by Tim Ellis
Xena glanced at Stick. ‘Evidence! What type of evidence could she have had?’
‘Mmmm! Photographs, video or audio recordings, the signed affidavit of a third party who would know about the adultery, a DNA paternity test, a signed confession . . .’
‘But she wouldn’t have been able to obtain such evidence herself, would she?’
‘She didn’t explain how she’d come by the evidence. Remember, it was merely an initial free consultation. If she said she had evidence, then I considered that adequate for the time being. Of course, I would have asked to see the evidence at our next consultation. Having said that, it’s unlikely that a mother of three running a farm and a Donkey Sanctuary would have found the time to obtain the evidence herself.’
‘A private investigator?’ Stick suggested.
Hunter shrugged. ‘I have no idea. All I can tell you is that where the husband denies adultery, and those women who can afford to, employ a private investigator to obtain the evidence of his adultery. As a police officer Inspector, you know very well that any evidence presented in a court of law needs to fulfil certain criteria such as relevance, admissibility and the reliance that can be properly placed on it by the court. As such, any evidence improperly obtained would be considered inadmissible.’
Xena didn’t really need any lectures on the Rules of Evidence, but she let the woman run off at the mouth, because she needed answers to questions. ‘That’s true. And she definitely already had the evidence?’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘Did she say anything about being pregnant?’
‘No.’
‘So, what did you advise her?’
‘No, no. Divorce lawyers don’t offer advice. I presented the facts to Mrs Boyd and it was her decision what to do based on those facts.’
‘And what facts did you present to her?’
‘That she could obtain free counselling with or without her husband; the divorce procedure and the forms she needed to complete, such as Form D8: The Divorce Petition; Form D8A: A Statement of Arrangements for the Children; a Consent Order if she and her husband could agree on the dividing up of assets, which she didn’t think was likely, so I explained how we could apply for a Financial Order, which she thought would be necessary; how the court would split their assets and what I considered likely based on her situation and the priorities of the court; child maintenance after the divorce . . . To be perfectly honest, Inspector. It was a normal consultation. She’d discovered that her husband was having an affair, she found living with him intolerable and she now wanted a divorce. Adultery is the number one reason for divorce in the United Kingdom, closely followed by unreasonable behaviour. I deal with hundreds of these cases each month. I’m astounded that people still get married, but obviously I’m glad they do.’
Xena stood up. ‘Thanks for your time and co-operation, Mrs Hunter.’
The solicitor smiled. ‘I’m divorced, Inspector. I’ve actually reverted back to my maiden name. I’m known as Helen Vickers now.’
‘Adultery?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope you made the bastard pay?’
She chuckled. ‘The bastard is living in a cardboard box down by the river.’
Xena thumped Stick on the arm. ‘Best place for them.’
‘Ow!’ Stick complained.
‘You have a lot to answer for.’
Stick rubbed his arm. ‘You mean men in general?’
‘No, I mean you personally.’
They made their way back out to the car. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘You’re a man. Isn’t that reason enough?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Right, back to the station. While I’m explaining to the imbeciles in administration what I want them to do with the contact list from Melissa Boyd’s phone, you can go and steal back our incident room from Parish and Richards.’
‘What if they’re in there?’
‘Set the fire alarm off, that’ll get them out.’
‘I’d get into trouble for that if I got caught.’
‘Don’t get caught, numpty. If you did, I’d come and visit you in prison.’
‘Very kind.’
‘The least I could do.’
‘Do you think Melissa Boyd employed a private investigator?’
‘We’ll have to find out, won’t we? I’ll give Pecker a call and tell him to pull his pecker out and start analysing the Boyds’ phone and financial records.’
‘Don’t forget we’ve got the post-mortems at ten in the morning.’
‘I’ve not forgotten. We’ll have time to fill in the incident board before we have to leave.’
‘You also need to brief the Chief and the press.’
‘Which I’ll do after we get back from the post-mortems and after we have the results from Doc Paine. Is that all right with you?’
‘Definitely.’
‘I’m glad, because if I thought you were trying to stage a coup, there’d be trouble.’
‘Coups are usually taken against cruel and power-crazy dictators.’
‘And I’m neither of those things, am I?’
‘Don’t forget, we also need to identify Martin and Melissa’s movements over the previous month. I could probably start filling in the bare bones of a timeline once I’ve reclaimed our incident room.’
‘So, you think I’m a power-crazy dictator?’
‘I never would.’
‘You’re sailing very close to the wind, dipstick.’
‘I thought it was getting a bit chilly.’
She stared at him. ‘That’s the weather, numbskull.’
‘Really?’
‘We also need to find out who Martin was having an affair with. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he’s holed up now.’
Stick nodded. ‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’
They reached the station, and while Stick went to pull the incident room rug out from under Parish and Richards, she headed towards Administration to see who she could give Melissa Boyd’s contact list to.
The room was empty. She was disappointed not to hear the tip-tapping on keyboards, the whirring of fax machines and printers, the bubbling of coffee pots, and the chit-chattering from wagging tongues and flapping jaws – the place was like the Marie Celeste.
She checked her watch – just five o’clock. Maybe she’d speak to the Duty Inspector – get their wages docked. If the office was already empty at five o’clock, then the only conclusion to be drawn was that the workers must have left early.
As she turned to leave, the door opened.
‘Oh!’ the young woman said. ‘You frightened me.’
Xena’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Did I?’
‘Yes. All the others have gone, so I didn’t think there was anybody left in here.’
‘I’m not just anybody.’
‘Oh, I know. You’re . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Nobody! I thought I was at least somebody.’
‘No, I didn’t mean you were nobody, just nobody I know.’
‘You said you knew who I was.’
‘I was mistaken.’
‘Really? Well, let me refresh your memory. I’m Detective Inspector Baba Yaga from the Murder Team, and I eat people’s souls.’ She held up the wad of paper she was carrying. ‘This is a contact list from a mobile phone. I want to know who every number in it belongs to – name, address and postcode.’
‘I’ll get onto it first thing . . .’
‘Did I not make myself clear? I’d like it done tonight.’
‘Tonight? But . . .’
‘Baba Yaga likes to visit people in the dead of night and consume their souls when they’re sleeping unless they do her bidding.’
The woman took the papers from her. ‘I had plans for tonight.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ha! As if I’m going to tell a soul-eater. Where will you be when I’ve finished?’
‘In my hut that stands on chicken legs in the woods, so leave it upstairs on my desk.’
‘You’re going . . .?’
The door closed behind her. She pulled out her phone as she climbed the stairs to the squad room and called Pecker.
‘Yes, Ma’am?’
‘What have I told you about calling me that?’
‘I get told so many things these days that sometimes . . .’
‘Anyway, where are you?’
‘Where are you?’
‘You first.’
‘I’m . . . in Forensics.’
‘Wrong choice! I’m on my way up to speak to you.’
‘I can’t wait.’
‘You’d better.’
She ended the call.
In Forensics she made her way to Pecker’s laboratory. ‘You’re not going home as well, are you?’ she said when she opened the door.
‘As well as who?’
‘Never mind. Right, tell me what you’ve got, and then I’ll tell you what I want.’
‘I haven’t got much. Well, when I say I haven’t got much, I mean I haven’t got much yet. Of course, we’ve got photographs, video recordings, plastercasts of footprints and tyre tracks, fingerprints, an enormous amount of hair, fibres and bodily fluids, fingernail scrapings, blood samples, shotgun residue . . . So, when I say we haven’t got much yet I mean, it all has to be analysed and that takes time.’
‘Time?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much time?’
‘One, two, maybe three days.’
‘That’s not time, that’s an all-inclusive fucking holiday. You’re using the wrong word as well.’
‘I am?’
‘Yes. Timely is the correct word. Do you think one, two or three days is timely?’
‘Probably . . .’
‘The answer you’re searching that miniscule brain of yours for is no. There’s a man out there with a shotgun. He’s killed four people so far. Do you know who I’m going to point the finger at when he chalks up another victim?’
‘I’m going out on a limb here – me?’
‘Damned right. I want it all by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I don’t care if you have to work through the night doing whatever it is that you do to justify your exorbitant wages, but that’s when I want it.’
‘Four tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Any problems with that?’
‘No, that sounds quite reasonable.’
‘Good. That’s not all though.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No. Remember the phone and financial records?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘I want the analysis first thing tomorrow morning. Let’s say eight o’clock, and I’m being generous. If it was anyone else, I’d have said seven-thirty.’
‘I’m overwhelmed.’
‘Just to put my friendly requests into perspective, this is the theory that DS Gilbert and I are working on based on what we’ve discovered today: Martin Boyd is depressed and was prescribed anti-depressants by his doctor; he’s been having an affair with someone, the name of whom should be in his phone records; his wife found out about the affair by employing a private investigator to obtain the evidence of his adultery, and then she went to see a solicitor about getting a divorce; it must have tipped him over the edge, because he then decided that life wasn’t worth living anymore, so he killed his wife and three children, but bottled out when it came to killing himself.’
‘An interesting theory.’
‘And that’s all it is unless I get some evidence to support it. I want to know the name of the person who Martin Boyd was having an affair with. I also want details of the private investigator Melissa Boyd employed to follow her husband and obtain the evidence of his adultery.’
‘Seems straightforward enough.’
‘I’m glad you think so, Pecker. Eight o’clock tomorrow morning then?’
‘I look forward to it.’
She made her way out of Forensics and down the stairs to the squad room. Was she a cruel power-crazy dictator? Or maybe the reincarnation of Baba Yaga? Did she give a shit if that’s what people thought of her? Not one bit of it. She was the way she was. If people didn’t like it . . . Well, they knew what they could do in short order.
‘Let’s go home, Stick.’
‘Good idea.’
‘You’ve reclaimed the incident room?’
‘Parish was trying to double-bluff you, so I triple-bluffed him.’
‘Meaning?’
‘We’re in the better of the two incident rooms already. He knew you’d try to steal the one he’d set himself up in, so he chose the worst one thinking that I’d take it back from him and he’d end up in the incident room he wanted to be in all along.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe there’s something psychologically wrong with Parish?’
‘Could be.’
***
Tuesday, March 1
Her head felt like cotton wool. Her mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert. She was cold and scared. Where was she? Why was she naked? Chains rattled as she tried moving. Oh God! Why couldn’t she remember?
She heard noises up above. A light came on and a trapdoor opened.
The sound of footsteps on the metal steps of a ladder came closer.
‘Hello, Summer. Welcome back to the world.’
He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
‘Who are you? Why am I here? Why have you chained me up? Where are my clothes? What are you going to do with me?’ Tears ran down her face, and snot dripped from her nose. ‘Please, let me go. I won’t tell anybody.’
He wiped her eyes and nose with a tissue and put it in the pedal bin – a place for everything and everything in its place.
‘So many questions, Summer. My name is Henry, and I’m the man who loves you – for this week, at least. And then I’m going to kill you like all the others.’
She took an intake of breath and looked into his eyes, but they were so cold. Was he joking?
‘You’re here because I love you, I want you and you want me.’ He cupped her left breast in his right hand, squeezed it gently, rubbed the nipple between thumb and forefinger, bent down and ran his tongue around it.
‘Please don’t.’
He laughed.
It was such a cruel laugh.
‘You’re chained up so that I can do whatever I want with you. You belong to me now and forever. We’re going to make such sweet love together.’
‘I promise I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Of course you won’t. As for your clothes . . .’ He pointed to a kind of wardrobe that had flat wooden picture frames on a type of clothes rail that could be moved and swung left to right. They reminded her of posters on display in an art shop. Her dress and panties had been pressed into one of the frames like a signed football shirt from some famous player, and her bag and shoes were attached to the bottom of the frame. It was like a weird type of clothing collection. He walked over to the wardrobe and stroked the frame. ‘They’ll be all I have of you when you’re gone . . . And you will go. They all do. Every single one of them. Don’t they mother? Well, we still have a week to make the most of our love.’ He took all his clothes off and slipped a condom over his small erection.
‘Please don’t.’ She nearly said, ‘I’ll do anything you want’, but she already was.
He walked behind her.
She could feel his breath on her neck. She’d heard men breathing like that before. Memories of those men raping and sodomising her in her childhood came flooding back. Oh God! It was happening all over again.
Hands gripped her breasts, but she hardly felt him push into her.
‘Mummy. I’m going to make you so happy.’
Why did he keep calling her “Mummy”?
She felt him thrust into her two or three times and then it was all over. She watched as he dropped the used condom in the pedal bin, picked u
p his clothes and shoes, and climbed the ladder. The trapdoor closed and the light went out.
‘Don’t leave me here,’ she shouted, but there was no response.
***
‘Keep going.’
‘You know you don’t have to do that anymore, don’t you?’
‘Are you sure? You’re not going to stop, sit down and pull out a picnic basket from those baggy joggers you’re wearing to hide your fat arse, are you?’
‘Do you want to know how much weight I’ve lost?’
‘Fifteen stone?’
Richards laughed. ‘I was only nine and a half to start with. You’re thinking of yourself. I’ve lost fifteen pounds and an inch and half off my hips. So you can stop saying I’ve got a fat arse, because I haven’t anymore.’
‘Ready for love?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘You just need a man.’
‘Same old problem.’
‘There are two opportunities to snag a man coming up.’
‘Oh?’
‘The SCIT detectives arriving from London this morning. One of those could be your soul mate.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s right – you don’t. Also, the London Marathon.’
‘I can’t imagine that a man would be attracted to a red-faced, sweaty runner.’
‘There are some strange people out there.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You’ll see. I feel it in my water. Love is in the air for you, Mary Richards.’
‘I really hope so. Being on my own sucks. How far have we gone now?’
‘Eight hundred, thirty three and a half yards.’
‘The proper distance.’
‘Nine and a half miles.’ He pointed. ‘See that dead tree up ahead?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’ll be ten miles.’ They’d set off from the house on Puck Road in Chigwell, ran through Lambourne End and Bournebridge, past Old MacDonalds Farm and had now reached the turnaround point at Noak Hill. On the route back they’d pass Bedford’s Park, run through Chase Cross, past Hainault Forest, along Chigwell Row and home.
‘And we’ve got to run back yet?’
‘We could call for a horse and cart if you’re too tired to run back.’