The Lady in the Street Read online

  Felicity stumbled over to her, and Becky turned, eyes wide.

  “Oh shit. Time to go home,” Becky said. “What the bloody hell have you drunk?”

  That was the thing. Felicity recalled guzzling only three bottles of Smirnoff Ice, so there was no way she should be this pissed. She held up the right amount of fingers and stared at them, seeing six instead of three.

  “What’s up with you then?” Becky asked, guiding her towards the door. “Didn’t you have any dinner before we came out? Drinking on an empty stomach isn’t good, love. And you need to be careful. People put shit in your drinks these days.”

  Felicity nodded, past caring now. She just wanted to go home.

  As they neared the door, the man from the dance floor stepped forward and, when Felicity passed him, he whispered in her ear, “You made a big mistake.”

  Shivers crept through her, and she darted outside, almost turning her ankle she was that desperate to get away from him.

  The inside of a taxi had never felt so good.

  Home was even better.

  For weeks after that night, she kept seeing him. In the street, in shops, in Vicky’s Café. In her damn street.

  In her bed. Over her. Plunging a knife into her stomach and saying, “Two… Three… Four…”

  Then she didn’t see him at all. There was nothing, a blank void, and she sank into it, welcoming the blessed relief that it was over. All of it. Her past, present, and future.

  Chapter Two

  Helena cracked up laughing. She’d been to the gym with Andy earlier and kept remembering him falling backwards off the treadmill and landing on his arse in front of a few seasoned gym-goers using the ellipticals. He was currently rubbing his tailbone while she sat in her office chair opposite, doodling on a pad. Him coming in was a welcome break from the mountain of paperwork she needed to check for the Walker case. She hadn’t thought she’d ever say seeing him would be a good thing, but since they’d been making an effort to get along, he didn’t seem so bad now.

  “Stop it,” he said, sitting on the spare seat in front of her desk.

  “Come on now. It was funny, though.”

  “For you maybe. I’m not going to be able to face those blokes in there again. Did you see the way one of them trainer fellas tried not to laugh, the git?”

  Helena smiled. “You’re not giving up. We need to get you fit.” He needn’t think a little tumble would get him off the hook.

  “Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “Slave driver.”

  Her desk phone rang, cutting her off mid-chuckle. “Helena Stratton.”

  “Hi, guv. Louise here.”

  Helena imagined Louise leaning on the front desk, one leg bent at the knee, twirling her foot. “What’s up?”

  “You’re needed. A Felicity Greaves has been found dead at her home.”

  “Oh, poor thing.” At the same time, she thought uncharitably: Wonderful. Just what we need, another body straight after the Walkers have been bumped off. “Address, please.”

  “Seventeen Kew Road.”

  “Right. How old is she?” Not that it mattered. A body was a body as far as she was concerned, and she’d treat the case just as importantly as any other, even though she’d have preferred a bit of a break in between.

  Pack it in, thinking like that.

  “Thirty-one,” Louise said. “Lives alone. SOCO are already there because Clive called it in.”

  “Okay. I’ll ring Zach. Me and Andy are on our way. Thanks.” She put the phone down and gave her partner a wan smile.

  “No rest for the wicked?” he asked.

  “Nope.” She briefed him quickly, then rang Zach. “Hi. Can’t talk.” Please get the hint that I’m with someone… “I have an address for you. A deceased female.”

  “Bloody hell,” Zach said. “I take it you have company?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to tonight?”

  “No.” If Andy wasn’t there, she’d squirm. But he was, so she didn’t.

  “Shame. Catch you in a bit.”

  She docked the phone and looked at Andy. “Come on, you. Just as well we didn’t go for an early lunch, isn’t it. God knows what’s in store for us. I wouldn’t want you puking at a scene.”

  “Since when have I puked?”

  She dug her elbow into his ribs and winked. They walked into the incident room. Olivia and Phil were at their desks, backs to the room.

  “Guys, sorry, but we’ve got another case,” Helena said. “Shame it’s literally days after the Walkers, but killers don’t tend to be considerate, do they. You two can sort it between you as to who’s doing what. A Felicity Greaves, thirty-one, seventeen Kew Road. All I know is she’s dead—I’m assuming it’s murder or suspicious, otherwise we wouldn’t be on it. Find the next of kin if there is one. Do the usual digging. See you later.”

  She left with Andy and drove them to Kew Road, up the cliff close to where Emma Walker had lived, just a few streets away. Police cars were parked outside Felicity’s opposite, as well as a SOCO van. Clive, a uniform, stood at the gate, and two others were talking at front doors. Several onlookers stared from their windows, most of them elderly, their white-haired heads giving their age away.

  Helena and Andy crossed the road.

  “All right, guv,” Clive said, holding out the scene log.

  She signed it. “Not too bad.” She handed the log to Andy and peered over Clive’s shoulder at the property behind him. A bungalow. “You?”

  “A bit shaken, to be honest.” Clive shrugged. “But I’m sure I’ll get over it.”

  “Were you the first on scene?” Helena nosed through the gap where the front door stood ajar. A hallway with an open door at the end.

  “Yes. I got asked to call round because she hadn’t turned up for work, which is unusual. Her colleague, who is also her friend, said the deceased was frightened of some men or other coming to find her, so she wanted us to see if Miss Greaves was all right. Something to do with…um…” He seemed to find the ground interesting. “Uthway.”

  Helena’s guts rolled. That man would be the death of her. All her colleagues knew what had happened to her, hence Clive grimacing at having to bring the man’s name up again.

  “What? Had she been held by him for trafficking then?” she asked.

  “From what I could gather, yes. Her friend did a lot of babbling, but I got the gist that Miss Greaves didn’t tell her about any of it until she’d got away from them. I’ve got her mate’s name and address here. You might get more sense out of her than I did. She was in a right old state, if you ask me.” He pulled out his notebook.

  Andy did the same and jotted down the info as Clive read it out.

  “Fab. We’ll go and see her in a few.” Helena licked her suddenly dry lips and tasted salt from the sea air. “So you went inside because? I mean, you’ve covered your arse, right? Had probable cause?”

  Clive nodded. “One of the neighbours reported a woman hanging about last night, just after eleven. I opened the letterbox and…the smell of blood was a bit ripe.”

  “Okay. Nice.” She waved and made her way up the path, slipping on booties and gloves outside the door. She stepped into the hall, and immediately, the scent of hot pennies smacked into her. Breathing through her mouth, she walked farther in then poked her head around a doorframe.

  SOCOs milled about in a living room. It was clean, tidy, with no sign of a disturbance. Felicity clearly liked things orderly. The scatter cushions on the sofa were placed so they resembled diamond shapes.

  “Where’s the victim, please?” she asked one of them.

  “Next room along, guv,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Tom’s in there.”

  She smiled. Her favourite SOCO.

  Andy trailed her down the hall, and Helena stared through the open doorway. A brunette woman, bound to the double bed posts with rope, had her pyjamas sliced off, the pink remnants either side of her. The sheets had o
nce been a pristine white, but blood had soon fucked that up. Her quilt was bunched in places beneath her, as though she’d been under it at some point, then had got up.

  A photographer took a few more shots, and Helena glanced at where the lens pointed.

  Blood on the walls. So much of it. Arcs, splashes from castoff, yet there wasn’t a lot on the ceiling, just on a rectangular patch. What was that all about? Movement to her right caught her attention. Tom was bent over, rooting around in a chest of drawers.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He turned his head, straightened, and used his white suit cuff to move his face mask down. “That,” he said, pointing at the walls, “is the result of one angry person. She was stabbed multiple times, as you can see from her stomach.”

  Helena had chosen not to focus on that, even though she knew what was there—a mess of tangled innards on display.

  “See how the spatter just stops inside lines on the walls and ceiling?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Whoever it was had been in a frenzy.” She nodded at the blood patterns on the wall. “Handprint.”

  “Gloves, unfortunately. Seems they maybe needed to steady themselves at one point,” Tom said. “Oddly, not much blood on the floor.”

  Helena stared at it. Just a few droplets on the laminate closest to the bed. “How is that possible with such a manic attack?”

  “No idea, but the evidence doesn’t lie.” Tom shrugged.

  “Hello?” Zach called.

  Helena faced the hallway where she’d come in. Zach walked towards them, just visible behind Andy, who moved to one side to let the medical examiner past. Zach stood beside her in the doorway and took in the room, his forehead scrunched.

  “Christ,” he said. “All right to come in, Tom?”

  Tom nodded. Helena and Zach scooted along, and the photographer left, going into the living room. Zach walked to the bed and stood beside it. Helena glanced away while he took her rectal temperature, and Andy pulled a face. He wasn’t enjoying this. Neither was she, but it was their job, so they’d have to suck it up.

  A minute or so passed.

  “Estimated time of death, close to midnight,” Zach said.

  Helena returned her attention to the room. Zach leant over the bed, peering at Felicity’s open stomach. Tom cleared his throat.

  “Diary, guv,” he said, holding up a pink book with a suede-like cover. He handed it to her.

  Helena flicked through to the most recent entry.

  I had a nightmare again. About them. They’re coming for me, I know it, but I can’t talk to anyone except Becky. Who else would believe me, anyway, after all the lies I used to tell? The girl who cried wolf, that’s what they’d say, but it’s true, what happened. It really is.

  I think about it all the time. Those other girls. The young men. How we were squashed into that room together, basically sleeping like dogs, layers of people waiting to be sold. Waiting to escape. Wanting to die.

  It’s only a matter of time before they come back and continue what they started. Before they look for me. I know things—and they know I do. I can get them right in the shit. Eventually, he’ll turn up and shut my mouth for good.

  If Felicity had been talking about Uthway, Helena could well believe he’d come back, too. She also had nightmares. How many others did? How many people suffered night after night, dreading that knock on the door?

  Or someone breaking in and doing…this?

  Was this Uthway? Would Helena be next?

  She closed the book, giving it back to Tom to put in an evidence bag. “I need that back at the station as soon as possible so Ol or Phil can have a look at it, see if there’s something we can use.”

  Tom nodded. “He got in through the back door, by the way. In the kitchen. There’s a dog in there, crated. Poor thing’s scared shitless. I’ve called the local rescue home to collect him for now until we know if she has any family who might be willing to take him on.”

  “I’d say Felicity was on her own. Ol would have rung by now if she’d found any relatives.” Helena sighed. “Listen, we’re going to shoot off to speak to the neighbour who saw the woman hanging around last night, then we need to see Felicity’s friend.”

  “Right,” Zach said. “This is going to take me a while, so other than her being stabbed, I don’t have anything much to give you yet.”

  “Right-handed,” Tom said. “You can tell by where the blood is on the wall. We’ll get the spatter studied and should be able to tell you how tall the killer is likely to be, going by the height of the arcs and whatnot.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’d say have a nice day, but…”

  She lifted a hand in a half-arsed wave and followed Andy into the kitchen. The dog whimpered, cowering in the corner of the metal crate. Helena had the urge to pet it, to calm it, but Andy called her over to the back door.

  “The key’s in the lock, glass smashed.” He stared at her, probably waiting for an answer.

  “Right. I wonder if Felicity heard it being broken—or anyone else for that matter.”

  “Might have used a cloth over the hand—less noise.”

  “Hmm.”

  She led the way out into the front garden. They removed their booties and gloves, disposing of them in a black bag beside the door. At the gate, she asked Clive who the witness neighbour was.

  “Over the road there, look.” He pointed at an old granny nosing through her window. “She’s a bit shaky, as you can imagine. A Mrs Jean Salter, seventy-four.”

  “Okie dokie.” Helena crossed the road and went up the woman’s path. She held her ID up at the window, and the lady vanished, reappearing as a silhouette behind the opaque door glass.

  “Come in,” Mrs Salter said. “I have a pot of tea in the living room. Would you like one?”

  “Ooh, yes please.” Helena smiled.

  Andy nodded as an answer and shut the door. Mrs Salter trotted along the hallway into the kitchen. She returned carrying two cups and went into the living room. Helena and Andy sat on an armchair each, while Mrs Salter lowered to the sofa and poured the drinks through a strainer.

  “Help yourself to milk and sugar,” she said, gesturing to the tray on the coffee table.

  Once they’d all got settled, Helena smiled then took a sip. Why was tea from a pot so much better? It reminded her of going to her nan’s as a kid.

  “This is lovely, Mrs Salter,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s Jean. Call me Jean.” She beamed, showing a set of dentures.

  “Can you tell me what you saw last night?”

  Jean, a spindly little thing, with twig-like arms and a puff of lilac hair, cradled her flower-painted cup and stared out of the window. “I couldn’t sleep—damn wind was a bit noisy last night, wasn’t it. We never did get the full brunt of that hurricane yet, did we. I expect it’ll be here over the next day or so.” She gazed into thin air then seemed to remember she’d been asked a question. “Anyway, I got out of bed and made a drink—hot milk, sugar, a squirt of honey—and had a nose outside. It’s calming to do that, don’t you think, when the rest of the world is asleep or close to it, and the street becomes just a silent strip of homes, no kids messing about or people being noisy.” She turned and gazed at Helena with rheumy eyes.

  “Yes, there’s too much noise about these days.” Helena nodded.

  “Isn’t there just. Well, there was a lady in the street, and she was standing right there, on the other side of my fence.”

  Helena stood and peered outside, then sat again. “Go on.”

  “She had one of those tops on, you know the ones all the young folks wear, with a hood. It was black, same as her jeans and shoes, but I didn’t see those until she crossed the road. She was a bit…beefy for a woman. She had long blonde hair, and it was like she knew I was watching. She turned to peer inside here, and I was glad I hadn’t put the light on, I can tell you. She would have seen me staring, wouldn’t she. But I got a good look at her—the streetlamp shone on her, see. D
elicate features. Dark lipstick, though. It seemed black to me, but it could have been red.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

  “What happened then?” Helena asked.

  “She walked over the road to that bungalow there, where Felicity lives, and tried pulling the handle down on the front door.”

  Helena jolted at that and glanced at Andy. He raised his eyebrows. Maybe whoever it was had decided going in through the front was too risky.

  “Those bungalows have lovely views from the back,” Jean went on. “Nothing else behind them except the cliff top, then the sea for miles and miles.”

  “How would a person get into the rear garden, do you know?” Helena asked.

  “Oh, there’s an alleyway next to number twenty. Me and Gladys—that’s Felicity’s gran, God rest her soul—used to nip down there in the summer to have a bit of a sunbathe. Lots of people do it. Saves going down to the beach.”

  “Does Felicity have any other family?”

  Jean shook her head. “No. All alone now, she is.” She sipped some tea. “Got to love PG Tips. What’s happened over there? I hope Felicity is all right.”

  Helena wasn’t sure whether to tell the woman anything or not. “Do you know her well?”

  “Of course! I’ve known her since she was born. Me and Gladys have lived here since these were built. Council, you know, except we bought them years down the line. Gladys left hers to Felicity.”

  “I see. What about Felicity’s parents?”

  “They’re dead. The mother was always a rum sort, gave poor Gladys hell, and she threw herself off the cliff when Felicity’s dad had an accident in his lorry. Killed him, it did.”

  Tragic. “How old was Felicity when this happened?”

  “Two. So she’s never remembered them.” Jean wiped at her eye. “Still, she’s a good girl, never a moment’s trouble from her. She gets my shopping, you know, and she’s one of them Talk Today people.”