Made To Be Broken (4 page)

After another full day at work, keeping an eye on the sudden death that had come into the office the previous day, that Martin seemed to have a handle on, and organising the necessary media holding statement, I stopped off at the newsagents, on the way home, to pick up some chocolate, a copy of the
Nottingham Today
and a fresh pint of milk – as I was sure the stuff I’d drank that morning had probably been at least two days out of date.

Home was an apartment at the base of Nottingham castle, which had a great view of the cave entrances, caves that ran underneath a great portion of the city. With the door bolted behind me I kicked off my shoes, leaving them where they landed and padded to the kitchen. The milk and one bar of chocolate went in the fridge and I tore open the wrapper of the second with my teeth as I reached for a glass and poured myself a red wine. The long day had taken its toll on my still healing body so I shoved a couple of painkillers down with the wine. The chocolate was half eaten as I slugged back the deep red liquid. Soothing and relaxing. I turned to the counter and opened up the paper. I found the small article on the death of Lianne Beers that our media liaison, Claire Betts, had released, reporting that police were dealing with an incident at Bramcote, which at this time was being treated as suspicious. Arrangements had been made for a PM etc. However, it was the featured headline I was interested in:

Inquest Opened into murdered Detective Sally Poynter

The byline was Ethan Gale’s.

I shoved the rest of the chocolate into my mouth, grabbed the glass, bottle and the paper and carried them into the living room. Cross-legged on the sofa, I read the article.

Detective Constable Sally Poynter, 32, was murdered in the course of her duty on 4 November 2013. The inquest into her death was opened at Nottingham Coroner’s court yesterday.

The inquest will look at the facts of the case including DC Poynter’s involvement in the homicide investigation that was running at the time, the management of the investigation and staff and the risk assessment that was made of the premises where she was killed prior to a forced and rapid entry.

Her supervisors at the time were Detective Sergeant Aaron Stone and Detective Inspector Hannah Robbins. Neither of whom have been willing to speak to the
Today
on this matter.

Nottinghamshire police have instigated an IPCC investigation into the murder of DC Poynter and state they will not comment until that investigation is complete.

A colleague who joined Nottinghamshire police on the same intake with Sally Poynter said, ‘Sally was a great cop. She loved her job and was always smiling. I can’t believe this has happened. She will be sorely missed and always remembered.’

DC Sally Poynter leaves behind husband, Tom Poynter.

I slugged back the wine and stared at the article that was now shaking in my hand. Ethan Gale. My ex-lover. A relationship that had been growing and could maybe have gone somewhere, but when everything had blown up in my face that night it had been the start of a very rapid ending. He had, of course, been there for me when he heard of my own injury, the knife wound to my right bicep, which had needed surgery and still gave me problems, but his job conflicted with mine to such an extent it was just untenable. Every time he had wanted to talk I had never known if it was to help and support me or to feed his growing byline portfolio. It had been a high profile case, my emotions were a mess and his career possibilities grew as each day passed and the force tried to pick up the pieces from the incident.

Now, reading his report I felt … hurt. Especially after our meal out, where he had offered support, again. But within this article, was he blaming me for Sally’s death? Subliminally? Was the paper going to cause a public outcry and demand further blood be spilled? I wondered how he felt in the writing of it. Did he need to dull the pain of loss with a glass of wine to write it, just as I did to read it?

I refilled my glass and read it again.

The office space we were sitting in with Home Office forensic pathologist Jack Kidner at the Queen’s Medical Centre on Derby Road was neat and clinical and smelled strongly of antiseptic. The sharp clean smell made me want to sneeze and I kept wrinkling up my nose.

Jack worked an on-call system with several of his colleagues over a five-force area that mirrored the EMSOU force structure.

Jack sat behind a desk that had one in-tray on one side and one out-tray on the other, with a laptop sat neatly between. A desk I could only dream of. I picked up my green tea, which Jack brought in especially for my visits and swallowed the soothing drink. DC Martin Thacker sat on my right. I’d asked him to attend Lianne’s post-mortem on a just-in-case basis and now, several days later, as we’d been called in by Jack, I knew it had been the right decision, though at the time he’d had nothing to report from the PM other than a fairly healthy woman with no obvious signs of illness or foul play. Something was obviously amiss.

I put my cup back down on Jack’s desk and looked at him. He cleared his throat and opened a file; the contents I could see upside down contained reports from the PM.

‘So, young Hannah,’ he looked back up at me, ‘this was a difficult one to deal with. Initially this was a negative post-mortem as I’m imagining Martin told you.’

Martin nodded.

‘But with such a young and healthy young woman we couldn’t leave it there. I obtained bloods and a stomach sample for toxicology but they came back with a negative result.’

‘So, what are you telling me Jack, that this really is a natural death?’ Had he really called us down here for this? It wasn’t like him.

He frowned at me, peering over the top of his reading glasses. I felt the weight of his disapproval. ‘No, Hannah, I’m not telling you this is a natural death; do stop getting ahead of yourself, dear girl.’

I crossed my legs and waited for him to continue.

‘It would seem that we have a suspicious death on our hands.’

I looked across at Martin who knitted his eyebrows together and shrugged.

‘Everything is in order so far, Ma’am. We haven’t missed any opportunity at evidence gathering.’

‘But, you just said …’ I returned my gaze to Jack.

‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? The bruising we saw corresponds to the crime scene photographs of the location of the body with the kitchen counter top, floor and stool falling on her. None of the injuries would have been likely to be cause of death. They weren’t significant enough.’ He referred to his report again before continuing. I knew better than to interrupt him. This was his field of expertise and I needed his answers. 

‘The toxicology, as I say, came back negative, but I wasn’t happy, I really don’t like negative post-mortems, especially in people so young, so I sent it off again for a new set of tests, which is why it’s taken this long to come back to you with the results – but this is where it gets interesting.’ I’m sure I nearly saw Jack smile, though he was very aware of being professional about his patients. ‘Lianne Beers had digoxin in her system and enough to kill her.’

Ah, this is why we were here. ‘Was she on di—?’

‘Digoxin. It’s derived from the Foxglove plant,
digitalis lanata
. Agatha Christie used Digitalis as a weapon of choice once you know.
Appointment With Death.
’

For a man dealing with death day in, day out, Jack had a love of all things crime fiction. It was fascinating to see.

Sometimes.

I nodded. Sipped my tea again. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Martin smile.

‘It’s usually given to patients with atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter and heart failure and after doing her PM and reading her doctor’s notes and seeing all the drugs you seized from her home, I can tell you she didn’t have any problems with her heart. There was no reason for me to find digoxin in her system. She was in a reasonably good state of health.’

I didn’t like where this was going. ‘So what are we saying then?’

‘I’m saying,’ and he did smile at me now, ‘that she was killed by digoxin toxicity, of which there was no medical need for her to be using and it was not listed in the drug contents at her home … so it would appear you have a suspicious death on your hands, Hannah.’

Martin leaned forward now. ‘Any idea how it got into her system? Were there any needle marks on her body that you found?’

‘Ah, now then, there were no needle marks on her body, so that question is one for you to answer.’

‘So what are we looking for?’ Anthony Grey, my chief inspector, asked. He steepled his hands, contemplating the new information I had just given him.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘So we’re going back into Lianne Beers’ house to look for something, but you don’t know what. I presume you’re taking a team of CSIs with you?’ He rested his chin on his hands as he thought through what I was saying. I could feel the pressure building around me. Since Sally’s murder last year, I could see our team had only been picking up the jobs that looked cut and dried. Nothing too taxing to wear us out or for us to screw up while the force assessed the emotional damage to the team, emotionally, but more importantly to them, reputedly and accountably. This had looked to be one of those steady jobs when it first came in and now here I was telling him that it was bigger than first thought. That rather than a nice, medical justification like a blown aneurysm or some other such reason, Lianne Beers’ death was more likely to be something sinister that we had to look into and deal with seriously. Grey had aged at least another couple of years in the last six months. He was obviously feeling the stress and wouldn’t want this right now.

‘Do what you need to do, Hannah. Talk everything through as you do it with Jack, as he knows what’s possible and what’s not, and talk each step through as you do it, with the senior CSI on duty.’ He sighed and pulled his hands apart, leaning back in his chair.

Leaning away from the job.

2010

The teenage years and alcohol experimentation was a difficult time. At fourteen years of age he nearly had a meltdown. All he had taught her, and her peers had undone all that hard and loving work in no time at all. Now every time she was out of the house in the evening Emma was managing to get hold of some kind of alcoholic product and it didn’t really matter what kind it was. Though Blue WKD was a favourite, cheap old cider would do. She would say she was going out to a mate’s house but he would find out she’d been hanging out with her friends on the shop fronts on Derby Road. A large group, which was intimidating to many who passed them.

Isaac spent many sleepless nights trying to resolve the problem. He’d start by grounding her for a few days. It made the atmosphere in the house electric. Tight and fierce. An angry burst of energy about to be fired off at any opportunity. He had never experienced anything like it. He stood his ground and hoped that she would learn her lesson, that drinking this stuff outside on the street was both dangerous and unhealthy. When the time for her to be allowed out of the house came, it was only a week before Connie came to him after noticing alcohol on her breath again and a bottle under her bed.

The second time around, Emma was grounded for two weeks. She voluntarily cloistered herself into her bedroom. She wanted nothing to do with him. To her, Isaac was evil and knew nothing of what life was really like. She was capable of taking care of herself and there was nothing wrong with drinking on the street on a school night. Isaac paced around the house. Tried to speak to her at the dinner table. But on the whole he left Connie to try and talk to her about her safety. When she was drunk anyone could take advantage of her and she could be hurt in any number of ways. To have these discussions going on in his house made his skin itch and his fingers crawled their way up his sleeves and clawed away at the skin on his arms. He hoped she would pass through this phase soon.

She came home from town one Saturday with the tragus piercing; to him it was just the bobbly bit at the front of her ear that should not be pierced. He ranted at her. Towering, using his height to full advantage to show his rage at what she had done to her body, how she had mutilated herself. He was livid. She was perfect. Flawless. Born pure and clean and she had taken a choice to do this to herself. This didn’t matter to Emma. She stood mute. Listening to him, her father. Watching until he burnt himself out with his tirade. Refusing to provide the information of where she’d had it done. She also refused to take it out and he wasn’t going to do it forcibly for fear of injuring her, causing even more permanent damage. So they stood at an impasse. He couldn’t believe how stubborn and rigid she was.

It continued like this and he thought he had lost her. His only beloved child. Lost to the jungle that was teenage hormones and peers and environment. Parenting had never been so hard. Sleepless nights and dirty nappies had nothing on these years. He just wanted his Em back. The sweet Em. The Em who loved and adored him. The Em who had a future and who wanted that future. Not the Em who didn’t care what the world held as long as it was with her mates in Stapleford.

This Em didn’t care if she had a future of any kind or not … and it broke his heart.