Pure Evil

Chapter Ten

Jack arrived home feeling worn out and went straight up to his office to dump his briefcase. He came downstairs where Maggie was reading Hannah a story whilst she sat in her highchair eating a banana, waving it around gleefully. Maggie caught his arm and whispered to him that he should say something about his mother’s hair. Jack gave her a puzzled look, as Hannah threw the banana skin at him and giggled.

Penny was bending down and looking into the oven, checking the chicken.

‘Hi, Mum, I’m just going to do some work in my office.’

‘It’s a chicken in the bag, with stuffing. It’s really wonderful, cooks inside the bag and you just take it off and its ready to serve.’

Penny turned around to face him and Jack was glad that he had been warned. Her hair was not only quite short, but very blonde.

‘Good Heaven’s, Ma! You look wonderful. It really suits you. Turn around for me.’

Penny giggled and did a twirl, then fluffed the curls. ‘I decided I was looking too frumpy and old fashioned. Do you like it?’

‘I most certainly do. It makes you look much younger. Good for you! Give me a shout when dinner’s ready.’

Jack hurried up the stairs, thinking that perhaps he should pay more attention, not only to his mother, but to Maggie as well.

Eager to get back to the Ridley investigation, Jack unloaded his briefcase. He stacked the pages into a neat pile to sort through and prioritise, then picked up the first memory stick which had a typed note taped to it, indicating that this was the post-mortem report. Jack wondered how the hell Ridley had gained access to it. He plugged it into the laptop he had taken back from Leon, still fully charged, and was just about to open it when Maggie popped her head around the door.

‘What did you think of the new hairstyle?’

‘A bit of a surprise, but she seems very happy with it,’ he smiled.

Maggie shut the door behind her and came over to his desk. Jack shut the laptop, not wanting Maggie to see what he was working on.

‘I was emptying the bedroom waste bin,’ Maggie said, ‘and there were loads of Marks & Spencer clothing bags in there. Penny’s been buying a new wardrobe by the look of it.’

Jack shrugged. ‘OK, so maybe that’s where the extra money went. But I don’t think she’s bought anything new since our wedding. You know, if you ever want to have a new hairstyle, or new clothes, or whatever...’

Maggie looked at him quizzically. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I was just thinking... I mean, you look perfect to me, but I know I’m not very good at complimenting you. Maybe you need to take some time out to pamper yourself.’

‘What’s the matter with my hair?’

‘Nothing, I just meant that we’ve both been working flat out — you in particular — and sometimes it’s good to do something for yourself.’

Maggie put her arms around him, but he shrugged her away. ‘I’m being serious, but now I need you to leave me alone as I have some work to do.’

‘Want to talk about it?’ she asked.

‘No, it’s the Ridley situation. I’ve not had the time to go over all the material he gave me, so I want to catch up. I can’t focus on it at the station as I’m still getting nowhere fast with this Middleton case. His girlfriend has disappeared and I need some information from her.’ He raked his hand through his hair. ‘I met Rodney’s aunt today. She was enormous, like a big wobbling waterbed and...’ He sighed. ‘See, you’ve got me started. Just leave me to sort out Ridley’s stuff. I don’t want to even think about bloody Rodney Middleton.’

Maggie held up her hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m going, I’m going. I can’t wait for dinner: it’s chicken in a bag that cooks itself!’

Maggie shut the door behind her and Jack opened his laptop again. A voice-over on the video gave the date, time and the location of the mortuary, then the screen filled with the shot of the body on the mortuary table, covered in a green plastic sheet. Two figures in white suits with hoods and masks were mopping the floor, and the pathologist, a man Jack didn’t recognise, stood holding a clipboard. He was also dressed in a white protective suit and had a white hat pulled down over his hair. Jack knew that the post-mortem had already been completed. He saw two other masked men standing to one side, neither of whom were known to him.

‘Right, gentlemen, let me take you through the findings,’ the pathologist began. ‘The victim has deep strangulation marks on her neck, made by some kind of cord, perhaps from an electrical appliance. I would say that the assailant was standing behind her. There are no defensive wounds on her hands, so I estimate it was looped over her head and tightened quickly so that she lost consciousness within a very short time. The stomach contents revealed that her last meal was a steak and salad with fruit. Obviously, we will await the toxicology report to ascertain if there were any drugs or alcohol in her system, but she appeared to be in good health, with good muscle tone. Consequently, I initially estimated her age to be late thirties. However, I was wrong.’

Jack was only half paying attention. The victim’s head remained covered, and he was eager to see her face, but then his attention was alerted again.

‘I would like my assistant, Nidal, to explain her findings and the reason I may have miscalculated the victim’s age.’

Moving into the camera shot was a petite, dark-skinned woman wearing a white coat, mask, and with her hair under a cap. She slowly lifted the plastic sheet away from the victim’s head and lowered it to just above her shoulders. Jack craned forwards but she was standing in front of the victim and blocking his view.

‘It is clear from her hairline that she has had a lot of plastic surgery: her forehead has been lifted and her neck has been tightened. She also has chin and cheek implants, and her nose has been very carefully reconstructed. Whoever did this surgery was an expert. Examining the victim’s rib cage there are a number of small scars, which underscores this, as it is usual, when reshaping a nose, to take small slithers of bone from the rib cage. She does not have any breast implants but has had silicone injections. She has faded white lines from being suntanned some months prior to her death, and her hair has been professionally coloured and highlighted recently, as there is no natural new growth showing.’

At last Jack got a close-up view of the woman on the slab. Even devoid of any makeup her skin looked flawless. The assistant covered the victim’s head again and took out a hand from beneath the cover.

‘No defensive wounds, and very well-manicured nails. Again, I found slight scars which can be found when surgery is used to tighten the skin and remove age spots.’

She replaced the victim’s hand under the plastic sheet and moved to the end of the slab to lift the cover from her feet.

‘The victim clearly took care of her feet with regular pedicures and there is no hard skin. The same colour varnish used on her fingernails is also on her toes, but a tell-tale sign of her real age is the fact that on both feet she has quite advanced bunions, which may have been quite painful.’

The pathologist now moved into shot, gesturing to the victim. ‘So, we know she is five foot eight, and we know her weight was almost ten stone, but we had some difficulty estimating her exact age; from Nidal’s experienced inspection, we both now think that she may in fact be in her late fifties to mid-sixties, rather than her late thirties. I believe that her killer was forensically experienced as we found no fibres of any description, other than from the vehicle carpet. It is possible her naked body had been taped to remove any clues, and with no clothes there was no further examination by a forensic fibre expert. We are still waiting for the toxicology reports.’

Jack leaned back in his chair. ‘Bloody hell.’

The video ended and Jack removed the memory stick from his laptop. He then found the biographical details Ridley had been sent by the dating agency. A note attached from Ridley said that the investigation had attempted to trace her identity via the national accountancy register but they found no one of her name, going back 15 years.

Given her real age, Jack wondered if they should have gone even further back. But perhaps they would have done, as the post-mortem had taken place some time ago. He made a note to check. He recalled Ridley saying to him in the past, ‘Never presume, Jack, always make sure’.

Jack was just about to insert the second memory stick into his laptop, which the note attached said was the CCTV surveillance footage. Again, Jack wondered how the hell Ridley had got access to it, unless a lawyer was representing him, and they would have been granted access to the evidence. But surely things hadn’t got that far. While he was pondering, his burner phone rang. He physically jumped up from the chair, searching his jacket pockets, then delving into his briefcase.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, dear, mission accomplished. It will be with you this evening.’

Before Jack could say anything else, the call was cut off. He ran his fingers through his hair feeling a certain amount of panic. He had obviously given Sammy the burner phone number but not his address. How was Sammy going to deliver whatever it was? He would just have to wait.

‘Concentrate, concentrate, for fuck’s sake,’ he muttered to himself as he put the burner phone back into his briefcase and inserted the memory stick with the CCTV footage.

The video was poor quality and grainy. He could clearly see Ridley parking his Volvo car in the pub car park at precisely 7.52 p.m. according to the timer code at the top of the screen, and then, on another camera, he could see him entering the pub. It appeared to be quite an upmarket establishment, with a separate entrance for the restaurant. There was a fuzzy delay as the footage cut to Ridley exiting the pub at 8.45 p.m., indicating that he had been waiting for his date for just under an hour. He paused in the well-lit exit, perhaps searching for his car keys, before putting on his thick leather gloves and walking out into the car park. He did not appear to be inebriated, walking quite briskly, and then there was another delay as the footage picked Ridley up next to his Volvo, getting into the driver’s side and then pulling out of the car park. The video then jumped back to the coverage of his car in the car park, from the time he left it to the time he returned. Numerous other vehicles were seen entering and parking during the time Ridley was inside the pub. Although the whole of Ridley’s car wasn’t visible, it appeared that no one moved close to it or tampered with it.

The footage ended, leaving Jack none the wiser. He ran the footage again to double check that there had been no altering of the timer code. Ridley had claimed that he had no recollection of anything after he had left the pub, no memory of returning home, or where he had left his car. He had woken up in bed, still fully clothed, with a severe headache, feeling nauseous and confused. As it was a Saturday night and Ridley was off-duty he had vomited and returned to bed, sleeping for most of the following day. He woke numerous times on the Sunday feeling very sick and feverish and had not checked whether his car was in the garage or parked outside the house. Late that evening he had received a call to say that his vehicle had been found, and he was instructed to remain at home until Essex CID arrived. His vehicle had been impounded and was undergoing forensic testing.

Jack thumbed through the notes Ridley had made. He had asked to have a medical check as he was certain he had been given drugs. However, this was not done for a further forty-eight hours and therefore whatever he may have been given would not have shown up, as by this time he had eaten and digested two meals.

The doorbell rang and Jack almost jumped again. He hurried out of his office and down the stairs as Maggie came out to answer the door.

‘It’s OK; it’s a delivery for me,’ Jack said hastily, and Maggie turned back to the kitchen.

Sammy Taylor was wearing a pinstriped suit, and an immaculate white shirt and tie, and his face showed no trace of makeup. Jack had to catch his breath, as Sammy proffered a brown manila envelope.

‘Er, do you want to come in?’ Jack said falteringly.

‘No, dear, I don’t. I have a dinner engagement. I will make this fast as I hate to be late. There was quite a lot of data to record, so I had to use seven sticks, but it’s all there. They might not be in the right order, but once I’d opened their files I just kept going.’

‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure. Good night.’

Sammy picked up a silver-topped walking cane he had propped up against the porch, turned and slowly walked down the path before disappearing behind the hedge. Jack waited a few moments, then slowly eased around the hedge, trying to keep out of sight. He saw Sammy bleep open a Bentley saloon, but it was too far away for him to get a look at the licence plate before it drove off.

Jack hurried back into the house and up the stairs to his office, closing the door behind him. He had just tipped out the contents of the envelope when Maggie called up the stairs to say that dinner was ready. Jack closed his laptop and put everything back into the envelope before heading downstairs.

Penny was sitting at the table, a bottle of wine open in front of her. Maggie was eulogising about the chicken in the bag.

‘It came out perfectly cooked, Jack. You just cut open the bag! Will you carve while I get the vegetables?’

Jack agreed that it looked very tasty, dishing it out before pouring them all a glass of wine.

‘Who was that at the door?’ Maggie asked as they tucked in.

‘Just someone from the station delivering something for me. I might have to work for a while tonight.’

Penny turned to the baby monitor, hearing a noise. She smiled, as it was just Hannah turning in her sleep and giving a little grunt.

‘Can I ask you something, Mum? You know when you have your hair coloured, how long does it last before the old colour starts showing?’

‘Well, I’m not sure... it depends on how fast your hair grows, I think. It could be three or four weeks. But they have this new stuff that you just put along the roots where the grey starts to show, so you don’t have to have a complete re-colour.’

Maggie raised an eyebrow, wondering why on earth Jack wanted to know, and if perhaps he didn’t like his mother’s new blonde look. Maggie became even more bemused when Jack asked Penny which salon she had used. She replied that it was just a local hairdresser, and they had only recently reopened for customers after the Covid restrictions. She went on to say they were very good and not too expensive.

Maggie looked quizzically at Jack, but he was picking up his plate and pushing back his chair.

‘I hope you’ll excuse me, but I want to crack on with something that might take a while.’

Jack put his plate into the dishwasher, opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water, carrying it out of the kitchen. Penny shook her head, telling Maggie she had lost count of how many times she had told Jack to rinse off the dirty plates before putting them in the dishwasher.

‘Listen, at least he’s now putting them into the dishwasher,’ Maggie laughed. ‘He used to just leave everything in the sink, only inches away from the dishwasher. I’ll take him up a coffee when I’ve cleared the kitchen. That chicken was really good — thank you. We should get one again.’

Jack was glued to his laptop screen, as one photograph after another came up from the agency files, along with the applicants’ particulars. He had only been looking at female applicants so far, and there seemed to be hundreds of them. The majority appeared to be middle-aged retired women, widows or divorcees.

As Sammy had warned, they were not in any kind of order and Jack fast-forwarded through the entire file for the past four years. He was eager to talk to Ridley to find out the names of the two women he had dated before Sandra, but he was concerned about contacting him at his home. Ridley had told him that he would call when he could have a safe conversation with him.

He eventually found the photograph of Sandra Raynor, and could see all her details. He had to admit she did look very attractive, but Jack now knew her youthful appearance was as fake as her CV.

He inserted the second stick, hoping it would be the male applicants. Instead, it contained details of the company finances, client charges, rates, rent and tax documents along with VAT. It all appeared to be properly organised and straightforward, but Jack was taken aback by the amount the agency charged, as well as the finance details their clients agreed to submit. Most of them were reasonably well off, but some were very wealthy. He ploughed on, searching for anything that looked illegal, but it all seemed to be very much above board; Eva Shay had been an accountant, after all. When he looked into the agency’s bank details, there were three separate accounts. One assigned to the company, then separate accounts for Eva Shay and Mrs Da Costa.

The two women paid themselves a reasonable salary, but, again, there did not seem to be anything that stood out as suspicious, until he looked through Eva Shay’s personal account with Barclays. Two large cash sums had been paid in, one for just over £20,000 and a second deposit for over £25,000. Both deposits were then transferred to a bank in Monaco. The dates of the deposits matched the time Ridley told him he had joined the agency. He double-checked Mrs Da Costa’s account and saw that both women had savings amounting to £30,000 in their UK accounts, while the agency had £22,000. He wondered if Eva Shay was transferring cash without Mrs Da Costa’s knowledge.

Maggie knocked on the door and entered with a mug of coffee. Jack spun round in his chair.

‘I always know when you don’t want me to see what you’re working on! It must be something interesting because you almost jumped when I walked in.’

Jack laughed.

‘Is it about Rodney Middleton?’

‘No, it’s for Ridley. How I’ve got this information is a bit dodgy, so I’m a little paranoid.’

‘I hope you’re taking precautions. You’re working on this outside the station, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, and I’m being as careful as I can. I’m just checking out the dating agency Ridley joined at the moment.’

‘I’m still amazed that he did that, but then you never really know people the way you think you know them.’

Jack sipped his coffee and rocked back and forth in his desk chair.

‘I’m sure he was set up. But I have no idea how or why. Without being able to discuss anything with him, I feel as though I am sort of working blind.’

‘I bet you any money it will be connected to some old case, somebody with a big grudge against him; perhaps someone just out of prison, or something like that.’

‘Yeah, that’s possible. But it’s hard to see how anyone like that could have known about the dating agency.’

‘That’s what makes me worried: because it doesn’t quite make sense,’ Maggie said.

She put her arms around him and kissed his neck.

‘You should quit for tonight. You have Sunday to work. Is this your laptop?’

‘Yes, er, it’s an old one, I’m just using it to work on Ridley’s situation. It’s not connected to the internet. I don’t want to use the station’s; that’s under my desk.’

‘Oh, well, good for you; keep it private, right?’

‘Yes, I’ll be along in a few minutes, and thanks for the coffee.’

As soon as Maggie had left, Jack started making notes about what he needed to ask Ridley. It would be difficult for him to dig up old cases Ridley had been involved with, as it would draw attention, and he was certain that the detectives working on the murder would have already gone down that route. But right now Maggie was right: he was tired. His eyes were burning from staring at the small laptop screen.

He decided he would call it a night and continue in the morning. He tidied up all the documents and computer sticks, putting them safely into a drawer. Then he sat for a few minutes, letting everything he’d learned settle in his mind. Nothing stood out as significant: unless it was the fact that the woman calling herself Sandra Raynor and Eva Shay had both been accountants, but he couldn’t see how that connected with Ridley. He quickly decided he was too tired to carry on thinking about it.

By the time Jack went to their bedroom it was after 1 a.m. He was in the bathroom cleaning his teeth when his mobile pinged. He pulled it out of his jacket, which he had hung on the back of the door. There was a message from an unknown caller, but as he listened to it, he knew it was Ridley: Same place, same time, tomorrow. If you can’t be there, I’ll re-contact.