Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
Gina
Several people queued up at the Ferndale pizza shop, all wearing uniforms of a local soft drink factory. She observed, looking for the youths that hung around, but they were keeping away. Had all of them been there when Abel had picked on Dustin?
Gina’s mouth watered as she caught a whiff of cheese but she wasn’t sure if she could stomach food, not after seeing Mindy’s body and knowing that Dustin was out there somewhere with the psychopath they only knew as OpenMeSmiler.
She checked her phone. Nothing yet, but then again, uniform had only just started conducting the door to doors on the road the Fullers’ lived on.
Someone had to have seen what happened to Dustin.
‘With any luck, Garth will get round to looking at Dustin Fuller’s laptop soon.’ O’Connor snatched his notebook off the back seat, slammed the car door and headed towards her.
‘I hope so.’ She stared at Ursula’s shop.
A couple of people stood around looking at their phones and watches, one with a dog and another with a long-haired cat in a basket.
The shop was in darkness and a smear of tomato sauce running all the way down the glass led to a slice of pizza sitting on the window ledge.
‘I can’t believe she didn’t call to cancel if she wasn’t going to be here,’ the woman with the cat said.
‘I know, not coming here again. I took the morning off work to get Princess groomed because apparently this was the only time she had,’ the man with the dog replied as he checked his phone. He held it up to the woman who gasped.
The man they’d interviewed was standing outside the shop next door, hammering something to the frontage. Gina walked over to him. ‘Mr Hammond.’
He turned around and scrunched his brows. ‘Ah, you’re the detectives from the other night, when Mindy went missing.’
‘That’s right,’ she replied. She caught a look at the sign. Ed the Barber – grand opening on the 1st Feb. Half price for one day only so book now.
‘Has Ursula been in today?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve only just got here myself. I know she wasn’t so good last night because I called her to see if she was okay.’
‘And?’
‘She’s obviously not okay and I’m really worried about her. She’d had a fair bit to drink. I was going to pop over later to see if she needed anything.’
‘So, she’s at home?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Probably. As far as I know.’
‘Thank you.’ Gina turned back towards the car and O’Connor followed. ‘Let’s head to her house.’ Gina’s phone beeped. It was Briggs sending an update to all of them.
An appeal for witnesses at the park last night went out to the press earlier so be prepared for an influx of calls.
Mindy Carson’s name has been released. A further press release is scheduled for sixteen hundred this afternoon where I intend to go public with Dustin Fuller’s disappearance.
Given what you told us, we don’t have much time.
‘Mindy’s name is out there,’ Gina said as she got into the car. She watched as Mr Hammond stared at his phone open-mouthed, trembling as he leaned against the wall. Very soon, everyone would know that Mindy had been murdered.
‘That might be why Ursula isn’t at the salon.’ O’Connor paused. ‘Just thinking over what you said. Are we looking into her as a suspect?’
Gina waited until he reversed out of the space and continued speaking.
‘We can’t afford not to. Given where and when the photos were uploaded, I can’t rule out her involvement.
If Mindy was the only victim, I’d be less convinced but given that we now have another victim, Dustin Fuller – the only connection I can see is Chez Ursula’s.
They would have all met through the salon and the only link we have is the salon.
Spencer – we can’t fully rule him out as being involved somehow.
’ She placed her hand above her head and brought it back down into her lap.
‘I think it would be remiss of us to not ask Ursula where she was last night at the time of Dustin’s disappearance. ’
‘You think Spencer and Ursula could be in this together?’
‘I just don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll keep following the evidence for now but I can’t rule anything out.
Maybe there’s some sort of kinky game play going on between them.
He seduces Mindy and they ruin her life but things go wrong and she ends up dead.
’ She shook her head. ‘It’s more calculated than that, so much more.
OpenMeSmiler is a huge undertaking and I still feel like all we have at the moment is the tip of the iceberg.
We need Garth to crack the site and get in there.
’ She let out a long breath as O’Connor took an exit onto the Lawns, a typical new-build estate, so new half of it was still being built.
‘I forgot to ask about Spencer’s locations of work.
We need to still check any remote locations that have come up in the investigation.
I’ll quickly message Jacob, see if he can send that through to us.
Unless we get something more concrete, we’ll be letting him walk soon. ’ She typed out a message and hit send.
After hopping the car over three speed bumps, O’Connor pulled up next to Ursula and Spencer’s house. All the curtains were drawn and Ursula’s car was parked up on their drive. Gina banged on the door and her dog yapped.
‘Dooby, stop with the noise.’ Ursula opened the door. ‘DI Harte.’
The woman’s hair fell messily over her shoulders and her thin, silk, dressing gown had been tightly tied around her middle.
‘Morning.’ Gina knew they’d need to deliver the news first. ‘May we come in?’
‘Yes, come through.’ She opened the door and they stepped into the carpeted hallway before being taken into the square lounge with three sofas around a coffee table. Ursula opened the full-length sage-green curtains, casting a dull light on the huge but cosy lounge.
‘Have you seen the news?’
Ursula shook her head and sat. Gina sat next to O’Connor on a settee that was so soft, it felt like it was trying to swallow her up. ‘A body was found last night and I’m really sorry to tell you that it was Mindy’s.’
Ursula stared and then frowned. ‘No, it can’t be.’
‘I’m so sorry. Do you need us to call someone to be with you?’ Gina pressed her lips together, taking in Ursula’s reaction.
Ursula ignored her question and began playing with her hands in her lap. Dooby jumped up and licked her chin. She placed her arms around him and drew him close. Two wine bottles and a wine glass lay next to the settee that Ursula was sitting on.
‘Ursula?’
‘Er, no. I’m okay. Well, I’m not okay but I’d rather be alone.’ She wiped her dampening eyes. ‘What’s happening with Spencer?’
‘He’s still in custody at the minute. I don’t have any news for you, yet.’ She hadn’t shared what she knew about the motorhome and the blood they had found there.
She shrugged and wiped her nose with her sleeve.
‘I don’t care anyway. He’s not coming back home.
He can go move back in with Mummy.’ She paused.
‘It’s not the first time he’s cheated but I’m disappointed he cheated on me with Mindy.
I was so good to her. I’ll rephrase all that.
I didn’t expect Mindy to do that to me, Spencer is a piece of shit.
He was never home and I guess I should have suspected him a long time ago but a part of me was glad he wasn’t home. Maybe… I didn’t miss him at all.’
Gina wondered if it was best to re-interview Ursula at the station. She nodded to O’Connor. He pulled a tablet from his bag and began scrolling. ‘I need you to take a look at a photo. Can you tell me if you know this man?’
Ursula put Dooby on the floor and the little Yorkshire terrier went and curled up in his basket next to the fireplace.
O’Connor enlarged the photo after having blurred Ms Fuller from it.
She furrowed her brow and looked for a few seconds. ‘He brings a dog to the salon. I don’t think it’s his dog.’ She closed her eyes and clicked her fingers. ‘That’s it, the dog’s called Axel but I can’t remember what the boy is called. Dusty… maybe.’
‘It’s Dustin Fuller.’
‘He only came in yesterday. It was busy and he ended up waiting for half an hour so wasn’t too happy, especially as my other customer, Edwin, kept asking me to do more things for his dog.
I thought Dustin was going to explode at him at one point but I could tell he was sitting there, silently seething. ’
‘Did Mindy know him?’
‘Actually, Mindy followed this Dusty, I mean Dustin, outside last month and came back to the salon about fifteen minutes later. I asked her if she knew him and she said no. I thought it was odd but she then said that she thought he was someone else, someone she used to know.’
The plot was thickening. Mindy and Dustin knew each other if Ursula was to be believed.
The only problem when it came to detecting was that everyone lied, and they did it for many reasons.
Was Ursula lying? Gina wanted to go straight in and ask her about her whereabouts but decided the station was the best place to continue their interview.
‘Ursula, I need to ask you some more questions down at the station. Could you please come with us for a voluntary interview?’
‘I’d rather not. I’ll come later when I’ve had a shower and cleaned myself up, and I don’t like to leave Dooby for long. He’s old and he can tell that something’s wrong. Actually, I’d like to drop him off at my sister’s first, if that’s okay?’
Gina didn’t have enough to arrest her on so her request would have to be okay. She nodded. ‘We’ll see you around three at the station then?’
‘I’ll be there.’ As soon as the tape was rolling, Gina was going to discuss Ursula’s whereabouts yesterday and when the photos were uploaded to the fake profile that Garth had found online.
There was something about the salon and Ursula. Mindy had some link to Dustin but Ursula had a link to them both. Gina feared a future victim could be known by Ursula and she didn’t want anyone else to get murdered or kidnapped.
Ursula couldn’t wait to get them out the door.
They were being ushered out with goodbyes and little nudges, then Ursula slammed the door, leaving Gina and O’Connor outside.
‘I didn’t even notice how she got us from the living room to the doorstep but here we are, as if by magic,’ Gina said.
As they headed back to the car, she glanced back.
Ursula peered through the gap in the bedroom curtains.
Gina’s phone beeped with a message from Kapoor.
She summarised it aloud for O’Connor. ‘It’s an update on Spencer Grey’s projects.
A large house is being converted on the outskirts of Cleevesford.
The company stopped paying the contractors so the project has come to a halt.
It hasn’t been worked on since before Christmas.
Spencer dealt with the scaffolding and had been assisting with managing the project.
Wyre tried to question him on the location and whether he was working with an accomplice, but he continued to say no comment.
DCI Briggs said we have to go there now.
A police car is en route and they heavily suspect that Dustin might be there. ’
‘Suspect?’
‘I’ve just messaged back and asked how, why?’
Her phone pinged. She read the exact message aloud.
‘It’s remote and empty. Garth found another email that Mindy had deleted and he found a password hidden in her computer.
It looks like she only used it for a few days but there’s a jealous message from Spencer, asking her why she was hugging Dustin when she was meant to be with him.
He told her not to let Dustin’s filthy hands wander over her ever again or they’d both pay.
’ She paused. ‘Who the hell is he working with?’