THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY - OLD SINS CAST LONG SHADOWS

THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY - EPISODE SEVEN

CHAPTER

TWELVE

DCI Shaw didn’t say a word when we resurfaced outside from the mortuary.  With his bloodless fists clenched and a manic gleam in his eyes, he strode towards the lift, and slapped his palm against the button, as if he was trying to bruise the wall.

            He had telephoned the Assistant Chief Constable and his side of the argument was still ringing in my ears.  He’d demanded a bigger task force.  More detectives.  Greater resources.  What he didn’t need was a ‘bloody amateur detective’ sprouting clichés and telling him the bloody obvious.

            I ran down the corridor to catch up with him while he held open the lift doors like he was Moses parting the Red Sea.

            The police car dropped me at my converted boathouse where I found Kira watching television silently, picking at a hangnail, a performance of compressed sullenness.  Tried to kiss her cheek, but she turned her face away.

            “I shouldn’t be long.”

            “I won’t be here when you get back.”

            “Please, Kira.  Not now.”

            “When then?  Tomorrow?  The next day? Next week?  Next month?”  She demanded.  “I came to Suffolk hoping we could start again.  But nothing is changed.  And nothing ever will.”

            Shaw waited outside, with the engine running.  I stopped at the mirror and stared at my reflection wondering how I had finished back here – on the cusp of another relationship breakdown and involved in another investigation.  Whatever skill I had, whatever ability to solve complicated cases it was turning into a curse.

            I climbed in next to Shaw, and he did not pull away at once, he sat there staring through the windscreen.  Finally, he spoke.

            “I’m sorry about earlier, John.”

            “That’s okay,” I said.

            “What we saw back there.”  He closed his eyes to try and dispel the images.  “That’s really upped the ante on this case.  I mean, someone removed her c******l hood and c******s.  That’s a religious thing, right?  Some Muslim communities do it to young girls.  Sew them up . . .”

            “It wasn’t religious.”

            “What sort of sick -”

            “It was punishment.  Payback.”

            “What? Revenge?”

            “Yes.”

            He blew air from his cheeks and shook his head.

            “Come on,” he said shaking himself out of his reverie, “we’re not going to catch a killer sitting here pontificating.”

            After slow progress on the slippery roads, we crossed a cattle grate a drive along the rutted truck with six-foot-high hedges on either side.  We saw nothing until we turned the next corner and a whitewashed two-storey farmhouse came into view, tucked hard against the ridge, protected from the worst of the prevailing winds.

            An unmarked police car was parked near the front gate.  We were back in the grounds of Mabbott Manor, and the big house could still be seen in all its glory across the snow-covered fields.

            The cold hit me as we got out of the Land Rover, and I didn’t hang about walking into the house. Immediately to my left was a round table with matching chairs.    There was one painting on the wall, and it dominated the room.

            It was a painting of half a man and half a woman.  The man side was wearing a suit and the woman side was wearing a dress.  I checked the signature at the bottom of the picture.

 Wendy Clark had painted it herself.  But there was something oddly familiar in the joint face.

            Shaw brought over two of the photographs and showed them to me.  The first showed a young man with his arm around a young woman.  And the second was a more recent one of Lady Mabbott with Wendy Clark.  There was quite a strong familiarity between them, despite them only being step siblings.

            “What is it, John?”  Shaw asked, sensing I was pondering over the photographs longer than necessary.

            “I don’t know,” I admitted.  “Something is staring me right in the face and I can’t see it.”

            “Come on, John,” he said encouragingly, “I know you can do this.  Piece together a crime that nobody else.”

            I didn’t respond.  I couldn’t find any words.  Despite Shaw confidence in my ability, it wouldn’t come to the forefront of my psyche.  He stood there waiting.  He suddenly looked older than what he was when I’d first met him.  This case would either make him or break him.  Exhaustion had pouched the skin below his eyes and deepened the wrinkles on his forehead.

            Every fibre of my being been telling me to admit that I was completely stumped by this case.  I should just walk away.  Get the DCI to take me home and try and patch things up with Kira before I lose her forever.  Yet without thinking, I started collecting details and picturing events.

            Was she murdered here first and then taken to the crypt? 

            “Were there any traces of blood left around the house?”

            “No.”

            “Latent prints?”

            “Forty-eight full or partial prints, most of them match the family.”

            “They did visit her here?”

            “Seems that way, yes.”

            Shaw continued to talk.  “Forensic services collected fibres from the rug.  There were old semen stains on the bedding.  The DNA results matched Lord Mabbott.  At least that confirms their affair.”

            A dripping tap made a dull plinking sound like someone plucking a single harp string.  Standing at the kitchen sink, I gazed out of the window into the darkness.  Something caught my eye as the security light came on – a movement near the stables.  A ginger-and-black tabby cat was sniffing at the rubbish bins.

            “Did Wendy Clark have any pets?”  I asked.

            “I don’t know.  Why?”

            “I think she’s come home.”

            Shaw opened the back door and walked out into the garden.  I watched him crouch and call softly to the tabby, holding out his hand.  The cat looked at him suspiciously.  He moved closer.  With a flick of her tail, she was gone, disappearing into the snow that had settled near the curved belly of the diesel tank.

            “She’s probably starving,” he said, returning to the kitchen and opening cupboards.  He found a tin of cat food and started looking for an opener while I grew impatient to continue.

            Once he was satisfied that he’d done his bit for animal welfare he followed me upstairs.  At the top of the narrow staircase, we turned back on ourselves and followed a landing the length of the house.  There were bedrooms either side.  One of them had an en-suite bathroom, which were naked shells, half-finished, awaiting tiles and fittings.  There were drop sheets on the floors where the tools and bags of tiling grout awaited the return of tradesmen.

            “Lady Mabbott had gained planning permission to turn this cottage into a bed and breakfast, once her step-sister had left.”

            The master bedroom had an antique cast-iron bed that held a sagging mattress as if an invisible corpse was lying in the centre.  The sheets were gone.  Forensics would be searching for fibres, sweat, semen or flakes of skin.

            A walk-in wardrobe led to an ensuite.  Standing amid the hanging racks of clothes, I ran my fingers over the garments, feeling the fabrics.  Size 12.  Named brands.  Most of the styles belonged to past years.  These are clothes being made to last by a woman once accustomed to having money, who suddenly discovered that she might not have enough.

            Is that why she came back from Australia?

            When I pulled open the drawer, lingerie spilt out:  G-strings and camisoles and matching bra and panties, some of them almost lighter than air.  Not the thought of underwear you would associate with a transgender female.

            And where the gift, or did Wendy Clark buy them for herself?

            Slipped my hand into her coat pockets, pulling out a sweet wrapper, a dry-cleaning stub, loose change, half a cinema ticket, a petrol receipt, and a business card for a plumbing company.

            Stepped into the ensuite.  The toilet seat was down.  A single towel was hanging neatly on the rails outside the shower/bath.

            Shaw was waiting in the bedroom.

            “Well?”

            “She had similar tastes to her step-sister.”

            Pausing at the window, I looked across the small rectangular front garden to where a railing fence separates it from the grounds of Mabbott Manor.

            A book was resting on the side table beneath the light:  The Mystery of the Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah.  A bookmark poked from between the pages, halfway through.  She won’t finish the story.  Not unless she has found another life.

            I viewed cases differently from the police.  Physical clues and witnesses are important when it comes to making a case against a suspect but have little benefit unless they have context.  The farmhouse had tens of thousands of pieces of information.  It would tell me how Wendy Clark lived, what she ate, wore drank, shared, read, listened to, and watched on TV.  Open any drawer, or book, or photo album and I would learn something about her.  But what good was all that information if I couldn’t tell which one of the details was important and which was rubbish.

            “I want you to do something for me,” I said to Shaw.  “Ask one of your constables to drive down to the cattle grate, turn around and drive back again.”

            The DCI didn’t ask me why.  Moments later I watched from the bedroom window as the young police officer negotiated the snow-covered farm track in the unmarked police car.  It disappeared between the hedgerows and I imagined him doing a three-point turn when he reached the main road.  In the meantime, I stretched out on the bare mattress and patted the bed.

            “Come on, lie down.”

            Shaw raised an eyebrow.  “I don’t bat for the other side, you know.”

            “Shut up and lie down.”

            “What are we doing?”

            “Listening.”

            We both remained still, staring at the white-painted ceiling until I heard the car labouring up the track and crunching over the freezing snow and ice.  It pulled up outside the stables.  A vehicle door opened and closed.

            “Could you sleep through that?”

            “Depends on how much beer I’d had the night before.”

“But under normal circumstances, you would hear that?"

            “Yes.”

            Retracing my steps, I descended the stairs and walked along the hallway to the kitchen and then outside to the rear gate where the lawn had the footsteps of the forensics team criss-crossing in all directions.  My gaze swept over the windows and the French doors.  I watched for a long time without stirring, hearing only the slow beat of my heart and hoarse cry of gulls.

            DCI Shaw followed me outside.

            “Is anything missing?”  I asked.

            “Like what?”

            “Paperwork, that sort of thing.  Letters from the hospital.  Evidence of her being a transgender.”

            “But Dr Laurie has already confirmed that Wendy Clark had children.”

            “What if that body at the mortuary isn’t Wendy Clark?”

            “What?” Shaw looked puzzled.

            “There is no evidence of a transgender living in this house,” I said firmly.  "No medication, no medical letters.  No clothes that looked male orientated."

            “But the body was officially identified,” Shaw said.

            “By whom?”

            “Adam Mabbott.”

            The young police officer asked if he should lock up the farmhouse.  DCI Shaw nodded, and we waited as the constable threaded a chain and padlock on the door.

            “What’s happening to this place?”

            “Officially, it’s still classed as a crime scene.”

            “I might have to come back here.  It could help me understand more.”

            “I’ll get you a spare set of keys.”

            “Shall we go and interview Adam Mabbott?”

            “What now?”  The DCI looked at his watch.  “It’s getting on a bit.”

            “Tomorrow morning, then.”

            “That will be okay,” Shaw said.  “I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere.  Come on I’ll take you home.”

            I felt a sense of dread facing Kira, but I knew I couldn’t run away or bury my head in the sand.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

 The house was in total darkness when I got home, and Kira had fallen asleep on the sofa.  I fetched a blanket and covered her, being careful not to disturb her.

            On the table, there was evidence of a Kira doing some of her private paperwork.  She had separated her work receipts and bundled them in an envelope, to claim them later than expenses.

            I picked up the envelope and rested it on her handbag on the floor behind her.  As I did, I noticed a partially crumpled receipt on the floor.  I picked it up and flattened it out on the table.  The name of the hotel was written in elaborate script across the top.  It was a room service bill for breakfast, including champagne, bacon, eggs, fruit, and pastries.  Kira had really gone to town. 

            I screwed the bill into a ball and motioned to throw it away.  I still don’t know what stopped me – a question mark:  a tinge of disquiet.  The sensation scrambled and disappeared.  It was too quiet outside, and I didn’t want to hear myself think.

            I moved upstairs and stumbled over Kira’s suitcase in my bedroom.  The suitcase had fallen open, and I noticed a bundle of black lace now on the bedroom floor.  A camisole and knickers.  I draped the straps of the camisole over my forefingers.  Something snagged in my chest – the same niggling sense of disquiet that I felt a few moments ago when I found the hotel receipt for a champagne breakfast.

            She had worn these.  But who for?  Kira had never worn sexy lingerie in all the time we were together.  She had said it was impractical.  I’d bought her something flimsy for Valentine’s Day, a couple of years ago, and she had only ended up wearing it once.  She preferred her Marks & Spencer briefs, high cut, and size twelve, black or white.  What had made her change her mind?

            I wanted to storm downstairs and ask her but no matter how I framed the question in my mind it made me sound jealous.

            I took out my mobile and studied the hotel receipt again.  The Hotel Excelsior was a short walk from Liverpool Street mainline railway station, in London.  I dialled the number and a woman answered. The night manager.  She sounded young, tired, and Irish.  It was past midnight.

            “I would like to query an invoice,” I whispered, cupping my hand over the mobile.

            “Yes, sir.  When did you stay here, sir?”

            “No, it’s not for me.  It’s for an employee.”

            I’d thought of a cover story.  I was an accountant calling from Suffolk, doing an audit.  I gave her Kira’s name and the dates of her stay, which was two days before she met me at the railway station.

            “Miss Reed settled her account in full.  She paid with her credit card.”

            “I just wanted to ask about a room service charge for breakfast . . . With champagne.”

            “Is Miss Reed querying her bill?” she asked.

            “Could there be a mistake?”

            “The room charges were shown to Miss Reed when she settled her account.”

            “Under the circumstance, it seems rather a lot for one person.  I mean, look at the order: bacon and eggs smoked salmon, pancakes, pastries, strawberries, and champagne."

            “Yes, sir.  I have the details of the order.”

            “It’s a lot for one person.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            She didn’t understand the point I was trying to make.

            “Who signed for it?”

            “Someone signed the docket when breakfast was delivered to the room.”

            “So, you can’t tell me if Miss Reed signed for it?”

            There was a pause.  “Would you like me to email an attachment copy of the signature, sir?”

            “Is it legible?”

            “I don’t know, sir.”

            Another phone was ringing in the background.  The night manager was alone on the desk.  She suggested I call later in the morning and talk to the hotel manager.

            “I’m sure we will be happy to reimburse Miss Reed.  The charges will be refunded to her credit card.”

            Alarm bells rang as I recognized the danger.  Kira would see the r****d on her card statement.

            “No, it’s fine.  Don’t bother.”

            “But if Miss Reed feels she has been overcharged -”

            “She may have been mistaken.  I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

            I ended the call and sat on the edge of the bed, cursing my stupidity.  Why would an accountant be doing an audit query on a hotel bill in the middle of the night?

            After stripping down to my boxer shorts, I slipped under the covers and lay in the darkness. I tossed and turned but just couldn't find the right position. A lingering haze of sleep sat somewhere at the back of my mind but was too far away to reach, floating in the pool of my memories. Icy discomfort blossomed in my chest and made it difficult for me to breathe. Trying to make myself fall into slumber, I took as many deep breaths as I could, but many just caught in my throat, like an icy wind had blown down there and managed to freeze the air solid. At that moment, I knew this was going to be a long night.

            In my sleeplessness, I became drunk on silence. For hours, it had seeped into my pores, dowsing my mind in its thick toxicity. The usefulness of my thoughts left long ago, leaving fatigued neurones to fire randomly- flailing without direction. I wanted so much to not think at all, I want to be absorbed into the darkness that the night promised me. I wanted to be waking refreshed to streaming white daylight, unaware of the hours between then and now. But as usual my wishes meant nothing and behind my closed lids the idiocy continued.

            I always thought of "drowsy" as a soft word, like "blanket" and "hug." The chemicals in my blood felt more like a leech in my cranium, sucking my ability to keep my eyes open and my brain switched on. The world blurred like a painting caught in the rain too soon and once again the vivid dreams began, always inserting Zoë where she never was.

            I drifted in and out of consciousness. The world was a blur, and random images seemed to float aimlessly around in the pool of my thoughts, as though a hurricane was about viciously blowing them. I felt somebody trying to look at me, staring death in the eye, but I couldn’t keep focus. The entire world simply felt low in resolution, an inferior quality movie. Confusion blossomed in my heart and I knew that eventually I would need to wake up. To stare reality in the face. But for now, I lay down my heavy head and retreated into wallowing blackness.

            I was disturbed by a creaking noise bringing a chill to my spine. It sounded like a dying animal, crying out in pain and sorrow with its last breath.  The footsteps that followed had the sound of someone walking barefoot; someone who hadn’t learnt to walk quietly and instead relied on their naked toes to muffle their steps. Each footstep chaotically spaced from the last, no rhythm at all. Whoever it was lacked confidence, was apprehensive.

            Kira slid in behind me.  Quietly snuggling up. I said nothing and just listened to her fall asleep.

            An hour passed, and I slid her head gently onto her pillow and slipped out of bed, tiptoeing downstairs.  Crushed in my hand was the hotel receipt for the London hotel.  I ripped it into small pieces that fluttered into the wastepaper bin.

            Returning to bed, I carefully rolled onto my side and looked at Kira. Her features were much softer in sleep, the lines that usually creased her brow replaced by the younger appearance that matched those of others her age. She looked peaceful. Wanting nothing more than to curl up into the curve of her body, I turned around and pulled the duvet up over my shoulder.

            I felt the blackness overwhelm me, like a blanket. My eyes felt heavier and heavier. As my consciousness ebbed, my mind went into free fall, swirling with the chaos of a new dream.

            Waking up was harsh, especially as my dreams were better than reality. The saddest part of it was, though, that eventually, even the memory of my dream would fade - if I was even lucky enough to remember it at all. Then I was left with this lonely feeling of detachment, left to explore the empty void of emotions, the only proof that I’d ever had the dream, to begin with.

            I awoke in the folds of the duvet.  I’d missed Kira waking and getting dressed.  In the past, I’d watched her slip out of bed in the half-light and cold, lifting her nightdress over her head.  My eyes were always drawn to the dimple in the small of her back, just above the elastic of her knickers.

            I checked my watch. It was after nine.  For a while, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.  Downstairs I heard footsteps and laughter.  Other sounds drifted from outside – a tractor in the lane, a dog barking.  Opening the curtains, I looked out of the window at the blizzard the weatherman had promised. If anything, it was stronger.

            There was nothing friendly about the snow outside; it fell thick enough to blind any traveller by foot or vehicle. The gale whipped each flake, so pretty on its own, into a projectile that would hurt unguarded skin. The sky above had none of the light that morning should have, so thick were the black clouds. And the sound, dear God, the sound, like one wind-chime taking the full intensity of these hurricane force winds. "Blizzard" hardly seemed an adequate word for what the world outside has become.

            I stepped into the shower toed flinching as they touched the chilled ceramic floor. My mind was in shreds; I couldn’t get the image of Wendy Clark’s in my mind. I turned the dial, old and metallic, releasing thousands of lukewarm drops, darkening my hair, and trickled down my back. I closed my eyes and on each occasion my memories showed me images like photographs.

            The water poured down, dripping by my side, as my mind faded into dullness and everything became a foggy illusion. The sensation of the steamy water calmed me; it eventually took my mind off things. All the things I honestly didn’t care about. It was the water. My mind swirled, and it was like I was standing under an everlasting waterfall. Ever so beautiful, that could never last, I knew that now.

            I lumbered downstairs, teeth brushed, and body washed.  Laughter came from the kitchen where Kira and Shaw were sitting at the kitchen table.  His right hand went up to her cheek, but she palmed it away gently with an understanding smile on her face.

            “Morning,” I said.

            Kira was startled at my sudden appearance at the foot of the stairs and immediately busied herself at the cooker, rushing around as if she was walking on hot coals

            "Take a seat, I'll get you some breakfast," she said, nervously.

            I poured myself a coffee and sat opposite Shaw.  Kira, meanwhile, started breaking eggs into a bowl, whisking them vigorously into a liquid froth.

            “You’re early,” I said to the DCI 

            He looked over the paper at me.  “Have you seen the weather out there? I wanted to make sure we gave ourselves enough time before we interviewed Adam Mabbott.”

            “Fair enough.”  I acknowledged.

            Kira scooped the bacon from the frying pan and the scrambled eggs, tipping all them onto thick slices of buttered toast.

            I ate quickly while DCI Shaw sat there patiently reading.  The coffee burnt my throat as I washed my breakfast down with every mouthful.  When I’d finished, I wiped my lips with a paper napkin.

            “That was just the job,” I told her, getting out of my seat.  “Shall we go?”

            I turned and gave Kira a kiss.        It was a brief and perfunctory kiss. Duty done a ritual performed. She smiled at me with warmth. But had I looked more closely would I have noticed her glazed expression and guessed the real reason for her pleasure?