Relieved, Sam thanked her, ended the call and slipped the phone in her trouser pocket.
‘It’s about time we called it a day,’ she told Ed, rubbing at the tiredness in her eyes. ‘We’ll leave Technical Support to get on with their bit.’
They walked towards the underground car park.
‘The three in the traps can be bedded down for the night,' Sam said. 'We’ll re-interview tomorrow. I’m minded not to mention the blood on the settee yet and we can’t use the ID evidence against the son from the UC in Devon and Cornwall until we get their go-ahead, so there’s not a lot we can put to Baljit. We can ask if he’s ever been to Plymouth etcetera. We’ll go through the train times with the mother and push her for who she was supposed to meet. The father… I’ll sleep on it. He might come up with some cock-and-bull. If he knows we’ve got the settee, he’ll know we found the blood.’
Sam looked at her watch. It was gone 10.
She got into her car, her head a food mixer again. No point going straight home, the mixer would continue stirring for some time. She detoured and drove into the town centre to watch the revellers walking about, the noise and colour of a vibrant town hopefully providing a distraction, a handbrake to slow down her thoughts.
Neon lights flashed, doormen policed queues, staff in empty takeaways prepped food. Young people were staggering, yelling, laughing, or a combination of all three, the streets alive.
Sam pressed two switches and the Audi’s front windows opened. Corona’s 1993 disco hit came into her head – ‘The Rhythm of the Night’. Music, shouting, and sirens: the Saturday night soundtrack of every town centre in the country. Paramedics and police working flat out, the paramedics stitching up the individual wounds, the police stitching up the fabric of a broken society.
The pedestrian lights turned to red. Sam stopped and left a gap between her and the car in front. The Green Man was beeping. Is this a Pelican, Puffin or Toucan? Who cares?
She closed her eyes; saw her teen self dancing around her bedroom to that Corona song.
She opened her eyes.
What the hell?!
She shot upright, reached for the visor, and flicked it down. They were oblivious to her as they crossed. Just another young couple out for a good time.
Elliott Prince linking arms with Amber Dalton.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sam called Ed the minute she walked into her kitchen. The fluorescents under the wall units shone dully on to the granite worktops, the subdued lighting a complete contrast to the excitement in her voice. She told him what she’d seen.
‘There’s a link between the self-help group and maybe the cause of the women needing help in the first place,’ Sam said in a rush. ‘Forget the Sisters of Macavity for now. Amber facilitates a self-help group. Elliott is the alleged leader of Mortimers. There’s got to be a connection.’
Then she heard Sue shouting in the background, catching the words ‘just bloody left her’ and what sounded like ‘joined at the hip’.
Shit, I didn’t mean to cause him grief.
‘Look, sorry, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.’ Sam ended the call before Ed could speak.
She’d considered getting fish and chips on the way home but reasoned the lunchtime Chinese takeaway was more than enough fast food for one day.
The light from the fridge was as bright as a UFO in a Hollywood movie. There must be a way to dull it.
She took the last slice of Wiltshire ham, pulled out the plastic salad drawer and found half a tomato. The brown paper bag on the bench contained just enough uncut wholemeal, although it was probably out of date. The knife battled through the organic bread, the bruised skin of the soggy tomato failing to soften the two slices it ended up between. Another couple of days and the loaf would have been croutons, but tonight it was just the wrong side of fresh.
She sat on a high stool in the kitchen.
Memo to self... apologise to Ed.
Why had Prince not mentioned Amber Dalton? Why had Amber not mentioned Elliott? She would never have put them in a relationship, if that’s what it was.
She bit into the unforgiving sandwich, jaws getting a gym workout.
Was there any significance between TS Eliot’s Cats, and Prince’s first name? Two names, spelled differently but pronounced the same.
Her teeth fought the sandwich.
Get a grip Sam! Stop being ridiculous.
The power shower failed to clear her head. Amber Dalton and Elliott Prince were still banging around in there when she went to bed.
Stephen King was waiting and willing on the bedside table, but Sam gave him a pass. She turned off the light and tried to sleep.
Sunday 20th April 2014
Pounding water bounced off her skin and hit the gloss tiles. 6.30am and Sam was back in the shower. She couldn’t remember if Dalton and Prince had been the last thing on her mind before she fell asleep, but they were certainly bang there when she woke up. Their relationship needed closer examination. Had they been communicating on social media?
She was out of the house before eight, the drive to Headquarters so uneventful she couldn’t remember it. Ed was walking across the car park and when she shouted, he stopped to wait for her as she ran.
‘I’m really sorry about last night.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Ed said, forcing a smile. ‘Forget about it.’
‘No I should have realised. Saturday and you’d been at work all day. It was thoughtless of me. I just couldn’t get the two of them out of my head.’
Sitting in Sam’s office, they’d barely sipped their coffees when the Custody Sergeant at Seaton nick rang. Sam listened as he told her Jill Carver had been there since 8am talking with Davinder Bhandal, who now wanted to speak to the investigating officers as soon as possible.
‘Jill Carver’s already there and Bhandal wants to be interviewed again,’ Sam said, putting the phone back in her pocket. ‘No doubt ready with his next defence statement.’
Ed worked on his coffee.
‘No doubt but we won’t rush, eh?’ he said mildly. ‘The Butcher can wait. At least until I’ve had my caffeine hit and a bacon sandwich. Bilton’s is open on a Sunday.’
Sam stood up as Ed rubbed his hands together.
‘The day’s off to a flier,’ he grinned. ‘Bacon sarnie from one butcher, ear-ache pie from the other.’
Jill Carver theatrically checked her watch as they were admitted into the custody office.
‘Morning,’ Sam said. ‘Sorry, had a briefing to do.’
The detention officer brought Bhandal from his cell. He may have looked dishevelled, but the smug look was back on his face.
Once the tapes were running, introductions made and caution given, Jill Carver spoke.
‘My client wishes to make a verbal statement that will hopefully clear up this misunderstanding.’ She nodded to Bhandal.
‘Chief Inspector, I apologise if my answers were not clear last night. It was not my intention to mislead you or Detective Sergeant Whelan.’
Sam and Ed said nothing. They both knew a load of bollocks was about to be served up.
‘I was upset last night, disorientated, stressed. The loss of our daughter is still raw. We just want her found, want her to come home. I did buy a new settee, a family Christmas present. It was delivered on the Thursday before Aisha went missing, not the Saturday as Mr Singh states. An easy mistake for an old man to make. None of us are getting any younger, and with age the memory fades.’
Sam and Ed remained silent, staring at him. Carver, motionless, kept her eyes on the A4 pad on her knee.
‘That night Aisha got a nosebleed.’ He shook his head, smiled. ‘She was always getting them, had done since she was a child. They’d come on without warning. Sometimes there was such a lot of blood. She was laid down watching TV, testing out the new settee, then whoosh!’
His hand went up to his nose. ‘It was so sudden. By the time she got up there was blood everywhere.’
Sam watched him.
He was good; Oscar statue good.
‘My wife was heartbroken. I told everybody not to worry. I would get another settee. You were, of course, correct. I sold that one to a man, and having slept on it, yes, perhaps his name is Sanderson. I did not tell him to burn it although I did explain that there was human blood on it. I think I saw him in the pub on the Sunday. On Monday I saw Mr Singh, chose another settee and he delivered it that day. Mr Sanderson picked up the ruined one on Monday morning. Came with a big trailer. He said the blood would wash out.’
Bhandal paused and looked at Carver, who nodded.
‘Mr Sanderson bought it off me. To suggest I paid him to take it is ridiculous, but as everyone knows he is a common criminal. Nobody in this room has a single conviction between them, whereas Mr Sanderson has them going back years. Surely you don’t take the word of a man like that? No court in the land would believe him.’
‘Mr Singh keeps records,’ Sam said.
‘Which he writes himself, often days later,’ Bhandal countered smoothly. ‘Ask his family. He’s always behind on the paperwork. He always gave me my receipts late and there’ll be plenty of people who’ll say the same thing. He’s a lovely man, a fair man, respected in the community, but he is forgetful. I would not want you to go to court on the say-so of someone who could be discredited.’
Jill Carver jumped in, clearly not wanting her boy to over-egg the dish.
‘I hope that clears up the misunderstanding,’ she said, a statement, not a question. ‘Mr Bhandal has apologised, but given his mental state yesterday, what with the shock of his and his wife’s arrest at the station, it’s not surprising he was confused.’
Ed spoke. ‘Why did you say last night that the first new settee, if I can put it like that, was delivered on the Saturday after your daughter went missing, the same day Mr Singh said he delivered it to you?’
‘I was upset.’ Bhandal opened his palms again. ‘I didn’t want you thinking that Aisha had run away because she had bled on the settee. Once I knew you had the settee then it was incumbent upon me to tell the truth.’
Sam glanced at Ed, saw his fist clench and knew that at that moment, he wanted to punch Bhandal. She nodded at him as she reached across to the tape machine.
‘Interview terminated 9.45am.’ She pressed stop and packaged the tapes in silence.
‘Will you be conducting more interviews with my other clients?’ Carver asked, packing her A4 pad into a Radley bag that looked very new.
‘Not me personally, but they will be interviewed,’ Sam said.
Outside the custody office she spoke to Ed. ‘Well how nice and tidy was that little lot?’
‘Very, but all the better when we prove he’s lying,’ Ed said. ‘Christ, I wished we’d done it on video, got the smarmy bastard on film.’
Like Ed, Sam knew their time hadn’t been wasted.
‘He’s lying,’ she said. ‘We can put the son in Plymouth once we can use the UC to identify him, and nobody’s going to believe the mother’s story of a day trip to London to see people she won’t name, where she just happens to accidentally use Aisha’s bank card the day after our door to door.’
‘Yeah, all rubbish,’ Ed agreed. ‘We just a need a bit more.’
Sam looked around, stopped walking, and dropped her voice to a whisper.
‘The probes are in, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. Let’s see what they have to say to each other when they get home.’
‘Everything sorted in the listening post?’ Ed asked.
He hoped the bugs would deliver and that they would remain safely hidden, despite Sam’s reassurance.
Sam telephoned Bev and told her what she wanted doing in the final round of interviews.
She turned to Ed. ‘I’ll meet you back at the office… we need to find out the connection between Amber and Elliott?’
‘Tell you what, I’ll go and see Glen Jones on the way back. Speak in vague terms. Might drop in on Billy Wilson as well. Doormen know all sorts.’
Glen Jones, wearing nothing but a pair of red-spotted boxers, was sitting in a plastic chair in the back garden. One of his flatmates had let Ed in.
‘I need a word.’ Ed was speaking before he was through the kitchen door. ‘Get dressed.’
Jones looked around. ‘What’s up?’
‘Just get dressed. Me and you are going for a walk. Hurry up. I haven’t got all day.’
Jones pushed himself out of the chair, sloped past Ed with his head down. He looked like he was walking to his execution.
Ed waited in the garden and wondered who cut the lawn. It wasn’t Wembley, but it wasn’t bad. A bird chirped away in one of the mature trees by the fence.
Jones returned, grey joggers and a plain white T-shirt added to the boxers.
‘Bit boring isn’t it?’ Ed nodded towards him. ‘Your T-shirt. No witty messages today?’
Jones kept his head down, a young child being rebuked by a parent. ‘Where we going?’
‘Let’s have a nice walk along the pier,’ Ed told him. ‘I can get a coffee with our Sunday stroll.’
Twenty minutes later they were walking out to sea along the Victorian pier. Ed had a flat white in his hand. The local yacht club was staging some sort of race, boats of various sizes on different tacks approaching marker buoys. The boats made Ed think of Sam but he pushed her out of his head.
‘I’m pleased I haven’t got a hangover,’ he said, looking at Jones. ‘Your trainers are dazzling me and that’s with a clear head.’
Ed remembered the trainers of his teens, Adidas Sambas, the only non-black part being the three white stripes. Nobody would have dreamt of day-glo orange, a shade so bright they could probably spot them from space.
‘Mortimers,’ Ed said, back to business. ‘How many of the members have girlfriends?’
‘What, like a steady relationship?’ Jones asked.
‘Yeah.’ Ed stopped, raising the disposal cup to his lips.
Glen Jones gave that some thought.
‘None,’ he said finally. ‘It’s not about being tied down.’
He looked away, out to sea.
‘It’s about, you know, as much sex as you can get with as many different girls as possible. It’s all about the numbers.’
‘What about Jack?’ Ed asked him. ‘Did he have a steady girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Jamie?’
A shake of the head.
‘Elliott?’
‘None of us did,’ Jones told him. ‘It wasn’t like that. Out drinking, chat them up, have sex, move on.’
‘One of my colleague’s saw Elliott last night with a girl,’ Ed said. ‘Linking arms. He looked pretty close to her, as in relationship close.’
Jones gave that some time, too.
‘Don’t know who that could be,’ he said after the thinking was done. ‘He was out last night, but with a girl? He never said anything. You sure it wasn’t his sister?’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘Sister?’ Sam said, looking up from the witness statements she was reading.
‘That’s what he said.’ Ed pulled out a chair.
‘But she was an only child.’
‘Was she?’ Ed said. ‘After the attack she said she couldn’t talk to her mother and she had no sisters? Did we ever ask her about a brother?’
Sam realised they hadn’t. There had been no reason.
Ed was speaking again. ‘So let’s just work on the premise for the minute that she has a brother, it’s Elliott Prince, and he knows his sister was attacked in her own home by a man who is now in prison, a man he can’t get reach. Would that make him attack students who were arseholes around women?’
Sam put her pen down. Was that too much of a stretch? Or might Prince let his rage go on the ones who were just a step back from rapists in his eyes?
‘Who knows what goes through your mind if a female relative gets sexually assaulted, or worse,’ she said.
Ed bit his bottom lip, clenched his right
fist.
‘Sorry, Ed, that was insensitive of me.’
Ed had told her last year his niece had been dragged into an alley and only saved from rape by two sharp-eyed doormen; she was badly beaten in an ordeal that changed her whole personality,
‘It’s fine,’ Ed said. ‘Don’t worry about it…I tell you what it does, though: it makes you want to rip their heads off, terrorise them as they terrorised your family. You want revenge. If I’m honest, I still don’t know how I’ll feel when he gets out. Will I go after him? I’ll be retired then.’
He looked away, lost in thought, then returned his eyes to Sam. ‘Sorry.’
She shook her head, raising her right palm.
‘But would I use what happened to my niece to launch attacks on sexual predators in general? I’m not sure I would.’
‘Could give you some serious motivation, though,' Sam said.
‘It could,’ Ed agreed. ‘But Elliott Prince? Really?’
‘Keyser Söze,’ Sam told him.
‘Sorry?’
Sam explained.
‘And don’t forget,’ she went on. ‘Luke Wylam and Glen Jones said Prince was the leader. Maybe what you see isn’t what you get. I know everybody’s snowed under, but can you get somebody to look at the relationship between him and Amber? Starting with why they’ve got different surnames. Amber said she’d never been married. I did ask her that.’
Progress was slow. Bev re-interviewed the Bhandal family; the mother and brother went ‘no reply’ to every question about the settee. Davinder Bhandal himself, smile a permanent fixture, said he could be of no further assistance.
The intelligence cell started to look at Elliott Prince’s social media and his mobile history. They had completed their content checks of Amber’s phone but found nothing of significance other than the texts on the night of Jack Goddard’s murder. It was the same story with her social media.
Paul Adams began to look at the relationship between Amber and Elliott, but getting answers on a Sunday was often impossible. He started researching Amber’s family tree online. The Internet never took a day off.
Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set Page 53