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

by Carol Wyer

  She called out Mike’s name. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded.

  ‘Out. Can I hel—?’

  ‘I’ll ring him.’ She dialled his number and tore downstairs towards the entrance, phone clamped to her ear.

  ‘Hey, Natalie!’

  Her heartbeat hammered in her ears. ‘Mike, I’ve had a really weird call from David. I’m sure he’s about to commit suicide.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘How far are you from Castergate?’

  ‘Ten minutes tops. You?’

  ‘At HQ and his Volvo is still in the compound. I can’t get there quickly. I’m not even sure he’s at home. He’s turned off his phone.’

  She heard his breath quicken as he started to run. ‘I’m on my way. Stay there. I’ll try his phone too.’

  ‘I’ll get a vehicle.’

  ‘No! Stay there. I’ll handle it.’

  She stood in reception and raised her face to the sky. Clouds of all shapes and sizes scudded across the roof of the glass atrium above her. She watched a dragon, smoke issuing from its nostrils, surge forwards and then she closed her eyes. For all his faults and in spite of everything, she didn’t want anything bad to happen to David. She couldn’t allow that. A voice brought her back to her senses. Murray was calling to her.

  ‘The lawyer’s turned up at last.’

  She drew on her reserves. Mike would deal with David. He might even be on a wild goose chase, and she had an important investigation to lead. There was no choice. She powered towards Murray. ‘Let’s find out what the fuck Henry Warburton is keeping from us.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tuesday, 20 November – Late Afternoon

  With a lawyer by his side, Henry had acquired a confidence not shown before, an impression tarnished by the yellowing sweat marks under his armpits, visible when he placed his hands behind his head.

  Natalie made the introductions for the benefit of the recording device and they began.

  ‘The last time we spoke, I asked you if Maisie had sent you any photographs of herself. I’d like to ask the same question again. Did she send you any photographs?’

  His whole upper body, rather than just his head, bounced up and down, eager to please. ‘Maisie and I decided to correspond via email rather than the website messaging service. It allowed her to send attachments and she sent me a couple of photographs of herself posing in underwear, swimsuits… nice photos, not disgusting – tasteful pictures. They weren’t pornographic at all.’

  ‘Did you download these to your phone?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And you deleted them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We couldn’t find the deleted photographs on the mobile you gave us. Why is that?’

  He glanced at the lawyer, who indicated he should continue.

  ‘I bought a pay-as-you-go phone to keep any relationships from my wife.’

  ‘I thought you were separated at the time you joined the dating website.’

  ‘That wasn’t the case. I was looking for some extramarital fun. I had tried other websites prior to Special Ones and had some success, but those relationships fizzled out. I love my wife, but sometimes I need more than what she can offer me. Bringing up three kids takes its toll on her. I appreciated a little company from time to time. I used the phone to keep that part of my life separate.’ His eyes, like dark insects, burrowed into hers.

  ‘Do you still have the phone?’

  ‘No. I disposed of it after the whole scam affair. It made me realise how stupid I had been and that I could get into serious trouble if I kept up this behaviour. I smashed it up and threw it away. I haven’t been on any dating site since.’

  ‘Why did you lie to us about your email address?’

  ‘I have no answer for that. I can only apologise. I was scared you’d accuse me of attacking that unfortunate girl. I panicked.’

  ‘Which email address did you use to contact Maisie?’

  ‘A disposable one,’ he replied.

  Has he spent the last hour thinking up this crap? She’d have found it more plausible if he’d come out with it in the first instance. The inner voices that guided her instincts bayed like wild animals. This man was lying through his teeth and she couldn’t do a damn thing to prove otherwise. The knock on the door startled her. Her thoughts jumped immediately to David and she excused herself to answer it. She stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind her. Ian couldn’t prevent his lips from twitching as he held out a sheet of A4.

  ‘Henry has access to the engineering company accounts. At my request, they examined the most recent transactions and have discovered he transferred £3,000 into a PayPal account on October the nineteenth. I haven’t been able to find out who the account belongs to. Ralph says it’s out of his sphere of expertise and we’ve passed it over to the tech team in the first instance.’

  Natalie took the paper with thanks. This was proof he’d lied about what had happened. More lies. He’d given Maisie the money she’d requested, and once he’d discovered he’d been duped, he had reason to be angry with her, or even a motive to harm her. Natalie had found him out at last. ‘We need to look into his alibi for Friday night. He claims he was at home with his wife and kids. Contact his wife and see if their accounts tally.’

  ‘You think the account was linked to Fran’s?’ asked Ian.

  ‘Maybe. If that was the case, she’d already spent £1,000 of it. We’ll have to wait and see if the PayPal account is linked to her bank account. You check out that alibi, and in the meantime, we’ll make him squirm and hopefully confess.’

  Ian acted quickly, a light-footed sprint to the staircase and out of view within seconds. She glanced at her mobile. There was nothing from Mike. No news is good news. That wasn’t always the case as she’d found to her cost when all her hopes had been pinned on finding Leigh and Zoe alive. She couldn’t bear to go through losing another person who’d been dear to her. She pocketed the mobile. She had complete faith in Mike. He’d ring when he could. She opened the door with renewed purpose.

  Mike sped around the Vauxhall Cavalier that was holding him up, foot flat to the floor. He didn’t care if he got a speeding ticket. If Natalie thought David was likely to harm himself, then he most likely was, because Natalie wasn’t somebody who was prone to dramatic outbursts. David’s mental state had been bothering Mike. He’d spotted him walking into HQ on Sunday and been shocked by his old friend’s appearance.

  Although Mike had recently become involved with Natalie, it hadn’t been behind his friend’s back. Natalie had been firm about that. She’d ensured her relationship with David was over before starting afresh with Mike, and he respected her for that. He’d fancied her for years but had never intended having an affair with his best friend’s wife. The one-off brief affair a few years earlier had been a mistake – a thoroughly enjoyable mistake – and both he and Natalie had agreed it would go no further. She’d fallen into his bed only because David had screwed up big time. If David had resisted the urge to gamble again, Natalie would never have left him. He pushed such thoughts aside. What was done was done. Ultimately, David was his friend and he wasn’t going to lose him.

  Ahead the sky was black, the blackest he’d seen it in months, and branches whipped at the BMW as it hugged the tight bends. The road was clear and he opened up the growling engine, taking the hump-backed bridge at such speed he was suspended momentarily in the air until the car crashed, suspension groaning, onto the tarmac and surged forwards. A cloud of dried leaves blew up from the verge, covering the windscreen, skeletal shapes sticking to the glass, and all the while he powered on, aware that every second counted.

  He barked commands at his voice-activated control to dial David’s number again. ‘Pick up, you stupid bastard. Pick up!’ When a voice answered, it was that of the automatic answering service, and he slammed his palms against the steering wheel. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  David had been his best friend for decades. Mike had always be
lieved David was the blessed one: he had an intelligent, good-looking wife, and a family – two super kids, and a respectable job with a law firm. Meanwhile, Mike had never found what he was looking for, had chased after numerous women, had far too many casual relationships, got married, only to split up, and lost a daughter in the bargain. His job had been his life but it was nothing like David’s secure nine-to-five. Then everything had changed and David’s life had crumbled. He’d watched his friend make mistake after mistake, and although he’d tried to help the man he considered a brother, David hadn’t listened to Mike. He’d continued to mess up everything and now…

  He screeched to a halt behind Natalie’s car, parked on the driveway, flung open the car door and thundered up the path to David’s house. Curtains were drawn at all the windows and Mike pounded first on the sitting room window then the front door, opening the mail slot and yelling, ‘David! Open up… now!’

  The house returned nothing but ominous silence. The first heavy drops of rain plopped onto the flagstones around him, marking them with splodges that resembled the Winnie-the-Pooh jelly shapes his daughter, Thea, loved. He cast about, looking for something to help him break in, then remembered the spare key. David had always kept one hidden outside in case either child was locked out. It was secreted under a loose brick in the wall that ran beside the house. Four strides and he was feeling for the correct brick, hunting high and low, bending and straightening, hunting for a giveaway gap. Where the fuck are the keys? The dark cloud burst and water cascaded over him, drenching his hair and running down his forehead, blinding him. He wiped it away and ran strong fingers over the bricks, their rough edges grazing his fingertips until, at last, one shifted slightly when he pressed it and he teased it out. The key was still there.

  Ignoring the water sliding past his collar and down his neck, he unlocked the front door. The silence hit him first, then the gloom. The house no longer gave off the happy family vibes he’d always envied when he’d visited the Ward family in the past. It was as if it had absorbed all the sadness of recent months and now resonated grief. The familiar sights of children’s shoes by the door, and coats tossed over the banister, or schoolbags at the bottom of the stairs, had vanished, along with the general family chaos that had made the place homely. Photographs of the family that had always been on display next to a vase of regularly replenished flowers on the hall table had been removed, leaving the table bereft.

  ‘David! Are you here?’

  There was no reply and he steeled himself for what he might find.

  The interview room was at an ambient temperature but Henry tugged furiously at a primrose tie, fumbled with the top button of his shirt and exposed a deepening rash that covered his throat.

  ‘I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.’ The blubbing started again. His lawyer looked away, shark nose in the air at the emotional display.

  It hadn’t been difficult to extract a confession. Henry had been willing to unburden himself, pleaded with Natalie to listen to what he had to say.

  ‘Start again with the emails,’ she said.

  He blew his nose and swiped at his damp eyes with the same soggy tissue before speaking. ‘I opened a second email account to communicate with women without my wife finding out.’

  ‘And the email address you used is the one you gave me earlier in the interview?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Natalie had sent it, along with the password that Henry had supplied, to Ralph with instructions to examine it for deleted emails to Maisie.

  ‘And how long did you correspond via email?’

  ‘Only a few days. We were getting along so well, I suggested we swap phone numbers and meet up. She was keen to meet up but not to exchange numbers. She preferred to do that on our date, and at the time, that didn’t seem strange to me. We arranged to meet at lunchtime on Saturday, October the twentieth at Birmingham New Street Station, and the plan was to go for a drink and meal and then spend the night together. She was completely candid about it and told me what she intended doing to me when we were alone. Our relationship had… grown quickly. There was a lot of sex talk and I was looking forward to meeting her.’

  The lawyer had lowered his head so only his scalp was visible, and although he appeared to be asleep, he was listening to his client repeat his confession, his fingers writing spidery notes from time to time across a spiral-bound notepad.

  Henry waved his arms ineffectually as he spoke. ‘On the Friday morning, the day before we were due to meet up, I was in my office and received an email from her…’

  Henry can’t concentrate on the accounts. In the background, there’s a constant banging as somebody works on a piece of equipment with a large hammer, the clang, clang, clang jarring his nerves. Even with the office door closed, he always hears the whistles and constant shouting from below. If he wishes to, he can watch the labourers at their workstations through the tiny window which overlooks the factory floor. It’s only a small engineering company but the turnover is good and there’s enough work to keep him in full-time employment.

  His mobile bleeps an alert and he pulls out the pay-as-you-go phone from his inside jacket pocket, hands suddenly slippery with the sweat of anticipation. He can’t wait to meet this exciting creature who seems to understand his sexual needs perfectly. He has already fantasised several times this morning about what they’ll get up to in bed tomorrow evening. She has a vivid imagination and a gorgeous figure and he can’t wait to explore every part of her. His fingers hover over the screen as he wonders what suggestive message she has sent him this time, and a small groan is released from his plump lips at the prospect of the night of passion they’ll enjoy.

  He opens the email, which doesn’t begin in the usual flirtatious manner. Maisie is upset.

  I am really sorry, Henry. I can’t meet you tomorrow. I am completely up shit creek. The bastards at HMRC have impounded my jewellery I need for my exhibition on Monday, and won’t release it until I pay them an outrageous amount. I don’t have the cash and I need those items. Most of them are already promised to customers, and I was due to make an absolute killing on them. It’s so fucking unfair. I’m completely stuffed. Sorry, lover, but I’m not in the mood for our raunchy weekend. I’ll only be miserable and we won’t enjoy ourselves as I had hoped. Maybe when this is all sorted, we can rearrange.

  Henry can’t catch his breath. He hadn’t expected this. Every waking minute over the past few days has been spent looking forward to the meeting. He knows all about the jewellery. Just over a week earlier, Maisie went on a three-day shopping trip to Dubai to purchase some pieces for her business. She emailed Henry photographs of the city and a couple of selfies, but none, as he had requested, of her in a belly dancer’s outfit. She also sent photos of some of the necklaces, ornate pieces set with brilliant gems that would sell well to the bohemian crowd – her target market. This was her big chance – an exhibition of custom-made pieces and these. She poured all her earnings into the big opening night at her new boutique, due to take place on Monday. And now, she doesn’t want to meet up. Never has he experienced such bitter disappointment.

  He hasn’t got the funds to help her, and even if he did have them, he couldn’t. His wife, Samira, would find out and there’d be hell to pay. He’s drawn to the file on the desk and an idea is born. He is the only person who deals with the accounts and has eyes on the transactions that take place daily. Mr Winthrop, the seventy-year-old owner, hasn’t been as hands-on the last three years, and he trusts Henry implicitly. Could he? He bashes out a quick email suggesting he might be able to assist Maisie. The reply pings back in an instant, full of gratitude but telling him she can’t take his money. She’ll have to find another way to solve the problem. He sends another message, insisting he can help. The response is more than he could hope for. The date is back on and she is eternally grateful to him. He is to send £3,000 via PayPal to her account, and she’ll pay the fine to release her goods and see him the following day at 12.15 p.m. A smile p
lays on his lips as he types, ‘What will you give me as reward for my generosity?’

  The reply she sends back causes his trousers to bulge.

  It is simple enough to transfer the money, and, once completed, he takes an early lunchbreak. He sits in the works canteen and types an email on his phone, asking if the money has arrived. She doesn’t reply. She is no doubt trying to deal with the release of her goods. He gives it fifteen minutes before sending a second email. This is unlike her. She normally responds immediately. The canteen is filling up and he finishes his coffee and ham sandwich, checks one more time. There’s still no reply. He sends a third email and heads back to the office and the clamouring of machines.

  By the end of the afternoon he fingers the phone for the umpteenth time. He has stopped sending emails. He tries the dating website but she doesn’t respond. He tidies away his books and locks the drawers they are kept in, then leaves the office. He feels sick to his stomach. He has been played for a fool. Maisie isn’t going to reply.

  Henry broke down in tears yet again. It was too much to hope he’d be able to continue without a short interlude, so Natalie organised a glass of water for him and left Murray in the interview room until Henry was recovered. She checked her phone as she headed upstairs. There was still nothing from Mike. She had to hope that was because everything was all right. Ian put down the phone the second she entered the room.

  ‘I was speaking to Henry’s wife, Samira. She can’t confirm Henry’s whereabouts Friday night. He didn’t come home after work. They’ve been going through marital difficulties and she imagined he’d gone to the pub, or out with a friend. He’s been going out a lot without telling her his whereabouts recently. He also asked her to tell the police he was at home if we rang.’