by D. E. White
“I’ll try him again before we leave it for the night,” Dove suggested.
“Be careful,” the DI said. “Check in on the baby before you do anything. He’ll have massive public sympathy, and if he is the perpetrator, and it’s because of the Ellis Bravery connection, lots of people will think ‘good on him’. Plus, I checked dates and we are coming up to the fifth anniversary of his sister’s coma, so it must be hard for him, whether he’s innocent or not.”
“Not to mention the press are going to love that angle,” Steve said.
“If he did do it, he certainly had means and motive,” Dove commented.
“With this rather unlikely connection with Ellis Bravery in mind, I don’t want to spook Jamie, but I agree it gives him a powerful motive. I checked, and Mickey Delaney is still in a coma at Greenview Hospital, which is a private care facility,” DI Blackman added, glancing down at his iPad as it pinged with incoming messages.
DCI Franklin nodded in agreement. “As you know, I worked the Mickey Delaney case, and it was frustrating not to be able to secure an arrest, but there was never a main suspect. If there was so much friction around her gymnastics prowess and team training that we were looking very hard at both her coach and one particular other team member, Jenna Essex, her supposed best friend. There was no evidence to tie them to the quarry where she was attacked, though.” He sighed heavily.
Dove was thinking again about another teenage gymnast who would never have the chance to shine. She tried to put it out of her mind. This current investigation was complex enough without the ghosts of her past cases lurking in the background.
Dove noticed DI Lincoln was hanging back from the stampede to the door, chatting with the skeleton night crew DCI Franklin had managed to coax out of the budget. The night staff were invaluable, especially on a case this big. They would spend their shift sifting through the evidence, collating information coming in from the general public, and cross-checking witness statements.
Dove tried Jamie’s mobile twice, and the second time he picked up. She asked carefully about the baby, putting the conversation on loudspeaker so Steve could hear.
“We think she’s going to be okay.” Relief was evident in Jamie’s strained voice. “They want to keep her in overnight for some more tests and to make sure her temperature stays down, but they think it was probably a febrile convulsion. Caz and I will stay with her, of course.”
“That’s good news. We’ll have a chat tomorrow. I just want to run a couple of pieces of information past you,” Dove said easily.
Steve gave her the thumbs up.
“Is that the police? Have they found out who did it?” They could both hear Caz in the background, her voice shrill and anxious, half drowned out by a hospital tannoy calling patient numbers into triage, but Jamie answered without any hesitation. “Sure, if we can be of any further help, just call tomorrow.”
Dove ended the call and could see Steve’s frustration. “We could have pulled him in tonight, but at least the baby is okay. The boss said to go softly on this one, didn’t he?”
Dove nodded as she swung her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s call it a night. He won’t be going anywhere because of the baby and has no idea we might even think he’s in the frame for the murders.”
* * *
It was already past eleven by the time Dove drove slowly home. This was partly due to the roadworks that had suddenly sprung up at the end of her road, and partly because she had a message from Quinn saying he had picked up the 4 p.m. till 12 p.m. shift as overtime, so he wouldn’t be around tonight.
It was tough when their two worlds were out of kilter, and now Quinn was training as a Critical Care Paramedic, with a long-term view to applying for a secondment to the Air Ambulance Service, he was taking the chance to get any extra training and shifts he could manage.
Finally back home and restless, despite her exhaustion, Dove fed Layla and wandered out into the small back garden with an iced drink. An ancient lilac tree threw shadows across the grass, and the grey cat sprawled lazily underneath, purring as Dove sat down next to her. She closed her eyes, enjoying the soft saltiness of night-time on the coast.
As usual, she couldn’t switch off. The various suspects and victims swirled around and around in her brain. After twenty minutes she was back at her computer, going through the files.
Did Jamie Delaney and Caz Liffey know more than they were letting on? What if, instead of innocent owners with what was effectively a glass tank of dead trespassers, they were somehow involved?
Dove swirled the remains of another orange juice, clinking the half-melted ice cubes against her glass. It spun the whole thing on its head. The information on Oscar Wilding seemed to be very sparse. As an odd-job man he could have access to all kinds of people.
It was strange too, Dove thought, as she clicked through another witness statement, that Aileen didn’t seem to have been present in any form on Fantasy Play. From the current evidence gleaned, she had no job, apparently no friends and no life outside her home. It was almost as though she didn’t exist at all, and yet she had wound up dying in some kind of sex play in a glass room. It didn’t seem to fit. Billy had been insistent that her past had somehow caught up with her. Could she have been blackmailed into this?
Dove made a note to double-check the bank account details, but memory told her Billy and Aileen had just one joint account and a few savings accounts. Nothing had been red-flagged by Jess’s team.
By the time Dove had made herself some cheese on toast, texted Quinn, who didn’t reply, and rung her sister Gaia, who also didn’t reply, she was so restless she decided to hit the beach. Not to take her board out, but just to walk along the shingle stretch through town.
She downed another glass of cold water, hearing the letterbox clank on the front door as something was posted through. Probably another fast-food flyer. Dove padded barefoot to the door. As she bent down to pull her trainers on, she picked up the single sheet of paper from the doormat.
It wasn’t the usual glossy discount flyer, but a sheet of paper with a handwritten note:
Hello bitch,
You don’t know me, but I know you, and I’m watching you.
Are you scared yet?
X
Dove’s hand shook slightly as she reread the words. Scrawled handwriting, probably done with a cheap biro. In places, the ink looked as if it was running out. In others, where the writer had pressed extra hard, the paper was almost engraved with the words.
What the hell was going on now? She opened the door and looked out into the night, scanning the road. It was empty. A car drove slowly past, but she recognised the blue Renault as belonging to one of her neighbours, and sure enough it pulled into the driveway opposite.
It was nearly half past eleven now. The stars were out and the moon hung lazily over the sea. A prank? No, the note was too vicious in tone. The obvious answer was that this was related to a case, and the one that sprang to mind immediately was the Claw Beach attack.
The perpetrators had moved away, watched her, had whispered urgently to each other. The image of the night was vivid in her memory. She ran gentle fingertips across her healing wound, thinking hard. Her car, too. Was that also connected?
Someone who not only recognised her, but knew where she lived, what car she drove, was apparently following her, watching her, if the note was to be believed.
When her breathing had slowed, she called DI Rankin. He didn’t pick up, so she left a message telling him about the note, suggesting the link was the case. Of course, in her job, and her previous one, lots of people might want to hurt her. But not many people knew where she lived. Did that mean at least one of the Claw Beach attackers was someone she knew fairly well?
She found a plastic bag in the kitchen drawer and slipped the note inside. It would be worth having that checked out tomorrow. Then she checked the windows were locked, and shut the vents on the back door. A stuffy house was better than inviting in a perp with a grudge.<
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Considering her options, she finally picked up her phone and her keys and slipped her personal alarm into the palm of one hand. Whoever it was might have gone after delivering the note, or they might be waiting in the shadows. She would show them she was not afraid.
Dove walked slowly along her road, glancing at her watch as she passed the shuttered grocery store on the corner. She was surprised to note it wasn’t even midnight. Her heart was still pounding a little too fast. At every slight noise, her hand squeezed tighter on the alarm. The cooler night breeze lifted her hair, and she passed a few strolling couples, dressed up for a night out.
She went further into town, feeling safer among the crowded bars, tables spilling out on to the pavement, rowdy customers laughing, talking, enjoying the summer evening. Neon signs flashed above late-night fish-and-chip shops, kebab shops, and in the distance on the other side of the road she could hear the pumping beat of music from Stage 32, the three-storey nightclub. A group of girls staggered past her, one of them pausing to puke in the gutter, spattering her dress and sandals. Her friends were laughing, pulling her along, all of them clutching cans of lager.
Dove sidestepped the partygoers and walked across the promenade, down on to the beach. She could see the pier in the near distance. Several people had lit small fires on the beach, and music from their private parties drowned out the sound of the waves.
The sea was calm tonight, the waves just rippling on the surface of the water. It was high tide, so she didn’t have to go far before she could kick off her shoes and paddle, wincing slightly as the sole of her foot made contact with a sharp stone. Allowing the ebb and flow of the saltwater to soothe her, she almost didn’t hear the commotion to her left, just a couple of hundred metres to the east, near the old leisure centre.
The ugly Victorian building was a derelict mess of concrete, weeds and graffiti, boarded up and earmarked for housing development.
At high tide, the beach was narrow and steep here, and signs directed walkers back to the main coast road, to the safety of the pavement and shops, looping around the derelict estate.
It was on this stretch of beach that a man was pointing and shouting, but Dove couldn’t hear what he was saying. Two more people joined him, adding to the clamour. Something was very wrong. Several people from the beach parties began to run towards the commotion, and the music stopped abruptly.
Dove pulled her shoes back on and jogged towards them, heart rate accelerating again, yanking her phone out, swinging her gaze out to the waves where the man had gesticulated. She reached the group as two of them plunged into the water, half running in the waist-high waves, bending to haul at an object bobbing towards the shore.
A woman left on the beach was talking urgently into her phone, voice high with emotion. “Yes, it’s a body, we all saw it, and they’re bringing it in now.”
Dove ran to help the men with their burden, pushing down the dread growing inside her. The street lights from the promenade cast grotesque shadows across the pebbles. Someone had switched on a torch and the thin beam of icy white lit random details of the rescue attempt.
Dove ran into the water, splashing out in strong, steady strides, leaning down to take her share of the weight.
She grabbed a slippery arm, staggering a little. Shifting the weight, muscles tensing, as she almost lost her footing in the shifting shingle and lapping water. Her heart was banging against her ribs so hard that it hurt to breathe. Her hands were clumsy, grappling with the wet body she was trying to support.
The man opposite her was trying to see if the person was still breathing. He reached over and swiped the curtain of dark hair from the mouth, exposing the face to air as they reached dry land.
Her sister’s head flopped back, drooping and limp.
“Gaia!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I didn’t start the games because that wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted sex in a glass box on the beach. They liked the possibility strangers might be having a midnight stroll and see four middle-aged idiots getting it on.
It’s an unlikely source of income, and not without risks, but Caz doesn’t know how close we are to losing the whole place. The legal fees and planning permission cost far more than we had saved, and the building cost spiralled.
I’m not losing the only good thing I’ve ever done, I’m not losing my family, not after losing Mickey. Just to be careful, I’ve stuck some peel-off tinted sheets on the three exposed sides of Room Six.
They don’t know what I’ve done. While their aim is to be seen, mine is to keep them as inconspicuous as possible. They’re playing a whole different game to me. All I want really is to save my business and get on with my life. I’ve got a baby now, and so my perspective has shifted to adult matters and adult decisions. To the person I have grown into.
One conversation was all it took to send me tumbling back down again. The flash of recognition, heads close together, the scent of his expensive cologne mingling with the wool of his designer suit, expressions bitter and words slicing the balmy night air like knives.
“I know who you are and I know what you did.”
Years of silence, a precarious peace ruined in an instant. It wasn’t my fault, it really wasn’t. But the threat popped out unexpectedly, and settled deep in my heart.
I found myself sitting on the floor, hugging my knees, shaking as I watched the monitors. After a while, I couldn’t cope at all and began to pace. All I could see was my sister, laughing, her red-gold hair flying out, then flopping across her face as she did cartwheels on the waste ground behind our house. I saw myself pushing her on the rusty swing when she was tiny, higher and higher, her little hands gripping the chains, legs dangling, the same red-gold hair, but it was girly then. Baby curls, Mum called it. My baby sister.
Should you ever go back? And if you do, can you ever return to the person you are now? I rocked back and forth on the floor of my flash and expensive office, shaking like I had a fever, while he laughed and did a different kind of gymnastics in Room Six.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“You know her?” one of the men asked shortly, his breathing laboured after the exertion of the rescue, the urgency of the moment, as they dragged the body to the beach and deposited it carefully on to the pebbles.
“She’s my sister,” Dove said shortly, as she carefully and quickly examined Gaia, checking for breathing with shaking hands, finding the body cold and still with no sign of life. “Get back on the phone to the ambulance with an update and tell them she’s not breathing.” She could hear her shrillness, her fear, and the terror rising up from her stomach made her want to scream, or vomit, or both.
The woman nodded and quickly picked up her phone again, and one of the men positioned himself at Gaia’s head. “I know CPR, I can help.”
“Great, you hold her head steady, open her airway while I start chest compressions.” Dove was still working automatically, sure and steady, but inside she was breaking apart.
The woman was back, relaying questions from the 999 call-handler, and the coastguards were already driving down the beach, the flashing lights of their vehicle banishing the evening shadows.
Just as they dumped their kit, Gaia gave a cough and began to retch. Swift hands turned her on to her side, and Dove quickly stroked her hair away from her face as she vomited on to the stony beach.
Gaia had a slash across the side of her head, a sizable bruised lump stretching towards her forehead and more bruising on her shoulder. But she was okay. Tears leaked down Dove’s cheeks. She hastily brushed them away as Gaia’s eyes focused and she caught sight of her sister.
“Hey,” she croaked. She lifted an arm, impeding the efforts of the coastguards, who were trying to fit an oxygen mask.
“Gaia, it’s okay, let them help. Bloody hell.” Dove let out a long breath, light-headed with relief. “I thought you’d had it then.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks but she didn’t care. She just sat back on her heels and watched her
sister breathing.
More lights lit up the beach, and quick voices exchanged information, before the ambulance crew and police made their way down to the sea’s edge where Gaia lay.
“All ready for your brother-in-law to save the day, Gaia?” Quinn dumped his kitbag and knelt beside his fiancée and her sister, as his crewmate brought up the rear with another heavy bag slung over his shoulder.
“Quinn?” Dove whispered through her tears. She couldn’t comprehend the fact that he was here. But of course, contrary to public perception, there weren’t that many ambulance crews working in the area. The chances were high he would be called out to a job in his home town — the ambulance make-ready centre was barely three miles away, and she thanked God that tonight it was this particular incident.
Gaia moved the oxygen mask again, fingers scrabbling with the plastic tubing. “I’m fine. Give me a glass of whisky and I’ll be fine. You can bugger off now, Quinn.” But her voice was strained, husky, and her face still deathly pale in the glare of the lights.
She attempted a laugh, but the effort was apparently too much, and she sank back on to the pebbles, breathing deeply into the mask.
“You all right, babe?” Quinn said to Dove, resting a quick, gentle hand on her shoulder, concern in his eyes, professionalism in his movements, despite his humour.
Quinn and his crewmate, Dave, kept up a gentle stream of banter, even as they examined the patient, inserted a needle into her arm, and took various vital observations.
Dove felt a rush of reassurance and relief at his steady presence and had to look away as tears threatened again. She was happy to be jostled away as the coastguard first responder was now updating the medical team and the police. In the organised chaos around her sister’s body, Dove was at last able to hide her emotion in the shadows.
She moved further away to let the various teams do their jobs, yet never letting her sister out of her sight. She felt like laughing when it became obvious that Gaia was going to be okay, and was even, miraculously, returning to her usual prickly, stubborn self. The patient was talking more easily now, answering questions, trying to sit up.
