Dark Spaces (10 page)

‘No salad, please,’ Lilly begged.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

Lilly sipped a cup of Earl Grey and watched him chop mushrooms, peppers and cabbage.

‘Got any soy sauce?’ he asked.

Lilly leaned her chair back on two legs, as she was forever telling Sam not to do, and reached into the cupboard for the bottle.

‘Have you spoken to Cara today?’

David poured a generous glug of sauce over the sizzling vegetables. A cloud of salty steam hit the air.

‘I sent her a text this morning.’

‘Saying what?’ Lilly asked.

‘Saying I’d like to see Flora.’

Deftly, he tossed the pan, the ingredients dancing in the air, before falling back into the heat.

‘And what did she say?’ Lilly asked.

‘She said I should get my stuff by tomorrow or she’s taking it to the tip.’

Lilly hid a smile. Cara was used to getting her own way. ‘So what are you going to do?’

David threw a handful of noodles into the mixture and Lilly’s stomach growled. She really fancied stodge. A nice chicken pie. With mash.

‘Find a flat.’ He gave a sneaky grin. ‘Find a good solicitor.’

Lilly rolled her eyes. ‘This is serious, David.’

‘I know, I know. I’ll go over there first thing and collect my stuff, then I’ll find somewhere to stay.’

‘And tonight?’

David turned back to his cooking. ‘I wondered if I could crash here again.’

Lilly rolled her eyes again. His bashful routine was a bit ridiculous considering he was already here. She was about to tell him so when the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll go.’ David almost ran out of the kitchen, presumably glad to avoid further discussion. When he returned, Jack was in tow.

‘I explained that now wasn’t a good time,’ said David. ‘But Jack insists it’s urgent.’

Jack narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t insist anything. It is what it is.’

Lilly groaned inwardly. Please let this not be about Alice’s arm. She’d checked and double-checked it. She’d covered the puncture mark in Savlon. What more could she have done?

‘We’re about to have dinner, Jack,’ she said.

Jack sniffed at the pan of stir-fry. ‘Very nice.’

‘Not really,’ said Lilly. ‘David made it.’

‘Hey,’ shouted David in mock indignation.

She had hoped it would break the tension but Jack’s face was rigid.

‘I hear you repped Lydia Morton-Daley,’ he said.

Lilly nodded. ‘I was in court this afternoon.’ She held up a hand. ‘Before you mention anything about further charges let me give you a heads up; she’s dead.’

‘I know,’ said Jack.

‘Then what’s this about?’ asked Lilly. ‘Even the MCU can’t push a case where the defendant’s pegged it.’

Jack didn’t answer.

‘It’s game over, Officer McNally. She topped herself.’

Jack appraised her coolly. Whatever had been between them was long gone. He looked at her as if she were a stranger to him.

‘Actually, we don’t think she did top herself,’ he said.

Lilly sat up straight. ‘What?’

‘We don’t think that Lydia killed herself,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand.’ Lilly shook her head. ‘Harry said it was an overdose.’

‘Harry?’

‘Harry Piper, her therapist,’ said Lilly. ‘He came to court to tell me himself.’

Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘So that’s where he was. We were all wondering what was so important when one of his patients had died.’

‘He thought I needed to know …’ Lilly let the words trail away. ‘What did she die of?’

‘Drug overdose.’

‘I thought you just said it wasn’t suicide.’

Jack cocked his head to one side and something in Lilly’s brain clicked.

‘You think someone deliberately gave her too much.’ She pointed at Jack. ‘You think she was murdered.’

‘We both know it can happen,’ said Jack.

Lilly tapped her forehead with her fingers. Not long ago, when she had been pregnant with Alice, they’d been involved in a case where a girl had her drink spiked with drugs purchased from the internet. For all intents and purposes it had looked like suicide, when in fact it had been an honour killing.

‘Something like that has got to be rare, Jack. Is there anything else to indicate murder?’

Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an A4 manila envelope. ‘I’m just back from the autopsy. This is a photograph of what we found on Lydia’s stomach.’ He pulled out a glossy sheet and laid it on the table in front of them. Lilly gasped. David gagged.

The photograph showed her young client prone on the mortuary cot. Her skin was the matt alabaster of the dead, but across her stomach were cuts of the deepest crimson. Someone had cut into the body, spelling out two words.

Help us.

Chapter Four

Those present: Selima Begum (Head of Child Protection Team), Sarah Hind (Child Psychologist), Terrence De Souza (Luton Police).

Interviewee: Phoebe Talbot (date of birth unknown).

Selima: Hello, Phoebe. My name’s Selima and I’m a social worker. Do you know what that means?

Phoebe: Why is you wearing a scarf on you’s head?

Selima: [laughs] Haven’t you seen ladies wearing these before?

Phoebe: No.

Selima: It just means I’m a Muslim, okay? Do you know what a Muslim is?

Phoebe: No.

Selima: It means I believe in God and I call him Allah.

Phoebe: I believe in God.

Selima: And what do you call him?

Phoebe: God.

Selima: [laughs] That’s nice and simple [pauses] so can you tell me your name?

Phoebe: You’s already said it.

Selima: I just want to check I’ve got it right.

Phoebe: It’s Phoebe. P.H.O.E.B.E.

Selima: Excellent.

Phoebe: Not phobia. P.H.O.B.I.A. That’s when you’s scared of stuff.

Selima: That’s great spelling, Phoebe. Who taught you to do that?

Phoebe: Gigi.

Selima: Your big sister?

Phoebe: She teached me to read as well but it’s shhhh.

Selima: You’re putting your finger on your lips, Phoebe. Does that mean it’s a secret?

Phoebe: Yes.

Selima: Do you and Gigi keep any other secrets, Phoebe?

Phoebe: She make me nice cards for birthdays.

Selima: Oh that’s nice isn’t it? And do you know how many birthdays you’ve had, Phoebe? [pause] You’re holding up six fingers, Phoebe. So you’re six years old?

Phoebe: Yes but we’s don’t tell when it’s a birthday.

Selima: Why is that, Phoebe? Why don’t you and Gigi tell anyone it’s your birthday?

Phoebe: I don’t know. Gigi says it me. I don’t think she wants them to have a party.

Selima: Why not?

Phoebe: They might invite other peoples.

Selima: Gigi worries that Mummy and Daddy might invite other people to the party?

Phoebe: Maybes.

Selima: And why would Gigi worry about that? Doesn’t she like the people Mummy and Daddy might invite?

Phoebe: None of us like the peoples.

Selima: Why is that Phoebe?

Phoebe: We’s just don’t like them.

Selima: What do they do, Phoebe? What do they do to make you feel like that about them?

Phoebe: They do … [pauses].

Selima: Go on, Phoebe, you can tell us what they do.

Phoebe: They just do whatever they like.

Lilly opened the curtains to a fresh snowfall that had covered the garden in a white rug at least ten inches deep.

‘School’s closed,’ Sam sang out from his laptop.

‘Great,’ said Lilly.

‘You’ll never get the Mini off the drive,’ said David.

‘Excellent,’ said Lilly.

There was a meeting with Lydia’s parents scheduled at the Grove and Lilly had intended to call in and speak to the pathologist beforehand.

David handed her a coffee. ‘I’ll take you in my car.’

‘What about work?’ she asked.

‘No one will bother on a day like today.’

Lilly eyed him over the rim of her mug. ‘What about Cara?’

‘I’ll head over there this afternoon.’ David rummaged in the fridge. ‘Then I’ll pop into the local estate agent’s for details of rentals.’

Lilly was unconvinced as she watched him juggle a block of cheese and a tomato, whistling as he thinly sliced them onto some toast. If he thought he could stay in the cottage indefinitely he had another thing coming.

As David’s Range Rover powered through the country lanes, passing countless cars abandoned in snowdrifts, he gave Lilly a sneaky sideways look.

She pretended she didn’t know what was coming. ‘What?’

‘Not so bad now, is she?’ He patted the steering wheel. ‘The old Chelsea tractor.’

Lilly pulled a face. She had indeed criticized the monster four-by-fours the Manor Park yummy mummys used for the school run and a weekly shop at Waitrose. She had also, on more than one occasion, described David’s enormous beast as his ‘penis extension’.

‘You can’t justify the amount of fuel this thing guzzles because it’s proved useful one day of the year,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome to walk,’ he said.

She sniffed imperiously as she turned on the seat heater and stretched out her legs, watching the landscape pass as the car powered through snow and ice. When they arrived, Luton was eerily deserted. This early in the morning the street lights were still lit, casting the yellow light of a town across the snow-covered roads, making them seem sickly and wrong.

‘Over there.’ Lilly pointed to an unobtrusive brick building.

‘Doesn’t look much, does it?’ said David.

‘What were you expecting? Something out of
CSI
?’

‘Er … yes.’

They both burst out laughing as David pulled over and Lilly was still chuckling as she jumped out of the car and crunched her way to the foyer. Once inside, however, the smile slid from her lips. This place pressed down on her shoulders.

With more purpose than she felt, Lilly strode down the corridor. When she reached Lab 3, she peered through the small round window in the door. Inside, Phil Cheney, a pathologist she’d known and liked for years, was bent over a cadaver. Meticulously, he moved across the dead man’s forehead with a tiny pair of tweezers, breaking every few moments to drop his quarry in a clear evidence bag. When he appeared to be finished and Lilly couldn’t wait a second longer, she tapped on the glass and Cheney turned. He recognized her and smiled, holding up five gloved fingers.

Shit. Lilly would have to spend even longer in this godforsaken place. She gave a shudder and began to pace.

At last Cheney appeared. ‘You’ll wear away our Persian rugs.’

Lilly was about to laugh but stopped in surprise. ‘What happened to you?’

She gestured to his face. Normally adorned with multiple piercings, not just in his ears, but a ring in each eyebrow and a stud in his nose, lip and tongue, it was shockingly metal-free. And his NHS specs, held together with sellotape, or sometimes a plaster, had been replaced by a pair of rimless glasses that looked as if they had cost a small fortune.

‘My new image,’ he said. ‘You likey?’

‘It’s certainly different,’ Lilly replied.

Cheney grimaced. ‘To tell you the truth I feel naked, but my new girlfriend insisted. It was either her or them.’

‘What about the ink?’ Lilly pointed to the sleeves of his lab jacket, which she knew covered tattoos from his wrists to his shoulders.

‘We’ve agreed on an armistice. I won’t get any more and she’ll try to ignore the ones I’ve already got.’

‘It must be love.’

Cheney sighed. ‘I suppose it must be. Speaking of which, has McNally come to his senses?’

Jack and Cheney went way back. Old drinking buddies and general partners in crime.

‘I told him he was making a big mistake,’ said Cheney. ‘You are the best thing that ever happened to him.’

Lilly smiled. Jack had obviously told Cheney he had left her rather than Lilly asking him to move out. Probably a male pride thing.

‘Let’s get down to business shall we?’ she said. ‘Lydia Morton-Daley.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Cheney rubbed his hands together.

His obvious enthusiasm might be disconcerting to normal folk, but Lilly was glad that the dead had someone on their side who gave a toss. He dived back into the lab and Lilly held her nose until he returned waving the autopsy report.

‘Can you give me the edited highlights?’ she asked.