Out of Promises (13 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Large and dimly lit with bleached walls, steel sinks, and cupboards for the deceased at the back, the city morgue was as surreal as Lucy imagined.  The whole place looked and felt like you’d expect a hospital to, but this was the police morgue, plain and simple with the smell of cleaning chemicals lingering in the air.  A slab for autopsies lay in the centre holding a body while the wall held a frame of light showing the x-ray of a skull with a hole through the centre.

Lucy trembled as Baker escorted her inside, bracing herself as she anxiously edged closer with the aftermath Michael’s death coming back to her; a sorrowful reminder of the most tormenting and heart wrenching moment of her life so far.

Staring down at the white sheet, she started crying.

Baker stood opposite her.  ‘Are you ready?’

She nodded, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

‘Bear in mind they’re still running tests,’ he said, taking hold of the sheet from the head and lowering it to the neck to reveal the half missing face.

The similarities between Freddie and Michael had never been more apparent: their child’s face crushed into something unrecognizable, and now his father sharing a similar fate under different circumstances.  The whole episode weighed heavy on her mind, intensified by her only love lying lifeless on his back.  It was more than she could take.  Her emotions were scattered, amplifying and waning, fluctuating like a heartbeat around her.  She was confused and full of regrets.  Regrets such as leaving him and not being there for him, not letting him see his only remaining child more often, ignoring him when he tried to do something in their garage four years ago.  She blamed herself.  If only she had done more, if only she had listened to him and shared the burden.  Michael wasn’t just her child, he was Freddie’s too and it was only now she looked back that she realized this more than ever.  Now she could see what might have made things right.  She didn’t know how to feel.  She was numb.  The room spiralled with dizziness taking over.  Almost fainting, she ran to the sink and vomited.

Baker watched.  He’d seen it all before.

Still weeping, she wiped her mouth.  ‘What am I going to do now?’

Baker handed her a tissue and stayed quiet.

‘How am I going to explain to a child that her father is dead?’ she cried.

He didn’t reply.

She wiped her mouth again and looked at him. ‘So what happens now?’

‘Now we continue hunting the person who shot him.  Can you confirm the body is Freddie?  Just for the record.’

‘Yes,’ she nodded.  ‘That’s Freddie.’

‘OK.  I need to ask you some more questions.  Can we sit in the hallway?’

She agreed and looked at Freddie one last time before leaving the morgue.

Baker brought her a cup of water from the cooler and she took it, nestling it between her hands with her eyes fixed on the floor.  ‘All right,’ she whispered.

Baker sat beside her, notepad in hand.  ‘All right then, Lucy.  Can you think of any reason why someone would do this to Freddie?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, our son and his babysitter were murdered four years ago.  It was in the papers.’

He nodded.  ‘I know about that, but I didn’t work it.’

‘Well, I think Freddie’s murder had something to do with Michael’s death.  Michael was murdered because of Freddie’s line of work.’

‘Which was?’

‘Crime.  He was working for a criminal and was obsessed with finding his murderer.’

Baker took it all in.  ‘I see.  Go on.’

‘Go on?  That’s all I know.’

‘You don’t know anything about who he worked for or anybody he worked with?’

‘No... Look, I lied to you this morning.  It wasn’t my sister.  A woman came to see me.  She claimed she used to work with Freddie.’

‘What did she say to you?’

‘She told me she needed to speak with me because something had happened to him.  She really spooked me.’

Baker made notes.  ‘Do you know her name?  What time was this?’

‘It was around seven thirty I think.  She said her name was Valerie Lambert.’

‘Any ideas where we can find her?’

Lucy shook her head.

‘OK, Lucy, you’ve been a great help.  I know it can’t be easy for you.’  He stood up and handed her a card.  ‘If you think of anything, call me.  An officer upstairs will take you home.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

With Bill at the wheel and Valerie sitting patiently beside him, they headed along Elmsmere Drive in search for Harry Trent’s home.

‘Dave wasn’t kidding was he, missy?  This place is nice.’

She was looking, but not paying attention.  Dave’s attitude had left a bad taste in her mouth.  Plus, areas like this pissed her off.  She thought they were fake and not real portrayals of how gritty life was.  The white houses gave the area Stepford Wives feel, which she detested, and the sun beaming down made everything look more artificial.  People worked hard to build the dream in the suburbs like this, she knew that, but she also knew those dreams were broken many, many times.

‘I still wouldn’t swap my apartment for one,’ she said.

Bill ignored her.  As long as she didn’t pick a fight with here, he didn’t care.  ‘Really?  I’d be here in a blink.’

Ever increasing numbers passed by as they continued on through the neighbourhood

‘There it is,’ he said.  ‘Three hundred and three.’

Large black iron gates tipped with gold spikes blocked his path and a tall brick wall encasing the property meant it was impossible to see over.  Beyond the gates, a lengthy driveway carved through the garden to the huge house.

A camera attached to an intercom pole watched them from the left.

Valerie said, ‘Does everywhere have those stupid cameras and intercoms now?’

‘Nobody trusts anybody anymore, who can blame them?’  Bill stepped out and walked to the gates for a better look.  He couldn’t see much activity from there, just wide lawns and a few trees with the house in the distance.  ‘Can’t see a great deal from here, missy.  You want to press that button?’

Valerie stepped out and pressed the button.

A click came through the speaker followed by a recording, ‘One moment please.’

Seconds later a voice came: ‘Ada Trent speaking.’

‘Hi.  We’re here about your husband, Harry.  My name is Bill Yates, I’m a private investigator and this is my assistant, Sarah Smith.’  He held up his ID to the camera.

‘OK, please drive to the front of the house.’

‘That was easy,’ Bill said.

The gates parted and he drove through.

Travelling through the lavish compound, they passed gardeners mowing the lawns and pruning the winter flora before coming to a halt beside maintenance vehicles neatly parked at the front of the house.

‘You sure you wouldn’t give up your apartment for this?’ he asked. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I would never live here.’

‘I think I should see your apartment one of these days, you know, just to check.’

‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up.’

The overpowering façade of the huge ivory coloured house was propped up with giant Doric pillars giving the place an ancient Greece kind of feel.  Ten feet high windows decorated the walls on either side of the large wooden door where a lady, who looked to be in her mid-fifties, stood waiting in the centre – the empress of the estate.  She had on a white trouser suit with a head of white frizzy hair and smooth skin from vanity injections.

‘Finally, they sent someone to help, please come inside,’ she said with an excited smile.

Slightly perplexed, they followed through the extravagant doorway.

The place was just as huge and intense as the outside with a large breathtakingly black double staircase taking over the lobby.  Doors for the kitchen were tucked away on both sides and a modern dining room fed away to the left with the living room to the right.

They followed Ada into the living room, which was in keeping with the same theme of bright walls and carpets.  A sixty inch television mounted patiently on the wall broke up the overwhelmingly plain, yet modern, sheen.  Surrounded by contemporary artwork was a piano standing in the corner.

Almost afraid of marking something, they took a seat on a cream coloured corner sofa looking through some French doors at the rest of the garden and pool.

Valerie wanted to leave.  It seemed to her that everywhere she went lately she couldn’t wait to leave.  She loathed the city she’d grown up in and with each place she visited, the feeling increased.  She wondered just how hard it would be to start a fresh life from the beginning with nothing holding her back, secretly promising herself there and then she would do that.

‘You don’t know how happy I am that someone is here to help me,’ Ada said.

‘Excuse me, Ada,’ Bill started.

‘Mrs Trent, please.’

‘OK, Ada.  What do you mean by help you?  We’re here looking for Harry Trent.’

Valerie sent a silent elbow into him.

Ada frowned.  ‘Call me Mrs Trent, please,’ she said again.  ‘You weren’t sent to find out how Harry died?  I’ve called and called and finally someone’s here, but for the wrong reasons it seems.’

‘Harry died?’ asked Valerie.  ‘When?’

‘Why are you here if not for that?’

‘We’re here to ask him about his work at the security offices.  We had no idea he had died.  I’m sorry.  Do you mind telling us what happened?  Maybe we could help after all?’

‘Oh, it was five years ago now, not long after he left his job at the security offices.  He was driving home one night and apparently crashed his car.  The official explanation was that he was drinking heavily as tests showed high alcohol in his blood, but it was a load of shit of you ask me.’

‘What makes you think it wasn’t an accident,’ Valerie asked, suppressing a smile.

‘Well, for starters, Harry was allergic to alcohol.  He would never touch the stuff.  I remember our wedding like it was yesterday.  He drank some champagne during the best man’s speech and when he stood up to thank him, his face blew up like a beach ball.  We had to give him his medication.’  She smiled fondly.  ‘It wasn’t funny then, but now I look back, it is.’

Envious – that was how Valerie felt right now.  She wanted memories like that: good, wholesome times full of happiness.  Not the difficult, lifelong memories that had stuck with her since childhood.

Bill asked, ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Harry was a security officer, how did you manage to afford this place?’

Valerie nudged him again.

‘Oh, the house was left to us in my father’s will.  It was left to my father by his father and so on.’

‘Ada, we’re here looking for a tape that went missing from the storage room at the security offices.  Any idea where it could be?’

‘What?  Are you saying Harry stole something?’

‘No mam, just looking for the tape, that’s all.  I was told Harry used to work there so maybe he knew where it is.’

‘Well the answer is no, I don’t know where the tape is.  I know Harry wasn’t perfect.  I know he had run-ins with unsavoury characters.  Maybe one of his old colleagues can help you.’

‘We spoke to Dave down at the office, he sent us here.’

‘I don’t mean that fat waste of space, I mean a colleague from his past dealings.’

‘What dealings were these?’

‘A year before he left the security job, someone kept coming here to talk to him.  I didn’t like the person and whenever I asked him about it, he wouldn’t say.  He’d just tell me that something good will happen soon.  I think the man who came had something to do with why Harry left his job.  Anyway, one night he went out and never returned.’

‘Do you know who it was?’ Valerie asked.

‘No I don’t, I just remember he had bad burn scars on his face.’

Valerie went pale.

‘You OK?’ Bill asked her.  ‘You look a bit green.’

Ada stared at her.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.  I just remembered something.’

‘What is it?’

She shook her head.

Ada asked, ‘Will you find out what happened to Harry please?’

‘Sure.’

‘OK, thank you for your help.  Would you mind seeing yourselves out?’

‘If we find anything, I’ll let you know.’

Bill handed her a business card and they left.

After leaving the estate through the gold tipped gates, Bill parked by the sidewalk.

‘So, what happened to you in there?’

‘I think I know the man she was talking about.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Why did you disregard Ada’s wishes to call her Mrs Trent?’

‘What?’

‘Ada asked you to call her Mrs Trent.  Yet you still called her Ada.’

‘So what?’

‘So what?  Bill, come on.  I need to know that you’re with me on this.  Things like that can halt our progress.  You said the same thing to me outside Dave’s office and now you’ve done it yourself.’

‘Didn’t realize it got to you.  Was only a bit of fun.’

‘Dammit, Bill,’ she yelled, hitting the dashboard.  ‘This isn’t fun.  A life is at stake.  Get back to reality, OK?’

‘All right, I’m sorry.  So you were going to tell me who the man is?’

She explained what happened inside the church.  She broke down and began to cry when she told of his hand grabbing her breast and her fear of being raped, or even murdered.  She cried remembering Freddie on the cross again.  The wall she’d built to protect herself was falling apart, but she also felt a burden lift from her shoulders.

Bill put arm around her for comfort. ‘We’ll get him.’

She pushed it away and said, ‘Can we go?’

‘All right.’  He took the hint.  ‘We need to find that tape and whoever killed Harry.  This is all connected.’

‘I think so, too,’ she agreed, wiping her eyes.

‘Let’s get some food. I’m starved.’

Back in the reception, Matherson and Sharpe were looking through the photos of Jackson on the computer.  The body had been disposed of along with any evidence barring the photos.

‘Keep these pictures safe, Sharpe.  Put our password on the file and transfer them to this memory card.’  He passed a small micro SD card, more versatile than the usual USB data drives and easier to hide, fitting most electronic gadgets.

Sharpe took it, inserting it into the computer. ‘Yes, Mr Matherson.’

‘When you’ve done that I want you to find out who that detective is.  I need to know if he knows anything about us.  I don’t need a private dick snooping around me.  Especially when we have a large shipment coming in soon.’

‘Yes, Mr Matherson.  I’ll see what I can do.’

‘All right, pass me the memory card.’

Sharpe removed the adapter from the computer and passed it to him.

‘You’ve done me proud these last few years, I’ll never forget it.’

Sharpe looked at him and nodded appreciatively.  He closed down the computer and walked into the elevator with his hands in his pockets holding a duplicate memory card.