How much longer can I stay with G when even his voice makes my stomach churn? But if he finds out about my feelings for Ben, and I know they’re growing, he will kill one or both of us. Or have us killed.
Holly made a note of the date, then copied word for word the entry Carla had made. The fear was showing, the more involved with Ben she became.
She turned the page over and there was a drawing. It seemed Carla had been quite a talented artist, and this one wasn’t in colour, it was a pencil sketch of Ben Craig.
She had caught him perfectly, the gentle good looks, the half-smile Holly had seen on his face when he had spoken of Carla, his eyes that even in pencil had a suggestion of the bright blue that was so noticeable as soon as his face came into view. Holly realised how much Ben Craig had held back from them when he had said he had a little fling with Carla Andrews; it had been so much more than that. They needed to talk to him again, maybe show him a copy of this picture and watch for his reaction, because this picture showed more than any words how she felt about him. Underneath the portrait she had written
Ben, my love.
It was definitely looking as though both ladies had massive secrets they were keeping from their husbands, and also looking obvious that those secrets could have got them killed. But which lady, which secret had caused that black-clad figure to pull the trigger and kill both of them?
Holly walked to the coffee machine and got a drink. She needed a little time out to escape Carla’s world; reading her words was proving difficult. She was a woman with a massive problem in the form of her husband. She was bullied, made to account for every action in her life, and it was so clear that the kindly man she’d met through her job was keeping her going. She lived for her work, and enjoyed the shift where she finished at seven because Ben always called in to see her, knowing Graham wouldn’t be around. He would be dealing with the children.
Sitting at her desk nursing her cardboard cup, Holly allowed herself to dip back into Carla’s world, and it suddenly dawned on her that if Holly could draw, and a cat that would possibly have four legs but maybe only three and definitely a tail was the limit of her drawing capabilities, she too could produce a picture pretty much like this one, but with Tom Fowler’s face instead. That thought hit her like a thunderbolt, and she stared at the picture in the book. My love, Ben. My love, Tom.
Holly shook her head, causing curls to escape from the mound of them piled on top of her head, and pulled the journal towards her once more. No more sloppy love stuff, she didn’t do that.
A purple entry stopped her as she read the first few words.
There was a rifle on the side in the kitchen this morning. I took the children to school, then came home to put some laundry in before going to work. I thought it was a child’s toy when I first saw it, not because it looked like a toy but because I’ve never seen a real one.
Holly took time out to breathe. Had Carla seen the instrument of her own death?
The purple words continued with;
Graham said he had found it stuffed into the hydrangea bush at the bottom end of the garden. I screamed at him to get it out of the house before the kids arrived home from school and he laughed. He actually laughed as if I was being a hysterical woman. I suppose I was really. He said he was taking it round to the police station on his way to work, to tell them where he had found it. I felt stupid after he had said that, but it was a scary time.
The purple words covered almost two pages, and the rest of the entry was taken up with little things that had happened at work, that she had seen Ben for half an hour and that she hoped the gun would be gone by the time she got home.
Holly reached across and picked up the receiver, dialling the department that dealt with random things that had been handed in. Normally it was bunches of car keys, jackets, backpacks left on benches; rarely guns.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘DS Holly Jones, major crimes. If I give you a date, can you check and see if a rifle was handed in, please? And who handed it in?’
‘I can,’ was the somewhat dour response. ‘When do you need to know by?’
‘Now.’
‘Oh. Tell me the date.’ The man didn’t sound too impressed at having to get the information immediately.
‘Thursday 8 June 2017. And if it doesn’t show up on that date, can you check for each day for about a week. It won’t be any earlier than that exact date.’
‘Hang on,’ he said, and the receiver clattered as he laid it on his desk.
She waited what seemed like an hour but was only seven minutes.
She heard the same clatter as he retrieved the receiver and he said, ‘Nope.’
‘Nothing?’
A grunt showed he was intrigued that she’d expected a different answer. ‘There was an old revolver that some kids found down near the Shirebrook, but it hadn’t been fired for a long time and it was all rusted up. And I checked for a month following that date, not a week.’
‘How hard would it be to check from that date, up to present day? The man who had it told his wife he was handing it in that morning, the eighth.’
‘What’s your extension number?’
‘3 5 1 2.’
‘Give me half an hour. I’ll check with all the property offices. In theory he could have taken it to any of them.’
She thanked him, replaced the receiver and sat deep in thought. If she was a gambling person, she would bet that rifle never reached any police station.
He rang back thirty-five minutes later to report that the rifle hadn’t been handed in anywhere in South Yorkshire. Holly thanked him again and the man grunted again. She shook her head as she got up from her desk.
She knocked on Tom’s door, and opened it slightly. ‘You free?’
‘Always,’ he said with the smile that crinkled up the lines at the edges of his eyes. Her stomach somersaulted.
She handed him the journal with a lime-green Post-it note indicating the purple entry. He quickly read through all of it, then reread it, taking it more slowly. She waited.
‘He took that rifle nowhere in South Yorkshire.’
He nodded. He knew she would already have checked. ‘You’ve spoken to Ted then?’
‘Is that his name? Nearly growled at me when I first rang, but he actually went above and beyond. He’s checked with every office in South Yorkshire, and no rifle was handed in. We need to talk to Graham.’ She reached across and took back the journal. ‘Look at this.’
She showed him the picture of Ben Craig, the words scribed at the bottom, and Tom stared at her. ‘We need to talk to Ben Craig also. There was more to their relationship than he’s led us to believe.’
‘I’ll leave it with you. This is going to take some time. Her handwriting isn’t the easiest to read, and when she’s writing in a rush it becomes quite spidery. I have to make sure I understand every word she’s written, just in case. It’s strange, but it feels like an honour to be reading her words. Some newspapers would pay a fortune to get their hands on this little book. As the journal goes on, she puts more into the entries. I actually think this was kind of her escape. In one of the entries she says she’s sat on the toilet seat, because Graham is in the house and she wants to write, to get some anger out of her.’