The Calling (7 page)

Paulette Coleman grabbed another jumper from the wardrobe and draped it over the top of her suitcase. Her mum shouted up from the hall, ‘I can’t believe you’re still going.’

Paulette flew on to the landing and leant over the banister. ‘Of course I am. This is
our
holiday,’ she snapped. ‘D’you think we’d have just one row and then cancel all our plans? I don’t think so. We’re going to have a great time, and I’ll tell you what I’m looking forward to most. Getting out of this sodding house.’

Her mother glared up at her. ‘You’re such a stupid little girl sometimes, running round the house, stamping your feet and shouting, and then expecting me to respect you as an adult.’ She shook a tea cloth at her daughter. ‘You’re not mature enough to be in love, and you’re going to come unstuck big time. And then it’ll be me picking up the pieces. You’ll be glad of this
sodding
house then, I can tell you.’

Paulette stormed back into her bedroom, but carried on yelling. ‘You’re right, I’m stupid, because I actually believed you would be pleased I’d met someone special.’ The pitch of her voice escalated. ‘But, oh no, you realize I’m growing up and you can’t stand it, can you? You’re jealous, aren’t you?’

Her mother trudged up the stairs, lowering her voice to try and diffuse Paulette’s tantrum. ‘For pity’s sake, Paulette, I know you came home crying again last night. You’re not happy, so why do you keep seeing him?’

Paulette appeared in the doorway, holding a box of Tampax in
one hand and a can of deodorant in the other. ‘I am
happy
, but you don’t understand anything, do you? What would
you
know? We’ve had a few rows, but we’re getting it sorted out.’ Fury glinted in her eyes. ‘And I’ll tell you about them, they start because I get possessive, and that’s your fault because that’s just how you are, and that’s how you’ve made me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t like him, I never have, but I’m not
jealous
.’ Mrs Coleman then goaded Paulette with the word. ‘Jealous?’ she repeated with venom.
‘You’re
jealous because it’s you who’s doing all the chasing. You’re bound to feel insecure, because he just isn’t that interested.’

‘Of course he’s interested,’ Paulette retaliated. ‘We have a fantastic sex life, if you really want to know.’

‘You make it so easy for him,’ Mrs Coleman snorted, ‘he just clicks his fingers and you go running. And where do you get that from? I never brought you up to be that stupid.’

Paulette threw some toiletries into a shoulder bag. ‘No, you brought me up to walk all over people, and that’s not how I want to be. I’ve never been as happy as I am now. I love him.’

Mrs Coleman crossed her arms over her bosom, and clicked her tongue behind clenched teeth. ‘And I suppose he loves you, too?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes, he does.’ Paulette snatched a black blouse from the end of the bed and barged past her mother and into the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and rammed the bolt into place.

Her mother turned her head as Paulette passed, but didn’t move. ‘Well, it doesn’t cost him anything to say that, whatever he really thinks.’

Inside the bathroom, Paulette stood with her back pressed to the door. ‘I can’t hear you.’

‘Of course you can’t. But you’ll hear
him
when he hoots his horn, won’t you? You’ll be trotting out there quick enough, then.’

Paulette chose not to answer. She pulled off her jumper and T-shirt to reveal a black bra trimmed with hot-pink lace. Paulette pulled it down at the sides and scooped each breast fully into its cup. She piled up her hair and held it on top of her head. She turned sideways and checked out her reflection. Satisfied, she started on her
make-up. She squirted too much foundation from the tube, then applied it in a heavy swathe across her forehead, nose, cheeks and chin. As it smeared, she cursed her mother and rubbed the excess into her neck. Her fingers fumbled with the mascara and she counted out five strokes on each side, top and bottom, to ensure it was even. She chose a shade of pink lipstick called Hot Candy and began to apply it, just as she heard the familiar double-beep of Pete’s car’s hooter.

She paused, listening for a car door to slam. After a few seconds he hooted again, so she rushed back to her room to collect her bags.

As she passed the hall mirror, she caught a glimpse of her unblotted lipstick and single-tone skin, and paused just long enough to press her fingertips on to her lips and dab some lipstick on to her cheeks. She smeared it along each cheekbone in an improvised attempt at blusher.

She opened the front door. In full daylight, the end result almost certainly looked like a scald across each cheek. But she’d run out of time and decided to fix things in the car.

As Paulette ran down the path towards the car, her mother emerged from the kitchen and stood on the doorstep, ready to wave goodbye. Paulette ignored her.

‘Stupid bitch,’ she breathed as she jumped into the car. She leant over and kissed Pete, and then pulled away to check that her mum had seen. Pete waved at the house and her mother waved back, but Paulette just turned her head away.

Mrs Coleman slammed the front door.

Paulette turned to Pete. ‘D’you know what – she’s been having a go at me for going on holiday with you. She doesn’t understand how it is between us. She’s jealous, and I told her she was, too.’

‘You haven’t had a row with her as well?’

‘I was upset when I got in last night, so she says it’s because you’re not making me happy. And I stuck up for you.’

‘What did you say?’ He pulled away from the kerb and accelerated into the flow of traffic.

‘Told her it was my fault we fell out, but we’d got it sorted.’ Paulette looked at him, suddenly worried. ‘It is OK, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘I am getting fed up with the fights all the time.’

‘I’m sorry, though. You know I am.’

‘I know you’re sorry but, as I’ve said before, it keeps happening, doesn’t it?’

Paulette nodded and held her breath, trying to force tears into her eyes. She managed to make them water, and her face reddened.

Pete squeezed her hand. ‘Tell you what, let’s make the most of the holiday, and then see how we feel. OK?’

Paulette nodded. ‘I love you lots.’

Pete indicated and pulled into the outside lane. He must have heard her but he didn’t comment, and she let it go for a few minutes. Paulette felt good about this trip. She’d waited for it: it had been the light at the end of the tunnel. She’d show him how much she loved him. ‘Don’t you feel this is special? Really romantic?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘I’ve never been away for a holiday with a boyfriend before. This is really special.’

‘Did you bring lunch?’

‘No, was I supposed to?’

‘You said you’d bring food for the journey, don’t you remember?’ When Pete glanced at her, she made a face and her nose and top lip twitched involuntarily. She reminded herself of a twitching, nervy guinea pig.

‘Sorry, I forgot,’ she muttered, and began rummaging in her shoulder bag. She produced a crumpled pack of chewing gum. He shook his head. She giggled and apologized again.

She beamed at him every time he looked across, but she realized that ‘sorry’ seemed to have become her favourite word.

Goodhew pushed open the door of Interview Room 3 with his foot and stepped inside. He carried two coffees and placed one of the vending-machine cups in front of Doreen Kennedy, then sat down opposite her with the other.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been feeling ever so upset about poor Kaye, so I want to help. Really I do, but I don’t know anything.’

Goodhew raised a hand, hoping to halt her rambling discourse. ‘Mrs Kennedy?’

‘Sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. I can understand how you feel, but things that may seem like nothing to you may help us all the same.’

She gazed at him over her cup as she sipped her coffee.

‘Do you work closely with Kaye?’ Goodhew held his pen just an inch above his notebook, ready to catch any stray comments spraying out from her chatter.

She nodded. ‘I work opposite Kaye – you know the facing desk; they’re arranged in pairs – so we talk to each other more than we talk to anyone else. She would have told me if she had arranged a date or anything.’ She began to swill the remains of her coffee around in the cup.

‘Did you know what she had planned for Saturday?’

‘Yes, it was her gran’s birthday party and she was getting a lift there with her sister, I think.’ Doreen still stared into the sludge at the bottom of her cup and Goodhew wished he had brought a stirrer.

‘Mrs Kennedy?’ He waited for her to look up before he continued. ‘What about Friday night, then?’

‘No, I’m sure she was staying in. I was reading the paper and she asked me what was on TV. I can’t remember her saying there was anything she particularly fancied watching, though.’ She looked down again into the thickening mix of coffee powder and synthetic milk. ‘Is there a bin?’

‘I’ll take it.’ He tipped the dregs from her cup into his own and stacked the two cups on the windowsill. ‘OK, now how about the Saturday earlier in the day? Are you sure she wasn’t planning to go anywhere?’

Doreen shook her head. ‘She didn’t mention anything, I’m sure.’

‘Had she mentioned buying a birthday present for her grandmother?’

The woman hadn’t quite finished shaking her head over the last question when she froze with a jolt. As the seed of memory germinated, she stared at Goodhew, appalled.

Goodhew recognized her bewilderment; Doreen’s shock was clearly due to the fact that she hadn’t remembered it earlier.

‘Oh!’ she whispered.

‘Is it something about the birthday present, Mrs Kennedy?’

‘Yes, yes.’ She leant towards Goodhew excitedly. ‘You see, it was Kaye’s gran’s eightieth birthday, and Kaye thought she’d like to prepare her a present that was a sort of hamper full of things that would have been common when her granny was young. It was a couple of weeks ago that she was talking about it, and last time we spoke she still didn’t have everything. She was looking for some old grocery items, and I suggested she went to Woodbridge, because there’s a museum there. Can’t remember what it’s called but it’s full of old packaging, and there’re all sorts of unusual things in the gift shop. There’re a few antique shops close by, too.’

‘And what makes you think she would have gone there last Saturday?’

‘Well, I asked her if she had anything still to buy, and she said she would like to buy a 1920s newspaper and maybe some sweets in an old-fashioned tin. So she was going to have one last look around.’

‘But what makes you think that she might have gone to Woodbridge?’

‘Nothing,’ Doreen conceded, ‘except that I’d mentioned it to her, and she’d already tried everywhere she could think of around town. Where else would she try?’

‘Wouldn’t she have driven there, though?’ Gary mused.

‘I guess.’

‘But her car was still at her flat when she was reported missing, and her family seem to think she would have taken it if she had wanted to travel further afield than Cambridge.’

But Doreen shook her head again adamantly. ‘Like I say, if she wanted to buy things like that, where else could she try?’

Goodhew wrapped up the interview at that point, and escorted her to reception. He stood alongside her in the main doorway. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Kennedy. You’ve been very helpful.’

Of course there were plenty of other places. Most towns within a similar radius to Woodbridge had shops selling antiques and vintage bric-à-brac. But as far as he knew none of them had been suggested to Kaye.

Goodhew was listening politely to Doreen Kennedy’s response, but at the same time picked out the sound of quick, regular footsteps descending the stairs and echoing along the corridor towards them. He glanced aside and saw Sue Gully.

She stopped as soon as she realized he’d spotted her, and held up a sheet of notepaper.

He turned back to Mrs Kennedy who continued chattering. ‘Oh, I do hope she’s found soon. She’s such a lovely girl, so sensible.’ She shook his hand. ‘If I think of anything else, I’ll call you straight away.’

‘Thank you.’ He took a step back from the entrance.

‘I really hope you find her,’ the woman called out, as the door between them began to close.

He nodded. ‘So do I, Mrs Kennedy.’

‘I mean I hope nothing terrible has happened.’ That final sentence drifted back to him as he moved towards Gully.

But Goodhew already knew, from the agitated expression on Gully’s face, that hope had just died for Kaye Whiting.

‘What’s happened?’ Goodhew demanded, as he reached her.

Gully shook her head. ‘She’s dead …’ Her voice trailed away.

‘I guessed.’ He looked at the notepaper and saw she’d written
URGENT
across it in red biro. ‘When did you find out?’

Gully cleared her throat. ‘About ten minutes ago, Ipswich rang through with the details of a body, and it sounds like a definite match.’ She produced a set of car keys from her pocket. ‘Marks and Kincaide have already left. I’ll tell you what I know on the way.’

Gully drove the patrol car like a dodgem, weaving it in and out of the traffic until they broke free along Newmarket Road towards the A14. She glared at the road ahead as she banged through the gears.

‘So what
do
you know, then?’ Gary asked, once they were clear.

‘Her body was found south of Ipswich, at one of the lakes between the town and Alton Water. She was submerged, but I haven’t heard much else. Marks and Kincaide went straight up there, and there’s been no news yet on cause of death.’

‘Who called it in?’

‘A group of six people taking part in one of those management training courses. They’d been on an overnight exercise, like a treasure hunt I think. Found her this morning. They’d crossed the lake mid-evening yesterday, and moored the boat at a jetty about thirty feet along from where the body was found. They didn’t see or hear anything then. But when they returned this morning, they walked around the lake and one of them spotted her in the water.’

‘What time was this?’

‘About nine-thirty this morning I think. They rang the local police immediately, of course, but it wasn’t until a patrol from Ipswich had gone out that we were contacted, after they realized it was likely to be our girl.’

‘And it’s definite?’

‘Too early for a formal ID, but everything’s matched up so far: right age, right description, right jewellery.’ Sue fell into tight-lipped silence and accelerated.

Goodhew watched the speedo nudge eighty. ‘We all knew the odds weren’t good, Sue.’

She didn’t reply, merely shook her head, obviously not wanting to talk. She hooked a wisp of hair back over her ear, and fiddled with a hair clip for a moment or two.

‘You knew this might happen, didn’t you?’ he persisted.

She stopped fiddling with her hair and instead raised her hand, gesturing for him to stop. ‘I know, I know,’ she floundered. The road split and she kept left, skirting around Ipswich while following the signs for Felixstowe. ‘It caught me out,’ she muttered in a hoarse whisper. ‘We all knew she was probably dead, but I’ve been taking all those phone calls and saying positive things to the callers.’

Goodhew tugged a tissue from the box under the dashboard and passed it across to her.

‘I feel so silly for crying, Gary, but I’d talked myself into believing she might still be all right.’

‘Wishful thinking.’ Goodhew glanced ahead, across the fields in the direction of flooded gravel quarries lying somewhere just beyond the near horizon. ‘It catches everyone out sometimes.’ He tried to think of a temporary change of subject, but anything not related to the case seemed inappropriate for now, so he settled for a minor diversion. ‘Doreen Kennedy thinks Kaye may have gone shopping in Woodbridge last Saturday.’

‘Well, this is the main route from Woodbridge to Cambridge, so she could have been abducted on the way there, or else on the way home.’ They turned off the A14 at Wherstead. The first of the lakes became visible almost immediately.

‘Which one?’ Gary surveyed the expanses of water shimmering behind hibernating hedgerows.

‘Number Thirty-Seven – pretty name for a lake, don’t you think? But then it’s not exactly the Lake District here, is it?’ Gully grimaced. ‘I’m glad I don’t get the job of telling her mother.’

‘I don’t want it either.’ Gary nodded ahead towards a cluster of parked vehicles and a handful of people wearing waxed jackets and anoraks. ‘That must be it, over there. Looks like the press have arrived already.’

Two uniformed officers stood at the entrance, but Goodhew and Gully were waved through. They parked alongside the other vehicles standing halfway down the lakeside track. Goodhew got out and skirted the lake alone. He could see a few white-suited people milling around in the distance, and within a few moments he spotted DI Marks in discussion with the SOCO, while DC Kincaide stood nearby, as if in meditation, gazing down at a body bag.

Goodhew changed into a tyvek suit and joined his two male colleagues and the SOCO.

Marks nodded a greeting to Goodhew. ‘Good, I’m glad you’re here. No real doubt that this is the right girl. She was found nearly an hour and a half ago. We’ve just fished her out. All we know so far is what we can see. She’s bound and gagged. No visible injuries, drowning’s a possibility, but obviously we’ll know more on that later.’ He paused.

‘When did she die?’ Goodhew cut in.

‘Strangely, initial thoughts are less than eighteen hours ago, and it appears that she was still alive here for quite some time.’

Gary’s attention strayed as he rested his gaze on the anonymous bag shrouding her remains. The mystery caller’s words stuck in his mind like dark bloodstains:
I think when you find her you’ll realize that she was still alive at this point.

Gary refocused his attention on Marks who was elaborating on the state of the body. ‘She’s a bit of a mess; her jeans are stained with her own urine and faeces, and there are several patches on her body that are extensively bloodstained. The initial inspection indicates chafing from the rope securing her, rather than any other injury.’

He turned and gestured just beyond the corpse, to where white-suited forensics officers were busy gathering evidence. ‘There is a fairly level patch of grass just there that has been severely disturbed. Hopefully the imprints and stains we find there will provide us with some firm evidence.’ Marks stopped abruptly and eyed first Goodhew and then Kincaide. ‘What are your initial thoughts, Michael?’

Kincaide raised his voice to lecturing pitch. ‘Well, if there has been no evidence of sexual assault, I’d definitely say that it was perpetrated by someone she knew – someone who had a motive for killing her but didn’t actually have the bottle to finish her off. It certainly wasn’t robbery either, she has a twenty-pound note in her pocket and a nice watch and a ring. If it started as rape, I don’t know why she’d end up being abandoned. I can only think of two reasons for that. Either whoever did it thought she was going to get found or’ – he paused for full effect – ‘they knew she
wasn’t
going to be found. That would be important, of course, if the killer was someone she knew.’

Marks’ raised eyebrow twitched. ‘Thanks for that, Michael. Rather a melodramatic way of putting it, but perfectly logical. Do you have anything to add, Gary?’

‘Not exactly; that does make sense up to a point.’

‘Good.’ Kincaide nodded.

‘But,’ Goodhew emphasized, ‘I have some leads of my own to follow up, like—’

Marks raised his hand to cut him off. ‘Tell me about that later. First I want you to come with me to visit her parents.’