by Sally Rigby
Eloise turned and headed towards the stairs as Whitney and Matt walked into the room. It was fairly basic, with a double bed in the middle, two easy chairs beside the window, a wardrobe, and a door leading into the bathroom. Next to the kettle and two mugs were sachets of coffee and tea. Whitney looked into the bathroom cabinet and the cupboard under the sink. It was all empty. But very clean. She headed back into the bedroom and over to the window. The view was spectacular, overlooking the countryside. In the distance was a stately home.
‘Let’s go. There’s nothing here for us.’
‘Hang on a minute.’ Matt dropped down onto his knees and peered under the bed. ‘There’s something here.’ He reached and pulled out a pink hair tie.
He placed it into the evidence bag Whitney was holding.
‘We’ll test it, but it could have been there for a while.’
After leaving the room, they went back to reception and asked for Eloise. She came out holding Russell’s phone and suitcase. Whitney dropped the phone into an evidence bag and took the suitcase. Once they were back in the car, they drove towards the village where Rebecca Church lived. When they were only a couple of miles away, Whitney called Ellie.
‘Did you manage to speak to her parents? We’re close to the house now.’
‘I spoke to her mum and she’s expecting you. I didn’t say what it was about, just that you thought Rebecca might be able to help with some of our enquiries. She pushed me on it, but I pretended not to know anything.’
‘Excellent. We’ll see you later. We shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.’
The house, a 1960s semi-detached, was on the outskirts of Orlington village. They walked up the long path to the front door and knocked.
A woman dressed in a uniform belonging to one of the local supermarkets answered.
‘Mrs Church?’ Whitney asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m DCI Walker and this is DS Price from Lenchester CID.’ Whitney held out her warrant card. ‘I understand one of my officers spoke to you earlier about talking to Rebecca. Is she home?’
‘She’s just got up. What’s this all about?’ she asked.
‘We’re hoping she can help with our enquiries regarding an incident that happened in Lenchester.’
‘Rebecca’s never been to Lenchester, so I don’t see how she can help.’
‘May we come in? We’ll explain everything to you and Rebecca.’
‘As long as it doesn’t take too long. I work at Four Square in Market Harborough and my shift starts in an hour.’ Mrs Church ushered them into the house and through to the small lounge, which had a burnt-orange sofa and two easy chairs all facing the television. In one of the chairs was a young girl dressed in jeans and a pink sweatshirt with a unicorn motif on it.
‘Rebecca?’ Whitney asked as the girl looked up.
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Mrs Church asked.
‘Do you have any coffee?’ Whitney said.
‘Yes. For two?’
‘Yes, please,’ Matt said.
‘Do you mind if we talk to Rebecca while you’re in the kitchen?’ Whitney asked.
‘I’m not sure. Has she done anything wrong?’
‘At the moment, all we want is some information to help us with our enquiries.’
‘I suppose you can start. I won’t be long, anyway,’ Mrs Church said.
Whitney was surprised she was happy to leave Rebecca with them. She wouldn’t have, if it was Tiffany. Then again, Rebecca might not want her mum to know what she’d been up to online, so it could be a good thing.
‘Is that okay with you, Rebecca?’ Whitney asked.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said, looking at Whitney from under her eyelashes.
Whitney sat on the sofa, and Matt sat next to her.
‘I’d like to ask you about SnapMate.’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ the young girl replied.
‘We know you’ve been on there,’ Whitney said gently, conscious of how carefully she had to tread.
Rebecca’s jaw clenched, and she flushed a deep shade of red. ‘How do you know?’ Her voice was barely above a whisper.
‘It’s to do with a case we’re working on. Have you been in contact with a boy called Billy?’
‘Y-yes,’ the girl said, averting her gaze.
‘Have you known him long?’
‘A few months.’
‘Do you chat with him a lot?’
‘Every day.’
‘Have you ever met him?’
‘We were meant to meet yesterday, but he didn’t turn up.’ Tears formed in her eyes and she blinked them away.
‘And before yesterday?’ Whitney asked gently. The poor girl was going to get such a shock when she found out. Judging by the tears, she was extremely fond of him.
‘No. He doesn’t come from here, and he took a day off from college to meet me.’
‘Have you seen photos of him?’
‘Yes, I’ve got one on my phone.’
‘May I see?’
Rebecca took out her phone and pulled up a photo, handing it to Whitney to take a look.
A good-looking boy of about eighteen. Exactly what Whitney had expected.
‘How well do you know each other?’ she asked.
‘Really well. He’s like my best friend.’
‘Already?’
‘He understands me. We can talk about anything. He’s helped me deal with what’s going on in my life. Things haven’t been easy at home.’ She glanced anxiously at the door.
‘Can you tell me more?’ Whitney cajoled.
‘Mum’s got problems at work, and they’re making her do extra hours. She can’t refuse or she might lose her job. We need the money because my dad stopped sending any child support.’
‘What else did you talk about?’
‘School, because it’s been hard there, too. My friends have been really mean and leaving me out of everything.’
She needed to broach the subject of whether they shared intimate photos of themselves, but she didn’t want the girl to clam up.
‘I’m sorry to ask, but it is important for me to know. Did Billy ask for any photos of you where you were showing parts of your body?’
The young girl bit down on her bottom lip and nodded. ‘Yes. He said it was just for a laugh. Please don’t tell my mum. Why do you want to know?’
‘We believe Billy isn’t who you think he is.’
‘Of course he is,’ Rebecca said adamantly. The door opened, and Mrs Church walked in holding two mugs of coffee.
‘What have I missed?’ she said.
‘I was discussing with Rebecca someone she might have known online.’
‘These kids are online all the time. I can’t get her away from her phone. Mind you, I’m as bad.’ Mrs Church laughed.
‘We have reason to believe one of the boys Rebecca knows was actually a forty-one-year-old man posing as a teenager in order to attract young girls.’
The colour drained from Rebecca’s face, and she slammed her hand over her mouth.
‘What? The filthy bastard,’ Mrs Church growled.
‘These men groom the young girls they speak to and eventually arrange to meet them with a view to having sex with them.’ There was no way to sugar coat it. The woman had to know.
‘Rebecca? D-did you meet this man?’ Mrs Church’s voice wobbled.
‘No, Mum, I didn’t.’
‘But you know him?’ Mrs Church said.
Tears returned to Rebecca’s eyes, and she brushed them away with her back of her hand. ‘Yes,’ she said, sniffing.
‘These men prey on young girls like you. There was no way you could’ve known,’ Whitney said to reassure her.
‘But I still don’t understand why you’re here,’ Mrs Church said.
‘The man who called himself Billy online has been murdered. We found his body yesterday in Lenchester. On his laptop we found evidence of him using SnapMate and
talking to young girls. It’s an app teens use to meet people. We traced Rebecca as being one of the girls he’d spoken to.’
Mrs Church glared at Rebecca. ‘What the hell were you doing on this app? You know I don’t want you hanging out with boys. You’ve got your exams and schoolwork to think about.’
‘It was just a bit of fun, Mum. I didn’t actually meet up with anyone.’
‘And this dead man? Did he ask to meet you?’
Rebecca looked away. ‘I arranged to meet him yesterday after school in a café, but he didn’t turn up. I waited for half an hour and then came home.’ She started crying, and Mrs Church went over and sat on the arm of the chair, pulling her daughter close.
‘Well, thank goodness he didn’t. Is there anything else my daughter can help you with?’
‘We’d like to see the photos you sent each other. Email them to me. Here are my details.’ Whitney pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to Rebecca.
‘Photos?’ Mrs Church said.
‘They weren’t of him. He must have got them online. They were just a hot guy,’ Rebecca said.
‘Let me see,’ her mum said.
‘I’ll show you later.’
‘Rebecca, if you can think of anything that might help us get to know this man better, please let us know. Can you tell me what you were doing on Thursday between six and ten in the evening?’
‘Why? Is she a suspect?’ Mrs Church said.
‘This is routine. We’re asking everyone who knew the victim their whereabouts at the time of the murder so we can eliminate them from our enquiries.’
‘Because there’s no way my Rebecca could murder anyone,’ Mrs Church said.
‘I was at home doing my homework.’
‘Can anyone vouch for you?’ Whitney asked.
Rebecca shook her head and looked at her mother.
‘I was at work, so she was on her own,’ Mrs Church said.
‘Do you use a laptop for your homework?’ Whitney asked, remembering something George had once mentioned.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you let me see your work? It will have a time and date for when you saved it.’
Rebecca went over to the dining table and opened up the laptop. After a few moments, she showed her homework to Whitney, so the date could be checked. Luckily, she hadn’t done anything since and saved over it, because it clearly showed Rebecca had worked on it during the time in question.
‘Thank you very much, Rebecca. We’ll be going now. We may need to get in touch with you again. Actually, before I go, please could you send me the photos. Then we know it’s done.’
‘Okay,’ she said, looking at Whitney’s card and keying the number into her phone.
Once the photos came through, Whitney and Matt left the house and went back to the car.
‘Poor kid,’ Whitney said. ‘And that bastard Atkins. Who’d have thought he’d have turned out to be such a monster? He was so nice at school. It was as George explained. He got her to trust him and persuaded her to exchange photos. I’m assuming the reason he didn’t turn up to meet her was because he was already dead. So, all we have is: sometime after he arrived at the hotel on Thursday, he went out to meet someone and didn’t come back. Could it be someone he knew? Were they tailing him? Or had he arranged to meet another girl from SnapMate and it went wrong? We need to get back to the office. Just because the victim was an arsewipe doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our job and find his killer.’
Chapter Nine
They returned to the incident room, and Whitney immediately took the victim’s mobile to Ellie.
‘His phone’s turned up. See what you can find.’
‘Will do,’ the young detective said.
Ellie had been trained to use the self-service kiosk to extract mobile phone data. It was a huge advantage in this type of investigation, as they could look at the phone straight away rather than having to wait for the digital forensic unit to get to it. Mac had pulled out all the stops to get Atkins’ laptop looked at immediately, and their case took priority over his other work. It didn’t always happen.
‘Frank, I want you to check Rebecca Church’s mum’s alibi. She works at Four Square in Market Harborough.’
‘Yes, guv.’
Whitney’s next stop was the desk in front of the board, and she placed the victim’s small suitcase on it. Inside she found two pairs of underpants, two pairs of socks, a clean shirt, and a toiletries bag containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, condoms, and an electric razor. In other words, nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the condoms, seeing as the man was married and unable to have children. After re-packing the case, she put it in an evidence bag for one of the team to take down to the evidence store.
George had asked to be kept up to date on what was going on, so she took out her phone and gave her a call.
‘Hi,’ she said once the phone had been answered. ‘We’ve just got back from speaking to Rebecca Church.’
‘How did it go?’
‘She’d arranged to meet Russell Atkins yesterday, but he didn’t turn up. Obviously, as he was dead. You were right about the photos. It seems they did swap intimate ones. I’ve got them on my phone but haven’t opened them yet. Hang on a minute while I take a look.’ She flicked through what Rebecca had sent. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered when she came to the naked images.
‘What?’ George asked.
‘The photos. Why do these young kids do it? Don’t they realise what they’re getting themselves into? They really should be educated more about the Internet’s nasty side.’
‘It’s not easy. Very often parents aren’t aware of it, either. How did Rebecca take it when you told her about Atkins?’
‘Shocked, obviously. She thought she’d been chatting with an eighteen-year-old boy, not a forty-one-year-old man. They were good friends. He’d certainly done a good job with the grooming. We’ve now found his phone, and Ellie’s going through it. It should give us something to work with. Do you know when you’ll be able to come in?’
‘I’m not sure, because I’ve got so much to do. There are parts of my presentation I want to change, which means amending many of my PowerPoint slides.’
‘I know you’ve already told me, but when’s the presentation?’ She felt guilty for having to ask, but there was so much going on it had totally slipped her mind.
‘Monday.’
‘I’m sure you’ll nail it. And is the final interview on Tuesday?’ She’d remembered it was the day following.
‘Yes. They’re taking the candidates alphabetically, which makes me second. My appointment time’s eleven.’
‘When do you find out whether you’ve got the job?’
‘They’ll get everyone who viewed the presentations together and discuss their thoughts. The Selection Panel will also need to meet and discuss each candidate. I expect I’ll know by the middle of next week.’
‘Bloody hell. Talk about recruitment by committee.’
‘That’s education for you.’ George laughed.
‘Do we still call you Doctor Cavendish?’ Whitney asked.
‘I’ll be known as Associate Professor Cavendish,’ she said.
‘We’ll call you the Prof then,’ Whitney joked.
‘I haven’t got the job yet. But yes, you can call me that if you wish.’
Whitney smiled to herself. This was a new side to George. When they’d first met, no way would she have agreed to it.
‘I do wish.’
‘Have you found out whether he’d been grooming any other girls? I’d be very surprised if it was only Rebecca,’ George said.
‘The app is downloaded onto his laptop, and we know he’s been chatting with others. I’m waiting to see what Ellie turns up on his phone. He’s probably got the app on there, too. We’ll be able to see if he had private texts or calls with these girls away from SnapMate.’ She glanced up and saw Ellie heading in her direction. ‘I better go. If I don’t speak to you before, good luck. Let me k
now how it goes.’
‘Thanks,’ George said.
Whitney ended the call and put the phone back into her pocket. She walked towards Ellie.
‘What have you got?’ she asked.
‘Plenty. Some time ago he’d been texting a girl called Amy Bond. He met her on SnapMate, and there’s a string of private messages on there, too. I’m finding her details now. There’s also another girl called Cleo he’d been chatting to on the site, but I’m coming up against a brick wall with her. She appears untraceable. I’ll get the digital forensic unit to see if they can help.’
‘Let me have Amy Bond’s details as soon as you have them.’
‘Are you going to interview her?’
‘Yes. But at the moment, I want to run through where we are. Listen up, everyone,’ she called out as she headed back to the board. ‘I want to go through everything we have so far. The victim, Russell Atkins, is a forty-one-year-old consultant. He lives in an upmarket area, thanks to his wife’s money. The place is like a show home. Everything’s immaculate, with nothing out of place. His wife, Diana, appeared shocked when we told her about his grooming activities.’
‘Is she a suspect?’ Frank asked.
‘Forensics were at the house yesterday. I asked them to check everything, in particular to look for a syringe or any other potential weapon. They didn’t find anything. But just because the house was clean and she seemed shocked by what he’d done, doesn’t automatically eliminate her.’
‘She’d have to be one sick wife to do that to him,’ Frank said.
‘She wouldn’t be the first. Remember Mrs Bobbitt and what she did to her philandering husband,’ Doug said.
‘True,’ Frank said.
‘Good point. I’ll run it past George,’ Whitney said. ‘We have at least two, possibly three, girls we know he’s been grooming on SnapMate. Matt and I visited one of the girls, Rebecca Church. Fortunately, when she went to meet Atkins, who she thought was a young boy called Billy, he wasn’t there. They’d traded intimate photos, which I’m sure he would have used to persuade her to go back to his hotel room. We have a second girl who we’ll interview tomorrow. At the moment, we can’t trace the third girl. How’s the rest of the research coming on? Background check on Atkins? His work and social life?’
