All Her Fears: DI Tracy Collier Book 3

by Emmy Ellis

  Just thinking about that scenario and the truths Lisa would spill to get Tracy in trouble had her shivering. But Damon…he deserved closure, for Lisa to be caught.

  So why couldn’t Tracy allow it to happen? Why wasn’t that a good reason for her to arrest Lisa herself when she next saw her? Didn’t she love Damon enough, was that it? Did she love herself more? Or was it self-preservation taking over, not allowing her to do anything even if she wanted to?

  Tracy was a nasty piece of work, that was all there was to it.

  That therapist had better help me, because, shit, I can’t even help the man I’m supposed to care about. I’d say I can’t even help myself, but I seem to be doing a pretty good job of it so far.

  I hate that part of me, the one Damon has no clue exists.

  She turned into Minton Gardens, a quiet cul-de-sac with detached houses, nice lawns out the front. How did Jasmine afford to live here?

  Stupid question if she was raking in the cash at night…

  The homes looked to be four or five beds, spacious, and would cost a packet to buy and run. Pale-brown bricks with black, mock-Tudor beams on the top half. Large windows with diamond lead. Perhaps they private rented, and the rent was paid through housing benefit. That had to be the case if Jasmine was on the social. Even the council tax would be close to two hundred a month.

  Outside number sixty-five, Tracy parked and copped a peek at Damon while he stared left at the houses on the other side of the street. What was he thinking? Did she even want to know?

  Not really.

  “You okay?” she asked, more because she sort of had to than anything else.

  He turned to look at her. “We’re so close to getting hold of her. It feels like it’ll come to an end now, then I think about how she keeps getting away and I worry she’ll do it again. It’s actually making me ill, Trace.”

  Oh God…

  “What do you men, ill?” Her stomach flipped over.

  “Nerves. I might have to go and see someone. I get jittery sometimes. Like I’ve had too much coffee, except I haven’t. I’m not right. Not the same as I was. I think about her sometimes. At night. When you’re asleep. And it’s like she’s there, in the room with us.”

  If that didn’t make her feel guilty, she didn’t know what would. And if it didn’t make her want to find Lisa and take her down to the station, she was a bitch of the highest order. Hell, she knew she was. She’d already shoved aside the fact he’d been stabbed by her sister. That should have been enough for Tracy to want to arrest her.

  Obviously, it wasn’t. Did Damon have to be dead for her to do that?

  Sodding hell…

  “See someone?” she parroted.

  “A doctor. I’m not doing as well as I led you to believe. I hate keeping things from you. It isn’t right. Sorry for lying.”

  Damon, you have no idea how your one lie is drowned by my million.

  “It’s okay,” she said, reaching out to put her hand on his thigh. “We all have things we keep to ourselves. We’re going to catch her. We are.” I am. And I’m going to fucking kill her. “Let’s get this interview out of the way, then we can think about how we’re going to catch her, all right?” Why didn’t I write Lisa’s number down before I deleted her messages? I could have arranged to meet her.

  “Yep. Once she’s caught, I’ll be fine. It’s just… I keep thinking about it. The stabbing. Her face. Her eyes…”

  “Jesus. Do you need to see a therapist again? Someone other than one appointed by work? What about making an appointment to have a chat with mine? Or you could wait until I’ve been later, so I can tell you what she’s like?”

  He nodded. “I think I might have to, love.”

  She rested her temple on his shoulder and hugged his arm. “I’m so very sorry about all this.” But I wasn’t sorry enough until now. Always thinking of myself. “If I could turn the clock back…”

  “But you can’t. It’s done. We just have to nab her before she does it again, because it’s looking like she did Irene Roberts and Jasmine Locke. I’d hate to think what’s going through her head and—” He sat straighter. “Fucking hell!”

  “What?” Tracy bolted up beside him, looking in all directions out of the windows. “I don’t see anything.”

  “No, I just had a thought. There was me saying she’d changed her MO, but she didn’t. She hasn’t changed it this time, just used one of two.”

  “What do you mean?” Tracy’s heartrate went mental. What was he getting at? What had she missed—or forgotten?

  “She guts people but also slits their throats.”

  “That’s obvious, what with Irene and Jasmine…”

  “John,” he said.

  And that one word floated on Damon’s breath, crept down Tracy’s throat, and strangled her. She needed to get out of the car. To run. To be anywhere but here. The urge to escape was massive, but she fought it and won. Controlling her breathing, she said, “My God…”

  “Exactly. I’m telling you, it’s her doing this, Trace. Even without the evidence of her fingerprints in Roberts’ room, I know it’s her. And you can bet they’re her clothes, too, the ones found in the back garden at Blooming Age, though why they have shit on the jeans is anyone’s guess.”

  He was right. They would be Lisa’s. Cruella de Fate wouldn’t allow them to belong to anyone else. But how had Lisa been strong enough to carry an old lady? All right, she’d had immense strength in the past when she’d killed all those people before, so maybe that wasn’t such a far-fetched idea that she’d be able to haul Mrs Roberts out to a car. But why kill her? What the hell had Mrs Roberts ever done to her?

  What did all her other victims ever do? Nothing. Wrong place, wrong time.

  And why had she left her clothes there? Was it like the scarf she’d folded and placed on her victim before? Had she wanted Tracy to know it was her? A reminder of the rainbow scarf in their childhood? To goad her, to see if Tracy would finally, finally buckle and haul Lisa in? Maybe Lisa was testing Tracy, seeing if she loved her. Tracy could relate to that behaviour. She was bad to Damon a lot of the time, so was she testing him, too. Waiting to see how far she could go before he stopped caring?

  She was more like her sister than she cared to admit.

  “What a fucking mess,” she said, and she didn’t mean the case as a whole either.

  “And then some. Come on. We have a job to do.”

  He got out of the car, leaving her staring after him as he shut the door then walked to the pavement.

  “I’ve got to find her and get rid of her,” she said, glad Damon couldn’t see her lips moving, what with his back facing her. That was all she needed, him thinking she wasn’t right in the head.

  But she wasn’t, was she, and that was the damn problem.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the step in front of a mahogany door with a black handle, letterbox, lion’s head knocker, and no window, Tracy pressed the brass bell button on the frame to the right. Damon stood just behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder at him. He smiled, and she took that to mean he was all right now. He was going to be okay.

  She was unbelievably happy about that. If the idea of catching Lisa brightened his spirits, what would he be like if they actually nabbed her?

  She ought to want to do that, so he would be at peace.

  The door opened, and straight away, Tracy launched into her spiel. “Mr Hewson? DI Tracy Collier and DS Damon Hanks. We’re here about Jasmine Locke. Can we come in?”

  Hewson didn’t resemble his mugshot. He looked more like a young Hulk Hogan now. Oiled or gelled, swept-back long hair and a thick, banana-coloured moustache. Grey T-shirt over a broad chest with hard pecs. Black jeans, his thighs wider than Tracy’s two put together. His eyes narrowed quickly, as though he debated his options.

  Truth or lie?

  Tracy waited to see which one would come out of his mouth.

  “Bloody hell.” He said it on a gust of breath. “Get hersel
f caught, did she?” He sighed as though he’d expected them to pop round. “Come in.” He moved aside, bare feet shushing on the beech laminate flooring.

  They entered, and he shut the door, the hallway going dark. A slice of light came from an archway on the left—sunlight, not artificial.

  “I told her to pack it in,” he said, folding his arms across the top of his flat belly, “but she wouldn’t listen. It’s one of the reasons we split up. I had a feeling she’d been picked up by you lot when she didn’t make it home. I come and see the kids some evenings, see, look after them while she goes out, otherwise I wouldn’t be here this time of day. I normally leave once she gets back about three in the morning. We parted ways about two weeks ago—split up, like.”

  Tracy didn’t fancy having this conversation in the gloomy hallway, albeit it one the size of a small bedroom with a tasteful sideboard, flowers in a clear, rectangular vase on top.

  Who bought them? A new fella?

  “Like flowers, do you?” Hewson asked. “Jas does. I buy them every week. Thought I’d carry on even though we’re not together. They make her happy. I’d do anything to make her happy.”

  Oh no…

  Tracy had the ridiculous urge to cry. “Can we go and sit down?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. Want a cuppa, do you? I was just about to have a coffee myself.”

  “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  They followed him into the kitchen, a modern one with all the bells and whistles—lots of black and chrome, a built-in dishwasher humming and swishing. He got three sun-yellow cups out of a cupboard and lifted a full coffee carafe from the shiny black machine beside a silver kettle.

  “I’m meant to be at work,” he said. “I had to call in sick. Someone had to get the kids to school and clean this place up. She’s let it slide since I moved out. Was a bit of a pigsty last night, to be honest. Don’t think the landlord would be too pleased, know what I mean?” He looked over at them. “Shit, got no manners. Sit down if you want.”

  Tracy took a seat on one side of a black ash table. Damon remained standing by the open back door; the rear garden was mainly grass, no flowerbeds, and a shed right at the bottom. A pink bike rested on its side in the middle of the lawn. The sunlight had been coming from this room into the hallway, then, through that arch.

  The day was another scorcher. Washing hung on a rotary line, unmoving, baking away in the heat. Children’s clothes mainly, and a quilt cover with the characters from Paw Patrol on it. Hewson must be a domestic sort, unless Jasmine had pegged it out yesterday and hadn’t got it in before she’d left the house.

  “What time did Jasmine go out last night?” she finally asked.

  Hewson carried two cups to the table and placed them on brushed steel coasters. Damon lifted a hand when Hewson turned to get the other one on the countertop and collected it himself.

  “Thanks,” Hewson said and plonked himself on a chair opposite Tracy.

  He was so big, she wondered how the chair didn’t creak. Hewson was all muscle, his biceps bulging beneath his T-shirt sleeves, half of a tattoo hiding beneath the material. She checked his neckline. The top of what she’d assumed was a Celtic cross on his arrest picture looked more like part of an intricate circle now. Maybe he’d added to it since that photo had been taken.

  “Um, she left about eight,” Hewson said. “I know that because the kids have to be asleep by then. Routine—helps them in the long run. I got here about seven so I could give them a bath and tuck them in while she got ready. Why? You can ask her yourself, surely.”

  Tracy smiled tightly. “And she was going where?”

  “Out on the lash, so she told me, but I’m thinking she didn’t. Not if you’re here. What, is she getting banged up for a spell now, so you need to see if anyone can have the kids? No need. I’ll do it. Maybe this will teach her a lesson. Not being funny, like, but I did tell her she’d get caught one day.”

  “Caught doing what, Mr Hewson?”

  He frowned. “Don’t you know? Soliciting, you call it. I’d called it spreading her legs for money when she had a perfectly good bloke at home who was willing and earned enough to keep us. I mean, look at this place. I afforded it all on my wages—electrician. I said she’d come a cropper one day, and once I left and she had to go on the dole, I told her she’d get caught fiddling the social if she carried on doing what she did. I’m only telling you what you must already know, otherwise, why are you here? I wouldn’t normally say anything negative about her—I still love her—but she’s got to learn you can’t do what she does and get away with it, can you?”

  “No,” Tracy said. “However, her being on the social and earning extra money by selling sex isn’t why we’re here. Do you have anyone other than the children who can verify you were here all night?”

  He nodded. “Bit of a weird question, isn’t it? What does it matter what I was doing? As it happens, my mates came round. We had a few games on the PlayStation, a couple of beers. One of them stayed over on the sofa, left about ten minutes before you arrived, actually. And next door will tell you they were here, because he was meant to come and all, but he nipped round about half eight to say his missus had a shit fit about it, so he didn’t bother. He lives at sixty-four. Tom Berns. You can go and ask him now if you like. He’s got a week off work. He’s out doing a bit of gardening. I said I’d help him later.”

  “We’ll go and see him after we leave here.” She picked up her coffee, blew it, and took a sip. Cup back on the table, she asked, “Does Jasmine work for herself or for someone else, if you see what I mean?”

  “As far as I know, she just went out and waited with all the other women. I put up with it for ages, and lately, she didn’t go out so much, so I assumed she’d stopped. Then she went out again, and I knew what she’d been up to because she had a shower when she got back. I lost it a bit, and we had a row. That’s when I left. If she had a pimp or whatever they’re called these days, I’d have known about it.” He frowned. “I think. Although I didn’t know what she was up to in that regard for a good year or two, so scrap that.” He ran a finger along his moustache. “Look, what’s happening? If I need to move in here for a bit while she does a few weeks in the nick, that’s fine. You don’t need to be telling the social services or anything. They’re my kids, and I’ll look after them. My mum will help.”

  “Why is your name still listed as you living here?” Tracy asked. Stalling. Not wanting to deliver The News. She liked Hewson and didn’t want to watch him break down.

  “Haven’t got around to changing it. Like I said, I only left about a fortnight ago. I’m at Mum’s for now. I kind of hoped Jas would change her evening behaviour, for want of a better way of putting it, and we’d get back together. Seemed stupid to switch everything over if I was only going to be coming back.” He shook his head. “She’s a daft mare, but I bloody love her, you know?”

  It was so obvious he did. And for him to want her back despite the ‘career’ choice she’d made—well, it spoke volumes. Tracy ought to just tell him now. Get it over and done with. Break his heart.

  Poor bastard.

  “Mr Hewson, I regret to have to inform you that—”

  “No. Oh fucking no. You’re not here for that.” He scraped his chair back and paced, shoving a hand through his hair and disrupting the gelled comb lines. “No. Not Jas…”

  “I’m afraid so,” Tracy said.

  “What am I going to tell the kids? They’re only nippers. Fuck me…” He flopped down into his seat again, whimpering, elbows on the table, forehead resting in his hands. His breaths came out ragged.

  Tracy opted to remain silent while the man processed the news. She peered over her shoulder at Damon, who looked distraught. He hated this part of the job.

  She returned her attention to Hewson.

  When he lifted his head, tears tracked down his cheeks and disappeared into his moustache. “How?” That one word was broken, rasped out, and he stared at her with watery, pleading eyes
.

  This is so fucking awful.

  “She was murdered.”

  He swallowed, gawping at her, clearly unable to comprehend what she’d said. The stare-off lasted about a minute, then, “You what? By a punter? Are you saying some bloke went with her, then he…”

  “We don’t know yet, sorry to say. She was found this morning.”

  “What did he do to her?”

  Don’t be too sure it’s a he…

  “She’d had her throat cut.” Tracy winced at his face crumpling.

  “Bloody hell… Oh God… Who the fuck would want to do something like that to my Jas?” He lowered his hands to the table. His fingers shook, tapping away, his pinkie rattling one of the coasters. “I mean, I know some people get killed while doing what she does, and that’s what bothered me the most about her doing it—not that she was cheating on me—but Jasmine?”

  “That’s what we aim to find out—who did it and why,” Tracy said.

  More tears came then, and he let them fall, closing his eyes.

  Tracy sipped her coffee and waited, managing to drink half a cup.

  Then he looked at her again.

  His expression tugged at her heart.

  Don’t lose it now. Not after all these years of being a hard cow.

  “We’ll find whoever did it. I can’t promise it will be now—sometimes it takes weeks, months—but we’ll get them eventually.” She hadn’t said years—that would be too much of a kick in the teeth.

  “That’s no good to me or the kids, is it, getting them? He’s done the worst he can do to us, so what does it matter now?”

  “It matters in case this person does it to someone else, which means other partners, children, mums and dads, sisters and brothers, will be without the person they love.”

  Shame you didn’t think about that before now, Collier. You let her go, and look what she’s done. What you’ve done.