Will made her jump as he crept up behind her, whispering so no one else could hear. ‘Are you picking anything up?’
Jennifer clutched his arm as the paving stone wobbled under his weight. ‘Oh, you gave me a fright. No, the only thing I’m picking up is that Hardwick can’t get rid of us quick enough. He just wants to tie this up and get on with the rest of his work.’
‘He’s a knob. But from what I’ve seen, there’s not a lot to go on, is there?’
Jennifer turned to Will. ‘It’s not over until the fat lady sings. Let’s speak to his sister, see what she has to say.’
Geoffrey’s sister Miss Pike lived just four doors down. A light mist of rain descended as they walked to the address, and Jennifer patted down the newly formed frizz in her hair. She had zoned out from Will moaning about DC Hardwick, grateful they had not far to walk. She didn’t like him either, but she couldn’t see the point in complaining all day long. People like DC Hardwick would never change, and it was best not to let them get under your skin. The doorbell of the two-storey house rang a cheery tune rang from inside the hall. A thickset woman answered the door. Jennifer’s eyes were drawn to her short, permed, vibrant bottle-red hair.
‘Hello, I’m DC Knight and this is my colleague DC Dunston. And you are Linda Pike, I take it?’ Checking the identity of the homeowner was a given in their line of work. The last thing they wanted to do was to turn up to someone else’s address to discuss a sudden death and discover they had the wrong person. The woman nodded, her red-rimmed eyes brimming over with tears.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss, but could we speak to you for a few minutes?’ Jennifer said, holding up her warrant card for reassurance. Linda nodded solemnly, waving them inside. Her skirt billowed as she walked, her wide hips waddling from side to side in an effort to carry her weight. A faint smell of chip fat hung in the air of the narrow hall, which was panelled with family photos either side. A freckle-faced girl stared back, teeth crooked, hands clasped awkwardly on her lap. Jennifer viewed the progression as the school photos evolved, another of the girl wearing braces, staring up from underneath her fringe. The last picture was the most magnificent. The young girl had bloomed into a swan; her eyes alight, displaying a perfect smile. Jennifer returned her attention to Linda as she showed them into a small living room, cluttered with newspapers and cabinets full of Wade collectables. A pair of budgies chattered and whistled in a gold-barred cage hung next to the window. Linda jabbed at the remote control until the television was silenced, and only spoke when Jennifer and Will were seated on the floral patterned sofa.
‘Can I get you a drink? A cuppa perhaps?’
Jennifer raised her hands, detecting a slight accent, and she strained to pin down the origin.
‘Oh no, not at all. I should be making one for you, it must have been a terrible shock, finding your brother like that.’ It may have seemed a comical suggestion, offering to make someone tea the first time you stepped into their house, but both Jennifer and Will had done it many times when it came to sudden deaths. Shell-shocked relatives unable to comprehend the sudden loss of a loved one. Handing them a sweet cup of tea seemed the traditional British thing to do, and she had never been shooed out of anyone’s kitchen yet.
Linda pulled a balled-up tissue from under her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. ‘It was such a shock finding him like that. The police – are they finished now? I mean, have they taken him?’
‘It won’t be much longer. Linda, I know officers have already spoken to you, but do you mind me asking you a couple of questions? I just want to make sure we have covered everything.’
‘Of course, but I don’t see why the police are involved. It was his own fault, the daft bugger. I told him to stop going out spying on people, because it got him in so much trouble. I didn’t mean he should take it up in his own back garden.’ Linda sighed heavily, her shoulders drooping with the weight of her loss. ‘He wasn’t a bad man really. He told me he wanted to change, but he just couldn’t help himself.’
Jennifer flipped back the pages of her pocket notebook and poised it on her lap. ‘Was there anyone who held a grudge against your brother?’
‘He never used to go out much, just to the chip shop for his tea, and sometimes a pint in the pub. Then he joined some online group, he used to go out every now and again to meet them, never said where it was.’
Jennifer’s ears pricked up at the mention of an online group, and the pieces began clicking into place. Zoe had mentioned speaking to a Geoff in her report. He regularly flirted during their online messages, and had promised to invite her to the next meeting. But Linda was unable to come up with any satisfactory information on the group, and could only recall recent events.
‘We hadn’t seen each other in years, I left home at a young age while he stayed in Liverpool. He moved here so we could look out for each other in our old age.’
Jennifer nodded, her curiosity about Linda’s underlying accent satisfied. ‘You didn’t see anyone suspicious hanging around?’
‘No. I popped over most mornings.’ Her face crumpled as a sob hit the back of her throat. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’
Jennifer handed her a fresh tissue from the box on the coffee table. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t keep you much longer.’ She waited a few seconds for Linda to compose herself before moving on. She hated questioning the recently bereaved, but it had to be done. The sooner she could end her questioning, the sooner she could leave the woman alone to grieve in peace. ‘You mentioned when you called the police that your brother had a reading,’ Jennifer said.
‘Yeah, it was weird. He thought I knew the man through the spiritualist church. When I told him I didn’t, Geoffrey was a bit shaken.’
‘Shaken? Why?’
Linda sniffed loudly. ‘The fortune teller said he would break his neck climbing down the tree house ladder. It was there when Geoff bought the place, left over from the last family. But it was falling apart, and the boards were loose. The man said that Geoffrey would come a cropper.’
Jennifer paused. ‘So he climbed the tree using the wooden steps?’
‘Usually, yes. But after the reading he said he would use the metal ladder. Of course he told me he was using it because he liked bird watching. The silly bugger, bird watching indeed!’
Jennifer turned it over in her mind. Geoffrey scuppered the prediction, but it happened another way. Had fate alone ensured his demise or had it received a helping hand?
With some disappointment, Jennifer realised her sense of foreboding had led to this moment. The tarot card reader had to be responsible, but why? Even if Geoffrey was connected to The Reborners, just what was the Raven getting out of these deaths? Was he a member? Acting purely as their judge, jury and executioner? Whatever the reason, people were dying, and the Raven was never far away.
Chapter Forty-Six
What his sergeant called psychic instinct, Will called a gut feeling. He was proud of the fact he was the levelheaded one, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. But the more time he spent with Jennifer, the better a detective he became. Her passion for protecting the people of Haven had rubbed off on him, and the Raven played heavily on his mind. Today his investigative skills rewarded him richly.
Will slowed his car to a crawl down the narrow laneway, as his eyes fell on the orange VW van. Led by nothing but old fashioned detective work, Will allowed himself some pride in his achievement. And on his own too. Jennifer would kill him for keeping it from her, but he couldn’t put her in the face of danger after her stunt in the woods. He pressed the side button of his radio to call for backup, before realising the battery was dead. He slid his mobile from his pocket and stared at the blank screen. Jennifer had warned him about this; close links to powerful psychic connection could zap batteries, give you headaches, blow light bulbs and shorten CCTV footage. It was all part of the strangeness he was being fed on a daily basis. But today she had been right. Will parked his car discreetly in the ditch. He should return to the nick and get backup, but if he left, the owner of the van would be free to drive away. That’s if anyone was in it.