Death and Deception (11 page)

‘At least we have a cause of death and we should have a closer time of death later this afternoon. So, it seems like the girl was in a fight, but somehow her assailant got behind her to strangle her. We need to check out the suspects for any marks or bruising and find out what she was holding that broke in her hand.’

He thought for a minute, stirring the froth on his drink.

‘Will you go and tell the father what the post-mortem has shown so far?’ He had a feeling it would come better from Sally rather than him, and a visit was always better than a phone call.

They spent another few minutes in the coffee bar, and Dan realised that this was the first time he had been able to spend a few quiet minutes with calm, competent Sergeant Ellis. It was hard to get a conversation going other than about work, though. He’d had no idea that she had children, nor that she had a husband called Paul. He knew so little about his colleagues, and he had to admit, that was his own fault. He’d been grieving too, in his own way, so he hadn’t gone for a drink after work, even when they had asked him. He had asked no personal questions of anyone on the team and answered none. In short, he’d been a dick. And the fact that he was able to admit this to himself was the best sign yet that he might be getting over his broken heart.

Dan dropped Sally off back at the station to collect her own car and headed for the main office to catch up with Gould and Knowles. He hoped they’d been able to bring Jed Abrams in as requested and had tracked down Jamie May. He squeezed the Audi in next to a patrol car and sent up a prayer that they didn’t scratch it.

He allowed himself a little wince at the way last night had played out with Chas Lloyd, and the all-too-familiar flush crept up his neck as he thought about her. He trotted up the stairs, burying it to be processed later under “To be dealt with when I stop feeling like a total jerk”. He needed to be clear-headed. Jed Abrams was hiding something and he was going to give it up today.

Date: Tuesday 25
^th
April
Time:
12:37 Sally Ellis, the Braithwaite home

Sally rang home as she walked towards her car, wedged into too small a space in the corner of the staff car park. It was her punishment for getting to work late. Her mother answered the phone and told her that the twins were in fine form destroying the Lego castle she had been building with them, and that she would stay with them until Paul got home from work. Sally laughed, Her family were what kept her sane. She was glad they had waited until she was in her late thirties to have her kids.

Scrambling in through the passenger door, Sally swung her legs over the gear stick and bunny-hopped into the driver’s seat - not her most dignified entrance. She didn’t want to spend too long at the Braithwaites, conscious that Dan was doing a lot of the leg work on his own and, after all, it was a murder inquiry. They needed another body on the ground to do more of the family liaison stuff. She knew she was good at it, but she had taken the Sergeant’s post with the hope that she could move on to real police work. An extra PC on the team would do, someone looking for the next promotion. She’d have a word with Dan later.

As she cut the engine outside the house, Sally could hear shouting coming from inside. She leapt from the car, skirted the bunches of flowers and messages that had begun to appear at the gate and ran down the path, straight into a black-haired, Gothic looking lad. He pushed her aside and jumped over the hedge, heading for the main road.

Sally yanked herself out of the hedge and shouted for him to stop. Alan Braithwaite came out onto the front step, staring after the boy, giving little away with his eyes but clenching and unclenching his fists.

‘Who was that?’ she asked, brushing herself down.

Braithwaite looked down at her. ‘Jamie bloody May. I’m not having him round here anymore. He’s caused enough trouble in this house.’ He turned around to walk back inside.

‘I need a word, Mr Braithwaite, please,’ Sally said and followed him in, eyebrows raised.

In the hallway, she rang through to the station and discovered that Jamie May had been reported missing by his mother at 9.00 p.m. on Monday. An officer had been round to the house and logged it, but not made the connection with the Braithwaite case. Sally tutted. As usual, poor communication was the sword on which they would all fall. She rang Dan’s mobile and left a message, then got the call out to Beat officers that Jamie was in the area and should be apprehended if possible and brought into the station. She had a bad feeling about that boy. He had looked dreadful.

Alan Braithwaite was standing in the kitchen, staring at an empty box of tea bags. Jenna had only just got out of bed, She was in her pyjamas and a fluffy pink dressing gown standing on the opposite side of the worktop. She looked scared and upset.

‘What was all that about, then?’ Sally said into the charged silence. Jenna looked to her Dad, but he refused to meet her eye. He opened a cupboard and spoke to it instead of to them as he rooted for tea bags.

‘Poking his nose in - asking questions. I reckon he knows more than he’s saying. I’m not having him round here anymore.’ He slammed the cupboard door and faced Jenna. ‘He’s not coming back here. Now you, go and put some clothes on. You’re a disgrace, with your sister lying dead in a morgue and you can’t even get your arse off the bed.’

Jenna’s eyes, already puffy, flashed with anger, but she held her tongue and pushed past Sally on her way upstairs, tears streaming down her face.

‘Mr Braithwaite?’ Sally risked touching him on the arm. ‘Alan? Just go and sit down in the living room. I’ll make us a coffee and bring it through. Go on, it’ll be alright.’

He moved then, head down, ashamed of his outburst, and did as she suggested. Sally heard the sound of footsteps above her head. Jenna going into the bathroom.

She took a moment to fill the kettle and put coffee in mugs. She wanted to chase off after Jamie May, but first things first. The fridge was pretty bare and there was little food in the cupboards. If this wasn’t a family in dire need of support, she didn’t know what was. She could see plastic carrier bags full of empty beer cans in the corner near the bin. Alan’s self-medication. She wondered when either of them had last had a decent meal.

Sally rang Victim Support and pushed to get someone over as soon as possible.

Coffee made, she carried the mugs into the living room and sat next to Braithwaite on the sofa. He took the drink in silence and sipped, despite the heat that made her mug too hot to hold.

‘We attended the post-mortem on Carly this morning,’ she began, keeping her voice low and calm. He gulped in air, like a man drowning.

‘Did they cut her open?’

She could hear his anguish and had to fight down her own deep-seated need to make it all better.

‘Just one incision on her neck, to see how she died.’ She let this hang in the air for a moment. A small step at a time was the best way to do it. ‘Do you want to know what we found now, or would you rather wait for another time?’

Braithwaite took another shuddering breath and clutched the coffee mug to his chest, but he nodded for her to continue.

‘Carly was asphyxiated, Mr Braithwaite.’ His face was bleak, lost.

She rushed ahead, ‘But it was probably over very quickly, as whoever did it managed to squeeze her airway and jugular at the same time. No air and no blood to the brain means a mercifully quick death.’

Sally sat then, hand on his arm, and waited. This time he broke, and slid to the floor, heaving out huge sobs and dropping his mug. He clasped his hands round his head, coffee dregs staining the carpet. The only words he could articulate sounded like ‘Why?’ and she wished she had an answer for him. Sally felt her own tears begin to rise, but choked them back. This was his grief, not hers.

She left him where he was and went upstairs to see Jenna. Jenna was washed and dressed in jeans and a tee shirt and sitting on the bed, listening to her Dad cry and playing with her phone. She looked up as Sally stood at the door, and slid the phone under the pillow.

‘What?’ she asked, her tone more belligerent once she was away from her father. ‘What did you say to him?’

Sally stood by the door. ‘We know how your sister died, Jenna. Do you want me to tell you about it?’ Jenna’s face pinched closed and Sally could see her jaw tighten where she was clenching her teeth, but she nodded, and let her fair hair fall down around her face. Sally sat next to the girl on the bed. Jenna traced the flowery pattern on the duvet cover with her finger. Sally took her hand.

‘Jenna, Carly was asphyxiated. Strangled. Whoever did it managed to block both her airway and the blood supply to her brain and she died in seconds, probably. Once she passed out, she would not have suffered.’

Jenna interrupted in a small, shaking voice, ‘You mean she couldn’t breathe? Someone was stopping her from breathing?’

‘Yes, I suppose I do. It would have been quick.’

The girl crumpled into tears. ‘Was it easy to kill her?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, love, I’m afraid it was,’ said Sally, and held the girl’s hand tightly as she wept again. This job just gets harder, she thought.

Sally wanted to ask more questions of the girl to establish what had happened on the Sunday. She didn’t think any of the team had a clear idea of Carly’s comings and goings during that day.

‘Jenna, how did Carly get to the studio on Sunday night?’

Jenna sucked in a few deep breaths and let them shakily out.

‘She was going to catch the bus with Jamie.’

‘What do you mean, was going to? Jenna, did Carly actually go to the studio with Jamie?’

Jenna turned her head away and looked out of the window. Sally could see the hesitation in the hunched line of her thin shoulders.

‘Tell me.’

‘I don’t know,’ Jenna admitted, talking to the window. ‘I don’t know if she got there or not. I wasn’t talking to her because she had a real go at me about my friends. She was well out of order. I don’t pick on her friends. So I went out for a bit. We had a row.’ Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, ‘The last time I saw her, we had a row and I didn’t even wish her good luck.’

‘So, you don’t know what time she left or whether she went with Jamie or on her own?’ The girl shook her head, eyes on the floor. Sally was sure Jenna knew more than she was saying, She just had to find the right way to get her to talk. Was she protecting Jamie? But if he’d killed Carly, why would he come back here? Or was Jamie trying to protect Jenna from her father? Or even, her mind whirled with sudden possibilities, could this girl have killed her sister? Had Jamie gone round there to accuse her? Sally wanted to get a look at Jenna’s arms to see if there were any signs of an actual fight rather than just a verbal row.

The doorbell rang. Sally stood, irritated by the interruption, and looked out of the bedroom window. She couldn’t believe it. Bloody press. Oliver had begged them to leave the family alone just for a couple of days, and although there were a few hanging about, most had agreed to wait for the press conference and were just using the front of the house for background to their reports. But she could see the zoom lens of a camera pointing up at her through the window of a car parked opposite, and the top of Lisa Middleton’s wiry ginger head directly below her.

‘I’ll go,’ she shouted and ran down the stairs, opening the front door just wide enough to see the body in front of it.

‘Hello Lisa.’

‘Oh, DS Ellis.’

Sally said nothing.

‘I didn’t think there were any police here,’ stuttered the reporter, turning an unflattering shade of pink that clashed with her hair.

‘I bet you didn’t,’ Sally replied. ‘Now buzz off. The deal was no press interviews until we have had a couple of days to investigate, and the family have had a little time to come to terms with what has happened. You’ve already had a detailed statement from Superintendent Oliver. She will keep you informed.’ She made a show of looking up and down the street. ‘Looks like everybody else was more than happy to agree to it. To show a little compassion, a little human feeling…’ She softened her tone, not wanting to alienate the woman. ‘Have a bit of a heart, Lisa. You’ll get your story when the family are fit to talk to you.’

The reporter turned her back and walked away, but Sally could see she was going to sit in her car with her photographer just up the road until Sally left. She didn’t fancy Lisa Middleton’s chances with Alan Braithwaite if she tried the doorbell again, though. Maybe she would let her speak to him after all…

Sally rang Victim Support once more. They were sending an experienced advocate and supporter, but she had to travel over from Crediton and would be at least another hour. Sally’s phone buzzed, Dan wanted her back at the station. Well, he’d have to wait. She was needed here for the time being.

Date: Tuesday 25
^th
April
Time: 13:0
9
Jamie May

Jamie checked his phone. He’d got a bit of charge left in it so he texted his mum. He knew she’d be worried, but there was no way he was going to see her. It was better for everyone if he stayed well out of the way. He pulled up his shirt and looked at the bruise spreading across his gut. It really hurt. He couldn’t believe Miss Quick had had the balls to hit him that hard. He’d just collapsed, couldn’t breathe at all. Must have passed out for a couple of minutes. She’d gone when he got up.

He was crouched in his own back garden behind the rotting shed where he used to play as a kid, waiting until his mum left for her shift at Sainsbury’s. He was planning to sneak in through the downstairs’ toilet window, grab something to eat, tidy himself up a bit and get out again before anyone noticed.

Jamie was buzzing with adrenaline and lack of sleep and food. His brain couldn’t make sense of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. In fact, in the last thirty-six hours, from the party at Miles’s on Saturday night, his life had changed utterly. He’d left his guitar at Miles’s house too, and needed go back for it. and that was making him twitchy.