Chapter 8
Eight
Gina
At almost midnight, O’Connor yawned while pulling up behind the police car on Mindy’s road. Jacob and Wyre stepped out of another car and headed towards her door. Gina passed the spare keys that Lonnie had given to them.
‘Good job getting the keys, guv,’ Jacob said as he took them off her. Lonnie Carson had been helpful in handing them over.
Wyre peered through the window but the building was in darkness. The house was similar to Lonnie’s mid-terraced house, but in a quieter outskirt of Cleevesford. Mindy’s neighbour stepped out of her house in her slippers and pyjamas. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
O’Connor turned to the woman. ‘Police.’
Gina held up her identification. ‘May we speak to you in a short while?’ She wasn’t going to explain anything on the doorstep but she did want to ask Mindy’s neighbours if they’d seen anyone loitering in the gardens recently. In this instance, she welcomed nosey neighbours.
‘Of course.’ Gina watched as the woman reluctantly went back to her door. ‘Just knock when you need to talk.’
‘Thank you.’ As soon as the woman closed her door, Gina turned to O’Connor, Jacob, Wyre and the two police constables. She needed something from Mindy’s house that could lead them to who had stalked, hurt, and taken her. They all gloved up and entered, gathering in the narrow hallway.
‘Right, Mindy is missing and she’s been missing since six this evening.
That’s almost six hours. We have reason to believe she was in a struggle with her assailant and that she’s hurt, given the blood on her car windscreen.
Evidence was found at her place of work, suggesting that her assailant knew her routine and that they’d been recording and watching her.
We’re looking for anything that might help us to locate her.
Check everywhere for recording devices.’
Gina glanced at her watch. She’d requested that two PCs head over to Wythall to bring Carmen in for questioning. She’d deal with her later. Anyone brandishing threats to kill had to be on the suspect list.
She nodded at the PCs and Jacob. ‘Could you three start upstairs? Bag any tech. Garth has collected the computer from Chez Ursula’s so he’s waiting for anything else we bring in.
Wyre, could you take the lounge?’ She peered into the tiny snug with its painted woodchip walls and soulless stained and chipped furniture.
‘O’Connor, you and I will take the kitchen.
’ He followed her. She switched the light on to reveal several empty ready meal boxes lined up on the worktop.
A large two storey cage filled one end of the room where a dining table would normally go.
O’Connor started going through the cupboards. ‘There’s not much in here, just two tins of beans and a packet of dried spaghetti.’
Something sticking out under a shoe next to the back door caught her attention.
She gently lifted the shoe. ‘There’s a knife.
’ The bottom panel of the white plastic door had some strange dab marks on it.
Gina stepped closer to see that they were greasy hand marks.
Up a little higher, more dab marks, like a nose covered in a peachy-coloured foundation had been pressed against it.
‘Mindy must have been looking out, knowing someone was watching her. She left the knife there for protection. We need to contact forensics to go through the garden properly, especially after what her brother told us. She must have been terrified.’
A phone on the window ledge also caught her attention. ‘A new burner phone still in its box – opened.’ Gina placed it in a plastic evidence bag and passed to O’Connor to mark up for Garth.
‘Guv,’ Jacob called from upstairs. ‘You need to see this.’
‘What?’ Each step creaked as she and O’Connor ran up it.
‘It’s the smoke alarms. There are two in the bedroom and that made me suspicious.
There’s also one in the bathroom. They contain tiny spy cameras.
There’s another one tucked inside an air vent.
They’re the type that connect to Wi-Fi. Whoever’s behind the cameras is probably watching us now and they might be everywhere. ’
‘There’s a smashed-up laptop on the bed.’ She knew she was stating the obvious.
‘And we found the hammer that smashed it on the pillow.’
‘She was trying to destroy it. She knew she was being watched.’ A sick feeling washed through Gina’s stomach.
She turned to the bed again and almost gasped out loud.
There were small pink flowers on the bedding.
It was the same as the bedding in the video that had been sent to Mindy at work from the sender, OpenMeSmiler.