When You Are Mine(36)

‘We make them together.’

‘Who compromises the most? Who apologises the quickest? Who does most of the housework? Who gets to have the most fun? Whose career is more important?’

‘Don’t make this about me,’ I say, annoyed that she’s twisted the conversation to avoid answering my questions.

I can’t be friends with someone who willingly chooses to be a victim. At the same time, Tempe isn’t looking for sympathy or complaining that life has failed her. She is like an animate riddle; a bundle of contradictions that has to be untangled and rewrapped onto a spool, but it’s not my job to make her whole.





18


Imogen Croker’s parents live in a small village on the outskirts of Cambridge that appears to be surrendering field by field and farm by farm to the encroaching city. A woman answers the door. She is dressed in a simple skirt and blouse with a navy cardigan buttoned once. She opens the door widely and smiles, asking about my journey. I follow her along a hallway into an interior that feels closed up and claustrophobic despite the high ceilings.

‘Are you a detective?’ she asks.

‘No.’

‘But you’re with the police.’

‘I’m in uniform, but not today.’

She tells me her name is Lydia and calls me Constable McCarthy even when I suggest first names.

We have reached a sitting room, where the sunlight from the window is so bright it creates a shaft that feels solid where it hits a faded woven rug. I notice a figure in a chair, watching TV, almost unseen. He has white-grey hair and arthritic hands and seems to be dissolving into his armchair or growing out of it.

The volume is turned down on a wildlife documentary where penguins are marching across an icy wasteland.

‘That’s my father. He has dementia. Are you all right, Pop?’

The old man stirs, fixing me with his rheumy eyes. ‘There are no polar bears in Antarctica.’

‘But they have penguins,’ I reply.

He nods sagely, as though we have settled an argument.

Lydia takes me to a darkly varnished dining table where scrapbooks and photo albums are set out for my inspection. She had insisted I come at two o’clock, because her husband would be out, she said.

‘Richard gets upset when I talk about Imogen. He thinks we should move on, but I can’t forget.’ She has a box of tissues at her right elbow, but I see no sign of tears. ‘Imogen was his favourite, you see – our only daughter. I know a parent shouldn’t have favourites, but she was very easy to love. That’s why he won’t talk about her. It hurts too much.’

Without prompting, she begins telling me about Imogen, describing her childhood, her personality, her foibles, using photographs to illustrate her stories. I want to get to her death, but I can see how much pride Lydia takes in telling me about her daughter.

Gently, I nudge her forwards, asking how Imogen met Darren Goodall.

‘She was barely out of school. A babe in the woods. He was a police officer – a grown man. He was working on the door of a nightclub, moonlighting as a bouncer. He took down Imogen’s phone number and called her later. She thought it was romantic – a “meet-cute” story like you see in the movies.’

‘Did you like him?’ I ask.

‘I thought he was too old for her.’

‘Is that all?’

‘He seemed charming. Ambitious. Polite. Imogen was a bit of a wild child and we thought he might settle her down, but he was always quite controlling. I think she found it appealing at first, having a man who wanted to choose her clothes and who treated her like a princess. But after a while he began complaining about her friends and isolating her. He decided where she went and who she saw. Slowly, he undermined her confidence and crushed her spirit. He stole her spark.’

‘The journalist, Dylan Holstein, was looking into her death,’ I say.

‘Such a lovely man. So sad what happened.’

‘Have the police been to see you?’

She nods. ‘A Detective Fairbairn. He took some letters and papers away.’

‘What papers?’

‘From the inquest.’

‘The Coroner found that Imogen’s death was an accident.’

‘He was wrong,’ she says defiantly.

‘I read his findings. According to witnesses, she slipped and fell.’

‘One witness, you mean. The same witness who came to the inquest with a barrister and refused to answer questions about his statement.’

‘Darren Goodall.’

‘We don’t use his name in this house.’

She tugs a tissue from the box and bunches it in her fist. Her knuckles are white.

‘Do you know how many times we’ve heard from him since Imogen died?’ She forms a zero with her thumb and forefinger. ‘All our communications are through his lawyer. We are sent warning letters, threatening us if we keep talking about her death to the media or attempting to have it reinvestigated. Either that, or he claims we owe him money.’

‘What money?’

‘Imogen had a life insurance policy as part of our family trust. My father set it up years ago.’ She motions to the old man watching TV. ‘I know he doesn’t look like much, but he created the biggest frozen food company in Europe.’