A Deathly Silence

by Isaac, Jane;

  As soon as they entered the canteen, all became clear. Chairs and tables at the front had been cleared, the space now occupied by a wooden lectern in the centre, where a book was laid out: Sinead’s book of condolence.

  The sight of so many of her colleagues queuing early to pay their respects knotted Helen’s chest. ‘I’ll find us a space to talk nearby,’ she said to Jenkins.

  Two doors up from the canteen, Helen found an empty meeting room with a round table in the centre surrounded by a few chairs. She settled herself into one of them and, within minutes, Jenkins joined her with two mugs of milky coffee.

  He placed the drinks down and closed the door behind him. ‘So, how are you doing?’ he said, sitting down and crossing one leg over another, a movement that made him appear at an angle. ‘I haven’t had a chance to speak with you properly since you returned to duty.’

  Surely this wasn’t a welfare call. Right now, when they had a fresh body in the mortuary. She shifted in her seat. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  He surveyed her a moment. ‘You look pale.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you miss a night’s sleep.’

  ‘I’m checking you’re up to the challenge, Helen. This is going to be a high-profile investigation. You heard the chief, he wants it wrapped up quickly. You’ve just returned from sick leave.’

  During the short time they’d worked together, she’d grown accustomed to his reserved nature, although now she was beginning to wonder whether he was genuinely unable to show emotion or being deliberately obtuse. ‘As I said, I’m fine.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘When am I getting the extra resources Adams talked about at the press conference?’

  ‘I’ll look into it. You know how things are.’

  She levelled his gaze. She was familiar with the cuts, she’d lost half her civilian complement in the past twelve months. But this was a serious crime, a murder. In years gone by, they’d have thrown resources at cases like these. Begged, borrowed and stolen detectives from every department on short-term loan so they could work through the wealth of interviews, witnesses and evidence that dogged the days following a homicide. The chief was already talking about regular updates.

  ‘Adams clearly said—’

  ‘I heard him,’ Jenkins interrupted. ‘Your new inspector will be here next week. We’ll get him to look at resourcing for the whole unit.’

  ‘I need people now. We’re struggling to cover the phones.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He lifted his mug, swirled the coffee around and lowered it again. ‘What I need to know is, do we need to be concerned, for the force?’

  Helen was reminded of the burns on Sinead’s arms, the missing fingers. ‘It’s too early to say. We need to look into the victim’s background, her former cases.’

  ‘What about Operation Aspen?’ There it was again, their last case, hovering in the background like an annoyingly bad smell.

  ‘I’ve already spoken with my team. We are treating this as a fresh investigation.’

  ‘That might be the case, but,’ he leant in closer, his eyes narrowing to tiny holes, ‘what’s your gut telling you here? Could there be a compromise? A link with organised crime, either Chilli Franks’s old unit or whoever has taken over from him?’

  Helen held his gaze a minute. ‘We have gained access to Sinead’s car and it’s being forensically examined. We have a list of contacts to be interviewed and an autopsy yet to be completed. I can only be guided by the evidence.’

  ‘You must have an opinion?’

  The use of handcuffs troubled her. Like Pemberton said, it was unlikely they’d trace the supplier, they were readily available on the internet. But she couldn’t help wondering if it was a message of some sort. ‘It’s a line of inquiry we have to explore. We’ve already spoken to her sergeant, who hasn’t raised any concerns. We need to examine her personal file for complaints, check intelligence and speak with the organised crime unit.’

  ‘Okay. Leave that to me.’ He uncrossed his legs. ‘I’ll reach out to force intelligence and the organised crime unit about Franks’s old operation, see who’s filled his shoes and if there’s any connection to Sinead. Let’s keep this amongst senior officers, away from the team. I want them to focus on Sinead and the evidence before them for now.’ He stood and buttoned his jacket. ‘Call me as soon as there’s a development.’

  Steam rose from his untouched coffee as he strode out of the room.

  CHAPTER 9

  The bleep of a distant alarm woke Connor. He grabbed his phone, checked the time: 7 a.m.

  His mother’s gentle footfalls sounded from the room next door. Cupboard doors intermittently opened and closed as she dressed and prepared herself for work.

  ‘Connor,’ her soft voice called from the landing. ‘It’s time to get up.’ Their usual morning routine.

  Connor grunted and pulled his pillow over his head. He wasn’t ready to get up. But he didn’t want to stay in bed either. Not after spending most of the night desperately trying to erase images of the dead woman, empty eyes peeping through a mop of dark curls, that kept popping into his head. Churning last night’s events over and over.

  Every time he tried to shut her out, willing sleep to smother his thoughts, she’d find another opening and force her way back in. It was a constant battle, sapping his energy, wearing him down, until he slipped into a middle ground, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, when she became more gruesome: a wide Joker-like smile fixed on her inert face; strips of peeled skin, hanging off; open wounds populated by wriggling maggots. The ghouls of his mind feeding on the grisly memories, mixing them with the macabre characters on his games console.

  Three a.m. had passed. And four and five. It was after six when he’d finally fallen into an exhausted slumber.

  His mobile pinged. A message from Rhys: Free today?

  He nestled back into the pillows, wondering if Rhys had suffered a fitful night’s sleep. If he was struggling too.

  The sound of clinking crockery seeped up the stairs. His mother was in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher. It was almost 7.30.

  He recalled the dead woman’s yellow trainers, all the blood. Had they found her yet? He hoped so.

  By the time he’d dressed and gone down the stairs, Fiona, his mother, was standing at the kitchen counter, making sandwiches. Her copper bobbed hair jiggled on her shoulders as she buttered the bread.

  ‘There you are,’ she said, holding the knife at an angle. ‘Just in time. Marmite or jam?’

  Bile filled Connor’s mouth. The thought of eating anything made him want to be sick. ‘Marmite,’ he mumbled, swallowing it back.

  ‘Okay.’ She pulled a pot out of the cupboard. ‘Your cornflakes are on the table.’

  Connor slid into a chair. The glistening sugar sprinkled across the top of the cereal made his stomach flip. He looked away. The head and shoulders of a newsreader filled the television in the corner. He squinted at the screen, tried to listen, but the sound was low and he couldn’t make out her words.

  ‘What time did you get home last night?’ Fiona asked, her back to him as she bagged up the sandwiches.

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘You could have come and said goodnight. I was getting worried, about to ring you when I came into the kitchen, found the washing machine on and realised you were already back.’

  He glanced at the machine, breaths hitching. He’d forgotten about the clothes. ‘I was tired.’

  ‘Oh, and don’t wear your best jeans to play football. You’ll ruin them. I’ve had to put them on a hot wash.’

  Connor swallowed.

  ‘Your trainers are on the line, you’ll have to wear your old ones today.’ She turned and handed him the wrapped sandwiches. ‘Are you all right? You don’t look well.’ She reached out, touched his forehead. Her hand was warm and sticky and smelt of Marmite.

  He ducked away.

  ‘Hmm. Maybe you should have a night in tonight. You sure you’re okay for holiday
club?’

  Connor cringed at the term. Holiday clubs were for primary-school kids, not soon-to-be teenagers. He’d argued vehemently against going and Fiona had insisted. ‘When you’re a teenager, we’ll review it,’ she’d said. ‘There’s only me to look after you and I don’t want you wandering the streets all day while I’m at the office.’ At least he got to play football, the one saving grace, even if it was with children much younger than him.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Okay, I must go, I’m running late. I’ll pick us up some of those eclairs you like on the way home. Don’t forget your key.’

  She bent down, pecked his forehead and disappeared into the hallway. Seconds later, the front door slammed shut.

  He grabbed the remote control, turned up the volume. The newsreader had been replaced by a woman in a yellow dress, a banner heralding East Midlands News in the background. She was talking about an arson last night at a shoe shop in Hampton centre. He lifted a spoon, pushed the cornflakes around the bowl. When he looked back up, the television screen had changed to a police officer in full uniform, his face sombre. ‘This is a tragic death of one of our own,’ he said. The photo of a woman flashed up on the screen. Long dark curls scattered across her shoulders; dimples grooved into the cheeks of her smiling face.

  It was her. The woman from the factory.

  ‘PC Sinead O’Donnell was a decorated officer, a mother of two,’ the man on screen was now saying. ‘She will be sadly missed. Her death is being treated as murder.’ A female officer in plain clothes appealed for anyone who’d seen Sinead yesterday morning. ‘We also urgently need to trace two kids seen running from Billings factory.’

  Connor jumped, knocking the table, flipping the bowl of cereal. Milk and cornflakes cascaded down as the bowl crashed to the floor. Connor’s eyes were fixed on the blurred CCTV still on the screen. Their hoods hung low on their foreheads and, with their heads dipped, it was impossible to see their faces. But he was in no doubt, it was Rhys and him.

  CHAPTER 10

  Helen stared at the incident-room boards, now covered with photos of Sinead, her Fiesta, Billings’s frontage and various shots of the factory. Pemberton’s deeply pitted Yorkshire accent rang out as he pointed to photos of Sinead O’Donnell’s car and talked the team through how it was found, but she wasn’t really listening. She was studying the map.

  Keys Trading Estate was on the east of the county, a stone’s throw from the ring road and within half a mile of Police Headquarters. Sinead lived on the south-eastern side, on a modern estate, close to the edge of town. She’d left Blane at 10 a.m., heading west in the direction of the motorway junction, which was twenty-five minutes, or so, drive from her home. They knew she hadn’t taken the ring road which circled the town because it would have taken her directly to the junction. Instead, she chose to drive through town and take the country route towards the motorway. Was this a personal preference, or did she pick someone up on the way?

  She switched her gaze to Ashdown Lane and the car parked neatly at the side of the road and imagined Sinead driving down, the Fiesta rocking as she swerved to avoid the potholes. Excited at the prospect of a break away from work, her family. Perhaps she’d heard the wheel start to clunk, parked up and taken a look. She’d phoned Blane at 10.23 a.m. to check on the children. Blane hadn’t mentioned the blowout, it must have occurred soon after their call. Why, then, hadn’t she called him back, or even tried a breakdown service?

  Sinead was a cop, trained to watch her back and trust her instincts. She’d be careful about who she took lifts from. Perhaps she’d abandoned the car, walked back towards town and flagged down a passing motorist. Or maybe she was followed. But an opportunist would likely act quickly and dispose of the body nearby. Her killer took the trouble to transport her from one side of the town to another, back to Cross Keys. Charles was pretty sure she was killed at the factory. Which meant Sinead was in a vehicle with them for almost half an hour, alive.

  The killer was prepared, with a knife and a remote location organised and ready.

  Helen’s eyes traced the picture of Sinead, taken before the murder. The lens had caught her profile as she looked away from the camera, smiling, unaware she was being photographed. It showed off her round jawline, the thick dimple in her cheek, her dark lashes. She’d clearly been a very attractive woman. A twinge of sadness. And so young.

  She’d spent the last hour leafing through Sinead’s personnel file. It was littered with commendations: for disarming a man with a gun in a shopping centre; saving the life of a stab victim by holding a credit card over the wound to stem the blood loss. Her shift sergeant described her as ‘a capable officer, well known for her ability to diffuse potentially violent situations’. Not somebody easily intimidated then.

  Pemberton stepped back. ‘The car’s been lifted and taken for forensic examination, but there was no sign of her missing handbag or phone inside. We’ve cell-sited the phone and the last trace was within two hundred yards of Ashdown Lane.’

  ‘Which means it was turned off when she left the car,’ Spencer said.

  ‘Appears that way. We’re looking at her call records. She called and messaged her neighbour a lot.’ He went on to give details of the last call recorded to Blane on her phone records. ‘Blane O’Donnell booked on for work at 10.32 a.m.,’ he said. ‘They didn’t have a course running, so he was doing an inventory of the gym equipment.’

  ‘Was anyone with him?’ Helen said. He wouldn’t be the first spouse to kill his partner and feign grief.

  ‘Yes, a support officer called Karen White. She’s given a statement confirming she was with him at headquarters all day.’

  Another gaze at the map. Billings was on Carter Way, a long winding road leading directly off the roundabout at the bottom. It was isolated from the rest of the estate, one of the reasons it had been earmarked for development. ‘If we’re assuming the offender left in a vehicle of some description, he must have navigated Cross Keys roundabout at the end of Carter Way,’ Helen said.

  A groan travelled around the room. Cross Keys was one of the largest roundabouts in Hampton, with seven exits leading in a plethora of different directions through town and out towards the ring road.

  ‘I know. I know,’ she said. ‘But with the units closed you wouldn’t expect much traffic turning into or out of that junction. Let’s see if the roundabout cameras picked up anything on Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Sadly, there are no cameras near Ashdown Lane,’ Pemberton said. ‘We’ve appealed for sightings of Sinead from 10 a.m. yesterday.’

  ‘How are we getting on with friends and family?’ Helen asked.

  A phone rang in the background and Spencer grabbed it.

  ‘It’s slow,’ Pemberton said. ‘Sinead’s family are in Ireland, she doesn’t have anyone close by.’

  ‘Okay, the techies have her laptop. Let’s see what they can find there,’ Helen said. ‘We’ll interview her team today. Find out who she is closest to and who she spends her time with, both inside and outside of work. Who followed up on the informant?’

  Rosa Dark raised a hand. ‘His story checks out.’

  Another line of inquiry settled. It wouldn’t be the first time the killer had posed as an informant, trying to direct the heat elsewhere.

  Spencer dropped the phone into the cradle and stood. ‘That was the bank. She has a few quid in her savings account and her credit cards are pretty maxed out. But, get this, £250 was withdrawn from her current account at precisely 6.33 p.m. yesterday evening.’

  ‘After she’d died,’ Helen said. ‘That’s interesting. Where from?’

  ‘The ATM on Weston High Street.’

  Weston was a run-down, largely residential area on the edge of Hampton centre, bordering with Keys Trading Estate. ‘Tell me they have cameras,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘They’re sending over the footage.’

  ‘Excellent. Let’s see what it shows.’ She turned back to the room. ‘Anything back on the
kids from the public appeal?’

  Heads shook. ‘It’s early days,’ Dark said, ‘and the description is sketchy at best. The CCTV footage is coming through now and the property developer’s admin team will be starting shortly. We’ll get a list of keyholders and former owners then.’

  ‘Right, Pemberton and I will head down to the mortuary for the autopsy,’ Helen said. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but this is a very sensitive case and likely to attract national media attention. We’ve already had leaks. In the press conference this morning, a reporter asked about Sinead’s injuries and mentioned torture. It’s possible they will refer to Operation Aspen and look for links with organised crime. We have no evidence to suggest this, although we can’t rule anything out at present.

  ‘The chief constable is taking a personal interest in this case and has asked me to reiterate the need for confidentiality. So, everything, every piece of paper that passes through this office, every message, everything we discuss, stays in this room, unless either me or the DI says so. Okay?’ Heads nodded around her. ‘We need an Authorised Personnel Only sign for the door, and let’s get the passcode to this office changed, to ensure it’s only homicide team access.’

  CHAPTER 11

  The little people sat on the settee in Blane O’Donnell’s mother’s front room, their feet bare. Thomas’s polo shirt was on back to front, the label sticking out at the side. The corners of Ava’s large eyes were littered with sleep dust, her wispy curls tangled. She was fidgeting, wriggling her bottom deeper into the sofa cushions. Blane’s mother placed an arm around her. At three years old, Ava struggled to keep still.

  He’d considered waking them in the night to deliver the news. Though there was always the chance it would induce nightmares or stop them from wanting to go to sleep in future, afraid of what they might wake to. He’d toyed with taking them into the kitchen, where they would usually be at this time in the morning, sitting at the breakfast table, surrounded by milk cartons and cereal boxes. But then they might associate the table as a bad place to be around, rather than a place to sit, eat and be social with friends and family.