The Investigator (27 page)

He selected a sand wedge and chipped at the ball, unable to prevent the tiny glimmer of satisfaction when it landed on the green, not far from Hannaford’s.

“Good shot, boss. You might just beat me yet.”

CHAPTER 22

“Hey, look what the cat dragged in. Where have you been all morning?” Chase ribbed him as Riley appeared at the top of the stairs.

Ignoring him, Riley strode across the squad room and dumped the paper bag containing the remnants of his lunch on his desk. “I clocked on at six this morning. Check with Hannaford, if you like.”

Chase snorted. “Yeah, right. Like Hannaford would be here this time of day. It’s Wednesday afternoon. He’ll be at least four holes down by now.”

Riley grimaced. “Dammit, I forgot that. I need to talk to him.”

“What about?”

Riley heaved a sigh and threw himself down in his chair. “Darryl Watson. I want to get a search warrant.”

Chase let out a low whistle and shook his head. “You sure know how to win friends, Munro. Didn’t anyone tell you if you want to get on in a small town, you have to stay on the right side of certain people? And the town’s former LAC and his successor definitely fit into that category.”

Riley shrugged, unperturbed. “I couldn’t give a shit who I’m supposed to get on with. I think that son of a bitch has murdered his wife. I’m not going to sit by and let him get away with it because he just happens to be considered a pillar of the community.”

Chase held up his hands. “Whoa, there. Don’t take it out on me, mate. I’m only telling you how it is. You’re a newcomer and a city slicker to boot. There are a lot of people in this town aren’t going to welcome you slinging mud on their old commander.”

“Well, like it or not, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Provided I can get Hannaford to sign off on it. He’s made it clear how chummy he is with Darryl.”

Riley thought of the recent corruption allegations he’d uncovered and a smile of feral anticipation curled his lips. “But luck’s on my side. Hannaford hasn’t been doing himself any favors lately, so he’d better not prove too difficult.”

With an eyebrow lifted in question, Chase leaned a hip against Riley’s desk. “Sounds intriguing. Care to share?”

Riley shook his head, mindful of the need for discretion now that IA had taken over.

“Sorry, mate, my lips are sealed, but let’s just say Commander Hannaford might like to dot his I’s and cross his T’s for the next little while, which includes giving me the nod to apply for a search warrant when I can show I have just cause.”

Chase’s lips pursed. “So, what’s happened to make you all fired up about Watson? Last time I checked, you weren’t even convinced his wife hadn’t left of her own accord.”

“Yeah, but there have been a few developments. I managed to track down a friend of hers. She told me about the escape plan she and Rosemary had hatched. The only thing is, Rosemary didn’t show at the appointed hour. Darryl told me he’d taken her to board a cruise ship on the very day she was meant to leave him forever.”

“Funny that,” Chase replied.

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Riley pulled out his chair and sat. “Now, shift your ass off my desk because I have a few calls to make.”

* * *

Kate switched on her laptop and opened Skype. She had a major exhibition opening in London in a little over a week and the way things were going, it was unlikely she’d be back in time. She needed to speak to her senior assistant with a view to rescheduling. It would be a nuisance and her clients wouldn’t be happy, but there was nothing for it. Her mother deserved to be put first.

Within minutes, the call connected. Her assistant answered, looking bleary-eyed. It suddenly occurred to Kate it was about four in the morning in London.

“Hi, Mary, I’m sorry for waking you. I-I didn’t even give the time difference a thought.”

“It’s fine, Ms Collins. It’s good to hear from you. How are things? How’s your mother?”

Kate swallowed. She’d kept the reasons for her trip home close to her chest, not wanting to give anyone an opportunity to ask questions. She’d been living in London close to three years, but had done no more than share the most basic of information with the people she’d come into contact with, including those who worked for her.

“I-I haven’t caught up with her yet. She’s—she’s missing.”

“Oh, Ms Collins! Do you mean missing as in…?”

Kate sighed, wishing she’d stayed silent. “It’s okay, I’m sure she’ll turn up. The thing is though, I-I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be here and I think we need to reschedule the exhibition.”

“Reschedule? But—”

“Please call all our clients and let them know. I’ll give you another date as soon as I can.”

“Yes, Ms Collins. I’ll get onto it in the morning.”

“Thank you, Mary. I appreciate it.”

“Wh-what do you want me to tell them?”

“Tell them I have been unavoidably delayed overseas and unfortunately, the exhibition will not be opening next week. Tell them it will be rescheduled as soon as possible and that I promise it will be worth their while.”

Mary had a notepad and pen in front of her. Kate could see her taking notes. After saying good-bye, Kate ended the call. She leaned back against her chair and sighed in relief. That was one less thing to worry about.

Knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer, she closed her laptop and booted up the one belonging to her mother. She tried to tamp down the nervous tension that twisted her stomach. She’d missed lunch, but the lack of food wasn’t what had her stomach in knots.

The news that her mother had been planning to fly to London had come as a shock. Things between her mother and Darryl must have been much worse than Kate had thought.

But, why hadn’t her mother emailed her to let her know she was coming? Rosemary had never been a keen flyer. With the challenges she faced in her wheelchair, boarding an airplane had never appealed to her. In fact, Kate didn’t have a single memory of her mother flying anywhere. She could only imagine what had driven her to want to fly to London.

She clicked open Rosemary’s email account. When she’d looked through the messages with Riley, she’d given most of them only a cursory glance. There was so much junk mail, it was hard to decipher legitimate messages. Once they’d found Daisy’s emails and had realized the significance of them, they’d concentrated on messages from her.

But now, she took the time to look closely at the mail that had been sent to and from her mother’s account, paying particular attention to the dates. If what Daisy said was true, her mother had started planning her departure just prior to Daisy’s July second birthday.

Kate opened the Sent box and moved the scroll bar downwards until she found messages sent around that time. One message caught her eye. It had been sent on June twenty-fifth—a week prior.

It had been sent to her.
Memories emerged and then collided. Clicking it open, she scanned the familiar contents. She’d received it early one evening, at home in her apartment. It had been raining—a cold, miserable London night—and she’d gone to bed early with her laptop and a hot mug of cocoa.

Her mother had written to inform her about the changes she intended to make to her will. She’d given no explanation, apart from saying she was leaving everything to Kate.

Kate scrolled through another half dozen spam messages.

And then she found it.
The last email she’d received from her mother. The one that posed more questions than it had answered. The one Kate hadn’t told Riley about. The one that still woke her in the middle of the night with fear tight in her chest.

I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so, so sorry.

Kate’s heart hammered, just as it had when she’d read the email the first time. It had been sent on July first, but she remembered she hadn’t opened it until two days later. She’d been staying in a remote village in the south of Italy on a buying trip and had been without Internet access. She hadn’t checked her emails until she’d arrived back in London.

She focused on the date again. July first. The day before Daisy’s birthday. The day before her mother had told Daisy something had happened and she had to leave.
Right away
.

Cold dread settled deep inside her and stretched upwards, sliding icy fingers around her heart.

Something had happened.

Kate’s increasingly panicked thoughts went back to her mother’s final email.

I’m sorry.

When Kate had first read the email, she’d panicked that her mother had been apologizing for an impending suicide. Kate had spent a restless night tossing and turning ten thousand miles away, feeling as helpless and scared as she’d been as a child. The memories of her hellish years in the house on Baxter Road had set her therapy back an immeasurable distance, but when the sun broke out through the clouds the next morning, she was able to look at the situation a little less emotionally.

Over the next few days, she’d emailed her mother endlessly, begging her to contact her. She’d left messages on Rosemary’s cell phone and had even risked having Darryl pick up when she called the house line.

And still, she’d heard nothing. It had been the longest week of her life. Every day, she’d scoured the Watervale newspapers online with her heart in her mouth, waiting to find the article that would tell her about her mother’s death.

But there was nothing.

The week after was the same and the week after that. She began to wonder if she’d been wrong.

Being confined to a wheelchair had its limitations. Her mother wasn’t able to drive; she mostly relied upon Darryl or taxis to get around. If she’d been serious about ending her life, it stood to reason she would do it in the safety and security of her own home. It was the only thing that made sense. And yet, that hadn’t happened. It was inconceivable the wife of a prominent Watervale resident wouldn’t have made front page news if she committed suicide.

There was only one conclusion Kate could draw: her mother was still alive but unable to reach her. It was then she’d known she would have to return to Watervale, the place of her nightmares.

She’d had plenty of time during the long flight to stoke her deep-seated anger against Darryl. By the time she’d arrived in Watervale, she was out for his blood. It was the reason why one of the first sentences out of her mouth upon her arrival was when she’d insisted to Riley that her stepfather had murdered her mother.

Despite her accusations, she’d clung to the hope she was wrong; she’d prayed her mother was alive and well and that when the time was right, she’d contact her. But while she’d listened to Daisy talk about her mother’s desire to leave and the plans they’d formed to make it happen, her hope shriveled and died.

It was beyond nonsensical to accept that a wheelchair-bound woman who had set plans in motion to leave her husband and had confirmed those plans the night before they were to be set into motion, would change her mind and go elsewhere, alone, hours before her bid for freedom was realized.

Sorry…sorry…sorry…sorry…sorry…

The word reverberated around Kate’s head. A loud buzzing sounded in her ears. Her vision narrowed to a pinprick of light.

Sorry for what?

She clamped a hand over her mouth to hold in her gasp of shock.

Of course. The videos.

After all these years, her mother must have found them. It was the only thing that made sense.

Shame burned in her belly and scorched her face. Nausea threatened. She pushed away from the counter and bent double, gasping for breath. A tiny part of her was relieved the secret had finally been exposed, but mostly she just felt sick.

She swiped at the perspiration on her forehead and struggled to regain control. If her mother had discovered the videos and confronted Darryl about them, he would have had more than enough motivation to kill her, particularly if she’d threatened to go to the police with them.

Kate had always known about the vile recordings. She’d managed to push their existence to the far recesses of her mind, in the dark place where she stored most of her childhood memories.

After more than a decade of silence about their reality, she could well-understand if Darryl had become complacent about the possibility of her exposing him. And he would have been secure in his skewed logic.

Kate had worked hard to forge a life away from him, away from Watervale with all its dirty secrets. The last thing she dreamed of was going public with her humiliation. Darryl knew it. It was exactly the kind of reluctance he’d counted on.

What he hadn’t counted on was having his wife discover the evidence of his monstrous crimes. The more Kate thought about it, the more she was certain she was right.

If Rosemary had found them and threatened to go to the police, he’d have had genuine fears she would go through with it. His reputation would be destroyed and that was the least of it. He’d be jailed and forced to live with the criminals he’d helped put inside. His life would be over. That was strong motivation in anyone’s book. Powerful enough to turn him into a murderer.

Kate didn’t doubt it. There was nothing for it. She had to tell Riley. She stood and hunted around in her handbag for her phone. Riley had told her he was heading back to the station to chase up the new leads. She didn’t expect to hear from him until this evening, or perhaps even the next day.

But this couldn’t wait. This new possibility fit too well. Despite her agony at the thought of revealing her sordid childhood, she had no choice. For her mother’s sake, she had to tell him.

Her fingers clenched around the phone as she listened to it dialing out. She bit her lip in abject disappointment when the call went through to voicemail. Leaving an urgent message for him to contact her, she ended the call and tossed the phone onto the bed. It bounced once and then slid off the far side of the quilt and onto the carpeted floor.

“Damn.” She took a step toward it. As she did, a shadow moved across the window. She froze.

There was someone outside her door.

She’d not yet drawn the heavy damask curtains and she could see the indistinct outline of a man through the gauzy covering across the front window. A knock sounded on the door.