An Eye for an Eye (Detective Kate Young)

by Carol Wyer

  Morgan continued, ‘UCL said she was a model student. Aced all her exams. I put a call in to the admin at the university at Harare where she studied, and I’m waiting for them to ring back. Her personal records show her as single, parents deceased and next of kin as Hope Masuku, aged thirty-five, listed as living in Harare. There’s a contact number for her that I’ve tried ringing, but there’s no answer.’

  Kate spoke. ‘Faith told me she was divorced.’

  ‘Not according to her records.’

  It had been yet another tale spun to earn Kate’s trust. She balled her fist and tapped it against the table. ‘All right, what about Hope? Do you have any info on her?’

  ‘I’ve contacted the Zimbabwe embassy for further information.’

  ‘She’s got a head start on us.’

  ‘We don’t know she’s gone,’ said Morgan.

  Kate ticked off each sentence on a finger. ‘She phoned in sick but was seen leaving the building at 6 a.m. She didn’t look ill. She hasn’t been in her apartment all day. Her phone is switched off. On our way back, we rang it twice, and it goes directly through to a messaging service.’

  ‘She could be playing hooky.’

  ‘Morgan!’ Emma turned on him. ‘Stop being obstructive.’

  ‘I’m being sensible. You’re rushing into this without any facts or evidence to back you up.’

  Kate held up both hands. ‘Okay. Let’s calm down. Can we trace her car?’

  Morgan shook his head. ‘I’ve tried already. She doesn’t own one. She’s been borrowing vehicles from the laboratory’s car pool.’

  ‘Contact her mobile provider and find out when and where the last call was made or received.’

  Morgan leapt to it. Emma set to work hunting for a number for the forensic science services in Coventry. Kate paced the small room and replayed every conversation she’d had with Faith. She stopped to rest her head against the cool glass and inwardly groaned. It all made sense to her. It was her fault Faith had scarpered. She’d stupidly told her about the blood on the carpet being female. She’d unwittingly given away information that had sent Faith into hiding. The blood would place her at the scene of the crime. Kate knew it would. If only she had been focusing more on the case and not on Dickson!

  Morgan had finished his conversation. ‘The last call was made at three o’clock yesterday afternoon, to an unknown pay-as-you-go number. I’m waiting for full phone records, which should arrive soon.’

  ‘How did she ring in sick today if she didn’t use her phone?’

  Morgan shrugged.

  ‘She must have used a phone.’ She chewed at her thumb for a moment. Outside, the traffic meandered non-stop past the building: vans, cars and lorries attached by an invisible cord. ‘Shit! ’

  She spun around again. ‘We’re stuck until Ervin comes through for us or we hear back from somebody. We’ve no option other than to search her apartment for clues to her whereabouts. Her neighbour said another woman has been living in the apartment with her, but couldn’t give us any description. Morgan, I want you to go there, check with other residents in the block and see if anyone else saw or met either woman. Take the enforcer with you and meet me outside Faith’s apartment in half an hour. I need to arrange a search warrant.’

  ‘What about Cooper?’ asked Morgan.

  ‘Leave Cooper to stew. Our priority is Faith. Emma, carry on here and ring me if you need me or have any information. We must locate her.’

  With Morgan and Kate out searching Faith’s apartment, Emma made swift progress and contacted the operations director at the forensics services in Coventry. Using Skype, she managed to link up with Oliver Bradshaw, a middle-aged man who’d retained a boyish full-cheeked face, set off by a large sprinkling of freckles and a thick crop of red hair.

  ‘I remember Faith well – charming woman.’

  ‘Can you tell me how you came to employ her?’

  Oliver sat back in his chair and fiddled with a silver ballpoint pen. ‘It was her who found us. She applied for three different jobs with us over a period of six months. We felt she was overqualified for all of them, so we turned down her applications. However, in July 2020 we offered a position working in digital forensics, and she not only applied for it but rang me personally to request an interview.’

  ‘Did you think that was strange?’

  ‘At first I did, but she was incredibly enthusiastic and the best candidate by a mile, so we snapped her hand off, so to speak, and hired her.’ He flicked the top of his pen, a repetitive click, click, click as he spoke, before balancing it in the open hands of a miniature knight-in-armour pen holder on his desk. ‘She came to us at the beginning of August.’

  ‘And I assume she got on okay?’

  ‘Oh yes, she was extremely good. So good, in fact, that when a position for head of department came up, I offered her the promotion, but she turned it down flat.’

  ‘I expect her response came as a surprise.’

  ‘It most certainly did. However, I was more surprised when she left us abruptly to take up an inferior position at Stoke. It seemed a bizarre choice when she could have been a head of department here.’

  ‘Did she explain her actions?’

  ‘Apparently she had friends in Stoke and wanted to be near them.’

  ‘Did she make any friends in Coventry? If so, we’d like to talk to one or two of them.’

  ‘She got along with everyone in the department, but to my knowledge didn’t make any friends.’

  ‘Did she mention any family?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Have you had any contact with her since she left?’

  ‘None. This job is like any other. People move on, although maybe not as quickly as she did, and I’m still baffled as to why she didn’t accept the promotion. She’s an extremely intelligent woman and, I believed, career-oriented. I must have misjudged her.’

  ‘You say she claimed to have friends in Stoke. Did she mention any names?’

  ‘No, although I happen to know she went there most weekends or on her days off.’

  ‘Did she drive here?’

  ‘She didn’t own a car. I imagine she took the train.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell me about her?’

  He lifted a fidget spinner and casually turned it over between his fingers. ‘I can’t think of anything else. She kept herself to herself.’

  ‘If you think of anything, would you let me know?’

  ‘I shall. Nice to talk to you.’

  ‘And you.’

  Emma ended her call. It was becoming increasingly clear to her that Faith had chosen to come to Stoke for a reason, had even been willing to take on a job beneath her abilities to get here.

  Her inbox pinged: an incoming email. Faith’s mobile provider had come good and sent across a list of all calls made and received, stretching back as far as September 2018, when the account had first been set up. She flicked through to 2019 and 2020. There were numerous ones to numbers with the Stoke-on-Trent prefix, even when Faith had been working in Coventry. Emma recognised Ervin’s number and the laboratory’s, but two stood out: a foreign number with a +263 prefix – no doubt the international dialling code for Zimbabwe – and a pay-as-you-go number that had only been rung a few times over the last two weeks and had been dialled the day before. She picked up the internal phone to speak to somebody in the technical department. If she could trace the owner of this number, they might just have found the lead they needed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  WEDNESDAY, 9 JUNE – AFTERNOON

  Kate cursed herself as she drove towards the apartment block she’d left only an hour earlier. She’d handled this investigation badly and wasted valuable time, but she’d pull it back. The traffic lights near the church turned to red as she approached, and she drummed the steering wheel impatiently. A bus had drawn up on the other side of the road and passengers crossed on the pedestrian crossing in front of her: a woman holding the hand of a five- or six-year
-old boy. Behind them, shoppers, carrying bags for life emblazoned with slogans, and a group of teenagers who ambled across after the lights had changed, avoiding the gaze of irritated motorists. It had been a while since she’d been out shopping for pleasure. Then again, it had been some time since she’d acted as a fully functioning, normal human.

  She pulled away, past the pub, whose cream facade was grey from traffic fumes, and was forced to stop again as a dark-skinned man darted across the road from Domino’s Pizza with a cardboard box in his hands. He grinned his thanks, white teeth dazzling much like those of Faith’s nephew in the photograph she’d seen. She searched the man’s wrist for a sign of a woven bracelet, but spotted none, and then reasoned such bracelets were popular: she might be wrong to have made the association between the boy in the shallow grave and Faith’s nephew.

  Chris spoke out. ‘No. You’re on it. Faith is definitely involved in this somehow. Okay, maybe she’s not responsible for the actual murders, but she’s involved nonetheless. The boy you found at the Maddox Club is going to turn out to be her nephew. Of course, you don’t know who the second woman is, do you? She might be an accomplice, or even the killer. It would help if you could identify her.’

  ‘I need luck in that department, and some evidence or pointers wouldn’t go amiss.’

  ‘All in good time. Stick to procedure, keep digging and you’ll get the results you’re searching for, Kate. You’ve always worked that way, and it’s always yielded results.’

  ‘And I believed that was the right way to go, but . . . are they always the right results? I maintain Faith is involved or responsible for these murders, but what if I’ve overlooked somebody else who’s managed to slip under the radar?’

  ‘You’re thinking of Dickson, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. He was at the club the night the boy was killed.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s mixed up in this, but you have to somehow prove it, and to do so you’ll need to find Faith. You’re doing fine. Don’t beat yourself up. Remember, I believe in you.’

  She waited for a car to manoeuvre into a parking space by the side of the road before continuing. ‘I like you being here, talking things through with me, like we used to before—’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘Don’t leave me alone.’

  ‘I’m here as long as you want me to be.’

  ‘Good.’

  Morgan stood in the stairwell with the enforcer, a small battering ram, in his hands. He spoke as soon as Kate appeared. ‘No joy with identifying Faith’s mystery guest. Some folk are still out at work. I’ll try again later.’

  Kate doubted he’d have much luck. The women, like the killer, were ghostlike, coming and going quietly and unnoticed. She hammered on Faith’s door again. Nobody came out to find out what all the hullabaloo was about, further compounding her suspicions that it would be unlikely anyone had spotted the women. People in this building kept to themselves. It was probably one of the reasons Faith had chosen to reside here.

  ‘Open it,’ she said to Morgan, standing back while he pressed the battering ram against the door. It broke away without protest; only a sharp crack. He pushed it with his foot and it opened wide on to a sitting-cum-dining room: a white-topped Formica table with wooden legs and matching chairs to their right and a two-seater black fabric settee and wooden unit on which stood a small portable television at the far end of the room. Somebody had painted the walls off-white and hung gold leaf-patterned curtains on poles over the windows. Kate doubted it was Faith. This smacked of a furnished rental property with its flat-packed, easy-to-assemble cheap furniture.

  Morgan’s face scrunched up at the strong smell of bleach. ‘Somebody’s recently cleaned up.’

  Floors, tops and every surface had undoubtedly been scrubbed. A door led into a corridor, at one end of which was a galley kitchen with white units, black worktops and a fridge-freezer. The paraphernalia associated with daily life was missing – no magazines left out, no slippers, cups or odds and ends to suggest that somebody lived here. Kate donned plastic gloves and peered inside the fridge. It was shiny-clean and empty. She spun on her heel and marched along the corridor, passing an open door. She peered into the room, spotted a shower cubicle and said, ‘You take this one.’ At the end of the corridor she found herself in a bedroom. The bed was stripped of sheets. Kate moved aside a peacock-blue curtain and uncovered a set of shelves over which was a rail for clothes. It was empty.

  ‘There’s nothing in the bathroom. Not even a toothbrush,’ called Morgan.

  ‘She’s definitely cleared out.’ They returned to the dingy hallway. Kate fell silent for a moment, questions exploding in her mind. Finally, she spoke. ‘She can’t have taken everything with her. She’s been meticulous in cleaning this place and leaving no sign she was ever here. It was common knowledge she lived here, so she must have been getting rid of traces of something or somebody else.’

  ‘The woman who was here with her?’

  ‘Uh-huh. She didn’t expect to leave today. Something triggered a sudden departure.’ You, Kate. ‘She’s stripped the bed, taken the sheets, removed all her personal belongings, but she must have left some things behind she couldn’t take with her – uneaten food, milk – consumables. If she’s gone by train, she couldn’t carry it all, and if she’s got a lift or rented a car, she wouldn’t want to take the chance of being spotted moving backward and forward carrying things. She’ll have dumped it instead. There must be some communal bins to these apartments.’

  The staircase rang with their footsteps as they clattered back downstairs and hunted for a back exit. A grubby door led to an area where two industrial-sized bins were placed side by side. Kate put a second pair of plastic gloves over her first, lifted the lid of the closest bin and recoiled at the smell. Holding her breath, she peered in again. ‘There are about a dozen bags. We’ll have to search them all.’

  Morgan blew out his cheeks. ‘Some days I hate this job.’

  ‘Stop whingeing and grab one,’ she said, tugging at the nearest black bag. It landed at her feet with a hefty thud and she set about opening it. The contents – half-eaten pizzas and other rubbish – spilled on to the ground. She picked through it gingerly. On coming across pots of baby food and nappy sacks, she shovelled up the waste and pushed it back into the plastic bag. This one had clearly belonged to a family. Morgan was hunting through another, face puckered in a grimace as he withdrew rotting banana skins and slimy peelings. She dragged out a third, lighter than the first, and tied up neatly and so tightly Kate couldn’t undo the knot in it. Ripping a hole in the side, she saw what she expected: cheese still in its wrapper, a half-eaten pack of butter. ‘Got it!’

  Morgan abandoned his search. Kate pulled out an object and held it up.

  Morgan eyed the red apple. ‘Well, it’s the same colour as the ones we found at the crime scenes.’

  ‘I bet you’ll find it’s the same variety as the ones the killer used – Macoun. See if you can find any more.’

  Morgan sighed and stretched his long arm into the industrial bin.

  Emma scratched at her cheek. She’d identified the majority of the phone numbers on the list and a picture was beginning to form. Faith had been hunting for somebody.

  Morgan slammed the door open and stomped inside. ‘Looks like Faith’s our killer, or certainly involved in the murders.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘She’s cleared out of her apartment, but we found some apples like those left behind at the crime scenes. I want to check out something, so give me a second.’

  ‘Where’s Kate?’

  ‘With Forensics. We had to drop a bin bag off with them. I’ll tell you in a minute.’ He concentrated over his keyboard for a minute, then mumbled, ‘It’s all pointing to Faith. Kate thinks the apples are a variety known as Macoun. They’re grown in the USA, but according to this, there’s a woman in Zimbabwe who grows them. She started up her own business growing apples in Juliasdale. She employs quite a few
people. And Faith is also originally from Juliasdale.’

  ‘Interesting. We’ve found a connection to the Macoun apples. We still don’t know anything about the woman who stayed at Faith’s apartment. She could be involved, too. I’ve got a theory.’

  ‘Want to run it past me?’

  ‘Since September 2018, she’s religiously phoned this Zimbabwe number every week – it belongs to her sister, Hope. Two weeks ago, the calls to that number stopped. At the same time, this pay-as-you-go number appeared on her contact list and Faith made calls to and received calls from it on a daily basis, sometimes three or four times a day.’

  ‘Have you rung her sister on the Zimbabwe number?’

  ‘I did, but there was no answer. Nor from the mobile. Faith’s neighbour was sure there were two women in Faith’s apartment. I reckon Hope came to the UK, moved in with Faith and got the pay-as-you-go so they could keep in touch.’

  ‘Why do you think the sister turned up?’ asked Morgan.

  ‘Come on, Morgan. Keep up. Faith has been hunting for somebody in the Stoke area since August last year. She rang various homeless charities, the library, churches, right up until mid-January this year. Then there were no more calls.’

  He began to nod slowly. ‘Because she found whoever she was looking for.’

  ‘Then she ditched her job in Coventry in April and moved here.’

  ‘It has to be her nephew, doesn’t it? I’ll get a trace on that pay-as-you-go and see if I can find out from the border police if Hope has entered or left the country.’

  ‘Who’s left the country?’ Kate was at the door.

  As Kate came in, Emma launched into what she and Morgan had discovered about Faith and the apples.

  Kate listened intently to their theories. ‘I think we’re on to something here. I can’t see why else she’d move from Coventry to Stoke, especially with a promotion in the offing.’

  Emma agreed. ‘She told Oliver her friends all lived in the Stoke-on-Trent area.’

  Kate had believed she and Faith were friends, or at least becoming friends. The thought rankled, but she pushed it from her mind. ‘Well, we know she was lying. Ervin’s been worried about her precisely because she has no friends here. Not one.’