One Left Alive: A heart-stopping and gripping crime thriller (Detective Morgan Brookes Book 1)

by Helen Phifer

  She nodded. ‘It was my first day on independent patrol.’

  ‘You poor girl, thank you. I’m glad it was you, you seem like a nice person.’

  Morgan squeezed Helen’s hand. ‘Did you want to tell me something? We desperately want to find out who did this and if you know something that might help the investigation…’

  ‘I loved her very much despite our differences. Do you get on with your mum?’

  She decided that honesty was the best policy. ‘Yes, I did, I loved her very much. She died when I was eighteen.’

  ‘Oh my dear, then I’m sorry too.’

  ‘Thank you, I still miss her. It’s hard not being able to ring her when everything is going wrong or right. Did you and Olivia have a rocky relationship then?’

  Helen let out a small laugh. ‘Something like that. I’m afraid I used to stick my nose in a little too much. Not to be awful, I thought I was helping. Olivia hated being told what to do, a bit like her father. I should have kept quiet, but I couldn’t. It was too much this time, too blatant.’

  ‘What was?’ Morgan was sitting straight, wondering what she was going to be told.

  ‘Her lack of morals, her disregard for other people’s feelings. The fact that she cared about herself a lot more than those beautiful girls or Saul.’

  Every image Morgan had of Olivia Potter had just been blown into pieces. In her mind she had pictured her as a wholesome family woman who doted on her children and husband, and now she had just been told the woman could possibly have been a narcissist.

  ‘My daughter was having an affair. It wasn’t the first by any means; I have no idea how Saul put up with her wretched behaviour. He was a far better man than she deserved.’

  ‘You mean she was involved with another man until a few days ago? Did Saul know about it?’

  Helen nodded. ‘Poor man, he did. He came to me a few days before, asking what he should do. He said he couldn’t take any more.’

  A shiver ran down Morgan’s spine. ‘What advice did you give to him?’

  ‘To sort it out for good, to stop letting her walk all over him. To tell her to leave, get out of his house. I mean she’s my flesh and blood, but I didn’t condone her carrying on like that. I’m terrified he took my words to heart and killed them all. How would I ever live with myself?’ Her voice broke; it was barely a whisper.

  Fresh tears began to trickle from her eyes.

  ‘Helen, we don’t believe that Saul killed his family. His injuries were as severe as everyone else’s, and there was no evidence at the scene to suggest that was a possibility. We believe he was killed.’

  ‘Then what about my daughter? Did she kill them in a fit of rage and kill herself because she couldn’t live with what she’d done?’

  Morgan didn’t know; it was a possibility. Where was Ben or Amy? She stared towards the door, realising that no one was coming to help her out. She was going to have to sort this out herself.

  ‘Do you know who she was seeing, Helen? We’ll need to speak to them urgently.’

  ‘I’m sorry, she never told me names. I heard a rumour he was a councillor, but you know what this place is like. For all I know it could have been the postman or the gardener.’

  Morgan’s heart almost jumped from her chest at the mention of the gardener.

  ‘Did they have a regular gardener, do you know?’ Her fingers were crossed under the table. She was hoping they employed another gardener.

  ‘Yes, they did. I’m not accusing him though, he’s a bit too old and I shouldn’t imagine he had anything about him that Olivia would find attractive. She liked wealthy, powerful men and I think he’s a bit of a drinker. You can tell them, can’t you?’

  Morgan stopped herself from responding. ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘Stan, he seems like a nice enough man and Saul had a soft spot for him. Saul was such a good man; he was a very loyal man, which is why he probably put up with Olivia all these years. He doted on those girls.’

  ‘Saul seemed like a good guy.’

  ‘He was.’ She sniffed.

  ‘What about the girls, did they get on well with their mum and dad?’

  ‘Bea is an angel, such a quiet girl. She always has her head in a book. She rarely argues with either Saul or Olivia. I can’t say the same for Bronte. She’s very much like her mum. Feisty and likes the boys far more than she should. I don’t know what to do?’ Her eyes pleaded with Morgan’s for answers she couldn’t give.

  ‘Why don’t you go and visit Bronte? It might make you feel better to see her and it will be lovely for her to know you’re there. The only visitors she’s had are the police and Harrison.’

  Helen shook her head and blew her nose. ‘Dear God, this is a complete mess.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for being so kind. I needed to get that off my chest. I can’t say I feel better, but I feel as if a load has been lifted. You’ll let me know, won’t you, if you arrest someone? I don’t care what time of day or night it is. I can’t sleep anyway. I think you’re right. I’ll go and visit my granddaughter. She needs me more than ever.’

  Morgan passed her notebook and pen across the table.

  ‘Of course I will; can you give me your number?’

  Helen jotted it down and Morgan stood up. She opened the door for her and followed her outside. The rain had stopped as abruptly as it had started. There was the fading remains of a rainbow over the fells and she paused for a moment to take in its beauty.

  Helen Taylor lifted her hand and waved to her as she drove away, and Morgan went inside to find someone to share her latest discovery with.

  Upstairs she passed Amy in the corridor.

  ‘Did they find Stan?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Ben and Abigail are talking to him now. How’s the girl?’

  ‘Still hanging on, they’re going to reduce her anaesthetic later. See if there’s any reaction.’

  ‘Ben said to let you know you can get off if you want. He said you had an early start.’

  ‘I’m okay, thanks. I’ve just had an interesting conversation with Olivia Potter’s mum. Apparently Olivia wasn’t quite the perfect wife; she was having an affair right up until her death, which Saul knew about. Harrison also said Saul had been in the process of setting up a business with a partner that fell through: he is either called Gary or Greg.’

  ‘That is interesting. We need to confirm who her lover was and speak to him and no, you won’t be okay if you spend every spare minute here. Trust me, you need to go home and chill for a bit, everything is in hand. I’ll let the boss know about the boyfriend and the business partner. You’re supposed to be working the cold case, by the way. Well done, though, I’m impressed and Ben will be too when I tell him.’

  Morgan didn’t want to argue with her. She nodded and turned to walk back to her office. She slipped inside and grabbed the files she’d placed on the makeshift desk. She could go home and read them, make her notes ready to get started researching and tracing anyone who was involved with the original murders.

  Twenty-Nine

  Ben kept his gaze on Stan, who was sitting opposite. Abigail was taking notes. She let Ben lead the interview.

  ‘Did you know the O’Brien family who used to live in the Potters’ house a long time ago?’

  Stan nodded. ‘Yes.’ He kept Ben’s gaze. ‘I used to do a bit of gardening for them too. They were a lovely family. It was terrible what happened to them.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that you worked for two families who have both been murdered in that house?’

  Stan slammed the palm of his hand against the table. ‘I know what you’re saying, what you’re trying to do. I had nothing to do with either of them. I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Do what, Stan?’

  Stan shook his head. ‘Kill them. I liked the O’Briens and I liked the Potters even more. They were kind, decent people. I may not be a model citizen but I’m not a killer.’

  His hands were waving in the air and he was very
animated. Ben liked to think that he was pretty good at reading people and Stan’s body language seemed to be telling the truth. He had kept a consistent rhythm of blinking the whole time. When people were lying they often kept their eyes wide and didn’t blink; they also kept very still. Stan had been moving around all over the place.

  Ben glanced at Abigail, who nodded once and stood up. She excused herself, leaving them alone.

  ‘Right, Stan, you’re free to go for now. We won’t be pressing charges or setting any bail conditions.’

  ‘Good, I should think so.’ Stan stood up. He looked less agitated than when he’d been brought in.

  ‘There’s just one more thing. I work with your daughter, Morgan, and I happened to call at her flat last night on my way home from work. Do you know what I found?’

  He shook his head; what little colour was in his cheeks left his face.

  ‘I think you do; you ransacked your own daughter’s flat after she took pity on you and let you stop there. That’s a pretty bloody lowlife thing to do. Where’s her necklace?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, what necklace?’

  Ben stood up; he towered over him. ‘The necklace you stole from her. She doesn’t want to press charges, despite my advising her to do so. But unless you get that necklace back to me, I will, so you’d better go to whoever you sold it to and get it back. I’ll give you twenty-four hours, and then I’ll bring you in for burglary, and I can promise you this: I will give you a list of bail conditions to make your life a misery.’

  He opened the door for Stan to walk out.

  ‘Have a good evening and don’t you dare go back to Morgan’s.’

  Stan rushed out as fast as he could.

  Ben would have liked to give him a shake, but he was much older than him and he didn’t want to risk him having a heart attack. He had no idea if he’d be able to get the necklace back; it might be better for him to check the second-hand shops himself than rely on Stan’s good nature, which was seriously lacking in morals.

  As he passed the room he’d relocated Morgan to, he pushed open the door to update her. It was in darkness and her handbag had gone. He looked at his watch: it was almost seven. He wasn’t ready to call it a day yet but was glad to see she’d gone. When he went into the office Amy was mid-conversation, her phone stuck to her ear. She passed him a yellow Post-it note with a name scribbled across it: ‘Gary or Greg Barker or Ryder possible business partner, and the wife had a lover – no name as yet.’ She whispered, ‘Ring Morgan, she said you’d want to know about it. I sent her home, she looked knackered.’

  He was taken aback by this kind gesture. Amy normally didn’t give a shit about anyone.

  ‘Oh, and you don’t look too hot either, you should call it a day as well.’

  He waved his hand. Going into his office, he began to search for a combination of names on the intelligence system, to see if he was known to them. The business partner would be a good person to speak to.

  A page loaded with a record of a person called Greg Barker with no photograph and a few lines about some dodgy dealings back in 2009. They also needed to find out the name of Olivia’s lover. He wondered if the two were connected. It was a bad idea to mix sex and business.

  He realised he didn’t have Morgan’s phone number to ask; it would have to wait until tomorrow.

  He looked at the calendar on his desk and felt his heart sink. It was three years to the day that Cindy had died, and he had been too busy all day to even think about it, he realised. Deflated, he grabbed his overcoat, stuffed his phone into his pocket and left.

  Too many memories began rushing back into his mind. He’d worked later than he should have that day as well, and he hadn’t even needed to. When he’d gone home, she was dead, had been for some time. If he’d finished at the right time, he could have made the difference; he could have saved her life. Instead he’d failed her spectacularly and would shoulder that particular guilt the rest of his life.

  He didn’t say goodbye to Amy like he normally would; he went down the back stairs where he wouldn’t pass anyone and have to speak to them. He wasn’t in the mood for polite conversation. He needed to stop off at the supermarket and buy a bunch of white roses to put in the bathroom where he’d found her. As well as a large bottle of whisky. He’d sit on the bathroom floor and toast his dead wife, because what else could he do for her now? He’d failed her in life and was still failing her in death. A decent husband would have known what date it was and taken a nice bunch of flowers up to the cemetery to lay on her grave.

  All thoughts of the Potter family were pushed from his mind as he began to wallow in the self-hatred he thought he deserved.

  When he parked the car outside the house they’d shared, he realised he’d rather not go in there. He should have packed everything up and put it into storage after it happened. Moved to a smaller place; a flat like Morgan’s would be more than sufficient for him and a lot cheaper than the mortgage on this monstrosity full of memories he’d rather forget.

  Throwing his coat into the hall closet, he kicked his shoes in there too. He went into the messy kitchen with a couple of days’ worth of pots stacked by the sink. He was a terrible housekeeper and always had been. Tidiness was not one of his traits; he didn’t see the point when there was only him.

  Taking the same small, square glass from the back of the cupboard that Cindy had left on the side of the sink that night, he grabbed the bottle of whisky and the flowers. The whole house was cloaked in a heavy feeling of sadness, or was it just him: did houses have feelings? He thought that they probably did. How could they not soak up the atmosphere of the people who resided within them?

  Loosening his tie and the top two buttons of his shirt, he trudged up the steps. He often wondered if he would get to the bathroom and see it all play out again. What would he do differently if he had the chance to save her? Going into the bedroom, he unzipped his trousers and let them fall to the floor. Stepping out of them, he continued to the bathroom in his shirt, socks and boxers.

  The door was closed; he always kept it closed. Pushing it open, he expected to see her there, her voluptuous, naked lifeless body in the bath. Pressing the light switch, he didn’t open his eyes until the room flooded with bright light. The breath he’d been holding released when he saw it was empty, messy and no ghost of his dead wife waiting for him. He placed the flowers on the side of the bath, then sat on the floor. His back pressing against the wooden panel they’d chosen together in B&Q one rainy Sunday afternoon. He’d wanted wood, she’d wanted plastic and they’d argued there in the shop not caring who was listening, until they’d come to an agreement. He could have a wooden panel; she could choose the colour scheme and she had. He looked at the rubber-duck covered walls and smiled; they were garish and completely Cindy.

  Unscrewing the cap on the bottle, he poured enough to almost fill the small glass, lifted it to his lips and swallowed it in one gulp. It burnt the back of his throat and he began to cough as it warmed up his insides. Refilling it, he held the glass up: to you, Cindy, wherever you are. I miss you and I’m sorry I messed everything up.

  Tears flowed freely down his cheeks now; pent-up months of sadness, guilt and grief poured out of him. He drank again and again, not caring that he might pass out and end up sleeping semi-naked on the floor. All he wanted was to forget it all. The last two years he’d finished up sitting at the kitchen table, every pill from every pot lying across it in a long line. He’d stared at them, willing himself to do it. To take them one by one until he overdosed and sank into unconsciousness; every year he’d failed, waking up in the morning usually to find them strewn across the floor.

  He was a lot of things, but brave enough to take his own life on his darkest days, no, he couldn’t even do that.

  Thirty

  Morgan dragged the cushions off the chair onto the floor, then she opened the file she’d brought home with her. It crossed her mind that she probably shouldn’t have brought it home
with her. But then again, she’d been the one to spend the best part of an hour in a pigeon-shit-filled attic searching for it. It was hers for the time being. She was in charge of looking into this case so who was going to shout at her? She had a large glass of wine and a bag of chilli Doritos, perfect supper. She also had a notebook and pen. Taking the small packet of photographs out first, she began to flick through them. They were bad, worse than the Potters’ crime scene. The house looked a lot different, old-fashioned despite it being a relatively new build.

  She’d done a search and found that it had been built in the early seventies. The previous house had been a tiny stone cottage that was falling to pieces. The O’Briens had bought the land, demolished the original and built their much bigger property in its place. She sipped the wine, as she studied each photo. Since her early teenage years she’d wanted to be a cop, well a detective, and had loved the US TV shows that used to play. When she’d applied to be an officer, she’d been told it would be a long, hard slog to make a detective. She hadn’t even completed her first week and here she was up to her neck in violent murders and trying to solve cold cases.

  She laid the photographs into what she assumed was the order they’d been taken in. A shot of the house from outside, nothing out of the ordinary, just a nice house in a peaceful part of England. Inside the entrance hall again it looked normal, no tell-tale sign of what the photographer was about to uncover. The stairs had dark streaks on the walls, though, that went all the way to the top. There was a picture of the hallway, where the first body lay. Then a close-up of that body. It had a piece of heavily bloodstained cloth covering the face. She sat up straight, her spine rigid and stared at the photograph. The cloth looked almost identical to the ones used to cover the Potters’ faces. Whoever killed the Potters knew about the O’Briens’ murders and was copying their crime scene. She knew this body was a man by the striped, button-down pyjamas. One leather moccasin slipper was on the right foot; the left foot was bare, with drops of blood on it. There was a trail of blood along the wall here, as if whoever had done this had put their hands in it and smeared it along the pristine, white walls for effect. She scribbled in her notebook: dramatic scene, blood handprints all along the white walls. Why?