Lifting the Lid(9)

‘I mean, what’s this supposed to say?’ He pushed the notebook towards her, keeping the tip of his finger on a point halfway down the page.

‘Married April 2007.’ She read the words aloud as if it was perfectly obvious what they said.

‘Oh I see. I thought it was “Maimed anvil soon”.’

‘Ha ha, very amusing.’

‘Seriously. And what’s this?’ He pointed to another phrase on the same page.

‘Er… ‘ She frowned as she stared at the words Logan had indicated. ‘Actually, I’m not sure about that bit.’

‘I rest my case,’ he said, picking up his pint and sitting back in his chair.

‘What the hell. We got so little out of her, I can remember it all anyway.’

‘Yeah? Okay then, off you go.’

‘What, now?’

‘Good a time as any.’

Despite claiming total recall, DC Swann still used her notes for reference as she began to summarise the story the old woman had told them: ‘Trevor Hawkins. Age forty-three. Married Imelda in April 2007. No children. Wife disappeared October 2011—’

‘And Mrs H reckons our Trevor did her in and then—’

‘Got rid of the body. Yes, I know. I was just getting to that.’

‘And how does Mrs H know this?’

‘Because he told her.’

‘Figures.’ Logan spoke the word with more than a hint of sarcasm.

‘Maybe he couldn’t live with his guilty secret any longer. Had to tell someone… someone he could trust not to turn him in.’

‘What? His mother? He must have known she was just as likely to rat on him as anyone else.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t want to admit to himself that she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Anyway, who else was he going to tell? Doesn’t sound like he had any friends to speak of.’

‘There’s a sister though.’

Swann shrugged. ‘Estranged? Not speaking? Who knows?’

‘Too many questions and not enough answers,’ said Logan, then gulped his beer and only half-heartedly attempted to stifle a belch. ‘Come on. You’ve got work to do.’





CHAPTER SEVEN



Trevor could hear voices. He was almost certain of it.

He pressed his ear to the door once again. From somewhere along the corridor, he could just make out the sound. Two women, chatting and laughing. Every so often, the voices disappeared completely and then reappeared again a few minutes later, becoming gradually more audible each time. This was exactly the sound he had been hoping to hear for the past hour, and he prayed he was right about the people the voices belonged to.

He sucked on the knuckle he’d gashed whilst trying to fix the broken toilet flush. Although he was fully aware of his severely limited plumbing skills, he’d felt morally unable to simply leave the unflushed loo for someone else to find. Nor had it been an option to call reception and get somebody to come and repair it as this would have revealed that he was illegally harbouring a dog in his room. To his relief, however, when he’d removed the porcelain cistern lid and balanced it on the edge of the bath, the problem had seemed fairly straightforward. The bolt which had become dislodged from the lever hinge lay at the bottom of the cistern. It was merely a question of retrieving it and replacing it in its rightful position.

In hindsight, Trevor couldn’t understand why he had been quite so cavalier about the difficulty of the task in hand. He would normally approach any such job in the sure and certain knowledge that if it appeared simple at first sight, it would be bloody difficult, and if it appeared difficult, it would be totally impossible. In this particular case, it had taken him an inordinate amount of time just to retrieve the fallen bolt due to the narrowness of the gap between the flush mechanism and the side of the cistern. He’d been able to slide his hand through, but his forearm had become trapped when the bolt was only half a centimetre from his fingertips, so he’d searched the room for anything which might resemble a pair of pliers. In the end, he’d had to make do with the nail scissors from his washbag, and after several attempts, he’d managed to get the blades to grip the bolt firmly enough for him to ease it upwards through the water. On three occasions, however, the bolt had slipped from the grasp of the scissors and fallen back to the bottom just as it was almost within reach of his free hand

When he had finally retrieved the elusive bolt, it had taken him a matter of seconds to insert it through the holes in the two parts of the lever hinge. He had realised that there was a small nut which would have secured the bolt in place, but since this also lay at the bottom of the cistern, he’d decided that he could still get the flush to work as long as he was careful. The first time he’d tested it, he was obviously not careful enough, and he had watched in horror as the bolt slipped from the hinge and sank rapidly down through the water.