Hot to Kill

by Linda Coles

  “Yes, he did. Stayed a couple of hours and then disappeared, and I’ve not seen him since. I did try and leave a message on his mobile, but nothing. He never called me back, or came back for that matter. Do you think he’s okay?”

  Dexter chose that moment to make his entrance and padded into the lounge, making a beeline for Detective Rutherford, rubbing himself around his legs like he was an old pal.

  “Come away, Dexter.” Too late: Dexter’s hairs were already stuck to the bottoms of both of Jack’s trouser legs. He tried in vain to brush them away, looking slightly irritated, but he needed something stronger than his fingers to dislodge them.

  “Well, we’re treating him as a missing person at the moment,” Detective Lacey went on. “His sister reported it to us after he didn’t show up at her place as arranged and she couldn’t get hold of him, and no one has seen or heard from him since.”

  Detective Amanda Lacey looked a bit butch to Madeline, with tidy short-cropped hair and functional but neat clothes. Highly polished Doc Martens and a light smatter of make-up completed the look. A uniquely striking woman, though she supposed a detective had to dress for all eventualities, chasing gunmen and burglars and the like. No point doing it in heels and tight skirts like Ruth wore or detectives seemed to do on TV. Madeline bet she was single.

  “Oh dear. I’m not sure how much I can help you both. I still have his digger machine sat in the back garden waiting for him. Do you think someone will come and pick it up for him? Maybe the chap who dropped it off?”

  “Someone dropped it off, did they? Any idea who, Mrs. Simpson?” Rutherford was asking the questions again and Lacey was taking the notes.

  “I don’t know his name. Kept calling me ‘Queen.’ The cab signage said ‘Sid’s transport.’ Quite a pleasant sort really, considering he was tattooed from head to foot. He looked quite intimidating when I first met him – I didn’t really want to go to the door, but he was really quite pleasant. Drove a big truck with the digger on the back. Dropped it off, oh, a good couple of weeks back. That’s about all I can tell you. Sorry.” Madeline was trying hard to just stick to the facts, not elaborating and keeping from getting in a muddle or saying too much like she was covering something up. Telling the truth was always much easier than trying to remember than a concocted story, and she was managing to so far. As long as no one asked her if she’d hit Des Walker over the head with a spade and buried him in the garden and covered him over, she’d be okay. And she wasn’t actually expecting anyone to ask that.

  “So did he tell you where he was going when he left here that day?”

  “I’m afraid he didn’t. He didn’t even tell me he was leaving. Just here one minute and gone the next.”

  Isn’t that the truth.

  Madeline could feel the questioning drawing to a close already. There really wasn’t much else they could ask. They were just questioning her because they had to at least ask the person who potentially was the last to see him, and were trying to determine whether he’d left to run an errand or see another customer. The female detective, Lacey, smiled at her and offered her thanks, said they were done for now, and asked her to call if she heard anything from him, or indeed remembered anything else to do with him, anything at all, no matter how small it might seem. Maybe he’d said he was going somewhere in passing; it could be valuable in locating him.

  She handed Madeline her card, which she looked at and slid into her apron pocket, saying she would call if she remembered anything. She smiled as she showed them both out of the front door, and watched them walk down the path and get into their car. When she finally closed the door and was safe in the privacy of the hallway, alone, she let out a long breath. While she’d been expecting them, she hadn’t been expecting them quite so soon, and had actually found the whole experience quite unnerving. She’d never had the police in her home before, never mind two detectives asking questions about a missing man, a man she’d personally disposed of. Not an experience to repeat. Even an innocent person must feel a little bit guilty even when they’ve not done anything, she thought, a bit like when you see a police car behind you when you’re driving – you feel the same ‘oh shit’ moment in your stomach even though you’ve done nothing wrong. But of course, in this case she really was guilty.

  Madeline headed for the kitchen and the cupboard up top with the distinctive blue bottle of Bombay Sapphire. She didn’t bother with a glass, just swigged a couple of mouthfuls straight from the bottle to steady herself; never mind the time. She slumped down into the comfy chair in the corner of the kitchen feeling like someone had deflated her, sucked all the air out, and left her slung in the corner like a blow-up doll with no bung in the hole. But had she passed the test?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “What do you reckon there, then?” Amanda asked Jack when they’d got back in the car. “She’s the last person to see him alive; no one’s seen him since that morning. But he has a reputation for always being late for his jobs and we know he gambles.” They both fastened their seatbelts but she made no attempt to start the engine.

  “That’s true, but we don’t know whether he’s gone off voluntarily or if something else has happened to him, and there’s certainly no evidence that she had anything to do with his disappearance. His van was found down by the reserve, keys still in the ignition – remember? He could have just gone for a walk and decided to have a bit of a mid-life crisis and bugger off someplace else, stage his own disappearance – particularly with the amount of debt he had. And stealing off your own sister is a bit low.”

  He had a point about Des maybe not being dead, just having taken a hike – and a long one at that.

  “And she certainly doesn’t look strong enough to murder a big man like Des and do away with his body,” Jack went on. “Not without help, anyway. And her husband was at the office all day. I don’t think she’s involved. Why would she be? What’s her motive?”

  “I don’t know. I just have this gut feeling it’s more than that, you know what I mean? More than just gone off on his own: more like gone off permanently. Like down the river.”

  “He’d more than likely have surfaced by now,” said Jack. “And anyway, she’d never have been able to get him into the river. No way. And amateurs who dump bodies in the river don’t usually do too good a job of weighing them down. Depending on all sorts of anomalies like the current and the weather, it’s actually quite hard to keep the secret: they surface. No, he’d have surfaced by now if he was in there. And like I said, what’s the motive?”

  He sounded so confident. Amanda knew he’d seen some stuff in his twenty-odd years in the force, and she respected that. But he could still be wrong.

  Amanda started the engine, pulled out from the curb, turned left out of Oakwood Rise and headed back down Stanstead Road towards town. As she drove, she said, “Then let’s look at the facts that we know of again.” She used her fingers on the steering wheel to note the points. “Number one. He turned up as planned to use the digger that was dropped off beforehand, dug a hole, then got in his van sometime later that morning and drove to the reserve.

  “Number two. Nobody saw him arrive at the Simpson place, or leave, because they were all at work and it’s a nice quiet cul-de-sac.

  “Number three. No one saw him drive to the reserve, but CCTV caught him just before he turned into the car park at eleven fifty-three am. The pictures are grainy, but his sister recognised his cap so we have to assume it was him. At this point, there is nothing to suggest it wasn’t.

  “Number four. No one saw him leave the van and go for a walk. His mobile isn’t turned on, and his bank accounts haven’t been touched since two days before when he drew out his last fifty pounds from the ATM in the high street. We’ve checked the cameras there, and it’s definitely him withdrawing the money. Amounts of around two hundred pounds were not unusual for him, but his account was nearly empty. We know he liked the horses and bet on them regularly.

  “And number five, his bookie sai
d he was a decent bloke, though up to his eyes in debt – so much so he had been instructed not to take his bets any more until his tab had been paid off. He owed several thousand. He also said he’s not the type to just run off, but then also wondered why anyone would want him dead, if that’s what had happened. There’s no point in killing a man who owes you, or you’ll never get it back. I think he thought we’d be looking at him, or his boss, MacAlister, again. So, apart from maybe mistaken identity as a reason to dispose of him, it’s a real mystery what’s happened to him.” Her thumb and four fingers stood elevated on the steering wheel like a low wave to an oncoming vehicle.

  Jack was still silent, thinking it through.

  The rain started to fall and immediately went into torrential downfall mode as it often does after a hot sticky day. Amanda turned the windscreen wipers on, brightening the star-shaped red lights that were coming from the tail-lights of the cars in front. She cursed at the deluge.

  “I thought this was meant to be summer,” she moaned, then waited for Jack to say something. Jack was his usual contemplative self at times like this, and there was no point in pushing. Her experience of working with him over the last ten years had taught her that silence was usually a good thing; he was a man of few words. He never felt the need to fill a gap with conversation, and when he did speak, it was in bullet points, which to the uninitiated often seemed weird and rude. Many people who came into contact with him instantly disliked him, which was fine by him. He didn’t feel the desire or need for friends, and his unsociable ways were simply accepted as his normal way by those who knew him well. The others? He didn’t really care about them.

  He also preferred surnames to first names, feeling they were the stronger part of a person’s character. Rutherford and Lacey sounded too much like a department store chain or an American cop duo for Amanda’s liking, though, and some of the other officers thought it was a great source of amusement, particularly when they went to the pub after a shift and had had one or two. She preferred to stick to first names.

  “Let’s see what the media appeal surfaces once we’ve weeded out the nutters, weirdos and clairvoyants,” he said now, “and take it from there. Something’s bound to show up if there’s anything to show. It usually does.” Then he went back to being silent.

  The rain kicked up another notch, pelting the windscreen hard, and it was the only sound audible as they drove back to the station. Amanda was glad of the relative silence, and used the opportunity to think things over again in her own mind. Deep down, she knew an adult had every right to ‘lose’ themselves and not tell anyone where they were going or why. Thousands did it every year. And Des might just be one of them. Unless there was evidence to the contrary, eventually they would have to give up looking. A combination of not enough man-hours and other more pressing crimes would eventually reroute their attention. It wasn’t right, but those were the facts. She felt sorry for his sister, who was obviously extremely worried.

  “Fancy a burger before we get back?”

  “Why not?” Jack said, and she pulled off the A23 and into McDonald’s.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Wednesday

  Every once in a while, Madeline liked to go into London and do a bit of shopping, usually window shopping. She’d treat herself to lunch in the Harrods food hall, eating at one of the upmarket food bars downstairs, then go to the big M&S at Marble Arch to see all the gorgeous clothes and furnishings they wouldn’t be getting in Croydon. Afterwards, she would often grab something for dinner from the food department downstairs to reheat later. Her day was all very civilised and a treat, an experience she enjoyed probably once a month. It was also a time when she could indulge in her favourite bookstore, Waterstones on Piccadilly, which claimed to be the largest bookstore in Europe – with 200,000 books on several miles of bookshelves, it probably was. It was a cross between modern and traditional and had a lovely feel about it. It had lots of nooks and crannies to get lost in, and if you were still in town later in the evening, it stayed open until 10 pm. Sometimes she went up to the fifth floor and sat at the bar there for a while, in a world of her own, just watching and thinking. Then, when it was time to leave, she’d buy the two or three best books she’d chosen then head back out to the riot of the streets of London.

  They say that New York never sleeps. Well, it’s much the same in London: there are people shuttling around like rats on their way to someplace important at all hours of the day or night. Someone also said that ‘books are theatre for the mind,’ which to Madeline’s way of thinking was a good explanation of why you should never watch a movie made from a book you’d read. The characters would never be the same. You just know in your mind what the characters you are reading look like, and when you see them on the big screen they’re never what you imagined in your head. A thriller series that Madeline particularly enjoyed involved a detective called Will. He was tall and blonde with fair skin in the story, but for some reason known only to Madeline, he was a Denzel Washington lookalike in her head. How anyone could get a dark-skinned, dark-haired man from a tall slim blonde one was a mystery in itself, but that was the theatre in her head.

  Perhaps it should be closed down, she thought with a wry smile.

  She’d just entered the train station car park and was looking for a spot. Because she lived on the commuter belt, there was no way in hell there would be any free spaces close to the station end. People started filling them from about 5.30 am. By 8 am, everyone going in to the city for work that day was already parked up and well on their way. The next time slot was for people like Madeline, the day trippers heading in at about 9.30 am on the cheaper train fare and staying until around 4 pm, with commuters idling back until around 7 pm, hoping someone at home had cooked them dinner and looking forward to a chilled glass of wine to ease their stress.

  She drove down to the far end of the car park and found a space, backing in for an easy getaway on her return. She stuffed the current book she was reading for book club into her bag to read on the way before tomorrow night’s meeting and locked the car. It was another beautiful fine day, and the heavy rain the previous night had helped clear the sultry, sticky air, though the temperature would soon be cranking up again. The sky was a lovely shade of blue, reminding her of the cornflowers in the field behind the house. The sun warmed her face as she started the walk back up the car park towards the station, taking care where she put her feet on the rutted, potholed surface. There were puddles everywhere and she did her best to avoid them. The silly deep puddle scene from The Vicar of Dibley popped into her head and made her smile. She and Gordon had both howled at the scene, in which Dawn French stepped in a puddle and went in all the way up to her neck. Later, wiping their eyes, they had reminisced that TV at Christmas was not as good as it used to be when Noel Edmonds had a Christmas show.

  The glare from the sun was already intense. She grabbed her sunglasses out of her bag and carried on walking with a lighter feeling in her shoulders as she looked forward to her treat in town. In the distance, heading towards her, she could see a car coming down the same route she’d taken just a minute or two ago, except he was driving a lot faster. As he neared, she could see it was a man at the wheel, aviators gleaming as they caught the sun, his mouth moving animatedly as he spoke into a mobile phone that was jammed to one ear. He didn’t look all that old – she put him in his thirties from what she could see – and as he neared she noticed he was reasonably good-looking. It was obvious from his speed he was in a bit of a rush.

  Watching him as he got closer, she didn’t notice the large puddle that was in his direct driving line, and neither did he: he sped through it, and a wave of filthy, dirty water splashed up her bare legs and sandals in great big dirty grey globs. She stood stock still as he drove on, oblivious, looking down at the mess he’d created. Dirty water was dripping down her legs in rivulets, grey dirt resting in small clusters on her soaked toes.

  “What a bloody mess.” Madeline glanced back his way and
could see only his tail-lights as he pulled into a parking space just a couple down from where she had parked.

  “Asshole,” she cursed. She yanked the wet wipes out of her bag and began wiping her legs and feet down in a huff. “How bloody inconsiderate.” She briefly considered chasing him down and doing something to his car, or him, in revenge, but the more pressing need to catch her train steered her in the right direction.

  She set off again and threw the grimy wipes in the rubbish bin by the station entrance. She put her credit card into the ticket machine and bought a day pass, then made her way over to the platform and waited, trying to ignore the feeling of gravel between her toes. To her astonishment, moments later the rude driver sprinted through the doorway and headed for the same platform, all ‘skinny suit’ and attitude and obviously an Oyster Card carrier. Madeline glared his way, but it was wasted on him.

  She felt the familiar rumble as the train tracks vibrated with the arrival of an incoming train, its two bright lights shining as it slowed into the station. The front-most carriage glided to a standstill right in front of her. As the automatic doors pinged open, she entered and turned right, making her way to the centre of the carriage in search of a seat. There wasn’t much space on board even at this hour. She spied one just ahead, but unfortunately Skinny Suit had seen it too and was approaching it from the other direction, aviators still in place, his mobile phone once again glued to his ear. He got there first and sat down with a sigh of satisfaction. Madeline stopped in her tracks, tutting with irritation: she wasn’t sure if he’d even seen her or not but that wasn’t really the point: he’d now pissed her off twice in the space of ten minutes, and that made him a prime target for revenge of some sort. Resignedly, Madeline stood, along with the other new embarkees, and held on to one of the vertical poles to steady herself. The doors bleeped as they began to slide closed again, and the train edged out of the station. In the confines of the airless steel tube, she knew, it was only going to get hotter as they neared Victoria Station, picking up more passengers on an already warm morning. The journey wasn’t going to be pleasant.