The Silence (Dc Goodhew 4) (13 page)

Marks slid Shanie’s file in front of him. It was already thick, considering the case was only five days old.

‘I just have the preliminaries.’

‘I know,’ Goodhew replied, then added, ‘you just said so.’

Marks gave him a sharp look, so Goodhew reached for the photos taken at the scene. He studied them closely and found everything as he remembered it. Shanie lying on her side, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. The T-shirt had ridden up to expose her bloated midriff, as though the swelling of her body had lifted it to one side.

It was the clothes he was studying now, rather than the body. Her sweatshirt had the various Cambridge college crests displayed in rows across the chest; otherwise it was a bold purple and looked new. Her jeans were either well-worn favourites or bought to deliberately look that way.

Goodhew held his hand a couple of inches away from the photo and, by blocking his view of Shanie’s face, it was possible to picture those clothes in a different situation.

‘Did she smoke?’ he asked.

‘Not cigarettes. Some marijuana use.’

She had very few personal items in her room, and only enough clothes to fill a medium suitcase, some toiletries and her MacBook.

‘No books?’

‘About two hundred on the Mac, but that’s being analysed separately. The rest of the inventory is listed there.’

Goodhew pulled it out of the pile of documents and set it to one side, cross-checking against it from time to time, as he looked through the rest of the photographs taken in Shanie’s room. The inventory was thorough, and listed everything down to an empty cheese and onion crisp packet and a bus ticket to Madingley, both found in the waste-paper basket, as well as the Boathouse Bitter beer mat used to protect the desktop from a succession of damp-bottomed coffee cups.

Finally he moved on to the autopsy notes. Initially he scanned the report: she’d been drinking and her blood-alcohol would have been a little over twice the drink-drive limit, at the time of her death. She’d taken sleeping tablets too, and an empty Zimovane blister pack had been found on the floor beside the bed, most of the contents having made their way to her stomach.

Goodhew’s attention strayed briefly from the page to Marks, and back again. He had a feeling that Marks’s thoughts were largely elsewhere at the moment.

Goodhew reread the report more slowly the second time, then when he finished he saw that he had his boss’s full attention. ‘I’m not sure what I was looking for,’ he began.

‘That’s fine. Just tell me what you did see. Just brainstorm it.’

‘There’s a note somewhere, right?’

Marks nodded and wiggled his mouse until the screen woke up. ‘I have a PDF of the screenshot.’ He double-clicked a couple of times, and a snapshot of the Facebook profile page popped up. He pointed to the screen. ‘At 11.52 she changed her status to:
don’t make friends with the hot girl. She’s still a b**ch.
Then, at 1.26 a.m. she changes it to:
Cambridge is just like Merrillville. Neither likes a misfit.

‘Then she sent a single message to her mother, Sarah Faulkner.’ Marks double-clicked again and another PDF popped up. ‘Read it for yourself.’

Goodhew leaned closer, even though the sparse words were easy to pick out from across the desk.

Dear Mom,

I’ve been so unhappy, and all I think about is how very much you want me to succeed. I could have phoned you, I guess, but how about all the times I was miserable at highschool and you didn’t notice?

You will be okay, Mom. I can see your face now, and I know how you keep going, no matter what. I love you, but I’ve had enough of being ugly and clever and pretty and stupid all at once.

‘There’s a lot of anger there,’ Marks observed. ‘And the suicide note on the social networking site is pretty common for kids of that age. But . . .’ His voice trailed away.

‘But?’

‘I think the coroner will go with suicide.’

‘But you’re not happy with that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Marks strummed his fingers on the desktop. ‘I just don’t feel totally convinced.’

It was unusual for Marks to raise concerns in such an open way. It made Goodhew wonder whether Marks was questioning the findings or actually questioning his own judgement. Goodhew couldn’t think of a way to broach the question without sounding like a psychotherapist or a junior officer radically overstepping the mark.

Marks continued to frown. ‘Give me your thoughts on Shanie Faulkner,’ he said.

Goodhew turned the first photo towards his boss. ‘Shanie was socializing with her housemates and yet this is what she was wearing. Her personal belongings are virtually devoid of beauty or styling products. She owned two pairs of shoes – trainers and walking boots. No dresses at all, one blouse and everything else was either jeans, T-shirts or sweatshirts. It is fair to say that Shanie did not put fashion or personal grooming far up her priority list. But the sweatshirt worn in this photo looks brand new, that colour is unusual, and I’m guessing it’s more than just a bargain picked up from the market. She didn’t buy this because any old shirt would do; it looks like she specifically bought a Cambridge University shirt because she was enjoying her experience here. Or maybe it was a gift. Either way, she chose to wear it and, if she really had developed a strong dislike for Cambridge, it seemed to me that it happened after she got dressed that day, or at least it hadn’t been bothering her much, earlier.’

‘What else?’

‘Why didn’t her mother respond to her Facebook message?’

‘Both her parents are currently en route from Chicago, and they land at Heathrow at 6 a.m. We can get their statements first-hand then.’

Goodhew flicked through to the end of the post-mortem report:
cardiac arrest due to respiratory arrest due to Zimovane and alcohol poisoning.
‘That seems quite straightforward.’

‘They’re running further toxicology tests too.’

‘Then that’s all we can do at the moment, isn’t it?’

Marks remained unconvinced.

In the entire time Goodhew had known DI Marks, his boss had proved decisive and matter-of-fact at the most emotionally testing moments. When he appeared distracted, it was only while following a case-related train of thought. If he was ever uncertain, he hid it well. And when he asked advice, it was to gain expertise or an alternative viewpoint, never because he was asking someone else to take the lead.

Obviously that wasn’t what he was asking of Goodhew now, but somehow it still felt that way.

‘You’ve seemed very preoccupied recently, sir.’ Goodhew spoke the words carefully, bracing himself for the knock-back he had no doubt his superior would swiftly deliver.

Instead, Marks simply looked curious. ‘Have I, Gary?’

‘I assumed you were worried about something.’

Marks’s eyes narrowed. ‘Something about this case?’

‘No.’ Goodhew hadn’t yet been able to put his finger on what it might be, but it suddenly struck him. ‘Something parallel but not part of the case; something that is making you think this is suicide, but stopping you from following that line wholeheartedly.’

‘I think you enjoy too much off-duty snooping, Gary.’ Suddenly there was only coldness in Marks’s voice and no hint of the unspoken encouragement that Goodhew often felt his boss placed carefully between the lines.

Goodhew remembered Marks’s daughter – how old was she now? Sixteen? Seventeen?

‘Is it Emily, sir?’

‘Not even close.’ One corner of Marks’s mouth twitched with a smile. ‘Just come back to me with the full low-down on that sweatshirt.’

Goodhew knew the truth about the devil being in the detail, but he somehow doubted that Satan had done much lurking in a Cambridge University sweatshirt, which was precisely why a town-centre outfitters wasn’t going to be his first stop the next day. Probably not the second stop either.

Don’t most people reach a point when, however briefly, they wonder if they still want to live? Knowing they can choose can be the only thing that pulls them back from the precipice. It’s that affirmation of the control they still have over their own destiny that makes them decide to push the idea away.

Word for word, that was pretty much the opening paragraph that had appeared in the student newspaper last January. It was upbeat and empowering – and full of patronizing shit.

It encouraged the use of helplines and support groups, and explained how restricting the sale of paracetamol to smaller packs had reduced the incidence of ‘unplanned suicides’.

If it’s intentional, it’s planned – right?

The article was shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Meant for all those who wanted to find reasons not to, the ones who vented their anguish through repeated drafts of an apologetic explanatory note, only to find they’d then got enough out of their system to chuck the letter in the bin. They’d probably rewrite it during the next drunken binge, over and over, until they’d done the dance between advice and suicide note enough times to leave that phase behind and go on to live average, untroubled adult lives.

It was all shit.

Who stops to debate, once you
know
what you are doing next?

Not me.

For several years, Goodhew’s favourite spot at Parkside had been an unused desk at a second-floor window. It was in a recess which once housed one of IT’s hub cabinets, a fridge-freezer-sized unit full of cables and flashing lights. The gap alongside it had been too big to leave empty but too small to be considered useful; the desk that had been slotted in there was due for disposal, but both the view and privacy had been great, at least until the advancement of technology dispensed with the cabinet and the vacant area had come to the attention of Sergeant Sheen.

Goodhew headed there next. Sheen had added two new shelves to the rear wall, filling them with a series of bulky lever-arch files. Sheen had one folder open on his lap, and glanced up and back to the papers without comment.

‘Come to see your old hideout?’ he murmured.

‘Hmm, I like what you’ve done with the place.’

Goodhew left it at that, and waited for Sheen to finish whatever he was reading. The vital point when dealing with Sheen, Goodhew knew, was acknowledging Sheen-speed.

The man was just a few years short of retirement and he’d undoubtedly spent his whole adult life working slowly and thoroughly. It was a habit ingrained in him as much as his Fen accent and stubborn expression.

Sheen was a hoarder of information; he held on to everything, from rumours and anecdotes to hard statistics. He’d been dragged reluctantly into the computer age, but had almost instantly become an Internet junkie. Of course, that didn’t mean he’d ever ditch the paper copies of all his notes. Digitizing information was one thing, but being able to spread pages on a desk and have different layers of Biro and creasing triggered his brain in a way no PC monitor ever would. Additionally, Goodhew knew that there were some pieces of local information that were retained in Sheen’s memory alone.

Finally Sheen removed his reading glasses, pushed back his chair and addressed Goodhew. ‘How are you going to challenge my poor old brain this time?’

‘With a long shot. There’s a family in Brimley Close, three kids, but the eldest died three and a half years ago, open verdict but suspected suicide, then—’

Sheen interrupted. ‘Family name?’

‘Brett.’

Sheen nodded slowly. ‘Rosie and Nathan. I remember.’ He turned towards his new shelving and selected the third file from the right-hand end. ‘This is what my red book has become.’

Sheen had outgrown his red book at least a decade earlier, but at Parkside Station ‘Sheen’s Red Book’ was practically a brand name. He dumped the file on the desk, and flipped open the front cover. ‘Rosie and Nathan,’ he repeated. ‘You know I followed that at the time. Not Rosie’s death so much – she was the first.’ Sheen paused, studying Goodhew for several seconds before he spoke again. ‘It was you that went under that lorry, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you must remember Nathan?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’ Sheen didn’t look convinced. ‘I think of you as one of the people to ask about old cases – your brain files data just like mine does.’ He held up a photocopy of a newspaper article. ‘Don’t this ring a bell?’ The headline read
Second Tragedy for Suicide Family.
‘Not very compassionate, is it?’

Goodhew frowned as he read it. The page was dated 6 December 2008, but was as unfamiliar to him as tomorrow’s news:

A teenager found dead beside the A14 has been named as 18-year-old Nathan Brett. Tests have shown that his death was the result of a drink and drugs overdose. His family were too upset to comment, but police have confirmed that his death is being treated as suicide.

It is the second tragedy for the family whose eldest daughter Rosie, 18, also died after falling from a bridge further along the same stretch of road.

Friends say that Nathan had become very depressed after his sister’s death. Police are not seeking anyone else in relation to the incident, but would like to hear from any witnesses who may have seen the teenager in the hours immediately before his death.

‘No one contacted us,’ Sheen added, as if he’d been reading at exactly the same pace as Goodhew.

‘I really don’t remember it.’

‘And why the current interest?’

‘The younger sister, Libby, is one of the flatmates sharing the house where Shanie Faulkner died. I’m just getting background so that I’ll be careful when I speak to her.’

‘You’re snooping, then. I’m not your DI, so you don’t have to be coy with me, you know.’

Goodhew flicked the page. ‘Is there any reason why you remember them so well?’

Sheen slipped his glasses back on and switched his attention to another press clipping in his folder. There was a photo this time: Rosie and Nathan both grinning at the camera like they were pretending to hate loving each other – or maybe the other way round. Whichever, Goodhew remembered similar moments with his own sister. It was a pose that shouted ‘siblings’ even more than their physical similarities, which seemed to stop at their shared features of straight noses and matching cowlicks at the left-hand side of their fringes.