High-Wired (17 page)

Superintendent Devenish was beginning to lose his rag at the lack of progress on the investigations, and was worried about pressure from above, or – even worse – having officers brought in over the heads of his team, relieving him of the responsibility for clearing up the crimes and locking away the villains. Devenish, like Sherlock Holmes before him, had no taste for the modern equivalent of being taken over by Scotland Yard.

It was that same night that Lauren began to get silent phone calls in the early hours, all of which had the number withheld. At first she just thought it was a wrong number, but when her sleep had been disturbed five times, she began to get worried.

Did someone know she was newly on her own, and was trying to rattle her? Or was it someone connected with the case threatening her with their silence? When she confided in Olivia the next day, the senior officer largely shrugged it off, telling her to either change her number or get the phone company to monitor her calls. She told her sergeant that she could even make an official complaint here in the station, but Lauren didn’t want to make any more fuss than was necessary.

INTERLUDE

In his office in the club he owned near the sea, the man put down the telephone. He would have to step up the pressure if he was going to get everyone in line. His current tactics weren’t working at all. Maybe he’d have to call on his team again, but he’d need to rap some knuckles at the same time. Actions like that last one had not been requested and it was totally unacceptable. If he didn’t get them back under his thumb before long, he’d lose his grip, and his London contact.

That should be sorted out, now. The phone call should deal with any loose cannons very effectively
.

CHAPTER TEN

DI Hardy called her team together to sum up what they had so far although, if she were honest with herself, she was currently motivated more by a gut feeling than overwhelming physical evidence.

‘We have four strong suspects for all this mayhem in our town; everyone else who was interviewed has had independent corroboration of their whereabouts at the times of the crimes. These four provide mutual alibis for each other and it stinks. All we have to do now is prove it,’ she stated. ‘We’re waiting for Forensics, and I’ve had some of you collecting the available CCTV footage. There’s also a request for a television appeal to anyone who might have been in a pub or takeaway that evening, and who could place those four anywhere at a particular time, so we need to put their photographs out for that. A new photo of Genni Lacey has been issued, this time in trendy clothes and with lashings of make-up. The girl’s three friends have not been forthcoming with any information, so we are relying on members of the public with a good memory to help us out.

‘Colin, all I need now is for you to go through the CCTV stuff and see if there’s anything that might back up what we think we know so far.’

Colin Redwood gave a deep sigh as the menial task was thrust upon him. He thought he was worth much more than that, and should be in the thick of things, wherever the thick happened to be.

‘It’s a very important job, Colin,’ said Hardy. ‘Don’t put it down. You could discover the vital piece of visual evidence.’ This did little to reassure him that he was a valued member of the team, but it did reinforce that he was also one of the most junior. He was, all things considered, totally pissed off. This wasn’t how he had envisaged life in the police at all. He silently vowed to sort Hardy out.

‘We’re waiting on some DNA evidence from the post-mortem, which could be an important breakthrough for us, and we’ll take it from there. The new body from the river will have to be identified, and I just hope that someone who could get themselves killed like that won’t turn out to be a model citizen, but will be identifiable from our national database. We’ll carry on with our routine enquiries until we get something solid on those two matters. Colin, I’ve set aside a little room for you to go through all the CCTV footage, so off you all go. We’ve got plenty to do, with lots of supposed sightings of the girl who went missing as well. Get to it. In the meantime, I’ve got a CSI team going through that boatshed with a fine tooth comb.’

The rest of the day followed a well-established routine, without any startling developments, but full of the things that had to be done – even if only to say that they had been. There was no one of any seniority who would back a hunch and let them cut corners.

‘I’m still fairly sure we’ve got our men,’ Hardy confided to Lauren before they finished for the day. ‘Let’s hope we’ve got two matches from the database by tomorrow morning, so that we can push forward with our enquiries, and home in on those four slimy sods. They need locking up and the key throwing away.’

When Lauren got home, the whole house, including the annexe, was in darkness, much to her consternation. When she unlocked the door, she flipped on a light and checked that the alarm was on, just to make sure that there were no unwelcome visitors waiting for her inside. That proven, however, she still went through every room just to make sure, checking that all the windows and exterior doors were closed and locked.

When she got into the kitchen, she found a note from Kenneth on the kitchen table, informing her that he and Gerda had left earlier that day, because they couldn’t stand being locked into the tiny annexe while she swanned around in the whole house. Lauren was infuriated. For a start, they hadn’t been
locked in
, but were free to go where they pleased, certainly when she was at work. It wasn’t as if she had security cameras in place. For another, it was completely their fault that things had worked out how they did. It had nothing to do with her that Kenneth couldn’t keep it in his trousers. She hadn’t asked for the marriage to end this way, although she had to admit that it would had to have come to an end sooner or later.

Taking a quick peek, she noticed that the lovers had left their living quarters in complete disarray, and she slammed shut the door with a deep sigh of martyrdom. That was one way of getting back at her: to cause her inconvenience and unwelcome work, while driving home just who had caused that mess. It was petty but, in hindsight, it was typical of Kenneth.

That evening she drank a couple of glasses of wine to relax her and went to bed with her thoughts on the children. She’d have to contact the local school soon, to get them on the roll before Christmas, which wasn’t very far away, and tell their boarding schools that they would be leaving at the end of term.

Thinking of Christmas crystallised her thoughts. Surely the current case would be closed by then and, if it was, she had a good mind to take some leave and take the children to her parents’ house. She didn’t think she could face the festive season with Kenneth and Gerda once again in the annexe, and the bewilderment and upset that this would cause the kids.

They were quite used to Kenneth being away and for a while, at least, she wouldn’t have to say anything about him leaving the family unit. They would just take it as normal that he wasn’t around and, even if they did question the fact that he wasn’t home for Christmas, she could explain that he wasn’t in a Christian country and, therefore, Christmas wasn’t a holiday over there. The added bonus of seeing their grandparents should bridge the gap that his absence left. If Kenneth wanted to see the children it would be on her terms.

As she dropped off to sleep, the phone rang and woke her. It was another silent call, but she could hear breathing in the background. Instead of frightening her, it made her mad. How could anyone want to terrorise her? If it was anything to do with work, surely she wasn’t of sufficient rank to be the victim of such a campaign of silence? Surely it couldn’t be Kenneth’s idea of a joke?

She eventually went back to sleep, only to be woken at 3.20 by the urgent beeping of the smoke alarm. As she came back to consciousness, she smelled smoke with a suspicious hint of petrol behind it, and shot out of bed, running to the top of the stairs to check on the situation.

On the hall floor, a patch of flame was just catching hold. Rushing for a blanket from the airing cupboard, she threw it down the stairs with an immaculate aim, then followed it down, grabbing a fire extinguisher from the landing, one of two that the insurance company had insisted they install due to the remote situation of the property.

She grabbed the phone from the hall table, frantically tramping on the blanket, dialled 999 and put the phone on to speaker. She then let loose with the fire extinguisher, shouting to be heard from her position just by the front door, hoping to God that this was the only seat of the fire. If they’d set fires at other points around the house, she was toast.

Having requested the fire service and checked that the fire was all but out, she continued with the contents of the fire extinguisher, leaving the scene for a moment to fetch the one from the kitchen, along with a fire blanket from beside the cooker, only noticing when the danger was all but passed, that her feet were somewhat burnt and very tender.

A police car arrived on the heels of the fire service, and when the fire service had done everything they could, a man was left on guard, as the house could no longer be secured, and she asked to be taken to Olivia’s house. There was nowhere else she could think of going, and she didn’t want to lie in the dark knowing that the phone was sure to ring again any minute.

She could ring the insurance company in the morning and arrange for the work to be done and the house made secure. Making a note to check that Kenneth hadn’t blocked her access to the bank account, she suddenly realised she was shaking. What was happening to her well-ordered life? It seemed to have descended into chaos.

Olivia was very surprised to be awoken at such an hour, but readily accepted Lauren into the house, gave her yet another sleeping tablet, and immediately installed her in Hibbie’s still-vacant room. There was enough time in the morning to deal with whatever had happened, and neither of them would be served by losing the rest of the night’s sleep. She’d lost enough sleep over Ben’s crisis, without compounding her tiredness.

When the inspector got back to bed, her thoughts had firmly homed in on Ben. He had denied taking any drugs, but had insisted that he’d been given spiked drinks. She couldn’t really believe this, and was sure that he was so ashamed of what had happened that he just couldn’t take responsibility for it. Although his one-time friend had been banned from the house, she didn’t see him as a kid who would deliberately put drugs into his friend’s drink.

She thought it more than likely that Ben had taken them by choice, and then been terrified by the outcome and not been able to own up to his foolish actions. She’d have to get Hibbie to have a talk with him when she got home, Hibbie had always been able to influence Ben, and Olivia always thought that she seemed more mature despite being younger And where exactly was she? Surely it wasn’t anywhere near half term now? She had always allowed Hibbie more freedom because of her maturity, didn’t feel the need to check up on her all the time, and now it seemed as if her daughter didn’t want to confide in her at all.

She seemed to have taken a wrong turning with her kids, both of them. And she wasn’t sure where she’d gone wrong, but what with Ben’s overdose and Hibbie not wanting to be at home any more than she had to, something was wrong. Would it eventually cost her her job, or her relationship with her children?

She’d only spoken to her daughter a couple of times on her mobile since she’d been gone and she couldn’t’ remember exactly when Hibbie had embarked on this lengthy stay with a friend. What had happened to her relationship with her daughter that they’d drifted so far apart? She’d have to give her a ring tomorrow and see what was going on. What with all the uncharacteristically grisly murders in the town, she, too, was beginning to think that her life was spiralling out of control.

Breakfast proved to be a defining get-together, as Lauren disclosed details of exactly what had happened since she had got home the night before. Olivia told her that she had to stay with her for a while as it obviously wasn’t safe for her to go back to her own place. ‘You have to keep your distance until we determine whether this is just a scare campaign by Kenneth to punish you, or whether it has something to do with the current cases. You won’t be safe until we’ve got these murders wrapped up, and I can’t take the responsibility of letting you go back,’ she informed her sergeant forcefully.

‘I know, I know it’s nothing to do with you, but you have to wonder how his mind works. He’s already blamed you for being a bad wife. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that he might want to scare the wits out of you as his revenge?’

‘That’s all very well, but what if your daughter comes back soon?’ countered Lauren.

‘There’s always the spare room. Let’s just wait until your house is secure again, and then we can consider you going back, but with the house under surveillance, in case whoever it is has another go.’

‘You know there aren’t the resources to cover that.’

‘We’ll sort something out. And I must get in touch with Hibbie today. She’s been gone rather a long time and, what with Ben and everything else that’s going on, I’ve completely lost track of how long she’s been gone. I don’t know what’s come over her, she’s usually so reliable.’

‘And I’ve got schools and my parents to phone, not to mention the insurance company.’

‘Come on, we’ll go over to yours to collect whatever you need and your car, then we’ll take things from there. Oh, and collect your flute as well. If you’re staying here, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have some fun at the same time.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The office was buzzing when they got in. The DNA results were through from Genni Lacey’s post-mortem, and the sample had been matched to Dennis Trussler. When they got in, one of the DCs shouted the name at Hardy, attracting her attention, but Lauren was more surprised to see the expression on Colin Redwood’s face. It had an expression of astonishment on it that she could not explain.

‘Right, troops,’ Hardy called. ‘We need Trussler in again for questioning. No doubt he’ll still have his brief hanging on to his shirt-tails, but we’ve got a forensic link to that poor girl now, and I think we have to drive it home. He’s definitely in the frame. All four of them are in this together, I know they are. All we have to do to Trussler is crack him, and point out to him that he doesn’t have to take all the blame.’