‘Oh, God.’ Janet tried to imagine it, opening the door or the curtains and seeing that, facing that, Taisie or Elise swinging. She squashed the thought. But how would you ever forget the image? The rope or the belt, the body suspended, still, the face distorted. How did you ever reach a place where the earlier, innocent photos of school and holidays came into your head, instead of the ghastly death mask?
Janet had sat with victims’ relatives in the past, heard them say, I just can’t get it out of my head, seeing her that way. Every time I close my eyes… One distraught young son had seen his mother beaten to death with a poker by her ex-husband: It’s stuck there, he cried, I can’t remember what she really looked like, she’s just gone. At least with Joshua, he’d looked peaceful, as if he was sleeping. Janet swallowed, fixed on what Marlene was saying.
‘Nathan had problems of his own, was off his head on everything going. He’d started shooting up, stealing off Denise, mugging people. We offered Lisa bereavement counselling. I think she went a couple of times.’
‘Tell me about Lisa’s drug use when she was here,’ Janet said.
Marlene raised her hands, a gesture of frustration. ‘It’s impossible to police. We’re a home, not a secure unit. Drugs are out there, they get in here. Lisa was caught with aerosols, glue, weed – well, most of them try weed,’ she said as an aside.
‘Any Class A?’
‘That only started once Sean came on the scene. We could see the signs. But she was never found with any.’
‘He supplied it?’
‘That’d be my guess,’ Marlene said.
‘James Raleigh had been talking to her about rehab,’ Janet said.
There was a scuffling sound at the door and it swung wide open. An Asian girl wearing an outsize tracksuit and a red baseball cap burst into the room. ‘Marlene? Oh, soz.’
‘I’ll be a few more minutes, Punam.’
‘Cool.’ The girl flicked a peace sign in their direction and left. Janet smiled; the energy, the liveliness, reminded her of Taisie on a good day.
‘She’s a doll,’ Marlene said. ‘She’ll make it.’ She stretched in her seat. ‘Lisa’s social worker, Martin Dalbeattie, retired this spring. We’ve still got his number – I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you, if you needed to know any more details about her time here.’
Janet thanked her and would have left it at that, but Rachel’s persistent questions meant she had to ask. Just to convince herself there was nothing to it. ‘Sean Broughton – had he been around here before he latched on to Lisa?’
