Her Final Hour

by Rachel Amphlett

  Will fell into place behind two other jockeys at the weighing scales, ignoring the banter and jibes that accompanied the relief of a race completed without injury.

  His throat tightened at the realisation that Jessica was gone forever, that there would be no more excited phone calls to her after a race to tell her how he had ridden, and that she would never be at the end of the call to soothe his frustrations when he lost.

  He nodded to the steward as he rose from the scales and headed towards the changing rooms to shower as the voice of the winning jockey brayed across the room.

  The hot water soothed his mind, and he hurriedly towelled himself dry before dressing in jeans and a sweatshirt.

  A shadow fell across him while he was pulling on his boots and he raised his head, wondering what derogatory comment would be flung in his direction this time.

  Instead, an older jockey by the name of Patrick stood before him, his hand held out.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your loss, Will. And I’m sorry for what you’ve had to put up with tonight.’

  Will shook his hand. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘There are other trainers out there, you know. Better ones. Keep that in mind over the next few weeks.’

  Will gathered up his racing clothes after the other jockey wandered off and shoved them into a bag as the changing rooms emptied. He nodded to the steward who hovered at the door, and then made his way along the concrete path that wound between the racecourse buildings towards the designated parking area for the horse transport.

  ‘Brennan.’

  A figure moved from the shadows, towering over him.

  ‘Mr Adams.’

  MacKenzie placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him between the two cinderblock buildings, stopping when they reached a fire exit.

  ‘Don’t think I didn’t see what you did there.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘That horse should’ve won today. The competition out there tonight was shit. He should’ve come in lengths ahead. Instead, he came in fourth.’

  ‘I don’t know what was wrong with him,’ said Will. ‘He was playing up all the way around. I wondered if he was still spooked from the gallops last week.’

  ‘The horse isn’t the one who’s spooked.’ MacKenzie sneered. ‘You didn’t like the cameras being there, did you? What happened out there? Thought you’d lose so you didn’t have to face them again in the winners’ enclosure?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘You missed an opportunity, Brennan. They’d have wanted to speak to you, and we could have done with that publicity for the yard. That’s worth more than any press interview, I can tell you now. We could’ve been all over the front pages tomorrow morning, not to mention the television news.’

  Will swallowed, and dropped his gaze. ‘Sorry, Mr Adams. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. Jess has only been dead a week, and the police are still trying to find who killed her. I—’

  ‘I told you.’ MacKenzie’s forefinger jabbed against Will’s sternum. ‘If you want the rides, you need to focus. If you work for me, you’re representing the brand. That means if there’s an opportunity to get the media focused on what I’m doing, you do it.’

  He stepped away, glaring. ‘Get yourself sorted out, Brennan, and fast. Otherwise Hitchens can ride Onyx instead. Christ, even Nigel could have done a better job than you out there tonight. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Will watched as the racehorse trainer stalked back towards the concrete path, the man straightening his jacket before raising his hand in greeting to someone out of sight and hurrying after them.

  He exhaled, leaned against the wall of the changing rooms and raised his eyes to the night sky.

  Away from the glare of the enclosure’s floodlights, away from the stares and the muttered comments, he could almost imagine she was watching him, cheering him on.

  Will clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms.

  He would show them.

  He would show all of them.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Mark chose to take a bus into the town centre the following morning, a blustery rain squall buffeting him as he jogged between the bus stop and the front door of the police station.

  ‘Morning, Sarge,’ said PS Wilcox, and pressed a button to release the security lock.

  ‘Thanks, Tom. Quiet today?’

  ‘Yes, for now.’ The sergeant behind the front desk turned to him as he paused at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Any new leads with the girl’s murder?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’ Mark rested his hand on the newel post. ‘Bloody frustrating. You know what it’s like – headquarters will be expecting a result any day, but they won’t give us more manpower.’

  ‘Or can’t,’ said Wilcox. ‘We’re having to complement the weekend shifts with PCSOs for the next four months. That’ll be an eye-opening experience for them.’

  ‘It certainly will. Catch you later.’ Mark threw a wave over his shoulder and jogged up the stairs two at a time, then pushed into the incident room in time to see the detective inspector emerging from his office.

  ‘Are we all here? Good.’ Kennedy put two fingers in his mouth, emitting a shrill whistle. ‘Briefing, ladies and gentlemen. Two minutes. Do what you need to do.’

  Mark hovered at his desk as the rest of the room dissolved into organised chaos.

  Phone calls were tactfully ended, computer keyboards were attacked with gusto, and he reckoned the IT department would be getting several emails about the lack of photocopiers the way a queue was forming at the far end of the incident room.

  He realised Jan hadn’t appeared since his arrival, and cast his gaze over the heads of his colleagues, wondering where she had gone, and then spotted her balancing two steaming mugs of tea as she negotiated the throng.

  Grinning, she handed one over, and then tugged a chocolate bar from the front of her blouse and held it out to him.

  He blinked. ‘I’m not even going to ask where you put that.’

  ‘I’ve only got two hands. You can go hungry if you want.’ She laughed as he snatched the chocolate from her. ‘Thought so.’

  ‘Come on.’

  He let her go on ahead so she could find a seat near the front of the crowd that was gathered around the whiteboard, and then took a sip of tea as Kennedy began the meeting.

  ‘Right, let’s crack on with it. First things first – we’ve still got search results to come in from forensics who worked with uniform to check the entrances to three fields and a woodland up that lane between the pub and the main road. Alex – chase that up, and let me know immediately if any tread marks are found that might be our killer’s vehicle.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Kennedy. ‘Interviews at Dominic Millar’s stables. Tom, do you want to start us off?’

  Wilcox took a step forward from his position next to the photocopier and held up a sheaf of paperwork. ‘All the statements were entered into HOLMES2 last night but the gist of it is that although two or three of the staff there knew Jessica in passing, it was only because they drank at the Farriers and saw her from time to time. None of them socialised with her or Will.’

  ‘Do all their movements check out for the timeframe we’ve got?’

  ‘Yes, guv. We’re doing a vehicle check on those who have cars or motorbikes as a matter of course, and if anything crops up from that I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Thank you. Mark and Jan – I understand you spoke with Dominic Millar?’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ said Mark. ‘His statement and his alibi check out – his brother was staying with him last Monday night and confirmed when I spoke with him that as far as he’s aware, Dominic didn’t leave the house until it was time to go to work in the yard at five o’clock on the Tuesday morning. Unlike MacKenzie Adams, he can’t afford a yard manager so he oversees all the lads and horses himself.’

  ‘All right, so we can discount him?’

  ‘Not
quite,’ said Jan. She held up her phone. ‘Sorry, but I was just doing a search for his name in relation to the accident that forced him into retirement. He seemed a bit reticent to talk about it yesterday, didn’t he?’

  ‘He did,’ said Mark. ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Everything he told us is true,’ she said, ‘but he omitted to tell us that the race he was injured in was subsequently won by Will Brennan.’ She dropped her phone to her lap. ‘To all intents and purposes, the race that ended Dominic’s career was the one that launched Will’s.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Jan pushed away the remains of a ham and cheese sandwich as her desk phone rang, and bit back a sigh.

  She was starving, having worked through any semblance of a lunch break to research Dominic Millar’s racing accident and his subsequent recovery in an attempt to find out if he’d ever crossed paths with Will Brennan again.

  She had hit a dead end, and tried not to let her frustration show as she answered the call.

  ‘It’s Tom on the front desk. I’ve got Annie Hartman here with a hard drive. She says you were waiting for some CCTV images from the petrol station.’

  ‘Fantastic.’ Jan pushed back her chair and signalled to Turpin at the desk opposite. ‘We’ll be right there.’

  ‘She did well to get that sorted out so quickly,’ said Turpin as he shrugged his jacket over his shoulders and followed her down the stairs.

  ‘It’s a small company,’ said Jan. ‘And I think Annie and Isaac want to do everything possible to catch Jessica’s killer. She obviously meant a lot to them.’

  She opened the door through to reception and saw Hartman silhouetted against the front window of the police station as she watched the traffic go past.

  ‘Mrs Hartman? Thanks for coming in.’

  ‘It’s Ms. Please, call me Annie.’ She shook hands with them both, and then reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope. ‘I thought it’d make a lot more sense for me to hand this over in person rather than risk it going missing in the post. I would’ve brought it in sooner but head office only provided the files late last night.’

  ‘This is great, thank you. Would you join us to watch the footage from that Thursday afternoon?’ said Jan. ‘It’d be a great help, in case we have any questions.’

  ‘Of course. I don’t have to be at the supermarket until five o’clock, so I’ve got all afternoon.’

  ‘Come this way.’

  Turpin buzzed his security pass and led the way upstairs to a room that was used as an observation suite for the interview rooms on the ground floor as well as a makeshift meeting space for non-investigative matters.

  A musty atmosphere filled the space, and, as Jan flipped the light switch, she noticed the thin layer of dust across the table in the middle.

  While Turpin set up the computer and overhead screen, she turned to Annie.

  ‘Have you heard anything in passing at work about Jessica?’

  ‘No – apart from the customers who knew her quite well and have been passing on their condolences,’ she said. She tugged her padded coat off and draped it over the back of a chair. ‘I’ve started a collection tin to raise money for a charity of Jessica’s family’s choice when they feel up to making a decision about that, and a lot of customers have been dropping in cards as well. I still can’t believe this happened to her. It’s awful.’

  ‘We’re ready,’ said Turpin, dropping into seat next to Jan. He reached forward and wiggled the mouse to wake up the computer, and then inserted the USB stick the supermarket manager handed to him. ‘Which file, Annie?’

  ‘You’ve got every day on there from the beginning of the month until last Friday. We figured you’d want to see if this person Jessica was worried about came back after she died.’

  ‘That’s good thinking, thank you. Which file is the one for the last Thursday Isaac and Jessica worked together?’

  Annie pointed it out and then folded her hands in her lap as the CCTV footage began to play on the overhead screen. ‘The IT man at head office had to splice them into twenty-minute clips, otherwise the files would’ve been too big. Is that all right?’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ said Jan. ‘We’ll set it at a faster speed, and then if we want to highlight anything we can stop and go back at a slower rate.’

  The camera from which the film had been extracted was set above and behind the two tills at the front of the petrol station so that she was looking at the backs of Isaac and Jessica’s heads while they worked.

  It was clear to see that the two enjoyed working together, with Jessica laughing and joking with her older colleague in between serving customers. A lump formed in Jan’s throat as she watched the ease with which the young woman dealt with people, especially the elderly ones who seemed to want to spend time chatting with her.

  ‘She was popular,’ she said.

  ‘She was,’ said Annie, her voice cracking.

  The next hour and a half went by with a grating monotony as they stared at the grainy black and white footage, and Jan began to wonder if Jessica had imagined the mystery man she thought had been watching her. She glanced at her watch, and then back to the screen as Turpin called out.

  ‘Here we go.’

  He stood and moved closer to the screen, his shadow passing in front of it before he moved away and pointed at the image. ‘What’s in this refrigerator here?’

  ‘Cold drinks, sandwiches, that sort of thing,’ said Annie. ‘The owners figured out that they could make extra money having those chiller cabinets close to the tills so people would be tempted while they were queueing. It works a treat, and saves us money by the staff not having to sort out issues with one of those rented coffee machines.’

  On the screen, Isaac and Jessica were studiously serving, their usual friendly banter shortened due to the sudden influx of customers that snaked around the shelves nearest the tills and past the chiller cabinets.

  She held her breath as a man’s shape moved into view.

  He lurked behind a shelf laden with oversized snack bags and loitered at the fringes of the queue without joining it, his face obscured by a display of car cleaning accessories.

  ‘That’s got to be him,’ said Jan. ‘Top right.’

  ‘Shit.’ Turpin crossed his arms and glared at the recording.

  ‘Move,’ said Jan. ‘Come on.’

  She held her breath as the figure hovered behind the queue, his feet clearly visible as he shuffled from side to side as if unsure what to do next.

  ‘Yes!’ She stabbed her finger on the “pause” button.

  On screen, the man had taken a step forward, perhaps to peer at Jessica around the elderly couple in front of him, perhaps to gauge how much longer he could observe her without being questioned, but the moment he moved, he’d revealed his face.

  He’d worn a cap pulled down over his eyes; the sort made from thick cloth and chequered in subtle tones. In his haste to see what Jessica was doing, he’d forgotten about the camera above the till.

  Jan had paused the recording at the exact moment recognition flashed across his face and he realised his mistake.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ she whispered.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Annie Hartman had been unable to help Jan and Turpin ascertain who the man on the camera footage was, but promised to keep a look out for him in the event he returned to the petrol station.

  After seeing Annie through reception and thanking her for her time, Jan hurried up the stairs to the incident room.

  A murmur filled the space; a white noise that underlay the number of people who moved back and forth between desks, and the door to the corridor hissing shut as errands were made, lines of enquiry were exhausted, and favours negotiated in order that Kennedy could keep the staffing levels currently assigned to the investigation.

  And, underneath that, a measure of desperation.

  Now that the investigation was over a week old, every move would be scrutinised by management and those in cha
rge of the overtime budget.

  She wished she could show the politicians the effect of budget cuts on her community; not only in her role as detective constable, but in the wider perception of the other mothers she met at school events, who glared at her as if her attendance should be attributed to more than the occasional sports day or parents’ evening.

  How could she even explain to them the passion she held for seeing justice done?

  Thank God Scott understood and supported her, and the boys were of an age where they simply accepted the routine they all worked around.

  She knew it couldn’t last forever.

  She’d seen colleagues’ careers fall past the wayside as the pressures of family life and juggling long hours took their toll.

  Jan bit her lip as she paused next to her desk and eyed the manila folders that had piled up in her tray in her absence.

  In addition to the murder enquiry, she and Turpin were expected to close out enquiries about two assaults that had taken place in the town centre at the beginning of the month, a suspected domestic violence case, and a car theft.

  She bit back a sigh and resolved to phone Scott to mind the boys tonight as soon as the afternoon briefing was over. Somehow, she’d make it up to them as soon as they had charged Jessica’s killer.

  She tossed the files back into the tray and walked towards the whiteboard.

  While she’d been dealing with the formalities of signing out Annie, Turpin had taken screen captures from the CCTV recordings of the man’s image and now stood at the front of the room, pinning the photographs to the board.

  ‘Good work, you two,’ said Kennedy. He tugged at his tie and dropped it onto a desk as he joined the detective sergeant.

  ‘It would’ve been good if there had been more cameras beyond the forecourt as well,’ said Jan. ‘As it is, we don’t know what he was driving, or where he went. He arrived and left the petrol station on foot.’