Problems with Girls (DI Sloane Book 2)

by Kelly Creighton

  But then, before she got a chance, Maisie Hockley called me.

  ‘That photo of the man on news,’ she said, ‘that man who was shot in Dundonald.’

  ‘Yes, Maisie,’ I said, ‘Tell me …’

  ‘It could be nothing, but I think …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think he looks identical to the man who was smiling at me at Optimo. Remember, I said this guy, dark-haired, handsome, he kept smiling at me at the bar. Well, I’m sure that was him.’

  Chapter 34

  Lizzie was in the hospital keeping vigil by his bedside later that evening. I asked her to come out into the corridor. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking into places where Justin used to live. I have some concerning news. I’m not sure how much of it you will already know, but some of it concerns you.’

  She looked worried.

  Nurses and visitors walked by.

  ‘It’s alright,’ said Hewitt, ‘come into this corner, we’ll have more privacy.’

  ‘We are worried that you might be in danger,’ I said. Lizzie became teary immediately. ‘We know what happened when you lived in Coleraine.’

  ‘How do you know we lived there?’ she said.

  ‘You mentioned a gardener you had and Justin corrected you and said that was when you lived in Coleraine, remember?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘But you did live there?’ I pushed her.

  She pulled her hair back off her face and exhaled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was hurting you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she cried out in relief. ‘Yes! He was.’

  Officer McMaster from Coleraine PSNI told me she had been called out to what seemed to be a domestic, and when they went out to check all was fine. The pair were always calling the police, McMaster said, sometimes it was him, but mostly it was Lizzie.

  Coleraine PSNI sent out someone to speak with Lizzie about getting away, about refuges where she could go, support she could get, but she played it down.

  Lizzie was fine, she insisted. Then the calls got less frequent, and when they did call, McMaster admitted to me, the police had lost interest.

  Then the calls stopped completely. I knew they had moved to Belfast. I could find no record of the police being called out to the bungalow.

  ‘Why are you here for him when he has hurt you like this?’ Hewitt asked Lizzie.

  ‘I’m not here because I want to be,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m not living with him because I want that either, it’s because he told me he’d kill me if I try to leave him.’

  I understood. I thought, I have been here. At that moment she was me. The me I was three years before.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Lizzie, ‘because I worry he’ll open his eyes and not see me. That he’ll come home and I’ll never hear the end of it. What would he do to me when he’s hurt so badly and angry about it, when this is what he does when he loves me, when he’s making love to me?’

  She lifted her top and showed us a three-inch scar.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘He did that during sex?’

  Lizzie began to weep. We helped her to the toilets where she threw water on her face, rubbed her eyes and said, ‘Can I show you more?’

  ‘Only if you are happy to, as long as you don’t feel compromised.’

  ‘I’m just glad someone is finally listening to me.’

  She unbuttoned her boot cut jeans and lowered them until they completely covered her chunky heels. Lizzie’s thighs and buttocks were covered in puncture wounds and small scars.

  ‘You are safe now, Lizzie,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Do you need a coffee?’ I asked Lizzie.

  ‘I’m jittery already. I’ve probably had about ten coffees all day.’

  ‘Water then?’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Sloane? Water?’ Hewitt asked me.

  ‘Yes, I could manage a water,’ I said. It was easy to forget to look after yourself on the job, it was warm and I was beyond developing a thirst. Gasping for a glass of Merlot rather than water.

  Hewitt left to get us a bottle each.

  How, I thought, how is Lizzie okay? Where will she go? What if Justin does survive, will he come after her, stalk her and harass her, like Jason Lucie did to me after my escape?

  ‘Where was Justin the day of Chloe’s killing?’ I asked Lizzie.

  ‘I don’t know. He said he came from the building site, showered and then collected me from Jackie’s house.’

  We still had questions and not many answers. But we still thought we had enough to bring Drew in and question him about Justin’s shooting. And Justin had been identified by Maisie. He could have spiked her drink at any time.

  Kayley had left Rocky Place bar with a man and a woman with long dark hair. This could have been Molly Heaney. Justin could have been the man in the car. Her car. A boxy car? A Punto! This could have been the kind of thing they got up to when she told her husband she was training.

  Justin had previous and maybe under his influence it was a folie à deux: a lethal combination when the two of them got together.

  Maybe Molly and Justin had built up to Chloe. She was vulnerable, often alone.

  Or, the shooting could have been Drew’s revenge for Chloe, and for Roxanne, and the messages Justin sent her. A paramilitary thing.

  Maybe Justin was selling counterfeit Viagra again when that was Drew’s turf. Maybe Justin was just an overall nuisance that needed to be silenced. Ince Ross was clearly collateral, but Molly Heaney had to be something more.

  Was her husband connected? Was she?

  Hewitt returned and handed us our waters.

  ‘This is the time to tell us what you know about Chloe,’ I said to Lizzie. ‘Did Justin kill her?’

  How mad would that be, all the men she blamed, and her man did the deed!

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I do know that he isn’t right in the head.’

  ‘We know all about his past. Don’t worry.’

  She was biting the water bottle in concentration.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, putting her bottle on a chair in the corridor. ‘I need to get some air. Do you mind?’

  ‘I’ll come with you, if you want,’ said Hewitt and the two of them left.

  I snuck into Justin’s room and stood looking at him, his eyes closed like in sleep, his mouth ajar with tubes coming out of his nose. I quickly got a kit from my bag and swabbed the inside of Justin’s mouth and put the swab into a tube, watching over my shoulder the whole time. Then the door opened and she was there.

  ‘Changed my mind,’ Lizzie said. ‘I can’t leave him, this is how scared he has me.’

  ‘He’s fit for nothing. Go home and get some rest,’ I told her, a sweat breaking on me as I put the travel tube back into my bag with my back to her.

  But she said she wasn’t ready. She stood and looked out the window at the car park. Hewitt was staring at Justin, her eyes inscrutable.

  On the way out I took Lizzie’s water bottle and left her mine.

  Chapter 35

  On Friday Paul was at home and would be off for a few days. ‘A large amount of anaesthetic is unaccounted for,’ he said, ‘They’ve let me take some time out while they launch in internal investigation in the surgical department.’

  ‘So people won’t be having their operations today as a result?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said blankly.

  ‘There’ll be a few unhappy campers.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ he said defensively.

  ‘It’s like in my work, it’s just procedure.’

  ‘Well, it’s never happened to me before.’

  ‘That says it all,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  Paul asked that the babies stay at home to take his mind off things.

  ‘Nursery’s already paid for,’ I said. ‘You know how much I had to hussle to get those places.’

  Paul went to give me a kiss on the lips and got my cheek. H
e kissed the boys on the tops of their heads, but he looked upset and I had never seen him like that.

  ‘Take yourself out for lunch, or to the cinema,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t like being alone.’

  ‘Hence why you took me on,’ I joked, but I knew it was true.

  He said nothing, just helped us out to the car with our luggage, baby bags and two big struggling baby boys, and he watched us drive away before running back into the house in which we had our first date. It was a cute story to tell people, if anybody cared.

  If we met anyone who did not know us they assumed we’d been married for years. And that he was the father of the boys. But we were still so new.

  I left the babies into the day nursery and drove across the lane to the station. I’d gotten into a habit of watching out for Lizzie as I did it. But she was never there, only that once; the first day I got the kids into the nursery. I knew she was probably at the hospital watching over Justin. I wanted an update on him. If he was dead; if he was hanging on in there.

  ‘We’ve charged that person, chum,’ said Amy Campbell, lingering by the coffee machine.

  ‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Pour me one too, will you? I need a coffee the size of my ass.’

  ‘Horrible coffee, isn’t it?’ said Campbell. ‘I think there’s cocaine in it.’ She handed me mine. I took a sip and burned my lip.

  ‘The person who robbed Mayhew’s pharmacy,’ she said, ‘his prints match up with a similar robbery in Sandy Row. He’s a drug addict.’

  ‘That’s why you’re talking about cocaine?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I suspected as much,’ I said, ‘about the robber being an addict.’

  This machete-wielding robber no longer concerned me. Lizzie and Justin were on my mind.

  ‘Good work,’ I told Campbell, more to get rid of her, so I could get on with things I did not want her to be around for.

  She looked at her notes. ‘Brooks Sloane,’ she said. ‘Any relation?’

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked, my heart thumping. I set down my cup.

  ‘Interview room 1.’

  Though I had dated Amy’s brother in the past she had no idea who mine was; you’d hardly boast about your brother if he was a junkie.

  ‘I need to speak to him,’ I said.

  ‘You are related?’

  ‘He’s the elder of my two brothers. The eldest of us all.’

  ‘Oh shit, Harry. Did you know he does this?’

  ‘No, never. But he’s a grown man and this is on him.’

  ‘I feel anxious now,’ she said.

  ‘Why, Amy?’

  ‘I hope you don’t think I meant to blame you.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said, meaning to sound flippant but sounding rude. ‘It’s all good, I just need to have a word with him. Find out what is going on.’

  Campbell stared at me, and I felt like I needed to explain, or defend him. Brooks had always been so gentle. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, but he did these disappearing acts. I’d stopped wondering what was happening to him since I had my sons to worry about. I felt bad; months passed when I didn’t think about Brooks at all.

  ‘I hoped he was back in London,’ I explained. ‘He has children over there.’ Not that I’d called them to find out if he had shown up. But I couldn’t see him just yet. I would let him stew, I would focus on my job.

  He was going nowhere, but at least I knew he was alive. I had work to do, bad coffee to drink and Kate Stile to locate.

  Chapter 36

  I needed to find Stile, but she was out. The swab in its travel tube and the water bottle were burning holes in my bag.

  I received a call from Sergeant Moreland at Merseyside Police.

  ‘Justin Nicholson was working in a gym in Liverpool, he was twenty,’ said Moreland, ‘living at home when he started a relationship with this girl who was only sixteen. After a workout Nicholson brought her back to his parents’ house. They were out at work. And Nicholson then began to sexually victimise her over a long period. She was afraid of him so she went back a few times.’

  ‘What did Nicholson do?’

  ‘Imprisoning her, torturing her, she claimed; making her think he would let her go before resuming the torture.’

  He was more like Jason than I’d thought, possibly worse.

  ‘Before the girl withdrew her statement,’ said Moreland, ‘she said he was nice one minute then horrible. At one point he said, ‘‘Will I put you out of your misery?’’’

  I listened and I wrote it down.

  ‘Then,’ the sarge added, ‘Nicholson involved knives, and attempted to slice off her nipples.’

  ‘What! That’s some serial killer shit.’

  ‘Perhaps he was headed that way.’

  ‘So he’s on the DNA database,’ I said.

  ‘No and I don’t know why not. If it was because the girl withdrew the statement practically as soon as she made it, or if this is a technical fuck up.’

  I was in no doubt now that Chloe Taylor’s killing was Justin Nicholson’s doing. It was not Martin she was seeing, but Justin.

  And I could see Justin having an interest in Chloe. She was much younger than him, she wasn’t his usual type and he would not have been hers, but that would be the challenge for him. One he would love and would ultimately exploit.

  Chapter 37

  On the car radio, the news focused on the Repeal vote taking place in Ireland. They were voting on two choices:

  to give women the right to safe abortions without having to travel over the water, or to make a hard time harder.

  I thought about my own abortion, pre-twins, and turned the radio off. I went back into the station and asked to be let into Brooks’ cell for a word.

  He was sitting there, with his hands all scabby. His face gaunt. Sleepy-eyed.

  ‘When did you get so fucken handy with a machete?’ I asked him.

  My eldest brother did not register me, he stared off into space. I had not seen him like this in years. He usually kept the deep darkness of his addiction to himself.

  ‘Brooks,’ I said. ‘I’ve been going mad worrying about you.’ The words felt as hollow as he looked vacuous. I stormed out.

  ‘He shouldn’t be here,’ I said to Detective Campbell, ‘he should be in a facility getting help.’

  She looked at me pityingly. ‘There is no space, Harry, just huge wait lists. And technically he has committed crimes. I know as well as you that it’s not fair, but it’s all we have to work with.’

  I saw Kate Stile from forensics in the distance and chased her into her lab.

  ‘Turns out,’ I said to Kate, ‘Justin Nicholson has a history of abusing girls, sexually motivated crimes and he also has been involved in selling drugs.’

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Then maybe someone knew that and was putting a stop to it.’

  ‘Could be,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think it’s that simple.’

  ‘Is it ever?’ Kate sat in front of her microscope and examined a slide. ‘I need to do something, Harry, if you don’t mind. I prefer quiet to concentrate.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘no problem. I’ll let you get on with your work, but first …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Erica McClelland.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She was killed on Ballyholme Beach in Bangor,’ I said. ‘There was a bite on her that nobody knows about. It wasn’t in the media, and people in Bangor have had their DNA tested. But they don’t know about the bite.’

  I took two bags from my handbag. One had a swab tube inside, and the other the plastic water bottle.

  ‘Do you think one of these may be a DNA match?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Yes, I really do.’ She looked unsure but I was not about to be palmed off again. ‘I’m banking on it.’

  ‘Alright,’ Stile said, taking them from me. ‘It’ll be a month until I can get you the results.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Kate,’ I said, gritting my teeth. �
�Bump me to the front of the queue.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘I know you did it before.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘You do favours for Greg.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing, Harry. Can’t very well say no to the boss.’

  ‘I won’t ask you again,’ I pleaded but she still looked unsure. ‘Have I ever asked you before, Kate?’

  ‘No you haven’t. What’s the big rush in this case?’

  ‘Nicholson might die, I’d like to be able to tell him that we know who he is. I don’t want him to think he’s got off scot-free.’

  ‘This one time!’ she said. ‘Don’t tell anyone or I’ll never do anyone a favour again.’

  ‘Kate, you’re a star!’

  *

  At noon we went to the building site on the outskirts of Comber and spoke to Justin’s boss, who couldn’t vouch for Justin. He said Justin wasn’t working there on the day Chloe was killed. ‘He doesn’t work on Wednesdays, that’s when he trains.’

  ‘I thought he trains in the evenings and weekends,’ I said.

  His boss said, ‘No, Justin never works Wednesdays.’

  *

  Since we were in that neck of the woods, we called in on Craig Heaney. Widower of Mary, or Molly.

  ‘Why did they say ‘‘a couple was killed’’ and a boy?’ Craig said, in a gruff Glasgow accent. ‘It made them sound like, well, like a couple. My Molly was a married woman.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hewitt. ‘That’s the media for you. We would have said a man and a woman and they’ve made that assumption, and that headline.’

  ‘Craig, can you come into the station and talk to us some more?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t. I have no one to mind my son.’ The little boy was playing in the garden.

  ‘When do you think you will be able to?’

  ‘Tomorrow. My sister is flying over and I’ll ask her to mind him.’

  ‘No one available before then?’ asked Hewitt. ‘A neighbour?’

  ‘No,’ Craig said. ‘Unless I can bring him with me.’