Her Last Mistake - Detective Gina Harte Series 06 (2020)

by Kovach, Carla

  Her stomach turned as she waited for Elvis to make an appearance.

  As the shower stopped spraying, a loud hammering knock at the door startled her.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ Elvis unlocked the bathroom door and trod wet footsteps over the carpet.

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Shall I answer it?’

  ‘Durr, yes! What the hell have you done to your face?’

  He obviously didn’t approve of her make-up. She hurried to the door. ‘Hello, who is it?’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘It’s the police,’ she mouthed.

  The knocking continued.

  She gently opened the door with the chain across it. ‘Hello.’

  The bald man in a suit and the woman with straight shoulder-length black hair held up their identification. ‘Detective Constables Wyre and O’Connor,’ the woman said. ‘We’re looking for Robin Dawkins.’

  She glanced across at the lounge as his jaw dropped and he rubbed his chin.

  ‘May we come in?’ DC Wyre asked.

  She removed the chain and opened the door.

  ‘Cassandra Wilson?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  As the two detectives entered the lounge, Cass took a step back and nervously clasped both hands in front of her, gripping them tightly.

  ‘What do you want?’ Elvis grabbed an old hoodie from the back of the chair and slipped it over his head.

  ‘We’re going to need you to come to the station to make a statement under caution. Francesca Carter was found murdered in her home last night and we need to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘What? No way. Am I under arrest?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Then I’m not going anywhere.’ He sat on the chair and placed an unlit cigarette between his lips.

  ‘Okay, we can arrest you on suspicion of murder and keep you in for questioning for twenty-four hours or you can come with us voluntarily and this could be over within a couple of hours.’

  Cass felt a quiver at her knees. Had Fran been the woman who was messaging her boyfriend? Had he committed the unthinkable? She hated herself for doubting him but he had given her every reason. ‘What’s happening, Elvis?’

  He huffed and stood, grabbed his jeans and began pulling them up under the towel around his waist. As he zipped them up, the towel dropped to the floor. ‘Just get this over with quick and, for the record, I haven’t hurt anyone. I’m not the person I was back then. I’ve changed. I know why you’re here. I’ve done my time and you’re harassing me. I was just a kid.’

  ‘What have you done?’ That’s the first Cass had heard about her boyfriend doing time.

  ‘Nothing. It’s in the past and I just want to forget it but this lot won’t let me, ever.’

  She stared at him as he finished getting ready. She didn’t know him at all. Was he dangerous? She’d been living with him all this time and she had no idea he’d been in prison. The news of Elvis getting arrested would soon sweep around the community. Would the press start to hassle them? Maybe Kerry would find out. If Elvis had committed the unthinkable against Kerry’s two best friends, would there be room for Cass in her life? Everything was falling apart. Had it been Elvis, the very man she lived with, who had been lurking outside Lilly’s house the night before when she’d arrived? Had he scared the life out of her as he followed her back to the flat? She opened her mouth to speak to the police but Elvis glared right at her. There was no way she’d say a thing. The look in his eyes told her that she’d regret uttering anything.

  As they led him out, she closed the door and rushed to the window, watching as they bundled him into the car and drove off.

  Leaning against the kitchen wall, she kicked back and wiped the tear that slid down her face. ‘Please message me, Kerry. I need a friend too,’ she murmured.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  ‘Phillip Brighton, please answer yes or no for the tape. Did you know Holly Long?’ Gina waited for him to lie again. Jacob kept his gaze on Phillip too.

  ‘I swear I don’t. Why have you got me in here for questioning again? I checked in as per my bail conditions. I’ve done everything I had to do.’ He plunged both hands into the pockets of his denim jacket.

  ‘For the tape, you checked in late. We have a witness who claims that you knew Holly. We also have CCTV evidence showing you pressing the buzzer to Holly’s apartment on Wednesday the twenty-fifth of March.’ She removed a camera still from the folder and slid it across the table. The resolution wasn’t perfect but the man had Phillip Brighton’s hair and was wearing the same jacket. ‘Can you confirm that this is you?’ The video wasn’t clear enough to tell which buzzer he’d pressed but Gina wasn’t about to mention that yet.

  He reached for the photo and stared at it. ‘Okay, it’s me in the picture.’

  ‘Why did you say you didn’t know Holly when clearly you do?’

  ‘Look, I didn’t even know her name was Holly.’

  ‘But you recognised her?’

  ‘I thought I’d be in trouble. I was in the toilet at the time of her murder and I told you that already. I don’t have an alibi and you lot hate me. That’s why I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘What size shoes do you wear?’

  ‘Nine. Why?’

  Gina exhaled. ‘Where were you last night? That’s Monday the eleventh of May, between six and eight in the evening?’

  ‘At home?’ His gaze darted from Gina to Jacob, then back to Gina.

  ‘We visited you last night and you weren’t at home. I will repeat the question, where were you last night?’

  ‘I want my solicitor.’ He made a zip motion across his lips with his grubby fingers and his left eye twitched a little.

  ‘Interview terminated at thirteen twenty-two hours.’ Gina slammed her folder shut and stood to leave the room. ‘I suggest we get Mr Ullah here straight away. We are going to get to the bottom of this. It’s not looking good for you, Mr Brighton.’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The strip light above flickered as Gina and Jacob headed away from the interview rooms.

  ‘Phillip Brighton was definitely up to no good last night, but did he kill Francesca and if he did, why? He has no history of violence whatsoever. Why won’t he just tell us where he was and get this over with? But he’s not making it that easy. His solicitor, Mr Ullah, will take ages to get here. He’ll then tell him to keep his mouth shut and we’ll be none the wiser.’

  Gina rolled up the sleeves of her oversized shirt and undid her top button. It was stuffy at the station or maybe she was having a flush. One or the other. She continued leading the way along the corridor. ‘If he has no history and he did murder Holly and Francesca, what triggered it? I don’t feel as though he has the intelligence to have committed the crimes. Francesca’s murder was well thought out. The assailant wore boot covers, possibly gloves too as no unexplained prints were found. So far, there has been no DNA evidence turn up.’

  Jacob followed her and loosened his tie.

  Gina stopped outside the closed incident room door as she continued to ponder. ‘I just don’t get it. He wears size nines, that’s a start but not much else fits. He had opportunity but no motive. Maybe Holly was buying drugs from Phillip Brighton and she threatened to shop him at the reception. Would he care that much? None of this is making sense. We need to find the father of Holly’s baby. I checked the system. The foetus’s DNA has been catalogued but there was no match on the system.’

  ‘One thing we can confirm, although it’s not much, is that the baby’s father was neither Phillip Brighton nor Robin Dawkins. They both have a past. We have them well and truly logged.’

  ‘Elimination is a start. One thing to consider though is the murderer may not have been the baby’s father either.’ She twisted the strands of hair that framed her face and pulled a frustrated expression. ‘We’re close you know.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘Maybe Francesca’s post-mortem might throw us a lead. Also, do we have access to Ho
lly’s bank statements yet?’

  ‘Yes. They arrived this morning.’

  ‘Great. I want to delve into her lifestyle. I can’t see how she could have afforded everything she had on her salary.’

  Jacob nodded. ‘Yes, that’s a mystery.’

  ‘And, Trevor Reed, our witness who saw what Samuel Avery was up to on the night of the reception, do we know when he’s due in?’

  ‘Not as yet.’ He pushed the door open.

  Wyre removed her coat as O’Connor slumped into the swivel chair next to his computer.

  ‘Alright, guv? We’ve just brought Robin Dawkins, AKA Elvis, into custody. He’s in interview room one at the moment. PC Kapoor is with Lilly Hill, setting up the panic alarm and we have concrete confirmation that Holly’s manager at the microbrewery, Rick Elder, was skyping his sister in Australia at the time of Holly’s murder. The sister’s girlfriend took a piece of time-stamped video footage of them doing stupid impressions and joking around. The communications provider has also backed this up.’ O’Connor smiled as he clicked his email icon.

  ‘I suppose we can finally eliminate him for now. Good work. What time is Trevor Reed due in to make his statement?’ Gina grinned. Finally, she’d be able to convince her daughter once and for all that Samuel Avery was bad news.

  ‘He’s just arrived,’ Wyre interjected.

  ‘Robin Dawkins can stew for a while. I’ll grab a drink and then take his statement. This, I’m looking forward to.’ She pulled her sleeves back down and tucked her loose strands of hair behind her ears.

  ‘We’re just leaving for the morgue, guv,’ O’Connor said. ‘We’ll catch up later.’

  ‘Great. Anything to do with flowers anywhere in the body, let me know immediately. Any sign yet of Samuel Avery?’

  Wyre shook her head. ‘None at all. His staff opened the pub. They said he’d headed to his sister’s in London last night, just for a visit apparently. They also said he’d be back later today.’

  ‘Mystery solved. That’s if he ever even went to his sister’s.’ As far as Gina was concerned, until that information and his timings had been confirmed, he was still a suspect in Francesca’s murder. She inhaled, taking a moment. Time to nail Avery on other charges for now. With two witnesses he had a lot more explaining to do. Since the last time she interviewed him, things were looking even worse now that Francesca, the one witness, had been murdered. In the absence of any carnations placed at the scene, she had to consider that someone else was involved and that maybe it was Avery.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Gina entered the room to find Trevor Reed already seated and sipping a machine coffee. The man looked to be in his early fifties and was equally as well preened as Alison Reed had been when Gina saw her the night before. He smoothed his full head of hair down with one hand and rested his other on the leather wallet and phone that lay on the table that divided them. Jacob shuffled behind him in the snug room and sat next to Gina.

  ‘Thank you for coming in so promptly,’ she said.

  ‘Once I heard what had happened to Fran, I had no choice. I can tell you, our family are deeply saddened by what has happened. Holly and Fran have been a part of our lives for years, on and off. They were Kerry’s best friends. I remember the slumber parties, the cinema nights. I picked them up when they all went to their first night club.’ He paused. ‘My wife and I treated them all like our own and I saw how that man was treating Fran at our daughter’s reception. To think I paid good money for him to provide the guest ale bar, then I see him upsetting one of her bridesmaids.’ The man closed his eyes and swallowed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m still taking all this in.’

  ‘That’s okay. Take your time.’

  He took a long deep breath and opened his eyes. ‘I heard shouting when I left the function room to use the men’s room. Fran was telling him to get away from her, in fact she was shouting it. I couldn’t hear every word over the music but I caught some of it.’

  ‘Would you confirm who you are referring to?’

  ‘That prick, Samuel Avery. I hired him to pull pints not bridesmaids. I digress. He wasn’t pulling her, he was gripping her by the wrist and she was telling him that it hurt and that what he’d done to her was unforgivable. She said a few things like “stay away from me”.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  He shook his head and pursed his lips. ‘I can’t be sure. I know the gatecrashers had arrived as a bit of a ruckus had begun. I was heading to the toilet before I took care of matters.’ Gina flicked back to the previous report that Francesca Carter had given. She claimed to have been sexually assaulted before the gatecrashers arrived. Maybe this was a separate incident.

  ‘She yelled at him to get his hands off her and that she’d already told him to leave her alone.’

  ‘Did you intervene?’

  ‘No, I didn’t think it was my place. It also ended as quickly as it started. I didn’t want her to know I’d overheard what had happened so I ducked into the toilets and when I came out, they were gone. Francesca was back in the function room having a drink.’ He scrunched his brow.

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘A little deep in thought. She was sitting alone for a minute or two. I thought of asking if she was okay but Kerry grabbed her and pulled her onto the dance floor. Within what seemed like seconds, I spotted another gatecrasher. That took me away from my concerns about Fran. They were already drunk and loud, they took a bit of manhandling out of the room. I forgot all about what had happened between Fran and Sam until last night, when I found out about her murder. I didn’t know if what I’d seen was even relevant. I just knew that if it was and he had something to do with her murder, I’d never forgive myself for keeping quiet.’ He exhaled and rubbed his tired eyes. ‘Sorry, my daughter has been upset most of the night, upset and severely drunk. It’s taken it out of my wife and me.’

  ‘Going back to the reception, you say Samuel Avery grabbed her wrist. Can you tell me any more?’ Gina felt her pulse quickening. He was helping with the case against Avery more than he realised.

  ‘He was gripping it. She was trying to pull away but he wouldn’t let go. He said something on the lines of “you wanted it too. I could tell you were turned on”. To begin with, I thought they’d had some sort of tryst but there was something defensive in her tone, a quiver to her voice, almost like fear or anger. That’s when I heard her say that he was hurting her. I definitely heard her shout, “stay away from me” but he treated it like a joke and replied with something like she’d been flirting with him. That really is it. I didn’t hear any more.’

  Gina thought about Holly; maybe Trevor Reed would remember something he hadn’t previously thought of. ‘Do you remember seeing Holly around this time?’

  ‘I can’t say that I do. I said that in my statement. I had gatecrashers to deal with. I wasn’t really switched on to who was around me.’

  Gina knew that Holly left the room around this time. Other witness statements had confirmed that. The gatecrashing incident had acted like one big distraction. Had Phillip Brighton come in and sneaked past everyone, following Holly to her room? Had Samuel Avery given up on Fran and taken his frustrations out on Holly? Everyone said that Cassandra Wilson was working alone through a lot of the evening while Samuel Avery and Robin Dawkins enjoyed the party. Had Robin succumbed to the same dark urges buried in his past and followed Holly up to her room? Maybe the party had triggered his behaviour. She now had what she felt were three firm suspects who had opportunity and motive and all three of them had failed to provide an alibi for the night of Francesca’s murder. ‘Thank you for coming forward.’

  ‘It was my moral obligation to do so. I have a daughter and when it comes down to it, I know I should have intervened but, as I say, it was over so quickly. I suppose I failed Fran. If I’d have said something, she may still be here. The focus was all on Holly after what had happened. None of us were thinking straight that night.’ He fiddled with the cufflinks on his sleeve. ‘That’s
something I’ll have to live with.’

  Gina let out a small cough. She knew exactly how it felt to live with guilt, although her guilt was darker in nature. She placed her hand around the side of her neck and swallowed. Terry had felt no guilt at all for what he’d done to her. She wondered if he’d have felt any remorse if he’d have killed her when he had his hands gripped around her neck. All this talk of weddings was starting to play on her mind.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming and telling us what you remember.’ She fished a card from the folder. ‘If you remember anything else, call me. Do you remember seeing the other barperson around, Robin Dawkins?’

  ‘Oh him. Useless, he was. Fancies himself as an Elvis impersonator. He was chatting up all the women in the room with his little Elvis sound bites but I think most of them found him annoying. I don’t remember seeing him when the gatecrashers came but I may have just missed him. As I keep saying, my mind was on other things. He could have been there all along. His girlfriend looked upset though.’

  ‘Cassandra Wilson?’

  ‘That’s the one. Short, ample and curly-haired. It was sad to see her being ignored while he flirted away. I felt a bit sorry for her but these things happen. You hope that young women with toads for boyfriends finally see sense.’ He glanced at his watch.

  Gina thought of Robin Dawkins waiting in another interview room. He was next on her list.

  ‘Did you see this man at all?’ She passed him a mugshot of Phillip Brighton.

  He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and slid them up his nose. ‘Ah yes. That’s Phil. I don’t know him well but I have seen him in the Angel Arms once or twice, he always looks stoned. My daughter does goofy impressions of him, the way he slouches and twitches. I know that doesn’t sound kind but it’s done in good humour. He was there on the night of the reception. I saw him later on in the evening but when you arrived, he’d gone. I can’t say that I took much notice of him. He wasn’t the rowdiest of the gatecrashers. He came across as a little weasel but that’s as far as it goes. As I said before, I had a lot of other things to take care of and once we found out what happened to Holly, my family were distraught. It was like time stood still and I lost all focus on what was happening. The whole night after that was a blur. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.’