Cut the deck, p.15
Cut The Deck, page 15
part #1 of DCI Cooper Series
“Which salon? And how long were you there for?”
“Serenity Lounge. I was there about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”
Assuming that the appointment was at four o’clock, that took Linda’s alibi up to around the half five mark, the same time Jasmine and Reuben went missing.
“Did you drive?” Asked Cooper.
Linda turned to face her. “Yes,” she said with a clenched jaw.
“And can you confirm that you drive a dark grey Mercedes E class?”
“I do. How do you know that?”
Cooper ignored the question. “And what did you do after your hair appointment?”
“I came home and did some paperwork until Kenny came over at about nine. Was it nine?”
Kenny nodded.
“I didn’t have the TV on so it was a shock when Kenny told me about the kids.”
Television or not, Cooper knew the news had been all over the internet and social media sites. What were the odds that none of her colleagues sent her a text message or picked up the phone?
“Did you speak to anyone when you arrived home? A neighbour? A doorman?”
“We don’t have a doorman. And no, I don’t think I saw the neighbours. You’ll have to ask them.”
“What did you do after Kenny told you about Jasmine and Reuben?”
Linda thought for a moment. “We had dinner. Thai food. Then we,” she paused, “went to bed.”
Cooper got the idea. She thanked Linda and asked Kenny to walk her out. Once they were alone she lowered her voice and turned to Kenny.
“How did Linda seem when you told her about the missing kids?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Dunno. She was shocked. She didn’t cry or owt. Think she was stressed more than anything. That’s understandable, right?”
Cooper did her coat up, ready to face the November winds. “I know on a personal level it’s none of my business, but on a professional level, I have to ask: Did you spend the night?”
“No.” His brows furrowed and a deep line appeared between them. “I left at midnight, or thereabouts. I didn’t have a change of clothes with me so I went back to mine. Why? Is there something I should know, Erica?”
“I’m doing my best to eliminate her from the enquiries, Kenny, but she is a person of interest.” Cooper saw concern etched on Kenny’s face. “I’ll keep you posted if that changes.”
Kenny opened the door. “Do you still need me to pick Tina up?”
“Please. That would be great. But Kenny,” she lowered her voice further so it was little more than a whisper, “no Linda, okay? Just you.”
He nodded and gave her another quick hug. Two in one day. Wasn’t Cooper a lucky girl?
“I think Tina wanted to spend time with Josh,” said Cooper. “If you could pick them both up and bring them to mine, they can hang out there until I get home.”
Kenny’s mouth thinned.
“Come on, give the girl a break. No Josh bashing. They’re allowed in Tina’s room as long as the door stays open. I should be back by five.”
“You’re killing me here, Erica. But, okay, I’ll see you at yours at five. Stay safe.”
“Same to you,” said Cooper.
* * *
It was a pleasant surprise to be home at the time she’d promised to be. Such days were a rarity since Cooper had returned to work. But, she’d done all she could for one day and her pyjamas were calling. After a warm shower and a full exfoliation, Cooper changed into her favourite PJs and joined Tina in the kitchen, where she found her reading the case file on the Tynemouth murders.
“Tina, you know you shouldn’t be looking through that.”
Tina didn’t even look up. “Why not? It’s interesting.”
“For a start, there’s details in there that haven’t been released to the public. And second, it’ll give you nightmares.”
Tina rolled her eyes.
“How are you coping with all of this?” asked Cooper, aware that she hadn’t checked in with Tina other than a few text messages here and there.
Tina finally looked up. “I’m fine, I guess.”
“You guess?”
She shuffled into a seat at the dining table. “Well, it’s a bit weird isn’t it? Having four people you go to school with murdered.”
Weird wasn’t the word Cooper would have chosen.
“But I wasn’t close to any of them,” she continued. “It’s still horrific, mind you. No one deserves to die like that. I don’t think anyone has the right to take someone else’s life.”
Cooper reached across the table and took Tina’s hands. “Are you worried?”
Tina averted her eyes. “Hmm. Not really. I keep looking over my shoulder, but the only one following me about is Dad.”
“It won’t be forever, T. We will catch whoever’s doing this. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something. I invited a colleague over for dinner tomorrow night. I wanted to check that it was okay with you.”
Tina brought her eyes back to her mother’s but removed her hands from hers. It was either eye contact or physical contact, never both. “A man?”
“Yes. If that’s all right?”
“Oh, not Neil?”
Cooper laughed. “No, not Neil.”
“Good, because he was a total wanker.”
“Tina!”
Tina raised an eyebrow. “He was. Admit it.”
“You might have a point,” conceded Cooper. “Well, this guy isn’t a total wanker, as you put it. His name is Justin and he works in forensics. He’s a few years older than me—”
“Do you like him?”
Cooper thought back to all the interactions she’d had with Atkinson. “He’s a nice guy. Yeah, I like him.”
Tina shrugged and got to her feet. “Then I like him too. You deserve a little romance after everything you’ve been through this year.”
Tears formed in Cooper’s eyes. It was a struggle to hold them back. She got to her feet and pulled Tina in for a hug. “You’re brilliant, you know that?” she said into her daughter’s hair.
Once she’d released Tina, she removed a cookbook from the kitchen shelf. Up until that moment the book’s only use had been to act as an occasional doorstop. “Right, come on then. Help me choose what I’m going to make.”
Tina froze for a moment. “Oh no,” she said, her eyes widening. “No, no, no, no, no. You said you like this guy.”
“I do.”
Tina snatched the book from her mother’s hands. “Then there’s no way in good conscience that I can let you cook for him. He’s not going to stick around if you give him salmonella.”
Cooper scrutinised her daughter. “Nice to know you have so much faith in me.”
“I have faith in you,” said Tina, “just not your cooking. Look, I have straight As in food tech. Leave it to me; I’ll make something. All you’ll have to do is serve it up when he gets here. He’ll never know.”
Grateful, but perplexed at how her daughter could out adult her, Cooper agreed. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d described her daughter as a ‘sneaky little genius.’ She’d been right.
- CHAPTER 25 -
After what happened at the school gates with her father, Tina had asked to be dropped off two streets away when Cooper drove her to school on Wednesday morning. Cooper couldn’t blame her, the poor thing had been thoroughly humiliated. Josh was waiting on the corner as Cooper pulled up and was playing keepie-up with an empty can of Pepsi. When he saw the car approach he threw the can into the nearest bin.
“Morning, Josh.”
“Morning, Ms Cooper.”
“Are you ever going to call me Erica?”
He looked at his feet and then broke into a huge grin when Tina jumped out of the car and took his hand.
“I might see you at school,” called Cooper as Tina and Josh began to walk away. “I need to speak to a few people. Otherwise, I’ll see you back home tonight. Your Dad’s picking you up. Tina? Are you listening?”
Tina looked over her shoulders and hissed. “Yes. Be cool.”
“Be cool?” muttered Cooper under her breath. “I wouldn’t recognise what passes for cool these days if it slapped me in the face.” She restarted the engine, tuned into Absolute Radio Rock and was pleasantly surprised to hear Guns and Roses playing. “Now this is what I call cool.”
Cooper easily found a parking space on the road outside Tynemouth Comprehensive. She was reluctant to turn off the radio until Sweet Child O’ Mine finished, but duty called.
“Drew,” she said as she approached PC Andrew Underwood who was one of the uniforms stationed at the school gates.
“Ma’am,” he replied, “the man with the two yellow Labs was back yesterday.”
“Oh, really?” asked Cooper, letting the ma’am go, for now.
“We got the name and address. The bloke’s called Nate Douglass. Lives in the village. I called it into Oliver Martin, he has the details and is running a background check.”
“What was your impression of Douglass?”
He scrunched up his face. “Told me he was only talking to those girls because his dog’s ball had gone over the fence and he was asking them to throw it back to him. He certainly didn’t seem shifty.”
“They never do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Cooper winced. There was something about that word that was like nails on a chalkboard to her. “Anything else to report?”
Drew Underwood shook his head. “To be honest, it’s pretty quiet. A lot of the parents are keeping their kids at home.”
“So I heard,” said Cooper. “Thanks, Drew. I'll check in again with you later.”
The glass doors to Tynemouth Comp slid open and Cooper entered the lobby. The atrium seemed sterile, cold and clinical. It was as if the cleaning staff had worked overtime to scrub away the horrors of the last week.
“Chief Inspector. Good morning.” Brian Hutchins approached and took Cooper’s hand in both of his. The art teacher stood with impeccable posture and he had fixed a welcoming smile to his face but his eyes were red and gave away the stress he and the other staff must be feeling.
“How are you this morning, Mr Hutchins?”
“It’s Brian, please, and we’re coping the best we can. I’ve brought in a team of eight counsellors but we have around twelve hundred students today. If we’re lucky, they’ll make it round all the most vulnerable by the end of the day.”
“What’s the usual attendance?” asked Cooper.
“Almost two thousand.” Said Brian. “Did you hear we have OFSTED inspectors in?” He glanced at an antique clock that hung over the reception area. “Due at any moment. Talk about timing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
At that moment a group of surly looking men in business suits arrived.
“Oh, speak of the devils,” said Brian. He removed his glasses from his pocket and popped them onto his face. His eyes appeared to double in size. He took a deep inhalation and held it for several seconds before finally breathing out. He turned to Cooper, “I’ll assist you in any way that I can. The rest of the staff feel the same. Just let us know what you need.”
“I need to speak to someone from the culture club. I understand you’re busy and I won’t keep you, perhaps you can direct me to Phillip Dunn or Catherine Grainger.”
Brian raised his hand in greeting to the inspectors. “Of course. Catherine is on the third floor so it will probably be easier for you to find Phillip. I believe he has a free period first thing. If you follow this corridor,” he motioned to his left, “right to the end, it’s the last office on the right.”
Cooper nodded her thanks and set off down the corridor, leaving Brian Hutchins to turn on the charm offensive for the box-ticking, paperwork-loving henchmen of the Department of Education.
Phillip Dunn was slumped over his desk. His head rested on his forearms and his back rose and fell in a slow rhythm that suggested he was asleep. His flat cap and coat had fallen off the peg on the back of his door and lay in a heap on the floor.
“Mr Dunn?”
He didn’t stir so Cooper gave a loud cough and he jolted back into consciousness. “Huh? What?”
“Mr Dunn. It’s DCI Erica Cooper. We met—”
“At the search. Yes.” He ran his hands over his face. His cheeks had the permanent flush of a man who consumed too much alcohol and he had two days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. “Tell me, detective. Why was my car taken as evidence last night?”
Phillip sat back in his chair, his eyes running up and down Cooper in a manner that made her skin crawl.
“Jasmine and Reuben were seen getting into a dark-coloured estate car on the evening of their disappearance. A number of cars have been—”
“I helped try to find those kids and now I’m being treated like a suspect!” His voice took on an aggressive tone and his fingertips turned white where they gripped the wooden arms of his chair.
“They came to my house,” he continued. “My wife was home. My kids were home. My daughter goes to this school, you know that? You should have seen the way she looked at me. Like she didn’t know who I was anymore.”
“Mr Dunn, it’s important that we—”
“We’re a one car family. I had to take three buses to get here this morning. My wife had to get a taxi.”
“Mr Dunn,” Cooper’s voice hardened. “I’m sorry that our quadruple murder investigation is an inconvenience to you but if you’re quite finished interrupting me I need you to take me to the art department so I can collect some samples of the clay used during Monday’s culture club.”
“Why?” he asked with lowered brows.
Cooper didn’t answer. “Then I need you to show me where I can find,” she checked her notes, “Leroy MacDonald. He was Jasmine and Reuben’s form tutor. Correct?”
Phillip nodded and got to his feet with a number of groans. “This way,” he said. There was still no warmth to his voice. “So who else had their car seized?”
Cooper followed but said nothing.
“Victor drives a blue Passat. He arrived by foot this morning. In here,” he opened the door to a large open space that smelled of white spirit and body odour. Wooden desks were splattered with bright paint and covered in ink doodles, making each table a work of art in its own right. Paintings hung to dry on lengths of string that zigzagged across the ceiling like a clothesline.
A handful of children who looked to be twelve or thirteen removed their green blazers and donned coveralls. They rummaged through drawers and collected their materials for the lesson. A woman with thick, postbox-red curls and heavy jowls took a seat at the teacher’s desk.
“This is Henrietta Winters. Substitute teacher. Stepping in while Brian is acting head,” explained Phillip. “Henrietta, this is DCI Cooper. We’ll be out of your hair in a moment, we just need some clay.”
Eyes followed Cooper and hushed whispers flitted around the room as the students recognised Cooper as a detective.
Phillip entered a store cupboard at the back of the room. Cooper declined to enter the confined space with a man as grumpy as Phillip, so she waited by the door. He emerged after a few seconds of annoyed searching.
“Here. This is the clay we used.”
He dropped a brick-sized lump of clay wrapped in clingfilm into Cooper’s hands.”
“Thank you, Mr Dunn. You’ve been very helpful.” The temptation to use a sarcastic tone was strong, but Cooper’s professionalism held it at bay. “Now, where will I find Mr MacDonald?”
“Upstairs. He shares an office with Pete Parke. Room thirty-eight.” And with that, Phillip Dunn walked away with his arms folded over his chest. He didn’t seem like the same man Cooper had met during the search for Jasmine and Reuben. His mood was understandable if she considered his daughter’s reaction to his car being searched by forensics. Tina had called Cooper many names over the years but she’d never suspected her of violence, or worse.
Cooper knocked on the door to room thirty-eight. A prompt reply told her to “enter.”
Leroy MacDonald and Pete Parke’s office was a cramped affair with two desks that were too big for the room squashed in with filing cabinets and piles of textbooks. One half of the room was cluttered: papers, half-drunk cups of coffee, a newspaper, and at least six pens littered the desk. This was the side of the office where Leroy MacDonald sat. He pushed himself to his feet when he saw Cooper was not a student.
“How can I help you?”
“DCI Erica Cooper. I’m investigating the murders of Rachel Pearson, Michelle Smith, Jasmine Lee and Reuben Jones.”
“Of course. Come in, come in. Please, take Pete’s chair. He’s in the shed teaching basketball to the year tens.”
By contrast, Pete Parke’s half of the room was sparse and tidy. His desk was clear save for two framed photographs and a bottle of Evian water.
Leroy MacDonald was a portly man with a thick beard and a bald head. He wore a crisp white shirt tucked into faded black jeans.
“Awful times. Just horrific.” His voice was quiet and soft with hints of an Irish accent. “Do you have children, detective?”
“Just the one,” said Cooper. “She goes here. Tina Cooper.”
“Oh, of course. I thought I recognised you. I only ask because I have two myself and I’m finding the whole thing just so…” His voice trailed off. “I keep having nightmares.”
“I can imagine,” said Cooper, and she could. Only last night she dreamt someone was taking a scalpel to her chest as someone had done to Rachel.
“My two are younger. In the primary school in Monkseaton. Ben’s nine and Julia’s eight. I’ve enrolled them at the boxing club. Not sure what good it’ll do against an adult but I want them to be able to throw a punch if needed.” He turned and stared out of the window.
“You were Jasmine’s form tutor?”
“Yes,” he answered without turning back to Cooper. “And Reuben’s. Joined at the hip, they were. Freya too. Poor lass hasn’t returned to school yet. Can’t say I blame her.”
Cooper swallowed. The situation was horrible for everyone involved. “Can you tell me about Jasmine and Reuben?”
