by M K Farrar
“You should get it checked out by a doctor. You might have a fractured cheekbone or eye socket or something.”
“I know my own body,” she said. “I think I’d know if something was broken. It looks worse than it is. And anyway, we have a big case to work on. It’s not like I can take time off.”
“Yes, you can, if it’s something serious.”
“I promise, it’s not.”
“If you’re working, Mallory, I want your head in the job. I don’t want you distracted or worrying about whatever is going on with you.”
“Nothing’s going on with me. I’m fine.”
She was stubborn as hell, and he knew he wasn’t going to change her mind. “Okay, but any headache or dizziness and you get straight to the hospital. Got it?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
He was already running late for that morning’s briefing, so he called everyone together in the briefing room.
“First thing’s first,” he started, “I believe whoever killed the Wyndhams may have been driving a white Ford Transit. Liz Wyndham reported one with a concealed number plate across from the house a couple of months before the killings. Craig, you’re still working the CCTV from the area?”
DC Penn nodded, his shoulders sagging. “Yeah. There’s a lot of it.”
“Any white vans caught your eye?”
Craig arched an eyebrow. “This is Bristol. Every other vehicle is a white van, especially with everyone online shopping these days.”
“I need you to check all the traffic cameras around the area between three and six a.m. on the Monday morning and make note of them all. I want every vehicle registration checked, and if you find one that doesn’t have a licence plate or has an obscured plate, we’re going to need as many close-up images of it as possible.”
“You think our killer might be driving it?”
“I’d say it’s unlikely to be a coincidence.”
Craig frowned. “That report was from months ago. You think whoever did this had been planning it for that long?”
Ryan was annoyed at himself for not investigating it sooner. “I do. Maybe they hadn’t been planning to murder the family for that length of time, but they knew about them and were already watching them.”
“Do you think it’s someone who was already in their lives or someone random?”
“At this point, I’m not sure how they came into their lives or what their involvement was, but I think they knew the house.”
Knew it well enough that they were able to move around it freely and without the family being aware.
“I’ll get onto it right away,” Craig said.
Ryan addressed the rest of the room again. “I also believe the killer may have been in the house before the family went to bed that night, which is why the alarm history is only showing as being disabled and armed once during the night, which is when the killer must have left. If they were concealed in the house, they must have known the layout of the building to know where to hide, so I think the perp was known to the family or at least to the house. They also had time to drug the family’s food that evening, which means they had the opportunity. Did the Wyndhams have someone over for dinner the evening before they died?” He looked to Linda Quinn who had been interviewing the neighbours. “Have any of the neighbours reported seeing someone else going into the house?”
Linda shook her head. “Frustratingly, no one saw anything. However, one of the neighbours did say she heard Liz and Hugh arguing a few months ago. Their house is the one that backs onto them, just across the access alley that runs behind the property.” Linda checked her notes. “She described the argument as being ‘intense’.”
Ryan pursed his lips. “But no one else has mentioned the couple having any marital issues?”
“No, they haven’t, but you know what people say about things that happen behind closed doors.”
Ryan rubbed his thumb against the corner of his mouth and then instantly thought about what kind of germs he might have put there. “Might just be a one-off. All couples fight from time to time.” He and Donna used to have horrendous fights before they eventually just gave up and fell into avoiding each other instead.
“Yes, but not all couples end up murdered in their beds.”
Ryan considered it for a moment. “Unless the neighbour can give us some idea about what the fight was about, it’s not much good to us. Let’s focus on finding out who had regular access to the house.”
“Yes, boss.”
“What about the family’s final movements on the Sunday? Where are we with that?”
One of the detectives they’d pulled in from another division replied, “It was just a normal Sunday, as far as we can tell, though without any of the actual family to interview, it’s hard to know for sure. Liz Wyndham used her debit card in the local Sainsburys for what appears to be the usual weekly shop at eleven twenty-six on Sunday morning. Hugh Wyndham went to the local newsagents and picked up a paper shortly after nine a.m., according to the shop owner. We can’t find any reports that either Dulcie or Sheldon went anywhere that day, so they may have spent their final day in their rooms, which probably isn’t unusual for teens and pre-teens these days.”
“Anything on any calendars, either online or paper in the house, that mentions someone going for dinner that night?” Was that even something people wrote down these days?
“Not that we’ve found.”
He focused on his DS and tried not to be distracted by her injury. “Mallory, what about the phone records from Conrad Smales? Do we know if his story about turning his phone off matches his normal pattern yet?”
“It’s not something he does regularly,” she said, “but yes, he has been known to turn it off for periods of time, and according to the tracing on it, the phone was at his home address during the times he says.”
“He works for a transit company, though. Can you check and see if they use Ford Transit vehicles?”
“From what I’ve seen during my visit there, it’s all huge lorries rather than vans, but I’ll double-check.”
“Right now, Conrad is the only one with a motive who knew the family well enough to have access to the house to drug them, but him working during that day makes things complicated.”
Ryan dismissed the briefing, and everyone dispersed back to their desks or left the office to follow up on their action.
DCI Hirst hadn’t been in the briefing, as she’d been caught up in another case, so he went to her office and knocked on the door. She called for him to come in, and he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Mandy Hirst gestured for him to take a seat opposite her desk. “Any solid leads yet?”
“I wish I had more to tell you, but we’re still working on it. I believe the perpetrator is someone who had access to the house, however, and they may have been driving a white Ford Transit. We don’t have any solid witnesses, which is frustrating, and we’re still working on the CCTV footage from the area. I don’t believe any of the victims had anything to do with the murders.”
“Any thoughts on motive?”
He shook his head. “Other than a very tenuous one to do with the ex-husband, I’m afraid not. Why someone would want to murder an entire family is still a mystery, though I think it was someone they knew, someone who even had access to the house.”
“Surely that must narrow it down?”
“We’re still looking at Sheldon Wyndham’s biological father, Conrad Smales, but he was working during the hours leading up to the killings. As far as we’re aware, the family were all going about their normal business on the Sunday, we haven’t discovered anything unusual in their pattern, which meant they hadn’t even left the house by the time Smales was already on the road.”
“So, he wouldn’t have had time to drug the evening meal,” she said.
“That’s right. He potentially had time to leave the depot and kill the family, but it would be cutting it fine.” Ryan paused and said, “There’s one other thi
ng, too. I believe whoever killed them was already in the house when they went to bed that night, which means there’s no way it could have been Smales.”
DCI Hirst blinked. “Already in the house?”
“Yes, ma’am, like hidden away somewhere.”
“Any idea where?”
“Not yet. I’ve got SOCO still working on the house, checking secluded places like the inside of wardrobes and under beds for fingerprints. We might get lucky and come up with prints that don’t belong to any of the family members. If we can match the owner of the fingerprints to a white van owner somewhere in the area, then we might be onto something, but there’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in that statement.”
It had been more than forty-eight hours since the murders, and Ryan was fully aware that the longer it took them to catch the killer, the greater the chance would be that they’d never find the person responsible.
Chapter Fifteen
As Ryan left his boss’s office, a desk sergeant approached him.
“DI Chase, there’s a girl in reception asking for you.”
Ryan frowned. He hadn’t been expecting anyone. “For me? By name?”
“Well, no, she’s asking for whoever is in charge of the Wyndham murders. She says she has information.”
“Did you catch her name?”
“Elouise Lewis.”
It didn’t ring any bells either.
“Okay, thank you. I’ll be right down.”
Ryan finished up what he was doing and then went down to reception. His gaze flicked over the people sitting waiting but didn’t recognise any of them. He glanced over at the reception desk sergeant, who nodded to the corner where a tall girl with mousy brown hair sat with her legs crossed, her head bent over her phone.
“Elouise Lewis?” Ryan said.
The girl lifted her head, an awkward smile flashing across her face before it transformed back into a worried frown. She got to her feet, shoving her phone into her pocket and slinging her bag over one shoulder. She gripped the strap with the opposite hand, creating an unconscious line of defence between them. Ryan guessed she was somewhere between the ages of sixteen and seventeen, but it was hard to tell these days. All girls seemed to look older than they actually were.
“I’m DI Chase,” Ryan continued. “Can I help?”
She glanced around. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
“Of course. I will need to bring an appropriate adult in to sit with us though. Since you haven’t come with your parents, I assume they don’t know you’re here.”
“No, they don’t. Please don’t tell them.”
One of the police constables was passing through the reception area and Ryan flagged him down. “You okay to sit in on an interview with me,” he asked. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
The PC nodded. “No problem.”
“Great. Come through.” Ryan addressed Elouise. “I’ll find us an empty interview room.”
He led them both through the doors and down the corridor, wondering what this was all about. He’d dealt with enough time-wasters in his career, and he hoped this wasn’t going to be another one. Interview room three was empty, so he punched in a code and let them both in.
He gestured for her to sit while the constable stood by the door. “What can I do for you, Miss Lewis? It is Miss Lewis, isn’t it? Elouise Lewis?”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
He jotted it down. “Can I take your current address and date of birth as well.”
She told him and he noted the street was the same as the Wyndhams’.
She peered around nervously. “I wanted to talk to someone about what happened to the Wyndhams.”
“Did you know them?”
She nodded. “I’m their neighbour—I was their neighbour.”
“Okay, and you think you might know something about what happened to them?”
She focused on her hands twisted together on the table. “I-I’m not sure. It probably has nothing to do with what happened and it’s all just so awful—” She broke down, and Ryan waited patiently for her to gather herself again.
“If I tell you something,” she asked, “will it become public knowledge?”
Ryan’s gut instinct told him that this girl had something she was ashamed of. She was closest in age to Sheldon. Could there have been a secret relationship between the two of them?
“I mean, that completely depends on what you tell me. I’m not a solicitor or a doctor. We don’t take a Hippocratic oath or anything. If you tell me something that’s of use to the case, then I’ll have to inform my colleagues, and if it becomes vital to a conviction, you may have to testify in court. But there are things we can do to protect your identity, especially as you’re under eighteen.”
She nodded. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t even know if it’s going to make any difference, but I couldn’t keep it a secret. It’s been eating me alive, thinking maybe someone found out and this was their punishment, though why they’d hurt the others, I don’t know. And I’m scared, too, ’cause what if it is because of that, and whoever killed them is planning on coming after me next?”
“You’re going to have to explain what you mean, Elouise. Find out what?”
She seemed to gulp air. “I was having an affair.”
“An affair? With Sheldon Wyndham?” It seemed like an old-fashioned way of phrasing it.
But she almost whispered, “No, with his dad.”
“With Hugh Wyndham?”
“Yes.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh my God, I’m such a cliché. I babysat for Dulcie a couple of times when Sheldon wouldn’t do it ’cause he was busy, and so Mrs Wyndham—Liz—asked me if I’d like to watch her for some extra money. Hugh saw me home a couple of times, and my parents weren’t in. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the rest to you.”
So, the perfect life of the Wyndhams hadn’t been so perfect after all. He wondered if the affair had been the reason one of the other neighbours had heard Liz and Hugh arguing. Was Hugh a serial adulterer, or had this just been a one-off? Either way, the age difference was enough to make the whole thing feel unsanitary.
“Did he force himself on you at all?” Ryan asked.
“No, he wouldn’t do that. I know it probably doesn’t sound like it, but he was a nice bloke. He was only ever kind to me, even after I told him we couldn’t carry on doing what we were doing.”
The girl was seventeen. Although morally wrong, she was old enough to consent under UK law, and Hugh wasn’t in a position of power, such as being her teacher. It wasn’t as though they could prosecute him now, even if he had been.
“When did your relationship with Hugh start?”
“About six months ago. It wasn’t a relationship. I mean, I know I called it an affair, but it was just a couple of times of stupid fumbling. I knew he was way too old for me, but he said all the right things, about how he thought I was pretty, and I was so much more mature than other girls my age. I stopped it, but the damage was done by then. I guess that’s why they decided to move.”
He frowned. “They were going to move?”
“They were going to start afresh somewhere new. I don’t know if Liz found out about us, or if Hugh was worried that she would, so he convinced her it was a good idea. I just know within a week of me telling him we couldn’t do this anymore, there was a for sale sign in the garden.”
Ryan lifted a finger. “Hang on a minute. They went as far as putting the house on the market?”
“They’d been planning to go to Australia.”
There hadn’t been any for sale signs in the garden that Ryan had noticed, and no record that the house had been sold recently. The friend of the family hadn’t even mentioned it, and neither had any of the neighbours. He could only imagine it had been a flash in the pan, and no one had thought it would be relevant.
“So why didn’t they go?”
“Sheldon, I believe. He refused in the end.
Said they’d have to kidnap him in order to get him on the plane. I think he even asked his dad if he could go and live with him, but his dad didn’t want him there, which probably broke the poor kid’s heart. So, in the end, they just thought they could wait a few more years until Sheldon was old enough to look after himself. Of course, then Dulcie would have been in her teenage years, and they probably would have hit upon the same problem with her.”
Fucking hell, why had no one mentioned this before?
“Did his wife find out about the affair?”
“I think she might have, or at least been suspicious.”
The interviews they’d done with Liz Wyndham’s friends hadn’t mentioned there being any issues within the marriage. Had Liz kept it a secret, even from her friends? Or had she suspected but never had proof? Did everyone just think Liz was being paranoid again?
“Did Liz confront you at all?” he asked.
“No, but they stopped asking me to babysit, which I thought was telling enough, and then there was the for sale sign, though it wasn’t up for long.”
There was the chance none of this had anything to do with the murders, but it did create a motive. Had someone wanted Hugh dead because he’d seduced the babysitter? But then why had they killed the whole family? Had things gone wrong, and they’d had to kill the rest of the family to cover up what they’d done?
Or did none of this have anything to do with what had happened?
Either way, he had no choice but to consider Elouise Lewis as a suspect. She had motive, and even if she hadn’t committed the murders directly, she might have had an accomplice.
“You know that you’re entitled to have a solicitor present while you’re talking to me, Elouise. We can provide one for you.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t need a solicitor. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’m not saying you have, you just need to know your rights.” It was time he read them to her. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
