by Anita Waller
‘Me too.’ Mouse’s frown said more than her words. ‘Alice said that Tom wanted her to look after the stuff he had accumulated about his adoption, and it was really because he didn’t want Judy involved in it. What if Judy had already seen it? I bet if we could get sight of Judy’s phone, we’d find pictures of all the documents including Tom’s birth certificate with his mother’s name on it.’
‘It’s been easy finding this house, and Google Earth provided the picture,’ Doris explained for Kat’s benefit, pre-empting Kat’s next question.
Kat dipped her head to look at the picture once more. ‘If she owns this, she’s loaded.’
‘Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll let you know,’ Doris said, her fingers already flying across the keyboard.
There was a tap on the kitchen window and the taller of the two officers held up empty mugs. Mouse left her seat and went to the door. She took the cups and leaned against the jamb, chatting.
Kat looked at Doris and grinned. ‘It’s love.’
‘You think?’
‘She follows him with her eyes. Quite funny really.’
Doris waggled her fingers. ‘Not funny at all. You have any idea how much working outside the box that girl does to get the results we need? And she’s fancying a policeman?’
Mouse closed the door gently, then locked it before returning to the table. The two women looked at her.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Stop looking at me.’
‘What? What?’ Doris tried to keep a serious face. ‘He’s a policeman.’
Mouse giggled. ‘I know. I love a uniform. You found anything about that house?’
‘I have. It just came through. Pamela Bird owns it outright. Her late husband was CEO of a manufacturing company in Derby, died eighteen months ago. I’ll track down his will, see what we can find out about their family.’
‘Okay. What about we tell Judy we’ve found the birth mother’s identity, but we now have to contact her for permission to release her details as it is Judy’s late husband who is the relative, and not Judy herself.’ Kat spoke slowly, thinking things through as she talked.
‘I think it’s vital we don’t tell her too much,’ Doris agreed. ‘Not at this stage, and certainly not if we get proof of what we’re all thinking about her. Maybe we should do a bit of a side-track now and have a look at her – we’re uneasy about her motives, aren’t we?’
Mouse lifted her head from her screen. ‘It’s not only us, though, is it? Alice Small didn’t have anything good to say about her. She knew the relationship between Judy and Tom had run its course.’
‘Then here’s what we need to do,’ Kat said. ‘Firstly, we need to interview Judy, explain we can’t just pass the name over, but we’re happy to broker the meeting between her and the birth mother. We don’t need to admit at this stage that we know who she is, we’re paving the way for the next stage once we do have a name. We’ll see what reaction we get to that. Plan?’
Mouse and Doris bobbed their heads in unison. ‘Plan.’
‘And I think it’s important we’re there to see her face, rather than email her. If this had been straightforward, an email would have given the information we’re going to tell her, which is basically nothing at all really, but I for one would like to see her reaction.’ Kat paused, waiting for the inevitable you’re not ready yet.
‘Then we’ll go together,’ Mouse said. ‘You’re doing nothing without back-up until loony Leon is caught.’ She turned to look out of the kitchen window. ‘We’ll take two of our protectors with us, and leave two here with Nan.’
Kat grinned. It didn’t take a genius to work out which one Mouse would like to be their driver. She pulled her own unopened laptop towards her. ‘You want me to start filling in the results sheet?’ It was one of the necessary actions she had actually mastered.
‘Yes, please, Kat,’ Doris said. ‘But bear in mind you’re officially on maternity leave…’
‘Martha’s asleep,’ Kat said.
Chapter 10
10
Leon opened a tin of soup and poured it into a pan. He warmed it using a small gas ring, craving steak and chips washed down with an expensive bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape.
His thoughts flickered to the fourth wedding anniversary meal he had shared with Kat, seeing that night as the beginning of the end of their marriage, their love. He wondered how Kat had reacted to the news that she was pregnant. Had there, at any point, been thoughts of an abortion? Had she hated him that much?
His mind flashed to the sight of her on the bedroom floor, blood pouring from the head wound he had caused. She had reason to despise him, and as everything about his life had come out, he guessed she must be regretting ever having met him.
The soup started to bubble; he lifted the pan and poured chunks of vegetables into his plastic dish. He dipped in Ryvita, detesting the cardboard taste and sensation but knowing he had no chance at all of going outside during daylight hours to buy bread. His dessert was two digestive biscuits and a black coffee, but once the hunger pangs had been sated he felt more positive, more in control.
He needed to find out when the baby was due. That was a priority.
The baby in question was hungry just like her daddy had been, and eagerly took the milk Kat proffered. Doris and Mouse remained in the kitchen, allowing Kat to have a modicum of peace.
Kat finished feeding Martha and sat her upright, grinning inanely as the burp rattled out of the baby. Who would have thought that such an anti-social activity as a burp would cause her so much happiness, she mused.
She replaced Martha in her crib then carried the Moses basket up to her bedroom, placed it in the cot, switched on the monitor and said, ‘Night, God bless, my little one.’
Returning to the kitchen carrying a nappy and the empty baby bottle, she was surprised by a cup of tea waiting for her.
‘We heard your conversation on the baby monitor,’ Mouse explained. ‘And tonight I’ll have Martha in my room, if you’re okay with that. I’ll feed and change her and you can sleep all night. How hard can it be to look after a baby?’
Kat and Doris looked at each other, and Doris shook her head, bemused. ‘You’ll probably find out tonight,’ she said.
Kat hugged Mouse. ‘You’re a star. Thank you so much. I’m trying to ignore the exhaustion.’
‘Will you be okay to go and see Judy tomorrow? We’ll only be an hour, so if we go after Martha’s feed, she should sleep till we get back, and Nan won’t have any worries.’
Doris looked up. ‘Can I just explain to you two numpties, I am the only one in this room with experience in babies? Bethan Walters, I’ve cleaned up your arse more times than I care to think about, mopped up your sick, made endless bottles for you – and I did the same for your mother. And, what’s more,’ she said with a finality that invited no argument, ‘I bet I know twice as many nursery rhymes as the two of you put together.’
Kat turned to Mouse. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she said, trying desperately to keep the serious expression on her face.
Mouse looked horrified. ‘She called me Bethan Walters. I must be in trouble, she only calls me by my proper name when I’ve done something wrong.’
Doris said nothing further on the subject; she quietly sang Humpty Dumpty, and Kat continued with the reports she had to type. Mouse slipped out into the garden to organise the police escort for them for the following day, and came back in feeling disgruntled.
‘He’s not on duty tomorrow,’ she said, her back to Doris and Kat as she locked and bolted the kitchen door. She missed seeing the grins on their faces.
‘Told you it’s love,’ Kat whispered.
There was quiet for a time, and then Mouse closed her laptop. ‘So, let’s just talk a couple of things through. We’ve had no word about one-handed Rowe then?’ The reference was to the fact that Doris had blown away his left hand with a well-placed bullet.
‘None at all. Marsden hasn’t been in touch,’ Kat confirmed. ‘He’s definitely got
a hideaway somewhere. He was only using the empty shop to keep an eye on me. He’s gone back to his first place, and nobody’s safe until they find him. I know she thought he might be having to replace his camping stuff, but I know Leon. He wouldn’t leave anything to chance. Wherever he is, it’ll be well set up for him. And he’ll have had it years.’
‘Kat, did you ever notice any strange payments coming out of your joint account? Things that you queried at the time?’ Mouse’s mind was in overdrive.
‘I never saw any statements. Leon dealt with everything. All the household bills came out of the joint account. I had my own personal one that was really for me to spend on what I wanted, when I wanted it. He had an automatic top-up set up on it when it dropped below five grand.’
‘Kat, please tell me there isn’t still a joint account!’
Kat shrugged. ‘I suppose there must be. I’ve never used it, so wouldn’t know. But he’ll not have access to it. When he went, I withdrew the contents, and I’ve not touched it since. I know the police blocked his business accounts, but nothing was ever said about me taking out that money. I used the cash for a while then put the last few thousand into my account. That all happened six months ago and nobody queried it.’
Mouse rolled her eyes. ‘Kat Rowe, you scare me. I’ll get the statements. Let’s not make waves that could drown us by going down official channels. We’ll have a look at them, if that’s okay with you, Kat. This is your personal life…’
Kat laughed. ‘The whole world knows my personal life, thanks to Leon.’
‘Then I’ll get them up on screen.’ Mouse saw the panicked look on Kat’s face, the same look that appeared every time screens were mentioned. ‘Stop worrying, Kat, you’ll simply have to scroll.’
The relief was evident in Kat’s exhalation of breath.
Doris watched her two girls chatting, and shook her head. She had taught many people the intricacies of assorted computer activities, but she couldn’t teach confidence. Each student had to find their own level of that. Kat knew so much more than she had when they first met, but her insecurity refused to let her believe it.
Doris reached her hand across the table and squeezed Kat’s fingers. ‘Sit next to me, Kat, you’ll be fine. We’ll be examining every entry; in particular, look for utilities. Gas, electric, water bills, because if he has a bolthole he’ll need some kind of power.’
Mouse lifted her head and looked at them. ‘I figured that, but I reckon Leon’s too smart to leave that trail. A generator and camping gas take care of gas and electricity, and bottled water covers water. We’re really going to have scrutinise every little entry, debit or credit. Somewhere there has to be something that tells us where he’s hiding away. Don’t close your minds to other things by concentrating on utilities. He may pay rent on a property, may even have bought one. And tonight we’re only looking at the joint account. Did he have a personal account, Kat?’
‘He did. And let’s not forget he had credit cards.’
‘And presumably off-shore accounts,’ Doris said drily. ‘Surely the police will have checked everything we’re looking at?’
‘They will,’ Mouse said. ‘But we have something they don’t have. We have Kat, who has intimate knowledge of their lifestyle. And what’s more, it would have been about nine months ago when Leon scarpered and they checked these accounts. I know he won’t have used them since then, but nine months ago they couldn’t have realised he would have a bolthole, so what they were looking for then isn’t what we’re looking for now. Sometimes immediacy isn’t so good.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Doris said. ‘And his joint account would be about household bills and other such simple things; direct debits, standing orders, all would have been checked out, but as I keep saying, Leon was damn clever. Hiding something in plain sight? In a joint account used for household expenditure? That’s clever.’
Kat was listening to the backwards and forwards ideas coming from Doris and Mouse. Finally she spoke. ‘And the police could access his accounts legally? Because I didn’t give them his ID and passwords. Nobody asked for them.’
Doris and Mouse moved as one and swung around in their seats to face her.
‘You have them?’ Doris asked.
‘Yes. He wrote every one down, even his Amazon login.’
‘And the police didn’t find it?’ Mouse knew they had taken the house apart after Leon’s vanishing act.
‘I wouldn’t think so. They never asked me for the combination of my safe, so I’m assuming they didn’t go into it. That’s where he told me to keep the list.’
‘Where is your safe? I’m presuming it’s not the one built into the lounge wall?’ Doris spoke quietly, scared of raising her hopes that Mouse wouldn’t have to take risks hacking bank accounts.
‘The big one in the lounge was Leon’s, to keep papers and stuff secure. Sometimes money, which I now presume was drugs money, although I didn’t know that at the time.’ She hesitated. ‘I was the ideal partner for him, wasn’t I? Silly little church deacon Katerina, his thirty-year-old virgin who knew very little of life outside Eyam.’ Her tone was bitter.
Shaking her head, she forced a smile. ‘My much smaller safe was for keeping my jewellery secure. When we had our bedroom altered and fitted with built-in furniture, he had the safe concealed in my dressing table. You wouldn’t know it was there, and you have to know how to release the central panel. The safe is under that.’
‘And Leon didn’t go into it when he broke in?’
‘No. He set the code when I began to use it, but I struggled to remember the right sequence of the numbers. I reset it, but never thought to tell him.’
‘So we have all the information we need to access the accounts legally?’ Mouse asked.
‘We do,’ Kat conceded. ‘He wrote everything down just in case he ever had an accident – he did a lot of motorway driving. When Martha wakes, I’ll take you up and show you exactly how to access it and what the combination is. The contents are for Martha, should anything happen to me.’
‘Understood,’ Mouse said. ‘But please put that in writing. Until the murdering bastard is either dead or divorced, he’s your next of kin. Write it down, sign it, we’ll witness it, and leave it with your solicitor.’
‘Don’t swear, please, Mouse,’ Doris said, looking up from her screen. ‘It doesn’t become you.’ She was aware that the girls ignored her protestations, but she figured she might as well keep on telling them, maybe one day they would listen.
Chapter 11
Three hours later, Martha had enjoyed another nappy change and feed, and had been deposited in Mouse’s bedroom for the night.
The three women sat on Kat’s bed and looked at her dressing table.
‘There’s no clue that it isn’t just a solid piece of furniture,’ Mouse said.
The dressing table top was segmented into three separate areas; the two sides were almost oval in shape, linked by a straight central piece. The mirror was a triptych with a large central mirror surrounded by lights, and two half-size side mirrors. Underneath the attractive marbled surface were three small drawers, shaped to fit the contours of the top.
‘Can you see anything that would reveal a hidden compartment?’ Kat asked.
Doris and Mouse scrutinised the piece of furniture and eventually conceded defeat.
‘I can understand why the police didn’t find it. I can’t see anything, and it would certainly bamboozle any burglar,’ Doris said with a smile. ‘It’s genius.’
Kat stood, moving towards the dressing table. ‘Watch,’ she said, and angled the right-hand mirror slightly inwards. There was an almost inaudible click. ‘Did you see anything move?’
‘Only you moving the mirror.’
Kat put her fingers under the overlap of the dressing table top and lifted. Inside was the safe.
‘Good lord,’ Doris said, and moved towards the piece of furniture. ‘That’s brilliant. The front part is a regular drawer, the back half the safe. Is
the release catch on the mirror?’
‘It’s actually concealed in the hinge, but all it does is make that tiny click. The top doesn’t move, so a burglar wouldn’t know anything had happened at all.’
Mouse joined them. ‘And Leon’s passcodes are all in there?’
‘Yes. My combination is 0873. It’s not written down anywhere so we’re the only three who know it.’ Kat keyed in the digits and the safe door opened. She shuffled the boxes until she saw the one with Cartier on the lid.
Nestled inside were shards of light and brilliance in the form of diamond earrings. She pulled forward the padded velvet cushion that secured the jewels in place and lifted out the piece of paper underneath.
Mouse held out her hand and Kat passed her the paper.
‘Not that, numpty, the earrings,’ she said with a grin. Kat handed over the box and then lifted out other boxes.
‘While we’ve got it open you may as well look at them all.’
For a brief moment, the three women put aside all other issues and enjoyed the immense pleasure afforded by the sparkle of the stones, the gleam and weight of the gold and platinum.
‘Leon certainly loved you,’ Doris murmured, stroking the ruby pendant.
‘Not enough to give up his lifestyle,’ Kat said drily.
They carefully replaced every item in the safe, and then Kat took them through opening it.
‘Kat, say no if this isn’t appropriate, but the gun Leon forced us to have is fully operational even after being in the freezer. It’s cleaned and ready for use. Again,’ Doris added the final word with a twinkle in her eye. ‘However, it’s only hidden in the garage. I would feel happier with it in a safe, either the downstairs one or this one. The downstairs one has its drawbacks in that the police know about it. This smaller one is upstairs and the gun isn’t to hand if Leon should happen to come calling, but the police don’t know this safe is here.’