Syn (The Merseyside Crime Series Book 2) - Malcolm Hollingdrake (world of reading TXT) 📗

‘Stuart?’ The smile remained. ‘Hi, good music. Carla sent me.’

‘Carla?’ His face changed and a look of concern spread quickly. ‘She’s okay?’

He nodded and rested a hand on the door frame. ‘You couldn’t make this up, goodness, that girl. Good job we love her, Stuart! She knows I work just across from here and she left a message to say she’d had an accident, dropped her phone down the loo. She didn’t spare me the details!’ He chuckled.

‘That’s Carla I’m afraid.’ Stuart laughed, visualising her dilemma.

‘So, here it is, warts and all. She got up after having a pee and she had the phone tucked in the crook of her neck. When she stood and went to flush the loo, she dropped it in the bog, not long before she was due to meet you. Women! I asked what she was doing chatting whilst … she said, ‘Don’t men?’ It’s probably in a bag of rice as we speak drying out. Never let a woman tell you she can do two things at once, especially where a phone and a loo are concerned!’ The laugh seemed genuine.

‘That sounds just like her. Had she been drinking?’ he laughed, hitting the steering wheel a couple of times.

‘Good question, Stuart. She would never admit to it I’m sure.’

Stuart’s smile quickly deserted him as he turned to look up at the stranger. ‘So why not message me?’

‘She said she’d tried using Twitter or something but you’d not responded. I guess she didn’t want you sitting here expectantly. Don’t shoot the messenger.’ He smiled again moving his gloved hand from the frame and holding it up.

Groves blushed as he saw the wink and the knowing look from the stranger but did not register the latex glove. He was too caught up in the moment.

‘She also asked me to give you this.’

Thrusting the raised hand through the open window he grabbed the seat belt that ran over Grove’s right shoulder. He tugged it forcefully locking him into his seat. His left arm was now extended. Groves turned his head, his neck rubbing against the fabric of the belt before looking up and out of the open window. The action immediately exposed the right side of his neck. The startled and confused look quickly reappeared. The attacker had taped the weapon to his closed hand. The precaution would ensure the inevitable viscous covering of blood would not make it slip from his grasp. The bladed hand moved swiftly into the gap and penetrated the taut, exposed flesh of Stuart’s neck. He struck powerfully, hitting the main target area just behind and below his left ear.

‘Not laughing now, Groves, are you?’

The blade dragged forward, tearing and slicing open a red, oozing void.

Brian Briggs sat in the area set aside for visiting social workers and solicitors, it provided a better ambience and a smell of lavender, courtesy of the two plug-in air fresheners, pervaded the room. He stood and admired the long, framed photographic print of the Liverpool river front. The colours had slightly faded, and to the detriment of the image, not evenly. The area closer to the high window was almost devoid of colour.

‘Your green tea okay, Brian? We’re not usually asked for that but a colleague had some in his locker.’

Brian turned and approached April, holding out a hand to collect the mug.

‘Lovely, thanks. Sorry! Never get tired of seeing our magnificent city.’

‘We’re grateful to you for coming in. I’d like you to look at the screen here with this young lady. She’s our expert on facial recognition. Her name is Lynda.’

April had collected as many images she could from the Facebook friends retrieved from Carla’s and Cameron’s social media sites. Like pyramid selling, they quickly grew in number so if they added the friends of those friends, the list could have been endless. The decision had been taken to use only the most recent contacts.

‘We’ve added names just in case that might jog your memory too, Brian. Just take your time. What you’re doing will be a great help to Carla. Remember, you’re doing this for her.’

Within twenty minutes, they had seventeen faces and names. They put the people they knew including her work colleagues, Gaskell and Smith to one side. They retained Jennings, Rodgers, Sutch and Stuart Groves, a name that had not come up before and a name that was only linked to the Facebook data of Sharpe and Gaskell.

‘Do you know this man other than at the parties you attended, Brian?’ She produced the printed image of Groves.

‘I’ve seen him in the studio, not often just once or twice. Quite some time ago. A bit of a foreigner, cash in hand.’ He looked at April. ‘I don’t know if I should be saying this but I regretted not telling you what I knew before so …’

‘Trust us, we’re not interested in a bit of cash changing hands at this stage.’

‘Carla and Nicola each had a night, an hour or so after we shut, if the work was there. Mainly it was for friends and friends of friends or when people had a special occasion and we couldn’t fit them in during the regular hours. It was a back pocket type booking. It was never put in the book. He would come for some CACI treatment, that was Carla’s forte. She introduced the beauty therapy, a kind of non-surgical face lift. Sometimes I’d watch and learn.’

‘Did you ever watch when she was with him?’ April’s finger dropped onto the photograph.

‘No, I was usually leaving as he arrived. He didn’t come often, maybe three times at the most. There was one other, but he only came the once. That was quite a few months ago and maybe even longer. It’s hard to keep track.’

He’ll not be on the CCTV either, April thought.

‘We don’t get many men of that age in for this kind of treatment. In fact, we don’t get many men in for beauty therapy at all and yet