Imago (3 page)

“This is Mandy’s room.”

Chapter Three

The two officers stepped inside the dim room. The blind at the window was pulled down and the air inside smelt stale. Kate nodded at Margaret in a way she hoped was polite but dismissive.

“Thank you, Miss Paling. We’ll take it from here and come and find you when we’re done.”

“Yes – yes, of course.” 

Margaret pulled the door shut behind her as she left.  Kate waited until her footsteps had faded from hearing. Then she tossed a pair of gloves to Olbeck.

“Let’s get some light in here, at least.”

Olbeck let the blind roll up with a snap that sounded very loud in the silent room. Kate looked around. The room had an institutional look: grey carpet, patchy woodchip on the walls, a duvet cover in navy blue with a matching pillowcase on the one, thin pillow. Still, she imagined beggars couldn’t be choosers: if it were a choice between this dull but functional room and the streets, Kate knew which she would chose.

Mandy Renkin had only had a few possessions, which was not unusual for someone who was shuttling between B&Bs, homeless hostels and other temporary accommodation. There were some clothes in the little chest of drawers by the window; it didn’t take long for Kate to sort through them. Cheap and badly made, for the most part, although there was one obviously hand-knitted jumper that drew Kate’s attention. She picked it up, noting the cable stitch, the good quality wool. Had Mandy’s mother or grandmother made this for her? Or had she picked it up in a charity shop somewhere? Kate said as much to Olbeck.

“We need to find out about her family,” said Olbeck. “Rav’s digging into her records back at the station.”

Kate nodded. She moved to the small bookcase that stood by the single bed. There were only five books contained therein. Four were romance novels in shabby pink and purple covers. One was an old copy of – Kate blinked and picked it up – Charles Dickens’ 
Great Expectations
. A strange juxtaposition with the other reading matter. Kate turned to the flyleaf of the book and saw the bookplate. 
Awarded to Amanda Renkin for Excellence in English
. The date on the bookplate was twelve years ago. Kate stared unseeing for a moment, picturing the fourteen-year-old Mandy, smart in school uniform, accepting the pristine book from a school Governor, or perhaps the Headteacher. 
Great Expectations
. Thinking of Mandy’s eventual fate, the title was the cruellest possible cosmic joke. How had a smart schoolgirl gone from receiving a school prize at fourteen to dead on the streets at twenty six?

Kate replaced the book on the shelf, carefully. She had these moments in every case, where professional immunity failed. In every case, there were a few moments of pain, brief but excruciating, like a long silver pin being plunged into her heart. She’d told Olbeck that once and he’d said, unexpectedly,
I know, it hurts, but it’s good that you feel that, Kate. You know you’re in trouble if you ever stop feeling like that
.

Kate sighed, loud enough for Olbeck to look up from his own search. He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong but shut it again as she shook her head, mutely.

There was a hesitant knock on the door, and Margaret Paling opened it and poked her head tentatively into the room.

“Father Michael is back,” she said. “I’ve let him know you want to talk to him.”

“Thanks,” said Kate. “If you could ask him to come here, perhaps?”

“Yes, of course. One moment.”

They heard the tap of her heels as she walked away back down the corridor. Kate turned her attention back to the small chest of drawers by the bed. There was nothing in the bottom drawer, a jumble of socks and underwear in the middle drawer, and in the top one, several packets of painkillers, crumpled tissues, a half-full cigarette packet and a framed photograph. Kate picked up up carefully. A woman – girl, really – who was clearly Mandy Renkin smiled out at her from the frame. Her cheek was pressed to the face of a baby boy, perhaps three months old or so, toothless mouth open in a drooling, gummy grin. Another of those pins pierced Kate’s heart, and she blinked several times, swallowing hard.

There was another knock at the door.

“I heard you wanted to see me,” said the tall, thin man who entered the room, obviously Father Michael. Olbeck and Kate heaved themselves to a standing position, pulled off their gloves and shook hands, introducing themselves.

Father Michael looked about the room and sighed.

“It’s not much,” he said apologetically. “We’re always short of funds. It’s getting worse now, with the benefit cuts of course. But we do what we can for these girls.”

“I’m sure you do, sir,” said Kate, sizing him up. He was probably younger than she’d first thought, late fifties perhaps, with a soft brown beard tinged with grey and narrow, sloping shoulders. His voice was unexpectedly deep and melodious – she could imagine he preached very well.

“We’re trying to find out as much as we can about Mandy Renkin,” said Olbeck. “Obviously, the more we know about her, the easier it is to find out who might have killed her. What can you tell us about her?”

Father Michael sat down on the edge of the bed and clasped his hands together.

“I hadn’t known her for long,” he said. “She’d not been here for more than a handful of weeks, only a month or so. Her social worker had passed the details of the Mission to Mandy at one of their meetings. Mandy had recently been released from prison, and I think she thought it might be a bit of a fresh start for her.”

“What was she in prison for?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Soliciting or shoplifting or something fairly minor. It was only a short sentence, a matter of weeks.”

“And when she was released she came straight here?”

Father Michael shook his head. “She was briefly in a hostel – a few days or so. I understood that Mandy had managed to complete a drug rehabilitation course in prison. That was why we were able to accept her here. We’re very strict on there being no drugs and alcohol allowed on site and anyone found using or supplying them will be asked to leave.”

Kate nodded. “Yes, Miss Paling said. She also mentioned that you and Mandy had had some sort of altercation recently. Can you tell us about that?”

Father Michael’s rather thick eyebrows rose.

“An altercation?”

“Yes. An argument, a quarrel,” said Kate, deliberately misunderstanding his repetition of the word. “Is that true?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Well, I suppose you could call it that,” said Father Michael reluctantly. “I’m surprised at Margaret… There wasn’t really much to tell.”

Kate and Olbeck said nothing. They were skilled in letting the silence spool out for long enough that the person they were interviewing needed then to fill it.

“I found out that Mandy was using drugs again. Or, let me be accurate, I was informed she was using drugs again, and I wanted to hear what she had to say for herself. “

“And what did she say?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, so brief that Kate almost missed it.

“She told me it was a lie. That she wasn’t using drugs again, and she didn’t know who had told me that.”

“Who had told you that?”

“One of the other women here. Claudia Smith.”

Kate saw Olbeck scribble that name down in his notepad.

“Did you believe Mandy?”

Father Michael’s narrow shoulders hunched for a moment. Then he shook his head slowly.

“I’m afraid I didn’t believe her.”

“You believed she was using drugs again?”

He nodded. “You get to know the signs.  And I must say, I know very well when someone is lying to me.”

“When did you have this argument?” asked Olbeck.

“Not long ago. Perhaps four or five days ago? I told her she couldn’t stay here if she was using drugs, reminded her of the rules, you know.”

“And how did Mandy react?”

Father Michael sighed.

“I’m afraid she became very foul-mouthed and abusive and ended up slamming the door to her room and locking herself in.”

“I see,” said Kate. “And what happened after that?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, how did you react?”

Father Michael half smiled.

“If you mean, was I upset by our argument, then of course I was, a little. But the most important thing about running a charity of this kind is that you have to, at some level, remain detached. Otherwise you just get carried away with the – well, the awfulness of some people’s lives. So, I suppose I mentally shrugged my shoulders and went back to my office.”

“What would have happened to Mandy if she’d left the Mission?” asked Olbeck.

“We would have tried to find her a place at a B&B or something. Perhaps another hostel. By evicting her from the Mission, we would have been making her effectively homeless, so the council would have had an obligation to house her.”

“But that didn’t happen?”

Father Michael stared at him.

“No, it didn’t,” he said. “Because she died before it came to that.”

“Where you upset by her death, Father?”

The thick eyebrows jerked upwards.

“What a question, officer. The death of a young girl – of course I was upset. Of course I was. We were all devastated.”

Kate stood up, thinking that they had enough to go on by now.

“Just one more thing, sir. Could you tell us your whereabouts on the night of the fourteenth of June?”

“That’s when Mandy died?”

“Could you answer the question please, sir?”

Father Michael considered for a moment.

“Well – I’m afraid I was at home. I usually am in the evening.”

“Can anyone confirm that, sir?”

Father Michael shook his head slowly.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. He looked worried. “I live alone, you see. I didn’t talk to anyone—”

“What’s your address, Father?” asked Olbeck. He wrote down the answer as the priest answered him.

“Twenty six Lavender Street, Charlock.”

“That’s fine, sir,” said Kate. “We’ll leave our cards, and I’m sure we’ll be back to ask you some more questions. If you think of anything at all that you think might be relevant, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

Father Michael nodded, his face serious. He stood back a little to allow them access to the door.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this dreadful thing?” he asked, just as they were leaving.

“Our enquiries are continuing, sir,” said Kate, the usual response.

“I hope you catch him.”

Kate and Olbeck said nothing, but smiled neutrally before saying goodbye.

J’s Diary

I ordered the first girl online. 

It’s amazing if you think of it – how you can put in a request for a human being as easily as you might order a new television or even your week’s shopping. Click a mouse and put something in your virtual basket: milk, sausages, chicken breasts, a woman. Just another type of commodity. Just another type of meat.

I purposely used a site I’d never used before or since, directing the responses to a new Hotmail address I’d set up specially. The credit card payment was more difficult. In the end, I used one of Mother’s, thinking perhaps I could say it had been stolen if it were ever traced back to me. Of course, at that time, I wasn’t foreseeing any of the kind of trouble that happened that night. I merely wanted to avoid any potential embarrassment. God forbid that anyone would recognise me. So, a strange agency and a strange girl was what I wanted.

I was very nervous before she arrived. It had only been a few weeks after Mother had died, and I still felt as if she were going to suddenly appear at any moment. Several times, I thought I heard her faltering footsteps in the bedrooms above me, and once, after a creak in the hallway, I was convinced that her head with its puff of white hair and her piercing steel-grey eyes would appear around the living room doorway momentarily. I even froze for an instant, clutching the arms of the chair, before realising how stupid I was being. There was no one there, of course. I kept telling myself, 
She’s dead. She’s gone. She’s dead. She’s gone
.

So, the night the girl arrived, I was extremely jumpy. I prowled the rooms downstairs, glancing nervously at the clock as the hands inched around to 9:00 p.m. I’d gotten everything ready, and for the first time ever in my life, I actually felt like myself. I actually felt as if it 
could
 work. I regarded myself in the hallway mirror, pulling my tie straight. Yes. 
It will work
, I told myself. 
You can do it
.

The doorbell rang at that moment, shattering the silence in the house, and I’d actually jumped. Then I hurried to the door and opened it as quickly as possible. I’d taken the lightbulb out of the porch light socket, but I was still suddenly terrified that the neighbours would be looking out of their front window and wondering what a tart was doing ringing my doorbell.

I don’t know why but I’d imagined a girl in heels, a leopard-skin coat, red lipstick. Stupid, really. The woman standing on the doorstep was short, thin, and dressed in a shabby blue fleece and skinny jeans and trainers. She looked a most unlikely prostitute, but as I hurried her into the house, I could see the fleece was unzipped slightly and a curve of damp cleavage visible beneath the zip. I felt a welcome surge of excitement.

I closed the door behind her.

“What’s your name?” she asked, peering through the gloom at me.

“John.”

Even in the dim light, I could see her lip curl. I think she knew it wasn’t my real name.

“John, eh? Right you are, 
John
. What d’you want to do?”

Funny, all this time I’d been frantically waiting for this moment, the moment of actually doing what it was I’d wanted to do for so long. And now that it was here and on the verge of happening, I found myself backpedalling.

“Do you want a drink or something?” I asked. My voice sounded tremulous – I despised myself. Why couldn’t I sound forthright and authoritative? In my head, I could see Mother’s sneer, the same sneer that had confronted me almost every day of my life.