15
The drive back from Anglesey had seemed much quicker than the journey there. Why was it always the case that when you want to get to a place it seems to take forever, but when you don’t the trip flashes by? He hadn’t been in a rush to get home because he knew he was going to have to face some backlash from the police. They hadn’t asked him to stay at home, but they wouldn’t be pleased that he had questioned Mrs Evans.
At least he was reasonably confident that the landlady wouldn’t say anything she shouldn’t to the police now. He was sure she had understood the implications of repeating everything she had told him.
He patted the breast pocket of his suit jacket and felt the resistance of the photo that was nestling there. What luck that he had happened to notice this picture on Mrs Evans’ noticeboard, crammed in amongst so many others. There was no way he was leaving it there for the police.
Robert pulled into the drive and glanced in his rear-view mirror. A man was jogging behind the car, speaking urgently into his mobile as he ran. Not one of the police who had been there the night before, but he was sure he was a policeman nevertheless. What now?
As Robert opened the car door and started to get out, his ears were assaulted by a racket coming from his neighbour’s garden.
‘Sir, I’m glad you’re back. Can we go in the house, please?’ the policeman shouted. ‘I need to talk to you, and I’d rather talk inside, if it’s okay with you. It’s a bit noisy out here.’
Robert tutted with frustration. Typical that his neighbour had chosen this weekend to hire a digger and demolish his front drive ready for some fancy new cobbles.
He walked into the porch, retrieved a bunch of keys from his pocket and hunted through them, taking his time to find the right one. He needed to get his thoughts together and be ready to explain himself. Finally he inserted the key in the lock and opened the door.
As he turned back to the porch to invite the policeman inside, he noticed a small box with Olivia’s name on the top.
‘What’s this? Do you know anything about it?’ he asked the policeman.
‘Yes – your neighbour across the road has been keeping hold of it for your wife. The head teacher from the school called round earlier in the week with it. She’s stuck an envelope on the front, with a note in it.’
Robert bent down to pick the box up. What the hell did he need with school stuff now? He carried it inside and dumped it in the hall, ripping the envelope off and shoving it in his pocket. He turned back towards the policeman.
‘What?’ he said, planting his legs firmly apart and folding his arms. The policeman could make what he liked of his stance, but he was damned if he would apologise for what he had done.
‘Could we ask you, Mr Brookes, not to leave the house without letting us know where you’re going in future? We were concerned last night when we discovered that you’d gone.’
‘Am I under arrest?’ Robert was struggling to keep his temper at bay. He had enough to worry about without this ape telling him what to do.
‘You managed to get me a right bollocking for not noticing you’d gone out and I didn’t know where you were. Don’t do it again – okay?’
Robert was tempted to smile, because the policeman had failed to realise that in the few minutes they’d been standing on the doorstep the two detectives from the previous evening had walked up the drive, their footsteps masked by the sound of shattering tarmac, and had witnessed this comment.
It was the woman who leaned forwards and spoke as quietly as she could. ‘Thank you, DC Tippetts. We’ll take it from here.’
Robert saw the man’s eyes close as if in disbelief that he’d been overheard. Dropping his head, he turned and walked out of the house without raising his eyes to either of his senior officers.
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ the inspector said, with a smile that didn’t go further than the corners of her mouth. ‘DC Tippetts is correct, though, Mr Brookes. We would prefer to know where you are. We may have news; we may need your help. There are any number of reasons why we might need to speak to you – and not only did we not know where you were, but you had your phone switched off.’
‘So why were you watching me then? Surveillance, is it?’
The senior policeman spoke for the first time.
‘It’s not surveillance of you, sir. It’s the house. We want to know if and when your wife returns.’
Robert shook his head.
‘Well, as you can see, she hasn’t. Okay?’
Tom Douglas was looking at him carefully, and Robert could tell he was weighing him up.
‘Really, sir? And how do you know she hasn’t returned? We can only see the hall – she could be in the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. I didn’t hear you call out. Did you, DI Robinson?’
Robert felt a sudden rush of blood to his head. Crap. He should have thought of that.
*
Tom was watching Robert very carefully, and could see how uncomfortable the man was. He was absolutely certain that Robert knew his wife and children would not be here. How could he know that?
Robert was quickly trying to cover his mistake by talking; shifting the emphasis away from the fact that Olivia wasn’t here.
‘Well, no doubt you’ve heard the news from Anglesey that I’m not a liar. Mrs Evans got it wrong, as I’m sure she’s told the local police. Perhaps you believe me now? Perhaps when I say I haven’t seen my wife since I left here two weeks ago you might give some credence to my story?’
Tom stayed quiet, knowing Becky would step in.
‘I’m sure you appreciate that in a case like this we have to check everything. We have to suspect everybody. Mrs Evans has confirmed that she has never seen you before, so I’m sorry for the mix up, sir.’ Tom knew Becky was softening Robert up by apologising.
‘Well, believe it or not I knew I hadn’t been there, so I wasn’t mixed up in the slightest.’ His brief smile indicated a sense of victory.
‘So why did you go to Anglesey, Mr Brookes?’ Tom asked. ‘We’re investigating a missing woman and three children, and to have somebody – no matter who it is – interviewing potential witnesses is at best unhelpful, and at worst detrimental to the investigation. Do you want us to find your family?’
Robert looked shaken. Good, thought Tom. And so he should be.
‘I’m sorry – but I wanted to know why the landlady had lied. I couldn’t see any harm in it.’
‘If you want to know anything, you ask DI Robinson, or you ask me.’ Tom gave Robert a moment to absorb what he’d said. ‘Now, before we jump to the conclusion that something has happened to your wife, one thing we need to do is look into your financial situation. We need to know if she had enough money to disappear and leave everything behind her.’
Robert’s face relaxed. He looked almost as if he thought that was funny. Somehow, Tom wasn’t surprised. Given the locked study door and the schedule on the wall, he was beginning to realise that Robert Brookes very much liked to be in control.
‘You’d better come in then, I suppose,’ he said, with little grace. ‘Look, you know I’ve been up all night – so I’m going to need some coffee to keep me going. Sit down, check the house, do what you like. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Robert disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Tom and Becky standing in the hall. Becky just looked at Tom and he frowned.
‘For somebody who wants us to find his family, he’s not being exactly co-operative, is he?’ Becky said.
‘No, but there could be lots of reasons for that. If he thinks she’s just upped and left him, he could be feeling any emotion from shame to despair. If he thinks they’ve been abducted he could be scared, or feel guilty that he didn’t protect them better.’
Becky nodded. ‘And if he offed the lot of them, or even just the wife, he could be feeling scared, guilty and in despair.’
Before Tom had a chance to respond, the door from the kitchen opened, and Robert ushered them into the living room. Nobody sa
t down.
‘Right. What do you want to know?’
‘We’d like to know what money your wife has access to: credit cards, bank accounts, etcetera. Obviously we can check this, but it would be better if you could talk us through how the money is managed in the home.’
‘That’s easy. My salary is paid into an account in my name, and I use that to deal with all the household expenses – mortgage, utilities and so on – plus any other major expenditure. Olivia collects the bills and we have what I’m sure you can imagine is an exciting bill-paying day each month. There’s a separate household account that I put money into for food, and odds and ends for the children. Olivia has a debit card on that account, and when we do the bills we check what’s been spent and what’s left. If there’s any money in the account, it’s rolled over into next month, or if she needs more, we top it up.’
‘Have you checked the account recently, Mr Brookes?’ Becky asked. Robert’s top lip curled slightly as if it were a thoroughly stupid question.
‘Of course I have. I checked it yesterday. There’s nothing unusual. A cash withdrawal in Anglesey, probably for ice creams and stuff, and then this week a Sainsbury’s shop. Exactly as I would have expected. Nothing else at all, apart from filling up with petrol once.’
‘What day was the shopping done?’
‘Monday. And she spent £78.03, if you want to know.’
‘If the account was for food, what did your wife use if she wanted to buy herself something – a new dress, for example – just on impulse?’ Becky asked.
Robert laughed.
‘Olivia is the least impulsive person you could ever wish to meet, Inspector. She buys stuff online. She does a bit of research and chooses a few things, then we complete the transaction on my credit card when I get home. Same for me and the children, except for their shoes. She likes to get them properly fitted. Olivia loves Internet shopping. Everything can be sent back, so she can try things on and show me, and if she doesn’t like something, back it can go. You don’t understand what she’s like. She hates responsibility. I like looking after her, and she looks after me.’
This just sounded like more evidence of control to Tom, but he knew he shouldn’t judge. If Olivia Brookes had issues, maybe this was the way they managed their lives.
‘Look, go and check her wardrobe if you’ve concluded that I’m a tight-arse.’ Robert extended his arm sharply upwards and stabbed with his index finger towards the bedroom. ‘It’s full of clothes. Good clothes. Designer, some of them. Check her make-up bag – all Chanel or Dior. Not that she ever wears much. She doesn’t need it. There’s nothing Olivia can’t have. She has everything she’s ever wanted.’
For just a second, Tom saw a faraway look in Robert’s eyes as if he had left the room and was visiting another place or another time. His eyelids dropped slightly, but not before Tom had glimpsed something that looked like regret in Robert’s eyes.
16
As he entered the incident room, Tom sensed a quiet buzz of energy from the ten or so people hunched over their desks, speaking softly on phones or sharing information with colleagues. Becky would have briefed the team by now, but his presence would indicate that she had his full support. The day-to-day running of the investigation was down to her, but with Philippa Stanley breathing down Tom’s neck given the history of this family, he also needed to keep up to speed.
Tom felt as if he had been up for hours, but it was still only eleven o’clock in the morning. He had a strange feeling that this day was going to get worse before it got better. Walking over to Becky’s desk, he nodded a polite ‘Good Morning’ to those he passed, and pulled out a chair.
‘Update?’ he asked as he sat down.
‘The press have been informed, and it made most of the morning news bulletins, although it was too late for the papers. But it’s a Saturday, and I suspect fewer people pay attention to the morning news on TV. It might jog somebody’s memory, but without photos it’s a bit of a non-starter. The house-to-house is under way, and the techies are looking at the laptops. They’re going to give us a preliminary update in about…’ Becky looked at her watch, ‘five minutes, with any luck. We need to commandeer Mr Brookes’ desk-top computer too, despite the fact that his wife was kept out of his study by a locked door.’
Tom could hear the indignant undertones at the thought of Olivia being barred from entering a room in her own house.
‘Any joy in tracking down Danush Jahander?’
‘Ah – well not specifically. When he went missing originally there was a note in the file about his brother, a…’ Becky scrolled down the screen on her computer, ‘Samir Jahander. He was much easier to locate because he’s a doctor and lives and works most of each year in Dubai. But it seems he occasionally spends weeks working voluntarily in Iran, and that’s where he is now.’
‘So a dead end?’
‘We’ve left a message asking him to call us, but in the meantime we spoke to his wife. As far as she knows, Samir hasn’t seen his brother since he visited him in England about a year before Danush disappeared. His name was mud in the family, and Samir came over to try to persuade him to leave Olivia and return to Iran. There was an almighty row, and in the end Samir left without accomplishing his mission.’
‘And since then?’ Tom prompted.
‘Samir told his wife he’d heard from Danush once, she thinks it was about two years after he disappeared. He was only calling to let his family know he was alive, but apparently he also said that thanks to Samir’s intervention in his relationship with Olivia, he had been forced into making the worst decision of his life and he would never forgive his brother. According to the wife, Samir and Danush had a major argument, and her husband has never mentioned him since.’
Tom pulled a face. ‘Did you manage to get any photos we could use?’
Becky rooted through the piles of papers on her desk, which Tom knew would be much more organised than they appeared to be.
‘The only ones we have are from when he was with Olivia – so they must be at least nine years old. They’re the ones she provided at the time.’ He could see Becky’s eyes lingering on the smiling face of Danush Jahander, his full lips turned up in a beaming smile displaying perfect white teeth, and his curly dark hair brushed back from a smooth, broad forehead. A bit different from Becky’s fifty-odd-year-old ex-lover, he couldn’t help thinking – and a damn sight better looking.
Becky’s phone was ringing, so he left her to it while he stared at Danush Jahander’s photo. He looked like a decent guy, with what appeared to be a genuine smile that definitely reached his deep brown eyes, but Tom wasn’t naive enough to believe that looks counted for much. He could have been a right bastard for all they knew.
He was momentarily distracted by Becky’s conversation.
‘Are you sure about this, Gil?’ she asked. There was a pause. ‘Okay, well could you please surface from below decks and explain it to DCI Douglas, who’s sitting opposite me right now. I think we need to understand a bit more about this. Right – we’ll see you in a few minutes then.’ Becky hung up.
Tom gave her a quizzical look, and waited.
‘Gil’s going to explain how FaceTime works, and what’s been going on with the two laptops. A bit technical for me, I’m afraid. I might understand it, but not well enough to repeat it and have it make sense. Are you okay to hang on, or do you want me to give you a call when he gets here?’
Tom agreed to wait and took out his mobile to make a few quick calls – one of which was to Leo. He had been planning on suggesting they got together tonight, but he had no idea what time he would be finished here. Maybe he should offer to cook them a late supper, if she could buy the ingredients. They had to eat, after all. But there was no reply, and he didn’t have time to leave a message. He looked up as he heard footsteps approaching the desk.
‘Gil, pull up a chair,’ Becky said.
Tom smiled and nodded at Gil Tennant. As unlike a stereotypical technology geek as y
ou could imagine, he was almost dapper in appearance. Short and slender as a teenage girl, today he was wearing mustard-coloured jeans and a black polo shirt, with immaculate black suede trainers to match. Tom had noticed on a few occasions that Gil was a man who liked to co-ordinate his shoes: a strange, but harmless fetish. His wiry hair was gelled into submission, and he looked permanently surprised – a look that Tom sometimes suspected was down to a bit of surreptitious eyebrow plucking.
‘Okaaaay,’ Gil said, drawing out the word dramatically. ‘A few interesting facts here. What do you know about FaceTime?’
Tom looked at Becky and shrugged. ‘I know what it is. I’ve used it on my Mac at home. But let’s assume nothing. That’s probably best.’
‘FaceTime is used to communicate between any two relatively recent Apple devices: iPhones, iPads, Macs, whatever. It’s a video link – just like Skype, really. Okay up to now?’
Tom hid a smile at being spoken to as if he were six years old, and nodded.
‘Right. Well the thing is, if FaceTime calls are made between computers rather than mobile phones, as they were in this case… allegedly,’ Gil stressed the word, paused and gave them both a little smirk, ‘the contact is between email addresses, so we can use the computer’s IP address to identify the user’s location.’
Tom tuned out while Gil explained in unnecessary detail the difference between the various technologies and the intricacies of tracing people. He had been through this before, so he let his mind wander to Olivia Brookes and the first time he had met her, one wild and windy November night almost nine years ago. He shouldn’t have been there at all, really, but Ryan Tippetts was giving Tom a lift home when the call came through. Ryan had been asked to visit Olivia and Tom had gone with him.
His lasting memory was of Olivia rocking back and forth, clasping a crying baby to her chest and repeating over and over again, ‘Dan wouldn’t leave us. I know he wouldn’t leave us. Please find him.’ It had been heartbreaking to watch her. Tom’s daughter Lucy was only a little older than Olivia’s baby, and he knew how Kate would have reacted in the same circumstances. Of course, that was when he and Kate were happy.
[DCI Tom Douglas 03.0] Sleep Tight Page 8