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Singh brought me a cup of coffee, which I drank gratefully despite its murky grey colour. I’d been to bed late the previous night, anticipating a weekend lie in, and I was finding it hard to stay awake.
‘Before we begin, I’ll give you the basic background.’ Singh sat down opposite me and rubbed the bridge of his nose before continuing. ‘I’m sure you realise this is a very serious situation. We were contacted via the emergency text service just after six this morning, saying a child was dead. CID were called in due to the suspicious circumstances, and myself and DI Forest are part of the incident team who’ll be dealing with the case from now on.
‘There are two adults who were present at the time the child’s body was discovered: Alan Hunter and Elisha Barron, both of whom are deaf. There are also two other children, who haven’t been harmed.’
I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. At least Jaxon and Kasey were okay.
‘The dead child’s name is Lexi Hunter. She was staying with her father for the weekend, although normally lives with her mother. Her brother, Jaxon, and half-sister, Kasey, were asleep in the same room when it happened.’
The implications of what the children might have witnessed stunned me for a moment, but before Singh continued I held up a hand to interrupt him.
‘Where are they? Jaxon and Kasey?’
‘We contacted the duty social worker, and they’re being cared for. Jaxon should be back with his mother shortly, although we’ll need to arrange to interview him in a couple of days.’
Drawing in a sharp breath, I wondered how Singh could deal with things like this every day. The prospect of interviewing a six-year-old about the death of his sister sounded awful. I knew I should tell him that I already knew the family, but I didn’t want him thinking I shouldn’t be working on the case, and I let the moment pass.
‘We need to establish what happened and what Alan and Elisha can tell us, but we need to take their statements individually,’ Singh continued. ‘They’ve been reluctant to be separated until you were here. We’ll need to speak with Lexi’s mother once we’re finished here, as well.’
‘Does she know? Laura, has someone told her?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, his deep voice reassuring me. He either didn’t notice my slip, showing I knew Lexi’s mum’s name, or he let it go. ‘We sent officers over as soon as we were given her address. Her mother is also with her.’
I knew Laura was living with her mum, so at least she had her there for support. From what I’d heard, Bridget Weston was a strong woman, so hopefully something like this wouldn’t break her completely, devastating as it would be for the whole family. I worried how Laura would ever cope with a tragedy of such magnitude.
DI Forest approached as Singh finished filling me in. ‘Is there anything else you need to know before we begin?’
I swallowed, not wanting to ask but needing as much information as they could give me. ‘How did Lexi die?’
Forest grimaced, her mouth pulled tight in a straight line. ‘There will have to be a post-mortem. Until we have the results, I’m afraid we can’t discuss it with you.’
I bit back a response. There must have been more she could tell me, but I couldn’t bring myself to push for it yet. As the interviews progressed, there’d be things I didn’t want to hear, but it was my job. I’d been present during some of the most private moments of people’s lives: I’d been there when a doctor told someone they had cancer; I’d had to inform a client that his wife was filing for divorce; I’d worked with social services, in homes and in court, when children were being placed under child protection orders or were being removed from their families. I had learned to deal with not being able to talk to anyone else about my work, about the things I heard and experienced, but in nine years I hadn’t learned to separate myself emotionally from my clients and their experiences. When I understood my clients’ emotions, it helped me to interpret them more accurately, reading their facial expressions and body language to help me modulate the tone and inflexion of my spoken English translation. This empathy never made my job any easier, though.
Forest led me through to an interview room where Elisha was sitting at a table, hands clasped around a cup of tea. I smiled in an attempt to reassure her, then sat down opposite her so she could see me clearly.
‘Elisha, we need to take your statement about what happened to Lexi. Do you want the BSL interpreter here?’ Forest asked as soon as we were all settled.
I was surprised at the question, but then I remembered the confusion when Elisha spoke at the house. Many deaf people speak as well as use sign language, often combining the two, and others don’t sign at all. I treated every client differently, depending on how they chose to communicate.
‘Yes, please. I don’t always understand people speaking.’
You want to speak, or you sign and I speak for you? I signed to Elisha.
She wrinkled her nose as if she were thinking, then signed, You speak.
I relayed this to the detectives, and Forest nodded at Singh to continue.
‘Okay, Elisha. Paige will interpret for you, and we’re videoing this interview,’ Singh began, indicating the camera. ‘Do you think you can tell us what happened?’
Elisha’s eyes darted around the room for a moment, then finally she looked at me so I could interpret Singh’s question.
I told you in the emergency text, she signed with a frown. I found Lexi in her room. I don’t know what happened.
‘I understand that, but we need a lot more information about what happened, now that we have an interpreter.’
I explained this to Elisha, adding in that the police needed to do it properly. Still, she looked distressed. I don’t want to talk about it.
I interpreted this and DI Forest sighed briefly before she replied. Didn’t she know that Elisha could read her frustration in her body language?
‘We need to hear it from you, exactly as you remember it. It’s important we find out what happened to Lexi.’
Elisha closed her eyes for a moment, then started to explain.
I woke up early and went to check on the children. There was blood on Lexi’s head, and on her bed. It was all over her. I checked, and she wasn’t breathing. Elisha looked at the floor, and I wondered why she was so defensive, what she was scared of.
‘Why don’t we start from last night,’ DC Singh suggested, his calm tone contrasting starkly with Forest’s. ‘What time did Lexi go to bed? Start from there.’
Elisha pinched the bridge of her nose, then covered her face with her hands for a moment before she responded. She was terrified.
The children went to bed at nine. They all sleep in the same room when Jaxon and Lexi are staying. We’ve only got two bedrooms. She glared at Forest as she signed, as if the detective inspector was somehow responsible for their lack of living space.
‘How often do Jaxon and Lexi stay?’
Most weekends.
Singh made notes as I translated. ‘And when did you next go into the room?’
I checked on them every half hour, maybe every hour. Jaxon takes a long time to go to sleep, so I had to check he wasn’t disturbing the girls.
‘What time did he go to sleep?’
Elisha shrugged, then looked down at the floor again. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself. It had been mild for February, but there was a chill in the room that morning.
She gave me an imploring look. I don’t think I can do this.
I interpreted this and Forest pursed her lips. ‘Give us as much information as you can, but we may still need to ask you some more questions when you’ve finished, if there’s something else we need to know.’
For a moment I thought Elisha would refuse; she looked to the door, as if she were contemplating leaving, but eventually she nodded.
Alan went out to the pub, so I put the children to bed at nine, then went back downstairs. I kept checking on them every half hour until they were all asleep. One time I went in and Jaxon was under his bed, but he went to sleep around eleven, I think. I checked on all three of them, and Lexi was fine. I saw her mouth move as she sucked her dummy. She paused. I went to bed then. I woke up around two, but I didn’t go back into the children’s room until this morning.
‘What time did Alan come home?’ DI Forest asked.
Around two. That’s why I woke up.
‘Would you normally check on the children in the night, if you woke up?’
Maybe.
‘Did Alan check on the children when he came upstairs?’
Elisha’s eyes darted to the side and she fidgeted for a moment before she replied. Alan didn’t come upstairs. We had a fight because … because he was really drunk. I made him sleep on the sofa.
The two detectives exchanged looks and DC Singh made a note of this before gesturing for Elisha to continue.
She picked at her fingernails for a moment. As soon as I got up this morning, something didn’t feel right. I went to check on the children again, and Lexi was lying on her front, with her head on one side. Her hair was in her face, but I brushed it out of the way. Her eyes were open and my hand felt sticky. I could see blood on her clothes, on her bed. The back of her head was all covered in blood. Tears slid down Elisha’s face as she looked at her hands, which were shaking.
I shuddered at the memory of Lexi’s body, some of the blood clearly visible from where I had been standing. I wished I could blank it out, forget what I saw, but I knew I never would. DI Forest shifted in her chair, and asked Elisha to continue.
I knew she was dead. I reached down to touch her, to make sure. That’s how I got her blood all over me. Elisha sniffed and swallowed, more tears threatening to spill over. From the shape of the bloodstains on her clothes, I thought she had probably picked Lexi up and held her close.
Her face looked … strange, she continued. I don’t know if something happened to it, or if it was just because she was dead, but her face was the wrong shape. She shrugged, unsure of how to express herself further. She swallowed again.
Someone did this while I was asleep. How could someone come into my house and do this? Why couldn’t I have woken up? Elisha’s words made me shiver at the thought of someone walking around the house, knowing they couldn’t be heard. I thought she was going to carry on, but she wrapped her arms around herself again and shook her head to indicate she didn’t want to say any more.
‘What about Jaxon and Kasey? Did you check on them?’
It took a moment for me to get Elisha’s attention, but in the end she took a shuddering breath and looked at me.
Of course I checked on them. They were both asleep. Kasey didn’t wake up, but she was breathing deeply. Jaxon woke up when I touched him. He looked confused, not scared, so I don’t think he saw what happened. He didn’t understand what I was doing.
‘Is that when you contacted the ambulance?’
Elisha nodded. I’ve got the emergency SMS on my phone, see? She dug her phone out of her pocket to show the detectives.
Singh made a note of something, then leant forward. I definitely got a good cop, bad cop vibe from those two.
‘Did you tell Alan what had happened?’
When I interpreted this question, Elisha pressed her lips together so tightly half her face went white. She nodded, then her eyes flicked towards the door again.
‘Was he awake?’
She shook her head, but offered no more information. Singh wrote something down, but didn’t push the point.
‘We want to ask you a couple of questions about Lexi now. Would that be okay?’
Wiping her eyes with the torn cuff of her jumper, she agreed.
‘Did you look after her a lot, when she and Jaxon stayed over?’
Quite a bit. Alan’s very busy, and I have Kasey, so I usually have the three children together.
‘Have you noticed anyone behaving strangely around Lexi recently?’
Elisha frowned and shook her head. I don’t know what you mean.
‘Has there been anyone acting suspiciously, doing anything that worried you, around the children?’
No, nobody. Well … She paused mid-sign, and I thought she was going to carry on, but she just shook her head.
Singh looked at me, but Elisha stayed still and didn’t sign anything else.
DI Forest cleared her throat. ‘We need to wait until the results of the post-mortem confirm cause of death. That’s why we need as much information as possible right now.’
Why would someone kill Lexi? As I interpreted this, I realised Elisha was asking me, her desperate face appealing to me for an answer to make sense of what happened. The facade she had been putting on slipped, then crumbled. She reached a hand up to her head and dug her fingers into her scalp, rocking as she sobbed. I laid a hand on her arm, but I knew I couldn’t offer much comfort.
When her sobs subsided, she looked back at me again. She was a beautiful little girl, always happy. The tears still rolled down her cheeks, and she buried her face in her hands.
I could feel my own emotions churning. I hadn’t had time to process the thought that I was working with the police as part of a murder investigation. I agreed with Elisha – surely nobody would have any reason to harm a young child?
Singh flipped back a couple of pages in his notes. ‘You said that Alan slept on the sofa because you had a fight. Did he stay there all night, or did he come upstairs at all?’
Elisha glanced at the door yet again and chewed her lip for a moment. He stayed downstairs. I don’t like it when he gets really drunk, so he slept on the sofa. She didn’t make eye contact with me when she signed this, and I got the feeling she wasn’t telling the truth, but I could hardly say that to the detectives. I didn’t think she could take much more of this questioning. She was perched on the edge of her chair, poised for flight.
She started to sign something to me, but I was distracted by a knock on the door. A uniformed officer opened it and beckoned Singh over with an apologetic grimace. The two men bent their heads together and muttered to each other for a moment before Singh nodded and followed him out of the door.
I could see past him to where another detective was arguing with Alan Hunter, who was clearly confused and upset, waving his arms around and gesticulating in frustration. As Singh stepped out to try to sort out the situation, Alan made eye contact with me, and he looked frantic. As the door shut behind them, Elisha began to cry again.
Chapter 3
I’m Deaf, but I’m not deaf. Growing up, I was the only hearing person in my family, which makes me Deaf with a capital D. I was always part of the Deaf community, and BSL was my first language. Being Deaf is a cultural identity, not simply a term for hearing loss. You can have full hearing and still be considered part of the Deaf community. I can’t put my finger on when I started to slip into the role of family interpreter. It was the easiest way to get anything done; I translated the world for my parents and my sister, before email and texting made communication more accessible. I never intended for it to be my job, though. It was something I fell into for convenience, then never found my way back out of. Most of the time, I didn’t mind it, but certain jobs made me rethink my options.
The fear in Alan’s eyes as Singh had left the room set my adrenaline pumping, and when I looked down, I could see my hands trembling. Forest, Elisha and I waited in the interview room, the tension palpable. Elisha rocked on her chair, pulling her hair out of its ponytail so it fell over her face. Using her hearing aids, I wondered how much she could hear of the commotion outside the door.
After a few minutes, Singh stuck his head around the door. ‘Miss Northwood, can we have your assistance, please?’
I explained to Elisha where I was going, then slipped out, heart hammering with trepidation. Calming down traumatised clients wasn’t part of my remit. In the corridor, Alan sat on the floor, with his back to a wall and his knees raised. He squared his jaw and glared at Singh and the other detective who were standing over him, his eyes rimmed with red, but he didn’t move.
‘Mr Hunter has calmed down sufficiently, I think. Please could you explain to him that we’ll take his statement as soon as we’ve finished with Miss Barron, then we will take both of them to stay somewhere else.’
I did as Singh asked, and Alan grunted in response. I don’t care about the statement. I want my children back. Social services can’t take my children. Jaxon and Kasey are staying with me.
Singh nodded when I had translated. ‘Of course, I understand your concerns, but we have to check them over to make sure they’re okay. They could have witnessed a very traumatic event. It’s normal for us to contact social services when something like this happens.’
Why? Alan was tense, but I could see the pain on his face, and I understood. Someone had taken one of his children from him, and he desperately wanted to see the other two, to reassure himself.
‘Mr Hunter, someone murdered one of your children only a few hours ago. It is in Jaxon and Kasey’s best interests that we make sure they haven’t been harmed.’
I was surprised by the tone in Singh’s voice, but his stern facial expression did the trick, and Alan’s head drooped. He screwed his face up; I thought he was trying not to cry.
‘Now, we need to finish taking Miss Barron’s statement, then we’ll speak to you. DC Benson will take you back to wait in an interview room.’
I translated, and Alan nodded, so Singh and I went back into the room where Elisha and Forest waited. Elisha jumped backwards in her chair when the door opened, and looked relieved when she saw us. I wondered who she’d been expecting.
We went over Elisha’s statement, and she agreed to everything. For a moment, I thought she wanted to add something, but she dropped her eyes from mine and we left the room.
The two detectives compared notes, and I was shown to a waiting area. A couple of minutes later, Elisha was also escorted in, but I didn’t make eye contact with her, bending down to pull a bottle of water out of my bag. It could feel strange, ignoring a client in the middle of a job, but there was nowhere private to have a break and I desperately needed one. If it hadn’t been such a horrific situation, I might have looked for another coffee, but it didn’t feel appropriate to go wandering around the station, somehow. Water would do.
I could hear the detectives muttering in the hallway, but they didn’t look my way. Checking my phone, I wondered again if I should call Anna. She was a night owl like me, but it was gone ten so she’d probably be awake. I told myself I was putting it off for her sake, when really a part of me hoped she would find out from another source so I didn’t have to be the bearer of such terrible news.
After waiting for about ten minutes, I got up to stretch my legs. The police station chairs weren’t chosen for comfort, and I needed to get some blood flowing if I wanted to stay awake. Forest and Singh had disappeared, and I stood in the doorway and glanced down the corridor. A couple of uniformed officers were walking past, and as they did I caught a snippet of their conversation.
‘… sick, bashing a little girl’s head in like that.’
‘People like that shouldn’t have kids if they can’t protect them. Imagine not knowing someone was in your house, in your kid’s bedroom.’
The world started to spin, and I needed to grab on to the door frame for support. The PCs suddenly noticed I was there, and one stepped forward to check I was okay. I shook him off and stormed up the corridor looking for Singh and Forest. Trying several doors, I found them in an office, leaning over a desk. I was so desperate to know exactly what had happened, I didn’t care if I was interrupting them.
‘Is there a problem?’ Forest asked, looking at Singh even though I knew she was talking to me.
‘What happened in that house? What happened to Lexi? Who could have done this?’ I blurted it out before thinking.
Forest’s face darkened and the atmosphere became noticeably colder. ‘We can’t discuss the particulars of the case with you.’ The set of her jaw told me she expected that to be the end of the discussion, but I couldn’t just leave it there.
Breathing deeply to try and stop myself from shaking, I stepped closer to her.
‘I have been thrown into this situation with no information, no warning about what I was going to hear. Thanks to your officers I’ve seen the body of a dead child, something that I will never forget. I need to know what happened!’ I knew my voice was becoming shrill, but I didn’t care any more. I trembled as the image of Lexi’s battered body rose unbidden in my mind, and I took some deep breaths.
‘Miss Northwood, we have already said—’ Singh began, but I cut him off.
‘Tell me, please!’ My voice broke and I let out a strangled sob before covering my mouth with my hand.
The detectives stared at me in silence for a second before Forest took a step towards me. She was invading my personal space, but I didn’t move; I wouldn’t let her intimidate me. I focused on my breathing and tried to swallow down the lump in my throat.
‘Miss Northwood, if you continue to overstep the boundaries, we will be forced to employ someone else. Do I make myself clear?’
The iciness of her tone brought me to my senses. Of course they couldn’t tell me what happened, however much I wanted to know. Mumbling an apology, I backed down, taking a step sideways and leaning on the door. I wiped my face surreptitiously, embarrassed at losing control. Forest looked as if she was about to say something else, but Singh headed her off. He indicated for me to follow him out of the room, and the three of us walked to the interview room in silence. I found myself hoping the next interview would be quick and straightforward; the emotional strain was taking its toll on me.
Alan Hunter was a big man, and when I saw him folded into one of the chairs in the interview room, I was worried it might break. He was tall as well as stocky, with close-cut hair that was prematurely greying. I knew he was older than Elisha, but I was pretty sure he was only in his early thirties. He looked wired, his eyes bright and alert, which surprised me, considering what had happened and the fact that he’d allegedly been up late drinking then had slept on the sofa.
‘Mr Hunter, I understand this is a very upsetting and distressing experience for you, but it is important that we take your statement about what happened last night. Any information you can give us will help us to find out what happened to Lexi.’
I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was an accident.
I translated this for the detectives while Alan sat bolt upright in his chair, flexing his fingers.
‘We won’t know anything for certain about how she died until the post-mortem is complete,’ Forest said. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and I wondered what time she’d been called out.
Alan scowled but didn’t respond, so Forest continued.
‘Where were you when Elisha discovered Lexi had died?’
He shrugged, but didn’t offer anything further.
‘You weren’t in bed,’ Singh said, trying to draw a response.
His upper lip twitching, Alan tapped his finger to his nose.
‘None of your business,’ I translated.
‘Mr Hunter, we are trying our best to help you. We want this over with as much as you do. If you don’t talk to us, it prevents us from finding out what happened.’
At this, Alan spread his hands before replying. I went out to the pub. I’d had a bit to drink, so I decided to sleep on the sofa. Elisha gets grumpy with me if I wake her up. Happy? I tried to convey the angry sarcasm of Alan’s body language in my tone of voice.