Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (18 page)

‘But a Family Liaison Officer at the Nortons’ home was not so reticent. DC Yolanda Fish stated, “I think that there are a lot of parents out there who ought to be locked up. You see these
kids out roaming around at midnight—later than that, even. It’s a disgrace. What are their parents thinking about? Do they even know where they are, who they’re with, what they get up to? People who can’t be bothered to keep track of their kids just don’t deserve to have them.”

‘It is a sad consequence of this disgraceful trend that Trevor Norton’s child will grow up never knowing his father. Just how long will the police continue to tolerate antisocial behaviour and yobbism on our streets? As this tragic case demonstrates, there is a very thin line indeed between youth culture and lawlessness, even brutal murder.’

There was more, in the same vein, but Neville had read enough. ‘Oh, God,’ he said feelingly, throwing the paper down on his desk. ‘I can see why Evans is steaming.’

‘At least Yolanda is the one he’s going to shoot down in flames, not us,’ observed Cowley with a self-satisfied smirk.

‘I agree with her,’ Neville admitted. ‘She’s absolutely right about these little toe-rags, out on the streets at all hours.’ Coffee. He needed coffee; heading for the door, he paused to speak over his shoulder. ‘But you know what, Sid? In this case, I hope she’s wrong. I hope we end up proving that Lilith Bloody Noone is totally off-base on this one. Wouldn’t it be great if the CCTV cameras picked up a little old lady bashing him over the head?’

‘Now, there’s the thing,’ Cowley said. ‘The good news I mentioned? The CCTV blokes
have
found something. But it’s not a little old lady, I’m afraid.’

That stopped Neville in his tracks, coffee forgotten.

Callie’s mobile rang while she was on her way to visit a
parishioner
. She saw on the display that it was Mark, and smiled involuntarily. ‘Marco,’ she said into the phone. ‘Hi.’

‘Good morning,
cara mia
.’

Her heart always lifted, and beat a little faster, when he called her that. ‘What’s up?’

‘I just wanted to check on how you were getting on. With Peter.’

Callie sighed into the phone. ‘I knew it was a mistake to give in, and I was right.’

‘He didn’t leave you much choice,’ Mark reminded her. ‘It was a pretty heavy familial guilt-trip he laid on you. And that’s
something
I should know about.’ He added, ‘What’s he done?’

‘Nothing,’ she said feelingly. ‘That’s the trouble. He was asleep when I went to say morning prayer, and he was asleep when I got back. I had to take Bella out myself.’

‘But he promised he’d do that for you.’

‘Exactly,’ Callie sighed. ‘And when I got back, he’d finally managed to get himself up. He’d left the sofa bed open, and he’d left his cereal bowl on the kitchen table. Along with the milk and everything else.’

‘Where was he?’

‘In the bath. For the next hour. He used my towel, and dropped it in the middle of the floor. Oh, Marco,’ she said with emotion, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to survive this. Weeks, he said. Weeks!’

‘I wish I could do more to help,’ Mark commiserated. ‘But I’ll tell you what. I promised I’d take you out last night, and Peter scuppered that. So how about tonight? Shall we go out for a meal?’

‘He’ll probably want to go with us.’

‘He’s not invited.’ Mark’s voice was firm.

‘I hate to think what he’ll do to trash my flat while we’re out. But yes, Marco. I’d love that.’

Callie was still smiling as she slipped her phone back into her bag.

‘They’ve recovered CCTV footage already? That was quick,’ Neville said. ‘They’d told us it was going to take days to get through it all.’

‘They were lucky, apparently. Just happened to look at the right bit.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘Yeah, Guv. I had a butcher’s.’ Cowley, predictably, couldn’t resist a needling aside. ‘While you were sleeping. Or
whatever
.’

Neville ignored it. ‘And?’

‘Just what you’d expect. Bloke in a hoodie.’

‘They’ve actually got footage of the murder?’ That, thought Neville, would be a bloody miracle. Too good to be true.

‘No, not that. But…well, Guv, you ought to go and look at it. They’ll explain.’

A few minutes later he was leaning over a computer while some young whizz kid wielded a mouse. It made Neville feel old—all done on computer these days, and by kids young enough to…well, he wasn’t going to go there. Scarcely old enough to drive, he amended to himself.

‘In a few years the computers will do all the work for us,’ the kid, Danny Duffy, said with earnest enthusiasm. ‘There are some amazing breakthroughs in CCTV technology already in use in the USA. Face recognition, automatic tracking of
suspicious
people and unusual behaviour. The computer will even notify us when something’s going on.’

‘Fancy that,’ said Neville sourly. In a few years, they wouldn’t need coppers at all. Just kids with computers. Maybe he should resign now, and beat the rush.

‘Anyway, here’s what I’ve found.’ The kid clicked on a window and a grainy image began to play. ‘Not too clear, I know. I’ve enhanced it as much as possible. But the weather must have been pretty foul.’

Neville remembered that morning: the rain flinging itself at the window of Rachel Norton’s lounge as though it were an
unwelcome
visitor, demanding entrance. ‘Yeah. It wasn’t very nice.’

‘Several of the cameras have picked up Trevor Norton. Running. Then—here.’ Danny Duffy pointed to a figure ambling along the edge of the screen, hands in the pockets of a hooded sweatshirt.
‘This bloke. You can’t see his face because of the hoodie. Unfortunately. But see? He’s walking along here. Then out of the picture. And now—here comes Trevor Norton.’

Neville leaned forward for a better view as Trevor Norton jogged in on one side of the window and, in a matter of seconds, out of the other.

‘The significant thing is that this bloke is the only other person around. No one else. And Trevor disappears before he reaches the next camera. Just plain vanishes. We don’t see him again.’

Yolanda was in the kitchen making sandwiches for their lunch when Neville rang her on her mobile. ‘How’s it going?’ he began.

She glanced at Rachel, who was sitting meekly at the table;
perhaps
she’d better not mention the false labour. ‘Fine,’ she said.

The preliminaries out of the way, Neville got down to
business
. ‘Just a few things you need to know.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’ll tell you the bad news first, shall I?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Bad news?’

‘You haven’t seen this morning’s
Globe
, have you?’ His voice was neutral, but Yolanda’s heart plummeted. She’d known she shouldn’t be shooting her mouth off to that journalist but she hadn’t been able to help herself. Eli always told her that her big mouth would get her in trouble one day.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But I can guess what it says.’

‘Then I suggest that you take a look at it before you get a call from Evans. Because you
will
get a call. He’s seen it, and he’s not happy.’

‘I can imagine.’ And she could: Evans wasn’t a pretty sight at the best of times, but Evans in a towering rage…ugly didn’t begin to describe it. ‘Is there some good news, then?’ Yolanda asked hopefully.

‘Well, I’ve spoken to the Coroner. He’s opening the inquest tomorrow morning.’ Neville went on to give the details of the time and place. ‘Do you think she’ll want to go?’

‘Probably.’ Again Yolanda glanced over at Rachel, who didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the conversation; instead she was studying her fingernails, evidently absorbed in her own thoughts.

‘That’s not the real good news, though. I’ve saved that for last,’ he said.

‘Do I need to be sitting down?’

Neville chuckled. ‘It’s not
that
good. Just a start, that’s all. The CCTV boffins have found something. A brief shot of someone who’s probably our murderer.’

‘Brilliant!’ At that, she noticed, Rachel looked at her, raising her eyebrows.

‘Trouble is,’ he said, ‘he’s wearing one of those hoodies and you can’t see his face at all. Some friggin’ little toe-rag, just like you said. Jeans and a hoodie.’

‘Can I tell Rachel?’

‘Sure. She needs to know what’s going on in the investigation.’

Neville rang off and Yolanda turned to Rachel, assured of her full attention. ‘You have something to tell me? Something important?’ Rachel demanded.

Yolanda decided to tell it to her straight, with no
preliminaries
. ‘They’ve found a CCTV image of the bloke who probably killed Trevor.’

Rachel’s eyes widened; her hand went to her mouth. Then her eyes fluttered shut and, if she had been a character in a Victorian novel, it would have been said of her that she swooned.

In the Stanford household, there was but one topic of
conversation
at dinner: the money, and how it would be spent.

The boys were most outspoken, and most creative. ‘Bali,’ said Simon rapturously. ‘Don’t you fancy a holiday in Bali, Mum?’

‘Or Tahiti,’ Charlie suggested. ‘We could
all
go. We could have Christmas on the beach.’

‘We could cruise round the world,’ Brian said. ‘I could ask for a sabbatical. I’ve never had one, you know, so I’m entitled. We could take six months and see the world. Just think of it, Janey,’ he added. ‘All those places we’ve never seen, and never thought we’d ever see.’

Ellie was more practical. ‘You could buy property. Sixty
thousand
pounds would make a decent down-payment on a little bungalow somewhere, and it would be a great investment. Then you’d have something when it was time for retirement.’

‘We’re not ready to retire just yet,’ Jane said tartly. It was the first contribution she’d made to the fanciful discussion.

‘No, of course not, Mrs. Stanford.’ Ellie was earnest as she turned to her—and, Jane thought, a bit patronising. ‘But when that time comes, it’s always good to have property.’

‘Maybe a cottage by the sea,’ Brian mused. ‘I’ve always fancied retiring to the seaside. There’s a good High Church tradition on the south coast.’