The Descent (Detective Louise Blackwell)

by Matt Brolly

  ‘Of course. So how did you know Sally?’

  ‘We go way back. I met her years ago now.’

  ‘She looked like she was having a wonderful time on the pier.’

  Chappell lowered his gaze. ‘She was. That’s why I don’t understand why she did it.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her, Jay?’

  ‘It was that day. We took a bus home to her place. I dropped her off there then went home.’

  ‘To Newport?’

  Louise noted the flicker of hesitation in the man. His eyes narrowed and he paused before answering. ‘I don’t live in Newport any longer.’

  ‘Oh no?’

  ‘No, I live here – well, Berrow, to be precise. I can give you the address.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Louise, handing him her notebook and pen.

  She studied him as he wrote down his details. His classical good looks were even more evident in the flesh. He had a very easy way about him, a confidence that was quite rare in the intensity of a police interview. He smiled as he handed her the notebook and she noticed what looked like scar tissue around his neck. ‘I know this must be difficult for you to answer, but did Sally say or do anything that would suggest she wanted to take her own life?’

  Chappell kept eye contact with Louise as he considered the question. ‘She seemed happy when she was with me, but she suffered, Inspector Blackwell.’

  ‘Suffered, how?’

  ‘You’ve seen where she lived?’

  Louise nodded, keeping silent to allow Chappell to speak.

  ‘Her life was blighted with trauma after trauma. She was prone to mood swings. Sorry, that isn’t quite right. I’m underplaying it. It was more than mere mood swings. She suffered with depression. It would come and go. I am surprised and devastated that this happened, don’t get me wrong, but sadly it’s not a complete shock.’

  ‘Did she say anything to you during your day together?’

  ‘No, as I said she was having a great time,’ he said, echoing Louise’s previous description as if mimicking her. ‘That’s the thing with depression. It can come on like that,’ he continued. Louise was drawn to the movement of his fingers snapping together, the noise echoing in the room.

  Louise blinked before asking Chappell if he knew Victoria Warrington and Claire Smedley.

  The man was slick, she had to give him that. He barely reacted. ‘No, sorry. I read the article. They’re the other women who took their lives?’

  ‘Did Sally mention them?’ said Louise.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  Louise pursed her lips, fighting the urge to look away from Chappell’s intense gaze. ‘Can you tell me about your time in the Amazon?’ she asked.

  He reacted this time, a small crease forming on his forehead. ‘You really did want to speak to me didn’t you?’

  The question had changed the dynamic of the interview and Louise knew she had to be careful not to lose him now. ‘We were just trying to locate you, Jay. It made for some very interesting reading. You took Ayahuasca when you were there?’

  A flicker of unease came and went on the man’s face. ‘You’re not going to lock me up for that are you?’ said Chappell, smiling. ‘It was a foreign country, personal use and all that.’

  Louise matched his smile. ‘Quite a thing though?’

  ‘You can only imagine. It changed my life.’

  ‘I think it changed Sally’s life too,’ said Louise. It was a risk, but everything about Chappell’s reactions up to this point had been so perfect that she felt the need to try and throw him off guard.

  She couldn’t tell for sure if it worked. He shrugged. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Traces of DMT were found in Sally’s body.’

  Chappell’s mouth opened slightly as if he was about to ask a question.

  ‘We don’t normally check for such things as you may know?’ said Louise.

  Chappell’s frown was laced with anger. ‘How would I know that?’

  Sensing the interview was turning, Louise said, ‘Would you mind if we took your fingerprints and DNA sample, Mr Chappell? It’s just procedure.’

  Louise saw a hint of derision in Chappell as he answered. ‘I only came in to help out and now you’re treating me like I’ve done something wrong.’

  Louise got to her feet. ‘As I said, Mr Chappell, purely procedural.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Thomas took Chappell to be processed. The hints of anger and derision Louise had sensed in him at the end of the interview had vanished. He seemed eager to help and went along with Thomas with a smile. Louise didn’t know what to make of the man, but his reaction to her question about DMT had been revealing. He’d taken it as a personal affront, as if by asking the question she’d somehow offended him. It was the switch in behaviour that intrigued her. Prior to that he’d been the perfect interviewee, calm and respectable if a little overconfident. His anger suggested his earlier performance might have been a front. The reveal of DMT being found in Sally’s body had rattled Chappell and Louise was convinced he was holding something back from them.

  Two missed calls were waiting for her as she returned to her desk: one from her mother, the other from the journalist, Tania Elliot. She called her mother first, not bothering with the answerphone messages. ‘Everything okay, Mum?’

  ‘Didn’t you listen to my message?’

  ‘No, I thought it would be quicker to call.’

  ‘Oh,’ said her mother, as if the thought was ludicrous. ‘Anyway, we received a postcard today. From Emily.’

  Louise tensed. ‘Where is it from?’

  ‘The picture is the beach at Sennen. The postmark says Cornwall.’

  Sennen was a beautiful area in Cornwall. As a family, they’d spent an eventful holiday there once when Louise was twelve. It had been their last real enjoyable time together, being the year before her father had found drugs in Paul’s pocket. It had been a rare Cornwall summer – perfect sunshine and no rain. Paul appeared to be retreating into the past, trying to recapture something of an earlier happiness with his daughter. ‘What did Emily say?’

  ‘You know, nothing much. Having a great time and missing us. She’s not about to put down that she’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, that’s not necessary, is it?’ The guilt at ignoring her niece’s comment about going on holiday still haunted Louise, but the fact that Paul had called and had now sent a postcard was encouraging.

  ‘Well,’ said her mum, her anger palpable over the phone. ‘Can you send someone down there?’

  ‘To Cornwall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Find them and bring them back of course.’

  Louise understood how her mother felt but couldn’t entertain such a course of action at that moment. ‘I can’t talk about it now,’ she said, looking round the room for a sight of Simone. ‘But I don’t think we need to do that just yet. I’m sure he’ll phone again soon and we can discuss it with him.’

  The line went silent and Louise heard the distant sound of her mother sobbing. ‘It’ll be okay, Mum. He’s called, and sent the postcard. He’s not exactly hiding from us, is he?’ She was whispering now, her hand gripping the handset tight.

  ‘I’ll call you tonight, Lou.’

  ‘Okay, Mum. Bye.’

  Louise rubbed her forehead. For what felt like the hundredth time that month, she silently cursed her brother before reminding herself that the postcard was a positive thing. Self-conscious, she looked around the office. Try as she might, she couldn’t prevent her private life leaking into her work. The last thing she needed now was for Robertson to think she was too focused on a family matter to fully give her attention to the case. The conflict was leading to mistakes. She’d messed up the overtime, but she’d also missed Emily telling her she was going on holiday. She had to straighten herself out, to get her focus back. She could deal with both things but she had to separate them. For now, her focus had to be on her work.r />
  ‘He’s gone,’ said Thomas, returning.

  ‘You watched the interview?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t like it when you mentioned the DMT. It has to be more than a coincidence? He’s been to the rainforest and tried this Ayahuasca, and three women kill themselves with traces of the drug in their blood.’

  ‘It’s our job to prove it’s not a coincidence,’ said Louise, but in truth she didn’t know what it all meant yet. They could connect Chappell to Sally, and Chappell had all but confessed he’d taken the same drug at some point. However, the man had attended the station of his own accord and had been helpful. Taking the drug for personal use wasn’t in itself a crime in Peru. Maybe if he’d sold it to Sally and the others, and they could somehow prove they’d taken their lives because of the drug, they might have a case – a reason to pursue Chappell further – but at the moment that was, at best, supposition.

  She could already hear Robertson’s thoughts, and those of the assistant chief. Without a direct link, these types of cases were almost impossible to pursue. The main issue was ascertaining the state of mind of the person who’d taken their life. All they had to go on at present was the suicide notes, and now the anecdotal evidence from Chappell of Sally’s depression. If Louise went to Robertson now and tried to present Chappell as a suspect in the suspicious death of the three women he would laugh her out of his office.

  But something was off. Hunches and feelings had no place in police work but Louise understood motivation and people’s characters. The link of the suicide notes and the DMT was enough to keep her interest in Chappell high. He was hiding something, and she owed it to the three women to keep going and find out what it was.

  The focus of her briefing later that afternoon was all on Jay Chappell. ‘We need to find out everything we can about this man. I mean everything from the past to the present. Thomas, I need you to focus on this DMT link. Simon, how long do we have you from HQ?’

  ‘As long as necessary, as far as I’m aware,’ said Coulson.

  ‘I know it’s a lot of work but can we trawl through the CCTV images once more. All we need is to link Chappell to Claire or Victoria.’

  Without Farrell, the team suddenly felt understaffed. It was the nature of a CID department in such a small station. If DCI Robertson ever returned from his meeting with Morley, she intended to request Farrell’s return – once, that was, she’d worked out how she would explain her current line of investigation.

  While the light was still good, Louise decided to revisit the three suicide sites. She wanted to explore the spaces again, now she had the connection between the DMT and Jay Chappell fresh in her mind. As she drove to Saint Nicholas’ Church, she fought her growing frustration with the case. Everything was so intangible. There was a risk she was making a mistake; that she was looking for something that didn’t exist. It was beyond question that the three women were linked in one way or another but it didn’t mean anything more than that. Presumption could kill any investigation and her focus had to be on facts. She could argue for now that Chappell had an interest in DMT and the drug was found in the women’s hair, but that couldn’t commit her to that line of investigation indefinitely.

  Rain started falling as she walked the steep incline to the church where Claire Smedley had taken her life. The graveyard was desolate, Louise’s view of the coast hampered by a growing blanket of mist. It seemed incredible how recently they’d discovered remains of a small campfire among these very same tombstones. Louise climbed over the stone wall at the perimeter. Her back to the wall, she admired the stunning view of the Brean peninsula in the hazy distance.

  Following Sally’s death there had been more press attention on Claire’s suicide; more attention than she’d ever experienced in her life. Louise thought about the woman’s dingy bedsit, and the obese landlord, Applebee, and how easy it could have been to dismiss her case as just another lonely person’s cry for help. Had she really been so despondent that she could only see one way out? And had the DMT aided her in that decision? Had, for that matter, Jay Chappell influenced her in some way? Maybe if she hadn’t seen that glimpse of anger and resentment in Chappell, she wouldn’t be thinking along those lines, but she just couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  A scratching noise distracted her attention and Louise looked over the wall to glimpse two hares scrambling across the graveyard. She pushed herself back over the wall, her hand slipping on the algae-covered top. Drained of energy, she considered how easy it would be to go home, to sleep off the tiring day and bad weather, but revisiting the locations where Victoria and Sally lost their lives seemed more important now than ever.

  Back in the car, she switched on the heater to deaden the wet chill on her skin. She was about to leave for the second part of her pilgrimage – Brean Down where Victoria had died – when her phone rang. ‘Tracey, everything okay?’

  ‘Hi, Lou. Yes, all good. Nothing to worry about but I thought you should know. There has been a spate of house burglaries recently in Knowle. I was just going through the list when I realised one of the homes broken into belongs to your brother.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Megan had spent the night again. As before, Megan had fallen into a peaceful sleep while Amy tossed and turned, slipping in and out of troubled dreams she could no longer recall.

  Megan’s happiness hadn’t faded in the morning, the same serene look on her face as she kissed Amy goodbye on the cheek. Some of Megan’s good cheer rubbed off on Amy, chipping away at the edges of her concern until she thought everything might work out okay. A feeling that was dashed seconds into retrieving last night’s Post from the paper-recycling unit outside the block of flats.

  Amy did a double take, her heart hammering so fiercely in her chest it was audible to her, as she viewed Jay’s photograph. Her hands were shaking and she clenched the newspaper tightly as a neighbour left by the front door and grunted a morning greeting.

  Jay was wanted for questioning in connection with the suspicious death of Sally Kennedy. A second, smaller photograph showed Jay on the pier with Sally on the same day Amy had seen them together. Amy rubbed her eyes, wondering if this was really happening. There was a phone number in the article and for one desperate second she considered calling it.

  And tell them what? That you saw Jay and Sally together? That you were there the night Sally took DMT and walked through the woods to her death? That you sat on the beach with Megan and waited for someone to discover Sally’s body before it was taken to sea, while never quite knowing for sure if she was dead or not?

  She threw the paper back in with the recycling and walked away, trying to contain her panic as the threat of tears welled inside her.

  She thought about nothing else during work, managing to ignore Keith’s constant barracking of her and Nicole. Someone would recognise Jay. No one from the group would identify him but someone in the town would know him. The thought made her realise how little she truly knew about Jay. She didn’t even know if he had a job, though he’d once managed to fund himself a trip to the Amazon and was always well presented. And what would happen when he was identified? She hadn’t thought about the criminal aspect to their work before. Victoria, Claire and Sally had all wanted to end their lives but Amy was sure the authorities wouldn’t view their deaths in such a sympathetic way, especially when they found out the rest of the group had watched. She presumed there was some form of duty to try and stop people taking their own lives. Was she being selfish to think that way? Maybe they had done something wrong, maybe she should call the number after all and stop it happening to Megan?

  ‘Is everything okay?’ asked Nicole, as they stood waiting at the stop for Nicole’s bus home. ‘You’ve hardly said a word all day.’

  ‘Just tired,’ said Amy, which wasn’t a complete lie.

  ‘Have you ever thought about opening your own place?’

  Amy’s mind was so full of conflicting thoughts and images of Jay and the others that the question barely regis
tered. ‘Huh?’ she said.

  ‘Your own café? You run that place as it is. All you’d need would be a cook and you’d be set.’

  Nicole’s innocent optimism diverted Amy from her despondency. ‘I’m afraid I’d need a bit more than that. My own place for a start.’

  ‘You could get a business loan.’

  Amy laughed. ‘They don’t give business loans to someone like me.’

  Nicole frowned. ‘I could help. I’m studying business, and my parents—’

  Amy cut her off. ‘I think this is a conversation for another day,’ she said. Despite her recent reservations about Jay and the group, her future was already planned out. She didn’t want a place in this world and had made her peace with that. Her belief that Aiden was waiting for her was unwavering. She would have explained it to Nicole but she would never understand.

  To her relief, Nicole’s bus arrived before they could speak further. ‘Have a think about it,’ said Nicole, climbing the steps.

  Amy smiled and turned away.

  She kept checking her phone as she walked home, even though the only person in her contact list would be at work until midnight. She bought the Bristol Post from the newsagent close to her flats and had skimmed through it three times by the time she got home. It was as if yesterday’s paper had been a hoax, the story reduced to an eight-line article deep into the paper. There was no picture, only a mention that police were looking to talk to the person last seen with Sally.

  She showered in the bathroom, her body jittery as if she’d drunk too much coffee. After cooking pasta with shop-bought sauce, she logged into the group chat desperate for some answers but it was deserted, no one had logged in since last night. She closed the connection quickly, fearing she’d somehow made a mistake; that the chat room was being monitored and the police would be knocking on her door at any second.

  However, when the doorbell rang thirty minutes later it wasn’t the police waiting outside for her.