Jacob ran behind Gina, straight up the stairs. The crystal chandelier above them began to sway as a breeze whipped through the open doors. She hurried past the huge suite to her left, spotting more police officers going through the wall of wardrobes and searching under the bed. She passed another two rooms; one almost filled with cans of kombucha and another full of mobility aids, including a motorised scooter and a Zimmer frame. Then she reached the room at the end, that would sit above the garage. PC Benton had her back to them as she tended to a box full of bags ready to take in to the station.
‘What have you found?’ Gina spotted a toffee-flavoured disposable vape in a box, the same as the one found close by to where Kain’s body was discovered in the boot of Maura’s car.
PC Benton turned. ‘There is a loft hatch in here, guv. It looks like this suite was added on as an extension and the roof was extended too. After shining a torch up there, I found a box marked Baz.’
‘What was in it?’
‘You can see here.’ She began pulling the clear evidence bags out. ‘A blister pack of sleeping tablets.’
‘What else?’
Jacob moved in a little closer to see what PC Benton had found.
‘There’s an empty night-vision goggle box. Several photos of two boys. There are files of notes on Fabien Stone and Craig Crawford. They were being stalked by the looks of it. There’s also a small key ring with a blue teddy bear on the end. It looks really old and stained.’
‘That’s where the teddy bears came from. Also, there’s an empty bag with a picture of those bears on the front. It looks like he ran out of blue ones and moved on to pink. There are only three of each colour.’
‘I suspect he intended to use only three until everything grew out of hand.’ Gina flinched as her phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out and held it to her ear while Kapoor reeled off the Yates’s business premises.
‘Guv,’ PC Smith shouted from downstairs. ‘We’ve been looking at a tablet that was on the stairs and it appears to belong to Justine Crawford. There’s a message with an address on it. We know where’s she’s going and she’s already there.’
‘Where?’
‘The kombucha factory on Stokes Lane.’
‘That’s where Kapoor just said to go.’ Her heart began to thrum as she and Jacob ran as fast as they could back to her car.
As she pulled out of the road, Jacob called Wyre to arrange for a team to head there now. He ended the call and frowned. ‘Why now? Simeon Yates knew that Zavier Sellers, Kain Pickering and Briggs had been brought up during the inquest for his brother’s death. Why did he wait so long?’
Gina was as puzzled as Jacob when it came to that question. Only Simeon could answer that question and they needed to find him before he killed again.
FIFTY-SIX
JUSTINE
It was midnight and she was exactly where she was meant to be. The knife poked through her pocket, slightly jabbing her buttock. She pulled it out, ready to use it if she had to. Without warning, a figure darted in the darkness straight at her. She went to jab it with the knife but missed and stumbled to the ground. Her attacker kicked it out of the way and the blow to her head sent a white-hot pain burning through her. As she fought to stay conscious, all she could think of was how she’d failed Danny. The knife – it was gone. He struck her once more and she too was gone.
‘Justine, Justine. It’s time to wake up. I knew you’d come. I’m sorry I led you to believe you’d be meeting up with Craig.’
She gasped at the sight of him, her head throbbing with every breath. How could sweet, lovely Simeon have hurt her like this? She recalled him hitting her twice before dragging her out of the old unit. She’d been in his car but not for long.
The stench of something rotten turned her stomach. This wasn’t the beery vinegary scent of kombucha, more likesomething had died. She inhaled again. It was like the back of a bin lorry.
This wasn’t Pia and Simeon’s unit. It was bigger and didn’t look as sparkly and clean. She blinked a couple of times to clear the grittiness in her eyes. Light bleeding through the crack of a door lit up the side of Simeon’s face. He looked down on her while gripping a blue pole covered in blood while she lay on the cold floor stiff from cold and pain. She could see where the pole had come from. Several racks full to the brim with cans of kombucha had been stacked up and those same blue poles held the racking together. A dismantled shelving unit had been neatly laid out with the blue poles next to the stack of heavy metal shelves. She spotted a tool bag and a crowbar. She needed to get the crowbar if she was to save herself and her son. ‘You took Lindy and you left me that letter and you messaged me pretending to be Craig,’ she cried.
‘Their actions gave me no choice. It was easy with him out of the way and using a burner phone. I managed to convince Pia I was Craig too. I deceived my own cheating bitch wife, which is funny.’ He paused and began to pace before hitting the racking, making her flinch. ‘Do you think I wanted any of this? You had to bring Lindy into our lives. I blame you.’
The back of her head throbbed as she wondered what difference it made that Lindy was in his life, then she thought of Kain. It had to be him, something Kain did. She reached around and felt a sticky pool gathering. She knew it was best to try to diffuse the situation or she’d end up dead. ‘Simeon. Please, whatever this is, it has to stop. You can’t get away with it.’
‘Getting away with it is no longer my intention. Do you know how the business all started and why Pia wanted to make kombucha?’
She shook her head, wondering how any of this was relevant but she had to keep him distracted. As soon as the room stoppedswaying, she was going to dash for the crowbar and fight him. He stood above her and poked the pole into her bare neck. ‘No, she never mentioned it.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat knowing that her and Danny’s lives were in Simeon’s hands.
‘She believes crap she hears on the internet. Apparently, all my health issues were going to be fixed with bloody kombucha. She made it at home and forced me to drink it to the point it made me heave like mad. I won the battle against cancer many years ago but you know what, it’s back, only this time in my stomach.’ He stepped over her and whacked the racking with the pole. He swiped a pile of cans onto the floor and roared at the top of his voice. ‘This shit cures nothing. You know what cured me the last time, surgery and chemo.’ He held his stomach and yelled. ‘This pain, it’s always there. Pia kept telling me it was indigestion and IBS and all I had to do was drink more of that stuff and all will be fine. Leaky gut, she kept saying. I didn’t need a doctor, she said; just a healthy wholesome lifestyle. I chugged away, can after can. Now it’s too late for me.’
‘I’m so sorry, Simeon. I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you didn’t. No one knows yet, not even Pia. All this time I’ve sat back, lovely placid Simeon – never hurts or upsets anyone – then Pia brings home her new friend Lindy. I knew exactly who Lindy was. As a teen, I watched her celebrating as Kain got off with killing my brother, Baz. Then all these years later, they end up in my life – again!’
