Blood Tracks Read online

  Clare thanked the head and said she’d think about it, but then she put the phone down and wept.

  Gina knew that her mum was desperate for her to focus on other things; to go back to her running club, go out with her friends, spend time with the family, but Gina couldn’t; she had more important things to do. On her way home from school she’d go into pubs and cafes in the area, showing the staff a photo of her dad and asking whether they’d seen him on the day he died. Her enquiries were met with a range of responses, some sympathetic, some disinterested, but all negative.

  Once she got home each evening, she’d often head straight up to her bedroom. Her mum would knock on the door, trying to coax her downstairs and Gina would call out that she was busy doing her homework, but when her mum retreated, she’d open her notebook again and pore over her words, trying to recall how her dad had behaved in the weeks before his death. Some days Gina felt like her head was going to explode as she tried to conjure up every word her dad had said, every gesture he’d made.

  One evening she was talking to her gallery of photos, asking, “What were you like before you went to work that day? I didn’t actually see you, did I? I was in the bathroom, I hadn’t even made it downstairs before you left. Mum was shouting for Danny to get out of bed. But you shouted up to me, didn’t you? You said, ‘I’ll pick you up from running tonight. If I get a chance I’ll get there early; watch you train, pick up a few pointers.’ I opened the bathroom door and called down to you, ‘Well you need them, old man!’ and you laughed – I heard you laugh and you weren’t faking – you seemed normal…happy. So why were you like a different person when you picked me up from the running club? What were you thinking about at the allotment? What did Tom Cotter say—”

  She stopped abruptly as her door flew open and Danny entered.

  “Who are you talking to?” he asked, looking around the room.

  “To Dad,” she said matter-of-factly, pointing to the photographs.

  “Oh, all right.” Danny shrugged. “Anyway, Mum sent me up to get you. There’s that copper downstairs who came about the house getting robbed. Mum phoned them ages ago to find out if they had any news, and he’s here now.”

  Gina rushed downstairs and into the living room. She automatically walked over to the display shelf on the opposite side of the room and cupped the grey urn that contained her dad’s ashes. Holding it between her hands made her feel more connected to him. After a few seconds she released it and said to the puzzled police officer, “So what’s the news?”

  “Well, nothing positive, I’m afraid. We haven’t been able to retrieve any of your stolen goods but I’m glad to see that you’ve replaced them,” he said, nodding towards the new TV.

  “Yes,” her mum said, “the insurance paid out.”

  “Good. That’s new, isn’t it?” The officer pointed to the tropical fish tank in the corner of the room in an effort to lighten the atmosphere.

  “It’s mine,” Danny said proudly. “It’s off my dad. It’s looking good but it’s going to look even better. I’m going to keep adding more fish and stuff.”

  “Haven’t you got anyone for the burglary?” Gina wanted to stick to business.

  “No, I’m afraid not. It’s been very frustrating. We thought we’d made a breakthrough a few weeks ago but it came to nothing.”

  “Why? What happened?” her mum asked.

  “Well, we heard on the grapevine that a couple of young men had been boasting down the pub about how they’d been paid to break into a house.”

  “What! Our house?” Gina asked.

  “We don’t know for sure. We’ve had a few burglaries in the area but the timings would fit with yours.”

  “Oh my God! So what happened to them? What else did they say?”

  “Well, that was the problem. They wouldn’t say anything. They had previous convictions so we hauled them in, fingerprinted them, interviewed them, but it was just ‘no comment’ all the way. We held them while we searched their flats but we found nothing we could use against them. If they were guilty, they’d covered their tracks well. We couldn’t charge them. Their solicitor argued that it was all hearsay and she was right. We had no evidence, so we had to let them go. I’m sorry.”

  “But you’ve got to ask them more questions,” Gina said.

  “Look, unless we have very strong suspicions we can’t get them in again. The whole thing may have just been hearsay.”

  “You can’t leave it like that.”

  “We have to. The depressing statistics are that most burglaries are never solved.”

  “But why would someone have paid them to break into our house?” Gina asked.

  “It happens. Some people don’t want to do the dirty work themselves. They pay some local yobs and split the profits. But we still don’t know that happened in your case.”

  Gina started chewing at her nails, speaking rapidly. “What if it had something to do with what happened to Dad? What if it was someone with a grudge? Someone who did it for revenge?”

  “Nobody has a grudge against your father,” her mum insisted.

  “And if it was a grudge, then they would have done all sorts to the house; written abuse on the walls and much worse,” the officer said.

  “Then they were looking for something! Somebody paid them to search our house,” Gina announced.

  “But we were robbed, Gina,” her mum said.

  “Yeah, but they could have just taken the TV and other stuff to make it look like an ordinary break-in. That would be the clever thing to do, wouldn’t it?” she said to the officer.

  “Possibly, but what would they have been after?” he replied.

  “Nothing! It’s a ridiculous idea. There’s nothing in this house of real value.” Her mum sounded irate.

  “But look what they did,” Gina persisted. “Danny’s mate thought it was druggies, but couldn’t it have been people looking for something? Why else would they turn the place upside down?”

  “The fact that the house was turned upside down doesn’t mean that they were after anything specific,” the officer said. “Burglars search for hiding places, in case people have stashed a load of cash or valuables.”

  Gina’s eyes suddenly looked wild, her mind was racing. “Listen, when we got back to the house and saw we’d been burgled I was upstairs, in Danny’s room, with Tom. He got this text and he went and looked out of the front window and then he shot back; he looked shaken, so I looked out too and there was this big man standing by his car on the opposite side of the street.”

  “And what was he doing?” the officer asked.

  “Well, nothing. He was just standing there.”

  “And who was he?”

  “I don’t know. Tom said he didn’t know him.”

  “Well, what was the text about?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  “What’s the relevance of all this?” her mum butted in.

  “Well, it felt odd at the time but now we know someone paid them to break into our house, maybe it was that man and Tom Cotter knows him,” Gina garbled.

  Danny jumped up from the sofa. “So is that big man after us?”

  “No he isn’t.” Her mum threw Gina an annoyed glance. “Gina’s being silly. There is no ‘big man’, just some man who happened to be on our street.”

  “Young lady, you can’t jump to conclusions,” said the officer. “As I’ve said, we don’t even know if the men we questioned were guilty, we don’t know if they were paid and, if they were, we can’t even be one hundred per cent certain that it was your house. As for this tale about the man in the street, well, it’s hardly likely to be anything connected with the burglary. You wouldn’t be waiting outside the house that you’d just had robbed, would you?”

  “But shouldn’t you write this down so that you can look into it?” Gina demanded.

  “Well, I’ll make a note,” the officer said half-heartedly, “but I don’t imagine it’ll come to anything.”

  “Tom was
up to something,” Gina insisted.

  “Love, you must stop fixating on Tom Cotter,” her mum said, exasperated. “You’re determined to blame him for everything. Your imagination is out of control.”

  “But—” Gina began.

  “Be quiet, Gina.” Her mum sighed. “Officer, maybe it would be best if you left now. As you can see, all this has just put unhelpful ideas into my daughter’s head. It’s not good for her.”

  Gina scowled as her mum walked him out of the room.

  You’re not the only policeman, she thought. I’m going to talk to one who might actually listen to me.

  The next day, after school, Gina sat in the office of Constable Jason Rogers of the British Transport Police. He’d been surprised to see her.

  “Does your mum know you’re here?” he asked.

  “Yeah, of course she does,” she lied.

  “How can I help you, Gina?”

  “I’ve got new information. It might be connected with what happened to my dad.”

  “Okay.” He sounded sceptical. “Let’s hear it.”

  She told him about men being paid to break into their house when they were at her dad’s funeral. She told him about Tom Cotter, the text and the man in the street. She told him that they might have been looking for something.

  “I don’t see how the burglary connects to his death. It happened weeks after your dad died,” Constable Rogers said.

  “Yeah, but it was the best time to get inside the house. Everyone was at the funeral. Please, you need to question those two men to find out who paid them and why. And can’t you find out who that man in the street was and how he knows Tom Cotter?”

  “There’s already an officer in charge of investigating the burglary. He will have looked into all this.”

  “But he doesn’t understand; you really need to take over.”

  “I certainly can’t take over another officer’s investigation, but if it will put your mind at rest, I’ll give him a call. What’s his name?”

  Gina gave the officer’s name and watched Constable Rogers disappear to make the call.

  Gina sat chewing her nails in the hot, stuffy room. Beads of sweat started to form on her forehead as she waited.

  Constable Rogers returned, his face a mixture of annoyance and concern. “It seems that you haven’t been straight with me. The officer gave me a very different perspective on your facts. He explained the situation and said he won’t be pursuing any further enquiries, and neither will I. Listen, Gina, you know that I was part of the investigation into your dad’s death. But the inquest gave you a verdict, and in my view, it was the correct one.”

  “No it wasn’t!” Gina cried. “There’s other things that don’t add up and they all involve Tom Cotter.”

  “Go on,” the constable said impatiently.

  “Well, only Tom Cotter says that my dad was depressed. No one else noticed!”

  “People can hide depression,” he answered firmly.

  “But then Tom lied about the last time he spoke to my dad.”

  “But he didn’t lie, did he? He forgot.”

  “That’s what he said when the coroner found him out. Tom said he was checking up on my dad, but he couldn’t have been, because he was winding Dad up so much. He wasn’t helping him at all.”

  “Gina, this is just your word against Mr. Cotter’s.”

  “Then there’s the burglary and Tom and that man,” she continued, undeterred.

  The constable puffed out his cheeks. “Haven’t we just established that is all unsubstantiated? It seems to me that you’re twisting things to fit in with your belief that your dad didn’t kill himself. So what are you saying, Gina? Do you think your father’s death was suspicious?”

  Gina was taken aback for a moment. Her mouth went dry. “Yes…yes, I suppose I am,” she whispered. She’d had the thought at the back of her mind all this time, but somehow saying it out loud made it seem real – and terrifying.

  “Okay, so in that case, do you believe that your dad was attacked on the bridge that night?” He sounded like he was interrogating her.

  Gina stumbled around in her head looking for coherent thoughts.

  “Maybe…I’m not sure.”

  “You either believe he was or he wasn’t,” he said. “And who would want to attack your dad?”

  “Nobody would want to attack him. Everybody loved him.”

  “So do you think Tom Cotter attacked him?”

  “No! Of course not,” she protested. “But I think he knows something about what happened.”

  “Well, at least you don’t think the man is a killer.” The constable sounded sarcastic. “Especially as he was in Glasgow when your father died. So who was it, Gina? Who was this attacker?”

  Gina gnawed at her nails, stress tensing her whole body. “I don’t know, maybe it was a mugging that went wrong.”

  “But nothing was stolen from him and the bridge road is a dead end and you didn’t see anyone else there. So I think we can rule out an attack, don’t you?”

  “But he didn’t kill himself. He wouldn’t do that!”

  There was a heavy silence before the constable said gently, “There are no grounds for your suspicions and, on top of all that, how do you explain the text he sent, asking you to forgive him?”

  “I don’t know,” Gina replied in a whisper.

  “Gina, listen to me, you are still upset. You’re clutching at straws. The inquest found that your dad was depressed. It’s tragic, but sometimes people kill themselves when they’re depressed. The investigation and the inquest have given you the answer. I’m sorry.”

  He opened the door and Gina slowly walked out, feeling like she’d been punched in the stomach.

  As time passed Gina continued to contact Constable Rogers, insisting that he kept investigating her dad’s death. Eventually, he stopped answering her calls. She didn’t see her friends, and even a visit from her running coach had failed to persuade Gina to return to the club. Her mum’s frequent bribes of outings and tickets to gigs were rejected and, as her sixteenth birthday approached, Gina became increasingly anxious. Her mum tried desperately to persuade her to invite all her friends over but Gina refused, mumbling, “I don’t want to do anything. Becky and the girls wouldn’t want to come anyway. We don’t hang around together any more.”

  “But that’s because you don’t go out, Gina. I’m sure that they’d love to celebrate with you,” her mum replied brightly.

  “No, Mum. Please stop going on about my birthday,” she pleaded. “I’ve got nothing to celebrate.”

  When the day arrived, Gina was woken up by her mum and Danny singing “Happy Birthday”. Danny dive-bombed her bed and handed her a large rectangular present, wrapped in newspaper.

  “Come on.” He shook her. “Open it up. It’s a massive bar of chocolate. It cost me all my pocket money, so you might want to share it with me.”

  “Happy birthday, love,” her mum said, kissing her cheek. She handed Gina a small box. Gina sat up and faked a smile for them. She opened the box and stared at the watch. “It’s a special one for runners,” her mum explained. “It’s got a stopwatch and all these other things that I don’t understand, but they’ll tell you how you’re doing when you run.”

  Gina didn’t respond.

  Her mum smiled tensely. “I thought it would be good for when you start running again.”

  Gina’s face crumpled. She covered her eyes with her hands as tears started to trickle down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t do this without Dad.”

  Her mum rubbed her back. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  “But it’s not. I want Dad here too, baking me one of his rock-hard birthday cakes, leaving work early to pick me up from school and taking us all out for pizza. I want him to embarrass me like he always did by getting the whole restaurant to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. I want to go and choose a movie with him and let him talk me into renting an old film that he knows I’ll love. I want us all to sit on
the sofa and eat popcorn until we feel sick. I want him to make his speech about the day I was born as me and Danny throw popcorn at him and tell him to sit down and, at the end of today, I want to be able to hug him and kiss him goodnight and thank him for another great birthday.”

  The bedroom was filled with the sound of frantic gasping. Gina looked up and saw Danny, shaking with crying.

  “Come here, Danny,” Gina said, feeling guilty for upsetting him. She stretched an arm towards him, but her brother just turned and ran out of the room.

  A few days later Gina was the only one in. She sat cross-legged on her bed and looked over at the collage of photographs which dominated the wall. The fifty photos had become nearly eighty, as she’d hunted out more and more images of her father to add to it.

  “Every day that I don’t find out what happened to you, I feel like I’m letting you down, Dad,” she said bitterly.

  She felt under her mattress and pulled out her notebook. Its cover had become tatty and frayed. She flicked through page after page of information, thoughts, interviews and timelines. The further on she flicked, the more scrawled and chaotic the writing on the page appeared – words became illegible, ink smudges obscured information and deep pen lines scoured through pages as her frustration and distress grew.

  Gina gently rocked back and forth, her eyes closed, her fingertips massaging her aching temples. “Think, Gina, think. Who can help you find answers?”

  The doorbell rang, interrupting her thoughts. She ignored it. She didn’t want to see anyone, but then it rang again.

  Ding dong! Ding dong!

  Whoever was at the door wasn’t going to give up.

  Gina stomped down the stairs.

  She opened the door to a young, greasy-haired man holding a clipboard. She noticed that his baggy suit hung off him, so he looked like he was merely dressing up as an adult. He greeted her with a rictus smile. “Good morning. I’m Olly and I’ve come to see you today to make you an offer you can’t refuse,” he said, as if reading an autocue.