They had to leave. She gestured for Jacob’s attention and pointed to her mouth. He wiped the string of drool that was sliding down his chin.
‘The anaesthetic hasn’t worn off,’ he mouthed.
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Dentist. I don’t know which hurt more, the tooth or the bill.’
She’d forgotten he’d had a filling with all that had been going on.
‘Any news from the search? Briggs was going to keep me updated.’
‘Not yet, guv,’ O’Connor replied.
‘What was that about?’ Jacob hurried behind her and closed the front door.
She glanced back. ‘I’ll tell you when we get in the car. You’re not going to believe it.’
Gina watched as the robins bobbed on Lawrence’s window ledge and she hoped they would give him some comfort in his time of grief. The potential perpetrators bobbed into her thoughts, first in turn, then all overlapping. Clare, Ryan, now Lawrence, Susan and Steph – there was a big question mark over those two women.
Had the Steph that Lawrence mentioned been the woman calling last night? The woman they failed to reach in time, the woman who thought someone was following her. Gina shivered as a blast of arctic air caught her neck. O’Connor was right – this case had become weirdly disturbing.
‘Straight to the Angel Arms. It’s opening time.’ Samuel Avery might have something to add. ‘Pass me a couple of paracetamol from the glove compartment.’
‘Yeah, two for you, two for me. The anaesthetic is starting to wear off.’ They were both in a bit of a sorry state.
Fifty-Five
‘What was the call about? Back at Lawrence’s house.’ Jacob tapped on his notepad as they went around the traffic island and onto the straight road that led them to the Angel Arms. A smattering of sleet splashed against the windscreen.
‘The red liquorice that had been placed in Dale’s throat, post-mortem.’ Gina tried to insert the pieces of the puzzle together as she reeled the words off.
‘What about it?’
‘It came from the exact same piece that Bernard and his team found in Dale’s house during the search. It had been cut using the same serrated knife at a forty-nine-degree angle. The knife isn’t perfect, it has wear and tear on it and the same wear and tear notches appear on both pieces of liquorice. Also, the knife wasn’t found in Dale’s house. The liquorice that I found in Susan’s belongings doesn’t seem to have been cut from that piece but it has been cut at a different angle. I’m hoping the dogs don’t find Susan in a similar state to Dale. Or worse, Phoebe.’ She shivered as she thought of the young girl, imagining as the dogs uncovered her lifeless body. She gasped as she fought back the nausea.
‘Bloody hell, me neither. What significance could liquorice have? Why place it in his throat?’
‘I don’t know. I think it has some meaning for the people involved and to state the obvious, it means something to the killer. The strangulation is bothering me just as much. We know that Dale had been punched and kicked up until the time he was murdered. Our perpetrator had to be doing this somewhere, but where? I keep thinking maybe it was sexually motivated. We know that strangulation by rope was the cause of death but O’Connor said that, underneath the scarring, the forensic pathologist had found more marks, including fingermarks around his neck. The killer had tried to strangle him before killing him, probably to the point of unconsciousness before reviving him or allowing him to come around. I feel this person was trying to force a sexual response from Dale. I keep thinking previous lovers but, after speaking with Lawrence, it seems that he was Dale’s first. Then we have the very definite asphyxiation with the rope. That was done with full intent. He was throttled to death. Had the perp become frustrated at not getting the response he or they wanted? I have to add in atheyat this point. How and where we found Dale’s body, this couldn’t have been one person. We’ve deduced that much.’
Jacob stared thoughtfully out of the window as they pulled into a parking space outside the Angel Arms. A young man was standing on his tiptoes as he pulled a clump of moss from the decaying guttering,
As they entered the pub, Samuel Avery was stoking the fire. Kneeling down, his low hung skinny jeans reminded her of the ones the lads were wearing a year or so back. He’d finished his look off with a pair of shoes, no socks and long-sleeved shirt covered in mini flamingos. ‘Detective.’ She saw his grin widening in the reflection of the coal shovel. His slight cockney accent gave her that familiar prickle at the back of her neck. She’d hoped never to have to speak to him again.
‘Detective Inspector.’ Gina pulled up a seat on the table next to him.
‘Ah, it’s Beauty and the Beast. Don’t worry, Inspector, I wasn’t referring to you as Beauty, so don’t arrest me. You’re just in time for a drink. What will it be? I think you’re a cognac woman. Warm and full of depth. Am I right, Detective Inspector?’
At least he had her title right this time. They’d met often enough, always in unfortunate circumstances. Her opinion had dropped to an all-time low when he’d started a dark tourism business, profiting from the bad things that had happened in Cleevesford over the past couple of years with his sick crime tours, even driving one of their victims from her home. Her mind flashed back to the case of Deborah Jenkins, the case that brought all her own deeply buried trauma back to the surface. He was wrong, she hated cognac. She was a deep thinker and she was as frosty as the Antarctic, but he already knew that.
‘Okay, I guess that’s a no to the drink.’ With his hands shaking slightly she wondered if it was him who needed the drink. His hair had thinned out even more over the past year and he’d aged, his years finally catching up with him. He pulled a little stool from under another table and plonked his gangly frame down on it. ‘How about you?’
‘No, thanks. I’m on duty,’ Jacob replied.
‘If it’s about the crazy bitch that threw a glass of whatever over me last night, I was only sitting opposite her talking.’
‘I see nothing’s changed.’ Gina smiled smugly. He’d been balancing on the sexual assault line for years, not quite toppling off his tightrope. She’d love nothing more than to arrest him at some point, but this visit wasn’t about him. She almost wanted to silently applaud the woman who’d shown him where to go. If anyone needed to have a drink thrown over him, it was Samuel Avery. ‘We need to ask you about an incident back in June, this year.’
‘Really? How the hell am I going to remember what happened in June? It’s November if you didn’t notice.’
