Die of Shame (7 page)

Once Tanner had introduced herself and Chall, the man who had answered her knock drew the grey front door a fraction closer to himself. Narrowed the gap. It was the way many people would behave with Jehovah’s Witnesses or salesmen, but in Tanner’s experience it was not the normal reaction to a pair of amiable-looking police officers. In certain areas of London after dark perhaps, but not usually in the middle of the day and rarely on the doorstep of a house like this.

‘Mr De Silva?’

‘Yeah…’

Tanner held up a photograph. ‘Could you confirm for us that this woman is a client of yours?’ It was the picture held on record by the DVLA. They had not found a more recent photo at the victim’s home and her father had been unable to provide any.

Now, De Silva opened the door a little further and straightened up. ‘Ah… I hope you understand, but you clearly know what I do for a living and professional ethics mean that I’m unable to confirm or deny that. I’m sorry.’

Tanner nodded, expecting it. ‘We’re from the Homicide Command, sir.’ She looked for a reaction, but none was apparent. ‘I need to tell you that, unfortunately, the woman in this photograph has been murdered.’

A well-fed tabby cat appeared in the doorway and darted into the front garden. Chall smiled and turned to watch it go. De Silva ignored it, breath hissing from him like a punctured ball as his shoulders dropped.

He said, ‘Right,’ then stepped back, opening the door good and wide.

He led them into the kitchen, pausing to offer fresh coffee which Tanner unilaterally declined, then carrying on into a bright and spacious conservatory.

‘Nice,’ Chall said.

‘Thank you.’

They sat in wide rattan chairs with deep cushions. An earthenware bowl filled with polished pebbles sat in the middle of a matching table.

‘I have an office upstairs for one-to-one work, but this is a good space for group sessions.’ De Silva looked around. ‘We push these against the wall and bring in the chairs from the garage.’ He sat back. ‘They’re not quite as comfortable, though.’

‘These are great,’ Chall said. ‘I’m worried I might nod off.’

‘My wife chose them.’

The therapist was tall and looked to Tanner as though he took trouble to keep himself in shape. He wore jeans and a red hoodie, and with greying hair cut close to the scalp he could easily have passed for a good few years younger than the forty-six Tanner knew him to be. He lowered his head for a few seconds, and when he looked up again the lines on his face were suddenly more evident.

He said, ‘This is horrible.’ There were tears gathering now at the corners of his eyes. He wiped them quickly away with a fingertip. ‘I mean, you always have to maintain a professional distance, but there’s still a bond, you know?’

‘When did you last see her?’ Tanner asked.

‘About… three weeks ago. Yeah… the Monday night group.’

‘Monday, March the twenty-second?’

‘Sounds about right,’ De Silva said. ‘I can check my diary.’

‘We’re almost certain that was the same night she was killed.’ Tanner glanced down at her open notebook. ‘That evening or the early hours of the following morning.’

‘We checked her phone records,’ Chall said.

Tanner looked up, listened. ‘Who’s playing the piano?’

Chall said, ‘Whoever it is, they’re very good.’

‘What’s funny?’ Tanner asked.

‘Nothing.’ De Silva crossed his legs and leaned back.

‘You smiled when I asked, that’s all.’

‘Nothing, just… it doesn’t seem awfully relevant, that’s all.’ De Silva looked at his watch. ‘I do have a session in half an hour, so —’

‘Did you miss her?’

De Silva looked at her.

‘If she was part of your Monday night group, she would have missed three sessions now.’

‘Yeah, obviously I noticed she wasn’t there. It’s not unknown, but I did wonder what had happened.’

‘Did you not try to contact her?’

‘I called, but it went straight to her voicemail.’

‘You weren’t worried though.’

‘Yes, of course, but like I said, it’s not unknown. I’ve had clients who suddenly stopped coming to sessions and then turned up again eighteen months later like nothing happened. Some of them can be a bit… unpredictable.’ He waited for Tanner to say something. ‘You do know I work with people in recovery from addiction?’

‘Yes, we do know that,’ Tanner said.

‘And some of them are a bit more famous than others, right?’ Chall ignored the look from his boss. ‘One or two, anyway.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I googled you.’

‘Oh.’ De Silva shook his head in disbelief. ‘That’s what the police do now, is it? They just google people.’

‘Not just, no,’ Chall said.

Tanner glanced out into the garden. A pair of squirrels chased each other around the base of what was probably meant to be a relaxing water feature. She looked back to De Silva. ‘So, did the rest of the group talk about why she’d stopped coming?’

‘We talked about it, yeah.’

‘Were they worried?’

‘Of course they were. The group’s like a family. But at the same time, everyone has issues and problems of their own and they understand the way it works. They know that people can drift in and out, can go off the rails. It might be them missing the next session, you know?’

Tanner nodded, like she did know. She wrote
others
in her notebook and underlined it. ‘Was Christopher Clemence worried?’

De Silva looked down at his hands, laced his fingers together.

‘Is Mr Clemence not also a member of that same group?’

‘Like I said at the door. Professional ethics. I can neither confirm nor…’ He stopped when he saw Tanner nodding.

‘His fingerprints were found at the victim’s home,’ she said. ‘At the crime scene.’

‘Right.’ De Silva sighed. ‘Yes, Chris is one of the group.’

‘We also found your fingerprints at the crime scene, sir.’ Chall leaned forward. ‘That’s how we found you, matter of fact. Possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

‘I know, a long time ago.’

‘I think I nicked some sweets when I was eleven,’ De Silva said. ‘You might want to look into that.’

Chall didn’t blink. ‘Well, if you can give me the name of the shop, I’ll see if they want to prosecute.’

‘More to the point,’ Tanner said, ‘what were your fingerprints doing there?’

De Silva took a few seconds. ‘Oh… she had a birthday party. Well, not a party, really. Just the group.’

‘So, you’re in the habit of going along when your clients have a party? What about that professional distance you mentioned?’

‘I didn’t go,’ De Silva said. ‘Meaning, I didn’t stay. I just popped in with a cake. She’d made amazing progress. She was celebrating another year clean. I was just being supportive.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Chall said.

‘No, there isn’t.’

Tanner looked down to her notebook again. ‘Those phone records we mentioned.’ She turned a page, studied it, turned back. ‘According to those, she made a number of calls to you in the week before she was killed and several before that. Calls in the early hours. Most of these were no more than a few seconds in duration, so I presume you were in bed.’

De Silva nodded.

‘Did she leave messages?’

‘Just to call her back.’

‘Do you still have them?’

‘No.’

‘And did you call her back?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘So your clients also have your personal number, do they?’

De Silva considered it, his expression pained suddenly. ‘Well, actually it’s something I’ve been wrestling with for a while,’ he said. ‘Several colleagues of mine already have two different numbers for exactly this reason and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Getting these kinds of calls was starting to become a problem.’

‘What did she want? When she called.’

The therapist shrugged. ‘Just to talk. She was up and down, you know. She had problems with depression, which date back to before the drug abuse even began. She was taking prescribed medication.’

‘Yes, we found it,’ Tanner said. ‘In her flat.’ During the pause before she spoke again, she became aware that the music had stopped. ‘And in her liver.’

‘I didn’t think you could do that,’ Chall said. ‘Take Prozac or whatever, if you’re supposed to be keeping off drugs.’

‘Ironically, that’s one of the things that was making her anxious,’ De Silva said. ‘Narcotics Anonymous, one or two of the other groups, don’t really approve. It’s a major bone of contention, because a lot of people on those sorts of medication have problems with relapse.’

‘You were actually the last person she called,’ Tanner said.

‘
What
?
’

‘The night she was killed. The last call was made to you, just after ten thirty.’

‘Ten thirty-six,’ Chall said.

‘Do you normally go to bed that early?’

‘Not as a rule.’ De Silva looked shaken.

‘You were at home, though?’

‘Yeah, of course. I would have been writing up my notes on the session.’

‘Was anyone else here?’

‘Well, my daughter was almost certainly out. She usually is.’

‘What about your wife? Was she at home?’

‘Probably, I can’t remember. I’ll ask her to check her diary.’ The therapist thought for a few seconds, then threw up his hands. ‘I don’t know… I must have just missed the call.’

Tanner closed her notebook. Said, ‘Shame.’ She sat back, the frantic blur of the squirrels busy at the edge of her vision.

‘Right.’ De Silva stood up. ‘I really need to get ready for my session.’

Tanner and Chall stood up too. Tanner said, ‘It would be a big help if you could give me the names of the other people in that group.’

De Silva was already walking back towards the kitchen. ‘No, I don’t think I can do that. I was willing to confirm that Chris was a client because you’ve already got his prints and you clearly believe that his criminal history might be of interest. If you want to ask him about others in the group, I can’t stop you, but I’ve gone about as far as my code of conduct allows, I think.’

‘We guessed you’d probably say that,’ Chall said.

‘Obviously if there’s evidence that something or somebody in the group is directly connected to a serious crime, then that changes things. Otherwise, client confidentiality is paramount. I’m sure you appreciate that.’ At the front door, De Silva said, ‘Are you allowed to tell me how she died?’

‘I’d rather hold on to that information for the time being,’ Tanner said.

‘Is that
your
code of ethics?’ De Silva asked. ‘Or just because you don’t feel like it?’

‘She didn’t relapse,’ Tanner said. ‘If that helps at all. Aside from the medication she was taking for the depression, she was drug free when she was killed.’

De Silva nodded. As he pushed the door shut, he said, ‘At least I’m doing something right.’

She pulls the first sheet of paper across and takes out her felt-tips, an old magazine underneath so she won’t mark the table. She lines them up, the colours in the same order as always. Black, brown, blue, green, red.

She still can’t quite get her head around how expensive cards are. Two and a half quid a pop, some of them. Such a rip-off for a cheesy rhyme and a stupid picture with an even stupider joke. There are only five people to invite, but still, there’s no way she’s going to waste a tenner or more on that. That’s money she won’t be able to spend on food or drink and she quite fancies tarting the place up a bit if she has enough left. A few balloons or something.

Five people to invite, though she’s only expecting four to come. Four at the most.

Not exactly a party like the ones she used to have, though they’re all a bit of a blur these days. They just tended to happen anyway. A few people told a few more and they all pitched up knowing there would be plenty of gear around, enough cheap cider to float a battleship. Parties were never
for
anything.

You asked a hundred junkies when their birthday was, she wouldn’t have expected a great many to know. Even fewer to care.

So, she might have been making the cards because of the money, but she thinks that hand-drawn invitations mean that bit more anyway. She likes drawing, always has. Only thing she ever really liked at school, and even when she was using she would try and find time for it. For a while, she thought about trying to be a graffiti artist, like Banksy or something, but the paints and the guns were pricey and it was just one more thing to risk getting nicked for, so in the end she didn’t bother. That’s what she told herself at the time, anyway. Truth is, just like every other junkie she’s ever known, she’d made all sorts of plans and every one of them went straight out of the window the second she got high. The second she
needed
to get high.

She takes a black felt-tip to start on the borders. Neater that way, she reckons.

Not that she’s got that many plans now she’s clean, mind you.

She wants to get a cat.

She wants to get off benefits. She lost the last decent job she’d had after a stupid bit of nicking, then a couple of casual ones after that. She’s sure it’s because someone found out about her past, but she could never prove it.

She wants to meet a decent bloke, maybe have a kid.

Four friends. If you can even call them friends. Closest thing she’s got though, beggars and choosers and all that. It seems like she had loads before she got clean, but back then the truth was she only really hung out with other people who were using.

They’d all had to go; that was how it worked. You said goodbye to the drug, which was far and away the major relationship in your life, and goodbye to anyone associated with it. She’s pretty sure that a few of those ex-friends have gone for good by now, gone as in dead, and she knows bloody well that’s probably how she would have ended up. She’s thankful every day for that moment when she finally knew she had to make a choice.

The borders done, she picks out a red pen to start the decoration.

As she draws a star in the top left hand corner she thinks about her conversation with the new girl, Caroline. In the pub a week before, telling her the story of the junkie and the dead mum’s jewellery.

She hadn’t told Caroline that junkie was her.

She draws more stars and plenty of smiley faces, because they’re her favourite. The invitations will all be basically the same, but they’re hand-drawn, with each person’s name on their own card, so she hopes they all recognise the work she’s put in, when she hands them out at the next session.

She thinks about what else to draw.

She’s about to do a nice shiny box, decorated with a bow, but she stops, thinking that they might take it as a hint to buy her a present. That would be nice, but she doesn’t want it to look like she’s angling for it. In the end she settles for a big bottle of champagne with a popping cork, but on the label it says,
NOËT
&
SHAMDON
.
STRICTLY
NON
-
ALCOHOLIC
.

When she’s finished decorating them, she puts a name at the top in capitals and then writes the message. In big, swirly letters, like she sees on the side of tube trains sometimes, a different colour for each invitation.