Blood of the Innocents (24 page)

‘Why?’ Millie was surprised. ‘The pictures are very good.’

‘The young man in question liked to flirt with the girls. He seemed to get them rather excited.’

‘I’ll bet he did,’ murmured Mariner. ‘Did he model for Yasmin’s class?’

‘He might have.’

‘Think!’ barked Mariner. ‘Did he?’

‘Yes. I think so.’

 

‘So Shaun Pryce has a link with the girls school and may have known Yasmin. Now why the hell didn’t he tell us that?’

‘Do you want to go and talk to him again?’

‘Not yet. Let’s get Lee out of the way first.’

 

Built during the same era, the boys school was structurally a mirror image of the girls, but there the similarity ended. Less well cared for, soft greenery gave way to show cases full of competition trophies, and raw testosterone hung in the air. Mariner identified himself to the matronly receptionist. ‘We need to speak to one of your students: Lewis Everett.’

‘I’ll just need to check with Mr Blyth. One moment, please.’

Head Teacher Gordon Blyth, a small man with thinning black hair and a voice from the valleys of South Wales, came out to speak to them in person. ‘I’m afraid Lewis isn’t here at the moment,’ he said. ‘He’s doing work experience. ’

‘Where?’

Blyth had to go away and consult with the person responsible for organising these things. He was back moments later. ‘At a place that makes kitchen units, on Birch Close. It’s—’

‘I know where it is,’ said Mariner. He looked at Millie. ‘Now we are going round in bloody circles.’

 

Within a few minutes they were back on the small industrial estate, four units down from TMR Reprographics. The manager of Dunhill’s Kitchen Design was not a happy man.

‘Work experience, is that what they call it? Little bugger hasn’t turned in for work again today. He cleared off last Tuesday afternoon and I haven’t seen him since.’

‘What time on Tuesday afternoon?’

‘About half one. The kid’s a waste of space. He’s hardly put in a full day’s work since he started here. I ask you. What kind of a worker is he going to make?’

‘Have you rung the school to find out where he is?’

‘I haven’t got time to go chasing round after him, I’ve got a business to run. It’ll just go on his report at the end of the week. He wasn’t much use, anyway. He’s a spoilt little rich kid who doesn’t like getting his hands dirty.’

Outside, just a few yards away were the refuse bins that concealed the gap in the fence.

Mariner put through a call on his mobile to the head of the boys school. ‘We’re at the kitchen workshop, but Lewis isn’t. In fact, he hasn’t been here since last Tuesday. I trust you didn’t know that.’ The pause at the other end of the line confirmed it. ‘I’d like Lewis’s home address, please.’

Lewis Everett’s daily train journey home terminated at the exclusive hamlet of Barnt Green that nestled complacently at the foot of the Lickey Hills. The Everetts’ house was ‘big and posh’ as Suzanne had described it, hemmed in on all sides by woodland on a private road that wasn’t even graced with a proper street name. Hawthorns here had rather more to do with the shrub than it did the home of West Bromwich Albion. Mariner tried to picture the Akram family living round here. He couldn’t. Number 5, Hawthorns, consisted of five room widths of 1950s mock-Georgian with a broad double garage, behind impressive wrought-iron gates and a paved drive. Burgeoning ten-foot leylandii divided the property from its neighbours. A side gate was unlocked and they pushed through and approached the building. Mariner stepped over a dark stain that marked the otherwise flawless drive, but closer inspection revealed only engine oil. Pushing the button on the studded oak front door prompted nothing more than the jangle of a bell deep inside the house. Millie peered in through the window to see a neat and tidy sitting room, plush carpeting, gleaming antique reproduction furniture, everything in its place.

‘At work, I suppose,’ Millie said. ‘We’ll have to come back later.’

‘On holiday,’ called a disembodied voice from behind the hedge. The rhythmic chopping in the background that they hadn’t even noticed, abruptly ceased. Mariner followed Millie back out through the gates and round to the adjacent property, an equally imposing edifice with tall windows and curving bays, in the style of Rennie Mackintosh. A man, tall and white haired, with a weathered face and sinewy arms, stood mid-way up an aluminium stepladder, brandishing a pair of garden shears. ‘I do their garden, too,’ he said. ‘And they’ve gone away. Mr and Mrs have, anyway. Three weeks in the Bahamas. They do it every year at about this time. Due back early hours of Thursday morning.’

‘It wasn’t Mr or Mrs we were looking for,’ Mariner said. ‘It was Lee. Lewis.’

The man thought for a minute before slowly shaking his head. ‘Haven’t seen him for a few days, either.’

‘You’re here every day?’ asked Millie.

‘Look at the size of these gardens. This street is a full-time job for me. This time of year I get here at seven in the morning and don’t go home until at least six, sometimes later if I’ve a job to finish. And by the time I get to the end I have to start all over again.’

‘So when was the last time you saw Lee Everett?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Monday. He was around then, driving that car of his too fast up and down the road. Only a matter of time before he kills someone.’

Mariner and Millie exchanged a look. ‘You didn’t see him on Tuesday?’

‘Let me think. Tuesday I was doing the back lawn at Number 8. I’d have been round there for most of the day. They’ve got more grass there than Wentworth.’

‘And you definitely haven’t seen him since?’

‘No, but you might want to check with Margaret.’

‘Margaret?’

‘Margaret Ashworth, their daily help.’

‘Do you have her phone number?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, before nodding an acknowledgement towards a green Land Rover Discovery that had driven up and was pulling into the driveway opposite. ‘But Mrs Goldman would.’

Dashing across the road, Mariner and Millie sneaked in before the electric gates could close. Mrs Goldman was stepping down from her Land Rover Discovery, stretching out long legs clad in gleaming white cotton jeans, her equally dazzling blouse highlighting the deep tanning on her arms. On seeing Mariner’s warrant card, the friendly smile on her immaculately made-up face dissolved to a troubled frown. ‘Not another burglary,’ she said, opening up the boot of the vehicle to retrieve Waitrose carrier bags. ‘Who this time?’

‘It’s nothing like that,’ Mariner reassured her. ‘We need to get in touch with your cleaner, Margaret Ashworth.’

‘Margaret? Why? What’s happened?’

‘We’re trying to track down Lewis Everett.’

‘Oh. Do you have to?’ she said with feeling, slamming shut the tailgate. ‘It’s been so peaceful these last few days.’

Mariner offered to carry one of the bags.

‘Thanks.’

They followed her round to the side of the house where she let them into a kitchen the size of Mariner’s entire ground floor. It was sparse and modern, with wall-to-wall limed oak cupboards, and a wide central station that held a butcher’s block. Another wall was dominated by a huge green-enamelled Aga; otherwise the appliances were in clinical stainless steel, everything as spotless as Mrs Goldman herself. Margaret was clearly a treasure.

‘Can I offer you something to drink, something cold, perhaps?’

Mariner placed the bag alongside the others she’d deposited on the counter top. ‘That would be very welcome. Thank you.’

Opening a fridge the size of a wardrobe, she dropped chunks from an ice dispenser into beautifully crafted crystal tumblers, topping them up with an orange-coloured fruit juice.

‘You remarked on how quiet things have been over the last few days,’ said Mariner. ‘Implying that it’s not always the case.’

‘Lewis takes full advantage of his parents being away,’ she said with feeling. ‘We get treated to the latest rock bands at full volume most evenings. The warm weather encourages him to keep all the windows open too, of course, which makes it worse.’

‘No one complains?’

‘Oh, one or two of the neighbours have tried talking to him. It’s a question of getting through, though. Lewis is a very intense young man. The sulky and broody type, a regular Liam Gallagher - or is it Noel? You never quite know what’s going on inside his head. To be truthful, I think his parents may be a bit afraid of him, and they’re lovely people, so nobody really wants to upset them. We just all put up with it. When you live in a little community like this one it’s important to get along. And to be fair, Lewis isn’t that much trouble when his parents are around.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

She thought about that. ‘I haven’t seen him - or heard him - for about a week. Last Monday or Tuesday, I think.’

‘If we could just have Margaret Ashworth’s number—’

‘Yes, of course. I’ll get it for you.’ Mrs Goldman was also good enough to let Mariner use her phone, but Margaret Ashworth was out shopping. Her daughter was expecting her back in a couple of hours.

‘We may as well go back to the shop,’ Mariner said. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mrs Goldman.’

‘Not at all. Good luck with Lewis.’

 

On their way back to the station, they had to drive past the girls school. It was the end of the afternoon and they saw Suzanne Perry arguing with a man beside a big flashy car, as girls swarmed out past them.

‘Look at that,’ said Millie. ‘What do you think’s going on there?’

Mariner put a call through to Knox back at OCU 4. ‘Could you run a vehicle check on a Volvo estate, personalised plate SDP 2.’

Moments later Knox came back. ‘The car is registered to a Mr Stephen Perry, 39 Silvermere Road, Kingsmead.’

‘She’s being shown up in front of her friends by an overprotective father,’ Millie concluded. ‘Now who’s being paranoid?’

 

Charlie Glover was also checking in at Granville Lane, where they found him brooding over the incident room map.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Slowly. There’s still nothing to indicate that Ricky would have known Yasmin. It’s looking more and more like sheer coincidence that they were around there at the same time.’

‘So nothing new?’

Glover shook his head. ‘We’re still looking for a murder weapon. How about you?’

For the benefit of Knox, too, Mariner filled Glover in on the afternoon’s developments. ‘So now we have Yasmin and the boyfriend missing. The boyfriend works at the industrial units and Yasmin’s phone is found between the station and there. It gives us a whole new scenario.’

‘If Yasmin was trying to prove to Suzanne that she could cut it in the romance stakes, and if she wanted to get away from her parents, what better way to do both simultaneously than to elope with her boyfriend? She could have planned the whole thing, including the sleepover at Suzanne’s, which she never had any intention of following through.’

‘But Suzanne seemed certain that the relationship with Lee was finished,’ Millie reminded him.

‘That’s what Yasmin told her. The bigger the surprise then, when her friend finds out what she’s done. Suzanne said that Yasmin was excited, had something to tell her. Might have been rather more than we thought.’

‘If Yasmin’s eloped she hasn’t taken much with her,’ Millie said, quietly.

‘She wouldn’t need to. Boyfriend Lee isn’t short of a bob or two.’

‘Where does that leave us with Pryce?’ asked Glover. ‘Potentially, we now have four people on or around the reservoir that afternoon, three of whom know each other. Akram knows Yasmin, Yasmin knows Lee.’

‘And as we found out this afternoon, Shaun Pryce probably knows Yasmin.’

‘Pryce insists he was there much earlier. Surely we can rule him out now.’

‘If we believe him.’ Mariner was sceptical. ‘I’m sure there’s something going on with him.’

‘And Akram’s still in the picture, but only in the background. ’

‘Which leaves us with Yasmin, Lee and Ricky as the most likely - in that order. As far as we know, Ricky doesn’t know Lee or Yasmin, but perhaps he saw something, tried to stop it and Lee turned on him.’

‘Perhaps eloping wasn’t on the agenda,’ Millie put in. ‘We know for sure that Yasmin had just gone on the pill, and that she was all set to lose her virginity. Maybe that’s what they were meeting for. Shaun Pryce could have even suggested the location. We don’t know how he gets his kicks. Perhaps he was planning to watch. So Yasmin gets there. Lee turns up with high expectations, but Yasmin then gets cold feet and won’t play. Lee gets rough with her and Ricky, there by sheer coincidence, intervenes to help her—’

‘And Lee turns on him.’

‘Mrs Goldman said he’s a bit of a sullen bastard.’

‘And Randall called him a spoilt kid. Implying that he’s used to getting what he wants.’

‘Then Lee and Yasmin panic about what’s happened and disappear together.’

‘Or Lee panics and forces Yasmin to go with him.’

‘And Pryce?’

‘Pryce witnessed the whole thing, which is why he’s playing silly buggers with us.’

‘So why doesn’t he just tell us?’

‘Because he could be implicated on some level: especially if he just stood back and watched it all happen.’

‘Or more than that, it turned him on.’

Mariner sighed. He couldn’t ever remember standing on such fast-shifting sand. The phone rang.

‘Margaret Ashworth,’ said Millie. ‘She’ll meet us at the house.’

‘Have you got a search warrant?’ were Margaret Ashworth’s first words to them when they arrived. Fortunately, Mariner was able to persuade her that it wasn’t necessary since she was merely cooperating with the police enquiry. ‘We don’t want to search the premises,’ he said, ‘only see for ourselves that the place has been uninhabited for a few days.’ They had to wait while she disarmed a complex security alarm and then carefully removed her shoes in favour of fluffy pink mules just in front of the door, glancing disapprovingly at their own heavy footwear.