One Bad Turn (8 page)

‘Then do as they say and sit down,’ she chided him, ignoring his outstretched arms and placing the child instead into a travel cot that doubled as a playpen in the corner of the room. This time Wellbeck did as he was told. He looked at his watch once more, yet it was an automatic reaction, for every nerve ending told him the day would not pan out as he’d expected first thing. He settled his gaze upon the detectives standing before him. ‘Now tell us,’ he ordered. Coupland cleared his throat.

Upstairs a baby boy began to whimper.

‘Hope you’re good with kids.’ Coupland said in an undertone to the FLO that arrived twenty minutes later. Wellbeck had taken the baby girl upstairs to change her nappy and the woman had gone into the children’s nursery to bring her grandson down for his bottle. The twins were nine months old, born prematurely they were small for their age but what they lacked in size their made up for in lung capacity. The FLO pulled a face. She didn’t mind kids really, but was wary of showing too much of an interest to her colleagues. She was going steady with an officer based at Eccles, she didn’t want him to start thinking she was broody. ‘Poor little mites,’ she said instead, and set about de-cluttering the living room in anticipation of the friends and relatives that would descend as soon as word got out. She pulled the downstairs curtains closed, ‘to keep out nosey parkers,’ she said with authority before going into the kitchen to fill the kettle with water. ‘They’ve got a fancy coffee machine,’ Coupland told her, ‘get Grandma to show you how it works, I need to get hubby on his own for a bit.’ The FLO nodded, introducing herself to the older woman when she came downstairs, asking if she would show her what was what in the kitchen. The woman’s eyes were red rimmed and she looked at the FLO confused. ‘I need to let my husband know…’ her hand instinctively flew to her throat, ‘this is going to kill him.’

‘Let’s do that in here, shall we?’ the FLO suggested, taking the woman’s arm as she guided her into the other room. Wellbeck returned, instead of an infant he carried a baby monitor. ‘Asleep at last,’ he grimaced, his eyes darting to the hallway and the closed kitchen door beyond. ‘I’ve been trying her mobile but it’s just ringing out.’ Behind the closed curtain the living room window looked out on to the front of the house, to Coupland’s car parked on the road, with Maria’s phone ringing inside an evidence bag. It was a common reaction, people expecting their loved ones to answer, prove the police had got it wrong. Coupland spoke in a quiet voice: ‘We recovered Maria’s phone, along with other personal items found with her bag. That’s how we knew how to find you.’ He let that sink in. Wellbeck began shaking his head, ‘Mr Wellbeck,’ Coupland’s voice remained low, ‘look, would you mind if I use your first name..?’ He paused, waiting for a response. ‘Pete…’

‘OK Pete, can I ask why you didn’t try phoning your wife when she didn’t come home last night? I would have expected to see missed calls from you.’

‘Maria was staying with a friend from her antenatal class, they’d arranged a night out at the theatre,’ he made a sound like a tyre letting out air; ‘they were really going to watch American male models take their clothes off to music,’ he pulled a face, ‘she thought it’d be a laugh. “It’s not about the show, Pete, it’s the chance of a night out, let my hair down a little,” she made it sound like she was in some sort of prison.’ Coupland remembered the early months after Amy came along, Lynn’s fear of taking her out shopping on her own. He’d taken a few days annual leave when she’d arrived, well before paternity leave kicked in. The palaver of packing the changing bag then collapsing the buggy to put it into the back of the car. Timing everything around feeds and nappy changes. It was easier to stay in, Lynn would say, and she’d ring him when he was on his way home to pick up something for dinner. He didn’t blame her looking back, but he hadn’t been so understanding at the time.

‘Must be hard, though, with two,’ he said simply.

Pete scowled. ‘I told her it was too soon to start thinking about going out. It’s all about going without when they’re little isn’t it? Putting them first…she said it was alright for me, my job takes me away for several days at a time,’ he explained, ‘she didn’t get that it was work.’

‘What is your job, Pete?’ Coupland enquired.

‘I’m a quality manager for a five star hospitality group. It’s my job to check that standards are maintained throughout our European chain.’

‘So you get to go abroad a lot, then?’

Pete nodded enthusiastically, ‘some months my feet don’t touch the ground,’ he said, ‘that’s why when I’m home I like to chill out, only Maria’s always wanting us to do something. She doesn’t get that all I want to do when I’m home is kick off my shoes, have a takeaway…She’d kept in touch with the girls from her antenatal class, there were a couple of them, like her, whose husbands couldn’t make it every week, and one of the women - I always thought she was a lesbian - well she could be couldn’t she, these days? Anyway she started organising nights out. Maria always looked forward to them.’

I’m not surprised, Coupland thought sourly, anything to get away from the prick she’d married. ‘Were you not worried when you didn’t hear from Maria? I mean, I normally check in with the missus when I’m away, not that it happens much, I expect you do the same?’

Pete looked surprised, ‘No…’ he said slowly, ‘I don’t like to disturb the twins. Once they’re settled you do anything you can to keep it that way. I just assumed Maria was doing the same.’

‘Can you give me the number for the friend that she was staying with?’ The wheels in Coupland’s mind turned slowly as he tried to work out why Maria’s friend didn’t ring when she hadn’t arrived as planned.

Pete looked blank. ‘The number will be on Maria’s phone…’

Coupland nodded, reaching in his jacket pocket for a pad and pen, ‘I’ll find it myself later,’ he said, making himself a note, ‘can you let me have her name?’

Pete blinked. ‘Helen Dalry, I think,’ he said, ‘or Dalton, I can’t really remember…’ he leaned forward in his chair, pressed his fists into his eye sockets, ‘Oh, God…’ he cried, ‘how the hell did this happen?’

Coupland sat in silence for a moment; there were times when words really didn’t cut it. A woman could be heard weeping through the closed kitchen door. ‘At least you’re not on your own,’ he said feebly, ‘your mother I take it?’

Pete reared his head. ‘Mother in law,’ he answered in a way that Coupland felt some sympathy with. After a moment Pete lowered his hands, pressing them together as though in prayer, ‘Tell me everything,’ he said, leaning forward, ‘because until I hear it I can’t quite believe what you’re saying is true.’ Coupland nodded, and while he spoke Ashcroft moved around the room, studying photographs, trying to get a lie of the land. ‘It seems that Maria was fatally injured on her way out to meet with her friend. Her body was found this morning at the bottom of the station footbridge,’ Pete had been staring at Coupland’s face intently, as though trying to read the words he didn’t want to say. ‘Are you saying she jumped? Oh, God, did she hate her life so much?’ He slumped back in his seat slack jawed, his eyes taking on a glassy look, ‘No,’ Coupland said hurriedly, ‘the way she was lying…that doesn’t appear to be the case,’ he let that sink in.

‘So someone pushed her over the side?’ there was a lift in his voice, as though it was preferable to have her taken rather than her leave them of her own accord.

Coupland remained still, ‘It would appear that way.’

‘No…’ Pete got to his feet with such speed Coupland thought he was rushing to be sick, instead he started pacing around the room. ‘She can’t be dead, she can’t be. She was going to meet friends.’

‘Did you give her a lift to the station?’

Pete nodded, ‘She couldn’t walk in the daft shoes she was wearing. She’d arranged for her mother to come stay yesterday afternoon to help out, so at least I didn’t need to disturb the twins while I drove her to the station and I could leave for work on time in the morning.’

‘A train ticket was found in Maria’s bag going to Oxford Road.’

‘She was meeting the girls outside the theatre, then going back to Helen’s place afterwards. They probably don’t have our home number, or mine for that matter,’ Pete added, ‘which is why no one called me when she didn’t show.’ It didn’t explain why there was no missed call on Maria’s mobile from this Helen or one of the other girls, concerned she hadn’t turned up, but Coupland would gnaw away at that later. A shrill cry came from the baby monitor, followed by another, slightly higher pitched cry, a beat out of step with the other. The door leading to the kitchen opened and Pete’s mother in law hurried up the stairs. ‘I told Maria we were too young to have kids,’ he scowled, ‘told her we should have a few more holidays under our belt, a better car,’ he looked dolefully at the people carrier parked on the driveway. ‘Now look what’s happened,’ he said as his dead wife’s mother appeared in the doorway shell shocked, a baby straddling each hip.

Chapter 6

On Coupland’s return to the station he found a scrawled message from DC Turnbull on his desk
. Boss wants to see you
. Coupland didn’t bother sitting down, went straight through to Mallender’s office, stopping only for a vending machine coffee on the way. Mallender would want to get a measure of Maria Wellbeck before he ran the briefing.

Was there anyone who would want to harm her?

What was her family set up like, domestic issues, any person of interest emerging?

Two dead bodies in a week was Christmas come early for the press. They couldn’t afford to look like their trousers were down by their ankles. He knocked on Mallender’s door, went in without waiting for a reply. Mallender was tapping on his keyboard; he glanced up as Coupland entered the room, leaned back in his chair as though grateful for the interruption.

‘How was it?’ he asked.

Coupland sat in the only other chair and pulled a face. ‘A young mum setting off on a rare night out with women from her anti-natal group. Left behind twins and a husband who doesn’t know what day of the week it is.’ He didn’t need to say any more, Mallender had suffered his own loss during childhood, it had made him guarded, though every now and then he’d let Coupland in.

‘Anything not stack up?’

Coupland’s mouth turned down at the corners, ‘Not from the hubby’s perspective, as far as he was concerned she was staying with a mate, which is why he opened the door to us completely oblivious, poor bugger. I’ll head out after the briefing to visit her friend though, a Helen Dalton. Maria didn’t arrive like they’d arranged and the woman didn’t call to check she was OK. Not normal, is it?’

Mallender shook his head.

‘I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of the husband-’

‘-in case the friend was covering for her-’

‘Exactly, though to be honest I can’t see her traipsing off to meet another fella, by the sound of it she was too knackered and stressed looking after two babies and a hubby whose lifestyle doesn’t seem to have changed one little bit.’

‘It has now,’ Mallender said gravely.

Incident room briefing, Friday morning

The briefing was short and to the point. Due to the time the body was found many of the officers were still at the scene, or conducting preliminary house to house enquiries along the student flats and houses in close proximity to the train station. Officers present at the briefing consisted of DCs Ashcroft, Robinson and Turnbull, who had just returned from the locus. DCI Mallender joined them after an unexpected summons to Curtis’s office, when he returned his poker face gave nothing away. He apologised for being late to the briefing and asked Coupland to continue.

‘Maria Wellbeck was 28, married, a mother to nine month old twins,’ he repeated for Mallender’s benefit. ‘I’ve spoken to the rail worker who found her, and the uniformed officers first on the scene - all confirm that they didn’t touch the body or move any of her possessions. It was quite obvious the victim was dead as far as they were concerned so they moved into preserve scene mode. We can estimate the time of death fairly accurately: her husband dropped her off at the station in time for the 6.30pm train which she never got on yet she had on her person a ticket purchased at 6.17pm, so she was killed some time after purchasing the ticket and before she made it onto the platform.

‘Did the person in the ticket office remember serving anyone else?’ Mallender asked.

Ashcroft raised his hand, ‘The ticket office shuts at five, tickets bought after this time are purchased from a self-service machine outside the office.’

‘How come no one found her getting off the train last night?’

Robinson, who lived in the vicinity, spoke up: ‘It’s mainly a commuter station, after the evening rush hour there’s very few folk get off there, and depending on where they live there’s every chance they wouldn’t pass the body when they leave the station as there are stairs and a walkway leading in the other direction.’

‘Besides,’ Ashcroft continued, ‘there were signalling problems last night by all accounts, a couple of trains were cancelled.’

Mallender addressed DC Turnbull: ‘What about weather conditions?’

‘No significant change overnight,’ Turnbull replied, ‘temperature dropped by five degrees, no rain.’

‘Chain of evidence…’

‘ID and personal belongings given to DS Coupland at the scene.’

Coupland nodded and picked up the briefing once more: ‘It looks as though she’s been pushed over the footbridge’s barrier; now this will need to be corroborated by forensics but the way the body was found indicates she fell backwards, which as you know isn’t consistent with anyone choosing to jump to their death, besides, there’s a perfectly good train track she could have used if suicide was her intention. A jump from the footbridge would have been survivable from that height, she’d have had multiple fractures and her face wouldn’t have been so pretty…instead she came off that bridge backwards and at speed, and in so doing suffered a major trauma to the back of her head, whether this is the cause of death or not we’ll have to wait for our forensic friends to tell us in words of one syllable.’