by Tim Ellis
‘Did I say how grateful I was for the opportunity . . .’
The call had ended.
He picked up the Warrant Card and slipped it into his jacket pocket. ‘Tell me what happened after I left Baguely-Browne offices, Bolton.’
***
‘Hello, Ma’am,’ Xena said, forcing her mouth into a smile and proffering a hand.
They both sat down in the chairs in front of the Chief’s desk.
‘I thought I’d come and see you and thus prevent any more confusion, DI Blake.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but it wasn’t really necessary.’
‘Well, here I am. If I can help you to solve the twenty-four year-old murder of Libby Stone in any way I can, then it’s the least I can do seeing as it was the one case that got away from me.’
The Chief grunted. ‘We’ve all had them, Ma’am.’
The shotgun murders of the men in the walk-in freezer jumped into Xena’s mind. She’d known that Walter and Dorothy Kennedy had murdered them, but she couldn’t prove it. And if she was being honest, she’d been glad. The men had got what they deserved. Not only had those men gang-raped and murdered their daughter – Clarice, but half a dozen other young women as well.
‘So, what progress have you and DS Gilbert made, DI Blake?’ the Chief said.
‘Not much really, Sir. The black rose had traces of the chemical Carbendazim on it, but no records are kept of recent purchases. We’re still narrowing down names of the prisoners who have been released within the last month and also live within a hundred mile radius of Roydon, but it’s slow going. We’ve lost Marion Stone – Libby’s mother. Nine months after Libby was found dead, the Stones separated and Marion left the area. We can’t find any record of her since 1994 . . .’
‘Do you think she’s dead?’ AC Nunn asked.
‘If she is, we can’t find any records of that either, but we’re still looking. We also wanted to re-question the witnesses who were in the playground when Libby was abducted, the two boys who found her body, and the suspects you identified at the time, but we only found one witness and he’s a drug addict. The rest either don’t live in the area anymore, have died or are in prison. As I mentioned to AC Nunn yesterday afternoon before we were so rudely cut off . . .’
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that. I looked at my phone and there was no signal. As far as I’m aware it coincided with a localised electrical storm in that part of London. When I eventually did have a signal I was running on borrowed time with meetings, interviews, briefings and so forth. . . That’s the main reason I came here today. I didn’t want you to get the idea that I was avoiding your questions.’
‘It never crossed my mind, Ma’am.’
‘I’m glad. Anyway, what did you want to know, DI Blake?’
‘I’m curious why you dismissed the River Stort as a serious lead in 1992, and why there’s no mention of narrow boats or barges in your case notes?’
‘You’re misinformed, DI Blake. My team and I didn’t dismiss the river as a lead completely out-of-hand. We considered it in the context of all the other leads we had at the time, but in the end we felt that it would swallow up too many of our limited resources and concluded that if the killer had used the river to come and go to the scene of the crime then we were unlikely to have found him. With twenty-twenty hindsight, maybe we could have gone back and re-visited that decision, but we didn’t. You have to remember that although computer technology had been introduced into the police force by 1992, it was still in its infancy. We relied on legwork and the careful management of the resources at our disposal.’
Xena said, ‘I understand, Ma’am.’ But she thought that the AC was lying through her teeth. It had taken the bitch all night to come up with that story, and Xena wouldn’t have bought it at a flea market.
‘Is there anything else, DI Blake?’ the Chief pushed.
‘Well, we are looking into who owns a boat on the river, Sir. The government run an online boat registration scheme, so we’ll see what that turns up. Also, we’re comparing the Roydon electoral registers between 1992 and 2016, but as we’ve found that’s fraught with difficulties. And that’s about it, Sir. As I said, we’ve got more questions than answers at the moment.’
‘You haven’t got any answers yet, Blake.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Okay. Well, keep me informed, and I’ll let the AC know how things are progressing. Good work so far, Blake.’
‘Very generous, Sir. Considering I haven’t found any answers yet.’
‘Quite.’
‘Nice to have met you, DI Blake,’ AC Nunn said, and they shook hands.
She slipped out of the Chief’s office, shut the door and walked back along the corridor to the squad room.
‘The fucking bitch was there, Stick.’
‘Do I know who you’re talking about?’
‘AC Nunn.’
‘Did she . . .’
‘Oh yes! The bitch lied through her teeth. All she came up here for was to find out what we knew.’
‘We don’t know anything.’
‘I didn’t tell her or the Chief about Roland Beagrie living on a houseboat near Harlow Town railway station either.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Why the fuck should I? Have you figured out how to hack into her records yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What have you been doing while I’ve been working my fingers to the bone?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Sometimes I wonder why I bother keeping you on as my partner – you’re neither use nor ornament. Well, we may as well go and see Roland Beagrie while you’re doing nothing.’
‘Good idea.’
‘I’m glad you approve.’
Chapter Thirteen
The semi-detached two-bedroom house at 55 Glebe Road, Chipping Ongar had been rendered in a primrose yellow; and the uPVC windows, front door and garage door were all in matching light brown.
Parish parked behind a rusty red Renault Clio.
The forensics van hadn’t arrived yet.
‘What about forensic suits?’
‘This isn’t a crime scene, Richards.’
‘We don’t know that for sure.’
‘Yes, we do. The woman – Misha Brite – said that Hayley Kingdom left to stay with family on Friday after work. Well, we know that the time of death was Sunday night. Also, don’t you think that Miss Brite would have heard her housemate being tortured and noticed the lashings of blood, skin and muscle littered all over the house?’
‘Not if she did it?’
‘You should learn to recognise when you’ve dug your hole too deep, and then to put your spade to one side and stop digging. Knock on the door.’
Before she could, the door opened. A woman with long frizzy hair tied back into a ponytail, wearing a dark-blue sleeveless t-shirt with white doves printed on it, yellow cotton shorts and lion slippers was standing there.
They both proffered Warrant Cards.
‘Police,’ Richards said. ‘Are you Misha Brite?’
‘Yes. Come in. And wipe your feet on the mat, please.’
She led the way along a short hallway and into a small dining room at the back of the house that looked out through full-length sliding doors onto a moss-covered patio and a small water-logged garden surrounded by concrete posts and wooden panels. A woodpigeon was sitting in the birdbath preening itself and splashing water everywhere.
‘Please – sit down,’ Miss Brite said, indicating an oval wooden dining table surrounded by six hard chairs. ‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘No, we’re fine,’ Parish said. ‘Do you have a recent photograph of Hayley? We need to make sure there’s no possibility of mistaken identity.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She disappeared into the kitchen, came back with a passport-sized photograph and gave it to Richards. ‘A Romanian carnival came through here last month and we both spent the day there. That was one of the photos we had tak
en.’
‘Sit down and tell us about Hayley Kingdom, Miss Brite.’
Misha sat down at the end of the table and said, ‘Hayley was really beautiful. She was only twenty-six, you know . . . ?’
Richards wrote what Misha was saying down in her notebook.
‘And if I’m being truthful . . . I had a bit of a crush on her myself. Of course, I never said anything – I didn’t want to spoil our house-share relationship, because this is a nice place to live. Brentwood train station is only fifteen minutes away, there’s plenty of parking there, and it only takes half an hour on the train to reach London. I was really lucky finding this place.’
‘What work did Hayley do?’ Parish prompted.
‘She was an Assistant Marketing Manager for Zebra Events in Canary Wharf.’
‘Do you know what that entailed?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Did she work from an office?’
‘She certainly had an office, but I think she also went out to see clients as well.’
‘Okay. We’ll go and speak to them. Tell us what happened on Friday night?’
‘Well, nothing happened. She told me last Thursday that she was going away for a week to stay with family . . .’
‘Did she say which family members she was staying with?’
‘No. Hayley wasn’t much of a talker or a sharer. She knew everything about me, because I could win awards for talking and sharing, but I knew hardly anything about Hayley – she kept herself to herself.’
‘Do you know what family she had?’
‘I think her parents are still alive, but up until Friday – as far as I can remember – she’d never mentioned or went to visit any of her family while she’s been living here.’
‘How long have you shared a house together?’
‘Well, before Hayley, there was another woman – Patty . . . She talked more than me. Anyway, Patty shared with me for a year and then left to live with her boyfriend. I advertised for a replacement and Hayley came seven months ago.’
‘And what was Hayley like as a person?’
‘Mmmm! As I said, she kept herself to herself. Oh, sometimes we’d have a girly night in. You know – get a takeaway, a DVD and chill, but we hadn’t done that in a while. The last couple of months she spent most of her time in her bedroom.’
‘Doing what?’
‘She seemed to be on her computer a lot . . . I know that because I’d knock and stick my head round the door to see if she wanted something, or fancied doing this or that. She never did, but every time she was sitting on her bed tapping away on her computer.’
‘Do you know what she was doing?’
‘No. I mean, even when I purposefully left a gap in the conversation she wouldn’t fill it by telling me what she was doing, and I also accidentally happen to know that her computer is password-protected.’
‘You tried to get into it?’
‘I’m not a snooper. It’s just something that I happen to know, that’s all.’
‘Of course.’
There was a heavy knock on the front door.
‘Excuse me.’ Misha hurried out.
They heard talking.
Then Misha returned. ‘There’s a man at the door for you. He said his name is Peckham from Forensics.’
Parish nodded and stood up. ‘I won’t be a minute. Which bedroom was Hayley’s?’
‘Top of the stairs on the right.’
He wandered down the hallway and shook hands with Peckham. ‘We haven’t met before,’ he said. ‘I’m DI Jed Parish.’
‘Nice to meet you, Sir.’
‘Likewise. This isn’t a crime scene, Peckham. The murdered woman found behind the Meadway estate yesterday we now know was called Hayley Kingdom and shared this house with another woman. The victim’s bedroom is at the top of the stairs on the right. I want one of your people to try and access her computer while it’s in-situ. Apparently, it’s password-protected, so you might discover the password . . .’
‘I get the idea, Sir.’
‘Good. We’re also interested in anything that might provide us with a more comprehensive picture of who Hayley Kingdom was such as a journal, diary, address book, telephone and bank records, and so forth . . .’
‘Understood, Sir.’
‘What we know so far is that she worked for Zebra Events in Canary Wharf as an Assistant Marketing Manager and that she told her housemate she was going away for a week to stay with family . . . I need to know who those family were . . .’
‘Leave it with me, Sir. It’s not the first time I’ve done this.’
‘Of course. I’m being overly cautious because I don’t know you Peckham.’
‘I usually work for DI Blake and DS Gilbert. I’ve had no complaints so far.’
‘You’ve had no complaints from DI Blake – I find that hard to believe?’
‘She’s certainly challenging to work for.’
‘Challenging!’ He pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s a good word to describe DI Blake. Anyway, we’re ninety-nine percent certain that the woman who lived here is our victim, but let’s err on the side of caution and collect some DNA and fingerprints for comparative purposes.’
‘Yes, Sir. Anything else?’
‘I don’t think so. DC Richards and I are questioning the victim’s housemate at the moment. We shouldn’t be long. When we’ve finished we’ll come up to the bedroom to find out if you’ve made any progress.’
‘Of course, Sir.’
He returned to the dining room.
Coffees had appeared.
Richards pushed a mug in front of him.
He took a sip. ‘Sorry about that. Where were we?’
‘You were asking me about Hayley.’
‘That’s right. How was she getting along at work?’
‘No problems as far as I knew, but as I said: She very rarely shared. If there had been problems I wouldn’t necessarily know about them. Although . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘. . . In the past month I got the feeling that she was more agitated than usual.’
‘Agitated! In what way?’
‘She used to get irritated by the smallest thing, and she’d fly off the handle for no reason. I dropped a cup on the kitchen floor about ten days ago. She came out of her bedroom and started yelling and screaming as if the world had come to an end. Also, even when she was just sitting quiet eating toast or staring out into the back garden, she used to wring her hands as if something was really bothering her. Of course, that’s when she could sit still. Sometimes, I’d hear her pacing in her bedroom and along the landing and hallway. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help, but she simply ignored me.’
‘You think she might have been depressed?’
‘I’m not any kind of expert on depression. I never get depressed, but I know there are plenty of people who do – even beautiful people like Hayley. Although with her looks and that body I can’t imagine why she’d be depressed. They say it takes all types though, don’t they?’
‘Yes, they do. Was she seeing anyone?’
‘No, which was strange, because I considered her hot totty. I’d bring a man home now and again, but she never brought anyone home.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe she was gay, but I just wasn’t her type. Who knows?’
‘Would you know what she was wearing on Friday?’
Misha shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘What about the clothes she took with her?’
‘When I saw Hayley’s picture in the paper I went and looked in her bedroom . . . Don’t ask me why. I wasn’t snooping – as I said, I’m not a snooper, but I just needed to reassure myself that it really was Hayley and that she really had gone away. I looked in her wardrobe, chest of drawers and her dressing table . . . I remember thinking that she hadn’t taken much with her for a week, that maybe she’d bought new clothes, or she’d found herself a sugar daddy . . . There was one thing though – I don’t know if she’d bought herself anot
her case or bag, but the only case she had is still on top of the wardrobe, so she couldn’t have taken much with her for a week.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell us that might help?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Parish passed her a business card. ‘If you do think of anything, please call me.’
‘You want to go out sometime?’
‘I’m flattered, but married with children unfortunately.’
‘The good ones always are.’
They left the dining room and headed up the stairs.
‘Unfortunately!’ Richards said.
‘I was being kind.’
‘Or keeping your options open?’
‘It never hurts to have other options.’
‘I bet mum doesn’t know you have other options.’
‘Your mother has options of her own.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘If I was to meet an untimely demise, your mother would probably hook up with that personal trainer at the gym.’
‘No, she wouldn’t.’
‘I’ve seen how she stretches her neck and tucks her tummy in when he walks by.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense. She loves you.’
‘Woman is always fickle – foolish is he who trusts her.’
‘Oscar Wilde?’
‘Francis the first.’
They squeezed into the bedroom.
‘Any luck, Peckham?’ he asked.
‘We accessed the computer easily enough Sir, but it’s been wiped. We’ll need to take it back to the laboratory and try to restore the deleted files.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Strangely enough – no.’ He pointed to a silver and grey container. ‘It’s a shredder and it’s full. If you were asking for my opinion, I’d say she destroyed any trace of herself and then left. We’ll take the shredder back to the lab and see if we can’t put the pieces of paper back together again. Thankfully, it’s a cheap shredder that cuts the paper into forty or fifty strips, and it won’t take too long to restore them to a legible condition.’
‘The sooner the better, Peckham.’