The Comforts of Home

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The Comforts of Home Page 23

by Susan Hill

The sound she heard then was like someone clearing their throat softly. Or coughing. Or …

  She rushed to the back door, pushed it open and slammed it behind her. She leaned on it and locked it and drew the bolt.

  She knew it had nothing to do with the wind, the rain, foxes, badgers, cats … it had been a human sound though she knew she would find it hard to convince anyone else.

  ‘Police, how may I help you?’

  ‘They’re outside again.’

  ‘Can I have your name and address please?’

  It was a busy night, they said, there had been two major road traffic accidents and the weather was starting to cause problems across the region, they would be with her as soon as they could.

  Her tea had gone cold of course. She went into the kitchen. The curtains were drawn, and the back door had frosted glass so she put on the kettle and waited and there were no sounds. No sounds.

  Her hands were stiff, though it was not cold. It was hard to lift the kettle and pour her tea and then to switch off the light. She went back into the sitting room to wait. After a while, she heard the wind getting up at the front of the house. A gust and then silence. A stronger gust. But then nothing. Silence all round, front and back.

  She ought to call again and cancel the request, because when the police turned up, not only would she feel stupid, they might charge her with time-wasting. Or refuse to come out to her again. Perhaps they would fine her. Could they do that?

  The phone ringing made her jump and spill her tea. For a moment she did not answer it, fearing that it would be the police to cross-question her, but then, it might be Brenda, who was always sympathetic.

  There was only silence. She gave the number. Waited. Gave her name.

  A faint sound, like the wind.

  She ended the call quickly.

  It was another forty minutes before they came, two young men this time, fresh-faced, one with a beard, genial, friendly. ‘Now then, Mrs Still, I gather you’ve been hearing things?’

  The same routine, quicker this time, out into the back, torches sweeping round, one trampling the flower bed, the other lighting the fences on either side.

  ‘Anybody out there?’

  ‘Show yourself if you’re out there, come on …’

  ‘Cats, Mrs Still.’

  ‘Or foxes.’

  ‘Could be, could be. No sign but they’re cunning little beggars. Pretty sure it isn’t people though.’

  ‘I heard a sort of cough.’

  ‘A cough.’

  ‘As if someone was clearing their throat.’

  ‘Might that have been a neighbour, out emptying the bin or having a quick smoke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t a sign of anyone now. What’s over the fence, Mrs S?’

  ‘A bit of scrub, a path to the garages. Then the backs of the houses in Albemarle Road.’

  He looked at his colleague and shrugged. ‘Quick over the fences and off?’

  ‘If there was anyone.’

  ‘We’ll drive round Albemarle and take a look, see if there’s any sign. But honestly, Mrs S –’

  ‘It’s Still.’

  ‘I think these noises you thought you heard were animal not human. If I were you I’d go to bed. We’ll make sure everything’s locked up and then just don’t worry. But if you do hear anything again …’

  ‘I know, don’t hesitate to call you again.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Thank you, you’ve been very kind.’

  She did as they had said, went straight to bed, not even making a third lot of tea. She felt limp as a dishcloth, but whatever it was they had said or done had reassured her and she had only been reading her new copy of Good Housekeeping for five minutes before she was too tired to focus and switched off the light. Even the 70mph gusts failed to disturb her.

  Forty-seven

  Moon was off on holiday and it was a busy night for the phones. Russon waited twenty-five minutes. Men turned their backs, changed their position several times, worried that those behind them in the queue would hear, and he worked out that if the next one stood too close, then yes, he could hear, enough anyway. Most of the conversations were domestic and not worth listening in on but he had more important things to say. He had to be careful. Still, he was used to being careful.

  There was a weirdly good mood in the air this Saturday night. It happened, like a bad one spread like poison gas, and everybody got a face full of it and snarled and shoved and then something kicked off. Nothing would now. It was as if they’d all been given a couple of pints with chasers. Not a bad idea.

  ‘There you go, mate.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Dave took too long to answer, given they’d fixed the time. People behind you got restless when you were hanging on without speaking.

  ‘What you messing about at, Dave?’

  ‘Sorry, got tied up.’

  ‘Yeah, right. How’s things?’

  ‘All right. Donna’s got a bad back again but she’s going to –’

  ‘Fuck off. Things.’

  ‘Thought I’d wind you up.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  ‘OK, OK. Listen, I can’t go there again. Well, not for a bit. That’s twice she’s called the cops out.’

  ‘They see you?’

  ‘I’d hopped off, I was watching from the van. They went inside, had a chat, came out and poked about a bit, torches going this way and that. No chance of seeing me. I don’t know what they get paid for.’

  ‘So why aren’t you going back?’

  ‘Just think next time they might be a bit more thorough.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘You’re not the one prowling round her back garden in the dark.’

  ‘Too right. I’m in here.’

  ‘Sorry, Lee, only I just think it’d better be left for a week or two.’

  ‘One week.’

  ‘That’s Donna shouting me, I’d better go.’

  ‘Never mind Donna. You heard me.’

  ‘I heard and I know what you’re going to say next – if I don’t, you’ll cut the money off.’

  ‘Too right.’

  Dave sighed. ‘OK, only I’ve got to be careful.’

  ‘I thought you already were.’

  ‘Got to go. You doing all right, anyway?’

  ‘Great thanks, Dave. I’m great. Talk next week.’

  He went away from the phones wondering how he came to have such a wuss of a brother. Dave was weak. If Lewis had been on it would have been different, but Lewis had taken off a roof and broken his leg. All he’d got was Dave.

  He went into the TV room to see what was on, which was some rubbish film. Both pool tables were in use and there was a queue for them. He kicked the door hard as he came out but all that got him was a sore foot.

  At home, Dave watched the kettle boil and wondered how he could tell his brother he wasn’t going to hang about the back garden of old Mrs Still any more, payment or not. It wasn’t as if Lee gave him fistfuls of notes. It was a stupid game, and one of these nights he would get caught, the cops would be having a slack shift and decide to do a more thorough search about, or else she’d come out and see him and have a heart attack and die on the spot and then what was he supposed to do? Lee said the reason was just to put the wind up her a bit but how was that going to stop her talking to the paper about Kimberley? It wasn’t. When he’d pushed a bit, his brother had said if he went on doing it a few more times it might make her move out, go and live with her sister or something. Why did he want that to happen? He wouldn’t say.

  The kettle clicked off.

  No, he’d made up his mind. He wasn’t doing it again. It was stupid and he got cold and Donna asked where he was off to this time of night. He made the tea.

  He’d write a note, just saying it was off and to forget the money, he didn’t need it – though he did. He never asked where exactly Lee got it either, though it wouldn’t be legit, he’d been into all sorts of do
dgy things since he was twelve years old. He didn’t handle it himself, of course, not now he was inside, someone, Dave didn’t know who, did all that for him. There was probably a mint stashed somewhere. Enough to have paid his brother a lot more for hanging about old ladies’ gardens at night.

  Forty-eight

  ‘Morning, Simon. Come on in. Katie, no calls unless very urgent.’

  People who assumed that the Chief Constable had a massive space, with mahogany furnishings, deep carpet and its own espresso machine, would not have recognised this utilitarian room with a veneered office desk, metal waste bin, standard-issue computer and no coffee equipment. The view was of the station car park and the side road.

  ‘Any news on the arm?’

  ‘Another couple of weeks. Right, I have the Still files all loaded onto here and my notes alongside. I’m afraid there’s quite a lot to be looked into, but it boils down to some slapdash policing, not enough focus on the routine detail, not enough follow-up where it was strongly indicated … and in my opinion, the SIO concentrated too much on one area and ignored the parallel investigations that should have been taking place – at least in his own head if nowhere else.’

  ‘I’ve read the outline but I didn’t have time to go over it closely, so talk me through.’ Kieron leaned back in his black leather chair – the only non-standard–issue item in the room. ‘Katie will bring us some coffee in a minute.’

  ‘Right. Kimberley Still, aged twenty-five. Lived in Mount field Avenue, Lafferton, with her mother, Mrs Marion Still. Father deceased some twelve years earlier, one married brother who was working in Canada at the time of her disappearance and is now in Newcastle. Kimberley had a serious boyfriend who was likely to become a fiancé any day – at least he said so, and Kimberley had talked about it to her friends so there’s no reason to doubt it. He was out of Lafferton for four days over the time she disappeared, on a course in Basingstoke. All verified. Kimberley worked at SK Bearings, had done for three and a half years. Regarded as an excellent worker, keen, never late, rarely ill, not any sort of a time-waster. They thought a lot of her. On Wednesday 3 June, she clocked into work as usual at eight thirty. She mentioned that she wanted to go into town to exchange a pair of shoes she’d got in the wrong size and she also said she hadn’t brought anything in for her lunch so she might get it in town. In the summer she often took a packed lunch and ate it in the Adelaide Road Park, either with a workmate or on her own. She clocked off at a quarter to one – she had an hour and a quarter off. She was the first out that day and her colleague Louise Woods said that she hadn’t actually taken the shoes with her – they were still in her locker when it was searched, in their box and carrier bag, receipt enclosed. So maybe she forgot them but most likely she changed her mind about going into town. It was a fine warm sunny day, perhaps she thought she wouldn’t waste it in shops. But after she left her workplace, alone, nobody there saw her again. She didn’t come back after lunch, or again that day, which was very unlike her and she didn’t ring in or even text anyone she worked with. It was remarked on quickly, and just before they clocked off at five, Lousie took it upon herself to ring Marion Still, to ask if Kimberley had come home because she was ill. She hadn’t and Mrs Still hadn’t heard anything from her since she left that morning. By seven o’clock that evening the alarm was raised. Mrs Still had phoned everyone she could think of but there was really nobody Kimberley would have gone to, or with, except her boyfriend and he was away on his course – Mrs Still apparently knew that already but she checked to make sure. There was no chance that her daughter would have gone anywhere without telling her and especially it seemed totally unlikely to everyone who knew her that she would simply have decided not to return to work after lunch.

  ‘We then get the police visits and when Kimberly had failed to come home or get in touch with anyone at all by the next morning, the inquiry moved up several notches. A team was set up and the case was regarded as a missper. The usual lines of inquiry were followed up … everyone at SK Bearings was interviewed, Mrs Still gave a list of her daughter’s friends that she knew of and who were not work colleagues, leaflets were rushed out and distributed in the town centre, in shops Kimberley was known to visit sometimes, the paper shop where she often bought a magazine and a drink if she was going to have her lunch in the park. The local paper ran the story with a photo of Kimberley the next day. All the usual. It was well covered in the routine sense. But the SIO decided that as there was no sighting of the girl and as it seemed wholly out of character for her to disappear of her own accord, she must have gone with someone, either voluntarily – which idea was dismissed pretty much off the cuff – or under duress. The DCI put out an appeal on television. He was convinced, he said, that the girl was being held somewhere and could well be still alive.’

  The door opened on Katie with a tray of coffee and biscuits. Mugs of freshly brewed, Simon was pleased to notice, and chocolate biscuits.

  Now, a couple of months after Kimberley disappeared, the same thing happened in the Devon and Cornwall police area. Petra Blake, aged twenty-three, from just outside Exeter, went missing on her way home after an evening out with some friends who were celebrating a birthday. It wasn’t very late – Petra left first as she had some things to do at home – her parents were away on holiday and there were two dogs to feed and so on. She was on her own for the week so she wasn’t reported missing until the next day when a neighbour heard the dogs barking and howling non-stop, which apparently they never did. They went into the house with a key they kept and found everything as normal, the dogs starving and no sign at all of Petra – she clearly hadn’t been home the previous night. Usual search, nothing. But her naked body was found bound and gagged, a week later, in a gully on farmland twenty-odd miles away. She’d been strangled … no sexual assault though, which was unusual. Of course the similarities with the Kimberley Still case were flagged up and we liaised with them, they had access to whatever we had. But it was all circumstantial at that point. A month later, Avon and Somerset also had a missing girl, Annabel Perkins, aged twenty-six, a nurse who had gone missing as she walked from her flat to go on early duty at the hospital – not far. She was known to have left at seven twenty-five – her two flatmates vouched for that. One was a nurse, the other a physio, at the same hospital but neither was on early shift like Annabel. Again, going A WOL was regarded as totally out of character. She had split up with a long-term boyfriend a couple of weeks earlier, though quite amicably, so not likely to have arranged to meet him or any other male. But she had occasionally walked in to work with Chris Maynard – the boyfriend – who lived nearby and was a junior doctor. He was interviewed but had an alibi. Annabel’s naked body was found buried in a shallow grave, in dense woodland about five miles from the hospital. Again she’d been tied up and strangled, but no sexual assault. Clearly that case and the one in Exeter had been linked quite quickly. Incidentally, no clothes belonging to either of those girls were ever found, though there was extensive searching in both cases. But Lee Russon was caught on CCTV in the case of the Bristol girl, Annabel Perkins. He drove a dirty white Ford van and one of those was seen by two people around the hospital area the morning Annabel disappeared. He was tracked down and interviewed but it was all too vague at that point. When Annabel’s body was found, however, they got his DNA. It was also found on the body of Petra Blake. There were similarities between both these cases and the first one, our Kimberley, but her body wasn’t found, of course, and still hasn’t been. Dead end. No case to answer, so Russon went down for the two others and we have an open file.’

  ‘But this has to be sexual. Was everyone really satisfied that there had been no sexual assaults on the two bodies they had?’

  ‘Apparently. The pathologist in Exeter was killed in a car crash not long after but the junior and the attendants were still there and all the notes. Seems cast iron. Same with the Bristol girl.’

  They drank their coffee and refilled. Kieron leaned back in his chair, arm
s behind his head, thinking. Simon scrolled down to see what came next, because he had the feeling that so far he had failed to impress the need for the Kimberley case to be reopened.

  ‘The next thing I come to is what seems to me really significant … with such a gap in what should have been full and detailed inquiries – so much so that I went back over it all twice, and then checked that there were no pages of the reports missing – there weren’t.’

  ‘You’re convinced about this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I have no interest in manufacturing a case where there isn’t one, or in wasting our limited resources. There’s an argument that whether he killed Kimberley or not, Lee Russon is doing life anyway and his sentence can’t be added to. This may be just pandering to Mrs Still’s quite understandable feelings, to no great purpose.’

  ‘He could have his sentence added to, at least on paper. And it would prevent any request for parole or early release being heard. I don’t want this to be a vendetta against an earlier investigating team, that’s all.

  ‘Neither do I. I have no personal quarrel with anyone.’

  ‘All right … let’s get to the heart of it.’

  As we know, Kimberley hadn’t made herself a packed lunch on the day she disappeared. There is a record of the owner of the corner shop near the factory being asked if he recognised her photograph and he did – he said she would buy a drink, a paper or a magazine from him, occasionally something more – fruit, some crisps maybe. On this day, he – his name is Chan – was not in the shop at all, he had to take his wife to the hospital for an appointment. A note was made of this, and another, that a return call should be made to check with the two people who were helping out – one in the morning, one from half past one. There is no record of this having been done. The shop closed last year and it’s now a taxicab office.

  ‘However, an officer did go to the park. It’s very popular with mothers and toddlers – there’s a duck pond – with office people in the lunch hour, and with those just using it as a shortcut. There are also a number of older people who meet there or who just go alone on fine days, to sit on the benches. There’s been a recent problem with its use by druggies – evidence of needles and paraphernalia – and with the occasional rough sleeper, but those don’t happen in daylight or hardly, and they haven’t been pursued.

 

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