by Jane Isaac
Helen fleetingly remembered her own wedding at The George Hotel in Hampton centre, a Georgian building that had since been converted into luxury apartments. Both just out of university, their budget tight, her only indulgence was a vintage wedding dress costing just short of two hundred pounds. Her father had still been alive back then and paid for a small reception of forty close family and friends. It couldn’t have cost more than two thousand, all in.
She replaced the folder, closed the drawer and opened the top one. This housed a tidy array of pens, paper clips, a ruler and highlighters. Helen moved on to the middle drawer. It squealed like a kitten’s meow as she pulled it open. Two leather-bound books – one black, one a deep wine red – sat on top of a laptop. She flicked through the pages of the black book. It listed names, times, dates: Naomi’s professional appointments. She turned to last Tuesday. There were two appointments listed for that day. One at 11.00am for the Shaws’ and one at 6.00pm for Michaela Taylor. Both had contact numbers.
She looked through pages of addresses in the other book, and then cast it aside.
A thought struck her. She picked up the diary again and brushed back a couple of pages. Her heart sank. She was hoping for some mention of the holiday, perhaps a name of who she went with and where, but the pages were blank. Frustrated, she put it down on top of the desk. All these items would need to be bagged up, cross referenced and thoroughly examined back at the station.
Her eyes rested on the laptop still in the drawer. It seemed strange to have everything hidden away, no computers on desks, no printers in the corner.
A sudden knock turned her attention to the door. She looked up to see Sergeant Pemberton’s head appear. “Sean.” She beckoned him in, not at all surprised to see the manageress at his tail. “I see you’ve met Phillipa Hartwell?”
He nodded. “Just now.”
Helen turned to face her. “This is Sergeant Pemberton. He’ll be getting things organised here to interview your staff.”
Phillipa stared at them both. “Right, I’ll leave you to it then.”
Pemberton chuckled as he closed the door. “I see she’s not a fan of ‘old bill’ crawling all over her fine establishment.”
“Doesn’t look like it. Any news yet on ballistics? Forensics?”
“Just checked. CSI are still at the property, but hoping to get us a preliminary report by tomorrow morning. They were able to confirm that the powder we found in the bathroom was cocaine though.”
“Is that the best they can do?”
He gave a frustrated nod. “I’ll keep pushing. We’ve just had a call from the paramedics. When they moved the victim from the house to the morgue they found a black button tangled in her hair.”
Helen widened her eyes. “Oh?”
“It’s possible it belonged to a jacket the killer was wearing and became dislodged in the scuffle.”
“Any distinctive features?”
“It bears the mark Toujours. We’re looking into whether that’s some kind of designer clothes brand, to try to identify the item of clothing it belonged to.”
“Excellent. Keep me posted.”
“Oh, and the bullet in the skirting board has been couriered to ballistics. I’ve spoken to my contact there and they’re snowed under with the current drive on outstanding gun crime cases. But he’s going to give us priority. We should hear back within a few days.”
“Good. Any news on Mr Paton?”
“Nothing as yet. We’ve checked with all major ports and he hasn’t left during the last seven days. No sightings of his car on police network cameras either. He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Anything on the victim’s phone records?”
“We’ve been chasing. It should be through any time. Dark’s gone out to support the family and see what extra information she can glean. Spencer’s working through the list of her friends to see if that throws up anything. I’ll just get the guys set up here to take statements and then head back to give him a hand.”
“Okay.” She glanced around the room. “Well, better be off. Don’t want to keep the super waiting, do we?”
Chapter Six
The traffic on the motorway thinned as Eva pressed north. As she passed a Sainsbury’s supermarket lorry in the nearside lane the road stretched out in front of her. An image of Naomi seated at her computer screen entered her head. Where was she now? How badly was she hurt? Eva felt a sharp pang in her chest.
The surrounding countryside had flattened, offering open views across a patchwork of agricultural fields. But her brain refused to focus. Her stomach clenched as her mind wandered back to that day in France where this nightmare began.
A sea of foreign words swam in the garage air around her. Eva’s eyes were glued to the packages in the door panel. Drugs. They had to be drugs. Why else would they be hidden away in the door panelling?
The French mechanic threw his arms up in the air. He spouted words Eva couldn’t understand. She glanced across at Naomi whose gaze was fixed on the door. Her mouth hung open, face petrified. At that moment Eva had no idea what to do.
Suddenly, the Frenchman bent down and collected the screws. Gently moving the packets aside, he rewound the window and replaced the panelling.
As soon as he finished he looked up at her with a mixture of fear and anger in his eyes. He made a shooing motion with his arms. When Eva didn’t move, his voice became excited and he pushed her arm towards the car.
Eva reached down for her purse, but he shook his head vehemently and motioned again for them to leave. She grabbed Naomi, pushed her into the passenger seat and climbed into the driver’s side. The tyres screeched as she spun off the forecourt and down the road out of town.
Neither spoke. Eva pressed her foot to the floor, cornering the mini around sharp bends, down country lanes, through tiny villages, heading in no particular direction. All the time she churned over the events in her mind. Something about the French mechanic’s reaction told her that he wouldn’t call the police. Yet it didn’t stop her race as far away from the town as possible, leaving the incident behind. But it wasn’t left behind. She was taking the packets with her, hidden in the door panelling.
Somebody carefully secreted those packages, knowing the car was being driven back to the UK. Eva didn’t do drugs. She hated what they did to people, what they’d done to Naomi. Her eyes were fixed on the road. Naomi referred to herself as a social user, but Eva knew she struggled to stay away from the stuff. One of the reasons for this holiday was to secure a break from it. And cocaine isn’t cheap.
Anger began to fester like an ulcer in Eva’s chest. She pulled the wheel to the right and braked sharply, bringing the car to an abrupt stop at the side of the road.
“What’s going on?” Naomi said.
“You tell me.”
“What?”
Eva shot Naomi a penetrating stare and jabbed her thumb at the door beside her. “Well, these didn’t pop up out of thin air!”
“I don’t know anything about them.” Naomi’s head shook violently.
“No?”
“Really! I’ve no idea.”
Silence followed. Eva’s stomach reeled. “I don’t believe you,” she snarled.
“Honestly, Eva. Please.”
“I thought you’d given up the drugs?”
Naomi shrunk back. “I have. I promise. I haven’t touched a line in weeks.”
Eva didn’t respond. She turned her attention back to the road, as if it contained a clue that would jump out and grab her.
“Anyway,” Naomi said, filling the silence. “It looks more like heroin than cocaine.”
“Great!” Eva’s voice cracked as she raised a hand to her forehead. “Well, you should know.”
“I’ve never touched heroin. I’m not that stupid. But, I saw a programme on it once. It’s naturally light brown. Cocaine is white.”
“And expensive. Is this how you fund your habit?”
“No!”
Eva turned to face her friend. When she spoke her voice was barely a whisper. “How could you involve me in this?”
“Eva, don’t do this. Please!”
Tears pooled in Naomi’s eyes, just as they had when she was seven-years-old and one of the older girls pinched her skipping rope in the playground. Friends since primary school, they’d lived in the same road, walked to school together, had tea at each other’s houses, played at the local park. Naomi’s parents moved away when she was sixteen but, even though there was a school year between them in age, they stayed in touch. Through college and university, they met up in the holidays. Eva felt like she knew Naomi almost as well as her own family. And Naomi had always been a bad liar. Ever since she was young, when Naomi was lying her right eye twitched slightly, her face coloured. Eva scanned her friend’s face now, but there was no trace of the twitch and her face was ghostlike. “Well, somebody knows it’s here. What do you think?”
Naomi stared back, but said nothing.
“Ring, Jules!”
Naomi looked at her in astonishment. “You’re not suggesting… ”
“You got any better ideas? This was his idea, the holiday, the apartment, the car. Why do you think he offered it to us?”
“He said I needed a break. He was trying to help… ” Naomi shook her head, as if to dismiss the bad thoughts sneaking their way in.
“What about this?” Eva waved her hand towards the door. “He’s used us.”
“No. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Then, how do you explain it?”
Naomi pulled the phone out of her pocket. Eva watched, shifting impatiently in her seat as she pressed the digits and raised it to her ear. After what seemed an age, she shook her head. “Voicemail.”
Eva sighed heavily. She faced the road, considering their options. “I think we should call the police.”
“The police… in France?”
Eva slapped her hand across the steering wheel. “Why not? We haven’t done anything wrong!”
“But they might not believe us, or even understand.”
Eva mulled this over. Naomi had a point. The police would ask a million questions: Where did you stay? Where are you travelling to? Who does the vehicle belong to? They might put them in a cell until they could organise an interpreter. They might not believe them.
Eva drew a deep breath. “Maybe we should empty them out?”
“Leave them here?”
“Why not?”
“What if kids come by and find them?”
Eva climbed out of the car and looked around. They were in a country lane. She could hear the autoroute in the background. She couldn’t see any houses, church spires, outbuildings; just rolling countryside. It would have been a beautiful aspect in different circumstances.
But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t a village somewhere nearby. And the French did love to cycle these country lanes.
She turned to Naomi who had climbed out to join her. “What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. I mean they belong to somebody. Or rather somebody is expecting them. Won’t we get into trouble if we dump them?”
Eva narrowed her eyes. “You’re not suggesting… ”
“I’m not suggesting anything. We just need to think this through.”
“Let’s drive to the nearest town, find an industrial bin and empty them out.” But even as Eva spoke the words, a thought crept into her mind. She looked back at the vehicle, shining in the afternoon sunlight. She had seen a programme on smuggling a few years ago where they stripped a car down to show all the little crevices where illegal goods could be stored: tiny gaps between the ceiling panelling and roof held hand guns, the spare tyre had been opened and filled with packages of drugs. The car could be riddled with drugs and goodness knows what other illegal substances. And how would she retrieve them? She didn’t even have a screwdriver.
“We need to dump the whole car.” Eva spoke slowly as her brain formulated the idea. It seemed the only option. They could leave it for Jules to collect himself. It was his problem. But how would they get home?
The girls sat on the grass verge beside the car and pooled their cash. They barely made fifteen euros between them. Eva cursed herself for maxing out her two credit cards, living life on an overdraft that exceeded its limit until she got paid the following Monday. She only took the holiday because it was a freebie. Jules covered the budget flights out, the short ferry crossing back, arranged for them to have use of his friend’s apartment in Milan. Naomi’s situation was no better. Having drained her account of the last few pounds for spending money, she hadn’t even left sufficient funds to make her next mortgage payment.
They talked about contacting their parents. The idea made Eva recoil. Her parents wouldn’t welcome a telephone call interrupting their holiday in South Africa, even if she could reach them. Especially a call asking for money.
Naomi was convinced her father wouldn’t help, particularly since he knew the holiday was arranged by Jules.
Naomi stood and rubbed her hand across her forehead, knocking her sunglasses off her head. They rattled as they hit the floor. As she picked them up, her face slackened. She faced Eva. “Look, I reckon Jules brought this car in for someone. We know he comes out to the continent all the time to bring in cars. Perhaps they picked this particular car and organised this.”
“I don’t care who organised… ”
“Bad people deal in this sort of thing,” she interrupted. “And they won’t be happy if their goods don’t arrive.”
“I won’t be happy if we get arrested. Christ, Naomi, smuggling illegal drugs into the country? We could go to prison!”
“That’s assuming we get caught. Look, we’re out of choices. We need the car to get home. I say ignore them. In the unlikely event that anyone stops and searches us, we’ll just deny all knowledge. It’s not our car, remember?”
Eva stood very still for several minutes, working her options. There had to be a way out of this. Every sinew in Eva’s body screamed that this was a bad idea. But what was the alternative? Wherever they dumped them here, they might get into the wrong hands, a child even. “I don’t believe I’m doing this.”
Eva swallowed and turned her attention back to the road in front of her. She caught the large blue sign for Glasgow at the last minute and swung a sharp left onto the slip road. A lorry blew its horn, but she ignored it. What mattered now was to get as far away from Hampton as possible. She needed time to think.
Chapter Seven
Helen spotted Superintendent Jenkins as soon as she entered the incident room. He was stood at the window in her office, staring out at the car park below. Although not a particularly tall man at five foot, nine inches, his mere presence seemed to shrink the room to a tiny box.
She halted in the main office to fill a plastic cup from the water dispenser. Spencer twisted in his seat to face her. “Morning, ma’am.” He followed her eye line. “He’s been in there for twenty minutes.”
Helen’s heart sank. Jenkins was known for his diplomatic approach to policing. There were brief moments when he’d shown great support, lent inspirational knowledge to a case, but only when it fit with current policy targets. He disliked protracted investigations and switched allegiance as quickly as a dirty politician. “Any new developments?” she asked.
He shook his head.
She emptied the cup, chucked it in the bin and moved forward uttering, “Okay, cover me.” Spencer’s grin warmed her back as she approached her office.
Jenkins turned as soon as the door clicked open. “Morning, sir.” She scooted past him, dropping her briefcase and bag behind the desk.
“Helen.” He moved around and settled himself into the chair opposite, crossing one leg over another. His right foot, suspended in the air, twitched slightly. “You’ve had another shooting?”
The word ‘you’ve’ was not lost on Helen. She didn’t answer immediately. Instead she sat behind the desk and leant down to retrieve her notes
from her briefcase. She gathered his testiness was due to her being out of the office. Jenkins was certainly no fan of her preference for the hands-on approach to interviewing witnesses. He preferred his DCIs to manage an investigation from a desk where they collated evidence, read witness statements taken by DCs and barked orders at their team. Losing her inspector to sick leave had only bolstered him further. He’d amped up the pressure these past few months, but she’d fought it every inch of the way. The matriarchal approach just wasn’t Helen’s style and it vexed Jenkins intensely.
Striking in appearance, his dark eyebrows and lashes contrasted with a full head of combed back, grey hair. But Helen had noticed a marked difference in him since he’d been passed over for promotion the previous year. His eyebrows hung deeper over his eyes, the frown marks more prominent in his forehead. He’d always been a private man, lacking humour (unless it was of his own making) but he emerged even more driven, focusing heavily on targets and public relations.
“Sir?”
He adjusted his position and she caught a brief whiff of his aftershave. “So, where are we?”
Helen flipped open her notes. In the short time they had worked together she’d grown accustomed to his not reading her situation reports, although he cursed like hell if they weren’t emailed to him at the appropriate time. She sat back in her chair and gave him a brief overview of the case.
“We’re building up a picture of Naomi’s life at the moment,” she said as she finished up and closed her notebook, “particularly her last hours. And we’ve circulated Jules Paton’s details nationally in an effort to locate him.”