Darkest Night

‘You’d do fine,’ he said, shoving his black lace-ups into the blue overshoes provided, before pulling up the hood to his paper suit and tying a double knot under his chin. ‘Now not a word to anyone about what I’ve said, even to Amy Potter.’

‘Okay, although as family liaison officer, Amy would be the very last person to share a confidence.’

‘Yes, well. I’m going to concentrate on solving this little puzzle before I decide. It shouldn’t be too difficult.’ He pulled on an extra-large pair of disposable gloves and adjusted his mask before following her up the short flight of steps and into the dark, narrow hall, saying a brief hello to PC Diane Carbone, who was standing guard beside the front door.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because our suspect murdered her girlfriend in cold blood.’

Gaby had a thing about bedlinen. She didn’t mind scrimping and saving on other aspects of her life, but Egyptian cotton sheets were a must. She had a neat stack of carefully ironed, pure white linen in her tiny airing cupboard at the top of the stairs and, unlike almost anyone she knew, she changed her sheets twice a week. Her mother thought it an extravagance with half the world starving and the other half happy to put up with bobbly brushed nylon, but she didn’t care. She looked forward to Mondays and Fridays for the simple pleasure of slipping into her freshly made bed.

The bed in front of her must, at one time, have resembled hers. There were still tell-tale signs in the neat hospital corners and lace-edged pillowcases. The owner had taken pride in this room, Gaby thought, her gaze now resting on the scatter cushions in tasteful shades of cranberry and sand to match the throw, which had slipped to the floor in a heap. But all resemblance ended with the sight of the dark-haired woman splayed across the sheets.

Standing at the end of the bed, her hands clasped behind her, Gaby looked down at the naked body, the skin now that distinctive waxy pallor she always thought synonymous with the dead. While part of her grieved for such a young life lost, the other part, the clinically detached one, tried to work out which major artery the blade must have nicked to produce so much blood, thankfully mainly contained within the duvet.

‘Hope you’re keeping those hands glued behind your back, Detective Darin. Don’t want to corrupt the scene now, do we?’

Turning her head, she caught the eye of the pathologist and frowned. Rusty Mulholland. It was a good job that murders in North Wales were a rarity, Gaby reminded herself, curling her fists. Over the last month or so, they’d drawn an uneasy truce mainly because she’d gone out of her way to avoid any of the places he usually hung out. It was when she bumped into him at the station that it became more difficult.

She tilted her chin to look him in the eye, something made difficult by his six-two frame.

‘As if, Rusty.’ She refused to call him anything other than the nickname the rest of the team called him in deference to his hair. ‘Anything you can tell me?’ she continued, her calm demeanour unchanged despite his narrowing gaze. She was getting used to masking her expression when he was around.

‘What, apart from the fact that we have a dead body? No, not a thing. You should know by now, Detective, that’s not how it goes, or haven’t you worked with us long enough yet?’

She ignored the sarcasm. She’d have liked to have ignored him completely but the last time she’d tried he’d been even more acerbic. Whatever she said, she couldn’t win. He didn’t like her and there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do about it.

Casting a final look at the body, she was pleased to note one of the constables taking photographs from every conceivable angle. There’d also be a rough sketch of the crime scene in addition to detailed measurements of the room. Rusty, for all his bad manners and abruptness, was good at his job. She’d already clocked that he’d bagged the woman’s hands to minimise the risk of both contamination and the loss of any forensic evidence from what was one of the most important parts of a body following a crime. The fingernails were an oasis of DNA debris and within an hour of arriving back at the lab, he’d have arranged for the victim’s to be clipped and scraped.

Wandering out of the room, she headed along the hall, flicking a curious eye at the pictures adorning the walls. Modern art wasn’t her thing, not that she had either the time or the money to fritter away on non-essentials like food. She frowned. If truth be told, modern art confused her. If she had the money, she’d like to start a collection of local scenes in and around Rhos-on-Sea, a place she was learning to call home following the recent purchase of her cottage. But that was only a pipe dream – her rundown house took most of her salary and B&Q took the rest.

A technician, dressed head to toe in white plastic overalls, diverted her attention from the walls to the kitchen and the sight of DC Bates talking to what was presumably the key suspect. She was pleased that DCI Sherlock had decided to leave it to them. While good at his job and one of the best chiefs she’d worked under, he’d be the first to admit that the day-to-day job of crime-solving was best left to his detectives. His skills lay in managing both budgets and staff.

Gaby paused on the threshold, examining the scene at her leisure. There was no hurry in the way she let her gaze roam around the room before finally landing on the woman sitting on one of the four Bentwood chairs that circled the table. First impressions were important to a copper, and she knew that she’d replay these few seconds time and again in the privacy of her mind, remembering the pale-as-milk redhead, wrapped up in what appeared to be a dressing gown and little else.

She looked somewhere in her early thirties with flowing russet curls that owed little to artifice. Apart from the hair, which was bloody amazing, she also looked ordinary. Somebody you wouldn’t throw a second glance at if you came across her in the street. But then again, murderers didn’t tend to shout out about their crimes and Gaby would bet her last pound that this suspect would be the same. No. She was innocent until proven guilty, something Gaby sometimes had difficulty remembering.

‘This interview has been suspended at 09.25,’ Owen said, interrupting her thoughts and she watched in surprise as he switched off the mini voice recorder before gesturing for her to follow him back into the hall. ‘I thought I’d do the preliminaries and read her her rights, but all she’s done for the last five minutes is stare into space. It’s as if she’s in a trance. She hasn’t even confirmed her name or demanded to speak to a solicitor.’

‘She’s probably in delayed shock. It’s a pretty gruesome scene in there.’

‘And one she’s made herself so she should be used to it by now,’ he said, with a grunt. ‘I know she’s within her rights to remain silent, but this is ridiculous.’

‘Now, now, Owen, that’s unlike you. You don’t need me to tell you that we can’t assume guilt. Don’t go making assumptions that we can’t question until Rusty has worked his special kind of magic.’

‘Ha, I didn’t know you cared,’ Rusty said, from somewhere over her left shoulder. ‘And after all this time, too.’ His sneer matched Owen’s like a couple of bookends in a bad mood. ‘While you’re here passing the time of day, I thought I’d let you know I’ve arranged to take her back to the lab. Early indications are a single stab wound to the chest with the possibility of a nicked aorta. If she hadn’t been cocooned in the duvet, I’m guessing the splatter would have hit the ceiling.’ He looked at Owen. ‘I’ll have the report on your desk first thing Monday.’

Gaby squared her shoulders, determined not to let him see how much his cavalier attitude affected her. ‘That would be on my desk, Dr Mulholland.’

‘Would it now?’ he said, opening his eyes wide. ‘They’ve decided to let you off the reins, have they? Well, good luck with that.’

Gaby pulled a face at his retreating back. She hated altercations of any sort but that didn’t mean she was going to let him continue to walk all over her. She promised herself there and then that the next time he was rude, she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him.

‘I suppose we should get Amy down here ASAP if de Bertrand isn’t prepared to talk to us.’ Gaby dragged her phone out of her pocket to search for the number of the family liaison officer only to pause at the sound of her name.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot, Detective Constable Darin,’ Rusty said, stomping back up the stairs. ‘I think you might need these.’ He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small velvet-covered box, laying it out in the centre of his palm.

Gaby looked from the box and back to his face, for once lost for words. On the one hand he’d told her not to touch anything and on the other … ‘I do hope you think it was worth disturbing the crime scene before we’ve lifted any fingerprints because I certainly don’t. Of all the stupid, cockamamie—’

He stiffened, his back rigid, his mouth a thin hard line of disapproval. ‘What sort of word is cockamamie? And anyway, I think you’ll find that it’s against her human rights to deny her access to them. I could be wrong, but then again I am only a doctor as well as a pathologist.’ He handed her the case before heading back the way he’d come.

‘He really doesn’t like you, does he?’ Owen said on a laugh.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time a man hasn’t …’ Gaby’s voice petered out at the sight of the hearing aids nestling in the bottom of the box.

Chapter 3

Christine

Saturday 9 May, 1.10 p.m. Llandudno Police Station

They hadn’t let her out of their sight despite the clock above the door stretching past one. The male detective, whatever his name, had barely allowed her to get dressed before escorting her into the waiting car and taking her back to the station. There was lots Christine could say to him if she could be bothered. Just because she was hearing-impaired was no excuse to shout. Shouting raised decibels but distorted clarity. It also increased stress levels to the extent that all she wanted to do was shout back, something she was pretty sure wouldn’t be appreciated under current circumstances. So, she’d worked on her breathing, trying to calm down. Being angry wouldn’t help, just as aggravating the police would make it worse. Something had happened between the time she’d crawled between the sheets and climbed out of bed and she’d need all her smarts to figure out exactly what.

The room they’d taken her to was small, about half the size of her kitchen and filled with a table and stackable plastic chairs. There was nothing to focus on apart from a female police officer leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest and a look of boredom on her face.

Shifting slightly, Christine finally forced herself to relive the scene back in her bedroom, something she’d pushed into the corner of her mind while they’d clipped her nails and swabbed her skin. They’d even taken her dressing gown for analysis although what they thought they might find was another thing. Shuffling back in her chair, she hitched up her jeans. They’d taken her belt and her watch, although how she was expected to take her own life with her trusty Seiko was a question she was yet to ask. She’d been photographed and fingerprinted, something that had drummed home more than anything else that she was a suspect in an horrendous crime. And the awful truth? She didn’t have a clue how to make them believe that she was innocent.

As a child, she’d hated the sight of blood. When all her friends were watching Buffy, she’d be the one hurrying out of the room at the squeamish parts. So much blood in her lovely bed. It almost felt as if someone had let Jackson Pollock into her bedroom with a jumbo tin of red Dulux. All Nikki’s blood. She felt sick at the thought of what had happened to her. While not her favourite person, Christine had always felt responsible somehow for how Nikki’s life had gone pear-shaped. If it hadn’t been for Paul … No. She blinked away the thought, forcing her mind to turn back to more practical issues – the past was a place she was determined not to visit. The very first thing she was going to do when they let her go was put the apartment on the market. There was no way she could ever live there again. She’d probably have to go back at some point to collect her things but until then, she’d need to think of somewhere else to stay.

Her mind was a complete blank. She couldn’t ask her parents. They were the very last people she could ask. She could no more ask them to put her up than she could tell them that she’d been taken into custody. She grimaced, a picture of her ageing mum and dad floating before her. A shock like that had to be managed but, as an only child, there was no one she could ask to knock on their door for a cuppa and a chat before informing them that … what? Their darling daughter was currently being detained at the local nick. Oh, they hadn’t charged her or anything, far from it, but she’d watched more than her fair share of Midsomer Murders to know the score. They were waiting for a solicitor to be assigned before the interrogation began in earnest.

The question of who to tell about her situation hovered. It had to be someone she could trust and, moreover, someone who would be prepared to tell her parents. The desk sergeant had demanded the name of someone they could call on her behalf but who? Kelly, the girlfriend she’d met up with last night, was always an option but her parents had never met her … She frowned. That only left the head at the special needs school where she worked, but she liked Jessica Kinney too much to land this on her doorstep.

She sat back in the chair and crossed her legs. In fact, she couldn’t involve her at all. At the first whiff of bad news, she’d be put on suspension or maybe even sacked. The school already took a dim view of parking offences – she didn’t dare think about what their reaction would be to a murder accusation. She groaned, plucking a tissue from the new box the PC had conveniently dropped beside her elbow. The only person she could think of was probably the last person in the world she’d ever dream of phoning under normal circumstances. But being suspected of murder was far from normal.

The sight of the door opening had her uncrossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap. She’d deliberately ignored the chair facing the barred window and little patch of blue sky, instead choosing the one opposite the door for obvious reasons. While profoundly deaf, she still managed to hear some sound with the assistance of her high-pitched hearing aids but that didn’t alter the fact that the click of a door being pushed open was something she probably wouldn’t hear on a good day and, as days went, she’d had better.

‘Hello again, you might remember I’m DC Gaby Darin and this is my partner, DC Owen Bates,’ the short stocky woman said, joining her at the table. ‘We’ve managed to assign a solicitor – this is Mr Andy Parrish.’ She waved a hand towards the bespectacled middle-aged man following them into the room, an old leather briefcase clutched under his arm. ‘For the record, Ms de Bertrand, the conversation with be recorded.’ She flicked a switch on the microphone set into the wall at the side of the table.

The solicitor, with a brief smile, went to take the chair beside her only to stop at the sound of her voice.

‘No. You need to sit opposite.’

‘Opposite? I don’t understand?’ he said, a puzzled expression on his face as he looked at the empty chair to her right.

Christine let out a loud sigh. ‘Mr Parrish, I suffer from a hearing impairment. So, despite the hearing aids—’ she raised her hand to her hair, pushing it behind her left ear for emphasis ‘—for me to be able to understand you, I do need to see your lips, unless any of you can sign?’ She allowed her eyes to drift to each of them in turn, the sight of their quickly lowered heads confirmation enough. ‘Just as I thought.’

She’d been taking a huge risk that none of them knew sign language. While deaf in her left ear since a riding accident when a child, her current state of near total silence was something that had crept up on her over the last couple of years. Yes, she was learning to sign but she was far from fluent. She was also only a beginner at lip-reading – but they weren’t to know that. She knew instinctively that telling them she could hear, albeit slightly, was to her advantage.

‘If you’d prefer to have a sign-language interpreter present, I’m happy to halt the interview until one can be arranged?’ Gaby said, her look frank and with no trace of the embarrassment Christine was used to.

She shook her head briefly.

‘For the record, Ms Christine de Bertrand has declined the services of an interpreter at this time.’ Gaby flipped open her notebook to a new page and jotted down the date and time. ‘Now, please can you tell us, in your own words, exactly what happened in the lead up to this morning’s—’

‘Before you start questioning the witness perhaps you should caution her in my presence,’ Mr Parrish interrupted, pointing a finger at the microphone. ‘And I’d like it noted for the record that anything Ms de Bertrand has said to you, or any of your officers, up to this point is inadmissible as evidence.’

‘Understood, loud and clear, Mr Parrish,’ Gaby said, a smile frozen on her face. ‘DC Bates, if you could do the honours, please.’

Both hands on the table, Christine glanced down at what was left of her nails and the chipped dark red nail varnish, taking little notice of the barely audible words the bearded man was reading from a piece of white card that he’d pulled out from his pocket. She’d always prided herself on her hands, and her rainbow selection of varnishes, which she renewed daily, were a source of both discussion and amusement for her pupils. She’d never wear red again. She raised her head back to Gaby.

‘Now to repeat my question,’ Gaby said, only to be interrupted.

‘Don’t bother! Which part would you like? The part where I went to bed with a bloke or the one where I discovered my flatmate dead under my duvet?’ Christine replied, staring back.

‘How about from the beginning. Let’s say, when you returned home from work. I take it you do work?’

‘Yes. I’m a teacher at St Francis’s, at least I was. Innocent until proven guilty won’t hold much water with members of the school board.’

‘Let’s skip the school part and talk about arriving home from work,’ Gaby said, rolling her pen between her thumb and forefinger.

‘I usually leave at five o’clock on a Friday and, after a quick dash to Asda, I showered and changed before heading out to meet up with a friend for a few drinks – yesterday was my birthday.’

‘Congratulations,’ DC Bates said, without even the glimmer of a smile. ‘So, your friend and the bar staff would be able to confirm that, would they?’

She shifted her head, a frown appearing. ‘Sorry, can you repeat that please? It would be helpful if I know when someone else is speaking …’ She spread her hands.

‘Of course,’ Gaby said, shooting the other officer a quelling look. ‘My colleague asked whether your friend and the bar staff would be able to confirm that?’

‘Kelly certainly could – not sure about the bar staff but probably,’ she said, swallowing hard. The problem wasn’t with their memory … She wasn’t even sure which pubs she’d been in.

Her mind seemed stuck in a loop. Over the course of the morning she’d managed to dredge up a hazy recollection of the new drinking game Kelly had started, which involved copious amounts of Mojitos. But her inability to recall most of the subsequent events, including the lead up to her one-night stand, was a first, and more than scary – bloody terrifying.

Lifting her hands, she cradled her forehead and silently condemned last night’s excesses. They were usually much more restrained in their drinking habits but celebrating her milestone birthday by getting smashed had seemed a good idea at the time.

‘You said that you went to bed with a man,’ Gaby said, flicking a look at Christine’s ring-less hands. ‘Your boyfriend, partner, husband—?’

‘I’m not married, not anymore.’ She pushed her hair away from her face, annoyed that she hadn’t had the foresight to bring a scrunchie. ‘The thing is we had too much to drink, way too much—’

‘A couple of girls out on the lash in Llandudno on a Friday night isn’t that uncommon,’ Gaby interrupted with a smile. ‘Safety in numbers and all that.’

‘Yes, but I can’t really remember much after meeting up with Kelly,’ she said, her gaze resting on her solicitor who was busy tapping away on his laptop, a sheaf of papers pushed to one side. ‘I can’t really remember much more apart from what I’ve told you already. The next thing after the drinking contest was waking up this morning.’

‘Can you at least tell us something about him?’

‘There’s nothing, no memory of what happened between us, if indeed anything did,’ she said, wiping her fingers over her face before dropping her hands back to her lap. ‘Dark hair; short, dark hair,’ she continued, almost to herself, struggling to search through her mind for even a glimmer of something else but it was useless.

Gaby lifted her head from where she’d been writing in her notebook. ‘So, fast-tracking to this morning, can you tell us exactly what happened from when you woke up?’

‘There’s not a lot to tell. I felt a bit disorientated – too much alcohol.’ She pulled a face. ‘I certainly wasn’t in the mood to deal with having to face some random bloke over my bowl of cornflakes.’ She paused, trying to see it from their point of view and suddenly not liking the impression she was giving. ‘You’re probably thinking that I’m a bit of a slapper but that’s not the case. Hooking up isn’t something I do now. Yes, when I was younger, but I can’t remember when I last took a stranger home to my bed – it must be years. I felt awkward, uncomfortable even. I have a nice flat, somewhere I feel comfortable and, to be honest, when I woke up, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. He could have been anyone …’ Her voice cracked, willing them to understand. ‘I needed to get away from the reality of the situation, so I left and went into the kitchen – coffee was called for, in large amounts.’

DC Bates lifted his hand. ‘Leaving a stranger asleep in your bed? Why didn’t you wake him?’

‘I’ve told you, I wasn’t thinking straight. It was like there was a fog … Everything was hazy, and my head was banging. I put the coffee on and headed into the bathroom for a pee and paracetamol.’ She put her hand up to her hair and tugged at a corkscrew curl. ‘You think I always go about looking like someone’s plugged me into the mains? This is usually blow-dried before being ironed into submission.’

Mr Parrish gained her attention by tapping his index finger on the side of his laptop before speaking. ‘Are you sure you’re happy to continue the interview, Ms de Bertrand? If you’re not feeling up to it, we can always postpone until later.’

She managed a smile out of relief that he had a tongue in his head. She’d been starting to get seriously worried about who they’d dumped her with. ‘No, let’s carry on. The sooner it’s over, the sooner I can leave.’

Christine caught the tail-end of a look passing between the three of them and felt her stomach fall to her knees. Gripping her hands together to stop them shaking, she dropped her head a moment, trying to understand what was going on. It wasn’t some awful mistake. It wasn’t some nightmare dream that she was going to wake up from with a sigh of relief. The reality was that her flatmate had been found dead in her bed and she was the number one suspect.

‘So, I take it I’m not going to be allowed home any time soon? What about bail or something?’

‘Currently, you’re helping us with our enquiries into what is a complex and very serious case, so I’m afraid bail doesn’t come into it,’ DC Darin said, glancing up from where she was busily scribbling in her notebook.

‘But I’m still a suspect, is that right? The only suspect?’ Christine said, her gaze fixed on the detective’s face. ‘So, how long are you going to keep me here – in case I need to feed my dog or something?’