The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series)

by Rebecca Bradley

  ‘So, what are you telling me Jack, that this really is a natural death?’ Had he really called us down here for this? It wasn’t like him.

  He frowned at me, peering over the top of his reading glasses. I felt the weight of his disapproval. ‘No, Hannah, I’m not telling you this is a natural death; do stop getting ahead of yourself, dear girl.’

  I crossed my legs and waited for him to continue.

  ‘It would seem that we have a suspicious death on our hands.’

  I looked across at Martin who knitted his eyebrows together and shrugged.

  ‘Everything is in order so far, Ma’am. We haven’t missed any opportunity at evidence gathering.’

  ‘But, you just said …’ I returned my gaze to Jack.

  ‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? The bruising we saw corresponds to the crime scene photographs of the location of the body with the kitchen counter top, floor and stool falling on her. None of the injuries would have been likely to be cause of death. They weren’t significant enough.’ He referred to his report again before continuing. I knew better than to interrupt him. This was his field of expertise and I needed his answers.

  ‘The toxicology, as I say, came back negative, but I wasn’t happy, I really don’t like negative post-mortems, especially in people so young, so I sent it off again for a new set of tests, which is why it’s taken this long to come back to you with the results – but this is where it gets interesting.’ I’m sure I nearly saw Jack smile, though he was very aware of being professional about his patients. ‘Lianne Beers had digoxin in her system and enough to kill her.’

  Ah, this is why we were here. ‘Was she on di—?’

  ‘Digoxin. It’s derived from the Foxglove plant, digitalis lanata. Agatha Christie used Digitalis as a weapon of choice once you know. Appointment With Death.’

  For a man dealing with death day in, day out, Jack had a love of all things crime fiction. It was fascinating to see.

  Sometimes.

  I nodded. Sipped my tea again. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Martin smile.

  ‘It’s usually given to patients with atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter and heart failure and after doing her PM and reading her doctor’s notes and seeing all the drugs you seized from her home, I can tell you she didn’t have any problems with her heart. There was no reason for me to find digoxin in her system. She was in a reasonably good state of health.’

  I didn’t like where this was going. ‘So what are we saying then?’

  ‘I’m saying,’ and he did smile at me now, ‘that she was killed by digoxin toxicity, of which there was no medical need for her to be using and it was not listed in the drug contents at her home … so it would appear you have a suspicious death on your hands, Hannah.’

  Martin leaned forward now. ‘Any idea how it got into her system? Were there any needle marks on her body that you found?’

  ‘Ah, now then, there were no needle marks on her body, so that question is one for you to answer.’

  16

  ‘So what are we looking for?’ Anthony Grey, my chief inspector, asked. He steepled his hands, contemplating the new information I had just given him.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘So we’re going back into Lianne Beers’ house to look for something, but you don’t know what. I presume you’re taking a team of CSIs with you?’ He rested his chin on his hands as he thought through what I was saying. I could feel the pressure building around me. Since Sally’s murder last year, I could see our team had only been picking up the jobs that looked cut and dried. Nothing too taxing to wear us out or for us to screw up while the force assessed the emotional damage to the team, emotionally, but more importantly to them, reputedly and accountably. This had looked to be one of those steady jobs when it first came in and now here I was telling him that it was bigger than first thought. That rather than a nice, medical justification like a blown aneurysm or some other such reason, Lianne Beers’ death was more likely to be something sinister that we had to look into and deal with seriously. Grey had aged at least another couple of years in the last six months. He was obviously feeling the stress and wouldn’t want this right now.

  ‘Do what you need to do, Hannah. Talk everything through as you do it with Jack, as he knows what’s possible and what’s not, and talk each step through as you do it, with the senior CSI on duty.’ He sighed and pulled his hands apart, leaning back in his chair.

  Leaning away from the job.

  17

  2010

  The teenage years and alcohol experimentation was a difficult time. At fourteen years of age he nearly had a meltdown. All he had taught her, and her peers had undone all that hard and loving work in no time at all. Now every time she was out of the house in the evening Emma was managing to get hold of some kind of alcoholic product and it didn’t really matter what kind it was. Though Blue WKD was a favourite, cheap old cider would do. She would say she was going out to a mate’s house but he would find out she’d been hanging out with her friends on the shop fronts on Derby Road. A large group, which was intimidating to many who passed them.

  Isaac spent many sleepless nights trying to resolve the problem. He’d start by grounding her for a few days. It made the atmosphere in the house electric. Tight and fierce. An angry burst of energy about to be fired off at any opportunity. He had never experienced anything like it. He stood his ground and hoped that she would learn her lesson, that drinking this stuff outside on the street was both dangerous and unhealthy. When the time for her to be allowed out of the house came, it was only a week before Connie came to him after noticing alcohol on her breath again and a bottle under her bed.

  The second time around, Emma was grounded for two weeks. She voluntarily cloistered herself into her bedroom. She wanted nothing to do with him. To her, Isaac was evil and knew nothing of what life was really like. She was capable of taking care of herself and there was nothing wrong with drinking on the street on a school night. Isaac paced around the house. Tried to speak to her at the dinner table. But on the whole he left Connie to try and talk to her about her safety. When she was drunk anyone could take advantage of her and she could be hurt in any number of ways. To have these discussions going on in his house made his skin itch and his fingers crawled their way up his sleeves and clawed away at the skin on his arms. He hoped she would pass through this phase soon.

  She came home from town one Saturday with the tragus piercing; to him it was just the bobbly bit at the front of her ear that should not be pierced. He ranted at her. Towering, using his height to full advantage to show his rage at what she had done to her body, how she had mutilated herself. He was livid. She was perfect. Flawless. Born pure and clean and she had taken a choice to do this to herself. This didn’t matter to Emma. She stood mute. Listening to him, her father. Watching until he burnt himself out with his tirade. Refusing to provide the information of where she’d had it done. She also refused to take it out and he wasn’t going to do it forcibly for fear of injuring her, causing even more permanent damage. So they stood at an impasse. He couldn’t believe how stubborn and rigid she was.

  It continued like this and he thought he had lost her. His only beloved child. Lost to the jungle that was teenage hormones and peers and environment. Parenting had never been so hard. Sleepless nights and dirty nappies had nothing on these years. He just wanted his Em back. The sweet Em. The Em who loved and adored him. The Em who had a future and who wanted that future. Not the Em who didn’t care what the world held as long as it was with her mates in Stapleford.

  This Em didn’t care if she had a future of any kind or not … and it broke his heart.

  18

  Ross saw the activity happening around him. Like a hive of bees humming in his ears. Excitement he hadn’t heard in a while. A slow, but steady and constant hum – not the normal drone of a working office with voices talking, fingers tapping on keyboards and drinks being slurped at desks – a higher level buzz that meant something
was in the air was holding interest. The day-to-day goings on were virtually abandoned as they hummed about the office spreading words of doom from another person’s life. Ross couldn’t stand it. The excitement and glee were horrific. Jobs in here only meant another person, another family was ruined and it wasn’t just what you saw at the immediate scene. These people had extended family. They had friends and work colleagues. They had book groups or sports activity groups. The ripple effect of someone, one person, being savagely taken, was felt wide and far and Ross understood that, he felt it.

  Working in an office like this turned you into a person whose vision was skewed. It became warped to society and societal values in general, but also narrowed. Sharpened to a point. A darted implement with only one target. To solve the crime, gather the evidence, do it forensically and securely and pass it to the CPS for a decision on prosecution. That’s as far as this office, this job could take you.

  Ross knew he had become that person. That dedicated detective. The love of the job had driven him forward every day. He’d always woken before his alarm, eager to get into the office. Always on top of his work, waiting for the next job to come in, for the next thrill of being involved in such an important investigation as a murder; methodically chasing down the leads to catch the killer. That sweet moment when you had them in your sights, when you knew who they were and you zoned in on them and they didn’t know you were coming. So, so sweet.

  And working within the team, he adored them. They took him in and immediately made him feel at home. He thrived. He had loved it.

  But what about the people? Actual people involved or not involved at all but affected beyond all imagination by the incident. Justice is all well and good, but what about the people left behind?

  Ross started to feel sick to his stomach with the heightened noise around him. He clenched his teeth, the muscle in his jawline twitching with the pressure. His fingers hovered over his keyboard. He had work to do, final bits for the trial, but he couldn’t think straight. He just couldn’t. He pushed back hard on his chair as he stood and stalked out of the incident room. Fists clenched at his side.

  Martin leaned back in his own chair and watched Ross leave.

  19

  So far, our team was still small, meaning we had the space to move and do what we needed to here. More space than we’d had at Central police station, but it felt as though we were rattling around an abandoned house. There were desks with empty chairs and unused computer terminals. The building was newer and not falling to bits like it was at Central, but I’d loved that place. I’d felt comfortable and we’d been torn out of it just when we needed to stay. Not long after Sally’s death, when we needed to keep our working lives looking like a version of normal, but we’d had to adjust.

  And now we had a suspicious death to look at. We had a cause of death, but we didn’t know much else, so Walker hadn’t drafted any more staff in. The briefing was succinct as I provided the facts, as we knew them.

  ‘Lianne Beers died from digoxin toxicity. At this point we don’t know if it was suicide, accident or murder.’ Blank faces stared back at me. Working with the unknown for something that could turn out to be an accident wasn’t what they thought of as a conducive day’s work. ‘For now we need to be looking into Lianne’s life. Her family, her friends, and we need to look closely at her ex-husband Sean and his new wife. Aaron and I will speak with them, today if we can. He seems to have the most to gain if this does turn out to be a murder. We’ll ask both him and his wife about illness and if they’re taking any medication; if so, what? We’ll see if they’ll sign medical consent forms while we’re there. I need you to find out what he does for a living. Who does he have contact with that could get hold of digoxin? Find out how easy it is to get hold of if it’s not prescribed.’ Aaron’s head was down, his pen moving rapidly over his major incident notebook.

  ‘Look at his new wife. Check PNC for both of them. Where does she work?’ I paused, as a thought came to me. ‘Also check both addresses – Lianne’s and Sean’s – for reported domestic incidents, see if there were any acrimonious issues that Sean isn’t telling us about. Even if attending cops got the bums’ rush while there, maybe it was a neighbour who called it in, if so, the details will be in the log. Canvass both sets of neighbours.’ I paused again, looking at the team. Team. It wasn’t a word that really fit us at the minute. We were running short staffed and Ross was still doing last-minute paperwork for his trial. He was great at doing the legwork that needed doing, always eager to get out of the office and get things done. He’d been enthusiastic for the job since joining the unit. I knew I could pull him in for a few small enquiries if he thought he had the time. He’d help out if he could.

  Then I had Martin, the oldest and most experienced DC who was calm and got on with whatever needed doing, which left Aaron and me. Okay, so basically unless we had Ross, there was Martin, Aaron and me to do the legwork. I hoped this turned out to be accident or suicide. I faced Martin. ‘If I can leave you to do the intelligence enquiries when Aaron and I go, give Ross a shout if you really need a dig out, Okay?’

  ‘No worries, boss.’ He leaned back in his chair; his shirt buttons straining over his stomach. Not a lot fazed him.

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable yet though, first we have to go and do a search of Lianne’s address with the CSIs to see if we can find the source of the digoxin.’

  The house was a two-bedroomed semi on a narrow idyllic-looking back road in Bramcote. It was clean and tidy, considering a young child had lived here. There was a box in the corner of the living room that was stacked with children’s toys and a bookshelf that was home to adult novels of eclectic taste; romance, crime, fantasy and non-fiction, which were all filed on the higher shelves, and children’s books on the bottom two shelves. The open plan layout into the kitchen showed items as they had been left. The stool on the floor and half unpacked shopping on the worktop. No one had been in to clean up and the stench of the excreted bodily fluids was strong, the green stomach contents now dried hard on the tiles. Lianne obviously had no one close to come in and take care of things for her. I’d sort something out when I got back into the office. I didn’t want Megan to come here, to collect her clothes or books and toys and walk into this.

  The CSIs filed in, all suited up, as we were, but carrying boxes containing evidence gathering kits to collect various samples, including food, drinks, medicines and anything else a search would throw up that may have been a mode of contamination. Jack hadn’t found any injection sites so it was likely that Lianne had ingested the digoxin. But if it had been in the home, why hadn’t it killed Megan? So what had Lianne had access to that Megan hadn’t? If we had a killer on our hands, would they have known that only Lianne would die or were they careless in whether a young child was caught up in their long distance killing? I was just grateful that local cops had gained access to the house and had found her, rather than her daughter finding her that way. It was hard enough for a child to lose a parent without having to process seeing their body contorted in agony on the floor as Lianne’s had been. How long would that image take to dissipate – if ever? And what kind of life-limiting effect would it have had on her?

  We also needed to look through Lianne’s life with a fine-tooth comb so her computer and phone would be coming with us, as well as diaries, calendars, notebooks, anything that could give us a clue as to where she had been and who she had been with in recent weeks. Now we knew what had killed her, we would also be looking closely at Sean. He had gained full custody of his daughter with the death of his ex-wife. His family was now complete and argument free.

  20

  2012

  Prom night was one of the proudest nights of his life, though he didn’t quite understand what it was. Some fancy and very expensive idea that seemed to have come over from America. Em had insisted on the whole lot if she was not to be laughed out of the event. Dress, clutch bag, shoes, necklace, hairdresser appointment for some fancy hair-do, fake
tan appointment at the beauticians. All this on top of that very expensive dress. It was just a dress for heaven’s sake.

  She had turned things around a lot and had worked hard for her exams. They had not seen signs of her drinking. There had been a marked change in attitude towards them as well. That couldn’t-care-less had vanished and instead a head-down-and-study attitude replaced it. Friends who both he and Connie had been uncomfortable with drifted off and more studious and level-headed girls were coming around and hitting the books before going out and doing normal teenaged girl things. Activities that didn’t include drinking on the streets and causing them both huge amounts of stress.

  But still. This wasn’t Emma’s wedding day. It was her Prom. She was sixteen years old and it felt as though they were preparing her for marriage. She had behaved as though it was as important. The preparation went on for nearly as long. He had never seen her as excited about anything and he didn’t begrudge her the money they spent as she had turned her life around. It could have so easily spiralled the other way. Her exam results wouldn’t be back until after the Prom but he knew she had worked hard and that was why he was so proud of her. The significance that was placed on this one evening was beyond his comprehension though.

  He would remind her of all of this when she did get married. When she was making a commitment of a lifetime to the person of her dreams.

  He paced about in the small kitchen, with its newly fitted units and appliances. It gleamed. But he needed to have a table in the centre so he could still sit and still read his paper and still chat to Connie. The woman of his dreams.

  His daughter walked in and though she might still have a wedding in her future, at this moment, she looked more beautiful than she ever had in her life.