House of Lies (Detective Karen Hart) Read online

  It was early afternoon by the time Karen turned into School Lane in Washingborough. The chief constable lived with his son in a large Victorian house. The property was surrounded by a tall stone wall. There were iron gates at the entrance to the driveway, but thankfully they were open.

  As soon as Karen got out of the car, she heard raised voices. She walked to the front door and paused, listening.

  Chief Constable Grayson clearly had a temper. He was laying into Ethan about leaving home when he was supposed to be grounded. From the shouting, Karen gathered Grayson had come back home mid-morning and discovered Ethan wasn’t there.

  He was in a ferocious mood. Did Grayson believe Ethan was more deeply involved in this than any of them had realised?

  Karen pressed on the doorbell and the shouting abruptly stopped. A moment later, Grayson opened the door with a face like thunder.

  He blinked. ‘DS Hart, has something happened?’

  Karen had been hoping to get Ethan alone. She’d wanted to surprise him with what they knew, get him talking before he had a chance to prepare lies and concoct a story to cover up his involvement.

  ‘Actually, yes, sir. I want to speak to Ethan. It’s good that you’re here. I can speak to you both together.’

  Grayson shot a look over his shoulder, then stepped closer to Karen. ‘Can you tell me first in private, before you speak to Ethan?’

  In normal circumstances, Karen would have preferred to spring the news on both of them at the same time and judge their reactions. But Grayson was the chief constable.

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Karen said.

  He ushered her into a large kitchen with a pine table in the centre of the room and retro carved wooden cupboards on the walls. The tiles above the countertops and behind the sink had tiny woodland animals painted on them. The kitchen had a surprisingly cosy feel. She hadn’t expected that.

  ‘Coffee?’ he offered.

  Usually Karen preferred to get down to business, but since the coffee Sophie had brought in early that morning, she’d had to make do with a choice between Doyle’s watered-down coffee or nothing. Karen had opted for nothing. ‘A coffee would be great. Thank you, sir.’

  As he prepared the coffee, Karen filled him in. Summarising, she observed Grayson’s face carefully as she said, ‘So, as Ethan had a key to the storeroom, we’ll need to examine his shoes to see if they match the prints. We think someone was using that peephole to spy on girls in the bathroom.’

  Grayson ran a hand over his face. ‘Good grief, you don’t think Ethan would do that?’

  Karen spoke with care. ‘We don’t know for sure that it was Ethan, but the evidence does point to him, sir. He had the key and we know he put the Bluetooth speaker in there. He admitted it.’

  ‘What am I going to do with that boy?’ he muttered under his breath as he put a mug of coffee on the pine table. ‘Do you take milk?’

  Karen nodded and waited in silence as Grayson got the milk from the fridge and added a small amount to her coffee.

  Finally, he leaned heavily on the table, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe he’d do that. Not Ethan.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t. Why don’t we ask him about it?’

  Reluctantly, Grayson led Karen from the kitchen into the living room, where Ethan was sitting sulkily on an armchair. He had large, blue headphones clamped over his ears. Karen could hear the tinny music emanating from them.

  On the mantelpiece behind him were various photographs. Childhood photos of a much happier Ethan, and a younger version of Grayson with a blonde woman that Karen guessed was Ethan’s mother.

  ‘Take those headphones off,’ Grayson said, clicking his fingers at Ethan.

  With an exaggerated sigh, Ethan did as he was told, then looked up at Karen. ‘I suppose you’ve come to tell Dad about me turning up at Chidlow House earlier? Well, you can save your breath. He already knows. I told him.’

  ‘Ethan, show some respect,’ Grayson barked.

  ‘Actually, Ethan, that’s not why I’m here,’ Karen said, and she sat on the sofa beside the bay window.

  She stared at the boy for a moment as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Why are you here, then?’ he asked.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about the key to the junk room,’ Karen said. ‘How long have you had it?’

  Ethan shrugged. ‘A few days.’

  ‘Right,’ Karen said. ‘And you went into the junk room to put the speaker inside and you’ve been connecting to the speaker with your iPhone, right?’

  Ethan nodded. ‘Yes, I already admitted that. But I wasn’t doing anything other than trying to scare people a little bit.’

  ‘Did you do anything else while you were in that room, Ethan?’

  ‘Anything else?’ His eyebrows lifted. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look at anything else while you were in there?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I looked at a couple of the paintings but that was just . . .’ He broke off and scowled. ‘I didn’t take anything, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘No, that’s not what she means,’ Grayson snapped. ‘Have you been spying on the girls, Ethan?’

  ‘Spying?’ His face scrunched up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. Tell me the truth.’

  ‘No. I suppose I watched Natasha a bit, but I wasn’t spying. She knew I was there. I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ Ethan said, looking at Karen and then back to his father.

  ‘I remember seeing you with a paperback, Ethan. It had a black-and-white photograph of Chidlow House on the cover and a red title.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, I was reading it. It was about the history of the house and the ghosts. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Did you read chapter twelve?’ Karen asked.

  Now it was Ethan’s turn to look confused.

  ‘Chapter twelve? I don’t remember. I just flicked through it and only read the bits about the ghosts and the women drowning themselves. I didn’t bother with the stuff about architecture. It goes into so much boring detail about how the gardens were designed.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t steal the book, if that’s what you think.’

  ‘In chapter twelve, the author describes spyholes around Chidlow House, one of which was in the storeroom on the girls’ floor. The hole looked directly into the bathroom. You were in that room.’

  Ethan’s eyes widened as the implication dawned on him. ‘I didn’t know about the spyholes. Honestly. I didn’t look through any holes.’ His gaze darted between Karen and his father, his tone frantic.

  ‘Do you promise you didn’t spy on the girls, Ethan?’ Grayson’s voice was gruff but hopeful.

  ‘I promise I didn’t, Dad,’ Ethan said. ‘I didn’t know about the holes.’

  ‘Okay.’ Grayson turned to Karen. ‘I believe him.’

  Karen was tempted to say that what Grayson believed was irrelevant, but managed to hold her tongue. Of course the chief constable didn’t want to think the worst of his only child.

  Karen didn’t say anything for a moment but searched Ethan’s face, looking for signs the kid was lying.

  The chief constable may have believed him, but Karen wasn’t convinced.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When Karen got back to Chidlow House, Morgan asked her to track down Lord Chidlow. She eventually found him lingering outside the storeroom where the crime scene technicians were still hard at work cataloguing individual items.

  He craned his neck to see inside the room. ‘Why is this taking so long?’

  ‘I’ll let you know when they’re finished, Lord Chidlow,’ Karen said, walking along the corridor towards him.

  He turned and a flicker of irritation crossed his features. ‘Oh, it’s you. How long is all this going to take? I fail to understand why you’re wasting time in here when you could be out there looking for the girl.’

  ‘Natasha,’ Karen said, putting a name to the missing young woman.

  ‘Yes. I don
’t think you’ll find her in there!’ Chidlow said, waving a hand at the storeroom.

  ‘We’d like to have a word with you again, sir, if you wouldn’t mind coming downstairs with me. Another team is searching your office, so we’ll have to make do with Doyle’s for now.’

  Chidlow huffed. ‘This is getting to be quite unbearable.’

  ‘If you’d like to follow me, please, sir,’ Karen said, leading the way back down the corridor towards the staircase.

  As they descended, Karen couldn’t help looking at the portraits again, staring at the unhappy faces of the women. ‘Why do they look so sad?’

  ‘Well, rumour has it the previous Lord Chidlows weren’t the kindest husbands. One of them, I think it was the sixth Lord Chidlow, did some awful things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Sadly, I only know my family history from the book I told you about. The family archives were lost when the cellars and basement flooded fifty years ago.’

  Karen nodded. She’d read that book from cover to cover if she ever found the time.

  Inside Doyle’s office, Morgan was already behind the desk.

  He looked up as they entered. ‘Ah, good. Lord Chidlow. Please take a seat.’

  Chidlow, annoyed at being told to sit down in his own house, clenched his teeth and sat stiffly in the chair opposite. Karen took the seat next to Morgan.

  ‘We’ve made a discovery,’ Morgan began, his gaze fixed on Chidlow. ‘A small hole was found in the wall of your storeroom. It looks directly into the bathroom that was used by the female students. Did you know about that?’

  Chidlow didn’t even flinch. ‘Yes. Well, I didn’t know it hadn’t been filled in like the others. There were peepholes all over this house, but during the refurbishment, when we renovated the guest rooms, the holes were covered up. We must have simply missed one. No harm done I’m sure. Nobody’s been in that room.’

  ‘Actually, they have,’ Karen said.

  ‘Oh, yes. The chief constable’s boy, wasn’t it?’ Chidlow said with a sly look. ‘I wonder if he’ll get away with it. A bit of nepotism, eh? One rule for you lot, another for the rest of us.’

  ‘He won’t be getting away with it, sir,’ Karen said, meeting his smug grin with a cold smile of her own. ‘We only have your word the other spyholes have been filled in. Do you have a list of locations?’

  ‘No, I don’t have a list,’ Chidlow said dismissively, stretching his legs and leaning back in his chair. ‘But I can remember most of them, I think. I can tell you where they were from memory if that would help?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Morgan said, and made notes as Lord Chidlow looked up at the ceiling and began recalling the positions of the spyholes.

  Karen watched him. She wouldn’t be surprised to find he’d been spying on women. She tried not to take people at face value, but with Chidlow it was difficult. Arrogant, bad-tempered and selfish, he was one of the most unlikeable men Karen had ever met.

  When he finally finished reeling off the locations, she asked for the name of the company who’d done the renovation work. She wanted to check them out and make sure Chidlow hadn’t told them to leave the one in the bathroom in place.

  ‘Whatever for?’ Chidlow said when Karen asked the question.

  ‘We like to run a thorough investigation, sir.’

  ‘I really don’t see what this has got to do with that girl going missing,’ he said, throwing up his hands.

  ‘Natasha,’ Karen snapped.

  She was sick of him treating the girl like a nameless, faceless victim. She had a name. She was a young woman with a family and friends who loved her.

  When Chidlow left them, Karen turned to Morgan. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not keen on him,’ Morgan said. ‘He’d say anything to save his own neck. But it doesn’t mean he’s lying about this. It’s possible the spyhole was missed during the refurbishment.’

  ‘And it just so happens to be the one that looks directly into the women’s bathroom?’ Karen raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, it does seem a bit of a reach, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Farzana and the rest of the crew are still working their way through Chidlow’s study. We might find something. Though I doubt he’d be stupid enough to keep incriminating evidence in his personal office.’

  ‘Maybe, but he’s incredibly arrogant. He probably thinks we’re no match for him.’

  ‘Then he’ll get a rude awakening.’ Morgan smiled. ‘How are Rick and Sophie getting on?’

  ‘They’re expanding the area and tracking down more CCTV. It’s a big task.’

  It was unusual in this day and age not to have a camera pick up something at some point. But in the rural villages, things weren’t quite so easy. Officers had been using private cameras from homes, shops and restaurants too, but so far had come up blank.

  Even Cressida’s return had been stealthy. They hadn’t picked her up on any cameras, no eyewitness sightings. The teenagers had gone out of their way not to be seen.

  Karen left Doyle’s office, planning to ask Rick to go down to the lake and check in with the underwater search unit. But before she entered the temporary incident room, she spotted Ella Seaton walking towards her.

  Karen stared. Ella’s face was chalk-white. Her frizzy hair sprang out in a mousey halo around her head. Her eyes were wide, and clutched in her right hand was an olive-green polo shirt.

  When she got closer, Karen saw a small stain on the polo shirt, about the size of a five-pence piece. The circular stain was a rusty colour. Most likely blood.

  ‘Ella, where did you find that?’ Karen asked.

  The young woman blinked. ‘It was on the roof. I saw it lying on the floor. I thought it might be important.’

  ‘So you picked it up? Ella, you should have left it where it was and told a police officer,’ Karen said, her mind working overtime.

  Why hadn’t they spotted it before? The roof had been searched. Could they really have missed something so obvious?

  ‘Stay there,’ Karen ordered.

  Ella did as she was told and remained frozen to the spot while Karen grabbed an evidence bag from the temporary incident room.

  ‘Was it hidden away?’ Karen asked, holding the bag open. ‘Put it in there, please.’

  ‘No, it was just left near the parapet. I’m sorry, I didn’t think. You’re right. I should have left it where it was. I thought it looked like blood.’

  ‘It does,’ Karen said. ‘I need you to show me exactly where you found it.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ella nodded obediently.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Edward Chidlow demanded, walking towards them. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A polo shirt I found on the roof,’ Ella said.

  Chidlow did a double take. ‘What on earth were you doing on the roof? My insurance doesn’t cover that. For goodness’ sake, a woman died falling from that roof less than a week ago. Do you have a death wish?’

  Ella bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just wanted to watch the search.’

  Karen turned to Chidlow. ‘Do you recognise the shirt?’

  ‘Sadly, yes,’ Chidlow said. ‘It’s very distinctive. Do you see?’ He pointed to a small area where The Chidlow Estate was embroidered in yellow thread.

  ‘So who does it belong to?’

  He stroked his chin. ‘My wife had uniforms made up. A job lot, a few years ago now. And we handed them out to staff. She was big on that sort of thing.’

  It suddenly dawned on Karen where she’d seen that same olive-green polo shirt before. Not on Chidlow or Doyle, the driver or any of the catering staff. No, they wore white shirts. She’d only seen one person wearing an olive-green polo shirt at Chidlow House. Mike Harrington.

  ‘The groundsman,’ Karen said.

  ‘Well, I don’t like to point fingers,’ Chidlow said hurriedly, ‘but he is the only one who wears them now.’

  ‘You said your wife ordered a job lot. Is it possibl
e someone else could have access to one of the polo shirts?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible, but quite unlikely. Green was for the outdoor members of staff, and since I’ve had to economise, I had to let the gardeners go.’

  ‘I see. So as far as you know, Mike Harrington is the only person who wears this kind of shirt.’

  ‘Yes,’ Chidlow said. ‘It doesn’t look good for him, does it?’ His eyebrows lifted as he leaned forward to look at the blood.

  Karen transferred the bag to her other hand. ‘Thank you for your help, Lord Chidlow.’

  Before she went up to the roof, Karen asked a couple of the crime scene investigators, who were still working on the storeroom, for help. She wanted to make sure she took the appropriate path along the roof and didn’t risk contaminating the scene further.

  Greg Wainwright, a crime scene technician, volunteered to help.

  Farzana, who’d been checking on the CSI team’s progress, followed Karen, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe it, Sarge. I checked the roof. Honestly, there was nothing there.’

  ‘Ella found it,’ Karen said. ‘It’s stained with blood. It could have huge implications for the case.’

  Farzana rubbed her forehead. ‘I don’t understand. There was nothing there when I checked yesterday.’

  It was unfair, but Karen was angry. Furious that they had evidence pointing to Harrington and she’d missed it. Maybe if she’d focused harder on him from the beginning, searched his property earlier, taken him in for proper questioning rather than letting him help them pick locks, they might have found Natasha by now.

  Farzana looked hurt. She tried to catch Karen’s eye as they walked up the stairs to the roof. ‘I can tell you don’t believe me, Sarge, but I promise you I did a proper search of the roof yesterday and that polo shirt wasn’t there.’

  ‘I missed the spyhole in the ladies’ bathroom. I’d been in there, looked around, but I didn’t spot it. We all make mistakes.’

  ‘That’s different. The hole was tiny. I’m telling you, I did not miss that shirt.’

  Karen watched Ella lead Greg to the point on the flat roof area where she’d found the shirt, then turned to Farzana. ‘If that’s true, it means the polo shirt was planted.’