Where the Memories Lie (21 page)

volleyball or bat and ball. We’d taken Charlotte with us, too, and

both girls were hardly out of the pool for two whole weeks. On

days out we soaked up the history of the area, then went for early

evening walks to the local restaurants and ordered tapas that, sur-

prisingly, Anna loved. Even the squid! Who’d have thought things

would end up here?

‘We won’t take long, Tom,’ DI Spencer softened his voice

slightly, making it sound soothing and relaxed, and it struck me

that he was probably a bit like a chameleon, changing his persona

when relating to different types of people as he tried to eke out more information. ‘Do you remember telling Olivia about Katie Quinn?’

Tom’s eyelids flew open and his gaze sought mine. The skin

around his eyes wrinkled at the edges as his face crumpled in

on itself.

I blinked back the tears. ‘I’m sorry, Tom. I had to tell them

what you told me.’

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Where the Memories Lie

Ethan glared at me again, and I looked away, out of the

window at a magpie on the lawn, squawking as it chased away a

blackbird. What was that saying about them?
One for sorrow.
Was it a premonitory warning? I swallowed and turned back.

‘Do you remember telling Olivia that you’d buried Katie under

the garage?’ DI Spencer tried again.

‘She’s lying. Olivia’s always lying.’ Tom clamped his mouth into

a thin trembling line.

‘Was it an accident? Is that what happened?’ DI Spencer asked

and waited patiently in the silence that followed. When Tom didn’t

speak, he said, ‘We found a skeleton buried where you said it was.

Is that Katie?’

Tom started coughing, a hacking, dry sound. He leaned forward

and Nadia patted his back.

I poured him water from a jug on his bedside cabinet and tilted

the glass in front of him. ‘Have a drink.’

His eyes streamed as he took some small sips, but I couldn’t tell

if it was from the coughing fit or because he was crying.

‘We need to find out what happened to her, Mr Tate,’ DS Khan

said gently.

Tom wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let the

tears wind down his cheeks. ‘I . . . it’s . . . was a long time ago.’

‘We know. That’s why we need to piece things together,’ DI

Spencer said. ‘Can you tell us?’

‘She shouldn’t have done it.’ Tom looked up and stared at

me but he wasn’t looking
at
me, he was looking through me, as if drowning in some distant memory.

‘Done what?’ DI Spencer asked.

Tom opened his mouth to speak and then shook his head.

‘
Please,
Dad,’ Nadia pleaded with him in a tiny voice.

Suddenly Tom snatched his hand back from Nadia’s and fum-

bled with the bed covers, trying to pull them down but really

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Sibel Hodge

just flinging them around. ‘You’re not taking me away. I know

your type!’ he snarled, managing to free his pyjama-clad legs and

swing them over the edge of the bed. ‘No, no, no.’ He shook his

head manically. ‘Not taking me. Not.’ He tried to lift himself off

the bed with his forearms but he was breathing hard, face red

with effort and anger. ‘I’m not going with you! You’ll put me in

one of those . . . one of those . . .’ He pointed a shaky finger at DI Spencer.

Ethan, who had managed to contain himself so far and stay

quiet, erupted then. ‘Right. That’s it. You’ll have to leave. Can’t you see you’re upsetting him? He’s had one heart attack already. Do

you want another one on your conscience?’ He took a step closer to

the end of the bed, as if to shield Tom from them.

Alerted by the commotion, Mary entered the room. ‘Is every-

thing all right in here?’ Her eyes sought out Tom, who was shaking

now and fiddling with the buttons of his pyjama top, trying to get

it undone.

‘Tom, let’s get you back into bed now, eh?’ She lifted his legs to

try and swing them back under the covers but he protested.

‘No!’ He flung his arm out, pushing her away. For some-

one who had seemed so feeble a minute ago, he had surprising

strength. ‘Get away from me. You’re all trying to kill me! You’re

trying to KILL ME!’ He shrank away from her, curling sideways

into his pillows. ‘Go on! Get away!’ He opened his mouth, took

out his denture plate with false teeth attached and threw them in

the direction of DS Khan and DI Spencer, who darted sideways to

avoid a direct hit.

‘Come on, now, Tom, it’s OK.’ I stepped forward into his direct

sightline and sat down in front of him on my haunches. ‘No one’s

taking you away. You’re safe.’

Nadia started crying. ‘Dad, oh, Dad, don’t worry. Just calm down.’

‘Look what you’re doing!’ Ethan barked out.

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Where the Memories Lie

‘I think it would be better if you came back another time,’

Mary said to DI Spencer and DS Khan. ‘When he gets like this it’ll

take a long time to get him settled again.’

DI Spencer nodded and looked at us all. ‘We’ll be in touch. In

the meantime, if you remember anything, please give us a call.’ And then they left the room.

‘I can give him something to calm him down,’ Mary said.

‘You’re all right, Tom. Nothing’s going to happen.’ I looked up

into his eyes and saw a flicker of recognition there.

‘Olivia?’ he said, his voice distorted without his dentures. ‘Are

you taking me to Durdle Door? I want to see Durdle Door.’ He

grabbed hold of my arm, his fingernails digging into the skin. ‘Want to go to Durdle Door. Take me. You take me, don’t you?’

I looked over at Ethan, whose dark eyes reflected back anger

and pain. ‘Shall we take him?’

‘Is he OK to go out, though?’ Nadia asked Mary. ‘He only had

the heart attack the other day.’

‘He’s got a DNR order and he’s going to . . .’ Ethan’s voice

cracked and his eyes watered. ‘We should make this time as nice as

possible for him.’

‘I agree,’ Mary said. ‘Plus, he still needs to have some exer-

cise, and a visit out there always relaxes him. You can take one of the wheelchairs out in the corridor for him in case he’s not strong enough to do his usual walk. It’ll fold up to go in the car.’

‘I’ll take him,’ Ethan said.

‘Why don’t we all go?’ I suggested.

‘No,’ Ethan said forcefully. ‘I want to spend some time with

him.’ He looked at me and I knew what he was saying without

words:
before he dies
. ‘Dad? I’m going to take you out to Durdle Door, OK?’

Tom visibly relaxed then, his shoulders dropping from their

rigid hunch up around his neck. ‘Will you, Tom?’

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Sibel Hodge

‘I’m Ethan, Dad.’ He blinked rapidly and sniffed. ‘Now, shall we

get you dressed, eh?’ He found Tom’s clothes in the small cupboard

in the corner of the room and pulled out some trousers and a shirt.

‘All right, now, Tom?’ Mary stood back. ‘Shall I bring you a nice

cup of tea first and a few biscuits before you go?’

Tom nodded slowly.

Mary patted his hand, gave us a sympathetic smile and picked up

Tom’s dentures. ‘I’ll just clean these and I’ll be back with some tea.’

Nadia kissed Tom on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you soon, Dad.

Love you.’

‘Bye, Tom. See you soon.’ I squeezed Ethan’s shoulder as I walked

past. ‘I’ll see you at home later. We need to talk about what we’re going to tell Anna.’

Nadia and I didn’t speak until we were sitting in her car.

‘That was awful. The whole day’s been awful,’ she said.

‘More than awful.’ I couldn’t think of a word to describe what

it was.

‘You’re right, though: what are we going to tell the kids?’

‘I don’t know.’ I leaned my head back on the headrest and let

out a sigh. ‘How do you tell your daughter that the granddad who’s

always doted on her is a murderer? That he killed a young woman

and buried her in the garage of the house she’s been living in for the last four years?’

But as it turned out, something worse delayed me telling Anna

about Katie.

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Chapter Eighteen

Nadia and I sat in the corner of a coffee shop in Dorchester

high street, trying to process what had happened. We

were still both in shock.

‘I just can’t believe it.’ Nadia took a sip of her espresso, her pale blue eyes looking grey against the pallor of her skin. ‘It’s . . . bloody hell.’ She balled her hands into fists.

‘Anna won’t want to live in the house anymore, will she? I don’t

want to live there anymore! We’ll have to sell it.’

‘You can come and stay with us. We’ve got room.’ She blinked

back tears.

My stomach rumbled, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten any-

thing all day. ‘Maybe that would be best. For a while, at least. Anna’s going to have nightmares. Do you remember when she saw that

story on the news about those Japanese fishermen in Taiji who hunt

dolphins to either capture them for aquariums or slaughter them for food? She had nightmares after that for months. She kept waking

up saying she was drowning in their blood. It was horrendous.

Actually, I couldn’t stop thinking about that afterwards, either. It’s horrific what humans do, isn’t it?’

‘She’s a lot stronger than you think.’

Sibel Hodge

‘She’s sensitive.’

‘What are we going to tell them, then?’ Her foot tapped an

erratic beat against the table leg.

I stirred my spoon around in my cappuccino, staring down as

if it hid all the answers. I held my breath. Finally, I exhaled and put the spoon on a napkin on the table. This was a parent’s worst

nightmare. Your family was supposed to be a safe haven. Not capable of great cruelty and viciousness. Not capable of this. My thoughts

wandered to Jack again. Was he Katie’s worst nightmare? Her home

should’ve been a safe haven, too, but had he abused her? Had

Rose turned a blind eye to it or was she too drunk to notice? Could I have prevented this somehow? Everything we do, every event in

our lives has a domino effect. If Jack and Rose were sober, model

parents, would Katie have grown up to have a normal life? If Jack

was abusing her, was that the real reason she’d been running away?

If Chris hadn’t split up with her, would she still be alive? If I’d paid more attention, would it have come to this? We all had a part to

play in how things had ended up.

‘Maybe we should just say there’s been an accident for now,

not go into specifics.’ Nadia’s voice dragged me back to the table.

She patted her now wet cheeks with a napkin and took a long, hard

breath. ‘Just that the police found some old bones but they don’t

know who they belong to or what happened.’

‘You know as well as I do that as soon as the police start asking

questions, people in the village are going to know what’s happened.

Everyone’s going to be talking and speculating. Do you remem-

ber when Jody Spencer was having an affair with Dave Potts?

The ridiculous stories people came out with then about how they

were both into dogging and went out to a local playing field in the middle of the night to have sex with people? I mean, where the hell did they get that from? They must have some amazing imaginations

to think up rubbish like that.’

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Where the Memories Lie

She sat upright, looking more like the in-control, calm, organ-

ised Nadia I knew so well. ‘Yes, but we can deal with the gossip

when it happens.’

I nodded, not really believing her, but anything to delay the

inevitable sounded like the better option to me.

‘I just don’t understand,’ I said, my stomach lurching again.

‘Why would Tom do it? Why would he kill her? What makes

a lovely, kind man kill a teenage girl? There must be more to

the story.’

‘I just don’t believe Dad killed her. It’s impossible.’

‘Well, someone did. Someone with access to the garage who

wouldn’t be discovered. Oh, God.’ I sat back in the chair, the

enormity of everything sinking in like a kick to the solar plexus.

I had a physical pain behind my breastbone and rubbed at it,

shaking my head.

Nadia swirled the bitter dregs of coffee round in her tiny cup,

blinking back more tears. ‘I need another one of these.’ She nodded to my untouched drink. ‘Want one?’

‘No, thanks.’

She came back with another espresso and two huge chocolate

muffins. She slid one of the plates towards me. ‘You look like you’re about to pass out. You need some sugar.’

‘I can’t face food.’ My stomach contracted at the sight of it.

‘I need to eat. Comfort food.’ She pulled apart the muffin and

picked off a chunk but her hands shook so much, she dropped it

and it fell back onto the plate, scattering crumbs across the table.

I leaned forward, watching her scooping up the crumbs with

trembling, mechanical actions, trying to stop my own tears from

falling. ‘Why would he do it?’ I asked again. ‘I need to understand this. I need to know what happened.’

She shook her head. ‘He didn’t do it. Someone else must’ve put

her body there.’

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Sibel Hodge

‘But you have to admit he obviously knew about it, other-

wise he never would’ve known where she was buried. Maybe she

did steal something and wouldn’t give it back.’ I swallowed a