The Doll's House: DI Helen Grace 3 (26 page)

‘You don’t know me, but I am a police officer and a friend of DI Grace.’

Charlie was pleased to see the colour fading from Marsh’s face.

‘You have played your part in a nasty little conspiracy and I’m happy to fill your wife in on your role – she looks pretty intrigued already – but I guess that would
involve you confessing how much you were paid by them. Does she know you take bribes?’

Marsh shot an anxious look to his wife. Her face asked a thousand questions and Charlie was amused to see sweat breaking out on Marsh’s forehead.

‘But I’ll spare you that indignity if you tell me when and where Harwood first contacted you. If you can give me that and corroborate it in writing –’

‘Harwood? I don’t know any Harwood.’

‘Come off it, Tom. I know she contacted you, warned you Helen would find you, asked you to record –’

‘I never met with a woman,’ Marsh interrupted. The front door was now opening and Marsh shot another anxious glance towards it.

‘Then who? Who told you to record your conversation?’

‘He said he was called DI Latham, but I never believed him. I’d recognize him again if I saw him though. Tall black guy with a South Coast accent.’

‘A tall black guy?’

‘You heard me,’ Marsh spat back, turning to face his concerned wife.

‘What’s going on, Tom?’ Rose Marsh said, her eyes fixed on Charlie and her bump.

‘Sorry to have bothered you. I can’t raise anyone at number eighty, wondered if you knew when they might be back?’

Charlie smiled an awkward thanks and walked off,
not caring much if her lie had been believed. A little domestic trouble was the least Marsh deserved. As she pulled out her mobile to ring for a cab, Charlie’s mind was already spooling forward to what she had to do next.

It was time for a one-to-one with Lloyd Fortune.

106

The two men sat in silence, breakfast laid out in front of them. Lloyd always made breakfast for his father – tea, soft-boiled eggs, brown toast, day after day – and often he was comforted by the regularity of this routine. Today, however, he was on edge.

He had hardly slept last night. And the night before had been little better. Ever since his exchange with Ceri Harwood at her house, he’d been gripped by a deep feeling of unease. The fact that she had propositioned him sexually was bad enough, but this was just the foreplay to something infinitely more serious and alarming. Rock-solid Ceri Harwood, who had insisted that only good would come of him participating in her scheme to remove the ‘cancer’ of Helen Grace from Southampton Central, was now rocking, personal traumas and professional disappointments colliding in a perfect storm. What a fool he’d been to take her at her word. But she had seemed so sure and as she spoke the road had seemed to open up in front of Lloyd. Taking Helen’s place, he would have been the youngest DI Hampshire Police had ever had – finally he would be able to look his dad in the eye.

He looked up from his untouched breakfast to find Caleb staring at him.

‘Are you frightened of me, son?’

‘Of course not,’ Lloyd replied eagerly, but his response sounded unconvincing.

‘Then why won’t you talk to me?’

Lloyd looked down at his plate. There were a million answers to this. Fear of being judged. Fear of not being good enough. Fear that he might not be loved. But how could he say any of this to his dad?

‘You’ve been chewing on this work problem for days now. Tell me about it. Perhaps I can help.’

‘Dad … ’

‘Please, son. I don’t like to see my favourite child unhappy.’

Lloyd could feel himself blushing – with embarrassment and shame. It wasn’t right for a parent to talk about favourite children and it made his feelings of guilt ten times worse.

‘I’m worried I’ve let you down.’

‘You’ve never done that. I may not always show it and I know I push you, but –’

‘I’ve betrayed you and betrayed myself.’

The bitterness in his voice was loud and clear. Caleb said nothing, eyeing his son warily, his face full of misgivings.

‘I’ve acted unprofessionally … illegally. In pursuit of a higher rank, more prestige. But … I’ve done the
wrong thing, Dad. Sacrificed someone else to serve my own ends.’

There it was – out in the open.

‘What I did runs contrary to everything you ever taught me … everything I ever wanted to be. And now I can’t look at you.’

Lloyd continued to stare at his plate, expecting admonishment. But to his surprise he felt his father’s rough hand, lifting his chin. He found himself looking into his dad’s weathered face and saw kindness there, not judgement.

‘Who did you do it for, son? For me? Or for yourself?’

‘It’s the same thing,’ Lloyd replied truthfully. Instantly, he saw a wave of – what was it? Shame? Regret? – pass across his father’s face.

‘Then if you want to blame anyone, blame me,’ Caleb said softly.

‘This isn’t your doing. It’s down to me.’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s me. I’ve always pushed you so hard. I wanted you to be a better man than I was.’

To his shame, Lloyd felt his eyes fill with tears.

‘What do you mean? You’re the best man I know.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Caleb’s voice shook as he said this. But was it anger or something else making it shake?

‘I know you have always looked up to me, Lloyd,’ he continued slowly, ‘and I love you for that. But I have only been hard on you, expected so much of you, because of what I was.’

‘You worked every day to provide for us. Broke your health, your body –’

‘It wasn’t work that broke me,’ he replied, silencing Lloyd. ‘It wasn’t work.’

‘Then what?’ Lloyd asked, suddenly uncertain and unnerved.

There was a long silence, then:

‘I’ve never told a soul this. Not even your late mother,’ he eventually went on. ‘But I was a thief.’

Lloyd stared at him in disbelief. He knew what the words meant but still they didn’t make any sense.

‘In those days, when you worked at the docks, you had to belong. To a team. To a gang.’

Lloyd stared at him, wondering what was coming next.

‘I chose the latter, lifting a little stock here, a little stock there, as they passed through my area. I handed the goods on and got extra money in return. I needed the money for you all, but that doesn’t mean I don’t regret it. That time my back was broken. I didn’t fall. It was a punishment beating by a rival gang. I did what I had to to survive and if I was hard on you, it’s because I wanted you to be so much more than me. Do you understand?’

Lloyd nodded but his emotions lagged behind his brain. He didn’t know what to think or feel.

‘And I’ve hated myself for lying to you and your mother. Even your layabout brother and sister. But try
to understand … sometimes you find you’ve gone too far down one road and there’s no way back. So don’t judge yourself by my standards. You’re ten times the man I’ll ever be.’

Now there were tears in Caleb’s eyes. Lloyd wept too, without embarrassment, holding on to his father’s arm. He cried for the lies he’d been told, for the feelings of inadequacy he’d felt for so many years. But mostly he cried because of his stupidity, knowing now that he had sacrificed his career in the worship of a false god.

107

Helen could feel Sanderson’s eyes crawling all over her, searching for any hint of instability or violence. They were sitting opposite Andrew Simpson once more and, although nothing had been said out loud, Helen knew her junior officer was alive to the danger of another explosion from Helen. She didn’t blame Sanderson for this. After a sleepless night, Helen looked even more exhausted and on edge than she had the night before. No wonder her colleague looked nervous.

Simpson was impassive as usual, though he appeared much more strained than before. He kept rubbing his face with his hand and massaging his temples: he appeared stressed, unhappy – he looked like he was in pain.

‘So do you want the good news or the bad news, Andrew?’

Simpson looked at Helen warily, unsure what game she had elected to play this morning.

‘The good news for you is that our POLSA teams have searched every inch of your properties and found no sign of Ruby Sprackling. The bad news is they have found enough evidence of illegal surveillance and pornographic file-sharing to make the CPS very excited indeed.’

Did Helen see the lawyer’s grim smile wobble a little? She hoped so.

‘So the bottom line is that they will begin drawing up charges this afternoon, unless I can give them a compelling reason not to do so.’

‘Meaning?’ Finally the lawyer spoke.

‘Meaning cooperation. I want to go over every file, every video, every detail of these girls’ lives with you. I want chapter and verse on their activities, as well as yours. Obviously you don’t have to decide right this minute. You’ll need to confer with your legal tea—’

‘Ok.’ It was said quietly but firmly.

‘Louder, please, Mr Simpson. For the tape.’

‘Ok, I’ll cooperate,’ he said, wearily. Helen was pleased to see his defiance ebbing away. Perhaps a night in the cells had had the desired effect after all. She turned to Sanderson and gave her the nod to begin. Her junior had also had a sleepless night but had spent it more profitably, poring over the details of Simpson’s decade of snooping and stalking.

‘Do you like novelty, Mr Simpson? Or are you a creature of habit?’

Simpson looked at Sanderson quizzically, before finally replying:

‘Both I suppose.’

‘But when it comes to the girls?’

‘Novelty I suppose.’

‘Why?’

‘I get bored.’

‘Of seeing the same girls?’

He shrugged, but didn’t deny it.

‘So you have varied viewing habits. And always plenty of tenants moving out and new ones moving in.’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you have a type, Andrew?’

It was offered casually, but Helen could tell that Sanderson was 100 per cent focused on his answer – as was she.

‘There are all sorts of girls on your tapes. Large, small, white, black, dark hair, blondes. Do you favour any particular type of girl?’

‘I’m not fussy … but probably blondes. Especially if it’s dyed, so the rest of their hair is, well …’

He petered out, suddenly aware of the two women looking at him. For the first time in all their dealings, he blushed.

Helen rose.

‘For the purposes of the tape, DI Grace is leaving the room. DC Sanderson will continue and remember the pact we’ve made, Mr Simpson. Chapter and verse.’

She stared at him intently and he met her gaze, nodding gently. Sanderson resumed the questioning before Helen had even quitted the room, but Helen’s mind was already elsewhere. Sanderson’s burning of the midnight oil had thrown up one unpleasant but undeniable truth – Simpson
didn’t
have a type. The killer they were hunting
was compelled to abduct women with black hair and blue eyes, but Simpson by contrast seemed to crave novelty, rather than specific body shapes, eye colour or hair type. It was almost as if the look of his subjects wasn’t important to him – just the fact that he could watch them undetected. Which meant that her nagging fears were probably true – Andrew Simpson was innocent of the beach murders. And of Ruby Sprackling’s abduction.

108

‘I have made the decision to release Andrew Simpson on bail, once he’s finished assisting us.’

The assembled team reacted with surprise and unease. They had heard rumours to this effect but Helen’s statement still took them aback.

‘He will be tailed of course and other charges are still pending. If he cooperates fully and helps us conclude the investigation, we may review those charges. But,’ Helen carried on, ignoring the dirty looks crossing the faces of some of the female officers, ‘unless you hear otherwise from me, Andrew Simpson is no longer our prime suspect.’

There was a brief buzz of chatter and reaction as her words sunk in. Helen found her eyes drifting to Lloyd Fortune. As her DS, he should have been by her side, spearheading the investigation with her, but he had been strangely absent of late – both physically and mentally. Like her, he also looked exhausted.

‘Andrew Simpson wasn’t fussy in the girls he targeted and both DC Sanderson and I believe that he no longer fits our offender profile.’

‘So we’re back to square one,’ DC Lucas chipped in unhelpfully.

‘Not quite,’ Helen countered quickly, alive to the effect that dead ends can have on team morale. ‘We know the killer’s type. And we know he abducts these girls with practised ease, which suggests he had access to their properties or had the girls’ confidence.’

‘Which is unlikely as they were all so different,’ DC McAndrew contributed.

‘Let’s test that theory,’ Helen continued. ‘Pippa Briers was a young professional. Roisin a single mum on benefits. Ruby Sprackling was a wild child. Isobel Lansley seems to be an introverted student who seldom left the flat. How are we getting on with her parents?’

‘They’re flying in this morning. Should be here by the afternoon,’ DC Edwards replied.

‘Good. So we’ve got four very different women, who lived miles apart, but shared a look and lived alone. How does he get to them? Let’s start with Pippa.’

‘Lived in Merry Oak, worked in Sun First Travel in the WestQuay. Liked to socialize in Bedford Place,’ Lucas shot back.

‘Find out who her doctor was. Her dentist. Friends, colleagues, book groups, start from the ground and work up. What about Roisin?’

‘Lived alone in a council flat in Brokenford. A number of boyfriends, some of whom seemed to overlap. Roisin liked the attention. Never had a job, attended a few free
baby groups, went to the post office once a week to get her benefits. Spent the rest of her time window shopping, drinking and dreaming of being elsewhere.’

‘Ok, run down the boyfriends – every single one of them. Find out who worked at the Post Office, who was at those mother and baby groups. Ruby we know about, but let’s go over everything again – old school friends, Shanelle Harvey’s boyfriends, anyone who knew where she lived, how she lived … What do we know about Isobel?’

There was an awkward silence, before DC McAndrew eventually replied.