Lying Beside You, page 4
Several dresses are draped over a chair, beside a full-length mirror and a straightening wand that is still plugged into a socket. I picture Maya trying on clothes, deciding what to wear. Fixing her hair. Applying makeup.
“She was out last night,” I say.
I lift her pillow. A cotton nightdress is bundled underneath.
“Were there any traces of blood upstairs?” I ask.
“None yet.”
I turn slowly around, imagining Maya in this room, but I have little sense of her. I can’t see her mind.
“Tell me about Rohan Kirk’s brain injury.”
“Frontal lobe. It affected his attention and concentration. He couldn’t hold down a job and drank too much.”
“Was he violent?”
“Impatient and impulsive.” Lenny glances down the stairs. “It can’t have been easy looking after him.”
“You think Maya did this?”
“Wouldn’t be the first carer to lose her temper.”
“She didn’t pack a bag or take her car.”
“She panicked.”
“Which means she’ll turn up,” I say, sardonically. Lenny regards this as banter and doesn’t get offended when I disagree with her.
“Does Maya have a dog?”
“No. Why?”
“It’s just a little odd—having a dog-grooming business, but no dog.”
We descend, stepping over evidence markers in the hallway. I pause at the front door. Dyson is dusting for fingerprints. I glance again at the hanging coats and the row of boots, which are slightly out of order, the right one where the left should be.
“Have you swabbed the uppers of the shoes?” I ask.
“We’re very thorough,” says Dyson with a slightly arch tone.
Moving the coats to one side, I press my cheek close to the wallpapered surface.
“What is it?” asks Lenny.
“I’m not sure yet.”
6 Evie
The bus door hisses as it opens. The driver has a beard and a bright blue turban.
“Do you need a hand?” he asks.
“No, we’re totally fine.”
I’m wearing dark glasses and Poppy has her harness. She leads me up the steps and I reach into my pocket, searching for my phone to tap against the reader.
“You’re OK,” says the driver. “No charge.”
“Thank you.”
I move down the bus. Two old people in the nearest seat immediately stand.
“This one is free,” says the woman, who wants to take my arm, but I don’t like being touched. I pull Poppy closer, making her sit between my legs.
I’m getting quite good at being blind. I save money and get to watch people without them knowing. Cyrus would be furious if he knew, but it’s not like I’m taking a seat from a properly disabled person or forcing a coffin dodger to stand.
At the next stop, a young guy gets on and sits opposite me. He’s my age, maybe younger; OK-looking in a pale, underfed sort of way, wearing baggy clothes and a bomber jacket that’s too big for him. I’m staring straight at him. He smiles. I don’t smile back. He raises his hand and moves it back and forth. I ignore him.
“Nice dog,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“He your guide dog?”
“She.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask a blind person how they tell if someone is attractive or not.”
“I read their faces with my fingers.”
“You can do that?”
“Yeah.”
He is fiddling with his phone. Knees wide. One leg jiggling. “How did it happen?” he asks.
“An accident. I was nine.”
“What do you miss the most? Is it watching TV, or going to the movies, or seeing a sunrise?”
“Porn,” I say.
His mouth drops open and he starts stammering. Blushing. It’s cute.
“I’m shitting you, OK.”
He looks relieved although a little disappointed. I glance out the window.
“This is my stop.”
“How can you tell?”
“My dog tells me.”
“How?”
“Telepathy.”
I reach for the signal button. The boy does it for me. Our hands touch. I pull mine away as though bitten. Poppy stands with me. The boy closes his legs to give me more room. As I pass him, I lean a little closer before whispering, “Nice jacket.”
His eyes widen, full of questions. Now he thinks I have some extraordinary “other” sense that makes up for my sightlessness, which is ironic, because my real secret skill depends upon me seeing someone’s face, looking for the lies.
The bus pulls away and I slip off my sunglasses.
7 Cyrus
A pretty, careworn woman answers the electronic door chimes. A toddler is balanced on her right hip, a little boy who is sucking his thumb with the brow-furrowing concentration of a symphony flautist.
“Have you found her?” asks Melody Sterling, whose eyes are full of hope and uncertainty.
Lenny shakes her head and makes the introductions. I touch the little boy’s chin. Shyly, he turns his face into her neck.
“Yours?”
“One of my charges,” she replies, before leading us into her sitting room, where three other children are sitting on the floor, playing with colored plastic blocks. The entire lower floor of the house is a day nursery, full of children’s toys, books, blackboards, painting easels, alphabet rugs, and a big red reading chair.
“I didn’t have time to let the parents know,” says Melody. “They’re coming as soon as they can.”
A little girl, aged about two, carries a book to Lenny, wanting her to read a story. Melody suggests Victoria draw a picture instead. Lenny is happy to be distracted. She leads Victoria to the reading chair, where she puts on her best storybook voice. Soon all four children are sitting on the rug in front of her.
In the kitchen, a child-sized table is covered with the remnants of lunch—sausages, mashed potato, and peas, sauce-smeared and half-eaten. Plastic cups of water. Slices of apple. Melody begins clearing plates, incapable of sitting still because her mind is moving so quickly.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I say, helping her. “Was he difficult to care for?”
“Sometimes. When he couldn’t find a memory, or forgot how to do a simple task, he became frustrated.”
“How did the accident happen?”
“A stolen car ran a red light. Mum died instantly. Dad was cut from the wreckage.”
“Where were you?”
“At university in Leeds. Maya was living at home. She did most of the heavy lifting looking after Dad.”
“Was he ever abusive?”
“Maya knew how to handle him.”
She hasn’t answered the question. “Would she ever hit him?”
“No. Never. She loved him.”
Suddenly, she understands why I’m asking and reacts defensively.
“Before the accident, he was such a lovely, gentle man. A big softie. Later, he could try the patience of a saint, but we both learned how to stay out of his way.”
“When did you last talk to Maya?”
She tears a sheet of paper towel from a roll and blows her nose. “Last night. She was going out.”
“Where?”
“On a date. She met some guy on a dating app. They were texting for a while, then talking on the phone. Finally, they arranged to meet.”
“Did she often use dating apps?”
“That’s romance in the digital age,” she says. “I’m glad I’m not single.”
“Where was she meeting him?”
“At a pub.”
“Would she have invited him home?”
“No. She knew what Dad might do. In his mind, we were both still sixteen. He used to joke about getting a shotgun to ward off any boys, but a part of him was serious. He was old-fashioned about sex and marriage. When we were growing up, he wouldn’t let us go to parties or stay out late. We had to sneak out—Maya more than me. I was the good twin. She was the wild one.”
“Wild in what way?”
“She loved raves and music festivals and all the stuff that went with them.”
“Drugs?”
“Nothing hard-core, but that was years ago.”
“Are there any former boyfriends we should worry about?”
“No. Not really. Dean thinks Maya is a flirt, but I think she’s friendly.”
“Dean?”
“My husband.”
“Where is he?”
“On his way home. He’s been working in Leeds.”
Melody sits on one of the tiny chairs, her knees almost reaching her chin. “There was one guy—he lives locally. Maya used to babysit him. A few months ago, she saw him in the garden. He was watching her getting undressed.”
Lenny has been listening from the doorway. “Did she report it to the police?”
“Yes, but I don’t think anything came of it.”
“What was his name?”
“Paulie Brennan.”
Lenny’s eyes flare with recognition. “Marlene Brennan’s grandson.”
“You know him?” I ask.
“I know the family.”
The doorbell chimes. A parent has come to collect her child. Melody prepares to put on a brave face. She pauses at the kitchen door and asks, “Where is my sister?”
She is hoping for comforting words, some reassurance that Maya is alive and well, but I don’t believe in offering false hope. Equally, sometimes, silence says the wrong thing.
“We won’t stop looking,” says Lenny. “I can promise you that.”
* * *
A cold wind whips at my overcoat, pressing it against my knees. Lenny plunges her hands into the pockets of her Barbour jacket and walks with her head down, lips tight, deep in thought. She has pale, fine features and bottle-black hair cut short enough to brush against her shoulders.
“Did Maya run, or was she taken?”
“I think she was taken.”
Lenny doesn’t ask for an explanation. I think she suspected as much, which was why she called me into the case.
“Somebody forced their way inside the house,” I say. “When the door swung open, the latch hit the inner wall, causing a slight depression in the painted plaster behind the coats.”
“That could have happened at any time.”
“Yes, but the shoes were misaligned, which indicates it was recent. Rohan Kirk was probably asleep when he heard something downstairs and came to investigate. The intruder didn’t expect anyone else to be in the house. He picked up the first thing that came to hand—a tool from the fireplace.”
The attack is played out in my mind. It was sudden and ferocious. The poker kept swinging long after the old man had stopped moving.
“The killer was angry and frustrated,” I say.
“Why?”
“He doesn’t like making mistakes.”
We’ve reached the police car. Lenny radios the control room, asking for the latest intel on Paulie Brennan. Within minutes, the despatcher comes back with the details. Brennan, aged twenty-five, has a history of boosting cars and has served an eight-month sentence for malicious wounding. On the night Maya made the complaint, Paulie was stopped by a patrol car less than two blocks from her house. He told police he was walking home from the pub and denied looking in her bedroom window.
Lenny puts the two-way radio back in the cradle.
“You said you knew the family.”
“His mother.” She glances at her watch. “You should meet her.”
“I thought this was Hoyle’s investigation.”
“We’re in the neighborhood.”
8 Cyrus
Marlene Brennan lives less than a hundred yards from where Rohan Kirk was murdered. Her house is an eyesore, with an overgrown front garden, a broken fence, and a disemboweled sofa perched on a dumpster. The neighbors must love her.
Lenny has been filling me in on the “Brennan clan,” describing Marlene as the matriarch.
“She used to run a pub in Liverpool, down near the docks, one of those places with tiled floors so they could hose out the blood every morning. Old man Brennan was a union leader during the Liverpool dock strike in the late nineties when Mersey Docks locked out their workforce in a dispute about overtime pay. The strike lasted two years. Failed.
“Brennan lost his job. He and a few mates bought a pub near the waterfront, but drank most of their profits, or gave it away on credit. When he died of a heart attack, Marlene took it over and managed it better.
“They had five children. Three girls and two boys. Both sons were shot dead in an armed holdup of a bank in Manchester when they were still in their twenties. The manager triggered the alarm and police had the place surrounded within minutes. The gang was trapped inside. Twelve hours later, the police stormed the building and the boys died. One of them was Paulie’s father.
“In the aftermath, Marlene sued the police, claiming her sons were murdered. She lost the case and sold the pub. Moved to Nottingham. Raised Paulie from the age of five.”
“What about his mum?”
“A junkie. Died of an overdose.”
“Sad.”
“Too common.”
Lenny presses her thumb to the old-fashioned doorbell. It echoes from inside. We wait. She sniffs the air. “I smell cigarette smoke.”
Crouching, she yells through the mail flap. “We know you’re in there, Paulie. We only want to talk.”
Silence and then another sound. Slippers on wood. Locks and chains disengage. The door opens. Marlene Brennan looks like a small brown onion that has been pickled in vinegar. Eighty if she’s a day, her eyes are like dark holes, and she has the sort of permed hair they seem to provide with every pension check.
“Hello, Marlene, you’re looking well,” says Lenny.
“Do I know you?” asks the old woman.
“Detective Superintendent Parvel.”
“A female detective—are you a dyke?”
“Would it make a difference?”
Marlene shrugs. “You see a lot of dykes these days. Dressed like men.”
An old coffee tin is hanging on a string around her neck. She dips her head and spits into it.
“Is Paulie home?” asks Lenny.
“He’s gone to get my pills.”
“Will he be long?”
“Long enough.”
“I fancy a cup of tea,” says Lenny, stepping past Marlene, who is too slow to block her way. She starts to protest, but a voice interrupts her.
“I’m home, Gran.”
Paulie is standing in the doorway of the kitchen with the light behind him. He’s dressed in old track pants and a moth-eaten sweater with cut-off sleeves. Barefoot. Mullet-haired. Bum fluff on his top lip. He’s holding a miniature poodle with a head like a clump of cotton wool. The dog snaps at my elbow as I pass. I jerk away and Paulie smiles.
The kitchen smells of apples just starting to rot, and cigarette smoke. It has a scrubbed pine table and mismatched wooden chairs. Unwashed dishes fill the sink, and the lone window has a yellowing net curtain.
Marlene lowers herself into a chair, mumbling under her breath. She fixes her rheumy eyes on me.
“Who are you?”
“I’m a forensic psychologist.”
“Most shrinks can’t tell their arse from their elbow.”
“We must know some of the same people,” I say.
She cackles. Paulie fills the kettle. Lenny looks small beside him.
“Are you staying out of trouble, Paulie?”
He ducks his head as he nods.
“He’s a good boy,” says Marlene, spitting into her can. “He looks after me.”
“How does he do that?”
“I work,” he says truculently.
“And he gets my medicine,” adds Marlene. “And he does chores. Council send a girl to clean up, but she’s a lazy cow. Hasn’t been around for days. I told Paulie to slap her or sack her.”
“I don’t think he’s allowed to do that,” says Lenny.
Marlene grunts.
Lenny is carefully moving plates in the sink, looking for mugs she can wash up. I study the room, the bric-a-brac magnetized to the fridge. Holiday snaps. Birthday cards. A postcard from Marbella. A child’s crayon drawing.
“You have other grandchildren,” I say.
“Eight of them,” replies Marlene proudly. “Cops killed my two boys, but I still got three girls, all good breeders. We grow through the cracks.”
“Like weeds,” says Lenny.
“Yeah, like weeds.”
Lenny returns to Paulie. “Where are you working?”
“He’s self-employed,” says Marlene. “Buying and selling cars. Always been good with his hands.”
“Very light-fingered,” says Lenny.
The old woman scowls.
“I’m going to be a race-car driver,” says Paulie, jutting out his chin. “Got myself a low-flying rocket.”
I pull aside the curtain and gaze into the rear garden, where two car chassis are jacked onto blocks. A third vehicle, a souped-up Ford Focus RS, is partially covered by a tarpaulin.
“Street racing?”
He grins. “That would be illegal.”
“When was the last time you saw Maya Kirk?” asks Lenny.
Paulie looks at her blankly.
“You can’t have forgotten already. You were peering through her bedroom window.”
“Weren’t me,” says Paulie. The whiskers on his top lip barely move.
“You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree,” says Marlene.
“Where were you last night?” asks Lenny.
“He was here with me,” says Marlene.
“Is that true?”
Paulie lowers his head, but I’m not sure it’s a nod.
“Why are you so interested in Maya?” asks the old woman.
“Rohan Kirk was murdered last night. Maya has disappeared.”
