by M K Farrar
“I can go and question one of them,” Shawn offered.
“I’ll do the other,” said DC Hannah Rudd.
“What about her teachers at college?” Erica said. “Let’s find out who she had classes with and see if any of them know anything—any fall outs with people in class, if she’s attended regularly—that kind of thing.”
“I can do that after,” Rudd said.
“Good. So far, we only have the park warden as a person of interest, and that’s purely because he found the body and has a history of violence. We need something more.”
“I’ve been calling around all the shops and restaurants in the local area that sell sushi,” Shawn said. “There’s a surprisingly large number of them. I had no idea it was so popular.”
Erica grimaced. “Give me a regular sandwich any day. Cold rice and fish. No thanks.”
“It’s delicious with a good dose of soy sauce and a hit of wasabi.”
She tutted at him. “I thought you had better taste.”
“Anyway,” he continued, in a tone that told her he wasn’t arguing with her, “I’ve requested CCTV footage from that afternoon to evening from each of them. No idea if it’ll help or not, but if we could catch who she spent her final evening with, it would be a huge help.”
“You’re not wrong there.” She turned to DC Howard. “What about CCTV footage from the park? Any luck with that?”
He pointed his pen at her. “Not yet, but I’m still working on it.”
“Let me know as soon as you have anything.”
With everyone clear on their next actions, Erica dismissed the meeting. She went back to her computer and brought up some social media sites and typed in Stacey Ford’s name. It was a common one, so she searched it together with ‘London’ and the name of the college she’d attended.
Teenagers didn’t even use social media that Erica was familiar with. Sites like Snapchat and TikTok were a complete mystery to her. Even so, she managed to find Stacey on a couple of sites, and she quickly scrolled through them. Something strange caught her attention. Up until two months ago, Stacey had been active on social media, posting pouting pictures of her with her friends, different memes, and pictures of cute animals and scenery. But then overnight, it appeared to stop.
What had happened to put Stacey off posting? Was it around the same time she’d started withdrawing from her parents?
Erica clicked on a couple of Stacey’s friends’ profiles, wondering if they’d also followed the same kind of pattern. She recognised their faces from the pictures Stacey had posted before going quiet. They were still posting as normal, but Stacey was noticeably missing from any of the photos.
Did that mean she wasn’t with them? Or just that she’d made them all promise not to post her photograph? Her father said that Stacey was out all the time, but there was no evidence of a busy social life from the photos.
If Stacey hadn’t been with her friends, what had she been doing all those times she went out? Had she been going somewhere alone, or had she been meeting someone? If so, who? An unsuitable man she hadn’t wanted anyone to know about, possibly an older man or one who was married?
A mystery surrounded the teenager’s sudden change in personality, and Erica was sure whatever had happened, it had eventually led to her murder.
Someone knew where Stacey had been going. She just had to find out who.
Chapter Thirteen
Shawn pulled his car up outside the student flat.
Stacey’s friend, Nicole Burke, had already turned eighteen. She lived in a high-rise block of flats that looked like it had seen better days, and he briefly wondered if this was the kind that had the flammable cladding. He wasn’t sure how people could manage to sleep in buildings like this one after a similar structure had gone up in flames and killed countless people. He guessed the residents here most likely didn’t have any choice.
He caught a lift up and took the walkway to the flat number he needed.
The student flat was run-down, a carrier bag of empty bottles at the front door—no doubt intended to be taken for recycling. At least the younger generation were environmentally conscious these days. A vase of dying flowers sat in the window, beyond which was a small and tired kitchen.
He rapped his knuckles against the front door, peeling red paint coming off on his skin.
An attractive young woman answered. Despite it being cold now, she was dressed in only a crop top and a skin-tight skirt. She was either off out somewhere or she had the central heating up high.
“Nicole Burke?” he asked, holding up his ID.
Her gaze raked up and down his body. “Nah, hang on. I’ll get her.”
Without bothering to step back, she leaned in slightly and yelled, “Nicole, there’s a fit cop on the doorstep asking for you.”
Shawn blushed at the description, pleased it wouldn’t be so noticeable on his brown skin. He glanced away, wishing the girl would stop looking him up and down like that. She chewed gum and smirked, as though perfectly aware of what she was doing.
A second girl appeared behind the first. She was short and curvy, with almost waist-length dark hair.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Miss Burke?”
“Yes? Is something wrong?”
“I wondered if we could talk. In private,” he added, shooting a look to the flatmate.
“Umm, of course. Come in. We’ll go in the lounge.”
“Thank you.”
Nicole led him into the room and shut the door behind her. “Sorry about Faye. She can be a bit much.”
“Not a problem.” He took a seat and waited for Nicole to do the same. It was hot in here. He was tempted to take off his jacket, but he didn’t know how long he’d be staying. When she perched on the edge of a chair opposite, he continued. “Do you know Stacey Ford?”
Her eyes widened a fraction. “Stacey? Yeah, I do. I mean, we haven’t seen much of each other recently, but we’re friends.”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that Stacey’s body was discovered yesterday morning.”
Nicole clamped both her hands to her mouth. “Oh my God. That’s terrible. Poor Stacey.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Her parents must be devastated. What happened?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, but we believe someone killed her.”
“She was murdered? By whom?”
“Again, we’re unsure yet, that’s why I’m here.”
She paled. “You think I’d know who killed Stacey?”
He clasped his hands between his knees. “Not necessarily, but you might be able to give us some insight into who might have wanted her dead.”
She blinked a couple of times, and her tongue swiped across her lower lip. “I—I’m not sure. I haven’t seen much of her lately. She stopped wanting to come out.”
Shawn frowned. “That’s strange. Her father seems to think she was out all the time. That it was quite normal for her to stay out for prolonged periods of time. That was one of the reasons they didn’t report her missing until now.”
“Well, she wasn’t with me, or any of our other friends either. We just assumed she was home.”
“You weren’t aware of her seeing anyone then?”
“Umm...no. She wasn’t seeing anyone. Not that she told me, anyway.”
“Stacey’s father thinks she became very withdrawn over the past few months. Have you got any idea why?”
She bit at her lower lip and glanced away.
“Nicole, if you know something, it would be really helpful for us to be told what it is. It could be important.”
“She made me promise to never tell anyone.” Her eyes flooded with tears. “She was so embarrassed, humiliated. I told her to go to the police, but she refused. She didn’t want anyone else to know, and now I feel as though I’m betrayed her memory by speaking to you.”
“I’m sure Stacey would have wanted us to find whoever did this to her, even if it means breaking that promise. W
hen she made you promise to never tell, she had no way of knowing what was lying in her future. I’m sure if she had, she’d never have said it.”
“I know you’re right, I just feel so bad for her, First that, and then...this.”
Shawn remained silent, allowing the girl time to process what needed to be done. He understood whatever oath she’d given to her friend might be important to her, but finding her killer far outweighed her promise.
She let out a deep sigh. “Stacey went out one night. She met these two blokes at a club, and they invited her back to theirs. There was coke at their flat, and Stacey had already been drinking. They started doing lines, and she ended up really wasted. She couldn’t really remember much after that, but she remembered one of the men kissing her, and then the other one sitting on the other side of her on the sofa. She said she must have blacked out after that, but when she came back round, she was naked on the sofa and the men were still sitting up, drinking and doing lines. She said they laughed at her and called her a whore, and when she threatened to go to the police, they told her they’d filmed her being more than enthusiastic about sucking both of their—you know what—and that if she made trouble for them, they’d post it online.”
“Jesus. Poor girl.”
“Yeah, she was mortified. She grabbed her clothes and ran out of there.”
Could this be enough of a reason to want Stacey Ford dead? Had she decided to take these men on, and instead of posting their video, perhaps aware it would implicate them in an assault, they’d decided to kill her instead? It was certainly a possibility, but it didn’t explain the strange clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been killed, or the marks cut into her skin.
“Do you know who these men were?” he asked.
“I’m not sure she even knew their names. If she did, she never told me.”
“What about where they lived?”
She shook her head. “Sorry. Stacey refused to say any more than that. She was terrified of it getting back to the men and them going ahead with their threat.”
“Did she tell you what club she was in?”
“One in the city, but that’s all.”
“Who did she go there with?
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know. She really wouldn’t tell me anything. I think she was worried I’d go to the police myself.”
A seventeen-year-old girl didn’t just go out to bars and clubs on her own. She must have been with someone, and that someone might have seen the two men who’d assaulted and threatened her. Who would leave a teenage girl on her own in a club in London? Unless she’d already been meeting one of the men, perhaps on a dating app or something similar. He made a mental note to check with digital forensics to see if anything came up on the laptop that would indicate Stacey meeting people online.
“Do you know the exact date this happened to her?” he asked.
She chewed on her lip again, and Shawn started to see this was a bit of a nervous habit.
“Umm...hang on. Let me check.” She picked up her phone from the side and scrolled back through it, looking for something. “Stacey sent me a message after it had happened. I should still have it here.”
“Can I see it?”
Nicole handed over the phone.
Really need to talk to someone. Can we meet?
The text was from almost two months earlier.
“Can I take a picture of this?” he asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
Shawn snapped an image with his own phone and handed hers back.
“If you can remember who Stacey might have been with the night of the incident, can you let me know? It could be important.”
“I’ll ask around, see if anyone else knows.”
DC Rudd was also asking questions of Stacey Ford’s friends. It was vital she knew this bit of information before she got started. If they knew which club Stacey had gone to that night, they might be able to track down the CCTV footage from that night and get an idea of the identities of the two men she was with.
Shawn rose to his feet. “Thank you for your time.”
“No problem.” She got up as well, to see him out.
A scuffling came at the door, and Shawn opened it to find the other girl darting to the end of the hallway.
“If there’s anything you know,” he called after her. “Nicole has my number.”
She spun around with a smile. “Can we use that number just to call you and ask you out?”
“Only if you want to be charged with wasting police time,” he replied coolly.
She pointed a finger at him. “Won’t be doing that then. See ya.”
Not so long ago, he’d have happily had her take his number, but now he’d turned thirty, the flirty, bubbly eighteen-year-old before him now just seemed like trouble. Maybe he’d got old too fast, but he didn’t have time for playing games or pandering to someone else’s insecurities. He wanted someone independent. Someone who chose to be with him because they wanted to be with him, not because they just needed to have a man in their life. He was no angel, but he was tired of game-playing and guessing what women wanted. One-night stands that went nowhere simply wasn’t doing it for him anymore.
He left the flat and quickly called DC Rudd and filled her in on what he’d learnt.
“Find out if any of her other friends knew anything about that night. Someone must have known where she went and who she was with. We also need to find out what she’s been doing these past couple of months, since the attack. Her parents say she was out all the time, but her friends are saying they never saw her. She had to have been going somewhere, and someone out there knows where.”
“Do you think her murder had something to do with that night?”
“I think it could be connected, though I’m not sure how yet. If she’d been assaulted and strangled, maybe I’d jump to the conclusion that the men who’d attacked her two months ago were responsible, but the way she died just doesn’t marry up to that. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she went through something that totally changed her behaviour and then she turned up dead.”
“I’ll ask around and see if anyone knows any more about it. Maybe she had a favourite club she liked to go to alone or something.”
“Good idea,” Shawn said. “I’ll see you back in the office.”
He ended the call.
Shawn reached his car and fished the keys out of his pocket. He unlocked the doors and climbed behind the wheel. Before he could start the vehicle, his phone rang. He didn’t recognise the number on-screen, but that wasn’t unusual. He handed his card out to everyone he interviewed, so it might be someone calling with information.
“DS Turner,” he said as he answered.
“Shawn?”
The voice on the other end of the line was male, and he didn’t instantly recognise it. “Yeah, who’s this?”
“Hey, Shawn, man. It’s Trevor.”
Even though the person on the line seemed to think Shawn should know him, his mind remained blank. “Trevor?”
“Yeah, your cousin. Don’t say you’ve forgotten me?”
The penny finally dropped. Trevor was his cousin on his dad’s side—the son of his dad’s sister—but since Shawn hadn’t had much to do with that side of the family since discovering his dad had been living a whole other life when Shawn had just been a kid, he hadn’t made the connection right away. Also, he hadn’t heard from the other man in years. No wonder it had taken him a moment to place both the voice and the name.
The last time he’d had a conversation with Trev Knight, it had been not long after he’d joined the London Metropolitan Police. He didn’t remember that interaction being a good one either.
Being a black man in inner city London and joining the police was often looked at as betraying his own kind. He knew there were plenty of people who didn’t think that way, but when he’d been in his late teens and early twenties, his peers were more likely to be in some kind of trouble with the law than not. He had a
lot of people roll their eyes at him when they’d found out about his aspirations, and he’d received a good few threats of violence, too. But he’d known the only thing he could do was keep his head down and stay focused on what he wanted. He hadn’t wanted that kind of life for himself, or for any future family he might have.
His mates would probably have laughed and jeered at him even more for thinking about a family that didn’t even exist yet, but that was just how his mind worked. He recognised the pattern those around him were following—getting into trouble young, coming out of school with no qualifications, getting into bigger trouble, landing in jail, making more dangerous contacts inside, getting out again, and repeating the process. Chances were, they got a woman or two pregnant in between stints inside, too, so their children grew up to repeat their father’s mistakes.
“Hey, Cousin Trev. Been a long time. What’s up, man?”
“Just thought I’d give you a call, see if you want to catch up sometime. Grab a beer, maybe?”
“You want to get a beer sometime?” Shawn couldn’t hide the disbelief in his tone. Why, after all these years, had Trev suddenly decided to reconnect?
Trev cleared his throat. “Yeah, umm, maybe more like tomorrow?”
Shawn wasn’t stupid. There was more to this story.
“You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“Not on the phone, but yeah, you’re right. I do need to run something by you.”
Warning bells rang in his head. He and Trevor had been close once upon a time, when they’d been younger. Trev had taken a different route in life, though, and was one of those people who had shaken their heads and sucked their teeth at Shawn when he’d joined the police, as though he’d somehow betrayed them and who he was because of the choices he’d made.
“I think I’m going to be busy. Sorry, Trev.”
“Hey, please, man. You know I wouldn’t be contacting you like this unless it was important. We’re family.”
“I don’t know...”
“Look, if you can’t help, you can just walk away, I swear it.”
