Through a Narrow Door

by Faith Martin

  ‘Mr Soames, I don’t think that’s likely,’ Hillary said gently. ‘I can’t go into details, but we think we know now why Billy Davies was killed, and it has nothing to do with your daughter. Now why don’t you take some headache pills and try to lie down for a few hours? It’s possible we’ll have some positive news for you very soon.’

  Hillary knew that she was breaking every rule in the book in giving such assurances, but she was pretty sure she knew what had happened, and if she could give the poor man some hope to keep him going until his daughter was back, safe and sound, then why not?

  White-faced, Francis Soames nodded, but whether he believed her or not, she couldn’t say.

  Outside, she opened up her mobile and began punching in numbers as she got behind the wheel of her car. Her call was answered almost at once.

  ‘DS Tyler.’

  ‘Janine, it’s me. I want you to start ringing around the abortion clinics. Heather Soames has gone missing overnight, and I think I know why. Don’t try any of the Oxfordshire ones: she said something about wanting to go further away from home. But my guess is not too far. Try the surrounding counties first.’

  ‘Right boss. Boss, about Mel and me—’

  ‘Not now,’ Hillary said curtly, and hung up.

  *

  Mary-Beth Chandler looked scared. She was facing Hillary across a kitchen table in her family’s kitchen, with her mother sitting at right angles to her, watching her like a hawk. Mrs Chandler was one of those plump women who seemed cheerful and at ease in their own skin, but right now she looked ruffled and bewildered.

  ‘I thought you had better sense,’ she was saying to her daughter now, and Hillary wondered how many mothers had said the same, despairing thing to their offspring over the years.

  ‘But I didn’t know, did I?’ Mary-Beth wailed the typical teenager’s lament. ‘Heather just asked me to say that she was staying here for the night, if her dad called.’

  ‘And why would she ask you to do that if she wasn’t up to any good? Didn’t you think to ask her that?’ Mrs Chandler demanded, doing Hillary’s interview for her.

  ‘Oh Mum! I couldn’t do that. She’s my best friend. She needed me.’ Mary-Beth, like her mother, had a mop of dark curls and big dark eyes, and puppy-fat had given her a curiously twin-like appearance with her parent. Now she sniffed inelegantly into a tissue paper and flicked the silent police woman a terrified glance. ‘I’m not going to be arrested, am I?’

  Hillary smiled wearily. ‘Not unless you refuse to answer my questions, Miss Chandler,’ she said flatly. ‘Do you know where Heather Soames is?’

  ‘No, honest, I don’t.’

  Hillary nodded. She believed her. She was too scared to hold anything back at this point. ‘When did she ask you to cover for her exactly?’

  ‘Yesterday morning. She rang me up at school and said she had to do something, and she needed to be gone overnight, and could I just say that she was sleeping over with me if anybody asked.’

  Mrs Chandler shook her head sorrowfully.

  ‘And how did she sound? Depressed, or maybe tense?’

  ‘No. A bit quiet, like. Dull. Sort of resigned, like when we have double biology at school.’

  Hillary nearly laughed at that one. ‘I see. Now, I want to go back a bit, to the afternoon of Billy’s death …’ She stopped, in genuine surprise, as Mary-Beth Chandler gave a sudden wail and began to cry in earnest.

  ‘I knew you were going to find out about that,’ she managed to gasp out at last, between genuine sobs of fright. Her mother, not a little frightened herself now, got up and scuttled around to stand behind her, hugging her in a manner not very far removed from the way Debbie Soames had hugged her father. Over her daughter’s distraught head, Mrs Chandler stared at Hillary helplessly.

  Hillary couldn’t help her though. She had no idea what all this was about either. ‘I think it’s best if you tell me all about it, don’t you?’ she said gently.

  And Mary-Beth Chandler nodded, gulped some more, dabbed at her tears and said, ‘We told the policemen who asked us that Heather was with us that afternoon. When Billy died, I mean. That we all hung out at the tennis courts during our free period. But we didn’t. I mean, me and Colleen did, but Heather went home. We won’t get into trouble, will we?’

  Hillary felt a cold chill creep down her spine as she stared at the girl’s woebegone face. ‘Let me get this straight,’ she said, steel in her voice now. ‘On the day that Billy was killed, Heather Soames left the school at what time exactly?’

  Mary-Beth sniffed, her back straightening up automatically as she reacted to the authority in the older woman’s voice. ‘It was after Maths. A quarter to two. That’s when we had the free period till three o’clock. The afternoon break is for fifteen minutes so it works out at an hour and a quarter, so—’

  ‘And did Heather come back at three?’ she interrupted ruthlessly. ‘Or did she stay away the rest of the afternoon?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Mary-Beth said shakily. ‘I had IT, and Heather had, er … English lit, I think. So I didn’t see her before going home.’

  Hillary was sure that Heather’s English teacher had confirmed her presence for that afternoon lesson. But that still left an hour and fifteen minutes unaccounted for. It gave her time to kill her boyfriend. But, aged fifteen, Heather had no car and couldn’t just drive to Aston Lea. There was no regular bus service from Bicester either, and it was doubtful that she would have been able to bike it there and back in time.

  Unless she’d hitched. Unless she’d had help from another quarter.

  Debbie Soames was probably old enough to have a provisional driver’s license.

  Hillary mentally shook her head. No, this was going too fast. She had to slow it down, think it through. Why would the Soames sisters want Billy dead? And why would Debbie come into the station and tell them all about Heather’s pregnancy if they were in it together? Unless they were playing some kind of game that Hillary hadn’t figured out yet.

  ‘Listen, Mary-Beth, I want you and your mum to come to Kidlington so that you can make a proper statement about all this.’ Hillary looked at the older woman as she spoke, who nodded grimly.

  Mary-Beth started crying again.

  Hillary drove back to HQ, trying to fit Heather Soames into the frame as the killer, and failing. Would a fifteen-year-old girl kill the father of her baby because he wanted her to have an abortion? How had she got to Aston Lea? Why would Debbie, or anyone else, aid and abet her. It just didn’t add up.

  Tommy looked up as Hillary walked across to her desk.

  ‘The woman’s name was Samantha Willis, guv.’ He launched into his report before she’d even sat down, tossing the photo of the naked sunbather on to her desk. ‘She admitted that Billy Davies had approached her with copies of these pictures, last summer this would be, and told her he’d give them to her husband if she didn’t pay him two hundred quid. She laughed in his face, apparently: told him he’d better make sure that he found her husband before he went into the pub, otherwise he’d probably be drunk and would wallop him good and proper.’ Tommy grinned. ‘From what I gather, she put the wind up him and sent him off with a flea in his ear. Denies flat-out that she paid him a penny.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Hillary grunted, then looked across at Janine, who was talking on the phone.

  ‘No one of that description at all? She’d have come in last night, possibly this morning. No, all right, thanks.’ Janine hung up, and immediately began dialling again, shaking her head at Hillary as she did so.

  ‘Any luck with the couples in our mysterious photos?’ Hillary asked Tommy.

  ‘No joy yet, guv, but Frank reckons he might have a lead. He left a half hour ago.’ Tommy managed to say it with a straight face, but they both looked at the clock, and realized that the pubs would now be open.

  ‘Right,’ Hillary said heavily, and explained the bombshell Mary-Beth Chandler had just dropped. Janine, able to talk and listen at the same time, g
ot another negative from another clinic, hung up and tried the next one on her list, as Hillary outlined her problems with Heather Soames as the killer.

  Suddenly, Janine’s voice sharpened, and she flicked a pencil in the air, catching Hillary’s attention.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Did she register under her own name? OK, spell it out for me, please,’ Janine swivelled her chair around and began typing into her computer, then grinned. ‘Yes, yes, that would be her mother’s maiden name. Is she still there? Right, no, don’t do that. Can you just make sure you keep her there until we arrive? No, I realize you can’t do that … yes, fine, OK, but could you just not tell her that we’ve called making inquiries about her? That won’t violate any of her rights, will it? OK. What time’s she due to check out? Yes, we’ll make it,’ she said confidently, checking her watch before hanging up.

  ‘Guv, a clinic in Northampton. Sounds like our girl. She had a termination this morning.’

  ‘Right. We’d better get our skates on. Tommy, stay here and find those couples. I want to speak to them as soon as possible.’

  ‘Right guv,’ Tommy said, watching them go with an envious sigh. Then he picked up one of the photographs of the anonymous couples, and wracked his brains for an new idea.

  Then he clicked his fingers. He could always take a trip to the Oxford post office, see if any of the posties there recognized the streets in the background. It was a long shot of course, but you never knew your luck.

  chapter fourteen

  ‘These places always give me the creeps,’ Janine said, as she turned into a perfectly ordinary-looking parking lot in front of a low, orange-brick rectangular building. Occupying one floor only, it spread itself around hard landscaping and tubs of flowering pots harmlessly enough. It even had cheerful hanging baskets and a tent-like grey slate roof.

  ‘It’s your imagination,’ Hillary said crisply, and opened her car door. The sun was still shining as relentlessly as ever, but weathermen were promising a break in the heatwave, heralded by a thunderstorm that was headed their way later that weekend. It couldn’t come soon enough for Hillary’s liking. The heat reflecting off the white paving slabs surrounding the Northbrook Clinic hit her in the face the moment she stepped on to them, and the gleam of sun on pale stone made her scrunch her eyes up in order not to be temporarily blinded.

  An intercom was set beside a solidly constructed door that was very firmly locked. She buzzed it and gave her name, and a moment later, with a slight hum, the door slid open. Hillary was glad to step inside an air-conditioned reception/waiting room, and stood for a moment beside a duct that was blasting out cool air, and breathed deeply.

  Posters of various sorts, providing information on all sorts of dire diseases, lined the walls, along with three big pots of fake ferns. The receptionist’s office was indicated by a window set into a wall with no access from the public area. As Hillary approached, she wondered whether the architect had just designed it that way, or whether the powers that be at the clinic had insisted it be that way, in order to protect their staff.

  ‘DI Greene, DS Tyler,’ she repeated quietly as the receptionist drew back a small portion of the glass in order to hear them better. ‘We have an appointment with the office administrator?’ There were only two women waiting in the seats, pretending to read magazines, and Hillary saw no reason to send their blood pressure soaring by letting herself be overheard. The receptionist appreciated it, for she smiled in gratitude before whispering back.

  ‘Oh yes, Mrs Reece is expecting you. Please, go through the door.’ As she spoke, she reached down to press a button, and the door a little further down the wall made a buzzing sound. ‘Mrs Reece’s office is the second on the left.’

  Hillary nodded, and proceeded down the corridor. Mrs Reece, a woman in her sixties, with a fine head of iron-grey hair, iron-grey eyes, and no doubt an iron will to match, studied their ID intently, listened silently and intently to Hillary’s explanation as to why they were there, then told them curtly to sit and wait, whilst she consulted Miss Peacock’s doctor.

  Hillary was nonplussed for a moment, until she recalled that Heather Soames had booked in under her mother’s maiden name.

  The office was beige, with blinds, functional desk and very little in way of personal touches. Janine fidgeted in her chair. It was a full ten minutes before the office administrator came back and told them that Miss Peacock was expecting them, and that they were to follow her.

  Janine muttered something under her breath that, thankfully, neither of the other two women quite caught, and fiddled with her bag as they walked down a wide, beige-coloured corridor to the rear of the building. The further into the depths of the building they went, the stronger became the scent of antiseptic and the astringent tang of cleaning fluids. Hillary felt her stomach tightening. Like a lot of other people, she didn’t much like hospitals, dentists, or any other place where the human body became a free-for-all for men and women in white coats.

  ‘Miss Peacock is due to be discharged in two hours,’ a man in a white coat, waiting outside the door, said before either of them could speak. ‘She’s supposed to be resting, and we’re checking in on her from time to time to make sure there’s been no further reaction to the local anaesthetic, or the drugs she’s been administered. The clinic psychologist might also want to see her. If she does, I’d appreciate it if you’d suspend your interview at once and let her speak to our patient in private.’

  He was a young man, but he spoke like an old one, and Hillary nodded. She did not, in any way, try to justify or quantify why they were there or what they were doing, and after eyeballing each other in silence for a moment, the doctor nodded briefly and moved away. Mrs Reece, after a surprised moment, followed his lead.

  ‘Phew, it was like the showdown at the High Chaparral,’ Janine quipped and Hillary held up her finger as if it were the barrel of a gun and blew across it briefly. Then she tapped on the door and opened it, standing aside to let Janine get ahead of her.

  The room was surprisingly small, and held little more than a single bed with a bedside cabinet that housed a bottle of lemon barley water, a teenage magazine, and, oddly, a pot of African violets. Heather was not undressed but was fully clothed, half-sitting, half-lying, on top of the bed. She looked pale, but her eyes were dry and she smiled briefly at them as they came in.

  ‘Does Dad know I’m here?’ were the first words she spoke, and Hillary shook her head.

  ‘No, DS Tyler tracked you down this morning. But your father does know you didn’t go to school yesterday, and didn’t spend the night at Mary-Beth’s.’

  ‘Damn! I’ll have to think of something to tell him,’ Heather moaned, watching them curiously as they each reached for a moulded plastic chair that were hell to sit on and seemed to be standard seating in every public place where you weren’t encouraged to linger.

  ‘Heather, Mary-Beth and Colleen have both confirmed that on the afternoon Billy died you weren’t at school, like you said,’ Hillary began firmly. ‘You do understand that lying to the police is very serious don’t you? You yourself are not only in serious trouble, but in trying to cover for you, your friends are as well,’ she warned her flatly.

  At that, tears instantly brightened the teenager’s eyes. ‘That’s not fair! They didn’t do anything!’ She leaned up and forward on her elbow and stared at Hillary earnestly. ‘I just asked them to say I was with them, that’s all. And they did it because they’re my friends. You’re not going to arrest them or anything are you? It’s not as if I did anything wrong! I didn’t hurt Billy, if that’s what you’re thinking! Why would I?’

  ‘All right, calm down,’ Hillary said sharply. Heather’s voice was steadily rising, and the last thing she wanted was a showdown with the iron maiden or the girl’s doctor.

  Heather slumped back against the bed again, and heaved a massive sigh. ‘Oh what’s the use,’ she suddenly wailed. ‘Everything’s gone wrong. Mum’s dead, Billy’s dead, now my baby’s dead, Dad’s goin
g to pieces and Debbie hates my guts. I might as well be dead too!’

  Hillary’s lips twisted wryly. ‘Very dramatic. You ever considered acting as a career?’

  ‘No. I want to be a librarian,’ Heather Soames said, startled. Hillary, careful to avoid catching her sergeant’s face, knowing that laughter was very definitely the last thing this situation called for, cleared her throat instead.

  ‘I’m sure your dad must approve of your career choice,’ she said blandly. ‘Now, let’s get a few things clear. Your dad isn’t going to go to pieces, he’s just going through a rough time, and so are you. People in mourning don’t see the world the same way as they did, and it’s going to take the both of you a very long time to adjust. But you will, and the pain of your mum’s loss will become more bearable as time goes by. And your sister doesn’t really hate you. Don’t forget, she lost her mum too, and I’m willing to bet that she was your mum’s favourite. Your dad always loved you best, am I right?’

  Heather flushed and mumbled something that was probably an agreement.

  ‘Well then, cut your sister some slack. Now, being in here is tough, I grant you,’ Hillary said, glancing around and suppressing a shudder, ‘and what you did can’t have been easy, but you must have thought about it long and hard before coming here, and in the years to come, you’ll probably come to accept that the decision you made today was the right one for you. Now, can you please put a break on all this self-pity, and tell me what you were doing when Billy was murdered?’

  Heather Soames sniffed and nodded, and Janine watched her, amazed. Although Hillary’s voice had been gentle and calm throughout the lecture, she’d half expected the teenager to wilt under the onslaught. Instead, she seemed to be responding to it like a wilting flower to a refreshing rain.

  Janine had seen this phenomenon before, of course. Hillary was well known at the station house for her interview technique. One DCI in the fraud squad was sure she must have studied psychology in college, and wouldn’t have it that her degree was in English lit. And Janine could understand why. Her boss seemed to have an uncanny ability to read suspects and witnesses alike, and unerringly take whatever approach was most effective in getting them to spew their guts.