‘Nah. I just closed my curtains and got on with life. In hindsight, I wished I had now. Sorry.’
Gina checked her watch, she was missing Amber’s post-mortem and it was looking highly unlikely that she’d make the meeting with the pathologist after. She made a mental note to message Wyre and ask her to cover everything that was needed in readiness for the briefing. Curtis began to chew his thumbnail, his teeth making a clipping noise as he gnawed away.
‘Thank you for your time. If you remember anything else, can you call me straight away?’ She passed him her card.
‘Of course.’ He read it. ‘DI Harte.’
‘Can you confirm your surname?’
‘Gallagher.’
As they stepped into the hallway and out of the main door, Gina watched as the teams gathered to begin the search of the area for evidence. She watched from afar as O’Connor spoke and everyone listened. Her phone went and Briggs’s name lit up.
‘Sir.’ She waited for him to break the silence.
‘There’s been a lot of digging going on at this end into all the people you said to investigate further and Wyre gave me her notes when she left for the post-mortem. There’s one thing you will want to see in all this and we can’t leave it too long. Get back as soon as you can.’
She glanced back at the road that led alongside the apartment block and she could just about see the bungalow amongst the naked tree branches. Vincent the landlord would have to wait.
20
Madison closed her textbook and glanced across the desk at the rest of the library. Other students worked away in silence and a couple of girls about her age were whispering as they picked up a few books and carried on past her, down the stairs towards the ground floor. The bright and airy space was one of the reasons she loved studying at The Hive, the striking new library in the centre of Worcester City.
The window beyond framed a misty sky, one that made everything outside appear milky white. A fog was descending which would blanket the whole of the charming city. She loved gazing at the river when she went for a walk and she knew it would look just as stunning on a day like this. Time to wrap up warm, stretch her legs and get some lunch.
As she packed her books away, she spotted a pair of heavy black boots under one of the bookshelves. Had it not been for the shelf, the person behind it would be staring right at her. She swallowed and zipped up her bag, throwing it over her shoulder as she stood. Her twitchy hands were telling her to run, to get away but something deep inside was saying,you need to know who’s there.
She took a few steps closer and flinched as she kicked the bin. A student who looked to be studying microbiology glanced up.
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
He smiled and carried on with his studies. The boots, they were gone. She hurried around the shelf to see that the whole row was devoid of people. He had to be somewhere. She ran between the other rows, glancing back and forth, checking out everybody’s footwear but he was nowhere to be seen. As she reached the last row of books, she took a deep breath, her hand gripping her bag so tight it felt like her skin had melded to the plastic strap. Her heart began to thud as she turned the corner. No one. She was alone, at the back of the library. As she turned to head back, she gasped as she crashed straight into a man’s chest.
‘Tyrone, what the hell are you doing, creeping up on me like that?’
‘Firstly, I am not creeping up on you. I was looking for a peaceful place to study and this is my favourite place to sit and secondly, why the hell are you shaking so badly? You look like you’ve just seen the dead rise in the aisles of the library.’
Madison’s gaze stopped on the single desk and chair under the window. ‘I just… last night at the pub… just tell me the truth, did you come into the ladies toilets to play a prank on me? Just answer honestly as I’m freaking out here.’
He brushed a couple of his errant dark hairs away that had shed onto his coat. ‘I swear it wasn’t me. Is something going on?’
‘I don’t know. Someone is following me. When I left Nanna’s last night I was sure someone was keeping back on the lane. The lights were out and I got scared. Then, in the pub, while I was in a toilet cubicle someone was standing outside the door…’ She glanced down. ‘They were wearing boots like yours which is why…’
‘You thought it was me.’
She nodded. ‘Yes. The same person…’ She gulped and tried to hide her trembling hands but Tyrone had already seen them.
‘Here, sit down.’ He pulled the chair out from under the desk.
‘After they stood there for what seemed like ages, they then turned off the lights and left. That’s when I ran out. I heard rustling at the back of the beer garden but it didn’t look like there was anything or anyone there from what I could see. That’s when I brushed it off as a joke. We’re always pranking each other and I just thought it was that. But when I saw your boots under the bookshelf, I thought it was him.’
He sat on the edge of the desk dropping his heavy bag down. ‘Maddie, I swear on my life, it wasn’t me.’
She bit her lip and looked down. ‘Well someone’s trying to scare me then.’
‘You should go to the police.’
‘And say what?’
