The Bad Things (30 page)

Jane lifted her umbrella high and bent her head into the window. ‘Fancy seeing you here, Katie. Bloody miserable,’ she smiled. ‘Poor guy didn’t look after himself well, and what a way to die. Brrr.’ She shivered and the rain dripped down her face.

‘Do you want to hop in the car?’ Kate felt as though it was the least she could offer.

Jane shook her head. ‘No, want to get off. Just thought I’d tell you that it looks like suicide.’

‘Looks like?’

‘Not convinced, despite the bag over the head and the helium. Have to do some more tests. Toxicology and all that, though there’s enough booze and pills lying around to kill an army. Hey ho. I’ll let you know. If you want to come along to the post-mortem you’ll be very welcome.’

Kate thought about the low, dark building with its pure white interior that smelt of death, however antiseptic Jane kept it. ‘I’ll let you know, Jane, okay?’

‘Sure.’ Jane straightened. ‘Your guys are still in there nosing around, but I’m off. Toodle pip.’ She banged the top of the car before walking away.

‘“Toodle pip”.’ Glithro shook his head. ‘I’ve heard it all now.’

‘Come on, you know Jane. She loves her work.’

‘Hmm. I count myself lucky not knowing her. I bet she’s a lesbian too.’

Kate remembered why she hadn’t liked Glithro in the first place. ‘Does it matter?’ she said, coldly.

Glithro banged the back of his head on the seat. ‘Oh God, I’m in a car with a card-carrying feminist.’

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid. What are you doing? Hankering for the seventies or something?’

‘Just making an observation.’

‘Well keep your ignorant, ill-informed and, frankly, offensive observations to yourself.’

‘What? Just because I said our lovely Jane was a lesbian? Some of my best friends—’

‘Are lesbians,’ she finished off his cliché. ‘I know; that’s what they all say and it really doesn’t cut it, so just keep quiet.’ Kate was furious with herself for having begun to like the man.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘Along with that,’ Kate continued as if there hadn’t been a break in the conversation, ‘if you have a problem with gay people it’s because you feel your masculinity’s being threatened.’

Another silence ensued. Kate breathed deeply to try and defuse her irritation.

Then Glithro smiled. ‘You’re awfully easy to wind up, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not really bothered whether Jane is gay, straight, or bi, I just enjoy teasing you.’

Kate couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

‘Look, do you want to find somewhere to eat?’ he asked.

‘Why?’ She still felt antagonistic.

He looked at her. ‘Why not? I’m hungry. Katie.’ He grinned.

Not being able to think of a good reason why not, half an hour later Kate found herself sitting opposite Glithro in a small café on the side of the coast road. The tables were covered in oilcloth and there were black and white photographs of fishermen and their nets and boats on the walls. It was just the place to thaw out. Kate felt herself relaxing as they tucked in to an enormous plate of fish and chips, with a pot of builder’s tea on the side.

‘So, you must have been quite young when you found the little boy in that suitcase.’ The batter on Glithro’s fish cracked as he sunk his knife into it.

‘Thanks, Glithro. No pleasantries from you, then.’ Her fish was soft and fresh inside its batter coating.

Glithro chewed and swallowed. ‘Man, this is good. I believe in getting straight to the heart of the matter.’

Kate nodded. ‘Okay. I was young, yes. It was horrible. Why can’t you hold on to your wives?’

He looked at her steadily and she realized what a coal-black colour his eyes were. ‘Truth is, I should never have got married in the first place. But each time I thought I would get it right. This time I would be a good husband. Didn’t work though.’

‘And the children?’

He speared some chips. ‘Ah. Biggest regret. Biggest joy. Regret because I suppose I should never have brought them into the world. Regret because I hardly ever see them.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Perils of the job. And joy because, well they are, aren’t they?’

She swallowed. The fish was dry in her throat. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said.

‘Ah.’

‘What do you mean, “ah”?’

‘I just mean I’ve obviously hit a bit of a nerve.’

‘Nope.’ Kate squirted some sauce out of the giant plastic tomato. It looked like a dollop of blood on her plate.

‘Okay.’

They ate in silence for a few minutes.

The compulsion to talk became too much. ‘When I found Harry, Harry Clements, he hadn’t been dead that long. I mean long enough to have lost the rigor mortis and for some putrefaction to have set in – it was a hot summer – but not so long that he didn’t still look like a little boy. I was eventually allowed to take him out of the suitcase. But not until he’d been photographed and examined and generally gawped over.’

‘Who told the parents?’

She shook her head. ‘Anna Lord. She was a good copper. She went along with her partner, DI Bishop. I was there too. Insisted on going, seeing as I’d found him.’

‘It’s the worst part of our job. Taking away the hope.’

‘But at least Sasha Clements knew what happened to Harry. She’s still left wondering about Millie. Even now she’s left wondering about Millie.’ She managed to swallow some of her food. ‘Then there was the trial and the sleepless nights, the worry about putting over the evidence in the right way, and then the satisfaction that Jessop and Wood were put away. I was so naive.’

‘How so?’

‘To think that it could all be wrapped up as easily as that. That I could forget about it.’

‘The child. Harry. He died from drowning, didn’t he?’

Kate nodded. ‘That’s what the post-mortem said. Though when he was found he was wearing brand new pyjamas. Nothing fancy, only chain store ones.’ She had a sudden flash of blue, of Thomas the Tank Engine. ‘He was nice and dry. Just dead.’

More silence. Sounds of knives and forks scraping on plates. Glithro taking a drink of tea. The sound of him drinking magnified.

‘I’ve never wanted children since,’ she said casually, dipping a couple of chips in the tomato sauce and feeling as though a great rock in her stomach was starting to dissolve. The very act of telling someone the truth without excuses was…liberating, that was the only word for it. She felt giddy. Excited. She tried not to think why it was Glithro she’d decided to confide in; the one copper she thought she didn’t like. Turned out maybe she was wrong about him.

‘And what does your partner think of that?’ Those black eyes, looking steadily at her.

She was going to say he was fine about it, didn’t mind. Was willing to wait until she was ready. ‘My husband doesn’t know,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t know what I really think.’

‘Ah.’

The sound of her phone ringing broke the tension between them. It was DS Rogers. She listened to what he had to say, then cut the connection. She picked up her tea and drained the cup. ‘Time to get back, DI Glithro. Steve has had a tip-off from the boys at the Grainger crime scene.’

‘It’s a crime scene now is it?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kate, putting some money down on the table, ‘suicide note on the computer.’

30

The lights were off as Kate pulled up outside the house. Chris was probably absorbed in his work in the studio. Maybe putting the finishing touches to the table and chairs. She stretched as she got out of the car. Things were beginning to come together.

The suicide note on the computer was obviously false.

I’m sorry. I can’t go on any longer without my Gill. Forgive me.

Yeah, right. Nobody wrote their suicide note on a computer that they then switched off. And the clincher was one of the officers who’d been first on the scene. An old mate of Grainger’s who’d known the couple and who had been to his wife’s funeral. ‘Her name was Jill with a “J”, not a “G”,’ he said. ‘Grainger would never have got that wrong, however far gone he was.’

Then when they got back to the station, Rogers had turned up a report about an attempted burglary at Grainger’s house, which Kate thought was too much of a coincidence not to have been related. And now that they had two murders in a quiet Suffolk town in the space of a week, she had to get answers before she had Cherry – and the press – baying for blood.

‘Look,’ she told her team, ‘get onto any cameras in the area – you never know – they could have been speeding off somewhere. Bound to have come in a car, the place is far too isolated to walk to. Something tells me the robber came back. Why, I don’t know. Yet. And my gut tells me that if we find Grainger’s killer, it could give us some clues to Jackie Wood’s murderer. I’m convinced the two are linked. Too much of a coincidence not to be.’

‘Hi darling, I’m back.’ She took off her coat and hung it over the banister. The house was cold, unwelcoming, as if no one had been in it all day. Strange. Chris normally left a dimmed lamp on for her even when he was working. Must be totally absorbed in what he was doing.

She went upstairs to get changed, looking forward to a glass of wine and a chat with Chris – she wanted to tell him about the day, how she felt they could be getting closer to the killer of Jackie Wood.

She switched the light on in the bathroom.

The doors of the cabinet above the sink were wide open. Bottles of bubble bath, mouth wash, and shampoo lay cracked and broken on the floor, their contents merging into one lurid blue swirl. Tubes of toothpaste, cans of deodorant and shaving foam littered the floor, too. In the basin were assorted bubble packs of pills.

Pills.

A crawling dread went down Kate’s spine. She picked up the packs. Her contraceptive pills and the pills Doctor Bone had given her for depression. The contraceptive pill packet half empty, the pills for depression full. She put her hands either side of the basin and bowed her head. Chris had found them. She kept them both right at the top and back of the cupboard underneath bars of soap and aspirin. What the fuck was Chris doing? He never rooted around in the cabinet, never. His stuff – toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving stuff – were all on the bottom shelf on the right-hand side. Not at the top. Not at the bloody top. Why hadn’t she been more careful?

She took a deep, shuddering breath and scooped the mess out of the basin before splashing her face with cold water. The crap on the floor would just have to stay for the moment.

The night was clear, a frost in the air. With the moon lighting her way, Kate went down the path and pushed open the studio door. Chris had finished the table and chairs and they stood in the middle of the room, the moonlight making them gleam. They were beautiful. Kate ran her hand over the wood. It was smooth and hard and somehow living under her touch. The chairs were simple, the lines clean and pleasing. She walked around the furniture and saw a pile of what looked like kindling in the corner of the room. She swallowed and went over to the pile and knelt beside it. She could see it was the remains of the beautiful baby’s crib Chris had been making. She picked up a couple of pieces of the splintered wood and hugged them to her chest.

‘It was a surprise. For you. For our baby.’ His voice came from the corner of the studio and a light snapped on.

Chris looked at her, his face stony, eyes red-rimmed, skin pale. ‘Did you hear me? Kate? For our baby. The one I thought we’d have eventually. The one we’d have when you’d finally found the courage.’

‘Chris…I…’ She was crying.

‘The baby we’d have because we love one another and I thought that one day, that would be enough. That I would help you over whatever it was stopping you from completely committing. That’s what I thought.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Kate’s heart was breaking. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘You didn’t mean me to find the pills did you? The ones for depression, well, I could understand that. I could even understand why you might not want to tell me about it. Especially as you obviously thought you didn’t need them anyway. But the contraceptive pills. Why, Kate? Why?’

Kate gulped down a sob. ‘I told you it was difficult for me, that you had to give me time—’

The sound of Chris’s fist on the desk beside him made her jump. ‘Time? I was willing to give you all the fucking time in the world. I’d’ve waited forever. I’d have done anything for you, Kate, anything. But this. You lied to me and lied and lied. Why couldn’t you just tell me the truth and tell me you didn’t want children?’

‘You’d have never married me then, would you Chris?’ She was shouting now, heedless of the tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘You made it perfectly clear that you wanted a family. I tried to tell you I wasn’t sure—’

‘Wasn’t sure? I knew you weren’t ready. That’s what you told me. I knew I’d have to wait. Plenty of couples don’t have children until they’re in their forties. I thought that was us, Kate, I thought that was us.’

‘My job—’

‘Oh, your bloody job. That’s what matters, isn’t it? Not me and you. Not our lives together, but your bloody job.’

‘You know it’s important to me, it’s part of who I am. I can’t just give it up to have babies.’

‘Don’t even try that one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Kate, it’s the twenty-first century. There’s such a thing as paid maternity leave now. Paternity leave too. We would have managed. We would have been a family.’

Kate recognized that he was speaking in the past tense. ‘I’m sorry.’ She bowed her head.

‘Finally she says “sorry”. But I think the job is your baby. And your partner. I don’t think I can compete.’

‘Chris, that’s not true.’

He looked at her sadly. ‘You deceived me. And what lies were you spinning the doctor for him to give you pills for your…depression?’

‘Her.’

‘What?’

‘The doctor was a her. And I wasn’t lying. Not completely. I—’

He held up his hand as if to ward her off. ‘Enough Kate. I don’t think I can take any more. The table and chairs are finished and Mr Betts is sending round a van for them sometime this week. I’ll come back and let them in when I know what day they’re coming.’ He heaved himself out of his seat like an old man.