Someone Who Isn't Me, page 13
What had Xanthe been doing? She wasn’t responsible for the chaos the system had fallen into after she left, but there were about six weeks’ worth of records that had just not been properly kept at all, almost as if Xanthe had known she was leaving and had decided not to bother any more.
But according to Dev, Xanthe had more or less walked out, without any warning.
That wasn’t her problem. Her problem now was to get her clients back on track.
She was just getting started when the landline rang. ‘Kay McKinnon.’
It was Dev. ‘Kay. You’re not answering your phone.’
‘There’s no signal here, Dev.’ I did tell you. ‘Use this number if you need me.’
‘Yes, well, I wish… Never mind. You aren’t in the office.’
‘You don’t say.’ Kay! Matt-in-her-head cautioned. ‘No. I’m not working today.’
‘What?’
‘I said I’m not working today.’ Even this connection was poor.
‘Oh. I’m sure the rota says…’ She heard the sound of paper shuffling. ‘OK. Well, I’ve had a call – it should have come to you but as you aren’t here…’
Which I’m not supposed to be. ‘This phone call,’ she prompted him.
‘What?’
‘The phone call.’
‘The… Yes. It’s worrying. It’s Poppy Brooke.’
‘What’s happened?’
Against the crackling line, she got the gist of it. Poppy had missed yet another appointment with her probation officer – the one she had promised Kay she would attend.
‘And he’s only just noticed?’ Kay asked.
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ There was no point in telling Dev what he already knew. After savage cuts and part-privatisation, the probation service was struggling. They’d lost too many experienced people, and the people who were working carried caseloads that were far too high. It had turned into a system where ticking the box was more important than doing the actual work. People weren’t just falling through the cracks, they were cascading. ‘I’ve got an appointment with her tomorrow.’
‘The last thing we want is Poppy taken back to court.’
‘I agree. Dev, have you come across a woman called Leesha – possibly a pusher? She’s in touch with Poppy. I’m not happy about it.’
‘The name doesn’t ring any bells. I’ll check. Listen, I’d like you to contact Poppy now, please. You are her key worker, Kay.’
By the time she managed to decipher this through the interference on the line, he’d rung off.
The exchange left her in a bad temper. Dev was blaming her for Poppy’s delinquency – and OK, she was Poppy’s caseworker, but whatever had gone wrong for Poppy, it had happened long before Kay took over her case. It was at times like this when she really missed Matt. Well, she missed him all the time, but he’d always known the right way to soothe her ruffled feathers when she was dealing with the inanities of bureaucracy and jobsworth managers. He would have told her that she wasn’t responsible for things that had gone wrong before she took on the job, that Dev was only being an arse because he was insecure himself, that Kay didn’t have to worry about her own adequacies as far as the job went, all the things she knew, but sometimes didn’t quite believe.
‘Bum,’ she said out loud, and went to make herself a cup of coffee. Milo bounced hopefully towards the door. ‘Later,’ she said. She sat at the kitchen table, drinking her coffee slowly, letting the silence calm her down.
She picked up the phone and tried Poppy’s number, but it only rang a couple of times before the answering service took it. She left a message. ‘Poppy? It’s Kay. Call me, please. It’s important.’ Poppy’s work? That number was marked clearly with No calls. And if Poppy was avoiding her, then calls and messages weren’t going to do the trick. Kay needed to get over to the house and talk to Poppy face to face.
Half of her wanted to race out of the house and go in search of Poppy right now, try and talk some sense into her, try and find out what was wrong, but she couldn’t work like that. She couldn’t set off on a wild goose chase all over Hull on the off chance of finding her delinquent client. She wasn’t Poppy’s friend; she was her caseworker, and she had an appointment with Poppy the following day.
The sound of rain against the windows roused her from her reverie. She was cold, she was tired and her head was full of fuzz. What was she doing, burying herself in all of this on a day when she wasn’t even supposed to be working? Despite the foul weather, she needed to get out.
She made a sudden decision. ‘Come on, Milo. We’re going for a walk.’ The sound of the magic word was enough the send him on a mad race around the downstairs and it was a few minutes before she managed to catch him and clip him onto the long lead. She pulled on her waterproof, laced up her boots, and they were ready for off.
Outside, the rain had eased a bit and the air smelled fresh and clean. The clouds cast shadows that chased across the ground. The sky was a tapestry of purples and blues and greys. Matt would have loved it here. She stood for a moment, looking out over the landscape. Every minute, every hour, every day took Matt further away from her. Distance was not the problem – distance could be overcome, but there was no way back through time.
And that was what she had to live with. She made herself step briskly as she and Milo set out. The estuary was invisible against the flat landscape, but a ship was moving out there, apparently sailing across the open fields. She stopped and watched it, delighted with the optical illusion.
The estuary. She’d walk that way. Wrapping her scarf more closely round her neck, she set off again. A quick check of the nearest drain showed her that Milo would get muddy if he fell in, but would easily be able to get out again, so she let him off his lead.
He raced around madly, running in little circles, following one trail after another, overwhelmed by a new place and the variety of new smells. She wandered along behind him, her hands in the pockets of her waterproof. The phone call with Dev had been depressing. Did she really want to put herself through that rigamarole of office politics, work in a job that paid her for three days and expected her to be on call for seven? Idly, she played with the idea of retiring, of spending her days walking with Milo, enjoying the changing seasons, living at a slower pace than she had for most of her life, just enjoying the time she had left.
But that was old-woman thinking. She’d tried that, hadn’t she, living in that isolated little cottage outside Whitby, and it had driven her mad. She was loving this walk, but only because it was a treat for her to have some time to herself. If it was always like this, then it wouldn’t be the same. Anyway, why was she letting herself be influenced by Dev Johar’s attitude? He was wrong, she knew he was wrong, and she’d make him admit he was wrong.
And Poppy…?
Today was not a work day. She’d think about Poppy tomorrow.
Without really planning it, she had been following the line of one of the drains. It ran right down to the shoreline. Letting her curiosity guide her, she followed the grassy path, keeping a wary eye on Milo who was trotting happily beside her. The drain was deeper here and she really didn’t fancy fishing him out of it. They crossed what looked like a sluice gate – of course, when the tide was high, the water could run back from the estuary onto the land – and followed the drain down to the shore.
There was something flapping in the wind. As she got closer, she saw yellow and black tape and the words ‘Crime Scene’. Much of the tape must have been taken down – this was just a piece left behind – but it brought back to her Catherine Ford’s story of a body found down near the water.
This must be Spragger Drain sluice.
But she hadn’t talked about a crime, just a death. And Kay had assumed an accident.
The other night came back to her; the sound of a door closing softly, Kay sitting in the kitchen, her eyes fixed on the door as the footsteps came closer…
She clipped on Milo’s lead and, moving slowly, she walked towards the embankments. There was a hard-standing at the end of the drain, cut by a deep culvert. The tide was out. Below her, the foreshore was strewn with rocks, green and covered with wet seaweed, gleaming in the watery light.
The tracks of birds marked the wet sand, and a single line of footprints showed a walker had gone that way not long before. She looked west and saw that a path ran along the top of the embankment. You couldn’t get down to the foreshore from here – it was a steep drop – but further away along the path, it would be possible.
They could walk along here, she and Milo, but not now, not today, so close to the reminders of a death.
The almost monastic silence of Sunk Island seemed suddenly not peaceful, but sinister.
She shook herself. This was the same kind of thinking that led teenage girls to scream hysterically about ghosts and demons. Hadn’t bad things happened at her cottage? Didn’t bad things happen everywhere?
It was just that this was such a bleak and lonely place to die.
The clouds were closing in fast. She needed to get back. It took her a moment to get her bearings – the estuary behind her, the house – not visible, but surely over there. Calling to Milo, she set off again across the fields.
She followed the track further inland then turned west. Unexpectedly, in this flat, open landscape, she found herself walking towards a copse of trees. Soon she was in among them – the ground was covered with the dead leaves of last winter and the branches made spider webs against the sky. There were old buildings here – ruins with lichened stone walls, thick and windowless.
She’d heard about this – a gun battery built over a hundred years ago to defend the mouth of the Humber. The trees must have grown up since the last war, as they obscured the view across the estuary.
Milo, his energy spent in his initial mad run, was walking quietly along the path. He wandered among the buildings, his nose to the ground, and she meandered behind him. She’d have to come here another day when she had more time, bring some sandwiches and a flask and explore these buildings properly. She called Milo, who was showing interest in some steps that led downwards into darkness, and turned inland. She looked at the sky. The clouds were gathering and the light was fading.
She didn’t want to find herself out here in the dark, away from shelter once the rain started. Time to head back to the house.
Something was blowing across the ground, something yellow. At first, she thought it was more of the crime scene tape, but as she got closer, she saw it was an empty plastic sack, bright yellow with a picture on the front.
She knew what it was before she picked it up.
She had seen one just like it a couple of days before, in the fuel store at her house.
A compost bag.
Chapter 21
Bridlington
Becca’s head was pounding as she stuck price labels on tins and pushed them onto the supermarket shelf. Andy was dead.
Bryan’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Becca. Those tins do not go on that shelf. And those are not reduced. What do you think you’re doing? You need to buck your ideas up if you want to keep on working here. Get all this stuff off the shelves now and do them again, right?’
She hadn’t slept last night, just lain there listening to the rain beating on the window.
Andy… the one she shared stupid jokes with, the one who texted her while she was working behind the bar, making her laugh, the one whose face always seemed to light up when he saw her. His slow smile. And the way he had looked at her as her hair tumbled down round her shoulders. He’d talked to her like he cared. I don’t want to make more bad things happen in your life.
But he had.
He’d been married all the time and he had a kid. A wife and a child he’d never thought to mention. What other lies had he told her? She couldn’t bear the thought that he’d been just another lying creep, but what else was she supposed to think?
Baggers can’t be choosers.
Last night, after she’d walked out on Curwen, she’d gone inside and sat in the big armchair in her room and struggled not to cry. She kept telling herself Curwen was a pig creep, he should leave her alone, he should… But all of that sounded old. If she cried, it wouldn’t be because of him, it would be for Andy. And what was there to cry about? She would be crying for the Andy she thought she’d known.
And he had never existed.
And now she couldn’t even ask him why he’d lied to her. Maybe he’d split up with his wife. How would Curwen know? Maybe he’d hadn’t mentioned his child because… because…
Who was she trying to kid? He had lied because he was a creep, just like all the rest, and that was the end of it.
At least Curwen had been straight with her. And there was one thing he’d told her that she couldn’t get out of her head. The people he was after were pushing drugs to kids.
She knew all about that. She’d seen it, the kids with no one who gave a shit about them, apart from the dealers, and the dealers were just using them. Even kids who had someone to care about them – like Jade’s Lewis – could get drawn in. Lewis was starting to hang out with the gangs, Jade had said as much, and Becca had not liked the look of the people she’d seen him with. She’d seen the flashy clothes, the fancy bike. Lewis was in trouble. He was a little shit, but Jade was her mate, and you don’t let your mates down.
She could do something. Curwen wanted to know what was in those bags that Carl had stored in the cellar. She didn’t have the key, but was Curwen right? Could she get it? Carl usually kept his keys clipped to his belt, but when he was in the back doing the books, or whatever it was he did in there, he left his keys on the table, and sometimes, when he was working in the pub, he left his keys behind the bar. Maybe…
When it was her break, she headed straight outside for a cigarette. Jade was there, leaning against the wall, her own cigarette already lit. She smiled a bit wearily when she saw Becca. Becca’s face must have shown something of how she was feeling, because Jade asked, ‘What’s up love? Boyfriend dumped you?’
Becca shook her head. ‘No boyfriend.’ That was true enough, wasn’t it? Andy had never been her boyfriend, not really. He belonged to someone else.
‘Well, that’s your problem then, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘No boyfriend. You need a good seeing to. That’ll make you feel better.’
Becca found herself laughing. That was what she liked about Jade – she had a tough life with no money, two kids, an ex who gave her nothing but hassle and the same shit job that Becca had, but she kept her head up, kept on going.
She couldn’t get those pictures for Curwen. There was no way she could get those keys. Curwen had talked about drugs. Andy had talked about dodgy money stuff. Who was it he worked for? She fished out the business card he had given her, but all it gave was his name, Andy Yeatson, and Financial Enquiries.
Another worm of doubt started eating away at her. If he’d really been doing what he said, wouldn’t the name of the firm he worked for be on his card? Anyone could get a business card printed. If he’d lied about one thing…
She took out her phone and looked at the last message, remembering the way it had made her feel relieved at first that Andy hadn’t dropped her, and then how it had seemed all wrong. She should get rid of it. She should get rid of all the texts he’d sent, and the card, and just stop thinking about him, just remember he’d been a creep all along and she should have known better.
She really should.
She was about to press the delete key, when a cold realisation washed over her.
The last text had been sent on the night Curwen had first come into the pub, the night she’d sent pictures, the night she had spent the whole evening waiting for Andy to come back. Like he’d promised.
Only he couldn’t. The paper, the one she’d read in the supermarket. It said Andy had been attacked on Tuesday night.
When that text was sent, Great, A x, Andy had been dead three days.
Chapter 22
It sometimes felt to Dinah that no matter where she was moved to in Humberside Police, her job always reset to traffic. Her first time on a murder team as a DC, and here she was checking CCTV and traffic cameras, trying to find the route Andy took down the coast.
It required real concentration but it was also deadly boring. She had to keep stopping to refocus herself as her mind started drifting away from the task.
At least it had been made easier by the advice Curwen had given her: ‘The car you want drove right down into Sunk Island, right? There are only about three turnings off the main road that will take you there. Check those, and you should find the car you want. Then you can backtrack and find it in Brid.’
It was so obvious, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself – probably because she didn’t think there would be ANPR cameras watching the routes into Sunk Island. It was empty and isolated – almost no one lived there. Why would anyone bother? But sure enough, Curwen was right. The main routes into Sunk Island were under surveillance.
She’d got the information from the cameras and started working her way through the videos. After a couple of hours, her eyes felt sore and dry, so she stretched to get the kinks out of her back, and took five minutes before she returned to the screen. She fast forwarded, watching closely. Nothing, nothing, nothing… There. A car. She stopped the tape and took the details then moved on. OK, Nothing, nothing…
Her thoughts started drifting to the evening Andy had disappeared. He’d left the police station, driven into the town and parked. He’d been going somewhere, but so far, no one knew where. The pub? It was on his route. Was he on his way to see Becca Armitage? Dinah had to tell Hammond about that.
She’d gone to his office that morning, but he was out all day. The information she had was important, of course it was, but she kept thinking about Curwen’s warnings. Maybe she should talk to Curwen first. After all, what had she found out? That the geeky barman thought Becca Armitage and Andy were having a thing. If she told Dave Sykes or someone, the whole team would know at once and speculation about Andy might start. Best take it straight to Hammond tomorrow.
