Trust No One by Clare Donoghue

Author:Clare Donoghue [Donoghue, Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4472-8428-4
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2016-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

5 August – Tuesday

Jane pulled at her running shirt. It was clinging to her, sweat dripping down her back. She had jogged down to Ladywell Fields to make some phone calls in peace and quiet, but it seemed a good portion of Lewisham’s three hundred thousand residents had decided to invade her sanctuary. When the sun shone, a Londoner could sniff out a blade of grass from a thousand yards.

She walked to the bridge and stopped to stretch her calves. There were half-clad bodies everywhere. The tennis courts were packed and every inch of grass seemed to be taken up with prostrate figures soaking up the sunshine, each with their own booming music. The competing tunes made Jane’s head hurt, but then, it didn’t take much after the amount of red wine she had put away last night. She wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear so she could still hear Lockyer but could also rub her eyes. The line was terrible, but that didn’t appear to be bothering him. A reflux of acid fought its way up her throat. She uncapped her water bottle and took a big swig, hoping to dilute the alcohol still slithering around her system.

After re-interviewing both Harvey and Olive she had needed something to ease the tension. Although she hadn’t realized until she was eating her breakfast this morning that she had managed to polish off a bottle and a half of Merlot. The wine had given her enough courage to call Andy. She was meeting him tonight after work. She held her fingers on her eyelids and applied gentle pressure. No wonder her head hurt.

‘Look,’ she said, feeling exasperated, ‘I don’t know, but the bruises are there. Anne saw them. She agrees with me.’ The phone crackled and died as the signal dropped out. She waited. He would call back. This was Lockyer. He always called back.

She was still trying to process yesterday’s events after she and the children had arrived at Caterham Road for the re-interviews. Anne had pointed out the bruising on Olive’s wrists and lower arm from the safety of the tech room, and shown her a photograph of a burn that was further up the girl’s arm, hidden by her T-shirt and jumper. Jane had reacted as she would have expected: she mentally processed the injuries with interest, but without emotion. She had worked with the Child Abuse Investigation unit for two years before Lockyer recruited her, so was accustomed to dealing with the emotive imagery that, sad to say, went with the job. But her calm demeanour hadn’t lasted. She and Cathy the CPO had been mid-interview with Harvey when he had sat forward, obviously tired, and pulled at his neck. The action had revealed purplish bruising at the top of his right shoulder.

Her phone rang. She answered it. ‘You were saying?’ she said.

‘What did . . . say?’ Lockyer asked. The signal was still terrible. She was missing every other word.

‘Say that again,’ she said, resisting the urge to shout.

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