The Coop

by E C Deacon

  “You tell me. If she wasn’t in a relationship with you, was she with someone else? A man?”

  “I don’t know. Gina could be a bit secretive. She said she’d met someone, but she never talked about it.”

  “I find that a bit hard to believe. I mean, you were supposedly her best friend.”

  “Mrs Lewis,” Laura interjected, “I know you’re upset about the will, and I would be if I were in your situation–”

  “For Christ sake! I’m not asking for your sympathy! I’m asking you to be honest with me!”

  “I am! I can’t tell you something I don’t know! And it’s not my fault Gina changed her will. I didn’t ask her to. I wish she hadn’t. I wish she hadn’t died. I wish I could have stopped her and none of this had happened!”

  They stood there in the crushing silence until Celia turned away, fumbling for the comfort of her electronic cigarette. Grateful to find it in the bottom of her Mulberry bag, she took a long hit of nicotine and said in a confessional whisper, “I’m sorry… Gina and I… we were going through a difficult time and… Well, when something like this happens you can’t help but blame yourself.”

  “Gina loved you, Mrs Lewis.”

  Celia tried to smile, failed and said, “You’d never have thought so from what her friends told the newspapers. I’ll make a start on her bedroom. I assume you won’t mind me taking any personal items and gifts we may have given her?”

  Laura watched Celia, crushed by her guilt, disappear upstairs; disturbing a small white feather that floated momentarily into the air before settling down onto a lower step. Steeling herself, she pushed open the door and entered the lounge. Everything looked perfect, just as Gina had always kept it, except that the chandelier Laura had so carefully chosen as a moving-in present had been replaced by a bare light bulb hanging from a flex.

  The detective’s room was situated on the first floor of Wimbledon Police Station, above the front desk, interview rooms and holding cells. It was accessed via its own keypad that could be overridden by a barcoded name tag worn around the neck. Security was tight, since a number of computers containing sensitive information were stolen in 2017 and subsequently discovered at a car-boot sale in Barnet. The incident had been doubly embarrassing for DCI Malcolm Teal, as he’d just gone on record praising his team for successfully targeting burglars in Merton and lowering the crime rate. The journalist he gave the interview to was Pauline Bowe, Everton Bowe’s wife. It had soured their professional relationship ever since.

  Everton was chatting to Helen at her workstation, a small desk with views of two walls and the men’s lavatory. As the latest recruit, she was treated like the runt of the litter and left with only with the scraps – being the only woman in the department didn’t help.

  “So, you’ll knock me up a police insurance report?”

  “Yeah, no problem. Email what you want me to say and I’ll copy it and send it back.” Helen winked.

  “Mrs Lewis. How did it go?”

  Everton looked up and saw DCI Teal, a bullock of a man, striding out of his office to interrupt them.

  “She warned me to stay away from the press.” Everton shrugged, aware of the irony.

  “Good advice. Helen. A word. My office.”

  For a big man of over six foot three and 210 pounds, Teal spoke in very short sentences, a habit born out of his dyslexia, which he learnt to cope with in his police exams by writing in short precise sentences. Now it had bled into his work life.

  He disappeared back into his room, leaving the door ajar in a gesture indicating “now”.

  “He loves you really.” Helen grinned as she stood up.

  Everton, not caring about his career, didn’t give a toss what Teal thought of him. He gave her the finger and strolled out.

  Teal rolled down his support socks as he waited for Helen. He had angina and was supposed to be on a diet, which he’d ignored until six months ago when he keeled over whilst refereeing his kid’s rugby match. Now he ate salads and oily fish five days a week and hated the taste it left in his mouth. He placed an extra-strong mint onto his tongue and barked, “DC Lake.”

  Helen Lake had the makings of a good copper, but she was one of the new breed of graduates he instinctively mistrusted. She knew a lot about theory but less than she thought about practice.

  “DC Lake!”

  “Two minutes, guv.”

  Guv? Even the way she said it, in her confident public-school voice, irked him. It made him feel like a dinosaur, an impostor. Teal had come up through the ranks and never felt entirely comfortable with the PR skills and political nous required of the modern senior police officer.

  “Sorry, guv,” said Helen, entering and taking a seat, unoffered, opposite Teal’s cluttered desk. “You wanted a word with me?”

  “Mrs Lewis. What happened?”

  “Nothing. I never spoke to her directly myself. I was banished outside to wait with her husband. Why?”

  “Bowe. I told you to keep an eye on him.”

  “I’m not his nursemaid.”

  “No, but you’ve had a relationship.”

  Helen, ignoring the memory of Angus Lewis’ ironic remark, replied, “With respect, that’s none of your business.”

  Teal eyed her, crunched and swallowed his palate-cleansing peppermint and got down to the business at hand. “I’ve had a complaint. Been made aware of one. Mrs Lewis claims Bowe was disrespectful.”

  “Not when I was there.”

  “You just said you weren’t.”

  “I was in the room for part of the conversation, during which time PC Bowe handled himself impeccably, then Mrs Lewis ordered me, and I use the word advisedly, to leave the room. Which I did–”

  “Okay. Okay. I get the picture.”

  “With respect” – she was doing it again and didn’t care – “wouldn’t it just be easier to ask PC Bowe himself?”

  “I will – after I ascertain the facts.”

  Helen shrugged and said no more. As far as she was concerned, it was a dead subject; she had better things to do with her time. Teal did too, but disliked what he perceived, with some justification, as her patronising attitude.

  “Do you think you’re the only one who has to take bullshit orders?”

  Helen was surprised by his sudden change of tack. “No. But–”

  “I haven’t finished! I have people, important people, people I don’t like and as sure as shit don’t like me, all over this department like a rash, and not just because some minor politician’s daughter goes and tops herself, oh no, I’ve also got three missing women, whose families fear are dead, and I don’t have a damn clue what to tell them, so cut the sarcasm and get on with your job! Okay?”

  It was the longest sentence she’d ever heard Teal utter and she knew better than to push him further.

  “Sir,” she said, and walked out.

  Twenty minutes later, Teal walked over to her desk and offered her a conciliatory peppermint. “Okay. Where have you got with the lady in the lake?”

  “River.”

  “Whatever.”

  Helen accepted the peace offering, handed him the file and began filling him in, explaining that she’d had no luck tracing Tessa’s date through Match.com, who were reluctant to release any information on the man, citing client confidentiality, especially since she had no proof that he’d actually committed any crime.

  “Frightened of getting sued,” grunted Teal.

  “Yeah, but they did confirm he’d recently removed his profile.”

  Teal looked up from the file, interested now. “How recent?”

  “The same day Tessa Hayes was found in the river. It’s exactly the same MO.”

  “Maybe, but the other women were all using different sites.”

  “I think he’s changing sites, making himself more difficult to track.”

  “A lot of people use multiple online dating sites.”

  Helen said nothing, knowing it was the truth. She’d used them herself a few t
imes and had a couple of interesting one-night stands. Teal sucked on his peppermint and rolled it around his mouth, weighing his limited options.

  “What about his credit card payments?”

  “They won’t release them without a court order.”

  “And a magistrate won’t issue one without us being able to link him to a crime. It’s catch twenty-two.”

  “It won’t be in his real name anyway. He’s too smart for that.”

  “Any pattern in the fake profiles? Age? Class? Hobbies?”

  “Nothing except the ages. They’re all men in their early forties. He’s obviously trying to appeal to the age range of the women he’s targeting, who are generally a few years older.”

  “What about the bogus photos?”

  “The two we found on the other missing women’s laptops were totally different. I was thinking of re-interviewing the families.”

  “They’ve already been interviewed by DS Clarke.”

  “Yeah, but initially he had them down as a low priority.”

  “There wasn’t any pattern.”

  “Now there is. Come on. It’s worth a shot, guv.”

  “Okay,” Teal conceded. “You’ve got five days. Come up with something or we park it.”

  “I’m going to need some help – and preferably not DS Clarke. He might feel I’m questioning his judgement.”

  “You are.”

  “I’m just following the evidence, guv. I was thinking maybe DC Coyle?”

  Teal shot her look that told her the idea was a complete non-starter. “I’ve got a gang war in Phipps Bridge, and another knifing in Morden.”

  “Okay. Give me a female PC. I mean, we’re dealing with missing women–”

  “It was a fourteen-year-old girl who got stabbed. Alright. Alright. Take Bowe. I hear you’ve doubled up before.”

  Helen couldn’t be sure, but she thought he might have been grinning as he walked back into his office and shut the door firmly behind him.

  Peter Pitt, like the furnishing in the solicitor’s waiting room, could best be described as “shabby-chic”. Laura returned his welcoming smile, and walked through the door he held open for her.

  “Perhaps I should lead,” he suggested, performing a smart quickstep past Laura and guiding her through the warren of narrow, musty corridors. “Sorry about the trek. These old buildings are beautiful from the outside but inside… hey ho.”

  The walls were hung with formally posed photographs of the various partners. Laura’s count had reached a dozen, when…

  “Most of them are dead,” explained Peter. “Here we are.”

  He opened the door to a spacious, modern office, which was flooded with light from a pair of Georgian windows overlooking the Isleworth towpath and River Thames. Laura was pleasantly surprised.

  “I know. It’s a bit like the Tardis, isn’t it?” He smiled, shutting the door behind them.

  “The what?”

  “Tardis? Much bigger on the inside… Doctor Who?” he said, pulling out one of the Italian chrome and leather chairs for Laura to sit on. “Have you been offered coffee? Tea?”

  “I’m fine,” Laura replied, waiting as he sat opposite and opened a green cardboard file which lay rather incongruously on the modernist glass desk. “You said on the phone that it was important. I’m assuming it’s about Gina’s will?”

  “Yes. I’m sure this must have come as a shock to you.”

  Laura wasn’t sure if he was talking about the circumstances of Gina’s death or the new will, so said nothing.

  “I didn’t know Miss Lewis well. We’d only looked after her affairs for the past year, but I liked her enormously. She had such life…” He paused, realising his poor choice of words and mumbled, “Very sad.”

  His respects paid, he reached into the green file, pulled out a letter and handed it to Laura, stating with appropriate gravitas, “This is Miss Lewis’ Last Will and Testament.”

  Laura hesitated; it wasn’t a typed document but a handwritten letter.

  “As you can see, it’s a little unusual but technically quite legal. You are named as the executor and sole beneficiary.”

  “This is dated the day she died?”

  “Yes. I received it two days later. As I say, it’s quite legal, but under the circumstances, I must warn you, it may be challenged.”

  “By her family?” said Laura, feeling swamped by the awful ramifications of her dead friend’s decision and suspecting it was why the solicitor had been so keen to meet her personally.

  “Yes. Mrs Lewis has already been in contact. I’d strongly advise you to have no further contact with her or her husband.”

  “Were they the previous benefactors?”

  “Sorry. The content of the previous will is strictly confidential.”

  “I don’t understand. If the previous will was confidential, how did Mrs Lewis know it was changed?”

  Peter polished his Parker Pen on his sleeve, formulating the correct, non-committal reply and said, finally, “That is a question for her, not me. I can only advise you of the facts I’m legally allowed to.”

  “You said Mrs Lewis had been in contact with you; surely you must have asked her?”

  “I’m afraid any conversations between Mrs Lewis and I are bound to remain–”

  “Confidential.” Laura was losing patience. “So why exactly did you call me in here?”

  “Well… to formally give you the good news about your bequest.”

  Angus Lewis was in the eat-in kitchen of his Fulham Palace Road home, talking to his AA sponsor on his mobile. It was a bi-weekly charade that he kept up to placate his wife, Celia, since the car accident that put him in a wheelchair for life and, she believed, led to their daughter’s suicide.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “She needs someone to hate, to blame for ruining the life she’s worked so hard to perfect, and with Gina gone it’s yours truly.”

  He picked up his glass of malt and wheeled his way out, across the antique pine hall floor and into the Designers Guild sitting room as he listened to his sponsor’s response. Then, said wearily, “My daughter just hanged herself. Wouldn’t you be drinking?... We’re both self-medicating, hers just comes in a smaller bottle – which reminds me…”

  He deftly wheeled himself back out into the hall, down to the cloakroom, and hauled open the pine door. The room was like a miniature gentlemen’s club; all mahogany, polished brass and military photographs of Angus’s career in the Scots Guards.

  “I’m doing the steps but my darling wife keeps pushing me back down them. Just give me a minute, please. I’ll put you on loudspeaker… No, as you were. Don’t know how the damn thing works.” He placed the mobile and tumbler of Scotch on the windowsill, bent down, picked up a glass urine bottle and unzipped himself. “Nearly there – oh, shit.”

  The rap at the front door made him jerk around, causing him to splash himself and the floor with urine. He groaned and grabbed the mobile.

  “Look, I’ll have to phone you back… I’m aware that this should be my priority, but there’s someone at the door and I’ve just peed my pants.”

  The line went dead in his hands.

  “Born again bloody puritan,” he muttered. Grabbing a magazine to cover his wet trousers, he wheeled himself back out into the hall and yanked open the front door. “If you’re the press you can bugger off before I call the police.”

  It wasn’t the press.

  “My name is Colin Gould. I was your daughter’s fiancé.”

  Ten minutes later, Colin sat on the edge of the Designer Guild sofa in the sitting room, waiting for Angus to reappear. He’d planned the visit with his usual precision, watching the house from a safe distance as he waited for Celia and her driver to depart. He felt he’d receive a fairer hearing with Mr Lewis, but now he was inside his confidence was evaporating.

  He looked around the room again, at the understated but expensive furnishings and baby grand piano that fitted the dimensions of the bay window e
xactly, and the silver-framed photos arranged in perfect symmetry on the top of it. It was obvious where Gina had got her need for order from. But it was odd that the only thing missing was a picture of her.

  “Do you play?” asked Angus as he wheeled himself in, balancing two cups of coffee on a silver-plated tray covering his wet lap.

  “No. I’m afraid not. But I love classical music. Brahms and Schubert.”

  “Can’t bear it myself,” said Angus, making no attempt to put Colin at ease. “You and Gina were engaged?”

  “Oh… Well, yes… unofficially,” stumbled Colin, momentarily thrown by the sudden change of subject.

  “What does that mean? Either you were or you weren’t.”

  Colin shifted uncomfortably in his seat, surprised by Angus’s accusatory tone, and tried to regain his composure. “We were in love, Mr Lewis. We’d talked about moving in together… Maybe eventually getting married–”

  “If this has anything to do with her changing her will and the house, you need to take that up with her so-called friend Laura.”

  “Laura? No. I didn’t know anything about–”

  “Look,” said Angus, realising he may have said too much and moving the conversation on to safer ground. “Gina never said anything to us about you or any of this marriage business.”

  “She wouldn’t have. She wanted to keep it a secret until… well, she was sure. I was…”

  “I see. And why do you feel the need to tell me this now?”

  “Because… I think she killed herself over us – me…” The words clotted in his throat, and Colin, a man who hadn’t cried in forty years since his father walked out, abandoning him and his mother, who despised the crocodile tears of the tax cheats he’d censured, suddenly broke down and wept.

  “You see, we broke up a couple of months ago… I don’t know why, we hadn’t rowed… She just stopped answering my phone calls. I tried over and over again. I wasn’t stalking her. I wasn’t threatening her. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not like that. I’m a good person. I have strong moral values… I just needed to talk to her… To make her understand what she meant to me…”

  Angus listened to his confession, knowing that it was a fantasy that his darling, troubled daughter could never have been in love with a man who blabbed like a baby in front of a complete stranger.