Claire rolled her eyes. She remembered how much she loved his playful side and she smiled inwardly at the thought. She took a sip of her coffee, closed the web page and brought up her emails. Nothing new had come in since last night.
‘What did you find out from Jenkins yesterday?’ she asked, still looking at the monitor. ‘Team briefing before lunch, but I’d like a heads-up.’
Michael opened his notepad. ‘Not a lot. Head teacher wasn’t very obliging either. I got the impression she was glad to see the back of me.’
Claire raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought you’d be used to that by now.’ Michael glanced at her. She was provoking him. He ignored her throwaway comment.
‘Anyway, he seems a very stern teacher. I certainly didn’t like him, really cold eyes,’ he said, shivering at the thought. He glanced over a few more pages. ‘He seems well-liked by the head of the school though and, more importantly, he has an alibi. He was teaching when Wainwright was killed around 11:30am.’
He snapped his notepad shut.
Claire sat back in her chair and picked up her stapler, flicking the spring back and forth. ‘I still want to see his daughter,’ she said at length. ‘I’ll get Gabe to try and pick up Jenkins on the CCTV from Town Centre management ASAP.’
Michael nodded in agreement, and got up to leave. As he reached the door, he turned to face her, grinning.
‘I’ll think of you watching the ladies thrusting their crotches at you this evening. Never know, you may enjoy it, batting for the other team,’ he said, before ducking out the door as the stapler came hurtling towards his head.
CHAPTER 16
Chloe Jenkins ran her tongue along her upper lip, tasting the thick red lipstick painted expertly along her fleshy Cupid’s bow.
The overhead lights flashed in various sequences as she wrapped her slender leg around the metal pole and swung her body a quick 360, ending by casting her legs out and sliding to the floor in an expert ‘splits’ finish.
She awaited the inevitable jeering that accompanied her signature move, and tonight they seemed louder than usual. She stared at the black tribal design tattooed on the inner wrist of her right arm. She focused in on it, helping her drown out the surroundings like she did every time she performed.
A loud jeer broke into her thoughts.
Smile. Entertain. Repeat.
She turned, smiled at the row of men who edged closer to the stage runway, watched by the careful eye of the club’s security.
She grabbed the pole with one hand, using it to pull herself up, her legs sliding back together slowly until she was upright, teetering on her six-inch high heels.
The music changed tempo and the bass line rose, accompanied by the strobe light. Chloe began to strut down the runway in time to the music, the gold locket she never removed swinging with each movement.
She tried to count how many bank notes were stashed inside her red G-string. She lost count at £100, when she caught the eye of a woman watching her, standing with her manager across the room at the bar.
They were staring at her and exchanging conversation every now and again.
Chloe tried to concentrate, finished off her routine and picked up her discarded bra before leaving the stage, as other girls took her place.
She rushed down the corridor backstage, pulling her bra back on. When she reached her dressing room, a small box-room with battered furniture, she pulled out the notes from her underwear to count her earnings.
She heard her manager Joe Carter enter the room without knocking. Chloe certainly didn’t have anything he hadn’t seen before. He walked towards her, when she didn’t look up.
He stood close, staring at her reflection in the mirror opposite them.
His dark-brown eyes narrowed.
He stared at the tattoo on her wrist. He’d asked her about it once, in general conversation, comparing his own ink to hers. She had withdrawn into herself in an instant, shutting him out, so he never asked her again.
His eyes moved over her, taking in every inch of her long blonde hair hanging down her small skinny body and then back to her blue heavily made-up eyes.
Eventually Chloe raised her eyes to their reflection.
He stood so close to her that she could smell the stale scent of cigarettes, and feel the coarseness of his black jumper against her arm.
Unable to stand the closeness, she stashed the cash into her handbag and turned to face him.
‘Am I in trouble?’
‘What’ve I told you girls about not bringing shit to the club, Chloe?’
She looked confused, her eyes narrowing as she looked into his. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Then why is there fucking pig filth sitting in my office asking to speak to you?’ he spat, leaning in closer to her face.
Chloe sank backwards, her face twisted. ‘No fucking idea.’ She saw the doubt in his eyes. ‘Joe, it’s the truth.’
‘She ain’t here for nothing, is she?’ He leaned in closer and she could almost taste the alcohol on his breath. ‘Get it sorted or you’re sacked.’
***
‘Mind if I smoke?’ Chloe said, pulling out a cigarette from the carton with her lips. Now fully dressed in casual clothes, and sitting in Carter’s office, she faced the harsh cold eyes of DCI Claire Winters.
Claire tipped her head towards the No Smoking sign on the door behind her.
Chloe rolled her eyes and reluctantly replaced her cigarette. She sat with her legs crossed, her foot tapping in the air, her mind going over the last few weeks trying to find a reason why she was here, her job at risk.
After a few minutes of silence and Claire’s frozen stare she found her voice. ‘You gonna tell me why you’re here? I hope you realise you’ve pissed off Joe. He doesn’t want you lot in here, unless you’re paying.’
Claire smiled. She knew there were a few men on the beat who visited the club and paid for the odd private dance or two. She couldn’t understand what was so attractive about these women. Most looked malnourished, hungry for their next drug fix, and Chloe looked no different with her dyed blonde hair and tired expression. The girl had the usual signs Claire was used to seeing: the vacant expression, hollow eyes and the yellowing teeth from years of smoking.
Claire noted the track marks twisting their way up Chloe’s skeletal arms, one scar partially hidden, the pinky-coloured line disappearing though a black tattoo. The rest showed signs of obvious attempts to camouflage them with make-up. She thought about what could’ve happened to this girl, the only biological child of Mark Jenkins.
Chloe saw Claire’s eyes hover over the scars on her arms, and folded them quickly.
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Claire Winters, Haverbridge CID. I’m investigating the murder of Father Malcolm Wainwright yesterday afternoon.’
Chloe barely flinched. ‘I heard about him. What’s that got to do with me?’
‘We have a witness who states that your father, Mark Jenkins, was the last person to see Wainwright alive.’
Chloe leaned her head back against her chair. ‘So? I have nothing to do with my father and haven’t since I was seventeen. I left home because I hate him.’
Claire looked up in surprise.
‘Does that shock you?’ Chloe looked down at her fingers and started picking the chipped red varnish from her fingernails, not waiting for an answer.
Claire’s voice was flat. ‘Not much shocks me in my line of work.’
She studied Chloe’s face, feeling a little sorry for her. Here was a girl who somewhere along the way became lost and felt she had to leave her family. Claire thought about what her parents would’ve wanted for her. A decent job, a nice boyfriend, and good prospects and hopes in life.
‘Chloe, I understand you’ve obviously had a tough time and I know you felt you had to leave home. I’m interested in the reasons why.’
Fighting back tears, Chloe raised her eyes and studied Claire’s face carefully.
Why should I
trust you? Chloe had nothing to do with her family any more and with good reason.
But what harm could there be in talking to this woman?
‘I left home because I couldn’t take the religious shit any more,’ she said under her breath, barely audible, but Claire understood. It was what she’d expected to hear.
‘Go on.’
‘What do you want to hear? My life story from my earliest memory or the day I decided to leave?’
‘Let’s talk about the day you decided to leave. At seventeen, you must’ve been scared. Leaving home is hard for anyone financially and emotional for you. How have you supported yourself?’
‘I moved in with my boyfriend at the time. He worked and offered to support me until I got a job waiting tables. The pay was crap, and I was always told I had a good body and a pretty face, so a friend recommended here. Soon I had enough money to rent the flat I’m in now.’
‘Tell me about why you left.’
‘I told you. I wouldn’t swallow Dad’s religious bullshit any more.’
‘Help me understand. Are you saying you clashed about your beliefs or does this go deeper than that?’
Claire was becoming impatient; she wasn’t used to playing the sympathy card and it wasn’t getting her any further. She knew Mark Jenkins was involved in this case somehow. Whether it was directly or indirectly, she knew something about him and his family didn’t ring true.
‘He didn’t abuse me, if that’s what you’re implying,’ Chloe snapped.
‘So what could someone possibly do to have made you leave home? Just because he had different views to you? There are thousands of teenagers out there who don’t agree with their parents – hell, I was one of them. That’s life, but I think it goes beyond that.’
‘Why do you care?’
Claire paused, kept her face neutral. ‘Humour me.’
Chloe sighed.
Music and cheering could be heard from the stage area up the hall. She wished she was back out there fleecing the men for all they were worth. Anything sounded better than being here, facing this woman with her cold eyes and hard stare.
‘Ever since I can remember,’ she said, ‘Dad was preaching his faith daily. Not just when we needed to hear it but over trivial things. I can remember him grounding me when I ate an extra slice of bread. He made me watch all these films about third-world poverty.’
She sneered at the memory.
‘It ranged from things like that, to keeping me a prisoner when I wanted to go out, especially if it was a boy I wanted to see. He’d shout at me, calling me a whore for Satan, shit like that.’
She paused.
‘With Dad, it’s all about control. If he can’t get inside here,’ she said, tapping a finger against her temple, ‘he’ll attack you here.’ She lowered her hand to her heart. ‘I never let him get close enough to do any real damage and in some ways, that just made him worse. It was and always has been his way or no way.’
An uncomfortable feeling washed over her body. ‘Then of course there was the Manor house which we spent a lot of time in. It brought out the worst in him and me.’
‘Manor house?’
Chloe pulled a face of disgust as she remembered. ‘Yeah, Shrovesbury Manor, owned by Father Manuela…disgusting man. A lot of children at the local parishes attend there for what my father called “extra direction in the fulfilment of divine enlightenment”.’
She looked at Claire. ‘I refused to go when I was older.’ She let out a mock laugh. ‘Oh, Daddy loved that… A woman, thinking for herself and disobeying him?’ She shook her head. ‘That was never a good thing. It was like brainwashing and something about all of it didn’t feel right.’
Claire shifted in her seat. ‘In what way didn’t it feel right?’
‘It just…didn’t. The atmosphere was horrible. I still have flashbacks. I remember other children used to tell stories, rumours really. Some of us were scared of Father Manuela. There’s also this Chapel that he had built in the grounds, and the other kids used to scare us younger ones with stories of children going missing there. I never believed that…at least I kept telling myself I didn’t… Father Wainwright was there a lot of the time as well,’ she added, watching Claire’s reaction.
Claire stared hard at Chloe.
She didn’t know how much of this was truth and how much was just the ramblings of a bitter young girl trying to score points against her father. After all, who was going to believe an exotic dancer against men of the cloth? And besides, Mark Jenkins had a very good reputation in the community, as did Father Wainwright.
Something didn’t sit right about any of this or the circumstances of Wainwright’s death. Claire had known this from the start.
She threw Chloe a curve ball. ‘What about the foster children?’
Chloe shot her a surprised look. She was caught off guard by the question, and Claire saw the dread that appeared in her eyes.
‘How’d you know about them?’ Chloe’s voice croaked from the back of her throat.
‘It flagged up on various systems.’
‘Then you don’t need me to tell you about them.’
‘Most of the information’s missing. A lot of data was lost when social services merged various software.’
Chloe’s eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘Can’t you ask my father?’
Claire stared at her in silence. This was a tried and tested method for her. She knew the pressure would entice Chloe to talk. She would feel obliged to. After an intense minute, Chloe sighed, giving in.
‘Mum and Dad took in foster children to try and make up for me being such a failure in their eyes.’
‘They said that?’
‘They didn’t have to. I saw it on their faces every day.’ A tear began to slowly roll down her cheek. She sniffed and wiped the back of her hand over her eyes, smearing her make-up.
‘Did they experience the same treatment from your father?’
Chloe wiped her nose and tried to pull herself together.
‘They fostered three children. I have nothing to do with them and I don’t know where they are. I was never close to them. After all, they were there to replace me, someone else for Dad to mould into the perfect child.’
She paused to think, searching for a memory she’d tried hard to lock away. ‘I was almost six when they got the first kid, Stephen. He was with us for less than a year. Dad thought he could “save” him or whatever,’ she said, shaking her head, embarrassed by her own words.
‘He left soon after he hit sixteen anyway, couldn’t take the religion either. I was only young but I think he was like Dad’s experiment or something. He’d been passed from foster home to foster home since he was very young. He had issues. Dad got another kid just before Stephen left, called Emily. She might still be with them.’
Claire was making additional notes. She knew about Mark Jenkins’s foster children, but only the basics of their ages and where they’d come from.
Anything else she could pick from Chloe’s scarred mind was a bonus. She didn’t know if any of this would be relevant but she was in need of a lead…and a potential motive for the death of Father Wainwright. She looked up at Chloe, who was now staring at her feet.
‘You said there were three foster children?’
‘The third was Amelia. She came to us almost as soon as Stephen did. Weird kid.’
‘Why weird?’
Chloe pulled at the locket hanging on the chain around her neck, and bit her lower lip, smearing what remained of her lipstick on her teeth. ‘She’s like a lot of kids taken into care. Fucked up,’ she said at length.
Claire wrote the names of the Jenkins household on her notepad in large capital letters and drew lines between them with the word Connection?
She had enough information on them for now at least. She could tell Chloe was more than uncomfortable talking about them. She made the decision to move on.
‘What was your father’s relationship like with Father Wainwright? Were they close
friends?’
‘Yeah, I’d say so. He came to the house at least once a week – Mum made him Sunday dinner after the ten o’clock service was over. Greedy bastard always had seconds,’ she said, the memory disgusting her. ‘Like I said, he was at the Manor often as well.’
‘Did you like him?’
Chloe’s eyes narrowed.
‘In your opinion what type of man was he? He was in a position of trust and had regular involvement with your family. Did you resent him?’
Chloe had every reason to hate Father Wainwright.
He hid a lot of secrets.
She thought about the day he was murdered. If this detective checked, she’d see she didn’t have an alibi. That might stir up old tensions, uncover barely healed wounds.
Chloe had a split second to decide which card to play.
She smiled and her eyes met Claire’s. ‘I resent what he represented, but that’s my father’s fault, not his, I guess.’
Claire looked at her sceptically but wrote down her words before folding her pad closed.
***
Claire shook Joe Carter’s extended hand. She had all she needed from Chloe for now and was now eager to leave Paradis as soon as possible. Judging by Carter’s body language, it was a feeling shared.
He followed her out of the club, trying to act normally around his clients. He saw Claire to her car outside and tried not to look agitated.
‘I hope Chloe’s not in any kind of trouble, Chief Inspector?’
Claire was expecting this question and looked at him, smiling. ‘Not at all. I’m just making some routine enquiries, that’s all.’
She reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out her card and handed it to him. ‘I gave Chloe my card but I’d like to leave one with you, just in case she misplaces hers.’
Carter studied the card briefly and forced a nod.
He waited until she’d driven out of sight before folding the card in half, ripping it to pieces, and letting them fall, curling and fluttering along the pavement in the gentle evening breeze.
For All Our Sins: A gripping thriller with a killer twist (DCI Claire Winters, Book 1) Page 7