Scared to Death (A Detective Kay Hunter novel)

by Rachel Amphlett

  Their shoes crunched on the gravel as they made their way to the front door. Carys reached out and pressed the doorbell. From within the house, an electronic bell sounded. A few seconds passed, and then the family liaison officer from the hospital opened the door.

  Kay’s shoulders relaxed. Hazel had a formidable reputation as an FLO, and she was glad she’d been assigned to Yvonne Richards.

  ‘Morning, Hazel.’ She closed the door behind Carys, and immediately noticed the cloak of silence that enveloped what had once been a family home.

  ‘Do you want to wait in the living room?’ said Hazel. ‘They’re in the kitchen at the moment. I’ll go and get them.’

  Kay nodded, and went through the door to the right that the FLO indicated. She and Carys remained standing while they waited, and she cast her eyes over the expensive soft furnishings that had been carefully placed within the large room.

  The space would have echoed with their footsteps except for the thick, plush carpet that covered the floor, and for a moment Kay felt the urge to check the soles of her shoes before discarding the thought. Hazel would have told them if Yvonne required them to remove their shoes at the door.

  An enormous television took up a third of the space on the long wall that ran the length of the house, while the far wall had been replaced with concertina-style patio doors that overlooked a medium-sized landscaped garden. Several vases of flowers had been arranged around the room, a false sense of cheer in a house devastated by a double tragedy.

  ‘Serious money, Sarge,’ said Carys, eyeing up the sound system hardware that sat on a low unit under the television, then at the speakers set into the ceiling.

  Kay acknowledged the remark with a nod, but said nothing. She’d learned before that appearances could be deceptive.

  A strong tang of furniture polish clung to the air, and she noted with sadness that often, the only way people could cope with guilt was to clean – as if they tried to retain order in a world that no longer made sense to them.

  She turned as the door opened, and Hazel entered and stood to one side to let Yvonne pass. She was followed by an older version of herself, with dark-coloured hair tied back in a ponytail, and wearing jeans and a polo shirt.

  ‘This is Dawn, Yvonne’s sister,’ said Hazel, and made the other introductions.

  Kay waited until Yvonne had settled, and noted that Dawn took hold of her hand as soon as she’d sat down, giving it a squeeze.

  Yvonne ignored her sister, weary eyes meeting Kay’s.

  ‘You’re no closer to finding out who did this, are you?’

  ‘It’s very early in the investigation,’ said Kay. ‘Which is why I’m here.’ She leaned forward. ‘Yvonne, we’d like to make a statement to the media later today. To seek help from the public to find who did this.’

  Yvonne dabbed at her eyes, then lifted her chin and stared at Kay. ‘You do whatever you need to do to find the bastard. Do you need me to be there?’

  Kay shook her head. ‘Not at this time. It’s likely it’ll be just my boss, Detective Inspector Sharp – he’s the Senior Investigating Officer assigned to this case. He’ll work closely with our media advisors, and it’ll be on the evening news. Hazel will be assigned to you while the investigation continues. Is that okay?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Yvonne glanced at Hazel. ‘But you don’t mind?’

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ said Hazel. ‘I’ll be around as long as you need me.’

  Yvonne exhaled, and Kay noted the relief in her eyes. For a moment, she wondered what the relationship between her and her sister was like, then pressed on.

  ‘Do you have a recent photograph of Melanie I could take with me, so we can show it to the media?’

  ‘Of course. Hang on.’

  Yvonne lifted herself out of the armchair, straightened her skirt, and hurried from the room.

  Dawn leaned over to look through the door, and then turned to Kay.

  ‘Do you really think you’re going to catch him?’

  Kay took a moment before she answered. ‘At the present time, my focus is getting as much information as possible to my team. As soon as we have something to act on, we will.’

  She glanced up as Yvonne returned and held out a photograph.

  ‘I printed this one off just before we went away.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kay. She handled the picture with care, and looked at the smiling face of Melanie Richards. Her throat tightened, as it always did when she first saw a murder victim as a normal human being. She’d never baulked at the horrors her job entailed, but it was this, this human element that kicked her in the gut and kept her focused.

  ‘I thought it’d probably be the last time I’d get a photo of her in her school uniform,’ said Yvonne. ‘The school is changing the rules for the sixth formers, so they can wear what they like.’

  ‘How did she get on at school? Any problems?’

  Yvonne shook her head. ‘No – she’s always had excellent school reports,’ she said, and then her face fell.

  ‘I’ll look after this,’ said Kay.

  Yvonne sat next to her sister once more, and Kay tucked the photograph into her bag.

  ‘Yvonne, I need to have a chat about what your routine was like before you went on holiday.’

  ‘It wasn’t really a holiday.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Yvonne sighed. ‘I have a client in Milan who’s been particularly difficult these past few weeks. In the end, I took the decision to fly out there and deal with him face to face. Tony came with me as we thought we’d tack on a couple of days at the end to have a break before coming home.’

  She wiped her eyes, and Kay could see the guilt seeping into the woman’s gaze.

  She heard a faint click as Carys popped the spring of her pen, and glanced across to see the nib poised over her notebook, before turning her attention back to Yvonne.

  ‘What day did you leave?’

  ‘On Tuesday morning. I had to go to the office first thing for a video conference with the client before we got on the plane. Tony came with me – we got a taxi from the office to the airport.’

  ‘I understand from Emma Thomas that Melanie was going to travel with you.’

  Yvonne sighed. ‘She was, but she and Tony had a row on Monday night, and she changed her mind at the last minute?’

  ‘What did they argue about?’

  ‘Silly stuff. Tony put his foot down about what Melanie could take to wear, and she didn’t like it.’

  ‘And you had no communication with Melanie after you left the house?’

  ‘No. She’d always been very mature for her age, and it wasn’t the first time she’d been left on her own for a few days.’ Yvonne managed a weak smile. ‘I think she liked it, being made responsible.’ Her smile faded, and her voice shook. ‘We agreed she’d only phone or text us if there was an emergency.’

  ‘Can you take me through the events of that Tuesday? Say, from when you got up?’

  Yvonne sniffed, and dabbed at her nose with a scrunched-up tissue she’d pulled from her cardigan sleeve.

  ‘Tony was up first. He liked to have coffee before eating anything, and was always an early bird. As soon as I heard him get the newspaper from the letterbox, I got in the shower. By the time Melanie appeared in the kitchen, we’d had our breakfast.’

  ‘Melanie didn’t have breakfast with you?’

  ‘Melanie didn’t have breakfast full stop,’ said Yvonne, and Kay noted the exasperation in her voice. ‘Stopped about a year ago. Said she couldn’t face eating first thing in the morning.’

  Kay saw a frown crease the sister’s brow, and made a note to talk with her in private.

  ‘What time did you leave the house?’

  ‘Just after seven thirty. Melanie wasn’t ready, so she would’ve walked to the end of the road to catch the bus into town.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘The video conference was due to start at eight. Otherwise…’

  Kay nodded.

  Otherwise, Melanie would
have been chauffeured into town in the safety of the taxi with her parents.

  Otherwise, perhaps Melanie’s kidnapper wouldn’t have been able to snatch her away.

  ‘What time did Melanie plan to leave the house to catch the bus?’

  Yvonne swallowed. ‘About seven forty-five.’ She gulped back a sob. ‘Fifteen minutes. After all that, I could have waited. Bloody client cancelled the video conference anyway.’

  SIXTEEN

  Hazel respectfully suggested a short break from the questioning, and Kay felt inclined to agree with her, so Dawn offered to make coffee, and everyone concurred.

  Kay followed Dawn out of the living room and along the hallway to a kitchen that any estate agent would have called ‘well-appointed’. Everything that could have been expected to have been there, was there. All in its place, functional, and gleaming.

  And clean.

  Very clean.

  ‘Are you staying here?’

  Dawn nodded, picked up the kettle, and held it under the tap. ‘Yes. For a while. I’ve explained to work I can’t leave her at the moment.’

  ‘It’s good of you to do that.’

  Dawn shrugged and flipped the tap off, then plugged in the kettle. ‘She’d have been no good on her own. I would have worried about her.’ She grabbed a tea towel, and began to wipe up the mugs that had been tipped upside down on the draining board.

  Kay wondered why she hadn’t simply placed them in the top of the range dishwasher, but said nothing, and let her eyes wander around the room. ‘They’ve done well for themselves.’

  ‘She’s done well for herself,’ said Dawn. She tossed the tea towel onto the draining board, spun around, and pointed her finger at Kay.

  ‘Tony was nothing until he met Yvonne,’ she hissed. She dropped her hand, and leant back against the worktop, her chest heaving.

  Kay gestured to the barstools tucked underneath the central kitchen worktop. ‘Shall we?’

  She waited until Dawn pushed away from the sink and pulled out one of the stools, an almost petulant expression crossing the older woman’s face, before she joined her.

  Dawn busied herself with retying her hair elastic, smoothed her fringe into place, and then sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re just doing your job.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Kay. She pushed her bag out of the way, leaned an elbow on the worktop as she swivelled in her seat to face Dawn, and lowered her voice. ‘So, what can you tell me about Tony?’

  Dawn snorted. ‘Tony? He landed on his feet the day he married my sister.’

  Kay raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Listen, he doted on Melanie, and I think he loved Yvonne too, but he was a difficult man to deal with sometimes.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He lost his job two years ago, just as Yvonne’s business was starting to take off. Yvonne had moved the business out of the house the year before – it had grown so fast, she had to get proper premises, or start losing contracts.’

  Dawn reached out and traced her finger around a rogue coffee stain on the worktop. ‘Our father died years ago, and when Mum went, we did okay for ourselves money-wise. Yvonne got a commercial mortgage with her half of the inheritance, and bought the freehold of the unit on Sparks Way.’

  Kay pulled her notebook towards her, and wrote a reminder for herself.

  Dawn watched, and stayed silent.

  ‘So, what happened when Tony was made redundant?’

  Dawn pulled a face. ‘I said “redundant”,’ she agreed, ‘although I suspect he pissed off so many people while he was there, they were probably desperate to get rid of him.’

  ‘Did he have a temper on him?’

  Dawn shrugged. ‘He was more of a verbal bully. Rude to everyone. Always putting people down. Ridiculing them.’ She glanced down at her nails.

  ‘Did he do that to you, too?’

  Dawn’s head snapped up, her eyes glistening. ‘Yes. And Yvonne.’

  ‘Did he find more work?’

  Dawn shook her head. ‘Yvonne decided she’d employ him.’

  Kay caught the mocking tone in the woman’s voice. ‘How long did that last for?’

  ‘About three weeks. Tony began to bully the two other staff members Yvonne had taken on. They were too important to the business for Yvonne to lose them, so she had to let Tony go.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘Sulked like a five-year-old for a week. It’s, was, his usual defence. It was never his fault, in his mind.’ Dawn reached out for a roll of kitchen towel on an upright spindle in the middle of the worktop, ripped off a sheet, and rubbed at the coffee stain. ‘Luckily, I guess, about that time Mel got into trouble at school, so it made sense for him to be around more for her at home.’

  ‘What did she get into trouble for?’

  Dawn’s mouth twisted. ‘Bullying. Like father, like daughter, right?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Kay dumped her bag on the hall carpet as she passed, and made her way upstairs.

  She crossed the landing to the main bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and then unbuttoned her blouse, pulled off her trousers, and threw both garments into the laundry bin behind the door.

  She tugged on her favourite jeans, the ones with holes in that Adam reckoned would fall apart before she agreed to throw them away, and slipped a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head as her stomach rumbled.

  She tried to remember when she’d eaten that day, and then gave up.

  The afternoon briefing had been delayed by DI Sharp’s attendance at the media conference, and by the time he had arrived back at the incident room, it was already late.

  The team pushed on regardless, reporting back their findings over the course of the day, with Sharp setting tasks for the morning before he dismissed them.

  Kay paused at the top of the stairs, and her gaze shifted to the small room at the back of the three-bedroom semi-detached house.

  She hugged her arms around her stomach, and moved closer.

  The door had been left ajar; Adam had forgotten to close it in his haste to get to the clinic that morning, and as she peered through, it swung open on its hinges to reveal its contents.

  A breath caught in her throat.

  They hadn’t started painting the room, but had put all the “office stuff”, as Adam called it, into boxes, ready to be redistributed around the house once they’d got their heads around the fact that a baby was on the way.

  The boxes had stayed packed these past few weeks, neither of them wanting to be the first to suggest that they give up the idea of a nursery and put the office back together.

  A packet of two new paintbrushes lay unopened on an old sheet, discarded but not forgotten.

  Ignored.

  Kay bit her lip, reached out, and pulled the door closed.

  She moved down the stairs, picked up her bag, and walked through to the kitchen.

  Her eyes fell onto the worktop, and the reptile that lay curled up at the bottom of its temporary home.

  ‘I know you’re not feeling well, Sid,’ she muttered, ‘and don’t take this the wrong way, but the sooner your owner’s home, the better.’

  It flicked its tongue out, and sat unmoving while she edged around the stools that were tucked under the bench.

  She’d missed the six o’clock news, and with it the broadcast of the live media statement that Sharp and Larch had made to the press, simply because she’d had to ensure as deputy SIO that all the relevant paperwork had been updated before leaving the incident room for the night.

  She’d caught a snippet of the statement on the radio during her drive home, but wanted to catch the late evening news to see what had been presented to the public.

  Any investigation had to weigh up the pros and cons of getting the media involved and what to tell them, and it was often a careful balancing act. By finding out what had been publicly released, she could prepare herself for the phone calls they could expect to receive from the public the next day.

>   Her eyes fell onto a yellow sticky note stuck to the chopping board, Adam’s familiar scrawl across it.

  It’s twins!

  She smiled. He’d spent long hours up at the livery stable, and she shared his relief that in the end, everything had turned out okay for the mare and her foals. No doubt he’d remain at the stable until he was satisfied there would be no post-birth complications, and so her mind turned to dinner.

  Her hand hovered over the door to the freezer, and then she snatched it away. She’d never get used to Sid’s snacks being kept in there while he recuperated.

  She opened the fridge door instead, threw together a salad in a bowl, making enough for two, and heaped a generous portion onto a plate while she waited for the microwave to heat up a jacket potato. She added a sticky note of her own next to Adam’s.

  Salad in fridge. Cans of tuna in cupboard – eat!

  The microwave pinged, and she set down her plate on the kitchen worktop, and picked up a knife and fork.

  Sid lifted his head and stared at her, his tongue flickering as he scented the air.

  Kay glared at the snake, then picked up her plate and placed it on a tray.

  ‘Can’t eat sitting next to you, Sid.’

  She grabbed a glass of wine, balanced it on her tray, and padded through to the living room.

  Adam had left two of the large, floor-standing lamps on before he’d left, and a glow softened the edges of the room. His pride and joy, a large flat-screen television, hung over a low-slung cabinet that housed all the sound system equipment.

  Bookshelves lined the long wall opposite the bay window that looked out onto the street, half of which were taken up by a DVD collection they’d amassed between them while Adam was still at university.

  Kay put down her tray, and ran a finger along the spines of the films; most were thrillers, along with a rom-com or two they’d enjoyed together at the cinema several years ago, and a few foreign language titles mixed in between. She pushed an errant box back into line, made sure everything was still in alphabetical order, and smiled as she imagined Adam’s response to her actions.

  He’d always teased her about her need to file the films alphabetically – he’d managed to coerce her into leaving the books alone – but he’d understood once she’d explained to him that after some of the cases she dealt with on a daily basis, she needed something to give her a sense of order in her world.