CHRISTOPHER DANES, THE FLO, brought Denise in to the station. Gill greeted her and introduced herself, offered her tea or coffee, which she declined. Denise was dishevelled, looked unwashed, her glasses smeared. She reeked of booze.
‘I’m leading the investigation and I wanted to tell you that we are doing everything we can to find out who did this to your daughter. I know Christopher has been keeping you up to date with developments, but if there’s anything you want to ask me I’ll do my best to answer it.’
‘You’ve arrested him?’
‘I can tell you that we have arrested a twenty-two-year-old man who is helping with our inquiries.’
‘It’s him though, isn’t it?’ she grimaced, a note of bitter triumph in her tone.
Gill paused, deliberately not denying it before saying, ‘I’m not at liberty to say. As soon as we can tell you any more, I give you my assurance you will be the first to hear.’
‘I’ve a right to know,’ Denise said defiantly.
‘Yes,’ Gill agreed, ‘and as soon as any steps are taken, any charges brought, anything like that, you will be told. You have my word.’
‘And the funeral?’ The muscles in her face twitched.
‘We can’t release Lisa yet, the defence have the right to have Lisa examined for themselves.’
‘I can’t afford to bury her.’ Tears filled her eyes and the red blotches across her nose and cheeks darkened.
‘There’s help available,’ Gill said. ‘Christopher will put you in touch, help you with that.’ What had she done for her son? Burial? Cremation? Gill thought it prudent not to go there. Add more weight to the woman’s burden. ‘The Press Office are planning to send out a release – an update on the inquiry so far. They would like to include a few words about Lisa, and wonder if you could suggest something.’
Denise drew back, appalled. ‘On the telly?’
‘No, no,’ Gill rushed to reassure her. God, no! Seeing Denise in the state she was in would be unlikely to attract much sympathy or propel people to try and assist the police. The fact that Lisa had been in care and was living alone at seventeen already influenced some of the reporting. The tone would have been far different if she’d been from a cosy, middle-class home, a model pupil with a clutch of GCSEs and a bright future.
‘It would be written down,’ Gill said, ‘and something I might quote from in interviews.’
Gill quite enjoyed press conferences; the performer in her, perhaps. She felt confident and articulate and didn’t ruffle easily. She had had plenty of practice, too, all those years in the crime faculty when the cases were invariably high profile. In one way or another, the regional media liked to make much of the ‘invasion’ of the national detectives into their local patch:
