Truth or Die

by Katerina Diamond

  ‘Yes, please.’ She let him kiss her and then pulled away to make some coffee – something she rarely messed up. There was no denying that this was strange. Her there in her underpants and T-shirt, and Adrian with a towel wrapped around him after having a shower, having just spent another night at her house. It occurred to Imogen that it was even weirder because it felt quite comfortable. There was a slight cringe moment when they first slept together, but it was gone now, over with. He put a plate of perfect toast in front of her; she found this made her even more annoyed.

  ‘What are you doing today?’ she asked, knowing that Adrian had the morning off.

  ‘I’m meeting Tom for breakfast. Second breakfast. He’s on study leave for his mocks, so he wanted to meet up. I’ll go into the station after that. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to go and see Caitlin today, see if we can get a link to the person who attacked you. She must be able to tell us who gave her those bruises and I’m betting it’s the same person.’ She saw Adrian flinch at the mention of Caitlin’s name.

  ‘Don’t go alone, God knows what she might accuse you of,’ Adrian said.

  ‘I’ll take Matt,’ Imogen said, trying to gauge whether or not they were at the point yet where she could say what was on her mind. ‘Listen, Miley, we still need her. Until this case opens up and we find out more. I know this is difficult for you, but she was as much of a pawn in this as you were.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I just hope this doesn’t colour any further investigations.’ She had said it. She braced herself for a confrontation, but she had made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t hold back on her thoughts now that they were in a relationship for fear of an argument.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Adrian turned and looked at her.

  ‘You know how rare false accusations are. I don’t want you … or me … to be jaded by this. We judge each case on its merits and try not to pass judgement before we have the facts.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not jaded. My comment was only in reference to her, no one else.’

  ‘OK, good. You’re not upset, are you?’

  Adrian walked over to her and kissed her on the lips; it was unexpected as she had been worried about broaching this subject with him. One false accusation tended to throw everyone’s sensitivities out of whack. There would be some deep suspicion of everyone who reported a sexual assault once this was proven to be false, especially if it got into the newspapers. Sometimes it wasn’t even a conscious thought, or a thought people wanted to have. It just crept in there. It was one of the reasons most police officers liked to downplay false accusations.

  ‘I want you to always say what you’re thinking. I hate mind games and I know you don’t play them. I don’t want us to have secrets. After everything that has happened I would rather have the truth and deal with the fallout of that.’

  ‘You’re a good egg, Adrian.’ She kissed him back, mostly tasting the butter on her lips as he pressed against her, but unfortunately she didn’t have time for this right now. She pushed him away. ‘I have to get dressed. I have to be in in twenty minutes.’

  ‘That’s plenty of time.’ He pulled at the hem of her T-shirt, guiding her out of the room. ‘I’ll help.’

  Imogen didn’t enjoy driving with someone who wasn’t Adrian next to her. DI Matt Walsh was a nice guy; there didn’t seem to be any ulterior intentions going on. He wasn’t exactly open, but it didn’t feel like he was hiding anything bad. He was quiet, reserved, but it just wasn’t the same as having Adrian beside her. They made their way to the Reverend Nigel Watts’ house to speak to Caitlin. The grandfather had granted them permission after they had assured him that no charges would be brought against her for the false allegation against DS Miles.

  ‘Sorry I was late,’ Imogen said.

  ‘No need to apologise. Are you going to be OK with this interview?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Must have been hard to watch your colleague going through that.’

  ‘It was, but I’m more interested in finding out who helped her stage the attack. It could be the same person who assaulted Adrian and made it look like a mugging.’

  ‘Yes, just try not to let your emotional attachment to DS Miles affect the way you conduct this interview. It would be nice to get ahead of this. Figure out who is involved before they show up dead.’

  ‘I think that’s what we all want at this point,’ she said, angry at the implication that she would be anything other than professional.

  She parked the car and opened the door, getting out before Matt had a chance to ask any more questions.

  The faintest sound of sirens was somewhere in the distance, more than one vehicle, seemingly getting closer. Imogen walked up the path and knocked on the door.

  A few seconds later, a frantic Reverend Watts opened the door.

  ‘Please! Hurry!’ he cried.

  His sleeves were soaking wet and pink; it took Imogen a few moments to realise it was actually blood. She pushed past him and ran into the house, unsure where she was supposed to go.

  ‘Where is she?’ Imogen shouted.

  ‘Upstairs, the bathroom,’ Reverend Watts said.

  Imogen knew, she knew before she even got to the room what she was going to find. She was going to find Caitlin Watts’ dead body, in the bathtub, arms slit open from the inside of her wrist to the inside of her elbow. Imogen slipped on the polished floor, wet with a mixture of blood and water; at this point it looked like mostly blood. Caitlin lay in the bathtub, her skin whiter than the tiles and her hair floating in the deep pink water like tentacles. There was no need to check her pulse. She was dead. Any malice or anger Imogen may have felt for this girl disappeared in that instant. Caitlin had her whole life ahead of her – whatever mistakes she had made, she didn’t deserve this. But Imogen couldn’t shift the feeling that this wasn’t what it seemed. Why would she do it now? Caitlin had already confessed to lying about Adrian. She had been afraid for her life, for her grandfather. It was possible that she had committed suicide in order to stop their control over her, whoever they were. But it was just as possible that this had been staged, that she had been murdered.

  In the back of her mind, she tried to figure out if Parker would have any reason to kill Caitlin. The scene was artistic, like something he would have done, but far too messy. She couldn’t think of a reason and decided that she would give him the benefit of the doubt for once. Unfortunately, the reverend had clearly been clambering around the bathtub, which had probably messed up any trace evidence of an intruder.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Matt Walsh said. ‘I’ll call this in.’

  ‘I’ll do it. You’d better take the grandad downstairs for now as well. He doesn’t need to see this again, not that it will make much difference, that image is already in there.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Matt said before turning to the reverend and speaking softly to him. Imogen couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was working. She could hear the man calming down.

  Imogen pulled out her phone and called the station. She wanted to call Adrian and tell him what had happened but thought better of it. If anything went awry with the investigation, they could pull up her records and see. She would call him later. She wasn’t sure how he would take the news and she couldn’t bear the thought of him being pleased about it in any way. She couldn’t imagine he would be, but she didn’t want to hear that in his voice. Why would she even think that of him? It occurred to her that she was either putting Adrian on a pedestal unduly or she was looking for ways to find fault in the relationship. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was all moving a little too fast.

  As she hung up to the station, her phone rang. It was her father, Elias.

  ‘Imogen.’

  ‘It’s not really a good time right now.’

  ‘I know you’re busy and I’m sorry to bother you. I just wondered if you had given any more thought to meeting your brothers.’

  She
wished she hadn’t answered the phone. With Caitlin lying dead before her, Imogen immediately started thinking about her dead mother, something she had been ignoring quite well so far. In Imogen’s mind, her mother was where she always was. The sadness in Elias’s voice forced her to face the truth.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t think I’m ready yet. I know it’s important to you, but I just need more time,’ she said, aware that she was on the verge of crying all of a sudden. She could hear the ambulance sirens fast approaching. She needed to get back to work.

  ‘I understand. I hope you are well.’

  ‘I’ll call you soon, I promise,’ she said, hanging up the phone before she lost control of herself completely.

  The ambulance Caitlin’s grandfather had called arrived. Imogen shook her head at the paramedics as they ran past her. Caitlin was gone. There would be no resuscitation.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  13 days ago

  Parker was wearing the university maintenance staff uniform. He found this made him entirely unmemorable if not invisible. He was able to walk in and out of rooms without suspicion, as long as he was careful not to bump into any of the other maintenance staff, who would have surely recognised him as not being one of them. He had been watching and waiting to see how the faculty reacted to Hugh Norris’s death. For the most part, everyone was suitably distraught. Gillian Mitchell was clearly not; he could see right through her. He had yet to determine whether she knew about the murder before it happened, whether she had orchestrated it in some way. He’d watched and followed Gillian all morning – she had stopped and spoken to colleagues about the tragedy that had happened, expressed her concern for her own safety and exasperation at the lack of information from the police. There was something mechanical and rehearsed about her performance. She was almost definitely a sociopath. Playing to the crowds.

  A part of the building had been cordoned off by police and the students were desperate to find out what had happened. He heard lots of whispers about a shooting, or terrorism, some other ludicrous conspiracy theories. The police were everywhere, searching the grounds; this was not a good time to be in the middle of it, and yet it was the best time, because it was when he might see the monsters. The way people reacted to a trauma was always very telling.

  He followed Gillian Mitchell back to her office. She was just about to go in when Parker saw the familiar faces of DS Adrian Miles and DS Imogen Grey. He had known this was a possibility, but seeing them here like this made him feel vulnerable and exposed. One turn of the head and it could all be over. He watched from the corner for as long as he could. He had a bond with them; he didn’t see them as the enemy but he didn’t want to take his chances. He watched on affectionately as they approached Gillian Mitchell. She put her sad mask back on and answered their questions. He wanted to tell them not to believe her, to arrest her, but another part of him wanted to deal with her himself, to mete out his own brand of justice. He looked forward to it, but it scared him that he felt that way. He became increasingly annoyed at Gillian for lying to them and maybe even more annoyed at them for falling for it.

  A young girl approached them and put her hand on Adrian Miles’ shoulder. She was overfamiliar and Parker could see Adrian’s obvious discomfort with the situation. He turned and looked at her, then looked away quickly. She didn’t remove her hand straight away and Parker discerned that maybe she was playing the same game Gillian was. He saw Gillian’s face change, both detectives preoccupied with the pretty young thing. Parker noted other students flashing glances the girl’s way. She was striking; even from this distance, Parker could see how different she was. There was a Helen of Troy quality about her, the kind of girl that made the male students behave in a way that seemed a little desperate in her presence. He even saw it in Detective Miles for the briefest of moments. It wasn’t so much beauty as a ‘knowing’ about the girl, as though she had the power to unlock some deep dark secret, not malevolent but curious and a little vulnerable.

  It was Gillian who watched the girl the most intently as she batted her eyelashes at Adrian Miles; he pretended not to pay attention, but the girl wasn’t even hiding the fact that she was flirting with him. Parker saw the machinations of Gillian Mitchell’s mind whirring though. She had a plan and the girl was part of it.

  Gillian walked away, leaving the detectives talking to the young girl. Parker saw the professor wait around the corner until the police left and then approach the young girl again, her skin shed. Parker was right about the girl; he could see that from their body language.

  He got closer and listened to their conversation.

  ‘I need them looking somewhere else. I can’t have them snooping around here. At the very least I need them distracted. I think we need to give them something else to think about,’ Gillian Mitchell said.

  ‘I am already in enough trouble. I don’t see what I can do without getting nicked.’

  ‘You’re going to get that good-looking detective to sleep with you. And then when you are done, you are going to say he raped you. With that hanging over them, they won’t be able to concentrate on this at all and the media focus will definitely shift. The press will have a field day.’

  ‘What makes you think he will even do that?’

  ‘You’re a pretty girl and I saw the way he looked at you. You can tell he likes you. Men can’t resist something that’s offered to them on a plate.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’ The girl looked genuinely concerned.

  ‘That doesn’t even matter, the whole force will be sidelined from this mess once the local news gets hold of it, which I will make sure of.’

  The girl was being instructed to lure DS Miles into a trap, apparently because the investigation needed to be derailed. The girl wasn’t as complicit as maybe Gillian Mitchell wanted her to be; Parker could see she was resisting.

  ‘He’s a nice guy. Isn’t there some other way?’ she asked.

  Gillian grabbed Caitlin’s arm, her fingers digging in. ‘I’ve already told you. I need some time to deal with this and this is how I get time. You know what is at stake. You don’t want your grandfather to go to prison, do you? Do you have any idea how easy it is to put unsavoury stuff on someone’s computer? It’s very easy. Just think about that.’

  ‘Please, don’t make me do this. You said you wouldn’t ask me to sleep with anyone else. Not after Doctor Norris.’

  ‘Norris needed to be brought back in line. He seemed to be under the misguided opinion that he could just stop whenever he wanted.’

  ‘Did you have him killed?’

  ‘Good lord, no. The last thing we need is a murder investigation on the premises. Now that we have one, you have to give them something else to think about.’

  The girl seemed to be distressed at the suggestion, until Gillian reminded her of how much she had to lose. She was being blackmailed.

  ‘It’s your grandfather or the detective: you decide.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t want to? What if he says no?’

  ‘Then we make it look like he did.’

  Parker saw the girl wipe her cheek. She was in a situation she couldn’t win, being forced to take part in this sick game. This was what they had planned for Abbey. His fist tightened into a ball. How many times had they done this before? It seemed to have been going on for years, judging by the things he saw on Helen Lassiter’s computer. He wondered how many people had been caught up in their game. How was this fun? What was wrong with these people? He couldn’t help but wonder what the prize was. What could possibly be worth this kind of manipulation? With every instruction Gillian Mitchell gave out, she forfeited a part of her soul, if she even had one any more. Maybe there was nothing left inside her but evil.

  This whole scenario was making him so angry. What gave them the right to toy with others like this? It was the same force that gave him the right to kill them for it. Like an unspoken code, they were playing on his side of the tracks now and that was not a place you wanted to be. He
would put a stop to this, not just because of what they had planned for Abbey, but because in his opinion, people like that didn’t belong in the world. It wasn’t for them, they didn’t deserve it and they didn’t really want it. They wanted their secrets and their lies, they wanted to feel smarter than the rest, they wanted to feel like gods. Parker had met people like that before and he had removed them from the game: not their game, his game. The only rule in Parker’s game was that you didn’t put yourself above others. No one should have the power to play with the rest of the world. Parker had proved this more than once. Power was not something you could own forever, you could lose it or it could be taken from you. That was why Parker believed he was here, to put those people in their place.

  People like that know they are on borrowed time, he thought. They know it will end badly for them, in a way that’s what they want. Parker knew that one day everything would catch up to him, he knew that he wouldn’t live to grow old with grandchildren nipping at his feet. There would come a time when he would be removed from the game too.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Present

  ‘Rather helpfully, we received a letter from Caitlin Watts, drafted by her lawyer, that cleared you of any wrongdoing. She said she was sorry for all the pain she caused you and that she was ridden with guilt over the allegations she made against you. It’s being treated as a kind of suicide note,’ DCI Kapoor said to Adrian, who was sitting across from her in her office.

  ‘I don’t think it was a suicide,’ Adrian said.

  ‘What makes you think that? Imogen said the same.’

  ‘Mostly Owen Sager’s body. We suspect whoever is orchestrating this may have staged a suicide before. These people think they are one step ahead of us all the time, they think they’re clever. I think we can move forward with the assumption that maybe Caitlin’s was staged, too.’

  ‘Well, they have been one step ahead of us the whole time. The good news is that you’re now restored to full duties. DCC Sneddon and the Professional Standards Division are closing the investigation. I know it’s been tough for you, but I’m impressed with how well you have handled it, and hopefully you will see things start to return to normal. Closing this case and finding out how the allegation Caitlin made against you fits into it will go a long way towards further clearing your name.’