by M A Comley
“Sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’m good, thanks. Another week, and I should be free of this damn cast.”
Kayli looked down at his stiff leg and the crutches holding him upright. “That soon? Hey, I think you’ve coped really well. Did you miss me?”
“Not really. The question is, did you miss us?”
Kayli shook her head and tutted. “Hardly, Dave. I was on honeymoon. I have to admit this place never entered my mind while I was—”
He raised a hand to stop her. “Umm… no offence, boss, but stop right there. I don’t need to hear all the gruesome details.”
“Plonker. Come on, I’ll race you up the stairs.”
He shook his head. “You’re such a scream at times. You missed your vocation. You should have been on the stage with that sparkling wit… not.”
She rushed ahead of him to open the door to the entrance then left him navigating the stairs to the first floor while she ran ahead to buy the coffees. DC Donna Travis and DC Graeme Chance were both already sitting at their desks when she pushed open the door to the incident room. “Morning, Donna and Graeme. Eager beavers this morning, aren’t we?”
“We thought we’d catch up on the paperwork from the last case we solved, boss, before another one lands on our desks,” Donna said.
“Very wise. What was the case?” she asked, slotting a coin in the vending machine.
“Nothing major. Well, it was to the victim, of course. A GBH charge—a man was set upon by a group of thugs outside a nightclub late at night.”
“I take it you managed to track down the culprits?”
“Yes, Graeme worked his magic on the nightclub’s CCTV footage. Some of us recognised a few of the gang members, and the arrests soon followed. One of our easier cases to solve, shall we say. How’s married life treating you?”
“No complaints from me so far, Donna. Thanks for asking.” Kayli inserted another coin in the machine just as a breathless Dave hobbled through the door.
“Damn stairs get steeper every day,” he complained, collapsing into his chair.
“Maybe you’re just not as fit as you used to be, mate.” Kayli winked at him and placed a coffee on his desk.
He waved his crutch at her and dropped it to the floor. “I’d like to see how you’d cope with having to deal with these guys for six weeks.”
Kayli bit down on her tongue. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.” She turned to walk into her office. “I’ll be tackling the dross on my desk if anyone needs me.”
She opened her office door, stuck her head into the room and almost backed out again when she saw not one, but two mountains of paperwork awaiting her. “Oh bugger! Is it worth taking a week off if this is what I have to contend with when I get back?”
“To be fair, boss, that’s three weeks’ worth of paperwork, not just one,” Donna said from behind her.
“You’re right, of course. Damn, by the looks of things, I’m going to be here until midnight every day.”
“Want me to give you a hand after I’ve completed the paperwork on the other case?”
“Might be a good idea. Thanks for the offer, Donna. I’ll sort it into stacks first, categorising it into urgent and non-urgent piles.”
“Call me when you need a hand,” Donna said before she left the office again.
Kayli didn’t get very far before the phone on her desk rang. “DI Bright. Can I help?”
“Morning, ma’am. It’s Ray.”
Kayli frowned. “What is it, Ray?”
He lowered his voice and explained, “Umm… sorry to trouble you, ma’am, but I’ve got a distant friend of mine down here, and I wondered if you could help him.”
“Regarding what, Ray? A crime?”
He inhaled a large breath. “You know I wouldn’t normally involve you if I didn’t think it was important. My friend’s brother went missing a few days ago.”
“Sorry about that, Ray, but we have a missing persons department whose team is better equipped than I am to deal with such matters.”
“I appreciate that, ma’am. It’s just that it’s out of character for his brother not to be in contact with Samuel. To me, I’m getting the impression that something far more sinister has occurred, although I wouldn’t dare say that to him. You know how it goes when something doesn’t sit right with you. This is one of those times.”
“All right, you win. Do you want to put your friend in an interview room and I’ll come down in a minute or two?”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll do that.”
Kayli ended the call and left her desk. She entered the incident room and walked towards Donna’s desk. “Grab your notebook and come with me, Donna.”
Dave cocked his head and looked puzzled. “Is something wrong?”
“I need to interview someone before I can determine that, partner. You stay here. I’ll take Donna with me rather than see you struggle down the stairs and back up again so soon.”
“Thanks for thinking of me.” Dave grinned.
Kayli and Donna trotted down the stairs to Ray’s desk. “What room, Ray?”
“Room One, ma’am. Thanks for this. He’s a little distraught, which is unlike him.”
“No problem. Let’s see what he has to say. Have you given him a drink?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Kayli turned and walked down the narrow corridor to the room at the end, with Donna close behind her. She opened the door to find a grey-haired gentleman sitting at the desk, his head bowed, clutching his hands together in front of him. “Mr. Potts, I’m DI Kayli Bright, and this is DC Donna Travis. She’ll be taking notes throughout this interview if that’s all right with you.”
He rose from his chair and stood until Kayli and Donna were seated opposite him. “Of course. Thank you for seeing me at such short notice. I didn’t know who else to turn to. My wife suggested contacting Ray. He’s an old mate of mine. That’s why I’m here, really.”
“We’ll do our very best to assist you, sir. Why don’t you start from the beginning? When was the last time you either saw your brother or heard from him?”
“Two days ago. We had made arrangements to go to the pub together, except he didn’t show up.”
Kayli checked to make sure Donna was taking notes. “I take it that’s unusual?”
“Yes. I spoke to him around six thirty that evening, and he told me he would be at the pub later. When he didn’t show up, I presumed he’d changed his mind and gone home.”
“I take it you didn’t ring him to find out?”
“No. To be honest, a couple of my mates and I got involved in a game of bridge, and before we knew it, it was eleven thirty, and the landlord was kicking us out. I thought it was too late to ring him when I got home, but I tried first thing the next morning. Both his house phone and his mobile remained unanswered. It’s so unlike him.”
“I see. When you last spoke to him, can you tell me where he was?”
Samuel nodded. “Oh yes. He was at the flats he owns, collecting back rent from the tenants.”
“Can you give us that address?”
“Lexington Road, number twelve.”
Kayli scratched her head as she thought. “Is that in the Clifton area?”
“That’s right. It’s a bit of a dive, but the council are about to start renovating some of the houses down there, so that should help the property prices rise in the area. Sorry, I sound like a bloody estate agent. What I’m trying to say is that’s why Paul took a gamble on the property. The trouble is that the only tenants he could attract were ones sitting on the dole. I warned him not to go ahead with purchasing the property, but once my brother gets a notion in his head, it’s a devil of a job trying to dissuade him.”
“How long has your brother owned the property?”
“About a year. Sadly, his wife died of lung cancer. He used her insurance policy money to buy the property in the hope that the income would subsidise him in the future. Let’s face it—the state pension isn’t up to
much nowadays, is it?”
“That’s true. Has your brother had any problems with the tenants at the property?”
His mouth turned down at the sides, and he shook his head. “Not really, not apart from them falling behind on the rent, that is. I told him he should have employed an agency to deal with that side of things, but the silly bugger was too tight to hand over the ten per cent fee these guys demand.”
“I can understand that. How has your brother been since he lost his wife?”
“He’s been all right lately. After she died, he found it a struggle to get through his days, but the kids did their best to help him handle his grief.”
“Kids? How many?”
“Three in total. One of his own and two stepchildren. Maureen was married before, and she brought Sharon and Dylan into the marriage. Can I put it that way? It sounds funny. Anyway, not long after they got married, Anita was born.”
“Was Maureen pregnant before they married?”
“Sorry, no. What I meant to say was Anita came along nine months or so after they tied the knot. They had a whirlwind romance, met and married within a month. They truly loved the bones of each other. Never seen two people more in love, if you must know. Which is why he struggled after Maureen died. I’m not saying he would have done anything daft like suicide. He loved Anita too much to put her through that. If she hadn’t been around, though, I think he might have contemplated it.”
“Does Anita live at home still?”
“Yes, she’s still there. She looks after him, or I should say they look after each other. Anita took on all the domestic chores like cooking and cleaning while Paul sees to the garden and the repairs around the house.”
“We’ll need her address. How old is Anita?”
“It’s 42 Willow Avenue, Saint Jude’s. Gosh, now you’re testing me. Around twenty-two or twenty-three I think… you know how time passes by so quickly.”
“I do. Not that it matters. What about Sharon and Dylan? Do they live at the property?”
“No. They moved out.”
“Oh? Why? Because they were older?”
He shrugged. “I guess. You know what some kids are like. They’re eager to fly the nest as soon as they can afford it.”
Kayli smiled considerately. The thought had crossed her mind when she was in her teens, not because she had fallen out with her parents. She loved them dearly, but she wanted to experience all that life had to offer at a young age. So she and her best friend, Lindy, had set up in a flat together. Everything had been going well until Lindy met Graeme Chance, a member of Kayli’s team. They had fallen in love and decided to move in together soon after, leaving Kayli in the flat on her own. At first, she’d hated the solitude, but it didn’t take her long to get used to it. Around that time, she’d decided to throw herself into work, and that was when her climb up the promotion ladder began. “Have you asked the children if they’ve heard from your brother?”
“Yes. None of them have. Poor Anita is distraught. She waited up all night for her father to come home. She was beside herself. She presumed her father had come back to my place on the Saturday night. I tried to reassure her. However, the doubt soon crept into my mind after a few hours. At the risk of repeating myself, this is unlike my brother to act this way, Inspector. I can feel it in my gut that something is wrong. I want to assure you that it is not my intention to waste police time. I’m adamant something has happened to my brother. I just need help proving that.”
“We’ll certainly do our best to help you, Mr. Potts. After what you’ve told me, that’s the conclusion I have come to also.”
He let out a relieved sigh and slouched back into his chair. “So, where do we go from here?”
“We’ll question the children, see if they have any inclination as to where their father might have gone, and visit the flats to see first, if he turned up on Saturday night, and second, what time he left.”
“I can’t thank you enough for this, Inspector.”
“We haven’t found him yet. Mind you, if he doesn’t want to be found, there really isn’t a lot we can do about it.”
He sat upright again and looked her in the eye. “I can honestly say that my brother has no reason on this earth why he should disappear. Not without telling one of us where he was going.”
“I get that. However, in my experience, people put on a brave face when something is eating away at them inside. No one truly knows what another person is thinking deep down.”
“I think you’re wrong about that. My brother and I have always been extremely close. We contact each other daily, if only to say hello.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll keep you informed and ask that you do the same should your brother contact you or if something else puzzling you comes to light.”
“I’ll ring you immediately if that should happen.”
Kayli withdrew a business card from her jacket pocket. “Ring me day or night.” She slid the card across the table.
“Thank you. I’ll keep it safe and ring you straight away. Is there anything else you need to know?”
Kayli turned to look at Donna. “Have we covered everything, Constable?”
“Not quite. Can you tell us what car your brother has and give us his registration number if you know it?”
Kayli smiled at Donna. “Excellent. Thanks for the reminder.”
“He has a Ford Focus, a red one. I can’t for the life of me remember the registration number, though. Can just about remember my own.”
“No problem. We can retrieve that information from DVLA. Okay, leave it with us. We’ll get started right away. I’ll be in touch soon if we manage to find out anything.”
He rose from his chair and stretched out a hand. “Thank you, Inspector. I look forward to hearing from you soon, with hopefully some positive news.”
The three of them walked back to the reception area. Donna returned to the incident room while Kayli escorted Mr. Potts to the exit.
She turned to see the desk sergeant eagerly awaiting an update. “Nothing to report really, Ray. Mr. Potts seems adamant that his brother wouldn’t just disappear like that, so we’ll do our best to find out where he is and if anything untoward has happened to him.”
“That’s brilliant, ma’am. Thank you for taking the case on. I really appreciate it.”
Kayli smiled and ran up the stairs. Waiting at the top was DCI Davis. “Hello, you. I came to see you. Dave said you were downstairs. Anything interesting?”
“Hello, ma’am. A missing persons case.”
DCI Davis frowned. “Not your department, is it, Inspector?”
“Normally not. The desk sergeant said it was a friend of his, so I had a chat with him. I’m keen to find out what’s happened to his brother. He’s usually very reliable but hasn’t been seen for a few days.”
“Okay. I’d rather you not spend too many resources on this one, though, Inspector. Anyway, how is married life treating you? Before you answer that, I see by the twinkling in your eye that it’s going well.”
Kayli’s cheeks warmed under the DCI’s gaze. “Couldn’t be happier, ma’am. Mark is still dealing with a few nightmares after his traumatic encounter, but he’s getting there. He’s at my dad’s now, hopefully going over job prospects with him.”
“That’ll be good. He’s not tempted to venture abroad again, I take it?”
“No. Although the money is good, it’s just not worth the risk. He realises that now. We’ll plod along on an insignificant inspector’s salary for now,” she added with a wry smile.
“If you’re trying to wind me up, you’ve missed the mark. Women like me have fought hard to get you your salary. The least you can be is grateful for that.”
Kayli laughed. “I thought I hadn’t wound you up? Sounds like I succeeded to me.”
“Anyway. I just wanted to drop by to welcome you back. Remember, my door is always open if you need to chat about anything in particular.”
“You think I’m going to
run out on you and put my life in danger again, don’t you?”
DCI Davis turned and strode down the corridor towards her office and called over her shoulder, “The thought never even crossed my mind. I think you’re far too intelligent to do that again.”
Kayli laughed and headed back into the incident room without responding.
“I’ve got Mr. Potts’s registration number,” Donna called out as soon as Kayli entered the room.
“Excellent news. Can we start trawling through the CCTV footage around the location of the flats on Saturday around sixish and go from there? Dave, you and I will visit the flats to question the tenants, see what we can glean from them.”
“I’m ready when you are,” Dave replied, struggling to his feet. “Up, down, up, down,” he muttered under his breath just loud enough for Kayli to hear.
“Would you rather I take Donna with me?”
“Ain’t a partner allowed to complain now and again? I’ll be fine once I’m moving. Any idea how many flats and floors we’re going to have to tackle at the other end?”
Kayli smirked. “No idea, big man. Crikey, the sooner you get rid of those crutches, the better. Not sure I can take much more of your complaining.”
He pulled a face and hobbled out of the incident room ahead, not bothering to hold the door open for her. Kayli glanced over her shoulder at Graeme and Donna. “Oops… do you think he’s pissed off with me?”
Graeme and Donna sniggered.
“He’ll be right once he’s in the car, boss,” Graeme said.
“I damn well hope so. Otherwise, I predict us having a very long day.”
She followed her partner out of the room and rushed past him on the stairs. “Come on, slow coach. Get a wriggle on.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Why are we doing things this way round?” Dave asked during the journey.
Kayli frowned. “Meaning what?”
“Isn’t it normal for us to go and see the family first?”
“It is. I just thought I’d break the tradition. According to Samuel Potts, the last time he spoke to his brother was before Paul entered the flats he rents out.”
“You thinking one of the tenants got a bit antsy and bumped him off?”
