Jack lifted the edge of the nearest tarp to reveal the bumper of a black Range Rover. Then he lifted the smaller tarp and Jack’s skin went cold. The smaller vehicle was a silver Porsche. As he looked at the long, sleek headlight poking out from beneath the tarp, Jack could hear the stick he was going to get if this turned out to be the same silver Porsche that allegedly belonged to the elusive Adam Border. Not only did he not spot a greenhouse full of cannabis when he was standing virtually right next to it, but he’d also parked next to a garage containing a car that was currently being tracked by half the Met!
Jack leant heavily against the cobwebbed wall. If Adam Border had been stalking Avril Jenkins and escaping into the night before anyone set eyes on him, he’d either been doing it on foot or he’d had another vehicle. And in the even more unlikely event that Avril Jenkins was a drug dealer, she’d been expertly hiding all of the evidence such as transactions, suppliers, distributors and earnings.
‘You, OK?’ Jack looked up to see Laura standing just outside the garage. ‘Fuck me, is that the missing Porsche?’ Laura couldn’t help but laugh. Jack pushed the wooden door back through the gravel, closed the garage and told one of the uniformed officers to ask CSI to make it a priority.
Laura offered to take Jack for a pint before they headed home, but he was too distracted to hear her. ‘There’s got to be a safe. You wouldn’t expect to find proof of illegal earnings from drug sales in plain sight, but there’s no normal paperwork either. No passport, no driving licence — assuming the Range Rover is hers — no bank statements, utility bills, nothing.’ Laura patiently listened. Jack often did this, voicing all of his thoughts out loud to make sure they sounded feasible. All he wanted her to do was listen and challenge him when he said something that didn’t stand up to scrutiny. ‘Someone cleared the attic room, Laura. There was a jacket, a jumper and a suitcase. All gone.’
‘How do you know Avril didn’t get rid of them?’
‘I don’t. But they’d been there for months, so why would she suddenly decide to get rid of them in the last few days?’ Laura added the thought that if Adam had finally returned for his clothes and suitcase, why not collect his car at the same time? Jack had no answers.
‘OK, Jack, look, CSI will process the cars and garage tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll come back and go through the whole place again to see if we can find a safe. But right now, come to the pub. We can talk more stuff through if you need to, or we can just chill. But don’t stay here.’
Jack thanked Laura for being his level-headed sounding board. Then he declined her offer of the pub and headed home to be with Maggie.
Chapter 7
The streetlight outside Jack’s bedroom window part lit Maggie through a thin crack in the curtains as she reached behind her back to fasten her bra.
Jack watched her every move from beneath the duvet.
Next he looked at the bedside clock, sitting next to a newly brewed cup of tea. Half past six. He sat up and sipped his tea.
‘I took an early shift.’ Maggie whispered her explanation so as not to wake Hannah. ‘Your mum’s looking after Hannah till one. I should be home by then.’ Now dressed, she turned to Jack as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. ‘We need to do something really special for her birthday, Jack. Your mum’s a live-in nanny, cleaner, cook, agony aunt. I don’t know what we’d do if she wasn’t here.’
‘She’s always wanted to deliver a lamb.’ The memory had come from nowhere. Jack suddenly recalled how, during summer months in Totnes, he and Penny would walk to the shops past fields of newly born lambs, tottering on their new legs. It was her fantasy to be responsible for that much joy. Before she left, Maggie suggested that perhaps some nice smellies, posh gin and a party might be easier to arrange.
Jack got himself a coffee as the squad room filled, and everyone settled at their desks. Ridley began by relaying the information he’d learnt from Arnold Hutchinson. Then he got down to business. ‘Why haven’t we found Adam Border?’ The room erupted with the sound of feet shuffling, throat clearing and deep sighing as everyone looked around in the hope that someone else had an answer. ‘That’s not a rhetorical question. All we know about him is that he was her handyman and lived in her spare room. Avril swore blind that he was her stalker, but none of her neighbours have seen him in months. His girlfriend thought he’d moved on, but his car is in Avril’s garage. And now Avril’s dead. Is he her killer, or is he potentially another victim and we should be looking for someone entirely different? Again, not rhetorical. And who the bloody hell is responsible for the ton of cannabis in her greenhouse?’
Jack thought it was unhelpful of Ridley to ask questions that he knew were currently impossible to answer, so he tried to change the subject. ‘Laura and I are looking into the possibility of a hidden safe at the property, sir. My feelings is that—’
‘Laura’s going to interview Jessica Chi.’
Ridley never interrupted! He considered it to be disrespectful and, as a do-as-you-would-be-done-by sort of man, interrupting Jack now was very out of character. Jack stared at Ridley as he continued, nodding to Laura. ‘Get a recent photograph of Adam Border from Jessica and learn everything you can about him. Anik, the cars?’
Anik told him that both cars found in Avril’s garage were registered to her. ‘I’m expecting her phone records in by 10 a.m. Nothing came from the door-to-door, sir. None of her neighbours can see Avril’s property from theirs, ’cos of the high wall and overgrown hedges. And none of them ever really attempted to be friendly with her ’cos it was never reciprocated. Oh, and I’ve tracked her brother-in-law, Terence Jenkins, in California. I’ll call him as soon as I can to inform him of her death.’
Ridley asked the room in general if any forensic reports had come in.
‘Prints are still being processed, sir.’ Laura was jotting down contact details for Jessica Chi as she spoke. ‘But due to the lack of blood or unexplained DNA anywhere else in the house, Angel thinks that Avril was either taken into the bathroom to be murdered or was already in there when she was attacked. They found no bloodstained clothes or night clothes, so whatever she was wearing before the murder could have been removed. Foxy’s doing the post-mortem this morning.’
‘Fine. I’ll catch up with Foxy later. You all know what you’re doing?’
The room started to move, which Ridley took to mean ‘yes’. He headed for his office and shut the door.
As he opened his desktop computer to go through Avril’s phone records, Anik shared his latest theory around Ridley’s mood swings: his new lover had dumped him.
Laura and Jack exchanged a look. ‘Have a word, eh, Jack? He listens to you.’
Jack knocked on Ridley’s office door and entered without being invited. Ridley answered a call on his mobile, listening intently for a good thirty seconds. Then his eyes flicked to Jack. ‘Jack’s on his way to the property now. You want to meet him there? Of course. Full disclosure.’ Ridley hung up. Jack had entered the office to ask if Ridley was OK, but, in truth, he was relieved that something else had come up. ‘That was Mal. Behind the greenhouse there were stacks of partly burnt packing crates, probably used to distribute the cannabis plants. Forensics found traces of a second drug. fentanyl.’