The Detective Deans Mystery Collection

by James D Mortain

  He drew a red box above the horizontal line, roughly a third of the way in from the left. Inside the box, he wrote, University car park with Carl GROVES. He drew a connecting line to the horizontal and beneath wrote, Friday 3rd October – 15:30hrs. He drew a green box below the horizontal, towards the left-hand side of the page, penned University I/C Jessica MORRISON. Friday 3rd October – 09:45hrs. The next box was red, three-quarters of the way along and dated Tuesday 7th October, and simply titled, Reported missing.

  He stared down at the timeline and the mass of white empty space burned into his eyes like snow blindness. At the top of the page in bold red letters, he wrote EPILEPTIC.

  Chapter 7

  It was usually a social meeting place for Carl Groves but this time he spoke to no one at the gym. He had already finished lectures and had spent the last couple of hours pushing his body to the limits. He had a lot on his mind, and no one he could tell. His parents, with whom he still lived, had commented on his mood change over the weekend. They had not pushed him about it, but he guessed they knew he had relationship issues.

  Carl had already listened to the four voicemail messages from the copper. He understood why he wanted to speak to him. What troubled him was how much the copper knew. He had not replied to the calls because he was buying himself some time to think, to get his story right. The gym session had helped to a degree but only by burning up some of the nervous energy he had been suffering since the calls. He knew he would have to speak to the police at some point. It was obvious they wouldn’t just go away.

  His hand was trembling as he clutched the copper’s name and number on a small scrap of paper. He had already taken himself outside for some fresh air. Few people walked to this area, so he would be undisturbed. His stomach muscles twitched as he dialled the number and he took a quick peek over his shoulder.

  Deans’ job mobile phone vibrated on his desk.

  ‘DC Andy Deans speaking.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Hello?’ Deans said firmly. He huffed and was about to terminate the call but then heard a tentative voice.

  ‘Um, hello. This is Carl Groves. I’ve got a message to call this number.’

  ‘Mr Groves,’ Deans said faking gratitude, ‘so good of you to call back.’ He fumbled around his desk for a pen and his daybook. ‘You’re an elusive man.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘I’d like to see you today,’ Deans said.

  ‘Uh, I can’t today, I’m afraid,’ Groves replied.

  ‘Tell me why,’ Deans said quickly, giving Groves no opportunity to hide in his answer.

  ‘I’ve got to go out later.’

  Deans snorted, probably loud enough for Groves to hear. ‘Let’s put it this way, Carl. I am either seeing you today, or I’m coming over to your house in the middle of the night, waking up whoever else may be there, and we can all have a conversation about things then. Alternatively, I could come to your university and get you out of a lecture. But of course I’d have to explain the reason why. So, what is it to be? Your choice.’

  There was a period of silence. ‘Carl?’

  ‘Okay,’ he replied sheepishly.

  ‘Okay what, Carl? Am I seeing you today?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Deans arranged to meet Groves at the station front office at seven. He would have preferred to meet him at his home address but Groves seemed keen to avoid that and Deans had no reason to force the issue.

  Carl Groves’ one and only experience of the police was not a fond one. He had spent the entire night in a small, cold cell having been arrested for no apparent reason. All he had to sleep on was a thin, worn, mattress. It was miserable. The only natural light came in through a small window of grubby opaque glass blocks, and to top it off, he was not released until gone six p.m. next day. They told him they had been busy but he did not believe them. He guessed the copper who had nicked him told the others to leave him because he had called that copper a bald-headed twat.

  He had no idea how long he was going to be at the station this time, so he dressed in a warm top just in case he would be spending another long night in the cells.

  He left his parents, saying he was heading out to see a mate and might be back late. They had not questioned him.

  He drove to the station, arriving shortly after seven, and parked on the subterranean level of the twin-storey car park next door. The parking meter was free between six p.m. and seven a.m. He was in luck. Even so, he hoped he would be out before the charges started again in the morning.

  Walking up the steps to ground floor level, he looked up at the police station building. Row upon row of windows stared back at him. He imagined faces were watching him from behind the glass. It did not look much like a police station from the side but at the front there was no mistake, thanks to the cop cars and riot vans in their parking bays.

  He dawdled towards the main entrance and ran the story through in his head, one final time.

  Two coppers came out of a side door and approached him. He snatched at his breath. Were they coming for him? Did they know who he was?

  One of the coppers looked directly at him. Carl slowed to a half-pace and tensed up, but the cops continued towards one of the waiting cars. His heart was pounding as if he had just finished a training run. He moved towards the entrance and stepped gingerly into the foyer. Ahead of him, a black counter spanned the entire width of the room. A glass screen partitioned the counter top and ceiling with beige-coloured blinds pulled down low. Behind the only opened blind stood a middle-aged woman staring attentively in his direction.

  Carl instinctively checked behind himself and looked around the room. He was alone.

  The glass screen was now creeping slowly upwards under the power of a buzzing motor.

  He inched forward.

  ‘May I help you, sir?’ the woman behind the counter asked.

  ‘Um, yeah.’ Carl dithered. ‘I’ve been told to come for seven.’

  The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you know who asked you to come for seven?’

  She made a point of looking at the clock on the wall.

  Carl followed her gaze and noticed it was almost seven fifteen.

  ‘Um, a detective,’ he replied, just as a stern-looking man wearing a grey suit and holding a blue book came into view from behind the woman.

  Deans had been waiting in the front office since six fifty. He did not like inactivity. ‘Carl Groves?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Groves replied, taking a half step backwards.

  ‘Stay there. I’ll be right over.’ Deans gave a subtle lock the door if he makes a bolt for it nod to the officer at the desk, and entered the foyer via a side door and bound his way towards Groves, who was paying attention to the exit.

  ‘Hi, Carl, thank you for coming in.’ Deans held his right hand and Groves looked at it suspiciously.

  ‘I’m DC Deans. I spoke with you on the phone earlier.’

  Groves nodded and tentatively shook Deans’ hand.

  ‘Follow me.’

  Deans turned and walked towards another door, and signalled to the officer behind the counter. The door buzzed and opened inwards into a small interview room and Groves stepped inside.

  Deans offered him a seat nearest the entrance and he sat opposite. The door closed on a stiff spring and a secure clout of the latch. This was it for Groves. No going back. Cards on the table.

  Deans noticed Groves checking out the room. He had already felt the clamminess of his hand. Groves did not know it but Deans was taking everything in. Every little anxious reaction. Every jumpy twitch. Every furtive body movement.

  ‘Thanks for coming in tonight, Carl. Have you parked next door?’

  Groves nodded and looked away towards the window.

  Deans waited until Groves looked at him again. ‘I’m a detective from the CID department, and I’m investigating the disappearance of Amy Poole, who I understand is your current girlfriend.’

  Groves’ head drooped and he strok
ed the hair at the nape of his neck.

  ‘Carl, is Amy your current girlfriend?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, sharply.

  ‘Carl. You are aware that Amy is missing?’

  Groves shrugged and nodded, but did not look Deans in the eye.

  Deans’ knee began to bounce beneath the desk. ‘What do you know about the CID, Carl?’

  Groves shifted in his seat and his eyes flicked up to meet Deans’ for the briefest of moments.

  ‘Um, you deal with the serious stuff.’

  ‘That’s right, Carl. And we, the police, are taking Amy’s disappearance very seriously.’

  Deans waited for a reaction, and received one when a response vehicle on the forecourt lit up the room with blue strobe light and blazed away with howling sirens. Groves damn near jumped out of his skin and stared wildly out of the window as more vehicles came to life with equal urgency.

  Deans would usually turn up the volume on his Airwave radio and monitor the action, but right at that moment, Groves’ responses fascinated him far more. Unluckily for Groves, nothing was evading Deans’ attention.

  He had only just met him but a number of factors already niggled Deans about Groves. Why had he been so hard to contact? Why did not he report his own girlfriend missing, and why was he being so edgy?

  To start the interview with anything too heavy would undoubtedly make Groves unreceptive and that would do no good for either of them. Deans needed to earn some trust. He needed common ground, and he found it in the shape of rugby.

  Deans was a life-long Bath rugby fan and had played rugby himself for many years, before too many injuries swung the balance towards common sense and the need to acknowledge that he was getting older. Groves was a physically imposing lad and happened to be wearing a Minerva University rugby-training top.

  ‘So, I see you’re wearing a drill top. What are you, Centre, fullback?’

  For the first time Groves looked at Deans for more than a second or two, and after a short delay replied, ‘Fullback.’

  ‘I guess you’re either good with the boot, in defence or a pretty handy runner?’

  Groves squinted and tilted his head. ‘All of the above, I guess.’ This time he did not look away.

  Deans grasped the connection.

  ‘I bet you’re the last person the oppo want to see hurtling towards them. You’re a pretty big unit.’

  Groves nodded, looked Deans up and down. ‘I look after the boys.’

  He was now not only facing Deans square on, but had also leant very slightly towards him, engaging in the conversation.

  ‘So how many tries have you scored over the past few seasons?’ Deans asked.

  Groves’ eyes almost smiled as they darted up to his left.

  He did not answer immediately but Deans was not about to say anything else until Groves next spoke.

  ‘This season’s only just got started, so none, yet. Last season I had… fifteen, and the season before twelve or thirteen, I think.’ He stared directly at Deans for the longest time in their brief contact. He was seeking approval and recognition.

  Deans indulged him. ‘Good stuff, mate. That’s pretty impressive.’

  ‘Plus, something around three hundred points with the boot.’

  Groves’ head was now tilting slightly backwards, exposing more of his throat. He was clearly feeling increasingly confident.

  Test over.

  ‘Tell me about last Friday with Amy.’

  Groves immediately lowered his head and looked anywhere but at Deans, who waited until the next eye contact.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘How about how things were left with Amy?’

  ‘We were fine. She was off to see her family.’

  Groves had placed a gentle emphasis on the word ‘family’, which did not evade Deans’ attention.

  ‘Family?’ he mirrored.

  ‘In Devon.’

  As Groves spoke, he looked down at the table and simultaneously scratched the side of his neck.

  Deans made a mental note, some kind of issue with the family. Alternatively, with Devon, or with Amy going away to Devon. He scribbled Devon in his daybook and circled it.

  ‘Ever been there yourself?’

  Groves rubbed his nose, partially covering his mouth as he gave his answer. ‘No.’

  Deans allowed a pregnant pause do some work for him, covering his own mouth with the back of his hand, not once breaking his focus away from Groves.

  Groves sneaked eye contact once again and stirred in his seat. The silence was getting to him. Deans counted to seven slowly in his head.

  ‘Tell me about the last time you saw Amy.’

  Groves’ eyes darted around the tabletop, and Deans noticed his right hand was squeezing the fingers of his other hand.

  Interesting, Deans thought.

  ‘I dropped her home after uni,’ Groves said, finally.

  ‘Any arrangements?’

  ‘Um.’ He blinked rapidly. ‘She said to meet up at uni on Monday.’

  ‘Any contact since then?’

  ‘No. I haven’t had any contact since then.’

  Groves’ response was robotic.

  ‘What did Amy say she would be doing over the weekend?’

  Groves dropped his head once more and imperceptibly rocked left and right in his chair.

  ‘She didn’t,’ he replied, quietly.

  ‘Did Amy say who she would be meeting up with in Devon apart from her parents?’

  ‘No.’

  Deans leant back in his chair, slid his daybook onto his lap and took his time to write something inside. He stared at the page.

  ‘Tell me, Carl, what have you done to find out where Amy is?’

  ‘Well, I’m here, aren’t I?’ Groves snarled, displaying a previously restrained hostility.

  Deans grinned and then looked up. ‘You are indeed.’

  Groves turned away.

  ‘Does Amy have a car?’ Deans asked. He of course already knew the answer but he needed a soft way in to his next real question.

  ‘Yeah – course,’ Groves hissed, screwing up his face.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Beetle.’

  ‘Cool. What colour?’

  Groves curled his upper lip. ‘Yellow.’

  ‘Thank you, Carl. Ever been in it?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  Groves turned sideways and scratched the back of his neck.

  ‘I guess it’s where she left it.’

  ‘Any ideas where?’ Deans was watching him closely.

  ‘I guess it’s at her parents’.’

  There was so much Groves was not saying, but was it enough to think there was anything sinister about him? Deans pondered it a while, creating another uncomfortable silence. Intrigued by a couple of the answers, he doodled in his daybook.

  The repeated use of ‘I guess’ was a nothing answer. Flippant, juvenile even. Not ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t answer that because I haven’t seen it since Friday’, but ‘I guess’. Then there was the repeat to the question, ‘Any contact since then?’ Groves’ answer: ‘No, I haven’t had any contact since then.’ Not simply ‘No’, which would have been the easiest and quickest way to answer. Instead, he chose to repeat the question. Was that because responding parrot-fashion saved him from admitting to the truth? Whatever truth that might be?

  Deans mulled it over, his pen tapping his book as if he was tattooing the page. Was Groves’ slippery disposition enough to have him nicked? Moreover, for what offence? After all, this was only a MISPER enquiry.

  ‘I’m almost finished, Carl, for now. Jess – you know Jess don’t you?’

  Groves nodded, looked Deans up and Down.

  ‘Well, Jess mentioned that she thought you’d given Amy a lift home from uni.’

  ‘Yeah, I already said that,’ Groves said cuttingly.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Deans said, looking into his book. ‘M
y mistake. What car do you have?’

  Groves backed up, just a fraction, but enough to display that he was growing increasingly wary.

  ‘Saxo.’

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘Orange.’

  ‘Standard-looking orange Citroen Saxo?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Groves said, his beady eyes giving away his own questioning mind.

  ‘Good,’ Deans said, closing his daybook with a dull thud. ‘Well, thank you, Carl. Unless you’ve any questions for me, I think we’re done here today.’

  Deans did not ask for the registration number of the Saxo. He did not need to, he had already seen a vehicle report on the intelligence database. He could get all the information he needed from that.

  Groves did not have any questions, stood up, and made for the door handle when Deans dropped in the all-important question.

  ‘So, Carl. Where do you think Amy is?’

  It stopped Groves in his tracks. He turned and neatly placed his chair tightly under the desk.

  ‘Beats me.’

  ‘Just before you go then,’ Deans said, ‘I think to be thorough, as neither of us knows where Amy is, I’ll complete a statement from my notes. But I need you to understand that any formal evidence you provide needs to be the truth and if you knowingly make a false declaration you could be prosecuted or even end up in prison.’ Deans smiled broadly. ‘Is that all right?’

  Groves did just enough to nod.

  ‘So, shall I catch up with you again tomorrow with a typed statement?’

  Groves nodded again and let himself out of the room.

  Chapter 8

  Deans watched Groves leave the building, then made his way quickly up to the office and looked out of the window to the council car park below. It was dark outside but the domed streetlamps did a reasonable job of lighting up the parking bays.

  Headlight beams in the far corner grabbed his attention. A vehicle was coming up the ramp. He tracked the car and as it passed below his window, he confirmed it was an orange Citroen Saxo, complete with black bonnet. He also noticed two yellow stickers on either side of the windscreen and a familiar Bath rugby club sticker on the back window. Although he could not see Groves from this angle, he had no doubt this was his car.