Lee Weeks - Frozen Grave

Carter watched her talking. She had become as thin as a reed. She lost weight so quickly. Her olive-coloured skin normally gave her a healthy-looking glow but not at the moment. She turned her face from the breeze that had sprung up. She was clutching the phone tight to her head, sheltering the mouthpiece with her hand.

‘Is she okay?’ asked Tucker.

Carter sighed. ‘It’s always difficult to tell with Willis. In all the time we’ve been partners, she’s never really opened up to me about all parts of her life.’

‘Her mother, you mean?’

‘Yes, her mother, Bella. I know the facts but I don’t know the feelings. I think she feels that if anyone really found those out she would enter a world full of chaos and unpredictability and she can’t bear to be out of control.’

‘She’s a good detective.’

‘She’s brilliant at some things. But she also has large gaps in her knowledge. She cannot get behind it when it involves crimes of passion, matters of love. She doesn’t really see it. It’s still black and white to her. She’s had no parental love.’

‘What about boyfriends? Men in her life?’

‘You’ll have to ask her all that. She would hate me telling you anything about personal stuff. Talking about her mother is okay – she is in the public domain. But Ebony’s sanctity would be a terrible thing to break into. I’m not sure how she’d recover. It’s taken me over a year to gain her trust and friendship.’

They watched her put her phone away and walk back to the car. She had a look of sadness on her face. She was staring at the ground as she got in and put on her seat belt.

‘Okay, Eb?’

Willis didn’t look at Carter. She stared straight ahead. He started the engine.

‘Yes, I don’t have to go to the hospital. There’s nothing I can do. She’s earned herself an indefinite stay in Rampton.’ Willis closed her eyes and laid her head back onto the headrest. ‘She attacked a pregnant woman, cut out her baby.’ Tucker reached forward and put his hand on her shoulder.

Carter put the car into gear and pulled out of the lay-by. ‘We’ll head to Exeter and drop off Tucker and then we’ll hit the motorway home.’

A text came through from Harding. Willis read it:

We’re in. I have an invite to meet her and a couple of the others.

After they’d dropped Tucker back in Exeter, Carter and Willis started the drive back to London.

‘We’d better make sure Harding follows a brief,’ Carter said, as they took the motorway north to Bristol. There were frozen fields either side of them as after the floods of autumn had come the cold of midwinter. The day was already dark with layers of deepening grey.

‘Is she dead, the woman your mother attacked?’

‘Yes. So is her baby.’

‘Christ – she’s a monster.’

‘Yes. I warned them when I was there. I could see it building in her. The business about finding my father – I should have handled that differently. That tipped her over the edge. She knew I wouldn’t want him to see her. I couldn’t risk his life being ruined. She knew I’d think that in the end.’

‘I know that you handled it better than most people. You did it with a calculated approach. I know if someone could read your mother’s mind they’d be in a very dark place, so don’t think you should have seen any more than you did already. You need to keep sane, Ebony. You know all those years of your mother’s neglect has left you much more stable than you deserve to be. Good job you were such a bright child that you could outsmart her.’

‘I never looked on it like that. I always saw it as just managing. She’s frighteningly clever.’

He reached over and gave her a jab on her arm.

‘Guess who asked me if you had a boyfriend? Well, not directly.’ She looked across at him, waiting for the answer. ‘Scott, of course!’

‘I hope you didn’t tell him anything.’

‘What like? She’s only into men with train sets?’

‘Stop being mean about Darren. You know it’s more about the preservation of the old engines.’

‘Huh! That’s what he told all the women.’

‘Anyway, we’re not dating any more and we haven’t been for six months, which is longer than it lasted altogether, so you can stop taking the piss now.’

Willis took a call from Zoe Blackman and put her phone in the speaker dock.

‘Toffee is showing signs of coming round. His brain scan is looking positive. His eyes are fluttering in response to simple questions, but he’s not talking yet.’

‘Have someone stay with him at all the time,’ Carter said. ‘The only real lead we have to solving any of the murders is Toffee. If he gives us a name then we can hope all the cases will fall into place.’

‘I will make sure he’s not left alone.’

‘What’s happening with Simon Smith? Has he any more information for us?’

‘I’m going to look for him now. He’s here, because I saw his jacket. He may have slipped off for a coffee.’

‘He could still have a lot more to tell us. If he and Toffee are friends then he might have let something slip. Ask him if Toffee ever used his laptop, ask him if we can have it for a couple of days.’

‘I’ll ask.’ Willis ended Blackman’s call but kept the phone in her hand.

‘Shall I ring Robbo and see what’s happening up there? Feels like ages since we were there.’

‘Yeah – you and I are the same, Eb: too much green makes us feel uncomfortable. All this countryside makes me think I’ve dropped off the end of the earth.’

‘Did Mahmet turn up?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Keep officers patrolling the estate. This should bring him out. He’s got to go to his own granddad’s funeral. What happened to the dog?’

‘He even tried to bite the gun that shot him.’

‘Was he tagged in some way?’

‘You mean an identity chip?’

‘Yes.’

‘No chance.’

‘We must have Balik’s prints on file?’

‘Yes, we do, but they don’t match any prints from the crime scene. Someone was wearing gloves; guess that was probably Balik.’

‘I’ll ask Sandford if we can still get a print from that. Glove prints have been admissible before.’

‘Okay. How are you getting on with the PCs from the hostel of Faith and Light?’

‘Wading through them.’

‘Might be quicker to take Harding’s laptop and do it that way.’

‘I’ll ask again.’

‘Tell her she owes it to Lolly. It’s the only way we’re going to catch anyone for her murder.’

‘What’s the report from surveillance on Ellerman? Where is he right now?’ asked Carter.

‘He’s been at home. He’s decorating, we think. It’s noisy inside. He’s been sighted briefly in the garden, that’s about as interesting as it gets. His wife comes and goes. Yesterday, one of the team followed her when she left the house.’

‘What did they report?’

‘She was out all day. She sat in a café with WiFi and, as far as the officer could see, she was working on a website design.’

‘Did he see what it was?’

‘He said it was in Spanish.’

‘For Ellerman’s Hacienda Renovations company?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t get a good look.’

‘What has he got her doing? Designing him a website to stop us prying into that? If so, why is she doing it outside the house?’

‘Ellerman must think the place is bugged.’

‘It is.’

‘Yeah, but we can’t see what she’s surfing in real time unless we put a Trojan on her laptop and that means getting our hands on it.’

‘We can think about that.’

‘Ellerman is playing clever with keeping the noise levels high in the house. We can’t hear their conversations.’