Deadly Secrets: An absolutely gripping crime thriller

  They came back out to the front path, to get some gulps of fresh air.

  ‘Hey! You! What are you doing?’ shouted an older man from across the road. He had glasses around his neck on a chain, and was holding a newspaper.

  ‘Get back inside!’ shouted Moss.

  ‘Not until you tell me what you are doing!’

  ‘Police, get back inside!’ they both shouted.

  ‘Kitchen, at the back,’ said Erika. They took deep breaths and ran back inside, down the hallway, past the stairs, where the smell of gas intensified. A smart modern kitchen looked out over a garden. The oven door was open, and the gas hobs were all hissing. Moss turned everything off. There was a huge glass sliding door, but no key. Erika couldn’t see any scissors, but there was a large stone doorstop. She picked it up and flung it at the glass. It bounced off and she had to jump back.

  They were now both coughing and choking. Erika picked the doorstop up again and lobbed it at the glass. A sea of cracks burst outwards, almost frosting the glass, but it still didn’t break. Erika’s lungs were bursting and Moss had now fallen to her knees. On the third attempt, the doorstop smashed through the huge pane of glass. They staggered out to the snow-covered back garden and took more deep breaths, loving the cold, clean air.

  ‘Upstairs; we need to check upstairs,’ coughed Erika. They took deep breaths and dived back inside, through the kitchen, feeling that the gas was dispersing.

  They heard the sound of a siren as a fire engine pulled up outside. The house upstairs had the same layout as Marissa’s, with a bedroom front and back, and a bathroom on the opposite side to the staircase. The small back bedroom and bathroom doors were open. They got the windows open, then ran to the master bedroom door, which was locked. They could feel a breeze as the air was now being sucked out from downstairs, and the toxic air was clearing. They heard feet on the stairs, and voices.

  ‘Up here!’ shouted Erika. Three firefighters appeared at the top of the landing. ‘We need to get this door open.’

  They took an axe to the door, and it splintered and then swung open. Gas flooded out, and the firefighters rushed in and got the curtains and windows open.

  On the neatly made bed lay a tall, thin man. He was pale, with thin sandy hair. Erika recognised him as Ivan from the photos they had of him in the incident room. Two paramedics entered the bedroom, carrying medical gear. Erika and Moss stood back as they examined him.

  ‘He’s got a faint pulse,’ said the female paramedic. Together with the male paramedic, she got him strapped to the stretcher they had brought with them, and once he was on it, they lifted him down to the floor.

  ‘His name’s Ivan Stowalski,’ said Erika.

  ‘Ivan, can you hear me?’ asked the woman. She slapped his face, and he gave a low moan, his eyelids fluttering.

  ‘His blood is flooded with carbon monoxide. Let’s get an IV in and oxygenate him.’ She opened the first aid box.

  Erika then saw what was on the bed. She’d thought, at first, it was a brightly patterned bedspread, but now she saw it was covered with photos of Marissa Lewis, all printed off on paper. There were photos of her performing in her burlesque shows, several of her naked in bed, and wet in the shower. There were scores of snapshots taken of Marissa and Ivan in parks and at famous London landmarks, smiling into the camera. Amongst the pictures, were also a couple of her burlesque outfits, a black corset and a red silk bra.

  Erika looked back at the paramedics, who had now hooked up an IV to Ivan’s arm and were pumping in air through a large air bag and mask.

  ‘What’s that in his hand?’ asked one of the firefighters. Erika reached over and gently took it from him.

  ‘Underwear,’ she said, seeing it was a small pair of red knickers with a gold embroidered diamond in one corner. ‘They belong to Marissa. That’s her branding.’

  Twenty-Three

  Ivan Stowalski was stabilised by the paramedics. He was breathing, but hadn’t regained consciousness.

  Erika and Moss watched from the pavement as the ambulance sped away to hospital.

  ‘There goes another suspect, dying on us,’ said Moss.

  ‘He’s not dead yet,’ replied Erika.

  The firefighters then moved through the house, checking the gas connections, and searched the attic. When they gave the all-clear, a forensics team arrived to go through the contents of the house.

  Erika ducked under the police tape to join Moss, who was sitting in the car, drinking from a bottle of water.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. Bit of a sore throat.’

  ‘Me too, and I smoke twenty a day.’

  ‘They’ve taken Ivan Stowalski to University College Hospital. As soon as he gains consciousness, I’ve said we want to talk to him. We’ve got his car leaving the congestion zone and going northbound at 11.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Is that late to go and see relations?’

  ‘They would have arrived very late, if they were driving up north.’

  ‘Four or five a.m. Why would you leave so late? We need to find out what time Marissa got back from her burlesque gig. If it was earlier, he could have had time.’ Erika coughed, a little of the residue still in her lungs, and she squinted up at the sky, at the bright grey cloud. Several neighbours were looking out of their windows or had come to their front doorsteps, including the man with the glasses who still had his newspaper clutched in his hand. Erika looked back at the mess of glass over the front garden of Ivan’s house. Then she looked at Moss, who was downing more water.

  ‘You okay to keep going?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘I want to talk to Don Walpole and Marissa’s mother.’

  Moss got out of the car, and they started up the street. Two doors down from Ivan’s house, a large elderly black man with salt and pepper hair was smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Did Ivan try to kill himself?’ he asked. He spoke with a warm Jamaican accent, and wore large, billowing grey trousers and a thick orange fleece dotted with cigarette burns. He tilted his head back and squinted at Erika and Moss, as if they were about to do something unexpected. They stopped by his gate.

  ‘We can’t talk about a case,’ said Erika.

  ‘Bad business, that girl being murdered. I’ve been watching that Ivan make a fool of himself with that girl for a long time. She was always going to be out of his league. I saw him being stretchered out. Tried to kill himself, didn’t he?’ He came close and put his hand on Erika’s shoulder, the tip of his cigarette glowing. ‘You see that car there, opposite?’ he said, pointing to a white Alfa Romeo with a huge dent in the bumper. The rear lights on the right-hand side were broken and the plastic littered the filthy snow below. Erika felt the man’s hand grip her shoulder. The smell of his breath was a mixture of cough sweets and cigarettes. She delicately unhooked her shoulder and stepped away.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s his car. He arrived back early this morning, drove straight into that car opposite, and crushed the front lights. Didn’t hang about, didn’t knock on the door to get insurance details.’ He put the cigarette back in his mouth and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘What time was this?’ asked Moss.

  ‘Seven o’clock this morning or thereabouts.’

  ‘Why were you up?’

  ‘I’m old,’ he chuckled, with a stream of smoke. ‘And my wife doesn’t let me smoke in the house.’

  ‘And you’re sure it was Ivan Stowalski?’

  ‘I don’t know his second name, but I’m not blind! It was the Polish man.’ Erika and Moss contemplated that for a moment. The man went on. ‘He must have heard she died, the girl he was carrying on with.’

  ‘How do you know he was having an affair with her?’ asked Erika.

  ‘You call yourself a detective? I know because I’m out here most of the day. I see a lot, although people don’t take no notice of an old man… She used to come and go a lot from his house. After his wife had gone to work.’


  ‘When?’

  ‘Over the summer. Since the weather got cold she hasn’t been there as much. Last time I saw her was Christmas Eve…’ Abruptly, he walked back up the path and opened his front door.

  ‘Hey!’ started Erika, but he only reached inside and returned with an ashtray.

  ‘My wife. She never puts it back out here after she’s emptied it,’ he said, balancing it on the gate post. He stubbed out the cigarette and lit another.

  ‘What time did you see Marissa?’

  ‘I saw her twice on Christmas Eve. Once in the afternoon. It was just getting dark, so just before four. She came out of Ivan’s house with a face like thunder. He came out after her, pleading with her to come back… Oh lordy, he looked pathetic, just in his jeans and T-shirt and no shoes. He got down on his knees, cried and begged, and the ground was covered in snow. That really brought it home, what a knockout she is. Do you know she was a stripper? A stripper with stuff up here,’ he said, tapping his head. ‘That’s a real combination.’

  ‘Did you know what they were arguing about?’ asked Moss.

  ‘No. She shouted at him, expletives, to go away and leave her alone. He followed her up the road like a dog, but she told him to keep away from her or she’d call the police.’

  ‘She said that, “call the police”?’ said Erika.

  ‘I’m not deaf, woman. It’s what I heard.’

  ‘Did he come back to his house?’

  ‘He did, a little while later, tail between his legs.’

  ‘When did you see her for the second time?’

  ‘About 10 p.m., she just walked past on the way to her house.’

  ‘She was alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know if Ivan was home?’

  The old man thought for a moment.

  ‘The lights were on, I think.’

  Erika and Moss chewed that over.

  ‘Has anyone been to talk to you?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘The police. There was a door-to-door over Christmas, and I would have expected you to have told one of my officers this.’

  The man raised his hand and shook a finger at Erika.

  ‘Hold your horses, Juliet Bravo. I wasn’t here at Christmas. We was with my daughter and grandkids – she lives in Brent Cross. We drove over early on Christmas morning.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘We set off around seven. Terrible, the roads were.’

  ‘Did you see anything else on Christmas morning?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Okay. Thank you. Can I send one of my officers over to take all of this down officially?’

  ‘If I’m here, I’m happy to.’ He gave her a broad smile with yellow teeth.

  They carried on walking up the road.

  ‘So, she rowed with Ivan the day she was killed,’ said Moss. ‘He was home when she came back from her gig at 10 p.m.’

  ‘The plot thickens,’ said Erika.

  Twenty-Four

  Don Walpole’s house was a few doors further down, six doors up from Marissa’s house. It was smart and nondescript. Erika realised just how many terraced houses there were in South London, and how they would all often blend into one. Back in her native Slovakia, there were very few, if any, terraces. Pre-fabricated blocks of flats were the equivalent, which were equally claustrophobic.

  The Walpoles’s front garden was open, with just a low wall and no hedge. The red hats of a couple of garden gnomes poked up out of the snow, and there wasn’t a number on the house. Beside the door, on the brickwork, was a sign which said ‘Summerdown’ in curly black iron writing. There was a television on in the living room.

  Erika rang the bell, and a moment later the door was opened by a large woman in a grubby red fleece. She had bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, placing a hand on the wall to steady herself.

  ‘Are you Jeanette Walpole?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ she said, tottering a little on her feet. Erika could tell she was drunk.

  They introduced themselves and showed their warrant cards.

  ‘Is your husband home?’

  She threw back her head and shouted, ‘Don! The police want to talk to you about your whore!’

  There was a clattering on the stairs and Don appeared, wearing jeans and a polo neck jumper. He looked so much younger and more vital than his wife. He was handsome, in a geeky sort of way.

  His wife took pleasure in his embarrassment. ‘He’s shitting himself, can you see?’ She looked him up and down with a sneer. ‘He hasn’t got the balls to have killed that little bitch… He hasn’t got much in the way of balls.’ She reached out to grab his crotch, but Don caught her hand in his grip.

  ‘That’s enough, Jeanette,’ he said.

  ‘Ow! He’s hurting me,’ she whined. He let go instantly.

  ‘I wasn’t hurting her,’ he said, apologetically.

  ‘We’d like to talk to you, Mr Walpole,’ said Erika. ‘Maybe it would be better to meet you somewhere outside the house?’

  ‘It’s fine. Go through to the kitchen; I’ll join you in a second.’

  They walked through the hallway, which was immaculate, past the stairs to the kitchen at the back. It was comfortable, with an ageing wooden fitted kitchen. A television mounted on the wall was on low, showing an old black-and-white film, and there was a mug of coffee on the kitchen table. A copy of the Guardian was spread out and opened at the sports page.

  There were no photos on the fridge, just a small magnet from Barcelona. In one corner was a flat-screen PC computer on a stand. Erika went over to it and moved the mouse. A screensaver appeared of Don and Jeanette in the gardens at some stately home. He had his arm awkwardly around her shoulders, but she was standing apart from him. Neither of them were smiling.

  Beside the fridge were boxes of Pinot Grigio piled high. Moss went to the window overlooking the garden.

  ‘Blimey, look at those empties,’ she said. Erika moved to join her and saw them piled up and spilling over a small recycling box.

  ‘You think that’s a week’s worth?’ asked Erika.

  ‘It’s just over a week’s worth,’ said a voice. They turned and saw Don in the doorway. He gently closed the door. ‘I managed to get her to lie down.’ He said this in the tone of someone who has just managed to get a baby down for its afternoon nap. ‘My wife has had problems with alcohol for many years… But I take it that’s not why you’re here?’

  ‘We’re here about your relationship with Marissa Lewis,’ said Erika.

  Don nodded. He was a large, imposing man, very trim and fit with broad, muscular arms.

  ‘Would you like coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  They sat down at the table and he cleared away the newspaper.

  ‘We’ve heard that you and Marissa were involved in a relationship?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Lots of people knew about it. About six years ago, she knocked on the door asking if we needed any cleaning done. She was going around the street trying to get work. Her mother had just had her benefits stopped, and they were short of money. I gave her work, as I was aware that her mother drank. Jeanette was getting worse with the booze. I thought, at least I’m an adult with a job, and I can deal with it better. She was only just sixteen.’

  ‘How did it start?’ asked Moss.

  ‘I don’t know, just having her around. She started giving me looks and then one day, we ended up in bed when Jeanette was asleep.’

  ‘How long did it go on for?’

  ‘A couple of years. Jeanette found Marissa’s hair in her brush one day, after she’d taken a shower here.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘She went mad, threatened to divorce me. Slapped Marissa about, gave her a bloody nose. Marissa went home and then Mandy comes round, and there’s a huge fight between her and Jeanette. Out in the street, shouting, screaming. My nose got broken and I lost a tooth trying to break them up…’
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  ‘And did it end then, you and Marissa?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, sitting back and folding his arms.

  ‘You didn’t see her again?’

  ‘No. Well, I saw her, she only lived a few doors down, but I didn’t have anything to do with her.’

  ‘You didn’t meet her or have sex with her again?’ asked Moss.

  ‘No. I told you. No.’

  There was a pause. Erika pulled out her phone. She scrolled through and found a video and then placed the phone between them on the table. On the screen, the video from Joseph Pitkin’s phone began to play. Marissa in her bedroom, the man who looked like Don coming into the room, looking around shiftily. They kissed by the front window. Marissa began to unbuckle his trousers.

  ‘Stop, I don’t need to see any more,’ he said. He got up from the table and went to the window, looking out into the garden. Erika stopped the video and tucked the phone back in her pocket. ‘Do you ever feel like, jeez, how did I end up here?’

  Erika and Moss remained silent.

  ‘I wanted to do so much. I trained with the under-fourteens squad at Millwall. They said I could have gone professional, and I thought I would, but I broke my leg in a car accident.’

  ‘What does this have to do with you lying to us about seeing Marissa?’ asked Erika.

  ‘She was exciting. She was… sexy and… she made me feel alive.’

  ‘She flattered you?’

  He paused and nodded, wiping tears from his eyes. ‘She wanted to hook up again, a few months ago.’

  ‘This video is dated last September.’

  He nodded. ‘We had sex, as you’ve probably seen. It was great.’

  ‘Did she initiate it, or you?’

  ‘She did. She sent me a text message, out of the blue one night. Jeanette was out of it. She’s been getting worse, drinking all day, getting abusive and then throwing up everywhere. Her health is getting worse. It’s like having a kid. I realised a few months ago, I’m pretty much her carer, and when I’m not at work, that’s what I do. I take the shit, I cook and clean, I feed her, I clear up the sick. So, when this text message came from a beautiful young woman who wanted to screw my brains out, I went. I’m not ashamed of that.’