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

by Susan Wilkins

  Mark gazes out of the window. ‘It’s a lovely morning. But I don’t think it’ll last. Rain later.’ He reads the clouds with a seaman’s eye, thinks Megan.

  They look at one another; neither knows what to say.

  Megan sighs. ‘Listen, Mark—’

  He raises his hand. ‘I know she’s your sister. But you don’t have to defend her. This is my fault.’

  ‘I don’t know about fault. But I do know she never meant to hurt you.’

  ‘That’s a bit irrelevant, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s crucial. The impact on you and the kids is all that matters to her.’

  He smiles sadly. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Good job that bastard Porter is dead. ’Cause if I’d got hold of him…’

  ‘You’d’ve had to join the queue,’ says Megan.

  They smile at each other. She lifts the brimming coffee cup from the machine and hands it to him.

  ‘I think I’m going to need several of these,’ he says, cradling it in both hands.

  Suddenly there’s a loud hammering. They both start. The unremitting rat-tat-tat is repeated. It’s coming from the front door.

  ‘What the hell?’ says Mark. ‘Can’t they find the bloody bell?’

  Megan’s heart sinks. Oh no, surely not!

  ‘I’ll get it,’ she says. ‘Just stay here.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’ says Mark.

  Unfortunately she knows exactly what’s going on.

  Megan walks down the hall to the front door. Kyle is coming down the stairs. The hammering continues.

  ‘Kyle, go back to your room,’ says Megan.

  ‘Why?’ says the boy.

  ‘Tell Amber and Ruby to stay upstairs too. Just do it, okay.’

  He reads her tone and scampers back upstairs.

  Megan takes a deep breath and opens the front door.

  Jim Collins is standing on the doorstep, flanked by Ted Jennings and two uniformed officers. Several cars are parked outside on the double yellow line.

  He holds up his warrant card and says briskly, ‘Good morning, Megan. We’re here to question Mark Hayden.’

  ‘Really?’ says Megan. ‘And you hope that by coming mob-handed at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, you’ll intimidate both him and my sister?’

  ‘You know very well, Megan, that this is a murder inquiry. I’m merely following normal procedure.’

  ‘Normal procedure? What are the uniforms for? In case they make a run for it? Are you doing this to every suspect? Or, let me guess, you’re still targeting my sister. Is that your blinkered version of normal procedure?’

  Mark comes up behind her. He’s frowning. ‘You can let them in,’ he says. ‘We’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘It’s not a question of that,’ says Megan. ‘This is a tactic. And one that’s out of date. Does Slater know what you’re up to? My sister was released under investigation, you’re not entitled to question her without a lawyer present.’

  ‘You’re not involved in this, Megan. And you should step aside,’ says Collins.

  ‘I live here. So I am involved.’

  ‘Please, Megan, let’s just get this over with,’ says Mark.

  She sighs. ‘The uniforms stay outside,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t have a problem with that,’ says Collins. Megan glances out of the door. Vish is sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the cars, looking embarrassed. He’s been dragged into this farrago too.

  Megan opens the front door wide. Collins steps inside. Jennings follows. He gives Megan a smug grin. Mark leads them down the hall into the sitting room.

  ‘We’re just wondering, Mr Hayden,’ says Collins, ‘if you were aware of your wife’s intention to put financial pressure on Greg Porter?’

  Megan is about to follow them in, but Jennings stands in her way.

  ‘Come on, Megan,’ he says. ‘You heard what Jim said. You need to step aside and let us do our job.’

  ‘And were you doing your job, Ted, when you paid a visit to Barry Porter on his boat?’

  Jennings seems taken aback but he says, ‘Yeah. Obviously.’

  Debbie appears at the top of the stairs. She’s wearing only a T-shirt and knickers.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she says sleepily.

  ‘Maybe your sister would like to put some clothes on and come down?’ says Ted.

  ‘No she would not,’ says Megan.

  He grins, disappears into the sitting room and closes the door behind him.

  Megan bounds up the stairs two at a time to the landing, where Debbie is standing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ says Debbie. ‘The kids just came and woke me up.’

  Megan shepherds her sister back into the bedroom. ‘DI Collins has decided to try and bully you into submission. He’s come here supposedly to question Mark, which he hopes will put pressure on you and persuade you to tell the truth.’

  ‘I have told the truth,’ says Debbie sullenly.

  ‘I know. This is a scam. And I think Slater will agree with me. I doubt she knows about this.’

  Debbie sits on the bed and sighs. ‘I feel like I’m stuck in some nightmare and I can’t escape. When I told Mark what happened with Porter, he just looked at me. He didn’t say anything. But his face, Meg, the look on his face…’ Her lip trembles and she starts to cry.

  Megan puts a hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, babe!’

  ‘And the worst thing is, he blames himself!’ She wipes her face with her palm. ‘Because he couldn’t provide for his family and we got into debt.’

  Amber puts her head round the door. She has tears in her eyes too. ‘Mum?’

  Megan beckons her in. ‘Come and sit with your mum,’ she says. ‘I need to phone my boss.’

  Amber sits down on the bed beside Debbie. ‘I’m all right,’ says Debbie. ‘I don’t want you upset too. I need to put some clothes on and go downstairs and deal with this.’ She stands up. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘No,’ says Megan. ‘Absolutely not. Stay here.’

  ‘But I don’t want them putting this on Mark—’

  ‘Deb, let me deal with this.’

  Megan hurries back down to the kitchen to retrieve her phone. Through the double doors into the sitting room she can eavesdrop on what Mark is saying to Collins and Jennings.

  ‘…what happened to me, happened to plenty of people in the fishing industry. The business went broke, I was made redundant. That’s when we started putting things on credit cards…’ He sounds calm and in control.

  Megan scrolls her contacts for Laura Slater’s number. She clicks on it. She gets a busy signal.

  She walks out into the hall, glances up the stairs. Redials. Still busy.

  Debbie appears on the stairs. She’s barefoot but now wearing jeans. She rakes back her hair.

  ‘Fuck this!’ she says. ‘I’m not having them walking in here like this. Treating my husband like he’s a criminal.’

  She comes thundering down the stairs.

  ‘No, Deb,’ says Megan. ‘Let me handle this.’

  But Debbie goes straight past her and flings open the door to the sitting room.

  Megan has no option but to follow.

  Mark, Collins and Jennings are standing awkwardly round the coffee table, Jennings using his phone to record. They all turn at Debbie’s abrupt entrance.

  Debbie fronts up to Collins. ‘Why are you here?’ she says. ‘And why are you questioning my husband? He’s got nothing to do with this. He was on a bloody boat in the middle of the North Sea.’

  ‘Deb,’ says Mark. ‘It’s all right—’

  ‘No, it’s not bloody all right. Meg says he’s doing this to bully us. And that’s not all right.’

  ‘Mrs Hayden,’ says Collins. ‘You seem very agitated. I would suggest you take your husband’s advice and calm down.’

  Red rag to a bull, thinks Megan. But she suspects that’s Collins’s intention.

  Debbie takes a step forward. She stops inches from Collins face.
‘I’ll calm down when you and your fat sidekick get out of my house.’

  Megan reaches for her sister’s arm. ‘Deb, you can’t do this—’

  Debbie shrugs her off. ‘I’m not doing anything. I’m just telling your colleagues to leave.’

  Collins stares right back at her but he’s smiling. ‘You really would like to hit me, wouldn’t you, Mrs Hayden? Is that what happened with Greg?’

  ‘Oh fuck off!’ says Debbie, turning away.

  ‘You’re clearly a woman with a violent temper,’ says Collins. ‘You find it hard to control, don’t you?’ The tone is teasing.

  ‘She does not,’ says Megan, pushing forward between the two of them. Then she fixes her sister with a steely look. ‘Let it go, Deb. He’s a tosser. This is what he does.’

  Debbie meets her gaze and connects. Megan watches her exhale. She’s got the message. Thank God!

  ‘Your sister will feel much better once she tells us the truth,’ says Collins.

  Megan rounds on him. ‘You’re totally out of order. You want to ask her any more questions, it will be with a lawyer present and at a proper time. There’s no justification for this.’

  Collins retreats, takes a turn about the room and puts his hands on his hips. ‘You know very well, Megan, that I’m perfectly entitled to question Mr Hayden on matters that might relate to his wife’s motivation.’

  ‘Are you questioning him as a suspect or a witness? And has he been cautioned?’

  ‘That’s hardly your concern. I am the senior officer.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to trust you to do the right thing?’ She can’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  The doorbell rings. Collins gives Jennings a nod. He goes to answer the door.

  Megan folds her arms and positions herself strategically between Collins and Debbie.

  Collins says, ‘I’m happy to arrange a time for Mr Hayden to come in and answer further questions—’

  Jennings reappears in the doorway. He has Vish in tow.

  Vish holds out his phone. ‘Sorry, boss,’ he says to Collins. ‘I’ve got the DCI on the line. She wants to talk to you urgently.’

  Collins grins and shakes his head. As he walks across the room past Megan he says sarcastically, ‘You are quick off the mark, aren’t you, sergeant?’

  ‘Not really,’ she replies. ‘I couldn’t get through to her.’ This is true. Slater’s phone was busy. So what’s urgent?

  Collins takes the phone from Vish and goes out into the hall, followed by Jennings.

  Megan looks at Vish. She doesn’t even have to ask.

  As soon as Collins is out of earshot he blurts it out. ‘Guess what? Aidan Porter, Greg Porter’s seventeen-year-old son, has just presented himself at the police station in Torquay and confessed to his father’s murder.’

  Twenty-Seven

  Saturday, 1.15 p.m.

  Danny Ingram suggests they meet at a country pub on Dartmoor. Although Megan is supposed to be the local, she’s never discovered the village of Widecombe before. However, after a morning of stress and mayhem, the possibility of escape appeals to her. So she agrees to his suggestion. Debbie and Mark didn’t need to hear her ranting about Collins. She realised the more she said about that the less it helped. Leaving them in peace to recover seemed the best idea.

  As she drives into the village, she finds Ingram leaning on a wall near the church. He appears to be alone and just soaking up the sunshine. He gives her a wave. She parks in the car park and strolls across the village green towards him.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ he says. ‘Have you noticed how high the church tower is?’

  Megan stares up at the imposing granite tower. For a tiny village, it is a big church.

  ‘A hundred and twenty feet,’ he says. ‘That’s why they call this place the Cathedral of the Moors.’ He holds up a small booklet. ‘I went in the National Trust shop round the corner and got all the gen. In 1638, during a church service, it got struck by ball lightening. Four people were killed, sixty injured. Local people reckoned it was the work of the devil.’

  Megan smiles. She wonders what he’s up to, because if there’s one thing she’s learnt about Danny Ingram, it’s that he’s always got an agenda. Sometimes several.

  ‘I didn’t take you for a history buff,’ she says.

  ‘I like to learn things,’ he says. ‘Didn’t do enough of it at school, so I’m still playing catch-up. Anyway, I don’t see why we shouldn’t mix business with a little pleasure. And I hear you’ve had a difficult morning.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ she says.

  ‘I keep my ear to the ground.’ He gives her a mischievous grin. ‘But the truth is I had a phone call from Barker.’

  ‘What did he want?’ says Megan. Checking up on her? He probably wanted to know if the trouble with her sister had sent her off the rails.

  Chief Superintendent Barker had sponsored her transfer from the Met. She’d been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and faced retirement on medical grounds. As a favour to an old friend, he’d offered her a job so she could continue as a police officer. But he’d imposed stringent conditions to keep an eye on her mental health.

  ‘He wanted an update on the investigation,’ says Ingram. ‘I told him that things were going pretty well and that your input had been extremely valuable. He said he was glad to hear it. Said you’re a very capable officer.’

  She smiles and shakes her head at him. She knows she’s being flattered.

  Ingram shrugs. ‘I’m only telling you what he said. Let’s go and get a drink.’

  Widecombe-in-the-Moor is picture-perfect. Besides the magnificent church there are several gift shops, two cafes and two pubs dotted round a neat village green. The garden of one of the cafes has been overrun by a gaggle of cyclists; middle-aged men in fluorescent Lycra, on a gruelling mission to hang on to their lost youth. But Ingram makes a beeline for the pub. He selects the less fussy of the two and leaves her sitting at a wooden table outside while he goes in to buy drinks.

  Megan looks around her. She’s still completely hyped. The day has been manic, and it’s not even half over. As she drove across the moor to this ridiculous rendezvous, her brain had continued to seethe with anger and resentment and plans of revenge. How dare Jim Collins pull a stunt like that? He wasn’t going to get away with it, that’s for sure. As soon as he’d spoken to Slater on the phone, he was out of the door without even an apology and with Ted Jennings, his poodle, hot on his heels. Debbie and Mark were left upset and confused.

  Mark was aggrieved that the police had garnered so much detail about his personal financial affairs so quickly. Collins had accessed all his bank accounts, knew the outstanding debt on his credit cards, the state of his mortgage and the interest rate on his personal loans. He dealt with the police calmly enough at the time. But once they were gone he was steaming.

  Debbie was worse. Collins had taunted her and it took half an hour and two cups of coffee for her to calm down. But the incident did serve one useful purpose. It united the couple in anger and solidarity. Mark felt that both he and his wife had been mistreated and his instinctive response was to protect her and defend his family. Aidan Porter’s confession proved Debbie had told the truth all along.

  By the time Megan left the house, the Haydens were all seated around the kitchen table. Mark and Debbie were still awkward with each other but at least they were speaking and the children were back under their parents’ wing: Amber and Kyle squabbling, Ruby on her father’s knee. It wasn’t going to be plain sailing but it was a start, Megan reflected.

  Ingram comes out of the pub carrying half a pint of shandy for himself and a ginger beer for Megan. He places them on the wooden table in front of her.

  ‘I’m not trying to get you drunk,’ he says, ‘but if I was you, I think I’d be wishing this was something stronger.’

  Megan scans him. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘if you will insist on meeting in the back of beyond, you don’t give me any option.’


  He has a ready smile and there’s a calmness about him which brings a feather lightness to their banter. She feels as though she doesn’t need to be on full alert. Just being with Ingram makes her relax. It’s not a feeling that she’s had with any man for a very long time.

  Ingram sits down and extracts an iPad from his bag. He puts it on the table.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Let’s get down to business. This is what I wanted to show you. Rodney downloaded a week’s worth of CCTV from the harbour office. A ton of data. It took a while to break it all down. But we have some whizzy software that speeds up the process. Don’t ask me how it works, I leave all that to Rodney. But we extracted a little sequence that’s rather interesting.’

  He taps the screen of the iPad and a dark, grainy image pops up. It is possible to identify the outline of the pontoon and some boats, rocking gently. Megan screws up her eyes and peers at it.

  ‘This is about 3.30 a.m.,’ says Ingram. ‘Early hours of Thursday morning, which is when Ranim and her children ended up on our beach. Now, if you wait for a moment, you’ll see three figures appear.’

  Megan stares at the dark, pixelated image but she can make out very little: a few flickering reflections from a harbourside lamp dance on the water. But suddenly a floodlight comes on, illuminating the whole jetty.

  ‘There’s a motion sensor on the pontoon,’ says Ingram, ‘which is convenient because now we can see our guys more clearly.’

  Megan focuses on the screen. A heavy-set male figure comes into view. He’s the one who’s tripped the light switch. He’s carrying a backpack and walking towards the CCTV camera. As he gets closer, it’s possible to see more of his face. His hair is receding but long and straggly at the back. He has a full beard and looks to be around fifty. Another figure follows, much slighter and looser in his gait. His hair is short and fashionably shaved, definitely a much younger man. A third figure, he’s young too, trots to catch up.