Solid Proof: A dark, disturbing, detective mystery (Sgt Major Crane crime thrillers Book 8) Read online

  He was finally on his way.

  4

  “Jessica, Grace, breakfast!”

  Tyler Wells watched his wife moving around the kitchen of their London house, multi-tasking as she made coffee, laid the table, buttered toast and sprinkled cereal out of battered boxes. A small, lithe, honey blond, she moved with the ease and grace of a dancer.

  “Girls! I said breakfast!” she called through the kitchen door and was rewarded by the sight and sound of two blond-haired girls banging down the stairs and trying to get through the doorway at the same time.

  “Hey,” said Jessica, “Stop pushing me!”

  “I’m not,” said Grace, squeezing through the door first, “You’re in my way. And anyway I should go through first, I’m the eldest.”

  The girls were, as usual, dressed alike and not just because of the school uniform of grey skirt and green polo tops and blazers. Their hair was platted and hung down their respective backs and both wore identical glasses and shoes. As Grace had just said, she was the eldest by 5 minutes. The twins, his wife and their house, were Tyler’s world.

  As the girls shovelled cereal into their mouths, Tyler extended and then bent his arm as he checked the time on his Rolex wristwatch.

  “Right everyone, time I was off. Be good,” he kissed each girl’s head, “and you too,” he smiled into his wife’s eyes, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. Penny returned the smile and pecked him on the cheek. Tyler grabbed his briefcase and opening the door, stepped out into the crisp morning air.

  As he strode along the quiet London street, away from the very expensive Victorian terraced house that was his home, he reflected on how lucky he was to have the life he had, particularly after such a bad start. He was told that his mother had given him up for adoption at birth, presumably unable to cope with a baby at an early age. It seemed that single act of selflessness (or some might think of it as an act of selfishness) was what had given him such a good start in life. The middle class couple, who had taken him in, loved him as if he had been their own biological son. Perhaps more so, as they’d been desperate to adopt a child after they’d found that Mrs Wells was unable to conceive.

  Tyler had always known he was adopted, but because of his adoptive parent’s love and support, had come to think of it as a privilege. As a result, he hadn’t felt any need to search for the woman who had rejected him at birth. She had never been in his life and he hoped it would stay that way. He preferred to look forward and not hanker after the past.

  In the nurturing environment of his adopted life, he had been able to develop to his full capabilities and was now a hedge-fund manager in a large London firm. Despite the public outrage at the banker’s bonuses and disgust at the way the financial sector had caused the economic recession, Tyler had kept his job and his bonuses and was therefore able to amply provide for his family.

  His strides in his all leather brogues had by now taken him to the tube station and he joined the flow of commuters as they made their way into central London. They followed each other like lemmings down into the bowels of the underground, where tube trains gobbled them up and then rattled and rolled their way through the network of tunnels. The carriages disgorged their passengers at each stop, before wolfing up more, to keep the belly of the beast filled to capacity.

  Tyler looked around at his fellow travellers as he dangled perilously from a strap attached to the ceiling of the rocking and rolling carriage. Men and women, old and young, of all skin colours, surrounded him. Each kept their own counsel. No one chatted. Several were reading, even more fiddling with their mobile phones. But no one interacted with each other. He felt a slight prickle on the back of his neck, as though someone behind him was paying him rather too much attention. Turning around, he scanned the people nearest to him. No one was paying him any mind. Immediately around him was a young, suited woman, who was reading. An older man looked world weary as he stared unseeing out of a window. A gaggle of school girls giggled amongst themselves, dressed in distinctive brown and yellow uniforms. Finally, a man, sitting nearby, was casually dressed and hunched over his mobile, his face hidden by a baseball cap.

  Tyler turned back and gripped his briefcase handle tightly, in readiness of disembarking, as the train juddered, brakes screaming, into his station. But once again that strange feeling haunted him and a shiver went down his back. His scalp began to itch underneath his wild dark hair that he always seemed unable to tame and his dark eyes narrowed. But not being able to turn back around, because of the crush of people pushing forwards towards the door, he had no option but to stand there, under the scrutiny of the unknown person, until he was released from the carriage and he and his fellow passengers spilled out onto the platform.

  Deciding he was being irrational, he followed his fellow lemmings up the escalators and out onto the bright street. As he strode along, Tyler felt himself changing as he took the short walk from the underground station to his office. Gone now was the rush of emotion he had felt for his family. Gone now was the musing over their antics. Gone was the disquiet he had felt in the train. As though pulling a cloak over his family persona, the business side of his character rose to the fore. By the time he walked through the glass doors into his office building, he had morphed into the hard-nosed hedge fund dealer that he was. Dressed in a pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt and colourful silk tie, he was a driven, focused business man, oblivious to those around him, eager to get to his desk and start his day.

  5

  As Crane and Anderson walked back to their cars, back towards the garage with the lone shoe and crime scene techs crawling all over the structure, they pondered the conundrum of Janey Cunningham’s vanishing trick.

  “Well?” asked Derek. “What do you think?”

  “Of her disappearance? Or of the Major?”

  “Her disappearance. I’m well aware what you think of the Major that was evident.”

  “Yes, well,” Crane lit a cigarette to draw a line under that particular part of the conversation. “It’s bloody interesting,” was his take on their problem. He began wandering up and down in front of his car. “I could really do with a whiteboard, but as we’re stood on the drive of a large house, any chance you could make notes, Derek?”

  “Oh, God, here we go,” said Anderson, well used to Crane’s brainstorming and obligingly scrabbled in his pocket for his notebook and pen.

  “Right,” Crane still hadn’t stopped pacing. “Let’s imagine the possible scenarios. First, the Major killed his wife on the way home after dinner at the restaurant, dumped her body somewhere, went home, left the shoe in the garage and then returned to the restaurant to give himself an alibi.”

  Anderson nodded. “Good one.”

  “Or,” Crane continued, “He killed her at home, left her shoe in the garage, went back to the restaurant and dumped her body on the way.”

  “Fair enough,” said Anderson, chewing the end of his pen. “What if it wasn’t him?”

  Crane took a few drags of his cigarette and then said. “In that case, someone was in the process of burgling the property. She disturbed him. He killed her and took the body with him, not knowing a shoe had dropped off her foot.”

  Anderson looked up from his notebook. “In that case, we’d better get forensics into the house. That will help with that theory. My turn now. How about someone had a grudge or something against her, had been stalking her and seeing a window of opportunity when the Major went back to the restaurant, killed her and took the body with him.”

  “Nice one,” said Crane, throwing his cigarette away. “Anything else?”

  “Yep. How about she’s been kidnapped? They look pretty well off. We might get a ransom demand.”

  Crane contemplated that theory, leaning back against his car and putting his hands in his black coat pocket that he wore over his dark work suit, white shirt and regimental tie. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” he said.

  “Oh yes?” Anderson asked after finishing scrib
bling down the previous theory.

  “Yes. Maybe she’s just left him. She saw her window of opportunity, as you so aptly described it and so just ran. I know there are no clothes missing, but her handbag is. What about her passport?”

  Anderson flicked back in his notebook. “I asked the Major that question when I first arrived. Oh here it is,” and Anderson peered at the page. “Yes, it’s missing as far as he can tell. At least it’s not in its usual place.”

  “So she could have done a moonlight flit.”

  “A what?”

  “Sorry, Derek, it’s an expression that means she ran away in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind. People used to do that when they owed money and they couldn’t pay it back. They just ran away in the middle of the night, hence ‘moonlight flit’.”

  “Very interesting I’m sure, but how does it help us? Why would she have done a - whatever you called it?”

  Crane referred back to his earlier thoughts. “We don’t know what went on behind those closed doors,” he indicated the imposing double doors of the house behind them. “The Major says they are happy, they certainly from the outside look like a golden couple. But are they really? She could have been a right bitch, him a big bully. Despite all the trappings of wealth they could have money problems.”

  “I see what you mean. So we need to poke into their backgrounds, their marriage, their families and friends. Let’s find out what they are really like, behind that public image.” Anderson delved into his pocket and picked out a piece of paper. “I’ve got details of their friends and families here. Let’s see what we can find out, we’ve too many questions and it’s about time we got some answers. Shall we take my car?”

  6

  …Half an hour earlier, the man had watched Tyler Wells leave his house. But he had not moved from his position in a car a short way down the road. He had his mobile phone in his hand, as though checking his emails or text messages, but his real focus was the house, not the piece of moulded plastic in his hand. He smiled as he caught sight of Penny Wells and the two girls spill out of the house and begin their walk to the local school. Because she normally went for a run after depositing the girls at school, Penny was dressed in a designer track suit and the observer had timed her absence several times over the past weeks and knew he had around 30 minutes before she returned.

  Once the family turned the corner at the bottom of the street he then climbed out of the car and sauntered over to the Wells’ house. He had on dark, nondescript clothes. A baseball cap and a hoodie obscured his features from nosey neighbours. Arriving at the house he got down on one knee as though to tie his lace, but in reality picked the lock and opened the now unresisting door. Closing it behind him, he stood in the hall taking in the atmosphere of the house. He breathed deeply and inhaled the aroma of freshly washed hair and clothes, tinged with a lingering smell of slightly burnt toasted bread. So this is what family life smells like, he thought.

  Somewhere in the annals of his memory, something stirred. One of his foster homes had been similar to this; a warm, welcoming, messy, yet happy house. But the parents already had two children of their own, youngsters who hated the interloper. After being frequently bullied, pinched, punched and locked in rooms, he finally retaliated, punching and knocking out the younger boy; which necessitated in a trip to hospital for his victim and a trip back to the children’s home for him. The memory hardened his resolve. He would never be accepted anywhere, by anyone. He was alone and it was all the fault of his birth mother. Feeling the sting of rejection once more and the anger which clenched his fists and jaw, he continued with his mission.

  Ignoring the kitchen and downstairs rooms, he walked silently upstairs and found Tyler and Penny’s bedroom. The bed was still rumpled, unmade since Tyler and Penny had left it. He poked his head in the en-suite bathroom and saw yesterday’s clothes were discarded on the floor. Damp towels were flung over the top of the shower stall and Penny’s make up and creams were jumbled next to the sink.

  Returning to the bedroom, he opened the wardrobe and reached in and pulled out a handful of Penny’s clothes. Pulling them towards him, he buried his face in them, the particular smell of her filling his nostrils. It was obvious she favoured Chanel No 5 as her perfume of choice. But he felt no emotion. No stirring, no longing, no jealousy. She was merely a tool in his quest for revenge. After pushing the clothes back into the wardrobe and closing the doors, he turned his attention to the chest of drawers. After several unsuccessful attempts, he found the one he wanted - the drawer filled with Penny’s underwear. Rooting through the bras and knickers he picked out a particularly sexy matching set of ivory lace covered bra and barely-there thong. He made the bed and then laid the set of lingerie carefully on the now smooth duvet cover, placing the bra above the thongs. An invitation if ever there was one.

  Checking his watch, the interloper turned and made his way out of the house, closing the door behind him. Pleased with his work, he decided he would leave his mark on the downstairs of the house the next time he visited.

  7

  To Crane’s shock, the car stopped outside a local authority property in Ash, a small village situated between Aldershot and Guildford. “You’re kidding me,” he said to Anderson. “Have we come to the right place?”

  Anderson consulted his notes and nodded his confirmation. “Mrs Cunningham’s parents live here, at number 30,” and he indicated a semi-detached property in the middle of the row of houses they were parked opposite. “Goes by the name of Carlton, Janey’s maiden name.”

  Crane saw that all the properties were solid semi-detached houses. Grey pebbledash adorned the top half of the walls, matching the grey sky of the morning. The whole area seemed washed with grey, more urban sprawl and less pretty English chocolate box village. “From rags to riches,” he muttered under his breath, as he clambered out of the car.

  By the time Crane joined him, Derek had already knocked on the door, which had been opened by an elderly woman, who looked more bird than person. Her head bobbed and nodded when Anderson asked if her daughter was Janey Cunningham and her hands fluttered from her grey hair, to her apron and back again.

  Anderson introduced them and after he explained that they were there because they were having difficulty locating Janey, they were led into a surprisingly large lounge, or at least it would have been if it had been empty. As it was, it was filled to the brim with furniture. Glass fronted cabinets contained china dolls, figurines and clowns. Footstools joined various coffee tables dotted around the floor. Crane couldn’t help notice a huge TV and stereo system which was squeezed in along one wall. The room was decorated with large flower printed wallpaper, again giving the illusion that the room was smaller than it actually was. They sat down at Mrs Carlton’s invitation and after refusing a cup of tea, Anderson asked for some background on her daughter.

  “Janey was always such a good girl,” Mrs Carlton said. “Tried hard at school and stuff, was always popular and had lots of friends.”

  “How did she become a model?” Crane wanted to know.

  “Oh, she was spotted,” Mrs Carlton sat straighter on her chair. “Ever so exciting it was,” she smiled at the memory. “Janey was walking around the shops in Guildford one Saturday morning with her friends and she was stopped by a man who said he was a spotter from a modelling agency. He gave her his card and asked her to ring him. Said they were looking for someone just like her.”

  “I take it she rang him?”

  “Oh yes, Mr Anderson. Her dad wasn’t keen mind you. Caused ructions it did. He said it was a bad business to be in, full of drugs and such and that she didn’t know what she was getting into. She was at college at the time and he wanted her to finish her studies.”

  “What was she studying?”

  “Beauty therapy and stuff, you know. She was always interested in clothes and make-up.”

  Janey Cunningham wasn’t much of an academic then, Crane thought to himself. It figured.

  “So
what happened?” Anderson prompted Mrs Carlton, whose eyes had wandered away from them and she seemed lost in thought.

  “Oh, well, her dad said she wasn’t to go to London to see the modelling agency, but I gave her the money to go. I couldn’t go with her myself, as her dad would have smelled a rat, so she went with a friend. By the time her dad found out, she’d been taken on by the agency and had her first booking. When he realised how much she was being paid, well he changed his tune after that.”

  “Where is Mr Carlton? Is he at work?” Crane asked.

  “Oh, he died a few years back now,” she said smiling, making Crane wonder what Mrs Carlton had thought of her husband. He would normally have mumbled something about offering his condolences, but in the light of her happy face he swallowed his words instead.

  Mrs Carlton walked over to a long cabinet placed under the window. On the top of it were row upon row of photos of Janey. She picked one and handed it to Anderson.

  “This is from that first job,” she said and after glancing at it, Anderson passed it to Crane.

  It showed a girl of about 16 or 17, fresh faced and innocent, looking slightly bewildered if anything. It was a far cry from the studied poses of Janey’s later work, which radiated sensuality. Crane wondered if the change in her was for the better. Comparing it with the photo in his pocket, he preferred the younger girl to the cold shrewd professional she seemed to have become. Was it a natural progression as she became older, or something more calculating? He didn’t know, but the change didn’t endear her to Crane.