Sorrow Bound (13 page)

Too much wine
, she thinks.
For God’s sake, don’t cry
.

‘I’ll have a look downstairs first,’ she says, running her tongue around her lips and scrubbing her mouth with the cuff of her jacket. ‘Get the lay of the land.’

‘Okay, Guv. I’ll be around.’

Pharaoh enters the living room and the sheer normality of it all nearly brings her to her knees. The pictures on the walls break her heart, and it is all she can do not to mentally superimpose tears and open mouths onto the smiling faces that stare down at her.

She breathes out, slowly. Rubs her hand over her face and opens her mouth as wide as it will go. There is a satisfying click from her jawbone, then she shakes her head and gives an elaborate stretch. All of these movements represent a transformation: the putting on of another form. She is getting dressed. Becoming who she needs to be.

From the pocket of her coat, she feels a vibration.

‘Pharaoh,’ she says, into the phone.

‘Detective Superintendent, this is Ken Cooper from the Press Association. We understand there has been a major incident–’

Pharaoh cuts the call. Switches the phone off. Looks at the wall and the pictures of Yvonne Dale with her two happy lads.
Feels a warmth for the woman. Decides this will be the picture she gives the press. Decides too that it will be the one she keeps in her mind, whatever she sees when she goes upstairs.

She turns, and sees the address book on the arm of the chair. The mobile phone, plugged in by the wall. Forensics will get to it eventually. Everything in the damn house will be printed and catalogued, photographed and entered into the system. Everything will be done properly, in time. Court cases are won and lost on whether the right serial number is entered into the right evidence bags. Murderers have walked free because the police have been unable to prove that key forensic evidence never left their sight on its way from the crime scene to the lab and the storage room. She takes a pair of polythene gloves from her inside pocket and rolls them on. Were McAvoy here, she would make a crack about him enjoying watching her do it. Might even insist he picture her wearing nothing but these and a pair of welly boots. She does it to get a reaction. She does it to warm him up. She does it because she knows that even for a fraction of a second, the image appears in his head. And she likes that. Likes it more than she should.

Pharaoh picks up the address book. It’s full of scribbles and crossings out, probably only legible to the author. She puts it back down again and squats down by the phone. It’s a similar make to her own, so she navigates its complex settings without too much difficulty. She finds the call log. Hull area code. She screws up her eyes, somehow already knowing what will happen when she hits redial.

The phone rings nearly a dozen times. Then a voice she recognises answers the call.

‘Family Liaison. Longman household. This is PC Bob Tracy.’

‘Bob?’

‘Who’s that?’

‘This is Trish Pharaoh.’

‘Sorry, Guv, didn’t recognise the number. Half asleep, actually. What’s happening?’

Pharaoh pauses. ‘Have you had any phone calls this evening from an Yvonne Dale?’

‘No, Guv. I’ve answered every call. But there have been loads of people ringing. Condolences, you know. Hang on …’

In the background, Pharaoh hears the Family Liaison Officer telling somebody not to worry. Tells them just to go back to bed. This is what the FLOs are for. It’s what they’re damn good at. They provide a little comfort and a lot of help. They answer the phones for a couple of days. They keep the press away. They sleep over and make tea and try to help the household forget that one of their number has had their chest caved in while walking home from work.

‘Sorry about that. No, there’s been no Yvonne. But like I said, the phone’s barely stopped ringing. Why?’

Pharaoh doesn’t answer. She’s staring at the mantelpiece and the picture of the woman who lies dead and bled out in the bathroom above.

‘I’ll call you back. Don’t worry.’

Pharaoh sits down on the carpet and leans against the wall, thinking hard. Two women. Two apparent innocents. Mums. Average, likeable, decent. Her mind conjures connections. Links. Bonds. She purses her lips, closes her eyes, then switches her phone back on. Her call is answered on the second ring, and in
the background, a baby is crying. It sounds like it has been for some time.

‘We’ve got another one,’ says Pharaoh, by way of greeting. ‘And they knew each other.’

Tuesday morning. 8.14 a.m.

Sky the colour of damp stone. Air fizzing with static, thick with dirty heat.

Aector McAvoy, both hands on the steering wheel, face and neck shaved and sore.

Buttoned up to the throat.

Sweating through grey shirt, old school tie, navy blue waistcoat and trousers.

He’s pressing buttons on the dashboard to try and make the air conditioning blow out something other than this recycled warm air.

50 mph on Beverley Bypass. It’s a 60 zone, but nobody else in East Yorkshire seems to know that, so he has to go at the pace of the Volvo driver in front. He takes a slow left into standing traffic, crawling past roadworks and cones. Drifts around three roundabouts. The windows are open but there isn’t a breath of breeze to cool the gloss of perspiration that is already sticking his cowlick of ginger hair to his forehead.

Finally, a left turn, into a pretty village of old-fashioned, white-painted
cottages and detached five-bedroomed homes: Audis in the driveways and Fiat 500s nose to bumper at the kerbside.

McAvoy likes Kirk Ella. It’s a dainty, old-fashioned sort of place that looks as though it would be more at home thirty miles to the north. It feels like a suburb of York or Harrogate, but is only eight miles from the centre of Hull.

Elaine Longman lives on Hogg Lane, a tiny little street a stone’s throw from St Andrew’s Church and the centre of the village. It’s a white-painted property with chunky sash windows and a red front door – one of a row set back from the road and which all share the same long picket fence. Elaine’s has a hanging basket at the front, which looks well cared for.

McAvoy gives his policeman’s knock; brisk and efficient, a pause between the fourth and fifth beats.

Elaine opens the door. She’s wearing a simple white vest and a pair of linen trousers. Her eyes are so swollen and dark that it looks as though she has smeared coal dust beneath them, and the burst blood vessels and capillaries in her cheeks betray the fact she has been vomiting. McAvoy wonders if she opened a bottle or two last night, or whether grief just gnawed at her guts until she gagged on it.

‘Aector,’ she says, quietly. She manages a half-smile. ‘Did I say that right?’

McAvoy nods. ‘Very good, Elaine. Shall I try a Hull accent in return?’

‘Order me a dry white wine,’ she says, stepping back into the house and gesturing for him to follow. ‘Or a vodka and coke.’

‘Drar whart wharn,’ says McAvoy, his mouth forming the syllables like a goldfish. ‘Vodka and curk.’

‘Perfect,’ says Elaine, leading him through the homely living room and into the kitchen, where a laptop and loose paperwork sit on a long pine table. ‘Now if you can just tell me there’s snow on Frome Road …’

‘That’s beyond me,’ says McAvoy. ‘It’s harder than Gaelic.’

He gives the kitchen a quick once-over. It’s long, with large terracotta tiles underfoot and glass doors that open onto a small patio and garden, littered with children’s toys. The fridge is covered in letters from school and a child’s many drawings, all held in place with magnets bearing place names. London Zoo, Malta, Bridlington, Verona …

‘I’d love to go there,’ says McAvoy nodding at the fridge. ‘Verona.’ He corrects himself. ‘Well, my wife would. Same thing, isn’t it?’

Elaine follows his gaze to the fridge. ‘I haven’t been,’ she says, giving a little shrug. ‘Mum brought it back.’

McAvoy closes his eyes. Curses himself.

‘The Family Liaison Officer said you didn’t stay at the house last night,’ he says, trying to brush over his stupidity. ‘You didn’t want to be there?’

Elaine shakes her head. ‘Too much drama. Too many tears. I came home. Phoned Dad this morning. He seems okay, I guess. He just doesn’t seem to be, well …’

‘Go on.’

‘He seems a bit vacant,’ says Elaine, distracting herself by fiddling with her paperwork. ‘Suppose it will take time, won’t it? I mean, he’s not really feeling anything yet, other than shock. The Internet says there will be anger before the grief. I don’t know where I’m at yet. I don’t have the energy. I didn’t sleep much last night. Threw up half the night, though I don’t know why.’

McAvoy sits down on one of the kitchen chairs. ‘It’s a purging,’ he says. ‘You need to get out what’s inside you. You want to let the darkness out. It’s like people who self-harm and think their pain leaves with the trickle of blood. For centuries, surgeons used to drill holes in your head to let the demons out, or bleed you so the ill humours left your system. Sometimes our bodies aren’t operating in our best interests.’

Elaine looks at him for a spell, a strange expression on her face. ‘You’re not like other policemen,’ she says, with a little smile. ‘You’re not like other people, now I think about it.’

McAvoy looks away. Fights down the blush. ‘I’m sorry …’

‘No, I like how you talk. I like how you think.’ She gives a firm nod. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You actually
think
. That’s a rarity these days. People just come out with the same clichés and platitudes, don’t they? It’s all small talk and nonsense. I’ve had so many “thinking of you” texts I’m going to scream. What does “thinking of you” mean? Of course they’re thinking of me. My mum’s just been killed. Something exciting has happened.’ She pauses, and fresh tears prick at her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t obsess, should I? Not over things like that. My brain’s not helping me out at all.’

McAvoy puts a hand on her shoulder. Gives a squeeze. ‘Tea?’ She nods. ‘I’ve drunk litres of the stuff but I can take another.’ He stands and begins looking in cupboards, filling the kettle, dropping teabags in two white mugs patterned with different-colour polka dots. As he looks back over at her to ask if she takes milk, he spots a Humberside Police letterhead on one of the documents on her table. She sees him looking, and gives a rueful smile.

‘Three points and sixty quid,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

‘Sorry?’

‘Arrived this morning. Talking on a mobile while driving. That’s me up to nine points. One more and I lose my licence.’

McAvoy doesn’t know what to say. ‘It arrived this morning?’

She nods, then turns the action into a shake of the head. ‘Just what I need, isn’t it? I thought it was something to do with Mum …’

‘It will have been sent out last week,’ says McAvoy, aware that he is gabbling, unsure whether to defend the police or commiserate with her for the shittiness of the situation. ‘They come second class. It’s all automated. They wouldn’t have known …’

Elaine shrugs and picks up her pen, filling in her details in the automatic guilty plea section. ‘We weren’t even moving. I was in a traffic jam. I phoned Mum to ask her to pick up Lucas.’

McAvoy says nothing. Just goes back to the tea and listens as she sniffs. When he returns to the table, her eyes are red and the backs of her hands are wet. He wishes he could make a phone call and tell her he will take care of it. Wishes he had that power, then realises that he wouldn’t know what to do with it even if he did. Can imagine driving himself crazy trying to decide what is right and what is wrong. Here, now, he doesn’t know whether giving Elaine a fixed-penalty notice for a minor driving infraction is
just
. But were he sitting in the kitchen of somebody who had lost a loved one in a road accident caused by somebody talking on a mobile while driving, he would be agreeing with their contention that blasé motorists should be strung up. He knows this about himself. Hates it, too.

Elaine gestures at herself and creases her face into a damp, half-hearted smile. ‘Mess, aren’t I?’

‘You’re doing great.’

‘You think?’

‘You’re the one that Detective Superintendent Pharaoh and I thought we should see about this. You’re the one holding it together and best able to assist in the investigation.’

Elaine gives him a puzzled look. ‘There’s been a development? Do you have someone?’

McAvoy raises his hands to slow her. Takes a sip of tea. After yesterday’s meeting with Darren Robb he had called her and informed her that at this stage, her ex-partner was not being treated as a suspect. She had accepted the news with some relief, though she had immediately begun to ask where that left them. McAvoy had promised to keep her informed, even before he got the call from Pharaoh in the early hours and an instruction to get his arse over to the Longman house as soon as the sun came up. A call to the FLO suggested that nobody there was in any fit state to be any use to anybody, so he had elected to speak to Elaine instead.

‘We haven’t got anybody yet, no,’ he says. ‘But yes, there’s been a development. Can I ask you if you know somebody called Yvonne Dale?’

Elaine squeezes her fist with her palm, thinking hard. ‘Rings a bell, maybe. I don’t know. Why?’

McAvoy takes a breath. ‘She was murdered last night in her home in Barton. Cut with a knife. Bled to death.’

Elaine closes her eyes and puts both hands to her mouth, steepled at the fingertips. Her voice catches as she speaks. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘Yvonne tried to call your mum’s house last night, Elaine. Shortly before she died.’

There is silence in the room. Elaine simply looks at McAvoy, her bottom lip trembling, before she throws her hands up. ‘I don’t know! Were they friends? Why did she want Mum?’

McAvoy puts his hand on her shoulder again, as if trying to soothe a skittish horse. ‘Ssh, just breathe for a second. Elaine, I need you to think hard about this. Here, I have a picture …’

Elaine pushes her chair back. ‘I don’t want to see. I can’t let any more of this inside me …’

Fresh tears spill and McAvoy finds himself putting the picture away. He forces himself not to. Insists that he does his job as a police officer before he allows himself to become a human being.