Laura’s handover to Jack had been littered with expletives, which he omitted when he reported back to Maggie that night at home. As he spoke, Jack loaded the dishwasher whilst, by his side, Maggie visually quality controlled his work and, when necessary, took a dish or a plate back out and rinsed it properly.
‘There’s no doubt Tania’s vulnerable,’ Jack clarified, ‘but Laura doesn’t think it’s a police matter. A therapist matter, maybe.’ Jack could see Maggie was disappointed. He knew that the last thing she’d want to do was go back to her new mentor with no solution to his problem. ‘She’s almost eighteen, Mags. We can’t make her cooperate if she doesn’t want to. And she doesn’t appear to be a danger to herself or others, so any therapy would have to be voluntary. And it would have to be suggested by Wetlock. Not us.’
Maggie grabbed a bottle of red from the wine rack, plus three glasses.
‘Please tell Laura I’m grateful.’ She smiled. ‘I think Mr Wetlock’s attempted to persuade Tania into therapy already, but she was having none of it.’ She stepped close to Jack and kissed him. ‘Thank you for trying. Forget about them for tonight. We’ve got a wedding to arrange!’ Jack raised one eyebrow. ‘OK,’ Maggie corrected. ‘Me and your mum have got a wedding to arrange. You just nod in all the right places.’
Chapter 2
The following morning, Jack was in and at his desk by 7 a.m. Between lying awake thinking about the price tag of the wedding his mother, Penny, and his fiancée had in mind, and a bad patch in Hannah’s teething, he’d had a fairly disturbed night. By 5 a.m., he’d given up trying to sleep and headed downstairs to make himself a cup of tea. As he looked out of the darkened kitchen window, all he could see was the tired reflection of himself... until the moment the security light reacted to movement by their small shed. As Jack watched the next-door neighbour’s cat dig a hole in Penny’s beautifully planted border, he thought about how frightened Avril Jenkins must be if she was actually telling the truth. His gut was still leaning towards it being a waste of time, but what if it wasn’t?
Jack had called Kingston station on his way into work so, by the time he arrived, he’d been sent all fourteen of Avril’s previous statements, together with the list of alleged stolen items: a twenty-four-piece set of hallmarked silver cutlery, a Rossetti painting, a fur coat, two statues, a set of silver napkin rings, a wedding photo, £500 and a double duvet cover with two matching pillowcases patterned with fairies. The Rossetti had captured the attention of Kingston police but, as it wasn’t listed on the latest insurance document, they soon questioned its existence. And the two statues had subsequently been found in the dishwasher, lending further credence to the theory that Avril was nothing more than a confused old eccentric. But that theory was now making no sense to Jack.
Regardless of her eccentricities and awkward personality, all of her statements were consistent and included personal details that were strangely vivid if the incidents were figments of her imagination. Like the night her fairy duvet set went missing: this was the set she used to put on Adam Border’s bed, and it was stored in the airing cupboard just outside the master bathroom. In her statement, she said she used to tuck the duvet cover and pillowcases behind the central heating pipes so that when she made his bed it was nice and warm. The duvet and pillows were not stolen along with the duvet set; they were left on the floor outside the airing cupboard. Which is exactly how the police found them when they arrived at four in the morning. Jack would admit Avril did seem like the sort of woman who lived with one foot in cloud-cuckoo-land, but she did not seem like the sort of woman who would go to the trouble of actually creating a crime scene.
The thing that troubled Jack the most was the same thing that Kingston was using against her: she’d reported fourteen break-ins, yet only eight items had been reported stolen. Kingston station had asserted that Avril was simply losing track of the lies she’d told, but Jack speculated that it could just as easily mean that the mysterious Adam Border was sometimes breaking in and taking nothing. So maybe his main aim was to frighten her, just as she claimed.
At 7.15 a.m., Ridley arrived with his morning coffee in a tall, reusable cup. ‘Don’t tell me...’ Ridley could see the subject heading on the paperwork scattered across Jack’s desk. ‘You want to keep the case for a while longer because you’ve seen something that the whole of Kingston station has missed.’ Ridley, not needing or wanting a reply, continued into his office. ‘Do what you have to today, Jack. By end of play, I’d like you to either know for sure that Avril Jenkins is being stalked by her former lodger and get the case officially transferred, or sign it back to Kingston.’
Ridley had been uncharacteristically detached of late, in terms of how closely he monitored his team. Normally, he’d insist on knowing each case as well as the officer running it but, over the past couple of months, he’d shifted the bulk of the responsibility down a level. This brought him in line with how most divisional bosses worked, so he wasn’t doing less than a normal DCI should; he was just doing less than he should. Ridley was no longer an anally retentive, micro-manager; he’d become ordinary.
Anik who, after three years as a detective constable, remained the baby of the squad not due to age but to attitude, presumed that only the love of a good woman could have distracted a man like Ridley from his job, which silently broke Laura’s heart. ‘The bags under his eyes... he’s defo getting his end away,’ Anik said. ‘You’d think he’d finally have a smile on his miserable face as well, though.’ Jack wanted Anik to be right. He was concerned that Ridley had decided to put in for retirement: he didn’t know how old Ridley was but assumed that he must be close to having done his thirty-year stint on the force. Most officers worked till they secured their full pension, then called it a day. If Ridley was in love, Laura would lose. If Ridley was retiring, everyone would lose.
When Jack arrived at Avril Jenkins’ home, the large wooden gates were already open, so he drove up the gravel driveway to the house and parked in front of the double garage. By the time he was out of the driver’s seat, she was on the doorstep. His opening comment was to ask why the gates were open when she so clearly had an issue with security and this immediately got them off on the wrong foot.
‘He doesn’t drive up to the front door in broad daylight, DS Warr,’ she said. ‘He creeps in through the back garden in the dead of night like the monster he is.’ She then sharply enquired why he’d come back. When Jack said that he’d come for the purchase prices and insurance documents connected to the stolen items, Avril’s mood plummeted further and she barked at him about already having been accused of insurance fraud, so if that was his train of thought, he might as well get back into his car and eff off!
Jack assured Avril that he wasn’t accusing her of anything and she stomped back into the house leaving the front door open, which Jack took as an invitation for him to follow.
In the drawing room-cum-office, Avril was rifling through an antique bureau, whilst muttering about the ineptitude of every police officer she’d ever met. ‘The stolen items are secondary! He’s stalking me. You do know that stalkers invariably escalate to murder, don’t you? That’ll no doubt make you happy. When I’m found dead in my bed.’ Avril whipped round, with a scrap of paper in her outstretched hand. ‘These are the only prices I can remember. And no, I don’t have receipts. I’ll try again to find the paperwork for the items listed on my insurance, but I’m not good with record-keeping.’ Avril then turned back to the bureau and began searching again.