Hi guv, we can confirm from all the CCTV that Amber Slater never arrived at the Fish and Anchor for her date. Also, there is no footage of her getting on any buses. We’ve been watching them all morning and there’s not one sign of her. The post-mortem is going ahead earlier than anticipated so I’ll head over now and I’ll keep you posted if that’s okay. O’Connor and PC Smith are on their way over to help with interviewing the neighbours.
Earlier was better than later. Gina had hoped she could be there. She glanced at the time. She could still make it for the second half if she got a move on.
‘Jacob. Amber never got on the bus. What happened to her between leaving here and getting to the bus stop?’ She hurried along the hallway and stared out of the window.
He joined her, holding the curtain back. ‘The person who sent those messages, NoName… they sound angry, and they’re not taking no for an answer.’
Gina pictured someone hanging around, watching the young woman and waiting for her to come out. So consumed with jealousy and rage, they had to know what she was doing all the time. She’d left her apartment all dressed up. Had they seen red and done something reckless or had it been more premeditated than that? With any hope the car park and the path to the bus stop may hold the clues that they were looking for. A snapped fingernail, a clump of hair, a torn bit of her clothing, a shoe, anything.
The front door led to a large car park. Beyond that car park was an underpass and the road that eventually led to Cleevesford High Street. Through the trees, she could just about make out the post with the red sign that was the bus stop. ‘I need a team searching the car park. Can you get down now and start cordoning it off. Monitor who comes and goes while I speak to Curtis downstairs. Someone must have seen something or heard something.’
‘On it, guv.’ Jacob moved his hand from the curtain and it flopped across the window as he moved. He nodded and left the apartment. Moments later, she watched him surveying the car park.
She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her bag and, kneeling on the floor, gently began pushing through the mountain of mess in the corner. The textbook had a refill pad sticking out of it and what looked like equations covered the page. She flicked through a few more but there was nothing of interest to note. She lifted a few more items of clothing, dirty mixed with clean, all creased, the heel of a shoe getting tangled in a bra strap. Shifting closer to the bed, she lifted the valance and peered under. Boxes of under-bed storage filled the space. Gina gasped and hit her head on the bedframe as a disturbed spider shot out from the darkness.
She took a deep breath and laughed to herself before getting back to looking under the bed. A tiny ornate box had been pushed against the wall. One that looked hand-decorated in an amateur manner with little jewels stuck onto the wood, some fallen off.
Stretching her arm out, she grabbed the lid of the box and slid it across the carpet until it had cleared the bed and she opened it. A little plastic package containing five sugar almond-coloured tablets that Gina was sure would turn out to be MDMA, more commonly known as Ecstasy.
Jacob called and she answered immediately. ‘Guv, O’Connor is here and he’s handling the cordon with Smith. You have to see this. We think we’ve found the spot where she was taken. I say taken because the street lamps have been purposely knocked out in one end of the car park, exactly where Amber Slater would have passed to get onto the path for the bus stop. There’s also something else you need to see.’
Adrenaline coursed through her veins. A clue to how Amber might have been taken could lead to a clue as to who killed her. The thought of the poor girl’s lips being glued together almost made her feel like gagging. Whoever did that to her had to be pure evil and she was going to stop them doing it to anyone else.
18
Hurrying across the car park, Gina met with O’Connor and Jacob. O’Connor bumbled around, looking for anything he could see in the verges that led to the underpass. PC Smith was starting to drag the cordon around the various posts and street lamps to keep any potential pedestrians away from what could be a crime scene. ‘Show me.’ She bent over to see what Jacob was looking at.
A shred of muddied pink material was encased in a chunk of ice between the two street lamps, each of which had smashed glass from their light bulbs scattered underneath.
‘She was wearing a pink jumpsuit when she left to meet her date last Friday, that’s what her friend Lauren told us. Get forensics here straight away and let’s all step away for now to preserve the scene. Who knows what else we might find.’ Gina backed off, away from the shattered glass and the others followed suit. She pulled out her phone and pressed Bernard’s number. ‘I know you’re up to your ears in it with yesterday’s scene but we need a team to hurry to Bulmore Drive, the car park that is outside numbers seventeen to twenty-two.’ She could imagine Bernard stroking his beard with a ruffled brow while he considered what she was saying. She could picture all the evidence bags that had been tagged and brought in overnight in boxes, ready to be processed and examined.
‘I’ll send Keith and Jennifer over now while I carry on with all the evidence that’s piling up over here.’
‘Thank you. Will you be joining us at the briefing later today?’ Gina flinched as a cool splat of hail came from nowhere, stinging her face.
‘I’m hoping to. You just can’t imagine how much stuff we pulled from the lake scene. We have the contents of most of the bins, and everything picked up from the car park. We had a team out dredging the lake too after you’d left. So much stuff and any little item could be the thing that solves the case. We are literally drowning in objects to analyse.’ He paused and made a smacking sound with his lips. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Thanks, Bernard. I’ll make sure there are snacks. Look, I know you must be shattered like the rest of us so it’s all much appreciated. Speak later.’ She ended the call and Jacob nodded across to PC Smith who was filling out a log sheet, ready for the influx of officers and crime scene attendants to turn up. The young man with dark greasy hair stood outside the apartment block smoking what looked to be a roll-up. ‘I think we should speak to Curtis Gallagher, see what he might know.’
Jacob wiped the wet trail from his face. ‘Anything to get out of standing in this.’ They hurried back.
Curtis’s gaze met hers as he exhaled a plume of smoke. Someone who was always outside smoking may just have seen something that might propel the case forward. Maybe Curtis had seen Amber on the evening she went missing.
19
‘Curtis, may we speak with you now?’ Gina spoke as Jacob waited beside her.
The young man took one last suck on his roll-up, stubbed it out between his thumb and index finger, and then placed the rest in his pocket. ‘I can’t go wasting ’em, being a student and all. Come through.’
They followed Curtis along his hallway and into his lounge and kitchen studio area, which looked to be a mirrored layout of Amber’s apartment. The sparse room had a two-seater sofa in it and an oil radiator. A large television sat on a scratched wooden unit and a games console was strewn across a mustard-coloured rug. A desk piled with folders stood flush against the wall.
‘Sit.’ He gestured at the sofa.
As they sat, Gina felt herself being wedged in by Jacob. The sofa was far too small for two average-sized adults. Glancing around, she spotted an ornamental-looking bong and a pair of underpants in front of the washing machine. A jewelled black skull had been placed in the middle of a coffee-ringed table and looked to be peering in Gina’s direction. ‘We’d like to speak to you about Amber. We’ll be speaking to everyone in the block so this is routine. Going back to last Friday evening between seven and half past seven, did you hear or see Amber Slater?’
He began to pick a dried-up spot on his chin. ‘Not really, the only thing I heard was her coming down the stairs. I can’t remember what time exactly but it was about then. These apartments aren’t really soundproof and she stomps loudly on her heels as she’s coming down the stairs. We can all hear each other coming and going. I heard her and Lauren talking on the landing, it sounded like Lauren was pleading with her to stay home. I don’t know what it is with that pair. One minute they’re the best of friends, the next minute they seem to ignore each other for days.’
‘Can you expand on that a little?’ Maybe there was more to Amber and Lauren’s friendship.
