Page 46 of Her Hidden Shadow

A loud knock at the door made Gina’s heart jump slightly. All the talk of the creepy man at the window had sent a slight chill through her. Tiffany passed Gina and hurried to open the door. ‘Hello, Mrs Crawford. Is DI Harte still there?’

Gina heard PC Smith and hurried to the door where she and DI Collier left. DI Collier packed his notepad into his satchel as they followed the PC to the roadside.

‘Have you found anything?’ Collier asked before she could speak.

PC Smith nodded. He held an evidence bag up. ‘We found this caught on a tree, just over there.’ He pointed to a line of shrubs and trees that lined the path at the back of the flats. ‘We can’t be sure if this black wool came from a balaclava but there was a fair bit of it. It could have caught on a branch and unwound before the perp snapped the thread or it could just be anyone’s jumper or scarf. If it did belong to him, it means he would have escaped that way.’

‘What’s behind those trees?’

PC Smith stared in that direction. ‘If I remember rightly, there’s a bit of shrubbery, then a lane. If you cross the lane, you come to a quiet road that leads to a few fields and the river. He could have followed the lane for a while then headed back into the estate, or he could have been parked up on one of the smaller roads. We’ve got officers checking these out as we speak.’

‘Thank you. While you’re doing the door-to-doors, if anyone has CCTV, that too will be most helpful. Can you please go over the area where you found this wool, and cordon it off? Make sure no one disturbs any cigarette ends, drink cans, bits of paper, fibres or footprints. I’ll call Bernard so that one of his team can head over and assist.’

‘Will do. I’ll head over and cordon it off.’

‘Thank you.’ She grabbed her phone and quickly called Bernard.

A man pulled up on the road and ran over. ‘Tiff, Tiff,’ he called as he ran past Gina.

She turned to face him. ‘Are you Mr Crawford?’

The man stood there, a confused look spreading across his face. ‘What’s happened? I’ve been trying to call her. I got worried. Is everything okay? Where is she?’ As he walked across the path, he removed his company yellow jacket and rolled it up.

Tiffany came out and hurried towards him. Gina watched as she threw her arms around him. ‘I’m okay, but he was here, Kieron. He was watching me through the kitchen window, wearing that same balaclava. He won’t stop until I’m dead.’ She burst into tears.

‘Are you sure he was here, Tiff?’

‘Yes. Do you think I’d make it up?’

‘No, I never said that, I just—’

‘I know what you meant, and I thought you were on my side.’

‘I am. Of course I am.’ Kieron broke their embrace and awkwardly turned back to Gina. ‘You have to find this man and put him behind bars. We’ve already moved once from our Redditch house because my wife lived in fear every day. Please.’ He turned back to his wife. ‘I’m never going to let anyone hurt you, I promise. I’m here now. Let’s get you inside, in the warm before you freeze to death.’

‘He’s going to come back and he’s going to kill me, don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Tiffany yelled just before Kieron closed the door.

Thirty-Four

Following DI Collier’s private briefing with Sullivan back at the station, he and Gina were once again hurrying to their next appointment – Robbie Shields’s post-mortem.

‘I’m not good at this so I may need to leave at some point. Just warning you,’ Collier said as he stared at the huge glass-fronted building. ‘If I can get past the Y-incision and the removal of the bowels, I’ll be okay.’ He shuddered.

They walked to the reception door. ‘That’s okay. If you need to leave the room, I understand. It’s better you take five minutes and get some air rather than faint.’

‘Thanks.’

The receptionist smiled from behind her desk as they entered. ‘Please take a seat, and we’ll call you through in a moment. It’s DI Harte, isn’t it?’

Gina nodded. ‘Yes, and this is DI Collier.’ The woman turned back to her work while they sat on the couch by the floor-to-ceiling window.

‘The super said you used to work at Birmingham, when you were a DC.’

Gina nodded. ‘Is that all she said?’

He paused and began to twiddle his fingers. ‘There may have been other things.’

‘I bet there were,’ Gina muttered. She glanced at Collier and knew that Sullivan had enjoyed telling him how incompetent Gina had been. Of course, it was all lies but Sullivan had singled her out from the pack on day one, encouraging the rest of the team to come down hard on her, give her the tricky shifts, deny her holiday leave and make nasty comments under their breath.

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