‘She was breathless, excited. It was hard to make out what she was saying over the noise of the traffic beside me. I told her I couldn’t talk right then, and that she should come over straight from work, and we could have a proper chat.’ Tears rolled over her cheeks. ‘And then within hours, she was dead. I never got the chance to talk with her again. I’ve always wondered what she wanted to tell me. I should’ve listened. I should’ve—’
Kay gave the couple a moment to collect themselves, and then frowned.
‘What about her relationship with Kevin? Any issues there?’
‘None whatsoever,’ said Martin. ‘Kevin doted on her.’
‘Have you stayed in touch with him?’
‘We drifted apart,’ said Karen. ‘It was so hard for all of us, but to then have to live through the inquest into the rail accident as well and with all the media interest – well, I’m afraid we became a bit reclusive. Maybe too much.’
‘It was hard enough to deal with our own grief,’ said Martin. ‘We couldn’t cope with helping Kevin through his as well.’
‘What does Alison’s death have to do with your investigation, Detective?’ asked Karen.
‘At the moment, I’m simply working with my team to investigate and learn about the deaths on that stretch of track, in the hope it might shed some light on our current enquiries.’ Kay put her notebook back in her bag and stood. ‘I appreciate you both speaking with me today, thank you.’
Martin eased himself off the sofa. ‘I hope it helps.’
Kay shook hands with Karen, and then followed him out to the front door.
He opened it, then leaned forward and lowered his voice as Barnes headed towards the car. ‘I appreciate you have a job to do, Detective. But nothing will bring our daughter back.’
His lips tightened, and then he closed the door quietly before Kay could respond.
She sighed, then stomped her way back to the car, her heart heavy.
Thirty-Nine
Kay slipped through the door to the incident room and manoeuvred herself so she stood at the back, Carys joining her.
As the briefing commenced, she noted a subdued air amongst her colleagues and wondered what had happened during her absence from the office. Sharp finished speaking, passing on words of encouragement to the team, before he brought the afternoon debrief to a close, and everyone began to collect their belongings and head out the door for the day.
She frowned.
A distinct silence filled the space. Where normally the investigative team would be making plans to have a quick drink after work, or calling out to each other about the next day’s assigned tasks, instead they seemed unusually quiet.
She grabbed Debbie as she passed her on her way out. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Gavin got beaten up last night. He’s in hospital.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah. Couple of broken ribs, apparently.’
‘Kay?’
She raised her gaze to the back of the room. Sharp gestured to his office.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ said Debbie. ‘Plenty to do, right?’
‘Right. See you.’
As she moved across the room towards Sharp’s office, she heard Debbie and Carys leaving together, their voices fading as they walked away down the corridor, exchanging updates, and then she tuned them out.
‘What happened to Gavin?’ she said to Sharp.
‘He was attacked in the car park next to the Bishop’s Palace late last night. Apparently he’d been out for a drink with friends, and got jumped on the way back to his car.’
‘He told me he was going to get a taxi.’
‘I guess he changed his mind – he was certainly under the drink drive limit, as he’d only had a couple of light beers the whole time he was there.’
‘Suspects?’
‘Not at this stage. The investigating officers have the CCTV footage, although Gavin told them his assailants were both wearing scarves around their faces, so he couldn’t provide any details.’
‘How many of them?’
‘He says two attacked him, but there was a third one acting as lookout and driver – after they’d beaten him to a pulp, a car pulled up and his two attackers jumped in before it drove away.’
‘How bad is he?’
‘Two broken ribs, lacerations to his face. Bruising. They’re going to keep him in for a couple of days to make sure there’s no internal organ damage.’
‘Motive?’
‘None that we can ascertain – they didn’t take his wallet for a start.’
Kay swallowed.
‘Anyway, sit down for five minutes,’ said Sharp. ‘Bring me up to speed on what you’ve got to date. Anything of interest?’
‘I’ve spoken with Alison Campbell’s parents. Kevin McIntyre doted on her, but they’ve lost touch with him since her death.’
‘Understandable, I suppose.’
‘Yeah. Must’ve been terrible for all of them. Karen Campbell said that on the morning Alison died, she got a phone call from her as she was leaving the house to go to work. She said Alison sounded “breathless, excited”.’
‘Could that be mistaken for something else?’
‘I wondered that. Karen said it was hard to hear Alison over the noise of the traffic – she was walking to the bus stop at the time. She told Alison to phone her after work.’
‘Crumbs, that must be playing on her mind.’
‘Karen hasn’t returned to work since that day. I can’t imagine what she must be putting herself through.’ Kay tossed her notebook onto the desk. ‘I got the impression that neither of them are coping very well.’
‘Did you explain the nature of our investigation to them?’
‘Only that we have another case we’re looking into at the moment and we were hoping to gain some insights into Alison’s working relationship with her colleagues. I didn’t see the point in raising the issue of Alison taking her own life – we only have Peter Bailey’s word to that effect at the moment anyway.’
‘Fair enough. We’ll have to keep them informed if things progress and it transpires she did, though.’
‘I understand.’
She pushed herself out of her chair and picked up her notebook. ‘I’ll chase up Kevin McIntyre first thing tomorrow. We really need to close out that angle and find out what he knows.’
‘Agree.’ Sharp switched off his computer and swung his jacket over his shoulders. ‘Of course, it doesn’t help we’re a man down now that Gavin’s laid up in hospital.’
Kay bit her tongue and followed him from the incident room, and then gestured to a door they were approaching. ‘I’m going to duck in here before I drive home.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning, then.’
‘Guv.’
She pushed open the door to the ladies’ toilet, and placed her bag on the shelf above the row of basins.
She gripped the side of one of the sinks, and avoided looking in the mirror. She didn’t want to acknowledge the guilt she knew would show in her eyes. Instead, she reached out and twisted the faucet, sending cold water gushing over the ceramic surface, and splashed her face before grabbing a couple of paper towels and pressed them against her skin.
She screwed them up and tossed them into the bin next to the tiled wall, and bit back the urge to shout with frustration.
Someone had found out about her ongoing attempts to find out the truth, and Gavin had paid the price for her stubbornness and refusal to quit.
She lifted her gaze, untied her hair and ran her fingers through it while her mind raced. She thought she was being smart, and that by covering her tracks she’d be able to shed some light on what was going on.
Instead, one of her colleagues was now convalescing in hospital, and she could no longer trust anyone else in the building.
Someone had found out about her logging in to the system to attempt to find out what had happened to the gun, and that same person appeared to be determined to send her a very clear
message to stop – even going as far as deleting crucial evidence records from the database and attacking someone who had nothing to do with the vendetta against her.
She took a step back from the basin and shivered.
If she’d known she was putting Gavin in danger, she would have never used his computer to continue her investigation.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head.
‘Oh, Gavin. What the hell have I done?’
Forty
Kay flicked her warrant card at the nurse sitting at the reception desk as she approached, and smiled.
‘I realise I’m visiting out of hours. Could I see Gavin Piper, please?’
The nurse gave her a reproachful look. ‘We have visiting hours for a reason, you know.’
‘I’m sorry. We’ve been busy and I couldn’t get away. How is he?’
‘Sore, I would imagine. Two broken ribs, a broken nose, and a slight concussion. I hope you catch the bastards that did this to him. He’s a lovely bloke.’ She picked up a clipboard and handed it across the desk to Kay. ‘Sign in. You can have fifteen minutes with him, no more – and that’s only because he’s got a room of his own and the doctor’s already finished his rounds.’
‘Thanks.’ Kay scribbled her signature on the page and handed back the pen. ‘Which way?’
She followed the directions the nurse gave her, and then turned and made her way along the magnolia-coloured corridor and past the opening to the main ward. Some of the beds had curtains pulled around them for privacy, while sleeping forms bunched up under blankets filled the other beds. An elderly man with headphones on spotted her and nodded.
She gave a little wave, wondering if he’d had any visitors that evening to wish him well, and then carried on towards the private rooms.
She checked the numbers on the doors until she came to the one the nurse had told her, and knocked before entering.
Gavin raised his head from the pillow as she entered and pushed the door closed, and she stopped dead, shocked at his appearance.
His nose had a large band of tape across it, bruises blossoming from each side and over his eye sockets. His usual neat blonde hair stuck up in tufts, and he exuded exhaustion. A nasty scratch scored one cheek, and he’d pushed down the sheets to his waist, exposing bandages wrapped around his middle. As her eyes returned to his face, she blinked.
He held her gaze, and then pointed at the bag in her hand. ‘Please tell me you didn’t bring grapes.’
‘Hobnobs. Not the cheap imitation stuff, either.’ She reached into the bag and waved the packet in the air.
‘Nice one. Hand them over.’
‘You’ll be okay eating these?’
‘Yeah. Luckily they only broke my nose, not my teeth.’
She smiled, and checked over her shoulder that the door had closed properly before reaching into the bag once more. ‘I also brought these.’
She pulled out four miniature spirit bottles.
‘Sarge, you’re a legend in the making.’ He tried to smile, but the movement brought tears to his eyes and he shifted uncomfortably in the bed.
Kay averted her gaze, looked at the television that hung from a bracket on the wall and noticed a football game was on. She wandered over, handed him three of the four small bottles and took one of the brandy ones for herself.
She passed him the packet of biscuits as well, then looked around the sparse room before striding over to the window and picking up the chair underneath it. She manoeuvred it until it was next to the bed and she could see the television.
Gavin held out the open packet of biscuits, and she took one before pointing it at the screen. ‘Who’s playing?’
‘Real Madrid and Benfico.’
‘Where are Benfico from?’
‘Portugal. Lisbon-based club. Didn’t take you for a football fan, boss.’
Kay shrugged. ‘I don’t mind watching the bigger games. Especially if I predict Barnes’s team are going to lose. Again.’
Gavin chuckled, and then groaned and clutched his ribs.
‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to make you laugh.’
‘It’s okay. It happens if I sneeze or cough too, so I just have to deal with it.’
‘You look a mess.’
He went to shrug, and quickly changed his mind. ‘I’ve had broken ribs before. Snowboarding. Much prefer getting them that way to this, though. More fun.’
Kay leaned across and reached for the remote, turning down the volume on the game before turning back to him. ‘What happened? Where were you?’
‘I was with some mates at that new bar down on Bank Street, behind the Town Hall.’ He blushed. ‘They had a bit of a lock-in after the place had shut. Only a couple of the regulars and me, mind.’
‘Fair enough.’ Kay took another sip of her drink. ‘Go on.’
‘My friends left about half an hour before me. I got talking to the couple who own the place, and didn’t leave until quarter to twelve. I’d left my vehicle in that car park behind the church and the Bishop’s Palace that morning, so I walked back down College Road to get it. Bastards jumped me as I was entering the car park.’
‘They were waiting for you?’
He gave a slight nod. ‘Had to be. There was no one following me from the club.’
‘How many of them?’
‘Two – I might have been alright if I’d known they were there, but they were too fast, and I wasn’t expecting them.’
‘You’ve filed a report and everything?’
‘Yeah. Not that it’ll do much good.’
Kay hesitated to agree with him, but what he said was true. It wasn’t unheard of for people to be attacked in the town in the early hours of the night, and although many perpetrators were caught via CCTV footage, there were plenty that got away with it.
‘Anyway,’ said Gavin. ‘Enough about me. What’s happening with the investigation?’
She took a sip of the brandy before answering. ‘We tried to speak to Alison Campbell’s fiancé today but he wasn’t home. It’s sad; according to the neighbour, they were a really nice couple. Obviously, he’s been in a state since she died, but the house looks tidy enough. We’re waiting for him to get in touch with us now. I’ll leave it until tomorrow afternoon, and if I haven’t heard anything I’ll pop round there again on my way home.’
They both looked up at a knock on the door.
‘Give me that,’ said Gavin, and snatched the brandy bottle from her hand.
The door opened, and the nurse that had been sitting at reception poked her head around it.
‘I said fifteen minutes,’ she said. ‘It’s been over thirty. I need to ask you to leave. He has to rest.’
‘Thanks,’ said Kay. ‘I’ll be out in two. Is that okay?’
The nurse nodded, and retreated.
Kay turned in time to see Gavin removing the two spirit bottles from under the sheets.
He grinned. ‘Never took you to be one for subterfuge, Sarge.’
She took the bottle from him and drained it, before dropping it into her bag.
‘You don’t know the half of it, Piper. Get some rest.’
Forty-One
Kay jumped as her desk phone rang, and cursed under her breath as the plastic water cup next to her elbow tipped over, spilling the dregs of its contents over a pile of manilla folders.
She reached out for the telephone with one hand, plucked a handful of tissues from a box next to her computer monitor with the other, and dabbed at the files.
‘Kay Hunter.’
‘Detective, it’s Hughes on the reception desk. I’ve got a Kevin McIntyre here to see you.’
Kay screwed up the now sodden tissues and threw them into the wastepaper basket. ‘I’ll be right there.’
She grabbed her notebook and a couple of pens before making her way out of the incident room along the corridor and down the flights of stairs. When she reached the reception area, a lone man sat with his back to the wall in one of the plastic chairs that were b
olted to the floor. Hughes, the sergeant on duty, looked up from his work and gestured with his pen towards the man. Kay nodded her thanks and made her way over to the seats.
‘Kevin McIntyre? I’m DS Kay Hunter.’
He stood and shook her outstretched hand.
She took a step back, surprised at his height, and lifted her chin. ‘Thanks for coming in. I’d have been more than happy to come by the house.’
‘I had a dental appointment in town. I thought I’d pop in on my way home, to save you the journey.’
‘Thank you, that’s very thoughtful of you. Would you like a cup of tea or something?’
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘All right, well if you’d like to follow me, there’s a room along here we can use.’
She led the way along the corridor and pushed open a door to one of the interview suites. She gestured to the table and four chairs. ‘Have a seat.’
She waited until he was settled before opening her notebook to a fresh page and uncapping one of her pens, then explained the formal caution to him.
McIntyre leaned forward on the table and crossed his hands in front of him. ‘My neighbour said that you wanted to talk to me about Alison’s death.’
‘That’s right, I do. I’m sorry if this brings up painful memories. But I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me shed some light on an investigation we’re currently working on.’
‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ he said. ‘It’s almost a year ago now, but I keep expecting her to walk back through the front door.’
‘How well did you know her colleagues?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know everybody that she worked with. There were three or four who she socialised with maybe once a month or so. Usually at a pub that was sort of halfway from where we all lived. We’d sometimes meet up on a Sunday afternoon for a couple of drinks, especially over the summer – Alison got hooked on an old pub garden game called bat and trap.’
Will to Live Page 15