The Hidden Island: an edge of your seat crime thriller Page 16

  “No offense was intended.” Beckett kept his distance. “You were about to assault someone.”

  “You nearly broke my fucking arm. What sort of copper are you?”

  Beckett raised his hands. “We got off on the wrong foot. I am sorry you heard about Emmie from the Net. We should have informed you in person. No excuses. But, I want to reassure you, we are doing everything we can to find her.”

  “You think she’s dead, don’t you? Like the girl on the beach.” Warren struggled to control his face, muscles twitching, eyes shining with tears.

  “I’ve no reason to think that. We can’t find any connections between the two cases.”

  “Emmie is still missing though… she has to be somewhere. Someone must have her.”

  “We’re doing all we can.”

  “What about me?”

  “Neither party want to press charges, so you are free to go.”

  “Go? Just like that?”

  “But, you have to stay away from Beatrice. No more threats.”

  “I want to be out there looking for her.”

  “Stay out of trouble, and you won’t have a problem.”

  “Tomorrow is our wedding day.” He gave no indication of moving.

  “We’ll find her, Warren.”

  Beckett stood at his office window, and watched Warren trudge out of the station and cross the road to the main street. If he was involved in Emmie’s disappearance, then he was the best actor Beckett had ever met. He was a man in shock. The world that he’d been so sure of—mates, booze, fiancée, wedding, meals on the table, shirts ironed, sex on Sundays, and two weeks in the sun each year—had all evaporated. Warren was a thug, and a bully. Probably not a stranger to pushing Emmie around, but he hadn’t killed her. He wasn’t bright enough to cover it up. The more Beckett thought about it, the more he wasn’t convinced the two cases were connected at all. In fact, the only connection the two girls did have was Mitchell Troy. Troy wasn’t dumb enough to insinuate himself into Bee’s life, if he had anything to do with Emmie’s disappearance, but where did he fit into the jigsaw?

  He sat down at his computer, and opened his email from Tomas. There was a video file attached. He clicked it, and a grainy image appeared on screen. It was frozen for a few moments whilst it downloaded, and then it started to play.

  It was footage taken on a phone. The exposure too dark to see anything clearly, but the gist was soon obvious. In a forest clearing, a group of people in animal masks and cloaks of fur, waved staves aloft, those staves topped with pinecones. Off camera, the sound of drums, thump thump, thump thump, and cow bells clanging. There was a large fire crackling and popping, and the people started dancing.

  There was a large wooden casket under a wide-girthed olive tree – a tree so old its branches had doubled back on themselves, and were touching the ground in places. A cloaked figure, with a wolf’s head mask, stood before it, and with a jab of his arm, plunged his stave into the ground. The crowd gathered behind him, and started chanting. He crouched, opened the casket, and, with a flourish, lifted out a carved, wooden object, and held it above his head. The crowd fell to their knees, but still thumping their staves to the ground and chanting. Beckett squinted. The wooden object was a phallus. The leader then began to march around the clearing, holding the phallus aloft, and the worshippers followed behind, dipping and swaying in time to the shamanic drumming. They threw their heads back, jabbing their staves into the air and into the earth.

  The video ended abruptly, but there was a second one attached to the email. Beckett opened that one, too, and wished he hadn’t. The same location, same people, as far as could be told under their masks and cloaks, but later in time. There was drink, flagons of wine being poured down throats, over faces, bongs being smoked, and people having sex, in couples, in groups, large groups, and people being whipped whilst having sex, and as the camera turned, there was a woman, naked from the waist down, being strung by her neck from one of the low branches of the ancient tree. Two people supported her, and a crowd gathered around. The video stopped. There were no more videos to watch, and Beckett was glad of it. He felt sick. There was nothing in the videos to identify anyone. But, he recognised that tree. He’d found Chrystos Spiros sitting underneath it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Patrick was sitting on the edge of the cheap plastic seat, elbows on his knees, his feet tapping the floor. Aileen Andreas, a local lawyer, was sitting next to him, notepad on the table. Through the one-way mirror from his vantage point in the room next door, Beckett could see the page was blank. Harper was sitting opposite, Tomas next to him. Tomas was scribbling away, despite the fact the interview was being recorded. Harper leaned back in his chair, shoulders relaxed, face welcoming. Harper could have been in a bar, chatting to a friend.

  “Why were you running away, Patrick?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “What were you doing then?”

  “I needed more stuff. I was heading back to Cellestos’ place.”

  “He told us you were doing a runner. You broke into your apartment, despite the police tape. We caught you loading your suitcase into the back of Danni’s car, which, incidentally, you didn’t inform us you still had.”

  “It’s my car, not Danni’s. Hers is missing.”

  “You still should have informed us.”

  Patrick shrugged his shoulders, but his head slumped towards his chest. He was a beaten man.

  “In your statement, Patrick, you said you joined the boat of your friend on Tuesday, and you left the Island together that same day?”

  Patrick nodded. “That’s what I said.”

  “So, how do you explain someone seeing you in Farou Town, on Wednesday afternoon?”

  Patrick’s head snapped up. “They couldn’t of… they’re lying.”

  “They are certain it was you.”

  “They must have seen someone who looks like me, or got the day wrong.”

  “The problem I have, Patrick, is there is no one to verify your story. We haven’t been able to get in touch with your friend. Him and his yacht seem to have vanished. We’ve checked CCTV at the ferry port in Patras and here, to see if you appear on camera, but nothing. We’ve asked the crew of the ferry you claimed you took from Patras on Saturday, but no one remembers you.”

  “There were hundreds of passengers. I was there. I swear.”

  “I’m pretty sure if one person saw you in town on Wednesday, there will be others who did, too. We are also checking the town’s CCTV cameras.”

  “You won’t see me, because I wasn’t there.”

  “The problem I’ve got, Patrick, is your girlfriend has been murdered. We can’t establish an alibi. We have a witness, who has made a statement they saw you on Wednesday, which means that you are lying to us.”

  “I’m not lying.” Patrick gripped edge of the table, pulling the chair forward underneath him. He glanced at his lawyer. “Tell them. It’s my word against this witness. Why are you believing them over me? I’m not lying.”

  But, he was. Beckett could see it, and hear it in the rise and fall of his voice. In the tension down his neck, and into his spine.

  “Did you ever argue with Danni?”

  The change of tack threw Patrick. He sat upright. For a moment, his head turned towards Beckett. Beckett wondered if he realised he was being watched through the blackened window running the length of one side of the interview room.

  “We’ve been through this. Yes. Sometimes. No more than anyone else.”

  “We have reports you fought frequently. That the arguments sometimes turned violent.”

  “Violent? No, never. A few things might have got thrown occasionally. But, I was never violent to her.”

  “You have a conviction for assaulting a girlfriend when you were seventeen.”

  “She punched me. I slapped her back.”

  “And you were arrested for assaulting a girl we believe was Danni, when you were in Brazil together.”

  “What? N
o…”

  Harper was remaining completely calm and reasonable, his tone unthreatening. They could have been discussing the weather. Patrick was unravelling. Beckett could see his entire body flooding with fear. He could not sit still, but did not dare move from the chair, so he shifted about, as if the plastic seat was too hot.

  “Was Danni faithful to you, Patrick?”

  “Yes, of course she was.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.” But, his voice betrayed him.

  “The evening before she was killed, she had sex with someone. We found traces of semen.”

  Patrick’s mouth opened but no sound emerged.

  “The DNA profile doesn’t match yours. Have you any idea who she was sleeping with?”

  “It must have been the person who killed her. See, it wasn’t me. Was she forced? Was she raped?”

  “There were no signs of violence. I put it to you, Patrick, that you found out Danni was cheating on you. You couldn’t stand it. Your Danni being touched by another man. Laughing at you behind your back. You lost it, attacked her, and killed her. Then, when it was clear your story was going to be blown wide open, you decided to do a runner. Where were you going? Back to Serbia?”

  “If I’d thought Danni was cheating on me, I would have killed the bastard, not her.”

  The door behind Beckett swung open. Floros appeared. “I’ve put those archived files you requested in the boiler room. Are you sure you don’t want them in your office? It’s about a hundred degrees in there.”

  “No, that’s perfect. Thank you.”

  “You should be in there, boss. You’d get him to confess.”

  “Not if he didn’t do it.”

  “You still would.” She flushed.

  “We don’t really want people to confess to things they didn’t do.”

  “No, of course… I just meant…” Glowing red now, she stumbled over her words. “I’d better get back…” She disappeared, leaving the door swinging.

  Beckett took a final look at the interview room. Patrick had curled himself into the foetal position on the chair, both legs juddering, sobs wracking his body. Harper sat impassively, waiting. He was good. Patient, calm, picking and prodding where necessary, but sitting back, and letting the story ooze from the interviewee. It didn’t change the fact Patrick wasn’t the murderer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The boiler room was down a dank corridor, pipes snaking along the ceiling like vines, and peeling paint leaving rusting metal gaping. Floros hadn’t exaggerated the temperature, at least not by much. The room itself was little more than a box. No windows, and just one strip light, which shot an eye-squinting, yellow glow across the room. It was the room people came to when they didn’t want to be disturbed, whether that was studying for sergeant’s exams, phone conversations with journalists, or heat generating trysts with a colleague.

  There was a cardboard box on the desk. Beckett placed it on the floor, and then methodically transferred the contents, one-by-one, onto the desk, spreading them out. There wasn’t much. A couple of brown files embracing typewritten and handwritten papers. A few photographs. And some items wrapped in evidence bags. A leather-beaded sandal, a gold and green silk scarf, and a bracelet. All the items had been found at Chrystos’ hideout. The bracelet had been identified as Rosie’s by a couple of her friends, and also contained traces of her DNA. The sandal and the scarf were less certain. Her friends thought they could have been Rosie’s, one more certain than the other, but not 100% convincing. No DNA was recovered from either item. It wasn’t them he was interested in.

  Beckett snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves, and fished the bracelet free from the bag. It was as he remembered it–identical to the one which had belonged to Danni. He bent his head, and squinted. Actually, not quite identical, some of the patterns on the beads were different. But, similar enough to be satisfied the bracelets had been made by the same person. Finding the maker of the bracelet hadn’t been deemed necessary at the time. Chrystos was found wearing it. The conclusion was obvious. Beckett had been hailed the hero, and had returned to London, held up as an example of an outstanding Met officer. Things were different now.

  He placed the bracelet back into the bag, settled himself in the pockmarked wooden chair, and opened the first file. He found the original missing person’s report. Rosie had been gone twenty-four hours, and her flat mate, Kelly, had come into the station. Beckett studied the photo of Rosie, as he remembered from when he looked at it the first time around. A pretty girl, with olive skin, a mane of chocolate and golden hair, and a huge smile. He ran his eyes over the description typed up on the report. Then, read it again. The usual—height, build, colour of eyes, hair, etc–but then the words, ‘tattoo, lower back.’ He read on. There was no description of what the tattoo looked like. But, he knew the detail had been reported, verbally at least.

  Beckett put that file to one side, and opened another. This was his own report on finding and arresting Chrystos. He had to force himself to read the banal words he’d used to describe the horror he’d come across. There was nothing in there he didn’t remember. The next page was a medical and toxicology report. The conclusion from the doctor was Chrystos had suffered a severe psychotic episode. Not a stretch for any doctor to conclude, Beckett figured. No one in a sane state of mind would eat the flesh of another human being. Something else stopped him dead—Chrystos’ toxicology results. High levels of dimethyltryptamine in his system; the same drug they’d found in Danni.

  Beckett returned all the contents to the box, and lumped it upstairs to his office. He was stowing it under his desk when Petrakis burst in, her rich floral perfume enveloping him even before she made it through the doorway.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Chasing some leads.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I thought you’d want to be there when we charge Gruenanger with the murder of Danni Deacon.”

  “He confessed?”

  “Hate to admit it, but pretty boy did good.”

  Someone cleared their throat. Harper was hovering outside the doorway. “I’m not sure I believe him.”

  “What?” Petrakis spat at him.

  “You’re going to pin this on me anyway, so I confess. I did it. I killed Danni.” Harper did a pretty good impression of the Serb.

  “Good enough for me.” Petrakis nodded, head bobbing like a boat on rough seas. “He had motive and opportunity, plus a confession. We’re going to charge him.”

  Harper searched out Beckett’s gaze, and gave a half shrug. Harper knew it was bogus. His mouth twisted down at the corners.

  Beckett got to his feet. “I think you’re wrong.”

  “I’m your Chief of Police. It doesn’t matter what you think. Decision is made. Who wants to do it?”

  Beckett gave a half smile. Not a chance. Petrakis turned to Harper, who avoided eye contact. “I don’t have jurisdiction.”

  “Fine.” She spun out of the door, Harper leaping out of the way.

  “Ma’am.” Tomas ran into the incident room. His voice was pitched near the ceiling, “A woman has just come into reception. She’s saying she’s come to help Gruenanger. She’s his alibi. They were together from Wednesday night to Sunday.”

  Tomas had put her in the other interview room. Beckett, Petrakis and Harper stood in the side room and looked through the one-way mirror. The woman sitting on the cheap plastic chair, twisting a lock of blonde hair around her ring finger and glancing repeated to the door, was Sophia Bakas.

  “They could be in it together,” Petrakis offered.

  “What motive?” Beckett asked. He wondered if Michale knew about the affair, or if he even cared. But, if he did know, had he confided in Danni? Even if Danni knew, it didn’t serve her to blow the secret. Michale was gay, and had a wife as cover, because he didn’t want the world to know. Danni and Michale were friends. Why would she do anything to damage his reputation? Danni was the injured party. It was her boyfriend cheating
. And even if she was also seeing someone else, why would Patrick want to get rid of her? She had no money, no assets. They could all have gone their separate ways, and no one would have thought anything of it.

  Petrakis shrugged, and rubbed her left temple.

  “Danni knew about the affair, and was threatening to tell Michale,” Harper offered.

  “But, you’re certain Michale is gay.”

  “Wouldn’t stop him caring. He’s built up this perfect life. Perhaps he’d have chucked Sophia out. Maybe she’d lose her stake in the business.”

  “I checked. Sophia owns 51% of Michale’s company. Together or divorced, doesn’t make any difference.” Beckett watched the woman in the other room. She got up, and paced the circumference, then sat down again. “Besides, she says they sailed to the mainland together. Tomas is checking out the story, but if their receipts and phone records match, they were hundreds of miles away.”

  “So, where the hell does that leave us, Beckett?” Petrakis struggled to keep the panic from her voice.

  “We need to find out who Danni slept with the night before she died. We know it wasn’t Patrick. We doubt it was Michale, but we’ll check the DNA anyway. So, who was it? We need to ask Michale; she might have said something to him. And we should check with her neighbour, Linus Sang.”

  “She could have been sleeping with him,” Harper mused.

  “I don’t think so, but he is a little infatuated with her. He seems to keep a close eye on her comings and goings. He may have seen someone.”

  “Or been so obsessed with her when she turned him down, laughed at him, he killed her.” Harper warmed to his theme.

  “Danni was a fit five foot seven. Linus is a geeky five foot of nothing. He might have the physical strength to drug her and kill her, but he could never have dumped the body on the beach.”

  “He could have got someone to help him?” Harper insisted.

  “Possibly, but he strikes me as a loner. I doubt he knows anyone else well enough to persuade them to help him move a body.”