‘So Olivia has visited there three times without you – October, Easter and last week – and you had never been there until the early hours of Saturday morning? Is that correct?’
‘Yes. I’ve told you all of this.’
‘Was Oak Cottage the guest house in Moelfre?’ Tom asked.
‘I don’t remember telling you that, but yes, it was.’
‘You didn’t tell us, Mr Brookes. We had the local police check out the various options, and they confirmed it.’
‘So why are you asking me then?’
‘Would it surprise you to hear that the guest house is open for business, and the landlady was disappointed when your wife cancelled the bookings for this year? She hasn’t been ill at all, and appears as hearty as ever.’
Robert’s brows knitted together.
‘Perhaps she changed her mind about taking bookings – it’s a possibility, isn’t it?’
‘Or perhaps your wife needed to change guest houses so she could entertain her lover. If the landlady had met you before, that wouldn’t have been possible.’
‘That’s a ridiculous idea,’ Robert scoffed.
‘Is it? We also understand from Mrs Evans that she had a picture of your wife, and you took it. You are fully aware that we haven’t got any photos of your wife or children, and that we’ve been very keen to find something we can issue to the press. Why did you keep the photo from us?’
Robert was looking increasingly uncomfortable, and didn’t appear to have an answer. He looked down at the floor.
‘Could you get the photograph for us now, please. We’d like to take it with us and have copies made. We’ll return it to you as soon as possible.’
Tom was shocked by the expression on Robert’s face when he looked up. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth had tightened further. Robert’s voice was quiet, but harsh.
‘I don’t have the photograph. I tore it up.’
21
Robert thought the police would never go. He’d kept them standing in the hall, but it hadn’t made any difference. The Chief Inspector had found it difficult to contain his anger when Robert told him he had destroyed the photo, and that DI Robinson seemed to be studying him as if he were something on a petri dish.
He grabbed the keys from the kitchen table and went into his study, booting the computer up on his way past and making his way over to the bookcase while he waited for the operating system to spring into life. He didn’t think he’d got much time. Shifting a load of books to one side, he prised open the bookcase’s false back and retrieved the leather covered document case from where it had been hidden since the day they had moved into this house. He hammered the plywood back into place with the heel of his hand, then put the books back. He stuck the document case into a bag, and picked up the phone.
‘Taxi, please. Can you pick me up in twenty minutes from outside St Peter’s Church on Broom Road?’ He paused. ‘The name’s Paul Brown. Thank you.’
Looking anxiously at his watch, he clicked on an icon on the lower left side of his screen and a video window opened. He just wanted one more look. There she was: walking around the kitchen, doing normal everyday things, emptying the dishwasher, making a cup of tea. She was so very beautiful. He wasn’t sure he could bear to delete this file – and every similar file on his computer – but he knew he’d have to.
Suddenly there was a crackle and the screen went black.
What the…?
He reached over to the desk lamp and pressed the button. Nothing. A fuse must have gone. Shit.
Robert walked hurriedly through to the kitchen and wrestled with the door into the garage. He pushed past the bonnet of Olivia’s car to get to the fuse box and looked inside. All the switches were up.
‘Christ,’ he muttered. ‘A power cut, in this day and age?’
He’d have to check if the whole street was out, or if it was just their house. This was the last thing he needed, and he could practically feel his blood pressure rising.
Flinging open the front door, he marched down the drive and out into the road. He stood still, arms akimbo, and turned around to see if anybody else was looking bemused. At least next door’s digger was quiet for the first time this weekend.
Seeing his neighbour peering into the hole he had dug, with one hand on his hip and the other scratching his head, Robert called out to him.
‘Have you lost power just now, or is it only me?’
‘Oh, bugger. It’s cut you off too, has it? Sorry, mate. My fault, I’m afraid. How are you, anyway? Any news on Olivia? I bet this is the last thing you need. I’m really sorry.’
Feeling the tension in him explode like an overfilled balloon, Robert stomped up his neighbour’s path.
‘What do you mean it’s your fault? What the fuck have you done, you idiot?’
The neighbour looked at him in surprise.
‘Calm down, Robert. It seems I’ve just accidentally sliced through the electricity cable. Donna’s calling them now. I’m sure they’ll give it priority. Sorry for the inconvenience. Especially now.’
The whole street would inevitably know about Olivia – the policemen going door to door this morning would have seen to that. Shit. He’d never had much time for his jerk of a neighbour, but now he just wanted to grab him round the throat and throttle him.
‘Do you have any idea how important it is that I get my computer online now – this very second?’ he yelled. He couldn’t fail to see the shock in his neighbour's face, immediately replaced by an air of belligerence.
‘Stop shouting the odds at me. It was an accident, that’s all. Yelling’s not going to solve anything.’
‘Fucking imbecile!’ Robert shouted as he turned back towards the house. But his neighbour wanted the last word and took two steps to follow Robert before stopping and shouting.
‘Excuse me. If it wasn’t for your bastard leylandii pushing out roots that have completely destroyed my drive, none of this would have been necessary. But I never said a word. Jesus – I’m not surprised Olivia had issues.’
Robert swivelled back round and was sorely tempted to punch the guy’s teeth in, but Donna was watching from the doorway, her mouth open. She’d surely phone the police immediately if he started a fight and, given that one of their number was sitting up the road, watching the show from his car, it wouldn’t take them long to get here either. He didn’t have time for this. Without another word, he spun on his heel and stomped back into the house.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he dashed up to his bedroom, grabbing another bag from the spare room on the way past and trampling on Olivia’s clothes that were strewn around the room. Pulling open drawers he took the minimum that he would need. He wouldn’t be able to use his credit card after he left town, so he would have to withdraw the maximum on each of his four cards on the way through. That should keep him going for a while. He’d take a taxi to the office and nick one of the pool cars. Nobody would miss it until Monday, if then. He’d sign it out to somebody who was on holiday.
He picked up the photograph he had taken from Mrs Evans’ wall. He didn’t need it any more, but he wasn’t going to leave it here for the police to find.
Now that he had a plan, he suddenly felt calm. There was just the computer. But when he thought about it, nothing on there was really incriminating. The police wouldn’t understand, but that was their problem.
Two minutes later, he was packed and gone – out through the doors to the terrace, down the back garden, over the fence and into the field.
22
Sunday
As far as Tom Douglas was concerned, Sunday was just another day in the week. He’d never really thought about weekends being any different because criminals certainly didn’t decide to give it a rest on Saturday and Sunday, so he was back in the incident room by seven thirty in the morning.
He could have done with making a trip to Cheshire to sort out whatever had been going on at his cottage, but Olivia Brookes and her three children were still
missing and there was something about this that he just didn’t like the smell of at all. He’d gone round to Leo’s at the tail end of what had seemed like an interminable day yesterday, and that had left him feeling even more tired and frustrated. On the one hand, she had been sympathy itself with regard to his cottage and had volunteered to go there today and do some sorting out for him. But on the other, all he’d wanted to do was to take her to bed, make love to her and sleep soundly next to her naked body all night. And, for just a moment, he had thought they were making progress.
She’d bought the simple ingredients he needed for chicken in mascarpone and white wine sauce – something he could knock together in minutes, and cooking always relaxed him. He loved Leo’s loft apartment: the openness of it, the warmth of the bare brick that made up one wall, and the sturdy beams holding the whole place together. In one of the many old converted warehouses of Manchester, this renovation had been done with real style, and Leo was gradually stamping her own personality on it.
As he’d cooked, he had talked to Leo where she sat curled up on the sofa, the glass of red wine she was holding almost matching the dark stain of her lipstick. Since the first time he had met her, he didn’t think he had ever seen Leo wear any colour at all. She always wore black and white, but somehow in the most amazing combinations. The only colour came from her lipstick, or the occasional chunky red necklace, or a deep red nail polish on her toes but never her fingers. Tonight she was wearing figure-hugging white trousers with a sleeveless black-and-white striped top that hung loose but somehow managed to simultaneously mould itself to her figure as she moved. Her long ebony hair was wavy tonight, the way he preferred it, and she had been giving him all her attention as he browned the chicken in olive oil and told her about his day.
‘So what’s your gut feel, Tom? Forget the evidence for a moment. You’re usually so good at seeing past the obvious.’ Leo had said.
‘There’s something intrinsically wrong about Robert Brookes. Well, to be honest, it’s not just Robert. It’s the whole set up. I met Olivia – the missing woman – almost nine years ago.’ Tom described his past encounters with Olivia and her family as he added the white wine and a couple of bay leaves to the pan and started to chop the tarragon. ‘The trouble is, I never really bought it that it was an accident that killed her parents. And neither did Olivia.’
‘So what did you do about it?’ Leo had asked, not unreasonably.
‘Nothing.’ He’d seen Leo frown and realised that this didn’t sound like the Tom Douglas she knew. ‘Look, I tried. But nobody had anything to gain from their deaths except Olivia as far as we could tell. And she was devastated. She was the most vocal in saying it couldn’t have been an accident. She kept repeating over and over again that her father was obsessed with alarms. And she was right. The burglar alarm was state of the art and they had more smoke alarms than I’ve ever seen in a house.’
Tom had poured in the chicken stock and given everything a stir.
‘The scene-of-crime boys could find nothing at all. The burglar alarm had been switched off, which according to Olivia wasn’t unusual when they were in the house. But there was no sign of forced entry. We had to let it go.’
‘Was Olivia married by this time?’ Leo had asked.
‘No. She’d only just met Robert, but he was waiting at her old flat and he called to find out what was keeping her. He got me at the other end of the line. When I told him what had happened, he rushed straight over to see what he could do to help.’
Judging that the sauce had reduced enough, Tom had whisked in the mascarpone and added the tarragon and some black pepper.
‘For some reason, I was never satisfied. We did wonder if the Iranian boyfriend had something to do with it, but we couldn’t find anything to support that theory, and anyway nobody knew where he was.’
Tom knew Leo was fascinated by everything to do with his work, particularly since she had decided to go back to university. When he met her, Leo was a life coach – and a good one at that – in spite of, or perhaps because of, her natural aloofness and her ability to withdraw and view things without emotion. The fact that this extended to her own life, leaving her appearing cold and distant, was beside the point. But Leo had finally been persuaded to take her sister’s offer of some money – just enough to pay her way through a university course – and study psychology. She’d already decided she wanted to be a forensic psychologist, although she had many years of studying ahead before she would achieve that goal. Maybe because of this, she was always keen to listen to Tom and try to understand more of the criminal mind. But dinner was ready, and he’d wanted to relax.
‘Enough. No more work – let’s eat.’
Leo had jumped up eagerly from the sofa. She might not like to cook, but she certainly liked to eat. Glancing at her plate of food and then up at Tom, a lascivious smile had lit up her face and, as she’d picked up her knife and fork, she’d leaned towards him slightly.
‘You’re the best, Tom Douglas. So much more than just a pretty face.’
That was one thing he hadn’t been called before, but if she was dishing out compliments he was happy to take them.
The conversation over their meal had been light-hearted. Leo had chatted about spending her whole day failing to find the perfect lamp for the corner of the living room and given Tom’s look of horror at such a waste of time, she had teased him about his attitude to shopping in general but furniture shopping in particular. Tom never made any bones about the fact that he was clueless when it came to interior design, and had paid a company to sort the house out for him here in Manchester just as he had in Cheshire. Leo thought that was madness, and had selected every piece in her apartment with huge care.
Listening to her soft voice, laughter bubbling just below the surface as the gentle banter continued, Tom had begun to feel the cares of the day drain away. Inevitably they had spoken about the break-in at his home but, with Leo’s promise of driving over there in the morning, Tom was able to push it to the back of his mind.
Music had been playing softly in the background. He didn’t even notice who was singing, but the voices were gentle and soothing. One track grabbed his attention. He had heard it before, but a long time ago and the voice was haunting.
‘Who’s this, Leo?’
‘Judy Tzuke. It’s called “Stay With Me Till Dawn”. I know it’s really old, but it was my mum’s all-time favourite record. She used to sing it when she was washing up.’
The title of the song had taken Tom’s breath away, and he would have loved to think it was significant, but somehow he knew how the evening was going to end. Pretty much like every other evening they spent together. The attraction between them sparkled fiercely. Every touch sent ripples of tension through Tom’s body and he was sure it was the same for Leo. But she always pulled back at the last moment.
Reluctantly, he had stood up from the sofa, ready to leave. Leo had reached out a hand and grabbed his arm.
‘Stay, Tom,’ she’d said.
He’d looked down at her and reached out with his other hand to wrap a thick strand of her silky hair around his fingers.
‘And tomorrow?’ he’d asked.
Leo had just shrugged, and he felt the momentary weakness sucked back into her body, armour back in place. He knew what that meant. He could spend the night loving her, falling deeper into her trap, and tomorrow it would be as if nothing had happened. As if they were back to being friends, with the occasional overnight stay being at Leo’s whim. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him to stay but, tempting as it was, he had managed to resist. So far.
He bent down and brushed his lips over her brow, tilted her chin with his hand and gently kissed her on the mouth. He felt, rather than heard, a slight groan and she closed her eyes for just a second. She leaned in towards him and he’d placed his hands under her elbows and lifted her to her feet. She pressed the length of her lean body against his.
‘Tomorrow?’ he’d asked again, his li
ps close to her ear.
He felt Leo’s back stiffen slightly.
‘I don’t do tomorrows. You know that.’
There had been no other option but to release her. Something had to happen soon, though. This was fast becoming unbearable. If he gave in, and God knows he wanted to, this would forever be an unbalanced relationship with Leo calling the shots. He had to wait until she was truly ready, or walk away, difficult as that would be.
So now here he was on a sunny Sunday morning, aching with frustration and knowing that – rightly or wrongly – he was completely smitten with a woman who would never commit to more than a single night.
‘Morning, boss. You look a million miles away. Good night, was it?’ Tom came back down to earth with a bump. He should have known Becky would be in early too, and as he shook himself back into the here and now he was pleased to see that a little more of Becky’s naturally ebullient nature and slightly sassy attitude seemed to be resurfacing.
‘A confusing night, if I’m honest. I’ve been mulling over everything we’ve learned, and I don’t know what to make of Robert Brookes or the whole situation. If he discovered his wife was sleeping with somebody else, perhaps he’s the sort of nutter who would do her some serious damage. But if that’s the case, where are the children? Can we do a check to see if he owns any other property – because if they’re not all dead, he could be hiding them somewhere.’
‘Well, you know what I think. I don’t know how, when or why, but he’s killed her. I just hope the kids are safe.’
The room was slowly filling up as Becky spoke, most people yawning as they walked towards their desks. Until they found these children they all knew they were in for some long days. Computers were being switched on, messages checked. The incident room was slowly coming back to life.
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