Chapter Thirteen

Spring was stirring as Cassie strode along the towpath the following morning: foliage starting to erupt over the canal banks, and here and there, the buds of early crocus flamed like gas jets. The sun against her face felt as soft and warm as a lover's touch. Archie had left for his attachment in Gloucester that morning and as he'd climbed off the boat carrying his scuffed rugby holdall she'd definitely felt a tug of emotion.

But could she give up boat life just because it wasn't really working for Archie? She pulled a wry smile: maybe she just needed a shorter boyfriend – or girlfriend.

*

‘I had it made by a silversmith in Hatton Garden for her tenth birthday,' Chrysanthi was telling her, the two women sitting side by side in the empty reception area. Just after Archie had left she had called Cassie to ask if she could see her daughter again. It was a Saturday and since she was really only on call for check-ins Cassie should have put her off until Monday, but she had never yet refused a viewing request from a grieving family member.

Chrysanthi was smiling down at the open locket, immersed in the memory of a time when her daughter was still alive.

It was elaborate, silver filigree, with a Christian crucifix woven into the design, and opened to reveal two locks of hair. ‘It's identical, isn't it, your hair and hers,' exclaimed Cassie. In fact, mother and daughter had looked strikingly alike: the same wide cheekbones, winged eyebrows and those slightly hooded eyes which gave that seemingly haughty look she remembered in the fourteen-year-old Sophia. The look that had been a red rag to the bullies.

Chrysanthi nodded before closing the locket and pressing it to her lips. ‘The morning after she died I went to her flat to pick up some mementos. I would like her to wear it.'

‘You know once she is at the undertakers' she can wear her own clothes and anything else you like?'

‘I want her to have it now,' said Chrysanthi. ‘So that I can feel somehow I am with her.'

‘It's not really allowed,' said Cassie, feeling torn. Mortuary rules were clear: no valuables were to be left on a body in case they went walkabout, leaving mortuary staff open to accusations of theft.

Chrysanthi turned her dark eyes on Cassie. ‘Were you there when the doctor .?.?. examined my Sophia?'

Cassie just nodded: no need to mention that in a routine PM it was the mortuary technician who performed the evisceration.

‘Because I don't believe what the police are saying, that she .?.?. destroyed herself.'

The violence of the old-fashioned term took Cassie aback. She remembered Babcia saying that Chrysanthi was devout Greek Orthodox, a faith which probably took a dim view of suicide.

‘It must be unbearable to think that,' she said, quietly. ‘But .?.?. if Sophia had been taking drugs, she wouldn't be responsible for her actions.'

Chrysanthi shook her head. ‘She wasn't doing that filth anymore. She promised me.'

Oh Lord. The promises of an ex-junkie.

Chrysanthi pulled out her phone. ‘Look,' she said, showing Cassie a video posted on social media. It came from @Charly_Detective – the woman who had stitched her up on TikTok a few days back. ‘This girl doesn't think it was suicide. She says the police should have treated it as a possible murder.'

Cassie had an instinctive distrust of the police, but the video was another mash-up of rumour and outright factual error which hinted – without offering a shred of evidence – that foul play was involved. Death by suicide was the hardest thing for loved ones to accept – the ultimate abandonment – and she understood Chrysanthi's desperate need to find an alternative narrative, even if that was murder.

‘You know these social media people, they call themselves detectives, Chrysanthi, but they aren't experts – they're not even proper journalists. I'm afraid they're just making money out of a tragedy.'

Chrysanthi pursed her lips. ‘This Charly girl says it was a "Category-2 death"! So it should have been investigated.' Banging the flat of one hand on her knee.

The half-digested understanding of these keyboard detectives did nobody any favours.

‘The police should have explained to you. A Category-2 death just means a sudden unexpected death. It doesn't imply foul play or suspicious circumstances.'

‘The police didn't even interview her so-called ex-boyfriend, the one who got her into drugs in the first place,' said Chrysanthi bitterly.

‘Ethan Fox?' The guy who'd been all over the press as Bronte's love interest in the months before her death: tall, dark, skinny, and good-looking in a dissolute way. The classic rock-star waster boyfriend, he had bad news written all over him. Ethan was lead guitarist in his own rock band, and the couple had sometimes shared a stage, but any fame – or notoriety – he enjoyed was really down to his relationship with Bronte.

‘How long were they together?'

‘Oh, not more than a year – on and off. And whenever it was on, she would go back on the drugs.' She waved a despairing hand.

According to the media, Ethan and Bronte had spent his-and-hers spells in rehab for heroin and cocaine dependency, but neither of them seemed to stay clean for long – and the tabloids were always there, waiting like hyenas for their next meltdown.

‘Clean Break', the breakout hit that had got three million plays and won Bronte the recording deal with Melodik, suggested she had put dodgy men and Class As behind her. But just a few months into her record deal she'd got back with Ethan, gone back on the drugs, and the paparazzi were back in business.

‘What makes you think he might be involved?'

‘She broke it off with him so that she could stay off the drugs for good. But like I told the police, he wanted her back.' Chrysanthi looked contemptuous. ‘Of course he did, with all that money. But she promised me she wouldn't, said it was more important to her to stay clean and healthy.'

Maybe , thought Cassie.

‘Do you have any reason to suspect him?' Cassie asked gently. ‘Was he ever violent to her, or controlling? Anything like that?'

Chrysanthi shook her head, her lips forming a rebellious pout, before pocketing her phone.

‘Where are you having the funeral service?' asked Cassie to change the subject.

Chrysanthi hesitated. ‘We're burying her in the church where she was christened, Agios Ioannis.' This with a defiant lift of her chin that reminded Cassie of the fourteen-year-old Bronte.

St Iaonnis was one of several Greek Orthodox churches in the borough. Cassie dimly remembered that cremation was forbidden by the Orthodox religion.

‘Let the undertakers know and they can do all the liaising with the church,' said Cassie. Then she nodded at the locket loosely clasped in Chrysanthi's hands.' She could face a disciplinary for allowing it but what the hell. ‘Let's go and put this on Sophia. Just don't tell anyone, OK?''