Chapter 3

THREE

For the first time, Joanna realised how scruffy she must look to the police officer. Still in her gardening clothes – torn t-shirt and grubby combat trousers, the legs baggy with age – she must look an absolute sight. Pulling at the bottom of her t-shirt, she followed the nurse out of the ward, where she pointed at the same small room Joanna had waited in when she first arrived. A tidy-looking woman in a navy suit with short dark hair and a professional smile waited for her in the doorway.

Though she looked terribly young, the officer's voice was surprisingly confident and assured. ‘I'm Detective Constable Abbie Lineham. I've been assigned to your daughter's case. How is she?'

What was she thinking behind that professional exterior? What did she already know about what'd happened? Of course, she must see incidents like this all the time. For her, Joanna thought bitterly, Charlotte would probably just be another problem to solve. ‘We don't know. Her doctor said something about running lots of tests. She hasn't come round yet so we're waiting on that. Do you know what happened?'

She looked very tired as she nodded. Did it get you down? Having to deal with incidents like this all the time? ‘There was a nine nine nine call from Apartment 2a Coleridge Place this afternoon. The ambulance attended the scene and then brought your daughter straight here.'

2a Coleridge Place was Freddie's apartment. They'd told her that he'd called from there, but not where it'd happened. ‘Was she hurt inside the apartment?'

The detective nodded. ‘Your daughter had a head injury and quite a loss of blood. Forensics are on the scene and it appears she hit her head on the edge of a metal cabinet.'

Hot violent fury flashed through Joanna. Her hands shook and it was all she could do not to grab hold of the detective and shake the information from her. ‘So she was attacked. You know that for definite now? You know it wasn't an accident?'

As if deciding which colour wire to cut to avoid setting off a bomb, the detective watched Joanna carefully, her dark eyes betraying nothing, but she nodded. ‘From the angle of the wound, it would appear that your daughter may have been pushed.'

May have been pushed? May? Joanna wanted to scream and shout and strike out at the world. ‘She was attacked in her own home. No one falls backwards on their own. Of course she was pushed. And you know who did it, don't you? You know it was him?'

Her hands in front of her, palms down to encourage restraint, DC Lineham spoke slowly and carefully. ‘Like I said, forensics are at the residence now gathering evidence.'

Evidence? She could give them plenty of evidence. How he'd broken her daughter, left Joanna to pick up the pieces and then come back to hurt Charlotte all over again. That entitled, arrogant… ‘What has he said? Freddie Knight-Crossley. Have you asked him what happened?'

‘Mr Knight-Crossley is helping us with our enquiries, yes. He made the call to emergency services. We believe he is the partner of your daughter?'

In these grubby clothes she felt vulnerable somehow. How she wished they were having this conversation at home so that she could see where Charlotte had come from. That they were just as good as him. That boy and his family. She swallowed. ‘Yes. They're together.'

Charlotte had first started seeing Freddie three years before. The summer between her second and third year at university. Despite insisting he was just a friend, the extra care she took with her make-up, the length of time it took to choose what top to wear with her jeans, on the days she would be seeing him, told a different story.

A few times, he'd picked her up from the house. To give him credit, he always parked the van and came to the door – Steve liked that about him – but Charlotte would thunder down the stairs to be there and gone before Joanna had even got out of her seat. She'd watch them drive away from the sitting room window. ‘I'm sure she's seeing him.'

Steve had looked up from whatever nonsense he was watching on his phone – how to unblock a drain with a coat hanger, probably – a frown of concentration still on his face. ‘Does it matter? She is twenty. And he seems like a decent boy.'

‘You've only spoken to him once.' The week before, Steve had been in the garden on the Saturday afternoon when Freddie had pulled up.

‘I know. But he was very complimentary about my oleander tree and you know that's all it takes.'

He'd winked, but she'd wanted him to take it seriously. ‘Well, of course he knows how to charm someone's father. They're brought up like that. It's the expensive schooling and the money. All the niceness is on the outside. It's a veneer.'

‘It's not fair to judge him on that, is it? Charlotte likes him. We have to trust her. Come away from that window and give me a cuddle. Let's wait and see before we write him off.'

She'd dropped the vertical blind she'd pushed up and moved towards his outstretched arm. ‘I'm going to write "let's wait and see" on your gravestone, Steve Woodley.'

Detective Constable Lineham checked her notes then looked up at Joanna. ‘And they were living together at the flat where your daughter was hurt? There were bills in both their names.'

Her cheeks warmed. She hated to think of the two of them living there together. She'd only been there once, when Charlotte had first moved in. It was part of a large modern block with Juliet balconies and carpeted hallways. Charlotte – a caffeine addict – had been particularly excited by the coffee shop on the ground floor with its expensive oat milk flat whites and USB charging points. With her waitressing job and the pittance she made from gigs, she'd never have been able to afford somewhere like that to live. Joanna had tried to persuade her to stay at home, save up for a place of her own, offered to help her as much as she could. But she'd wanted to move in with him and, when Charlotte made up her mind about something, there was no stopping her. ‘Yes. They've been living there together for almost a year.'

The police officer's eyes searched hers for everything she wasn't saying. ‘I'm sorry to ask this, but were there any issues between them? Did you have any concerns?'

She almost laughed at that. It would be quicker to tell her what she wasn't concerned about. ‘Yes, I have a lot of concerns. He comes from a very privileged background and he thinks he can have whatever he wants. He's already broken her heart by making her think she was his world and then playing around behind her back. Charlotte isn't like him. She's a good girl. A kind girl. I knew that he wouldn't make her happy. But I never thought…'

A sob escaped from her throat. It was all starting to filter down into her shocked brain. Freddie had pushed Charlotte. He'd pushed her so hard that she'd hit her head and now she was lying unconscious in that room with who knew what damage to her brain.

‘Mrs Woodley. At the moment, we don't know what happened. There is still the possibility that this was an accident.'

Surely she knew as well as Joanna did that this wasn't the case. ‘What did he say? When you spoke to him. Did he admit what he'd done?'

The officer sighed. ‘We can't divulge any details at the moment, I'm afraid. But anything you can tell us that might shed some light on their relationship would help.'

Most definitely she had something to tell. ‘There are bruises. On her arm. I saw them there, last week. They look as if someone had pressed their fingers into her skin. Like they've grabbed hold of her arms.'

DC Lineham was noting down her words as she spoke. ‘We'd like to examine those if that's okay with you?'

Charlotte had been so flippant about them when she'd asked her. She'd been over for a flying visit – every visit was short lately, prefaced with an ‘I've only got fifteen minutes' – and she'd asked her to help straighten the family photo on the sitting room wall. The frame was so heavy, she was worried about doing it on her own in case she dropped it and smashed the glass. When Charlotte reached up, Joanna saw the five round bruises on her arm – four in a row and one for a thumb – and had asked her immediately. ‘What are they?'

She'd flipped her arm back over immediately. ‘What? Oh, nothing, just bruises from picking up the equipment the other night.'

She'd known that was a lie immediately. Charlotte had been moving amps and instruments around ever since she started the band at seventeen. Before that, even. And she'd never seen such specific bruising on her arms before. ‘It can't be that. It looks as if someone has grabbed you.'

Perhaps she could have worded it better, but she still hadn't expected Charlotte to fly off the handle like she had. ‘So now you're going to accuse Freddie of grabbing me, Mum?'

She'd tried to keep her voice level. ‘I didn't say anything about Freddie. You brought his name into this.'

‘Mum! When are you going to get it? Freddie is a really nice guy. You cannot keep judging him because he reminds you of some boy you used to know. You just won't give him a chance.'

That had stung. It had taken a lot for her to tell Charlotte about that. But now Joanna was far more concerned about those bruises. ‘Tell me the truth, Charlotte. What happened to your arm?'

At that, she'd flown off the handle. ‘Okay, I'm done. Call me when you're ready to treat my boyfriend with just a tiny bit of respect.'

She'd grabbed her keys and stormed out of the front door. And Joanna – like a fool – had just watched her go.

DC Lineham closed her notebook. ‘I think that's all we have to discuss at the moment. We'll keep you informed, of course. Is there anyone else we need to tell for you? Charlotte's father? Siblings?'

She wasn't to know that each of those questions was a bullet to her heart. She focused on the tissue in her hands as she shook her head. ‘No. There's no one else I need to call.'

The sympathy in the detective's voice was genuine. Poor woman. All on her own . That's what she'd be telling her partner tonight as they sat down to dinner together. ‘Okay, well, I'll be in touch tomorrow.'

If Joanna was on her own, she had only herself to blame. What had Sally's words been to her? ‘You'll drive her away. The more you try and keep her from him, the faster she will run.' If she'd listened, maybe she wouldn't have driven her out of the house to live in that apartment. Was this all her fault?

If only she could call Sally now. But how could she ask for help after what she'd said to her? The hurt in her best friend's voice at her cruel words. What a mess she'd made of everything.

DC Lineham was standing to leave when there was another knock on the door. As it opened, Dr Doherty's head appeared. ‘Sorry to interrupt. I was hoping to catch up with Mrs Woodley about Charlotte.'

Within a fraction of a second she was out of her seat. ‘Has she woken up?'

He shook his head. ‘Sorry. No. But I wanted to update you on our initial test results.'

The wave of disappointment receded, leaving her heart thumping in her chest. She tried to read his face; was this news good or bad? ‘What is it? What do they say?'

Dr Doherty stood to the side to give the detective room to leave and then turned back to face her. ‘Shall we sit down?'

Nothing good ever came from those words. ‘I'd rather stand. What is it?'

Dr Doherty took a deep breath. ‘I really think you should sit down.'

An icy cold rose through Joanna's body. She lowered herself onto the seat, her throat almost too dry to speak. ‘What is it?'

Dr Doherty sat opposite; his professional calm made her want to scream. ‘Firstly, I wanted to talk you through the tests we've done. Obviously, we've also had to be extremely mindful of your daughter's condition.'

He wasn't making any sense. For a moment, a wisp of hope rose that he was talking about the wrong patient. She frowned. Her condition ? ‘What do you mean?'

He looked up from his notes and tilted his head in shock. ‘I'm so sorry. Did you not know?'