Local Gone Missing(57)
“Do you think Pauline Perry had something to do with Charlie’s death?”
Dee’s head went up, eyes wide. “I don’t know. But she was horrible to him. Cruel. Said she wished she could get rid of him. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You sound very protective of Charlie. What was your relationship with him?”
Dee’s spine straightened and her feet curled around the chair legs as if bracing for a crash. Elise wondered if the officers were seeing the same body language. Were they touching a nerve?
“Relationship? What are you going on about? I worked for him.”
“But you told DI King he was a sweetheart and a lovely man,” her sergeant plowed on. “It sounds like you were very fond of him. Did he ever confide in you? Or meet you away from the caravan?”
“?’Course not!” Dee snapped. “Look, we weren’t friends—or anything else. I said that because that’s what everyone said about him.”
She paused. “But I didn’t really know him.”
Forty-two
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
Elise
Bram O’Dowd had been sitting in the interview room for more than an hour by the time the detectives finally walked in.
The Eastwoods had taken longer than Elise had expected. Then there’d been the Lithuanian laborer with the suitcase to deal with. They’d pushed him as hard as they could but he had a cast-iron alibi for the weekend—in the cells at Bournemouth police station from the early hours of Saturday to first thing Monday morning after a fight at a nightclub. An officer was doing background checks with Interpol just in case he had form but the focus was on the contents of the suitcase and what forensics could make of them.
“It’s a bizarre haul,” Caro said. “He wasn’t packing for a fortnight on the beach. There’s a screwdriver tucked into the underpants!”
“It looks like Charlie was getting ready to leave but he never made it out of the door,” Elise said. “So who took his bag and hid it in a skip? The person who moved his body?”
“Come on, let the lab boys work their magic. The lover’s waiting,” Caro said, and handed her a list of the CCTV sightings for O’Dowd’s pickup truck near Tall Trees over the bank holiday weekend.
“He’s been a busy boy . . .” Elise murmured as she scanned it.
* * *
—
O’Dowd had slipped his flip-flops off and one leg was stretched languorously under the table so that his grubby foot was under Elise’s chair. She made sure to catch it when she pulled the seat out.
He pulled a face as he reached down to rub his ankle and then sat back, his porn star tan displayed to full effect in a tight white T-shirt.
At least he’s got it on.
“I understand you do not want a lawyer present?”
“No, I’m fine without,” O’Dowd said. “Is this going to take much longer? I’ve already told DI Ward everything—and I’ve got a job waiting.”
“Sorry about that. Anyway . . . how long have you known Pauline Perry?” Elise opened the proceedings.
The gardener appeared to consider the question carefully. “A year? About that, anyway. I started doing work at Tall Trees when I moved to Ebbing.”
“You’re not a local, then?”
“No, I came to do seasonal work at the garden center and liked it, so I stayed.”
“How did you come to work for the Perrys?”
“Like I’ve already said, Pauline came into the center and we got chatting. About plants. And she asked if I’d help her with some new beds. . . .”
Caro flicked a “Seriously!” look at Elise.
“I see. And when did you start a sexual relationship with her?”
“This is ridiculous.” O’Dowd sat up straight in his chair. “I was working on her property, nothing else. They’re a load of gossips round here—women with nothing to do but bitch to one another. I told DI Ward. He understood.”
Elise tightened her grip on her pen. “Well, I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve seen what passes for the garden at the property. It doesn’t look like it’s been touched for months. Hardly an advert for your skills—”
“I only go occasionally.” He sulked. “They couldn’t really afford me—”
“You were there Friday night, though, weren’t you? Your vehicle was recorded arriving.”
“Who by?”
“There’s a camera at the entrance to the parking area just before the Perry property. And it’s positioned so that it catches vehicles slowing down and indicating to turn into Tall Trees.”
He frowned. He didn’t know. Elise smiled to herself.
“I’m a big walker,” he muttered. “Pauline lets me park round there when I fancy stretching my legs on the footpath.”
“Right. In the dark?”
He shrugged. “I go stargazing sometimes.”
“Do you? Well, we found a man’s T-shirt tucked down the back of Pauline Perry’s bed during our search of the caravan.”
O’Dowd’s head went down.
“It’s being examined in the lab for DNA. As are the sheets.”