by Linda Coles
When they finally separated Ruth said, “You look amazing as usual.”
“As do you. Love those heels, by the way.”
“A girl can’t have too many shoes, eh? Now how does a juicy burger sound for lunch, or have you another preference? Vietnamese? Curry? You name it.”
“Oh, a burger,” she exclaimed, feeling her stomach gurgle like a bathtub emptying. “It’s been too long since I last had a proper one, and those skinny things the kids eat don’t really count. I’m in.”
Ruth hooked Stephanie’s arm in hers and the two friends left the building in search of food. As always, conversation between the two of them was easy.
“So, what’s new in your world, Steph?”
“Not a lot, I have to say. Just steady. And I think I like it that way.” Stephanie beamed at her friend and confidante. Finally, her eyes had started to sparkle again of recent weeks.
“You look great, as usual, but you also look great on a different level too, if that makes sense. I can see you have your sparkle back; you’re glowing again, which is lovely to see.” Ruth squeezed her arm. “Things are finally settling for you.”
“Thanks. I feel much better in myself. Onwards and upwards and all that. I couldn’t have done it without your support, though, and I thank you.” She squeezed Ruth’s arm in return. They walked together in comfortable silence for a few beats, then Stephanie asked, “And what’s new in your world, then? How are the wedding plans coming along? We’ve not really talked about them much.” Ruth looked sheepish as she turned to her friend, and Stephanie caught her meaning.
“Ah, I see. Me and my disaster of a marriage. Well, that’s all behind me now, so don’t worry about mentioning weddings. I’m as excited about your big day as you are, and I want to hear all about your plans. Don’t avoid the subject on my account, okay?”
“Okay,” Ruth said with relief in her voice. She opened the door to the pub and the smell of beer, old polished wood and freshly cooked fries assailed them.
“Then I will get you up to speed,” Ruth went on, “because I’m busting to share them with someone. Amanda agreed for me to organize it all, which is what I wanted to do, so she’s no clue what I’ve got planned.”
“Two glasses of white wine, please,” Stephanie ordered as a barman caught her eye. Or she his, in reality. Steph never had a problem getting a drink order organized, or any service for that matter. The barman was young, but old enough to be a man. His body shape told her he worked hard at the gym.
“Burger?” Stephanie enquired.
“Burger!” Ruth replied.
“And two house burgers and fries to go with that,” she called.
“I’ll bring them over. Find yourselves a seat,” he called back. His cute smile could have made ice cream melt in an igloo.
Ruth watched with amusement. “Well, he’s clocked you for sure. You might be in there. I bet he slips you his number when he brings the food over –mark my words.” She winked, making Stephanie laugh out loud.
“I’m old enough to be his mother, so I doubt it.”
“I’ll bet you a fiver he does.”
“Okay, you’re on. Prepare to lose a fiver.”
Ruth pocketed the fiver with a smile. They sipped their drinks and chatted about wedding plans as they ate, then Ruth exclaimed, “Oh, I know what I meant to tell you. Last night, Amanda was telling Jack and me a story her hairdresser had told her.”
And on she went. Stephanie sat back and listened as Ruth went over the story again of the woman whose hair had been chopped off.
“How weird is that?” she said when Ruth had finished. “And how mean.” Stephanie felt the colour drain from her face.
“Are you okay? Only you’ve gone as white as the icing on my wedding cake.” Ruth put her hand on Stephanie’s arm.
Stephanie took a long mouthful of wine for strength, then enquired, “Was there a card left, by any chance? It’s important I know. Do you know if there was?”
“I don’t know. Why? Whatever is the matter?”
Stephanie took a deep breath before answering.
“Because remember that night all those years ago when I was drugged by that pig Sebastian Stevens?
“I remember you telling me, yes.”
“Well, someone chopped my hair off too. It wasn’t him, though; I’m sure of that. But they did leave a card.”
“And what did it say?”
“It said, ‘Your debt has been settled. I’d advise you to tell no one. It wouldn’t be wise.’ If this girl had a card left too, then it’s still going on.”
“What’s still going on?”
“I’ve no idea. Whatever it is, though, they’re still doing it.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ruth couldn’t believe what she’d heard. After all her friend had been through recently, Ruth had managed to drag something up from more than fifteen years ago to add to the poor woman’s recent stress. By the end of their lunch date, Stephanie had regained her colour, thanks to a stiff brandy. Ruth had walked her back to the tube station, Stephanie earnestly assuring her she was fine. It had all been a bit of a shock, that was all. As for Ruth, she knew she had to talk to Amanda, and quickly.
“I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but this is important.” Ruth hardly ever called Amanda during her shift; she usually resorted to text messages if she had to tell her something. But this couldn’t wait any longer.
“What’s up? Everything alright?” Amanda was generally cool and in control, but when she’d seen Ruth’s name on the call display, she’d thought the worst.
“It’s about that woman who had her hair chopped off.”
“What’s so important about that?”
“I’ve just had lunch with Stephanie and mentioned it to her because, well, it’s an unusual story. And she went as white as snow. I asked her what was up and before she answered, she asked me the strangest thing.”
“What?”
“She asked if a card had been left. It turns out that, that night Sebastian Stevens drugged her, someone cut her hair off too. And they left a card. Like a calling card, with a message on it.”
“What? Shit! What did the card say? And how come she’s only just mentioned it today?”
“It said not to tell, that it wouldn’t be wise. And I guess it never came up before, with everything else going on.”
“I guess not.” A couple of beats passed as Amanda thought about the card. “I wonder what it means? It sounds rather threatening. And this puts another slant on things. I’d better pop over and see Jeremy, see if I can chat to the woman involved or at least to her mum; she’s the one who told him. If this second girl was given a card too – and we don’t know she did as yet – then there is something to investigate further.”
“Maybe she had a card with the same message, and that’s why she hasn’t told anyone. Maybe her own mother isn’t aware?”
That made sense. “I see what you mean. But it’s a start, so I’ll see where I get. And Ruth?”
“Yes?”
“Not a word to anyone, not even Stephanie, about this yet.”
“Of course. My work here is done. Over to the detectives.” Ruth sniggered lightly.
“Ha, ha, very funny. I’ll see you later.” Amanda hung up and stared at her phone as if the answer had popped up on the screen. No such luck. Jack was nearby, cajoling the coffee machine to dispense a cup, and his exasperation was showing at its non-delivery. Operator error, Amanda thought, smiling ruefully.
“Give me Nescafe any day. My blood pressure can’t stand the disappointment,” he grumbled, loud enough for Amanda to hear. She smiled at his agitation and walked over to help. It wasn’t the first time, probably not even the tenth time.
“You really do amaze me, Jack. A smart person you are, yet when coffee machines are involved, you’re the dumbest of the dumbest. Here, let me,” she said, pushing him gently out of the way. Amanda quickly assessed the situation and realized his error. She walked over to the tap
and filled the plastic well with water then inserted it back onto the machine, trying hard to contain her amusement. Jack was aware that others in the incident room had stopped working and were watching the performance.
“I find it works better with water myself,” Amanda said, slotting the water well back into place. There was no need for her to say anything else. Nor Jack. She pressed the requisite button and the machine sprang into life, thick brown aromatic liquid filling his mug with a satisfied ‘chug, chug.’ There was almost a round of applause, but no one wanted to be the one to start it, so the air took on a sort of silent applause in its place, one that could be felt rather than heard. Grinning faces returned to their duties. Rather than hang around while Jack’s mug filled, Amanda left him to wait for his brew and calm himself back down.
A couple of minutes later, when he was back at his desk sipping contentedly, she approached him with the news. “Listen, Jack. We might have something going on with the hair chopping case I told you about. Seems there might be more to it.”
“Oh? I didn’t know there was a case.” A milky moustache covered his top lip and Amanda motioned with her fingers to her own top lip. He got the hint and wiped it away. The foam was now on the back of his hand. He stared at it.
“We didn’t, but I’ve just heard about another woman from some years ago who had her hair taken. And get this: whoever did it left a card saying not to tell, that it wouldn’t be wise. I’m off to see Jeremy, see if I can speak to the more recent woman or her mother and find out if they also had a card. You coming?”
Jack raised his coffee mug as if to say ‘I’ve just got this’ and said, “No. I’ll stay here and get some paperwork done. I’m drowning in it. You go. Let me know what she says.”
Amanda watched as he wiped the froth from his hand with his handkerchief. Finally. She grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair and headed out to the hairdresser’s for the second time in a week.
This time, it wasn’t for tea and gossip.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Let me guess. My roots are that bad you thought you’d better come back and do them before much longer.” Judy Palmer smiled as she kidded him. He’d only ever been to their house once before. Jeremy’s face told her he wasn’t feeling quite so jovial today.
“Hello, Judy. May I talk to you for a moment, please?”
She opened the door wide and stood back, beckoning him through. “Can I get you some tea? Though you look like you might want something stronger. Are you alright, Jeremy?”
“Tea, thank you. That would be nice.” He climbed up on the bar stool that stood by the breakfast bar, his body half twisted towards Judy as he watched her make the tea.
“What’s on your mind to bring you back out here?”
“I’ve got a confession to make. And I’m hoping you’re not going to be angry. But you might be.” He said the words slowly, with trepidation.
“Oh? Go on.”
“I might have mentioned to a woman in the salon that I’d been called out to help a woman because a prankster had chopped her ponytail off. And that is was spiteful, nasty.” Judy stood quietly, but he could see by the tightness of her lips she wasn’t happy. He carried on. “I was just chatting – nothing malicious, just expressing my incredulousness at how someone could do that to a so-called friend.” He stopped at that and waited for her reaction.
“So, Taylor is the subject of your idle chit-chat, is she? But looking at your face, I’d say there was more to it than that. What else?”
He could feel her anger almost palpably bouncing off the tiled wall of the kitchen.
“She’s a detective.” He winced as the words crept out of his mouth.
“You told a detective? How dare you! How dare you first of all talk about our private business, and second, you must have known she was a detective? Why on God’s earth did you feel the need to share it?”
Jeremy could feel himself cowering as her voice got louder, loud enough that Taylor herself came through from the next room where she’d been reading her book.
“Mum? What’s going on?” Jeremy had the sense to stay quiet while Judy explained to her daughter. Taylor went as white as the tiled walls, her lower lip quivering as she took in what she was being told. When her silence had gone on long enough, Jeremy dared to add the last piece of why he’d actually gone to the house.
“Look, I’m really sorry that I mentioned it to anyone, but it seems that Taylor may not have been the only one that this has happened to.” He watched as both women looked at each other silently. Taylor’s lip had begun to tremble. He pushed on. “The detective would like to talk to you and find out a little more, so I said I’d call over and forewarn you both. I hoped I was being helpful. After my mistake.”
“It’s a pity you didn’t try and be ‘helpful’ before you told half the salon! What were you thinking, you stupid man?”
Jeremy bowed his head. Taylor’s voice broke the silence.
“I didn’t want the police involved, but now you’ve ruined that. What am I supposed to do now?”
He watched as her lower lip trembled harder before her face crumpled fully and she fled from the room in tears. He could hear the first deep sob and he felt wretched for instigating it. Judy glared her displeasure at him.
“You’d better go. The damage is done.”
Silently, Jeremy slid off the stool where he’d been perched, uttering a final abject apology to Judy’s deaf ears. Letting himself back out the front door, he exhaled the trapped air in his lungs and replaced it with fresh, trying to make himself feel better. It took several attempts as he walked out to the road and his parked car, but he wasn’t interested in his own car. Parked further up the road was Amanda, and he slipped inside into the passenger seat.
From the way his head thudded onto the headrest, Amanda didn’t have to ask how it had gone.
“I feel bloody awful now. Taylor is sobbing, Judy is angry and I’m depleted. Why couldn’t I have kept my big mouth shut? Other people’s misery is off the table of conversation forevermore,” he said emphatically, his arms crossed over his face in anguish. Perhaps if he couldn’t see, it hadn’t happened.
“Well, I’ll go and see how receptive they are in a few minutes. If there are others, and there may only be the two I know about, they could help stop whoever is doing this. And of course, the fact that both women had had the same thing happen to them could also be a simple coincidence.” She was silent a moment, pondering. “But as a detective, I kind of don’t believe in coincidences.”
Jeremy grunted, more from embarrassment than as a proper reply to her comment.
Ten minutes later, Jeremy stayed put in the front seat and watched Amanda’s blonde head disappear around the front gate and up the driveway, headed for the Palmer residence. He slunk down in his seat to wait it out.
Chapter Thirty
Amanda had left the Palmers’ place with what she’d wanted – almost. While Taylor had obviously been scared to talk about what had happened, Amanda had persisted gently with her, and now felt she had the start of something to investigate. Given Stephanie’s snippet of information, some fifteen years belated though it was, she didn’t believe the relationship between the two incidents was a coincidence. Not at all. When she’d mentioned the card and its message to Taylor, the look of pure horror on her face had sung to her like a Welsh male voice choir. Not even a rookie would have missed it. But the thing that had puzzled both victims, as she now referred to them, was the part about ‘the debt being settled.’ Neither woman could throw any light on what it could possibly have meant. Now back at the station and headed to fill Jack in, she wondered what they could be dealing with. And just how long whatever it was had been going on. At least fifteen years; maybe longer.
“Crickey, that’s weird,” Jack said. “And from so long ago too? Did someone resurface, I wonder, or has it been going on all these years and we just haven’t heard about it?’ Jack was twiddling his moustache between two fingers, a habit that
amused Amanda, and something he did usually while deep in thought.
“No clue. But I’m going to get that laptop out of the evidence locker if it’s still there, the one that belonged to Sebastian Stevens that we found after his death. If he was with Stephanie that night, it may have been him who took her hair, though Stephanie felt sure it wasn’t him. Or it might still be a coincidence. Worth a look, though: fresh eyes, now we know a little more.”
“First, Lacey,” Jack put one finger up, “you don’t believe in coincidences, and second,” he put a second finger up beside it, “that computer will only be a handful of years old, so I doubt there’s much of use on it.”
“I know that, Jack, but he may have been active with others more recently so it’s worth a look, isn’t it?” Jack conceded the idea and picked his phone up to make the call. “Let’s hope we still have it, then. We’ll soon find out.”
Amanda watched her partner as he asked the question and waited for the reply.
“We’re in luck,” Jack said after he’d hung up. “They’re pulling it out for us. Are you giving it to computer forensics, then?”
“Not much good me looking at it, so yes. But this time, we know a little more about what we’re looking at. Sort of.”
Jack raised his brows in a doubtful manner but didn’t say anything. Sometimes, he let Amanda have her own way without much discussion, and over the years they’d been working together, she’d been more often right than not. She sat back in her chair and started to tap her teeth with a fingernail. It wasn’t lost on Jack that she was playing with her own virtual moustache.
At length, she spoke up again. “You know, if you were up to no good these days, there are plenty of ways to hide your activity. If this is something dodgy, chances are it’s not found on the regular web but in the dark web. Why would you risk it otherwise? And anyone can get access to the dark web now; it’s not hard.”
