Don't Trust Him

by Lisa Cutts

  She gave a genuine smile. ‘The officers that interviewed me told me what Dane’s last words to you were as he lay dying on the ferry deck. “It was all down to me. I forced Sophia to help me, so please leave her out of it. Tell her I’m sorry.”’

  She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks, H. I’m glad it was you he told.’

  ‘Me too, girl, me too.’

  Chapter 71

  Sean Turner watched Sophia walk out of the cafe and away from the town centre. He’d love to follow her home and then tidy her away, but he was running out of time. The most useful thing Hoopman had told him was at The Grand and was no doubt to encourage him to leave town. Even so, hanging around after being told the police had CCTV of him picking up Jenny Bloomfield in his car, was enough to make him rethink his plans.

  He wasn’t even sure that Sophia actually had any of the money from the safe. If Dane had been prepared to rip off Sean and any of his hired help who might come after him, why would he worry about the financial security of the latest in a long line of expendable women?

  It was more to do with being had over. That was a feeling Sean really didn’t like. He’d take care of Sophia next.

  It had been unpleasant dealing with his own sister, not to mention Jenny Bloomfield, so a woman copper of all things wouldn’t stop him sleeping at night.

  He kept his distance as she walked back towards a car park on the far side of town. He noticed with amusement that she had chosen to park as far away from the police station as she could without actually being in the next town.

  He saw her get into her Honda Civic, wondering briefly why the police had given it back to her so soon after her arrest. Dane had happily fed back to Sean and Milo everything about this woman’s house, car and way of life. Tracking her wouldn’t have been easy without the inside information. He wasn’t sure she had any of his money stashed away somewhere, but he’d enjoy trying to get its location out of her.

  His fingers flexed around the pliers in his pocket.

  Still, following her would be fun. His old skills never failed him.

  He would have liked to bide his time, watch her, wait until she was alone and vulnerable. That would be the most rewarding. If only he had a little longer.

  Whatever it took to get his money back and get shot of the girl.

  The only trouble was, his favourite place to bury a body was still being searched by the police. Sometimes life was unfair.

  Chapter 72

  Afternoon of Thursday 14 May

  With too much on his mind and too little energy, Harry walked back to his office. He knew that he was fortunate not to have been moved, suspended or at least get slapped with restrictions. His only guess was that his angry rant to the poor young officer’s body-worn camera two days ago had had some effect.

  The shit storm that was coming now would be like nothing he had ever encountered.

  Harry was so fucking angry that Sophia had been used in the way she had been. What with her and Pierre being tossed aside like leftovers, he wasn’t sure he wanted much more of this rotten organization.

  His pace back to East Rise nick got faster, his stride increased, and he felt his shirt start to stick to him in the unexpected afternoon warmth.

  Harry flung the door of the incident room open and was met with a wall of laughter. People enjoying themselves at work was one thing, but this was simply too much. If they had time to piss about, they had time to knuckle down. It wasn’t as if there was a shortage of work to be done.

  He muttered, ‘Hello, everyone,’ as he stomped off to his office, away from all forms of human interaction. Why hadn’t he become a zoo keeper or tractor driver? They couldn’t have had much in the way of conversation all day. Lucky bastards.

  Not for the first time, he knew he had to shake himself out of it. The thing was, he was lost and, if he was being perfectly honest, he didn’t want to get over it. He’d had enough of the job that simply kept on taking. And it was taking and taking. Mostly the piss.

  Harry jabbed at his computer’s keyboard, printed off some emails he was sure were important, although he couldn’t for the life of him think why, and made his way back out to the office to get them from the printer.

  Already seething at the general injustice of life, he stepped into the incident room and felt as though someone had lit the touch paper.

  Someone had dumped bags of exhibits on Pierre’s chair, left a tray of dirty coffee mugs on the desk and, if he wasn’t very much mistaken, it looked as though the night before, someone had sat and eaten a takeaway, leaving yellow staining all over the surface.

  ‘Who the fuck has done this?’ shouted Harry, apoplectic with rage, his already red face turning a health-warning purple.

  Silence dropped into the room. A couple of the older, wiser members of staff looked away. Those that were daft enough to looked at Harry and the debris on Pierre’s desk.

  ‘He was a fucking better detective dead than you shower of shit are alive, and you’ve the ill manners to leave his desk like this. What is the actual fucking matter with you dickheads?’

  From the back of the room, Hazel stood up.

  Harry watched her walk towards him. A shining light in this atrocious job he found himself doing with no love or enthusiasm any more.

  She stopped in front of him.

  ‘Can we talk in your office, please?’ she said as quietly as she could, although without any doubt, everyone else in the room heard it.

  A nod and he turned and walked away.

  Harry was aware that she was following him: her footsteps on the worn and torn carpet tiles sounded as loud as tap shoes on a stage in the team’s deathly hush.

  They sat opposite each other in his office, she a detective constable of many years, carrying her own misery, he a battle-weary detective inspector, not doing such a good job at hiding his torment.

  ‘I’ve lost it, Haze.’

  She smiled, perhaps to break to him gently what she was about to say, or maybe because she was stalling for time and didn’t actually know how to say it. An ordinary conversation couldn’t emerge from his latest outburst.

  ‘Perhaps it would be best if you took a couple of days off,’ she said.

  A simple solution to a very complex set of emotions.

  Harry rubbed at his eyes, felt the first signs of tears forming, so he simply shook them away. He didn’t have time for sentimentality.

  ‘No one, H, and I mean no one, has had such a bad time of it as you have in the last few years.’

  She paused as he opened his mouth to say something; he never established whether it was to agree or disagree with her because the thought froze, and the words refused to form.

  ‘When we met, your wife had just left you, then you found your friend’s body, and then Pierre was murdered. By anyone’s standards, that’s a lot to deal with. Your head must be a mess. I know mine is and I’ve had much less to contend with than you have.’

  Slowly, the cogs began to move, and the fog cleared.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I need a bit of time away, but the arrest of Sean Turner is our current priority. We just have to find the murdering fucker and it’ll all be over.’

  ‘I’ll ring the DCI and tell her you’ve had to take some last-minute leave. She’ll be fine with it; you know she will.’

  Mirroring each other, they now stood on opposite sides of Harry’s desk.

  ‘Thanks, Haze. And I’m sorry for shouting at everyone back there. I’ll get home, get my act together and make it up to you.’

  She nodded wisely at him and said, ‘Not really me you need to apologize to.’

  The nod turned into a tilt in the direction of the incident room.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Harry with an absent-minded scratch at his stubble. ‘Good point, well presented.’

  He took a deep breath, buttoned up his jacket and walked to address the rest of the team with a display of more authority than he felt.

  * />
  It was amazing how much better Harry felt once he was at home, showered, changed out of his work clothes and had a plan forming in his mind.

  Half an hour of research on the internet and he was sure all would go according to plan and, most importantly, Hazel would go with it. They had both had a terrible time of it lately and they needed something to look forward to, something to celebrate. He was certain this was what was missing.

  By the time his girlfriend had come home from work, hung up her jacket and joined him in the living room with a cup of tea, he had convinced himself that he had the answer to all their ills.

  ‘How was the rest of your day?’ he asked, tentative question accompanied by a tentative sip of his own drink.

  ‘It was okay,’ she said, putting hers down to cool on the side table between them. ‘Usual ridiculous amount of paperwork, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary about that. I’ve probably got to do a set of nights in the next few weeks.’

  ‘Sounds delightful, love.’

  He paused, moved in his seat to get a better look at her face, to take in her expression when he delivered his latest idea.

  ‘I’ve been thinking . . .’

  ‘You’ve been home for hours now, H, I should hope so.’

  ‘We’ve both got passports, and we’ve never been abroad together. How about it?’

  Hazel’s eyes softened; the corners of her mouth turned up.

  ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Where were you thinking?’

  ‘How about America?’

  ‘America?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Harry. ‘I’ve never been, you said the other day you hadn’t been, and I’ve always fancied seeing the Grand Canyon.’

  ‘Grand Canyon? Could be interesting.’

  Harry felt like rubbing his hands together at Hazel’s enthusiasm. Well, perhaps it wasn’t the right word to describe her emotion, but when they got there and happened to wander past the chapel next to their hotel, she was bound to get as caught up in the moment as he was.

  After all, there was little point in going all the way to Las Vegas and coming back without getting married.

  Chapter 73

  Evening of Thursday 14 May

  It took a moment for Sophia to fully grasp what was happening: the fear that gripped her momentarily rendered her speechless, frozen. She was unable to move, powerless to do anything.

  And then she remembered – no, she wasn’t.

  She’d be damned if she’d let this shit of a man get the better of her.

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ she all but shouted at him.

  ‘You wanna be careful,’ said Sean Turner as he took another step towards her, the tips of their shoes almost touching.

  ‘Do I? And has it occurred to you for one second that your threats don’t intimidate me?’

  Sophia leaned towards him, so close she could smell his breath. She wasn’t going to show this man any fear.

  Despite the volatile situations she had found herself in, the training, the expectation that any day at work could end with her being beaten senseless, it still came as a shock to her when Turner’s hand shot out and he grabbed her around the throat.

  She supposed that, for a second, she must have looked absolutely petrified. She only guessed that by the smug look of satisfaction all over his face.

  That made her angrier than she had ever been in her life.

  Instinctively both of her hands came up in a single movement, straight against his arm, forcing him to do one of two things. Sophia counted on him squeezing her neck tighter.

  Grateful that the violent bastard was so predictable, as his fingers dug into her windpipe, she brought her right knee up with as much force as possible. The impact with his testicles was short and sharp, just like his breathing when the pain kicked in.

  As Sean doubled over, she knew she didn’t have long before he was on her again, so she used what she had to hand – literally.

  Policewomen were still women so didn’t tend to walk about without an awareness of who might be lurking around corners. That was why Sophia clutched her door key in between her knuckles.

  A perfectly legal and explainable weapon. It paid to know the law. And how to jab someone in the eyeball.

  One swift movement was all it took to make her tormentor’s screams pierce the air.

  Sickened by what she’d done, yet relieved it wasn’t her thrashing around on the ground in the alleyway, Sophia felt her way along the wall towards the street. Her fingers felt numb as she pulled herself along the brickwork, bile rising in her throat.

  She knew she couldn’t run away from this. Apart from someone most likely hearing Turner’s wailing, her front-door key was wedged in his eye socket. There was little hope of the police failing to catch up with her; besides, she would rather face her colleagues than spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.

  Now safely in the street, close to a nearby shop window, she made her way on shaky legs to the centre of the pavement. With trembling hands, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

  As she kept watch on the entrance to the alley, she rang 999.

  About the Author

  Lisa Cutts is the author of six police procedural novels, based on her twenty-three years of policing experience. She works as a detective constable for Kent Police and has spent over fifteen years in the Serious Crime Directorate dealing mostly with murders and other serious investigations. She has been on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book with Mariella Frostrup, part of First Fictions festival at West Dean College, Chichester, on the inaugural panel at Brighton’s Dark and Stormy festival, on ITV’s This Morning and at the Chiswick Book Festival. Her debut novel, Never Forget, won the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for best thriller.

  More from the Author

  Lost Lives

  Buried Secrets

  Mercy Killing

  Also by Lisa Cutts

  Never Forget

  Remember, Remember

  Mercy Killing

  Buried Secrets

  Lost Lives

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  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2020

  Copyright © Lisa Cutts, 2020

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

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  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-6832-1

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places and incidents are either a

  product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual people living or dead,

  events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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