Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (95 page)

Normally, he would have hung around for a few hours after enjoying the girls. But right then, all he wanted to do was get out of there. He kicked at the side of the barn behind him and, with his shoulders slumped, moved towards his car. His mind a blur of what-ifs. All his plans had been destroyed by those two mind-numbing words—“I’m pregnant.” Anger fuelled his next move. He turned around and stormed back into the barn, shouting, “It changes nothing. Her being pregnant, it changes
nothing
. You hear me?”

The girls’ crying ceased. Not a whimper, not a single breath, filled his ears. Regaining control was important. And, boy, had he done that. Determined that the girls should know who the boss was, he entered the first stable. Her head tilted his way as she heard the crunching straw move beneath his feet.

Diane screamed as his hand grazed her skin at the ankle and blazed a trail up her shaking leg. He unzipped his jeans, and despite her objections to his intrusion, he took her, pounding her with the speed of an express train. Spent, he moved on to the next girl, Tina. She lay motionless, recognising that fighting the inevitable was pointless. He grinned, knowing his determination would conquer all.

He entered the stable in which Sandy was trussed up like the others and hesitated in the doorway. He took a step towards her, then stepped back. An invisible wall had just been erected, and he found it impossible to surmount. Several times, he attempted to get near the girl, but an impenetrable force kept him at bay. Eventually, he left the barn and got back in his car. Slamming the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, he selected first gear and drove away. He was overcome with defeat instead of his usual euphoria.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ellen wrapped up warm that morning. Frost-etched lawns made her shiver as she passed by them on her way to the hospital. She put the heater on full blast and hoped she wasn’t coming down with a chill. Her body’s weird way of dealing with stress was flu-like symptoms at the most inopportune times.
Think positive, girl. You’re not coming down with anything. Another few months, and you’ll be sitting by the pool on a Greek island.
The heat from the heater began to warm her, and soon, she was holding the collar of her jumper away from her neck to try to cool down.
You’re never satisfied, are you? Maybe early menopause is setting in!
She found herself chuckling and hoped the old adage, “Many a true word spoken in jest,” didn’t come true.

The hospital was situated on Wylds Lane, close to the Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce factory. It was a turreted building that Ellen imagined had been used in the many battles associated with the county over the centuries.

At eight forty-five in the morning, only a few cars were parked in the car park. Ellen assumed they were the remnants of the night shift before the day shift arrived. As she left the car and entered the stone building, the smell of commercial cleaner hit her.

She approached the receptionist, a woman wearing a light-green uniform. “Hello. Is it possible to speak to the person in charge?” Ellen asked brightly, with one of her best smiles fixed in position.

“I’m afraid Dr. Nixon isn’t in yet.” The woman looked at her watch. “She should be here any minute if you care to take a seat. May I ask what it’s about? Only, we’re pretty full at the moment.”

“It’s a personal matter, really. I’ll wait over here, if that’s okay?”

“Certainly. I’ll let Dr. Nixon know that you’re here to see her the minute she walks in, she’s usually very prompt so she shouldn’t be too long.”

Ellen nodded and walked over to a section off to the left, where chairs surrounded a small coffee table. Before sitting down, she selected a
Homes and Gardens
magazine off the table and started flicking through it. A few pages in, Ellen glanced up to see a tall, elegant woman having a chat with the receptionist, then both of them looked her way.

The woman walked over to greet her. “I’m Dr. Nixon. You wanted to see me?”

“Only if you have the time, Doctor.”

“I can spare you five minutes if you come through to the office now. How’s that?”

Ellen stood up and offered her hand. “Ellen Brazil from the Worcester Missing Persons Hotline. Pleased to meet you.”

The woman’s brow furrowed for a second or two before she turned and headed down the hallway. Ellen had to trot to keep up with her very long strides.

“How may I be of assistance, Ms. Brazil?” the doctor asked once they were seated at the oak-veneered desk that dominated the compact, dreary-grey room.

Ellen cleared her throat and looked the woman directly in the eye. “I was wondering if you could tell me something about an employee of the clinic.”

“For what reason, may I ask?”

“I’m just following up on an enquiry,” Ellen replied, trying to be as evasive as possible.

“What sort of enquiry? A missing person one?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The doctor’s brow furrowed again, and she looked agitated by Ellen’s unwillingness to elucidate fully her reason for being there. “You’ll forgive me for not completely understanding any of this. If you’re dealing with a missing person, I really don’t understand why you would come here in search of an employee. Unless the employee is using a false name. Is that it?”

“Not exactly, no.” Ellen wiped a hand across her face as she thought about how best to proceed.

“Maybe if you tell me the employee’s name, that might help?”

“Mike Fallon.”

The woman’s reaction was confusing. At first, her eyes bulged with recognition and possible disbelief before she quickly recovered her composure. Her hands clenched in front of her on the desk, hard enough to make her knuckles go white with the strain.

Hmm, that’s interesting. Now what do I do?

Since the doctor didn’t respond, Ellen asked her, “Do you know him?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of him. However, I’m still at a loss as to know how I can help.”

“I wondered if you could tell me what sort of character he is, for a start?”

The doctor gracefully shrugged and looked off to the left as she spoke. “A very conscientious employee. Never had any trouble from him, as far as I can remember.”

“I see. What shift does he work? Days or nights? Can you tell me how long he has worked for the clinic?”

“Days, I believe. A ten-till-six shift, I think it is. Without looking at his personnel file, I can’t really give you a definite answer as to how long he’s worked here.”

“Roughly will do.” Ellen noted the way the doctor was still avoiding eye contact.
There’s definitely more to this than meets the eye.

Dr. Nixon tilted her head in thought, and she twisted her hands, still clenched tightly together, from side to side. “Approximately eight years, I suppose. I still can’t see what the connection is or why your firm would be interested in my… employee.”

“Okay, cards on the table. This man is a suspect in a case I’m working on where several Worcester women have gone missing.”

The colour drained rapidly from the doctor’s cheeks. The woman’s gaze finally came back to meet Ellen’s. If she didn’t know any better, she would have considered the woman’s reaction to be one of incredulity, tinged with a knowing truth. “Are you all right?” Ellen prompted.

“What? Oh, yes. I’m fine. I’m going to have to end this little chat shortly as I have an important meeting to attend in half an hour, and I need to brush up on my notes before I leave.”

“Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate your help. It’s been enlightening.” Ellen smiled, confident that the words she’d chosen would confuse the woman. She shook the doctor’s hand and left the office without either of them saying another word.

Ellen drove back to the office with more questions than answers running through her mind. Certain that she had stumbled on something, she wasn’t quite sure what that something was. Her frustration built as she parked the car and entered her workplace.

“Hey, how did it go?” Brian asked.

“Interesting. Let me think on it awhile, and I’ll tell you all about it. The trouble is, I’m a little confused by the meeting I’ve just had and would like to analyse things before talking about it.”

“Sounds ominous. I know what that means. I’ll leave you to sort things. Let me know when I can help piece things together.”

She winked at her partner, appreciative of his understanding, then sat at her desk and wrote down a couple of pages of notes. On one of the pages, she wrote down Mike Fallon’s name, and on the other, she wrote the name of Dr. Nixon. “Brian, do me a favour, will you?”

“Go on.”

“Do a background check on a Dr. Nixon who works at the clinic. A female doctor. Sorry, I didn’t get a Christian name for her.”

“Not a problem. Leave it with me. What else have you got planned for today?”

“I promised I’d get the CCTV discs back to the nightclub. I can do that later. Apart from that, I need to look further into this Fallon’s background. He’s definitely our number-one person of interest.”

“Looks that way from where I’m sitting. I’ll get back to you with the doc’s info soon.”

“You do that while I make the coffee, for a change.”

Brian gave her a grin that could have easily challenged the Cheshire cat’s.

About an hour later, between the two of them, they had come up with more information than either of them had expected to find. Brian told Ellen what he’d found out about the doctor first.

“Susan Nixon’s been a doctor at the clinic for the last eight years. Previously, she was the head of a surgical team at another clinic specialising in heart problems.”

“Any reason she gave up a good post like that to become the head of the private clinic.”

“None that I can see. Maybe she just wanted a less stressful role later on in her life. What is she now… err… almost sixty, according to my records.”

“Makes sense. Nevertheless, she must have taken a hit on her salary.”

“Maybe money isn’t her god like it is for the other surgeons. Could be that she genuinely cares about her patients, unlike some doctors.”

Ellen’s nose twitched as she thought over his suggestion. “Not totally convinced by that. Can you trawl back through the local newspaper’s archives? See if there has been anything untoward written about the clinic since her reign began.”

His magic fingers went to work, and within minutes, she had her answer.

“That’s a negative. Zilch, nothing to report—on that front, at least. No suspicious deaths of any elderly patients, as is usually the case when these types of hospitals or clinics are under scrutiny.”

“Okay, how about personal, as opposed to professional, stuff on the doc.”

“Give me ten minutes.”

Ellen, lost deep in thought, stared out at the sombre-looking sky and sensed a storm heading their way.
Mike Fallon, what have you been up to
? His work schedule certainly made room for his night-time activities, if he did turn out to be the abductor they had in their sights.
But he goes to the gym during the day. Maybe he goes on his lunch break, or I’ve seen him there on his day off.
Ellen realised that there was still an awful lot of digging to do about this man before she could either tackle him or get the police involved in the case.

“Bingo!” Brian shouted, interrupting her thought process.

Ellen left her desk and headed his way. She could tell by the beaming smile he was sporting that he had struck gold.

“What have you found, maestro?”

He leaned back in his chair and pointed triumphantly at the screen. “See for yourself, partner.”

She bent down and read the details of Dr. Susan Nixon’s personal life, which in truth, was pretty boring—until the last paragraph on the screen.
After grieving the death of her former husband, Giles Fallon, to bowel cancer, Dr. Nixon married an old family friend.
Ellen glanced at Brian in open-mouthed shock. “Bloody hell! Did I just read that right?”

Brian’s nod was as rhythmic as a metronome. “Giles Fallon. I bet you a hundred quid, too, that they have a son called Mike.”