Chimera (6 page)

Searching the children’s bedrooms was somehow worst of all. Kate tried not to wince as her gloved fingers lifted out piles of neatly folded clothing, leaving them in brightly coloured heaps on the striped rug in the middle of the floor. The twin boys shared a room, two cot beds facing one another with matching duvet cover sets. Blue and white bunting hung on the wall and a little night-light, shaped like a boat, stood on a small table between the cots. Kate didn’t like to think of a mother, a parent, hiding drugs in their pre-schoolers’ room, but you couldn’t deny that it sometimes happened. She found nothing though and, relieved, went through to the little girl’s nursery to search. What was her name again? Something weird.
Manon
, that was it. Kate paused in the doorway blinking, taking in the excess of pink. It was as if a giant ball of Disney princesses had exploded. She took a deep breath and began the search, again finding nothing.

After several more weary hours she and Theo called it a day, the single bag of powder the only thing that resulted from a whole day’s search. They locked up the house, setting the alarm. They crawled their way back through the crowd of paparazzi; still as many, if not more, as had been there that morning. When would they get fed up of waiting? Kate thought of the headlines still to come, of the moral outrage that would result once the reality of Trixie’s death was known. She winced inwardly and put her head back against the headrest of the car seat. Theo put his finger out to turn the stereo on and then seemed to change his mind, sighing a little. They drove back to the station in tired silence.

Chapter Six

The next morning, Kate regarded her desk with something akin to dismay. The surface had all but disappeared beneath a teetering pile of cardboard folders, slippery plastic envelopes, dirty coffee mugs and veritable strata of loose paper. She thought of everything she had to do and fought the urge to push her chair back and flee the room for good. Instead, she squared her shoulders, attempted to push the toppling piles of paperwork into some sort of order, and gave thanks that she’d actually treated herself to a ‘good coffee’ for once.

Theo, who sat opposite her, kept interrupting his own work to seize his mobile phone and swipe at the screen. Kate, whose own concentration was interrupted every time he did it, gritted her teeth until she couldn’t hold back a barbed comment any longer. “Waiting for the football results, are you?”

Apparently, the bitchiness went straight over Theo’s head. “No,” he said absently. “I’m just checking the headlines. I want to see what they’re reporting on Trixie Arlen’s death.”

Kate felt a little ashamed of herself. “Oh,” she said. She got up and went round to his desk, leaning over to look at the little screen herself. “Anything interesting?”

“Nah. The usual sentimental guff, family’s heartbreak, bringing up her tragic life, you know the kind of thing.”

“Her tragic life?”

“Yeah – you remember, her first husband died, didn’t he, and she had that miscarriage.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate. “What
did
he actually die of?”

“Drugs overdose.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “Seriously?” She was silent for a moment, thinking. “That actually might strengthen the case that Trixie was a drug addict herself. I mean, suppose her first husband introduced her to drugs?”

Theo nodded. “But suppose it was the other way round? If you’d lost a loved one to heroin, why the hell would you start taking it yourself?”

Kate got up and went back to her own chair. “That’s a good point,” she admitted, sitting back down. “I don’t know enough about addiction, really – the psychology of it, I mean.” Briefly, she recalled her mother’s struggle with the bottle. Perhaps she knew more than she realised. “I’ll look into it,” she said, half to Theo, half to herself.

The phone rang when she was halfway through a Google search for drug and alcohol treatment centres in Abbeyford. Impatiently she snatched it up. “DS Redman here.”

“Oh, hello.” She recognised the quiet tones of Doctor Telling. “I have some information on your John Doe. We’ve received the reports back from the dental lab.”

Kate’s head was so full of Trixie Arlen that for a moment, she had to struggle to recall who on Earth Doctor Telling was talking about. Then she remembered – the first body they’d found, in the abandoned cottage.

“Oh, yes, thanks,” she said. “Do we have a name?”

“Yes, the dental records brought up a match. His name really was John, John Henry Miller, born in 1960 in Aberdeen. Should I send over the files?”

“Oh, please do,” said Kate. She felt a little glow of satisfaction in the news. She hated the cases – and there were always a few – when a body went unidentified, unclaimed, unmissed. What an awful way to end up, with literally no one on Earth to mourn you. “Thank you very much, Kirsten.”

“It’s no problem,” the pathologist replied in her quiet tone, but Kate thought she could detect an answering measure of satisfaction in her voice. Doctor Telling was gentle and empathic, like all the best doctors. Kate felt a moment’s regret that; because of her break up with Andrew, she’d lost the chance of getting to know Doctor Telling better. She’d always felt that she would be a nice woman to be friends with.

“Is there anything else back from the labs with regard to the Arlen case?” she remembered to ask, but the answer was negative. Kate hadn’t really expected a result yet – these things always took more time than anticipated.

The morning’s work took on a more upbeat feel after the call. Kate flew through a load of outstanding paperwork, arranged an appointment with one of the directors of Outreach, Abbeyford’s largest drug and alcohol treatment centre, caught up with her emails, and realised with a start at twelve o’clock that she was supposed to be having lunch with Stuart. She had to grab her coat and handbag and make a run for the café where they were supposed to be meeting, arriving five minutes late and looking more dishevelled than she would have liked.

Stuart was already there, at a table by the window. He caught sight of Kate as she hurried through the door and gave her a grin. She puffed up to the table, panting apologies.

“It’s not like you to be late,” Stuart said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

Kate dropped into a chair, trying to smooth her hair. “I know. I’ve been flat out. Sorry.”

“I remember.” Stuart had worked as an undercover officer for the Abbeyford team before a catastrophic series of events had led to his resignation, and he now worked as a private detective. Although he put a brave face on it, Kate knew that he missed working for the police, but she’d learned by now not to mention the possibility of Stuart reapplying for the force.

It was funny, she thought as she took a menu from the hovering waitress, how differently she felt about Stuart now than when she’d first met him. She’d almost hated him on first sight, thinking him arrogant, pushy and rude. Of course, he could still be all of those things, she thought with an inner smile, but somehow it didn’t seem to bother her anymore. He was clever and funny and good company. Olbeck kept muttering about how she and Stuart would make the perfect couple and why wasn’t she doing anything about it, but Kate knew he was wrong. She appreciated Stuart’s friendship and that was all; she hoped he felt the same way about her.

They gave their orders and then settled back in their chairs.

“So,” said Stuart. “What’s new?”

Kate told him what she could about the latest cases, the three heroin overdoses and the Trixie Arlen case. She mentioned that she’d made an appointment to talk to a drugs counsellor, to try and get a bit more insight into what made an addict do the things that they did.

“I can’t help feeling that I should understand a bit
more
,” she said, stirring her leek and potato soup. “I keep thinking that there might be a connection to these overdose cases. Well, of course there must be. How could there not be?”

Stuart swallowed a mouthful of food. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re on the right track. First thing you should do is pull some stats, don’t you think? Get the analysts to do some digging. Find out the rate of overdose deaths last year – last month, even – and do some comparisons with the most recent cases.”

Kate brightened. “That’s a great idea. Thanks. I’ll do just that.”

“No charge,” said Stuart, grinning. “You’ve got a name for the first body, right?”

Kate nodded. “Yes, we have. That’s something I’ll be looking into when I get back.” She finished the last mouthful of soup, pushed her bowl away a little, and relaxed back into her chair. She looked across at Stuart. “It’s funny, but I can’t help thinking about Trixie Arlen.” She opened her mouth to mention the one suspicious packet that she and Theo had found, and then recalled Anderson’s warning. Of course, Stuart didn’t know, and he
couldn’t
know either, not from her. “It’s so sad, isn’t it?” Kate said hastily, covering herself. “It’s always more sad when there are children, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so,” said Stuart. He appeared to be thinking about something. He reached out to spin his water glass in a slow circle. “It wouldn’t surprise me…” he began and then stopped.

“What?” asked Kate.

“Well,” said Stuart. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the Trixie Arlen case is connected to these heroin deaths. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

“Really?” said Kate, as casually as she could. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, you know. Sudden death of a healthy, relatively young woman. A woman known to have associated with heroin addicts in the past – her first husband, for one. She was pretty wild back in the nineties, wasn’t she? All those rumours.” Kate was uncomfortably aware that he was keenly watching her face. He was too good at reading people, damn him; it was his undercover training. “I don’t suppose the PM threw anything like that up?”

“No,” said Kate, truthfully. “It was inconclusive.”

“So you’re waiting for toxicology results, right?”

“That’s right.”

Stuart sat back in his chair and stretched. “I bet you a tenner I’m right. No, wait. If I’m right, next time we have lunch, you’re buying.”

Kate smiled reluctantly. “You know I don’t gamble, Stuart. But I don’t mind shouting you lunch.”

Stuart laughed and, thankfully, Kate could see him dismissing the subject. “Can’t believe you don’t gamble. Don’t you have Irish heritage? It should be in your blood.”

“That’s why,” said Kate, standing up to leave. “Thanks, anyway. Let’s meet up soon, yes?”

“You got it.”

They hugged goodbye and Kate made her way back to the office, thinking about what Stuart had said. He was right. Why had she been so shocked by Doctor Telling’s findings on the pathology table? Her, a seasoned police officer? With a pang, she recalled that Stuart had lost a brother to heroin addiction, years ago. No wonder he was more attuned to the possibility. She wished she’d remembered that at the lunch so she could have talked to him about it. But perhaps that would have been too painful.

Kate ran over the details of the case in her head. Even if Trixie had been an addict, it wasn’t that straightforward, was it? What about the bruising on Trixie’s arm? Kate pondered the questions as she walked back to her desk. Who had cleared away the syringes, the drugs, the tourniquets? She wondered whether Anderton had interviewed Jacob Arlen yet and whether anything interesting had come to light. She had a flashback to sitting at the Arlens’ kitchen table, watching Arlen’s face as he recounted his journey up to the bedroom, through the silent house, to find his wife’s dead body on the bed. Kate remembered the blonde neighbour, the friend – what was her name? Kyla Mellors – and the slight hesitation in the woman’s answers. There was something there, something to be further investigated. It could be nothing, but then again… Kate added
interview Kyla Mellors
to her ever-growing checklist of things to do.

Doctor Telling had emailed through the information on John Henry Miller and Kate spent the rest of the afternoon reading through it. He’d been born in 1960, had gone to school in London, and joined the army at sixteen. Reading between the bare facts, Kate could see a man who’d lost his place in the world once he left the Armed Forces – a sad fact that was more common than people thought. There were several reports which detailed his arrests for vagrancy, for being drunk and disorderly, for possession of a class A substance. She flipped forward to the photo that Missing Persons had forwarded. A non-descript man, weathered by years of rough living, brown eyes, greying hair. Someone had obviously reported him missing at some point, for MISPER to have his details, but who? And did it really matter? Kate did a quick calculation and worked out that his parents were almost certainly dead, given his age. Was it worth trying to find out? This wasn’t even their case anymore.

After a moment, she slowly clicked the mouse to close the PDF and exited the email, with a faint feeling of guilt. She wondered how long Miller had lain dead in that cottage. Had he actually died from the overdose or had he succumbed to exposure, lying there comatose in the filth and the cold? It was horrible to think of, almost as horrible to think that there was no one left to mourn him. She made a resolution that she would go to his funeral. She would probably be the only one there, apart from the celebrant, but that made it even more important. Kate made a quick mental note to find out when the council-funded funeral would be.

Miller’s grizzled old face kept recurring to Kate that night as she relaxed at home. She had lit a fire, the first of the season, as the warm autumnal weather had suddenly given way to a chill. Her living room was neat, as usual, and filled with objects of comfort and sentimental value. She should have been happy, or at least relaxed, but somehow the image of the derelict cottage kept intruding, Miller’s remains in a nauseating puddle on the filthy floor.
Unwept, unhonoured and unsung
… Kate poked up the fire, lit an expensive scented candle that she’d kept ‘for best’, and wrapped herself in a woolly throw. The crackle of the burning logs sounded too loud in the silent house and she felt the weight of the empty rooms above her. She tried putting on some music but it seemed to just make things worse – an echo in the void. Oh, get a grip of yourself, woman, she told herself, but in the background, all she could hear was the same word, repeated over and over again.
Alone
.

She passed a bad night and got up the next morning feeling as though she hadn’t slept. Olbeck, by contrast, almost bounced into the office, tousling Kate’s hair as he passed her desk, which made her swat him away in annoyance.

“What’s up with you?” she asked grumpily, sliding out of her chair and following him to his office.

“Nothing,” said Olbeck, grinning. “Just full of the joys of spring.”

“It’s October.”

Olbeck dismissed her comment with an airy wave of his hand. “Full of the joys of autumn, then. Hey, you doing anything next week? Thought you might like to come for dinner.”