Dark Spaces (17 page)

‘I’ve tried to tell people before but they just told me it was all in my head. I explained to them that the pain was real, that it hurt.’ Chloe slid a hand down her body so she was cupping her crotch. ‘I even showed them the blood in my pants but they said I’d done it to myself. I thought I must be going mad until I told Lydia.’

‘What happened when you told Lydia?’ Lilly asked. ‘She said she believed you?’

Chloe nodded. ‘She knew it was true.’

‘How?’ Lilly felt her blood fizzing in her veins as she waited for the answer. ‘How did she know it was true?’

‘Because they were doing the same things to her too.’

Lilly stepped out of the interview room and almost collided into Harry. Water sloshed out of the jug he was carrying, down Lilly’s shirt.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘My fault,’ she answered, patting herself down for a tissue. She found one almost disintegrating in her back trouser pocket. She rubbed it against the wet patch across her chest, covering the area in white confetti.

‘Let me.’ He held out the jug for Lilly. ‘I’ve got a clean hanky.’

Lilly took the jug from him and Harry pulled out a pristine square of white cotton. He moved towards her with it as if to dab the stain but as his hand almost touched her breast, he coughed and dropped his hand. ‘Perhaps you’d better …’

Lilly swapped the jug for the handkerchief and tried to mop up her shirt. ‘Remember when we went for lunch?’ she asked.

‘How could I forget?’

Lilly flushed. ‘I asked you about Chloe, and you told me she lived in her own fantasy world, that she imagined people were doing terrible things to her.’

‘What has she been telling you?’ Harry asked.

Lilly looked around the custody suite. The sergeant was busy with paperwork and the only other person around was the WPC who was checking her phone. She took a step nearer to Harry.

‘She says she’s being abused in the Grove.’

Harry nodded. ‘Poisoned? She often says she’s being poisoned by one of the nurses. Or our pharmacist.’

‘Not poisoned.’ Lilly dropped to a whisper. ‘She says she’s being sexually abused.’

A shadow crossed Harry’s face. He clearly hadn’t seen that one coming. ‘Chloe is very ill.’

‘She says it’s not just her. She says it was happening to Lydia too.’

Harry paused. This was a huge accusation. Unlikely to be true. And yet …

‘If Chloe’s telling the truth, it would give someone other than her a very big motive to murder Lydia,’ Lilly said, as much for her own benefit as for Harry’s. ‘Did she ever say anything about it to you?’

Harry looked shocked. ‘Of course not. She may be delusional, but I wouldn’t simply dismiss an allegation like that,’ he said. ‘Patients like Chloe are vulnerable. We have to be careful.’

Lilly could have kicked herself. ‘I didn’t mean to be offensive. I’m just a bit rattled.’

‘It’s fine.’ He smiled. ‘Really it’s fine. This is difficult for everyone.’

Lilly acknowledged his understanding with a grateful nod.

‘Has Chloe named any names?’ Harry asked.

‘Nope. The details are very sketchy. She says she was drugged at the time.’

Harry exhaled through his nose. ‘And Lydia can’t exactly tell us much one way or the other.’

‘Now that’s where you’re wrong.’ Lilly took out her mobile and scrolled down her list of contacts until she got to Phil Cheney.

‘Lilly.’ Cheney answered on the first ring. ‘You just can’t get enough of the sound of my voice.’

‘Sexy as your telephone manner is, Phil, this is about business.’

‘I’m hurt and disappointed,’ he said, but Lilly knew that dead bodies excited Cheney far more than flirting.

‘Lydia Morton-Daley,’ said Lilly. ‘Was there any recent sexual activity?’

‘Oh yes.’ Lilly heard the thwack of his gloves as he pulled them off, then the tap, tap, tap of a keyboard as he accessed the file. ‘Penetration front and back.’

‘Consensual?’ she asked.

‘Tricky one to answer definitively,’ he said. ‘There were fissures but, if you’ll pardon the pun, anal sex is a bugger for that even if you’re happy to take part.’

‘What if our girl was drugged?’ Lilly asked. ‘The muscles would be relaxed wouldn’t they? Less likely to tear?’

‘For sure,’ he said. ‘But the fissures were beginning to repair so they weren’t inflicted at the time of death. More likely a day or so beforehand and there was no trace in her bloods of anything except the stuff that killed her.’

‘But if she was raped a day or so before the murder, there are plenty of drugs that would have disappeared from her system,’ said Lilly. ‘Rohypnol for one.’

‘Are you after my job?’

Lilly laughed. ‘I think you’re safe on that score, Phil. I find dead bodies a bit off-putting. You know, like any ordinary person.’

‘I will take it as a compliment that you find me extraordinary,’ he said. ‘But you’re right, Rohypnol and a few other suspects would have cleared from her system by the time of death and yes, they would have relaxed her enough for a rape to take place without too much physical trauma. So what are you saying? Someone drugs and rapes our girl, then comes back a day or so later and kills her?’

‘Are you after my job?’ asked Lilly.

‘To be honest I find rapists and murderers a bit off-putting.’

‘Touché.’

Lilly was still laughing when she hung up.

‘Funny guy?’ Harry asked.

‘Oh yes,’ said Lilly. ‘Funny ha ha and funny strange.’

‘You seem fond of one another.’

Lilly waved him away. ‘We go way back, but, trust me, if I asked him out he’d run a mile.’

‘I find that very difficult to believe,’ said Harry.

There it was again, the familiar heat of a blush. God, Lilly was like a bloody teenager.

‘So what did Romeo have to say for himself?’ asked Harry.

Lilly nudged him with her elbow. ‘That Lydia could have been raped. She’d certainly been having sex a day or so before she was killed.’

‘Unfortunately, try as we might, we can’t always prevent that sort of thing happening amongst the patients,’ said Harry. ‘Lydia was quite promiscuous. She used her sexuality as both a weapon and a way of punishing herself.’

Lilly recalled the conversation they’d had about the party on the night Lydia had been arrested and the casual reference to a sexual encounter that night. Harry’s point was valid and a perfectly viable explanation, yet something inside Lilly wasn’t persuaded. At least not totally.

‘Don’t forget Chloe came up with all this after Lydia was killed,’ said Harry.

‘She says she tried to tell people but they didn’t believe her.’

‘Well, she didn’t say anything to me and I’ve worked very closely with her,’ he said. ‘She never gave any indication.’

Lilly looked at the floor. Perhaps Chloe hadn’t asked for Harry’s assistance, but she had certainly asked for Lilly’s. Once again she thought of the letter. It had been a plea for help, but it was also a piece of evidence that gave her story a bizarre logic.

*   *   *

As I squeeze past Lilly and the shrink, they barely notice me. Too busy in their cosy little tête-à-tête.

He’s actually quite revolting. A flirtatious remark here, a brush of the fingers there, but Lilly is lapping it up. At her age I suppose it must be pleasant to receive any attention, no matter its source.

Back inside the interview room, I put a glass of water in front of the fat girl.

‘You must be thirsty?’ I say.

Her face is so flat it seems almost deformed.

‘Take a drink,’ I say. ‘They might be a while yet.’

There’s a hint of suspicion in those piggy eyes, but she grabs the glass and drinks it down, the folds of her neck undulating as she swallows.

‘I probably shouldn’t say anything, being a policewoman, but Miss Valentine really is a very good solicitor.’ I can still trace the girl’s distrust. ‘You should do everything she advises you to.’

She blinks at me like a confused puppy.

‘The thing is, I wouldn’t want to see someone like you go to prison for something they haven’t done.’

I snake my fingers into my pocket and slowly reveal a bar of chocolate I bought from the vending machine. Uncertainty vanishes and the girl’s eyes fill with want. Of course they do.

‘Are you hungry?’ I ask and carefully place the chocolate on the table between us, keeping my index finger on it.

The girl nods, every cell in her body focused on her desire to fill her stomach. If she wasn’t covered in layers of blubber, you’d be able to see each sinew stretched towards the small red bar.

I tap it with my nail. ‘Miss Valentine wants to protect you.’ The girl’s eyes are glued to the chocolate. ‘So you must do what she tells you.’ Saliva has started to collect in the corners of her mouth. ‘Okay?’

She nods.

‘Good girl,’ I tell her and push the bar towards her.

She grabs it, unwraps it and crams it into her mouth. In less than three seconds it’s gone and the girl looks at me, panting.

‘Part of any good solicitor’s job is to make things difficult for the police,’ I say. ‘If she wants to fight for you, she has to fight them. You understand how important it is that you let her fight them?’

‘Yes.’ The girl’s teeth are brown with chocolate. ‘I understand.’

Jack spotted Lilly striding across the custody suite towards him. She looked like she had something to say. That woman always had something to say.

‘Can I have a word, Jack?’ she asked.

‘I was just about to check up on forensics,’ he replied. ‘See if the fingerprints match.’

‘It won’t take a second,’ she said.

Lilly was like a train at full speed. Diversion from her course would only result in injury.

‘Are you investigating anyone else for Lydia’s murder?’ she asked. ‘Or is Chloe the only suspect?’

‘We’re keeping our options open at this point,’ he said.

‘So you’ve interviewed other people?’

Jack wondered where this was going. ‘Like I told the Morton-Daleys, we’re speaking to everyone who was in the Grove on the day she died.’

‘You haven’t brought anyone else to the nick though?’

It was true. They both knew it so he simply shrugged.

‘Looks to me as if you’ve made up your mind,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your prime suspect and you’re building your case around her.’

‘I didn’t put the knife in Chloe’s room,’ he said.

‘Of course you didn’t, Jack.’

‘You’re not suggesting the wee lad in uniform planted it?’

Lilly shook her head. ‘I’m not suggesting a copper at all.’

‘Then you’ve lost me, Lilly.’

‘I’m suggesting that whoever killed Lydia could have easily placed the weapon in Chloe’s room to make sure suspicion fell on her and not them. They knew that as soon as you found the knife you wouldn’t look any further,’ she said. ‘And, let’s face it, as a plan, it’s certainly worked.’

Jack folded his arms. It was a classic defence tactic. Introduce a possible alternative suspect that the police had overlooked. Often called the SODDI. Some other dude did it. There was no way Jack was going to walk into that particular trap.

‘And do you have any idea who might be responsible for this little piece of alleged handiwork? A name for me?’

‘No name,’ said Lilly.

Jack had suspected as much. It was just an attempt to muddy the waters.

‘But you might want to have another chat with Phil Cheney at the lab,’ she said.

‘That’s what I was trying to do when you stopped me,’ said Jack. ‘The fingerprints, remember?’

‘While you’ve got him on the phone, you might want to ask him about Lydia being raped?’

‘Raped?’

Lilly nodded. ‘Cheney confirmed that Lydia had had sex a day or so before she died. He’s not ruling out rape.’

Shit. If Lilly was trying to set up a SODDI, the introduction of a rape was like a gift. Who was more likely to have killed Lydia, a sex attacker or her wee friend Chloe? He could see Lilly in court now, painting a lurid picture of a maniac on the loose in the Grove, her client in the dock, hopelessness radiating from her.

‘I need to make a call,’ he said.

‘I think you do,’ Lilly answered.

Gem is counting out calling cards into piles of twenty and securing them with rubber bands, when there’s a scream and a crash. The shock makes her drop a pile into the washing-up bowl.

‘Fuck.’ She fishes them out and tries to blow off the suds.

A couple of local boys collect them in the afternoons, to stick them up in phone boxes, newsagents and what have you. Feyza gives them a slap if they bend the cards because they cost a packet to print.