Chapter 2
TWO
DI Gina Harte sat in her office eating an apple.
Her cholesterol was good and her doctor had told her to keep it that way and it would stay good, as long as she kept eating like a damn pigeon.
The scent of last night’s pizza that the staff had been sharing wafted through the building.
She’d never noticed it before but now she noticed it all the time and all she could do was dream of the cheese she shouldn’t have.
Her healthy diet wasn’t really the cause of her frustrations, the main cause was the fact that Detective Chief Inspector Chris Briggs still wasn’t talking to her.
Since the last case, he’d treated her like she was just another member of staff, not the woman he’d been in love with for years – not that anyone knew because they had done the right thing and kept their work romance a secret.
They both loved working for Cleevesford Police so wanted it to stay that way.
She kicked her bin. Another miserable day of him ghosting her had gone by.
Nearly three weeks had passed since the case that ruined what they had.
How long was he going to punish her for?
Scrap that thought, maybe she should stop caring and move on.
She got why he was so angry – she really did.
Gina had been stupid, she knew that now, but it was easy thinking that in hindsight.
She gave her own collateral away on a memory stick to a dodgy reporter to save her own skin and she didn’t have time to regret it.
‘Gina.’ Briggs stood in the doorway. His hair was a little floppy, almost reaching his eyeline.
She wanted to reach over to stroke it like she’d done in the past before kissing him, but he’d made it clear that he was her DCI and she was his DI.
Despite what he thought of her now, she’d always love him. ‘How’s the paperwork going?’
Great, all he wanted to talk to her about was paperwork. She couldn’t help but meet his gaze, searching for the smallest clue that he still cared, but he looked away. ‘Sir… Chris.’
He slammed her door shut. ‘Gina, not now.’
‘I’m sorry I shut you out, okay. Can we please just talk about it?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I said I was done and I’m done.’ He opened the door and looked the corridor up and down before closing it again. ‘You didn’t even talk to me about giving that memory stick to that piece of scum. We talked about everything.’
‘I know. I didn’t get time to think let alone—’
‘There’s always time. You make time for the people you love.
’ He looked away and bit the inside of his mouth.
‘Except you, Gina. You do what you want and I’m finding it all too much.
I live on the edge when I’m with you and I accepted that things were complicated.
I never let you down once. I kept all your secrets.
Do you tell me everything or just choose bits to suit? ’
She stood and walked over to him. ‘You know everything.’
He looked beyond her, out of the window and frowned.
‘Are you okay?’ She glanced in the direction of his gaze.
‘Err, yes. I thought I saw someone I knew, that’s all.’ He bit his nail.
‘Is there something you maybe want to talk about?’ She tried to ask as caringly as she could. It was obvious he was going through something.
‘No.’ He swallowed.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Her stomach began to churn. His demeanour was making her uneasy. It was easy to blame her for holding things back and being the destroyer of what they had. Was he trying to project? Was he the one with the bigger problem?
He checked his watch. ‘I have a meeting in five. Let’s just act professionally at work and get the files up to date, okay?’ He slammed her office door as he left.
She felt her eyes watering up and her fists clenching. She didn’t know if she wanted to hit something or sob her heart out.
Her personal phone beeped and she opened the text.
It was her daughter, Hannah, sending her a photo of her granddaughter, Gracie, dressed up as a bauble for the Christmas play she was rehearsing at school.
She couldn’t help but smile at her granddaughter’s happy face.
After taking a few breaths and fanning her eyes dry, she screwed up her notebook and threw it at the filing cabinet next to her office door.
It bounced into the middle of the cramped room.
‘Guv.’ Detective Sergeant Jacob Driscoll stood in the doorway and frowned as he bent over to grab the balled-up notebook.
He discreetly flattened it out and placed it on the edge of her desk.
‘Are you okay?’ His neat short back and sides framed his face and was a total contrast to her chaotic hair stuffed in a scrunchie.
The last case had hit her hard and her distance from Briggs had hit her even harder, but she had to be okay. She needed to do her job and get on with the pile of paperwork on her desk because the fairies weren’t going to do it for her. ‘Yes, sorry. I was just deep in thought.’
‘There’s just been a call. Uniform attended a scene.
Suspected body in the boot of a car. They’ve confirmed that it’s looking likely that it is a body and they didn’t want to tamper with it so they’ve called forensics.
There’s the smell, the flies… Anyway, Bernard and his team have already been informed and are on their way over to the crime scene now.
Uniform have secured the scene. I said we were on our way. ’
She stood and grabbed her charcoal-coloured coat and pulled it on over her slightly tight around the middle grey suit and white shirt. ‘What do we know?’
He kept talking as they hurried past Nick, the desk sergeant, and another officer who was having trouble getting a drunken shoplifter towards the desk.
‘The car has been parked on the owner’s drive for five days now.
She uses an app where people pay to park there so she doesn’t know the owner of the car. ’
They both got into Gina’s car where Jacob carried on talking. ‘The woman who made the booking is called Maura Pickering and she was meant to pick her car up four days ago. I’ve left that name with Wyre and O’Connor so they can look into her while we’re gone.’
Gina knew that Detective Constables Paula Wyre and Harry O’Connor would do a thorough job and let them know any relevant information immediately. She paused to programme her satnav. ‘Where are we going?’
‘One Chandelton Avenue.’
‘That’s right by the train station, isn’t it?’ She typed the address in and pulled away.
‘That’s the one.’
After battling Cleevesford High Street and the early lunchtime traffic, Gina pulled into Chandelton Avenue and spotted Bernard Small, the crime scene manager, standing around the back of his forensics van with a crime scene assistant.
He towered over everyone as he passed the women forensics suits.
He tucked his long grey beard into his face covering and proceeded to step under the outer cordon with his tool box, where he met a fully togged-up crime scene assistant carrying a camera.
PC Smith stood guard at the outer cordon near the end of the drive, holding a clipboard. ‘Afternoon,’ he said as Gina and Jacob stepped out of the car.
They walked over and Gina stood outside the cordon knowing it was difficult to see what was going on further up the drive.
She stepped a little to the left and caught sight of Bernard placing a crowbar into a gap and wrenching the boot open.
The fact that the two crime scene assistants and Bernard recoiled and looked away told her that there was indeed a body in the boot.
She swallowed at the thought of what they were walking into.
‘Or should I say not so good afternoon?’ PC Smith creased his brows and looked away from the scene behind him. He took a couple of breaths.
Gina caught the putrid scent as it carried on the breeze, and was glad that she’d only eaten an apple. ‘Can you fill us in on what’s happened so far?’
‘Yes. We also have a team of officers on the way.’
‘Good, as soon as they arrive we’ll start the door-to-doors.’
‘PC Ahmed has made a start. He left about fifteen minutes ago to start speaking with the neighbours.’
‘Great,’ Gina replied. ‘Where’s the woman who called the incident in and what do you know about the set-up here?’
PC Smith continued speaking and Jacob started making notes.
‘Her name is Tina Wild. She lives with her mother Agatha Wild. She’s fifty, her mum is eighty.
Ms Wild rents her drive out. A customer called Maura Pickering booked the space and was only meant to stay for one night but the car has been there since which makes it five nights in total. ’
‘So, the body has been there all that time unless it was placed there after the car was parked up.’ Gina knew from previous cases and her training that a body that had been left for five days would have gone through the rigor mortis stage and it would also have bloated because of gasses building up from the decomposition process.
If the smell was anything to go by, this was the stage that their poor victim was in at the moment.
She glanced up at the lounge window to see Tina, her mum, and a man looking out. ‘Who’s the man?’
‘He was meant to be her next customer. He was about to park his car up when she told him what had happened and he waited with them for us to arrive. His car is parked further down the road.’