Luckily her mother had returned early from work and caught Stacey as the first tablets were hovering around her mouth.
Her mother’s expression of fear and horror would stay in her mind for ever. The words had tumbled out of her, making no sense, but her mother had been able to clutch at the issue.
‘So you want to die because you might like girls?’
Stacey remembered shaking her head and then saying the words that had almost broken her mother’s heart.
‘No, I want to die so I don’t have to tell you that I might like girls.’
Stacey saw the hurt in her mother’s eyes before she was gathered into a hug and a barrage of reassurance. And that reassurance has been there for me ever since, Stacey thought with a smile. They had made a pact that day that no secrets would exist between them, and Stacey had kept her word. Now and again her mum would ask if there was any ‘special someone’ Stacey would like to bring around. Sadly there hadn’t been but she wouldn’t hesitate when there was.
Looking back now, it was hard for her to believe that she had considered ending her own life because of her burgeoning sexuality, but at the time it had been all-encompassing and what she had sought was an escape.
And that was what she had recognised in Justin’s letter. She had wanted to understand him, to reassure his family that it wasn’t their fault.
But now, Stacey knew that the tide had turned. She had begun by leading this investigation and, with apprehension, she realised that it was now leading her.
She had expected to uncover an angst-ridden teenager, weighed down by depression, fear or emotional baggage. But as she looked once more at the profile of Justin Reynolds, she realised she had found something a whole lot darker.
FIFTY-SIX
‘How much longer are we going to have to wait for this bloody brief?’ Kim asked, pacing around Travis’s small office.
‘It’s been fifteen minutes, Stone,’ Travis said, closing his folder and reaching for his phone.
She sighed heavily. It felt much longer since they had tried to question Mr Cowley, who had demanded a solicitor immediately.
She sat down opposite Travis.
‘What’s his daughter up to?’ Kim asked, thinking aloud. Although they had Mr Cowley in custody, it was Fiona Cowley that held the key to this case. She knew something about these bodies in the ground, and Kim wanted to know what it was.
‘Do you think we should haul her in as well?’ Travis asked.
Kim was tempted to glance behind her. He couldn’t possibly be asking her opinion. The silence and his impatient expression told her that he was.
Kim shook her head. ‘Let’s see what we get out of her dad first. It might be a good thing to threaten him with though.’
Travis nodded his agreement. ‘Yeah, I was thinking of dropping that into the—’
‘Boss, do you want to take a look at this?’ asked Penn from the doorway.
They followed him to the wipe board on the side wall. It looked similar to her own in the garage. Only, his game of Hangman had small underscores in between the letters they already knew.
‘So, based on the lettering of each line and the different font sizes I think we can estimate how many of these spaces are characters or spaces but…’ His words trailed away as though his initial excitement had been extinguished by the hopelessness of the task, now that he looked at it in the cold light of day.
‘Keep going,’ Kim said, walking towards the board. She was impressed with his initiative. ‘Tell me what you think,’ she said.
‘I think it’s an invitation,’ he said.
Kim looked at Travis, and they both approached the wipe board.
‘Go on,’ Kim said, with interest.
‘I think it’s definitely an invitation of some kind,’ he said, springing back into life. His thoughts echoed her own.
‘I think the first line is the announcement of what it is, like a wedding, a funeral. Something like that,’ he said.
‘Make a note to the side in red,’ Kim suggested.
He did so.
‘Second line down is the date,’ he said, noting that to the side.
‘I think the third line down is an instruction.’
‘Maybe bring something?’ she offered.
‘If it is some kind of invitation, there is one vital piece of information missing,’ she said.
The constable’s eyes ran over the board once more.
‘Location,’ he cried out.
‘I’m thinking so,’ she said, as he wrote the word at the end of the last line.
Travis stepped forward as Kim was about to open her mouth.
‘Good work,’ he said, nodding his head appreciatively. ‘Bloody good work, Penn.’
‘Sir?’ said a constable from the doorway. ‘The brief for Mr Cowley has just arrived.’
He nodded his thanks and then turned to her. ‘I’m leading this one, Stone,’ he said.
‘Why? You know I was getting to him back at the house?’ she asked as they headed from the squad room.
‘Precisely,’ Travis continued. ‘His brief is here now. We need a slightly different approach.’
There was a part of her that agreed with him.
‘Less goading,’ he said, heading out of the office. Kim cursed silently; he just had to finish with that.
She followed him downstairs to the interview rooms, and entered room one.
All conversation stopped as they stepped in.
The brief was in his late fifties and a few stone overweight. His hair was totally white and plentiful. His chubby face was clean-shaven and his clothes were top quality.
He stood and offered his hand.
‘Leonard Cameron, solicitor to the Cowley family,’ he offered, pleasantly.
Travis shook the hand while Kim sat. She hated happy briefs. It meant they weren’t worried. And she wanted this brief to be worried. Even Jeff Cowley was looking more relaxed than he had at the house.
She felt her insides begin to turn as she realised they were not going to get anything from him, no matter who was asking the questions.
Travis switched on the tape and listed the date, time and persons present. Jeff Cowley had not looked at her once.
‘So, Mr Cowley, I’d like to begin by talking about your son’s accident. You maintain that it was an accident?’ he asked, pleasantly.
Mr Cowley looked to his brief, who nodded.
‘Yes, my son shot himself accidentally.’
‘And you saw this?’
He nodded.
Travis pointed to the tape recorder. ‘Please speak your response, Mr Cowley,’ he said.
The man leaned towards it. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And you saw him actually contort himself into such a position that he could shoot himself in the back of the neck?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Would you be able to demonstrate exactly how that was?’
‘Umm… well… not… it happened so fast that…’
‘Could you explain how, once he got himself into that unbelievable position, he could shoot himself with a gun that we haven’t yet found?’
‘It was right there,’ he said.
‘But it wasn’t the gun, was it, Mr Cowley?’
He shrugged.
Travis looked to the recorder.
‘I don’t know.’