Double Dealing (Detective Sergeant Catherine Bishop Series Book Two) (7 page)

  ‘Will do.’

There was a murmur of voices and then Lancaster called, ‘It is. Lauren’s is grey but she took it with her.’

  ‘Thank you.’

She glanced in the cupboard again. Shower gel, shampoo and various cold and flu remedies. She left the bathroom and opened the next door along. A double bed just fitted inside, and there was a wheeled suitcase parked in the corner. Spare bedroom. She closed the door. The next one opened to reveal an airing cupboard. Catherine had a quick poke through the stacks of towels and sheets, but there was nothing of interest. She turned to the final door.

  The master bedroom was tidy, not even any clothes hanging on the back of the chair that stood in front of the dressing table. Catherine couldn’t see a hairbrush, though she supposed Lauren would have taken that too. She opened the drawer in the nearest bedside cabinet. A couple of battered paperbacks, a box of tissues. She opened the cupboard underneath. A hot water bottle. A tiny teddy bear.  She moved around to the other side of the bed. In the drawer: a packet of paracetamol capsules and a box of contraceptive pills with one month missing. Again, Lauren would have packed those. The cupboard contained a few more books and some old birthday cards. Pulling back the duvet, she examined the pillows. Sure enough, there was a long blonde hair on the one nearest to her. Picking it up, she held it to the light. It looked like the root was attached. She slipped an evidence bag from her jacket pocket and placed the hair inside, then sealed it. There were two wardrobes, his and hers. There didn’t seem to be too many clothes missing from Lauren's, but it was hard to tell. Catherine hesitated for a moment before moving over to the chest of drawers. Underwear in the top one. Socks and t-shirts in the next. She opened the bottom drawer. A pile of letters, documents, certificates. Mark’s passport. No sign of Lauren’s though. Interesting. Catherine sat back on her heels. She needed a personal item which might help them obtain Lauren’s fingerprints, but what? The hair would be fine for DNA, but fingerprints would be quicker. Back to the bathroom then. A deodorant? She bagged one, then a bottle of fruity shower gel, hoping that would give them enough.

  She took her hoard downstairs, where Lancaster was waiting to write the receipts. Then Catherine went back into the living room while Dave took the items out to the car. The Chantrys and Mark Cook were just as she’d left them, all three looking like they had been punched in the stomach.

  ‘So what happens now?’ asked Mark.

  ‘As soon as we have news we’ll be back to inform you.’

  ‘More of your procedures?’ Celia Chantry spat.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know this is incredibly difficult . . .’

  ‘You know nothing.’

Catherine fastened her coat. She wasn’t going to allow the other woman’s hostility to get to her, knowing it wasn’t personal.

  ‘I understand you’re distressed, Mrs Chantry.’

  ‘How can you?’

Geoff Chantry went to his wife, sat beside her and drew her close. He looked up at Catherine.

  ‘As soon as you know . . . Please?’

She nodded, feeling a little choked though she’d been in similar situations countless times.

  ‘I can promise you that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

Mark Cook stood as if in a daze. Catherine touched his arm.

  ‘I’ll see myself out, Mr Cook.’

    Back in the car, Dave started the engine.

  ‘How do you do that?’ he asked as he pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stay so calm, keep your temper.’

Catherine glanced at him.

  ‘Come on, Dave, how long were you in uniform? You do it too.’

  ‘It’s not the same though, is it? It’s not like ignoring some drunk who’s giving you a mouthful because you’ve just chucked his mate in the back of a van on a Saturday night. It’s a different kind of control.’

  ‘Is it?’ She’d never thought about it. ‘I just remember that the people we’re dealing with are victims, one way or another. It’s also about how I’d want to be spoken to if I was in their place.’

  ‘Even if they’re winding you up?’

  ‘Like Mrs Chantry, you mean? She’s worried, scared. If having a go at me helps her deal with all that, then fair enough.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Yeah, it does, but she’s just hitting out because you’re there. You’re representing police involvement, meaning that what’s happened is out of her control, out of her experience.’

Dave was quiet, thinking about it.

  ‘My grandparents were burgled once,’ he said after a while, his voice reflective. ‘This copper came, few years off retirement. He was rude, made them feel like they were wasting his time. He more or less told them that it was hopeless, that there wasn’t much he could do and they might as well get used to the fact that they’d never get their stuff back. They took jewellery that my great-grandma had brought into the country as a refugee, my great-grandad’s medals – sentimental value, but it hurt them. It hurt a lot.’ Catherine nodded, not wanting to interrupt. ‘My grandad died soon after. I’m not saying that it was because of the burglary, but . . . Anyway, when I told my grandma I wanted to join the force, she reminded me of that copper, not that I’d ever forgotten him.’ He swallowed a couple of times. ‘I just don’t want to be like that, you know?’

Catherine looked at him again; his slim hands with the big knuckles bunched on the steering wheel, the slightly raw skin along his jawline.

  ‘It’s up to you, Dave,’ she told him. ‘You can climb the ladder, scramble over people, or just do enough. Then again, you can go another way. Your decision.’

He nodded, wrestling with the gearbox as they slowed to approach a junction.

  ‘I don’t want to look back in fifty years and know I could have done more to help people.’

  ‘You also don’t want to be burnt out before you’re thirty. You have to know when to let things go as well, close your eyes at night and not see their faces.’

He thought about it. ‘Can you do that?’

Catherine hesitated. ‘No. No, not completely. But you have to try, you have to have a life away from all the crap. A family, a partner. Not let it take you over. You can’t help everyone.’

He was silent, brow furrowed. The ringing of Catherine’s mobile broke through the quiet, a number she didn’t recognise displayed on the screen.

  ‘Is that DS Bishop, please?’ A male voice, quiet with a hint of an accent originating far away from Lincolnshire.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘My name’s Owen Howell, Trevor Foster’s my DI.’

  ‘Okay.’ Catherine wondered where this was going.

  ‘It’s just that . . . Well, I know what Foster said to you, how he spoke. I know how he can be and I wondered . . . Look, could we meet?’

  ‘Meet? Why?’

  ‘Just to talk. I’m on the Ron Woffenden case, you see.’

Catherine frowned. ‘I’ve been told to stay away, to leave you to it.’

  ‘I know you have. I just thought, if it was me I’d want to know what was going on.’

  ‘And you’ll tell me?’

  ‘Can we meet?’ he asked again. She hesitated, knowing she should keep her distance and yet unable to all the same.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll text you.’

Catherine slid her phone back into her pocket.

  ‘All right, Sarge?’ Dave asked.

She nodded. So much for not letting the job take you over.

18

At Moon Pond, Jo Webber listened as Knight explained what little they knew so far.

  ‘Okay, let’s go and see her,’ the pathologist said.

When they approached, a couple of crime scene investigators moved away. Under the shelter of the tent, the body seemed safer somehow, protected. Knight forced himself to look at the ruined face. Beside him, Jo Webber made a sound in her throat that Knight couldn’t identify. Pity? Anger? It might have been either. Mick Caffery came to stand beside them and they were silent for a few seconds. Knight couldn’t have said what passed through the minds of the others, but he guessed it would be similar to the silent promise he made to the dead woman. It was the same as he had to every victim he’d met since the day he first put on his police uniform:
We
will find the person that did this to you.
It didn’t always happen, but that wasn’t for the want of trying, on his part at least.

  Jo Webber squatted and bent closer to the body.

  ‘What can you tell us about the stomach wound?’ Knight asked her.

  ‘It’s more an incision,’ Webber replied, peering closer. ‘I’ll examine it during the post-mortem of course, but at the moment I’d say she was cut after she died. That raises some interesting questions.’

  ‘Such as?’ Mick asked, though he had his own ideas.

  ‘Well, I’m not seeing an obvious cause of death. No trauma to her head, no signs of strangulation. She could have drowned, but . . . I’ll take the swabs and other samples now, then I want to get her to the mortuary as we soon as can.’

Mick Caffery nodded. ‘She’s been out here long enough.’

  ‘Can you give us any idea as to the time of death?’ Knight asked. In his experience, it wasn’t a question on which pathologists were too keen this early, but they needed to get the investigation moving. Jo Webber looked up at him. Although he had only met her a few times before, Knight knew she had a very good reputation in her field.

  ‘Inspector, you know it’s going to be difficult for me to even give you an estimate. I’d say more than forty-eight hours, but you can appreciate it’s impossible to be more precise at the moment. She didn’t die here, I can tell you that much, and I don’t think she’s been in the pond.’

  ‘She hasn’t?’ Knight was surprised. ‘But I’ve just asked the DCI to arrange an underwater search.’

Jo shrugged. ‘I’m not saying that you won’t find anything in there, just that she hasn’t been in it. Not submerged for any length of time anyway.’

Mick nodde
d
in agreement. ‘I didn’t think so either but I wanted to wait for you to say so. We’d better still search the pond. Maybe her clothes will be in there.’

  There was a rustle as another protective suit joined them. Catherine Bishop stood and watched as Dr Webber swabbed, combed and plucked the samples she needed from the body. Catherine had phoned DI Knight from the car on the way back from the Cook’s hous
e
to tell him what she had found out from Lauren’s family, which didn’t amount to much, she had to admit. She gazed down at the dead woman’s blonde hair. Was it the same shade as Lauren’s? It looked it, though it was damp and dirty, the length of weed threaded through it seeming obscene. Blinking, she turned away. She couldn’t tell for sure, and there was no room for guessing. Behind the face mask she swallowed, wishing she had thought to grab a bottle of water from somewhere. Knight turned to her.

  ‘I think we ought to head back to the station.’

She nodded. DCI Kendrick would have started the wheels in motion but he would want them there too. Dr Webber stood up straight, holding the small of her back for a second.

  ‘I’ll say two o’clock for the post-mortem,’ she said. ‘That should give us all time to do what we need to in the meantime. Mick?’

  ‘Yep, fine with me,’ he agreed.

  ‘I’ll see you then.’ Knight nodded. Catherine flashed a quick smile at Jo and Mick before following Knight, who was making his way back to the outer perimeter where they removed their protective clothing and bagged it. There was a car parked out in the lane and Catherine nodded towards it.

  ‘Looks like the press have arrived.’

  ‘Let’s hope they stay out there. Any thoughts?’ Knight asked.

  ‘I just wish we knew if it was Lauren.’

  ‘How are her family?’

  ‘I had to tell them about the body,’ she admitted.

  ‘Difficult to remove the items we needed otherwise, I’d have thought.’

  ‘The wound to her stomach’s odd.’

  ‘It’s an incision, I’m told. Not confirmed until the post-mortem of course, but that was Dr Webber’s first impression.’

Catherine was horrified.

  ‘It was deliberate? I thought maybe she’d been caught by a rock in the pond.’

  ‘Jo Webber says that she doesn’t think the body has been in the water. I’ll see you back at the station.’

Catherine nodded and started to walk away, then stopped and turned back.

  ‘Jonathan? If the body was never in the water, how did she get the weed in her hair?’

  As Catherine and Knight went in through the back door of the station, Rich Smithies appeared in the corridor. He beckoned to them.

  ‘What’s up, Rich? Someone nicked your last sweet?’

Smithies shook his head.

  ‘No, thankfully. Just a word of warning: Guess who’s turned up early?’

Knight cleared his throat. ‘DI Shea?’

  ‘That’s the one. Settling into the Super’s office as we speak. He’s been looking for you, boss.’

  ‘Right. Thanks, Rich.’ Knight passed his hands over his face.

  ‘I don’t see what he’s going to achieve that we can’t,’ Catherine muttered under her breath as they climbed the stairs.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Knight replied.

  ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Never heard of him. I’d have said if I had.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Knight lifted his eyebrows as he pushe
d
open the door at the top of the stairs. Catherine grinned at him.

  ‘Have you heard from Caitlin?’ Only a month previously, she would never have asked him such a personal question, but the time she’d spent at Knight’s house during their last major case, coupled with his visits to her house while she’d been on sick leave, had brought them closer. He was still looked on as an oddity by most of the station, but people were beginning to warm to him a little, Catherine could see that.

  ‘I’ve had a couple of emails.’ Knight shrugged, following Catherine across the office. ‘She’s fine, the baby’s fine. That’s about it.’

  ‘How long until it’s due?’

  ‘Four months. Towards the end of March, I think.’
The twentieth,
Knight said to himself.
The twentieth of March.
His ex-girlfriend’s pregnancy was occupying his thoughts more and more. As much as he’d tried, he couldn’t fight the attachment he was developing to the child. As Catherine dropped into her chair, Knight headed for the DCI’s office. He tapped on the door, but there was no reply. He turned, frowning.  The Superintendent’s office door was also closed, but Knight could hear voices inside. He knocked and the door opened to reveal Detective Inspector Patrick Shea, who strode straight past him, followed by a woman in her early thirties. Shea glanced around the main office with a slight frown as Knight took a step towards him. He had to look up to meet the other man’s gaze; Shea was tall and broad, his belly straining the buttons of his black pinstriped suit. His fairish hair was thinning and his plump cheeks were flushed.

  ‘You’re DI Knight? Come in, come in.’ He clapped a meaty hand onto Knight’s shoulder and ushered him and the young woman inside the Super’s office, thumping the door closed behind him.

  On the other side of the room, Catherine Bishop was making tea. ‘Anyone else?’ she called, knowing she would be met with a volley of responses. She handed out the mugs, leaving Anna Varcoe’s until last. As she approached her desk, Anna glanced up from her computer screen, her cheeks red. Catherine set the cup on her desk.

  ‘Thanks, Sarge.’ Anna kept her eyes on the monitor in front of her.

  ‘All right, Anna?’ Catherine sipped from her own mug. Anna nodded and Catherine decided to take pity on her. ‘Anna. What you do outside of work and who you do it with is none of my business. Okay?’

Anna’s cheeks grew even redder as she stammered, ‘Okay, Sarge.’

  ‘I’m the last person to say anything about who’s going out with who, as you know.’ Catherine’s voice was quiet and Anna met her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened with Claire. We all are.’

Catherine’s smile was an effort. ‘Thank you.’ She walked away a few paces, then turned back. ‘Oh, and Anna?’

  ‘Sarge?’

  ‘Don’t give him an inch.’

‘So the car that Paul Hughes was driving was found abandoned in Leicestershire?’ Patrick Shea asked, his protuberant pale blue eyes flickering from Knight to the screen of the laptop he had set on the Superintendent’s desk. Knight noticed that Shea had shoved all of the Super’s belongings, including her silver framed photographs and crystal water glass to one side of the desk. He didn’t think Stringer would be too impressed, especially since Shea had obviously eaten a pasty or sausage roll in here at some point since his arrival. There were pastry crumbs on his shirt front, on the desktop and no doubt on the floor too.

  The DS Shea had brought with him, Melissa Allan, sat to one side with a notebook propped on her lap. Her hair had been pulled back into a neat ponytail and her eyes were alert. She wore a grey jacket with a matching skirt and shoes with heels that seemed precarious for someone whose job was anything but predictable. Knight realised Shea was still waiting for him to speak, his eyes wide and his plump lips open.

  ‘Oh,’ Knight said, trying to remember what Shea had asked him. ‘The car was found at Leicester Forest East services. He was heading back to London, from what we could piece together about his journey. The number plate was recognised at several points between Lincoln and the services.’

  ‘And you’ve evidence that Hughes was in Northolme on the day we think he was murdered.’

Knight nodded. ‘I saw him myself.’

Shea sat back, threading his stubby fingers together. Knight was quiet, waiting.

Eventually, Shea said, ‘I find it strange that Hughes should be brought back up to Lincolnshire to be killed, don’t you, DI Knight?’

Knight shrugged. ‘It must have been planned beforehand, with the barn where we found his body marked as a suitable place to bring him.’

  ‘But why here? Why draw attention to Northolme? If we’re presuming, and I think you have been, that the killer or killers of Paul Hughes live in this area, why soil their own patch?’

  ‘Because they felt more comfortable bringing him onto their own territory? I don’t know. We met a brick wall with pretty much every line of investigation.’ Knight raised a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes. Shea pursed his lips and raised almost invisible eyebrows. His eyelashes were pale too and Knight was reminded of an earnest-looking pig, then had to blink a few times to try to remove the image.

  ‘Yes, I can see that you had difficulties.’ Shea nodded. ‘DS Allan and I were just discussing how we can best attack this investigation.’

Knight glanced at Allan who sat up even straighter, a hint of a smile playing across her face.

  ‘Attack?’

Shea waved a plump hand. ‘Address it, approach it. You’re a capable investigator and yet you seem to have struggled.’

  ‘It’s been challenging, yes.’ Knight kept his voice neutral.

  ‘How did you come to see Paul Hughes the day he died, Inspector?’ Allan spoke for the first time. Knight turned to look at her again.

  ‘It’s all been documented. I’d noticed the car a few times that day and thought it might be following me. When I saw it parked in the road out there,’ he nodded towards the window, ‘I went out and took the number plate, then found that it had been hired by one of the companies Malc Hughes owns down in London.’

  ‘Malc Hughes being the father of Paul?’ Shea waited for confirmation, as if he didn’t know. Knight frowned, feeling uneasy. He didn’t like the way this was going. ‘And what did you do then?’ Shea frowned, pleading ignorance.

  ‘As I’ve said, you can read it for yourself; no doubt you already have. I approached the car. Paul Hughes recognised me and drove away. The next time I saw him he was dead.’ Knight took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. The image of Hughes in that place was one he would never forget.

  ‘And you didn’t see Paul Hughes again until you were called to the scene where his body had been discovered?’ Shea’s voice was polite, as if he were offering Knight a cup of tea.

  ‘I’ve already said so. Just what are you implying?’ Knight asked. Shea looked horrified.

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. I’m establishing the facts.’