Dead Man’s Daughter

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‘I know. But sometimes you learn more this way.’

I leant forward and flipped the radio on, wishing Jai was with me. You could toss ideas around with Jai. He helped me think, even if he’d been a bit distracted recently.

‘I suppose you’ll have to come off the case anyway.’ Craig’s tone was pointedly neutral. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a biggie. And you’re on holiday next week.’

I contemplated pretending I hadn’t heard, but decided against. Rumours would be started that I suffered from hysterical deafness. ‘I’ll delay my time off.’ I glanced at the sky as if God might smite me for my lie.

‘Going anywhere nice?’

‘Not really. Was your wife okay the other day? She seemed upset. Is she worried you’re working too hard?’ Two could play this game.

The sat-nav interrupted us, for which Craig must have silently thanked it. ‘At the end of the road, turn left.’

I obeyed and sat-nav man told me we had reached our destination – a modern bungalow, surrounded by more of the same. It couldn’t have been more different from Phil and Rachel Thornton’s Gothic money-pit in the woods.

The door was answered by Abbie’s grandmother, Patricia, and an ancient-looking tortoiseshell cat. Patricia looked upset; the cat didn’t.

Patricia lead us into a chintzy front room. She wrenched her botoxed forehead into a frown. ‘I hope you’re not going to bully Rachel. She’s just lost her husband, and she has mental health problems. Did you know that?’

‘Maybe we could have a chat with Rachel first,’ I said. ‘And then we’ll have a word with you?’

‘As long as you know she’s not been well. I’ll make tea and ask her to come through.’

I sat on a velour sofa in a strange shade of green and Craig went for the matching armchair. They had doily things where our heads went. I hadn’t seen that for a while.

The door eased open and Rachel crept in and sat next to me on the sofa. She picked at a loose thread on her jeans.

‘Hi, Rachel,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

She shrugged. Her look said, I’m socially conditioned to say I’m fine but I’m quite clearly not.

‘We found the bag,’ I said.

Rachel jerked back an inch, as if she’d been hit. She took a sharp in-breath.

I held out some photographs. ‘Could you confirm if these are your clothes, and Abbie’s nightdress. And if you recognise the knife. We’ve sent them for analysis, but it would speed things up if you’d just tell us what you know.’

She licked her lips and said nothing. I contemplated all the blood on the nightdress, hoping she’d say That’s not Abbie’s nightdress and I’ve never seen that knife before. She didn’t. She leant back in her seat and sat very still, staring at an ugly standard lamp that squatted on the far side of the room. Even though she was shocked and upset, she looked more composed than she had the day before, and somehow more solid.

‘Did you kill your husband?’ I said.

She looked surprised, and paused with her mouth open. ‘No . . . Er, I . . . ’ She frowned and shook her head slightly. ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

‘You’d better tell us what happened then.’

She sighed and said nothing for a moment. Then she leant back into the couch. I did the same.

‘I didn’t want you to jump to the wrong conclusion,’ she said. ‘I know it looks bad but it must have been an intruder that killed him. That stalker. The woman he was having the affair with.’

‘What happened, Rachel?’

She paused. Licked her lips and took a breath. ‘When I got in, I went to our bedroom and . . . ’

I nodded encouragement at her.

‘And I saw Phil lying there covered in blood, like I’ve told you. And . . . ’ She waited a moment and then blurted it out fast. ‘Abbie was there. She was on the floor.’

‘With . . . ’ I took a moment to picture the scene. ‘With your husband?’

She nodded. I sensed she was telling the truth. One of those feelings I got, that Richard found so irritating.

‘Lying on the floor by our bed,’ Rachel said. ‘I was terrified she was hurt. Can you imagine how I felt?’

I nodded slowly.

‘So I rushed over and grabbed her. But she was okay. Covered in blood but asleep. And unhurt.’

Where does a mother go first – her husband or her child? It’s times like these the truth comes out. They usually go to the child.

‘She was absolutely drenched in blood.’ Rachel sat forward again and crossed her legs, jiggling her foot. She reached round and grabbed one of the doily things, and rubbed it between her fingers. ‘And it was really hard to wake her up. I didn’t want you to think . . . I got her up and put her in the shower, washed her hair. I had to dry it – it took ages . . . ’

Rachel juddered to a halt. She sat staring into space.

‘What happened next?’ I said, as gently as I could.

She moved her eyes slowly to me, then raised them as if trying to visualise the scene on that awful morning. Some people claimed that if suspects looked up and to the right, they were making things up, but unfortunately it wasn’t that simple. Anyway, Rachel was looking up and left. ‘I put Abbie back to bed,’ she said, ‘and packed our things with blood on them into a Waitrose bag, and then I put some of Phil’s boots on and I went round and made it look like a break-in, and messed up the study and our room, and then Abbie was sleeping again, so I drove off to hide our clothes and the boots. I went up to Matlock and went to the petrol station, and then when I came back, you were there.’

‘If you thought there’d been an intruder, why did you fake one?’

She hesitated. ‘I thought you might not realise.’

‘Why did you do this, Rachel? What didn’t you want us to think?’

She took an audible breath. Wiped a tear from her cheek.

‘I can’t . . . ’

I waited.

‘That she did it,’ Rachel said in a tiny voice. ‘I didn’t want you to think Abbie did it.’

Craig let out his breath with a distinct puff. No finger tapping though.

I felt a coldness creeping through my stomach. ‘Did you see something else, Rachel? Why would we think Abbie did it?’

‘She didn’t do it. She must have walked in or interrupted an intruder.’

I clenched my fists together. Had I contemplated this? The possibility that Abbie killed her father? Walked in and cut his throat? I supposed I had, deep down, when we’d found the nightdress.

‘We need to know everything,’ I said gently. ‘All about Abbie’s nightmares, what she was saying about her father . . . everything. So we can try and piece together what happened.’

Rachel eased herself back in the sofa again. Her body was shaking. She whipped a hand to her face and sharply wiped away tears. ‘You know about her nightmares.’

‘We’ve been told she was scared of her father. Screaming about him.’

She took a breath. ‘I didn’t want you to think it was her. That’s why I didn’t tell you about the nightmares. She’s been screaming and sleepwalking. Screaming about . . . well, yes, she has been screaming about her daddy, but she didn’t mean Phil.’

I kept my voice soft, and hoped Craig would keep quiet. ‘When did this start?’

Rachel breathed out through her mouth. ‘It’s all since her heart transplant. Oh God, okay, I’m going to tell you. I kept saying to the psychiatrist, she’s changed. Her personality was different. She started drawing all the time – really good drawings, like she never used to do before. I mean, that was fine – the drawings. But not the rest of it. She started having these dreams. She was shouting as if someone was trying to kill her. It was terrifying. She’d run out onto the landing screaming and when we went to her, she’d go all glassy eyed and stare at something behind her. Then she’d swivel her head around and scream that her daddy was trying to kill her. It was horrendous, especially for Phil. It was her new heart. And the drugs they gave her. Oh God, I can’t . . . Everything was supposed to be okay once she had her transplant.’ She was openly crying now, breathing in big gulps, her shoulders shaking. ‘It’s not Abbie’s fault. I couldn’t bear her to go to trial and be locked up. She was asleep.’

‘So, in her sleep, Abbie thought her dad was trying to kill her?’

‘Yes! Because she was remembering what happened to her heart donor. I’ve looked it up. It happens. But they won’t tell us who the donor was. They only let you write via the transplant coordinator and you can’t say who you are. I tried writing but the family never replied after their first card, and no one would tell us anything.’ She reached over and grabbed my hand. ‘You’ve got to believe me. It’s only since she had the new heart. Screaming that her dad was a murderer. Phil’s not a murderer. Something happened to the donor child. The heart made Abbie do it.’

I could feel a muscle twitching below my eye. I pictured Abbie’s face. ‘You think Abbie killed him? She killed her father in her sleep?’

‘She can’t have . . . ’ Rachel said nothing for a long moment. Then took a deep breath and spoke in a voice I could barely hear. ‘It was in her hand. The knife was in Abbie’s hand.’

*

I called Fiona. ‘Can you set up a meeting with Abbie’s psychiatrist. Please. We need to know more about this child.’

Patricia charged into the living room and stood staring at us, her fingers spread as if she was about to attack and claw us. ‘Rachel’s told me what she said to you. I told you she had problems. Abbie would never have killed Phil.’

I stood and touched her arm. ‘Would you sit down?’

Patricia pulled away. ‘I can’t sit down.’ She paced to the window and looked into the garden, then spun round to us. ‘You’ve got it wrong!’

‘Your daughter clearly thinks Abbie did it.’ That was Craig’s contribution, despite having agreed earlier that my feminine touch would work best.

Patricia’s voice was high and shaky. She was on the verge of tears. ‘Rachel’s not been well. Do you know how terrible it’s been? We’re all having to take sleeping pills each night just to get a drop of sleep. She’s in a terrible state. And she felt intimidated by you. You have to understand. She’s suffered from delusions. You can’t trust what she says!’

I stood and walked over to the window. If you met people half way when they were agitated, it was so much more effective that trying to stay super-calm. ‘Was Rachel diagnosed with a particular disorder?’

Patricia came and stood next to me, pointedly ignoring Craig. She lowered her voice. It was still shaky but she sounded better. ‘A few years ago she was. She went through a difficult time. It affects people in different ways.’

‘What exactly happened?’

Patricia wiped the windowsill several times with her hand, then leant against it. She smoothed her skirt down over her legs. ‘You heard about Rachel’s daughter, Jess?’

‘A little. Maybe you could tell us again.’

‘She died four years ago.’ Patricia took a determined breath. ‘Abbie was with her, saw it happen. And of course Rachel and Phil . . . Well, they went to pieces. And Abbie too. She felt guilty because she was there.’

‘I understand.’ I knew what it was like to see a dead sister. And to feel guilty.

‘And it all happened not long after they’d had the terrible news about Abbie – you know, when they realised she had the same heart problem Phil had, and was going to need a transplant. So they were trying to come to terms with the possibility of losing Abbie, and then they lost Jess. Rachel became obsessed with Abbie’s health. I mean, she couldn’t bear to lose another child. I know Abbie’s not her biological child but she adopted her and she absolutely adores her. We never knew then if Abbie was really ill or if Rachel was just worrying. And Rachel had a bit of an incident where she imagined things.’

‘What did she imagine?’

‘She thought she was infected with a parasite, but she wasn’t. It was short-lived, but you see she sometimes thinks things that aren’t real.’ Patricia gave me a beseeching look. ‘And then of course Abbie started getting really ill.’

‘And she had a transplant last year?’

‘September. And everyone thinks that’s the end of all the problems, but it’s not. We have constant worries about her body rejecting the heart, and about cancer developing. She needs biopsies all the time – her poor arms are always full of needle marks. And she can’t have pets because of the risk of infection. I even have to keep her away from Minxy here.’ She pointed to the ancient cat, who’d sloped into the room and crawled onto the windowsill between us. ‘I mean, for someone like Rachel, who’s always struggled with her nerves, it was a recipe for disaster. It made her more and more anxious.’

‘And Abbie’s nightmares?’

‘She did have problems. Apparently it’s not uncommon. Phil said he had them after his transplant – he had to go abroad for his and it was hard. But for a child especially, it’s a scary thing to have someone else’s heart. Anyway, Rachel had this idea that Abbie was remembering things from the heart’s past life. So, you see, she’s not stable. She may believe Abbie killed Phil, but it’s not true.’

‘So, what do you think happened on Sunday night?’