by Helen Phifer
Chapter 21
Annie spent her two days off work gardening, reading and doing nothing much. She had dragged the sun lounger out from the back of the shed and felt obliged to use it. The weather was gorgeous, it had been sunny and dry for a whole week now which was a record, the hosepipe ban would be coming into force soon even though it rained for three hundred and sixty days last year. She sprawled on the sun lounger in her shorts and strappy vest top and hoped that Jake wouldn’t turn up with someone in tow wanting a cold drink and somewhere to hide for a while from the public. Her shifts had changed and she didn’t work the exact same as him anymore. She’d kept herself busy so she wouldn’t think about Will but he would creep into her thoughts when she least expected it. If he came back tomorrow and begged her forgiveness she would cave in and say yes, but she wouldn’t make the first move, she was far too stubborn. She wondered if he had moved on already, she didn’t think he would have had the time but there would be someone at work all too ready to offer him some comfort and a bed to share. She growled and threw the book she had been reading without looking.
‘Is that how you treat all your visitors?’
Horrified, she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head to see Will standing there holding the book she had just launched.
‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there or hear you come in to be honest.’
‘Oh that’s okay then. Is there a particular reason you threw it then, was there a full stop in the wrong place or something?’
She laughed. ‘Just practising my throwing skills, you never know when you might need them. Anyway what brings you here?’
‘I just needed a break for a bit before I go to search Laura’s flat again, see if there’s anything we could have missed. Have you spoken to Grace lately?’
‘I did last week; she was very excited about her holiday. Are you going to phone her?’
He dragged one of the cast iron garden chairs over and sat down next to her. Annie began fiddling with her vest top and wondered why she hadn’t brought a tee shirt out with her in case of emergencies.
‘I want to, I need some help now but I feel bad about bothering her while she’s away.’
‘Come on Will. You and I both know that she would kill you if you didn’t. She loves it and has been desperate to prove to everyone just how good she is, she never got the chance last time.’
‘Do you think I should?’
‘Yes, why don’t you email her copies of everything and the case reports? Is that why came to pay me a visit, did you want me to make you feel less guilty about interrupting her holiday?’
He paused, ‘Of course not, I was passing and saw your car and just wanted to check you were okay.’
Annie mentally begged him to say that he also couldn’t stand living without her and would she please have him back. ‘I’m fine thanks; I haven’t really done much except pull a few weeds out and sunbathe. I’m back in work tomorrow; I don’t suppose you’ll get a day off until all this has calmed down a bit. Have you got any leads? Jake said that you haven’t been able to trace the man Laura left the pub with. That’s a bit suspicious to say the least, why would he not come forward if he was innocent?’
‘I don’t know, he’s either left town or hiding from us. All the taxi offices and gyms have been checked. Someone from Body Fit Health Studio thought they recognised him but not through going to the gym and they couldn’t tell us his name or where he lived or worked. Between you and me it’s turning into a total disaster, I’m terrified that whoever it is has already got his next victim and there is nothing that I can do to stop it.’
‘What about the church? There has to be some connection don’t you think? I don’t understand why he would want to put a naked, dead woman on a grave and make her look like she was asleep, that’s some pretty serious fucked up thinking Will.’
‘You’re telling me. It’s a catholic church and the priest is a man named John Trelmain, he was in town and phoned up about the first body but he has been sent to Windermere to cover for a priest who has been taken ill so he wasn’t even here when Laura was discovered. Laura and Stu both spoke to him and took his statement after the first body was found and they both said he was genuinely distressed by what had happened. In Laura’s words he was a nice man and she didn’t think he had anything to do with it. I wondered if you could go and speak to him again next time you’re on duty, see if he can think of any reason why St Mary’s is being used as a dumping ground for dead bodies. Make it a friendly chat and ask him if he has any crazy parishioners that he’s upset, if anyone has a grudge against him. See if he recognises the man from the CCTV still, it has to be worth a try.’
‘Do you think he could be the killer?’
‘Oh God no, I hope not. If I did there is no way I would send you to speak to him, I’d never knowingly put you in any danger Annie. He’s in his sixties, I remember him from a funeral I went to last year. He came back to the wake and was really nice, he had us all laughing and a few of the older women were clearly lusting over him. I just hope his memory might have been jogged and he might be able to point us in the right direction of a psychopathic parishioner.’
‘I’ll go and see him tomorrow; as soon as I’ve spoken to him I’ll ring you.’ She stood up, ‘Come in the house and I’ll get you a cool drink, your polyester suit must be making you burn up from the inside out.’ She winked at him and he laughed, following her into the much cooler kitchen where she opened the fridge door and produced a jug filled with fresh fruit and juice. She filled two glasses with ice and filled them with juice.
‘That’s a bit posh for you, I expected you to throw me a can of coke.’
‘I do have some class you know; actually I copied from a lovely woman I met at the boat club in Bowness. Her husband invited me onto the most beautiful boat I’ve ever seen and then she produced a jug of juice like this and it was divine and you know even though they were clearly loaded they were so nice and normal, they didn’t act like they were.’
‘Look at you, mixing with the rich and wealthy already and you’ve only been there a couple of weeks. I take it you’re enjoying it then, not missing the Saturday night free-for-all brawls.’
‘Yes, up to now I am. It’s been lovely and a lot more cultured than Barrow town on a Saturday night. I think I did the right thing.’ She saw Will’s cheeks flare with red streaks and felt a small sigh of relief inside her, he feels really bad about it Annie so that has to be a good sign – right?
‘I’m sorry that your hand was forced, it doesn’t make it any better but if you had gone because of me and hated it I would feel even shittier than I do right now. At least that’s one thing I can tick off my conscience.’ He finished his drink and rinsed the glass in the sink. ‘I’d best get going; I’ve been putting this off for far too long. Thanks Annie, it was nice to see you again.’
He turned to leave and she felt her heart sink. ‘Nice to see her.’ Bloody hell was that the best he could do? In her mind she wanted him to kiss her and never stop. She followed him to the door, ‘Bye Will, be careful. I’ll ring you after I’ve spoken to the priest.’ He nodded and then turned and walked down the path but his shoulders were slumped and he walked slowly. Annie scolded herself for being so harsh but she shut the door before she went running after him. Why did life have to be so tough? As she walked into the kitchen a shiver ran down her spine, making her break out in goose bumps. Annie saw the girl standing next to her sun lounger and she ran out of the door towards her, ‘Wait, please I need to talk to you. Please don’t go.’ The girl’s image wavered in the sunlight like a mirage and then with a ripple she was gone. Annie no longer felt as if her body was on fire, instead she felt as if her insides had turned to ice. She looked down on the lounger and saw the plastic figure that she’d placed in the drawer. The canvas fabric was freezing to the touch but she sat down, clutching the figure, afraid to go back inside her house in case she had any visitors who weren’t from this lifetime. She should have asked Will to come b
ack and check her bedrooms but deep down she knew that the smell wasn’t from a dead bird or mouse. That smell was from something that was bad to the core but she didn’t want to think too hard about it because she still had to go into the house on her own and sleep in there. She lay back and squeezed her eyes shut trying not to think about the dead girl. There was one thing though, Will could have asked anyone to go and speak to the priest, he could even have sent Stu to do it because he’d spoken to him previously but he had used it as an excuse to come and see her and she was grateful because it now gave her a reason to keep in contact with him. Even if it was just on a professional level. It was good of him to give her the time and space to think things over but it looked as if he felt the same way that she did. Pride was such a painful thing and she wished she could forget what had happened and start over.
***
Will drove to Laura’s flat with a heavy heart; it had almost killed him not begging Annie to have him back and now this. He’d avoided coming here up to now by sending Stu along with some Task Force officers to do a thorough search for any evidence. The DI was back tomorrow from his daughter’s wedding, he would be expecting that Kendal CID would have taken over running the case but they were, in their own words, short staffed and up to their necks in it. Workington were in a similar situation so he’d had a long chat with the Chief Superintendant about whether they would be able to run both cases without external help. In one way Will would have loved to be able to hand it all over to someone else but he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. It would drive him insane trying to look for petty burglars when another team were trying to solve his murders, and they were his because he felt partly responsible for Laura’s death. So he’d told the Super that as long as he could investigate it fully and in a professional manner then he would very much like to be the lead, well until they caught the bastard or Will cracked and had a nervous breakdown. He found himself outside Laura’s flat and parked up. There was a patrol car on the opposite side of the street. Will got out and walked up towards it, Sean was sitting inside with his head bent, writing in a notebook. He knocked on the window and Sean visibly jumped, his face white, and Will laughed as Sean put the window down, ‘Bloody hell Sean you are supposed to be a fearless copper, I might have been an old lady wanting directions. What were you going to do draw your Taser and red dot me?’
Sean snapped the notebook shut and put it down on the passenger seat. ‘You gave me a heart attack; I was right in a world of my own then. Just making sure my book’s up to date, Kav has been randomly checking them at the end of each shift. Smithy’s was three days out of date and he made him stay behind to bring it up to date in his own time. Smithy was right pissed off; according to him he had a hot date he was late for.’
‘I bet he was, good old Kav, I’m just checking Laura’s flat to make sure we didn’t miss anything.’
Sean looked solemn, ‘It’s terrible, poor Laura. I hope you get the bastard that did it.’
Will nodded, ‘Oh I will, I promised her that I would. I don’t care how long it takes, I will find him and bring him to justice.’
‘Good luck, I best get off. I’ve got shit loads of jobs to catch upon.’
Will turned and walked towards the small door at the side of the hairdressers. He glanced inside, the shop it was busy. A hairdresser with long curly hair looked across at him and smiled; he smiled back and walked on towards the flat door.
***
Sean was shaking so much his mind felt all fuzzy and he thought he was going to pass out. He drove a short distance away and parked up outside the Italian takeaway that didn’t open until five. He was furious with himself, careless he’d been so careless. He should have seen Will park up, not let him catch him blatantly taking notes about the hairdressers and the girls who worked there. Will didn’t act strange and he didn’t think he could possibly have seen what he was writing; he didn’t look as if he’d paid that much attention. At least if he checked he would see that Sean was the area cover for the town centre so if Will did ask Kav about him it would be okay, but it had unnerved him. He was panicking too much, he began taking deep breaths to try and get a grip. Will didn’t have a clue and they were all so focused on finding the big man Laura left with they weren’t even considering any other suspects. That little unexpected detail had worked out very well in his favour. He finally began to control his shaking and the butterflies inside his stomach stopped fluttering. His radio burst into life as the control room operator passed him a job, a shoplifter at Debenhams. Good, he could focus on work and forget about everything else for a while. He told them he was practically on scene and drove around the corner to the back entrance of the shop, which was favoured by almost every shoplifter in town. A man in his early thirties came running out of the door and Sean was out of the car and grabbing hold of him before he even realised. The man struggled to break free from Sean’s grip but then he realised how much bigger he was than him and stopped dead in his tracks and held out his wrists.
‘There’s a good boy Mickey. You know it makes sense, it’s far too hot to fight.’
The man who, was cuffed in seconds, rolled his eyes. ‘I hate you lot, you’re always skulking around. Do you not have anything better to do?’
Sean began to laugh. ‘And what exactly have you been doing inside that shop for the last ten minutes?’
The security guard who had followed the man out looked at Sean, ‘He’s taken two bottles of aftershave, stuffed them down his shirt.’
Sean patted Mickey down and felt the two square boxes at the top of his trouser waistband. ‘You can pull those out; I’m not sticking my hands down there.’
He watched him struggle to lift up his shirt with his hands cuffed; he eventually managed it and passed them to Sean. ‘It’s too bloody hot to be banged up today. If I go guilty will you get me in and out?’
‘I would have thought it was pretty obvious you were guilty, but yeah you’re right it is too hot to be stuck in custody for hours and I’m not on about you. I’m thinking about me.’ Sean marched him over to the patrol car and opened the back door, shoving him inside.
Chapter 22
Annie was in a deep sleep and was surprised when the alarm on her phone began vibrating. She opened her eyes and felt completely refreshed; she hadn’t smelled anything bad or had any visits from the girl. She got out of bed and went to have a shower. The house felt clammy, it was going to be another warm day. There wasn’t any point putting much make up on or spending time doing her hair because within twenty minutes of being at work and wearing her uniform the makeup would have melted and her hair would be a wet, sweaty mess – nice. She loved the summer but not when working ten hour shifts. Winter was much better for her appearance. She went down to make herself a bowl of cereal, then she made herself a packed lunch, took a bottle of cold water from the fridge and left the house, getting into her car. It was stifling inside so she pressed her finger on the button to let the roof go down. Her drive to work was through some of England’s finest countryside and she never got tired of the views. As she reached Bowness she drove slowly, it was busy. Lots of tourists and cars. She drove to the station and got out of the car, the church was her first point of call this morning regardless of what other jobs the control room had lined up for her. As she opened the door she was greeted by the aroma of burnt toast, she followed it to the kitchen where there was a PCSO waving a magazine around and an officer wafting the tiny kitchen window open and shut. Annie smiled, ‘You two are just about as good as I am at cooking.’
They both nodded their heads. ‘Dimwit here said that you couldn’t burn toast in this toaster, he said it had a special cut off button. Isn’t that right Eric?’
Annie looked at the basic stainless steel toaster. ‘Did you dream that last night? That toaster is almost as old as me.’
Another two slices of black toast popped up and all three of them laughed. She left them to it and went to the locker room to get her kit on. She zipped up her body armour,
then fastened the heavy black belt around her waist; technically she didn’t need the belt because of the new state-of-the-art stab vests but she found them heavy enough without adding a baton, handcuffs and CS gas to it. Not to mention the assortment of fine books, pens, latex gloves and first aid kit. She was ready for any eventuality; well almost, she had declined the taser training that some of her colleagues had been keen to do. She was naturally clumsy and didn’t have the best track record when it came to safety. Jake had been convinced the only people she would actually hit with the taser would be either him or her, possibly both of them at the same time, but definitely not the target. Picking up her hat from the top shelf of her locker she walked back down the corridor and out of the station, the smell of burnt toast following her.
The church was a short walk from the station and she hoped that the priest was in, if not she would knock at the presbytery next door. If Annie had enough money she would like to buy an old church and renovate it into a home, there was something so peaceful about them, that it might be easier to switch off from the dearly departed if you lived in a house which once belonged to God. Coach after coach of Japanese tourists drove past, their heads bobbing and hands frantically waving. She waved back and grinned, Kav would bloody hate it up here because he wasn’t much of a people person. Annie on the other hand liked it; in fact she was beginning to love it. She reached the old wooden gates to the churchyard and walked through, along the path to the church and tried the door handle. It was locked. She walked around to the rear of the church just in case he was pottering around on such a lovely morning. There was no sign of anyone so she went back out of the gate and walked the short distance to the presbytery. It was a beautiful building and built in the same style as the church, from limestone which would have been from a local quarry. There was a lot to be said for devoting your life to God, priests got the most amazing houses to live in and call home! She opened the much smaller gate and stepped onto the path, the scent of old English roses filled the air, it was beautiful and so was the front garden. Annie stopped next to a bush filled with pale pink blooms; she lifted one of the flowers to her nose, the aroma was divine.
