No Hiding Place: An edge of your seat mystery/thriller. (DI Sally Parker thrillers Book 2) (4 page)

Mother and son sat on the couch
together, hands clasped around each other’s. Mrs. Whiting acted as
the spokesperson. “If that’s the way it has to be, Inspector, then
I suppose we better get on with it. Of course we want the person
who did this found as soon as possible. My God, poor, poor
Gemma.”

Sally dropped into the easy
chair, and with her notebook at the ready once again, she asked,
“What time did your wife leave the house, Mark?”

He inhaled a large breath and
scratched his temple. “I think it was around seven thirty. Yes, it
was. She popped her head in Samantha’s room while I was reading her
a bedtime story.”

“Excellent. And you say she was
meeting up with the friends you mentioned. Can you tell me
where?”

“The Red Lion at Cringleford. I
think they were scheduled to meet up around eightish,” Mark
replied.

“That’s great. Obviously, you
won’t be able to tell me what happened during the evening. I’m
hoping her friends will be able to fill in the blanks there. Can
you tell me if your wife has spoken about any problems lately? Such
as, if she felt someone was following her, that sort of thing?”

The pair exchanged puzzled
glances, then Mark shook his head. “No, can’t say I remember her
mentioning anything along those lines. What about you, Mum?”

Yvette’s mouth turned down at
the sides as she thought, her gaze searing a spot in the rug in
front of the fireplace. After a few seconds’ delay, she looked
Sally in the eye and said, “No. I can’t say I remember her
discussing such a thing with me. Is that what you think, Inspector?
That Gemma was stalked by a crazed man who ended her life in a
country lane?”

Sally wanted to chuckle at the
expression
crazed man
. However, she kept her face serious
when she responded. “It’s definitely an avenue we’ll be pursuing.
Did your wife work, outside the home I mean, Mr. Whiting?” she
asked with a sensitive smile.

“No. She wanted to be at home
with Samantha for as long as possible.”

“And you were agreeable to
that?” Sally asked, looking down at her notebook. Her head shot up
when Mrs. Whiting answered her question.

“Yes, he agreed to it, in spite
of me offering to care for the child while they both went out to
work.”

“Mum! Stop it. Now is not the
time to start having a go about that.”

Sally’s eyes narrowed. She
sensed there was an ongoing conflict between the pair about
childcare issues. “Are you retired, Mrs. Whiting? Only you seem too
young for that, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Yvette smiled, and her cheeks
flushed the colour of a ripe cherry. “My husband is of a different
generation, Inspector. He has always expected me to be at home,
rearing our children. Once my children were grown up, it was nigh
impossible for me to obtain a job with no experience other than
child-rearing. I was hoping I’d raised my sons to think differently
to their father.”

Mark withdrew his hands from
the safety of his mother’s and reclined in the sofa.

Sally decided not to press the
issue further for fear that it would cause a wedge between mother
and son at a time when they most needed each other’s comfort.
“Going back to Gemma’s night out, did she ring you perhaps during
the course of the evening, Mark?”

Mrs. Whiting reclined in the
sofa too and folded her arms across her chest.

Sally had a hard time figuring
out if she’d upset the woman by changing the subject. The woman
eyed her son carefully whilst waiting for him to reply.

“No. There was no need for her
to ring me, Inspector. I told her to go out and enjoy herself. This
was the first time she’d ventured out with the girls in over a
year. Why? Why would anyone take my precious wife from me?”

“We’ll find out the answer soon
enough, Mark. I’m sorry for asking such dumb questions at this
time. It’s necessary to build a picture of Gemma from the outset.
Would you say she was an outgoing person?”

He frowned. “Are you asking if
she flirted with people?”

Sally was taken aback by his
sharp retort. “That’s not exactly what I meant. I was just asking
if she was the type to attract attention, in a group or was she an
introvert, happy to tag along with the crowd. That sort of
thing.”

“Maybe it would be best if you
directed that question at her friends and not her husband,
Inspector. People show different traits when they are out of view
of their loved ones,” Yvette said abruptly.

“That’s a fair assumption, Mrs.
Whiting. I’ll be asking her friends the same questions; don’t
worry.”

A knock on the door interrupted
Sally’s flow. “Come in.” Jack poked his head into the room, looking
very sheepish. In the distance, Sally could hear the little girl
crying.
Shit! What’s happened?
The couple she was
questioning shot off the sofa and pushed past her partner. “What’s
going on, Jack?”

“I left the table for a second
to get the girl a glass of water. When I turned back, she had
toppled out of the chair onto the floor.”

“What? Bloody hell, I ask you
to do one simple thing…”

He shrugged. “I don’t know how
it happened, boss. I’m sorry.”

“Come on. Let’s see if the kid
is all right.”

They rushed into the kitchen to
find Mrs. Whiting holding the crying child, smoothing her hand over
the girl’s face, wiping away the youngster’s tears, and kissing the
tip of her nose. Mark appeared out of his depth, standing with his
hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, looking relieved
that his mother had taken charge of the situation. Sally wondered
if grief was playing a major role in his inability to pacify his
daughter himself. She was amazed that a mother’s instinct to
protect always kicked in at times such as this.

Sally wondered if she might
have had that same motherly instinct. In her eyes, being in a
loving relationship was necessary before she embarked on having a
child—and she didn’t envisage being in that situation in the near
future, if ever, after ending her abusive marriage to Darryl. She
shook his smarmy image from her mind and stroked Samantha’s arm.
“Are you all right now, sweetie? Did you have a nasty fall?”

Sniffling, the girl clung to
her grandmother’s neck and nodded. “I think so. Can Grandma stay
with me?” Samantha shot Jack a distrusting glance.

Sally smiled and rubbed the
little girl’s arm again. “Of course, sweetie, if that’s all right
with your grandma.”

“It is. Why don’t we make some
cookies? You like making Daddy his favourite cookies, don’t you,
precious?”

The girl wriggled out of her
grandma’s arms and, without answering her grandmother’s question,
rushed over to the larder unit to pick out the ingredients she
needed for the recipe.

Sally smiled at Mrs. Whiting.
“We’ll continue in the lounge, if that’s all right with you?”

“Of course. Take him with you,”
Yvette said, jabbing a pointed finger in Jack’s direction.

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault,” Jack
bit back.

Sally pulled his sleeve and led
the way back into the lounge, expecting Mark and Jack to follow
her. Once the three of them were seated, she asked Jack to take
notes and handed him her notebook and pen.

“Your mother is very good with
Samantha, Mark.”

Mark nodded. “She idolises her.
Samantha is her only grandchild.”

“That’s code for ‘the child is
spoilt’, yes?” Sally asked with a chuckle.

He smiled wearily. “It is.
We’d… I mean,
I’d
be lost without her.”

“It’s good to know that she’ll
be there to support you over the coming days. You’ll be relying on
her strength and help in caring for Samantha, no doubt.”

His eyes widened. “God, I never
thought of that. I suppose I’ll have to give up my job to care for
Samantha.”

Sally smiled. “Not that I
profess to know the ins and outs of caring for a child of
Samantha’s age, but isn’t she at primary school by now?”

“Yes, but she’s used to my wife
being here when she gets home from school mid-afternoon. I won’t be
able to do that working the job I have now.”

Sally was slightly put out by
the fact that a grieving widower was already debating what to do
next in regard to sorting out his work and caring for his daughter
so soon after being told about his wife’s unfortunate death.
Nevertheless, she pushed aside her feelings and continued. “Okay,
if we can go back to where we left off, your mother answered the
question before you got a chance to last time, and so I’ll repeat
what I said: what sort of person was Gemma? Let me put it another
way, perhaps you can tell me how you met and what attracted you to
your wife in the first instance?”

Mark reclined in the sofa again
and crossed his arms. “Let me see…” A smile pulled at his lips as
he contemplated his response. “Well, I suppose she used to be
outgoing. The type of woman who stood out on the dance floor, not
in a showing-off kind of way. That’s where we met, actually. She
was with a group of her friends on a hen night, and I was with a
group of my mates, out on the pull.”

Sally nodded. “So you decided
to take a chance with Gemma that night?”

“Yes. I asked her to join me in
the last dance of the evening. She made a huge impact on my life
that night, so much so that we moved in together within a month of
our first date.”

“A month? Really? How did that
go down with your mother? I imagine she must have been quite
protective towards you throughout your childhood.”

“She was. I suppose she was
shocked to begin with, but then she and Gemma became good friends.
Mum always said that Gemma was like the daughter she had never
conceived. Mum even helped—actually, she was instrumental—in
organising our big day. Gemma and I were both grateful for Mum’s
input as we were working extra hours to pay for the wedding
ourselves.”

“Why was that? Isn’t that down
to the bride’s parents to pay for the wedding?”

“It should be, but Gemma’s dad
went off when she was only three. Her mum struggled to bring Gemma
up by herself. Gemma’s mum used to work two jobs just to cover the
household bills every month.”

“I see. What about her father?
Surely he paid maintenance?”

“No. He left them high and dry,
even went to live in Spain with his new floozy. That’s the reason
Gemma wanted to stay at home with Samantha. She felt as though
she’d missed out growing up. She knew her mother loved her, did
everything she could to make up for not having her father around,
but Gemma still felt that she missed out a great deal in life. It
made her more determined than ever to ensure that Samantha didn’t
miss out on knowing who her mother was.”

“Things were that
bad
during Gemma’s childhood?”

“No, don’t get me wrong. Her
childhood was a very happy one. She just longed to see, and be
with, her mother more, rather than be farmed out to neighbours
after school. She loved her mother dearly for the personal
sacrifices she made in order for Gemma to live in a loving home, to
have decent food on the table, and clothes on her back.”

“I see. Is her father still
alive? Did she have any contact with him?”

Mark’s eyes narrowed and
started to twitch. “He swans into her life now and again. Mainly
when he wants to brag about something. Everything is fine between
them for a few months until Ray starts chipping away at her
self-esteem.”

“Really? In what way?” Sally
asked, not quite believing that a father could do that to his own
daughter. Maybe she was just lucky in that respect, coming from a
loving home, bestowed with an abundance of affection from both of
her parents. She had a hard job deciding whom she was closest to.
Each of her parents had different qualities, but both of them had
always put her needs above their own when she was growing up.
Perhaps Sally being an only child had something to do with the way
her parents had treated her.

“He’s all over her when he
first crawls back into her life, pleads with her to forgive him for
the way he’s treated her over the years, then when he’s worked his
way into her affections again—
bam.
” Mark clicked his
fingers. “That’s when his true colours come to the fore, and he
just starts criticising everything she does. The last time he
visited, they had an almighty row because he slapped Samantha on
the legs for being naughty. I came home from work to find Gemma
pinning her father to the wall in the kitchen with her hand around
his throat. I literally had to drag her off him.”

“Sounds like a real charmer.
We’ll need his address, too.”

He opened the address book
again, flipped to a specific page, then read out Raymond Lord’s
home address for Jack to note down.

“What happened to their
relationship after that incident?”

“I ended up kicking him out of
the house. Gemma was beside herself, not for her sake, but because
he’d struck Samantha. She was inconsolable for days. I told her to
forget about him. Samantha doesn’t need a bully like that in her
life.”

“Was Gemma abused by her father
during her childhood?”

He winced and tutted. “We never
really discussed it. Her childhood was always reflected upon as
being happier once her father had left the marital home. I have no
idea what occurred when he lived with Gemma and her mum, Heather,
full time.”

“I’ll see if I can obtain a
better insight into the father-child relationship from her mother
when we visit her later.”

“Yeah, Heather will be better
than me at filling in the gaps in Gemma’s past. I’m sorry; my mind
is all over the place right now.”

“There’s no need to apologise.
I think we have enough to be going on with for the time being.
We’ll leave you to care for your daughter. If anything comes to
mind that you think we should know about in the next few days, will
you contact me?” Sally handed him one of her cards as they all rose
from their seats and moved towards the lounge door.