Approaching thuds on the stairs made her look up from her computer. PC Davies entered the office, heading in her direction.
Davies stopped near her desk. “DS Wolfe—”
“Kate,” she interrupted. They had had this conversation the other day, yet he seemed to have forgotten already.
Davies took a breath and started again with a slight smile. “Kate, the DCI just called; she wants you to head out to Langdale Woods. The local PADI diving club has reported a car dumped in the quarry lake. They think it’s a…” Davies looked at the large sticky note attached to his right forefinger. “Could be a red Audi—SUV, they reckon—but there’s no plates on it.”
Shit! She felt the prickly heat of panic break out on her skin as Davis’s words sank in. Jarvis’s car. “What?” she asked, struggling to make sense of what Davies had just said. “What were they doing out there?”
“Checking the lake out in preparation for running courses later in the year. There’s a tow truck and CSI on the way to see about retrieving the car. The Guv wants you to oversee the operation. Said she’ll meet you there shortly.” Davies offered her the sticky note, containing the information.
Her eyes glazed over as they scanned it. She wasn’t sure what to do first. “What’s this?” she said, pointing to the scrawl at the bottom of the note.
“Oh, the DCI said you might want to use the old quarry road to get on the site. Takes you straight round to the lake,” Davies said, still hovering.
She looked up, about to ask him if there was anything else when he beat her to it.
Pointing to her head injury, he asked, “How are you feeling after your brawl? The DCI was quite worried about you.”
The comment took her aback, she’d seen Helen’s concern first-hand, but hadn’t expected her to let anyone else see it too. “There’s no rest for the wicked, at least, not according to DCI Taylor.” She replied with a wink as she waved the sticky note.
Davies smiled at her before turning to leave.
Sticking the note to her desk, she waited for Davies to disappear before quickly writing up her notes on the search she had conducted for Sandy’s lover. Opening another window on her computer, she pulled up a map of the area, finding the service road she needed. She gathered her stuff and left for the quarry.
Walking up towards the lake, Helen spotted Kate leaning against her car, arms folded across her chest. She looked deep in thought, her chin almost touching her chest. From the description the divers had given, it sounded like it could be Jarvis’s car. She figured it was playing on Kate’s mind after her response to his disappearance.
“You found it alright, then,” she said as she rounded Kate’s car.
Kate turned, a now familiar smile on her face before she said, “Have satnav, will travel! How was your meeting?”
Helen let out a long breath as she took up her position next to Kate. The fresh air of the forest was doing little to quieten her inner thoughts.
“As expected. All budget cuts and pressure to close murder and arson cases before we’ve even got any key evidence, let alone suspects.” Helen was worn out by the bureaucracy and was considering a lobotomy prior to the next meeting. She was even more annoyed that it was a little too much reality, taking the shine off a perfectly good morning, after the night before.
Kate’s hand came to gently rest on her forearm. “Don’t let them grind you down, Guv.”
Helen looked into Kate’s eyes. She was comforted by her touch, even though she was the spark that was edging her towards a change in her life. “I told them our mini crime-wave was probably only temporary, as it only started when you arrived; so to give it a few months and it’ll disappear.” She looked away, wanting to bite back those last words. Why was she taking it all out on Kate? It wasn’t her fault she was only temporary, and she certainly wasn’t responsible for the inner workings of the police service. She must have been more depressed by her meeting than she first thought.
Kate ignored her dig. “Well, maybe I should stick around then, and keep you in work.”
The words had barely left Kate’s mouth before a loud booming voice in the distance prevented Helen from responding. They both turned towards the voice, calling Helen.
Walking in unison around the lake towards the gaggle of people, no doubt discussing the best way to extricate a vehicle from a flooded quarry, Helen tried to process Kate’s last words.
“DCI Taylor?”
“Yes,” Helen replied to the white-suited man. She wondered at his outfit, but she knew that you couldn’t take a chance at knowing where the crime scene started and finished in his job.
“Jim Delaney, senior scene investigator.” He reached out a hand in greeting. “It’s definitely a red Audi Q2—no tags, but there’s quite a lot of crap down there. Might take us a while to get it out. Windows are open, so whatever was in the car is a total loss. Don’t know about the boot till we get it out.”
Helen looked out at the water, watching the divers as they took a break. “How do you think it got there?” she asked, hoping he wouldn’t go with the obvious, sarcastic answer.
“Well. From its position, facing out in this direction towards us…” Jim motioned with his arms. “It looks like it came from up there somewhere,” he said, and pointed towards the high side of the quarry.
Helen looked up to where his hand rested. The layered quarry face stretched out a good fifteen to twenty metres above the surface of the water.
“Okay. I’ll get Uniform to sweep the area, see what turns up.” She turned back to see the colour had drained from Kate’s face at some point during this conversation. She frowned, giving her a second look as she asked her next question. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Hard to say. There’s some other debris in the way that we need to move first. Few hours, at least.” Jim said.
Helen checked her watch. They probably had around four hours of daylight left. “Thanks.” It was almost two in the afternoon. Hopefully they would be able to secure the vehicle today. She turned to leave, not wanting to delay their progress.
Kate jogged to catch up with her. “It’s Jarvis’s car!”
It sounded like a statement rather than a question. Helen knew it was far too much of a coincidence, but she didn’t want to make Kate feel any worse than she already did.
“Do you think he’s in the boot?” Kate asked, anxiety evident in her voice.
“Could be, or someone’s gone to a lot of effort to get rid of the car.” Experience told Helen that you don’t just steal a car like that to dump it. As they neared Kate’s car, she slowed, waiting for Kate to appear next to her. She didn’t want to make Kate feel guilty for her lack of enthusiasm for the Jarvis case. She knew she’d be beating herself up enough already.
“It’s not your fault, you know.”
Kate struggled to make eye contact with her.
“He’s been missing for weeks,” Helen continued in a softer voice.
Kate let out a long breath. “I know.” She met Helen’s gaze. “I’ll organise the search up the top.”
“It’s fine. I’ll do it. I need some air after this morning.” Helen looked around to make sure they were still alone before she continued. “We, erm…we didn’t get much time to talk yesterday.” Helen waited for the officer walking over to the crime scene team to get out of earshot. Turning back to Kate, she saw the infectious grin on her face. She couldn’t resist referring to it. “We were a little too preoccupied to talk shop.”
“Far too occupied,” Kate replied, still smiling as she leaned against the side of her car.
“I took a quick look at Rutland Lane, the place Slim gave us yesterday where Sandy’s missing stuff might be,” Helen clarified. Kate had missed out on this part of the conversation she’d had with Slim. “Looks like it’s all there. Could be the place we’ve been looking for. Crime scene techs a
re checking it out.”
Even thought it had been several weeks, Helen had everything crossed that they might find something that would lead them to the vehicle and driver responsible. She was certainly blowing the Forensics budget this month. Now she needed results to justify the expense.
“You owe someone a pair of Nikes, then.”
“He’s already left a message to remind me,” Helen said. It was a little surprising, considering his friend’s antics yesterday.
“Cheeky bastard.” Kate offered.
Helen smiled at her indignation. Although if it weren’t for his mate, Kate wouldn’t have a gash on her head, and then maybe she wouldn’t have spent the night with her.
“Whereabouts is it? Any potential witnesses? CCTV?”
Helen scrunched up her nose as she leant on the car next to Kate. “No, it’s just a quiet backroad, but there’s coverage in nearby streets.” She’d already planned to get Davies to look through it as soon as possible, as soon as they got a rough time of death. “Anyway, how are you feeling today? Your injuries, I mean,” Helen clarified, knowing Kate would more than happily give her a rundown on last night’s antics.
Kate released a giggle. “Not too bad. The dull ache has subsided; it’s only painful when I move around too quickly.”
Helen smiled. “I guess I should have offered to give you the day off.”
“Would you have kept me company?”
Helen stepped closer, almost invading Kate’s personal space. She kept her voice low. “I would’ve loved to have stayed longer. Maybe next time you could stay at my place as it’s a little closer to work.”
Kate’s eyes widened at Helen’s words. “Next time? So you think there’ll be a next time?”
Helen kept her eyes firmly on Kate’s as she forced a small smile on to her lips. There was definitely going to be a next time—many next times, if Helen had anything to do with it. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to get involved with Kate, but that didn’t change the way she felt about her. It didn’t change the way she’d felt in her arms last night when they’d made love. Made love. Yes, that’s what had happened. And it scared and exhilarated her at the same time. Standing there, looking into Kate’s eyes, Helen hoped that what she was seeing was a reflection of her own feelings.
The ringing of a phone gradually pierced the bubble they were both in. Realising it was hers, Helen reluctantly dragged her gaze from Kate’s. She loved playing verbal tennis with Kate. She wasn’t just physically attracted to her; it was more than that. They clicked.
“Taylor,” Helen said into her phone. “Okay, thanks.” Helen glanced up from her phone. “Nicholls has just sent through his report on Sandy’s injuries, possible vehicles and time of death.”
“Great. At least we’ll get a window of opportunity.”
“With a bit of luck.”
“I’ve done some digging on the women Sandy might have been involved with, tried to narrow it down.”
“Anything?” Helen asked hopefully.
“Well, one is living with her wife in Devon, so I crossed her off the list. The other two are dead: one only a month after Sandy disappeared, the other a couple of years ago. I need to do a bit more to track down their various next of kin. And I’ve requested the report on the first one that committed suicide.”
“Suicide?” The cogs started to turn in Helen’s head. “Okay. I’ll stay here for a while. See if we actually get the car out today. You go back to the office and go through Dr Nicholls’s report. Use your amazing IT skills to try and generate a list of possible cars in the area so we can start narrowing down the search.”
Kate nodded, pulling her keys from her pocket, she began moving around to the driver’s side of the car.
“And Kate,” Helen followed her closely, waiting for Kate to turn around. “There will be a next time.”
Kate’s left eyebrow rose as a smile spread across her face.
Without waiting for more of a reply, Helen strolled off towards a uniformed officer.
Chapter 13
Dissecting Dr Nicholls’s report was taxing. It took several attempts to isolate the information she was looking for. According to Nicholls, Sandy had died between nine and ten days before he was discovered. She imagined Nicholls conducting his maggot experiments and shivered at the thought. She opened a calendar and counted the days: Sandy died between Tuesday the fourteenth and Wednesday the fifteenth of February. The house fire was started at approximately 1 a.m. on Friday the twenty-fourth, according to the fire investigation; fire services were called at 2 a.m., and Sandy’s body was discovered at 3 a.m. The vague timeframe was a little disappointing; forty-eight hours was a pretty big window. She mapped out the timeline on the wipe board to show Helen later.
It also posed another question. When had Sandy been moved to the house? She tried to recall how far back the footage from Doreen Platt’s CCTV went. She flipped through her notebook; she knew she had made a note when she started reviewing the material.
The recordings started from the beginning of February. At least they had a chance of capturing the body being dumped—if the killer had passed the Platt’s house.
Moving through the report, she found the excruciating, detailed description of Sandy’s injuries and skimmed over it. There were diagrams relating to the impact of the body against the vehicle. According to Nicholls, the vehicle had some form of skirt below the bumper, preventing Sandy’s legs from bending underneath. He estimated it to have a lower bumper height of around 230 millimetres and an upper bumper height of around 485 millimetres. Thankfully, he’d provided a list of possible manufacturers and vehicle types. Volkswagen, Toyota, Hyundai, Seat, and BMW, most of which looked to be large family cars, manufactured over the last fifteen years.
Blowing out a breath, she knew that was going to be one hell of a long list. A search of such vehicles registered in the surrounding areas alone resulted in a list of almost four hundred possibilities. Shit. She needed to find a way of narrowing it down. She made a mental note to call Forensics to see if they had pulled any paint flecks from Sandy’s clothing. At least then they would know what colour vehicle they were looking for.
Putting a call out for PC Davies, she asked him to check with the local garages for repairs to the types of cars on Nicholls’s list, just in case. Pushing back from her desk, she realised that she was finally alone in the now-quiet room. She looked around, wondering when exactly everyone had left. The events of the day had filled her head with so many questions, but she had still found time to think about last night. Leaning back in her chair, she could see that all the blinds were down in Helen’s office, but the door was ajar, inviting her in. She hadn’t even realised that Helen was back at the station.
The room looked dark, but as she got closer, she could see that there was a desk lamp on. Pushing the door open a little, she leaned against the door frame, watching Helen read a report as she perched on the front of her desk.
A few moments passed before Helen looked up, meeting her gaze. They had kept their distance from each other all day, but Helen apparently couldn’t keep the grin off her face as they held each other’s stare.
“Everyone’s gone for the night, Guv. Is there anything else?” She moved inside, closing the door behind her.
Helen stretched out her legs in front of her and crossed her ankles. “I was just reading Uniform’s report on the Whiting clan. They all have alibis, apparently. They’re in the process of checking them out. Any more luck on Sandy’s romantic antics?”
She shook her head as she stood in front of her. “Finding the car that hit him might be even trickier. I’ve asked Davies to check out the repair garages in the area.”
She scolded herself. She didn’t want to talk shop now. Placing her feet either side of Helen’s crossed ankles, she continued to move up her long legs, watching the expression change on Helen’s face as she got closer to
her torso.
“What are you…?” she started to say. “Someone might…” she tried again.
She stopped moving, their bodies only inches apart, placing a finger over Helen’s lips to stop her from continuing with her admonishment. When she replaced her finger with her lips, her kiss was gentle, teasing at first, until Helen reacted.
She smiled to herself as Helen threw caution to the wind and pulled her closer. Thoughts of being caught in a compromising position with a junior officer must have slipped her mind.
With a press of her crotch onto Helen’s thigh, she began to gently rub against the firm flesh below. There was dampness between her thighs.
Helen’s response was an immediate move to Kate’s trousers. She stealthily undid the buttons and zipper. Slipping her hand inside, she lowered her thigh just enough to cup her hot centre.
She wrapped an arm around Helen’s neck and buried her hand in her hair while pressing harder against the hand between her thighs. She rushed towards her orgasm, pulling away from Helen’s swollen lips to conceal her moan against Helen’s neck as she came.
When she pulled back to look at Helen, she saw only desire in her darkened eyes, a small grin of accomplishment on her lips. As much as she wanted to reciprocate, she knew better than to push her luck. She was just about to suggest meeting up later when a wiggle of Helen’s fingers brought a fresh wave of spasms, making the words catch in her throat.
Hearing the giggle in Helen’s voice as she asked “What’s up?” made her act fast. Grabbing Helen’s fingers, she stepped back, allowing her to force two of Helen’s fingers inside her. The shock on Helen’s face made it all worthwhile as she adjusted her posture for the best position.
“Wiggle them all you like now!”
The challenge set, Helen began slowly thrusting her fingers inside her. She groaned in pleasure once more as the pads of Helen’s fingers massaged her G-spot with each thrust.
She frantically slipped her hand inside the waistband of Helen’s trousers, quickly finding the wetness she wanted. Using two fingers, she circled Helen’s clit with every thrust Helen made inside her.
Payback Page 14
