Page 21 of Gone in the Night (Detective Morgan Brookes #16)

TWENTY-ONE

Back in the car, Morgan was biting at the chipped nail varnish on her nails, and she announced, ‘Stan was right, this is a shit show of the highest degree. Do you think Jack’s telling the truth?’

Ben was watching Jack as he walked down Amy’s street with his head hung low and his shoulders stooped. ‘He’s a waste of space and the way he treated Amy was unforgivable. I don’t like him as a person, but this isn’t about that. It’s about whether Jack White has a moral compass we can trust.’

‘Do you trust him? Because I kind of don’t, not one little bit.’

Ben was still watching Jack, until he reached the corner and turned out of sight.

‘Between you and me, no, I don’t, and this puts me in a very awkward position regarding the investigation. We need to search Sharon’s house, see if there are any leads or forensics in there.’

‘Did you hear the way he said she picked him up? He’s accounting for his prints being in her car and at her home address.’

‘I noticed that. At least we have Stan who can interview him if needs be. However, I don’t think it will come down to that. PSD are going to be all over this like a rash. It’s not good publicity if an officer is involved in a high-profile murder investigation to the degree he is.’

‘I keep thinking about Sarah Everard, that was horrific beyond all measure.’

‘It was horrendous, that scumbag.’ Ben stopped.

‘I can’t even put into words how I feel about that case.

This is going to be high profile when the news breaks tomorrow.

I mean all the murders we deal with are equally important, but the fact that she was a, what’s the word they use for people who aren’t famous except for on social media? ’

‘Influencer?’

‘Yeah, that. She has a pretty big following, her parents are wealthy, she was dating a copper, and her ex beat her up and got sent to prison. The press will have a field day with all of that.’

Morgan sighed. ‘Yeah, they love to focus on everything except what’s important.’

Ben’s phone began to vibrate, and he put it on speaker when he saw Declan’s name on the screen.

‘Ben, I thought I’d better let you know the post-mortem is scheduled for nine thirty tomorrow morning.’

‘We’ll be there, thanks, Declan. I believe it was a bit disorganised this afternoon.’

‘It was certainly something. Morgan handled it very well. You should give her a pay rise for all the crap she puts up with.’

Morgan grinned at Ben. ‘Thanks, Declan.’

‘Ah, my sweet child. Praise where it’s due, that was out of the blue and totally unexpected.’

Ben smiled back at her. ‘See you tomorrow, today is getting worse by the hour.’

‘Take care, guys.’

Declan hung up.

Morgan poked Ben in the ribs. ‘I think he’s right about the pay rise.’

‘I would give you one and a huge bonus for every killer you catch. Unfortunately HR doesn’t work that way. Come on, let’s see if we can locate a key for Sharon’s house and go have a ratch around in it. Who knows, we might get lucky and find a stack of correspondence from her killer.’

‘Forever the optimist, I love that, Ben Matthews.’

Back at the station, Ben left Morgan to go and speak to Madds about Jack.

She didn’t know what she felt about Jack.

How could you feel bad for someone like that?

Although if he was telling the truth, his girlfriend had been brutally murdered.

Morgan decided that all her time and sympathy would focus on Sharon Montgomery.

She was the innocent victim in all of this.

Jack was his own worst enemy, but how peculiar that he just happened to be dating their murder victim.

Cain and Stan were gossiping, a mug of something hot in their hands and a half-empty packet of biscuits on the desk between them. Morgan plucked one out of the packet. ‘No cakes left?’

‘I forgot about those, there might be. I need to go and clean up the blue room before the cleaner gets upset about the mess.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll do it, least I can do.’

Taking another biscuit, she left them to go to the blue room, which looked as if a pinata had exploded everywhere.

Picking up the wastepaper bin, she began scooping paper plates and crumbs into it.

There were some curled-up cheese sandwiches on a paper plate that nobody had bothered to cover up, so she threw them in the bin as well.

There were three cupcakes left and after making sure the only mess was on the floor, she sat down in one of the chairs and peeled back the wax wrapper on one of the cakes.

Taking a huge bite, she sighed but her pleasure was short-lived when the door opened and Marc strode in.

‘Aha, just in time, I see, to snag a cake.’

Morgan pointed at the plate, swallowed and said, ‘There’s some stale sandwiches in the bin if you’re really hungry.’

Marc grimaced. ‘No, I’m good, a cake will do. What’s up then?’

She took another bite of her cake, asking herself if he really just asked her what’s up. Marc sat down opposite her, managed to tear the cake apart and stuff half of it into his mouth.

‘Wow, that was something.’

He grinned at her. ‘It was, I’m starving. Are we going to eat food at some point? It seems like hours since we had Amy’s tea party.’

‘I guess we could order pizza or something.’

‘Anything will do, as long as it’s hot. Any updates for me?’

Morgan realised he didn’t know about Jack because that was a huge update. Not sure if she should tell him or leave it to Ben. He leaned across the table on his elbows, shoved the rest of his cake in his mouth and sighed. When he’d finished chewing, he pointed at her.

‘Come on, where did you and Ben disappear to? Cain and Stan have not long come out of interview with the delightful Eddy Lightburn, who by all accounts is a reformed character, which I think is a load of old tosh, but I guess we have to give him the benefit of the doubt until we find something that ties him to the crime scene.’

‘You think he did it?’

‘I don’t think he one hundred per cent did it, but I’d give him a fifty per cent chance of being guilty.’

‘We went to Amy’s house because Jack turned up there.’

Marc’s eyes were wide as he looked at her. ‘Was he giving her grief?’

She shook her head. She’d done it now, she may as well tell him the rest of it, and besides it would give Ben a bit of a breather if she took the flak for it.

‘No, he went to confess something to her. He looked awful, really rough.’

‘What? Come on, Morgan, you’re worse than Cain when he’s trying to make all the boring gossip he’s retained sound interesting, just spit it out.’

‘I don’t really know if it’s my place to say anything.’

He laughed. ‘That’s quite the understatement; you normally have no problem speaking your mind.’

She couldn’t argue with him there; she’d given him what for at the briefing earlier. ‘Jack was dating Sharon Montgomery; he slept at her house the night before she went camping, and Ben has gone to speak to Madds about it.’

‘Oh Lord, for real? Jack, one of our officers, was dating the murder victim?’

‘Sorry.’

Marc leaned back in the chair. ‘Do you think he killed her?’

‘No, he said she picked him up from the pub, he went back to her house with her and slept there. He left her the next morning to get her stuff ready; I was going to pull up his duties, but Madds will know if he turned in for work anyway.’

‘He was giving a reason for his prints being in her vehicle and home.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Wow, this is just not what I was expecting at all. What did Ben say?’

‘His words were something along the lines of, “we need to figure out Jack’s moral compass”.’

Marc stood up. ‘I have a headache.’

‘Join the gang, so do the rest of us. Should I order pizza, or would you prefer a Chinese takeaway?’

‘Pizza.’ He took out his wallet and put two twenty-pound notes on the table. ‘My shout, to show my appreciation to you all for working late.’

Morgan picked the money up. She wasn’t going to turn down free pizza and he knew it, none of them would. She took out her phone and scrolled through her apps until she reached the one for Gino’s Pizzeria.