Sweet Murder: A Blackbridge Novel

by J. S. Spicer

  But enough was enough. He’d fucked up, he’d paid the price. Time to move on.

  He raised his hand, lifting it towards the innocent little card held in Lorraine’s hand. But he didn’t take it. Instead, just as something close to triumph throbbed behind her eyes, he swung it back, sweeping his fingers lazily through his dark hair.

  “I’ll take the girlfriend.”

  He turned and walked away, but not before he saw her triumph disintegrate into a sting of pain.

  Max wasn’t proud of himself for playing games, but what the hell, Lorraine had started it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He’d backed the wrong horse here. His own pettiness had backfired. Erica Kaplan was a mess. You never really knew how the news would affect those left behind. The shock of it made reactions unpredictable. They might be numb, sitting in wide-eyed silence, or wound tight as they scrambled to make some sense of what had happened, or maybe brave and dignified, using the last shred of willpower to hold it together.

  Erica Kaplan wailed and fell at the feet of the PC who’d met him at the home address. She’d cried and blubbered without restraint at discovering her boyfriend was dead. Snot and mascara competed in a race to her chin. The tissues liberally stuffed into her hands by the constable helped a little, but not much. It might have been admirable; such depth of feeling, such passion for her loss. If not for the things she said.

  “What am I going to do? This flat is in Andrew’s name. Where will I go?”

  Max took time to scrutinise the apartment. The environment could be useful. Sometimes.

  It was a reflection of the victim. So far nothing helpful was reflecting back. Erica was just another part of the canvas of Andrew Trent’s life. Everywhere his eye fell was immaculate, clean, pricey, perfectly arranged. Except at the moment Erica’s face had exploded into a blotchy parody of her no doubt usually flawless persona. Max’s wandering gaze gave her time to mop up the worst of the leakage as well as solidifying an impression of Trent. He thought of the body slumped beneath the bridge, trying to connect the dots back to the man he had been. The man who’d lived here with Erica. Doors propped wide led to a deep balcony where chairs and a garden table cooled in a shady corner and bright flowers trailed the sunny edges. He imagined them relaxing out there, enjoying summer evenings.

  On the garden table was a coffee mug and magazine; Erica must have been sitting there just before this news crashed in on her. There were more magazines inside but very few books. The mags were mostly fitness and lifestyle. Andrew and Erica were all about image, fluffing up how they looked to the outside world without much need to feed the inner soul.

  “Miss Kaplan, can you tell me...”

  “Erica, please.” She batted wet, gunky eyelashes and somehow wormed out a small, flirty smile amidst the storm of anguish.

  “Erica.” Max found his own smile and forced as much warmth into it as he could. This girl needed the drama, the attention. He didn’t really peg her as a suspect for the murder, but she couldn’t be ruled out, not yet. The girlfriend, the person living under the same roof as the victim, with most access, most knowledge, she would have to be thoroughly vetted.

  “You said Andrew didn’t come home last night, but you didn’t report him missing?”

  “I was out with the girls. I just assumed he’d gone for a drink with Tim, maybe stayed over. They often go out after work, and Andy knew I wasn’t home.” She reached for the tissues. “I honestly didn’t think anything of it, not until Tim rang this morning to see why Andy hadn’t made it to work.”

  “Had Andrew had any kind of trouble lately? An argument, or disagreement with someone. Maybe odd phone calls or emails. Anything out of the ordinary?”

  Bloodshot baby blues widened at the question. “Everyone loved Andrew.” More tears gathered and her chin trembled. “I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt him.”

  Well, someone had. Someone had punctured his body multiple times then left him to bleed out in a dank and dirty place beneath the bridge.

  **

  Max spent nearly two hours painstakingly interviewing Erica Kaplan. On the surface she was helpful, open and cooperative. But frequent bouts of hysterics interspersed with misplaced flirtation made it difficult to keep her focussed on anything for more than a millisecond. Somehow, by the time he left the upmarket apartment complex and returned to his sweltering car, he had managed to collate several pages of notes. It was a messy start. Erica had nothing helpful to volunteer, so he’d had to dig deep, asking for names of family members, friends, neighbours they were on speaking terms with, work colleagues; in short anyone and everyone they’d been in contact with. He’d had to ask specific questions to get anything meaningful out of her, which was tricky when he didn’t yet know what motivation was behind this crime.

  The air inside the car had become scalding during the last couple of hours. Max pulled wide the door and opened all the windows. He paced up and down making phone calls as he waited for the worst of the heat to dissipate from the interior.

  His first call was to Carrie; by far the best Crime Analyst at the station. She was usually his ‘go to’ girl anyway, but with Lorraine now breathing down his neck he felt in need of an ally more than ever.

  “Carrie, hi. Anything new on our victim?”

  “Straight down to it, eh Detective? What, no foreplay?”

  Carrie had a dull job. Despite the wide range of depraved crimes under investigation, most of her work was filtering data, digging for information, finding that elusive needle in that vast haystack. She never complained, and Max couldn’t blame her for needing the banter, a bit of human interaction to shine a light through the gloom of her day to day occupation. Max wasn’t in the mood today but didn’t want to upset another of the women in his life.

  “Sorry. Not my best morning ever.”

  “Yeah, I heard you’ve got company on this one.”

  There was dead air down the line for a few seconds as Max struggled with how to respond. Carrie saved him the trouble.

  “Nothing flagged on the victim. Andrew Trent was a respectable citizen with a thriving business.”

  “Yes, maybe this was financially motivated. I’ve just finished talking to the girlfriend. I don’t see her in the frame for this.”

  “Don’t discount her too quickly. I looked into Erica Kaplan too. That girl has very humble beginnings. Maybe she tired of the boyfriend but not his money.”

  Max shook his head even though Carrie couldn’t see him. He’d already surmised Erica had a poor background. She may have been decked out in designer gear and expensive jewellery, but she lacked taste. The low-cut dress, the fake tan, the gold chain around her neck that was just that bit too chunky, the oversized hoops in her earlobes; she was just trying too hard.

  “She told me the flat’s in his name only. With Trent dead she has nothing.”

  “Maybe she’d already ripped him off; you know, a secret stash of cash or offshore bank account that she persuaded him to put in her name.”

  Despite his foul mood Max found himself smiling at Carrie’s childlike enthusiasm and imagination.

  “Well, Miss Winters, I suggest you check that out.”

  A wry laugh on the other end of the phone. “Just made work for myself, didn’t I?”

  “Yep. Any word yet from Lorraine? I hate to admit it, but Trent’s business partner might be the better suspect here.”

  “No, nothing yet. But then I don’t have the same kind of rapport with Lorraine as you do!”

  He chose to ignore that. “Do you know why she’s on this too? Didn’t expect to find her on that river bank.”

  “All I know is Heritage wants you both working the case.” Carrie’s voice had lost its sarcastic edge. They both knew the Chief was a master tactician, always several moves ahead of everyone else. If the order had come from Heritage he was just going to have to make the most of it.

  “OK, I’m on my way back.”

  Max glanced back at the luxury apartment b
lock. Andrew Trent had had a lot to live for, but somebody had cut away his future. He got into the sweaty tomb that was his car with new resolve. Lorraine wouldn’t question orders either, but she was a competitive beast. Then again, so was Max. Just because they were both working the case it didn’t mean he couldn’t be the one to crack it, and crack it first.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The numbers had never made sense. As a boy Felix would run up and down Station Street, one loose sole of his worn out shoes flapping frantically against the summer-warmed pavement. He would count; 5, 7, 9. Then number 11 on the corner, where Station Street met Peony Road. Across the road, 17, 19, and so on. He never discovered what happened to numbers 13 and 15.

  He’d asked Mr Doyle about it once, Bryan’s dad, when they’d paid one of their frequent visits to his shop. Stretched up on tiptoe, his elbows propped onto the high shop counter, he’d watched, fascinated, as Mr Doyle scooped gleaming toffees, plump jellies, and a multitude of colourful penny sweets into jars. Felix loved it when there was a customer. They would choose and be rewarded with one of those little white, paper bags bulging with delights. Empty, the shop was hushed as church, cool with echoes, laced with the lingering scent of sugar.

  Mrs Doyle kept the shop pristine, darting into view after a customer set the bell tinkling to announce their departure. That bell galvanised her every time, like a boxer bouncing in for the next round. She would flit here and there with a mop or duster, all the time her mouth puckered and brow contracted, either with deep concentration or disgust at sticky finger marks or the dust motes daring to float in her shop window.

  Felix had theorised, speaking to Mr Doyle with the wisdom and gravity befitting a twelve year old boy, that as the missing numbers were right at the intersection with Peony Road, maybe they were demolished to make way for it. Mr Doyle hadn’t thought so. In his kindly way he peered over thick rimmed glasses and pointed out that the houses in Peony Road were the same age and type as those on Station Street, so must have been built at the same time. Felix had nodded sagely, absorbing this; it only deepened the mystery for him. He would have debated the phenomenon further, but Bryan breezed through, scooped him up, and off they went to play.

  Six golden weeks he’d spent with Bryan and his family. The blink of an eye perhaps, especially to a man now thirty nine, with so many years filling the space between then and now. But still, the memory was sharp, vivid, bursting fresh with sights and sounds, and always the scent of powdered sugar, lightly coating each recollection.

  Number 11 was still on the corner. When the Doyles had been in residence they’d favoured the back room, keeping the front ‘for best’, so dim and empty most of the time. The kitchen back then was just large enough for an oblong, formica-topped table and four narrow chairs, and for a high-backed armchair next to the electric fire which was the sole domain of Mr Doyle.

  Parked a way down the road, Felix could only see the exterior; white UPVC door and window frames, obligatory satellite dish fixed on the side. At this hour the curtains were still pulled tight, expensive material hanging in cooperative pleats. Respectable. But devoid of the character the place had once oozed from every pore. Felix could imagine the inside now, flat screen TV and scatter rugs. The kitchen would now be a box of fitted units with chrome highlights.

  He wondered how much the garden had changed. Was it still there? The pond?

  Of course, he’d known how different it would be even before he’d turned into Station Street as blue-grey dawn snuck over the horizon. He knew more about number 11 now than he ever had. Most of what he’d learned was of no interest. He didn’t care about repairs or insurance or the problem they’d had with the drains. People were what interested him. He reached into his pocket and took out the piece of paper. He’d found a notepad in the agents office, pink-tinged with cartoonish woodland creatures cavorting around its edges. He’d torn off a page and on it he’d written down the information he needed. He ran his finger down the list, slow, enjoying the way his fingertip dragged the grainy surface, feeling the words inked into the paper in his own heavy script.

  Already impatience was beginning to buzz inside his skull; like a hungry man desperate to gorge himself on the buffet laid out before him. But he needed to pace himself. He needed to make it last. From his backpack he pulled out a handful of sweets, selected a drumstick lolly, and chewed on it in happy contemplation as the light built around him. As the sweet raspberry flavour swirled around his mouth it merged deliciously with the memories of his latest kill. He’d only to close his eyes to relive each moment, every incision, every sensation. It had been better this time, less hurried. A little safe perhaps, but he’d been able to take the time he needed.

  As the residents of Station Street began to stir, Felix finally started the car and moved on, heading back towards the bridge.

  **

  The corner of a multi-storey car park was the perfect vantage point. He hadn’t spotted any cameras and at that time on a weekday there wasn’t too much coming and going on the upper levels. Felix parked up, with rows of cars and columns of concrete all around him there were plenty of hiding places if needed.

  He wouldn’t go back to the car. He’d been driving it around for over twenty four hours; it was bound to have been reported stolen by now.

  Several floors up and he had a good view, of the streets nearby, of the river winding its leisurely way to the far-off sea, and, of course, of the Black Bridge. The scene was peaceful. Cars droned by, pedestrians strolled along, life was going on as usual.

  It was late morning before the first police car pulled up. It took longer than he’d expected; Felix had made the anonymous call a couple of hours before. He found their laxity amusing. Two bored constables sat in their patrol car for a while before reluctantly leaving the cool comfortable interior of the vehicle to amble up and down a stretch of pavement near the west bank of the bridge.

  Felix barely blinked as he watched them, the anticipation catching in his throat, prickling softly through his fingertips. Even at a distance he could sense their sluggish reluctance; peering over the low wall at intervals and conferring wearily, hands on hips. The two policeman stood so long that Felix began to fear they’d just get back in their car and drive away. Finally, after what felt like forever, after the stress of waiting had soaked Felix in sweat and thinned his breathing till he was lightheaded, one of them made a move.

  It was tricky, the climb down the steep, overgrown bank; Felix knew from experience. Still, despite the tricky terrain, he cursed the snail-like progress of the constable.

  “Come on,” he muttered from the shadows of the car park.

  As one policeman disappeared into the groove of the landscape carved out over centuries by the river, his colleague continued to lean on the wall above, his thickened middle spilling over his belt as he strained to keep the other man in sight.

  Felix gripped the concrete ledge in front of him. He stared down at the top of the policeman’s head, who in turn stared down the bank where the other had now been swallowed whole, the quiet of the morning wrapped around them all.

  Then a shout, muffled and incoherent to Felix in his perch, but he knew what it meant.

  The morning was no longer quiet. The sluggishness was shrugged off; radios crackled, distant sirens grew louder, and before long more and more cars and people were converging on that little corner of the riverbank, like ants swarming over a picnic.

  Felix remained where he was until the body was taken away. Until that point he hadn’t been sure why he was so keen to be close to the discovery, but now he knew. A line of people carefully manoeuvred the black body bag up and over the wall, where it was lain on a gurney and transferred into the back of a waiting ambulance. Not much to see; a shapeless lump of thick, black polyurethane surrounded by men and women in uniforms of one type or another.

  But it brought the memory of the kill rushing back to him, like a gale ripping at his clothes it threatened to knock him off his feet. Panting, he slid h
is hand beneath his jacket, needed to feel the handle of the knife. His knife. For so long he’d coveted it from a distance. His father, when he was alive, had never allowed Felix to touch it. Now he touched it. Now he owned it; gave it purpose, just as the knife gave him purpose. As the ambulance doors snapped shut he closed his eyes, letting the images and sensations of the night before flood his being. He kept his eyes shut as he heard the ambulance engine retreating. He leaned his hot brow against the stippled surface of a concrete column as he waited for his breathing to return to normal.

  The crowd on the ground was thinning now. Felix sought out the stairwell and descended, two, three, four flights. He could run through the list in his pocket like wildfire, but that would never do. This was too important, it had to be handled properly, respected; it had to linger.

  Felix watched the remaining officers a little longer. Then he saw her; bold, smart, cool as a cucumber, whilst those around her dissolved in the midday heat. He drank in her face, her crop of blonde hair. So like another he’d once known, with that bullish sass he’d both feared and loved.

  Felix saw it as an omen, had to be. He smiled blissfully in the shadows.

  Time to steal another car.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lorraine Pope gripped the steering wheel, squeezed it until her knuckles ached as she waited for the light to go green. She didn’t know what Heritage was playing at. She didn’t get the reason behind partnering her up with Max bloody Travers on this investigation. She didn’t need him. It had been months since their split, and she’d handled it well. She knew she had; professional, dignified. She hadn’t let him get to her, hadn’t felt the need to run and hide. She could deal with it; she could deal with Max. But having to work with him, to have him underfoot at every turn, now that was asking a bit much. When the Chief had told her, it had taken a Herculean effort not to let her feelings show. She’d focussed on her breathing, slow, calm, and willed away the spots of heat rushing to her cheeks and neck. She’d given a curt nod, said ‘of course, Sir’, then beat a hasty retreat to the ladies.