On Saturday morning, Kelly Jordan rang and asked if she could come round.
‘Can’t you just tell me over the phone?’
‘It’s better face to face.’
‘Is it good news or bad news?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
I felt so agitated and confused that I tried to do some mindless tidying up as I waited for her to arrive. I was scrubbing the toilet bowl when the bell rang.
Five minutes later, the detective was sitting at the kitchen table while I poured coffee for us both. I was burning with anxiety and curiosity, but I also had something to say and couldn’t stop myself from saying it.
‘Why did you have to go to Aidan’s work? Why did you have to do it in public? And you went to Jason’s school. He was furious. With me.’
‘I’m here to talk about that.’
‘Have you found out something?’
Kelly Jordan gave a half-nod. I couldn’t tell whether that meant yes or no. I brought the two mugs across to the table and placed one in front of her.
‘I can’t remember whether you take milk. Or sugar.’
‘It’s fine like this.’
I sat down so we were facing each other across the table. She looked tired. There were very fine lines extending from the corners of her eyes. She had other things to deal with, other cases, other people to see. It was Saturday morning. Maybe her children were waiting for her to come home. I was just another name on her crammed schedule, and one of the more tiresome ones.
‘You’ve been very patient with me. And kind.’ I paused. ‘Can I get you a biscuit?’
Kelly Jordan was sipping coffee and gave no sign of having heard. She replaced the mug on the table.
‘Skye Nolan’s inquest is on Monday,’ she said.
‘That’s quick, isn’t it?’
She gave a faint shake of her head. ‘It’ll just be a formality. It’ll be opened and then adjourned almost immediately because of the murder inquiry.’
It took me a moment to realise the significance of this.
‘You mean there really is a murder inquiry now? It was murder?’
‘We got the autopsy report back yesterday. I wasn’t expecting much from it. I didn’t think you could learn a lot from a body that’s fallen a hundred feet onto concrete.’
‘So what did you learn?’
‘There was a lot of damage, as you’d expect, multiple fractures. The funny thing is that among all those broken bones, there was a bone that shouldn’t have been broken.’
She raised her chin and touched her throat gently with her fingers.
‘There’s a funny little bone here. It basically never gets broken. It doesn’t break if you fall, even from eight storeys up. What does tend to break it is the direct force when two hands are applied to the neck.’
I had to think about that for a moment.
‘You mean like when someone is strangled?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean that Skye Nolan was dead when she fell?’
‘Yes. And more than that. The pathologist also identified dark patches on the skin. This happens after death when the blood stops flowing and starts to be pulled down by gravity. It’s called pooling. It’s like when you hang up a wet towel to dry. The bottom bit of the towel gets wetter. It’s like that.’
‘Except with blood.’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’re saying that she was strangled before she was…’ I hesitated because the reality of what I was saying suddenly horrified me. ‘Before her body was pushed over the balcony. But you’re saying more than that. That stuff with the blood settling in the body, it would take time. It must have lain there for some time.’
‘The report estimates that it would have taken a minimum of half an hour.’
‘Why? Why would you kill someone and then wait all that time?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Jordan.
I felt a moment of exhilaration. I had been right. I had gone to the police and they hadn’t believed me. I had said the death of Skye Nolan had been murder and they had been dubious about that as well. And now I had been proved right, scientifically, in black and white. But the moment quickly passed.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘This is an ongoing inquiry,’ the detective said, ‘and I can’t talk about all the specifics. But it’s clear that Skye Nolan was a troubled young woman. She had a turbulent private life.’
‘Turbulent? What does that mean?’
‘Problematic relationships.’
‘With men?’
‘Yes, with men. And she has also had psychological problems. We found a significant amount of prescription medicine in her flat.’
‘What has that to do with anything? She was still murdered.’
‘What I’m trying to say is this: we’ve talked to her mother and to her one relatively long-term partner. We have checked her phone records and her social media. The simple fact is that we have found no connection to any of the people you mentioned to us.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘Couldn’t that just mean you haven’t been looking hard enough?’
Jordan’s face tightened. ‘Tess, we’ve been very patient with you and your worries. We’ve taken them seriously, which, believe me, some police forces wouldn’t have done. We’ve looked at the people whose names you gave us as thoroughly as is practical and, for that matter, legal. We’ve interviewed them and we’ve searched for any connection with Skye Nolan’s life and we haven’t found it, not even the most tenuous one. It’s not there.’
‘What about Poppy’s drawing? What about the doll?’
She made an impatient gesture. ‘Police investigations simply don’t work that way round. I admit that you brought this tragic case to my attention and because of that I thought it was vital that we investigate your concerns. But we have finite resources. In fact, we have worse than finite resources. You have a feeling about this murder, based on a child’s drawing. We investigated it. We drew a blank. Fine. These things happen, though I am not looking forward to explaining to my boss why I investigated it. As it stands, we have a victim who led a chaotic life and had a series of hook-ups with strangers. I think it is likely that one of them got out of hand and she was killed, possibly in the course of a robbery. She may have picked the wrong person to take back to her flat.’
‘So you’re not following up what I told you?’
‘Have you not been listening to anything I’ve been saying? We did follow it up. Scrupulously. We didn’t find anything.’
‘It was that other detective, wasn’t it? I could tell he didn’t believe me.’
‘No, it wasn’t him. We couldn’t find anything. There was nothing to go on.’
‘What about the drawing?’ I asked weakly.
‘One drawing by a child is not enough,’ said Kelly Jordan. ‘It’s just a drawing. And maybe the woman is flying, not falling, have you thought of that?’
‘Poppy said she was falling.’
‘Poppy is three.’
I was breathing heavily. I could feel my pulse racing. I wanted to shout. Punch the wall. Punch Kelly Jordan. I made an effort to calm myself down.
‘You realise,’ I began, forcing myself to speak in a level tone, ‘that if I’m right and you’re wrong, that somewhere out there is a murderer who may be starting to suspect that the only witness to the murder he’s committed is a three-year-old girl. Have you thought of that?’
Kelly Jordan leaned forward across the table.
‘This is getting out of hand. You need to stop. Now.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘You have my number. If anything happens, you can always pick up the phone and tell me. I’ll talk to you any time. Just give us something to investigate and we’ll investigate it.’
‘This is my daughter. She’s all I’ve got.’
Kelly Jordan stood up.
‘I’ll keep you informed,’ she said. ‘You keep your daughter safe and we’ll find the murderer.’