The Next Girl(Detective Gina Harte #1)(46)

‘Where?’

‘Yes. Where were you? Simple question.’

‘I was managing the place while Sam was away, like I always do. I worked between the bar, the cellar and the office. I changed a barrel at one point and I put in an order for some more lager. Check if you want. Why do you want to know where I was?’

Avery brushed past and grinned.

‘Just following up on another investigation. Thank you. We’ll check into that.’ Gina made a note to check that Wall was shown as working on the staff rota and that he had indeed made an order for lager. She also made another note. Could Avery be an accomplice in Deborah’s disappearance?

‘Can I go now? I’ve got to sort the cellar out.’

‘Yes, we’ll be in touch if we need to speak further.’ Gina watched as Jacob finished making notes and closed his notebook.

Albert walked through the door and headed to the bar. ‘Have you found that baby’s parents yet?’ he asked as soon as he saw Gina.

Gina looked at him for a minute, struggling to recall where she’d seen him before. Then she remembered speaking to him when he found the Jenkins baby. Gina smiled, but she couldn’t say that they had. If the press were to get hold of the rest of the story, it would most likely be sensationalised and all sorts of assumptions would be made. If Deborah was in any sort of danger and being held, letting the press loose with the story might put her in more danger. She needed Deborah to be kept safe. She needed the investigation to stay under wraps.

‘Not yet. The baby is looking well thanks to you though, Mr Thomas. It’s lucky you were walking past and stopped. Who knows what might have happened had you not been there. You should give this man one on the house for what he did, Mr Avery.’

Samuel Avery stared up at her and dropped his shoulders before nodding at Charlene to offer Albert a drink.

‘What will you be having, love?’ she asked.

‘An extra-large Scotch,’ he replied. ‘Thanks, officer.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ Gina replied, turning her attention to Avery. ‘Can you get me your staff rota for last Friday night? Oh, and I’ll send someone to verify the orders that were made that night. I assume we have your full cooperation.’ Avery stared at her then stomped out of the room. A moment later, he shoved a scuffed piece of paper into her hand.

‘Take it with you. Always happy to help the pigs. I mean, the police.’

‘Thank you Mr Avery.’

She passed him without looking back and they left the building, noting that he hadn’t put up any form of resistance. As they headed for the car, Gina glanced at the rota and searched for the evening in question. Charlene was on bar and Jeff was down as being on a shift from four in the afternoon to close. They got in the car and headed back to the station, ready to compare findings. Gina looked down at her phone, which had been on silent. There were no messages from Hannah.

She called the station and O’Connor answered. ‘Could you organise the collection of a copy of an order made for lager at the Angel Arms last Friday? You can speak to Samuel Avery. I want a copy filed under the Baby Jenkins case. Verify the time the order was made.’ O’Connor acknowledged her request and she ended the call. As Jacob drove, she tapped in the number on the beer mat and waited for an answer. Time to start working on verifying Avery’s whereabouts. There was something about him she just didn’t trust.





Twenty-Nine





Gina kicked off her shoes and switched her laptop on. Briggs had told her to leave a bit earlier as she’d been doing so much overtime. But they both knew she was bringing her work home, as was Jacob. And she was sure Briggs had spent all day looking at the station’s finances, worrying about overspending. With all that was going on, there wasn’t time to sit around, watch soaps and take long candlelit baths. Every time she settled down to bathe, the phone would go.

She looked out the window into the rural darkness. Living on the outskirts of Stratford-upon-Avon had given her the peace she’d never had as a Birmingham city dweller. As her struggling laptop finally powered up, she pulled the files out of her bag and placed them on the floor. She sat next to them with her legs spread out and opened her email, but she’d received no new messages since she’d left the station. She’d confirmed that Avery had been in London at his sister’s on Friday, and O’Connor had come back to her with a copy of the lager order, which had been made at five forty that evening. Her mind came back to Avery. The thought of him near any woman made her skin crawl, but he’d covered himself well on two occasions. She’d considered that he could be working with someone else, but who?

An email pinged up on her screen. It was a sponsorship request for O’Connor’s bike ride that coming weekend. She doubted whether O’Connor would live through a fifteen-mile bike ride. He’d laughed in her face when she’d suggested that he should train for it. She clicked on the link, which explained that any money raised would go to the local hospital. She tapped in her details and sent him twenty pounds.

A call lit up her phone and it vibrated across the coffee table. She grabbed it, hoping that it was Hannah calling back, but it was Jacob. ‘Hello.’

She waited a moment while he coughed down the phone. ‘Sorry about that. Right, I managed to catch up with Wyre and O’Connor just after you left.’