Lethal Game, page 6
‘You said “moved stuff”. So nothing was taken?’ The sergeant was leaning in, holding Margaret’s attention; there was intensity between them.
‘Like I said, she didn’t talk about it much. I don’t think she would have wanted to scare me.’
‘She didn’t tell you if anything specific was taken?’
Margaret sat back, flicking her hand out in an angry gesture. ‘I assume she would have told you that. She called the police. A couple of knuckle-scraping blokes turned up and basically told her she was wasting their time.’
‘Is that what she said? About the officers?’
‘Yes. Maybe they’d had a bad day. Do you think that has anything to do with … with what happened?’
‘And she definitely didn’t mention anything that might have been stolen? Or talk about specifically what was moved?’ DS Rose persisted.
‘No! I told you that already.’
‘We just need to be sure,’ Joel cut in, his tone soothing, the antidote to his sergeant’s approach.
‘I know one of the officers that went,’ DS Rose said. ‘I know how he would look to a young woman, how he could come across, and he was with another male officer, two men staring at her … she might not have told them everything she knew.’
Margaret shrugged, ‘I can’t think why. You call the police, you tell them what happened. Why bother otherwise.’
‘The report said that some items were moved in her bedroom. Maybe it was her underwear, maybe it was a sex toy? Maybe this was someone who had an interest in your daughter and not her property. Kelly might not have been comfortable talking to those two officers about that. But she might have been comfortable talking to you?’ DS Rose was matter-of-fact; a history of investigating sex offences could make you blasé.
‘Sex toys! And you think she would talk to her mother about that sort of thing!’ Margaret was a long way from blasé. Her shock was genuine, threatening to tilt into disgust.
‘She might not have used those words. She might have told you that some personal items were moved, a drawer disturbed. Please, Mrs Marshall, this could be very important.’ Still matter-of-fact, but the appeal element softened it.
‘She didn’t talk about it. She said someone might have been in her flat, the police weren’t so sure. They took her details, told her there were nothing they could do and they left. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘Did she ever talk about anything else? Like being followed, receiving unwanted communication from strangers … Maybe an ex-boyfriend who wouldn’t leave her alone?’ DS Rose was unrelenting.
‘Not to me,’ Mrs Marshall snapped.
‘Her sister Nicola. Are they close?’
‘They’re sisters. Of course they’re close.’
‘So she might, have talked to her about that sort of thing.’
‘She might,’ she snapped again and DS Rose finally gave her a moment to breathe. Margaret’s chest rose and fell in a sigh and she came back wistful. ‘Kelly is far more likely to have talked to Nicola than to me about these sorts of things. I don’t know when it happens but you get older and you realise that somewhere along the line there’s been this complete turnaround. You go from the parent cosseting your children from the horrors of the world to suddenly being the one who is being cosseted – protected. If Kelly was having problems with someone she would never have told me. I’m protective, I overreact. It’s only because I know how dangerous this world can be.’ She lifted eyes that suddenly looked heavy with tears. ‘And I was right, wasn’t I?’
Joel was sure to get all the details he needed. He also had assurances that Billy would be staying the night on the sofa and would be ready and able to drive her when she was needed to go and formally identify the body. Margaret said they would use her car. Joel had spotted a blue Nissan Note at the bottom of her garden, but Margaret talked about how she didn’t really like to drive if she could avoid it, and he got the impression that Billy had added ‘chauffeur’ to his list of neighbourly services.
Joel drove when they left Margaret Marshall’s address. The road led them downhill and into the basin of a valley that was now mostly shadow. The car was silent.
‘We talked about the burglary on the way over …’ Joel said.
‘We did,’ DS Rose replied.
‘About how maybe it wasn’t a burglary at all, how it could have been a stalking incident.’
‘We did.’
‘I also said we would explore that a little more before we talked to her mother about it.’
‘If anyone was going to know, it was her mother. We know she came here straight after.’ DS Rose’s tone was defensive enough to suggest she knew where Joel was going next.
‘She told you that Kelly didn’t talk about the burglary at all. The stalking angle is just a theory – not even that yet. All we did back there is make those initial officers look incompetent and fuel a theory that might be nothing,’ Joel said.
‘Those officers might have been incompetent. And I was pursuing a theory, trying to rule it in or out. That’s how it works in major crime investigations.’ DS Rose folded her arms in petulance.
‘I see. Well, thanks for letting me know how those work.’ Joel’s reply was instant and then he wished he hadn’t. She wanted him to bite and he’d responded.
‘You know what I mean,’ she said sulkily.
‘We’re not Major Crime.’
‘We’re doing the same job. Just with less experience.’ This was projected towards Joel, then DS Rose turned away again to stare out of the window.
Joel slowed the car, pulled over and waited until she turned to face him. ‘Do you still have a problem with me being SIO on major investigations?’ Joel was doing his best to sound calm.
‘No.’
‘But you think someone more experienced might do it better?’
‘I don’t know. You work different, you think different even, like a tac-team sergeant, and maybe that’s an approach that works.’ DS Rose unfolded her arms at least.
‘And maybe it isn’t?’
DS Rose shrugged. ‘Time will tell. But I’ve worked investigations and I’ve always been trusted to think for myself, to follow stuff up if something doesn’t sit right. A lack of investigative experience means you’ve never worked as a detective before, it means you’ve never managed detectives before. And I don’t want to be the one that suffers for that.’ There was a softening; it was always subtle with DS Rose but Joel was learning to detect it.
‘I’ve been managing police officers for more than a decade.’
‘On searches … warrants. Pre-planned operations to arrest dangerous offenders. That’s quite literally leading a team. A warrant is you leading people to a door to supervise them busting their way through it. You have tight control of that team; they may have different roles but you can see every one of them doing it. And when you get through that door to search, every find is brought to you, every prisoner is brought to you, every decision is brought to you. Leading a murder investigation is sending your team out to chase down leads, to think for themselves … to have the freedom to investigate. I’m not here to be told what room I can look in and when.’
‘The way you talked to her back there, our only witness, you made her feel uncomfortable,’ Joel countered.
‘Too right I did.’ DS Rose sat straighter to scowl her anger. Joel mirrored her exactly.
‘Why would you do that?’ he demanded.
‘Because I got the impression she was holding back. Because I don’t believe that a daughter turns up at her mother’s house because she’s too scared to stay in her own home and doesn’t get the third degree – not from her mother, not from a woman like Margaret. I was trying to make her uncomfortable, angry even. Angry people go off-script.’
‘You think she had a script? Why would she not want us to know everything?’
‘I don’t know. But if she is keeping something from us then it has to be important. Nothing’s making sense right now, not the victim, not where she was found, not how she was found, not wearing just some shapeless dress and barefoot … And not her mother’s reaction when we turned up either.’ DS Rose had calmed down. Now she seemed to be thinking out loud.
‘What did you think of her reaction?’ Joel was calmer too.
‘Hope is usually the last thing to go. That wasn’t the case back there.’
‘And you think her daughter talked to her about being stalked, that she knew there was a threat there but she decided not to tell us about it?’ Joel said, trying to conceal the fact that this didn’t seem right to him at all.
‘I thought she might have been holding something back. It could be about the burglary, or maybe she knows something about the girl that was with her, about our only suspect.’
‘So what would you have us do next? You know, if you weren’t working with a naive fool choking your every move?’ Joel was glad to get a flicker of a smile as a reaction.
‘I would go and see the other daughter, Nicola, and I would go now. It’s an outstanding line of enquiry and the address is on the way back to the nick.’
‘The one I just told her mother we would go and see after she’d had a chance to talk to her?’
‘Yes. And for that reason. I want to see her first reaction and this is our only chance.’
‘You know it’s me she’ll be pissed off at?’
‘And me who feels like they’ve been listened to, so a win-win for me.’
Joel took a moment to consider. ‘OK then, DS Rose, she’s your witness.’
Margaret had watched them all leave at the same time: Billy down the garden path to double back on himself at the gate and the two police officers walking to their silver car. She watched it move away, its clean surfaces taking on the greens and browns of the fields and banks like a giant chameleon as it slunk down the hill and into the shadow filling the basin from the bottom up. She was still watching when they stopped, the car pulled over untidily into a passing place on the left side and she felt her anxiety building again. Surely they weren’t coming back!
They didn’t. A minute or so passed and then the brake lights flickered off and the car continued away. Once it was out of sight she could find a more natural rhythm to her breathing. It didn’t last.
Suddenly she was alone. Billy was coming back; he’d gone next door to get a few things but it was temporary, a quick fix. It wouldn’t change the fact that Kelly had gone, that she had lost her daughter. She’d been so busy trying to fool all the people around her that there had barely been time to reflect on what had happened, on what this all meant.
The realisation was like the turning of a tap and finally she broke down. When it came it was everything: desperation, sadness and anguish bellowed into the emptiness. Anger came last; it came from the unfairness of it all, from feeling totally hopeless, from lying to her friend, to her doctor and then watching the police wind their way down the hill, knowing she had lied to them too.
Chapter 9
It would seem that DS Rose had led Joel astray when she suggested that Nicola Marshall’s house was ‘on the way’. They were north of Maidstone – a long deviation from the centrally located police headquarters – at a row of semi-detached houses in an area that had a premium feel, despite a clump of trees being the only thing concealing a short view down into the car park of the Hempsted Valley Shopping Centre. They were closer to Rochester than Maidstone in truth, and in the very centre of Kent.
Nicola’s house was fronted by white weather-boarding that was UPVC and new-looking. The house next door looked identical in shape but was still brick-fronted, affirming that the weather-boarding was a recent addition to keep up with a very recent fad. The sharp-looking Audi on the drive, resplendent in matching white, added to a picture he was building of the people who might live there.
Even the doorbell seemed a little above its station. It was a tune rather than the classic ding-dong and was still playing when a red-faced man with untucked shirt over formal trousers and slippers answered the door.
‘Oh!’ he said, his expression contorting to one of confusion. ‘You’re not from Just Eat, are you?’
‘Just what?’ Joel said.
‘Takeaway. If you don’t have a curry on you, mate, then we’re not interested.’ He started to close the door. Joel caught it in time to shout his name and rank through the gap.
‘And we need to speak to Nicola Marshall, please,’ he added.
The door pulled back open. ‘No one here by that name, mate,’ he said.
‘When were you married?’ Joel chanced. The reaction was slight but enough for Joel to know that he was in the right place.
‘It’s about her mother. She was in hospital this morning, suspected angina attack,’ DS Rose called out and the man pulled the door wider to look at her. Then he half turned to bellow back into the house. ‘Nic!’ Then he said, more quietly, ‘She’s a Jones now.’
Nicola Jones appeared. The change in her facial expressions also suggested she would much rather prefer a hot meal over two suits. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘The police, something about your mother?’ her husband huffed.
‘What’s wrong with my mother?’
‘She’s fine, Nicola. I’m Detective Sergeant Rose, this is DI Norris. We’ve just come from your mum’s over in Tonbridge. We just wanted a quick chat if possible.’
‘About my mother?’
‘Have you spoken to her recently?’
‘In person? No. My sister was over there last weekend for dinner. We couldn’t make it.’
‘We won’t take up too much of your time.’ Joel stepped forward, upping the pressure, and the couple on the doorstep caved and stepped back. A brightly lit living room was first on the left. No one sat down.
The resemblance to her sister was uncanny to the point of unnerving. Joel had an image of Kelly he couldn’t shake. She was on the floor, her head held up by blood-smeared glass to face out. Her blood was everywhere; its presence made the bone of her right leg all the more shocking white, where it had pointed directly towards him like an accusatory finger. As if it was his fault that he didn’t get there in time. He had noted the pronounced cheekbones, the small, cute nose and the blue eyes peering out into nothing from under long blonde hair. Now very similar features were living and breathing in front of him, waiting for an explanation as to why they were all stood under the bright white lights of the living room.
‘Well? And can you keep your voices down, please, we have two kids upstairs.’ Nicola’s annoyance seemed to have increased since the doorstep. Her attention was fixed on DS Rose. Joel had been careful to take a step back, to make it clear that his colleague would be doing the talking. It was what had allowed him to look Nicola over. He had to focus on the here and now, replace the image of their victim with a visual assessment of her sister. There was no sign of defensive wounds, no cuts or grazes. She was barefoot in her own house, and her feet didn’t have a scratch on them. She had a fuller figure too, not as athletic as the mystery woman who had appeared on the CCTV. She was not the survivor, but her reaction had already told him that. As much as he wanted to find the mystery woman on the CCTV, Joel was relieved; this family had suffered enough.
‘This isn’t about your mother, Nicola. We were speaking to her about Kelly, about your sister,’ DS Rose said.
‘What about Kell?’
‘I’m sorry, Nicola. She was found early this morning …’ It took a moment but Nicola’s head-shaking started first, then the colour drained. She lifted her hand to cover her mouth, her glazed eyes only finding focus when her husband’s arm suddenly shot out to grab her round the middle. This was more like what Joel had seen before. This was someone reacting to awful news in real time. Lucy had been right. The mother’s reaction had been wrong and it seemed even more so now. ‘It was already too late, she was already gone.’ DS Rose delivered the confirmation and Nicola took it like a punch to her gut. She doubled over, the air forced from her in a squeak. Her husband helped her to the long sofa. She took a large breath and almost immediately let it out as a sob. Her lips moved like she was saying words but nothing came. There was nothing the detectives could do but wait for the initial shock to pass.
It was another fifteen minutes. Joel and Lucy moved out of the living room, using the excuse of the doorbell to go and collect the food on the occupants’ behalf and to take it into the kitchen, where it sat smelling delicious on the table, reminding Joel that he’d barely eaten all day. The couple took the time they needed and then came through. Nicola’s husband called out to a small boy who had appeared on the landing to ask if his mummy was OK. He was told to go back to bed. Nicola pulled out a high stool at a breakfast bar, while her husband moved the food to another surface.
‘What happened?’ Nicola spoke downward into the table and Lucy was quick to reply.
‘Your sister was found in Lenham, a village on the other side of Maidstone and six miles from her home address. She wasn’t dressed for the time of day, she was barefoot, out on a country lane and she might have been trying to get to a public phone. I know this is a massive shock to you but we’re going to need your help in piecing this together.’ DS Rose paused there. She was right to. Nicola’s eyes had glazed, her head was shaking again. There was a lot to make sense of, any more information and she would be swamped.
‘Help?’ The word was choked with tears.
‘Your mum said you were close with your sister. I need you to think about conversations you’ve had, recent or otherwise. Was there any time when she’s mentioned anything you think could be relevant?’
‘Relevant? Like what?’ Her eyes were suddenly larger, the shock and the moisture combining so they seemed to take up half her face. They were searching too, flickering around the floor with no real focus.
‘Any incidents that stand out? Any threats towards Kelly, that sort of thing?’
‘Threats?’ Nicola managed a focus on DS Rose. ‘No! Why would anyone threaten her?’
‘Ex-boyfriends, girlfriends, rejected love interests, work colleagues, someone she borrowed money from … People fall out, it happens. Did she ever mention anything like that?’ DS Rose leant in a little. Now she had Nicola’s attention she seemed determined not to let it go.
