Suspects, p.1
Suspects, page 1
Lesley Pearse
* * *
Suspects
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Lesley Pearse was told as a child that she had too much imagination for her own good. When she grew up she worked her way through a number of jobs, including nanny, bunny girl, dressmaker and full-time mother, before, at the age of forty-nine, settling upon a career that would allow her gifts to blossom: she became a published writer. Lesley lives in Devon and has three daughters and four grandchildren.
By the Same Author
Georgia
Tara
Charity
Ellie
Camellia
Rosie
Charlie
Never Look Back
Trust Me
Father Unknown
Till We Meet Again
Remember Me
Secrets
A Lesser Evil
Hope
Faith
Gypsy
Stolen
Belle
The Promise
Forgive Me
Survivor
Without a Trace
Dead to Me
The Woman in the Wood
The House Across the Street
You’ll Never See Me Again
Liar
To my four gorgeous grandchildren, Brandon, Harley, Sienna and Alicia.
I’ve missed you so much this year, but we will make up for lost time soon.
Love you all xxxx
1
18 July 2009, Cheltenham, Day One
‘What on earth has Harry got now?’ Maureen Willis asked her husband Rob, pointing to their Border Terrier, which appeared to have found something interesting a little way ahead of them under a bush.
‘Harry. Leave it!’ Rob yelled. He looked back to his wife, with a shrug of resignation. ‘Please don’t let it be fox poo. Seven on an already hot morning and we’ll never get the stink off him.’
The couple speeded up to get their dog under control. Rob reached him first and Maureen heard him gasp in horror.
‘What is it?’ she called, panting a little with the exertion of getting her twelve-stone weight up the hill.
Rob had stopped short. Even from a distance Maureen could see, from the way he’d clapped his hand over his mouth, it was something gruesome.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ Rob shouted, waving his arms as further warning, then he bent over to put the dog on his lead.
‘What is it?’ she called.
Rob looked down at the young girl sprawled on the ground, half under a bush. Her long blonde hair was matted with congealing blood, which also covered her bare arms and clothing. He could tell by her coltish limbs she was no more than twelve or thirteen. His stomach heaved at the savage attack.
Turning away, he said to Maureen, ‘Call the police, love. It’s a child who’s been attacked. I’m pretty certain she’s dead.’
2
At nine thirty the same morning, Conrad Best drove a hired van loaded with his and his wife Nina’s belongings into Willow Close, and paused, taking in the carefully tended open-plan front gardens, and the serenity of the street. He turned to Nina in the passenger seat. ‘Do you think we could be in swingers’ territory?’
Nina laughed. She could always rely on Conrad to think of something smutty. But she could follow his thinking. In her opinion Willow Close in the bright sunshine was more Stepford Wives than swingers. Everything was perfect, from the neat borders of petunias and busy lizzies to the snowy white nets at sparkling windows, and gleaming, recently washed and waxed cars on drives.
But maybe Conrad had picked up on something else, a darker side to such perfection. Was it possible the residents threw parties where they swapped partners? If so, she hoped they weren’t watching her and Conrad right now with a view to drawing them into it.
‘Just keep that thought to yourself. I want to get on well with my new neighbours,’ she said reprovingly. Conrad had no filter: he was quite likely to come right out and ask someone which people were swingers.
‘It’s so good to finally get a house of our own. Even the sun’s shining today.’
‘And the police have come to welcome us.’ Conrad pointed out a squad car parked just beyond their house. ‘Unless, of course, a swingers party got out of hand?’
‘You always think the worst.’ Nina giggled. ‘They might not be on criminal business. Maybe the policeman lives here and popped home for a coffee.’
Conrad parked the van outside the garage of number three, and looked thoughtfully across the road, where some neighbours had suddenly come out of their houses to get together. ‘Look at that lot. They’ve come out for more than a lost dog or a broken window.’
Nina saw he was right. The body language and facial expressions of the people clustered together suggested they were discussing something distressing.
But the young couple had been dreaming of their own home for so long that their joy wiped out anything else that might be going on. They leapt out of the van gleefully.
They had first viewed the link-detached house back in January, and although they liked its space and the three good-sized bedrooms, they felt they were too young, in their mid-twenties, to settle for what they thought was a ‘granny house’. They soon found, though, that all the houses they liked close to town were beyond their price range, and the cheaper ones needed far too much renovating, or had no off-street parking.
Then in the spring, when they heard the price of this one had been reduced for a quick sale, they viewed it again. Only then did they see that the south-facing garden was full of daffodils and blossom trees. They imagined having barbecues on the patio and, in time, a baby asleep in its pram on the lawn. They loved the way the whole house was full of sunshine. The trees beyond the garden fence had new leaves unfurling. It no longer seemed a ‘granny house’, but a for-ever home, with everything they needed.
Now they were moving in.
Conrad opened the front door and, regardless of people looking on, scooped Nina into his arms to carry her over the threshold. She giggled helplessly as he took her right to the French windows at the back of the house and dumped her rather unceremoniously on the floor.
‘I didn’t think they’d leave this carpet,’ Nina said, stretching out on the floor, like a starfish. It was a light biscuit colour in exceptionally good condition. ‘That’ll save us some money, won’t it?’
‘They’ve left the stair carpet too,’ Conrad said, as he ran up it. ‘Wow, they’ve left all the carpets!’ he shouted down to Nina. ‘How great is that?’
Nina jumped up and went to join him. Sure enough the lovely neutral carpet was everywhere. They had very little money left after the solicitor’s fees and they’d resigned themselves to living without carpets for months.
Conrad hugged Nina. ‘I think I must be one of the luckiest men in the world,’ he said. ‘A beautiful wife, a job I love and now a house of our own.’
Nina thought she was the lucky one. Conrad was a care worker at what he liked to call ‘a naughty boys’ home’. Boys who had mostly been taken into care because they were running wild and getting into trouble. Conrad understood their underlying problems, which were not just poverty and neglect, but lack of self-worth caused by parental disinterest. He’d had a troubled childhood, though very different from the ones ‘his’ boys had, and kept his tough-guy image, muscles, tattoos and heavy-metal T-shirts because he knew it helped the boys feel he was on their side.
To Nina his true nature shone out of his kind grey eyes, his sense of fun in his wide smiling mouth. He was astoundingly sensitive too: he picked up on people’s problems with barely a word from them. He kept in touch with many of his old boys, who had gone on to live in flats of their own. As he often said, that was the time when young lads could go off the rails. His mission was to make sure they didn’t.
Nina had fancied Conrad, who looked at first sight like a Gypsy, with his black curls and perma-tan, but when she found his soft centre, she fell in love with him. ‘A bit of an exaggeration calling me beautiful.’ She laughed. Nina had no illusions about herself: she was five foot five, slim, and had long mousy hair, which at present was dyed auburn. She saw nothing remarkable in her face ‒ her eyes were brown, her complexion was clear and her nose small, but she wouldn’t win any beauty contests.
But Conrad, her friends and family saw her differently. They said her enthusiasm for everything, the way she cared about people and her ability to make any occasion fun made her a human tonic.
Nina was a florist. She worked at Petals in the Montpelier area of Cheltenham. While kids who needed help were her husband’s passion, she was passionate about flowers and hoped one day to own a floristry shop. She had already made quite a name for herself in wedding flowers, and she was lucky in that Babs, who owned Petals, loved her ideas and allowed her free rein with the designs.
A few minutes later the couple went outside again to get the first of the many boxes. In the last two years of living together their belongings seemed to have multiplied tenfold. As Conrad opened the van doors, a big, powerful-looking man in his late forties or early fifties, came across the road to greet them. ‘Welcome to Willow Close. I’m Alfie, and I live at number eight. I popped over to warn you what’s happened. It’s about as nasty as anything could be when you’re just moving into the street. A young girl was murdered this morning, right over there.’ He pointed to the trees behind their house.
‘No!’ Conrad exclaimed in horror. ‘Is that why the police car is here?’
‘Yes. They’re talking to Maureen and Rob Willis, your neighbours. They found the girl earlier when they were walking their dog. But we haven’t heard yet who she is.’
‘How awful for her parents.’ Nina’s voice shook with emotion. ‘And a bad time for us to be moving in.’
‘I’m sorry to spoil your day. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.’ He hung his head, looking contrite.
‘There’s never a right time to get news like that,’ Conrad said, and touched the older man’s forearm in understanding. ‘Better to hear it straight away than to put your foot in it later. I’m Conrad Best, and my wife is Nina.’
Alfie had the look of a boxer, a nose that might have been punched flat, but still had thick brown hair with only a touch of grey at the temples. His voice was muted Cockney, as if he’d left London many years ago. Conrad felt he was going to like the man: the laughter lines around his eyes were a good omen, and his grey eyes suggested intelligence.
‘Marge and Jack moved out of your house the day before yesterday, but they’ll be so shocked when they hear what’s happened, as we all are. But don’t let me hold you up, and if you need anything, some milk, bread or an extra pair of hands, I’m just across the road.’
Conrad and Nina were unnaturally quiet as they unpacked the van, speeding up now, desperate to get all their goods inside and shut the front door. Nina looked out of the back window, and although the fence at the bottom of the garden was virtually hidden by bushes, the trees behind it were enough to remind her that a child had been killed there. She shuddered at the thought.
What if the murderer came over that way to kill her?
Later that day, Rob Willis glanced at Maureen, who was slumped in dejection on the sofa. He wished they’d done anything other than decide to walk Harry before setting off for their impromptu weekend in Lyme Regis. They were unaccustomed to making spur-of-the-moment decisions. Or, indeed, of changing their routine. Every Saturday morning they put the dog into the car at seven, drove to the park near Sainsbury’s and exercised Harry before getting the week’s shopping. They even bought the same grocery items each week, with only slight changes according to what fruit and vegetables were in season.
They had an annual two-week holiday each year in August, always the same cottage at Ilfracombe in north Devon. At Christmas they booked into a country-house hotel on Dartmoor.
It was the sweltering weather that had decided them to be rash. Yesterday in the office of their stationery-supplies company they felt they were melting with the heat. Suddenly a weekend in Lyme Regis by the sea was irresistible. The cutting remark John Freeman, one of their neighbours, had made about them last Friday at his barbecue had also influenced the decision.
They had only gone to be neighbourly. Rose Freeman was the street snoop and gossip, and they were wary of becoming involved with her on any level. And they hated standing around eating overcooked burgers and making small-talk with people they had nothing in common with. By nine thirty they thanked John for having them and made the excuse they had some work to do.
John imagined himself to be very funny, and instead of just saying goodnight and he was glad they had come, he’d had to make a joke about them leaving early as they were always up at the crack of dawn. He said their car, starting early every Saturday morning to go to Sainsbury’s, woke him.
‘Always on the dot of seven too.’ He chortled. ‘I bet you two even schedule having sex into your diary. What day is that? Sunday?’
His wife roared with laughter, too, and no doubt she would spitefully repeat her husband’s remarks again and again.
Rob had shrugged it off, but it had stung that people were laughing at their predictability. He decided they must do something out of character every now and then. So, as he and Maureen had walked to the park earlier that morning with Harry, they had both agreed it was refreshing to do something spontaneous.
But just twenty minutes later when he’d looked down at the dead girl, Rob had wished he was on his way to Sainsbury’s as usual, and tears had started in his eyes at the horror of the scene. Dried blood was caked on her head, face and arms, and her pretty cotton dress was pulled up, showing her white knickers. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen, her life over almost before it had begun. Who could have done such an evil thing?
The police and the paramedics arrived simultaneously. But after checking the girl was indeed dead, the paramedics drove off. Rob heard one of the police say that the pathologist and the forensics team were on their way.
After giving the police their details, Rob and Maureen were relieved to be told they could go home, where they would be formally interviewed later. A shelter had been erected over the child’s body and the crime scene cordoned off. Police were redirecting other dog-walkers, who were trying to see what was going on.
‘Has a local child been reported missing?’ Maureen asked a female officer. ‘Her mother must be panic-stricken if she didn’t come home last night.’
‘I don’t know,’ the officer said, her tone a little frosty, as if she resented questions from the public. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’
As they left to go home Maureen turned to her husband. ‘Have you seen the girl before?’ He usually had a good memory for faces.
‘Her hair was across her face and there was so much blood I couldn’t say.’ Rob’s voice shook, and she could see he was close to breaking down. ‘Well, it’s put paid to our weekend. Even if the police weren’t calling for a statement, my heart wouldn’t be in it.’
Maureen slipped her hand through his arm. She’d only seen the body from a distance, and that was more than enough for her. Rob was far more sensitive than she was, and the shock of finding the girl was likely to give him nightmares.
3
‘So could this girl be Chloë Church?’ Detective Inspector Jim Marshall asked Ian Dowling, his sergeant. They’d just sent the Willises home and were looking down at the child lying crumpled on the ground.
Her father had rung the station at about nine thirty the previous evening to report his daughter missing. Although she was only two hours late coming home, he said, it wasn’t like her. He had already checked the playground and the other places she met her friends, without success, and he’d been told she’d gone home ages before.
Church had rung the police station again at six that morning to say she still hadn’t come home. An hour later Mrs Willis had called to say she and her husband had found a dead child.
Giles Patterson, the pathologist, had just arrived to join Marshall and Dowling, and was preparing to do his initial examination.
Dowling sighed. ‘She fits the description of Chloë, thirteen, fair hair, blue eyes and a white dress with red poppies.’ He always dreaded child deaths. With three children of his own, he tended to get emotional, imagining it was one of them. He looked down at the girl, who had literally been pounded to death with a stone or brick. How could anyone have done that to a child?
Marshall sighed in agreement with his sergeant. He was fifty, divorced and had no children. But having none of his own didn’t prevent him sharing the pain and grief parents felt at losing a child. Or being angry that some brute had taken a young life.
‘To me this looks like malice,’ Patterson offered, kneeling at the girl’s side. ‘Someone with a powerful grudge. Maybe against her parents. Though God knows how anyone could hate enough to attack an innocent child to get at her parents.’
