Buried Secrets

by Lisa Cutts

  The other two men, large imposing figures, both over six feet tall, got out and made their way to the entrance of the building.

  They went in through the unlocked door and began their ascent to the flat they had been briefed to attend.

  Within a couple of minutes, neither of them the slightest bit out of breath in spite of their bulk, they were standing outside number 417. They exchanged a look, a nod in agreement that it was about to begin, and one of the men lifted his hand and rapped twice on the door. A heavy rapid knock that reverberated along the corridor with its cheap shiny flooring and sounded off the bare walls. The dusk was settling in and didn’t find much resistance, what with a window at either end of the narrow twenty-five metre long hallway, and only three working light bulbs to illuminate the misery.

  A noise behind the door made both of them take a tentative step backwards. Those who were cornered were usually the most unpredictable.

  ‘Open up, Vinny,’ were the only words needed.

  The door was flung open to reveal a weedy man, mid-twenties, although he appeared much older.

  Drugs would do that to a person.

  In his left hand was a carving knife.

  ‘Bloody hell, Vinny,’ laughed the door-knocker. ‘Put that knife down, will you? You’re shaking like a shitting dog.’

  Uninvited, both men stepped inside and shut the door behind them.

  ‘Milo,’ stammered Vinny as he backed away, knife dropping to his side. ‘I’m really pleased to see you. I was really worried it was the other crew. Me and Si here were just saying that we were about to call you and find out what was going on. Weren’t we?’

  He glanced over his shoulder at another equally sad individual who had remained rooted to his seat on the sofa up until this point. Even now, his only contribution was to nod and look heroin-worn, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in anticipation of what was to come.

  Milo moved towards Vinny and grabbed his arm, took the knife from his grasp. No resistance was met. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ said Milo right in Vinny’s face.

  He watched the sad specimen in front of him swallow, shut his eyes and then heard him say, ‘We were waiting for you. It’s been really shit around here at the minute. Police are everywhere: it’s the summer and all the tourists means there’s a load more of them and it’s getting difficult.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck. And neither does Tandy. He’s my boss, you see, so if I don’t do my job, he gives me a swift kick in the bollocks. I’m your boss, so if you don’t do your job, I kick you in the bollocks.’

  True to his word, Milo then released Vinny’s arm and in one swift motion, brought his right leg up so that his foot connected with the drug addict’s testicles.

  The immediate effect was Vinny dropping to the floor.

  Milo stood guard whilst his associate made his way to the sofa.

  ‘Simon,’ he said as he watched the young man attempt to become invisible by sinking back into the stained cushions. ‘You seem like the brighter of the two, although there really isn’t much in it. Here’s the mobile you’re to call us on if there’s any problem. It’s a pay-as-you-go and it has Tandy’s number in it. You lose it, flog it or use up the credit prior to our deal, you won’t just get a kick in the nads, I’ll cut them off and shove them up your arse. You understand?’

  A frantic nodding for several seconds met his stare until he said, ‘Well, you enjoy this lovely day by the seaside and we’ll be in touch.’

  The two of them left the flat and made their way back down the stairs.

  When they reached the Range Rover, they climbed inside, shut the doors and settled back in their seats.

  ‘All OK?’ said the driver as he indicated to pull out.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Milo. ‘The great thing about junkies is they’ve got no bollocks.’

  ‘Hope they have,’ was the reply. ‘I’ve just threatened to cut Simon’s off. I’d really hate it to look like an empty threat.’

  Chapter 12

  As Hazel sat watching Travis, she made no move to write anything down in her FLO log. That was for later when she was alone. The notebook was for times, dates, telephone numbers and the recording of the visits. The log book showed their content. That was always the interesting part. Hazel had been deployed to violent families who had lost sons through drug wars, recidivist criminals who had lived by the sword and literally died by the sword, and most recently to the family of a nine-year-old girl who had been abducted and murdered by her own uncle, a situation that almost made her hand in her warrant card and resign. It hadn’t looked that way to start with, but within minutes of her arrival in their neat, middle-class house, she felt something crawling up her spine, burrowing into her brain.

  She hadn’t reached that point yet, although the niggling had started.

  ‘I know your dad,’ said Hazel, careful to use the right tense, ‘and I’d met your mum a couple of times. I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances.’

  These weren’t platitudes, but she still waited and tried to read Travis’s face.

  He gave a wan smile; at least he looked worn out. From an investigator’s point of view, that was a good sign. He glanced down at his hand resting on the armrest. He ran his thumbnail backwards and forwards across the fabric.

  He had tears in his eyes as he looked back up to meet Hazel’s steady gaze.

  ‘Can I go see my dad?’ he asked.

  Hazel heard the two uniform officers on the sofa behind her get up. She waited until they’d left and she’d heard the soft click of the door as it shut.

  ‘Travis, there’s no easy way to tell you this—’

  She broke off as he threw his head back against the chair and his hands flew up to cover his face. Silent sobbing racked his gigantic frame.

  As a trained officer, she knew not to try and physically console the teenager although it was fighting a natural human instinct that existed within us all. Such an act of intimacy at such an early meeting gave out the wrong impression. Besides, Hazel didn’t know if, in the near future, this young man would be declared a suspect in his own mother’s murder, and how would it look months down the line in Crown Court if the family liaison officer had been cuddling the lad within minutes of walking in the door? Better to be criticized for keeping her distance than acting inappropriately. It was a fine line, like most of policing: damned if you did and damned if you didn’t.

  ‘Your dad was taken to King’s College Hospital by air ambulance, and despite everything they did, he died.’ She paused and for the first time, looked down. This part she really hated. No matter how many death messages she’d given, none were ever easy, and each and every single one remained in her memory. They jumped into her mind at random times: buying glue at the supermarket to help her eight-year-old second cousin with an art project made her think of the parents of a fifteen-year-old boy who had died while sniffing glue, and how she’d gone to their home at 6.15 one Sunday morning to ruin their lives forever.

  DC Hazel Hamilton had never before broken the news to a teenager that his father was dead. Policing had its own shop of horrors.

  ‘Travis, I can’t imagine how you feel right now. Can I call anyone else for you? Family member?’

  He shook his head, hands still in front of his face. Something that sounded like ‘No’ came out in a rasp.

  The part that would come soon from the police officer was all about setting ground rules for when Travis could and couldn’t call her. FLOs were supposed to have the initial family contact along with the senior investigating officer. Barbara Venice was on her way, but for now Hazel was on her own. Usually, it wouldn’t be a problem in any way. Usually, however, Hazel didn’t have to deliver a death message along with telling the next of kin of a murder victim who was currently lying on the mortuary table that he wasn’t to call her after midnight or before 6 a.m.

  ‘I’ll let you know when I can take you to the hospital,’ she said.

  His head snapped in her direction a
s if she’d offered a glimmer of hope so she talked quickly before he thought that he’d misunderstood and his dad was alive after all.

  ‘Your dad died about half an hour ago. The hospital will let you see him as soon as they can,’ she added.

  What little remaining colour there was in his face disappeared.

  ‘There are a few things I need to tell you,’ she persevered, moving forward in her seat. ‘The DCI in charge of your mum’s death will be here soon. You do understand that her death is being treated as murder?’

  ‘What a fucking day this has turned out to be,’ he said, biting his lip and allowing a tear to run down his face. He took a deep breath, possibly in an attempt to stop himself from sobbing again.

  The door opened and Hazel turned to see Jenny’s head through the gap. She hesitated, then came close to launching into a gallop across the room as Hazel beckoned her in.

  She perched herself on the arm of the chair and tried her best to engulf Travis in her toned, tanned arms. His size made that impossible but nevertheless Jenny gave it her best try. Travis turned his head into Jenny’s chest as she stroked his blond hair and held her to him.

  ‘My dad’s dead too,’ he said.

  Jenny closed her eyes tight and said, ‘We’ll look after you. Me and Aiden. You can stay here as long as you like.’

  Wanting to give them some privacy to share their misery, Hazel got up to make some phone calls. It had been a lot for anyone to take in, and despite it being her job, she was tired. Recognizing that none of this was about her or the other officers, she still understood that this was an unprecedented event for East Rise Police Station and no one was completely sure how they were supposed to feel about Linda and Milton’s deaths.

  She took a step in the direction of the door. A young man was watching the scene in front of him. His expression was difficult to read. He looked dismayed though Hazel couldn’t put her finger on what gave her that impression. Unlike Travis, he had no presence in the room. He stood with his hands by his sides, dangling uselessly next to him. Although he wore an almost identical T-shirt to Travis, his biceps weren’t putting the short sleeves to task. He was six or seven inches shorter than Travis, and from the colour photograph in the hallway that she’d seen on her way into the house, hung slightly higher and off-centre than all the rest, Hazel assumed that the put-out young man standing before her was Aiden Bloomfield.

  She watched him watching his mother clutching his best friend to her breast and thought she saw annoyance flicker over his face. She had to make herself remember that these boys were only nineteen years old. The boys of a similar age she had dated in her youth weren’t in the same category as these two who clearly spent all of their spare time in the gym. By himself, Aiden would have been a good-looking man, reasonable height, well-built, but next to his best friend, he was overshadowed.

  Jealousy sometimes made people behave badly.

  Hazel continued towards the door, aware of the scene around her, giving them time to take in the news. That nagging feeling that something wasn’t right increasing with every step she took.

  Chapter 13

  Doug Philbert’s headache was getting worse. He had already discussed Milton and Linda Bowman’s post-mortems with the DCI. The same Home Office pathologist was to perform the painstaking procedures of examining both bodies to establish cause of death, toxicology and any forensic capture. Usually, either DCI Venice as the senior investigating officer or Doug himself as the deputy SIO would attend. Neither of them relished the idea of watching their battered, naked friends’ bodies being dissected. With all that Doug knew about the Bowmans, he wasn’t sure he was the best person to be going along anyway. His absence at their final, albeit intrusive farewell flooded him with mixed feelings: he had tried for some time to put the knowledge he carried about with him aside, except he couldn’t resist soaking up some of the blame for what had happened to them both. Sweeping matters under the carpet rarely worked. Ignoring a problem didn’t make it go away.

  If only Doug had spoken up earlier.

  After a few phone calls, he had managed to arrange for crime-scene investigators and two detective inspectors from a neighbouring force to attend both post-mortems and then complete a handover to Doug. It had taken the pressure off any personal feelings, as well as minimizing any criticism by defence counsel at a future Crown Court trial that anyone present had contaminated the evidence in any way.

  He sighed at the harsh but practical use of the word ‘evidence’, put it to one side and continued with the job he had to do, no matter how personally uncomfortable it made him.

  A detective constable appeared in Doug’s office doorway, and said, ‘Sir, as you’re filling in here for a few days, can I get your signature on this form?’

  He took the piece of paper and ran an eye over what he was signing, as the officer in front of him, whose name Doug couldn’t remember, asked, ‘Has the briefing been put back from nine to ten o’clock?’

  At that moment, Doug had no idea what the current time was or who had arranged the briefing. He was almost certain that he hadn’t.

  ‘I’ll check with Barbara and let you know,’ he said as he handed the form over, glancing at the time on the telephone on his desk. ‘I’ll let you all know when I’ve spoken to her.’

  He nodded and smiled dismissively, but the young DC in front of him didn’t seem to be going away. One problem with being sent to help out at the last minute was that he didn’t know everyone as well as he would have liked. Doug knew all of the staff at his own incident room yet still struggled with those from East Rise, and couldn’t for the life of him recall this young man’s name.

  ‘Can I speak to you for a moment?’ he asked, fingering the corners of the A4 piece of paper. ‘Only . . .’ He glanced behind him at the open door leading to the corridor. The office Doug was in opened onto a blind spot and while it had proved useful, allowing him to overhear some very interesting gossip, it was impossible to tell if anyone was standing around the corner.

  ‘Shut the door,’ said Doug. ‘Have a seat.’

  ‘I’m Tom Delayhoyde.’

  Doug’s face lit up. ‘You’re—’

  ‘Yeah, Hugh’s son. You joined up with him.’

  ‘Where’s he now? I heard he left the job.’

  ‘He left after twenty-five years, had enough, took early retirement and he and my mum run a pub in Norfolk.’

  ‘Well, that’s great. Give him my best when you speak to him next.’

  Doug left it there and allowed the lad to speak. This couldn’t be the reason Tom had wanted the door shut, so he waited.

  ‘I feel a bit bad telling you this, but I’ve run it past my dad, even though I realized before he told me not to be so bloody naive and just tell someone.’ Tom gave a meaningless smile.

  ‘Sounds like your old man,’ encouraged Doug.

  ‘There was a girl I was seeing a couple of years ago, Sasha Jones. We went out a few times, only she was a bit of a problem in the end. Basically, she’s a nice woman and I feel as though I’m being out of order here but this is a murder inquiry. I may be reasonably new to the department, except I can’t keep this to myself.’

  Tom took a deep breath and exhaled through pursed lips.

  ‘Sasha was over the side with Milton Bowman.’

  The young detective threw himself back in the chair.

  ‘Milton was having an affair?’ said Doug. He would love to have quelled all the rumours by telling the boy he was wrong, but it wasn’t in his nature to lie. He could see how uncomfortable talking about it was making him by the squirming in his seat. It indicated a total lack of malice on his part yet these things inevitably got out.

  ‘How do you know this, Tom?’

  ‘It gets a bit worse, I’m afraid.’ He paused and looked down at the all but forgotten data protection form, the one he had first come to get signed for a simple request for information on the paramedics in attendance that morning.

  ‘After Sasha and I br
oke up, she started going out with someone else. I think, from what I heard, it was going pretty well. They kept it quiet, well as quiet as you can on a nick, but he thought it was going somewhere. Then suddenly, she ended it. She ended it because she was having an affair with DI Bowman.’

  ‘Do you know this for certain?’

  ‘Well, that’s what George Atkins told me.’

  ‘What does George Atkins have to do with this?’

  ‘He’s the one that Sasha was going out with after she and I broke up. She told George it was over when he asked her to move in with him. She told him it was over because she’d fallen in love with Milton Bowman. He was planning on leaving his wife for her.’

  Doug tried not to give away how he was feeling: the pounding in his head was making his skull throb at this revelation.

  What was now making his brain feel as though it was spinning inside his cranium was the name George Atkins. He was the police officer currently suspended for headbutting a handcuffed prisoner.

  He was also the football player whose leg had been broken by Milton Bowman in the friendly five-a-side match.

  Chapter 14

  ‘This is not what I want to hear,’ said Barbara Venice after she’d listened to Doug’s update over the phone. ‘Where’s Tom Delayhoyde now?’

  ‘I’ve sent him to speak to his sergeant,’ said Doug. ‘Do you want me to cancel tonight’s briefing for everyone other than management? We need to have a plan for how we handle this.’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line as Doug waited, giving his senior in rank time to make the decision. He knew what he would do in her position; he bided his time until she made up her mind.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Doug. We can get our heads together and let the rest of the team get some sleep as soon as they’ve done what they need to tonight. We’ll have a briefing at eight in the morning for the whole incident room, but I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve finished up here, and then caught up with Hazel.’

  They said their goodbyes and Doug walked to the tiny grubby kitchen to make himself a coffee before walking into the incident room. The bank of twenty desks was filled bar a few.