Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (26 page)

‘What the hell are you playing at, Chika?’ he shouted up at her.

Again she didn’t answer but her hand reached out to him.

‘Chika?’ Jack had a very bad feeling.

He watched in horror as she slid over the side and dropped. There was a moment when she seemed to levitate in mid-air, and Jack’s scream was lost in the wind. Then she plummeted through the sky and landed with a crunch of skull and a splash of blood at Jack’s feet.

‘You look terrible.’

Phil Cheney, handed Jack a forensic suit. It was white and papery, trying to blow away in the night wind.

Jack and Cheney went back years. Their friendship survived on a diet of beer and banter and this was Jack’s cue to take the piss. But tonight, Jack couldn’t manage it. He was exhausted and brittle, fingering the suit, listening to it crackle, oblivious to the drilling rain.

Cheney raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Jack was a copper. Bodies and death were his stock in trade.

‘I was here when she jumped,’ Jack explained.

Cheney remained unimpressed, and ducked under the yellow police-tape that cordoned off a twenty by twenty rectangle
surrounding
Chika’s body. Someone had covered her in a brown blanket. Jack hadn’t seen who.

He watched Cheney approach. If he’d been a plant, the FI would have been a cactus. Round and plump, not fat, just sort of juicy. And, like a cactus, he was covered in spikes. Metal bars pierced the skin of his ears, nose, lips and tongue. During a pub crawl in Brighton, as he tried to impress a couple of
seventeen-year
-olds in skirts so short you could see the colour of their knickers, Cheney had lifted up his jumper to reveal rings through each nipple. Now that was a sight Jack wished he’d never been party to.

‘Are you coming or what?’ Cheney called.

Jack put up a finger. ‘Give me a minute.’

‘Take your time, girlfriend.’ Cheney shook his head, throwing off rivulets of water like a dog. ‘I’ll take a look and see if we need the tent.’

An icy shiver ran through Jack as Cheney lifted the blanket, and he had to turn away. He couldn’t get it out of his head that he was responsible for this. He had known Chika was damaged, had spotted from the off that she was on the edge. Yet he’d pressured her to make a statement, pressured her to attend court. Hell, he’d dragged her there himself. Then, earlier tonight, he’d pressured her again, insisting they meet so she could spill out painful memories over a glass of chocolate milk. What had he been thinking? That it was okay to mess with someone’s mind to get a conviction? Did the end really justify the means? Remembering the sound as Chika hit the concrete, Jack knew it did not.

‘You need to get over here, mate.’ Cheney wiped rainwater from his eyes.

Jack sighed. He didn’t want to do this.

‘I don’t need the suit,’ he shouted back, ‘I’ll be all over the scene.’

He snuck under the tape and tried not to look at the body.

‘I sat with her until the ambulance arrived and pronounced her dead,’ he said.

He didn’t mention that he’d knelt at Chika’s broken head and stroked her hair.

‘Anyone else at the scene?’ asked Cheney.

‘There was a girl.’ He looked around for Malaya’s sister, but she had melted away. ‘She must have been terrified.’

‘I’ll need a swab,’ said Cheney.

Jack frowned. Cheney was superb at his job, thorough to the nth degree. ‘Is that necessary for a suicide?’

‘No it’s not,’ he reached for a plastic evidence bag, and dropped Chika’s phone inside. ‘But this one didn’t kill herself.’

Jack felt the air being sucked out of his lungs and had to bend forward, his hands on his knees. There were dark patches on his jeans. Not from the rain.

‘What are you telling me?’ he asked.

‘I can’t be sure, until we get to the lab,’ Cheney crouched next to Chika’s back, ‘but there are stab wounds.’

‘Are you sure?’ Jack skirted around the body.

Cheney pointed with a gloved finger at a blood-soaked tear in Chika’s coat.

‘Couldn’t have happened in the fall?’ Jack asked.

‘Possibly.’ Cheney reached under the ribbed edge of the coat and lifted it to reveal Chika’s back. An inch above the fastening of a scarlet bra was a puncture wound, like a small pink mouth. ‘But this wasn’t caused by blunt trauma.’

‘Knife?’

Cheney smoothed Chika’s coat back into place. ‘Almost certainly.’

The cottage was cosy. Built at a time when tradesmen chose the best materials rather than the cheapest, it was designed to hold fast against rural winters and the rain beating against it.

But Lilly knew full well it wasn’t just the insulation making her pink.

‘You are full of surprises, Lilly Valentine.’ Karol appraised the book case in the living room, his finger moving across the book spines. ‘Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Brontë.’

Lilly perched on the end of the sofa, wine glass in hand.

‘Where are your airport thrillers? Your detective stories?’ he asked.

‘Too much like real life,’ she laughed.

He slid a volume of
Lord of the Flies
back into its place and moved to the sofa, where he sat, his arm sprawled behind his head. ‘I get the impression that you like excitement.’

‘That’s an accusation that is regularly levelled at me,’ she nodded.

‘And you don’t think it is true?’

Lilly pushed her hand through her hair. ‘All I can tell you is that I am very glad to be no longer involved in the McKenzie case.’

‘A quiet life without any thrills?’ He moved closer to her.

‘How about a quiet life, with thrills.’

He edged nearer still, until she could smell the blackberry tang of Pinot Noir on his mouth. The room was silent and they stared at one another intently. He was going to kiss her. If Lilly wanted to stop him she needed to say something now.

Suddenly, there was a hammering on the door. The sound crashed through the house, making Lilly jump.

Karol glanced at the clock. ‘It’s very late.’

Who could it be? The only person who could conceivably come this late at night was Jack.

Jack.

How would he react to the sight of Karol, comfortable in the place he used to watch the footie? She’d explain that Karol worked for her. An employee, nothing more. But the dirty dishes abandoned in the kitchen, the smell of basil oil in the air and the empty bottle of wine on the floor would tell another story.

The pounding rang out again and she heard the sound of
disturbed
movement from upstairs. She ran for the door and flung it open. Annabelle stood outside in the pouring rain, her hair plastered to her head.

‘Annabelle?’

‘I need your help,’ she cried.

Sam appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing,’ Lilly told him, ‘go back to bed.’

‘I’ve got an exam tomorrow, if anyone’s interested,’ he mumbled and sloped away.

Lilly ushered Annabelle into the sitting room where she stood, dripping, water collecting at her feet.

‘I’ll get a towel,’ said Karol and disappeared into the kitchen.

‘What’s going on, Annabelle?’ Lilly asked.

The other woman was soaked. The waterproof jacket that should have been perfect hung off her shoulders, unzipped, the hood down.

‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know who else to turn to,’ she said. ‘The police have come for Tanisha again.’

Lilly groaned. Please God, Tanisha hadn’t breached her bail conditions already.

Karol returned and handed Annabelle a towel. Lilly cringed at the stains. The towels in Annabelle’s house were pristine. Egyptian cotton, smelling of fabric conditioner. Annabelle appeared not to notice and held it to her face.

‘They say Tanisha’s involved in another attack,’ she said. ‘But this time the girl’s dead.’

Lilly’s mouth fell open. ‘Who?’

‘Chika Mboko.’

The sting of surprise hit Lilly. Only yesterday Chika had been in the witness box, larger than life. Full of life.

‘You have to come,’ said Annabelle. ‘You have to make them understand that Tanisha had nothing to with it.’

Lilly flapped her arms by her sides. ‘She sacked me.’

‘Do you think she’ll care about that now?’

‘I have children in the house,’ said Lilly. ‘I can’t leave them here on their own.’

Annabelle glanced at Karol who was clearing away the glasses. He looked up at Lilly.

‘I could stay the night,’ he said. ‘Sleep on the sofa.’

Lilly shook her head. This was utter madness.

‘I’ll get my coat.’

Demi thunders past Gran to her room.

‘Take off those wet shoes,’ Gran shouts.

She doesn’t pay attention and throws herself on to her bed. She’s drenched, her jeans sticking to her skin. The mud she’s caked in spreads on to her duvet. The cover was clean on this morning. Laundry day.

She doesn’t care about that. She doesn’t care about anything.

Her best friend in the world is dead. Beautiful, funny, strong Chika is gone.

She bites down on her pillow to stop herself from screaming, knowing that once again, she’s all alone.

The custody suite was quiet. By midnight, the suspects had either been processed or had been bedded down for the night to sleep off whatever had got them into trouble in the first place. The only interviews that took place in the middle of the night were for prisoners suspected of serious arrestable offences, or where the prisoner was a child.

Tanisha McKenzie was both.

‘Tell me this is a bad dream,’ said Lilly.

Jack frowned and placed a polystyrene cup of coffee on the counter. It was dark brown, small lumps of powdered milk
floating
on top.

‘I wish it were, Lil,’ he said.

‘So, what’s the story?’

He sighed. Tiredness was scored across his face and there were circles under each eye, like wicked smiles.

‘Phil Cheney’s doing the autopsy now, but preliminary findings suggest a number of stab wounds to the back, possibly
puncturing
the heart, lungs or both.’

Lilly took a breath. Chest wounds were often fatal, but to catch the heart through the back took force. Whoever cut Chika clearly meant business.

‘What makes you think Tanisha’s got anything to do with it?’

Jack gave a tight laugh. ‘Other than the victim was the only witness in the case against your client.’

‘That’s not enough and you know it. What evidence have you got?’

Jack flicked the cup with his thumbnail so the creamy clumps bobbed up and down. He stared into his drink, resolutely away from Lilly.

‘Tonight I saw a kid die. Not a nice kid. Not a white
middle-class
kid from a good home and a fancy school, but still a kid. So don’t lecture me about what I can or can’t do.’

‘I wasn’t lecturing …’

He still refused to look at her. ‘There is one person, and one person only, who is linked to the attacks on both Malaya Ebola and Chika Mboko and I want to speak to that person. Is that so difficult to understand?’

‘No.’

Tanisha was sat in her usual place in the interview room, head in the crook of her elbow, on the table. Annabelle sat beside her.

‘This is getting to be a habit, Tanisha,’ said Lilly.

Tanisha pushed herself up and Lilly noticed her pregnancy was now showing. Had that happened overnight? Or had Tanisha simply stopped hiding it now the truth was out?

‘I want you to know that I appreciate what you did for me in court and I appreciate you coming here tonight.’

It was obviously rehearsed and Annabelle beamed like a proud mother whose young child had just delivered her first lines in a school play. Lilly smiled all the same.

‘Why don’t you tell me your movements today,’ she said.

‘Not much,’ Tanisha replied. ‘I signed on at the police station, went shopping in between.’

‘This evening?’

‘Home.’

‘All night?’ Lilly asked.

‘I ain’t stupid, you know, if I bust my curfew they’re gonna throw my arse back in jail.’

‘I can vouch for her,’ Annabelle added.

Lilly chewed the end of her pen and studied them. ‘The thing is, ladies, we’ve been here before haven’t we? You telling me you were nowhere near the scene of a crime, me going in there and making a prize twat of myself.’

‘It was different then,’ said Tanisha.

‘How?’

‘I panicked that time, just denied everything.’

‘And now?’

‘I don’t need to panic,’ said Tanisha. ‘I got you.’

Jack angled the camera at Tanisha. It was like
déjà vu
. Only it wasn’t a trick of the mind caused by lack of sleep, they really had all been here before, playing this same scene.

‘I’ll get straight to the point.’ His jaw was stiff. ‘Where were you tonight, Tanisha?’

‘At home, watching TV.’

Annabelle leaned forward. ‘I can confirm that.’

‘So you were together?’ Jack asked.

‘No,’ said Tanisha, ‘I was in my room.’

‘I can’t stand those reality shows the young people seem to love,’ said Annabelle.

Jack ignored Annabelle, kept his eyes trained on Tanisha. ‘And you stayed in your room all night?’

‘I was in there when the feds came for me, wasn’t I?’

He’d checked the notebooks of the uniform who had arrested her. There was no doubt they’d found Tanisha in her bedroom.

He wasn’t wearing a tie to smooth so he rubbed his palms along his thighs. The trousers were an old pair he’d found at the back of his locker. Tired grey joggers with a hole in the knee. He’d had to hand in the jeans he’d been wearing earlier to forensics. They’d test the blood and check them for anything else that might have leaked on to him while he held Chika in his arms.

Anger boiled under his skin. ‘Did you stay up in your room all night?’

‘Yeah.’ Tanisha paused. ‘No.’

‘Which is it?’

‘I came down once for something to eat. Annabelle wasn’t there, so I grabbed an apple.’