Dying to Meet You (3 page)

Four

Tom Handley walked slowly into the small bare white walled room where his daughter’s body lay. He recalled briefly how happy she’d been at her cousin’s wedding only two weeks before. She’d reached up and caught the wedding bouquet and laughing turned round to her mum holding the flowers against her lilac bridesmaid’s dress. She’d looked so pretty. He brushed the tears from his eyes quickly.

The attendant lifted back the white sheet gently. Tom Handley closed his red-rimmed eyes for a moment, blinked, breathed in deeply, and nearly choked on his tears as he looked down at the bruised, battered face. His mouth twisted with anguish and he swallowed hard to clear his throat before he said in a lifeless monotone, ‘Yes - this is my daughter
.’

‘Thank you, Mr Handley. We would like to offer you our most sincere sympathy from her colleagues and myself. Linda will be sadly missed but you must know that already. Please take your time to recover before leaving. Can we offer you a cup of tea or coffee perhaps?’

He shook his head slowly, made a visible effort to pull himself together, and said in a voice made thick with tears, ‘Thank you - no. I must get home. Our son Paul is with my wife Eileen. She was just coming off her hospital shift, when we got your phone call.’

He paused and turned his head to glance back again at his daughter and wiped his eyes quickly with the back of his hand. He’d said his goodbye but he didn’t want to leave his dear girl lying alone in there. Yes, he had sometimes wondered how he would behave if Linda was injured or killed doing her job but he had never
truly been prepared for it and found it hard to accept.

He shook his head slowly. ‘I still can’t believe it’s happened to our girl. Eileen’s a ward nurse in the children’s ward at the local hospital. She’s made of much stronger stuff than me but it has hit her badly. I must get back to her.’

‘DC Calder will drive you home and DI Farmer would like to ask you some questions later when you feel able to do so, Mr Handley.’

He nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘She is going to be badly missed, Mr Handley,’ Calder said taking him out to the car. ‘We’re going to get whoever did this to Linda.’

Five

When Mel got back to her office her phone rang persistently. ‘Hello -
Observer
newspaper, Mel Goring speaking-’

‘Mel - I have to speak to you.’ She groaned inwardly when she heard the distinctive booming voice of her Great Aunt Laura Goring, Uncle Victor’s eldest sister.

‘You’ve obviously heard about your friend, Linda, by now. Victor was in touch with me earlier, and I have to tell you that she came to see me for a reading just two days ago. I was so worried when I saw what was in her cards for her. There was the Tower card for a start. And…that’s not a good portent for anyone to have.’

‘Stop! Stop it right now, please!’ Mel demanded. ‘Aunt Laura, I don’t want to hear it. Not now. This is not the time. ’

There was a snort on the line. ‘I didn’t tell the poor girl what bad things I could deduce from the layout of those Tarot cards she picked. I would
never
do that, Mel. I was naturally disturbed about what I saw laid out before me. But I just told her to be a shade more careful with her dealings at work, I wanted to say much more, wanted to warn her. I’m so sorry, I thought I had to tell you.’

Mel frowned. She believed that her elderly relative was a genuine psychic and like she said could not tell an untruth.
‘You won’t mention it to anyone else will you? It will only make things seem worse for her family if they hear about it.’

‘Of course not! But I have a feeling that I have read the cards recently for someone else who might soon be in trouble too. I saw something that worried me. And I warned the girl to be careful of any strange men she might be likely to meet - but...’ She sighed. ‘I doubt if she will take notice of what I said. The young seldom take notice of words of wisdom from the old.’

‘If you’re so worried about her can’t you at least tell me her name?’

‘I’m not going to, Mel, it’s a confidence I’m not able to break. And I don’t want to cause any fresh panic here at the hotel. I only did the reading because I was asked to. That silly old pair of Webster sisters that I have to contend with while I’m staying at the White Rock Hotel drive me barmy with their protests.
They think that I do the devil’s work.’ Again the loud snort of derision followed her words. ‘And I like to tease them.’

Mel chuckled. ‘That’s a bit tough on them, isn’t it?’

‘Not a bit of it! You ought to have heard the fuss they made when I did a Tarot reading the other evening. You’d have thought I’d let a fox into their chicken run. They flapped and fussed about it so much even Mrs Wyatt had cause to ask them to leave the lounge if they didn’t approve.’

‘And did they?’

‘No - they decided to sit it out. And they seemed quite intrigued by my reading in the end. I’ll have ‘em eating out of my hand before I’m finished.’

‘You’re a naughty old woman. I bet you like to torment those poor old dears mercilessly.’

Laura Goring’s raucous laughter before she put the phone down told Mel that she was right.

Six

‘That was Mel Goring on the phone, Eileen. She sends her love.’ Tom Handley looked worried. ‘I hope it’s not going to be in all the newspapers. I suppose it will be on local TV news,’ he added quietly.

‘Sorry - it’s bound to be, Mr Handley. It’ll be big news here,’ Calder said.

‘Mel is not going to write anything up that will hurt us, love. She’s a good girl. She’ll use her discretion. But it’s got to be publicised. Linda would want her killer to be caught. Some other young woman’s life could be at risk,’ Eileen Handley said catching hold of her Paul’s hand as he joined her on the couch.

‘Thank you Brian for taking and bringing Tom home. And thank the rest of the team at the station. Please let us know of any new developments if you can, won’t you?’

Brian Calder finished his cup of tea and put it down on the tray. ‘Will do - thank you for the tea.’

‘I still think she shouldn’t have gone into the police force.’

‘Mum!’

‘I never wanted her to - she took far too many risks. She’d do anything for that job of hers.’ She dabbed her eyes with a damp tissue
. ‘And now - now we’ll never see her again.’

Tom sat down. ‘Eileen - you know she loved what she did. She didn’t want to do anything else.’

‘Why didn’t she want to get married and have children like Mel?’

‘Because she wasn’t ready. She hadn’t met her Mr Right yet.’

They had always relied on Eileen for strength in any family crisis. Now she needed them, needed to be reassured. Paul was sitting beside her on the sofa, holding his mother’s hand, an arm around her shaking shoulders. Still only seventeen Paul had been an unexpected bonus; coming along when they’d resigned themselves to Linda being their only child.

They would have to sort out Linda’s affairs. Her flat on the seafront for instance; Linda had been so thrilled with it - she had spoken of little else for weeks before she moved in. Eileen had helped her with the colour scheme and the furnishings, pleased that she was asked.

Linda had been fiercely ambitious, worked hard to achieve her rank and had been good at it. Tom kept these thought in his mind and was proud of it. He hoped Eileen might feel that too in time. He spotted a baby picture of Linda lying on the coffee table and knew that Eileen had been looking at it. He wiped away fresh tears with the back of his freckled hand.

‘Do you want a cup of tea, Dad?’

Tom gestured with his hand. ‘Not yet, thanks, son. If I have another I shall be spending more time in the bathroom than down here. Make one for your Mum.’

Seven

Mel Goring sat at her desk, holding her aching head in her hands. Her face was damp with fresh tears. She had to try her best to write a good piece on Linda’s death, but she had been told only the barest details by DI Farmer and she remained disturbed still by Laura’s phone call. She wished she didn’t have to write up the case, but she didn’t want to be scooped by the rest of the media; it would have to be in print for their evening edition.

She was still in the dark about why and how Linda was killed. The cops were not going to give much away at present. It was in their best interests to keep quiet on the case. Especially when it was one of their own who was the victim. She could hardly believe it.
She decided to ring Victor to see if he had remembered anything else.

‘Uncle Victor, I don’t like asking this, but did you manage to see what condition Linda was in when you found her? Did you take a good look at her?’

He breathed in deeply and was quiet for a second or so. ‘Shan’t ever forget it. It was bad, real bad, Mel. What else do you expect when you’ve had the crabs and shrimps to keep you company for a while? The quick glance I gave her told me that she’d been badly battered about the face and head, strangled too by the look of her. She was in a bloody awful shape, poor girl. I’m glad it wasn’t my daughter, kid.’

Mel listened and felt terrible all over again. But she had to know everything. ‘So how was she identified on the beach? Do you know?’

‘I heard a young police officer identify her by the gold pendant she was wearing. I saw it myself glittering round her neck. Before I got sent away, I heard DC Calder, I think it was, say that it was an astrological sign of Cancer - you’d know all about that, right?’

Mel heard and felt her throat constrict tight and her mouth dry and clam up. She cleared her throat only with some effort and said huskily, ‘Yes, I should do. I gave it to Linda for her birthday. So, she was stripped naked and yet the killer left the pendant? Strange that.’ She heard him agree on the other end of the line.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?’

‘I gathered from what I overheard the
m saying that she’d been sexually assaulted. So they’ll be looking for her clothes obviously and hoping that DNA will help suss out her killer, won’t they?’

‘Thanks. You won’t mind if I mention your name in the article, will you? It’ll give you some kudos in the Lobster Pot pub, won’t it, old man?’ She chuckled.

‘Less of the old man, girlie. Can’t say that I shall enjoy taking my part in it though. That poor girl didn’t deserve what happened to her. If I got hold of the bastard that did it, I’d garrotte him first with my fishing line and then I’d cut off his balls and feed ‘em to the fishes.’

‘Uncle Victor!’

Eight

Linda’s apartment was on the second floor of a four storey late Victorian building on the seafront opposite the pier. It had two good-sized bedrooms,
a bathroom, open plan kitchen and a spacious sunlit front lounge, with high plastered ceilings and a small front window balcony filled with flowers in pots overlooking the sea front. It looked and smelt spanking new.

‘Linda used some money an elderly aunt left her to buy it.’ PC Armstrong supplied the information readily for Peterson as they walked in. ‘Before that she was pigging it out with me in my poky little place near the Harling railway station. She
said she didn’t want to worry her folks with the hours she was kept on call if she stayed at home.’

Peterson nodded. She knew from experience the difficulty in finding a decent place to rent in the popular seaside town. She was still looking for a house to buy while staying in the small White Rock hotel on the seafront. She smiled as she recalled that Richard would be joining her this weekend; they were hoping to find the right property that would suit them both, possibly
further out of town for a start in the countryside.

‘Don’t miss anything, lads,’ she said to her officers dressed in their white snowman overalls, covered shoes and disposable latex gloves as they stood in the lounge prepared to start work with forensics. It seemed incredibly tidy; nothing seemed out of place. If Linda was killed
here someone had seen to cleaning up the evidence efficiently afterwards. It reminded Peterson of a show place waiting for the estate agents and their clients to visit.

‘Nice place,’ she commented.

‘Smashing,’ Armstrong contributed. ‘She had good taste.’

The
furnishing was attractive, simple and easy to live with. There was a delicate long stemmed crystal vase with a tall pink-throated orchid and two used wine glasses standing on the glass topped coffee table by the long cream settee. They looked out of place considering the extreme tidiness elsewhere.

‘Phew! Expensive taste. It’s real and quite fresh,’ Calder said picking up the vase with his gloved hands to sniff the flower. ‘Shame there’s no scent.’ He put it back down on the table. Picked up the glasses. ‘Seems like there might be prints on both of these.’

‘Check them for Linda’s, and our files for sexual offenders.’

‘The bed’s made. Looks tidy
like it’s not been slept in.’ Trask chewing on his peppermint sweet came out of the main bedroom. ‘Looks like there’s clean sheets on the bed and bed linen left in the washing machine.’