by Nic Roberts
Gruesome.
A pale severed finger, bloody and red, had been stuffed into the package. Olivia’s eyes swam, her stomach twisting itself in knots.
“God…” Tim breathed just behind her.
There was a low muttering around the room before DI Lawrence spoke up; he was seated right in front of her.
“Who knows if God can help her,” he pointed out. “But we can. We have to.” He tapped his pen annoyingly on the table, Olivia noticed. “You up for this, Liv?” he asked at her over his shoulder.
Olivia swallowed hard before taking a breath.
“I’m….”
Collins interrupted before she could speak.
“Of course she is. I wouldn’t have assigned her to the case if she wasn’t.” He tapped the screen, drawing attention back to the case. “Her mother reckons she’s almost certain it’s her ring finger due to the mole near her knuckle. Medical investigators are working to confirm that as we speak.”
“Was she married? Engaged?” Olivia asked.
“Neither,” Collins answered. “In fact,” he flicked through his collection of papers by his seat, “she currently lives with her boyfriend of three years in London.”
Lawrence was writing profusely in front of her, making notes.
“And we know for certain that he didn’t accompany her on this trip?” he asked.
“As far as I’m aware, he never does. The family isn’t too keen on him.”
Olivia quickly scribbled that down on the paper besides the woman’s face. A boyfriend who’d fallen foul of her parents. Interesting.
“So,” she started. “From what we can piece together here, the abductor either knows her, or maybe he only knows where she lives. what about her phone?”
“Our team of technical analysts are working with the phone company now to try and locate it. It’s been offline since a last call placed at 9.03 pm to her parents’ house.”
DI Lawrence started to gather up his papers and belongings.
“I think we’ve seen enough for now. Liv,” he said quickly, “we should head to the parents’ house before the dust settles.”
She glanced at Collins, who gave her a curt nod before she stood up.
“Thank you for the briefing. I’ll come back with any and all details.”
She followed her partner out into the hall and matched his large strides as he made his way to their desks to collect a few things.
“I didn’t offend you with what I said back there, did I?” he asked, his brown eyes glancing up at her briefly before returning to his desk to continue his hurried gathering of papers. “I know you’re made of tough stuff.”
Olivia rested her bag down on the table absentmindedly. They were certainly still figuring out their partner dynamics. It didn’t bother her much, though. She could stand her ground when needs be.
“No. No, you didn’t,” she answered. “I understand why you said it and why everyone else says it. No one wants to be partnered with the liability.”
Lawrence stopped what he was doing and turned to her.
“Liv, you know that’s not what I meant…”
She nodded slowly.
“I know.” Even though she didn’t, really. As far as she was concerned, it was prudent to stay alert at the station. One slip and her co-workers would be able to see all of the baggage that she’d hidden in the dark crevices of her consciousness, pretending that they’d long since dissolved. The truth was, her scars still hurt as much as they had fifteen months ago.
“Let’s get going,” she quipped as she picked her bag up again.
2
DI Lawrence and Austin quickly made their way into their navy blue BMW 3 series pool car, with Lawrence taking the wheel to bring them to Ella’s family home.
He was a good five years younger than Olivia’s thirty-five years, and they had started their partnership on rocky terms. She was convinced he didn’t think she was fit for the role of Detective Inspector, and she found his youthful perspective sometimes a bit short-sighted. He had an air about him as though he knew everything there was to know about the world already. Olivia preferred to begin her investigations with the assumption that she knew nothing. Still, they got along well enough, and she knew she could trust him. That was key for her and why she suspected Det Supt Collins paired them together. That, and it wasn’t like there was a long list of people lining up to work with the charity case from the London incident.
Olivia flicked through her notes on their drive over and made a mental note of the questions she wanted to ask. Lawrence was always a notetaker. Liv preferred an intuitive approach to her investigations; it’s what made them both such a solid team when it came to questioning. He picked up on the empirical stuff; she spotted the things that didn’t quite match up.
What kind of person would abduct a woman from the street and post her parents a body part? Had it been a warning? Was Ella still alive somewhere? If she was, they were her last hope. And Olivia knew the stats on her surviving shrank with each second her watch counted down.
“For what it’s worth,” Lawrence said after a silent five minutes of contemplation, “I think we’re dealing with a murder case here.”
Olivia looked up at him.
“I think you’re right,” she sighed, grateful he was the first to admit it.
He pulled the car over to the side of the lone country lane and turned to her, the Hebden’s residence just beginning to appear in view.
“For someone to go to the effort of cutting off her finger and posting it but not demand any sort of ransom or other request? No, what we have here is a crime of passion, of hatred.” He shook his head. “It’s almost definitely someone she knew. I just hope it doesn’t escalate further. The only way she’s still alive is if they’re trying to draw it out. Who knows if there’ll be more body parts—or maybe more victims. We should ask Collins to keep a unit at her parents’ house to make sure they’re safe. And as for the boyfriend…”
Olivia pointed at him.
“That’s the one I’m not sure about,” she answered. “The boyfriend. What is it that her mother doesn’t like about him?”
“What makes you think it’s the mother who doesn’t like him?” Lawrence asked.
“Just an intuition thing,” Olivia murmured, letting her gaze drift out of the window and into the rolling hills past the road. “Can you give me a moment, please?”
Lawrence nodded and sat back as she opened the door and got out into the cool air and took a deep breath.
The farmhouse was nestled back away from the high street. It wasn’t exactly in a tourist part, but there certainly could have been someone that might have seen something. Olivia walked away from the car a short distance, looking around her.
At night, now that it was winter, these lanes would be plunged into darkness. Virtually pitch black excluding any moonlight. Would a 23-year-old woman really walk this distance alone at night in the dark?
She made a note to talk with the local taxi service at the station to see if they had picked her up.
“Everything okay?” Lawrence asked as she climbed back into the car.
She nodded, satisfied.
“I like to get a feel of all possible locations. If she walked home, she would have come along here…”
Her partner started the car again and pulled away on their continued journey to the parents’ house.
“I’d like to think she didn’t walk through here, though.” Lawrence added as they passed a slow-moving car and he eyed the occupants. “To be fair, I don’t think even I would. Not in the dark. I know Cornwall is supposed to be a sunny, happy vacuum, but just like everywhere, we have our fair share of idiots, chancers, and psychopaths.”
Olivia smoothed a crease in her trousers.
“You’re absolutely right,” she agreed. “And I think ascertaining what she did after she left the station should be our next port of call.”
They arrived at the large, ivy-covered farmhouse several minutes la
ter. After being let through the double wrought iron gates, they parked up alongside their police watch colleague’s car.
“Ready?” Lawrence asked, looking over to his partner. Olivia wordlessly pushed her door open and stepped out of the car. “Right then,” he muttered under his breath, opening his own door.
The crunch of gravel underfoot followed the pair to the door, which was a quaint wooden thing, unassuming and inconspicuous. Ivy climbed a trellis, and flower beds nestled themselves into the windowsills. There was no flair to this family—at least from the outside. All they were trying to do was live their lives. Did this house harbour any secrets? What could lead to the grizzly kidnapping of a young woman—and did the answers lie within the brick walls before her? Olivia swallowed the apprehension that had swelled up in her throat as an image of Ella’s dismembered finger flashed behind her eyes. Focus, she reminded herself, letting her eyes open once more. She raised her fist to deliver a resolute knock.
The door opened before she was able to rap her knuckles against the wood, revealing a man with bloodshot eyes and tousled light grey hair. He raised the smallest smile he could, though the bags under his red rimmed eyes told her that he’d been crying immensely. Still, she was impressed with his composure.
“I’m Detective Inspector Lawrence,” her partner said. “And this is my colleague, Detective Inspector Austin. Can we come inside?”
The man ran a hand through his thinning hair and pushed the door open wider.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he breathed. “Thank you for coming. Please, come on in.”
Olivia followed Lawrence through and closed the door behind her.
“I’m Clive, Clive Hebden, Ella’s father,” he offered as they entered the hall.
The inside of the farmhouse was just as she’d imagined from the outside. Immaculately dressed. Colour-matched lamps that complimented expensive chandeliers. And there was a family portrait hanging in the hallway wall space. Olivia noticed Ella instantly, her bright blonde hair shorter in this photo, but her face radiated the same joy as her other pictures—maybe even more so. A slightly younger Mr and Mrs Hebden each rested a hand on Ella, their faces radiating warmth and normalcy. The whole family was immaculately styled; it was clear that they were comfortable if not downright rich.
“I appreciate you coming. I do…” he continued as he led them into the lounge. “Marjorie’s through here.”
Ella hardly recognised the woman in the family portrait as she sat before her. The woman in the portrait gave off an air of confidence, good taste, composure, and an appreciation for the material things in life. The photograph had shown a middle-aged woman with an understated but put together face of makeup. The woman in front of the detectives was curled up in the corner of the lounge, dressed in a big, oversized jumper and leggings with slippers on her feet, her hair messily toppled atop her head in a quick attempt at a bun. Not a trace of makeup touched her face. She was facing the window, gazing out over the Cornish fields, her knees tucked into her chest.
“Mrs Hebden…” Olivia started, and she jumped before turning to look at the detectives and her husband. “We’re—”
“Detectives,” she finished with a sniff as she stood up quickly, rushing over to them with her hands reached out. “I need my daughter back safely,” she said with a firm squeeze. “She’s my world—and oh, so brave. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen to delicate souls like her. We need her back.”
Hope shimmered in her eyes, lingering dangerously close to delusion. This was always the hardest part of the job for Olivia. When the victim’s family had hope that they’d get their loved ones back. Personal history had taught her otherwise. But how could she crush that look of longing in this woman’s eyes? That insistence that her world would return to normal, that this was a momentary hardship, not a lifelong sentence to an unspeakable truth.
Olivia brought herself to nod in agreement, slowly guiding Mrs Hebden to the sofa just to the left of them. Ella’s mother’s hands trembled in hers. Olivia took a moment to glance over at DI Lawrence. He gave her a curt nod and a glance of sympathy, turning to pat Mr Hebden’s back in mirrored condolence.
“I understand, Mrs—”
“Call me Maj,” she interrupted. “I’m Maj to everyone.”
“Maj,” Olivia continued. “We’re going to do everything we can to bring her back. Rest assured we’ll use all of our resources on this case.”
“Case…” Mr Hebden muttered, head slowly shaking. “I never thought I’d hear my daughter referred to as a ‘case.’”
Olivia swallowed and took out her pad of paper. Focus on the details, she reminded herself, gripping her pen slightly tighter than necessary to write. What doesn’t make sense?
“An important thing for us to do at this point in the investigation is confirm a timeline for last night. What were you two doing last evening?” Olivia asked, flipping to her notes to confirm that Ella arrived at the station at approximately 8.41 pm.
“We knew Ells was coming in around 8.30 pm,” Mr Hebden started. “We’d offered to pick her up, but she was insistent that she come in on her own. She knows how hard it is for us to drive at night,” Mr Hebden started explaining. “Close to 9.15 pm, we got a bit nervous, so we got in the Merc to have a drive down the lane. We drove all the way down to Felsham Green and back but didn’t see her. We tried calling when we returned, but her phone must have died. We thought maybe she’d decided to stay at her friend’s flat for the evening, and she has keys to the front door, so we figured we’d just head to bed.” Mr Hebden’s eyes misted over as he recounted the night before. “Our biggest mistake.”
Drive at 9.15 pm, Olivia wrote down in her notebook.
“It’s not your fault,” she reassured him. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary on your drive, any streetlights out or cars you don’t normally see in the area?” she asked.
“We saw a couple of cars, now that you mention it,” Mr Hebden offered up, Maj’s sniffles punctuating the statement. Cars on road at approx. 9.15 pm.
“How does Ella travel here from the station?” Olivia offered the courtesy of glancing up to Maj, although she quickly had to return her gaze to the pad in her hands. She knew that Mrs Hebden’s eyes would haunt her tonight.
“By taxi,” Maj answered, wringing her hands. “Usually, she books an Uber in advance, and then he brings her here.”
“He? Same person?”
She nodded.
“Always the same person. The same old man. I believe he’s been quite good to our Ella. Well, he’s one of two Uber drivers in the area, to be fair, and he takes everyone…”
“Do you have his details?” Lawrence asked.
Maj glanced over at her husband, and he shrugged.
“I think we could get it from the app.”
“That would be great,” Olivia added. “We’ll have our tech team confirm as well. Every connection to her movements helps. He might be the missing piece to the puzzle.”
“I mean, he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Maj sniffed. “I’ve known him for years. He’s a staple here in the town. Roger Wilson is his name.”
Olivia jotted down Uber driver harmless? She wouldn’t let on that a comment like that raised her suspicions rather than dulling them. Murderers had the habit of hiding in plain sight, masquerading as gentle and unassuming.
She put a star next to his name and put her notebook down slowly as the woman’s mother started to cry again. Her ample chest heaved beneath her thick wool jumper, and she rose to fling herself into her husband’s arms.
“My baby...” she mumbled against his t-shirt. “My girl. My sweetheart...”
Olivia shifted uneasily in her seat. Grief. She understood it well and knew it manifested itself in many ways. Some weren’t complete unless they let it out in any way they could, and watching the broken scene in front of her tugged at her heartstrings. She gritted her teeth at her instinct to be overly sympathetic.
Lawrence loomed in her periphery, reminding her t
hat she should be careful with her emotions always. She couldn’t let a single thing give way to an assumption that she was unfit for the uniform.
Lawrence chose that moment to shift his weight from one leg to the other before gently clearing his throat.
“I know it’s hard,” he offered to Ella’s parents. Do you? Olivia asked with her eyes, a little incredulous. “I understand how hurt and worried and terrified you might be feeling right now.” He finished.
Do you really?
He was a brilliant detective, sharp, methodical, and with a strong nose for bullshit. One of the best, Collins had described him as. He'd seen a lot over his ten-year career, but as she'd discovered since coming back, sympathy only took you so far, and receiving empty considerations and understandings of your situation often only made things worse.
She touched the elbow of the crying woman and guided her to sit with her on the immaculate mauve sofa once more.
“I’ve been there, Maj,” she said softly and without script. “I know exactly how you're feeling and what you’re going through, and I can honestly say that there aren’t going to be any words that will make you feel better at this moment.” She gave Maj’s hand a squeeze with that comment.
Mrs Hebden nodded, and Olivia pinched a tissue from the box on the coffee table and handed it to her.
“You also lost someone close to you?” Maj asked dabbing at her tears. “You’ve felt as though your inner soul is being crushed by every second that passes because you don’t know what to do with yourself?”
Olivia nodded slowly, aware of Lawrence’s eyes on her back.
“Yes. And the only thing that got me through—and will get you through it, too—was hope. Don’t let go of it or you'll head to a dark place.” Olivia’s mouth tasted dry as dust as she spoke those words, knowing that the hope Mrs Hebden held for her daughter was probably soon to be crushed. She needed Maj sharp though, and ready to deliver facts. It twisted at her heart a little bit to ask so much of her—to carry such a burden as unpromised hope.