Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (29 page)

‘You heard what Abi said. If Emma had been outside her flat in the last fortnight, Abi would have put her in hospital before now. Let’s ask Emma about Grace, and Christie. But our killer’s still out there. Maybe he’s connected to Christie, but it’s too soon to make that assumption.’

‘If Christie put the note in Grace’s pocket, she’s dangerous. Or disturbed, like Abi said. Who’d direct a frightened girl to Emma’s door?’

Marnie nodded. ‘Let’s see if Emma knows the answer to that.’

42

‘I hope you’ve got her locked up.’ Emma showed her arms, livid with bruises. ‘See what she did to me? Bloody animal.’ Propped in the hospital bed in a private room, her legs covered by a waffled blanket, the thin skin of her scalp broken in places by Abi’s boots.

‘We need to talk about Grace Bradley, the girl you assaulted in your flat. What happened there?’

‘Oh,
her
!’ Contemptuous. ‘Ask her yourself. I gave her a place to stay, didn’t I? How was I to know what kind of girl she was?’

Noah saw her scanning Marnie’s face for weakness, some sign that DI Rome wasn’t prepared to wait all night for an answer to her question. When she didn’t find what she wanted, Emma’s mouth crabbed.

‘She asked for my help and I gave it to her. Next thing I know she’s stealing pills from my cabinet, getting drugged up, trying to push me around. I get enough of that from the animals who did this. So I shut her in the cupboard to calm her down. She was doing damage to herself as well as me and my property. I took the necessary precautions, that’s all.’

‘It was a necessary precaution to beat her with a walking stick?’

‘Who’s saying I did that? Her? She’s a liar. She was high as a kite, walking into things left, right and centre. If I’d known she was a pillhead, I’d never have taken her in.’

‘You knew we were looking for her. Why didn’t you call us?’

‘And have you ignore me, the same as always?’ She clutched at the blanket. ‘I thought I’d cope with this one on my own, thanks very much.’

‘Grace had a piece of paper in her pocket,’ Marnie said, ‘with your name and address on it. Did you know her before you locked her in your cupboard?’

‘Never seen her in my life.’ Sucking at her false teeth. Roll-calling her frailties.

‘Then how did she know your name and address?’

‘No idea. Maybe she was coming to rob me, or start a fire. Maybe Gull knows her.’

‘We asked. She doesn’t.’ Marnie put the evidence bag where Emma could read the scrap of paper found in Grace’s pocket. ‘Do you recognise the handwriting?’

‘It’s not Gull’s.’ Her eyes shivered. ‘I’ve seen enough of her hate mail.’

‘Someone directed Grace to your flat. Who would do that?’

‘I’ve no idea, love. Just as well
I’m
not the detective. Like I said, she came knocking and I let her in. Tried to help. Got pushed about for my trouble.’

Marnie rested her eyes away from the woman, as if she was sick of looking at her, and sick of listening to her lies. ‘We have your walking stick, and photographs of the bruises on Grace. It won’t be hard to prove what happened. And you might want to think about what it will be like going back to the Garrett once word gets around about what you did to a frightened fifteen-year-old.’ A beat. ‘Not to mention the other children, the ones you’ve been dealing drugs to. Abigail Gull is making a full statement in defence of her actions. But perhaps I’m underestimating the tolerance of your neighbours. Perhaps you’ll be given the benefit of the doubt.’

Emma Tarvin gathered her spit and hawked it at Marnie’s feet. It landed hard, the colour and size of an old ten-pence piece, on the floor of her hospital room.

‘Trying to scare
me
, lady? I’ve seen the way people get treated on the Garrett. Not just by that lot of bloody savages, either. The police and the papers, everyone. The youngsters are the worst. Scum. No respect for anyone or anything. Never mind my mum worked in the factories through the war, stuffing bombs to keep this country safe. I wish I’d kept some of the bloody things to blow up those little cows. Teach them a lesson, the only kind they’d learn from.’

Marnie heard her out. When Emma stopped speaking, she said, ‘Grace Bradley was locked in a cupboard, by you. She was starved and beaten and scared to death. By you.’

‘They deserve to be scared. The whole lot of them. Think I’m just going to sit there in my slippers while they set fire to my flat again? Think that’s all I’m fit for?’ Her eyes fixed on Marnie, wrathfully. ‘I played by your rules for years, and look where it got me. Filling in forms, getting talked down to by Victim Support. About time some of us remembered who we are. Better than those bastards running round like they own that place, skipping school, spreading their legs for anyone who throws a second glance.’ She shook with contempt. ‘Nasty little whores. They’re filth. They should be locked up.’

Marnie put a freezer bag of pills on the table at the side of the bed. ‘And these?’

‘What about them?’ Running her stare up and down Marnie. ‘You look like you could use a few. Not exactly full of the joys of spring, are you, love?’

‘You were selling pills to the children on the estate. Abi’s brother Clarke died of an overdose after taking them. No wonder she decided you were public enemy number one.’

‘That slut doesn’t need any excuse for what she does. She loves it. Lighting fires, throwing stones. It’s in her blood. Know what else I’ve seen her do? Hike up her skirt and take a piss on the pavement.’ She sat back, out of breath. ‘She’s an animal, like the rest of them. Animals.’

‘You don’t deny selling these pills?’ Noah hadn’t thought it would be so easy to get a confession from her. ‘Dealing drugs to children?’

‘Seeing as how you’ve got a fridge full of evidence, handsome? No, I don’t.’

‘And you’re not sorry? You’re not ashamed?’

‘Ashamed?’ She drew herself up against the pillows. ‘I’m
proud
. I’m making something of myself. Isn’t that what we’re meant to do? I’m not the one with the habit. Oh, I
could
be. Plenty of my friends get hooked on the rubbish they dole out to keep us from moaning too loudly about our dicky bladders and arthritis and God knows what else besides. They’d love me stuffed to the gills with that poison. Shut me up nicely, wouldn’t it? Seeing as we’re all living longer, it’d be nice if we could be kept quiet.’ She spat again, but weakly, the spittle landing on the front of her cardigan. ‘So I’ll take the pills, thank you very much, whatever’s going. And I’ll sell to them that can’t get through a day without a little snort, a little sniff.’ Her eyes brightened, red-rimmed with age. ‘I’ll tell you what, love. Never been treated so well in my life as I am by the pillheads. Bowing and scraping, calling me
Mrs
Tarvin. Shaking in their shoes because they need something to stop them feeling so cold and empty when they don’t know what it is to be cold and empty. It’s what they
deserve
. Not one of them is any better than they should be.’

Not just a financial convenience, in other words. This was revenge, and wickedness. Abi had been right. The money was a bonus, but it wasn’t the main reason this woman was exploiting the weakness of the kids living on the estate. She took pleasure in it.

‘You should be glad I’m not a burden on the state. Got more than enough for what I need. Her two doors down? Starves herself week after week to pay for insurance for the next time she’s robbed.
Starves
. Because she knows she’s going to lose it all again and it’s the only way she’ll be covered. That’s if she’s not ripped off by the insurers. Not one of us isn’t scared of what’s coming through our doors or windows next. All I’m doing is taking charge of the situation. Who else is going to do that? Not you lot. Too busy covering your own arses to care about mine.’ She sat back, looking pleased with the frown on Noah’s face. ‘I expect you’ll be investigated. They’ll want to know why you couldn’t find that girl when she was right under your noses. You were in and out of my flat all last week. You and that fat fool who eats my biscuits.’

Ron had liked Emma for her courage. She’d held him in nothing but contempt.

‘Yes, it hadn’t occurred to us that you’d drugged and beaten a child before locking her in your cupboard.’ Marnie got to her feet. ‘But we have the measure of you now, so that’s progress.’

Emma looked up at her in surprise. ‘You’re going, are you? Call that an interview? I’ve been asked more probing questions in the Co-op.’

Under the sneer, she looked scared. What would a jury make of her? Right at this minute, she looked like a vulnerable old woman. Would they be able to see past that?

‘Did you speak to Grace at all?’ Marnie paused in the doorway to the room. ‘When she first arrived, perhaps. When you offered her a place to stay. Why did you do that, incidentally?’

‘The goodness of my heart not good enough for you, Detective Inspector?’

Marnie ignored this. ‘I imagine you saw a new victim, someone to sell drugs to, someone to prostitute. That’s what your notebooks are for, isn’t it? Lists of children you can exploit. A new girl, looking desperate, must have made your night.’

‘She had her tits out, didn’t need my help with that. Did I talk to her? No. She wasn’t interested in talking, just wanted food and a place to stay. Thought she’d landed on her feet, finding me.’

‘And then you gagged her,’ Noah said. ‘So there was no talking after that.’

‘I like a quiet house.’ Fussing at the blanket, making it neat. ‘We weren’t all raised in the ghetto.’

‘Christie Faulk,’ Marnie said. ‘Was she another girl who thought she’d landed on her feet?’

That penetrated Emma’s defences. Her mouth cracked open in surprise, her eyes slitting. ‘Who?’

‘Christie Faulk. She lived with you for a while a couple of years ago. Until she got pregnant and you threw her out. I imagine prostituting a pregnant teenager would tax even your ingenuity.’

Emma wetted her lips. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about, love.’

‘Was it Christie who wrote the note we found in Grace’s pocket? A place of refuge, but a last resort. I can’t imagine Christie has many happy memories of her time spent under your roof.’

‘I don’t know any Christie.’ But she looked frightened for the first time.

Prostitution, abortion – the pills were bad enough. She might live down a drugs offence, but not a charge under the Sexual Offences Act, not on the Garrett estate.

Marnie said, ‘DC Tanner will conduct a full interview. She’ll also make a formal arrest for the drugs and soliciting, assault and imprisonment, and for the false statements you gave to the police.’

‘Passing the buck? You’ll never get ahead with that attitude. You want to make your mark, leave some evidence that you were here. That’s what I’m doing, love.’ She leaned forward again, her anger soaking up the light. ‘Leaving my
mark
.’

43

Ron was waiting with Debbie in the hospital corridor, looking miserable, as beaten down as the rest of them by the revelations about Emma Tarvin. One look at Noah’s face told him she’d confessed, and was unrepentant. ‘Jesus.’ He turned away.

Marnie asked, ‘How’s Grace?’

‘In shock,’ Debbie said. ‘They’ve got her on fluids. It looks like she was given a lot of diazepam and tramadol. She’s very hazy. Not much better than she was when Noah found her.’

‘She was traumatised before this happened,’ Marnie reminded them. ‘When she walked out in front of Joe Eaton’s car, she was in shock.’

As if her words had summoned him, Traffic’s Sergeant Kenickie came through the double doors towards them, hands bunched in his pockets. ‘G. I. Bradley. Which room’s she in?’

Marnie nodded at Debbie and Ron to go into Mrs Tarvin’s room. ‘Grace Bradley is off limits,’ she told Kenickie. ‘Not my rule, the doctor’s. If you don’t like it, take it up with him.’

To Noah, she said, ‘We need to get back to the station.’

‘I’ve an arrest to make.’ Kenickie ignored Noah, concentrating on Marnie. ‘Gina Marsh deserves that much, unless you’re ring-fencing the victims in this mess.’

‘There are more than enough victims to go around.’ Marnie glanced at her watch. ‘We’re looking for a murderer, or possibly two. Unless you’re able to take one of those off our hands, I suggest you do your posturing somewhere else.’

‘I can take one off your hands right now. Even if we have to call it manslaughter. Your girlie killed Logan Marsh.’ Kenickie rattled the keys in his pocket. ‘When were you planning on telling us you’d found her?’

‘It wasn’t high on my list,’ Marnie admitted.

She started walking away. Noah followed.

Kenickie raised his voice after them. ‘Didn’t know the positive discrimination ran to suspects as well as staff. If she was a bloke, or if Logan was a girl, you’d be all over this.’

Marnie didn’t reply, but her profile was ferocious. Noah lengthened his stride to keep up with her. ‘I wonder if Gina Marsh appreciates his crusading.’

‘I doubt it. I imagine she’s too busy grieving for her son.’

Outside, it was raining fretfully.

As Marnie unlocked the car, her phone rang. ‘DI Rome … Mr Beswick, hello … No, I was on my way back to the station.’ She stopped, her hand on the car door. ‘Tell me again.’

Her face changed as she listened, its lines in sharp relief. ‘I’m on my way.’

She shut the phone, looking across the car at Noah. ‘Loz is missing.’

‘
Loz
…’ Noah’s throat clenched. ‘When?’

‘Before school. She insisted on walking in, but didn’t turn up for registration. The school quizzed her friends, one of whom said Loz had drawings her sister did. Of a subway. Loz had told this friend that she was going to find whoever took May. The friend thought she was joking.’

‘We sealed it off. The subway—’

‘Forensics worked fast, because we asked them to.’ Marnie shook her head. ‘The tape came down hours ago, while we were in Emma’s flat.’

‘Shit.’ Noah’s eyes stung. ‘Joel and the others – were they lying?’

‘Let’s find out.’ Marnie thumbed her phone, held it to her ear. ‘Joel, this is DI Rome. Where are you? I see. Stay there, please. We need to talk.’