Letters To My Daughter's Killer (3 page)

‘Did you see anyone?’

Jack shakes his head, ruination in his eyes.

‘Broderick Litton,’ I say.

‘They know. They’ll interview him.’

‘She’s not had any trouble from him recently?’

‘No, nothing since last July.’

‘And she’d never have let him in,’ I point out.

‘She might have thought it was me, that I’d forgotten something,’ Jack says.

‘You’d use your key.’

‘Forgotten that, then – I don’t know.’ He casts about. ‘We had a prowler.’

‘What? When?’

‘Wednesday night. There’d been a break-in at number eight on Tuesday.’ Two doors down. ‘Lizzie saw someone in our back garden.’

‘Was it Litton?’

‘She said not, not tall enough, more like a kid, she thought, though she didn’t see his face,’ Jack says. ‘The police came round on the Thursday morning – I told them then.’

‘Have they caught him?’

‘We never heard anything.’

I rub my forehead. Could it be this prowler and not Litton?

‘They always look at the husband, don’t they?’ he says.

My stomach turns over. ‘They have to. They can’t possibly think . . .’ Shock stings around my wrists.

‘No,’ he says, ‘they know I wasn’t there. But having to go over it and over it. I tried to wake her . . .’ He puts the mug on the floor, covers his face, shoulders shaking.

I go to him, sit on the arm of the sofa and hug him tight.

Light steals into the room, hurting my eyes.

Kay comes back; she hasn’t slept either. Is she used to it – all-nighters for work?

‘Did they say how she died?’ I ask Jack. I know there was blood. Too much blood.

‘They said the post-mortem would confirm it.’ Jack’s mouth trembles as he speaks. ‘Blunt trauma?’ He looks at Kay, as if checking he’s said it correctly.

‘Blunt force trauma,’ she says. ‘That’s what we think at the moment.’

‘With what?’ I can’t imagine.

Did you bring a weapon with you? A baseball bat or a cosh of some sort? Then it occurs to me that perhaps you used your fists. That feels worse. Was it the first time you’d killed someone? And why pick Lizzie? What did you come to the house for? Money? To steal? To rape? How did you get in?

I go outside for air, out the back. The garden glitters with dew, spiderwebs and lines hang on the shrubs around the border. The air is damp and cool and my windpipe hurts as I draw some in. A pair of coal tits are on the peanut feeder in the magnolia tree. The sky is blue, blushing pink in the east. That slice of moon still visible. Milky stalks out and sits under the tree. The tits ignore him. How can it all be here, just so? It all feels too bright and clear, too high-definition, as though I’ve wandered on to a film set.

On the roof of the terraced row at the back, three magpies bounce and chatter. A crow joins them, edging along to the chimney, then another. And two more.
A murder of crows.
The phrase springs unbidden, a booby trap, like some ghastly practical joke my mind plays on me.

I’m aware of commotion from inside. Then Tony is here, coming out of the patio door, and Denise behind him. Tony is shaking his head as he reaches me; he embraces me, a hard, swift pressure before he steps back. And it’s all I can bear. Resisting the sense memory of a thousand other hugs, his height, his bulk a comfort. Before I know it I’m hugging Denise, who’s not laughing now. We’ve never touched before, not even a handshake.

We’re a similar height, Denise and I. Both with that padding that comes with middle age. Even if my arms and legs retain their original shape, my belly sticks out and my bum seems to have doubled in size. Denise is chunkier than me, fatter in the face too. She smells of perfume, roses and gardenia, and a trace of tobacco smoke.

As I pull back, we share a look, acknowledging a new settlement. I nod my thanks. I’ve never seen her without make-up on. It’s just one in a whole stream of firsts in the wake of what has happened.

We go inside. Tony can’t sit still. Like me he prowls and patrols, pausing to sweep both hands over his head and clutch at his hair. It’s a gesture that makes me think of screaming. Of that Munch painting.

Once I’ve told Tony and Denise everything I can, which is precious little, he fires one question after another at Kay. What are you doing to catch who did this? How did he get in? Did the neighbours see anything? Was it a burglary? Can’t they use dogs or something? Have you found Broderick Litton? What about this prowler? He looks older, wrinkled face, pot belly. His hair is thick and wavy still, although there’s lots of grey and white among the original bronze colour.

Kay’s answers are honest, considered, all disappointing.

He shakes his head, scowling, his mouth tight. He is angry and he is impotent.

Denise doesn’t say much, but periodically she goes and touches him, clutches his hand, puts her palm on his chest. Calming him.

I look away.

Florence wakes and sits on Jack’s lap. She’s subdued, she must be bewildered; my house isn’t that big, and it’s full of people, including Kay, who she’s never met before.

‘Kay?’ I take her into the kitchen. ‘What do we tell Florence?’

‘Jack says she didn’t see anything?’ Kay checks.

‘That’s right; well,’ I amend, ‘as far as he knows.’ He was out at the gym so it’s possible Florence could have seen or heard something. There must have been some noise. Things were broken, weren’t they? Why do I think that? My impression of their living room is so sketchy, like a painting where the central subject is clear but everything beyond it is smudged and out of focus.

‘She needs to know,’ Kay says, ‘the simple facts. She might not understand.’

‘That makes two of us,’ I say bitterly.

Kay regards me steadily. ‘She’s four, she may not have a concept of death. She needs to understand that Mummy won’t be coming back, that her body doesn’t work any more, that she won’t wake up.’

‘I’ll get her breakfast first,’ I say tersely.

While Florence enjoys the bizarre novelty of having Grandpa Tony and Nana Denise watch her eat her Shreddies, I explain to Jack what Kay has told me.

‘I’ll do it,’ he says. ‘Can I take her upstairs?’

‘Yes, use my room or the spare room, there’s no one staying. If you want me to be there . . .’ He shakes my offer away.

It is the longest day. There seems to be no beginning to it and no end in sight. Florence is Jack’s shadow, and when it is time to identify the body I have to prise her off him, kicking and screaming. I had hoped to go, wanting to see Lizzie’s face, to be certain that the body I’d seen really was my daughter. To make it undeniably real. But Florence needs me here.

Jack’s parents, the Tennysons, are on their way from East Anglia, and Tony and Denise have left for now but Tony promised to return later.

After Jack gets back, he tells me that he had to identify Lizzie without looking at her face, which was covered because of the extent of the damage. He had to look at her hands and feet, her wedding ring and the tattoo on her right shoulder: a swallow in flight.

The savagery you must have used. To destroy her face. It astounds me.

Ruth

17 Brinks Avenue
Manchester
M19 6FX

‘Can we go home now?’ Florence has a boiled egg with soldiers. I’m relieved to see her eating. She turns to her father, wiping crumbs from her tiny fingers, a smear of egg yolk on her cheek.

‘Not yet,’ Jack says.

‘When?’

‘Another day, I don’t know when.’

She thinks about this, a small frown darkening her expression. ‘I want Bert.’ Bert is Florence’s teddy bear. White originally, a gift from Tony and Denise, he is now a muddy grey colour, with bald and ragged ears which Florence liked to chew on as a toddler.

‘Can someone fetch it?’ I ask Kay. Surely retrieving a child’s toy from a different room in the house will not hamper their endeavours, but Kay shakes her head. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as you can collect anything. Do you have clothes here for Florence?’

‘Not really, just the one change for emergencies.’ The words die in my mouth. I swallow. ‘And a box of toys.’ It’s kept in one of the kitchen cupboards, but someone got it out earlier and put it in the living room. Florence has ignored it so far.

‘Make a list,’ Kay says. ‘A few basics we can buy. You’ll need something too,’ she says to Jack. She passes him some paper and a pen.

‘I want Bert,’ Florence says, her voice rising.

‘You’ll see Bert soon,’ I try to reassure her. ‘Perhaps you could look after someone new till then.’

‘Who?’ she says suspiciously.

‘A dolly or a pony? Something from the toyshop. We could go and choose.’

It’s touch and go whether she’ll play ball or have a tantrum. ‘With Daddy,’ she says. She doesn’t want to be parted from him.

‘Of course,’ Kay says.

‘You’ll have to go barefoot,’ I say to Florence.

She makes a funny face and I laugh, then feel clumsy and guilty. Lizzie is dead. What sort of mother am I? What sort of human being?

I go with them. I’m not so different from my granddaughter, not keen to let people out of my sight, not comfortable at being left. After all, anything could happen. The world is a chaotic, dangerous, random place now.

We go to John Lewis; it’s out of town, with free parking and everything under one roof. We must make a strange sight: Jack and I looking wrecked, slow and distracted, Kay guiding us through the various departments.

We pick a couple of books, familiar ones that Florence has at home, then go to the toy section. Florence stands with her arms folded and surveys the bins of soft toys and the shelves of dolls with disdain. Jack and I make some suggestions:
the little donkey’s sweet, how about a polar bear, or the tiger?
She shakes her head each time.

Another child arrives, an older girl, perhaps seven, dressed in a pink pinafore dress and ballet shoes and with fuchsia-pink bows in her hair, dragging a woman, presumably her mother, by the hand. ‘This one,’ the girl squeals and grabs a baby doll. It’s one of those designed to look realistic, with a floppy neck and a protruding navel. There is a range of accessories to buy too, clothes and bottles, nappies and wipes. The woman asks the girl if she’s sure, and they move away with their booty.

‘Come on, Florence,’ Jack says. ‘Time to choose.’

Florence goes to one end of the display, then the other, picking up and relinquishing the toys. I can feel something like panic thickening in the air as she darts about.

‘You don’t have to get one,’ I tell her, ‘if you don’t like them.’

She gives a little shrug. We make it to the escalator, then she turns and runs back. Jack follows her. She picks up one of the lifelike dolls. It’s revolting. Staring blue eyes and a pursed rosebud mouth. The wrinkles around its neck and furrows on its forehead make me think of an alien or something old and decrepit.

When we reach the counter, Jack sways. ‘I’ve no card – my wallet . . .’ He throws his hands wide.

‘I’ve got mine, no problem,’ I tell him.

While Jack goes to get some clothes for himself, I select a few basic outfits for Florence, and spare pyjamas, a coat and some shoes. I barely look at the prices or the designs; all that matters is getting this done, finding the right size.

We go to the supermarket next door – cereal and fish fingers for Florence, a hot chicken, a French stick, wine, bananas, bread and milk.

As I wait to pay, I come close to meltdown. Barely able to stand this: buying food and choosing fruit seems sacrilegious. Irreverent. It’s only Florence really that keeps me halfway grounded. As it is, I get my pin number wrong this time. The girl on the checkout looks at us and says very slowly, ‘Try it again, love, you get three goes.’ She probably imagines we are a care-in-the-community group, practising our basic skills, or refugees of some sort. Which I suppose we are. Except there is no refuge, nowhere to flee. Reality, the reality you brought to our door, is inescapable. Our landscape has altered. We’re in the wilderness. You brought it to us.

At home, Florence leaves the doll, discarded, on the floor in the kitchen. After tea, once Jack promises to tuck her in, she lets me bath her. I dress her in her new pyjamas and dry her hair. Abruptly she bursts into tears, wailing, ‘I want Mummy.’ Her face is creased and red, tears streaming from her eyes and snot bubbling from her nose. I sit her on my lap and rock her and murmur little phrases: ‘You’re sad, Mummy’s dead and she can’t come back. Poor Florence. Poor Mummy. Poor Daddy.’ I weep too, but silently, not wanting to distress her any more. Gradually her crying fades and stops. She has hiccups.

Downstairs we read one of the books,
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
Of course we can go to the library and get more on Monday, if Jack and Florence are still here. I’ve no idea how long it will be until they can go home. I might ask Kay to take her to choose some books. I don’t know if I can face people at work. I want to hide away from the world.

Florence insists on sharing a room with Jack, so I tell him to use mine and I’ll take the spare room. I fetch some things I’ll need, then he puts her to bed and waits until she is asleep and comes downstairs leaving the doors open so we can hear if she cries out.

Kay advises us to only talk to the media with guidance from the police. She says they may ring me, so I put the answer-phone on to screen calls.

Lizzie’s murder is all over the television news, reports accompanied by a picture of her, cropped from a family photo. Film of their house, sealed off with that tape they use, provides the backdrop for the reporter talking to the camera. They say the same thing each time. ‘Greater Manchester Police launched a murder inquiry today after the body of twenty-nine-year-old Lizzie Tennyson was discovered yesterday evening in her home in the Levenshulme area of the city. Lizzie Tennyson was married with one child, and police are asking for anyone with any information to come forward.’

Bea, my oldest friend, is on the doorstep. Her face crumples when she sees me and I pull her inside and she gives me a hug so fierce I think she’ll crack my ribs. We go into the lounge. ‘I won’t stay,’ she says, ‘unless you—’