Buried Secrets

by Lisa Cutts

  The police officer knew better than to get into a conversation with a prisoner whose custody record was headed ‘Murder’. He’d sat and watched prisoners on constant supervision many times in his eight years as a uniform officer. Normally they settled down and went to sleep. Only once had he had to go in the cell when a woman arrested for trying to kill her own daughter had started to eat the foam linings from her custody-issue disposable feet coverings. He got the impression that the teenager in front of him was far too startled by the day’s events to give him any problems.

  He held the heavy cell door open and motioned for Aiden to go inside.

  It was empty except for a bench built into the far wall, thin blue mattress and pillow on top of it, and a metal toilet with no seat or toilet paper.

  The officer saw him looking at the meagre facilities.

  ‘You need to use it, let me know and I’ll push the door to, give you some privacy. Toilet paper’s out here too.’

  Something about Aiden’s demeanour made the officer feel sorry for him. He’d clearly never found himself in custody before, and certainly not for something that might lead to him spending decades in prison.

  ‘Some of the ones we get in here think it’s funny to block the toilets with the whole roll,’ he explained.

  Aiden walked over to the bench, sat on the edge and put his head in his hands.

  How had his life gone so wrong that he was now having his toilet-paper sheets monitored?

  Right then, he hated Linda Bowman with all his heart and he was glad she was dead.

  Chapter 31

  The drive to the hospital’s chapel of rest was about the tensest part of being a family liaison officer. Hazel’s job was to be a police officer and investigate; it would take the truly inhuman to remain unaffected by the atmosphere in the car. She knew what they were about to do and Travis had a good idea of the hideous task in front of him. Many people lived their entire lives without seeing a dead body. A great number of those who had dealings with corpses did it in a professional capacity. Few nineteen-year-old students stood in the same room with death, and not when the cadaver used to be their mother.

  She parked the car in the police bay close to the entrance. She had tried to keep the conversation going as much as she could, and checked with Travis that his aunt Una, Milton’s sister, was going to meet them after he had seen his mum. Travis seemed reluctant to allow his aunt to see Linda and Hazel wasn’t able to establish why. She decided to work on it throughout the rest of the day, but for now, she had something a little more pressing to tell him.

  ‘Travis,’ she said, turning off the engine, ‘I haven’t been to this chapel of rest before. They vary.’

  She stared at his profile. His jaw was clenched and she saw him swallow and nod at her, looking straight ahead.

  ‘Because they vary, until I get in there, I won’t know if your mum will be in the same room as us or behind glass.’

  ‘Behind glass? I can’t touch her?’

  ‘If she’s in a separate viewing room and you want to touch her, I can ask for you.’

  She took a deep, silent breath. ‘The thing is, if you are allowed to hold her hand, she’ll be covered by a sheet. It’s important that you don’t move anything that’s covering her.’

  Without moving the back of his skull from the headrest he slowly turned his head in her direction.

  ‘Is she . . . Will she . . .?’

  ‘Do you remember me telling you that the pathologist had to carry out a post-mortem?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And your mum has head injuries. It’s important for you that you don’t try to move her.’

  Hazel really didn’t want to spell it out, but she needed him to understand that the parts of his mum that weren’t exposed were covered for a reason. The staff had to preserve the dignity of everyone, whether they were alive or dead, and to cause as little anguish as possible.

  Years before, she’d learned the hard way when one of the first families she was assigned to was taken in to see their twenty-two-year-old daughter. The young woman had been stabbed in the heart on her way home from a party when a fight had broken out on the night bus she was on, and she took her last breath on the top deck, despite the best efforts of the attending paramedics. The hospital staff at the chapel of rest hadn’t pulled the sheet up fully to the girl’s neck. The huge ugly stitches of the opening up of her chest cavity were on display when the parents rushed into the room before Hazel could stop them.

  As if they hadn’t had enough to deal with.

  Janine Casey.

  That was her name. Hazel had never forgotten the sight of her stretched out, resewn body, nor the scream from her mother, yet she couldn’t always remember the girl’s name.

  That had been one of the worst days in her twenty years as a police officer. Others had surpassed it, but they were few in number.

  ‘I also need to warn you,’ said Hazel, eyes remaining on his face, ‘what you see may not be pleasant. I haven’t seen your mum, so I don’t know how she is.’

  She gave him a second to attempt to gather himself, and then added, ‘Once you’ve seen her, I’ll need a short statement from you, if you’re up to it. We can’t release your mum’s name to the press until she’s formally identified. That’s important because we want people to come forward and help us, tell us what they know.’

  He nodded at her again, trying to stop the tide of tears that wanted to come.

  ‘When you’re ready,’ she said.

  The hospital staff were expecting them.

  After several minutes of Travis chewing the inside of his mouth, and crossing and uncrossing his arms over his chest, they were taken through a door to where his mum lay.

  Within seconds of opening the door, Travis held his mum’s cold dead fingers within his own.

  His shoulders shook as the stark reality of death took hold of him, tearing his world into pieces. Minutes went by and eventually he said, ‘It’s my mum.’

  Throughout the time they were with Linda Bowman’s body, Hazel remained to the side of Travis, out of his eyeline whilst he was fully in hers. Even though they had a suspect in custody, it didn’t mean they had the correct person yet, or that there was only one killer.

  Both Travis’s and Aiden’s behaviour had always struck Hazel as a little odd, and now that the formal identification and viewing of Linda was underway, she was about to turn to her main business – that of investigating a murder.

  Chapter 32

  Evening of Tuesday 6 June

  Finishing work on time wasn’t an option for Hazel. She had known when she’d got out of bed that morning that her working day was going to last much longer than her rostered eight hours.

  It was twelve hours since she’d begun her tour of duty when she signed out in the incident-room office diary and headed home. As she neared her car parked outside the police station, she took out her mobile phone and called Harry.

  It wasn’t a deeply considered decision, although she had been thinking about him all day. It struck her that she really needed some company and Harry had told her to call him, no matter what the time of night.

  ‘Hey,’ she said when he answered.

  ‘Hey,’ he replied. ‘Are you calling to tell me that you’re finished for the day?’

  ‘I’m by my car, about to drive home.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’ said Harry, phone in one hand, the other on the door of the oven as he checked to see how his home-made lasagne was coming along.

  ‘No. I’m starving too. Still fancy a drink? We could go for something to eat as well.’

  Harry shut the oven door.

  ‘That sounds like a bloody good idea,’ he said, turning the oven off. ‘I don’t have any plans at all.’

  ‘How about we meet in an hour?’ said Hazel, getting into her car.

  ‘Do you know the Lazy Bullock in Steep Street?’ said Harry.

  He smiled as the sound of her laugh trilled in his ear.

 
‘I know where it is although I’ve never been there,’ she said. ‘It sounds intriguing. I’ll see you in there at nine o’clock.’

  She drove home, smiling to herself that Harry had sworn down the phone, and also chosen a public house with a name as close to an obscenity as he could manage. Clearly he was feeling a little more like his old self.

  The best thing about meeting him there was that it meant she didn’t need too long to get ready: if she drove herself, there was clearly no chance of her regretting a lack of depilatory action in a few hours’ time, and she definitely didn’t have time for more than a shower and running her disposable razor up and down her legs.

  What she needed right now was good company, a beer and food cooked by someone else. She’d see how tonight went and not rush into anything.

  Harry meanwhile took the lasagne out of the oven to cool, ran upstairs for his second shower of the evening, put on fresh clothes and even used aftershave for the first time since his wife left him.

  Hazel knew that she wouldn’t be having sex that evening; Harry wasn’t going to risk it.

  Chapter 33

  Feeling more miserable than she thought she deserved to, Jenny Bloomfield slammed the door of Tom Delayhoyde’s unmarked Ford Focus as he dropped her off at the town centre Premier Inn. He had offered to come inside with her, his suggestion met with a look of disdain.

  It was something that had never crossed Jenny’s mind, and why would it? The police were searching every inch of her home and her car, all because they had a Magistrates’ Court search warrant, and had told her she couldn’t come back or enter her home for at least a day. The realization that she had effectively been thrown out of her own house was the ultimate insult. She was sure they couldn’t do this, even though according to the law it appeared that they could.

  It was all she could do to concentrate on putting one three and a half inch designer heel in front of another, retain her composure and walk away, head held high.

  How different this lobby felt beneath her feet from the one she had sashayed herself across just a few hours earlier. This short promenade didn’t even hold the promise of sex at the end of it.

  She glanced towards the open-plan bar area visible just beyond reception and knew that she had made a mistake. She should have gone to the Grand. He would still have been there, waiting for her in the bar with a glass of champagne, ready as ever to make her forget she was a wife and mother. Make her feel how she hadn’t felt in years.

  Jenny gave an involuntary shudder.

  The cheerful receptionist was saying something to her about a booking.

  ‘Of course,’ muttered Jenny as she pulled a credit card from her purse and slid it across the counter. Once again she wondered if she could get a cab and escape out of there. The only thing stopping her was that the police might think her behaviour was suspicious now she had been dropped off, and she definitely didn’t want to alert them to anything.

  Even so, she watched her fingers as they punched in her credit card pin number, filled out a form with her details on, and waited for her plastic room key.

  ‘Will you be dining with us this evening?’ asked the helpful young man.

  ‘I hardly think so,’ she said, before turning towards the corridor leading to the rooms. ‘I take it you don’t have a lift.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ he said, flat tone to his voice.

  ‘It’s just as well I only have a small amount of luggage then,’ she said to herself as she glanced down at the handbag over her shoulder.

  First thing in the morning, she planned on walking to East Rise’s only department store and purchasing herself a change of clothes. Just at that particular moment, she had never been more grateful for her clandestine meetings. Basic toiletries and a change of underwear weren’t something she used to carry around with her.

  Once inside the room, she closed the door, leaned her back against it and tried to evoke the feelings she had experienced in the last hotel room she found herself in.

  A darkened room, two glasses of Buck’s Fizz on a silver tray, a virtual stranger approaching her as she walked in. The feeling of her mouth being kissed by a man who wasn’t her husband, something so illicit but so pleasurable.

  A small gasp escaping from her as he ran his hands down her back, unzipping her dress, letting it fall to the floor.

  Being kissed all over.

  She opened her eyes. They focused on the purple soft furnishings hanging at a window with a view of a brick wall.

  Jenny told herself that this was only temporary. Everything would be fine.

  Chapter 34

  ‘Don’t know about you two,’ said Milo, ‘but this is my least favourite place of work in this shithole town.’

  He glanced out of the window as Parker pulled the Range Rover to a stop at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  ‘Fucking nasty place to do business,’ agreed Diva, slow shake of his head as he glanced at the properties laid out in front of him.

  ‘It really gives me no pleasure to be here, doing this,’ said Milo, indicating the semi-circle of twelve bungalows, some with outdoor grab rails leading up to the front doors, a mobility scooter parked in one of the small front gardens.

  Parker turned his head and spoke to his two associates in the back seat. ‘Which one of you wants to tell Tandy that you didn’t fancy it today?’

  ‘No need to be fucking funny,’ said Milo. ‘We’ll do our job, it just pisses me off that some dickhead at the council thought, I know what’s a great idea. Let’s have bungalows for the elderly, design them in a nice fan shape, give them all a little garden, and then we’ll stick the ugly sisters and their drug-dealing old slag mother in there with them. My old mum lives somewhere like this. It gets me down, that’s all.’

  ‘Well fortunately,’ said Diva, ‘we’re not here to find out if the social housing experiment is working, we’re here to make sure this trio of dogs are doing as they’re told. Come on.’

  The two drug dealers got out of the car and made their way to the second property in the crescent. They hadn’t walked more than about five feet when the front door started to open and a haggard face appeared in the gap before the door began to close again.

  Both men broke into a run, Milo beating Diva to it. One swift kick with his boot and the wooden door crashed open, rebounded off the wall and came back on his foot. Unperturbed, he smoothed down his jacket, pushed the door so it was fully open and stepped inside.

  Only when he heard Diva behind him and the latch closing did he move forward down the dingy corridor towards the only other opening off the hallway and the sounds of an evening television game show.

  ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

  He took another step towards the retreating occupant, no doubt cowering in the living room or in one of the two disgusting bedrooms leading off it.

  ‘Come on, Cynthia,’ Milo called out. ‘Be a good girl. I won’t even hold it against you that your front door’s scuffed my new boots. Fortunately, they’re steel toe-capped so no harm done. Not yet anyway.’

  He pushed the door open, careful where he put his hand on the frame. A number of brown and black marks were visible along the paintwork, once white but now, like most of the place, covered in a yellow nicotine stain.

  ‘It really is vile in here, Cynth,’ he said as he looked down at the grey-haired widow, perched on the edge of the floral two-seater settee, trembling beneath her nylon housecoat.

  ‘Evening, Cynth,’ said Diva as he stood beside Milo, his own steel toe-capped boots coming to a stop at the edge of the petrified woman’s slippers. ‘It’s like 19-fucking-75 in here. You might have got dressed, instead of sitting there in your nightie and curlers.’

  ‘The, the girls aren’t here,’ she said. ‘You’ve missed them.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Diva as he reached down and grabbed her chin, tipping her face up towards his. ‘If the ugly sisters aren’t here, we can make do with the wicked witch. Now where do you want to star
t?’

  ‘Start?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m feeling generous today. Fingers or toes?’

  As he said the word ‘toes’, Diva inched his left foot forward, sole of his boot coming into contact with her big toe through the thin material of her cheap slippers.

  She gave a gasp and her eyes widened.

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I’ve got your money.’

  He instantly let go of her face and straightened up.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so,’ said Milo.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Diva. ‘Making me go and touch you and everything. Where is it then?’

  Still shaking, Cynthia got up from the settee and managed to make the six feet or so to the open-plan kitchen. She took a tea caddy down from the dusty shelf beside the kettle and tried to concentrate on undoing the lid.

  Milo blew the air out of his cheeks, Diva looked at his watch and, just as both were losing their temper, she undid the tin and handed them a two-inch-thick wad of banknotes.

  ‘Nice doing business with you,’ said Diva as he counted and pocketed the money.

  ‘See you same time next week,’ said Milo as they made their way back to the front door. ‘And try and clear up. This place is a fucking pigsty.’

  ‘Don’t know about you,’ said Diva when they were both back inside the Range Rover, ‘I feel a little hard done by now. I didn’t expect them to have the money.’

  His comment was met with a look of total disgust from his colleague.

  ‘She’s an old lady. Have some respect.’

  Chapter 35

  A few lucky detectives, such as Hazel, were allowed to go off duty. She still had to remain on the end of the phone, mainly for Travis, whilst most of the team were about to work long into the night.

  Detective Constable Pierre Rainer had broken the happy news to Sophia as she got back from her already long day speaking to Sasha Jones and then George Atkins that she was earmarked for an even longer night of interviewing with the recently arrested Aiden Bloomfield.