Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

“What do you want us to do, ma’am?” Thatcher asked her. This was a tricky situation we were in, and one foot wrong could lead to bad consequences, consequences that Sharp would be on the receiving end of before she sent them down to us.

“We’ll keep him here for now,” she said. “The two of you keep working. Head to forensics and see what they’ve turned up. If nothing else, we might figure out if either of the Helmans ever held that trophy recently.”

“Keeping him here might give him time to cook up a proper story,” Thatcher warned her.

“Without the key details,” Sharp shrugged, “not much can be done. If he doesn’t know about the basement, the studio or the trophy, then that’s the main bulk of our case. I think he’s here for Billie,” she said, standing up straight. “You boys found out whether or not he needs to be.”

We nodded, taking her dismissal and walking from the room. We had more riding on this trophy than I cared to admit to, and from the dour look on Thatcher’s face, he was thinking the very same thing.

Twenty-Three

Thatcher

I tried my best to keep my annoyance under wraps as we left the room, my mind racing through everything that Billie had said before her father turned up and threw a spanner in the works. He wasn’t our killer. I knew it, Mills knew it, and from the look on her face, Sharp knew it too. But there was a procedure to follow.

Keeping him here as we raced down every last strand of evidence we had was our best bet for wrapping this up and doing so without giving the press a monumental field day that could come crashing down on our department. By the time we were done with Mark Helman, Billie was long gone. Smith met us by the stairs, walking beside us down to the lab.

“She left straight away?” I asked.

Smith nodded. “Had a few questions about him, about what would happen. I told her we’d be in touch if there was any news, and she told me she’d be at work for the rest of the day. She’s being cooperative.”

“Has been from the start,” Mills added, blue eyes drawn in a frown.

“How did she leave?” I asked, looking around him to better see Smith’s face.

“Got a bus,” she told me, “the one just outside. Takes her home the right way. Do you want to send someone out there, sir? To keep an eye on her?”

I shook my head. “She’s kept to her word so far. If we need to find her, she’ll be where she says she is.”

“Acting innocent doesn’t mean she is,” Mills reminded me darkly. “There’s every chance she might run whilst we have her father here.”

I paused then, not wanting to agree but knowing I had to, and pulled my phone from my pocket. I’d gotten the number of Agnes from the café and pulled it up now, hoping that Billie wasn’t there when she answered.

“Hello, Agnes Lamb,” her warm voice answered.

“Ms Lamb, hello. This is Detective Inspector Thatcher. We met before?”

“I remember, yes.”

“Billie left the station not long ago. We just wanted to make sure she made it back home?”

“Oh yes. About five minutes ago. I told her to take the afternoon off, but she insisted.”

“Will you do me a favour, Ms Lamb, and let me know if Billie leaves? We need to find her right now.”

“I will. Is she in any trouble?” She asked in a wary, cautioning voice.

“Not at present. We have her father here right now.”

“Mr Helman? He came?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“He did. Was it you who informed him that Billie was here?”

Agnes sighed down the phone. “Yes. I had his number from when Billie first started working here in case of emergencies. I’ve never used it, but I thought, well, he is her dad after all.”

“Understandable. Thank you, Ms Lamb. Have a good afternoon.” I hung up and slipped my phone back into my pocket, picking up my pace again.

“She’ll let us know if Billie leaves?” Mills asked, nodding goodbye to Smith and following me down the last flight of stairs.

“She will. She doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to lie to an Inspector either,” I added.

“If she thinks Billie is in trouble, she won’t stay shut about it,” Mills added in agreement.

We headed down the last few steps, down into the colder lower floors where the small, drab labs sat. Mills hung back, letting me stride along down the corridor, burning off a tiny amount of the energy that hovered around me, my shoes clicking on the tiles floor. We reached the forensics lab, and I rapped on the door with my knuckles before pushing it open. Dr Crowe was inside, perched at a desk, sipping from a mug with Dr Rand, who peered up at us from where he hunched over some test tubes.

“There he is!” Lena chirped as I walked in. “Told you if we waited long enough, he’d come to us,” she said with a grin, winking at me over the top of her mug. Dr Rand straightened, smoothed back his fluffy grey hair and grimaced.

“Her idea, Inspector, I assure you.”

“I believe you,” I answered dryly, casting Lena a long look. She just chuckled and slid down from the desk, patting Mills on the arm and handing me a folder.

“Blood match. It’s Vinson’s.”

“So, we’ve definitely got our murder weapon. That’s a bit of good news at last,” I murmured, opening it to look, though I barely understood any of it.

“Any fingerprints?” Mills asked, looking to Dr Rand. He wiped his hands on his lab coat and nodded, walking around the bench to join us.

“Though they don’t match either Belinda or Mark Helman,” he told me, handing me the father and daughter’s prints and the ones taken from the trophy.

My stomach dropped, though I’d been hoping that we wouldn’t have to arrest Billie, it was still a blow that