Into the Water(38)

These school friends though – Tanya Something and Ellie Something Else – said that something big was up, though they couldn’t say what. All they knew was that a month or so before Katie died, she and Lena had what they called a ‘vicious argument’ that ended in them being physically separated by a teacher. Lena hotly denied it, claiming Tanya and Ellie had it in for her, that they were just trying to get her into trouble. Certainly Louise had never heard of this row, and the teacher involved – Mark Henderson – claimed it wasn’t really an argument at all. They were play-fighting, he said. Messing about. It got very noisy and he told them to quieten down. And that was it.

I skimmed over that when I was reading Katie’s file, but I kept coming back to it. Something felt off. Do teenage girls play-fight? It seems like something teenage boys would be more likely to do. Perhaps I’ve internalized more sexism than I care to admit. But I was just looking at pictures of those girls – pretty, poised, Katie in particular very well groomed – and they didn’t look much like play-fighters to me.

When I parked the car outside the Mill House, I heard a noise and glanced up. Lena was leaning out of one of the upstairs windows, a cigarette in her hand.

‘Hello, Lena,’ I called out. She didn’t say anything, but, very deliberately, took aim and flicked the cigarette butt in my direction. Then she withdrew, slamming the window shut. I don’t buy the play-fighting thing at all: I imagine that when Lena Abbott fights, she fights for real.

Jules let me in, glancing nervously over my shoulder as she did so.

‘Everything all right?’ I asked her. She looked awful: haggard, grey, eyes bleary, hair unwashed.

‘I can’t sleep,’ she said softly. ‘I just don’t seem to be able to get to sleep.’

She shuffled through to the kitchen, flicked the kettle on and slumped down at the table. She reminded me of my sister three weeks after she gave birth to her twins – barely enough strength to hold her head up.

‘Perhaps you ought to get the doctor to prescribe you something,’ I suggested, but she shook her head.

‘I don’t want to sleep too deeply,’ she said, her eyes widening, giving her a manic cast. ‘I need to be alert.’

I could have said that I’d seen greater alertness from coma patients, but I didn’t.

‘This Robbie Cannon you were asking about,’ I said. She twitched, and chewed on a nail. ‘We had a little look into him. You’re right about him being violent – he’s got a couple of domestic-violence convictions, amongst other things. But he wasn’t involved in your sister’s death. I went over to Gateshead – that’s where he lives – and had a little chat with him. He was in Manchester visiting his son the night Nel died. He says he hasn’t seen her in years, but when he read about her death in the local paper he decided he would come up here to pay his respects. He seemed pretty gobsmacked that we were asking him about it at all.’

‘Did he …’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Did he mention me? Or Lena?’

‘No. He didn’t. Why do you ask? Has he been here?’ I thought of the tentative way in which she’d opened the front door, the way she’d looked over my shoulder as though watching out for someone.

‘No. I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t know.’

I managed to get nothing more out of her on the subject. It was clear that she was frightened of him for some reason, but she wouldn’t say why. It was unsatisfactory, but I left it at that, as I had another awkward subject to raise.

‘This is a bit difficult,’ I said to her. ‘I’m afraid we need to search the house again.’

She stared at me, horrified. ‘Why? Have you found something? What’s happened?’

I explained about the pills.

‘Oh, God.’ She squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. It might have been exhaustion dulling her reaction, but she didn’t seem shocked.

‘She purchased them in November of last year, on the eighteenth, from an American website. We can’t find a record of any other purchases, but we need to make sure—’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ She rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers.

‘A couple of uniforms will come round this afternoon. Is that OK?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, if you have to, but I … what date did you say she bought them?’

‘The eighteenth of November,’ I said, checking my note. ‘Why?’

‘It’s just … that’s the anniversary. Of our mother’s death. It seems … oh, I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘It just seems odd, because Nel usually called me on the eighteenth, and last year was notable because she didn’t. It turned out she was in hospital, for an emergency appendectomy. I suppose I’m just surprised she would have been spending her time buying diet pills when she was in hospital for emergency surgery. You’re sure it was the eighteenth?’

Back at the station, I checked with Hairy. I was right about the date.

‘She could have bought them on her mobile,’ Callie suggested. ‘It is really boring in hospital.’

But Hairy shook his head. ‘No, I’ve checked the IP address – whoever made the purchase did so at four seventeen p.m. and they did so from a computer using the Mill House router. So it had to be someone in or near the house. Do you know what time she went into hospital?’