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  • Something Hidden: A totally unputdownable murder mystery novel (Andrew Hunter Book 2) Page 3

Something Hidden: A totally unputdownable murder mystery novel (Andrew Hunter Book 2) Read online

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  After a breath, Ishan closed his eyes and turned away, spelling the name out letter by letter.

  ‘M-E-T-H-O-D-I-S-T,’ he said. ‘I think he shot them, then himself.’

  Four

  There was a moment of silence in Andrew’s office as he chewed on his bottom lip and wondered what to say. It wasn’t right that she had to, but it was no wonder Fiona Methodist felt the need to change her name. As soon as she told anyone locally, there would have been a moment of hesitation, a second or two of recognition, and then…

  ‘I get that a lot,’ Fiona said with a humourless smile.

  ‘Sorry,’ Andrew replied.

  She shrugged, reaching for another Jammie Dodger.

  ‘When did you last eat?’ Andrew asked.

  Fiona shrugged again, nibbling away at the edge of the biscuit. ‘It wasn’t my dad.’

  Andrew nodded, wanting to ask how she knew but knowing there was no point. It wasn’t as if Luke Methodist had survived to tell anyone why he’d shot a young couple in the middle of the day two Octobers ago.

  Fiona continued to eat, the scratching of her teeth the only noise in the room until she spoke again. ‘I read everything they wrote. How he was a war vet scarred by what he saw, how he came home with post-traumatic stress, or PTSD as they kept saying. He never wanted to talk to me about what went on, so that part is probably true. Maybe he was a victim in a roadside bombing, like they said? Maybe he did see one of his friends shot? They had all those experts on the news and the analysts talking about his state of mind but they didn’t know him. They can say all they want… but that doesn’t mean he shot those two kids.’ She paused, closing her eyes. ‘They were only a couple of years older than me…’

  Andrew glanced across to Jenny, who was sipping her tea in silence. Sometimes she knew exactly what to say but the blank look gave Andrew the answer he needed – she was as lost as he was but had enough self-awareness to keep quiet.

  He had no choice.

  ‘I’m not sure what you want me to say.’

  Fiona shivered again, her bony shoulders jutting through her thin coat as she tried to control herself. She soon finished the biscuit, clucking her tongue to the top of her mouth to clean the sticky bits away from her teeth. ‘Dad left his sheltered accommodation without telling anyone and moved onto the street, so he was basically homeless. I didn’t know where he was for a couple of months until he left a message on my phone. I tried to help but he wasn’t interested. I don’t know if it was because of that or because of what they said went on when he was in the army. They can say my dad approached that couple and shot them – but he wouldn’t have dared to go near them. Apart from a couple of his street friends and me, he didn’t talk to anyone. He was scared of people.’

  ‘What about the drugs?’

  Fiona met Andrew’s eyes but this time she was angry, her nostrils flaring. ‘They made that up. If he bought drugs from that Evans bloke, it was for his friends on the street. He didn’t do drugs. When they tested his body afterwards, there was nothing like that in his system but no one bothered to report it and everyone had already read the earlier versions. People assumed he was a junkie but it’s not true.’ She gulped, lowering her voice and looking away again. ‘Sorry…’

  ‘Fiona.’

  ‘What?’

  Andrew waited until she turned to look at him. From what she’d said, she must be nineteen or twenty but could easily have been fifteen or sixteen. She was tiny, so thin that he could see the shape of her bones through her clothes. When she finally met his eyes, Fiona was blinking rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay.

  ‘What would you like me to do?’ Andrew asked.

  She picked up the small mound of notes from the radiator and thrust them in his direction. ‘I don’t have much but I can save some more. I want someone to believe me that it wasn’t him.’

  Andrew shook his head as Fiona gulped back another tear, standing and wiping her nose with her sleeve. ‘I thought you were a good guy? If it’s about the money…’

  ‘It’s not the money.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  He opened his mouth to speak, unsure how to break it to her. The police had already looked into things and, from everything he’d seen and heard of the case, it was as open and shut as it came.

  Fiona stepped towards the door, repocketing her money. ‘It’s okay, thanks for the tea.’

  As another blast of cold air fizzed through the door, Andrew sighed. He’d always been a soft touch.

  ‘Fiona.’

  She turned. ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve got something else to do this morning but if you leave me a number to contact you on, I’ll see what I can do.’

  Jenny shunted a pad towards the edge of the desk and Fiona took a battered mobile phone from her pocket. She began jabbing at the buttons, before copying a number onto the page.

  ‘I can’t always afford credit but you should be able to call me,’ she said, adding another ‘sorry’.

  She peered up to look at Andrew again. He couldn’t figure out if she was playing him or if she really was this fragile. He’d had people take advantage of him before, using him to do their dirty work. Was there really something going on here? Since the incident with Nicholas Carr, he’d been questioning himself repeatedly.

  ‘I really will look into it,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You’ll just have to bear with me.’ She reached for the door handle but Andrew continued. ‘You said your father only spoke to you and some of his street friends. Do you know any of their names?’

  She gazed upwards, screwing up her lips, the cold still seeping through the open door behind her. ‘There was this guy named Joe – that’s all I know.’

  Fiona stood still for a moment, as if waiting for permission to leave. When she finally closed the door, Andrew breathed out heavily. He’d been seconds away from offering to put her in a hotel. She was so thin, so scarred, but what then? Would he end up trying to look after every waif who turned up on his doorstep? And was it just because she was female? Andrew wanted to tell himself that he’d have been equally concerned if an underfed lad had shown up asking for help but he didn’t know if that was true. He always found himself questioning his own motives.

  Jenny broke the silence by ruffling in her bag for life and coming up with a packet of Mini Rolls, waving them in the air as she tore into the purple wrapper.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘It’s too early for chocolate.’

  She grinned, tearing an individual wrapper open with her teeth. ‘Pfft. It’s never too early for chocolate.’

  ‘I don’t know where you put it all. If I ate what you ate, I’d be a giant blob.’

  Jenny tilted her head to the side as she took a bite of the roll. ‘You look… confused.’

  Andrew shunted his chair back to his desk. ‘I am.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t know where I’m going to start.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her “no” then?’

  ‘I don’t know… stupidity.’

  There was a pause in which Jenny could have made a token effort to correct him. Instead, she turned to her monitor, half-eaten Mini Roll in hand. ‘I can get all the news printouts from the time if you want? We’re not going to be able to see the police files without a bit of fudgery-doo-dah, so it’s probably the next best thing.’

  ‘Fudgery-doo-dah?’

  ‘You know what I mean: greasing palms, favour for a mate – that sort of thing.’

  Andrew didn’t like working with second-hand information but he didn’t have too many options. He checked his watch. ‘I’ve got to go out in ten minutes.’

  ‘I can stay and work here.’

  ‘No, you come too. I think I’m going to need backup.’

  He paused, rarely sure how to broach things with Jenny. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she peered up from her desk and he could see the recognition in her eyes that she knew she’d mis
sed something. Jenny had once told him that a former teacher thought she didn’t show empathy for other people. She’d found that interesting rather than insulting and started to learn from observing others. Sometimes, Andrew liked to watch and wait to see what her reaction would be.

  It took a second or two but then Andrew saw something akin to a penny dropping. Jenny’s eyes widened ever so slightly and then narrowed again. She put the remains of the cake on her desk and started playing with her ponytail, untying it and looping her fingers through the strands. She looked as if she was remembering something painful but Andrew didn’t know if that was another thing she’d learned.

  ‘I was a student at the time of the shootings,’ Jenny said. ‘Everyone was scared to go out, especially after dark. There was that robbery and then those two students were shot days later. There were rumours every day that someone had been spotted close to campus with a gun.’

  She hadn’t said that she was scared.

  ‘How long did it take to get back to normal?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘A couple of weeks? People soon move on. By the time it’s getting towards the end of term, they want to go out and celebrate.’

  ‘Did you know the kids who were shot?’

  Kids to him.

  Jenny shook her head. ‘I didn’t really hang around with anyone when I was at uni.’

  Andrew’s memory was patchy at best – he blamed age – but the case was recent. Sixteen months previously, Owen Copthorne and his fiancée, Wendy, had witnessed a robbery in a local jeweller’s. Barely two days later, Luke Methodist shot them dead close to the university campus, a short distance from Oxford Road, before turning the gun on himself.

  After a week of public mourning and outrage, police had arrested the Evans brothers – Kal, Aaron and Paulie, a trio of Scousers, well known to Liverpool authorities, with long criminal records. Fibres from Aaron Evans’ shoes were found at the scene of the robbery, with one of his fingerprints discovered on the back seat of the car they’d failed to set on fire. After police found drugs and weapons hidden at Kal Evans’ house, everything had come crashing down, though the stolen items were never found.

  Andrew scratched at his hairline, trying to think. ‘Weren’t the Evans brothers sent down a few weeks ago?’

  Jenny click-clacked her keyboard, nodding as she typed. ‘Three weeks back. Kal and Aaron Evans each got life for armed robbery, with the prospect of parole in fourteen years, Paulie got eighteen years. He could be out in about nine.’

  ‘Why’d he get less?’

  ‘He wasn’t holding a gun, plus the evidence wasn’t as strong that he was there. They were never charged with organising the shooting of the witnesses, only the armed robbery.’

  Andrew nodded along, reaching into his memory. At the time they’d been charged, it had been a big story but, as with most things, it soon went away. Police believed Luke Methodist knew Kal Evans because he bought drugs from him. It was the only link they had from robbers to killer – but there was no confession from any of the brothers.

  There was speculation that Methodist owed them money and this was what they wanted as payback. Having seen what he’d done, he turned the gun on himself in shame. No one knew for sure and it wasn’t as if Methodist could dispute things. It couldn’t be proven in court, so the CPS did the brothers for the robbery – and Owen and Wendy’s killing was officially an unconnected crime, even if everyone knew they were killed because of what they’d seen.

  It was time to go, so Andrew stood again, looking around to see where he’d left his coat.

  Jenny was on her feet too, leaning over to shut down her computer and then pulling her jacket on. ‘Do you think Luke Methodist killed them both?’

  ‘Of course he did.’

  ‘Why tell Fiona you’re going to look into it then?’

  ‘I am going to.’ He couldn’t meet Jenny’s gaze, stumbling over the reply. ‘Crime has another side. Everyone talks about victims and criminals but we all forget there are others scarred too. Sometimes the family of the victim or the perpetrator has it as hard as anyone.’

  ‘Right.’

  Jenny accepted the explanation at face value but it was better than telling her the truth. Andrew felt sorry for Fiona and perhaps giving her a sense of closure might help him forget the girl of a similar age who’d slit her wrists when he was supposed to be watching her.

  Five

  The haunted face of Fiona Methodist sat in Andrew’s mind as he tried to forget her story, at least for an hour or so. Instead, he focused back on the woman in front of him who hadn’t stopped talking in at least six minutes. He wasn’t even sure she’d breathed.

  Margaret Watkins was quite the woman: one for whom age was merely an inconvenience. She could’ve been anywhere between forty and seventy – it was hard to tell. Her definitely dyed brown hair was almost a separate entity, fighting against the layers of hairspray with which it had been attacked and sprouting in all directions like a dropped cauliflower.

  Some research showed that non-verbal signals made up to ninety-three per cent of all communication but Margaret’s must’ve been close to one hundred – either that, or she was practising backstroke without the pool. Every time she said something, her arms flapped manically, making her husband duck for cover at the other end of the sofa.

  Jenny sat patiently, taking notes, but Andrew was wondering where Fiona had gone. He suddenly realised there was silence, with Margaret’s helicopter arms now by her side. She was looking at him expectantly, as was Jenny.

  Andrew nodded quickly. ‘Right, Mrs Watkins—’

  ‘It’s Margaret, dear.’

  ‘Margaret…’ Andrew glanced down at Jenny’s thumb as she tapped a note on the pad in between them. Thank goodness one of them was paying attention. ‘Can you explain exactly what an F3 Bengal cat is?’

  It felt like he was reading another language but Margaret was off again, errant waft of the hand catching her husband on the side of the head as he mistimed his duck.

  ‘You have F1, F2 and F3 Bengals, isn’t that right, Geoffrey,’ she said.

  Geoffrey winced as if expecting another blow but nodded along in agreement. He had a neat moustache but that was the only hair anywhere near his head; the rest had presumably been batted away by his wife.

  Margaret didn’t stop: ‘Back when they originally crossbred the domestic cat with the Asian leopard, that litter and subsequent ones were the F1s. The F2s were the children of those F1s, and the F3s are the next generation.’

  ‘Right…’ Andrew blinked. ‘Sorry… they bred cats with leopards?’

  She stared at him as if it was a perfectly normal thing. ‘Precisely.’

  Andrew had no idea what she was on about. Cats with leopards? Was that a thing? What next? Dogs with goats? What was the world coming to?

  Margaret’s other arm shot off towards the canvas on the wall above the fireplace. The enlarged photograph was a picture of her surrounded by what looked like a pair of miniature leopards. The animals were a creamy orange, dotted by thick black spots.

  ‘Those are my babies,’ Margaret said. ‘Elvis and Presley – they’re F3s. You should only use an F1, F2 or F3 for breeding. Mine are both studs.’

  Andrew felt lost – a cat was a cat, wasn’t it? He took a moment to think of a question while examining the giant photograph. The cats really did look like mini leopards. He wondered if they roared like them. Probably not.

  ‘How do you know they’re F3s?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, Geoffrey’s got the paperwork somewhere, haven’t you, dear?’

  Before she could take his head off, Geoffrey shot towards the cabinet on the far side of the room. If he’d had any sense, he’d have kept going through the patio doors and not looked back. The poor sod probably had a permanent concussion.

  Margaret leant forward, pointing towards the photograph again. ‘Everything has to be documented. You need birth certificates and proof of heritage. That’s why Elvis and Presley are so valuable.’
r />   ‘How much are the cats worth?’

  ‘Oh, darling, I hate to think of it in terms of money – they’re part of the family…’ She paused, picking at an errant fingernail. ‘But it’s tens of thousands.’

  Andrew chose the wrong moment to breathe in, almost swallowing his tongue and having to rely on Jenny to pat him on the back in order to not choke to death.

  Tens of thousands?! For a cat! Even if she was exaggerating – which she probably was – the amount sounded ridiculous.

  ‘Do you want some water?’ Margaret began clicking her fingers in Geoffrey’s direction as Andrew croaked that he was fine. Moments later and she was back in full flow: ‘While we were out last week, someone came over our fence, drilled through the locks on the back door and snatched both cats. Poor Elvis and Presley must be terrified.’

  Andrew had just about recovered some composure but was making sure he steered away from finance-based questions before breathing. Tens of thousands? Tens? Of thousands? What in the name of all that is holy was going on?

  ‘Was anything else taken?’ he managed.

  ‘No – that’s why we know the thieves came specifically for them.’

  ‘What did the police say?’

  Margaret’s face sank into a grimace, as if she was being force-fed sprouts. ‘Bah, useless, aren’t they? They came out with their rubber gloves and dusting stuff but they couldn’t find anything. When we told them it was just the cats that had gone, they lost interest. Apparently, cat theft isn’t considered a crime because they can just wander off. You would’ve thought the drilled locks were a clue.’