by Emily Selby
'Yeah, Heaton rang me with an update last night. That's why I feel like I've been working long days, not just mornings.'
'Do you have any idea where the box could be?'
'I thought about it so much last night, I had a nightmare that it was in the graveyard.'
Katie shuddered. 'Awful. You must have been really tired. But I've been thinking, too,' she continued, keen to keep the subject professional. 'What bothers me most is why would Amanda leave a message pointing to Hamish, but rip off the part that shows the box, if it's their loot inside?'
'Good question. Maybe she wanted to attract attention to her own death rather than whatever was happening in the photo?'
Katie tucked the loose strand behind her ear and started to twirl it. 'Let's talk it through. If the box contained the stolen money and some other valuables, obviously, both Amanda and Hamish took part in hiding it. I'm assuming Hamish took the photo, how else he would have it.'
'You're not subscribing to the theory this is a random photo taken from the internet with the intention to scare Amanda?' Chris asked, a smile playing on his lips.
'No, not at all. I think it was all too well thought-out,' she said and sipped from her cup. Her head was clear this morning. A gentle tugging poked at her stomach. 'I think Hamish wanted something very badly from Amanda, and he used the photo to bully her into doing this for him.'
'Doing what? Killing herself?' Chris asked looking at her blankly.
'No. Why would she- Oh!' Katie paused and considered Chris' comment. 'I shouldn't have dismissed it,' she murmured. 'It sounds crazy, but let's add it to our list. But why would he want her dead?'
'To take the secret to the grave?'
Katie glanced at Chris, hoping her eyes conveyed her annoyance. 'That nightmare has had an impact on you, hasn't it?' she said calmly. 'Okay, I see your point,' she carried on, 'but the evidence is against Hamish and Adam's involvement.'
'I know,' Chris said grimy. 'I sifted through some of this evidence. Celia has been too busy with the preparations for her wedding to go through the hotel CCTV footage.'
Katie ignored the comment. Despite her improving relationship with the young constable, Katie still preferred it when she wasn't around. 'Let's keep our minds focused on the case, shall we?' she chastised him.
'I'll try my best,' he grumbled and took a long swing from his cup. 'Here’s another theory. What if it was only Amanda who knew where the loot had been hidden? Her fingerprints are all over the box, apparently. She was the one who took the photo and showed him as a proof she did the job. Now, he wanted her to reveal the place where she's hidden it.'
Katie's hand wandered back to the strand of hair. Chris had come up with an interesting hypothesis. Except for... 'But why would he kill his only source of information?' she asked.
'Maybe he got the location from her and killed her afterwards. He spoke with her on Saturday, remember?'
If twirling the strand usually helped, why wasn't it helping today?
Katie took another sip of her coffee. 'If we could only find the box. If your theory was correct, where do you think she hid it?'
'In the bush behind an old house, or at the back of a graveyard,' Chris added and flashed her a grin.
Katie rolled her eyes. 'I'm going to ignore the graveyard thing, but an old house could do. At the back of an old house they were renovating?'
'They would know that, wouldn't they?'
'Not if she hasn't told them, or what she told them wasn't true. Or maybe she hid it while they were in jail-'
'Impossible,' Chris interrupted her. 'She left the country before they were arrested and convicted.'
'What if they discovered they were under investigation and asked her to hide it. They had no means of communication with her. Maybe this was their way to keep this box safe, by cutting everything to do with it, including Amanda, off?'
'Until it was safe to recover the box? It would make sense,' Chris said, nodding. 'Why do you think she hid it at a back of a house?'
'Dunno,' Katie replied, stopping her free hand half way to her ear. She drained the rest of her coffee. 'Maybe because she knew a good deal about houses. How long did she work for that estate agency?'
Chris' swivelled in his chair and tapped on his keyboard. 'She worked there between November 2013 and February 2015, assuming she didn't lie about it on the CV we've got from her husband.'
'That's over a year, and not that long ago. Maybe they still remember her?'
'Oh, shoots!' Chris groaned again. 'I saw that email last night and forgot to read it properly. It's been crazy. Hold on, I'll find it.' The keyboard rattled a little, accompanied by Chris' mumbling. 'Here it is. Look at that, they did remember her,' he boomed.
Katie rolled her chair closer to his. She stretched her neck, but the letters on the screen were too small. 'What do they say about Amanda?'
'The woman who replied, Randee, definitely remembers your friend,' Chris replied. 'Amanda left abruptly, in the middle of a few important negotiations, leaving Randee to deal with the mess. But apart from that one thing, they were happy with her. Amanda was easy to get on with, potential customers liked her. She sold a couple of houses very quickly, then it slowed down, but so did the market.'
Katie inched forward and squinted her eyes. 'What are these?' she asked, pointing her finger at a list at the bottom of the email.
'A list of houses she sold and rented out during the period she worked there.' Chris replied.
Katie clapped her hands. 'That's just pure gold! Let's have a look,' she urged him. 'What a coincidence they sent the list to us.'
'Heaton requested it. He rang them last night to follow up on his email. I was included in the copy list. He must have had a hunch about these addresses.'
'What did he have a hunch about and why are you two already at work?' Jack's baritone thundered from the doorway. Chris and Katie turned to face him.
'Morning, sir. Just been talking about you,' Chris was faster.
Katie just waved.
Chris filled him in on their discussions.
'They sent the list of houses, that's great,' Jack said strolling towards the desk where Katie and Chris were sitting. 'That was Katie's idea, by the way. Remember?' Jack looked at her in the same warm and soft way he had been looking at her a lot lately.
Frighteningly frequently.
Katie lowered her head, in case her face conveyed her emotions.
'How about we check them?' she offered.
'What do you hope to find?' Chris asked.
'Something. Anything. A connection with a case, a hint of a new trail to follow,' she rattled off. 'I have a hunch...' she said more to herself, but Jack must have heard it.
'What's your hunch,' he asked, eagerly.
'The house that was sold for cash may be the one we're looking for. Which one do you think it is?' she asked, tapping her finder on the list at the bottom of the email.
Jack blinked. He pushed his glasses up his nose. Katie waited for the familiar congratulatory gesture, but he just stayed there, frozen.
'She had nothing to do with that house. It was Hamish and Adam who flipped it. And it has been searched thoroughly.'
Katie hunched. 'Silly me! Of course,' she said quickly, turning her face away to hide her embarrassment. How could she mix it up? 'Why did I even think of it,' she carried on, pushing the chair away. 'Chris, could you forward the email to me, so I can check the addresses on the online maps?'
'No problem,' Chris replied. 'The email flying your way rrrrr-ight now.'
Katie strode towards her office. 'I'd better do it in my office, so you two can work here,' she said, still unable to look Jack in the face. 'Why did I even think Amanda's death and the fraud she apparently had no connection with were connected?'
32
Katie plopped onto her chair and booted her computer. The noise added to the humming in her head. Katie covered her ears. She was stuck, stuck, stuck! Stuck to the point that the information was getting mixed u
p in her mind.
The case was well above her pay grade, literary so. At first, she thought she struggled to see it clearly, it might have been because it involved her friend. But over the past couple of days it became obvious that Katie simply didn't have enough specialist knowledge to solve the puzzle. In previous cases she found answers to her questions by snooping on people, digging up gossip. This time it was different. This time, she barely used her favourite tool — the Sunnyvale grapevine. The chats with Zuza were important, and then the little snippet from Dorothy, but other than that - nope.
This case had become an international murder mystery with a sprinkling of big money-laundering-cum-tax-fraud. And that was something she didn't have the brains to solve - on all three counts.
Katie grasped the edge of her desk and took a deep breath. It helped a little. So, she tried again.
The screen lit up and a message about a new email from Chris popped up. She needed to get on with it. This was the least she could do to help progress this investigation. Find the house where the box might have been hidden.
She clicked on the email and scrolled to the bottom of it. A fairly long list. Amanda must have made a nice income on the commissions. Katie decided to start from the first one and work her way down.
She opened the browser and pasted the first address into the search bar. She enlarged the map that appear at the top of the search and stared at it.
What was she supposed to look for? A property with a piece of bush behind it? That was just crazy! There must be another way. She leant back, chewing on her cheek. Houses - sold and flipped kept popping up in this case, which was why she gotten the two cases confused few minutes ago! Hamish renovated, Amanda sold. Did she ever sell any of the houses he'd renovated? How would she know?
Katie drummed her fingers on the desktop. Would Amanda's mother know? Well, it didn't hurt to check, even if she had to suffer another moaning session.
Katie sprang to her feet and rushed back to the staffroom. The only person sitting at the keyboard was Celia Baxter. Katie froze on the spot.
'Where are they?' Katie asked, giving herself a little nudge to keep her voice friendly, or at least neutral.
'You mean Chris and DI Heaton?' Celia glanced at Katie. 'You don't know where they are?'
Katie pressed her lips. She wasn't going to respond to the message between the lines. 'They were here a few minutes ago,' she said as neutrally as she could.
A twitch crossed Celia's pretty face. 'They're talking to someone from the New Zealand consulate, using the teleconferencing equipment.'
'In the boss' office?'
'Yes, why are you asking?' Celia's almond-shaped eyes narrowed. Katie tensed.
'I'm just trying to help with this case,' she said slowly. Would her conversations with Celia ever become easy? 'I wanted to call someone, who may be able to provide vital information,' she explained.
Celia shrugged. 'Help yourself,' she said and pointed to the phone. Katie crossed to Jack's desk, found the note with Mrs Lee's phone number and dialled it.
Fortunately for Katie, Mrs Lee was suffering another bout of insomnia and was more than keen to talk.
'So sorry to bother you, Mrs Lee. It's Katie from Sunnyvale police,' she explained calmly, putting as much empathy into her voice as she could muster. 'I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind.'
Mrs Lee didn't mind but took a while to reach the point of saying so.
'Amanda had a boyfriend while in New Zealand. His name is Hamish. Have you ever met him?'
'Amanda was a secretive girl and shared very little with me.' O-ho! Mrs Lee was off on her whine again. Katie held her tongue and listened, racking her brain for ways to interrupt tactfully and redirect the conversation where she wanted it to go.
'He's tall, dark haired and...' Katie cut in. She described Hamish in as much detail as she could remember. 'He was into renovating houses,' she added.
'Ah, that one!' A clear note of disapproval brimmed in Mrs Lee's voice. 'They were working on the house next door. That was in the summer when Amanda was staying with us. She quickly moved out. She didn't get on with my partner, that is - my current husband.'
Hurray! It worked.
'Did she move in with him?'
'No idea, my dear. As I said, she was very secretive, that ungrateful daughter of mine...'
'Didn't she tell you where she was moving? What about a forwarding address for the post?' Katie quickly interrupted.
'She never had any post. But I think she kept moving from place to place. I think she mentioned once she didn't have to pay rent, was just staying in people's houses.'
Interesting.
'Was she house-sitting?'
'Sort of.' Mrs Lee paused. 'My memory is quite bad, and you need to remember that she was never very forthcoming with details. But we had this argument about her stuff still staying in our house. I asked her to move it, and she said she couldn't because where she was staying at the time there was no room. Imagine that!' Mrs Lee snorted. 'No room for a single suitcase. Like it was a house under renovation or something. That's what she said, I think.'
'When was that?'
'I can't remember, but I think it was still the same summer. I was angry with her, because she had already started that job and it was supposed to pay well, and she was living in a small place where she couldn't even fit a suitcase. Ridiculous!'
On the contrary... It sounded like something to take note of, and Katie did.
'Did she ever collect the suitcase?'
'After an argument. She said she'd have to move.'
'Did she?'
'Yes, and funnily enough it was the house on the same street, just opposite. The one where that young family with sick children moved in later on. Yeah, that why I thought she must have been living in houses under renovation. Maybe she was helping?' Mrs Lee's voice softened a little. 'That was a way to save money and she always wanted to travel.'
Katie's eyes itched again. She blinked to push away tears that began to gather behind her eyelids. 'Did she travel a lot?'
'She did a trip around New Zealand just before she returned to England. I think she also visited China on her way back. She didn't tell me much, just mentioned it in passing. Poor girl.' Mrs Lee sighed and paused. 'Poor girl,' she repeated. 'At least she had some things to enjoy. She hadn't had an easy life...'
Katie suppressed the urge to explore Amanda's life, but this wasn't relevant. The tugging in her stomach had returned and Katie was convinced she needed to follow another trail.
Just a moment. Young family, sick children?
'The house where she moved in, where was it?'
'You want the address?'
'If you remember.'
'I don't know the number, but it was Rata Street.' The woman spelled the name of the street, even though Katie got it right the first time.
'Was it the family where she used to look after the children?'
'How do you know? Have I already told you? They used to live opposite us, with their cousins or someone, and she looked after the kids sometimes, for free, when mother and father had some work to do. They couldn't afford a child minder and the cousins were often drunk, so the kids played in the street. Amanda got very upset once and collected the kids and organised them ball games under the trees in the reserve. She did that a few times. She was quite good with kids. Particularly unprivileged kids. When the house was finished, they rented it out to that family.'
The tugging became pulling and her stomach ached.
'Who were the owners?' Katie asked, her voice coming out a little too harsh.
'No idea, why?'
'Just wondering if it had anything to do with her ex-boyfriend. He's a suspect in her death,' Katie said quickly. 'Was this house renovated as well?'
'I really can't remember. And to be honest, even if they renovated it, they did a dodgy job. We found out this was a contaminated house, a P-lab. Which is why I got sick.'
Katie steadied her breath. A P-house, s
ick children, dodgy renovating job... Was she onto something?
'Mrs Lee, can I just check if I've got it right? The house opposite was a P-Lab?'
'No, no, my dear. It was the house next door. Sorry, I got it all confused. It must have been the house next door because the fumes were getting into our garden. And every time I was outside-'
'Was it to your left, or right?' Katie cut in.
'To our left. A little shack at the end of the street, squeezed in between the reserve and the car park.'
'This was where the young family lived?'
'At first they lived opposite, and then they moved next door to that P-house. Yes, that was it! I got it wrong before.'
Katie let out a long breath. 'Thank you very much Mrs Lee. That's very helpful. I hope you feel better now.'
'I do, indeed. But the poor child is dead. They really should check those houses before anyone else is allowed to live in them.'
'I'm sorry, Mrs Lee,' Katie rushed to interrupt yet another impending whining session. 'I've got to go now. Thank you again.'
Katie put the phone down and did a little fist pump.
'A successful call, I gather?' Celia said.
'Yep,' Katie replied, tensing again. Was there a hidden sting?
Celia looked at her for a few very long seconds.
'Well done then,' she said eventually and... smiled.
Katie stayed frozen on the spot, still unsure if it was the end of the exchange or not. But when Celia turned her head back to her screen, Katie relaxed.
'Thank you,' Katie said quietly. She walked back to her office, trying not to dance.
A house at the end of a street, between a reserve and a car park. It sounded like the hiding place she was looking for.
33
Katie’s hands trembled when she scrolled down the list of the houses Amanda had sold. Rata Street! There it was. She copied the address into the map's search bar and refreshed.
The map showed a dot at the end of a street.
