by Carla Kovach
‘Do you know the names of these friends?’
‘I’m ashamed to say I took a look at his phone messages. Susan and Steph. I suppose I worried he might not be happy with me and might start a relationship with one of them. I’m the first man in his life, so I suppose I felt threatened by their presence. I confronted him and he reassured me it was nothing but still, why wouldn’t he bring them over for a drink if they were only friends? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not even the jealous type but something was going on and I couldn’t fathom it out.’
‘Did you see the messages?’
‘Only one or two, they just said call me or I’ll call you, giving nothing away. I should have trusted him and stopped being stupid. I don’t think he cheated on me or was intending to, but he was hiding something and that hurt like hell. I wanted him to trust me like I trust him. I’ve told him everything about me, my life. I didn’t think we had secrets until they came along and he went to the reunion.’
Gina saw Jacob scribbling more notes. ‘Can you tell me more about this reunion?’
‘I know someone attacked him at the Angel Arms. That’s where it was. He said it was just a reunion of a friendship group from his teens, some club or other. He came over the next day sporting a bruised and red hooter. He said it was some drunk and he’d decided not to press charges.’
Gina made a mental note to visit the Angel Arms and felt her stomach roll at having to speak to the landlord, slimy Samuel Avery. A person with even less moral fibre than her least favourite reporter, Lyndsey Saunders. Both of them had got in the way of previous cases and she had no patience for either of them. She pulled the photos out and showed Lawrence the first one of Susan as she is now. ‘Do you recognise the woman in this picture?’
He shook his head.
‘She’s currently missing. There’s a search going on today, and her photo has been shown on the news this week.’
‘I rarely watch television and I haven’t bought a newspaper for a few days now as you can see from my pile. To be fair, I’ve been quite blotto.’ He held the bottle up and gulped down more of the brown liquid.
Gina glanced down and the paper on the top of the heap was dated two weeks ago. ‘Her name is Susan.’
Lawrence’s brow furrowed as he made the connection. ‘As in Susan, the person he was texting and calling?’
She nodded. ‘We think so. They were friends. Susan has not been seen since Tuesday. She was last seen leaving Dale’s house that day. Have you ever been to Damson Close?’
‘I cleared a flat, deceased old lady, family didn’t want any of her stuff.’
‘Recently?’ Jacob added.
He shook his head. ‘No, that was years ago. I’d have no reason to go there now.’ He looked down at his big toe and wiggled it.
Gina showed him the last photo. ‘This is Dale as a teen. That girl is Susan,’ Gina pointed, ‘and there’s another girl. Have you ever seen her? I know it’s hard given that this is the most recent photo we have.’ Gina stared at the photo, noticing how alike Phoebe was to fourteen-year-old Susan.
‘No. I’ve never seen her before. Maybe she’s the other woman who used to message him, Steph.’ Gina placed the photo back in her folder. Dale’s mother had mentioned the other girl as a Stella or a Stacey. Maybe the name she was trying to wrack her brains for had been Steph. She wrote the name Steph on her pad.
Her phone buzzed and she went back into the dark hallway as Jacob finished interviewing Lawrence. ‘O’Connor.’
‘We’ve just had a call from the lab. This is where it gets weird, guv.’
They had to leave. She gestured for Jacob’s attention and pointed to her mouth. He wiped the string of drool that was sliding down his chin.
‘The anaesthetic hasn’t worn off,’ he mouthed.
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Dentist. I don’t know which hurt more, the tooth or the bill.’
She’d forgotten he’d had a filling with all that had been going on.
‘Any news from the search? Briggs was going to keep me updated.’
‘Not yet, guv,’ O’Connor replied.
‘What was that about?’ Jacob hurried behind her and closed the front door.
She glanced back. ‘I’ll tell you when we get in the car. You’re not going to believe it.’
Gina watched as the robins bobbed on Lawrence’s window ledge and she hoped they would give him some comfort in his time of grief. The potential perpetrators bobbed into her thoughts, first in turn, then all overlapping. Clare, Ryan, now Lawrence, Susan and Steph – there was a big question mark over those two women.
Had the Steph that Lawrence mentioned been the woman calling last night? The woman they failed to reach in time, the woman who thought someone was following her. Gina shivered as a blast of arctic air caught her neck. O’Connor was right – this case had become weirdly disturbing.
‘Straight to the Angel Arms. It’s opening time.’ Samuel Avery might have something to add. ‘Pass me a couple of paracetamol from the glove compartment.’
‘Yeah, two for you, two for me. The anaesthetic is starting to wear off.’ They were both in a bit of a sorry state.
Fifty-Five
‘What was the call about? Back at Lawrence’s house.’ Jacob tapped on his notepad as they went around the traffic island and onto the straight road that led them to the Angel Arms. A smattering of sleet splashed against the windscreen.
‘The red liquorice that had been placed in Dale’s throat, post-mortem.’ Gina tried to insert the pieces of the puzzle together as she reeled the words off.
‘What about it?’
‘It came from the exact same piece that Bernard and his team found in Dale’s house during the search. It had been cut using the same serrated knife at a forty-nine-degree angle. The knife isn’t perfect, it has wear and tear on it and the same wear and tear notches appear on both pieces of liquorice. Also, the knife wasn’t found in Dale’s house. The liquorice that I found in Susan’s belongings doesn’t seem to have been cut from that piece but it has been cut at a different angle. I’m hoping the dogs don’t find Susan in a similar state to Dale. Or worse, Phoebe.’ She shivered as she thought of the young girl, imagining as the dogs uncovered her lifeless body. She gasped as she fought back the nausea.
‘Bloody hell, me neither. What significance could liquorice have? Why place it in his throat?’
‘I don’t know. I think it has some meaning for the people involved and to state the obvious, it means something to the killer. The strangulation is bothering me just as much. We know that Dale had been punched and kicked up until the time he was murdered. Our perpetrator had to be doing this somewhere, but where? I keep thinking maybe it was sexually motivated. We know that strangulation by rope was the cause of death but O’Connor said that, underneath the scarring, the forensic pathologist had found more marks, including fingermarks around his neck. The killer had tried to strangle him before killing him, probably to the point of unconsciousness before reviving him or allowing him to come around. I feel this person was trying to force a sexual response from Dale. I keep thinking previous lovers but, after speaking with Lawrence, it seems that he was Dale’s first. Then we have the very definite asphyxiation with the rope. That was done with full intent. He was throttled to death. Had the perp become frustrated at not getting the response he or they wanted? I have to add in a they at this point. How and where we found Dale’s body, this couldn’t have been one person. We’ve deduced that much.’
Jacob stared thoughtfully out of the window as they pulled into a parking space outside the Angel Arms. A young man was standing on his tiptoes as he pulled a clump of moss from the decaying guttering,
As they entered the pub, Samuel Avery was stoking the fire. Kneeling down, his low hung skinny jeans reminded her of the ones the lads were wearing a year or so back. He’d finished his look off with a pair of shoes, no socks and long-sleeved shirt covered in mini flamingos. ‘Detective.’ She saw his grin widening in th
e reflection of the coal shovel. His slight cockney accent gave her that familiar prickle at the back of her neck. She’d hoped never to have to speak to him again.
‘Detective Inspector.’ Gina pulled up a seat on the table next to him.
‘Ah, it’s Beauty and the Beast. Don’t worry, Inspector, I wasn’t referring to you as Beauty, so don’t arrest me. You’re just in time for a drink. What will it be? I think you’re a cognac woman. Warm and full of depth. Am I right, Detective Inspector?’
At least he had her title right this time. They’d met often enough, always in unfortunate circumstances. Her opinion had dropped to an all-time low when he’d started a dark tourism business, profiting from the bad things that had happened in Cleevesford over the past couple of years with his sick crime tours, even driving one of their victims from her home. Her mind flashed back to the case of Deborah Jenkins, the case that brought all her own deeply buried trauma back to the surface. He was wrong, she hated cognac. She was a deep thinker and she was as frosty as the Antarctic, but he already knew that.
‘Okay, I guess that’s a no to the drink.’ With his hands shaking slightly she wondered if it was him who needed the drink. His hair had thinned out even more over the past year and he’d aged, his years finally catching up with him. He pulled a little stool from under another table and plonked his gangly frame down on it. ‘How about you?’
‘No, thanks. I’m on duty,’ Jacob replied.
‘If it’s about the crazy bitch that threw a glass of whatever over me last night, I was only sitting opposite her talking.’
‘I see nothing’s changed.’ Gina smiled smugly. He’d been balancing on the sexual assault line for years, not quite toppling off his tightrope. She’d love nothing more than to arrest him at some point, but this visit wasn’t about him. She almost wanted to silently applaud the woman who’d shown him where to go. If anyone needed to have a drink thrown over him, it was Samuel Avery. ‘We need to ask you about an incident back in June, this year.’
‘Really? How the hell am I going to remember what happened in June? It’s November if you didn’t notice.’
As he balanced on two legs of the stool, she felt her fists urging her to clench them. She’d really enjoy pushing him over the edge into the fireplace. ‘I’m sure you’ll remember this one. There was an altercation in your beer garden. It involved a group of people attending a reunion at your establishment and one of the group being punched.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know what people are like when they’ve had a drink.’ He reached back and grabbed a small glass half-filled with an amber-coloured liquid over a couple of lumps of ice and swirled it around before taking a sip.
‘Okay. Maybe a photo will jog your memory. This woman here,’ she pulled out the photo of Susan Wheeler and placed it on the table, ‘she was with friends. Do you recognise her?’
He smiled. ‘Just about. I thought it was her when I saw her on the news this week. I’ve seen her around and about but I couldn’t have even told you her name before this week. I remember some man coming here and punching another man, that’s why I remember her. These things can happen a lot when people have a drink.’
‘Do you remember anything about the incident, anything said, who was involved?’ Gina knew it was Ryan who had hit Dale but she needed to know if any more was said.
‘It was just some jealous husband, coming here and dragging his cheating wife away. I didn’t think much of her choice in men. She could have had me instead. I’m a far better catch.’ He grinned. ‘A man has to try. They can only say no, can’t they, Inspector?’
He hadn’t changed at all. Samuel Avery was the same as he’d always been.
‘I’m just glad he didn’t come and whack me one. He looked a bit of a meathead.’ He shrugged and took a sip of his drink.
Gina felt her stomach turn a little as she inhaled his whisky breath. She shouldn’t have drunk all those beers last night. ‘Do you remember anything being said?’
‘Nah.’
‘Did you see who else was with Susan Wheeler? There was a man, you say.’
He scratched his stubbly chin. ‘There was the man and a woman. Others turned up but the three of them kept to their little group and left swiftly after the incident.’
‘Can you describe the man and the woman?’
‘The man was average height, quite a large man, rotund. I only remember because I kept thinking if he was a contender for her affections then there was definitely hope for me, at least I stay in shape.’
The fire’s heat was beginning to warm the one side of Gina’s face. She leaned back slightly. ‘The woman?’
‘I don’t remember. I didn’t really take much notice, it was busy.’
Gina pulled the photo of the three teenagers out and offered it to the landlord. ‘As you can see, Susan is in the photo. Do you recognise the boy or the girl?’
‘He might be the man who was with Susan, back in June. He has more hair in this photo and he looks like a kid.’ He stared at the photo, the skin around his eyes creasing as he took the detail in. ‘Oh flipping hell. I knew I’d seen her before. Little firecracker.’
‘Who is it, Mr Avery?’ Jacob said as he leaned in a little closer.
Gina felt her heart rate pick up. They needed a break and maybe, just maybe, the landlord she hated the most could be the one to offer them some useful information.
‘She was the one and she’s barely changed since that old photo. She covered me in lemonade last night. Her eyes and hair. It’s long and black, you can’t miss her. I think she may have been here back in June but I can’t swear to that. I knew I recognised her. The boy in the photo, is he the one who turned up by the river?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Gina listened as Jacob scribbled away in his notebook. ‘Do you know her name?’
‘I found her on Facebook, look.’ He held his phone up and showed Gina the page. Stephanie Baxter, her profile was private but the photo matched that of the teenage version of herself. They now had a definite name.
‘How did she seem?’
He glanced up. The young man who’d been emptying the guttering outside hurried in, shaking the rain from his coat, splashing them all with cold water as he passed. Avery continued, ‘She was just sitting there by the window looking a bit lost so I thought I’d join her. She was quite a frosty bird, then she just barged past me, covering me in her drink. She seemed a bit edgy. That’s all I know. I sent her a Facebook friend request but as you see, she hasn’t accepted. Maybe I’m not her type of friend. You can’t win ’em all but if you don’t ask you don’t get.’
‘Did you see where she went?’
He let out a snorty laugh from his nose. ‘Left out of the car park. Seemed to be on a mission too, glancing back like she was paranoid. She was probably on something.’
Gina visualised the route she could have taken. The phone box used to call the police was certainly in that direction. ‘Did anyone leave soon after her?’
He shook his head. ‘Not that I can remember.’
‘Did you stay here?’
‘So this is what it’s all about. I never left the building all night. You can check my CCTV. You can ask Elvis.’
‘Elvis?’
He beckoned over the young man who was behind the bar. ‘Elvis. Did I leave the pub last night, at all? Remember when that miserable bird left.’
As the man came closer, Gina could see his little quiff better. He couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five. ‘It was only me and him on last night,’ Elvis said.
‘Thank you.’ Gina made a note. ‘Is Elvis your real name?’
The lad shook his head. ‘No, I do an Elvis impersonation on the karaoke, it just stuck. It’s Robin Dawkins.’
‘Thank you.’ Gina made a note of Samuel’s alibi.
As Gina went to speak, Samuel interrupted. ‘So you can be on your way now, Detectives. There’s nothing more to tell here. It wasn’t me. I bet that has ruined your day.’
Gina didn’t want to tell him that it had. ‘Have you seen this girl?’ She held Phoebe’s photo up.
‘I saw the appeal on the news this morning but apart from that, no. I hope she turns up. Goodbye, Inspector. Send someone for the CCTV later, I’ll have it ready to collect.’
She grabbed her bag and stood as she watched him sink the rest of his drink. ‘If you remember anything else that may be of help—’
‘I still have your card.’ He walked away, not looking back.
As they left the toasty pub for another chilly blast of air, Gina ran ahead and got into the car. Jacob pulled his jacket over his head as he followed. There was Jacob, protecting his flat short hairstyle while Gina’s had blown and stuck all across her wet face. ‘We have a name!’ She almost high-fived him but stopped herself. ‘Stephanie Baxter. Let’s get back and find out more about her. We need to know where she lives, that would be a start.’ As she pulled out of the car park, her phone rang. ‘Can you get that?’
‘Wyre.’ Jacob nodded and listened until he snapped his fingers.
‘The dogs have come up trumps on the search, guv. We’ve got to get back to the station now.’ She smiled and put her foot down before the lights ahead changed to red. A break in the case was just what they needed.
Fifty-Six
Little Rory placed his hands on the patio doors, leaving a smear of jam on the glass. Mary grabbed a piece of kitchen roll and wiped his mouth. He was dressed and ready to go, just like Ryan had wanted. She glanced at the time. Any minute now, he would knock. Her trembling hands quivered like her insides as she thought of Phoebe, her little hair chewer. A tear slid down her cheek. Her family was falling apart and there was nothing she could do about it. She plastered on a fake smile for Rory, the little ones had been through enough.