The Sixth Window Page 3

  Natalie froze. Should he be doing that? Wasn’t that too familiar?

  They both looked towards her, smiles on their faces. When they saw her stony stare, their smiles faded.

  ‘Mum?’

  Natalie shook herself. ‘Did you make me that cup of tea, Scarlett?’

  ‘Err, yes. But that was, like, hours ago. Where’ve you been?’

  Natalie could sense Ed’s eyes trying to penetrate her thoughts, but she had to shut him out.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t feel great. Must have been that prawn sandwich I had at lunchtime. I’m okay now. What were you laughing at?’

  Scarlett stayed where she was but held her phone out. ‘It’s a daft video that’s been posted on Instagram. Have a look.’

  Dropping his arm from Scarlett’s shoulder, Ed walked towards the kettle. ‘Why don’t you sit down, Nat? Scarlett can show you the video while I make you a fresh cup of tea.’

  Natalie walked into the dining area and pulled out a chair, watching her daughter carefully. She didn’t seem to mind Ed touching her, and until this morning it wouldn’t have occurred to Natalie to think twice about it. Now, though, it made her uncomfortable.

  Ed bent down to the washing machine while the kettle was boiling and started to pull out their laundry. All of their laundry, including Scarlett’s underwear.

  ‘Leave it, Ed. I’ll do it.’ Natalie could hear the suppressed anger in her voice, and struggled to ignore the looks she was getting from her daughter.

  Ed lifted his hands as if she were pointing a gun at him. ‘Fine. I’m due on shift in an hour anyway. The lasagne is made – it just needs to go into the oven for about forty minutes. I’ll go and get changed.’

  He walked out of the door and Scarlett could no longer be ignored.

  ‘Mum, what the hell’s got into you? Why are you being so horrible?’

  Natalie couldn’t answer. But she had to find out how Scarlett felt about Ed.

  ‘Do you wish we’d stayed at our house, Scarlett? Tell me the truth, because you’re the one that counts now.’

  Scarlett’s face collapsed as tears sprang into her eyes. She leaned towards Natalie. ‘You’re going bonkers, Mum. Ed is so good to us both – we’re lucky to have him. Everything was fine yesterday. Why are you trying to mess it all up?’ Scarlett grabbed her phone from the worktop and stomped out of the door.

  4

  Ed hadn’t come home from his shift by the time Natalie had to leave for work the next morning. She wasn’t happy leaving Scarlett alone in the house with him for the day, but she didn’t know what else she could do without making a scene, and Scarlett had said she was going round to Gracie’s in the afternoon.

  She had tried all night to rationalise everything, but she kept remembering other small things, actions that had seemed meaningless at the time but suddenly seemed significant. A few days previously Natalie had gone up to bed, leaving Ed downstairs. But when she came down unexpectedly for a glass of water he had hastily closed the lid of his laptop, and he looked guilty – there was no other word for it.

  She hadn’t said anything – it was his house, and they still had to get used to each other – but on top of her earlier suspicions she now knew for certain that Ed hadn’t been looking for a DVD in Bernie’s box. She had checked Ed’s movie collection and Reservoir Dogs was right there. He was lying to her, and for her daughter’s sake Natalie was going to have to bite the bullet and talk to him. She had left a message on his mobile, saying she would be back early because there was something they needed to discuss before he went to work that evening. In the meantime, though, Scarlett was going to be alone with him in the house.

  As she drove into the car park to pick up the tram into Manchester, Natalie put her phone on speaker and called Alison, her best friend since primary school. As a teacher of teenagers, Alison could always be trusted to help out with Scarlett.

  ‘Ali, it’s Nat.’

  ‘Hey, Nat.’ She could hear Alison yawning and realised that she had woken her friend up.

  ‘Sorry. I know that now school’s on holiday you were probably having a lie-in, but I need your help.’

  ‘Go on.’ Alison still sounded half asleep. ‘I’m listening, sort of.’

  ‘I’m a bit worried about Scarlett and I don’t like the idea of her being on her own all day.’

  ‘Isn’t Ed there?’

  Natalie should have thought of this before she called. Her pause lasted too long.

  ‘Nat?’ Alison said.

  ‘Yes, but he’s on nights so he’ll be sleeping. Could you call round unannounced at some point to check she’s all right?’

  ‘Of course I can. But why? Is something wrong?’

  Natalie wasn’t ready to talk about this to anyone but Ed. She shuddered at the thought.

  ‘No, I’d just like to know she’s okay while I’m gone.’

  ‘Not a problem. Any particular time in mind?’

  ‘Not really. Oh bugger!’

  ‘What’s up?’ Alison asked

  ‘I’ve forgotten my bloody laptop. I don’t usually take it home, so I didn’t think about it. Shit! I’ll have to go back and get it.’

  Promising to call her friend back, Natalie turned the car round and made her way home, worried that this would make her late for the morning meeting. Not a good start to the day.

  *

  She wasn’t surprised to see Ed’s car in the drive. His shift would have finished about half an hour ago, and they only lived ten minutes from the police station. She expected him to be in the kitchen eating up the remains of the lasagne, a habit that Natalie deplored but one that he and Bernie had in common. Cold lasagne, cold pizza, cold curry – when they came back from a night on duty it was their standard fare.

  When she saw the kitchen was empty she realised that Ed had probably already gone to bed, so she tiptoed up the stairs. The bathroom door was open with steam billowing out, so it seemed he had only just had a shower and might still be awake. Maybe now would be a good time to talk.

  As she walked towards their room, she saw Scarlett’s door was half open and glanced in to see if her daughter was up yet. She stopped dead. Sitting on the bed with nothing more than a towel around his waist was Ed, the dark hairs on his chest still glistening with droplets of water. Scarlett was sitting up in her vest top and knickers, the bedclothes kicked away, and Ed had his arms around her daughter, stroking the naked flesh of her back.

  Natalie felt as if all the breath had left her body. For what seemed like minutes her mind struggled to comprehend what her eyes were seeing. Then a white-hot fury took hold and she flung back the bedroom door.

  ‘What in God’s name is going on here?’ she said, her voice shaking as she carefully enunciated each word. ‘Get away from her, Ed. Get your hands off her. Now.’

  She strode towards him and grabbed his arm, yanking him off the bed.

  ‘Nat, what’s up?’ he said, grasping the flimsy towel, the shock in his voice only too apparent.

  ‘What the fuck do you think is up? You’re naked – or as good as – and you’re holding my daughter in your arms. Get the hell out of this room. Now, Ed.’

  Scarlett pulled the covers up to her chin as if in defence, her face crumpling as tears flooded her eyes. ‘Why are you being like this, Mum? Ed was just comforting me, like he’s done hundreds of times before.’

  ‘I bet he has,’ Natalie responded, her voice little more than a hiss. What had she done, leaving her daughter in this man’s care? How long had this been going on?

  Ed was reaching a hand towards Natalie as if in supplication, his eyes wide with alarm. ‘I heard Scarlett crying when I came out of the bathroom, so I came to see if she was okay. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Get out,’ Natalie spat, sitting down on the bed by Scarlett, reaching out to hold her daughter. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart. You haven’t done anything wrong, I promise. Get up and get dressed now. Put some clothes in a bag. We’re leaving.’

  Scarlett’s face
was flushed and stained with tears.

  ‘Mum, you’re being ridiculous.’ Her voice rose on the second syllable and ended on a sob.

  ‘Don’t argue, Scarlett. We’re going. I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.’

  *

  Ed was pacing backwards and forwards on the landing and he turned on Natalie as soon as she came out of the room.

  ‘What on earth are you thinking, Nat? No, scratch that. I know what you’re thinking. Are you insane? I wouldn’t touch Scarlett – you must know that.’ His earlier horror at Natalie’s reaction had changed to anger.

  Natalie walked past him. She didn’t want to have this conversation right outside Scarlett’s door. She went into the bedroom she had been sharing with Ed and held the door open, her limbs trembling with emotion. He followed, and as she pushed the door shut he reached out to her again, but Natalie stepped away, arms folded, staring at this man that she had thought she knew so well.

  ‘Natalie, please. Think about it,’ Ed said, fighting to keep his tone level. ‘I’ve known Scarlett since she was born. I’m her godfather. She’s just a kid – a kid who cries for her dad when you’re not there because she blames herself for his death. All she can say over and over is that if she hadn’t wanted a puppy – a puppy that had to be walked first thing in the morning when it was too dark for a thirteen-year-old to be out on her own – her dad would never have been out on that lane, and he wouldn’t be dead.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’

  ‘Of course you know that.’ Ed lowered his voice, clearly conscious that Scarlett might hear. ‘But Scarlett doesn’t realise that you do and she tries to hide it from you. She cries for him. It’s getting less and less, and as far as I know this is the first time since you’ve moved in. But she used to come to me after school when she knew I wasn’t on shift. She never told you, and she asked me not to.’

  Natalie felt her anger threaten to choke her. ‘How dare you? How could you not have told me that she was struggling so much? I’m her mother.’

  Ed tutted as if Natalie was entirely missing the point. ‘Yes, and the poor kid doesn’t want to upset you. If I’d told you and she’d found out, she wouldn’t have had me to come to, would she? And then where would she have gone?’

  ‘To Alison.’

  To Natalie’s amazement, Ed laughed. ‘To Alison. Right.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  Ed looked into her eyes and shook his head. He paused before he spoke. ‘Nothing,’ he said, his voice quiet. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’ve suddenly got against Alison. But right now I don’t care.’ Maybe Ed was trying to change the subject – to move away from the one issue that counted – but she wasn’t going to let that happen. ‘Nothing you say can make this better, Ed. There’s no way you should have been touching her when neither of you were dressed.’

  Ed blew out a long breath. ‘Okay. It won’t happen again, even though it never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. Let’s all calm down, shall we?’

  ‘I’m not bloody calming down – there’s not a chance of that. We’re leaving. I’ve asked Scarlett to pack some things, and that’s what I’m going to do. And then we’re gone.’

  Natalie walked over to the wardrobe and threw the door open. Ed followed her and stood close, but it seemed he thought twice about touching her. His voice broke as he spoke, as if for the first time he realised he was about to lose her.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Nat, you’re being bloody ridiculous. Where are you going to go? Your house is rented out, and Alison’s not got a functioning spare room in her cottage until the renovation’s complete.’

  ‘It’s none of your business where we go. We need some space between us while I decide what to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Natalie randomly pulled trousers, skirts and tops from the wardrobe and threw them on the bed. Not that it mattered what she took. At the moment it felt as if nothing mattered any more. But she had to keep busy or the sadness welling up inside her would overwhelm her. She had wanted so badly for this to work, for her and Scarlett to be back inside a warm, loving home.

  She turned and forced herself to look Ed in the eye, hating herself for how much she wanted to go to him and feel the comfort of his arms.

  ‘You were Bernie’s best friend, and you’ve been a good friend to me, Ed. But men who like young kids are sick. I should report you. But I need to calm down first.’

  Ed looked at her with shock. ‘Report me for comforting your daughter when she was crying? I’m sorry neither of us had many clothes on. Big mistake. My bad…whatever you like. But report me?’

  He took a step towards her again, and she could see the fury in his eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to reach out and shake her. She stood her ground and spoke quietly, disgust dripping from every syllable.

  ‘No, Ed. Report you for the filth you were looking at on your computer – the site you’ve now erased from your history. Conveniently. They were kids, Ed. Just teenagers. How could you?’

  5

  Tom knocked once on Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley’s door and heard her peremptory call of, ‘Come.’ It made him smile, although he knew it irritated the hell out of some of his colleagues. He would always remember his first introduction to Philippa as a trainee detective when the thought of seeing a rat nearly made her pass out, so when she was being particularly overbearing he always thought of that moment, and she knew it.

  Tom pushed open the door. Philippa didn’t look up from her desk, and he sat down without waiting for her invitation. Their meeting yesterday had been cut short – in fact, it had only lasted about two minutes before she got a call from the chief constable’s office demanding her presence for what was apparently a more important meeting. The fact that they were probably discussing how to save money instead of how to save lives irritated Tom, but some things never changed.

  Philippa scribbled something on the bottom of a sheet of paper and then placed it neatly in the central tray of the three-tier black-mesh stack at the side of her otherwise empty desk. She looked at Tom expectantly, clearly waiting for him to speak.

  ‘I would recap on where we were up to yesterday, but as we were precisely nowhere, shall we start again?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Philippa said. ‘Eighteen months ago a police sergeant from the north of the region was knocked down and killed by a car. The driver failed to stop. It was dark, the roads were wet, and he was hit head-on. He was killed instantly. As was the dog – not that that’s important.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows and said nothing. As a dog lover he wasn’t too keen on the poor animal being considered irrelevant.

  ‘I presume it was investigated at the time?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Absolutely, but without a satisfactory conclusion. The car was stolen, of course, and was found as a burned-out wreck up on the moors later that day. The paint fragments at the scene and on the victim’s clothing were matched with the make and model of the stolen vehicle, and the good news is that they managed to get some DNA. It seems someone in the car had been drinking out of a half-bottle of whisky. The bottle shattered in the fire, but the neck was relatively intact. As we never caught the driver and the DNA didn’t match anyone on file, there was nobody to compare it to.’

  Tom remembered the case, as he remembered every serving police officer who had died in or around Manchester during his time there. He had seen a picture of the man’s widow and child, and wondered how his own daughter, Lucy, would cope if anything happened to him. How sad that Bernie Gray would never have the chance to see his beautiful girl grow up.

  ‘Did we manage to track the car’s movements before or after Gray died?’ Tom said, snapping his mind back on to the job.

  ‘No. It seems the driver kept to the back roads away from any ANPR cameras, so we’ve no sightings of it that morning.’

  ‘So he knew the area.’

  ‘It would appear s
o, although it may have been luck.’

  Tom frowned but didn’t answer. He knew the area north of Rochdale quite well, and although there were plenty of narrow lanes into the countryside, it was all too easy to turn down one and end up in someone’s farmyard.

  ‘There was no reason at all to suspect any kind of intent,’ Philippa continued. ‘Sergeant Gray was well liked. He’d obviously caught his share of lowlifes in his time, but nothing stood out enough for us to think it was anything other than an accident, particularly as there had been a number of cars stolen in the area in the weeks before his death. They stopped immediately after he was killed, and the thinking was that it was kids having their idea of fun. When they realised they’d killed a copper they stopped.’

  ‘So why the renewed interest?’ Tom asked.

  Philippa pulled a sheet of paper from the bottom tray on her desk and handed it to Tom.

  ‘Yesterday morning a man was arrested and charged with aggravated burglary. His DNA matches that found on the whisky bottle.’

  ‘Open and shut case, then?’ Tom asked.

  ‘It sounds like it, but we need to talk to the man, see what he has to say for himself. And we have to make sure that we have a watertight case, so it will mean going over a lot of old ground.’ Philippa took the email back from Tom. ‘You’ve still got that DS on loan from division, haven’t you?’

  ‘Keith Sims, yes. He was acting DI in Becky’s absence, but she’s back now so I assumed he would be returning to his usual role.’

  ‘How is she? Fully recovered?’

  ‘Perky as ever, but very thin. I’ll go easy on her.’ Tom was tempted to tell Philippa that Becky had asked for a word with him in private. He really didn’t like the sound of that and wondered if she had lost her nerve as a result of the accident and might want to move out of his team into something less traumatic. But until he knew more there was no point involving Philippa, who would probably drag Becky up to her office and give her the third degree.