Deadly Reprisal (Detective Zoe Finch Book 5)

by Rachel McLean

  Kayla forced a smile.

  Berni grabbed Gina by the arm. “Are you telling her?” she muttered.

  Gina glanced at Kayla, then at her friend. “What are you talking about?”

  Berni looked at Kayla, her eyes wide. “You know, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry. Know what?”

  Berni’s mouth fell open. “I’m so sorry.” She tugged at Gina’s arm. “Tell her.”

  “I don’t know what it is you want me to tell her.”

  Berni frowned. She took a deep breath, staring at Kayla like she was scared of her. She hadn’t been like this yesterday; she’d tried to tell Kayla how to live her life.

  “What?” Kayla said. “What is it? You’re freaking me out.”

  “It’s your boyfriend,” Berni said. “Jenson.”

  Kayla felt heat rise up her neck. She hadn’t told these women about Jenson. She hadn’t been sure they’d approve. “What about him?” she whispered.

  “He’s dead.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Zoe watched as the two men from Adana’s team slid Jenson’s body into a dark van. Mo was behind her, his arms folded across his chest.

  “Is it connected?” she wondered aloud.

  “Could be. Might not be. We’ll know more when we’ve got the pathology report.”

  “Those dog hairs…” she said.

  “Plenty of people have dogs.”

  “No sign of one in the house.”

  “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t in contact with someone who had one. We’ll have to check. Find out who his friends were.”

  “Talk to his family.”

  Mo sighed. “Another family.”

  “Yeah.” Zoe turned and put a hand on Mo’s arm. “I’ll do this one, if you like.”

  He shrugged. “I know it has to be done, Zo. I’m not going to shy away from—”

  “Just because I’m a DI now doesn’t mean I don’t muck in with the crappy jobs. I’ll do it. I’ll get Connie to track them down.” She grabbed her phone.

  Rhodri came out of the house with Yala Cook, Adi’s second-in-command. They were smiling.

  “You enjoying yourself, Constable?” Zoe asked.

  Rhodri’s cheeks paled. “Sorry, boss.”

  “It’s alright. You have to find a way to deal with stuff like this. Just don’t let the public see you doing it, OK?”

  “Boss.” Rhodri lowered his gaze.

  “Anything else helpful?” Zoe asked Yala.

  “We’ve bagged up all the drugs paraphernalia. Looks like he might have been cooking it himself.”

  “On his own?”

  “Can’t be sure. There are signs of two other men living at the property, but they’re nowhere to be seen.”

  Zoe turned to Rhodri. “Rhod, you came here last night. Was anyone else in?”

  “I saw a couple on the bed in the front room downstairs, boss.”

  “Two men?”

  “A man and a woman.”

  “OK. Mo, you talk to Uniform. Make sure whoever’s on the front door keeps an eye out for any other residents. We need names and contact details.”

  “Boss.”

  “Rhodri, tell me everything you saw here last night.”

  “Course.” Rhodri took his notepad out of his inside pocket.

  A crowd was gathering along the pavement, people wanting to know what was going on. Zoe glanced at them, then gestured towards her car. “Let’s do this in my car, Rhodri.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  “Shall we go back to the station?” Mo said.

  “I want to stay here in case Rhodri thinks of anything we need to tell Adi. Or anything we can look into while we’re here.”

  She pushed through the growing crowd towards her Mini. There were half a dozen students, an elderly man with a dog and two young women holding onto pushchairs. They all turned to watch her as she passed through.

  “Detective!”

  Zoe turned to see Kayla Goode running towards them from the Bristol Road.

  “Shit,” she muttered. She pulled on a tight smile.

  Kayla skidded through the crowd and stopped in front of Zoe. She was panting. Her face was pale and her hair wild. “Is it true?”

  Zoe swallowed. “Come and sit with me in my car.” She turned to Mo. “Can you and Rhodri wait in your car?”

  Mo nodded and walked to his car with Rhodri trailing behind. Zoe took Kayla by the elbow and steered her towards her car. One of the pushchair women had her phone out and was filming.

  “Please don’t do that,” Zoe said.

  The woman shrugged but didn’t lower her phone.

  Zoe felt heat rise inside her. “Have some respect, will you?” She wanted to grab the woman’s phone, but she knew how that would look on YouTube. After a moment’s hesitation the woman lowered her phone and placed it in her pocket, not meeting Zoe’s eye.

  “Thank you. Come on, Kayla. Let’s talk in my car where these gawpers can’t overhear.”

  “Is it true?” Kayla breathed. “Is he dead?”

  Zoe had the passenger door open. She pushed Kayla in and closed the door behind her, then hurried round to the driver’s seat. She was glad of the quiet when she closed the door.

  Zoe turned to Kayla. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Jenson is dead, yes.”

  Kayla made a squeaking sound. “No.”

  “It happened overnight.”

  “How?” Kayla raked her fingernails up the inside of her arm.

  “He overdosed.”

  “Deliberately?”

  “We don’t know anything like that right now. It might have been an accident, a mistake. Did you ever see him taking drugs?”

  Kayla stiffened. “No.”

  “It’s OK, Kayla. You can’t get him into trouble. Or yourself. I just need to know if his body was used to them.”

  Kayla nodded, her eyes on her hands, which twisted in her lap. “Yes.”

  “Which drugs was he using?”

  “Cannabis.”

  “Anything else?”

  Kayla looked up. Her neck was bright red. “I found some meth in his room once.”

  “In his room in Boulton Hall?”

  Kayla shook her head. “Here.”

  “He had a room in this house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know why he kept two places, Kayla?”

  The young woman shrugged. “For privacy, maybe? I don’t know.”

  “He never told you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really. Are you sure?”

  “I suppose he just wanted somewhere away from the pressure. He gets fed up of people knocking on his door at all hours.” Kayla collapsed into herself. “Got.”

  Zoe rubbed her chin. “I know this is hard, Kayla. I’m sorry. But can you tell me where he got the drugs?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. Sorry.”

  “OK. I believe you. Do you know who else was living in this house?”

  Kayla’s gaze shot to the front of the house. A female PC stood outside, staring ahead impassively. The crowd was starting to dissipate, just the two mums still standing there with their toddlers sleeping. The two of them chatted, occasionally looking over to Zoe’s car.

  “You already have my card, Kayla,” Zoe said. “If you think of anything relevant please call me.”

  “Was Jenson murdered, like Laurence?”

  “We don’t know yet. It might just have been an accident.”

  “He was… he was a good man, you know. Really. Underneath it all.”

  “Underneath what?”

  A shrug. “He didn’t let people in. He came across as… shallow, I guess. That’s how he wanted people to see him. But that’s not what he was like.” A blush. “Not once you got to know him.”

  “How long have you been in a relationship with Jenson?”

  “Two months. Since just before Christmas.”

  “Did he talk to you about the allegations against Laurence?”


  “Your sergeant already asked me this. No. He was professional. He kept confidences.”

  “I’m sorry to ask this, Kayla. But did he have any other girlfriends? Anyone he was close to?”

  Kayla looked horrified. “No. Of course not.”

  “OK.” Zoe gave her a sad smile. “Thanks. I may need to talk to you again.”

  “I know.”

  “Good.” Zoe grabbed her door handle.

  “There is one thing,” Kayla said.

  “Yes?” Zoe stopped moving.

  “I saw him with… no. It’s nothing.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. Who did you see him with?”

  “It’s nothing, really. She would have been getting counselling, after finding the body.”

  “You saw him with Lin? That was unusual?”

  “She hated him. Said he was a bad influence. But she was at his flat yesterday. In Boulton Hall. Probably getting emotional support.” She gave Zoe a teary smile. “That’s all.”

  Zoe nodded. “Well, thank you for telling me. And if you think of anything else, call me. Day or night.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Zoe watched as Kayla walked back towards the Bristol Road. Her steps were hurried and she was almost tripping over herself as she walked.

  “Poor girl,” she muttered. She gave the two mums watching her a disdainful look, and slid into the back seat of Mo’s car.

  “Sorry, boss. I’ll get in the front,” Rhodri said.

  “You’re taller than me. Let’s get this over with. Tell us what you saw last night.”

  “I’ve just been telling the sarge. He was in a really shitty mood. Didn’t like that we’d sent two detectives to talk to him, one of them twice.”

  “D’you think he was high?”

  “No sign of it in his eyes. But his mood was all over the place.”

  “You saw another couple in the front room.”

  “I only saw their legs. Sorry.”

  “Did you see anyone else?”

  “There was no one else in the house, as far as I could tell.”

  “Which rooms did you go in?”

  “Just the kitchen, boss.”

  Zoe raised an eyebrow. “The room he died in.”

  “Yeah.” Rhodri looked uneasy.

  “Did you see any footprints on the floor? Mud?”

  “Sorry, boss. I weren’t looking at the floor.”

  “No. What shoes were you wearing?”

  “My Nikes, boss.”

  She nodded. “You’ll have to let Adi have them, just to eliminate the prints. We’ll make sure the fact you were in the building is noted on the forensics report. Did he seem suicidal to you?”

  “Pissed off, but not suicidal. Too chippy.”

  “Right.” Zoe turned to Mo. “What do you think?”

  “I think it all hinges on that shoe print and the dog hair. We just have to wait and see what Adi says.”

  “You’re right.”

  “You don’t think it’s just an accidental overdose?” Rhodri asked. “If he was using…”

  “It is a possibility,” Zoe said. “But there’s evidence someone else was in the room around the time he died. And if those hairs match with the ones we found on Laurence, that changes things completely.”

  “Right.”

  Zoe stared out of the window. The two women were still nearby, alternating between peering into their pushchairs and staring at the car. “So you didn’t see anyone else?” she asked Rhodri.

  “There might have been someone sneaking around outside.”

  “In the back yard?”

  “Out front. In the garden opposite. I thought I saw movement, but I assumed it was just whoever lived there.”

  “What kind of movement?”

  “A hedge being shifted to one side. Not much, really.”

  “Come on.” Zoe sprang out of the car and hurried across the road. Opposite the house in which Jenson had died, there was a thick evergreen hedge in the centre of a front garden, surrounded by scruffy grass. It didn’t give the impression of a place that anyone looked after very much.

  “Why is this street such a mess?” she said. “I only live two roads along, and it’s nothing like this.”

  “If they were doing drugs…” said Mo.

  “Yeah, but the house opposite?” Zoe turned to Rhodri. “Is this the hedge you mean?”

  He nodded.

  “Show me.” She drew back and gestured for Rhodri to stand by the hedge. “Show me what you saw.”

  Rhodri shifted uneasily, then moved to stand between the hedge and the house’s front window. The curtain shifted to one side and a young woman peered out. She frowned at Rhodri then yanked the curtain shut.

  “Mo, can you knock on the door, talk to her,” Zoe said. “Find out if she saw anyone in her garden last night.”

  “It might have been her,” said Rhodri. “I just thought it was probably someone coming home.”

  “Now that a man in the house opposite has died, I think we have to entertain all possibilities. Show me what you saw.”

  Zoe stood in the middle of the street, next to the cordon Uniform had placed between the cars. Rhodri disappeared behind the hedge, then grabbed it and shifted it from side to side.

  “That all?” she said.

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “I can see your head. You sure you didn’t see the person?”

  “Pretty sure I didn’t.”

  “OK.”

  Mo emerged from the front door with the young woman who’d been looking out at them. As she passed Rhodri, Zoe compared their heights.

  “Stop a moment.” She shifted to one side so the hedge was between her and the woman. She was a good eight inches shorter than Rhodri, which meant she was entirely obscured by it.

  Zoe nodded to herself, then approached the woman.

  “I’ve told your colleague, I didn’t see anything,” the woman said. She had a broad Scottish accent.

  “Are you a student?” Zoe asked.

  “Yeah. Mary Stewart.”

  “Do you know the people in that house, Mary?”

  “I avoid them.”

  “Why?”

  “Drugs.”

  “They’re dealing?”

  “Reckon so.”

  “You’ve seen evidence?”

  “You can just tell, can’t you?”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”

  Mary hesitated. “Didn’t want to cause trouble.”

  Zoe sighed. “Were you here at around… Rhodri, what time did you leave last night?”

  “Eight seventeen, boss.”

  Zoe nodded. “Were you here at that time last night?”

  “Sorry. I was in The Country Girl, with some mates.”

  Zoe knew the pub well; Nicholas often drank there. “What about the rest of your household? I assume you don’t live alone?”

  “There’s five of us. We were all in the pub. Together.”

  Zoe looked at Rhodri. His eyes shone.

  “What time did you get home?” she asked Mary.

  “Me and Lydia came home at about half ten. The others got back after us, about half eleven. They came via the chippy.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Zoe looked at Rhodri. “I think you might have seen our killer, Rhod.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Connie watched the slowly advancing line of male students, feeling satisfied. She’d managed to find a helpful member of Boulton Hall’s admin team and had been allocated a room for the task. The FSIs had three tables set up, with help from Uniform, and they were getting through about twenty students each hour. All of them would have been swabbed by the end of the day, and Adi’s team would have the information they needed to match the DNA in Laurence’s mouth with one of these young men.

  The students chatted between themselves as they queued up, no one apparently worried about the process. At the moment this was voluntary, but if anyone didn’t show up, that would c
hange. Making it voluntary had meant they could get started quicker, with less paperwork.

  The room they were in was large, with ceiling-height windows and modern artwork on the walls. Tables and chairs had been pushed aside to make room for the line of students, which snaked towards the door. Tom Fenton, a member of the admin team, had helped with a list of students and he was still there, flitting between the tables and trying to make himself useful.

  Connie approached him. “Tom.”

  “DC Williams, hi. It seems to be going well. Have you got everything you need?”

  She wished everyone at the university was this helpful. “We have, thanks. Can you do me a favour, though?”

  “Yeah.”

  She gestured for him to follow her to the side of the room.

  “I really appreciate your help,” she told him. “But our guys need to get on with their work. I’ll come and get you if we need anything else, OK?”

  “Oh.” His face fell. “I have to stay. You might need to check students against the list.”

  She shook her head. “We’re asking them for ID when they come through. It’s all in hand.”

  “I’ll sit to one side, keep an eye on things. I won’t get in your way.”

  Connie stared him. “Have you been told to keep an eye on us?”

  He flushed. “I…”

  “It’s OK.” She smiled. “I understand your boss might be uneasy about all this. But we’ll keep her in the loop. I promise.”

  He pushed his specs up his nose. “I shouldn’t leave. She’d…”

  “If she gives you trouble, tell her to talk to me, OK?”

  “With all respect, you’re just a constable. She’ll never listen to you.”

  Connie felt her warmth towards the man cool. “I’ve been given responsibility for getting this sampling operation off the ground, and that’s what I’m doing. Tell Dr Edwards it makes no difference what my rank is.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t.” He had his instructions, she thought. But she did too. Zoe didn’t want the university staff interfering with this process. They’d ballsed things up enough as it was. No point making it worse.

  “Sorry, Tom,” she continued. “But I’ve got a boss, too. And she’s told me we need to work independently. We can’t have anyone suggesting the university might have tried to steer the investigation one way or the other.”