‘Then beans on toast at mine it is.’ Tom smiled. ‘Thank you for saying yes and not making me feel a fool. I’ve been wanting to ask you for ages…’
‘I know.’ Again the laugh. ‘I decided you needed a little encouragement.’
‘It wasn’t encouragement I needed; it was courage.’
‘Don’t tell anybody. You know they’re a lot of old women; gossip, gossip, gossip. So, where do we go from here. What’s the next plan?’ Holly tapped his notebook, subtly changing the subject.
‘What’s DC Young working on?’
‘Lucy? Not sure. I’ll check when we get back. You want her on something specific?’
‘Not sure yet, but I want to give her something to get her pushing herself. She’s got to DC quickly, and she’s bright. A little lacking in confidence, so let’s build that up and give her a job she can feel proud of doing.’
‘Bit of a softie, aren’t you?’
‘Until somebody upsets me, yes.’
‘Then I’d better make sure I don’t upset you,’ Holly said softly, and squeezed his hand before standing up. ‘Come on, let’s get back and get some jobs allocated.’
DC Lucy Young walked with some degree of trepidation into her DI’s office. She’d kept herself in the background, new to the team and not wanting to make mistakes through lack of knowledge. Had she kept herself back a little too far?
Tom looked up with a smile. ‘Lucy, come in and sit down.’
Holly pulled out a second chair, and Lucy sat. She was either in deep deep shit, or…
‘Don’t look so worried,’ the DI said with a laugh, ‘I’ve called you in because I’ve something I want you to work on with DS Jones.’
Lucy glanced at Holly. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘As you know from the briefings, we have two husbands in this case. Diane and Adele are getting full background information on them such as where they went to school, where they work, things that can be found on a computer, but I want to know their lives. I want you two to team up and do some shadowing. Follow them, find out if they ever meet, who they see outside of their family, what their kids are doing, everything possible we can discover. I’m giving no instructions apart from that, Holly knows what we need, and she’ll guide you. It will mean doing surveillance work which can be a bit boring, but we get more results from that than anything.’
‘Wow,’ was Lucy’s response. ‘I mean wow, boss.’
He laughed. ‘Go on with you. I’ll have a word with Holly and then she’ll join you at your desk to discuss how you’re going to tackle this. It’s important, Lucy. Very important.’
She nodded and stood. ‘Thank you, boss. Sorry about the wow, I’m not usually like that. See you in a bit, DS Jones.’
Tom and Holly looked at each other as the door closed. ‘That wasn’t quite the reaction I expected,’ Holly said. ‘You certainly impressed her.’
‘And now you’ll teach her. I tell you, Holly, she’s one smart cookie, is Lucy. She’ll be a good addition to this team.’
‘Okay,’ Holly said, ‘let’s start as we mean to go on. It’s Holly from this point on, unless we’re with suspects and suchlike, when it’s DS Jones. Okay?’
‘No problem. Anybody hearing me call you DS Jones when we were watching them would soon twig on we were police,’ Lucy said with a laugh. ‘Where do we start?’
‘I was going to ring the two husbands and ask them to come in tomorrow morning to watch the CCTV of the incident, but I think we’ll call to their homes, let you get your first impression of them. And from tomorrow don’t come in uniform. While we’re working on this, it’s ordinary clothes, something like jeans and a top. And trainers in case we have to run.’
‘I’ve got some clothes with me, I was going to surprise Mum with a trip to the cinema straight from work, and I didn’t think she’d appreciate me going in uniform. Shall I change before we go to meet the husbands?’
‘Good idea. What about your mum?’
‘Oh, don’t worry. She knew nothing about it. I was going to turn up and say we’re going out. I can do it any time. We going now?’
Holly nodded, and within seconds, Lucy had disappeared to get changed.
Ten minutes later they were in Holly’s car, heading out to see Graham Andrews.
He answered the door, rubbing his eyes and frowning.
‘What do you want?’
‘It’s “what do you want, DS Jones”. And this is my colleague, DC Young. We need to speak with you.’
He stood aside and they went past him into the kitchen. Graham waved the kettle around and said, ‘Drink?’
They both shook their heads, and he put the kettle back down on the work surface.
‘I don’t either,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry if I’m grumpy. I can’t sleep when I go to bed, and I managed a couple of hours on the settee until you knocked on the door. Give me five minutes and I’ll surface properly.’
Holly nodded again. ‘I do understand. We’ve only called to ask you to come into the station tomorrow morning to look at the CCTV. We’re going to see Mr West after this, so we’d like you both there for ten, please. Can you do that?’
‘I can. I can’t answer for Kenny, obviously, but we’re keen to help in any way at all, you know that.’
The two officers turned to leave, and Holly caught sight of a photograph of the Andrews children. ‘Little ones okay?’ she asked.
‘They’re with my mum and dad at the moment. I’ll leave them there until we’ve got over the difficult part, dealing with you and suchlike, then they’re coming home to me. I think that’s why I’m not sleeping. It’s too quiet when they’re not here. I’m not a television fan, but it was always on in the background, bloody Peppa Pig for years, and now we’ve moved on to more grown-up stuff that they watch, but it’s not on, it’s lonely without them.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Andrews, so very sorry. And they’ll not fully understand. It will be hard for you when they come home, but I’m sure not as hard as being without them. Thank you for your co-operation. We’ll see you at ten tomorrow.’
They left him standing in the kitchen, a blank look about him that made Holly wonder who the victim was, the deceased or the ones left to live with it.
7
Kenny West was deep in thought, mowing the tiny patch of grass that Lorraine had grandly called the front lawn. He had put on ear protectors so he could pretend not to hear anybody when they stopped to offer him condolences. He jumped when Holly tapped him on the shoulder. His fingers came off the lever and silence descended. He removed the ear protectors.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘It is indeed,’ Holly confirmed. ‘And this is DC Lucy Young.’ Holly looked around at the small patch of grass. ‘Think you’ll have this finished by tomorrow morning?’
He laughed. ‘I bloody hope so.’