Looking For A Reason (#4 - D.I. Paolo Storey Crime Series)

by Frances di Plino

  “We were just about to set to with the battering ram, sir, but now that she’s here, we could use her keys.”

  Paolo leaned in and picked up April’s handbag which had been placed on the floor next to Jack’s feet. He opened it and located a massive bunch of keys.

  “Jack, you take care of April. Bring her inside. We might need her to explain where things are.”

  He handed the keys to CC. “Come on; let’s get the place opened up. You know, all these houses have integral garages and space in front for another car to park. Why would they also need permit-only parking?” he asked as they made their way towards the property.

  “I don’t suppose they do, sir, but it’s another way for the council to raise funds. Tell the residents they have to pay for a permit to stop anyone else parking outside their homes.”

  By this time, CC had unlocked the door and they were able to get inside. Paolo gave the order for the search to begin.

  April’s house looked like any other semi on the inside. Lots of dark flat pack furniture, interspersed with a few more expensive pieces. Jack took April into the lounge and made her sit on the couch. Paolo followed them in.

  “I want to know where Dave is. All the other questions can wait, but that one can’t. What have you done with him?”

  She shook her head and Paolo felt the urge to grab her and shake her once again, but he knew if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop this time.

  “April, don’t mess with me. Where is Dave?”

  Silent tears slid down her cheeks, but with her hands shackled behind her, she couldn’t wipe them away. Andrea moved forward and sat next to her. Paolo watched as she wiped away the other woman’s tears.

  A shout from the direction of kitchen distracted him and he turned away. When he looked back, Andrea nodded in the direction the noise had come from.

  “Why not leave her to me for now, sir? You go and see what they’ve found.”

  The look she gave him said clearly, I think I can get her to talk. Paolo nodded.

  He headed towards the officer standing outside a door adjacent to the one leading to the integral garage. The man looked a bit green around the gills, as if he was trying hard to keep his lunch down.

  “What have you found?”

  The officer shook his head and took a step back to allow Paolo to enter the room. If he’d had any doubts at all of April’s guilt, the photos lining the walls of the room left little to the imagination. Men of all shapes and sizes were shown in the same position, face down on the table standing in the middle of the room. Against one wall was a table and a comfortable armchair. Did April sit and watch them while they recovered?

  Paolo walked over to the table. A variety of dildos, in sizes ranging from small to extra-large, sat next to a tazer. The clicking of a camera made him turn to see the crime scene photographer at work.

  “Pretty sick mind here,” Paolo said.

  The photographer nodded, but didn’t reply. Paolo didn’t blame him. He went back out into the hall and found CC heading down the stairs. She shook her head before he could ask about Dave.

  “Not a sign of anything untoward up there, sir.”

  Paolo pointed back towards the room he’d just left. “No, I think it all happened in there.”

  Frustration made him smack the wall with his fist. “But where’s Dave? What’s she done with him?”

  He went back into the lounge, ready to do whatever it took to make April talk, but found that where he would have bullied her and probably got nowhere, Andrea had used kindness and unlocked the floodgates.

  “She’s ready to confess, sir.”

  “Okay,” Paolo said, “but first I want to know where Dave is.”

  April looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never wanted to hurt him, but he found my room.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “I tried to get him to leave. I tried really hard, but he wouldn’t give up. Just kept on and on asking sly little questions, trying to trip me up.”

  “Where is he, April?” Paolo asked again.

  It was almost as if she couldn’t hear him. She was staring straight ahead into a vision only she could see.

  “When I opened the door and he was there on his own, I thought I could fool him, but he just refused to go away.”

  Paolo stepped forward, not sure what he intended to do, but determined to get her to answer his question. CC’s hand on his arm pulled him back.

  “Is Dave still alive, April?” she asked.

  She shook her head and Paolo’s gut clenched. He’d known all along Dave must be dead, but hadn’t wanted to believe it. He wasn’t sure he could get the words out, but owed it to Dave to pull himself together.

  “Tell me the rest,” he said, astounded to hear his voice sounding so steady. How could he be disintegrating on the inside and yet still function on the outside? He glanced over at CC and saw the same pain he was feeling reflected in her eyes.

  “I opened the door and Dave apologised for calling on me at home. Asked if he could come in for a few minutes. I don’t usually let men into my home, but I felt safe with him. He had lovely manners.”

  She smiled as if at a pleasant memory and, once again, Paolo wanted to shake her.

  “He said Clementine Towers had told him she’d followed me to George Baron’s house, but it was pretty clear after a few minutes that she’d given him the impression George and I had been lovers. As if! I told him she’d been mistaken and he seemed to accept that.”

  She fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Paolo. “He was very good at his job. I thought I’d got away with it, but then out of the blue he asked why I’d pushed Clementine under the bus. Of course, I said I hadn’t, but I think he’d seen my slight hesitation, because he smiled and said he believed me, but I could hear from his voice that he didn’t. Not really.”

  “What happened then?” Paolo asked when she fell silent once more.

  “He pretended he needed to use the bathroom, but I guessed he just wanted to have a look round. The problem was I hadn’t locked the door into…you’ve seen it, haven’t you? My special room?”

  Paolo nodded.

  “So, you see, I couldn’t let him wander around the place, but he insisted he really needed to use the bathroom. I told him where it was and watched through the crack in the door to see what he did.”

  She bowed her head. “I really didn’t want to hurt him. If he’d just gone to the bathroom like he’d said he wanted to, I wouldn’t have had to hit him.” She pointed to the poker in the grate. “I waited until he opened the door to my room and then crept up behind him. I thought I would just knock him out, but then I realised he would bring you all here, so I had no choice. You do see that, don’t you? I had no choice, so I hit him until he stopped moving.”

  “Where have you put his body, April,” Paolo asked, keeping his hands at his side with great difficulty. He felt like reaching for the poker and dealing with April in the same way she’d treated Dave.

  She looked up. “He was a good man. Not like the others. I took him out into the woods and found a lovely spot to bury him. It’s not far from the edge of the river, overlooking the picnic area. He’ll like it there. It’s very peaceful.”

  Paolo nodded to CC, who left the room to organise a search party to locate the makeshift grave.

  “You thought Derrick Walden knew about you, didn’t you? Is that why you killed him?”

  She nodded. “I overheard him on the phone to you.”

  “You killed him for nothing,” Paolo said. “He was calling me about something completely different.”

  She shrugged. “He’d been snooping round too much. Eventually he’d have discovered my secret.”

  “So, no regrets about Derrick?”

  She shook her head. “No, not really. I was doing the world a favour, you know.”

  “By killing an innocent man?” Paolo asked.

  For a moment April looked confused. “Oh, you mean Derrick? No, I meant sorting out
the rapists so that they never did it again.”

  “How did you know who to target?”

  April smiled. “Their victims told me. I’m a Rape Crisis counsellor at weekends. I make notes about those who get away with it and then go looking for them.”

  Paolo nodded as if he’d expected that answer. “But you only target those who’ve used a date rape drug, don’t you?”

  “Usually, but I made an exception to that with George Baron. When Trudy called after her boss raped her, I recognised her voice. Because I knew who she worked for, I felt I should act. Even though she would never find out it was me, I did it as a favour.”

  “But George Baron realised who you were, so you had to kill him?”

  She shrugged. “He was vermin. No loss to mankind, even less loss to womankind. Men are such evil hypocrites. Do you know what my ex-husband said when he found out I’d been raped?”

  Paolo shook his head.

  “He said I’d asked for it. By going to a nightclub dressed as I’d been that night, I’d asked to be attacked.” She glared at Paolo. “The police said pretty much the same thing. Oh, not in words, but in their attitude. What was I doing going to a club on my own? How often did I go out alone? What had I had to drink? All the questions putting the blame on me instead of the pervert who’d hurt me.”

  “So you decided to get retribution as Nemesis?”

  She nodded. “I went back to the club where I’d been picked up and turned the tables on my rapist. I only ever meant to punish the person who’d hurt me, but then I thought, why not apply an eye for an eye justice to others who’ve got away with drugging and raping women. And it felt so good to dish out to those bastards what they’d inflicted on others. None of them ever went to the police. Not one.”

  “But you made a mistake with Colin Jameson.”

  “No I didn’t. I always made sure I picked the right men. I got good descriptions of them. Found out which clubs they used to prey on their victims and went after them.”

  Paolo held up his hand to stop her from saying anything more. “The night you picked up Colin Jameson you took the wrong man. The one you were after was a work colleague. They looked very much alike.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. You’re lying.”

  Paolo stood up. “I’m not lying, April. While you’re rotting in prison, patting yourself on the back for ridding the world of rapists, spare a thought for Colin Jameson whose life you ruined. Think about his wife who still loves him and is trying to help him put his life back together again. Think about his child who will never know what his dad was like before you decided to play at being the goddess of retribution.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Paolo stood at the graveside with CC on one side and Andrea on the other. He was pleased to see a full turnout from the station, although not as delighted that Jack Cummings had turned up in funereal black and was walking around with his head bowed. Maybe he blamed himself for what happened to Dave. Paolo hoped so, because he certainly blamed Jack and would never be able to forgive him.

  He looked over to see Chief Constable Willows standing next to Dave’s parents. The chief glanced around, spotted Paolo and nodded. Paolo would have felt better if Willows had scowled at him. As much as he believed Jack’s attitude had been the cause of Dave going off on his own to prove his worth, Paolo knew part of the guilt rested with him. He should have transferred Jack out of his department as soon as he realised the level of resentment he was harbouring towards Dave. Still, the papers were filled in and ready to file as soon as he returned to work. He didn’t want the man in his team and was pretty sure Jack would be pleased to go.

  Paolo felt the heat of the sun on his back and inwardly cursed the good weather. If there had been any justice in the world, today would have been graced with torrential rain, thunder pounding the heavens and lightning streaking across the firmament. Instead, they had a glorious sapphire sky with not a cloud to mar it.

  As the priest mouthed the words of the service and Dave was buried for the second time, Paolo thought back to the moment they had unearthed his body in the woods. In the end, they’d had to make April show them exactly where she’d buried him.

  He looked around at the cemetery and wondered how Dave would feel about being interred here. In one respect, April had told the truth. She’d chosen a beauty spot to hide Dave’s body. With a bank of wild flowers behind and the river sparkling below, Dave’s first grave had been far more beautiful than this one. Paolo wondered if he would have preferred to have been left in that idyllic setting.

  CC was openly crying. Andrea was trying to stem her tears. As she’d said a few days back, she hadn’t been on the team for long, but Dave had gone out of his way to help her settle in.

  Barbara was standing a few yards from Willows. She looked over at Paolo and he knew she understood exactly how he was feeling. He remembered the first case he’d worked on with Dave and how he’d upset Barbara every time he’d opened his mouth. They’d grown fond of each other with time, once Barbara had realised Dave’s outward misogyny hid a sensitive nature scared of rejection.

  It had been Rebecca who’d brought out the real Dave and made him seek help to get rid of the macho persona he’d tried to hide behind. She, too, was in tears, supported by her parents. Paolo wondered how she would cope and made a mental note to call on her in a few days. He’d give her time to…to what? Get over it? Paolo knew there were some things you never got over. He was still grieving over losing his daughter Sarah. Nothing would ever staunch the hurt that flowed from that wound.

  The service finally came to an end and Paolo moved towards Dave’s parents.

  “I am so very sorry for your loss,” he said. “Dave wasn’t just a colleague; he was a good friend. I’m going to miss him.”

  Mr Johnson held out his hand. “He was very fond of you, too, Paolo. Never had a bad word to say about you.”

  “My brother says you took good care of my son,” Mrs Johnson said, glancing over towards Chief Constable Willows.

  Paolo followed the direction of her gaze and saw that Jack Cummings had made his way over to that side of grave and was deep in conversation with the chief. Good, Paolo thought. I hope he’s asking for a transfer.

  He turned back to Dave’s mother. “I wish I’d taken better care of him,” he said. “If I had, he wouldn’t have gone to that woman’s house without me.”

  A smile trembled on her lips. “No, he probably wouldn’t have, but you weren’t his nursemaid. He knew what he was doing. I’m proud of him.”

  Paolo nodded. “You have every reason to be. He was the best of my team. The one I turned to more than any other.”

  Mr and Mrs Johnson excused themselves as another member of the mourning party arrived to give words of condolences.

  “We’ll see you later,” Mrs Johnson said.

  Paolo returned a noncommittal answer. He didn’t think he could bear to join the others at the hotel function room hired for the wake. He walked away, intending to go back to the station, but had only gone a few yards when he heard his name being called.

  He turned to find Chief Constable Willows bearing down on him.

  “Leaving already? Aren’t you going to say a few words at the hotel? Dave would have wanted you to, I’m sure.”

  Paolo could almost hear what Dave’s comments would have been on hearing that and nearly laughed, but managed to restrain himself.

  “I don’t think–”

  “For his parents’ sake, I’m asking you,” Willows said. “You are the one who knew him best of all of us.”

  “Sir, I really don’t… I’m not the best… I’m not good at… All right, but I’m not making a long speech. Dave would have hated that.”

  Willows smiled. “No need for a speech at all. Just be yourself and say a few words about what it was like working with him. Young Cummings has been telling me how you watched over my nephew and nurtured his career.”

  “Cummings? Look, sir, I’ve bee
n meaning to talk to you about him, but now isn’t the right time.”

  Willows smiled. “No, not the right time at all. Today is for Dave, but I agree with you we need to discuss Jack Cummings career path. He admires you tremendously.”

  “Does he?” Paolo asked, hoping Jack wouldn’t have much time left to do so, but Willows next words took that dream away.

  “Yes, he does. So much so, he’s asked to be taken under your wing. I’ve told him he couldn’t ask for a better mentor. I know you’ll do the best you can for him.”

  THE END

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