When the Dead Speak Read online

  A photo of the dead girl accompanied the stories about her murder. She was a stunner – a mass of copper-coloured hair and the sort of wide, bright smile that would light up any space. It was too terrible to think she’d never smile again.

  Dee thought of Ed, walking into the church and seeing the dead girl’s body. It must have been awful.

  She was about to try calling him again when her doorbell rang.

  ‘Finally,’ she muttered, hurrying to let him in.

  Except instead of Ed, Dee’s visitor was Eliza Macko, a young Polish woman Dee had met two weeks earlier.

  ‘I want to talk about Joana,’ Eliza said.

  Joana was Eliza’s friend. Another young Polish woman, who had disappeared five weeks ago. Believing the police weren’t doing enough to find her friend, Eliza had approached the Eastbourne Recorder, where Louise worked as editor. The paper had written a story, appealing for anyone with information about Joana to contact them. But the story didn’t prompt any responses, and Louise had put Eliza in touch with Dee.

  ‘Ten years ago,’ Louise explained to Dee, ‘we might have been able to do more. But today, with all the cutbacks? Not a chance. You could help her, though. Do a bit of digging, see if you can find anything. You’re an investigative journalist. Investigating is what you do best.’

  Dee didn’t point out that this wasn’t exactly accurate. She’d barely worked when she first moved back to Eastbourne. Admittedly, that had changed recently. A story she’d written about a murder that had happened outside her house had attracted a lot of attention. Since then, though, she’d only written one other piece – a personal account of living with her ex-husband, a chronic alcoholic.

  Financially, she didn’t need to work. Her house in London had sold recently for a ridiculously large sum of money. Living in the house that had once belonged to her parents meant she had no mortgage to pay. All of which led her to decide that, rather take jobs she didn’t want to, she’d wait until she found a story she wanted to write about. It was starting to look as she’d found it.

  At 7 p.m. on Saturday 8 February, Joana Helinski left the flat she shared with Eliza and Eliza’s boyfriend Marcel, to meet someone at the Aldrington Hotel on Eastbourne’s seafront. And she hadn’t been seen since. Dee had spoken with the staff at the hotel and none of them remembered seeing Joana that evening. She had, quite simply, disappeared.

  When Dee had asked Ed why the police weren’t doing more to find the missing girl, he’d explained that it was common for young men and women from Eastern Europe to move around from place to place. They did it to avoid being caught by the authorities. In the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing, the police would assume Joana had simply moved on to somewhere else.

  But Eliza was convinced Joana wouldn’t leave Eastbourne without telling her, and Dee believed her. So she’d continued to try to find the missing girl. She did this partly because she wanted answers for Eliza, and partly because she’d become increasingly interested in the situation facing so many foreign nationals working in Eastbourne and the rest of the country. Young men and women like Joana and Eliza, all working for low wages on zero-hours contracts, vulnerable to corrupt business owners able to force their staff to work in conditions no one should ever have to work in.

  The more she learned, the more convinced Dee became that these people were her story. She’d already pitched an outline idea to several broadsheets. Yesterday, an editor at the Guardian had got in touch asking if she’d consider a series of stories, rather than a single article.

  ‘Come inside,’ Dee said. ‘Would you like a drink? I’ve got coffee, tea, water or wine.’

  ‘I don’t want a drink,’ Eliza said, following Dee into the sitting room. ‘You’ve seen the news this evening?’

  ‘What news?’ Dee sat down, gesturing for Eliza to do the same.

  ‘The dead girl in the church. Lauren. She worked at the Aldrington Hotel.’

  ‘How do you know where she worked?’ Dee asked. There’d been no mention of the Aldrington in anything she’d read about the murder.

  ‘Facebook,’ Eliza said. ‘There’s a group for people in Eastbourne who are looking for work in hotels and restaurants. Someone posted about the girl this evening, saying Lauren was her friend and everyone at the hotel is devastated.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Eliza took a phone out of her jacket pocket, tapped the screen a few times and passed the phone to Dee. The Facebook group was called ‘hospitality workers Eastbourne’. There were already several posts about Lauren, people expressing their shock and sadness.

  ‘See?’ Eliza pointed at a photo someone had posted. It showed two girls, standing outside the Aldrington Hotel. The girls had their arms draped around each other as they posed for the camera. Dee recognised one of the girls instantly. Lauren Shaw with her auburn curls and her freckled face.

  Beneath the photo someone had typed, ‘No words my gorgeous friend. #Aldringtongirlsforever #Tooyoungtoosoon.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Lauren worked at the Aldrington. So what?’

  ‘So, maybe Lauren was killed because she knew something about Joana’s disappearance.’

  ‘Is there any way you can make this photo bigger?’ Dee’s reading glasses were four years old. Getting her eyes tested was on the long list of the things she would get around to doing one day soon.

  ‘Like this.’ Eliza leaned across the marble and moved her index finger and thumb across the screen.

  ‘That girl with Lauren,’ Dee said. ‘I know her. She’s the receptionist at the Aldrington.’

  ‘You showed her Joana’s photo?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dee said. ‘She didn’t recognise her.’

  ‘What about Lauren?’

  ‘I didn’t see Lauren when I was at the hotel,’ Dee said. ‘She mustn’t have been working that day. Besides, Eliza, just because Lauren worked at the hotel, it doesn’t mean she knew Joana.’

  Eliza slapped her hand on the arm of her chair. ‘Bullshit. Joana was meeting someone at the Aldrington the night she disappeared. Lauren Shaw worked at the Aldrington, and now Lauren is dead. We need to speak to Lauren’s friends and ask them what Lauren knew about Joana.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a stretch,’ Dee said. ‘But you’re right. It’s worth checking out.’

  ‘You’ll go back to the hotel?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dee said. ‘But if I find anything that proves they knew each other, you’ll need to tell the police.’

  Eliza shrugged. ‘Police don’t listen to me. You know that, Dee.’

  ‘This is different.’

  The words were out before she could take them back. She stopped speaking, but it was already too late. Eliza stood up.

  ‘Different because Lauren is English,’ she said. ‘That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  Dee tried to protest but Eliza held her hand up, stopping any more stupid words coming from Dee’s mouth.

  ‘Thank you, Dee. It is good to know what you really think.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Dee said. Pointlessly, because Eliza had already stormed out of the room. Dee ran after her, arriving at the front door just in time to see Eliza climbing into the passenger seat of a white van that had seen better days.

  ‘Eliza!’

  The engine growled into life and the van sped off, leaving Dee with nothing but a mouthful of diesel fumes and a head full of unanswered questions.

  * * *

  Ed took his phone out to call Dee, then changed his mind. There was so much to tell her, but he had no idea how to start. He was in his car, parked outside a house in the village of East Dean. The downstairs lights in the house were on, which meant the woman who lived there hadn’t gone to bed yet. Which meant he had no excuse. He would have to talk to her tonight. He drummed the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers, trying to think through what he would say. Trying to find a way of saying it that would allow him to stay on the case. But no matter how the conversation played out in his mind, it always e
nded the same way – with Ed being told he couldn’t be part of this investigation.

  Because he knew the victim.

  The image of Lauren’s body was burned onto his mind. The gaping black slash across the pale skin of her throat. The auburn curls, on the ground and lifting gently into the air every time a breeze drifted through the cold, lonely church.

  A sudden burst of noise as it started to rain, water battering against the car, pounding through the silence of the East Sussex night. Ed took the key out of the ignition, got out of the car and ran through the deluge to the detached cottage on an empty stretch of downland between East Dean and Birling Gap. The house belonged to his boss, DCI Sharon Spalding. He’d only been here a handful of times before. On those occasions, it was because he’d been invited. Tonight, he was here because he needed to tell her something she wouldn’t want to hear.

  He rang the doorbell and waited, sheltering from the rain under the insubstantial front porch. When the door opened, he was too close and he jumped back, out into the rain.

  ‘What the hell?’ Sharon said, peering out at him. ‘Christ Almighty, Ed. You look like a drowned rat. Come inside before you die of exposure. Or drowning. Or whatever ailment afflicts the snowflakes these days. Not that I’m calling you a snowflake, you understand. You’re too old for that.’

  Sharon continued talking as Ed followed her into the house, closing the front door behind them.

  ‘Take your shoes off,’ she said over her shoulder as she marched to the kitchen at the back of the house. ‘I got that carpet laid last month. The last thing it needs is your mucky footprints marking it. I’m having wine. I can pour you a glass or you can make yourself a cup of something. It’s up to you.’

  ‘A small glass of wine would be good,’ Ed said.

  ‘Very small.’ Sharon poured some of the red wine into a glass, which she shoved towards him across the farmhouse table that took up too much space in the generously proportioned kitchen. ‘Drink driving laws being what they are.’

  She smiled at him, while giving herself a generous top-up.

  ‘To what do I owe this dubious pleasure? I assume it’s not a social visit?’

  ‘I can’t lead the investigation into the church murder,’ Ed said.

  Sharon crossed her arms over her substantial chest and studied Ed, waiting for him to go on.

  ‘I know the victim,’ Ed said.

  ‘In what context?’ Sharon’s voice was low and controlled, but only an idiot would miss the icy undertone to her question. And Ed Mitchell was no idiot.

  ‘In a context that means there’s no way I can be involved in the investigation,’ Ed said. ‘I can’t have anything to do with it.’

  Sharon reached for her glass, took a long, slow sip of her wine.

  ‘Okay.’ She put the glass back down and nodded at Ed.

  ‘Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out, including why you’ve waited the best part of a day to tell me this. Because hell will freeze over before some jumped-up defence solicitor accuses me or my team of mishandling this investigation.’

  Three

  According to Eastbourne Tourism’s website, the town was the sunniest in the UK. A claim that was difficult to believe on days like today, when the heavy rain meant Dee could barely see through the windscreen as she drove into town along the seafront.

  The radio was tuned in to More FM, the town’s local radio station. When the news came on, Lauren’s murder was the main story. The chirpy female reporter gave an update on the reaction of Lauren’s friends and family (‘devastated’) and announced that the dead girl’s boyfriend, Kyle French, was helping police with their inquiries. Dee knew that most murder victims were killed by people they knew. Kyle would be one of the prime suspects until he could prove his innocence. If he could prove his innocence.

  Because of the rain, there was more traffic around than usual. Which meant fewer parking spaces than usual in a town that never seemed to have enough of them, even during the winter months when tourist numbers dwindled.

  Dee found a space on the seafront, less than a minute’s walk from the Aldrington Hotel. But less than a minute was plenty of time to get drenched. By the time she stepped into the welcoming warmth of the hotel lobby, she was soaked through.

  She peeled her jacket off, cursing her own mix of stupidity and optimism that meant she hadn’t bothered looking for an umbrella before leaving the house. Running her hand through her hair, shaking off the worst of the water, she approached the reception desk, fixing her face into what she hoped was an open and friendly smile.

  Until last week, Dee hadn’t stepped foot inside the Aldrington since she was a teenager. Back then, the place was less hotel and more crumbling B&B, with a dodgy reputation and a lax attitude towards alcohol licensing laws that meant its bar was a magnet for teenagers not old enough to get served anywhere else. Dee had lots of happy memories from those times, along with a host of fuzzy memories and more than one blank where chunks of a night had been forgotten for ever.

  A decade ago, a local builder had bought the hotel and spent a small fortune refurbishing the Aldrington to its original, pre-teenage-drinking-years glory. Today, it was a luxury boutique hotel packed full of original Victorian features, with sweeping views of the English Channel and the South Downs.

  Dee recognised the young woman working behind the reception desk. She had spoken to her when she was here before, asking about Joana. The girl clearly remembered Dee too and, just as clearly, wasn’t pleased to see her back so quickly.

  ‘No one’s seen her,’ she said. ‘I told you I’d call if anyone recognised her. But so far, no one has. I’m sorry, but I really don’t think the girl you’re looking for worked here.’

  ‘Good afternoon to you too,’ Dee said. ‘Jaime, isn’t it? I never said Joana worked here. I said she was meant to be meeting someone here the night she disappeared.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jaime said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. We’re a bit all over the place today.’

  ‘Lauren?’ Dee said.

  Jaime’s eyes filled with tears. Using her hand to brush them away, she nodded her head.

  ‘She was my friend. I can’t believe it’s happened. I mean, this is Lauren we’re talking about. Who would…? How could someone hurt her like that?’

  ‘Are you sure you should be working?’ Dee wondered whether it would be okay to walk around the reception desk and give the girl a hug. She knew what it felt like when someone close to you was killed – the feelings of grief and rage and disbelief that could completely overwhelm you.

  ‘Derek said it was okay,’ Jaime said. ‘He told me I didn’t need to be here but I said it was better working than sitting at home by myself all day. And this is where I feel closest to her. We started working here at the same time, you know? When Derek took on Lauren, he told her there was another vacancy going and asked if she knew anyone. Of course, she thought of me right away. We’re… we were best friends since for ever.’

  The tears started falling in earnest now. Too many for Jaime to wipe away with her hands or the sleeves of her crisp white shirt.

  ‘Here.’ Dee reached into her bag, pulled out a packet of paper tissues and handed it to the girl. Jaime took the tissues and mumbled something that could have been thank you. She pressed two tissues to her eyes but now she’d started crying, it was like she couldn’t stop.

  Deciding a hug was definitely in order, Dee walked around the desk and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jaime wailed, burying her face into Dee’s shoulder. Ironically, the one area of her clothes that had been protected by her jacket and wasn’t already soaked through.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Dee whispered. ‘Just let it out. You’ll feel better in a minute.’

  When a minute turned into five and the queue of people standing the other side of the desk grew longer and longer, Dee started to wonder if the girl would ever stop crying.

  ‘Can’t you find someone to help you?’ a ta
ll woman with cropped grey hair demanded, staring at Dee down a nose that was too long and too narrow.

  ‘I don’t work here,’ Dee said. ‘But if you could just wait a moment, I’m sure someone will be with you. As I’m sure you can see, she’s very upset.’

  She had been intermittently scanning the lobby, trying to catch the attention of one of the uniformed men standing at the hotel entrance. One of them had eventually noticed her and, when he’d seen the state of Jaime, he’d rushed off somewhere. Dee assumed he’d gone to find the manager, but he’d been gone so long she was starting to wonder if she’d assumed wrongly.

  Eventually, she saw the man coming back. Walking alongside him was a tall, broad, middle-aged man with cropped blond hair that looked dyed, and the unmistakable air of authority about him. As he crossed the lobby, he clicked his fingers in the air and three of the men Dee had taken so long to get to notice her jumped to attention immediately.

  Within minutes one of them had led Jaime away, and the other two were dealing with the queue of impatient guests. Which left the man in charge free to deal with Dee.

  ‘Derek French.’ He held out his hand. ‘You were very kind to poor Jaime, I appreciate it. Can I treat you to a complimentary drink in our bar?’

  Dee remembered the news she’d listened to on the drive over. Lauren’s boyfriend was called Kyle French. She wondered if the two men were related. Deciding not to ask him just yet, she shook his outstretched hand and introduced herself.

  ‘The journalist?’ Derek said. ‘I assumed you were one of our guests. My mistake. Well Dee, the offer of a drink still stands if you’d like one?’

  ‘A coffee would be lovely,’ Dee said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We’ll go to my office,’ Derek said. ‘It’s a little more private. This way.’

  She followed him across the lobby to the lifts, getting into the first one that arrived. Inside, the lift was all chrome and mirrors and low lighting. As it ascended, Derek made small talk with an American couple who’d got into the lift at the same time. Dee was impressed with the way he seemed to already know so much about the couple – their names, where they were from and even, impressively, the names and ages of their three children.