouldn’t swap for Karen’s suicidal offspring and grumpy husband. It would be nice if I could afford a better house for us, with windows that closed and heating that worked, but I liked Hamlet’s company. And if I died alone and he chose to eat me, that was a sensible use of resources as far as I was concerned.

  *

  It was snowing again on the way home – fat flakes that danced in my headlights like a threat but melted as soon as they hit the tarmac. I glanced at the car’s temperature gauge. Two degrees.

  I arrived at the cottage and walked into the hallway. I needed to get my life in order. The clutter of books, the cobwebs lacing the corners of the rooms, the unread bills perched on the hall book-case – they reminded me how out-of-control things had become.

  I released Hamlet from his carrier, swerved into the living room and put the TV on loud. I didn’t care what was on. In fact, the more puerile the better. Bring on Simon Cowell or the dim bloke from Essex.

  I went through to the kitchen, turning the thermostat up on the way, more in hope than in expectation.

  I hadn’t eaten for hours. I pulled open the fridge door. Not good. I wasn’t going to do much domestic-goddessing with a few mouldering carrots, a piece of cheese, a bottle of cheap Pinot Grigio, and one can of Pedigree bitter. The milk was fresh though. I sorted myself out some cereal and a glass of wine. All major food groups catered for.