Dark Spaces (12 page)

‘He dumped me for a dumb blonde, remember. The men in my life have a habit of doing that.’

If she could have sucked the words back in she would have, and then sewn her lips together for good measure. She didn’t want to rehash old arguments with Jack any more than she did with David. She steeled herself for his defence, but it didn’t come. Instead, he stared off down the corridor and spoke over Lilly’s head. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

Lilly glanced around and saw the WPC gliding towards them, hands behind her back. She didn’t slow her pace when Jack spoke.

‘I said I’ll be with you in a moment.’

If the WPC noticed the tinge of irritation in Jack’s voice she disguised it well. ‘I think you’re going to want to hear what I’ve got to say, Jack,’ she said.

He folded his arms, an implicit sign that this had better be good.

‘I’ve just spoken to the guys who have been searching the scene,’ she said. ‘They’ve found something.’

‘What?’ Jack asked.

The WPC kept a straight face but there was a twinkle in her eye as she brought her left hand into view. In it she was holding an evidence bag. Inside the bag was the unmistakable shape of a blood-stained knife.

I feel distinctly odd.

Like I’m having an out-of-body experience.

The way Jack dismissed me, I thought he was joking at first. When I realized he wasn’t joking, I had to force myself to slip away. It didn’t feel like me doing that.

Thank goodness that PC found the knife. I knew Jack would want to see it immediately.

We’re walking towards the room where it was found now. Jack’s talking but I only know that because his mouth is moving. I can’t hear a word he’s saying. It’s like being deep under water. Or deaf. Yes, this is what it must be like to be deaf.

As I say, it’s distinctly odd.

Jack grabs my arm and I try to focus. His voice is so quiet. Like he’s at the other end of a long tunnel.

‘Do you know whose room this is, Kate?’

I shake my head.

He looks puzzled and I resist the urge to trace my finger down the sweet little wrinkles in his forehead.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks, his voice still far away.

I nod and smile. How can I even begin to explain?

As we get to the right door, Jack checks up and down the corridor. The PC who found the knife is talking to the shrink. I don’t like that one at all. The way he looked at Lilly was transparent. Dirty old man.

Jack stands with his feet apart and his fists balled. That’s how I know he’s shouting.

‘Can someone tell me whose room this is?’

The shrink comes over and answers Jack, then he leaves to check the room.

Lilly was at the exit when she heard someone calling her. She stopped, hand still outstretched for the handle. Would she ever manage to leave this bloody place?

She turned and saw that this time it was Harry hurrying towards her.

‘Shall I bring a sleeping bag next time?’

‘Sorry?’ Harry asked.

‘Maybe a change of knickers and a toothbrush?’

She waited for him to get the joke but his eyes remained serious. Clearly her gallows humour was out of place.

‘What’s up, Harry?’ she asked.

He scratched his scalp with both hands and exhaled. This was the first time she’d seen even a crack in his ice-smooth carapace.

‘The police have found a knife,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Lilly replied. ‘They’ll send it to forensics and hopefully they’ll get a match.’

‘I don’t think they need forensics,’ he said.

‘No?’

He closed his eyes, fingers no longer clawing but remaining in his hair. ‘I should have seen this coming. I should have known where this was leading.’

‘What should you have seen coming?’

His eyes were still closed. ‘The signs were there. You noticed them.’

A heaviness descended on Lilly, like a cloak weighted with stones. ‘Harry.’ She enunciated each word clearly. ‘What did I notice?’

When he opened his eyes, they were bright with tears and regret and the cloak dragged her down with slow inevitability. She didn’t need him to say the words, did she? She knew.

‘Chloe Church,’ said Harry. ‘They found the knife in Chloe Church’s room.’

Lilly didn’t reply. Instead she chased an image around her brain. A hugely overweight girl, thrusting a soggy note into her hand. The note Lilly had discarded together with her concerns. Could it really be a coincidence that the words of that note had been the same ones carved into Lydia’s cold white flesh?

‘If I’d just listened to you,’ said Harry.

Lilly’s mouth went dry. Everything about that note had screamed of something being very wrong. Why had she done nothing about it?

‘You can’t blame yourself, Harry,’ she said.

He sighed and gave the weakest of smiles. ‘You’re a good woman.’

Right now Lilly didn’t feel remotely good.

‘What’s going to happen?’ Harry asked.

‘I can’t say for sure,’ Lilly told him. ‘I’d imagine Chloe will be arrested and taken down to the station for questioning.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Harry’s regret and uncertainty vanished. ‘That cannot happen.’

‘You can’t stop it, Harry. Unless you’re saying she’s unfit.’

‘I will most definitely say that.’ Harry held his head high. ‘Chloe is very ill.’

Lilly couldn’t disagree with that. If Chloe had really killed Lydia and then cut a message into her dead body, that alone seemed conclusive proof.

‘Jack won’t be happy about it,’ she said.

Harry shrugged. ‘That’s hardly our concern, is it?’

Lilly winced at the word ‘our’.

‘The important issue is that we protect Chloe,’ Harry continued. ‘Don’t you agree?’

Lilly ran her top teeth over her bottom lip, worrying a piece of dry skin. ‘I’m afraid I can’t get involved, Harry. I worked for Lydia, not Chloe.’

Harry put his hand on Lilly’s arm. ‘I don’t want to state the obvious but Lydia doesn’t need you any longer.’

‘There’s still the potential for conflict,’ said Lilly.

Potential! That was the understatement of the year. Or the decade. Chloe’s note was a big fat screaming reality. When Jack found out about it he’d think all his Christmases had come at once.

‘There would only be a conflict of interest if you took on Chloe’s case,’ said Harry. ‘All you need to do right now is talk to the poor girl, explain what’s happening. Then we can go and set out our position to Jack. If he arrests her, I dread to think what might happen to her.’

Lilly wavered. Her gut instinct was to walk away from this case as fast as she could. But Harry was right, Chloe did need help.

‘I can see you’re uncomfortable with this,’ said Harry. ‘In different circumstances I’d let you run straight out of that door and call someone else, but by the time I do that and another lawyer battles through the snow, it will be too late for Chloe.’

‘You can tell Jack that Chloe’s not fit for interview,’ she said.

Harry snorted. ‘I’m not convinced he’ll take my word for it.’

‘What makes you think he’ll listen to me?’

‘Oh come on, Lilly,’ said Harry.

Lilly blushed. Did Harry know that she and Jack had been an item?

‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ said Harry. ‘Sheba told me you were the best in the business. I’m certain you can make Jack see reason.’

Lilly gave a weak smile. He didn’t know about Jack and made everything sound so straightforward. And yet the tap, tap, tap of doubt was like a teaspoon against a hard-boiled egg.

‘Whatever the rights and wrongs of this mess,’ said Harry, ‘Chloe needs our help.’

Lilly shuddered at the word ‘help’. Hadn’t Chloe already begged for that? And hadn’t Lilly ignored her? Could she really do that a second time?

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

Harry beamed. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let her down.’

He had no idea how spectacularly she had already done just that.

They scooted back up the corridor, Lilly chasing Harry as he led her through a myriad of security doors. If ever she needed to find her way out in a hurry, she’d be toast. As they passed a room with the door flung wide, Harry peered inside. Lilly followed his eye line and saw Jack and the WPC deep in conversation with a uniformed officer. Jack looked up and they exchanged a glance.

‘We need to be quick,’ Lilly hissed at Harry. ‘Jack will want to know exactly where and how the knife was found, but that isn’t going to take much longer.’

Harry led her back to his office. ‘I told Elaine to put her in here.’

He opened the door and the nurse looked up. She was in the chair where Mr Morton-Daley had sat. Next to her, in Lilly’s seat, was Chloe. Hunched over, her head in her chest, arms over her head. A sweat-soaked T-shirt had ridden up, revealing a ring of wet fat. Like lard in a hot frying pan.

Harry nodded to the nurse. ‘Thank you, Elaine.’

It was clearly a signal for the nurse to leave, but she didn’t seem keen to do so. Instead, she hovered in front of the door.

‘We need to talk about this,’ she said.

‘We will, Elaine,’ said Harry. ‘We will.’

The nurse shot Lilly a look that she couldn’t figure out. Frankly, there wasn’t time.

‘I really need to speak to Chloe,’ she said. ‘In private.’

The nurse gave a tight nod and left. Gingerly, Lilly took the empty place and placed a hand on Chloe’s back. Instantly, she regretted it. She could feel hot damp flesh through the fabric of the T-shirt.

‘Chloe,’ she said, praying that the girl would sit up and she could remove her palm. ‘I need to speak to you.’

The girl didn’t budge and Lilly watched her hand rise and fall with Chloe’s laboured breathing. She looked to Harry for help and he squeezed himself between his desk and Chloe, crouching at her bare feet, which still bore the deep red marks of whatever shoes she had previously been wearing.

‘Chloe.’ Harry’s voice was gentle yet firm. ‘We don’t have much time.’

When she still didn’t budge, he removed her arms one at a time, allowing them to flop towards the ground, and reached under Chloe’s chin, pushing it up.

‘This is Lilly Valentine.’ He looked intently into Chloe’s face. ‘She’s here to help you.’ He cupped Chloe’s chin and forced her head to the left. ‘Do you remember Lilly?’

Lilly smiled in encouragement but Chloe’s face was blank, eyes unfocused, mouth gaping, tongue lolling.

‘We met in the common room,’ Lilly told her, but there was no sign of recognition, only the wheezy breaths that puffed out the smell of onions into Lilly’s face.

‘She came to help Lydia,’ said Harry and something skittered across Chloe’s face. ‘Now she’s going to help you.’

Chloe’s pupils fought to pinpoint Lilly as if she were a figure on the distant horizon.

‘The police want to speak to you, Chloe,’ Lilly said. ‘But I’m wondering if you feel well enough for that.’

A string of saliva dripped from Chloe’s tongue, stretching and stretching until it snapped and came to rest on the front of her T-shirt. Lilly glanced at Harry. There could be little doubt that this girl was unfit to be interviewed.

‘To be honest, Chloe, I think I agree with Lilly that you’re probably not well enough to speak to anyone right now.’ Harry rubbed the girl’s knee, making it shake visibly beneath her trousers. ‘I think it might be better if you got some rest. Somewhere nice and quiet and dark.’

Without warning Chloe’s head snapped back and she let out a terrified scream.

‘It’s okay,’ said Harry, jumping to his feet. ‘We’re here for you, Chloe.’

Chloe screamed again, and reared away from Harry, tipping the chair back until it collapsed, spilling Chloe onto the floor.

‘What’s happening?’ Lilly shouted as Chloe began to writhe, her eyes rolling back in her head, her arms and legs flailing. All the while screaming, like a pig being led into the abattoir.

‘She’s fitting,’ said Harry, trying to reach over her mass to her face, but being batted away by Chloe’s meaty fists. One caught him squarely in the eye and he reeled backwards with a cry.

‘What shall I do?’ Lilly yelled.

‘Hold her down,’ Harry replied.

Lilly leaned over Chloe who was now convulsing with such violence her head crashed against the floor, the skull making a sickening crack. An arm flung out at Lilly’s chest, winding her.

‘Hold her.’ Harry had crawled up the right side of Chloe’s body and pressed down onto her upper torso.

Lilly struggled to catch a breath and threw herself onto Chloe’s left shoulder, trapping her arm beneath her. The girl heaved furiously, her arms pinned outwards as if she were crucified. She bucked with such force Lilly knew she couldn’t hold her for much longer.

‘Now what?’ she shouted.