by D. E. White
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“I want to take another look at the Beach Escape Rooms,” Dove told Steve, as the team filed out towards the coffee machine, splitting into various partnerships for the afternoon.
He shrugged. “Can’t do any harm, and I agree with Lindsey, we need to nail Caz and Jamie somehow. None of the others are really in the running, unless it was Billy Jackson, and if he was responsible, we can’t prosecute a dead man.”
They parked on the side of the road next to the seafront, and headed towards the pier. Despite the weather becoming heavy and stormy, with spots of rain splashing on the dusty pavements, and the waves cresting white-tipped and ominous out to sea, the town was still busy with tourists.
As they passed the amusement arcade, Dove gave a fiver to a man pulling a shopping trolley full of his possessions. He was dressed in a brown towelling robe, and his tangled dreadlocks fell to his waist. He walked slowly, with dignity, and thanked her for the money.
“Dove! You keeping all right, my darling?” His voice was low and musical, and Dove knew that stashed amongst the other bags in his trolley was a battered trumpet in a blue velvet case.
“Fine, thanks, Ron. You okay?” She smiled at him.
He nodded slowly, taking in Steve. “He’s looking a bit worried. What have you two been up to under the pier? Thought you were with that nice medical bloke.” He cackled, and Dove laughed.
“What do you think? Honestly, Ron, your mind is stuck in the gutter, mate.”
“Got myself a phone a while back,” he announced proudly, still looking warily at Steve.
“I know, mate, you told me. That’s good. Take care of it,” Dove told him. She had met Ron when he was being beaten up by a group of teenagers on a stag weekend. Luckily she had been with Quinn, and the two of them were able to scare off the kids and help the old man to recover. She’d kept an eye out for old Ron ever since.
“You going to be coming back this way?” the old man said.
“In about an hour, maybe less.”
“Could do with some fish and chips to tide me over till the bars open.” Ron grinned, showing rotten and gappy teeth. He was well known along the seafront, and a few of the bars let him busk outside on summer evenings, giving him the odd free drink and letting him earn a few pennies. He lived with a few other rough sleepers in the derelict leisure-centre car park in a makeshift tent, but when it got crowded in the summer months, he often moved under the pier for the long hot nights.
“I’ll get you some lunch,” Dove told him.
“Ta, Dove, my Lovey-Dovey . . . It’s gonna rain tonight, isn’t it? Big storm coming up from the Channel . . .” He nodded, hair flying, and wandered on, shopping trolley creaking and rattling over the pavement, unexpectedly humming a Justin Bieber hit to himself.
Dove smiled. “We need to come back this way and keep an eye out for him. He only ever asks for me to buy him lunch if he’s got some information.”
“Lovey-Dovey? And how did he get a phone?” Steve asked innocently, his mouth curving into a knowing smirk.
“I know it’s cringey, but he likes calling me that. As for the phone, no idea. Everyone’s got a phone these days,” Dove said airily. Her days of source handling might be over, but that didn’t mean she would ever pass up a good contact if she could help it, and Ron, if he wasn’t paralytic, was an excellent contact.
He reminded her of the homeless people her dad had worked with under the pier in Santa Monica in Los Angeles. The actors and musicians, the lost people and the drifters, all of whom had been flushed off the streets on to the beach. With a few charity partners, her parents had helped set up a drop-in centre for those needing healthcare and looking for accommodation or jobs. The centre was still running, but her parents were currently living back in their rural commune.
It had been a good childhood, but it had shaped her and her sisters in a different way to a lot of their friends. It wasn’t just their unusual names, although that had been a factor, especially when the family moved to the UK.
She had lost count of the amount of times someone had taken the piss because she was called Dove. As a kid she’d become ashamed of it, but now she understood its origins she was proud, and felt the haters could do their thing somewhere else.
Dove and Steve signed in and were admitted under the crime-scene tape. There was nobody on the site.
The office smelled stale and musty, and Dove looked around with fresh eyes, picturing the night of the murders, noting the white dust and odd plastic bag from the forensics teams. The wetsuits were hanging on the rack, and she slipped on her gloves and picked up Jamie’s, with its distinctive logo.
Steve walked over. “Anything?”
She turned it over, examining the fabric, before carefully putting it down and picking up the next suit along. After fifteen minutes, she regretfully put them down. “Nothing. You’re right, of course, there’s no telling when his suit was last used, and even if he was in the sea with it that night, with the residual heat in this room it would be bone dry by the morning when we pitched up.”
Disappointed, they went back out on to the road, and Dove popped into Marine Fish ’n’ Chips to buy food for Ron before they walked swiftly down the steps to the beach.
“You think he’ll be under the pier?” Steve queried, peering under the damp, sour-smelling structure.
“Only for the day, with a storm coming,” Dove explained. “You stay here, and I’ll find him. He’s a bit unsure of you. No offence.”
“None taken.” Steve leaned back against the seawall and sipped his takeaway coffee. Above him the stormy sky turned a dark inky blue, and the seagulls circled on huge white wings, their screeching calls half lost in the wind.
There were five or six people huddled under the pier, just above the high-tide level, and Ron called out a greeting before shambling over to her. “Ta, Lovey-Dovey, just what I need.”
She handed him the warm parcel of fish and chips, and he began to tear at the fish with his hands, stuffing chunks into his mouth, licking his dirty fingers with relish. When he was half done, he began to talk. “Let’s take a little wander down to the sea.”
She strolled next to him as he wolfed his chips, keeping a cautious eye on the remaining inhabitants under the pier. The rain was heavier now, refreshing and streaming down her face, soaking her shirt. It had magically cleared the beach too, so Ron and Dove were able to walk down to the low tideline without interference. The wooden struts of the pier looked almost black against the ominous skyline and sheets of rain. Seaweed hung in lurid green tendrils, and further out, the waves crashed and foamed.
“I’ve got something for you,” Ron told her, giving quick looks left and right. “It’s on the phone. Here.” He shoved the device into her hand and she swiped to unlock it. “Check in the videos.”
Dove wiped her face on her shirt sleeve and pushed her wet hair back from her forehead. She peered at his collection and hit play on what seemed to be the newest one. It was shot during the night, and showed a figure swimming in the sea, swimming strongly towards the wooden steps at the end of the pier, hauling themselves up, hand over hand, before vanishing over the edge.
“That was after.” Ron, breathing heavily, leaned over and stabbed a finger at the screen. “I didn’t get any video of the first bit but I took a couple of photos.”
The camera on the cheap phone wasn’t designed for night shoots and, like the video, the footage was blurred and grainy, but it was possible to make out a figure swimming under the struts of the pier towards Escape Room Six.
“This person swam out, did something underwater and then came back. It was the night them people got murdered, so I thought you should know,” Ron told her importantly.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Dove asked cautiously. The footage was gold dust for showing what had happened, but pretty crap in identifying who the swimmer was. A pale blur of a face was the only image captured.
He shrugged and coughed, a hacking
deathbed rasp. “The coppers came asking the morning after but I don’t talk to nobody but you, Lovey-Dovey, and you wasn’t there.”
“I was up on the pier,” she told him. “You’ve got my number.” In fact, hers was the only number in his phone, which caught at her heart a little when she noticed. She pressed a couple of buttons and quickly sent herself the photos and video.
He turned away, humming, and she understood. To Ron, sometimes days could pass in an alcoholic stupor, and he would have no idea of time or place. He thought he had found her as soon as he could. Despite having her number, he had never once called her, always preferring to find her on the beach near her house, or he would be wheeling his shopping trolley up the coast road as she arrived home from work.
“Thanks, Ron.” She slipped him some notes. “Get some more food when you need it, not the bloody drinks, okay?”
He laughed. “Ta, Lovey-Dovey.” He pocketed the phone and shambled back under the pier again, heading back towards his shopping trolley, barking swear words at the four men who were hunched on a filthy duvet sharing what looked like a two-litre bottle of White Lightning, despite the fact they had stayed a respectful distance from his possessions.
* * *
As Dove had already noted, the footage, even cleaned up, was poor, and DC Josh Conrad, who had a tech background before his transfer, had done his best.
“You can see the swimmer is wearing a wetsuit, but it isn’t Jamie’s one with the distinctive logo,” Josh said. “I can’t zoom in any more without losing the image completely. It’s a cheap phone, and these things never take good pictures at night. If you didn’t get a bit from the street lights on the promenade, you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.”
Dove was biting her thumbnail, still staring at the images. She remembered Caz saying she hadn’t been able to see the victims in Room Six because it was dark, and it was true, but Caz and Jamie clearly hadn’t factored in someone hiding under the pier, or the street lights west of the pier casting a dim light as far as the high tidemark. “It could be either of them, or neither of them, couldn’t it? The other wetsuits in the office were all black with the odd small logo on the chest.”
DI Blackman was not impressed by Dove’s phone footage. “You say they came from a homeless man on the beach?” He studied her, cool grey eyes assessing. “Do you know him?”
Dove explained about the beating. “Quinn and I have both seen him on and off ever since. He’ll never make a statement, and he has chronic alcoholism, so he’s not a reliable witness either. When we went to pick Jamie up for his interview, I admired his wetsuit and he said that Caz keeps hers at home. I know we can’t identify her from the footage, but we can mention it during an interview, can’t we?”
He nodded. “It’s worth a shot. Jamie isn’t budging from his story, which does tie in very accurately with his girlfriend’s. Though if we can’t get anything concrete, we’ll have to let him go again.”
“We could at least see if the wetsuit thing rattles them both enough to make any cracks show?” Dove suggested, aware this was grasping at straws.
“We haven’t got much else.” The DI leaned back in his chair, frowning. “We’ll get a warrant to search Jamie’s and Caz’s place. And Dove? I want some more background on both of them. Let’s find out if either of them have crossed paths with Bravery since Mickey’s attack. The DCI is on board with this, by the way. Go and see Jamie’s parents. Something must have triggered Jamie, if he is our perpetrator. He certainly seems adamant Bravery was responsible for his sister’s attack, despite the fact he was cleared. Does he know something else about Bravery that he isn’t sharing? Has he found out something recently that has made him so sure? Find out.”
“Yes, boss.”
Caz and Jamie lived a short walk from the pier, in a tall, narrow house near the end of Ship Street. Caz answered the door with the baby in her arms. Her hair was tangled and caught up in a messy knot, and she was wearing a short pink dress. Her bare feet were dirty, and the baby girl was crying.
DI Lincoln was heading up the search, and he explained the procedure to the fuming mother, before Dove and Steve ushered her into the tiny living room.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Caz screeched at them. “I’ve had zero sleep. Lila won’t stop crying. Bloody Jamie’s stuck at the police station and now you’re treating me like I’m some bloody serial killer!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Caz was rocking the baby, trying to pop the dummy back in the little girl’s mouth, but the screaming continued until Steve offered to hold her. “Shall I try? I’m not saying it will work, but when my first one had wind, sometimes she liked to be held like this . . .”
Caz hesitated a second, before carefully relinquishing her baby. Steve cradled the child, before turning her towards his chest, putting her up on his shoulder, and gently patting her back. He walked a little way across the room, still patting, while Caz watched closely, teary-eyed and exhausted.
After a while, the crying stopped and the baby let out a burp that made them all smile, and promptly went straight to sleep. Steve handed her back, and Caz sighed heavily. “I should hire you as a nanny. Why wouldn’t she do that for me?”
“It’s easier when they aren’t your own, and you’ve had a good night’s sleep,” Steve pointed out.
Once the sleeping baby was settled into a padded basket, Dove offered to make tea. Caz, clearly torn and on the edge, first scowled at her, then nodded sharply, and slumped on the sofa, one eye always on her tiny daughter.
Lila had certainly provided an excellent distraction from the white-suited, white-booted figures who moved calmly and methodically from room to room.
Dove found the milk and shoved some mugs on to a tray ready to take into the other room. She glanced out of the window. The rain was still hurtling down from a grey sky. The tiny courtyard back garden contained a rusty child’s swing, some neatly stacked bike tyres and two mountain bikes. A rather parched-looking red rose jostled for space with ivy on the back wall. The gate, she assumed, led straight out into the alleyway.
In a corner, rapidly dissolving into a mess of charred puddles, was the remains of a bonfire.
“Caz, Jamie mentioned you keep your wetsuit at home. Can you let me know where it is?” Dove asked, after they had all taken a sip. It was like a weird tea party where nobody was sure what to say. Or maybe Caz was just so shattered she didn’t care anymore.
“I . . . I don’t know. I haven’t used it for ages.” Caz waved a hand. “Maybe upstairs in the spare room with all the boxes. We had to make way for Lila’s crib and her changing table. I expect it got packed up. I might have even given it away by accident.” She rubbed her eyes. Steve had closed the living-room door, but the activity could still be heard. Heavy footsteps on the stairs, quiet instructions from DI Lincoln.
Dove got up and stood at the window. The monsoon-like torrent of rain was easing off, clouds moving away inland, leaving everything wet and sparkling in the weak sunlight. She turned back to Caz, “You lived next to Jamie when you were kids?”
Caz looked wary, but she nodded. “On the same road as him and Mickey, yes.”
“Were you friends with Mickey?”
“Yes, of course. I told you. We used to belong to the same gymnastics club, although I’m two years older than her so we didn’t really train together much. She was lovely, and it broke their family apart when she was attacked.” Caz sat huddled, hands wrapped around her mug. “I think we all lost faith in the police after that. Nobody else would have attacked Mickey, and now . . . Now we just wait and see what’s going to happen. The doctors aren’t hopeful, you know, but Jamie and his parents think she’ll just wake up one day.”
Caz looked at the framed photographs on the wall. They all showed Caz and Jamie on their travels, smiling, tanned, happy. “You know, the gymnastics coach was always very touchy-feely, and he was interviewed, but he would never have killed Mickey because she was winning. His team wa
s everything to him. I heard he died in a car accident. Shame, he was a nice enough bloke.”
“Jenna Essex was interviewed too, on Mickey’s case, wasn’t she?”
“Ridiculous.” Caz snorted with slightly hysterical laughter and fumbled for a tissue. “Jenna’s a ditzy girl. She couldn’t hurt anyone. She always was a gossip, but she’d never hurt Mickey. Too much kudos in being Mickey’s supposed best friend. Jenna’s mum is a right fucking bitch. She used to make a scene if her precious girl wasn’t on the podium at every competition.”
There was a touch of ice in Caz’s voice when she talked about Jenna, and a whole lot of venom when she spoke about her mum. Interesting. Dove wondered about their relationship. “Do you still keep in touch with Jenna?”
“No,” said Caz shortly. “I imagine she’s still teaching at her mum’s dance academy out Lymington way. She was really cut up after it happened, kept visiting Mickey in hospital, convinced she’d wake up.”
“It must have been awful,” Steve said sympathetically.
“Yes, it was. It is.” Caz looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “After Mickey’s attack, it was me who persuaded Jamie to get away, to travel for a bit. It got to him so much. He’s seven years older than Mickey and he was always the protective big brother. He blames himself for not being there when she was hurt, for not being able to make her better . . .” She trailed off, lost in her memories.
“You were saying about going travelling?” Steve prompted gently.
“I was going myself, but couldn’t afford it yet, and I was only sixteen. He came back every six months to see Mickey, you know, from wherever he was. Once I’d saved up enough, I did my diving-instructor course, and got a job in a holiday resort in Thailand.” She smiled at the memory, glancing out as the sun broke through the clouds, creating a halo effect over the road, which steamed after the sudden change in the weather. “This hot stormy weather and sudden rain reminds me of travelling.”
“And you stayed in touch with Jamie?”