Dark Spaces (36 page)

She pulls on a dressing gown and races down the hallway. He’s still in the kitchen, having a cuddle on Misty’s knee.

‘Has he been all right?’ Gem asks.

‘Poor love,’ says Misty. ‘He’s under the weather.’

Gem leans over and touches his forehead with the back of her hand. He’s proper hot.

‘You got any Calpol?’ Misty asks.

Gem shakes her head. ‘I’ll nip out and get some after my next job,’ she says.

Tyler lets out a rotten cough.

‘Get some Buttercup Syrup while you’re at it,’ says Misty.

Gem nods, takes hold of Tyler’s hand and gives it a little squeeze.

‘Where’s your mum then?’ Misty asks.

Gem shrugs.

‘Drugs is it?’ Misty asks.

‘No,’ Gem shouts.

‘All right, keep your fucking hair on. It doesn’t make much of a difference, does it?’

Gem takes Tyler from Misty and rests him on her hip. ‘She’ll be back soon. She never stays away for long.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do.’

Misty gives her a look that would poison a snake and stands. ‘Just make sure you get the poor kid some medicine.’

All the way home, Lilly wondered about the papers in the padded envelope. What had Lydia considered so important?

Most of all, she wondered if there was any confirmation in there that she had indeed been raped. If Lilly could prove that, she could surely make everyone see that the rapist and the murderer were one and the same.

By the time she arrived at the cottage, her head was throbbing with it. When she got out of the car she understood that it was more than the case making her ache. Every bone in her body hurt. As she stumbled inside, she was sweating and could hardly swallow.

‘Blimey, Lil,’ said David. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

Lilly see-sawed her hand.

‘I’m just about to make Sam a bacon sarnie,’ he said. ‘Would that hit the spot?’

She shook her head.

‘God, you must be ill. Why don’t you go and lie on your bed?’ he said. ‘I’ll bring up a hot drink.’

She smiled weakly and did as she was told, rolling herself up in her duvet. The envelope was still in her hand. Sick or not, she needed to read its contents. When she pulled out the first document, she was shocked to find a printout of a BBC internet newsfeed from 2002. The story of George and Sinead Talbot rang a bell. Hadn’t they been convicted of abuse on a football team of kids? As she read on, her memory was jogged further. Seven kids. Beaten. Starved. Raped. Despite her temperature, Lilly’s blood ran cold.

‘Put that away.’ David was in the doorway, a steaming mug in his hands. ‘You’re too ill to work.’

‘I’m fine,’ Lilly said. Or would have said if her throat hadn’t been packed with razor blades.

‘Drink this,’ said David, pushing the mug at Lilly.

She sipped the hot lemony liquid and was instantly soothed.

‘Honey?’ she whispered.

‘And whiskey,’ David replied. ‘Get it down you and get some sleep.’ He moved the envelope to the bedside table. ‘This lot can wait until tomorrow.’

Chapter Thirteen

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Further to your recent enquiry we confirm that Gigi Talbot is currently a serving prisoner at HMP New Hall.

Her prisoner number is HP341 992.

Lilly woke up wondering who had sneaked into her room during the night and beaten her with a cricket bat. It could be the only logical explanation for the pain in both her legs. When she forced herself out of bed, she feared they might not actually take her weight.

‘You cannot be thinking of going to work,’ said David, when she eventually made it downstairs.

‘Just a cold,’ she said, rifling in a drawer for painkillers. Why on earth did she keep all this crap? Yards of crêpe bandage that smelled faintly of banana, an empty packet of hay fever relief, an unopened tube of soluble vitamin C tablets. Was it too late for those? At last she found a stray paracetamol, blew the fluff from it and popped it into her mouth. She swallowed it down with a glass of water, each gulp a needle jab to the inside of her throat.

‘You need to stay inside today and wrap up warm,’ David told her. ‘You don’t want pneumonia.’

Lilly’s mother had always warned her of the same thing. Though she’d also warned that eating too much sugar caused worms.

‘I won’t be much longer than an hour,’ she said.

‘Then straight back to bed?’

‘Promise.’

When she opened the door, a man was making his way to the cottage, holding a brown envelope. He wasn’t the postman.

‘Lilly Valentine?’ he asked.

Lilly nodded.

‘Special delivery,’ he said and handed her the envelope.

It looked like something official from the court. God knows why they’d sent it here, rather than to her office. She slung it onto the back seat with the padded white one given to her by Mrs Morton-Daley. She had to make time to read those documents today.

I measure the walls of the spare bedroom, almost giddy with excitement.

‘What are you up to?’ Jack asks.

‘We need to make this room nice for Alice.’

‘She won’t sleep on her own,’ he says.

I note down the numbers in inches and centimetres to be sure I have the right ones.

‘She will when we get her diagnosed,’ I say. ‘When we can get her some treatment.’

‘You think?’

I roll my eyes. ‘When she comes to live with us we can make sure she sees the best specialist there is. We’ll have her right as rain, you’ll see.’

‘She might not come to live with us,’ he says. ‘Lilly will fight us tooth and nail.’

The trouble with Jack is that he’s a pessimist. He says real life has made him that way. Not me. I have absolute faith in my own abilities. I have never failed at anything in my life and I’m not about to start now.

‘It needs a lick of paint,’ I tell him. ‘Definitely not pink.’

That makes him laugh. Alice is so not a pink and frilly kind of girl.

‘We should go out to the shops,’ I say. ‘Order a little bed and a new duvet cover.’

‘The town will be deserted in this weather.’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘I hate crowds.’

‘I don’t much feel like shopping.’

I feel a tiny stab of impatience rise in my chest, but push it back down. Jack’s not like me. Well, no one is really.

‘Come on now,’ I say. ‘You can’t sit around all day and mope while you wait for the DNA results to come back. The lab will call you.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ he says. ‘What if they confirm one of those eejits on Piper’s list did rape Chloe?’

I put down the tape measure and give him a hug, making sure my thigh slides between his.

‘What if they did? It doesn’t mean they killed Lydia, does it?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Now get your coat, we’re going shopping,’ I say.

He opens his legs a little and pushes into me. ‘Can it wait half an hour?’

Eyes and nose streaming, Lilly pulled up outside the Grove. Why hadn’t she packed any tissues? What person with such a foul cold wouldn’t pack tissues?

She leaned over to the glove compartment. There was a tin of travel sweets and a glasses case. No tissues. Damn. She was certain David would have a handy pack. She opened the glasses case and there was a little cleaning cloth. She had no choice; it was either that or her sleeve.

She blew her nose three times into the cloth and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she took a sweet and began to suck, hoping it would ease her sore throat. She just did not have time to be ill.

She sat for a moment, psyching herself up, when two figures emerged from the hospital. They were deep in conversation, their exchange becoming more heated as they moved away from the building.

Elaine Foley and John Staines. Arguing.

Lilly watched them for a few moments, trying to hear what they were saying. Foley appeared to be counting, her fingers moving from one, then two, then three. Staines shook his head violently.

Abruptly, Foley stopped and put her hand on Staines’s arm for him to do the same. She had spotted Lilly. They both stared at her and Staines whispered something to Foley who nodded. Then, as if by agreement, they scurried off in different directions like rats caught in a floodlight.

Lilly was shaking when she reached Harry’s office.

‘You’re not well,’ he said.

‘I’m fine,’ she answered. ‘I just saw Foley and Staines in the car park and something was definitely going on between them.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Harry. ‘Yesterday they were told they were rape suspects and had their DNA taken.’

Of course they wouldn’t be pleased by that. One of them was about to be arrested. Or maybe both of them? They had certainly looked more than colleagues, and it would have been a hell of a lot easier to get into Chloe’s room as part of a team.

‘I’m shocked they’re still at work,’ said Lilly.

‘Innocent until proven guilty, Lilly. It’s the law, I believe.’

She smiled. Someone like Harry would never ride roughshod over the rules.

‘I need to see Chloe,’ she said.

‘Everything okay?’

Lilly nodded. ‘I paid Lydia’s mother a visit yesterday.’

‘Was that wise?’

‘Probably not,’ said Lilly. ‘Turned out to be bloody interesting though.’

‘Do tell.’

‘First, Lydia was adopted, having been raped by her father,’ said Lilly. ‘Second, she gave me this.’ Lilly waved the padded envelope. ‘Lydia asked her mum to hang on to it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Documents,’ said Lilly. ‘Some of them going back years.’

‘May I?’

Lilly handed him the envelope and he took out the first piece of paper. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I’ve hardly started on them. I just wanted to know if Chloe could cast any light on why Lydia kept them.’

‘I doubt it,’ he said.

Lilly retrieved the envelope and slotted the document back inside. ‘Worth a try anyway.’

Harry led her through the corridors to Chloe’s room. When she saw the picture of the dandelion clocks she almost tried to blow the time, then she waited for Chloe to answer the door.

Chloe’s face was motionless. The brightness on display at court had evaporated. She shuffled back to her bed and lay down.

‘I won’t get too close,’ Lilly laughed. ‘I’ve a lousy cold.’

Chloe didn’t answer, as if she didn’t care one way or the other.

‘I went to see Lydia’s mother yesterday,’ Lilly said. ‘She gave me this.’ She waved the envelope at Chloe. ‘Apparently, Lydia had asked her to keep it safe.’

‘So she gave it to you instead?’

‘She did it to help you, sweetheart,’ said Lilly. ‘Lydia is dead but there might be something in here that will prove she was raped. If I can prove that, I’m a lot closer to proving you didn’t kill her.’

Chloe turned over. ‘I’m tired now.’

‘Okay.’

Lilly watched her client breathe then left the room.

Jesus, but Jack hated shopping. Wasn’t it the same for every man in the world?

His parents would always end up having a mighty row, then stop speaking to one another altogether.

His ma would turn to Jack and say, ‘Would you ask himself if he likes these towels, or does he not care at all what the state of the house is?’

Only weird men liked shopping. Men like Piper. It was probably his main hobby, swanning round department stores, running his fingers over quilts and getting excited about cushion covers.

‘What do you think about this one?’ Kate asked, holding up a roll of wallpaper like a sceptre.

He knew what his response should be. ‘It’s nice,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

‘Bit girly perhaps,’ she said.

‘Well, you know, she is actually a girl,’ he said.

‘Yes, but we don’t want her growing up all silly and incapable, do we?’

Jack hadn’t known that wallpaper could have that amount of impact on a personality, but he wasn’t enough of an eejit to say it out loud.

Two women walked towards them. One dark and dressed in bright red, the other had a baby in a sling. They chatted easily to one another. See, women could shop all bloody day and still not get bored.