Bleed Like Me (27 page)

Beyond the humped shape of the bridge, she could see some low-lying structure: huge horizontal bars, black and white, and railings. She glanced down at the map: a lock. The canal was littered with them. She walked under the bridge where it was dank and smelled of earth and the stones glistened wet, and up to the lock.

Here the canal banks widened a little then narrowed again for the lock itself. The black and white paddles, a pair at either end, were attached to the great lock gates. The paddles were used to swing back the wooden gates. She’d a dim memory of doing it in primary school. Sections of the canals had been built at different levels, and the locks were the way of transporting boats from one stretch to the next. The boat would enter through the first set of gates, which would be closed behind them, and then underwater sluices would be opened to allow water to flow in, or out, and raise or lower the craft. When it reached the correct level the second set of gates would be opened and the boat would be able to resume its journey.

At the edge of the lock she stared down into the chamber. The walls were covered in green mould and streaks of orange.
With the huge gates at either end they formed a great box, water in the bottom. A long drop. The notion hit her like a punch, made her guts burn. The rope. To hang himself. She looked at the backs of her hands, at the biggest blister where the blue plastic had fused to her skin. He’d need a long drop to do it. Somewhere like this would work just as well as the woods, better really, since you’d not have to scale a tree. All sorts of places to attach the rope to, here. Okay, he might not be completely free hanging, might hit the walls, feet scrabbling for purchase, but most hangings it was the drop that killed you, the sudden wrench as you reached the end of the rope, which broke your neck and severed your spinal cord. When it went wrong, when the body was too light or the drop not far enough, quick enough, then the person strangled slowly.

Rachel’s heart was hammering in her chest, racing, and there was a buzzing in her ears. She scanned the land beyond the verge: no dwellings close by. Looking ahead, further down the canal, just before a bend, she made out an old barge, the first she’d seen.

Boats. Somewhere else to search along with the farms and sheds. Another angle to cover. Unless Cottam opened up to Janet and saved them all the aggro. Rachel wondered if there were more boats parked further round the corner. Parked wasn’t right. Moored, that’s what they called it. There was still a pall of fog suspended over the water as she went on to look.

A ripple of dark shadow on the path ahead brought her up short. A rat, sleek and silent, slid over the edge of the bank and disappeared. Rachel swallowed and walked on. Something dark and fearful growing inside her. Just a rat, she told herself, millions of them all around, everywhere. Knowing that the fear wasn’t from the rat. She saw the lock
gates, she saw Owen Cottam and his rope. And the bin bags. Why the bin bags?

By the time she reached the barge, she could see round the bend. There were no other boats there. Just this one. Ancient by the looks of it. Rotting into the water.

A car slowed and stopped in the distance; perhaps Mark Tovey arriving for the meeting? Above her there was a strange sound which had her ducking instinctively. Making her temples thud with pain. A cormorant, large and black, soared overhead, the beat of wings loud and powerful in the still air.

The barge was desiccated. It had once been black but most of the paint had peeled away and bare wood showed through silvery grey. Fragments of pink and green lettering decorated the prow. Some sort of fungus, a canker, sprouted lumps of ginger here and there. The cabin was partly covered by an old tarpaulin, faded and ripped in parts. The roof, splashed with bird-shit, dipped in the centre where a mush of skeletal leaves was trapped. Shuttered windows were thick with cobwebs. No flowers or fancy watering cans or signs of habitation. At the back, where the door was, lay a number of old plastic containers, cracked and dappled green with mould. Rachel looked at the door, rickety as everything else, crumbling. An old padlock hasp secured with—

Gorge rose in her throat and her knees went weak. There. A scrap of black cord. A shoelace.

The world shrank around her. The canal, the farms beyond, the lock and the road bridge faded as she focused on the boat, the door.

The boat rocked alarmingly when Rachel clambered on board. Water pooled on the deck underfoot. With trembling fingers she worked at the knot, her nails slipping and the scars on her fingertips starting to bleed. Finally it came loose and she pulled the shoelace free and opened
the narrow double doors, which made a squealing sound.

The interior was pitch dark, only the small flight of steps leading down into the cabin illuminated by the daylight. She could barely see a thing,

But she could smell. The brackish odour of the canal and the mushroom scent of decay, mixed with the high acrid stink of shit. Her chest tightened. There was a thudding in her temples as she switched on her torch and climbed down the steps, one hand braced on the edge of the door. When she stepped into the cabin the boat rolled in the water, the timbers creaking and moaning. Rachel played the cone of light over the space, picked out bench seats with their torn and faded foam cushions furred with white mould, tattered curtains spotted with mildew, and then, on the floor, a tartan blanket and next to it two small forms, pale-faced and utterly still.

Oh, fuck. Something dark and cold crawled up her spine. The torch juddered in her hand. Her eyes hurt. The stench caught at the back of her throat and she retched but fought the reflex. She stepped closer and the boat lurched. Rachel almost fell, flinging her arms out for balance. She knelt down. The floor was wet, soaking through her trousers.

Struggling to breathe, she bent over the boys. Theo in his tiger pyjamas, the garments grubby, smeared with marks, was curled towards his brother. Harry lay flat on his back, one arm above his head, his legs splayed outwards. Shit had soaked through his all-in-one, staining the legs toffee brown. Tear tracks had dried leaving salty trails on his cheeks. The only movement came from the boat rocking on the cold water.

Rachel reached out a hand and touched Theo’s neck to see whether rigor mortis had set in. Knew that if it had the child’s body would feel dense, leaden, every muscle rigid as wood. And cool. She placed her fingers across his neck, below his ear. Felt the faintest residue of warmth there. So close!
If they’d only searched here yesterday instead of the lake.

She felt her throat clench and tears burn behind her eyes. ‘Fuck it!’ she said aloud. Theo’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Daddy?’ he said huskily. Beside him Harry startled, his arms jolting as though something had bitten him, and began to wail, a thin, reedy, faltering sound that drilled into Rachel’s head.

She jerked back, gasping for air, frantically hitting keys on her phone, summoning help. The child’s cry filling her head and Theo’s plea scalding her heart.
Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?

Janet was about to go in to interview Owen Cottam when Gill appeared, her eyes shining, fizzing with energy. ‘We’ve got the boys. Alive!’

‘Oh, God!’ Janet stared at her. ‘Where?’

‘A barge on the canal. Rachel found them.’

‘Alive?’ Janet checked.
After all this time
.

‘Dehydrated, hypothermic, dosed up with paracetamol but they should be fine. Taken to Manchester Children’s Hospital.’

Janet swallowed. ‘So now what? You don’t want me to interview yet?’

‘No. Give me an hour. I’m going to see the CPS to run through what we’ve already got. Wait till I’m back and we’ll discuss it then. Might let us go straight to charges.’

‘Be better to see if we can get a confession to the murders first,’ Janet said. Then she thought that if they did move on to questioning Cottam about the murders it might be hard for her to get away later. So she said, ‘Is it okay if I nip to the hospital now?’

‘No problem,’ Gill said.

Dorothy was sitting up in bed and looking almost normal.

‘The scan they did, well, apparently they found a growth on my uterus,’ she said.

Janet’s stomach contracted. ‘Oh, Mum.’

‘No, listen. They’re pretty sure it’s just a cyst but the womb’s enlarged so they think, at my age, it’s best to take the whole lot out.’

‘Hysterectomy?’

‘Yes. It’s a big op. Take me a few months to get back to normal.’

‘You’ll stay with us,’ Janet said.

‘If you’ll have me,’ her mum said.

‘Course we’ll have you. You got any better offers?’ Again that wash of relief, that she was sitting here joking with her mum instead of grieving.

‘Not yet, but I’ll let you know if I do,’ Dorothy said, a gleam of merriment in her eye.

When Janet got back to the station, she saw Rachel in her smoking spot, clutching a large coffee. Janet went over. ‘Hey, well done you. Amazing.’

Rachel looked peaky, her face drained of colour, her lips pale.

‘You’re a hero,’ Janet said. ‘Wait till word gets out.’

‘I don’t want to be a hero.’

‘Why not? Looks good on the old CV.’

Rachel looked away and released a trail of smoke. ‘I thought they were dead,’ she said flatly. She bit her lip, blinked.

Janet wasn’t sure what to say, what Rachel needed from her. ‘A shock?’ she ventured. It wasn’t like Rachel to get bound up in a case, to let it get to her like this. True for all of them, really. To do the work well you needed resilience, a way of detaching yourself so that you could concentrate on the facts
of the investigation and not get damaged emotionally. Of course some cases were harder, poignant or downright sad, especially those involving kids, but Janet had never seen Rachel respond like this. If anything she demonstrated a lack of empathy verging on the autistic.

Janet felt a wave of concern for her friend. Something felt wrong. Had done for days. It would be simple to turn a blind eye, gloss it over, pretend all was well, but Janet wouldn’t let herself take the easy option.

‘What’s really going on?’ she said directly.

‘What d’you mean?’ Rachel scowled at her.

‘We’re supposed to be mates,’ Janet said. ‘Talk to me.’

‘What about?’ Rachel said scornfully. ‘There’s nothing to say.’ She dropped her cigarette, crushed it underfoot. Irritation flickered through Janet, and she was tempted to tell her to pick the tab end up and bin it. Have some consideration for once. But she resisted getting sidetracked.

‘Look, it’s not just this case or those little boys. I don’t know if it’s to do with Nick Savage or—’

‘Not that again,’ Rachel said.

‘You tell me,’ Janet said. ‘What’s the point of being mates if it’s a one-way street? If I’m the only one putting the effort in.’

‘You tell me,’ Rachel echoed. Her face set, mutinous.

Janet wanted to clout her, or hug her. Instead she said, ‘You shut me out. I know there’s something up and you won’t talk to me about it. Don’t you trust me? Do you think I’ll go running to Gill, telling tales?’

Rachel put her hand up to her head, clutched her ponytail, closed her eyes. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘You’re not fine,’ Janet said crossly. ‘You’re a long way from fine. And I don’t know how to help because you won’t let me in.’ She felt close to tears.
Bloody hormones.
‘Have you done something stupid, is that it?’

‘Oh, thanks!’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Unless you tell me, I’m imagining all sorts. It’s like dealing with a bloody teenager.’

‘Yeah, you’re imagining all sorts, and that’s all it is – your imagination. I’m not telling you anything because there’s nothing to tell.’

Whatever was going on, and Janet was even more convinced there
was
something going on, she could see that Rachel was not going to tell her. The friendship had boundaries, limits, set by Rachel, and Janet either put up with that or walked away. Rachel was proud and stubborn and Janet knew she would not bend. For all her flaws and fuck-ups, Rachel was too big a part of Janet’s life to lose. Janet resigned herself. Let the frustration leak away. Drew her coat tighter and closed her collar.

‘Have it your own way, then,’ she said.

Rachel raised her drink. Janet saw that her hand was shaking. ‘When did you last eat?’ she said.

Rachel didn’t answer, just shook her head with impatience. ‘Right,’ Janet said decisively. ‘When we’re done tonight, we’ll go out. Italian, yeah? Break from all this.’

‘I don’t need—’

‘Maybe I do,’ Janet said. ‘Not exactly been a cakewalk for me, this last couple of days, my mum and all.’ Pulling a bit of a guilt trip.

Rachel opened her mouth. Janet expected her to refuse, but then something softened in her eyes and she gave a nod. ‘Sorry. Okay, you’re on.’

When Rachel walked into the briefing room, everyone applauded, Gill included. Rachel looked taken aback at first, as if it was a practical joke that couldn’t be trusted rather than a genuine and spontaneous response to her success. Then she
relaxed and sketched a half-bow but held her hand up too, asking them to stop.

It struck Gill that Rachel’s success had been a solo number yet again. Through circumstance perhaps, rather than Rachel’s heading out alone with a mission in mind, but it was a familiar pattern. On the one hand, Gill valued her DC’s flair, her passion and tenacity, the drive that led her to be out on that canal before dawn. But on the other, she worried that results like this undermined her efforts to get Rachel to improve her teamwork skills.

‘Well done, Rachel,’ she said, as the clapping died down. ‘The press office want to see you after this.’

‘Poster girl!’ Kevin said.

‘No way,’ Rachel said quickly, then visibly flinched as she heard herself refusing to do something. Disrespecting Gill.

‘I think you’ll find that’s
yes ma’am, three bags full, ma’am
. Clear?’ Gill said crisply.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rachel was quick to answer, some colour in her face now.

‘Oh, and both Margaret Milne and Dennis Cottam want to thank you in person.’

Rachel closed her eyes. It didn’t look as though that idea appealed either.