by Anita Waller
He slept more, because I thoughtfully put tablets in the hot drinks, medication supplied by my doctor after I told her I couldn’t sleep following the break-up of my marriage. I soon learned how many tablets he needed to put him out for three hours, and during one of these lengthy naps I moved everything the baby would need into Latimer’s prison room.
Then I stopped giving him the medication, he needed to be alert enough for a young child. He didn’t seem to understand. I think he thought it was merely some stuff ‘Captor’ (that is what he called me) needed to store.
Are you following all of this, DI Brent? Everything happened as I expected it to, until the day I snatched the child.
I knew there was always the chance I would have to kill the woman. The child was never in danger. I had the address from our taxi service records. Their driver took Liz from Rosemary Latimer’s direct to Sadie Fremantle’s to pick up the child.
What I hadn’t counted on was Gareth Chambers screwing her on the afternoon I turn up to get the child. I had taken a knife in case I had to dispose of her, but I have to tell you, DI Brent, if I could have done it without killing, that is what would have happened.
She appeared at the top of the stairs, naked except for a dressing gown she was trying to put on. I was holding the knife, but managed to grab at her and throw her down the stairs. She screamed, but initially that didn’t worry me.
Gareth Chambers then appeared out of the bedroom door, naked, and recognised me. I stabbed him.
I took the child, climbed over the woman and strapped Jacob into his pushchair. I had parked my car on the service road that runs parallel with the main road, and I strapped him into the rear seat. I couldn’t fold the pushchair, as you probably know, so I threw it into the boot still fully assembled.
I then drove to the prison room, and sent Jacob down to his father in the car seat, via the dumb waiter.
Will stopped speaking and stared at his friend. ‘Fucking heartless, absolutely fucking heartless. What sort of bastard are we dealing with here?’
‘A dead one,’ Rick responded drily. ‘But carry on, and you’ll really learn what a bastard he was.’
They bonded as if they had always known each other. Latimer treasured that child; what a pity he hadn’t treasured his own wife and child as much. He is still looking after him now, but this is where things get difficult, DI Brent.
You don’t know where they are, and this letter isn’t going to tell you. This letter is all about me, about why I did this. When I made my plans, I knew I would have to die, but to be perfectly honest, I have nothing left to live for. I love Julia. I adore Julia.
Liz Chambers took that relationship away from me by poisoning my wife against me, advising her to be strong, to walk away. She destroyed Rosemary Latimer’s marriage, and her husband’s relationship with Melissa, his only child.
Now she will pay.
Phil Latimer has little food, maybe enough for a couple of days. He has approximately four small bottles of water, although he does have access to a wash basin with running water.
Jacob has enough baby food for about a month.
When Phil Latimer becomes disoriented and weak from lack of food, he will be incapable of feeding the child. Or changing nappies.
There are no clues. I don’t want you to find them. Maybe if Julia had come back to me, the outcome would have been different. But she didn’t.
I will be avenged.
Oliver Hardwick
Brent threw the letter on to his desk, and clenched his fists. ‘This was written two days ago, which means Phil Latimer may already be out of food, unless he’s been really careful, and has clicked on there’s no more coming from the dumb waiter. Let’s think this through.’
‘I already have,’ Rick said. ‘I’m glad you asked me to stay while you read it. The key to their survival is if Latimer can stay alive. If he can ration that baby food so that they eat one portion each per day, it may give you an extra two weeks.’
He stood and shook Will’s hand. ‘Good luck, pal. We’ll have our drink when this is over.’
The office felt empty once Rick had left, and Brent picked up the letter and quickly reread it. He walked into the main office, looked around at his team, and waved the letter at them.
‘If anybody’s booked any leave in the next three weeks, forget it. I want everyone on the team here in thirty minutes for a briefing, and I mean everyone. If anybody is out interviewing, or door-knocking, get them back here. Lynda, Tanya, can I see you in my office please?’
The two women looked at each other, both briefly wondering what they had done wrong and deciding nothing, then followed their boss into his office.
‘I want you to be prepared, by reading this before the briefing. You both know the Chambers family, and we have a massive problem.’ He turned around, walked to the photocopy machine, and ran off two copies of the letter. He silently handed them to the women, then went back to the machine to run off extras for the briefing. He printed twenty more, and decided he wanted all twenty back in his hands at the end of the meeting. He didn’t want this getting into the papers, either by accident or design.
Tanya and Lynda read through the letter, and for a moment both were silenced.
‘Murders solved then,’ Lynda finally said. ‘The absolute bastard.’
‘We have to tell Liz,’ was Tanya’s initial response. ‘Maybe she can think of somewhere that she can connect to Hardwick. She’s known him for a lot of years – maybe he has a holiday home? Maybe his parents left him property? Liz, and Tom Banton – and Julia Hardwick, of course – know the most about him.’
Will nodded. This was what he hoped would happen after the briefing – a fast and furious exchange of thoughts. He had a good team; they would be horrified when they read the letter, but it would energise each and every one of them.
‘Thank you, ladies. Keep thinking. After the briefing, I’m going to see Liz. I want you two to filter all the ideas coming from everyone at the meeting, get things up on that white board. We’re against the clock. We have to find this prison, and fast.
Chapter 46
Dan clattered downstairs, carrying printouts. He handed them to Liz, and she quickly scanned them. Then she spread them on to the coffee table.
‘Are you legally getting these?’
He shrugged. ‘You are. I gave them to you.’
She thought through his logic, and shook her head. ‘I’ll take the blame if anything should come of this.’
‘And I’ll let you,’ he said with a laugh.
‘Right, talk me through them.’
‘First, did you know who owned the property before you asked me to get the plans?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I know Julia is renting, until she finds the right house to buy.’
‘Then that’s even more strange. It’s owned by your Mr Hardwick.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what it says.’
‘I’m 100% sure that Julia doesn’t know that little fact. She put her name with several estate agents, and waited to see what they all could offer. This one was in the right area, at the right price, although she’s paying a ridiculously small amount of rent for a Victorian stone built property in that area. That explains the low rent, doesn’t it? He’s manipulating her once again. Do I tell her, or not?’
‘How are you going to explain that you know who her landlord is? You can’t say you’ve seen these. She’d think it pretty weird that you wanted plans of her house.’
Liz shrugged. ‘I have no idea. She’s obviously going to find out though, because Oliver’s death means she inherits; they’re still married.’ She shook her head, showing the despair she was feeling. ‘Perhaps the answer is to say nothing, then when she does find out, be the caring friend. That way, I keep her friendship, instead of being in a potential “don’t shoot the messenger” situation.’
‘I think you’re right. So, what next?’
‘Let’s go through these papers, see if the
re’s anything suspicious. We’re looking for a cellar, an attic, an outbuilding that could conceivably house Jake and Phil.’
The house had four levels: basement, kitchen and living area; three bedrooms, and an attic level. Liz dropped her head, after putting on reading glasses. Over her years at Banton and Hardwick, she had seen hundreds of sets of plans, and blessed that fact as she pored over Julia’s house plans, understanding everything she was seeing.
She started with the basement – it was split into two areas, one that had originally been used to house coal deliveries, and the other for storage, wine cellar – whatever the owner needed. The entrance to the basement was a door leading off the hall, with twelve steps going down.
‘Look at this,’ she said to Dan. ‘We have to go see Julia. You up for it?’
‘Give me two minutes.’ He stood, and the doorbell rang. They glanced out of the window and saw Will Brent’s car.
‘Damn,’ she swore quietly. ‘It’s Brent and Lynda. Let them in.’
‘What about these?’ He pointed to the papers on the coffee table.
‘I’ll think of something.’
The two police officers moved into the lounge and Brent asked Dan to give them half an hour.
‘Mum?’
‘It’s okay, Dan, if I need you, I’ll call. I make decisions about our lives, not DI Brent.’
Ouch. Brent felt the pierce of the barbed comment. She really had taken against him.
‘Liz, drop the antagonism. We’re here with news.’
‘Jake?’ Her eyes lit up briefly, then dimmed again when Brent shook his head.
‘Only partly. We believe him to still be alive, as is Philip Latimer. However, we don’t know where they are. I have something I would like you to read, but I will be taking it back after you’ve read it.’
She felt afraid, truly, darkly afraid. She took the photocopied letter from him, and began to read.
As she reached the end, she was reading it through tears. Lynda passed her a tissue, and squeezed her hand.
‘No. He had this so wrong. I had finished the affair with Phil, given him back to Rosie. It was Phil who told Rosie, she didn’t find out by accident. We were discreet always. And I spent the best part of a year listening to Julia pour her heart out about the restrictions on her life, how he wouldn’t let her go to work, drive her own car, have any say in the home… and still I encouraged her to think twice before walking away. Just one time I told her she had to decide, whether to go or stay. And really, I only said that because I was hormonal, feeling sick all the time, and fed up with her problems at home. I can’t believe that these terrible happenings are because Oliver had me all wrong! He was so good to me.’
‘He clearly wasn’t good to you, Liz. It was all an act. The entire team now has something to work with, and they’re following different leads. We’re hopeful we’ll get them both free before much longer.’
Liz felt anger bubble up inside her. ‘And I was beginning to think Julia was behind it all. I even got this,’ she indicated the papers on the coffee table, ‘to see if she could be holding them at her house.’
‘House plans? Can I look?’
She nodded. ‘Of course. Look at the basement. It’s split into two halves. Plus there’s an attic. And she had moved into this before I went back to work, before Jake was taken. She moved in round about the time Phil disappeared. But this is all no longer relevant following Oliver’s confession, is it?’
‘We can’t ignore it, Liz. Does she own this house?’
‘No, that’s the strange thing. Oliver does, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know that. She obtained it for rent through an estate agent. An estate agent who is probably a friend of Oliver’s.’
Brent took out his phone. ‘Tanya? I need a search warrant.’ He read out the address, and she promised to ring him back as soon as it was done.
‘Come on, Lynda, let’s get over there. We may be clutching at straws, but let’s clutch sooner rather than later. Can I take these?’ He bent to pick up the plans.
She sighed. ‘Yes. Provided you ring me immediately if he’s there.’
‘That’s a promise.’ He sounded grim. He was going out of the door when he stopped. He looked back and winked. ‘Just for the record, where did you get these plans?’
‘I found them on the mat this morning,’ she said drily.
‘Thank Dan, will you?’
---
Julia felt bewildered. Her house was full of police officers, searching everywhere. DI Brent was with her, having shown her the same copy of the letter he had taken back from Liz, and she knew her world was about to implode.
Oliver had murdered. She had been married to a murderer. And the police were searching her house, her house that she had been told Oliver owned. It seemed that Oliver’s house, their marital home, had already been searched following the discovery of his body, but another group of officers had been despatched to do a second search. They were taking no chances. Time was against them.
‘Does your husband have any other properties?’ Julia shook her head to bring everything back into focus. ‘I have no idea. I didn’t know this one belonged to us!’ She gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘It appears I’m paying rent to myself, DI Brent. How crazy is that?’
He could hear the hysteria in her voice. Time to inject a note of calm. ‘Okay, we have two missing people who are going to die if we don’t find them soon. I need you to think. Have you ever driven by any properties he’s taken an interest in, noticed any unusual payments into the bank account…?’
‘Bank account? We have one, do we? I simply get an allowance. I know nothing of how much money we have, any properties we may own, and do you think he will have made it easy for me to find out? Try asking Tom Banton. Maybe he’ll know. Don’t forget my husband would be more than capable of doing his own conveyancing on any properties he bought, so they could be well hidden in his files.’
‘We have our tech guys going through his computer. We found a desktop and a laptop at his home. Do you know of any others?’
‘He had an iPad as well. But there’s also his work computer. Liz would know more about that than me.’
Brent nodded. ‘Thank you. I’ll check we’ve found the iPad. We already have his work computer.’ He could see she was beginning to be marginally more amenable, and he asked Lynda to get them a pot of tea. He needed to have her thinking clearly, if she was to help them. He knew they wouldn’t find anything here, Oliver wouldn’t have been able to hide Phil and Jake in this house, not and keep Julia in the dark.
‘Okay, Julia. I need you to go back to when you first met Oliver. Where was he living?’
‘With his father. His mother had died recently, and he put off moving into a place of his own while his dad was still grieving. Six months later his dad died, and he remained in the house, buying his brother out of his half share.’
‘Brother? Can you give me more information, please?’
‘Not really.’ She looked unhappy. ‘I know little about him. I knew at the time that Oliver was buying him out, but I never met him, and I’ve never heard of him since. He was older than Oliver by about ten years, and they simply drifted apart. I don’t really think they fell out or anything, they didn’t move in the same circles, and I never heard Oliver speak of him again. His name was Jared, but that was his second name. I can’t remember his first name, but I know it begins with O. It’s why he insisted on using Jared, so that mail didn’t get directed to the wrong O. Hardwick. Oscar? Owen? Otto? I really can’t remember, I’m so sorry.’
Julia was babbling about trivialities, embarrassed that she knew so little of her husband, a man she had been married to for over fifteen years. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised once again, looking down at her hands. ‘I’m not much help, am I. How is Liz? I assume she knows about this new development?’
‘Yes, she does. She’s hurting, she’s in panic mode, she probably needs a friend. That’s if anybody can get past bodyguard Dan. That boy is amazi
ng. If I ever have a son, I’d want him to be like Dan. But it’s her other son we need to concentrate on. And I believe your husband stashed them in a property he owns, hidden away where nobody is likely to visit it. He may have owned it for years, and now found a use for it. We must find it. We’ll be out of your hair shortly, Mrs Hardwick, but if you think of anything…’
‘Of course. The only thing I can add to what I’ve said is that I understood his brother was in construction, in case you need to find him to tell him about Oliver. That could be a starting point.’
‘When this news breaks, it’s quite possible he will contact us.’
Brent made a note on his pad. O. Jared Hardwick. Construction. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if the elusive brother was still in construction. And did he too have properties? Properties that Oliver Hardwick had done conveyancing on… after all, with the excessive costs relating to buying bricks and mortar, it would make sense to contact a long-lost brother if he was a successful solicitor with his own practice. His mind was racing with the possibilities opening, following that simple statement from Julia, that Oliver had bought his brother’s half share in the family home.
Two members of Brent’s team appeared at the door and shook their heads, indicating that nothing had been found.
Brent and Lynda finished their drinks and stood. ‘Thank you, Julia. I know how you must be feeling, and this will come to an end.’
She nodded, and followed them to the door. ‘Just as a matter of interest, how did you find out Oliver owned this house?’
‘Oh, we have our ways,’ he said with a smile. ‘I need to know of any others now, so keep thinking, please, Julia, let’s get Jake back with his mummy, and Phil Latimer back to his family.’
Julia stood at the door until every officer had left, then closed it firmly, locking it behind them. She sank to the floor, and sobbed. Oliver was gone, and despite the evidence in the letter, she could never have seen him as a murderer. She had loved him for so long, waited patiently for his controlling side to ease as he became more confident that she wasn’t wanting to go off with other men, and now she had truly lost him.
