The Blissfully Dead (26 page)

He answered his phone as he walked towards the house. ‘Yeah?’

‘Boss, it’s DS Batey. We’ve had a call
. . .
You’re going to find this interesting.’ Gareth sounded excited.

‘Go on.’

‘Someone called Crime Stoppers anonymously. You’re not going to believe this, but they mentioned Hammond, said they were at a party at his house last night and saw some teenage girls’ clothes in one of the bedrooms. Including a pair of pink knickers with the word “LUCKY” printed on them.’

Winkler stopped dead. ‘What?’

‘I know. Rose Sharp’s underwear.’

Winkler’s heart was thumping like a full-size train
thundering
along the tracks. ‘Did this caller give any more details? Leave a
name?’

‘No, like I said, it was anonymous.’

‘And who else knows about this call? Lennon?’

‘Not yet, no. The referral just came over – I picked it up and called you right away.’

Winkler raised his eyes to the heavens and mouthed ‘thank you’. ‘OK. Great. Keep it that way for the moment. I’ll call you back.’

He ended the call and jogged back towards the house, watching several Asian women emerge carrying bin bags that they dropped beside the white van he’d noticed earlier.

He broke into a sprint, glancing over his shoulder to see if Hammond had emerged from the barn yet. He must still be on his call to ‘his Excellency’, whoever that was.

As he reached the house, the Thai housekeeper emerged through the front door to join the three other women, an expression of alarm
crossing her face when she saw Winkler running towards her.

‘I need everyone to stop,’ he said. ‘Listen to me.’

Four pairs of eyes stared at him.

‘Did any of you find any clothes, women’s clothes, when you were cleaning up?’

The women all started talking at once. He held up a hand. ‘Please. One at a time.’

One of the women, another East Asian, about twenty-one, Winkler guessed, said in a whisper, ‘I find knicker.’

Winkler thought he was going to have a heart attack. It was lucky he was so fit.

‘Where? Show me.’

The four women all started rummaging through the bin bags, untying them and sticking their gloved hands inside. Winkler looked over his shoulder. Hammond still hadn’t appeared.

‘Come on, come on,’ he urged.

‘I can’t find,’ the young Asian woman said.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’

He pushed her aside and grabbed the bin bag she had been rummaging through, tipping it out onto the path. Beer bottles, screwed-up napkins, food waste, cigarette ends, a couple of used condoms. But nothing pink. He did the same with the next bag, and the next, the women gawping at the horrific mess that spilled onto the edge of the lawn, all their hard work undone.

‘Where the fuck are they?’ Winkler snapped.

There was one bin bag left. He untied it and tipped its contents onto the pile of trash.

And there they were.

‘Gloves,’ he demanded. ‘Now.’

The housekeeper peeled off her transparent gloves and handed them to him. He slipped them on and crouched down, imagining himself being carried around the station, aloft on the shoulders of his colleagues, everyone chanting his name.

He held up the garment, pinching the knickers lightly between finger and thumb, and a thrill of excitement coursed through him.

‘Gotcha,’ he said.

Chapter 43
Day 14 – Chloe

E
ven though two days had passed since her birthday parachute jump, Chloe was still finding it difficult to
process
the maelstrom of emotions and a
drenalin
that had little dispelled in the aftermath. The goggle marks had long faded from around her eyes, her cheeks were no longer reddened from the
freezing
cold descent, and it felt as though she’d dreamed the whole thing. Then she would experience another flutter of excitement and the sheer joy of being alive – only to find guilt thudding down on top of her, that she shouldn’t feel that way, not after Jess’s murder.

And then there was this other, new thing, more exciting than everything else put together – more than the parachute jump; way more than her sixteenth birthday; more than the cute nervous guy from the plane asking for her number – an actual message from Shawn Barrett.

Shawn Barrett texted
me, she thought, a smile curling irresistibly up at the corners of her lips.
Me!

She felt a punch of shame and guilt in her gut – only recently she had felt embarrassed by her love of OnTarget, had thought herself too grown-up for them. Thank God Shawn would never know her traitorous thoughts.

As she sat at the breakfast table in her pyjamas half-
heartedly
eating a bowl of Special K, her mum noticed how distracted she
was.

‘Still thinking about the jump, Rog? I’m so proud of you, you know. I couldn’t have done that, not in a million years. You’ve been so brave . . .’

Her mother’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She switched off the radio, reached across the table and took Chloe’s hand between her own, her voice thick.

‘We don’t get that much time together on our own, do we? I just wanted to say that the other day was incredible. There’s always so much going on here, and I feel like I’m constantly nagging you and Brandon about something or other—’

‘You are,’ Chloe confirmed, prompting a tearful laugh.

‘So anyway. I just wanted to say that it was amazing to take you to the jump, just the two of us, and watch you floating down to earth with that massive grin plastered all over your face, and to know you’ve recovered, that you’re well again, I can’t tell you . . .’

She was openly sobbing now, and Chloe gave a self-
deprecating
sort of huff, although, annoyingly, her own eyes had filled up too.

‘Oh God, Chloe, when I thought we were going to lose you, I just couldn’t bear it. I really couldn’t. The relief that you’re OK!’

‘Yeah, I’m fairly relieved too,’ said Chloe. She examined her mother’s profile, still attractive – although she really ought to pluck that one long hair she never noticed growing out of the mole by her left ear, and she was getting wrinkles in her neck. Chloe wondered what her mum had been like as a teenager. What she herself would be like as an adult, as a mother.

‘I’m glad you’re my mum,’ she said impulsively, leaning over her cereal bowl to kiss her, which prompted another sob before her mum blew her nose and straightened up.

‘Sorry, darling, I’m just being over-emotional. You just turned sixteen, and jumped out of a plane – how could I not be! Either that or I’m getting the menopause.’

She switched the radio back on, indicating that the chat was over, and started clearing up the breakfast things.

Chloe slid her phone out of her dressing gown pocket. She re-read the message – a PM sent from the OnTarget forum – for about the thirtieth time since she’d got it.

She still couldn’t believe it. She was dying to tell her mum, or Jess – how jealous would Jess have been! Another visceral pang of guilt shot through her, a little spear of actual pain in her belly. Jess was probably lying in a stainless steel drawer in a mortuary, like on
CSI Miami
.

Hey Chloe! It’s Shawn Barrett here. I’ve got something TOP SECRET I want to ask you about.

Even though Chloe was almost paralysed by the sheer excitement of getting a message from Shawn, she also found it too good to be true. She had watched
Catfish
. She knew all about people posing as others online.

Sorry Shawn
, she wrote back.
But how do I know it’s really you?

The reply came back almost immediately.

Remember when I came to see you in hospital, when you had
cancer
? I asked you what your favourite OnT song was. You said that you tell everyone it’s Forever Together but actually you like Small Victory better.

‘Small Victory’ was a bonus track on OnT’s first album and generally considered a bit cringe. But it was true! It was her favourite. And she had never told anyone that except Shawn.

OMG!
she replied.
It IS you!!!

Yeah, it’s me all right. TOP SECRET yeah, but I’m funding a new kids’ cancer charity and want YOU to be my main girl, cos we go back, right? Can we meet up to discuss? Want you + me to be filmed, I’ll hand you the massive cheque, it’ll be on the news and that. But seriously, babe, please tell no-one, not even ur best mate or family. Need to know I have ur absolute discretion. DM me back and let me know if your up for it! Hope so! X ps., and I’m glad you’re better now.

He hadn’t used the correct version of ‘you’re’, Chloe couldn’t help thinking. But that was OK. He didn’t need to be academically clever. He’d told her in the hospital not to let her studies slip like he had, and she was determined not to, retaking a whole academic year. That had been so tough. She ought to be doing her own GCSEs now, but as it was, she had another whole year to go . . . ugh.

Anyway, what did that matter now? In the car on the way back from the jump, her fingers trembling, she had typed a message, finding it hard to believe that she was sending words that his fingertips would touch on his own phone screen . . . his long slim fingers with their heavy silver rings, the same fingers that had stroked her fringe in hospital.

Hi Shawn!
she typed.
I’d love to. Half-term ATM so I can meet anytime – just say when and where! I’m so excited!!!! Xxxxxx

Chloe hesitated, then deleted all but the biggest of the kisses. Shawn needed to know that she was a mature woman, not some stupid little fan.

She couldn’t wait to see him. After all the suffering she’d been through, all the bad luck and the pain of her losing her friend, this was just the tonic she needed. The jump had been the start. From this point on, she was going to embrace life. She wasn’t going to be afraid of anything or anyone.

Chapter 44
Day 14 – Patrick

A
s soon as Patrick entered the station, he detected something new in the atmosphere, a charge of excitement – the kind that sizzled in the corridors, the incident rooms and offices whenever a big case had been cracked, a suspect arrested and charged. He felt immediately wary. What was going on?
Martin
and Gareth were chatting by the vending machine, big grins on their faces. Gareth looked over and gave Patrick a look he couldn’t read, somehow mixing satisfaction, embarrassment and, what else? It looked like pity.

Patrick strode past them and headed straight towards Suzanne’s office.

He had been up half the night trawling through the
StoryPad
website, following his visit to Chelsea Fox’s flat and the revelation that Rose and Jess had collaborated on a piece of fiction on that site. It hadn’t taken long to find a few solo stories written by Rose (MissTargetHeart) and Jess (YOLOSWAG), all of which featured
members
of OnTarget in clichéd romantic scenarios.
Patrick
didn’t get much time to read fiction these days – in fact, the last novel he’d read had been Camus’
The Outsider
when he was eighteen – but he recognised bad writing when he saw it, and the girls’ stories managed to combine purple prose with cringeworthy poetry. None of the stories contained any clues, as far as he could tell; nothing that told him anything at all about Rose
’
s and Jes
s’s lives.

More crucially, and frustratingly, he couldn’t find any stories that Rose and Jess wrote together; nor were there any stories that either of them had written with other people. He had combed through the comments on Rose’s and Jess’s stories, but most of the ‘reviews’ were one or two words long. Convinced there must be something on the site that would help him, refusing to accept that this was another dead end, he spent the next few hours reading through fan fiction, finding himself drawn into a world where OnTarget were like the gods in Greek and Roman myths, mixing with mortal girls who were almost always flame-haired, milky-skinned virgins who found themselves swept into a world of excitement, danger and blood-sucking. It was amazing how often Shawn was depicted as a vampire overlord in these tales. What was it with young women and the undead?

This morning Gill had woken him up at 10 a.m. He’d fallen asleep at his desk at home and as soon as she shook him awake and he saw the time, he ran into the shower, shouting at her for not waking him earlier, then regretting it. As he soaped himself he castigated himself for being such a bastard to her recently. She was trying, really trying, and his response was to be grumpy, withdrawn and passive-aggressive.

‘You need to make a decision,’ she said when he emerged from the shower. She stood in the bathroom doorway, arms folded, trembling with the courage it took to say these words. ‘Because we can’t go on like this, Patrick. If you want me to leave, if you can’t ever forgive me, you need to say.’

Then she had walked away, tears in her eyes, leaving him feeling wretched – but as confused as ever.

He followed her into the kitchen, where he found her standing by the sink, gazing out of the window. He went up and hugged her, feeling her respond, tentatively at first, before putting her arms fully around him and squeezing him, pulling him against her with a rare display of strength. He was still hot and a little damp from the shower and, emotionally charged from the scene in the bathroom, he found himself becoming aroused. Gill noticed it and pushed herself against him, tilting her face and kissing him.

‘Where’s Bonnie?’ he whispered into her mouth.

‘Watching
Ben and Holly
in the living room.’

‘How long does an episode last?’

‘About ten minutes.’

‘Plenty of time.’

He took her by the wrist and pulled her gently out of the kitchen and into the utility room, shutting the door behind him. Gill’s eyes widened as he lifted her onto the washing machine, no more words exchanged as she unbuckled his belt and he reached beneath her skirt and pulled down her knickers, tossing them onto the floor, kissing her hard as she shuffled forwards a few inches so he could push into her. He felt himself heading straight towards orgasm. He tried to slow down, but she urged him on, biting his lip and pulling at his hair as he thrust into her, his wife, the taste and feel and smell of her so familiar but so strange, almost forgotten, and as he came he gasped her name, his face pressed against her neck.

‘Mummy, where are you?’

He stared into Gill’s eyes and they both laughed before Gill called out, ‘I’ll be one minute, sweetheart. I’m just helping Daddy with something.’

They rearranged their clothes, smiling but not speaking, until Patrick said, ‘I’m sorry. About before.’

‘It’s OK. But we do need to talk.’

‘I know. I promise. It’s just
. . .
this case, I have so little time.’

She placed a hand on his chest. ‘I understand. And I’m
sorry too.’

She left the room and came back carrying Bonnie.

‘Let’s arrange a date night,’ he said. ‘As soon as this investigation is over or slows down. I’ll get my mum to babysit. OK?’

He’d left them both with a kiss, and now here he was, two hours late, heading towards Suzanne’s office, wondering if perhaps that date night might arrive sooner than he’d thought. If the investigation had ended without him.

He knocked on Suzanne’s door and was called in, surprised to find her with the chief superintendent, Gordon Stretton, who wore the same kind of smile Gareth and Martin had displayed. Stretton was a large man in his fifties, with thick hair and – according to gossip – thin skin. He stood beside Suzanne’s desk. She was smiling too, but a little more warily.

‘Guv,’ Patrick said, nodding at Stretton.

For the second time that morning, Patrick found himself on the receiving end of a look he couldn’t quite read. In retrospect, he would remember it as the look a football manager gives their
former
star striker just before telling them they’re going to spend the
foreseeable
future on the subs bench.

‘Patrick,’ Stretton said. ‘I was just congratulating DCI
Laughland
. Seems she has one or two excellent DIs under her command. Or one, anyway.’

Patrick bristled. What did that mean? He looked at Suzanne, but she was shuffling some papers and avoiding his eye.

‘See you for a celebratory drink later, Suzanne?’ Stretton said, pushing past Patrick and heading out.

As soon as Stretton shut the door behind him, Patrick said, ‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘It’s Winkler. He’s arrested someone for the murders of Rose and Jess. Wendy’s killer too, I expect, but Adrian is talking to him first, then Strong is going to interview him about Wendy’s death.’

‘Hang on. Interview who?’

‘Mervyn Hammond.’

Patrick blinked. ‘What?
Hammond?
That’s . . .’

‘An item of Rose’s clothing was found at Hammond’s house.’

‘By Winkler?’

‘Yes, following an anonymous call. Winkler was already there, questioning Mr Hammond.’

Patrick listened with increasing disbelief as Suzanne relayed the story Winkler had told her that morning, after turning up at the station with Mervyn Hammond handcuffed in the back of his car.

Winkler and Gareth Batey had found a photograph of
Hammond
among Nancy Marr’s possessions. Winkler had unearthed rumours about Hammond and young girls, followed him and seen him visit a children’s home after hours. Finally, he’d discovered Rose’s ‘LUCKY’ knickers in a bin bag on Hammond’s property.

‘Hammond’s got no alibi for any of the murders. Not that he’s telling us about anyway. When Winkler brought him in,
Hammond
started shouting about how he was going to make sure Winkler and I were on the front of every paper between here and Timbuktu for threatening and intimidating an innocent man. Since his
lawyer
arrived he’s gone quiet, started saying “no comment” to every
question
.’

Patrick’s mind raced. Hammond? Could it be him? He thought back to his own interview with the PR man. He found Mervyn deeply repellent, arrogant and slimy – but a serial murderer?

‘Stretton was acting like we’ve definitely got our man,’
Patrick said.

‘Yes. Well, this underwear.’

‘Which seems very convenient. An anonymous tip-off?’

‘Exactly. I can already hear Hammond’s lawyer in court. If it even gets that far. We need more, Patrick. I want you to join the interview. See if you can get Hammond to start talking. And be careful, OK? I really have no desire to see my name on the front page of
The Sun
.’