Murder Undeniable : a gripping murder mystery

by Anita Waller

  Tessa and Hannah walked out to the car park and Tessa clicked the unlock button on the fob. The Jaguar’s lights lit immediately, and they headed across the asphalt towards it.

  ‘Some car,’ Hannah said appreciatively.

  ‘And he had the right girlfriend to accessorise it,’ Tessa acknowledged. ‘When she’s not covered in bruises, I imagine she’s a stunner.’

  They both put on latex gloves, and Tessa opened the driver’s door. Hannah moved to the passenger side and had a quick look around. She opened the glove box and emptied it.

  ‘There’s a car manual, a service book, a petrol receipt and an invoice of some sort.’ Hannah opened up the piece of paper and read it.

  ‘There’s a turn up for the books,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t his girlfriend. She was his escort.’

  She passed the piece of paper across to her boss. ‘I bet if we mention this invoice to Beth Walters we’d get a reaction. Funny how she hasn’t mentioned it, isn’t it?’

  Tessa looked at the receipt, then put it in an evidence bag. ‘What are we doing in this job, Hannah? She’ll be earning twice as much as us.’

  ‘Still rather have my job, boss. I can’t be that nice to people, not for that long.’ Hannah grinned.

  They found nothing else in the car, so walked back inside the Alhambra to find the manager standing waiting for them.

  ‘Did you know of Mr Jackson’s death?’ Marsden said before he could speak.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And it didn’t occur to you to ring and report his car was here, even though you knew it was?’

  ‘I thought you would turn up for it eventually.’

  ‘Not good enough. Not public spirited enough, sir. We’ll conduct the next part of the interview at the station,’ she said and turned to walk away. ‘Follow me, sir.’

  ‘What? Hang on a minute…’

  ‘We’ve hung on for several days, sir. That’s called withholding evidence.’

  ‘Look, come into my office, and I’m sure we can sort this out.’ Eric Firth looked ashen.

  ‘Oh, you want to sort it out now, do you?’ Tessa turned back to him. The bravado on his part, the cocky stance, had disappeared.

  ‘Please, this way.’

  They followed him behind the reception area, and to a door marked Manager. Hannah tried to hide her smile. The poor man had never stood a chance.

  He showed Tessa to a chair, and then picked up a second one for Hannah.

  ‘Now, what can I do for you?’ he said, sitting down in his leather office chair; the loud farting noise from the leather clearly embarrassed him.

  ‘Why was Anthony Jackson here?’

  ‘He had booked our large function room for the night, for seventy people.’

  ‘Seventy people?’ Tessa tried to hide her surprise. Seventy people, and not one had come forward to say they had been with him. ‘And you don’t have a guest list?’

  ‘I have a list of names, but only names, not addresses or companies or anything. We had to do a table plan for the meal.’

  Tessa held out her hand.

  ‘One minute. I need to print it.’

  She waited while he found the file, and then the printer churned out the sheets. He reached across, stacked them tidily and handed them to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Now tell me about the evening.’

  ‘It seemed to go very well. Mr Jackson gave a very short speech, thanking them for their support over the past year sort of thing, then everybody went into our smaller function room while we cleared the large one. He’d hired a jazz band, a very good one, for the evening and they played as soon as the guests headed back into the main room.’

  ‘I need the name of that band.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help with that. They’re apparently friends of Mr Jackson, he hired them. Several people had left by about eleven o’clock, and it really wound down soon after that. Around half a dozen people left their cars here overnight because they went on to somewhere else, and then picked them up the day after. We were just left with the Jaguar keys.’

  Tessa looked at the key in her hand. ‘It’s just a car key.’

  ‘Yes, he took his house key off, but left the car key here in case we needed to move it. They all did.’

  Tessa stood. ‘Thank you for your eventual cooperation, Mr Firth. We’ll be back if we need to speak with you again. We’ll move the car as soon as possible.’

  The two women left the office, struggling to keep straight faces.

  ‘Classic, boss, classic,’ Hannah said, as they walked down the steps to reach their car.

  ‘Think he knew anything else?’

  ‘I would say not. He was so scared of being whisked off to the station, I don’t think he’d have held anything back.’

  ‘My feelings as well. We’ve hell of a job here though.’ Tessa waved the printed sheets. ‘Every one of these needs to be contacted, so we’ve to track down addresses. You want the job?’

  Hannah laughed. ‘No thanks, but I will if you insist.’

  ‘No, you’re okay.’ Tessa smiled. ‘I’ll find somebody who’s upset me, they can do it.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Welcome to our home,’ Kat said as she led Mouse through the front door. ‘I’ll get your suitcase in a moment. Let me get you settled in first.’

  They had called at Mouse’s home to pick up some clothes, and Kat sensed that even that small but necessary activity had tired her friend.

  Kat pushed open the lounge door. ‘Go and make yourself comfortable, Mouse. I’ll make us a drink that doesn’t taste like hospital tea, then I’ll show you your room.’

  The lounge smelled of roses, and in the centre of the coffee table was a beautiful rose bowl filled with the flowers. Mouse sank into an armchair and laid back her head. The slight headache was always there, but they had assured her it would go eventually, when the swelling inside her brain diminished. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the peace of the room envelop her.

  Kat placed the tray on the coffee table and Mouse opened her eyes. ‘Are the roses from your garden?’

  ‘They are.’ Kat smiled. ‘The rose garden was well established when we moved in and I’ve no thoughts about changing it.’

  She handed Mouse a tea, and they sat quietly for a couple of minutes.

  ‘Did the drive here bring anything back to you?’ Kat asked.

  ‘No. There’s something playing around in the back of my mind, but the drive didn’t help. You didn’t go by that alleyway, did you?’

  ‘No, I deliberately avoided it.’

  ‘Then in a couple of days we’ll go there.’

  ‘So what’s playing around in your mind?’

  ‘That I knew the driver, the man who killed Anthony.’

  ‘How do you think you knew him? Was he a client you’d escorted?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t think I slept with him; they seem to fix into your mind, but escorting jobs don’t.’

  Kat laughed. ‘I have to admire you. I couldn’t have done that job, not for a million pounds a night.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a proper Christian…’

  ‘No it’s not, it’s because I haven’t the guts. Being a Christian doesn’t make you blind to the delights of this world, you know – like Idris Elba and Tom Hardy.’

  They grinned at each other, happy to be away from the sterility of the hospital.

  ‘So when do I get to meet Mr Rowe?’

  ‘He said he’d be home around four, but don’t take that as an accurate guide. What he really means is sometime this afternoon or early evening. He’s looking forward to meeting you.’

  ‘And I him. Am I right thinking that you said he knew Anthony Jackson?’

  ‘He didn’t really know him, it was more that he knew of him. They’re both in the same business, pharmaceuticals. Paths didn’t really cross though. Leon’s shops are spread all across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, whereas Jackson Pharmacies are more South Yorkshire and beyond.
It’s why we couldn’t fathom him being killed in the alleyway of one of our shops.’

  ‘Somebody trying to send you a message?’ Mouse’s face was serious.

  ‘You mean you think Leon could be targeted?’ Kat was frowning. ‘Why would he be? It’s a perfectly legitimate business, nothing in any way dodgy about it.’

  ‘I don’t know. They thought they’d killed me, and I’d never met Anthony before that night. I had no connection to him or any possibly nefarious goings-on. Is Leon a smart bloke?’

  ‘Very smart.’

  ‘Then he’ll know he needs to be careful. In fact, I could stop the whole damn mess if I could just remember who that driver is.’

  ‘Stop trying to force it,’ Kat said gently. ‘It will come when you least expect it. The thing is, even if the name does come to you, it might not be his real name if he were a client.’

  ‘No, but it would be a start.’

  Mouse put down her empty cup and closed her eyes. ‘This feels so right, as if I’ve finally found somewhere I can be me. I promise to be out of your hair as soon as I find a place of my own, but for now I’m going to absorb this wonderful peace. And thank you for calling me Mouse, it sits so comfortably with me.’

  Kat laughed. ‘Then come for a little walk in the garden, then you’ll really appreciate what sold this house to us in the first place.’

  They went out through the patio doors and into the bright sunshine. The brook was definitely babbling, and the songs of the birds added to the tranquillity.

  ‘Come and smell the rose garden,’ Kat said. ‘It’s stunning.’

  They walked around by the herb garden and into a sea of colour. Roses of every hue were present, and the perfume, hovering like a giant blanket in the air, was deliciously sweet.

  ‘Oh my god, Kat, you can almost taste it.’

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? We moved in during December, and the original plan was to take them out to make this a vegetable garden, but we decided to wait and see what they were like. The vegetable garden was cancelled.’

  ‘One day this is what I’ll have.’ Mouse looked pensively around. ‘My little house in Sheffield, as you saw this morning, doesn’t even have a garden, just a back yard.’

  ‘Give it time, Mouse. You’re very young. I didn’t even leave home till I was thirty. I lived with Mum and Dad until Leon and I found each other.’

  ‘That sounds so sweet.’

  ‘Unexpected. My life was my church, but God moves in very mysterious ways, as you know now. He led us together.’

  ‘Something led us together.’

  DI Marsden faced her team, adding things to the board as she spoke. ‘It now appears that Bethan Walters was his escort for the evening, at the grand do he’d organised at the Alhambra. We have a long list of people to work through, and I realise most of them will have nothing to add to the investigation, but some of them might and we don’t know which ones are going to be the helpful ones. That means we have to interview and eliminate seventy people who we don’t even have addresses for.’ She cast her eyes around the room.

  ‘Penny and Ray, split the list down the middle and find the addresses, will you. If you can find anything else about them, then do so.’

  Penny and Ray looked sick; they now had proof that they’d upset the boss in some way and were on punishment duties.

  ‘The car,’ Tessa continued, ‘is a black Jaguar, but it has been parked in the same place at the Alhambra since Mr Jackson and Miss Walters arrived there for the evening. We have checked it out, but I am not ordering a forensic examination of it unless we feel it necessary, because the car wasn’t used after about seven on the night of the murder. They used taxis after that. One interesting thing came out of the car, a receipt for the escort services of Bethan Walters. The date on the receipt confirms Beth was his escort that night.’

  Tessa stared around. ‘Does anyone have anything to add? Have we got anything of interest that could be helpful in any way?’

  ‘Was his house key on his car keys, boss? Is that why we couldn’t get into his house?’

  ‘No, he apparently took it off when he left the car key at the Alhambra. And it’s not on the list of things we recovered from him, so somewhere there is a missing key. The killer didn’t go near the body after he had shot him, we can see that from the CCTV, so where is that key? There’s a lot of questions up here.’ She pointed at the board. ‘Let’s start finding the answers. I want to know every damn last thing about Anthony Jackson, that has to be where the solutions are. Next briefing will be at eight tomorrow, don’t be late. Penny and Ray, don’t be late.’

  That proved exactly what they had done to win the tedious job of address finding.

  Tessa sat in her office, eyes almost closed, thinking. Beth’s file wasn’t very thick, and Tessa sat up, her eyes now open. She needed to know more about this woman; needed to penetrate the memory that couldn’t seem to remember anything.

  She had Katerina Rowe’s address as well as Bethan Walters’ own home address, but she knew the deacon had taken Beth to her home to recuperate.

  Maybe Tessa going on her own would open Bethan up, not be quite so intimidating as turning up with Hannah.

  She left the Chesterfield police station and headed towards Eyam.

  ‘DI Marsden, good to see you.’ Kat’s smile was warm and welcoming; inside she was seething. Mouse had only been out of hospital a few hours. ‘Come in. You want Beth, presumably?’

  ‘Yes please. Is she here?’

  ‘She is. She’ll be here until she’s well enough to move into her own place. She may be asleep, she went to her room for a rest. I’ll go and check. Would you like to sit outside, or in the lounge?’

  ‘Outside, it’s such a lovely day.’

  Kat took her through to the garden, then left her while she went to see if Mouse was awake.

  She knocked gently on the bedroom door and Mouse opened it.

  ‘I was just coming down. I heard the knock on the door and then Marsden’s voice. I kind of guessed she wasn’t here for you.’

  ‘We’re in the garden. Take your time, I’ll tell her I had to wake you.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll go splash my face and try to do something with my hair. It’s the Worzel Gummidge effect at the moment.’

  She headed for the bathroom, leaving Kat to go back downstairs.

  Kat was concerned. Mouse looked drained, and certainly not as well as she had looked when they’d left hospital.

  Joining Marsden in the garden, Kat sat in the chair next to her.

  ‘This is beautiful, Reverend Rowe.’

  ‘Please, I feel we’re going to get to know each other quite well, call me Kat.’

  Marsden nodded. ‘Tessa. Is Bethan okay?’

  ‘She looks washed out, but I’ll take care of her. It’s Beth, by the way. She’s just trying to make herself look a bit more presentable and she’ll be down. Can I offer you a drink?’

  ‘Thank you. Cold water will be fine. After you’ve had a couple of coffees back at the station, water starts to taste like nectar.’

  Kat smiled. ‘I’ll even throw some ice in the jug.’ She headed back into the kitchen to see Leon helping himself to a glass of water.

  ‘God, it’s hot.’ He bent to kiss his wife. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘It’s fine. DI Marsden is out in the garden, waiting for Beth. I’m just doing a jug of iced water.’

  ‘Then I’ll join you.’ He kissed her again as she reached up to get a jug out of the cupboard. ‘I’ll put some shorts on first though. This damn suit’s far too hot.’

  He headed upstairs, and Kat tipped a load of ice into the jug. As she was filling it with water, it briefly occurred to her that Mouse didn’t know Leon was home; Kat hoped Mouse was fully clothed.

  Mouse stared into the bathroom mirror and gave one last tug of the brush through the curls. The bruises were turning a muddy shade of yellow, still sore when she touched her face, and she decided that pretty no longer described her, batt
ered was a closer comparison.

  She opened the bathroom door and saw the beautiful personage that was Leon Rowe for the first time.

  Her twenty-year-old brain internally gasped.

  His teeth seemed extra white against the blackness of his skin as he flashed a smile at her. He held out his hand. ‘You must be Beth.’

  ‘I am. And Kat never said a word about you other than your name. Hello, Leon.’

  ‘It’s very good to meet you.’

  She laughed. ‘And it’s very good to meet you. I’m sorry if I looked shocked, Kat neglected to mention that lovely skin.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t think Kat realises I’m any different to anybody else of her acquaintance. You heading downstairs? Marsden’s here.’

  ‘I know. She woke me. I’ve just spent ten minutes trying to make myself look half presentable. I’ll go down to Kat now.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll be five minutes.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Tessa and Kat were discussing herbs and their medicinal values when Mouse joined them.

  ‘Water?’ Kat passed a glass dripping with condensation to Mouse.

  ‘Thank you. I need to take tablets.’ She swallowed the painkillers and sat by Kat.

  ‘I just came by for an informal chat really, Beth,’ Tessa said. ‘To see if anything had come back to you.’

  ‘Nothing regarding the man who attacked us, I promise you, but we’re going to go to the alleyway and see if that jolts my memory. The evening is coming back to me in little bites, but it only goes as far as the moment he shot me.’

  ‘And did your memory forget that you escorted Anthony Jackson? You’re not his girlfriend?’

  ‘No, it didn’t. But what difference does that make? I wasn’t an escort girl at the point that he was killed. My escort duties finish at midnight, unless there is a prior arrangement for an extended function. There was no prior arrangement that night, because if that little group hadn’t decided they wanted to go clubbing, it would all have been over just after eleven. I was on my own time as a friend, and a girl.’