Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery) (33 page)

Geraldine arrived on time and Louise took her straight up to her small office where they sat on either side of a small desk, gazing solemnly at each other.

‘So, have you thought about your mother’s funeral?’

The social worker was in her late twenties. She had a kind face and a gentle voice, but her eyes looked anxious behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Geraldine didn’t want to be unkind, but she couldn’t help feeling let down by the lack of support she had received. She had met her mother only to bury her.

‘I want a dignified cremation.’

‘A cremation?’ Louise echoed. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. Is that what your mother requested?’

‘To be honest I don’t know what she wanted. As far as I know she never thought about it or if she did, she never mentioned anything about it to me. We never even discussed it. We never really had a chance to talk about anything. There wasn’t time.’

‘Did she say anything about it in her letter to you?’

‘No. I’ve no idea what she wanted but this is what I want, a nice quiet send off. I’ll pay for everything.’

‘There’s no need for that –’

‘I want to.’

Geraldine hadn’t intended to offer to pay for her mother’s funeral, but the words slipped out before she thought about it. She didn’t regret her offer. She could afford it, and however absent she had been as a mother, Milly Blake had given birth to her. Geraldine owed her a decent funeral.

‘Is there anything else?’

Geraldine nodded. ‘Yes, there is something else I want to ask you before I go.’ She took a deep breath. ‘How well did you know my mother?’

There was a pause before Louise admitted she had never met Milly Blake. ‘I took the file over from Sandra. You met her, didn’t you? She left some notes on the file about you, and how you’d requested a meeting with your mother several times. It’s a pity she left it so late to agree to see you.’ She sighed. ‘Your mother remained adamant she didn’t want to meet you, right up until she suffered her coronary. I’m so sorry. It was only when she wanted to see you that I became involved at all really. Before that there was nothing for us to do.’

Geraldine hardly dared ask her next question. ‘What about – what about my sister?’

‘What sister?’

‘My mother’s letter mentioned she had another daughter, Helena. Did you have any contact with her?’

Louise shook her head. ‘No, like I said, I’m afraid I never even met your mother. I didn’t know she had another daughter. Are you sure?’

Geraldine shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No, I’m sorry, I’ll see what I can do –’

They both knew that, if Milly had produced another daughter, Geraldine was as likely to trace her as Louise.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Louise repeated. ‘I’ll do what I can, and get things in motion for your mother’s cremation. As far as your sister’s concerned – Milly’s other daughter – I’ll do my best to find out what I can for you. I’ll try and contact Sandra and find out if she knows anything. There was nothing on the file, but I know your mother spoke to Sandra, and she might have mentioned something. I’ll let you know straight away if Sandra can remember anything. And if there’s anything else I can do, let me know. If there
is
another daughter, she’ll need to be notified of course as I’m sure she’ll want to attend her mother’s funeral –’

Geraldine forced a smile. ‘Thank you very much. I’m sure you’ll do what you can. Thank you for your time, and all your help.’

Louise blushed. ‘I didn’t really do anything.’

Geraldine stood up without contradicting her, the legs of her chair scraping noisily on the floor. She did her best to hide her disappointment. The social worker didn’t know anything about Milly’s other daughter. If Milly had spoken about Helena to Sandra, the retired social worker was unlikely to remember in detail after such a long time. Thoroughly fed up, Geraldine returned to the police station, sorry she had taken the time to visit Louise’s office when they could just as easily have spoken on the phone. Neil wasn’t at his desk but Geraldine’s relief at finding herself alone was short lived. She had hardly sat down when Sam put her head round the door.

‘I was hoping to catch you on your own,’ Sam said, going in and closing the door. ‘I wanted a word with you –’

‘What about?’

Sam frowned and looked down at the floor. ‘Actually, about you, Geraldine.’

‘It’ll have to wait. I’m too busy to chat right now.’

‘That’s OK,’ Sam answered quickly. ‘My flatmate’s out tonight so I thought maybe we could go for a drink and a bite to eat. We haven’t gone out together in ages.’

‘Thanks, Sam, but like I said, I’m busy at the moment.’

‘You still have to eat,’ Sam protested. ‘Or is it just that you don’t want to spend time with me? Geraldine, are you sure I haven’t done anything to piss you off? You don’t seem comfortable with me any more, not like we used to be. I thought we were friends.’

Geraldine put down her iPad and turned to her colleague. ‘Look, we’ve already had this conversation, Sam. You haven’t done anything, it’s me. I’ve got something I need to sort out and I’m just a bit preoccupied, that’s all.’

‘Is it about your mother?’

‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’

She hadn’t yet told Sam that she had met her mother. Even Celia didn’t know that she had finally found her, only to lose her again. It was over. Now Milly was dead it would be even more difficult to share the news that had somehow turned into a secret. Thinking about it, Geraldine wasn’t sure she wanted to tell anyone about her mother – or her missing sister. It would serve no purpose. The most sensible course would be to accept that her search for her blood relatives was over, and put the past firmly behind her, where it belonged.

64

T
HEO RUSHED ACROSS
the room, spun round and ran back again, waving one arm above his head and shouting. His curly hair bobbed up and down, and his eyes glinted with maniacal laughter as he pretended to shoot Rosa.

‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’

The neighbour next door thumped on the wall. ‘Shut it!’

Theo laughed and pointed his make-believe gun at the wall. ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ he yelled. ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’

His chant changed. ‘Shut it!’ he called out, mimicking the neighbour’s voice. ‘Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!’

He darted over to the wall and began hitting it repeatedly with the flat of his hand, yelling all the while. Although his high-pitched voice was thin, it was piercing. It grated on Rosa’s nerves. It would easily penetrate the thin internal wall between the two flats. Recovered from her rage at the way the pigs were treating her boys, Rosa was growing anxious. The neighbours must have seen the recent flurry of activity centring on her flat, with so many police coming and going. The detectives were relatively discreet. There was a chance they might have escaped notice. But when uniformed officers had turned up to search the flat, there was no disguising their presence.

The residents on the estate were always on the alert. Once word got around that Jack had been taken away, Rosa and Theo would be sitting ducks. Jack had done a good job of protecting them, but he hadn’t stopped to make friends in doing so. The old geezer next door was not the only one who had a score to settle with her family. The minute Theo stepped outside the front door, anyone Jack had terrorised would be targeting his brother, and Rosa had no way of keeping him safe. The pigs were supposed to protect people. Instead, they swept around like a self-righteous army, leaving devastation in their wake. They had no idea of the harm they caused to vulnerable people.

There was a knock at the front door. Rosa froze. It hadn’t taken long for hostilities to kick off. She stole over to peer through the peep hole. If it looked like trouble, she would send Theo to his room and tell him to stay silent. He was a good boy. He would do what he was told, provided she offered him sufficient inducement. With Theo out of sight, she would tell whoever was calling that she was at home by herself and suffer the consequences. Any amount of beating was better than seeing Theo hurt. At least she understood what was going on.

She recognised the detective inspector standing outside the flat. As far as Rosa could see, she was on her own. Cautiously she opened the door on the chain.

‘Hello, Rosa. Can I come in? I’m by myself. I just want to talk to you.’

‘Is it about Jack?’

‘Not exactly. Can I come in, or will you at least open the door so we can talk?’

Rosa hesitated, but they had Jack behind bars anyway. It could do no harm to talk. She opened the door and let the inspector into her front room where nothing matched. There was a threadbare armchair for Theo that had originally been bright red, a relatively smart black leather chair where Jack sat in state, as the man of the family. Rosa had an old yellow kitchen chair, the only one left from a set she used to own in better times, before Theo was born.

‘Why you don’t get a better chair?’ Jack had asked her, but she liked her chair. It had sentimental value for her. ‘Why not get sentimental over a nice chair?’

By contrast, the inspector looked immaculate in dark grey trousers ironed on the creases, a white shirt, and a tailored blue jacket. Her shoes gleamed, and her short hair lay flat on her head like a glossy black helmet. Rosa pushed a straggly lock of her own hair behind one ear, scowling as she perched on her own seat while the inspector took the leather chair.

‘I’ve come to talk to you about Theo.’

Theo must have been listening from the kitchen because he ran into the room as soon as his name was mentioned.

‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ he yelled, pointing a pretend gun at the detective.

‘Shut it!’ the old man in the next flat shouted.

The inspector gazed at Rosa, a visor of fake concern plastered over her face. ‘I’m here to discuss Theo –’

‘We don’t need no one poking around in our business. You leave my boy alone!’

‘Leave my boy alone!’ Theo repeated, grinning and nodding his head. ‘Leave my boy alone!’

‘There are places where Theo could receive appropriate help,’ the inspector insisted. ‘Rosa, you need to think about what’s best for him.’

‘You ain’t taking him away.’

‘He would still live here with you. No one wants to take him away from you. But he would learn how to take care of himself, and you’d get a break –’

‘He’s fine as he is. And I don’t need a break from my own flesh and blood. He’s my son.’

Jack’s chair creaked softly as the inspector leaned forward. ‘You have to think about Theo. You can’t take care of him all by yourself.’

‘He got a brother. That’s all we need, our Jack back home. He takes care of Theo. We don’t need no one else.’

‘Rosa, I’m going to chase social services about Theo. They can help you take care of him, but sometimes they’re so overworked that things get overlooked. Staff change, social workers move around or leave, and details can get lost when people retire, important details –’

‘I got no idea what you’re on about. Leave us alone.’

‘We need to think about Theo.’

‘I am thinking about him. I don’t think about nothing else. He ain’t nothing to you, but he’s my son. He won’t last a day without me. I take care of him. Now fuck off out of our lives and give us back my boy. That’s what Theo wants. Like you care about him, about any of us. We’re just the dregs to you. Well, we don’t want you neither, so you can just piss off and don’t you never come back here.’

With a sigh, the inspector stood up. ‘A social worker will be in touch,’ she said.

‘Bugger off and leave us alone. We was all fine until you come along.’

65

T
HE MANAGER LOCKED
up the front and went, leaving Rafe and Katy to finish tidying upstairs. As soon as he had gone, Katy made for the optics behind the bar. Rafe watched her nervously, fidgeting with a button on his shirt. Her pink hair was a mess, and her make-up was smudged as though she had been rubbing her eyes. Without her habitual smile, he decided she was actually quite plain, and looked considerably older than the twenty-five years she admitted to.

‘Shouldn’t we start on the clearing up?’ he asked, glancing round at empty glasses and crisp packets littering the tables.

Ignoring his question, Katy climbed on to a bar stool. ‘Come on, knock it back,’ she called, holding out a vodka. ‘Stop fussing and come and have a drink with me.’

Rafe approached cautiously. ‘What if he finds out we’ve been having a go at the spirits? It’s not like we’re taking the odd beer while we’re clearing the tables.’

‘So what if he knows we had a drop of vodka? It’s not a crime, is it? In any case, I had nothing but coke all night, and a few punters offered to buy me drinks. Their cash went in his till, so I’m owed a few, and anyway, we’re allowed the occasional drink, now and again, aren’t we? Tell you what, if you don’t want it, I’ll drink it for you. Don’t mind if I do.’

She was as good as her word. Downing her own vodka, she drank his straight after.

‘Down the hatch,’ she called out cheerily, clambering down off her stool.

It wasn’t like Katy to get drunk. Rafe wasn’t sure whether to feel amused or irritated by her antics. She had been working there for longer than him, so she was in charge, but if she lost control he would effectively be responsible for the premises.