LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Twenty-One

      The summer temperatures were starting to kick in after another unpredictable cold spell and Dorset was a real suntrap. Leon Quick lived further away from the coast than Simon Glover, in a studio flat above the garage of his parents’ converted barn house. It was hot and stuffy inside and you could hear the clatter and clink of Leon’s father tinkering with something in the garage below.

      The flat itself consisted of a bed and an armchair, plus a small side table and a TV, with built-in cupboards either side of the dated tiled fireplace. In one corner were three kitchen units with a microwave and a kettle. He also had a small fridge. There was nowhere to sit, really, so Imogen just folded her arms and waited for him to speak.

      Leon looked shaken when his mother showed them upstairs and introduced them as police. Mrs Quick had given Leon a scathing look as she went back downstairs.

      ‘Leon Quick? I’m Detective Miles and this is my colleague, DS Grey. We are here to speak to you about your friend, Simon Glover.’

      ‘Is he OK? Did you find him?’ Leon said.

      Imogen noted he was tense, his eyes darting around nervously as he spoke.

      ‘You knew he was missing?’ Imogen said.

      ‘Fiona called me and I’ve been calling him. He hasn’t been at work and everyone’s really concerned about him. I told the boss he had flu, but I knew something was up.’

      ‘What do you mean, you knew something was up?’ Imogen probed.

      There was a twitchiness about Leon – she wondered if he was an addict of some kind.

      ‘He had been acting weird the last few weeks; he had a week off and when he didn’t come back I suspected something.’

      ‘Why would you suspect something? Was he in some kind of trouble?’ Adrian asked.

      Leon’s anxiety had spiked when they had turned up and Imogen noticed it growing by the second. He started to chew on the skin around his thumb.

      ‘Just tell me what happened to him. He’s dead, isn’t he?’ he said.

      Imogen could see he was shaking. Was it nerves or maybe withdrawal? For some reason, she suspected the former. Why was he so uneasy?

      ‘Why would you think that?’ Adrian said.

      ‘Why else would you be here?’

      Imogen took a deep breath before speaking. ‘His sister has positively identified a body we recovered from the River Exe as Simon Glover.’

      Leon shook his head and exhaled deeply before sitting on the edge of his bed. ‘What did they do to him?’

      ‘Tell us why you don’t seem surprised,’ Imogen said.

      ‘He told me. He told me this might happen the last time I spoke to him.’

      ‘He told you he might die?’ Imogen asked.

      ‘Yes. He gave me a letter to give to his sister in case anything happened. He gave me some other stuff to look after, as well. I guess you want it?’

      ‘Yes, please,’ Adrian said.

      He got up and went to his cupboard before pulling out a small correspondence envelope and an A4 Jiffy bag. He handed the envelope to Imogen. She opened it and looked at the letter, though it felt wrong to read it. There were no explanations, just an expression of love from one sibling to another. It was a goodbye letter, but there was nothing sad about it. It certainly didn’t read like a suicide note. Leon then gave Adrian the Jiffy bag.

      ‘He asked me to hold onto this for him, too. Said he was going to swing by and pick it up on Friday. He was going away for a while.’

      ‘How do you guys know each other?’ Imogen asked.

      ‘We work together.’

      ‘Fiona Merton said you worked together at your last place of employment, too. Is that where you met?’

      ‘Yes,’ Leon said, shifting his gaze uncomfortably.

      ‘And where was that?’

      ‘Corrigan Construction. In Exeter,’ he said quietly, as though he didn’t want to say the words.

      The name was familiar. Corrigan was one of the larger construction companies in the town and their vans were everywhere. They handled a lot of the redevelopments in the city and most of the roadworks. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the construction company was in Exeter. Is this a lead?

      ‘DS Grey,’ Adrian said.

      Imogen looked at him. He was holding the contents of the Jiffy bag: two spanking new passports sealed in a vacuum-packed bag. Even without opening them, Imogen knew it was possible one of the passports was Simon’s and the other belonged to Jane Doe; perhaps they were running away together, and from something, judging by what happened to them.

      ‘Did Simon have any enemies?’

      ‘No. Not really. Not before working there, anyway.’

       What does that mean?

      Imogen could sense by Leon’s increasingly agitated manner that they were skating closer to the real issue.

      ‘How come you both moved from Corrigan Construction? Did you get fired?’ Imogen said.

      ‘I had to move out of my flat and back in with my parents. My mum’s not been well and I needed a job closer to home, that was all. I was trying to help my parents out a bit. They need some building work doing around the place and I thought it best if I moved in here and did it,’ he said, scrambling for words.

      Imogen wondered if any of them were true.

      ‘And Simon?’

      ‘I just told him there was a space for him if he wanted to move and he decided to take me up on it.’

      Imogen exchanged a look with Adrian. It was clear to both of them that Leon was uncomfortable with this line of questioning. He had become evasive and couldn’t meet their gaze.

      Adrian pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed Leon a photo of the Jane Doe they had found near the spot where Simon was discovered.

      ‘Do you know this woman?’ Adrian asked.

      Imogen studied his face for a reaction. It was momentary, but it was there. He recognised her.

      ‘Sorry, no. I don’t know who she is.’

      ‘We are trying to locate this woman as we are concerned for her safety. Any information you can give us would be greatly appreciated.’

      ‘I wish I could help you, but I can’t.’ He stood and walked over to his kitchenette in the corner, flipping the switch on the kettle. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked.

      ‘It’s clear to me that you aren’t telling us something,’ Imogen said. ‘I don’t know what that is, Leon, but it’s going to come out. You could save us all a lot of time and energy if you just tell us what you know.’

      ‘I can’t,’ Leon said. ‘You don’t understand. You should just drop it and walk away.’

      ‘Are you scared of someone? Is that what this is?’ Adrian said.

      ‘I’ve

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