Chapter Twenty-Four
It was dark when Jade returned.
She stood on the top landing, listening, but everything was quiet and the house slumbered, along with its occupants. She descended the stairs in her bare feet, being careful to avoid the creaking step, and once she was in the hallway, she put her shoes on.
The slip of paper was still where Diane had put it, in the telephone directory. She slipped it out, grabbed the car keys and silently left the house.
The drive was on a slight slope. She turned the ignition key to the first notch, released the hand brake and allowed the car to slip out onto the road before she felt safe enough to turn the ignition on fully and drive off.
The roads were quiet and she was soon driving into the Greenfield estate where she planned to confront Paul.
She left the car in the parking area opposite the flats, manoeuvring it out of sight into a space beside a dirty white van and a clapped out Volvo. It wouldn’t do if someone noted the number.
Glass crunched under her feet, and the smell of beer mixed with all sorts of other unsavoury aromas, nauseated her. A car trundled along the road and she stepped back into the shadows. After it vanished round a corner she hurried over to the stairwell and climbed to the third floor.
A cat hissed at her when she emerged onto the walkway, and she sideswiped it with her foot, sending it yowling into the stairwell. The walkway was deserted but she made sure the hood obscured her face as she walked towards Paul’s flat.
It was in darkness, and the door was locked. She’d thought he would be at home and had been practising what she was going to say. But this was even better. Now she could surprise him.
It only took her five minutes to return to the car, take a screwdriver from the toolkit, and return to Paul’s door. After that it was easy to prise the lock open and enter the flat. She would wait for him inside. Surprise him.
* * * *
The door swung open at his touch. That was strange. He was sure he’d locked it. He flicked the light switch, nothing happened. Damned fuses must have blown. He felt his way along the hallway to the cupboard containing the breaker box, there was a torch in there and he’d soon have the electric on again.
Something moved in the darkness at the end of the corridor. He stopped, alert to the smallest sound.
Something rustled, and the shadows moved again.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Hello, Daddy. Have you missed me?’
The voice reminded him of something or someone. Childlike, and at the same time, seductive. It was a voice he hadn’t heard for five years. A voice he’d never expected to hear again.
‘Jade?’
Time shifted, and he returned to the day his daughter had vanished without trace.
‘Yes, Daddy.’
‘Oh, how I’ve missed you. I knew you didn’t mean it when you said you never wanted to see me again, I knew you would come back to me. We loved each other too much for you to stay away for ever.’
In the silence that followed he could hear her breathing.
‘Let me sort the lights so I can look at you.’
‘No, Daddy. I’ve been in the dark so long, I like it.’
Past and present collided. It was impossible. He knew it was impossible, but he wanted to believe it was her, wanted to believe it so much he convinced himself it could be her. He fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. He had to see her. His hand found the lighter and he flicked it on.
‘But you’re . . . ’ The stab of the needle in his neck, cut him short.
The lighter flicked off and he slapped his other hand on the spot where she had stabbed him.
‘What have you done, Jade?’ He had trouble enunciating the words, and he felt peculiar. His vision blurred and his bones felt heavy. It was as if they’d melted into his feet. He leaned against the wall. It swayed at his touch and he slid down until he was unable to slide any further. The weight of his body made him topple sideways until he was lying flat. Cotton wool encased him in a warm glow and he was back in the past again. Back when he and Jade had been happy. He reached out to stroke her cheek. ‘My baby,’ he said, and then he floated away.
* * * *
The mixture of heroin and GHB in the syringe was massive, and it only took a moment for Paul to succumb to the effects of the drug in his bloodstream.
Jade watched him slide into a stupor; it had been easy. She sat back on her heels and stroked his face. ‘Poor Daddy,’ she murmured. ‘You always told me I loved you. All the time you were doing those things. Proving our love, you used to say. But I never loved you, Daddy. I just said I did.’
Paul’s lips formed a lopsided smile and his eyes had difficulty focusing.
‘Maybe a little more,’ Jade murmured.
She stood up and felt her way to the cupboard where she had turned off the electric. When she flicked the master switch the lights came back on. ‘That’s better I can see what I’m doing now.’ Bending down she removed the lighter from Paul’s grasp and patted his head. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
The kitchen was a mess, dirty dishes in the sink, mouldy food in the saucepans, the sound of a mouse scarpering back to its home in the skirting board.
‘Tut, tut, Daddy. How can you live like this?’
She pulled open a drawer in the sink unit, then another one, and at last found what she was looking for. Picking a spoon out of the drawer she looked for someplace to put it down, but there didn’t seem to be a clear space anywhere. With a sigh, she picked up a cup and plate and tossed them onto the mountain of dishes in the sink. She laid the spoon on the small area she’d cleared and rummaged in her pocket for the packet of powder. It was the pure stuff, lovely and white, not that nasty brown stuff the dealers peddled. After sprinkling it in the spoon and adding a drop of water, she lifted it up and flicked the lighter on, holding the flame beneath the spoon until the mixture bubbled and melted. Laying the spoon back on the table she took the syringe and syphoned the liquid into it.
‘Here we go, Daddy,’ she said when she returned to his side. ‘This will make you feel good and your worries will all be over.’
She plunged the syringe into his neck. ‘Goodnight, Daddy. Sleep tight.’
Jade watched him slide deeper into a comatose state. When she was satisfied he was beyond help, she grabbed his heels and pulled him through to the lounge.
She laid him out on the floor, crossing his arms across his chest, and carefully placed the jade beads in his eyes. ‘To remind you of me,’ she said.
She turned her attention to his computer. ‘Let’s have a nice picture show. I’m sure you’ll have some lovely photos on here.’
It didn’t take her long to crack his password and find his hidden files.
‘Ah, yes,’ she murmured, combining all his photos into one file and setting them to appear on the monitor in a slide show. ‘I’m sure the police will find these interesting.’
She turned off all the lights and let herself out as quietly as she’d entered, leaving the door ajar.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wednesday, 14 March
It was still dark outside when Diane woke. Jade had come to her during the night and told her she was happy and everything was going to be all right, and her mother’s worries and distress were over and she should get on with her life again.
‘Will you come home?’ Diane had asked.
Jade hadn’t answered, simply told her she would always live on in Diane’s heart and she shouldn’t worry about her, and she shouldn’t try to find her.
‘I came back to do what I had to do,’ she said, ‘but now it’s done I can rest again.’
A puff of wind seeped through the window which was opened an inch at the bottom causing the curtains to flutter. Even in the coldest weather Diane needed fresh air in her bedroom, and now she snuggled further down in the bed, pulling the duvet round her neck.
She lay, luxuriating in the warmth, while the need to rise and punish herself, diminished. The need to scrub and clean was in abeyance and she was able to think about Jade without tormenting herself. She knew her daughter was safe, and was convinced she would return when she was ready.
Daylight was sneaking into the room when Emma tapped and opened her door. ‘I wondered where you were,’ she said. ‘I’m used to you being up before me.’
Diane patted the bed. ‘Come sit beside me.’
Emma walked over and perched on the edge. She frowned. ‘You’re different,’ she said.
Diane grasped her hand. ‘Jade came to me last night. She said I wasn’t to worry any more and she was safe.’
‘You mean you saw her?’
Diane nodded.
‘It must have been a dream.’ Emma’s frown deepened.
‘I don’t think so. She was as real as you are now.’
‘But that’s impossible.’
‘No, Emma. It was real.’
Emma withdrew her hand from Diane’s grasp. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on. You’ll feel better after a cup of tea.’
Diane swung her legs out of the bed after Emma left the room, but she could hear her whispering to Ryan outside her bedroom door.
Well, let them whisper all they liked. She knew what she had seen.
* * * *
‘What’s up?’ Ryan had been waiting for Emma on the landing when she came out of Diane’s bedroom. ‘Has something happened to Mum?’
‘You could say that.’ Emma kept her voice low. ‘She thinks she’s seen Jade.’
‘What?’
‘Speak quietly, she’ll hear.’ Emma glanced at the closed bedroom door. ‘She says Jade came to her during the night.’
‘She must have been dreaming.’
‘I said that, but she’s convinced it was real.’ Emma grabbed his arm. ‘I’m worried about her. I think she’s going round the twist. She’s become convinced Jade has come back, and now she’s started seeing her. D’you think we should get on to the GP for a referral to her psychiatrist?’
‘She won’t like that. You know how she is.’
Emma’s brain whirled. She didn’t know what to do about her mother. She loved her so much it hurt, and she wanted to protect her from harm. But what could she do when Diane was set on a course that could only lead to disaster? If she did nothing, her mother’s mental state might deteriorate further. And if she had her referred to a psychiatrist it would mean the pills again, and they almost destroyed her the last time. Emma wasn’t sure she could allow that. What to do, what to do?
‘Maybe we should leave it for now and see how things develop.’ Ryan’s voice cut into her thoughts.
‘I don’t know.’ Emma let go of Ryan’s arm. ‘Maybe you’re right. But we need to keep an eye on her, make sure she’s safe.’
‘You don’t think she’s suicidal again, do you?’ Panic made Ryan’s voice shrill.
‘No, not as long as she believes Jade is alive. The problem will be when she realizes it’s all wishful thinking on her part, and Jade is never coming back. I think she might be suicidal then.’
Emma glanced at her mother’s bedroom door again. She could hear movement behind it. ‘Come on, I said I’d make her a pot of tea. Maybe we’ll all feel differently once we’ve had breakfast.’
* * * *
The kettle was on the boil when Diane entered the kitchen.
‘Tea’s almost made.’
Emma’s voice was bright and cheery. Too bright and cheery for Diane’s liking. She looked at Ryan, and he grinned at her.
‘What are you two up to?’ Diane grabbed three mugs from the worktop and planked them on the table.
‘Why should we be up to something?’ Emma poured tea into the mugs. ‘We’re trying to be helpful.’
Diane snorted. ‘Helpful? When have you ever been up early enough to make me tea in the morning? You’re up to something. I can sense it.’
Ryan studied his cup. Diane thought he looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else but here in the kitchen, listening to his mother and Emma narking at each other.
‘Nonsense,’ Emma said. ‘We aren’t up any earlier than usual, it’s you who is later. Anyway, why don’t you drink the tea I made you.’ She slumped into a chair. ‘I was trying to be nice, that’s what, and that’s all the thanks I get.’
Diane felt a sudden pang of remorse. Why was it she could never appreciate anything Emma did for her? She knew her daughter would do anything to please her, but nothing Emma did made any difference to her feelings. And she knew why that was. It was because she wasn’t Jade. Emma was the mirror image of Jade, but she could never be her. Jade was bubbly and full of life, while Emma was quiet and introvert, lacking in self esteem and prone to depression.
‘Thank you for making the tea,’ Diane said, but it was too late, she’d ruined Emma’s attempt to please her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bill woke early, a scream hovering on his lips, while the nightmare hid in the recesses of his brain.
He stared into the darkness, reluctant to get out of bed, but knew if he slept again the nightmare would return. He untangled the sheet wrapping his body in a stranglehold, while the duvet, supposed to keep him warm, lay in a heap on the floor. Leaning over, he flicked on the bedside lamp, relieved it worked. He’d thought the previous night’s electricity blackout in the flat was due to an unpaid bill, but the answer was simpler. The hallway bulb had blown causing the breaker box to turn everything off. There was still no light in the hallway, but at least there were lights everywhere else.
When he looked at the black mould on the walls, the heap of unwashed clothes on the floor, and the general disarray of the room, he thought maybe it would have been better if the lights had stayed off.
He swung his legs out of bed and padded out of the room for a quick shower. Returning, he rummaged among the piles of clothes for clean socks, grabbed a shirt from the back of a chair, and got dressed. He’d long ago given up putting his clothes in the wardrobe because they always came out smelling of damp.
Satisfied he looked reasonably presentable he went to the kitchen, but in the fridge he found only the usual cheese with its layer of penicillin, an egg that had been there forever, and some curdled milk. It would have to be a bacon buttie from the sandwich shop.
There had been frost overnight and the car was reluctant to start, but eventually it roared into life and Bill joined the early morning traffic. His first task for today was watching John Doe’s post mortem. Just the thing to start the day off with a bang, he thought, watching someone being sliced and diced.
The new mortuary sat to the side and rear of Dundee Police Headquarters and was a short walk away from where Bill usually parked his car. He knew by the time he returned to HQ there would be no parking spaces left, so he left his car in its usual place.
An uneasy silence cloaked the deserted alley leading to the mortuary. It was a tunnel muting everything around it, even the birds were quiet here.
The clatter of Bill’s footsteps on the stone slabs breaking that silence, seemed unusually loud. Officers rarely traversed this alley unless they had to, not even to use the large car park in front of the mortuary. The nondescript stone building at the end was long and low, with a corrugated roof, and no windows. It reminded Bill of storage sheds rather than the high tech facility it was.
The roll up door where the bodies were taken in was closed, and the door beside it had a keypad. He pressed a button and a voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘Detective Sergeant Murphy.’ The door clicked and he pushed it open.
‘Dr Armstrong’s started the autopsy.’ The gangly youth peered at Bill through spectacles perched on the end of his nose, he pushed them upwards but they immediately slipped down again. ‘She said for you to go along.’
Bill nodded, and the youth disappeared into a side room, leaving Bill to find his own way into the autopsy suite.
‘I started without you.’ Rose Armstrong’s voice filtered through the intercom system.
She snipped a sample of hair and placed it in a small phial which she handed to the second pathologist to seal and label. Bill didn’t recognize him, but that was hardly surprising, considering his body was swathed in a gown that covered his scrubs and the only things showing above the face shield and below the cap, were his eyes. Bill wasn’t even sure whether it was a man. It could easily be a woman.
‘I’ll be opening him up in a minute.’ She looked over at Bill through the glass screen. Bill could swear she was smiling because her eyes crinkled at the edges.
Bill groaned. ‘You know that’s the bit I don’t like.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s got to be done.’
‘What about the beads in his eyes?’
‘I’ve got them out and they’re in one of the specimen bags.’
‘Think you could photograph them for me?’
‘Already done. I’ll get Ralph to courier the photos across to the office.’
Bill reckoned Ralph must be the gangly youth.
The door behind Bill opened and closed, and a woman in a smoke grey tailored suit walked into the viewing gallery. Bill looked at her curiously, guessing she must be the new procurator fiscal. He’d been at Steve Mulholland’s retirement do a week ago, and the word then was the new PF was a woman.
‘Detective Sergeant Bill Murphy,’ he said holding out his hand.
‘Astrid Christensen.’ Her handshake was firm and businesslike. ‘I’m the fiscal.’
Bill noticed she didn’t say ‘new’, and wasn’t sure whether that meant she was asserting her authority, or whether she was unsure of herself.
Rose Armstrong looked up from washing the body, and nodded to the newcomer. The washing completed, she selected a dissecting knife from the trolley at her side, and proceeded to carve an incision from neck to groin. Bill had seen enough of her autopsies to know Rose rarely made a V-shaped incision at the top of the trunk, unless there was a suspicion of strangulation.
Bill’s earlier bacon buttie turned in his stomach, and he regretted eating it. ‘I think I’ll head back to the office,’ he said into the intercom. ‘There are several new developments that need followed up.’
Rose looked up and her eyes crinkled at the edges again. ‘I’ll send the report over as soon as we’ve finished.’
‘Thanks.’
Neither of the women responded. Rose was engrossed in the task at hand, while Astrid watched her with a fascination Bill thought verged on the unhealthy.