After You Die (4 page)

They didn’t have a time of death yet but he saw this as a crime committed under the cover of darkness, couldn’t imagine it going down any other way. Not when it had remained unreported for days.

‘Tell me about the harassment,’ he said.

She leaned forward in the black rattan chair, hunched against eavesdroppers who weren’t there. ‘It started soon after Holly was moved home from hospital. Very minor stuff. Nuisance factor more than anything else – silent phone calls, bit of vandalism in the garden. Dawn ignored that – it’s a nice area but you’ve got stupid kids here just like everywhere else.’

‘Then what?’

‘She got a modified people carrier to take Holly out in. It was on the drive for a day before the tyres were slashed.’ Ferreira frowned. ‘Someone sprayed the word “cripple” across the side of it. Which is why it got sent up to us, of course.’

They’d dealt with a few cases centred on prejudice against the disabled but nothing which had gone this far before. Taunts and threats, occasional broken windows.

Nobody could see Holly as a danger, though, surely.

‘Did Dawn have any idea who might’ve been responsible?’

‘No. She said she thought it could be someone pissed off because she was getting more support from the council than them.’ Ferreira shrugged. ‘I don’t know, it sounded unlikely to me, but I suppose that kind of thing bothers some people. Say their benefits have got cut – bedroom tax kicking in, something like that – and there’s her being given a brand-new Espace, getting a load of building work done. A sense of entitlement makes people do some pretty shitty things.’

He considered it for a moment. ‘This shitty, though?’

‘It feels personal, doesn’t it?’

‘I think so.’

Ferreira slapped her palm on the tabletop. ‘I should have pushed her more. She just seemed so
comfortable
about it all. She said she only called to get a crime number for the car insurance, then I turned up and it was like she was really reaching for things to complain about because I’m sitting there with my notebook out and she didn’t want to look like a time waster.’

‘What about the follow-up calls?’ he asked.

‘She didn’t want to talk. I tried three or four times but whenever I rang she insisted she was really busy with Holly. I didn’t question it, she was obviously under pressure looking after her on her own.’

‘She must have said something.’

A man came out of the pub, shouting into his mobile as he fumbled a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket with his free hand. He moved away to the other end of the terrace but Zigic saw that he kept watching them as he laughed and swore in a polished accent which didn’t sound entirely natural.

‘I honestly wondered if she was making it up to get her husband’s attention.’

He snapped back to Ferreira. ‘You know how rare that is?’

‘Of course I know! And I know you’re never supposed to think it, but her whole attitude was out of step with someone who’s being harassed. She wasn’t scared, she wasn’t even angry – how can you not be angry?’

‘Not everyone has it as their default response.’

Ferreira stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You didn’t see her.’

‘No, I didn’t, so I’m relying on your impressions now.’

‘She wasn’t taking it seriously. That’s my impression. She was a knackered, sad woman – with plenty to be pissed off about in life and a lot to deal with, but whatever hassle she was getting didn’t seem to be impacting on her.’

‘Until now.’

‘You’re assuming it’s all part of the same thing,’ she said, a little defensively. ‘Dawn had a life beyond caring for her daughter.’

‘I thought you reckoned she was isolated.’

Ferreira scowled at him, annoyed at being caught out. ‘You know as well as I do, dead woman, first port of call we should be looking for the boyfriend.’

Zigic drained his Coke. ‘Or talking to the ex.’

Nene House was separated from the village by a hundred yards of dusty and rutted farm track, almost far enough away to stop the insistent barking of their canine residents floating across the grass fields and up to the neighbouring cottages, but not quite.

It was a rambling old place, surrounded by tin-roofed dairy sheds and tumbledown stables, a twin-gabled sprawl, half of it painted white with a sagging pantile roof, the rest stone built and recently re-thatched. It made for a disconcerting first impression, a sense of disjointedness which was only increased by the sight of the breeze-block kennels; the newest, most solid-looking buildings on the site.

As they approached the front door a woman emerged from the side of the house, heavy footed in her wellingtons, a shovel slung over her shoulder. A quintessential farmer’s wife, blonde hair tied back from a scrubbed-clean and weathered face, small eyes in a permanent squint against the elements.

‘Hi, I’m Sally, are you dropping off?’ Her smile died when she noticed Zigic’s warrant card. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Mrs –’

‘Ms Lange.’

‘Ms Lange, I’m afraid there’s been an incident,’ Zigic said. ‘A very serious one, with Dawn and Holly.’

She dropped the shovel. ‘Are they okay?’

‘I’m sorry, no, they were both killed.’

Her hands went to her face, blue eyes widening above her grubby fingertips and Zigic thought he caught the briefest, merest, hint of pleasure in them.

‘I’ve got to tell Warren.’

She ran off towards the kennels, shouting his name, and Zigic saw a man look up from where he was squatting to scratch a spaniel’s belly. He straightened and the dog got up too, followed him as he rushed towards the gate, into the yard.

‘Sally, what is it?’

She blurted out the news and he crumpled back against the fence, opened and closed his mouth a couple of times but didn’t speak. He didn’t look capable of forming words, face slack, hand at his head. Sally stood close to him, rubbing his shoulders and whispering in his ear, words Zigic couldn’t hear and which didn’t seem to be helping.

Eventually she slipped an arm around his middle and drew him into the house, one faltering step at a time.

Again they followed, Ferreira throwing Zigic a questioning look across her shoulder:
Are we buying this routine?

He wasn’t sure yet.

The kitchen was large but gloomy, all dark wood units and heavy oak beams blackened by age and generations of cooking grease, a room which should have been homely but somehow wasn’t, dominated by a pine table big enough to seat twelve.

Sally coaxed Warren into a chair and he immediately buried his face in his hands, while she sat next to him, her fingers curled tight around his arm.

Zigic let the silence develop, aware of how uncomfortable Sally was becoming, sitting with her eyes lowered but stealing glances at them through her lashes, shifting incrementally closer to Warren, shielding him.

Around them the house ticked and creaked and Zigic thought of its previous inhabitants laying their dead out on the kitchen table, all the bad news and trauma this room had witnessed. Hundreds of years of it soaked into the stone walls.

Finally the quiet got too much for Sally.

‘Was it a car accident?’

‘No,’ Zigic said, watching them closely. ‘Dawn was murdered.’

‘What about Holly?’

‘At present it looks likely to be natural causes.’

Warren shook his head, tears coming freely. ‘This isn’t real. This is mad.’

Zigic apologised, the words just as useless as they always were, too small, too commonplace to address the obliterating scale of a parent’s grief. Warren doubled over and let out a deep, wailing cry that tugged Sally from her seat.

She went to him but he shrugged her off so forcefully that she stumbled into the Aga’s drying rail. By the time she’d righted herself he was out of the door, moving at a sprint.

Zigic took her by the arm and steered her back to her chair, gesturing for Ferreira to go after him.

‘Where’s she going?’ Sally tried to stand again but Zigic held a firm hand on her shoulder. ‘He needs to be alone.’

‘She’ll be gentle.’

Sally looked unconvinced. Worried what he was going to say without her there to stop him. Did she think he was capable of murdering his estranged wife and daughter?

When he was sure she wouldn’t bolt for the door he sat down again, watching her nibble at a ragged fingernail.

‘He’ll never get over this,’ she said. ‘He’s only just started to deal with Holly’s accident. He blamed himself. Stupidly. He was a serious climber and Holly always wanted to do what her dad did …’ She shook herself out of it suddenly. ‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’

‘Thanks.’

Sally busied herself filling a black cast-iron kettle and set it on the range, talking about Holly’s sporting exploits, how proud Warren was of her, how close they were. And Zigic didn’t doubt the truth of it, but he heard a slight edge coming into her voice, something like bitterness, and he wondered if she’d been envious of their relationship.

‘It must have been very difficult for Warren.’

Sally leaned against the range, hands tight around the rail. ‘She wasn’t the same girl any more. All the light went out of her.’

‘Were you and her close?’

‘I liked her.’

Not what he’d asked but it said plenty.

‘It would have been different if she wasn’t … how she was.’ Sally grimaced. ‘We never really had a chance to get to know each other. Dawn wouldn’t let her come here, I couldn’t go there. Obviously.’

‘Dawn was protective of her?’

Sally laughed, a short, humourless snort. ‘No. Not how you mean.’

‘How then?’

‘They were in the middle of a divorce and Dawn was dragging it out.’ She plucked a tea towel from the drying rail and folded it up, clutched it to her chest. ‘All Warren cared about was Holly, and Dawn knew that, so she used her against him. She could have come here. She could have moved in if she wanted to. We’ve got the space. I’d have been delighted to have her.’

It sounded rehearsed. Something she’d said to Warren a hundred times without meaning a word of it.

‘But Dawn insisted this wasn’t a “fit environment” and Warren was scared of challenging her because divorce courts always side with the mother. He knew how easy it would be for her to block access altogether.’

The kettle began to whistle and she whipped it off the heat, carried it over to a stretch of worktop under the kitchen window to fill up their cups, taking the opportunity to check the scene out there.

‘Sounds like Dawn was pushing the pair of you,’ he said.

Sally turned on him. ‘Warren didn’t kill her. She was being difficult but she had her own problems and Warren was fully aware of that. If anything, he felt sorry for her. We both did.’ Sally plucked the teabags out of the water with her fingers, added them to a little pile of used ones on the draining board.

‘These problems Dawn was having …’

‘Vandalism, that kind of thing,’ Sally said. Another quick look back through the window. ‘Elton’s a lovely village but there are some idiots of course and idiots tend to pick on the vulnerable.’

‘Did Dawn talk about it much?’

‘Well, not to me, obviously, but Warren knew about it. He encouraged her to call the police and get it down on record.’ She straightened. ‘Do you think that’s who killed her?’

‘It’s very early for us to start making assumptions,’ Zigic said. ‘But we’re looking into the possibility.’

The kitchen door opened with a bang and a gangly teenage boy walked in, headed straight to the fridge in the corner without looking up from his mobile, one white ear bud plugged in, the other trailing loose over his shoulder.

Sally followed him with her eyes, frowning at his lack of manners or maybe the slogan on his T-shirt,
The idiots are winning
.

‘Benjamin, I think you should sit down.’

He popped the top of his Coke can, gave Zigic the barest glance. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

‘This is very serious.’

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Zigic recognised the stance from his own teenage years. The boy had obviously done
something
wrong, now he was trying to figure out which bad thing they knew about and how much they knew and whether he could blame someone else.

‘Sweetheart, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,’ Sally said. ‘It’s about Holly and Dawn.’

The boy relaxed visibly. ‘Yeah, I saw, the house next door blew up. Fuck, you’re not going to ask them to move in here, are you?’

‘No.’ Sally put her mug down but didn’t make any further move towards him. ‘They’ve been killed.’

‘Shit.’

‘Murdered,’ Zigic said.

‘Fuck.’

Sally frowned at him. ‘There’s no need for that sort of language.’

He shrugged, attention on Zigic now, curious rather than shocked, and Zigic wondered if his lack of emotional response was the usual adolescent attempt at worldliness or something darker.

‘Were they raped?’

‘Benjamin!’ Sally turned to Zigic and apologised. Back to her son. ‘What a disgusting thing to say.’

He held his hand up. ‘I was only asking. Jesus. It’s what happens, isn’t it? That’s why women usually get killed.’

Zigic stood slowly and walked over to the boy, seeing him fight the growing discomfort which backed him into the fridge door. He was used to saying what he wanted, Zigic guessed, weathering no worse punishment than his mother’s scandalised disappointment.

Up close he was definitely a boy, rather than a young man, fourteen or fifteen. Bad skin and sugar-stained teeth, glasses smeared with greasy fingerprints. The kind of boy who girls weren’t interested in, who started hating them for it young.

‘How old are you, Benjamin?’

‘Sixteen,’ he said, struggling to meet Zigic’s gaze.

‘The same as Holly. Did you go to the same school?’

He nodded.

‘Friends?’

‘We were in the same class.’

‘So, you weren’t friends then.’

‘We were. Sort of.’

Zigic nodded, let the boy see his contempt. ‘And when your sort-of-friend dies the first thing that comes to mind is whether she was raped.’

Sally was at his elbow now, one hand on her son’s shoulder. ‘Benjamin, I think you should apologise to the inspector. It was a very crass thing to say, wasn’t it?’