by Jane Isaac
The difficulty was catching him in the act. Many police operations were planned and executed. Some led to prosecutions. But nobody talked and none led them to Chilli himself. He may parade around with his posh car and five bedroomed house, dodging the tax man and evading the police. He may market himself as a reformed character. But Helen knew what he really was: Rotten to the core. Some things never change.
***
The clock on the dashboard read five o’clock as Helen turned into Leicester Forest East Services. The parking area was thick with vehicles, pushing her far from the entrance, near the lorry park, in search of a space.
Helen crossed the car park quickly. The sweet smell of nicotine curled her nostrils as she reached the entrance. She stepped over a used Burger King box, reached in her bag and placed a mint in her mouth. Anything to keep the buried nicotine cravings at bay.
Bodies swarmed the doors. She stood aside to let an army of teenagers out and held the door for a mother wrestling with a double buggy, the twin toddlers fast asleep inside, ignorant of their mother’s difficulties.
Helen located the sprawling restaurant and glanced around. It teamed with bodies, the sports car event at nearby Donington Park drawing more travellers to the road than usual on a March Saturday afternoon. She strained her eyes to see a girl with long blond hair and blue eyes. It was a hopeless task amongst the mass of occupied tables.
She decided to wander around. On the phone earlier, Eva had said she was unable to use her mobile. They agreed that Eva would sit alone and place a closed copy of Red magazine next to a can of Coca-Cola on the table to indicate her presence.
Helen passed tables of families eating meals, elderly couples drinking coffee, young lovers holding hands, a table of teenagers clicking on their mobile phones. Time passed slowly. Her arms itched in agitation. Had Eva changed her mind?
Helen tripped on the outstretched foot before she saw it. In her haste to retain balance, she flew sideways against the broad bicep of a middle aged man.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, straightening her jacket around her. He waved her away and she turned to scowl at the owner of the outstretched leg: a tall, stringy man who had curled himself into the chair, but simply couldn’t fit his legs beneath the table. He looked up, mouthed an apology. But Helen didn’t hear it. Her attention was taken elsewhere as a flash of red caught her eye.
She raised her head to meet the gaze of the single lady seated at the table for two.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eva Carradine sat in the front seat of Helen’s Honda and stared out at the sea of cars clogging the car park.
The black hair and severe fringe had initially thrown Helen. She’d glimpsed the magazine, the can, then instinctively glanced over her shoulder. But as she turned back to Eva, the mixture of apprehension and fear behind her large blue eyes was enough to convince Helen that this was her girl.
Once introductions were over, Helen suggested they leave the restaurant and seek the relative privacy of her car. She didn’t want their conversation overheard. Eva had followed her silently, looking about suspiciously as they crossed the car park.
Helen crossed her ankles and clasped her hands together as she spoke, “How can I help you, Eva?”
Eva turned her head. “You wanted to see me?”
Helen paused for a moment, maintaining eye contact. “We have been seeking to talk to you in connection with Naomi Spence’s murder. Is that the only reason you contacted us earlier? Only, on the phone you said you needed help?”
Eva averted her eyes, as if she wasn’t sure what to say next or perhaps how much to say.
“Eva, I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”
Silence hung in the car for several seconds. Eventually, Eva raised her hand to her head. “It’s all such a mess. I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, why do you think you need help?”
Helen watched Eva remove her hand, then shake her head. “No, I need to start way beyond that.”
For the next twenty minutes, Eva told her story, starting with the holiday that she had taken with Naomi at Jules’ friend’s apartment in Milan, how they had flown out there and driven back through Italy, Switzerland and France to deliver a Paul Smith Mini, a special order for a client of Jules - the favour securing them a free holiday. Eva’s account was surprisingly detailed, as if she had turned these events over in her mind many times over the last few days.
“We delivered the car and thought it was all over,” she said. She cast her eyes to the floor. “Then Naomi received a call on her mobile on Saturday evening.”
Helen sat forward, but said nothing.
“I remember the look of surprise on her face, she didn’t recognise the voice. Then it changed to fear.” Eva shuddered. “All he said was that he wanted what was missing from the car. We had forty-eight hours to return it, or there’d be trouble. And if we contacted the police, we’d regret it.”
“And what was missing?”
“No idea. The call scared us. We panicked. Naomi phoned Jules and relayed the message. She screamed down the phone at him. He just kept saying it was a misunderstanding and we had nothing to worry about. That he was going away to sort it and he’d be back in a few days. But he wouldn’t tell us who they were.”
“Where was he going?”
“I don’t know. Naomi was in pieces.”
“What about you?”
“I was terrified. We both were. But I almost felt numbed. The anger kind of took over. I just kept thinking how could Jules do this to us.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes for a second. “We were scared. We just wanted it all to go away.”
“And you had no idea who was on the end of that call?”
“No. Naomi said it was a husky, male voice. Anyway, a couple of days passed and nothing happened. I thought it was sorted. Then… ” Her voice faltered.
Helen needed to keep her talking. Right now she needed to get as much information as possible. She couldn’t afford to let emotions get in the way. “What do you know about Jules?”
Eva shrugged. “Jules is everybodys’ friend. He’s one of those people that worm their way into your life and you can’t get rid of them.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I don’t like what he did to Naomi. She was always a nice girl. But he changed that.”
“Was he ever violent towards Naomi?”
“No! But to be honest, you’re not the first to ask. Other people noticed bruises on her. Naomi was clumsy. Always falling over, knocking herself. When we were kids she’d have bruises all up her legs. She even fell at work last year and gave herself a black eye.” The car turned quiet. People moved about in the car park beyond, but it was almost like a television going on in the background with the sound turned down. Eva’s face clouded. “How did she die?”
Helen recalled the details of the autopsy report and decided to hold some information back. “She was shot.”
Eva drew a sharp intake of breath. “Jules said we were safe. He promised. I didn’t know she was dead.” Her head dipped as she choked on her words.
Helen reached into her bag for a tissue and passed it across as the tears that flowed developed into soft sobs. She reached out, placed an arm around Eva’s shoulder and pulled her close. It was an unorthodox gesture, something that wouldn’t have been approved of, or adopted by her colleagues back at the station. But then they wouldn’t have approved of such surreptitious meetings either.
As Eva’s breathing started to regain some normality, Helen asked the question that had been tormenting her. “How did you know Naomi had been attacked?”
Eva sat up straight in her seat, wiped her nose and turned towards her. “I saw it.”
This was what Helen had been waiting for. But the fact that the phone company sited the call near Eva’s house, forty minutes drive from Naomi’s, still puzzled her.
“You were there?”
Eva bit the side of her lip. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were talking to each other online over Skype. I saw the hand swipe around her mouth and the struggle in the background through my webcam.”
Helen almost screamed out - of course! She thought back to Naomi’s house: the desk in the corner, the lopsided chair on the floor next to it. But she’d asked the station technology experts to examine Naomi’s computer on Thursday morning. Surely they must have been able to verify that Naomi was logged onto her Skype account and who she was talking to. Perhaps they sent their results to Dean’s team, now he’d officially taken over the investigation. If so, why hadn’t he shared this information?
Helen looked at Eva. “This is really important.” She paused briefly. “What exactly did you see?”
“It was all a bit of a whirlwind. The images kept breaking up, and it was only a minute or so before someone turned Naomi’s webcam off.”
“Anything will help. Take your time.”
“Okay.” Eva bit her lip and chewed it a moment. “Well, we’d only just connected. Naomi was sad. I knew she was struggling - she couldn’t push the phone call, the threats out of her mind. Then she heard a noise and said there was somebody in the house.”
“Did you see the attacker?”
Eva shook her head. “Just a black, gloved hand and an arm. It looked like maybe he had a black leather jacket on.”
“Are you sure it was a man?”
“Pardon?”
“You said ‘he’.”
“The images were blurred, but he looked hefty, much bigger than Naomi.” Eva nodded her head. “Yes, it looked like a man.”
“When you say hefty, do you mean heavy built or tall?”
“The images were blurry. I-I can’t be sure.”
Helen glanced across. “What about facial features, clothes, hair?”
Another head shake. “Too difficult to tell.”
“Eva, this is important. Did you recognise him?”
“No. I had no idea she was dead. Really.” Her voice was barely audible. “I thought they might have hurt her, but not…”
“You phoned the ambulance?”
Eva nodded.
“Why did you run?”
“I could hardly go to the police, could I? I thought Naomi might be in hospital. I tried ringing her several times.”
Helen blinked. That explained the calls on Naomi’s phone log, made after she died. “How did you find out?”
“When I saw the police car outside my parents’ bungalow, I panicked. I drove down to Glasgow. My phone was dead, so I went to an internet cafe and saw the notice on Facebook. I couldn’t believe it. Still can’t.” Her voice splintered. She stared into space.
“So, why contact us today?”
Eva explained about the note from Strathclyde police and the text messages she received from Naomi’s missing phone, after the murder.
Helen narrowed her eyes. “And you’re sure the second message was today?”
“Yes, why?”
Helen thought about the first call made from a location in Roxten. It was possible it could have been Jules. But the second came after he died. And she didn’t recall a mobile phone on the inventory of evidence recovered from Jules’ house. “I just want to make sure we have our facts right, that’s all,” she said.
“They’re coming for me, aren’t they?” Eva said softly.
“We don’t know that for sure. It might just be scaremongering.”
“There’s something else.” Eva pushed her fringe to one side. “Jules promised to deal with the problem, but I haven’t been able to contact him since Tuesday evening. We need to get to him urgently. He could be in danger too.”
Helen paused for a second before she answered. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but Jules Paton is dead. His body was found on Thursday morning.”
***
Helen peeled the lids of two milk cartons and tipped the contents into the mug of tea. When they did little to lighten the colour, she opened another two, and added several sachets of sugars before passing the mug to Eva.
A couple of calls verified the guest house visitor to be a legitimate member of Strathclyde CID. Spencer was right. Although their assistance had been cancelled, word hadn’t got through to the field. But it was the caller using Naomi’s missing mobile that really bothered Helen.
Following Eva’s revelations, Helen knew she had to act fast. Her priority was to keep Eva safe. She remembered a hotel she’d been to for a cross-border police conference, a couple of years earlier. She pulled off at junction twenty of the motorway and found it easily on the Leicestershire border, just off the main road.
After a brief call to Pemberton, Helen checked Eva in under a false name, paid on her own credit card and moved her into the room. A cloud of silence had descended over Eva since she had heard the news of Jules’ death.
“How are you feeling?” Helen asked, dragging a throw off the bed and draping it around Eva’s shoulders to alleviate any possible shock affects.
Eva raised a pallid face and nodded her head slightly. “Okay.”
“Can I get you anything to eat?”
She shook her head.
Helen smiled gently. “You’re safe here, Eva. Nobody knows where you are.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
Helen glanced around the room, giving her a moment to compose herself. It was one of those modern boutique hotels. The wall behind the fuchsia pink bed was papered in a subtle, black and white floral print, and it faced a plain white wall with a flat-screen TV. Eva sat on a black chair in the corner beside the long window, obscured by pink curtains with black tie backs. In the other corner was a round glass table with two metal chairs. The en suite bathroom was located in a short hallway leading to the entrance, and faced a built-in selection of wardrobes and cupboards, obscured by two long mirror doors. The room was bright and clean, but felt superficial.
She briefly turned over Eva’s account in her mind. Something was wrong, a missing link. “How long have you known Naomi and Jules?”
Eva took a sip of her tea before she answered, “I grew up with Naomi. We lived in the same road until she was sixteen.”
“You kept in contact after she moved?”
Eva nodded. “Even when she went off to university in London and I followed on to Southampton we spoke through email, saw each other in the holidays.”
“You came back to Hampton after you finished university?”
“Kind of. Well, I didn’t actually finish my degree. Flunked out, just after the start of final year. Met a guy… ”
Helen nodded. “How did you meet Jules?”
“When I came back to Hampton, we hooked up and had a night out. Naomi was already seeing Jules, so she brought him and I brought Nick, the boyfriend I gave up my course for.”
The line was definite. Helen knew the answer before she asked the question. “You’re not with Nick anymore?”
“Nope. Finished soon after.”
“You’ve known Jules a while, then?”
Eva sighed. “I guess so. He seemed to know all the right people to get us into the best clubs and parties. Naomi had contacts through her job too. We had a great time.” She hesitated, glanced out of the window. “In some ways I looked up to him. He’d left uni midway through a course too, but he’d managed to make a success of his life, with his own business. In spite of everything, even his parents disowning him, he still did alright.” She swallowed. “I just can’t believe this… ”
“How was his relationship with Naomi?” Helen continued.
“They had a love-hate relationship.” Eva squirmed uncomfortably. “Always arguing. They kept splitting up and getting back together. It was like they couldn’t live without each other.”
“Because of the drugs?” Helen stared at Eva. As expected, the question knocked her sideways.
“Pardon?”
“Oh, com
e now. We both know Naomi was using. Jules too.”
Eva wriggled uncomfortably, but said nothing.
“There’s no room for secrets, Eva,” Helen continued. “Were you using too?”
“No!” The change in Eva’s inflection left Helen in little doubt she was telling the truth. “I don’t touch the stuff. A friend of mine, Sadie, took ecstasy during Freshers’ Week at uni. One minute she was all over the dance floor, the next she crashed to the floor.” Eva’s eyes glazed over as she recalled the memory. “An ambulance took her to hospital.” She shook her head, almost disbelieving her own story. “It was heat exhaustion. Apparently ecstasy numbs your senses and she hadn’t had enough fluids. She almost died.” Eva paused and looked up at Helen. “I used to worry about Naomi. I told her about Sadie, but she wouldn’t listen. She said cocaine was different.”
“Is that why Jules arranged the holiday?”
Eva gave her a suspicious look. “What?”
“Were they arranging to bring something back? Drugs maybe?”
“No! Naomi wouldn’t do that.” Eva’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat as she continued. “They had a big bust up, a couple of months ago. Only Jules wouldn’t accept it. He kept turning up on her doorstep. Naomi couldn’t decide what she wanted. She was tired. He needed to bring the car back, so arranged our flights out and ferry crossing back. He said the holiday would give her a break to sort her head out.”