Violation Read online

  Cath Staincliffe is the author of the acclaimed Sal Kilkenny mysteries as well as being the creator of ITV’s hit police series, Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis. Cath was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award in 2006. She lives in Manchester with her partner and their three children.

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Constable,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2010

  Copyright © Cath Staincliffe, 2010

  The right of Cath Staincliffe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-78033-496-7

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound in the EU

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  For Tim

  Many thanks to the people who were so generous with their time and knowledge: solicitors Robert Lizar and Nicky Hall; Joy Winkler, writer in residence, and the writers’ group at HMP Styal. All the mistakes are mine. Thanks also to my agents: the late Kate Jones who encouraged me to tackle a different sort of novel and Sara Menguc for all her hard work.

  Contents

  Violation

  Kindest Thing

  Chapter One

  VIOLATION

  It was hot that summer. Hot and dry, even here in the Lakes. The ground parched and the streams drying up and the heat haze stretched like gauze over everything.

  The summer we lost Cassie.

  The town was packed, tourists thronging the streets, stuffed into the restaurants and ice cream parlours, queuing for boat trips. It usually is busy, even in the rain, but the fine weather brought extra day-trippers on top of the people who had booked for a week or two. Then there were the second-home owners who recreated the British house party tradition with their rotating groups of visitors, step-families and friends. Coming and going up the M1 from London, 4x4s stuffed to the gills with towels and dogs and children, mountain bikes or kayaks on the roof. The heat made people cranky, short tempered: sudden retorts, shrill squabbles and children’s cries pierced the air and carried, no rain to dampen them.

  Cassie was eighteen. She was working in The Grantley, the hotel on the road north out of town, waitressing and working behind the bar. Saving what she could for her move to uni in Leeds that September. She had an offer to study events management as long as she got the grades and she was confident she would.

  Matthew teased her about it: three years’ training to be a party planner. He’s a bit of a dinosaur sometimes. Expects things to be the same as in our day, when most degrees were in academic subjects. I was more pragmatic if a little sarcastic about it, ‘She’s so disorganised – anything that helps her plan can only be an improvement.’

  That was what our last words were about, mine and Cassie’s, a stupid row over the state of the kitchen. Her inability yet again to load the dishwasher, tidy up after herself. It’s a dangerous combination: menopausal mother, stroppy teenage daughter, heat wave.

  I’d been working at the estate agents until three. We close early on a Saturday. There’d been a steady stream of window shoppers. I don’t think any of them were really serious about buying but they loved to look. Property porn. Many made appointments to view, where they would drool over location and outlook, discuss schools and the motorway network, fantasise about life up in the fells or lake-side and how they’d refurb the kitchen or the bathroom, revamp the garden. And I would smile and nod, and offer up advice when required. Hiding my resentment that neither of my kids would ever be able to afford to buy up here, not even a wrecked barn with a chance of planning permission. Though I couldn’t imagine Cassie wanting to come back after she’d tasted the cosmopolitan life. The edge and excitement of a big city. Robbie was different, he would probably stay, he never shared his sister’s restlessness.

  I don’t like to think about that final argument. If I had known then. If I had only known I would have stitched my lips shut or torn out my tongue. Or simply walked away. Let it be.

  But I was tired and headachy, I couldn’t tell where one hot flush ended and the next began, my ankles were swollen and prickly. I came in from work and the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it. Dirty crockery piled precariously by the sink, the hob spattered with grease, the frying pan glistening with fat and food remnants, flies busy snacking there. On the table, rings of milk and a cereal bowl, the leftovers hardening like concrete.

  I’d left it spick and span.

  I yelled for Cassie who clattered down the stairs and swanned in, hair fashionably straightened, face made up, bag containing her work clothes slung over one shoulder.

  ‘Look at the state of this place,’ I said, ‘you can clear up before you go.’

  ‘I haven’t time,’ she retorted.

  ‘You should have thought of that. If you’d got up a bit sooner instead of spending all day in bed...’

  ‘I’m going to be late.’

  ‘I’m sick of it,’ I yelled. ‘You never lift a finger, this is not a bloody hotel. If you can’t do your bit you can just get out.’ I was trembling with rage, fury out of all proportion. My cheeks aflame, my head bursting. Made worse by the way she pursed her lips, swerved her eyes heavenwards and raised and lowered her shoulders in a bored sigh.

  ‘Find somewhere else to live because I’ve just had enough of you. You make me sick.’

  ‘Fine!’ she snapped. ‘Anywhere will be better than here with you in this dump.’ And she went, slamming the back door hard enough to rattle the dirty pots.

  Tears sprang to my eyes and my throat tightened in frustration. Why did she wind me up so? I could go from nought to sixty in a millisecond with Cassie. And only with her. Why did I have to fly off the handle? It never worked. I should have waited. Found a time to talk to her calmly about the chores.

  I was tempted to sling something across the room but I knew I’d only have to clear it up again after. So I drank a glass of water. Took several steadying breaths as I gazed out at the garden, the Pergola twined with roses and honeysuckle, the nasturtiums tumbling over the dry stone walls. I would have a cold shower then I would go out there and relax and read a book. Matthew had taken Robbie to a cricket match and they’d be away all day. My temper cooled leaving behind a sour, sad feeling.

  Before I did anything else, I rang her mobile. When her voicemail kicked in I left my message. ‘Cassie, I’m sorry I went off the deep end. And the stuff I said about you moving out, I didn’t mean it, you know that, don’t you? It’s ridiculous. You’re only here for a few more weeks and we’ll miss you like mad when you’re gone. I just lost it. Blame the hormones. Look, we’ll have a proper talk sometime, all four of us, about the chores. See you later. I love you.’

  In the dark, I lay waiting for the sound of the door. She was usually back by twelve-thirty. One at the latest. And she always sent a text if her plans changed. The night was stifling, we only had a sheet on the bed and the windows were wide open but the room felt like an oven. At one-fifteen, I got up to change my nightdress, it was sodden, the cotton twisting and sticking to me.

  Matthew stirred. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Cassie’s not
back.’ Earlier that evening as we sat outside sharing some chilled white wine, I had told him about our spat. He was doing the Guardian crossword, the cryptic one. He had the grace to take my side, agreeing that Cassie needed to buck her ideas up, that she was exasperating at times.

  While I swapped nightdresses, he tried to reassure me. ‘She’s probably off with her friends.’

  ‘No text.’

  ‘Try her and see,’ he yawned. I heard his breathing alter as he slipped back into sleep, confident that there was no cause for concern.

  I called Cassie first. It went to voicemail. I left another message, ‘Please let us know where you are.’ Then I called her closest friends, aware it was late, slightly embarrassed. Some of them didn’t answer, asleep I assumed. Of the others, no one had seen her, no one knew of any plans for a get-together or a party, no sleep over. They were all still recovering from Friday night’s late barbecue.

  My pulse jumped when I thought I heard the front gate, I opened the door, eager to hold her, brimming with relief, but the street was deserted. The only movement moths and daddy-long-legs dancing compulsively around a street light.

  It was five to two when I rang The Grantley. Perhaps she’d left with someone from work, perhaps her battery had run out or her credit and she’d not been able to tell me. It was a Saturday night, holiday season, there could have been a late function, they might have asked Cassie to stay on, to do extra hours. The phone rang and rang. I counted the rings, willing someone to answer. Finally they did.

  ‘I’m sorry to ring so late,’ I began, ‘I’m Cassie Mallion’s mum, Cassie’s not back from work yet. Has she stayed late?’

  ‘Cassie,’ she said slowly, ‘no, no, we’ve not seen her today. She’s not been in.’

  I think I knew then, the way my blood froze and a sense of dread crawled up my spine. I knew and denied it with every fibre of my being.

  I woke Matthew, I rang the police, I kept trying her phone.

  At first they asked us to wait twenty-four hours to see if we heard from Cassie. Then to make a missing persons report. They said it was very common for people to turn up, there might be some easy explanation for her absence, for her missing work. A misunderstanding. I argued, I insisted, then I begged. The policeman who came to the house had used us to buy his flat and I think the connection helped. He called out someone senior and they set to work.

  An appeal went out early that Sunday. I still don’t know what drew the media in such numbers, just for a missing girl. The careful police phrasing, ‘deeply concerned for her safety’? The fact that Cassie was so beautiful? The romantic backdrop of the lakes? The chance to get out of London where the temperatures were even higher? A slow news week? Or did they know, too? Could they sniff it out? Carrion on the air?

  They descended like a swarm of scavengers, sporting sunglasses and tripods, cameras glinting in the sunshine, trucks blocking the narrow streets, mobiles trilling and chattering. We couldn’t leave the house. The phone rang endlessly. People pushed business cards and notes through the front door, yelled to us. ‘Mrs Mallion, Mr Mallion, a comment? Please, tell us about Cassie?’ We were prey. We refused to talk to them.

  Robbie retreated, hid from it all, playing silently on his games console. His thumbs flickering over the keys, his mouth a grim line of concentration.

  On the Sunday evening I heard him cry out from upstairs and rushed to reach him, my heart thumping like a steam hammer, my mind spinning pictures of Cassie concealed in his wardrobe, under his bed. There was a photographer up a ladder, his camera shoved in the open bedroom window. I yelled and pounded on the glass, furious I wanted to push him over, push him off.

  That was one of the photographs they used the next day. I look vicious, out of control, spittle in the corner of my mouth, my teeth bared, my eyes murderous.

  The others were of Cassie. Not just the official photograph the police had requested but awful pictures lifted from her various friends’ social networking sites. Cassie looking drunk, raucous: one where she’s drinking from a wine bottle; another legs splayed, clothing in disarray, her eyes closed, lipstick smudged; and one sitting on the edge of the pavement, an arm flung up, fag in hand. In the gutter, you could say. Shameless.

  The journalists pushed the papers through the door and asked for our comments.

  Among the column inches were references to a bubbly good-time girl, a life of pubs and parties, to a troubled home life, a bitter argument. There were quotes from anonymous friends about Cassie’s unhappiness, about her being desperate to leave home. They alluded to the suicide of a friend of hers the previous year with the implication that Cassie might have done the same thing. One tabloid rounded up a catalogue of earlier Lakeland disappearances and made reference to bodies hidden for years before being given up by the lake. They covered all bases, speculating on the fate of our daughter: runaway, suicide, victim. It was breath-taking, a desecration that made me tremble, made me feel dirty and sick.

  I rounded on the police officer there at the time, ‘How did they get this information?’

  ‘Much of it’s in the public domain. Websites.’

  ‘Not this,’ I stabbed my finger at the page, ‘a row before she left home! I told you lot that, no one else.’

  He swore they hadn’t spoken to the press but he couldn’t explain to me how they’d found out about it. I wondered if Cassie had confided in someone on her way to work, ‘Just had my mum screaming her head off, drives me INSANE!’, and the press had wormed it out of them. We knew the media had swooped down on anyone they could find who knew her.

  The heat continued. The hours inched by. We held our breath. The place was airless. Sweat pooled between my breasts, trickled down my sides, clung to the back of my neck. Trapped inside we watched the plants in the garden wilt and shrivel. There had been hundreds of sightings of Cassie, but no one who actually knew her had seen her since she left our house on the Saturday afternoon.

  I imagined all the tourists swapping tit-bits over their evening meals, the restaurants full of chatter about the missing girl, adding a frisson of excitement among the talk of the best beaches and fishing trips, the latest must-have hiking gear.

  Inside I was screaming: every cell, in my bones, in my flesh, on my skin, screaming for my girl.

  At some point police interest focused more tightly on me. I was the last person to see her. We had argued. The questions became searching, intrusive. I hated it but I answered them fully, with alacrity, eager that they get this out of the way, the better to move on and find her. Bring her home.

  I say I knew but at the same time I hoped. We all did: Matthew and Robbie and I. Hope was all we could grant her. Hope might be enough to keep her safe, to spirit her back to us. As long as there was no news, there was hope.

  They found her on the Friday. They put a tent up and closed the road. They had to be careful you see, not to disturb anything at the scene, they had to document it all before they moved her. It was out of town on the edge of the forestry commission plantation. They had been felling timber up there and on the news the place looked like a war zone: the land blasted, churned over, the jagged remains of pine jutting up at random, trunks shattered, limbs torn. Cassie was left on the ground, partially hidden by a covering of branches. A mountain biker found her. We didn’t see her, we weren’t asked to make a positive identification, the heat had been pitiless, so they made a comparison with Cassie’s dental records instead.

  She had been strangled.

  The police launched a murder inquiry. Condolences poured in, news reports were sympathetic but I knew people would forever remember her as glassy eyed, staggering drunk, on the razz, and me, my face contorted in rage. An unhappy family. But we weren’t. We weren’t.

  Her phone was in her bag. Eventually we learnt that she had picked up those early voice mails. It gave me some comfort to know that my last words to her had not been ‘you make me sick’, but ‘I love you’. And that she hadn’t died with my anger still ringing in her ears
. She’d known I loved her. I clung to that.

  Ten weeks later they made an arrest. Vernon Cottingham was a sous chef who worked at The Grantley. His DNA was all over her. He had a record for assault against his former partner in Brighton. That Saturday had been his day off. He denied everything.

  We never knew exactly what had happened but the jury believed the prosecution case: that Vernon had picked Cassie up in his car that afternoon as she walked to work and instead of dropping her at the hotel had driven to the plantation where he raped and strangled her and concealed her body.

  I miss her every hour of every day. I miss her not being in the world, not being in my life. Matthew has been my rock but he is damaged by her death, too, they say the heart attack which he survived, was likely connected to the stress and grief. Robbie had to grow up too fast, to hear things that no young boy should have to hear. He is withdrawn, a loner, there is a sadness in the core of him that none of us can reach, that keeps people at a distance.

  I cope. I go on. It’s all there is to be done. I show people houses and feed my family and love them and watch the darkening clouds move over the mountains bringing rain from the west. I see the hills glow violet with heather, bronze with bracken, see mist rise from the lake, smell the wet slate and woodsmoke in the autumn and the perfume from the gorse on spring’s first breezes. I cherish the memories I have of Cassie, the love she gave us in the years we had of her.

  The phone call came this morning, before I left for work. The police. No one we’d spoken to before. Telling me that Cassie’s mobile number was found in notes that have been seized in the latest investigation into the tabloids. It’s possible that Cassie’s voice mail was accessed and deleted by a third party. That would explain how the press knew we had parted on bad terms, it would account for those ‘family in strife’ stories that hurt so much, for the decisions taken to portray Cassie as a desperately unhappy girl seeking escape in booze and reckless behaviour. It would also mean that, contrary to what I have believed all this time, Cassie never heard my peace offering, that she died not knowing, not reminded, of how much I loved her, how much I cared. And the tiny shred of solace that I have held fast to since that terrible summer, disintegrates. And I am drowning.