Recompense Read online

  ‘That is not what I said,’ replied Carlson. He flipped to a plastic square-cut folder and pulled out a set of newspaper clippings and copies of the posters. ‘We also put out requests for information on local radio and TV news, and appeal posters asking for information have been placed in pubs, clubs, the library, soup kitchens, the night bus, local charities. Everywhere I could think of. I’ve had a press officer assigned part-time which has been a great help in bringing together the appeal documentation.’

  ‘But you still took some considerable time to identify him, Ronnie, so my question is: did you do enough?’ Now it was Carlson’s turn to receive the obsequious smile.

  ‘Well, yes, it took time but we have a name now,’ he replied shoving the clippings back into the folder. ‘Actions carried out since discovering his identity are all in the log. Perhaps though, Kevin. You could enlighten me as to what else I might have done?’

  Tasker and McAvoy glanced at each other and looked back at the papers in front of them.

  ‘Forensics,’ said McAvoy drawing the word out to twice its normal length.

  ‘There can’t be anything wrong with that part of the investigation,’ Carlson exploded. ‘Kirsty Russell is an outstanding crime scene manager.’

  ‘Indeed she appears to be, Ronnie, but she doesn’t seem to have a lot of control over you does she? I see here that you attended the crime scene?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carlson. ‘I remained in the room above where the victim was until Kirsty was happy to let me down there.’

  ‘And whilst you were tramping around this upper level, how were you dressed?’ Again the smile that Carlson wanted to swat from McAvoy’s face.

  ‘I had overshoes, a mask and gloves. I stayed on the footplates. I understand the importance of letting the team get on with their job,’ Carlson replied.

  ‘But no protective suit over your own clothing?’ McAvoy tilted his head to the right, looking like a demented ginger robin.

  ‘No, you’ve got me there. There can’t have been one in my size, but I remained in the outer cordon.’

  ‘Hmm, said McAvoy. ‘Not really satisfactory, is it? You could have dragged anything in from the street. From your car. Anywhere.’

  ‘But I didn’t, did I? When that room was checked, Kirsty found that it had been swept. Quite efficiently, she thought.’

  ‘You were lucky, then? Let’s hope your luck holds out for the rest of the time you’re on the investigation.’

  Carlson opened his mouth to speak but Tasker held up a hand and shushed him. Carlson felt the pulse on his temple vibrating. He breathed slowly and deeply until it calmed down.

  ‘So, leading on from the forensics aspect of the investigation, we come to resources. You’re not using an exhibits officer. Why is that?’ asked McAvoy.

  ‘Because, despite numerous requests to my senior officer I have not had my previous exhibits officer replaced,’ Carlson snorted. They really were scraping the barrel now. ‘DC Tim Jessop has volunteered to attend the three-week course and that has not been approved. He has been helping out under my direct supervision.’

  ‘It’s not really ideal, is it though, Ronnie?’

  ‘I quite agree, it is far from ideal, but I have asked for a replacement several times and have been rebuffed each time. Again this is documented in the log!’

  Tasker and McAvoy exchanged glances. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement to move on.

  ‘And you don’t have a deputy SIO either do you? I know Detective Superintendent Tasker would be happy to loan you DI Stokes. She’s a very able officer,’ said McAvoy.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you, Kevin. I am well aware of DI Stokes’ abilities, but DS Poole returned to duty yesterday. So he’s taking the role of deputy SIO.’ Carlson sneaked a look at his watch. How much longer was this charade going to continue for?

  ‘Are we keeping you from something, Ronnie?’ demanded Tasker.

  ‘Of course not, sir, but as you have pointed out, my investigation is short staffed, so I’d like to get back to it as soon as possible.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Tasker. ‘I see you’ve not seen fit to assign an FLO yet.’

  ‘No, sir, not yet, sir,’ Carlson said trying to keep a straight face and not roll his eyes. ‘We are still tracking down the victim’s family. I don’t currently know which family to liaise an officer with. I will assign someone as soon as I have ascertained who his family are. That too is documented in my decision log.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see,’ said Tasker. ‘Well I think that’ll be all, don’t you, Kevin? You’ll write up the report and the recommendations?’

  McAvoy assented although he looked a little disappointed.

  Carlson simply got up and stalked out. He went to the local coffee bar and by the time he was back delivering drinks to his team he had calmed down.

  ‘Crikey, that’s a lot of car for a little man,’ said Jane. ‘Have you seen this, sir?’

  Carlson skipped to the window in time to see DCI Kevin McAvoy haul himself into a Volkswagen Amarok. ‘I see that you mean, DC Lacey. I expect it makes up for his shortcomings.’ He strolled back to his office to the sound of Jane Lacey stifling her sniggers. Drinking his cooling tea whilst he tidied his papers and turned off his computer, Carlson looked around the room to check he hadn’t missed anything, then headed for home.

  As Carlson eased the car onto the driveway, he could not fail to notice that the house was in virtual darkness. A glimmer of light shone through the pane of the front door, but that was all. Is it the same for all empty nesters, he wondered? Once inside he placed his keys on the sideboard and plodded upstairs to change. By the time he was in the kitchen Marguerite, his wife, had poured him a glass of red and was tending to something on the hob.

  ‘Good day?’ she asked. ‘How did the review go?’

  Carlson thudded into a chair at the kitchen table and gave her a rueful smile.

  ‘Oh, that well,’ she said. ‘I’m making your favourite, just in case.’

  ‘Thanks. Tasker was a bloody tosser today. He brought in McWalker from Cambridgeshire.’

  ‘McWalker? Is he still around?’ Marguerite laughed. ‘How did he look?’

  ‘Same as usual. A mess. How long until dinner?’ said Carlson, anxious to change the subject. He wasn’t sure he could eat and think about McAvoy at the same time.

  ‘Half an hour or so,’ she said. ‘Just need to assemble and pop in the oven. I thought I’d leave making the béchamel until I heard you come in.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m starving. How was your day?’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ she replied. ‘I’ve started job hunting. I’m going loopy staying here at home all day.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I was just thinking how quiet it was when I parked the car. The place isn’t the same.’ He took a sip of his wine and watched her deft hands with the sauces and lasagne sheets. She grated cheese on top, placed the dish on a metal baking sheet and popped everything in the oven.

  ‘It’s always worse after Aspen has been home,’ she replied. ‘Ronnie, would you want to move to a new house? Would that make it better?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Definitely not. Do you?’

  She looked at him for a moment and he saw how tired she was. More grey in her hair and a few more lines.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it but I’ve decided that I’d like to stay here. I feel closer to her here. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, standing and kissing her on the top of her head. ‘It makes perfect sense. I was going to watch the news. Why don’t you come and have a sit down with me, tell me about your day and drink your wine?’

  Chapter Twelve

  16th October 2015

  Nunney, Nr Frome, Somerset

  Torrie Jericho pushed the door open and found herself in a spacious, sunlit room overlooking a large well-kept garden and the Mendip Hills beyond. Melissa Warren sat huddled on her bed, leaning against the wall. A lock of unclean, light-brown hair covere
d part of her face; much of the rest was obscured by crushing her chin into her knees. Only the eye nearest the wall was uncovered. Torrie could tell it was open by the eyelashes which touched her eyebrows. The eye seemed to stare, unblinking, at the patterned duvet.

  She’s still not moved the bed back to its old position, thought Torrie taking in the indentations in the carpet where the bed had stood for years. Lissa had not looked at her yet, and Torrie sat in the armchair provided whilst she gazed around the room and at the silent woman. Vibrant dahlias had been placed in a vase on the window ledge, and freesias in another vase on the chest of drawers; the curtains fluttered in a light breeze. Autumn is really holding off this year, thought Torrie. It was a pleasant room, although to Torrie, it appeared to belong to a teenager rather than a woman in her early thirties. Posters of boy bands from the late nineteen-nineties and the early noughties fought for space with the black and white landscape photography of Ansel Adams. On the wardrobe doors were some of Melissa’s own photographs. Torrie only knew they were Melissa’s because Sandra had told her, hoping it might be something that they could talk about. Torrie wasn’t so sure and wondered if talking about Melissa’s profession as photographer would trigger another panic attack as she now suspected the hooting car had done.

  She reached down into her bag and touched her notebook wondering whether to use it or not. Perhaps best to get started by building rapport, she thought, leaving the notepad in situ. As she looked up she realised that Melissa had started to take an interest.

  ‘Hello, Melissa,’ she said smiling at her new client. ‘My name is Torrie, your parents thought we might be able to talk to each other. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’

  Lissa nodded but Torrie wasn’t sure if that meant she would mind or she would not. She decided to carry on regardless.

  ‘Have you ever seen a counsellor before?’ Torrie sat with her hands folded in her lap. When Lissa didn’t reply she decided to change the subject. ‘Who gave you the beautiful flowers?’ she asked. ‘They smell lovely. I’ve always liked freesias.’

  ‘Mum.’ Just a single word but at least it was a start.

  ‘Isn’t it the wrong time of year for them?’

  Lissa nodded. ‘It is. She has them posted from somewhere. Guernsey, I think.’

  Torrie smiled at her. ‘A lovely thought then? They really brighten the room up.’

  ‘I suppose. I’ve never really liked them myself. I’m not really a flower person. They smell better than the dahlias though. Mum likes fresh flowers though, so I put up with it.’

  ‘I see.’ Torrie wondered what stopped Melissa from telling her mother, but that wasn’t a question for today. ‘How do you get on with your parents?’ she asked instead, and sat waiting for an answer, but none came.

  She tried another change of tack. ‘How have you been sleeping since starting the medication?’

  ‘Better, I guess,’ Lissa looked at her fingernails and started to chew her left thumb.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Is it? I still have nightmares.’

  ‘Of the attack?’

  Lissa nodded.

  ‘How would you describe the dreams?’

  ‘They’re not dreams!’ Lissa spat the words out. ‘It’s like I’m reliving it all over again.’

  Torrie made a mental note of “vivid flashbacks”. ‘How do you feel about relating some of the flashbacks to me?’ she invited.

  Lissa shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not yet. I know as soon as I start talking, I’ll have to speak to the Spanish police again. I’m not ready for that.’

  Lissa

  My parents told me that the therapist would be coming today to talk. I wasn’t sure I had anything to say. Ever since waking up in the hospital nothing seemed real, it was as if I was in a fog or swimming through a never ending trough of treacle. I could see the end of the trench but it never got any closer. The harder I swam the harder it became to lift my arms and kick my legs. The struggle was exhausting and, eventually, I gave up altogether.

  It was strange, although reassuring, to be back in my old room, but I preferred to have the solid wall behind me. I knew that way no one could be at my back, out of my eye line. It was comforting, even if I didn’t feel completely safe.

  And so here she was, the counsellor to whom my parents had decided I would tell all my darkest fears and secrets. All my memories of the thirteenth of July 2015.

  She was younger than I thought she would be, just a little older than me. Smart too, in appearance and intelligence. Her violet eyes swept around the room as she walked in, taking in every item, every nuance, her glossy blue-black hair hardly moved at all, and I reached a hand to my head and felt the heaviness of my own unwashed mop. I didn’t know if she could help me and, with how I felt currently, I was not sure that I really cared. Already she had made me feel worse, just by being so alive and vibrant. She sat in the armchair which Dad had carried in for her. Mum had brought in coffee and homemade biscuits on a tray, nice china, not the best, but good enough to make the right impression. That had always been important to Mum.

  Her name was Torrie, short for Victoria I’d been told, and, as she sat down, she lifted her trouser legs like men do to stop getting knee imprints in the cloth. She had slim ankles leading to small feet encased in short black leather boots. With her chin held high and side-lit by the sun from the window she would have made a good subject for portraiture. I wanted to tell her that but the words would not come and, in any case, I was no longer sure that I wanted to lift a camera to my eye again.

  But then she wanted to ask questions. Not too intrusive at first. No, I’ve never seen a counsellor before, I told her, yet the words had not left my mouth. She looked at the flowers and asked about those instead. And then I heard myself speaking. She had more questions however, and these were harder to answer. How was I sleeping? What improvements had I noticed since starting the antidepressants? What could I tell her? Should I have said that yes, I was sleeping, the medication had helped with that but, when the flashbacks started, I couldn’t escape because I could not wake up? Should I have told her that? Did I want to tell her I was starting to remember faces, still a blur but beginning to clear? As a photographer I knew that a single image could speak to someone’s soul without the need for words, but I had forgotten how evocative smells could be. When I walked into that small cold chamber, hidden away in the old castle ruins, the remaining scents caused an eruption in my memory. Such devastating memories. Clashing and colliding in my head, they bounced off each other like atoms in nuclear fission, or at least how I always imagined it to occur. As one face, came very close, lips with a white line of dried saliva near to mine, stale beer wafted over my mouth and I froze. Helpless and terrified with his hands on my throat, squeezing, squeezing. I was choking, couldn’t breathe, needed to breathe. Then the rainbow started. Kaleidoscope colours whirling around in my head, gambolling like the field of butterflies I remembered disturbing on a Turkish hillside. I reached out to catch them, to touch them, then I felt the hands on my throat once more. Not so tight now. I was able to catch a breath, a rasping choking breath, but I was still alive. Yet terrified what would happen to me next.

  I told her that I was starting to have some recollections, but I didn’t tell her how vivid they were, nor did I let her think that I could remember enough to relive it all again with the police.

  She watched me closely and I knew I had begun to sweat; she had seen all this no doubt. Afterall, my parents had paid her to spy on me. I felt like a life-sized doll. An automaton or a mannequin. I watched the Melissa doll accept the tea poured for her and take a biscuit, Mum’s lemon butter ones, a memory of childhood which drew me back into my body again, and made me miss the next question.

  She repeats it.

  How did I feel going outside?

  Instantly the video played, I was back in the hallway, Mum had slipped a coat over my shoulders and with the jumper, jacket and now, with the coat as wel
l, I became warm. Too warm. Sweltering and looking forward to the fresh air. Yet when the door opened the cacophony of noise thrust the fake me back inside the house. Then I was overwhelmed by a roaring in my ears, like holding an ear to a seashell and hearing a winter sea storm with thundering waves, crashing on the shore instead of gentle, rhythmic lapping. The other Lissa laid on the floor, hands clamped over her ears and sobbing. Her stomach must have hurt as she folded herself up and I too felt the pain of bowels crushed into oblivion. All I knew was that I had to drag the Melissa doll back somewhere safe, away from the noises, the racing wind, and smell of exhaust fumes and staleness – stale beer, stale sweat, and stale, musty clothing.

  If that was what awaited us both outside the front door, the real me knew we had to be back in our bedroom, where it was safe, where it was quiet and tranquil. And where we could ignore the returning memories.

  Torrie

  Torrie watched Melissa carefully all the time she was asking her questions and she wished she had taken the pad out of her bag to make the odd note. Even so, she would not have been able to write fast enough to capture everything said and she wondered about recording sessions for later review. It was something she did with other clients, but they had given their permission freely, and Torrie knew that Lissa Warren was far from being ready to give valid permission.

  However, an audio recording would not have captured the expressions on Lissa’s face as she recalled looking out of the front door, a view she knew well, was even over-familiar with and yet, for that moment, it had terrified her. Just relating the tale, her eyes glazed over and she began to perspire and shake. It became clear to Torrie that Lissa had an extremely long journey ahead of her; the first steps being getting out of her room for a few minutes each day and building up to a walk around the garden, then and only then, Torrie decided, would she even think about the suggestion of another attempt to attend a session at her therapy rooms in Bristol.