Dead To Me - [15]

‘Time!’ yelled Gill.

‘I’ll check,’ Kevin said, affronted.

‘You do that,’ she said, making a mental note to discuss this with Kevin, how one piece of information needed developing, verifying. Coming home with half the story was not good enough. He had to join the dots.

‘Have we got the firm?’ she said to him.

‘I asked her that.’ Kevin was obviously pleased with himself about this stunning piece of detective work. ‘But she couldn’t remember.’

‘Get dialling, Kevin.’

His face fell.

‘Are we done?’ Gill surveyed them. Nods of assent. People made to move, gathering up papers, drinks, pens.

‘Janet – a word.’

Gill went to her office. Once Janet was inside, Gill closed the door to give them some privacy as the lads filtered back to their desks. ‘You’ve got your face on,’ Gill said.

‘I don’t have a face,’ Janet objected, baby blue eyes wide.

‘Yes, you do. I know you, kid. You’re sulking about Bailey. Not going to work, kiddo – drop it. Status quo.’

‘“Whatever You Want”?’ The tune popped into Janet’s head.

‘Things stay as they are.’

‘I never did Greek,’ Janet said. ‘Look, we’re at the mother’s and she wades in, intrusive questions, clumsy assumptions. You know what she said? Could we call the son round to be with her.’

‘Ouch!’ Through the glass Gill could see Rachel at her desk.

‘Right,’ Janet said, with feeling.

‘But you told her?’ Gill asked.

‘Yes,’ Janet said, the tone in her voice: Of course I did, what do you take me for?

‘Good, she’s learning.’

‘Seems to me it went in one ear and out the other,’ Janet complained.

Gill had had enough. She needed to make it plain that Janet had to deal with this on her own, not come running to Gill with every gripe and squabble. ‘Time will tell. I expect you to train her up. She wants this, she’s got plenty between her ears, I’ve seen her files. She’ll learn. You point out her mistakes and you encourage her to do better. Clear?’

‘As glass.’

Gill gave the thumbs up and went to ring the CSM. They needed a sit-down, see where Sean Broughton’s bed-making left them, forensically speaking.

8

‘DC RACHEL BAILEY, Manchester Metropolitan Police. We sent you a request yesterday evening for call data on a missing phone.’

‘Nothing for you, yet,’ said the man on the other end.

‘You do realize this is a murder I’m dealing with here?’ Rachel complained. ‘Can’t you get your finger out?’

‘You do realize that this is the police liaison department?’ the man said frostily. ‘All we deal with is murders. I’ve a stack of requests here. You wait your turn.’ And he hung up. Rachel looked at the receiver for a moment, taken aback. Then she made a note in her daybook about the call.

Rachel was miffed at the way Godzilla had talked to her, making her look stupid in front of everyone. She had brought her into the syndicate and now she was being snotty to her. Making her tag along for the formal identification, for fuck’s sake.

It had snowed in the early hours, not much, but enough to mottle the landscape with patches of white, a piebald effect. Slush already on the main roads. On the drive over to the mortuary Janet had explained it was policy to have two FLOs in the initial stages of an inquiry, before they knew what flavour it was. You didn’t know how many next-of-kin might come crawling out of the woodwork, you didn’t know if there was bad blood. Things might kick off.

‘One time,’ Janet said, ‘we had the father at the mortuary, he had been easy to trace. The mother had done a runner years before, leaving the kids…’

Rachel looked out of the window; she knew what that was like, aware of the old twist in her stomach, the anger just underneath. How could she, the bitch? Didn’t want to think about her. Waste of space, waste of time. Dead. Good as.

‘… but,’ Janet went on, turning into the car park near the mortuary, ‘mother pitches up, completely trollied, seen the death on the news, and attacks the father. Only one FLO there and yours truly, trying to pull them apart. I got a smack in the face for my trouble.’

Rachel still thought this was overkill, Denise Finn at the mortuary along with the FLO and two detectives. Three to one. Plus the mortuary staff. Janet obviously thought so, too. ‘You can wait in the car?’ she said when they arrived.

‘You’re all right,’ Rachel replied.

‘Frightened you’ll miss something?’ The woman thought she was a mind reader now.

So they waited, while Denise Finn stood in front of the viewing area where her daughter’s body was laid out. The pale blue sheet pulled up to her neck. Blood washed away, her scuzzy hair combed – they’d have done that for the post-mortem, collecting trace material that might lead to her attacker. Denise Finn wore the same clothes as the previous evening, perhaps she had not slept. Perhaps she was a mucky one. She was huffing and puffing, a tissue balled in her hand. The FLO, Christopher Danes his name was, asked her the question: ‘Can you tell me if this is your daughter, Lisa Anne Finn?’

‘Yes,’ Denise said in a sob, her shoulders heaving. The FLO put his hand on her shoulder, suggested she sit down for a minute. She stared at him, looking lost, he repeated the question and she nodded. He showed her into the visitors’ room and came back out. The mortuary assistant closed the blinds. Rachel heard the squeal of the trolley as he wheeled it to the freezer.