Close to the Bone: An addictive crime thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense (Detective Megan Thomas)

by Susan Wilkins

  There was no assumption on his part. He didn’t push it. He waited for her to come to him. And she did.

  They were standing outside the restaurant, inches apart, joking about the couple who’d left just in front of them, and she reached out and touched his arm. She was curious. He didn’t appear to be a tough bloke. He wasn’t big and muscular like her ex-husband Paul and so many of the other men who had featured in her life. But his body was reassuringly solid. In response he put his hand on her shoulder and she stepped into his arms.

  Now she has to face the fallout. Sexual entanglements with a work colleague are a bad idea for so many reasons. The stupidity of what she’s done is beginning to dawn on her. It’s not that she thinks Ingram will boast about sleeping with her. In any event he’s not likely to have much contact with the rest of the team. She’s been given the job of liaison officer – and that’s the problem. It’s totally unprofessional and Megan does not want to be that kind of cop. Nor does she want to be that kind of woman. Not any more. She can’t afford to be.

  The moral wilderness she inhabited in her undercover years has left her with a need for way-markers that she can rely on. This is a subject she’s discussed with her therapist, Dr Moretti. Every boundary in her life was destroyed when she was imprisoned in that rat-infested cellar. She expected death. She welcomed it. The euphoria of her escape was immediately followed by a spiralling descent into darkness and despair. Everything failed her. Her marriage, the job, people who’d been her friends. Her sister was the only one who was there for her. Debbie refused to walk away. She and her family provided Megan with a lifeline. And it was only by grabbing that thin rope that she managed to haul herself up and out. It brought her to Devon, a new job and her new home by the sea.

  By the time she’s on the A38 heading for Plymouth, she’s formulated a plan. When she gets a chance to speak to Ingram privately, she’ll tell him that it was great. But it’s something she can’t repeat. She likes him but…

  She sighs. On the outskirts of the city, the traffic is bunching at some roadworks. Megan checks her watch. She’s going to be late for the morning briefing. This demonstrates to her – as if she needed it – that bad decisions have a knock-on effect. They ripple out. But…

  But what? It definitely feels like there’s a but.

  The car crawls in the slow-moving column of traffic. And her mind drifts back to the sex. She never expected to end up having sex in a ridiculous four-poster bed in a Gothic hotel room in Torquay. And she never expected to enjoy it quite so much. It’s been a long time since she experienced this sort of intimacy, a long time since she would even let a man touch her. She’s experienced attraction from afar. But the last time that happened it was a disaster.

  She runs up the stairs to the office and slips into the back of the room. Her work outfits are variations of the same thing; she doubts anyone will notice she’s wearing the same shirt as yesterday.

  Slater is at the front, addressing the team, and it sounds as if she’s winding up.

  Noticing her arrival the DCI pauses, sighs and glances at Megan.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ says Megan. ‘Traffic was awful.’ It’s not entirely a lie. Several people crane their heads round to look at her. Brittney gives her a ghostly smile. But there’s a tension in the room. Something isn’t right. Jim Collins is seated at the front. Megan can only glimpse the back of his head. He doesn’t turn.

  ‘Okay,’ says Slater. ‘We’ll leave it there.’

  Megan decides to go and apologise to Slater properly. But she finds Vish standing in front of her. He’s frowning and looks nervous.

  ‘What’s going on?’ says Megan. ‘There’s a horrible vibe in here. Has Slater just given someone a bollocking?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Vish. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. We’ve brought Debbie in for questioning.’

  ‘You mean my sister Debbie?’

  ‘Yes. She’s been cautioned and—’

  ‘Cautioned? What the hell do you mean? What are you talking about? You’ve arrested my sister?’

  ‘Megan, she’s our prime suspect for the murder of Greg Porter.’

  Fifteen

  Friday, 10.25 a.m.

  Megan storms into Slater’s office. The calm professionalism she’s spent months cultivating is gone. This is her sister, her baby sister, and the anger is raw and unfettered.

  Laura Slater is standing behind her desk. She’s checking her phone. But Megan gets the impression she’s waiting. And bracing herself.

  She looks up at Megan and says, ‘Come in and close the door.’

  ‘Are you fucking serious?’ says Megan.

  ‘I know you’re angry—’

  ‘That broken-down excuse for a police officer, that we’re all carrying, has come up with some lazy, half-baked notion and you’ve bought it.’

  Laura moves round the desk and edges past Megan to close the door herself. The outer office is like a frozen tableau; everyone has stopped what they’re doing. They’re all listening. They can’t help it. The partition walls are plywood-thin.

  ‘What’s his bloody theory then?’ says Megan. ‘That my sister killed this douchebag and I’m in some way complicit?’

  ‘No, of course not—’

  ‘Of course nothing. We’re probably people smuggling in our spare time too. Part of this mob that the NCA’s chasing. After all, my brother-in-law can skipper a boat. So that’s it. Both crimes solved. We can all pack up and go down the pub for a pint like in the old days.’

  ‘Megan,’ says Slater, ‘you need to sit down and listen to me.’

  ‘When was she arrested?’

  ‘Earlier this morning. I don’t have a note of the precise time.’

  ‘And you’ve searched the house?’

  ‘Yes. Obviously.’

  ‘Were the kids there?’

  ‘They were at school.’

  Megan imagines a posse of her so-called colleagues going through the house, her house. Opening doors and cupboards, rifling through all their personal possessions. And Scout? What about Scout?

  She should’ve been there. Sod’s law! The one night… But she can’t think about that now.

  ‘Please, Megan. Sit down and let me explain,’ says Slater.

  Megan has run out of steam but she’s too wound up to sit. She stands in the corner and folds her arms. It’s all she can do not to hit something. Take a deep breath.

  ‘Okay, boss. I’m listening.’

  ‘Your sister has been arrested and is being interviewed under caution because some disturbing facts have come to light.’

  ‘What sort of disturbing facts? My sister is not a killer. Wasn’t his head bashed in? Debbie would not do something like that. I know her. She just wouldn’t. Where the hell is she? I need to see her.’

  Slater returns to the desk and opens her laptop.

  ‘You need to listen to me first. You know how this goes, Megan. We follow the evidence.’

  Megan starts to pace. Her brain has gone from anger to overdrive. ‘You must have the results of the post mortem by now. What’s the estimated time of death?’

  ‘Tuesday evening between eight and midnight.’

  ‘There you are then. She’s got an alibi. She works behind the bar at the Duke of York from six thirty usually until the early hours. They’ve got CCTV all over the bloody building so you can see when she arrived and when she left. Plus, this time of the year, it’s pretty busy. So there’ll be a slew of witnesses who can confirm she was there all evening.’

  ‘We have looked at the CCTV,’ says Slater. ‘Brittney and Kitty went through it all yesterday. And you know they’re thorough. Debbie left the pub by the back door at eight fifteen and she didn’t return until nearly nine o’clock.’

  ‘Well,’ says Megan. ‘There’ll be some logical explanation. Some problem with the kids, I don’t know.’ She realises she’s grasping at straws.

  ‘Where were you on Tuesday evening?’ says Slater. ‘Weren’t you at home with th
e kids?’

  Megan’s floundering. She thinks back and realises that she was. She watched television with the girls and coerced Kyle into doing his homework, which he was trying to avoid. There was no crisis, no emergency her sister was forced to rush home for. But already, in a secret part of her brain, Megan knows she could invent one. Lie to protect Debbie? No question.

  Megan’s head is in a spin. ‘Maybe she needed a break for some reason. It can get manic. Have you ever worked behind a bar?’ Course she hasn’t.

  ‘Vish has already spoken to the manager,’ says Slater. ‘He says she just disappeared without any explanation. He also said they were very busy, she’s a hard worker and this is out of character.’

  ‘And is this the “disturbing facts that have come to light”?’ Megan can’t keep the disdain out of her voice. ‘Debbie went out for some fresh air? Collins has excelled himself with that stunning piece of evidence.’

  ‘No,’ says Slater calmly. ‘The victim’s phone was recovered. On it we found a recording. I can play it for you if you like. But it may be better if I summarise.’

  Megan stares at the boss. She’s wearing her professional poker face. This is going to be bad.

  ‘Yeah, summarise if you prefer,’ Megan says. She’s trying to sound casual and get a grip on her fury but she realises it’s her turn to brace herself.

  ‘Greg Porter made a recording on his phone of a conversation between himself and your sister. It seems likely that he did this covertly. The date on it is Tuesday, the day he was killed. The phone’s being forensically examined to see if we can get more specific with the time.’

  Get on with it!

  Slater continues. ‘The discussion was about money. Specifically the contract payment they’d agreed for the builders’ clean. Debbie said she was having to do much more work and it was taking much more time than they’d initially agreed. His response was…’ Slater sighs. She’s searching for the right word.

  ‘I already know that he was a difficult, tight-fisted employer. Debbie’s told me as much.’

  ‘His response was salacious in tone. He offered to increase the fee in return for a blowjob.’

  ‘What!’ Megan stares in disbelief.

  ‘It seems from the tenor of the conversation that he’d made such a request before.’ Slater hesitates. ‘But that, in this instance, she probably complied.’

  Whoever whacked Greg Porter has done the world a favour. Megan can hear her sister’s words. And she agrees.

  ‘I want to hear this recording. Please,’ she says.

  ‘No, Megan. Trust me. You don’t. Not right now.’

  ‘What are you saying? She did it? She… she gave him… and it’s on…’ Megan feels sick and angry.

  ‘That’s our conclusion. He does provide some commentary on what’s happening.’

  Motive. Opportunity. He forced her to do this so she killed him.

  Megan puts her hand over her mouth to stop the tears. Finally she manages to say, ‘You’ve got her in an interview room? What’s she saying to you?’

  ‘She won’t talk to us. When we confronted her with the recording she just said “no comment”.’

  ‘Can I speak to her?’

  ‘I wish you would. Because if she makes a full confession—’

  Could she have done this?

  ‘Yeah, I get it, boss. Mitigating circumstances. Reduced sentence. You don’t have to spell it out.’

  Sixteen

  Friday, 10.35 a.m.

  Megan follows Slater out of her room. As they walk through the open-plan office no one looks at her directly but she can feel the covert glances of her colleagues, their curiosity and their pity. Her stomach is churning and she reflects ruefully that if Debbie hadn’t bashed Greg Porter’s brains in, she might well have done it herself.

  The interview rooms are along the corridor. Small, pokey and airless. Debbie is seated at the table; in front of her, the remains of a cardboard cup, which she’s shredded. She looks up as Megan enters. Their eyes meet.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ says Slater. ‘We’ll regard this as an informal chat.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Megan.

  Slater leaves. Megan crosses the room and throws her arms around her sister. For several moments nothing is said. Megan can feel the warmth of her sister’s skin, the familiar smell of her hair.

  Then Debbie pulls away and says, ‘I just feel like shit.’

  ‘Sssh,’ says Megan. ‘They told me about the recording and what he made you do. If the bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d’ve done it myself.’

  Debbie’s chin quivers. ‘What’s going to happen when Mark finds out? He’ll know I did it for the money. He’s just gonna think I’m a whore, isn’t he? ’Cause that’s how it is, isn’t it? But the bastard just kept badgering me, Meg. Blokes like him, they think sex for money is normal. First time I told him to fuck off. Then he’d find a whole load of other shit for me to do. Rubbish to shift. More cleaning. I know I should’ve just walked away and told him to stick his fucking job. But we’ve got a stack of utility bills. The bank’s just put up the interest rate on our overdraft. I was just… I dunno. It sounds pathetic.’

  The tears are rolling down Debbie’s face.

  Megan clutches her by the shoulders. ‘I wish you’d told me you needed money.’

  ‘I didn’t want to put it on you. How could I? You’ve had a tough enough time. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you. But we’ll get you a bloody good lawyer, don’t worry.’

  Debbie wipes her face with the back of her hand. She seems surprised. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  Megan hesitates. ‘Okay. So what did happen?’

  ‘Nothing. I just went there to clean on Wednesday morning. And I found him. I told you.’

  ‘Have you said that? Why have you been saying “no comment”?’

  ‘Of course I said that. Several times. But they just kept repeating the same bloody questions. What happened? When did you go back there? Were you angry? Yeah, I was fucking angry. But I didn’t kill him. I told them. They obviously didn’t believe me. So I gave up and said no comment. I just want to get out of here, Meg. Please.’

  ‘Just explain one thing to me. Tuesday night, when you were at work. You left the pub for three quarters of an hour. Where did you go?’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘The CCTV’s been checked. You went out of the back door at eight fifteen, came back at nine.’

  Debbie stares at her in horror. ‘You think I did it too.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Don’t fucking lie, Meg. Slut I may be, but I’m not a murderer.’

  Debbie folds her arms tightly and turns her face away.

  Megan stares at her. She’s at a loss. He sister is a complicated character. Sunny and breezy on the surface but there’s a dark undertow to Debbie. Marriage to Mark and having three children has grounded her. But before that her life was full of ups and downs. She’s always been useless with money. Her teenage years involved a lot of drugs. And there’s one thing Megan knows about her sister: Debbie is a virago when her blood’s up. She fights back. There have been some nasty incidents in the past: the boyfriend she attacked with a frying pan. He ended up in A&E but decided not to press charges. On another occasion Debbie got into an argument in a pub. She was queuing at the bar when a bloke groped her. She went ballistic and would’ve shoved a glass in his face if Megan hadn’t stopped her.

  Megan sits down opposite her at the table. ‘Listen to me, Deb, your word is good enough for me. Always has been, always will be. Because what else is there but trust? You’ve seen me at my worst. You were the one who stuck with me. And I’ll stick with you now. That’s the bottom line. If you say you didn’t kill him, then you didn’t kill him. That’s where we start. Okay?’

  Debbie meets her gaze. ‘Okay.’ She reaches out her hand, Megan grasps it and squeezes it.

  ‘Okay,’ Megan says. ‘But I need ammunitio
n to get you out of here. “No comment” is not going to work. It’s like an admission of guilt. So why did you leave the pub?’

  Debbie sighs. ‘I’ve been getting headaches again.’

  ‘Migraines? Like you used to get?’

  ‘Yeah. So I went to the doctor. She said it was probably stress and sleeping badly, as if I didn’t know that. But she gave me these pills. Not painkillers but you take one if you feel it coming on. Suma… tripta… something or other. They sort of relax your blood vessels. Stop the migraine developing. On Tuesday night, I went to work. But I could feel my head getting bad. I didn’t want to just go home, because I’d lose a night’s pay. So I thought, if I slip out, take one of my pills, I could walk it off in about half an hour.’

  ‘And that’s what you did? Did you tell anyone?’

  ‘No, I just walked round the town. Up and down some of the back streets. And the pill worked. I started to feel better and I went back to work.’

  ‘Can you remember any of the route, the streets you went up?’

  ‘I dunno. I was on autopilot. You know a place, you can just wander round. I sat on the steps overlooking the harbour for a bit, because there was a cool breeze.’

  ‘It all makes sense. And you’ve got a prescription from your doctor giving you these pills.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Debbie seems distracted. She fidgets.

  ‘Look at me, Deb. You sure? Because these details will be checked.’

  Debbie meets her gaze. This is the technique she’s always used. A surly look, challenging Megan to call her a liar. ‘I’m sure, okay.’

  ‘Okay.’ She can sense Debbie’s desperation, which is not a good sign.

  ‘I’ve got to get out of here, Meg. Mark’s coming home tonight for the weekend. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to say to him.’

  Megan gets up and paints on a smile. ‘Just sit tight. I’m going to go and talk to my boss.’

  She walks calmly out of the door but her heart is pounding. Could Debbie have done this? She has to force that thought out of her mind.