Blood Ties: Obsession, secrets, desire and murder (A Jack Le Claire Mystery)

by Kelly Clayton

  “I don’t give a damn what you say. I demand to see my wife. This is a bloody outrage, so it is. I want to see her and see her now.”

  The desk sergeant’s response was measured but firm. “Sir, I have explained that it is not possible for me to give you any information. If you wait in the seating area, I will get someone to come and see you.”

  “And I’ve told you that isn’t bloody good enough.”

  Ana kept her head down. This looked like it was going to get explosive.

  “Sir, if you carry on like this, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “You can ask, but I won’t go. I want to see Lena Davies, and I want to see her NOW!”

  The voice ended on a roar, and Ana’s head snapped up, only to see a familiar face. Basil Davies. He looked distraught, and there was obviously something wrong with Lena. He was an absolute toad, but he was going to be in serious trouble if he carried on like this. She turned, laid a hand on his arm.

  “Mr Davies, Basil, are you all right?”

  He stilled as he looked at her, and his eyes widened in surprise. He nodded and shifted his gaze to the desk sergeant. “I think I will wait over there. In fact, why don’t I leave my number, and if someone calls me, I’ll come back later.” He handed over a card and headed to the door.

  As he walked past Ana, her eyes widened in shock as a sharp slug of memory hit deep in her gut. The smell, cloying and sickening, made her gag – the aftershave. It was him. It was Basil Davies that had attacked her. Ana opened her mouth and screamed.

  Chapter Thirty

  Le Claire had searched the incident room, his office and was on the way to his locker when the call came through from the front desk. There was someone in reception to see him. They had his phone. With a relieved heart and a spring in his step, he’d jogged down the stairs to reception. As he opened the security door to the public area, he heard a woman’s scream, loud and anguished. He ran into chaos; the scene played out before his eyes in seeming slow motion.

  Ana was there and she was shouting. “It’s him, it’s him. He tried to rape me.”

  She stood to the side of the front desk, a shocked-looking man in front of her. The desk sergeant was running toward them, and the few other people in the area seemed immobilised. The man in front of Ana turned and ran for the door. Le Claire chased after him. As the man neared the exit, Le Claire leaped forward and landed on his back, sending them both crashing to the ground. They fell in a tangled heap, and the man immediately struggled and bucked, trying to dislodge Le Claire. It was no good. Within moments, they were surrounded by police and the man restrained by two burly officers.

  Le Claire rushed over to a white-faced and trembling Ana and, putting his arm around her, led her to a seat. She sank into it. “I am sorry to scream, sorry.”

  “Are you sure he’s the man, Ana, the one from the party?”

  “Oh yes, I know it is him. His aftershave brought the whole thing back. He is Basil Davies. I overheard him; he was here to see his wife, Lena.”

  Le Claire sat back and looked over at the struggling man. Now that was interesting. He could feel his nerves start to hum.

  #

  He’d called his mother, who had rushed to the station, manicure half-finished, and collected a shaken Ana. She hadn’t shown him such care and tenderness in a long time, and he felt a momentary pang as she led a shaking Ana outside. They would need to talk to the girl again, but that could be dealt with later. Basil Davies had been read his rights and dumped in an interview room two doors along from the one where his wife was being held.

  It was a belligerent-looking Davies that awaited Le Claire and Dewar. His puffed and red-veined face betrayed his dissolution. He looked to be a man of appetites – drink, food, maybe drugs. And perhaps girls as well.

  He said nothing as they sat across the table from him, just stared. Le Claire took the lead. “Mr Davies, that was quite a scene downstairs. Would you like to explain it?”

  “I’d like to, but I can’t, I’m afraid. I don’t know what the girl was going on about. I just came to see my wife – and by the way, I’d appreciate a full update on what is happening there – when the girl went crazy. Screaming and shouting nonsense.” He’d lost the attitude, and Le Claire could see some remnants of a latent charm. Basil Davies would have been handsome once, but the smooth words were at odds with the ravages to his face.

  “Where were you last Friday?” Dewar’s voice was curt and to the point.

  Davies blinked. “At home with my wife. Why?”

  “I’m asking the questions. So no alibi, I assume?”

  “Why would I need one for a quiet night in front of the TV? I certainly didn’t expect today to end up with me sitting here and my wife being held elsewhere. What is supposed to have happened on Friday?”

  His voice was cool, and Le Claire couldn’t read him. He needed him to say something, to trip up, for the smell of aftershave wasn’t going to be enough to keep him for long. “The girl in reception was attacked at a party. A stranger came to her aid, and she got away, but the attacker was intent on rape and, surprisingly, blackmail. The girl knew you by name. Where do you know her from?”

  “Our employment agency helped bring her over and get her settled, helped her find a job. I don’t know anything else about her.”

  “Well, she knows you, and she says you attacked her. What do you have to say about that?”

  Davies’s gaze was direct and unwavering. “Look, she must have got confused. I didn’t attack her at any party. I may have got a little fruity with her in the past. She came to visit her friend who lodges with us, and, you know, she’s a pretty girl. I thought maybe a kiss and cuddle would be in order. I mean, I never touched her, but she may have thought I implied something when I didn’t. My wife came home, and it was all fine, honest.”

  “So you think she is making it up?”

  “I can’t comment on that, but I do think she is confusing two different events. All I can say is that I wasn’t at a party, and I didn’t attack the girl. Now I want to see my wife.”

  Le Claire stood. “Afraid that won’t be possible. We’ll see you in a while. Dewar, with me.”

  Just as he reached the door, he stopped and gestured to a plastic bottle of water on the table. “Help yourself to some water.”

  Le Claire watched carefully. Basil Davies didn’t say anything. He picked the bottle up in his left hand and twisted the cap off with his right.

  He closed the door to the interview room firmly behind them and spoke to Dewar, “Get a search warrant. I want to see if they’ve got anything at their place that links them to the sex parties. We find something, and it potentially puts Davies there on Friday night and in the frame as Ana’s attacker. Get the warrant as quick as you can; we can only hold them twenty-four hours.”

  “Okay, I assume the reasoning is that the purpose of the search would be seriously prejudiced if Mr and Mrs Davies were aware of it and out of custody?”

  “Absolutely, I’m betting any links to the parties would be the first thing they’d discard.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A sharp rap on her door made Ana jump, and she almost spilled the glass of wine she’d just poured. She opened the door to a puzzled-looking Ben.

  “When you said to meet you here, I thought you were working late and wanted a lift home. But Mrs Le Claire said you live here now?”

  “Yeah, I moved in at the weekend.”

  “I didn’t realise that was an option.”

  Her voice was dry. “Nor did I.”

  “So what’s been happening?”

  Ana quickly brought Ben up-to-date. She skirted over the actual attack. She was uncomfortable enough without going into too many details to someone who might be virtually a stranger but to whom she was hugely attracted.

  His face grew darker as she spoke, his eyes were ice-cold, and the easy smile she was becoming accustomed to was nowhere to be seen.
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  “And then I recognised him at the police station. To think I know him? Christ, it was awful.”

  His eyes didn’t leave her face. “Are you telling me the truth? Was that it, or did that bastard really hurt you?”

  “It’s as I told you, Ben. Honest.”

  He sighed as the tension seemed to flow out of him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’d have beaten him to a pulp.”

  Ben’s voice was even, his tone unremarkable, and that made it all the more frightening. She knew he would have been capable of that. She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “I know you’d have protected me.”

  “I’d have done more than that. I’d have taught that swine to deal with someone his own size.” She could feel the waves of anger radiating from him.

  “Let me make you something to eat. It won’t be much, but I picked up some salad and stuff.”

  He smiled. His lazy, sexy smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “No. I’ll do it. You relax on the sofa. I’ll get us both some more wine, and I’ll attempt to make you something edible.”

  She complied with a laugh and bent forward as he piled cushions behind her head. Within moments, he had rummaged in the fridge and cupboards and was fixing a salad and cold meat. He sipped his wine, looked at her over his glass.

  “Ana, I have a question for you. I need to go to London for a couple of days. I stay in one of Aiden’s flats. It has two bedrooms, and well, would you like to come with me? The flight would be my treat. Please don’t say no.”

  “It is too much for you to do.”

  “Ana, please? I would just like to get to know you a bit better, spend some time with you. I’ll have some work to do, but it isn’t onerous, so we’ll have time together, and I promise that I’m not trying to move things along too fast. Separate bedrooms, remember. What do you say?”

  Ana wanted to say yes but was scared of doing so. She hardly knew him, and the thought of spending two days alone with him was a mixture of delicious pleasure and absolute dread. She had left home, had come to Jersey to find new opportunities, to be different, to experience new things. And that was never going to happen if she said no, especially to something – or someone – she was beginning to think she wanted to know a lot better.

  “Yes, Ben, I would love to come with you. What are the plans?”

  “I was thinking we could go over on Thursday night, have some nice meals, mooch about and come back on Sunday night. Do you think it will be okay for you to get Friday off?”

  “Yes, I’ve got loads of leave to take, and I don’t have anything urgent on.”

  He beamed. “Great. Now let’s have our salad, finish the wine and I’m going to leave you to get some rest.”

  #

  Le Claire was exhausted. He consoled himself with the thought that no matter how rubbish he felt, Lena and Basil Davies were bound to have worse nights in their separate cells. No doubt their lawyers would come screeching in the morning, but that was another day.

  Dewar popped her head round his office door. One look at her face, and he knew they were on to something. Her eyes were fizzing with excitement, and twin spots of colour rode high on her cheekbones.

  “Come on, then, out with it.” The air crackled with tension.

  “The guys have finished the checks on the data from Laura Brown’s place. We have the details of those who called Hamlyn’s number over the last few weeks and have matched to the answerphone messages where relevant.”

  He waited with growing impatience. She loved to drag out the drama.

  “Get on with it.”

  “The day after Hamlyn’s death, two calls were made to the landline, as Vanguard mentioned. On one, no message was left, but Laura was recorded asking if it was a Danny who was calling. Around twenty minutes later, another call comes from the same number. This time the call wasn’t picked up, and, again, they didn’t leave a message. Just silence, as if they were waiting for the caller to answer. Perhaps they were checking if someone was home. Five minutes after that second call, the same individual’s car appears on the CCTV from the garage.

  He could hear the growl in his voice. “Who? Who was it?”

  “Sarah Hamlyn.”

  He was at the door in a second. “Come on, the lady has some explaining to do.”

  #

  Sarah Hamlyn opened the door. Her hair was pulled back tight and fastened at the base of her neck. Her face was pale and makeup free. Her eyes wore a battered look; presumably from grief and a pain that would never go away. That is what you’d assume, but he wasn’t making any snap judgments at the moment. There was always more going on with someone than appeared on the surface, and it was his job to find out what lay beneath. She had opened the door with an obligatory smile, slight though it was, but her face became set when she saw who was on the doorstep.

  “Oh, it’s you two again. You better come in.”

  Le Claire, with Dewar close behind, dutifully followed her into the kitchen and a small sitting area. She motioned for them to be seated with a slight wave of her hand. “Thank you. Is Mr Hamlyn at home?”

  “He’s in the greenhouse. I can call him in.”

  “No, that’s fine. It’s you we came to speak to.”

  She cocked her head to one side as she sank into an overstuffed armchair. “I sincerely hope you’ve come to say you’ve found my Scott’s killer. Have you?”

  “I’m afraid not. It is regarding another matter. When did you last visit your son’s apartment?”

  “What? I don’t know, maybe two weeks ago. What is this about?”

  Dewar pulled a piece of paper from her notebook, passed it to Sarah Hamlyn and asked, “Is this your mobile number?”

  She squinted at the scrap of paper and brought it closer to her face. Her eyes widened. “Yes, this is my number. Why do you ask?”

  Dewar looked at him. He stayed quiet and briefly glanced at the floor. She got the message and carried on.

  “The day after your son died, two calls were made from this number to the landline in his flat. Why did you call to speak to Laura Brown?”

  She immediately shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t call her. Why would I?”

  Le Claire pitched in. “We traced this number, your number. Tell me something else – you say it’s been weeks since you went to Scott’s apartment. If that is the case, what was your car doing there minutes after the last call that came from your phone?”

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. You saw what my relationship was with Laura Brown. I had no desire to see or speak to her.”

  “What exactly is it that you so dislike about Laura Brown?”

  She laughed, a broken sound that echoed in the quiet kitchen. “She was openly staying with my Scott when she visited the island; living in his apartment like man and wife but without the sacrament of marriage vows. Do you know how badly that reflected on me? She had worked as some sort of promotions girl. Using her looks to persuade people to buy goods they probably neither needed nor wanted. I don’t dislike her.” She paused, exhaled a deep breath. “I despise her.”

  “Is that why you went to the apartment the day after Scott died? To have it out with Laura Brown? She never mentioned it to us. Was she out? Did you miss her? I assume you still have the keys to Scott’s place. You could have just walked right in the door.” He paused, went in for the kill. “Is that what you did on Saturday night? Did you go back in again? Argue? Did you attack her? Just like you did at the funeral, only this time there was no one to stop you. Not only had she tried to take your son away from you, now she had his money. Was that why you attacked her? Left her for dead?”

  “Don’t try and pin this on me. You’re utterly incompetent. You can’t catch whoever killed my son, and now you don’t have a clue who attacked that girl. Don’t you dare drag me into Laura Brown’s problems.”

  Dewar moved to stand beside her, rested a hand lightly on Sarah Hamlyn’s
sleeve. “I think it best if you come to the station with us, and we can cool down and have a chat there.”

  Sarah Hamlyn pulled her arm away from Dewar and opened her mouth to speak. Before the words could come out, a loud voice came from the doorway. “Stop this! She’s done nothing wrong. It was me. I called Laura from Sarah’s phone. I don’t have a mobile, and I drove my wife’s car the day after Scott died. It’s me you should be talking to, but I didn’t go near the place on Saturday night.”

  Charles Hamlyn stood by the open doorway wearing dishevelled gardening clothes, his hair rumpled and his expression unreadable as he held his hands out in surrender and supplication.

  There was a stunned silence. Sarah Hamlyn recovered quickest as she moved to her husband’s side. “Charles, don’t be stupid. They didn’t really think I attacked Laura, they were just baiting me. You don’t need to rush in and save me. Stop being a fool and tell them you just said it to take the focus from me. Go on.”

  His eyes were soft as he looked at his wife. “I’m sorry, Sarah, but I did call the apartment from your phone, and I did drive your car there.”

  She deflated before their eyes. Her voice quivered as she spoke. “I don’t understand. Why did you do that?”

  Le Claire had gathered his wits. “Yes, Mr Hamlyn, why did you do that? Are you sure you didn’t go back there last Saturday? Was it you who attacked Laura Brown?”

  Charles Hamlyn was shaking his head. “You’ve got it all wrong. I have never been at the apartment when Laura’s been there. I drove there the day after Scott died, just after we got back from the morgue.”

  Sarah Hamlyn’s voice was a whisper. “You said you needed some air. Why did you go there, why?”