At Your Door

by J. P. Carter

  By then she was already married to him, having ignored the advice of her widowed mother, who was still alive back then.

  ‘You’ve only been together for five months,’ her mother said to her just before the wedding, which took place in Marbella. ‘It’s too soon. And I know he’s not right for you. There’s something about that man I don’t trust – or like.’

  They moved to Spain shortly after the wedding. She didn’t need much persuading to up sticks after she’d had a taste of the laid-back lifestyle and year-round sunshine.

  To begin with she was so blinded by love and infatuation that she didn’t see him for what he was – a complete and utter control freak.

  The first time he made her feel uncomfortable was six weeks into the marriage. By then she was bored with doing nothing all day and told him that it was time she started looking for work.

  ‘You don’t need to,’ he said. ‘I earn enough money to provide for us. A wife’s job is to stay in shape and look after the house.’

  ‘Is that a joke?’ she said.

  He arched his brow at her. ‘You should know by now that I don’t tell jokes.’

  ‘But you can’t be serious, Bruno. We’re not living in the nineteen thirties. If I want to work then I bloody well will.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t be happy with that,’ he replied. ‘None of the other wives in my family go to work. For them taking care of the home and raising a family is a full-time job.’

  ‘We don’t have a family, though. It’s just you and me.’

  ‘But we’re trying for a baby, aren’t we? So soon we’ll have kids and you won’t have any time for yourself. So make the most of it while you can.’

  She didn’t push it. She did as she was told, without realising that she had taken the first step towards a life of subjugation.

  It took her a while to accept that she was in an abusive relationship. At first it was subtle. He would ask her where she’d been, unjustly accuse her of flirting with other men, put her down in front of his family and friends. It made her feel confused, off balance, like she was walking on eggshells all the time.

  And it gradually got worse. He started checking her phone to see who she’d been talking to, and refused to be clear about why he was always so flush with cash, seeing as he was supposedly working as a salesman in his father’s wholesale business.

  Every so often he threw her a bone to keep her happy, a compliment, a nice gift, a special treat – as though it would erase his bad behaviour.

  And then, after trying for so long to have a child, they learned that she couldn’t have children. It was a blow to both of them, but Bruno was furious as well as gutted.

  A week after the diagnosis he laid a hand on her for the first time. It happened after he came home drunk one lunchtime and said he wanted to have sex. When she said she wasn’t in the mood he called her a sterile bitch and shoved her hard against a wall.

  She should have walked out then but she didn’t and the next morning he was full of contrition. And that was the usual pattern of his behaviour as he became increasingly aggressive.

  Sophie’s life was intolerable, but she learned how to pretend to her friends that she was happy while at the same time hiding the bruises from them. She felt suffocated by him, and every day he would do something that would eat away at her self-respect. There were the guilt trips, the degrading tirades, the unpleasant tone of voice, the refusal to communicate.

  He was possessive, manipulative, bullying. But Sophie didn’t leave him because she was scared of what he would do to her if she did.

  It did not stop him from threatening to dump her, though. He told her that he would be off like a shot if the right woman came along who could give him babies.

  The nightmare lasted for almost three years before something happened that presented Sophie with an opportunity to escape.

  Bruno came in late one night while she was watching television and told her that she had to provide him with an alibi. She noticed bloodstains on his shirt and chinos and the worried look on his face.

  ‘I’m expecting the police to come here and when they do I want you to tell them that I’ve been with you all evening and that I didn’t go out,’ he said.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I got into a fight and someone got hurt. That’s all you need to know. Just do as I say and everything will be all right.’

  The cops came the next day, by which time she had heard on the radio that a man had been stabbed outside his house in one of the Marbella urbanisations. And her husband matched the description of the attacker.

  After they took him away a detective came to interview her.

  ‘Your husband has told us that he spent the entire evening with you,’ he said. ‘Is that true, Mrs Perez?’

  Sophie saw her chance and went for it.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘He came in late with blood on his shirt and trousers. He told me he’d been involved in a fight.’

  ‘What did he do with his clothes?’

  ‘He burned them in the back garden.’

  Bruno was charged with the attempted murder of a known drug dealer and at his trial it emerged that he himself was part of a rival drugs gang, which explained where all his ready cash came from. Sophie gave evidence at the trial after police moved her to a safe house. It was her testimony that sealed the case for the prosecution and Bruno was sentenced to a minimum of seven years in prison.

  She agreed to his request to visit him just once because she wanted to tell him that she was going to file for divorce. But he told her that if she did that he would arrange for someone to visit London and kill her mother.

  ‘And that will be just the start,’ he said. ‘If you go on to settle down with another man, or, God forbid, get married, then I’ll arrange for other people you know and love to be murdered as well. And don’t think I won’t be able to because I’m stuck in here. My family hate you just as much as I do for what you’ve done, and they’ll be only too pleased to carry out my wishes.’

  Then he issued his final threat – he was going to find her when he got out of prison and make her suffer for betraying him.

  ‘You’re getting what you deserve, Bruno,’ she told him. ‘Not only for stabbing that man, but also for what you’ve done to me.’

  That same day she flew back to the UK to visit her mother. She told her about Bruno’s threat, and persuaded her mother to move to a new flat.

  But Sophie feared that wherever her mother moved, Bruno would find her if he was determined enough. So she decided not to seek a divorce, at least for the foreseeable future. She just couldn’t risk any harm coming to her mother, her sister and any of her friends.

  She stayed with her mother for a couple of months but couldn’t settle and came to another momentous decision, which was to move back to Spain.

  ‘I fell in love with the country,’ she said when she broke the news to her mother. ‘London no longer feels like home to me.’

  And so she returned there with her mother’s blessing. She rented a flat in a town five hundred miles from Marbella and got a job in a restaurant there.

  Two months later James Miller walked into the restaurant with Alice, and a new chapter in her life began.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Anna felt a flare of excitement sweep through her as they headed across the river to Nathan Wolf’s home in Kensington.

  Things were developing at breakneck speed, and not just with the investigation. Jack Keen clearly thought he was onto something with the lead he was following up in Shoreditch. But Anna knew that she had to remain cautious. Too often in their search for Chloe her hopes had been raised only to be dashed again.

  At least right now she had something to occupy her mind while Jack earned his money.

  The interview with Ross Moore had been interesting. He had failed to convince them that he wasn’t Holly’s killer, but right now there wasn’t enough evidence against him to hold him in custody. They needed to be sure that
it was him the landlord had seen outside Holly’s flats. They also needed to confirm that he didn’t own a car or at least have access to one.

  Before leaving the station, Anna had instructed the team to carry out various checks and to seek a warrant to search Moore’s flat.

  Now her thoughts turned to Holly Blake. The victim. A girl who seemingly had the world at her feet. Young, attractive and popular, by all accounts. But also someone who’d had mental health issues in the past.

  It seemed she’d also had questionable taste in men. A guy twice her age who used her for his sexual gratification, and a drug user with two convictions to his credit. And both men had become hostile towards her. Ross Moore because she had walked out on him, and Nathan Wolf because she was threatening to destroy his reputation and relationship with another woman.

  As yet there was no firm evidence against either of them, so Anna and her team could not rule out the possibility that poor Holly had fallen victim to a stranger. Or perhaps to someone else she had upset.

  Crucial questions remained.

  Why did it take her so long to get to her flat after leaving her mother’s house?

  Why did she then leave the flat after only about fifteen minutes, and where did she go from there?

  And was Theo Blake telling the truth when he claimed he went to her flat but didn’t see her?

  Hopefully they would pick her up on more CCTV, but it wasn’t something they could bank on. A popular misconception – encouraged by TV detective dramas – was that virtually every street in the capital was covered by surveillance cameras. But that was far from the truth. Despite there being over half a million cameras, thousands were turned off at any given time, some by cash-strapped councils. Plus, there were countless blind spots, which was hardly surprising given that Greater London spanned six hundred square miles and had a population of almost nine million.

  The scene outside Nathan Wolf’s house sucked the breath out of Anna’s lungs. A crowd of about fifty reporters and photographers packed the pavements on both sides of the road. There were also several TV crews and satellite trucks.

  Walker parked up between a patrol car and a forensics van that had beaten them to the location. Crime scene investigators in white suits sat inside waiting for the cue to enter the property.

  As soon as Anna and Walker stepped out of the car reporters clustered around them, waving microphones and recorders and shouting their questions.

  ‘Has Nathan Wolf been arrested?’

  ‘What is the MP’s connection with Holly Blake?’

  ‘Can you confirm that the two were lovers?’

  ‘Is Mr Wolf your only suspect?’

  As Anna shouldered her way through the crowd, she signalled to the CSIs to exit their van and follow her.

  Two uniforms stood either side of the gate preventing the media mob from entering the front garden. They’d arrived earlier after Wolf had called the police to say his home was under siege. Anna showed the officers her ID and was waved through. She marched straight up the path armed with the search warrant and the front door swung open before she had a chance to ring the bell.

  A rattled-looking Nathan Wolf stood there, his face strained and anxious.

  ‘Is this your doing?’ he yelled, as he pointed an accusing finger at Anna. ‘Did you stir things up so that this lot would come here and harass me?’

  Anna ignored the question and held up the piece of paper she was holding.

  ‘I have a warrant to search your house, Mr Wolf. We’ve also been given permission to take your car away for forensic examination. You are quite within your rights to remain on the premises while we conduct the search.’

  He looked fit to explode. ‘This is fucking outrageous. I’ve told you that I did not kill Holly. And you won’t find anything in this house to prove that I’m lying.’

  ‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, have you?’ Anna said.

  ‘Are you being serious? Look at that lot out there. My reputation is in ruins and I’ve no doubt that the court of public opinion has already found me guilty.’

  Anna had some sympathy with him there, but she had no intention of telling him.

  ‘So how do you want to play it, sir?’ she said. ‘Are you going to invite us in or are you going to cause an unnecessary scene in front of all those cameras?’

  He stood there for several seconds, rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet, then said, ‘I don’t really have a choice, do I?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. By the way, is Miss Rothwell still here?’

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ he replied, his voice a harsh whisper. ‘She left a couple of hours ago and truth be told I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Anna gestured for Walker to enter Wolf’s house ahead of her. It had already been decided that he would remain at the MP’s side during the search. Anna held back to brief the SOCOs on what to look for.

  ‘It’s possible that this is where Holly Blake died,’ she said. ‘We know she was stabbed in the throat and the weapon used was a long blade with a serrated edge. So we’re looking for a knife, blood, contaminated clothing and anything that might suggest Holly could have been killed here.’

  As the SOCOs went about their work, Anna put on latex gloves and walked around the house, noting that Nathan Wolf was seated outside on a patio chair smoking a cigarette while Walker stood behind him.

  The rooms were smart without being extravagant. There were three bedrooms, two with en-suite bathrooms, a separate dining room and a large modern kitchen.

  Scattered about the house were photographs of Wolf’s wife Shelley, who had died of a stroke months after he began his affair with Holly. She was an attractive woman, Anna noticed, with a soft, open face and short fair hair.

  There were no pictures of Holly, but there were several of his latest girlfriend – or soon to be ex-girlfriend – Jennifer Rothwell. In one the pair were at a table in a restaurant raising wine glasses to the camera and smiling broadly.

  The search team came across some women’s clothes in one of the wardrobes and Wolf confirmed that they belonged to Jennifer, who had often stayed overnight.

  That was one of the reasons he had never invited Holly to spend time in his house. Another was that he didn’t want to take the chance that they’d be seen together and their relationship would be exposed. After all, Holly had been no more than his bit on the side, whereas Jennifer was the woman he loved and wanted to marry.

  Anna ventured into the back garden several times to ask Wolf questions and each time she saw that he was becoming more anxious and agitated. When she said they needed the key to open a cupboard in the main bedroom he reacted furiously by saying that he was going to sue the police for what they were doing to him.

  After reluctantly telling her where to find the key, he stood up and stormed across the garden, where he had to walk around forensics officers who were looking for freshly turned earth in the lawn and flower beds.

  It became apparent, as soon as it was opened, why the cupboard in question had been locked. Inside was an array of BDSM gear, including a whip, some restraints, a slave collar, blindfolds and several items that looked like medical equipment from a hospital.

  Anna remembered Wolf telling her that Jennifer was also into S and M sex. What was stored in the cupboard did not compare with the stuff in Holly’s playroom, but it had no doubt provided the couple with hours of painful pleasure.

  Elsewhere in the house officers were going through Wolf’s wardrobes, drawers and filing cabinets in his ground-floor study. They were spraying Luminol, the chemical used to detect trace amounts of blood that are invisible to the human eye and can remain on surfaces even after they’ve been cleaned, on the kitchen floor, sinks and shower trays. But after an hour Anna was beginning to think that they weren’t going to find any physical evidence that would link Wolf to Holly’s murder.

  Some items would of course be taken away to be exam
ined in the lab, including a couple of kitchen knives, clothing and a few pairs of shoes.

  Before his Range Rover was taken away, Anna was told that nothing incriminating had been found in it, but it was clear the vehicle had recently been cleaned both inside and out.

  Then, just as she was about to halt the search, she was summoned into the hall by an officer who said he had something to show her. The object he’d found had been placed in an evidence bag, which he handed over to her. As she examined it a damp shiver rippled down her spine.

  ‘So this wasn’t a waste of time, after all,’ she said.

  Seconds later she stepped back out onto the patio. Wolf had returned to his seat, where he was smoking another cigarette while staring up at the sky. His body tensed when she held the evidence bag in front of his face.

  ‘Can you please explain why this was in the pocket of one of your jackets that’s hanging up in the hallway?’ she asked him.

  His brow creased and he shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a driving licence, Mr Wolf. Or to be precise it’s Holly Blake’s driving licence, and I’m guessing that those dark specks on it are blood. Holly’s blood.’

  Wolf tried to snatch the bag from her but she pulled it back.

  ‘You must have planted it there,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’

  He shot to his feet, his whole body shaking, eyes protruding from their sockets.

  ‘You’ve got to believe me. I had nothing to do …’

  Suddenly he clutched at his chest and scrunched his face up as though in pain. Then he started struggling to breathe, and Anna heard Walker say that it looked as though he was having a panic attack.

  A moment later Wolf doubled over and vomited on the paving stones in front of Anna.

  ‘Get him some water,’ she called out, and then spent the next five minutes trying to calm him down while hoping that it was indeed a panic attack and not something more serious.

  When he’d finally stopped shaking and his eyes had refocused she told him she was arresting him in connection with the murder of Holly Blake.