by Sibel Hodge
I stood up and followed him inside, shutting the door behind me.
Wilmott crossed his arms, treating me to a smirk. ‘I think Detective Superintendent Greene made it very clear at the time, didn’t he? I mean, you were almost suspended. You’re on thin ice as it is, and I’m sure it won’t take much to have your suspension finalised if you take one step out of line. Or even for you to be demoted.’ His eyes twinkled with excitement. He would’ve loved that. ‘I don’t know what would be worse, actually – being made to walk the beat again in uniform or sitting at home twiddling your thumbs.’ He raised sarcastic eyebrows at me. ‘So stop wasting time and forget about the Lord Mackenzie case. It’s over. And since I’m SIO on this case, get on with what you’re tasked to do. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly.’ I bit my tongue.
‘Good. I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.’ Wilmott strutted back into the CID office again and sat on the edge of a desk.
I sat down at mine and bit into my sandwich, knowing it would take a while to get through the stodge, which would stop me blurting out something I shouldn’t say.
‘The Russell Stiles and Goldings development angles look promising,’ Wilmott carried on. ‘Until we can be sure that Alissa’s safety isn’t an issue, I’ve taken her to the Berkely Hotel. She’s staying in a suite there and I’m sleeping on the couch, but that information doesn’t leave this room. I’ll be staying with her overnight until we can get a uniform stationed with her, but they’re just as bloody short-staffed as us. So, anything else?’
Ronnie put his hand up, as if he was a schoolboy in class. ‘Sir, house-to-house didn’t reveal any suspicious sightings last night. I spoke with Mrs Downes, the neighbour Alissa ran to after the attack, and she said she didn’t know them that well, but they seemed like a very sweet couple. She used to feed their cat for them if they were away. The other neighbours in the village said the Burbecks kept themselves to themselves, so they only knew them to say hello to.’
‘Was there a cat at the house last night?’ Becky asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It may’ve been spooked and run away. I didn’t see any cat bowls or litter trays, either. But I’ll ring SOCO at the house to make sure there’s some food left out in case it comes back.’
‘Right. Any CCTV evidence of the surrounding area?’ Wilmott asked Becky.
‘No. The offender could’ve come in through the woods at the rear of the property and not been seen anyway. I’ve just been checking out any social media for the Burbecks.’
‘Who told you to do that?’ Wilmott frowned.
‘Erm . . .’
‘I did,’ I said. ‘You weren’t here, so . . .’ I shrugged. ‘You can tell a lot about someone from their social media pages. We need to build up a picture of the Burbecks.’
‘Yes, well, that was going to be my next order for you, Becky,’ Wilmott muttered.
Order? Christ, the power’s going to his head already.
‘What did you find, then?’ Wilmott asked Becky.
‘Max Burbeck didn’t use any of it. Alissa Burbeck is on Facebook only and has fifty-one friends on there. She doesn’t post much, usually photos of her and Max, or cute animal photos, and has the highest privacy settings, so only friends can see her page. The last time she posted anything was before their trip to Australia, a status update of them checking in at the airport.’
‘Is she friends with Stiles on there?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘OK.’ Wilmott clapped his hands together. ‘SOCO are also checking through the woods at the rear of the house, but it’s going to get dark soon. Tomorrow morning, I’m doing a press conference, appealing for any witnesses to come forward. Alissa is obviously far too traumatised to sit in on the press appeal.’ He handed me a photocopied list of names and addresses. ‘This is a copy printed off Alissa’s laptop of all the people invited to the wedding reception at The Orchard. It also includes the catering and marquee company who would’ve been there. We need to talk to everyone who attended and find out if any of them witnessed this incident with Russell Stiles.’
I glanced through the list, estimating about a hundred people. Next to the names was listed their relationship to Max or Alissa – friend, colleague, et cetera. ‘There’s no one listed as family.’
‘Max Burbeck was an only child whose parents are dead. No living relatives, either. Alissa’s mum is ill in a nursing home, so she couldn’t make the wedding. Her dad died when she was young, and she also has no other family left,’ Wilmott said.
I carried on flicking through the list. ‘We should split this. There are a lot of people on here. Plus, I need to see the homeowners on that development.’
Wilmott waved a hand dismissively in the air. ‘You can delegate. I need to get back to Alissa.’
So it was alright for me to delegate when it suited him. That was Wilmott all over – he was lazy, easily bored with minor details, and avoided doing any work himself, preferring just to butt in on the glory when there was a result.
‘Anything else?’ Wilmott asked.
Noes all round. Wilmott ran a hand through his hair, smoothed down his eyebrows with his fingertips, and rushed out.
I took another bite of my sandwich and wondered what it was doing to my insides. ‘Right. Becky, start phoning these people and find out if they witnessed what happened between Russell Stiles, Alissa, and Max at the wedding reception. Ring the catering and marquee company and find out which employees worked at The Orchard that day – they’ll need to be printed, too.’ I handed her the photocopied list. ‘I don’t think we should disregard anything, so see if you can find out what Alissa’s relationship with Max was like. I know they’d only been married a few months, presumably they were in the honeymoon stages, but it’s worth checking to see if there were any problems between them. Alissa has a huge motive, too. Max was worth millions.’
‘Um . . . Sarge,’ Ronnie said. ‘DI Wilmott said not to pursue that angle.’
‘Well, DI Wilmott isn’t here, and I’m delegating.’ I smiled at him.
‘Yes, Sarge,’ he said hastily.
I turned back to Becky. ‘OK?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re with me,’ I said to Ronnie, throwing the rest of the unappetising sandwich in the bin.
THE OTHER ONE
Chapter 10
I think night-time was definitely the worst. Dad would sit and drink in the evenings in his favourite armchair. The one Mum and I weren’t allowed to sit in. Whisky was his favourite thing. It didn’t make sense to me that he told Mum she couldn’t buy any new clothes for herself or me, when I knew how much a bottle of whisky cost because I saw it on the label. I added up one day how much he spent on it a year and knew that we could get loads of new things if he spent that money on us. Instead, we had to make do. Mum would darn socks, put patches on my jeans with threadbare knees, turn trousers into shorts. When I grew out of clothes I’d still have to wear them, even though my arms poked out the ends so I had three-quarter-length sleeves and my waistbands dug into my belly because they were too small.
Still, as long as Dad had his whisky, we couldn’t complain.
But the drink made him even madder than usual. Sometimes I’d lie awake in my bedroom, unable to go to sleep because I was just waiting for the screaming and thumping to start.
It was winter then, and a storm had whipped up, torrential rain lashing at the house. The wind howled through the cracks around the windows in my bedroom, whispering things to me that I tried to make out but couldn’t understand.
And then I heard it, as usual. The familiar sounds of Dad’s anger and abuse.
I pulled the covers over my head, but it didn’t block the noise out. Even when it wasn’t happening, I could hear the echoes of it turning over in my mind. Even when I tried to drown it out with my own thoughts, it was there, pick, pick, picking at my brain.
By now, it made me angry, too. Why couldn’t my mum take us away from him? Why didn’t she stand up to hi
m? Why did she put up with it? Why did she let me get punished for doing nothing wrong? And I realised then that she was just as mad as him. Even so, my instinct to stop him hurting her arose every time. So what if I ended up with a bruise or a kick or in the cupboard with no dinner? I didn’t care about any of that by then.
I ran to their bedroom and banged on the door. ‘Stop hurting her! Stop it!’
I heard another loud noise from inside, Mum’s scream, then the door swung open and Dad towered over me. Before I knew what was happening I was in his clutches. He carried me downstairs, and I wriggled and strained to get away, but he was too strong for me. He opened the front door and dumped me outside on the freezing cold step. Then the door closed and the lock turned.
The wind nipped ferociously at my thin pyjamas, stinging rain pelted down, soaking me instantly as I banged on the door, begging to be let in. I hopped on my bare feet, trying to stop the cold from seeping into my skin, crying for my mum to let me inside again. Crying because I wished I’d never been born.
I don’t know how long I pounded on the door for, but no one came. Tears sprang into my eyes, mingling with the rain, as I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, shivering, teeth chattering. I wasn’t afraid of the darkness. I had the cupboard to thank for that. But the cold – that was something else.
I ran to the cow barn and stepped inside, my feet squishing on urine-covered hay, the stench burning into my nostrils and the back of my throat. It was warmer in here, the heat from the cows’ bodies drifting through the building. The cow in the first stall was Lulabelle. At least, that’s what I called her. I had names for all of them, even if Dad didn’t. She had barely enough rope tying her to the metal bars at the front of her pen to lie down, which forced her to sleep in an uncomfortable position. I crept into her stall and lay down next to her, stroking her head as she nuzzled her wet nose into me and sucked on my pyjamas.
I fell asleep listening to her snorts and snuffles, knowing she was the only one who loved me, and I was the only one who loved her.
THE DETECTIVE
Chapter 11
I parked the car in The Goldings development and glanced around. The houses were set on large plots, but most of them had a shabby appearance. I stared at the front gardens and wondered about the asbestos hidden under the soil. A silent killer that none of them knew about when they’d been sold the dream.
Ronnie started on the opposite side of the close while I went to Mr and Mrs Porter’s house first. They were both in their mid-sixties. Mrs Porter was all bones and sharp angles, her clothes practically hanging off her. She had sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones. Her white hair was thinning around the back of her scalp. Mr Porter didn’t look much healthier, slumped in a floral armchair with an oxygen tank on the floor beside him attached to a mask resting on the arm of the chair. In contrast to her skeletal frame, he was very overweight, his stomach folding over the top of his belt.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I have to ask some questions following a murder last night,’ I said as I sat in their lounge.
‘A murder?’ Mrs Porter gasped.
‘Max Burbeck was stabbed to death in his home.’
Mrs Porter snatched a glimpse at her husband.
‘Good,’ Mr Porter said.
‘Good?’ I repeated.
‘He was—’ He broke off into a coughing fit.
Mrs Porter shot up from her seat with amazing speed for someone so frail-looking and sat on the arm of his chair, rubbing his back.
Eventually, the coughing subsided into a wheezy breath.
‘That man was a bastard.’ Mrs Porter lifted her chin in the air, as if daring me to say otherwise. ‘Do you know what he did to us? To all the other people in this close?’
‘I heard that this site was built on contaminated land.’
‘Yes, and he knew all about it!’ she spat.
Mr Porter coughed again.
‘Use the nebuliser,’ Mrs Porter said to him, reaching out to get the mask.
Mr Porter pushed her hand away. ‘No, not yet. I want to say something.’
I glanced at Mr Porter. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly and slow, with pauses between each word as he struggled for breath.
‘We bought this house from new,’ he said. ‘It was supposed to be an investment. Our retirement fund. We were always going to sell it when we got too old and move into a little retirement flat with a nice bit of equity to subsidise our pension. But now, thanks to what that man did, we have nothing. We can’t sell. We’ve got no inheritance to leave our kids or to fall back on as a nest egg in our old age. And look at me.’ He reached for the oxygen mask and inhaled some breaths.
‘My husband was a keen gardener,’ Mrs Porter stepped in. ‘Every chance he got, he was outside. He grew vegetables in a patch at the bottom that we’ve been eating for the last twelve years! And now we know . . . we just know that his health problems have been caused by the asbestos that was in the ground this whole time!’ Tears sprang into her eyes.
‘I’m very sorry to hear what’s happened. Have you sought legal advice about it?’
‘Yes. If we take Burbeck Developments to court we might lose. They say they’ve got documents absolving them of any prior knowledge of the contamination, and the company that dumped the waste doesn’t exist any more. We could try to sue them, maybe, or even sue the council, but we probably wouldn’t win, and we’d probably be dead by then anyway! They’d drag it out for years.’
Mr Porter sucked hard on the oxygen.
‘You sent a threatening email to Max Burbeck saying he didn’t deserve to live?’ I asked Mr Porter.
‘So?’
‘Death threats are a serious offence.’
Mr Porter snorted. ‘He gave us a death sentence, didn’t he? Why aren’t you doing anything about that?’
‘Was the email as far as it went?’ I asked.
Mr Porter’s eyes widened incredulously, wheezing hard. ‘Look at us both! Do we look like we could kill someone? I might’ve thought about it, but I’m in no fit state to do anything about it.’
A little girl of about seven opened the door to No. 5, closely followed by a woman in her late thirties.
‘I’ve told you not to answer the door!’ the woman said to her daughter, stepping in front of her.
‘Mrs Cox?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Are you from the council? Because you were supposed to take more soil samples from my house, too, and we got missed last time.’
‘Sorry, no. I’m Detective Sergeant Carter. Can I come in and ask you a few questions?’
‘Oh.’ She took her daughter’s hand and stepped back. ‘Yes.’ She glanced down at her daughter and said, ‘Go into the lounge and watch TV with your brother. And do not go outside again.’
Her daughter gave me a gap-toothed smile and skipped away.
Mrs Cox led me into a kitchen at the other end of the house that overlooked a large messy garden. Weeds were growing through what once would have been a neat lawn and were pushing up cracks in the path. The bushes were ratty and filled with dead flowers. ‘Is it a police matter then? They told me it was a civil thing. But it should be a police matter! They’re murdering us slowly.’
‘I’m not here about the contamination. Well, not directly anyway.’
She put a hand on her hip. ‘What’s going on then?’ And then she had a sudden thought and a hand went to her throat. ‘It’s not Jim, is it? Has something happened?’
‘Jim’s your husband, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s actually regarding Max Burbeck.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What about him?’
‘He was murdered last night in his home.’
‘What? And you think I did it?’ She barked out a laugh. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
‘I understand his company was responsible for building this site on contaminated land.’
‘Not his company. Him. I’m holding him responsible.’ She picked up a photo on th
e windowsill of her and three children and thrust it towards me. ‘This is my family! My kids have been playing in that soil for years. And now we find out how toxic it is. We might not know for years whether they’ve got any kinds of illnesses. It can cause cancer, you know, all sorts of things. And that . . . man was responsible for it! The council have been absolutely useless, too! I’m sure they’re trying to cover up their involvement in it all. Bloody corrupt is what they all are. This development should never have been allowed to happen. Have you spoken to Mr Porter yet? He’s got emphysema and lung cancer from living here! We’re all living under a death sentence now.’
‘I’m very sorry about what’s happened, Mrs Cox. I can understand how upset you are.’
‘Upset?! Upset? I’m bloody livid. I’m so angry I could . . .’
‘You could what?’
‘Do you seriously think I could kill him? I’m not exactly sad that he’s dead. It’s called karma, you know. But I didn’t have anything to do with it.’
‘Where’s Jim?’
‘He’s in Paris, on a conference to do with work.’
‘And when did he go there?’
‘Two days ago. He’s due back tonight. Why?’
‘I have to ask, Mrs Cox. Obviously, the situation you’re in is very emotive.’
‘Jim didn’t kill Max, either, that’s ridiculous!’
‘I’m not saying he did, but I still need to eliminate him from our enquiries.’
‘And when did it happen, then?’
‘In the early hours of this morning.’
She put the photo down and scribbled a number on a Post-it note. ‘Here, this is his mobile number. He wasn’t even here when it happened.’
The front garden of No. 6 was overgrown and shabby, too, and I wasn’t surprised that the owners had stopped caring for their gardens, given the circumstances. Who’d want to touch that soil, knowing there was a potential ticking time bomb in it?