Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Morgan sent each case file to the printer; she wanted copies to work on at home as well as the ones on the system.
Somehow it was easier to read them on paper and not on the screen.
She didn’t know where the key was to the filing cabinet where Ben kept all the hard copies of each investigation and hadn’t thought to ask him.
She found some old cardboard document files at the back of the stationery cupboard and put the copies of each file into a separate one, working diligently to make sure they were in the right order.
‘Hey.’
Ben’s voice was so close to her ear she could feel it vibrating, and it made her heart skip a beat. She whipped around to face him. ‘You scared the crap out of me, where did you come from?’
He pointed to the lift. ‘I couldn’t have been any louder, you were in a world of your own. Are you okay?’
‘Not really, but I will be. You?’
He shrugged. ‘Currently on the world’s biggest guilt trip, but you’re right we will be okay eventually, and it’s not as if we were the ones who chased Lauren and killed her, is it?’
Morgan stopped herself from saying that we may as well have, all this wallowing in guilt wasn’t going to find whoever did this. ‘No, we didn’t.’
He patted her arm. ‘Have you seen the boss? Is he back yet?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Okay, I’ll go get the files and we can go over stuff together until everyone is back for a briefing.’
‘Where’s Lauren?’
‘Still in situ at the scene. Wendy didn’t want her moving until they’d processed both rooms and the hallway outside. She said we’d trampled enough of the scene, and it was CSI’s turn to do their job.’
‘She’s right. Though I know we had to get the hotel searched for everyone’s safety, it still means we could have comprised some forensics. God, I hope they find something that leads us right to the killer’s front door.’
Right on cue, thudding up the spiral stairs signalled Marc’s arrival. He nodded at the pair of them. ‘Briefing?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Nobody here to have one, boss. CSI are still processing the scene, body is still in situ, Task Force has finished for the day.’
‘Really? Part-timers.’
‘Nobody authorised any overtime for them, so they weren’t going to hang around. How did you get on?’
‘Montgomery is on holiday, staying at a friend’s chateau in the south of France.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘The housekeeper.’
Morgan couldn’t stop herself. ‘And you believed her?’
‘She FaceTimed him, and he answered from inside a casino where everyone was speaking French. As much as I’d have liked it to be him and this be over, it clearly wasn’t, sorry.’
Ben looked gutted at this news, and she felt bad for him. It would have been nice if it had been Stefan and they had him in custody.
‘We must figure out who hated Lauren and her sister Lydia enough to kill them both, and also, someone is going to have to speak to their estranged sister and break the news to her.’
‘Yeah, we do.’ Ben was nodding.
‘I’ll speak to Alison Reynolds from Lancs CID and see if she’s got the contact details for the sister, or maybe Scotty might know where she’s living.’
‘Do you want to try find Scotty and see if he does?’
‘He’s in the report writing room, saw him as I walked past.’
Amber had joined them; Morgan smiled at her. ‘Thanks.’
She left them to go find him.
She walked past the sergeant’s office where Madds was laughing at someone on the other end of the phone.
He lifted a hand to wave at her, and she waved back.
There was only Scotty sitting at a desk in the far corner, everyone else was at the scene or patrolling the area.
When he looked up, his face was devoid of colour; he looked worse than she did.
‘Hey.’
He nodded. ‘Hey.’
‘Are you okay? That must have been quite a shock for you.’
‘I’m not okay, I can’t get over the fact that she was still warm. There were minutes, if that in it. If I’d got there sooner, I could have saved her.’
Morgan felt worse than she already did. How many of them were going to blame themselves for their actions when all they ever did was try to help? She reached out and squeezed his bicep. ‘You can’t think like that, it was an IR. You drove straight there when the call came in, didn’t you?’
She hoped to God that he had and hadn’t been avoiding answering it like he usually did.
He nodded fiercely. ‘Immediately, I wasn’t that far away and drove like an idiot to get there.’
She felt the breath she’d been holding gently exhale.
‘Well then, you’re not to blame. She bled out in minutes, Scotty.
She was violently attacked. Even if you’d arrived at the scene when it had just happened, you would have struggled to save her.
The blood was pumping out of the wound on her neck so fast it would have been over before you could do anything. ’
He nodded. ‘I know, but at least I’d have done my best and tried to save her.’
‘I also think you’d feel even worse if you had tried and she’d still died; her injuries were too severe.’
He stared down at the desk. ‘Maybe, but she wouldn’t have died on her own and terrified.’ He lifted his head. ‘Did you see her eyes? I’m never going to get them out of my mind for the rest of my life; the minute I try to sleep I’m going to see her terrified expression.’
Morgan didn’t know what to say because in all likelihood it was true; she felt the same way, so did Ben.
‘I get that, I already do for so many of the victims I’ve dealt with, but some of them hit a lot harder especially when you know them.
’ She thought about Bronte Potter’s body being hit so hard by a speeding car that she flew up into the air like a crumpled rag doll, and Lexie’s lifeless, propped-up body on the roof of a gazebo in a public park, posed for dramatic effect, and the horror she felt when she realised who it was she was staring at in the dark with her torch.
She snapped herself out of it. ‘You said you knew them all, Scotty. Do you know her other sister?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s one of those influencers or has a YouTube channel.’
‘You mean Lydia?’
‘No, Lynsey. Well, she doesn’t call herself that on Instagram or whatever.’
‘Lydia’s sister is also an influencer?’ Morgan’s mind was spinning with this new information.
He was nodding. ‘Yeah, imagine having two of your kids selling their souls on social media to make money. Not that their parents are here to see it. I suppose some things are a blessing in disguise. They all fell out with each other after the funerals, lots of jealousy between them. Lynsey was an influencer and then Lydia began to post about her solo camping trips, and she became almost as popular. Last time I spoke to Lynsey she was fuming about her doing that and said she was being a spiteful bitch. Lynsey is very outspoken; we were all part of the same group at school and most of the lads were scared of her because she didn’t take any crap.
I used to have a mad crush on her, never told her though. ’
‘I need to speak to this sister, what’s her YouTube channel called?’
‘Crystal Yoga or something like that, hang on.’ He took out his phone and opened the app.
Tapping her name into the search bar, she popped up.
He passed Morgan his phone, and she scrolled through Lynsey’s pictures, each one sending a cool breeze directly down her spine.
There were pictures of her and her little Fiat 500 with a tent next to it, in front of that was a yoga mat, sound bowls, pictures of her in different yoga poses.
She checked the latest post, which was from just around eight weeks ago: a tanned, smiling woman with lilac space buns in a two-piece yoga outfit, setting up her tent in what looked like the middle of a forest. There had been nothing since then, no updates, no pictures.
Her throat felt as if it was closing it was so dry.
‘Can you message her or check if she’s online, Scotty?’
‘I’m not telling her about Lauren on a DM, Morgan. She deserves more than that, and anyway, Madds has sent an officer to her flat to pass the death message.’
‘I don’t want you to, just see if you can get hold of her for me. When did they go out? I didn’t know about that.’
‘When I told him about her, but there was nobody home, so she won’t know yet. He said her neighbours haven’t seen her for a while.’
Morgan realised they must have gone out whilst she was talking to Al in the canteen. She’d turned her radio down so she couldn’t hear the chatter going on at the crime scene.
He began to type a message, short and to the point, speaking aloud so that Morgan could hear what he was writing.
‘Hey, Lynsey, long time no see.’ He sent it then looked at Morgan.
‘She’s going to be devastated about Lauren.
I know they weren’t speaking but I think it hits harder when you realise that you’re never going to see someone ever again, that rift can never be healed. ’
Morgan felt the pounding of her pulse inside of her head. ‘Does she know about Lydia?’
He shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘That last post was from a couple of days after we found Lydia’s body. She hasn’t posted since.’
‘Well, that explains it then. She’s probably grieving and doesn’t feel like sharing it with the rest of the world.’
That wasn’t what Morgan was thinking; she was worried that the reason nobody had heard from Lynsey Williams was because she might be dead.
She was more than a little concerned for her welfare, the other alternative was that she could be the killer and that was why she had dropped off the radar.
Morgan stood up and took a screenshot of the page on Scotty’s phone.
‘When she gets in touch, ring me. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night, I need to know when you hear from her, okay? ’
‘All right, keep your boots on. I’ll let you know the minute she replies.’
‘Thanks, Scotty.’
She walked away. Pulling out her phone she rang Alison Reynolds.
It was after ten now though, so she wouldn’t be answering as she’d be on her way home, if she was even in work.
‘Hey, Alison, it’s Morgan. I need you to phone me the minute you get this message.
Did you ever speak to Lynsey Williams, Lydia Williams’s sister?
This is really important; thanks, have a good evening. ’
This time Morgan ran up the stairs. Her phone began to ring.
‘Morgan, this is Alison Reynolds.’
‘Thanks for ringing back, Alison, I really appreciate it.’
‘No problem, I’m still in the office. We had an attempted armed robbery at a garage and it’s chaos. I spoke to a Lauren Williams; is this the sister you’re talking about?’
‘I remember. What about Lynsey Williams? She posts to a YouTube channel under the name Yolanda Crystal. The name of her channel is Crystal Yolanda Yoga.’
‘No, sorry. I just spoke with Lauren, who was lovely despite me telling her the devastating news about her sister, Lydia. I assumed she would notify her other sister. I did ask her if she needed us to contact anyone else for her, and she said it was okay, she’d take care of it. Is there a problem?’
Morgan sighed. ‘Not with you, I was hoping you might have more details for Lynsey as I need to speak to her urgently. We found Lauren’s body a couple of hours ago. She was murdered in an almost identical manner to how Lydia was murdered.’
Alison’s sharp intake of breath was so loud, Morgan held the phone away from her ear to rub it.
‘You’re joking, this can’t be true.’
‘I wish I was. I feel terrible about it.’
‘Christ, that’s awful. Hang on, let me check the files and see if we did have anything else for Lynsey. Have you tried Quick Address?’
‘Yes, a response officer went but it’s all in darkness. A neighbour said they hadn’t seen her for some time. She travels around doing yoga. I’m extremely worried about her.’
‘You think she did this?’
‘I don’t know. What if she’s also come to some harm?’
She could hear Alison’s fingers furiously typing on the keyboard.
‘I’m scrolling through our files and no, we don’t have another telephone number for Lynsey. I’m sorry. Can’t you check on Lauren’s phone for one?’
‘Her phone was smashed to pieces, thanks anyway.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, Morgan, I hope you find her soon.’
‘Me too, good luck with the armed robbery.’
‘Yeah, thanks. I’m going to need it. Bye.’
She ended the call, and Morgan blew out a long breath. Why was Lynsey so difficult to get hold of?
She raced into the office eager to share the news with Ben that they might have another missing person, or a viable suspect for the murders. Sibling rivalry was a very real thing, enough that lots of siblings had killed each other over it and would continue as long as the world kept on turning.