Fireflies (17 page)

‘Thank you’ said Annette who Jeff thought was a really pretty girl with big dark eyes and hair down to her shoulder blades. She was shaking.

‘Have you got someone who can come and sit with you, Annette?’ asked Rebecca.

‘Yes, my sister Rochelle’ said Annette. ‘She’s been in London with work and she’s on her way back up on the train now’.

‘Who told you about Piers?’ asked Jeff.

‘His father rang me’ Annette answered. ‘He thought I had a right to know. He’s such a kind man. He’s promised to look after me when … when the baby comes’.

‘How far gone are you?’ asked Rebecca.

‘Five months’.

‘And how long had you been seeing Piers?’

‘Just over a year’ said Annette in a slightly whimpering voice. ‘I met him on a night out with friends, you know, the usual kind of thing. He came back with me that night and the next morning he asked to see me again and it went from there. We fell in love and he was very conflicted because of Clarissa. I knew they were engaged but I also knew he wasn’t happy with her and though that’s what you’d expect me to say it was true. He wasn’t happy with her but he couldn’t … he just couldn’t manage to pull himself away’.

‘He was on his stag night, Annette’ said Jeff.

‘Yes, yes, I know! I know it sounds like I’m being some stupid delusional little girl who pinned all her hopes on a man who just wanted to have his cake and eat it. I’ve had my nose rubbed in all that more than once, detective’.

Rebecca’s heart was going out to Annette but it also made her think of what she had going on with Jonathan Freeman. Although she was beginning to find him somewhat arrogant and opinionated they’d slept together another couple of times because he was wonderful in bed and she didn’t want to cut off her nose to spite her face by denying herself the many carnal pleasures he gave her. But he did seem to have a negativity towards Ollie Wright for some reason but which nevertheless made her agree with Jeff Barton that Ollie would never have spread rumours about Jeff and herself. So had Jonathan been making it all up?    

‘Your mother seemed pretty angry when she left’ said Rebecca who still had her arm round Annette who was still shaking.

‘Oh she’d have me burned at the stake if she had her way’ said Annette, bitterly. ‘Five kids and not one of them ever goes to see her. But instead of wondering why that might be she turns it back on us and somehow makes it all our fault for not following her ways. She’s got a heart of stone that one. She was almost sadistic when we were kids. But like child batterers always say she did it for our own good. No hugs, no cuddles, no smiles ever on her face, just this stern, determined look as if she was about to lead the army into battle. God only knows what my Dad ever saw in her. No joy on birthdays with presents or cakes. We had to devote the day as thanksgiving to the good Lord for giving us life and we were just slaves to her interpretation of religious dogma at Christmas too. It’s going to be so different for my child. They’ll know they’re loved and needed and cared for. Their life will be full of fun and laughter. They won’t know what fear is and I’m not going to allow my mother anywhere near them’.

‘It’ll be her grandchild’.

‘I’m her daughter but that didn’t stop her beating me to within an inch of my life when she thought I was possessed by the devil or some other such nonsense that filled her nasty head’.

‘Annette, you know we have to ask you’ said Jeff.

‘What was I doing last night? I understand. Well yes, Piers was here and we made love’ She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her hands. ‘He was afraid he might hurt the baby, you know, and I had to reassure him it was all okay and he didn’t need to worry. Then afterwards he started to cry. He said he felt like his life was out of his control and he was hurtling towards something he just didn’t want. He didn’t want to marry Clarissa. He wanted me and our baby but he was under pressure from his mother and from Clarissa herself’.

‘We’ll have to take a DNA sample, Rebecca’ said Jeff who was glad to have discovered who Piers Jones had slept with the night he died. At least that wasn’t going to be another gaping hole in the investigation.

‘I thought you would and yes, of course that’s fine’.

‘What happened next, Annette?’

‘I made him a coffee and we talked some more’ said Annette. ‘I was surprised at how well he was. I could tell he’d had a drink but he wasn’t pissed. Then he headed off to some nightclub he knew where his mates would be waiting for him’.

‘And what time was that?’

‘About three’ said Annette, holding back more tears when she thought of the last time she’d seen Piers. ‘He’d been with me since about one. Oh God what am I going to do?’

Annette started sobbing again and Rebecca held her close and tight. ‘Now come on, Annette, sweetheart. I know it must seem like the bottom has fallen out of your world but that baby growing inside you is going to need the wonderful mother who I know you’ll be. Kind, loving, everything your own mother isn’t. You’ve got to find it in you to be strong, Annette. You’ve got to find it in
you somehow even though I know how hard it must be’.

‘My baby will never know their father’.

‘They will because you’ll keep his memory alive and you’ll tell your child all about his father’.

They all heard the sound of something coming through the letterbox and Jeff went to pick it up. It was a padded brown envelope with Annette’s name hand written on it.

‘Were you expecting anything, Annette?’ asked Jeff.

‘No? What is it?’

‘I don’t know but you don’t have to open it now’ said Jeff. He turned it over and on the back was written ‘Something to remember him by and this is all you’ll get’.

‘That’s a strange thing to have written, don’t you think?’ said Annette.

‘It does seem odd’ said Jeff. ‘Do you want me to open it?’

‘No, it’s okay’ said Annette. She took the envelope from him and tore it open. Then she screamed before dropping it and throwing up.

Jeff picked up the envelope. Blood came flowing out of it and inside were a man’s genitals.    

Jeff and Rebecca called a doctor and arranged for a female uniformed officer to come and stay with Annette until the doctor had been and her sister Rochelle had arrived from London.

‘Poor Annette’ said Rebecca in the car on the way back to the station. ‘She was hanging on to such slim hope it seems to me and yet she was so in love with the man’.

‘None as blind as those who won’t see, eh?’ said Jeff.

‘Well she isn’t the first woman in her position’ said Rebecca. ‘But the story doesn’t usually end with the man’s private parts being delivered to her like that. What kind of a sick, twisted mind are we looking at here?’

‘One that I’m even more determined to get now’ said Jeff.  ‘At least we know who Piers Jones had sex with before somebody got to him and his bollocks’.

‘We’re ruling out Annette as a suspect then I presume?’

‘Well do you think we should rule her in?’

‘No’ said Rebecca. ‘She’s even less capable than Tina Webb. But who the fuck is responsible and where does the death of Piers Jones leave us in terms of finding out?’

.

FIREFLIES FIFTEEN

When Jeff and Rebecca got back to the station the sergeant on reception called Jeff over and told him that someone was waiting in the interview room for him by the name of Seamus Enright.

‘Seamus?’ said Jeff as he entered the interview room to the side of the reception desk where his
brother Lewis’ partner was sitting there in his airline pilot’s uniform. ‘What are you doing here, mate? Is it our Lewis?’

‘Oh no, Jeff’ said Seamus who stood up. He’d come straight from work. ‘Sorry if I worried you. It’s not about Lewis, he’s fine’.

‘Phew!’ said Jeff as he gave Seamus a bear hug. ‘So what can I do for you?’

‘Well’ said Seamus as he sat down again. ‘I don’t know if this is something or nothing’.

‘But?’

‘Well you see last night I was on a stopover in Copenhagen’ Seamus explained. ‘I went out to dinner with the rest of the team and one of the cabin crew was a new girl called Melanie Cartwright. As soon as I’d set eyes on her earlier in the day I knew she reminded me of someone. I mentioned it to her over dinner and she seemed very uncomfortable about it, almost defensive which I thought was a little unusual. Anyway, one bottle of wine led to another, then we all went back to the hotel and went into the bar for nightcaps. At the end of the evening it was only me and Melanie left and she literally burst into tears on my shoulder. She said she’d done something she shouldn’t have and she was scared she was going to get sacked because she was still on her initial three months trial. And it was whilst we were talking that I remembered who she reminded me of’.

‘Who?’

‘Sophie Cooper’ said Seamus. ‘Jeff, Melanie is the spitting image of Sophie Cooper and when I said that she looked absolutely horrified and said goodnight before running up to her room. Then today we did the flight back to Manchester this morning and then a quick return to Edinburgh and back but for all three flights she avoided me and ran like the bloody clappers when our duty finished. I spoke to the in-charge cabin crew member and he said that he thought there was something odd about her. He said she was jumpy all the time and seemed frightened of her own shadow’.

‘So what are you telling me?’ asked Jeff.

‘Well I did a little digging with our crew roster department’ Seamus went on. ‘The night of the murder of James Clifton, Sophie Cooper’s fiancé, Sophie was the only Manchester based crew member working with a team from our base at Leeds. You see, we mainly do scheduled flights to business destinations at Manchester as you know but the night Tenerife on a Saturday is something we’ve picked up for the summer season to get more revenue out of working the fleet harder. But the cabin crew training hasn’t caught up so at the moment we crew it mainly from our Leeds base with one of our Manchester crew there to make up the numbers. The pilots were also both from the Leeds base. Now if none of them knew Sophie because they’d never worked with her before because they were from a different base, then Melanie could’ve easily passed for Sophie because we don’t stand there studying each other’s ID badges. Now I know Sophie and I know what a bully she can be with some of the younger new girls. Can you see where I’m going with this?’

‘So you’re saying that this Melanie could’ve gone to work in place of Sophie Cooper that night because Sophie Cooper put pressure on her  and none of the rest of the crew would’ve been any the wiser because they weren’t from the Manchester base?’

‘Yes, Jeff, that’s exactly what I’m saying’.

‘But how? I mean, I thought you all swiped into your report centre with your ID badge and your own personal pin code? And swiped out again when you’re done?’

‘We do’ Seamus confirmed. ‘But what if Sophie had given
Melanie  her ID badge so that she could go to work for Sophie that night? What if they’d both gone into work, both in uniform, and then swapped ID badges before the Leeds crew arrived? The records will show that Melanie Cartwright left the crew room probably only minutes later whilst Sophie Cooper didn’t leave until the end of her duty the next morning. But really it was the other way round. It is possible, Jeff’.

‘You’re making some big leaps here, Seamus’ said Jeff who nevertheless was letting his imagination turn onto the scenario Seamus had worked out.

‘Yes, I might be’ said Seamus. ‘But then again, I might not be’. 

It wasn’t difficult to find the answers they needed. Jeff sent Ollie Wright out to Manchester airport to look at the access system into the crew reporting centre where both Sophie Cooper and Melanie Cartwright signed in to work. As was usually the case these days with airports the presence of CCTV everywhere made the job of the police easier and once Ollie had got through all the flirting that Dean, the tall, fat and rather camp cabin crew manager was inflicting on him, he managed to get to the footage that he needed. He didn’t mind Dean flirting with him. He found it quite funny and though Dean wasn’t at all his type he always found it flattering when someone clearly had the eye for him. Ollie and his partner Josh had an arrangement whereby they allowed each other sexual adventures with third parties as long as they kept it to themselves and didn’t exchange telephone numbers with whoever they got off with. They loved each other dearly and had a good sex life. But their cocks required a little more freedom and variety from time to time. It was an arrangement that some wouldn’t understand but they were the ones who couldn’t see that having sex with someone else didn’t mean you loved your partner any less. Emotional fidelity was important to Ollie and Josh. Physical fidelity wasn’t something they attached any importance to so long as they did it discreetly and didn’t rub each other’s nose in it.   

What Ollie saw on the tape turned out to be just as Seamus
Enright had imagined. Both Sophie Cooper and Melanie Cartwright swiped their ID’s and entered the crew reporting centre at 8.27 on that Saturday night, both in full uniform. Nine minutes later at 8.36 ‘Melanie Cartwright’ swiped out again. Except that on the tape it was clearly Sophie Cooper who was leaving at 8.36 with a nervous look around her as she went. She wasn’t seen again and the woman known as Melanie Cartwright didn’t leave until the next morning although according to the security swipe she was Sophie Cooper.