Dead Secret (13 page)

The most obvious detail was the absence of violence. Nothing in the room appeared to have been disturbed. There was no sign that anyone but Gary and Becci had been in the room. The couple lay intertwined on the bed, Gary’s hand clasped around the TV remote control, but the set had been turned off — not with the remote, or it would have been on stand-by.

“Someone turned the TV off,” Ava remarked. “The cleaner? These two look like they were watching it and fell asleep.” It wasn’t quite true, then, that the scene was uncompromised.

“Cause of death,” Neal said, walking over to the gas fire, an out-dated, utilitarian-looking model placed in front of an original tiled fireplace. “Carbon monoxide poisoning? Judging from their appearance.” He checked the switch on the fire; it was turned to the off position; a window sash had been thrown open to admit fresh air.

They found PC Dale and Mrs Pringle drinking tea in the kitchen. Mrs Pringle was pale and quiet; not the sort of woman who made a fuss, it seemed. She answered Neal and Ava’s questions calmly and without drama. Yes, she had turned the TV off. Ditto the gas fire ‘on account of the smell of gas.’ She had also opened the window. No, she hadn’t touched anything else; no she hadn’t noticed anything out of place. How did she know that Becci and Gary were dead? asked Neal. She replied that she, ‘just knew,’ which was as good an answer as any. That, and the fact that they hadn’t responded to her wake up calls.

“Was this an accident?” Ava asked, when she and Neal were safely out of earshot across the hallway. “The fire could have been tampered with. Maybe someone had a reason for wanting to shut these two up. The same someone who murdered Amy.”

Neal looked sceptical, “They’re not necessarily connected. We have to explore all the possibilities, Merry. Including the one that suggests these deaths, even if not accidental, have nothing to do with Amy’s case.”

“Becci and Gary were hiding something from us that day we interviewed them.”

“We can’t be sure of that, either,” Neal said, “and even if they were, it wasn’t necessarily anything to do with Amy. People are often nervous around the police.”

“Bit of a coincidence, though, isn’t it, sir? Even you have to admit that one.”

“Even me?” Neal answered, sounding amused.

Before Ava could make an embarrassed apology, he cut her off. “You’re wrong if you think I lack imagination Sergeant. I’m not a pedant. I’ve just learned by experience to rein in my initial responses — which may be the same as yours, by the way. Only difference is, I’m far too aware of all the instances of cases crashing because somewhere along the line, someone closed their mind to other possibilities.”

Ava tried not to let her frustration show in her face, but she was not good at dissembling. From her point of view, she had been doing exactly what Neal was saying; opening her mind to all the possibilities. As if reading her thoughts, or, perhaps, her damaged ego, Neal added,

“Of course the cases may be related. You’re right to bring it up. Look, I just want to be sure that you don’t become one of those detectives who single-mindedly pursues an idea to a disappointing end up a one-way street. There are enough of those types on the force already, and you’re so much better than that.”

Coming from Neal, this was a sort of compliment and Ava accepted it as such. She didn’t look for praise from her DS and she knew he didn’t dispense it for its own sake. If there was a connection between the deaths, they’d find it. If not, then, she’d have other theories at the ready.

They were distracted by a sudden banging on the door, and the pathologist walked briskly into the hallway, dressed, casually for him, in a pair of jeans and a zip-up hooded fleece.

“What have you got for me this time?” Ashley Hunt asked, in his usual high spirits, which deflated within seconds of catching sight of the victims through the half open bedroom door.

“Aw guys, not more kids?”

“We don’t select your clients, Ash.” Neal said, dryly. They waited while he made a preliminary examination of the couple.

“I think there’s little doubt we’re looking at carbon monoxide poisoning,” he concluded after only a couple of minutes. “Look at those rosy cheeks — dead giveaway, if you’ll excuse the pun. Victims always look like they’re glowing with health.” He glanced over at the windows, “I see someone’s already taken sensible measures.”

“Thanks, Ash. I appreciate your arriving so promptly. I know you were on a day off.”

“I wasn’t far away,” Hunt answered. “My favourite coffee shop is just around the corner and I had my bag in the car. Only too glad to help, if it means you catch the bastard who’s preying on all these young kids.”

Ava glanced at Neal. Seemed like Ashley Hunt was drawing the same conclusions she had about the killer. Neal didn’t correct him. They watched as Hunt departed, pausing for a friendly word with one of the constables guarding the door, who apparently was his wife’s friend’s son. Hunt was one of those affable people who seem to know everyone.

“Let’s treat these deaths as suspicious until we have confirmation one way or the other,” Neal said briskly.

They spent the next half hour searching through the house. Becci’s room was freakishly tidy. Books were arranged on shelves in alphabetical order, nothing lay on the carpet except a pair of fluffy pink slippers, which had been placed side by side near the bed; it held no clutter, and no personal touches. It was a Spartan room that seemed to scream its lack of personality.

“No knickknacks or photographs, not even any make up lying about. Becci’s tidiness borders on the obsessive,” Ava observed.”

Neal walked over to Becci’s wardrobe.

“Take a look at this,” he said, whistling. Inside, the rail was crammed with designer clothes and shoes.

“Wow,” Ava said, pulling out coat hangers at random. “She didn’t buy these in Primark — Prada, Gucci, Stella McCartney. Who’d have thought our little mouse Becci had such expensive taste in clothes? And look at this, the majority of them are BNWT.”

Seeing Neal’s look of puzzlement, she clarified, “Brand New With Tags.”

“Are all these Becci’s?” Neal said, a look of incredulity on his face.

“I’m guessing they were Amy’s,” Ava answered, holding a Nicole Farhi dress up and posing in front of a long mirror on the back of the wardrobe door.

“Suits you,” Neal remarked. Ava made a face and returned the dress to the rail.

“What makes you think they were Amy’s?”

“Remember how Amy was dressed when we found her? Think how Becci was dressed when we interviewed her the day after Amy’s death — this is more Amy’s style than Becci’s.”

She went on, “Do you reckon Nancy Hill gave permission for Becci to have these? I reckon she didn’t even know her daughter had such a well-stocked wardrobe of designer gear. I bet Becci cleared Amy’s wardrobe out before Nancy even had a chance to look. Probably just after we turned up to interview her that day — remember she said Amy’s bedroom door was locked and we didn’t bother to check?

She probably kept what she liked and put the rest on eBay. Maybe that’s what she and Gary were uneasy about the day we interviewed them. Should be easy enough for our tech guys to check if she’s been selling stuff, by looking on her laptop.”

Neal nodded. “Expensive jewellery, expensive clothes. Nancy’s business is doing well, but she’s hardly a FTSE 100 contender. So where was Amy getting the money from to finance her designer lifestyle? Who or what was she involved with?”

There was a name on the tip of Ava’s tongue, but she wasn’t about to say it aloud. Christopher Taylor had a sound alibi for the night of Amy’s death.

“I’ll have Becci and Gary’s bank account details checked out, sir.”

“Amy’s has already been scrutinised. There was no sign of any deposits other than an allowance from Nancy, which was generous but not enough to pay for all of this,” Neal said, running a hand along the line of garments on the clothes rail.

“Looks like she was spending it as fast as she got it,” Ava remarked. On an impulse, she crossed to Becci’s bed and stuck a hand under the mattress. Her arm disappeared up to her elbow as she slid it along the bed.

“Eureka!” she cried, tugging a creased manila envelope out and waving it in the air. The contents spilled out across the bed, a flurry of different coloured notes.

“There must be a grand here if not more. No wonder Becci and Gary were uneasy about having a couple of cops in the house. This was Amy’s money, I’ll bet, along with the clothes. I’m beginning to wonder if Becci’s concern when Amy went missing was motivated by self-interest. She was certainly quick to capitalise on her friend’s death.”

“Was Amy involved with someone other than Professor Taylor?” Neal asked, “A sugar daddy?” Ava wrinkled her nose in distaste at the term, but it was a possibility. Then a thought occurred to her.

“Do you think it’s possible she was blackmailing someone, sir?”

Neal pursed his lips.

“The obvious candidate would be Taylor but on what grounds? If they were in a sexual relationship, Taylor wasn’t breaking any laws; they were both consenting adults. At most it would have been an abuse of his position of power and may have been a disciplinary offence, depending on what view the university takes of such affairs. It’s a moot point, anyway. Taylor has a cast-iron alibi for the night of Amy’s murder.”

Back to that, Ava thought, unhappily. She said, “Supposing Becci knew Amy was blackmailing someone and she decided to carry it on after Amy’s death? If the person Amy was blackmailing killed her, why would he stop at Amy?”

Neal didn’t dismiss her theory. Instead, he reminded her that they didn’t even know whether Becci and Gary had died as a result of a faulty appliance or deliberate tampering. In her mind, Ava was convinced it wasn’t the former, but she reined in her impulse to rush to a conclusion without proof. As Neal had reminded her, the worst thing a detective could do was close her mind to other possibilities. Things were not always as they seemed.

* * *

That evening, in the quietness of her secluded cottage, Ava sipped a second glass of wine and ruminated on the events of the day — and on the nature of her relationship with Christopher Taylor. There were five messages from him on her smartphone, asking when he could see her again. So far, she had been stalling him, saying that she was busy with the investigation and had no free time, hoping that he would work it out eventually. God knows, he was smart enough in every other sense, surely even someone with an ego as massive as his would click eventually that she wasn’t interested.

Except, it wasn’t that simple, was it? Ava’s mind returned to the night she had spent in Taylor’s bed. However much she disliked the man, there was no doubt that he pushed all her buttons sexually, damn him. Even as her reason told her he was not a good bet, her body was betraying her with subtle feelings of arousal as she pictured the way she had last seen him, his long lean body wrapped in his exquisite Egyptian cotton sheet.

“Why am I so convinced he’s a rat?” she asked her fat cat, Camden, who was curled up beside her on the sofa, purring hypnotically. As always, when she consulted him on any matter, urgent or trivial, he stared at her with the same bored expression, as if to say, “Why should I care?”

“I mean, it’s not as if I know he’s guilty of anything; it’s just a bloody
feeling
, for goodness sake. The man could be a saint for all I know.” Camden yawned and turned away.

“Jim doesn’t like him,” Ava said to Camden, wondering why that mattered, but it did. She said Neal’s first name aloud again, enjoying the sound of it on her lips.

“I think I need another glass, Camden,” she said to the cat, who meowed in protest when she rose from the sofa to pour a refill. After the third glass, Ava fell asleep, waking well past midnight from dreams in which the things she did with Christopher Taylor and her boss in turn made her blush with shame, regretful that her only male companion was of the feline variety.

Chapter 12

The following morning, Neal greeted Ava with a train ticket.

“Don’t take your coat off. I picked this up for you earlier this morning. If you move yourself, you can make the eight thirty-five.” Ava took the ticket and glanced down at her destination: Sheffield.

“Bradley?” she asked.

“I want you to question him again. Find out about his obsession with Amy; get a list of the dates when he was in Stromford recently. Even if he’s innocent of any wrong-doing himself, he may have information that can help in the investigation. Focus on who he saw Amy with, where she went, you know the kind of thing.”

Ava cast a regretful look at the coffee machine before making for the door. She had just fifteen minutes to make it to the station and decided to make a run for it rather than take her car and get stuck in the morning traffic.

She made it with three minutes to spare but her dodgy ankle throbbed with pain as she sank, breathless, into a backwards-facing window seat, looking once more with regret, at a coffee kiosk on the station platform that she’d had no time to visit.

* * *

As soon as the train pulled out of the station, she went in search of the buffet car. Five minutes later, large black americano in hand, she settled into her seat and gazed out of the window at the receding view of a flat, harvested wheat field overhung by a rain-swollen sky and a low autumn sun that made the shadows between the ridges of golden stubble look as though they were smudged with charcoal.

It had been a while since she’d been out of town and even longer since she’d visited a decent sized city. Stromford was more of a large town, despite its pretensions and its resplendent cathedral perched on just about the only hill in the county. The shopping could be better, Ava had thought on first arriving in Stromford, bemoaning the lack of fashionable chain stores on the high street. But new retail developments were underway that would bring the town up to date, including the imaginative adaptive reuse of a number of nineteenth century commercial buildings that had fallen into disuse, as shops, cafes and restaurants.

The journey would take about an hour and a half and though the seat next to Ava was empty, she didn’t want to risk having a passenger getting on at the next stop sit next to her and attempt to engage her in banal conversation, so she put her headphones on, closed her eyes and made the world go away in a blast of sound.

This wouldn’t be Jim Neal’s music of choice, she thought absently, her head nodding to the beat. He was a classical music man, particularly fond of Bach and the Baroque period, but lately she had heard him humming modern stuff that Archie liked. The thought made her smile. Neal wasn’t exactly dour, but he was a tad on the serious side and it was as well that he had a young son — and a light-hearted sister — to keep him from becoming a fossil.

A man in a pinstripe suit got on at the next stop and settled into the seat beside Ava’s. Not the chatty type, thank goodness, Ava thought, watching him extract a tablet computer from his briefcase and turn it on. Within seconds he was immersed in reading The Times online. Ava stared out of the window, mentally reviewing the case. She had turned her music off — it was too distracting, but kept the headphones on to deflect any conversation.

She deliberately avoided thinking about Taylor. This morning, she needed to focus on Bradley and his part in Amy’s tragedy. He had grown up with her these past seven or eight years. They had been children together, then teenagers, even though Bradley had lived with his mother and only seen Amy when he was staying with his father on occasional weekends and holidays. They had never actually shared a house, where a true brother and sister relationship might have developed. It was quite natural, then, that Bradley should develop un-brotherly feelings towards Amy.

According to various sources, Amy had no such feelings for Bradley. Far from it; she seemed to have treated him badly. She had mocked his feelings and belittled him, and Bradley had clearly suffered a blow to his self-esteem.

It was the kind of thing that often happened to teenagers, especially in these days of social networking. Most got over the humiliation and moved on, but for some, resentment might fester until it found an outlet. Had Amy’s ill-treatment pushed Bradley over the edge? It was already established that he could be aggressive; his behaviour at Amy’s funeral had proved that he did not have himself entirely under control.

* * *

The journey passed quickly and Ava was surprised when the shantytown façade of the famous — or infamous — Park Hill flats loomed into view, signalling that she had arrived at her destination.

She took a cab to Bradley’s address; he’d been contacted first thing in the morning and given the choice of talking to a police officer at home, or going down to the station to answer some questions. Bradley had chosen the former. When he answered the door to Ava, he was still in his pyjamas.

“You’re an early riser, I see,” Ava remarked dryly.

“I got wakened up at the crack of dawn by you lot phoning me. No point getting up early when I wasn’t going to be in class this morning.”

Ava didn’t bother to point out that he did have an interview to get up for. Obviously, talking to the police wasn’t an activity he deemed worthy of getting out of bed for.

“May I come in?” Ava asked.

“Give me five minutes to put some clothes on,” Bradley said, inviting her inside. He disappeared off upstairs after showing her into a kitchen diner. Ava looked around in some surprise. Bradley rented his accommodation with another male student, she knew. She also knew that it was sexist of her to assume that the place would be a mess. In fact it was clean and tidy to the point of obsession. Either these guys were not your typical students or one of them was suffering from OCD.

Bradley returned, dressed in a pair of jeans and a red T-shirt with a caption saying, ‘Keep calm and build a cabinet,’ on the front. Ava declined his offer of a coffee, then changed her mind when, to her surprise, she spied a state of the art coffee maker. It wouldn’t hurt to be a little informal. As they waited for the coffee to perk, she spoke with him about his course, hoping to break the ice.

“You’re learning to design and make furniture, I hear,” she said, “Do you need to be good at art for that?”

“It helps,” Bradley answered, “Art and design was my best subject at school. I was pretty crap at everything else.”

“Are you hoping to go into business with your dad?”

“Maybe. Dad taught me everything he knew, but it’s still good to get a qualification under your belt. My course includes modules on how to run a business and I’ve got big plans.” Bradley puffed up with self-importance, perhaps seeing himself as Alan Sugar’s next apprentice entrepreneur.

Ava noticed that Bradley spilt some coffee on the worktop and that he left the teaspoon he’d stirred his cup with lying on the side of the sink; not the one, then.

“You’ve come about Amy, haven’t you? Not to talk about me.”

“Yes,” answered Ava.

“I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“I just want to ask a few questions, that’s all. It’s possible that you may have information that will be of use to us, without even knowing it.”

“I didn’t kill her,“ Bradley said, sullenly.

“But you did like her?” Ava said, not unkindly.

“I used to. You know that already. She wasn’t interested. End of. Like I said.”

“Not exactly. We know you were following Amy, possibly stalking her. You told your flatmate — and other friends at uni that you were going out with her. Why did you tell them that, Bradley?”

Bradley shrugged, “I thought she’d come to her senses eventually and go out with me.”

Bradley wasn’t bad looking. He was tall enough and looked as though he worked out. He could stand to lose a couple of pounds, but it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to see girls his age fancying him, Ava thought. On the downside, Bradley had an unfortunate manner, aggressive and rather domineering. This might appeal to some girls, but apparently it hadn’t won him over to Amy.

“Look, I cared about Amy. Okay, I was a bit obsessed with her, but I would never have hurt her, even though she was a bitch to me.”

But you did hurt her once, didn’t you
, Ava thought, convinced Bradley was in deep denial, “Do you think every girl who isn’t attracted to you is a bitch?”

“No, you’re twisting my words — I meant she behaved like a bitch towards me — made fun of me in front of her friends, put stuff on Facebook about me. Told them all I was a pervert. She wasn’t above borrowing money from me, though.”

Ava’s senses were alerted,

“Amy borrowed money from you? How much? How often?” Bradley shrugged. No doubt he was ashamed of being so in thrall to Amy that he had actually lent her money even though she had made it clear she despised him.

“Not much. I’m a student, remember? I make a bit of money selling stuff I’ve made — jewellery boxes, animals carved out of wood. Amy always seemed to know when I had money in my pocket. She was nice enough to me when she wanted to borrow some.”

“How much?” Ava asked again.

“The odd tenner here and there.”

Not enough to pay for the kind of clothes Amy had hanging in her wardrobe, thought Ava. Whoever had financed her expensive tastes, it wasn’t Bradley. She had probably just extracted money from him for fun, because he was such easy bait.

“When you were following Amy, did you ever see her with anyone else?”

“What, blokes, you mean? I saw her with a smooth-looking git once or twice. Looked quite a bit older than her. And with Simon Foster.”

“Simon?” Ava asked, tingling with interest, “Amy knew Simon Foster? You saw them together?”

“Not exactly,” Bradley answered, “I wouldn’t say they were together. I think Simon was following Amy too.” Ava shuddered at the idea of a double stalking. What was it about Amy Hill that turned men into predators?

“Why did you think that?” she asked

“When I was . . . following Amy, I used to see him hanging around, watching her. I think she knew he was there but didn’t mind. I think she pretended she wasn’t aware of him. She didn’t seem threatened or annoyed by him.”

Just like Becci had said, Ava remembered. Very likely, Simon was Amy’s benign stalker; the one she believed was looking out for her.

“What about you? Did she know you were stalking her?”

“I’m not a weirdo, you know. I only followed her a couple of times. After that time when I . . . when she fell over, I gave it up, decided she was a waste of time. I didn’t mean to hurt her, you know. It was an accident.”

“Yeah, right,” Ava said, thinking again of Bradley’s behaviour on the day of Amy’s funeral.

“Am I a suspect?” he asked, “I’ve got an alibi, you know. My flatmate can vouch for me.”

It was true, Bradley’s claim about going on a drunken pub crawl with his flatmate had checked out.

Ava finished her coffee, feeling a little uncomfortable about having enjoyed it so much. It didn’t seem polite to accept a person’s hospitality, and then insinuate that you suspected them of murder.

“And that girl in the pub? If Inspector Neal and your father hadn’t stopped you, you’d have given her a black eye at the very least.”

Bradley gave her a dirty look, “I’ve got a temper, right? Sometimes I can’t stop myself, but I never meant to hurt her.”

Any twinge of pity that Ava had felt on seeing the Facebook pictures of the drunken, naked, overweight Bradley in a series of unflattering poses was quickly evaporating. She decided to try a different line of questioning.

“Would it surprise you to learn that Becci and her boyfriend were found dead yesterday at Becci’s flat?”

It was evident that Bradley was shocked by the news. The colour drained from his face and he stared at Ava in disbelief.

“You’re not trying to nail me for that as well, are you? Because I’ve been in Sheffield for the past two weeks — ask anyone.”

“We will,” Ava answered. “Bradley, do you have any idea why someone might have wanted either of them dead?”

“I didn’t know Gary that well. He was a bit of a clown and he didn’t seem that bright to me, considering he was at uni. Becci was a bitch but she didn’t deserve to die. Was she strangled like Amy?”

Ava wasn’t surprised to hear Bradley describe Amy’s best friend as a bitch. Probably tried it on with her too.

“No. Carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“In her flat?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes. I already told you that.”

“They had an alarm,” Bradley said, “I remember my dad telling Nancy to make sure they had one when Amy moved in. And he gave me one when I moved in here. Look.” Bradley got up and crossed to a bookshelf, and pointed to a round white monitor with a green light that flashed intermittently.

Ava nodded. She had one herself. The piercing signal it emitted had startled her out of a deep sleep one morning; a warning that the battery power was low. She had taken the batteries out . . . had she replaced them? Ava made a mental note to check at the earliest opportunity. They had searched Amy and Becci’s flat for a monitor, and found one which had dead batteries, but she didn’t reveal this to Bradley.