Her mother had come to the hospital as soon as she had received the call.
The whole situation was a little surreal and Olivia felt like she was viewing it down a tunnel. They were in the A&E department, where she had been rushed by the driver of the car that had hit her outside of the Cadwallader house. She had been lucky not to have broken anything, walking away from the accident with sore ribs, a bruised arm, and concussion.
The police were at the house. She knew from the snippets of conversation she had overheard that there was an officer on his way to speak with her. An ambulance had been sent to the house too, along with a fire engine. The latter would be needed, but the ambulance was unnecessary. They were too late to save the man.
Although Olivia had tried her best to explain events to her mother, she wasn’t sure that she entirely grasped the seriousness of what had happened. It wasn’t until they were sat in a room with Detective Constable Upton that it finally began to dawn on Elena exactly what her daughter had witnessed.
‘Why do you think my Olivia had anything to do with this?’
‘We are not saying she did,’ the DC gently pointed out, his tone calm against Elena’s frantic one. ‘At this stage, we are just trying to establish if there is a connection between Olivia being called to the house for the viewing and the victim being set on fire.’
He turned to Olivia. `We’ve spoken with your boss, Mr Dandridge. According to him they haven’t been able to trace Karen Mortimer, the viewer of the property. She isn’t answering her mobile phone or replying to any emails. You say there was definitely no trace of her at the house?’
‘Nothing. I tried to call her too. When it went to voicemail… well, that was when I decided to go inside.’ Olivia faltered, lacing her fingers to stop them trembling. The too recent memory of what had been waiting for her still etched clearly in her mind. ‘There was a car parked in the driveway,’ she recalled. ‘I assumed it belonged to Mrs Mortimer.’
‘We think the car was the victim’s. We have an ID from the registration paperwork, but it will probably be a couple of days before we can officially identify him.’
‘Someone did that to him.’ Olivia murmured the words, as much to herself as to the DC. Of course someone else had been responsible. This wasn’t a suicide. The man hadn’t chained himself to a chair and set himself on fire. She had been so focused on what had happened, it was the first time it really occurred to her that the man had been murdered.
She remembered his screams over the song playing as she entered the kitchen, making the scene she witnessed so surreal. ‘There was a record player.’
‘I’m sorry?’ DC Upton looked at her blankly.
‘There was a record player. It was in the kitchen.’
The detective narrowed his eyes. ‘We didn’t find a record player.’
‘It was right there on the kitchen table. There was a record playing on it. A Christmas song.’
‘Are you sure, Miss Blake?’ DC Upton asked carefully, glancing at Elena. ‘The doctor said you took a nasty bump to the head.’
‘I know what I saw and heard,’ Olivia snapped, anger heating her cheeks. ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. That was the song. Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra.’
‘Or it might have been Perry Como,’ her mother interjected. ‘I like his version.’
‘Whoever! It was playing right there on a record player on the kitchen table.’ Olivia huffed, noting the detective’s sceptical look. ‘I’m not going crazy. It was there. I saw it!’
‘Okay, okay.’
She suspected the detective didn’t actually believe her and that he was making a show of writing it down on his pocketbook just to appease her.
The music had definitely been playing, but there was no trace of the record player. She recalled it hadn’t been very big, portable in style, opening up like a suitcase.
Had she been lured to the house intentionally? To witness a murder?
And if the record player had been there while she was in the house, but removed before the police arrived, that meant that the killer had been inside the house with her.
‘This was intentional.’
DC Upton looked up from his notebook. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked carefully.
‘Someone lured me to that house. They wanted me to find that man, didn’t they?’
‘You’re to come back home while the police investigate.’
‘Mum, I don’t need to move home.’ Olivia drew in a breath to calm her nerves. She had witnessed an horrific crime. It was understandable she was shaken. And perhaps she was overreacting. Though as she tried to convince herself of that, her mind returned to the note she had received, to the phone call on Friday night, repeating the same words.
A long, long time ago, you did a bad, bad thing.
Were the note and phone call connected to what had happened today?
If it was, her mother would start freaking out.
Olivia decided she would sit on the note for now. It was still possible it was Jeremy playing a joke. Much as she disliked him, she wouldn’t get him in trouble with the police.
Still, she wasn’t convinced that what happened at 8 Honington Lane today had been a coincidence. The email enquiry then the client not showing up. Walking into the house at the exact horrific moment…
She was going to vomit.
Stop. Try not to think about it.
Another deep breath.
Slow and steady, Liv. Slow and steady. As her breathing evened and the sick feeling passed, she gently shook off her mother’s hand and addressed the detective. ‘Do you think I was meant to find him… that man today?’
‘Miss Blake, we haven’t found anything to suggest that to be the case. The house has been empty for a while. It’s probable you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘But what about Karen Mortimer?’
‘I told you we haven’t been able to trace Mrs Mortimer yet.’
‘And what if you don’t find her?’
‘Why do you think we won’t find Mrs Mortimer?’ The detective seemed to be picking his words carefully.
Olivia looked him directly in the eye. ‘I mean, what if this was a set-up? What if Karen Mortimer doesn’t actually exist?’
She saw the flicker of hesitation, knew the detective had already considered this possibility. ‘It’s early days. At the moment we can’t rule out anything.’
‘Is my daughter in danger?’
‘I don’t think your daughter is in danger, Mrs Blake.’ Upton was quick to calm Elena. ‘However, I do agree that it might be a good idea if she wasn’t alone, at least for tonight.’
‘What?’
‘That settles it. You’re coming home.’
‘I’ll be fine. I have Molly.’
‘You said Molly was away with work.’
Damn, her mother didn’t miss a trick. Olivia had forgotten she had told her mother that her lodger was away on a course. ‘Only temporarily. She’ll be home tonight.’ At Elena’s narrowed eyes, she cursed her mother’s ability to remember everything. ‘Or maybe tomorrow,’ she added grudgingly.
‘So tonight then you come home.’
‘I can’t leave Luna.’
‘We’ll stop by to get your things and you can feed Luna. She’s a cat. She will cope for one night.’
‘I don’t need to come home, Mum. I’m thirty-one. I can take care of myself.’
‘You witnessed a murder, Olivia.’ Elena was on her feet, a formidable presence even though she was only five foot two. ‘And then you were involved in a nasty accident. Tell her I’m right, DC Upton.’ It wasn’t a request.
‘You’ve had quite an ordeal today,’ the detective began diplomatically. ‘I don’t think it would be a bad thing to be with family tonight.’
Olivia scowled at him, knowing he had sealed her fate.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be around her family. Far from it. She had grown up in a close-knit household with her brother, and parents who loved them unconditionally. After her dad’s death, she and Jamie had rallied around Elena and they had become an even tighter unit.
Today had thrown her a curveball though and she wanted time alone to process everything that had happened. She also wanted the comfort of her own home and to sleep in her own bed.
It wasn’t to be though and, after the interview with DC Upton had concluded, she followed her mother out to the car park, unaware of the eyes that were watching her.
