‘Cassandra, are you okay?’
She snapped out of her thoughts and pasted a fake smile across her face. ‘Yes. That’s all I have. I didn’t look up that night. Sorry, I was just run off my feet.’
Boots shuffled in the hallway and Jacob entered. ‘Guv, we’ve found something in the car.’
‘Excuse me.’ DI Harte stood and followed the other detective out of the room. Cass stood and listened by the door, just out of sight.
‘There are twenty wraps of cocaine and a huge collection of multi-coloured pills – looks like ecstasy. He had to be dealing.’
The voices hushed a little. Cass flinched as the DI was coming back. She’d disposed of the drugs she’d found in his Doc Martens in the bin outside the shops. Her heart rate ramped up. If Elvis had stashed any more drugs in their flat, her home, she’d do what? He already walked all over her. Fingers trembling, she only hoped he wouldn’t drag her down with him. The DI entered. ‘We’ve unfortunately found a large quantity of drugs in the boot of Mr Dawkins’s car. Can you tell us anything about these?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not allowed to go anywhere near his garage or his car.’ In her mind, she now knew exactly why he was getting calls all the time and she’d thought he was having an affair.
‘Did you know that Mr Dawkins was fired from his job on Monday night?’
A tear welled up in the corner of her eye. She knew nothing about the man she’d been living with. A dangerous secretive past, a drug dealing present and on top of everything, she knew full well that he was a suspect in Holly and Fran’s murders. ‘I had no idea. I’m so stupid.’ She snivelled a little as she tried to hold back her tears.
‘No you’re not. We will need you to come to the station and make a formal statement. Can you do that?’
She nodded. The DI may have been asking her a question but she knew there wasn’t an option to say no. Not now they’d found drugs in the garage.
‘Is the garage tenancy in your name too?’
‘No. It was Elvis’s garage. I’ve never actually been in it, had no reason to.’ She paused and bit the skin on the side of her mouth. The DI had kind eyes. Maybe she should tell her what Elvis and Sam had been talking about at the reception. She wouldn’t let Elvis bring her down any more. As she went to speak the male detective came back in to move them out of the kitchen, ready for more searching. Now wasn’t the time. She held her phone to her heart knowing Kerry would message again soon. Kerry would be able to help her get through all this. They’d help each other.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
‘Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Time is passing. Who’s next?’ He stared into the eyes of cellar woman. That wasn’t her name but names weren’t needed between them, fleeting references would do the job.
He ran his fingers through her silky hair and gazed into her eyes – he was getting into it now. A slight look of panic flashed across her face. He removed the scarf that he’d tied around her mouth and she screamed. He’d expected that. Hell, he’d banked on it, it was all part of the fun. He grinned as he kneeled down in front of her. The screaming ended and he ran his fingertips gently over her slender neck, pressing on the pulsing vein. He stopped as she coughed then placed the scarf back across her mouth, retying it tighter behind her head.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t trap your hair in the scarf, not like last time.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Won’t be long now.’ He turned off the light and hurried up the stairs, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t stop at one flight, he headed straight to the master bedroom in the eaves of the house and moved the large picture in front of the safe. In it, the passports and tickets were exactly as he’d left them.
He kissed the tickets and placed them in the holdall.
Would the last one be enough? Who would live and who would die? Maybe he should toss a coin. Choosing was hard.
Chapter Sixty
Gina swallowed the rest of the coffee down, enjoying the slight kick it was giving her. Nothing would ease the sense of fatigue that was building up in her body after barely having any sleep for days. She glanced at Edward Powell across the table and then back at Wyre whose black hair shone on the top under the stark strip light, almost making a patch of it look white.
‘There’s no point in you continuing to deny it,’ Gina said as Edward Powell sighed. ‘DNA doesn’t lie and concealing the truth from us isn’t doing you any good.’
He swallowed. ‘I didn’t kill her. I wouldn’t!’ He scraped the chair across the floor and leaned his elbows on his knees as he bent over and ran his fingers through his gelled hair. His tie dangled on his thigh. ‘I don’t want to hurt Kerry.’
‘Her two best friends are dead. She’s already been hurt. Kerry needs to know the truth.’
‘Okay.’ He paused and sat back up, staring at Gina before fixing his gaze on Wyre. ‘Have you never made a mistake?’
Gina had heard this one before and it irked her that he was arrogantly trying to turn this back on them. ‘This isn’t about me, Mr Powell. This is about you being the father of the baby that Holly was carrying when she was murdered.’
His cheeks twitched as he clenched his jaw. Edward Powell was used to being believed. He was used to charming his way out of situations, Gina could see that now. ‘Tell me about your relationship with Holly.’
‘There was no relationship. We slept together once and my being the father was purely bad luck. Why me?’
‘Go on.’
He slowly shook his head from side to side. A bead of sweat formed at his hairline and began to trickle down his cheek. He wiped it away with the handkerchief from his suit pocket before removing the jacket. ‘It was at the end of January, this year. The weather was as frosty as Kerry had been that day. We’d had a bit of a tiff. It’s ironic that she was going on about having a baby. She kept bleating on and on about how cute Lilly’s kid was and that she was ready. I wasn’t. We had planned our wedding and I wanted to enjoy us being free for a couple of years. Anyway, in her words, she said I was a selfish bastard. Instead of shouting my mouth off, I walked out. That’s what I do and I know it upsets Kerry. She’d rather battle it out. I went to the newsagents, bought some cigarettes and kept walking until I arrived at the park. It was full of parents with screaming brats and my stomach was churning with anxiety at the thought of fatherhood becoming my life. I hate myself for thinking all this. When we got together—’
