NEVER CAME HOME an addictive crime thriller with a twist you won't see coming (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 2)

by Gretta Mulrooney

  Pearce Aston was installing new software at an antiques warehouse called ‘Time After Time.’ It was a huge old barn, filled with rows of curios. The musty smell reminded Ali of his mother’s sacks of poultry feed. True to its name, it specialised in clocks, and Ali walked past lines of ticking timepieces ranked under a banner that said, Enjoy Yourself — It’s Later Than You Think! He wasn’t sure that chilling message would encourage buyers. Aston was in an office at the back, behind the main counter, clicking fast on a mouse.

  ‘Won’t be a min, take a seat.’ He flashed Ali a quick smile before gazing back at the computer screen.

  Ali sat and watched him. Aston was exceptionally handsome, clean-shaven with a square jaw, an aquiline profile and dark, wavy hair. Too good to be true, Ali brooded, resenting his gym-honed frame. The tweed peaked cap was an annoying affectation. He wore the kind of suit that Patrick favoured, narrow trousers with a slim-fitting jacket. Not the type of outfit you could wear when you had a straining gut and flabby torso. Ali sighed and retied a trailing shoelace. Bending down must use a few calories.

  Aston said, ‘Yes!’ and flicked a switch with a flourish. ‘I’m all yours,’ he said breezily to Ali, as if he were bestowing a great favour.

  ‘Will we be uninterrupted in here?’

  ‘Sure. Ms Carstairs, the owner, is out this morning and she said it was okay to use this office. How can I help? It was terrible news about Lyn. Lily’s still in bits.’

  ‘Was it terrible — for you? You didn’t like each other.’

  Aston shook his head. ‘Correction. Lyn didn’t like me. In fact, in my opinion, she hated me. It wasn’t mutual.’ He had a cocky manner. He’d pulled a little footstool up, crossed his ankles on it, and sat with his arms along the sides of the office chair. He might have been granting an audience.

  ‘Oh, I see. Tell me about how you got involved with the family.’

  ‘I have already given this information.’

  ‘So you have. But we have to investigate now with a body and new details.’

  ‘What new details?’ He flicked the brim of his cap.

  None of your business. ‘Quite a few, including forensics. You met Lily at her school in early March 2013, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. I’d started my own company, installing and upgrading software systems. I’m doing really well, built quite a reputation around the region. The contract at the school was one of my first biggies. I walked into a classroom and there was my beautiful Lily. We really clicked and started seeing each other.’

  ‘It must have been difficult.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Her dad had just left the family and they were in turmoil. She’d have been raw and upset, not necessarily a good time to start a new relationship.’

  Aston gave him a supercilious glance. ‘Really? You sound like an agony aunt — sorry, uncle.’ He smiled smugly at his own joke. ‘Lily was mad at her dad and very let down. I couldn’t understand how he could do that to his family, except that, in my opinion, poofs are always flaky. I’m glad we fell in love and I could be there for her and support her. She’d have sunk into depression like her mum if I hadn’t come along. She says that I’m her anchor in life.’

  Ali was starting to enjoy this. Aston was in love with himself, and narcissists often proved to be garrulous in interview. ‘Her mum seemed to have thought that if you hadn’t come along, Lily’d have gone to uni and got a career instead of rushing into marriage.’

  ‘I couldn’t help what Lyn believed. If she was alive now, she might see things differently and even acknowledge that she’d been wrong, although she wasn’t ever the type to eat humble pie. I hope that I’d have won her round in time.’ He seemed satisfied with himself. ‘We’re happily married with our own house, and Lily runs a very successful business with me. It’s growing all the time, so much that I might have to take someone else on. I bet Lily earns loads more now than she would have with some wanky degree in hospitality, which is what she’d been aiming for. I rest my case. Not that I have to explain my marriage to anyone, even you.’

  He had a point but he was an insufferable wee scrote. Ali crossed his legs, knocking the footstool so that one of Aston’s feet dropped to the floor.

  ‘I’d like to hear about the time Lyn came to your flat and there was a row.’

  Aston realigned the footstool and adjusted his shirt cuffs. His silver cufflinks were in a figure of eight with intertwined letters, L and P. ‘Lyn could be very full on and nasty when she took against someone. She’d had one of her regular rows with Lily, and Lily had come round to mine in tears. Then Lyn rocked up, all guns blazing. I wouldn’t have let her in, but she was hammering on the door and annoying the neighbours. I just let her shout herself out. She was demanding that Lily come home with her, but Lily refused and locked herself in the bathroom. Lyn called me all kinds of names, including some I wouldn’t have expected a lady like her to come out with.’ That smug smile again. ‘She spouted ridiculous stuff, like she’d get an injunction or go to Social Services. As if! It was all pathetic, to be honest. In my opinion, she was on a real edge and the doctor should have done more to help her. She needed stronger antidepressants. Finally, she wore herself out and left.’

  ‘Must have really riled you.’

  ‘Yeah, but only so much. I mean, I could have done without it, but Lyn was having a kind of breakdown, and Lily and me were solid. You put up with all kinds of shit when you love someone.’

  ‘Where were you the night Lyn vanished?’

  ‘At the prom, with my Lily. I got there at a quarter to eight, and I was with her until I saw her and her friends off in the limo after midnight.’

  ‘Have you ever had any dealings with Steiner’s in Orford End?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did you ever hear Lyn or anyone else in the family mention it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Okay. A colleague will be in touch with you for a DNA and fingerprint sample. I assume you’ll be happy about that?’

  He didn’t seem too thrilled. ‘Why do you need to do that? No one asked that back when Lyn disappeared.’

  ‘As I said, we have new details. We’re asking everyone who was close to Lyn, or had any connection to the premises where she was found. Just part of how we investigate.’

  ‘It can’t be easy, solving a murder after all this time.’

  ‘Police work’s never easy.’

  ‘Sure, but there won’t be much evidence.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  Aston tweaked his cap. ‘Okay, well, if it’s necessary I’ll give the DNA and fingerprints. Anything to help find whoever did this to Lyn.’

  He sounded insincere, but then sincerity wouldn’t be Aston’s strong point. Ali left him examining the software he’d installed and cycled away into the sunshine.

  Chapter 12

  As Ali neared Patrick’s house, he had an attack of conscience. He hadn’t seen Noah for weeks. He slowed, turned across the road and parked the bike down the side of the house. He had the code to the key safe so let himself in.

  ‘Hi there, Noah, only me.’

  ‘Living room,’ Noah yelled.

  The hallway floor was laminated and grubby, with coffee-coloured splashes at the bottom of the stairs. Noah was in his wheelchair by the window, reading on his Kindle.

  ‘Just calling by. Sorry I haven’t been in for a while.’

  Noah had a blank expression. ‘No need to be sorry. It’s not a duty.’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t need mercy visits.’

  Ali felt wrong-footed. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Patrick ask you to come?’

  ‘No, I invited myself. Mind if I sit down?’

  ‘Help yourself, there isn’t a queue.’

  Ali pulled up a chair. The place was a right kip. The room smelled like overripe fruit and the carpet needed vacuuming. It was unlike Noah to be so cutting. If anything, he usually put too brave a face on his sit
uation. He seemed tense and withdrawn and his hair was matted.

  ‘So, how are you doing?’ Ali asked.

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘I was up at the antiques place on a new case.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘See the match last night? New Zealand were class.’ Ali expected Noah to come back at him, saying that they hadn’t been a patch on Wales and then they’d launch into the usual teasing, but he just shrugged.

  ‘Yep, it was a good one.’

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘Fifty shades of being a vegetable,’ Noah said with a joyless smirk.

  ‘Good read?’

  ‘Excellent. A page-turner. Hope there’ll be a sequel.’ He glanced out of the window.

  There was an awkward silence. Ali began to wish he hadn’t come. Usually, he and Noah had a good bit of banter. Something had changed and he was out of his depth. Maybe the man was in pain or just having a bad day.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A drink? Something to eat?’

  ‘No thanks. You a home help now?’ Noah looked out of the window again.

  ‘Right, whatever you say. Game of cards soon?’

  ‘Sure. Whenever. Cleaner will be here in a minute.’

  Ali wondered what the cleaner did, given the state of the house. ‘You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?’

  ‘Sure. You keep asking that. I do still have some functions. It’s marvellous what I can do with my limited capabilities.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘Good. Anyway, Melinda’s just on her way.’

  ‘That’s the cleaner?’

  ‘Yep.’ Noah bit his lip. ‘Actually, there is something you can do, as you seem so keen. Lend me a twenty? I’m a bit short of cash until I get to a hole in the wall.’

  ‘Sure.’ Ali took his wallet out and handed over a note.

  ‘Thanks. Appreciated.’

  ‘I’ll be off then. See you soon.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  As he wheeled his bike out, Ali met a statuesque woman with burgundy cropped hair, dressed in jeans and a clinging white T-shirt. Her lipstick was fire engine red.

  ‘Hi, are you Melinda?’

  ‘That’s me, hun,’ she said, with a toothy grin.

  ‘I’m Ali, a friend of Noah’s. I just called in to see him. He seems a bit down.’

  ‘Hard for him, isn’t it? Stuck there on his ownio. Some days, he’s a sad panda. I’ll see if I can cheer him up. We get on ever so well.’

  She blew a kiss at the window and fluttered her fingers. She had long, purple lacquered nails. They wouldn’t cope with much cleaning.

  Ali rode back into the traffic. He realised that he was starving and started imagining steak and kidney pie with mashed spud and thick lashings of gravy.

  * * *

  The tiny back room of the narrow terrace house in Chaucer Road was cramped and dim. The walls were decorated with a deep blue embossed paper and covered in hand-painted Greek Orthodox icons of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and various saints. There were rows of Byzantine images on metal and wood. Siv sat below a triptych of a bearded Jesus and two stern angels in vibrant reds and greens. An ornate brass incense burner hung in front of a black and gold Madonna and Child, emitting a complex scent of frankincense and cedar. Music played in the background, deep male voices chanting to an accompaniment of bells. It was as if she’d entered Joe Dimas’s private chapel.

  He might be about to start conducting a service as he sat opposite her, dressed in a black polo neck beneath a black suit, blending into the dark walls. Taking in his thick white hair, bony nose and ice grey eyes, she was put in mind again of a tall, brooding bird, this time a jackdaw. Elegant, but with a certain air of menace.

  ‘What have you done with Lyn’s body, Inspector?’ He made it sound as if she’d hidden it somewhere.

  ‘Lyn is still at the morgue. They’ll inform her husband when she can be released for a funeral.’

  ‘Some husband!’ He made a noise in his throat and then wagged a finger at her. ‘That poor woman, left to rot for years! You should have found her. Yes, you should have been more diligent. I suppose you’re going to make the excuse that you didn’t work on the investigation back then.’

  ‘I wish we had found her, Mr Dimas. In 2013, there was no indication of any connection between Lyn and Steiner’s to take the police who were searching there.’

  ‘Tcha! And is there anything now?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  He made the throat noise again, a rasp of disgust. ‘Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Isn’t that a song?’

  His challenging style was tiresome and she could taste the cloying incense.

  ‘Where were you the night Lyn disappeared?’

  ‘With my priest at the church of St Demetrius. I got there just before seven thirty and I left around two hours later. We wanted to raise funds for our various charitable projects and we decided on a dinner. My son didn’t bother to tell me that Lyn had gone missing until the next day.’

  ‘Were you and Lyn close?’

  ‘We got on well. She was a good wife, and a good mother and daughter-in-law, nurturing and caring. My wife died a long time ago, and it was a pleasure to have a homemaker like Lyn around. She always made sure I was invited to family occasions, and she’d pop in to see me with casseroles and such. A woman, a mother, is the backbone and the beating, constant heart of any family, the source of comfort and reassurance. How can two men, two husbands create a family unit? It’s against God and nature.’

  You haven’t met my mother. ‘So did Lyn turn to you after Theo left her?’

  Dimas steepled his fingers. ‘I would say we turned to each other. We spoke regularly. It’s hard to describe how shattered and appalled we both were. Such a betrayal, such shame on our family. And of course, the children were badly affected. I suppose that working with the police, you have to be politically correct about such things, but I say that a man who leaves his family for another man is no man at all. He’s a thing of corruption and weakness.’ It was issued as another challenge and he clenched a fist as he spoke.

  ‘I don’t agree with you, and not through political correctness, but let’s not get distracted. Lily seems very fond of you. What did you make of her relationship with Pearce and Lyn’s animosity towards it?’

  His eyes glittered in the gloom. ‘That’s the one thing that Lyn and I disagreed on. She became insistent and rather loud and shrill about it, in a way that’s unbecoming in a woman.’ He made a little moue of distaste.

  Siv could see how Lily’s traditional set-up with Pearce would appeal to him, with Lily playing the homemaker and baking Papu’s favourite pastries. ‘Lyn didn’t listen to your views on her daughter?’

  ‘Sadly, no, she wouldn’t see sense. She got quite heated about it one day at the clinic, so I decided to stay away from her, give her some space. I never saw her again.’

  ‘You sided with Lily.’

  ‘I sided with common sense. I couldn’t see why Lily needed to go to university, and as for her being too young — I was married at eighteen and it was the making of me. I can’t begin to explain how much I still miss my dear wife, even after twenty-five years. Pearce is a fine man, a man’s man, with his own company and great ambition. Lily introduced him to me and I could see how much they loved each other. I was sure that he could look after her. Marriage is a great institution, and I believed it would be good for my dear Lily, especially after her father turned out to be such a disappointment.’ His expression softened as he spoke his granddaughter’s name.

  ‘Lyn had a lot on her plate, with Theo leaving, and then her worries about Lily. Did she talk to you about any other problems?’

  ‘No. Those would be enough for anyone, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes. But what about her work? She treated you at the clinic. Did she have any problems there?’

  ‘None that she mentioned to me.’

  ‘Did yo
u ever suspect she was seeing someone else?’

  The incense burner sputtered and he glanced at it, tensing as if he might spark flames himself. ‘Tcha! Of course not! Lyn was a decent woman. She wasn’t going to betray her marriage, even if her husband had.’ He jabbed an accusing finger again. ‘I hope you’re not going to start tarnishing her memory. What’s the point of these questions? You must already have much of this information.’

  He sat perched in his chair, as if ready to pounce. The man chilled her. He wouldn’t be someone to cross. He might be in his early seventies, but he was lithe and fit. The rich air choked the room. Siv’s head was woolly, her airways tightening and the ranks of icons seemed to be crowding in. She stared at the veiled Madonna and Child. The Mother of God had a jaded expression. She blinked and focused, returning Joe Dimas’s sharp tone.

  ‘We found Lyn’s DNA at Steiner’s. It indicates that she took part in sexual activity there — whether voluntarily or under duress, we can’t say, or when it happened. Have you any idea why she might have been there?’

  That stopped him in his tracks for a moment and his head darted back. ‘That’s shocking, but I have no idea how she got to that place. She never mentioned it to me. This is terrible. Does Lily need to be told that her mother was molested?’