by Mel Sherratt
‘You went to boarding school?’
‘Yes, and I hated every minute of it.’ She sighed loudly. ‘I really hope we’re successful with the pitch. It will be so much fun working with him – and you.’
Esther smiled through gritted teeth as Tamara put an arm through hers. She didn’t like anyone invading her space. It was bad enough having to shake Jack’s hand for the first time. She’d wanted to throw up on the spot.
And she didn’t do touchy-feely either. Tamara seemed to be really big on it, alas, so she would have to learn to accept it.
Especially if she was to fool her into thinking they were going to become good friends as well as work colleagues.
Think of the plan, Esther. Think of the plan.
CHAPTER SIX
Saturday, 17 June
Esther waited until it was dusk before setting off on her journey. It wouldn’t do to go too early; it would spoil everything and she wouldn’t be allowed to have as much fun.
The change in the weather that evening had worked in her favour, the promised storms finally breaking after another hot day, sending people scuttling indoors. The night air was still warm, but the darker clouds meant she couldn’t be seen as easily.
The tube clattered along and she scratched her leg absent-mindedly, the plaster on her cut not offering enough protection. She’d have to be careful or it would get infected again and she’d need another prescription. But the urge to take her razor blade and slice at the already open wound was enough to get her out of the house that evening.
She had so many scars on the top of her thigh now. A criss-cross of anger and pain and disgust. Some she would leave to heal over; others she would pick at, slice at until they were open again. It was more painful to go over old wounds, but it energised her, made everything calm again. It meant she wouldn’t have to go out in search of amphetamines.
Out on the street, twenty minutes later, all was quiet. Puddles glistened under the street lamps and she almost tiptoed to avoid them. The houses on this side were large and set back in vast gardens. Some had closed gates, some open driveways. The road itself was lined with every make of expensive car you could think of.
She stopped in front of her destination. There was a light on in the large bay window downstairs. So far, the curtains had always been open, allowing her to see right in. She walked past the driveway for a few metres. Well hidden now that it was dark, she still checked in either direction to see if the coast was clear before shimmying up and over the wall.
She dropped on to the lawn on the other side with a small thud. Her hands stopped her fall and she stood up slowly, even though she knew they couldn’t hear her from there. Security lights didn’t reach her hiding place.
On one occasion, she had crept in and damaged his car. But the lights had illuminated her and she hadn’t been comfortable with that. She could bet there were cameras around the property too, so after that she had been warier of being seen.
She stepped forward three steps and hid in her usual place behind an oak tree. She’d been here so many times now that it was so familiar. Whenever she felt the need, she would come and rid herself of her anger by watching.
Sometimes it worked and she could fight her resentment without having to inflict pain on herself. Other times, it inflated her emotions and made things worse once she was back at her flat. But either way, it was a risk she had to take. There was something about being here that made things right.
Watching him, when he didn’t know she was there.
The man who had made her life a living hell.
The man she would take great pleasure in bringing down.
She could see straight into their sitting room. They were both at home. She was sitting on a settee. There was a paperback in her hands; her head was down, engrossed in its pages.
He was slumped in an armchair, his head leaning to one side as he dozed. He faced right out on to the garden and yet he had never seen her.
Sometimes she stayed there minutes and it was enough. Other times, she would be there for an hour, even when it was clear they had gone to bed and she wouldn’t see them.
Watching was all she needed.
It never failed to amaze her how peaceful their lives were. How they got on with ordinary things while she suffered in silence. He had no idea of the train wreck he had made of her life that day. That day when she was fifteen, helpless to resist him, powerless to stop him.
Fury boiled inside her and she banged a fist into her thigh. The wound under the plaster began to tingle. If it started to bleed, she would get out her blade. If it stayed intact, it would be deadened for a while.
Like her. She’d been dead inside since that day.
Soon this would all be over. She would feel no hatred towards him, only contempt. Satisfied she was in control now. Angry no more.
But for now, she was content to sit and watch. Bide her time, pick the right moment. She wanted to take him by surprise.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Saturday, 25 February
Carley Evans was eating supper when the phone rang. Her husband, Owen, stretched across the sofa for it but she got to it first.
‘Please don’t answer that,’ he said.
She knew he was joking but equally he would be annoyed if she had to go in.
‘DC Evans.’ Listening to the caller, she felt herself roll towards Owen as he moved further along the settee towards her. He began to nibble at her ear.
She squirmed, trying to slap him away playfully but he continued. She stood up, stepping away before his hand slipped underneath her top.
Carley heard an exaggerated sigh over the voice of the caller.
‘I’m on my way.’ Her expression was serious as she disconnected the call. ‘There’s been a shooting in Shoreditch.’
Owen shrugged and reached over to her plate, grabbing for the last piece of naan bread.
‘Hey!’ She raised her eyebrows in protest.
‘Well, you won’t be here to eat it, will you?’
‘I’ll make it up to you when I get home.’
‘Not in the early hours, you won’t.’
‘You mean you don’t want to be woken for sleepy sex?’
‘Not after you’ve had your hands all over a corpse!’
She stepped towards him, leaned over and kissed him on the lips. ‘You taste of rogan josh.’ She smiled before grabbing her jacket and then her car keys.
Driving across the city on a Saturday evening was always a time loser. The streets of London had never been paved in gold but they never failed to draw Carley in either. The noise, its busyness, so many people and the bright lights – even the traffic. She had lived in Clapham all her life, and had joined the Met, eight years ago now, straight from university. There was something about policing a city you knew so many parts of like the back of your hand, while other parts you had never visited. So many communities, nationalities, neighbourhoods around every corner. So many crimes, no matter which area she worked.
Carley drove on to the Manston Estate and along the main road. Silverstone Avenue was the third on the right according to her satnav instructions, then it was first left. She turned into Barnham Road, and was greeted by lights from several emergency vehicles and flashes from fluorescent jackets. One uniformed officer had cordoned off the scene; another was moving the public back.
Carley parked her car as near as she could to the scene, looking round as she locked it, cackles of laughter from behind adding to the chaos. A group of women walked along the bottom of the street, their heels clattering on the tarmac.
‘Ooh, what’s happening here?’ one of them said, stopping in her tracks. Carley felt relieved when a woman seized hold of her arm and shouted, ‘Never you mind, Ms Bride-To-Be. We’re going to the next pub. I need another drink.’
Several onlookers stood with their phones high in the air, filming the police’s every move. Carley hated social media for that. Everyone was so nosy nowadays. They wouldn’t be able to see anything
for several hours until all forensics had been carried out. She hoped their batteries were flat by the time it came to removing the body.
Carley surveyed the area quickly. It wasn’t a place she’d like to live. Even without another murder to add to their statistics, there seemed a desperation about it. Boarded-up properties shared the street with houses in disrepair. Bags of rubbish were piled high outside a takeaway; one had been ripped open, its contents spewing out on to the pavement. Graffiti scrawled across several windows made everyone aware whose territory they were in. Yet again she wondered if her car would be safe.
DI Max Stanway was already at the scene and came walking towards her. Max had been Carley’s line manager in the Murder Investigation Team for five years now, and she had a great deal of respect for him. His positive attitude got his team through many a bleak day; he was known at the station as Twilight, a nickname because of his likeness to the actor Robert Pattinson. He had the same floppy hair, strong chin and nose. But he wasn’t sinful in any way, his placid nature getting him out of many scrapes. Carley had learned so much from him over the years they had worked together. She was pleased he would always have her back.
She showed her warrant card to the first officer and signed the clipboard to show herself present at the scene.
‘Sir.’ She nodded as Max finally drew level with her.
‘Well, well, well!’ he exclaimed, looking her up and down. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but a suit.’
‘Sorry. I thought it best to get here as quickly as I could.’
Carley was dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket, a white T-shirt underneath, and red Converse boots. Her feathered blonde hair, which was usually tied back in a ponytail, hung loose to her shoulders, a thick fringe framing brown eyes.
‘I’m joking. Nice to see you relaxed for a change.’ Max pointed back into the alley. ‘Our victim is male. Gunshot wound to the chest. Beaten about a bit too.’ He paused slightly. ‘It’s someone we know.’
‘Oh?’ He’d had her full attention at gunshot wound, but now they knew him, her senses heightened.
‘It’s Jamie Kerrigan.’
Carley raised her eyebrows. The amount of times both she and Max had arrested Kerrigan must have stood in double figures. Kerrigan was into money lending, drugs, thieving – you name it, and they were sure to have charged him for it. He had been in and out of juvenile detention, and later prison, since he had been fifteen.
‘He’s just been released after that two-year stretch for burglary, hasn’t he?’ Max said.
Carley nodded. She’d been working on a complaint that Kerrigan had viciously assaulted his girlfriend again, so she knew his recent movements. ‘He came out six weeks ago, and went to ground. His parole officer says he hasn’t been back to his bail hostel for two weeks so there’s a warrant out for his arrest.’
‘Well, we won’t be needing that!’
They dressed in forensic over-suits and shoe covers before stepping into the alley. Floodlights lit up the area like a fairground attraction, a tent erected to shield the body. A team of CSI’s was already on the scene, two uniformed officers carrying out house-to-house enquiries.
Inside the tent, Terry Simpson, the head CSI, was kneeling over the torso.
‘Carley! How’re things?’
‘It’s Saturday evening and I was halfway through my curry and on a promise afterwards.’ She rolled her eyes but her tone was cheery. Of course, no one wanted to be present at a murder scene any time of the day or night, but either early mornings or weekends were the worst.
‘Ah, how is married life treating you?’ Terry smiled too. ‘Being in my twenty-fifth year, I can’t quite recall the flushes of young love.’
‘It’s good, thanks.’ Carley was relieved when he added nothing else. Having only been married for six months, the first thing everyone wanted to know now was when they were planning a family, but not everyone wanted to conform to tradition. She was twenty-nine, and Owen thirty-one, giving them ample time to have children.
She looked down at the body. Max was right. Even without ID and bruising, she could tell it was Jamie Kerrigan. The tattoo of an eagle in flight was partially showing on his neck, a scar still visible through the swelling of his left cheek where he had been glassed in prison a few years ago.
He was fully clothed, lying on his side. Carley surmised he had dropped to his knees when shot and fallen to his right, an open denim jacket offering no protection at all. Blood was visible over his hands. She would hazard a guess it was his own as he had tried to quell the bleeding.
She stooped down to Terry’s level.
‘He’s taken quite a beating to the torso,’ Terry pointed out, ‘and a couple of punches to the face before he was shot in the stomach. I can’t be confident until the post-mortem is completed but it does seem to be that wound which is the most likely cause of death.’
‘Anything found on him?’
Terry nodded and pointed to a table. Carley saw a wallet inside a plastic evidence bag. She went over to investigate.
‘There’s still a few notes inside it,’ she said, rifling through it. ‘A driving licence: DOB 15 January 1983. His phone is here too.’
‘It’s obviously not an opportunistic attack, although the gunshot might have been unintentional,’ Max said.
‘Do you think it’s revenge for something?’ She looked at the body again before standing up.
‘Always possible with Kerrigan.’ They walked slowly out of the alley, removed their protective wear and popped them into a bag. Carley stood waiting for instructions from Max while he made a call to the control room.
‘I know it’s late but we have a few officers going door knocking,’ he said once he was finished. ‘Can you supervise that and then we’ll get going again in the morning? Timeline can be established after the post-mortem, but see if there are any cameras in the vicinity that can catch inside the alley, and get on to the council first thing for CCTV footage of the street. It’s a hotspot area so there might be a way of tracking them.’
‘Unless they went along the back.’ Carley pointed to the row of railings at the far end.
Max squinted, seeing the shadows of several large trees and a privet hedge. ‘Yes, they could easily have disappeared that way. We need to do a search for the weapon too.’
‘I’m on it.’
Before moving, Carley studied the crowd that had grown in size since she had first arrived. It was a mixture of young and old, male and female. One woman even had a toddler clinging to her waist. They looked to be normal people, nosy, inquisitive, perhaps concerned it had happened close to their home.
She stared at every one of them for a while, trying to remember tiny details, distinguishable things. It was always possible that one of them could be their killer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Monday, 19 June
Tamara tried to put the pitch from her mind that weekend. Saturday morning had been spent catching up on administrative tasks as so much time had been spent on the Dulston Publishing work. She’d then joined her parents for lunch at The Ivy, and had managed not to clash with her mother too much.
Elizabeth Parker-Brown had been praising Tamara’s sister, who was helping with the latest charity gala dinner she was organising. It always stung Tamara to see her face light up when she mentioned her youngest daughter, and her children, and her home and anything else she saw fit to throw at her to make her feel inadequate. On more than one occasion, she had felt her mind wandering.
On Sunday, she’d cleaned out the spare room, hopefully in readiness for preparation for the launch of Something’s Got to Give but then sat down on the floor in a heap, after convincing herself she had failed miserably to make a good impression.
She thought back to Esther stepping in for her. She had done a tremendous job, surprising her with her ability. The analogy about Royal Week at Ascot had been brilliant and quite unique, yet it all seemed too well rehearsed.
Or maybe th
at was because she had made such a mess of things.
Whatever it was, Tamara chose to move her embarrassment to one side and be grateful. And she was pleased. At least she could hold her head up high this time, whether they won the pitch or not.
So, when the phone call came, she was prepared for both responses, even though she knew she would be disappointed if they hadn’t got the job.
It was a few minutes before 9.00 a.m., and Esther had yet to arrive when Tamara saw Jack’s name come up on her phone. For a moment she didn’t dare answer it.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she scolded herself. ‘Like Esther said, “you’ve got this”.’
‘Morning, Jack,’ she sing-songed to him. ‘Lovely day again. Did you have a jolly weekend?’
‘I did, thanks. Nothing better than spending time relaxing with my family after a hard week. How about you?’
‘Oh, you know. Busy, busy.’ Tamara crossed her fingers and held her breath as she waited to hear the news.
‘Right, then. I won’t leave you in suspense. I was extremely impressed with your pitch last week. More to the point, so too were my team.’
‘That’s great to hear.’ Tamara held her breath, waiting for the ‘but’.
‘Of course, the final choice wasn’t really down to me. We needed to ensure Simone and Arabella were on board too. We’ve had some pretty impressive pitches.’
‘Ah.’ Tears pricked her eyes. Her one chance to prove herself and she had blown it again.
‘I’d be delighted to offer your company the job.’
Tamara frowned. Did he say …?
‘Hurrah! That’s marvellous news!’ The tension in her body melted away and she knew she would be wearing a smile for a good few days to come. She couldn’t wait to tell her parents! Let her mother try and put her down now.
‘Like I mentioned,’ Jack continued, ‘everyone was really impressed with the ideas to go small and personal to get a much larger reach out of a curiosity impulse buy. Simone and Arabella can’t wait to hear more of what you have planned. Personally speaking, I can’t wait to talk things through with you more too.’