Page 55 of Murder in Shades of Fire and Ash

Charlie shook his head. “Nope. I want Will to do some more digging, and I don’t want Mags going on her own. So, we’d better get back there.” It was ridiculous, these protective feelings he had about Mags and Will. She had, after all, helped quell the riots on the coast. But his instinct was to keep her safe. Will had also done his time in uniform. But Charlie couldn’t get beyond thinking of him as the nerdy guy who did clever things with computers. If there was a violent offender to arrest, he should be the one to take the risks. He called Will again.

“Will. No idea if you can do this, but can you find any connection between Corrine Bailey and either of the Joshes on any of the dating sites? Also, any connection between the Joshes and anyone else on our list?”

“Hang on,” Will said, and they heard Will mumbling to himself and the clatter of the keys on his laptop. “I’m looking for Unwin and no sign of the guy anywhere, but Josh Pettifor is mentioned more than once onIs This Your Boyfriend?Or rather men with the initial ‘J’ and Josh Pettifor’s picture are mentioned …chatted to this guy for ages, set up a date and he never showed up … went on a date and he was clearly all about sex and not interested in anything else. Blew him out … Red flags galore with this one, definitely not looking for serious relationship … don’t trust him ladies, he talks the talk, but he’s active on all the sites …lots more like that. No way of knowing who posted these messages, because the site allows anonymity. I’ll have to ring you back about the other things.” Will ended the call.

“How can he find out if Corrine matched with Josh on any of the dating sites?” Eddy asked.

“No idea,” Charlie said, “we wouldn’t understand if he told us.”

Eddy grunted agreement.

The phone rang. “OK, so I’m pretty sure that Corrine herself posted one of the messages about Josh Pettifor, saying he made a date and then didn’t show up. I think he might also have matched with Jackie from the estate agents. Mags has been looking at all the messages about him, Josh Pettifor. His pattern seems to be lots of chat via messages, and then either not show up to a date and block the woman without warning or show up and be unpleasant if she didn’t put out straight away.”

Mags interrupted. “He left quite a trail of broken dreams,” she said. “Will can’t access the messages between Pettifor and the women on the dating sites, but some women say he was all charming and seemed interested, until he suddenly disappeared and blocked them. Ghosted, the word is.”

“Is that a reason to kill someone?” Eddy asked. Charlie had no answer. Motives only had to make sense to the perpetrators of crime. All he was allowed to care about were the practicalities: could someone have committed the crime or not?

“Maybe not a reason for murder in our eyes,” Mags said, echoing his thoughts, “but some of the women posting sound really hurt. As if they’d been convinced they had made a genuine connection and then … nothing. No contact, nosorry this isn’t working for me, so they feel as if they were stupid to have been taken in. Like they’ve been scammed. There’s lots of research saying that scam victims feel shame about being fooled. Makes their losses even worse.”

“Painful,” Charlie said. He couldn’t hear the reply because the rain began to hammer down hard, reducing visibility so much that even Eddy was forced to slow down. They were on the outskirts of the town, and although the shop windows were lit, no one was on the streets. Water was building up in the gutters, overflowing the gulleys and beginning to spread across theroads. Eddy’s predictions about floods appeared to be coming true.

“Stop by the estate agent’s,” Charlie said, reaching over to turn off the blue light.

“It’s a double yellow,” Eddy said.

“Screw it.”

Eddy stopped as close to the door as he could. It wasn’t close enough for Charlie to avoid stepping in ankle-deep water. Thankfully, the bandage stayed dry.

Like the rest of the shops in the parade, Jones and Company was brightly lit. Jackie was sitting at her desk in the front of the room, wrapped up in a long cardigan. As they entered, there was a scramble as she put her phone down on her lap and out of sight. When she saw who her visitors were, she visibly relaxed, and gave Charlie a tentative smile.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“We were hoping for a word with Corrine Bailey and your colleague Megan,” Charlie said.

“Sorry, but there’s only me this afternoon. Mr Jones was here, but he had a viewing. Corrine has taken Megan to do some valuations. I was feeling well fed up at being left here until this rain started.”

“We really do need to talk to Corrine,” Charlie said. “Do you know where they’ve gone?”

Jackie gave them a doubtful look. “I suppose I could check. They were going to a few places. Should I ring the boss and find out where they are?”

“Yes please, that would be great,” Charlie said. If Corrine was intent on harming Megan, she might think twice if she knew the police were on their way.

But there was no answer from either Corrine or Megan.

“Can you do us a list of the places they were going to?” Charlie asked, “And keep ringing.”

He sensed Jackie’s desire to know why, but she simply nodded and clicked her mouse to wake the computer, clicked around for a moment and said, “diary.” Then she found a pad and scribbled a few addresses, tore the sheet off and handed it to Charlie.

“Three in town, and two in the villages,” Charlie said. He led the way outside and they stood in the shelter of the shop doorway. “You take the car, I’ll do town.” Eddy gave him a dubious look. The rain had diminished slightly, but water was creeping across the pavement. “Look, I’m already wet. None of these places are very far. I’ll be OK with the crutches. But keep in touch.”

“You, too,” Eddy said, and picked his way back to the car.

He wasn’t going to be OK with the crutches but needs must.

43

Wednesday afternoon

---