THE ABBERLEY BEACH MURDERS an addictive crime thriller with a fiendish twist (Detective Dove Milson Book 3)

by D. E. White

  * * *

  “Going back to the night in question, you say in your revised statement that you left the Beach Escape Rooms with Caz Liffey and your baby at half past one, after Caz let the four victims out of the main gate,” Steve said, turning a page in his folder. He and Dove now sat across from Jamie and his solicitor in the cramped, sour-smelling interview room.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Jamie eyed them warily. He was sitting still, not fidgeting, hands clasped neatly in front of him again.

  “We have a witness statement that says you left first with Lila, leaving Caz on the pier while the victims were still in Room Six,” Steve told him.

  “What? That’s crap.” His hands were gripping the table now, eyes blazing. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”

  “The victims never left Room Six, did they, Jamie?” Dove said.

  “You had just come face to face with the man you believe attacked your sister, and Caz had come over to help you deal with things. Did her dealing with things go a little too far, or did you agree between you what needed to be done?” Steve prodded. “You must have been devastated, grieving for your sister, wanting to see justice done . . .”

  “All those things.” Jamie glared at him. “Mickey was a little angel and do you honestly think I haven’t gone over and over how I should have been there that night, should have said yes when she wanted to come to the football with me after training, instead of brushing her off all the time?” Tears brightened his eyes. He dashed them away angrily. “She was my sister and I failed her. I’ve had to live with that ever since. But that doesn’t mean either me or Caz killed those Fantasy Play people.”

  “Jenna Essex brought some photos over to show Caz, didn’t she? Where are those pictures now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was in the pictures? Was it something else that made you sure Ellis Bravery was your man?”

  “No! Of course not. They were just pictures of Mickey she thought we might like to have. I don’t know where they are.” Jamie sat back in his chair, eyes wet, and he scrubbed at his cheeks. “I can’t believe it. And of course we didn’t say we were going to kill Ellis. Caz loved Mickey too, but I can’t believe . . .” He slumped forward, head in hands, the picture of misery.

  “What did you do with the photographs Jenna brought over?”

  “I don’t know, I think Caz put them somewhere. It was too painful to look at them in the end. She may have even put them on the bonfire.”

  Dove laid out the timeline of events, ending with Tracey’s witness statement. “We also know that you were prescribed zopiclone after Mickey’s attack, so perhaps you had a packet lying around somewhere. You offered the Fantasy Play clients a drink at some point, drugged them and disabled the shut-off valve. One of you swam out to put the bung in the outflow pipe. You left before Caz, and she cleaned up, staging the break-in and leaving four innocent people to die.”

  “Do you have anything to say, Jamie?”

  His face was shuttered and eyes hard now. “No comment. I want to talk to my solicitor.”

  “Of course.”

  As Dove stopped the recording, and they all stood up, Jamie said suddenly, “She hasn’t been well since Lila was born, you know. She’s been so emotional.” He seemed to be stronger now, latching on to the idea, which Dove could see would be used by the defence.

  Dove watched as several ideas seemed to fall into place, reflected first in Jamie’s face and then his solicitor’s. A perfect storm. This was going to be interesting. Is he really going to say it was Caz’s idea to kill Ellis Bravery?

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Steve and Dove waited until the pair had been escorted from the interview room, before gathering the paperwork from the table, and heading back upstairs.

  DI Blackman met them on the stairs. “Caz has admitted it, but says she doesn’t really remember what she was doing. She was just, I quote, an emotional mess and desperate to save Jamie from having another breakdown. We just need to take a formal confession for the recording.”

  “Defence team are going to use that for sure, and Jamie says Caz has been struggling with her mental health since Lila was born,” Dove said, as they reached the coffee machine.

  “I’d like to change up a bit, and have Steve and George do Jamie’s next interview,” DI Blackman said. “Dove, you and I will move on to Caz Liffey in Interview Room Two. If you need a break, get your caffeine now. Point to note, Caz insisted on using the duty solicitor, not hers and Jamie’s, which makes it easier for us now . . .”

  Ten minutes later, Dove and DI Blackman moved on to Caz’s interview.

  Caz was defiant, wild-haired and snappy, like a cornered animal.

  DI Blackman explained the procedure and started the recording, introducing everyone in the room. Dove noted that Caz’s new solicitor didn’t look at all happy with his client and barely spoke during the introductions. Interesting she had apparently insisted on using the duty solicitor. Did she suspect her husband might be going to pin the blame on her?

  “On the night of the twenty-fifth of July, you persuaded Jamie to go home, telling him you would lock up after the victims left?”

  “Yes. It was easier than I thought. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to do it, but I couldn’t let Ellis ruin our lives again.”

  “Was there any kind of conversation between Jamie and Ellis?” Dove asked.

  “You keep on about that, and I keep saying no!” Caz shot back.

  “Okay, carry on.” Dove made a note. Caz and Jamie insisted nothing had been said, but it still made no sense. Jenna’s photographs alone might have been enough of a trigger, and if Ellis had laughed at Jamie when he was confronted . . .

  “I remembered there had been a problem with the shut-off valve in Room Six recently. I was there when they fixed it and I paid attention. It was easy to reverse the fix and make sure it didn’t kick in. Then I pulled on the wetsuit and gloves, took one of the rubber bungs we use when we are cleaning out the overflow pipes and dived down to secure it.”

  “You blocked the pipe?”

  “I’ve had plenty of practice training myself to hold my breath for a long time. It’s a fiddly job and normally only done at low tide when the pipes are exposed, but the opportunity was there and I took it.” Caz fiddled with her sleeve thoughtfully. “It seemed like fate, and once I realised what I had to do, so many things dropped into place. The zopiclone Jamie had been prescribed, for instance. He thought I didn’t know, but he always makes sure he has it with him, like a kind of . . . a comfort blanket. He hasn’t taken any for a while, but he still carries it to and from work. That night, he had it stashed in his desk drawer as usual, so I slipped it in my pocket before he and Lila left.”

  “And the vodka?” Dove asked.

  “We had a couple of bottles of spirits from grateful clients, and kept forgetting to take them home. It was in the cupboard, and of course the shot glasses were all displayed on the shelves. I crushed the pills with a hammer from the toolbox, and mixed them with the vodka,” Caz told them.

  “Did you realise you would be killing all four of those people?”

  “All I could think about was getting rid of Ellis before Jamie could talk to him, could start his obsession going again. I didn’t think about the others. You don’t understand what Jamie was like after Mickey was attacked.” She sighed, “There was this thing that happened while Jamie was travelling too . . . He, he sees things differently to the rest of us and he took it really badly.”

  “What happened while he was travelling?”

  “He said he kept seeing Mickey, which was impossible of course. And one time he told me he was actually talking to her on the beach one night, and when he woke up, there was blood all over his clothes. It was in the Philippines somewhere . . .”

  “Go on.”

  Caz rubbed her eyes wearily, “I assumed he was just drunk, but then I heard that a girl had been murdered. I looked online, and she had long red hair, just like M
ickey.”

  “Do you think Jamie killed this girl?” DI Blackman made quick notes, his face grim. “Do you remember anything else about the incident? Dates? Exact location?”

  “No! I don’t know . . . All I know is he seemed better after that. He started saying he felt he had been able to grieve properly, and was ready to move on. Move on with me. He was planning our future together.” Caz stared at Dove, “If he had just killed that girl, he wouldn’t have been ready to move on. He would have gone crazy, wouldn’t he?”

  “Why?”

  “Because of Mickey of course. You don’t understand. Travelling put him in a better place. Before, he was so depressed I worried he would kill himself or something. I didn’t think of anything that night except keeping Jamie and Lila safe.”

  “So what happened once you had mixed the zopiclone with the vodka?” Dove asked, trying to keep track of these revelations. It was obvious Caz was in a terrible state, half realising what kind of person Jamie might be, half clinging to her obsessive love, her almost idolising of him. Maybe she had been fighting her true thoughts for a long time.

  “After the drug was mixed with the vodka, I screwed the cap back on, put the glasses, bottle and a little tray from the desk into a bag and took them out to the clients. I’d checked on the screen and I was lucky. They were just talking and laughing, because Oscar knew Jamie would set the alarm off. It’s just a red flashing light in the centre of the rooms that signals the beginning of the games.”

  “So you went down into Room Six?” DI Blackman asked, making another note.

  “As soon as I could, because I wasn’t sure how long the drugs would take to work. I told them this was an extra freebie, part of our super service or something equally crap, and handed round the shots. I made a thing out of it and I kept pouring until the bottle was empty.” She frowned. “One of the women started singing and waving her arms like she was off her head. It was annoying, but I was focused on Ellis. Part of me was fascinated to be so close to him after all these years. Obviously he never recognised me, had no idea what my name was, even. He was all over the shorter woman. It was vile.”

  “So you left them inside, presumably locking the bolt as you went back to the office, to wait for the inevitable. Did you watch them die?” the DI asked.

  “Of course not! I didn’t get off on it, if that’s what you’re implying,” Caz snapped. “I knew from the monitors when the room was full, so all I had to do was wait and silence the two automatic alarms. It was all over in an hour.”

  “Then what did you do?” Dove queried. She was thinking as a last-minute murder plan, it had depended on so many factors. As Caz said, luck had been on the murderer’s side. If the tides hadn’t been favourable, if the drugs and alcohol hadn’t been there, if her victims hadn’t already drunk a fair amount of alcohol, she could never have achieved her aim.

  “I took the bolt cutters from the toolbox, made it look as though we had a break-in, scrubbed the CCTV and smashed the screens, threw the bolt cutters over the end of the pier.” Caz shrugged. “It seemed barely five minutes since Jamie had called me from home, but so much had happened. I gathered up my wetsuit, the bottle and shot glasses, locked up and went home by the ladder down the pier.”

  “So you admit to the murder of Oscar Wilding, Dionne Radley, Aileen Jackson and Ellis Bravery?”

  “I didn’t want to kill them all. I already told you that, but I had to protect Jamie and our life with Lila,” Caz repeated slowly, like she was talking to a child. She was twisting her hair, winding it and unwinding it between shaky fingers. “You didn’t see what he was like after Mickey was attacked. He was so depressed, and he used to get drunk and say over and over how he should have been there, should have protected her. I was afraid he might do something stupid. I couldn’t let him go through that again.”

  “What about the photographs Jenna brought over?” DI Blackman asked.

  “Why do you keep going on about them? They were just pictures of Mickey. If you want the truth, I burned them. Jamie didn’t see them. He didn’t need another reminder of how Mickey had been, how she should be now. The anniversary is always hard.” She stopped and started to draw patterns on the table with her fingers, before continuing with her monologue, picking her words slowly and carefully. “Last year he didn’t speak all day and spent the night sleeping next to Mickey’s bed at the hospital. Don’t you see? He knows, and his poor parents know — sooner or later she’ll die, and the last hope will be gone.” Caz’s eyes were wet with tears, her voice cracking with apparently genuine emotion.

  “Who do you think attacked Mickey, Caz?” Dove asked.

  “It was Ellis!” She was angry again now, afraid.

  “We know you, Jamie and Jenna believe that, but I think the photographs Jenna found might have in some way showed how Mickey was attacked,” the DI said.

  “No comment.”

  “Did you hurt Mickey, Caz?” the DI said suddenly, and Dove glanced at him.

  “No! I loved Mickey. Of course we were rivals! It was competitive gymnastics, not a little hobby. Places on the team were limited. You had to be the best,” Caz said harshly. “I was at the football match on the waste ground that night. It was Jenna who nobody saw for a good half an hour. The police questioned her.”

  “Mickey was the best at gymnastics?” Dove suggested.

  “At that time, that month, that summer. She could have been just a flash in the pan, one of those girls who comes and goes. I trained harder than her, but Coach Hawthorn just went on and on about her talent,” Caz said bitterly. “It’s not talent that makes an elite athlete. It’s bloody hard repetitive work, training until your body hurts and you are so exhausted you want to lie down and never get up. But you never do, because you see that Olympic medal in your dreams every fucking night.”

  “You gave up gymnastics six months after Mickey’s assault,” Dove commented.

  “I aged out. Too big, and too old to make the top level, so that was it. There was no point after that. I accepted I’d given it my all and not made it.” Caz glared at them and added spitefully, “I’m not some wet blanket like Jenna, I’d never be happy teaching little kids how to turn cartwheels.”

  “I don’t think Ellis did attack Mickey, Caz. I think you did.” The DI spoke slowly, clearly, watching her face intently.

  Her eyes flashed with fear, and Dove could see the words hammering home, like nails into her heart. “Of course I bloody didn’t! You have no proof at all, and I’ve got an alibi. I already confessed to killing Ellis Bravery. This is a whole different thing . . .”

  Finally, Caz’s solicitor came to her rescue. “My client has given her statement, is extremely distressed and, as she has mentioned, you have no reason to suggest she may have been involved in the attack on her sister-in-law.”

  “Jamie loves me. He always did, and I would do anything for him,” Caz interjected, calmly, mechanically. Her eyes were dull, her shoulders drooping.

  “Do you think Jamie would want you to lie for him?” Dove asked. Caz had put Jamie on such a high pedestal, she must have realised it would only be a matter of time before he came crashing down. Tracey’s witness statement was enough to show both Caz and Jamie had been trying to cover up the murders.

  “I’m not lying. I’ve already told you what happened. It was me, me who killed Ellis and the others, and Jamie had no idea,” Caz stated. “I have nothing else to say.”

  “What about your baby?”

  Just for a moment, pain clouded her face, softening her eyes, making her mouth droop slightly at the corners. “She’ll be fine. And Jamie knows I did this for him, and for Mickey. We are on the same page, always.”

  “Which means you would also lie for him?”

  “No comment.”

  Nothing they said could dent her version of events, and eventually Dove and the DI finished the interview, leaving Caz with her solicitor, waiting to be taken into custody, before they walked wearily back up the stairs.

  Do
ve stopped at the coffee machine, then shoved some coins into the snack machine for her favourite sweets as they passed. “She’s not going to give him up, is she?”

  The DI shook his head, evidently still mulling it over. “I’ll send the Philippines incident information straight over to Interpol and see if we can get an idea of what happened and if they found their perpetrator.”

  “I suppose either Jamie was involved or maybe read about it, enough to make up a sort of fantasy about his part in the girl’s murder, based on his own experiences?”

  “I know which version I’m betting on.”

  Dove nodded. “And what was all that stuff about Mickey? Do you really think Caz was responsible for the attack as well?”

  “I was trying to find out what was in the damn photos Jenna took over more than anything, but she could have been the one. There’s a lot of anger and jealousy. I honestly think she’s obsessed with him and would have done anything to protect him, or to keep his attention,” DI Blackman explained.

  “But if Caz was responsible for attacking Mickey, thus in her mind, disposing of the only real rival for Jamie’s affections, and Jamie found out, he would kill her for sure,” Dove said soberly. “That’s some tightrope to live on.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I can smell the dwarf lemon trees in the garden. Mum grows them in a sunny spot by the front door, and they come indoors in the winter to the conservatory at the back of the house. A miniature lemon grove, she calls it.

  The sun is hot on my head, as I breathe in the scent in my bright cocoon. I watch. He watches. They all see different things, don’t they?

  He was watching me again today. I saw him across in the garden while we were playing by the swings. Caz and I were doing cartwheels and roundoffs, and Jenna was doing handstands. She was wearing that frilly pink skirt, and you could see her knickers every time she did a handstand, but as usual she didn’t care.