Steven’s interview was probably still in progress. Every minute seemed like an hour as she waited for a phone call. Would it be Briggs or one of the team? Her face and neck began to burn up. Maybe they were all sitting in the incident room, drinking coffee and discussing her personal life.
She jolted up as her back gate slammed. It was locked from the inside, it always was. The new gate was secure. She launched out of bed in her nightshirt and ran into the back bedroom, staring out into the darkness of the back of her garden and beyond. She gasped for air as she watched the wide open gate creaking back and forth in time with the heavy breeze that had picked up over the course of the evening.
A car sped along the road past the front of the house. She darted back to her bedroom and parted the curtains. The vehicle was no longer anywhere to be seen. She logged into her security app and began scrolling through the images that the CCTV had captured. A mottled figure slid alongside the house. She flicked to the other camera. The same dark figure climbed over her gate with ease. A few moments is all the intruder stayed for until he slid the locks on the back gate and left the garden. She flicked back to the front camera, car headlights filled the screen. Useless. The image was so grainy, she could only make out that the car was a hatchback. The registration plates were totally unreadable and the image of the intruder was blurred.
With trembling hands she grabbed her mobile. As she went to call Briggs, an incoming call from Jacob flashed up on the screen.
‘Jacob, how’s it all going?’ She didn’t know whether she first needed to know what Steven had said or report the intruder that had been in her garden. One thing she knew for sure was that it hadn’t been Steven. Steven hadn’t chased and attacked Sophie either. So much of her wanted it to be him so that he’d finally be locked away, but people like him never quite pay for all the bad they do in life. He’d probably be let out on bail with a charge of possession. He’d wheedle out of a dealing charge, she knew he’d manage that.
‘Hope I didn’t wake you, guv, but I thought you’d want to know who we’ve just pulled in. You might want to get here as soon as possible.’
Without hesitation, she grabbed the trousers that were on top of her clothes heap and pulled them on. For now, her intruder had to wait.
As she hurried into the incident room, Wyre and O’Connor turned to look at her. Smith walked past with a cup of coffee and Briggs was at the front of the room adding notes with Jacob to the incident board. She pulled her hair back and tied it up, wondering if someone would say something about the interview with Steven. She had to ask, be the first person to mention it. Maybe they were too embarrassed to bring it up with her. It would have to come out sooner or later and at this precise moment, she’d mentally prepared for it. ‘How did the interview with Steven go?’
O’Connor tapped his pen on the desk. ‘Well, he admitted to using the drugs that we found. It was borderline on quantity as to whether he could be dealing so that’s all we have on him at the moment. We’ve cautioned him and let him go. Given the results that came back from forensics, that’s all we could do. He’s not our attacker. At least that’s what all the forensics results are telling us. He’s not a shoe size ten either like our perp, he has pretty small feet. He’s a seven.’
She wondered if O’Connor was hiding something about Steven. She glanced across at Wyre knowing she’d be able to tell if they were holding something back. ‘Anything else?’
‘Apart from him being a disrespectful shit in general, no, guv.’ O’Connor threw his pen to the table. She could tell he was tired. It had been a long day and her usually chirpy colleague was getting a little tetchy.
She caught Briggs’s eye and he shook his head a little. She then knew her secret was still safe. Steven hadn’t said a word about her. Almost falling into her chair, she inhaled and smiled.
‘I hate that man,’ Wyre said.
Gina shared that sentiment. At least everyone at the station had got to know exactly what Steven was like should he reappear in the case again.
‘Good news, I hear.’ Gina leaned in, waiting for one of the team to fill her in. ‘Tell me all about it then. I got the mini version over the phone.’
Briggs stood next to the board, biting the end of his pen as Jacob took a seat at the head of the table. Another one of her colleagues who looked like he hadn’t slept for days. ‘It’s Rhys Keegan. As you know we’ve brought him in.’
Gina slipped her coat off. ‘Where was he found?’
‘We received a call from Paul Brent who owns the land. He’s a farmer. He was just passing Crump Lane and in the distance he noticed a car blocking his access. The car had come off the road, travelled a little way down the rubbly pathway and was parked in the shrubs. He originally thought that there had been a crash but there was no damage to the car when he had a look. He then saw Rhys sleeping in the back of his car so knocked on the window and told him that he had to leave. Rhys got out and was drunk and abusive so he called us. He also pulled a hammer from his boot and struck the farmer’s four-wheel drive several times. Uniform arrived on the scene, recognised Rhys and the car. They then called us and brought him in. We’ve placed him in a cell to sober up. You’ll get no sense out of him tonight, he’s paralytic.’
‘Great work. We finally have our main suspect. Possibly the last person to see Jade Ashmore alive. Well done everyone. As soon as he knows what day it is, we’ll have him in the interview room.’ She smiled. Briggs smiled back, allowing his gaze to linger just a while longer. Steven was now gone from the case leaving her able to be more hands on. She hoped he’d allow her to interview Rhys Keegan.
As the incident room filled with chatter about the case, she walked over to Briggs. ‘I have something else to report.’ She wasn’t about to sit on any information that may be relevant to the case. An intruder in her garden probably had nothing to do with the case whatsoever, but failure to say anything immediately would land her back in trouble, even if that trouble only extended to Briggs.
Sixty
Sunday, 12 May 2019
Rhys Keegan’s bloodshot eyes and overgrown facial hair were evidence that he’d been lying low for days. The smell of stale beer, sweat and whisky filled the room. His long brown hair had tangled into unruly lugs. Gina and Jacob had been questioning him for fifteen minutes and, so far, he’d given them very few words in response. She didn’t know if he was purposely not speaking or if his hangover was just kicking in. The forty-seven-year-old man looked older than his years in his sickly-looking state. Gina wondered what Aimee had ever seen in him.
The duty solicitor looked like she was picking the nail varnish from her nails. Her bobbed grey hair bouncing every time she moved.
‘Mr Keegan, can you tell us what happened on the night of Sunday the fifth of May and the early hours of Monday the sixth of May, the morning Jade Ashmore was murdered.’
He shook his head, forcing his hair to cover half of his face, entwining itself amongst the inch of beard that sprouted from his chin. ‘Jade knew exactly what we were doing. We were all at the party for the same thing.’
‘What was that?’
‘Okay, it was a wife-swapping party. We all linked up on Swap Fun and Dawn, the host, invited us to her party. Me and Aimee wanted to go so we went. We like things a bit adventurous in the bedroom. We all had a few drinks, got to know each other and randomly picked our partners from some sort of pot and I got Jade.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
Shrugging his shoulders, he cleared his throat and coughed into his hand. Gina pushed a box of tissues across the table. ‘Well, looking at the rest of the talent, I was pleased. When you’ve been used to someone of Aimee’s quality, you get picky, if you get me. I really didn’t want Maggie and I wasn’t keen on the thought of ending up with Dawn. So, when I picked Jade out, I was happy.’ He slouched back in the plastic chair and began rolling bits of tissue up and dropping them on the floor.
