Her Mind's Eye

by D C Vaughn

  ‘Two,’ Kieran corrected her again. ‘One’s missing.’

  ‘Presumed dead, then. Jesus Kieran, splitting hairs. Se’s got involvement written all over her. Stone’s going to want to move for an arrest warrant when he hears about this.’

  ‘I haven’t told him yet,’ Kieran admitted.

  ‘I guessed. Come on, what is it, are you holding a candle for Kyle or what?’

  ‘No,’ Kieran snapped back, maybe a little too quickly. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘She’s a good detective.’

  ‘So are we.’

  ‘She’s not like this, there’s something else going on.’

  ‘Speculation can’t stand in the way of facts, Kieran. She’s a person of interest and you’re withholding information. The longer you do that, the deeper in you’re going to be. Tell Stone, now.’

  Kieran sighed. Truth was, he knew that he would have to tell Stone about his meeting with Rebecca sooner or later, and Hannah was right: if he held out too long, it’d come back to bite him in the arse with a vengeance. Still, loyalty to his DC was a tough line to break, even though he was certain that she wasn’t guilty of the deaths she was being associated with.

  ‘Kieran,’ Hannah growled, ‘now, or I’ll bloody tell him myself.’

  Kieran got up and walked across the office to the hastily assembled MIR.

  The Major Incident Room was a gathering of officers and detectives created in the wake of major crimes such as homicide and armed robbery manhunts. Expensive and usually under the command of the Assistant Chief Constable, the MIR took care of telephone enquiries, administrative support and other duties associated with the case, to avoid impacting the daily routines of the police force. Detective Chief Inspector Stone was in the MIR going through a list of hand–written notes taken during various phone calls from the public regarding the body found in the river.

  ‘Boss,’ Kieran said as he moved alongside Stone. ‘I had contact with Rebecca Kyle this morning.’

  Stone looked up and raised an eyebrow. ‘Was that a good idea?’

  ‘She’s sniffing around the case, pretty sure she’s trying to help but I thought you should know about it.’

  Stone stared at Kieran for what felt like a long time. ‘Did she give us anything useful?’

  ‘A name,’ Kieran said. ‘Greaves. She said the vagrant’s name was given as Greaves.’

  ‘How would she have known that?’

  Kieran took a breath. ‘Because she spoke to him the night before his body was found.’

  Although it was a busy room, with officers fielding calls from the media and the public as well as conducting their own investigations, now it fell almost as silent as the morgue in which Greaves’ body now resided.

  ‘You’re sure,’ Stone asked, his voice sounding louder in the sudden quiet around them. ‘She was the last person known to have seen Greaves alive?’

  ‘So she said. She reported that she was walking down by the river, trying to recollect what had happened the night Sam Lincoln was shot, when Greaves approached her and told her that he’d seen a third person on the towpath. She claims that he said that the third person was the shooter.’

  Stone seemed to hesitate, still staring at Kieran but his thoughts clearly somewhere else, as though uncertain of Kieran’s loyalties in the investigation.

  ‘Have you followed it up?’

  ‘No yet, thought I’d report it in first. Could be an assumed name, especially if the guy was homeless because he was fleeing debts. It’s not uncommon for people to vanish and assume another identity.’

  Stone didn’t need telling, and Kieran reckoned that the older man was thinking about other things entirely.

  ‘I’ll have the MIR check it out,’ he said finally. ‘Did Kyle say anything else about her meeting with this guy?’

  ‘No, but his presence checks out with the CCTV footage we have of a figure in a sleeping bag under the bridge when the original crime took place. If it’s the same guy, then his statement…’

  ‘Is useless,’ Stone cut Kieran off. ‘The witness is dead and we only have Kyle’s claims to work with. You know we can’t go anywhere with it and it’s not admissible as evidence if it comes from Kyle herself. Your DC is digging herself a hole here and even if she does discover evidence that can clear her name, she’ll invalidate it with her own meddling. Call her, right now.’

  Kieran hesitated. ‘Right here?’

  ‘Use that phone,’ Stone said as he gestured to one of the nearby desks. ‘I want it on speaker and I want everyone else in the room silent. I’m done with her sneaking around this case.’

  ***

  XVI

  Rebecca sat in the back room of a small clothing store at the end of Roman’s Walk and watched a screen, the assistant manager of the store watching over her shoulder. The television monitor was only a twelve–inch affair but it showed a good, colour image of the pedestrians passing through the area just after five twenty the previous evening.

  The area was well–lit and the camera’s resolution sufficient that Rebecca easily spotted Greaves as he walked by, the big man’s shuffling gait now distinctive to her. He carried on out of shot, walking alone through the crowds. Moments later, Rebecca spotted the grey man she had seen in Nandos, following Greaves at a distance of maybe ten metres, his gaze fixed on the vagrant’s back.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rebecca said as she stood up. ‘That’s all I needed to see. Exeter CID will probably come here and request a copy of that footage. Make sure that nobody erases or tampers with it until that time.’

  The assistant manager agreed as Rebecca walked out of the store and looked up and down the pedestrian areas that surrounded her. Greaves would most likely have headed down Southernhay toward the river, which reduced her chances of picking him up again in camera footage until Magdalen Street. Trouble was, the cameras available would be those that could only reasonably be accessed by the police, and that was the last thing she would be able to do. Kieran couldn’t help her now, knowing that to do so could jeapodise the entire investigation, and Rebecca could not submit evidence herself without invalidating anything she found in a court of law.

  She was struggling with the dilemma when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, the screen glowing in the rapidly fading light, and saw a number that she recognised as being from Exeter Police on the screen.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Rebecca, it’s Kieran.’

  Rebecca huddled into a covered doorway near a shop and covered one ear so that she could hear him properly over the crowds.

  ‘You shouldn’t call me,’ she said, although she was relieved to hear his voice.

  ‘I know. Look, I just wanted you to know that I informed Stone and the MIR team about Greaves.’

  Rebecca sighed, but she knew that it had been the right thing to do. At least the team would be able to move forward with whatever they found thereafter, although if the case came to court she felt certain the evidence would be rejected. Right now, she didn’t care; somebody out there had killed her fiancé and anything that led to their capture was fair game.

  ‘Good,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got something else for you.’

  ‘Rebecca, I can’t take…’

  ‘Greaves was being followed.’

  There was a long silence on the line before Kieran spoke again. ‘You’re working the case?’

  ‘What choice do I have?’ Rebecca said as she started walking again, away from the busy town centre. ‘My fiancé was shot, I was nearly killed and I’m sitting at home twiddling my thumbs.’

  ‘Anything you find won’t be admissiable in court.’

  ‘I don’t intend to find anything,’ Rebecca replied. ‘I can put the MIR team on the right path and anything they find will hopefully lead us to whoever shot Sam.’

  Another long pause. ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘When I met Greaves I gave him some money, for food, after he’d helped me by
telling me about the third person on the towpath. He mentioned he liked Nandos. So, I went and checked out their CCTV from around that time, and sure enough Greaves shows up and buys himself a meal.’

  ‘And this was after your meeting with him?’

  ‘Yeah, about twenty minutes, which is right about how long it would take him to walk from the towpath to the centre of town. I’ve got footage of someone watching Greaves and then leaving the restaurant at the same time, and more footage from a store down the road with the mystery guy still behind Greaves. Trouble is they leave the town centre so I can’t get any more footage of them.’

  A longer pause this time, presumably as Kieran jotted down what she had reported.

  ‘What I don’t get is why anybody following Greaves would know about them talking to you, or what it would have to do with them being murdered.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Rebecca said as she walked. ‘But if this guy followed Greaves as far as the water, then he’s got to be a person of interest. There’s something else going on here Kieran. I don’t know what it is but Sam being shot, another body in the water, reports of a third person on the towpath and now a prime witness dead? You can’t tell me it doesn’t suggest a bigger picture.’

  Another long pause.

  ‘I don’t know how I can put this in the hands of the MIR without them knowing it came from you.’

  Rebecca sighed. She knew what she was asking but there was no other way she could do it.

  ‘Retrace Greaves’ steps from the river. He’s a murder victim. His path must lead back to Nandos. Do that, and you’ll have both him and the follower on camera. The line of enquiry follows from there.’

  ‘And if the mystery man isn’t following Greaves and he just wanders off?’

  ‘Then I’m chasing rainbows and I’m even more paranoid than I feel,’ Rebecca shot back. ‘Look, I know what I’m asking isn’t admissible in a trial, but what the MIR find on their own is.’

  ‘The source was you,’ Kieran argued. ‘They’re not going to let us run with anything that comes from you poking around in the case.’

  ‘Tell me something Kieran,’ she asked, ‘how far have the MIR got in chasing this down?’

  There was another long pause.

  ‘They’re pursuing leads as we speak,’ Kieran replied carefully. ‘They’re confident that they…’

  ‘They’ve got nothing, right?’ Rebecca cut across him. ‘They’re not looking in the right places Kieran, they need to…’

  ‘Rebecca Kyle.’

  The voice wasn’t Kieran’s and Rebecca stopped in her tracks as she recognised who was speaking. ‘Stone.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Stone, to you, and I’m heading up the MIR. You’re making a mess here that’s going to wind up with you in custody.’

  Rebecca steeled herself.

  ‘I didn’t kill my fiancé, Stone,’ she growled. ‘Somebody out there did and I’m pretty sure they’re cleaning up loose ends. The longer you sit there in that nice warm office looking through paperwork, the more chance they have of slipping through your fingers.’

  ‘Thank you for the sage advice,’ Stone replied without force. ‘Perhaps you would like some in return?’

  ‘Go for your life.’

  ‘Attend the station in the morning. We’d like to question you over the disappearance of Samuel Lincoln and the murder of an unknown individual found yesterday in the River Exe less than half a mile from your home.’

  Rebecca felt loathing crawl through her veins like insects beneath her skin.

  ‘Interview under caution?’

  ‘To clear you from our enquiries,’ Stone countered. ‘It’s an invitation. If you’re so certain that we’re missing crictical evidence in this investigation, I’m sure my colleagues and I would love to hear about it in a formal environment where that evidence can be placed on the record.’

  Rebecca started walking again. Stone wasn’t able to threaten her with arrest, and if he had intended to arrest her then she would have returned home to find police officers waiting for her. Ergo, Stone did not have enough critical evidence to issue warrants to search her home and belongings, nor arrest her under suspicion. Everything against her was just as circumstancial as the evidence she possessed to the contrary, unless of course Stone was bluffing and looking to take her into custody without a fuss.

  ‘Fine, I’ll be there. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  An image of the gun in her hand, and of Sam falling into the water, flashed through her mind.

  ‘Eleven in the morning. I look forward to it.’

  Stone cut off the line. Rebecca shoved her cell phone back into her pocket with an angry flourish.

  ‘Bugger.’

  *

  Kieran watched as Stone set the phone down. Hannah Marchant had joined them in the MIR and now everyone was watching the DCI. Kieran couldn’t ignore what felt like a rock that had landed with a thump in his guts, a mixture of self–loathing and relief. He’d done the right thing, but in doing so he’d given the team an angle on Rebecca and something told him for sure that she hadn’t deserved it.

  ‘I want everything we have on Detective Constable Rebecca Kyle,’ Stone said finally. ‘Friends, family, history, anything and everything. If there’s even a shred of evidence providing a motive for these killings, I want it found. I don’t know what she’s playing at, but either she has a psychological need to be convicted of these crimes, she’s craving attention or she’s digging a hole that will end up with her being convicted of crime she did not commit. Either way, I want all our ducks in a row if we decide to make a move on her, is that understood?’

  A muted chorus of agreement echoed through the MIR.

  Kieran looked at Hannah, and saw nothing that resembled concern on her features as she turned and walked out of the room.

  ***

  XVII

  The pain woke her.

  Bright light through the blinds, sparkling frost on what she could see of the glass through aching eyes. Fronds of her hair were plastered across her face, a few of them stuck to the corner of her mouth where she instantly feared she had dribbled while asleep. With one hand she pulled the hair from her face and sat up, then cringed as a lethargic pain ground its onerous path through her head.

  She glanced to one side, squinting, and saw two empty bottles of wine and one glass on the table beside her bed. The glass still contained an inch of wine, and the scent of it provoked a plunging nausea deep in her guts. Rebecca’s skin tingled as a hot flush bolted through her and she propelled herself off the bed and into the bathroom just in time to hurl a bellyful of alcohol–tainted vomit into the toilet.

  She knelt with her eyes closed for a long time when she was finished, trying to remember last night. She’d come home, thoroughly depressed after her call with Kieran and then DCI Stone. Shit, the meeting. She peered out of the bathroom, willing her legs to move so that she could go and check the time, but somehow she could not wake them from their comatose state. She remained there for a couple more minutes, convincing herself in the silence that time was standing still, but the beating of her laboured heart told her otherwise.

  Rebecca had never really suffered from hangovers, mainly because she had never been a heavy drinker. She winced as she wondered what the hell had provoked in her the idea that drinking damned near two bottles of wine had been a good idea. Today, of all days, she’d needed a clear head and yet here she was shivering like a whipped dog, vomit clogging her hair and pain seething through her skull.

  She dimly recalled getting home and opening the wine, feeling somehow soothed and comforted by its taste, needing more, much more. She wondered whether the near–miss of the bullet had somehow messed with her brain, jolted her frontal lobes so that now she was a borderline alcoholic. She’d read somewhere about how frontal lobe trauma could change personalities, drive people insane, how some folks in comas for years woke up with altered accents and other bizarre maladies that neither they nor their doctors could explain
. Becoming a radical piss–head overnight seemed small change in comparison.

  The meeting. She had to get to the meeting.

  She managed to make it out of the bathroom, her head pounding as she glanced up at the clock in the living room. 10.12am.

  ‘Jesus,’ she whispered in horror. What the hell had she been thinking?

  Her eyes fell on the statue of Buddha, sitting in serene silence in the hall and bathed in golden sunlight.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ she asked, as though the figure would suddenly turn to her and begin a lengthy explanation for her descent into rampant self–neglect. Instead the useless and marginally overweight tosser just sat there in a serene lotus position, smiling smugly.

  She glanced at the clock again. 10.15. She had to move, and now.

  Rebecca showered, drank three coffees and slammed down two Ibroprufen and two Paracetamol as though her life depended upon them while struggling to find something decent to wear. Her immediate concern was to look professional, but she knew that no amount of hot dressing was going to pull the wool over the eyes of someone like Stone. He seemed like the kind of guy who’d had his sense of humour surgically removed via his backside several centuries before. She yanked out a charcoal grey trouser suit and white shirt, dressed herself and sorted her hair into something approaching respectability.

  She was almost ready when her cell phone rang, the screen displaying a number that she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, is that Rebecca Kyle?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Um, hi, my name’s Colin Trent. I knew Sam.’

  Rebecca froze in motion. Knew. Past tense. Did they know something about Sam, was he dead?

  ‘Okay,’ she said carefully, ‘what can I do for you, Colin?’

  ‘I need to speak with you, it’s very urgent.’