by Lisa Hartley
‘Glad you’re here?’ Catherine grinned. He gave her a rueful smile.
‘Better than being inside. They like to sound tough but they’re decent blokes. I didn’t bring any food on my first day and they shared their sandwiches with me.’
‘No one’s put your head through the window yet then?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Anything else you want to tell me?’
‘Nothing.’ He was uncomfortable, unable to stand still. ‘Will you tell Anna I’m sorry I phoned her? I’ve already apologised for turning up at her house …’
‘I’m not a message service, Mr Hunter.’
He blushed.
‘No, I … I’m sorry.’
She nudged him. ‘I’m joking. I’ll mention it.’
‘Oh. Oh right. Thank you,’ he stammered. Rolling her eyes, Catherine left him to it.
Back in the reception area, she plonked herself down on the sofa to wait for Anna and Chris. Margaret on reception turned her back on Catherine, who had to smile. She had a reply to her text:Are you free at lunchtime?
When the door had closed behind them, he counted to a hundred just to be sure they weren’t coming back, then snatched up his mobile and scrolled through his messages. Finding the one from her, he deleted it and then wiped her contact details too. His heart was pounding as he turned his laptop back on and opened up his banking software. Just seeing the figures there calmed him, the black type bold and unmistakable. He reached out, ran his finger down the column, then tapped it twice on the numbers that showed the final balance, satisfied.
She was dead now. She couldn’t say a word.
36
Catherine sat with Chris at his desk, both of them frowning at his monitor.
‘So three of the staff at Worthy’s have done time in prison. Rob Hunter, Phil Richards and Josie Hayward. Hunter we know about already. Hayward – shoplifting and handling stolen goods. Phil Richards was done for burglary. So much for him telling me he wouldn’t steal. They’ve all done one stretch each and that was years ago, except for Hunter,’ Catherine confirmed. Chris gave a low whistle.
‘You could look at Worthy employing them in different ways.’
‘Generous, stupid, suspicious.’
‘It’s quite a lot out of a workforce of what,’ he ran his finger down the list as he totted them up, ‘eighteen.’
‘What about directors?’
‘There’s just Worthy himself and Alex Lambert.’
‘What’s Lambert’s story?’
‘His dad was at school with John Worthy and they were friends right up until Victor Lambert’s death. Alex took over his dad’s role at Worthy’s two years ago when he became ill. He’s got a degree in business studies, he’s a qualified accountant and has plenty of industry experience. Worthy doesn’t have any children of his own, and it looks like Alex will be managing director one day.’
‘Can’t be bad.’ Catherine shoved her hair behind her ears.
‘He doesn’t have a criminal record?’
‘No. He mentioned being involved in the management of a club when he was younger though?’
‘Yeah, some place in Lincoln. You’re thinking about the drug angle?’ Chris asked.
‘Coke and nightclubs go together like …’
‘Beans and toast? Beer and kebabs? Bacon and brown sauce?’
‘Was that your stomach rumbling?’
‘Might have been.’
‘Right, go and get some food, then see what you can dig up about Alex Lambert’s nightclub.’
He stood up.
‘Got a feeling in your water about him, Sarge?’
‘That or indigestion.’
‘Hunger pangs.’
‘That’ll be it.’
She took out her phone.
Ellie was sitting in the same seat that Helen Bridges had occupied the day before. The same man was behind the counter too. He gave Catherine a cheery wave. ‘Back again?’
She smiled at him and slid into the chair opposite Ellie, who said, ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘You too. Have you ordered?’ Ellie shook her head.
As they sat back down with their drinks, Catherine asked, ‘So is Ellie short for anything?’
She laughed in surprise.
‘I’ve never been asked that before.’
‘Not by anyone?’
‘Not that I remember. My full name’s Eleanor.’
‘But you don’t use it?’
‘My parents have always called me Ellie.’
There was a short silence. Catherine glanced around, picked up a fork and turned it a few times in her hand.
‘What do you do at the council?’ she asked.
‘I work in accounts.’
Catherine wrinkled her nose. ‘That sounds … interesting.’
Ellie laughed and the awkwardness evaporated.
‘Not as interesting as your job, that’s for sure. How’s it going?’
‘At the moment it’s frustrating.’
Their food arrived and they tucked into chip butties with enthusiasm. Catherine squirted tomato ketchup onto her plate, dipped a chip into it and said, ‘I didn’t tell Chris I was meeting you.’
Ellie met Catherine’s gaze, her eyes dancing. ‘I didn’t tell Faye either.’
They smiled, feeling like conspirators. Catherine bit into her chip butty again, not sure why she was here but pleased all the same. Ellie wiped her mouth.
‘You said work is frustrating?’
Catherine nodded, swallowing her mouthful.
‘It happens more often than not during an investigation. You reach a point where you’ve followed every lead, spoken to every person. We’re not quite there yet, but it can feel like you’re treading water until a new piece of information comes in.’
‘A bit like when a client dumps a year’s worth of receipts on your desk and expects you to do a tax return for them. It happened a lot in my last job.’
‘All the answers are in there, it’s just putting them into some sort of order.’ Catherine nodded. She hesitated for a second, then asked, ‘Have you always lived in Northolme?’
‘I grew up in a village on the other side of Lincoln. I moved over here when I met my girlfriend.’ Ellie paused and gave a tiny smile. ‘When she died, I’d just started a new job at the council. They were good to me, Faye especially, so I stayed.’
‘What happened?’ Catherine asked, her voice gentle. ‘Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s fine. She had cancer, stomach cancer. Quite rare at her age. Nine months from her being diagnosed to her death, almost to the day. We were together for three years, just about.’
‘It must have been terrible.’
‘It was. She never complained, didn’t even speak about it. Told me that I should still do all the things we’d planned to do together: the holidays, the weekends away. She wanted me to be happy. I suppose a lot of people tell their partners that when they know they’re dying.’
‘She sounds lovely.’
‘Yeah, she was. I was so angry, not with her but with life, with cancer. She never felt like that, or if she did she didn’t say so. I couldn’t believe it. We’d just found each other, we were planning the rest of our lives, and then … then she was gone. I felt numb for months. I just went to work, went home, lost touch with my friends, didn’t talk to my family. Then, one day I went to her grave and it dawned on me that she would hate the way I was living. It wasn’t even living, just ticking off a day and getting through the next one.’ She smiled, looking up from beneath damp eyelashes. Catherine felt like a fraud. This poor woman was pouring her heart out and Catherine’s own mourning seemed trite in comparison, almost an insult. She didn’t know what to say. The truth?
‘I’m sorry.’ She felt helpless. Ellie took a deep breath.
‘No, I am. You didn’t need to hear all that.’
‘It’s just that … well, it makes me feel stupid.’
Ellie frowned, concerned.
‘Stupid? What do you mean?’
Catherine took a breath and started to talk, starting from the minute she and Claire had met and ending with the day of her funeral. Ellie listened without interrupting until Catherine fell silent.
‘I’d no idea. What a nightmare,’ she said at last. ‘How it must have felt, to be betrayed like that … A killer. It’s unthinkable.’
Catherine managed a crooked smile. ‘It’s different, that’s for sure.’
Ellie glanced at the clock on the wall opposite and groaned.
‘I’m so sorry, Catherine, I’m going to have to go.’
Turning in her chair, Catherine saw they’d been sitting there for almost an hour.
‘God, so am I.’
They hurried to their feet, pulling on coats and scarves. Ellie picked up her bag, hesitated, then moved to Catherine’s side and kissed her cheek.
‘Thanks for listening.’
Catherine smiled. ‘You too.’ Talking about Claire had calmed her. It was as if the whole thing had happened to someone else, someone she didn’t have to worry about. It had been like telling a story rather than a tearful account of the tragic events of her own life.
Her phone was ringing. Catherine watched as Ellie gave another smile and left the café, waving as she passed the window.
‘Sarge, it’s me.’
‘How’s it going, Chris?’
‘I’m at the club Alex Lambert used to own. It sounds like cheap cocktails weren’t the only thing on the menu.’
37
They met at a bus stop just down the road from Worthy and Son, each of them taking a circuitous route. It stood on a quiet residential street and with woollen scarves disguising the bottom half of their faces, shoulders hunched around their ears and padded winter coats on, who would look at them twice? Just two blokes waiting for the bus into town. Much less conspicuous than a pub or café where there would be witnesses and no doubt CCTV. There were no cameras out here.
‘What are we going to do?’ His voice sounded strained, even to himself.
‘You’re panicking again.’
‘What do you expect me to do? The police turn up at work twice in two days and you’re wondering why I’m anxious? It’s all right for you.’
‘What does that mean?’
He turned away, glancing up and down the street, half expecting a police car to pull up and officers to drag them inside at any moment. ‘You’re like a robot. Doesn’t anything bother you?’
His companion laughed; a dry, throaty chuckle that made his flesh crawl.
‘Not much. There is one tiny thing though.’
‘Surprise me.’
‘What the boss is going to say when he finds out …’
He swallowed.
‘Does he need to know?’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I’ve got to speak to him about the police anyway.’
‘What if they come back with a search warrant?’
‘There’s nothing to find, you know that.’
‘If they look in the right place …’
‘We’ll move it tonight.’
‘Are you going to tell him?’
Running a hand around his jawline, the other man sucked in a noisy breath through his teeth.
‘I’ll have to soon, unless …’
‘Unless?’
‘You know what. I’m not lying to him.’
His stomach cramped, his mouth filling with acrid bile that burned like shame.
‘I’ll do it tonight.’ The voice didn’t sound like his own, more like the choking gasps of a person being submerged under water, watching as the sky disappeared.
The other man clapped his hand down on his shoulder. ‘You’d better.’ All at once, the thick, strong fingers dug into his flesh, sharp and painful. ‘I’ll pick you up at six.’ Then he was gone, strolling away as though they’d just been chatting about the weather.
Turning away, he took a shaky breath. This was a nightmare. He was being sucked deeper and deeper into a situation he couldn’t control and couldn’t escape from. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes. He’d have to go back in.
38
Lauren hurled the empty water bottle against the far wall as hard as she could. She was furious, sick of being shut in here, the same four walls, the stink and the frustration.
They hadn’t been able to kill her. She supposed she should be grateful. He’d touched the knife to her throat, staring into her eyes. She had gazed back, chin up, not giving them the satisfaction of knowing how terrified she was. If this was to be how she died, she just wanted it over with. After a silence, a second that seemed never-ending, his eyes had filled with tears and he’d dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter before turning away with his head in his hands. The bastard holding her had bellowed at him, but it made no difference. Eventually, he’d thrown her onto the floor and seized his companion by the throat, raging at him. They continued to argue, shouting and threatening each other but not taking any action.
In the end, they left her alone. She’d rushed over to the door as it slammed behind them, pounding her hands on it as she heard the soft scrape of the padlock being threaded through the metal latch. She’d screamed in frustration, thumping her fists on the door until they throbbed.
The room was freezing cold, the floor bare concrete, the only insulation the plastic sheeting. She’d wrapped it around herself last night but it had made little difference. If they left her in here much longer she would die anyway, if not of the cold then of thirst. They had left one tiny bottle of water, lobbed in as an afterthought. They must have learnt their lesson about the big bottles. She’d done her best to sip it, but she had drunk it all in the end. There was no toilet either, not even a bucket. She’d had to squat in the corner, as far away from the small cocoon she had made herself in the plastic as possible. She swallowed a few times, her mouth already parched. She hadn’t drunk enough, she knew that. If only she had made the most of the supplies in the room in that house. Too late now.
Blowing on her hands, she dragged herself to her feet. She knew she needed to try to warm up, and the best way to do that was to start moving. The room was about ten feet square but that was big enough to march around in. She swung her arms and lifted her knees; big, exaggerated movements that would raise her heart rate and get her blood pumping.
‘I’m not going to die in here.’ She said it out loud, to the walls, to the floor. She stamped her feet a few times, then began a series of star jumps.
As her feet hit the concrete for the twentieth time, she heard the roar of an engine, a low familiar drone. She pressed her eye to the doorframe, trying to peer through the tiny gap. No luck. She turned away, guessing what it was. They wouldn’t hear if she shouted for help, not over the noise and not from that distance. She paced again, attempting to tame her tumble of thoughts into some sort of order. The men would have to come back. They couldn’t leave her here forever. They had been instructed to kill her, but by whom? Whoever it was wouldn’t be happy to discover that Lauren was alive and kicking. Baring her teeth in a savage grin, she clenched her fists. She was kicking all right. He wouldn’t kill her, she knew that now. She had looked into his eyes and seen it. The other one might, psycho bastard that he was, but then why hadn’t he done it already?
Perhaps they’d come back with a different weapon? A knife was messy and you had to be close to your victim. Too personal. What then? A rope? Then they could turn her around and would not have to watch her face, see the light fade and the life drip from her. They could be brutal, she had proof, and that knowledge was the reason she was still here. In a way though, she was pleased that she had seen it. If she ever had the chance, if she did walk out of here, she would go straight to the police, tell them the whole story and face the consequences. Keeley, lying dead and battered on the floor deserved no less. A prison sentence would be a small price to pay for justice for her. She hadn’t remembered her name at first, but it had come to her in the end. K
eeley hadn’t worked at Worthy’s for long. Long enough for them to get their claws into her though, obviously.
Were the police looking for her? Mark would have gone to them, in his innocent, unimaginative way. She loved him, but Lauren had to admit Mark was easy to deceive. Not that she was proud of having done so, but she could see no other way of digging them out of the pit of debt they’d thrown themselves into. Drugs ruined lives, yes, she could accept that, but then no one forced people to take them. She had committed a crime, done the unthinkable. A few years ago, even a few months, the thought of bringing cocaine into the country, of stepping outside the law in any way would have been ridiculous. Now though, she had done it and she had no real regrets.
‘Except for being stuck in this fucking room,’ she muttered, giving the door another thump.
How long would they leave her here? Would they just wait for her to die? The few drops of water they’d left with her would suggest not, but she couldn’t be sure. Her lips felt tight and parched and her throat itched. How long could you last without water? A couple of days? It would be one way of getting rid of her without bloodying their hands.
Maybe it wouldn’t be like that. They might return with a gun, or that shovel. A syringe filled with whatever drugs they were peddling this week. A bucket of water. A noose or a plastic bag. There were lots of ways to kill someone if you thought about it.
Lauren swallowed a couple of times, attempting to create some moisture in her mouth. No chance. She took a few deep, controlled breaths, forcing herself to calm down. Hysterics would not help and neither would panicking. She tried more star jumps then threw a few punches, the quick movements of her body wafting its stink around her face and making her retch. She kept moving, not allowing her brain to process the fact that she was here alone in a bitterly cold building with no water, no food and no means of escape.
If she began to scream again, she wasn’t sure whether she would stop.