Chapter 13
‘I haven’t said anything to anyone,’ Nadeeka says.
They’re in a cluttered kitchen belonging to Nadeeka’s mother-in-law, Kath, who had promised to leave you to it, my loves, but has since opened the door every few minutes on the pretext of collecting laundry or finding her keys, or are you sure I can’t get you anything?
Eventually, Lauren had said to Nadeeka, ‘Is there somewhere we can go where we won’t be disturbed?
’ and Kath had sniffed loudly and made a show of going to the shops.
‘Who knows that the police officers you spoke to weren’t real?’ Lauren says.
‘Only Kath,’ Nadeeka says. ‘I had to explain why we couldn’t stay at home.
I tried saying the forensics officers had forgotten to do something, but she didn’t buy it.
Her ex-husband was a police officer, and she watches a lot of crime dramas.
’ Nadeeka is wearing a pale blue sweatshirt with over-long sleeves she has tugged over her hands.
As she talks, she screws the fabric between her fingers.
‘Would she have told anyone?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Nadeeka says, but Lauren catches the flash of doubt that follows.
‘Sure about that?’
‘I guess she might have told Scott . . . my ex. You’ll have to ask her.’
Lauren certainly will. Because if it hasn’t come from Nadeeka’s ex, or his mother, or from Nadeeka herself, there are only two other options.
Either there’s a leak from within Lauren’s team, or someone from the fake team ‘DI Burton’ put together has been talking.
Lauren hopes it’s the latter; tracing back the leak could lead them to the perpetrators.
The assistant chief constable has declared Jamie Golding’s murder – or, more specifically, its cover-up – a critical incident, owing to the damage it could do to public confidence.
The copy-and-pasted post that broke the story now exists in so many forms, across so many different social media platforms, that it is proving impossible to find the source.
The pressure on Lauren’s department to solve this case swiftly feels almost physical, a tight band around her temples.
‘You will question Nicole Davis, won’t you?’ Nadeeka says. ‘From Jamie’s office?’
‘We’re speaking to anyone who had a connection to—’
‘But especially her!’ Nadeeka’s voice rises.
It’s scratchy and thin, and Lauren wonders how much sleep she got last night.
There are dark half-moons under her eyes and when she blinks her lids reopen slowly, as though they’d prefer to stay closed.
‘She’s the only one working there with the initials ND.
’ Nadeeka insists. ‘It has to be her Jamie was meeting, which means she might know—’
‘We will speak to Nicole,’ Lauren says firmly.
It’s not uncommon for victims’ relatives to feel impotent and want to take control, but Lauren is the one directing this investigation, not Nadeeka.
They only have Nadeeka’s word that Jamie’s desk diary even exists, let alone contains references to mysterious rendezvous with an ‘ND’.
Nadeeka can only recall two of the five dates she supposedly saw marked in the diary; she’s only certain of those because her daughters had rehearsals on those evenings.
‘I remember because one of the other mums was going to collect them,’ she’d told Lauren, as they’d sat opposite each other in the windowless interview room at the police station. ‘It meant Jamie and I could spend the evening together.’
‘You must have been disappointed when he said he wouldn’t be home till late.’ Lauren had wanted to test the water. Had Nadeeka already known about the affair? Did she kill Jamie because she was consumed with jealousy? But then why tell Lauren about ND? Why go to the police station at all?
‘A bit. But mostly I was glad he was settling in at work. Making friends.’ Nadeeka’s voice had cracked, and she’d pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. ‘I just wanted him to be happy.’
‘Jamie’s line manager isn’t aware of Jamie spending any time with Nicole Davis,’ Lauren says now.
‘Maybe they kept it secret. Maybe Nicole’s married.
’ Tears glimmer at Nadeeka’s lashes, but there’s bitterness in her expression.
Lauren would be bitter too. In fact, it would devastate her, she thinks, and she feels renewed empathy for Nadeeka.
Lauren has never been cheated on (as far as she knows), and the thought of Fraser doing so makes her stomach tie itself into knots.
‘Jamie’s colleagues have referred to him as quiet,’ Lauren says. ‘A bit of a loner, one said.’
‘That makes him sound . . . awkward.’ Nadeeka shifts in her seat.
‘Like he was weird or something. Loner is what they call school shooters, or suicide bombers.’ The tears, which have been shuddering on her lashes, finally spill down her cheeks.
‘He wasn’t like that. He was a good man.
’ She tugs at her sleeves again. The hem on one of the arms is starting to fray.
‘Did Jamie know anyone at ATP Construction before he started working there?’ Lauren says. ‘I wondered if that’s how he came across the job.’
‘No, he found the job on LinkedIn. I’d been wondering whether there might be something going at my place, but the only jobs were pretty low-paid.’
‘What is it you do?’
‘I’m in recruitment. I work at Echelon Warehousing – we’re a distributor for online retailers.’
‘Picking and packing?’ Lauren smiles. ‘I spent a summer doing that when I was at uni. We had a right laugh. It was mostly foreign workers back then.’
‘It still is, although that’s been harder since Brexit. Most of the office jobs have been centralized, and there wasn’t anything suitable for Jamie, so it was great when the ATP job came up.’
‘Did Jamie have many friends?’
‘A few. Back home.’
‘Home?’ Lauren leaves a deliberate pause. ‘Wasn’t that with you?’
Nadeeka flushes. ‘Where he used to live, I mean.’
‘How were things between you and Jamie?’
‘Fine,’ Nadeeka says, but it’s automatic, and it’s clear she knows it. Her eyes drop to the table. ‘To begin with, they were,’ she adds, a little defensively. ‘Better than fine. They were great. It was like we’d known each other our whole lives.’ Despite her tears, a smile tugs at her lips.
‘But?’ Lauren says, when it’s clear Nadeeka’s reluctant to continue.
‘But then he started staying late at work. And as I said, I was pleased he was getting to know people, that he was settling at work, but . . .’ She stares blindly out of the window.
‘One of the things I loved about Jamie was the way he looked at me – really looked, as if he wanted to see right into my soul, you know?’
Lauren has to stop herself from smiling. There’s a particular look Fraser gives her that makes the whole world disappear. What look? Fraser had said once, amused by the idea that he held such power. But Lauren hadn’t been able to explain. It was simply a look. And it meant everything.
‘Well, a couple of weeks ago,’ Nadeeka says, ‘I realized he’d stopped doing that.
He’d look at me, but then his eyes would kind of slide away.
As if he was hiding something. That’s when I realized he wasn’t leaving his phone lying around any more, and I started getting paranoid that he might have met someone. ’
‘Did you confront him?’
‘I didn’t want to. If he wasn’t cheating on me, I didn’t want to ruin everything by accusing him, and if he was . . .’ Nadeeka gives a sad smile. ‘It was avoidance, I guess. I just kept pushing the thought back down, trying to make it go away.’
Lauren can’t imagine being in a relationship like that: doubting your partner, doubting yourself.
The kitchen door opens again, and she braces herself for another interruption from Kath, back from the shops, but it’s Nadeeka’s children.
Lauren had met them earlier; two brown-eyed girls with long hair, who shyly said hello then ran off to play.
They stand half in, half out of the room, the younger one staring openly at Lauren, while her older sister does the talking. ‘Mum, are you nearly finished?’
Nadeeka looks to Lauren for an answer.
‘Nearly.’ Lauren smiles at the girls.
‘We need black leggings for the show,’ the older one says.
‘And socks,’ adds her sister. ‘And big T-shirts in bright colours.’
‘That’s fine,’ Nadeeka says. ‘We have plenty of black socks and you both have leggings, and I’m sure I can find some suitable T-shirts.
We’ll be back home in a couple of days .
. . right?’ This last is directed at Lauren, who gives a non-committal nod.
She’s not about to rush a crime scene for the sake of some leggings.
‘But we have to take them to school on Monday because we’re having a costume check!’
‘All the schools in the area are coming together for this year’s Christmas show,’ Nadeeka explains to Lauren. ‘It’s a multi-faith nativity written by one of the teachers.’ She turns back to the children. ‘I’m sure a few days won’t make a difference.’
‘Mrs Edwards says everyone has to have their costumes,’ the older girl says, and there’s a wobble in her voice that tugs at Lauren, who is happily child-free but occasionally wonders what it would be like to be so wanted, so needed.
‘I’ll be going by the house after I leave here,’ Lauren says. ‘I can pick up anything you need.’
‘Really?’ Nadeeka hesitates. ‘The girls’ leggings and socks will be in their drawers, but the T-shirts I’m thinking of are either under my bed or possibly in a box in the top of the wardrobe – I was going to take them to the charity shop, but I hadn’t got around to it.’
‘No problem,’ Lauren says, and it isn’t. In fact, it’s ideal: it gives her the perfect excuse to poke through Nadeeka’s belongings.
Lauren’s mother calls as she’s pulling into Cedar Walk.
‘Darling, people keep asking me what wedding gifts to buy. I do wish you’d reconsider and set up a list.’
‘We don’t need anything, Mum. We’ve been living together for years; anything we’ve needed, we’ve bought.’