Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(21)

‘When was the last time you saw your daughter?’ Willis asked, keeping her distance from the big man with the wrench in his hand, who carried on looking inside the tractor. The place was strewn with various machines in mid-repair.

‘Mr Stephens, stop working please, we need to talk to you,’ Carter said.

He stopped, wiped his hands on his overalls and stood tall. His lined face was solid with grief.

‘We know this must be very hard,’ said Carter. ‘Can you tell us the exact date and what the circumstances were?’

At first he looked as though he might resist but his shoulders slumped in defeat and he began to speak. ‘It was the weekend, beginning of last month, that was the last time I saw her. She turned up here on her mother’s birthday, the second of September. My wife would have been sixty-five. I was just contemplating getting blind drunk and Millie bangs on the door and she’s pretending she’s just passing, but she’s caught the bus up and she wants to stay and, like a fool, I say okay. I start talking to her about her mother and she don’t give a shit. She’s looking around the room and I realise she’s looking for things to steal from me again. She started to get really edgy, feverish, and I knew she was going through withdrawal. Then the pleading started, same as always, and I couldn’t bear it, I did what I always do. She only came out here when she was desperate and wanted money for drugs. I caught her trying to steal some things from my workshop to sell, so I changed the locks. That’s what she’d become; I had to warn neighbours not to let her in. She’d come around here screaming outside their houses as well as mine. She’d become less than human.

‘I’d say, “You can’t have it, you need help” and she’d kick off, she didn’t want any more rehab, she just wanted heroin. Then I’d have to carry her onto the truck, force her into the seat whilst she’s screaming and crying and calling me every name under the sun, and I had to drive her back to north London and dump her at her flat. Sometimes I’d give her money, even though I knew it was pointless, but I hoped she’d at least use some of it for food and rent.’

Willis got out her notebook. ‘When you last saw Millie, did she say anything that worried you about who she was meeting?’

‘I don’t remember her discussing her latest johns with me, no. That’s a fucking stupid question.’

‘Did you ever hear her talk of a friend; maybe she turned up with someone?’ Willis asked, unfazed by him.

‘No, she didn’t. She knew better than to bring anyone here. I might have a little love left for Millie, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have any for her friends.’

‘You have had a few assault charges against you before. Were they related to Millie’s friends?’

‘You know they were. That piece of shit Gavin Heathcote has a lot to answer for. Him and Jimmy Douglas, who if I see, I will kill, believe me,’ he said sadly. ‘You have no idea what this is like.’

Carter reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Less of the threats, Don, we don’t want to cause you more problems, we are here to help.’ Stephens nodded, as he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his overalls.

‘I swear, she was a normal bubbly, healthy, beautiful teenager until she went to work on that farm with that man. Until she got in with the wrong crowd.’ Don took a few deep breaths, his anger rising, before he banged the wrench on the side of the tractor. It jumped out of his hands and was lost inside the engine.

‘Shit.’ He sighed deeply. ‘That man Douglas took my daughter and turned her into a stranger, saw something he could warp and destroy and he did. And, in some ways, that Nicola Stone was worse. She saw my daughter needed a mother; her own died when she was four. She saw it and she exploited it.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But I always hoped she’d find her way out of the mess in the end. I paid for so much rehab, counselling. She’s been back to live with me I don’t know how many times and sometimes I thought she’d make it but always she went back to the streets.’

‘It’s tough, I’m truly sorry. Must be heart-breaking,’ said Carter.

‘She broke my heart a long time ago. I can hardly hold my head up here any more. People will always know me as the man whose daughter was a bad one. I can start again now, I can put it all behind me and try to remember her as she used to be, not what she became.’

‘Mr Stephens, we will let you know when her body is going to be released. Someone will be in touch with you about making arrangements to see her and find out what you want to do about the funeral.’

‘I tell you what I want, I want her body strung up on Tower Bridge and I want everyone who passes to know that my beautiful daughter died for the love of drugs and bad company and there was nothing I could do to save her.’

‘Come on, big man,’ said Carter as he put his arm around Don Stephens’ shoulder and held him whilst he sobbed.

Finally they left Don Stephens and drove back into town.

After a few minutes’ silence between them, Carter spoke.

‘We are going to have to follow up on him. He has all the temper needed to do it. He may have been pushed too far. We can’t ignore his record.’ Carter glanced across at Willis from the wheel of his BMW SUV, his pride and joy. He was beginning to regret stopping at a garage and buying Willis a pasty as the flakes of pastry had spread further than the extra napkins he’d made sure to pick up. Carter had bought himself a neatly packaged feta and hummus wrap, cut into two portions, easily eaten without fallout, whilst they were driving on the M25. Willis was making him edgy – not even his son Archie was allowed into the car with food. Carter usually managed to contain Willis’s messy habits, but wasn’t so lucky today. She saw him glancing across and started taking smaller bites as she wiped her mouth of pastry crumbs.