Page 52 of Her Hidden Shadow

Gina fired several more questions at him but true to his word, he replied with no comment after each one.

‘Actually, I do have one more thing to say. Well two. I realise I have a problem. Those photos I took, that horrible note I wrote, following Sienna in the hope that I could drive her back to me somehow, that was messed up. I see it and I’m going to get help for that. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I know I’ve said that already, but I want it noted.’

‘What is the second thing?’

‘I don’t remember dates or times, but I followed Sienna about two weeks ago, she was with a man in a dark saloon car. I didn’t take a photo. As soon as she got out of his car and went into her house, he was on the phone arguing with someone and he sat there for half an hour, staring at the door she’d just gone through like some obsessive nutter, then he literally lost it in his car. He hit the steering wheel. He got out and kicked his tyres and he was clenching his fists while talking to himself. You need to find that angry bastard. He did it because it wasn’t me.’

Gina pictured Jacob arguing on his phone, parked up while Hale watched on. It wasn’t looking good if Hale was telling the truth, but she had no way of determining if he’d just fed them a pack of lies. Speaking to his mother’s neighbour, Amos Jeffrey, would be a good start. She needed to know if Hale left the house that night, or if anyone saw him driving away. She wanted nothing more than to call Jacob up and ask him what the hell was going on but that was never going to happen, not while he was still in custody. She saw O’Connor through the little square of glass in the door, so she instructed Collier to wrap the interview up. Hurrying out, she walked a little further down the corridor. Sullivan slammed the viewing room door to join them just as O’Connor was going to speak. ‘Stand aside, Harte.’

She blew out a breath and it sickened her to comply, but the smallest of wrong moves would have Sullivan laughing as she was dropped from the case and sent home. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘What is it?’ Sullivan sniffed and pressed her lips together as she stared at O’Connor. ‘You report to me first.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ O’Connor said. ‘I’ve been scouring all previous strangling cases similar to that of Tiffany Crawford.’

‘And?’

‘There’s an unsolved case. A woman was attacked in her home in Kidderminster, but she now lives in Tardebigge, which is just outside Redditch.’

Sullivan scrunched her face. ‘I know where Tardebigge is.’

‘Okay, there are similarities in the cases, and she claims to be missing an earring after the attack. There is a photo of the remaining earring in the file and it’s identical to the one found at the scene of Tiffany Crawford’s attack.’

‘We need to speak to her, now.’ Gina glanced back as Collier got relieved by a PC who would take Hale to a cell while he waited for a solicitor.

O’Connor glanced at Sullivan and Sullivan glanced at Collier. ‘Collier, go with her and report directly to me and DCI Briggs straight away.’

Gina exhaled as Sullivan turned away from them and headed back to the incident room.

‘That’s good news isn’t it, guv. That link is solid.’ O’Connor smiled.

She nodded. ‘Our serial strangler theory holds. We need to get to the bottom of this before he strikes again.’ With two suspects in custody, they’d normally feel secure that no more attacks would take place, but one was Jacob, and she wasn’t sure about Hale. He was disturbed, he was dangerously creepy, but was he a murderer? ‘O’Connor?’

‘Guv.’

‘Could you please call the victim and let her know that we need to speak to her and that we’re on our way?’

He nodded and left her with Collier. She swallowed. Something about the whole case wasn’t adding up. The only people who could really want Sienna and Robbie dead were Gerard Hale or Jacob. Gina couldn’t put her finger on that niggle at the back of her mind, the niggle she couldn’t unravel. A sick feeling in her gut told her to not be complacent and that the murderer could still be out there, and time was her enemy.

Thirty-Nine

‘It’s about time you found who did this to me. What’s going on?’ Gina recognised the woman from the case file as the victim, Hazel Becker, now Blackford, since she got married. The security light lit up the huge frontage. To the right of the house was a canal and to the left, a dense thicket. Gina and Collier had spent several minutes driving along the snaking roads to find the house that was barely visible in the dark.

‘May we come in?’

Hazel opened the door to reveal a wide hallway. It sported only one open door and that led to a room with a bar at one end and a pool table in the middle. Benches against the wall made the room look a bit like a cosy pub. ‘Take a seat but do try to be quiet. My wife is in the kitchen trying to get our baby to sleep.’

‘Of course. How old is your little one?’ Gina asked.

‘Six months. She barely sleeps as you can see from my eye bags, but I forgive her because she’s so cute.’

Collier sat next to Gina on the bench and Hazel pulled out a stool and sat opposite them on the ends of her long black hair. It shone a little blue and green under the light in the same way that a raven’s feathers did.

‘So, what do you have? The officer I spoke to on the phone said you’d explain everything.’ She bit a nail. ‘Have you caught him?’

Gina shook her head. ‘Last Saturday night a woman was murdered in Cleevesford and there are some similarities to your attack. We’re also linking your attack to another one that took place in Redditch four years ago.’

‘Jeez, murdered? And there are two other victims?’

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