The Lies Within

by Jane Isaac

  “Last Saturday. She came over at lunchtime. Stayed about an hour.” His bottom lip quivered as he looked away. “When she left, I remember I said, ‘Catch you later’. And she said, ‘Maybe’.”

  “What do you think she meant by that?”

  “Nothing. She was always like that when we parted. Aloof. Used to make me laugh.” He raised his eyes, met Jackman’s gaze. “But now I can’t get it out of my head.”

  “And you didn’t see her again?”

  He shook his head. “We only got together if one of us texted. She’d told me she was coming home on Tuesday for a family wedding. I didn’t really expect to hear anything from her for a while.”

  “Anthony, can you tell me what were you doing last Thursday evening?”

  Anthony’s eyes widened. “Am I a suspect?”

  “I didn’t say that. But you knew Jo, were close to her. We need to eliminate you from our enquiries.”

  Anthony looked from one detective to another. “I was playing football early evening, then went out drinking with the lads, then to a club. We didn’t get home until the early hours.”

  “Thank you. We’ll need the names of the people you were with. Have you ever visited Market Harborough before?” Jackman said. “Perhaps to see Jo’s parents?”

  “Not to see her parents. I did take Jo there once though. She had an appointment. They’d cut out some trains midday, urgent work on the line, and she asked me to drive her. I think I was one of her few friends with a car.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two weeks ago. On the Wednesday. I remember exactly because I missed my lecture in the afternoon and had to borrow the notes from someone.”

  “What did she come back for?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me anything about it. I was only allowed to drop her at the station. Jo could be like that sometimes.”

  “Like what?”

  “Secretive. If she didn’t want to tell you something there was no way of getting it out of her.”

  “Where did you pick her up from on that Wednesday?”

  “I didn’t. She got the train back.”

  “So you just drove down to Market Harborough and straight back up to Nottingham?”

  He gave a single nod. “It’s not that far. She insisted on giving me her train fare for petrol.”

  The droning sound of a lorry filled the room as it passed outside. Anthony studied his feet.

  “Do you have other girls you meet for sex?”

  “I don’t see that’s relevant.”

  “Anthony, where were you on the nights of the 24th of April 2015, and the 28th of April 2006?”

  “What? I have no idea. I’d have to check. Why?”

  “Two other girls were attacked and strangled, but not killed.”

  “And you think it was me?”

  “I didn’t say that. But once again, we do need to eliminate you from our enquiries.”

  Anthony looked stunned. His face drawn with the sudden realisation of it all.

  “Sergeant Wilson will take the details. Please also give her your contact number and address in case we need to speak to you again.” Jackman made for the door, rested his hand on the handle and turned as another thought occurred to him. “One other thing. What does FWB stand for?”

  Anthony coughed. It was a moment before he answered. “Friend with benefits.” His eyes watered. “Jo thought it was funny.”

  ***

  Later that evening, Jackman glanced at the clock at the bottom of his computer screen. It was now almost forty-eight hours since Jo’s body had been found. Something about Anthony Kendall bothered him. Over the course of his career, Jackman had interviewed endless victims, suspects and witnesses. Some were nervous of law enforcement, some overconfident, others aggressive. Yet most of the time their story explained how they presented. Kendall had no previous police record and colleagues in Nottingham claimed to have no intelligence on file for him. He could account for his movements when Jo was attacked. He’d come forward voluntarily, as soon as he heard they wanted to speak to Jo’s associates, and offered to be interviewed. But he’d seemed edgy in interview. Was Anthony generally nervous of the police, grief stricken at the loss of Jo, a friend he claimed to barely know, or was there something else going on that he wasn’t talking about?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Beware of feeling too happy, of smiling inwardly and being thankful for all you have in the world. Because that’s when it all tends to go wrong. These thoughts plagued Grace as she blinked into the darkness.

  After hours of tossing and turning like an abandoned boat at sea, she’d left her bed and padded downstairs. She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat there on the sofa. The mug she cradled was stone cold. The room was shrouded in darkness, although this didn’t seem to make much difference; days morphed into night as sleep eluded her.

  Grace sat back, her mind slipping in and out of memories. Lydia playing the flute at the last concert of primary school. The smile that shone on Jo’s face as she stood in the kitchen and waved an envelope containing her A level results. The girls in their bridesmaid dresses on her wedding day to Phil.

  An image of their father, Jamie, filled her mind. She could still remember the day he told her he was going to die. She was in the kitchen ironing, listening to Billy Connolly on Desert Island Discs. The patio doors were open, the kitchen full of the aroma of sweet peas that wafted in from the garden.

  She heard the front door bang, the click of the handle as it was forced up several times before the key turned. Jamie had never been light-handed.

  Moments later his face appeared in the doorway. “Cup of tea?”

  No greeting, but then he rarely passed greetings. ‘Hellos and goodbyes are for people you don’t see very often,’ he used to say. ‘We have no need for either.’

  Grace had nodded. “If you’re making.” Her usual response. She didn’t notice the sadness in his face that day, lost in the ironing as he placed the mugs on the table. It wasn’t until he reached across and took the iron from her hand that she looked up.

  “Come over here. We need to talk.”

  Within moments of them sitting down, her world changed. He had cancer. It was terminal. She recalled the shock, tears and disbelief that manifested itself in the questions she fired at him. But resistance was futile. For months he’d been through tests, keeping it all to himself until he was absolutely sure that all the avenues had been exhausted.

  Less than two months later he passed away, quietly, with his family around him.

  After she lost Jamie, Grace resolved herself to a life alone. He may not have been her true love, but they had navigated the ebb and flow of life together for so many years that their lives had become entwined. He was a kind and considerate father, a generous husband. Always made time for the children when they were young, even after a long day at work, supported her as she studied for her English Literature degree and rallied around to help in the home.

  The months after Jamie’s death had been difficult, not only emotionally but also financially. Their mortgage was paid off, but Jamie was self-employed and had made no provision for life insurance. Grace went back to work full time, had to be extra careful with money to ensure the girls didn’t miss out.

  She could never have imagined that a chance meeting, six months afterwards, would eventually lead to marriage. When she stepped into the supermarket that Saturday morning and someone grabbed her bag, the man that came to her aid turned out to be the manager. After the police were called and the robber apprehended, he offered her a milky tea in his office. Dinner followed. More dates. Her girls choosing her clothes, arranging her hair. Only a year after their father’s death, Phil proposed. She remembered the girls were apprehensive at first. But his easy-going nature won them round in the end. It seemed her girls, mature beyond their years, were far more concerned with her future happiness than she was.

  After the wedding and subsequent sale of Phil’s house, all those months o
f scrimping and saving were behind her. She reduced her hours at the library, focused on renovating the house. Spent more time with her girls, indulged in her love of cooking and planning meals for her family. Rather unexpectedly, her life had turned around.

  But she would give it all up, right now, to turn back the clock and have her girl back.

  She recalled those first difficult months after Jamie died. Even though they’d had some time to prepare, to face the idea of losing him, it didn’t seem to make the loss any easier to bear. The gaping hole he left behind sat as a permanent void in the midst of family life. But they had pieced together the fragments, found a path through the grief. And gradually, they realised they were able to share the memories of him with smiles instead of tears.

  A pang of guilt made her flinch. She hadn’t seen how the grief had penetrated Jo, ripping her apart, limb by limb until the knife had wedged itself in so deep it was difficult to remove. Their GP recommended medication and therapy. Two years of support groups improved things. Jo adored Phil. The last few years had been easier. They’d put her struggles behind them, or so she’d thought.

  How could she not have known that her daughter was back on antidepressants? She thought of Jo’s beautiful olive skin, marked by the scars of her teenage years. What kind of mother misses the signs twice?

  The guilt grew, gnawing away at her. What else didn’t she know?

  The fabric of their lives was being torn apart again. But this wasn’t a tear that Grace could stitch together or even a hole that could be patched up. No, this was a slash right through the middle. And right now she had no idea how to even start piecing together the threads to mend it.

  Her head jerked forward. Cold tea spilled into her lap, merging with the tears that dripped from her chin as she wept.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Anthony Kendall. No previous record. Not known to us. We know he had rather a clandestine relationship with Jo Lamborne. They texted, met up for sex. He said she liked to do things differently.” Jackman paused a moment. Quiet fell upon their morning briefing as the word differently hung in the air. “We know he was in Nottingham at the time of her murder. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in some way. We haven’t found anything that suggested Jo Lamborne, Shelley Barnstaple and Eugenie Trentwood knew each other. If the cases are linked, there has to be something, somewhere.” He took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. “Anthony Kendall is a mature student of average build – seems to keep himself fit. He fits the profile. Is he our link? Has he crossed paths with the other victims? Does he have other women he regularly meets for sex? Is he part of a group that targets girls for sex?” A phone rang in the background. “Pull his phone records, examine his social media and speak to previous work colleagues. He said he’s only visited Leicestershire a couple of times. Let’s make sure he’s telling the truth there.”

  Jackman scanned the room until he found McDonald, perched on the edge of a desk that was bowing slightly. “Any news on the BMW?”

  McDonald nodded. “It’s not good. We finally managed to enhance the number plate. Traced it back to a businesswoman from Northampton who was away in Manchester all week, with her car. The plates had been cloned. I’m trawling through reports of stolen cars at the moment to see if we can identify it.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Jackman reached down to gather his notes when the sound of a receiver being replaced at the back of the room caught his attention. He looked up as Wilson stood and gave him a startled glance. “You’re not going to believe this, sir. A man walked into Wigston Station this morning and said he wants to confess to the attack on Shelley Barnstaple.”

  ***

  A shrill scream shot through the darkness. Grace jolted forward in bed. It was coming from the ground floor. The pitch so familiar, it almost rang inside her. She jumped up and made for the stairs. Stumbled at the top, grabbing the banister to save herself. The screaming grew louder. She pushed forward, missed a step. Faltered…

  Grace woke with a start. Her heart was racing. Her body drenched in a cold sweat. She was in Jo’s room, the duvet curled around her legs from the night before. A dream. It was only a dream.

  Instinctively she reached across, pulled a handful of tissues out of the box beside her, wiped the sweat from the back of her neck and shoulders. Footsteps shuffled across the tiles in the kitchen below. A cupboard door closed. The whirr of the kettle as it heated up. Grace raised her head to view Jo’s clock on the bedside table. It was 7.15am. She tossed the tissues towards the bin in the corner, sighed when they missed and rested back into the pillow. Phil’s sister, Geraldine, or Ged as she preferred to be called, was coming over from Spain today. Her flight wasn’t due in until late afternoon but Phil’s careful nature wouldn’t allow him to settle until he’d collected her. His day would be consumed with watching the internet for plane delays, mapping his route to the airport around the roadworks on the M1, making sure that he timed it all right.

  This was the earliest flight Ged had been able to book without paying an extortionate fee. Phil and Ged were close. Ten years older than him, she divorced young and gave her life to a career at the Home Office, travelling the world. It was no surprise that she chose to settle in Spain when she’d retired, two years earlier. She’d busied herself with buying up cheap apartments, renovating and reselling them to supplement her pension. They’d been out to see her several times, stayed in half-completed apartments with swimming pools and basked in the sunshine. Ged had embraced Grace and her girls as soon as her brother announced their engagement. With no children of her own, Phil’s family were her family. Grace usually looked forward to her visits, they all did. Ged was great company. Although this time it wouldn’t quite be the same.

  Grace glanced idly around the room. An old cobweb in the corner fluttered in the breeze of the open window. She watched it awhile, until she became aware of mumblings from the radio below. The mention of Jo’s name caught her attention. She craned her neck towards the voices. It was turned down, she had to strain to listen, but she could just about make out the local news report. The press were talking about Jo in the same breath as the other two girls that had been attacked in Oadby. Was it the same offender?

  The thought that Jo had possibly been attacked by the same person repulsed her. Her eyes burned with the fresh assault of tears. The dream rushed back into her mind. It was Jo, screaming, calling for her. And she wasn’t there when she needed her most.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Oliver Turner was a thickset man with grey stubble covering his chin and a road map of broken veins tracing his cheeks. He pushed his fringe out of his eyes and leant an elbow on the empty chair beside him. “Shelley Barnstaple went out with my late brother, Ken. He died of leukaemia almost ten years ago.” He cleared his throat. “She worked at The Windmill pub in Oadby behind the bar. Had done for years. Ken and I used to drink in there on a Friday night.” He snorted, shook his head. “He had a fling with her. It broke up his marriage. Thirty years younger than him she was, and he was pretty chuffed to pull her. They’d been seeing each other about a year when he died. She was always working late, flirting with the locals. There were rumours it was more than that, but none of it seemed to bother Ken. He was almost proud of the fact that other men found her attractive. Like my wife and I, neither of them had children. Only each other.”

  He paused for a moment, lost in thought, before he continued. “My brother took sick very quickly. He was diagnosed and died within a week. It was a huge shock to everyone at the time. We all felt sorry for Shelley. Rallied around. Essie made stews, lasagne, took them around to her home.”

  Wilson looked up from her notes. “Essie?”

  “Sorry, my wife. Her name was Vanessa, but everyone called her Essie.” Oliver turned back to Jackman. “A week later, the day after my brother’s funeral, Shelley was back behind the bar, same as usual. I didn’t judge her. I know everyone copes differently with grief, but there was no…” he grimaced, “sadness in her.
If you didn’t know, you’d say she’d been away for a couple of weeks on holiday. I continued to drink in there on a Friday night, but moved to sit in the lounge. Too many memories of my brother in the bar area. And I couldn’t bear to watch her laughing and joking with the customers, flaunting herself. It didn’t seem right. Shelley was cold with me, didn’t answer Essie’s calls after the funeral. We’d never been close, but she seemed to be cutting us off, erasing every memory she had of my brother.

  “Then Essie told me Shelley had been seen getting cosy with John, one of the barflies, in the car park. Well, more than cosy. I couldn’t believe it, my brother hadn’t been dead a month. I was furious, wanted to go down there, teach them both a lesson. I’d worked with John on a factory refit the year before and he’d always been a dirty sod. No principles. But Essie wouldn’t let me go. She said it was just a malicious rumour.” His eyes softened. “Essie always saw the best in everyone.

  “The following Friday I left the pub early. Essie had caught a bug in the week and I didn’t want to leave her too long. She had a bad heart, was vulnerable to illness. And I saw Shelley, out by the bins, worse this time. Her skirt was hitched up to her thighs, him pumping into her.” His nostrils flared at the memory. “But it wasn’t John. It was another of the guys. Tim, I think they called him. I could hear her, that cackle of a laugh. It went through me. It was all I could do to stop myself going over there and beating them both to a pulp. But I had to think of Essie. All the way home, the image stayed with me. How dare she soil my dead brother’s memory? He thought the world of her.