Blood of the Innocents

by Collett, Chris

  ‘At work, I suppose,’ Millie said. ‘We’ll have to come back later.’

  ‘On holiday,’ called a disembodied voice from behind the hedge. The rhythmic chopping in the background that they hadn’t even noticed, abruptly ceased. Mariner followed Millie back out through the gates and round to the adjacent property, an equally imposing edifice with tall windows and curving bays, in the style of Rennie Mackintosh. A man, tall and white haired, with a weathered face and sinewy arms, stood mid-way up an aluminium stepladder, brandishing a pair of garden shears. ‘I do their garden, too,’ he said. ‘And they’ve gone away. Mr and Mrs have, anyway. Three weeks in the Bahamas. They do it every year at about this time. Due back early hours of Thursday morning.’

  ‘It wasn’t Mr or Mrs we were looking for,’ Mariner said. ‘It was Lee. Lewis.’

  The man thought for a minute before slowly shaking his head. ‘Haven’t seen him for a few days, either.’

  ‘You’re here every day?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Look at the size of these gardens. This street is a full-time job for me. This time of year I get here at seven in the morning and don’t go home until at least six, sometimes later if I’ve a job to finish. And by the time I get to the end I have to start all over again.’

  ‘So when was the last time you saw Lee Everett?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Monday. He was around then, driving that car of his too fast up and down the road. Only a matter of time before he kills someone.’

  Mariner and Millie exchanged a look. ‘You didn’t see him on Tuesday?’

  ‘Let me think. Tuesday I was doing the back lawn at Number 8. I’d have been round there for most of the day. They’ve got more grass there than Wentworth.’

  ‘And you definitely haven’t seen him since?’

  ‘No, but you might want to check with Margaret.’

  ‘Margaret?’

  ‘Margaret Ashworth, their daily help.’

  ‘Do you have her phone number?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head, before nodding an acknowledgement towards a green Land Rover Discovery that had driven up and was pulling into the driveway opposite. ‘But Mrs Goldman would.’

  Dashing across the road, Mariner and Millie sneaked in before the electric gates could close. Mrs Goldman was stepping down from her Land Rover Discovery, stretching out long legs clad in gleaming white cotton jeans, her equally dazzling blouse highlighting the deep tanning on her arms. On seeing Mariner’s warrant card, the friendly smile on her immaculately made-up face dissolved to a troubled frown. ‘Not another burglary,’ she said, opening up the boot of the vehicle to retrieve Waitrose carrier bags. ‘Who this time?’

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ Mariner reassured her. ‘We need to get in touch with your cleaner, Margaret Ashworth.’

  ‘Margaret? Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘We’re trying to track down Lewis Everett.’

  ‘Oh. Do you have to?’ she said with feeling, slamming shut the tailgate. ‘It’s been so peaceful these last few days.’

  Mariner offered to carry one of the bags.

  ‘Thanks.’

  They followed her round to the side of the house where she let them into a kitchen the size of Mariner’s entire ground floor. It was sparse and modern, with wall-to-wall limed oak cupboards, and a wide central station that held a butcher’s block. Another wall was dominated by a huge green-enamelled Aga; otherwise the appliances were in clinical stainless steel, everything as spotless as Mrs Goldman herself. Margaret was clearly a treasure.

  ‘Can I offer you something to drink, something cold, perhaps?’

  Mariner placed the bag alongside the others she’d deposited on the counter top. ‘That would be very welcome. Thank you.’

  Opening a fridge the size of a wardrobe, she dropped chunks from an ice dispenser into beautifully crafted crystal tumblers, topping them up with an orange-coloured fruit juice.

  ‘You remarked on how quiet things have been over the last few days,’ said Mariner. ‘Implying that it’s not always the case.’

  ‘Lewis takes full advantage of his parents being away,’ she said with feeling. ‘We get treated to the latest rock bands at full volume most evenings. The warm weather encourages him to keep all the windows open too, of course, which makes it worse.’

  ‘No one complains?’

  ‘Oh, one or two of the neighbours have tried talking to him. It’s a question of getting through, though. Lewis is a very intense young man. The sulky and broody type, a regular Liam Gallagher - or is it Noel? You never quite know what’s going on inside his head. To be truthful, I think his parents may be a bit afraid of him, and they’re lovely people, so nobody really wants to upset them. We just all put up with it. When you live in a little community like this one it’s important to get along. And to be fair, Lewis isn’t that much trouble when his parents are around.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  She thought about that. ‘I haven’t seen him - or heard him - for about a week. Last Monday or Tuesday, I think.’

  ‘If we could just have Margaret Ashworth’s number—’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll get it for you.’ Mrs Goldman was also good enough to let Mariner use her phone, but Margaret Ashworth was out shopping. Her daughter was expecting her back in a couple of hours.

  ‘We may as well go back to the shop,’ Mariner said. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mrs Goldman.’

  ‘Not at all. Good luck with Lewis.’

  On their way back to the station, they had to drive past the girls school. It was the end of the afternoon and they saw Suzanne Perry arguing with a man beside a big flashy car, as girls swarmed out past them.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Millie. ‘What do you think’s going on there?’

  Mariner put a call through to Knox back at OCU 4. ‘Could you run a vehicle check on a Volvo estate, personalised plate SDP 2.’

  Moments later Knox came back. ‘The car is registered to a Mr Stephen Perry, 39 Silvermere Road, Kingsmead.’

  ‘She’s being shown up in front of her friends by an overprotective father,’ Millie concluded. ‘Now who’s being paranoid?’

  Charlie Glover was also checking in at Granville Lane, where they found him brooding over the incident room map.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Slowly. There’s still nothing to indicate that Ricky would have known Yasmin. It’s looking more and more like sheer coincidence that they were around there at the same time.’

  ‘So nothing new?’

  Glover shook his head. ‘We’re still looking for a murder weapon. How about you?’

  For the benefit of Knox, too, Mariner filled Glover in on the afternoon’s developments. ‘So now we have Yasmin and the boyfriend missing. The boyfriend works at the industrial units and Yasmin’s phone is found between the station and there. It gives us a whole new scenario.’

  ‘If Yasmin was trying to prove to Suzanne that she could cut it in the romance stakes, and if she wanted to get away from her parents, what better way to do both simultaneously than to elope with her boyfriend? She could have planned the whole thing, including the sleepover at Suzanne’s, which she never had any intention of following through.’

  ‘But Suzanne seemed certain that the relationship with Lee was finished,’ Millie reminded him.

  ‘That’s what Yasmin told her. The bigger the surprise then, when her friend finds out what she’s done. Suzanne said that Yasmin was excited, had something to tell her. Might have been rather more than we thought.’

  ‘If Yasmin’s eloped she hasn’t taken much with her,’ Millie said, quietly.

  ‘She wouldn’t need to. Boyfriend Lee isn’t short of a bob or two.’

  ‘Where does that leave us with Pryce?’ asked Glover. ‘Potentially, we now have four people on or around the reservoir that afternoon, three of whom know each other. Akram knows Yasmin, Yasmin knows Lee.’

  ‘And as we found out this afternoon, Shaun Pryce probably knows
Yasmin.’

  ‘Pryce insists he was there much earlier. Surely we can rule him out now.’

  ‘If we believe him.’ Mariner was sceptical. ‘I’m sure there’s something going on with him.’

  ‘And Akram’s still in the picture, but only in the background. ’

  ‘Which leaves us with Yasmin, Lee and Ricky as the most likely - in that order. As far as we know, Ricky doesn’t know Lee or Yasmin, but perhaps he saw something, tried to stop it and Lee turned on him.’

  ‘Perhaps eloping wasn’t on the agenda,’ Millie put in. ‘We know for sure that Yasmin had just gone on the pill, and that she was all set to lose her virginity. Maybe that’s what they were meeting for. Shaun Pryce could have even suggested the location. We don’t know how he gets his kicks. Perhaps he was planning to watch. So Yasmin gets there. Lee turns up with high expectations, but Yasmin then gets cold feet and won’t play. Lee gets rough with her and Ricky, there by sheer coincidence, intervenes to help her—’

  ‘And Lee turns on him.’

  ‘Mrs Goldman said he’s a bit of a sullen bastard.’

  ‘And Randall called him a spoilt kid. Implying that he’s used to getting what he wants.’

  ‘Then Lee and Yasmin panic about what’s happened and disappear together.’

  ‘Or Lee panics and forces Yasmin to go with him.’

  ‘And Pryce?’

  ‘Pryce witnessed the whole thing, which is why he’s playing silly buggers with us.’

  ‘So why doesn’t he just tell us?’

  ‘Because he could be implicated on some level: especially if he just stood back and watched it all happen.’

  ‘Or more than that, it turned him on.’

  Mariner sighed. He couldn’t ever remember standing on such fast-shifting sand. The phone rang.

  ‘Margaret Ashworth,’ said Millie. ‘She’ll meet us at the house.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Have you got a search warrant?’ were Margaret Ashworth’s first words to them when they arrived. Fortunately, Mariner was able to persuade her that it wasn’t necessary since she was merely cooperating with the police enquiry. ‘We don’t want to search the premises,’ he said, ‘only see for ourselves that the place has been uninhabited for a few days.’ They had to wait while she disarmed a complex security alarm and then carefully removed her shoes in favour of fluffy pink mules just in front of the door, glancing disapprovingly at their own heavy footwear.

  ‘You wouldn’t want me to take them off, love, believe me,’ said Knox.

  Margaret took them up a sweeping staircase to Lee’s room, just off the first landing at the back of the house. The curtains were drawn, rendering it almost pitch black inside.

  ‘He likes them kept closed at all times,’ Margaret Ashworth told them. Switching on the ceiling spotlights revealed a room that was a far cry from the single bed, nightstand and wardrobe that had furnished Mariner’s room at the same age. There was a double bed, a bank of technology including PC, games console, TV, video recorder and DVD player, even a kettle, fridge and a microwave. It was virtually a self-contained flat with everything a young man could want. ‘Christ, if I had a place like this and the folks were away I wouldn’t do a disappearing act,’ was Knox’s comment.

  Spaces on the purple-painted walls were covered with posters of surfers riding massive waves, along with some of Lee’s own gruesome drawings. A battered skateboard leaned against the wardrobe. Mariner picked over the untidy desk, a jumble of papers, books, CDs and lad magazines. He was itching to rifle through the drawers too, but Margaret was keeping a beady eye on them from the doorway.

  ‘How about a cup of tea, love?’ Knox asked, summoning the best of his scouse charm. ‘I’m parched. I’ll bet you make a smashing cuppa.’ But Margaret wasn’t having any of it and her arms remained resolutely folded.

  ‘You’re losing your touch, mate,’ murmured Mariner.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Knox retorted. The rubbish bin had been emptied so there were no clues there, but tucked behind it, Knox found a small silver tin of the kind that normally holds travel sweets. This one didn’t. Knox sniffed the dried green substance. ‘He’s got something in common with Shaun Pryce, then.’

  Mariner wasn’t that surprised. He walked over to inspect the computer that was switched off and his eye was caught by a glossy scrap of paper that had slid underneath the monitor. He edged it out with a fingernail. Dusty and slightly bent at one corner, it was a strip of photographs of the kind taken in an instant photo booth. ‘Tony.’ He held it up to show Knox. Lewis Everett and Yasmin Akram; grinning broadly, their faces squashed together to fit into the shot. ‘At least it confirms that they’ve been an item.’

  ‘Not much care taken with preserving it,’ said Knox. ‘A one sided relationship, d’you think?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Mariner. Another one, he thought, with feeling. Downstairs, a kitchen memo board bore postcards from various locations around the world, along with a number of business cards for local tradesmen and a couple of dental appointment cards. The answering machine might have been a source of additional information, but until they had permission it was off-limits.

  ‘Have you any idea where Lewis might have gone?’ Mariner asked Margaret, who was hovering, ever vigilant, watching over them. ‘Did he say anything to you?’

  She snorted. ‘He doesn’t even tell his parents what he’s up to. He’s a law unto himself.’

  They did, however, get from Margaret a good description of Lewis’s car and its registration, and she even, if a little reluctantly, allowed them to borrow a more naturally posed recent photograph of the man himself from a display in the lounge. He was as Mrs Goldman described him, scruffy and staring defiantly into the camera, a frown where the smile should have been.

  ‘It’ll help us to eliminate him from our enquiries,’ Mariner said, as a sop, though in reality Lewis was inching nearer by the minute to the main frame. It would have been good to be able to delve a little deeper but, until Mr and Mrs Everett returned, their hands were tied. Mr Everett was, apparently, a director of several small companies, so would certainly have some legal connections. He wouldn’t be too pleased about coming home to find his house had been ransacked when there was no concrete evidence for doing so. They had little choice but to wait a day or so and hopefully do it with his blessing.

  What they could do, meanwhile, was issue a nationwide description of Lee and his car, highlighting to colleagues in other forces the possible link with Yasmin. Mariner would go with Millie to talk to the Akrams as well. Their reaction to all this information would be educational.

  Mariner wanted both parents together, so they went back to the house in the early evening. Amira was present too, giving her mother some much needed support. Shanila Akram was displaying increasing signs of strain. Her eyes seemed sunken in her pale face, and Mariner would have guessed that food and sleep had become irrelevancies. Mohammed Akram was fairing better, because he knew that his daughter was safe, or was it just that he was able to put on a better show for them?

  ‘We’re fairly certain now that Yasmin may have been seeing a boy called Lee or Lewis,’ Mariner said, when they were gathered in the garden. ‘Has she ever mentioned him to you?’

  ‘Yasmin doesn’t know any boys, only her cousins.’ Mohammed Akram was calm but firm.

  Mariner had no choice but to hand over the photo booth snaps and watch shock and bewilderment creep over their faces once again. ‘As you can see, there’s no doubt that Yasmin knows this particular boy. She met him on a school trip when they spent some time together. We’ve also confirmed this with the school. It means that we have to consider the possibility that Yasmin could be with him now. They have both disappeared.’

  In an unprecedented outburst, Shanila Akram turned on her husband. ‘Do you see what we’ve done? We’ve pushed her into the arms of a boy. If we had let her do this out in the open, and if you hadn’t—’ She stopped herself, and for a moment the air was thick with the un
spoken.

  ‘Hadn’t what, Mrs Akram?’ Mariner prompted.

  ‘I was going to say “argued with her”,’ Shanila Akram replied, weakly. Mariner didn’t believe her, but the moment had passed and she was no longer prepared to say what she’d intended.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Amira, shakily. ‘I encouraged her.’

  Her mother stared. ‘But why? Yasmin is so young, and she should be pure for her husband.’

  ‘Amma, that’s ridiculous, antiquated nonsense,’ said Amira, her voice strengthening. ‘I had been with several men before Ravi and I married.’

  ‘Amira!’

  ‘It’s true. But Ravi doesn’t mind. In fact, he liked that I had some experience and knew what to do. Yasmin is the same. She needs some experience. She should get to know some boys.’

  ‘So you told her to make a whore of herself?’ Mohammed Akram was beside himself with fury.

  ‘Of course not. I just said that if a chance presented itself she should take it. Virginity is overrated. And I know that Yasmin was under pressure from her friends. She felt excluded.’

  ‘It takes a special kind of courage to stand by your principles, ’ said Akram coldly. ‘And this is the price we pay for giving in to temptation.’