Detective Mike Croft Series Box Set

by Jane Adams

  There had been the odd sighting of what might have been Jake and Julia, but could just as easily have been a courting couple heading towards the woods. Then there were a few holidaymakers who were proving difficult to trace — people moved house, Mike reminded himself. The sheer volume of information generated when twenty-odd officers went knocking on a lot of doors was staggering. And all of this had to be fitted in with the normal run-of-the-mill summer problems of tourists and petty crime and stolen cars and domestic trouble that went on regardless of the murder inquiry.

  Mike glanced up as a police constable came in and spoke his name. The young man looked excited, obviously pleased with himself, and had a worried-looking woman in tow. He ushered her into the room and found her a chair. She sat down automatically. Mike was on the verge of asking what was wrong with using an interview room, but the officer was already talking. ‘This lady, sir, she’s the one who made the call to Mr Macey.’

  ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘Of course, sir. She’ll tell you all about it.’

  Mike looked sceptically at the woman. She was in her early twenties, he guessed, with dark hair cut short in a very structured style and blue eyes.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, I would.’ She looked around uncomfortably. ‘I’ve never been in a police station before.’ Mike smiled and gestured to the PC to get the tea, noting with amusement the reluctance with which the young officer stopped hovering and did as he was told. Then he pulled his chair out from behind the desk and moved round to sit on the same side as the young woman, blocking her view of the office activity.

  ‘I’m Inspector Mike Croft,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to make a formal statement in a minute, but for now if you’d like to just tell me about the phone call, Miss . . . ?’

  ‘Watson. Liv — that’s short for Olivia — Watson.’ Her voice was a little slurred, as though she had started drinking early. She grinned suddenly, nervously. ‘Aren’t I supposed to ask for a lawyer or something?’

  Mike smiled back. ‘Not unless I arrest you.’

  ‘You think you might?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’ Mike leaned back in his chair, aware that he was being flirted with and a little flattered. ‘You wanted to tell me about the phone call Miss Watson.’

  ‘Call me Liv.’ She grinned at him again, wrinkling her nose. She had freckles, he noticed, spreading across onto her cheeks.

  ‘Liv,’ he said obediently. ‘The call?’

  She sighed elaborately. ‘To Mr Ed Macey, at the paper in Dorchester. There was this man, you see. We’d all been talking to him a few nights before.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and some friends. We’d had a few to drink and this guy, he was chatting to us at the bar. Oh, thanks,’ she said, as the PC brought the tea, setting it carefully on the table and then hovering in the background once again.

  ‘Go on,’ Mike said.

  ‘Well, Linda, that’s one of my friends, she’d got into a row with her boyfriend and gone storming off outside.’

  ‘This was the day you made the phone call?’

  ‘No. No, I told you, this was, I don’t know, about three nights before. Linda will remember. She had a row with her boyfriend, like I said, so she’s bound to remember when it was, you see?’

  Mike nodded patiently, wishing he’d handed her straight on to someone else.

  ‘And this man talked to you?’

  ‘Yeah, he was friendly, you know. Not too flirty but nice. Good-looking too. You’ll want a description?’

  ‘You can give it to this officer here, when you make your statement.’

  ‘Oh.’ For a moment she sounded disappointed. ‘OK, then.’ She brightened, switching her attention to the younger man.

  ‘You were telling me about the phone call.’

  ‘Yeah, but you see he’d been there that night.’

  ‘When Linda and her boyfriend had the row?’

  ‘Yeah, and he stopped Linda from storming out, said it wasn’t safe and she should at least let him call a taxi for her.’

  ‘And did he?’ Mike asked.

  ‘No, Linda’s boyfriend got jealous then, said if anyone was going to call a taxi it should be him, and it looked as though it was going to get really nasty. Like I told, you, we’d all had a lot to drink.’ She smiled up at the young PC. ‘Then we saw him again that lunchtime. He’d spent ages smoothing things over with Linda and her fellah, so we got talking.’

  ‘It didn’t turn nasty then?’

  ‘Oh, no, he was a real fast talker. We all ended up having a drink together.’ She frowned. ‘I can’t remember when he left, but I think it was close to chucking-out time. Anyway, this lunchtime, we were all having a drink. We’re all on holiday, you see, so it doesn’t matter. I mean, we don’t drink at lunchtime when we’re at work.’ She paused, waiting.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t.’

  ‘And we were all saying how good he’d been the other night, helping Linda get back with her boyfriend and smoothing over the row, and he said, if we were so grateful, would I help him play a joke on a friend. It was a surprise or something. So I said yeah, why not?’

  ‘And he dialled the paper and you took over after he got past the switchboard?’

  She nodded. ‘I was supposed to make the call, but —’ she giggled — ‘I’d had a bit to drink and I couldn’t keep the number in my head.’

  ‘You managed to remember the message.’

  ‘Oh, that. He’d written it down, but I kept having to ask him if I’d got it right.’

  Mike nodded thoughtfully. ‘And you’ve not seen him since?’

  ‘No, but he said he was on holiday down here, visiting friends or something, so I supposed he’d gone home.’ She frowned suddenly. ‘Nobody’s told me what this is all about,’ she said. ‘Just that they were looking for someone who might have made a call for someone else to Mr Macey. It was the name I remembered. Mr Ed Macey, who writes for the paper.’

  She stared hard at Mike. ‘It’s about that murder, isn’t it? Something to do with the murder.’

  ‘Drink your tea,’ Mike told her, ‘and then if you could go with this young man here and make a formal statement. You’ve been very helpful, Liv.’

  ‘It is to do with the murder,’ she shouted. ‘I knew it. I just knew it. I told Linda, this is all about that dead girl.’ She stood up suddenly, nervous excitement aided by lunchtime alcohol, looking around as though the murderer might be hiding in the room. ‘I want police protection,’ she demanded. ‘I’m not going to wait until he decides to come back. I want police protection.’

  Mike sighed, he’d been surprised she’d not made the connection before, but he’d figured that the alcohol might have softened her perceptions. He reminded himself that when he’d first heard about the woman making the phone call, he’d speculated about her safety. Would she have been Jake Bowen’s next victim.

  Now, hearing the circumstances, he was inclined to think not, but could well understand why the young woman would be frightened.

  ‘We’ll arrange for someone to give you a lift home,’ he told her, ‘and give you some general advice. Or maybe you’d like to stay with a friend for a few days? But really, Miss Watson, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.’

  She was still protesting as she was led away to make her statement, the PC giving Mike a look that spoke volumes about his opinion of Mike’s protective instincts.

  Mike shrugged. The young man was still a probationer and had a lot to learn. He was amused to hear him promise the girl that he’d personally arrange for an eye to be kept on her. In fact, he’d attend to it himself.

  Mike smiled. Well, the girl was pretty.

  Interesting, though, the way Jake had made two very public appearances like that. How carefully had he planned that side of it? Had he worried in case Macey taped his calls? If so, that didn’t explain his voice on the video tape of Julia Norman. It would be
interesting, too, to see what Jake had chosen to look like this time.

  * * *

  Jo had awoken screaming, her sedative-induced sleep producing nightmares in which Essie called for her, shouting and pleading for help. Her screams woke the entire household and started the new baby crying.

  Maria glanced at the clock on Jo’s bedside table. It was one thirty, they had been asleep maybe less than an hour.

  Jo’s mother and husband were there to comfort her and Maria was surplus to requirements. She picked up the crying baby and cuddled him close, carrying him downstairs and away from all the noise. He was unlikely to settle again until he’d been fed, she decided. Jo left bottles made up in the fridge that just needed warming. She could see to that.

  Maria let the baby moan in his cradle chair while she filled the kettle and got the bottle from the fridge. Rocked him gently, chatting to him while the kettle boiled, then stood the bottle in a jug of boiling water to warm through and boiled the kettle again for tea.

  From upstairs she could hear Jo, still crying for her lost child, this new one forgotten in her grief. Jo had barely been able to bring herself to hold her little boy in the days since Essie had gone. She had seen every gesture of affection towards her son as a betrayal of her love for Essie. Maria had taken over, glad of something that she could do without seeming in her turn to be forgetting about the missing child.

  Maria checked the bottle and then picked up the baby, carrying him around the kitchen as he fed hungrily. She glanced out through the half-open kitchen curtain. The police car was still parked at the front of the house, two figures inside dimly silhouetted. They had offered to take Jo and her family to a safe house or to stay with friends. Somewhere private, when media interest threatened to take over and journalists seemed ready to camp outside their door.

  Jo had refused, terrified that the kidnapper might phone and she would not be there to take the call. No one could persuade her otherwise, so they had simply closed the curtains and existed since the Monday night in a twilight world. It had been a relief when, after a couple of days of inaction, the press and television had retreated to camp out in the bar of a local hotel.

  The curtains, though, had still remained closed as if the family already mourned.

  The baby had fallen asleep in her arms. She put him back in his cradle chair and covered him with a blanket. Poor little thing, she thought, he didn’t even have a name yet and no one had gotten around to registering his birth. She must ask Jo if she should do it in the morning, trying to remember if it had to be a parent who did it. She was vaguely surprised that she didn’t know.

  Maria poured the tea and took a tray upstairs. Jo’s husband thanked her. The two women still wept softly, sitting on the bed, May’s arms around Jo.

  Then Maria retreated once more to the kitchen. She had felt such guilt at having taken Essie with her to see Mike, though common sense told her that, as Essie had been abducted from so close to her own home, Jake Bowen would have traced the child no matter what. Jo blamed her, though, and while she could understand her sister feeling that way, it hurt terribly.

  She fished the mobile phone out of her bag and hesitated for a moment before dialling Mike’s number. It was after two in the morning and there was no reason he should have his mobile switched on, never mind be pleased at being disturbed, but she needed to talk to him, to hear a friendly voice. He answered on the third ring, sleepy and surprised.

  ‘Sorry I woke you,’ she said, instinctively keeping her voice low, even though it was unlikely anyone would hear her from upstairs.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I went to sleep thinking about you. You must have heard me.’

  She laughed. ‘Maybe I did. How are you?’

  ‘Frustrated.’

  She laughed again, then covered her mouth with her hand, in case Jo might hear. It seemed so long since anyone had made her laugh, it was a relief to know that she still could.

  ‘Any news?’ Mike asked her.

  ‘Nothing. God, Mike, it’s the not knowing that’s so hard. Why doesn’t he get in touch?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he told her. ‘If any of us understood Jake Bowen, we might be a lot further on towards bringing him in.’

  ‘What about your famous psychologists?’

  ‘Can’t agree between themselves. Oh, I don’t mean to insult them, love, but this time they seem as foxed as any of us.’

  ‘And the father, is he any use?’

  ‘Not a lot so far; but I’m hoping.’ He paused. ‘Look, we’re both on mobiles, I’m not keen on saying too much.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have thought.’

  She didn’t speak for a little while.

  Mike said, ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I am. I’m sorry. My head’s so full of all this, it’s hard to talk about anything else.’

  ‘I know. It must be. Look, give me a time tomorrow, use a call box if you have to, and I’ll ring back.’

  Two o’clock, she told him, and then the renewed crying of the baby ending her time of peace.

  * * *

  Jake too had woken from a troubled sleep, but there was nothing unusual in that. He had never been one who needed his eight hours a night; he’d been an insomniac all his life, even as a child getting up at all hours and prowling around the house, enjoying his solitary ownership of it while his parents slept.

  He went to look at Essie. She was sleeping but restless and he lifted her, supporting her shoulders as he gave her a drink. She looked up at him with drugged eyes that betrayed no comprehension of who he was or what was happening to her. She had wet herself, too deeply sedated to have bladder control.

  Jake brought fresh towels and lay the child on them, taking the soiled ones and putting them into the washing machine. He brought soap and water and washed the small body, drying her carefully. Then he fetched his camera and shot another few minutes of film. The child was so small, he thought, and had such a fragile hold on life. He came close enough to watch her breathing, the rise and fall of the tiny ribcage. He imagined her heart beating, slightly faster each time she breathed in, slightly slower on the out-breath, a pendulum that swung a little too far one way, unable to find a balanced centre.

  He sat back on his heels, watching her with naked eyes, the camera put aside, and remembered being five years old and the feel of his fathers hand tight around his wrists: one large hand to hold onto both of his. He remembered the sound of his father’s belt being pulled from its loops, the sussussing sound as he tugged it free, and later that day, Jake recalled, he had watched from the window of his room as his father went out into the shadowed yard at the back of their house. There was a raised bed at one end of the concrete surfaced yard that Jake’s mother had made with bricks and earth and planted with roses. Jake watched as Alastair dug a deep hole beside a yellow rose and planted what remained of the dead cat inside.

  Jake could still taste the salty tang of blood in his mouth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  28 June

  Jake had three national papers delivered daily and was gratified to see that he figured in all of them. Macey’s interview with Charlie Morrow, due out that day, had been sold on to a news agency and picked up by two out of the three dailies that Jake read. The two tabloids led with the story and with pictures of Charlie Morrow, his face turned so that the scarring showed to best effect. The broadsheet had the story as a front-page feature, but what it led with, and what on closer inspection the tabloids had caught onto, was what Jake had really been waiting for. Someone had made the Jake-Essie connection. In less than five days and without the little clue he’d left them.

  Jake was impressed.

  A closer reading told him that it was Macey himself who had identified Essie as the niece of Dr Maria Lucas, the woman Mike Croft had been dating for the past two years. Their pictures appeared on page three of both of the tabloids, one featuring them next to its daily nude. Jake couldn’t help comparing the two women, dwel
ling on what Maria Lucas might look like displayed on page three. What would DI Croft think to that?

  If he could find the right head shot, Jake thought, from those he had taken that weekend at Lyme, then it would be no trouble to arrange it. He had enough black female nudes in his reference collection to make it easy, and all the right software.

  Daydreaming about selling a remodelled Maria Lucas to the Sun, he set about getting his breakfast. He had already fed Essie some milk and changed the towels again. He still had not decided what to do with her. He’d taken some still shots of her that morning, not particularly provocative but good enough to fetch a reasonable price, especially as the morning news meant he’d have no trouble establishing provenance.

  Jake poured his morning tea and stood looking out of the window at the promise of a bright new day. The sky was a polished blue and the sun already glared off the glimpse of sea on the horizon.

  What really gave Jake the best buzz was to think of all the effort that was being put into catching him, when every day he was out and about, available, dealing with the public: asking policemen for directions; chatting to people in the street, interacting with them, touching them, liking them and being liked in return. He even formed brief relationships with some of them, relationships of the sweetest and most loving kind. And none of them ever suspected a thing — until it was too late.

  He thought of Julia, poor repressed little Julia, so flattered by all his attention and concern. Mummy and Daddy not really understanding the artistic temperament and, to be fair, Julia not wanting them to let go too fast.

  She’d been shy, found working in the shared studio at the university so very hard, and when Jake had offered her a place to paint she had jumped at it.

  ‘Don’t say anything though,’ he’d warned her, as their relationship swiftly became more and more intense. ‘I’m supposed to agree not to get involved with the students. My company goes overboard on corporate image and if they found I was sleeping with one of my customers’ young ladies that might be the end of my job.’