Chapter 2
‘She wasn’t here when I got up,’ Carla Gibson said.
‘No,’ Laura said gently. ‘I know.’
The flat shared by two generations of the Gibson family – until this morning, anyway – was so small that it seemed cramped even with just the three of us inside.
We were in the front room, which doubled as the kitchen – built in down one side, but only in the sense that the room’s threadbare carpet stopped, leaving a stretch of blackened floorboards along the base of the counter.
I was leaning against the wall, next to a rusted, wall-mounted boiler and exposed pipes that ran out of the ceiling and disappeared down dirty holes in the floorboards.
Laura was sitting opposite Carla at a rickety wooden table. Like most of the furniture in here, it was ramshackle and cheap: just flimsy balsa wood, held together by little more than four metal bolts and a prayer. Laura was sitting carefully, as though worried the chair would break beneath her.
‘I crept through to make tea. I always creep through. She works so hard, you see, all the time, and I wanted to let her sleep. But she wasn’t here.’
‘We know, Mrs Gibson. I’m so sorry.’
The old lady seemed calm on the surface now that the mild sedative the nurse had given her had taken effect, but was still obviously in pieces – frail and shivering.
Her eyes rarely met ours; she kept staring off into the middle-distance, instead, focused on something out of sight beyond the drab walls.
Of course, the drug didn’t repair the damage, just dampened its effects.
It remained obvious that she had been crying long and hard, and that all she was doing right now was avoiding facing the horror of her loss head on.
Aside from this living space, there was a bathroom and a single bedroom, where Carla slept.
Vicki had slept in here, on the settee. It was sunken almost to the floor, but still made up carefully for the night’s sleep Vicki Gibson had never reached.
Blankets and pillows had been laid neatly over it, topped by a patchwork quilt that I suspected had been hand-sewn by Carla herself.
It hurt to see it – a visual reminder that although they lived in abject poverty here they were making the most of it.
Vicki worked late and often worked early too: a cleaner at an office block as and when; shifts at the launderette in the evenings.
Every night, Carla made up her daughter’s bed on that settee; every morning, she folded those blankets away and a makeshift second bedroom was transformed back into a makeshift front room again.
Every morning except this one.
And all the rest now.
‘And then I looked out,’ Carla said, ‘… and she was there instead.’
Laura said, ‘We don’t need to talk about all that again, Mrs Gibson.’
‘No. No.’
‘Let’s move on to something else.’
‘Yes.’
As much as anything else, I knew Laura was trying to distract the woman from the fact her daughter still was out there. We wouldn’t be moving the body for a few more hours yet, which was a logistical nightmare in terms of handling residents of this and the neighbouring blocks.
When we were done talking to her, I planned to have a sympathetic officer stay here with Carla Gibson and gently persuade her away from the balcony at the far end of this room.
The sight of the tent down there, while far less horrific than the scene that greeted her this morning, would really be just as awful.
The fact was, we were taking care of her daughter as best we could right now.
To relatives, though, that doesn’t always necessarily appear to be the case.
‘That’s good,’ Laura said. ‘Shall we talk about Tom Gregory instead?’
‘Tom … ?’
Carla stared back at her for a moment.
‘Vicki’s ex-partner.’
‘I know the name, but what does he have to do with this?’
‘Well,’ Laura said, ‘I understand that their relationship was quite volatile.’
‘I didn’t know about that.’
I folded my arms, still saying nothing, because volatile was an understatement.
In the time since viewing the body, we’d had the relevant files through from IT support, and my hunch outside hadn’t been too wide of the mark.
The violence between the couple wasn’t as extensive as I’d imagined – but all that really meant was that it hadn’t been extensively reported to the police.
Given the power dynamics and threats that go along with domestic violence, the two are obviously entirely different things.
For every reported peak of violence, there’s most likely a bunch of others that are only marginally smaller.
What we knew for certain, though, was that Vicki Gibson had called the police about Tom Gregory in connection with three incidents.
Two of those were when they’d been together; the third occasion, six months ago, had been after they separated.
Gregory had turned up at the launderette, drunk out of his mind, and a couple of the other customers had needed to physically restrain him.
For various reasons, all three cases had disintegrated at some point before charges were filed.
Cases of domestic violence, like rape, carry a huge amount of what we call slippage.
Sometimes it’s our fault; more often, these days, it isn’t.
But it’s fair to say there have been many, many cases where I wish I could have done more. Wish more than I could say, in fact.
Laura said, ‘Vicki never mentioned it?’
‘No, no.’ Carla frowned. ‘And I don’t think Vicki would have stood for that. She’s such a strong person, you know. So protective: always looking after me. It’s very hard for her, I know, but she’s such a good girl to me.’
‘I understand.’ If Laura noticed Carla’s use of the present tense, she chose not to acknowledge it. Wisely. ‘Did you ever meet him? Mr Gregory?’
‘No. I know they were very close for a time, but that was before she moved back home.’
Home.
I looked around again. Peter Gibson – Vicki’s father – had died the previous year.
Her parents had lived here for a very long time, and this was where Vicki had grown up.
I imagined her crawling around on this floor as an infant, the sounds of neighbours’ televisions barely muffled by the thin panels on the walls.
A bad place, maybe, but a good family. Sometimes that’s enough; usually it isn’t.
Vicki had struck out on her own, tried her best, and eventually been pulled back to where she’d started by the inescapable social elastic of our city.
It’s a cliché, but it’s true: so much of where people end up depends on where they start.
‘When they broke up, I told her not to worry,’ Carla said. ‘These things happen, don’t they? It’s sad but we have to move on.’
‘And you were glad to have her back, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Carla’s face brightened a little. ‘Yes, I was. She’s a good girl.’
‘She never mentioned why they’d broken up?’
‘No. But I’m sure it wouldn’t have been her fault. That’s what I told her. She’s a catch. Are you married, Detective?’
The last was directed, somewhat hopefully, at me. I felt awkward and sad for her.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a shame. She’s a lovely girl.’
I leaned away from the wall and, for the first time, involved myself directly in the interview.
‘Did Mr Gregory ever come round here after they broke up?’
‘No, no.’
‘Would you have any contact details for him?’
‘Oh. Well, perhaps – yes.’ She stood up, wobbling slightly. ‘They lived together before she moved back home. I need to find my address book.’
‘That’s okay.’ I held out a hand to stop her. We had that address already, and officers had established he wasn’t home right now. ‘I was more wondering if there was anywhere else you knew of? Places he went, or friends or family he might stay with?’
‘In that case, no, I’m sorry.’ She sat back down again. The chair seemed barely to register her. ‘I didn’t know him like that. I didn’t really know him at all.’
‘That’s all right.’
It had been a long shot anyway. Whether out of pride or embarrassment, Vicki Gibson had kept the abusive element of her relationship a secret from her elderly mother.
Again, that wasn’t remotely surprising. The situation she found herself in did not make her weak, but when you’re in that situation you’re made to feel that way, and are often reluctant to compound the feeling by admitting to it.
People who really need and deserve help are usually at the point when it’s hardest to ask for it.
There was no real consolation in it, but one thing we could guarantee now was that Tom Gregory wouldn’t get away with what he’d done. Not this time. If he was proving elusive for the moment, he wouldn’t be forever.
I was already thinking ahead when I realised Carla Gibson was looking at me, a distressed expression on her face, as though my thoughts had been a little too obvious – already out of the door, in fact. I was about to apologise when she said:
‘Vicki was so strong.’
It took me a second to realise she was talking about Gregory – regressing to the point of the conversation where Laura had described their relationship as volatile.
She didn’t want to believe her little girl had endured something like that silently.
And I understood it wasn’t about me being distracted but about Carla Gibson, despite the drugs, being suddenly present again.
‘She was strong,’ I said, looking right back at her. Even though it’s not about strength, because that can seem like a judgement on those who don’t leave, I said it again. ‘She was very strong indeed.’
And I thought:
We’re going to catch you, Mr Gregory.