Frozen Grave (Willis/Carter #3)(59)

‘She worked as a part-time prostitute; she was known in the lorry park.’ Harding looked up at Mark.

‘Was that where she was found?’

‘Yes, behind the bins in the corner of the lorry park in Shadwell. It’s where the lorries stay overnight.’

‘I am aware what a lorry park is, thank you.’ Harding looked back at Lolly with this new knowledge. ‘We need swabs taken here. She was definitely raped.’

Harding finished up and went into her office to think. She phoned Carter.

‘I’ve just completed the post-mortem on Lorraine Chance and she was severely bruised and looks like she was raped.’

‘Okay.’ Carter sighed. ‘We’ll do our best to find the CCTV footage of the lorry park. We need to see if we can find the lorry driver she was with that night; it’s a task next to hopeless. You know as well as I do that she would have been a target. She slept on the streets and she was addicted to heroin; sold her body to feed that addiction. Is there anything else, Doctor?’ Carter asked in the pause that followed.

‘No.’

Harding got off the phone and sat in her chair, distracted. She reached for her bag and took out the mail that had arrived at home before she left for work. More bills. She sighed, still thinking about the dilemma she faced with Lolly. She put the mail on her desk, pushing the letters aside, unopened, when a thick cream-coloured envelope from London caught her eye. She’d been waiting for an invite to a seminar on advances in victim identification. She opened the envelope and unfolded three pages of names, addresses and telephone numbers.

To all the women who know JJ Ellerman . . .

Megan went for a walk that morning and to check on Bramble. She went across to break the ice in the water trough. The mare followed her. Its sweet, fermented grass-breath was warm on Megan’s face as the horse nuzzled into her, whilst Megan cracked the ice with the heel of her boot. Megan looked up at the sky. It was tinged with green, more snow on the way.

‘You know what, Bramble . . . ?’ She stroked the thick soft fur on the horse’s neck. ‘I could never be with someone who looked at you and saw a burger, even if it was a joke. He’s a townie, isn’t he, Bramble? He’s just pretending that he loves it here – really, he would be overwhelmed by it all. He’d be as vulnerable as a newborn baby out here on his own.’

She left the pony watching her as she walked back down to the house, and got there just as the postman’s van was in her drive. She took the mail from him and looked at it as she turned and went back inside. There were the usual bills, a package she’d ordered, and a letter from London in a thick cream-coloured envelope.

Paula dropped the girls at school and came back to tidy up the house before getting ready to go to the salon. She didn’t have a client until twelve that day. As she got in she picked up the mail from the doormat and looked at the usual round of bills and junk mail, and then she saw a thick letter from London in a cream-coloured envelope.

Emily went home to do some marking during the second period of the day. She picked up her mail as she opened the door and walked up the sweep of stairs. She opened the door to her apartment and walked through, putting her books on the study table. She placed the children’s work that needed marking in a neat pile. She opened a thick cream-coloured envelope from London. She unfolded the sheets of A4 paper, neatly folded in half, and she read the first page:

To all the women who know JJ Ellerman.

Ellerman is a liar and a cheat. He has so many women hanging on and waiting . . . for what? They all think they’re going to get a piece of him. Ellerman is a washed-up has-been. He’s pathetic. Do you want to be just another woman on his long list? If you’ve given money towards the Spanish house company in the hope that you’ll one day be living there with JJ then think again – so have many other women. You’ve been conned.

And – are you waiting for Craig to go to university before JJ leaves his wife and runs to Spain with you? Craig was killed five years ago. You’ve been conned. Ring the other women if you don’t believe me.





Megan dialled a number. Paula answered. She was sitting at her kitchen table, with the letter in her hand. She was working backwards in her mind, going through all the times she should have known he was lying.

‘Hello, you don’t know me but we have something in common – JJ Ellerman. I’m also on his list. I think we should meet.’





Chapter 33


Harding was waiting in Carter’s office when he came back from a meeting about the Hannover Gang. She handed the letter across to him.

‘Jesus. Someone’s in big trouble,’ he said as he looked through the contents of the letter. He phoned Willis, to get her in from the Investigation Team Office, where she worked with the bulk of the murder squad.

Willis was handed the letter when she joined them.

‘When did this arrive, Doctor?’ she asked.

‘This morning. It’s a bit worrying that someone has gone to this much trouble and gone into his contacts on his phone and found my address.’

‘The person who sent this letter must have done a lot of snooping to be able to get this much info from his phone,’ said Willis.

‘But I think he has the kind of arrogance not to put a password on his phone or, if he does, then it’s one of those swipe ones – I had one like that. If you watch someone closely, or enough times, you can see what they’re swiping with their finger.’ Harding sat back in her chair. ‘He drinks a fair bit,’ she said. ‘He’s not likely to even know where he is some nights. When I met him, he seemed to spend just one night somewhere and then he moved on.’