by Jade Winters
“I bet you miss Tasha,” Dale called out from the kitchen as the couple of cans of beer he opened hissed loudly.
Ashley knew that a cold beer was just what was needed to wash down the dryness in her throat. She would only take the painkillers if it was absolutely necessary.
Ashley sighed. “I feel like half a person, if I’m honest.”
“She’ll be back. You two are like two peas in a pod,” he said, entering the room and handing her a beer before taking a mouthful of his own.
Ashley shrugged. “It doesn’t feel that way right now. I still haven’t heard a word from her.” Seeing the vodka bottle on the table made her eyes suddenly well up. Maybe it was for the best that Tasha had gone. What use could she be to her now? The empty vodka bottle mocked her inability to help the person she loved at a time when Tasha had needed it most. She suddenly felt very depressed and desperately tired.
Pushing her dark thoughts of Tasha to the back of her mind, Ashley inserted the disc into the DVD player and took a few steps back as an image of Emily Hill’s flat snapped onto the screen. Ashley always found the recordings eerie. Monitoring the aftermath of a violent death was like watching a movie and knowing the ending before it even started. There was always an air of voyeurism that permeated these macabre DVDs. It left a hollow feeling in Ashley’s stomach every time she watched one. She grabbed a pen and pad and then sat down to take notes.
The filming started at the entrance door, the cameraman panning the shot over the door and the handle. The door opened from the inside by an unseen hand and they stepped into the hallway, watching through the cameraman’s viewfinder. She tried to picture Nathan walking in through that same door, not knowing that in a few short hours his life would be changed forever, that he’d be waking up in a police cell the next day instead of the comfort of his own bed. The thought distracted her, as she pictured her brother lying in a cold cell, alone and confused.
Concentrate, she told herself. The video man walked along the hallway. She made a note of a few pairs of shoes and running trainers scattered here and there. They walked into the kitchen. Plates were neatly piled atop each other at the side of the sink. There was a half-full cup of tea or coffee on the small dining table. That would be the last drink she’d ever have in her home.
The hollow feeling in Ashley’s stomach intensified. This is the place where Emily should have felt the safest. The camera turned and went into the bathroom. It was small and tidy, a towel on the rack and toothbrushes in a holder. The camera took a close-up shot of the sink and bath. A small blood droplet could be seen on the edge of the bowl. They walked back along the hallway and towards the last door. Ashley held her breath, her eyes widening as the door slowly opened. She let out a small gasp. It was a carbon copy of Justine Lockhart’s bedroom.
Like Justine’s room, Emily’s bedroom looked like part of a slaughter house. Emily Hill’s nude body lay sprawled on the bed. Her lifeless eyes stared heavenward. One arm trailed aimlessly on the edge of the bed. Her throat had been slashed to the spinal cord and she had been stabbed what looked to be at least twenty to thirty times. Her body was covered in various sized cuts. The closer the camera got to the body, the clearer Ashley could see the magnitude of the violence that had been inflicted on her. Nothing else in her room looked like it had been disturbed. There was no indication of robbery as her purse and the drawers in the dresser were left intact.
The focus of the camera moved to the side of the woman’s face and there was a bruise to the right side of her head. If the assailant had hit her first, there was little chance of her being able to fight back. Ashley mentally photographed everything she had seen, then turned the DVD off. I pray to God she was unconscious before she was attacked.
Her heart pounded hard against her chest as she turned her head towards Dale. “Please tell me if I’m imagining things, but didn’t that look eerily like the crime scene we’ve just come from?” Could it be a coincidence? In her line of work, coincidences were seldom that.
Dale ran his hand over the top of his head. “Yes it did, but how is it possible?”
“Because as I’ve been telling you Emily Hill’s killer is still out there and it looks like he’s struck again.” She stood up and paced the room. “Dale, if he’s not caught soon I dread to think how many more women are going to be murdered.”
“But what can we do? Colleen isn’t going to open a new investigation. As far as she’s concerned your brother’s guilty and so is Justine’s boyfriend.”
She let out a long sigh. “I know. Let’s just hope Jimmy Marsh is picked up sooner rather than later. Maybe he’ll be able to tell us something.” She knew it was a long shot but there weren’t any other leads to follow.
“I’d better get the disc back to the station before anyone notices it’s missing,” Dale said, placing his empty beer can on the coffee table.
“Thanks for getting it, Dale.”
“Are you coming into work tomorrow?”
Ashley nodded her head, wincing as a stab of pain shot through it. “There’s nothing more I can do until Jimmy is brought in. In the meantime it’s best we look over the Connor case again. Colleen isn’t going to stop breathing down our necks until we close the case. We can go over everyone’s statements. We might have missed something.”
“Okay. And listen, if you need me, just call, okay?”
“Thanks, Dale,” she said absently, her mind still on the bloodied body they had just seen.
He bent over and kissed her cheek before leaving. Ashley turned the TV off and sank back into her seat in the darkness. Her face pounded, the alcohol having done nothing to dull the pain in her face. All the events from the last couple of days flooded her mind, all wanting attention.
She wondered whether she’d ever hear from Tasha again. No. She couldn’t allow herself the luxury of thinking about Tasha. It would be her undoing tonight. She took a long swig of her now lukewarm beer as her mobile pinged. Reaching into her jacket she pulled it out and read the message from Tasha. What a coincidence.
Sorry, I haven’t been in touch.
I’m going to a retreat for a while.
Will call when I can.
xxx
She gripped the phone tightly between her hands as she lay down on the sofa and curled her body. A retreat. Maybe it was a kind of therapy in a way. As long as it worked and brought Tasha back to her she didn’t care what kind of maverick treatment she sought out. She closed her eyes and fantasised about Tasha coming home until she finally dozed off.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ashley was surprised uniforms had managed to pick up Jimmy Marsh so quickly. Twenty-four hours had not even passed. She thought he would have gone underground. The fact that he resurfaced in a betting shop just fifty yards from Harlow Police Station showed either his contempt for the law or his stupidity. Ashley leaned towards the now fully clothed man, who was looking over her beaten face. She had never been so desperate to prove a suspect’s innocence as she was at that moment.
“So, Jimmy, why did you run? After assaulting us that is,” Ashley asked, her swollen nose slightly obscuring her vision.
Jimmy smirked. “Yeah, sorry ’bout that. I just freaked. Thought you were gonna pin it on me.” He nodded his head. “Turns out I was right.”
Ashley ignored his insinuations, trying to keep her contempt for the man out of her voice.
“Let’s talk about the night of the murder. Tell me what you and Justine were arguing about, Jimmy,” Dale pressed, impatiently tapping his pen on the edge of the desk.
Jimmy propped his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. We were just talking to each other like we normally do. Nothin’ illegal like in that, is it?”
Dale wrinkled his nose. “So how come your neighbours reported hearing you both screaming at the tops of your voices? Did she say something you didn’t like? Is that why you killed her?”
Jimmy’s head snapped up. “That’s just how we talk to each other it don’t mean
nothin’.”
He stopped, letting his head fall to the table with a thud that made both detectives jump. “Oh God, I can’t believe she’s dead! I loved her, really I did,” Jimmy said with a small shake of his head. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “We’ve been together for a year. We were gonna have a baby and everything, and now she’s gone.”
“Was she seeing anyone besides you?”
The crying stopped abruptly. Jimmy ran his hand over his face and took a deep ragged breath. “No, no she wasn't. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. Justine wasn’t a whore like them tabloids say. She said all that crap about sleeping with lots of men for attention. She was a one-man woman and I was her man. Her only man.” He started to cry again.
Ashley found it hard to reconcile this crying, wreck of a man with the one that had beaten her and Dale so coldly not too long ago. Despite this, she handed him a tissue.
“Did Justine have any plans for the night she was murdered?” Dale asked casually, ignoring Jimmy’s display of emotion.
“No. I was meant to be going round to my sister’s for her birthday. They don’t get on, so Justine wasn’t going with me. But when I got home I crashed out, right? The next thing I know you two crazies are banging down my door.” He looked over at Ashley who held a file in her hand. “I really am sorry I hit you, miss. I wasn’t thinking straight. I am right sorry about your...” His hand made a circular movement in front of his own face, but he didn’t finish the sentence. He looked down at the table again.
“Is that what happens when you’re not thinking straight, Jimmy? You lash out at people and are sorry afterwards? Is that what happened with Justine?” Ashley asked.
“What? No, of course not. I never laid a hand on Justine, ever! I told you already. I loved her.”
Ashley opened the file. “That’s not what it says here, Jimmy.” She read out a long list from the piece of paper she was holding. “So what were you doing? Having pillow fights?”
Jimmy squirmed in his seat. “No.”
“So what is it then? You either hit her or you didn’t. It can’t be both. Either you’re lying or Justine was lying.”
He bowed his head. “It was the other way round.” His voice was barely audible.
“Can’t hear you, mate,” said Dale. “Speak up a bit.”
“I said,” he replied, his voice growing stronger. “It was the other way round.” His eyes didn’t leave the table.
Dale glanced sideways at Ashley. She didn’t doubt for a second that Jimmy could be telling the truth. The rise in female-on-male domestic abuse was a dirty secret that had only been discussed in the media in the previous few years. It was a subject no one wanted to believe. Small women beating up big men never seemed to be something people considered. Even though it was a possibility, she had to find out why it was Justine who always ended up in the hospital for treatment.
“So why didn’t you ever report it?” asked Dale.
“Because I’m a man, that’s why. Who would have believed a six-foot man was being beaten by a five-three woman?” He stared at Dale, but Dale kept his gaze focused on the pen in his hand.
Ashley shifted her chair closer to Jimmy, so their knees were only inches apart. “Why did she always have bruising on her? Even finger marks?”
Jimmy held his curled fingers up in the air. “The marks came when I’d grab her wrist to stop her from punching me in the face. Or if we’d been rolling around on the floor when I tried to push her off me, she would get a bruise on her shoulders.”
“Did anyone ever witness these fights?”
“Not the serious ones. Everyone thought it was a joke, that we were play-fighting. Her fists weren’t any bigger than lemons. She might not have hurt me physically, but it was up here she did the damage,” he said as he poked a finger against his temple. “And here,” he said laying a hand over his chest. “I loved her so, I always forgave her ’cause she did no damage to me, you know? No damage people could see, anyways.”
Ashley moistened her lips with a quick flick of her tongue. There was no point continuing down this avenue. Justine was dead, so she couldn’t contradict his story. Plus the fact that no one had seen any of their real fights left her stumbling around in the dark. She wondered if this man had the brain capacity to concoct a story like that though. If what happened at his flat with Dale and herself was anything to go by he seemed to act first and think later.
“So, on the night in question, you’re saying there wasn’t a fight?”
“No.” He massaged the back of his neck with the palm of his hand.
For the first time, Ashley noticed scratches on his forearm. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure! I think I would have remembered, right?” he answered sarcastically.
“Where’d the scratches on your arm come from then?” Ashley asked.
“These…” Jimmy examined his arm. “When she…” Jimmy’s mouth suddenly snapped shut and his eyes narrowed.
“When she what, Jimmy?”
Jimmy wrung his hands together. He sighed and looked at Ashley, and then his expression hardened. “I don’t know. Must of been a cat. Yeah, must of been.”
Dale leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. Jimmy winced as he heard the bones in the detective’s shoulders click.
“Jimmy, you do know we found DNA at the scene, don’t you?”
A smirk spread over Jimmy’s face. “You would have. I just about lived there. My hair and prints must be on everything.”
“How about your blood?”
Jimmy blew out a breath. “What the fuck you talkin’ about, blood?” He shoved back his chair and shot to his feet. “What you lot trying to do? Stitch me up? You ain’t looking for the murderer, you just looking to pin this on me! I knew it!”
“The blood found is being tested for a match right now.”
“Well, it ain’t gonna be mine, alright?” Jimmy said. His voice shook with anger. “I keep telling you the same thing over and over and OVER again, but you’re not listening. When I went home, Justine was alive and kicking. Alive. Do you even know what that is, you cold bitch? It isn’t dead. It isn’t bleeding, right? It’s alive. Breathing. Not dead!” He stood in front of the table, breathing heavily, his fists clenched at his sides.
Ashley raised her eyebrows. “That’s some temper you’ve got there, isn’t it?”
Jimmy’s shoulders sank. “Look, I’m sorry. I–”
“–Did you lose your temper with Justine when she told you to leave? Is that how it went down?”
Jimmy ran his fingers through his hair and inhaled deeply. “I said no! How many more times must I say it: No. No. No!”
“It must have been hard trying to keep up with a celebrity. All that attention! All those men looking at her, wanting her, all those times she had to go out on other men’s arms. Your woman, looking like she was having the time of her life with these other men. Was the jealousy too much to take? Did she enjoy the attention just too much for your liking?” Ashley continued.
Jimmy’s bottom lip trembled. “You’re one sick twisted bitch,” he yelled at Ashley.
He took a step towards her, and Dale stood up immediately, placing himself between the irate man and his colleague. Jimmy craned his head around Dale’s bulk to keep her in view. “I should have kicked you in your filthy, fucking mouth, bitch!”
Ashley let out a short laugh. “You’re a right charmer, aren’t you? Is that what you think turns women on? A bit of rough.”
Dale shoved him back into his seat. “Stay there. Do not move out of that chair again or I’m going to get you restrained. You hear me!?”
“I don’t care what you think!” Jimmy said, staring Ashley straight in the eye.
“I bet you don’t,” Ashley replied.
Dale frowned. “So, if it wasn’t you that killed her, who do you think did?”
Jimmy looked from one detective to the other. “How the hell would I know? You think I’d be sitting here t
aking this shit from you two if I had any idea who dunnit?”
“I tell you something, mate,” Dale said, shaking his head. “If I had a bird like her, I’d keep her under lock and key.”
Jimmy shrugged, caught off guard by the abrupt change of questioning. “I tried…”
Ashley inched her face closer, careful to keep herself at a safe distance. She’d pushed this man perhaps one time too many, but the image of the dead girl made her press on. “Is that why she was going to give you the boot?”
“I can’t believe you’d think I had anything to do with this. I loved her. I am not a murderer!” He slammed his palms onto the table, making the pen that Dale had been tapping earlier bounce and roll off. All three watched it fall to the floor.
Dale exhaled heavily. “Lots of people commit crimes of passion, Jimmy.”
“Okay, then, smart arse, where’s the weapon I supposedly used to kill her? Did you find it at my place?”
Ashley leaned towards him, her body on the edge of the chair. “Who said a weapon was used, Jimmy?” She paused. “I didn’t.” She looked at Dale. “Did you mention a weapon, DC Taylor?”
Dale shook his head. “Nope. I didn’t mention a weapon. Now that’s interesting. Do you want to expand further on that for us, Jimmy?”
Before Jimmy could reply, the door opened behind Ashley and an officer stuck his head in. “Can DCS Ripley have a word with you both?”
Ashley and Dale rose to their feet. Before they left, Ashley gave Jimmy a long look. “You’re not doing yourself any favours by lying to us, Jimmy. You’re just making things ten times worse.”
The detectives walked out, leaving Jimmy to cradle his head in his hands.
***
In the adjoining room, DCS Ripley and Colleen were standing at the two-way mirror watching Jimmy intently when Ashley and Dale joined them.
“What do you think?” Ashley asked DCS Ripley, nodding her head in the direction of the examination room.