The Truth Will Out (8 page)

A month later they all went away to Cornwall for a weekend together. Helen was walking on air. Nothing could burst her bubble. Until he left her after that holiday and headed home. That’s when she received the text message.

Hi Honey, I’ll be home around seven. Can’t wait to see you. D XX

A simple message in many respects, but a message that said so much. And in that split second her elation hit the floor.

The following day, back at the station, Helen looked up an old friend she’d trained with at Bruche police training centre in Warrington. DS Celia Barren worked for the Nottingham force, just like Dean. She remembered the call as if it was yesterday. They spent a few minutes catching up, talking about Celia’s daughter and Helen’s boys.

Finally, Helen asked her if she knew Dean.

“Fitzpatrick? Of course I do. Everyone knows Dean. Why do you ask?”

“Just interested.”

“Interested?” Celia paused. “Oh, no, Helen, not that kind of interested?” Helen didn’t respond. “I can see why, but no chance there. He’s still very much married.”

Even as she recalled the conversation Helen felt her heart drop all over again. “I heard they were separated?” she had asked.

“Not as far as I know. He keeps it all private, but I do know they’re still cosied up in the same house together. They live in the next road to me.”

That’s why I was never invited to Nottingham, she’d thought. So many times it was promised, and every time it fell through for whatever reason. Even now, she remembered the lump in her throat, the pain in her chest. How could she have been so stupid?

She’d excused herself, ended the call as soon as politely possible and replied to his text message. Eight simple words,
I think this was meant for your wife.

What hurt Helen more than the lies and the deceit was that he was still with his wife, even now. Helen never wished to break up a marriage. But for the first time in ten years she had really let someone in. And she wasn’t interesting, attractive, clever or funny enough to keep them.

When she didn’t return his calls, a barrage of text messages followed. Not wishing to be played for a fool twice, she’d forced herself to delete each and every one of them, unread. When he arrived on her doorstep a week later, she refused to see him. But closure hadn’t made the pain or humiliation less easy to bear.

“Ma’am?” Spencer’s soft tone jolted Helen back to the present. Lost in her memories, she hadn’t heard her door open, seen his face appear around the edge. He held up an empty coffee mug.

Helen managed a flat smile, shook her head and quickly told him about the autopsy. As he retreated she collected her bag and made her way out to the ladies room.

Relieved to find it empty, she washed her hands and splashed water over her face. When she looked up into the mirror she hardly recognised herself. Her face was pale and washed out. Dark rings hung below her eyes. Helen searched through her handbag. At the bottom she found an old pot of blusher and applied a light covering, then smoothed her lank hair and tucked the stray strands behind her ears. She snatched another glance, sighed and turned to leave.

Just as she turned down the corridor towards her office she spotted him. Her knees immediately weakened. He was standing there, military style, hands clasped behind his back, talking to another plainclothes officer she didn’t recognise. Suddenly, the other officer let out a chuckle. Dean smiled, reached round and tapped him on the arm. They looked like two old friends, sharing a joke. For a second she contemplated turning and walking back in the opposite direction. Then he looked up and she realised she had no choice but to approach. She would be meeting him in less than an hour anyway, no point in putting off the inevitable.

“Well, well, look who it is!” Dean said, a smile spreading from ear to ear.

Helen ignored the flip in her stomach and forced a smile as she approached them. “DI Fitzpatrick.”

“Helen! It’s good to see you,” he cried, ignoring her reserve. He locked his eyes on hers, his gaze intense.

She deliberately turned her flushed face away from him, towards the other officer.

“Oh, this is DS Edwards, my deputy,” Dean added hastily, as if he had forgotten he was standing next to them. “I see we’re going to be working with you on your gun crime cases.”

Cases, Helen thought. They’re people. Dead people. “So I understand.” An awkward silence followed. “Well, it’s good to see you,” she said, shuffling to the side. He didn’t move to let her by. For a split second, she could feel his eyes on her, the air between them charged. A familiar ‘just stepped out of the shower’ odour filled her nose. It was intoxicating.

She forced herself to snap out of it. “We have another murder. I’m a bit tied up at the moment.”

“Yeah, I just heard about that. Another shooting?” Dean asked.

“Young woman, shot twice in the chest,” Edwards added.

“Looks like we arrived at just the right time,” Dean grinned.

Helen formed her lips into a thin smile. “You’ve done your homework. If you’ll excuse me?”

“Of course, see you at the meeting.” He moved aside and she continued down the corridor.

When she finally returned to her office, she shut the door and closed the blinds. Helen leant up against the wall and rested her head back on the cold plaster. For some reason she had wanted this moment to be so different. For some reason she had wanted to look triumphant, so that he could see what he was missing. But she couldn’t fathom out why.

Chapter
Eight

Situated an hour north of Glasgow, Aberfoyle was a small town nestled in The Lomond and Trossachs National Park. Eva stopped for a moment to watch the tourists wander up and down the main street that offered eateries, outdoor clothing stores, gift shops and a visitor centre. She marvelled at how, even in low season when the weather was at its harshest, people still travelled here from all over the world to enjoy the breathless beauty of rural Scotland.

Having stopped at the Co-op on the corner, she was now stocked up with bread, milk, tea and eggs. She filled up at the petrol station, grabbing a large bar of Cadburys from the counter before continuing on her journey.

Eva had been coming to Scotland every year for as long as she could remember. The familiar surroundings felt like a baby’s comfort blanket and the tension trickled out of her shoulders as she pressed on into the rural heartlands.

Turning off the A821, the winding country lanes drew her further into the Scottish countryside. She slowed to pull into a field entrance, jumped out, leant her elbows on the gate and drank the fresh, clean air. The field was inhabited by three large cows, hair hanging down over their eyes, curved horns protruding from their heads. One of them gazed in her direction for a second, before lowering his head to the grass.

Eva watched them gently grazing. They whiled away their days eating grass, basking in the sunshine, sheltering under trees in bad weather. Always together, always looking out for one another. A mixture of envy and melancholy washed over her. What kind of a friend was she, running off and leaving Naomi like this?

She pushed her head up and closed her eyes as the thick breeze brushed her face. During their last conversation she had been annoyed with Naomi, frustrated at her inability to cope with the situation they found themselves in. Yet Naomi was right to be petrified. Guilt stretched her heart into a tightrope across her chest. She should have stayed, supported her friend, faced up to their problems. But Naomi wouldn’t have wanted that.

Eva thought of the black gloved hand. Had they seen her face on Naomi’s screen? She swallowed, blinked open her eyes back to the present. The cows had moved away to the other side of the field. She climbed back into the car and, as she revved the engine, made a point of opening the window.

The sharp wind rustled through Eva’s hair as she pressed the accelerator. Grief turned to anger and she allowed her rage to flourish in her driving, revelling in the twists and turns that eventually led her to the road that ran alongside the vast Loch Ard, flanked by beautiful conifer covered mountains, past the Macdonald ‘timeshare’ resort and hotel where she stayed in her early years, and into the small sprawling village of Kinlochard.

When she reached the Wee Blether tearoom adjacent to the old shop, she made a sharp left, past the post box, the tiny primary school, through the scattered houses and up into the mountains. The sun shimmered across the top of the loch as she slowed and turned left into Lochside, the two bed bungalow her parents’ bought eight years ago, situated almost half a mile outside the village.

Twenty minutes later she was seated on the veranda at the back of the property, cup of tea in hand, overlooking the loch. She pondered how different her life would be if they’d dumped the drugs. They brought them back out of fear for their lives. The wrong thing for the right reason. Why now, were they being hunted down?

The hot fluid warmed her. She gazed across the loch. The isolation and sheer beauty of the landscape slowly drained her of the troubled memories that haunted her brain. For the first time in twenty-four hours, she finally felt safe. With her parents still away on holiday in South Africa, nobody would find her all the way up here. Would they?

She closed her eyes and relished the warmth of the sunlight soothing her face. It seemed nobody had told Scotland about the snow down south.

The branches of two silver birches at the bottom of the garden batted against each other in the wind. The sound was distant at first, then louder, then louder still. Suddenly, she realised that it wasn’t the trees at all. She turned urgently towards the sound of the gentle footsteps, scraping across the decking.

***

Glocks, Berettas, Baikals - all automatics. These are just some of the weapons we’ve retrieved from the criminal underworld. We have recovered a few revolvers, but they tend to be on the decline. Usually illegally trafficked in from former war zones such as the Balkans, although a few replicas are made in this country, all are readily available on the black market if you have a few grand to spare.”

Jenkins and Helen were seated around the end of the long table in the conference room. Helen looked at the images of reclaimed guns on the screen, then watched as Dean in his slick black suit stood back and pressed another button on his laptop. The image on the screen changed.

“Don’t be fooled by the media,” Dean continued, turning to face his audience, “knives are still the weapon of choice in gangland Britain. Guns tend to draw too much national attention, as we’ve seen recently, so are generally used to scaremonger and frighten, or carried as a status symbol. But the numbers are rising.” He pointed at a graph that showed a crinkled line turning upwards. “What the press don’t know, is that there are a lot more out there than we have figures for, or care to imagine.”

Dean raised his hand and brushed it across his dark hair. Helen felt her stomach bounce. “We are working very closely with ballistics on the intelligence side to see if we can establish any links with current outstanding cases of gun crime throughout the UK.”

Helen glanced out of the window as she fought to keep her emotions in check. A strapping wind had wiped the clouds from the sky, allowing the sun to melt the remaining snow spots. Heavy rays penetrated the window, warming her left shoulder. Her mind turned to Operation Aspen as her investigation had now been named. How was the autopsy going? Had they retrieved the other bullet? She checked her watch. Did they have an ID on the informant yet? A sharp look from Jenkins turned her attention back to the screen.

“With improvements in forensics over the years, those involved in gun crime have become shrewd,” Dean droned on. “Regular users tend to stick to ‘clean’ guns, meaning those not involved in an incident previously. After a shooting, they break them up and dispose of them, either bury them or chuck the pieces in a river or lake. But in the current climate, we have found that more and more are getting sold on. It is still far cheaper to buy a used gun than a clean one.”

Helen stifled a yawn. “The shot of every gun is different,” Dean continued, “it leaves a unique mark on the cartridge shell. The organised gangs have picked up on this. In the recent shooting of Germaine Long in London we actually have CCTV footage showing two people with hoods pulled down over their faces, collecting the cartridge cases off the pavement before they flee the scene, no doubt in an effort to reduce the evidence available.”

This last remark shook Helen’s senses. She recalled Pemberton’s comments at the crime scene, that they couldn’t find the shells. Could this be an organised, calculated killing?

Dean switched off the machine and sat down.

Jenkins took a deep breath and leant his elbows on the table, “So, what can you do to help us with our outstanding cases?”

“The guns used in your shootings in Roxten were Baikal IZH-79s, right?” Dean said. He looked directly at Jenkins who nodded. “We have been working closely with colleagues in neighbouring forces on their outstanding gun crime and similar Baikals are cropping up. We want to locate the source of these weapons. We’ll base ourselves here for a couple of weeks as we continue our enquiries.”

“How long before we see results?” Jenkins asked.

“Hard to say. We’re hoping the pooling of intelligence may throw up some end users.”

Helen thought back to the scene of the crime: the rabbit warren in Roxten. A prominent name popped into her mind. “What can you tell us about Chilli Franks?” she asked. Stephen Franks, nicknamed Chilli for his fiery personality, was proprietor of the Black Cats nightclub in Roxten, a suspected front for drugs trafficking and organised crime.

Dean’s face turned blank at her interruption. He shook his head.

“Oh, come on!” Helen hissed. “Nothing goes on in the rabbit warren or the whole of Roxten for that matter, without a nod from him. We know that Richard Elsdon, our main suspect in the Harvey case was linked to him. He used to work at Black Cats as a barman.”

Dean sat back in his chair. “We’ve all heard the stories. It’s not a crime to keep criminal associations. But whatever Chilli was in his younger years, we’ve found nothing to suggest he is criminally active now, and no connection with either of the dead boys.”