“Let’s move before Melford starts a manhunt…” said Hogarth.
Thirty
Hogarth passed the glass entrance window of the gym as he walked into the X-L building. He saw Jody Castleton in the background, walking and talking with Darryl Regent. The big man looked up as Hogarth breezed by and stopped his chatter mid-flow. Hogarth caught his eye but ignored it. Regent’s time would come. Instead he walked into the pale wooden reception of Harry King Studios, and the blonde behind the desk glanced up at him. He nodded as he passed, but she wanted his attention.
“Excuse me, Inspector…?”
Hogarth paused.
“Yes?” he said. Palmer and Simmons drew up at his side.
“The staff are asking if they are able to leave the studio yet.”
“Leave? Why?” said Hogarth.
“Yeah. A few days back, we were told the police said staff couldn’t leave the area until the investigation was over. Staff were to stay on site. Correct?”
“Correct, but it shouldn’t be long now,” Hogarth turned for the double doors into the deeper part of the building.
“Shouldn’t be long?” said the woman. “So… the restriction is still in place?”
Hogarth turned back and gave the woman a quizzical frown.
“Why?”
“Oh. Because one of the girls must have heard something else.
“Someone’s left the building?” said Hogarth.
“Don’t worry. Only one and I’m sure it’s a mistake.”
“Who was it?” said Hogarth, his eyes turning serious.”
“Just Chrissie Heaton.”
Hogarth felt the girl’s name resonate inside his chest. He should have known.
“Shite,” said Hogarth. “Where was she going? Did she say?”
“No. But she did seem in a hurry. She went off a little while back.”
“Okay… was she carrying anything with her?”
“She had her trolley bag. It looked like she was going for a few days.”
Hogarth looked at Simmons and Palmer. “How long ago did she leave?”
“Oh… about twenty minutes ago.”
“Does Chrissie drive?” said Hogarth.
“What?”
“Does she have a car?”
“Er, no. I don’t think so…”
“Did she get a cab?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see one.”
“Good. Then she might not have got too far. Come on. Let’s go and get her...”
“You don’t need to do that, Inspector.”
Hogarth narrowed his eyes. “Why not?”
“Lana Aubrey has gone to find her for you already.”
Hogarth blinked in shock.
“Palmer, wait here. If Lana Aubrey or Chrissie Heaton turn up back here, I want you to keep an eye on them. Both of them. In the meantime, me and Simmons will go and look for her. Hogarth took his car keys out of his pocket and thrust them at Simmons’ chest.
“Simmons, you drive.”
“Me, guv. Why?”
“Because I need to make some phone calls…”
Hogarth stormed out of the doors into the X-L building lobby as big Darryl Regent came striding towards him from the gym.
“You. I want a word with you, Inspector.”
Hogarth turned his head to the man as he rushed by.
“I want a word with you too, Mr Regent. But it looks like we’re both going to have to wait.”
“You can’t avoid me, you know,” said the big man, as Hogarth walked out into the cold grey morning.
“And I don’t intend to, Mr Regent. See you soon.”
Simmons skipped down the steps after Hogarth and made towards his Insignia. Hogarth took his phone out of his pocket and looked down his contact list.
“Where to, guv?”
“Chrissie Heaton wants to get away from here – as far as she can. So where would you go?”
“Rochford train station?” said Simmons.
“No. The girl is fleeing for her life, Simmons. Let’s get to the airport. That’s where she’ll be.”
Simmons slowed as he thought it through and Hogarth snapped. “Come on, man, she could be in danger.”
Hogarth got in the front passenger seat and tried to make his first call. But there was no answer. Quentin was busy, so he tried the next number in his list. Dickens.
“You’re through to the voicemail of John Dickens, Crime Scene Manager. Leave a voicemail. I’ll call you back.” The voicemail beeped, and Hogarth left his call.
“Dickens. I sent you an email. I need your help urgently. I’ll try Marris.” Hogarth hung up.
His eyes tracked to the dashboard clock as Simmons buckled up behind the steering wheel. It was eight-forty. Maybe Ed Quentin was running late. Dickens would be gloved up and busy. He had a chance with Marris. As he dialled for Marris, Simmons started talking.
“So why’s Chrissie done a runner then?” said Simmons. He started the engine and threw the car into reverse.
“Easy, Simmons,” said Hogarth jerking back in his seat. “Who knows. Maybe Palmer’s questions spooked her. Harry King’s people could have given her a warning. But it’s just as likely she knew we were getting too close to the truth. Unless that girl is with us, she’s a sitting duck. And we’ve got to find her. And not just for her sake. Without Chrissie Heaton, we’ve got no case…”
Simmons nodded. Message received. He hit the accelerator and the Insignia shot down the lane onto the exit for the industrial estate. Hogarth was bumped and shaken in the passenger seat, but held down his upset with a grimace, until he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“Simmons, if you’re going to drive like a pillock you might as well put the blues and twos on as well.”
Simmons nodded. “Yes, guv.”
He flicked the switch, and the blue flashing lights were illuminated in the car headlamps. Another switch on the dash, and the car’s police siren filled the air. Hogarth felt the adrenaline pour from Simmons as he cut through the traffic at high speed. Hogarth shifted in his seat. Simmons wasn’t the only one on edge. Hogarth felt it too.
***
Ten minutes later, Simmons swung the Insignia around the roundabout and took the turn-off for the airport. Hogarth was tense. Even Marris had avoided his call. Hogarth glanced up at the big glass edifice of the Holiday Express hotel and recalled a sweetly stolen moment with Ali. The memory seemed like a glimpse into a parallel universe, a place where nothing could go wrong. But it all started there. No, Hogarth corrected himself, it started long before there.
Hogarth tried Ed Quentin’s line again as the single storey glass aircraft hangar of the airport slid close into view. The buses and taxis moved slowly around the airport lanes and car park, stopping to let a small flood of holiday makers pass over the pedestrian crossing.
Quentin didn’t answer. Hogarth hung up the call, and his narrow eyes scanned the faces of those heading into the airport, and the crowds busy walking left and right behind the glass. Hogarth’s eyes soon settled on one figure. A smart dressed woman, clad in figure-hugging black. She had no case and she looked in a hurry.
“Come on!” said Simmons. The bus in front of them had pulled into a stop, its back end still hung in the lane, preventing anyone from passing.
“You’ll have to catch me up,” said Hogarth.
“What?”
“Lana Aubrey is in there. I’ve just seen her. Look for me in the airport, okay?”
Hogarth opened the door and dived out onto the kerb. He glanced at the striking female in black, but behind the glass Lana Aubrey was oblivious. Hogarth wasn’t the only man looking at her, but he was the only one who didn’t want to be seen. He rushed for the revolving door entrance and got caught behind an old couple pulling huge suitcases on wheels. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Hogarth blinked and waited as the door trudged forwards in a circle. An aeon later, the big door swung open into the vast interior. The airport tannoy echoed and excited airport conversat
ions filled his ears. Hogarth tried to filter out the noise. He stood up on tiptoes, peering left and right. On his left were the short queues for the check-in desks. He looked at the orange queue, but saw only a few tanned foreigners with small cases. The blue and white queue was full, snaking left and right through a roped maze as they headed to hand in their suitcases. Beyond was one last check-in desk for Fly2Day. A dodgy cheapo firm that Hogarth had never heard of. That would be just the ticket. But Lana Aubrey was ahead of him, heading towards the Fly2Day desk, but staying back by the window, as if she didn’t want to be seen. Instead, Hogarth cut down the side and pushed his body against an empty check-in desk at the front. He craned his neck and looked across at the short queue for the Fly2Day flight. There were no more than fifteen people queueing, mostly young people carrying small luggage items. But none of them were Chrissie Heaton. Taking a step back, Hogarth checked the flight destination. FTD 10.20 6703 to Dublin.
Hogarth stepped away, wheeling around to look up at the glass balcony leading to the departure lounge. Standing up there in a queue outside the security scan, was a girl in a blue beanie hat and a black coat. The hat was pulled low and the girl was young and slight. And incognito. It was Chrissie Heaton. Hogarth stared up at her and willed her to look at him. He watched as she started moving, and just before she reached the security gate, she looked down and met his eyes. She looked away quickly and moved towards one of the security guards, taking a grey plastic tray for her personal possessions. Hogarth looked back and saw Lana Aubrey. She had inspected the queue and was taking the long walk back towards the centre of the airport concourse. For the first time, Hogarth felt he had the upper hand. He rushed towards the escalator, grabbed the moving handrail and dragged himself up the steps, bustling past holidaymakers without giving an apology.
He made the top floor in time to watch Chrissie Heaton pass through the security scanner to retrieve her belongings from the grey trays.
Hogarth walked past the queues to the middle of the scanner gates.
He stepped around and eyeballed Chrissie Heaton. The girl looked at him and shook her head once before she walked away.
“Excuse me, sir. You need to step away from the security gates and join the queue.”
Hogarth met the eye of the security man in front of him. Preoccupied, Hogarth didn’t speak. He looked down and saw Lana Aubrey approaching the escalator.
“Sir. Step back and join the back of the queue like everybody else.”
“Hmmmm. What?” Hogarth looked up and found himself face to face with a security man with a chest as wide as a four-bed house. He pulled his police ID from his pocket and showed it to the guard.
“You see that girl over there,” Hogarth pointed. The guard scanned Hogarth’s police ID, then looked over his shoulder, following Hogarth’s finger. “The girl in the blue hat.”
“The kid? I see her.”
“Good. That girl is in danger, and I need to speak with her in connection with a murder investigation, do you understand? I need to go through there now.”
“I’ll have to call airport police for that.”
“Fine. But please do it now.”
The security man nodded and handed Hogarth his ID, before taking the walkie-talky off his shirt clip. The big man turned away and made the call. Hogarth was flanked on either side by the two queues of holidaymakers heading slowly into departures. He felt their eyes on him, heard the dads telling their kids that he was a policeman. The queues could only hide him from Lana Aubrey for a short time now.
“They’re coming, sir,” said the security man.
“Fine.” Hogarth looked back as he waited. The stream of passengers continued to pour off the escalator. He watched each one coming, sure the next would be Lana Aubrey. But none of them were. But a moment later, the brushed steel doors of the lift opened directly in front of him. Lana Aubrey walked out. For a moment, the woman was her ultra-confident self, before she stopped dead. Hogarth read her face. He watched her mouth drop open with shock, a slip of body language which she soon corrected. She closed her mouth and set her head back on her shoulders. The spectacles she didn’t need had become sunglasses in the bright light from the surrounding glass. Lana Aubrey looked the glamour girl she always had been. A glamour girl playing dress-up as boss. But Hogarth knew there was a lot more to her than that now.
“Inspector,” said Lana Aubrey. She put on a smile which was balanced by the hard look in her eyes. The whole thing was an act, and he knew it, but Hogarth was content to play along.
“Miss Aubrey,” he said. The clock was ticking. Surely the airport boys couldn’t be much longer.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she said.
“Likewise,” said Hogarth.
“On another case, I take it,” said Aubrey
Hogarth supressed a faint sneer. “No. I’m here to find Chrissie Heaton.”
The woman’s eyes hardened further still. Hogarth enjoyed watching the tinge of rouge appear on her cheeks, but Aubrey was a good actress. She’d had plenty of experience in that department.
“That’s a coincidence,” she said.
“I hardly think it’s a coincidence, do you?” said Hogarth. He let his eyes tell her the rest.
“You’re insinuating something, I take it?”
“I’m here to help Miss Heaton. You can read that any way you like.”
“But I’m here to help her too. It seems she’s made knee-jerk decision to leave her career and her future behind her. It’s a bad decision and I want to help her out of it.”
“Perhaps she wanted to avoid the same fate as Freya Dunton,” said Hogarth.
He watched Lana Aubrey catch her breath. “You should leave poor Freya out of it. She has nothing to do with it.”
Hogarth’s eyes glinted at her.
Behind the gate, two uniformed police approached the gate. The men were bedecked in high viz, caps, and held gleaming black Heckler and Kochs against their bodies. The visual deterrent of the police submachine gun was still a shock to the eye, but terrorism had turned armed police in airports into a permanent feature. Hogarth nodded to the oldest cop of the two. He recognised them, but Essex was a big force and he didn’t know the men by name. He handed them his ID. The older man nodded and inspected his wallet before handing it back. Lana Aubrey watched the whole thing from over his shoulder. Hogarth felt her discomfort.
“DI Hogarth, Southend CID,”
“Yes, sir,” said the older man. “You’re tracking down a girl who’s come through to airside?”
“Yes. She’s involved in a serious investigation, and we need to speak to her.” Hogarth avoided using the word ‘murder’ in front of Aubrey.
“Then you’d best come through.”
The armed police nodded, and the security guards stepped aside. Hogarth stepped through the gate. A flashing light and alarm went off around him. The security man hit a button to silence it.
“Inspector. I should come too,” said Lana Aubrey. “I know Chrissie best, after all. I could help you.”
Hogarth turned back. “No thanks, Miss Aubrey. I think you’ve helped enough, don’t you?”
He left Aubrey behind him and walked away.
With armed police on either shoulder, Hogarth walked around the tightly packed airside. He inspected the coffee shop, newsagents, and the chemist. The three cops toured the rows of metal seats, watched by intrigued air passengers and kids.
“She’s not here, then?” said the younger cop
“No. I think she saw me coming,” said Hogarth. “Where’s the ladies toilets?”
The armed police led the way to a set of distant toilets, surrounded by the empty chairs of unused passenger gates.
“Can I go in there??” said Hogarth.
“We don’t mind, but you’d better give a warning,” said the older cop.
Hogarth nodded and walked into a corridor smelling of soap and disinfectant. He walked into a bright tiled room filled with circular stations of hand basins. Behind them
were two banks of cubicle doors. Each door was shut.
A middle-aged woman with short grey hair looked up at Hogarth in shock while she washed her hands.
“You’re in the ladies, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Sorry, madam,” said Hogarth. He opened his ID wallet and showed them his card.
“Police. I’m looking for someone.”
The woman stopped washing her hands.
“Someone?” she whispered.
“A young girl in a blue hat,” Hogarth spoke loudly and looked around at the closed white doors. “She’s wearing a black coat. She thinks she’s in trouble, but actually, she needs our help.”
The woman nodded and gave Hogarth a conspiratorial look. She nodded across to a cubicle in the far corner. Hogarth nodded, smiled, and walked slowly towards it. His brogues struck the tiles loud and clear as he approached.
When he was outside the door he stopped and took a breath.
“Chrissie?”
There was no answer.
“Chrissie, you can hide in there all day, but if you do, you’re still going to miss that flight. And to be honest, I’ve got better things to do.”
Still no answer.
“Chrissie. I know you didn’t do anything wrong. I know you’re a victim here. And now we can protect you from them. All of them. I promise.”
He heard a noise from behind the door. The bolt slid open and the door slowly gave way with a creak. There was Chrissie Heaton, her face crumpled and pink with weeping, her hand shaking as she wiped a tear from her eye.
“Do you really think you can do that?”
“As of right this moment – yes, I’m certain.” Hogarth offered an open arm for the young woman, and she walked into it. It was far from an embrace. Hogarth wasn’t the hug of a stranger type. But it was a comfort. He laid a soft arm across her shoulder and led Chrissie Heaton out into the open, where the two uniforms greeted her with a nod and a smile.
“Hello, miss,” said the older one.
“And this, Chrissie, is the cavalry,” said Hogarth.
The Darkest Deed_A Gripping Detective Crime Mystery Page 25
