by Carol Wyer
Mike waited until everyone was occupied then tipped her a nod, indicating he wanted to speak to her more privately, and slid out into the corridor. Natalie joined him on the large multicoloured settee that was a fixture outside her office.
‘Did you visit David?’
‘Yes, and I told him about the DNA results although I’ve not yet spoken to him about his whereabouts over the last few days. Sure as eggs are eggs, he’ll have been in one or both of the bookies when his car was parked on Gower Street. He’ll have guessed as soon as I explained about the satnav that I’d find out where he actually went, but he didn’t stop me taking it or say anything. The stupid thing is, it actually doesn’t bother me. He could have told me where he was from the off and had his name cleared much sooner, but no, he kept it secret, and it doesn’t annoy me. I can’t even say I’m surprised by it. I’ve grown to expect he’ll lie, especially about gambling, and I don’t care. What he does with his life isn’t my concern any more.’
His dark brows drew together, and he tilted his head. He clearly still cared about his friend. ‘Did he seem okay to you?’
‘He didn’t rant at me which was a start, and we managed a civilised, albeit brief, conversation, along with a mug of tea. And the house was tidy – really clean and neat. That surprised me. I expected it to be a tip.’
‘He’s always had high standards. Even back in our university days, his room was always way tidier than mine,’ said Mike softly. Had it not been for his relationship with Natalie, Mike would undoubtedly be there now in his friend’s hour of need. David had cut both of them out of his life and tried to go it alone.
‘It’s been a few months. He might be more open to a reconciliation. Why don’t you ring him?’ she asked.
‘That’s highly unlikely and you know it. I’ve stolen his wife, and David is still a proud guy. Got to leave him a smidgeon of self-esteem. I can’t go around begging for forgiveness. It’s not my style. I knew what I was getting into when we made this decision, and what I was giving up.’ He gave a tired smile then said, ‘I’d better get back to the lab. We’ve got a stack of work to get through too.’ He got to his feet in one strong movement, leaving an emptiness where his solid presence had been.
She watched his retreating form, aware she was drawn to Mike more and more each day, but there was no denying Mike felt guilt at hurting one of his closest friends. Her thoughts were scattered as she overheard Lucy calling out to Ian.
‘Have you requested Henry Warburton’s financial details?’
‘Done it.’
Murray interrupted them with, ‘I’ve got Henry on the line, Natalie. You want to talk to him?’
Natalie scooted across. ‘Mr Warburton, it’s DI Ward.’
The reply was very hesitant. ‘Yes.’
‘We need you to come back to HQ as soon as possible.’
‘I’m at work at the moment.’
‘Would you prefer for us to come to you?’
‘No. No. I’ll see if I can get time off.’
‘We can send an officer over to pick you up if that would be more helpful.’
‘No. I’ll drive myself. Can I ask what you want to talk to me about?’
‘It’s in connection with Maisie. I’d prefer to discuss the matter at the station.’
‘Okay. I’ll be about an hour.’
She replaced the receiver. If he didn’t confess to owning a second phone, she’d require a search warrant to hunt for one, and given his home address was out of their jurisdiction, she’d need to inform colleagues at West Midlands Police. Murray had returned to his chair and had donned his spectacles to wade through paperwork. She remained in position, reflecting on how best to proceed. She wished they had more than a man who might or might not have been scammed by someone who might or might not have pretended to be Gemma, but she didn’t. She could only follow the evidence, and at present there was bugger all to pursue. She moved across to her desk and made a discreet phone call to the bookies on Gower Street in Little Harding. She might not be able to charge anyone with the crimes, but she was determined to clear David’s name, once and for all. Dan would have to find another scapegoat to throw to the press. For all David’s faults, she wasn’t going to allow him to suffer any more than he already had.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tuesday, 20 November – Afternoon
Henry was true to his word and arrived exactly one hour later at 3.40 p.m. He entered the interview room with a slight swagger, hands in his trouser pockets, his casual affectation betrayed by his forehead, which was shiny with perspiration. The officer who’d shown him to the room departed silently, the door shutting with an ominous click.
Facing Natalie and Murray, he yapped a nervous laugh as he took his seat. ‘This looks serious. I don’t need a solicitor, do I?’
‘That depends on your answers to our questions,’ said Natalie.
Henry shuffled uncomfortably before adopting a suitable position, hands on his lap, feet firmly planted on the ground. His shoulders rounded automatically. The vulture was back.
‘We’ve checked your mobile.’ Murray pushed the device in a plastic bag towards the centre of the table as he spoke.
‘And you found nothing on it,’ said Henry quickly.
‘That’s right,’ Murray replied.
‘Then why have you asked me to return?’
Natalie spoke. ‘Because there was nothing.’
‘Then I should be allowed to leave.’ He made to stand.
Murray growled, ‘Sit down, Mr Warburton.’
Natalie took up where she’d left off. ‘When I say there is nothing, that doesn’t suggest you told us the truth. In fact, quite the contrary, because our technicians are the best in the UK and can recover almost anything that has been deleted. When I say almost, I mean the only things they can’t recover are those destroyed due to the destruction of the phone, or its SIM card. Did you replace the SIM card in your phone with a new one?’
‘No. I didn’t. This is my phone. If it’s been checked as you say, then you’ll know I’ve had it for eighteen months. The original SIM card is still in it.’
Natalie’s lips twitched. The man had shifted again in his seat and his hands were now clamped tightly between his thighs. She was on to something.
‘Not only were there no pictures, we couldn’t find any evidence of email exchange between the pair of you.’
‘I deleted all correspondence between us.’
‘As I just explained. If you had done that, we would have been able to retrieve it.’ She opened the file in front of her and ran a finger down a list. ‘In fact, we retrieved 1,271 emails that had been deleted, dating back a year, but none were to Maisie, as she was known to you. How did you communicate with her once you and she stopped messaging on the website?’
‘We emailed each other. I told you.’
‘But we know that wasn’t the case.’
‘I used a different email address to the one you have.’
‘And why didn’t you tell me that sooner?’
‘I forgot.’ The lie was so obvious he winced as soon as it had been spoken.
‘That’s bollocks and you know it,’ said Murray.
As Henry opened his mouth to protest, Natalie halted him with a cold look. ‘Which actually makes matters even more complicated because you are clearly hiding something, Mr Warburton. You have lied, withheld information and wasted our time, which as you may know gives us reason enough to charge you.’
‘Now wait a minute—’
She didn’t let him finish. ‘I suggest you think very carefully before answering my next question. It is the difference between you going to the cells this afternoon or walking away, and I’m not in the mood to negotiate or listen to any more lies. This is a murder investigation. Three young women are dead and it started when somebody threw acid at a girl whose photo was on that dating website. Do you understand how serious this is?’
An invisible force sucked the bravado from him and he bent furth
er forward. ‘Yes.’ She almost couldn’t hear his quietly spoken response. Henry was unravelling fast.
‘We can get search warrants and raid your family home and your workplace and generally disrupt your life, because we believe you used either a second device to communicate with Maisie or a replacement SIM card. You did not receive any photos of her on that phone, but you did receive photos of her, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘On another phone?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Mr Warburton, answer the question, please. Did you speak to or communicate with Maisie by phone?’
‘I would like a lawyer before we continue.’
Murray popped his knuckles as they waited in the office for Henry’s lawyer to appear. They were on to something at last and the atmosphere wasn’t euphoric but certainly positive. Ian, however, changed all that in an instant.
‘I’ve received financial records for all three men and none of them have withdrawn or transferred large amounts of money. There’s nothing untoward on either Scott’s or Felix’s account but Henry’s is in the red. Not only has he got a mortgage and the usual outgoings but he’s maxed out two credit cards and has three short-term loans outstanding. He has no money to loan, let alone pay his mortgage. The man is crippled with debt.’
‘Then he’s not likely to have given Maisie any money.’ Lucy’s words hung in the air.
‘If Henry didn’t lend her any money, why would he harm her? And what connection does he have to Fran and Hattie?’
Ian’s questions were on all of their lips. Natalie couldn’t give him any answers but she recalled the look on Henry’s face, the damp brow and the hands crushed between his thighs. His reactions were down to guilt. She needed him to talk and soon.
‘He couldn’t give Maisie what he didn’t have. Funny that. An accountant with no money. That’s ironic, isn’t it?’ Ian mused.
There was a sense of irony to it. None of the men had handed over money to the scammer. Who was this person? Was it Fran? Were they on the wrong trail, hunting for a scammer when really they should be searching for a murderer? Or were they one and the same person?
Natalie watched white clouds rush past the windows. The first looked vaguely like an elephant, its trunk raised to sound the alarm. It merged rapidly with another cloud into something unidentifiable. Natalie had never been much good at identifying shapes and patterns. Leigh, on the other hand, had been expert at making out shapes or faces in pieces of toast, in vegetables or in clouds…
‘Mum, look… It’s a horse stampeding away from the cloud! It’s beautiful.’
Natalie opens her eyes. The sun has warmed her through and her body is heavy with laziness. Leigh is flat on her back on the blanket. She points to the sky and Natalie shields her eyes with her hand. The white horse is emerging from the top of the cloud, front hooves raised, ready to gallop to the sun. The remainder of the body is swirled together with the cloud from which it is escaping.
Escaping… like the bird on Fran’s arm. Why had Fran been so reluctant to return to her home town, and why had she been antagonistic towards Gemma? Was it purely over Ryan? She hunted out details about the girl, her mind taken off cloud formations and her daughter for the moment. Fran hadn’t had an easy upbringing. Her father was a criminal, attacked and killed by an inmate while he served time. Her mother had remarried a loser with a string of minor offences to his name including theft, and Fran too had been in trouble with the local police on several occasions when she was a kid. She’d run away from home twice and after the second attempt been taken in by her grandparents. Her grandfather had died four years later and her grandmother had looked after her, right through to college; only a few weeks after Fran had finished her studies, her grandmother had been admitted to a care home. She read the last sentence again. Maisie had tried to extract money using a ploy about a grandmother who’d been ejected from a care home. Had somebody used that information to make up the scam or was it Fran herself? Others who knew Fran would have known about her past and her grandmother. Had one of them created the profile?
‘Mike’s on the line for you, Natalie,’ said Murray. Natalie hadn’t registered the internal phone ringing.
Mike sounded upbeat. ‘My unit found two thousand pounds in fifty-pound notes stuffed in a shoebox at the bottom of Fran’s wardrobe. They’re bringing it in once they’ve finished checking the rest of the room.’
Natalie ought to be jubilant yet there were still unanswered questions. This was, however, a step forward. ‘That’s great. Thanks very much.’ She looked up at Lucy, perched on the desk beside her, who rubbed at the scar across the bridge of her nose as she often did when puzzling over a problem.
‘I hope it helps move things on,’ said Mike.
‘Definitely.’
‘Thought maybe we could manage a mini-celebratory drink later.’
‘That would be great.’
‘Good. I’ll catch you later.’
Natalie ended the call. ‘Forensics found a couple of grand in a shoebox in Fran’s room.’
Murray whistled. ‘Wow! That’s a lot of cash to hide. Now we need to work out where it came from.’
‘It’s another mystery for us to solve, but I’m sure there’s a link between this scam and the murders. We’re getting closer,’ Natalie replied.
Lucy rubbed at her nose again. ‘The money must have come from a scam.’
‘Maisie, or should I say Fran, didn’t match up with any other men, and those guys we interviewed all say they saw through her scam in time, which begs the question, where did the two thousand pounds come from?’ asked Murray.
Natalie stared at an angel-shaped cloud passing the window. The thought appeared from nowhere, brought to life by Ian’s earlier statement regarding an accountant with no money. It was a long shot but worth a try. ‘Henry handles the books at an engineering company, doesn’t he? Find out if he signs cheques on behalf of the company. If he does, ask if any cheques or withdrawals have been made over the last few weeks.’
Ian scurried away, and as she tried to make sense of what she’d discovered, her mobile buzzed. David was trying to reach her and she went into the corridor to answer it.
‘I’m sorry. Truly sorry. You know the truth now, don’t you?’
‘Know about where you were the last few days? You were in Gower Street.’
‘I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t look you in the eye and tell you that I’d let you and Josh and my dad down yet again. I’m fucked up in so many ways I can’t even look at myself in the mirror. Every time I try to take a step forward, I fail. I am a failure. I couldn’t even get a student to pay me. I frightened off a decent woman who showed me some kindness, and I screwed up again by not telling you where I was when the attack on Gemma took place. I don’t even understand why I couldn’t. I read the newspapers earlier. They state you were questioning a man in his late forties. That’s me they’re talking about, isn’t it?’
‘It is but that wasn’t my doing. I didn’t want that information to get out.’
He sighed. ‘I couldn’t tumble much lower, could I? A fucking suspect in a murder case. All I need now is for the press to bang on the door and question me.’
‘They won’t.’
‘They might. You know how persistent journalists can be and my car is at HQ—’
‘They won’t find out.’
The sigh went on for what seemed an eternity. ‘It doesn’t matter any more if they do. I had to call to explain that I couldn’t tell you where I was. I simply couldn’t.’
‘It would have been much easier if you had. There’d have been no mention in the papers. You pissed me about when I could have cleared your name instantly. You only had to tell one of us on the team where you really were. Why the hell couldn’t you have been open with us? Better to admit to being in a betting shop than having people think you murdered somebody.’
‘I know. I know. I’m totally pathetic and I despise myself for being this way.’ Hi
s words lacked inflection.
‘Anyway, we’ve found out where you were now, and as far as I’m concerned we won’t be troubling you again about this. I won’t even press charges about perverting the course of justice. I want you to get a fucking grip on your life. Maybe consider therapy. You have to break out of this self-destructive cycle. Josh needs you.’ She hoped her words would hit home and galvanise him into a slightly more positive frame of mind, but his response was flat.
‘No, Natalie. He needs somebody who can be a good father. Someone he can look up to. I’m no longer that person. He has you. You’re a far better person than I’ll ever be. You can handle it all. I can’t. I’m too weak. I’m tired of all of this. I’m done.’
A prickling feeling ran up her spine. David sounded sober but odd – distant, as if he didn’t care any more about anything. It struck her why. He’d given up once and for all. He was going to end it all. ‘Where are you, David?’
‘It doesn’t matter where I am.’
That clinched it for her. She listened for any background noise, heard nothing. ‘David, whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t… please—’
‘I still love you. I love you, Josh and Leigh more than you’ll ever know. Goodbye, Natalie.’
The phone went dead. Why had he said goodbye like that? The way he’d intoned the goodbye gave it a deeper meaning than usual. He’d meant a definitive goodbye. He was going to end his life! She dialled him back but it went directly to answerphone. Natalie spun on her heel. Shit! Who could get to David in time? Ought she to ring an ambulance? It would take her twenty minutes to reach Castergate. That might be too late. And what if he wasn’t at home, and what if she was overreacting? The questions wouldn’t stop as she belted back downstairs. She halted on the first landing, charged down the corridor and banged on the pane of glass to the forensic lab. Darshan looked up and opened the door using the button by the counter.