The Girl in the Grave: An unputdownable crime thriller with nail-biting suspense

by Helen Phifer

  She glared at him. ‘I didn’t think I needed to.’

  ‘But you and he were the last people to see Annie before she disappeared. He’s a key witness and we need to speak to him. I can’t understand why you didn’t think of that.’

  ‘There’s nothing to it. He helped me take her to her room. I made sure she couldn’t roll over and choke on her own sick. We left her on the bed, asleep. He followed me upstairs and out of the hotel.’

  ‘Who was he? Do you know him? Have you ever seen him before?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’d never met him before. He was nice. Friendly and helpful.’

  ‘Do you not think it’s a bit convenient how he was there, at the bar alone. The CCTV footage shows him ordering drinks, but he doesn’t drink them. He was taking a very keen interest in your group.’

  He watched Estelle’s face as a range of emotions began to wash over her.

  ‘But he couldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Her eyes filled with tears that she furiously tried to blink away, and when she spoke her voice was barely a whisper. ‘Because he came back to my apartment with me… and we slept together.’

  Josh sat up straight. ‘Estelle, forgive me for asking, but did you use protection?’

  If she said no then maybe there might still be some trace evidence.

  ‘Of course I did. I didn’t know him. I might be up for a good time, but not at the expense of my health.’

  ‘I’m going to need a full description of him from you, and I also need you to come to the station to give a proper statement and to do an identification video. Is there anything in your apartment he touched, that you remember? Did you change your bedding or wash your underwear? Did he drink from anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, he came back with me and we screwed. Several times, actually, until finally I fell asleep. When I woke up late this morning he’d gone. I stripped the bed, washed everything. I’ve showered, flushed the condoms down the toilet and the glasses we drank out of went straight into the dishwasher. Do you… do you really think it was him?’

  Josh couldn’t lie to her. ‘There’s a strong possibility. How did he get into Annie’s room though? Did you lock the door on the way out?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I didn’t even look at it. He was the last one out, and I assumed he shut it behind him.’

  The tears finally came as the full horror of what might have happened came crashing down on the young woman in front of him. He tried to comfort her, and she ended up hugging him as she cried, loud sobs filling the small office. The perfume she wore lingered in the air as she held on to him and it reminded him of Beth; she wore the same one. It was nice. Suddenly shocked at himself, he pulled himself from her grip. Shouldn’t he have been thinking about his wife when he smelled the perfume?

  Forty-Eight

  Beth woke up early. She loved summer; the warmth, the cool breeze which sometimes rolled in off the lake; sitting on the patio sipping her morning tea, eating toast and contemplating life. However, she preferred autumn with chilly days and darker mornings which meant she got a touch more sleep. Having a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows looked fabulous from the outside, and gave a good view of the lake, but it didn’t do much for her sleep pattern. Often, she’d resort to sleeping in the spare room, where she lay now thinking about her phone conversation with Josh late last night and wondering if he’d managed to get any sleep. He’d told her a woman had gone missing from the same hotel where she’d seen all the police activity and that it was likely linked to Chantel Price’s murder. She wished she could do more to help him out and decided she would go and speak to the staff at Chantel’s care home, as she’d planned yesterday. In fact, she would go to the undertaker’s and the care home. She couldn’t understand how they could so coldly not bother to report her missing because of her age.

  She rolled over, stretched and thought about last night, how out of character it had been for her to go to the pub and socialise; how wonderfully normal it had felt. Seeing the security guy had thrown her a little, especially when he’d asked her if she wanted a drink. The voice in her head mocked her: maybe, just maybe he finds you attractive. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember how she’d felt when things had been different, when she’d had a partner she loved. A life filled with socialising, fun and friendships, the warm, open heart she’d built a brick wall around ever since the attack. Everyone from that life, except for her dear friend Josh, had given up on her. They’d tried at first, visited, offered to take her out for lunch, maybe coffee or to try out a new wine bar. She’d loved them for trying, she really had. Leaving the house was bearable, but coming back to it alone and not knowing if there was someone inside waiting for her filled her with crippling terror. She knew it was wrong and didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t help feeling this way. Her mind drifted further back to that night in January, seven years ago, and for some reason she didn’t fight the memory like she usually would. Maybe this was what she needed.

  As she’d tied off the last few stitches in the teenage boy’s leg she’d let her thoughts wander to Ellen’s surprise party later that evening. She’d been excited about it for weeks. In fact, it was all she’d thought about for the last few hours of her shift that day. Ellen was one of her closest friends and Beth intended to fully let her hair down after a gruelling week at the hospital. Her only concern had been about her partner, Robert: the last couple of months he’d been more controlling than usual. He wasn’t particularly good at socialising in large groups, preferring to be alone with her, but recently his mood would shift so fast she didn’t know what he wanted. One minute he’d be quiet, the next he’d be snapping at her about what she was wearing or the length of her hair. Just days before, they’d had an almighty argument when she’d attempted to leave the house wearing the new red Dior lipstick she’d treated herself to. He’d called her a slut and sent her back inside to put on something more natural. She’d put it down to the long hours and the fact that sometimes because of their shifts they were like passing ships in the night. However, in the past few weeks his behaviour had been odd, disappearing for hours on end with no explanation as to where he’d been. He’d always been quiet, but this was taking it to a whole new level. If she was honest with herself, she was beginning to question their whole relationship. They needed to sit down and talk about where things were going, but not that night, she remembered. She needed to kick off her shoes, let her hair down and enjoy herself. The serious stuff could wait another twenty-four hours.

  The party had been fun: she’d laughed, drunk champagne and danced the night away. Robert, contrary to her earlier misgivings, had been the perfect plus one despite him not being the most sociable of people and unable to drink that night because he was on call. After the party had wound down, the taxi had dropped them off outside the door of the Victorian semi in Kendal she owned, and she remembered being drunk and so happy. They’d gone inside and Robert had ushered her up to bed, helped her undress and put her silk nightdress on. He’d tucked her in, kissed the top of her head and told her he had to go to work; the perils of being an on-call consultant.

  She remembered drifting off quickly and being woken by a loud thump downstairs. She’d opened her eyes to try and make sense of it; her neighbour was a taxi driver and often came in at the most peculiar times, so woozy and still a little drunk she’d turned on her side and gone back to sleep.

  The second time she woke it was to a noise so loud it had to have come from inside the house. Robert would have locked up on his way out, she knew; he was very security conscious then – more so than she was at that time. Her mouth was dry, and her brain was thumping hard against her skull, begging for painkillers. Not bothering with her slippers or dressing gown, she’d gone to the bathroom and groaned at the reflection staring back at her in the bathroom mirror; her lips were stained Merlot red, her eyeliner smudged, an unexpected trace of glitter all over her hair and face. As she’d walked downstairs to get some
water, she’d been thinking of how happy Ellen was: she had a fiancé, a new position in a fancy office in New York and pretty much everything she had ever wished for in her own life. Beth remembered hoping that one day she’d be just as happy…

  Beth stopped herself there. That was enough for now. Fully awake, she lay in bed rubbing her finger along the faded, puckered scar on the side of her face. She kept it covered with her hair most of the time. It was one of the giveaways whenever she felt anxious; her fingers would seek it out, a reminder that she was alive, and of everything she’d been through to stay that way.

  Climbing out of bed, she wondered if they’d found the missing woman from yesterday: she hoped to God they had. Josh would take it so personally, because that was the kind of person he was. Throwing open the curtains, she went downstairs to make some breakfast, her mind still ticking over the puzzling events of the last few days. Making a large mug of tea and buttering a freshly toasted bagel, she sat at the dining table with a large notebook and pen in front of her. Josh would be busy today, but she wasn’t due in court until this afternoon and it was likely to be cancelled the way that case was going, so she began to list local places the missing girl may be held captive if, like with Chantel, the killer didn’t take her life right away: abandoned buildings, boathouses, sheds – the list could go on indefinitely. How had the killer managed to gain access to the cemetery to get her body into the grave before the burial? It all pointed to someone having the authority to be in there, someone whose presence wouldn’t stand out or be questioned. Which brought her back to the cemetery workers or the undertakers. She underlined the words on the sheet of paper in front of her then pulled her laptop over and googled undertakers in the vicinity who would have had access to the cemetery or whose ‘clients’, for want of a better word, would have access to the cemetery. It was very rare people who weren’t local were buried in there, but it did happen. Occasionally, someone would request that they wanted to be buried in their favourite place, though cremation was far more popular than burials: it was cheaper, for one thing, with no transport or grave costs.

  There was a grand total of four undertakers in the area, but only one was actually situated in Windermere, and close to the cemetery: Dean & Sons. She picked up her phone and rang Josh. When he didn’t answer, she didn’t leave a message knowing he’d ring her back when he saw he had a missed call.

  Finishing the rest of her bagel, she decided to do the only thing she could think of: go and pay a visit to Harry and James Dean. It might help Josh, who would no doubt be stretching himself too far, taking responsibility for both cases. She needed to speak to them in any case about Florence Wright, to ask who had arranged her funeral and the mystery relative who’d made the accusations that set off the chain of events that led to her exhumation. She doubted Josh would even be thinking about Florence and her unnecessary exhumation with one dead girl and one missing girl already on his plate, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her. She needed answers and was willing to step out of her comfort zone to find them. It would give her the perfect excuse to have a snoop around, see what she thought of the place and the two brothers who ran it. She’d heard rumours that James was a bit of a player, liked women and partied hard. Harry was the older of the two and, from what she could gather, was the one who called the shots and brought in the business. If she had time after that, she would head over to Dalton View Care Home to speak to the staff about Chantel.

  Just as she was heading upstairs to get dressed, her phone rang. Hiding her disappointment that it was an unknown number and not Josh, she picked up.

  ‘Ms Adams, this is Debbie from Safe & Secure. Just to let you know we have the part in for your camera. Is it possible to book an appointment for the engineer to come out to fit it?’

  ‘Of course, yes. When do you have?’

  ‘We could probably fit you in this afternoon around four. You’d be his last client of the day, so he might be running a little late.’

  ‘That would be fabulous, thank you. I’ll be here.’

  Debbie thanked her then ended the call. Beth ran upstairs to get dressed, hoping that her court appearance was definitely going to get cancelled now. She didn’t want to have to cancel the security guy; her safety was important. He was also was quite cute and friendly and had offered to take her out for a drink, something no one, except for Phil, had asked her in years.

  Forty-Nine

  The gates to Dean & Sons were wide open, so Beth drove straight through assuming she didn’t need to announce her arrival on the intercom. It was a nice set-up, very nice. She supposed if you were going to spend your last days above earth somewhere it might as well be in a mansion with its own landscaped gardens. There was a row of gleaming black Bentley limousines parked outside the front. She pulled up in the last space opposite them; they were old cars but in pristine condition. As a classic car they were probably worth a small fortune and they looked elegant. She didn’t like the modern boxy cars that seemed to be used by the majority of undertakers. Not that she was an expert in this industry; she dealt with the dead in a different way.

  Getting out of the car, she noticed a man in a smart suit rubbing a soft cloth over the door handles of one of the cars. He smiled at her and she smiled back as she walked towards the front door of the house which was propped open. Stepping inside, she marvelled at the beautiful entrance. There was a huge wooden desk across one wall that was unattended. Ornate displays of fresh flowers filled the room with a heady smell; there were antiques, and beautiful paintings on the walls. It reminded her of a boutique hotel; if she hadn’t seen the hearse outside and didn’t know any better, she’d be quite happy to stay here for the weekend.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  She turned to see a very smartly dressed young woman in an expensive-looking black trouser suit and white shirt, her red hair pinned into the neatest French pleat Beth had ever seen. There wasn’t a single wisp of hair out of place.

  ‘Hello, yes, I hope so. My name is Doctor Beth Adams. I’m a pathologist and I’ve recently dealt with an exhumation of one of your former clients. I have a few questions and was hoping I’d be able to speak to either Harry or James.’

  Beth handed over one of her business cards, which revealed she was, in fact, a forensic pathologist, but she was hoping the woman wouldn’t take too much notice. She didn’t want to arouse their suspicions about why she was really here.

  ‘Harry is just about to leave for a funeral, but I’ll see where James is. I’m sure he can help you, Doctor Adams.’

  Beth smiled. ‘Please, just call me Beth. That would be great. I appreciate how busy you both must be, so I won’t take long.’

  The girl nodded. ‘Can I get you a drink whilst you’re waiting? We have a pretty good coffee machine out the back. Oh, I’m Alex. Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.’

  ‘I’d love a cappuccino if it isn’t too much trouble.’

  ‘I’ll be right back. Please take a seat. It might take me a little while to track Uncle James down: he’s never around when you need him.’

  Ah, so she was Harry’s daughter. That would explain the expensive suit. She wondered if the girl enjoyed working here, surrounded by so much death, but then again, she’d no doubt have been brought up close to it. Beth knew better than most that you did get used to it eventually. Hardened to it, some would say.

  The fact that James was never where he should be had piqued Beth’s interest. Where was he then? She’d expected to speak with Harry, the face of the business, so she was quite looking forward to chatting with his brother.

  Alex returned with a large cup, balanced on a saucer with one of those caramelised biscuits in a little packet next to it. Beth took it from her and wondered how many grieving relatives would think about eating at a time like this. She picked the biscuit up and put it on the coffee table, trying not to outwardly grimace. How many fingers had touched it? She didn’t want to know, but she had no qualms about drinking the coffee. The cup was so white it look
ed brand new.

  She’d just picked up a magazine called Saga when her phone rang. Embarrassed she’d forgotten to turn it onto silent, she heard an unfamiliar voice begin to explain to her she was no longer required at court that afternoon, and she felt a flutter of excitement at the prospect of seeing the security engineer again.

  Fifty

  The briefing room was full. Josh had stayed late last night after sending Sam home, watching the footage from the nightclub over and over to see if they had missed anything. Back at the station this morning, he pressed play for what felt like the thousandth time and watched the grainy image as it filled the whiteboard screen in front of the team.

  ‘As you can see the quality is pretty bad. It’s hard to make out any distinguishing features, scars or tattoos. He looks like a normal guy. I suppose you could say he was a bit of a gentleman or at least he was until he went back to Estelle’s apartment with her and they spent the next couple of hours having – and these are her words not mine – “Pretty wild sex for an older guy”.’ A murmur went around the room. ‘Our priority today is to locate this guy who helped get our misper down to her room. It meant he was shown how to access the staff quarters down in the basement, and knew which room she was in. According to Estelle Carter he was the last person out of the room, and she can’t confirm if he shut the door properly behind him, said she was too drunk to even think about it. He is alone at the bar when he first comes into shot, which could indicate he was intentionally on the hunt for a victim. The bouncer said he’d never seen him before, that he’s definitely not a regular. It looks to me as if he was waiting to find someone drunk enough he could abduct without too much fuss. Talk about timing, for him it was perfect. For Annie Potts it could prove fatal.’