by D. S. Butler
‘Are you sure? Maybe we should try the questionnaire thingy again.’
Pippa shook her head and gave Sophie a tight smile. ‘I’m afraid not. The computer doesn’t get it wrong.’
‘So you’re saying I can’t afford that house.’
‘Well, I couldn’t say that exactly, but we wouldn’t be able to lend you any more than one hundred and twenty thousand based on your current circumstances. Of course, you could try another bank, but I don’t think you’d be successful.’
‘I see.’ Sophie began to stuff all her papers back into her file.
‘I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help. But a young woman like you would probably be better off looking at something a bit cheaper to get you on the ladder. Maybe a flat or something, in the city.’
Sophie gave the woman a curt nod. She couldn’t believe this. She was disappointed they hadn’t agreed to lend her the money she needed, but most of all, she was irritated that she had been made to wait for ages only to be told they couldn’t help her.
She stood up and squeezed past the desk to get out of the cubicle, muttering, ‘Thank you for your time.’
Sophie collected her car from Lucy Tower Street car park and headed back to the station. She fought the urge to go back to Washingborough for one last look at her house. She still kept thinking of it as her house, which was ridiculous. She couldn’t afford it now, and by the time she could, it would be sold.
She hit the top of the steering wheel after she pulled out into a long line of traffic. Great. Now it would take ages to get back to the station.
It wasn’t fair. She’d always worked so hard. She’d been top of her class at school and achieved all A’s for her A levels. She could have gone to university like most of her friends, but she’d joined the police instead. Even when she finished school, her studies weren’t over. She took courses and read all the policing textbooks she could get her hands on, because she wanted to climb the career ladder as quickly as possible.
It had all started with getting lost at the park when she was six – a policeman had found her crying and returned her to her mum and dad. Since then, Sophie had always wanted to be a police officer. She had even done her school work experience at a police station. Of course, it had been admin work rather than witnessing any arrests, but she’d loved it. It was the job she’d always wanted, but right now she couldn’t shake the feeling she was standing still in her career.
She’d reached the rank of detective constable, but it felt like she was missing something – the experience she needed to progress. And that was frustrating. She was slowly coming to realise that you couldn’t learn everything from books and courses.
Finally clear of the traffic, she lightly pressed the accelerator and sighed. It wasn’t the end of the world. She’d be able to afford a home of her own soon. It would just take a little longer than she’d expected.
CHAPTER SIX
When Rick arrived at the hospital, he was on his best behaviour. DS Hart had warned him to be pleasant and as unobtrusive as possible. They needed the medical staff on their side. He’d followed Karen’s instructions, tiptoeing around the medical staff, trying to be amenable and to avoid offending anyone.
One of the staff nurses looking after Albert Johnson had introduced herself as Nadine, and although she’d viewed him with suspicion when he’d first introduced himself, she seemed to be warming to him.
Rick gave her a friendly smile as she passed him. ‘I hope I’m not getting in the way, sitting here.’
She paused beside the row of chairs outside ICU. ‘You’re fine there. I know you’re only doing your job.’
‘I’m only here because I really need to talk to Albert Johnson when he wakes up. I’ll stay out of your way, though. You won’t even know I’m here.’
Nadine rearranged the patient files she was holding. ‘We were expecting you. We had a visit from one of your colleagues earlier.’
Rick nodded and said in his most charming voice, ‘That would have been my boss, DS Hart. I know it’s an inconvenience, but it really is important we talk to him. If he wakes up, would you let me know?’
Nadine considered his request. ‘We’ve reduced the amount of sedation in the hope he’ll wake up on his own soon. There is still a little swelling around his brain, so he’s not going to be able to communicate well when he does wake up. But his condition has improved enough to move him to the cardiac care unit soon.’
‘Oh, that’s great news,’ Rick said.
Nadine smiled warmly at him. ‘He’ll probably be moved in the next hour or so. But once he wakes up, I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanks very much, Nadine,’ Rick said, wondering what on earth Karen had been talking about. She’d implied that the medical staff had been quite difficult and obstinate, but Nadine was incredibly friendly and helpful.
Nadine turned to walk away and then stopped. ‘He’s not in any trouble, is he?’
Rick shook his head. He didn’t want to lie, but he couldn’t let anything slip about this case. ‘I just want to ask him some questions about his fall.’
Nadine’s smile returned. ‘I’ll get you a cup of coffee, if you like. The stuff in the machine isn’t too good.’
‘That would be lovely.’
As he was waiting for Nadine to return, he noticed an old man shuffling along the corridor to the ICU ward. The man scratched his head, staring at the various posters and signs on the door, tried to open it and failed.
‘You need to press the green button, sir,’ Rick called out. ‘Then one of the nurses will come and let you in.’
The man turned around and held up a hand. ‘Oh, thank you.’
He held what looked like a bunch of grapes under his arm. He pressed the green button and, after a short wait, a nurse let him in.
After the old man disappeared inside the ward, Nadine approached and held out a mug of coffee for Rick.
‘I hope that’s all right. I’ve added a splash of milk, and here’s a packet of sugar if you need it. I forgot to ask how you took your coffee.’
‘That’s smashing. Perfect.’
Nadine blushed. ‘Well, I better get back to work. I’ll let you know when Mr Johnson wakes up.’
As Rick sipped his coffee, he wondered how Priya, his mother’s new carer, was getting on. She’d been helping Rick out by staying overnight three nights a week. But this was the first time she’d be alone with his mother all day.
His sister used to stay with their mother while Rick was at work. Because their mother had early-onset dementia, and her condition had worsened recently, she couldn’t be left on her own. But caring for someone in her condition wasn’t easy, and his sister had found it extremely difficult.
She still visited most days, but she’d taken a part-time job to help out with the costs of the carer. Today was a full training day at her new job, so she wouldn’t even be popping in.
Rick traced the outline of his mobile phone in his pocket and wondered whether he should call home and check up on Priya. He had just pulled his phone out when he heard someone call out.
He looked up and saw Nadine beckoning him over. Rick put his coffee mug down and slid his mobile back into his pocket, then walked towards her.
‘Any news?’
Nadine smiled. ‘Yes, he’s woken up.’
Karen checked her watch for the third time in five minutes. She and DI Morgan were going over some paperwork, but Karen was finding it hard to keep her mind on the task. They were still waiting to hear from Harinder.
‘Do you think it’s a bad sign we haven’t heard from him yet?’ Karen asked, putting her pen down on the desk.
‘It’s not even been an hour yet, Karen,’ DI Morgan said.
‘It’s been fifty-seven minutes.’
‘Patience isn’t your strong point, is it?’
Karen was about to argue but decided against it. He was right. She hated waiting for answers.
DI Morgan was walking over to the LaserJet to grab some printouts o
f their morning report when his mobile rang.
He said a few words to the caller and then pressed mute. ‘It’s my solicitor calling about the house sale. Go and see Harinder without me. If he hasn’t got any answers by now, maybe you can persuade him to work faster.’
DI Morgan was currently in the process of buying a house in Heighington after renting in the area since his move to Lincolnshire from the Thames Valley Police. Despite the pretty gruesome crime they had investigated in the village not long ago, DI Morgan had fallen in love with the location and decided it would be the perfect place to live.
Karen went downstairs to see Harinder alone. He was in the main computer room beside the laboratory. She stuck her head through the doorway. ‘So, Harry, what have you got for me?’
The room was small and crowded with electronic equipment. Harinder turned from the computer screen and gave Karen a wide smile.
He was young, good-looking, fiercely intelligent and made some of the female staff go weak at the knees, especially Sophie, who was always first to volunteer to liaise with the handsome technical analyst.
Karen didn’t understand the swooning over Harinder. He was too smooth and too young to be her type, but she still had a lot of time for him. He was extremely talented. Some of the technical staff could be stuffy and intimidating, but Harinder always had a ready smile when Karen visited the lab. She’d come to him with numerous problems in the past, and he’d always found a way to help. He had a strong work ethic and enjoyed solving problems.
‘Please tell me you have an ID for me,’ Karen said as she slipped into the computer chair beside him.
He smiled again. ‘When have I ever let you down, Karen?’
There were multiple windows open on his computer, and he quickly tapped on the keyboard, his fingers moving like lightning.
A fuzzy scanned image appeared on the monitor, and Karen felt her stomach sink. There was no way they could get anything from that.
‘I had to do a manual adjustment to really get the name and text to pop. It just involved tuning up the contrast and lighting. Here, let me zoom in.’
He used the mouse to select an area of the fuzzy driver’s licence, and an expanded view of the document appeared on the screen.
Karen stared in amazement. The name was clearly visible. She couldn’t believe he’d managed to get text from that stained piece of paper. It was magic.
‘Oliver Fox,’ she said quietly, reading from the screen. ‘So now we have a name for our victim. Brilliant. Do you have an address, too? Driver number?’
Harinder chuckled. ‘You’re never satisfied.’
Karen shrugged. ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get.’
‘The driver number is here, and that area is particularly stained and degraded,’ Harinder said, opening up another file, which displayed a larger fragment of the licence. ‘I need to work on it some more, but I may be able to get you the address, or at least part of it. God knows what’s leaked on to this driver’s licence. It’s definitely been stained with some kind of liquid.’
Karen pulled a face and wondered how much Raj had told Harinder. Did he know where the licence had been found? She knew the stains were likely to be putrefying fluids, which wasn’t the nicest thing to dwell on. She decided not to mention it.
‘Right,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Excellent work, Harry. Please do your best to get us an address. It’ll make our life a lot easier. I’ll send Sophie down later to see how you’re getting on.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ Harinder mumbled, but his attention was focused on the screen.
‘Thanks again,’ Karen said.
Karen rushed back to the main office, eager to give DI Morgan the good news. Now they had a name, they could get their teeth into this investigation. The victim’s ID had opened up a wealth of information.
She saw DI Morgan walking towards her as she entered the office.
‘I was just coming to find you,’ he said. ‘I’m guessing from the beaming smile on your face that Harinder has come through for us?’
Karen grinned. ‘He certainly did come through. He’s still working on the driver number and address, but he’s given us a name. Oliver Fox.’
DI Morgan followed her over to her desk.
‘Does the name ring a bell?’ he asked.
Karen nudged the mouse on her desk, bringing the computer screen to life, and then quickly typed in her password. ‘No, his name isn’t familiar to me, but if this crime happened decades ago, it would be long before my time.’
She logged into the system. ‘I’m going to see what I can find about Oliver Fox. He could be entered in our database. If not, I’ll try press archives, and if Harinder gets another good result, we might be able to use the driver number to check with the DVLA.’
‘I’m amazed he got anything from that tatty old licence,’ DI Morgan said. ‘Let’s hope someone filed a missing persons report on Oliver Fox, at the very least.’
Karen nodded as she typed the name into the search bar.
‘I’ll leave you to it and go and update the superintendent.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Sophie should be back soon. With three of us going through the records we should get a quick result. Have you heard anything from Rick?’
Karen shook her head but kept her eyes fixed on the screen. ‘Not yet. The hospital could be giving him the runaround. They just see Albert Johnson as a frail, elderly man that the police are harassing.’
‘Rick is quite capable of turning on the charm when he wants to,’ DI Morgan said. ‘Let’s hope that works to our advantage this time.’
After DI Morgan left, Karen completed the search and waited for the results to populate on her screen.
‘Come on,’ she muttered. ‘Tell me your secrets. It’s been decades, but we’re finally going to find out what happened to you.’
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk, and held her breath when she saw the top result on the screen.
It had to be him. A forty-five-year-old Oliver Fox from Skellingthorpe had gone missing in 1988. A missing persons report had been filed, and an officer was assigned to the case to investigate his disappearance.
Karen exhaled a long breath and clicked on the link to open the report.
Nineteen eighty-eight would be in the right time period. It would fit with what Raj had told them. There was a very good chance that this missing person would turn out to be the body in the suitcase.
She gritted her teeth when she realised that the report was only a covering page, which consisted of a few typed lines of information and a case reference number. The record hadn’t been fully digitised yet.
Great. This was a complication they could do without. It would take time to acquire the original report, and the clock was ticking. They couldn’t talk to their main suspect until he regained consciousness, they had no idea who’d sent Albert Johnson the threatening note, and to top it off, she couldn’t even access the files she needed.
Still, she now had an address and a date of birth, so that was a start. She made a note of the case reference number and checked her watch. Sophie would be heading back now from her appointment, so perhaps she could pick up the records on her way.
Karen only hoped they were still at the local police station and had not yet been taken to the main depository.
She picked up the phone on her desk and dialled Sophie’s number.
Sophie answered on the second ring. ‘Hello, Sarge, I’m just in the car park.’
‘Sorry, Sophie, I’m going to need you to get back in the car and head over to Skellingthorpe.’
There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then Sophie said, ‘Okay, why?’
‘We’ve had a development. A good one. We now have a name for our victim – Oliver Fox – and there’s a missing persons report filed for him. I have the reference number here, but it’s not been digitised, which means we need to get the paperwork from Skellingthorpe. I’ll email you the reference number, okay?’
‘All r
ight. I’ll head there now.’
‘Thanks, Sophie. I’ll give the station a ring and let them know you’re on the way. Hopefully, they’ll get the files ready for you.’
After she hung up, Karen stared at the screen. This man, Oliver Fox, had to be their victim, didn’t he? She bit down on her lower lip. Should they go and talk to the family before the full results from the lab were in? Or should they wait for the dental records? There was a minuscule chance the man could have been carrying somebody else’s wallet and driver’s licence.
Karen sighed and leaned back in her chair. How on earth had forty-five-year-old Oliver Fox ended up in Albert Johnson’s house in a suitcase?
She scribbled the names Oliver Fox and Albert Johnson on the notepad beside her keyboard, and drew an arrow linking the two.
She then put in a call to Skellingthorpe station and gave the reference number, telling them that DC Sophie Jones would be by shortly to pick up the records. Karen hung up and picked up her pen again. There was something about having a pen in her hand that helped her to think.
It was different now, for younger generations. They’d grown up with screens and computers and typed everything. But when Karen was at school, everything had been written by hand, and she still found the writing process more natural than typing.
She tapped the pen against her notepad. How was Albert Johnson involved? Was he a killer? Had he covered up the death of Oliver Fox after an accident? But that didn’t make any sense. If Oliver had died of natural causes or by accident, then surely Albert would have reported it to the police.
The phone on her desk rang, and she snatched it up. ‘DS Hart.’
‘Karen, it’s Darren Webb. We’ve finished looking around the loft at Albert Johnson’s property. I thought you’d want to know it looks like things had been moved around up there. It’s my opinion that the suitcase was brought down from the loft very recently.’
That was interesting. ‘Do you think Albert Johnson could have brought it down from the loft on his own?’
