Deadly Wishes (Detective Zoe Finch Book 1)

by Rachel McLean

  No more.

  “It’ll be nice,” she said. “We can travel.”

  “Travel?”

  The lights turned green and he gunned the gas, leaving the cars around them behind. He stroked the steering wheel in appreciation.

  “Where? You can’t eat half the things they serve abroad and I’m not about to join in on some grannies’ Saga holiday.”

  “We could buy a caravan,” she muttered.

  “God, that’s so pedestrian.”

  She curled her toes in her uncomfortable shoes. He accelerated, sweeping along the quiet suburban street they called home.

  Outside the house, he blinked off the headlights before turning into the drive, a habit from when the children were young and he would be late from work. The last thing he’d wanted to do was alert his children to his presence, to be expected to kiss them good night. She waited as he slid the car into place inches from the front of the house. Their driveway was huge and her car tiny. He didn’t need to park so close to the window. As if he was daring himself to get as close as he could without scratching the paintwork.

  “Come on then, get out,” he snapped.

  She hauled herself out of the car, cursing her shoes and this stiff dress. Oatmeal, they’d told her in the shop. The colour drained her face, she’d known it as soon as she’d put the thing on. She went to the front door and waited for Bryn. Bryn’s health wasn’t so good since he’d had a mini stroke two years earlier, and she often had to wait for him. He keyed in his code and the door swung open.

  She took off her shoes and placed them at the bottom of the stairs, where she could grab them on her way up to bed. She padded into the kitchen and turned on the lights. The rain beat at the windows but it was warm in here, a large tabby cat sprawled out in front of the Aga. She bent over and gave it a tickle under the chin.

  “Hey, Rose,” she muttered. The cat narrowed its eyes at her and started to purr.

  “Where’s my drink?” Bryn prowled in behind her and threw himself into a chair at the pine table. She hurried to the drinks cupboard and grabbed a bottle of his favourite Scotch. She placed it on the table then pulled a heavy crystal glass down from the shelf. It gleamed under the LED spotlights. She kept everything clean in this house.

  “Stop fussing, woman.”

  She went to the kettle. “I’ll make myself a cup of tea, take it up to bed.”

  He flicked the glass across the table at her. It teetered on the edge and she dived to grab it. She placed it in front of him again, not meeting his eye.

  “Go,” he said. “Leave me.”

  She heard a bang from outside. His gaze followed hers out of the window towards the garden.

  “Goddamn back gate,” he said. “Again. Shut it on your way to bed, will you?”

  Margaret nodded and went to the hallway. Her boots were under the stairs, side by side in a basket. As he walked past she pulled herself into the space under the stairs, careful not to get in his way.

  “I’m going into my study. Don’t wait up.”

  She gave him a tight smile. “Night.”

  Bryn grunted and opened the door to his study, at the back of the house. It was the nicest room in the house, the one that got the best sun on a weekend morning and had a view of the magnolia in the back garden. It would have made a beautiful sitting room.

  A gust of cold air blew from the study, making her shiver. The room had double doors set into the back wall, beautiful stained-glass pieces that were original to the house. He wouldn’t have left them open.

  “What the fuck?” Bryn muttered. He strode into his study and slammed the door behind him.

  She followed him to the door and stood at it, considering whether to knock. She was worried about the gust of air, the open doors. Or maybe he’d opened a window earlier in the evening and forgotten to close it when they went out.

  If she disturbed him in there, he wouldn’t be happy. She withdrew and dragged the other boot onto her throbbing foot.

  Outside, the back gate swung in the wind. Margaret drew her jacket around her and heaved it shut. She kicked it into place and pulled the bolt. It was temperamental, that gate. The wood swelled when the weather changed and it would burst its hinges if the bolt wasn’t properly slid across.

  She turned back to the house, alarmed. Had she heard a voice?

  The night was dark and the glow from the streetlamp beyond the house faint. The CCTV camera high on the wall would be deactivated. Its purpose was to watch her, not would-be intruders.

  The light in Bryn’s study was on and one of the doors was open a crack. She frowned and approached it. Had it been left open while they were out, or had he just opened it?

  The curtains were drawn so he couldn’t see her. She put a hand on the door handle. She listened. Inside, Bryn was muttering. On the phone, no doubt. He often made calls late at night. She assumed it was to police colleagues, but could never know for sure.

  The curtain shifted and Bryn’s hand appeared. Margaret shrank back into the darkness, heart pounding. He pulled the door shut. She waited for the sound of the key turning but it didn’t come.

  The curtains were thin, made of Portuguese linen, and she could see his shadow moving around the room. He would be in there every day from now on, whiling out his retirement on the other side of a locked door.

  That was, if she was lucky. At home every day, he would have a thousand opportunities to find fault with her. She would never be able to go out, never have what little contact she did manage with the women she called friends. She only knew them because they were the wives of his friends.

  She would be a prisoner.

  She’d been taking anti-depressants for the nine months since his retirement had been made official. She should have come off them months ago, but had upped the dose instead. Bryn thought she’d been visiting the GP with her elderly mother.

  Going to the GP would become impossible, too. Bryn only liked her to see her mother twice a year on Boxing Day and on her mother’s birthday. Not on Christmas Day – the old bat would ruin it, he said. The doctor’s appointments were tolerated, if only because they brought the prospect of his mother-in-law’s death closer.

  Margaret heard the key turn in the lock. She headed for the back door that led to the passage alongside the kitchen, the way she had come. She had no idea how long he would be in there. How long he would leave her alone.

  Chapter Four

  Zoe tossed off her shoes and slumped onto the settee. The house was quiet, meaning Nicholas was still out with friends.

  She thumbed the TV on and went to the kitchen. She flicked on the filter machine. Even at this time of night, all she drank was strong black coffee. If it kept her awake, then all the good, the night was when she had her best breakthroughs on cases. One advantage of being single – if inspiration struck in the small hours, turning the light on and grabbing the notepad by her bed wouldn’t disturb anyone.

  She filled her Doctor Who mug and opened the fridge. The food at the party had been for effect more than for sustenance. Tiny morsels on silver platters, nowhere near enough to soak up all the booze her colleagues had sunk.

  There was a plate on the second shelf with a post-it attached. Lasagne 19 Oct. Today’s date. She smiled to think of Nicholas leaving it for her and put it in the microwave. Zoe was a terrible cook and her son had learned at fourteen that if he wanted better than chicken dippers and oven chips, he’d have to learn to cook. And learn he had, with bells on.

  She took her plate and mug to the sofa and flicked on the TV. The lasagne was good. He’d said something about adding chocolate to the sauce. She’d scoffed that morning when she’d spotted the bar in the cupboard, but it worked. His instinct for flavour hadn’t come from her, and certainly not from her own mother.

  Her phone buzzed on the table: a text from her mum. The coincidence made her uneasy.

  Not feeling very well. Call me, please?

  Zoe wrinkled her nose and tossed it back onto the table. Her m
um had spent Zoe’s entire childhood not feeling very well. Hungover, in other words.

  Nicholas knew little of what his grandmother was really like, but Zoe kept the two of them apart. Annette Finch was a toxic influence.

  She’d wait up and thank him, for the lasagne. She didn’t see enough of him these days. The Canary case had meant long hours and little sleep, and she’d neglected him.

  He’d made out like he appreciated being neglected, but she knew better. She knew what real neglect was, and what it did to a person.

  She landed on the local news to find Canary still running. The newspaper editor involved was a director at a different channel, one that had barely touched the story. She watched as they played footage of DCI Lesley Clarke, the public face of the investigation, dodging reporters as she left Lloyd House.

  “We did all this in the press conference yesterday. Just let us do our job.”

  Lesley had never enjoyed dealing with the press. She was old-school, and preferred to get the job done rather than talk about it. But David Randle had insisted she run the press conference, and now her picture was everywhere. A meme was going around on social media, Lesley’s face on the body of Helen Mirren in her Prime Suspect days. It figured.

  The front door slammed. Zoe put her coffee down and waited to see if Nicholas would come in the living room. If he would be alone.

  “Oh. You’re back.”

  “Don’t sound so happy about it.” She gave him a gentle smile. Don’t overdo it.

  He grunted and headed for the kitchen. Their two-up-two-down Selly Oak terrace had two rooms knocked together and a tiny kitchen at the back. It spilled out onto the table in the so-called dining room, a room more often used for homework and case files.

  “Good evening?” Zoe asked. “Go anywhere nice?”

  He slumped onto the armchair opposite her and opened a can of cheap lager. He wasn’t eighteen, not for another five weeks. But she knew that banning him from drinking at home would only mean he did it more when he was out.

  “Fine. Grabbed a Balti with Sid and Morgan. I’m stuffed.” He rubbed his stomach. “Time for bed.” He shoved the phone he’d been scrolling through into his pocket and stood up. She never ceased to be shocked by the way his rangy frame filled their poky front room.

  “Night.”

  “Yeah.” He swigged the beer and traipsed upstairs.

  Zoe listened to her son moving around, thinking of the nights when he’d been small and she’d longed for an evening without him summoning her to his room. If it wasn’t a nightmare, it’d be tears about something another kid had said to him at school. But now, he communicated with her only through the medium of food.

  The bathroom door opened and closed, and his bedroom door slammed. Zoe winced and reminded herself he didn’t do it deliberately.

  Her phone buzzed on the side table. Mo. She grabbed it. And a second text from her mum. That could wait.

  “Hey, Mo,” she said. “Bit late for a chat, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, boss. I take it you’re sober?”

  Boss. She was still getting used to that. “Course I’m sober.”

  “Good. We’ve had an urgent call and you’re the closest member of CID who hasn’t been drinking.”

  “What kind of call?”

  “A body.”

  She straightened in her chair.

  “Murder?”

  “We don’t know the details yet.”

  “OK.” She grabbed an envelope containing an overdue council tax warning and started to write on the back of it. “What’s the address?”

  “Farquhar Road.”

  “Nice.”

  “That’s not all. It’s Bryn Jackson’s house.”

  She stopped writing. “The Assistant Chief Constable?” She thought of him looking her up and down no more than two hours ago. You look after yourself, girl.

  Jackson had kids. Two of them, if she remembered correctly. How old were they?

  “Who’s the body?” She held her breath.

  “It’s him. It’s Jackson.”

  Chapter Five

  The city was quiet, brake lights bunching up at the traffic lights along the Bristol Road and quickly being released again. A squad car passed Zoe as she turned off towards the University. She considered giving it a wave but they would have no idea who she was in her green Mini.

  Passing the university, she jabbed the brakes as two girls dressed in matching fur jackets and skinny leather trousers stepped out in front of her. She blew out a long breath as they decided whether they’d cross in front of her or stay on the pavement.

  “Come on, come on.” She drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel then wiggled her fingers and smoothed them on the leather. Chill, she told herself. He’s not coming back to life.

  Her first case as DI. If she was first there, to secure the scene, to start the process, she might be made Senior Investigating Officer. She felt her chest tighten at the thought. She pushed away the reminder that this was the ACC. No ordinary murder.

  The two girls decided on the pavement. They laughed and waved at her and she gave them a tight-lipped smile in return as she floored the gas. This car might be compact but it had punch.

  Zoe kept her eyes open as she neared the Jackson house, alert for unusual activity. In an area like this, anything after midnight was unusual activity. Unlike her own street in Selly Oak, there’d be no students staggering back from the pub. The streetlights were few and far between and the only signs of life were a taxi passing and a fox slipping from the shadow of trees.

  She parked a few houses along, a distance that would have accounted for four times as many homes in her own neighbourhood. The house would have a vast driveway, no doubt, but she didn’t want to contaminate any aspect of the scene. She sat for a moment, scanning the road for movement and signs of CCTV. A house opposite had a burglar alarm with a camera mounted beneath it. That would need checking in the morning. But the rest of the houses were obscured by mature trees and dense shadows. She shivered at the thought of living somewhere so lifeless.

  She stepped out of her car and closed the door quietly. She pulled forensic gloves and shoe covers out of her pocket, slid on the gloves and made her way to the Jackson house. Two vehicles flanked the driveway on the street out front. An ambulance and a squad car. The ambulance had its back doors open but no one inside. Zoe stopped to look at the house, wishing she’d grabbed something warmer than her leather jacket.

  It was a vast, white-rendered building with ornate window frames and steep gables, like something from an Agatha Christie novel. An ACC salary would be generous, but maybe not quite this generous. Maybe she’d underestimated the beige woman she’d seen with Jackson earlier.

  The front door opened and a paramedic hurried past the two cars in the wide driveway. A Jaguar SUV and a Vauxhall Corsa. So, the wife didn’t have a high paying job.

  Zoe stepped forwards, hand outstretched. “DI Zoe Finch, Force CID. What can you tell me?”

  The man stopped walking and looked at her. He had deep circles under his eyes and bloodstains on his uniform. He shook his head. “We couldn’t save him. Karina – my partner – she’s in there now, wrapping things up.”

  Zoe gritted her teeth. Paramedics tramping all over the crime scene made things ten times harder. “I need her to stop whatever she’s doing. Keep the crime scene as clean as we can.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Where were you when the guy was dying in front of me?”

  She straightened her shoulders. “Do you know who that guy is?”

  “Bryn Jackson. Sixty-five years old.”

  “Assistant Chief Constable Bryn Jackson.”

  “Now I get why you’re so sniffy. If we’d been called earlier…”

  “You think there was a delay?”

  He shrugged. “That’s for the pathologist. But his wife didn’t exactly seem in a hurry when we arrived.”

  “Look, we’ll need a formal statement from you tomorrow. But right now, I ne
ed control of that scene. Please, go in and have a word with your colleague.”

  He gave her an icy look. “Right you are.” He turned and headed into the house, calling for his colleague as he did so.

  Zoe put on her shoe covers and trailed behind, taking care to follow in his footsteps so as not to disturb anything she couldn’t see in the darkness. She wondered why there wasn’t a security light, something on a motion sensor.

  As she reached the front door, the two paramedics almost crashed into her coming the other way. The second one, a blonde woman who looked too delicate for this work, gave her a look of contempt.

  “Thanks,” Zoe said.

  “We’re not leaving yet,” replied the woman. “Paperwork to do.”

  “Fair enough. But check with me before you go back inside the house.”

  “Of course.”

  There was muttering as the two paramedics retreated to their vehicle. She knew their job was tough, but she didn’t have time to wait around. She had to get in there and secure that scene. She only hoped that whoever had come in the squad car would know what they were doing.

  Chapter Six

  A film of cold milk was forming on the surface of Margaret’s tea, sitting on the table in front of her. She stared at it, suddenly aware that her dress was spattered with Bryn’s blood.

  She pawed at it. “I need to get this off.”

  The female PC, standing in front of the Aga, stepped forward. “We’ll need that, madam.”

  She frowned. “What? Why?”

  She looked down at the dress. She hated this thing. She’d wanted to wear her favourite emerald green dress. Bought ten years earlier but it still fitted. Being under constant stress was good for the figure.

  But Bryn had vetoed it. She’d checked he wasn’t looking then sashayed down the stairs, for once pleased with how she looked. He’d appeared from his study and adopted an expression of distaste.

  “You can’t wear that thing.”