‘Look,’ said Jimmy, ‘Neil and Mel have had arguments about me living with them. That much is true. The police were called when the shouting got too much, I’ll admit, but Natalie wasn’t unhappy. And she wasn’t scared of me,’ he added for good measure.
‘If not you, then who?’ Vincent fired back.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Barrett, exasperated.
‘What are you hiding, Jimmy?’ Vincent asked.
‘I’m not hiding anything.’
‘Yes you are,’ continued Vincent. ‘I’ve sat here and accused you of being involved in Natalie’s disappearance and beating her. You have reacted angrily, but there has been no regret expressed at her disappearance. Something doesn’t sit right.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ replied Barrett sheepishly, turning his head to avoid Vincent’s stare. It was the tell-tale sign Vincent had been waiting for.
‘Yes you do,’ accused Vincent, pointing a finger at him. ‘Come on, Jimmy, what are you hiding? What haven’t you told us?’
‘I’ve told you everything,’ stated Barrett, looking away for a second time.
‘There it is again,’ beamed Vincent, this time standing, while pointing his finger. ‘Tell me what you know, Jimmy.’
Barrett looked from Vincent to Capshaw, and back again.
‘Come on, Jimmy,’ continued Vincent. ‘Do you really want me to charge you with wasting police time? I can if that will help?’
‘No,’ interrupted Jimmy. ‘Okay, okay,’ he conceded, ‘Look, there is something else. It might be totally unrelated, but I just don’t know.’
‘What, Jimmy? What is it?’ demanded Vincent, retaking his seat, pleased his instinct had been right.
‘There was this weird guy who phoned the house on Wednesday morning. Spoke with an accent. He was asking questions about Natalie. About what she looked like, where she went to school and that sort of thing. Claimed he was a reporter.’
‘And?’ asked Vincent, surprised by the nature of this apparent confession.
‘Well, Neil and Mel were out so I answered the phone. He said he would give me money for the information. So…I answered his questions, told him what he wanted to know. It was only after he had hung up that I started to think about what he was asking? The questions were odd.’
‘In what way odd?’ Vincent enquired.
‘I don’t know, really…they just weren’t what I would have expected a reporter to ask.’
‘Can you give me an example?’ Vincent persevered.
‘He wanted me to describe what she looked like, whether she was popular at school, whether she was pretty, stuff like that. After he had hung up, I started to wonder whether his questions were a bit…you know…perverted.’
‘Did you take his name?’ Vincent asked.
‘No.’
‘Did he say what newspaper he worked for?’ Vincent asked.
‘No.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jimmy!’ exclaimed Vincent. ‘Did he even say how he would pay you?’
Barrett’s head dropped forward as he uttered, ‘No.’
‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ Vincent asked, standing up.
‘No,’ replied Barrett, head still drooped.
‘Capshaw,’ Vincent said. ‘Get on to your contact at the phone company, see if they can find the number that called the Barrett’s house on Wednesday. It may be, that this moron, here, spoke with the killer.’
Capshaw stood up and left the room. Vincent looked back at Barrett and shook his head.
‘You fucking idiot!’ he said.
29
One thing Sarah learnt whilst at university was the tell-tale symptoms of a hangover. For her, a sore head, a dull ache behind the eyes and a gravelly voice, from too much shouting the previous evening, were the signs that she had consumed too much alcohol the night before. Once she got out of bed, dizziness, nausea and a sour taste in the mouth would soon develop also. Friday morning brought each of these feelings to her. Not that she should have been surprised, not given the two bottles of cheap wine that she had consumed, when she had returned from school yesterday.
The meeting with Ryan Moss had affected her more than she had first realised. She had been shocked to come face-to-face with him, at first, and the edginess she had felt had stayed with her since; it had been like seeing a ghost. She had gone in search of him in Portland, and had been disappointed not to find him. Finally catching up with him had failed to bring the feeling of satisfaction she had been looking for.
She had been surprised when Moss had admitted to being homosexual, and she had actually empathised with him, when he had explained how difficult he had found it to be a young, homosexual man in Portland. Sarah could still remember Ryan’s father: a stern and gruff fisherman, not afraid to use his fists to settle an argument. Ryan had never openly told her, but she was pretty sure that he had been on the receiving end of an occasional beating from Moss Snr. She could understand why he had found it impossible to come out in front of his father. From memory, Moss Snr had passed away shortly after Ryan’s conviction, so there was every chance he had never found out.
Moss’ struggle with his homosexuality had made her think long and hard about her own. She knew, almost too well, how hard it was to tell your parents that you are gay, but at least her father seemed to have accepted it now. She wondered whether she should phone her father, and tell him that she had caught up with Moss, but she decided she would leave it until the weekend and then give him a call. Sarah had nearly told Moss of her own sexual journey, but as she had still been uncertain about whether or not he was responsible for Natalie’s disappearance, she had decided not to give him the satisfaction that they might be more similar than he ever realised.
The way Moss had explained his time behind bars had been captivating and she had found herself believing him, in spite of herself. It angered her that she may have got it so wrong in telling Jack Vincent that Moss was the guilty man. The correct thing she should have done, upon leaving the school, was to tell Vincent that she had been mistaken. Instead, she had driven to an off licence, around the corner from her apartment and had bought two bottles of rosé wine for ten pounds on a special offer. She had also paid for a bag of Kettle Chips, as she knew she was in no mood to cook. These were the first two mistakes she had made last night, and boy, was she feeling the consequences now.
Sarah had opened the front door and dumped her shopping bags on the floor. She removed the two bottles of wine and the crisps and headed for the living room sofa. She decided she needed cheering up, and in an effort to achieve this, she put on her Pretty Woman DVD on. She made every effort to watch the film but her mind kept wandering back to Natalie’s disappearance and possible suspects. One large glass of wine soon became two and before she knew it the first bottle was drained. She already felt drunk and should have gone straight to bed. Her third mistake of the night was to ignore the voice in her head, and to open the second bottle. The more she drank, the more maudlin she became. She started to think about Erin, and the tears soon flowed again, but this time she welcomed them. She was disappointed that she had managed to go more than an hour without thinking about Erin, and it scared her. She knew that as the days, weeks, months and years passed she would think about Erin less and less, and she dreaded it happening. At the start of the week, she had imagined spending the rest of her life with Erin, and now she was facing the prospect of spending the rest of her life without her. She wanted to force herself to remember Erin and opted for a second movie. This was her final mistake of the evening: watching Ghost. She had always found it an uplifting movie by the final credits, but on this occasion, it didn’t bring her any respite. She cried herself to sleep, but at least she was thinking about Erin. Sleep during the night had been restless; the alcohol knocked her out, but she wasn’t properly asleep.
Sarah ran her tongue around her mouth: it felt dry. She stumbled from her bedroom to the kitchen, deliberately avoiding the two mirrors en route. She
could imagine the state of her hair and yesterday’s make up, and didn’t need to see the evidence. She was relieved to make it to the kitchen sink before she threw up the bile that had previously settled in her stomach. The cupboard where glasses were stored was at the opposite end of the kitchen, and, fearing a repeat bout of vomiting, she opted to drink water directly from the tap. It had been a while since she had felt this drunk. ‘Never again,’ she told herself, already knowing it was a lie.
Sarah stayed rooted to the spot for half an hour, before she managed to drag herself to the bathroom and into a warm shower. It did nothing for her aching head, but it did wake her up a little bit. She couldn’t decide what to wear, so she remained in her towelling robe, waiting for inspiration. She slumped down on the bed and looked at her clothes, through the open cupboard doors. ‘What to wear, what to wear?’ she thought.
Her attention was caught by the sound of her home telephone ringing. She idly left her bedroom, moved to the hallway and lifted the receiver.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘Sarah Jenson?’ asked a French-accented, deep voice.
‘Yes?’ she replied, a surprised look on her face.
‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ replied the voice. ‘My name is Claude Rêmet. Are you free to speak?’
Sarah’s hung-over-mind was struggling to keep up. Why was a Frenchman phoning her? The penny dropped as she looked at the telephone number on the phone’s display and saw it began with ‘+32’.
‘Who are you?’ Sarah asked, trying not to sound confrontational.
‘I am a journalist, Miss Jenson,’ he replied.
‘Why is a French journalist phoning me?’ she thought to herself. The only response she could muster was that he worked for a British newspaper but was French-born. He must have been trying to write a piece about Natalie’s disappearance. Maybe he worked for a tabloid and was after salacious details of her relationship with Erin.
‘Miss Jenson? Are you still there?’ he enquired.
‘Sorry, yes,’ she replied, having not realised it had been several seconds since she had last spoken. ‘How can I help you, exactly?’
‘I need to speak with you urgently, Miss Jenson,’ came the response. ‘Can you meet with me?’
‘What? No,’ she replied. ‘What do you want from me? Why do you want to meet with me? What story are you chasing?’
‘I do not understand what you are asking, Miss Jenson,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Will you meet with me?’
‘Why should I meet with you?’ she retorted and was unprepared for his response.
‘I have some information about the disappearance of Natalie Barrett,’ he replied. ‘I know who killed her.’
Sarah nearly dropped the phone, as her mouth widened.
‘Who? What? Why?’ she blurted.
‘Meet me later today and I will tell you everything I know.’
‘Why tell me?’ she asked, without thinking. ‘Have you told the police?’
‘Not yet,’ he said quietly, as if he was trying to stop somebody overhear him.
‘Tell the police!’ she demanded. I can give you the number for the lead detective. His name is…’
‘No police, Miss Jenson,’ he interrupted. ‘Not yet.’
‘You need to tell them, Mr, Mr, Mr…what is your name again?’
‘Claude Rêmet,’ he replied.
‘Well, Monsieur Rêmet, you need to tell the police, so that they can go and arrest whoever it is.’
‘In time, Miss Jenson,’ he said, calmly. ‘If I told them now they would not believe me. Meet me today and I will tell you what I know. After that, if you still want me to go to the police, you can take me to your detective.’
Sarah considered this for a moment. The man on the other end of the line could be a lunatic, or a crank-caller of some kind. On the other hand, if she ignored him, she might never find out what had happened to Natalie and Erin.
‘Where do you want to meet?’ she said reluctantly.
‘I can be in Southampton in about six hours. Where should I meet you?’ he answered.
‘Six hours?’ she replied. ‘Where are you travelling from?’
‘I live in Brussels, Miss Jenson.’
It was not the answer Sarah had expected, but at least it explained the vaguely Gallic-accent.
‘Right, okay,’ said Sarah, feeling suddenly flustered. ‘There is an Italian coffee bar, near the train station in Southampton.’ She checked her watch. ‘I can meet you there at five.’
‘Very well, Miss Jenson,’ he replied. ‘I will see you there.’
‘Wait,’ she said, sensing he was about to hang up. ‘How will I know what you look like?’
‘Don’t worry, he replied, ‘I will find you.’
With that, the line went dead. Sarah returned the handset and realised her hands were shaking. Little did she realise that the phone call would alter the course of her life completely.
30
P.C. Kyle Davies parked the unmarked squad car by the side of the road, and switched the engine off. It was nearly lunchtime, and this was the second time he’d parked in this spot today. He had originally arrived at seven that morning, but had been called away to support the pursuit of a serial mugger who had popped up on the radar. By the time he had arrived on scene, the mugger had already been nabbed, and D.I. Vincent had been mightily annoyed that Davies had left his post. He had apologised to his boss and promised he would head straight back, but had taken an unconventional detour past KFC to pick up some boneless chicken. He had used the Drive-thru to speed up his return, as he didn’t feel it unreasonable to be allowed to refuel, especially as he had missed breakfast to attend this stakeout.
Davies hated this area with a passion. Filled with high-rise towers and council-owned property, Thornhill really was a scar on the face of the city. It was the fifth time this week he had come looking for Miles Heath, a registered sex offender, who lived in the house opposite where Davies was parked. It wasn’t a lot to look at: a one-bedroom, terraced property with a small concrete garden at the front, and a couple of ceramic plant pots, void of any life. Davies had never met Heath and the photograph on file was quite dated, so he wasn’t certain whom he was looking for.
Miles Heath had come from money. He had attended private school in West London somewhere, and it was probably his early sexual experiences in the shower rooms of the school that had set him on the unsteady course his life would take. Davies had asked a couple of his colleagues what Heath was like, and they had described him as openly-camp with a flair for indiscretion. One officer had described him as ‘a bit of a Dick Emery,’ but Davies wasn’t sure what that had meant.
There was still a bottle of milk on the doorstep, which suggested that Heath had yet to return to the property. At least that was good news, as Davies knew Vincent would probably kick him off the team if he found that they had missed their target because he had left his post.
Davies unbuckled his seatbelt and moved the cardboard bucket of chicken onto his lap. He wound his window down to help release some of the smell, and then began to tuck into his lunch. It was still hot, thankfully.
‘Any sign yet?’ squawked the radio unit in the car.
Davies quickly swallowed what he was chewing, pressed the talk button and replied, ‘Not yet, Guv. Milk is on the door step so doesn’t look like he is back yet, over.’
Davies knew that Vincent was struggling to come up with a name, for the D.C.I., to confirm who had taken and killed Natalie Barrett. With Jimmy Barrett now out of the frame as well, they were virtually back to square one. Vincent had described the case as ‘vital for justice,’ but in Davies’ opinion what he had meant was ‘vital for Vincent’s career.’ It was the sort of case that would bring Vincent the kind of glory he always seemed to crave. Similarly, failure to crack the case, and Vincent would be hung out to dry.
Davies finished his box of chicken and wiped his hands and face with a paper napkin. As he did, he spotted a dark green, VW camper van pull up two
cars in front. The driver clambered out of the van and started walking towards him. In a panic, Davies began to wind his window back up and desperately looked for something to do, so that it wouldn’t be obvious he was a police officer. The driver stopped outside the car and tapped on the window. Davies looked up and saw a tall man with light grey hair staring back at him. The man was wearing brown, leather driving gloves and his lips were pulled tight in a thin smile. Davies knew it was Heath the moment he spotted the eye liner and crimson blusher on his face.
‘Are you planning on stopping long?’ Heath asked in a friendly manner.
‘Err…I…err…what…err…no,’ Davies stammered.
‘Are you alright, love?’ replied Heath, ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghoul.’
There was no doubting the camp twang belonged to Miles Heath, but he didn’t seem to realise who Davies was or why he might be here.
‘It’s just,’ continued Heath, ‘you’re parked in my space and if you’re not going to be here long, could you move so I can have it? Sorry to be a nuisance. I’ve been away on a trip, you see, and the van’s in a bit of a state. If I leave it parked where it is, the cable from my vacuum won’t reach, whereas if I’m here, it will.’
Davies wasn’t really listening. He was having an argument with himself in his head over whether to arrest Heath now, or to wait and see what he did.
‘Hello? Anyone there?’ Heath cooed.
Davies reached a decision, opened his door and climbed out of the car. ‘Miles Heath?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ came the drawn-out response.
‘I am Police Constable Kyle Davies. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind accompanying me down to the station to answer some questions.’
‘Questions? What about?’
‘About the disappearance of a local school girl.’
‘Am I under arrest?’ asked Heath.
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