The Truth Will Out Page 3

  “Sergeant Pemberton and I are off to deliver the bad news to the family.” Helen watched a sea of shoulders relax around her as relief flooded the room. Usually delegated to the lower ranks, the death message was a part of the job dreaded by all officers. But, in a major investigation, Helen preferred to do it herself. People’s reactions could bring a lot to the case. They may say something, often an inadvertent comment, which may lead the investigation in a certain direction. Also, as most victims are killed by somebody they know or somebody close to them, they may provide an insight into Naomi’s social life and family background. And Helen didn’t believe in delegating a job she wouldn’t do herself.

  Helen watched them retreat to their desks and begin the laborious task of piecing together Naomi’s final hours. With her inspector absent on long-term sick leave, it never ceased to impress or amaze Helen how much they all pulled together to get the job done. She moved back to her own office: a cubicle in the far corner, with a window that overlooked the car park at the rear of the building. White venetian blinds sat open at the other window that looked out into the incident room. She could see Pemberton outlining their current priorities on a whiteboard, Spencer pinning up the first tranche of photographs.

  As she grabbed her coat and bag and headed back out into the main office, a thought rushed into her mind. She turned to Spencer, “Get me a copy of the informant’s phone call to the control room, will you? I want to know whose voice is on that call.”

  ***

  Over the years, Helen had faced many different reactions to the death message. Some people collapsed dramatically into floods of tears, crushed by the news. Others are numbed, unable to comprehend the incomprehensible. Some are even physically sick. Occasionally people get angry, aggressive even - she’d never forgotten an elderly mother who slapped her across the cheek when she’d told her that her son had died in a car crash. There were those who displayed active disbelief, accusing her of lying to them, ‘I only spoke to her an hour ago’ or, ‘it couldn’t possibly be him’, while others strangely accepted the news as if they were being told that they had just failed their driving test, and later it hits them like a bolt of lightning.

  As she delivered the news to Naomi’s parents, Helen watched the colour slowly drain from Olivia Spence’s face before she stumbled, body trembling, legs buckling beneath her. Everyone rushed forward. Her husband, aided by Pemberton, managed to catch her just in time and manoeuvre her into a nearby armchair. For several minutes, Olivia sat motionless, head dipped. Henry Spence positioned himself on the arm beside her and clasped her hand in his.

  “I’m so very sorry,” Helen said, after giving them a few minutes. The words were inadequate and she knew it.

  Naomi’s parents sat in silence. Pemberton retreated to the kitchen. A sweet smell lingered in the room. Helen followed it to a vase of pink roses mingled with white spray carnations on the dresser. Beside it was a photo of Naomi in mortar board and gown, a smile stretched from ear to ear. The only resemblance this photo bore to the corpse at Brooke Street was a mass of ginger hair.

  Olivia Spence lifted her head as Pemberton returned to the room with two mugs of what Helen guessed were very sweet, milky tea to calm the initial shock. The white hair that framed Olivia’s face was cut very short and with her striking green eyes, clear complexion and petite nose, Helen could see where her daughter’s beauty had derived.

  Olivia’s hand trembled as she instinctively brushed a fleck of dust from her navy trousers and straightened the striped scarf that decorated her white jumper. She opened her mouth as she reached for the mug but no words came out. Instead she nodded, despair etched into her face.

  Henry Spence took his tea and stood, rocking on his feet in between sips. He was a small man, less than five and a half feet tall Helen guessed. The buttons of his blue shirt gaped slightly to reveal an overhanging stomach. His face looked completely empty, as though he would never be truly happy again.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you this,” Helen said gently. “Do you know of anyone who may have wanted to hurt Naomi?”

  Olivia shook her head. Henry stared into space and said nothing.

  Helen looked around the lounge room of their detached family home. There were endless photos of the three of them: one on top of the television having a meal together in a restaurant; a family portrait on the wall behind the sofa with Naomi seated between them; another on the bookcase of Naomi in school uniform, strands of hair falling messily across her face. Helen estimated that the Spence’s were probably in their early sixties, so Naomi would have arrived later in life and by the looks of things very much cherished. Everything screamed of a close family, one that had been shattered in the course of a single evening.

  Her eyes rested on a photo of Naomi seated at a grand piano in a black strapless gown, red curly hair piled on top of her head, fingers poised over the keys. It reminded her of the piano at Brooke Street, now a crime scene. So far, house to house enquiries had proved fruitless. Naomi’s immediate neighbours on both sides were out at the time of the incident and those that were indoors were tucked up in front of fires, windows and doors tightly shut, cutting out the brutal weather beyond. Her nearest neighbour at home was an elderly man in his nineties who lived alone, a couple of doors up. The officer that interviewed him wasn’t surprised he hadn’t heard anything. Apparently you’d need a miracle to hear anything over the sound of his television.

  CSI had drafted in extra staff to comb the attic but the discovery felt like a stone in her shoe that she couldn’t push out. The more she thought about it the more she realised that the use of the loft space was ingenious. It reduced the chance of being seen by witnesses, allowed for a quick and easy escape route if disturbed, and, as Pemberton suggested, afforded the element of surprise. But then, why the fight? Shootings were usually fairly clean killings. The killer doesn’t have to get close to their victim. The fight didn’t make sense. Just like the female informant.

  Helen looked back at the Spences. They’d finished their tea. They looked tired although she guessed sleep wouldn’t offer much respite to them tonight, or in the forthcoming days and weeks. She stood. “Is there anyone we can call? Someone close perhaps?”

  Henry stayed very still for a second. Sweat glistened on the bald patch on the top of his head. “No, thank you.”

  “Okay. We will need someone to formally identify Naomi.”

  “Could it be a mistake, be someone else?” Olivia suddenly found her voice. She looked up, her eyes holding onto to the tiniest thread of hope.

  Helen shook her head. “We found her driving licence photo card at the property. I’m sorry. It will just be a formality.”

  Olivia’s face folded.

  “It’s all his fault,” Henry mumbled, through tight teeth.

  His wife shook her head, placed a shaky hand on his arm, but he brushed it away. “We should have stopped it. She was fine before she met him.”

  Helen watched him for a moment. He continued to rock, backwards and forwards, on the balls of his feet, his gaze averted. There was something behind the sadness in his eyes. “Is there something you would like to tell us, Mr Spence?” she eventually asked.

  “Paton,” he said, “Jules Paton.” He choked the name out. And when he started he couldn’t seem to stop. He launched into a tirade of abuse about Naomi’s ex-boyfriend.

  Much of what he said was incoherent drivel. He punched the words out, one after the other, like a toy that had been wound up and couldn’t stop until it ran out of energy. As Pemberton furiously scribbled away, Helen managed to glean that Jules Paton was Naomi’s ex-boyfriend, a married man, although separated from his wife and two children and several years Naomi’s senior.

  Henry Spence talked about a relationship that lasted two years, a destructive relationship where Jules had introduced Naomi to cocaine. His nostrils flared when he described his bright young daughter’s delight at getting the job at Memington Hall, doing really well, made for great things.
Until she met him.

  “Oh, in the early days he impressed us all,” he continued, “describing himself as a ‘business man’ who worked in the motor industry and played the stock market in his spare time. He flashed cash, impressed Naomi with his black BMW, treated her to meals in expensive restaurants, took her to posh hotels.” The nostrils flared again. “Then later, he started to control her, knock her about.”

  Olivia gasped. “Henry, we don’t know that!”

  “What about that black eye last summer?”

  “She said she had an accident, fell at work.”

  “And the bruises on her arms?”

  Helen watched Olivia look away and put her face in her hands. She waited a moment, then sat forward. “What did Naomi say about the bruises?” she asked.

  “She always stuck up for him, had an answer for everything. But we weren’t born yesterday. She was changing - changing from a confident, intelligent woman into a frightened, lost soul and was completely reliant on him. Only after he’d sunk all her savings into funding their joint habit, did he drop her two months ago when the bank account was finally empty.”

  Henry Spence collapsed into the armchair behind him. It was as if somebody had opened a valve and released all the air from his lungs.

  Helen gave him a moment. “Are you saying that you think Jules Paton killed your daughter?”

  He took a while to respond. Finally, he looked across at her. “If he didn’t do it himself, then he got her mixed up in something she couldn’t get out of.” He lifted his hand, jabbed a sausage finger at her. “Either way, it’s got something to do with him.”

  She watched as he turned away in despair. So, Naomi had dated a man they didn’t approve of, a man that had drawn a wedge between them. She looked back around the room at the numerous photos of Naomi with her parents. Undoubtedly, this would be difficult for her parents to accept. But that didn’t give Jules Paton a motive for murder.

  There were the abuse allegations. Surely, if they had been that bad they would have been recorded, although she couldn’t rely on that. She thought back to the body in Brooke Street and Pemberton’s words, ‘It looks as though she put up a good fight.’ Victims of domestic violence rarely fought back, afraid of a heavier beating or worse - severe mental intimidation.

  Could this be the rage of a jealous ex-lover? But why the house search? And what about the drugs? Could Naomi have developed an addiction she couldn’t fund? Did she upset somebody? Fail to pay her debts?

  She gave him another moment to compose himself, before continuing gently, “You say that they separated two months ago?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Has Naomi seen or heard from him during this time?”

  “How would I know? She wouldn’t tell us even if she did.”

  Helen fixed her eyes on Henry Spence. Perhaps these were the desperate words of a grieving father who had never approved of his dead daughter’s boyfriend. Or maybe he was grasping at straws, or looking to plant blame. But, she couldn’t afford to ignore any lead at this stage. “Do you have an address for Mr Paton?”

  Henry nodded and approached the dresser, searching through the drawer until he lifted out a black, leather address book. He leafed through the pages and stopped abruptly, thrusting the open book towards her. “That’s the last address we have. He might have moved. We didn’t exactly maintain contact.”

  She passed the book to Pemberton who jotted down the details.

  “Thank you. How had Naomi seemed in herself, these past two months?”

  “Barely comes round these days,” he mumbled.

  “When did you last see her?”

  “I spoke to her on the phone last Sunday.”

  Helen turned, surprised to hear Olivia Spence’s brittle voice.

  “She sounded,” Olivia hesitated for a moment, “okay. A bit tired, maybe.” Her voice disappeared into the room as despair crept back across her face. The same despair that would be making many visits over the next few hours, days, months.

  Helen paused for a moment. She turned to Henry. “Did she report any abusive incidents to the police?”

  He shook his head. “No idea.”

  Helen gazed at Olivia. Her eyes had sunken into her sallow face, the effects of the last hour sucking the very life from within her. After making arrangements for them to visit the mortuary in the morning, and taking down a list of Naomi’s friends and close associations she stood to leave.

  Helen was walking back to the car, Henry just closing the door, when she remembered something and turned back. “I’m sorry, may I just ask one more thing?”

  Henry pulled the door back. He gave a tired nod.

  “Did Naomi have a mobile phone?”

  ***

  By the time Helen reached the car, Pemberton was settled in the driving seat, deep in conversation on the phone.

  Helen waved to interrupt, relayed Naomi’s mobile number and requested a check on her call record. Then, waiting for Pemberton to finish, she settled herself into the passenger seat and glimpsed the dashboard clock. Two minutes past twelve. She lent her elbow on the windowsill, rested her head back. Her eyes were dry, head heavy.

  Pemberton shut off his phone. “That’s interesting.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Nothing on Naomi. Not even any intelligence. If she had a social habit, she kept it fairly well under wraps. And no reports of abuse either.”

  “What about Paton?”

  “No record as such, apart from a caution a few years ago for possession of cannabis, but plenty of Intel.”

  “Well, spit it out Sean.”

  Pemberton turned to face her. “He’s been associated with cocaine supply. Spotted in several places where we think exchanges have been made. A couple of sources have said he deals. But he’s never been charged, and the last entry was… ” He glanced down at his notebook, “last November.” He pushed the corners of his mouth down. “I guess he’s been quiet for a while.”

  Helen pushed out a sigh and watched the white puff balls disperse into the air around her.

  “Spencer has been out to Memington Hall,” Pemberton said, changing the subject. “The receptionist said Naomi had a late appointment with a bride to be - a Miss Taylor. She saw her leave just after seven. She remembered it clearly because she was doing the late shift and only started at six.”

  “Did she speak to anyone at Memington before she finished?”

  “No. Most of the day staff had gone home and the receptionist said she was on the phone when Naomi finished. Naomi just put her head around the door and gave her a wave.”

  “Any CCTV?”

  “Yes, he watched the tape but it just shows her leaving by the rear entrance and going straight to her car. I’d estimate her car journey home only takes about fifteen minutes, especially at that time of night. And we know that her Fiesta was parked in Brooke Street, just a few doors up from her house.”

  “So, for the moment we are thinking she drove straight home?”

  Pemberton shrugged. “In the absence of any other witnesses, it looks that way.”

  Helen looked out into the darkness. The snow had stopped falling; the air was still. She turned Henry Spence’s account over in her mind. Jules Paton was Naomi’s ex-boyfriend. He dabbled in drugs, would have been familiar with the layout of her home. But the state of Naomi’s home didn’t suggest a crime of passion. The intelligence suggested no history of violence or firearms and no police record to speak of. And no apparent motive.

  All she had were theories, sparked by the words of a desperate man. She had no evidence to suggest him as a suspect. But, what if Paton was the killer? What if he was at home now, burning his clothes and disposing of the gun?

  Another thought itched at her. The two wine glasses beside the kitchen sink. Naomi’s parents confirmed she lived alone. There was also the possibility he’d visited earlier that evening. He might have seen something. Or he might have information that could assist them. She reached for her
seat belt. “Let’s go take a drive by Mr Paton’s and see if anyone’s home.”

  ***

  Nate inserted the key into the lock, the same key he’d retrieved from beneath the flowerpot yesterday when she’d done the school run and taken the kids to their Monday football practice. It had taken less than an hour to get it copied and return the original.

  The house was shrouded in darkness. He padded slowly across the hallway, taking short steps to avoid any squeak from his trainers on the laminate flooring, then up the carpeted stairway.

  He stopped on the landing outside the first room and peered through the gap in the door. White LED lights shaped like stars gave off a soft, vanilla glow, just enough for him to see two small huddles, in two single beds. The little people were sleeping. He moved on to the master bedroom, squeezed through the gap in the door and stood there for almost a full minute, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  She was fast asleep, peaceful. He watched her a moment, then pulled the gun out of his pocket, jumped forward and placed a gloved hand firmly over her mouth. Her eyes snapped open. Her head frantically tossed from side to side. But his grip was firm. He was stronger than her and he knew it.

  He used his other hand to lift the gun to her throat, turning it so that it pointed up towards the bottom of her mouth. I could kill her right now, he thought to himself. All in the pull of a trigger. Perhaps she would put up a struggle, just like the other one. He felt a sudden, warm rush at the memory. He had enjoyed that. For a split second he was sorely tempted…

  Instead, he put his mouth to her ear, gently brushing it across her hair as he did so. Her whole body quivered. “I am going to say this once,” he hissed. “Tell Jules to get back home, now. Then we can talk.”

  She nodded, as much as she could manage beneath the weight of his hand, eyes filled with terror.

  “He has twenty-four hours. Or I take you all out.” He glanced at the wall that separated her from the children, then back down at her. “Them first, then you. One by one.”