Page 45 of Gone in the Night (Detective Morgan Brookes #16)

FORTY-FIVE

Two detectives from Professional Standards were sitting in the office when Ben and Morgan walked in. She didn’t know them, but Ben nodded at them both and she didn’t miss how his shoulders had stiffened, his whole posture had.

‘Mike, Dan, how’s it going?’

Morgan smiled at them, retrieved her laptop bag from the floor underneath her desk and left them to it. Regardless of the mess she’d made of things, she was going to find an empty office and do what Ben had said she could, at least until he’d calmed down.

She went up to the third floor, as there were a few empty offices up here that had once housed the coroner and his assistant.

Morgan went into one and tried the window to see if it opened because the dust in there was thicker than her fingertip.

Relieved that it did, she went to the toilet and grabbed a handful of toilet roll to wipe the desk and chair down.

When it was as clean as she could get it without a hoover or duster, she sat down and opened her laptop.

Leaning over, she closed the door, blocking out the rest of the world.

She wanted to concentrate and try and quell the sickness that was rolling around inside of her stomach, as if she was on the Windermere ferry in a bad storm.

If Fin did quote her as speaking out against her superiors, those two from Professional Standards would be carting her off to interview the moment the story dropped and yes, she had known this was the most probable outcome and had gone with it. So, why was she regretting that now?

Logging on to her Instagram account, she brought up Sharon’s and Lydia’s profiles.

Taking out a notepad, she wrote down their names, then added Stefan’s, Leah’s, Beth’s, Justin’s.

She realised they knew nothing about Lydia apart from that Justin was her boss and he was a total loser; Beth hadn’t been spoken to either not since they’d found Sharon’s body. Morgan phoned Caroline, the FLO.

‘Hey, it’s me, Morgan. How’s things? Are you with Beth at the moment? Does she know about Lydia Williams?’

‘No, I’m not with her and she’s doing surprisingly well and told me she’d ring me if she needed me. I informed her about Lydia when Ben notified me. What’s up?’

‘Has she said anything about Stefan or Leah, anything about Sharon?’

‘She’s been very quiet, the only person she kept talking about was the maid. I can’t remember her name offhand.’

‘Marie?’

‘Yes, her.’

‘What’s she been saying about her?’

‘That she’s a lifesaver, she should have listened to her subtle hints about Stefan and his flirting. How she misses her more than her husband because she was a friend more than the woman who took care of things.’

‘What about Sharon?’

‘Lots of tears, not much talking about her daughter though. I’m not going to lie, Morgan, I kind of think she’s more upset at not seeing this Marie than she is about her daughter’s death and her husband’s infidelity.’

‘That’s odd.’

‘Yeah, I thought so too. Who knows? Maybe they’re a lot closer than we realise. I was wondering if they were in a relationship.’

‘Maybe, I could do with talking to Beth.’

‘Well, she’s at Storrs Hall Hotel, living it large. Booked herself into a suite, been eating room service. I wouldn’t want to pay the bill for that when she leaves.’

‘Hm, how tall do you think Beth is?’

‘Taller than me that’s for sure and I’m five foot ten.’

‘Have you seen much of Marie?’

‘Nope, just a couple of times.’

‘Is she taller than you?’

‘Only slightly. Why are you bothered about how tall they are?’

‘Declan and I think that Jack didn’t kill himself, that he could have been strangled and his body was staged, but it would need to have been someone taller than Jack.’

‘Well Jack wasn’t that tall, what was he, about five six maybe five seven at the most.’

‘Thanks, Caroline.’

‘Anytime.’

Morgan hung up and stared at the notebook on the desk, adding Marie Jones’s name next to Beth’s. If they were a couple or secretly dating, why would they want to kill Sharon and Lydia, even Jack? What was the reason for any of it? Revenge, greed, jealousy?

Morgan typed Marie’s name into Instagram and scrolled through a list of accounts to find one where the bio picture looked a little like her.

Clicking on her name, she realised this glamorous woman staring back at her with her softly waved hair falling over her shoulders and make-up to die for was in fact Marie Jones.

She was stunning, nothing like the Marie she had spoken to, although she guessed there wasn’t much point going to work looking that good when she was cleaning up someone else’s mess.

She clicked on the follower tab and scrolled down.

Morgan dropped her pen.

Marie was following Lydia Williams, Jack White, Sharon Montgomery – and all three of them followed her back. It was too much of a coincidence. Or was it? She quickly did the same for Jack, who followed Sharon, but not Lydia. Her mind was spinning.