by Lisa Cutts
‘I know that this isn’t about me,’ said Doug as he allowed his shoulders to drop, ‘except I’m very relieved to hear that. I’ve not been sleeping and it’s weighed so heavily on my mind. I’ve been thinking over and over, if only I’d have reported it to someone, got Milton arrested. I don’t know . . .’
‘Doug,’ she said, ‘let’s keep this to ourselves, shall we? There’s no point in telling anyone else.’
Those were the words that Doug had longed to hear.
Chapter 38
Wednesday 7 June
‘Morning, Haze. Briefing at eight o’clock,’ called Pierre Rainer as he disappeared in the direction of the incident room’s tiny kitchen, burdened with a tray of empty mugs no one had bothered to wash up from the previous day.
She had had a fitful night’s sleep and wasn’t looking forward to picking up Travis from his aunt’s house and taking him to view his father’s body, any more than she’d been keen to take him to see his mum’s. It was, of course, necessary, and her feelings didn’t enter into it. Travis wanted to say goodbye, even though she had explained that he didn’t have to do it today; he was able to cut himself some slack and no one would expect him to have to contend with another hideous task so soon. It didn’t make the work ahead any easier for Hazel, even though it was her job and not her dead family they were visiting. Trying to put such thoughts aside for now, she went and took a seat for the briefing.
Everyone piled into the conference room, sat and prepared to listen for the next couple of hours to what their colleagues had to say about the investigation and any developments overnight.
‘Morning, everyone,’ said DCI Barbara Venice from the top of the table. ‘You’re stuck with me at the moment because the out-of-county SIO, who was coming to take this over, got called to a rape and won’t be coming for now. Not ideal, but we’ve had worse staffing situations so we’ll crack on.
‘Now, we’re going to start the briefing with Pierre and Sophia because they’ve got to get back to interview the suspect as soon as possible. Tell us what he’s been saying.’
Detective Constable Pierre Rainer had the full attention of the room.
‘Aiden Bloomfield has told us that he liked Linda Bowman, although it hadn’t developed into a sexual relationship. They’d flirted a bit and had exchanged mobile numbers. The only time he made any effort to see her was the morning of her murder.’
‘Convenient,’ murmured someone from the back of the room.
Pierre glanced around the room. ‘His phone records would seem to show that they arranged to meet on numerous occasions and she cancelled him every time. Even now, he thinks that she was stringing him along. In all fairness, I think he’s right. Hazel may be able to get some more from Travis about his parents’ relationship, although for the moment, everything seems to show that Linda was a devoted wife and mum up until the point she started to lead Aiden on. What set that in motion, we currently don’t know. Sophia’s updated me on her enquiry with George Atkins, so if I had to guess, I’d say that his visit and what he said to her possibly triggered it.’
He went on to summarize the interviews of the previous evening and caught everyone’s attention when he told them about the mystery visitor to the Bowman house at 6.30 in the morning.
‘I don’t need to tell you that this leaves us having to know who this person is,’ said the DCI. ‘That’s, of course, if there actually was a visitor. What time did Milton leave his home address?’
Tom Delayhoyde cleared his throat. ‘I can help with that, ma’am. My first task was to look at Mr Bowman’s movements for the twenty-four hours before his accident. The call from Luke Morgan, the witness who saw the car crash, came in on the three nines system at 7.29 a.m. The Bowman house is about three miles from East Rise nick where he was due to start work at 8 a.m. Clearly that’s plenty of time, even in traffic, to get there.’
He cleared his throat and looked down again at his notes.
‘Serious collision investigation has looked at Mr Bowman’s car. They haven’t given us all of the information yet, this is just a preliminary report cos they know what we’re dealing with. The car had an onboard computer. The start of his journey that morning at six o’clock shows that he did eight miles before impact. He was approximately two miles from his home address, so he clearly went somewhere else. I’ve looked at the Automatic Number Plate Reader, although I’ve not had time to track him properly. It looks as though he went in the direction of Roseville.’
‘That’s very interesting,’ joined in Sophia. ‘That’s where Sasha Jones lives.’
In case anyone in the room wasn’t sure of the significance of the name, she added, ‘One of our PCs who’s been having an affair with Milton Bowman.’
The room erupted into murmurings from all sides of the table.
‘OK, everyone,’ said the DCI. ‘Not only are we getting a little distracted here from the agenda, but also I don’t think I need to tell anyone in this room that it goes no further until we’ve got to the bottom of this. If Milton was at Sasha’s house the whole time, depending on the time of death, it eliminates them both. Until that moment, she hears none of it. If it gets out of this room, I’ll find out who couldn’t keep their mouth shut and you can forget any idea of Major Crime for the rest of your career. What career you’ll have left anyway. Got it?’
She surveyed the room, stony-faced.
Most nodded, a few looked the other way. The general consensus had been that Sasha Jones might have been the next witness to be propelled to suspect status and get herself arrested. That had all changed now.
‘Right, everyone,’ said the DCI, taking charge of the room. ‘For now, we complete the Trace, Interview and Eliminate enquiry with Sasha Jones. This time, we get the truth from her about where she was. Make it abundantly clear to her what’s going to happen if we don’t get the complete picture.’
The DCI peered across at Sophia, who nodded in agreement.
‘I’ll go back and see her,’ said DI Philbert. ‘The reason we didn’t finish the enquiry to the point of eliminating her from the murder was because she kept crying and there was snot everywhere.
‘I’ve got something else I need to put to her anyway,’ were his final words on it.
Doug sat and stewed over whether he should speak to Barbara after the briefing about George Atkins’s unfounded allegations that Milton had been involved in something untoward around the time of the Wolfram Street stabbing. His boss seemed to have enough to contend with, and raising the idea that Milton might have been a corrupt officer on top of everything else could probably wait.
Hazel was the next to speak and gave a recap on Travis and how his behaviour had been.
‘He’s clearly distraught, which will surprise no one. Whether Milton killed himself or it was an accident, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s dead and Travis’s mother has been murdered. Understandably, he didn’t take it very well that his best friend had been arrested on suspicion of her murder. Interestingly, he didn’t ask why we’d arrested Aiden. That could simply be shock or he’s intelligent enough to know that we won’t tell him. I’ve not read too much into it, just I’ve made a note of it.’
She tapped her investigator’s notebook.
‘I’m not meeting him until much later today as he’s bound to have had enough of me by now. He also needs some time with his aunt, and we’ve still got his father’s body to see at some stage, hopefully later today. At some point, possibly not today, I’m going to ask him if he knew his dad was having an affair, what George Atkins said to him and his mum when he visited, plus a few other things that aren’t sitting right with me at the moment.’
She left it there, unable to hold Barbara Venice’s gaze. She had pulled her aside prior to the briefing and told her not to mention Ealing Hospital or the names Karen McCall or Gladys McCall. It wasn’t something that made her feel in the slightest bit comfortable.
‘Thank you, Hazel,’ said the DCI, giving nothing else away.
Hazel sat and listened to the rest of the briefing. She made notes and chipped in where she could assist. She even managed to pay attention to the administrative part of the briefing at the end where the DCI thanked everyone for their hard work, then told them it wasn’t about to get any easier. There were staff coming from neighbouring counties’ police forces to help them, there was more funding currently available and everyone’s working day was to be a minimum of ten hours, plus at least one of their days off worked through, and staff weren’t to be released to other investigations without the strict permission of the DCI.
Although the detective constable had managed to stay focused, the instant the first chair scraped across the floor, signalling a stampede for toilets, tea and telephone calls, her mind flew to Harry.
She’d fought all morning against calling him as she didn’t want to seem too keen. She also didn’t want to find herself telling him anything regarding the investigation that she ought not to share with him. He hadn’t tried to get information out of her but if she steeled herself to speak to him she was less likely to let slip.
As Hazel left the room, she took her phone out of her pocket to call him. She sidestepped Tom Delayhoyde who seemed lost in thought, mind, she assumed, on the murder inquiry.
Tom made his way to another part of East Rise Police Station to gather his thoughts about something that didn’t form a part of the senior investigating officer’s priorities.
His head was full of the thought of his former relationship with Sasha Jones, and whether his own reputation would now be dragged through the mud.
Something he was desperate to avoid.
Chapter 39
Empty rooms were few and far between but Tom Delayhoyde managed to find himself alone in the space that used to be the officers’ bar back in the day when East Rise was still the regional headquarters. He had heard from his dad that this one had been heavily subsidised by the other bar and the beer was better. It was decades before a woman had set foot in there, according to his dad, unless she was there to pull the pints or clean the ashtrays and hoover.
Nowadays it was the gym and golf where they all met and plotted who would go where and do what. Even without a smoky bar and sodden beer mats to linger over, the world hadn’t changed; it had merely moved venues.
At least those in charge were getting some exercise and improving their longevity.
Tom, in the meantime, didn’t want anything to get in the way of his career and blight the future with his new wife.
He took out his phone and called her.
‘Hello, love,’ Debbie said after only two rings. ‘I’ve got some great news when you get home.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’ll have to wait, but all I will say is that I didn’t expect it to happen this quickly. Try to get off on time tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing you later.’
‘If you’re saying what I think you are, I’m absolutely blown away with it.’
Tom sat smiling to himself, excited wife on the other end of the line, even more determined now that nothing was going to get in the way of their happiness. Even so, he felt a tinge of despair that his wife’s unsubtle hint at the announcement of a baby, his parents’ first grandchild, meant she was expecting him home before midnight to celebrate.
Debbie was the most important person in the world: they had met, fallen in love, moved in together, planned and dreamed a future and now here it was taking shape.
Sasha was a dim and distant memory.
He ran his hands across his face, phone on the table in front of him, wishing he had never got involved with her in the first place. The ringing of his mobile snapped him out of it.
The screen showed Sasha.
He stared at the mobile, unsure if he should answer it. Even talking to her seemed to be betraying his wife. He dismissed the idea: Sasha was a long time before he’d got married, and the feelings he had for Debbie put anything he’d ever had for Sasha in the shade.
Tom hesitated, unsure if he should be talking to her. He knew the drill with a witness or anyone contacting the incident room – record anything they said in a notebook and then transfer that information to a message form so it could be registered on the HOLMES system. He had to make it known they’d talked. It wasn’t worth losing his job over. If she told anyone they’d spoken and he didn’t get in there first, he could be in trouble. He didn’t relish that prospect, especially as he was one of the department’s new additions. No one else was likely to put their neck on the line defending his actions. Now he had not only a wife, but probably a baby to look after. Nothing was worth the risk.
‘Look after yourself, son,’ his dad had always told him. ‘They’ll fuck you over soon as look at you. Don’t give anyone the chance to do your legs. There’s no honour amongst thieves and certainly not amongst those looking to save their own skin.’
He answered the phone, opening his notebook with his other hand to make a note of everything she said to him.
‘Hello, Sasha,’ he said. ‘How are you keeping?’
A sob preceded her reply.
Tom tried not to verbalize his impatience down the line.
‘What’s up, Sash? I’m at work and probably shouldn’t be talking to you. I’ll have to pass on that we’ve spoken, and make a note of whatever you tell me.’
‘Thing is, Tom,’ she started and then paused, holding it together for as long as she could. ‘Thing is, I don’t know who else to talk to. Milton told me that he had a terrible row with his wife that morning before he left home. I know I should have passed all this on but I panicked. I was worried he really had killed her. I don’t know what to do.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Look, you’re telling the wrong person about this. You need the DI to come back and talk to you again.’
He listened and heard a sniff, what sounded like Sasha blowing her nose and then she said, ‘It’s not only that. I met Milton at the Wolfram Street stabbing and—’
‘You really shouldn’t be telling me—’
‘No, listen, please, Tom. I, I overheard some things, some things I probably shouldn’t have, and it’s to do with Milton and some stuff that he might have been mixed up with. I really am so worried and have no idea where to turn.’
Tom closed his eyes, slowly shook his head and, wishing he had never got mixed up with Sasha Jones, said the only thing he could to keep his job, a roof over his family’s head: ‘Leave it with me, I’ll speak to Doug Philbert and get him to come back and see you again.’
Chapter 40
Following endless questioning, spanning hours, Aiden had been given a ready meal of slops that a dog would have turned its nose up at, and had settled down in his cell. He had struggled to sleep on the thin mattress, covered by an itchy blanket, and the door open so that he could hear the violent drunks being brought in overnight. Eventually, he had drifted off to sleep, only to be woken by someone screaming in a nearby cell. He dropped back off to sleep again, already growing used to a life inside.
He woke up at some point the next day, a fact he realized due to sounds of life that only a new day can bring, plus a cleaner mopping the corridor outside his cell and a woman police officer sitting outside the door.
He turned over and looked at her.
‘Morning, Aiden,’ she said. ‘I’ve got toothpaste, shower gel and a towel here if you want it. I’ll get a male officer to take you to the shower. Want a tea?’
Once again, he had no idea what he wanted, but it wasn’t going to be solved with yet another cup of tea in a polystyrene cup with powdered milk.
‘I’m not cut out for prison,’ he said, still prostrate and arm over his face.
When he removed his arm and looked away, the police officer was scribbling on his custody record. He came to the conclusion that she was writing down what he had just said to her.
Everything he said and did was documented. It was more pitiful in police custody than he could ever have expected.
On
e thing he did know was that he would need to keep a lid on things the whole time he was in the police station. He couldn’t afford to lose his temper. He had only done that a few times in his life and it had never ended well. If they saw what he could really be like, it might alter their view of him. At that moment in time, he had no idea what they knew and whether it would be enough to charge him with murder. The very thought of it made him shudder despite the warmth of the cell block. He couldn’t face the thought of being sent to prison to wait for the start of a trial. Aiden had little idea of how these things worked but he’d heard of people being on remand for months before they got anywhere near a judge and jury.
He was facing things on his own for now with only the assistance of a legal representative he had known a few hours. He wasn’t even allowed to call his mum just to hear her voice. The detectives who had been interviewing him told him he wasn’t to speak to her. He couldn’t afford to let anyone know he was desperate to talk to his mum. It was something that probably wouldn’t go down very well in prison.
His brief had called it ‘delaying intimation’. He hadn’t understood what that meant either at the time, except he couldn’t talk to anyone in case he spoke about why he was in the police station in the first place. As if he’d be stupid enough to talk about Linda and the whole sorry state of affairs.
He followed a male uniform officer along the corridor towards the shower, towel over one arm and his meagre squeeze of shower gel in a tube, as if this was how he normally started every day.
There was nothing normal about this day, even if it hadn’t begun with a strange man watching him strip naked and get into a shower tray barely bigger than he was.
Aiden took his time, enjoying the feeling of the water on his skin. It was hardly freedom but at least the water came from somewhere else other than a custody block. He hadn’t tasted or smelled fresh air for twenty hours now, and he wasn’t too sure when he would again. His solicitor had given him the worst case scenario by telling him that the police could, under certain circumstances, keep him there for up to thirty-six hours but before then could go to a Magistrates’ Court and ask for more time. She hadn’t answered his question of exactly how long. She had given him a vague and wafty answer that the police didn’t usually ask for the full amount but were likely to ask for another twenty-four to thirty-six hours.