High-Wired (7 page)

She staggered into the shower, trying to wash off the guilt and disgust she felt at returning to her role as wife, one she had not cherished for a number of years now. She had only enjoyed the children, and now that Jade had gone off to prep school this last September, she felt like she didn’t exist anymore, at least not in any real sense, in the home.

After a brisk rub dry, she sat in front of her dressing table mirror carefully applying such make-up as would minimise her red and swollen eyes, then opened her work wardrobe to select a suitably sombre suit for dealing with two young and unnecessary deaths, although at the moment, she felt she ought to add her marriage to the list of the fallen.

Lauren took her time driving to the station. She was not looking forward to leaving the office that night, as Kenneth would be home. She would spend as much time as she could at the end of the working day catching up with any necessary, and maybe even some
un
necessary, paperwork.

DI Hardy was already behind her desk going through what had occurred overnight when she entered. She must put on a brave face, and she did her best to greet her boss with a smile. ‘Everything OK?’ asked Hardy, instinctively aware that all was not well in Lauren’s world.

‘Just a bit of a run-in with the au pair, that’s all,’ she lied, and got away with it.

‘If she’s not suitable, just give her the old heave-ho. There are plenty of young women, and older ones come to that, who would love the security of a live-in job with not too arduous a schedule.’

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ replied Lauren, aware of a little shake in her voice, and immediately sitting down and starting to go through the paperwork that was in her in tray.

‘We’ve got a name for the kid in the field,’ said Hardy, ‘Hal recognised his photofit. It’s a chap called Ricky Dunbar who worked at the club where Hal plays. We’ll go see his parents later.’

At 10.30, Hardy chivvied her sergeant to her feet, saying, ‘Come on. I checked with the neighbours to see when Mr and Mrs Dunbar will arrive home from their holiday, and they were due to get to the house just after nine. I doubt they’ll be considering going into work today after their overnight journey, so let’s get this over with.’

Reluctantly, Lauren rose to her feet, her stomach doing somersaults, her throat dry. She really hated this part of the job, made even worse today given her own unhappy domestic circumstances. Her eyes on her feet, she slipped back into her jacket and followed the DI down to the car park.

At the neat modern Georgian-style terraced house that proved to be the family home of the Dunbars, Mrs Dunbar answered their ring with a neutral face, and gave them the smallest of smiles when she saw that two women stood on the doorstep. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked, wondering if they were lost and in need of some directions.

‘Mrs Dunbar?’ Hardy checked, holding out her warrant card. Groves followed suit, and the smile fell away from the woman’s face as if it had slid off an icy surface.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Is it our Ricky? His bed’s not been slept in, and he’s such an untidy boy, usually.’

‘May we come in please, Mrs Dunbar?’ Bad news of the magnitude they were bringing couldn’t be blurted out on a doorstep like a cheap piece of gossip.

‘What is it? Tell me,’ she begged them, standing aside so that they could enter. In silence the two detectives entered the living room, and Hardy nodded at Groves to go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She had the feeling that they would all need one by the time they had finished.

‘Where’s Mr Dunbar?’ the inspector enquired.

‘He’s upstairs finishing the unpacking,’ the woman said in a voice that was devoid of all emotion, as if it were she who were dead.

‘Can you call him in here, please? I have something to tell you that you both should hear.’

‘Oh, my God! Chris! You need to come down here now,’ Mrs Dunbar called through the door, a note of panic now infecting her voice.

There was the thump of somebody descending the stairs, a slight break as the man put his head into the kitchen, enquiring who the hell Groves was, and what she was doing in his kitchen. After the higher notes of Groves’ voice, he finally entered the living room, his face ashen with dread as he realised that there was a policewoman in the kitchen and, no doubt, this was another one in his living room. It could only bode ill.

‘Have you come about Ricky?’ he asked, without waiting for the other woman to introduce herself.

‘DI Hardy, Mr Dunbar, Mrs Dunbar, and that’s DS Groves in the kitchen, making us all a nice cup of tea.’

‘Is this about Ricky? Is he in some sort of trouble?’ the man persisted, while his wife put a hand up to her mouth in dread anticipation.

At that point she joined the conversation. ‘We noticed that his bed didn’t seem to have been slept in and a lot of the food I left for him in the freezer is still there. He should have used more of it.’

‘I’m afraid it is about Ricky, Mr and Mrs Dunbar. I suggest that you sit down, sir.’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Mrs Dunbar blurted out, and put her hands over her eyes as they filled with anticipatory tears.

‘I’m afraid we have reason to believe that the body we have found is that of your son,’ replied Hardy as the sobs started to seep out through the bereaved mother’s fingers.

‘How did it happen?’ asked the man. ‘Was it an accident on the road? Was he knocked down and killed?’ His face was as grey as putty as he asked these almost impossible questions. It seemed unbelievable that they could have returned from a lovely, relaxing holiday to a nightmare like this.

‘I’m afraid it’s rather more serious than that. I’m sorry to have to inform you but he was murdered.’

‘Murdered?’

‘How?’

‘I think, if it’s all right with you, we should leave that till a little later. In the meantime, would you be able to come down to the mortuary and formally identify his body?’

‘But how did he die? I have to know. He is … was … my son … our son. We need to know.’ Mrs Dunbar was now wailing and keening, and rocking herself backwards and forwards in her seat as grief and shock set in.

‘You can’t keep the details from us. He was our flesh and blood,’ chimed in Mr Dunbar, whose own eyes had filled, and looked as if the pupils would drown in unshed tears.

‘I think we’ll leave the details until after we’ve had a nice cup of tea,’ responded Hardy, as Groves entered with a tray in her hands, the cups rocking in their saucers as the sergeant’s own nervousness made itself visible. She was always like this when it was a case of breaking bad news: she simply couldn’t either avoid it, or get used to it.

Lauren put down the tray on a convenient coffee table, and checked whether they wanted milk and sugar before handing over the cups. When all had been served, she made a banal comment about not knowing where to find the biscuits, then a veil of silence settled over the scene. What could they talk about? It hardly seemed appropriate to ask whether they’d had a good holiday. Coming back from this one would be something they’d never forget.

‘Why did we have to go away?’ sobbed Mrs Dunbar. ‘We never even had the chance to say goodbye. Maybe if we hadn’t gone when we did, this would never have happened.’

‘There, there, love. We can’t live on might-have-beens,’ her husband consoled her, rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her.

‘He was only a boy, really. We should have taken him with us.’

‘He wouldn’t have come, love. We both know that. He may have been a boy to you, but he was an adult in the eyes of the law.’

‘I don’t give a shit about the eyes of the law! My baby boy is dead, and you try to comfort me like that.’ Her voice had risen in pitch and volume, and her husband suddenly knelt down beside her chair, and gathered her to his chest, holding her tightly as she wailed and struggled.

‘Can you tell me where I can find your doctor’s number, Mr Dunbar? I think your wife should be looked at, and possibly given something to calm her down’ said Hardy quietly.

‘In the address book by the phone in the hall,’ he replied, ‘under U for Underhill.’

Hardy nodded slightly in Groves’ direction, and she put down her cup, got up and left the room, closing the door into the hall behind her. ‘Mrs Dunbar could certainly do with a little chemical help to get her through the next few days. I think it would be better if you went on your own to identify your son’s body, Mr Dunbar. Is there someone we could contact to sit with your wife after the doctor’s been?’

‘Her sister lives just the other side of the town centre. Her number’s in the same address book under F for Filey, Mrs Judith Filey.’

‘I’ll tell my sergeant as soon as she’s finished calling the doctor, and she can arrange for her to come over.’

‘If she doesn’t answer the landline, her mobile number’s in there as well,’ said Mr Dunbar, tears now coursing down his cheeks as he rocked with his wife as they expressed their grief and sorrow.

Within ten minutes, Dr Underhill arrived and was left ministering to his patient as the other three people in the house retired discreetly to the dining room. When he had finished, he called them back through and handed a small bottle to Mr Dunbar. ‘I’ve given her a sedative for now. This bottle has some sleeping tablets in it to help her get through the night, and I suggest that you take one, too. This has been an appalling shock for you both. I’d like to call back in the morning to see how you both are.’

He shook hands with the bereaved man and, as he was leaving, a car pulled on to the drive containing Judith Filey. A woman evidently in some distress got out of the car, and rushed towards the still open door, where she engulfed her brother-in-law in a hug.

‘God, how awful this is. Where’s Mary? How is she?’

‘Not good,’ replied Clive Dunbar, hugging his sister-in-law back. ‘You’d better go through to her. I have to go with these policewomen to identify Ricky’s body.’

‘What happened to him?’ the newcomer asked.

‘I don’t know the details as yet, but the officers said they’d tell me on the way to the mortuary.’

At the sound of that dread word, Judith Filey suddenly let loose her tears as she realised that this was all real and not just some stupid prank.

Interrupting at this point, Hardy announced that she was going to radio in for a constable to come and sit with the two women until Mr Dunbar returned and break the news of how their son had died to his wife, and they would play it by ear until then.

As the car left for the mortuary, which was at the hospital, nearly ten miles away, Groves drove, and DI Hardy sat in the back with Mr Dunbar, slowly explaining about what he could expect to find when they got there.

‘I’m afraid your son’s not a pretty sight, Mr Dunbar. It would appear that he was beaten very badly ante-mortem, then left in a field to die. I don’t know how much of this you will decide to discuss with your wife, but you must be prepared for there to be some pretty gory details appearing in the local press. It would be better coming from you, than her finding out from a local news report or from the local paper. When the constable arrives, she will do her best to be gentle about what she tells your wife.’

‘Oh, God, I hadn’t even thought about that … can you stop the car, please,’ he asked very politely, adding, ‘Quickly,’ with more urgency.

Groves pulled over on to a grass verge, and Mr Dunbar opened the door and was flamboyantly and ingloriously sick. When he had reached the stage of dry heaving, Hardy rubbed one of his shoulders in comfort, then waited for him to sit back up and close the door.

‘I’m so sorry about that.’

‘It’s only to be expected, sir, after such dreadful news. Drive on, Groves.’

At the hospital they approached the mortuary entrance, Dunbar’s footsteps at first quick, as if to get this dreadful thing over with as soon as possible. Then, as they reached the entrance, he slowed to a snail’s pace in dread and fear at what he would have to confront.

‘Come along, Mr Dunbar. You’ll only be shown his face for the purposes of identification. Let’s get it over with so that you can go back to your wife. She’s in great need of you at this tragic time.’ The words may have sounded trite to Hardy’s ears, but they represented good common sense and, taking a huge breath to brace himself, he increased his walking pace to normal.

They led him to a glass-walled room, on the other side of which lay a hospital trolley covered in a white sheet. Dunbar thought that he had never seen such a fearful sight in his life, or one more intimidating and threatening as that covered form underneath all that pristine whiteness, and he began to shake, dreading what was about to happen.

‘Don’t be afraid, Mr Dunbar. You’ll feel better for doing this. At least it won’t let your imagination conjure up anything worse, and at least you’ll know.’

‘What do I do if my wife says she wants to see him?’ he asked, a quiver of uncertainty in his voice.

‘If you think she’s up to it after you’ve made the identification, then of course she can come and view her son’s body. It might be a good idea if you left it a day or two, though.’

It was Dr MacArthur the FME himself who entered the room and pulled back the sheet to uncover the face. Mr Dunbar took a good look, then yelped like a kicked puppy. He paled to the colour of milk. ‘Yes, that’s our Ricky, God bless his soul.’

‘Catch him, Groves,’ barked Hardy, as the man crumpled towards the floor. DS Groves caught him under the armpits as he went down – thank God she was a tall officer – and Dr MacArthur rushed out of the room to find a chair to rest him on.

‘Well fielded, Groves. We’ll make a cricketer out of you yet,’ Hardy congratulated her. It wouldn’t do to bring this poor man home with a concussion. He’d been through enough as it was.

Dr MacArthur opened his mouth to make some comments on the injuries to the young man’s body, but was effectively silenced by Hardy who delivered a swift kick to his right shin. ‘This man’s been through hell today, Dylan. Don’t make it any the worse for him by saying things that are bound to give him nightmares. I’ll speak to you on the phone later, and you can spout forth to your heart’s content to me.’