by Lee Weeks
Harding went back into her office to create a new file. Mark stopped what he was doing and went to prepare the tools for the post-mortem, which were laid out on table four, second to last in the row of six steel dissecting tables. Mark then went to Hardy’s office, entering as she was printing off new body diagrams for her to use. She brought up Lolly’s details onscreen.
‘We have her medical records and her file from Social Services. She attended a rehab clinic in 2010 and she stayed clean and on methadone for a few months. During that time she stayed in two hostels, where she is thought to have lapsed into heroin abuse again. Twelve convicitons for theft. All of them are related to her heroin addiction. Okay – let’s get her out.’ Harding stayed in her office to finish downloading the files on Lolly, whilst Mark went out to finish preparing.
Harding finished up and went to get suited before joining Mark.
‘Okay, checklist: coroner’s consent form, identity . . . Yes or no?’ she said as she came out of the changing room.
‘Yes, Lorraine Chance, known as Lolly. Age forty. Height five foot five. Weight eight stone one.’
‘We’re here to establish the cause of death and whether it was natural. No particular risks. We know Lolly worked as a prostitute and was a heroin user. Normal precautions with an HIV-positive patient.’
Harding began her dictation as she approached the body.
‘Lorraine Chance was homeless; she slept outside due to her addiction to heroin and lack of suitable residential care for her. The average age of deaths in women who sleep rough is forty-three. Outward inspection of Lorraine Chance shows a large amount of surface lesions and bruising. Patient has needle marks in her arms and feet. She has abscesses on the left inner elbow. The lividity has mottled her skin; hard to establish if she was moved after death. There are multiple swellings and abrasions on her body – I’d say that Lorraine suffered a beating before her death. I would say bruising around the genitals indicates more than one partner just prior to death.’
‘She worked as a part-time prostitute; she was known in the lorry park.’ Harding looked up at Mark.
‘Was that where she was found?’
‘Yes, behind the bins in the corner of the lorry park in Shadwell. It’s where the lorries stay overnight.’
‘I am aware what a lorry park is, thank you.’ Harding looked back at Lolly with this new knowledge. ‘We need swabs taken here. She was definitely raped.’
Harding finished up and went into her office to think. She phoned Carter.
‘I’ve just completed the post-mortem on Lorraine Chance and she was severely bruised and looks like she was raped.’
‘Okay.’ Carter sighed. ‘We’ll do our best to find the CCTV footage of the lorry park. We need to see if we can find the lorry driver she was with that night; it’s a task next to hopeless. You know as well as I do that she would have been a target. She slept on the streets and she was addicted to heroin; sold her body to feed that addiction. Is there anything else, Doctor?’ Carter asked in the pause that followed.
‘No.’
Harding got off the phone and sat in her chair, distracted. She reached for her bag and took out the mail that had arrived at home before she left for work. More bills. She sighed, still thinking about the dilemma she faced with Lolly. She put the mail on her desk, pushing the letters aside, unopened, when a thick cream-coloured envelope from London caught her eye. She’d been waiting for an invite to a seminar on advances in victim identification. She opened the envelope and unfolded three pages of names, addresses and telephone numbers.
To all the women who know JJ Ellerman . . .
Megan went for a walk that morning and to check on Bramble. She went across to break the ice in the water trough. The mare followed her. Its sweet, fermented grass-breath was warm on Megan’s face as the horse nuzzled into her, whilst Megan cracked the ice with the heel of her boot. Megan looked up at the sky. It was tinged with green, more snow on the way.
‘You know what, Bramble . . . ?’ She stroked the thick soft fur on the horse’s neck. ‘I could never be with someone who looked at you and saw a burger, even if it was a joke. He’s a townie, isn’t he, Bramble? He’s just pretending that he loves it here – really, he would be overwhelmed by it all. He’d be as vulnerable as a newborn baby out here on his own.’
She left the pony watching her as she walked back down to the house, and got there just as the postman’s van was in her drive. She took the mail from him and looked at it as she turned and went back inside. There were the usual bills, a package she’d ordered, and a letter from London in a thick cream-coloured envelope.
Paula dropped the girls at school and came back to tidy up the house before getting ready to go to the salon. She didn’t have a client until twelve that day. As she got in she picked up the mail from the doormat and looked at the usual round of bills and junk mail, and then she saw a thick letter from London in a cream-coloured envelope.
Emily went home to do some marking during the second period of the day. She picked up her mail as she opened the door and walked up the sweep of stairs. She opened the door to her apartment and walked through, putting her books on the study table. She placed the children’s work that needed marking in a neat pile. She opened a thick cream-coloured envelope from London. She unfolded the sheets of A4 paper, neatly folded in half, and she read the first page:
To all the women who know JJ Ellerman.
Ellerman is a liar and a cheat. He has so many women hanging on and waiting . . . for what? They all think they’re going to get a piece of him. Ellerman is a washed-up has-been. He’s pathetic. Do you want to be just another woman on his long list? If you’ve given money towards the Spanish house company in the hope that you’ll one day be living there with JJ then think again – so have many other women. You’ve been conned.
And – are you waiting for Craig to go to university before JJ leaves his wife and runs to Spain with you? Craig was killed five years ago. You’ve been conned. Ring the other women if you don’t believe me.
Megan dialled a number. Paula answered. She was sitting at her kitchen table, with the letter in her hand. She was working backwards in her mind, going through all the times she should have known he was lying.
‘Hello, you don’t know me but we have something in common – JJ Ellerman. I’m also on his list. I think we should meet.’
Chapter 33
Harding was waiting in Carter’s office when he came back from a meeting about the Hannover Gang. She handed the letter across to him.
‘Jesus. Someone’s in big trouble,’ he said as he looked through the contents of the letter. He phoned Willis, to get her in from the Investigation Team Office, where she worked with the bulk of the murder squad.
Willis was handed the letter when she joined them.
‘When did this arrive, Doctor?’ she asked.
‘This morning. It’s a bit worrying that someone has gone to this much trouble and gone into his contacts on his phone and found my address.’
‘The person who sent this letter must have done a lot of snooping to be able to get this much info from his phone,’ said Willis.
‘But I think he has the kind of arrogance not to put a password on his phone or, if he does, then it’s one of those swipe ones – I had one like that. If you watch someone closely, or enough times, you can see what they’re swiping with their finger.’ Harding sat back in her chair. ‘He drinks a fair bit,’ she said. ‘He’s not likely to even know where he is some nights. When I met him, he seemed to spend just one night somewhere and then he moved on.’
‘One night, one woman,’ said Carter. ‘A woman in every town. It must save on the bed-and-breakfast bills.’
‘And it seems it creates income for his schemes,’ added Willis.
‘It’s not signed.’ Willis turned the pages over in her hand. ‘But Olivia Grantham’s name is here,’ said Willis as she handed Carter back the letter.
‘You know, I got back in touch with him,’ H
arding said as she offered Willis a seat. ‘I was contemplating meeting up with him.’
‘Did he ask you to?’
‘Yes. He was keen to come and see me but it seemed like it had to be right then and I couldn’t. He was on the road. He lives a very strange life, travelling all week, literally on the road – coming home just at weekends. Did you interview him yet?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you think?’
‘I thought he looked like he drank too much,’ said Willis. ‘He was puffy and red-faced. He was sweating buckets.’ Carter nodded his agreement. ‘His clothes were immaculate: expensive shirts, shoes; he didn’t have a hair out of place but, behind the façade, he looked frazzled.’
‘Really? When I met him, he was very slick, very ice-cool and in control. He was great in bed. Just needy outside it, I thought. Of course, if I’d known what I know now about him, I might have enjoyed stringing him along for a bit longer. Just to see how far he would go to con me out of money for his Spanish home.’
‘Money gained by fraudulent means,’ said Carter. ‘We need some concrete evidence of that.’
Willis was looking at the names on the letter again.
‘I can’t believe that these women will part with money that easily.’
‘I can,’ said Harding. ‘You fall in love with a man who seems like Prince Charming and you lose your grip on reality. That’s the reality, Ebony: if he seems too good, he probably is.’ Harding laughed.
‘He’s been lying about everything,’ said Carter. ‘His life hangs on a lie – he told you he had a son, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. He even spoke about his son going to university.’
‘Five years ago, he was killed in a car crash,’ Willis said, looking at the letter. ‘Our files show it was a car crash. Ellerman was driving the car he was killed in.’
‘Strange. Why would he bullshit about that? Especially to someone like me, who’s not interested?’
‘He has created a world for himself,’ said Willis. ‘He has to keep control of it. He has to be sure to always tell the same lie to everyone, otherwise it’s too hard to remember.’
‘So does someone hate him enough to want to set him up? Is it about the money or the other women?’ Carter asked.
‘What about his wife, Doctor?’ asked Willis. ‘Did he give anything away about his wife?’
‘No, but if she was anything like me, she wouldn’t have stayed with him. She can’t possibly stay after this.’ She tapped the letter with her forefinger. Harding had the remnants of burgundy nail polish on her nails.
‘Unless she already knows and she doesn’t care,’ said Willis.
‘I think we need to go to his house and have a chat with her,’ Carter said.
‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall.’ Harding laughed. ‘Strangely enough, his discomfort is doing something for me. I can still meet him if you like.’
‘I think it would serve no purpose, Doctor . . . but thank you,’ Willis said – she could see that Harding would love to push it. ‘It will smell of entrapment if we aren’t careful.’
‘Okay.’ She smiled. ‘Spoilsport. But what if one of these women rings me?’
‘Find out as much as you can but tell her that you only met him the once,’ answered Carter. ‘Don’t give anything away.’
‘Can I take a copy of this now?’ He held up the letter.
‘Be my guest.’
Carter copied it on the photocopier in his office.
‘It did make me laugh.’ Harding took back the original letter from Carter. ‘It’s a hell of a list. Even for Ellerman – he’d have to be superhuman to get round all these women. God bless the great God, Viagra.’
Chapter 34
‘Who are the women on his list and what kind of women are they, Pam?’ Harding had returned to the Whittington, and Carter and Willis were now in Robbo’s office.
‘Here’s one of his ladies: Lisa Tompkins, she runs a gym in Brighton,’ Pam answered Carter. ‘Here’s another: Emily Porter,’ Pam read from her notes. Willis and Carter came round to her desk, to look at her screen. ‘She’s a schoolteacher in a private school in Taunton.’ Pam brought up the cover photo from the school’s brochure and pointed to a photo of a tall, slim, smiling woman in a tracksuit, standing erect, hands at her sides; she was flanked either side by a class of teenage girls with archery bows. ‘That’s her.’
‘Have you managed to get hold of her?’ asked Robbo.
‘I’ve left a message on her phone for her to call me but I’ll try again this evening.’
‘We mustn’t panic these women. Keep it casual in your questions when you ring.’
Pam brought up a photo on her PC of a hair salon from an article in a newspaper about the owner and her staff.
‘I traced a number to this salon, True Colours, and the hairdresser, called Paula Seymour. I think that’s her, third from the left. She met him on the site Sugar Daddies. The photo’s from the local paper from when they opened True Colours three years ago.’
‘Pretty-looking woman,’ said Robbo, looking at Pam’s screen.
‘She wasn’t in today,’ said Pam, ‘and I tried her home number. I didn’t leave a message. I’ll keep trying her. I did get through to a woman in the West Country. She’s quite a well-known artist who lives on Dartmoor. Her name is Megan Penarth. She paints atmospheric landscapes.’ Pam read from her notes: ‘It says on the letter that she met him through a wine-lovers’ dating site.’
‘You know . . .’ Carter spoke his thoughts out loud. ‘That’s one thing you can’t accuse Ellerman of – being lazy in this. He hunts women. I wonder what his end goal is? Is it just financial?’
‘Must be. If he is actually looking for a relationship with women, why does he stay in his marriage at all? answered Pam as she typed in the name of the company the next woman on the list, Gillian Forth, worked for: Dreamcars.
‘Maybe he doesn’t leave his wife because he thinks she’ll take what he has left,’ said Willis.
‘Does the wife have money?’ asked Robbo.
‘I’ve looked into her,’ Pam replied. ‘She was a hairdresser when they married. It looks like she worked the first few years but then she gave up when Ellerman started to make big money.’
‘How’s Toffee doing?’ asked Robbo suddenly, as they stood around Pam’s screen, waiting for the information to load.
‘Zoe is keeping us up to date,’ replied Willis. ‘She said that Simon Smith has been around a lot. She’s talking to him, trying to get him to tell us more about Toffee’s friends. We’re still looking for Mahmet Balik, who seems to have gone to ground.’
Pam brought up a photo from the Dreamcars website.
‘This was taken when the London Olympics were on,’ she said as she zoomed in on the image.
‘Nice car,’ said Robbo. A woman was posing with two men in front of a red Ferrari.
Pam read the details: ‘It’s a photo of clients with the sales manager Gillian Forth. I’ll see what else I can find on her.’
Pam Googled the name Gillian Forth and read out from the screen: ‘Gillian Forth was named as the woman who died in an arson attack on her home in Exeter last week.’
Chapter 35
Megan looked across the table at the three women opposite. They were sitting in a café close to Paula’s salon in Reading. They had chosen the most convenient location for Paula because she had Fifi and Esme to pick up from school later.
Paula, Lisa and Emily had all arrived within a ten-minute period of one another. They sipped their drinks nervously, watching one another. Megan took charge.
‘Okay, well if it’s all right with everyone then I’ll chair this meeting.’
‘Go ahead,’ Lisa said. She was the last to arrive and she had taken a seat at the end of the table. ‘Although I’m not really sure what we can hope to achieve.’
‘We can at least find out what’s what,’ said Emily. She’d managed to get cover for her lessons today. She’d set all her pupils
mock exam papers and someone just had to make sure no one cheated.
‘Yeah.’ Paula had made a special effort with her make-up today. She looked like a young Priscilla Presley. Her black hair back-combed; her eyeliner thick black and her lips pale pink. ‘We need to know the truth.’
‘The truth is that he’s a bastard . . .’ Lisa was shaking with anger. ‘And an ungrateful twat.’
The rest fell silent. Paula bowed her head as she skimmed the chocolate off her cappuccino.
‘Okay . . .’ Emily got out a pad of paper and double-clicked the top of her ballpoint pen. ‘I’ll take the minutes.’
Megan smiled at her.
‘Let’s talk facts then,’ Megan started. ‘Is anyone here going to admit to writing this letter?’ She held it up.
‘Wasn’t me . . .’ went around the table as each of the women shook her head.
‘Okay, well, if it was me, I’d own up and be proud. This is a lot of work. And it looks like it’s long overdue,’ Megan said, putting it in the centre of the table.
‘Won’t the person who wrote this get in a lot of trouble with the police?’ asked Paula. ‘What about spying? What about all this information about other people – isn’t that illegal?’
‘What would the police charge you with?’ said Lisa. ‘Slander isn’t going to stick. These are plain facts, most of them.’
‘Oh, God . . .’ said Paula, shaking her head. ‘It’s such a mess.’ She stared wide-eyed at the other women. ‘We are never going to get our money back.’
Megan held up her hand for silence.
‘Who, around this table, has put money into his scheme and how much?’ Megan glanced towards Emily to be ready to record the amounts.
They looked at one another, reluctant to answer.
‘Okay, I’ll kick off,’ said Lisa. ‘I’m down twenty thousand.’
‘It’s fifteen thousand for me,’ said Emily.
