Текст книги "Bones in the Nest"

Автор книги: Helen Cadbury

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

‘You miss a lot inside, don’t you?’ Terry Starkey said. ‘There’s always something new.’

Sean nodded and looked up to see his father winking at him. He’d like to know how long he was supposed to have been away for and what the charges were. Jack’s mad grin suggested he’d been embellishing a story while Starkey had been in the flat.

‘It’s loading now. Do you want a beer or something while we’re waiting?’

Starkey’s eyes lit up. ‘Sweet, mate.’

‘Nowt in the place, lad. I told you,’ Jack said. ‘I’m on the Twelve Steps.’

‘You don’t mind if Terry gets a couple in for me and him?’ He risked the first name. They were mates now, weren’t they? He pulled a twenty-pound note out of his wallet. ‘Have you got wheels? I’d go but I’d have to walk, and it’s a fair hike to Tesco, now the shop’s out of action.’

There was a moment in the stifling, musty air of Jack Denton’s flat when Sean thought Terry Starkey had rumbled him. His blue eyes flickered and settled on the phone.

‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘But don’t put anything out on that Twitter until I get back. The first message from the CUC is coming from my mouth.’

‘Of course. I’ll have it all set up. No worries.’

Sean saw him out and positioned himself by the kitchen window. A few moments later, Terry came out of the flats and turned into the entry road which ran down the side of Eagle Mount One. If he’d been parked at the front Sean would have missed him, but now he had a full view of Starkey’s vehicle. He pulled out his own phone, held it up to the window and snapped. The dark blue BMW started moving. He snapped again, hoping it wouldn’t be a blur, as the car turned onto the ring road and out of sight.

The toilet flushed and his father came into the kitchen.

‘You and him are getting on all right, son.’

Sean wondered which version of the truth his father could handle and decided to keep the white lies to a minimum.

‘I didn’t realise that was his brother, the one who got pushed off.’

‘Oh, aye, terrible business. And they’ve let her out already.’

‘Looks like it.’

Jack shuffled into the living room. Sean followed him and leant against the door frame, Starkey’s smartphone in his hand. He checked that the Twitter app was loading and wondered what information he should be looking for on the phone. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew the answer was none. He was a suspended constable with absolutely no powers to go nosing around a citizen’s phone.

He weighed the phone in his hand and the faint scratch lines caught his eye. He crossed to the living room window and pulled back the curtain to let the light in. The scratches were faintly tinged with fuchsia pink, like nail varnish. He slid the cover off his own phone. There were similar scratch marks, only on his phone they were white. Same as his cover. It looked like the scratches on Starkey’s phone could have been caused by a pink plastic cover sliding on and off. He didn’t think it was infringing anyone’s human rights if he noticed something that was in plain view and it was plain to see that pink wasn’t Terry Starkey’s colour. It wasn’t rocket science to assume it was stolen.

Sean looked up to see that his dad had fallen asleep, his jaw slack and a line of dribble running into the stubble on his chin. With nobody watching, Sean clicked ‘Contacts’, but it was empty. There were no missed or recently received calls either. It obviously had a clean SIM card.

Sean realised he needed to hurry up. He checked and saw the app had loaded, then started to set up the account. It was requesting an email address. He’d have to wait for Starkey to get that. He went into messages and sent a text to his own number labelled ‘test’. He could say he needed to know Starkey’s number as part of the account set-up, which turned out to be true. He went back to the home screen. Behind the date and time there was a photo. He didn’t think it had the quality of a standard issue screensaver, more like a photo someone had taken. A tree full of pink blossom curved round the screen in a garden somewhere, and to the left of the picture he could make out the side of a house, a brick wall and white window frames.

He went back to the kitchen where there was no chance of his father opening his eyes and asking what he was up to. Then he put Starkey’s phone on the drainer and used his own phone to photograph the cover image. He turned it over. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to pick up the scratches, but maybe Lizzie would know if there was some way of enhancing the image. She popped into his head and lingered there for a moment, like the hologram of Princess Leia in Star Wars, but he shut her out; he didn’t have time. If Starkey found out what he was doing, he’d probably beat him to a pulp.

He wasn’t sure what all the icons meant, so he touched various things, but nothing made sense. Suddenly, like an open sesame, a swipe across the screen opened up the settings menu. He scrolled all the way down and there, nestled at the bottom, was an icon labelled ‘About Phone’. He clicked it and scrolled slowly through a mess of words and numbers, trying to understand what they meant.

When the knock came on the door, he almost jumped out of his skin. He fumbled with Starkey’s phone, to get it back to where he’d started, and squeezed his own phone into his pocket. As he opened the door, he hoped the lack of light in the dingy hallway would cover the heat in his face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Halsworth Grange

Lizzie carried the evidence bags back to the police vehicles. The doors to the CSI van were open and Janet was loading several more bags into its temperature controlled interior.

Janet wrinkled her nose in the direction of the bag she was holding. ‘I’m not sure this lot’s going to tell us very much, but at least we’ve done our civic duty and left the place cleaner than we found it.’

‘Have we finished with the cars?’

‘The last one’s being processed. The uniforms have collected all the personal details of the drivers, so once Khan gives the OK, we can let them go.’

‘Good. I wonder if he’s had a chance to talk to the woman at the ticket office.’

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Janet nodded to where Khan was sitting at one of the picnic tables. He pushed the hood of the white suit back and ran a hand over his hair, down his cheek and across his beard. He was staring across the field to the white tent.

‘What’s on your mind?’ Lizzie said, laying the gardening implement she’d found in the potting shed down in front of him. This time she was careful the blade didn’t tear the clear plastic bag she’d put it in. She’d narrowly missed slicing her finger.

‘North Yorkshire police just called back.’ His voice was deadpan, his eyes resting on the curve of the blade. ‘Chloe Toms is better known as Marilyn Nelson. She’s registered at a bail hostel in York. Our victim also has a name: Taheera Ahmed. She was a staff member at the hostel and Marilyn’s link worker, supporting her resettlement. As it happens, DS Simkins went to have a chat with Marilyn, or Chloe as she’s now known, about Mohammad Asaf. A local Doncaster woman thought she’d spotted Nelson on the Chasebridge estate the day before Asaf died.’

‘She’s the Chasebridge Killer? Jesus.’ Lizzie sat down on the end of the bench. She stared out towards the slope of lawn and the bank of rhododendron bushes, where the white tent stood.

‘Where’s Bill Coldacre?’

Khan paused. ‘Gone home.’

‘Where’s home?’

‘He lives in a tied cottage on the estate. Why?’

‘Did someone swab him before he went?’

‘He has no motive.’

‘And she does?’ Lizzie snapped.

‘She’s certainly a suspect.’

‘Have you spoken to the woman at the ticket booth?’

‘Do you want to swab her too?’

Lizzie turned round to face him. She could have slapped the superior expression off his face.

‘I don’t mean to overstep any lines of command here, DCI Khan, but I do need to get forensic evidence from anyone who may have been on-site at the time of death. So yes, I’d like her DNA, please, and if it’s not too late, I’d like the DNA of every single car owner before they leave.’

‘Good luck with that.’ He turned away and looked across the field again. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Lizzie. I know you’re pissed off with me about Sean Denton. On my way here I had a call from Commander Laine himself.’

Lizzie tried to keep a poker face. There was an old boy network in every walk of life, and even if she wasn’t part of it, her father was, and those old boys hadn’t wasted any time.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I accept I may have been hasty. I assure you, I will do the right thing and withdraw the disciplinary proceedings against Sean Denton. Are you happy now?’

It was difficult to know how to respond, so she said nothing.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘taking up the time of all my constables to get swabs and fingerprints of twenty-two irate day trippers isn’t going to improve relations now, is it? We have a prime suspect with a motive. What more do you want?’

‘You are unbelievable!’ She stood up. ‘What happened to innocent until proven guilty? There’s no physical evidence that Chloe, or Marilyn, or whatever we’re calling her, killed Taheera Ahmed. In fact all the evidence I’m looking at suggests she didn’t. You know what I think?’

‘What?’

‘I think it’s some ritual thing, I don’t know, like an honour killing. She let her attacker march her across the lawn and over the fence. She didn’t fight back.’

She held her breath, expecting a reaction, but he continued to focus on the white tent at the other end of the field.

‘Did you know her?’ she said.

‘What?’ He snapped round. ‘You think I know every Pakistani girl in South Yorkshire?’

‘No, of course not. That’s ridiculous. But when you first saw her, it seemed personal. I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I’m prying.’

He sighed and looked back at the tent. ‘It’s our job to pry. I don’t blame you.’

Lizzie replayed in her mind the order in which Chloe had unzipped her jeans, handed her the clothes and done up the white suit.

‘Do you even know, detective, if your suspect is left-handed or right-handed?’

A wasp flew close to her ear and she waved it away.

‘A bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ he finally said. ‘A released killer and a murder in the same place? I don’t believe in coincidences, Lizzie.’

‘Neither do I, DCI Khan. I believe in empirical evidence and I’m not seeing any. What if the murderer is still in that group, biding his time until we let him drive out of here?’

‘Call me Sam.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Call me Sam. It’s my name.’ There was a softness in his voice and a weariness too.

She sat down again, opposite him this time.

‘What’s with the blade?’ he said, as if he’d only just noticed the wooden-handled knife in the bag.

‘It’s not the murder weapon,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s too big. But it’s very sharp and it’s got me thinking. I want to ask Bill Coldacre where he gets his knives. He’s got a whole selection in there that we don’t usually see in town.’

Khan shook his head. ‘He’s not our man. If he wanted to kill someone he’d snap their neck in one squeeze. Have you seen the size of his hands? No, this is much more precise, more personal. You’re right in that sense. She was crying. Not fighting.’

Lizzie thought about the imprint on Taheera’s arm. The hands were bigger than hers, but were they as big as Coldacre’s?

‘I’d like to check him over all the same.’

A uniformed officer was approaching the table. ‘Sir, Mrs Coldacre wants to get home to see if her husband’s all right. Someone’s told her she’ll need to give a statement. She says she’s ready, so if you could … sorry, her words, not mine … get a move on.’

‘Mrs Coldacre?’ Lizzie looked up. ‘Happy families?’

‘His wife. She was on duty in the ticket office this morning,’ Khan said. ‘I’m sure when you meet her you’ll agree she’s not the type either.’

A woman as broad as the gardener, but a foot shorter, was making her way over the grass towards them. Her wavy grey hair was short and neat and she wore a spotless white blouse over a navy skirt. Her Halsworth Grange badge read – ‘Brenda, Ticket Office, Happy to Help’.

‘Are you the detective?’ she spoke directly to Lizzie.

‘Er, no. This is Detective Chief Inspector Khan. I’m Lizzie Morrison, Crime Scene Manager. I’m sorry if those members of the public were giving you a hard time. It’s my fault we’ve had to keep their cars here.’

All the time, she was looking at Brenda Coldacre’s hands, trying to judge the size of her grip.

‘Don’t worry, pet. Water off a duck’s back to me. You get all sorts in my job. Now, Detective. I’ll give you five minutes then I need to get back to my Bill. He’s had a terrible shock and his heart’s not what it used to be.’

Lizzie tested the hypothesis in her mind that Brenda Coldacre was capable of marching a young woman across a field, over a fence, forcing her down onto her knees and slitting her throat. It had a certain efficiency that suited the older woman, but beyond that it was unlikely.

‘Do you mind if I take some DNA from you,’ she said, ‘while we’re here?’

‘Be my guest. Do you take it from my mouth like they do on the telly?’

Lizzie nodded and got a sample pot from her case, while Brenda opened her mouth like a willing dental patient.

‘That tickled!’ Brenda Coldacre laughed for a moment, then caught herself. She reset her mouth to a grim, tight line.

‘Now. This is what I wanted to tell you. I got to work at eight-thirty this morning, as usual. That gives me an hour to tidy up the hut, process the numbers from yesterday and get everything ready to open at nine-thirty. Bill went up to the big house for a meeting with Giles, the land manager. The girl, Chloe, she came in shortly after nine-thirty. She’s allowed to start late because she comes all the way from York. She has a long journey, but she’s very committed.’

There was a challenge in Brenda’s voice that made Lizzie warm to her.

‘Did anyone else arrive before Chloe?’ Khan said.

‘Well this is what I wanted to tell you about. At around nine, a car came in. Now normally I wouldn’t have had the barrier up, but Bill said should he do it on his way past to save me the bother later? I’ve had this problem with my shoulder, you see, so I said yes.’

She paused for breath and Khan waited. Lizzie hoped Brenda would get to the point before his patience ran out.

‘It was a little car, white or off-white, with a dark red roof.’

‘The make?’

‘I’m not very good at car names. But you see them around. They look sort of old-fashioned, but I bet they cost a bomb.’

‘Did you see who was in it?’

‘Just a driver. I didn’t get a good look but I think female and she had dark hair. I was going to go and tell her she was too early, but I figured she’d work it out. She didn’t come by on foot, so I thought she must be waiting in her car. Anyway, at about twenty-past nine, I went to put the sign out. You see where it is?’ she pointed to the corner beyond the picnic area, ‘another car came in then. Well, that’s not so unusual, to be ten minutes early, so I didn’t take much notice.’

‘Can you remember anything about it, Brenda?’

‘Dark, blue or black, quite a posh make. A feller driving and someone in the passenger seat.’

‘And did they come to buy a ticket?’

‘Well, it all got very busy after that. There were three minibuses full of cub scouts. So I was sorting out their group ticket, then it turned out there was a fourth minibus on its way, and they wanted to wait, because the scout leader was in the last bus and he had all the money. Anyway, you can imagine, they were all milling around and then the families started arriving and there was a disgruntled pensioner and his wife, who’d driven from Spalding and didn’t expect to have to wait around with nowhere to sit. They could have been the people from the dark coloured car, couldn’t they? I mean there are some very generous pensions nowadays. But no, they wouldn’t be, because they came in after the cub scouts arrived.’

Khan waited while she caught her breath again. Another wasp buzzed over the table and he ignored it.

‘Try to picture the driver of the first car, Mrs Coldacre. Was there anything about her, apart from the fact she was female?’

‘I didn’t take a proper look, I’m sorry.’

‘Did any woman come in on her own to buy a ticket? A young woman of Pakistani heritage, perhaps?’

Brenda shook her head. ‘I’m not saying we don’t get Asian visitors, because we do, Mr Khan, and we offer everyone here at Halsworth Grange the same welcome and the same treatment, but to be honest, I would have noticed, because at this time of year it’s usually families.’

‘And as far as you can tell, the driver of the little cream coloured car never appeared at the ticket office?’

‘I don’t believe she did. No.’

‘And Chloe Toms walked up the drive after both the cream car and the dark coloured car, but before the cub scouts?’

‘Definitely after the two cars, because I’d already put the sign out.’

He rubbed his beard in circles and smoothed it down again. Lizzie was distracted for a moment by trying to guess whether it would feel soft or bristly. She pulled her attention back to Brenda Coldacre.

‘Are the older couple or the cub scouts still here?’

The older woman shook her head. ‘The cubs were doing us in the morning and the farm park this afternoon, so they left at about noon, but I can give you a contact name and number, because someone lost their camera and I said I’d ring if we found it. I can’t help you with the miserable pensioners though. Oops, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that. I’ll be one myself before long. It’s just what we call them when no one’s listening.’

A half-smile twitched across Khan’s face for a moment. Lizzie had come across people like Brenda before. The shock of a horrific crime made them burble and make jokes they would later regret.

‘Thank you, Mrs Coldacre,’ he stood up and shook her hand solemnly. ‘You’ve been very helpful. I’ll walk down to the ticket office with you and get that phone number, if that’s all right. Then you should go and see to your husband.’

‘Mrs Coldacre, do you mind if I pop in and see Mr Coldacre in about half an hour? I need to get a DNA sample to rule him out,’ Lizzie caught Khan’s eye as she spoke and he nodded. She hoped he was right about Bill, almost as much as she hoped she was right about Chloe. Ruling people out was the only way to start ruling people in.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Doncaster

Under the harsh lights of the pathology unit, Lizzie watched Alf Huggins explore Taheera Ahmed’s body with the delicacy of a surgeon who still has a life to save.

‘Good skin, healthy nails and hair.’ He lifted the fleshy tissue of her upper lip and looked at her teeth. ‘Money’s been spent on some top quality orthodontic work.’

‘Was she sexually active?’

‘Hymen intact.’

‘Not bad for a twenty-three-year old.’

‘Now if I’d made that remark, you’d tell me off,’ Dr Huggins said. ‘It may seem old-fashioned to you, but a crime of passion doesn’t have to involve sexual intercourse.’

‘Could it involve, for the sake of argument, a staff member and a vulnerable client? Both young women?’

‘Not my department, I’m afraid.’ Alf Huggins stood back and looked at Lizzie. ‘Khan says the family wants the body to be released as soon as possible, on religious grounds. Any particular requests about what organs you’d like me to keep, as we’re pushed for time?’

‘The wound itself is our main clue. Without a murder weapon, that’s all we’ve got. One of the girls in the lab is getting something oil-based from the neck swabs,’ Lizzie said. ‘It would be good to know what we’re looking for. Running a test for every lipid could take weeks.’

‘I don’t think they’ll be very happy if I send her back without a neck. Hard to detach it from her head, you see.’

The slit in Taheera’s throat looked like a second mouth, flat lips of skin pushed opened in a grimace.

Dr Huggins leant in for a closer look. ‘It’s almost surgical, a very clean cut, but then the exit is so messy. Makes me think of a cheese knife, except they’re never sharp enough for a decent piece of cheddar.’

‘Are you into gardening, sir?’ Lizzie saw the surprise shoot across his bushy eyebrows.

‘More my wife’s department. She’s into the good life, grows all our veg, flowers for the table, that sort of thing.’

‘What sort of tools does she use? I mean, is there a particular brand of gardening knife she favours?’

He straightened up and shifted the weight off his hip. ‘Let me think, yes, there was something I got her for Christmas, professional sort of knife. Swedish name, I think. Bloody sharp.’

‘Like a pathologist’s scalpel?’

‘Almost. But a little thicker.’ He smiled and pinched the two sides of the wound together through his latex gloves. ‘Yes, yes. Sharp but wider than a scalpel, maybe one, one and a half millimetres at most. Crikey, don’t tell me you think my wife Anne’s responsible.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Lizzie smiled. ‘But thanks, that’s very useful. How long have I got before we have to hand her over?’

‘Well, it’s pretty clear what killed her; I just want to check for anything that tells us who. I won’t rush it. Three hours? Four at the most?’

‘Perfect. Let me see if I can find something to fit that wound.’

She turned to go and then remembered something else. ‘I’ll send the crime scene photographer across, if he won’t be in your way. I’d like a light source treatment on her arm and her face. Hopefully someone left some prints.’

Lizzie went back to her office and picked up her car keys. She nearly collided with Donald Chaplin as she rushed out of the door.

‘Got a minute?’ he said.

‘Thirty seconds. I’ve got to catch the garden centre before it closes.’

‘Here.’

Lizzie looked at the sheets of paper Donald was holding in front of her and tried to understand what she was seeing. He pointed with the tip of his biro at a smudge the shape of the Isle of Wight. Around the edge, it was just possible to see the frilly lines of a partial fingerprint.

‘It’s bottle glass and it was wedged under the bottom of the fridge at AK News, protected from the heat. I’ve picked up concentrated petrol residue and a few tiny drops of human sweat. Here are the fingers that held the bottle that started the fire.’

‘Nice one.’

‘We can have a go at matching the print,’ Donald said, ‘but it’s a bit of a long shot as it’s only partial. Any chance we can get a DNA test on the sweat?’

‘Yeah, go on. Leave it with the paperwork on my desk.’ There was already a neat stack of samples waiting to go off to the lab; Lizzie tried not to think of the budget implications.

Donald chewed on his pen. ‘The fire officers didn’t find any petrol on the pavement, right? Even after everything’s been soaked in water, you’d still expect to find traces of droplets falling away from the angle of an object being thrown. And here’s another thing, the window glass had mainly blown outwards, most of the glass inside the shop is from the stock, and from the front of a chiller cabinet. You said it yourself, how do you break a window that thick with one little bottle? You don’t. The back of the shop is shuttered up. The internal doors to the stockroom at the back and the flat upstairs are all closed. The smoke spreads but not the fire. Don’t you think that’s a bit too neat?’

‘Maybe,’ Lizzie said.

‘We know the crowd was getting out of control. Several people were carrying these torches – well, they’re more like a big candle wrapped in brown paper – and if one or two of these are thrown at the shop door, no harm done, but the incendiary device was meant to do real damage. The fact that there are no casualties inside the shop is bothering me.’

‘I’d say that’s a good thing, wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘Otherwise we’d have another murder inquiry to deal with.’

‘Perhaps they were tipped off.’

‘Who by?’

‘Someone they knew.’

Lizzie looked at the whorls on the partial fingerprint, like the edges of geological contours. ‘That could be anyone on the Chasebridge estate, Donald. It’s the local shop.’

Within half an hour, Lizzie was standing in the tools’ section of Fulton’s Garden Centre. She found the Scandinavian brand of tools that Huggins had mentioned. It was definitely the upper end of the sharp knife market, with the same leather loops she’d seen in Bill Coldacre’s potting shed. There was a long blade, like the one that had cut into her glove, then a stand of folding knives, ranging from tiny finger-length knives to heavier items that looked like they could slice the branches off a small tree.

‘Can I help you?’ A man wearing thick spectacles and a green apron was watching her. ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’

‘Yes, I am.’ She looked back at the display and willed him to go away, but he was still there.

‘These are excellent tools. A very popular range. What sort of task did you have in mind?’

She could hardly say throat-slitting, although she’d like to see the look on his face if she did. ‘Do you have something that’s shaped like a cheese knife? But not for cheese, obviously.’

‘A cheese knife,’ he looked at her as if she was simple, his eyes behind the spectacles almost as large as the glass lenses that covered them. ‘Do you mean like a pruning knife?’

He reached over her head and took something from the shelf with a wooden handle and smart leather sheath. He was about to take its cover off but she held her hand up to stop him.

‘That’s OK. Don’t open it. Is this how it comes from the manufacturer?’

‘Yes,’ the assistant sounded puzzled.

‘Thanks. I’ll take it.’

Lizzie walked over to the till and got in the queue.

‘Darling!’

It was her mother’s voice, loud enough to carry across Yorkshire, as her dad always said. Lizzie looked to see where it was coming from and spotted her mother in the company of two other ladies she recognised as neighbours from the village. They were sitting at a table in the garden centre café, separated from the main part of the shop by a stretch of ornamental trellis.

‘Come and join us!’

Lizzie waved the pruning knife hopelessly and nodded towards the till, where she was third in line. The neighbour women were grinning at her and she half expected one of them to blurt out some platitude about how much she’d grown. The queue moved forwards and Lizzie heard her mother’s voice, only partially lowered.

‘She works very hard,’ and then in answer to something one of the others must have asked, she added in a stage whisper, ‘oh, yes, much better off without him. We were terribly worried.’

Lizzie could feel the skin on her neck reddening. She needed to be back at the lab, measuring the width of a knife blade, phoning the manufacturer and finding out what oil was used to treat the metal before they were packaged for sale. The man with thick glasses was stacking some boxes next to the till and she called to him.

‘Excuse me, but what should I use to keep it sharp?’

He straightened up and came over. ‘Honing oil. Shall I find you some?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Right you are, Elizabeth.’

She was startled that he’d used her name, but as she looked at him more closely she realised how he knew her. He was the son of one of the women at her mother’s table, thirty going on fifty, and still living at home. She snatched a glance across to the café and shuddered. She wasn’t meant to come back here, slip into a life she’d grown out of, where everyone knew her business and felt no shame in discussing it while she was in the same room.

She paid and clutched her plastic bag in front of her like a shield, walking slowly over to the table, where her mother and her two friends were finishing off a pot of tea. They’d each had cake. The remains of cream, jam and chocolate were still smeared on the china.

‘The evidence suggests Black Forest gateau. Was it good?’ She smiled at her mum, conscious how proud she would be of this pathetic party trick.

‘Oh, Mary, isn’t she clever?’ One of neighbour women gushed.

‘It’s my job,’ Lizzie shrugged.

If only it were as simple as that. Part of her would have loved to accept the offer to sit down and play the guessing game of who ate what for afternoon tea. She could let the village gossip wash over her, the everyday stories of planning objections and divorces. The mother of the man with thick glasses had tried to push them together once, years ago when she was about seventeen. Lizzie was praying he wouldn’t be called over to join them. The other woman was chattering away about her own son and his life abroad, an American wife, a child on the way. Tremendously happy. How lovely. How lucky.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I’m in the middle of a job.’

‘Darling, surely you can stay for five minutes, there’s still some tea in the pot.’

‘I really do need to get back. See you later, Mum. I’m not sure when I’ll be over, maybe next weekend?’

Lizzie turned away and her mother’s voice followed her out of the garden centre.

‘Why don’t you come back home for supper when you finish, darling, and stay the night? What about a nice piece of chicken and some couscous? She doesn’t eat properly you know, living on her own in that flat …’

Her mother’s voice was silenced by the closing glass doors. You don’t choose your family, she thought. Outside she blinked in the bright sunshine and decided she needed to focus on the job. Taheera Ahmed was lying on a slab in the morgue, lost to her family forever.