Her Final Hour

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Until three o’clock, yes. Then he wandered in here – he looked worried, and said he had to dash back up to the cottage. I said it wasn’t a problem, and that I’d see him later for a conference call with one of the owners.’

  ‘What did he say he had to go there for?’

  ‘I think he said he’d forgotten something. I was in the middle of something, so I didn’t really hear what he said.’

  ‘When did you think something might be wrong?’

  ‘I was busy with paperwork – half my time is spent filling out forms for The British Horseracing Authority and various racecourses – so I didn’t look at my watch again until I heard the horses coming back into the yard from the training session.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Just after five o’clock – that lane out there turns into a race circuit with commuters from a quarter past and I like to know they’re all back here safely before rush hour.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I realised then that I hadn’t seen White in the yard – with that window facing the stables, it gives me a good view of everything going on out there, and I try to look away from the computer screen every twenty minutes. My optician tells me it’s supposed to help with eye strain.’ His mouth twisted at the memory. ‘I wandered off down the hallway and called to Brennan, but he hadn’t seen Nigel up at the gallops either, so I told him to go up to the cottage and make sure he was all right. Next thing I know, my mobile phone’s ringing and it’s Brennan telling me that he’s found Nigel… and that he was dead.’

  Adams shuddered, his face paling at the memory.

  ‘Why did Will phone you, not the police – or an ambulance?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because I’m his boss, I suppose. Anyway, I dialled 999, told your lot what had happened and then drove up to the cottage with Paul. We found Brennan sitting on the bottom stair tread, staring into space.’

  ‘Did any of you touch anything?’

  ‘No – I’ve seen enough television shows.’

  ‘Did either of you remove anything from the property?’

  ‘I told Brennan to grab a change of clothes for him and Hitchens, and told him they could use the bunks in the canteen down here. I figured you wouldn’t want either of them in the cottage last night. I couldn’t imagine the pair of them wanting to stay there, anyway.’

  ‘And you say you removed nothing apart from their clothes?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Adams glared at him. ‘What are you insinuating, Detective Turpin?’

  Mark smiled. ‘Nothing at all, Mr Adams. Just wanted to make sure I understood you correctly.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  A fog of frustration hung in the air as Ewan Kennedy strode to the front of the incident room and faced the investigation team.

  Paperwork lay strewn across desks, reports lay open with pages well-thumbed and creased, and desk phones blinked with alerts that messages were waiting.

  Fatigue was setting in as was the realisation that ten days had passed since Jessica Marley’s body had been found on the gallops, and they were no further forward in their work despite Nigel White’s suicide note.

  Until such time as the handwriting expert confirmed the words belonged to MacKenzie Adams’ stable hand, Jan guessed her DI would be reluctant to consider the case closed or assign his team to other tasks.

  ‘Right, everyone.’ Kennedy’s voice carried across the assembled group of officers. ‘Alex – I hear you’ve managed to interview the two bus drivers at last?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘Get up here and let us have an update then.’

  Mark put down his coffee cup and moved so he had a better view of Alex and could hear what the detective constable had to say.

  Alex cleared his throat as he joined the DI. ‘Can you all hear me at the back? Good. All right – we got two names from the bus company, and, thanks to Tom’s work chasing this up, they were able to attend here for interview with their union representative late yesterday afternoon. Leonard Smith drove the last bus between here and Harton Wick on Monday night, passing the location where we now know the streetlight to have been broken. He says he saw no-one around at that time, and that he dropped off his last passenger at eleven fifty-five up at the crossroads on the main road before turning into the village. We’ve had a look at the CCTV from his vehicle, and can confirm the light was working when Leonard went past.’

  Alex flipped through the notes in his hand. ‘The second driver was Michael Brockman. He drove the last bus coming the other way through Hazelthorpe. He passed Smith’s bus in Hazelthorpe at ten past twelve and reached Harton Wick at twelve twenty-five, according to the CCTV footage from his bus. He states that he had to put his lights on full beam because one of the streetlights was out.’

  The incident room exploded with voices, and Mark peered around to catch Jan’s attention. She stuck up her thumb, then turned back to Kennedy, who raised his hands.

  ‘Pipe down, everyone. Thanks, Alex. Anything else from the second driver, Michael Brockman?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘We’ve passed the CCTV recording over to digital forensics, guv, but it’s pretty grainy. We all had a look at it, but couldn’t see anyone parked near the streetlight when the bus passed and there was no-one lurking around the pub or further up the lane. I’m guessing whoever smashed the light hid somewhere close by.’

  Kennedy scratched his jaw. ‘Which still means that somehow they had to coerce Jessica to their vehicle, wherever that was parked.’

  ‘Or carry her,’ said Mark.

  ‘What about the blood spatter found on those stones nearby? Have we got a match?’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ said Alex. ‘The lab says it’s definitely Jessica’s.’

  ‘We let the CCTV recording run for the rest of the route up the lane to the crossroads and a couple of miles after that,’ said Caroline, ‘but there were no abandoned vehicles in plain sight. We made a note of all the vehicles the bus did pass, and they’ve checked out as belonging to residents who live along that stretch of road. Any further than the crossroads where the main road is, and I don’t think Jessica’s killer would’ve got away with carrying her. Too far, and too risky.’

  ‘Guv? Noah and Sonia Collins have told us that Jessica left the Farriers Arms at eleven-thirty,’ said Jan. ‘So, where did she go after that? I mean, if we’re proposing that her killer broke the streetlight sometime between eleven fifty-five and twelve twenty-five in order to give themselves some cover, then where was Jessica during that time?’

  A series of murmurs rumbled through the incident room, and then Wilcox raised his voice.

  ‘If we follow up with her mobile phone provider, we could trace her number and see where her phone was at the time,’ he said. ‘If it was switched on, we might be able to narrow it down.’

  ‘Check with Noah Collins as well,’ said Kennedy. ‘Ask him if he or Sonia saw anyone talking to Jessica outside the pub after she left, or whether they heard any vehicles idling nearby.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  ‘Next – what the bloody hell is going on at those stables? Turpin – you first.’

  ‘Guv.’ Mark walked to the front of the room and then faced his colleagues, an expression of consternation flitting across his face. ‘We spoke with Adams, who confirmed that it was Brennan who found White’s body and phoned him from the cottage. Adams drove up there with Paul Hitchens after dialling triple nine, told Brennan to grab a change of clothing for both of them, and says nothing else was touched.’

  ‘But Adams couldn’t know for sure what Will Brennan was up to between leaving the stables to go and find White and when he turned up with Hitchens,’ said Kennedy. ‘How long was Brennan on his own for?’

  ‘Adams reckoned on about fifteen minutes,’ said Mark. ‘It’s only a five-minute drive cross-country from the yard to the cottage. Allowing five minutes to get there, discover White and phone Adams, who then phoned it in before heading up there himself, the timeframe works.’


  ‘Alex – what did Brennan tell you?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘The same as he told the officers who interviewed him last night,’ said the detective constable. ‘He didn’t deviate from the original statement at all. When we asked him if he’d removed anything from the cottage, specifically from White’s room, he said he hadn’t, and that he’d only gone upstairs after Adams turned up and told him to go and get some spare clothes. He said when he first got there, the front door was unlocked – and confirmed that wasn’t unusual if one of them was home – and that he was too shocked to do anything apart from calling Adams when he discovered the body.’

  ‘Does anyone have any evidence other than the suicide note to suggest White killed Jessica?’

  A murmur of negative responses rippled through the room.

  ‘What about motive? Any ideas?’

  Kennedy paced the floor in front of the whiteboard as Alex returned to his desk, resting his hands on hips as he waited for someone to enlighten him.

  Jan held her breath. Kennedy was a good boss, but impatience at the lack of progress showed in the way his shoulders stiffened at the sound of silence and the knowledge his officers could do no more with the information they had to date. In her experience, it was better to stay quiet than hazard an unsubstantiated guess.

  ‘All right, if we have no ideas about motive, why now?’ said Kennedy eventually. ‘Jessica was killed over a week ago, so why has White killed himself now? Why not last week?’

  ‘Maybe he thought he’d got away with it, guv,’ said Caroline. ‘Maybe, until recently, he had nothing to fear. Perhaps someone said something to him that made him panic.’

  ‘Adams did say, when we spoke to him yesterday, that White had told him that he had to return to the cottage. He said he’d looked worried,’ said Turpin.

  ‘About what?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘He didn’t know,’ said Jan. ‘He was up to his eyeballs in paperwork, apparently, and wasn’t paying much attention. He just told White to remember they had a conference call with an owner later on. It was when he didn’t show up for that, that Adams sent Brennan to find him.’

  ‘The laptop that Jasper’s lot found underneath White’s mattress,’ said Turpin. ‘It wasn’t switched off, it had gone into sleep mode. What if he was using it when he first went back to the cottage, and then got interrupted? Perhaps a knock at the door, or movement downstairs. The way it was shoved under the mattress suggests he was hiding it from someone in a hurry, rather than keeping it out of sight from any would-be passing burglar that might go up to the cottage while they were all at work.’

  ‘What of it?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘We wondered if he might’ve hidden it from someone like Brennan or Adams – someone from the stables who he didn’t want to know he’d been on the gaming sites that had been left open.’

  Kennedy turned to Alex, who was sitting at his desk with White’s laptop open beside him. ‘Have you managed to access his account with that gaming site?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’ The detective constable spun the computer around to face the DI as he crossed the room to join him.

  Her interest piqued, Jan reached Alex at the same time as Turpin.

  ‘What have you found so far?’ said Kennedy, resting a hand on the desk as he peered at the screen.

  ‘It’s the sort of site where you’ve got the option to load up your credit card details or you can buy credit to spend on an as-and-when-needed basis,’ said Alex. ‘White seems to have preferred the first method, so once we have copies of his bank statements available, I’ll do a cross-check between those and this account.’

  ‘Was he getting in over his head with the repayments?’ said Turpin.

  ‘No,’ said Alex. ‘That’s the thing. He wasn’t getting behind at all. In fact, he paid a few hundred pounds up front every week or so, and didn’t spend over that. He budgeted well, but he wasn’t a good player.’

  Jan moved closer and peered at the screen. ‘Bloody hell. MacKenzie Adams can’t be paying him that much to work for him, can he? How’s he affording this sort of a habit?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ said Alex. ‘It’s not a habit. You’re seeing his overall spend for the past twelve months there. I’ve been taking a look at what White was up to on these gaming sites, and it doesn’t look like he was really gambling at all – the spending pattern is too sporadic.’

  ‘Well, what was he doing then?’ said Turpin.

  Alex pushed the laptop away and spun his chair around to face them. ‘It looks almost like he was doing research.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Mark pulled a navy polo shirt over his head, and then froze.

  A sharp bark from Hamish confirmed his suspicions – the doorbell had rung.

  He ran a hand over wet hair, peered in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and sighed.

  ‘It’ll have to do.’

  Heart racing, he fastened his belt with trembling fingers as he launched himself down the stairs, steam from the bathroom chasing his bare feet.

  He forced himself to take a breath, battling down a sudden flurry of nerves and choked out a laugh.

  ‘I’m worse than a bloody teenager.’

  Mark opened the door, letting in a cold wind that nipped at his toes.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I’m early,’ said Lucy, her forehead creased.

  ‘No, you’re not. I’m still running late,’ said Mark. ‘Come on in.’

  ‘Here, wine – as promised.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He closed the door behind her, placed the bottle bag on a small table near the stairs beside his car keys, then helped her out of her coat. ‘And I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up. One of those days.’

  ‘That’s okay, I don’t––’

  Hamish launched himself from the living room, a bundle of fur-covered joy. His paws clawed at Lucy’s jeans, and she pushed her long curls from her face while she pretended to fight him off with her other hand.

  ‘Good boy,’ she said.

  ‘Good boy, but get down,’ said Mark. ‘Come on, Hamish. Enough.’

  The dog wagged his tail, dashed a circle around Lucy’s heels and then trotted along the hall to the kitchen, his tail in the air.

  Mark laughed. ‘I’m sure if he had thumbs, he’d be opening a couple of beers for us right now.’

  ‘We’d better go and check he isn’t,’ said Lucy. ‘Oh, here – it’s late, but I remembered I hadn’t given you a housewarming present.’

  She reached into a canvas tote bag and withdrew a tissue-wrapped rectangle.

  Mark turned it in his hands. ‘You didn’t have to do that, thank you.’

  ‘You haven’t seen it yet.’ She grinned. ‘Open it, then.’

  Buoyed by her enthusiasm, he tore open the wrapping to discover a charcoal sketch she’d made of the old narrowboat he’d rented over the summer, a miniature Hamish scampering along the towpath beside it. She’d made the frame from driftwood, and as Mark ran his thumb over the uneven surface, tracing the whorls, he blinked.

  ‘This is lovely, thank you.’

  ‘I figured it’d be a nice reminder of a new start,’ she said.

  ‘It is.’

  Mark swallowed. Lucy’s kindness and intuition had been something he’d enjoyed about her company when they’d been moored next to each other on the river, and he realised how much he missed living there.

  ‘So, are you going to give me the grand tour?’ she said, smiling.

  He snorted. ‘Now, that isn’t going to take long.’

  ‘You’re talking to someone who still lives on a boat, mister. Humour me.’

  He laughed, before leading her up the stairs. He hurried forward, pulling the bathroom door shut, and then turned to her on the landing.

  ‘You’re right – you were early. Don’t go in there.’

  She laughed, a pretty sound that made him smile as he brushed past her and gestured towards the main bedroom. ‘That’s me in there, and I’m using one of the spare rooms for st
orage at the moment until I decide what to do with everything. I’m using this middle bedroom as a sort of office.’

  He leaned forward to switch on a desk lamp, then stepped to one side to let her pass.

  Two full bookcases lined the wall to the right of the door, and he’d set up his desk and a two-drawer filing cabinet to the left so his chair faced the landing. A dog bed, squashed and well used, took up the floor space next to the radiator.

  Mark placed the framed sketch next to his laptop.

  ‘This is nice. It feels like you spend a lot of time in here.’

  ‘Probably more than I should.’

  Her brow creased as she saw the photograph of Anna and Louise beside the desk lamp. ‘I was sorry to hear about your divorce. Thanks for telling me.’

  He shrugged. ‘In hindsight, I think it was inevitable. We did the best we could.’

  Lucy stepped over to the window and peered outside.

  Dusk was settling over the landscape beyond the garden; a purple and blue hue that hung over the trees, the twilight sky bustling with clouds that raced towards the horizon.

  ‘If you stand on tiptoe you’ll be able to see the river between the trees,’ said Mark.

  Lucy did as he suggested, her eyebrows raised. ‘Oh, yes.’

  He moved closer, his heart tilting as he inhaled her perfume. ‘I can see your boat from here.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Almost. Through there, down to the right a bit. See it?’

  ‘I think so.’ She turned and reached out for his hand, then kissed him. ‘I’ll sleep better at night knowing you’re keeping a lookout for me.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Starving.’

  Lucy sat at the dining table and regaled Mark with news from her latest art exhibition while he dished out generous portions of the roast dinner he’d been preparing since returning from work. He enjoyed the excuse to cook something more substantial than the meals for one he’d been living on, and her easy conversation helped ease away the stresses of the current investigation.