Page 21 of Child's Play

The kitchen was surprisingly modern, light and airy, with flagstone tiles. A bistro table was set before a patio window looking out to the garden. A small fish pond was surrounded by colourful blooms.

‘So, Mr Blenkinsop, what can you tell us about Belinda Evans?’

‘Well, I didn’t know her all that well. I mean, we waved and said the odd hello, exchanged Christmas cards and such but…’

‘I understand,’ Kim said. It was way more than she did with any of her neighbours except Charlie, Barney’s best friend. ‘So, what can you tell us about her habits? Did you happen to notice anything?’

‘Well, it’s all a bit strange, if you ask me. Unmarried, no children, no partner, buying the house next door for goodness knows what reason.’

So, the man had never been in her home, and looking around his own pristine surroundings it could very well have been the death of him.

‘Did you ever notice any visitors, strangers coming to the house or hanging around outside?’

He shook his head. ‘She seemed to go out a lot, late at night. Sometimes came back early hours of the morning, occasionally gone overnight.’

‘Any idea where?’ Kim asked, thinking about the overnight bag.

He shook his head.

‘Or with whom? Maybe her sister?’ Bryant asked.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said, frowning. ‘Very strange. Hard to tell the two of them apart. Same hair, same clothes, similar car. A bit like they were trying to be twins.’

Except that by all accounts they couldn’t stand each other.

‘Two to three times a day the other sister turned up, sometimes just for a few minutes or half an hour but it was like they couldn’t bear to be apart for more than a few hours at a time. Most strange for two women in their…’

His words trailed away as Kim’s phone began to ring. She had to agree that these observations were not matching Veronica’s description of their relationship.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, heading back into the hallway.

‘Go ahead, Stace,’ she said, out of earshot.

‘Boss, I know you said the sisters weren’t close but it might be worth finding out why they spoke to each other on the phone at the very least ten times a day.’

Fifteen

Penn watched as Ricky Drake took the stand and placed his hand on the Bible.

Although not a religious man, Penn wanted to rip the thing from beneath his palm.

Even now he couldn’t account for the instant dislike he’d felt for the man, which he’d buried well during the investigation, due to him being their star witness.

It wasn’t the first time he’d met someone like Ricky Drake, low-level scum always on the take and busted for house robberies two years earlier. It was unfortunate that you couldn’t choose your witnesses, but the man saw what the man saw.

Penn was pleasantly surprised that he’d taken the time to make an effort. The dirty grey jogging bottoms had been replaced with a pair of black trousers and the navy fleece had become a long-sleeved white shirt that covered most of the tattoos that decorated his body.

He couldn’t help but wonder if jury members still fell for the illusions and games played on both sides of the courtroom. Clean someone up to make them look more respectable, shave off facial hair to make them look younger. Surely every courtroom drama on the TV meant that jurors no longer fell for that crap.

And yet when Ricky Drake had entered the courtroom not one face in the jury had registered any kind of emotion. He knew full well the distaste that would have travelled across their faces had he not been cleaned up. But his benign appearance had caused no offence and therefore the jury was prepared to listen to him without prejudice, without judgement.

Yeah, the prosecution team did good in turning him into a credible witness, and he could see Doug nodding approvingly in the direction of where he stood.

All three of them had been surprised when Ricky Drake had offered them information on an armed robbery in exchange for leniency on a petty shoplifting charge, because Penn had thought he was seasoned enough to know that kind of stuff really did only exist in films. And after a sandwich and a cuppa from the station canteen he’d given up his info anyway.

He’d told them how he’d left The Crying Dog pub at around ten twenty to beat the rush into the chippy. He’d walked on the other side of the road, glanced into the brightly lit shop and seen the male in what he’d assumed to be a normal transaction. He’d stopped to light a cigarette, taken another look and realised he knew the guy vaguely and then carried on along to get his supper.

Both himself and Doug had been surprised – they’d been barking up the tree of the Reed family, having felt the incident had all the markings of one of their jobs – but they couldn’t ignore a witness who had walked by the location during the actual incident. This man’s statement had changed the direction of the whole investigation and eventually led to the apprehension of the murderer.