The Descent (Detective Louise Blackwell)

by Matt Brolly

  Chapter Nineteen

  Like ghosts – their white suits glowing in the moonlit darkness – they carried the body across the rocks to the waiting ambulance. Louise had gone ahead, the rising sea threatening to trap her.

  The SOCOs placed the body in the back of the ambulance, the silent flashing light a solemn siren. Louise had already tracked Sally Kennedy’s address to a caravan park in Winscombe. A team had been sent over there now. Louise already knew what to expect, a laptop and a suicide note, and had prompted the team to search for those first.

  As the ambulance took the body away, Louise thought about what Dempsey had told her. The fact that Sally had lived for a few minutes after her fall shouldn’t have bothered her but it did. Louise wondered if the young woman had been conscious for those few minutes as she’d bled out.

  Had she regretted her actions, or tried to call out for help? Or had she just wished harder for death to claim her?

  Louise had little doubt now that the three suicides were linked. If nothing else, it proved that her instinct to mark Claire’s and Victoria’s deaths as suspicious was correct. The case had definition now, especially with the software link. Something must connect the three women and if she could find out what then she would be a step nearer to working out the question that was bothering her so much: why?

  Louise was about to head towards Sally’s caravan park when another vehicle entered the car park. Louise wasn’t surprised to see the journalist Tania Elliot park up and walk towards her, her narrow face framed by her bobbed haircut. ‘Inspector,’ she said, her notebook held in her hand like a weapon.

  ‘It’s been too long, Tania. How are you?’ said Louise.

  Tania chuckled at Louise’s sarcasm and at that moment Louise felt they could have once been friends. ‘I’m sorry it’s taken this to bring us together,’ said the journalist, gesturing around her as if their location was to blame. ‘I believe there was another jumper?’

  Louise wanted to dismiss the woman but after their meeting she knew it was important to keep her on side. A report on three linked suicides would be devastating and it was vital to delay the inevitable story for as long as possible. ‘It looks like there was another suicide but I can’t confirm anything yet. I remember our conversation, Tania. I promised I would keep you updated and I will.’

  ‘Do you have a name for the deceased?’

  ‘We believe so but we can’t confirm that yet.’

  ‘Do you think the death is linked to Claire Smedley and Victoria Warrington?’

  ‘Listen, Tania, you know as well as I do that it’s too early to speculate on that. We’ve only just put the poor woman into a body-bag.’

  ‘This is the third woman to take their life by jumping from a cliff, surely it’s not a coincidence, Inspector?’

  Louise took a deep breath, her lungs filling with the sea air. ‘We’ve discussed this. I can’t make a comment yet, Tania, but as soon as I have something concrete I will let you know. If you publish any supposition based on this, you will jeopardise the investigation.’

  Tania kept on talking as if she hadn’t heard. ‘Do you think this will be the last suicide, Inspector Blackwell?’

  ‘Off the record, Tania?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t honestly know but I’m sure you wouldn’t want the blood of anyone else on your hands, would you?’

  ‘That’s a bit melodramatic.’

  ‘Is it? We need to find out what links these women, why they’ve jumped. What we don’t need is to create a panic, or worse put ideas in vulnerable people’s minds.’

  ‘This is my job, Inspector.’

  ‘I understand, Tania, but I am asking you to wait.’

  ‘Will you tell me as soon as you’ve confirmed the name of the victim?’

  Louise fought her growing rage but agreed.

  ‘And if you find a note?’

  ‘We’ll need to process it but I’ll let you know before anyone else.’

  ‘I can sit on it for one more day but I can’t risk anyone getting hold of the story.’

  ‘I understand. You need to be the first and you will,’ said Louise, unable and unwilling to hide the disdain in her voice.

  Thomas was at the address they had for Sally and was coordinating the search of her home. From the outside, Sally’s caravan appeared to be abandoned. It was not fixed like the majority of the caravans on the park, more the old-fashioned trailer type. Oblong in shape, its shell was a rusted brown, the whole thing balanced precariously on two flat tyres and piles of bricks.

  ‘We’ve spoken to the owners of the park,’ said Thomas. ‘Apparently, Sally did odd jobs on site and was allowed to keep her caravan here in return.’

  ‘Is this even legal?’ said Louise, stepping inside. The interior made Louise’s bungalow look palatial. There were two rooms. One for living and sleeping in, and a small cupboard-like area that would once have been a toilet.

  ‘It’s connected to the mains but isn’t plumbed,’ said Thomas. ‘The owners said she used the block of showers and was allowed to use the kitchen area but rarely did.’

  Louise should have been shocked at the way Sally lived but she’d seen much worse in her time. At least Sally had a place she could have called home. ‘Have you found a laptop?’

  ‘There was a note attached to it,’ he said, handing her the plastic-covered sheet.

  Any remaining doubt faded as she read the note. This time there was no life story, just the two lines that had formed a perverse earworm in Louise’s mind:

  There are other worlds than this

  Death is not the end

  After almost not discovering Claire’s laptop, the fact that Sally’s note had been taped to her laptop felt deliberate. The mistake at Claire’s flat withstanding, it seemed important to all three women that their notes were discovered.

  ‘Have we found anything else of significance?’

  ‘Just these,’ said Thomas, handing her a second bag with a number of paper tokens.

  Louise recognised them as the paper vouchers the machines in the amusement arcades spat out in lieu of actual prizes. The vouchers could be collected to purchase prizes in the gift shops in the arcades. It was a perfect scam, the cost of playing the games far outweighing the cost of the prizes. It was nothing new. Louise had collected similar vouchers herself as a child on her day visits to the town. She’d once saved up her tokens over two summers and purchased a toy, a little plastic man with a makeshift parachute attached to its back. Paul had one too and together they’d launched their little men over the edge of the pier. Louise could still picture her awe as the wind carried them out towards the mud, a year’s worth of anticipation gone in seconds.

  ‘They look recent,’ said Thomas, glancing at the roll of tokens.

  ‘We know where they’re from yet?’

  Thomas flipped one of the tokens over. In the dim light of the caravan Louise read the small print: Property of the Grand Pier.

  Chapter Twenty

  Louise was at the seafront the following morning by 6 a.m. After a number of calls, the weekend operations manager at the Grand Pier had agreed to meet her and Thomas at 7 a.m. She’d told Thomas to meet her at the pier, so she went to the Kalimera alone.

  Georgina served her coffee in silence. Where once she’d felt the owner simply didn’t like her, Louise now thought she was sulking with her for not returning sooner. ‘How’s business?’ she asked, as Georgina placed the coffee on the counter.

  ‘Look about you,’ said Georgina, pointing to the empty restaurant.

  ‘It’s generally empty. I rarely see anyone else here this time of the morning.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Georgina, turning her back and walking off to the kitchen.

  Louise could have done without the restaurant owner’s histrionics but she was smiling as she took her coffee to the window seat with its view of the seafront. The place always gave her a sense of calm, and Georgina had only responded that way because she
’d missed seeing her. Again, she promised herself to visit the place more often as she flicked through her notes.

  She’d left the caravan park after midnight last night. She’d pushed the team to work to their limit. Together they’d searched every inch of Sally’s meagre home. Louise recovered a battered address book and had instructed her team to get into the office early that morning to go through every number and address. She wanted to find someone who knew Sally apart from the owner of the caravan park, and somewhere there had to be a link between her and the other two dead women.

  Louise fidgeted in her seat, restless for 7 a.m. to arrive. Having to work to other people’s timetables was part of the job that frustrated her. She wanted everything sorted that moment and would have gladly met the operations manager last night, whatever the hour.

  Leaving payment on the counter, Georgina still absent, Louise headed across the road to the seafront. With the schools breaking up yesterday, today would be one of the busiest of the season. It was already warm and the familiar smells of the sea and the fresh cut grass on the lawns opposite the front made Louise nostalgic for her childhood. On her day visits with Paul, the Grand Pier had been a kind of holy grail. They’d enjoyed playing on the beach, and to a lesser extent in the muddy sea, but their daily goal had been to spend some time on the pier with its lights and noise, its endless possibilities.

  It was still ten minutes to seven, the main entrance to the pier locked shut. Although she’d agreed to meet the operations manager at the entrance, Louise squeezed through the side gate where a group of men dressed in cleaning overalls were making their way up the walkway of the pier.

  The concession stores near the entrance were boarded up and in the early morning the place felt like a ghost town, the illusion it created when open destroyed. A man in an ill-fitting grey suit walked over to her as she leant against one of the shutters. ‘DI Blackwell?’ he said.

  Louise showed the man her warrant card.

  ‘Stephan Daly,’ he said. ‘I’m the ops manager here this weekend.’

  Daly had the unhealthy pallor of a smoker. Louise glanced at his fingers, her hunch confirmed by the yellow nicotine-stained skin. There was a slight tremor to his hands and she wondered if he was nervous of meeting her or was seeking his next nicotine hit. Louise showed him the roll of paper tokens. ‘These are from here?’ she said.

  ‘Clearly,’ said Daly, pointing at the Grand Pier insignia.

  ‘We’re looking to find video evidence of the person who won these tokens. Would you be able to tell me which machine they come from?’

  Thomas arrived as she was speaking, checking his watch to make sure he wasn’t late. Louise introduced him to Daly. ‘I was just asking Mr Daly which machine the tokens came from.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s impossible to say. We use the same tokens on practically every machine. All I can say is that they were probably won this month. We tend to change the colour of the tokens every few weeks,’ said Daly.

  ‘Which machines give out these tokens?’ asked Louise.

  ‘There are a number of them located in the main building. I can show you if you like?’

  ‘Lead the way.’

  ‘I hate these places,’ said Thomas under his breath, as they walked along the promenade behind Daly.

  ‘You’re just getting old,’ said Louise, though she felt the same way. Like everything in the town, the pier had changed beyond recognition since Louise was a child. She felt it as she gazed at the wooden boards beneath her feet. As a child she’d been able to glance at the mud, and occasionally the sea, between the gaps in the boards. The mild threat of danger had excited her then, but now the gaps were sealed shut. Nothing could live up to the excitement she’d felt as a child, but even the main body of the pier appeared soulless. There had been something chaotic about the pier in the past with its funhouse and ghost train. Now everything was a little too clinical, a fact compounded by the lack of people inside.

  Not all the machines were switched on yet but there were enough flashing lights and electronic noises to give the place a hazy, distorted feel.

  ‘We start here,’ said Daly, pointing to a roulette-type machine.

  ‘So you spend money, and receive this in exchange?’

  ‘If you win.’

  Daly walked them through the pier, stopping at different types of machines. Louise remembered one of them – a skittle alley game with its scoring hoops – from her childhood. ‘So what are these tokens worth?’ said Louise, remembering the green plastic man she’d sent parachuting from the end of the pier.

  ‘Players can redeem the vouchers in the shop.’

  Some things never changed. The shop displayed the same low-quality prizes she remembered as a child. For a thousand tokens you could get a cheap-looking cuddly toy, no bigger than the size of her palm. Behind the counter was an electronic device worth ten thousand tokens.

  ‘You would need to spend a fortune to win one of those,’ said Thomas.

  Daly shrugged his shoulders as if Thomas’s comment was irrelevant.

  ‘So who counts all the tickets?’ asked Louise.

  Daly pointed to a machine inside the shop. ‘You put them in there and it counts them for you.’

  ‘Are there any more machines that issue these tickets?’ asked Louise.

  ‘There are a couple at the entrance to the pier as well.’

  Louise looked up at the cameras spread throughout the hall. ‘Everything is videoed?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, we have quite a comprehensive monitoring system.’

  ‘Okay, we’re going to need all the video surveillance on these machines for the last month.’

  ‘The last month? You’re talking hundreds, no, thousands of hours of footage.’

  Louise showed Daly a picture of Sally. ‘This young woman died and it looks like one of the last things she did was visit this place. I want to find out who she visited here with. We’ll start with Thursday’s footage and work back from there. Does that work for you, Mr Daly?’

  Daly’s face reddened from the reprimand. ‘I can get them over to you this morning,’ he said.

  ‘We need to speak to all the employees,’ said Louise to Thomas, as Daly headed off to the office. ‘Daly is right about the hours of images. Let’s see if we can find someone who saw Sally in the last week or so.’

  If Thomas thought the request for the CCTV was going overboard he kept it hidden. ‘I’ll get some uniforms down here,’ he said.

  ‘Let me know as soon as Daly has the footage ready. I’ll get a team together at the office to start going through it,’ said Louise, hoping the job wouldn’t be as difficult as it sounded.

  It was after lunch before the first files arrived from Daly. Louise had called in Simon Coulson and was surprised when he’d agreed to set up the screening team in Weston. Together with a team of five uniformed officers Louise had managed to recruit, they’d taken over the incident room.

  ‘Even at triple speed it’s going to take us hours to get through all these,’ said Coulson under his breath before giving his instructions out to the rest of the team. ‘Pause your screen as soon as you feel yourself getting tired. All it takes is one lapse and we may miss what we’re looking for,’ he told the officers, who looked less than pleased to be inside staring at grainy images on their screens.

  ‘Do we have any more images of Sally?’ asked Coulson, once they’d started. ‘I’ve scanned her details and can run the CCTV images through facial-recognition software but we could do with something a bit clearer. The more images you can find of her the better.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do but at the moment we only have the driver’s licence and the photos taken at the scene.’

  ‘Okay, leave it with me,’ said Coulson, returning to his desk. Louise was impressed with the change in the man. It was like seeing a different person. He’d taken charge of the situation, and was so much more animated than the time she’d seen him in Portishead.

  ‘I think he’s swee
t on you,’ came a voice from behind her.

  Louise turned to see Simone. She frowned. Louise was in no mood for small talk with the office manager. ‘Simon is a diligent professional, Simone. We should all strive to act like him,’ she said, walking off to her own desk.

  Thomas returned in the afternoon. ‘No one remembers seeing Sally,’ he said. ‘I’m not that surprised either. By the time I left, the pier was a madhouse. I’ve never seen it so busy. I never really liked the place but I can’t stand it now.’

  Thomas had lived in Weston all his life so Louise was surprised. ‘You must have liked it as a child?’

  ‘Not really. My parents didn’t have much money so when we went all we got to do was look at everyone else enjoying themselves.’

  ‘Poor you,’ said Louise. ‘Remind me when this is all over and I’ll treat you to go on the bumper cars.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  Louise looked back at her laptop as her skin flushed. ‘I was going to say, Tom. If you need to get back to see Noah that’s not a problem.’

  ‘That’s okay. Becky has him this week so I’m a free agent.’

  Louise did her best to ignore the implied message – meant or not – and returned to her screen without comment.

  More officers joined the team scouring the CCTV images. News of the suicides had spread through the station and Louise was proud of the way both her team and the uniformed officers had rallied around to help. With her own stretch of video stream to view she knew first-hand how tedious the job could be.

  As twilight approached outside she rewarded the team by ordering take out. She acknowledged the cheers of approval, pleased that a common goal was uniting everyone. Indian was the prevailing choice and soon the office was awash with plastic containers and the smell of spicy food. Louise was about to take a mouthful of prawn biryani when her phone buzzed.

  ‘Hi, Mum, everything okay?’ she said, her mouth watering as she waited for her to answer. ‘Mum?’ she repeated, only now remembering she’d promised to pop over and speak to Paul the last time she’d talked to her mother.