The Runaway

‘Suicide?’ I know I’ve got an issue with suicide. To me, it’s selfish and passive-aggressive – a way of handing on your problems to someone else. It’s the easy way out. Jo gives me hell for my views but I can’t seem to change them. It’s like they’re ingrained in me. I took a sip of my blackcurrant and tried not to gag. ‘How she do it?’

He slapped me on the knuckles. ‘Not proved.’

‘Well, how’d she die?’

‘Poisoned.’

‘Poisoned? What, like an overdose?’

‘Strychnine – know how that works?’

I shook my head.

‘Starts with twitching. Facial muscles go first.’ Martin clenched and unclenched his fingers, balling his hand into a fist, then flinging his fingers back. He still wore his wedding ring and it squeezed the flesh of his third finger. ‘Spasms spread throughout the body, progressing to convulsions as the nervous system runs out of control.’

‘Weird way to kill yourself,’ said Jo.

‘Eventually the muscles that control breathing become paralyzed and the victim suffocates,’ Martin continued. ‘Stays conscious and aware the whole time up to death – in fact the nerves of the brain are stimulated, gives heightened perception.’

‘Christ,’ said Jo.

He took another mouthful of beer. ‘Hard to think of a worse way to go.’

‘Where’d she get strychnine from?’ I asked. ‘Is it legal?’

‘It was. Used by mole-catchers – but you had to be a licensed pest controller to get hold of it. Police never found where she got it from, least not that they told me.’

‘You don’t think it was suicide?’

‘She was found in the communal garden of a block of flats, overlooking Roundhay Park.’

I’d never been to Roundhay Park, but I’d heard of it. It was out to the north of the city, only about four miles away; but we’ve got Hyde Park right on our doorstep, so why travel?

‘She killed herself outside?’ asked Jo and I knew by the tone of her voice that she didn’t believe it. I could see where she was coming from – when you think of suicide, especially women, you think of pills in the bath, head in the oven. But then there were the jumpers, I thought. Beachy Head and that bridge near Hull. They were outdoors.

‘Perhaps she didn’t want a relative to find her,’ I said. ‘I mean, if it was suicide, and she’d killed herself in her own flat, chances are it would have been someone she knew who discovered her. Perhaps that’s why she went to the garden – she wanted a stranger to find her.’ Which, I thought, although I didn’t say aloud, made her more thoughtful than your average suicide. I don’t know how the tube drivers ever recover from what they must see when someone decides they can’t go on.

‘She didn’t live in the flats,’ said Martin.

‘Oh.’ I considered this for a moment. It didn’t make sense. ‘Why would you kill yourself in someone else’s garden?’

‘Where did she live?’ asked Jo.

Martin shrugged. ‘That’s the trouble. We don’t know. No one knows who she is. No ID on her; all they found was a train ticket from Nottingham. Like she’d travelled all the way from Nottingham to kill herself in the garden of this particular block of flats.’

‘She must have known someone in the flats,’ I said.

‘She’d tied herself to a statue. Right in the middle of the grass.’

‘If they didn’t know who she was, how did they know she was a sex worker?’ asked Jo.

Martin shrugged again. ‘Don’t know. And I’ve got to tell you here, after …’ He paused, looked at Jo again. ‘After last time. I want to put my cards right out there on the table, so you know what you’re getting into. I didn’t like the way the investigation was handled, if you catch my drift.’

‘Come on, Martin,’ I said. I banged my drink down on the table harder than I expected and caused the table to wobble and Jo’s pint to slop. I lowered my voice. ‘You can’t put your cards on the table and then ask us to catch your drift. What do you mean?’

Jo mopped at the spillage with a beer mat.

‘The policeman in charge. I had my doubts. That’s all. Nothing concrete, just a feeling that perhaps he wasn’t as committed as he could have been.’

‘Wasn’t committed or was bent? Massive difference.’

‘Lee,’ Jo said. She put a hand on my arm. ‘We’ve got to come to each case blank, you know that. Empty.’

I reminded myself to breathe. Martin looked at me and then at Jo, like he was watching a tennis match.

‘I don’t know why he decided she was a sex worker. That’s all. Maybe she was known to the police, or him; maybe he was working from the fact that no one ever claimed her, the bus driver’s impression … I don’t know. It might not be important. Anyway, to me it felt like she was trying to tell someone something. She was naked. Did I say that?’

‘She committed suicide naked?’

‘Bollocks,’ said Jo.

‘The report said she was naked as the day she was born except for a necklace,’ said Martin.

‘If she was naked, where was her train ticket?’

‘All her clothes were folded neatly next to the body. The train ticket was found in bushes less than three metres away.’

‘Might not be hers then?’ Jo said.

‘It had her fingerprints on it. And they found a bus driver who thought he remembered her getting the bus from the station.’

‘Did they check the CCTV?’

Martin nodded. ‘Nothing.’

‘Not a lot to go on,’ I said.

‘I looked into the residents. Posh flats, owned by the well-to-do. Rob Hamilton was one of the residents.’

Even I’ve heard of Rob Hamilton and I don’t watch TV.

‘If in doubt, deal,’ said Jo.

I frowned at her.

‘That’s his catchphrase,’ she said.

‘And Jimmy McFly lived there too – the celebrity chef. Before he got done for drunk driving.’

‘Didn’t he go out with Gabby Fairweather?’ asked Jo. She pointed a finger at me. ‘She left him when he went to prison. Before she met that singer from that boy band.’

I was totally lost.

‘The Wranglers. God, what was his name? Chris somebody.’

For a radical feminist socialist, Jo is surprisingly well-informed on celebrity culture.

I turned to Martin. ‘Anyone with any links to the body?’ I said, my voice a little pointed.

‘I’ve got the full list here.’ Martin bent to pick his briefcase from the floor, opened it and took out a reporter’s spiral bound notebook.

I read the neatly written label on the front. Jane Doe; 29 August and the year. I did the maths. Almost seven years ago.

‘There were a couple of people of interest. One resident who’d been prosecuted for tax evasion.’ He flicked through the pages of the notebook. ‘There.’ He pointed to a name that had been highlighted. ‘And Blake Jeffries – the whisper was he’d made his money on the club scene … and not just through door entry charges, if you know what I mean.’

Jo grabbed for the notebook before I could get there and settled herself to read its contents.

‘You mean drugs?’ I said.

‘According to a source. I looked into it but nothing provable.’

‘We’re a missing persons’ bureau,’ I said. I folded my arms. ‘She’s like the opposite of missing. She’s found. I mean, all right, she’s dead, but she’s not—’

Martin opened his mouth to say something but Jo got there before him. ‘Somewhere she’s missing,’ she said. ‘That’s the thing. These women, they’ve been isolated—’

‘What women?’ I asked.

‘Cut off from society, precisely so no one cares when they’re abused, raped, killed … whatever.’

‘What women?’ I said again.

‘Sex workers,’ said Jo.

I knew her patience was stretching and truth was I was trying to stretch it on purpose. Don’t ask me why. I get like this sometimes. You’d think I’d learn, but no.

‘Somewhere,’ Jo said, ‘they’re missing.’

‘Somewhere there has to be a family or a past lover,’ Martin explained, and I noticed the similarity in the two pairs of steely blue eyes staring at me. ‘Or a friend. Someone who’s missing her. She had a child. That child must be somewhere, wondering where their mother is. She died anonymous. Seven years later, no one even knows her name.’

Jo continued to flick through the pages of Martin’s notebook. There didn’t seem to be many, perhaps half a dozen, the rest of the pages virgin white. I knew from the way she closed the front cover I wasn’t going to get much say in this one. Resistance was futile. ‘And that’s all you got?’ I asked. ‘A list of people who lived in the flats and a train ticket?’

‘They’re a subclass of people,’ said Jo. ‘Cynics might think these women are bred for abuse and murder. Most sex workers grew up in care.’

‘We don’t actually know she was a sex worker.’

‘Abusers, murderers know they stand a good chance of getting away with the shit they get away with—’

‘She wasn’t murdered. And we don’t know she was abused.’ Jo obviously wasn’t going to let any of the facts stand in her way.

‘Because no one cares,’ she said, her eyes boring into mine. Her voice was so loud the people at the other table had stopped speaking.

‘I do care,’ I said. ‘I just think we need to be clear—’

‘They’re the world’s missing, the world’s lost.’

‘OK.’ I held my hands up.

‘They’re so missing, so off radar, no one even knows they’re missing. They’re more than missing, they’re fucking invisible.’

‘That’s the thing,’ said Martin, nodding with approval at Jo. ‘There was no one stamping feet, demanding answers. The case got pushed aside. She had no one. That’s why it won’t let me go.’

‘If the kind of men who prey on these women knew there were people like us out there, people who care and want to find out what happened, maybe, just maybe, it might make them think twice before they do the fucked-up shit that they do.’

‘OK,’ I said. The expression on Jo’s face made me feel like crying. ‘I guess it wouldn’t hurt, having a look at it.’

I turned to Martin because I couldn’t bear to look at Jo anymore. ‘You don’t have to pay us though, we owe you one.’

‘We owe you more than that,’ said Jo.

He drained his pint and waved at the barman, indicating another round, the same again. I wanted to point out it wasn’t waitress service, but the barman smiled and reached up for a pint glass from the rack above his head. Martin turned back to us.

‘I do have to pay you. And I’ll tell you why. If I don’t, I have to be nice to you because you’re doing me a favour. There’s no pressure on you to succeed.’ He grinned at me and the twinkle returned to his eye.

‘You want to be able to boss us around, is that what you’re saying?’ said Jo.

‘Precisely.’ Martin patted Jo on the hand. ‘And besides, that battleaxe you’ve hired as your receptionist, sorry, office manager … she’d kick all our backsides if you said you’d taken on a freebie. I need to be able to stand my ground with her.’

Jo shook her head. ‘You’ll learn. Complete surrender is the only way with Aunt Edie.’

‘Yes, well, I’m too old. And you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks. I don’t surrender to anyone. Never have, never will.’

Jo laughed and it struck me that I hadn’t seen her laugh for ages. Not like that, head back, square white teeth on show.

Chapter Five

We stayed in The Brudenell till closing time. Martin had booked himself a couple of nights in a B&B on Cardigan Road in order to watch the cricket. As Jo tried to wheedle another round out of the barman I noticed the skin on my forearms was scratched red and tugged my sleeves down. Once the barman had convinced Jo there wasn’t going to be any after hours, we poured Martin into a taxi from the rank opposite and I linked arms with Jo as we waved him off, Jo swaying as I held onto her. When the taxi turned the corner, I half-pulled, half-pushed her up the hill towards our flat on Hyde Park Road.

She stumbled over the kerb on Royal Park Mount and fell on her arse. I tried to pull her up, but Jo found it too hilarious for words and I gave up and sat next to her at the roadside. We shared a fag, which got so damp from the tears streaming down her face I had to light another. I put my arm around her shoulders and her body warmth seeped into me. Must have looked like a right pair. Just as I thought she’d fallen asleep and I’d have to roll her up the hill, she clambered to her feet.

‘Chris Goodall.’

‘Who?’

‘The bloke from The Wranglers.’

‘Right.’ I had no idea what she was talking about, and I’m not sure she did either.

‘The one who went out with Gabby Fairweather. After she finished with Jimmy McFly.’

I nodded.

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s not important.’ She took a moment to steady herself and then set off at such a pace that I had to jog to keep up with her.

When we got to the flat, I let us in as quietly as possible so as not to disturb our downstairs neighbour, who happens to be the only full-time worker within about a two-mile radius. She hates us and our unsociable hours. I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on while Jo crashed into the front room. When I joined her with a freshly brewed pot of tea – milk in a jug, just how she likes it – she was out cold on the settee with her Doc Martens still on. I put the tray down, untied her laces, tugged the boots off her feet and fetched the duvet from her bed. I floated it over her body. She looks different asleep, less fierce, her face softer, unlined.

She didn’t stir so I took the crumpled Rizlas, the tobacco tin and the tea tray upstairs. My bedroom is in the attic, a bolthole from the hustle of the streets. My bed nestles in the space beneath the dormer, and the garret window looks out over the treetops of Hyde Park. Here I can convince myself that I’m not in the city, that there’s clean air and a world of space. I lay half-propped on my pillows, trying to memorize the star constellations. I made a spliff, but my heart wasn’t in it and I stubbed it out before I was halfway done. A line from an old Billy Bragg song looped in my head. It’s never the same after the first time, but it doesn’t stop you coming back for more.

The next thing I knew the alarm clock glowed out 4:03 a.m. I lay in bed feeling unsettled and trying to remember my dream, but it floated just outside my grasp, leaving me worried but without knowing why. I’d fallen asleep without closing the curtain and when I saw the first trace of dawn across the park, I pulled on a pair of denim cut-offs and my T-shirt and went downstairs.

Jo was still comatose on the settee, so I opened the front room curtains, knowing that before long the sun would be beaming down through the tall sash windows. Jo grunted and turned away.

I laced my trainers on the bottom stair, shoved a jacket and notebook in my backpack, then jogged, slowly, my usual two laps round the park. I intended to stop there, then walk round the corner to the office and pick up the van, but the sun was breaking through the red clouds, and I got into my stride and decided to run down into Woodhouse and then up The Ridge to Headingley. Leeds 6 doesn’t really stir much before lunchtime and I live for these glimpses, the moments when I’m the only one awake.

By the time I got to Headingley sweat dripped from my forehead, but the voices had gone. It was almost eight, so I sat on the brick wall of a flowerbed until Sainsbury’s opened, bought a bottle of water and made my way through the empty streets to The Turnways.

As I got close to number 24 I saw the curtains were still open and the house looked just the same as it had the previous day. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps it wasn’t just Matt that had done a disappearing act. I walked up the path, hammered on the door and jumped when it opened straightaway.

‘Yes?’ said a young woman in a round-necked striped jumper. She had mid-calf-length boots on and I had the impression she was about to go out. I felt underdressed next to her, in my T-shirt and knee-length shorts. I wished I’d put my jacket on before knocking on the door.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ I said. ‘Is Matt in?’

She frowned. ‘Who are you?’

I wasn’t used to doing this without Jo and it reminded me how much I rely on her, especially to break the ice. ‘I’m Lee, Lee Winters. I’m a private detective.’ It sounded stupid to my ears, but I persevered. ‘Investigator. I run a missing persons’ bureau. We’re … I mean, I’m looking for Matt.’

‘Oh,’ she said. Her forehead creased and she paused for a moment. ‘You mean someone hired you? Someone hired you to find Matt?’

‘Is he in?’ I straightened my spine, adjusted the weight on my feet so I grew a couple of centimetres.

‘No. No, he’s not here. Haven’t seen him since last week. I don’t know where he is.’

‘Can I come in?’

She checked the time on her watch. ‘I’ve got lectures.’

Not at eight fifteen in the morning, she didn’t. I might not have spent that long in higher education, but long enough to learn the basics. I took a step forward. She held her ground and so we stood too close to each other, so close I could smell the mint of her toothpaste.

‘It won’t take long,’ I said.

She hesitated. I knew she didn’t want to talk to me but I guessed she was too polite to say. ‘I said we should have reported it,’ she said, ‘but Tuff thinks he’s holed up somewhere. He’s about to submit his dissertation.’

‘Tuff?’

‘No. I meant Matt’s about to submit his dissertation.’

I was having difficulty keeping up with the conversation. ‘Who’s Tuff?’

‘My flatmate. Matt’s best friend.’

I went for it, taking another bite out of the distance between us, and this time she stepped back which allowed me to move inside, into the hallway. I swung the backpack off my shoulders. ‘I’m going to need to take notes.’ I opened the drawstring and pulled out my notebook. ‘You got somewhere we could sit?’

‘I guess. Front room.’ She pointed to the first door on the right.

‘I’m Lee,’ I said again. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Someone’s hired you to find Matt?’ She emphasized the word hired, and I read it to mean paid.

‘Yeah.’ I followed her into the front room, which was neat and tidy by student standards. The coffee table had a pile of textbooks on it, a picture of a microscope on the front of the top one. I took a seat in the armchair and turned to a clean page in my notebook. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Who?’

‘What?’

‘Who hired you to find him?’

I cleared my throat. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s against—’

‘Nikki,’ she said. She shook her head and stared right at me. ‘I’m guessing the police told her to fuck off?’

‘I’m not at liberty—’

‘She’s nuts.’

I gestured at the chair opposite me, trying to indicate she should take a seat. She didn’t comply, choosing instead to stay standing by the door. ‘She’s nuts?’ I wrote the word nuts in my notebook, looked up at her again. ‘Like you mean she has a mental health issue?’

She stood with her back to the wall. ‘She’s nuts about Matt.’

‘Maybe she’s worried? I mean, you said yourself you don’t know where he is.’

She picked at her fingernail. ‘Matt has that effect on women.’

I saw where this one was going. I offered up my usual silent prayer of thanks that I’d put all that behind me. I’m not quite a virgin, but it’s been so long I might as well be. It’s better that way. Me and men, me and relationships, it’s just not my strong point. Play to your strengths, someone once told me. I tried to keep the knowing tone from my voice. ‘How long you lived with him?’

I failed.

She swiped her dark fringe back with one hand so that she could see to stare at me. ‘We share a house.’

‘Why don’t you take a seat?’

She pointed a finger at me. ‘I’ve never, ever thought about him that way. Which is probably why this houseshare thing works.’ She stepped forward and moved the pile of books out of my way so I could put my notebook on the coffee table. ‘This is our second year. They’re both all right, mostly.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Well, you know, I’ve had to break it to them that the cleaning fairy doesn’t exist. And Matt spends more time in the bathroom than any woman I’ve ever met, but apart from that, it’s OK.’

‘How old is Matt?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘And he’s an MA student?’

‘MSc.’

‘And, sorry, I don’t know your name?’

‘Jan.’

I wrote that down. ‘When did you last see him, Jan?’

‘I’m sure Nikki’s told you.’

I opted for flattery. ‘It would be great to hear it from you. Just to make sure I’ve got my facts straight.’ I grinned at her. Aunt Edie’s always saying I’ve got a nice smile and I should use it more.

Jan took a breath, released it slowly. ‘I was away for the weekend. Went back home to see my parents.’

‘When?’

‘Last Friday.’

‘Where?’

‘York, well, just outside. All I know is Matt and Tuff went to a party – on Saturday night. These outdoor parties – you know?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve heard of them but thought they’d got rid of them back in the nineties. They’re illegal now, right?’

‘I don’t know much about it.’ She finally lowered herself into the chair opposite me and rubbed at an imaginary spot on her jeans. ‘Sounds like a bunch of hippies, taking drugs and dancing till sunrise, but Nikki’s got them into it. Tuff came back on Sunday, about lunchtime, he said – I wasn’t back. He said Matt stayed.’

‘When did you get back?’

‘Teatime. I was hoping to get some work done. Fat chance. Nikki came round, twice, looking for Matt.’

‘Sunday evening?’

She nodded.

‘What did,’ I checked my notes, ‘Tuff say had happened to Matt?’

‘I didn’t see Tuff till Monday.’

‘He got back Sunday lunchtime, you said?’

‘Yes, but he’d gone out again by the time I got here. And I was in bed by the time he came home. I didn’t see him till Monday.’

‘And?’

‘And he said he came back Sunday lunchtime and Matt had decided to stay at the party.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Not really. Nikki came round again, screaming that she’s going to call the police. Like I’m personally responsible for the fact that her boyfriend’s not here.’

‘Must be hard for her —’

‘Matt’s problem is he’s too pretty. He’s got too many options.’

‘You mean – there’s someone else?’

‘I wouldn’t blame him, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘You really don’t like Nikki.’ It wasn’t a question, more a statement of fact. I probably sounded peeved. I hate women doing other women down, especially over a man.

‘I don’t not like her. I just wish … Oh I don’t know.’ She stood up. ‘Tuff’s right. Matt’s probably holed up, writing up his dissertation.’

‘His tutor says he should have just about finished it.’

‘I think that’s probably being optimistic.’

‘Have you rung his parents?’

‘Tuff’s known Matt the longest.’

‘Where is Tuff?’

‘He’ll be at uni by now.’

I frowned and glanced at the clock on the wall above the fireplace. ‘Bit early.’

‘Yeah, well.’ She smiled for the first time and I had the sense that she felt better for talking to me. ‘They’re both feeling the pressure. And the library opens at 8.’ She paused a moment, drew a breath. ‘It is weird.’

I thought she meant the library. ‘Weird?’

‘Tuff’s, well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the stress.’

‘Tuff’s what? What were you going to say?’

She didn’t answer me, was lost in her own thoughts. ‘If Matt’d taken his laptop with him, I’d agree he’s holed up somewhere, ignoring Nikki and trying to get his dissertation finished. But he went missing at a party.’

‘Could he have come home on the Sunday? If Tuff was out and you were out? Maybe he picked up his stuff?’

‘Maybe. I did have a look in his room, but it’s impossible to tell. I’d have thought he’d have left a note though if he’d done that. Unless he didn’t trust us not to tell Nikki. That’s the only thing I can think of – he wants to disappear till he gets it in.’

‘How long’s he got?’