Dark Spaces (26 page)

Operator: Okay, Debs, just try to stay calm and tell me what you need. Police, fire or ambulance?

Caller: Police. No, ambulance. I … [crying].

Operator: That’s okay, Debs, I’ll get both for you. You’re doing really well. Now can you tell me what’s happened?

Caller: I don’t know. I got back home and let myself in and there’s just so much blood …

Operator: Are you hurt, Debs?

Caller: No.

Operator: Is anyone else hurt, Debs?

Caller: I can’t … [groans] … Oh my God, I can’t …

Operator: Listen, Debs, officers will be with you any moment, so just take a deep breath and tell me what you can see.

Caller: Blood. I can see blood on the floors and walls and kitchen cupboards.

Operator: Can you see where it’s coming from, Debs?

Caller: There’s no one down here.

Operator: Should anyone be home, Debs?

Caller: The kids … [crying] and my husband. He was supposed to be looking after them. Oh God, where are they? Operator: Can you see them, Debs? Can you hear them? Caller: I need to check upstairs.

Operator: It might be better to wait for the officers to do that, Debs.

Caller: They might need me … [sound of footsteps]. Operator: Debs?

Caller: … [sound of breathing].

Operator: Debs, can you still hear me?

Caller: … [screams].

Operator: Debs, can you speak to me? Can you let me know you’re okay?

Caller: It’s the dog.

Operator: What about the dog, Debs? Has he hurt someone?

Caller: … [crying].

Operator: Has the dog attacked anyone, Debs?

Caller: No … [crying] … She’s killed him. She’s killed the fucking dog.

The cottage was empty.

Lilly thanked her lucky stars and chucked her keys onto the kitchen table. What she wanted more than anything was to rid herself of the stupid skirt and take a shower.

She poured herself a large glass of orange juice and headed upstairs, turning on the jet of water with her free hand. When it was as hot as she could stand, she chugged down the juice, stripped off her clothes and dived in.

She stood there for a few moments, hoping to scald away her inertia, but she was bone-tired and her neck could barely take the weight of her head. She felt sapped of everything. Energy. Concentration. Hope.

When had the world become such a terrible place?

Her work had always brought her into contact with people who lived in the shadows. Those who saw the vulnerable as fair game. But in all her years, she hadn’t seen anything like this. A child without a home or parents. A child with a fractured mind. A child no one would believe. Who would target such a child? Who could be that manipulative?

The thought of such a person made Lilly want to vomit, so she opened her mouth and let it fill with scorching water.

The things that had been done to Chloe were unthinkable. Lilly spat out the water at her feet.

How dangerous would someone like that be? Dangerous enough to kill?

Her questions were interrupted by a thud outside the bathroom. Lilly froze. She listened. Apart from the hiss and fizz of water and steam, there was nothing. Her imagination was playing tricks on her. No great surprise in the circumstances.

Thud.

Lilly held her breath. No mistake this time. Someone was in the cottage. In Lilly’s bedroom.

She looked around for something with which to protect herself. The side of the bath was littered with empty shampoo bottles and small slivers of soap welded to the enamel. Around the rim of the sink were some discarded balls of cotton wool, a toothbrush and a half-used tube of cream that was supposed to work miracles on cracked heels. As makeshift weapons went, none seemed promising.

Shit.

Lilly grabbed a towel. Whatever she was going to do, she wasn’t going to do it naked.

Thud.

This time Lilly jumped. The chill of fear rippled across her hot pink skin.

Maybe she should stay in the bathroom? The intruder would soon work out that there was nothing worth nicking and leg it. Then again, maybe he hadn’t come to steal. Maybe he knew she was alone. She gulped down her panic. Maybe she should run at him? Hopefully he would be terrified and make his escape. What would be best? Lilly’s mind screamed and her chest constricted; all the while, the noise outside the bathroom got louder.

Jesus, she had to do something. It might be the wrong something. But it was better than nothing.

She tucked the towel under her arm, swallowed and launched herself at the door.

‘Aaaaggghhhh.’

‘Aaaaggghhh,’ Sam screamed back.

The towel fell at Lilly’s feet.

‘OMG, Mum.’ It wasn’t clear whether Sam’s disgust was in respect to Lilly’s sudden appearance or the sight of her naked body.

‘Sam?’ Lilly scrambled to cover herself. ‘What are you doing here?’

He waggled a bare foot at her. ‘Looking for socks.’

‘You scared me to death.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t think anyone was in.’

Sam scratched his head and sniffed. ‘So, can I borrow socks or what?’

Lilly nodded and made for the bed. Her knees were shaking so much she had to support herself against the wall.

‘Where’s your dad?’ She sank onto the bed. ‘Where’s Alice?’

Sam opened her bedside drawer and rummaged through the mismatched knickers and bras.

‘Jack brought her back not long ago,’ said Sam.

‘Did Jack say anything to Dad?’

‘I answered the door,’ said Sam, holding up a fishnet stocking and raising an eyebrow. ‘Dad’s taken her for a walk in the snow.’

Lilly snatched the stocking from him. ‘That’s nice of him.’

‘It’s extremely nice of him,’ Sam said. ‘Considering.’

‘Considering what exactly?’ She was in no mood for one of Sam’s observations about his baby sister’s ‘crazy ways’.

‘Considering that Alice isn’t his daughter,’ he replied.

Lilly gave a nod. David didn’t have to do anything with Alice if he didn’t want to. That said, she didn’t have to let him crash on her sofa.

At last Sam found a pair of socks. Well, not a pair, but one black and one navy were as near as damn it in the Valentine residence.

‘It doesn’t matter how much he tries, does it?’ Sam sat next to Lilly with a plop. ‘You’ll never forgive him, will you?’

‘I forgave him a long time ago, love.’

Sam shook his head. ‘Not properly.’

‘He’ll always be your dad, nothing can change that.’

‘But you’ll never let him be a part of the family again.’

‘He has a new family now,’ said Lilly.

Sam pulled on the first sock. It had a hole in the heel and Sam’s skin peeped through. A spud, Lilly’s dad used to call them.

‘He’s not living with them,’ Sam pointed out. ‘He’s living here.’

‘Only until he sorts himself out,’ said Lilly. ‘He doesn’t want to be here permanently.’

Sam pulled on the other sock and looked at his mum sideways. ‘You sure about that?’

‘Yes.’

He smiled, patted her on the arm and left the room, abandoning Lilly to wonder what the hell all that was about.

Gem checks her reflection. There ain’t a full-length mirror in the flat. Only half on Mum’s wardrobe door. The top bit’s missing so she has to bend down to see her face. It got broke when they had to move last time. A midnight flit ’cos of the rent arrears. Mum paid two blokes from down the hallway to move their stuff. They didn’t have a proper van or nothing, just one of them cars where you can lay the back seat flat. Well, what can you expect for twenty quid?

Gem told ’em they’d never fit the wardrobe in there, but they were having none of it.

She kneels down and examines the skin on her cheeks, her neck and her chest.

She don’t look no different.

To be honest, she don’t feel no different.

Mum stirs in the bed. ‘What you doing?’ she asks Gem.

‘Nothing.’

Mum leans over the side of the bed and fingers through an ashtray until she finds a dog-end worth lighting.

‘Where’s the baby?’

‘Watching telly,’ says Gem.

Mum lets herself fall onto her back, takes a mouthful of smoke and blows it up at the ceiling. ‘Is it still snowing?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ says Gem.

‘I might take Tyler up the park later,’ says Mum.

Gem looks at her Mum smoking her fag, then back at herself in the mirror.

Nothing’s changed. Nothing at all.

*   *   *

Lilly was still rattled as she made herself a cup of tea. She wrapped her dressing gown even tighter, as if the fabric itself were holding her together. She supposed she should finish her shower and wash her hair, but right now her bones felt as if they’d been replaced by lead piping.

She heard the door open and David speaking softly to Alice, telling her to slip off her boots so she wouldn’t tread snow through the house. Despite the fact she couldn’t yet walk. One of Cara’s legacies. Botox Belle kept a wooden cupboard in the hallway, which housed sets of slippers. You took a pair and put your shoes in the space. Like a bowling alley. If you had an umbrella, Cara would roll it and place it neatly at the base of the coat stand. Lilly had only ever had a coat stand once, but Sam mostly ignored it and threw his school blazer over the banister. And Jack owned his leather jacket and nothing else so it had stood there resentfully half used, like a tree towards the end of autumn knowing the next strong wind would see it entirely bare.

When David arrived in his socked feet, he was holding Alice on his hip.

‘Hello, Mummy,’ he said, waving her hand up and down.

Lilly took her daughter from him. ‘How was your walk?’

‘Great.’

Lilly spotted the encrusted snot around Alice’s nose and knew that it had probably been mixed at best.

‘How was your hot date?’ he asked.

Lilly sighed and rested her chin on top of Alice’s head. ‘We had to leave before pudding to go and see Chloe.’

David’s eyes widened.

‘Turns out she was telling the truth,’ said Lilly. ‘There is a rapist at the Grove.’

‘Oh my God,’ said David. ‘Is she all right?’

Lilly pictured her client on the hospital bed, her skin quivering while Dr Hicks tried to collect samples from her vagina and anus.

‘No, she’s not all right at all.’

‘You can’t start blaming yourself, Lilly.’

‘Can’t I?’ Lilly’s eyes filled with tears. ‘If I’d just listened to her in the first place …’

‘Stop.’ David’s voice was firm.

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Yes I do,’ he told her. ‘I understand that when you take on a case you give your all to your clients and that’s always been one of the things I admire most about you.’

Lilly let out a hollow laugh. ‘I can’t even remember the number of times you’ve told me to pack my job in.’

David sank into the chair next to hers and took her hand. His skin felt cold. ‘I only ever told you that because it doesn’t make you happy, Lil.’

‘Of course it does.’

David shook his head. ‘No it doesn’t and it never has. Look at you now. You’re drained and miserable.’

‘I’m not.’ Lilly forced a smile. ‘I’m just knackered because I was up all night and then Sam scared the crap out of me when I was in the shower.’

‘It’s okay, Lilly, you are who you are and I get that now.’ His tone was sincere. ‘Better late than never, eh?’

They sat for a second, hand in hand, as they had done years ago, when Lilly had thought she had found the man who she would love for the rest of her life. The man who changed the lyrics of songs to fit her name. The man who once gave her a piggyback down Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris because her feet were killing her.

‘One good thing to come out of this,’ said David, breaking the spell.

Lilly removed her hand and picked up her tea. ‘What’s that then?’

‘You can now prove Chloe didn’t murder that other girl,’ he replied.

Maybe it was lack of sleep, but Lilly couldn’t follow his thread.

‘Think about it,’ said David. ‘You’ve been saying that the most likely killer is the person attacking the patients, but the police didn’t buy that because there wasn’t anything tangible to prove there even was an attacker.’

The light bulb went on in Lilly’s brain. Jack had all but dismissed Chloe’s account as a convenient fiction invented after the event. But now there could be no argument. Chloe had been telling the truth all along.

The incident room was quiet. Most of the team were out taking statements and the couple of bodies who had stayed at the nick were methodically inputting data into the computer system.