Dark Spaces (35 page)

Chloe shovelled in almost half the bowlful, yellow custard collecting at either side of her mouth.

‘It really screwed her up, you see.’ She took another huge spoonful. ‘Because it was her dad that did it.’

Gem checks the time on her phone. She’s proper late for work and Feyza has texted her twice already.

She tries calling Mum again, but it goes straight to voicemail. Probably run out of charge. Mum ain’t good at remembering to plug in her mobile at night.

Thing is, she’s got no way of even guessing when Mum will come back. When she goes on the missing list like this it can be hours or days. And there ain’t no way of telling where she’s at.

Tyler starts coughing. He’s woke up full of some horrible bug. Both his cheeks are bright red. There’s no way Gem can leave him. Not even cuddled up on the settee in a pile of blankets.

Her phone goes again. Another text from Feyza: ‘Where the fuck are you?’

She opens her arms and smiles at Tyler. ‘Come on, mate.’

Normally he would jump at her like one of them baby monkeys you see on the telly, but today he just lets her pick him up, then lays his head on her shoulder. She pushes his hair off his face. It feels wet from where he’s been sweating.

‘I’m taking you out,’ she tells him.

‘Park?’

‘Not right now, mate,’ she says. ‘Maybe later.’

He don’t argue the toss, just gives another cough that sounds full of snot.

She pulls his coat off the peg by the front door. It don’t really fit him no more and she has to fight to do up the zip. She’ll get him a new one soon. He can’t go through the rest of the winter without a coat that fits him, can he?

Once they’re outside, Gem realizes she’s going to have to carry him. It’s hard in the snow, though, and he’s heavy these days. She remembers the day he was born and how little he was. Mum had him in a cot at the side of her hospital bed and one of the nurses let Gem pick him up and hold him. His funny, baby fingers grabbed hers and she was surprised by how strong he was.

‘Going to be a bruiser that one,’ the nurse said.

She were right as well. He weighs a bleeding ton.

When they get to the house, she kisses his cheek. ‘Listen to me, Tyler, you’ve got to be a good boy in here, all right? You’ve got to sit nicely and not make a fuss. Okay?’

He nods into her shoulder.

‘I’ll get you a drink and a bag of crisps,’ she says. ‘Then you can close your eyes and have a lovely sleep.’

He nods again. Maybe it ain’t a bad thing that he’s under the weather. At least this way he won’t race round causing a riot.

When she gets inside, the other girls all start making a fuss of him, asking him his name and that. But when Feyza sees him, she’s got a face on her like thunder.

‘What time you call this?’

‘Sorry,’ Gem mumbles. ‘My mum went out.’

‘And what he doing here?’ She points at Tyler.

‘I told you. My mum went out.’

‘You think he can stay here?’

‘I can’t leave him on his own,’ says Gem.

Feyza shakes her head. ‘For fuck’s sake. Do you think this is nursery?’

‘Oh come on, Feyza.’ Misty steps forward. ‘He’s not going to do any harm, is he?’

‘You stay out of this,’ says Feyza.

‘He can sit in the kitchen.’ Misty pats Tyler’s cheek. ‘You’ll be quiet, won’t you, big boy?’

Tyler buries his head into Gem’s neck. She can feel hot snot on her skin.

‘Look at him,’ Misty says. ‘You won’t know he’s here.’

‘And what will clients think, eh?’ Feyza gives one of her laughs.

‘You really think that lot give a fuck?’ says Misty.

‘Oh fine. Whatever.’ Feyza walks away. ‘But if he give me one problem, he must go.’

‘Don’t mind the nasty old witch,’ Misty whispers to Tyler. ‘We’ll look after you.’ She copies one of Feyza’s laughs and that makes him look up and smile.

‘Witchy,’ he says.

‘That’s right.’ Misty takes Tyler, pops him down on one of the chairs in the kitchen and nods at Gem. ‘You get yourself ready. Bill is due here in ten.’

Lilly pulled up outside the Morton-Daleys’ place. A large detached house with electric gates. There was only one car in the drive, which she hoped meant the husband was out at work.

She trudged over to the keypad and pressed the buzzer.

‘Yes?’ The voice was unmistakably that of Lydia’s mother.

‘Mrs Morton-Daley, it’s Lilly Valentine.’ Lilly bent to the intercom. ‘I represented Lydia if you remember?’

‘What do you want?’

Lilly recalled Mrs Morton-Daley’s anger in Harry’s office. It clearly hadn’t subsided. In the circumstances why should it?

‘I wonder if I can talk to you about Chloe Church?’ Lilly asked.

‘What’s there to say? She killed Lydia. End of story.’

‘The thing is,’ said Lilly, ‘I don’t think she did kill Lydia.’

Laughter burst from the speaker into the cold air. ‘So you’re Chloe’s solicitor now?’ Mrs Morton-Daley shrieked. ‘You lost one client so you quickly replaced her with another. Ah, well, we all need to earn a crust, don’t we?’

‘It isn’t like that,’ said Lilly.

‘I’ll bet,’ said Mrs Morton-Daley. ‘God, you people make me sick. Goodbye.’

A long mournful tone streamed towards Lilly. Then silence. The conversation was at an end.

Lilly headed back to the car. What had she expected? She patted her pockets for the keys and cursed her lack of realism. She should have known there was no way the dead girl’s mother would want to speak to the lawyer of the murder suspect.

She unlocked the car and was about to get in when a creaking sound came from behind her. Lilly turned and saw the electric gates open. Beyond them, Mrs Morton-Daley stood in her doorway, pulling a black cardigan around her.

‘You’d better come in,’ she called to Lilly and disappeared inside the house.

Lilly trotted across the drive. Now all she needed to work out was how to bring up the allegation that this woman’s husband had raped her daughter.

‘Tea? Coffee?’ asked Mrs Morton-Daley. ‘Or something stronger?’

Before Lilly could answer, the other woman opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine.

‘It’s a bit early, even for me,’ said Lilly.

Mrs Morton-Daley shrugged and filled her own glass to the brim.

The kitchen was a work of art. Stainless-steel cupboards and vast Perspex work surfaces. In the centre was an island constructed of grey brick. It put Lilly’s higgledy-piggledy kitchen to shame, yet she got the sense that her own brought more joy.

‘Sit.’ Mrs Morton-Daley pointed to a high stool at the island.

Lilly lifted herself onto it. It was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked. Mrs Morton-Daley leaned against the fridge, glass in hand, eyeing Lilly.

‘So what makes you think Chloe didn’t do it?’ she asked.

‘A lot of things. She just isn’t a violent person,’ Lilly replied. ‘And she loved Lydia. Apart from doctors and nurses, Lydia was the only person in Chloe’s life. She has no family or friends.’

Mrs Morton-Daley took a gulp of wine. ‘She’s ill and people who are ill do unpredictable things. I should know.’

‘That’s true, but Chloe’s illness leads her to be frightened and anxious,’ said Lilly. ‘She’s never attacked anyone before.’

‘Then get the doctors to say so.’ Mrs Morton-Daley’s glass was already half empty. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘I just wondered if you could tell me anything about Lydia? What sort of girl was she?’

Mrs Morton-Daley drained her glass and reached into the fridge for a refill. ‘I’ll tell you what sort of girl she was, Miss Valentine.’ She raised her drink in salute. ‘She was a fucking nightmare.’

Lilly almost laughed. When someone died, those left behind generally fell into platitudes. Mrs Morton-Daley’s honesty was rare and raw.

‘She drank, she smoked, she slept around.’ The woman’s lips glistened with moisture. ‘She stole anything that wasn’t nailed down.’

‘What do you think was at the root of it all?’ Lilly asked.

‘A lot of things, but mostly it was down to the fact that she’d been abused by her father.’

Wow. Mrs Morton-Daley was a bit pissed, but, even so, Lilly hadn’t expected such an admission. She recalled Mr Morton-Daley. Much younger. Fawning and nervous. His wife barely able to disguise her loathing.

‘Why didn’t you leave him?’ Lilly asked.

‘What?’

‘Why didn’t you leave Lydia’s father if you knew what had happened?’

Mrs Morton-Daley stared for a second as if she couldn’t follow Lilly’s words, then she tossed back her head and hooted with laughter.

‘Oh my God.’ She staggered to the island, wine sloshing out of her glass onto the brickwork. ‘Shit.’ She looked around her for a cloth and, when she couldn’t find one, mopped up the wine with the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘Byron will go spare if that marks.’

Never mind the bloody bricks, Lilly wanted to scream, the man raped your daughter.

‘I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Miss Valentine.’ Mrs Morton-Daley sniffed her sleeve and grimaced. ‘Byron isn’t, wasn’t, Lydia’s father.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Mrs Morton-Daley struggled out of her cardigan and let it fall to the floor. ‘Your face was a picture. You thought Byron raped Lydia and we all carried on. Business as usual.’ She reached for her drink. ‘I suppose you must see a lot of horrible things in your line of work.’

Lilly nodded. Sometimes she worried that her work made her expect the worst in people. The trouble was she was rarely disappointed.

‘Lydia wasn’t ours.’ Mrs Morton-Daley swayed. ‘I mean not biologically ours.’

‘She was adopted?’

‘We got her at seven,’ said Mrs Morton-Daley. ‘All pigtails and buck teeth. We thought we could offer her a home.’ She waved her glass around the kitchen, spilling yet more wine, but this time ignoring it as if she’d given up. ‘But the damage was already done, you see.’

‘Did you know about her background?’ Lilly asked.

‘We knew there’d been neglect and we knew Social Services suspected worse, but they said it would be okay. They said that with the right strategies we could help her.’

‘But you couldn’t?’

Mrs Morton-Daley shook her head. ‘We tried everything: firm boundaries, relaxed boundaries, play therapy, family counselling, you name it. For eight long years we tried every trick in the book.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘None of it made any difference, because she hated us.’

‘I’m sure she didn’t,’ said Lilly.

‘Yes, she did. She hated us and everything we stood for. Anything she thought we valued, she wrecked.’ Tears streamed down the woman’s face. ‘Byron couldn’t stand it. He said it was like living with the enemy. He wanted to give up and put her back into care.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘But I couldn’t do that, could I? She’d already been let down by her real parents and I refused to do it to her a second time.’

Lilly had come across lots of broken adoptions. Lives trashed. It was a lot more common than people realized. One of Social Services’ dirty little secrets.

‘I think you were brave to carry on,’ Lilly told her.

‘Or just fucking stupid,’ Mrs Morton-Daley replied. ‘Now does any of this make you think it more or less likely that Chloe killed her?’

‘I’m going to be brutally frank,’ said Lilly.

‘I think I can take it.’

Lilly smiled. ‘I think someone at the Grove has been taking advantage of the female patients.’

‘You mean raping them?’

Lilly nodded. ‘Exactly. I also think that person was able to get away with it until he picked on Lydia.’

‘There is no way Lydia would have kept her mouth shut.’

‘That’s what Chloe told me,’ Lilly said. ‘Lydia was about to let the cat out of the bag when she was killed.’

Mrs Morton-Daley’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘You think she was murdered to shut her up?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Lilly replied. ‘Did Lydia ever give you any indication about what she was going to do?’

Mrs Morton-Daley shook her head. ‘Lydia never told me anything. Sometimes she would go weeks without saying one word to me.’ Then she stopped and put down her glass. ‘She did give me something though.’

Lilly’s heart gave a quick skip under her breastbone. ‘What?’

‘It was the last time I visited her in the Grove. Just a second.’

Mrs Morton-Daley left the room, returning with a white padded envelope clutched to her chest.

‘I thought it was just a load of old rubbish,’ she said.

Lilly took the envelope and peered inside. It was full of documents. Many yellow and faded.

‘She said they were important, but I didn’t believe her,’ said Mrs Morton-Daley.

‘The important thing is that you kept them,’ Lilly replied.

Gem rips off a bit of kitchen roll and wipes herself down. She wishes she could have a shower but there’s another punter due in ten minutes and she needs to check on Tyler. Anyway, Misty was right; her skin’s proper dry from all that soap.