by Roberta Kray
He slowed down, waiting until she’d passed and gone a little way down the road before striding up to the van, sliding open the door and quickly stepping inside. Warren James, a slim black guy, was sitting at the table with a laptop in front of him. He was the resident computer expert at Mackenzie, Lind – able to dig out a fraud from the most meagre evidence – but he doubled up on surveillance when things were quiet.
‘Bang on time,’ Warren said.
Harry closed the door. The van was warm inside and littered with the debris of hours of surveillance – breadcrumbs, chocolate wrappers, empty Styrofoam cups and a couple of newspapers. ‘We aim to please.’
Warren stretched his arms up over his head and yawned. ‘God, I’ll be glad to get out of here. It’s like the land of the living dead.’
‘Not much action, then?’
‘She hasn’t been out all day. She has had a couple of visitors, though, a woman in her late forties who arrived on foot at ten o’clock this morning and left at twelve – I think she was the cleaner – and a guy who turned up at two and left around three thirty.’
Harry raised his eyebrows. ‘An hour and a half?’
‘I wouldn’t get too excited about it. I checked out the car and it’s licensed to an Aidan Russell.’ Warren hit on a few keys and a series of photos came up on the laptop. ‘Here, there are some pretty clear shots of him arriving and leaving.’
Harry leaned over Warren’s shoulder and examined the snaps. The car was a pale blue Jaguar and the man was in his early thirties with brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
‘So what shouldn’t I be getting excited about? They were alone together, right?’
‘The guy’s a hairdresser. He could have been here to snip the lady’s tresses.’
‘Do hairdressers usually make house calls?’
‘I should think it depends on how rich the client is. I doubt our Mrs Locke is short of a bob or two.’ Warren picked up some A4 sheets of printed paper and handed them over. ‘Russell owns a couple of salons, one in Chelsea and one in Covent Garden. He’s got a Facebook page for the business.’
Harry flicked through the publicity, which was mainly pictures of beautiful women with desirable haircuts. ‘I don’t suppose it mentions if he’s gay or straight?’
Warren stood up and shrugged into his leather jacket. ‘Well, he drives a powder-blue Jag. I know where I’d put my money.’
‘I’m not sure if that counts as definitive evidence of his sexuality.’
‘Powder-blue?’ Warren said again, pulling a face. ‘That’s a crime against motoring, man.’
Harry laughed and took Warren’s place in front of the laptop. A second computer to the right was screening live footage of the space in front of the Locke gates. ‘See you tomorrow, then. Have a good evening.’
‘Good luck.’
Harry watched him leave. Warren James was ten years his junior, happily married with a couple of kids and another on the way. It probably wasn’t all sunshine and roses – nothing ever was – but he seemed to have his personal life sorted in a way that Harry could barely envisage. The older he got, the more distant the possibility of playing happy families became. His on–off relationship with Valerie had placed him in a kind of limbo he seemed incapable of escaping from.
With relationships on his mind, Harry sat back and glanced through Warren’s notes again. Could Aimee Locke be cheating on her husband with her hairdresser? Even with Martin Locke away, she would be playing a risky game by entertaining him in her own home. But then people weren’t always smart when it came to having affairs.
‘Aimee,’ he murmured. ‘What are you doing?’
The traffic increased a little over the next hour. He watched as people returned from work, executive cars purring past the van, but the Locke gates – no matter how hard he stared at the computer screen – remained firmly closed. Perhaps she would go out later. Perhaps that was why she’d had her hair done.
At six o’clock Harry took the Tupperware box out of the carrier bag and peered inside. There were four large sandwiches, two cheese and pickle, two ham salad, an apple, some grapes and a Mars bar. When he’d first started working for Mac, Lorna’s attempts to mother him had driven him crazy, but these days he appreciated her efforts. He picked up one of the ham sandwiches, bit off a corner and gave a grunt of pleasure.
While he ate, he continued to focus on the wrought-iron gates. The only movement came from the rhododendron blossoms swaying in the breeze. He finished his sandwich and poured a cup of coffee. He sensed it was going to be a long night. Settling back in his chair, he pulled over Jess’s file on the Minnie Bright case and started from the beginning.
22
At ten past seven Jess walked down to the corner shop and bought a pint of milk, a microwaveable meal for one and a bottle of wine. Neil, who normally did the cooking, was on his way to a legal seminar in Edinburgh and she had no desire to spend any more time than was necessary in the kitchen. Her plan for this evening was to make a thorough trawl through her notes on the Minnie Bright case and see if there was anything she’d missed.
It was when she was almost back at the small block of flats that she began to feel it, a weird tingling sensation on the back of her neck. Someone was watching her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder. There were plenty of people around, but none, so far as she could tell, who were showing any particular interest. But still the prickling continued, a sixth-sense feeling that couldn’t be ignored.
She scanned the cars parked along the side of the road, lifted her gaze to the windows of the surrounding houses and finally looked over at the green expanse of Victoria Park before wondering if she was just imagining it. Even so, she hurried the final few yards, reaching for her keys as she went.
Once inside the communal hallway, she walked smartly along the corridor, unlocked her front door and bolted it behind her. She went into the living room and peered out through the window. From here she had a clear view of the main road and watched as two young guys, a man in a grey suit and then a blonde girl walked past. None of them paid any attention to the flats.
‘Where are you?’ she murmured. ‘Who are you?’
Jess continued to stand there, watching. After a while she frowned and turned away, wondering if her instincts had been wrong. It was easy to get paranoid when you were involved with secrets and lies – and the Minnie Bright case had plenty of those. She had almost persuaded herself that she’d been mistaken when the phone suddenly rang and she jumped half out of her skin. She gazed at it for a moment, her heart beating faster, before snatching it up off the coffee table and looking at the screen. It was only Sam Kendall. With a sigh of relief she answered the call and passed on the information Harry had received about Lynda returning to the house.
‘She never said anything to you about it?’
‘No, not a word,’ Sam replied. ‘We split up when we got back to the Mansfield. She went off in the direction of Haslow House and I went to Carlton. That was the last I saw of her.’ She paused for a moment. ‘So you really think she went back?’
‘Do you think she could’ve?’
‘It’s possible, I suppose. She might have felt bad about leaving Minnie alone with the others. Lynda was that kind of person. But why would she keep quiet about it?’
‘We’re still trying to figure that one out. She didn’t tell the police. She didn’t tell her family. She didn’t even tell you.’
Sam thought about this for a few seconds. ‘It might have been because she didn’t want to get into any more trouble. Back then, I mean. Lynda’s parents were pretty strict. She wasn’t even supposed to be out with us that day. Her parents had enrolled her in one of those summer schools, but she hated it and never went.’ She left another short pause, cleared her throat and added, ‘When she spoke to the cops, she must have been terrified – I know I was – and just wanting to get the whole thing over and done with. If her interview was anything like mine, it would have been pretty clear from the start th
at they were more interested in the girls who were actually with Minnie when she went inside the house. All they wanted from me was to make sure that my story, up to the point where we left, tallied with everyone else’s.’
Jess gave a nod. ‘Lynda might have realised that admitting to going back meant she would have been the last one on the scene, and so she simply kept quiet about it.’
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t have lied – she wasn’t the type – but if the cops didn’t ask the right questions …’
‘She would have let them go on believing that when she returned to the Mansfield with you, she actually stayed there.’
‘I guess,’ Sam said. ‘I mean, if there wasn’t any extra information she could give them, she might have figured that it was better to keep her mouth shut.’
Jess gave another nod, understanding how easily a ten-year-old Lynda could have made that decision. ‘Thanks, Sam. I’ll let you know if we hear anything else.’ She said her goodbyes, put the phone down and wandered back over to the window. Her eyes automatically scanned the street again, left and right, before she headed for the kitchen to put her lasagne in the microwave.
Two hours later, Jess was on her third glass of wine. Her copious notes, including trial reports, a huge pile of press cuttings and all the information she’d gleaned from Sam Kendall, were strewn across the table. She’d decided to go back to basics and to try and create a timeline for the day. So far she had:
Donald Peck gets on bus to Bethnal Green at around 12.15 to visit Ralph Masterson, a retired probation officer. Arrives at 12.35. Stays for about 20 minutes.
The five girls walk to Morton Grove.
Sam and Lynda leave (12.30). Back at Mansfield by 12.45?
Minnie Bright enters the house (12.35?).
Paige, Becky & Kirsten leave (12.45?).
Lynda returns to Morton Grove (13.00?). Sees light go on briefly in upstairs room. Bangs on door but gets no reply. Goes away.
Donald Peck leaves Masterson’s at around 13.00.
Peck returns to Morton Grove. Depending on traffic, back by 13.30? Finds Minnie inside the house.
And that was that, Jess thought, flinching at the knowledge of what had happened next. By the time Peck returned, Minnie would have been in the house for about an hour. What had she been doing for all that time? Still searching for the queen’s treasure, perhaps. Still hoping to become the princess she had never been in real life.
Jess took a sip of wine, pulled one of the trial reports towards her and began to read. Donald Peck had insisted that he’d gone for a long walk after leaving Masterson’s and hadn’t got back to Morton Grove until after five. There was no one to corroborate this fact, and he was vague about where he had been. ‘Just around,’ he’d replied when the barrister had pressed him. ‘I don’t remember where exactly.’ When he had got home, he said, he hadn’t noticed anything amiss. The door to the upstairs spare bedroom had been closed, as it always was. He hadn’t gone inside, and claimed to know nothing about the body that was lying under the bed. When pressed about the smell that had been present in the house when the police had entered two days later, he’d replied, ‘I thought it was the drains.’
The story hadn’t gone down well with the jury. Although the DNA evidence was inconclusive – Peck’s hairs were found on Minnie’s clothes, but they could have come from the carpet she was lying on – they found him guilty of murder and the judge passed down a sentence of life.
Jess chewed on the end of her pen, wondering why Peck hadn’t shifted the body. Surely he’d have wanted to get it out of the house as quickly as possible. Even if he’d believed that no one else knew where Minnie was, it would still have been risky to keep her there. Of course, he didn’t have a car, which would have made things trickier, but he could have removed the body in the dead of night and dumped it in one of the many alleyways that twisted around the back streets of Kellston. So why hadn’t he? It could have been, she supposed, a kind of paralysis, or an inner denial as to what had happened. Or perhaps he’d simply been too scared of being seen.
She scribbled down Ralph Masterson’s name on a fresh sheet of paper. Would he still be alive if he’d been retired fourteen years ago? She’d make a few calls in the morning and see if she could find out. Under his name she added those of Clare Towney, Peck’s niece, and Hannah Bright, Minnie’s mother. It could have been Paige or Kirsten who had sent the anonymous notes to Sam, but somehow she didn’t see it as their style. Paige was more likely to unleash her pet goon of a boyfriend – as she’d done with David Choi – than to waste her time snipping up tabloid newspapers. And why would Paige or Kirsten accuse Sam of being responsible for Minnie’s death? When it came to blame, they were much higher up the list themselves. They were the ones, after all, who’d encouraged the girl to go into the house in the first place.
Jess let out a sigh and then remembered that she hadn’t called Harry yet. She picked up the phone, ran through the menu and pressed his number. He answered on the first ring.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s only me.’
‘Got any news?’
‘Yeah, I talked to Sam Kendall, but it’s like I thought, she didn’t know anything about Lynda going back. But she didn’t dismiss it out of hand. And she reckons that Lynda may have kept quiet about it because she didn’t want to get in any more trouble.’
‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘So we still can’t be sure one way or the other, although I can’t see any reason for Becky to lie about it.’
‘No, me neither. I think it’s true, but we still don’t know what she saw when she did go back. Apart from that light going on and off.’
‘Which must have been Minnie. And we already knew she was still there.’
Jess played with the glass of wine, turning the stem around in her fingers. ‘I’ve been going through the notes on the trial. Don’t you think it’s odd that Peck didn’t try to dispose of the body?’
‘I’m sure he meant to, only the police got there first.’
‘But two days? Why would he wait that long? A child goes missing, there’s going to be a search for her. He’s a known sex offender who likes flashing at kids. He must have realised that the cops were going to come banging on his door before too long.’
‘Well, it’s not that easy to get rid of a body. She may have been small but she wasn’t that small. Perhaps he was still planning how to do it. And don’t forget, he didn’t know about the other girls or that they were going to report what had happened. He probably assumed that Minnie had got into the house on her own. And as he didn’t have any kind of record for actually abducting children, he might have reckoned that he was safe for a few more days.’
Jess pulled a face. ‘Taking a bit of a chance, wasn’t he?’
‘And one that didn’t pay off.’
‘Mm,’ Jess said. ‘Unless he was telling the truth. Maybe he didn’t know she was there.’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Well, it may be unlikely, but there’s something going on here, something that Paige and co. want to keep covered up.’
‘It’s a big leap to go from there to claiming that Donald Peck was innocent.’
‘Maybe. I don’t suppose you know if Ralph Masterson is still around, do you? The retired probation officer? He was the guy that Peck went to visit that day.’
‘I’ve no idea. What do you want to know for?’
‘I just thought it might be interesting to talk to him, to hear his take on things. He must have known Peck pretty well. I was going to try the probation service, but I don’t suppose they’d give me his number even if they did have it.’
‘No, they probably wouldn’t.’
‘So if you have any contacts …’
Harry heaved out a sigh. ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’
Jess knew he wasn’t happy about the direction this investigation was taking, but she couldn’t see what other choice they had. If they were going to discover the truth about the past, then any bit of information, from any
source, could be useful. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’
‘Talk to you tomorrow, then.’
‘Yeah, talk to you then. Good night.’
Jess put the phone down and yawned. She’d been staring at small print for most of the evening and her eyes felt tired and scratchy. Should she call it a night? But she was sure that somewhere in the piles of paper lay a clue that had been missed. Wearily, she pulled the trial reports towards her and started reading again.
23
It was almost three o’clock when Jess was abruptly woken up by a strident, high-pitched beeping sound. For a moment she lay there squinting into the darkness, before finally realising that it was the smoke alarm going off. Groaning, she pulled a pillow over her head, pressing it against her ears. ‘Damn thing,’ she muttered. It was the third time in a month that it had gone off for no apparent reason.
Eventually, knowing that she had to do something before it disturbed everyone else in the block, she threw off the duvet, forced herself out of bed and padded barefoot across the floor. It was only as she was opening the door to the living room that she became aware of the smell, the thick, acrid odour of something burning. What? Her brain, still fuzzy with sleep, couldn’t process the information her senses were giving her. Her fingers fumbled for the light switch, but when she clicked it on, nothing happened.
Jess stood still, peering into the gloom. Everything seemed grey, as if the room was filled with a dense cloud of fog. She tried the switch again – on, off, on, off – but the electrics were clearly dead. Suddenly she heard a splintering noise, a crackling, before a lick of orange appeared by the far wall. It was followed by another, and another, until the licks turned into flames and the heat hit her in the face. It was only then that she fully woke up.