by A J Waines
He checked the postmark, but it was smudged. Sighing heavily, he stared at the picture, then back to the words. The police needed to see this.
He took a picture of it on his phone and raced to his car.
Chapter 78
His mobile rang early the following morning.
‘Mr Duke, we fast-tracked the tests and we have preliminary results from Mrs Duke’s original nasal spray when she first entered the psychiatric facility,’ said DCI Watson.
‘And?’ Sweat instantly began to form in Daniel’s palm, so much so that he almost dropped the phone.
‘Early indications show positive signs of contamination with another drug.’
A rocket of euphoria shot though Daniel’s body.
‘Wow! So what happens now?’
‘We do further tests and consult the relevant specialists to see what effect this combination of drugs could have had on your wife.’
‘So, you’ll be able to tell whether this was the cause of my wife’s outburst?’
‘It won’t be an exact science. We’ll know the likely physiological outcomes of the combination of drugs your wife was taking, Mr Duke. I can’t say more than that for now.’
‘And Ben… any news?’
He knew the DCI would have mentioned this first had there been anything to report.
‘I’m so sorry. The family liaison officer will be back with you later today to give you a full update, but we can’t give you the news you want to hear at this stage.’
‘Have you found Richard Fox?’
‘Not as yet… we’re working on it.’
Why hadn’t the police been able to track Rick down?
‘Is there anything more I can do?’ he asked in desperation.
There was a sad smile hidden in the DCI’s voice. ‘You’ve done a great deal already, Mr Duke. We’ll be in touch.’
Chapter 79
Daniel entered the crowded café on Hampstead High Street to the loud hiss of the coffee machine. It suddenly stopped and was replaced by voices calling out orders and clinking crockery.
The smell of warm dough from the Danish pastries made him feel hungry for the first time in days. He found a seat by the window.
Pacing up and down at home was driving him nuts. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, couldn’t face the barrage of concerned phone calls, couldn’t sit still. He needed to be doing something positive and the only thing left was to follow every lead he had to try to track down Ben.
He didn’t have the energy to put his hand up and wave when Jody rushed in. Instead, he watched her scour the faces, looking for him. Her hair was tossed in all directions as though she hadn’t had time to brush it that morning. Daniel found that just the sight of her lifted his spirits. He chased the warm feeling abruptly away. They could never even be friends after what she’d done.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Jody called out, flopping down into the well-worn leather armchair next to his. ‘Any news about Ben?’
‘Nothing. It’s been six days.’
Yesterday, he’d sent an impulsive text asking to see her, then questioned why he’d chosen Jody when there were others he could have turned to.
He told himself it was because she might have some clue as to where Rick might have gone, but it was more than that. He’d missed her sparky conversation, the way she genuinely listened to what he had to say and, more than anything, the fresh, warm glow he felt in her company. In spite of everything.
‘You must be out of your mind. I can’t imagine the torment…’ She cupped her hands over his, then swiftly pulled them away.
‘I feel like I’m drowning,’ he said, closing his eyes against imminent tears.
How come she always seemed to draw out his innermost emotions, without even trying?
‘Thanks for coming,’ he added. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.’
‘I’d only be at home learning lines,’ she said, her eyes bright as she looked at him.
He left her to order two cappuccinos, then brought her up to date with the news about Sophie. ‘They still need to do more tests. I’m waiting to hear.’
‘I imagine you can’t even think about that with Ben still missing. Have they found Rick, yet?’
He shook his head. ‘Have you heard from him? Heard anything through the theatre about where he is?’ He shifted his jaw, felt his teeth grind together.
‘I wish I had. Total arsehole. I asked around at the theatre. That guy he goes around with, Stuart, he’s gone AWOL too. He was due to start making an Egyptian sarcophagus for the next show, but he didn’t turn up.’
‘Can you think of anywhere Rick might have gone? Anywhere he mentioned? Somewhere he could take a child?’
She swallowed. ‘Relatives? Friends?’
‘The police have got those covered.’
She frowned. ‘You really think he’s got Ben?’
‘If he has some kind of secret vendetta against me, what better way to torture me?’ He threw his arms up. ‘He’s already gone to ridiculous lengths to poison Sophie against me – literally! Now, why not take the closest thing to my heart?’
She nodded, staring at her coffee cup. ‘It would make sense.’
Daniel aligned the salt and pepper pots at the centre of the table and reached into his pocket. He brought out the two postcards the police had returned to him. Apparently, they’d made a note of them, but said there was no action they could take.
‘Rick sent me these. I don’t know what to make of them. Did he mention anything to you about them? About Oxford?’
She scrutinised them in detail and handed them back. ‘Weird…’ she said, shaking her head.
‘I just don’t know what he’s getting at.’ Daniel tapped the cards on the edge of the table. ‘I feel like I should know what they mean, but I haven’t a clue. I keep thinking that if the penny dropped, they might lead me to Ben.’
She read out the words on the card, intently.
You treated her like dirt... and I don’t mean your wife.
‘Who is he referring to?’
He slapped his hands on the table with exasperation. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Is this the same scenario as before? Accusing you of something you didn’t do?’ she said.
He sighed. ‘Isn’t he tired of all that by now? Sophie went to prison. My life’s a mess. Isn’t that enough?’
Jody pulled an impassioned face by way of reply as Daniel sunk back into his chair.
Then his phone began to buzz on the table in front of him.
‘It’s the police,’ he said, getting to his feet. He hurried outside, ended up standing on the other side of the glass pane from Jody. He watched her questioning face glued to his, as he responded to the DCI’s words. Then he scrabbled in his pockets for a pen and jotted a few words on the back of his hand.
‘Okay,’ he said breathlessly, returning to their table. ‘Sophie was given a low dose of a drug called Iperatine; it can cause paranoia.’
‘Wow…’
He sank back into the armchair. ‘It was mixed with the insulin. Incredible. Some of the phials also had something called…’ He held out the writing on his fist. ‘… crystal methamphetamine – it’s a street drug; cheap and easy to find. Watson said it creates a tremendous rush, but it can also have effects like agitation, paranoia, confusion and can cause violent behaviour.’
Jody puffed out her cheeks. ‘Why didn’t they test her for drugs when they arrested her? Couldn’t they tell she was high?’
‘She was tested, I checked, but not straight away. The drugs she’d been given had already left her system by then, so no one picked it up. She didn’t show any obvious signs of drug use – no needle marks in her arms, no damage in her nose or gums. Her father told them the discreet needle marks in her stomach were for insulin and that she’d never touched recreational drugs. She didn’t fit the profile, so they didn’t check soon enough. Big mistake on their part. They put her behaviour down to mental illness.’
�
��But wasn’t she continuing with the same medicines at the hospital?’
‘No. Once admitted, they reviewed her meds and she was given fresh prescriptions. I was out of it at the time, but apparently the paramedics took Sophie’s handbag with them when she was taken to the hospital. It had her daily medication inside, but it was put to one side for reference only.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘Watson thinks there’s a real chance the court will consider the conviction unsafe and quash it.’
‘So, she could be released?’
‘It’s possible, but that’s still some time away.’
Jody clapped her hands together. ‘Even so, that’s amazing.’
Daniel’s glimmer of shared euphoria subsided like a punctured dinghy. ‘There’s still Ben…’
Chapter 80
‘Okay. Let’s look again at what we’ve got here,’ said Jody. ‘This is the latest communication from Rick, right?’
‘Yes.’ Daniel scrunched up his nose. ‘Only the postmark is smudged.’
‘Never mind. Let’s look at it at face value,’ she said with authority.
Daniel felt his shoulders slide down. At last, someone else was taking the lead, for once.
Jody carried on. ‘This is about a woman that Rick knows, who he thinks you have treated badly, who has some connection with Oxford, yeah?’
He pointed to the postcards. ‘These are pictures of his college; he did a degree there in biochemistry.’
‘Does anything else ring any bells?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘Rick and I were brought up in Oxford and used to see a lot of each other as kids. I visited his college a couple of times once he’d started.’ He folded his arms. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for…’
Jody looked out onto the street and Daniel followed her line of sight. A boy was attempting to lean his bicycle against the window of the café and someone behind him was shaking his head and pointing further up the road.
‘I don’t know if it’s in any way connected, but when I bumped into Rick at the memorial for Mark, he said something really odd about you not being squeaky clean.’
‘Oh, great,’ said Daniel, throwing his wooden stirrer into his saucer. ‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’
‘I thought he was just trying to wind me up. He mentioned a cemetery near Barnes Bridge.’
‘What?’ Daniel screwed up his face in disbelief.
‘He said there was a gravestone that I should be interested in, in connection with you.’
She glanced down into her lap. He knew from her hesitation that there was more.
‘I went there. To see for myself.’ Using a discarded napkin on the table, she mopped up a spill of coffee in a way that suggested she was making light of the information. ‘I didn’t want to bother you with it. It didn’t make any sense to me, but… yes, I went to check.’
‘And what did you find?’ He was on the edge of his seat.
‘A headstone for a boy called Miles Fox; Rick’s brother, I assume.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Daniel rubbed his eyes. ‘You asked me about him. He died young.’ He started nodding his head as the truth dawned on him. ‘I see… you must have found the grave by then – that’s why you were so interested in what I had to say about him.’
‘Yeah, that was just after I’d been there. You seemed so relaxed about it, so I dropped it. I didn’t want to worry you.’ She looked directly into his eyes then swiftly away again. ‘I put it down to one of Rick’s bizarre antics.’
‘Jody, what else is there I should know? What else have you kept from me?’
‘Nothing – that’s it, honestly.’
She sounded so innocent and artless. He stretched his eyebrows apart with his thumb and middle finger, still unsure whether or not he trusted Jody.
She picked up her bag and pulled out her phone.
‘Look, I’ve got a picture of the grave on here.’
Daniel looked at the words carved into the stone. He nodded. ‘Yeah, he died in 2011.’ He rested his elbows on the chair arms, propping up his head. ‘Really sad, he was still a child.’
‘And he died of a brain tumour you said. What could that possibly have to do with you?’
Daniel covered his eyes with his hands. ‘I don’t know…’
‘Okay, our biggest priority is to find Ben,’ she said with renewed purpose. ‘What else can we do?’
Seduced by her concern, he heard the words coming out of his mouth before he could stop them.
‘I’m not Ben’s biological father,’ he said.
Jody shot round to face him ‘Not his––?’
‘The DNA test… think you knew.’
‘I didn’t want to pry.’
‘The long and short of it is I found out that not only is Ben not mine, but his real father is…’ He spat out the word, ‘Rick…’
She visibly shuddered. ‘S-H-I-T – are you sure?’
‘Yes. It all ties in, don’t you see?’
‘But, Sophie…’ He could see Jody’s mind running through the ramifications.
‘She went to a party when I was away once. She said Rick was pestering her and then she felt ill and threw up. The dates tally. Now we’ve got proof he was drugging her from September, I think he drugged her then, too.’
Jody’s eyes peeled wide. ‘What an utter bastard. Do the police know all this?’
‘Not the last bit, or about Rick being Ben’s father. I don’t think it will help at the moment. I just need my boy back.’
Daniel started to cry. He dropped his head, smudging his tears with the heel of his hand.
Jody reached out to him, pulled him towards her and he sank into her sturdy arms, unresisting.
She gritted her teeth. ‘We’ll get him back. We’ll find him. Where’s Rick’s family? Are they still in Oxford?’
‘His father died, but his mother is still there, I think. His sister lives in London.’
‘Is he close to his sister? Have you been in touch with her?’
‘I saw her last week. We’ve been in touch since then.’
‘We’ve got to go and see her,’ she insisted.
‘She doesn’t know where Rick is,’ he snivelled. ‘The police have been questioning her.’
‘Has she seen these postcards?’
‘No.’
‘Right. Let’s see if she can shed any light on them. Rick’s dangerous. We need to talk to her today.’
Chapter 81
Louise opened the door to her flat before Daniel had the chance to ring the bell.
‘I heard footsteps,’ she said, standing in the doorway. ‘I thought it might be Rick.’
The three of them stood looking at each other until Louise realised she’d need to step aside and let them in.
‘This is the living room,’ she said, as though they were prospective buyers with an appointment to view her property.
On the way over, Daniel had described Louise to Jody. The words ‘skittish and impulsive’ had come to mind.
‘She sounds like a jolly, but benign version of Rick,’ Jody had surmised with great accuracy.
Louise looked like she hadn’t had much sleep, but unfortunately had enough energy to hum along to a loud rendition of ‘Funky Gibbon’ coming from the kitchen.
‘Drinks?’ she offered. On her way to the kitchen she surreptitiously shoved a packet of toffees down the side of the sofa. A washing machine began to rumble as it gathered speed during the spin setting, drowning out the music.
She returned carrying a Mickey Mouse tray with three tall glasses of lemonade, having failed to determine which drinks they actually wanted. They sat around a pine dining table tucked into an alcove. From the sixth floor there was a clear view of a nearby netball pitch and carpark.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see us,’ said Daniel. ‘This is all a bit awkward.’
‘I still don’t know where he is,’ she said defensively. She pulled up the neckline of her smock to cover her ampl
e cleavage. ‘He didn’t say.’
‘You’ve seen him? When?’
‘No,’ she said, looking away. ‘He left a message saying you were in for a nasty shock. He didn’t say what you’re supposed to have done. I’m worried about him, to be honest.’
Alongside the upright piano, a collection of Samurai swords mounted on the wall were catching the light, as were several twirling mobiles hanging from the ceiling with multi-coloured umbrellas, butterflies and fish dangling down. An orange monkey sat on the sofa arm and rows of framed posters of Batman, Spiderman, Flash Gordon and other comic heroes cluttered the interior. The entire place looked like a small toy shop.
Daniel and Jody exchanged a glance.
‘You know Ben is missing, don’t you? My boy?’
‘Yeah,’ she said with a grimace. ‘The police were asking if Rick had mentioned him.’
‘And?’
‘No,’ she said with conviction. ‘No, he hasn’t.’
A silence sucked out the air between them.
‘We wondered if you might be able to shed some light on these.’
Daniel pulled the postcards out of his jacket pocket and placed them on the table. Louise took a quick look, turning them over.
‘They’re from Rick. What’s he getting at?’ Louise asked.
‘That’s what we hoped you might be able to tell us?’
Daniel swirled the straw around that Louise had plonked in his glass, making the ice cubes clink. He wasn’t sure how much she knew about the recent criminal revelations. He wasn’t going to waste time bringing her up to speed. She’d find out soon enough.
‘It’s Rick’s college, isn’t it?’ Louise asked, taking a second look. ‘But I don’t know what it means.’
Daniel shot a glance at the door. ‘What’s that?’ He froze to the spot with his finger in the air.
‘It’s a baby crying,’ said Jody.
‘It’s Ben,’ he yelled, launching to his feet.
He scuttled out of the door and into the corridor, waiting for the sound again. Jody and Louise followed him.