by D. S. Butler
Then he uncovered the glass cage and the lid. The insects rushed to the sides, trying to escape.
Brendan lowered the tweezers and plucked an insect from its fellow bugs. He placed it in the envelope and then quickly sealed the envelope with Sellotape.
He smiled. One down, 99 to go.
It was ingenious, really. A very clever plan, even if he did say so himself.
He’d go out to a neighbourhood nearby and put the envelopes through a variety of different letterboxes. When the owner of the house opened the envelope, they probably wouldn’t notice the small bug. They’d read the leaflet, perhaps put it along with the junk mail ready for recycling, and go about their business.
The little bug would make itself at home.
That night, it would come out from its hiding place, scurry along to the closest sleeping body, and tuck in.
After a few nights of bites, when the house owners realised that this wasn’t a simple gnat bite or mosquito bite, they’d get in touch with a pest control company, hopefully remembering the leaflet they’d put in recycling, before grabbing it and giving Brendan a call.
He was generating his own business.
Brendan chuckled as he plucked another insect from the glass cage and put it into another envelope.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mackinnon and DI Tyler worked steadily on the interview plan for over an hour. Noah Thorne had been booked in, and they were awaiting the arrival of the duty solicitor before they started the interview.
They only had a limited time before Noah was entitled to a rest break. They couldn’t question him all night. If the case against Noah Thorne went to trial, they couldn’t risk his defence team declaring he was put under undue pressure without adequate time to rest.
Mackinnon scanned the list of handwritten questions. “How did Evie get on with Ashley’s diary?” he asked. “Did she find anything we could use in the interview?”
Tyler looked up from the paperwork. “She’s made some notes. I’ll forward them to you later. It didn’t give us the break we’d hoped for, but Ashley mentions Noah frequently and not always in favourable terms. From her descriptions, he sounds domineering and controlling. A man who wouldn’t take no for an answer. She said he’d been cheating.”
“Any mention of physical violence?”
“He grabbed her and left bruises. Unacceptable, and it could easily have escalated.”
Mackinnon checked his watch. “And the laptop? How soon can we expect a result from that?”
Tyler gave a heavy sigh. “It’s outside normal working hours, so there’s only one person manning the tech department tonight. He’s going to look at it for us, but I doubt we’ll get any answers from the laptop before we interview Thorne.”
Mackinnon nodded and shuffled the scattered paper in front of him into a pile. “So we don’t have much to work with.”
“Not yet.”
The phone on Tyler’s desk rang, and he got up to answer it. From his replies, Mackinnon got the gist of the conversation. The duty solicitor had arrived.
They headed downstairs together. Tyler had booked interview suite three. The so-called suite was in fact a small windowless room, not much bigger than the stationery cupboard, and Mackinnon wasn’t looking forward to spending time inside the claustrophobic space. He hoped Thorne found it as uncomfortable as he did and wanted to spill the beans and get out of there as soon as possible.
Outside the interview suite they exchanged pleasantries with the duty solicitor, Barbara Wood.
She’d already been inside and conferred with her client, so Tyler led the way into the small room. Thorne was already sitting at the table, shoulders hunched, staring silently down at the scratched laminate tabletop.
The uniformed officer, who’d been stationed in the room to keep an eye on Thorne, gave them a polite nod as he left.
As Mackinnon had expected, the room was stuffy and far too warm.
Barbara Wood sat next to her client, and Mackinnon and Tyler sat in the seats opposite. Four bottles of water had been laid out on the table.
A red light blinked on the small camera in the corner of the room. Tyler checked there was a tape in the audio recorder, then pressed record. Mackinnon pushed bottles of water towards the solicitor and Thorne before opening his own bottle and taking a sip of the lukewarm water. Tyler began the introductions for the benefit of the tape.
As Tyler spoke, Mackinnon took the opportunity to study Thorne. He looked considerably less confident now. Reading his body language, Mackinnon judged he was stressed and scared. Would he talk? It was impossible to know at this stage.
They didn’t have much time until they’d need to break for the evening so Noah had adequate time to rest, and Mackinnon hoped their carefully planned interview questions were effective and they’d get answers before they had to call it a night.
“Today, we found Ashley Burrows’s laptop in your bedroom, Noah.” Tyler pushed a photograph of Ashley’s laptop across the table. “Could you tell us why you had it?”
Noah scowled. “Technically, you didn’t find it. I gave it to you. I took it out of the drawer myself and handed it to you.”
Tyler ignored the pedantic reply and asked again, “Why did you have it?”
Noah shrugged. “Ashley must’ve just left it at my place, and I forgot.”
“You forgot? That seems unlikely. DS Mackinnon asked you if you’d seen the laptop recently, and you insisted you hadn’t.”
“So, I’ve got a bad memory. That’s not a crime.”
“Obstructing justice is a crime,” Tyler said pointedly.
“That’s not the charge put to my client today,” Barbara Wood said sharply.
Tyler nodded in acknowledgement. “Could you tell us what you were doing the day Ashley went missing?”
“I was at work. I didn’t finish till six thirty.”
They didn’t have an exact time for Ashley’s disappearance. Only that the last time anyone was known to have seen her was at five thirty when she’d left Flyaway Travel Agents. Noah had a good alibi until six thirty, but that didn’t mean he was in the clear.
“How would you describe your relationship with Ashley?”
Noah shifted in his seat and glanced at the solicitor. “Do I have to answer that?”
“Not if you have something to hide,” Tyler said before the solicitor could respond.
“I don’t,” Thorne snapped. “I just don’t like what you’re implying.”
“I’m not trying to imply anything, Mr Thorne. I just want the truth.”
The duty solicitor gave Thorne a small nod. He exhaled a long breath and then said, “She was my girlfriend. We had a few arguments and broke up, but we still talked. We were still friends.”
“When was the last time you spoke to Ashley?” Mackinnon asked.
He’d already asked Thorne this on a previous occasion and was interested to hear if his answer would be consistent.
Thorne blinked. “Um, the last time I saw her was just after she left work two days before she disappeared.”
“And what happened the last time you saw her?” Mackinnon asked.
Thorne’s features tightened in annoyance. “You already know the answer to that.”
“Please tell us again for the benefit of the tape.”
Thorne leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. From the sulky expression on his face, Mackinnon thought he might refuse to answer, but eventually, he said, “We argued.”
“What about?”
“I wanted to apologise and asked her if we could go somewhere to talk, but she was really angry.”
“Why was she angry?”
“I have no idea. Maybe she’d had a bad day at work. All I know is she was completely unreasonable and snapped at me.”
“Is that something Ashley usually did?” Tyler asked.
“No…” Thorne looked up at the ceiling before continuing. “Usually she was sweet and kind. She was nice to everyone.”
Mackinnon noticed the softening of Thorne’s voice when he spoke about Ashley and wondered if the interview questions they’d planned were focusing on the wrong track. Maybe they should have directed the questions to exploit his affection for Ashley rather than trying to provoke him into snapping and revealing something he wanted to keep secret.
“Was it because she found out you were cheating?” Tyler asked.
“What? I wasn’t. That’s a lie. Who told you that?”
Tyler shrugged. “You must have said or done something to make her snap at you.”
“I didn’t. You weren’t there. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s why we are asking you the questions, Noah. So we can understand,” Mackinnon said.
Thorne didn’t look up but kept his arms tightly folded around his body, clearly not in the mood to open up.
“What was on the laptop? Something you didn’t want us to see?” Tyler asked.
Noah shrugged. “What? No. There was nothing. I don’t care what you find on the computer. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s Ashley’s laptop.”
“So you didn’t take her laptop in an effort to prevent the police or Ashley’s parents from looking at it?”
A slight sheen of sweat had appeared on Thorne’s forehead. It was hot in the interview room, but Mackinnon thought the sweat was down to stress rather than simply the heat.
Noah wiped his brow. “I couldn’t care less about the stupid laptop. I told you. It’s nothing to do with me.”
Everything about Noah Thorne’s body language told Mackinnon he was lying.
But they weren’t getting anywhere, and they were running out of time. Soon they’d need to take a break. Mackinnon decided to take a slightly softer approach. It wasn’t in the interview plan, but the plan clearly wasn’t working.
“Noah, I know you want to find out who hurt Ashley as much as we do. We have to ask these questions. They might be difficult to answer, but we need to ask them to help our investigation. You may know more than you think.”
Thorne’s gaze flickered up to meet Mackinnon’s, he stared at him for a moment or two, and Mackinnon met his gaze steadily.
He wanted to give Thorne the impression they were all in this together. He needed him to believe they were all on the same side.
“This must be incredibly hard for you, but we need to find out why you kept the laptop. You have to understand that it makes you look guilty.”
“But I didn’t hurt Ashley, I swear.”
“Then you need to help us prove that. You need to start telling us the truth, Noah.”
Thorne leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and cupped his face in his hands.
No one spoke for a moment.
“All right.” Thorne lowered his hands and looked at Tyler and then Mackinnon. “I know I’m being difficult, but it’s because I didn’t hurt Ashley, and I know you’re trying to prove that I did.”
“No,” Mackinnon said. “We’re trying to find out who hurt Ashley and why you took her laptop.”
Thorne clenched his jaw, and Mackinnon wondered if he was going to deny taking the laptop once again, but he didn’t.
“I…I was feeling guilty,” he began with a slight stammer. “I behaved really badly, and now it’s too late to tell Ashley I’m sorry.”
He wiped away the tears from his eyes roughly.
“What did you do, Noah?” Tyler asked in a calm voice.
“I took her laptop. We met up to talk, but it wasn’t going well. I tried to apologise, but she said she’d moved on. I was angry. When she went to the ladies, I took the laptop out of her bag and put it in my rucksack.” He shook his head. “It was a really stupid thing to do. But she was always online, and I thought maybe… I don’t know what I thought…” He trailed off, looking miserably at the bottle of water in front of him.
“Did you think she’d written something incriminating about you on the laptop?” Tyler asked.
Thorne shook his head. He picked up his bottle of water and took a long gulp. “No, it wasn’t that at all.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “If you must know, I thought she might be cheating on me. She was always on that stupid laptop, and I thought maybe she had some kind of online relationship going on.”
“She couldn’t have been cheating on you if you’d broken up,” Mackinnon said.
Noah shrugged. “I thought maybe something was going on before we broke up. I thought it could be the reason she ended things.”
“And when you got hold of the laptop, did you find anything?”
Thorne sighed miserably. “I couldn’t access it. I tried to follow some instructions I found online to hack the computer, but it didn’t work, and I think I ended up resetting the computer somehow.” He looked up at Mackinnon. “I promise I didn’t mean to do it, but I think I wiped Ashley’s computer.” There was silence for a few moments. Thorne sniffed, blinking away tears, and Tyler and Mackinnon digested the information.
Thorne thought he’d wiped the hard drive, but the app had still been working, allowing them to locate Ashley’s laptop, so, perhaps it wasn’t a complete reset. If Noah had been trying to hide something from the police, he could be in for a nasty shock.
“Don’t feel too bad, Noah,” Mackinnon said. “We know certain apps were still functioning as of a couple of hours ago. So I don’t think the computer was wiped clean. Besides, it’s amazing the level of detail our tech team can extract even when a file has been deleted.”
Thorne paled, and he lifted a shaky hand to his mouth. “They can do that?”
Tyler nodded. “Yes, they can. Let’s take a break now. Can we get you something to eat, Mr Thorne?”
If Mackinnon hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the concern in Tyler’s voice was genuine.
Unsurprisingly, Noah refused the offer of food. He looked sick to his stomach. He was definitely worried they would find something incriminating on Ashley’s laptop.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
They let Noah Thorne go before midnight.
Mackinnon and Tyler sat in the open-plan office area sipping strong coffee.
“Do you really think it’s him?” Mackinnon asked.
“I don’t know. There’s something I don’t like about him, something that sets off alarm bells, but we don’t have enough on him yet.”
Mackinnon couldn’t help wondering if they played their hand too soon by bringing Thorne in before they’d gathered the evidence they needed. “We’ve got the laptop. That should give us something. Did you see the look on his face when Thorne realised he may not have covered his tracks as well as he thought?”
Tyler nodded thoughtfully and took a sip of his coffee. “I did. He looked scared. Extremely scared.”
“I hope we’re right, and he didn’t manage to wipe everything from the laptop. The fact that the tracking app was still linked to the laptop gives me hope.”
“I agree.” Tyler checked his watch. “Which reminds me, we’ve not heard anything back from the tech department. I’ll follow up with them before I go home.”
“What about the search team we left at Thorne’s place? Did they find anything in his flat?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” Tyler said. “They found some items we believe belonged to Ashley. We’ll have to get her parents to identify them tomorrow. Clothing mainly. There was a drawer full of her clothes in Thorne’s bedroom. That could be viewed two ways. It could be innocent, stuff she kept at his place while they were dating, or it could be seen as Thorne keeping mementos.” Tyler put his cup on the table and shook his head. “There’s something about Noah Thorne that sets my teeth on edge.”
Mackinnon felt the same. Though he wasn’t yet convinced Thorne had held Ashley captive and prevented her from getting the treatment that could save her life, he thought Thorne’s defensive reactions and anger were signs of a troubled personality.
As Mackinnon checked his phone, to see if he had news from Chloe regarding
Sarah’s disappearance, Tyler got up, drained his coffee and headed to his office.
He said over his shoulder, “I’ll get you a copy of Evie’s notes on the diary.”
“Thanks,” Mackinnon said, scrolling through his messages. He had one from Charlotte, wishing him luck in the interview and a positive result. It was too late to reply.
There was nothing from Chloe so he guessed that meant Sarah hadn’t returned home.
After he got a copy of Evie’s notes from Tyler, Mackinnon left Wood Street and headed back to Derek’s place for the night. He stopped at a 24-hour supermarket, bought a paella ready meal and a tiny bottle of red Shiraz. He was tempted by the full bottle but opted for the smaller glass-sized one in the end. He needed a clear head tomorrow.
Once settled in an armchair at Derek’s, with Molly napping at his feet, Mackinnon looked over the sections of Ashley’s diary Evie had transcribed.
It was quiet apart from the muffled sound of Derek snoring. Mackinnon smothered a yawn and began to read.
2nd April.
Noah is being a complete idiot again. He followed me as I walked to work this morning, chatting away even though I was ignoring him. He just doesn’t get it. He wants everything to be on his own terms. Sometimes he’s so persistent he scares me.
4th April.
Sadie caught me crying at work today. It was embarrassing, but she was actually really kind. I’ve been a bit wary of her in the past because she is so quiet and watchful. She observes conversations rather than participates, and I thought she was a bit odd. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. She was really sweet today and told me not to worry about Noah. She said he wasn’t worth it. I think she’s probably right.
6 April.
When I got home tonight, I found Noah in the living room talking to my parents. Of course, they don’t know what he’s really like and think I’m absolutely mad for dumping him. Sometimes, I think nothing would make them happier than me and Noah getting hitched. Over my dead body.
