Buried Secrets

by Lisa Cutts

  The conversation began to drop off, the noise subsided, uniform patrols on duty since 6 a.m. laid down their knives and forks beside their fry-ups.

  All eyes were on the mid-morning news.

  Doug was mesmerized. He had never seen a group of people quieten so fast, act as one and be united under such macabre circumstances.

  A local news reporter was standing in the Bowmans’ street a healthy distance from the police cordon, pointing at Linda and Milton’s home, explaining to the world that DI Milton Bowman of East Rise Police Station and his wife Linda had both been killed. He didn’t use their names; for this audience, he didn’t have to.

  At the words, ‘An incident room has been set up to investigate the suspicious deaths of a local man and his wife’, Doug felt his feet take him back towards the lift. The double doors gave an almighty creak as he pulled them open. Not one pair of eyes broke contact with the television screen to glance in his direction.

  He made his way down the stairs, not wishing to get caught in the lift with anyone for the time it would take to travel the five floors down.

  Once back in the sanctity of the incident room, he made his way to his office, all thoughts of a coffee prior to visiting Sasha Jones abandoned. Doug attempted to focus on the delicate matter of obtaining DNA samples from her and George Atkins for elimination purposes against the saliva found on Linda’s face.

  They already had DNA samples from Travis Bowman and Aiden Bloomfield which were on the way to forensics.

  He tried to catch five minutes alone, a nigh on impossible task with everything going on around him. Slamming his office door with enough force that anyone in the incident room would get the message loud and clear, he sat down to eat a sandwich. The first thing he’d eaten since ten o’clock the night before when someone had ordered pizzas for the management meeting. The pizza had sat like ballast in his stomach all night and he could still taste the pepperoni.

  He wasn’t particularly popular in the Philbert household at that moment: the previous evening had meant he’d failed to get home in time for a visit from the mother-in-law, not something he was fretting about. However, his wife had still made him a packed lunch. Doug peered inside the foil wrapping to find cheese doorsteps and a Peperami as an unwanted side.

  Sighing at this further misfortune, he heard his phone start to ring. He hesitated only momentarily when he saw it was Harry Powell calling.

  ‘How are you, Harry?’

  ‘Good, Dougie mate, good.’

  He hated it when Harry called him ‘Dougie’, something Harry was well aware of.

  ‘You back at work then?’

  ‘Yeah, I couldn’t stay at home. Not really sure what to do with myself as I’ve been sent to another incident room for today. All because it was me that found the body. Jesus, I didn’t mean to say body, I meant to say Linda. Jesus, I said Jesus. Sorry, Dougie, I know that offends you.’

  ‘My Christian beliefs aren’t tested every time someone blasphemes. I’ve heard much worse over the years, mostly from you.’

  After a second or two, Doug had to ask Harry to get to the point.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry. I was a bit upset yesterday and I’d had a couple of drinks. I’m not sure if I put in my statement that when I found Linda, I put my hand out to stroke her face. The thing is, I definitely didn’t touch her face. I felt her neck for a pulse and the side of her head, but no other part of her.’

  Doug sat upright in his chair, eyes on yet not seeing his Cheddar and wholemeal lunch.

  ‘Why are you telling me this now?’

  Harry coughed, cleared his throat and said, ‘Wasn’t sure if I should call Hazel to come over and take another statement or whether you want me to make my own. I want to make sure I get the details right.’

  ‘It’s best if you don’t call Hazel. She’s the FLO and she’s probably with Travis at the moment. Write it yourself and I’ll come and see you when you’re done. Where are you?’

  ‘I was told to come to North Downs nick for a day or two, to keep out of the way. I seem to be doing some sort of shite job swap with you whilst you pick up the slack left by my absence.’

  Doug hung up, wondering not only how he was going to fit in a round trip of eighty miles to collect the statement but also why, with the discovery of saliva on her cheek, Harry had called now to tell him he hadn’t touched Linda’s face.

  It was either a very big coincidence, or he had a leak in his incident room.

  Chapter 18

  Glad to be out of the briefing and grateful she didn’t have to sit through another management one, Hazel made herself scarce. It was obvious to rank and file that the higher echelons of the incident room were rushing around behind the scenes trying to keep something under wraps. It was almost impossible to do so amongst the nosiest people on the planet – detectives. Any closed-door meeting was likely to start the whispers that the management were trying to keep something from them. Not forgetting that this murder had its own secrets.

  Hazel also had something she was trying to keep to herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to share the information, except for the moment that’s all it was. It might have meant nothing, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the Bowmans’ background than a bit of matrimonial disharmony.

  She had tried to speak to Travis about the family’s history and if there was anyone else that he wanted to get in touch with or wanted around him for support, but the only friend he had time for was Aiden. He didn’t seem to know anything about his mother’s side of the family and Milton had few relations, only a sister and her husband who lived locally.

  There was nothing particularly odd in itself about Linda having no living family, but Travis knew nothing whatsoever about them.

  When asked, his answer had been, ‘Mum was an only child, her parents died young and she met dad. That was it.’

  At such an early stage in his grief, Hazel knew better than to push Travis yet she still thought that it was strange he had no idea about his maternal grandparents.

  Hazel made her way to the tiny exhibits store and spoke to the officer in charge of booking in the items so far seized from the Bowman household.

  She found her squeezed into the stuffy eight- by fifteen-foot room, cheap racking filling the two longer sides of the area, completely packed to capacity with cardboard box after cardboard box marked up with the names of a variety of investigations. In front of the racking were rows of more boxes, stacked six or seven high. The rest of the room was taken up with two six-foot-high freezers and, on the far wall, a tiny desk with two computers and a civilian employee trying frantically to keep up with the incoming tide of work.

  Hazel said, ‘Hi there. Just trying to find something. I won’t be long.’

  She knew exactly what she was looking for as she had already taken a couple of minutes to search on the HOLMES database for any photographs from the house and for the contents of Linda’s handbag. Locating it was the problem.

  She pulled out storage box after storage box piled high amongst boxes for two other incidents running from East Rise, all under the watchful eye of the exhibits officer.

  ‘If you want the contents of Linda’s bag,’ the officer said as she fished new exhibits from a drop box and proceeded to book them on the system, ‘I’ve taken a photocopy of the papers inside it. There’s a travel card and receipts, bus timetable and stuff.’

  She waved a plastic-gloved hand in the direction of a pile of paperwork and turned her back on Hazel, leaving her to it.

  For several minutes, Hazel examined the details in front of her. Linda had bought a travel card at East Rise Station seven days ago, and if the handwritten scrawl of directions from Victoria Station via the District Line and the number 83 bus to Hanwell were anything to go by, she had at least planned to make her way towards Ealing.

  Perhaps Hazel was reading too much into it and there was a simple explanation for the journey: meeting an old friend, relative or doing some sightseeing, although
she very much doubted it. Something Jenny had said to her about Linda being on her way to the train station and refusing a lift struck a chord with the detective and set her mind working overtime.

  One thing she had managed to get from Travis was that his mum rarely went further than Tesco’s or the local gym. Milton had said he was going to sell her car because she never went anywhere in it, and besides, if it was an innocent visit to Ealing, surely she would have mentioned it to her son.

  She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was on to something, although she had no idea of what it could be.

  Once she had put the paperwork back where she had found it, Hazel sifted through a box until she found what she was looking for.

  ‘OK if I open these?’ she said to the exhibits officer, who was engrossed in what she was doing.

  ‘Fine’ the officer muttered, ‘as long as you wear gloves, mark up the bag that you’ve opened, sign the seal and reseal it. You’re the fifth person to be in here this morning. Oh, and fill in a form that you’ve taken it, leave it back in the drop box when you’re done and please don’t lose any of those photos. I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet.’

  Hazel did as she was told, all the while glad that she hadn’t been given the task of keeping tabs on what would probably amount to thousands of exhibits, some of which might point them in the direction of a murderer.

  She thanked her colleague and took herself off to a quiet corner of the incident room, gloves on, and cut open the police evidence bag. The small biscuit tin had been found by the CSIs at the back of Linda’s wardrobe. The contents were simply marked Various photos.

  This was what had puzzled Hazel. She sat completely absorbed in what she was doing as she sifted through a myriad of old black-and-white photos, 1970s colour ones with two tiny miniatures attached, old Polaroids and one at the very bottom of the tin, out of keeping with its ageing companions.

  This was a very recent photograph of Linda, grim-faced, sitting beside an elderly woman’s hospital bed. The papery white skin and sunken cheeks of the lady propped up against the pillows very much gave Hazel the impression that whenever the picture was taken, she wasn’t much longer for this world.

  Chapter 19

  Once Hazel had made up her mind she was going to find out who Linda Bowman had visited in Ealing, she grabbed her stuff and was out of the incident room in record time. She knew that she didn’t have long because she had to see Travis at some point and wavered for only a second or two in deciding to take the car. Driving was going to be quicker than a train, underground and bus.

  The conversation with DCI Venice after the briefing about Linda’s recent photo had been an odd one: Hazel got the impression that the SIO knew more than she was letting on and had seemed a little cagey. She had told Hazel that she was only to go to the hospital and nowhere else in Ealing. The only thing Hazel managed to draw out of her was that Linda might have had some family after all and previously had the surname McCall.

  She didn’t want to dwell on the fact that she was looking for a needle in a haystack. There’d been no doubt thousands of elderly women in the hospital over the last couple of months, and she couldn’t even date the photograph, all she had was the travel card. Hazel was ready to put her trust in blind luck. At least now she had a name to ask for.

  Cursing and swearing through the London traffic, she eventually reached the hospital, drove around the car park for several minutes until she saw someone heading for their car, waited for the space and then rushed inside the building.

  She stood looking at the map of the hospital, clueless as to where to begin.

  Hazel remained on the spot for a couple of moments, took the photograph of Linda and the patient from her bag, and with her warrant card in the other hand, made for the busy general enquiries desk. Her experience of hospitals was that the staff either couldn’t do enough to help, or everyone was as obstructive as they could possibly be. Hoping for the former, she walked up to the counter and waited until a woman of about forty years of age, the first to become available, was free.

  ‘Hi,’ said Hazel, ‘this may sound a little strange.’

  The woman made no reaction, probably used to odd people in a hospital of such a size.

  ‘I’m trying to find out who this patient is.’ She pushed the photograph across the counter and saw the woman’s expression change to irritation. Not wanting to be dismissed so easily, Hazel opened her warrant card and said, ‘I’m a detective constable investigating a murder in East Rise. This younger woman on the right was murdered yesterday and she’d been here visiting this patient. I think it may be important. I have to find out who she is.’

  Not everything she said was strictly true: it was a leap of faith that Linda had been visiting the woman at Ealing Hospital; however, she couldn’t go to every hospital in the country and ask the same thing. It was as good a place as any to start.

  As Hazel spoke, the woman, whose name badge read Nora, stood up and leaned across the counter. ‘I’ve no idea who she is but from the view from this window behind them, I’d guess it was the third floor overlooking the car park. Try the oncology ward. Sad to say, I spent a bit of time in there with an uncle. It’s the best I can think of.’

  Hazel couldn’t resist a relieved smile in Nora’s direction.

  ‘Thank you so much. It’s a starting point at least.’

  ‘Take the lift behind you and go to the third floor, turn left.’

  She was across the entrance hall, jabbing at the call button before curiosity got the better of her and she asked after Nora’s uncle’s health. It might not have ended well.

  A couple of minutes later, Hazel was once again at the mercy of the medical staff’s assistance. She was admitted to the ward, made her way to the desk and asked to see the sister on duty.

  She stood and waited in the stillness of the corridor trying not to think of all the sick and dying on the other side of the door. A petite woman, several years younger than herself, scrubs rustling, walked briskly along the corridor towards her.

  ‘Hi,’ said Hazel. ‘Sorry to bother you but I’m here on a murder inquiry and the victim was here visiting one of your patients.’ She held out the photograph, as much as a distraction from the lie she had told as anything else.

  The sister leaned in to see the picture, looked up at Hazel and said, ‘That’s Linda. She visited Gladys a couple of times.’ A hand went up to her throat before she realized that she was showing emotion. She forced her hand back down to her side and stood herself back up to five foot three. ‘Linda was murdered?’ she asked with a slow, disbelieving shake of her head.

  ‘Yes, she was. I’m sorry. Did you know her well?’

  The sister motioned for Hazel to step inside the small room behind the nurses’ station as one of the patients made her way along the corridor.

  With the door shut, she said, ‘No, I wouldn’t say that I knew her at all really. She came to visit Gladys on several occasions, and she always introduced her to me as “my Linda”.’

  She looked away, the effort of trying to remember something all over her face. ‘The funny thing was, though, Gladys was confused from time to time. She was getting on and had very advanced cancer, but there were a number of times that she called or referred to Linda as Karen.’

  Hazel watched as she pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I’m sure it was Karen because that’s my niece’s name. The thing was, Linda never corrected her and even answered to it. I thought that it would really annoy me if my mum kept getting my name wrong.’ Her eyes snapped open.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Hazel. ‘Did you say mum?’

  ‘Well yes,’ said the sister. ‘Gladys was Linda’s mother.’

  Chapter 20

  Sandwich consumed, Detective Inspector Doug Philbert took Detective Constable Sophia Ireland to one side, explained that he needed her assistance to interview Sasha Jones, and together they headed to one of the county’s more remote police stations. It was som
ething neither of them particularly wanted to do because it meant formally dealing with another police officer. They weren’t going to arrest her; that would have been another thing entirely. Their task was to speak to her to find out where she had been the day of Linda’s murder and Milton’s death.

  Sasha was being dropped off by her patrol sergeant. This was under the guise of welfare for her, and not, as some might have thought, because she might not have turned up of her own volition.

  No one had told Sasha the full extent of why she was being spoken to by two officers from Major Crime. No doubt she must have guessed as to their reason. Everyone was still reeling from the shock of one their DIs dying in an accident, not to mention his wife being murdered.

  Sophia and Doug sat in one of the empty admin offices on the second floor waiting for their witness to arrive. That was what Sasha was – a witness. Unless the time came for her to be declared a suspect, and then she would have to be treated like one, arrested, interviewed, her home searched, referred to on the news as ‘a twenty-six-year-old woman currently in police custody’.

  At midday, a light tap on the door indicated that Sasha was outside waiting to come in.

  Sophia got up to open the door. She wasn’t what she was expecting.

  Sasha Jones was a very plain-looking woman. Sophia had expected the woman capable of breaking up the happy marriage of Linda and Milton Bowman to be someone remarkable. In fairness, her face was red and blotchy from crying and her eyes looked raw.

  ‘Come in and have a seat,’ said Sophia. ‘We’re sorry about Milton and understand that you were close.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence while Sasha took out a tissue and wiped her nose, the nod of her head barely visible.

  ‘It’s important that you understand who we are and why you’re here,’ continued Doug, heart being melted by the vulnerable young girl, who wasn’t the wanton marriage wrecker he had had her down as five minutes earlier.