by Vicky Jones
“Um… Sorry, I need to go.” Katie dropped her phone into her jacket pocket and leaned down from her bar stool to pick her bag up off the floor, knocking into the table and rattling the wine glasses into each other. Dawn leapt into action to save her glass from spilling over.
“Oh, right. OK. You want me to walk with you? I don’t mind,” Dawn said, reaching down for her handbag, but when she looked up Katie had already left.
“You’re home early,” Tom said over his shoulder as he heard the front door slam and the interior door to the lounge open. He turned backwards to look at Katie from the cream leather sofa. “Good night with the girls?”
“I finally got a reply from Jenny,” Katie replied, her face stained with dry tears and mascara streaks.
Tom leapt over the arm of the couch and rushed over to embrace her. “And?” he said, his green eyes wide.
“She said no. I gave her four possible dates for me to come up and see her, take Charlotte out for a milkshake or something, and she said no to all of them.” Katie spread her hands. “I can’t believe she’s being like this.”
“She said no?” Tom said, shaking his head. “I don’t get it either. What’s the story with you two? Christ, it’s like she’s holding something terrible against you, or something.”
“Well, it wasn’t a ‘no’, just an ‘it’s not a good time’ sort of answer. But she’s just fobbing me off, like usual. I mean, I’ve given her so much notice. But apparently all the dates are when she’s got something on that can’t be changed.”
Tom sighed and gathered her up in his strong arms. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sure she’ll see sense soon. It’ll just take time to build your relationship up again. Just keep on at her. I know how persuasive you can be. She’ll come round in the end.”
Katie lifted her wet face from his grey Metallica t-shirt. “What if she doesn’t, Tom? What if I’m not even able to be an auntie, let alone a mum?”
“Morning, everyone. How are we getting on?” Rachel said, slinging her jacket over the back of the chair. All around the small table in her office, her officers had a blue cardboard folder each in front of them, ready to give her an update. Mags and Bradley were in attendance, along with two other detectives Rachel hadn’t been formally introduced to yet. They sat next to each other across the other side of the table from Mags and Bradley, arms folded and eyes watchful. “Bradley, did you go round to the Connolly residence to check Hazel is alive and well, and not had her credit card cloned?” Rachel asked, looking over at the young detective, who was dressed as immaculately as usual in a grey three-piece suit with a navy-blue tie.
“Yes, boss, all sorted,” Bradley replied. “I checked her date of birth with her, and the photo we had of her checks out. She was mystified that we were still looking for her, given that her husband rang control to cancel the misper report on the database as soon as she returned home the next day. Told me she only disappeared down to Harrods because she was picking up a surprise for his birthday. Didn’t tell her husband for obvious reasons. She couldn’t believe the hoo-ha it caused.”
Rachel cast half an eye at Mags, who looked up at her from her compact and pressed her lips together after reapplying her bright red lipstick. “Good. That’s one case all boxed off. Great start, Bradley. Right, what else have you got?”
“I found this one right at the bottom of the pile. Once I read it I thought it would be good to start with, as there’s a time press.” He took out a piece of paper from his blue folder and slid it across the desk to Rachel. Seeing that all four chairs were already taken, Rachel slid her leather office chair over to the table, took out her reading glasses and pored over the piece of paper.
“Callum Davies. Thirty-two. Left behind a pregnant girlfriend. Nobody’s seen or heard from him since,” Rachel read out loud. She looked up at Bradley, then at Mags and slipped off her glasses. “Over a year ago now.”
“That one stood out to me. His baby would be born now. Can’t be easy for his missus, coping on her own. But it’s up to you, boss. There are a couple of others that Mags found.”
Mags put the compact away and opened her thin file. “Missing prostitute. Vanished eight years ago.” She licked her finger and leafed through another blue folder. “Or a druggie vanished three years ago after a drop. Take your pick of those two.”
“Missing after a drop?” Rachel repeated, raising an eyebrow. “How is that unsolved? Sounds pretty cut and dried to me.” She cast a look around the table at the other DCs, who sniggered.
“This station is full of lazy bastards, and some pretty boys who don’t like getting their hands dirty,” a white-haired, grizzled detective chimed in, after folding his arms and looking directly at Bradley.
“Fur coat, no knickers, some,” the black-haired, middle-aged DC sat next to him whispered, just loudly enough for Bradley to hear.
Rachel noticed Bradley’s confident aura evaporate. He was now slumped in his seat looking down at the table and picked at the edge of it, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. Rachel flashed the two older DCs her sharpest stare. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Detective Inspector Rachel Morrison. And you two are?” she added.
The two DCs withered. The black-haired detective sat forward as the other man shifted in his chair. “DC Alan Palmer. This here is DC Colin Andrews,” Palmer said. “We’re here to assist while you get to know the place.”
“Really? Well, I’m sure I’ll do just fine with DC Chapman and DC Bradley, here. So, I think I’ll have you two down in the archive room assisting me by sending up any records we need to take a look at and refiling the completed case files. Off you pop.” She raised her eyebrows and nodded towards the door. Grumbling to each other, the two DCs lifted their bulk out of their chairs and sauntered off. “Well, now. Let’s get on with it.” Rachel looked at Bradley, whose eyes brightened as he straightened his back. “I think we’ll start with the young lad that’s missing. Callum Davies. Let’s get him home to his baby, shall we?”
“I’ll make some calls, arrange to visit his father down at the docks to go over his statement,” Bradley said, reinvigorated.
As their eyes lowered to their work, a knock at the door came. Around it appeared Supt. Jenkins.
“Sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but I’ve asked DC Chloe Sharp here to join the team. She’ll be taking over from DC Chapman in due course so it’ll be good for her to muck in and get to know everyone.”
The door opened to reveal a young smart-suited woman, in her late twenties, with asymmetrically bobbed blonde hair and keen blue eyes. She flashed a broad white smile, illuminating her attractive face even more.
Rachel stood up and walked around the desk. “Good to have you on board, DC Sharp. Take a seat. Do you know everybody?”
“I know Mags…sorry, I mean DC Chapman,” Sharp said, biting her lip.
Mags laughed and swatted the air. “Oh, Chloe, don’t be daft. You know it’s Mags to you, babes. We’re the same rank now you’ve passed your exam.”
Chloe blew her cheeks out, causing her light fringe to ripple. “I know, but I should be more careful when meeting the bosses,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.
Rachel nodded. “OK, well, welcome to the team, DC Sharp. This is DC Johnny Bradley and I’m…”
“You’re Detective Inspector Rachel Morrison,” Chloe interrupted, grinning with wide eyes like a ten-year-old meeting Harry Styles. “I’ve heard all about you. It’s an honour working with you, ma’am.” She bowed her head and looked as if she was about to curtsey.
Rachel held her hands up. “Relax, I’m not the Queen. Take a seat next to Bradley and let’s get cracking.”
Chloe did as she was told, her gawky gaze not dropping from Rachel, despite Bradley preening himself and straightening his jacket as the gorgeous figure of Chloe Sharp plonked herself next to him.
“I can’t wait,” Chloe gushed. “Missing persons cases have always interested me.” She reached into her ja
cket pocket and took out her notebook. Her pen was poised, ready to take down every word Rachel spoke.
ACC Clifford stood at the mirror in his opulent bathroom staring at his weary face. After dropping his toothbrush into its holder on the cream-coloured porcelain sink, he dried his hands on a fluffy white towel and walked into his spacious, immaculately decorated bedroom.
“Everything OK, dear? You look like you’re in another world,” his wife said. She was in her early fifties, her dark brown skin clear and radiant despite the lack of makeup. She wore a blush pink satin nightgown and was sitting up in bed with a huge burgundy-coloured damask-covered pillow propping her up. She placed her book face down on her lap with a well-manicured hand and awaited his reply.
“All good. My new DI has just started. She seems OK. A breath of fresh air, actually.”
“Well then, that’s good, isn’t it? That police station needs some new blood and fresh thinking to flush out the stagnant air.” She laughed at her extension of her husband’s metaphor. “It’ll be fine. Anyway, come to bed.”
Clifford smiled and climbed into bed. He leaned over to kiss his wife on the forehead. “Night, darling.”
Rachel’s small living room was shrouded in darkness, with only a beam of moonlight illuminating the bottle of Chardonnay that sat on her coffee table. The one glass she’d poured out of it sat untouched next to it.
Can we at least talk? Please? I’m so sorry. I miss you.
She stared at the phone screen after typing out her message to Adam, hoping to see the two grey ticks turn blue. After a minute they did, but five minutes later, she threw her phone down on the white leather sofa next to her, realising for the thousandth time that a reply wasn’t going to come. Leaning forward, she thought for one last second about not doing what she was about to do, but reached for the glass anyway. Necking the liquid in three gulps, she lay back on the sofa and pressed her face into a cushion, the blue fabric turning darker and darker as Rachel’s tears soaked into it.
Chapter 7
“Morning, boss,” a light voice chirped behind Rachel as she clinked the combination lock around the front wheel of her bike. She turned around to see Chloe Sharp beaming at her.
“Morning, Sharp. You rode in as well?” Rachel looked down at Chloe’s blue Raleigh mountain bike.
“Yeah, I only live a few streets away, and you know what the parking’s like over there.” Chloe inclined her head to the Merseyside Police Headquarters car park. “Plus it keeps me fit. I like feeling the blood pump through me. Makes me feel alive, you know?” A cool morning breeze blew in off the Mersey which Chloe breathed in deep. “Best time of the day, this, don’t you think?”
“You always in this early?” Rachel asked, looking at her watch.
“Yeah, I like getting an early start. Especially with the mornings so bright this time of year. You an early bird too then?”
“I like the quiet. Helps me get my thoughts together,” Rachel added with a smile. She watched as Chloe fiddled with the awkwardly small key in her bike lock.
“I’m the same. No husband or kids to get ready for school. How about you?” Chloe lifted her face, triumphant that she’d finally clinked the lock into place around her bike chain. “Oh, sorry, boss. That’s so none of my business.” Her face reddened, even more than the exertion from securing her bike had caused.
“No, it’s OK,” Rachel replied, a little on the back foot from Chloe’s personal question. Her keen blue eyes and open, pleasant face made it hard, though, for Rachel to reprimand her for her forwardness to a senior officer. “And no. Just my cat. No kids. Yet. But my husband and I… Well, it’s complicated. Anyway, shall we go in? Otherwise our intentions of an early start seem a waste, don’t you think?”
Chloe apologised again, but Rachel waved her hand to dismiss it.
“How are you finding working with Mags?” Chloe said as they walked up the concrete steps and through the entrance of the building.
“She’s…interesting,” Rachel replied with a glint in her eyes as they headed over towards the lifts.
“You mean she’s a pain in the arse,” Chloe whispered after leaning in a bit to Rachel. “She has a reputation around here as a bit of a dinosaur, but she’s always been kind to me. Plus, she’s a good copper. When I first started at this nick five years ago, she really took me under her wing.”
“I do get the sense she’s got a lot of useful qualities. She’s a font of local knowledge for one thing, isn’t she? She did well boxing off the Oswald case last week. You all did, actually.” Rachel had been speaking into the air, but then turned to face Chloe and locked eyes with her. “I’m really glad to have you on the team, Sharp. We’re making great headway with these misper cases.”
Chloe grinned, the blood rushing to her cheeks. “Thank you. Same. We know you don’t like to mess about. You like things sorted. We need that around here.” She swallowed and looked away as Rachel punched the button for the floor they wanted.
“Well, thank you for saying. I don’t want you all thinking I’m the new broom, coming in to show you all how to do your job properly,” Rachel said, her tone magnanimous even though she knew that was exactly the reason Jenkins had headhunted her. But young Chloe Sharp didn’t need that hit to her confidence. Rachel could sense a good, diligent detective in her. “The Oswald case was a team effort. I saw how you all worked on it, so onwards to the next one, eh?”
“Definitely. I, for one, really want to get the Callum Davies case sewn up as soon as we can.” Chloe set her face hard.
“Loving the determination,” Rachel said.
“Well, I was looking into the case file last night before I left work for the evening, and it appears that one of Callum’s trainers was found in the undergrowth by the side of Canning Dock.”
“Canning Dock? That’s just across the road from here, isn’t it?” Rachel interjected.
“Yeah, just a few minutes’ walk away. It’s as if he wanted us to find it. What I don’t understand is that, apart from getting a positive ID on it by his father, it was kind of forgotten about by the investigating officers at the time. I mean, I know I’m still wet behind the ears, but I would have thought that would trigger more of an investigation, wouldn’t it?” Chloe shook her head as she thought about it.
“The department must have been overworked and understaffed back then, I guess. ACC Clifford’s been here for years and has only recently been given more funding due to growing public pressure on him to get results, hence why you’re here assisting us, so now we can take a closer look at these cases,” Rachel surmised. “What else did you pick up on from the notes?”
Chloe licked her full, red lips, her eyes wide and focused intently on Rachel’s watchful stare. “Well, Callum worked for his dad in a car garage near Princes Dock, a bit further up from Canning Dock. But his dad was said to be really strict with him. He sounds a bit of a shit, actually, if you read between the lines of the statement he made after Callum disappeared. He sounded really miffed. Said Callum had ‘dropped him right in it’. I got the sense that Callum was planning to leave his dad’s business to get a better paid job to support his girlfriend, now he was about to become a father himself.”
“Conclusion?” Rachel said.
“Maybe his dad killed him? Angry that Callum was leaving him and betraying him? He works on the docks so it wouldn’t be too hard to dump a body? Or, maybe it was suicide? Maybe Callum felt he was trapped?”
Rachel looked over at Chloe and narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t we sit together this morning and go over Mr. Davies senior’s statement? You’ve an eye for detail that I think could be really important,” Rachel added just as Chloe’s face lit up. “I’ve already decided to take Mags with me when I pay Callum’s girlfriend a visit to get some more background on the circumstances before he disappeared, but I’ve got Bradley going over to speak to Mr. Davies this afternoon. I think I’ll let you go with him and see what you both can turn up. Reckon you can deal with the charming sounding Mr
. Davies senior?”
“Sleeves rolled up and ready to go,” Chloe replied.
“This is the place,” DC Johnny Bradley said as he turned the car off the main road by Princes Dock and onto the gravel outside a dingy, run down car garage. Car parts littered the area, and several hollow, rusting chassis lay in in disrepair all around. There was a huge tyre wall at the side of the garage, half-covered by a grimy blue tarpaulin. Overgrown weeds, green mould and splodges of bird droppings decorated the pile of tyres. As Bradley and Sharp surveyed the area for signs of life through the windscreen of their Ford Focus, two large white seagulls hovered above, squawking then diving for half a bacon sandwich that lay by the metal legs of an old, grease-stained blue garden chair.
“Yep, looks like it. See?” DC Chloe Sharp pointed up to the sign above the garage doors. “Barry Davies.” She scrunched her nose up. “Given up on finding his son alive then, clearly.”
Bradley followed her point and saw a black cross through the ‘and son’ part of the sign. “Nice chap. You ready?”
“Let’s do this,” Chloe replied, reaching onto the back seat for her grey suit jacket as Bradley straightened his purple tie and smoothed down his white shirt. They both exited the car and strode over to the open wooden doors of the garage. Bradley banged his fist against the door and called out. Moments later, a fat balding middle-aged man waddled over to them, ducking underneath the car lift on the way. He wiped his pudgy hands on an oil-stained rag.
“Can I help you, lad?” the man said with the trace of a snarl on his thick lips. When they got close, they saw he was heavily pockmarked and had greasy black thinning hair scraped back and protuberant cold blue eyes. All down his dirty blue overalls were stains of oil and grease.
“Barry Davies?” Bradley asked.
“Who wants to know?” the man replied. His eyes drifted over Chloe’s slim, suited figure, from boots to brow, before returning to Bradley who was stern-faced awaiting his reply. “Yeah, I’m Barry Davies. Is this about that BMW that came in last week?”