Twisted Justice: A combined investigation. DI Lorne Warner and DI Sally Parker (Justice series Book 13)

by M A Comley

The men nodded.

  She and Katy bid the shocked men good day and walked back up the jetty. Lorne phoned the artist and arranged for the young woman to visit the men around four that afternoon. Before moving on to another jetty, Lorne ran back and relayed the information to the three men.

  Lorne and Katy spent the next few hours going over the details of the three people they knew had been travelling on the boat with other boat owners in the marina, but nothing concrete in the way of extra evidence came their way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Claire sat in the drawing room of her luxurious art deco mansion alongside the open fire, where logs glowed brightly in its grate. Sighing, she picked disinterestedly at the prawn salad the housekeeper had prepared for her. What has my life descended to all of a sudden? I need to look for a way out of all these mounting debts. If the girls ever found out the extent of my troubles, there would be hell to pay.

  The young Thai girl, she employed as a housekeeper, entered the room and bowed before her.

  “Yes, Mai Ling? What is it?” she asked tersely.

  “Telephone, madam. It’s your daughter. She sound vely upset.”

  Claire’s eyes fluttered shut, and she held out her hand to accept the phone. “Which one? I have four, remember?”

  “Ah, solly. It is Miss Lucy.” After giving Claire the phone, she walked backwards out of the room, still bent over at the waist.

  Claire heaved out a sigh. Once upon a time, the housekeeper’s quirky behaviour had endeared her to the woman. With all the financial strain she was under, the woman’s simplistic ways and loyalty caused her nothing but irritation, like a lot of things lately. She held the phone up to her ear and heard her daughter’s sobbing on the other end. Here we go, yet another one of her little dramas to contend with. “Hello, Lucy. How are you?”

  “Oh, Mum, I don’t know what to do.”

  “About what?” Claire snapped.

  “Don’t be like that, Mum. This is serious. Ryan hasn’t come home,” Lucy whined.

  “So? He’s probably off entertaining another of his clients,” Claire offered, aware of where her son-in-law had been the day before.

  “But he always rings me, never goes anywhere without sharing his schedule with me. He took off in the boat yesterday, and I haven’t seen him since. It’s so unlike him, Mum. What can I do? Is it too soon to ring the police?”

  “No. Do not get them involved at this time. Give him another few hours to make contact. Have you tried calling his mobile?”

  “Of course I have. I’m not thick.”

  “Don’t shout at me, Lucy! It was a simple question,” Claire retorted, the vein in her neck pulsing rapidly in anger. The door to the drawing room opened, and Teagan walked into the room. “I have to go, Lucy. Hang tight for a few hours. Ring his friends if you have to, but don’t, for God’s sake, ring the police.”

  “Okay. Sorry to intrude on your valuable time, Mother,” her daughter shouted sarcastically before she hung up.

  Claire ended the call and threw the phone on the Queen Anne winged chair behind her. “That was Lucy. What the fuck have you done, Teagan? I can see the devilment and defiance lurking in your eyes.”

  Teagan shrugged. “As requested, Helen and I retrieved the papers.”

  “And why are you turning up now to tell me this? I expected you back yesterday. I can sense when you’re keeping things from me. Lucy is beside herself. What have you done to Ryan?”

  Teagan threw herself into the two-seater chesterfield sofa, placed her arms along the back of the chair, and crossed her long slender legs at the same time. “You gave us strict instructions to get the deeds. Helen and I have done just that.”

  “At what bloody cost? Stop toying with me, girl. What have you done?”

  “You know as well as I do, he was spinning out of control. I dealt with his crappy attitude once and for all.”

  Claire’s eyes widened with rage. “I’m going to say this one last time, and this time I want the truth. Where is Ryan?”

  Teagan looked down the length of her arm and studied the diamond ring on her hand before she spoke again. Her reply was riddled with venom: “He had every intention of going back on his word. I needed to prevent that. People, outsiders, need to realise that we won’t be messed with.”

  “You’re insane! He wasn’t an outsider. He was a pivotal part to our plans. Jesus, why is it when I let you loose on things, it always goes belly up? You’re a bloody nightmare to deal with at times, Teagan. You think you know what’s best, but you’re simply delusional.”

  “That’s what you think, Mother. He was about to jump ship. Excuse the pun. Did you know he’d recently spent forty grand on that boat?”

  “So what? It was his money. What gives you the right to say what people in this family can spend their money on?” Claire shot out of the chair and paced up and down on the newly fitted Axminster carpet in front of her daughter.

  “Taking a leaf out of your book, Mother dearest. You’ve been telling us all for years what to do, and not to do, with our money.”

  “You’re the one who is out of control, Teagan. I thought marrying Lee would tame you. If anything, it’s made you sodding worse. You’re becoming uncontrollable. Where are the papers?”

  “Ah... the reality has suddenly sunk in, has it? They’re safe,” Teagan replied smugly.

  “What do you mean they’re safe?”

  Teagan shrugged. “They’re safe, and they’re going to remain in my care. Call it insurance, if you like.”

  Claire stopped pacing and swiftly turned. She lowered herself to within inches of her daughter’s face. “Stop testing me, Teagan. There’s only ever going to be one winner if you tangle with me, girl. If you haven’t learnt that over the years, then shame on you.”

  “Your threats mean fuck all to me, Mother. You’re losing your hold over this family. Surely you can see that?”

  “I might be in my sixties, but I can still outwit you, my girl.”

  Teagan’s lips parted to show her gleaming, recently whitened teeth. “You’ve trained me well, Mother. Maybe it’s time you stepped aside and let me take over the reins.”

  “Never! Not while there’s still a breath left in my body. You screw up too frequently for the others to put their trust in you. This family will never prosper under your leadership,” Claire raged, standing upright to combat the pain in her spine from bending over for so long.

  “I already have Helen on my side. She’s fed up with being ordered around by you. She told me as much yesterday.”

  “Liar! If that really is true, then she should have the guts to tell me that herself. Now, what have you done to Ryan? I told you to get the papers from him—that was all.”

  “We had to do something drastic. He had no intention of handing over those papers. I got the feeling he had plans to use them against us. I had to stop him.”

  Claire lowered herself into the chair and swept a hand over the beads of sweat breaking out on her brow. “I’ve had your sister, Lucy on the phone, looking for him. Are you telling me that she’ll never see him again?”

  Teagan laughed. “Oh, she’ll see him all right, in a mortuary fridge.”

  “What the hell have you done, Teagan?” Claire held her head in her hands for a moment or two. When she glanced in her daughter’s direction again, Teagan was grinning, looking very pleased with herself. Claire’s stomach twisted as she sensed her own end looming. How do I combat the spitting image of myself? I’ve moulded her into this monster. How do I now battle her will and succeed?

  CHAPTER SIX

  “One last try before we call it a day, eh?” Lorne winked at Katy as her partner shook her head.

  “That’s what you bloody said half an hour ago. My feet are like blocks of ice. I’ll be waddling like a penguin soon.”

  Lorne dipped her hand into her jacket pocket and produced a bunch of keys. She held them out to Katy. “Here, you go and sit in the car while I talk to this couple,” she said, motioning with her
head in the direction of an elderly man and woman, sitting under a rug on a small yacht.

  Katy gave her a long-suffering smile. “I’m sorry to wimp out on you.”

  “Nonsense, you need to take care of the baby. I won’t be long.”

  Lorne watched Katy safely leave the jetty, then approached the last boat in this section of the marina. “Ahoy there. Any chance I can have a quick chat?”

  “Hello, dear. Do you want to come aboard?” The elderly gentleman threw back the tartan rug and rushed to the back of the boat to lend Lorne a hand.

  Once she was on the deck, Lorne showed the couple her warrant card and explained why she was there.

  “Oh my, that’s awful. Harold, I think I remember seeing that boat yesterday on its journey out to sea.”

  “That’s right. You commented on the girls’ appearance, said it was far too cold to be dressed like that in December, especially venturing out on such a choppy sea.”

  Lorne’s spirits rose with the news. “Brilliant! I don’t suppose you got a look at the name of the boat? Or did you recognise any of the passengers as locals? We’re trying to establish if the boat was from around here or somewhere farther up the coast.”

  Harold chewed on his lip for a moment or two. “I definitely saw the name. Bugger me if I can recall what it was, though. Bloody memory always fails me at the wrong time. How about you, Sylvia, can you remember what it was called?” he asked his wife.

  Sylvia, cradling a cup between her hands, shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. No, I can’t.”

  “Wait a minute, now don’t laugh when I say this, but I have an idea it was something nautical.” Harold looked excited that he’d managed to summon up the information from some kind of an abyss in his mind.

  “Well, that could prove to be helpful, eventually,” Lorne said, chuckling.

  “I tried. I suppose without knowing who the boat belongs to, you’re going to have trouble getting in touch with the next of kin,” Harold suggested.

  “Exactly. It’s certainly making life difficult for us at the moment. I’m sure something in the line of clues will come our way soon. Thanks for your help anyway. Enjoy the rest of your day, both of you.”

  Disappointed, Lorne hopped back onto the jetty and returned to the car.

  “Anything?” Katy asked when Lorne jumped in behind the steering wheel.

  “Not really. The gent thought the name of the boat was something nautical. He couldn’t be any more accurate than that.”

  “There’s a novelty—a boat with a nautical name.” Katy laughed.

  “Granted, it’s not the best clue in the world, but it’s better than a piss in the ocean.” Lorne started the engine and drove out of the car park. “They also gave a similar description of the three people who boarded the boat. Let’s hope something comes from the sketch artist’s jaunt down here later, because as it stands, we have very little to go on until Patti and her team either send us the results of the postmortem or manage to locate the chassis number, if it has one.”

  “Do you know if the media have put this out yet? They’re usually quick off the mark when something of this magnitude takes place. It’s not every day a boat explodes off the Kent coastline,” Katy said when they were caught up in a slow-moving queue of traffic.

  “I’ll leave you to check on that when we return. If the answer is no, can you organise a slot to hit the news tonight? On second thoughts, I’ll do that. I hope it’s not putting too much pressure on the artist to complete her job quickly. I’ll have a word, see what she says.”

  “I’ve just had a thought.”

  “About what?” Lorne asked, turning to face her partner.

  “What if the boat is owned by a foreigner? That’s going to make it nigh impossible to come up with an identification, isn’t it?”

  “I have no idea how these things work. Let’s see what AJ can find out for us when we get back. I would’ve thought once we have a chassis number, or the equivalent, then there would be a worldwide registration network set up—you’d like to think there was anyway. This is all a little out of our field of expertise at this point. I hope that doesn’t prove to be detrimental to the case. Someone out there is missing a husband or a boyfriend. Maybe it won’t be long before that person comes forward.”

  “If they are, then it’s likely, by what we’ve been told already, that the victim had a penchant for the ladies, which in the long run, has probably led to his downfall.”

  When they arrived back at the station, they were in a race against time to get the tasks they’d discussed in the car into action before the end of the shift.

  Lorne spoke to her contact at the TV station, who said she’d heard about the incident but hadn’t garnered enough information to think it warranted a slot on the news. She asked Gemma if she would be willing to run the story within the next twenty-four hours once the sketches became available. The answer was a categorical yes. Before heading home that evening, Lorne checked in with Patti. It was always good to keep in contact with the pathologist at the beginning of a case.

  “Any news, Patti?”

  “Eager, aren’t you? I completed the PM about an hour ago. I’m still waiting for news on trying to find the boat ID for you.”

  “Talking of IDs, I don’t suppose the victim had anything on him, such as a wallet?”

  “If only. The PM verified that he was dead before the explosion and thankfully before the flare was lit.”

  “So, someone intentionally tried their hardest to make it difficult to ID this man, is that your assumption?” Lorne asked, tapping her pen against her chin.

  “Yes, that’s my professional opinion at this time. Did you manage to gain anything from your enquiries?”

  “A number of witnesses have told us that two women turned up at the marina and boarded the boat. It all seemed friendly enough from what they could tell.”

  “Strange that the boat only ventured out a short way before the attack took place.”

  Lorne nodded as if Patti were sitting in the room with her. “Very strange. Maybe they were prioritising their escape plan from the get-go. Pure conjecture at this point. So, are you telling me that you think the victim died from the fatal wound to his neck as you predicted at the marina?”

  “Either that or the wound to the heart via the wound to his back. It’s hard to tell which came first and which wound ultimately ended the man’s life. I know one thing for definite—the offender’s anger was evident in the attack. Is a woman capable of overcoming a man of his size easily? I’m not sure about that, but the intervention of alcohol might have aided the attack.”

  “Interesting. Don’t forget there were two women. All right, Patti, I’m about to call it a day here. Will you ring me as soon as you have an ID for the boat?”

  “Of course. Have a good evening, Lorne. Think of me slicing open yet another three bodies before the end of my shift, won’t you?”

  “God, I’d rather not. I think Tony mentioned he was planning on knocking up liver and onions for dinner.”

  Lorne could still hear Patti’s laughter as she hung up. She looked up to find a wincing Katy leaning against the doorframe. “You really eat that stuff?”

  “Hey, it’s good for you. You should try it. It would be beneficial for the baby, too.”

  “I’d rather stick bloody cocktail sticks in my eyes,” Katy replied, cringing.

  Lorne chuckled. “That was Patti. No news on the boat ID as yet. She’s going to chase it up tomorrow. I think we should call it a day now, don’t you?”

  “Yep. I need to get home and soak in the bath. My feet still haven’t thawed out yet.”

  “Poor you. Get AJ to give you a foot massage to get the circulation going again.”

  Katy turned on her heels and waved goodbye over her shoulder. Lorne finished dealing with a few important papers she needed to get back to the chief pronto, then she headed home for the evening herself.

  A strange car was sitting in the driveway of the kennels when s
he arrived home. She walked into the house to find Charlie, Tony, and a young man in his twenties sitting around the kitchen table. Two dogs—Sheba the German shepherd and a Border collie not dissimilar in colour to Lorne’s old dog, Henry—sniffed each other inquisitively.

  “Hello, you must be Brandon.” Lorne held out her hand to shake the young man’s.

  He rose from his chair, which gave him top marks for having good manners. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Warner.”

  “Well, that makes me feel ancient. Just plain old Lorne will do.”

  He smiled awkwardly and apologised.

  “And who is this little beauty?” She knelt on the floor, forgetting that she was wearing her best suit, and stroked the collie.

  “This is Tess, the star of the agility club, Mum. Or should I say the present star, until Sheba steals the show,” Charlie joked, beaming at her new fella.

  Both Tess and Sheba enjoyed the attention heaped upon them for the next few minutes, then Lorne stood up and washed her hands at the sink before joining the others at the table. “I can’t smell any dinner, husband dearest.”

  “That’s because I haven’t had a chance to create anything yet. I’ve had a hell of a day. Tell you about it later. I thought we might get fish and chips. Would that be okay?”

  “Of course. Will you be joining us, Brandon? You’re more than welcome to.”

  “Can I take a rain check on that, Mrs... er, I mean, Lorne? I said I’d help Dad at the club tonight, to set up for the class.”

  “Oh, you work at the agility club? I didn’t realise that.”

  “I help out occasionally. Dad and I run a plumbing business.”

  “That’s handy to know for when we spring a leak,” Lorne quipped.

  “Mum, did you have to?” Charlie complained.

  Lorne tweaked her daughter’s cheek. “What? Am I embarrassing you, dear child?”

  Charlie’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling. “I give up. I just wish you would do the same,” she grumbled. “Come on, Brandon, we’ll give Sheba and Tess a run in the paddock before you leave.” Charlie tucked her chair under the table.