‘You’re back. Did you find anything out?’
She nodded as she wiped the rain from her face with the insides of her stretched sleeve. ‘They both saw Susan arrive at Dale’s house. Neither knows exactly when that was but it was after midday. The man, Don Fellow, saw her arrive as he left his house to do a job. His wife remembers seeing Susan also when she saw her husband off. There’s something else.’
Jacob popped another sweet into his mouth and waited for her to continue.
‘Mrs Fellows heard shouting coming from Dale’s house. If someone had come to your house to help with your paperwork, there wouldn’t be any reason to use raised voices. At the moment, I’m thinking that Susan knew Dale Blair better than we think. How and why? We need to know the connection between them.’ She grabbed her phone and pressed the number for the station and Wyre answered. ‘It’s Harte. There’s a connection between Susan Wheeler and Dale Blair. Can you start digging deeper straight away? Check the schools they went to, places they’ve worked. We have to find out how they knew each other.’
‘Course, guv. Kapoor and I are heading back in a short while, we’re just at the bridge. See you soon,’ Wyre replied.
Jacob screamed in pain as she ended the call. ‘I think I need a filling.’ He grabbed the bag of sweets and threw them into the glove compartment before slamming it closed.
‘Back to the station, then.’
Eighteen
I grin as I emerge from the darkness. ‘Oi, chubby. Look at me.’ I lay another punch into his face savouring the moment when I hear the thwack of skin on skin. Susan makes squeaky noises through her nose from the other room. ‘Shut the hell up.’
Through glassy eyes, he stares up from the rotten floor, water dripping in from the roof onto his shoulder. I pull the rope from the crumbling bench and start playing with it. He shivers in the torchlight, his shadow making him look like he’s convulsing. ‘Cold, isn’t it?’
The man lets out a pained groan from under the rag. I see his eyes, pleading with me to stop. Never. This is all going too well.
‘It’s nice getting the old gang back together, all of us coming together where it all began. I could say that I missed you but that would be a lie.’ My knee crunches as I kneel down and sit next to the shaking man, nudging him as I laugh again. ‘Cosy this.’ I crack open a can of pop and swig it back, belching as I place the can down. I know he’d love a drink but he’s not having one. I stand in front of him and pull the rope, flexing it out. His eyes widen as he tries to wriggle out of his binds.
‘We used to like playing games, all of us. Let’s have a play.’
As I lean in, my little chubby friend topples off the chair and tries to wriggle along the floor, scraping his torso on the wood, glass and grit, bleeding a trail as he inches away. ‘Wiggle away, my little chubby worm.’
He could wiggle all he liked, there was no way out. A piercing scream fills the air. ‘Shut up, Susie, or I’m going to have to come and shove a rag right down your gullet. Is that what you want?’ I stare right into the wriggler’s eyes. My muscles tingle as I think of revenge. ‘I love it that our little gang is nearly back together. It’s just like old times.’ I stamp on his back. That’s as far as I’ll allow him to get.
Nineteen
‘Did you find anything new?’ Gina said as she removed her rain-drenched coat and threw it over a spare desk.
‘You only called me a short while ago but I am a speedy worker.’ Wyre beamed a big smile as she clipped her damp hair up. ‘Didn’t the rain come down?’
Gina nodded as she began removing her shoes. ‘Just ignore me. That’s the last time I buy cheap shoes from the internet.’ She removed the flat slip-ons and began peeling her soggy socks off. ‘Sorry about this but my feet and socks are clean. They’re just soaking, bloody wet.’ She dropped the socks in a carrier bag. Smith continued working on his computer while Jacob leaned over him, chatting and pointing at the screen.
‘I see you got caught in it too. What a storm!’ Wyre said.
Gina wiped her face with her sleeve, imagining the smeared mascara streaks. ‘Nightmare day. What have we got?’
‘Dale went to the local catholic school, Saint John’s. He also went to Cleevesford Primary. Susan went to Cleevesford High. She went to a primary school in Worcester before her family moved to the area. They didn’t go to school together. They are close in age. Dale: thirty-five. Susan: thirty-four. Their paths could have crossed but I haven’t found anything to suggest they did. They were from different sides of the town. The only thing this tells us is that they weren’t school friends. They may have hung around out of school or had friends in common. I did take the initiative to see if Dale and Susan had any Facebook friends in common. There are loads so I emailed them to you. This was easy enough to access. No one stood out but all of them may need looking into. We’ll make a start.’
‘Thanks for that.’
O’Connor pushed open the office door. ‘Whoa, it smells like wet dog in here.’
‘That’ll be guv’s soggy socks,’ Smith said as he turned in his chair.
‘Thanks for that.’ Gina felt her face reddening. ‘Sorry about the socks. They’ll be gone before you know it – in the bin.’
Gina slipped her cold dry feet back into her damp shoes, cringing as her toes touched the chilly curve at the end, making a little squelch sound. Grabbing her coat and socks, she passed O’Connor. ‘Have you looked up the area that postcode covers, the one on Susan Wheeler’s pad?’
‘It covers half of Beech Street.’ He rummaged through the pile of paper on his desk and eventually found what he was looking for underneath a mouldy cup. A pile of Post-it notes fluttered to the ground. ‘Here it is, not too far from Dale Blair’s house. She could have parked there and walked.’
‘Michaela Daniels, the dog woman, said she seemed to be in a rush. If she was in a rush, why wouldn’t she park right outside Dale Blair’s house? He was her next appointment. Let’s have a look, get my bearings.’
Gina stared at the small map and flicked it. ‘Two streets behind where he lived. I know it’s not making sense to me but was the Beech Street appointment next on her list? Wyre?’
