Die of Shame Read online

  ‘Yeah, but murder trumps it,’ Chall said. ‘Don’t you reckon?’

  ‘I don’t see how it’s relevant.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘As far as we can make out, Heather didn’t have too much else going on in her life outside the group you were both in with Tony De Silva. We’re obviously looking at all sorts of things, but until we’ve got anything else concrete, those sessions might well prove to be extremely relevant.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Clemence said. ‘We talk… well, you can probably work that much out, but I really can’t tell you who said what. There are people in the group who’d want my balls on a plate. Tony for a kick-off.’

  Tanner leaned forward. ‘She wasn’t found for a while, you know that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They didn’t find Heather’s body for nearly three weeks. Nobody reported her missing, because there wasn’t anybody to miss her.’

  ‘In the end, most of her just seeped through the floorboards,’ Chall said.

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘If you were her friend like you say, I would have thought you’d want to do anything you can to help us.’

  Clemence grunted, tore around the cardboard rim of his empty coffee cup. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s how much of a friend I was, OK? I don’t even know what Heather’s second name was.’ He carried on tearing, the cup getting stubbier, an inch at a time. ‘First names only in the group, you see?’

  ‘Finlay,’ Tanner said. ‘Heather Finlay.’

  Clemence nodded. ‘Sounds Scottish or something.’

  ‘She was from Sheffield originally. Came down here for college then stayed on.’

  ‘I knew it was up north somewhere,’ Clemence said. ‘Used to take the piss out of her accent. Eeh-bah-gum, all that. She used to do the same with me, told me I was like a camp cockney or something.’ He smiled. There was almost nothing of the coffee cup left and he gently eased the debris to one side of the table. ‘A pearly queen, she called me once.’

  ‘While we’re talking about names, it would be helpful if you could tell us who else was in that Monday night group with you and Heather.’ Tanner turned a page in her notebook.

  Clemence narrowed his eyes. ‘What did Tony say about that?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell us, but said it was fine if you did. Call him if you want.’

  Clemence shrugged. ‘Fair enough, but like I told you it was only first names.’ He thought for a few seconds. ‘Robin’s probably your best bet, because at least I know what he does.’

  ‘What does Robin do?’ Chall asked.

  ‘He’s a doctor… an anaesthetist. A consultant, I think, or something high up anyway, because he always wants everyone to know how great he is. He mentioned the hospital once. The Royal something?’

  ‘Thanks, that’s extremely helpful.’

  ‘I do my best.’

  Tanner wrote the information down then looked up at him. ‘What’s that below your eye, Chris?’

  ‘What’s what?’

  Tanner gestured vaguely towards what was clearly a bump beneath Clemence’s right eye, bruising not quite faded around it. ‘Been walking into things?’

  ‘I’m clumsy,’ Clemence said.

  Tanner nodded. ‘Are you clean at the moment?’

  ‘Come again?’

  She waited.

  ‘Yeah, I fucking am. Like that’s got anything to do with anything.’

  ‘How long?’

  He pushed himself back into the corner, the muscles working in his jaw. ‘I have ups and downs, fair enough?’ He took a few deep breaths then stood up quickly, stared out the woman with the laptop who had turned to watch. ‘Can I go now?’

  Chall got to his feet too. ‘Scared someone’s going to beat your high score?’

  Tanner stayed seated. ‘Before you head off, can you just tell us what you did on the evening of March the twenty-second?’ She looked at him. ‘If it helps you remember, that was the last session Heather attended.’

  Clemence refused to look at her. A few more deep breaths as hands were thrust into pockets then taken out again. ‘After the session, I went to the pub with everyone else, same as every other week… then I left.’

  ‘To go where?’

  ‘To wherever I was staying at the time.’

  ‘The shelter at St Martin’s?’

  ‘Might have been, I move around. I’m supposed to be getting a flat, aren’t I, but it’s taking a while. Paperwork and all that.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Chall said.

  Tanner closed her notebook. ‘It’s all important,’ she said. ‘The red tape, the paperwork. People doing things properly is what might get you a flat in the end.’ She reached for what was left of her coffee. ‘Doing things properly is how I’m going to find Heather Finlay’s killer.’

  … NOW

  Tony’s wife rang when he was in the queue for the checkout.

  ‘We need fresh spinach,’ she said. ‘And pancetta.’

  ‘I’m just about to pay.’

  ‘Might as well get some more mozzarella while you’re at it.’

  Tony sighed and stepped out of the queue, asked his wife if there was anything else as he walked back into one of the crowded aisles. More often than not, the weekend shop on a Saturday morning fell to him, and though there were always crowds to negotiate and parking spaces to fight for he’d come to look forward to it. Once the shopping was done, he would deposit the bags in the boot of his car then enjoy half an hour or so in the Crocodile Gallery café with the newspaper. A double espresso and an almond croissant, then a crafty cigarette afterwards.

  He relished the routine.

  ‘Why were there police here yesterday?’

  ‘What?’ Tony waited for a shopper to move, then reached for the spinach.

  Nina asked the question again.

  ‘How did you know about that?’

  ‘Emma heard them talking when she came down to use the bathroom. Weren’t you going to mention it?’

  ‘When, exactly?’ Tony said. ‘I was in bed whatever time you got back last night and you were asleep when I left this morning.’ He realised he was heading in the wrong direction, executed a tricky turn and began pushing the trolley towards the deli counter.

  ‘So, go on then.’

  ‘A client died.’ It was hard to manoeuvre with one hand, so he tucked the phone between his chin and his neck. ‘Was murdered, actually.’ He could not bear the unsteadiness, the feeling that the phone would slip and fall at any moment, so he stopped and pushed the trolley hard against the edge of the aisle. ‘One of the women in my Monday night group.’

  ‘Which one?’

  Tony took the phone from his ear and looked at it. HOME. A picture of Nina and Emma. The duration of the call ticking by in seconds.

  Which one? Not Oh God that’s terrible. Not Fuck or Bloody hell. Which one. He became aware of a woman staring and mumbled a sorry as he nudged his trolley forward so that she could get at the tinned fish.

  ‘Can we talk about this when I get home?’

  ‘Whatever you like,’ Nina said. ‘Can you see if they’ve got any edamame beans? If not, they do them in Waitrose…’

  Forty minutes later, Tony was unpacking the shopping in his kitchen: squashing down packaging into the recycling bin; balling up the empty carrier bags then pushing them inside a bigger plastic bag that was hanging in one of the cupboards.

  ‘Which one was Heather?’ Seated at the central island, Nina was looking at something on her iPad and brushing toast crumbs from her dressing gown.

  ‘The one who gave you a filthy look, remember?’ Tony held up a pot of edamame beans. Nina blew a kiss in his direction. ‘The one you said looked like a boy.’

  ‘Do they think it was drug related?’

  ‘I don’t know what they think.’

  ‘Every chance though, don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s something they’re considering,’ Tony said. ‘But th
ey know she definitely wasn’t using when she was killed.’

  Nina scrolled and swiped. ‘Feather in your cap, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Tony carried the multipacks of bottled water through to the utility room. He felt a flush spreading across his chest, a shard of guilt pressing at his breastbone. He had said something similar, shutting the door on that policeman the day before.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Nina asked when he came back into the kitchen. ‘About the group.’

  ‘I’ve put it on hold for a while.’

  ‘Probably a good idea. I mean, you’re not a grief counsellor, are you?’

  It still surprised Tony how little she understood the work he did, and he might have said something if he had the slightest interest in his wife’s latest cutting edge campaign for bras or biscuits. The truth was that for many recovering from serious drug addiction, grief was exactly what they felt. Mourning the drug they had loved and been loved by; mourning the part of themselves that had died when they’d left it behind.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’

  When he had spoken to each of the surviving members of the group the day before and broken the news about Heather, he had simply told them that they should take a short break while they processed their loss. Robin had been sanguine about it, but Tony guessed that was because he had NA meetings and other support groups in place. Caroline had said she understood, which was not surprising since she was still a relative newcomer and not as bedded in or dependent as some of the others. Diana and Chris had seemed the most disturbed at the thought of a hiatus, and, though he couldn’t promise, Tony had agreed to try to fit in individual sessions for them both until such time as the group was reconvened.

  Until he was ready to reconvene it, because the truth was that Tony himself did not feel able to carry on immediately.

  ‘I can smell the cigarettes, by the way,’ Nina said.

  Tony turned away from her. He walked across to the sink and began washing his hands. ‘I was stressed, all right? Upset. I’ve lost a client.’

  ‘Well, what’s that, thirty-five pounds a week? I’m sure you’ll fill the gap quickly enough.’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘Of course I am. And I meant, I can smell the cigarettes every Saturday.’

  ‘Come on. Once a week.’

  ‘Is that really a good idea?’

  ‘It’s a treat, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK, then,’ Nina said. ‘You should probably have a few drinks while you’re at it, maybe a line of coke, wake up in a skip.’

  ‘You’re being daft.’

  Tony dried his hands on the tea towel; rubbed and rubbed long after they were dry and until he heard Nina say something about going for a shower. He turned round to see her hugging their daughter as the two of them passed in the doorway.

  Emma mumbled a ‘Morning’.

  He walked across to hug her himself; squeezed and tried to remember the last time he’d felt her skinny arms curl around his back. Then he sat down and tried to stay calm while she made herself breakfast.

  There had been a bout of bulimia several years before, and though that particular issue with food seemed to have passed, though his daughter was eating, watching her do so was like observing a series of delicate and defined rituals being carried out by a chimp.

  It was precise, and utterly chaotic.

  The ingredients of each meal would change every few months or so, but would remain constant for weeks on end, breakfast, lunch and dinner, until Emma finally grew sick of them or developed an obsession with something else. Today, it was – still – miniature frankfurters, cherry tomatoes, raw baby sweetcorn, finely sliced pickles. There were plenty of all these in the fridge as Tony had taken care to stock up at the supermarket an hour before. Though the components of the meal were all small enough to begin with – making his daughter’s hands look like those of a giant as she worked at them – she took great pains to make each piece smaller still. The tiny sausages were cut carefully into tinier slices, the tomatoes into quarters that could be hidden beneath a thimble, and it was not until this work had been satisfactorily completed and each element of her meal comprehensively reduced that she would eat any of it.

  Then the chaos would begin.

  She ate with her fingers, or sometimes from the blade of a knife. She swigged water from a bottle and ate directly from whichever surface she was in front of, dispensing completely with crockery of any sort until, when she had finished, there was usually as much food smeared across whatever she was wearing as there was on the worktop or scattered on the floor around her.

  ‘It’s getting ridiculous,’ Tony had told Nina. ‘She’s like a baby.’

  ‘Your area, not mine,’ Nina had said.

  It was the cobbler’s kid with no shoes again and Tony was growing tired of it. He wanted to talk about why, but fought shy of talking about the kind of female body image people in advertising traded in or bringing up the umpteen stupid diets Nina had been on since Emma had been born. No, his job was to sort out the mess, same as always, and it only served to highlight yet again, how little Nina understood what he did, or could be bothered to try.

  Now, watching Emma pick up a slice of sausage no bigger than a penny and bite it very carefully in half, Tony remembered a session he’d done in a prison not long after he’d begun working as a therapist. Fresh-faced – well fresh-ish – and full of newly acquired buzzwords and homilies to go along with the piss and vinegar.

  ‘I’m not interested in slapping on a sticking plaster,’ he’d told them. ‘I don’t want to cover up the wound. I want to know why that wound’s there in the first place so we can avoid another one.’

  A prisoner who, up until that point had looked friendly enough had leaned towards him and quietly said, ‘I’ll wound you in a minute, you soppy twat.’

  Tony had spent the rest of the session shaking so much that he could barely hold his notes.

  ‘Mum says you could hear what those coppers were saying down here yesterday.’

  He was a lot more resilient these days.

  Emma glanced up. ‘Yeah, but only a bit. I could see them outside though, when they left. They looked like coppers.’

  Tony watched her eat for half a minute. A slice of pickle, a quarter of a tomato, a measured swig of water between each. ‘Can you hear when I do my sessions?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we’re in the conservatory. Sometimes we can hear when you come down to play the piano.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Nobody’s told me it bothers them yet,’ Tony said. ‘I just wondered, if we can hear you, can you hear what’s going in the group? You know, when you’ve finished playing.’

  Emma shrugged. ‘I usually go straight back upstairs.’

  ‘What about the sessions I have in my office?’

  She sighed. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Can you hear what’s being said? I know you usually have your music on.’

  ‘Why would I be interested in what you and your junkies are on about?’

  ‘I just asked if you could hear, that’s all. You do understand that these conversations are supposed to be confidential, right?’

  Emma looked up at him, seemingly furious that he was continuing to interrupt precious eating time with inane questions. ‘A. Why would I give a shit? And B. Who would I tell?’

  ‘Fine,’ Tony said. ‘Good.’ There was little point trying to read anything into his daughter’s reaction. She would probably have been equally obstreperous had he enquired about her plans for the rest of the weekend or made some innocuous comment about the weather.

  She was seventeen.

  Emma finished eating and left without any further conversation. When she had gone, Tony spent five minutes cleaning up after her, then went upstairs to his office. The shower was still running in the en suite and he could hear the murmurings of his daughter on the phone in her room. He listened, but could make out no more than t
he odd word or exclamation.

  He looked at the birthday invitation that Heather had given him weeks before, still pinned up on the cork board above his desk.

  His name in swirly red and blue letters. Stars and smiley faces.

  A few minutes after the shower stopped running, he heard Nina calling from the bedroom.

  ‘Fancy going to the pictures tonight? Why don’t you have a look, see what’s on?’

  Tony shouted back and told her that he would. Then he reached for the invitation, took it down and put it away in a drawer.

  … NOW

  ‘We could probably walk it in twenty, twenty-five minutes,’ Chall said.

  Had she been alone, Tanner would have made the journey from Soho back to the office on foot, without question. She had done so many times, in fact, coming back from the West End: along Piccadilly then down through the park and straight past Buckingham Palace. Tanner liked to walk, but any pleasure it might have given her would now be tempered by the need to make concessions. It was certainly not personal, because Chall was an officer in whose company she was generally more than comfortable, but twenty-five minutes was just too long a time to spend at the mercy of somebody else’s walking pace. Their desire to chat.

  ‘Nice enough weather for it,’ Chall said.

  Within a few minutes they were on a train heading west towards Green Park. Saturday lunchtime, and though the carriages were not quite as busy as they were during weekday rush hours, they were still crowded with excited tourists en route to Hyde Park or Harrods, as well as those heading further afield and already looking beaten down by the seemingly interminable Piccadilly line journey to Heathrow.

  ‘So, you think he was high?’ Chall asked.

  They were strap-hanging by the small doors at the end of the carriage. The sergeant waited until the movement of the train eased him gently back towards his boss.

  ‘Clemence.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Tanner said.

  ‘That kid certainly was. The one outside, pulling faces. Might explain why he hangs around with them.’