House of Lies (Detective Karen Hart)

by D. S. Butler

  The wind was strong on the roof. Karen folded her arms over her chest, hugging herself to keep out the cold.

  Farzana’s hair whipped around her face as she nodded slowly. ‘That’s my guess. I searched that corner,’ she said, pointing to where Ella was standing. ‘It wasn’t there yesterday, Sarge. I swear.’

  ‘Who’s had access to the house since yesterday?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Well, Lord Chidlow, Doyle, all of us officers, Chidlow’s wife—’

  Karen shook her head. ‘No, she wasn’t alone long enough to get up to the roof.’

  ‘Ella?’ Farzana whispered, nodding in the direction of the frizzy-haired girl.

  ‘I’m not sure what to make of her,’ Karen said. She took a deep breath. ‘We need to test the bloodstain to see if it’s Natasha’s.’

  Farzana tried to tuck her windblown hair behind her ears. ‘I’ll handle that.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Talk to Harrington? Bring him in?’

  ‘I think we’re going to have to.’

  They headed back down, glad to get out of the wind and into the house. Karen had missed the peephole during the search, but could they really have missed the polo shirt? The team was usually methodical and thorough. They wouldn’t have missed such a vital piece of evidence, would they?

  If what Farzana said was true and she hadn’t missed the shirt, that meant someone had put it up there after the search – but why?

  Did she want to believe it had been planted because the alternative was that Harrington was looking more and more guilty?

  It was a large house and, despite the officer on the front door, it was possible someone had sneaked in. Ella was still living here, and Ethan had crept in earlier. Had he planted it to divert attention from himself? What about Chidlow? He definitely had the time and opportunity to plant the polo shirt and smear Mike Harrington in the process.

  Karen ran a hand through her hair and watched Farzana head off to the crime lab back at the station, the evidence bag tucked under her arm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In interview room two at Nettleham, Morgan made the necessary introductions for the benefit of the tape. He hadn’t wanted to come back to the station. On a case like this, he preferred to be as close to the action as possible and that meant being on the ground near the search team or at the scene where Natasha was last seen. But the discovery of the bloodstained shirt had changed the direction of the investigation.

  Harrington was now very much top of their suspect list.

  Morgan had asked DC Rick Cooper to partner him for the interview. They sat on one side of the table, and Harrington sat opposite. The chair next to him was empty. He’d opted to go without legal representation.

  Harrington was stressed, but not in a nervous, jittery way. He looked like he might explode at any minute. He was seething with anger.

  All the better, thought Morgan. The more hot-headed the man was, the more likely he was to screw up and implicate himself if he was guilty. That would save them all some time.

  Morgan shuffled his paperwork, leafing through it. His delay in asking the first question was a deliberate attempt to apply subtle pressure.

  It worked. Harrington couldn’t wait. He spoke first. ‘This is a set-up! I’ve got nothing to do with those students.’

  Morgan pushed a photograph of the shirt across the table. ‘Do you recognise this?’

  Harrington looked down, then pushed it away. He sat back in his seat, shaking his head. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘Do you own a shirt like this one?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘I have five shirts like that,’ Harrington said. He rested his clenched fist on the table. ‘I wear them for work. Then stick them in the wash at the weekend.’

  ‘Are you missing one?’ Rick asked.

  Harrington pushed back from the table and glared at Rick. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t checked. Not that I’ve noticed. Where did you find it anyway?’

  ‘It was on the roof at Chidlow House.’ Rick moved the photograph back towards Harrington, pointing at the small rust-coloured stain.

  ‘Is that blood?’ the groundsman asked, looking up.

  His anger seemed to melt away, his expression pure panic.

  ‘It looks like blood,’ Rick said. ‘We’ll have the results back from the lab soon. You surprised me, Mr Harrington. I thought you were going to spin us a story.’

  Harrington just stared at him.

  ‘You’re not going to tell us you cut yourself while at work and accidentally left your shirt on the roof?’ Rick asked. ‘Good. That saves us some time.’

  Harrington spoke slowly. ‘I’ve never been on the roof of Chidlow House.’ He looked away, towards the door and freedom.

  Morgan said, ‘This isn’t looking good for you, Mike.’ He paused, waiting until Harrington was looking at him. ‘Maybe it was an accident. If you tell us what happened now, things will work out better for you in the long run.’

  Harrington pressed his hands to his face. ‘This can’t be happening,’ he muttered. Then he leaned forward, elbows on the desk, looking at them both beseechingly. ‘You have to believe me. This is a stitch-up. I don’t know how the blood got on my shirt . . . if it is my shirt.’

  ‘The DNA evidence should be able to clarify that,’ Rick said.

  Harrington shook his head. ‘It might be my shirt, but if it is, I don’t know how it got to be on the roof. And I have no idea how it got blood on it.’ He looked at the photograph again.

  They went round and round, asking more questions, but despite his agitation Harrington didn’t change his story. He kept insisting he was innocent and being set up by someone. When they asked him who might want to fit him up, he had no answer for them.

  Morgan and Rick left him in the interview room to stew while they went back through to the main office.

  ‘What do you think, boss?’ Rick asked. ‘Is he telling the truth?’

  Morgan took a deep breath. ‘I really don’t know. The evidence against him is looking pretty strong. The lab results will be crucial. If it’s Natasha’s blood, then I think we have enough to charge him.’

  ‘The technicians managed to get a DNA sample from the items provided by her parents.’

  ‘Good. I’ve asked for a rush job but we’re still probably looking at twenty-four hours.’ Morgan glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going to give Superintendent Murray an update. Then I think we should take Harrington back to his cottage. Let’s see if he can go through his belongings and locate all five of his shirts.’

  ‘You think one will be missing?’ Rick asked.

  ‘If that’s Harrington’s shirt, then yes, there must be.’

  ‘So we have to wait for the lab results to charge him?’

  ‘Yes, but we’ll keep him close, maintain the pressure. He could have Natasha somewhere nearby.’

  Karen took a step back from the whiteboard set up in the temporary incident room. The briefing with representatives from the search teams had just finished.

  She focused on the names on the board and the lines linking them. Photographs of Natasha and Cressida were in the middle of the board.

  Karen drew a thick, black line between the two students. Cressida had come back, but they still had no idea where Natasha was. Why? If someone had taken the students, why let one of them go? He or she couldn’t have known Cressida wouldn’t be able to remember what had happened. Unless Cressida was faking the amnesia and not speaking up because she’d been threatened.

  Both sets of parents were wealthy, but there’d been no ransom demand.

  She glanced down at the bottom right of the board, at Mike Harrington’s name. Did he know where Natasha was? She’d felt sorry for him and now he was heading up their suspect list. She tightened her grip on the pen.

  Was it Natasha’s blood on the polo shirt? Farzana insisted the shirt hadn’t been on the roof the day before it was found. So had it been planted? By who? Ella?

  Karen
sighed with frustration and slammed the whiteboard marker down on the table just as there was a rap on the open door. She looked up to see Chief Constable John Grayson standing there.

  She straightened. ‘Sir?’

  She really hoped he hadn’t come to try to persuade her to keep his son’s name out of the official reports.

  Just for once, she wanted to believe there were officers out there who were honest, who put the job before their own gain or that of their family.

  But what did she really know about the chief constable?

  Grayson walked into the room, looking down. His posture wasn’t as straight now, and he moved tentatively. He clutched a reusable carrier bag. He seemed nervous, his faced fixed in an expression you might expect a man to wear if he was about to ask a favour. A huge favour that would put her career on the line and save his son’s reputation.

  Karen swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. If he tried to bribe her into keeping quiet about Ethan, what would she do? He’d already heavily hinted that if she did a good job here, he’d use his influence to push forward the Freeman investigation and make sure the case wasn’t dropped.

  But no matter what guarantees or promises he gave her, Karen couldn’t keep quiet. She wouldn’t omit evidence from a report, even if it earned her a demotion and she was stuck behind a desk for the rest of her career. She wouldn’t hide the truth.

  Ethan needed to take responsibility for what he’d done. The fact that he was the chief constable’s son didn’t mean he should go unpunished.

  ‘DS Hart, I’m afraid I come to you about a rather delicate matter.’

  Here it comes, Karen thought. He’s going to ask me to keep Ethan’s involvement off the record. For all she knew, the man in front of her could be suppressing the corruption investigation. He could be one of the ringleaders.

  She faced him down, her hands curling into fists. If she accepted his offer of help in return for keeping his son out of trouble, then that made her no better than any of the corrupt officers she wanted to investigate.

  She’d tell him no, no matter how he tried to bribe her.

  Grayson had walked over to the desk, but now he looked over his shoulder. ‘Actually, do you mind if I close the door? It’s a sensitive subject, and I’d like to talk to you in private.’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ Karen said, shoving her hands in her pockets and lifting her chin at a stubborn angle.

  Grayson shut the door, then lifted the carrier bag and dumped the contents on to the mahogany surface of the desk.

  Karen stared down at the crumpled pieces of paper. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Letters, or aborted letters. I found them in Ethan’s bag when I went to do his washing.’

  Karen picked up one sheet, smoothed it to remove the creases and then began to read. Then she selected another, then another.

  They were all letters to Natasha. Ethan clearly had strong feelings for her. They made awkward reading. She wasn’t surprised he’d given up on the early drafts.

  Karen grabbed her bag and pulled out her mobile, navigating to the evidence images. She zoomed in on the paper they’d found in the bin in Natasha’s room. Could the note have been written by Ethan?

  Two words. Somebody knows.

  She laid her phone on the desk, next to one of the crumpled letters. It looked similar, but not identical. Karen was no expert, but if pushed, she’d have to say the note was not in the same handwriting.

  ‘I wondered if Ethan sent this to Natasha.’

  Grayson focused on the image. ‘The writing looks different to me. What does it mean by “somebody knows”?’

  She saw a war of emotions in his features. He was torn between wanting to protect his son and needing to do the right thing.

  ‘I don’t know. I wish I did. We found it in Natasha’s room.’

  Karen felt a pang of guilt for doubting him. She’d assumed the corruption ran so deep that even the chief constable could have been involved.

  But here he was sharing information that could be detrimental to his son. What would she have done if this was her child? If this had been Tilly in trouble, would she have covered it up? She honestly didn’t know the answer. She’d like to believe she was incorruptible, but was she? Was anyone?

  ‘I know the letters make Ethan look bad, but I’m not going to hide anything from you, DS Hart. I know my son and he can be irritating and foolish, but I really don’t believe he would hurt anyone.’

  Karen didn’t doubt Grayson saw the best in his son, but she couldn’t take his word for it.

  She turned her attention back to the words ‘somebody knows’. ‘I think someone may have been trying to warn Natasha,’ Karen suggested, staring hard at the words, willing them to make sense.

  ‘Possibly, but do we have any idea who “somebody” refers to?’

  Karen had to admit she had no idea.

  ‘Have you asked Ethan about the letters you found?’ she asked.

  Grayson sighed. ‘Yes.’ He put his hands up. ‘I know you’d have preferred to talk to him first, but I had to speak to him about it. He’s my son. I hoped he’d have an explanation.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘He refused to talk to me.’

  Karen arranged the letters in a pile. ‘This case would be a lot simpler if Cressida could remember what happened.’

  ‘Her condition hasn’t improved?’

  Karen sighed and shook her head. ‘She’s seeing a psychologist this afternoon, and I hope to talk to her again after her appointment.’

  ‘A delicate situation,’ he said again. ‘Well, it’s up to you what you do with these letters. I’ve done my part by bringing them to you. I don’t believe they show anything other than a lad with a crush.’

  Karen could feel Grayson’s gaze. He wanted her to agree with him, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She wasn’t willing to discount Ethan as a suspect.

  ‘Is Ethan at home now, sir?’ Karen asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ Grayson said. ‘Though no matter what I do to try to protect him, the boy seems determined to implicate himself.’

  ‘It must be difficult for you.’

  Grayson looked down at the desk. ‘How can I help him when he won’t even listen to what I say? He won’t talk to me.’

  ‘You’ve done the right thing,’ Karen reassured him. ‘We’re getting closer. We just don’t have the final answer yet.’

  ‘What if Ethan’s done something stupid?’

  ‘You should know that Ethan isn’t the only suspect.’

  She told Grayson they’d taken Mike Harrington into custody after finding the bloodied polo shirt on the roof.

  ‘That’s the most convincing evidence found so far.’

  ‘You’d think so, sir, but the head of the internal search team is convinced it wasn’t there when they searched the roof.’

  ‘Planted, you mean?’

  ‘Possibly. We’re awaiting results back from the lab before we charge him.’

  ‘The search team hasn’t found anything else?’ Grayson asked. He looked out of the French windows in the direction of the lake.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘I hope you get to the bottom of this soon, DS Hart. I have every confidence in you. The superintendent recommended you and DI Morgan highly, and I trust her judgement.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I’ve been impressed with the job you’ve done so far. This hasn’t been an easy case.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know you can’t take my word for it, but I’m sure Ethan had nothing to do with this. He’s just your typical teenager who doesn’t want to listen to his father, but he’s harmless really.’

  Karen nodded politely, but said nothing. People could hide their secrets well, and even those closest to them could be fooled. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Karen was still with the chief constable when someone opened the French windows from the outside. It was Rick.

  �
�You’re back.’ Karen was about to ask how the interview with Mike Harrington had gone when she noticed the look on his face.

  He stepped inside the room. Something about the way he held himself, the way his shoulders slumped and his head was bowed, made her move past Grayson.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Rick, what is it?’

  His face was sombre, quite a contrast to his usual cheeky expression. ‘I’m sorry, Sarge. They found her. Natasha was in the lake.’

  It felt like a physical blow. Karen inhaled sharply. They’d known there was a chance – that’s why they’d ordered the search of the lake, but she’d hoped they were being overly cautious, hoped Natasha would return.

  Rick wiped his feet on the mat. ‘They’re bringing her up from the lake now. I thought you’d want to be present.’

  Karen swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get my coat.’

  She swung around and almost walked into Grayson, who was standing behind her.

  ‘Terribly sad,’ he said.

  Karen nodded and walked past him quickly to grab her jacket. There were multiple theories open to them, including accidental death, but the most likely was that someone had dumped Natasha’s body in the lake.

  She’d been doing this job long enough to know the longer a person was missing, the lower the chances of getting them back unharmed, but she’d hoped this case would beat the odds.

  As she shrugged on her coat, Morgan entered the room. He lifted his head and met Karen’s gaze with a sad smile.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it for now,’ Grayson said quietly, then he left the library.

  The three of them – Karen, Rick and Morgan – made their way down to the shore of the lake in silence. Divers were still in the water, their hooded wetsuits making their heads look like seals as they broke the surface.

  ‘Do you think it could have been an accident?’ Rick asked. ‘Maybe she’d been drinking and went in of her own accord.’ He shivered, looking at the grey water. ‘Or stumbled and fell in.’ He pointed at a spot along the lake that had no gradual sloping shoreline. The dark, murky water lapped at the reeds.