The Liar's House: An absolutely gripping thriller with a fantastic twist (Detective Gina Harte Book 4)

by Carla Kovach

  ‘Morning. Fill me in.’

  They began walking. ‘A woman, Sophie Dobbins, forty-two, was brought in a short while ago after being attacked alongside the river. She’d left the party and was walking outside while waiting for her husband to pick her up, this was between one forty-five and two. That’s all I know at the moment. I’m just hoping we’ll be able to talk with her so we can get a head start on finding out who did this. They were treating her wounds when I popped my head around a few minutes ago. They should be ready to see us now.’ He looked at his watch and led the way.

  Gina followed him through the double doors, past the nurses’ station and they waited outside the side room in which their victim was resting. Jennifer, one of the crime scene investigators, arrived behind them looking sleepy and flustered as she pushed through with her bag. ‘Bernard sent me. He’s currently working the scene with Keith.’

  ‘Great, we’ll just make sure we have her clothes and take some samples, nail clippings, etcetera, and get them to the lab. It’s too much of a coincidence, another attack following one of these Swap Fun parties.’ Gina stared through the glass, hoping the nurse attending to their victim would at least acknowledge their presence.

  ‘If you can fast—’

  Briggs was interrupted by Jennifer. ‘I know. Fast track as always. I’ll get them to the lab as soon as I’m finished here. I can’t promise immediate results but we will be on it. It depends on how much comes back from the other scene too.’ Jennifer pulled a net over her low bun. ‘Don’t want to contaminate anything further. I don’t know how useful this is going to be.’ She glared through the window. ‘It looks like they’ve cut her clothes off. She’s been in an ambulance, been wheeled through the hospital. Too many people have already messed with the potential evidence so I wouldn’t hold out much hope.’

  The nurse left the room. ‘She said she’s up to speaking with you now. We’ve checked her over, it’s mostly superficial. No stitches but she is very bruised and shaken.’

  The small room was furnished with a single blue plastic chair and a television that hung from above. A jug of water sat on the cabinet next to her. The woman looked up through her brown fringe.

  ‘I’m DI Harte, this is DCI Briggs. We’d like to speak to you about what happened. We also have a forensics officer present. May I sit down?’

  The woman nodded and Gina scraped the chair close to the bed and pulled her notebook from her bag. Briggs stood at the end of the bed, the tiny room not very accommodating of his bulky frame. Even though he was SIO, she knew he’d want her to interview the victim.

  ‘We realise you’ve had an awful night and you probably just want to clean up and rest but may we take your clothes and a few samples after we’ve spoken? The samples won’t be intrusive, just nail clippings and hair. We want to find out who attacked you and this would help us greatly.’ Gina offered a slight warm smile, trying to put Sophie at ease.

  ‘Yes, take the clothes.’ With a shaky finger, she pointed at the pile of clothes that had been folded up and placed in a recess in the bedside table. Jennifer shuffled between Gina and the window with an evidence bag as Gina continued interviewing their victim.

  ‘Okay, can you tell me what happened? Take your time.’

  She nodded. Her face blotchy with tears, and dirt smudged over her chin and forehead. Her right hand was bandaged. A tall thin man, probably of a similar age to the woman, knocked on the door and entered. ‘Shall I wait outside, love?’ he asked.

  The woman nodded. Gina could sense that there was some tension between them from the way that they looked at each other. He obligingly left.

  ‘That’s my husband. He arrived just before you. Anyway, the party was coming to an end – the party at my friend Sarah’s. My husband had popped out and was meant to pick me up but I couldn’t get hold of him so I went for a walk. I knew he’d call me back soon.’ The woman paused. ‘I’d had a few glasses of champagne and was feeling a little tipsy, not drunk though. I can easily do over a bottle of wine before I need to go to bed and the glasses of champagne were small. Everyone was leaving and I didn’t want to put anyone out so I thought I’d just wait around outside.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I was just walking along the river. A few minutes later, I felt like there was someone there, someone behind me. I thought it was just one of the partygoers leaving and playing a bit of a joke so I wasn’t too worried. It was then I saw a figure approaching in the dark.’ Sophie closed her eyes and began to tremble as she recalled what had happened. ‘I asked who they were and there was no reply. They just kept taking photos of me. The flash, it was so bright, I couldn’t see a thing after the photos were taken. I was getting worried at this point. I’d been walking for several minutes and there was nothing and no one around. I saw headlamps in the distance so thought I’d run for the road. I thought it would be my husband actually.’ She opened her eyes and wiped a tear from her face.

  ‘What happened next Mrs Dobbins?’ Gina sat patiently, waiting for her to continue speaking.

  The woman rubbed her head, brow furrowed as she tried to think. ‘It all seemed to go so quickly. I couldn’t work out who it was. He started chasing me. At one point I pushed a branch out of the way and I’m sure it flicked back on him. It would be between where I was found in the road, where the ambulance finally arrived, and the river. I followed quite a direct route. I really thought he was going to rape me or kill me. He went to grab me. I took my shoe off and hit him with it. I remember him backing off at this point. This is when I ran to the road. I dropped my wedge where it happened, I remember that much.’

  ‘Where did you strike him?’

  ‘I’m not sure, I couldn’t really see. The side of his head maybe, his neck…’

  Gina glanced at the floor and saw one wedge-style shoe placed under the bed. She nodded at Jennifer. Another thing to bag. ‘You’re doing really well, Mrs Dobbins. So you ran towards the road. What happened then?’

  ‘When I got there, I thought the car that I could see was my husband’s but it was just someone driving past. A man who’d just finished a night shift somewhere. I was hysterical when he pulled over, thinking my attacker had come for me again. Anyway, he let me sit in his car while he called an ambulance and that was it.’

  ‘Where was your husband at this point?’

  She looked away and began fiddling with a mucky tissue that she’d been dabbing one of her sores with. ‘He’d been for a drive.’

  ‘We know about the party you attended. We know it was a Swap Fun party. Can you tell us if you spoke to anyone in particular during the course of the evening? Or did any one give you reason to be concerned?’

  Her frail shoulders dropped. ‘My husband met a woman there and they hit it off. It’s something we enjoy doing but I don’t expect you to understand.’

  Gina smiled warmly. ‘We’re not judging you, Mrs Dobbins. We want to find out who attacked you. The more truthful you can be, the better.’

  She wiped her nose and pulled the sheet up over her shoulders. The room was warm but Gina could tell that Sophie Dobbins was trying to hide how vulnerable she felt. Her secret life now exposed to outsiders. ‘I was angry with him, that’s Ralph, my husband. He went and left me for ages. He said about an hour but he was longer and the party was coming to a close. I didn’t really know anyone there as it was my first time in this particular group. Who did I speak to? I suppose I spoke to most people there but I spent longer speaking to a man in a hat, some sort of trilby. He took it off inside but carried the thing around like it was his baby. Then this idiot kept coming over to me. I kept trying to shake him off but he was loud, telling me he could give me the best knee trembler I’d ever had around the side of the house. I know I’m up for these things, but I do like being treated with respect. He was over suggestive, over touchy, I think I slapped his hand away at one point and told him to shove off. His girlfriend kept almost staring me out as if she hated me. Then she began flirting with Ralph.’

  Gina just knew.
She looked across at Briggs.

  ‘What was his name?’ Briggs asked.

  ‘I’m sure it was Stevie Boy; that was his profile. I kept trying to get him out of my way. I actually liked the man with the bald head who had come with the woman in the blonde wig. I kept trying to shake off this letch but he wouldn’t leave me alone.’

  Gina glanced at Briggs again. They both knew she was talking about PCs Smith and Kapoor.

  ‘I told him to leave me alone and he even followed me to the toilet. Creeped me out a bit. He rubbed his crotch and sort of grinned with his tongue out. Yuck. That poor woman who came with him. I thought it could be him or Trilby man to begin with, sorry I didn’t catch his name.’

  Gina didn’t need to know. It was Rex, the man she’d met on Tinder and dated a couple of times. She also knew that he was a little strange. Obsessive? She wasn’t quite sure yet. If he had sent the flowers and chocolates, maybe he was a little thoughtless. He had turned up at her house without an invite a couple of times. She made a mental note to check through the rest of her CCTV footage. It was something she’d failed to do properly on a regular basis since getting the system installed. She wanted to know if he had been at other times. ‘Can you describe your attacker at all?’

  The woman shook her head and lay on the crisp white pillow which rustled as she got comfortable. ‘No. I only thought it may be either of them. I could tell it was a man from his shape. I can’t work out whether he was tall or any features, the flashes kept messing with my vision. He crushed my hand with his foot.’ She held her bandaged hand up. ‘He was wearing work boots with steel toecaps, hence my two broken fingers. I felt the tip of the boot as I tried to free my hand; absolutely rock solid they were. But I didn’t see anyone at the party wearing that type of footwear.’

  ‘Did you see what else your attacker was wearing?’

  She shook her head. ‘As I said, at first it was dark, then I was blinded by the camera flashes. I wish I had.’

  Whoever arrived by car could have kept a pair of work boots in the car. She remembered Rex turning up in a taxi. How premeditated could this attack have been? Could the boots and a bag of tools to commit the attack have been left there earlier in the day, even before they arrived to watch the house? Had he planned to attack Sophie Dobbins in particular or would anyone have done? Her mind ticked over as all potential scenarios ran through it. Sophie may not have been a definite target. No one knew that her husband would hook up and take longer than anticipated with his swap partner. They were also new to the meet and hadn’t met anyone there before. The attacker also hadn’t really seemed to be as in control, like he didn’t know the person he’d been pursuing. Had he not been quite as bothered about Sophie? Maybe he was angry a certain other person hadn’t arrived. Who? Her thoughts reeled back to Steven. He was definitely capable and was as misogynistic as his brother. Gina knew all too well how he liked to treat a woman.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Dobbins. We’ll leave you in the capable hands of our CSI, Jennifer. I’ll call a doctor or nurse over to be here with you both. When you are feeling better, please come down to the station to give a formal statement and call me immediately if you think of anything else.’ Gina pulled a card from her bag and handed it to the woman.

  ‘Could it be the same person who killed that woman in Cleevesford? They were all taking about it at the party. I heard people asking about her, about the couple, Jade and Noah. They were all saying how it was just bad luck and that the killer was probably someone random that had followed her around the streets that night. Some of them thought it might be the man she was paired with, someone called Rhys who no one’s heard from since. This is all what I heard. That probably doesn’t help you much.’

  ‘Everything helps us to build a picture. You’ve been so helpful.’ Gina stood and smiled as she gestured to Jennifer. She needed all these samples to be sent to the lab and quickly.

  As Briggs left her to search for the toilets, she headed towards the exit. She did a double take and spotted Mr Dobbins pushing the coffee machine around. ‘I don’t think hitting it will help.’

  ‘It’s just swallowed up my only pound and not given me a drink. Damn it!’

  ‘Here.’ Gina pulled a coin out of her pocket and gave it to him. She had a minute to spare while Briggs was in the men’s room. After, they were due at Bidford to meet up with Bernard and see where the attack had taken place. ‘Mrs Dobbins has been through a lot tonight.’

  He held his palm to his head and closed his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I was late. If only I’d been on time this would never have happened.’

  ‘Where had you gone?’

  ‘That’s the thing, I wasn’t even too far away. We went to Bidford Green alongside the river where people go with picnics in the summer. It’s just over the main bridge and to your right. I gather my wife told you about the party.’

  Gina nodded. ‘Who were you with?’

  ‘Some woman called Dawn. I thought she seemed fun and Sophie seemed to be chatting away to the man in the hat, so I told her I wouldn’t be long. Dawn’s partner seemed to be trying it on with everyone there. I thought we’d be way less than an hour but she kept going on and on about her partner, Stevie Boy. She ended up crying and pouring her heart out. Nothing at all happened. I sat there bored out of my tree while she went on and on about how Steven never did this, never did that, made her feel like nothing. I was well turned off by that point. She made a weird pass at me then. It was as if she didn’t want to but thought she should. It’s not the way I work. I like the woman I’m having sex with to want it as much as me. I’m not into feeling like I’m taking advantage. She then kept trying to grope me and kiss me. I told her to stop, which she did but then she cried more. Kept saying she was ugly, too fat and that I didn’t find her attractive. I just didn’t know what to say. Eventually, I said I’d drop her home which is why I was longer than I thought I’d be. I drove back to Cleevesford because I felt sorry for her. That’s when I saw the message from Sophie. I called her. She was in the ambulance at that point. I headed here and here I am now. Thank you for the pound.’

  ‘You’re welcome. We’ll see you when your wife is feeling a little better. We’ll need formal statements from both of you.’

  ‘Of course. We want to do all we can to help.’ He smiled and left in search of another coffee machine.

  Gina would check his information with Dawn but, at the moment, Mr Dobbins wasn’t a suspect. Their little conversation had however given her a bit more insight into Steven and Dawn. Her ex-brother-in-law was fast becoming a suspect. She remembered what Briggs had said, she’d need irrefutable evidence before any move against him could be made.

  Briggs headed towards her, shaking his wet hands. ‘I think the hand drier’s packed up.’

  ‘Let’s get over to Bidford and I’ll fill you in on the way.’

  ‘I’ve just had a call from Bernard while I was in the loo. How’s that for timing? They’ve found the spot where she was attacked and he wants to show us something.’

  Forty-Six

  Birds filled the air with their early morning song. Gina’s feet were already damp from the morning dew. New shoes had to be a priority when she got a moment. Briggs had headed over towards where Bernard and Wyre and Jacob were speaking about the case. ‘Morning.’

  Jacob turned. ‘Oh, hi, guv. We’ve spoken to everyone living close by. There aren’t that many as you can see. This place is quite away from neighbours. Swap Fun Sarah said she finally said goodbye to everyone about one thirty in the morning and locked up for the night. She thought Sophie Dobbins had been picked up by her husband. We have a list of party attendees, which we’ll crossmatch to the last party. As we know, the only people from the previous party that attended last night were Steven Smithson and Dawn Brown.’

  Gina leaned in. ‘Get this, Dawn Brown was with our victim’s husband at the time the attack took place. While I’m thinking about it, O’Connor will be in soon. Call him and ask him to contact Dawn
and check the events of last night. We need to see if their story matches. If they do, where was Steven during the attack? They came by car. Maybe Sarah remembers if there was a car left on her drive at the end of the night.’

  Wyre flicked a page on her notebook. ‘I asked that very question. There were no cars but her own on the drive when Mrs Dobbins left. Some of the guests came by taxi but she can’t remember who.’

  ‘So, Steven’s car was gone too.’ In her mind she imagined Steven parking up close by, waiting for his moment while Dawn was occupied with Sophie Dobbins’s husband. Had he sent her off to see if Mr Dobbins was game so he could at least try to orchestrate a chance of getting Sophie alone? It was a distinct possibility but all still theory for the time being. As for Rex, had he got a taxi home? This case was feeling too close to her personal life for comfort. She wanted to be in Steven’s face, pushing him, interrogating him. She wondered what he’d do to her? What if everyone at the station found out who she really was? If they knew every disgusting detail of her past life they’d never look at her in the same light again. Maybe they’d respect her more for going through what she did or maybe some of them would think she was party to what went on. Who would they believe, her or Steven? She was more credible but he shouted louder. Loud or credible? She knew loud was just as convincing.

  ‘Guv, I’ve been shouting at you for ages. You need those ears syringing,’ Bernard said as he approached her in his forensics suit and beard cover, his boots covered in muck and soaked through.

  ‘Sorry, Bernard, I’m all ears now. We’ll continue this back at the incident room, when we’ve all had our morning coffee,’ she said to Wyre and Jacob leaving them to follow Bernard. He passed her a suit, gloves, boot covers and a hair cover. ‘Briggs said you called him and you’ve found something,’ she said as she dressed. When she was suited up, they walked towards the yellow evidence markers, squelching on the soggy ground. Bernard turned off the battery lights as morning began to shine a light on what was in front of them. In the distance, mist rolled off the river, looking as though it would spill over and contaminate the fields behind. ‘Blood. See this branch here?’ She nodded. ‘Well, just over there we found the shoe. You can see how the foliage has been parted slightly, this is the route she took when she ran and he followed. It’s either her blood or his.’