Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

SIO Michael Robshaw finalised briefing by telling everyone there was a press conference that afternoon and that they should expect a lot of interest in the days ahead. He told them that he was already fending off calls regarding Friday’s High Court Appeal following the request for his immediate release from Daniel Weaver’s barrister. “We’re up against the clock now on this,” he concluded.

* * * * *

Following morning briefing Hunter made toast, poured himself a fresh drink of tea and made Grace a coffee. Then, while she chronicled the previous day’s meeting with Peter Blake-Hall, he put in a phone call to the local Probation Service. He caught up with Jodie Marie Jenkinson’s Probation Officer, a man called Ray Austin, as he was about to leave the office for his first court appearance of the day. He could tell from the man’s reaction that the news of her death had come as a surprise. He told Hunter he would be back in the office for eleven o’clock and they arranged to meet then.

Hunter settled down to catch up with his own paperwork, and at 10.40am he picked up the folder containing Jodie Marie Jenkinson’s sudden death report and headed off out for his meeting.

Barnwell Probation Service was housed in a large double-fronted Victorian building in a cul-de-sac of similar style dwellings. It had once been an area where the well-to-do business people of the locale lived, but over the years, as people’s lifestyles and status had changed, the place had altered. Some of the houses had been sold on to developers, who had divided them into flats, and the two buildings either side of the Probation Service housed a firm of accountants and a private dental practice.

Hunter entered the reception area, gave the woman behind the reinforced glass screen his name, and told her he had an appointment.

There were a couple of young men in the reception area taking up seats flanking one side of the wall. Hunter immediately clocked one of them. He’d had dealings with him before over drug offences. They stared at each other for several seconds before the young man looked away sheepishly.

Hunter had only been waiting for a couple of minutes when a door next to the reception counter opened. The man framed in the doorway threw Hunter for a second, because he bore a striking resemblance to the torn photograph recovered from Jodie Marie Jenkinson’s jeans pocket. Hunter realised he had seen this man in and around the magistrate’s courts building. He quickly recovered his composure, hoping the man hadn’t spotted the startled look. When the probation officer gave him a faint smile, Hunter realised his reaction hadn’t drawn attention.

The man said, “DS Kerr?”

Hunter nodded.

“We spoke earlier. I’m Ray Austin. Would you like to come through?” He opened the door fully and stepped to one side.

As Hunter brushed past, out of the corner of one eye he glanced at Ray Austin again. This revelation meant that he had to change his approach and the line of questioning he had originally planned, until he got to the bottom of why Jodie had a photograph of her Probation Officer.

He led Hunter up a switch-back staircase to the first floor landing. There, a security door prevented them going any further. Ray Austin punched a four digit code into a key-pad and the door clicked open. He directed Hunter down a dimly lit corridor and then showed him into an office, the heavy four-panelled door of which bore a plate with his name. Hunter saw that Ray Austin’s title was Senior Probation Officer.

Austin slipped past Hunter and dropped down into a high-back chair behind a cluttered desk. He offered Hunter a seat, then parted some of the paperwork and rested his forearms.

“Can I get you a drink?”

Hunter shook his head. “No thanks. To be honest I’m in the middle of a murder enquiry at the moment and I’ve a tight schedule today. I’m fitting in this in between my other enquiries.

“You’ve confused me Sergeant Kerr. You said on the phone you were investigating Jodie’s death and now you’ve just said you’re involved in a murder enquiry. Are the two not the same thing?”

“Sorry. My apologies. I explained myself badly there. Yes I am investigating Jodie’s death and I am also involved in a murder enquiry, but the two are not related.”

“So how can I help?”

“Well I’m led to believe you’re her Probation Officer.”

“Yes, for my sins. Jodie came to me after her last court appearance six months ago.” He leaned further forward. “When I say for my sins, I don’t mean that in a derogative way. Jodie had her faults, but like a lot of our clients, once you got past the veneer there was a different person under the surface. You might find that difficult to believe, I guess, from your dealings. But they come to us having received their punishment and the majority just get their heads down. Jodie wasn’t like that though. I realised long ago that her probation sentence actually put some structure and purpose into her life, and it was a pleasure to work with her. She always did everything we asked and was always on time for her appointments, unlike many of our other clients. Hearing of her death this morning has come as a real shock, I can tell you.” He paused and licked his lips. “To be honest I was about to write her up for breaching her sentence. She missed her last two appointments. That was unusual and I did cut her a bit of slack because of how good she had been in the past and so rang her mobile on several occasions. When she didn’t return my calls and didn’t turn up for the second appointment, I thought she’d done a runner.” He shook his head. “I know why now. When did Jodie die?”

The comment about him trying to contact Jodie on her mobile jolted Hunter’s brain. Where was her mobile? It hadn’t been in her possession or at the scene where she had been found. He stored that thought away and then asked, “Can I ask when those appointments were?”

Ray Austin grabbed hold of the computer mouse for his desktop system and tapped it. Switching his eyes to the computer monitor, he made a series of swipes and clicks with the mouse and then returned his gaze to Hunter.

“The first one she missed was on Tuesday eighteenth November. She was booked in for three-thirty. The second one was last Tuesday, the twenty-fifth at two o’clock. We had another scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I had just reduced them to weekly appointments because she was doing so well.”

“Jodie’s body was found on the twenty-first, but we believe she had been dead for the best part of a week.”

“That’s terrible.”

“So if her appointments with you were weekly, the last time you saw her then was the Tuesday before, the eighteenth?”

The Senior Probation Officer gazed back to his monitor.

“Yes, the eleventh. Three o’clock. For the past couple of months they were always mid-afternoon because it fitted in with her job.”

“She was working, then?”

“Yes, she’d got herself some work in a bar, though I don’t know where that was.”

“Do you know where she was living?”

“Yeah. I actually fixed her up with a place before she went for sentence. I did her pre-sentence report, and when she told me who she was dossing around with I told her if she wanted any chance of keeping out of prison then she needed to dump them soon as. She said she had nowhere else to go and as we have a list of landlords who are prepared to take our clients, I made a few phone calls and got her a place. I thought that if I could get her a more permanent residence then there was a fair chance of her getting probation, and so I fixed her up with a flat in one of the houses at the top of this road. I also sorted out her benefits, so she had enough money and didn’t need to go out shoplifting again. You might find this strange but I had a bit of a soft spot for Jodie.”