Troubled Waters (28 page)

‘Did you ever see her again after that?’

‘No . . . not until last Wednesday when they lifted that sheet in the mortuary. I never saw my daughter again – not alive.’

‘You never once saw her again from the time she left the house in disgrace?’

‘No . . .’

At the thought, she began to weep, pulling a starched white handkerchief from her sleeve, unfolding it and dabbing her eyes.

‘What about Diana, your other daughter?’ Alice said.

‘What about her?’ the woman replied, swallowing hard, looking up at the policewoman once more.

‘Did she see her sister? I mean once Miranda had been thrown out. Did she ever go and stay with her sister?’

‘Once, she went there once,’ the woman replied in a low voice.

‘When was that?’

‘I’m not sure exactly. She went there . . . I’m not sure, a couple of weeks ago, maybe less, something like that.’

‘When did she get back from her sister’s flat?’

‘Last Monday night. I wasn’t home that night, I was seeing my mother. But Jimmy brought her back, last Monday night, from Miranda’s flat. I didn’t see her until the Tuesday, obviously, but I know she got back the night before. She was very tired.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Diana? She’s upstairs in her bed. She’s got measles. Jimmy probably told you. We’ve been that worried. It’s quite dangerous, really nasty, they say. I had it as a child so I’ve no worries, Jimmy’s the same, but if you’ve not had it before – well, you’re not immune and no one would want to catch it.’

‘I’d like to speak to her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said, eyes wide, ‘but she’s not well enough for that. You can talk to her later, tomorrow, or if not then, then the next day, but she’s still ill, still feverish. She’s only a child, too. Thirteen. I can’t allow that. I’m surprised you’d even ask in the circumstances.’

‘Fine. I’ll not speak to her, but I do want to see her.’

‘Now?’ the woman said aghast, ‘She’s still infectious, you realise?’

‘Now,’ Alice confirmed, ‘I’d like to see her now.’

‘For pity’s sake . . .’

‘Now, please.’

Looking outraged, Mrs Stimms rose, and without a word left the room. The two policewomen followed her along the corridor and up the stairs. Outside a pink-painted door with a notice on it in purple letters saying ‘Diana’s Room’, she glanced back at them, and then slowly turned the door handle.

Going in, she murmured, ‘I’ll just be a second, sweetie. In and then straight out.’ She tiptoed up to the bed and gently touched her daughter’s back. As she did so, she looked back at the two policewomen in the doorway, her eyebrows raised as if to say ‘I told you so’. To DC Cairn’s surprise, Alice marched in and went up to the bed. After a few seconds she pulled the curtains open and returned to the bedside. Slowly and very gently, she rolled back the covers. Beneath them were a couple of pillows in starched
white pillowcases, carefully positioned to resemble as much as possible the outline of a human figure.

‘She’s very pale,’ Alice said, looking at Mrs Stimms quizzically and signalling for her to return to the sitting room.

‘Well?’ she asked Mrs Stimms as soon as she had sat down again. ‘Could you explain to me exactly what’s going on here?’

‘I had to do it,’ the woman replied, smoothing her skirt against her thighs again, regaining her composure and both looking and sounding defiant.

‘Why?’

‘Because otherwise you’d keep her – or never give her back to us. It’s happened before, so don’t try and soft-soap me, tell me otherwise. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, experienced it for myself. “Not fit”, the cheek of it! Worldlies, like you, telling us we’re not fit! With your pornography, your lewd advertisements . . .
sex
trumpeted everywhere. But there it is, they’ve got all the power – you, worldly people, have all the power, have it all your own way. All I wanted was to get her back. But would you have helped us? Of course not, so we’ve had to do it all ourselves.’

‘Get her back? I don’t understand. I thought you said that your husband picked her up from the Casselbank flat on the Monday night, on the night Miranda died?’

‘She didn’t die on the Monday . . . it was the Tuesday – I thought it was the Tuesday. That’s what the technician said in the mortuary.’

‘No. We think she did die on the Monday. Her body was found on the Tuesday, but she died the day before, probably the night before. Did your husband not pick Diana up from the flat then?’

‘He did. It took him a while to find her. Miranda, no doubt with the help of her new friends, the boyfriend, took Diana from us, you see. She snatched her from her school – took her without our permission. Jimmy knew he’d find her, and he did. One of the Brothers has a shop not far from there. He saw her on the street, phoned Jimmy and he went there and watched for ages, day after day. He followed her, discovered them in Casselbank Street, at her flat. On the Monday night he went there and picked Diana up, but she ran away.’

‘But why did Miranda take her sister away from here? From you?’

‘Jimmy says she did it because being out of the Elect herself, she wanted her sister out too. They were close, very close. Miranda was very protective of her wee sister, thought the world of her. I suppose, selfishly, she just wanted her with her – on the outside. She missed her, knew she’d not see her otherwise.’

‘Where is Diana now?’

‘She’s . . . I don’t know.’ The woman looked her interrogators in the eye, letting them know from her expression that there would be no further co-operation.

‘You must know,’ Alice replied, ‘and we need to know. We really do need to know.’

‘Well, I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. I don’t see what any of this has to do with Miranda anyway. Diana is none of your business, is she? She’s done nothing wrong. I haven’t either. You’ve no right to come asking questions about her. What has she to do with you? She has nothing to do with you, that’s what. Now, I’ve a meeting to go to so I’d be grateful if you’d leave. I do have a friend, you know. I could call her – or my husband. He’d tell you to leave. He’d take none of this from you.’ To emphasise
her words, she rose as if preparing to show them to the door.

‘Mrs Stimms,’ Alice began, ‘I think you should sit down. We are interested in Diana. We need to speak to Diana, for her sake. Apart from anything else she may have been a witness . . .’

‘Look, officer. I have not committed a crime, Jimmy has not committed a crime. You can’t come here and bully people like this. We’ve already lost one . . . daughter. We’ll get Diana back and that will be that, and we’ll all get on with our lives. Now, I really do have a meeting to go to . . .’

‘Mrs Stimms,’ Alice continued, ‘think about it. Diana may have been amongst the last people to see her sister alive.’

‘How do you mean?’ the woman replied, looking suddenly rattled. ‘What are you saying, what are you getting at?’

‘She may even have witnessed the crime, seen Miranda’s murder.’

‘Why should she have? Jimmy took her away . . . long before anything happened to Miranda, I’m sure of that. She doesn’t speak, she’s got a mental handicap. You wouldn’t get as much as her name from her. You’re just saying that to frighten me. Why should she have seen anything?’

‘How do you know that Jimmy took her away before Miranda was murdered?’

‘Oh,’ the woman said, her face flushed, twisting her wedding ring on her finger, ‘this is getting ridiculous. This is quite mad. Of course he did! What are you suggesting now? That Jimmy did it or something, that he killed Miranda?’

‘It is possible.’

‘Oh no, it’s not, my lady. Not so fast. I can assure you that it’s not. I know him, you don’t. How dare you even suggest such a thing! Do you think I don’t know my own husband? As if he’d ever do anything to harm one of his own children! His girls . . . He loved Miranda, they were as close as any father and daughter can be. If she hadn’t . . . hadn’t taken up with Satan, this would never have happened. She would have stayed at home with us. Diana would still be here . . .’

‘Before she left home, did Miranda tell you that she was pregnant?’

‘What?’ the woman said, looking appalled, as if someone had just slapped her in the face. Alice repeated the question, word for word.

‘No. I don’t believe you. How do you know that she was? How could you possibly know that?’

‘The forensic pathologist who carried out the post mortem on her body told us. And we have just discovered who the father of her child was.’

‘I don’t want to know. Miranda is no longer my daughter, I don’t want to know who her lesbian person was, I don’t want to know what man she had been sleeping with. She’s nothing to do with me any longer.’

‘The father of Miranda’s baby was Jimmy, your husband, her own father. When she died she was thirteen weeks pregnant.’

‘Jimmy?’

‘Your husband, Jimmy.’

‘Lies, all lies! I don’t believe you – that’s a disgusting thing to say!’ the woman exclaimed, shaking her head, now white as chalk, looking at them and adding as if pleading for a denial. ‘You’re just saying that, aren’t you?
It’s not true is it? I’m his wife! With his own daughter? No, no – no, he would never do that, I know him. That’s sick. Jimmy would never do something like that. No, tell me it’s not true! How could you even say such a thing!’

‘I’m sorry, but it is true. Now will you help us find Diana? She may be in danger. We need to find her as soon as possible.’

‘Jimmy – he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t . . . I never thought . . . Miranda never said anything to me. She would have, I’m her mother. How long – how long . . . since when? How can you be sure? I don’t believe you.’

‘We can be sure,’ DC Cairns said. ‘A tissue sample was taken from the foetus, analysed in the lab. The foetus itself was measured. That’s how we know.’

‘Is Diana with Jimmy?’ Alice asked.

‘I don’t know. He’s found out where she is at last. A special school. He’s going to take her from there today, bring her home to me today . . .’

‘What is the name of the special school?’

‘It’s called the Wargrove School, somewhere in Bruntsfield.’

‘Get the number, now,’ Alice said to DC Cairns. ‘Is he there now? When is he expecting to collect her?’ she asked the distraught woman.

‘Oh,’ she replied, still in shock at their revelation, ‘at . . . at . . . some time today. This morning, yes, he promised he’d try in the morning, first thing. At break time. If he failed that would give him two chances, he said. I don’t know when, exactly. He always phones me after he’s been looking for her. He lets me know how he’s got on.’

Typing in the number, DC Cairns handed Alice her phone. She was immediately transferred by the receptionist to the Deputy Headmaster, Mr Rawson.

‘Inspector Rice,’ the man began, sounding strained, ‘has someone been in touch with you already? It may all be nothing, we’re still looking. This may all prove to be premature.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Rawson, but I’m not sure what you mean?’

‘I thought that you were phoning about Susie . . .’

‘No.’

‘Are you not phoning about Susie, then? Are you not phoning about the loss of Susie?’

‘I’m phoning to see if a man has removed from your grounds one of your pupils, Diana Stimms.’

‘There’s no pupil of that name here. No Diana Stimms. But we’ve got a girl, no one knows her real name because she doesn’t speak. We were told to call her Susie, she seems to respond to Susie. It’s her we’re concerned about. It was her I assumed that you were ringing about. Our head, Mrs Griffiths, said she’d spoken to someone in the police.’

‘What does this Susie look like?’ Alice asked.

‘She’s tall, maybe five foot eight or so. Fair-haired and very slim, too slim, thin, scrawny even – and speechless. Until today none of us have managed to get her to say a single word, despite intensive therapy.’

The inspector turned to Mrs Stimms and asked her for a description of Diana.

‘She’s tall,’ her mother said, ‘taller than me and Jimmy, and she’s got lovely blonde hair, dark eyes . . .’

‘Slim?’

‘Very slim.’

‘What’s happened to Susie?’ Alice asked the teacher.

‘Maybe nothing, that’s why I was saying this is all premature. But at the moment we can’t find her. She didn’t
come back in after the break. We have searched high and low, in the school, in the grounds. I spoke to Miss Blair, a playground assistant, and she said she’d seen nothing, but Cass, our lollipop lady, told Mrs Griffiths that she’d seen a man take the child away, or at least one matching her description. At the time she thought it was the child’s father, so she didn’t do anything or think anything of it. To be fair, why should she? We do know he was driving a blue Mazda 6.’

‘A blue Mazda 6?’ Alice repeated, certain from Mrs Stimms’ startled reaction that it was her husband’s car.

‘Susie,’ she said to Mr Rawson, ‘Tell me a little about Susie, if you would?’

‘What do you want to know? I don’t know much myself. She’s living with foster parents in Blackhall. We don’t know how long she’ll be here because everyone is trying to track down her parents. She appeared, lost, somewhere in Leith about . . . I don’t know . . . six, seven days ago. Somewhere round about Great Junction Street, one of the side streets.’

Holding the phone against her chest, Alice asked Mrs Stimms, ‘Was it near Great Junction Street that your husband lost Diana?’

‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘at the garage on Great Junction Street. She got out of the car and wandered away. He looked for her but he couldn’t find her. The police picked her up near there . . . I know they did. A man in a pub, when we were looking for her, told me that.’

Telling Mr Rawson to keep looking and let them know if the girl appeared, Alice returned her attention to Mrs Stimms.

‘He’s got her in his car. He’s found her. We need to find her. For her own safety.’

‘He may have done something . . . something awful, unnatural, horrible, with Miranda . . . and I never knew, truly, I promise, I had no idea – but that doesn’t mean he’ll harm Diana, does it? He’ll just bring her back here . . . to me, won’t he?’ she replied, imploring them to agree, to restore some order, some predictability to her fractured world. She looked as if she was about to faint.