Fighting for Survival (The Estate, Book 3) (33 page)

‘There’s no point,’ Gina said. ‘She’s dead.’ She slapped his hand as he reached to check Rachel’s pulse. ‘Don’t you fucking touch her!’

‘Mum, let him help.’ Claire dropped to her knees beside them. ‘He needs to look.’

Gina looked at Claire and gasped. Then she held out her hand. ‘Rachel,’ she smiled.

‘No, I’m Claire!’ She moved away, horrified.

The paramedics took over and Gina looked around her. This was a dream. She was going to wake up in a moment. There was Claire sitting beside her and there was Rachel, lying… lying... Gina stared at Rachel before turning to Claire. Oh, there she was.

‘Rachel,’ she whispered.

‘It’s me, Mum, Claire.’ She pointed at the lifeless body of her sister, paramedics all over her. ‘That’s Rachel.’

Gina frowned. She looked at Rachel, and then back at Claire. ‘Rachel,’ she whispered. ‘Rachel.’

‘No.’ Claire shook her head vehemently and then she ran.

‘Claire!’ As she ran past, Caren grabbed for her arm but Claire thumped out at her.

‘Leave me alone,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want to be here.’

Once the police arrived, everyone was moved from the garden as a murder investigation got underway. Barbara had been asleep until she’d heard the sirens but she rushed across. She stayed surprisingly calm after she’d learned that her granddaughter had been murdered, realising that as a mother, Gina needed her help. She needed her strength. The police said it would be some time before they would be let back into their property so she took them all across to her house.

Although John had gone home, Caren had stayed with Gina, not really wanting to be there but feeling the need too. She was worried about Claire; she’d been gone a couple of hours now.

She was worried about Ruth too. Ruth had gone into a stupor since Rachel’s death. After the police had arrived and taken their details, Caren had walked her home. All she’d repeated was ‘I couldn’t save her.’ And no matter how many times, she’d reiterated that it wasn’t her fault, Ruth had continued, changing to ‘I should have saved her.’

Caren had cried with her as she’d made cups of tea. Once she thought Ruth was going to bed, she’d gone back to Barbara’s. It had seemed eerie seeing the white tent and the hustle and bustle outside Gina’s house. There was a small crowd, several vehicles and lots of police around. She’d been told someone would need to question her soon. She wished there was more that she could tell them. What a dreadful chain of events. It was such a young age to die.

She’d been at Barbara’s house for no more than five minutes when Pete burst into the kitchen. He rushed over to Gina.

‘They just told me. She… is she… no… she can’t –’

‘Where were you, you bastard?’ Gina’s legs gave way as she slumped into his arms. ‘I called you and called you and...’

‘I’m sorry,’ he sobbed, holding on to her tightly. ‘I didn’t know what had happened. I’m sorry.’

‘Mr Bradley,’ said PC Andy Baxter. ‘If I could–’

 ‘That bitch Stacey Hunter stabbed her,’ said Gina, the words she spoke making her cry again. ‘She was home, Pete. She was running up the path but she pulled her back by her hood.’

‘But she’s just a kid! They’re both kids.’

‘Kids have weapons too, unfortunately,’ said Andy.

‘Rachel didn’t have a knife, did she?’

Gina gasped. ‘Did she? Did she have a knife?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Andy. ‘We’ll know more later.’

Pete wiped at his eyes. ‘Did you see what happened?’

‘No, I wasn’t there.’

Pete looked at Caren who was standing in the doorway. ‘Were you there?’

‘No, Gina was over at mine.’ When Pete frowned, she explained. ‘Gina offered to help me with the mess we’d been left in because of the break-in. I suppose when Claire didn’t find anyone here, she ran across to get me.’

‘You didn’t hear anything before that?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘No one heard them fighting?’

‘She did – that fucking Ruth Millington,’ Gina cried out. ‘It’s all her fault. She was the first person to get to Rachel. She should have stopped the bleeding.’

‘There was too much,’ said Caren.

‘Blood everywhere.’ Barbara shook her head from side to side before breaking down. 

Gina glared at Pete. ‘You should have been here.’

Pete wiped his eye with the back of his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Gina.’

‘She was too badly injured to survive.’ Andy rested a hand on Pete’s shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you for a moment and then I’ll need to take a statement from you.’

Noticing how sad he looked, Caren followed him into the kitchen. She closed the living room door and sat down at the table.  

 ‘Are you okay?’ she asked him. ‘I didn’t think this sort of thing would upset you.’

Andy sat down next to her. ‘Every case is different but it’s terrible if you know someone personally. I knew all the Bradleys.’ He laughed half-heartedly. ‘Who doesn’t know the Bradleys? But Rachel was a child; just sixteen.’

‘It’s Claire I’m worried about,’ said Caren. ‘She’s going to be so lost without her sister.’

Andy nodded. ‘This isn’t going to be an easy case. The witnesses are all teenagers. They’ll be frightened of Stacey Hunter and her family.’

‘Claire saw it all, though.’

‘Yes, we’ll gather what forensic evidence we can from Rachel’s body, as well as the knife that Stacey dropped, and the garden area.’

‘It’s a terrible thing to happen. It’s going to hit the family hard.’

‘It’s going to hit the estate too. Another murder to bring us down; remind people how shit it is on the Mitchell Estate.’

‘It isn’t all that bad,’ said Caren.

Andy raised his eyebrows questioningly.

‘It isn’t!’ Caren shook her head. ‘I remember when I had to move back, I cursed the day I set foot in Stanley Avenue. But slowly the people around here, they got under my skin. They made me into a better person – and I wanted to help them.’

Andy listened as Caren continued.

‘Rachel and Claire were trouble but did anyone give them a chance because of who they were? They always had the Bradley reputation to live up to. Maybe I could have won them around; maybe I couldn’t. Or maybe it was them that won me around, I don’t know. But I changed – I accepted what I have. And…’ Caren’s voice held a shake, ‘until today I thought that no one could take that away from me.’

From behind them came a voice.

‘Caren?’

Caren looked up to see Claire. She tried desperately to hide her shock as she saw the innocent face staring back at her. It was literally like seeing a ghost of Rachel, a terrible reminder of what had happened.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Claire said, her tears falling again. ‘I don’t know –’

The living room door opened. ‘Claire!’ said Pete.

Claire ran into her Dad’s embrace. ‘She’s dead, Dad,’ she cried. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Pete as he hugged her close. ‘I don’t know.’

Two doors away, Ruth sat on her sofa, one hand wrapped around the near-empty bottle of vodka, the other turning a craft knife over and over.

She staggered into the hall, knocking into the doorframe as she did. She cursed loudly, rubbing at her arm, but she managed to negotiate the stairs, even if she did have to crawl up the last two steps.

She threw herself face down on her bed. The room had long ago started to spin. But when she closed her eyes all she could see was blood. Rachel’s blood; lots of it. Thick, dark blood, the worst kind. She pecked at the scar on her arm. She needed to see her own blood instead, to take the pain away.

‘Argh!’ Ruth screamed. ‘It’s so unfair!’ She plunged the craft knife into the open wound, tearing at her skin.

Then just as suddenly, she stopped.

It had made her realise how much pain Rachel must have been in when the blade of the knife went into and through her vital organs.

Ruth threw the craft knife down to the floor. ‘I should have saved her,’ she cried. ‘I should have saved her!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Gina spent the next few days in a haze. Half of Rachel’s school turned out to see where she had died, along with lots of local people. Bunches of flowers lay in front of the garden wall, stretching from their gate and halfway to next door’s driveway. Teddy bears, small and large had been left, a T-shirt with dozens of messages written on it in blue biro. An odd photograph; an odd candle. Gina had been across to look at them a few times, finding comfort in some of the words of tribute. Other times, she couldn’t bear to look at them.

Everyone was saying what a lovely girl Rachel had been – well liked and great fun. What a bunch of liars, Gina had wanted to shout. It was always the same; someone taken down in their prime and no one having a bad word to say about them. Well, not in public anyway – behind closed doors, she knew what everyone would be saying, what they were thinking.

They hadn’t been allowed home yet. They’d been over to get a few belongings but until the forensics had finished their job, they’d had to stay at her mum’s house. From the window of the spare room where she and Pete were sleeping, Gina gazed down onto the avenue, watching two council workers picking litter up from the pavement. One of them stooped to read a card. He leaned on his brush and then beckoned his colleague over. They read the words together, and then with a shake of their heads, continued on their way.

Gina wiped away tears pouring down her face. Once Rachel’s body was released to the coroner, they were planning on giving her a great send off. She’d asked Claire what she thought Rachel would like to wear; each of them had also chosen something to put into the coffin. Claire wanted to give Rachel her favourite baseball cap but knew that Rachel would prefer her hair to be spiked up and styled. She’d also asked Caren if she could do her make up. Caren had looked relieved when Gina stepped in before she’d had time to answer and said that it would be the undertaker’s job.

Pete had chosen a family photograph. It had been taken a couple of years ago when they’d all gone to Dorset for a week’s holiday. Gina was going to give her the teddy bear with ‘I love Mum’ embroidered on its T-shirt that Rachel had won at the fair when she was seven. It was dirty and grubby now and it had an ear missing where Danny had pulled at it with her. Gina knew that Rachel would be comforted to have that near to her. And it had to go with her – she couldn’t bear to look at it now that Rachel had gone.  

Behind her, there was a knock at the door. Pete opened it and came into the room with two mugs.

‘I thought you might like a cuppa,’ he said, placing them down on the bedside cabinet. He perched on the end of the bed, looking everywhere but at Gina. They sat in silence for a moment. It had been ten days since Rachel had been murdered, yet the question of Pete’s whereabouts had remained unanswered long after Gina had held her while her life slipped away. She was going to have to force it out of him.

‘Where were you?’ she asked outright.  

‘I was down the pub.’

‘No, you weren’t. Mum phoned The Butcher’s Arms and they hadn’t seen you since the day before.’

‘I – Christ, I can’t remember now. Besides, it doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things. We’ve far more important things to think about.’

‘Like who to invite to the funeral? Michelle? And Donna? And Tracy?’ As she turned to face him, Gina couldn’t even take pleasure in the look of bewilderment that flashed across Pete’s face. Michelle Winters had been the first affair she’d found out about. Donna Adams had been his second or was it his third? Tracy Tanner, however, had been a guess because of her reputation. But from the look of guilt that flashed across his face, she had hit the jackpot.

‘You selfish, two-timing piece of shit!’ she cried.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it was just a fling!’

‘While your daughter was dying, you were fucking Tracy Tanner!’ Gina leaned forward and thumped his chest. ‘Have you any idea how I felt? I knew what was going on when your phone was switched off. Everyone else knew what was going on when I couldn’t get hold of you. Where were you when I needed you?’

‘It didn’t mean anything!’

‘So why did you do it?’

Pete paused and sighed. ‘Because I could, okay? She was there - you weren’t and we just –’

‘Don’t you dare fucking shift the blame on me! You have the nerve to screw around and you think it’s okay to say it’s
my
fault?’

‘You’re right.’ Pete looked shamefaced. ‘I’m stupid and thoughtless and should have known better by now.’

 ‘No,
I’m
stupid and thoughtless and should have known better by now. I should have kicked you out after I found out about the last tart.’

‘We’ll sort it, love.’ Pete stretched across the bed for her hand. Gina snapped it away and glared at him.

‘Don’t ‘love’ me. We
will
sort it. Once the funeral is over, there are going to be changes around here, whether you agree with them or not.’