No Place to Die (8 page)

‘Mrs Hungerford,’ Penny said, putting her half-drunk tea back on the tray in the centre of the coffee table. Jane hadn’t touched hers. ‘You reported Maggie missing on Monday the twenty-first of April. Can you tell me what led up to you calling the police?’ Before the words had even had chance to settle in the air, Maggie’s parents were back on full alert. Elizabeth Hungerford’s eyes were wide, her pupils like pinpricks, and she was holding her husband’s hand as if she might float away without it. ‘I know this is difficult,’ Penny said. ‘Just take your time, and talk us through what happened.’ The air in the room seemed to have dropped by several degrees.

‘Maggie was meant to come for lunch on Easter Sunday,’ Elizabeth Hungerford began. ‘The boys were coming, and Chrissie was driving here straight from her parents’ place in Stratford. I met Maggie for lunch on the Wednesday – the sixteenth, it would have been. She had some coursework to get finished, so she said she couldn’t come on Good Friday, but that she might come on Saturday and stay over, so she was here when her brothers arrived on Sunday morning. I spoke to her on the phone later that day. We speak every day – well, most days. Her printer had packed up again,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘She said she’d call me in the morning and sort out timings for the weekend, see if I wanted anything picking up from Sainsbury’s – that kind of thing. But she didn’t call. She hasn’t called. Chrissie hasn’t seen her. None of her friends have seen her. No one has spoken to her.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. She released her husband’s hand just long enough to dab at her face with the screwed-up piece of tissue. ‘She always calls. If she says she’s going to call, she calls, doesn’t she, Bill?’

The look she gave her husband made Jane want to turn away. There was a mixture of fear and longing, which was understandable; but what made Jane’s heart squeeze was the unbridled hope that she could see in Elizabeth Hungerford’s eyes. Despite everything – the week that had passed since she last spoke to her daughter, the police officers in her lounge on a sunny Friday morning – she was still hoping that her daughter was going to call, was going to come home.

‘She does,’ Maggie’s father said, looking at Jane and then at Penny. ‘She always calls.’ His wife took a deep breath beside him and blew it out, reaching for her tea before deciding against it, her hands returning to her husband’s. ‘That’s why my wife called the police. That’s why we’ve been so worried.’

Jane realized that the only thing left linking her and Penny to this distraught couple in front of them was the words that had remained, as yet, unsaid. She couldn’t delay it any longer. She had to put them out of their misery; or rather she had to move their misery on to the next stage. The preliminary questions were over. The paperwork side of things was all but done. She could come back to Maggie’s mental state before her disappearance at another time. She would be speaking to the Hungerfords again, many more times in the coming weeks.

‘Mr and Mrs Hungerford,’ she began. ‘On Wednesday the twenty-third of April a body was discovered in the Elmstead Woods area. It was confirmed to be that of a young woman. It has been recovered and taken to the mortuary suite in Lewisham.’ She looked at Maggie’s parents in turn. Neither moved or spoke. Their eyes were fixed on Jane’s mouth. ‘The death has been listed as suspicious. Pending formal identification, I am sorry to tell you that the description of the woman found matches that of your daughter.’ She reached into her handbag and pulled out Maggie’s file. She took the picture, a head-shot of Maggie taken in the mortuary suite, and handed it to the Hungerfords. Maggie’s father reached for the small photograph and stared down at it. Tears flowed freely down his face, but he made no sound. Maggie’s mother looked at Jane. Her eyes seemed to plead with Jane, saying, ‘Don’t make me do this.’

Elizabeth Hungerford turned to face her husband, her shaking hand reaching out for the picture. The next few minutes would stay with Jane for life. Maggie’s mother howled and screamed at her husband, at Jane, at Penny, at the room around her. Jane looked on, helpless, as every emotion tore the poor woman apart.

I need water. I need air.

Something is wrong. This wasn’t meant to happen. I can feel the panic now. It’s like razor wire inside my mind. It’s tearing into my brain, the soft tissue no match for its metallic barbs. The space is closing in around me. I swear I can hear the slow grind as the muddy walls inch towards me. I can smell the friction. It’s like burning coal. It will crush me. I will become part of the earth. I won’t feel any more pain. It feels like madness. I lie on my back and put my hands on my stomach, concentrating on my breaths. In and out. In and out. Each rise and fall of my chest hurts. My head is heavy. My tongue sits in my mouth like a stranded fish, bloated by the sun. I have shouted. For hours I have screamed, until my body gave out, leaving me coughing, my lungs dry and raw. Where is the euphoria now?

There is a door, a way out. I know there is, but I can’t find it. I have searched every inch of the space, but it is hiding from me, torturing me. I lie here, my hands shaking in the darkness, tears rolling down over my ears, tickling my skin, making me itch. I scratch. My fingers feel like sandpaper against my skin. I ache. My head, my back, my stomach, my legs. Everything aches. I have dived too deep. The pressure of the nothingness presses against me, crushing me.

I hear a sound above me. I look for it, not knowing if my eyes are open at all. I have to fight. I have to shout. I roll onto my front and push myself onto all fours. I take a deep breath and throw my head back. Nothing comes out of my mouth but a strangled hiss. I drop my head, focusing all of my strength on my lungs. I try again. Nothing. As I sit back on my haunches I begin to laugh. There is no sound, but my shoulders shake, my breath turns into ragged gasps. This is how it is meant to be. This is what I know is meant to happen. It’s all part of it. The madness retreats, frightened back into submission by my rational mind. I have let the wild thoughts take over. That’s all they are. Thoughts. I need to sleep. Once I regain my strength I can begin again. I reach back to massage my feet.

My right foot is numb.

25th April
–
Friday

Jane put her Peugeot into gear and reversed into the driveway. Her mother’s car was parked in the garage, the door open. She refused to close Jane’s garage door on principle. In her opinion, the world had ‘gone mad’ when it came to household security. Jane had spent more than a few hours trying to convince her mother that some Lewisham residents might not sign up to her particular code of ethics. She turned off the engine and used her remote to close the garage door. She picked up her briefcase from the passenger seat and climbed out of the car.

Her morning with the Hungerfords had drained her – and that was before she had visited Maggie’s home, and SOCO had confirmed blood on the doorstep and pathway outside the house in Greenwich. There wasn’t much, but enough to warrant the theory that Maggie had been taken from her home by force. Jane closed the car door and leaned against it, relishing the support. She felt as if she had done a ten-mile run, her legs were so heavy. The lab was rushing the blood sample through to get confirmation that it belonged to Maggie. Not that Jane needed it.

The temperature gauge in her car had read twenty-one degrees, but standing in her driveway it felt a lot warmer than that. She had an hour before she had to be back in the office. Dave had called to say he could do the post-mortem at five o’clock, and Phil Bathgate, the squad’s resident forensic psychologist, would be ‘popping in’ to see her at six-thirty. It was a pity the two appointments didn’t overlap, because if it came down to a choice between Maggie Hungerford’s post-mortem and seeing Phil, she would pick the post-mortem. Phil gave her the creeps. The only saving grace was that she didn’t have to deal with him very often. His kind of expertise wasn’t necessary on the kind of cases she handled. If she was ever promoted to inspector, then – like Lockyer – she would no doubt get to know Phil a whole lot better. The thought made her shudder. She had seen him in action on the Stevens case. He had reacted to Lewisham’s first serial killer like a kid who had been given a new bike.

She pushed her fringe out of her eyes and walked up to her front door, sliding her key into the lock. As she opened the door, the coolness of the hallway wafted over her. She smiled, closed her eyes and allowed herself to enjoy the moment. She loved this house. She loved coming home. When she was in her twenties, living in a tiny flat on Lee High Road, she relished feeling at the centre of it all. She would never have imagined that, ten years later, she would be living in a 1960s dormer-bungalow-style house in Belmont Hill with a seven-year-old son. She pushed the door closed, dropped her bag on the floor and walked through to the kitchen. Her mother should be home with Peter soon. He would be dying to get out in their garden. She remembered the first time she had watched him running his chubby little hands over the grass, the sun shining on his face. He had been two and a half. She walked back into the hallway and up the stairs into her bedroom.

The mortuary suite would be cold, and she knew from experience that the odours released during the post-mortem tended to stick to your clothes. She opened her wardrobe, took out a pair of charcoal trousers, an old green T-shirt and a light sweater. As she changed she realized this particular ensemble had become her PM outfit. She could wash it all together, it dried quickly and she never wore it socially. She laughed out loud as she sat down on the edge of her bed. ‘Socially’ implied a social life, and she hadn’t had one of those for a while. She heard a key slide into the lock downstairs. She buttoned her trousers and walked out of her room. As she rounded the corner to go down the stairs she caught sight of Peter’s head disappearing down the hallway. Her mother smiled up at her.

‘I tell you, that boy just about wears me out. We weren’t at the park for more than ten minutes before he was dragging me out again, wanting to come home.’

‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, walking down the stairs. She kissed her mother on the cheek and reached up to smooth away the flyaway hairs that had come unstuck on the walk home. Celia Bennett believed in hairspray. ‘How’s he doing today?’

‘He’s good – super. A touch hyper, but then the sun’s shining,’ her mother said, shrugging out of a lightweight jacket and hanging it on the banister. ‘Do you have time for a cuppa?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Jane said. ‘I’ve got half an hour before I need to be getting back.’ She received a cool look as her mother flicked on the kettle.

‘Oh well,’ her mother said, flicking on the kettle, ‘I suppose it can’t be helped.’

Jane walked over to the window and looked out. Peter was already in position, sitting at the top of the garden, his face upturned to the sun, his hands outstretched on either side of him, stroking the grass. He looked like a little Buddha. She knocked on the window and waited. After a second or two Peter tipped his head forward and looked in her general direction. She waved and smiled. He waved back at her, before resuming his position.

‘Go out and say hello. I’ll bring the tea,’ her mother said.

Jane opened the back door, stepped outside, kicked off her shoes and walked up the garden. ‘Hello, handsome,’ she said, bending down until she was crouched in front of him. ‘And what have you been doing today?’ Peter kept his eyes closed, but turned his face towards her voice.

‘School,’ he said. A frown wrinkled his forehead. ‘Mrs Porter didn’t let me in the playground at break-time.’ He spoke as if it was an accusation directed at her rather than at Mrs Porter.

‘Oh dear. Why didn’t Mrs Porter want you to play outside today?’ she asked.

‘I wasn’t listening in class. Miss Hanson said so, so Mrs Porter said I had to eat my lunch in the lunch-room.’ His whole face was scrunched up now, as if the memory was more stressful than the punishment itself.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Jane. ‘Well, you know you have to listen in class. Miss Hanson is there to help you, isn’t she?’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth she could see that Peter wasn’t in the mood for more reprimanding. She didn’t want to get into a fight. She didn’t want to spoil his afternoon. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll listen twice as hard tomorrow,’ she said ruffling his hair. He reacted to her touch. A casual observer wouldn’t notice, but she did.

‘That’s what Mrs Porter said,’ he replied, settling his hands back into the grass.

She smiled, leaned forward and kissed her son on the forehead. His skin smelled of soap and was warm and soft beneath her lips. ‘Love you, munchkin,’ she said, pushing herself back up until she was standing over him. She retreated to the table and took the mug being offered to her by her mother.

‘He had a hard day’ was all her mother said as she sat down. Jane nodded and reached for one of the blueberry muffins laid out on a tray. As she went to take a napkin, her mother caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘Good days and bad days, darling. Good days and bad days.’

She was back in the office by quarter to five and in the lift on her way down to the mortuary suite by ten to.

She had received three emails from Phil confirming their meeting at six-thirty, amending their meeting for later on and then reconfirming the original time. From the tone of his emails he sounded buoyant. He said he had some ‘interesting ideas’ to discuss with her. She looked at her reflection in the lift doors and straightened her hair, rearranging her fringe. Why wouldn’t it stay where she put it? The doors opened, she stepped out and walked down the quiet hallway. Sue had called the office three times and left messages. Her questions and mild enquiry into ‘how things were going’ seemed benign, but Jane could hear the message underneath. Why wasn’t Jane out there, finding her husband? Why wasn’t she doing her job? Jane would have to call Sue after the post-mortem, if there was time, or after her meeting with Phil. She had put in a call to the lab to see where they were with the DNA results. With any luck, she would have an email from them when she got back to her desk. At least then she would have something new to tell Sue, rather than fobbing her off with the standard line of ‘We’re doing everything we can.’