Chapter Thirteen.
“I don’t think I’m the best person for this job, ma’am,” he said testily – he being DS Brightly, who had been busy wading through the material on the thumb drive provided by Martha Bottomley. In fact, he was doing himself a disservice. He’d gone through the material assiduously, noted online names – signatures or tags – which he’d cross-referenced with the non-virtual world – sourced by himself or from data provided by Neil’s analysis of Adrian’s computer – and provided breakdowns based on geography, those at the top of the list being in or around Amberton, and on age and gender. Names of deceased youngsters had been typed in bold italics, and mini-biographies provided. There were six of these, which didn’t include Adrian and Sharon. So eight young people had committed suicide, and the rest were writing enthusiastically about the reasons for so doing. Caroline Meadows was on the list, having submitted two pieces entitled Improperly turned out and Just say “Yes, miss”... all the time. As was Adrian, who had written One way out and Wrong planet.
Simon was bristling with disapproval, and was eager to tell me what he thought of it all, which was something I was less than eager to hear. Not because I’m uninterested in the opinions of my colleagues – quite the contrary – but rather because I knew what it would be. They were spoilt. They didn’t know what real suffering was. They were ungrateful and self-indulgent.
I asked a question which I knew would annoy him: “For what should they be grateful, Simon?”
“Ma’am, pampered young people are committing suicide because they don’t want to work for a living, or aren’t getting to do what they want all the time – do you think that’s okay?” He shuffled through some papers. “Neil got this from one of their forums.” He waved a piece of paper at me. “Someone tried to talk this girl out of suicide by suggesting she should consider the impact on her parents. She responds: Why should I consider that? They’ve never considered my feelings. I don’t want to go to school, but they insist that I do... for my own good, you understand. I really hate visiting my parents’ boring relatives, but they force me to do it – every time, every single fucking time. They know best, you see. I’ll understand when I grow up. And now I’m expected to go on another boring holiday with them to another hot hell-hole. Why should I care about them? They don’t care about me. They don’t even know who I am. I’m miserable all the time, and they’re responsible. I hope they enjoy the funeral – no doubt they’ll get lots of sympathy. I hope they feel guilty because everything that’s happened to me is their fault.” He finished reading and looked up.What, then, did I make of that?
I said, “Don’t keep me in suspense, Simon. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
He said, “Yes, ma’am, she is. Jumped from the top storey of a tourist complex in Mexico last week – presumably the hot hell-hole she’d been forced to go to on holiday. Her suicide note read, Good riddance. Enjoy the rest of your dreary lives. I'm outta here.”
I said, “She was obviously a very unhappy young woman. The relationship with her parents had clearly broken down – if, indeed, it had ever been established.”
“So it's the parents’ fault, is it, ma’am?” Clearly he thought not.
I said, “You have to do more with a dog, Simon, than just walk and feed it. Some people have children simply as part of the status trip they’re on. Babies go with the car, the house, the job, and the golf club membership. They grow up in a cold environment in which, on the face of it, everything is done right. Who could argue with going to school, or being made to put up with one’s boring relatives? And you’re only going to be laughed at if you complain about being forced to go on holiday. Before you know where you are, you're eighteen, and no-one’s ever bothered to ask you what you think about anything because ultimately they never really cared. They were too busy doing the right thing.”
Poor Simon; he looked appalled. It was all so terribly complicated: all those nuanced opinions out there nibbling away at his perfectly sensible world-view. Simon was not the sort to worry too much about why he believed something. He said, “I’m surprised they don’t close down these websites. These kids show no respect at all for their parents – or anyone else for that matter.”
Rather to my relief, Neil breezed in at that point. He was carrying a tray bearing a coffee for each of us, and had a folder of documents tucked under one elbow. He said, “Sorry I'm late, ma’am, but it seems someone borrowed the kettle-lead and forgot to bring it back. I had to hunt it down.”
Simon looked irritated, as though he’d been interrupted, but he said nothing. Instead, he began riffling through his papers.
What I wanted to do was talk through – and visualise – what might have happened. So, then, Adrian had decided to commit suicide and to give the act a poetic flourish. Having taken the drugs and drink, he got into the rowing boat, rowed out out into the lake, and then dispensed with the oars because he wouldn’t be needing them again and because it had an up-the-creek kind of symbolism about it. He then tied himself into a sitting position with the scarves, the last part of this operation presumably proving difficult, and probably involving the use of his teeth to tie the final scarf. This done, he drifted into sleep and died. What happened after that? Had someone followed him and watched the whole process? Waited, then, until they thought he was dead, and then waded out to the boat, stabbed him and hung the placard round his neck? And then presumably waded back to the bank.
Simon said, “We don’t know that he went to the lake alone.”
Indeed, we didn’t. Someone, a friend, could have gone with him to watch over him while he died. And then what? Defaced his final work of art? Betrayed him at the end, and beyond, for some ambiguous reason? Of course, and this made my heart sink, what if such a friend had existed but hadn’t betrayed their charge? That would mean a third person had to be involved.
“Does it matter?” Simon asked; “now that we know he wasn’t murdered. Whoever hung that sign around his neck probably had it about right.”
I said, “It matters to me, Simon.”
A musical sound emanated from Neil’s mobile. He said, “Excuse me a moment, ma’am,” and left the room. Simon took the opportunity to say, “I wanted to tell you this earlier, ma’am; but I’d like to be removed from this case. This isn’t even a criminal investigation – unless we can get the Bottomley bitch on an incitement charge.”
I said, “Are you deliberately being offensive, Simon?”
He made much of eye-contact, which nearly made me giggle, and said, “Yes, ma’am, I think I am.”
Oh, dear. What was this? Manly rebellion, I supposed. I said, “I really must meet this Ms Bottomley, Simon. She’s clearly made a very big impression on you.”
“You really should, ma’am,” he said. “She’s getting a real buzz out of this. She thinks young people killing themselves is an evolutionary step forward.”
I said, “I fear you may be over-simplifying things, Simon – either that or you’re looking for someone to blame. Is that why you want to be removed from this case? Because you can’t handle the philosophical overtones? That’s not enough, Simon. You must know I need a compelling reason to remove or excuse someone from a case; it’s not a trivial matter.” All of which was true, though there was, of course, nothing to stop one taking the simple expedient of phoning in sick; and, of course, Simon knew this. Formally asking to be removed from a case suggested an interest, possibly a conflict thereof, but could also be interpreted as a criticism of the investigation.
Neil returned, tapping discreetly on the door before entering. He sat down and busily shuffled papers, “Sorry,” he said, looking up. “I’ve only just got these. I’m trying to pick out some highlights.” He handed three sheets of paper to myself and Simon. “These are Adrian Mansfield’s phone records. Those are just the phone-calls, but” – he held up a bundle of papers – “we’ve also got everything he did using the mobile phone – mostly texting. There are more texts than calls. I’ll need a bit of time to go through all this.”
Simon, smirking, said, “Interesting last phone-call.”
So, of course, I looked at him and then down at the list, which was no doubt something like the reaction he wanted. The last phone-call: 9.54 pm on the evening before he’d died. Duration: 44 minutes, 37 seconds. Outgoing: the recipient a land-line registered to Ms M V Bottomley. When I looked up again, Simon said, “Maybe they were discussing football, ma’am.”