A Lethal Deception, page 6
The twenty-something’s eyes opened wider, and she slipped the chain away. ‘Yes, come in. I’m Sarah Avendale.’
She closed the door and gestured to a living room off to the left. ‘’Scuse the mess. We’re not due another rental inspection for two months, so…’
Laura resisted the urge to cover her nose when she walked into the room, the state of it reminding her all too well of her first year away at university until she decided she’d had enough of her housemates’ aversion to housework and found digs elsewhere.
As if reading her mind, Sarah hurried across to a TV cabinet, picked up an aerosol and sprayed it liberally above her head.
‘Sorry. The cat puked in here this morning. Do you want to take a seat?’
She waved Laura towards a sagging armchair before dropping onto a beanbag next to the television. ‘Elena will be down in a minute – she’s just out the shower.’
On cue, the hairdryer ceased bellowing and Laura heard footsteps on the floor above.
Moments later, a tall woman with freshly washed hair appeared at the door. ‘Hi, sorry – only got in a few hours ago. I’m Elena Travis.’
She gave a shy smile before crossing to a two-seater sofa under the window, then sniffed as she lowered herself onto the cushions.
‘God, not again.’
Laura extracted her notebook from her bag and popped her pen, clearing her throat. ‘So, on the phone, Sarah, you said you both knew Felicity at school?’
‘Yeah – we all ended up in the same class for A-level English,’ came the reply.
‘We hit it off straight away,’ Elena added. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone. Especially like that.’
She shuddered, and wiped at her eyes.
‘What she means is, Felicity was always the sensible one,’ said Sarah. ‘Back then, me and Elena were…’
‘A pain in the arse.’ Elena smiled. ‘Honestly, when I think back to some of the things we used to get up to. My poor parents…’
‘But Felicity wasn’t,’ Sarah continued. ‘She tended to hang around the fringes.’
‘How did you end up becoming friends?’ said Laura.
‘She was getting bullied – nothing major, just being sidelined by the others for being too posh. We didn’t – we didn’t care what people thought of us, so she sort of latched onto us. I suppose we made her look good, or at least acceptable to everyone else. They left her alone after a few weeks of her hanging around with us,’ said Sarah. ‘And once we left school, we weren’t of any use to her anymore so she dumped us.’
Laura frowned. ‘How long ago was this?’
‘About eighteen months ago,’ said Elena. ‘It started with her turning down invites to go out together – the three of us always went clubbing at least every two weeks, sometimes local and sometimes in the city. We used to go out at weekends and stuff, just one of us driving and finding somewhere fun for the day…’
‘Then, like she says, it all stopped.’ Sarah’s brow puckered. ‘We never did find out why.’
‘Was there an argument, or anything like that?’ said Laura.
Elena shrugged. ‘She didn’t really say anything. She just stopped talking to us, and then unfollowed us on social media so we couldn’t message her or anything to find out if she was okay.’
‘I suppose once she started running her own business, we weren’t good enough anymore.’ Sarah’s lips formed a moue. ‘Actually, she was a bit of a bitch about it the last time I spoke with her.’
‘Oh? In what way?’ Laura’s pen paused above her notes.
Sarah sighed. ‘I suppose as we all got older she started looking down her nose at us – well, me certainly – because she didn’t have the same struggles as we did. Money-wise, I mean. Looking back, I think she only hung around with us because we were useful…’
‘Like Sarah said, she got bullied when she first started at the school so she hung around with us for protection,’ said Elena without rancour. ‘Sarah here didn’t take shit from no-one – still doesn’t…’
At that, her housemate emitted a giggle. ‘God, we were terrors back then.’
Laura looked up from her notes and eyed the two women. ‘We found a package containing what we believe to be an illegal substance tucked into Felicity’s bra last night. Were you aware she was taking drugs?’
‘Felicity? On drugs?’ Elena twisted in her seat to look at her housemate. ‘God, no. I wasn’t, anyway.’
Sarah wrinkled her nose. ‘Nor me. I mean, we see it all the time obviously when we’re out but it never really appealed to me.’
‘So you’ve no idea when she might have started, or whether she was a habitual user?’ Laura said. ‘Or where she might have got them from?’
‘No,’ said Elena. ‘Like we said, we’ve lost touch with her. She wasn’t seeing anyone back then, and I don’t know what her circumstances are – were – now.’
‘Was Felicity already talking about starting her own business by the time you lost contact with her?’ said Laura.
‘No – she was still working at the supermarket. It was all the work she could get, although she mentioned something about signing up with some recruitment agencies so she could find some admin work.’ A sad smile flickered across Sarah’s face. ‘I think she always felt the supermarket work was beneath her and that she was destined for bigger things.’
‘And that’s what makes her death all the more difficult to understand.’ Elena sniffed and wiped at her eyes once more. ‘Felicity just wasn’t the sort of person who would kill herself.’
Fourteen
Kay stood under the concrete portico of Derwent Valley Hospital and squinted through the rain as another ambulance tore past her into the emergency bays.
She turned away from the vehicle as the driver emerged, the green jumpsuit-cladded paramedic rushing to the rear and helping her colleague lower a stretcher to the ground.
The rattle of casters across concrete pavers receded into the building as Barnes hurried towards her, his coat held over his head and his shoes splashing through puddles.
‘I think I found the last space in the car park,’ he muttered, lowering his collar and following her inside.
‘And the farthest, by the looks of you.’ She smiled. ‘All set?’
‘As I ever will be. How about you – all right?’
Kay nodded. ‘Just happy to be contributing. I keep thinking Sharp’s going to sideline me from the incident room because of the robbery.’
Barnes shook his head, sending rivulets of water running down his face before he pulled out a cotton handkerchief and wiped it away. ‘He needs you, guv. You know how understaffed we are at the moment. Besides, I’d imagine until Adam gets home you need something to distract you, right?’
‘You know me too well, Ian.’
He grinned by way of reply, and held open the door leading to the morgue. ‘I’m glad Gavin’s keeping an eye on that investigation, too. It’ll do him good.’
‘It will, you’re right.’ Kay turned her attention to a lanky man standing behind a small reception desk, his attention on his computer screen. ‘Hi, Simon.’
‘Afternoon, detectives. Straight on through as soon as you’ve signed in and suited up, please,’ the pathologist’s assistant said without looking up. ‘We’re on a tight timeframe today, so Lucas has made a start I’m afraid.’
‘Thanks,’ said Barnes. ‘See you in there, guv.’
Once Kay had changed into protective overalls, gloves and booties she made her way from the ladies’ changing room through a set of double steel doors and into a cool area illuminated by overhead lights.
The smell assaulted her as the doors swished closed, and she took an involuntary step back.
Barnes shot her a sympathetic glance over his mask, then turned his attention back to the examination table where Lucas Anderson worked.
The pathologist paused, scalpel held aloft as she approached. ‘Afternoon, Kay. I was just telling Ian – your suicide victim was more than just an occasional user.’
Kay frowned and moved to where he stood beside the woman’s bare shoulders. ‘Needle tracks?’
‘No, here.’ Lucas moved out of the lights so the two detectives could better see and used his gloved little finger to point at Felicity’s nose. ‘See here? The septum is broken in places, under these sores. We see it in cases where people are frequent users of powdered drugs – over time, it burns through the skin and cartilage. In her case, we’ve found traces of ketamine in the urine samples we took earlier together with alcohol – a deadly combination.’
‘The alcohol enhanced the effect of the drug, you mean?’
‘It would’ve amplified it considerably, yes. On its own it’s a strong hallucinogenic dissociative. Mixed with the alcohol, it would have caused hallucinations, a lack of awareness about her surroundings…’
Kay’s jaw clenched. ‘So she was a regular user?’
‘I should say so.’ Lucas indicated a stainless steel bowl off to one side. ‘Her bladder shows all the signs of the sort of damage caused by ketamine. A colleague of mine in the gastrointestinal department at Maidstone says he’s doing at least six cystectomies a year now, all because of drug abuse. It used to be that most of his work came through the oncology department.’
‘Would Felicity have been in any pain with this?’ said Barnes.
‘Definitely – abdominal cramping, difficulty going to the toilet.’ Lucas sighed. ‘I think she would’ve had to seek help within months given the damage we’re seeing in her internal organs.’
‘That ties in with what her mother told us about Felicity needing a lot of time off work due to period cramps,’ said Kay.
‘It would make sense. I’d imagine the pain would have radiated through her abdomen on a regular basis, more so in the days immediately after taking the drugs.’
‘Makes me wonder what she was like to work with,’ said Barnes. ‘Perhaps we should speak to her manager at the supermarket.’
‘Good idea. Maybe some of her colleagues there might know who was supplying the stuff.’ Kay turned her attention back to Lucas. ‘Was there anything in her medical records to suggest a history of depression?’
‘None at all. The last time she visited the family doctor was three years ago for a tetanus shot.’
She heard Barnes exhale behind his mask, echoing her sadness at another wasted life.
While Lucas completed the post mortem, her thoughts drifted to the attack on Adam and the theft of ketamine from the veterinary practice.
If Gavin and his team of officers were unable to find those responsible before another wave of cheap hallucinogenics became available in the county town, there would be even more deaths.
Felicity Gregor might have been the first, but she wouldn’t be the last.
Fifteen
Barnes opened the door into the incident room for Kay and fell into step behind the detective inspector while she weaved between the desks to the whiteboard.
He slid the car keys next to his computer keyboard as he passed, then nodded his thanks when she held out a thick black pen to him and pointed at the board.
‘How do you want to approach this?’ she said as he began to write.
‘It’s going to be tricky talking to the parents again, I think.’ He frowned, then reached into his pocket for his reading glasses and peered at the other notes layering the board’s surface before adding the salient points from the post mortem findings. ‘Maybe we try to speak to the mother, Isobel, first. I mean, she seemed to be the one who Felicity confided in and she was the one who flagged that Felicity had been taking time off work from the supermarket because of bad cramps.’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you on that one.’ Kay folded her arms and leaned against a nearby desk. ‘At least then we’ll be able to establish a timeframe of when she might have started taking the drugs but it must’ve been a while. From what Lucas was saying, Felicity was facing a bleak future health-wise. Those cramps were only the start of it – she’ll have deteriorated since then.’
‘We’ll need to try to understand what – or who – got her started taking drugs, and who her supplier was as well,’ said Barnes.
He re-capped the pen and turned to run his gaze over the incident room until he saw Laura standing beside her desk and beckoned to her.
‘The two friends you spoke to this morning – did they make any mention of Felicity taking drugs?’
‘They lost touch with her about eighteen months ago but confirmed that, as far as they knew, she wasn’t a user back then.’ Laura jutted her chin at the whiteboard. ‘Are those the PM findings?’
‘Yes – we should get the full report later this week,’ said Barnes, ‘but it looks like Felicity was a regular ketamine user. Lucas is sure that a combination of that and the alcohol found in her system was an indication that she may have been hallucinating when she died.’
He saw Kay nibbling at a fingernail as she listened, her eyes on the board. ‘Are you all right, guv?’
‘Yes,’ she mumbled, dropping her hand. ‘Just thinking that with the theft from the vet practice that there’s even more of this stuff out there now.’
‘Sarge? Got a minute?’
Barnes turned at the sound of Dave Morrison’s voice to see the uniformed constable walking towards them.
‘Sure. What’ve you got?’
‘Background checks for the people Felicity was contacting via email and her social media accounts on a regular basis – courtesy of Andy Grey’s lot at Northfleet.’ Morrison handed them each a photocopied page. ‘This is a summary of the ones I think we should start with. There’s a local supplier of materials she emailed at least once a week, and Andy’s managed to put together her client list as well. There are four active clients at the moment that Felicity was creating design briefs for, and two that owe her money for interior design services she finished last month. He’s still working on her mobile phone records though.’
‘That’s an extensive list. Good work,’ said Kay. ‘How do you want to split these up, Ian?’
Barnes scratched the side of his nose. ‘Dave – can you phone the two clients who owe money and maybe visit them if you think the conversations warrant it?’
‘Will do.’
‘Thanks – that then leaves the four active clients…’
‘I can take two of those, Ian,’ said Laura. ‘I can speak to them in between finishing going through the CCTV footage from the vets, if Gavin doesn’t mind…’
‘Have a word with him, make sure he’s happy for you to split your workload between the two of us,’ said Barnes. ‘Kay and I will take the other two clients in the morning then.’
‘What about bank statements?’ said Kay. ‘Have those come in yet?’
‘Hang on, guv. They’re on my desk.’ Morrison jogged back to his seat, swept up a stack of paperwork and handed it over. ‘You can see from the summary balances at the top that Felicity wasn’t doing as well as she was alluding to on social media. You’ve got a current account there with a maxed-out overdraft facility and I’ve also checked her credit card statement – she was a few hundred pounds off the limit on that, and only making the minimum repayment each month.’
Barnes grimaced as he peered over Kay’s shoulder. ‘Looks like most of her money is going on clothes. I recognise some of those store names.’
‘When I looked at her social media profile for her business, she’s never wearing the same clothes twice,’ said Laura. ‘I thought maybe she might’ve borrowed some of them or bought second-hand…’
‘Not looking at this lot, she didn’t.’
Kay caught his eye as she handed back the bank statements to Morrison. ‘On top of that, she was funding a serious drugs dependency, too. I’ll make a few more discreet enquiries with Isobel Gregor to find out if Felicity contributed to any bills while she was living at home, and see if she’s aware of any other income sources.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ Barnes turned and swept his gaze over the myriad of notes on the whiteboard before sighing.
It seemed the more they discovered about Felicity Gregor’s lifestyle, the more questions arose.
‘And we have no bloody answers,’ he muttered.
Sixteen
Laura pushed her computer keyboard away and reached out for her coffee, wrinkling her nose when she realised it had gone cold while she worked.
She rubbed at tired eyes, then leaned forward and pressed the “play” button on the screen again, glancing at the clock in the corner of the screen.
‘See you, Laura.’
Raising her gaze as Debbie walked past with her bag slung over her shoulder, she managed a small smile. ‘Are you in tomorrow?’
‘I’ve got a rostered day off, but I’m back in the day after. I’ve managed to get assigned to the weekend shift in here, too.’ The uniformed constable grinned. ‘Beats being out and about in town on a Saturday night.’
‘Okay – see you then.’
‘Bye.’
Laura was already watching the images flit across the screen by the time Debbie wandered away, keen to reach the three-quarter mark on the list of files still waiting to be assessed before she left for the day.
She cupped her chin in her hand, resolving to watch three more files before making another mug of coffee, and settled in to watch.
According to the date stamp flickering at the top of the screen, the recording was from Monday and late afternoon in the surgery. Laura speeded up the playback to watch it at double speed and leaned closer as Adam and his colleagues dealt with their clients and their pets.
The practice cared for a wide variety of animals, and Laura knew from the information Scott Mildenhall provided that he had been out on his local rounds while Adam worked his way through the late-afternoon clinic.
It had been a busy time, and three clients and their pets were waiting in the reception area when a woman walked in holding a kitty carrier and approached Stephanie.
The receptionist spoke with the woman for a few moments, then gestured to the seating arrangement beside the front window and handed her a clipboard.
