Mel Sherratt - Hush Hush

She wondered if the senior CSI guy – what was he called? – had worked out cause of death. Dave Barnett, that was it. She picked up a notepad and wrote down his name. So many people met in one day had made her face-blind and she hated forgetting people’s names. In her line of work, you needed all the favours you could get; the last thing she wanted was to annoy someone because she couldn’t remember the basics.

Exhausted, she went back through to the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher with its lone plate and mug. Then she thought better of it and washed them.

With one last glance at Matt’s image at the bottom of the stairs, she checked the doors were locked, switched off the lights and set the burglar alarm. Going upstairs with its gentle beep in the background was reassuring but nowhere near as good as having someone coming to bed with you, to wrap their arms around you.

Grace had always been a loner, having only a handful of close friends growing up. It took her a long time to trust people, always having a guarded attitude. That way, she couldn’t get hurt. It was obviously something to do with her childhood. Luckily, Matt had had the same kind of personality.

They had been an insular couple from the moment they had got together. They’d met at a bowling alley when she had been out with some of the girls from the station she’d been working out of and he’d been with a group of his friends. Her girls had been whooping and hollering and his group had started doing the same. After a lot of catcalling, they’d merged and she’d paired up with Matt. By the end of the evening, he’d invited her out for a drink and they’d been together ever since. They’d bought a house within two years and married a year later.

Things had been going great until the diagnosis. Sometimes they had laughed together but mostly there had been tears. It had been tough to go through, but she hadn’t been the one dying so she had tried to keep their spirits raised. Matt had been determined not to give in until there had been no hope. He’d finally lost his faith when he had been admitted to the hospice. He’d been given weeks to live but had lasted only three more days. It was as if he knew that he wasn’t going to see out the end of that month. And who could blame him? He’d been in so much pain, ending his life as a shadow of his former self. Their life together now gone.

After he’d passed away, Grace remembered the empty feeling she’d experienced going back to their home. Even so soon after his death, it was as if he had never lived there. An emotion she couldn’t describe to anyone had washed over her – the grief, the anger, the fear, the relief; all mixed into one. Her work colleagues had rallied round, as too had her mum, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the loneliness at bay. She’d stopped going out for a while, her job giving her the ultimate excuse to work long hours and have no time for socialising.

She paused halfway up the stairs, squeezing her eyes shut tightly so she couldn’t see anything but coloured spots. She missed Matt so much, but she needed her sleep right now. She had to keep her head clear for the days ahead.

It was going to be emotional.

The morning team briefing at eight thirty found over twenty people in a conference room that comfortably fitted only twelve. Grace had been lucky to bag a seat. Perry was standing behind her; Sam and Alex sat across from them; Nick was at the head of the table next to DCI Jenny Brindley. The rest were uniformed officers who had been drafted in to help.

‘Welcome to Operation Wedgwood.’ Jenny glanced around the room, waiting for someone to catch her eye. ‘The Parker case. What’s come in so far?’

Grace cleared her throat before speaking. ‘There are lots of house-to-house calls to continue with today and Sam has been actioning anything against the ones yesterday. We still have a list of people to get through, those who were at the gym between six and ten p.m. when it closed. And after the appeal for people to come forward went out during the press release, we have a lot more to interview this morning.’

‘What about his family? Friends? Acquaintances?’ Nick glanced around the room. ‘I know he must have a list a mile long of people that he knew, but are we making headway at all?’

‘We ran through about fifty per cent of them yesterday,’ Grace said. ‘And we’re planning on getting to the rest today. I’m sending my team across to the gym. We obviously can’t use the car park yet, but they’ve been arranging to interview people at the same time to save them all coming here.’ She pointed across the room to where a young man was sitting. ‘PC Mick Higgins has been drafted in to help us for a few hours too.’

‘At your service,’ Mick beamed.

Grace tried not to laugh. His eyes were as wide as his smile, reminding her of how much she’d resembled an eager puppy when she had first started as a beat bobby. He was mid-twenties at a push, his auburn hair cut short, his baby face sprouting the makings of a beard – all the fashion at the moment, but not an accessory she was enamoured with. She couldn’t understand the craze – give her a clean-shaven man any day.

Jenny nodded. ‘Anything else?’

‘We know Parker was on his own when he left the building,’ Grace continued. ‘You can clearly see him on the security camera coming outside.’

‘So he was at his car before anything happened. But no sign of anyone else?’

‘No, Ma’am.’

‘There are fields at the back of the gym.’ Mick chewed his bottom lip. ‘Do we think our suspect could have escaped that way?’

‘It’s possible,’ Grace acknowledged. ‘I don’t know the area as well as you guys, but I can see the canal towpath is a few minutes away on foot. It could take our suspect to any number of places where they could come out unnoticed.’

‘Or there could have been a car parked nearby,’ Perry suggested.

Nick nodded and turned to Alex. ‘Can you get Grace familiar with George Steele’s murder? Let’s see if there are any similarities.’

‘Will do.’ Alex nodded.

Grace cleared her throat to speak out in protest, but Nick chose not to look at her and continued with the briefing. Once he’d brought everyone up to speed, he stood up to signal the meeting was drawing to an end.

‘Preliminary PM results might be back for team briefing this evening.’ He gave out a few more orders before clapping his hands. ‘Right, people, you have your tasks. Go and do what you do best.’

When Grace returned to her desk, there was a jiffy bag in her in-tray, her name and the address of the station typed on a large white label. She leaned across and picked it up, wondering what it could be. Turning it over, she pulled on the red cotton that would open the seal. Seeing something wrapped in pink tissue paper, she popped her hand inside and drew out its contents. Unwrapping it revealed a Barbie doll: Moonlight Rose.

Grace frowned. She’d had the exact same doll when she was a girl. It had been a present from her father. She could specifically remember him saying that it was a rose for his rose. She shuddered at the thought. Who on earth would send her this?

Sam looked over Grace’s shoulder as she walked past. ‘A Barbie doll! Where’s that come from?’

‘I don’t know. There’s no note with it and the label isn’t handwritten so I can’t even hazard a guess.’ Grace held on to the toy. ‘I think it’s someone’s idea of a joke.’

‘I loved my Barbie. Did you have one when you were young?’

‘Yes. It was my favourite doll.’

‘I got one for my fifth birthday. I think I took it to bed with me on that first night.’ Sam giggled. ‘Come to think of it, I think I took it to bed with me until I was about twelve.’