‘Just carry on,’ she said, ‘I’m giving you young Adam for a week or so to help out and I’m here to take DCI Gould’s place as SIO. I know it’s been a long time since I did any actual detecting, but I used to be quite good at it.’ She looked over at the Flowerpot Men and gave them a sad smile. ‘I just wish it was under different circumstances. We will all miss Ian, but none of us more than the Flowerpot Men, or me. He was my first Sergeant when I was a rookie WPC.’ She stopped for a moment and wiped a tear away with her finger. ‘How on earth we got away with some of the stunts we pulled in those days, I’ll never know. He seemed to have no sense of fear or self-preservation.’
‘Well, definitely no sense,’ observed Ben Bennett in his dry rumble, a wry shake of his head the only emotion he would allow to surface.
Bill Larcombe managed a small smile in return.
‘He was a bugger sometimes, and I don’t think he ever read the rulebook, never mind stuck by it. But I’ll miss him. By God, I will.’
Dan kept his head down. He could hear the snuffles and the blowing of noses in the room, but felt he could play little part in their shared grief. He’d hardly known the guy, and for the three weeks they had shared an office, Ian had barely spoken to him other than to wind him up. But he could not escape the feeling that he was responsible for the total cock-up the night before. He should never have agreed to such a stupid stunt. Stunt was indeed the right word for it. And the worst thing was that he had stood in this very office and had known that it was a mistake. And he had ignored his intuition. Well, he wouldn’t do that again. He would find a way to atone for this pointless death.
He drank his coffee to the dregs and looked up to find Julie Oliver staring at him. She smiled an encouraging smile.
‘Before you all go off,’ she said, ‘I wanted to say that despite what the tabloids would have us believe, it is not common for an officer to die in the line of work. Inspector Hellier has assured me that this late-night visit to the Illusion Recording Studio was essential to the Carly Braithwaite investigation, and judging by the reception they got, he is absolutely right that there is something going on. Linking that slime-ball Abrams to the murder of Carly Braithwaite is as important a priority as nailing her murderer, and will be the best tribute you can pay to your colleague and friend.
‘So, I am your SIO. Send back everything as you get it. I’ll make sure I’m up-to-date with everything we’ve got so far.’ She stood and walked across to the whiteboard. ‘What have we missed?’ she asked, but she was talking to herself. The office had emptied behind her as soon as she’d left the table.
Chapter 27
Date: Wednesday 26th April Time: 09:48 Jamie May’s house
It was quiet in the car. Sam Knowles felt he could hardly start a conversation with Lizzie Singh about the weather, but he thought he’d have a go.
‘It’s going to be a nice summer if it stays like this.’
Lizzie Singh ignored him.
‘Are you going anywhere on holiday in the summer?’ Still nothing. He turned pink. She was torturing him. It was bad enough that he fancied her, but if she didn’t even admit to his existence, then what chance had he got?
She negotiated the roundabout and signalled left, stopping at the pedestrian crossing.
‘What?’ She saw his embarrassment. ‘Sorry, Sam, I was miles away. I just can’t get my head around Jamie May being involved in Carly’s murder. How much would I love to be able to find something out? You know, to really help with the investigation.’ She paused. ‘What were you saying?’
‘No, nothing. Just making conversation.’
‘Right.’
They drove another mile in silence until Lizzie relented. ‘So, have you searched a house before?’
Sam smiled in relief, a reprieve. ‘Yep, on several occasions, actually.’
‘Good. Tell me what to do, ‘cos this is my first.’
The May household was a two-bedroom terrace in the middle of a long row of houses in Heavitree, one of the older parts of town. There was a long back garden leading out to an alleyway that met up with a road at one end and the cemetery at the other.
‘I wonder if Jamie was trying to get home when I intercepted him at the cemetery yesterday? It’s just down the road.’
‘It’s likely. He must have been devastated.’
Sam eyed the front garden, turned into a muddy drive for the aged maroon Fiesta parked at an angle in front of the door. He rang the doorbell.
‘I still feel a little strange being out of uniform,’ Lizzie laughed, finding a place for the car keys in her bag. ‘I don’t expect people to take any notice of me now I’m in plain clothes.’
Sam smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re going to have any problem at all, Wonderwoman.’ He slipped neatly to the left to avoid her elbow.
‘Oh,’ Sandra May said as she opened the door. ‘I thought it would be the older policeman I met yesterday.’
Sam replied, ‘No, just us underlings, Mrs May, to do the house visits. Hope that’s alright?’
He didn’t wait for an answer as they followed her into the living room. Sam was surprised at how empty it was. There were no pictures on the walls, no ornaments, no soft cushions, nothing that would turn this room into a home.
‘What a lovely tidy room,’ said Sam, deciding that in this case, banality was exactly what was required.
‘I don’t like stuff everywhere.’ She looked at the floor when she spoke to them. ‘It’s hard enough having to work forty hours a week and bring up a boy on my own without having to spend all my free time cleaning and polishing. It’s got what we need.
‘So what do you want to see? I need to get back to the Police station for Jamie.’
‘We would like to see his room please, Mrs May, and anywhere else he’s likely to leave his stuff.’
She sniffed. ‘Right, you’d better come upstairs. But we weren’t expecting visitors, so you’ll have to take us as we are.’ She led them up a narrow staircase, the wall burnished to a dull yellow sheen from the brushing past of countless hands. ‘I know it needs decorating, but everything costs money, doesn’t it?’
She stood back in the cramped space at the top of the stairs and let them go through into Jamie’s room.
‘Thanks, Mrs May,’ said Sam, ‘we can manage from here.’ She sniffed again and made her way downstairs.
To Sam, the contrast between Jamie’s room and the rest of the house was more marked than it would have been in a typical home. Jamie had been through the upstairs of the house in a hurry, there were clothes on the floor, open jars of hair gel and canisters of deodorant and aftershave on top of the chest of drawers. The walls were covered in posters for heavy metal and death metal bands, and there were CDs and even vinyl records on every surface. ‘This is more like it,’ he muttered to Lizzie as they stood inside the door.
‘Shouldn’t take too long,’ he added. ‘It’s not a big room. You start on the left and I’ll start on his laptop, so we won’t get in each other’s way.’
‘Sam, what are we looking for?’
‘I don’t know, but we will when we find it. Put everything back where you get it from.’ She put her tongue out at him.
The search was as methodical and thorough as they could make it without taking everything out of the room. Once Sam found Jamie’s laptop, it took him three minutes to work out that Jamie’s password was ‘Napalm Death’. After several further fruitless minutes searching folders and browsing history, Sam shook his head, ‘Nothing. You’d think there’d be something here that would help us.’
‘I know we’re missing something,’ Lizzie said. She gingerly checked the boy’s underwear drawer, the place where most teenagers would store personal stuff. She found tobacco, bits of cardboard he used for filters for his roll-ups, and an unopened packet of condoms. ‘We asked Sandra May not to touch anything. So, what is it we’re not seeing?’
There were hand-written song lyrics, and a demo
CD, and at one point Sam played a couple of Jamie’s songs off his computer, which weren’t bad. It was a poignant moment to hear the strong voice of Carly Braithwaite belting out vocals as if she was just in the next room.
‘She could really sing, couldn’t she?’ said Sam, pausing in his perusal of the CD rack.
Lizzie slapped his arm and let out a little squeal.
‘Got it! There’s no guitar in the house, is there? I wonder if the guitar I saw at Westlake’s house was Jamie’s? I wonder if that’s where he was heading when I arrested him yesterday? I thought he was coming home, but Westlake only lives a mile or so away. I knew we’d missed something.’
‘What does it mean, though?’ asked Sam.
‘Don’t be a numpty. If the guitar was in the house, then Jamie had to have been there with it, at the party. It’s corroborating evidence, isn’t it?’
Sam nodded at her. He didn’t want to destroy her excitement too early on, but Jamie had already admitted to being at the party. Still, she was making deductions, and that was good.
The sound of the music brought Mrs May unexpectedly up from the kitchen with tea and biscuits, which they drank and ate standing in the small room. Sam could see that Sandra May wasn’t a cold woman, just one who had been worn down, and who was worried sick about her son.
‘Mrs May, where are the clothes Jamie was wearing on Saturday night?’ Lizzie asked, eyes bright. Sam stared at her. What was she getting at?
The woman looked confused. ‘He was wearing black jeans, like he always does, a white tee shirt and his grey hoodie.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I think he must have come home when I was at work yesterday and got changed, though, because he was wearing his hoodie again when I saw him last night at the Police station.’
‘So what does he usually do with his dirty clothes? I can’t see any here in his room, which is weird if my brothers’ habits are anything to go by.’
Mrs May led them out to the small bathroom across the landing. There, on the top of a laundry basket under a stripy towel was a grey hoodie, some dirty jeans, a white tee shirt, socks and underwear.
‘Was this what he wore to go to the party on Saturday night?’
Sandra May nodded, ‘I think so. Course he came back late on Sunday night, and never came back on Monday night at all. That’s when I reported him missing, so that’s probably what he was wearing all weekend.’
Lizzie lifted the trousers off the pile and tried the pockets, then she tried the deeper pockets of the hoodie. There, squashed deep down in the right hand pocket, was a black ballet pump.
Chapter 28
Date: Wednesday 26th April Time: 10:44 Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital
Sally slid into the Audi next to Dan. She’d felt an inexplicable anger at her old Panda ever since she had borrowed the new Ford from the Pool the day before, and it had felt good to leave it behind in the car park. She’d have to speak to Paul when she got home about trading it in.
Dan didn’t start the engine straightaway. He half-turned in his seat and looked at her.
‘Sally, I just wanted to say how sorry I am that I didn’t tell you about what Ian and I were up to. I didn’t want to compromise you. I know you worked for Ian and for my predecessor for a long time. I suppose I want you to know that I’m not some sort of reckless idiot who goes off the rails all the time.’
She gave him a level stare. ‘First, you need to know that I had little time for Ian Gould. He pestered me when I was a young copper and ignored me when I got promotion. He was slack about paperwork, and if you really want to know about crazy recklessness, read his file. DCS Oliver got him off active duty and into the station as soon as she took over. He would have loved going out with you on a daring nocturnal mission, and he died the way he would have wanted. What on earth would he have done when he retired?’ She paused and shrugged. ‘There. Does that make you feel a bit better? Because we all need you to be at the top of your game at the moment, not feeling so guilty, you can’t think straight. He was a grown man. He’d have gone and broken in that night anyway, whether you were there or not.’
‘OK, ‘nuff said. Thanks, Sal.’ Dan cracked a rueful smile. ‘There’s just one more thing that I need you to know about, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell the others.’ Sally’s eyes widened. ‘The boss hasn’t just let me off. Ian wrote her a note before he died and took all the blame for the incident. But I still messed up, and I will have to face a disciplinary committee when this is over. Officially, I’m off the case and just assisting her. It means I need you or one of the other Sergeants with me on interviews, visits etc. OK?’
She nodded, subdued. ‘Right, let’s get over to the hospital and see who we can talk to.’
Claire Quick sat, fully dressed, on the side of the bed, her feet dangling a couple of inches above the polished linoleum. She’d had a shower and removed her head bandage. Her hair fell in a shiny drift tucked behind one ear, and her wrists were freshly wrapped. She was talking into her phone, so they waited. She seemed to be setting work for her classes.
Sally tucked her own untidy curls behind her ear and cast a glance at Dan. He seemed to be staring. He sat himself next to Claire on the bed, waving Sally into the single chair. Claire finished her call.
‘You look much better today,’ he said.
Sally noticed that Claire’s eyes were the most remarkable shade of green, like cats’ eyes. She really was rather attractive.
‘Feeling better, too. I’m being let out today.’ They smiled at each other.
Nothing like being a gooseberry, thought Sally. She introduced herself and took out her notebook ready to take down the teacher’s statement.
Dan stopped her. ‘I’ve had a better idea. Claire, why don’t you come back to the station with us and do it there? Then I can make sure you get home safely.’
Claire laughed, ‘Well, I gather there isn’t much left of my car. I was going to ask mum to collect me in her lunch break, but that would be fine if you can spare the time.’
‘I think we can spare the time, Sergeant, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir, if you say so.’ Sally smiled. She had been watching the couple’s body language. Lots of eye contact. She smirked into her notebook, and drew a heart with an arrow through it.
‘I’m a little concerned about what might happen when I get back. Is Jamie still out and about?’ Claire tried to hide her worry under a smile, but Sally saw the tension in her shoulders and heard the wobble in her voice. ‘I’m no hero, Inspector. I’m terrified he’ll come after me once he knows I’m out of hospital.’
‘No,’ Dan replied, ‘please don’t worry. He was arrested and charged with assault and suspected kidnap yesterday. He is being detained for the meantime.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘Claire, you need to know that he’s our main suspect for Carly’s murder, too.’
Her face lost its colour. ‘My God, I don’t understand what’s happening. Why would he kill Carly? I thought he loved Carly. Was he jealous of Miles?’ She flicked her eyes between the two officers and said, ‘That’s it, isn’t it? He found out about Miles and Carly and killed her.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘What will happen to him now?’
Dan glanced across at Sally. ‘He may not be the murderer at all,’ he said. ‘The evidence is looking bad for him, but it is all circumstantial. If he would talk to me, we could try to get to the truth. I do think he knows what went on, and he’s either shielding the murderer or is frightened that he is in danger, too. Unfortunately, if I have to charge him without his telling us anything about what happened, I don’t get another chance to speak to him before the trial.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s so frustrating. I really need him to open up and need him to do it today.’
Claire nodded. ‘I understand, but Jamie won’t respond to shouting or being told what to do. He’ll talk, I’m sure, but you have to give him space to say it in his own way. He must be in a terrible state, poor lad.’
Sally snorted. ‘Poor
lad? That ‘poor lad’ assaulted you and kept you prisoner. Don’t feel too sorry for him.’
‘I know. I just feel this has all got out of hand. I can’t believe he killed Carly, even if he was jealous,’ She shook her head. ‘But what do I know? When I got up on Monday morning, I never thought I’d be sawing my way through ropes and crashing my car into a wall.’
Dan, reached out to touch her hand. ‘You’ve been incredibly brave, and we’ll do everything we can to get to the truth, Claire, I promise you that.’
She stared into his eyes and seemed to find the reassurance she was looking for.
‘I haven’t been discharged yet. Got to wait until the consultant comes around and signs me off. Hoping I can go back to work in a couple of days. I hate having time off.’ She winced and yelped as she turned to grab her handbag.
‘Ribs sore?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Why don’t you just wait here? Sally and I have a couple of other people to see and we’ll call back for you later.’
‘Who?’ She was curious. ‘Who else is here? People to do with Carly?’
To Sally’s amazement, Dan took hold of Claire’s hand and told her about the suicide attempt. She was astonished not just because the DI was such a fast worker in the romantic stakes, but because he was discussing a major suspect with a major witness in the middle of a major case. Sally relaxed when it became clear that Westlake was a close friend of Claire’s, not just a colleague. It would be better for her to hear about Westlake from the Inspector now, than to watch it on the news later. So much for not breaking protocol. She would have to reassess her initial impressions of her new boss when she had a moment.
They left Claire Quick with tears in her eyes, trying to contact Westlake’s estranged wife, Sophie.
Their attempts to see the foreign gunman were thwarted by a terrifying sister in the Intensive Care Unit, who would tell them nothing more than that an operation had been carried out that morning. She did go so far as to tell them that the patient was stable and had regained consciousness. That fragments of bone had been removed from his brain and the bleeding had stopped. That there was no way of knowing how serious his injuries were until he was much better. That he would not be feeling much better at any point today.
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