by Jane Isaac
Her body started juddering.
“I’m going to remove my hand now,” he said. “Any noise, any whimper, and I shoot one of the kids.”
She nodded.
He removed his hand. “If you’re thinking of calling the cops, just remember I’ll be watching you. All of you. How is your niece getting on at nursery these days?”
She shrank back in the bed. He surveyed her for a moment with hardened eyes, before he turned and left the room.
Nate tucked his gun in his pocket as he made his way out down the alley at the side of the house. He was sure she wouldn’t call the police. She was tangled in this web as well. And where would she go for her next gram?
Nate didn’t understand the craving for drugs. He’d dabbled over the years, mainly amphetamines and cannabis, but none gave him the shot of adrenalin he experienced after a kill. That was his very own hit of cocaine.
He paused, removed his gloves, formed two fists and knocked them together like a boxer. His gold sovereign rings banged together. Clink, clink, clink. He was THE MAN.
Chapter Four
Jules Paton lived on Granary Avenue, a quiet, tree-lined arrangement of late nineteenth century, three storey terraces on the edge of Hampton centre. Having obtained details of Jules’ black BMW from the incident room, Pemberton spent a couple of minutes driving up and down, scouring the nose to tail cars that lined the curb. When the search proved ineffectual, he parked up at the nearest available space to number fifty-three.
In contrast to the other houses in the row, the curtains at Jules’ house were undrawn. Darkness seeped out of the long sash windows. An old, mock Victorian light shone in the tiny, open porch of the house next door.
Helen was aware that they faced a potentially dangerous situation, possibly an armed killer. And without intelligence or evidence implicating Jules, they couldn’t bring in the armed response team to assist in the arrest. Although Jules’ car was missing, she was also conscious he could still be nearby - he wouldn’t be the first offender to have hidden his car. She called the control room, alerting the duty inspector to their whereabouts so that back up, if needed, would be available quickly.
Helen and Pemberton exited the car to a blanket of silence. Even the gentle closing of car doors sounded like trombone notes at this late hour. The air was clear and the snow that had fallen earlier was melting rapidly; a few cotton wool coverings on tree branches, a smattering on the odd patch of grass, the only remnants of its visit. Helen looked enviously at the houses enveloped in darkness, all wrapped up for the night, the owners asleep in their beds.
“Looks pretty deserted,” Pemberton said as they approached.
Helen opened the front gate into a pocket size, paved garden and peered through the window into a sitting room. Two small, dark sofas sat on a wooden floor facing a black, wrought iron fireplace. A flat-screen TV stretched across the chimney breast. A plain rug lay on the floor beneath.
Pemberton withdrew his head from the letterbox. “There’s a bunch of post down there,” he said. “I don’t reckon he’s been here in a while.
Helen glanced back through the window. The room was so tidy it looked as though it had been primed for a house viewing.
“Can I help you?”
Helen jumped at the voice. She darted round to face a short man with grey hair and inordinately long, fluffy sideburns. He jerked back, momentarily startled. The oversized fleece he wore gave him the appearance of a hobbit.
She quickly recovered herself, reached into her pocket and flashed her ID.
“Hampton Police,” Pemberton said, as he proffered his own badge.
Only then did Helen notice that the man was actually standing in the garden next door, a metre high stone wall separating them. “I’m DCI Lavery and this is DS Pemberton,” she said. “We were just hoping to have a word with Mr Paton.”
“Jules?”
She nodded.
“He’s not there, been away a few days.” He flicked his head briefly towards his own front door. “The wife’s feeding the cat.”
Helen glanced up at the neighbouring house. Dark ivy snaked up and interlocked around the downstairs window. An empty hanging basket hung beside the porch. “You live here?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask for how long?”
“Twenty years.” He screwed up his eyes. “What’s all this about?”
“Just some routine enquiries,” she said. “How long has Mr Paton been your neighbour?”
He shrugged. “About eighteen months.” He looked from one detective to another. “This sounds serious.”
She ignored his comment. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name?”
“Stuart Wilson.”
“Thank you, Mr Wilson. Do you have any idea where he has gone?”
“Away for a while.” He pushed his mouth down at the corners. “Didn’t say where. The wife is feeding the cat until Saturday.”
“Do you have a contact number for him?”
“No. All I know is the wife spoke to him before he left. You’re welcome to call round and speak to her, although I doubt she’ll be able to tell you any more. She’ll be here in the morning.”
“We’ll be back in the morning then.” Helen ran her eyes over his clothes. Underneath the large fleece he was wearing navy overalls.
He caught her interest. “I’ve just come in from work,” he said. “On the late shift at Blewsons warehouse round the corner.”
Helen smiled and nodded. “Thank you for your help.” She pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it over. “If you do see or hear from Mr Paton, could you call this number?”
After taking down the Wilsons’ contact details, they made their way back to the car in silence. It wasn’t until they were inside, battling with seat belts over heavy overcoats, that Pemberton eventually spoke up, “Why would a man, who has gone away for a while, secretly return to his ex-girlfriend’s house and crawl through the open loft space to beat and murder her?”
“The holiday could be an alibi.”
“Maybe she’d met someone else?” Pemberton said. He blew into his hands and rubbed them together.
“They were separated.”
“Perhaps he still harboured feelings for her?”
Helen shook her head. She didn’t buy the spurned lover argument. “More like she had something, something that was worth a lot of money to him; something that was worth pulling her house to pieces to find.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Drugs, maybe? Henry Spence suggested they were both users. She wouldn’t be the first to store it in her loft. Perhaps he thought he’d help himself and when it wasn’t there, got angry?” Pemberton rested his hands in his lap and stared out into the darkness as he considered this theory. “It would also explain why he beat her first,” Helen added.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, why engage in combat? If you have a gun, you can kill from a distance. No need to get your hands dirty. Whoever did this had a good go at her, then practically wrecked the house looking for something.”
“Must have been expecting a fair bit,” Pemberton said.
“What?”
“Well you wouldn’t go to that much trouble for a line of coke, would you?”
Helen was only half listening now. Another thought was picking away at her brain: If Jules was the murderer, who was the female informant? And where was she now?
***
Hours later, Eva’s feet sank into the sand. She heard a noise overhead and sat forward, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. The sight of the aeroplane relaxed her shoulders. Where was it heading? Bermuda maybe, or the Bahamas? The sky was a beautiful cornflower blue, brushed clear of clouds, the sun in the corner stretched down, sinking into her welcoming skin. She angled her head and looked across at the ocean. The tide was coming in, rapidly moving up the beach with every lap. She could smell the salt. It looked clear, icy, inviting…
A peripheral
sound distracted her. Tap, tap, tap. She blinked, shook her head and glanced around. Tap, tap, tap.
Eva jumped in her car seat, abruptly awakened from her dream. Her stomach dropped.
The man stood still, before he moved forward and proffered a card.
She stared at the photo on the card before raising her eyes. His light brown hair had thinned, opening his widow’s peak into a half moon across the front of his head; his cheeks had sunken into hollow grooves beneath his cheekbones, but there was no doubt it was him. The card read St Anne’s Car Park Security.
He removed the card and mimed for her to wind down the window. She wound it down slowly and stopped half way. The key was in the ignition. She quickly pressed her left foot down on the clutch, slipped the car into gear and allowed her left hand to hover over the handbrake, the right hand on the steering wheel. Any sudden movements, she thought to herself, and I’ll turn the key.
“Miss?” His voice was loaded with a strong, Glaswegian drawl. “You can’t sleep here.” She followed his right arm which pointed to a sign about twenty metres ahead of her: Parking for two hours maximum. No camping, no sleeping. “This is a private car park,” he continued. “There’s a motel next door if you need to get some kip.” He pointed to the modern, brick motel next to the fuel station.
Her mind switched back to the events of the night before. She remembered driving on an endless road for hours, following lights ahead of her that turned off periodically. But she kept going, not daring to stop. She remembered the fatigue setting in. The weariness overcame her as she had closed one eye to rest it, then the other. She couldn’t allow herself to sleep. Her speed slipped to 50mph. She’d opened the window and turned up the radio.
Finally, when she’d exhausted all her reserves, she pulled into the services, intending to stop in the car park and close her eyes for five minutes before topping up with petrol and moving off again. All she needed was a power nap.
Eva swept her eyes across the dashboard to the clock. Seven thirty in the morning. She’d slept for almost six hours. A feeling of dread crept down her back as she recalled Tuesday evening’s events.
“Miss?”
Eva nodded and turned over the engine. She needed to get moving, and fast.
Chapter Five
‘Emergency Services. Police, fire or ambulance?’
‘Ambulance.’
‘Just connecting you.’
‘Ambulance Service. What is your location?’
‘Eight Brooke Street, Hampton.’
‘May I take your name?’
‘She needs an ambulance urgently.’
‘Can you tell me… ’
Click.
Helen pressed a button on her laptop and looked across at Phillipa Hartwell. She hadn’t been at all surprised to find the manageress of Memington Hall expecting her when she arrived unannounced at nine thirty that morning. They sat in her oak panelled office where a sweet, pleasant scent filled the air from the kind of perfume that lingered when someone passed. An oil painting of a man from the eighteenth century stared at Helen from the far wall.
“Do you recognise that voice?” Helen asked.
Phillipa shook her head and blinked her long lashes with aplomb. “I’m afraid not.”
Helen shut down her laptop. It wasn’t surprising really. The phone line crackled throughout the recording and the caller’s voice displayed no particular accent, no clear distinguishing features. The informant was, as her mother would say, ‘cleanly spoken’. It could have been any one of thousands of women in the locality. And the recording lasted less than twenty seconds.
Helen watched Phillipa sit back and smooth a crease in the red shift dress that fitted neatly around her small frame. A Gucci watch peeped from beneath the sleeve of her jacket. She guessed that she was in her mid thirties, like herself, although she couldn’t imagine forcing her own body into that dress every day, coiffing her hair into a similar French pleat that didn’t move with her head and decorating her face in a manner resembling a beautician on a night out. These days Helen squeezed herself into size twelve trouser suits, and tied her hair back loosely. “Why don’t you tell me what sort of person Naomi Spence was?” she asked.
Phillipa averted her gaze momentarily, as if she was looking for the right words. “She was well liked. Popular with the clients. Indeed my best achiever in terms of sales. We are all deeply saddened and shocked by her loss.”
“What was her position?”
“Events planner. Mostly weddings, but we also do conferences and parties. I’ll give you a brochure before you leave, if that would help?”
“Thank you. What about her work record?”
Phillipa laced her fingers together on the desk in front of her. “Good. She was punctual, reliable.”
“Are you aware of anyone that may wish to hurt her? Perhaps an upset client?”
“Not at all. I can assure you on that front. Naomi was a professional. And my door is always open. If there had been a problem, I would have known.”
Helen reflected on her meeting with Naomi’s parents. Her dad’s account gave the impression that Naomi was a changed character these past two years. And then there was the recent relationship break-up. She leant forward. “So, you haven’t noticed a difference in her recently?”
“She did separate from her boyfriend a couple of months ago,” Phillipa said, lifting her eyes. That seemed to affect her a bit.”
“In what way?”
“She was quiet, withdrawn for a while. A couple of weeks ago she came to see me, to request some leave. I gave her two weeks off.”
A muffled tinkle sounded in the background. Helen watched her retrieve a thin mobile from her jacket and stroke the screen. “Do excuse me for a minute.”
As she stood and turned to face the window, Helen looked past her to the view beyond. A decorative, stone staircase led from the deep patio below the window up a pathway between two cleanly manicured lawns. Roman statues sat in the middle of each lawn which were edged with short, neat privet hedging, sculptured into topiary balls at each corner. The vista beyond included a bridge over a river, trees in the distance. The morning sun had fought its way through the clouds and was now bouncing off the stonework. It looked almost too perfect, like a painting in a gallery.
It couldn’t have looked more different to the square of lawn and brown shed that formed the view out of Jenny Wilson’s kitchen window earlier that morning. Proving less than a five minute detour from her journey, Helen had called in to see Jenny on her way to Memington Hall. Arriving just before eight thirty, a round woman with a ruddy, jowly face met her at the door. Jenny greeted Helen with an inquisitive smile, as if this were the only exciting event to occur in her life for many years. Her chest heaved as she led Helen through the narrow hallway, past the open door to the lounge where Jeremy Kyle blared out from the television and into the small kitchen at the back, where they’d sat together at a polished pine table. But any hopes of discovering a clue as to Jules Paton’s location were quickly dashed. Although Jenny’s account took her twenty minutes to relay, it held nothing more than what her husband had told them the night before. That Jules had gone away last Sunday and wasn’t due back until this weekend.
Phillipa turned back and pocketed her phone. “Sorry about that. Where were we?”
“You granted leave.”
“Ah, yes - I believe Naomi went away on holiday with a friend. To Italy I think. She returned to work on Monday.”
“Do you know who she went with?”
Phillipa shook her head. “No.”
“How has she been since her return?”
“I’m afraid I can’t really say. I’ve been away at a conference the last couple of days and have only spoken to her on the phone since she’s been back. But she seemed fine.”
***
Nobody noticed the man in a baseball cap, skulking in Granary Avenue that morning. Nate had become accustomed to sinking into the background. He’d stood beside the flaked trun
k of the plane tree opposite Paton’s house and watched Helen arrive. Just like last night when he’d spied on her as she checked out Jules’ place with her colleague. Everything about the detective chief inspector screamed of police. But there was a clean prettiness in her complexion. And with her softly curved frame, the long dark hair messily tied back, the crisp white shirt that stretched across her chest… Nate felt a stirring in his groin. Her tenacity was impressive. Especially since she didn’t know he was there. Watching, waiting.
He fisted his hands and knocked his sovereign rings together. Clink. Clink. Clink.
***
Naomi’s room at Memington shared the same wood panelling, latticed window, oil painting of a man in eighteenth century dress, but was half the size of the manageress’. A similar oak desk was situated in front of the window and beside it a bookcase jammed with old books that looked as if they hadn’t been touched in years. In the other corner was an arrangement of French style chairs around a low table.
Helen checked her watch. She’d just taken a call from the superintendent. He wanted her back at the station and had sent Pemberton to relieve her, ringing off before she could ask why. Helen sighed. Time was tight. And Phillipa Hartwell hadn’t given her much to work on. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, remembering her father’s motto: ‘the devil is in the detail.’ He loved this quote, which formed the basis of every investigation he managed - note everything, however insignificant it may seem at the time, because you never know when you might need it.
She pulled the latex gloves out of her bag and wriggled her hands into them. Apart from an old-fashioned blotter, the top of the desk was completely clear - no desk tidy, no photographs, no in-tray, no computer. She thought back to Phillipa Hartwell’s office. Her desk was in the same immaculate condition. Either they didn’t do any work around here, or it was all locked away somewhere.
On closer inspection, the desk was not as old as it initially appeared, more like a reproduction of an eighteenth century version. She ran her finger over it, the rubber clinging to the varnished oak. The blotter was neatly laid over a green leather inset and there were three drawers down one side. Helen opened the bottom drawer first and immediately came face to face with Naomi’s workload. Hanging files contained pink envelope folders, marked with names and dates of clients. She opened one named ‘Taylor - Letts Wedding 16 July’ to find a timetable, a page of notes that looked like they were taken at a meeting and a spreadsheet of prices. Curious, she scanned down to the total, which read £21,653.47, and balked. It was astonishing what people spent on weddings these days.