by E C Deacon
Teal turned to Everton, demanding, “You sure of the time?”
“Positive. It was just prior to me getting the shout about Gina Lewis’ suicide. I went from the incident on the Ridgway straight there.”
“You’re suggesting Hart could have been at Gina Lewis’ house?”
“It’s possible.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying she was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide?” scoffed Clarke. “Because forensics found no sign of a struggle, no bruising or scratches on her body, and the pathologist is one hundred per cent sure that it was suicide.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“What are you saying? That Hart was there watching her hang herself?”
“I don’t know what he was doing there. But what we do know is that Gina Lewis was already dead. The pathologist puts the time of death between nine and nine-thirty pm. And Laura Fell made her 999 call at ten forty-seven, an hour and a quarter later, claiming to have seen someone in the house.”
“Claiming being the operative word; there was no sign of a break-in or forced entry.”
“And we now know why,” interjected Helen, holding up an evidence bag containing a silver Chubb key. “We subsequently found this hidden underneath an ornamental boot brush outside the back door. Whoever was in there had no need to break in because he knew there was a key.”
“Prints?” said Teal, turning to Teddy, cutting to the chase.
“It’s been wiped clean. Like the house. We didn’t find a single print apart from hers. In fact, we’ve found absolutely nothing apart from PC Bowe’s feather and we came up blank on that too.”
“Okay. Let’s assume someone – for the sake of argument, Don Hart – was there after Gina Lewis committed suicide. What was he doing?”
“Maybe they were in a relationship?” suggested Jerry Coyle, a boyishly good-looking young DC who’d recently been seconded to the case and was keen to make his mark. “I mean, we know that Hart likes to play the field and it would explain him knowing about the key.”
Teal turned a bleak eye on him and said, “I might be old-fashioned, Jerry, but in my day, you didn’t invite your lover round and then top yourself before they got there.”
The room broke up in laughter.
Teal held up his hand for silence. “Anyone else got any bright ideas?”
No one was willing to risk another theory.
Teal turned back to Helen. “You’re the graduate. Enlighten us.”
“We think he was looking for something. Gina’s laptop and mobile are missing. And we know the mobile was in the house at ten forty-three, because Laura Fell phoned it and she heard it ringing inside.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” countered Clarke. “Hart phoned her fifteen minutes later to apologise for not making the Telegraph meeting.”
“He could have done it from inside the house or just after he got out, creating an alibi for himself. He told us he’d broken his mobile, which means, conveniently for him, we can’t check.”
“Okay,” said Teal. “Just for the hell of it, let’s go with the theory that Hart took the mobile and the laptop. Why would he do that?”
“Because they both contained incriminating evidence of his and Gina’s affair,” said Jerry, sticking doggedly to his previous theory.
This time Teal didn’t shoot him down. “She topped herself because she was screwing her best friend’s boyfriend behind her back and felt guilty. A bit Mills & Boon, but not impossible.”
“It would explain why she changed her will and left Laura Fell her house. It was her way of apologising.”
“Why didn’t she leave a letter explaining it?” Helen challenged. “Hart’s not the type of guy to go to all the trouble of stealing a laptop and mobile just to hide the fact he’s screwing someone. Especially when his relationship with Laura Fell was on the wane. There’s got to be more to it than that.”
“Jesus. We’re going around in circles,” groaned Clarke. “Forget the theories and look at the facts. One: you’ve got no definitive proof that Hart was actually in the house. Two: therefore, you’ve got no proof that he actually took anything. Three: and I’m sorry to hark back to my original problem – none of this links in any way to Tessa Hayes or the other missing women.”
“Not directly–”
“Exactly,” said Clarke, holding up his hands as if resting his case.
“But one,” retorted Helen. “Hart lied and he knows Gina Lewis. Two: we found a rare feather in Gina’s house that’s a perfect DNA match for the one found on the blanket with Tessa Hayes. Three: one of the drugs mentioned in Hart’s dog-doping trial was Rohypnol, the same drug that was used to incapacitate Tessa Hayes. Four: her mobile and laptop were taken, as were all the other missing women’s – including Gina Lewis’.”
“It’s still all circumstantial.”
“Wait. There’s more. Hart uses online dating sites; he met Laura Fell on one. Hart’s changed his mobile number; Tessa Hayes’ attacker did the same. Hart has brown hair and wears glasses; the CCTV image we have of the attacker shows him – guess what – with glasses and dark hair. Now you may think that’s all just random bullshit but, in my manual, that adds up to something a lot more than circumstantial.”
Clarke’s challenge had been answered and the group waited in loaded silence for DCI Teal’s judgement.
“I’m inclined to agree with her, Jack.”
Clarke shrugged and said no more, knowing better than to go publicly against his DCI. Teal turned his attention back to the troop.
“Okay. Let’s see if we can join up some of the dots. Get a warrant to search Hart’s place and sequester his laptop and mobile phone records.”
“Guv. Come on. He was only busted last week by the Fraud Squad.”
“Bust him again. Constable Bowe. My office. A word.”
Everton, thrown by the sudden change of topic, shot a quizzical look at Helen. She turned aside, pretending not to see it.
“Now please, Bowe.”
Everton hauled himself to his feet and trailed after Teal, into his office.
“Close the door. Take a seat.”
Everton did as he was ordered.
Teal unwrapped a roll of peppermints and offered Everton one like it was a cigar. “Okay. This is not personal. You’re back in uniform.”
Everton had sensed that something was coming when Helen had turned away from him in the detective’s room. But it still hurt. “Isn’t it? Tell me why.”
“You and DC Lake have been ruffling the wrong feathers.”
“You’re talking about Celia Lewis. Oh, come on. This could be a murder investigation and she’s hiding something. What was I supposed to do?”
“Use a bit of diplomacy.”
“I’m a copper, not a diplomat. I thought you were too.”
“You don’t like the answer, don’t ask the question.”
“Christ. You’re even beginning to sound like a politician.”
“You want to criticise me? Sit on this side of the desk. See how much you like it.”
“Be honest. Are you telling me that you wouldn’t have done the same thing?”
“No. I’d have done exactly what you did and got shafted too.” Everton was taken aback by the weary resignation in his voice as he continued. “Look, putting aside the fact that I don’t like you, my hands are tied. I need a fall guy. Someone to appease the powers that be. Or they’re going to shut down this investigation.”
“Celia Lewis isn’t powerful enough to do that.”
“Isn’t she? The assistant commissioner got a call from the mayor’s office. He phoned Borough Commander Walsh. He had a chat with my superintendent. He called me. Had a word in my ear. Now I’m having one in yours – as ordered.”
“What about DC Lake? She was there too.”
“It was either her or you, and, frankly, she’s better than you.”
Everton cracked a rueful smile. No matter how much he hated it, he had to admit that
there was an inexorable logic to Teal’s thinking. “You allow them to bury this case and it will come back and bury you.”
“No one’s burying anything on my watch.”
“DS Clarke will, to save his skin. You’d better not let him.”
Teal watched Everton turn and walk out of the door, knowing that it was not an idle threat.
Everton chewed on the cud of his anger and strode out of the detective’s office without a backward glance. He was done. Done with the case. Done with the job. Done with being rejected by people he didn’t respect. And done with friends who chose their careers over him.
Helen was waiting for him in the corridor. She heard the truculent rhythm of his footsteps before he steamed around the corner.
“Everton. Listen…”
He walked straight past her. Shoved open the swing door to the stairwell and started down the concrete steps two at a time.
Helen followed him, her voice and footsteps echoing as she struggled to catch up. “Everton. Wait–”
“You should have told me.”
“He ordered me not to.”
“So you’re suddenly following orders now, are you? Working with Nobby?”
“Hey! I fought to keep you on board. Okay?”
“Clearly not hard enough.”
“Look, they know about me and you. They know about you and Laura Fell.”
“They don’t know anything about me and Laura, because there’s nothing to know.”
“Oh, come on. You’re too close to her.”
“Fuck you, Helen! I was close to you, and look what it got me!”
He banged out of the stairwell through the charge area, hit the exit button, yanked open the door and stalked out into the prisoner’s holding cage in the yard.
Helen, doggedly following his footsteps, called after him, “Listen to me! Hoffman has got files on both of us! About me doing a deal to keep my father in care. Your medical condition – that you lied to me about. You crashing our car in Richmond Park and us not reporting it. Teal’s trying to protect you.”
“No. He’s trying to protect you. I don’t need protecting because I care more about the truth than my career.”
It was another low blow, intended to hurt.
It did. Helen took a moment to regain her composure and said simply, “No. You care more about justice. And justice and the law isn’t always the same thing, Everton.”
It was the truth, but he couldn’t admit it. He turned, punched in the exit code for the mesh metal door and watched it grind slowly open. “Good luck with your career, Detective. You’ve earned it.”
He walked out of the cage that had been metaphorically holding him for years, to start the first day of the rest of his life.
One hundred and ninety-four miles away, Megan Howell was attempting to do the same thing.
The Morgan family were sitting at the window table of the Sticks'n'Sushi restaurant in Swansea, laughing and joking like they hadn’t a care in the world. Like one of them hadn’t poisoned her dog. Sian was eating sashimi sea bass, her favourite dish, with chopsticks. Megan watched her from her car, parked on the other side of the street, deftly placing the pieces of fish into her mouth; remembering their laughter when she’d first taught her how to use them.
There were four of them at the table. Her perma-tanned, cruise-loving mother and father, who picked at the delicate food with forks and would have preferred a smarter venue to celebrate their daughter’s eighteenth birthday if the circumstances were different. Her barrel-chested rugby-prop brother, Idris, who Megan knew of old - she’d seen him pissing on her front lawn, and mooning at her when she complained.
Sian knew nothing of the abuse, of course, and Megan hadn’t told her. She was just an innocent, unwittingly caught up in it and now its consequence. Megan knew she’d never have hurt Gabriel Oak. Sian loved him and Bathsheba. She’d taken them for walks in Victoria Park and let them sleep in bed with them on their stolen afternoons in her parent’s home.
No, she knew the guilty party, and whether he was being encouraged by his parents didn’t matter; he was going to pay for them all. Not content with driving her out of Swansea, they’d now killed her dog and driven her out of London. Well, enough was enough. She was tired of being punished. Tired of being afraid to answer her phone or open her emails. Sick of the blood-speckled bile that she hacked from her stomach every morning. She would show them that there were consequences to their actions.
She’d cleared her rented flat of everything she could carry. Made three journeys by cab to the Yellow Box storage facility is New Malden and deposited her belongings. Closed her NatWest bank account and transferred the money into an online Instant Cash ISA. Telling no one, she caught the overnight National Express coach from Victoria to Swansea. It was a long, three-and-a-half-hour journey down the M4 corridor and across the Severn Estuary into Wales, but it gave her time to think, to formulate a plan.
She booked into the Travelodge on Princess Way and slept fitfully, Bathsheba on the bed beside her, until lunchtime. She spent an hour haggling before buying a second-hand Polo for cash from a backstreet dealership. She didn’t have time for lunch, so she bought a tasteless tuna sandwich, water, dog food, barbecue fluid and a Zippo lighter from a Tesco Express.
It was almost three thirty when she parked up a discreet distance from the fancy wrought-iron gates of her old school to wait for the end-of-day bell. The caretaker opened Abigail’s Gate – named after a former pupil and gifted to the school by her bereaved parents – and the Day Girls filed out. They spilled noisily out into the road and disappeared into the Range Rovers and SUVs that waited impatiently, engines running, to make their escapes.
Megan eased down in her seat and wrapped her scarf around her face, so as not to be recognised. She hoped that Sian, prompted by her parents, had reverted into a Day Girl after the abuse scandal. She was right. Sian’s mother, Bethan, cruised past in her BMW X6 and double-honked at Sian as she appeared through the gates. Megan thought that Sian looked thin, but she appeared happy enough, joking with her classmates before she manoeuvred through the convoy of SUVs to climb in beside her mother and kiss her on her proffered cheek.
Megan groaned to herself as she remembered a different kind of kissing, of wet tongues and slippery saliva, and warm flesh and soft curves that opened… She watched them drive away through the expensive traffic.
She knew where they’d be going. She once spent a weekend in Sian’s palatial home in East Cliff when her parents were away watching her brother’s rugby tour. She and Sian swam naked in the pool and drank expensive bottles of Barolo from her father’s spiral wine cellar, hidden underneath the Italian marble floor of the kitchen.
She watched Sian disappear behind the electronic gates of the red-brick mansion and settled down with Bathsheba and the other half of her tuna sandwich to wait. Three hours later the family reappeared in a black Mini Cooper, driven by an excited Sian. It had a red ribbon tied in a bow around the roof aerial.
And now, she sat opposite it and them, waiting, as they celebrated. Forty minutes later, still laughing and joking, the family made their way out. Idris shook hands with his father, gave his mother and sister dutiful pecks on the cheek and set off – she imagined to meet up with his drinking buddies. She waited for Sian’s Mini to disappear, clipped a leather lead to Bathsheba’s collar, picked up her Tesco bag and climbed out of her car to follow him.
The windswept street was dark and empty. But Idris walked confidently, secure in his physical presence. She followed him, observing him from a safe distance, hoping that he wouldn’t disappoint her. He picked up his pace as she crossed the road. She did the same but stayed on her side, walking parallel to him, twenty metres behind. Bathsheba dragged against the lead, complaining about not being allowed to loiter and mark her new-found territory. Megan ignored her. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of her prey, not now she was so close.
“He’s looking for change,” she muttered to Bathsheba as she watc
hed Idris pause mid-step and begin rifling through his khaki chino pockets. “He’s going to do it.”
Almost as if he’d heard her, Idris turned and checked the street behind him. She slipped into a shop doorway and waited for him to move off again. She could see where he was going now. The red public phone box drew him inexorably to it. And to his fate.
Idris hauled open the heavy door and stepped inside. It smelt of stale urine and curry. He placed a pile of twenty-pence pieces on the graffiti-scarred plastic shelf beside the phone. He fed in the coins one by one. Satisfied he had enough credit for his purpose, he punched in the London code. He knew the number by heart and knew she wouldn’t answer even if she was in. What he didn’t know was that she was standing five feet behind him with a plastic bottle of barbecue fluid and a lighter in her hands.
She was surprised that the flames took so quickly. The lighter lit up the barbecue fluid like he was a straw guy on a bonfire. She wondered if the confined space held the vapour in place, adding to its efficacy, but she didn’t hold the door shut long – he was too strong and his shrill screams would draw attention. Just long enough to enjoy the look on his face when he realised who she was.
Then, she turned and walked briskly away with Bathsheba at her heels, content in the knowledge that her tormentor’s rugby-playing days were over.
Everton Bowe groaned, stepped out of the shower, relit a spliff that was resting on the side of the sink and took another hit from the half-bottle of Mount Gay beside it. His mind was reeling and he needed something to take the edge off.
Why did the rejection hurt so much? He’d been rejected before. Christ, his whole career had been one long rejection; he should have been used to it by now. And why did he feel so disappointed in Helen? She was a realist. She’d done the pragmatic thing and saved her career. He’d sacrificed his, like the idiot he’d always been, for his ideals. So what if Laura Fell had been involved with a scumbag like Hart? She wasn’t perfect. Why had he put her on a pedestal and been so disappointed when she’d fallen off? She didn’t owe him anything and he wasn’t her moral guardian. Helen was right. He’d allowed himself to get too close to her, to feel for her, and he wasn’t good with feelings. Like his mother used to say, “You make your decisions and you don’t bleat about the consequences.”