“Don’t eat all the croissants,” he warned.
With time on her hands, breakfast alone had little appeal. Outside her window, the sparkling morning called. Until a few months ago, she had jogged every day, but since being suspended from duty as a detective with the North West Special Crimes Task Force six months ago, she’d let her exercise regime dwindle to a gentle walk on the beach.
Yesterday, her boss, Chief Superintendent Harris, had called to instruct her to return to work—it seemed the investigation into accusations that she’d accepted bribes from a gangster had failed to find any proof. Harris wanted her back in harness. Ellie’s heart beat in excitement. If she was to survive a foray into her life BCB - ‘Before Crash and Burn,’ which is how she thought of the crisis that led to her suspension - then she’d better limber up.
She was mentally plotting her route as she dragged on her jogging suit and trainers. Along the lane to the main road, back down and along the beach to the rocks. About two miles, a good start for someone as out of shape as I am, she thought, pausing by her front door to attach a key to the chain around her neck. Then she stepped out onto the terrace and started a few stretching exercises.
Ellie jogged slowly along the lane, glad it was still early morning and there was no one about. Tuesday suddenly appeared and jogged alongside her, his tongue lolling slightly, but showing little effect from his exertions. Unlike Ellie herself, who soon had to stop, bending at the waist to ease the stitch in her side. She glared resentfully at the mutt. The dog sat alongside her, fixing her with his black raisin eyes, and she was sure he was laughing.
“Look, I used to be good at this!” she declared, sticking her tongue out at Tuesday before resuming her run. This time even more slowly. She paced herself with intermittent bouts of running and walking until she established a rhythm, jogging along the hard, wet sand at the water’s edge and enjoying the morning solitude with the dog trotting at her heels. Even the gaudily colorful towers of the new FunLand Family Resort, visible over the cliff edge, failed to dampen her mood.
As they neared the rocks, Tuesday began to growl. The ruff of scruffy white fur around his neck stood up. “Is there somebody there, boy?” Ellie whispered, looking around the seemingly deserted stretch of copper-hued sand. Tuesday was used to strangers on the beach and usually treated them with either canine contempt or a joyous greeting, which in the case of small children sometimes quite literally bowled them over.
This growling, belly-to-the-ground stalking was strange behavior, and shivers ran down Ellie’s spine while the sweat dampened hair on the small of her neck prickled. Then Tuesday took off into the rocks, growling low in his throat as he slipped and slithered over the tide-wet shale. Abruptly, he stopped and issued a single bark. The loud, staccato sound startled Ellie. When it was repeated, she began to move reluctantly toward the spot where the dog had disappeared behind tall rounded boulders. As she approached, she feared she already knew what he had found, and she shivered.
But it was much, much worse than she’d imagined.
Resort to Murder
CHAPTER TWO
Liam Reilly—Superintendent Reilly, now—tossed the paperback book down on his desk and sighed in exasperation and weariness. Who would have thought that such an innocuous looking volume, with its luridly colored cover, could wreak such havoc?
“Hector Abbott—Justice Denied?” by an unknown author named B. S. Anderson, had been published by a little-known publishing company—and caught the attention of the national press like a bush fire burning out of control. Already there’d been calls for a full judicial review of the Sunshine Slasher case with politicians and civil rights groups demanding justice for this alleged poor victim of police incompetence. Somehow, the rights of the real victims—four brutally slain women—had been lost in the cacophony of pity for a man this book claimed had been wrongfully convicted.
Reilly rubbed his long fingers along the bridge of his nose, feeling a throbbing headache gathering there.
If any of these do-gooding citizens had actually spent five minutes in the company of Abbott, breathed in the miasma of insanity and evil that oozed from the man, they’d leave quietly with tails between their legs, he thought.
As if this baying for police blood wasn’t enough, the police phone lines had been jammed with nutzoids claiming to be the real Sunshine Slasher. And all of them had to be answered. Each crazy tale had to be followed up, each nonsensical tip investigated, each deluded confession checked. Most, if not all, would prove to be dead ends, using up precious time and manpower for no purpose other than indulging the warped delusions of the callers. Yet they could not take the risk of ignoring one of these calls and finding out with hindsight that the caller had been offering a genuine lead. To do so could result in the release of a brutal killer to rape and murder again.
Reilly grimaced. His budget and manpower were already stretched to the limit.
He closed his eyes, and Ellie Fitzpatrick’s face painted itself upon his eyelids. His stomach tightened as it did each time he thought of her; his heart swelled with anger and another feeling—a feeling he refused to identify other than that it involved loss. And regret.
And he wondered if Ellie had read B. S. Anderson’s tale of woe that claimed to vindicate Hector Abbott. And if she had, what was she thinking now?
In his bright office on the second floor of police headquarters in Leeds, Reilly sat with his feet on the desk, his chair leaning backwards as he stared out of the window at the busy cityscape. Two people came into the office, but he didn’t even glance in their direction.
“Here’s your coffee and sandwich, sir.” Sergeant Jane Corby, a pretty redhead with a bad attitude about fetching and carrying for her superior, plunked the cafeteria tray onto his desk. Reilly reached for the coffee cup, and finally acknowledging the man who’d entered the room with Jane, asked lazily, “So, Richards, I thought you were off-duty? It’s not like you to put in extra hours.”
If the other man was irritated, he didn’t show it. “Just came back to drop off this report on the Stottford incident, sir,” Richards said, but Reilly knew by the air of suppressed excitement about the man that this was an excuse.
“Well, Richards, you be off now,” he said. “Smells like you’ve already had a liquid breakfast. Why don’t you go home and sleep it off?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know who I met in the pub yesterday evening?” Richards asked, and now the malice shone brightly in his face.
“Frankly, I’m not into guessing games.” Reilly injected a world of weariness into his voice.
“Ellie Fitzpatrick, having lunch with an elderly rich-looking poncy character who could barely keep his manicured paws off her!” Richards said triumphantly, staying just long enough to enjoy the ripple of shock cross the other man’s face before making good his escape.
Reilly tried not to let the shock show, sensing his sergeant was watching him closely. Slowly, he raised the coffee mug to his lips, thinking all the while: Ellie? He became aware of the telephone on his desk ringing and of his sergeant’s impatient sigh when he didn’t answer it himself. But the thought of Ellie fogged his brain, and Richards’ information had caught him like a steam hammer blow. Ellie, with a rich lover? Something akin to pain raced through his chest, the memories sharp and clear. She hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye...
He heard Jane Corby’s brisk tone, and realized she was calling his name. Giving himself a mental shake, Reilly took the telephone from her hand, and barked his name. Listening a few moments, he asked a couple of questions and then replaced the receiver, his face grim.
“We’ll need a car, Jane. They’ve found a body on the beach, out near Whitby, and the local men think we need to have a look.”
****
All night he’d been on an adrenalin high, filled with the sheer audacity of his actions, the knowledge that what he had done had put him above other men who only dreamed of such dark deeds.
Now he crouched behind bushes on
the cliff, watching through binoculars as first that damned dog and then Ellie Fitzpatrick herself, found what he had left behind. And you wanted her to be the first one to view your work, didn’t you? The sense of power made his hands tremble, and he could barely focus the binoculars.
****
The police machinery ran on well-oiled wheels, and Ellie prickled with resentment at being treated as an outsider. After the initial shock of seeing the woman’s body wedged between the rocks on the beach, she had moved carefully forward, fighting back pity and revulsion as she gently touched the pale out-flung arm at the wrist, seeking the throb of blood she knew was no longer present. Life was extinct. That ascertained, she raced back to her cottage as though the devil was at her heels, and dialed the emergency operator with trembling fingers. Then she returned, reluctantly, to the beach to stand lonely vigil over her pathetic find.
The sun was higher by the time Ellie returned with a blanket to decently cover the body, and the scene stood out vividly in the bright light. Ellie swallowed hard as she took in details that she hadn’t noticed before, and she dropped the blanket onto nearby rocks. What she’d thought was an accidental drowning was, in fact, a crime scene. The woman’s red dress was soaked in blood, so much blood, camouflaging the red rose on her breast. It was one of the Sunshine Slasher’s trademarks; the gift of a red rose to each of his victims after he slit their throats. Ellie fought back nausea as the world spun around her.
Carefully, she backed away and sat down on a flat rock to wait for the emergency services. She was grateful for Tuesday’s silent company as the dog leaned into her leg shivering, the shadow of death making him fearful. She reached down absently to rub his ears, comforting them both. That was how the first police team had found her.
The seasoned-looking uniformed officer in charge, Sergeant Benman, studiously ignored Ellie as she attempted to point out the main details, leaving her fizzing with frustration as he took her name, address and telephone number. He asked her the standard questions: Could she identify the deceased? How did she come to be on the beach at that hour? Had she seen anyone else? Then he summarily dismissed her with a request that she “be available for further questions.”
Ellie bit back a caustic rebuke, realizing bitterly that she was out of the loop. The man had no idea that she knew as much—and likely more - about police procedures as he did. She was just a member of the public to him, someone who might have useful information but must not be allowed to interfere with the official process. An outsider, a civilian. She turned and trudged back toward her cottage, Tuesday at her heels, remembering with bitter irony the assured declaration of one of her training officers: Once a copper, always a copper.
She paced her living room, coffee cup in her hand, its contents half-drunk and gone cold. Nightmare images flashed before her eyes no matter how hard she tried to dispel them, and she wondered numbly how she would get through this. For the first time, she began to understand the helpless irritation that many innocent witnesses display, risking damning themselves in the suspicious eyes of the police.
Where was Brad? The kitchen clock showed it was a nearly ninety minutes since he’d called, and she craved the distraction of his presence to chase the images of the dead woman from her mind. From her terrace, she could see a dark-uniformed figure installing bright blue and white crime-scene tape in a wide area where the body lay. Not an easy job on the beach with rocks and stones and soft, silky sand. Had the police doctor or the coroner arrived yet? Ellie shuddered. Those thoughts took her too close, and she wanted to distance herself from the memory of blonde hair spilling over the morning-bleached sand, the gaping wound at the woman’s neck, and the red rose soaked in blood. Visions that echoed the scenes of the Slasher murders that still haunted her dreams.
Tired of waiting, she taped a note to her door informing anyone interested that she was in the shower - she certainly didn’t want some zealous constable marching in as she shampooed and soaped - and went to wash away the sweat of fear that clung to her body.
Twenty minutes later, relaxed from the hot water, she pulled on her silk robe and dried her tousled hair with a towel so that it fell in a golden halo around her face. Footsteps sounded on the terrace outside. “I’m so glad you’re back!” Ellie cried, expecting Brad.
But the words choked her. There, standing on her front step, a sardonic smile on his handsome face as he took in her tangled hair and the gaping neckline of the robe, was Liam Reilly.
“Reilly?” she gasped, unconsciously pulling the robe protectively about her.
“Ms. Fitzpatrick?” His tone and formal address showed he was more professionally in control than she was and Ellie flushed, acknowledging him with a nod as she tried to convince herself he wasn’t real.
“Superintendent Reilly, North West Central Task Force, and this is Sergeant Jane Corby.” Reilly’s voice was quiet, official and cold. Shivers raced along Ellie’s spine and heat that had little to do with her shower suffused her face.
“You got here very quickly,” she stammered. Too damn quickly. He raised an eyebrow at her and, feeling suddenly foolish, she stepped back to allow them inside. The smartly dressed redheaded sergeant was coolly professional, but Ellie caught the way the woman looked at her superior officer. Hero worship. Reilly seemed to attract that type. Women like herself. Still playing with the help, Reilly? The other woman was examining Ellie in the detached way a scientist might use on a particularly unusual species of bacteria, making her uncomfortably aware that she still wasn’t properly dressed and it was after 10 am. A far cry from the groomed, confident Ellie Fitzpatrick who had loved and been loved by Liam Reilly. Who was now Superintendent Liam Reilly.
“So you got the promotion?” Ellie asked, trying to win back the upper hand. They were, after all, in her living room. It seemed unfair that he should be in control so early in the game.
“Some time ago, yes,” Reilly replied, as if reaching such dizzy heights meant little to him. The promotion Ellie had thought would be hers.
She was conscious of the interested looks that Jane Corby flashed between them and her irritation grew. “How can I help you? Will this take long? I was planning to go out,” she lied as some primal instinct drummed at her, urging her to escape.
Reilly’s dark look took in the table set for two. “It looks as though you were just about to sit down and eat,” he commented mildly.
“Yes, well, but after this morning I’ve kind of lost my appetite...”
“Understandably so. Now,” he said, unbuttoning his beautifully tailored jacket and seating himself on the hard sofa without waiting for an invitation, “I understand that you found the body?”
“I’ve already given the details to the uniformed sergeant...”
“Come on, Ms. Fitzpatrick. You know the drill,” Reilly replied coldly, letting her know he would brook no nonsense from her. From the corner of her eye, Ellie saw Jane Corby startle a little and glance hard at Ellie: she had made the connection. Corby hadn’t been on staff when Ellie had been disgraced, but she would have heard all the gossip. And maybe even some of the facts, Ellie thought wryly.
“Okay, Superintendent, okay. I was down on the beach, jogging...”
“Is this part of your normal routine?” Corby interrupted, and the eye she cast over Ellie suggested she found it hard to believe the other woman was into a keep-fit lifestyle.
“No, not exactly...”
“So what took you down there?”
“Just, well, no reason.” Ellie avoided revealing her real motives for getting back in shape. Let them find out about her conversation with the Chief Superintendent later! “I just decided I wanted to start a fitness program, you know, summer coming on and everything... so I did some warm-ups and then jogged up the lane and back, and then down on the beach toward the rocks.”
“Any particular reason why you chose this route today?” Reilly asked.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Ellie’s exasperation bubbled over. “I found the bod
y, Reilly - I didn’t put it there!”
“Ms. Fitzpatrick, you must realize that we have to have all the facts and ask all the questions before we can come to any conclusions about what’s important and what isn’t.” Reilly’s voice with its slight Irish burr was reasonable and calm. Ellie’s palms itched with a sudden desire to slap him.
“As an innocent bystander, there’s certainly no reason for you to get excited about helping the police by answering a few questions,” Corby added, looking as if she was suppressing a sly smile, and Ellie had to rub the palms of her hands together to stem the intensifying itching.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she shrugged. “I calculated the route would be around two miles and that seemed like a good starting distance. I’m a little out of shape,” she explained, hating the warm color that spread to her cheeks as she saw Reilly’s lips twitch, his eyes roving over her with a familiarity that left her breathless. “Anyway, I’d just got near the rocks when the dog started barking...no, no, he wasn’t barking, he was growling in this funny way...”
“Back up a moment. There’s a dog?” Corby asked, looking nervously around the room.
“Yes, but he’s not here...”
“So where is this dog now?” Reilly asked, and Ellie was sure his lips twitched even more.
“He’s a stray. He hangs around here and I put leftovers out for him. I usually walk on the beach, a little later in the morning, and he comes with me - or follows when I cycle down to the CrossRoads for breakfast...”
“Indeed?” The twitching was definitely there. The brute was enjoying her discomfort!
“So, anyway, I’ve never heard him growl this way before, sort of deep in his throat. Then he took off into the rocks, and started to bark. I think I knew that he’d found ...something ...even before I got there and looked.”
“And what exactly did you see?”
“A woman, with long fair hair, huddled against the rocks. I knew at once that she was dead - thought there’d been an accident - a drowning. It was still not quite light. It wasn’t until after I’d phoned the emergency services and then returned that I saw...”
Resort to Murder Page 2
