Death and Deception (7 page)

‘What the hell is going on? You’d better tell me.’

Miles sat numb, staring at the carpet.

‘Party,’ he said, ‘on Saturday night. Haven’t cleaned up yet.’

‘Right, so who came to this party, then? I don’t recall anyone from school mentioning it.’

‘Not school friends; other friends. I have got other friends, you know.’ He was rallying a bit, but not enough. She was convinced she knew exactly who these other “friends” were, and it was making her feel sick.

‘Was this party for kids from school, Miles? For Carly?’

He looked up at her again, beseeching, but she stared back, a coldness gripping her heart. The bloody idiot had ruined his marriage and it looked like he had done the same for his career.

‘You may as well tell me the rest, I’ve guessed most of it already.’

He coughed out the words, ‘It was Carly’s idea. She persuaded me to hold a party here as a celebration for the recording session. It was just for the band and their mates. It just got a bit out of hand and I wasn’t up to cleaning up on Sunday. Hangover.’

‘So, you had a bunch of sixteen-year-olds in your house on Saturday night for a party, and the next day one of them is killed? Bloody hell, Miles, no wo
nder you’re in a state.’
She sank down next to him on the sofa, the adrenaline leaving her body had made her muscles weak and her knees wobbled. More questions crowded into her head.

‘What did DCI Gould have to say about all this? Why aren’t you a suspect? Why aren’t you already in custody, or giving evidence, or whatever it is?’

Westlake’s eyes shifted from hers.

‘You didn’t tell him, did you? Jesus.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t take in what’s happening.’ She clasped both hands to her mouth but she couldn’t stop the words, ‘Why didn’t you tell him, Miles?’

Miles rocked his head from side to side and backed away from her into the corner of the sofa. ‘He doesn’t have to know, does he, Claire? It won’t have been any of her friends and it certainly wasn’t me that killed her.’ He paused, ‘I... I loved her.’

Claire recoiled to the other end of the sofa, sickened. But still she had to ask. ‘She was a child…’ She tried to get him to look at her, tugged at his arm, but he pulled away. ‘Please tell me nothing actually happened between you and her, Miles. Tell me that?’

His eyes filled up again and he didn’t answer.

‘You are unbelievable,’ Claire said, anger giving her voice a rare, thick vitriol. ‘I don’t know who you are anymore, but you are a monster, Miles Westlake, a monster.’

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, and looked past her as he heard the sitting room door softly open behind her.

But Claire couldn’t answer. Jamie lurched in and smashed her hard across the back of her head with an empty vodka bottle. The bottle fell to the ground. He looked at Westlake, his gaunt, red-eyed face a reflection of the teacher’s.

Miles bent down to catch Claire as she slid from the sofa. The shock made his voice shrill, ‘What the hell have you done, Jamie?’

On the sofa, Claire’s eyelids fluttered as she struggled to remain conscious. The back of her skull hurt like hell, and the pain was intense, like someone had stuck a needle in her head.

‘I had to do something,’ the boy replied. Through one eye, Claire saw violent spasms shake his body. ‘You were going to tell her about Carly. I told Carly we should never have come here, but everybody always did exactly what she wanted, even you. Oh yeah, I know what you did. You’re sick in the head and I’m gonna see you go down for this.’

‘Shut up, Jamie,’ Miles yelled, ‘just shut the fuck up. I can’t listen to you anymore. Look at what you’ve done, you stupid little shit. You’ve hurt a teacher. How can we keep this quiet? Get out, get out now.’

Jamie didn’t move from the doorway.

‘Not going anywhere, mate. Neither’s she and neither are you, if you know what’s good for you. Who d’you think the Police are gonna believe? Me, or a pervert?’

‘But we can’t just keep her here, you idiot.’

‘I’ve got a few things to do, then you can do what you like, and so can she.’ Jamie squared up to Westlake. ‘Just for tonight. That’s all. We’ll just keep her here for tonight, alright?’

Westlake lifted Claire’s legs onto the cushions and pushed past Jamie to get out of the room, but Claire realised he was trapped in this hell he had created, and so was she.

Her heart began to hammer. Had Jamie really hit her over the head? Why? She guessed she must have been getting close to what had happened at the weekend. Could these two have murdered Carly? And if they did, what did that mean for her? A few seconds later, she lost the battle to stay conscious and swam down into blackness.

Date: Monday 24
^th
April
Time:17:09
DI Dan Hellier, Exeter Road Police Station

Dan sat in the Major Incident Room adjoining the main office. He twirled a piece of paper in his hands. He had eaten a cold pasty and drunk a cup of stewed coffee at his desk while attempting to draw a Mind Map onto several large pieces of paper he had stuck together. Jotting down everything he knew, he was trying but failing to make useful connections. It was ridiculous. So early into the investigation, he only had a small amount of information. But he wanted to be able to say they had made some progress by the end of the first day. Performance anxiety, he thought.

The day before, he had finally plucked up courage to ask Colin White, the Desk Sergeant, to check the records for Alison Hellier, AKA Annie Porter, A.k.a. Allie Smith. A.k.a. total nightmare. He had been able to push her back into the dark recesses while he’d been living in London, but now he felt obliged to find out how she was. He couldn’t cope with the mute expectation in his mother’s eyes, either. She assumed it was easy to find out anything he wanted to know. It was. He just didn’t want to do it. Colin had placed a folded sheet of paper on the desk an hour ago, and he hadn’t looked at it yet.

He unfurled the sheet. A list of arrests, cautions, short sentences, and then, at the bottom, eighteen months for dealing. He checked the dates. She’d been inside for three months and hadn’t contacted Mum and Dad once. His lip curled in disgust. The temptation to throw the sheet away was huge. He knew that as soon as he told them where she was, they’d be off in the car to Bristol on another mercy mission that was doomed to failure. He couldn’t bear the defeated look in his Dad’s eyes as they set out to rescue her again. She was so fucking selfish that she’d take whatever they gave her as her right. She’d actually said to him once that she might as well have what was hers now than wait until after they were dead. Unbelievable. He tore the page into tiny shreds, threw it into his bin and stared across the office at his newly formed team.

Known throughout the station as the Flowerpot Men, Sergeants Bill Larcombe and Mark ‘Ben’ Bennett were catching up with their notes and adding to the Incident board on the rear wall. As Crime Scene Manager, Bill had already begun to add crime scene photos to the wall and was organising the office into a viable working space. Ben was collating the evidence and would handle house-to-house interviews, phone calls and witnesses. They had given him a polite nod when Oliver had assigned them, but he knew they were Ian Gould’s men, through and through.

So far, the whiteboard showed pictures of Carly Braithwaite taken at the crime scene and a map of the local area with her house and the school picked out in red. The Forensic team had passed on prints of the morning’s close scrutiny of the copse, but they were messy because of the state of the ground. It was hard to pick out any particular footprints. Even the bruising to the girl was faint on the photos.

Dan looked at the clock and wondered when he would find out what Ian had learned at the school. He had a feeling the old bugger would be typing his notes up at his desk next door rather than committing them to computer memory so everyone could read them. He shook his head, the guy just made more work for people. Sally should be back for 5.00 p.m., so they could have a quick de-brief before going home. He looked at the slim results of two hours thinking and sighed. Who on earth would want this girl dead, and more important, why?

The rest of the team arrived within minutes, carrying coffee and notebooks. They sat round the big rectangular table in the middle of the room, chatting and laughing amongst themselves. Once again, Dan was all too aware that he was the new boy who needed to make an impression on his first case. He cleared his throat, leant against the edge of the table and waited for the chat to die down. Before he managed a word, the door opened and Superintendent Oliver walked in. She also had coffee, but Dan had a feeling that hers had been freshly brewed by the efficient Stella rather than dispensed by ancient machine. Her arrival stopped the conversation faster than his throat clearing had.

‘Carry on, Detective Inspector,’ she said. ‘I just want to listen in so I can tell the press where we’re up to. They’re hovering in the main meeting room like flies round a carcass.’

Dan’s face fell. He’d wanted to do the press interviews. Oliver hadn’t finished,

‘As this is your first case, I thought it would be better to have the voice of experience in front of the TV cameras. I will expect you to be by my side, of course,’ she added, sending a brief smile in his direction. ‘I’ll lend you some powder for your forehead. Awfully bright under all those lights.’

A snigger sneaked out from the direction of Ian Gould who had wandered in and sat beside the Flowerpot Men. The three of them were giggling into their mugs.

Oliver glared at them, ‘It’s like school in here sometimes.’

Dan cleared his throat again. He would have to have a word with the naughty side of the table later. He didn’t want Ian taking a disruptive role just because he was de-mob happy.

Dan indicated the Mind Map, a visual representation of the case which looked like a spider with too many legs, with Carly’s name at the middle. ‘I have added a string, or spider leg, for all the people we know saw Carly over the weekend. I’ve added the places we know she visited in the last couple of days before she died, but I need you people to fill in the gaps.’ He nodded to Bill Larcombe, who rose and stood by the board, pen poised. He turned to Gould,

‘DCI Gould?’

Gould looked at his notebook.

‘I interviewed Claire Quick, the girl’s form tutor, who seems to have known her well. She also said that Carly could be difficult but that she couldn’t think of anyone who would want to harm her. I mentioned Jamie May, the boyfriend, but she seemed convinced that he wouldn’t harm her, as he was, and I quote, “madly in love with Carly”.

'The boys who found the body had little to report other than their shock at finding her. They are regulars up in the wood but didn’t notice anything unusual. I have their written statements here.

'I then interviewed the school receptionist, Marcia Penrose, who was keen to tell me that Carly Braithwaite was quite a rude and di
fficult girl.
Mr Braithwaite had threatened Mrs Penrose in the past when she refused to let Carly go home when she felt ill. In Mrs Penrose’s opinion, the girl just wanted the afternoon off school. Apparently, Alan Braithwaite made threats to punch her in the face and the Head teacher had had to intervene to get him off the premises. He has been banned ever since. He could be a person of interest.

‘Lastly, I saw the Music teacher, Miles Westlake. He was a mess, breaking down all the time and blubbering.’ He made air quote gestures, ‘He’s the “sensitive” type. He saw Carly and Jamie on Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours to rehearse the songs for the next day’s recording session, but let them go by 3.30pm. He says he was waiting in the school on Monday morning to hear how it had gone. Don’t think he’s the murdering type.’

Ian closed his book and sat back, shaking his head at the whiteboard. Bill was adding his notes to the messy diagram on the board.

‘I don’t get this spider diagram stuff. Prefer columns myself.’

As Dan continued to look at him, he added, ‘
What?
’

‘Weren’t you supposed to interview Jamie May, the boyfriend?’

‘Yeah, but he didn’t stay behind with the others like he was supposed to. I called round to his house on the way here - rough old street - but there was no-one home. Thought I could get Sam to see him tomorrow morning.’

Oliver raised her eyebrows and rolled her hands, indicating for him to continue.

‘Look, he’s just another kid. Kids don’t kill other kids unless they’re in some sort of gang, and there’s no sign of anything like that here. Tomorrow will be fine to interview him. Chill a bit. Christ!’ He muttered into his mug of tea and drew a spiky spider on his notebook.

Dan rolled his eyes. It really was like school in here. He practised his best glare on the Flowerpot men who were nudging Gould and pulling faces at him.

‘Concentrate, you two,’ said Oliver, bringing instant silence.

Sally went next. ‘Well, after spending the day with the Braithwaites, I feel I know them a little better now. I don’t think that Alan Braithwaite killed his daughter unless, of course, the motive was jealousy, in which case, who knows what he may be capable of? He had an obsessive interest in her singing career and has kept copies of everything she’s done since she was a s
mall child.’

Sally passed pictures of Carly singing and receiving her Youth Matters award to ‘Ben’ Bennett to go on the board.

Bill Larcombe interrupted, ‘He has a record for Drunk and disorderly ten years ago and Actual Bodily Harm six years ago, for which he served a six month sentence. There has been no trouble with the Police since then apart from the incident at school which was logged last November.’

‘When did his wife leave him?’ asked Dan.

Sally continued, ‘Just before he came out of prison for the assault case, about five years ago. She apparently ran off with the guy he assaulted, leaving the two kids behind with his mother until he came out. She hasn’t been back since. Not that he’s bitter or anything.

‘Carly’s room was pretty tidy for a teenager. I didn’t find her phone or shoe, but her bag was there on the bed. She obviously didn’t take it with her when she left on Sunday. Kids are never parted from their phones, so we should make finding that a priority. Forensics will be in there tomorrow for a search.’