by Anita Waller
‘So, now we have a dilemma.’ Mouse was thinking things through in her usual careful way. ‘We have a client who has asked us to find Adam Armstrong. We believe we have done that, although we could really use some proof other than a photograph. Our priority is to create our report, and invite her in to look at the photographs. We can either email her the file or print them off for her. But then we come to the other part.’ She paused. ‘It’s easier fitting wardrobes together than juggling this overload of information. Right, the next step is Tessa. Adam Armstrong is a person of interest in the Nicola Armstrong murder. And if he killed Nicola, then he also killed Olivia, because, according to Tessa, she was killed because she saw who killed Nicola.’
Kat interrupted. ‘But that’s where it stops making sense that he’s a person of interest. Olivia was killed because she knew the person who killed Nicola. She knew that person enough to have their phone number in her phone, even if it was just as a nickname. I’m not buying into this at all. And I’m sure Tessa will have realised all of that. She does need to know he’s alive anyway, so she’s not always in the is-he-dead/is-he-alive mode all the time. We’ll have to make it very clear to Debbie that she can’t contact him until the police have ruled him out of their investigation – or in it.’
Mouse looked at her nan and Luke. ‘Cracking job, you two. If you give me all your expenses, I’ll do a final bill for Debbie, and we’ll get her in to look at these pictures for her confirmation of his identity. We’ll make two copies, one for her and one for Simon.’
Doris went in her folder and produced a list of the expenses, and all the relevant receipts.
Mouse glanced down them.
‘Seems you forgot to mention the fish and chips and the drinks for two. Oh, and the apple pie and tea on the return journey.’
‘We didn’t get around to telling you that when I was relating the story, because you were being sarcastic towards us, and you wanted to talk about other things anyway. You can’t have surveillance done on a shoestring you know. And besides, Debbie Carter will be footing the bill for all of this. I think we earned this.’ Doris patted the sheet of paper. ‘I told you it was hard work.’
Kat and Mouse looked at each other, and could hold the laughter in no longer. ‘You and Luke are perfect,’ Kat said. ‘You make such a good team. You even eat the same sort of food, for heaven’s sake. Well done, Luke, on these pictures. Taken from inside a vehicle, and having to rely on the camera to get the close shots… you did really well. And thank you for looking after our nan, and keeping her in check.
‘On our part, this case is closed, once we get confirmation from Debbie that this is her brother-in-law. It’s all we’ve been asked to do, to find him. I think we have to withhold the address until Tessa has done her worst with it, and we’re going to have to say this to Debbie. That means she will run the risk of losing him again if he decides he still wants nothing to do with this part of the world, because once the police have paid him a visit, he may up sticks anyway.’
‘And so we’re clear,’ Mouse followed on, ‘I can find no trace of a will from Nicola, but there may be one that the police know about. However, on the deeds the house is jointly owned by Adam and Nicola Armstrong. At some point he will have to deal with that.’
‘Okay, who’s going to ring Debbie and tell her we have news?’ Doris asked.
‘Shall I do it? She knows me best,’ Kat responded, still trying to stifle the laughter.
‘Yes, good idea, but make it tomorrow. Let’s give Tessa a ring and ask her to call in today.’ Doris sounded troubled, the frivolity slipping away fast. ‘I feel uneasy that we have this knowledge, and it’s our duty to inform her. It’s important we maintain this relationship we have with Tessa and Hannah, and withholding stuff, even if it’s for a day, isn’t the right thing to do. Do you all agree?’
Kat and Mouse nodded in agreement, and Doris turned to Luke. ‘Luke?’
‘Erm, yes…’
‘Luke, you’ve earned the right to this vote. You’ve done well this weekend, really well, and the way you conduct yourself is a credit to you. Or your mum. I suspect the latter,’ Doris finished with a laugh.
Luke blushed.
‘Okay, let’s see if Tessa is free to call in this afternoon, and then we’ve got other things to tell you. In future, Luke and I will be known as the two-case kids, because we are perfectly capable of handling two cases at any one time.’ She high-fived Luke, and he grinned.
‘Sure are, Mrs Lester, sure are.’
29
‘A second case? Sounds intriguing. Where did we get this from?’ Mouse closed down her laptop and pushed it to one side. ‘Is it second cup of coffee time?’
Luke stood. ‘I’ll do them.’ He took the three mugs and Mouse’s large travel mug into the kitchen and rinsed them. He could hear the muted tones of the others, and heard Doris say she wouldn’t discuss anything without Luke being there, it was his baby.
He carried the mugs back through to Kat’s office, and poured out the freshly brewed coffee. His ladies didn’t seem able to function properly without copious amounts of caffeine. He handed them out, and looked at Kat. She nodded. He took out the ginger biscuit box and placed it centrally so they could all reach it.
‘So? Stop prevaricating, you two. What have we missed?’ Kat dunked her ginger biscuit while she waited for an answer.
Doris thought for a moment. ‘It started Friday evening, after I’d gone home from here. I checked my answerphone and I had a call about…’ her memory kicked in, ‘a kitten!’
‘We have a case involving a kitten?’
‘No, silly. That was my first message, and I just realised I hadn’t given you my news. Tomorrow I go to collect my new lodger, a tiny kitten. It’s a little girl, so I might be a bit distracted for a few days, trying to come up with a suitable name for her. I’ve been putting the word out for a while, letting people know I wanted one, and the vet had three taken to him that had been abandoned. Two males and a female. I rang him, and he’s going to flea and worm her, give her any injections she needs, and I can collect her tomorrow.’
‘Fab.’ Kat’s eyes lit up. ‘I love cats, as you know. You’ll need a carrier to go and get her, so if you want me to bring mine in tomorrow, I can.’
‘I’ve bought everything else, didn’t think for a minute about actually transporting her home. Thank you, Kat. Okay, Mouse, you can close your mouth now.’
Mouse shook her head. ‘Nan, you never cease to amaze me. So, that was your first voicemail.’
‘Oh yes. The second one was from Keeley.’
‘Keeley Roy?’ Kat looked concerned.
‘The one and only. She didn’t really say much on the message, because I don’t think she knew what to say. In the end she said she would write it down and pop the note through my letterbox. This is it.’
Doris dipped once more into her folder and produced Keeley’s letter. She waited until Kat and Mouse had read it, and then explained she had rung Luke to see if he would like to take on the case under her supervision.
‘I suspect Keeley is a little scared of having feelings for this chap, and wants it all to be perfect. As perfect as it was with Henry’s daddy. Anyway, as a result of asking Luke, he stopped Man U being knocked out of the FA cup by Accrington Stanley and headed over to mine. But now comes the scary bit. We decided to go down to Keeley’s as it’s only two minutes away, and see if the chap was there. We went in Luke’s car.’ She paused dramatically, and with considerable acting skills, wiped her fevered brow with one hand.
‘Oy!’ Luke said.
‘It was an experience. It doesn’t have a heater. It clunks.’
‘It does have a heater,’ he said with no small degree of indignation. ‘It just doesn’t work. And the clunks are only when it goes around corners.’
‘Anyway,’ Doris continued, ignoring her co-conspirator, ‘we took my new blanket and a flask of coffee, and Luke took the camera without really knowing how it worked, but we managed. We
sat there for an hour, that’s all, and we did see a car, a Saab of impressive proportions, parked on Keeley’s drive, behind her car. She’s driving a very smart Audi now, by the way. We photographed the Saab, and I accidentally found myself on the DVLA thing later, and managed to get his name.’
‘Really,’ Mouse laughed.
‘Anyway, before I did that, the man went home. Keeley came out with him, kissed him and he went. We didn’t follow him; I wasn’t sure if Luke’s car was up to it.’
‘Oy!’ Luke repeated.
‘Nan,’ Mouse laughed, ‘stop digging that hole.’
‘Sorry, Luke, it’s a lovely car. The next day, on Saturday morning, Luke and I went to see Keeley. I’d filled Luke in on the whole situation, told him everything that had happened, so he was au fait with it all. He was a star. Looked very smart, incredibly polite and reassuring, and the upshot of it was that instead of the informal chat she wanted, I signed her to a contract. I’ve asked Luke to take it on, and I’ll supervise everything, but it’s a little case that will take hardly any research, and I’m pretty sure will have a good end result for Keeley. She’s so afraid of doing anything wrong with this money. She doesn’t see it as being hers, it’s more about Henry. It’s his inheritance. He’ll be a very wealthy young man when he inherits this lot, I can tell you.’
‘Does he have a name, this chap?’ Kat asked.
‘Yes, it’s Vincent Sanders. He apparently lives in Hathersage, near that church where Little John’s grave is. You know, the one with the long name.’
‘St Michael and All Angels? Very nice. It’s a lovely area to live in.’ Kat looked at Luke. ‘Bear that in mind. He’d have to have money to live there.’
Luke nodded. ‘Thank you, I will. I’m making a start after we’ve finished here.’
‘So is that it, can we ring Tessa now? And congratulations, you two. A productive weekend all round. All I did was panic I had no room for Joel’s clothes, watch television, and try to plan my bedroom so that I could accommodate extra furniture. Nothing clever at all.’ Mouse sounded a little disgruntled.
‘We’ll sort it all tonight,’ Luke assured her. Those drawers won’t take long, and we can get it exactly how you want it. Stop beating yourself up just because you’re a mere woman.’ He ducked as the pen that had been lying next to Kat came flying across the room.
‘Get out,’ she yelled as he escaped, laughing. ‘And remember who the black belts are in this office.’
Tessa agreed to come over within the hour, and Luke began work on the investigation into Vincent Sanders.
He’d already spoken at length with Doris about the case, before Kat and Mouse had arrived at the office. He delved into all the sites that could give him information, and made notes on random pieces of paper that would eventually form a cohesive report that they could take to Keeley Roy, hopefully giving her peace of mind.
It seemed that Vincent Sanders was okay. He had three points on his driving licence for speeding, but Luke reckoned that minor infringement didn’t mean he was after Keeley’s money. And who wouldn’t have three speeding points with a Saab? He could find nothing else. As Kat had said, his house was in a lovely area, and it was jointly owned by…
‘Whoa, Luke,’ he said softly to himself. ‘Who is Felicia Ann Sanders?’
He sat back in his chair, and allowed his thoughts to settle. She could be a wife, a daughter, a sister, even a mother. The last three would be additional information to the case, the first one would make it all worthwhile.
He stood to go and talk to Doris, but was halted by the buzz of the door entry system, and he clicked to allow Tessa and Hannah through.
‘It’s definitely cosy in here with six of us,’ Tessa said. ‘Hi, everybody. You have news for me?’
‘We hope so.’ Mouse looked to Doris. ‘Nan, will you take over, this is all down to you and Luke.’
Doris dipped her head in acknowledgement, and Luke spaced out the prints of the photographs they had taken of the man with the wheelie bins.
‘You don’t need to know all the ins and outs, but mainly by a stroke of luck we ended up sitting at the end of a cul-de-sac in Cromer, checking out a property there. We had been given – no, we acquired – a photograph of a group of seventeen-year-olds at Chester Zoo on a school outing. All the names had been recorded on the back, and they were all friends. Debbie Carter and Nicola Armstrong were on the picture, as was Adam. We began investigating everybody, looking for anything that would link Adam and his escape plan to any of his prior friends. It was a long shot, we knew that, but one of the friends was Ethan King. His business, and it’s a massive one, is KingPress. We initially thought it was handy to have a friend in the printing business if you needed a new identity, but it was about so much more than that.’
Tessa and Hannah nodded to show they were listening, but said nothing. They knew the thoroughness with which these women conducted their investigations. They wouldn’t need to ask questions; it would be spelled out for them.
‘Ethan King has properties, twenty-six of them, and all in Cromer. We marked them on a map,’ Doris was being suitably evasive about methods they had used to gain the information, ‘and the one that took longer to track down than the others we figured could be a bolthole for someone wanting to stay under the radar. I must stress this was all supposition, and it was only logic really that got us to this point. Luke?’
He looked startled. Why would Doris bring him into it? He felt the colour rise into his cheeks.
‘We, Mrs Lester and I, drove to Cromer on Sunday, and on Monday morning, yesterday, parked at the end of a cul-de-sac where we had a perfect view of the house we were interested in.’
He pointed out the various photos that had been their reward for a full day of observing very little, until the last quarter of an hour had justified their wait.
‘Has your client seen these?’ Tessa asked. Speaking caused the dryness in her throat to lead to a bout of violent coughing, and Hannah reached across and touched her hand.
‘You want some water, boss?’
Tessa nodded. ‘Thanks, Hannah.’
Kat stood and took a bottle out of the small fridge. ‘Isn’t it time you saw a doctor?’
‘Saw one this morning,’ Tessa confirmed. ‘I’m on antibiotics, so I should be feeling better in a couple of days, he said. I hope so, it’s exhausting, all this coughing. So where were we. Sorry I interrupted, Luke. Has your client positively identified him?’
Mouse joined in. ‘No. We thought it best to let you know first, because we have to give her the address, it’s what she’s paid for. I think she’ll get to Cromer as fast as she can, possibly even today, although we haven’t said anything yet so can delay that until tomorrow.’
Doris stood. ‘Let me get my map. I’ll show you what you will be up against when you go to interview him.’
30
Doris returned with the colourful map, and spread it on the table. She tapped with her index finger.
‘This is his house, and this,’ she traced the blue marker pen, ‘is his escape route. You’ll need to position officers before you knock at the door, because he’ll have CCTV everywhere. He’ll know it’s strangers knocking. It was his job when he lived with Nicola. This,’ again Doris pointed, ‘is where he’ll go when he realises who you are. This alleyway here is where he dragged the wheelie bins, and links to his back garden escape. However, further delving showed us this tenant here in the adjoining semi has been in the house slightly longer than Adam, and this tenant here came just after Adam. He is flanked on both sides, I believe, by protection. You have to work on that assumption anyway. I think they’ve been put there to help him should Nicola ever turn up. The additional two bins he brought out show the numbers of these two houses. The Man U bin is his own.’
Tessa pulled the map towards her, and stared at it intently.
Hannah leaned closer. ‘We can take two cars down, have two lads here,’ she pointed to the back garden, ‘two here at the front, and w
e’ll knock at the door.’
‘I agree. We’ll set off early tomorrow morning. Can you hold off telling your client until tomorrow?’
‘We can,’ Mouse agreed. ‘But that’s a definite to tell her. Tomorrow. Debbie and Simon are paying us, so it’s our contractual duty to type the report as soon as possible, to present to them. End of job. It will take me to the end of today though,’ Mouse added with a smile, ‘so I’ll ask her to call in here tomorrow morning. At that point she will have that address. I don’t know what will happen after that, because it will be signed off by us.’
Tessa leaned across the table and once more pulled the photographs towards her. ‘He’s not changed much in the ten years he’s been missing, has he. Is it okay if I take these pictures? I’d like to run them through facial recognition, to double-check.’
‘That’s fine,’ Kat said. ‘We have another set printed for Debbie and Simon. We also have it as a file, if you want to send it now so that they can start work on it immediately.’
Luke looked at her with something approaching awe. Sometimes she made statements and got all the right technical words in the right order. She seriously looked as though she knew what she was talking about.
‘Thanks, Kat,’ Tessa said. ‘Can you send it to my phone, please?’
Kat looked at Luke, and he said, ‘I’ll do it, no problem.’
He went out to reception, and did as Tessa asked before returning to the meeting. Kat mouthed thank you at him.
Tessa forwarded the file, and suddenly the tension, the general work feeling, left the room. Hannah gathered up the photographs and Kat handed her an envelope to put them in, before standing and waving the coffee pot around. Everyone said yes, and the chat turned to more general issues.
It was Hannah who let slip about Martin, and it was Tessa who blushed.