Payback

by Charlotte Mills

  Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Kate focused on the windows and doors, squinting at the plastic frames, checking for any forced entry. Plastic frames for an architect’s home? Wasn’t that a bit off the peg? Shouldn’t he have something a little more eco-friendly, made out of recycled car tyres or something?

  She caught Kate’s eye and nodded for her to join her.

  Inside, looking around the large room, she could see it had been designed much like the garden, terraced with two different levels, with the kitchen essentials on one side and an open-plan dining room on the other, divided by two wide steps.

  “Guv!” Kate called out.

  “In here!” she called, her words echoing in the large room.

  “Anything?” Kate entered the kitchen.

  “Can you smell something?” Helen asked, not waiting for Kate to ask another question.

  Kate sniffed.

  “There’s something…stuffy, but something else too.”

  Kate quickly scanned the room as if she was looking for something. “No sign of a struggle, nothing. Looks normal enough.”

  “It does. I don’t like it. It’s too tidy.”

  Helen snapped on her gloves as she continued to look around the kitchen. There was a notepad attached to the fridge; she could see it was blank—except, as she tilted her head towards the light, she saw an imprint from a top layer. Could just be a shopping list. In the fridge, there were just the essential sauces and condiments. Jarvis had gone away, or at least it was made to look like he had. She needed to check the bins before they left to see what exactly had been thrown away.

  “Well! Maybe he’s a neat freak or he’s got OCD or something…” Kate trailed off as she moved into the dining room.

  Helen scanned the space around Kate. It was a large area with a dark tiled floor that made it look like the timber dining suite was rising out of the floor. The walls were a cream colour with only a couple of framed exhibition posters on the walls.

  Leaning against the solid timber worktop, she watched Kate take a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and smothered a grin at her struggle to put them on.

  “I’ll take a look upstairs,” Kate offered, almost running out of the room.

  Helen looked across at the empty doorway, hearing the footfalls on the stairs. She opened the dishwasher, saw that it was clean and empty. Even the whiff of cleaner was evident, as you’d expect if someone was going away for a few days. She could understand Kate’s lack of interest in this case, if it even was a case. She had been in her position not so many years ago, eager to make an impact, wanting the big cases. Who wants a possible missing person when there were the more pressing issues of an arsonist and a murderer on the loose? But did she have to be so impatient about everything?

  The kitchen bin was hidden behind a built-in cupboard. Helen wasn’t surprised to see it was empty. She stood upright. Her eye caught the door on the far side of the room—the entrance to the adjoining garage? To her surprise, it was open. The coolness of the large space hit her as she entered. She could see there was no car present. Two small, elongated letterbox windows high up on the back wall of the garage provided enough illumination for her to find the light switch. Footsteps behind her made her look back at the doorway, waiting for the approaching figure to appear.

  Kate’s head peeked inside. “Hey! Nothing upstairs. Well, nothing besides maybe some clothes missing. It’s a big house for one person, don’t you think?”

  Helen’s attention was still focused on the garage floor. She heard Kate blow out a breath, no doubt from all her rushing around. Helen thought of her own living arrangements. Is that what she’d think if she saw my house? Granted, it’s too big for me. But, then, she hadn’t intended on being the only one living there when she’d bought it.

  Is that what this mood is all about, a dislike of rich people? She hoped her raised eyebrow would indicate her need for more information.

  Kate shrugged. “Empty hangers in the wardrobe. No car then?”

  “I knew I was right to bump you up to sergeant, if only for your ability to state the obvious.” Helen glared at her for a moment before focusing her attention on the garage’s concrete floor. She could see from the stains left in the centre near the front, maybe from the air conditioning, that Jarvis’s vehicle tended to be parked in the same position. Looking further afield, she could see two faint drag marks going from the door they had both entered to the front of the garage. Moving furniture or rubbish maybe? Or, if the car pulled straight in as normal, moving something or someone to the boot of the car.

  Helen inspected the interior of the garage; the walls were blank; the breeze blocks hadn’t even been painted. The only storage was at the back below the windows; three shoulder-height cupboards lined the wall, designed exactly for the space, Helen figured. “What type of car does he drive?” She asked without looking around.

  “Umm, a red Audi Q2.”

  An SUV. Perfect for moving bulky objects or bodies. “See these marks?” she asked as she took out her phone, snapping several photos before returning it to her pocket.

  Kate squinted to see what Helen was photographing. “Erm…”

  Spotting the confusion on Kate’s face, she called her over to the doorway. Resting on her haunches, she encouraged Kate to do the same. Down the length of the garage, two faded parallel lines became more noticeable as her gaze travelled the length of the floor surface. “You see those marks there?”

  “What are they?”

  “Drag marks, maybe,” Helen said.

  “Heels of shoes?” Kate rubbed her forehead.

  “Could be. Is it all carpeted upstairs?” Helen asked as she headed for the door back into the kitchen.

  “Yeah.” Kate got to her feet, hot on her heels. “Why?”

  Helen went to the other two reception rooms at the front of the house. She took a quick look inside, checking under scatter rugs before returning to the kitchen.

  “You think something’s happened to him?” Kate asked. “It’s the easiest floor to clean if something did.” She regarded the floor as she considered phoning the crime scene techs to give the place the once-over, but she knew the budget would never stretch to it, not without more evidence of a crime. The satin-black tiled floor had been sealed with black grouting; it looked spotless as it sucked in the light from the bright walls.

  “We should check the bins,” Helen said, trying to break her scrutiny of the tiled floor, then left the room, hoping Kate would follow her. Finding the nearest bin, she pulled up the lid to check the contents. A waft of sickly-sweet aroma filled her nostrils as she stared down into darkness.

  “Empty?”

  She met Kate’s gaze. She hadn’t heard her approach. “Yep. Check the others.” Helen let go of the lid, letting it drop back into place as Kate walked to the other bins.

  Helen followed, voicing her observations. “Someone’s been here. The garden’s been tended to, and there are no outbuildings for tools. I didn’t see anything in the garage either.”

  Kate murmured her agreement as she lifted the lids on the remaining two bins. “This one’s got garden waste, shrivelled but still green.”

  Helen peered inside the last bin, half-filled with recyclables. Kate made a grab for the closest thing to the surface. Pulling out part of a newspaper, she found the date in the top right-hand corner.

  “Fifth of February.”

  She mentally added up the days. It was over a month old, and if Jarvis has been gone for over two weeks he could have put it in there any time before then.

  “Why would someone with an upmarket house leave their bins out like this?” Kate queried.

  “Maybe he wanted to catch the bin the day after he left. Gardener could have moved it back for him,” she offered.

  “I’ll find out the bin days for this street. Check with the neighbours, see if they know who
the gardener is.”

  “Okay,” Helen agreed.

  With no vehicles present in the closest driveways on either side of the house, she offered some advice, not wanting Kate to have wasted her time.

  “You might want to come back later in the evening. Maybe one of them saw the gardener’s van.”

  “Yes, Guv.”

  “And chase up the phone and bank records.”

  Kate nodded as she took her gloves off, scrunching them up into a ball.

  They were destined to end up just like the tissue she saw the other day, Helen figured as she watched her stuff them into her jacket pocket.

  Looking back at the house one last time, Helen spotted a ceiling-mounted CCTV camera on the underside of the porch overhang. She stepped closer to get a better look. The plastic housing had been treated to blend in with the surrounding dark wood; it was only the sunlight glinting off the bubble that had caught her eye.

  “Well, it might not be all bad, Virginia.”

  Kate joined her under the porch. ‘“Can we be that lucky twice?”

  “Get the techs to see if they can pull any footage from it.”

  Viewing the CCTV from outside Doreen Platt’s house was certainly keeping her busy. Just not the good kind of busy. The resolution wasn’t great. In fact, crap was a better description. And all the excessive squinting was giving her a headache and very little else. She wondered why she hadn’t been deployed with Davies to do the Sandwell interview. It would be nice to think it was due to her charming company, but right now she wasn’t sure which way the chips would fall if she actually asked the question.

  “Virginia, Davies has sent through everything he could find on the fraud investigation at County Biscuits.”

  Keen to make a better fist of the afternoon after her obvious lack of enthusiasm at the Jarvis house, she was on her feet before Helen had finished her sentence. The fact that she wanted Helen’s respect, as well as her body, was a surprise to her. Not the body part. That wasn’t surprising in the least. She was a gorgeous, intelligent, witty woman. Of course she was attracted to her. The respect part—that was new. And now was so not the right time for that. Everything here was temporary. Six months and gone. Back to her real life.

  Entering Helen’s office, she heard the printer whirring into life as it sucked in another sheet of paper.

  “I printed you out a copy already.” Helen stood to hand her a wad of paper across her desk.

  The whiny beep from her printer made her half turn as she grasped for the offered paperwork. “Shit!” She attempted to juggle the slipping papers as they slithered to the floor.

  Helen stepped around her desk and eyed the scattered papers. “Oh, erm, sorry, Kate. I thought you had hold of it.”

  “No problem,” she said as she crouched down. She gathered the sheets, trying to place them into some semblance of order.

  Helen knelt next to her and helped her pick up the papers.

  Looking at the pages she’d scooped up, she scanned for the page numbers to put them in order. “Okay, I’ve pages four, seven, nine, and ten,” she said and looked up. She released a small gasp, unaware of how close she was to Helen. She focused on her profile; it was shapely. She had such full lips, such smooth skin, with a light flush to her cheek and neck. Was Helen was as self-conscious as she felt at their close proximity?

  Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, she stood to lay out the paperwork on Helen’s desk, fumbling to leave gaps for the missing pages. As much as she wanted to be near Helen, it made her nervous as hell. She was her superior in so many ways, including rank. Reluctantly, she turned to her, retrieving the sheets of paper she had collected without making eye contact.

  Helen broke the silence. “I can’t help thinking there’s been some kind of role reversal here,” she said, still kneeling.

  She was once again grateful that Helen always knew what to say, a skill that was definitely going to keep her on her toes. “I have to admit it usually takes a little longer to get a woman to fall at my feet these days.” She gave the unruly sheets of paper a newsreader shuffle to tidy the stack.

  Helen seemed to be struggling to hold in her laugh and used the edge of her desk as a lever to get to her feet. “I find that hard to believe. What with your infinite charm and all.”

  “I know, right?” she said in her best teenage American accent as she met Helen’s eyes. The lopsided grin on Helen’s face enclosed her in its warmth.

  She stood toe to toe with the woman in her small office. Helen seemed as reluctant as she was to break their near contact. Boisterous voices in the larger office beyond forced apart the static connection between them. Taking a breath to steady herself, she took her seat, placing the desk between them for safety. To busy her fingers, she flicked through her assembled copy of the case file.

  Helen cleared her throat, effectively breaking the awkwardness before she said, “So, there’s a list of employees at the time. We’ll need to see who’s still around.”

  Not daring to look up as Helen spoke, she nodded. She couldn’t—absolutely could not—get involved with this woman, no matter how much she wanted to. Not only was she her boss, but Helen was tied to her job, and Warner.

  She had plans; she was only staying as long as she had to, then, finally, she could get on with her life. Resolved in that final thought, she began to focus on the words in front of her. Her brain had other ideas, however, as she recalled the gravelly tone in Helen’s voice when she had spoken to her earlier. It had made her body quiver when she’d looked into those dark eyes. She nervously bit on her bottom lip as she tried to read.

  “It doesn’t look like there was much evidence against him, certainly not enough to charge him. It could have been a number of people. They all had opportunity. Why did they only arrest him?” Helen stated.

  Skimming through the interview transcript that the detective on the case had conducted with Sandy, she saw it. “Ah. It looks like there was access to the computer accounting system. Everyone had their own login. Sandy’s was used to access the money and transfer it to another account. The money was never recovered.”

  “So either he did it, or someone used his password,” Helen confirmed.

  “Looks like it, Guv,” she replied, briefly making eye contact.

  Helen picked up her phone and glanced at the screen. “Right. I’ve got to go now.” She rose from her seat, then piled up a stack of files.

  She stood quickly. Watching as Helen slipped her arms into her coat and picked up the stack of files, she was surprised by the slick movement. She hastily shuffled her own report back into order.

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow, Kate.” Helen grinned as she moved towards her office door.

  She tried to hide the surprise on her face. Helen had just called her Kate. Not Virginia. Kate.

  “I-I’ll check with Jarvis’s neighbours about the gardener and bins on my way home.”

  “Okay, good. We’ll see what Sandwell has to say tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Night, Guv.”

  Chapter 8

  Staring out the passenger window, her eyes fixed on the horizon, she barely took in the rolling open countryside around her. Helen had been ready to leave as soon as she arrived at the station; they hadn’t even taken the time to get a cup of tea. She cleared her throat, ignoring the parched feeling as she pulled out her notebook.

  “I managed to catch a couple of Jarvis’s neighbours yesterday. One of them has the same gardener, so I’ve got his details and a rundown of the bin days,” she said and flicked through her notebook to find the right page. “Bin day is on a Wednesday. Two days after he’s meant to have left.” She closed her notebook. “I’ll ask the gardener if he moved the bin when I talk to him later. There was no answer last night. There’s been no activity on Jarvis’s bank accounts since 12 February. His accounts look healthy; no evidence of money worries.
”

  Helen kept her eyes on the road nodding. “I’ve called in a favour with a friend who’s a crime scene tech; he’s going to pick up the Jarvis keys from the station, see if he can get a look at the CCTV.”

  “Is he going around today?” she asked, a little surprised.

  Helen let out a little laugh. “You’re not in the Big Smoke anymore, Kate. Depends on his workload. It’s probably nothing, but I just want to be sure.” She flashed a look in the rear-view mirror before continuing. “I got the report on the latest fire from your mate Brown.”

  She looked over at her, her lips pursed at the smirk on Helen’s lips. “My mate!” she said, scornfully. “The man’s a…turd.” She discreetly pressed her hand to the bruise on her hip. The pain had mostly gone, although the dark mark on her skin had turned a colourful shade of yellow. She thought back to his angry face that night. “His eyes are too far apart; he looks like a fish.”

  “That was a bit restrained for you.” Amusement coloured Helen’s voice.

  “I’m trying,” she said and smiled at Helen, relieved that the awkward tension that had developed between them yesterday had evaporated.

  “Anyway.” Helen continued. “Petrol was used as an accelerant, so it’s likely it was our firebug again.”

  “I asked Davies to check through any CCTV in the area, and Uniform are doing a door to door, but it’s a bit out of the way, not many witnesses.” She turned the notebook over in her hands. About the only thing they did know for sure was that whoever it was, they were local. How else could they get around without being seen each time?

  “Good. We need to catch him before he really hurts someone or worse.”

  “I got the phone records back for Jarvis too.” She flipped through her notebook. “His phone was last used at 5:37 p.m. on Sunday, 12 February at or near his home, according to the pings of local masts. Nothing after that. They think it was turned off or ran out of battery—whichever.”