Rivalry (The Cardigan Estate Book 4)

by Emmy Ellis

  He looked at his notes again. “Janice.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “She’s next on my list.”

  Ada snorted, whisky burn stinging the back of her nose. “Good luck there.”

  Clarke frowned. “How do you mean?”

  “She’s what you Brits call a sandwich short.”

  He chuckled. “Thanks for the warning.” He threw back his drink, gave another maddening ahh, and rose. “Well, this sounds to me like he buggered off, as he said he would.” He placed the glass on her desk. His grimy fingerprints marred it.

  Ada sighed. “That’s unfortunate. It’s left me in the lurch.” She stood, too. “No matter, I can have Barbara take over Shaun’s work.”

  Clarke cocked his head. “If I can ask… You seem to know a lot about him—his sister, mother, him going off, his idea of starting again. Is that just a boss and employee thing?”

  She could lie, but what good would it do later down the line if Clarke found out otherwise? Besides, she’d be in Poland soon, out of the way. “We slept together.”

  He cringed. “Oh. Serious relationship?”

  “God, no. To be honest, I was using him. I couldn’t care less whether he comes back to work or not.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, I’m glad you don’t have a beef.”

  She smiled to hide her inner reaction: Did he say what I thought he did? Why is he glad Shaun’s gone?

  “Because,” he went on, “if we discover Shaun hasn’t gone missing of his own accord, we might be looking at you if there’s friction between you. Lover’s tiff, boss annoyed at him for not getting the proposal to you. People have killed for less.”

  Indignant, she snapped out, “I can assure you, I wouldn’t kill him.”

  He smiled. “No, I didn’t think you would. Have a nice day.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The work phone tinkled the tune reserved for Clarke. George stared at it on the home office desk then glanced at Greg, who came around, dragging his chair to sit beside him. They’d not long got back from chopping Lenny up, the bloke from the flat.

  “Answer it?” Greg asked.

  “Yep. At least he’s phoning and not nipping round.” George picked it up and accepted the call, immediately agitated at the sight of Clarke’s bugging face on the small screen.

  The copper adopted a grave expression.

  Twat.

  “I’m on the case,” he said in a way that suggested he expected George and Greg to break open the champers. “As for the cottage fella, that’s down as a robbery gone wrong. Why couldn’t you just have done your usual with him? Why did you leave him for me? You bloody did that with Frank an’ all.”

  “That’s what you’re paid for.” George wasn’t going to act grateful to the prat, not with the amount of money that changed hands on the weekly, warming Clarke’s palm.

  The DI appeared let down. “Bloody uniforms were on it, weren’t they—that Shaun fella, I mean. Poking around. I got wind of it and said I’d take over, seeing as he’s some prominent fella in a big company. I guffed on about kidnaps and whatever for ransom so the case became mine.”

  “What about your DS?” George asked.

  “She’s ill. Flu. I can wrap this up before she comes back.”

  “So what’s going on?” Greg moved out of shot.

  Clarke cleared his throat—he had a habit of doing that. “Uniforms have chatted to people in his block of flats, Rosie included. No one saw or heard anything. The same goes for people in the street—at the time in question anyway. Coppers got into his place, citing cause for concern as an excuse for entry, then the reason I heard about it was they bloody asked for scenes of crime officers to go in. Jesus Christ. Why? With no body, what’s the point?”

  “That’s unfortunate,” George said.

  “His bank and phone records look suss, no activity, but don’t worry about that because we’ve had a stroke of luck. I’ve just been to see his boss, an Ada Docklavich, bit of a saucy tart by all accounts. Wouldn’t mind giving her one, truth be told.”

  In your dreams.

  “She gave me the little nugget that Shaun mentioned a couple of months back that he’d talked about walking away from it all, starting again as someone else. I can put the silent bank and phone use down to that.”

  George smiled. “Decent.”

  “Now, I got a bit worried, because she said she’d slept with him. The last thing we need is some whimpering girlfriend on the sidelines, prodding us to find her bloke. Seems this Ada only used him, and she isn’t bothered whether he comes back.”

  “Anything else?” Greg took a paperclip off the desk and pulled the wire into a long thin line.

  “Woman opposite Rosie’s. She had notebooks, lots of info on the comings and goings.”

  George frowned. “What sort of weirdo is she?”

  “One of those author types, apparently. A strange breed, they are. She keeps notes on people to add them into her books. Anyway, she has one for each resident in the flats. What I wanted to know was, why the flats? What’s so important about the people in them? So I did a bit of digging on Rosie, just in case. We don’t want any skeletons rattling their fucking bones.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Yeah. There was a murder before she moved to your patch, and get this—Rosie was the deceased’s girlfriend.”

  “Fuck me.” George sat up straighter. While he’d gathered she’d killed before she’d done the neighbour, he wasn’t aware the first one was her fella. “Is this going to be a problem?”

  “I bloody well hope not.” Clarke sighed. “I’m giving the books back to the author, minus the page that mentions you two going to Rosie’s on Sunday afternoon. I’ll give her some cock and bull about us needing that info to hand.”

  “Shit. Mind you, we could have just been visiting, no law against that. Was there anything said about the body removers and the cleaners, any sightings of them?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s a relief.” George scratched his temple. “I wouldn’t want to have to go to hers and threaten her.”

  “I know you don’t like getting funny with women, but in this case, if she kicks up a fuss and asks us to look into you two, I’ll tell her you had a natter with Rosie about work and you’re not of interest. I have no idea whether she knows who you really are.”

  “That’s the better option, the work angle.”

  Clarke nodded. “What I’m going to do is file a report that this Shaun mentioned starting again. It’ll keep other officers from nosing into it further. The thing is, I’m wondering whether Rosie is going to make a habit of this. The boyfriend, Aaron Hunt his name was, had ties with Lime and Reynolds.”

  That brought George up short. “She never said anything about that to us.”

  “She might not know,” Clarke said.

  “True. Is that it for now?”

  “Yeah.”

  George cut the connection and looked at Greg. “I think we need to have a chat with Rosie, don’t you?”

  Greg nodded. “We need full disclosure in case this comes back to haunt her, which will then affect us.”

  “Exactly what I thought.”

  George drove them to Rosie’s street. Thankfully, no police cars, although a few blokes in white suits came out of the main door, carrying their kit towards a Transit.

  “Clarke must have pulled them out, told them not to bother,” Greg said.

  George nipped into an empty parking space in the long snake of cars to the right, opposite the flats. “They won’t find anything in his place anyway. It all happened in Rosie’s.”

  “Hmm.”

  They sat for five minutes until the van drove off, then got out. George blipped the key fob to lock the car and caught movement in the corner of his eye. A net curtain moved, one of those sheer types, indicating they were being watched.

  Greg clocked it, too. “Probably that author wom
an.”

  Nosy cow.

  George led the way across the road. It was coming up to six p.m., so Rosie was bound to be up, preparing to go to work. Her living room light was on, the curtains open, everything visible inside. He’d have a word with her about that, especially as she had someone spying opposite. The creepy thing was, if the author lived in the house with the nets, it was beside the alley where that Vinny bloke had observed Shirley prior to killing her.

  At the flats’ main door, he pressed the buzzer.

  “Who is it?” Rosie asked, her voice crackly through the speaker grill at the bottom of the bell panel. Grime had made itself at home there.

  “It’s us.”

  “Shit.”

  Another buzz, and the lock released. They strode in, and she stood at her flat door already, moving back to let them inside. George went first down the hallway, and he turned into the living room and snapped the curtains together. He spun to face the room. Greg and Rosie had come in.

  “There’s a woman opposite, and she’s been keeping notes on you,” George said.

  Rosie paled and raised a hand to her lips. “What?”

  “Keep these shut when it gets dark and you have a light on.” He jabbed a thumb at the window.

  “Why would she have notes on me?” She sank into a chair.

  “Not just you, everyone in these flats. She’s an author, probably studies people, I don’t know, but be careful.” George imagined the strange mare scribbling on a piece of paper now: The two men from the other night are here again. “Clarke’s dealing with that side of things anyway. She’s most likely harmless, but watch what you’re doing regardless.”

  “Did she…did she see me letting him in?” Rosie squeaked.

  “Clarke would have said if she did. All he mentioned was us coming here on Sunday—there’s nothing about the removal or the cleaners. Now then, I fancy a coffee to go with the chat we need to have, so if you don’t mind…”

  Rosie got up, glancing at them over her shoulder in the hallway.

  George inspected the flat to ensure it’d been cleaned to the correct standard, Greg following behind him.

  “Nothing stands out as off,” Greg said.

  “No.”

  They joined her in the kitchen and sat at the table. The room seemed bigger without a body on the floor, the air lighter without the oppressive feel the dead had about them. Rosie handed over cups of coffee then sat opposite.

  “You said it wasn’t going to be a problem, but we need to know about Aaron,” George said.

  Rosie sucked in a breath. “He’s the other one.”

  “Yeah, Clarke found out about it. So, what happened?”

  Rosie told her story, and by the end of it, George had no sympathy for this Aaron geezer, and it didn’t seem Greg did either.

  “So you got away with it,” Greg said. “Started again here—and I mean a new life, not murdering. Until the other night, that is.”

  Rosie nodded. “I just snapped with him from upstairs. The memories…”

  “Good job Lime and Reynolds are dead,” George rumbled. “If they weren’t, they soon fucking would be. And that Aaron prick.”

  Greg leant forward, elbows on the table. “Should you be doing your job? Are you likely to snap again with a punter?” He glanced at George. “All it takes is a mad second, and things go wrong.”

  “Is that a pop at me?” George asked.

  Greg patted his shoulder. “Yeah.”

  Rosie shook her head. “No, it was because…both times the nasty shit they said to me was in my home, so it was like a violation, know what I mean? In the backs of cars and whatever, before I got the slot at the parlour, it was different. Same goes for my room at The Angel. It’s like the setting makes it okay; knowing I’m at work means I don’t do anything wrong.”

  “But you said about your time involving Lime and Reynolds, that weird squat. What’s to say you won’t flip at the parlour?”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’d better not. One mess for us to deal with I can handle, plus the one in your past, but another one, making it three for you… No, I won’t be pleased if it comes to that.” George sounded blunt, but he didn’t give much of a toss. She had to understand there was only so much shite they’d clean up for her.

  “It’ll be okay from now on, I promise,” she whispered.

  George glared to get his point across. “Make sure it is.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Julie had endured months of Sunday dinners in the company of the family, and with each one, she grew more anxious. The setup was so strange, the parents aloof, Aaron acting like some posh snob, and Marla clinging to Julie, even following her to the toilet and waiting outside.

  Julie ignored Aaron’s accent change whenever they were there. She didn’t ask him about it either, preferring to keep on his right side. He’d displayed the tendency to snap at her more often lately, his temper clearly verging on exploding sometimes, and she always told herself to end it with him, then he’d go and do something nice like buy her flowers or take her out for a meal, and she’d switch the other way.

  Gail said he was gaslighting her.

  “I thought that, but then he’s so nice, and I don’t think it anymore,” Julie said while they ate lunch on the bench in the park at the back of the vet’s. She stared across at some children going for it on the swings, wishing she was their age again, no worries, Mum pushing her from behind. Better days, happier days.

  “Until next time,” Gail said, ever the pragmatist.

  Julie couldn’t argue with that. Aaron swung from amenable to moody in an instant, and last night, he’d asked her how much she loved him, what she’d do to prove it, how far she’d go.

  She told Gail now.

  “That’s fucking bizarre,” Gail said. “If he has to ask, he’s either insecure or one of them sadist fellas.”

  “A sadist?”

  “Hmm, something like that. Gets off on control, on knowing if he threatens to split with you, you’ll be upset so do whatever he wants so he doesn’t finish it.”

  The horrible thing was, Julie could well imagine him being like that. The sex was so odd, no emotion on his part, no foreplay, he just did it then got off her. It was like she was one of those women on the corner by The Flag, to be used for his pleasure only, except no money exchanged hands and she no longer got to wear her revealing clothes.

  “What should I do?” she asked. “I feel like I’m living on my nerves all the time. I’ve bitten off my nails, look.” She held them out for Gail’s inspection.

  “My nan would say you’ll get worms from doing that.”

  “Worms?”

  “So she said.” Gail sighed. “End it. Say it isn’t working for you.”

  “But what if he gets funny?”

  “Tell him in a public place.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea. At least then if he went off on one, she’d be near others, someone who could help.

  “How to put it to him, though?” Julie asked. “This is hardly a good way of doing it. ‘Aaron, my friend thinks you’re a gaslighter, and as it happens, I do, too. I don’t know where I stand with you, and what’s with your weird sister keep dragging me to town before Sunday dinner, trawling the shops but not buying anything, saying we’re sisters to anyone who looks at us in Costa? And your accent, you talk funny when you’re at home. Your mum and dad don’t like me, barely speak, and as for saying I’m common that time when they did open their mouths, you not defending me… Then there’s the sex, don’t get me started on that, and the way you supposedly eat clean but scoff kebabs and breathe it all over me, drink beer and burp in my face, and your so-called bad hand, what was that all about?’” She kicked at the grass. “It’s not going to go well.”

  Gail laughed. “Sorry, I don’t find it funny, the situation, I mean, it’s the way you put it. Said like that, can you see why you shouldn’t be with him? And look at how you’ve changed your clothes sense when you go clubbing. Did you
even notice that?”

  Julie nodded. “He doesn’t like ‘tarty’ gear.”

  “Yet he met you when you had it on. Oh, d’you know what, fuck him. Ditch the dodgy bastard.”

  “I’ll do it later.” And she would.

  The afternoon passed too quickly, and Julie fretted that she wasn’t ready, hadn’t had a chance to think up all manner of conversations they’d have and what her responses would be, covering every eventuality.

  She wasn’t prepared.

  He’d texted about two to say she had to meet him at The Flag at six. They’d have their dinner there, apparently, but ‘none of those fucking chips you keep ramming in your mouth, you gannet.’

  If she’d had doubts, that message sealed the deal.

  She was definitely ending it.

  Hopping on adrenaline and nauseated from a swirling, muddy puddle of ‘what-ifs’ in her stomach, Julie took the bus straight from work and got off in the street outside the pub. He wouldn’t like her turning up in her uniform, but he hadn’t given her enough time to change.

  Summer had said goodbye, and autumn was on the verge of disappearing, almost within kissing distance of winter, and she wished she’d put a thicker coat on this morning. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, convinced she could do this, then go home, stick a microwave meal in, and watch telly in her pyjamas and dressing gown for the rest of the night, happy she’d broken free—she wouldn’t have to put her fluffy socks on to hide her feet—and tell herself to be more careful with who she let into her life in future.

  Aaron sat at the round scarred table, the one they always sat at, as if reserved only for them. His back touched the wall. He’d already bought her half a lager and lime, the frothy head non-existent, so she sat opposite instead of on the chair next to him. This way, he’d have to reach over if he had a mind to hit her, plus her escape route was only a step or two away.