AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I promise,” she hears Nav say as her mind slips away into nothingness.
CHAPTER
5
CARA NOTICES THE whispers from her colleagues as soon as she and Deakin walk into the police station. Two young women. Murdered. Heads removed. Cara knows her every step will be watched to see how she handles the case; she’s guessing there’s already a pot going for time before first arrest. Not that anyone will admit publicly to something so callous.
“Elliott!” Cara hears a bellow from the other side of the room, and turns to see her detective chief superintendent heading toward her.
DCS Marsh is a man under pressure, surviving off a surfeit of nicotine and caffeine, with the pallor to match. His face is gray, hollows under his cheekbones, with a grubby mug in one hand. He takes a swig from it now, winces, then instructs the nearest DC to fetch him a fresh cup.
He gestures for Cara to follow him into her office, then rests his nonexistent bum on her desk, crossing his arms.
“I hear the owner of the car is a dead end,” he says, getting straight to the point.
Cara takes her coat off and sits down on her chair.
“Has an alibi for last night,” she confirms, repeating what Shenton had told them on the drive back from the crime scene. “But the families have been notified, and the boyfriend of one of the girls is waiting downstairs.”
Their DC had been working hard, and sure enough, the two victims were students. Clever, hard-working, diligent women with bright futures. And families in different parts of the country.
She doesn’t like to admit it, but Cara is glad it wasn’t her that had to deliver the terrible news. She’s done it too many times. Ashen-faced parents, distraught husbands, crying wives. There is no good way to tell someone their loved one has been brutally murdered.
“Good. See what you can get out of him.” Marsh frowns, looking through the open door at the whiteboard in the incident room. Shenton has stuck photos of the victims along the top, their names written in black marker pen. Marisa Perez. Ann Lees. They smile out, oblivious of their futures, snapshots taken from their student IDs.
“Anything on CCTV?”
Cara points to the computer at which Shenton’s now sitting, Deakin leaning over his shoulder. “On it.”
Marsh nods. “Keep me updated,” he says.
Cara follows him into the incident room, then watches him walk back to his own office. As he goes, he takes the new mug of coffee, almost downing the scalding hot liquid in one gulp on his way out.
“Deaks,” she calls, and he turns. She tilts her head toward the door. Follow me, she’s saying. Interview time.
* * *
Rick Baker is young and fashionable and nervous. Boyfriend of a few months, and clearly a fan of the gym. They’ve placed him in an interview room, where he’s been waiting for the last half hour, sweating through his shirt.
Cara and Deakin sit down in front of him. They start the video and give the standard warnings for a voluntary interview, at which point he looks as though he might cry. Deakin leads. Time is of the essence, and Cara knows Noah has a way about him that men instantly bond with. He starts gently, expressing sorrow for his loss. The boyfriend nods, his lips clamped together.
“Could you tell us when you last saw Marisa?” Noah asks.
“Yesterday. Lunchtime. We agreed we’d do something today. She wanted a girlie night out with Ann.” Cara watches as the boy tries admirably to hold it together; then his face crumples and he starts to cry.
Deakin looks to Cara and raises an eyebrow a fraction. With that one expression Cara knows what Noah’s saying: the guy’s either a traumatized boyfriend, or he’s trying his hardest to look that way.
Deakin hands him a tissue. “And where were they planning on going?” he says.
Rick wipes his eyes. He blows his nose loudly. “Reflex. Their usual. It’s an eighties club in town. I should have gone with them. I should have insisted they got a taxi home for a change.”
Cara sits up in her seat. “How did they normally get home?”
“They’d walk. But it was cold last night, they might have …” His voice trails off. He shakes his head. “They would sometimes hitchhike. Someone would always pick them up. Marisa laughed at me when I said I was worried about it—she’d say there’s two of them, they’ll be fine.” He looks up. His eyes are bloodshot. “But they weren’t, were they?”
Deakin leans forward, looking the poor kid in the eye.
“You weren’t to know,” he says quietly. “And what were you doing last night?”
