Watch Over You

by M. J. Ford

  She headed upstairs and into the guest room. The bed had been stripped, but the other furniture in the room – the chair, storage containers and exercise bike – appeared to be untouched. Jo opened some of the containers finding folded blankets, some tools, and a number of lever-arch files. Harry was indeed a man of order – he had payslips, bills, documents relating to conveyancing and car ownership, dentistry, insurance, and an expired life policy. It didn’t take her long to find a slim folder marked Kitson and Partners, and inside that a last will and testament, signed and dated fifteen years earlier. Jo checked and saw that he had bequeathed his estate to one Jessica Granger, his ex-wife. She made a note of the details, then sealed the documents away.

  * * *

  By the time she got to the station, everyone was in, working quietly at their desks. The large incident board was separated into three columns: the first contained images of Harry Ferman’s dead body, the murder weapon, and the house. Jo forced herself to walk up and take it in. Heidi Tan looked over, and offered a sympathetic smile.

  ‘Morning, Jo. You okay?’

  ‘Just want to find the culprit,’ she replied. ‘Did you find his phone or his wallet, by the way?’

  ‘We got the phone,’ said Heidi. ‘It was in the pocket of a coat in the hall. Bagged in evidence. No sign of his wallet though. Safe to assume it was taken. We’ve notified his bank based on statement details.’

  Jo recalled the hair on the sofa. There normally wasn’t much DNA to be found, unless they had the follicles, but Mel’s team would likely have scraped up skin cells too from the bedroom and shower upstairs. In the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, they’d have a pretty strong biological profile for their suspect. Whether there’d be any match on the system was another question. Given the suspect’s gender and age, chances were slim. The National DNA Database was almost five-to-one male to female.

  ‘Did he have a thing for younger women?’ asked Dimitriou, from his desk.

  Jo shut him down. ‘Don’t be daft.’

  Dimitriou pushed back his chair and spread his legs, hands behind his head. ‘Is it though? We’ve established he doesn’t have any kids. What other explanation is there for a seventy-year-old guy to hang around with a teenage girl?’

  Jo knew he was trying to be provocative. Also, that he had a valid point. That was the annoying thing about George Dimitriou – he could be smug and right at the same time.

  ‘She was sleeping in his spare room,’ she countered.

  ‘Some of the time,’ said Dimitriou. ‘Maybe he was lonely. It wouldn’t be unheard of.’

  Jo struggled to get her head around the idea. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Harry might have used a sex-worker, but she couldn’t see him finding a girl of that age attractive. Let alone inviting her to stay. And it was hard to see why she’d have attacked him if they were in a commercial, mutually beneficial relationship.

  ‘I’ll bear your thoughts in mind,’ she said coldly. ‘Anyway, we’ve got to locate her first. And speaking of finding people, any sign of young Matthis, or has the tyke eluded you?’

  Dimitriou growled under his breath. ‘Little shit’s vanished off the face of the earth. But we’re accessing his phone data. We’ll soon see where he’s been hanging around.’

  Reeves came in from the AV suite. ‘Ma’am,’ she said. ‘I’ve been on the CCTV from the betting shop at the end of Mr Ferman’s road. The only young women I’ve got between three pm and five pm are in a group. And heading the wrong way. There was a bit of traffic too, but I can’t get a good view of the drivers. Want me to widen the search window?’ Jo was about to say it might be worth doing so, but Carrick came up behind her from the direction of the break room. ‘No, leave it,’ he said, before the words had left her mouth.

  ‘You sure, boss?’ asked Jo. ‘It looks like this young woman might have been coming and going regularly.’

  ‘Maybe later,’ said Carrick. ‘I’ve got to think of the best uses of manpower. He went to the pub a lot, didn’t he?’

  ‘Every day,’ said Jo. In fact, she’d spent many an hour in there with him. ‘The Three Crowns.’

  ‘You want to head over at opening time, Alice?’ said Carrick. ‘Chat to the locals.’

  ‘I could go,’ said Jo. ‘I know the place.’

  Carrick and Reeves shared an awkward look. ‘It’s all right Jo – Alice has got it covered.’

  Chastened, Jo nodded. She was the senior investigator, but Carrick, as DCI, ultimately called the shots. She must have looked ruffled, because he added, ‘Harry’s ex-wife will be here any minute. I’d like you to chat with her.’

  ‘Sure, boss.’ Now seemed as good a time as any to tell him about the will she’d found. It hardly crossed the threshold into being suspicious, but she didn’t want him to think she’d been slacking on the case. ‘By the way, I went by Harry’s this morning, just for another scout …’

  Carrick’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen. ‘Sorry, Jo – gotta take this.’ He strode off to his office, and closed the door. She could see him pacing, rubbing his temples at whatever bad news he was hearing.

  Jo didn’t envy Carrick his new role. He’d always been her superior, but the fact he now sat separate from everyone in his own office underlined it. He wasn’t quite one of the team any more. Pulling rank didn’t suit his personality, but sadly it was part of the job. The least she could do was make things easy for him.

  Alice Reeves was putting on her coat.

  ‘Let me know as soon as you get anything,’ said Jo. ‘Anything at all.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Reeves. Jo caught another, almost imperceptible glance at Carrick.

  Or maybe it’s me who’s the odd one out these days.

  * * *

  While Jo waited, she went down into the bowels of the building to check Harry’s phone in evidence. She signed in and found the relevant box. Sliding it into her hand from the transparent bag brought a stab of sadness. It had been her who had convinced Harry to get the thing, and they’d joked he’d at least joined the twentieth century, if not the twenty-first, because the model he’d selected was stubbornly basic – able to make calls, send messages and take poor-resolution pictures, but just about nothing else. She smiled as she remembered him unboxing it in the pub, and the struggles he’d had just pressing the buttons with his thick fingers.

  It still had charge when she switched it on, at least, and she wasn’t shocked to discover the access code was the same as when they’d selected it that day – 251200. ‘The birthday even I can’t forget,’ Harry had joked.

  The contents were a disappointment though. He clearly almost never used the thing, because the last call in the record was over a month ago. The messages were empty. She didn’t hold great hope as she checked the photos. There were three, and to her astonishment they appeared to be selfies from the tiny thumbnails. She opened one. No, not a selfie. But it was Harry, in his dressing gown, and he appeared to be in his own kitchen, holding the kettle. In the next he’d put it down and was smiling, and in the third he seemed to be reaching for the phone, perhaps even laughing. He looked completely relaxed, happy.

  She must have taken them. The girl …

  Jo checked the dates. All three had been taken yesterday morning, less than eight hours before a violent blow had ended Harry’s life. Jo tried to conjure the face of the person holding the phone, but it remained a stubborn blur of the paltry facts they had. Young, blonde-haired, female. Anonymous.

  ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

  * * *

  Jessica Granger arrived at the station half an hour later, while Jo was sifting through a box of Harry’s old case files in case there was anything that seemed promising on the revenge angle. As the largish woman was shown into the CID room by the front desk clerk, Jo threw a panicked look back at the main board. Thankfully, it appeared that Heidi had already taken the precaution of turning it around to conceal the images there.

  ‘Mrs Granger,’ said
Jo, introducing herself.

  Jessica Granger looked a good deal younger than Harry’s seventy-something years, with barely a wrinkle on her face. She was a tall woman, with an imposing frame reminiscent of Harry’s own. She’d taken time over her make-up, Jo thought. And she wasn’t alone. At her side was a man of around thirty dressed in tailored jeans and a blue shirt, clean-shaven and well groomed, wearing fashionable thick-rimmed spectacles. Jo introduced herself and Heidi. Jessica shook her hand.

  ‘I’m Richard,’ said the man, shaking too. ‘Jessica’s step-son.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Jessica. ‘Why would anyone want to hurt Harry?’

  ‘We’re not sure at the moment,’ said Jo. She invited them into the nicer of the two interview rooms, and went to make them a cup of tea. Carrick joined them as she was asking whether they minded her recording. Neither objected.

  ‘I want to reassure you, Mrs Granger,’ said Carrick from the off, ‘we will find who did this. I’ve got the whole team working on it. Jo here is the best. You’re in very good hands.’

  Jo was grateful for the public vote of confidence, even if she felt Andy was slightly over-egging the pudding.

  ‘I’m not sure Mum can help you much,’ said Richard Granger. ‘She’s not seen or heard from Harry for almost twenty-five years.’

  ‘I can speak for myself,’ said Jessica, her tone lightly chiding. ‘But Richard’s right.’

  ‘No contact at all?’ said Jo.

  Jessica shook her head.

  ‘But he had your address?’ She opened her pocket book to consult her notes from the day before. ‘In Derbyshire.’

  ‘I gave that to him,’ she said. ‘But I’d no idea he’d kept a record. For the first few years after we separated, I’d send him a card on the anniversary of our daughter’s accident. Perhaps you didn’t know about that?’

  ‘We were aware,’ said Jo. She almost mentioned then that she had been Harry’s friend, but stopped herself. It felt wrong, like she was trying to insert herself into what was their story.

  ‘Well, he never wrote back,’ said Jessica, ‘so eventually I stopped bothering.’

  There was no anger in her voice. Just acceptance.

  ‘And why do you think that was?’ asked Andy.

  Jessica gave him a very direct look. ‘Harry was never very good at talking, or showing emotion. He dealt with things himself, his own way. Mostly through drinking. I think he felt guilty about Lindsay. God knows why. He couldn’t have done anything.’

  A silence fell over the room. Jo was no stranger to relationships failing, but the fact their daughter’s death had pushed them apart felt doubly tragic. Children were supposed to bring joy and togetherness. She even reflected briefly on her own situation with Lucas, and the brief time she’d naïvely imagined they could be a family despite everything stacked against that possibility. She realised that Carrick was waiting for her to continue.

  ‘When did you separate?’ Jo asked.

  ‘In ’96,’ said Jessica. ‘We struggled on for a few years after it happened, but it wasn’t the same. We’d had her so young, before we were even married. Without her, we lost our connection, I suppose.’

  Jo thought about the will, signed some ten years after the split. It wasn’t her place to mention its contents now.

  ‘It wasn’t acrimonious?’ asked Jo.

  Richard leant forward. ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Jessica. ‘The sergeant is just doing her job. The answer is no. Not especially. Harry had an affair – a woman from work, as it happened. But we were already living separate lives by then. It actually made the divorce easier.’

  She spoke frankly, and Jo took a second to let the information sink in. She’d only ever know Harry as an old gent, even-keeled and deliberate in all he did. To imagine him as a younger man, with the drives that younger men were prone to, was a leap she couldn’t easily perform. In other circumstances, she might have probed more deeply. Was the infidelity really such a minor event as the matter-of-fact tone implied? There was no reason to doubt what Jessica was saying, and she sensed Carrick had no appetite to pursue it either.

  The surprise of it did make her think though. Might there have been another child from this clandestine relationship? The maths were tantalising – any daughter from the late nineties would be in her early twenties. All they had so far about the mystery girl was that she was young.

  ‘Do you know the name of the other woman?’ said Jo.

  ‘Annie,’ said Jessica, and again Jo sensed no animosity. ‘I can’t recall her surname. But she was definitely a police officer.’

  Jo made a note. They’d be able to track her down quickly enough through the personnel records.

  Across the table, Jessica knotted her hands together and brought her gaze up to Jo’s. For the first time since entering the station, she looked unsure of herself. Vulnerable, even. ‘They couldn’t tell me, the officers who came to my house … did Harry suffer much, at the end?’

  The gory poker still in evidence not ten metres below flashed up in Jo’s mind. The spatter of blood on the ceiling. There was no way of knowing if Harry had lost consciousness and never regained it, or if he had lain there, struggling, aware of his life ebbing away. The fact there wasn’t more evidence of an attempt to move suggested it was probably the former.

  ‘We don’t think so, no,’ said Jo. ‘He was unconscious when we found him.’ She let Jessica process for a moment, before continuing. ‘I know that Harry and you weren’t in regular communication, but back when you lived together, was there ever any trouble with threats? Perhaps something related to his work?’

  ‘He barely spoke about work at all,’ said Jessica. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.’

  ‘Would have to be a hell of a grudge to resurface now,’ said Richard. ‘You really you have no idea who might have done it?’

  Before either she or Andy had time to answer, Jessica untangled her fingers. ‘They keep their cards close to their chest,’ she said, with a hint of wry amusement. ‘And that’s all right.’

  ‘We’re looking into one particular person of interest,’ said Carrick. Jo was surprised, as they hadn’t discussed disclosing the suspect. ‘A girl who we believe was staying with Harry.’

  ‘A girlfriend?’ asked Richard.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ said Jo, taking the reins again. She really didn’t feel comfortable speculating in front of them, especially given they didn’t even have a proper description. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

  Jessica wore a look of bafflement. ‘It doesn’t. Maybe it was a lodger?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Jo. The thought had crossed her own mind, wondering if somehow an argument about rent or something more minor still had escalated to violence. She wasn’t convinced though – either that Harry would have disrupted his life for a little extra cash, or that a young girl would ever choose 21 Canterbury Road as a suitable place to live, let alone seen Harry as a promising housemate. And the pictures on the phone had looked almost fond. She had a feeling it was something they weren’t seeing at all. Maybe even the ‘delicate situation’ he’d mentioned in his message.

  All the more reason to include it in the official report …

  She blushed with guilt at the omission, but nobody in the room seemed to notice.

  ‘Can I see him?’ said Jessica, suddenly and forcefully.

  ‘Mum!’ cried her step-son. ‘Why?’

  Jessica shot him a piercing look. ‘To say goodbye, of course.’

  ‘I can ask someone to take you,’ said Carrick.

  ‘That would be much appreciated,’ said Jessica.

  ‘I’d be happy to,’ said Jo. She smiled at the woman opposite. ‘I knew Harry. He was a friend.’

  There was a knock at the door, and Heidi looked in. She had an excited twinkle in her eyes. ‘Andy, Jo, I need to borrow you urgently.’

  Jo excused herself and Carrick, and once the door was clos
ed, Heidi spoke in a rush. ‘We’ve just been notified by the deceased’s bank – his card has been used in a contactless transaction.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Jo. ‘Where?’

  ‘A supermarket. About three hours ago – just outside the city.’

  Jo tempered her excitement. It was a lead, but the time frame was frustrating.

  ‘How come it took so long to get to us?’ asked Carrick.

  Heidi gave Jo a furtive look, then held up her arms. ‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.’

  ‘Jo,’ said Carrick, ‘go with Heidi and check it out. They’ll have CCTV.’

  Jo paused. ‘What about Jessica? I promised I’d—’

  ‘I’ll find a uniform to do it.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Jo.’ Carrick took a deep breath. ‘You’re my SIO. I know Harry and you were close, but you can’t do everything. The potential footage is more important.’

  ‘Got it, boss.’

  Chapter 6

  She didn’t bother with the blues as they drove. There seemed little chance that their suspect was still anywhere in the vicinity of the supermarket where Harry’s card had been used.

  ‘Do you think the DCI’s okay?’ she asked Heidi. The contretemps with Andy bothered her. In the past they’d never even shared a cross word, yet now they seemed to be, if not in conflict, then at least not quite in sync.

  ‘He’s just stressed,’ said her colleague. ‘Ever since he took over from Stratton, he’s been shoulder to the wheel. He had to fight to get Alice – HR wanted to trim CID back after the Pryce mess.’

  Mess was putting it mildly, thought Jo. Jack Pryce had been the biggest embarrassment to Thames Valley Police in fifty years, and she herself had played no small part in the drama. She fact that she’d slept with him didn’t help the overall look either – she’d undergone hours of cross-examination by the Police and Crime Commissioners afterwards, poring over their brief relationship in excruciating detail, reliving her shame before the incredulous faces of her inquisitors. She was convinced the only things that had saved her being pushed out was the potential PR nightmare from sacking a pregnant woman, and the fact everyone else in the department had been duped by Pryce too.