Kill Them Cold Read online

  "Yes, of course," he said, although his attempt to make it sound like the answer was a foregone conclusion didn't have the confidence he desired. Cassie squeezed his shoulder.

  "Pleased for you, little man."

  She moved away just in time to avoid his backhanded swipe.

  "When you're all grown up your arm might reach further," she said over her shoulder with a grin, walking away. Eric laughed, seeing both Tom and Tamara were amused by the exchange.

  "Ready?" Tom asked him.

  "Absolutely."

  Chapter Five

  Having rung the bell for a third time, Tom stepped back and looked up at the windows of the flat above the shop. There were no window coverings to obscure the interior but more importantly no indication of anyone present. He looked at Eric inquisitively.

  "Are you sure she said she would be home?"

  "I'm certain," Eric said anxiously. "Maybe she's just popped out for a minute?"

  Tom nodded, looking around. Angela Farrow's flat was located above one of the shops in Hunstanton's small high street, accessed from the rear. They were standing in a tight parking area behind the row of shops, little more than a few spaces for residents and only if they parked their vehicles at odd angles to make them fit. The outer reaches of the town boasted wide streets with grand three-storey Victorian houses or apartment buildings overlooking the sea but, here, the modernity of twenty-first century life was squeezed into a nineteenth-century footprint. The high street consisted of a variety of cafés and restaurants, both national franchises and independents owned and run by locals, all largely geared towards the tourists who flocked to the seaside town every year.

  They didn't have long to wait before a figure rounded the corner heading in their direction clutching a plastic supermarket carrier bag awkwardly across her stomach. She hesitated when she caught sight of them, but resumed her approach, eyeing them warily. She was in her thirties, Tom guessed, but her hair was lank, tied back, and her face lined beyond her years.

  "Angela Farrow?" Eric asked when she came close enough. She nodded, her eyes furtively glancing between the two of them. "We spoke on the phone. I'm DC Eric Collet." He indicated Tom. “And this is Detective Inspector Janssen."

  Tom smiled and she returned it with one of her own, although hers was forced out of politeness.

  "And you think you've found our Tina?"

  Eric exchanged a glance with Tom who indicated for the constable to take the lead. After all, he had already broken the ice with her over the phone.

  "That's what we are looking to determine." Angela's smile faded as quickly as it had formed, her expression turning fearful. "May we talk inside?"

  "Erm … my place is a bit of a mess." She looked at the entrance, as if she could see through the door. "Maybe we could take a walk?"

  Eric and Tom agreed. Angela opened the door, just enough to put the carrier bag at the foot of the stairs leading up to her flat. The sound of glass bottles clinking together gave away the contents. She locked the door and glanced between the two of them once more.

  "We can walk along the promenade if you like?"

  They set off to their left in the direction they'd come. Once at the end of the alleyway, they turned right and walked towards the seafront. It was still busy. The summer season was coming to an end but tourist numbers were undiminished and the bars and restaurants were preparing for the evening footfall. The snack bars and ice cream parlours were shutting up for the day while the amusement arcades were experiencing their quiet spell as day trippers headed home. The promenade was busy as one would expect on a rather warm evening with dog walkers, joggers and those out for a stroll mingling as the tide gently rolled in against the sea wall. The shrieks of excitement and fear carried to them on the breeze from the nearby funfair, the neon lights would only get brighter once the sun went down.

  "Can you describe the wrist band to me again?" Eric asked as they walked.

  "Sure … vaguely though, it was years ago. It was multicoloured, braided … don't ask me which colours, mind you."

  "But you're sure Tina was wearing it when she went missing?"

  Angela nodded. "She'd only just got back, wouldn't take it off. It was like a badge of honour for her or something. I wondered whether it would become like her necklace; something she would never take off."

  "Necklace?"

  "A silver chain with a heart pendant … a gift from our aunt. We both got one exactly the same," Angela said, reaching up and pulling the neckline of her blouse down so she could produce exactly what she was describing, holding it out for them to see. "It's nothing special … valuable, I mean. Aunt Sarah was our godmother. We liked her so much. She was everything our mother wasn't but I guess it's easier to be the fun aunty as opposed to the parent. This was a parting gift, sort of." Angela read Tom's enquiring look. "She died. Cancer. The same year Tina went missing."

  "You said Tina wore the wrist band as a badge of honour?" Tom asked.

  "Yeah. Mum and Dad went mental at her." She looked at Tom, a smile creeping across her face followed by a brief shake of the head, as if she was dismissing a memory. "She was never supposed to go."

  "To the festival?" Tom asked.

  "Yeah. Mum forbade it; said she was too young to go all that way by herself. Not that it stopped her." She grinned at Tom. "I think that's why she went. She wasn't that bothered if I remember right, but when Mum threw her weight around it only made Tina more determined."

  "Your parents were quite strict?"

  Angela shook her head. "Not so as you'd notice. Tina just liked winding them up. She seemed to take pleasure in it."

  "Why?"

  "No idea." Angela absently kicked out at a stone near her foot as they walked by. It bounced a couple of times before splashing into the water.

  "Which festival did your sister go to?"

  "Isle of Wight," she said, meeting Tom's eye.

  "You didn't go with her? You're a similar age, aren't you?"

  "Only eighteen months between us, yeah. Although, no one ever recognised us as sisters. Chalk and cheese, Dad used to say, in both looks and personality."

  "You didn't get on?"

  "It wasn't like that." She laughed without any real humour. "We got on okay. Festivals … being around thousands of other people who were all off their—" She shrugged. "Just not my type of thing."

  "What can you tell us about that day, the day Tina went missing?"

  Angela stopped, turning to face the sea with a faraway expression.

  "She was still on a high from the festival, figuratively speaking, although Tina was never shy of getting a little other-worldly if you know what I mean?"

  "She took recreational drugs?" Tom asked.

  "Yes, often. Not that she had a problem; don't think that. She just liked dancing … being out till all times of the day and night, you know? You can do that with a few drinks in you but … but it's not the same."

  "That day?" Tom asked.

  She shook her head. "Not as far as I know. She was heading out; it was Friday night after all. Mum had just given her a rocket; fallout from the whole festival thing. She'd upped and left for the previous weekend without telling anyone she was going. We all guessed, obviously. When she turned up five days later, still buzzing, literally, from the experience, Mum went mad."

  "When you say buzzing you mean—"

  "Off her tits, yeah." Angela smiled, running a hand through her dark shoulder-length hair and pushing her fringe to one side, tucking it behind her ear. "Mum was apoplectic. The day she came home wasn't too bad, I mean, you can't have a stand-up argument with someone on a high because they'll not take it in, will they? But you can imagine how badly it went when Tina was coming down … not that Mum spared her in the least."

  "Do you want a drink?" Tom asked, indicating the café on the promenade. It was still open. Tom gave Eric a note and sent him in to get them a tea and coffee along with whatever he wanted. Tom sat down with Angela on the sea wall. The crowd was t
hinning a little here and it seemed like a decent spot to sit and talk. "Did she go on a bit, your mum?"

  "I'll say. Her and Tina were always going at it over something or other. Dad reckons the two of them were so alike and that's why they clashed." She smiled then, clearly a thought tickled her. "Not that he can talk. He had frequent run-ins with her, too, and she was nothing like him."

  "About what?"

  "The usual: lifestyle choices, boyfriends."

  "Was she involved with anyone at the time?"

  "Boyfriend? No. She wasn't into anything serious. That applied to relationships, jobs, college … you name it." She shook her head, frowning. "You know, that was the strangest thing about Tina. She was smart, attractive, more than capable of doing anything she set her mind to but …"

  "But?"

  She exhaled, her face a picture of concentration. "But she never applied herself to anything. Nothing constructive anyway. Dropped out of college, drifted between jobs. Tina … it was like she wasn't interested in taking anything seriously. If only she had then, whatever it was, I reckon she'd have been a success at it. She was that sort."

  "You sound regretful."

  Angela dropped her hands into her lap, her shoulders sagging. "If only I had a bit of that myself, maybe …" She left the thought unfinished.

  Eric returned with the drinks, handing them polystyrene cups hot to the touch and placing sachets of sugar on the wall between Angela and Tom. Tom thanked him, peeling off the lid and blowing on the steaming contents.

  "You said she was heading out for the evening. Do you know where she was going?"

  "Not at the time, no," Angela said, stirring two sugars into her tea with a disposable plastic stirrer. "But afterwards I found out she'd been at the pub; the one where she worked, you know?" Tom shook his head to infer he didn't. "The Crown Inn. She worked the odd shift there, more so when they were busy. Other times she worked casual shifts at the amusements; the ones at the old pier."

  "But not that night?"

  "No, not that night." Angela sipped at her tea. "Maybe if she had been working this might not have happened."

  "Do you think it's her, then?" Tom asked.

  "I wouldn't be surprised." She snorted a laugh, raising her eyebrows. "Just as I wouldn't be surprised if she walked into my place tomorrow, sat down and cracked open a bottle of prosecco as if the last twenty years hadn't happened!" She met Tom's eye. He was wondering what to make of Tina's description. "Please don't get me wrong, Inspector. I love my sister and miss her dearly … but she did what she wanted to do regardless of what me or Mum and Dad wanted her to do. The Isle of Wight wasn't the first. She'd been pulling that sort of stunt since she was fourteen or fifteen if not younger."

  "Doing what?" Tom was sure to keep his tone neutral and not judgemental, now finding his coffee at a drinkable temperature.

  She shrugged. "Taking off … with God knows who to wherever she damn well pleased. Tina didn't seem to care what it put us through … me, Mum and Dad. It was always about her. Hell, I only went to your lot after she'd been gone a week. After Mum laid into her for a couple of days, we all figured she'd just taken off for a bit until the heat died off."

  "Why didn't either of your parents call us?"

  Angela rolled her lower lip beneath her top. For a second he wondered if she was going to answer.

  "I don't know, to be honest. I guess they thought it was just Tina being Tina, you know? She'd turn up when she wanted to. She always did."

  "But you know she went to the Crown that Friday night?"

  "Yeah. I knew some of the regulars back then, and they saw her there during the evening. She was the life and soul apparently, same as always."

  "Nothing struck you as unusual about what they said or how she behaved?"

  Angela shook her head. "No one said so and, anyway, Tina was Tina."

  "That's the second time you said that. How do you mean?"

  "As lovely as she was …" Angela tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. Tom read anguish in her expression, understanding why she looked far older than her years. "She was unpredictable. No one ever knew what was going on in Tina's head." She sighed then took a sip of tea. "Looking back, I've often thought that was just how she wanted it."

  Tom allowed the silence to carry for a moment. A young family walked past heading towards the funfair. Two sisters were hand in hand, a couple of metres ahead of their parents who called them back, possibly fearful they'd run off into the funfair without them, fearful of losing them in the crowd.

  "And your parents … they left the area?" Tom asked once the family were out of earshot and they were alone again.

  "Mum is still here. She has a place up at Redgates, on the far edge of town?" She looked at Tom to see if he knew where she meant and he nodded. "Dad lives down in Snettisham now, so he's not far." She drew breath, sitting forward and holding her cup in her lap with both hands. She stared at it as if it held answers. "It all got too much for them." She looked at Tom and then Eric, who avoided the eye contact. Angela Farrow was baring her innermost now. "The gossip. The finger pointing. This is a small town. Not much goes on around here … and Tina disappearing the way she did left people with something to talk about. Not that anyone knew anything, not really. I mean," she turned to face Tom, "you lot looked into it, didn't find anything, did you?" Tom shook his head. There was an edge to her tone now, not accusatory but bitter. "Not that it stopped people making stuff up. Sometimes it would get back to me … to us … what people were saying." She looked skyward, her eye drawn by the gulls calling overhead. "It just got too much, that's all."

  "Eric here," Tom said, gesturing towards him with his forefinger, "has a test kit back in the car. Would it be possible for you to give us a sample of your DNA? It is so we can compare it to …" he stopped short as she looked up at him, her eyes full of hope and trepidation, "to the remains we have found."

  She held his eye with her gaze, as if she were analysing him.

  "You asked me before but do you really think it's her?"

  He couldn't say with any certainty, although he was sure they'd know one way or another very soon.

  "It is a distinct possibility but I wouldn't like to offer you false hope." She accepted the statement with a weak smile. "Could you walk back with Eric and he can take the sample? It won't take a minute to do."

  Tom watched the departing forms of Eric and Angela as they walked away from him. He put his coffee down and rubbed at his eyes. There was something about Tina Farrow's story that resonated with him. They couldn't be sure until the DNA results came back but he had a hunch that they'd found a name for their victim, but he didn't feel any closer to understanding how she came to be in the ground. Making a mental note to speak directly with the investigating officer who originally looked into Tina's disappearance, he also found his curiosity piqued by the parents. His mobile rang; it was Alice.

  "Hey. How're things?"

  "Hi. Okay … but don't expect me home any time soon."

  "We'll eat without you. Will you be home before Saffy goes to bed?"

  "Doubtful. Can you give her a hug from me and tell her I'll look in on her when I get in."

  "Will do. Don't work too hard, okay? Love you."

  Tom put the phone back into his pocket, his thoughts returning to the Farrow household. As much as Tina had form for pulling a regular disappearing act, he was certain, if it was his daughter, that he wouldn't wait five days before contacting the police and certainly wouldn't leave it to a sibling to do so. Furthermore, teenagers could play up, that was almost universal, but usually if someone's behaviour was that erratic then there would normally be a root cause. What else was going on in that household prior to Tina's disappearance?

  Chapter Six

  Tamara Greave knocked on the door out of courtesy, but didn't wait to be bidden entry, holding it open for Tom following closely behind her. Dr Timothy Paxton was on the other side of the room, sitting at his desk. He glanced over his shoulder at the
two detectives and smiled a greeting.

  "You're keen. That didn't take you long."

  "Detective Foresight here," she pointed to Tom, who smiled, "is inclined to believe we know who she is but without more detail to work with we're largely just shuffling old case files around," Tamara said, meeting Dr Paxton halfway as he directed them to the stainless-steel slab in the centre of the room. Although the interior climate was always maintained at room temperature, today it felt much cooler, probably down to the heat and humidity outside. A storm front was moving towards them and thunderstorms were forecast to increase in frequency in the coming days.

  "Well, perhaps I can assist in some part. I worked through the night on her for you but we're going to have to wait on test results," Paxton said. "I'll come to that after I walk you through what we've been able to determine thus far."

  Tom and Tamara came to stand beside the slab, facing Dr Paxton, both cast an eye over the skeletal remains painstakingly reconstructed since being unearthed the previous day. The doctor looked tired, unsurprisingly, but he remained bright-eyed and focussed.

  "The first thoughts of Fiona's yesterday appear to have been borne out. We have a young woman, matured, but I would lean towards late teens or early twenties. I'll reaffirm that she hadn't given birth to a child. She was five-foot-four tall and I imagine her to be of slight build, judging by the tell-tale giveaways; wear on joints, the bone density and so forth."

  Tamara visually recreated the figure in her mind. She was petite and with a slight build; would probably have weighed between six and seven stone, very little for a grown adult. "Any indication of the cause of death?"

  "There are no obvious breaks or signs of blunt-force trauma to the bones, other than what we can judge to be resulting from the plough blades, however, yes, I can hazard a pretty good guess." Paxton drew their attention to the vertebrae of the spinal column where they met the base of the skull. Both Tamara and Tom leaned in to where he pointed with the tip of his pen. The two exchanged glances and the pathologist smiled. "Yes, it isn't obvious, even with me having cleaned away the soil. I only saw it myself with the help of the x-rays; hairline fractures to the vertebra."