The Anita Waller Collection

by Anita Waller

  ‘Anything of importance that crops up, bring it straight back here to the boss, don’t wait until you’ve finished your bit of the area.’ Neil glanced at each one of them, and they all nodded.

  Liam and Rosie, along with PC Mark Hobson and PC Norma Ormond, entered the Bell home. The code was still current for the burglar alarm, and Liam breathed a sigh of relief. First hurdle over.

  He sent Mark and Rosie upstairs, Norma to the kitchen, and Liam searched the lounge.

  An hour later they gathered in the kitchen, each of them having drawn a blank. The only item of significance was James Bell’s passport, discovered in the desk of his small office. They had removed his laptop, but Liam didn’t expect anything to come of that either. He held the keys they had used to enter the premises in his hand.

  ‘Okay, Mark and Norma, I need you two to look through the garage and the shed.’ He looked at the keys for a moment longer. ‘Rosie, we’re going in next door.’

  He picked up his phone and rang Heather’s number. He heard the international dial tone, and she answered. ‘DS Norwood?’

  ‘Heather, sorry to interrupt your holiday. I’ve got to make sure Mr Bell isn’t in your house as he had a key for your kitchen door. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, although she knew it must have sounded off to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Enjoy Paris.’

  By half past ten, Claudia and Heather were dropping their suitcases off at their hotel and heading out for a coffee. The telephone call from Norwood had rattled Heather, but she was much too far from Sheffield to do anything about it, so she put it to the back of her mind.

  The sunshine was glorious, and they headed for the Champs-Élysées. It was a very short five-minute walk and once on the famous avenue it soon became obvious that there was a heightened sense of security.

  At first it troubled Claudia that all the policemen were armed, and there were so many of them. She very quickly accepted it and sipped at the coffee Heather had ordered in French.

  ‘Get you,’ Claudia laughed. ‘Hid that light under a bushel, didn’t you?’

  Heather smiled. ‘It was my favourite subject at school, partly because I seemed to be a bit of a natural. I must have been because it’s all coming back to me, and I haven’t used the language for years. Most people speak English, so don’t worry.’

  They finished their coffee and carried on down to the designer shops; they resisted the urge to go in them, promising themselves a shopping day before heading home on Sunday.

  By two o’clock they were back checking in to the hotel, and within minutes, Claudia was asleep. Heather hung up their clothes, then rested on her own bed. Her mind refused to think about Owen and James; it centred totally on losing her best friend. She seemed well enough at the moment, but Heather knew the tendrils of cancer were working their way through Claudia’s body, getting stronger, killing her.

  Heather brushed away the tears and closed her eyes.

  Two hours later they were awake, although still supine on their beds. Decisions had to be made about where they would eat, so Heather suggested they dine in the hotel.

  ‘Good idea,’ Claudia concurred. ‘We’ll have a couple of drinks later, then maybe an early night. Up with the larks tomorrow morning and off to see things. Where shall we go first?’

  ‘I’ve made a list,’ Heather said, and scrabbled around inside her bag for the piece of paper.

  Claudia took it and looked at the long list of places to see. ‘Crikey! I’ll put my trainers on then. There’s a fair bit of walking if we’re going to see this lot.’

  Heather laughed. ‘There’s an easy way. We get on a tourist bus, and we just hop on and off wherever we fancy. I suggest we start at the Louvre, that will blow you away. And, of course, you’ll see the Mona Lisa. That’s kind of a mind-numbing moment, knowing who painted it, and that he couldn’t possibly have imagined how many people would get to see it. The thing about the Louvre is you could take up residence there for a month and still not see everything in it. So, shall we start there?’

  Claudia nodded. ‘Definitely. And then we can decide after that? No good making a plan, we might want to spend some time in the Louvre.’

  Claudia swung her legs off the bed and winced at the niggling pain she felt in her left-hand side.

  ‘Claud?’

  ‘Just a twinge. I’m fine.’

  ‘You want some painkillers?’

  Claudia shook her head. ‘No, honestly I’ll save them for when I really need them. I’m going to have a shower, get changed and contemplate the frog’s legs that are bound to be on the menu.’

  It was while she was showering that her thoughts strayed to the events happening back in Sheffield. ‘Oh, well,’ she whispered to herself, ‘no news is good news, I suppose.’

  Chapter 20

  Liam Norwood and Rosie Havenhand stood outside the kitchen door of the Gower home; Liam checked in his notebook for the code to the burglar alarm James Bell had given him following the discovery of Owen Gower’s body.

  He unlocked the door, moved quickly to the beeping alarm, and entered the code.

  ‘Right, you take the upstairs, and I’ll do down here. I’m not really expecting to find anything, and there’s a faint smell, but I guess that’s lingering from Mr Gower’s untimely end. It’s certainly not a strong enough odour to be coming from a body that’s potentially been dead for two weeks.’

  Rosie climbed the stairs, and Liam went into the lounge. He looked around but could see nothing out of the ordinary. He picked up all the mail from the hall floor, glanced through it and put it on the coffee table. It was mainly junk, with just a couple of letters from the bank. They were probably confirming the new arrangements the couple had made about their banking; Heather had told him about the issues with her husband using money allocated for payments.

  He then moved into the kitchen, but again nothing seemed out of place. He could see Mark in the shed in the adjoining garden, doing a thorough search, but again Liam thought nothing would come of it.

  Passing through the kitchen he went into the tidy utility room. He glanced around, moved a couple of laundry baskets and was just about to head out of the door and back to the kitchen when he noticed the green light on the washer indicating the load was finished.

  He opened the washer door and the musty smell hit him. These clothes had been inside the drum for quite a while, he reckoned, and he pulled one item out. A woman’s jacket.

  He straightened up and considered all options. Heather had left three days before her husband fell down the stairs, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have left washing in the machine. He put the jacket in one of the laundry baskets and bent down to see what else was still in the drum. Trousers, a shirt, a bra and pants. A tiny load to put through a full-wash cycle.

  He knew this was significant. He didn’t know why or how, but he knew.

  He took out his phone and rang the station.

  ‘Ken? Liam Norwood. I’m at the Gower house, the one where the owner fell down the stairs a few weeks ago. I need a forensics team here asap.’

  Rosie reported nothing out of the ordinary upstairs, and they waited in the kitchen for the forensics team’s arrival. Mark and Norma joined them, reporting they had found nothing, but Neil arrived at a run, taking his own words as gospel – if you get something, the boss wants to know immediately.

  ‘Boss,’ he said, breathing heavily, ‘I’ve been talking to one of the neighbours. Her name’s Mrs Irene Patterson. She makes scones.’

  Liam leaned forward and brushed a crumb from the front of Neil’s jacket. ‘So I see,’ he said drily.

  ‘The thing is,’ Neil said, ignoring Liam’s action, ‘she saw Mr Bell’s car return about five on that Saturday afternoon. She said she was looking out of her window because she doesn’t watch television on a Saturday afternoon, it’s all football. It’s why she can’t be more precise about the time.’

  ‘And it was definitely James
Bell?’

  ‘She watched the car turn into the drive and park up. She didn’t see him because the privet hedge is too high. She was a bit disgruntled about that. Says it needs to be lowered.’

  Rosie joined in. ‘So, we know he was alive late afternoon. Have the rest of the team reported anything back to you?’

  ‘Nothing, and they’re all just about done. Mrs Patterson was my last lady. But I’m not finished telling it all yet. She was at her bedroom window again later that night, looking out because she couldn’t sleep, and she saw a smaller car pull onto the drive. She said it drove backwards. Her words, not mine. She thought it was Mrs Bell’s car, but she said it couldn’t have been because Mrs Bell never drives it backwards onto the drive. Mrs Patterson went to bed just after that. She thought that happened around midnight but again her timing isn’t spot on.’

  ‘And Mr Bell’s car?’

  ‘Still in the same place, she thinks. She hadn’t seen it move and she says when Mrs Bell parks and Mr Bell isn’t here she drives it to the top of the drive.’

  ‘This lady is invaluable,’ Norwood said with a smile. ‘Can we recruit her?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘And she never actually saw James Bell? She merely saw his car. He wasn’t necessarily in that car at five o’clock.’

  There was a bang on the front door and Rosie stood to let the forensics team in. They were in white suits and ready to go.

  Liam explained the situation, then stood aside while one person entered the utility room.

  He sat at the kitchen table, deep in thought. Were the ladies up to their pretty necks in this? Was that even possible, given the severity of Claudia’s illness? His feelings were that he needed to rule them out, rather than rule them in.

  He took out his phone once more. ‘Ken – sort me a cadaver dog, will you? I want the dog to go over two adjoining gardens. Thanks.’

  Bruce, the Alsatian, was thorough. He found nothing and was truly grateful for the drink of water provided by his handler. He didn’t know while he was drinking it that his handler was being asked to transport him to a second location.

  The forensics team had taken swabs of the work surface immediately above the washer – the presence of blood had been detected. Liam didn’t know whether to feel justified or sad.

  ‘You need comparison stuff for DNA analysis presumably?’

  The white-suited body nodded. ‘We do. Hair brushes, toothbrushes, but we need to collect it and bag it correctly. Don’t just bring it to us.’

  Both houses yielded items suitable for the analysis and Norwood left Neil Evans in charge, while he and Rosie followed Bruce and his handler down to Heather and Claudia’s flat.

  It caused some consternation on the road when the crime scene tape went across the entrance to the alleyway leading to the spare ground around the back and underneath the flat.

  Craig Ullyat, nonchalantly leaning against the wall of the garden immediately opposite the bakery, suddenly came to attention. He thought it best not to hang around if there was a police presence, not with the little packets in his jacket inside pocket, and he waved at Jade as he left the area.

  Jade was glad to see him go; he was really starting to unnerve her, and she wished with everything she had that Michelle had never got involved with George Ullyat, wherever he was.

  She didn’t know why Craig had gone until a customer came in and told her about the dog van and the police car, the crime scene tape and the nice-looking plain-clothes policeman.

  Norwood, Rosie and the handler, who they had found out went by the name of PC Phil Jackson, stood for a few moments just surveying the area Bruce had to cover. It was knee high in weeds and grasses interspersed with tall buttercups, with a small area that went under the high-level patio of the flat Heather and Claudia shared. The police could see a boarded-up door directly underneath the patio, presumably a shop back door. On the edge of this grassed area was a brick-built storage facility, quite small and boarded-up. The window had been smashed, rendering the boarded-up door irrelevant.

  Rosie walked across to it and looked through the window, carefully avoiding the jagged pieces of glass still left in around the edges. Lying on the ground was the piece of plywood that had originally been used to board it. The hut was empty except for a couple of candles, dozens of cigarette butts and what she thought was a Sheffield Wednesday woolly hat.

  ‘Good taste,’ she murmured, and headed back to report to her boss.

  ‘Nothing of any significance except a Sheffield Wednesday hat, boss,’ she said. ‘We’ll need to get through the door properly to double check, but at first sight there’s nothing. Don’t think it’s a priority.’

  ‘Thanks, Rosie. Okay, Phil, are we ready?’

  ‘No. Give it another five minutes or so, he does it in his own time, does Bruce. He’s still sitting down. When he stands up, he’s ready for work.’

  Liam laughed. ‘Just like my team. And can we get that fish and chip shop closed down? All I can smell is that delicious aroma wafting over everything, and I’m starting to crave some.’

  Bruce stood. Phil took off the dog’s lead and let the Alsatian go. He followed behind him, not too closely but clearly knowing how his dog worked best.

  Liam realised it was a pleasure to watch the dog; he worked almost in a grid pattern, not distracted by other smells such as empty crisp packets, cans of lager with dregs still in them and an assortment of other rubbish that would have been of interest to any other dog. He was focused.

  Bruce worked his way methodically around, with Phil never more than a few feet away. The dog approached the area at the rear of the brick storage building and barked, then sat down. Phil darted forward and clipped on the lead, then waved a hand towards Norwood and Rosie. They walked across, stumbling occasionally in the long grass.

  ‘He’s detected decomposed remains here, sir,’ Phil said, suddenly becoming formal.

  ‘Thank you, PC Jackson. I’ll get the team on site. You can get Bruce home now, we’ll take it from here. It’s definitely decomposed remains?’

  ‘Yes, sir. No doubt. He reacts in the same way every time, and he’s never been wrong. Did you know we’d find something?’

  ‘Strongly suspected but didn’t want to is the best way of putting it.’

  Rosie and Liam watched as Phil walked Bruce through the deep grass towards the alleyway. They heard a brief couple of barks as they disappeared, and Liam took out his phone.

  ‘Ken...’

  There was a pause while Liam took his ‘what do you want now?’ barrage from his friend, and then explained exactly what he did want.

  Within ten minutes a full team had arrived, a tent erected ready for putting over the spot once they had found what they were looking for, and Rosie and Liam were eating fish and chips.

  The digging and scraping began, painstaking work with the sun beating down on the backs of their necks. Nobody said much, and Liam and Rosie watched as they went deeper and deeper, piling the excavated soil against the wall of the brick building.

  DI Ray joined them. ‘You knew something was amiss, didn’t you? Good instincts, Liam. I’m leaving this one with you, not muscling in unless you need me on call.’

  ‘Thank you. I expected you to take over now it looks like murder.’

  ‘You can handle it?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll stay here until we get James Bell out of there and despatched to the morgue. I’m calling in the refreshment vehicle though, they’re working in intolerable heat.’

  ‘I’ll see to it,’ Philippa Ray said. She took out her phone and organised it.

  It took twenty minutes for the van to arrive, and a grateful forensics team took a drink break before going back to scraping the soil.

  DI Ray left them to it, and Liam and Rosie sat on their jackets on the grass. Neil Evans joined them, telling them all his team had completed their reports and uploaded them, along with his own detailed report of the information from Mrs Patterson.

  He dropped to the gra
ss alongside them. ‘At least it’s not raining and washing evidence away with it,’ Neil said, wiping the back of his neck with a tissue.

  ‘This is England, Neil. It could be raining in ten minutes,’ Rosie said with a laugh. She turned to smile at Neil, and Liam saw the brief eye contact.

  Oh, my giddy aunt, he thought, there’s something going on. Who would have guessed?

  He was stopped from making any sort of comment by a shout from the team excavating the large area. Three people immediately began to move the tent to cover the more specific ground and it was finally pegged down.

  The three police officers scrambled to their feet and dusted the grass from their clothes before moving across to the tented zone. There was a general hush from the people in the tent, as they continued to scrape away soil from the hole, but now using much finer implements.

  ‘A body?’ Norwood asked.

  ‘Yes, we’ve uncovered what looks to be a skull. We’ll know more in half an hour. Go and grab a cuppa, I’ll give you a shout when there’s something to look at.’

  Liam nodded, and the three of them headed across to the refreshment van. They all settled for coffee and carried their drinks back to where they had originally been sitting. Rosie stumbled, and immediately Neil’s arm shot out to catch her and steady her; again there was a smile and eye contact.

  Liam shook his head and tried to hide his smile. He could have some fun with this one, once they were back in the station.

  They didn’t speak much while they drank, all of them keen to know the results of the dig. It was the better part of an hour before they were called over. They ducked their heads and went inside the tent.

  Liam couldn’t contain his surprise. ‘Any ID on him?’

  ‘No, none that we’ve come across yet. This isn’t what you were expecting, DS Norwood?’ The pathologist’s voice was low, respectful of the dead man in the grave.