Solid Proof: A dark, disturbing, detective mystery (Sgt Major Crane crime thrillers Book 8)

by Wendy Cartmell

  “Mrs Carlton,” Anderson said gently. “When did you last hear from your daughter?”

  “Oh, let me see,” she said, her hands plucking at her apron. “It must have been a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month. She rings when she can, but she’s so busy, you know, what with work and the Major and that.”

  “Yes, of course,” Anderson agreed.

  Crane saw the older woman’s eyes begin to water and her hand start to shake. “You don’t think anything’s happened to her, do you?” She implored, rather than asked, obviously hoping they’d say there was nothing at all wrong.

  “At the moment, we don’t know,” said Anderson. “It’s just that she hasn’t been seen since last night and she’s not answering her mobile phone. At the moment our enquiries are more of a precaution than anything.”

  Crane heard the kind words Anderson was saying to Janey’s mother, but both of them knew the odds were that there was something wrong. For surely if Janey Cunningham had wanted to leave her husband, she would have made sure he left the house, not her. She seemed the type that would make the best of any situation and be determined to turn the tables in her favour. Crane couldn’t get the coldness reflected in her eyes as she posed for the camera out of his mind.

  With promises to call Mrs Carlton if there was any news, they left her to her photos and memories and struck out for Aldershot Garrison, to interview Major Cunningham’s Commanding Officer.

  8

  …Well aware he needed to earn a living, but shunning the world of commerce, and people come to that, he put the stolen laptop to good use. All sorts of distance learning programmes could be accessed via the internet and access them he did. His voracious quest for information honed his skills and bolstered his coffers, as hacking turned out to be a most lucrative pastime. He started cautiously at first, before graduating to stealing information to order, for a price. He would never forget the thrill of that first payday. The first money he’d earned, maybe not by legal means, but he’d earned it all the same. And it sure beat working on the tills at his local supermarket, which was where most of the idiots from the children’s home ended up. £10 an hour wasn’t his goal in life, more like £10 a minute or even £10 a second.

  As he climbed up the pecking order of the darker side of the on-line community, he learned what worked and what did not. What was viable and what wasn’t. What request was too great a risk, no matter how high the price that was offered. He had no intention of going to prison, which were institutions not dissimilar to the children’s homes he’d live in all his life. He valued his freedom, anonymity and money.

  But always, burning like a cancer in his soul was his hatred for his mother. The bitch who had given birth to him and then run away from her responsibility. When he knew enough about virtual back doors, stealing passwords via keystroke loggers and other such tricks, he’d broken into the social service’s computer system. It wasn’t hard to find his records in the system, as someone had obligingly inputted the written records from the past 30 years into the central computer system, in the Government’s bureaucratic quest for paperless offices in the 21st century.

  His name was his real one. No one had seemed to see any need to change it. He hadn’t been adopted and therefore taken his adoptive family name and no one had cared enough to protect his anonymity. As he obviously also knew his birth date, he put the two together and hell, it was like taking candy from a baby.

  From the central records he found where he had been born and from there it was easy to hack into that system and get the address for his mother at the time of his birth. A house that was still occupied by his grandmother. An address that meant he now knew who, and more importantly, where his mother was. But the additional information he gleaned from those records startled him. He had a brother. A twin. A brother who had been adopted. A brother who had also left him. Between the two of them they’d isolated him, left him to rot, turned the key to his prison and walked away without a second glance.

  They would both pay for that.

  9

  Crane knocked on Captain Draper’s door. “Boss, got a minute? I’ve DI Anderson with me.”

  “Oh, Crane, it’s you, yes, come in.”

  Anderson and Crane walked into Captain Draper’s office, the current boss of the Military Police and SIB in Provost Barracks, Aldershot. A 22-year veteran of the army, Draper had taken a commission after achieving the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1, to ensure he stayed in the Regiment instead of taking the obligatory retirement for a non-commissioned officer. Should Crane ever reach that rank he wasn’t yet sure what he’d do. The thought of leaving the army was too horrible for Crane to contemplate, but becoming an officer? Well the jury was still out on that one.

  Draper stood to welcome Anderson and the two men shook hands over Draper’s desk.

  “We’ve just been to see Major Cunningham’s CO,” Crane said, “so thought we’d drop in and bring you up to date.”

  “Thanks, Crane. Good to see you, Derek,” Draper said. “Bit of a strange case here, from what I understand.”

  “That’s right,” replied Anderson. “At the moment we’re not sure that a crime has actually been committed. But, if there has and we weren’t doing anything about it, given who she is and who his family is...” Anderson trailed off.

  “Precisely,” agreed Draper. Turning to Crane he asked, “Anything from Cunningham’s CO?”

  “Not really, sir, just the usual bollocks that he is a great soldier and leader of men.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  “You haven’t met him,” was Crane’s swift retort, making Draper smile.

  Draper was as unlike an officer as Crane had met. To be fair the men who were NCO’s and had then taken a commission, were often more respected by the men under their command. The new boss having moved through the ranks had been responsible for numerous men under his command and spoke the same language as they did, as it were. It was therefore much easier to relate to him and he was also much more conducive to Crane’s ideas than his previous boss, Captain James Edwards had been. The thought of that twit made Crane shudder. Not that it had all been plain sailing with Draper. He could act in the interests of the brass upstairs, rather than his men, for after all being an officer was far more of a political job than being an NCO. But Draper and Crane had seemed to strike a good balance. Draper seemingly appreciated Crane’s need for individuality, which Draper then tempered with rules and regulations. But only when absolutely necessary, which was normally when Draper needed to get Crane off whatever hook he’d managed to spear himself on.

  “So where are we now?”

  “We’re setting up downstairs,” Crane said. “I want there to be lots of visibility for the enquiry, to keep any passing noses happy that we’re doing our job.”

  Draper smiled sardonically.

  “And then once we’ve handed out tasks, we’ll be off on the road again to interview the Major’s family.”

  “Right, off you go then,” said Draper. Then hesitating he said, “Nice to see you, Derek, sorry I wasn’t dismissing you, just Crane here.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m used to your military ways these days, Crane here makes sure I get plenty of practice.”

  “Well, no offence meant.”

  “None taken,” said Anderson and they left Draper to his paperwork, with a slight flush receding from his face.

  After walking down a flight of stairs, Crane and Anderson pushed their way into the SIB office. It was a large open space, dotted with desks. A meeting area and Crane’s office off to one side were afforded a bit of privacy by moveable screens. Crane made for a whiteboard that Sgt Billy Williams was sticking things onto.

  “Oh good, you’ve started,” said Crane.

  “Yes, boss,” said Billy. “I’ve just downloaded the photos that DI Anderson’s office sent through. I’m doing a bit of a family tree for the Major.”

  “Excellent,” said Crane and after shouting for someone to get them cups of tea, he and Ander
son settled down for a briefing from Billy.

  “Right. Here he is, Major Clive Cunningham. His family are rich and he’s the first born son of Lord Garford with an estate in Garford near Abingdon. He joined the army about 10 years ago as it seems he’s not interested in the estate and learning how to run it for when his father dies. His younger brother Quentin runs the sprawl instead. So our friend Clive just reaps the rewards of the family money, spending it instead of working to increase it or protect it.”

  “What about Janey Cunningham?”

  “Janey Cunningham works under her maiden name of Janey Carlton. From a far humbler background, she is, or was, a successful model.”

  “Yes we know that, we’ve just been to see her mother. What else can you tell us?” said Crane.

  Billy went smoothly on, “She is an only child and relies heavily on a relationship with her best friend Laura Battle.” Billy pointed to a picture of a carefully made up woman, which was obviously a publicity shot of some kind. “Laura Battle is her agent and confidant.”

  “So not someone she grew up with?”

  “No, boss,” said Billy. “Janey seems to have left her earlier life completely behind, like a snake sloughing off a skin. The only regular contact I could find out about was with her mother and I think that’s sporadic at best.”

  “That’s the impression we got too,” said Anderson.

  Billy continued, “As you know she’s a model, but it seems she’s getting less work as she gets older. However, she made her fortune modelling and is independently wealthy.”

  “Interesting,” said Crane. “That begs the question - does he want her money? Do we think she’s left him as he is violent? Abusive? Controlling? Somehow I can’t believe they are the golden couple they project themselves to be. I think we need to dig deeper.”

  “I agree, Crane,” said Anderson. “Laura Battle first, I think, followed by the Major’s family,” he said scraping back his chair and standing up.

  Crane stood as well, but before they left he got Anderson to photocopy a page out of his notebook. Crane handed it to Billy. “Put these theories up on the board will you? When we get back we can start to work our way through them, we should have more information by then.”

  10

  Tyler Wells groaned and stretched in his chair at the end of a long day. He glanced through his notes. Not bad, he mused. Taking everything into consideration he was just about up on the day. Which was okay. Not great, but okay. He was happy with the deals so far this month. The progress of his portfolios was slow and steady, which meant that when he pulled off a big deal, buying low before selling high, making money for himself as well as his clients, there would be no big dips to offset his earnings. Some of the younger men at the firm were risk takers; constantly making snap decisions, boasting about their highs and trying to bury the lows. They hadn’t yet realised that with great dips that dragged down their overall totals, they would do better if they could curb their wilder side. Not to mention the burn-out. He’d seen too many of them leave the firm, dark circles under their eyes, with sallow skin and shaking hands, unable to take the pressure of even one more deal.

  He stood and shrugged into his suit jacket, the silk lining whispering as it slid over his white shirt, which wasn’t as crisp as it had been when he’d first arrived at work that morning. He was just checking over his desk, collecting his pen, keys and mobile, when the phone on his desk rang. Hesitating for a moment, he picked up the receiver, the call of work still strong, even though he was just about to leave.

  “Wells,” he barked into the receiver. No answer. “This is Tyler Wells,” he said, his voice losing some of its harshness. “How can I help you?”

  But there was still no reply. Tyler strained to listen for any sound on the other end of the line and fancied he could hear faint sounds of traffic; the creak and groan of lorry springs, the hiss of air brakes and then the distant hark of a horn, the wail cut off as the caller disconnected.

  Tyler looked at the telephone receiver he still held in his hand as though it would tell him what the hell was going on. That wasn’t the first such call he’d received that day. Someone had been calling on his direct line and then not speaking when he answered. There had been one such call that morning, one in the afternoon and again just then. He replaced the receiver hoping that was the end of it, but couldn’t as easily dismiss the feeling of disquiet that was running its cold fingers across the back of his neck.

  He grabbed his briefcase and walked across the open plan office to the lifts. He pushed the button to call one, grinding his teeth as he waited and checking his watch. 6pm. With any luck he’d be back home before the twins went to bed. They were looking forward to the next chapter in Alice through the Looking Glass. The extent of their vocabulary and their thirst for books never ceased to amaze him. He didn’t know where they’d got it from. He wasn’t a great reader; neither was his wife. It must be the influence of the private school they attended. The fees took quite a large chunk out of his salary but he and Penny had agreed that the girls’ education came first. Besides, living near central London meant that more than one car wasn’t necessary and so the money was better spent on the twins.

  The elevator doors slid open and he slipped through them, turning in the small space to face the doors, staring out of them back towards his desk, as he waited for them to close. Just before they slid silently together, he heard the phone on his desk start to ring again, causing him to frown. What the hell was going on? Then the doors closed completely, cutting off the sound of the phone that echoed through the empty office and the lift whisked him away towards the ground floor and home.

  11

  Laura Battle’s offices were housed in a shed at her home near Reading. Well, not so much a shed, Crane had to concede, more a low slung suite of offices with a covering of overlapping cedar panels and banks of clear glass that looked onto a courtyard and what could best be described as a Japanese garden. There was a web of small pathways meandering through foliage and vegetation, which appealed to Crane’s sense of order and purpose. Water tinkled from the fountain, or at least Crane thought it would have been tinkling, if the sound wasn’t masked by the rain, which was pissing down. Their arrival had clearly been observed as a door opened and a woman appeared, watching Crane and Anderson from the doorway as they climbed out of the car and ran for the building.

  Anderson thrust his warrant card in the woman’s face and gasped, “Aldershot Police,” shaking the rain off his coat as the woman let them in. “DI Anderson and Sgt Major Crane Royal Military Police,” Anderson introduced them as Crane took stock of the woman standing in front of them.

  Her skin was deeply lined and tanned, but with an orange hue to it. Sun lover or sunbed lover, Crane wondered. Either way it wasn’t a good look. Her hair was bouffant and seemed to have a life of its own as it framed the top of her head in no discernible style. She was stick-thin, dressed in a severe business suit and sucking on a cigarette. She said nothing.

  “Ms Battle?” Crane enquired.

  “Yes,” she grudgingly said. “How can I help the police?”

  “It’s about your friend and client, Janey Carlton,” Anderson said. “Could we ask you a few questions please? We’re hoping you can help us with our enquiries as to her whereabouts.”

  Laura Battle seemed to consider their request before nodding. She turned on her heel and walked over to a group of settees. She sat almost sideways on the seat of one of them, knees together and indicated that they should join her.

  “So, what’s Janey done now?” she asked. Her voice was gravelly and low and her words were followed by a cough that had a worrying rattle deep in her chest.

  “Nothing, as far as we’re aware, it’s just that she appears to be missing,” said Anderson and went on to explain about the events of last night.

  “Typical,” Battled pronounced.

  “Really? She does this sort of thing often?” asked Crane is disbelief as that wasn’t the impression he
and Anderson had got from her husband.

  Battle took one last deep drag of her cigarette and then put it out in the ashtray, where it joined what looked like a whole packet’s worth of butts. “Let’s say she’s inclined to the dramatic,” said Battle.

  “So you haven’t seen her in the last, say 48 hours?”

  Battle shook her head.

  “How would you describe her?” asked Crane.

  “Let’s see, the professional Janey, or the personal Janey?” Battle seemed to consider her own question.

  Both men kept quiet and, as expected, Laura Battle filled the silence.

  “As far as work is concerned, she’s the consummate professional. Takes most bookings that are offered, arrives on time, does a good job and makes the photographer and the client happy.”

  “And personally?” prompted Anderson.

  “She’s my best friend.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Battle smiled, which cracked her pancake make-up and turned her lips into a garish grin. “Okay, she’s self-absorbed, greedy, takes drugs. Smokes to keep her weight down, hardly eats and is anorexic.”

  “Oh,” Anderson appeared startled. “That was honest at any rate.”

  Again that sardonic smile from Battle. As Crane studied her, she appeared to be enjoying herself, deliberately being provocative, proffering unexpected facts, showing a different side of Janey than Crane and Anderson had expected. She opened a small silver case on a nearby low table, extracted a cigarette and lit it with a lighter from her pocket. She didn’t offer Anderson or Crane one and Crane resisted the temptation to take out his own packet. Tipping her head back, she blew a long stream of smoke towards the ceiling.

  Crane said, “Does she have much work on at the moment?”

  “No so much, no.”

  “Because?”