MURDER AMONG FRIENDS a totally gripping crime thriller full of twists Read online

  Periods were something she certainly wouldn’t miss. It was all the other horrors that lay in store, like her bones losing density until they resembled the inside of a crunchie bar, brittle and pocked with air holes.

  She found herself pausing at the skin care shelves in the supermarket to read the labels of ‘anti-ageing’ creams and serums. Their list of ingredients seemed to suggest an alternative periodic table of age-defying elements.

  At least her age group was still within the target range of the manufacturers and marketers of skincare products, unlike the miserable wretches who were banded together in the sixty-plus category. It would seem there was no point in developing an age-specific product for them because, let’s face it, who’d be looking at them anyway?

  Jane sighed, plumped her pillow and turned it over. It felt slightly cooler against her burning face.

  Outside, the city was stirring. She could hear the sound of traffic building up, the occasional wailing siren as an ambulance sped up Lindum Hill on its way to the County Hospital.

  Ryan would probably have to spend the night at the hospital. A case of concussion could prove fatal if it resulted in a bleed to the brain. Ask Mark Ripley. Jane yawned. She wasn’t a detective. She couldn’t bring Mark Ripley’s killer to justice, but last night she had made a difference. She had given something back by helping two people, Holly and Ryan.

  A thought came to her as she was drifting off to sleep. Suddenly, she was wide awake again. Could Ryan have been attacked by the same person who murdered Mark? Would Ryan be dead too had Kris not cried out, scaring off his attacker?

  Or, had Mark’s murderer not intended to kill him? Mark had struck his head on the sharp edge of the stone step. Perhaps that had been an accident?

  There were striking similarities between the attacks. Both victims were young men in their early to mid-twenties, both were beaten. She tried to remember if they looked alike. Jane had no difficulty recalling Mark’s physical appearance. There was a copy of the Lincolnshire Post on her kitchen table downstairs, and Mark’s wide-jawed, handsome face was on the front page, his intelligent blue eyes startling in their vitality. A world away from the dead, fish-eyed stare that even the streetlamp near his last resting place had been unable to spark with any life.

  Jane felt the dead stare as an accusation. If only she could make it up to Mark by being involved in the quest to bring his killer to justice.

  She reminded herself, again, that the investigation was out of her hands. Her part in it was over. Despite her earlier optimism about her new job, Jane felt the constraints of her role tightening around her like a straitjacket, stifling her instinct to become more involved. She sighed and turned over but changing position didn’t make any difference. She was still wide awake, still unable to stop thinking about Mark’s murder. Still ‘only a special.’

  Chapter Seven

  Steph had tasked one of the PCs attached to the team with checking CCTV footage acquired from the Riverside shopping centre, the High Street and other venues from the day of Mark’s murder, based on Elle Darrow’s account of how and where they had spent the afternoon and evening after meeting in Opal.

  PC Joey Fairbairn, bleary-eyed from hours spent staring at his screen, was now talking them through the sections he’d flagged up as relevant for them to see.

  “This is the first time Mark Ripley appears on camera.” Joey pointed Mark out amidst a press of people entering the Riverside Centre from the High Street. Mark headed straight for Opal.

  “And there’s Elle Darrow,” Elias said. She was browsing a rail of jeans near the entrance to the shop. She picked a pair out and held them against her, checked the price tag, returned them to the rail and picked out a different pair. Suddenly, Mark Ripley appeared from her left and said something to her. There was no accompanying sound.

  “He’s telling her the jeans would look great on her,” Steph explained. “She suggests he hang around while she tries them on so that he can give her his opinion.” Even if she hadn’t heard it from Elle, it would have been pretty obvious what the two of them were saying.

  Mark waited outside the changing room while Elle went inside. His eyes strayed to another young woman holding up a black strappy top with glittery gold sequins. He glanced at the dressing room, then back at the young woman. If Steph hadn’t already known that Mark had left the shop with Elle, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had abandoned her there and then for glitter-top girl.

  The jeans did look great on Elle. She was wearing a crop top that showed off her wispy thin waist. She twirled and looked over her shoulder to catch Mark’s reaction. His back was to the camera, but his approval was written all over Elle’s delighted face.

  “Just as well he doesn’t know what fate’s got in store for him,” Steph commented. Mark had only a few hours left to live at this point. At least they’d been happy ones. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d still be alive if he’d chosen glitter-top girl instead.

  PC Fairbairn explained that he’d seen nothing untoward on the High Street footage of Mark and Elle leaving the shopping centre and proceeding south on the High Street. They picked the couple up again on CCTV footage that the police had obtained from Starbucks.

  After ten minutes of observing Mark and Elle drinking coffee and clearly enjoying flirting with each other, Steph stifled a yawn. “Do we need to watch all of this, Constable? Because if nothing significant is about to happen, I suggest we speed it up a bit.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Joey mumbled. He paused again a bit farther into the tape. Mark stood up from the table and headed for the toilet. Elle took a mirror out of her handbag. She turned her head from side to side, frowned and took out a lipstick, which she applied, pressing her lips together and pouting. Apparently satisfied, she put the mirror away and looked around at the other customers.

  “This could be interesting.” Elias said. Steph nodded. She’d already spotted the young man, cup in hand, surveying the room, looking for a table. It was busy, but there were some empty seats. His gaze settled on Elle.

  He advanced on her table and signalled at the empty chair. Elle shook her head and looked away. The man seemed to hesitate. Just then, Mark emerged from the toilets and the man moved off, choosing a distant table.

  “Poor bloke. Double whammy. She hardly acknowledges him when he speaks to her, and then the alpha shows up,” Steph commented.

  “Not happy, is he?” Elias was referring to the man’s face as he turned away from the couple, his snarl of displeasure caught, clearly, on camera.

  “Hmm. Guess no one likes being rejected,” Joey said.

  Steph was becoming restless. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  Joey moved on. The couple had made an afternoon of it, ordering more coffee and chatting for a further hour.

  “Did you study the customers around them? Any of them seem to be showing anything more than a passing interest in Mark and Elle? Anyone look suspicious?” Steph asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. No ma’am.” Moments later, they watched the couple turn down a stepped passageway between buildings. It led from the High Street down to where the River Witham flowed through the arch of the medieval High Bridge, a spot known locally as the ‘Glory Hole.’

  They walked along the riverside, passing under another, more modern road bridge with the words, ‘Where are you going?’ painted over its arch. The other side, Steph knew, asked ‘Where have you been?’ She’d never questioned why.

  “They’re heading for the Brayford,” Joey said. Steph nodded. The popular Brayford Waterfront was lined on one side with bars, hotels and restaurants, on the other by university buildings. Brayford Pool, a natural lake formed by the widening of the River Witham, had been used by the Romans as an inland port and had remained important to the city’s trade right into the twentieth century.

  Elle seemed to be leading the way. She stopped outside an Italian restaurant and looked up at Mark, who nodded and followed her inside.

  “Nothing worth menti
oning happens in here,” Joey remarked. “Darrow does most of the talking. At one point, he reaches across the table and takes her hand. She acts pleased when he does this. Look.” He pinpointed the moment.

  “Looks like they’re really hitting it off,” Elias said. Steph didn’t answer. She was thinking of Elle’s single tear when she’d been interviewed. Maybe she’d judged the young woman too harshly. After all, she’d only just met Mark. All she had to grieve for were possibilities, but her joy when he took her hand seemed genuine enough. Steph noted the time on the CCTV monitor. Mark had around five hours left to live. Had they both gone home full of expectations of seeing each other again, not realising that life had other plans in store for them?

  “That’s all we’ve got so far.” Joey sounded apologetic.

  “Thanks, Constable. Keep looking,” Steph said. She motioned to Elias. “Let’s go shopping.”

  They visited Opal, hoping to speak with any members of staff who had been on duty the day Mark and Elle met.

  The manager identified Elle as one of their regulars. “Tries but doesn’t often buy,” she commented. “Except when there’s a sale on.” Steph wasn’t sure if this was meant to be a criticism. If so, the same might apply to her. “I thought they were a couple. He was very complimentary about the jeans she tried on. You should speak to Ian Morrison. He’s one of the security guards. He was probably on shift that day. He knows everyone.”

  Ian was on a mid-morning break. They found him in the control room, drinking tea with a colleague. Both were watching the CCTV monitors. Ian was middle-aged, ex-army, hard-faced but with a surprisingly gentle voice.

  “Yeah, I recognise her. Nice girl. Always says ‘hello.’ Not all the customers do, you know. Most don’t notice us. Until they need us, that is. The lad’s not a regular, but I have seen him around. He’s the one who was murdered, isn’t he? I’ve got a good memory for faces.”

  Jane wondered if he remembered Mark because he’d seen him hitting on Elle. She was right.

  “I’d been called into the store to deal with a mouthy customer upstairs in lingerie. I clocked Ripley talking to Elle on my way back down and I kept my eye on him. It’s part of my job to make sure customers aren’t harassed when they’re using the centre.” His colleague looked up from the CCTV monitors and nodded.

  “Do you get a lot of that sort of thing?” Steph asked.

  “Are you kidding? There’s always lads sniffing around. You get to know the ones who’re most likely to be a nuisance. And they aren’t just the young ones, believe you me. I could tell that poor Mark Ripley wasn’t one of them. See, you learn to read their body language. I can tell in seconds if someone’s in the centre to shop or to get up to some sort of mischief.” He tapped the side of his nose and gave a knowing wink. “Comes with experience.”

  Steph humoured him with a quick smile.

  “Young Ripley looked innocent enough. None of that furtive glancing around the shop with a nervous look on his face in case one of us was onto him. He made a beeline for the handbags.”

  “Did you notice if anyone was watching Mark?” Her question took Ian by surprise.

  “Interesting question,” he said. “Not that I noticed.” He glanced at the CCTV screens showing different views of the centre, inside and out.

  “Our people are scrutinising your footage going back some, but I’d be grateful if you could take a look from around two in the afternoon on the day Mark was murdered. A pair of experienced eyes might spot something we’ve missed,” Steph said, hoping the compliment would make him amenable to her request.

  “Of course,” Ian said. They waited while he found the right footage. “Here we go.” They watched Mark walk towards the entrance to the shopping centre. Mark had told Elle Darrow that he’d gone into Opal to look for a handbag for his sister’s birthday. He’d been browsing the accessories shelves when Elle caught his eye. After meeting Elle, he’d evidently forgotten his mission.

  “He didn’t follow her into the centre, looks like,” Ian commented. “Sometimes they do that. Follow a girl in from the High Street and wait for an opportunity to pester her.” He leaned in closer to the screen and pointed out a thin young man hovering near the entrance to the shop.

  Steph hadn’t noticed him in the footage Joey had shown them because she had been concentrating on Mark. It was like that video she’d seen in a training session once, about selective attention. The group had been instructed to watch a few moments of a basketball game and keep their eye on the ball being passed between three players dressed in white tops. They were instructed to count the number of times the ball passed between them. Three other players in black tops passed another ball among themselves. Steph and her colleagues had all counted accurately, and they’d laughed when the trainer asked if anyone had spotted the gorilla. Then he’d played back the video. Everyone had been astonished to see a man in a gorilla suit stroll right through the two sets of players, at one point even stopping to beat his chest. The invisible gorilla. The big thing you missed when your attention was focussed elsewhere.

  “Hey! Looks like you were right. Someone was watching Mark,” Ian said.

  “I don’t suppose you recognise him, do you?” Steph didn’t expect he would, but she had to ask.

  “As a matter of fact, you’re in luck. He’s another of our regulars. Comes in, hits on girls, never with any success, poor sod. Harmless enough though. Never gets aggressive.” He gave a laugh. “I had to rescue him once as a matter of fact. Young lady whacked him one for staring at her boobies.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jason. Surname’s Collins, I think.”

  “Thanks, Ian. You’ve been a big help.”

  “No worries. Anytime. Hey, let me know if you find who killed that young man, will you? I feel sort of involved now.”

  His words reminded Steph of that irritating special who’d been in attendance at Mark’s murder scene. Everybody thought they were invested in the case, it seemed. She promised to let him know.

  They left the shopping centre. Steph asked Elias to obtain an address for Jason Collins.

  Elias contacted the intelligence unit, who came up with an address in minutes.

  “Let’s see if he’s home,” Steph said.

  Jason lived on a council estate south of the city centre. It was in North Hykeham, which had once been a village in its own right but had long since been gobbled up by urban sprawl.

  “Here we go.” Elias pulled into the kerbside outside the Collins’s modest but tidy-looking home. Steph had grown up in one just like this. Elias, though he tried to conceal it, hailed from somewhere much more upmarket. He was always being teased about his posh accent.

  The door was answered by a middle-aged woman with limp blonde hair that was dark at the roots. Her over-plucked eyebrows suggested she’d been a teenager back in the seventies. She was dressed in leggings and a long top with a sequined pink heart on the front. A number of the sequins were missing, Steph noticed.

  Before Steph had a chance to show her ID, the woman asked, “Are you police?”

  “Yes. I’m Detective Inspector Warwick. This is my colleague, DS Harper.”

  “Good. I’ve been hoping you’d come today. I must say I was expecting someone in uniform, not the top brass.”

  “You were expecting a visit from the police?”

  “Yes. I phoned this morning.” Her expression darkened. “You sure you’re police?” She opened the door wider and looked up and down the street. “Has he put you up to this?”

  “We don’t know anything about your call this morning. We’re here to speak with your son, Jason.”

  “Jason?” She said it as if she’d never heard the name in her life. Steph checked the number on the door.

  “You are Jason Collins’s mother, aren’t you?”

  “’Course I am. Who’s asking?” It was clear that she was still unconvinced that they were genuine police officers. Impatient, Steph waved her badge under the woman’s nose.
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br />   “Is that fake? Everything’s fake nowadays. Fake news. It’s in the papers all the time.” She glared at them as though they were personally responsible for all unreliable information.

  “It’s not fake,” Steph said tersely. “Is Jason at home?”

  “He’s in bed. He works nights at Asda, stacking shelves.”

  A young man appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed only in boxers. “What’s going on, Mum? I’m trying to get some sleep here.”

  “Now you’ve gone and woken him up.”

  “Jason,” Steph called. “I’m Detective Inspector Warwick. Put some clothes on and come downstairs. I need to ask you some questions.”

  “What about?” Jason was halfway down the stairs. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Suppose you’d better come in,” Mrs Collins’s tone wasn’t exactly inviting. “I thought you’d come about the complaint I put in about that Pole across the street.” Steph noticed Elias’s gaze drift towards a telegraph mast on the other side of the road.

  Thankfully, Jason reappeared before his mother could embark on a racist rant about her Polish neighbour. He was wearing grey joggers and a Breaking Bad T-shirt, the one with the drug dealer’s chicken restaurant logo on the front. One of the chickens was missing its crown.

  Jason glanced at his mum. He seemed a bit scared of her. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Jason, have you been watching the news recently? Did you hear about the young man who was murdered just over a week ago?” Steph said.

  “Yep. It was on the news, wasn’t it, Mum?” Mrs Collins nodded.

  “On the day he was murdered you were spotted on CCTV at the Riverside Centre. You were following Mark into a shop called Opal.”

  Jason looked puzzled. His mum was outraged. “What do you mean? Are you trying to say my son’s a murderer?” She gave a shrill laugh. “He’s a victim, that’s what he is. Always the one who was picked on at school—”

  “Mrs Collins, please let Jason answer for himself.”

  “I wasn’t following him. I was studying him.”