Lost Hours

by Alex Walters

  But Zoe had told her that Wentworth had seemed genuinely shaken by what had happened, and Annie knew that, given the increasing sensitivity of the case, Stuart Jennings would want her to front this up personally. In the end, she’d decided to detour via Wentworth’s house on her way home.

  She turned off the main road and followed the winding B-road to Wentworth’s house. It was a glorious setting on an evening like this, the rolling hills rich with shadows in the thickening twilight, but she was conscious of how remote it was. She’d experienced the sense of isolation in her own home when Sheena had been in danger some months before, but this place was far more cut off. It was several miles even from the nearest village, set in grounds of several acres. If there really was a threat to Michelle Wentworth, this was not the ideal place to be living, whatever its other charms.

  She turned off the road into the entrance to the house. This time, the external gates had been left closed but, as she drew up in front of them, they opened slowly before her car. Annie glanced up and saw the CCTV camera pointing down. Clearly Zoe had forewarned Wentworth that she was coming.

  At least the security here was generally strong, Annie thought. Not that that had done much to help Justin Wentworth. The team had now checked out all the CCTV footage from the day of his death and although there were a number of cameras around the site, including the one on the gate, they’d found nothing relevant to the killing. That might mean the killer had checked out the site prior to the killing, so they were now painstakingly working through the footage from the preceding days in the hope of finding some indication of an earlier intruder.

  Zoe’s car was standing in front of the house. Annie pulled up behind it and climbed out into the warm evening air. Although the grapevine on the side of Wentworth’s house was just beginning to turn crimson, autumn still felt far away. That could change overnight if the weather broke, but for the moment it still felt like high summer. She walked over to the large front door and pressed the bell.

  After a few moments, the door opened and Peter Hardy peered out at her, the door still held in place by a secure-looking chain. She’d already noted that there was a spyhole in the door, in addition to the CCTV cameras. Clearly, Hardy at least was taking the risk seriously. ‘DI Delamere,’ he said, as though confirming her identity to himself. He closed the door and then reopened it fully. ‘Please come in.’

  She followed him through into the living room, where Michelle Wentworth and Zoe were sitting together on the sofa. Hardy squeezed himself on to the sofa too, next to Wentworth, and put what was presumably intended to be a comforting arm around her. Annie detected a momentary look of irritation on Wentworth’s face, as if Hardy had presumed too much. She sat herself down on an armchair opposite. ‘I’m very sorry to hear about the call. It must have been a shock.’

  ‘I’m just glad it was Peter who answered the phone. I don’t know how I’d have coped. Not after…’

  ‘Of course. You say it was an automated message?’ Annie said. She’d agreed with Zoe that it would be better for Annie to focus on the investigative issues, leaving Zoe to provide any emotional support that might be needed. That might help Zoe to get her feet a little further under the table here.

  ‘Yes,’ Peter Hardy said. ‘I’ve sometimes had that kind of message when someone’s accidentally sent a text to my landline. I don’t know if it was that or someone who’d used some device to digitise their voice.’

  ‘Can you remember what they said?’

  ‘Not perfectly. It was very unexpected, so I wasn’t fully taking it in. But I had a go at writing down roughly what was said. To be honest, I didn’t want Michelle to have to hear it.’ He pointed to a notepad on the coffee table between them. ‘It’s in there.’

  Annie opened the notepad. It was unused apart from Hardy’s neat handwriting on the first page. She skimmed through what he’d written and looked up. ‘I see what you mean. Very detailed and very accurate.’

  ‘Nasty stuff, isn’t it? Especially the stuff about Justin.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘The question is how could they have known so much about his death,’ Wentworth said. ‘DS Everett said you’d only released a short media statement.’

  Interestingly, she didn’t sound unduly fazed either by the fact or the content of the call, Annie thought. Zoe had felt Wentworth had seemed genuinely shaken earlier, so either she had managed to regain some kind of emotional equilibrium in the meantime or she was just trying to maintain her usual impassive front. ‘That’s right. Just the very basic facts. No details of the killing itself.’

  ‘So if whoever called had those details…’

  Annie nodded. Wentworth wasn’t stupid. There was no point in trying to sugar-coat any of this. ‘Either the information was leaked to them in some way, or they had direct knowledge of the murder.’

  ‘Is a leak possible?’ Hardy asked.

  ‘I’d like to say no,’ Annie said. ‘But I’m afraid it’s always possible. I take it that neither of you have given the details to anyone. I’m sorry – I have to ask.’

  Wentworth shook her head. ‘Why would we? We’ve spoken to various relatives and friends about his death, but not in any detail.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone, except in a couple of cases when Michelle asked me to,’ Hardy said. ‘And again not in any detail.’ He gestured towards the notepad. ‘Certainly not in that kind of detail. But you’re saying it could have leaked from your side?’

  She was prepared for a belligerent response from them, but there was no point in denying it. ‘As I say, it’s not impossible. It shouldn’t happen, of course, and the consequences would be severe for anyone found doing it. But I can’t pretend we don’t have leaks. You can imagine – we have a large team involved in the investigation. Not just police officers but all kinds of roles. We’ve occasionally had instances of people deliberately selling information to the media. But more commonly, it’s just someone who shoots their mouth off inappropriately to their family or their friends. We’ll look into that, of course.’

  ‘But why would anyone make a call like that?’ Hardy said. ‘As some sort of joke?’

  ‘Again, it happens, I’m afraid. There are some sick people out there. People who get their kicks from trying to frighten people in this kind of situation. Or, yes, someone’s warped idea of a black joke. Any of that is possible. But my advice is that, until we know differently, we take it seriously.’

  ‘You think they mean it?’ Wentworth said. ‘Those threats?’

  ‘We have to assume they might. We have to work on the assumption that the message is meant to be taken seriously, not just some kind of hoax.’ Annie wondered whether Wentworth had already worked out the implications of what she was saying. ‘If that’s the case, then it does suggest that Justin’s death was aimed at you, Mrs Wentworth.’

  ‘I think we’d come to that conclusion already,’ Wentworth said.

  ‘We still have to keep an open mind,’ Annie said. ‘Murders are committed sometimes for the most unlikely of motives. But it does seem probable that you’re the target here. I’m sorry if that sounds a little brutal, but we have to face the reality. What’s not clear to me is what the threat’s actually about. It’s couched as a warning, but there’s nothing about what they actually want.’ She turned to Hardy. ‘You’re sure that’s all they said?’

  Hardy seemed to hesitate. ‘I don’t pretend I got it down verbatim. I wrote that after the event. At the time, I was just taken aback by it, so I might not have taken in everything. But I don’t think I missed anything important. I see what you mean, though. It’s very explicit, but it’s also a bit – I don’t know, enigmatic, I suppose. As if we’re supposed to know what they’re talking about.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Hardy said. ‘I can’t even guess. I presume it’s likely to be connected with the business in some way, but it could be anything.’

  ‘Can you trace the call?’ Wentworth asked.r />
  ‘We should be able to through the phone company, but it’ll take time. And if it was sent from a mobile, unless we’re dealing with someone really amateur, it’ll most likely just be an anonymous pay-as-you-go phone. We can put a trace on future calls but I wouldn’t be optimistic of achieving much.’

  ‘So what precisely are you doing?’ Hardy said in an exasperated manner. ‘About Justin’s killing, I mean.’

  Annie had been half-expecting some belligerence from Hardy. She still had the feeling that, for whatever reasons, he and Wentworth were keen to deflect and confuse the investigation, and their suggestions of potential suspects had so far proved unproductive. She wouldn’t be entirely surprised if their next tactic was to attack her and the supposed lack of progress in the investigation. With that in mind, she’d already agreed that Zoe should use this visit as an opportunity to provide Wentworth with a detailed update based on their team debrief earlier in the afternoon.

  Annie still thought it unlikely that Michelle Wentworth had killed her own son, and forensics had so far produced no evidence to indicate otherwise. But Hardy might be a different matter, if his apparent arrival just before the police’s had been stage-managed. It was even possible that tonight’s call had been faked. They had only Hardy’s word on the details of the call.

  ‘It’s still early days,’ she said. ‘Zoe will give you a more detailed update. But we’re pursuing numerous lines of enquiry. We’re interviewing potential suspects systematically. We’re in the process of identifying any potential witnesses who were in the vicinity at the relevant time. We’re reviewing the forensics and all the pertinent CCTV and traffic camera footage. We’re looking at burglaries and housebreakings in the area around the relevant dates, and talking to some of our usual suspects.’ She was conscious that this sounded thin, even to her own ears. The truth was that, in the absence of an obvious suspect, this stage of a major inquiry was often little more than the painstaking accumulation of data.

  Slightly to her surprise, Hardy seemed satisfied by her response. ‘I’m assuming you’re working through the lists of names we gave you?’

  ‘We are, of course.’ As well as a list of her competitors, Wentworth had also provided them with a list of supposedly disaffected employees. Annie suspected that the list comprised only a tiny subset of those who’d been adversely affected by Wentworth’s business tactics, focusing on those who’d actually taken her to employment tribunals or actively protested against what she’d done. There was another small group who already had police records because they’d pushed their protests too far – usually by sending threatening communications or engaging in some form of mild vandalism. The team was slowly working through this list, but again so far had identified no credible suspects. Most appeared to have moved on with their lives. ‘We’re interviewing all of them, yes.’ She paused. ‘On that topic, can I ask you about the recent incidents at your operation near Matlock?’

  Wentworth looked up, clearly surprised by the question. ‘What incidents?’

  ‘I understand your business has been involved in some industrial action, and that there was some issue of criminal damage.’

  Annie noted that Wentworth exchanged a glance with Hardy, though she couldn’t read its significance. It was Hardy who responded. ‘Oh, that. Something and nothing, really. It’s a contract we’ve recently taken over, and there’s been an ongoing dispute about the way the employees have been affected. It’s the usual story. We’ve every sympathy for the individuals involved but at the end of the day you have to ensure you have a viable business.’

  Not to mention a large house in the country with a pool, Annie thought. ‘I understand there was a car damaged.’

  Hardy nodded. ‘Company car belonging to the manager. Appalling. But it’s a young workforce there. We think it’s probably just some young hothead who went too far. The dispute’s very unfortunate. We normally try our hardest to avoid that kind of thing, but we also like to delegate those kinds of matters to the local management. In this case, it appears to have got out of hand, but we’re dealing with it now. If you think it might be connected to Justin, then I’d suggest you talk to your colleagues working on the case.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I only became aware of the incident this afternoon from the piece in the Evening Telegraph, so just thought I’d ask while I was here.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that piece,’ Hardy said. ‘Very unfortunate. Not really the publicity we’d have wanted. Especially at a time like this.’

  An interesting comment, Annie thought, given that the news story had seemed largely to be based on a lengthy interview with the manager of the site. Hardy seemed keen to bury the story, no doubt leaving the local manager to carry the can for everything that had happened. Her impression from her background research into Wentworth was that, in general, she was only too happy to parade her ruthless approach to business and employment relations, so it was odd they seemed so keen to downplay this one.

  ‘It may well be another lead for us to follow up, at least,’ Annie said. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can do about increasing police protection for you. It’s always challenging because resources are so tight, but I’ll do my best. We’ll look at getting the phone company to put a trace on your phone, just in case it throws up something useful. We’ll need to get your permission for that, but I’ll sort the details. If you do get more calls, note the times and give us as much information as you can. I don’t know if it’ll get us very far, but it’s all worth trying.’ She looked around. ‘From what I’ve seen of this place, the security’s pretty tight, but I’ll get one of our experts to have a look round and see if they can advise anything additional.

  ‘I’ll leave Zoe to talk you through in more detail where we’re up to with the investigation to date, and the various lines of enquiry we’re pursuing. If there’s anything more you think we could or should be doing, or if there’s anything else you need from us, just let Zoe know. I’ll leave you to it if that’s okay. I can find my own way out, I’m sure.’ She had already risen to her feet, not wanting to give them a chance to object. ‘Just be reassured, Mrs Wentworth, that we’re putting everything we can into this. We’ll find whoever killed your son.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Annie’s short drive home was punctuated by telephone calls. First, as she’d been expecting, she had a call from Stuart Jennings wanting, in his words, ‘a quick catch-up’. ‘I’ve just had yet another call from the Chief,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure we’re on top of things, you know. I take it we are?’

  ‘We’re doing everything we can, Stuart.’

  ‘So what’s the story with Wentworth’s threatening call?’

  ‘It was a fairly nasty one.’ She updated him on her meeting with Wentworth and Hardy. ‘So three possibilities. One is that this really was the killer. The second is that it was just some sick hoaxer who’d managed somehow to get hold of the details of the killing—’

  ‘Which would imply a leak at our end. Shit.’

  ‘Quite. And the third is that Hardy either made the whole thing up or engineered the call himself.’

  ‘Which would imply what? That he’s covering something up? Trying to distract us from other lines of enquiry?’

  ‘Or that he’s trying to protect Wentworth, if we accept her as a potential suspect.’

  ‘And your guess would be?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something smells wrong about the whole thing. I don’t fully trust them, but I’m not sure what game they’re playing.’ She was silent for a moment as she negotiated the traffic roundabout that brought her back onto the main road heading south. ‘Even the transcript of the call felt odd. It was very explicitly threatening but then strangely vague about the aim of the threat. Assuming the call was genuine, I wonder if Hardy deliberately omitted something.’

  ‘Always worth listening to your instincts on something like that. If that’s what you’re feeling, I’d stick with it.’

  ‘I’m just keeping an open mind.’
<
br />   ‘Speaking of open minds,’ Jennings went on, ‘I hear your mother’s been shooting her mouth off again.’

  The grapevine had clearly operated even more quickly than Annie had expected. ‘So I understand.’

  ‘Pity you didn’t let me know in advance.’

  ‘You think she gives me any notice? I only found out myself just before I arrived at Wentworth’s. I understand she’s been going on about the trade unions.’

  ‘Yeah. I just had a call from Gerry on the Comms team to give me the heads-up. The article is going in tomorrow’s paper and on the website tonight, so they sent it to us for comment. In fairness, it’s at least not one of the tabloids, and it’s initially pitched as a general interview. But it’s clear the interviewer’s really just winding her up to talk about her usual hobby horses. It’s presented as if she’s the one who raises the Matlock case just so she can pontificate about the unions, but I wonder if she was deliberately led down that route. Your mother doesn’t make the link herself but the article goes on to mention Wentworth and her son’s death, mainly just to increase the outrage quotient. It doesn’t imply any direct connection between the two, but that might just be because they’re treading cautiously round the libel laws.’

  This sounded faintly paranoid to Annie, but she could understand why Jennings was concerned. ‘No mention of me, I’m assuming.’

  ‘No, thank Christ. That really would be the icing on the cake. But we could do without this, Annie.’

  ‘Tell me about it. If you can suggest any ways of controlling my mother, I’m all ears.’

  ‘I know it’s not your fault, but between your mother and Sheena…’

  ‘I’m the one who’s between my mother and Sheena. I don’t need to be told about it.’

  ‘Okay. But I meant what I said. If we get to the point where it looks like you risk becoming the story, I’m going to have to take you off the Wentworth inquiry.’