Faithfully: Chase & Halshaw #1 Read online

  Faithfully

  Howard Mellowes

  Text © Howard Mellowes 2012, 2013, 2015

  Cover photo © Howard Mellowes 2012

  All rights reserved

  Howard Mellowes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All names and characters in Faithfully are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and entirely unintentional.

  To Jane and Lizzy – of course!

  A huge and humble thank you to everyone who offered help, support, and encouragement.

  The Chase and Halshaw series:

  Faithfully

  Truthfully

  Peacefully

  Joyfully

  Gracefully (coming soon)

  Also by Howard Mellowes:

  Back Catalogue

  Unfinished Business

  Table of contents:

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 1.

  When faith becomes blind it dies.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  1

  The swirling wind blew drizzle into Amy’s face and threatened to turn her umbrella inside out as she stood, bedraggled and helpless, in the feeble pool of light cast by a streetlamp. She looked around anxiously, but if there was anyone hiding in the deep shadows beneath the beech trees she couldn’t make them out.

  “’Scuse me, love!” called a gruff voice. “Are you all right?”

  She spun round, her heart thumping, and was relieved to see a kindly face leaning out of the window of the black cab that had drawn up opposite.

  “I think so,” she replied. “Just broke my bloody heel, that’s all.”

  “Got far to go?”

  “No. Just round the corner.”

  “Hop in, I’ll take you home.”

  Amy hesitated.

  “On the house, love. I’m off duty. On my way home now. Been a long day.”

  Me too, Amy said to herself. Me too. She looked at the wreckage of her shoe, at the pavement slick with rain. It wasn’t a hard decision. “Thanks,” she sighed, and scrambled into the rear of the taxi.

  “Where to, love?” the driver asked, through the intercom.

  “Chalfont Parade, please. Number 8.”

  “No problem, darling. Have you home in no time,” replied the cabbie, and the taxi clattered off into the night.

  Amy sat back in her seat and sighed. Home, a hot bath, a big glass of wine while I agonise over dinner, she thought. I can’t wait!

  Then she heard his metallic voice through the intercom. “I saw you running back there, love. Was someone after you?”

  She leant forward. “I thought so, yeah. I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked back there was no-one there. Then I tried to make a run for it,” she smiled ruefully, “but I didn’t get very far, thanks to these stupid shoes.”

  The cabbie grunted sympathetically.

  No more than a minute later, the taxi reached the end of Amersham Avenue and swung into Chalfont Parade. “Number 8, was it, love?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Here OK?”

  “Perfect.”

  He slotted the cab into a tight space in front of a detached, redbrick Edwardian villa. Amy opened the door and clambered out with as much dignity as she could muster. “Thanks ever so much,” she smiled.

  “My pleasure, darling. Look after yourself, OK?”

  “I will. Goodnight!”

  She waited until the taxi had disappeared into the sodium-lit gloom before retrieving a bunch of keys from her capacious handbag and unlocking the communal door of the adjacent house. Once inside, she slipped off her shoes and climbed the stairs in her stockinged feet. She unlocked her own front door, closed it behind her, and sighed with relief as she switched on the living room light.

  Then she smelt it.

  She inspected the shoes she held in her hand, and was relieved to see that she hadn’t trodden in something. She sniffed experimentally, but couldn’t work out where the smell was coming from. Drains, maybe, she thought. It wouldn’t be the first time. Talk about dodgy plumbers!

  She tossed her ruined shoes into a corner of the living room, followed by her handbag, laptop bag, and umbrella. Then she unbuttoned her coat and padded across the pine floor into the sleek, modern kitchen. She poured herself a large glass of mineral water from the bottle in the fridge, and sipped it as she headed towards the bedroom.

  There it was again. The smell of raw sewage.

  She opened the bedroom door and switched on the light. Her stomach sank as she took in the open window, the smashed mirror, the ransacked drawers. Then she saw what had been smeared over the pale blue emulsioned walls and across her white Egyptian cotton bedding.

  “Oh Christ!” she groaned.

  2

  “Listen, Darren,” sighed Detective Inspector Allen Chase. “You’re looking at five years, minimum. And not in some soft open prison either. You’ll be in with the real hard cases. Murderers, rapists, people like that. Terrorists, even.”

  The lanky youth in the hoodie looked back at the rumpled, middle-aged detective scornfully. “For a first offence?” he scoffed. “Community service, more like.”

  “First offence?” retorted Chase, irritation accentuating his flat northern vowels. “First offence?” He produced a sheaf of laser printed paper and tossed it dramatically on to the coffee-stained interview room table. “Here are twenty more burglaries with your fingerprints all over them.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “Yup.”

  “Fuck off! I ain’t done twenty break-ins, no way!”

  Chase smiled long-sufferingly. “It’s a metaphor, Mr Hitchins.”

  “A what?”

  “A metaphor.”

  The youth frowned.

  “Never mind.” Chase riffled through the sheaf of papers. “Every one of these burglaries has your modus operandi. Your way of working,” he added quickly, as a series of wrinkles rippled up Darren’s shaven head.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Says who?” Darren glared belligerently at the detective.

  “The Metropolitan Police Forensics Department, for starters,” Chase replied, looking back at the youth evenly. “And me.”

  Before Darren could think of a response, the door swung open and a smartly uniformed young PC appeared. “Sergeant Baker wants a word, Sir,” he said. “Says it’s urgent.”

  “I’d better go and see what the Sergeant wants,” sighed Chase. He reached into the jacket of his worn blue pinstripe suit and offered Darren a pen. “While I’m gone, why don’t you go through these crime reports and mark which ones are yours, eh?”

  Darren frowned, before reluctantly accepting the pen.

  “Constable Pollard will stay with you, Darren,” Chase added, gently. “If you need any help, just ask him.”

  *

  “Another one?” asked Chase.

  “Yes, Sir,” replied Baker.

  “Chiltern Park again?”

  The solid desk Sergeant nodded grimly. “10d Chalfont Parade. It’s a first floor flat.”

  “Who’s the victim this time?”

  Baker peered at the screen of her PC. “Amy Birkdale, it says here. Came home from working late, you can guess what she found.”
>
  “Does she live by herself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No boyfriend, flatmate, anyone like that?”

  “No.”

  “OK. Anybody with her now?”

  “Her Mum, Sir. She lives nearby.”

  “That’s good. Who’ve we got there, Bridget?”

  “Blackaby and Neville. DS Thomas’s dropping in on his way home. Scene of Crime should be there by now, too.”

  “Thanks,” replied Chase. “I’d better get back to Mr Hitchins, I think. Ask Ken to give me a buzz if he needs anything, will you? Otherwise I’ll see him in the morning.”

  3

  The front door was answered by a shapely blonde, wearing a faded navy sweatshirt, tight jeans, and bright yellow Marigolds. Her hair was swept up in a loose bun. Chase found it almost impossible to guess her age, though if pushed he would have plumped for not more than forty.

  “Ms Birkdale?” he asked, producing his identification card.

  “That’s right.”

  “We spoke on the phone earlier.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Did we?”

  “Yes,” he replied, flustered. “I’m Detective Inspector Allen Chase. Aren’t you Amy Birkdale?”

  She smiled broadly and opened the door wider. “Come in, Inspector. I’m Amy’s Mum. Anna Birkdale. Please excuse the muddle.”

  He negotiated the array of bulging black bin bags and stepped inside. “Is Amy in?” he asked. “I’d arranged to meet her here.”

  “Yes. She’s just getting changed.”

  Chase frowned.

  “She had to go into work this morning. Some big meeting or other. So I decided to come over and make a start.”

  At that moment a younger woman appeared in the hall, wearing a plain black T-shirt and ripped, faded jeans. She was dark haired, a little taller and somewhat slimmer, but just as blue-eyed and very nearly as curvaceous. “Hi, I’m Amy,” she said, as they shook hands. “Come on through.”

  She led the way through a white panelled door and into the lounge. “Have a seat, Inspector,” she said, gesturing at a brown distressed leather sofa.

  Chase did as he was bid and looked around. Nice place, he thought. This is how a conversion should look: bright, uncluttered, and well proportioned. Tasteful, that’s the word. Not like my cramped and messy shoebox.

  Anna loitered in the doorway, rubbing cream into her hands. “Would you like some tea?” she asked.

  “Yes please,” he said.

  Amy perched on the arm of the chair opposite and leant forward intently. “Any news, Inspector?”

  “News?” he replied, trying not to stare too blatantly at the tanned knee protruding through a strategic rip in her jeans.

  She sighed. “About the men who did this, Inspector. What do you think I mean?”

  “Why do you think it was men?”

  “Because women wouldn’t do something so – gross!” She frowned. “They wouldn’t, would they?”

  “You’d be surprised, Ms Birkdale. What I meant was, why do you think it was more than one person?”

  “How should I bloody know!” she retorted. “You’re the detective – aren’t you supposed to tell me?”

  Before he could respond, Anna reappeared, clutching a mug of tea in each hand. She handed each of them a mug before beating a tactful retreat.

  Chase watched her disappear into the kitchen. “Did they take much?” he asked.

  “Hard to tell, really. It’s still a mess in there. I know I’ve lost some jewellery and a bit of cash, but they didn’t get my iPod, my laptop, or anything like that. And I had my phones and credit cards with me, of course.”

  “Did they take anything valuable?”

  “Not really. Sentimental value, more than anything.”

  “Much cash?”

  “Not sure. Thirty quid or so, I think.”

  Chase nodded thoughtfully.

  “You were going to tell me what you know,” prompted Amy, fiddling with a stray lock of dark hair.

  “Right,” said Chase. “Here’s what I do know, which isn’t much. In the last year or two there have been twenty similar burglaries in the Chiltern Park area.”

  “Twenty?” Amy’s perfectly shaped eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes.”

  “Why haven’t I heard about them?”

  “Because the owners wanted them kept quiet.”

  “Why?”

  “Embarrassment, maybe. Bad effect on property prices. Who knows? We’ve kept them quiet to discourage copycat incidents.”

  “So you’re saying this is just the latest in a succession of burglaries?” asked Anna, from the kitchen doorway. She walked over to Chase and handed him a heavy glass jar and a teaspoon. “Sorry, I forgot to ask. Do you take sugar, Inspector?”

  “Thanks.” He shovelled two spoonfuls into his cup and stirred it vigorously. “Is this the latest in the series? I don’t know. It’s very similar, it’s true. But there are certain, er, differences.”

  “Like the text I got this morning?” asked Amy.

  “What text, Ms Birkdale?”

  Amy held out her Blackberry. Chase read:

  Where did you sleep last night, bitch? And who with?

  He jotted down the details before asking, “Do you recognise the number?”

  “No,” she retorted. “Do you?”

  Chase shrugged. “OK, Ms Birkdale. Where were you when you received this?”

  “At work. In a meeting with a bunch of other people. Pretty senior, most of them.”

  “First thing?”

  “Yeah. I was running late, so I just dumped all my stuff on my desk and ran straight into the meeting.” She frowned. “I’ll tell you something else, too. I don’t know what to make of it, but I guess that’s your department.”

  “Go on.”

  “I sent a reply. Rather abusive, I’m afraid, but I was pretty pissed off. A second or two later my boss received a text.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Maybe. But he reacted in a really strange way.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He smiled. Like he’d got a love letter or something.”

  “Who is he, your boss?”

  “Bryn Lewis. Information Technology Director.”

  “Does he know about your break-in?”

  “I told him about it after the meeting. I had to explain why I needed to take the afternoon off work, of course.”

  “And was he surprised?”

  “He seemed surprised, yeah.”

  “Did anyone else in the meeting have mobiles with them?”

  “They all did, Inspector. And every time I looked, someone or other was fiddling with their phone.”

  “Have you ever had messages like that before?”

  “That’s the third in the last week.”

  “Same number every time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Hold on a mo.” Amy flipped through the menus on her Blackberry. “This was the first one.” She held out her phone. Chase read:

  You only got the job coz you’re shagging Bryn.

  “And this was the second.” She pressed a few keys and held the phone out again.

  You’ll crash and burn, whore. I promise.

  Chase looked up at her. She raised her eyebrows ironically.

  “Ever had this problem before?” he asked.

  “Never,” she replied. “Not even when I was working in the City.”

  “You were saying something about a series of break-ins, Inspector,” Anna interjected, settling herself next to the detective on the small two-seater sofa and looking intently at him over the rim of her mug.

  “That’s right,” said Chase, acutely conscious of her proximity, her soft floral perfume. “But this one’s different, in several ways.”

  “Like what?” Amy demanded.

  “Well, for one thing, all the other break-ins took place when the victims were away for several days.”

 
“On holiday, you mean?”

  “Mostly, yes. A couple of people were on business trips. Most of them were out of the country. You’re the first person to have been burgled when they were working late.”

  “The thieves are getting cocky, are they?” asked Anna.

  “I don’t know, Mrs Birkdale. Maybe.”

  “Or perhaps it was meant to look like one of the series,” murmured Amy, almost to herself.

  “Why would anyone want to do that, love?” asked her mother, soothingly.

  Amy turned to the Inspector. “I’ve just started working on this new project,” she said. “It’s my big break, so it’s really important I don’t screw up. But loads of jobs are at stake, including at least two very senior people. So there are plenty of people who want me to fail.”

  “What about money?”

  “That too. Several million pounds, potentially. A big order for somebody to win. And a major account for someone to lose, too.”

  “Can you give me some names, please?”

  “I’d start with my boss, Bryn Lewis.”

  “The bloke you mentioned just now?

  “About the text? Yeah. He’s got a major personal stake in the success of the project, so he can fill you in on all the politics. The IT heads of the two subsidiaries affected, Frank Usher and Lorna Hilton, are the senior people at risk. There may be others too...” She rubbed her eyes wearily, leaving dark smudges of mascara. “Sorry, Inspector. I’m not thinking straight. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s OK. What are they like, these two?”

  “Frank’s a major control freak. Needs to know everything that’s going on in his empire. And he’s a stirrer, too.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know. He likes to wind people up, that kind of thing. Just for fun. And he loves to gossip, too.”

  “I see. And what about the other one?”

  “Lorna? She trusts her team more, leaves them to get on with things. But she’s more of a political player than Frank. She’s had a few victories in recent months so she’s riding high at the moment.

  “Thanks,” said Chase. “I’ll go and see them in the morning. Right.. About last night. What time did you leave work?”