Detective Lucy Harwin 01-The Lost Children

by Helen Phifer

  ‘Daddy, are you poorly?’

  He turned to see his five-year-old daughter standing there, her long hair sticking out in places and her beloved pink teddy tucked under her arm.

  ‘No, not really,’ he said, weakly. ‘You go back to bed, princess; it’s the middle of the night.’

  She stared at him for a few seconds, making him feel even worse than he already did, then left the bathroom to go back to bed. He heard Florence’s voice.

  ‘What are you doing up, sweetie?’

  ‘Daddy’s sick.’

  ‘Well, let’s get you back to bed and then I can see if he needs my help.’

  Edwin splashed cold water into his cupped hand and drank it down greedily to take away the burning sensation at the back of his throat. Then he splashed more all over his face to wake himself up.

  ‘What’s wrong, Edwin?’ Florence had appeared behind him in the bathroom door.

  He didn’t like lying to his wife, but he couldn’t tell her the truth, either. ‘I have to go back to the hospital; there’s been an emergency.’

  ‘If you’re ill then you’ll do no such thing,’ Florence said. ‘They’ll have to manage without you for once. Get back into bed.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I have to go.’

  She reached out her hand to touch his cheek. ‘You’re cold and very pale. I really think they can manage without you.’

  ‘No, they bloody well can’t. Stop interfering, woman.’

  He pushed past her to go and get dressed, unable to look at the hurt expression on her face. Guilt wracked him; this wasn’t her fault. He wanted to apologise, but he didn’t have time – besides, she’d ask what was wrong and he was terrified that he might tell her. He couldn’t burden Florence with what he’d done and then expect her to keep it a secret.

  He ran downstairs. Letting himself out of the front door, he got back into his car and began to drive back towards the asylum.

  20

  When Lucy finally left Florence’s house, she stood on the drive and inhaled the fresh, salty sea air for several seconds, needing to restore some balance to her life. The sky over the bay was filled with orange and pink fire. Not only had Edwin Wilkes had a gorgeous home, he’d also had a perfect view of Brooklyn Bay’s golden sandy shoreline. The tide was coming in and it was a beautiful sight. Lucy could imagine sitting in this front garden with a large glass of cold white wine and watching the sunset every evening.

  Mattie nudged her. ‘Are you OK?’

  She nodded. She was as OK as anyone could be in these situations. Florence had been reluctant to let them inform her son; she had taken some persuading. However, she had finally agreed, and he was now inside, taking care of his mum and making the relevant phone calls to the rest of the family. He’d also agreed to attend the hospital first thing to make the formal identification, which was a relief to Lucy. It was a shame that they’d had to go ahead with the post-mortem before the identification, but they’d had no choice. Sometimes bodies were never claimed or identified. It didn’t happen very often in this part of the world, though, thank god.

  She found that she was glad to let Mattie drive. She felt worn out, emotionally drained –

  and this was only her second day back at work.

  ‘So,’ she said, as he drove away, ‘thanks to Florence, we now know that Edwin was the doctor in charge of the asylum until 1977, when it was shut down. It looks to me as if someone from back then has been bearing a grudge, and has finally taken action. It could be a patient or a colleague. We need a motive. What did Edwin Wilkes do that made someone hold that anger inside of them for all that time, festering away?’

  ‘It seems that way,’ Mattie said, ‘but why wait until now? I mean, how many years ago did it shut?’

  Lucy worked it out. ‘About thirty-eight years ago. Crap. That’s a very long time to hold a grudge.’

  ‘Where the hell have they been all this time?’ Mattie wondered. ‘Maybe it was a former patient and they’ve only just been released from a mental institution. That would make sense.’

  ‘Or prison; it could be someone who’d already been locked up for a serious crime.’

  ‘You mean murder. There aren’t many other crimes where you’d serve a thirty-eight-year sentence, are there? Most killers are out well before then – unless they’ve killed multiple times.’

  Lucy rubbed the side of her head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think straight. I need to go home. I have a stinking headache and I don’t know if I’m hungry or need wine – I definitely need painkillers. Why don’t we call it a night and start fresh tomorrow? We can have a briefing and discuss our next steps. How does that sound?’

  ‘Bloody amazing. That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.’

  ‘Glad you approve. Tell you what, can you drop me off at home and pick me up in the morning? I don’t need my car tonight.’

  ‘Course I will.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you OK, Lucy?’

  ‘I wish everyone would stop asking me that. Yes, I think I am.’

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Mattie pulled up outside Lucy’s house, which was all in darkness.

  ‘Thank you, Mattie. Whatever you’re doing, have a good night.’

  ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Lucy got out of the car. Mattie drove away and she waved at him. Then she realised that her handbag was in the boot of her car with her house key inside it. For fuck’s sake, what are you like? Taking a cursory look around the street to make sure no one was watching, she bent down as if tying her shoe lace, retrieving the spare key from under a plant pot. For a second she wondered if Ellie had taken it and not put it back – but it was there, pushed to the side underneath the heavy terracotta pot.

  She let herself inside and locked the door behind her. She didn’t bother to turn the hall light on, not wanting anyone to know she was in. Her neighbour was lovely and meant well, but he had a habit of knocking on her door for some strange reason whenever he saw that she was home.

  As she went into the kitchen, her stomach rumbled. She opened the fridge to see two pasta ready meals and a bag of salad on the shelf. She picked up the salad, saw that it had turned brown and threw it straight into the bin. The meals were out of date, but only by a couple of days. She pulled the cardboard sleeve off the lasagne, peeled back the film and sniffed. It smelt OK. She put it in the microwave for seven minutes, figuring that at least if she nuked it, she’d kill any bacteria that might be growing inside it.

  Her bottle of vanilla vodka was on the top shelf of the fridge and she pulled it out, pouring a large measure into a glass. Then she rooted through the kitchen drawer until she found a half-empty packet of paracetamol. She popped two out and swallowed them with a swig of neat vodka.

  The microwave beeped, signalling that her feast was ready. Lucy smiled to herself. It was a good job Ellie wasn’t here; the poor kid would have starved to death. She topped the vodka up with coke and ice, put the glass and her dinner on a tray and carried it into the living room.

  As she ate, she tried not to look at the crime scene pictures that she’d pinned onto the noticeboard above her fireplace, but her eyes kept glancing up. What the hell had happened at that hospital? What had Edwin Wilkes done to make someone kill him in such a horrific way? She needed to know if Edwin Wilkes had a skeleton in his closet.

  They would need to go back and question Florence, she thought. If there was some great scandal in his past that had eventually caught up with him, she hoped that his wife would know about it. Although sometimes the spouse was the last to find out about such matters. Hell, she should know: look at George and his affair with the much younger Rosie that had gone on for six months before she had found out.

  Leaving a quarter of her food, Lucy picked up her vodka and turned off the living room light. She was going to get into bed, where she could watch Netflix on her laptop until she fell asleep. Most of the coppers she knew didn’t watch detective programmes, but she was addicted to them. Her favour
ite at the moment was Luther. She was glad that her job wasn’t anything as complicated as his was. He managed to get himself into so many scrapes that it made her feel a little bit better about her fucked-up life. It also helped that she had a bit of a thing for Idris Elba; he was definitely a ten on her male scale.

  After thirty minutes of Luther, Lucy downed the rest of her vodka and closed the laptop. She pushed it onto her bedside table, upsetting the stack of books that she was trying to make her way through. They clattered to the floor and she left them there, promising herself that tomorrow she would have a tidy round and pick them up.

  Lying down, she wondered how poor Florence was. What was the connection between the killer and the elderly couple? Did Florence know why her husband had been murdered? And what if the killer decided to go after Florence?

  Lucy felt that the woman was safe enough tonight because her son had told them he was staying with her. She would decide what to do tomorrow. She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come before the tablets wore off and her headache returned.

  21

  Audrey Stone was sitting in front of the television, not really watching it. She glanced at the card on the coffee table. She had no family to send her cards – they’d all fallen out with her years ago because of her outspoken manner. She hadn’t yet bothered to open it; it was probably an invite to Lauren’s birthday party – which was all the receptionist had talked about for the last month at work. Audrey wouldn’t be going to the party. She couldn’t think of anything worse, although Lauren was a nice girl compared to the rest of them.

  She picked up the paper, reading the story once more. Why had someone been found dead in the asylum after it had stood empty all this time? Memories of the night little Tommy Wright had died flooded back to her. She still thought he’d got what he deserved. He’d been a horrible child.

  That night had changed Dr Wilkes, though. From that point on, he’d turned into a quivering wreck whenever any of the kids had needed higher doses of medicine or disciplining. Audrey had once thought that they might have had a thing together – after all, they worked so closely. After that night, though, he’d become distant, and had rarely looked her in the eye. It was a shame. She had spent the best part of five years dreaming about them becoming lovers.

  Sighing loudly now, she picked up the envelope and slid her finger under the flap, lifting it up. She pulled the contents out. At first, she didn’t understand what she was looking at. It was a photograph of a man lying on a hospital trolley, taken from a distance. Slowly, she recognised the huge, boarded-up windows behind him. It was an office in the asylum.

  She brought the photograph up to her face to look closer at the man – and let out a squeal. It had been a long time since she’d seen him, but it looked like Dr Wilkes. Her hands shaking, she turned the photograph over. The words jumped off the page at her. In big, bold letters, it said: ‘YOU’RE NEXT’.

  Audrey dropped the card and jumped up. What kind of sick person would send such a horrible thing? She ran to the hallway to check her front door was locked, then to the kitchen, where she could see the heavy-duty bolts fastened across the back door. Picking up the phone, she tried to dial 999, but found that she couldn’t. This wasn’t actually an emergency, was it? Ever since she’d been a child it had been drummed into her: you only phone the police if you’re in dire straits. There was another number, for the life of her she couldn’t remember it. It was probably one of those arrogant teenagers who insisted on playing football outside her house whenever the sun shone. She’d told them off on more than one occasion – they probably held it against her.

  She went back into the lounge, where the photograph was lying face down on the carpet. She collapsed onto the sofa, her shaky legs unable to hold her upright any longer. Calm yourself down, woman; it’s just some sick joke. Her elbow pressed the ‘on’ button on the remote control and the television burst into life, making her jump. Her heart begin to race.

  She forced herself to laugh out loud. She was being silly. First thing in the morning, she would take the awful card to the police station and ask them to do something with it. She paid her taxes; they could find out who had sent it, and why.

  There was a loud noise in the kitchen. She jumped.

  ‘Hello? Who’s there? What are you doing in my house? If you don’t leave now, I’m phoning the police.’

  She was greeted by a loud miaow as her old tabby cat strolled into the lounge as if there was nothing wrong. Audrey breathed out a sigh of relief, and a nervous giggle escaped her lips.

  Moments later, a loud knock on the front door made her gasp. Then: pizza, she realised. She’d ordered a pizza for her supper. It was Friday night, and she always ate pizza on a Friday. Standing up and forcing herself to move, she walked to the front door where she could see the outline of the delivery person through the pane of glass. She recognised the bright green baseball cap that they always wore. Her stomach rumbled and she realised just how hungry she was. She opened the door a little and the smell of fresh pizza filled the small hallway.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get my purse.’

  She left the door ajar, and went to get her purse from the hall table. When she turned, she jumped to see the delivery person standing right behind her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, again. ‘I’m a bit jumpy tonight.’ She handed over a twenty pound note, and received the pizza box in return. The delivery person walked to the front door and almost stepped back outside, before pausing and turning back.

  * * *

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  I lunged towards you. You dropped the pizza box and ran towards the phone on the table, but you weren’t fast enough. I know that you felt my shadow descend over you as you felt the band of tightness wrap around your neck. You will never know how good it felt squeezing the breath out of you. You tried your best to stop me, your weak fingers trying to pull the ligature free. You were no match for me, were you? It was no use; I could feel the pressure filling your head and knew that your eyes would be watering. The tiny blood vessels bursting inside as they felt as if they were about to explode from your sockets. When the room turned black and you fell to your knees, you wondered when the relief would come from the biting material as I pulled even harder.

  Do you remember me now? No, I thought, not Nurse Stone. All you ever cared about were your cigarette breaks and laddering your tights. You never gave a fuck about any of those kids in that hospital, did you? Kids who were scared and didn’t understand why they were there. You did your best to make their miserable lives even worse. Well consider this your payback, you evil bitch.

  When it was done I stepped back, admiring my handiwork; a shameful waste of good pizza if you ask me. It smelt so good, I kicked it to one side and went into the lounge to collect my photograph. Picking it up, I tucked it into my pocket. As I returned to the front door I was shocked to see a young woman, standing there with her mouth wide open, staring at the body on the floor. She drew in a deep breath to let out a scream and I had no choice. Grabbing a handful of her long, blonde hair, I slammed her head into the brick wall so hard it knocked her out cold. I took a quick look around the front street, amazed no neighbours had come out. Then I dragged her to my car which was parked behind the pizza van. It was a struggle; she was such a dead weight for a little thing. The baseball cap fell from my head so I picked it up and threw it back to where the pizza boy was beginning to groan. Then I drove away and never looked back.

  22

  The call for the injured pizza boy came from the next-door neighbour, who had found him on his way out to go to work. The normally quiet street was now alive with a multitude of flashing lights. Paramedics were working on the boy. Police Constable Joe Hull, who had been first on scene, was standing to one side to let them get on with it. A van bearing the words ‘LITTLE ITALY PIZZA DELIVERY’ screeched to a halt beside them, and a very animated Italian man got out. He took one look at the man on the ground and stopped shouting. Joe took him
to one side.

  ‘Sir, can you tell me who that is?’

  The man nodded. ‘Of course I can; it’s Arnie. What happened to him?’

  ‘At the moment it’s looking like he’s been assaulted. He’s in and out of consciousness and the paramedics have found quite a nasty-looking injury on the back of his head. I’m going to need his full details so we can contact his next of kin to meet the ambulance up at the hospital.’

  ‘Si, si. Yes, yes. I haven’t got them on me; I need to phone the shop. Give me a minute.’

  Another police van arrived. Police Constable Leanne Burton got out, crossing over to where Joe was waiting patiently for the man to finish his phone call. She looked at the lad being lifted onto a trolley.

  ‘What happened?’

  Joe shrugged. ‘GBH, assault.’

  ‘Have you called out CID?’

  He rolled his eyes at her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, well done. I suppose we better seal off the area until they get here and assess it then?’

  Joe, who hadn’t even thought about sealing off the crime scene, nodded. He wasn’t going to admit that it hadn’t occurred to him. ‘Yep, I’ve got tape in the back of my van. I’ll go get it.’

  He took out the huge roll of blue and white tape and tied it around a lamp post, before walking to the opposite side of the street and doing the same. He then threw the tape to Leanne, who walked to the far end of the street and tied it off there, too. Joe just hoped that whoever the duty DI was wouldn’t take forever to come and look at the scene. It was freezing cold tonight and he was hungry. All this talk of pizza had him craving a huge meat feast covered in extra cheese and he didn’t want to have to wait for hours before he got it.

  Lucy was about to walk into her favourite restaurant with George. He was holding her hand and telling her something funny. Whatever that vibrating sound was, it was really annoying. She didn’t know where it was coming from. It was spoiling the ambience.