Love Me Not: DI Helen Grace 7 (formerly titled Follow My Leader) (Detective Inspector Helen Grace)
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The work for the broadsheets had dried up first, then shortly afterwards the tabloids had tired of her too. When she had the inside track on Helen Grace’s life in prison, everyone wanted to speak to her, greedily printing the articles that eviscerated Grace’s good name. When it transpired that the wronged officer was entirely innocent, then people couldn’t drop Emilia fast enough.
She had stuck it out in the capital for as long as funds allowed, but as her numerous siblings still lived in Southampton and relied on her financially, she’d been forced to return home to beg her former editor for her old job back.
‘How you getting on with that article?’
Emilia turned to find her boss standing in his office doorway, staring at her.
‘Not long now,’ Emilia replied, privately cursing his black heart.
He hadn’t given her her old job back of course, as the post had already been filled. But he’d found something else for her – a glorified trainee’s job – so he could gloat at her fall from grace. Her successor got all the juicy crime stories, while she had to content herself with articles on Neighbourhood Watch schemes or home security demos. The copy in front of her was about a recent spate of graffiti in Southampton – not something to set the reader’s – or Emilia’s – pulse racing.
Tapping his watch theatrically, her editor retreated to his office. He knew she was struggling with her article and just wanted to let her know that he knew. She waited until he had shut the door, then put her earphones back in. This was not just to discourage her colleagues from conversation; it was her way of amusing herself. She had recently located the frequency of the local police radio and passed the time listening to it, as she tried to conjure up the words to finish her tedious articles. It didn’t help her much, as she wasn’t supposed to follow up any of the juicy leads it threw up, but it did allow her to flummox her successor by casually making reference to breaking stories that he knew nothing about.
The radio traffic was quiet again this morning. Southampton seemed to have been in a news coma of late and Emilia was just debating whether to make herself a third cup of coffee, when she heard something which stopped her in her tracks.
‘All units to proceed to Barton Lane. Fatal shooting. Unknown perpetrator still at large …’
Emilia didn’t bother to turn the radio off – she simply threw down her earphones and ran.
6
07.44
‘She’s married.’
DS Charlie Brooks stared at the brutalized corpse. She had raced across town to join Helen and had swiftly set about sealing the scene. Important evidence could be lost through casual police work and Charlie had picked her way carefully over to the body, her eyes immediately fixing on the thick gold band that clung to her fourth finger.
‘Her name’s Sonia Smalling.’
Helen now joined her, handing Charlie a transparent evidence bag. Inside were a purse, a phone and a lanyard with the victim’s work ID attached.
‘She’s a married mum of two, works for the local probation service out of Totton.’
An image of her own child – wilful toddler Jessica – immediately sprang into her mind, but Charlie pushed it away. She had been deeply shaken by the sight of the poor woman’s body but had to focus on the job in hand.
‘How did she get out here?’
‘According to the DVLA, she owns a black Audi A3. There’s no sign of it now and I nearly collided with one racing away from the scene. I’ve alerted the incident room, we’ll see what they come up with.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Ashurst.’
‘So this would be on her way to work,’ Charlie replied, doing the navigational maths.
‘Presumably.’
‘So what the hell happened?’
Helen turned and walked away, gesturing for Charlie to accompany her. Charlie stared at the corpse a moment longer, then followed. Helen pointed to a team of forensics officers who were crowded round a motorbike, concealed in foliage a few yards from the road.
‘It was stolen from Southampton city centre last night and seems to have sustained some damage.’
‘So what are you thinking? An accident? Some kind of altercation?’
‘Maybe …’ Helen responded, though she sounded unconvinced.
‘A robbery, then?’
‘If so, it was a pretty amateur job. They left her cash, phone, credit cards …’
‘A carjacking?’
The two women looked at each other. It was the most likely explanation, but these were unheard of in Southampton.
‘Perhaps it was a personal attack,’ Charlie continued. ‘If she works for the probation service …’
‘It’s a possibility, but she works with shoplifters and truants, not armed killers.’
Charlie turned away from Helen to look back at the body, as if Sonia Smalling herself could provide the answers, but it was hidden from view now by the hastily erected tent. The reasons for this savage murder were equally well obscured – such a brutal killing on a quiet country road defied logic and practice. It also raised some unsettling questions for Charlie and the rest of the team.
Where had the killer got hold of the gun? What was his motive? And, most importantly, where was he now?
7
07.59
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, as he waited for the lights to change. They had made good progress into Southampton, but were hitting morning rush hour and were now stuck in a queue of office workers and yummy mummies at the Charlotte Place roundabout. He was wearing gloves and enjoyed the feeling of leather on leather, as he tapped his fingers on the hand-stitched steering wheel, but still he was keen to be away. He had never been known for his patience.
‘Look at those freaks.’
A huge, silver SUV had pulled up alongside them. A Slavic-looking woman, barely out of her teens, was at the wheel. Behind her sat her charges – two young boys watching TV screens, headphones firmly on.
‘Fucking zombies …’
As if sensing his disapproval, one of the boys turned, looking directly at the man. He stared back and the boy swiftly looked away, alarmed by his hostile expression. Chuckling, he turned his attention to the others in the queue. Men in suits, women in suits, stressed mums, nannies who didn’t give a shit – all stuck in their daily grind, totally oblivious to those around them. What would they think if they could see what he could see? A pair of shotguns lying in the foot well, expertly sawn off, primed and ready for action? Would they scream? Would they run? Or would they ask for a selfie?
‘Muppets …’ his companion agreed, as she rifled through the car’s glove compartment, ferreting out a half-eaten pack of Polos and a battered A–Z. Lowering the window, she tossed them out on to the road, to the evident disapproval of the pensioner in the neighbouring car.
The man turned away from her and his attention was now caught by something at the side of the road. A traffic camera was fixed to a nearby lamppost, casting its eye over this busy stretch of road. It seemed to be pointing right at him, as if it alone realized who was waiting patiently in the queue. The man stared at it intently, wondering what it could see. Could it make him out? Could it see her? How good were these cameras?
He wasn’t one of those people who craved the spotlight. He knew a lot of folk did, girls especially, but that had never been his bag. In the past, he’d only been on people’s radar when something had gone wrong, when he was up for something. But now, for the first time, he welcomed the attention.
Leaning forward into view, he glanced at the camera, then slowly raised his arm, before extending his middle finger so it was pointing directly at the lens. He had lived in the shadows for so long, ignored by a callous, blinkered world, but all that was about to change.
Soon everybody would know his name.
8
08.01
‘Have we got anything yet?’
DS Sanderson’s voice rang out across the incident room, prompting DC Edwards to
look up from his terminal.
‘Nothing yet,’ he answered dolefully.
‘Uniform seen anything?’
‘Loads of Audi spots, but none of our vehicle so far. Are we certain our perpetrator has headed into the city? He hasn’t dumped the car and run?’
‘That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me,’ Sanderson returned, moving away towards Helen’s office.
The call from Helen had come through just after 7.20 a.m. Sanderson was still in her flat, but had made it to Southampton Central in record time. Helen was already at the crime scene and Charlie had headed straight there, leaving Sanderson as the most senior MIT officer in the building. Accordingly, she had hurried up to the Major Incident Team’s offices on the seventh floor and set about establishing an incident room – standard procedure for a crime of this magnitude.
Edwards was already in, as was McAndrew, and more officers were turning up every minute. Everyone could sense that this was going to be a big number – if for no other reason than that the shooter was still at large. Forensics, witness statements and local CCTV would fall to Helen and the other officers at the scene. Sanderson’s job was to track the fugitive, which in the short term meant finding the missing Audi.
She had immediately initiated an Automatic Number Plate Recognition Search. As soon as a traffic camera got a good look at the Audi plates, it would ping up on their system. The system was not foolproof, as there was a slight delay, and if the vehicle was moving fast it was hard to pinpoint its exact location, but it would tell them roughly where it was and what direction it was heading in. Officers on the ground could then be deployed, along with the chopper and Armed Response Units, to bring their fugitive in.
That was the theory at least. But so far they had had no sightings or flags. Sanderson had questioned whether they should put out a general alert, but Helen had slapped that idea down, insisting she didn’t want members of the public getting involved, when the threat level was so high. It was a fair point of course, but the vigour with which it had been made had unsettled Sanderson.
The truth was that things hadn’t been right between her and Helen since the latter’s release from prison. Sanderson had played a key role in helping Charlie bring Helen’s nephew to book, thus ensuring her release, but this couldn’t disguise the fact that prior to this she had believed her boss capable of cold-blooded murder. During their investigation into the S&M murders, suspicion had fallen on Helen and Sanderson had run with it, failing to realize that her boss was being framed. Unwittingly, she had helped condemn an innocent woman to three months of hell in Holloway Prison. She had pursued the case honestly and professionally, but Sanderson had got promoted off the back of it, taking Helen’s job temporarily. Furthermore, it implied a basic lack of trust in Helen which was hard to erase from the collective memory.
A CID team is a tight unit and though logically Helen should have applauded her junior officer for following the evidence, emotionally things were rather more complicated than that. In Sanderson’s eyes, Helen cleaved even closer to Charlie now, to the exclusion of others, herself most noticeably. Sanderson wasn’t the paranoid sort and she was sure she wasn’t imagining the constant slights and apparent disregard for her skills. She was being frozen out, punished for her disloyalty.
The team seemed fully engaged on their tasks, so Sanderson now slipped inside Helen’s office. It had been hers for a few months, but was Helen’s once more, all signs of Sanderson’s brief occupancy having been removed. Sanderson suspected she might be removed too before long, from the team, perhaps even from Hampshire Police. Which is why she now took an envelope from inside her jacket and placed it carefully in Helen’s in-tray. She liked the team here, she liked Southampton and a few months back would never have envisaged herself handing in a formal transfer request. But circumstances had changed and she knew that she would have to leave her beloved Southampton Central if she was to prosper. It wasn’t what she wanted, but there was nothing to be done. So, with a heavy heart, she turned and left Helen’s office, closing the door quietly behind her.
9
08.13
‘I’m not asking for special treatment. I just need five minut—’
‘That’s exactly what you’re asking for. And it ain’t going to happen.’
‘I’ll be discreet. A couple of photos of the scene and then –’
‘Are you insane? Have you seen how many officers are out there? You’ll be in cuffs before you get anywhere near the –’
‘Let me take that risk.’
‘And have it come back on my head? No, thank you.’
Emilia suppressed a scowl, faking a smile instead. On arriving at the police cordon, she had been pleased to find PC Alan Stark in attendance. He had been very helpful during previous investigations, always willing to trade information for cash. Today, however, he was being surprisingly uncooperative.
‘We can come back to that,’ Emilia continued brightly. ‘Let’s just get the basics sorted for now. I know that we’ve got one fatality, a gunshot victim –’
‘How the hell do you know that?’
‘What I don’t have is a name …’
‘Planning to ring the family, are you? Offer your condolences?’
Emilia stared at him. She didn’t like the scorn that was creeping into his tone – he had never been like this with her before. The fact that that was exactly what she was planning was neither here nor there.
‘Look, Alan, this is a necessary evil,’ she went on. ‘So let’s not make it more difficult than it has to be. I’ve got cash and – just this once – I can raise your rate, so we both profit from –’
‘I don’t want your money.’
‘Really? Had a change of luck, have you? The horses finally been good to you …?’
‘I’ve knocked it on the head.’
Now Emilia was speechless. Alan Stark was an inveterate gambler, constantly in hock to the bookies. Emilia’s cash had got him out of a number of awkward spots in the past and she was stunned that he was refusing her handouts now.
‘Come on, Alan, I know we haven’t been in touch for a while, but there’s no need to be like this about it. What do you want – two hundred, three hundred? I need that name.’
Emilia reached into her bag for her purse, but Stark grabbed her wrist, stopping her in her tracks and pulling her in close.
‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ he whispered harshly, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘I don’t do that any more. I have made a promise … to my wife, to my daughter … and I will not break my word for you, or anyone else. So why don’t you just bugger off and leave me alone.’
With that, he shoved her forcefully away. Emilia could see tears welling in his eyes and she suddenly realized how badly she’d misjudged the situation, how desperately determined he was to beat his addiction. Holding her hands up in surrender, she moved further down the cordon, slipping out of view among the assortment of journalists, motorists and gawpers who made up the growing crowd. She stared up the road, irritated that the crime scene was just out of view around the corner and frustrated by her lack of progress. She had expected big things of this story, but was leaving empty-handed thanks to Stark’s intransigence. Clearly his personal circumstances had changed – as had hers. Before, when she was the rising star of crime reporting, officers had been happy to take her bribes. Now that she was a glorified trainee, nobody would give her the time of day.
For now at least, she remained on the outside, looking in.
10
08.20
Helen closed the tent flap, shutting out the world. The road was crawling with forensics officers, scouring the roadside and verges for evidence, examining the tread patterns of the skid marks on the road, as they tried to piece together a narrative of the morning’s awful events. Inside the tent, things were rather quieter. The forensics officers had completed their initial sweep around the body and were now packaging their evidence for analysis, leaving their boss alone in the tent.
‘They’re from a Webley twelve-gauge shotgun,’ she said, as Helen took it from her.
‘How common are they?’ Helen asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
‘Very. They’re used by farmers, on shoots, at gun clubs. They’re a reliable British brand and not too expensive. There are probably over twenty thousand registered in Hampshire alone.’
‘Right,’ Helen replied, trying not to sound downcast.
‘If you get me the gun, I might be able to match it to the discharged cartridges, but there’s no way of tracking it from this, I’m afraid.’
‘Did you find any prints on the cartridges?’
‘Nothing so far, but we’ll double-check at the lab.’
‘What can you tell me about the injuries?’
Meredith turned away from Helen to look down at the crumpled body.
‘She was shot twice, at point-blank range. The perpetrator was standing no more than five feet from her.’
Meredith took up a stance in front of the body, raising her arms and pointing them at the victim, as if firing a shotgun.
‘He fired directly at her, the shots striking her once, twice in the chest, pretty much in the same place. The impact would have been extreme – if the shock didn’t kill her, the internal haemorrhage would have. It would have been quick.’
If this was supposed to comfort Helen, it didn’t. Thanking Meredith, she left the tent and walked away down the road. There was little more she could do here, it was time to get back to base, but still she hesitated. The sun was beaming down on Southampton and normally this would have been a beautiful scene, the autumn leaves glowing in the warm light. But instead this quiet spot had been the scene of … what? An unprovoked attack? A brutal robbery? An ambush? The remote setting, the use of a shotgun … it reminded Helen of the crimes of old – a highwayman lying in wait on a secluded road. But was such a thing possible in the twenty-first century? Moreover, if robbery was the motive, why had her attacker left her money and jewellery behind? Had Sonia Smalling perhaps seen or heard something which meant she had to be silenced? Conversely, if it was a personal attack – revenge of some kind – why steal her car? A car which would inevitably be traced?