He hadn’t meant to be gone so long. Her low-cut top exposed his fingermarks on her neck and he grinned. The damsel-in-distress look suited her so well, better than he’d ever have thought. He only wished she was enough for him but she had merely been the catalyst for what he’d done wrong – not that he regretted it. His fingers twitched, but not for her. His body craved a release, and she couldn’t help. His mind craved a new memory, one that could be replayed for an eternity, but it wasn’t craving memories of her.
‘Let me go,’ she whimpered.
She looked so insincere he almost wanted to burst into laughter. ‘You’re awake.’ He pulled a bottle of water from his bag and held it to her berry-coloured lips. She guzzled down half the contents before spluttering a mouthful into her lap. He bent down to stare into her eyes but she turned away. ‘You hungry?’
She shook her head.
He kissed her gently on the forehead taking in the damp smell that had seeped through her clothes and hair. ‘You’re cold.’ He grabbed a fleecy blanket and pulled it over her shoulders. She still wouldn’t look at him even though he was doing everything possible to make her comfortable. This was a game he hadn’t played before. He didn’t know what his next move would be. All he could do was improvise.
He dragged a chair from under the stairs and slumped into it. It had been a long tense day, which was evident by the smell seeping from his pits. ‘Look at me.’ She looked down. He grabbed her hair and turned her face to his before locking his lips over hers. ‘There, that’s better.’ Was it better? It didn’t feel right at all. He didn’t know why he was bothering. It wasn’t working. This was all too weird.
She wasn’t enough – this woman in front of him. There was another on the horizon and he knew just where to find her. He pulled the phone from his pocket and reread the stored messages.
‘Okay, if you won’t be nice, I guess I’ll have to leave you here a bit longer.’ As he stood to leave, he slipped his hand behind a bottle of wine and checked to see if Holly’s tablet and phone were still there. They were. She glanced across at the pink tablet then looked away again. The woman in front of him had read everything on that phone and tablet already.
Once again, she leaned her head on the shelving and closed her eyes. He hurried back up the creaky steps and locked the door behind him. He had some business to attend to, some paperwork to straighten, then he’d be leaving for good. All the plans had been made and starting again would be fun, a whole new world of opportunities was about to open up. However, one opportunity lay on his doorstep and the urge to take it made him feel like an addict chasing a fix. He knew exactly who was next in line.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Wyre stood in front of the boards while she added to the notes under the photos of Francesca, and O’Connor leaned back in his seat at the other end of the room. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a squashed pasty. Gina felt the saliva building up in her mouth. She’d barely eaten over the course of the day and he was making her hungry.
‘Are you okay going through the post-mortem with us?’
‘Yes, guv,’ Wyre replied. ‘Thankfully everything went without a hitch. O’Connor didn’t heave once – result. It was pretty much as described at the scene. We can confirm that Francesca Carter definitely drowned in her own bathwater. A huge clump of her hair was missing from her head and that too was found at the scene. There was evidence of several knocks to the back of her head, consistent with being dunked repeatedly. I’m afraid there wasn’t much more to report. No evidence of previous abuse. No evidence of strangulation like we found on Holly Long’s neck. She was slightly underweight for a twenty-five-year-old.’ Wyre did the zip up on her black jacket and shivered a little.
‘Anything flag up in the post-mortems to link Francesca Carter to Holly Long? They were both asphyxiated, one in water and one with a pillow, but was there anything else?’
Wyre flicked through her notes and scanned a few pages. ‘No.’
‘Okay, what are we missing? Holly was pregnant.’
‘Francesca definitely wasn’t,’ Wyre interrupted.
‘Any sign of a flower or petals on her body?’
‘No, guv.’
Gina’s mind whirred. ‘I have a theory. Francesca wasn’t pregnant. Carnations are Mother’s day flowers. The petals had been sprinkled across Holly’s stomach, the murderer trying to tell us that Holly was a mother. The flower head in Holly’s throat, was that to gag her, to stop her from talking about her pregnancy? And now I’m bouncing back to there being two suspects.’ Gina stared at the wall as she let the cases flood her mind. ‘How about the scene? Anything else to report?’
Wyre shook her head. ‘They are still processing evidence. As we know, the main exhibit is the footprint.’
‘Problem is, the two we’ve had in today are both a size nine and as it’s a popular size, I’m guessing we’ll get more size nine suspects. We still have Edward Powell to consider. Have we located the owner of the Red Setter yet?’
O’Connor swallowed a lump of pasty and swigged his drink. ‘It’s not for the want of trying. We’ve watched that footage several times and not one person gets out of a car with a Red Setter. They’re big dogs too. I wouldn’t have missed it.’
Gina flinched as the voice came from behind.
‘I’ve included an appeal for this particular dog walker or anyone who may have seen them in the press release that has just gone out. Expect to be bombarded with calls, it’s already hit the locals and social media.’ Briggs leaned against the doorframe as he placed his hands in his trouser pockets.
‘Thank you.’ She took a few steps and looked out into the potholed car park lined with police cars and her phone rang. ‘Bernard.’ She listened and smiled as he reeled off his information.
‘What is it, Harte?’ Briggs asked.
Everyone in the room waited in silence for her to break the news. ‘The foetus, Holly’s baby, we have a DNA lead, on the father’s side. Officers in Cardiff have arrested a woman for driving under the influence and she is a twenty-five per cent match, which means she could be a grandparent or aunt of the baby’s father. Problem is, we don’t know her name as yet. She’s apparently so drunk they’re letting her sleep it off for a while. She was also caught in a stolen car. The owner pulled up to post a letter and she drove off in the car. They’re going to keep disturbing her to see if she can talk. As soon as they have anything, they’re going to message back. Her mugshot is on its way. Let’s hope she bears some resemblance to one of our suspects.’
A slight cheer filtered through the room. It was the biggest breakthrough they’d had. All they had to do was check out her family tree to work out who they needed to bring in.
Gina kept hitting refresh on the computer screen next to the boards but the photo still hadn’t arrived. She glanced up at Holly and Francesca’s photos. Her fingers tingled with excitement. The email pinged up from Cardiff Police.
Everyone crowded around and waited for the photo to load. Seconds later, they had a mugshot of their drunk driver. A short, round-faced woman with greasy hair. She had one eye open and the other half shut and her nose was a sore shade of pink with a couple of scabs around the edge.
‘She doesn’t look like anyone we know.’ Jacob slumped back over to his chair and fell into it.
‘I guess we’ll just have to wait until she’s sobered up a bit.’ Gina grabbed her notebook and popped it into her laptop bag. ‘Anything else?’
A low hum of noes filled the room.
‘I’m going to be working from home. If anything comes in from the press releases, call me any time, whatever the hour. I’ll go through everything we have on the system again and again until I find something.’
She took one last glance at the woman in the photo and tilted her head. She couldn’t see a resemblance to anyone she knew. She tilted her head the other way. The shape of the woman’s chin seemed familiar. She looked away. It was just a chin. Any familiarity she thought she may have seen had no
w long gone. She stared for a further second and zipped her bag up.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Gina threw her keys onto the kitchen table. Ebony jumped through the cat flap and began rubbing her head against Gina’s black trousers, depositing hair all over them. She bent down and lifted the cat up, stroking her before kissing her on the head. She put the cat on the table and pushed a sachet of food into the cat bowl, before heading to the living room and booting her laptop up. She had come home to work in comfort, not to take the rest of the night off.
She tried Hannah again but the phone kept going to voicemail. It was no good, she was going to have to call Nanny Hetty, her ex-husband’s mother. Her daughter had been there when they last spoke. She pressed the number and waited.
‘Hello,’ came the gruff voice on the other end, a voice that sent a shiver through her.
‘Hetty, it’s Gina.’ She swallowed and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow.
‘I know who you are. What the hell do you want? How you’ve got the nerve to call here after all that you’ve done.’ The woman coughed as one would expect when she smoked about eighty a day.
‘I need to know if Hannah’s there.’
The sounds of Gracie playing made Gina smile. At least Gracie was okay. Hetty had many faults but she knew that her granddaughter would be safe with the woman. It was Gina she hated. ‘I’m surprised you had the nerve to call after what your lovely colleague did to my Stephen last year. You tried to set him up. Told him to shut up or the planted evidence would come out. I may be a thick-looking old boot but I know more than I make out. You’re nothing but a devious bitch.’
Hetty was right. The secret that Gina was now keeping for Briggs had consequences and Hetty’s hatred of her was one of them. Stephen’s withdrawal from making her life a misery was another, which she was thankful of. There was no way she’d ever admit a thing. Briggs’s secret was as safe with her as hers was with him. That’s the way it would be, for life.
‘Hetty, this is ridiculous. I’m worried about Hannah. Is she there?’
‘Have it your way, but we know what you’re like. We know.’ She paused. ‘Hannah isn’t here. She left after you woke us all up with your call and said she was going back to the B&B as the settee was hurting her back. I want to spend time with Gracie, not like you, so I said she should go out and enjoy herself for the remains of her stay.’
A tear filled Gina’s eye. That had stung. She loved spending time with Gracie but she had a job, a demanding job that she loved. Hetty was retired.
‘You were always selfish, even when our Terry were alive. You didn’t even care when he died. I saw you drinking at his funeral, that emotionless face. I tell you something and it plays on my mind. I saw my boy come back on many an occasion after a skinful and not once did he fall down – not over a step or down any stairs. Anyway, snowflake, you get back to your duties. Go back to work while I look after this beautiful little girl.’ Hetty slammed the phone down.
Gina’s heart hummed as the pace picked up. Soon it was booming, threatening to burst through her ribs. Pain seared across her chest and she gasped for breath. She tried to scream but a burst of sobs escaped as she slipped to the floor, pulling the door handle off a cupboard as she dropped. Her wedding night flashed through her mind as her vision peppered. The light of the kitchen being replaced by that of her mind’s eye. Terry’s hands gripping her neck as he forced himself on her. The pleasure in his eyes as he gripped harder. The main light of their bedroom was still on and so was her dress, the cheap thing she’d bought from the high street. From that moment, he owned her.
She opened her eyes to Ebony’s meows. She breathed in and out until she’d regained control. The tremor in her fingers reached all the way to her elbows as she breathed in the air around her. The pains subsided but her stomach churned. Ebony forced her head under her arm so she stroked her gently until the shaking went. She threw the door handle across the kitchen floor, scaring Ebony out of the cat flap. ‘I’m sorry,’ she called out. She hadn’t meant to scare her furry companion away. Pull yourself together, Harte.
She staggered to a stand, a wash of weakness set in her muscles and bones. Yawning, she’d love nothing more than to go to bed and ruminate over her conversation with Hetty. The woman had been right. She knew both of her sons better than Gina would ever know Hannah and she understood deep down that something more than a stumble on the stairs had happened to Terry. Gina would never tell her how she held back on calling for that ambulance as he took his dying breath. She’d never tell Hetty about all the times she thought she’d die at his hands while he was alive. That was her bit of control. She knew the truth about everything, Hetty knew nothing. That was her ultimate win. It was her only win.
Leading with her weary legs, she flopped onto the settee and grabbed her laptop. She scrolled through the case files methodically.
She’d stared at the photo of the drunk driver who shared DNA with their murdered woman’s baby. She couldn’t pinpoint the familiarity even though she’d been through all the suspect photos. She checked her watch – it was almost eleven and she had to be back at the station for five to prepare for the search of Robin Dawkins’s flat. It was going to be another long day. She opened the files containing Holly Long’s bank statements and reread all the notes that had been made beside them.
Her phone rang and she grabbed it. ‘Any news?’
Briggs paused for a second before speaking. ‘Only that the press release went out. I also saw a report out tonight that questioned our competency. The link has been made that both victims were at the same wedding reception. They’re dubbing it “The Bridesmaid Murders”. It’s a nightmare. What are you up to?’
‘I’m just scrutinising Holly Long’s bank statements. Her spending exceeded her income by several hundred pounds per month. She had no credit at all. Had she not been receiving a regular payment of fifteen hundred pounds per month on top of her meagre salary, she’d be in major debt by now.’ Gina glanced at the dates as she bit her nails. ‘She’d been receiving this supplementary income since moving into her flat over a year ago from…’ She looked at the reference. It was a series of numbers, the length of an account number. ‘I mean, could she have had another job that we don’t know about? She received the same amount on the same date, every month. This suggests a permanent contract.’
‘That is odd. Or blackmail? Something to consider.’ Briggs paused.
‘Definitely. I’m not ruling anything out right now. We need to go full throttle on this. We need to find out whom this account number belongs to and where the account is registered.’
Gina reached across and grabbed the black coffee from the table and took a swig.
‘It was lovely spending the night at yours, I’m just sorry I went out like a light on the couch. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ A slight smile emerged from her lips. ‘Anyway, I have about five hours sleep and then I need to be up to raid Dawkins’s flat. I’ll see you tomorrow when I get back to the station.’ There was no way she was going to tell him about her panic attack or how niggled she felt about the photo of the drink driver who seemed key to progressing with the case. She only hoped that the woman spoke some coherent words soon.
‘I’ll catch you tomorrow. Goodnight, Gina.’ He paused for a few seconds then ended the call.
She swapped the screens over and glanced back at the photo. She leaned in, studying the contours of the woman’s face, the shape of her nose, the distance of her eyes. She stopped at the chin, slightly wide, then her eyes were pulled to the nose again. It was more of an all over resemblance to someone who was familiar but it wasn’t obvious. A subtle bit here and a slight likeness there. Nothing definite was pointing her to the person this woman reminded her of. She slammed the lid down and closed her eyes with that face etched into her mind.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Wednesday, 13 May 2020
Lilly stood in the garden under the moon’s light enjoying every puff on her
vape. She’d given up smoking when she’d found out she was pregnant with Ben. She and Brendan ceremoniously tore up their cigarettes and threw them in the bin. She hadn’t told Brendan that all through her pregnancy she’d obsessed over giving birth so that she could have a smoke. Instead, as soon as her stitches had healed enough for her to get to a shop, she’d taken up vaping and still hid the habit like the secret that it was.
She inhaled the vanilla vapour, enjoying the slight rush through her body as she puffed into the air. It floated straight past their bedroom window. If Brendan woke up, he’d not only wonder where she was, he might wonder why a thick cloud of smoke was visible through the slight gap in the curtains. She took a few steps down the garden towards the back gate and inhaled again. The security light clicked off. If he woke to that, she could always say she couldn’t sleep or she felt a bit yuck. Whatever – she’d find an excuse. As long as he didn’t see vapour, she was in the clear.
She loved the silence. It was rare. Since Ben had come along, their house had been filled with the sound of cartoons, Ben’s crying and more often, his laughter. She loved it all but still, the lure of her night-time secret puffs on the vape while enjoying the night’s silence was strong. This moment was hers and no one else’s. As she took another puff, she held the vapour in her mouth as she listened to a shuffle at the other side of the gate. Silently exhaling, she crept backwards, triggering the security light again. That was twice. She was sure she’d wake Brendan up now. For once, she really hoped she had. She’d have to tell him that she’d heard a noise and came for a look, but he’d be angry. He’d tell her she should have woken him and he’d be right. No, the shuffling had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination. The other night when they saw someone loitering, that could have been nothing more than a person passing by. Having the panic alarm fitted was overkill.
Her Last Mistake - Detective Gina Harte Series 06 (2020) Page 22