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 lips 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.
From the corner of his eye, Tom saw Ryan Tippetts punch the air. ‘Yay,’ he shouted.
Grabbing something off the printer, he smiled and strolled over to Tom, waving the sheet of paper that Tom could see had a photo on it.
‘DCI Douglas. As always, good police work has paid off.’ His expression radiated self-satisfaction.
Tom merely nodded and waited, doubtful that Ryan had done anything on his own initiative.
‘I spent most of yesterday afternoon trying to contact the woman who took the photo of our Olivia in Anglesey.’ Ryan was nodding his head slightly and turning from side to side as if playing to the audience.
Tom thought he looked like a skinny-faced version of one of those Churchill dogs in the back of a car window.
‘And?’ Tom prompted.
‘It looks like finally I’ve hit the jackpot.’
Ryan held out a photo.
Tom and Becky looked at it, and then up at Ryan.
‘It’s not the best photo in the world, as you can see. Olivia was turning back to avoid the snap – or that’s what the woman who took it said – but you get about three quarters of her face. Enough for somebody to recognise her. So, we can use this for the press, can’t we?’
With his eyes on Ryan’s self-satisfied face, Tom held his hand out for the photo. He looked down, just to confirm what he knew already.
‘Ryan, am I right in thinking that you met Olivia Brookes about nine years ago with me, and then again two years ago with Detective Superintendent Stanley?’
‘Yeah – seem to always be in the shit don’t they, this family?’
‘Look at the photo, Ryan. Is this Olivia Brookes?’ Tom asked.
‘W
ell, according to the woman who took it, yes. This is the one she sent to the landlady, the one that Robert Brookes snaffled.’
Ryan was beginning to look a little puzzled, his thunder stolen in some way that as yet he didn’t appear to have grasped.
‘Is this the woman you met two years ago, DC Tippetts? Look again.’ Tom was barely keeping his anger in check.
‘Well, now you mention it, she does look a bit different – but women always make themselves up to look different, don’t they?’
Tom turned away in disgust.
‘Grab your keys, Becky. I’ve no idea who this is, but even after nine years I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, this is not Olivia Brookes.’
23
The incident room was buzzing with theories and Becky had asked Tom to stay and brief the team while she went to see Robert. She needed confirmation that this picture was a copy of the photo Robert had taken from Mrs Evans, and she also needed to ask him if he knew who this woman was, and why she might be impersonating Olivia. More to the point, why the hell hadn’t he told them? At least she now understood why Robert hadn’t seemed more upset by his wife’s apparent infidelity. If Olivia wasn’t the one at the guest house, what did it matter who had come to visit?
Robert Brookes had been hiding too much from them, and as soon as they knew what excuses he had concocted for failing to give them all the facts, they were going to make a decision about next steps. It might be time for Mr Brookes to be formally interviewed. They hadn’t got enough to arrest him, so he’d be able to leave at any time – and Becky had no doubt that Robert Brookes would choose that option. She was going to get him, though. Whatever he’d done, he wasn’t going to get away with it.
Becky felt better than she had done for months. The stupid, ridiculous relationship with Peter Hunter had left her badly shaken, and now that she was able to see things in some sort of perspective, she recognised she was more disturbed by the fact that she had fallen into the age-old trap of the older, powerful man and the young naive girl than she was by the fact that he had dumped her. And she wasn’t that young, either. She should have known better, and was ashamed of her gullibility.
Tom had helped yesterday. He was so non-judgemental with people, probably because the sins of ordinary mortals were as nothing next to the iniquities they had to deal with in their job.
As she drove back towards Robert Brookes’ house, Becky thought about the Tom she had first met all those years ago when he had been senior investigating officer in the Hugo Fletcher case. He’d seemed sad when he’d joined their team at the Met, and she could only surmise that this was because of his recent divorce. But he was so enthusiastic, and really geed up the team. As time had passed, though, his sadness hadn’t diminished but his enthusiasm had. She’d started to notice a slight touch of cynicism in him that hadn’t been there before, and she’d never entirely understood it – although perhaps the failure to solve a high-profile case had got to him. The good news was that the old Tom seemed to be back. The former disenchantment seemed to have disappeared, and he was as passionate as ever about the job.
Why couldn’t she have fallen for Tom?
Becky snorted quietly. That would have been far too easy. Why fall for a tall, good-looking, single guy, who actually appears to care about other people, when you can have some middle-aged, married philanderer whose only interest seems to be in satisfying his own ego?
She turned the car down the narrow, tree-lined road that led to the Brookes’ house. The individual styles of each property and the way they sat within their plots of land at slightly different angles to the narrow, bendy road made this one of the more interesting suburban streets. However blissful the location, though, Becky shivered slightly at the thought of facing Robert Brookes again. She gave herself a mental shake as she pulled her car on to the drive.
Despite being told by several neighbours the day before that both the Brookes’ cars were normally kept in their large, attached brick garage, Robert’s Jag was still on the drive. She was pleased she couldn’t hear that dreadful digger today, although she could see the equipment was still outside the neighbour’s house. Perhaps they’d decided to respect the peace of a Sunday morning.
Having radioed ahead and been informed that there had been no sign of Olivia Brookes returning during the night, she opened the car door. It was so quiet. All she could hear was the twittering of birds in the trees, and the distant hum of a lawnmower. She looked up and saw the curtains were open in what she knew to be Robert and Olivia’s bedroom, so didn’t feel too guilty about raising the knocker and giving three solid thumps of metal on metal.
Becky turned her back to the door as she waited, and looked across the road at the one house that had a view past the trees and shrubs and up the drive. The lady who lived there – Mrs Preston, if she remembered correctly – had been a useful source of information yesterday, and Becky could see why. Although she was standing back from the window, the good lady seemed to be unaware that the light coming through from the patio doors at the back of her sitting room was casting a clear profile of her image against the net curtains at the front. Becky smiled to herself and turned back towards the Brookes’ front door. She banged again.
No answer.
Bugger, she thought. Perhaps he was in the shower or something. Or maybe he’d decided to ignore her.
There was a narrow path down the side of the garage to the back garden – no doubt the path Mrs Preston had taken to check on the Brookes’ cars – and Becky decided to investigate. As she passed the garage she peered in to check that Olivia’s car was still in place, and wasn’t surprised that it was exactly where she’d last seen it. Tom had made an interesting observation, though. He’d said that for a woman with three children, at least two of whom would have to be in child seats, a two-door Beetle had to be the daftest car to choose. Did that suggest that Olivia was the sort of impetuous woman who didn’t always think things through?
Round the back of the garage, Becky could see a door which she knew from a previous visit led into a utility room and then on into the kitchen. She tried the handle, but it was locked. She wandered further round to the rear of the house where huge glass doors allowed the morning sun to flood the large kitchen with light. This was Becky’s idea of a dream kitchen – one she could cook in and eat in. There was even a comfy chair she could curl up in to read a book. As a room, it was almost a complete home in itself. But there was a sort of sterility here that she would have had to fix if it were hers. The worktops were devoid of clutter; there were no pictures on the walls – not even paintings by the children stuck on the front of the fridge with bright-coloured magnets. It was very chic, with its shiny cream units and black-granite worktop, but it seemed too bare and lifeless to be part of a home. Even the crockery in the glass-fronted wall cabinets was matching cream and black. She would want to add colour – a bright red free-standing mixer, some mad patterned salad bowls from somewhere Mediterranean, green and blue water glasses – anything to bring some life to the place.
There was nothing to see in the kitchen, though. No Robert Brookes, and no sign that he had eaten breakfast there, although Becky had to admit that if he had, he would no doubt have cleared his plates away and tidied up. It was that kind of kitchen.
She turned to look down the garden. It was enormous. The section closest to the house was laid with lawn, broken up by beautiful curved flower beds. A hedge of yew trees separated this part of the garden from the rest of the extensive plot, and Becky could just make out a climbing frame and a Wendy house beyond. Personally she’d have expected the children’s area to be closer to the house so Olivia could keep an eye on them from the kitchen window, but the garden was quite spectacular and it must be heaven in the evenings, sitting on the wide stone-flagged terrace, sipping a glass of cold wine, surrounded by all these sweet-smelling flowers.
She turned back towards the house. Now what?
Not really expecting much, she decided to try the terrace door
, just in case.
To her surprise, it slid silently open and she stepped inside the kitchen, closing the door behind her. There was an ominous stillness about the place. The windows cut out all sense of life outside these four walls, and Becky suddenly felt claustrophobic – something she had never experienced before. It was as if the air had settled immobile around her, and she couldn’t breathe. She spun round and opened the glass doors as wide as she could and took a gulp of air.
‘Get a grip, Becky,’ she muttered under her breath. She turned round, half expecting to see the stationary figure of Robert Brookes framed in the doorway to the hall, gazing up at her from beneath his hooded eyelids. But there was nobody there. She breathed out and took a step further into the room.
‘Mr Brookes,’ she called out. Silence.
She ventured forwards, first into the living room, and then into the hallway. She called again. ‘Mr Brookes.’
Nothing.
She had to go upstairs. She couldn’t just stand here. For God’s sake, she was a Detective Inspector. But this house gave her the creeps.
She tried the door to the study, and was staggered to find it unlocked. Unlocked, but empty. The only sign of life was the computer’s screen saver flashing its multi-coloured images around the room.
Becky silently made her way up the stairs.
‘Mr Brookes,’ she called again. She pushed open each of the bedroom doors, and found them empty. Finally she reached the closed door at the front of the house. She knocked gently, and then more firmly, calling out yet again. ‘It’s Detective Inspector Robinson, Mr Brookes. Are you there?’
Finally, she turned the handle and pushed the door open.
With a gasp, she surveyed the wrecked room. What on earth had happened here? And where the hell was Robert?
24
Shoving supermarket bags randomly into the back of her car, Sophie Duncan realised she had been operating on autopilot. She had no idea whether she’d bought the right things or not, and had the horrible feeling that she would get home and realise she had forgotten something vital and have to come straight back again. She didn’t mind shopping for food, though. It was largely a mindless exercise as far as she was concerned – she was no kitchen goddess – and she’d arrived just as the shops had been opening, so she’d managed to escape before the Sunday hordes turned up. Whatever had happened to the day of rest?
Tom Douglas Box Set Page 92