Twinkle Twinkle Little Lies by Rob Ashman

Author:Rob Ashman [Ashman, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

P ietersen had completed the immediate actions on her list and was waiting for Malice to return to the station. He was late and she was fed up with pacing around the office, drinking machine-made coffee. Which also had the downside of allowing her ample time to fixate on Brad Craven.

His message had been clear. This was going to be a long and tortuous process, designed to inflict the maximum personal angst for her and the maximum entertainment for him. He had a reputation for being a tough operator so his words couldn’t simply be dismissed as hollow threats. Malice’s opinion raged in her head — ‘You’re in deep shit’.

As she was thinking of him, he rushed in carrying a hard-backed book under his arm and broke her train of thought.

‘Hey,’ he said, unloading pens and a notebook from his jacket before slinging it over the back of the chair. ‘Busy day, or what?’

‘Where the hell have you been, Malice?’ she asked.

‘Chatting to a retired priest.’

‘Retired? You need redemption from a practising one.’

‘Ha, very funny. What have you got?’

‘Okay.’ She resumed her circuit of the office. ‘Let’s start with Horton and Maxwell. They didn’t so much meet over a drink in a bar, rather they met over a water fountain in the college where John was the vice-principal.’

‘A water fountain?’ Malice leaned against his desk and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Maxwell was a service engineer for a water delivery company. I contacted the firm and they are still in business. They confirmed that the sixth-form college where John Horton worked was on the delivery schedule for Tim Maxwell. We’ve been struggling to put the two men together in any social situation and it looks like they met at work.’

‘That’s good. What did you find out regarding my Wendy Horton hunch?’

‘Looks like you were right. There was an allegation of rape. Copeland did accuse Horton of raping her at the time of the assault but it was never followed up, and nothing was done about it. They found the rest of the police interview notes and it would confirm that to be true.’

‘And what about the baby?’

‘That proved a bit more difficult. The hospital was not very happy disclosing details of Copeland’s medical records, saying I needed her consent or a court order which would have taken a few days to organise. I told them that under section 29(3) of the Data Protection Act the information could be disclosed where a serious offence was being conducted, but the red tape was getting too thick.’

‘Damn, that’s a shame. I’m sure that–’

‘Hold on, I’m better than that. I spoke to a registrar. He obviously had Copeland’s records in front of him, and when I mentioned the dates there was an inflection in his voice that told me we were on the right track. I got hold of the court transcript and it makes specific reference to her having a miscarriage two weeks before the sentencing hearing.’

‘Bloody hell. You hit the jackpot.’

‘If Copeland

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