In all the years that he had been married to Susan, Warren couldn’t recall a time when he’d been more reluctant to leave his in-laws’ house. Bernice was, to be charitable, hard work, and as much as he loved her, he was usually rather relieved to bid his farewells.
But this time, their brief overnight stop had been different. Despite the couple’s exhaustion, they had stayed up late, the copies of the black and white ultrasound image sitting pride of place on the dining table as they discussed the future.
Bernice and Dennis were already grandparents several times over, yet they were as excited as the time Susan’s sister, Felicity, had first announced her good news, years before. Bernice had insisted on sending a picture of the ultrasound to Felicity, and it was all that Warren and Susan could do to stop her from announcing it to the rest of the family.
‘What are you hoping for, Warren? Boys or girls?’ asked Dennis over breakfast the following morning.
‘I’ll be honest, I don’t really mind,’ admitted Warren. Truth be told, the ups and downs of the last few years had left him doubting if they would ever become parents, and he’d shied away from thinking about it too much. He guessed he was just superstitious. Over the past couple of days though, it had suddenly become real and now he was starting to realize how much his life was going to change.
‘If they are boys, I hope you’re going to bring them up as Coventry City fans,’ teased his father-in-law, knowing that Warren’s understanding – and interest – in football was limited at best.
‘It’s the twenty-first century, Dad; girls can watch football as well, you know,’ admonished Susan. ‘Besides they might prefer rugby.’
Warren grinned. His father-in-law was not a fan of the oval ball.
‘Well, I’d like some more granddaughters,’ said Bernice. ‘I have to put all of my best china on the top shelf when Felicity brings the boys around.’
‘Maybe we’ll have one of each,’ said Warren, diplomatically.
‘When will you know?’ asked Dennis.
‘When they are born,’ said Susan immediately. She and Warren had decided long ago that they wanted to be surprised.
Dennis frowned slightly. ‘I can understand that, but twins take a lot of preparation. It’ll help if you know what you’ll be getting, so you can paint the nursery and everything.’
‘And I have to start knitting two of everything,’ said Bernice. ‘I need to know what colour wool to buy.’
‘White will be fine,’ said Susan firmly.
‘The most important thing is that they are healthy,’ said Warren quickly, not wanting the moment spoiled.
‘Of course,’ said Dennis, taking his daughter’s hand and giving it a squeeze. He smiled. ‘Let me know when you want me to come down and help you get the small bedroom ready. I’ve just bought a brand-new drill; I’ve been itching to put it through its paces.’
‘As far as we can tell, neither Biljana or Malina Dragić or their aunt, Silvija Wilson, had any online social connections to Stevie Cullen,’ said Grimshaw. Warren and Susan had made good time on the motorway, leaving her parents shortly after breakfast. It was now just after midday and Warren had scheduled a briefing. He’d been gone barely eighteen hours, yet the pace of the investigation made it feel longer. By the time he’d poured himself another coffee, he was fully in work mode, the previous evening with his in-laws a distant memory.
‘Their social media contacts don’t overlap with his, and neither do any of their closest friends,’ continued Grimshaw. ‘He doesn’t obviously appear in any of their shared photographs, nor they in his. Their text and phone logs don’t list any calls linked to either of the phones that we know he used. There are some texts and calls to unlisted pay-as-you-go phones, and we can’t rule out that either they or he had another handset that we don’t know about.’
‘From what we’ve learnt about Stevie Cullen so far, a burner phone would be just his style,’ said Ruskin.
‘Cullen did call the massage parlour business line on a regular basis, using his personal phone,’ continued Grimshaw, ‘but these calls were short and broadly corresponded with times that we know he had appointments. If either of the girls, or their aunt, had a social relationship with the late Mr Cullen it was either offline or they used a different phone. Similarly, we’re drawing a blank on Ray Dorridge.’
‘Thanks, Shaun. Wilson was adamant that they had no relationship with Cullen outside of work; if they did, we’ve caught her in a lie. Have we identified the girls’ friends for interview?’
Grimshaw nodded. ‘If their contacts are anything to go by, they pretty much socialized exclusively with the local Serbian community. We’ve identified a list of about ten that they seem to meet on a regular basis.’ He passed across a list to Warren.
‘Anybody particularly special? Boyfriends or girlfriends?’ asked Pymm.
‘Nobody obvious. They’re a tactile pair; especially after a few drinks, they seem to be hugging everybody. I asked the translation team to keep an eye out for terms of endearment that might give us a clue.’
‘Good work. Hutch, can you arrange for these people to be interviewed? Use translators if necessary. I want to know if they were aware of any contact with Stevie Cullen and his family. I also want to know if they’ve seen or heard anything about the killing or have any suspicions.’
‘There are also two other, unidentified people that I think we should look at,’ said Grimshaw.
‘Go on.’
Grimshaw held up two sheets of A4 paper, both with several coloured images. ‘The girls tended to tag most of the people appearing in their photographs. Anyone who wasn’t tagged in a photo, I was usually able to match to a name by looking for them in different pictures where they were tagged.’ His lip twisted slightly. ‘That’s a large chunk of my life I’ll never get back.’
‘But these two couldn’t be identified?’
Grimshaw shook his head. ‘The first is a young woman. She only appears in a few of the more recent photos, usually in the background.’
He passed the sheet of photographs around.
The woman appeared to be slim, with dark hair, and of average height. Even the best photographs had only a three-quarter profile. Warren hoped it was enough for someone to recognize her. The chances were that she was just an occasional friend that the girls hadn’t yet ‘friended’ on social media; regardless, Warren wanted to know who she was.
‘The second is an unknown male, of average build and height, probably in his mid-twenties. He appears in several different pictures from various parties that the girls attended in the first few weeks after they arrived here. If I had to guess, I’d imagine he’s one of the Serbian community. He stopped appearing in the photos about three months ago.’
‘Well he fits the physical profile of the supposed attacker,’ said Ruskin.
‘So do half the men in Middlesbury,’ said Pymm, ‘and that’s assuming the girls’ accounts are even accurate.’
‘If he did have a relationship with one of the girls, that might explain why they tried to cover for him by giving such a vague description, and it might explain his motive,’ said Martinez, ignoring Pymm. ‘He could have been jealous of Cullen.’
‘If they wanted to cover for him, why not say the attacker was a twenty-stone black man? That way we’d be looking for someone completely different,’ countered Pymm.
‘If they made the description too distinctive, we’d soon question why we haven’t had any eyewitness sightings or CCTV of the attacker. As it stands a nondescript, average bloke might just have slipped through the net,’ said Grimshaw.
‘That sounds a bit sophisticated to come up with on the fly,’ said Hutchinson.
‘Who says they came up with it on the fly?’ asked Grimshaw. ‘They could have been planning it for months.’
‘And besides, we know they didn’t call the police immediately,’ agreed Martinez.
‘OK, OK, people, let’s not get carried away,’ said Warren. ‘We’re building a very flimsy house of cards here, based on not a lot.’ He took a breath. ‘First of all, let’s find out who he is. Show those photos to someone else who was at one of the parties he attended, see if they can identify him. Next, let’s ask why he no longer appears in their most recent photos. Is he even in the area anymore?’
‘Could they have deleted photos that he appeared in?’ asked Hutchinson. ‘They could have done the most recent ones and not quite managed the earliest ones.’
‘It would certainly be a big enough job,’ said Grimshaw. ‘They’ve posted hundreds over the past year or so, on several different social media platforms.’
‘Nothing’s ever completely deleted,’ said Ruskin. ‘We could raise a warrant and ask for the data from Facebook and Instagram.’
A chorus of groans rang around the room.
‘You’ll be collecting your pension by the time that comes through,’ said Martinez.
‘Besides, why was he the only person not tagged? If they deleted him as a contact, would that have automatically untagged him?’
There was a silence, followed by a series of shrugs around the room.
‘We’ll need to find out if that’s the case,’ said Warren.
‘Sounds like a job for young Moray,’ said Grimshaw. ‘Us old folks find these new-fangled social media platforms far too complicated.’