The Silent Children: A serial-killer thriller with a twist

by Carol Wyer

  She waited in the bright, cheerful reception before being escorted along a thick, carpeted corridor to an office at the far end. Mr Galloway, the consultant who’d seen Henry Gregson, was small and lean, and he leapt to his feet with an energetic burst when Robyn entered.

  ‘Sit down, Ms Carter,’ he said smoothly, as if she were one of his patients. ‘Such a terrible thing to happen. Tessa was a joy to work with: bubbly, hard-working and compassionate. She’ll be sorely missed.’

  ‘Thank you for sparing time to talk to me,’ said Robyn.

  ‘I don’t know how I can be of much assistance to you. We don’t get much time to socialise or chat in this job, I’m afraid, other than to ask the nurses for various medical information or assistance. I know little about the staff here.’

  ‘I understand. Can you tell me anything about Tessa at all?’

  ‘Only to reiterate what I’ve already told you. She worked efficiently. She was invariably cheerful. We like our staff to be upbeat and caring. It’s important. We deal with so many people for whom we are their last hope of having children, and it’s good to have friendly nurses like Tessa on board.’

  ‘She didn’t appear anxious about anything, maybe less focused or distracted recently?’

  ‘Far from it. She was assisting me on Monday and was quite ebullient. I remarked on it and she said she was looking forward to something “major” happening. I didn’t pry. I was on a tight schedule and had several patients to see. I suggest you talk to some of the others here. They have more opportunity to gossip.’

  ‘My officers have interviewed those who were her friends, but I might talk to one or two.’

  ‘Try Juliet Fallows. She’s one of her closest friends.’

  ‘Can I ask you about a patient?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Patient confidentiality. I won’t be at liberty to assist you on that.’

  ‘The patient in question is deceased. He was murdered on Tuesday.’

  ‘I still can’t reveal medical information. You know the score.’

  ‘I do. This isn’t so much about that. I wondered which nurse was dealing with him. He had an appointment with you, and I wondered if Tessa was assisting you that day.’

  ‘Who’s the unfortunate person?’ He folded his hands in front of him and gave her a clear-eyed look.

  ‘Henry Gregson. He had a consultation with you a couple of weeks ago. His wife Lauren has been here too.’

  He nodded. ‘I know the Gregsons. Henry did consult me. Let me see when it was.’ He clicked his computer mouse and dragged up his appointment schedule. ‘He attended the clinic on Tuesday the seventh. Just over a week ago.’

  ‘Was Tessa working with you that day?’

  He glanced at the screen again. ‘Yes, she was. Is there some connection between their deaths?’

  Robyn returned his steady gaze. ‘I can’t comment on that, sir. I’d appreciate it if you could keep this conversation between us for now.’

  ‘I’m very good at keeping confidences, and I wish you luck. I wouldn’t want your job. Must be quite demoralising some days.’

  Robyn didn’t respond. Her mind was whirring again with possibilities.

  He stood to see her out of the office and spoke once more as they stood by the door. ‘You might want to ask Juliet about the team.’

  ‘Team?’

  ‘She and Tessa got involved in a quiz team together. Tessa was revising for a quiz a while back. I overheard her and Juliet testing each other on all the bones in the human body. The others on the team might be able to assist with your enquiries.’

  ‘You don’t know who they are?’

  ‘Sorry. Not a clue. I know Tessa was pretty keen on the quiz nights. Struck me as unusual – quiz nights aren’t my idea of a fun night out. Thought it strange two young women would think otherwise. Shouldn’t they be out at nightclubs, pubs or out on the town? I certainly was when I was their age. Mind you, nowadays, I give anything for a quiet night in with a decent Burgundy.’

  Robyn headed back to reception, hoping to catch Juliet Fallows, but she wasn’t at work. She got details of her address in Hamstall Ridware – just outside Yoxall – and left the clinic, musing on Galloway’s words. It wasn’t that strange for two women to join a local quiz team. Both lived in rural communities. There wasn’t much in the way of nightlife for single women. She should know. She hadn’t had a fun night out or any social life for two years.

  Twenty-Three

  DAY FOUR – FRIDAY, 17 FEBRUARY, AFTERNOON

  * * *

  It had been pandemonium in the office all morning, and after 1 p.m. Shearer finally decamped to an interview room, along with Gareth Murray, to give Robyn a chance to make headway on her cases.

  She’d never experienced such disorganisation and so many distractions. Everybody was under duress, not helped by DCI Flint, who’d been in three times asking for updates on all the cases. Tom Shearer looked like she felt – baggy-eyed, hung-over with work and the demands being placed on him. She had no time to feel sorry for him. Following a television appeal for witnesses to the assault made on Henry Gregson, the phones had been ringing non-stop.

  Moving about the office had been a tightly choreographed procedure with each of them side-stepping and shuffling to get to drawers, cupboards, files and the coffee machine, which had been refilled three times.

  Forensics had dropped off Tessa Hall’s iPad, so Robyn had swapped the teams about. David was now searching through car registrations in the vicinity of Cannock Chase on the fourteenth of February, while Anna examined the device.

  ‘You okay with that, Anna?’ Robyn asked.

  Anna, glued to the screen, was tapping it repeatedly. Suddenly she realised she was being spoken to, stopped to tidy a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Sure. Sorry. It’s a little unusual. Tessa appears to have deleted her browsing history and cookies.’

  Robyn scrunched her nose. ‘You’ll be able to fish out any deleted history, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Leave it to me. I’m trying to get into her emails at the moment. Need a password.’

  ‘Try Schrödinger.’

  ‘I tried that first. It doesn’t work. I’ll crack it. Give me a few minutes.’ She lowered her face, her long, straight fingers flying over keys, fully concentrated on her task. The series of codes flying across the screen were a mystery to Robyn. She straightened her back and decided she needed to fit some training into her schedule. She’d been planning on doing the Ironman event in June and up until January had been in great shape for it. Since the arrival of the photograph, she’d dropped a few of her gym sessions and it was becoming obvious. She’d have to fit some training back in, even if it meant less sleep, or drop out of the event altogether.

  Robyn had always looked after her body. A sugar-free diet and daily exercise kept her in physical and mental shape. She missed the regular rush of endorphins that came with her early-morning runs or cycle rides. She mentally chastised herself. She ought to have gone this morning.

  ‘Guv, you definitely want to see this,’ said Matt, waving Harry McKenzie’s pathology report on Tessa Hall.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Tessa died due to a blow to the head resulting in a fractured skull and a massive haemorrhage to the brain, as we suspected. But get this… she was expecting a baby. Harry reckons the foetus is about two months old.’

  Robyn took a sharp breath. ‘Do we know who she was going out with?’

  Matt winced. ‘No. None of her friends or work colleagues knew about any steady boyfriend. She didn’t tell a soul about the mysterious man.’

  ‘Did you speak to Juliet Fallows?’

  ‘I interviewed her,’ said Mitz. ‘She said the same as the others. Tessa hadn’t mentioned any new boyfriend.’

  ‘That can’t be right. The only reason I can think she’d keep a relationship quiet would be because she was seeing a married man. We must establish who that man might have been. Has nobody come forward? Surely if he cared about her, he�
��d have wanted to know who killed her?’

  ‘Unless he killed her because she was pregnant,’ said Anna.

  Robyn rubbed her forehead in dismay. ‘As much as I hate that idea, it’s possible. That makes it even more imperative we identify him. I’m seeing Juliet Fallows about another matter in half an hour. I’ll see if she knows any more. Talk to her parents, relatives, anybody. We have to locate this man.’ She took a step backwards as another idea struck her. ‘Tessa had five hundred pounds in her purse, which I found odd. I’ve just had a rather unsavoury thought. Her boyfriend or somebody – maybe even his wife – might have given it to her towards an abortion.’

  ‘I’m in,’ said Anna. ‘Oh. She hasn’t got any emails. She’s deleted them all. That isn’t normal. There ought to be one or two hanging about in the trash at least. Who deletes every email?’

  Robyn came across and looked over her shoulder. ‘Somebody who’s trying to hide something.’

  ‘An affair?’

  Robyn wasn’t so sure. It seemed peculiar to delete all email history. ‘I don’t know. You’d delete them if you were hiding them from somebody, but she lived alone. Who’d see them? Is there no correspondence between her and her lover?’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t retrieve a thing. Someone with excellent computer skills has deleted them all, or told her how to.’

  ‘Maybe the killer deleted them.’ Mitz’s suggestion rang true for Robyn.

  ‘Is she on any social media sites?’

  ‘She was. She’s deleted her Facebook account.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Two weeks ago. And she’s closed her Twitter and Instagram accounts,’ Anna said, as she pulled up the information on her own computer, which she was using in tandem with the iPad.

  ‘That’s really strange. She’s been described as bubbly, and yet she’d dropped out of all social media activity. That doesn’t make any sense. Keep checking, Anna.’

  Robyn checked her watch. It was coming up for 4 p.m. and she had only an hour or two left to make headway before she clocked off. Tonight, Amélie was coming over, and she had to finish before six.

  She dragged up Harry McKenzie’s post-mortem report on Henry Gregson and reminded herself of the details. Henry had been killed by a .455 cartridge that entered the left side of his neck and into his spine at C6/7. The tissue and organ damage corroborated Connor’s findings. She thought once more about Henry’s sister, Libby, and her boyfriend, Tarik. Even though she’d been trying to establish a connection between Henry, Lauren and Tessa, she hadn’t completely ruled out Tarik, who had history with Henry and knew his sister well. Had he or Libby also known Tessa? She made a note to talk to them both again, and stuck it on her desk to remind her. She was about to leave when Anna sidled up to her.

  ‘You might be right about the money in Tessa’s purse. I just checked out the cost of a private abortion and it’s about £500.’

  Robyn winced at the news. ‘Thanks, Anna. It gives us another avenue to pursue.’ As she darted from the office to rendezvous with Juliet Fallows, she wondered if there could possibly be a link between the secretive, pregnant young nurse who knew Henry Gregson, and his wife, who desperately wanted a child.

  Twenty-Four

  DAY FOUR – FRIDAY, 17 FEBRUARY, LATE AFTERNOON

  * * *

  Juliet Fallows, with hair the colour of stewed plums, pulled at the ends of a cardigan dragged over a beige woollen dress that stretched over ample hips. Her tights matched her hair, and beige, furry slippers completed the picture. She didn’t smile but instead bustled Robyn into the kitchen, shutting the door and talking quietly.

  Loud noises came from the sitting room.

  ‘My kids,’ she said by way of an explanation for the machine gun fire that suddenly blasted from next door. No sooner had she spoken than the kitchen door opened and a boy in his mid-teens swaggered in, jeans low on his waist, the peak of his baseball cap facing backwards. He nodded at the adults, said hi, crossed the room to the fridge, pulled out a carton of juice and headed back to the door.

  ‘No you don’t. Use a glass,’ said Juliet.

  ‘No point. I’ll drink it all. Saves on washing up.’ The boy gave a sly smile and disappeared, leaving the door wide open. Juliet shut it.

  ‘He’s diabetic. He needs to keep up his sugar levels,’ she said by way of an explanation.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, and for your loss. I understand you and Tessa were good friends.’

  Juliet walked across to the sink, ran the tap cold and poured a glass of water, which she drank slowly. ‘We were. I liked Tessa. She was a breath of fresh air. Get to my age, you’ve seen your fair share of disappointments and become disillusioned with life, but Tessa was vibrant. I took to her the first day I met her at work. She’d moved to Barton-under-Needwood and was asking about places to go out. I told her I didn’t socialise at all, that I’d split up from my ex and had two teenagers, and quite honestly wasn’t up to going out. It’s really hard to find your feet again once you’ve been in a long-term relationship. I’m not exactly a great catch, and to be honest, I’d suffered a bit of a confidence knock after Gerry. Tessa was a great listener.’

  ‘I heard you played on the same quiz team,’ Robyn said.

  Juliet nodded. ‘When she found out we were living only a few miles apart, she suggested we went out together. She was a real go-for-it type. Barton’s only a few miles up the road from here, so we agreed to meet at the pub in Yoxall because it’s midway between the two of us. That night there was a quiz on in the pub and the place was packed. While Tessa was at the bar getting us drinks, she got talking to this guy Anthony who was hoping to play but had been let down by two of his team. He asked her if we’d like to join him, so we did. It was one of the best nights I’d had in ages. We won the prize fund of forty pounds that night. Anthony decided we were his lucky mascots and invited us to join them again at the next quiz night.

  ‘By the end of last year, we’d had enough of going along to quiz nights. Anthony was too serious about the whole thing. We preferred the social side of it – enjoyed a few drinks and giggles. It got me out and because of those evenings, I met some nice people who I see now and again. I’ve got Tessa to thank for dragging me out of my shell and helping me find my mojo again.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to the others on the team, too, if you have their contact details.’

  Juliet’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead. ‘I don’t have them any more. I deleted them after I stopped going to the quiz nights. There seemed no point in hanging on to them.’

  ‘Not to worry. I’ll find them. You spoke to Sergeant Patel about Tessa, but I’m going to ask again if you suspected she’d been worried about somebody maybe stalking her, or bothering her, or if she’d mentioned anybody new in her life.’

  ‘No. Nothing. She hit it off with most people. She was so enthusiastic about everything – her job, her life – everything. I really can’t imagine who’d kill her.’

  ‘We believe she was seeing somebody – possibly a married man. Did she say anything to you about meeting up with a boyfriend, or give any hints about a new man in her life?’

  Juliet looked downwards before speaking. ‘This is going to sound nasty but I really don’t mean it to be that way. Tessa was a charming, good-looking girl. She flirted outrageously with anyone who glanced in her direction, and she had a few admirers. She was sexually uninhibited. Her mantra was carpe diem, and she lived her life as she wanted. She had one-night stands with at least one of the guys on the quiz team, and some of the blokes we met in various pubs. She told me once that she’d been in a long-term relationship before she moved to Barton and it had become too claustrophobic for her, so she’d broken it off to “have some fun” while she was still young. She didn’t say anything about a new man, or a married one, to me. Although, come to think of it, she did seem bouncier than usual on Monday. She was singing. I remember she was singing. I’ve only seen her at work since we stopped the quiz nights. In fact, I have
n’t seen any of the others since last December. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘I understand. You haven’t spoken to any of the team at all?’

  She shook her head. ‘No need to talk to them. I don’t suppose Tessa did either.’

  The door opened again. This time a girl, about eighteen, came into the kitchen. Like her brother, she exuded an air of confidence and was unfazed by seeing Robyn in the room. ‘You seen my fags, Mum? Terence says he hasn’t got them, but I left them by the telly,’ she said, gazing at Robyn with almond eyes. ‘You a copper?’

  Robyn nodded.

  ‘I haven’t seen them,’ said Juliet. ‘Ask him again.’

  ‘I will. He can’t keep his thieving hands off anything,’ she said, eyes still on Robyn. She directed her next sentence at Robyn, ignoring the look on her mother’s face. ‘We could have done with you when my dad was bashing my mum up.’ With that, she wandered off. Raised voices joined the sound of gunfire and then it went quiet.

  Robyn caught the look in Juliet’s eyes. She’d seen it before in the eyes of other victims of abuse. ‘He beat you?’ she asked, quietly.

  Juliet twisted at her cardigan and nodded. ‘It’s over now. I left him. I don’t want to talk about it again – ever.’

  ‘Did you report him?’

  ‘No. I left him.’ She stared hard at Robyn. ‘And that’s that. Steph, my girl, still has issues about it as you can tell, but I’ve got on with my life. Gerry is no longer part of it. I’m getting over it in my own good time.’

  Robyn paused in case the woman wanted to say more but she clamped her lips tightly shut and wrapped her arms protectively around her body. This wasn’t the time to talk further about an abusive husband.

  ‘One last question. Do you know this couple?’ She pulled out photographs of Lauren and Henry Gregson from a file she’d been holding, and showed them to Juliet.

  ‘I recognise them. They’ve visited the clinic. I’ve seen them in the waiting room there.’