by Karina Evans
I hope you will understand my reasons and allow me to exist in your thought processes, to shape the way you live your life. Perhaps we can forge a relationship whilst I am serving my time. A life in prison is manageable with a visit from Detective Sergeant Isobel Hester every week or so.
Regards.
Isobel turned the letter over in her hand, perplexed. “Where did this come from?”
“It arrived at front office yesterday. I was going to send it on, but I figured you’d be in today for your things — Guv told me you were heading off on secondment.”
“Yes, that I am.”
Isobel walked away from the front office desk at Hamhill police station, examining the envelope of the letter the clerk had just handed to her. The postmark was from a town ten miles away, but that didn’t always mean anything; letters often did a fifty mile round trip to the nearest main mail hub, only to end up back in the town it was sent from. The letter was printed on good quality heavyweight cream paper, maybe on a home printer — the poor quality combined with the vertical lines through the print suggesting the device was running low on ink. Isobel read the letter again, concluding that it was a fantasist she’d crossed somewhere along the way — the content was à propos for nothing. The sensible thing to do would be to bag it just in case. She carried the envelope up to the Major Crime office between her fingertips, grabbing an evidence bag and putting it in her drawer. PC Bradley Waters was sitting in her chair, drinking a coffee from Isobel’s mug. This annoyed Isobel more than she would ever admit — the relationship between a detective and her coffee cup was something that few people understood.
Bradley nodded at the evidence bag in Isobel’s hand. “What’s that?”
Isobel reached over and loosened his fingers from the handle of her mug. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a lowly police constable come and see his girlfriend?”
Isobel lowered her voice. “I am not your girlfriend.”
“You were last time I saw you naked,” Bradley laughed. “Which was approximately eighteen hours ago.”
“Oh, go back to your own office,” Isobel retorted. “Consensual sex between two adults does not equal a relationship.”
“Whatever.” Bradley swung round in Isobel’s chair, reaching to take the mug back and finish his coffee. She pulled it away and, realising he was fighting a losing battle, Bradley walked out of the office, head down to hide his reddening cheeks.
“I’m off tomorrow,” Isobel said casually, as though it was an everyday declaration.
“Off?” Bradley replied, “what does that mean? Off where?”
“Shorestone. They need me on a case.”
“That’s why you invited me over? To tell me you’re leaving me? Why didn’t you tell me this morning?”
“I’m not leaving you; I’m leaving Hamhill. Besides, we’re not together. I’m just, you know, moving on for a bit.”
“Right, ok.”
“I told you, Bradley. One, we are not together, so don’t be such a needy arse. Two, they have asked me to help on a case and it so happens it’s in my hometown. Three, I’ll be back. Just find someone else to entertain you in the meantime.”
“Right, yes I get that. I knew that you and that place are tied up in knots, but this is a surprise. I didn’t think you’d invite me over just to tell me you were leaving.”
“Not leaving. I told you I’m not leaving. I thought we could spend tonight together, maybe. If you’re up for it? Why else would I invite you over?”
“I thought you might… well —”
“Be begging you to move in?”
“No, of course not. I know you better than that. Just, maybe an evening together?”
Isobel sighed. “Maybe when I come home.”
Isobel placed a plate of pasta swimming in water on the table in front of Bradley.
“Oh, thank you, Isobel — our first meal together. Pass the wine, please; I think I might need it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Shorestone
The officers had taped off Market Street alley from both ends, much to the annoyance of drug dealers, who loitered at the top end, knowing business would steadily pass through until a resident complained. It was only residents at the top end of the alley who ever stuck their noses in — the bottom end was silent, dark, rushed through and barely used, other than by the sex workers who utilised the otherwise silent and disused yard for sex and to take their hits.
The dealers would always know when they had to move on — a back door would open, a tenant would scream obscenities over the wall, the police would turn up. But this time they taped the alley off for twenty-four hours, during which the dealers moved to the corner of nearby Market Street, a little more open than their usual spot. But the show must go on.
Dominic had visited Millicent in hospital to get a first account, but she had only been awake for a couple of hours having lost consciousness when she arrived at the hospital. Doctors had ruled out any brain damage and stabilised her, but she would need to stay under observation for a while and her account of the attack was very vague. He had got the name of her boyfriend, who was top of his list to interview, having had an argument with Millicent shortly before she left the property. Known locally, he was possibly one drug dealer inconvenienced by the taping off of Market Street alley, and Dominic felt it would be remiss of him if he didn’t at least get his account of events. One mystery that surrounded the attack on Millicent right now was who called it in, and why they weren’t at the scene when the police and ambulance arrived — Millicent was alone in the alleyway and hadn’t been able to give them any details.
Dominic had ordered house-to-house on the properties close to the alleyways, conducting some himself, leaving none the wiser: nothing remarkable said. Of the twenty houses that lined the sides of the alley, sixteen had said they had been asleep and had heard nothing, one said she thought she had heard a fox but had thought nothing of it and stayed in her lounge watching television, and the remaining three weren’t in.
Dominic called the office to get an address for Millicent’s boyfriend. Just as he hung up, an email came through — toxicology for Violet Taylor. The report showed she was under the influence of heroin and methadone at the time of her murder; perhaps a small mercy, Dominic thought. Would drugs have numbed her terror as he dragged her to the woods? With every fibre of his being, Dominic hoped so.
“Isaac Lockett?”
“Yep. That’s me.”
“Can I come in? I would like to have a quick chat about Millicent.”
“Is she ok? They haven’t let me see her yet. I’m so worried —”
“Yes, she is recovering, but I need your version of events, so can I come in?”
“My version? Surely there’s only one version?”
“Well, yes. Let’s just check they match, shall we?”
“Oh, I see where this is going. You’ve got me down as some sort of fucking sadistic fucking perv? You think I’d attack my girlfriend?”
“No, not at all. Let’s just have a chat, shall we?”
Isaac reluctantly opened the door to let Dominic through, leading him to a kitchen at the back of the flat. The flat smelt of smoke with a hint of washing powder, and Dominic noticed washing drying on the radiators and an opened box of detergent on the side. There was a small table next to the large sash window and Dominic pulled out a chair and sat down, gesturing for Isaac to sit across from him.
“Mind if I smoke, officer?”
“Only if you give me one.”
Isaac offered Dominic a cigarette, lighting it with a disposable lighter. It was the oldest trick in the book, asking a suspect for a cigarette — it got them on side, like there was a smoking camaraderie; a ‘them’ and an ‘us’. Those who smoke, we trust.
“So, talk me through what happened on the night Millicent was attacked,” Dominic said, almost coughing out a plume of strong smoke.
“You haven’t smoked for a while, have you, mate? Should
have started you on the extra lights,” Isaac laughed — a thick, throaty sound. “Sorry. God, get me, sitting here laughing like nothing’s happened. Really, there’s nothing to tell. She left me here with my flatmate to watch the game. She was pissed because I was watching television and so she ran. I tried following, but she’d gone by the time I got to the front door. I kind of thought she wanted to run, wanted to ‘win’, so I let her go. I feel like such a dick right now. I should have gone after her.”
“She had no calls from you on her phone — you didn’t think to call to check she got home ok?”
“To be honest, mate, the last thing I expected was for her to be attacked. She was playing a silly fucking game, and it annoyed me, so I left her to it. I was going to call the next day when things calmed down and she was feeling a bit more, you know, amenable, but then this happened —” Isaac waved his cigarette around in the air to demonstrate ‘this.’ “You want a cuppa?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you. I have a flask. So what had happened earlier in the evening to cause Millicent to run from you? Had you had an argument?”
Isaac lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one he was smoking. He inhaled deeply, looking at the ceiling to exhale, his eyes closed. “It was something and nothing — she had wanted a date night but the big game was on. I’d been planning to watch it for ages but didn’t want her to feel rejected — which she would have done — if I had told her not to come over. So I had agreed she could come, but maybe she didn’t expect me to actually watch the game. Who knows? She was annoyed and stomped off, like I said. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Do you know anyone who lives in either Goodwin Street or Market Street?”
“Mate, you know me. You checked me out. I know everyone who lives in those houses. In fact, that’s how I met Millicent; she used to work the alleys.”
“Work the alleys? As in a sex worker?”
Isaac stared at Dominic as though he had just landed from another planet. “Of course that’s what I mean; what else could I mean? Don’t say a word to Millie though, she would hate that I’d told you.”
“Had you any contact with anyone who lived in Goodwin Street or Market Street in the days prior to Millicent’s attack?”
“You think it’s one of the scrotes from the alley houses who attacked Millicent? I’d be surprised if it was — they’re all too off their heads to do something like that. And she kept her bag and phone, right? The only thing those scumbags would want is money — I’d be shocked, honest to god, if they had anything to do with it.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Isaac, did you have any contact with anyone from Goodwin Street or Market Street in the days prior to Millicent’s attack?”
“Of course I fucking did. That’s the centre of my customer base — the epicentre of skagland.”
“And can you identify by name any of the residents of the houses that line the alleyway in which Millicent was attacked?”
Isaac sucked hard on his cigarette, looking at it accusingly as he realised it had burned down to the butt. He picked up the packet that sat on the table in front of him and, with shaking hands, took out another cigarette. Dominic picked up the lighter and leant over to light it.
“If you force me, I can. If you nick me, I will. But you can figure that out without my help and I tell you, they won’t have had anything to do with Millie. That’s not their game.”
CHAPTER SIX
She stepped off the train, dragging a suitcase behind her, ignoring the clatter as it dropped over the edge of the train doorway onto the platform beneath. She hurried to the steps that arched over the tracks, heaving her case over the barrier, nodding at the guy manning the exit, who, with a flicker of recognition crossing his face, opened the gate for her.
She walked towards the exit doors, which opened automatically as though to greet her, and, standing with her feet wide and shoulders back, she lit her first cigarette for five years and surveyed the town that fought her and won.
She was back.
Isobel Hester was home.
Isobel had booked herself into a cheap bed-and-breakfast on Shorestone seafront after carefully researching it and confirming that it had changed hands since she had left; prior to her exodus, it had been owned by Frank Simpson — an angry man, easy with his fists. He had very vocally expressed his opinion regarding Isobel’s behaviour when she was a teenager, circulating gossip with the locals, including Isobel’s parents, updating them as to their daughter’s shenanigans. None of his bloody business, Isobel had shouted at her parents as they updated her as to her own whereabouts. “That Frank, he can fuck off and die.”
Frank had referred to himself as ‘Mr. Shorestone’, because he owned several properties along the seafront of the town, all rundown converted flats. The small £50 deposit he charged his tenants made the properties attractive to many of the town’s poorest, but when they moved in they realised just why he was letting the properties so cheaply — the mould creeping through layers of wallpaper and paint, the boilers hissing and fizzing, the leaking roofs and the cracked windows. This was in the years before the council worked to condemn dodgy landlords, instead breathing a departmental sigh of relief as someone dropped off their ever-growing council house waiting list and over to a privately rented property.
But then it all changed. Somebody died. Elsie Mansie, her name was, a dear old lady. The 84-year-old, with no family and no friends, hadn’t explored the opportunity of council housing which, after her death, the council would loudly proclaim was definitely available to an at-risk old lady like Elsie, but she didn’t know that and so had died in bed; carbon monoxide poisoning her body as the boiler, in her bedroom of all places, leaked its poisonous fumes into the cold top-floor flat she called home. She was staring at the leaking ceiling, the rumour goes; and it was raining on the night she died, so poor old Elsie Mansie had raindrops drip drip dripping into her open eyes as she died.
The upshot of this horrifically tragic tale was, of course, the needless death of an elderly lady but also the knee-jerk reaction of the local council, which worked harder than it had in the entire previous century to cover up the appalling state of the town’s housing crisis. Frank Simpson’s properties were all condemned — every single one of them; his wife left him and, the new B&B owner delightedly informed Isobel, his kids stopped talking to him, avoiding his flailing, raging fists, ducking and diving, moving like they could not all the time their dad owned the town; and then Frank, angry, violent Frank, had died, sitting on the toilet, just like Elvis, but stinking like a pauper, not a King.
Shorestone was one of the UK’s ‘smaller seaside towns’ — population under 15,000, higher than average deprivation, closer than average community. It wasn’t difficult to get into trouble in a little town like this; everyone knew each other, everyone drank together, smoked together, slept together. Isobel’s behaviour would hardly have been noticeable had she been living in a different location, but the combination of her brother’s much-talked-about death and her subsequent derailing had quickly become the talk of the town. In fact, the last time Isobel had spoken to her mother, she had quietly announced that, “People are still talking about it, you know.”
Isobel walked the short distance from the train station to the bed-and-breakfast without realising she was holding her breath. She punched in the security code they had given her for the access lock and entered the musty-smelling lobby. “This is what Shorestone smells like,” she muttered under her breath as she waited at the small desk for someone to come and check her in. After five minutes, nobody had appeared, so Isobel explored, hoping to find someone to give her keys for her room. To the left of the lobby desk was a door, which was slightly ajar. Isobel peered through the crack in the door, clearing her throat to announce her arrival. A dog, curled up in a basket in the corner of the room, lazily lifted his head, assessed her with one eye closed, deemed her no threat and went back to sleep.
Isobel creaked the door open a little further,
hoping not to disturb the dog. He didn’t budge, satisfied that he wouldn’t need to display anything resembling guard dog behaviour on this particular day. She looked around the room, taking in the worn carpet, the ten-year-old computer perched on a laminated birch-effect desk that may have been the height of fashion in the 1990s. On the wall above the desk was a rack with twelve hooks. Each hook had a marker pen scrawl underneath, and housed either one or two sets of keys, containing both room and cupboard keys. Spare keys for both the doors and the cupboards were hanging from the remaining four hooks, along with housekeeping keys: basement, front door, cleaning cupboard and office. The hook for Room One was the only one with just one set of keys, presumably meaning it had an occupant in it. The cleaning cupboard keys were missing, their whereabouts soon made obvious by a jangling sound and heavy footsteps descending the staircase next to Isobel.
She padded back to the lobby desk, leaning against it to make it appear as though she had been there all along. “Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, just getting some polish from the cupboard,” wheezed the owner of the heavy footsteps as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “You should’ve rung the bell.” Isobel looked around, bemused, before resting her eyes on a small handheld bell on a shelf above the desk.
“Oh, goodness, I didn’t notice that up there,” Isobel said, tactfully adding, “Would it make more sense to put it on the desk so people can see it?”
