At Your Door

by J. P. Carter

  ‘But that’s a waste of time,’ Robert said. ‘Nobody else would have had a motive for killing Holly. Wolf is the only one who felt threatened by her.’

  ‘Robert’s right,’ Theo said. ‘Nathan Wolf only cares about one person and that’s himself. Holly was going to expose him for what he is – a no good, cheating pervert.’

  Anna made a show of looking at her watch and said as delicately as she could that it was time to leave for the mortuary.

  Rebecca responded by getting quickly to her feet and pushing her hair away from her face.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said, her voice strong. ‘Take me to see my baby. I need to tell her for the last time how much I love her.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Walker left the house first in order to bring the pool car up close to the front door. Anna didn’t want Rebecca and Theo to run the gauntlet of reporters and photographers.

  She managed to get them into the car in under ten seconds, but that was time enough for some stupid and insensitive questions to be hurled at them.

  ‘What’s your reaction to your daughter’s death, Mrs Blake?’

  ‘Will this make you more determined to become London’s Mayor so that you can crack down on crime in the capital?’

  ‘When did you last see Holly, Mr Blake?’

  ‘Is it true that your daughter approached a Sunday newspaper about selling her story?’

  Both Rebecca and Theo kept their heads down until they were in the back seat and the car was moving away from the crowd.

  Sue Bond followed in her own car. The plan was for her to take the couple home afterwards where Rebecca’s sister and brother-in-law would be waiting for them.

  Anna’s intention was to make the most of the short journey to the mortuary. There were two subjects she had chosen not to broach back at the house. Now, turning in her seat to face Rebecca, she raised the first one.

  ‘Assuming that Nathan Wolf is telling the truth then we have to consider the possibility that Holly was targeted by someone who has a grudge against you, Mrs Blake,’ she said. ‘You’re an outspoken politician and a former high-ranking police officer. I’m sure there are people out there who don’t want you to become the Mayor of London, in part because of your commitment to get tough on crime.’

  Anna was braced for an angry rebuke which didn’t come. Instead, Rebecca looked at her and said, ‘I suppose that is possible in the highly unlikely event that Wolf is innocent.’

  ‘Have you yourself received any threats recently either directly or through social media?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Like all public figures I get my share of generic online threats and abuse,’ Rebecca said. ‘Some of it is vicious and sickening, and some downright childish. Holly was also targeted by jealous trolls on a regular basis, but unlike me she found it more difficult to ignore them. Sometimes she lost her temper and got into an online spat. At other times it would bring on a bout of depression.’

  ‘We’re examining all her online accounts,’ Anna said. ‘But it would be helpful if we could also take a look at yours, Mrs Blake.’

  Rebecca nodded. ‘My secretary takes care of all that. I’ll give you her number. She’s been instructed to keep a file of all messages, tweets and posts that are abusive and hostile.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Anna said. Then she craned her neck further so she could see Theo. ‘There’s one other issue I’d like to raise quickly. It concerns something else that Nathan Wolf said during the course of our interview.’

  She paused to consider how best to frame the question. Then: ‘He claimed that you and Holly had a problem that dated back several years, Mr Blake. Is that true?’

  Theo’s jaw muscles flexed and a flicker of irritation crossed his face.

  ‘It wasn’t a problem,’ he said. ‘She blamed me for the break-up of Rebecca’s marriage and the fact that her father moved to Australia. That’s not an untypical reaction in a situation such as ours.’

  ‘Holly told Wolf there was more to it than that. He said Holly hated you because you once tried it on with her.’

  It was Rebecca who responded this time, her face suffused with anger.

  ‘Stop it right there, Detective Tate. I will not have you insinuating that my husband is somehow implicated in his own daughter’s murder.’

  ‘But I’m not—’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Rebecca snapped. ‘So do not insult my intelligence by pretending you aren’t. As an ex-police officer I can appreciate that you have to ask difficult questions. But as the grieving mother of the victim I feel obliged to put you straight before you cause more upset with this particular line of enquiry.’

  She paused to take a breath and grab her husband’s hand.

  ‘Holly found it hard to forgive both of us for the affair we had,’ she went on. ‘And it got worse after her father moved to Australia following the divorce and killed himself with an overdose of sleeping pills. Theo took the brunt of her anger and once when he tried to give her an innocent kiss she deliberately chose to misread it and make a stupid accusation. For a while my relationship with her was really stressed, but gradually she got over it and after she moved out things got much better between us.

  ‘It’s no doubt true that she did hate us both at one time, but that changed in recent years. Holly was fully supportive of my efforts to become London’s Mayor. She’s been helping me campaign and only a few months ago she told me that she was happier than she had ever been.

  ‘But I didn’t know that her happiness was based on the delusional belief that what she had with Nathan Wolf was real and that they had a future together. In truth the bastard was playing her along and she … she …’

  Rebecca lost it then and fresh tears filled her eyes.

  Theo pulled her into his chest and fixed Anna with a hard stare.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ he seethed, his voice a low growl.

  Anna cursed herself for misjudging the moment. She turned back to the front and did not speak again until they reached the mortuary.

  When the sheet was pulled back by the pathologist’s assistant, it took Rebecca only seconds to confirm that it was her daughter.

  The grief engulfed her with such force that she screamed like a banshee and dropped to her knees on the floor, her face in her hands.

  She refused to move for over a minute, telling her husband that she wanted to remain at Holly’s side.

  Eventually he persuaded her to get up and escorted her out of the room to where Anna was waiting, having witnessed their ordeal through the window.

  ‘I realise how hard that was for you,’ Anna said. ‘Please allow me to once again offer my condolences.’

  ‘All we want from you is justice, detective,’ Rebecca said as tears spilled from her eyes. ‘Make Nathan Wolf pay for killing my daughter and destroying all of our lives. If you’re not able to do that then I’ll get the Commissioner to replace you with someone who is.’

  Rebecca’s words echoed in Anna’s mind as the couple left the building accompanied by Officer Bond.

  ‘Don’t let it get to you, guv,’ Walker said. ‘That was grief talking.’

  ‘I know that, Max,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure I’d be saying something similar if I were in that poor woman’s shoes.’

  Anna decided to stay at the mortuary while pathologist Gayle Western carried out the post-mortem.

  ‘You go back to the office,’ she told Walker. ‘I’ll follow on as soon as we’ve got some preliminary results. And set things up for a mid-day briefing. Find out if we’ve managed to trace the ex-boyfriend and if the search teams have found anything on the common. And I want to know if Holly’s laptop and phone have yielded anything of interest.’

  ‘Do you want me to leave the car for you?’ Walker asked. ‘I’m not a safe driver when I’ve had no sleep so I’ll get a taxi from here.’

  Anna nodded. ‘Good idea. I shouldn’t be long.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Gayle works fast and she’s starting straight away. It’ll probab
ly only take her a couple of hours.’

  There was nothing more stomach-churning than witnessing an autopsy and Anna tried to avoid them whenever possible. But she was desperate to know if Holly Blake’s body was going to offer any clues to who killed her. She had seen so many cases where investigative theories were debunked by a tiny mark on the victim’s flesh or a DNA trace beneath the fingernails.

  She donned a gown and smeared some Vick’s VapoRub under her nose even though it was seldom enough to stop the smell from making her want to throw up.

  She stood back from the dissection table and took notes as Gayle provided a running commentary.

  ‘I’ve already determined that there are no defence wounds on her arms and legs,’ Gayle said. ‘And there’s nothing but dirt under her nails. The only external wound is the one to her throat and I’m certain that is what killed her.’

  Anna looked away as Holly’s torso was sliced down the middle and clamps were fitted so that her organs remained exposed. During the next thirty minutes Gayle carefully removed pieces of Holly’s insides.

  ‘On the face of it all her organs appear to be in working order,’ she said. ‘She was well nourished and in her stomach there are the contents of a light meal.’

  Gayle confirmed her earlier assumption regarding time of death.

  ‘The knife used on her has a serrated edge and is probably between six and ten inches long. It’s the type you’ll find in virtually every kitchen in the country. It pierced the trachea and internal carotid artery and there would have been extreme blood loss,’ she said. ‘But there wasn’t much blood at the scene, which tells us that she wasn’t murdered there.’

  Anna was disappointed because there was nothing new or unexpected in what she was being told.

  ‘I’ll get the results of the toxicology tests to you as quickly as possible,’ Gayle said. ‘But don’t expect it to contain anything startling. Meanwhile I think it’s safe to assume that Holly Blake’s killer did not leave any clues on her body that might lead to him or her being easily identified. There are no marks to indicate rape or sexual assault and no trace of semen inside her.’

  Anna thanked Gayle and walked out of the autopsy suite feeling despondent. She removed the gown and went outside on the forecourt to have a smoke. While there her phone rang.

  ‘It’s me, guv,’ Walker said when she answered. ‘A report has just come in that I think you’ll want to respond to yourself.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nathan Wolf has been attacked in his home. It was his girlfriend who phoned the three nines.’

  ‘Shit. Is he seriously hurt?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Uniform have only just arrived at the house.’

  ‘So what about the attacker? Do we know who did it?’

  ‘We sure do. It was none other than Holly’s angry uncle, Robert Gregory.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sophie woke Alice at eight with a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal.

  ‘Get that down you and then go and have a shower,’ she told her. ‘I’ll make your bed and take you to Ruth’s house.’

  Alice’s friend Ruth lived less than a mile away and they often spent time in each other’s homes.

  On the way there Sophie continued to act as though nothing was wrong. She bought Alice some sweets and told her she would pick her up at about four, a time that had been agreed with Ruth’s mum.

  When she returned to the flat she found it hard to relax and even harder to concentrate.

  She wanted to pull her thoughts together and work out a response to the threat she now faced. But her mind was all over the place and it was making her head ache again.

  She decided to tidy up Alice’s room, which had a view of the small communal garden at the rear of the three-storey block.

  Pictures of pop stars were plastered across the walls, including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. Alice loved her music and was always saying that when she grew up she wanted to be a singer or musician. In one corner of the room stood the kids’ karaoke microphone on its adjustable stand that Sophie had bought her last Christmas. On one of the shelves sat the electric keyboard that had given Alice so much joy this past year.

  After making the bed, Sophie couldn’t resist opening the drawer where Alice kept all her personal bits. These included her father’s reading glasses, his ‘fake’ passport, his favourite mug with the Chelsea Football Club emblem on it, and the DVD with the compilation of video clips from their time in Spain.

  There was also the photo album that was Alice’s pride and joy.

  Sophie took it out and sat on the bed to look through it, something she hadn’t done in quite a while.

  The first few pages contained photos from before Alice and her dad arrived in Spain, but only two of them featured her real mother, who Alice had believed had died.

  There were lots of pictures after that because Sophie had made a point of capturing as many precious moments as she possibly could. And she had gone to the trouble of printing them off just in case the digital versions ever got lost.

  It was a journey down memory lane for Sophie, and every turn of the page caused her heart to leap.

  There was Alice paddling in the sea at two, surrounded by unopened presents on her third birthday, sitting on her father’s shoulders during a walk along the beach, pulling a face at the camera while standing outside the bar James opened in Puerto de Mazarron.

  Sophie felt her heart go into meltdown as the images took her back to the events that had shaped Alice’s young life. The Christmas when Santa brought her a bike, her first day at the English-speaking school, the time spent in hospital after having her appendix removed.

  One of Sophie’s favourite photos showed Alice sitting on the floor with her face smeared with chocolate. It was special because it was then that she referred to Sophie as ‘Mummy’ for the first time. James heard it too and that was when he asked her if she would be his daughter’s adoptive mother. She told him it would make her the happiest woman in the world.

  But now Sophie couldn’t help feeling sorry for Detective Anna Tate. The woman had missed so much because of what James did to her.

  But it wasn’t my fault, she told herself. I had no idea that the man whose child I helped bring up had lied to me.

  Many more precious memories were recorded in the album, but only up to three years ago, when they left Spain and fled to England.

  Sophie’s vision blurred as she studied the last photo on the last page. It showed a nine-year-old Alice eating an ice-cream with the marina in the background. It was taken just minutes before Sophie realised that the pair of them were being followed.

  As Sophie studied the photo, her mind spiralled back to that day. The day her idyllic life came to an abrupt end.

  Three years ago

  Sophie has just picked Alice up from school and they’re walking to James’s bar.

  For the past six and a half years they’ve been living in the apartment above it and they’ve all really enjoyed it. But the building and those around it will soon be pulled down to make way for a new seafront development. So this evening they’re going to discuss where to go next and James has already got his eye on a bar up the coast in Alicante where he’s confident they can make a real success of things.

  It’s hot and humid and Alice is having to devour the ice-cream as quickly as she can before it melts. But some of it has already dropped onto her blouse and it’s such a funny sight that Sophie can’t resist taking a picture.

  Alice responds by rolling her eyes.

  ‘I’ve told you before, Mum. Only take nice pictures.’

  Sophie laughs and hands her a hanky to wipe herself.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she says. ‘Let’s get a move on. I’m gasping for a drink.’

  For no particular reason she looks back along the promenade – and that’s when she sees him. He’s about fifty yards away and he’s wearing a loose vest top and jeans. And he’s looking right a
t her.

  At first she thinks she’s mistaken because she had long ago convinced herself that she would never see him again.

  But then he grins and she knows that it’s him.

  Against huge odds he’s managed to keep the promise he made the last time she saw him.

  ‘You can run and hide, bitch, but wherever you go I’ll find you eventually. And so help me, I’m going to make you suffer big time for what you did.’

  The flashback was cut short by the strident ringtone of Sophie’s mobile. And it came as a relief because she was in no mood to relive what else happened that day – the day her world fell apart and the truth came out.

  ‘Hello,’ she said into her phone without checking who was calling.

  ‘It’s me, Sophie, Lisa.’

  Her first thought was that her friend had read the two features in the Evening Standard and that was why she was ringing.

  Lisa had never met James or Alice, but Sophie had told her all about them. Lisa was the only person from her past life in London she had stayed in touch with while in Spain, and that was only by phone and email.

  It was Lisa whom Sophie had called on for help three years ago when she found herself alone with Alice in a city that she was no longer familiar with.

  ‘Are you there, Soph?’ Lisa was saying. ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry,’ Sophie responded. ‘I was trying to do two things at once.’

  ‘That’s OK. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. It must be a couple of weeks since we last had a chat. What about you?’

  Lisa hesitated, and Sophie heard her draw breath.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Sophie asked.

  Here it comes, she thought. She’s seen the Anna Tate story and she wants to know what I’m going to do about it.

  ‘I went to a funeral two days ago,’ Lisa said, and Sophie was thrown. ‘Do you remember Jonas Peel from the old days?’

  ‘Of course. Didn’t he marry Janet Brookmyre?’