by Ryan Casey
It felt strange saying her name. Nicola. What had she done to deserve this?
Mr. Watson fell back into his chair. “She’s…She was a lovely girl. Always thinking about others.” Mrs. Watson spluttered and cried some more as her husband, his voice shaky, continued to speak. “I mean, like any girl in their early twenties, she did stuff behind our back, but we didn’t think anything of it, y’know?”
“What sort of stuff?” Brian asked.
Mr. Watson’s eyebrows twitched. “That look. Get that look out of your eyes. I didn’t say that. Our daughter’s no hooker. She had secrets, but she’s no hooker, I swear to you–”
“Calm down, Trev,” Mrs. Watson said. “Just…just calm down.”
He sulked in his chair and wrapped his arms around his large belly.
“She drank, probably took a few drugs, but she was just growing up, right?” Mrs. Watson tried to put on a brave face. “All the kids do it–you know that better than anyone. But nothing…nothing like that. She was a good girl. She was going somewhere in her life.”
“Until that little shit came along,” Trevor muttered.
“Who are you referring to, Mr. Watson?” Brian asked.
“That boyfriend of hers. If she got into anything dodgy, it’s his doing. Off the rails sort. Nicky thought she could ‘rescue him’ or some crap like that, but she was better than him. He just used her for her good nature.”
“Trev, Danny was okay at times–”
“He was a scrote,” Trevor roared. “A weedy little scrote. Not good enough for my Nicky. Not good enough.” His arms shook as Shenice Watson, sniffing back the tears, rubbed her hand against them.
Brian took a note in his diary: Danny. Boyfriend. “Do you have an address for Danny…?”
“Stocks,” Trevor Watson said. “Danny Stocks. Lives down by the old hospital on Walter Road. Number six, I think. Do you think he–”
“It’s too early to start suspecting people. But hopefully he can shed a bit of light on why someone might have wanted to kill your daughter.”
The pair flinched with Brian’s words. Too cold, Brian. Too fucking cold. Watch yourself.
“Were there any arguments at home we should know about? Any indications that she might’ve been in trouble?”
Trevor Watson’s eyes narrowed. “Are you implying something?”
Brian kept his cool. “I’m simply intrigued as to why you were so worried about your daughter’s disappearance the morning after a night out, and more importantly, why you linked the death of a suspected prostitute with the death of your daughter.”
Trevor and Shenice looked at each other, open-mouthed. Shenice cleared her throat and wiped away a tear with a scrunched-up tissue. “She always came home,” she said. “Didn’t matter how late she’d been out, she always came home. And that road–those brothels and that seedy stuff–she always had to walk up by there. I guess I saw the age and I just…I just panicked. I always told her to walk with her friends, keep her wits about her, but she just saw the good in everyone, y’know? She never saw this coming. Poor girl. Poor, poor girl…”
Brian flicked through the pages of his diary, giving Trevor and Shenice a moment to calm themselves. “Is there anybody else that might be able to give us a few details about your daughter? Any friends or work?”
Shenice’s eyes struggled to focus. “Um, I don’t…I don’t know about her friends now. Since…since she met Danny. But, I don’t know.”
“There is her workplace though,” Trevor interrupted. “That charity. BetterLives.”
“What about BetterLives?”
“She was helping out there. Doing a load of admin work, helping out with the accounts. She seemed to love doing it, even though it was voluntary. She always was into her politics and stuff.”
Brian closed the diary and slipped his hand into his pocket. He shot a sympathetic smile at Mr. and Mrs. Watson. “Thanks for your time, both of you. Here’s my card–if you remember anything, or if you just want to speak, give me a call, any time. I…I realise how hard it must be to lose a child. So please, don’t forget me. My colleague will take you to see…To identify the body. Thanks again for your cooperation.”
Trevor walked up to Brian. He looked much taller than the impression he gave when seated. “Have you ever lost a kid, Officer?”
Brian’s gaze twitched towards the ground. His neck burned, and he tugged at the top button of his collar. “No, I–”
“Then you don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand.”
The pair left as Brian slumped into his chair, slicking his hair back with the sweat that had formed.
The chatter of the briefing room immediately died down the second Price, grinning, walked in. He held his Starbucks coffee cup so tightly that it looked like it might just crumble in his hands. He sat down next to DC Peters, who was quite visibly hungover, and plonked his large pad onto the table. The force snapped Peters out of his trance; he rubbed his eyes and took deep, steadying breaths.
“Hello, all. So it’s not ideal to be calling another briefing so soon after this morning, but at least you’re all here this time.” He glared at Brian then opened his pad. “We’ve made huge progress, though. Bloody huge. Peters, what’ve you got for us?”
DC Peters, whose face was growing paler by the minute, shuffled the papers in front of him.
“Come on, Peters,” Price said. “You’re gonna be keying this info into H.O.L.M.E.S. this afternoon, so you’d better be clued up.”
“Okay, okay.” Peters fumbled his glasses from his collar. “Well, so far I…The girl. The girl’s call–”
“Peters, have you been drinking again? Fucking hell. Keep your hands still. For God’s sakes.” He shook his head and edged away from Peters, who squeezed his hands together to try to stop them shaking. “Do you want to go to the bathroom?”
Peters pushed his chair back and clenched his stomach, already jogging towards the door. “Please, Detective Inspector.” His cheeks expanded as if blowing an imaginary trumpet as he ran through the corridor, before a chorus of “Oh’s!” and “Are you okay’s?” erupted. Poor Peters evidently hadn’t quite made it to the bathroom.
Price shook his head. “Brian, what have you got? And please, don’t go being sick on me. It’s not a good look.”
Brian cleared his throat. “The girl we found this morning is Nicola Watson. She’s twenty-two years old. I’ve spoken to her parents, and they’ve just identified the body. They don’t seem to think she has any links to prostitution.”
DC Pennison tutted behind his huge glasses. “That’s what they all say.” He took his glasses off and wiped his eye. He always looked frog-eyed without his glasses, like a little mole blinded by the light.
“I think it would be advisable to keep a team down at Foster Road to do some further investigations in the surrounding area. I’m not entirely sure they’re the most honest sets of neighbours.”
Price nodded. “And what’s this about the boyfriend?”
Brian turned his paper over as another acting DC took handwritten notes. The H.O.L.M.E.S. system was playing up lately, and they didn’t have the financial support from the government to fix it, so they had to make do with the intermittent system they had. “Daniel Stocks. Aged twenty-three.” Brian paused as he leafed through the documents he’d just about managed to print prior to the briefing. “Few previous offences–possession of drugs, vandalism–but nothing major. Nicola’s parents didn’t seem too keen on him though.”
Price grumbled something under his breath. “One of you two check him out.”
“I’d like to let DS Emerson do the honours, sir.”
Price stuck his bottom lip out, slightly puzzled by Brian’s reluctance to lead. “Thought you usually liked to stick your dick right into the action, Detective?”
Brian smiled. The Lone Ranger–another detective cliché he’d managed to convince them
of over the years. “I think the new Detective Sergeant is more than capable of investigating this lead while I pursue some others.”
Price nodded slowly. “Very well. Well, you all know your duties. DC Pennison, when Pukey Peters has stopped spewing, you get back down to Foster Road and get pursuing those leads. And when I say ‘pursuing leads’, I mean pursuing leads and not stopping off at McDonald’s, regardless of how good their limited edition Taste of America burgers are. The rest of you, off you go. See you soon.”
The officers scooted up from their chairs and disappeared out of the room. Price stormed off, looking frustrated at how quickly he’d drunk his coffee. Brian and Cassy remained.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Cassy smiled teasingly at Brian.
He reached into his black 2011 diary, even though it was 2012 now, and tore out a little page on which he’d scribbled the boyfriend’s address. “We have this address on record for Danny’s most recent location. Check it out, and have a chat to him.” Brian walked towards the door and threw on his big black jacket.
“And where d’you think you’re going, anyway?” Cassy asked.
Brian smirked. “Charity work.”
Chapter Four
The office blocks where BetterLives was based were one of the newer buildings down by the docks, overlooking the marina. Marina. Who the hell were they kidding? Sure, it looked half-pretty in the day, but McDone knew what it was like at night. A cesspit. You’d be lucky not to get mugged walking from KFC to McDonald’s. Then again, who’d walk from KFC to McDonald’s? You’d be surprised by the youth of Preston.
He pulled up in one of the newly paved car spaces overlooking the depths of the docks and took a final look at the papers in front of him. “BetterLives: New Fundraising Fair to Bring Smile Back to Preston.“ The smiling, grinning face of their leader, Robert Luther. Apparently, he helped get people working again, aiding the disadvantaged. People seemed to like him. Brian had seen a million versions of him in the past–smiling for the cameras, probably slipping whisky into his Coke before bed every evening. The fact was Nicola Watson had worked here, which meant she knew people. Potential leads. Maybe even suspects. Someone had to know Nicola Watson, what she did, where she stayed, what food she ate, and all that.
He left the car and walked towards the entrance of the office blocks, one of those big, circular, all-glass things with blue tinted windows, which a bunch of companies hired out. BetterLives was on the fifth floor, which gave Brian a good chance to get a little bit of exercise in his legs.
Brian entered the building. The man from the photograph was already standing there, waiting to greet him in the airy reception area. It was like a reception area you’d find on a cruise ship, spacious and open, the opposite of the claustrophobia of Foster Road earlier that day. The man, dressed in a suit, his tie poking from underneath his collar, walked towards Brian. Sign of a man who still had everything done for him. He smiled, but not too cheerily. He knew why Brian was here.
He extended his hand. “Robert Luther. Pleasure to meet you, Officer…?”
“Detective Sergeant Brian McDone,” he said. Robert had a standard grip handshake, not too tight or too slack. Clearly practiced a lot.
“Would you like to follow me to my office? It’s only on the fifth floor, but I can call for a lift, if you want?” Robert’s brown eyes investigated Brian’s waistline. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. An awkward moment of silence passed.
“I…Yeah, sure, whatever.” He followed Robert into the lift, and they ascended to the fifth floor. He could get his exercise some other time.
“Obviously, I’m greatly shocked by the news,” Robert said. He sat in a brown leather chair behind a mahogany desk. Deer horns, and a framed series of group photos and newspaper cuttings of his achievements, decorated the wall. Clearly a man with self-confidence issues. When in doubt, one could imagine he’d stare at the wall and give his ego a good stroke. Brian sat opposite him in the rather more conventional office chair. He looked beyond Robert’s head and out onto the view of the roundabout near the water of the docklands.
“It isn’t the first time it’s happened to someone in our department,” Robert said, before reaching for a bottle of water and pouring some down his throat. “Oh, do you–water?”
“No, it’s fine. It’s happened before? What do you mean?”
“All this talking. Like sandpaper on a man’s throat. But anyway, yes–it happened a while back. Old lad called Jim. Used to help out with some of the filing. Cancer got him in the end. But of course, nothing like…like this, anyway.”
“How well did you know the victim?”
Robert scratched at his lip before shuffling some papers about on his desk, tapping when he reached a particular one. “Nicola. Lovely girl. Always had a smile on her face. Hadn’t worked here long, but she always seemed pleasant whenever I saw her. Always gave a damn about event organisation and things like that. It’s…it’s weird. This speech I was about to do this afternoon, announcing a new scheme we’re putting in place. She organized that sort of thing. Contacting the venues, sorting out times. It’s…Ah, it’s just surreal, really. It’s knocked us all for six.”
Brian scribbled a doodle of some sort of extra-terrestrial being in his diary, but it seemed to create an atmosphere of authority about the meeting. “What exactly goes on at BetterLives? That’s something I’ve never quite got my head around.”
Robert’s expression slipped into public figure mode. “BetterLives is a different kind of charity. We open up new volunteering opportunities to get people working. We share our donations with close affiliate charities, such as Air Ambulance and hospitals. We don’t discriminate; our only goal is to give people a–”
“Better life. Right.”
Luther nodded. “I want to put Preston on the map. I want to make a difference here and prove that this sort of model can work elsewhere. I’ve never believed in anything like I have this.”
Brian pretended to note something else down. Why would anyone want to put this crap-hole on the map? “Well, I wish you the best of luck with that, Mr. Luther. How long ago did Nicola join BetterLives?”
Robert skimmed through the paper again. “Ah, it’ll be…Yes. September just gone. Three months ago. Feels like longer; then again, it doesn’t feel like a minute ago.”
“Do you always have such glowing opinions of your staff, Mr. Luther?”
“I try my best. It helps if we have a positive working environment. Same with any workplace, right? I mean, there’s always going to be the hotheads. There’s always going to be…the slackers, and personality clashes. But I like to think we have–had–a nice balance at BetterLives. Obviously, without Nicola, it’s going to be very hard to handle for a long time. I don’t know. Do you have any suspects?”
“It’s still pretty early. We have a few leads. We’re just trying to get the best sense we possibly can of the sort of life Nicola lived, so if you can help enlighten me on anything, then that’d be a great help.”
Robert sank back into his chair again. “Well, like I say, she seemed a lovely girl. Always smiley and bubbly, so I’d imagine she has a lot of friends. Early twenties, too? It’s great, isn’t it? All the young’uns so motivated to do good for their city. Really sets an example.”
“You’re hardly ancient, Mr. Luther.”
Robert laughed. “So I keep telling myself. Doesn’t stop the grey hairs from ignoring me.”
Brian waited for Luther to continue.
“But, um, yes, like I was saying. I didn’t really know the girl outside of work. I’m really busy attending charity events, public speaking–all the fun stuff my colleagues force me into. But yeah–if it would help to chat to her co-volunteers from the organisation committee, I can bring them right up here, or you can go downst…”
The door creaked open, and a short man with glasses poked his head through. He looked back at Luther, who raise
d his hand and gestured for the man to enter.
“Detective McDone, this is Michael Walters, my friend and adviser of–what, sixteen years?”
Michael Walters and Brian shook hands. Limp handshake. Slightly damp. Walters wore a grey jumper under his blazer. His curly, balding hair would have benefited from a shave.
“The pair of us practically invented BetterLives from the ground up,” Luther said. “And the charity before this, and the charity before that. This chap keeps me right in order and stops me making the daft decisions.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Robert. I was here first. I just needed a ventriloquist’s dummy to do the hard work!” Michael laughed and smiled nervously at Robert, who tutted and shook his head. Not as confident as his boss. Not as self-assured. Probably still an egomaniac.
“Detective McDone here has just been chatting to me about Nicola Watson. I was just about to take him down to meet some of our team myself, but if you could do the honours, Mike, then I’d be grateful.”
Michael nodded cautiously. “Don’t see why not. But most of them aren’t back from their Christmas holidays yet.”
Luther turned back to Brian. “Yeah, being voluntary, there’s not a lot we can do about the holidays.”
“That’s okay. Just let me have a quick chat with whoever is here. We just want an idea of the sort of girl Nicola was more than anything.” Brian pulled a card out of his pocket. “If you remember something, or if a little fact or detail comes to mind, just give me a call, okay? Number’s on there.”
Luther gripped it between his fingers. “I’ll be sure to. Good luck with the investigation. I’ll mention the girl in my speech later.”
“Thank you, Mr. Luther.” Brian followed Michael out of the cosy wooden office and towards the lift.
Michael Walters walked down the corridor, shaking his hips, every step over exaggerated. Probably fancied his boss. Probably the main reason he stuck around. Yes, Mr. Luther. Of course, Mr. Luther.
“Nicola’s team is just down there.” He pointed to a little section in the corner of the office where old computers were stacked up beside ancient monitors. The room was empty aside from a young man with slicked back hair.