He emitted a faint snort. ‘No kidding, guv. Not quite what I was expecting.’
‘Can we can talk?’ Kay jerked her chin towards the kitchen. ‘Just for a moment before I have a chat with Helen?’
‘Come through here – you’ll be able to see what Charlie’s doing while I bring you up to date.’
She left Tim in the hallway and followed Aaron through to a light and airy kitchen full of modern appliances that were neither expensive, nor too cheap. It seemed that Helen and Carl Taylor had created a comfortable home for themselves, and she sighed as she cast her gaze over the worktops, spotlights in the ceiling shining on the highly polished surfaces.
The kitchen window revealed a paved area illuminated by two floodlights on aluminium stands placed at each end. Two figures in white protective body suits paced the area and the flower borders beyond, their heads bowed as they worked.
Kay turned away, her thoughts racing.
What had happened to this small family in the past few weeks that had left a man dead and a distraught widow?
Not to mention the kilo of drugs that had been placed in an evidence bag in the middle of the central worktop.
She sniffed the air.
‘Sorry, guv.’ Aaron pointed at the package. ‘It stinks from being down that drain.’
‘Have they found any more of it?’
‘Not down there, no. Helen told us about another drain that’s over by the back door into the garage but that was clear. Patrick is trying to check the rest of the garden for any signs of recent digging but Charlie reckons they’ll be here until morning. It’s hard to work under lights – and we don’t want to attract anyone with a drone.’
‘Fair enough.’
Kay prodded the evidence bag containing the package before picking it up and testing its weight.
It was on the heavier side, almost like a bag of sugar.
She could see white powder through the layers of clear plastic that had been wrapped around the drugs before it had been taped closed, sealing the narcotic within a tight waterproof parcel.
‘Christ, no wonder it blocked the bloody drain.’ She replaced the evidence bag on the worktop. ‘What’s this worth these days?’
Aaron shrugged. ‘Prices have dropped since last year, but I reckon you’d still get about thirty thousand pounds for that. Maybe a bit more.’
‘So what the hell was Carl Taylor doing with this?’
‘Helen says she hasn’t got a clue. She was as shocked as me when I showed her.’
‘All right – I’m going to have a word with her, and then I’ll get out of your way. Could you drop by the incident room tomorrow on your way home and give us an update, in case Patrick and Charlie find anything else?’
‘Of course, no problem.’
‘Thanks – and good work, Aaron.’ She winked. ‘Bet you didn’t expect this sort of excitement with the FLO role.’
Making her way back along the hallway, she nodded her thanks to Tim as he opened the living room door for her and found Helen Taylor curled up in an armchair, her face miserable under a curtain of dark hair.
‘You think you know someone, don’t you?’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Thirteen years we were married, and I never took Carl for someone who would do this.’
Kay hovered beside the shelf lined with photographs. ‘Did you have any idea that the drugs were in the drain?’
A look of horror shot across Helen’s features, her mouth dropping open. ‘Of course I didn’t. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them.’
‘Did you ever see Carl acting strangely out in the garden?’
‘No…’ Helen paused, flicked her hair over her shoulder, then sniffed. ‘He must’ve hidden them when I was at work. His shift finishes before I leave the office so he would’ve had a few hours before I got home. I-I can’t believe this is happening…’
‘What about strangers in the street, Helen?’ Kay took a step closer. ‘Have you noticed anyone you don’t recognise hanging around in the past few weeks?’
The woman shook her head. ‘I would’ve told you if I had.’
‘I’m going to ask you a question, one that I have to ask as a routine part of my enquiries.’
‘Okay.’ Helen’s voice wavered, her eyes wide. ‘What?’
‘Did you and Carl argue about anything in the weeks and days leading up to his death?’
‘I… No, we didn’t.’ Helen brought a shaking hand to her lips. ‘Oh my God. You think I killed him?’
‘Did you?’
‘No.’ Dropping her hand to her lap, Helen jutted out her chin. ‘I didn’t kill my husband, Detective Hunter – and I resent the question.’
‘As I said, it’s a routine one. I’m sorry if it caused you further distress.’ Kay ran her gaze around the room, listening to the muted voices of her colleagues out in the hallway. ‘I’m going to leave you now, but Aaron will stay as your Family Liaison Officer – is that all right with you?’
‘Yes.’ The woman sighed. ‘Look, I know you’re just doing your job. I’m glad he’s here. I-I feel safer.’ Helen sighed, her face crestfallen. ‘I have no idea what Carl got himself into, detective. I really don’t.’
‘We’ll do our best to find whoever was responsible for his death, Helen – and hopefully some answers for you as well.’
Kay took her leave, joining Aaron and Tim in the hallway before glancing over her shoulder towards the closed door to the living room.
She lowered her voice. ‘Do you think she’s lying?’
Aaron exhaled, then leaned against the stair balustrades and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I think she was genuinely surprised by it all.’
‘Interesting,’ said Kay, biting her lip. ‘Maybe Carl never called a plumber to unblock the drain. Maybe he was sending a message that there was something down there.’
‘A back-up in case he got killed, you mean?’ said Aaron.
‘Yes. What if Carl Taylor maybe saw or overheard something, or someone found out he had those drugs? Whatever it was, it left him fearing for his life – and hers.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Barnes pulled into Kay’s driveway the next morning, he was ten minutes early despite the nose-to-tail traffic on the roads leading out of the suburb.
Not that he doubted getting out again in order to reach the motorway was going to be a whole different matter.
Climbing from the car, he took a moment to stretch his back.
The faint tick tick of the engine cooling parried with a pair of sparrows bickering above his head on the telephone lines stretching along the lane, and he inhaled the fresh air.
The house he now shared with his partner of four years, Pia McLeod, was closer to town. As that was usually surrounded by the noise from passing traffic and the constant shouts from his neighbours’ kids out in the box-shaped garden beyond the boundary fence they shared, he savoured the brief moment of peace in the quieter suburb.
He turned at the sound of a bolt being shot back, then the front door opened and Kay appeared.
‘Sorry – Sharp phoned wanting an update, and I’ve tasked Gavin and Laura with speaking to Carl’s supervisor from the cold chain fleet this morning.’
His gaze dropped to the sticky plaster across the back of her left hand as she closed the door, and he raised an eyebrow. ‘Kittens again?’
Kay rolled her eyes. ‘There’s a particularly vicious tortoiseshell one that Adam swears he’s going to call Wolverine. The problem is, he’s cute.’
Barnes laughed and opened the car passenger door for her. ‘At this rate, I can’t see you giving them back.’
‘Trust me, they need to go,’ she said as he got in and started the engine. ‘I’m not getting anything done in the evenings, and our armchairs aren’t going to survive for much longer.’
By the time they reached the motorway, Kay had pulled a briefing folder from her bag and was flicking through the pages, pen in hand while she jotted notes in the margi
ns.
‘Is that the information Debbie found out about this bloke we’re going to see?’ he said, changing lanes as the sign for West Malling flashed past.
‘Yes. Steve Luxford.’ Kay waited until he’d braked at a set of traffic lights leading off from the motorway junction and held up a copy of a photograph. ‘This was taken at a local rugby fundraiser a couple of years ago.’
Barnes checked the car in front wasn’t about to pull away, then glanced at the photo.
Luxford appeared to be in his late thirties, a buzz cut to his hair. Small dark eyes peered out at the photographer, a sneer tearing the man’s mouth as he raised a pint glass to the camera, his thick arms protruding from a T-shirt that appeared to be a size too small.
‘He looks like a rugby player.’
Kay flipped the photo around. ‘He does, doesn’t he?’
She went back to reading her notes as the lights turned green. ‘It says here that he’s divorced, lives on his own – three points on his licence for a speeding offence from a couple of years back. He used to own a car washing business over near Swale but sold that in February. Must’ve done all right out of it to be able to put in an offer on Mike O’Connor’s place.’
‘That depends on how much he was offering,’ said Barnes, falling behind a white van that was losing a battle with the amount of dirt splashed over its back doors. ‘After all, this is the guy who came back with a lower offer after Carl’s body was found. Did Debbie find any connection between Carl and this Luxford bloke?’
‘Not yet.’ Kay lowered the pages to her lap as he turned into the Kings Hill estate while she surveyed the different commercial businesses they passed before entering the residential area beyond.
Barnes paused after negotiating a roundabout, thumbed his mobile phone screen on, and checked the maps app. The blue location dot showed their position, and Luxford’s house was only a couple of streets away.
‘How do you want to do this?’ he said as he pulled away from the kerb. ‘Do you want to lead?’
‘No, you ask the questions. I want to be able to gauge his reaction.’
‘Okay.’ He jerked his chin towards a terrace of slim houses, the beige-coloured render looking tired and worn. ‘This is his place, the middle one.’
Number 6 was identical to its neighbours, save for a pale-green door that appeared the worse for wear.
Evergreen shrubs grew half-heartedly in the borders between the properties, and the front garden appeared to have been abandoned mid-way through the owner laying new turf at some point in its history.
Barnes led the way along an uneven paved footpath, noting a large motorbike that had been parked off to one side and covered with a tarpaulin against the elements.
He rapped his knuckles against the glass panel set into the door as he eyed the broken electronic bell beside it.
‘Rented or owned?’ said Kay in a low voice.
‘Owned.’
‘Christ, you’d think he’d do something with the––’
The door opened and Steve Luxford peered over a brass chain.
‘You the police?’
‘Mr Luxford?’ Barnes held up his warrant card. ‘DS Ian Barnes. We spoke on the phone yesterday.’
‘Hang on.’ The chain rattled a moment, then Luxford beckoned to them. ‘This better be quick. I’ve got a meeting to get to at ten o’clock with my accountant.’
The moment Barnes stepped over the threshold, he wondered when the place had last been decorated – or cleaned.
An ancient-looking flock wallpaper covered the hallway walls, and whoever decorated the place must have got a good deal. The pattern continued through into a rectangular-shaped living area that stank of cigarette smoke, takeaway food, and stale alcohol that might or might not have been spilled on the chipped laminate flooring.
It was hard to tell amongst all the other stains.
Luxford scuffed through a pile of dirty washing beside a small wooden table covered in pizza boxes and opened a single door that led out to a tiny garden.
‘I had some mates around to watch a match last night,’ he said defensively. ‘Take a seat.’
Barnes took one look at the expression on Kay’s face as she took in the state of the upholstery, and turned back to Luxford. ‘It’s okay. This shouldn’t take long. We’re investigating the death of a man––’
‘The bloke found at O’Connor’s place. Yeah, you said on the phone. What do you need to speak to me for?’
‘We understand you put in an offer to buy O’Connor’s Used Cars a few weeks prior to the incident. Why was that?’
Luxford moved to the table, swept back a pizza box and snatched up a crumpled cigarette packet. Moving to the back door, he leaned against the frame, pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit up.
Barnes waited, watching while the other man tipped his head back and blew a cloud of smoke into the air before it was snatched away on the breeze.
Finally, Luxford turned back to him, the familiar sneer on his lips. ‘Because I could. I used to own a car wash place. Sold that a few months back for a good price. Thought I’d try something different.’
‘Have you done that sort of thing before?’
Luxford shrugged. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to sell cars, does it?’
‘Why that place?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why O’Connor’s business?’
‘Why not?’
‘Did you take a look at any others?’
‘One or two. Too far away, though.’ Luxford took another drag on the cigarette and scratched the inside of his elbow. ‘The missus wants me somewhere closer.’
Barnes blinked, peered around at the detritus covering almost every surface, then back to Luxford.
The man spat out a bitter laugh. ‘She don’t live here. Can’t you tell? We split up. She just wants me working nearby so I can take turns picking up our little girls after school, that’s all. Charlotte’s got a new job working for an estate agent and can’t always be there for them.’
‘With a young family, I’m surprised the fact that a dead man was found at O’Connor’s hasn’t put you off,’ said Kay.
‘It did for a bit. Sort of.’ He grinned, exposing uneven teeth stained by nicotine. ‘But then, I reckoned that the longer you lot take to find out who did this, it’ll drive the price down. I’ll probably pick up that business for a bargain.’
‘Mr Luxford, could you tell us where you were between the hours of three o’clock Friday afternoon and seven o’clock Sunday morning?’
The man walked over to the coffee table and crushed the end of the cigarette into a plastic ashtray bearing the name of a local brewer.
When he met Barnes’s gaze, there was a dangerous flash in his eyes.
‘Am I a suspect?’
‘Just a routine question, Mr Luxford. Where were you?’
‘Here, Friday night with me girls. I dropped them back to their mum’s house Sunday morning at ten o’clock. On the dot, too. Charlotte gets antsy if I’m late. Says it buggers up their routine.’
‘We’ll need the phone number and address for Charlotte,’ said Kay.
‘Fine.’ Luxford rummaged in his jeans pocket and extracted a battered mobile phone. ‘Here you go.’
Barnes wrote down the details, then handed Luxford a card.
‘Thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.’
‘No worries.’ Luxford grinned. ‘Take your time though, eh? I reckon I could get a few more thousand knocked off the price in another couple of weeks.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘How come we’re not speaking to Adele Marchant at the depot, then?’
Gavin held up his hand in thanks as another driver allowed their vehicle to exit the police station car park into slow-moving traffic.
‘She had a rostered day off organised before all this happened,’ said Laura, checking the woman’s address in her notebook. ‘Kay wanted her interviewed sooner rather
than later, so I phoned her last night to see if she was around this morning. She sounded quite distraught about Carl.’
‘I can’t imagine what it’d be like if something happened to one of us,’ said Gavin. ‘I’m not surprised she’s upset. Where’s her house?’
‘Take a left up here. She lives just around the corner from the grammar school.’
She gave Gavin directions through a series of roads that twisted and curved beyond the school towards the leisure centre, then pointed out Adele Marchant’s house to him as they drew near.
Semi-detached with a brown tiled roof, the building had a stone-clad ground floor with a rendered upper storey. A bay window protruded over a tidy front garden that abutted an asphalt driveway.
Gavin rang the doorbell, and Laura heard footsteps descending a staircase in a hurry.
A woman in her mid-fifties opened the door, her short blonde hair damp and a green towel in one hand. She wore a harried expression. ‘Are you the police?’
‘Adele Marchant? I’m DC Laura Hanway, and this is my colleague DC Gavin Piper. I spoke to you on the phone last night about Carl Taylor.’
‘Crumbs, sorry – I’m running late. Just got back from the leisure centre,’ she said, taking a step back. ‘Come in.’
Laura paused in a bright hallway, the faint smell of varnish emanating from freshly sanded skirting boards that hugged pale-cream paintwork.
A stack of framed prints lay against a small wooden table at the base of the staircase, the surface covered with what appeared to be unopened bills and a discarded bunch of keys.
‘Shall we go through to the kitchen?’ Adele Marchant turned without waiting for an answer, furiously scrubbing at her cropped hair with the towel so that by the time they caught up with her, her hair was sticking up on end.
The woman continued a running commentary as she tidied a pine dining table, collating a mixture of old local newspapers and sales brochures before gesturing to them to sit.
‘I thought I’d make the most of my day off – a Pilates class, followed by a swim. It’s not often I get time to myself what with two kids in the house––’ She broke off, her hand moving to her lips. ‘I’m sorry – I probably sound callous, what with everything going on. I just feel so helpless. I needed to do something rather than be here on my own. Carl’s death has been a shock.’
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