The Island Murders (Dorset Crime Book 3)

by Rachel McLean

  Lesley nodded. She checked her watch: five forty-five. Either those uniformed PCs would need to be sent home soon, or she’d need to have a conversation with Detective Superintendent Carpenter about overtime. She knew that budgets here were even tighter than they had been in the West Midlands.

  Her phone buzzed: a text from Gail.

  “Damn.” She’d forgotten about the call while she’d been in with Yolanda. “Hang on a minute, Johnny.”

  Lesley checked the text.

  Forensics found on boat. Call me.

  She looked at Johnny, knowing her face had lit up.

  “We’ve got something,” she told him.

  “What?”

  She didn’t respond, already busy dialling Gail.

  “Lesley, I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”

  “Sorry. I was interviewing someone. What have you found?”

  “Blood, on the underside of the seat at the back of the boat. The one you and Johnny came in on. I estimate it’s recent, but more than a few hours old.”

  Lesley covered her phone with her hand. “Johnny, there’s no chance you could have left blood on that boat, is there?”

  “Which boat?”

  “The National Trust boat. The one we came in on.”

  He frowned. “No, boss.” He wrinkled his forehead, no doubt remembering how he’d felt on the trip.

  Lesley didn’t have any cuts herself and hadn’t seen any on Ed, so she didn’t see how the blood could have come from any of them.

  She removed her hand from the phone. “Check it out, Gail. It could be relevant.”

  “Already on it. Gav’s going to cut that seat away from the structure. We’ve got Ed with us. He’s not best pleased, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  “I want the whole boat impounded, “Lesley said. “Not just that seat. If it was used to take Simone out onto the harbour...”

  “Right-o. Leave it with me.” Gail hung up.

  Lesley looked at Johnny. “You know where Tina is now?”

  “I can call her.”

  “Do that. I want to get an update. They’ve given us use of a room off the café. I’ll call Dennis too, get him on speaker.”

  “You want Tina’s Uniform mates in on it too?”

  “No. They’ve got an hour or so to cover as many people as they can before that staff meeting. I’ll get Carpenter to agree some overtime, it’s got to be better than dragging them back here again tomorrow.”

  “Boss.”

  Johnny grabbed his phone. Lesley turned towards the café.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The room in the café building was long and narrow, with a table running down the centre and a row of French doors along one side. They faced sideways to the waterfront, so you could get a view if you craned your neck.

  Lesley didn’t need to worry about views.

  Johnny entered, Tina behind him.

  Lesley turned and gave the PC a smile. “Anything to report?”

  “Sorry, boss. Nobody I’ve spoken to saw anything suspicious on Monday night or Tuesday morning. There was one couple who knew Simone, but hadn’t noticed anything odd about her lately.”

  “OK. You and your colleagues will need to head back to the mainland soon. Johnny and I are going to stay here overnight. You’ve squared it with your wife, Johnny?”

  “She says it’s fine. Looking forward to having more space in the bed, I bet. And they’ve found us a two-bedroom cottage, down past the castle.”

  “Cozy.” Lesley wished she’d thought to bring an overnight bag with her. “Tina, if we make arrangements to get some of our things to the office, can you bring them over tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  Lesley knew that logistically, the easiest option would be for Elsa to take a bag into her office and have Tina pick it up from there. But given that Elsa’s law firm had been at the centre of their last murder investigation, it wasn’t something she felt comfortable proposing.

  “I’m going to call Dennis,” she said. “Get him and Mike on speaker.”

  She brought up Dennis’s number on her phone, then reconsidered and switched to Mike’s.

  “DC Legg.”

  “Mike, it’s Lesley. Are you with Dennis?”

  “Yes, boss. We were waiting till we heard from you before finishing for the day.”

  Good for them. “Excellent. Put me on speaker, will you?”

  “One moment.”

  Lesley put her phone on the table and waited. Eventually Dennis’s voice came over.

  “We’re both here.”

  “Good.” Lesley took a seat and gestured for Johnny and Tina to do the same. This table had sixteen chairs. She wondered what it was normally used for.

  “We’ve had a development on the forensics,” she said. “Gail’s found blood on the National Trust boat. She thinks it was left there in the last few days.”

  “Has the boat been impounded?” Dennis asked.

  “She’s in the process of doing that right now.”

  Lesley knew that Gail would have to examine the boat more thoroughly in situ before she could move it. And then it would have to be transported dry, which meant bringing another boat across and ferrying it over to a trailer on the mainland.

  All of this would have to take place quickly, before there was further degradation of evidence. It would be a late night for Gail and her team.

  “So Dennis,” she said. “I want you and Mike liaising with CSI once the boat’s in dry storage. Let me know if anything more comes up.”

  “She found anything other than blood? Hair, fibres?”

  “Just blood. So far.”

  “Do you have suspects?”

  “Not yet. Simone was part of a team of four women, one of whom found her. Frankie Quinn. Then there’s Frankie’s partner Adam Stanley, who was there when she found her. And the husband of Natasha, who manages the team.”

  “Any tensions between them? Motive?”

  “It all seems hunky dory, from what they’re telling us. But it could be a front. Johnny and I are going to stay here, so we can keep an eye on them.”

  There was a pause, then Dennis’s voice came over the speaker again.

  “I think that’s a sensible idea. Don’t you, Johnny?”

  Lesley looked at Johnny, whose cheeks had high spots of pink.

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  Dennis and Johnny had been acting oddly with each other lately. Their usual camaraderie had diminished and as far as Lesley was aware, they hadn’t gone to the pub together for a few weeks.

  Was that why Dennis had been so keen for Johnny to come over to the island with her? Was he trying to get rid of the DC?

  “Have you unearthed anything on Simone or the people around her?” she asked.

  “The woman who found her, you said that was Frankie Quinn?” Mike asked.

  “It was,” Lesley replied.

  “She was arrested in 2008,” he replied.

  Lesley felt her skin prickle. “What for?”

  “Assault. She tried to stab her ex. No charges were brought.”

  “Why not?”

  “Domestic violence case. She had a restraining order against him, he breached it, she went for him with a knife.”

  Johnny whistled. Tina gave him a nudge and he clamped his lips shut.

  “Any other arrests, previous violence?”

  “Nothing in HOLMES, boss,” Mike replied.

  Lesley nodded. It sounded like Frankie Quinn had been provoked. If her ex had been abusing her, then she could see why the woman might react.

  But it was something she needed to follow up.

  “OK. Find out what happened to the ex, if he breached the order again. Where he went after that. I want to know how she ended up working here, and if there might be a connection.”

  “Will do.”

  Lesley turned at the sound of the door opening behind her. A uniformed PC with thinning red hair and a face full of freckles slid in.

  “Ev
erything OK?” Tina asked him. Lesley checked her watch: quarter past six. They needed to prepare for the staff meeting.

  “You’ll be wanting to get back to the mainland,” she said to the male PC.

  “It’s not that, Ma’am.” He smoothed his hands down his jacket. “I’ve got a witness who said she heard two women screaming at each other near the church on Monday night.”

  “Screaming?”

  “That’s what she said.” He pulled out his notebook. “Going at it hammer and tongs, was what she told me.”

  “She able to tell you who these two women were?”

  “They’d gone by the time she got near them, Ma’am. But she said one of them had a Yorkshire accent.”

  “Simone Browning was from Yorkshire,” Tina said.

  Lesley’s mouth was dry. “Monday night. What time?”

  “About nine,” the PC replied.

  Lesley frowned. “That’s while Anya Davinski said Simone left her.”

  “Maybe it was Anya she was having the row with,” Johnny suggested.

  “Maybe. We need to talk to her again. Johnny, get over to her cottage. You know where it is.”

  “Boss.” Johnny squeezed past the two PCs and left the room.

  Lesley looked at the PC. “What’s your name, Constable?”

  “PC McGuigan, Ma’am.”

  She sighed. Carpenter had authorised overtime until 7pm, no later.

  “OK, PC McGuigan. You head back on that boat with PC Abbott. I’ll speak to your bosses, you’ll be back here in the morning.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “And give me details of your witness. I want to speak to her before the staff meeting.”

  Lesley turned back to the phone once the constable had left. “Get all that?” she asked.

  “Got it, boss,” replied Dennis.

  “Good. Now, Mike, I’ve got a list of names for you. People who’ve been staying at the castle, people who live there, people who work there but commute from the mainland. I need you to get to work on HOLMES.”

  “No problem, boss,” said Mike. She couldn’t hear a sigh or any other sign of weariness in his voice, but then, he didn’t know how long the list was yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Frankie was washing up the dinner things when she heard a knock at the door. She and Adam had eaten early, knowing the staff meeting was planned for seven o’clock.

  She checked the clock on the kitchen wall: twenty to seven. It only took five minutes to get to the admin building by the quay, where Ed would be holding the meeting.

  So who was knocking on her door when they would all be there shortly?

  She wiped her hands on a tea towel and went to open the door. Natasha stood on the doorstep, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Frankie,” she said. “How are you?”

  Frankie gave her a smile. “Come in. I’m OK, considering. How are you?”

  Natasha sighed as she followed Frankie through the hallway and into the kitchen. “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel all at sixes and sevens. Poor Simone.”

  Frankie let her gaze drop to the floor. She muttered agreement.

  The kitchen door opened and Adam stood in the doorway, his expression serious. “Hi, Natasha,” he said. “How are you?”

  Natasha shrugged and lowered herself into a chair. “Just dealing with the fallout. I need to speak to her family.”

  Frankie felt a chill run down her back. “Parents?” she asked.

  Natasha nodded. “They live in Southampton. The police have contacted them, they need her to formally identify Simone’s body.”

  She slumped, her jaw slack. Frankie took the seat opposite her.

  Natasha looked across the table at her. Her face was grey, her hair unwashed. “But I wanted to talk to them too, as her manager.”

  Frankie leaned over and gave Natasha a squeeze on the arm. The four of them were a tight-knit team. They often went days without seeing each other, working at opposite ends of the island. But that didn’t mean they weren’t close when they did see each other. The island could feel like a whole universe, and it was good to have people in it you could rely on.

  Only now, one of those people had been murdered.

  Natasha had been acting strangely before all this had happened. There’d been an air of unease around her, of jumpiness. Frankie had been watching her for a few weeks, trying to work out if it was something she’d done. She’d hoped Natasha didn’t have plans to quit her job. She couldn’t believe Natasha would ever leave this job.

  Adam looked up at the clock. “You need to get going soon.”

  “You’re not coming?” asked Frankie.

  He sighed. “Can’t just one of us go?’

  Frankie frowned at him. “I’d rather you came too.”

  He nodded. “I’m just a volunteer. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t with you.”

  “You live on this island,” Frankie told him. “You’re affected by all this, and besides…” She trailed off.

  They would all know what she was thinking. She and Adam had been the ones to find the body. Everybody there tonight would know that. There would be sideways glances, questions. Frankie was dreading it.

  “Come with me.” Her voice was hoarse. “Please.”

  He nodded. She gave him a tight thank you smile.

  Frankie turned back to Natasha. “Was there a specific reason you came here first? I mean, I don’t mind at all…”

  Natasha shook her head. “I thought we could walk over there together.”

  “It’s hard.”

  Natasha nodded.

  Frankie tightened her grip on Natasha’s arm. “I’m worried about you. You seem…”

  “A member of our team has just died, Frankie. We’re all grieving.”

  Frankie pulled back. “Of course.” But there was more to it than that, she was sure.

  She watched Natasha, her eyes narrowing. Surely her boss, her lovely boss, who didn’t even feel like a boss, hadn’t had anything to do with Simone’s death?

  Stop it. They didn’t need this. They should be pulling together, not mistrusting each other.

  She stood up. “Come on then.”

  Frankie hurried into the hall, glad to be out of the room, and grabbed her coat. There was a chill outside, the breeze from the water brushing across the island.

  No one had followed her. She turned back to the kitchen door, where Adam was standing. “Let’s get going.”

  Natasha rose from her chair, her movements careful. There was an air of distraction about her, as if she was miles away.

  She would be thinking about Simone. But she’d been like this a lot lately.

  Frankie eyed her friend. What was she hiding? And did it have anything to do with Simone’s death?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lesley stood outside the address PC McGuigan had given her. Diana Berry lived in a small cottage on the southwest side of the island. It was quiet here, wind blowing across from the harbour. Lesley wondered what it must be like to live somewhere so remote. Within sight of civilisation, but a good hour from reaching it.

  She knocked on the door for the second time. No answer. Maybe the woman was on her way to the staff meeting.

  Her phone rang.

  “DCI Clarke.”

  “Boss, it’s Johnny.” He sounded agitated.

  “What’s up? Are you at the staff meeting?”

  “I’ve had a call.”

  “What kind of call?”

  “My wife, boss.”

  Lesley felt her shoulders slump. “Is it the baby?”

  “I don’t know, boss. She said I need to get home quick as I can.”

  Lesley felt anxiety run through her. She knew what it was like to be carrying a baby. Sixteen years ago, but the memories were still there. That constant sense of dread in case anything went wrong. Lesley had been relieved when Terry had told her he didn’t want to have another child. She’d struggled with the stress of keeping Sharon safe inside her own
body, of having sole responsibility for her.

  “You go home,” she told Johnny. “Get on the boat with Tina.”

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “Your wife comes first,” she said. “The baby too.”

  “Thanks, boss.” His voice was shaky.

  “Well, go on then,” she told him. “Don’t waste time on the phone with me. Look after that family of yours.”

  “Yes, boss.” He hung up.

  She stood back to survey the cottage, checking that no lights were on. There was no sign of movement. Damn.

  PC McGuigan hadn’t described the witness, and he would be leaving on the same boat with Johnny and Tina. Lesley would have to ask Ed to point the woman out for her.

  She shook herself out, pulled her jacket tighter and hurried back towards the building where the staff meeting was being held.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  As Lesley approached the National Trust’s admin building, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She fished it out, sighing. She just hoped it wasn’t Johnny, saying he’d missed the boat.

  It was a text from her daughter Sharon.

  I’ve had enough mum. I can’t stand it anymore.

  Lesley stopped walking. Why did teenagers insist on sending texts like that? The kind of message seemingly designed to create panic, and probably about nothing at all.

  She couldn’t leave it, though. She dialled Sharon’s number and waited. It rang out three times and then clicked into voicemail.

  “Sharon, it’s Mum. I just got your text. Are you OK? Call me. Speak to you soon, love you.”

  She redialled Terry. Again, voicemail.

  “Terry, it’s Lesley. I’ve had a message from Sharon that’s worried me a bit. She says she’s had enough of something. Is she with you? Check on her, will you?”

  She didn’t like being hundreds of miles away, having to relay messages to Terry to keep an eye on their daughter. Sharon and Terry had been arguing recently, or so Sharon had told her. Terry had refused to talk about the subject.

  She straightened her jacket and pushed open the doors to the admin building. She could hear voices along the corridor and see light coming from a set of double doors. She took a moment to compose herself, standing where no one inside would be able to see her. She pulled on an air of professionalism and stepped through the doors.