Maggie followed Kat down the hall.
‘Bloody hell. I feel for those people but,’ Kat looked over her shoulder, Maggie assumed to make sure the parents weren’t in earshot, ‘Mrs G is off her face and Mr G looks like a ticking time bomb.’
They opened the door to the room that Tim’s father had directed them to. ‘Let’s not make assumptions about either parent at the moment. They’ll be struggling with all the questions and people they are having to deal with while trying to come to terms with their grief.’ Maggie had said that aloud just as much for her own benefit as Kat’s. She recalled when she started out as a detective herself, she had often made assumptions which turned out to be wrong. Experience would see that Kat understood this, but while she worked in the MOCD, Maggie would make sure she helped her any way she could.
Maggie looked around Tim Griffiths’s room. Typical of a young male – a few sports posters on the wall, clothes balled up on the floor, a TV and PlayStation were on the dresser, along with the usual grooming products Maggie expected to see. Maggie walked over to the closet and opened the door. More clothes on the floor, with very few items hung up. A pair of dress shoes that looked hardly worn. There was a full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door and, in the corner, a picture of Tim with a girl. ‘Hey. Come look at this,’ Maggie called Kat over.
‘So, he had a girlfriend?’ The picture only showed the back of the girl. Auburn hair hung past her shoulders and stopped just before her waistline. She wore a sweat top and a pair of cropped jeans. Black trainers adorned her feet.
‘Is it me, or does it look like she purposely turned her face away from the camera? The parents didn’t mention a girlfriend. In fact, the way they spoke of him, it sounded like he didn’t have very many friends his own age. Maybe we’ll get more from the college – we’re due to speak to someone there tomorrow.’ Maggie looked at the picture closely before taking it off the mirror. ‘We’ll ask if we can take this with us. Maybe this mystery girl is a student too.’
‘Are we going back to the office now?’ Kat looked at her watch. ‘Only my stomach is telling me it’s about lunch time and I’m not sure it’s going to shut up.’ Maggie laughed when Kat’s stomach rumbled.
‘We’ll stop at the Greggs in the services on our way.’ Maggie left the room and headed back to Mr and Mrs Griffiths.
When she popped her head in the living room, the couple hadn’t moved. ‘We’re going to go now, but before we do, we found this picture on the mirror in Tim’s room. Do either of you know who this young woman is?’ Maggie walked over and held the picture out. Mrs Griffiths looked briefly and shook her head. Mr Griffiths took the picture from Maggie’s hand and examined it more closely.
‘No idea who she is. He never mentioned any lady friends. No girls have been here. Maybe she’s from the college?’ He handed the picture back to Maggie.
‘Yes, we wondered that. Would you mind if we took this photo to ask when we go to his college? I’ll make sure to keep it safe and bring it back as soon as I can.’
Mr Griffiths nodded. ‘We don’t have many pictures of Tim … please get it back to us.’
Maggie nodded, waved goodbye to the FLO and they left the parents to their grief.
It must be heartbreaking for a parent to say goodbye to their only child.
Chapter Eighteen
Before heading back to the station, Maggie asked Kat to drive over to DCI Hastings’s house and gave her the directions.
‘Does Nathan know about this?’ Maggie thought she heard an edge in Kat’s question. She couldn’t expect Kat would want to be involved in doing anything outside of their remit after having just joined the team as a detective.
‘Don’t worry. I cleared it with him before we left.’ Maggie winked and Kat’s shoulders loosened. ‘If you ever feel uncomfortable about doing anything though, just say the word.’
‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be such a by-the-book kinda person because I know sometimes you have to do things out of the ordinary to get results – well, not illegal of course but … I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t go above and beyond for the team.’
‘No explanation needed. You need to do what feels right for you and question anything that doesn’t. I respect that more than I would someone who felt that way and then ran to the boss telling tales. Anyway, I know how much you give to the job.’ Maggie paused. ‘Looks like we’re here.’
Kat parked up and when they got out of the car, Maggie looked around and noticed that although the houses were scattered throughout the street, they were detached and there was a noticeable distance between them. A few of the houses also had high security walls or bunches of thick trees which shrouded them from street view. Hastings also had trees and it would be difficult to see anything from the road, though probably not impossible from the one house directly across the street. She parked that thought for the moment.
‘Let’s see what the scene can tell us.’
Maggie and Kat signed in with the crime scene manager, kitted up and headed in the front door.
Maggie looked at all the scene markers that the forensic officers had placed in the front room. The markers often painted a picture to determine when an individual died. Maggie cursed inwardly – no one has died … that they knew of. She needed to stop the negative thoughts and let the scene tell her what happened.
Kat walked off, leaving Maggie to focus on the room. The first marker was right inside the door at the uncollected mail and few newspapers that littered the floor. A quick glance told her that the post on the top was delivered on Friday, so she surmised that the earliest date the family could have been targeted was Thursday night; the other post was neatly placed on a rack below a mirror. The hall lights and a lamp in the front room was on. She stopped one of the forensics officers. ‘Were the lights on when you arrived?’
He nodded.
Maggie also noticed that the coat rack was full. She recognized DCI Hastings’s jacket from his comings and goings into the office. From this, she surmised that he and probably the rest of his family didn’t go willingly – with the cool nights, they surely would have taken their coats.
Maggie kept on the stepping plates and walked towards the back of the house, through the dining area, and into the kitchen. A few dishes were left on the counter and the food was crusted over.
Maggie noted that the team would need to speak with the field officers to find out when the neighbours last saw DCI Hastings, his wife, and his daughter. It also just dawned on her that there weren’t many, if any, photos of the family around the parts of the house she had seen, although this wasn’t necessarily strange, as she herself only had one picture of her own family on a shelf in her office space. She remembered at an office party how proud Hastings was of his family – he almost pressed the issue so much that Maggie wished he had shut up at the time. Maybe the neighbours could shed some light. They might have noticed a change in the family’s normal routines or habits, a strange vehicle in the neighbourhood. Anything that might give the police a clue as to what had happened in the house – it was like a murder scene without any bodies.
Maggie looked at her watch. It was getting late; they had spent longer at the scene than she had anticipated.
Maggie headed through the hall towards the upstairs, careful not to disrupt anyone or anything. She had clocked the broken window in the kitchen that DI Rutherford had mentioned and blood droplets in the living area and kitchen floor.
Kat called out: ‘Maggie, I think there’s something you’ll want to see up here.’
She climbed the stairs and saw Kat standing in the doorway at the end of the landing. ‘Look at this.’ Kat stepped aside to let Maggie into the room. It was Hastings’s home office.
‘Where am I looking?’ But she didn’t need to wait for a reply, as the large pool of blood over on the far side of the room caught her eye. ‘What the fuck?’
‘That’s exactly what I said. But look where it’s located. Something is missing from that area.�
� Kat pointed at the floor. ‘See how the blood seems to … and excuse the pun … bleed out right here. There must have been something against the wall.’
Maggie nodded. ‘You’re right. Someone was bleeding heavily. The DCI’s office, it may well have been him.’ She glanced at the floor. ‘Something feels off though – no splatter anywhere else.’
‘There’s a few things that have been knocked over too – sign of a struggle.’ Kat shuddered. ‘I have a bad feeling about all of this.’
‘Me too, Kat. Me too. Did you come across anything else noteworthy?’
‘Most of the bedrooms look undisturbed. The beds were made, and nothing seems out of place. Though in the master bedroom it looks like a jewellery box was rifled through. Not sure how we’ll tell if anything was stolen.’
‘What a mess, eh? It’s getting late. Let’s wrap it up now and if you drop me off at the train station, I’ll make my way from there. I’ll text Nathan and let him know we’ll be going to Tim’s college tomorrow first thing, so can you pop round mine at around 8:15 and we can go from there.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
During the car ride to the train station, Kat was talking a mile a minute and Maggie had to stifle a laugh. She certainly was keen, but Maggie was grateful when she got on the train and it was dead silent. She used the time to go through everything from today and be ready for what tomorrow would bring.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, Maggie stood outside her house waiting for Kat to pick her up. She rubbed her eyes, having only had a few hours’ sleep, as her brain took longer than normal to shut itself down. It was spitting rain now and she hoped Kat arrived soon, as she didn’t want to have to dig through her bag, find her keys, and go back inside to get a brolly. A red car turned the corner and raced towards her, pulling up sharply. Maggie got in the car and mumbled, ‘You’re late,’ as she buckled her seatbelt.
‘I know. Sorry. The power in my building went out, my alarm didn’t go off, and then I couldn’t find my keys. At least nothing else should happen today, as they say bad luck comes in threes, right?’ Kat pulled away from the kerb and headed towards the college.
‘I bloody hope so. Things have become more complicated now and the sooner we figure out what’s happened to Hastings and his family the better. It’s all such a mess now.’ Maggie felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She looked at the screen. ‘Fuck.’ Instead of answering the call, she sent it straight to answerphone.
‘Guess that wasn’t work?’ Kat smiled, and Maggie’s shoulders tightened. She should have just answered it, as Kat wasn’t one to leave things alone.
‘No, but I have no doubt it was about work. It was Julie Noble.’ Maggie put her phone back in her pocket and a ping let her know there was a message waiting.
‘The reporter from the Stafford Gazette? Why’s she calling your personal phone?’ Kat raised a brow.
Shit. Maggie hadn’t clocked that before she had answered Kat’s previous question and she wasn’t going to lie … But she didn’t have to tell her the whole truth. ‘Julie and I are … I want to say friends but more like, we’re friendly. For the moment, I’m doing my best to tolerate her, as she was a big help in the Living Doll case.’ She hoped Kat would leave it at that.
‘Gotcha. She’s pretty persistent though – like a dog with a bone. If she has any inkling as to what is going on, you can bet your arse she’ll be calling again.’
Maggie pursed her lips. Kat was right – but there was no way that Julie could know anything about the Hastings’s situation, unless she really did have a contact in the police feeding her information.
‘I think we should speak to the Head Teacher – actually, I think they call themselves Chief Executive Principals now – in the first instance and see if he or she is able to point us in the right direction. If Tim Griffiths was a troublemaker, they may know of him and who he associates with. If not, we can see if they will allow us to talk to a few of the students.’ Maggie looked out the window. ‘I wonder if the girl in the photo attends the college? It’s weird that no one else has come forward about him, even to say they found it odd that they hadn’t heard from him.’ This idea had been playing on Maggie’s mind. Usually in murder investigations, especially when it was reported on the news, the police were inundated with calls from members of the public offering their theories, or telling them they saw the victim, whether it was true or not. But there had been nothing in this case so far.
Kat pulled into the college car park. The massive building was surrounded by trees and a large expanse of greenery. Maggie picked her bag off the footwell and waited until Kat pulled into a space before she unbuckled the seatbelt and got out of the car. There were a few doors to choose from, but Kat pointed to the side of the building.
‘That looks like the main entrance.’ Maggie waited as Kat grabbed a notebook from the back seat of her car and the pair proceeded.
When they arrived in the reception area, Maggie identified herself and Kat and asked to speak to the Chief Executive Principal. They were told by the receptionist that the principal wasn’t in, but she would see if the Deputy Chief Executive, Mr Dodd, was available. Maggie looked around while they waited.
Fifteen minutes had passed, and Maggie was getting annoyed – she’d had only one cup of coffee that morning. She’d need another soon or she might get snappy. Just as she was about to ring the bell on the counter, the door to their right opened and a nervous-looking man gestured for them to come through.
‘So sorry for the delay. I wanted to get some information together for you so I didn’t have to keep you waiting and ended up keeping you waiting.’ He jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘If you’d just like to follow me to my office. Would either of you like some water or perhaps a coffee?’ His eyes flitted between Maggie and Kat.
‘I’d love a black coffee if you’re making one.’ Kat brushed passed Mr Dodd.
‘I’ll have a coffee too. Skim milk, no sugar, or black if you don’t have that.’ The offer was music to her ears.
Mr Dodd nodded and asked the receptionist to get the drinks, adding a tea to the order. ‘Please, have a seat. I guess you’re here about young Tim Griffiths. Nasty business that. Do you know who’s responsible?’
Maggie shook her head. ‘We’d like to know how Tim got on in college. Was he liked? Did he do well?’ Maggie tapped Kat’s knee and asked if she could jot down some notes. Kat had been distracted by the photos on the wall. She returned her attention to the room, ready to take down the details.
‘Tim was never brought to my attention.’ Mr Dodd cleared his throat. ‘I looked through his records and spoke to some of his teachers after getting the call yesterday. They described him as quiet and said he got by in his classes. He wasn’t a genius by any means, but he was passing. I got the impression he was a loner of sorts.’ Mr Dodd closed the book in front of him.
Maggie took out the photo and placed it on the table. ‘Do you recognize anyone in this picture?’
Mr Dodd pulled out a pair of glasses from his pocket and picked up the picture. ‘Well, the boy looks like Tim; I saw pictures of him on the news.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know who the young lady with him is. Is she a student here?’
Before Maggie could respond, the receptionist came in and placed the tray of drinks on the table. Maggie held out her hand to Mr Dodd and he passed her the photo back. ‘Before you go, I wondered if you could help us identify who the people in this picture are?’ She handed the photo to the woman.
The receptionist’s lips turned down. ‘That’s Tim Griffiths.’ She shot a glance at Mr Dodd before continuing. ‘And I think the girl with him is Olivia – I’d recognize her hair anywhere. Those lovely red locks of hers. She was always in and out of here for one thing or another. I don’t like to gossip, but … if I had to hazard a guess, I think Tim had a crush on her and she definitely used that to her advantage. They were like polar opposites, but he’d always try and take the blame for things that we’re
pretty sure she was responsible for. Don’t you recognize her?’ She passed the picture back to Mr Dodd. He looked again and shifted in his seat.
‘Now that you say it, yes … yes I think you’re right. It is Olivia, isn’t it?’ He examined the photo again. ‘Yes, definitely her.’ He placed the photo on the table and pushed it towards Maggie.
‘Do you have a last name for Olivia?’
‘Uh, yeah but I thought you might know her. Her father’s a police officer at your station, I believe. That’s Olivia Hastings.’
Chapter Twenty
Maggie stood. ‘Can you excuse me for just a moment? I just need to make a call. My colleague will take some details from you about Olivia Hastings if you can gather that together for her?’ She signalled to Kat, who nodded.
Out in the reception area, Maggie found a quiet spot in a corner and dialled Nathan’s number.
‘How are you getting on?’ Nathan didn’t even bother with a greeting; his voice had an edge to it, and she wouldn’t waste his time.
‘You could say that. We found a picture at the Griffiths’s house yesterday. It was Tim and a young girl, with her back to the camera.’
‘Yeah and …?’ His shortness momentarily caught her off guard.
‘Uh – we’ve had two members of staff advise that they believe the girl in the photo is Olivia Hastings.’ Maggie paused to let the news sink in.
‘Fuuuuuuck. DI Rutherford is going to go ballistic. Okay. Okay. Okay. See if anyone else can verify that. I’ll have Bethany continue to track down any of Hastings’s relatives, though it’s not looking good on that front. When his house was being searched, there didn’t seem to be any contacts with family members and Rutherford said she recalls him mentioning he was estranged from them so … Shit! Shit! Shit! This is …’ Nathan didn’t finish the sentence.
‘I know.’ Maggie ran her hand through her hair. Once the media got a hold of this … ‘When’s the press conference?’
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