Coffee Roast was a boutique coffee shop in a world of chain stores that soaked up the majority of coffee drinkers. It was warm and welcoming, and immediately Claudia was assaulted by the scent of fresh coffee and baked goods. Her stomach rumbled and she wondered if she’d eaten breakfast that morning.
A barista stood behind the counter. His face widened into a smile when Claudia and Russ approached.
‘Good morning.’ He looked to the door of the store and back to them to confirm what he was about to say next. ‘And what a gorgeous one! What can I get for you today?’
He was rather jolly. He either hadn’t yet heard about Oliver’s death, wasn’t that close to him and didn’t care or was just good at his job. Claudia needed to find out which it was. She whipped out her ID and matching him smile for smile identified herself and Russ.
‘I’ll have a tea with milk please and . . .’ She looked to Russ, who nodded. ‘A flat white.’
‘To takeaway or stay in?’
‘Drink in, please.’ She retrieved her debit card from her pocket as the barista prepared the drinks.
The name badge on his shirt read Thomas.
‘Thomas, are you on your own today?’
‘Yeah, Oliver’s supposed to be here, but he hasn’t turned up. It’s okay now, but it was bedlam earlier. I could have killed him. It’s always busy in the morning, even on Saturdays,’ he added. ‘He’d better have a good excuse.’ He pushed a takeaway mug onto the counter. ‘That’s the tea. Milk and sugar are over there.’ He nodded towards another smaller counter to their left.
Claudia looked around her. The coffee shop was quiet at the moment. This wasn’t an ideal situation in which to interview Thomas, but it was the best they had. They’d have to deal with it. Luckily, there were no customers waiting behind them. ‘Look, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Oliver was murdered yesterday.’ His name had yet to be released on the news as the press were careful to wait for next of kin to be informed. His name would be all over it today, though. Oliver, who wanted fame as a model, would now obtain fame in death. It wasn’t the way he would have chosen. Not the way anyone would have chosen.
Thomas dropped the cup he was holding. Steaming hot coffee splashed across the floor behind the counter. He yelped, stepping back from the boiling fluid. ‘Oh my God. No. He’s not. Oh God. I didn’t mean what I said.’ His hand flew to his mouth to cover the words that had already escaped.
The bell over the door chimed and a woman with a pushchair fumbled her way through the entrance, trying to hold the door and push the baby through at the same time. Russ stepped forward to help her. The woman gushed her thanks at him.
‘Thomas, is there any chance we can have a conversation with you?’
Thomas looked at the woman who had entered. Confusion running through him. ‘Can I serve this lady? Then I’ll put the closed sign up.’
Claudia agreed, grabbed her tea and moved to an empty table. Thomas looked like a startled rabbit. The mess was still behind the counter, a cop was still without a drink and a new customer was waiting to be served.
‘Take your time,’ said Russ, noticing the panic on his face. Then he joined Claudia at the far end of the coffee shop, out of the way of listening ears.
Thomas apologised to the woman for the lack of staff and cleared up the spilled coffee. He poured Russ a fresh one and took the woman’s order, serving her a decadent looking, cream-swirled hot chocolate before grabbing Russ’s drink, flipping the closed sign on the door and moving over to sit with the two detectives.
The smell of fresh coffee from Russ’s mug wafted under Claudia’s nose. She loved the scent of coffee, like a warm hug, but she never drank the stuff, preferring a good cup of tea. She could definitely see the appeal. What niggled at her more was the desire to have a muffin with her tea, but she knew it would look unprofessional. She clamped down on the desire and got on with her job.
‘Thank you for your time, Thomas.’
His leg was bouncing up and down beside her. The woman had selected a table at the other side of the store and was pulling an infant from the pushchair and sitting him on her lap. He looked to be about a year old, from what Claudia knew of children, and he was smiling happily at his mother. How the two sides of the room contrasted this morning.
Thomas waited for Claudia to continue. He had no words. Claudia was sure she had shocked and terrified him in equal measure.
‘How was Olivier these last couple of weeks?’ she asked.
Thomas looked surprised. ‘He was fine. Came to work. Did his thing and went home again.’
‘He didn’t talk about any problems he was having?’
Thomas scratched his chin. ‘No. Oliver wasn’t like that. He didn’t have problems. He was great. No one fell out with Oliver. He got on with everyone. He was murdered? Why would someone do that?’
‘That’s why we’re here. To try to find out. You can’t think of anything?’
Thomas looked across at his customers as if they would hold the answers — the woman with the pushchair and a single man in the centre of the room eating a bacon sandwich with a huge mug at the side to wash it down with. ‘You checked with his agent?’
‘Yes. We got her details from his mother.’
Thomas fell silent a moment. ‘She must be heartbroken.’
That was an understatement. ‘She has support.’ What support was good enough to hold someone up after losing a child?
‘Was Oliver at work on Thursday?’
Thomas stared at the floor a moment and then back to Claudia. ‘Sorry. Yes. It was me and Oliver again. We work together quite a lot. He’s such a good lad.’
‘What time did he finish?’
‘When we closed. We both did.’
‘And that was?’ asked Russ.
‘Oh, erm, six.’
‘What happened at six?’ Claudia asked.
Thomas furrowed his brow. ‘We closed.’
‘What did Oliver do?’
‘I presume he went home. He mentioned something about having another job later that evening, but it wasn’t until later . . .’
The child squawked. His mother was wiping his hands. He’d been eating something child friendly she’d brought into the shop with her and obviously didn’t like being cleaned up. Thomas brought his attention back to the conversation. ‘So I presume he went home.’
‘And you?’
‘I went home.’
‘Can anyone verify that?
‘I live alone. Do I need to?’
‘Not at the moment.’
Concern flashed across his face. A hand went up to his mouth and he chewed at a nail.
‘When you left the shop did you see anyone hanging around? Anyone following Oliver?’ Not that there would be if they had planned to get him to the location voluntarily.
Thomas shook his head.
So far he was the last person to see Oliver alive, but it was hours before his death. The house-to-house enquiries around Oliver’s home had not been fruitful. No one had noticed him leave or seen anyone visit him. They were a closed-off bunch who kept to themselves. The killer had been clever in managing to get Oliver to drive himself to the kill site.
Claudia offered Thomas her card. ‘If you think of anything . . .’
Thomas nodded.
‘Please do get in touch.’
* * *
It took a couple of days for the forensic results on the drawing and envelope to come in. Claudia was in her office when she received the email. There were no fingerprints or DNA on either the drawing or the envelope.
She was disappointed but had expected it. So many criminals nowadays were forensically aware. So many crime dramas on TV highlighted the ways in which police could potentially identify an offender, and it made them take precautions of their own. They wore gloves and used self-sticking envelopes so saliva wasn’t an issue.
Further analysis of the paper disappointed Claudia even more. The forensic scientist explained that it was com
mon drawing paper that would be available in any art shop, in store or online, with a GSM of 120 and a surface that was cold pressed. All very usual for art paper, apparently.
Claudia rose from her chair, discouraged by how the investigation was playing out. She had the morning briefing to do and she had nothing to offer. She was nearly at the door when her phone rang. She turned around and picked it up. Tyler’s solicitor. Did she want her putting through?
Did she?
It was pretty much all she’d thought about over the last couple of days. That and the current murder they were investigating. Could she face him? What could he possibly offer her that she would want to know? She’d thought about the problem endlessly but hadn’t come up with an answer.
Something he’d said when she met him, once in the cemetery and once at his arrest. That the reason he hadn’t killed Ruth was that she didn’t have children. All Tyler’s victims had one or more children. This niggled at the back of her brain. It battled up against the fact that Ruth was found in the same circumstances as Tyler’s other victims. In a way no one else could possibly know about. They’d kept details to themselves to prevent random people from admitting to a crime they didn’t commit. A rare event, but one that happened, nonetheless.
‘I’ll take the call,’ she said into the handset.
And then she was there, in her ear again. The solicitor from the last call. ‘Thank you for speaking with me this morning, DI Nunn.’
Claudia’s words stuck in her throat. For someone who was a determined, forward-thinking woman, she was not behaving that way when it came to Samuel Tyler. She needed to get a grip. Claudia cleared her throat. ‘What can I do for you today?’
Claudia could imagine the smile on the solicitor’s face in the quiet before she spoke again.
‘Samuel Tyler has asked that I relay to you the importance of his request.’
She’d made her mind up. It had always been made up. But acknowledging that was another matter. And now, here, to the woman who was defending the scumbag, it was an altogether even more difficult task to accept. ‘I said I’d think on it.’
‘Mr Tyler has charged me with passing along a further message, if you’ll permit me?’
A shiver took over Claudia’s body. ‘What is it?’
The smile seemed to widen and Claudia began to hate the solicitor. ‘Mr Tyler has said that his offer to discuss why he did not kill your step-mother is time-sensitive, and if he does not receive a response by the end of today then he will have to withdraw it and never speak of it again until it goes to court.’
Then she would have no ability to question him over whatever he said. ‘I’ll see him,’ she said, before she could stop herself.
‘We’ll send you a visitor’s order, DI Nunn. And please allow me to pass on Mr Tyler’s regards.’
Claudia shuddered. She did not need Samuel Tyler’s regards. She needed to know why he wanted to speak with her and why it was so important. Anything other than that was irrelevant.
The incident room was alive with activity when Claudia walked in five minutes later, after she’d spent a little time gathering herself.
‘Shall we get started,’ she shouted over the din, stalking to the front of the room.
Silence settled, and the team focused in on her. She updated them on the email from forensics and a low groan rumbled through the space. Disappointment palpable.
‘How are we getting on with the dagger?’ she asked.
‘We’ve taken a photograph of it to a couple of dealers in an attempt to identify where it came from or to glean information on it,’ said Krish. ‘They’ve said it’s a decorative dagger that you could pick up for less than a hundred quid in stores or online. We don’t know where it’s from yet.’
‘So not a good lead,’ Russ replied.
‘Have we identified Oliver’s friends?’ Claudia asked, hoping to progress the inquiry at least a little.
‘Yes, we’ve curated a list from his mother. It took a few days as she struggled through her grief, but the FLO sent one over last night.’
‘Good, we can get on with visiting them today. Find out about Oliver’s life. The people he hung around with. If there was anyone new in his orbit. Anything he showed an unusual interest in recently, or if anyone strange showed an interest in him. There are still plenty of results pending from forensics — from the crime scene, Oliver’s vehicle, his body and his home address. Though his home looked pristine. It didn’t appear as though there had been a struggle there.’
‘To be honest, boss, it didn’t look like there’d been a struggle at the crime scene either,’ said Russ.
Claudia had to agree with him. ‘After talking to Oliver’s agent it appears he thought he was there for a photoshoot. It might be that he was asked to get into that position for a shot and . . . well, we know what happened from there. We have a lot of work to be getting on with though, so let’s not hang around. I’ll catch up with you all again later today.’
CHAPTER 16
The case was going frustratingly slow. Time was slipping past with no forward momentum in the investigation and Claudia was growing increasingly discouraged. A feeling of abject failure sniffed at the edges of her psyche. She pushed it away and focused on what they had, but once the first forty-eight hours of the job were down they were fighting a losing battle. One Claudia refused to accept. Though they were well past their first forty-eight hours now. They were two weeks down and getting nowhere.
She was at her desk when she received a call from Maxine informing her that Sharpe wanted to see her at the smoking shed immediately.
Claudia rolled her eyes but headed out to Snig Hill police station’s smoking shed. The sun was blazing down. The summer had been an unnaturally good one so far.
Sharpe was already there when Claudia arrived.
‘I thought I’d make the most of the nice day,’ said Sharpe as Claudia approached. ‘Besides, I was desperate for a smoke.’ That was the real reason they were standing outside in this heat.
Claudia stood with Sharpe but kept her distance as she wasn’t a smoker and hated the scent of cigarettes lingering on her clothes. She was too young to remember the days when people smoked in pubs, when you went home from a night out stinking of the stuff — her dad had told her of those days, and she was glad it was over. Smoking was a disgusting habit, but she wasn’t one to stop others doing as they wanted. It was a free world, after all.
‘It’s been two weeks, Claudia. I want to know how things are progressing.’ Her tone was firm. ‘You’re supposed to be showing me how good you are with this new task force.’
‘We’re not suddenly magic because you give us a fancy name.’ Claudia wasn’t sure where her bravado came from.
Sharpe peered down the cigarette between her lips, then blew out a smoke ring into the air above her.
‘That’s very true, Claudia, but people are watching what you do. You must have some news.’
‘It’s an investigation like any other. Nothing has come from forensics. There were no fingerprints on the crime scene and no DNA other than that of the victim. We had no luck when we tried to identify where he bought the dagger from. It might be that he had it in his family already, or he bought it online so we couldn’t trace it.’
‘Toxicology?’
‘Toxicology on Oliver came back clear. He wasn’t drugged, so it appears he did climb on that bed of his own accord as we believed from talking to his agent.
‘We seized Oliver’s car from the industrial site, but there’s nothing of evidential value on it. The killer didn’t go near it. It looks like Oliver transported himself there and that was it. No fibres were gathered from Oliver’s body and no fingerprints were picked up. It appears that our guy is very aware of his actions. We’re up against it.’ She let out a sigh of exasperation.
Sharpe flicked her cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with the pointed toe of her shoe. ‘What about the guy who booked him for a modelling job that night? He’s our kille
r, right?’
‘It looks like it. But we can’t get a hook in on him. The username Audrina Post provided got us nowhere. There was nothing in Oliver’s home for us to follow up on. We couldn’t find his phone, so presumably the killer took it. But we checked with his phone provider. They didn’t make contact by phone, so we checked his email address after Audrina gave us the details. The killer originally contacted Oliver through his social media account but then moved to email to thrash out the details. It looks like he created an email account specifically for this and he used a service like Hide My IP or something, so we couldn’t locate him that way.’ Claudia let out a long breath. ‘The same goes for how he used the urban exploring website. He really did seem to think of everything, so it’s incredibly difficult to track him. We talked to Oliver’s friends but got nowhere with them. It wasn’t unexpected, not once we knew he’d been approached online for the supposed modelling job. He could easily have been targeted by searching on model agencies’ websites. They all have headshots online. The friends were never going to give us any extra insight. It’s wearing the team down, but we’re not giving up.’
The sun was beating down on her and she felt like a wasp stuck in a jar. Her clothes were sticking to her, and she wanted more than anything to get back inside where she could hide from the glow of the orange ball of gas that was turning her to melting jelly.
‘So, it’s difficult then,’ Sharpe said in an understatement.
‘You could say that.’ Claudia wiped at her brow with her palm. Sharpe on the other hand didn’t look in the slightest uncomfortable. She looked like she was stood on her own personal glacier in the middle of the desert. Not a strand of hair was out of place, or a stitch of clothing ruffled or clinging where it shouldn’t be.
SECONDS TO DIE a totally gripping serial killer thriller with a twist (Detective Claudia Nunn Book 2) Page 6