Dead Alone. Gay Longworth

Jessie. ‘Someone has to go through every single shoe box.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Why? Because they make good hiding places and it looks like Verity Shore had a lot to hide. Then we’ll go to the pub. And not a word of this outside this building.’ They all gave their word, Jessie wondered how much it was worth. As P. J. Dean said, you could only trust people so far, everybody has a price.

      Jessie left the house and walked round the back of the garage. There was a thick rainwater pipe, with two offshoots at different heights. And bins at the bottom. If there had been any footprints before, they’d been wiped away. Someone had been doing some tidying as well as some gardening. Jessie put a foot on the sturdiest-looking bin, grabbed the pipe, put another foot on a windowsill and grabbed the first offshoot with her left hand. A redundant nail gave her the third secure step, an over-spill pipe her fourth. Within ten seconds she was on the roof. She walked across the flat, sun-warmed asphalt to Verity’s window. The window box had been taken away, leaving two sturdy brackets. It was a big step up, but it wasn’t impossible. If needs must. She turned and leant back on the white wall, pulled out her phone and dialled a number.

      ‘Fry, it’s Driver here. What news on those video tapes?’

      ‘Bugger all.’

      She nodded to herself. ‘Good.’

      ‘Good? I’ve been watching hours of the same image and you think that’s good?’

      ‘Yes. Didn’t want to tax you with anything too complicated.’

      ‘Look, ma’am I’m sorry about the –’

      ‘Forget it. Keep watching the tapes.’

      ‘What are you expecting me to find?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      She snapped her phone shut, retraced her steps across the roof of the garage, and peered out over the garden. To the right of the house there was a building that looked like a pool house. Pools meant chemicals. Chlorine. Bleach. It all came from the same family. It also meant sun-loungers. Privacy. By easing herself backwards off the roof and clinging to the over-spill pipe, she could climb down with relative ease, even in the dying light. She felt for the nail. Perhaps not so redundant after all. The windowsill. The bin. The ground. Escape. But not to the outside world. Cameras would have caught her. No, Verity Shore found escape in-house. Provided, perhaps, by the adoring arms of a seventeen-year-old.

      This house held secrets. Jessie could feel it. She walked across the clipped lawn, past the football goals to the pool house. The smell of chlorine got stronger as she drew closer. There was no key to this room. It was a big pool, but Jessie could have walked from one end to the other with ease. Not because it was a steady shallow depth, but because it was empty. Drained. Jessie called the forensic team. And the reaping began again.

       CHAPTER 16

      ‘Mark, thanks for coming to see me in this Godawful place.’

      ‘It’s all right, guv. I’ve been wanting a word with you anyway. That Jessie Driver, she gets –’ Jones put his hand up. ‘She’s running the department like a despot, circumnavigating the press office, she’s –’

      ‘A different sort of detective to you and me, Mark, that’s all, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t, in her own way, as good. I need you in charge in my absence, not whipping up a battleground. I’ve got something important for you to do.’

      ‘Police a pensioners’ march?’

      ‘Mark, come on, I’m too ill for your shit. You are a good man, don’t make me have to convince her of that.’

      Ward shook his head. This pep talk touched the surface of years of booze, boys’ club, marital break-ups, bodies. He’d given the Force too much to be passed over for a girl half his age with none of his experience. ‘Whatever.’

      ‘Please?’

      ‘What was this important case?’

      Jones passed over the file. ‘Find Frank Mills. Use whatever means, do whatever you have to, but find him.’

      ‘Thought you put Miss Open University on the job.’

      ‘It was a mistake.’

      Mark opened the file. ‘Well, well, well, your old friend Raymond Giles.’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘I remember him going down.’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘And coming out.’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘He shot this boy’s dad, and the boy disappears?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘He’d be how old by now …?’

      ‘Exactly.’ Jones closed his eyes. When he opened them, Mark Ward had gone. He’d slept for four hours.

       CHAPTER 17

      Jessie let herself into the flat, put her helmet on the wooden floor and walked through to the kitchen. There was a bottle of wine open on the table and singing coming from the bathroom. Jessie poured herself a glass and walked to the bathroom, with her foot she eased the door open. Maggie was lying in bubbles up to her ears, smoking a fag, singing to Heart FM and sipping from a half-empty wine glass.

      She stopped singing and looked at Jessie. ‘Hey, Morse.’

      ‘Hey, Anthea.’

      ‘Ouch. You’re late.’

      Jessie put the seat down and sat on the loo. ‘Yup.’

      ‘Boy or body?’

      ‘Latter, sadly.’

      ‘Anything you can tell me about?’

      The sigh was uncontrolled and came from deep inside her. Jessie shook her head.