Hard Girls by Martina Cole
Danny’s only worry was Kate really, she had been a big part of Pat’s life for a long time and, even though it looked like it was all over, that was no guarantee that it was. Longtime relationships had the benefit of memories and comfort, they were about more than excitement and sexual chemistry, even if they had once started out just like that. So Danny would keep a wary eye out and, if needed, he would step in to pick up the pieces. But it was early days, and he was just pleased to see his sister looking so happy.
Eve smiled, but she didn’t answer him. Instead, she changed the subject. It was too early to say where the relationship was going and, for the moment, she was happy just to see what developed. Danny working with Patrick could be a problem, so the less he was told about it the better. Though she knew her brother well enough to know that if he wanted to find out anything, then he would. She changed tack quickly. ‘I hear you’ve been seen with that little blonde bird twice this week, does that mean there’s an engagement on the cards?’
Danny grinned easily. ‘That just means I let her stay over, she’s a bit too fucking aware for my tastes. Put it this way, sis, she knows all the moves.’
Eve laughed. ‘She seems nice enough.’
‘She is, sis, but, like you, I don’t want anything more than a casual relationship at the moment. And, when I do, I certainly won’t go looking in any of the places I tend to frequent!’
Eve didn’t answer him, and they were both happy to change the subject as soon as possible.
Kate was tired, but she felt better than she had for a while. As she knocked at Tammy Taylor’s front door she was ready once again to re-ask all the questions she had asked before. It was her way, she often went back, again and again, asking the questions in a multitude of differing ways, it was amazing what people didn’t realise they knew until you asked them the appropriate question.
Her old mentor, a crusty old DI who she had loathed, had taught her that many years ago. He had been a seriously sexist, misogynistic and clever man. She hadn’t liked him when they worked together, but she had come to respect him in a strange way. They had become close after his retirement, his enforced retirement because, like her, he had understood too late that he had no life outside of his work.
As Tammy showed Kate into her neat and tidy house, she was reminded of him, and the part he had played in her life. She had not only learned her skill from him, she had also developed his habit of long working hours and the same determination to find out the truth of any situation. A double-edged sword in any walk of life.
‘Any news?’ It was asked tentatively, Tammy’s eyes wondering if she really wanted to hear what was going to be said to her. Kate hated that she was not only the bringer of bad tidings, but also the harbinger of even worse news. It was part of the job, but it still didn’t make her feel any better.
Kate tried to give people the closure they needed after a violent death invaded their life. It was a job that she loved, a job that had to be done. Sadly, it was also a job that only certain people seemed capable of doing, not only well, but for any length of time. It was a depressing fact that, most of the time, her presence was not only unwanted, but was also seen as a necessary evil. Something to be endured while, at the same time, she was the only link people still had with the person they had lost.
‘Nothing concrete, I just wondered if I could run a few things past you again? I know it’s hard, Tammy, but it can often help us to get to the crux of a situation.’
The woman had aged overnight, but that was par for the course where murder was concerned, especially a murder like this: a deliberate, calculated act of hatred. People tended to understand murders that were the result of anger or other extreme emotion, a death that was caused by jealousy or drink. Even a death caused by a person’s involvement in drugs or crime at least had some kind of reasoning behind it. Killings like this were always harder because they were without any obvious motive at this stage of an investigation, and motive was something everyone could somehow get to grips with. It might be hard, it might be shocking, but at least with most murders there was a logic of sorts to hang on to, to look back on. People needed to feel that the person who had died had died for a reason, any reason. Somehow it made their life easier if they could lay the blame somewhere, even if some of that blame had to be placed on the victim.
‘Anything, Kate, if it helps. Can I get you a coffee? I’m on the vodka if you fancy one.’
Kate smiled gently. ‘Just coffee please. Look great if I was done for drinking and driving, wouldn’t it?’
Tammy smiled back wanly. As she prepared the drinks in her kitchen, Kate looked around the small front room. Janie was everywhere, and the smiling face was like a beacon of happiness and hope. It was obscene to think that those girls’ lives had been wiped out like they meant nothing to anyone.
‘Here you are. Cheers.’
Kate clinked her cup against Tammy’s glass, and moved straight on to small talk. She knew it was easier to warm people up first, get them relaxed before she asked any really difficult questions.
‘How are you coping, Tammy, if that doesn’t sound too stupid a question?’
Tammy shrugged. ‘As well as can be expected, I suppose. The kids miss her. I still expect to hear her voice at the end of the phone, or see her come into the house as usual. If we could bury her it would be half the battle.’
Kate could understand how difficult it was when you couldn’t even make funeral arrangements for the one you loved. ‘I think you should hear something soon.’
Tammy nodded, but she looked haunted and upset by Kate’s words. Once more, Kate knew she couldn’t tell Tammy what she wanted to hear, needed to hear.
‘It doesn’t make it any easier though. Still, whatever needs to be done.’
‘Are you getting all the help you need, Tammy? Is there anything I can help with, anything at all?’
Tammy gulped at her drink. ‘Funnily enough, Victim Support have been great. Miriam has been a real diamond. Do you know her?’
Kate nodded. ‘Ah, she lost her husband recently, very suddenly. She’s experienced at her job, and very understanding. I’m glad you’ve got her to help, she really does care about people.’
Tammy frowned. ‘She lost her husband? She never said a word. Bless her, she must be in bits.’
Kate was quick to say conspiratorially, ‘Don’t let on I told you, she probably thinks you have enough on your plate. She’ll tell you in her own time. She is a good person, Tammy. She really cares, you know. She’s also very private and she wouldn’t let her personal grief interfere with her work.’
Tammy nodded. ‘My old mum used to say, everyone’s troubles are their own. It’s like everything I believed, or I used to believe, was wrong. I thought we were safe, that we’d all live long and prosper, as they used to say on Star Trek. My baby loved that programme, she loved all sci-fi things. She believed in ghosts as well, the paranormal, she loved all that rubbish. She relished it, believed in life after death. Shame really that she didn’t believe in life before death, only, no matter how I try and dress it up, she never really had one, did she? A young girl like that, her whole life ahead of her, and she’s gone. Snuffed out, gone. I don’t know what I am supposed to do about that. I don’t know how I am supposed to get on with my life. I still expect her to walk through the door. I mean, I ain’t stupid, I know that ain’t going to happen, but I still want it to happen. I just want my baby back. I want everything back like it was before.’
Kate could hear the heartache in Tammy’s voice, knew that she didn’t have any answers for her that would make any real sense. Murder was a strange thing, it left a resonance that never really went away. She knew that first hand. Every so often, Patrick would get up out of bed, and she had sensed he was reliving his daughter’s death, knew that the anniversary was due. She understood that Patrick was caught between the good memories of Mandy, and imagining the terror and fear she had experienced before her death.
Life was a bastard in many
‘I know this sounds lame, Tammy, but this is all part of the grieving process. Anger, bewilderment, raging at the gods. It’s natural to feel like this.’
Tammy sighed heavily. ‘That’s the good thing with Miriam, she sits there and lets me get it off my chest. She reckons people need to be able to talk about the person who’s passed on, about their bad points as well as their good points. She says it makes them real again, and it’s true. I can talk about Janie to Miriam and she doesn’t say a word, she just listens and listens until I’ve had enough. Then we have a cuppa, she dries my tears, and I feel I can cope again for a while.’
Kate laughed, and Tammy understood why she found her words so amusing.
‘I mean, she’s a bit of a God-lover but, at the moment, Kate, God is all I’ve got left really. How fucking sad is that?’
‘That’s not sad, Tammy, that’s real life, love. I’m just glad you feel you have someone you can talk to. Miriam is not everyone’s cup of tea, but she cares about what she does, and she is very good at it. Miriam knows what people want after such a tragic experience is someone they can unload on, can rail at. She knows the benefit of allowing someone to get it off their chest.’
‘She does that. I tell you, Kate, I fucking do my crust and she doesn’t bat an eyelid. She’s good with the kids as well, she’s got them in a nice nursery, everything. I’ve promised I’ll have a proper service for my girl when the time comes, and Miriam is helping me plan it. She reckons that, once Janie’s planted, I’ll start the proper grieving process. I got to say this, I think she’s right. I need to bury my baby. Once that’s over, I will be able to move on. At the moment, I feel I’m in limbo, you know? I hate to think of her in a fridge in the morgue. Alone, cold, with no one able to visit her. Once she’s in the ground, Miriam says I will feel better because I can visit her. I’ll know where she is, and can bring the kids. As mental as that sounds, I think she’s right.’
‘She’s spot on, mate. Now do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your girl’s working hours and her usual habits? I know I seem to be asking the same things over and over again, but I am a person who can’t let something go and in my job, that’s a bonus. I need you to go over everything again, and don’t leave out anything. Give me every tiniest detail.’
‘Miriam thinks the world of you, Kate. She said you are the best of the best. It’s strange for me, though. All my life, the Bill were people to avoid and now, suddenly, I need you in my life. I know you are doing your best for me. Miriam made me see just how hard you work to make things right, she said it’s people like you who make the world a safer place to live. She says you were blessed with the gift of policing, and through you and the other police, my daughter’s murderer will be found, and once that happens, I will find peace. Janie was a good kid. However she lived her life, she was a good kid, and I want to keep that memory of her close to my heart.’
Kate smiled tightly. Tammy’s words had made her feel bad, she had never really liked Miriam, and she knew that Tammy would have crossed the road to avoid her if this hadn’t happened. It was odd really, something like this brought together the strangest of bedfellows. She should know, it had once brought her Patrick Kelly, and though she was missing him desperately, she knew that her problems were nothing in comparison. It was strange, but sometimes it took someone else to make you understand just how easy your life actually was.
Kate decided then that she would pop in and see Miriam at the earliest opportunity. Not just because she felt guilty, but also because Miriam might have learned something from the victims’ families that could, in some way, help her with her enquiries. People often said things that had real importance to them, only they didn’t know that. As far as they were concerned, they were just reminiscing, remembering. It was only when their thoughts were taken into careful consideration, when a timeline of sorts had been established, and when someone like Kate saw a connection, a link, that the innocent words took on a more sinister, and useful, meaning.
Kate wanted to find something, anything that could tie these girls’ deaths together. Up till now, there had been nothing of value, nothing that even put the girls together at any given time. They had not socialised outside work, had not even drunk in the same pubs. The victims were relative strangers to each other. The only common denominator was they had been murdered by the same man. He had to have known them as a customer, and perhaps that meant that a lot of girls knew him, not just the girls who had died. The problem was, none of the girls who worked out of the victims’ premises could think of anyone who they thought might be dangerous enough to harm anyone.
He had used paralytics, he was not physically strong, not powerful. But then that could just be personality-wise, he could be twenty stone of sheer muscle with a domineering mother and a quiet personality that belied the fact that he was a murdering bastard. There was nothing, nothing at all to go on, nothing she could even grab hold of and try and make sense of. So all Kate could do was ask questions over and over again until she found out something, anything that made her think twice. Failing that, she had to wait and hope that he might make a mistake and leave a clue with the body of the next girl he murdered. It was Hobson’s choice, and it made her feel terrible. He was a clever fucker, but even clever fuckers made mistakes. But, until then, all she could do was keep asking the same questions and hope against hope that she got some interesting answers.
But as Kate listened to Tammy, she knew that now there was nothing she could ask that would make her re-live her daughter’s life in candid black and white. Thanks to good old Miriam, Tammy would always see her daughter through rose-tinted spectacles. And why not? After all, anything had to be better than the truth.
Kate held her cup out for a refill, and Tammy went into the kitchen with some hope for the future. Kate could not deny the woman that.
Patrick was nervous again, he was not sure about having Eve round to his house. He knew it was silly, he was a grown man and he wanted to see her again, but it still felt a bit too much like his home with Kate. Of course, that was natural. It was his home with Kate. Just because she wasn’t there now, didn’t make that fact any different. He had toyed with the idea of removing her photos, but had decided against it. After all, why should he?
Instead, he decided to take the photos out of the lounge area, and put them out in the other rooms. Eve was unlikely to go walkabout at any point and, if she did, he still couldn’t justify to himself removing every trace of Kate from the house. It was early days, and he wasn’t ready to remove Kate’s image, any more than he had ever been ready to remove his wife or his daughter’s images. As Kate always said, there was plenty of room for everyone if you loved them. Kate had never felt jealous of his wife, in fact, she had always ensured that Renée had a presence in the house, because as she always said, she had been the mother of his child, and so she deserved to be remembered. But Pat wasn’t sure if Eve would be as generous. After all, he didn’t know anything about her except that he liked her, fancied her, and that she had somehow invited herself round for the evening. He wanted to see her again, but it was a bit too soon to have her in the family home. Though family home was stronging it a bit these days, considering he was living here all on his Jack Jones.
Pat looked around him. The place was tidy, too tidy, really. Kate usually left her coat on the back of a chair, her bag in the hall, her shoes at the bottom of the stairs. She was one untidy mare. But now she was gone, and he was suddenly embarking on a relationship with a girl who would be younger than his daughter, had she lived. And he was finding himself enmeshed in a whole new set of rules and regulations.
Eve was a beautiful, sensual girl with a killer body and a cracking smile. A girl who he was frightened of, in many respects, because she had made him want her, and he had not really wanted anyone but Kate for a long time. Eve made him feel like a young man again and he felt the want of the younger woman.
Kate had once explained to him, in graphic detail, why she didn’t wear a dark lipstick any more. She pointed out the tiny wrinkles around her lips and explained how a dark lipstick bled into them. But if she had not brought the subject up, he would not have noticed the wrinkles, he wouldn’t have seen the ravages of time. He had always looked at her and just seen his Kate, the Kate he had fallen in love with, not the Kate she had become, the older, wrinkled Kate. Kate had felt the need to tell him every fucking step of her descent into old age. But Pat had not wanted to hear any of it, he liked his illusions and didn’t want to admit that, if Kate was getting old, then where the fuck did that leave him?
Suddenly Pat made a decision. He rang Eve and arranged to see her at her flat once more. As he put the phone down to her, he was overwhelmed with relief; it was far too soon.
Chapter Ten
‘I still feel bad, Kate, but you can understand my feelings, can’t you?’
Kate didn’t really, and she was fed up with pretending that she did. She and Annie had been good friends, but both of them knew that they were spending far too much time together. Kate took a deep breath and steadied her growing anger before saying quietly, ‘Can we just let it go, Annie? I know you feel I have invaded your space, and I have. But you know that, in reality, it’s actually my space. I mean, I own the bloody house. But I will leave, if you really feel it’s necessary, because this is starting to get on my wick.’
Annie felt bad about her resentment, and it was just that, real, raw, resentment, but she couldn’t help it. After all, she had rented this house fair and square. Now Kate was back, and she was suddenly the lodger. She felt like a stranger in what was, in effect, her own bloody home. But this went deeper than that, and they were both aware of it. Annie knew that Kate needed her, but she needed Kate even more. Especially with all that was going on. The resentment had really surprised her. In fact, she had not expected the depth of feelings she had experienced since this all started.