A Deadly Thaw (5 page)

Kat’s professionalism was being stretched to the limit. She couldn’t afford to cancel on any clients, but, at the same time, she needed to ensure she didn’t lose any through inattentiveness or being generally useless as a therapist.

It was Theresa’s first time with her, but, as she had assured Kat at the beginning of the session, she’d seen therapists before. For Kat, this always brought out mixed feelings. People tended to stick with their therapists if they were any good, and Theresa’s ready admission that she had been through a few suggested either she’d been unlucky with her previous counsellors or she had unrealistic expectations as to what she would get out of the sessions.

Sweeping her eyes over the information sheet that her new client had filled out, Kat could see that she would be fifty next month. Her marital status was down as divorced, and she wanted help with ‘anxiety’. Bare bones of information, and yet you could develop a set of assumptions on such meagre pickings. Kat noticed the unease as soon as Theresa showed up at the door. Small lines radiated from her eyes, although Kat could also detect a hint of wry amusement when she introduced herself.

She suspected that Theresa might well be a more complex client than the bald tag of ‘anxiety’ could cover. But, again, speculation.
Stop it
,
she thought. Her training kicked in, and she smiled. ‘What brought you here today?’

At the end of the session, Kat rose from her chair and showed Theresa out. So her assumptions had been wrong.
Idiot
. She should have known better. In fact, she did know better. Behind the calm façade and anxious eyes had been a story. Not merely sad or depressing, like some clients’ tales. No, a traumatic event that had given Theresa a very real reason to fear the world. Nor was it commonplace. Surely the story wasn’t commonplace? Kat searched her tired brain. She had never heard anything similar in her years of practice. No, not a run-of-the-mill story.

She thought about Lena. Kat had suggested counselling when she’d come out of prison but her sister had given her a closed look, and the matter had never been referred to again. The events yesterday had shattered that façade. Behind it all was a secret so monstrous that her sister had absented herself from the house.

Well, she’d got through the morning. First, the meeting with the policeman and then a new client. She frowned again at the thought of Theresa’s story.

Theresa had assured her she would come back next week. Kat thought the likelihood was that she would, but she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure. She wouldn’t have bet her life on it, but, chances were she’d be seeing Theresa again.

Sadler sat in front of Llewellyn, curiously moved. He’d gone into his office expecting a tantrum, warnings of dire things to come but, as he reminded himself, he always underestimated his boss. Underneath the bluff insensitivity of his public profile was a decent person and an experienced policeman. It wasn’t the first mistake that he’d seen. What made the difference was how you managed it.

Blame. Something goes wrong, and the first thing you do is look around for someone to hold to account. He’d forgotten that Llewellyn shared his dislike of this reaction. Llewellyn would want to sort it out first. Holding someone to account would come later, if necessary.

‘So,’ Llewellyn said, looking at Sadler over the top of his glasses. ‘An almighty cock-up is what we’ve got here. In fact,’ he smoothed a hand across his desk, ‘what we’ve got is cock-up on top of cock-up. First, the misidentification of a body we thought was Andrew Fisher, then the murder of the real Andrew. And now you tell me that Lena has disappeared. Which makes it cock-up number three.’

‘You think we should have arrested her when we went to question her about the body in Hale’s End? We were, at that time, relying on a visual identification of the dead man.
My
identification. It was hardly grounds for arrest. Especially as she had already served a ten-and-a-half-year sentence for his murder.’

Llewellyn sighed. ‘It’s damn lucky you weren’t the investigating officer in 2004. In fact, I’ve gone back through the files. Your input was fairly light. A mere DC. You’ve not done too bad in the intervening time.’

‘It’s been nearly twelve years. I wouldn’t be much good if I hadn’t.’

Llewellyn grunted. ‘The main thing is that you’re okay to head up this case. I’ve had to approve it with the Chief Constable, though. Second time I’ve spoken to him today.’

A note in his voice made Sadler look up but Llewellyn didn’t elaborate.

‘Everything we do from now on is going to come under scrutiny. All of us. In fact, only those who weren’t around in 2004 are likely to escape attention. You need to make good use of Palmer and Connie. Their inexperience is going to be an asset here.’

‘Will I need to get involved in the review into what happened?’

Llewellyn sighed. ‘I want you to keep out of that, Sadler. Of course, you’ll be interviewed. It’s going to be painful for us all. I intend to take full responsibility for this. I’m going to see Andrew Fisher’s mother myself after this meeting.’

‘You’re not going to break the news to her yourself?’

‘Of course not. She’s already been informed of the discovery. We did it as soon as we had official ID but I need to see her myself. Explain what we’re going to do. As I said, Sadler, I’m taking responsibility for this one. I’ll let you know what she tells me.’

‘Do you want to take someone with you? Connie, perhaps?’

Llewellyn shook his head. ‘The family-liaison officer will be there. You’ll be following it up with an interview, of course.’ Sadler’s face reddened. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I know she might be involved in this. Where the hell has Andrew Fisher been for the past twelve years? But that’s not our only worry. You know what you need to do, don’t you?’ Llewellyn counted the list off the fingers on his left hand. ‘First, find out the identity of the man found in Lena Gray’s bed in 2004. If she was having an affair, which it certainly looks like, then someone must have known about it. A friend possibly. Second, we need to open an investigation into the killing of the real Andrew Fisher. Not least, why he was killed at Hale’s End. I’d forgotten all about that place. Why murder him there?’

‘And third, you want me to find Lena Gray.’

Llewellyn left his hand up in the air. ‘Well, she does appear to be the one with all the answers, doesn’t she?’

Kat stood outside Providence Villa and looked up at its bleak façade. They were mad trying to hold onto the place. It was crumbling around their ears. A cavernous void that consumed whatever money she and Lena managed to scrabble together – Lena from her paintings and she from her clients. She tried to view the place with an outsider’s eye, but it was impossible. Too much of her childhood and teenage years were bound up in the house, and she could only see the vestiges of the family home it had once been. It hadn’t always been so drab. Only in the past ten years or so. Since Lena went to prison, certainly.

Walking into the house, she could sense it was still empty of Lena’s presence. She called out to make sure, but her voice just bounced off the walls. She knew she should cook herself something to eat, but the knot in her stomach filled the gap where food was needed. She ignored the kitchen and climbed the wide stairs, past Lena’s room and up into her attic bedroom. She sat on the high bed and wondered if this was all that life had to offer her: shelter in the bedroom of her teenage years, a non-existent love life and a career that continually threatened to collapse through the sheer difficulty of scratching a living.

Something thumped against her window, and she crossed over to it, peering into the gloom. She was too high up to be scared of an intruder. It was probably a bird or, possibly, a bat. A bat, a creature of the supernatural. Kat frowned. The town that was most associated with the Gothic in England was Whitby, a favourite place of Lena’s. During the dark days of her late teens, times she would refer to as being chased by the black dog, Lena would often take herself out of Bampton and drive east until she reached the coast. Derbyshire, for all its wild and untamed beauty, lacked the ingredient that could calm Lena’s perturbation. The sea.

Lena and Kat, growing up in the limestone dourness of their Victorian villa had, perhaps inevitably, been fascinated by all things dark. In Kat, this had manifested itself in a love of horror films, especially those produced by Hammer in the sixties and seventies. Lena had initially embraced the Gothic seventies kitsch with gusto but had suddenly declared them too childish. And that had been that. But she hadn’t forsaken the Gothic completely. A trip to Whitby when she was in the sixth form had led to a lifelong attraction to the place.

Another thump. This time outside her door – and a sound that Kat recognised. She got off the bed and opened it. Charlie strolled in and jumped up onto the bed before curling up into a circle, his tail wrapped around his head. Kat reached out to stroke him, and he purred obligingly.

Whitby. Could Lena have gone there? The problem was that she’d left the house in the middle of the night, possibly just after midnight according to DI Sadler. She wouldn’t have been able to go far on foot at that time. They shared a car between them, and it was still parked in front of the house. It was the first thing that Kat had checked when she discovered Lena missing. The police would presumably be checking the local taxi firms. Would she have gone all the way to Whitby by cab?

Lena had always been protective when it came to her privacy. Kat had never accompanied her to Whitby and had little idea where her sister stayed during her visits. In a hotel, perhaps. Only once, when their mother was sick, dying in fact, had Kat shouted at her sister over her secrecy. ‘It’s all very well you needing your space but what about me? How am I going to contact you if you never answer your mobile phone?’ Lena would talk to you only when she wanted and not before. Calls constantly went unanswered.

Kat frowned, trying to recall a fragment of memory. Lena had, after the argument, given her something. She could recall a piece of paper. An address hastily scribbled down. Where would she have put it? In the drawer of the hall table was the family’s address book. It had been used by their parents since sometime in the early seventies. Long-dead relatives vied for space among half-remembered acquaintances.

Kat went downstairs to the book and tipped it upside down. A confetti of notes, letters and cards dropped onto the dark wood. She rifled through the detritus, trying to find something that resembled what she remembered. Eventually she opened out a lined scrap, torn from a notebook. There it was, written in Lena’s impatient swirls: 43 Crowther Terrace, Whitby. No postcode. No directions. But an address.

Kat picked up the car keys and weighed them in her hand. Lena, having run away at the news of her husband’s death, would surely be prime suspect for his murder. Despite the fact that Lena had already gone to prison for his killing. Kat’s head ached with the sheer impossibility of it.

She pulled back the curtain of the hall window. Rain was lashing against it, and the sashes strained against the wind blowing at the window pane. It was a wild night; winter hadn’t yet finished with Derbyshire. From behind her she heard Charlie come clattering downstairs as if to remind her of his presence. Taking a packet of cat biscuits from the shelf, she shook out his daily allowance. She also changed his water and went upstairs to take a bath before having an early night. The weather was too malevolent to be going anywhere this evening. She would make a start first thing. She needed to find Lena before the police did.

Kat leant forward to push the video into the player. She could hear Lena munching on a packet of crisps behind her. The sounds of a hand being delved into the packet and shovelled straight into Lena’s mouth. She didn’t need to turn around to know that they would be nearly finished. ‘Your breath will stink.’

‘I’m not planning on kissing anyone, so it doesn’t matter.’

She heard Lena twist the packet into a tight ball and saw it, out of the side of her eye, hurtling towards the corner of the room. It made a popping sound as it bounced off the wall before landing in the wicker bin. ‘The whole point of film snacks is that you eat them during the movie. Not scoff the lot beforehand.’

Lena shuffled off the sofa and, with a blanket over her shoulders, sat cross-legged on the floor next to Kat. ‘Which one are you putting on?’

She showed her the thin white strip on the cassette.
The Kiss of the Vampire
was written in Lena’s impenetrable loops.

‘Ooh, one of the good ones.’

Kat felt Lena snuggle into her. ‘I bet Jennifer Daniel’s breath doesn’t smell of barbecue crisps.’

‘Don’t be cross, Kat. There’s more in the bag. Cheese and onion. Your breath can smell as bad too.’

Despite herself, Kat sniggered. She pushed the cassette into the player and leant back against the sofa, feeling her sister’s arms around her as she reached for the crisps. ‘It’s a good one this. Really scary.’

Connie had grown up ten miles, as the crow flies, from Bampton. In many respects, she and the Gray sisters had a lot in common. Connie’s mother had been a pharmacist, a good one, and the family were well known in Matlock. Lena and Kat Gray were the children of GPs, who, according to interviews given to the police at the time of Lena’s arrest, had been well respected in the community.

Connie’s upbringing had been solidly working-class. Tea at half five as soon as her mum came back from the pharmacy. The house spick and span, no books but the TV constantly on. They’d never have been able to afford a house like Providence Villa and no way would her mother have wanted the creaking old building.

Connie quickly read through the file, looking for any inconsistencies. She could find none, but there could easily be something there. She was an expert in family secrets, because her mother, despite the respect given her by the community, had hidden a dark secret. When the pharmacy shut at 5 p.m. every evening, her mother would come home and start drinking, often late into the evening. Everyone had turned a blind eye. No reason was offered when she would walk rather than drive to the pharmacy in the mornings. Nor were her mysterious ailments, which culminated in an early death from a heart attack, ever alluded to.

Whatever secrets the family might be hiding, Connie wouldn’t find them in the files. The information there seemed innocuous enough, although there were plenty of questions to be answered. The social status of the parents’ job would explain the large house but not why Lena had chosen to stay there after her wedding. Both parents were deceased by the time Andrew Fisher and she had married. The house, surely, should have been sold and the proceeds divided between Kat and Lena.

As Sadler had said, Andrew Fisher was from Bampton too, but with ideas beyond the constraints of the Derbyshire town. After university in Leeds, he’d married a local girl, but it hadn’t lasted. Following his divorce, he’d transferred from the consultancy firm he worked for in Leeds to their London head office and had stayed there. He had a flat in the City and returned home, or rather to Lena’s home, at the weekends.

Connie inwardly groaned. She really did hope that she wouldn’t have to take a trip to the capital. She didn’t like London. She mistrusted its busyness and was wary of the conspicuous wealth it shrouded itself in. She hoped Palmer would be assigned the task if they were forced to follow that line of enquiry. It wasn’t her decision to make, of course, but surely Palmer would relish a trip to London.

Of Andrew Fisher’s next of kin, there was just his mother, Pamela, still living in Bampton. He had an elder sister living in Australia. Another one keen to spread her wings, by the look of it.

Connie frowned and looked around the room. Damian Palmer was leaning over his desk, flicking rapidly through a report and frowning. She shouted over to him. ‘Do you know who told Andrew Fisher’s mother about the discovery of her son’s body? The recent discovery I mean. There’s no note on the file yet. I want to read her reaction to the news.’

Palmer lifted his head and took his time to focus on her. He looked like he was in another world. ‘Sorry, mind elsewhere. She was told by a family-liaison officer but Llewellyn’s also been to see her. Damage limitation and all that.’

‘Oh.’

Palmer looked across at her. ‘He’s just come back and is in a foul mood according to his secretary. I wouldn’t go chasing him for a report if I were you.’

‘As if I would. Interesting, though. I wonder what her reaction was.’ She walked across to him. ‘What are you so engrossed in anyway?’

He sat down, as if staking claim to his chair. ‘I’ve been going through the post-mortem file of the man we thought was Andrew Fisher in 2004. We need to give him a name, and I’ve thought of one. How about Joe Tagg?’

‘Joe Tagg?’ said Connie. ‘What’s wrong with John Smith? It’s what we usually use.’

Palmer looked defensive. ‘Joanne and I went to a folk night in a pub a few days ago. The band played some local tunes, and one of them stuck with me. It was about a Derbyshire man named Joe Tagg.’

Connie stared at him. ‘Are you taking the piss? We’re not a bunch of yokels around here to be laughed at.’

Palmer was smirking at her. ‘Don’t be so touchy. It was only a suggestion. John Smith gives us no idea about his personality. I think my choice is better. Gives us something to help construct a real person.’

‘And you think Joe Tagg sounds better? Suit yourself. I’m not sure Sadler will go for it though. Anyway, what did you discover from the PM?’

‘Well, Joe Tagg’s physical description is very similar to that of the real Andrew Fisher. Listen.’ He picked up the report and started to read. ‘Muscular build, height five foot ten, weight 201 pounds, and so on. Virtually identical to Andrew Fisher, in fact.’

‘You think it was deliberate? An intention to deceive by killing a physically similar man?’

Palmer was peering at the report again. ‘Well, maybe. But listen to this. On the deceased’s right arm is a scar indicative of excision.’ He lifted his head. ‘That’s surgical removal at some point in the past.’

Connie rolled her eyes. ‘I know what excision means, thanks, Palmer. Do you think I’ve never read an autopsy report before?’ She snatched the file out of his hand. ‘You think it’s important? The fact that at some point he had something removed? A tattoo maybe? It could have been a suspicious mole or something.’

Palmer calmly took the report back from her. ‘I don’t know. It’s the only thing I can find that might help with identification. I’m going to run with this for the moment. Try to find an ID. Can you give me a hand? You know, with the database?’

Connie pulled a face and looked at the clock. Time to go home. She thought of her empty flat. ‘Of course.’