Frozen Grave (Willis/Carter #3)(34)

The heat was burning her lungs. She felt dizzy.

She screamed as she banged on the window. The front of the house was on fire now. She tried to open the window and her hand stuck to the metal handle. In that second all the holes in the burning door joined up and it exploded inwards.





Chapter 16


At just before eleven, Lolly made her way towards the lorry park in Shadwell. Her legs were so weary that she could hardly move them. Her backpack felt as if it contained rocks instead of her few possessions. The day had taken its toll on her as she hid from the cold, and the last few nights had been all about staying warm. She had nowhere to go. She’d been kicked out of all the hostels because, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop taking heroin. The heroin helped her to forget the happy life she’d once had. It was five years ago that her boss discovered she was sleeping in the offices he employed her to clean at nights; that was after she lost her home, after her husband left her with nothing but debts and memories that were too painful. The heroin helped.

Now she knew she had to lie down somewhere before she fell down.

She saw the flicker of a television in the cab as she approached the lorry. She saw the man inside shovelling pot noodles into his mouth as he watched television. She tapped on his window. He opened his door.

‘Suck and fuck?’

He looked at her, disgusted. ‘Wouldn’t give you a pound for it.’

‘Not asking for a pound. Just need a bed for the night.’

‘All night?’

‘Yeah. We can do it again in the morning.’

The driver stuck his head out and made sure none of the other lorry drivers were watching. Then he looked back at Lolly, looked her up and down and nodded as he slid across to open the passenger door.

‘Get in quick.’

She heaved herself up into the cab as the driver turned his attention to a car driving into the adjoining car park. It was an Audi TT, a convertible. He watched it circle and then stop.

Harding drove round to the entrance to the car park and paused as she took stock of the lorries in the adjoining park. She saw the cars to her right. As she drove in one of the lorries flashed its headlights and she was about to make her way towards it when she felt the car begin to rock. Faces grinned at her through the windows – including a mixed-race lad with a nasty-looking dog – and hands yanked at the door handles and started smashing at her window. One of them jumped onto her bonnet and onto her roof. His boot tearing into the fabric. She felt a hand grab at her as an arm came through the hole in her driver’s window and reached in to open the door. She slammed the car into reverse and hit the accelerator hard as they ran after her. She slammed on the brakes and skidded on a frozen corner of the car park as she turned, pulled and locked her door shut, and sped off down the road.

It was midnight when JJ Ellerman crept up the stairs to his bedroom. He tried to be as quiet as possible, as light as a feather on his feet. He didn’t do it because he was kind and didn’t want to wake her. He did it in the hope of catching her out. He hoped to see a moment that revealed what was in her heart, her soul, her bed. He longed to know his wife again.





Chapter 17


The next morning, whilst Willis went to see her mother, Carter went to catch up with Sandford, who was working on Olivia Grantham’s car. The Fiat was just a shell now.

Carter put on his protective suit and walked in past the drying cabinet and saw the seat covers hanging inside.

‘Was there much on those?’ he asked, stopping in front of the glass.

Sandford answered from inside the car; he talked through the gap where the windscreen had been.

‘There was. But most of it isn’t any good. Matching to the samples taken from her flat – there were at least two other people in this car after Olivia got out. Their prints are over hers. But they wore gloves. Of course there was a dog in there as well. Its paw-prints were pretty distinct.’

Sandford carried on working on the inside of the car. He was looking slightly irritated at Carter’s presence.

Carter knew it and it didn’t bother him. ‘Care to elaborate?’ The sooner Sandford stopped resisting, the sooner it would be over.

Sandford stood, and bent backwards to ease his aching back. He was a tall man to fit into a small car.

‘The dog had blood on its paws when it made contact with several sites on the upholstery and the door frames,’ he said as he pulled off his gloves and put them into a waste bin. He motioned to Carter to follow him as he walked across to his desk and the PC. He brought up the images of the car examination.

‘There are traces of it on the driver’s door.’ He showed Carter a diagram of the evidence recovered and where it was in and on the car. The 3D image rotated as Sandford tapped the keyboard.

‘There were things taken from the car – the first-aid kit was ripped open. The spare-wheel kit is also missing. Not that you get much in these new cars – a spare tyre and a few tools. But they’re gone. I’ve asked for a full list of what the car should have had in it, from Fiat. Here, highlighted, you have all the sites in the car that I’ve matched to the two different glove-prints and the dog’s paws.’

Carter sat down to study the screen better. He counted the sites.

‘I count twelve places. They got around in that car. Can you get a print from the glove?’