Watching Over You (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Did you hear what happened to Brendan Furnival?’ Lynne asked Charley, arriving at her desk at nine in a flurry of wet coat and dripping umbrella.

Before Charley had a chance to speak, she continued. ‘He was beaten up last night – left for dead, apparently. Someone found him on the spare ground behind Neck End pub.’ She laughed. ‘
Your
neck of the woods, isn’t it, by the Britannia
Stadium
?’

Charley looked up from her work in confusion. Lynne was right; it was about half a mile from Warwick Avenue.

‘Police say he was getting dirty with a fella – can you imagine that? I hadn’t clocked that he was into men – just thought he was a mean bastard with the ladies. Mind, he did spend a bit of time inside. I suppose it could have turned him.’

‘Slow down!’ said Charley. ‘I can’t take it all in.’

Lynne glanced around before whispering to her. ‘Someone tried to bite the end of his knob off.’

Charley gasped.

Lynne smiled widely. ‘Great, isn’t it?’

‘And they’re sure it was a man he was with?’

‘Police aren’t ruling anything out yet.’ Lynne switched on her computer. ‘Although I reckon the attack was too vicious to be a woman.’

‘I don’t know so much.’ Charley shook her head. ‘There’s nothing like a woman scorned, or so they say. Having said that,
Furnival
is a rough nut. I wouldn’t fancy a woman’s chances with him.’

‘Not if she was going down on him – I’ve often wondered what it’d be like to sink my teeth into one. I would have done so on quite a few occasions if I was brave enough for the repercussions. I –’

‘Ladies, please!’ Aaron had come over to them. He grimaced.

‘Serves you right for sneaking up on us,’ Lynne retorted.

‘Back to the subject of knob biting.’ Charley sniggered, enjoying the look of anguish on his face. ‘It couldn’t have happened to a better bloke, if you ask me.’

‘Sometimes there is justice in this world.’ Lynne took off her jacket and put it over the back of her chair. ‘I don’t dislike many people but he’s an evil bastard. I still can’t believe he did what he did and got away with it.’

Furnival was known in their circles as ‘the cruel bastard that got lucky.’ During her time at Striking Back plus her previous years in social work, Charley had come across him on several occasions. The time that stuck in her mind was when Social Services had received complaints from a teenage girl who was staying at the home where Furnival was working at the time. With the help of the police, he’d been charged with indecent assault on a female under sixteen. Everyone was convinced Furnival was abusing her, but there had been no proof and the child hadn’t been able to stand up to the interrogation in court. To everyone’s dismay and anger, the case had been dropped. Since then, there had been several incidents reported around him. One day, Charley knew he would have his come-uppance. She hoped every part of him was hurting today.

‘Have the police anything on CCTV?’ asked Aaron.

‘I’m not sure if it will be covered back there. And if it is, it’ll be too early yet,’ said Lynne. ‘I only know so much because there was a Police Community Support Officer in reception and he told me about it. But apparently Furnival’s wallet was still there, money still in it.’

‘So with his pants being around his knees, they’ve ruled out robbery as the likely motive?’

‘Hey, a recent survey said that men in Stoke-on-Trent have the biggest willies in the UK,’ said Lynne.

‘Get real!’ Charley laughed.

‘It’s true! Everything in the newspapers is gospel, isn’t it?’ she added with raised eyebrows. ‘I’d be shocked if it wasn’t.’

‘No, I’d bet my life on him not being gay,’ said Aaron. ‘Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Maybe,’ said Lynne.

‘Pity, that.’

‘Hmm, yes, pity.’

They all grinned at each other.

After the meeting in the conference room upstairs, Charley was stopped by one of the social workers. Tanya Smith was in her early thirties and they had worked for the local authority at the same time. They’d always got on well, sharing information or helping with each other’s cases whenever it had been necessary.

‘I wanted to know if you’d made any progress with Cassandra Thorpe,’ Tanya questioned just before they got to the doorway. ‘She was a client of mine but she disappeared from her address, about six months ago.’

Charley paused. ‘I don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘But I saw you walking down Stafford Street with her the other day. I meant to ring and ask you about her but you know how it is. I got caught up with something else and I knew I’d be seeing you today anyway.’

Charley shook her head. ‘I don’t know anyone called
Cassandra
.’

‘When would it be?’ Tanya frowned. ‘It was earlier in the week, Tuesday – no, wait a minute, it might have been
Wednesday
. You were coming out of TK Maxx. I’m sure it was near lunch time.’

Charley thought back, then she realised. ‘Oh, yes, I saw my neighbour – she’s my landlady really. I’d bumped into her. Actually, I wanted to –’

‘Your landlady is Cassandra Thorpe?’ Tanya’s mouth dropped open. ‘I thought she was one of your clients.’

‘Of course she isn’t my client. You’ve obviously got her mixed up with someone else. Her name is Ella – Ella Patrick.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, unless she’s using a different name now – hardly likely, though. Who’s Cassandra Thorpe?’

‘She’s someone I was working with. She has a background of abuse and addiction,’ Tanya explained. ‘Both her parents and her sister were killed in a car accident when she was young an
d sh
e was taken into care etcetera, etcetera. Had a couple of breakdowns. I’d been working with her for about two years. The last time I saw her, she worried me, if I’m honest. I asked her to keep a diary of what happened to her during the course of the week in between that and our next appointment. You know, not what she got up to but how she felt.’

Charley nodded in recognition. ‘A mood diary, you mean?’

‘Yes. I thought I’d get a page or two if I was lucky but what I got was quite unnerving. She came back with a notepad, every page filled with rambling thoughts – it was a diary of her whole adult life! Not just her moods but what had happened to her, where she’d been. It mentioned she was married. She even talked about having a baby but, like I said, I wasn’t sure if it was true or random thoughts.’

Charley went cold. Since Ella’s recent outbursts, she’d started to question the truth in anything she had told her. But there had been mention of a baby.

Charley pointed to the table. They pulled out chairs and sat down again.

‘What did she say when you asked her about it?’ she asked Tanya.

‘I haven’t seen her since.’ Tanya sighed. ‘She didn’t turn up for the next appointment or for any after that. I wrote to her and visited her address a couple of times –’

‘I live in Warwick Avenue.’

‘Ah. Cassandra lived in Penkhull.’

‘And she didn’t register for benefits anywhere at a new address?’

One of the ways their organisations kept up with people who went missing was to check with housing benefits to see if there was a new address on file. A lot of their clients were on income support so had to claim from somewhere. It was a tactic often used when a tenant had left quickly without informing anyone, or the property had been in a state of disrepair. As soon as they registered somewhere else for benefits, a re-charge bill for any damage or missed rent would be issued.

Tanya shook her head. ‘As far as I was aware she wasn’t entitled to them. She had money from her parents’ firm when she sold it.’

‘Which is why when you saw her with me, you thought she was my client and that I’d found out where she was living now.’

‘Yes.’

Charley paused. Some of this was ringing true about Ella. But she shook her head in disbelief. ‘Oh, wait a minute.’ She reached for her mobile phone. ‘I have a few photos here, from a night out.’

‘From a night out, hmm? So how is the lovely Aaron?’

Charley smiled. It seemed news travelled fast.

‘Seriously, I’m delighted,’ said Tanya. ‘He’s such a great guy and he’s had a crush on you since time began.’ She took the phone from Charley and looked at the screen. She drew it closer. ‘That’s Cassandra Thorpe!’ she exclaimed.

‘But it can’t be!’ The smile dropped from Charley’s face in an instant. Could it really be Ella that Tanya was referring to? It would certainly explain things, but…, she didn’t want to think about it.

‘I’m telling you, that is Cassandra Thorpe,’ said Tanya. ‘Have you ever seen the burn on her arm? You wouldn’t mistake her then. It’s quite a nasty scar.’

‘I
have
seen it – shit!’ Her stomach flipped over as she shook her head. ‘It can’t be her! Her name is Ella!’

‘Cassandra’s sister was called Eleanor – that can’t be a
coincidence
?’

Charley shuddered, thinking of Ella’s recent erratic behaviour. ‘She isn’t dangerous, is she?’

Tanya shook her head. ‘From what I saw of her, she was okay. But she did have her angry moments – which is why the diary freaked me out a little. Here, I brought it with me. I’ll leave it with you for a few days.’ Tanya reached into her bag and handed her a thick booklet. ‘Just make sure you get it back to me.’

‘That’s some notepad,’ said Charley as she took it from her, recalling piles of similar ones in Ella’s flat. ‘I thought you meant a tiny thing – maybe an A6 or something. This is huge!’

‘Wait until you see what’s inside.’ Tanya screwed up her face. ‘Honest to God, it’s like a stream-of-consciousness. I didn’t think it was too bad until I read it back. I felt sorry for her all over again after I’d seen it. I mean, I knew about some of the things that had happened to her when she was younger, like the accident, but even now I still can’t make out what is real and what isn’t.’

Charley flicked through the pages. Sometimes the writing was neat and tidy; others it was large, and some paragraphs were
illegible
altogether. ‘So it all stems from the accident and being taken into care and…Was she abused, did you say?’

‘It seems that way, although some of the things in this diary can’t possibly be real.’

‘Why not?’

‘It seems so dark. Like something from a novel more than actual life.’

‘Tanya, nothing surprises me anymore. We’ve seen most of it before.’

‘I know – which makes it hard to distinguish between the two.’

‘But why would she do that?’ Charley puzzled. ‘There’s no point in her lying to herself.’

‘I don’t know. It seems to be written in a kind of frenzy, though. I think I’ll go and see her on Monday. If I go on spec, she might open up a little to me. She certainly seems as though she still needs support.’

‘She does.’ Charley told Tanya about Ella’s recent behaviour. ‘It would be great to know I’m not living near to a psychopath, if you can get to see her,’ she said afterwards, with a half-hearted grin.

‘She is schizophrenic, although she’ll deny it if you ask her. She’s prescribed medication. It works, but often she wouldn’t take it. I had to try and cajole her. That, and she’s a sex addict, as well as drugs and alcohol.’

Charley’s eyes widened. She didn’t want to tell Tanya about the episode with Ella but it certainly explained it. ‘I can see how it would affect her, losing her family so quickly at such a young age. How old was she, did you say?’

‘Nine when the accident happened. Her sister was four.
Cassandra
– Ella to you – was in hospital for two weeks with head injuries and then went into care at Ravenside.’

Charley grimaced. Ravenside Children’s Home had a reputation of its own. It had been closed down in 2000 due to numerous complaints. Ella wasn’t the only person who had been a victim of its regime.

Tanya stood up. ‘I’ll give you a ring on Tuesday; see if I gained access or if I was to go away to do one.’

Charley went back to her desk and checked for the name
Cassandra
Thorpe in their database. There was no mention of it, so she wasn’t known to the organisation. Sometimes clients were referred by the local housing office or one of the charities in the city but there was no mention in their shared files either. Out of curiosity, she checked for Ella’s name too. But there was nothing. If Ella was Cassandra Thorpe, then neither of them was in their system.

Charley made a note in her diary to visit the local housing office next week to check their records. She wondered if Ella might have a police record too. Maybe someone at the police station could shed some light on things. And it would certainly explain some of her recent behaviour if Tanya hadn’t seen her for six months.

If she was Cassandra and had been rejected year after year, then perhaps Ella
would
feel inclined to cling to her. With a diagnosis of schizophrenia, Charley could understand that. And looking back now, there were classic symptoms that she’d missed. Had Ella really been married at seventeen and divorced a year later? Had she got a job? Was that even true? And all those people she mentioned she’d slept with? Were they figments of her imagination, to get the attention that she craved?