THE ABBERLEY BEACH MURDERS an addictive crime thriller with a fiendish twist (Detective Dove Milson Book 3)

by D. E. White

  His responding smile made her heart glow. It wasn’t too many months ago that she wouldn’t have been able to joke about things that would never happen.

  Dove found her niece in the kitchen, blearily making coffee. “Morning. I would have made you one earlier but I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Thanks. I might just watch some TV or something if that’s okay? Quinn not up yet?” Delta yawned.

  “Awake but nowhere near getting up,” Dove smiled. “What time are you working today?”

  “Not till eight, I’m on the late shift and there’s another private party. Do you want me to get some shopping in later? I could go down to the store down the road and pick up dinner if you like?”

  Dove stared at her. “Are you offering to cook us dinner?”

  Delta huffed as she poured the coffee. “Don’t sound so surprised, I’m quite a good cook actually, as long as you like steak and chips.”

  “I do, and sorry, I didn’t mean to diss your culinary skills,” Dove said. “That would be lovely. See you later.”

  “Bye. Oh, and Dove?”

  “Yes?” She was halfway out of the door, keys in one hand and bag in the other.

  “Do you think Gaia will definitely come out of hospital today?”

  “I think she’s got to wait for the doctor to give her the all-clear, but yes, she should be out this afternoon.”

  Relief in the dark blue eyes, and Dove got the impression the girl was about to say something else, but in the end she just smiled and turned towards the toaster.

  * * *

  Dove called DI Rankin as soon as she arrived at work. He was already out chasing up evidence on another case, so she quickly outlined her thoughts on Abi Fairchild, gave her home address and mentioned she worked at California Dreams.

  “Thanks for this, we’ll look into the club a little more,” the DI said. “We think all of our victims have been in the club recently, but we were looking hard at the security team. Someone seems to have turned a blind eye during the robbery and attack on your sister.”

  “Someone?”

  “Two fairly new recruits — both have criminal records, and one of the dancers was convicted of robbery in 2016. Leave it with me. You really can’t be sure?”

  “No,” Dove said regretfully. “Sorry. It’s just an impression and she was really off with me, like she was scared or something. It would make sense, because after she hit me with the rock she practically pulled him off me and they had this urgent conversation and just stared at me until they heard the sirens.”

  “So you think she recognised you on the night in question?”

  “Maybe. She did say my niece, Delta, talks about me a lot, and I expect she’s seen photos . . . Delta’s always taking the kind of happy family snaps you see all over social media.” Dove didn’t add it would hardly take a psychiatrist to work out why.

  She debated mentioning her car had been keyed, but dismissed it as being paranoid. There was enough going on without her jumping at shadows, and surely the perp wouldn’t be stupid enough to be trying to freak out a known police officer?

  Her mind flicked back to the night before, and the runner who had nearly knocked Delta flying as he emerged from the footpath.

  Delta had seemed scared, defensive when Dove had asked if she knew anything about Abi, or needed help. Was it just normal shock, or was she hiding something?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Sometimes I sit with Mickey for hours, talking to her, watching her, willing her to wake up. The day I saw Ellis Bravery again in the street, for the first time in all these years, I felt like my sister was the only person who could anchor me to the earth, to prevent me from screaming and telling everyone what happened.

  The nurse came in periodically to take her blood pressure, check her pulse, and adjust the bleeping machines. My eyes filled with tears and I just smiled faintly when he asked if I was okay. I know most of the nurses now, the different shift patterns. They go home, they live their lives, they come back. Would I have been an uncle? Would she have married? Would she have achieved her dream and won an Olympic gold medal?

  I watched the rise and fall of her chest, willing her to keep breathing. Sometimes I put the back of my hand to her mouth, feeling her warm breath on my skin. She is okay, she is still here and safe in these four walls.

  I think she would have travelled with me, my special, sparkly, vivacious little sister. I would have watched with pride as she won her Olympic medal, as I did when she took her first steps, won her first competitions, walked into her first day at school. So many firsts and I was there for all of them. The doctor came in, and I brushed a hand across my eyes, sniffing a little.

  She nodded understandingly, and I rose from my seat, kissed my sister on her cheek, and squeezed her hand. Time to go, time to get back to my own life, my own family. If only she was coming with me. But I know she’s safe there, and I kind of like that she always seems peaceful, cocooned in her white sheets and sometimes the blue blanket too. The smell of lemons, and the smell of her hair. I like to lean close and whisper in her ear, hoping on some level she can hear me.

  Another part of my mind shouts, “But she shouldn’t be here at all and that’s his fault.”

  Now, I am alone and unable to prevent my mind spinning with horror as I recall our second recent meeting, the one where it all spiralled out of control. I thought I would never lose control again, and if I could take it back, I would. I sink to the ground and hug my knees, vividly transported in my head to the pier the night of the twenty-fifth.

  Ellis Bravery left me standing in the darkness after our brief conversation, before strolling towards his companions, hands in pockets, laughing with the dark-haired woman, exchanging flirtatious remarks with his other two companions.

  Part of me wanted to yell at him, to bunch a fist and take him out then and there, but the other part of me was too shocked to do anything but scurry after them, welcoming them as clients, smiling at the stupid curly-haired woman who asked if we had a condom machine on the pier, showing them to the room. I felt invisible, as though I was hiding my real self after Ellis’s cutting words and his threat. A threat to me, to my family, to the business I have worked so hard to grow. I wanted to ask him what he meant, what he thought he knew . . .

  Room Six is the lower room on the left of the pier. The Beach Escape Rooms are a radical design I pinched from something similar I once saw in Florida. The first architect I approached told me bluntly not to waste my time. But I was determined, and the next firm was half decent.

  It’s iconic, and the stuffy objectors have had to eat their words. The only thing is, we have a lot of loans to pay off, and although business is good, I want to get down to the serious business of making real money as quickly as possible. Now I have a daughter, a long-term partner, I want to provide for them.

  That’s why, when the first man approached me, I said yes. From their word-of-mouth and on the Fantasy Play website, anyone knows if they want a new place to have sex they can contact me, cash in hand, no questions asked.

  Caz despises them. We both do. But we are both here to make money. We’ve even talked about trying to move Mickey somewhere else, paying for any kind of pioneering treatment that might help her. Caz loves my sister as much as I do, and it’s one of the reasons I keep her close. She’s loyal and never questions what I think or do. I am always right in Caz’s eyes.

  I was in a dark place after the night Mickey was attacked. I could barely walk, couldn’t sleep or eat. I am not the same person I used to be, I’m sure of it. Eventually I came to accept that life isn’t fair, that it was Ellis who altered the course of Mickey’s life, stole her life even, and there was nothing I could do but keep watch over my sister, and live day by day.

  And now there he was in Room Six, watching while I worked mechanically, carefully shutting the escape hatch after they were all safely down the ladder. He was so confident, careless, sure he had dealt with me. His expression said he had put the silly
little boy in his place, I know it. Surely his threats were empty, but could I take the chance? He was in a position of power now.

  Maybe if he hadn’t been so desperate to get his rocks off, the sad git, he might have paused to consider the effect his words might have had on me, that they might have rekindled the rage I used to feel, and that the rage might be dangerous.

  I walked back to the office to wait it out, trying to clear my head from the sheer terror that almost blinded me. I stumbled on the step as I pushed the door open and inhaled the smell of my own place. He was on my territory now. At least both women were of legal age. I’m very clear to anyone who wants to use the rooms that we don’t have any underage shit going on.

  Most people understand, and I don’t think it’s that kind of site anyway. These thoughts were not working as distractions, and the pain in my chest was suddenly so crushing I was terrified I was about to have a heart attack. I sat on the floor, knees to my chest.

  I became a different person after Mickey’s attack. The old Jamie was left behind somewhere next to the swing set on the waste ground next to our house. I shed a skin and became someone else.

  Caz was an integral part of my transformation. I have come to see over the years that she is my soulmate, the one person who cares and who shows she cares by her actions. We feed each other’s dreams, and each other’s nightmares. When we talk about my sister, we talk about Ellis Bravery, about how evil he is and how he deserves to be punished. We agree on every single line of the story, every page of the book.

  After Jenna showed up out of the blue, with her photographs, Caz called me and we agreed how we would deal with it. It seemed like fate, with the anniversary coming up. Jenna has a big mouth, but she won’t say anything because of the part she has now played. I need to see her and speak with her to make sure if anyone puts pressure on her she keeps quiet. It can’t be allowed to happen, not now.

  Nobody will be allowed to tarnish Mickey’s memory, to scrawl corrections across the pages I have written. It is done and it is over.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Dove walked quickly up the stairs to the office, putting Gaia and the Claw Beach case firmly out of her mind. She grabbed her iPad and followed her colleagues into the incident room.

  The general consensus during the briefing was that the team now had their prime suspects, Jamie Delaney and Caz Liffey, and it was all about building the case, ‘brick by brick’ as DI Blackman said, watching the video of the swimmer again and comparing it to photographs lifted from Caz’s and Jamie’s social media accounts.

  “The build is right, and the suit is hers. They both state the victims were still alive when they left them, and the main gate was locked after them,” DC Josh Conrad said.

  “Which is bollocks, because either Caz or Jamie must have given them a drink, probably when they arrived, in which case it was Jamie, because at that point . . .” Lindsey paused and looked up at the timeline of stills lifted from the street cameras, “. . . at that point he was still on his own with the victims. Was there no trace of zopiclone in the house search?”

  “None,” DI Lincoln said. “Jess said it takes around an hour to work, but considering they had already consumed alcohol, and we assume the drug was taken with the vodka from the bottle discovered in the house search, it would have been quicker. Unlikely they were totally unconscious, but their ability to function would have certainly been impaired to the extent they might have struggled to find their way out of the escape room. I think it’s on the lab report somewhere . . .” He was stroking his moustache again, frowning at the images of the street cam on screen. “Short timeline, but it’s all possible.”

  “Perhaps the victims didn’t realise the danger they were in?” Dove suggested.

  Lindsey was reading from the lab report. “It’s right here, boss; the tox results show the levels of zopiclone weren’t high enough to completely sedate the victims, but combined with the alcohol, would have made them uncoordinated and confused.”

  “Good work. We need to separate them out now, check through everything again,” the DI explained. “I think, with the evidence from the house search, we can now discount Billy Jackson. Right place, right time, he’d just been in helping to fix the broken overflow pipe with his mate, and the wetsuits are stacked in the back of the office, but he could hardly have offered our victims a few shots. Aileen would have freaked out.”

  “Maya, can you and Pete check to see if either Caz or Jamie have been issued with any medication and chase up any prescriptions?” DI Blackman said. “George, did you want to add anything else?”

  “We only have Jamie’s word he didn’t know who was coming from Fantasy Play on the twenty-fifth. He says in his statement his only contact was Oscar Wilding, who would book in person so there was no trail. If Jamie for some reason did know or find out and Jenna Essex suddenly showed up with evidence that somehow reinforced their blinkered belief Ellis Bravery attacked Mickey Delaney, it would be a perfect storm,” DI Lincoln informed him. “Especially if Jamie then seized the opportunity to confront him. If we could also prove the bolt cutters were on site at the Beach Escape Rooms previously, that would help. Pete?”

  “On it, boss,” Pete nodded, making a note on his iPad. “The photographs Jenna supposedly gave Caz haven’t shown up either. There were fragments in the bonfire noted as photographic-quality flakes of paper, so maybe they burned the evidence after they acted on it?”

  “Okay, thanks, we’ll keep going. Oh, and DC Milson, DCI Franklin would like a quick word before you and Steve head off.”

  DCI Franklin, who was back behind his desk, asked them to shut the door. “I just wondered if you two got anything else from Jamie’s parents? There is nothing I would like more than to solve Mickey’s case at the same time as we wrap this one, but we simply do not have the resources to extend to all things, so it’s just a case of whether our current investigation throws up any new evidence.” He fixed them with a piercing blue stare. “Do you get my drift?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dove said, and Steve nodded too.

  “As you will have seen from the notes we submitted yesterday, Claire and Russ Delaney admitted Jamie had called and told them he’d seen Ellis Bravery in Abberley, but they couldn’t remember quite when he had seen him.”

  “They knew there had been contact,” the DCI said thoughtfully. “I want you to see if Jenna Essex knows any more. She claims to have found these photographs, which seem to have potentially triggered off a chain of events leading to the murder of four people. I don’t believe for a moment they were just happy snaps of Mickey.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Keep me updated. As I said, we are not a cold-case team, and the priority is to wrap this investigation up . . .” He sighed. “It still gets me every time I see a press article about Mickey Delaney. Her parents are good people, and for the first few months, I know they expected her to recover, were hoping she would just regain consciousness. Claire even told me she didn’t care if we didn’t catch who hurt her daughter, if she could just have her back, and Russ, he just couldn’t get over the fact he had waved her off out of the garden gate.” He stood up and picked up a pile of paperwork. “Off you go, and remember, the slightest whisper of new evidence . . .”

  Dove sat back down at her desk as DI Blackman, who was on the phone, signalled to both of them to wait a minute.

  He was out of his office in under ten minutes, by which time Dove’s phone was ringing. She answered quickly, turning to the window to talk, while Steve and the DI discussed Jamie’s interview.

  “It’s Tracey. You know, from Camillo’s?”

  * * *

  Tracey met them outside the industrial estate in a greasy-spoon café. She was huddled at a table in the back, stirring her plastic cup of tea with a spoon.

  “Hi Tracey, what’s up?” Steve said kindly, and she jumped. Weak tea sloshed on to the scratched off-white tabletop.

  “Thank you for calling in,” Dove said to her, as they joined her at
the table. There were several other customers attacking huge plates of burgers and chips or pancakes soaked in syrup. She felt a twinge of hunger.

  “I don’t want anyone to know I saw you,” Tracey said nervously. Her baseball cap was pulled down low over her face, straggling grey hair falling over one skinny shoulder. She wore a faded red T-shirt and jeans.

  “Was it something about Dionne?” Dove asked encouragingly.

  “Yes. I . . . I was worried about her, I told you, and after we’d finished our last job I took the bus home. I live in one of the flats opposite the pier, and she told me that’s where she was going that night.”

  “Wait, she told you she was going to the escape rooms?”

  “Sorry, I was scared to tell you in case I got into trouble, but then I seen in the papers it wasn’t anything to do with Dionne or Camillo’s. It was that paedophile Ellis Bravery, wasn’t it? I read Jamie Delaney killed him because he attacked his sister, so it wasn’t anything to do with Dionne. She died by accident, didn’t she?”

  “I wouldn’t quite agree with all that. The papers don’t always tell the exact truth, do they?” Steve suggested.

  “No, but Dionne was an innocent victim, wasn’t she?”

  Unable to see what Tracey was driving at, Dove agreed. “Wrong place, wrong time, maybe.”

  “Yes! That’s exactly it.” Tracey looked relieved. “I went across to the pier at half past one, just to see . . . I couldn’t see any lights on, so I thought they must have done what they wanted and all gone home, but then this woman came out. She never saw me, but she spoke to someone behind her. She said, ‘Go down by the beach steps and take her home.’ I could hear a baby crying, and a man’s voice answered, but I couldn’t hear what he said.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I was a bit worried but I couldn’t move or she would have seen me, so I waited. She did too, but when he was gone, she reached up and smashed the CCTV by the gate. Then she clipped the padlock and chain with bolt cutters. She had blonde hair and she was wearing gloves. After she had done that she walked away and I slipped out. I wasn’t sure what to do, because Dionne told me having sex in all these different places was illegal and I didn’t want to get her in trouble. I thought maybe the man and woman were part of the whole game.”