The Secret Admirer: An absolutely gripping crime thriller (Detective Natalie Ward Book 6)

by Carol Wyer

  Fran lifted her head and spoke more softly than she had up until this moment. ‘I shouldn’t have got involved in that bitching session. Neither of us should have said what we did, but that’s all it was – a bitching session. I wish it hadn’t happened; that none of this had and Gemma was still here. What’s happened is horrible – worse than horrible.’

  She handed over her mobile too and left the room. Natalie watched her retreating form and tried to work out if what she’d witnessed moments ago was a genuine display of regret. She’d like to believe it was but she’d long ago lost faith in people and their sincerity. She tucked the laptop under her arm. It might yield something that proved the contrary, and until she found out otherwise, Fran and Rhiannon were still suspects.

  It was almost seven thirty by the time Natalie decided to wind up the investigation for the day. All the electronic devices had been sent to the laboratory and were undergoing examination, and her team couldn’t pursue that angle any further until they had information to act on. They’d circulated Hattie’s details around police stations with a request for the woman to be brought in for questioning. They’d also contacted various ex-schoolfriends of hers but drawn blanks as to her whereabouts. No one had seen Hattie. It had been a collective decision to intensify the search for her the following day.

  They went their separate ways and Natalie headed back to the flat. Pulling up into her designated space outside the block, she stared up at the second floor where she now lived. It was only a temporary residence until she got half the proceeds from the sale of their family home. Losing the house in Castergate was similar to bereavement, she mused. The place was filled with memories of her children and stretched back to a time before they were born…

  The house is waiting for them, the ‘sold’ board proudly displayed in the small front garden with a neatly mown lawn bordered by nodding daffodils and richly coloured polyanthus plants with crimson red, deep purple and vibrant yellow petals. The windows sparkle sunlight back at her, and to her mind, the place appears happy to see its new owners. After she unlocks the front door with the key they received only an hour before this magical moment, David says, ‘Hold up a second.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, PC Ward, we must do this properly,’ he replies with a wide smile that makes his face even more handsome. She loves this man passionately. He has dragged her into the present from a solitary existence fixed in the past, and shown her that the world is a far happier and more pleasant place than she could ever have imagined.

  After her parents died, she was in a limbo, working her way through each day, neglecting her well-being and suspicious of everyone who attempted to break down the mental armour that protected her emotions and heart. David has been her salvation, and the two years she’s been with him have been the happiest of her sad life. Soon they’ll be a proper family with a new life to look after.

  He holds out his hands. His eyebrows perform a merry dance and she laughs at him. ‘You’re not going to attempt to lift me over the threshold?’ she says, rubbing a hand across her swollen stomach. ‘I weigh a tonne!’

  He chastises her with gentle tutting, slips an arm behind her back and stoops slightly to scoop her up effortlessly. He kicks the door open and carries her into the empty hallway, her laughter echoing around the walls, then he lowers his face towards her, their lips brush gently and settle, and he kisses her deeply.

  Natalie has never experienced such utter happiness. The house is only the start of their wonderful future.

  Natalie squeezed her eyelids shut. Tears didn’t come. An emptiness resided in her chest – a vacuum. Upstairs was all that remained of her precious world. Josh would be in her pathetically small sitting room, watching television and simultaneously texting or gaming on his mobile, waiting for her return. She squared her shoulders. There was still one valuable part of her life left, and nothing would ever take that away from her.

  She climbed out into the cool air. Sparrows were settling in bushes in front of the block of flats, their excited chattering loudest as she approached the main entrance and unlocked the door with her code. The door swung open and she entered the airless space, taking the stairs to the right that led to her floor. She didn’t know any of the people who lived in this block. She had no desire to learn about them or their lives, and more importantly, she didn’t want them to become interested in hers. She valued her privacy. Her flat was close to the stairs and she slipped the key into the slot. There was no David to carry her over this threshold. That David was consigned to the past.

  ‘Hey!’ Josh called out as soon as she entered.

  She chucked her keys into the pot on the table and went immediately into the sitting room, where she found him stretched out on the settee, television control in his hand. He sat up straight away.

  ‘I brought a takeaway,’ she said, holding up the paper bag of Chinese food she’d bought on the way home. ‘Is Chinese food okay?’

  ‘Great. You get any spring rolls?’

  ‘And crispy aromatic duck.’

  His face lit up and for a split second she was reminded of David. Josh had his father’s smile and jawline and his dark hair. ‘I already set the table,’ he replied.

  ‘Wow, you must have been hungry,’ she joked and headed to the kitchen where knives and forks had been laid out on maroon placemats, along with glasses. ‘You want anything to drink?’

  ‘I’m okay, thanks, I took a can from the fridge.’

  She busied herself putting out the foil trays. Josh slipped onto a chair and took the nearest one, teasing the foil away from the cardboard lid, releasing the aroma of five spices into the room. Natalie hunted for the soy sauce in the cupboard and then set out the pancakes and spring onion on a separate plate. As she did so, she asked casually, ‘Everything okay?’

  He paused, fork in mid-air. ‘To be honest, no. I don’t want to live with Dad any more. I want to live with you.’

  This sudden revelation surprised her but she continued laying out the food, setting out the pot of hoisin sauce that came with the duck before joining him at the table and saying, ‘You want to talk about it?’

  Josh picked up a spring roll with his fingers and slid it around a tiny pool of soy sauce. ‘It’s Dad. He’s hard to get along with.’

  ‘This is quite sudden. Has something happened to make you decide you want to move out of the house?’

  He sighed and put down his fork. His face was suddenly earnest, brows drawn together. ‘He drinks, Mum. Every day. And you can’t get through to him sometimes. He’s either asleep, angry or miserable. He’s changed a lot and we argue all the time. I can’t seem to do anything right.’

  ‘He’s still hurting, Josh. It’s natural to lash out at the people you love but it wouldn’t be intentional. You mean everything to him… to us both.’

  Josh shook his head sadly. ‘You’re hurting too, but you don’t sit about the house in a foul mood all the time, or go out and come back in the early hours obviously drunk. You text me or ring me, or ask how I’m doing. Dad… well… it’s like he wants nothing to do with me. I told him I was coming here and all he said was, “Fine.” Nothing else.’

  ‘No. That’s not right. You are hugely important to him,’ she said. She had no idea that David had become so difficult. How could you know? You turned your back on them and ran away to lick your wounds.

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t know the half of it, Mum. He’s like a completely different person – really angry at times. Now and then, I hear him yelling out and smashing about the kitchen. I went downstairs a couple of nights ago to see who he was shouting at but there was nobody there, only him, and he’d obviously broken a couple of plates. There were pieces on the floor and he was marching up and down, muttering to himself. He didn’t see me and I went back upstairs. I think he’s having some sort of breakdown. I can’t be around him at the moment.’

  She wanted to hug the boy fiercely and tell him it would be all right, that she would always be ther
e for him, but he had only recently come back into her life. He wasn’t ready for such a huge display of affection. She had to prove how much he meant to her, not merely say words that would rebound off his newly toughened exterior. Josh had been through hell the last few months, as indeed they all had. She marvelled at his strength that had seen him through.

  ‘He’s having a hard time adjusting. It’s been a lot for him to take on board,’ she said. The look on Josh’s face said he was not convinced.

  ‘I understand that but I can’t put up with it. I can’t go back to all that misery, night after night. It’s starting to affect my studies. Is it okay if I move in here? It’ll only be until I finish my A-levels and go to university.’

  ‘You can stay as long as you like. You know that. You’re always welcome to stay here or wherever I move to. It’ll be your home too. Forever.’ The relief was tangible and Josh’s brow smoothed at the response. It had taken a lot for him to open up about this and she had renewed respect for her son.

  ‘Cheers.’ He picked up his spring roll, dipped it in some sauce and bit it.

  ‘I’ll have to explain how you feel to your father,’ she said casually.

  ‘I’m not going back to the house. It’s not just Dad. I can’t stand going past Leigh’s room with her no longer there. We keep the door shut but it feels… wrong.’

  She picked at some duck, her appetite suddenly waning. ‘I understand. I’d feel the same way.’

  ‘But you didn’t stay, did you?’ His words weren’t accusatory, merely factual.

  ‘You know why I couldn’t stay.’

  ‘Yes.’ He separated a pancake from the others in tinfoil as he spoke. ‘Will you never get back together?’

  She finished her mouthful before addressing him. ‘No, and it is not because of you or because of what happened to Leigh. It was over before all of that.’

  Josh didn’t reply. He added shredded duck to his pancake, drizzled sticky sauce onto it and rolled it up. He gave a swift nod before eating it. Some things didn’t need to be said. Josh knew about David’s gambling and that it was the catalyst for her leaving. What he didn’t know – and she wasn’t going to tell him yet – was that Mike was more than a family friend. That was unless David had said something. She studied his long eyelashes and again thought how much he reminded her of her estranged husband. She hoped he wasn’t as weak-willed as his father.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sunday, 18 November – Morning

  Josh had left for an early-morning shift. He’d planned to meet his girlfriend Pippa in Derby and was expected back at the flat that evening. They’d spoken about living arrangements and what she expected of him while he was staying with her, and he’d seemed more than happy to accept it all. She would have to try and find time to talk to David and she had no idea when she’d manage that.

  The team was already assembled when she arrived in the office, and she interrupted a lively debate about one of Gemma’s tutors – Professor James Younger.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  Murray answered, ‘As you know, Lucy and I spoke to James yesterday and he claimed Gemma and a lad called Douglas McCrabe attended one of his seminars. Ian’s found out that Douglas transferred from Professor Younger’s German history and culture seminar to one about culture and film about a month ago.’

  ‘That means he’d have taught Gemma alone in that time,’ said Natalie.

  ‘Exactly, and he denied it.’

  ‘He denied teaching Gemma alone?’ Natalie reiterated.

  ‘He said he taught the students together and never mentioned that Douglas had given up. Now why would he do that?’

  ‘My immediate reaction is to say he kept silent to hide the fact that something had been going on between him and Gemma,’ said Natalie.

  ‘That’s what we think. His wife and her friend were within earshot when we interviewed him so it’d be unlikely he’d confess to a liaison with a student in front of her. Lucy noticed something odd too: Anika’s friend, Debbie, was staring at James the whole time we were speaking to him.’

  ‘Like she had a crush on him,’ said Lucy, ‘or was worried he’d say something he shouldn’t. It was an intense look, not casual.’

  ‘Maybe they’re screwing,’ said Ian.

  ‘That was my first thought,’ Lucy replied.

  Natalie was quick to decide on what course of action to pursue. ‘Bring him into the station for further questioning. Let’s see if him being separated from his wife during an interview yields more honest answers, and find out where he and Anika were on Friday evening. If Anika suspected him of sleeping with Gemma, she might have retaliated and attacked the girl. In fact, find out where that friend was too. If she is involved with him and the jealous type, she might not take kindly to him carrying on with a student behind her back. Any news on Hattie?’

  Ian shook his head. ‘She’s still not answering her phone and there’s nothing back yet from the phone providers. I spoke to her father, who hasn’t seen her since last weekend but he’s unconcerned and says she often goes visiting friends, especially over weekends when she has no lectures or little work to do.’

  ‘Surely he’s concerned about her not answering calls.’

  ‘According to him, she often doesn’t pick up when he rings her. He says she’s a bit scatty and sometimes forgets to charge it or she leaves it behind altogether.’

  Natalie found that hard to believe. Josh always had his phone to hand and a charger in his backpack. ‘Really? I can’t imagine she’d want to be without her phone. What about her mother? Have you tried her?’

  ‘She passed away when Hattie was eleven. There’s nobody but her father. I was going to try her housemates again to see if she’s returned home.’

  ‘Do that now. It’s bothering me that she’s gone to ground so soon after contacting me. We might have to get MisPers involved pretty soon. Try the house on Eastview Avenue in case she’s returned. We confiscated Fran’s and Lennox’s phones. Try ringing Ryan’s mobile unless there’s a landline you can call.’

  ‘No landline. I’ll try him. There’s been no sign of Hattie’s car either,’ Ian said.

  ‘Nothing on any ANPR systems?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘What about cameras close to where she lives?’

  ‘The technicians are still searching footage.’

  Natalie’s nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply. This didn’t sit right with her. If Hattie had rung her to confess to the attack on Gemma, she would surely have handed herself in at the station. She was more certain than ever that Hattie knew who’d thrown acid at Gemma and had either gone into hiding or been taken hostage, or worse. ‘We need that info. Get them to speed it up, Ian.’

  He nodded, phone to his ear.

  ‘Maybe she’s keeping her head down,’ said Lucy with little conviction.

  ‘I hope that’s the case but I rather think something has happened to her. All this bollocks about not charging phones or forgetting them… She rang me, arranged a meeting then disappeared. I’m concerned about her,’ came Natalie’s reply.

  Murray spoke. ‘We’ll head off to fetch the professor and talk to his wife.’

  Natalie added, ‘If Anika has no solid alibi for Friday evening, bring her in as well.’

  Lucy hesitated before saying, ‘They’ve got a seven-year-old daughter. Might be awkward to arrange.’

  ‘Do it. Find somebody from social services to look after the daughter if needs be.’ Natalie wasn’t in the mood to hang about on this. If she trod on toes, then so be it.

  Lucy hastened after Murray.

  Ian ended his phone call and gave Natalie the latest news. ‘Ryan has knocked on Hattie’s door and she’s not in.’

  ‘Not in or not answering? Get hold of the university and get somebody – a caretaker or housing officer – to unlock that door and check she isn’t in there. Someone will have a master key.’

  She bent over the desk, hunting through the notes to
see what details they actually had on Hattie. All of a sudden, this young woman had become pivotal to their enquiries. She extracted the relevant sheet from Ian’s file. Apart from Hattie’s father, the only other person in her life was an ex-husband. Hattie had married somebody called Ocean Stone at eighteen, splitting up from him two years later. Further searches revealed the man to be a founder of an alternative eco-commune in Wales, one which chose to ignore modern-day trappings such as mobile phones and the Internet. There was a possibility Hattie had fled there.

  Natalie put in a call to the Monmouthshire Police to see if Hattie had been in touch with her ex or was hiding out there. While she was speaking to them, Ian arranged for the university housing officer to head to Eastview Avenue. After she explained the situation to her colleague in Wales, who agreed to head to the commune to ask about Hattie, she set off, first collecting Lennox’s mobile to return it to him.

  Dan, waiting close to the front entrance, cut a dashing figure in his uniform: immaculate white shirt, trousers crisply creased and shoes so highly polished, they’d impress a regimental sergeant. His face was waxy smooth and not one follicle of his trimmed hair was out of place. He moved her out of earshot of the desk staff, and as he leant in to speak to her, she caught a whiff of expensive cologne. ‘Anything to report, Natalie?’

  ‘We’re hunting for a missing housemate who might have valuable information about the attack on Gemma,’ she said.

  His eyebrows lifted. ‘Sounds like you’re closing in.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be overhasty, sir. I’m not sure why she contacted me and I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘Let’s hope nothing’s happened to her. The media were quite searching with their questions yesterday and I had trouble convincing them this was a one-off event. I want you to find her quickly.’ He spotted his guest coming into the lobby and moved away to greet them, and Natalie left the building. She’d refrained from making any comment about the press conference. It didn’t matter what she thought about her superior’s handling of sensitive situations. He had his reasons for dealing with them the way he did while she had her own investigation to run, and right now, she had a niggling doubt about Hattie.