Home Help

by Gwyn GB

  As she took a shower, Claire wondered where Rachel might have gone and what she thought about the fact Claire didn’t send someone to the airport to stop her from leaving. Would she ever see her again?

  She made herself and her mother breakfast. Cooking in her parents’ kitchen for the first time brought home her mother’s illness. There were bizarre things in the drawers and cupboards, things which her mum must have put there when she was having one of her confused spells. A pair of slippers in the pan cupboard was one example, and the salt was in the fridge, along with a knife and fork. Her mum seemed fine this morning, but they were clearly going to have to investigate how they could best support her going forward.

  Claire drove them both in to pick up her dad. For the first time since landing back home, she was relaxed enough to take in the scenery and appreciate the island. The weather was mild for the time of year and the sun, although weakened by winter, made the sea sparkle. The drive to St Helier certainly beat her current commute to work.

  ‘Don’t know when we’re ever going to get a new hospital,’ her mums said out of the blue. ‘You know they’ve been arguing about it for ages. Planning to build it on the same site as this old one, but it’s so tall, people think it’s a crazy idea.’

  ‘I thought they were looking at Overdale or St Saviours,’ Claire remembered her mother talking about it months before.

  ‘They considered them. Do you think you might stay for a bit?’ her mother threw a curve ball.

  ‘I’ll stay for a few days mum, spend some time with you both.’

  ‘No, I mean, do you think you might come back to live?’ her mum pressed.

  Claire sighed, ‘I’m not sure I can,’ Mark came into her mind, ‘plus I’ve met someone I really like. I’d kind of like to see how that develops - but I’m going to think about it and see what my boss says. I’ll certainly try to come home more often to see you.’

  Her mother said nothing. Claire knew what was going through her mind, the question of how much longer she’d have before she didn’t recognise her daughter when she came home.

  Once Claire had taken her dad home and made sure that they were both OK, she drove back into town. The station was busy with all the staff back in after the weekend and the investigation was still in full flow.

  ‘All good at home?’ Bob asked as she walked in.

  ‘Yes thanks, dad’s fine. He’s just been told to take it easy for a few days.’

  ‘Good. Well right now we’re after some inspiration for where all the money is. The financial crimes guys are scratching their heads, but if we’re right, there should be millions stashed somewhere. Without it we’ve effectively got a great theory with no evidence of gain. It’s going to be virtually impossible to prove she’s put the viruses on the laptops and phones so all we have is whatever we can get her associates to say and they’re not eager to spill the beans because that implicates them.’

  ‘OK, but I’m not sure how I am going to be able to help if FCU can’t find it.’

  ‘Look for any patterns in her behaviour. It could be hidden in plain sight but we’re just not seeing it.’

  Bob’s phone rang and he headed back to his desk to take the call, Claire logged onto her computer. Gillian’s flat was in her mind, it was true, there was nothing in that flat which would suggest she had anything other than a cleaner’s wages. It was a rare criminal who had the discipline not to spend their ill gotten gains, so where was it? The police in Spain were searching the villa where her son was staying, but it was unlikely he’d got that amount of money over there because he wouldn’t have been able to get it through customs. There was the boat and pizza man, he could have taken it for her, but who in their right mind was going to trust a hired killer with millions of pounds?

  Claire was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice Bob had walked over to her until he plonked himself down on the corner of her desk. She looked up at him. His face was serious.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked, she couldn’t take much more emotional trauma.

  ‘That was the Newquay police, they’re investigating a body found in a burnt out car and a name came up on the database.’

  Claire’s mind was running through a hundred possibilities.

  ‘They believe it to be that of Rachel Hill.’

  Her breathing stopped and she felt the colour drain from her face.

  ‘Rachel? Why? Are they sure?’

  ‘Well, we’re going to get Mark down there to confirm it, but all the evidence points to Rachel. Apparently she’d been renting a cottage under a pseudonym. They were able to trace the car to an address, went round and found a suicide note signed by Rachel. I’m afraid it looks like our search for her is over.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ Claire asked, feeling the shock pulse through her.

  ‘The car was found this morning. They’re thinking some time last night.’

  ‘OK,’ is all she could say right now.

  ‘Looks like we’ll never get those answers you wanted, but at least you can finally put Rachel Hill to rest.’ Bob said easing himself off her desk. Before he left, he placed a hand on her shoulder.

  Rachel’s voice was in her head again. Was her phone call yesterday her parting apology. Did she know she was going back to do this, or had she hoped Claire would stop her? Had she unwittingly signed her death warrant by thinking she was giving her freedom?

  49

  Claire, Monday 13th November 2017, Jersey

  As the afternoon went on, Claire realised that she just wasn’t concentrating. The noise in the office and the turmoil in her head, meant she jumped from one task to another without taking in a single bit of information. Lew was tackling James Parkin, trying to see if he could shed any light on his half-sister. He’d been allowed home for the time being and they were using Lew to talk to him as a fresh interviewer. The Parkins were so angry with Claire and Bob that it was hoped a new detective might encourage them to be more forthcoming.

  The Forensic team reported back that they’d finished in Gillian’s flat and with her productivity at an all-time low, Claire decided to take a walk over. See if she could get inside the head of this woman who had seemingly been running a multi-million pound insider-dealing network.

  At the moment, their case against her wasn’t good. She’d not done anything wrong with regard to the share dealing because even if they could link her to the trading, she hadn’t worked for the companies where the information came from. There wasn’t yet any evidence to show she’d illegally obtained the information. Right now, the only thing they’d got on her, that was chargeable, was the attack on Claire’s dad, which made Claire very uncomfortable because she knew full well that he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. What they needed to do was prove that she’d planted the spyware and or find the end result - the money.

  It was beginning to get dark as she walked across town. The winter nights were drawing in and by five or five thirty, it was dusk. Claire got to the flat and climbed the stairs, her mind going back to yesterday and the fear for her father. She also thought about Rachel again and tried to imagine her state of mind. Had she always intended to fly back and take her own life? What really motivated her to come to Jersey? It surprised her just how sad she felt about the news.

  The flat door had been locked with a crime scene padlock to prevent anyone unauthorised from entering. Claire took the key from her pocket and unlocked it. The smell of the flat as she opened the door, immediately took her back to yesterday afternoon. How different things might have been. Today she could have been mourning her father. Just a few more hours and he would have died.

  She walked into the sitting room area, everything was pretty much as they’d left it, apart from evidence of the forensic team in the white dust and labels. She’d already seen some of the images they’d taken, looked at the fake leather sofa in 2D.

  She remembered the conversation she’d had with Gillian. Her sitting in the same place on the sofa as she had the first ti
me she’d been. Maybe the sofa was a clue, did she sit there on purpose, or was it simply her favourite seat? Bob said to look for patterns in her behaviour.

  Claire tugged at the sofa, pulling it out from the wall. She was pretty sure that it would have been checked already, but she had to put her mind at rest. Huffing and puffing, she tipped the sofa over and peered inside. Nothing. What about the cushions? Could the sofa be stuffed with money? It wouldn’t be the first time. She felt it, bouncing her palm up and down. It was too soft to be wads of cash. She searched the entire sofa, there was nothing but a cheap wooden frame inside. Nothing to suggest this could be where the money was hidden. Finally, Claire sat down where Gillian sat, looking at what she saw, the picture on the wall, the vase on the table, the cheap little plastic lamp. All were fruitless.

  She ran through the events of yesterday in her head once more. Their conversation had been brief because she’d been concentrating on getting into the bedrooms to look for her father. If it hadn’t been for the little plastic lamp being knocked over, she wouldn’t have got to the first door in time before Gillian blocked her. Then it hit her - the memory of the lamp falling. The sound of the lamp falling.

  She looked at it, a cheap plastic lamp made to look like coloured glass. A lamp for a child to treasure. All around the lampshade hung shards of what she’d assumed were clear plastic, but yesterday when it had fallen there’d been a tinkling sound. That sound wasn’t made by plastic.

  Claire picked up the lamp, it was much heavier than she’d expected too. With her heart beating fast, she looked underneath. It was hollow, and it was empty. She sighed, putting it back down. Then, as she stared at it, she noticed that the shards which hung from the lampshade, had been fixed on with new fittings. They weren’t pierced as you’d expect, it looked like blobs of some resin like glue had been put on the top and then the hanging wires attached to that. She touched one, it was hard, quite beautiful, like crystal. That must have been what made the sound yesterday, they were crystals.

  Claire sighed again and got up to wander round the flat. How would you hide that amount of money? They estimated she must have made several million pounds all told. Perhaps there was a safety deposit box somewhere, but where was the key? Maybe she’d invested in art, but the paintings in the flat were all cheap imitations, even Claire without an eye for these things could tell that. Or jewellery? She went into Gillian’s bedroom and looked through the box on her dressing table. It was all costume jewelry. There was one necklace which could be diamonds, three large flowers with sparkling centres. She went into the kitchen to get something strong and metal. It scratched. They were glass.

  As Claire walked back through the sitting room she looked at the sofa again, the place where Gillian last sat. Right next to it was the plastic lamp. What if the crystals weren’t crystals? She took the knife over to the lamp and tried to scratch one of the crystals. It didn’t mark. Could they be diamonds or was crystal always this tough? She looked at her watch. It was nearly 5pm, she’d just enough time.

  Quickly she detached one of them from the lampshade and put it into an evidence bag. With the adrenaline rushing round her system, she locked up the flat and almost jogged into town.

  50

  Claire, Monday 13th November 2017, Jersey

  If Claire could smile any more than she was when she walked up to Bob, then her face would probably split. In fact, she was looking so pleased with herself, that a couple of her colleagues stopped work and watched her, wondering what had made her so happy.

  Bob looked up from the computer at her approach.

  ‘Where have you been? You’re looking rather pleased with yourself,’ he said.

  Claire dropped the evidence bag with the shard of crystal on his desk - only it wasn’t crystal.

  ‘We’ve got her,’ she grinned.

  ‘What?’ Bob picked up the bag and peered at what was inside. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘That Sir is one of the crystals hanging from Gillian Faber’s lamp. The plastic lamp she said her father gave her. Only those aren’t the original crystals, I suspect they were only plastic anyway. That’s around two hundred thousand pounds worth of diamond.’

  Bob’s face said it all.

  ‘How? Are you sure?’

  ‘Just taken it to Hettich in town. And there are around another fifteen or so on the lamp in her flat. We’ve got her. She’s been turning the proceeds into diamonds, buying them on the black market I assume. As you said earlier - she’d hidden them in full view of us all.’

  Once Gillian’s diamonds had been found, the case quickly took shape. They had enough evidence to warrant bringing her son back from Spain and once he’d been implicated, Gillian seemed to crumple and cooperate. In the end, she told them everything, in exchange for her son being allowed to walk away. He’d done nothing wrong, she told them, just did the things that she’ asked him to do. In London five people were arrested and charged with aiding her insider dealing network, and French police almost caught Rufus Watson but he gave them the slip.

  ‘He’ll crawl out from under a rock again when he’s spent all his money,’ Bob predicted, ‘we’ll get him then.’

  Before she took a few days off, Bob asked Claire for a private meeting. They went up to the management floor of the new headquarters, away from the bustle of daily investigation.

  ‘I need to talk to you DI Falle,’ Bob started as they sat down. ‘Firstly to congratulate you for helping us make the breakthroughs we did on this case. You not only identified Gillian Faber, but you also gave us the evidence to make our case stick and get her to confess.’

  ‘Thank you Sir,’ Claire replied, feeling like there was a “but” about to come.

  ‘But,’ Bob predictably said, ‘we can’t forget the incident last week when you seemed to lose control of your senses and imagined you’d seen Rachel Hill here in Jersey.’

  ‘No sir,’ she nodded.

  ‘I also can’t ignore the fact that your father nearly lost his life because of your carelessness in leaving the wrong address out. I’ve said it before DI Falle, we all make mistakes, but you can’t keep making them and your actions could have had severe repercussions for a civilian. Gillian Faber still claims that she thought he was an intruder, that she didn’t know he was your dad. It’s her word against you and your father’s.’ Bob looked at her now, an eyebrow raised. She hadn’t completely pulled the wool over his eyes.

  ‘I have to make a report on both of these situations. You are a good detective, your instincts are second to none, but you seem to court drama and create situations. I need you to keep your nose clean. If you come back on the team, I want you on best behaviour. I also will be recommending that you have to see the psyche and I will expect a report that you are one hundred percent fit for duty. Finally, I’m going to insist that you take the next two weeks off. It’s been a stressful case for you and I know your mother is ill. Lew and I are going to wrap this up so I don’t want to see you back at work until December 4th at the earliest. Longer if you need it.’

  ‘Thank you sir. Things have been stressful with my parents, I’d appreciate some time off.’ Claire smiled weakly at her boss.

  ‘I know. And maybe you can spend a couple of days with that forensic pathologist of yours too. Off you go DI Falle.’

  So, Bob knew about Mark. Claire didn’t mind, she knew it was tough to keep secrets from him, and besides why shouldn’t people know about them both. What she did hope though, was that she was going to be able to keep some of her other secrets from Bob.

  51

  Claire, Friday 24th November 2017, Jersey

  Claire had plenty of time to sit and think over the next few days. Her bruised brain, stressed and over-worked, relished the opportunity to just stop for a while. It didn’t stop her from thinking altogether of course. Being back at home, lying in her old bedroom, made her wonder what it would be like if Christopher hadn’t been killed. Would she even be a police officer? Possibly not, but then what else would she
have done, she loved the job. It was tough at times, and thoughts of Rachel came into her mind more often than she would have liked. Could she have saved Rachel, prevented her from taking her own life? Maybe. She was going to have to live with that for the rest of her own life.

  Mark was due over this weekend and she’d lots of plans for their time together. There’d be a bit of sightseeing involved, but quite a lot of her ideas involved his hotel room. She was catching up on her sleep now so she could stay awake with him for every minute they could.

  Right now, Claire was sitting listening to her parents discuss the developing local story, the row between the RNLI and the St Helier lifeboat crew. Her dad was being his usual bombastic self with his opinion obviously right and was waving the Jersey Evening Post newspaper at her mother. He’d been on generally better behaviour since he got out of hospital and they’d had several discussions about her mum’s condition. He knew something wasn’t right, but as Claire had suspected, he hadn’t wanted to face up to it. Yesterday he’d gone with her to the doctor and they’d had a long discussion about how to best prepare for the future. He was standing up to his responsibilities at last and finally coming good; promising to not leave her for long periods and to keep a very close eye on how she was coping. It made Claire feel a whole lot better about getting on the plane back to London.

  ‘Anyone want a cup of tea?’ she asked them, interrupting their lifeboat discussion.

  ‘Oh yes please love,’ her mum said.

  ‘That would be good thanks,’ her dad replied and smiled at her. There were times she felt a bit guilty that she didn’t admit to him she hadn’t worked out where he was, it wasn’t her that solved the case. Other times she didn’t. She deserved his respect and love for a whole host of other reasons, and she did after all, work out where Gillian had hidden her millions.