by Ian Andrew
“I’m Detective Sergeant Moya Little and this is my colleague Detective Constable Anna Walsh. Cambridgeshire Police. Can you tell me who you are please?”
The woman, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, stood just inside the lounge door. “I’m Cathy Boon but I’ll assume I’m not a random house call for the Cambridgeshire Police, so you already knew that.”
She spoke in a plain, calm manner and Moya was quite impressed. To have two police turn up at your door in the morning hours would normally be quite disconcerting. Cathy Boon on the other hand seemed to be fully in charge of her faculties.
Boon continued, “Given the distance you’ve come this isn’t a next of kin notification. You would have had your colleagues in the Met do that for you. So you’ve come specifically to see me for some other reason. So if it’s okay with you DS Little, whilst you decide on what to ask me, I’m going to make a cup of coffee. Would you like one?”
Moya and Anna both nodded and watched as Boon walked into the kitchen, filled the kettle and turned it on.
“Is there anyone else in the house at the moment?” Moya asked to the woman’s back.
“No. Just me.”
Moya took the time to process her options. She decided, given Cathy Boon’s demeanour, to be open and straightforward. She walked over to be near the breakfast bar.
“Miss Boon-”
She was interrupted, “Cathy, please.”
“Cathy. Is Diane Worrell here?”
Cathy didn’t turn from reaching for cups, but spoke brusquely, “Nope. She’s not here and she won’t be back.”
“Would you mind telling us why?”
Cathy set the cups on the worktop and turned to face Moya, “DS Little, she won’t be back because I threw her out on Sunday. It would have been Saturday but by the time she got home it was a bit late for her to get alternative accommodation. So I waited until Sunday to give her the news. This is my house and she was no longer welcome. Now why do the Cambridgeshire Police want Diane?” She turned back to a larder cupboard and retrieved a sugar bowl and an instant coffee jar.
Moya watched as she stepped over to the fridge and took out a milk carton. “Cathy, what prompted you to ask her to leave?”
Boon turned again and looked back over the breakfast bar at Moya. “I would say that the reason I asked her to leave is none of your business. Now, why don’t you tell me what you want with Diane?”
Moya was on thin ground but given the previous answer she was fairly certain that it was Cathy who had hired the PI. She decided to just push ahead, “Am I correct that she wasn’t just your roommate? Were you in a relationship with her?”
Cathy stepped back and wrapped her arms around her body again. Her voice was a little edgier, “That’s not a crime.”
“No. I know it isn’t Cathy and thank goodness for progress,” Moya smiled at Boon and saw that the woman’s outer demeanour was an act. Her eyes were beginning to well with as yet unspilled tears. Moya spoke in a softer tone, “Cathy, I don’t need Diane. I don’t want to pry into your personal life and I certainly have no desire to be rude or callous but I do need to know if you threw her out because you hired a PI to follow her. I need to know if that PI provided evidence to you of some unusual activity Diane had been involved with in Huntingdon.”
The kettle clicked off and Cathy turned on her heel and started making the drinks. In the reflection from the glass splashback Moya saw her reach up and wipe her eyes.
“Cathy?”
Boon’s voice was strained, breaking, “Unusual activity. Is that what we’re calling shagging some fucking stranger? Well okay then. Yes. I threw her out because of some ‘unusual activity’. The fucking whore.” Cathy stayed facing away from Moya but she was no longer making the coffee and her shoulders were silently heaving up and down.
Moya walked into the kitchen and guided the sobbing Cathy Boon back to the lounge.
*
Anna had finished making the coffee and the three women sat in the lounge. Cathy had stopped crying and Moya sat next to her on the sofa passing across more tissues. She was desperate to ask the question and get the identity she needed but she knew that to bide her time was the right thing to do. The humane approach. The friendlier tactic. She also knew that Anna would be even more frustrated at the delay than she was and it would be a good lesson for the younger officer. Eventually Cathy had wiped all the tears and blown her nose enough. She had taken the towel from her head and her long hair hung down past her shoulders. Damp and dark it offset the woman’s pale complexion. Her green eyes were rimmed red and her face looked rather crumpled from the crying.
Moya knew it was time, “It’s okay Cathy. We don’t need the details. All I need to know is who you hired. I just need to track her down because as well as following Diane that night she might have inadvertently witnessed a crime in progress. I need to find her.”
Cathy nodded and stood up. Crossing to a side buffet she retrieved an inch-thick manila file from the top drawer and placed it on the coffee table in front of Moya. It was over stamped with an offset W&T logo and displayed the name, Wright & Tran Investigations, London.
Cathy retook her seat and said, “The full report and pictures are in there. The woman’s name is Kara Wright.”
Chapter 25
Friday Morning. Huntingdon
Tony Reynolds was observing Interview Suite-1 on the monitors. The early morning visitor, Mr Carpenter, appeared to be in his late twenties, average height, average build, average looks. Yet he also gave an impression of solidity. Normally people fidgeted or stared about, conveying a sense of unease with being in an interview room. Mr Carpenter seemed to exhibit none of these. He sat still, almost becalmed. Gary Mason came into the room behind Reynolds with a sheaf of notes.
“Thomas Peter Carpenter. Age twenty-nine. Lives in Alconbury. Married to Audrey. Two kids, a girl aged four and a boy aged one. He works at the local library as an archivist. Drives a Mazda-3 saloon and has no priors. That’s all we have on him officially, but a quick Internet search shows that he’s a fourth-Dan Black Belt in the same style that Costa does. He’s one of the senior instructors in Cambridgeshire. In fact he’s one of the highest qualified in Europe.”
“So now we know how he knows her. He seems to be practising his meditation techniques or whatever it’s called. He’s all calm and trance-like.” Reynolds checked his watch. “Where are Pop and John?”
“I told them to start at eight. We didn’t finish out at Costa’s house until gone two this morning.”
“Fair enough. And we got nothing other than the shoes?”
Mason just shook his head.
“Okay, well I’m going to go in and see our Mr Carpenter here. Find out if his calmness is more than surface deep. You go see the Lab and find out what they’ve turned up on the shoes. Come and get me when you know.”
“Gov,” Mason said in acknowledgement and left.
Reynolds pressed record and went through to the interview suite. Carpenter stood up as he entered. He was actually a bit taller and a lot more solid than he had appeared on the monitors.
“Good Morning Sir, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Tony Reynolds. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“No need to apologise, I haven’t been here too long.”
Reynolds held his hand out to indicate Carpenter should sit. “My desk sergeant said that you wanted to speak to us about Miss Martina Costa, is that right?”
“Yes. She didn’t do whatever it is you think she did.”
“Okay. And what is it that I think she did?” Reynolds asked and watched the first flicker of doubt appear in Carpenter’s eyes.
“Well, I don’t know. He didn’t tell me that.”
“He?”
“The solicitor that called me last night.”
Reynolds guessed he was referring to the Duty Solicitor that had been provided to Costa as soon as she’d been held officially, but he still needed to check.
“The solicitor? Can you r
ecall his name and what he did say?”
“He was from Peacock and Laing, the local firm. His name was Gotts. I didn’t get his first name. He told me that Marti was being held in here and that she had asked him to call me,” Carpenter spoke not exactly slowly but in a very considered way. “He told me she was being held on suspicion of being involved in a very serious crime on Friday night.”
“Marti?” Reynolds queried.
“Martina. It’s what she’s called normally, Marti.”
“Okay. So how do you know she didn’t do this serious crime that you don’t actually know about?”
“Because I was with her from nine on Friday night through to seven on Saturday morning,” Carpenter said and blushed. It was the second chink in the calm exterior Reynolds had seen.
“Doing what?”
“We’re both in the same martial arts class and we were train-”
Reynolds cut him off, “Before you go on Mr Carpenter I want you to consider something. You coming in here to provide an alibi is one thing but as soon as you lie to me you’ll be an accessory. Miss Costa is being held for a very serious crime as you were told but maybe I can clarify it for you. She’s being held for suspected murder. So you think long and hard before you tell me the two of you were doing some Bruce Lee shit for nearly twelve hours. And while you think about it you answer me one question. Where does your wife think you were on Friday night?”
Carpenter looked surprised and shocked. His composure had obviously been a thin veneer and it had fractured completely under the first proper impact of reality. Reynolds always found it interesting how the mention of murder still rocked people. He would have thought they would have been immune from it given all the TV shows that revelled in it, but it was different in a real interview room, faced with a real detective.
“Mr Carpenter? Where does your wife think you were?”
“She thinks, I’m, well she, I…”
“Right, stop. Just stop. Here’s the facts Mr Carpenter. You tell me the truth and if I can prove it without dragging Mrs Carpenter and your kids into it, I will. If you tell me the truth and I need to go talk to Mrs Carpenter, I will. But, you tell me crap and I will make it my personal duty to go talk to your wife, your friends and her friends. I’ll talk to your four year old and I’ll probably wait for your one year old to get old enough but be assured I’ll talk to him at some point in the future. I’ll also talk to all your colleagues at the Library and all your training buddies at the Dojo. Or you tell me what you know and it might all be kept in this room between you and me. So?”
Reynolds was prepared to wait until Carpenter had thought through his options but the man obviously had a considerable speed of thought when faced with stark choices. It didn’t take him more than a breath to come to the realisation he was beat.
“Okay. I was with her at the house in Lark Crescent. I met her there at nine.”
“No one saw you arriving?”
“Marti let me in by the back door so the old battleaxe of a landlady didn’t see us.” Carpenter stopped. Reynolds thought he was going to start speaking again but nothing more was forthcoming.
“I’ll need more than that Mr Carpenter and to be honest I’m getting fed up trying to draw teeth. So, take a deep breath and tell me what was going on. Let’s start with how you manage to be at Marti’s on a Friday night. Where was your wife?”
Carpenter actually did take a deep breath. “My wife was off with the kids at her Mum’s in Ipswich. I was meant to be at home. I waited for her to call, to say she’d arrived safe and then I went out. Marti’s landlady goes to bed early and gets up late so we knew we were okay for the night. My wife wouldn’t be phoning me again until before she was leaving to come home on Sunday. I got up at seven and went home because I had a class to teach on Saturday morning, but Marti and I spent Saturday night together as well.” He drew another breath.
Reynolds had the sinking feeling that Carpenter was telling the truth, but he still needed more. “Do you have any way of proving this to me Mr Carpenter? I mean it’s a great story. I have no doubt that when Miss Costa walks out of here as a free woman she’ll be more than grateful to you, but I need more than your word on it. So, any corroboration?”
Carpenter dropped his gaze to the desk. Reynolds could see his jaw tensing, like he was almost grinding his teeth trying to think. He raised his head again.
“Would me being able to describe her tattoos be of use?”
“Do you mean Miss Costa’s?”
“Yes of course.”
“Shall I assume they’re normally covered with clothing?”
“Yes. They’re on her th-”
“No, Mr Carpenter,” Reynolds held up his hand to stop the confession. “Other than telling me you’ve seen her naked or partially naked, it won’t work for proving where she was on Friday night.”
Carpenter dropped his gaze again and once more went through the process of seemingly thinking very hard. Eventually he raised his head.
“You can do stuff with GPS and phones?”
“Stuff?”
“You know, tell where a phone was, when photos were taken?”
“Yes, we can do that. But that’ll tell me where your phone was; not where you were.”
“It’s not my phone. It’s Marti’s. Have you checked Marti’s phone?”
“For what?”
“For the photos on it.”
“No, I don’t believe so. What photos?”
“We, um, I mean, we...”
“The time for embarrassment is over Mr Carpenter, spit it out.” Reynolds waited for Carpenter to square away whatever remaining hesitation he had. Eventually he saw Carpenter’s requirement for self-preservation win out.
“We took photos during the night. I couldn’t have them on my phone so Marti took them. Could you use them to check the times?”
“Yes Mr Carpenter, we could.”
There was a knock on the door and Reynolds turned to see Gary Mason beckoning him.
“Stay here Mr Carpenter. If this checks out I’m going to have some of my detectives come in and record your statement, okay?”
Carpenter nodded as Reynolds left the room.
“What’s up Gary? Give me some good news.”
“Well, if making sure an innocent walks is good news, then it’s good news,” Mason said.
“The Lab I presume?”
“Yep. No forensics on the heel at all.”
“Ah well. It ties in with what I’ve just got. When Pop gets in you can both go back in there and get dickhead’s statement.”
“That good eh?”
“Oh yeah, mastermind in there probably has a full alibi for Costa but took a month of Sundays to give it up. It’ll still need a quick check of Costa’s phone by the techies but I imagine it’ll be solid,” Reynolds almost sighed.
“Her phone?”
“Yeah. I’ll take you and Pop through it when he gets in. Save me repeating myself. Once you get Carpenter on record you’ll have to take a new statement from Costa. Pia Giovanni will be in soon so you can do it after you talk to Carpenter. Once all the paperwork is squared and the techies have proved the phone give me a shout. I’ll be there when we release her.”
“No problem. Maybe Moya and Anna will have better luck Gov.”
“I hope so Gary. They’re the only game in town now.” Reynolds led Mason over to the coffee machine and noticed the rain against the kitchen window had increased in intensity as per the Breakfast Show’s forecast.
Chapter 26
Friday Morning. Epping Forest
Kara was using standard binoculars to watch through the now open curtains of the wide window-doors. Illy and Yanina were sitting at a grand table and their breakfast was being served to them by a young woman who the team had decided to call Cinders. Kara wondered what it would be like to have so much money that you could afford staff. Cooks and servers, cleaners and gardeners. Bodyguards. She mainly wondered what it would be like to have them running around
all the time. Even if you had money how did you settle yourself being waited on hand and foot? But then she wondered what your conscience had to be like to afford it all on the back of crime. The young Cinders could even have been one of the girls Illy used for other purposes. She was cut off in her thoughts by Sammi’s hushed voice in her ear.
“Head’s up folks. We have a car pulling into the driveway. Ford Focus ST, Red. One male occupant. Wait.”
The team all checked their watches; 07:16.
Sammi continued, “One male occupant. Mid-twenties, about six foot. Slim, athletic. Short dark hair, grade one or two all over. Handsome. High cheekbones and straight nose. Wide eyes and relatively square jaw. Black suit, white shirt and maroon tie, black shoes. Shined. Tattoo to back of right hand. Not identifiable. Currently standing beside his car. Just lit up a cigarette. Wait.”
After a short delay Sammi spoke again, “Second car pulling in. VW Golf, GTI, Red, one male occupant. Pulled up alongside the Focus. Wait.”
Again the team checked the time; 07:19.
“Well that saves me a lot of effort. Take the description for the Focus driver and it’s the same for the Golf GTI driver. Bar the tattoo on the hand. He doesn’t have any ink visible. But they seriously might as well be twins. In fact let’s designate them Reggie and Ronnie. Reggie’s got the tatt. Both just waiting out front of the house.”
Another few minutes passed.
“Third car coming in,” Sammi said. “Beginning to look like this is the day shift arriving. Time now, 07:23. Oh, that’s nice. Silver Porsche 911. Old style. Very nice. I always wanted one of those. Wait.” Sammi watched as the car pulled in beside the Golf and Ronnie stepped over and opened the driver’s door.
“Okay, older male, probably late thirties. He’s a little shorter than them, five ten, a little stockier but not by much, still looks capable. Brown hair, with a left hand side parting, neat cut, off the collar and ears. His ears stick out a little more than the norm, round face, bit flushed and a nose that might reflect a love of the vodka. Black suit, shirt, tie and shoes same as the others. Reggie doused his cigarette pretty quick when he was pulling in and Ronnie opened the door like a footman. From their positioning and greeting I would say he’s the boss of the twins. Designate him Smirnoff. All three of them heading to the front door,” Sammi paused, “Interesting, Smirnoff has a key,” she paused again, “And they’ve gone in. Door shut. Chaz has photos of the cars and all our new arrivals. Being uploaded into Dropbox now.”
