He nodded. ‘Ouch, yes, just a cramp. I’ll get right onto it, guv.’ He turned to his keyboard and began tapping away.
Wyre hit the send button on the email she had just finished and removed the headset she was wearing, slightly lifting a chunk of her black hair to reveal her fine neckline. Her neatly starched collar fit her with just the correct amount of room and her tailored jacket pinched in slightly at the waist. Gina knew she could never carry off tailored to that degree.
A door slammed and heavy footsteps stomped down the corridor. Briggs. Their door flew open and he filled the doorway with his presence, something he’d always done with ease. Gina’s mind flashed back to a time he’d filled her bedroom door with his presence, but he hadn’t been wearing an expression as serious as the one he was wearing now. ‘I need a team at the bridge, the one that goes over the River Arrow on the approach to Cleevesford. A man was out with his two young sons walking their dog and they’ve discovered a body.’
Gina’s stomach dropped. All this time she’d half-thought that Susan had just been overwhelmed with life but Mary knew that something was wrong. It had to be Susan. Running her hand across her face, she was trying to figure out how she would break this news to Susan’s family. Three children would grow up without their mother. Gina suddenly felt lucky for once in her life. Her mother had always been there when she was growing up. She braced herself with what was coming next.
‘We don’t have an accurate description of the victim. Bernard and Keith are already on their way so the tent should be going up as soon as possible. Uniform have also been informed and will be cordoning off the area. PC Kapoor has just left. I need detectives down there now, talking to the family. Gina, you will be Senior Investigating Officer. Don’t miss anything.’
Jacob slammed through the door, his short back and sides looking like they were firmly plastered to his head as he went to take a seat in his booth.
‘Don’t get comfortable. Body found alongside the River Arrow.’
He swigged the coffee on his desk and slammed the cup down as he put his coat on.
‘We best go,’ Gina said as she almost left him behind, causing him to run after her.
Twenty-Six
As soon as she heard her mother slamming the front door behind her, Clare got back into bed and put the television on. The detective had called by the night before to keep them updated and she’d also called later to tell them that a television and radio appeal would be on the local news this morning. Several times she’d re-run the news report. Everyone would now be worried for poor little attention-seeking Susan. Mary and Howard had claimed that they couldn’t just sit around dwelling on the news all day and had vowed to carry on as normal for the children. Her fussing mother had taken Rory and Harrison to their respective nurseries – that way they could all pace the floor without the children seeing.
She rewound the clip without the volume, enjoying the silence. With no Harrison to break the peace and her mother no doubt heading back to Susan’s house to replace her blue box, she had the house to herself for a while. Even Howard had taken himself out of his office to pick up some computer spares for a client. Susan’s perfect face stared back at her as she paused the appeal. Perfect heart shape, no double chin, even skin tone showing off her light fake tan. She wondered if society would be so sympathetic if it was she who had gone missing. Frumpy, bedraggled Clare. The one with the loud child, the woman who always dressed like she’d thrown her clothes on as she walked out the door; one of life’s multiple failures. Clare – can’t keep a job, can’t keep a home and can’t control her child. Overweight, spot-marked Clare. All she knew is that people were judgmental, she’d heard them making fat jokes behind her back and saying what a brat Harrison was. She’d heard it all and she’d despised their ignorance.
She stared at the vape her mother had bought her to wean her off tobacco. It wasn’t a match for her beloved cigarettes. She lit up and lay back.
Don’t smoke in my house. It smells. Go outside, to the back of the garden or beyond. Keep walking until you reach the river and hopefully you’ll fall in and never come backshe said in her head, in her mother’s voice.
No, mother dear, this time she wasn’t going out in the cold to smoke. Her son wasn’t at home, no one else was. Who could she harm? Only herself. She sucked deeply on the nicotine stick and held the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds before puffing it out in little o’s. Her troubles leaving her behind.
She stared at Susan’s photo and sucked on the cigarette.
As soon as Susan turned thirteen, she had ruled the house. She was in charge, her mood dictating everyone else’s. Every time she ran away, she’d receive a hero’s return, which Susan had always lapped up. Susan had played it smoothly by shutting herself in her room because that commanded even more attention – clever. Mary would make excuses for her, knock on the door with little trays of biscuits to cheer her up, saying that the loss of their father had affected Susan in a bad way. Mary didn’t care about Clare though. She’d pined for her father more than either of them.
Clare’s life changed as much as her mother’s when her father had died. Since then, she was put in charge of looking after Susan and had borne the brunt of all her moods. The sister who would never speak to her, who slammed doors in her face, who swore so venomously and pushed her away. She hadn’t appreciated the sacrifices Clare had made. At eighteen, Clare wanted to go out with her friends but her mother’s constant night shifts never allowed it.
Her mother would always return in the morning and press Clare to tell her everything. How was Susan? How did she seem? Did she seem odd/off? Did you check on her? Did you speak to her? Did you hear her call anyone? What did you cook for her? Mary never once asked about Clare and how she was coping – which she wasn’t. She thought about the friends who’d eventually stopped asking her to go out with them. She thought about the job she couldn’t cope with because of her responsibilities at home. She thought about the dates she’d missed out on, the dowdy clothes she wore because her mum had no money and the mess her hair was in. It was alright for Susan. When she wanted a little adventure she just ran away. Susan always seemed to have nice clothes but she’d never tell Clare how she got them, which led Clare to accuse her of shoplifting. That’s when Clare had started to follow her precious little sister…
She flicked through the apps on her phone. Several notifications on Facebook, a couple on Twitter, another email from the company that were handling her bankruptcy. She had no idea how her mother would react when she found out she’d have house guests for several years rather than a few more weeks or months. Susan had been angry that Clare had moved back in with them, especially when her mother had been too tired to babysit as much. Clare knew Harrison was draining the lifeblood out of them all.
‘Ouch,’ she yelled. The cigarette had half-burned and a string of ash singed a hole in the quilt cover. No doubt she’d never hear the end of it when her mother eventually saw it. Rolling over, she stubbed the cigarette out and gazed back at her phone. Facebook, Twitter or email? Which one would she click on first?
Facebook. Scrolling down the invites to pages she’d never heard of or wasn’t interested in and the group alerts, she soon realised there was nothing of interest. Jobs, she’d check out what was going locally. If she didn’t, Mary wouldn’t let it go. Although not many jobs she was qualified to do would help her out of the financial hole she was stuck in. Her mother was determined Clare would be back on her feet soon but redundancy had hit her hard. The bank loan had been covered by the credit cards and the repayments on those had eventually been covered by the payday loans. That’s when she’d finally lost the debt battle. Plus, she’d never get the same money again for the supervisory role she’d worked up to at the plastics factory.
Life was too short. Catching up on local gossip would be a good way of procrastinating. ‘What’s Up Cleevesford?’, her favourite group. Surely gossip about her little sister would be rife on there by now. She jolted up, devouring every comment. Post after post, all saying the same thing.
Her phone went, it was Ryan. ‘Have you heard about the body?’
‘What body? I’m just on Facebook now.’
‘Turn the news on.’
She grappled under the quilt, feeling around until her fingers brushed the cold plastic. She turned the volume up and her heart sank as she read the headline.
Twenty-Seven
Gina shivered as she pulled up next to the forensics van. An ambulance was parked a little further down, next to one of the police cars. She dreaded leaving the sanctuary of her lovely warm car only to be confronted by one of the coldest days of the year so far, and a body. She almost hated herself a little for being glad it wasn’t summer. Nothing turned her stomach more than the stench of hot decaying flesh covered in maggots.
Jacob slammed the car door and wearily stretched before striding towards the riverbank. Gina followed him down the little path until they reached a walkway that narrowed to a frozen mud and crisp leaf path, neither of them speaking a single word. The river gently flowed, giving a sense of peace to the location, a serene feel that would soon be ruined. In the distance she spotted PC Kapoor getting the outer cordon tape tangled as she struggled to wrap it around a few trees. Fingers trying to work through the barrier of thick woollen gloves. Several members of the public moved back on her command and three excited Alsatians being held back by their owner began to bark. That sense of tranquillity had now gone, only to be replaced by a frantic hustle bustle.
