The Clifftop Murders (Dorset Crime Book 2) Read online

  Chapter Five

  Ameena Khan lived in a generous detached house in Christchurch. Lesley parked her car and walked to the front door, preparing herself mentally. She wished she had on her work uniform, a pale skirt suit and smart shoes. Here she was in jeans and a casual shirt. But this couldn’t wait. She’d called Dennis on the way, but he was busy with his family.

  She rang the doorbell and heard a chime deep in the house. A voice called out: “Daddy!” Lesley felt her heart dip. The victim had kids.

  The door opened and a man of medium height with a round, friendly face stood in front of her.

  “Mr Khan?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Tom Holroyd,” he told her. “Are you looking for my wife?”

  “Can I come in, please?” Lesley held up her ID.

  His eyes widened. “What’s happened? She hasn’t been home. I’ve been calling and call…” His voice dropped away.

  “I think it’s best if I came inside.”

  He ushered her through, his breathing tight. Two children were in the kitchen, running around a large island. One of them, a small boy who couldn’t have been more than five years old, yelled at his sister. She looked to be seven or eight. Lesley gave them the kindest smile she could muster. Both ran to their dad and huddled into his legs.

  Lesley looked from Mr Holroyd to his children. “I think it would be best if we had this conversation in private,” she told him.

  He gave her a wide-eyed nod. “Of course.” He bent to his children. “Go in the telly room kids, put Night Garden on.”

  She watched as they ran through a wide set of doors into a room with a vast television.

  Their father turned back towards her. He gave her a plaintive look then looked down at the table between them. “I’m sorry. I need to tidy up.” He grabbed plates and stacked them.

  “Mr Holroyd,” she said. She’d seen this before; anything to delay the inevitable. “That can wait.”

  He let the plates slide to the table. “It’s not good news, is it?” His eyes were red.

  She took a chair and gestured for him to do the same. He sat opposite her, his eyes searching her face.

  “It’s about your wife,” she said. “Ameena Khan.”

  He nodded. “Has she been in an accident? Is it something to do with a client?”

  Lesley swallowed. This never got easy. “I’m afraid we found your wife at the bottom of the cliffs at Old Harry Rocks this morning. Near Studland.”

  His head fell onto the table. He made a keening sound.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr Holroyd. We’ve got a family liaison officer on the way, he’ll help you. He’ll answer any questions you have, and help you take care of your children if you need it.”

  Holroyd looked up. He gasped in a breath. “How? What? She went out for…”

  “What did she go out for, Mr Holroyd?” Lesley asked.

  “I didn’t see her, she leaves early in the morning sometimes when the weather’ good.”

  He was stumbling over his words, barely able to get them out.

  Lesley nodded. “She went to Ballard Down?”

  “It’s one of her spots. She likes to take photos of local landscapes. Landmarks, sites, weather, stuff like that. I don’t really get it myself. That’s why she does it early in the morning. She’s normally back before breakfast. I just assumed she had to go into the office.”

  “Does she often go into the office on a Sunday?”

  “She’s a lawyer. You’re police. You know what it’s like.”

  “She wasn’t in the office today,” Lesley said.

  He looked at her, blinking. He bent his head again and grabbed his hair. From the next room, Lesley heard one of the kids shouting. Mr Holroyd closed his eyes momentarily and glanced over towards the doorway. He muttered something unintelligible.

  “Do you have anyone who can come and help you with the children?”

  “Tell me,” he replied. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t know much at the moment,” Lesley replied. “But she was spotted by some people in a boat.”

  “Where?” he asked.

  “At the bottom of the cliffs at Ballard Down, just south of Old Harry Rocks.”

  He nodded. “I know it. She took me there. All the time. Just last weekend… When?”

  “This morning,” she said. “We weren’t able to retrieve her until this afternoon. That’s why we didn’t identify her or contact you earlier.”

  He stared back at her. “How did you identify her?”

  “She had her driving licence on her,” Lesley replied. “It gave us her name and address.”

  He nodded. His body slumped, his hands holding up his head.

  “Was she…? Did she…?”

  He wanted to know if she’d suffered, Lesley thought. He wanted to know how long it had taken her to die. But the truth was, until they’d done the post-mortem, Lesley couldn’t answer those questions.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said. “But I don’t know much right now. There’ll be a post-mortem done in the next few days, and we may need you to identify her body.”

  He blinked at her, his jaw clenched. “Of course,” he said.

  “Have you got anybody who can come round?” she asked again. “Anybody who can help you with the children? Who you can talk to?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Where do you work?” she asked him.

  “I’m a head teacher,” he said. “School just around the…”

  She knew what it was like to be in a position of authority and be hit by a tsunami like this. The worry about letting people down, combined with the stress of not allowing yourself the time to process it.

  “Like I said,” she told him, “we’ve assigned a family liaison officer to you, PC Hughes. He’s already on his way.”

  “I don’t need a family liaison officer,” he said.

  “It helps,” she replied. “Somebody to open the door, to do the practical stuff. Just to help you keep going.”

  “Keep going,” he whispered. “How am I supposed to keep going?”

  She watched his face. His reaction was genuine. He didn’t look like he’d killed his wife just hours ago. But then…

  “I’m sorry, I have to ask you this,” she said to him. “But where were you today?”

  He shook his head. “Here, with the kids. Waiting for Ameena to come home. I called her, what, twelve times? I texted her. Check her phone, you’ll find them.”

  Lesley had no recollection of Gail mentioning a phone. “We’ll take a look,” she said. “But can anybody vouch for the fact that you were here all day?”

  He looked towards the living room. “The kids can.”

  She smiled at him. That didn’t count. “Any neighbours? Anybody pop round? Any deliveries?”

  He shook his head. “It’s Sunday. It’s not that kind of neighbourhood. People keep to themselves. I’m sorry, but I was here all day, you have to believe me.”

  He pushed up from his chair and turned away from her. He clutched the edge of the sink and lowered himself to the floor, his body shaking.

  Chapter Six

  Lesley walked past her team’s bank of desks and into her office. They were all here: Dennis, the two DC’s, Johnny Chiles and Mike Legg, and finally, PC Tina Abbott. Lesley had brought Tina into the team after she’d helped them out on the Corfe Castle murder inquiry. Dennis hadn’t been happy, influenced no doubt by an instinctive snobbery about uniformed officers. But Tina was slowly proving herself, chipping away at the DS’s defences.

  She beckoned for them all to join her.

  The board was ready: blank, pristine, waiting for a new case. She wheeled it out from behind her desk where she kept it when not in use. She didn’t like the thought of people walking past the ground floor office and seeing what was written on it. This building was modern and ugly, with vast, single glazed windows. In this heat, she was glad of the draft, but in the winter she knew she’d feel
differently.

  Still, she wouldn’t be here in the winter. She’d be back in Birmingham, where she belonged.

  Dennis took a seat and crossed his legs, waiting for her to start. Johnny and Mike stood behind him. Tina hovered by the door, looking like she didn’t quite feel part of the team.

  Lesley gestured towards the other chair. “Sit down, Tina.”

  Tina eyed the two DCs and did as she was told. Mike gave her a smile, while Johnny’s eyes were on Lesley.

  Lesley grabbed a marker and jabbed at the board. She wrote Ameena Khan’s name at the top, in the middle. Below that, the name of the woman’s husband, Tom Holroyd. To one side, she added the name of Ameena’s employers: Nevin, Cross and Short. A chill ran down her back as she wrote the word Short.

  “Right,” she said, turning back to her team. “We’ve got a thirty-four-year-old woman, possibly suicide or accident, but I think not. She worked at a law firm in Bournemouth, no sign of any problems. Husband seemed legit as far as I’m concerned.”

  “How did he react?” Dennis asked.

  “Shocked. Horrified. He’d have to be a bloody good actor to fake that.”

  Dennis cleared his throat. Lesley gave him a pointed look.

  “He’d have to be a very good actor,” she said.

  Dennis nodded in acknowledgement. He didn’t like her swearing. On her first day he’d threatened her with a swear box, which was now safely hidden inside his desk. But that was only because she’d said she would try to tone down her language. The two DCs spoke differently here in the office to when they were out with her. Mike in particular had developed a whole new range of vocabulary. Lesley didn’t know if that was natural, or if it was his twisted way of trying to impress her. Either way, her judgement would be based on his work. If he was a good DC, she’d support him. If not, she’d give him a damn good bollocking until he became one.

  “Right,” she said. “Forensics, post-mortem, witnesses.” She wrote these words on the board.

  Tina spoke. “No sign of any witnesses, boss. As far as we can tell, it happened before anyone else was up there.”

  “That fits with what her husband said,” Lesley replied. “She left the house before dawn.”

  Tina nodded. “Sunny day, it would have been busy up there later on. Plenty of grockles taking a stroll up from Swanage, or from Studland.”

  “Grockles?”

  Tina blushed. “Tourists.”

  Lesley eyed the board. “But she wasn’t spotted until up there.”

  “She couldn’t be seen from the cliff,” Johnny said. “Not unless you go right to the edge, and people don’t do that, usually. She was only spotted from the sea.”

  Tina turned to him, shifting in her chair. “But there would have been boats earlier on, surely?”

  “The pertinent point,” said Lesley, “Is that nobody saw her up there before she was pushed. And as far as we’re aware, nobody saw her assailant.”

  “If there was one,” said Dennis.

  Lesley eyed him. “Have you seen the angle on those cliffs?”

  “I have.” His expression was tight.

  “It’s harder than you think to push yourself over to where she was found. You’d have to take a flying jump. You couldn’t just stroll over the edge and drop.”

  Mind you, Lesley thought. It doesn’t feel like that when you’re up there.

  “Maybe she did take a flying jump?” Dennis said. “If she was determined enough.”

  “That doesn’t explain the camera,” Lesley replied. “It was still around her neck, while she’d left her bag neatly on her jacket. What kind of person leaves their camera kit and their jacket neatly on the grass, but keeps the camera itself around their neck when they jump to their death?”

  “If she cared about her kit,” Johnny said, “she’d have taken the camera off first.”

  Lesley pointed at him with the marker pen. “Exactly. That’s why I’m sure it’s suspicious. We need to know if she sustained defensive wounds. When’s the PM scheduled?”

  “This afternoon,” said Dennis. “Whittaker’s working as fast as he can.”

  Lesley rolled her eyes. For Dr Whittaker as fast as he can was glacial.

  “Not until this afternoon?” she said.

  Dennis shrugged. “The man’s busy.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Lesley ignored Dennis’s glare. “He really doesn’t know what his priorities should be, does he?”

  “You could argue that he does,” said Dennis. “I mean, granddaughter’s birthday party, tending to his living patients before the dead. Those are his priorities. He knows what they are and he focuses on them.”

  “And you respect that?” Lesley asked.

  “I’m not saying I respect it, boss. I’m just saying that’s what’s happening.”

  “It’s not good enough.” She wished she had the authority to find a new pathologist. She thought of Adana Adebayo, the woman she’d worked with back in the West Midlands. Adana had been efficient, intelligent, and tenacious. Nothing like Henry Whittaker, with his condescending manner and his inability to speed up for anyone.

  “OK,” she sighed. “So the post-mortem is this afternoon, if we’re lucky. What about forensics? Has Gail gone over that camera bag for prints?”

  “Not sure,” said Dennis.

  “She’ll report back in to us as soon as she’s got something,” added Johnny.

  Lesley nodded. Gail was good. Thorough, businesslike, professional. She knew how to run a crime scene. The contrast between her and the pathologist couldn’t be more pointed. It wouldn’t be long before Gail arrived in the office and gave them what she had. There was no reason to chase her. Once Gail had her information, she passed it on.

  “In that case,” Lesley said, “We need witness statements. Find out if anybody in Studland saw her arrive. Or her potential attacker.”

  “At dawn, boss?” said Johnny.

  “Yes, at dawn. Somebody might have been up early: taking a stroll, walking their dog, or unable to sleep. You’ve never been out for an early walk and caught the eye of someone staring out from their front window? Shushing babies back to sleep, dealing with insomnia?”

  Insomnia was a problem Lesley knew well, but she wasn’t about to tell her team that.

  She placed the marker in its holder. “Johnny and Mike, you go to Studland, knock on some doors, find out if anyone saw anything suspicious. Unfamiliar cars, people returning from the cliffs early in the morning.”

  “Boss,” said Mike. He made for the door and Johnny followed, his gait slower. He glanced at Dennis, who nodded.

  Dennis turned to Lesley. “What d’you want me on?”

  “You and Tina go and see the husband.”

  “You’ve already seen him.”

  “He had his kids with him last night, and there’s more we need to ask him. Find out what was going on in Ameena’s life. Did she have reason to kill herself? Was there somebody at work she’d pissed off?”

  “Her colleagues would know that,” suggested Tina.

  “They would,” said Lesley. “And that’s why I’m going over to the law firm.”

  Dennis raised an eyebrow. “On your own?”

  She met his gaze. “Yes, on my own. You got a problem with that?”

  “No, boss. I’ll work with Tina. Johnny and Mike can work together. You can go off on your lonesome.”

  She resisted the urge to bite. “That’s what I’ll do, Dennis,” she said. “You let me know if you find out anything useful from Tom Holroyd, yes?”

  “Of course. I’ve been doing this for a while, you know.”

  She stared at him until his gaze left hers. Dennis wasn’t the easiest DS to work with, but he didn’t normally go for open rebellion.

  Now wasn’t the time to address it. She knew that her predecessor, DCI Mackie, had died after going off a cliff. It would be even harder for Dennis to ignore.

  “Go on then.” She clapped her hands. “Chop, chop.”

  Dennis walked
to the door then waited for Tina to pass him, ostentatiously gesturing for her to go first. Tina pursed her lips as she passed him.

  Lesley watched as they grabbed their jackets and left the office. Dennis didn’t even believe this was a murder case. But Lesley could feel it in her blood.

  Somebody had killed Ameena, thrown her off the cliff edge. Possibly somebody who knew Lesley’s girlfriend.

  She needed to find out why, and whether Elsa was connected.

  Chapter Seven

  Tina stared out of the windscreen as DS Frampton drove round the block of houses near Ameena Khan’s house.

  “There’s a spot there,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not good enough.”

  She clenched her fist in her lap. They’d be here all day doing this.

  “Why don’t you just park up behind the squad car over there?” She pointed to a police car parked three houses along from Ameena’s house.

  “Single yellow lines,” he replied. “We need a legal space.”

  Tina knew full well that as police officers working a case, they could park on single yellow lines. Any ticket they received would be cancelled. But no, the sarge wanted to do this properly.

  She chewed her bottom lip, forcing herself not to speak, as he circled the block one more time. Fortunately, Ameena had lived in a neighbourhood with plenty of interconnecting roads, so the circuit didn’t take long. On the second attempt, he’d done a figure of eight around two blocks, still seeking out the perfect spot.

  “There!” She gestured towards to a space outside a house about ten doors down from Ameena’s. No double yellows, no single yellows, no white lines, no nothing. Surely he couldn’t reject this one.

  He grunted and eased the car into the space.

  At last, she thought.

  Tina got out of the car and shook out the tension.

  “Listen, Constable,” the sarge said, looking at her over the top of the car. “You watch and learn. You haven’t done this before, let me do the talking.”

  “Yes, Sarge.” She had done this, plenty of times. She’d been assigned as family liaison officer in at least a dozen cases. Maybe she hadn’t officially been part of CID as the FLO. But she’d had plenty of opportunities to talk to witnesses and victims. Plenty of opportunities to find out what was really going on. Tina could put an interviewee at their ease, get them to tell her things they’d withhold from CID. But DS Frampton would never give her credit for that.