by HH Durrant
‘You bloody well know he was. But you lot, you made mistakes,’ he smirked. ‘You got it wrong and he got off.’
‘When was this, Jayden?’
‘I’m not saying, I not saying anything any more. I know my rights and I want to go,’ he decided standing up and making for the door.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Calladine offered joining him while nodding at Imogen to show him out.
So Albert North had once been accused of murder. He hadn’t known that, but he needed to know all about it now. He wanted to know who the victim was and when this happened. He hurried back to the main office and collared Ruth before she left.
‘He’s not saying anything except that he had no idea who owned the cars he robbed. But he did get rattled when I told him that Ahmed had been murdered.’
‘Did he make the connection with his uncle – you didn’t tell him did you? Not even the press have little snippet yet.’
‘No, of course I didn’t tell him. But Jayden was positive that even if we did think he was involved we’d never make a case of it. Apparently Albert North was once accused of murder, and he got off. What do you think – does it ring any bells?’
She shook her head. ‘Perhaps it was before my time.’
‘Not before mine though. I was here when North was the big cheese on the Hobfield but I don’t recall him being involved in anything as big as murder.’
‘Imogen,’ he called out. ‘Would you check that out? See if there’s anything in North’s record that even hints at murder. Joyce might have turned up something – she was on the task earlier.’
‘What about Samantha Hurst?’
‘I’m meeting her at Tariq Ahmed’s house in about an hour.’
‘Good – get her talking. Try to get an insight into their relationship and what was going on in their lives. Someone was interested in them, well him anyway for this to have happened in the first place.’
Chapter 13
Samantha Hurst was waiting in her car on the drive as Ruth and Rocco arrived.
‘I have to be back within the hour,’ she told them both as she got out to meet them. She looked irritated; annoyed at having to be here when she considered she had better things to do.
‘We’re mad busy trying to fill in all the gaps since, well since Tariq.’ Her eyes dipped, and her mouth pulled into a line. Ruth couldn’t read the woman – was that emotion or more annoyance?
‘This won’t take long,’ Ruth assured her. ‘We’d like you to have a walk around inside. See if you can spot if anything is missing. or has been moved since you were last here.’
Ruth nodded at the uniformed PC standing on the doorstep and he unlocked the door letting them in.
Samantha walked straight into the sitting room giving the closed kitchen door a quick glance as they passed.
‘Is that where..?’
‘Yes, Doctor Ahmed was murdered in there. If it’s any consolation, it would have been quick. A matter of seconds the pathologist said.’
‘It isn’t,’ she stated, ‘any consolation I mean. Everyone who knew him thought the man difficult - an odd ball who didn’t show much emotion, but we had something, and I’ll miss him,’ she admitted.
‘Had you been together for long?’
‘Why – what difference does that make. Time is unimportant – we were in love, we were planning a future,’ she disclosed. ‘He and I thought we had plenty of time to do anything we wanted,’ she shook her head. ‘Now that’s all gone and I have nothing.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Ruth offered.
‘We were together about six months. At the beginning we used to argue about everything. Back then I really didn’t like him much. I couldn’t understand the way he was. Why he always seemed so cold and detached from the job. Then one day, when we were dealing with a particularly sad case, I got it, I finally understood,’ she smiled grimly. ‘It’s a hard job, telling people they’re going to die, and with Tariq, his brusque manner was his protection from all the misery he had to inflict.’
‘I see, underneath all that top medic veneer, he was really a softie,’ Ruth smiled back.
‘I wouldn’t go that far, but he wasn’t as our colleagues saw him at work.’
‘Mrs Hurst, can I ask about your movements on the night he was killed?’
She turned and regarded Ruth closely for a few moments. ‘You think I could have done that to him?’ She asked, her voice faltering.
‘You were here, we know that. But what I need from you is a timescale. I need to know when you arrived, when you left, and where you went afterwards.’
‘Well that’s simple enough,’ she shrugged. ‘I came to give him something, stayed about half an hour, long enough for a coffee and a sandwich then I went back to the hospital. What time was he killed?’
‘Sometime after nine that night.’
‘In that case I can put your mind at rest,’ she assured. ‘From seven forty five to gone ten that night I was in theatre. You can check the rota, and there are at least a dozen witnesses to back me up.’
Rocco was taking notes – he’d check her alibi once they got back to the nick.
‘It all seems much as it always is,’ Samantha Hurst decided walking around the room and running her hand over the furniture. ‘He has a safe, in his bedroom. You should check that.’ Samantha turned to Ruth catching the detective off guard – she was staring at her. ‘What’s wrong,’ the doctor asked, patting her hair straight.
Ruth felt embarrassed, ‘nothing,’ she replied hastily.
But she had been staring - she’d been watching her, seeking out resemblances to Calladine. She had the same dark hair, although his was now rapidly defaulting to grey. She also had the angular features, particularly the cheekbones. They must get that from their mother, she thought with a smile.
‘Do you have children?’ Ruth asked.
‘Why – what’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I just wondered,’ Ruth replied feeling foolish for asking something so personal.
‘But yes, I have a teenage son, Callum,’ she allowed with a smile. ‘You?’
‘No, not yet,’ Ruth answered. ‘You’ve got your hands full then.’
‘He’s a good boy. To date he’s not given me any cause for concern. He wasn’t all that keen on Tariq though. Wouldn’t talk to him or go out anywhere with us.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Some weird notion that he was betraying his dad. Richard Hurst might be my ex. but he’s still very much a part of Callum’s life.’
‘I’ll go upstairs and check the safe,’ Rocco interrupted. ‘Where is it?’
‘It’s in the Master bedroom on the bottom of the large wardrobe.’
‘Odd place for a safe,’ Ruth noted.
‘Apparently it was here when Tariq bought the place, and it was far too heavy to move – so he used it. He kept a little money and some family jewellery in it.’
Minutes late Rocco was back shaking his head. ‘It’s all fine up there, nothing untoward with the safe.’
‘It doesn’t look like the motive was robbery then,’ Samantha decided. ‘But why anyone would want to kill Tariq I don’t know.’
She turned to have a last look around then walked towards the coffee table by the window.
‘The tickets have gone,’ she said suddenly as she tapped the shiny surface. ‘That’s what I brought round, two tickets for the art exhibition at the Community Centre on Friday. We were planning to go together. You can see from the walls that Tariq was something of a collector.’
‘Are you sure you put them there – perhaps the Doctor moved them.’
Samantha Hurst began to look around a little more closely. She opened the drawers in the sideboard, and looked in the cupboards either side of the fireplace but there was nothing.
‘He wouldn’t move them – I told him not too, I didn’t want him to lose them.’
‘I’ll make a note of it,’ Rocco decided.
‘I can offer you some
thing even more useful, Detective Constable. The tickets are all numbered and I made a note of ours,’ she said looking inside her handbag. ‘I lost a pair of very pricey West End theatre tickets once, so ever since then I right down the details in case it happens again.’ She took out a notebook, ripped out a page and handed it to Ruth. ‘There, if anyone is foolish enough to use them then you’ve got the murdering bastard,’ she spat, straight faced.
***
‘Why the missing kids board?’ Long was annoyed. He’d walked into the incident room to see the murder board shunted to one side and that of the missing kids taking centre stage. And to make matters worse Calladine was stood staring at it as if he had nothing better to do. ‘I told you to hand the case over to Oldston. I hope you aren’t wasting time, Inspector, not when you’ve a double murder on your hands.’
‘Isla Prideau is our responsibility,’ Calladine corrected him tersely. ‘I can’t simply file the case away and trust Greco to sort it.’
‘But he will sort it. Mark my words, the man misses nothing.’
‘It’s not about what he does or doesn’t miss. The kids’ thing could be big. Have you considered that we could be seeing only a tiny bit of what’s really going on nationwide?’
‘You mean trafficking?’
‘Exactly - Leesworth or Oldston could be a hub. We need to look deeper because if this is trafficking then it won’t go away. They will be seasoned operators, and they’ll take some catching.’
‘Leave it to Greco, Tom,’ he decided without hesitation. ‘Oldston has more resources - they have the city force on the doorstep. We’ve got enough to think about.’
‘It’ll do no harm to keep the abductions live. I have a feeling that this one is going to need a lot more throwing at it than one keen detective who’s had a bit of luck recently.’
‘It’s more than luck. He’s a damn good cop. He’s been tipped to make DCI within the next couple of years. The minute there’s an opening he’ll be in.’
‘Working an area like Oldston is very different from rural Norfolk – so we’ll see.’ Calladine was well aware that he shouldn’t be so critical but he couldn’t help himself. Something about Greco irritated him. He couldn’t pin it down, but the man was the type who could be heavy going.
‘That the green eyed monster talking, Tom,’ Long shook his head. ‘Who knows, he might even end up becoming our DCI. I can’t stay ‘acting’ for ever and now that I’ve had a taste, I wouldn’t want the job.’
Too much like hard work, that was why. But what Long said had a ring to it. It was possible that Greco could end up at Leesdon – Heaven help them!
‘What have you got on the murders? The clock’s ticking you know and I have people on my back too. Give me a short report of where you’re up to by the close of play.’
A short report – what a complete waste of time.
‘Guv,’ Imogen called coming into the office. ‘Whatever we’ve got on North from the past isn’t held electronically. It’s on paper records, and now in the archive. You know as well as I do that there’re two rooms full of the stuff. We could do with knowing when this was – even the year would help.’
‘Jayden wasn’t very forthcoming. The mere mention of murder got his back up,’ he looked at Imogen. ‘But you might get somewhere – he might soften if you talk to him.’
She was more his age and pretty. It was worth a shot – they were working against the clock on all fronts so it couldn’t hurt.
Imogen Goode rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, I’ll have a ride around the Hobfield; see if I can track him down.’
‘Don’t go on your own. If Rocco’s not back when you leave then take a uniform with you.’
Calladine hurried back into his office, his phone was ringing.
‘Dad, it’s Zoe,’ his daughter began. ‘She’s leaving, Lydia got her stuff together and she says she’s going for a train. If you don’t do something – now, then you could lose her for good.’
Just what he needed.
‘Has she said anything – where’s she’s going, what her plans are? I thought she was staying with you, why all the sudden rush?’
‘I’ve no idea what’s going on. She said something to Jo about a job coming up, but she didn’t say where.’
He could do without it. He was up to his ears in police work, and what he didn’t need right now was a domestic.
‘Okay – I’ll be with you in ten minutes. Try and keep her there.’
He grabbed his coat and car keys, a quick word to Imogen and he was gone. Zoe and Jo, her partner, lived on a small housing estate between Leesdon and the by-pass. There was about thirty or so houses, mostly detached and expensive, and all built on the site of a once rambling old pub and its car park. How things had changed. Calladine had no idea why, but Leesworth had become the ‘in’ place to live in recent years. Builders were falling over themselves to get their hands on any pocket handkerchief of land that became available.
Zoe waved to him from the window then opened the front door.
‘She’s in the kitchen,’ his daughter hissed at him. ‘For God’s sake do something with her I’m rapidly running out of patience with the woman.’
Calladine strode down the hallway and stood in the kitchen doorway. Lydia was sat on a high stool sipping coffee with Jo. The two women were deep in conversation as he approached.
‘You’re too late,’ Lydia sniffed at him. ‘I’ve just been telling Jo, I’m going and you can’t stop me.’
‘Going where, why the hurry, why all the drama, and why am I the last to know?’
‘Because I’ve had enough, and I finally see you for what you are, Tom Calladine.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘A boring, workaholic detective with no time for his lover, his family or his friends - that is if you have any’ she threw at him with derision. ‘And don’t argue the point because you know I’m right. You’ve hardly spent any time at home since you went back to work. You don’t love me. You don’t need me at all - do you, not really if you’re honest?’
‘I thought we were okay,’ he replied lamely. What else could he say? What was it she expected from him, and where the hell had this come from?
‘Oh we are – provided I don’t ask for anything, want anything.’
‘So what is it you want?’ He was floundering in a quagmire of emotions. Lydia, Amy, they were spinning in his head. One a woman he was used to and one an unknown quantity – but which did he want?
‘I want you to spend time with me, take me out, and help me with my work,’ she implored. ‘I’ve asked you ‘till I’m blue in the face, but still you hang back. You know how much I need your cousin’s story, and you could help me get it, you know you could. He’d speak to you, open up, I know he would, you’re family.’
This again! That was all he needed. Calladine was sick to the back teeth of her constant harping on about Fallon.
‘Well that’s where you’re wrong because he’s not,’ he retorted sharply. It was out before he could stop it.
‘Not what?’
‘Family – he’s no relation to me at all.’ Three pairs of eyes swung his way, all boring into his head. ‘And he’ll know it soon enough, so I’ll be nothing but another nosey cop as far as he’s concerned.’
Zoe stood staring at him with her hands on her hips. The look on his face, the tone in his voice – he wasn’t lying, he meant it.
‘I thought Ray Fallon was your cousin, Dad,’ she said puzzled.
‘So did I, but he isn’t,’ he ran a hand through his short hair. Now he’d done it. ‘Look, I can’t explain now. I’ve only known myself for a little while, but put simply, Freda wasn’t my birth mother,’ he shrugged, ‘hence Fallon’s not my cousin.’
So there it was, out in the open, the bombshell. Soon the questions would start - the difficult ones he had no answer for. He couldn’t do this, not yet, it was too soon. But he’d have to at least give Zoe something.
‘Fallon is the son of Freda’s
sister,’ he explained to the stunned faces. ‘So if Freda’s not biologically related to me then neither is Fallon,’ he gave them a small smile. ‘Personally I think it’s something to be grateful for.’
His last comment fell on deaf ears as the expected barrage of questions erupted all around him – but mostly from Zoe. He didn’t want this. He’d let this happen and it wasn’t how it should be. He’d wanted to tell Zoe privately, gently, but now that was out the window. He’d never felt so uncomfortable in his entire life, it was the wrong time. Heaving a sigh he turned on his heel and left them to it, letting the front door slam shut behind him.
Chapter 14
Harriet Finch slept for most of the afternoon. When she awoke and the memories of her morning’s work filtered back into her consciousness, she thought it odd that she could do the most awful things then sleep like an infant. Not like the old Harriet at all.
She’d get up now and make some tea then she’d wait until it was dark and go back and check on Lessing. She’d take her car, but park it in the next road. Harriet didn’t want it on Lessing’s drive for the neighbours to see. Twice in one day might cause tittle tattle.
Harriet sang to herself as she pottered about her house. She wore her long dressing gown and fluffy slippers, a present from her friend Nesta last Christmas. She should ring Nesta - tell her about the tickets for the art exhibition. It would mean spoiling the surprise for her birthday, but she didn’t want her arranging something else. She’d miss Nesta, Harriet thought with a smile. She’d been a good friend, always there when she’d needed her.
Suddenly Lessing’s mobile made the most horrendous noise. It sounded like one of those vicious dogs barking – very apt. Harriet had put the thing on her coffee table in the sitting room and forgotten about it. She stared at the bright screen as the thing barked away and vibrated around on the shiny wooden surface then she saw the name Yuri illuminated in blue. Who in the world was Yuri, she wondered, and how come Lessing knew someone with such a foreign sounding name?
She felt sick again – not just a foreign name. With a name like that he would be from some eastern European country, and probably involved with Lessing in the child trafficking. Her nerves were at it again. Should she tackle him about it? Should she make Lessing talk to her, perhaps even record a confession for the police?