by Lee Weeks
‘What’s it about?’
‘Have you seen this letter before?’ She nodded. ‘Did you write it?’
‘No.’
‘But you got one?’
‘Yes. A few days ago.’
Carter stirred his coffee. ‘Were you expecting us to visit you, Paula? You didn’t seem surprised when you saw us.’
Willis was watching her. To gauge her mannerisms – to form a benchmark of normality. She had a habit of curling in her lips like a child when she was nervous. She looked upwards as she considered her answer. ‘I thought you might. One of the other women on the list told me you’d been in touch with her.’
‘You’ve talked to some of these women?’ Carter spread the three pages of the letter out on the café table. Willis took notes. Robbo and Hector had given them a list of questions that they should work into the talk. Some facts that had to be established.
‘I’ve talked to a few. We met up.’ All three detectives looked at her.
‘Oh, really? Must have been quite a get-together. Who did you meet?’
‘Megan, Lisa and Emily.’
Carter looked at the list.
‘Is that Megan Penarth?’ She nodded. ‘And Lisa Tompkins, Emily Porter?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was that?’
‘Last Wednesday.’
‘Where did you meet them?’
‘Here in Reading. Here in this coffee shop. We sat over there . . .’ She gestured to a window table.
‘Just the four of you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whose idea was the meeting?’
‘Megan called it. It was to decide what we should do about JJ.’
‘And, if you don’t mind me asking, what did you all decide?’
‘We didn’t really. It ended up more of a chance for some people to just say how angry they were. People just wanted to let off steam.’
‘That must have been awkward,’ said Tucker. Carter smiled encouragement at Paula.
‘Yeah, it was. A bit.’
‘It says you’ve been in a relationship with JJ Ellerman for eighteen months. Is that correct?’ Carter asked, looking at the letter.
‘Yes. It must be about that.’
‘Can I just ask you . . . when you received this letter, was it a shock, Paula?’ he continued.
‘Yeah, I guess it was. I mean, I had kept an open mind about things. But we were supposed to be starting a hairdressing salon in Spain.’
‘Did he promise you that?’ asked Tucker.
‘Yes.’
‘And did you give him money?’
‘Yes. We were saving together.’
‘How much money?’
‘Altogether, I’m not sure . . .’ Paula looked nervous. ‘I can’t remember the details.’
‘Tuesday the seventh of January. Can you remember what happened that evening?’
‘JJ came. The girls went to stay with my mum.’
‘Tuesday? Is that a night he usually spends with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was he like when he appeared? And what time was that?’
‘He turned up in the middle of the evening, about nine. No – it was quite late really, maybe half past.’
‘How did he seem?’
‘He was okay. He seemed harassed. He’d got cash-flow problems.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘As usual.’
‘And, if you could think back to a few days before that, Sunday the fifth? Where were you that day?’
‘I was here. I can remember. Doing things with the kids. We had a party to go to in the afternoon.’
‘Was there ever a time with Ellerman that you felt threatened at all?’
‘No.’
‘Would you be willing to press charges against JJ Ellerman for defrauding you out of money?’
‘No. I don’t want to do that.’
‘Why, can I ask?’
She shook her head. She looked cornered, flustered.
‘I don’t really want to. I know he’s been a bastard but he’s also been good to me and the kids.’
‘Have you seen JJ Ellerman since you got this letter?’
Paula looked down at her coffee. She nodded. ‘Just briefly.’
‘Have you talked to him on the phone?’ asked Carter.
‘We haven’t talked a lot. I think he’s hoping everything will calm down.’
‘Do you think it will?’
She shook her head. ‘Who knows?’
‘Am I right in thinking that you would be willing to continue this relationship with Ellerman?’ asked Carter. ‘I realize you’ve invested a lot in it.’
‘No. I can’t see it – can you?’
She looked at them in turn and was obviously panicking. The more she shook her head at the thought of it, the more it became obvious that she had no intention of giving Ellerman up.
Carter sat, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table, as he smiled at Paula. Tucker sat right back; Willis wrote her notes.
‘I want to ask you to do something for me, Paula.’ Carter decided they’d waited long enough. ‘I want you to resist contacting Ellerman. Don’t answer his calls, or if you do, don’t say anything about meeting us or the other women. Get off the phone and call us if you are at all worried about anything.’ Carter handed her his card.
‘What’s the matter?’
Carter picked up the letter and turned to show her three names.
‘Olivia Grantham, Gillian Forth and now Lisa Tompkins, all women from this list and now all of them now dead.’
Paula knocked her coffee cup as she brought her hand to her mouth in shock at the news.
‘Not Lisa, who I met?’
‘Yes, she died the night before last whilst she was out running. She fell off the edge of a cliff. We don’t know if she was pushed or whether she fell, but she is dead and there will be an investigation into her death.
After Paula went back to work, she phoned Megan from the back room; Megan was out – she phoned Emily. Emily was between lessons.
‘They say three of the women on the list are dead – including Lisa. She died Saturday night – possibly murdered. They say to stay away from JJ and they asked me if I wanted to press charges. I don’t know what to think. I’m worried I’m in danger.’
‘They’re just trying to scare you into pressing charges against him. They want to get him for fraud, I expect. They need us to do that. Don’t tell them anything. They are out to get him. Let’s get our money back first. There’s an awful lot of women on that list – three dead is not a lot.’
‘Poor Lisa.’
‘Yes, poor Lisa. We need to stick together, Paula.’
‘Are we still going to meet at Megan’s house?’
‘Yes, as soon as we can – we need to get it over with.’
Chapter 51
The police officers drove back to London in two cars and Ebony left Carter and Tucker at Carter’s flat. Tucker was staying the night there. Cabrina opened the door and invited her in for some supper. Willis declined. It was late.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Carter and Tucker talked deep into the night as they finished off a bottle of whisky. Carter was suffering the most when they walked into Robbo’s office the next morning.
‘Come in, Tucker. How does it feel to be back?’ Robbo stood and shook Tucker’s hand as he walked into the office.
‘It feels . . . interesting.’ Tucker smiled. He shook hands with Pam and Hector. He smiled at Willis, who was already in the office.
‘Okay, well, let’s get this meeting started,’ said Carter. ‘Robbo, can you talk us through the timeline of events?’
He drew up a chair for Tucker and one for himself. Hector stopped working at his PC, to join in the meeting.
Robbo wheeled his whiteboard forward, took a marker and drew three circles, each linked to the other, then put a name in each:
OLIVIA . . . GILLIAN . . . LISA . . .
‘All three women were having a sex
ual relationship with JJ Ellerman. All killed in different ways. So far, the only lead we have is the homeless man, Toffee, who is currently in an induced coma. We know Toffee had money on him and we know he witnessed the attack on Olivia Grantham because he said so.’
‘So do we think Ellerman has a connection to Toffee? Why did he choose him for the mission?’ asked Tucker.
‘We’ve looked into Toffee’s past. He was a highflyer but he has no connection to Ellerman’s past or the people in it.’
‘Someone was watching him, watching 22 Parade Street, and singled Toffee out as someone they could do business with,’ said Carter.
‘They must have talked to him first. They must have trusted him,’ Tucker added.
‘Or known his weakness. Drink is what he lives for,’ said Willis.
‘But he liked to be seen as something of an intellectual in his lucid moments,’ said Carter. ‘He knew he was brighter than your average rough sleeper. If I had to choose someone to lure Olivia Grantham to her death, I’d probably have chosen someone trustworthy, someone who sounded right for the job.’
‘So did someone pick him specifically? Does the area count then? They could have had a connection to the area,’ said Tucker. ‘Or to the hostel . . . Faith and Light? What do we know about it?’
‘Run by a man called Simon Smith.’
‘What do we know about him?’
‘Rich kid, who went off the rails and whose parents are stinking wealthy but like to throw the odd charitable crust the peasants’ way – they seem to be using their son as a kind of experiment. He comes out of rehab and, instead of giving him a cushy number running one of their many other businesses like holiday complexes in Sardinia or glamping holidays in Italy, they make him run a homeless shelter in the East End. Can a parent really want to set their own kid up to fail?’ Instinctively, Carter looked across at Willis.
‘Does Simon Smith have any connection to Olivia Grantham or JJ Ellerman?’ asked Tucker.
‘I’m looking into it now,’ answered Pam. ‘But not so far.’
‘If Ellerman has paid someone or is our murderer, what is the motive?’ asked Tucker.
‘Money,’ answered Carter. ‘He has claimed to be buying Spanish property for renovation and he gets the women to invest. They wise up and ask for their money back.’ He passed Tucker a photo of Ellerman with a yacht behind him. ‘Why do these women find Ellerman so attractive? I don’t get it.’ Carter shook his head. ‘These women could do so much better than him – he’s just an ageing bullshitter who likes to flash the cash and sponges off women when it dries up.’
‘So far, the only thing we know for certain that these women have in common is JJ Ellerman,’ said Robbo.
‘We don’t know if they knew one another.’
‘No. But it’s unlikely,’ said Carter. ‘Pam?’
‘Yes. I have talked to all of the women now and, out of every one on the list, only Dr Harding says she knew one of the others and that was Olivia Grantham. None of the others were on that sex site. I can’t see how they would have met.’
‘Unless through Ellerman,’ said Tucker.
‘We have requested phone records for the dead women. They should be through to us soon and then we’ll be able to answer that,’ replied Robbo.
‘I still don’t understand how Ellerman manages to con all these women,’ said Carter.
‘Because he’s good at giving them what they want,’ said Tucker. ‘He researches them before he meets them. After all, he knows exactly what they’re looking for from the dating sites. He just becomes that.’
‘Plus, he keeps them hanging on,’ Pam chipped in. ‘If your whole relationship is based on a once-a-week meeting, of course it can last for a year or more because you’re never going to get to the point where it’s boring or where it’s confrontational.’ Tucker studied the photos of Ellerman.
Pam continued: ‘He makes it clear from the start that he is married, so none of the women can complain about that.’
‘And he uses his son as a con,’ said Tucker. ‘His dead son.’
‘Yeah . . .’ said Carter. ‘That’s macabre. To keep your son alive just so that you can cheat women into bed and out of money.’
‘Ruthless, inhuman and a life built on lies – not easy to juggle so many balls in the air without dropping the lot,’ said Tucker.
‘I agree. It’s an indication of someone who can step outside social and moral normalities without flinching,’ said Robbo. ‘We know he’s an accomplished liar. He’s a dangerous man. It’s hard to know what would mean anything to him.’
‘His wife,’ said Carter. ‘Whatever bubble he exists in, she’s in the same one. All this is for her as well as him. Keeping up appearances, maintaining that massive house for just the two of them. If they sold that, they could start again somewhere, but that would signal a defeat, a failure.’
‘Plus,’ added Pam, ‘the mortgage, the remortgage – they won’t come out with a lot. But what kind of woman stays in that situation, knowing that her husband is a complete charlatan?’
‘Willis and I went to see her and she seemed almost numb, depressed. She is one of those people who’s built a wall around herself.’ Willis nodded her agreement.
‘Is she on a lot of medication?’ asked Tucker.
‘My thoughts exactly. Her pupils were black pinpoints, she was puffy around the eyes. She must be on some doctor’s repeat prescription list,’ Carter said.
‘If she’s gone too far down the medication road, she will find it hard to change her circumstances or leave.’
‘They have just the threads of a relationship left. They’re like a rotten tooth hanging on by the roots,’ Carter said.
‘So, it’s all about the money.’ Robbo went over to Pam – she handed him a folder. Robbo spread the content out on the desk.
‘Here we have the only three properties that we think Ellerman has purchased. We have some deeds that Carter found in Ellerman’s office.’
‘Good work.’ Tucker winked. ‘Is “found” a loose term?’
‘His wife left us alone in there – we took photos,’ said Willis. ‘But we needed more time to go through it all.’
‘Two of these properties are located in the centre of a large town and the other is on its outskirts. Bearing in mind that Ellerman is supposed to specialize in renovating rural farmhouses, these purchased buildings are nothing like that. One is a commercial property right in the middle of Málaga, the second is a flat in a block on the beach and the third is a large property in a touristy area towards Marbella. As far as I can see, there is no renovation to be done.’
‘You said there were texts to Olivia and Harding from a number without a contact name?’ said Tucker. ‘When you were in Ellerman’s office, did you see any evidence of spare phones?’
‘No, but he could have a wallet full of SIM cards, couldn’t he?’
‘Pam, you have the list of women narrowed down now?’
‘Yes; if we start with these then widen the net. These are the women he sees regularly. The list is getting smaller now. It did include Olivia, Gillian and Lisa. Now I have added Dr Harding because she has come back into it. Or rather, she is in both camps – the ones he sees once in a blue moon and the ones who are of interest now. We still don’t know who wrote the letter but it’s being analysed for typeface and printer-ink type. We’re waiting for the results. We have an expert looking at the language used, the length of sentences and so on. They have asked us to get a voice recording of all the women who it could possibly be, as much as we can, and then they will compare the language.’
‘Yeah – I’ve made a start on that,’ said Willis.
‘Have you dug anything up on any of the women?’ asked Tucker.
‘Yes,’ answered Pam. ‘Paula has some convictions in her past. There is some interesting history on Megan Penarth. You went to see her, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. She looks a lot like she stepped out of the cast of a King Arthur film – masses of bla
ck and silver hair. I made some enquiries at the local pub after I left her that afternoon. You know – how great it must be to have an artist living in their village, that kind of thing. They didn’t seem too keen on her. They liked her husband better, by the sound of it. He died of cancer. It was a long battle, I think. There was talk of assisted suicide.’
‘We need to go back to the village and find out more,’ said Carter. ‘We’ll go and talk to her again, and the other women. Pam, keep looking into all their pasts.’
‘I still don’t get why the killer chose the hostel to pick Toffee from. It’s got to be an area he knows well. People would have noticed a stranger hanging around, talking to the men there. He must be someone they see all the time. Did you confiscate the PCs from the hostel?’
‘Yes, they’re being examined now.’
‘When does Toffee come round?’ asked Tucker.
‘It will take a few more days, the doctors say,’ answered Carter.
‘Better double the guard on his room,’ said Robbo. ‘The gang are becoming a real problem now. Ever since the dog chewed up Balik’s grandfather.’
When they finished their meeting with Robbo and the team, Tucker, Carter and Willis headed to the canteen to get some lunch.
‘You know, Tucker, this woman can eat me and you under the table,’ Carter said as they walked.
She shook her head. ‘It’s not true.’
‘You must burn it off,’ said Tucker. ‘There’s nothing on you.’
‘Athletic genes,’ she answered, and Carter looked at her and then raised an eyebrow, stopped walking. She shook her head.
‘We’ll get some lunch then hit the road,’ said Carter. ‘We have Emily Porter to see first, in Taunton, then we’ll head down to see what Megan Penarth has to say and come back up to Reading for Paula Seymour again.’
‘Can we do it all in a day?’ asked Tucker.
‘No, we’ll grab a razor and a toothbrush from somewhere on the way and we’ll get a Travelodge tonight. Is that a problem?’
‘No, absolutely not. I’ll leave the car here, pick it up next time.’
After lunch, they took Carter’s car and drove through central London. It took an hour before they joined the M4 headed towards the South West.
