No More Lies

by Robert Crouch

  She’s about to tell me something I won’t like.

  She’s leaving.

  She looks at me and clears her throat. “Gemma told Richard about her affair with you.”

  I always thought Richard would find out.

  “When did Gemma tell you?” I ask.

  “Richard rang me yesterday, telling me about the aggro he was having with the florists and the caterers. Then he came straight out with it. He asked me if I knew about you and Gemma, as if I was keeping secrets from him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I acted surprised, of course. Not that he took any notice.” She strides over to the table and overfills her cup with water. “He asked me why I hadn’t stopped Gemma. I was her Maid of Honour, her best friend. Why did I let you take advantage of her?”

  I give her a sympathetic smile. “Richard was never going to blame Gemma.”

  She dabs at the spilt water with a tissue. “He ranted about how you portrayed yourself as a man of honour and principle, while secretly seducing his fiancée the moment his back was turned. Then he started to blub,” she says with a disapproving frown. “You know I can’t abide men who blub.”

  “He feels embarrassed, humiliated,” I say. “He’s a decent bloke, Kelly. You know that. It must have hurt when Gemma told him. Why did she tell him?”

  “Richard still wanted you to be his best man. He kept going on about what a wonderful chap you were, what a dear friend you’d become. He said he was going to visit and talk to you man to man. Gemma was so wound up, she blurted it out.”

  “Ouch!”

  Kelly nods. “She said he stared at her as if she’d drowned a puppy. Then he stood up and walked out of the restaurant.”

  “Restaurant? How embarrassing.”

  “She found him in the study when she got home, scrolling through photographs. He wanted to know every detail. When she refused to tell him, he gave her a weird smile, like he suddenly had power over her. He forgave her and went to bed.”

  It doesn’t sound like he has forgiven her, but it’s none of my business. “Is the wedding still going ahead on Saturday?”

  “As far as I know.” Kelly drinks the water from the cup and lobs it into the bin as she walks to the door. “Gemma told me to tell you she wants no secrets, no lies, no distractions.”

  “Does she think I’m going to drive up there or something?”

  “Please tell me you’re not.”

  “Of course not. It’s over.”

  “Good, because if you ask me, you’re better off without her.”

  The door slams behind her. I stroll over to the window, feeling relieved. For a moment, I thought Gemma was on her way back to Tollingdon.

  A knock on the door brings me back to the table. Charlie enters with two vending machine coffees on a tray. She closes the door with a swing of her hips and wrinkles her nose.

  “You need to change your body spray, Kent. Lavender’s so 1970s.”

  “New suit?” I ask, admiring the creases in her trousers. “New haircut,” I add with a smile. “You’re not going for an interview, I hope.”

  “I made time to do some ironing while the kids were out last night.”

  I take the tray and we sit at the table. She hands me her time and mileage sheets for signature, updating me on her inspection work and her workload. While she says everything is fine, I sense there’s something she wants to tell me.

  I hope she hasn’t had a better offer from another council.

  I sip my coffee. “So, what did you really want to talk about?”

  “I did a little digging to find out more about Leila King. I hope that’s okay because I popped over to Brighton. I haven’t claimed it as work time.”

  “You’re a star,” I say, relieved and pleased.

  “Nigel’s the star. He suggested I poke around and check the database to see if I could find anything useful. I think he wants to be your sidekick.”

  “I think he wants to work more closely with you, Charlie.”

  She smiles. “He’s quite cute when you get to know him, but so shy. Anyway, you want to know what I’ve found out about Leila King.”

  I take a drink of coffee and settle back.

  “We got a match for Leila King on Brighton’s database.”

  “Hossain’s restaurant?”

  She shakes her head. “She was manager of a nail bar. Officers found problems with the Vietnamese workers. There were rumours of illegal immigrants and slavery so the police and Border Force organised a raid, but never got the chance.”

  “They disappeared?”

  Charlie’s smile suggests I’m going to like what she tells me. “The place burned down. Not literally. The IT recruitment business above was badly damaged, as were a café and jewellers on either side, but the nail bar was a wreck, losing its computer, files and records.”

  “How convenient,” I say.

  She passes me a folded printout of the database record. I scan the summary information. The contact details for Leila King are the business address and phone number, which won’t help me locate her. Then I notice the date of the fire – three days before Christmas – five weeks after I closed the Rosy Lee Café.

  I’m still thinking insurance fraud.

  I’m sure Ashley Goodman knows about this, but she’s taken no action.

  I’ll ask her when we meet at the Boship Travelodge.

  ***

  When I pull into the car park, I spot a patrol car next to her Audi. She’s leaning through the driver’s window, chatting and laughing with the uniformed officers inside. When I walk up, she beckons me to follow.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, striding after her.

  I follow her through reception and up the stairs to the first floor corridor. I know I’m in trouble when I spot the crime scene tape across the door of the room Freya and I occupied yesterday.

  Forty

  “Was this the room you and Freya Preston used?” Ashley asks. “Mr and Mrs Jones, I think you called yourselves.”

  “She was Bridget Jones, as in the diary. I was Mark Darcy Jones.”

  She laughs and unlocks the door. “Yeah, but you’re no Colin Firth.”

  She steps aside to let me see the trashed TV, ripped duvet, slashed pillows and a broken chair. The words ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ adorn the walls and window blinds in lurid red.

  “Does Freya know?”

  “I’ve just come from Pristine Pooches.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Remarkably well, considering her husband’s on the loose. He won’t get far,” Ashley says, checking her watch. “We know Rick Preston’s haunts and contacts.”

  “What if he goes to Layman’s Farm?”

  She pulls the door closed. “He won’t mess with her father.”

  “When did he do this?” I ask as we walk back along the corridor.

  “Shortly after you and I left.” She falls silent as a man in a suit exits a room ahead of us. Once he enters the stairwell, she continues. “He pretended to be you, saying he’d left his mobile phone in the room. We have him on CCTV. He didn’t even try to disguise his identity.”

  “You mean he wanted Freya to know?”

  “Or you, Kent. Maybe he thinks you’ve stolen his wife.”

  “Ex-wife,” I say, following her down the stairs. “She locked him out of the flat so he couldn’t pester her.”

  Ashley shakes her head. “The door wasn’t locked when we arrived. We found aerosol paints in a holdall, along with soap and towels from the bathroom. We also found the knife he used to slash the duvet and pillows, the remains of a pizza and two empty bottles of vodka.”

  Yet again, I’m not sure what or who to believe.

  We walk through reception in silence and out into the brisk September air. The patrol car has gone.

  “You were still here when I left,” I say. “You must have clocked Preston.”

  She shakes her head. “I left shortly after you.”

  “You
followed us here, didn’t you? He must have done the same,” I say when she doesn’t reply, “because no one knew we were coming here. It was a spur of the moment thing. Unless someone told him we were here.”

  She laughs. “You think I summoned him in a jealous rage, hoping he’d beat the crap out of you? Honestly, Kent, you’re hardly worth it.”

  “He didn’t trash the room until after we’d left,” I say. “Why did he wait? Why not crash in and catch us in the act?”

  “He was scared you might beat the crap out of him.”

  Or he arrived after Freya and I left.

  I keep the thought to myself, convinced Ashley’s determined to come between Freya and me.

  Ashley stops at her car. “You need to give a statement, Kent. I suggest you stick to the facts – when you arrived, who with, when you left. Anything beyond that might give Preston something he could use to muddy the waters.”

  “You want me to keep you out of it, right?”

  “Freya Preston’s married to a scumbag. He’s been inside twice and she’s waited for him on both occasions.”

  “He had a key to her flat.”

  “She’s lying to you, Kent. Or don’t you care who you jump into bed with?”

  “I haven’t jumped into bed with you.”

  Her slap almost knocks me sideways. Any doubts I had about her feelings have gone.

  “It ends now,” I say, rubbing my cheek. “Stay away from Freya and me or I’ll report you for stalking us.”

  “You’re assisting me with a murder investigation, Kent. You throw your toys out of the pram and I’ll charge you with obstruction.”

  From the look in her eyes, I’ve no doubt she will.

  “In that case, you can have my final report.” I retrieve my notebook from my car. “Your victim could be Jonathan Wright, who was married to Freya ten years ago. You can get a DNA match with his mother to confirm he’s your victim.” I scribble Connie’s address and tear the page from my notebook. “Go easy as she’s not in the best of health.”

  Ashley pockets the page without looking at it.

  “Jonathan Wright’s in America,” she says. “The person who helped him escape was killed and buried at Sunshine View.”

  I hesitate, wondering what I’ve missed, what she hasn’t told me.

  “You want me to tell you who it is, Kent, but let’s find out how good a sleuth you are. First clue,” she says, tapping her finger against her chin. “The person in question had an affair with Freya Wright at the time her husband escaped to America.”

  I say nothing, not wanting to play her game, but keen to know who the victim is.

  “Second clue. He worked for Miles Birchill at the Ace of Hearts.”

  I glance at my watch. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “The final clue’s mainly speculation, but still valid. While our corpse was rotting in the ground at Sunshine View, he won the lottery and went to Australia, conveniently dying a few months later. His body was never found.”

  “Peter Stone?”

  She points an accusing finger at my face. “I knew you knew. Wait till I haul Mike in.”

  “He never said a word, Ashley. I found out all by myself.”

  She steps close, her face in mine. “If there’s a leak in my team, Kent, I’ll find it. I’ll discipline whoever’s responsible. Then I’ll come for you.”

  “Didn’t you tell me you were acting alone, without authority or authorisation?”

  “You’re smart, Kent, I’ll give you that. I gave you nothing, but you found Jonathan Wright and his wife. Then again, you could hardly fail when Wright Choice Foods was directly opposite Pristine Pooches.”

  “If you know it’s Peter Stone, why involve me? Why the interest in the Rosy Lee Café and Station Diner? Where does that fit in?”

  “Lines of enquiry, evidence, loose ends. Stone was an only child, orphaned as a baby. Without family or DNA to confirm his identity, I need hard evidence to confirm my suspicions.” She looks at me and grins. “A confession from Birchill would help.”

  “Yeah, but what if you’re wrong? What if it’s Jonathan Wright?”

  “What if I’m right?”

  Forty-One

  I miss Gemma. Sitting at my desk, staring at the seat she used to occupy opposite me, I miss her smile, her wit, the way she would challenge my assumptions. Without her, I couldn’t have solved the three murders I investigated in the last year. The first was a workplace accident, which I had to investigate, unaware that a murder awaited me. This led to a family friend approaching me to find his missing wife – also murdered. Then there was Tony Trimble, who told me he was about to be murdered.

  Gemma saved my life during that case.

  She was always willing to help, never questioning my unusual side line. Like me, she found the process exciting. Like me, she never questioned what we were doing, or why. We never worried about the risks or the trouble we could find ourselves in. And when the going got tough, she was always there to motivate me, coming up with ideas and new lines of investigation. Okay, she went off on her own sometimes without telling me, but I admired that.

  I admired everything about her.

  I loved her though I was too scared to admit it. I loved her from the moment I saw her in the restaurant, standing on a chair, stretching to change a light bulb.

  Or did I?

  I slap my pen down on the desk, recalling how I felt when I looked into Freya’s eyes. Ashley was right – if I loved Gemma I would never have run away from her.

  Am I now running from Freya?

  Have I allowed Ashley to fill my head with doubts? She’s hardly been honest with me, has she, telling me she’s working alone and unauthorised when she’s heading a murder team?

  How many lies has she told me?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  I have to solve the murder.

  I have to go back to the beginning and work out where I went wrong.

  I thought it was too easy, identifying Jonathan Wright as the victim.

  ***

  Back home, after tea and helping Frances with a few jobs around Meadow Farm, I settle in front of the PC. Columbo lies on the bed, associating the PC with treats. I don’t know how he helps me to focus, to make connections I couldn’t make before, but I love having him by my side.

  “Shall we start with the fire at Station Diner and work out how it fits in with the Ace of Hearts?” I ask.

  Columbo barks and paws at the manila folder containing my precis of Mike’s notes and the food hygiene inspection details.

  “You think I should I look at Mike’s memoirs before DI Goodman seizes them?”

  He barks once more, wagging his tail this time. I slip him a treat.

  Gemma was never this easy to please.

  I open Mike’s notes on the PC and place the printed summary I made beside the keyboard. His records reveal the problem of investigating a site where the land has been churned and contaminated by diggers, excavations for building works and ramblers hiking across the land. His report deals with the site layout, location, access, soil type, weather conditions and how the scene was preserved. Days of painstaking work followed, checking the land, the soil, the tracks left by vehicles, access to the site, including possible incursion through the hedgerow.

  Mike’s memory for detail is excellent, but I’m interested in the menu found in the victim’s jacket. When I read the notes last time, the name Peter Stone and the mobile number scribbled on the menu caught my eye.

  Had I not been so pleased at my discovery, I would have wondered why the menu was laminated.

  I close my eyes and think back to my inspection of the Rosy Lee Café ten years ago. Were the menus laminated, made from glossy plastic or card?

  I open the file with the scanned details I sent Ashley, scrolling through the pdf until I find the photographs. As I suspected, I didn’t take photographs in the dining area of the café. The infestation was rife in the kitchens and stores. I scroll through
photographs of droppings on the floor and in the base of cupboards, the filth and rotting food behind and under refrigerators, the poor levels of cleanliness and repair, the unsliced loaf I pulled out of the freezer. The loaf had a hole at one end where a mouse had burrowed inside. Someone had slid the loaf into a polythene bag and placed it in the freezer, either ignoring or oblivious to the rodent damage.

  Then I spot some menus on the counter where I placed the loaf to photograph it. I zoom in. The image pixelates. Zooming out a shade, I move closer to the monitor, counting ten menus.

  No, there are five menus, folded in half.

  I sit back, the familiar tingle of excitement urging me on.

  You can’t fold a laminated menu, can you?

  Not easily. Not flat like the menus in the photograph.

  So why was the menu in the victim’s pocket laminated?

  “To preserve it,” I say, interlocking my fingers behind my head.

  The killer wrote the name of Peter Stone, along with a mobile number, on the menu and then laminated it for anyone to see when the body was found. The killer wanted the body to be found.

  He knew Peter Stone worked for Miles Birchill.

  Is it another nail in my father’s coffin – or someone setting him up for murder?

  I go back to Mike’s notes. He found a single thumbprint, located in the top left-hand corner of the menu, and a fingerprint on the other side.

  Neither fingerprint was identified.

  The rest of the notes relate to more mundane matters. Mike’s frustration at the contamination of the scene and a lack of evidence on the body or at the scene become apparent as the days pass by. There’s no hope of identifying where the murder took place. He can’t work out how the body was transported to the site. He speculates that the body was wrapped in plastic until it was deposited in the ground. The grave was dug by hand, not by mechanical digger.

  Decomposition and trauma made facial recognition impossible, but fingerprint and DNA analysis would assist with future identification. The victim was male, late 20s to early 40s, 5ft 10ins in height, no distinguishing marks or scars on his body. He had excellent teeth with no evidence of dental work. Dental checks drew a blank.