MURDER AMONG FRIENDS a totally gripping crime thriller full of twists

by JANICE FROST

  When Jane said nothing, Warwick added. “Thank you for what you did. Given your heroics this afternoon, I’ll do what I can to see that you are reinstated when your case comes up.”

  Their eyes met. Jane nodded.

  * * *

  A few days after the horrific events at Walter Street, Jane sat opposite DI Warwick and DS Harper in Warwick’s office on the top floor of the recently built police station on Newport. On the wall behind Warwick was a framed photograph of the steel spire of the International Bomber Command Centre on Canwick Hill, glinting in a frosty sunlight. The height of the spire, Jane knew, was exactly the wingspan of an Avro Lancaster bomber. This was another fact (like the ‘tanks for Mesopotamia’) that Jane suspected was bound to come up at a quiz night at her local sooner or later.

  The centre had been built to commemorate the men and women who had served or supported bomber command during WWII. Jane had visited it soon after it opened. She’d learned that the average age of the young airmen who had died in action was twenty-three. Almost the age of her son now.

  Thinking of the young lives lost made her forget her irritation with DI Warwick, who’d barely acknowledged her when she walked into her office.

  Jane had only a vague sense of why she’d been asked to attend the meeting. She’d been informed it was to help resolve some issues concerning the investigation. It was probably too much to hope that Warwick might share some information with her about how the case had progressed. She didn’t even know for certain that Dale Lister had been responsible for both murders, and she had no real sense of what might have impelled him to kill two people and take his own life in such a violent fashion. There were gaps in her knowledge, and she was desperate for them to be filled.

  “Let’s get started, then.” Warwick’s tone was surprisingly neutral. “Why don’t you begin by explaining, again, how you came to be at Walter Street, Ms Bell.”

  Jane explained how she had put two and two together when Thea told her about the two men who had been at the gig with Adam Eades and Phil Lavin.

  “Thea had told me previously about Mark Ripley approaching her and Stacey in the café at Hi! To Fitness. She told you about that too, remember, the day you interviewed her at her home?”

  “Yes.”

  “You asked her if anyone else was in the café that day. Thea mentioned that there were a couple of members of staff there, but no other customers.”

  Jane made sure to mention all this, for she suspected that Warwick would rebuke her for not bringing the connection with the leisure club to her attention.

  “I remember.”

  “So, when Thea mentioned that she thought both of the men worked at Hi! To Fitness, I asked her to describe them to me.” Jane chose her words carefully. “I’m a member of that club and it suddenly clicked with me that I knew who she was talking about. Chase Gilbert showed me around when I went to the club to enquire about membership. He introduced me to Dale Lister, who was on duty at the pool that day. The way Thea described Lister put me in mind of Kylie Bright’s description of the man who’d harassed her in the café. She described him as ‘Mr Generic,’ the sort of person you would overlook because he wasn’t memorable. I know it was a bit of a leap—”

  “We saw him too,” DS Harper said, earning a stern look from Warwick. “In some CCTV footage from Starbucks, where Mark Ripley went with a woman called Elle Darrow on the day that he was murdered. Lister approached her table when Mark went to the toilet. He was clearly asking if the seat opposite her was free. Elle hardly looked at him.”

  Jane nodded. How Lister would have disliked being dismissed so casually. “Do you think he was watching them, that he followed them and killed Mark?”

  “We believe so,” Warwick said. “We’ll be double-checking the CCTV footage from the day of the murder to see if he shows up elsewhere. We’ll never know if Mark was his first choice of victim that night. If Elle hadn’t gone off in a taxi, perhaps he would have chosen her instead.”

  Warwick cleared her throat. “We know that you didn’t go to the club to enquire about membership, Ms Bell. You went there to make enquiries about the men Thea Martin saw with Mark Ripley. You led the staff to believe that you were a police detective.”

  “I . . . didn’t exactly say I was a detective. They sort of made that assumption and—”

  “You didn’t bother to correct them.”

  “I suppose I didn’t. I thought I might be able to discover more about Mark by finding out about his friends. That’s why I went there.”

  “You went there again to find out Dale Lister’s address. Your former pupil, Ms Clutterbuck, alleges that she ‘just happened’ to have his details on the screen when you were in her office.”

  Jane looked down at her hands. “I saw Lister’s details on her screen, yes.” She was aware of Warwick’s penetrating gaze but avoided meeting her eyes.

  “Hmm. Quite the coincidence.” There was a short silence. Then Warwick said, “Why on earth did you go charging off to Lister’s house on your own? Didn’t it occur to you to contact the police?”

  “I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you my suspicions about Lister. As I said, it was a bit of a leap to connect him with the man Kylie described.”

  “Indeed,” Warwick said. “A leap in the dark.”

  “I didn’t have any proof that Lister was the killer. I had no proof and no idea about why he would have killed Mark, or Kylie. Or why he’d abduct Stacey. I was planning on contacting you immediately if I found some sort of evidence, or if I got to Lister’s house and suspected Stacey Ashworth was being held there. When I saw you and DS Harper walking towards the house, I was going to just wait in my car to see if you made an arrest, but you were in there for a long time, and I started to wonder what was going on.”

  “Your behaviour was reckless and stupid. It was good, solid, investigative police work that led us to Dale Lister’s door. Not gossip from teenage girls. Or abusing the trust of an ex-pupil to obtain information illegally. I don’t know what you thought you were trying to accomplish, or how you intended to find this proof you were talking about.”

  Jane said nothing. She had an idea Warwick was enjoying telling off a former schoolteacher. Maybe she’d had a bad experience with one as a child.

  “DS Harper, perhaps you’d like to enlighten Ms Bell as to how we too ended up on Lister’s doorstep.”

  DS Harper heaved his plastered leg onto a spare chair. “Do you mind, boss? It’s aching a bit.” Warwick waved a hand.

  “So, quite early in the investigation, we interviewed a young man called Jason. He’d been caught on CCTV footage of the Riverside Shopping Centre, observing Mark Ripley. Jason told us that he’d been trying to pick up some tips on how to approach women. Mark had previously approached Jason in a pub and tried to talk him into joining the pick-up group he was running, but Jason couldn’t afford Mark’s fees, so he did what he thought was the next best thing. He followed Mark when he spotted him going into the centre.”

  “Did he tell you about Adam Eades and Phil Lavin?” Jane asked. She’d assumed they had known about their involvement before her and was surprised to learn that they hadn’t.

  “No. We didn’t hear about them until Kylie’s friend, Lottie Purdey, contacted us after Kylie’s death. It was Lottie who told us that they ran the pick-up group with Mark.”

  “I found out their names from Chase Gilbert the first time I went to the club, but I didn’t know anything about the pick-up group until much later, the day DI Warwick came to my house to find out what I knew. I’m sorry. I should have mentioned them to you, but I didn’t know they were involved in anything. As I said, I just thought I could talk to them as a means of finding out a bit more about Mark.”

  There were no harsh words of criticism from Warwick. But Jane had no illusions that they were best buddies now.

  “When we interviewed Eades and Lavin after Stacey’s disappearance,” DS Harper said, “we asked them about the men who were with them at
the gig on Saturday night. That led us to Chase, who told us the other man was a colleague of his at Hi! To Fitness, Dale Lister. Lister fitted the profile that we’d formulated of our killer. Chase told us Lister left the gig earlier than the others, just after the band returned to the stage. We decided to interview him. The rest you know.”

  Jane listened. As Warwick had probably intended, DS Harper’s description of their methodical approach to the investigation highlighted that, though it had led them to the same conclusion as Jane, it had been conducted quite differently. The difference, as Warwick had so kindly pointed out, lay in their method — not hunches and what Warwick had referred to as ‘gossip.’ Jane preferred to think of Thea’s contribution as serendipitous, but she also appreciated that there was more to a murder investigation than chance and intuition. Still, a small part of her believed she was owed some credit for her investigative work.

  “Don’t look so downhearted,” Elias said. “You saved DI Warwick’s life and probably mine and Stacey’s too.” Jane didn’t dare look at Warwick.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what did you find when you searched Dale Lister’s house? Were you left in any doubt that he killed Mark Ripley and Kylie Bright?” she said.

  “We found plenty on his laptop after only a cursory look,” Warwick said. “It’s with our digital forensics team now and I’m sure they’ll come up with plenty more. Dale Lister was a very troubled young man. He had low self-esteem and his lack of success in forming romantic or sexual relationships with women drove him to seek advice on the Internet. Unfortunately, or perhaps inevitably, he entered the Manosphere, where he encountered people with deeply misogynistic views. It’s very likely that they encouraged him to believe that his failure to attract women wasn’t his fault, but that of women who always selected the best-looking men for their mates, leaving men such as him at a gross disadvantage. Once on that path, a descent into violence was, sadly, always a possibility.”

  Jane nodded. “I’ve read about this sort of thing. Presumably, it’s why he went after Mark. He saw him as one of these ‘best-looking men’ who were depriving him.”

  “Yes. We’re hoping that forensic evidence will support our theory. We hope to be able to match trace evidence from both murders to Lister.”

  Jane nodded, aware that it was often possible to obtain samples of DNA from a badly burned body.

  “You might be interested to learn that it wasn’t Lister who attacked you in your garden that night,” Warwick said.

  “You found out who that was? Was it a burglar?”

  “It was Dominic Tickle.”

  “Tickle? Why on earth?”

  “He was questioned a couple of days ago in relation to a sexual assault on an ex-girlfriend in Skegness. It took place the night of the attack on you. You were his alibi. The sexual assault took place at the same time as he was bashing you over the head with a brick. He confessed that he didn’t intend to hurt you. He was planning on breaking into your home and giving you a scare, apparently to teach you a lesson after you and PC Sterne messed up his date with Holly Carpenter. Then you came outside, and he panicked.”

  So, Warwick had been right in suspecting that the attack had been perpetrated by someone she had come into contact with while on duty. As if reading her mind, Warwick said, “It’s very rare for something like that to happen. I wouldn’t worry too much about it happening again.”

  Not much chance of it happening at all while I’m on suspension. Jane didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she thanked Warwick for letting her know.

  Warwick cleared her throat. “Regarding your suspension. I’ve made it known that I was possibly a bit hasty in proposing that you put Kylie Bright’s life in danger. I’m now satisfied that you did nothing to actively encourage her to approach Lister.”

  A jug of water stood on the table. Warwick poured herself a glass, while Jane waited, impatient to hear what else she had to say. Finally, Warwick said, “I have also made it known that your prompt action in distracting Lister from his attempt at smothering me probably saved my life.”

  Probably. Jane smiled inwardly at Warwick’s wording. She waited for Warwick to mention that she had also acted promptly in pulling her away from Dale Lister in time to save her from going up in flames with him, thus saving her life twice over. She did not, of course.

  “I am confident that you will be reinstated in your duties as a special constable directly after the hearing, which I believe is next Monday.”

  Jane nodded. A silence of several moments ensued. Jane assumed the meeting was over and made to get up. Warwick looked at DS Harper. “There’s something I’d like to discuss in private with Ms Bell . . .”

  “Right. I’ll be off, then, boss.” He gave Jane one of his theatrical bows and left the office.

  As soon as Harper had hobbled out of the room, Jane braced herself for another ticking off. She noticed Warwick slip two fingers under the neck of her jumper, as if to let in some air. Her top lip glistened with moisture. She fiddled with some notes on the table in front of her. After some loud throat-clearing, she finally met Jane’s eye and said, “That matter we spoke about at Walter Street. Can I continue to count on your discretion?”

  Jane considered what she was being asked. She thought Warwick owed her some sort of explanation for her behaviour. She wanted to ask who Cal was and why Warwick had seemed willing to literally walk through fire for him, but now wasn’t the time. She looked Warwick square in the eye and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  There was no mistaking the relief in Warwick’s tone when she said, “Good. Let’s go over our reports now, shall we? We need to make sure our accounts match up.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Frieda and Karun insisted on inviting everyone to Veganbites to celebrate Jane’s reinstatement as a special police constable. It was the first time they had all been together since the Walter Street incident, and everyone was eager to hear Jane’s story.

  “You’re such a hero, Jane,” Allie began. “Really, you saved that DI’s life twice, didn’t you? Once when Lister was smothering her, and again when he tried to burn her with him. She could have been his third murder victim.” There was a general murmur of agreement.

  This was the version of events that Jane and Warwick had agreed upon during their private ‘chat.’ Warwick had gone to Lister’s aid, only for him to try to draw her into the flames with him. Jane had succeeded in pulling her free. It showed them both in a favourable light.

  Jane knew that she had not only saved Warwick’s life, but possibly her reputation also. Warwick would have had a lot of explaining to do if she’d confessed that in a moment of crisis, she’d completely lost her sense of reality and mistaken Dale Lister for someone called Cal. At the very least, she would surely have had to submit to some sort of psychological evaluation to determine whether she was competent to perform her duties.

  Even after a lot of reflection, Jane had lingering doubts about whether she’d done the right thing in agreeing to keep quiet about Warwick’s ‘episode.’ What if it happened again? Was she putting lives in danger if she didn’t report Warwick’s behaviour? For she was sure that under some circumstances, a slip such as she had witnessed that day could have potentially catastrophic consequences. Surely Warwick had to know that? As for the excuse about her brain being starved of oxygen, Jane didn’t give that the time of day.

  No doubt Warwick believed that Jane had consented to keep quiet because of her generosity over the matter of Jane’s reinstatement. One good turn deserves another.

  The thought bothered Jane. She had no wish for Warwick to believe that she could be bought so easily. Nor was she comfortable with the fact that Warwick’s generosity in having her reinstated probably had more to do with self-preservation than gratitude toward Jane for saving her life.

  After a lot of soul-searching, she’d come to a decision. She would seek a second opinion. She would speak with Elias Harper. At the very least, he needed to be aware that in a stressful si
tuation, he might not be able to rely on his colleague.

  Karun proposed a toast. “Here’s to our Jane.” Everyone joined in.

  Jane smiled modestly. “I was only doing my job.” She glanced at Ed. He’d heard her story already. She’d called him soon after all the drama was over and her adrenalin rush had subsided. He’d come at once.

  He was looking at her now with an expression that would have been easy to interpret if anyone had been looking. Fortunately, all eyes were on her. Jane bathed in the warm glow of love and friendship.

  “Talking of DI Warwick, she was here this morning,” Frieda said. “For her morning coffee. That makes three times this week she’s been in. She says our coffee is the best in town. I always make a point of talking to her. I think she’s lonely.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought she’d have much to say,” Jane said.

  “Not on her first few visits, but this morning she was quite chatty.”

  “So, had you heard all about Walter Street from her already?”

  “Oh no. She said she would leave you to tell the story yourself if you felt up to it. But she did say that the only reason she was still alive was because of your courageous action, and she was truly thankful to you.”

  Jane thought she’d misheard. “She said that?”

  “Yes. I remember because she was quite emotional when she said it.”

  “Emotional?” Jane was astonished. “Tearful emotional?”

  “Not quite, but her voice shook. She was very sincere.”

  Jane wondered at what she had just heard. Warwick must have known that anything she said to Frieda would eventually get back to her. Had that been her intention?

  Under the table, Ed slipped his hand into hers.

  Jane put Warwick out of her mind. After all, there was little chance of their paths crossing again.