Michael Fowler - Heart of the Demon

Since then, he had occasionally enquired of her, and when he had become a DS, covertly monitored her performance. Eighteen months ago, when he had learned he had secured one of the Sergeants posts in the newly formed Major Investigation Team, he hadn’t hesitated to call her up and suggest she should apply to join the squad.

She had walked the interview and since then they had been regular partners.

She glanced up from her work and fixed her brown eyes on him. She had a wide grin. She showed no signs of tiredness, unlike him.

The previous evening he’d had far too much to drink and had to get a taxi home. He’d apologised profusely as his wife Beth had driven him to pick up his car from the village pub that morning and he knew he’d overstepped the mark from the stern look she’d given him and the deathly silence throughout the journey. When he’d tried to kiss her she turned only to offer her cheek. ‘I’ll phone for a table, somewhere nice, this weekend’ he thought to himself as he ambled towards the kettle.

“Fancy a brew?” he asked without looking at Grace. “How are you getting on?”

“I’m sure I’ve seen Carol Siddons’ folder amongst this lot it’s just a matter of putting my hand on it. Your meeting with Barry has certainly made the job easier. And yes I will have a coffee as you’re offering.”

“I want to keep where I got the info from just between us two at the moment. It’ll only complicate the enquiry. Let’s just let them think you found the link, okay?”

He poured the boiling water into two cups, adding a tea bag to his own and coffee granules to Grace’s. He slipped two paracetamols into his mouth.

“Feeling under the weather?” asked Grace.

“I feel absolutely shit. I’d forgotten just how much Barry could drink. It was a cracking night and I had a real good laugh with him but I’m paying for it this morning. To add to it, Beth isn’t speaking to me. I had to ask her to drop me off for my car this morning, which meant she would be rushing about sorting the boys out before she went into work. I’ll have to do some real sucking up for the next few days, but I’ll get round her. I always do.”

Grace rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrows at him.

She hadn’t said anything but that look of hers had said a thousand words.

Hunter returned a schoolboy pout. “Ouch.”

Just before nine am Hunter and Grace were driving out of the police station to meet Susan Siddons at her flat.

Hunter had not told the Senior Investigating Officer anything of his previous night’s conversation with Barry Newstead, but had given him much of the background about Carol Siddons, who had been reported missing as a fifteen-year-old back in 1993.

Grace had sifted through the pile of reports she had recovered from her spell in the basement and had found a tattered file, containing the paperwork relating to Carol Siddons.

As Hunter drove he saw that she was now speed-reading the contents of the foxed dossier.

Despite a little too much foundation and make-up Hunter couldn’t help but notice that Susan Siddons was still quite youthful looking for someone pushing fifty. She was slim and petite and both Hunter and Grace had to glance downwards when she opened the door of her first floor flat. Her hair was bleached blonde and in a choppy, modern style, which softened her thin angular face.

‘She can’t be more than five foot’, thought Hunter and he recalled what Barry had recounted to him the previous night, trying to imagine what type of man would feel the need to batter someone so slight and slender. The prettiness was still there, despite the slight lump on the bridge of her nose, which he guessed was the result of the beating which had hospitalised her and she had a sort of easy smile, which was infectious. He could see why men fell for her, even though it was always the wrong type of men.

“I’ll just pop the kettle on,” she said softly and moved towards the kitchen on her left. Her South Yorkshire dialect was very broad.

Hunter had already mentioned Sue’s drink problem to Grace during the journey and as she spoke he couldn’t help but notice the combination of stale beer and fresh mouthwash on Sue’s breath.

As Sue disappeared into the kitchen Grace leaned towards Hunter almost planting her mouth on his ear. “Her breath smells like yours,” she whispered with a mischievous grin.

“Bollocks,” he retorted in a low voice between gritted teeth.

The flat was tidy and clean, but the furniture was old and worn and Hunter guessed it was the landlord’s choice rather than Sue’s.

Susan Siddons was chattering all the time she prepared the tea, her voice nervous and edgy, just making small talk, enquiring as to what Barry had already told them of her past.

Hunter responded with a small white lie. He didn’t want to bring up the incidents of Sue’s domestic battering, or anything relating to her term of imprisonment, to avoid any embarrassment or friction. Instead he dwelt mainly on the rose-tinted aspects of her life; her journalistic career, the birth of her daughter and the facts surrounding Carol’s disappearance all those years ago.

“You’ve found my baby now though, haven’t you?” She said rhetorically and invited them to sit on a sofa, which sank on its springs a little too much for the detectives’ liking, and then placed two cups of strong tea onto a stained coffee table before them. “Sorry it’s so strong”, she said, looking at the dark brew “I’ve just run out of milk.” She sat opposite them in an armchair, which wasn’t a match to the settee, gripping a steaming mug of tea between her slightly shaky hands.

“I know this will be upsetting for you Sue but tell us why you think it’s your daughter’s body we’ve found,” opened Grace, glancing down at the information penned on the front sheet of the ‘missing from home’ folder.

“Is that her file?” Sue enquired nodding towards Grace’s archived records. “Look I’ve got to be honest with you, when all that was written back then I wasn’t being entirely honest.” She sniffed and they noticed tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. “Now that you’ve found her I need to be straight with you and make things right.”

“But how do you know it’s definitely her?” asked Grace again.

“The clothing you showed on Crimewatch last night. That was what she was wearing.”

“How do you know that?” enquired Grace, now scrolling a finger down the report, flicking over pages and speed-reading the handwritten manuscript. “The last time you saw her was three weeks previous to her going missing when you visited her at the care home with Social Services.”

“That’s just it. That wasn’t the last time I saw her.” Susan paused and gulped. “It was the night she went missing. And there were several other nights before that as well.” She blushed and tried to cover her face by drinking her tea and then shuffled uneasily in her chair

“I think you’d better tell us everything Sue, don’t you?” interjected Hunter.

Susan Siddons began by recapping some of the background Barry Newstead had already given Hunter the previous evening. She gave depth and detail to the savage beatings she had suffered at the hands of her partner and they could hear real pain in her voice.

“It wasn’t just me he beat. Carol got some real hard slaps from him as well when he was that way out. He bruised her on more than one occasion and I had to keep her off nursery school on many an occasion. One night I came back from bingo and caught him urinating on her whilst she was in the bath. She was only four years old. Bloody hell, I flipped and just went berserk at him, and that’s when I got really badly beaten up, which Barry dealt with. You’re the only people I’ve ever told that to. I never even told Barry why Steve gave me that hiding.”