The Freeman Files Series Box Set

by Ted Tayler

  “What did you do then?”

  “Jason brought Mary home. I helped my kitchen staff clear everything away. My chef was last to leave at ten to one. We discussed changing menus and prices. I locked the shutter doors at the front of the restaurant when I see that girl.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “I remember Trudi from when she was a schoolgirl. Thirteen or fourteen. She was always with boys when she came into the takeaway — bad girl. Trudi got served in the pubs in town before she old enough. Mary refused to serve her many times because she was drunk. Trudi’s father came to collect her when I ring him. He was ashamed of her, I think.”

  “What time did you see her that night?”

  “One o’clock, I told the man before at one o’clock. I get in my car and drive home. I never saw her again.”

  “Was she in a rush, would you say?”

  “No, just walking. Girls can’t run in high heels.”

  “Anyone else in the street when you drove home? Not just near Market Square. Who did you meet on the road leading out of town?”

  “Nobody followed that girl,” said Steve Li, shaking his head. “Between the restaurant and here, I see two couples. A few cars, taxis mostly. Same as every other weekend nights. Lots of taxis after one o’clock.”

  “You don’t remember a man walking alone, perhaps coming into town to use a cash machine?”

  “No machines. Not on my way home. Before they close the banks, they were in Market Square. Those places were not visible from my restaurant. There was no man alone across the street, only that girl.”

  “Thanks, Steve, I don’t think there’s any more I can ask. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Will I rescue your friend from Mary now?” asked Steve with a smile.

  Alex paused as he turned his chair towards the door.

  “Mary loves having a young girl to talk with; she wanted a daughter after Jason was born. Nothing happened.”

  Steve called to his wife. Mary and Lydia came through to the sunroom.

  “If you need more, just come back,” she said, squeezing Lydia’s hand.

  “We will,” said Lydia as she walked beside Alex to the doorway.

  Steve Li and his wife followed along the pathway and waved them off before going back indoors.

  “What a lovely home,” said Lydia, “she’s got a great taste in art and ceramics.”

  “Steve’s not your average Chinese restaurant owner. Did you clock the book he was reading? ‘The Unfinished Revolution’ about Sun Yat Sen. It came out last year.”

  “Mary confirmed Steve got home at around ten past one. Her son, Jason, drove her home not long after the restaurant closed. I asked if she knew Trudi. Mary had trouble with her in the takeaway when she worked on the counter. She did that for years before Jason was old enough to take charge. Mary got Steve to ring Ray Villiers to fetch Trudi when she came in falling-down drunk. She said Trudi was only fifteen and whenever she came in, she had several boys tagging along.”

  “Steve and Mary told us the same story,” said Alex, “oddly, neither mentioned Trudi after the age of sixteen. Krystal didn’t get a mention either.”

  “How old is Jason, mid-forties now? Maybe, we should talk to him. It’s likely Steve and Mary dealt with just the restaurant customers after he took over the takeaway section.”

  “Good idea. Jason will be in the Imperial Dragon every day now Steve and Mary have retired. We’ll check with Gus. If he thinks it’s worth pursuing, we’ll have to go for a meal.”

  “On a date, you mean?”

  “We can call it a fact-finding mission if you prefer,” said Alex.

  “No, we can call it a date if we split the bill,” said Lydia.

  Alex thought he could live with that.

  “We’ll have a coffee when we get back to the office,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you want that cup of tea earlier?” asked Lydia.

  “Mary seemed traditional. I worried we might not make our appointment with Kath Villiers at four.”

  “Daft beggar, I know a proper tea ceremony takes four hours. Mary would have used the tea bags on her Italian marble worktop in the kitchen.”

  “How did it go?” asked Neil when they returned to the office.

  “The timings didn’t change. We clarified details surrounding what Steve Li saw and did. We learned more background on Trudi. It may be worth talking to the son, Jason Li. Trudi spent more time in the takeaway section than the restaurant. Jason served her more often than his parents after she reached sixteen.”

  “I’ve seen Jason Li’s photo in the local paper. He sponsors the town football team. Jason buys the match ball for Home games, stuff like that. Good publicity. He must have been a year or two above Trudi at school.”

  “A lot of the boys she hung out with were older than her. You don’t think…?” asked Lydia.

  “I can’t see Steve and Mary allowing Jason to mix with Trudi Villiers,” said Alex, “and there was no hint of Steve keeping anything from me. Maybe we should add him to our list for Monday. He might be someone of interest to Gus.”

  “I located the cash machines available in 2003 after you left,” said Neil.

  “The Big Four banks in the Market Square, plus the out-of-town supermarket,” said Alex.

  “You missed one, smartass. The garage on the other side of the river bridge had one, but it wasn’t free to use.”

  “Steve Li said the banks were too far away from his restaurant to know whether anyone used them at one o’clock. Did you have any joy with the taxis?”

  “Not much. There were two other firms in town. Both are still in business. As for the drivers working that night, they haven’t got a clue who they were, or where they might be now. That looks a dead end. You had better get off to interview Trudi’s parents. Better luck with them.”

  “We’ll see you on Monday then, Neil,” said Lydia, as they prepared to leave, “have a good weekend.”

  “I vote we try getting another team night out next week,” said Neil.

  “Married life getting boring, is it, mate?” joked Alex.

  “A laugh a minute,” said Neil, “Melody says she’s late.”

  “That’s great news, Neil. You’re right; a night out would be in order if she’s expecting and we crack this bloody case.”

  “We could make it three things to celebrate if you beat your target of losing that chair by a week,” said Lydia, ruffling Alex’s hair.

  Neil hoped the others bought the beers when they next went out together. He reckoned money might be tight in the Davis household if Melody was right.

  Lydia drove right on the speed limit as they crossed town to where Ray and Kath Villiers lived. Kath answered the door. She was a grey-haired lady, late fifties, tired-looking, dressed in a navy blue blouse, cardigan and skirt.

  Kath led them into the living room and sat by a giant fish tank.

  Alex and Lydia sat side by side. Alex in his chair, Lydia on a leatherette settee. She was terrified to move in case it made an unpleasant noise. Alex told Kath why they had come.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you,” she shrugged.

  “Can you think of anyone capable of killing your daughter?” asked Alex.

  “Raped and stabbed to death,” said Kath, “she was raped and stabbed to death.”

  “You’re right. It was a terrible crime. So, was there anyone Trudi mixed with you suspected?”

  “You know how she behaved. We couldn’t control her. She had no control over herself.”

  “What was she like as a young girl,” asked Lydia.

  “A lovely child, look,” Kath stood and fetched a photograph. There were four images. Trudi at age six months, two years, five years and ten or eleven years old. Happy and smiling throughout, and smartly dressed in the final image where she wore her school uniform.

  Lydia looked around for more recent photographs.

  “Do you have any pictures of Trudi at sixteen? Her eighteenth birthday, say?�
�

  Kath Villiers shook her head. She fought back the tears.

  “Ray wouldn’t keep them in the house after she died. He only kept ones before she grew older.”

  “Trudi caused you more problems once she hit puberty?” asked Alex.

  “Trudi was nothing but trouble from thirteen to sixteen. Ray had enough when she left school with no qualifications. He threw her on the street. When he was at work, I went looking for her, waited for her up at Gracelands when she worked there. Trudi visited me just for a chat. When Ray found out I’d been seeing her, he blew his top. Trudi never came here again after that. I kept in touch with her, though, in secret.”

  “When was the last time you talked with her before she died?” asked Alex.

  “On Wednesday. I didn’t work that day. We met in town, in a café. Had coffee and cake, chatted for an hour. She was still my little girl, even though she was a tearaway. I used to tell her to find someone, get married, cut out this nonsense. Trudi said there was plenty of time to settle down when she was dead. She wanted to live life to the full, regardless of who she hurt. It was Trudi, Trudi, Trudi. Nobody else mattered.”

  “Not even Krystal?”

  Kath laughed.

  “Krystal followed our Trudi around like a lost sheep. If Trudi said ‘jump’, Krystal jumped. I was surprised she had the gumption to run the pub on her own. That was the first time she surprised me.”

  “Was Trudi ever in a relationship with a boy where you thought it might lead to something permanent?”

  “In her first year at secondary school, hardly twelve, she walked home with a smart-looking lad. Dark hair, brown eyes. Tall for his age. I spotted them on the corner. I thought it sweet. She looked up into his eyes, you know, it was the first time anyone had kissed her, I bet. All I can describe it as is a look of wonder. It sounds daft now. Within a year she was having sex with half the school.”

  “What happened to the lad?”

  “Ray came home and found them. He was spitting feathers. I’d never seen him so angry. Let’s say he told the lad to disappear. He said Trudi was too young to be messing with boys.”

  “Did you learn his name?” asked Lydia.

  “I don’t think Trudi mentioned his name. He was older than her. You know what kids are at that age. He may have got ribbed at school for cradle-snatching, or Ray giving him such a rocket in public. They might have taken it out on Trudi too.”

  Had that been the trigger Gus sought? Could she make an educated guess who the tall, dark-haired, brown-eyed boy had been?

  Alex heard a door slam outside.

  Ray Villiers burst into the house and threw his coat onto the floor in the hallway.

  “Who the hell are you? Why are you talking to my wife without me being here?”

  “We’re from the police, Mr Villiers. The Crime Review Team. Our colleague contacted you earlier in the week to say we were taking another look into your daughter’s murder. My name is DS Hardy; here’s my identification.”

  Lydia stepped forward and showed Ray Villiers her card too.

  “Kath has been very helpful,” she said, “other interviews finished earlier than we had expected. It made sense to meet you as soon as possible. Kath said you would be home later this afternoon. We’ve only been here for thirty minutes.”

  “I’m sure you want us to have the best information available to us,” said Alex, “to help us solve this case.

  “You were supposed to interview us together,” Ray insisted, “Kath will fill your heads with rubbish. Trudi was a bad lot. We did everything for her, but she just threw it back in our faces. Do you have a clue how it feels to have your neighbours, work colleagues, shop assistants sneering down their noses at you for years? No, of course, you don’t. Do you know how I felt when they told us they had found her body? Relieved. That’s no way for a father to be feeling.”

  “Why don’t Kath and I get us a cup of tea or coffee,” said Lydia, “you’ve just finished work. Sit and chat with Alex. We’re only looking for background on Trudi. Little details that might point to people that could have held a grudge against her for years. Whatever you can offer will be useful.”

  Ray Villiers began to relax. Alex wondered whether he was intimidated by Lydia. She had a presence. It wasn’t just her physical appearance; her voice oozed calm.

  Kath Villiers and Lydia left the two men alone and went to the kitchen.

  “We tried everything,” said Ray, slumping into a chair next to Alex, “when Trudi reached thirteen, her personality changed. You read in the papers of celebrities going into clinics to get treated sex addiction, don’t you? Well, that was what it resembled. As if she needed it all the time, yet she was never satisfied. She moved from boy to boy searching for something, for someone. There was nothing Kath, or I could do to stop her. We had no choice but to get her to the doctors. Trudi was on birth control pills earlier than any kid in town. There was no chance we could risk waiting until she reached sixteen. How she never fell pregnant was a miracle.”

  “She left home at sixteen, I believe?” asked Alex.

  “I told her to go,” said Ray. “I would have crawled a hundred miles over broken glass to help her understand what damage she was doing to herself, to the boys she used, and to her mother. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

  “Kath kept in touch with her?”

  “We had blazing rows every time I found out she’d seen Trudi behind my back. I’m not proud of the way I acted back then, but the only way I could cope was to shut her out of our lives. I could pretend it wasn’t happening that way. Fat chance of that though when people in town never let us forget it.”

  “Kath met her in the week before she died. What did you two do on that Saturday?”

  “Did she? I never knew that. We did nothing unusual; we watched TV in the evening and went to bed around eleven. I fetched the Sunday papers at nine in the morning. We were getting lunch when the police came.”

  “Did anyone from those early teenage years keep reappearing in Trudi’s life? Someone you might have thought might pose a threat?”

  “Did I think one of them might kill her, do you mean? No, nobody I knew. I didn’t see enough of her the last ten years of her life to know what she did. I just wanted it to stop. As I said, I was relieved it was over when they said someone had killed her.”

  Kath and Lydia returned with the drinks and passed them to Alex and Ray.

  “People don’t sneer at me in the street now,” said Ray, “it’s more a look of pity. That’s never going to change. Even if you finally work out who did it.”

  “Ray doesn’t talk about it if he can help it,” said Kath. “When you first got here you referred to it as a killing. I said a man raped and stabbed Trudi; that’s what happened. Someone was capable of that; someone she knew. It could have been anyone. They might walk past us in the street tomorrow and know they took our only child from us. We’ll never be rid of those thoughts whether you catch him or not.”

  There was little Alex could think might add to what they had learned.

  Kath and Ray Villiers had suffered enough already.

  “Thank you both for being so open with us,” he said, “I hope we can bring you closure by finding the person responsible. It sounds empty to say we’re sorry for your loss, but we’re glad to have seen parts of Trudi’s life where she was innocent, happy and smiling. Those photos are something to treasure.”

  Alex and Lydia left Trudi’s parents to their nightmares.

  Saturday, 21st April 2018

  Gus awoke to the sound of the dawn chorus. Yesterday afternoon had panned out as he had hoped. He had agreed on the positioning of the security cameras, negotiated a price and pencilled in an installation date. He would have preferred not to wait two weeks, but it seemed lots of people needed protection.

  He had then worked on his allotment for the first time in over a week. His visits were restricted either by working with the CRT or by interference from foreign gangsters. While he was diggi
ng, weeding and planting, he had glanced up to the hillside to catch a sight of police activity.

  Without a car, there was no way he was walking up there to check. He wouldn’t be welcome if he had. Consultants aren’t involved in ongoing cases. Geoff Mercer might have made an exception because someone had shot at him, but OCTF wasn’t an organisation to make exceptions.

  Who had been in charge of the operation? He was itching to find out.

  Gus had set his alarm for seven o’clock. He succumbed to the temptation of an hour’s lie-in until the ringing clock roused him.

  Gus looked at his options for breakfast. The disruption caused by the attempt on his life had left him short on provisions. It was his fault, he supposed, he could have gone shopping yesterday. However, time alone had offered the opportunity to mull over the Trudi Villiers case. Gus had most of the steps involved worked out in his mind.

  There was nothing for it; he must call Lydia. He needed to find out what they learned yesterday afternoon in his absence. If she drove over to collect him earlier than agreed, they could drop into the office before visiting James Bosworth.

  Lydia was not an early bird by the sound of it.

  “Is it Saturday already?” she said, “you said after ten. Does my clock say seven-thirty? Heavens, that’s the middle of the night.”

  “Look, I need to get up to speed with the interviews you did yesterday. Have you added your notes to the Freeman file?”

  “Yes, we both did that before we finished yesterday. Alex and I worked until six. I could drop into the office on my way to collect you. If I print off what we included from the Li’s and the Villiers’s you can read everything before we catch up with Bosworth.”

  “That will have to do,” said Gus, “although it doesn’t solve my immediate problem.”

  “No transport?” asked Lydia.

  “No, hunger,” said Gus, “can you pick up croissants for me to munch as we drive to the Westbourne Estate? I can make us a flask of coffee to tide us over until lunchtime.”

  “Will do, guv, I’ll get there as soon as I can.”