by Jane Isaac
***
By the time Helen reached home, Jo had arrived, unpacked and already shared half a bottle of wine with Helen’s mother who looked distinctively relieved (and slightly wobbly) as she excused herself to bed. Helen warmed through the lasagne she’d carried around with her all evening, poured herself a glass of Shiraz, kicked off her shoes and relaxed on the sofa, feet curled beneath her.
She watched her sister-in-law fill her mouth with more wine. Whilst John was tall and lanky, Jo was slim and demure. John’s wide eyes had looked oversized for his face giving him a comical quirk yet, coated in mascara, Jo’s were striking. John’s dark hair stuck up untidily across the top of his head, Jo’s hung down in a sleek, short bob. But he shone out through her face, from the expressions she pulled, right down to the dimple in her left cheek and Helen found the resemblance strangely comforting.
Every part of Helen’s weary body ached. In the midst of a murder enquiry, the last thing she needed was to gossip with a relative she only saw twice a year. “So, what brings you here in the middle of March?” she said as she dug into her dinner.
Jo laughed out loud. “God, Helen. Trust you to be direct! Not interrupting anything, am I?”
Helen smiled. “I didn’t mean that,” she added, rolling her eyes. “It’s just so unusual for you to visit like this.”
“And there’s me thinking you had a man hidden somewhere.” She made a play of looking behind her, down the side of the sofa, bending her head towards the door.
Helen couldn’t resist a chuckle. “Not that exciting, I’m afraid. So, what’s up?”
“Can’t I come visit my nephews?”
“Any time you like. It’s just not like you, that’s all. Nothing wrong, is there?”
“Course not. How are things with you?” she gushed, taking another gulp from her glass.
Helen glanced at her plate and pushed the food around with her fork. “Fine.”
“Fine!” Jo’s voice pitched up a level. “Come on, I haven’t heard from you in ages. What have you been up to?”
“Busy, work, you know.”
“I’m not interested in your work! What about your love life?”
It never ceased to amaze Helen how much interest John’s only sister paid to her relationships. “Non-existent,” she replied.
“Oh, you’re so boring. My brother’s been dead for over ten years now. Don’t tell me you’ve taken a vow of celibacy? Come on. You need a bit of excitement in your life,” Jo continued. “What happened to that Dan fellow last year?”
“Dean,” Helen corrected as she forked another mouthful of lasagne into her mouth.
“Dean, that’s the chap. I remember meeting him at Robert’s birthday bash. Seemed like a great guy. The boys loved him.”
Helen felt herself cringe. This conversation had rapidly moved out of her comfort zone. “Been over for ages.” She shook her head, looked at the floor.
“Oh, what happened?”
Helen recalled Dean’s explanation earlier. If he was right then she was a hot-headed, stubborn woman who’d wrecked the only true relationship of any value since John. But did she believe him? “It’s a long story.”
“When did you last see him?”
Helen wriggled uncomfortably. “Actually… about an hour ago.”
Thoughts of Dean unsettled her. Was he telling the truth about the text message? Or was he a consummate liar? She desperately wanted to believe him, but every time her mind entertained the notion, DS Barren’s pithy words hung in the air around her: ‘still very much married’. And who was he arguing with when she arrived at the cafe this evening? Was it really work? Helen met Jo’s gaze. “Not like that. We’re working on a case together.”
“Really.” Jo nodded, knowingly. “Well, see if you can fit some sex in. You look like you could do with some. All work and no play makes you dull.”
Helen couldn’t resist a smile. Brash was Jo’s middle name. That was one trait she didn’t share with her brother. “What about you?” Helen asked, keen to shift the conversation.
Jo dropped the smile and lowered her eyes to her glass. “Just needed a bit of space.”
“Problems with Tim?”
She looked up. “No… Well, not exactly, not at the moment anyway.” She stretched out the word ‘moment’ and Helen wasn’t sure if this was intentional, or a result of too much wine.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Helen opened her mouth and closed it like a fish in water. Jo was closing in on forty with a senior position in banking, a three figure salary and, by her own volition, never wanted kids of her own. She’d lived with Tim for as long as Helen could remember. “Oh,” Helen said finally.
“I don’t know what to do.” Jo shook her head as she spoke.
Helen stared at her glass for a while. “Does Tim know?”
Jo’s eyes widened. “Absolutely not.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I’m not sure really. When I look at your boys I think, maybe I could do it. They’re so good.”
“I caught Matthew in his room with a girl earlier this evening, in a very compromising position,” Helen said. She had searched for Matthew on her return home, only to find him in bed (on his own this time, much to her relief), uncharacteristically having an early night. She made a mental note to get back early tomorrow evening to catch up with him.
“Oh, come on Helen. He’s sixteen. My cherry had been well popped by that age.”
Helen winced. “Too much information.”
Jo ignored her. “What about my job? I’d have to go back to work.”
Helen cast her mind back fifteen years. When Matthew arrived she had been barely out of university, with no job to speak of. She remembered waiting for maternal instinct to overwhelm her, ready to turn her into a blackberry picking, jam making, Earth mother. She was still waiting two years later, when Robert came along. In spite of the deep love she felt for her children, Helen had never been a natural stay at home mum. Shortly after John’s death she joined the police force and the boy’s grandmother adopted the everyday roles: doing the school run, organising their clubs, baking with them. And Helen rushed home from work to tuck them up in bed when shifts allowed, and took them to the park on her days off.
“They do have nurseries these days. Or maybe you could have a Nanny?”
“Mmmm,” Jo replied, thoughtfully. “Or maybe you could lend me Mrs L?”
They both laughed. Jo had referred to Helen’s mother as ‘Mrs L’ for the whole of their acquaintance, a habit which annoyed Jane Lavery intensely. Jo leant down for the bottle, tilted it to one side to check for any remaining drops.
“How much of that have you had?” Helen asked.
Jo gave a watery smile. “Don’t worry. I’ve only had a couple. Gave most of it to your mother. Thought she could do with letting her hair down a bit.”
Again they laughed. Jo’s mouth followed into a full-blown yawn, which she made no attempt to cover. She reached to the floor and clicked some buttons on a laptop that sat open beside her. Helen watched her, perplexed.
“Facebook,” Jo snorted. “It’s a curse.”
Helen watched Jo shut down her laptop, stretch to the ceiling and give a wry smile. “Well, that’s me, I’m going to turn in.” She leant down and collected her shoes from the floor. “Don’t want to be accused of keeping you from your work now, do I?”
Helen smiled, pushed the half-eaten food aside, stood and gave her a brief hug before watching the door close behind her.
She retrieved Robert’s laptop from the corner of the sofa and switched it on. Helen had opened a general Facebook page under a false name with high privacy levels to enable her to research for work. She found social networking an amazing phenomenon. People were consumed with identity fraud these days, yet they spread their life across Facebook and Twitter like butter on toast. Photos, birthdays, names of pets, hobbies, anniversaries were all on display. Technology made it so
easy to trace people and with this kind of personal information on tap, it wouldn’t be too difficult to guess their passwords. The possibilities for the criminal fraternity were endless.
Helen logged on and searched for Naomi Spence. She recognised Naomi’s ginger tresses in her profile picture immediately. Her wall was full of condolence messages from friends, family, even an old college tutor. She had obviously been very popular.
Helen looked across at the list of her friends. Jules Paton was listed. She clicked to view his page. The last entry he made had been over a week previous. She briefly flicked through his photos. There were many of him and Naomi. Their break up can’t have been acrimonious, at least not on his part. Not enough to remove them. Many of the other pictures featured cars of various types and colours.
She pressed the key to return to Naomi’s page. Again she looked through her friends until she came to Eva Carradine. A blank profile faced her. Helen frowned and clicked on the image to move to Eva’s page. The screen changed. Eva’s account came up, but required she message her or send a friend request and be approved, in order to view her page. Whereas Naomi and Jules’ accounts were open for all to access, Eva had fixed higher privacy settings. As she returned to Naomi’s page, she thought of the holiday the girls had taken. March wasn’t the warmest time of year to go to Milan.
Chapter Fourteen
Helen stretched her arms back. The heat in the incident room made her throat dry. Having finally obtained Eva’s address from DWP first thing, Helen had gone out there to find it empty. She’d spoken to her neighbour, a student named Eleanor, who said she hadn’t seen her for a couple of days, but was able to supply her work details: an insurance firm called Warmton & Co., in Hampton. Enquiries later revealed that Eva had phoned into work sick on Wednesday morning. So, where was she now?
“The informant called the victim several times over the days running up to the murder, sometimes two or three times a day.” Pemberton looked up from the phone records and rubbed his chin.
Helen crossed to his desk and perched on the edge. “Is there any pattern to it?”
He lowered his eyes. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“What is strange is that they also called her one, two, three, four - hell, at least half a dozen times after eight o’clock on Tuesday evening.” Pemberton picked up his pen and tapped it against his lower lip several times. “According to our reports, Naomi was dead by then.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Helen raised a brow and cast her eyes over the sheets.
“And, this is interesting… ” Pemberton leant back in his chair. “Another call was made from Naomi’s missing mobile to the informant on the day after the murder!”
“Somebody’s using her phone,” Helen said. “Get on to the phone company. See if you can find out where that call was made.”
She scanned the listings. There were several calls, some of which were long in duration. A stalker would normally make numerous short calls. Did whoever was using Naomi’s phone know the informant? She thought back to the crime scene. Whoever killed Naomi knew the layout of her house including the open loft space. The level of violence indicated they were looking for a male killer, but the informant was female. Could it be Jules, or Eva, or both? She turned to face the rest of her team. “Still no ID on the informant’s voice?” Heads shook around her. “What else do we know?”
“Got it!” Dark exclaimed. “The camera picked up Eva Carradine’s car on the M6 near St Anne’s services at two o’clock on Wednesday morning.” The room fell silent. She flicked back through her notebook. “Naomi’s parents mentioned last night that Eva’s family have a second home in Scotland,” Dark continued. “Naomi joined them there for a holiday last year. Somewhere near Loch Lomond, but they don’t know the full address.”
“And we still can’t locate Eva’s parents?”
Dark shook her head.
Helen had taken the boys to Scotland on holiday last year. They stopped at services just south of Glasgow, private services offering organic, home cooked food. She remembered it well, the boys, hoping for a fix of fast food, hated it. Even her Mother had grumbled about the choices of couscous and salads. “If I’m right, they are private services. Give them a ring and see if she spoke to anybody. And see if they have any CCTV footage.”
“Right guys, we’ve got technical examining the computer this morning so we’ll see where that leads us. We’ve appealed for anyone with information on Eva and Jules to come forward on the victim’s Facebook page. The feed will appear on their personal pages as well. We’ve also circulated their details to other forces. Let’s concentrate on finding them.”
Just as Helen turned to go to her room, she heard Pemberton’s voice again, “Oh, my.”
She spun round. “What?”
“The address. We asked the phone company to site the call made by the informant’s mobile on Tuesday evening.” He shuffled the papers around on his desk until he found what he was looking for. The room hushed as everyone turned to Pemberton.
“What is it?” Helen asked.
He marched over to the map on the wall. “Thought so.”
Helen sighed loudly, “What?”
“The call to the ambulance service was made from within two hundred metres of Eva Carradine’s address.”
Helen narrowed her eyes and approached the map.
“Look,” Pemberton said.
She followed his finger from Eva’s home across to the victim’s house which was clearly marked, along with other key points: Memington Hall, Jules Paton’s house. She cast her eye down at the scale of the map. “If Naomi returned home from Memington around seven fifteen, cooked dinner, got changed, we estimate she was killed between seven thirty and eight o’clock…” Helen pointed at the two addresses on the map. “That journey would take at least forty minutes. How the hell would anyone have been able to get from Naomi’s house, to here, in less than half an hour?”
Pemberton shook his head. “Couldn’t have done it.”
“Then how did they know Naomi had been attacked?”
***
Eva turned right at the bottom of Kinlochard Hill and onto the winding road that led into town. It was another bright spring day. Slivers of sunshine peeked between broken tufts of cloud. On many a holiday up here, when rain pummelled the mountains and lochs, she’d wished for weather like this. It was ironic it should arrive now, when she would have welcomed rain, or even snow, to flood the narrow roads and cut them all off for a few days.
She gazed across the loch. With the sun’s sparkling rays rebounding off the water, the firs in the background stretching up the mountainside, patchy blue sky beyond… It struck Eva that she had never taken the time to paint the scenery up here. She loved art, especially watercolours, indulging the calming effect on her mood. Maybe if she immersed herself in it now, it would wipe the haunting images from her mind, the feeling of dread that weighted her down.
Eva collected her thoughts. Was that only Tuesday evening? It didn’t seem possible. Naomi – where are you? The desperate need to speak to her friend ate away at her like maggots.
Anger infused her blood, the rage inside her building as it travelled around her body. How could Jules let this happen? She thought back to Friday evening. When they arrived in Granary Avenue to deliver the car to Jules, he’d greeted them at the door with a wide smile, his arms flung out, like they were old friends who’d been away for months.
When they’d ignored his gesture and pushed past him into the hallway, his face had immediately fallen. “Is everything okay?”
The air in the small hallway rapidly became charged as the girls recounted their story. They interrupted each other, voices rose, anger sliced through their words. Naomi started with the window problems, the garage; Eva followed with their panic at the discovery, their terror at being left with no funds, forced to negotiate customs and bring the ‘packages’ back into the UK.
Jules looked genuinely alarmed. But all attempts to intercept w
ith apologies were shouted down. He wasn’t going to wriggle out of this one. As the screams and allegations were joined by Naomi’s tears, red blotches appeared on his neck.
When they finished, he shook his head. “I’m so sorry. It must have been awful for you.”
This is the moment when he tries to empathise, to pretend he’s on our side, Eva thought. Jules was ever the diplomat. He possessed that rare ability of twisting what people said, worming his way into their conscience, much like a politician. But she couldn’t afford to let him kill the moment with phoney explanations and false promises. Not this time.
She turned to Naomi, her eyes peeled back in anger, beseeching her to respond.
Naomi dried her eyes. “Bad people do this sort of thing, Jules,” she said. “Really bad people.”
He buried his eyes in the floor. Swallowed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why don’t you start by telling us who the car is for?” Eva asked.
Desperation crept across his face. “I-I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t? What was in those packets?”
He shook his head.
“Christ, Jules, how could you get mixed up with these sorts of people?” Eva gritted her teeth. “How could you put us in danger, put our future in jeopardy?” She turned to her friend. “How could you do this to Naomi?”
He stepped back, turned to Naomi. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”
Eva had no time for explanations. Naomi always felt like the sister she’d never had. All their life they’d shared secrets and confidences: laughing and partying through the wild teenage years, hugging and crying when Eva argued with her stepfather, flunked university; when Naomi’s cat was run over, her first boyfriend cheated on her, her grandma died. But it was a much changed Naomi that Eva hooked up with after university. All the fun and frivolity of a party girl played beneath the surface, yet there was a lack of confidence in her that Eva had never seen before. She witnessed a torrid relationship with the enigmatic Jules. They seemed drawn to each other, yet there was something unnatural about their relationship. Naomi had developed a social use of cocaine that she couldn’t seem to stop. Two months ago, when Naomi was spending out on more cocaine, unable to keep up her mortgage payments, Jules and Naomi had a huge argument and separated. Not a drug user herself, Eva was secretly pleased. But it didn’t last long, the bond between them drawing them back to each other like moths to a flame.