The Right To Remain Silent Ch 03

As soon as Abi got to the station she got a call from the ME. She'd been right, the dog had been poisoned with hemlock. Not a conventional poison these days but as it can be found growing in hedgerows and a simple internet search can teach you how to administer it, she was surprised it wasn't used more often as it left no retail trail to follow.

Dave Wallace walked in shortly after, so she filled him in on the details and he in turn relayed his interview with the fence.

They had gotten the names of the 2 men who were offering the antiques for sale and were trying to trace them now. They both had form for aggravated burglary and were known to have used violence in the past. There had been no finger prints recovered but any idiot that watches TV these days would know to wear gloves and no link could be made between the thieves and either Chrissie or Alice

They had also contacted the alarm company at Alice's house who on inspection had easily confirmed that that it wasn't just faulty -- it had been deliberately tampered with.

When Chrissie's medical records arrived they showed that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer 3 months earlier. The prognosis wasn't good but Chrissie had decided to forgo treatment -- preferring to live her remaining time without the crippling effects of chemo.

Something was niggling at Abi and she had long ago learnt to trust her instincts in these matters. She requested a full breakdown of Chrissie's finances, then she called Alice.

'Alice, you and I both know that Chrissie wasn't short of money, but I'm guessing that finding £500,000 wouldn't have been quick because when I knew her most of her money was tied up in investments and assets. How come she had it available to just write you a cheque?'

'I don't know. I haven't actually paid it in yet, I guess it could bounce.'

'Chrissie didn't tell you about her illness although she'd known about it for a while, could she have been liquidating her assets?'

'I guess so. I do know that she'd had several meetings with a solicitor recently but she just said he was handling some business for her. I drove her there once, I can give you the address.'

Abi's hair was staring to stand on end by now, intuition kicking into overdrive.

'Alice, do you know who stands to gain financially from Chrissie's death? I know she didn't have kids but is there anyone else you can think of?'

'I don't think so; both her parents are dead and she never mentioned brothers or sisters. Knowing Chrissie she probably left everything to charity.'

Abi thanked Alice, took the name of the solicitor and sent a team to retrieve the will. She had an inkling that this case was as good as solved.

The financial records came back quickly and the various banks and broking firms she used confirmed that yes, she had indeed been liquidating assets. The total was a whopping £7.3 million so far and she still had the sale of 2 businesses and her house to complete, making the expected total closer to 16 million.

She was sitting at her desk typing up her report so far when there was a knock at her office door.

'Hi Grizzly, what've you got for me?'

'It's Grisling Gov.' he stated in an exasperated tone, having not worked out yet that when DCI Abi Spencer gave you a nickname you should take it as a sign that she considered you a valued member of her team. 'We've managed to contact the solicitor -- pompous arse that his is was suggesting that we'd have to wait for the information until after the inquest but we managed to persuade him otherwise; his secretary should be faxing it over within the hour.

She changed her will about a week ago, they're sending both for comparison.'

When the will arrived it was much as Abi had expected. Most of the money and assets had been left in trust for a variety of charities and good causes, with one notable exception.

1.5 million pounds had been left to someone called Frank Williams in the original will but on inspection of the new version his name had been changed to Alice Roberts.

'Does this make the Roberts woman a suspect again Gov?'

'Not sure Grizzly, but I doubt it. If the money was coming to her anyway and Chrissie had already written her a cheque for a sizable amount, why kill her? I'd say that we need to find Mr. Williams a bit sharpish and see what his alibi is like. Do we know what their connection is?'

'Not yet Gov, I'm on it now.'

Within 2 hours they had the address for Frank Williams but he was not at home and they still didn't know how he was connected to either woman, they did however get a result when one of the men who's name had been given for the antiques burglaries was arrested for an unrelated driving offence and Abi hurried to watch the interview that Dave Wallace was conducting.

The man had 'thug' written all over him, from his EDL tattoos to the scar's on his face and arms and Abi was glad she wasn't in the interview room. She didn't scare easily but there was no point in putting yourself in harms way unless necessary and this guy didn't look like he would take kindly by being grilled by a woman -- no, this one was best left to Dave who equally matched the thug's 6ft plus frame even if he didn't compete with his muscled bulk.

The interview wasn't going particularly well when Abi first started to watch, with the suspect refusing to say anything except 'no comment' or 'where's my brief' so Dave left the interview room while they waited for the duty solicitor.

He was chatting to Abi about the case when DS Grisling came running down the corridor looking like the cat who had got the cream.

'We've found a link!' he almost squealed as he reached them.

'Between Williams and one of the women?'

'No, between Williams and the scumbag you've got in there!' he replied, gesturing excitedly toward the interview room door. 'We ran a check on known associates and found a Francis Williams. Different address but the info's a few years old and the date of birth matches -- we're pretty sure it's the same bloke. Francis Williams has a record for fraud.'

'No shit!' responded Dave 'I think I better get back in there and see if he wants to talk now, where's that bloody duty brief?'

Dave Wallace entered the interview room and calmly took a seat in front of the increasingly agitated man sat at the other side.

He didn't speak for a while other than to turn the recording equipment back on, he just sat there and smiled.

'What you fucking grinning about?'

'Oh nothing. I'm just thinking about how early I'm getting home tonight once I've had a little chat with Frank.'

The twitch in the suspects eye was enough to let Wallace know he'd struck home but he sat & allowed him to stew without saying anything further for the time being.

As agreed, after about 10 minutes Abi stuck her head into the interview room and simply said 'They've brought him in -- he's in interview room 4 waiting for you.'

At this the suspect looked very nervous indeed; Dave just smiled at him again and walked out of the interview room door.

The duty solicitor was not pleased at all about being sidelined into interview room 4 rather than taken to his client, and was visibly angry when Dave and Abi entered.

'We're so sorry to have kept you waiting, but we need to talk to you. This is both for our benefit and that of your client, so please bear with us.'

Abi explained that as things stood, his client and accomplice were the lead suspects in an antique robbery, for which they had eye witness evidence from the fence and were expecting DNA results from the house to confirm their involvement.

The solicitor didn't seem to be overly worried, but when Abi continued on to explain how the robbery was linked to a murder and assault he started to take them seriously and agreed to attempt to get his client to be open with them in return for a possibly lighter sentence -- on the condition that he hadn't killed Chrissie, in which case all deals were off.

They were very clear that this was a one time only deal, and if they caught the accomplice and he accepted the deal instead, he would have lost his chance.

They then took him to his client and left them alone to talk things over.

By the time the solicitor was shown into the suspect he was pacing the floor nervously, having been duped into thinking that Frank was already in custody, and eager to distance himself from the murder.

The interview that followed was long and tiring but by the time they'd finished Abi and Dave were confident that they had the full story.

Francis (Frank) Williams was the uncle of the suspect and his brother (the other suspect who was very soon arrested and in custody) and was a con artist who had duped Chrissie into investing in a bogus charity.

Chrissie had originally fallen for the lie and had not only invested £100,000 but had left money in her will to be used after her death -- a fact she had imparted to Frank.

Chrissie was however shrewd and Frank wasn't as good a conman as he'd thought, so Chrissie had him investigated.

She couldn't prove that he had conned her outright but the investigation threw up enough inconsistencies for her to change her mind about the money; a fact she also imparted to Frank who wasn't pleased that his nest egg had been so close and then taken away.

In the expectation that Chrissie hadn't changed the will yet, Frank poisoned the dog and broke in to kill Chrissie, thus ensuring his inheritance. He then ransacked the house looking for a copy of the will, which he found, thus finding out that the change had already been made.

Fortunately he hadn't found & read the will before Alice came down the stairs, only to be hit over the head and a clumsy attempt to frame her for the murder was made by planting the hammer in her hand.

When he did read the will he was naïve enough to think that if Alice was also dead the original will might stand, so he hired his two thuggish nephews to kill her -- their payment being a very small percentage of the inheritance and as many antiques as they could remove from the house.

Fortunately Alice hadn't been at home, but this wasn't going to stop the two nephews claiming their payment, so they took what they thought looked expensive, junked the rest and left.

Frank was obviously furious at their bungling of the job and the nephews seemed more scared of him than they were of the police, however eventually they were convinced that they would be safer with him behind bars and revealed his location and he was swiftly arrested.

That evening Dave Wallace took the whole team to the local pub to celebrate, buying beers all round to congratulate them on a job well done. It wasn't often that a case like this got cleared up in a couple of days!

He took Abi to one side and thanked her personally, making a point of telling her that he honestly wouldn't have got the same outcome without her, let alone so quickly.

He then did something curious that Abi couldn't understand. He told her that she needed to go home and that he'd see her in a few days.

Abi tried to quiz him but he was having none of it, instead turning back to the team and resuming the usual banter that accompanied these celebrations.

Abi wasn't sure what to do, so she tried to call Sarah but got no answer. Feeling like she was being jerked around by Dave Wallace she tried to manoeuvre her way through her colleagues toward him but he saw her coming, winked at her and ducked into the men's toilets.

She considered following him but the prospect wasn't appealing, so she shrugged, downed her drink and headed home.

She was pleased to see Sarah's car in the drive when she pulled up and was startled by the front door opening just as she reached it.

As she tried to enter the house though, Sarah blocked her path.

'What are you up to Babe? Have you filled the house with boxes already, or made a mess you don't want me to see?'

'No! Well, yes a little bit on the mess front but you can't come in because we're going out.' And with that Sarah spun Abi around and closed and locked the front door behind her.

Abi climbed into Sarah's car as instructed and then spent the next 30 minutes quizzing her about where they were going but Sarah wasn't giving anything away so Abi resigned herself to relaxing and letting herself be surprised.

Once they cleared the city and started to drive through rolling countryside though -- well this had Abi intrigued and she wracked her brains as to where their final destination could be. Sarah still wasn't giving the game away and Abi, who generally liked to be in control of a situation, started to get a annoyed.

The only thing Sarah would say was 'not far now' but she'd been saying that for the last 25 miles!

The pub car park that they finally pulled into had a view over fields as far as they eye could see and the silence was only broken by birdsong and the sound of a stream running nearby.

Abi climbed out of the car, stretched and took a deep breath of country air as Sarah was rummaging around in the boot.

'This looks nice babe, but it's a hell of a long way to drive for a pint!'

'Come here and help with these.' And Sarah grabbed two hold-alls out of the boot and handed one to Abi, who by this time was looking quite confused.

'We're not just here for a pint, we're here for the next 4 nights.' At which point Abi's face was a mixture of consternation, surprise and pleasure.

'But what about.....'

'Everything's taken care off. Your leave is organised, Dave Wallace has arranged to wrap up the interviews for the murder and assault, DS Grisling has been told that if he calls you he'll be castrated upon your return and I've even arranged for your sister to water your plants and feed your goldfish!

We have a few days of sleeping, walking, eating, drinking and making love ahead of us, now give me your work mobile and I'll lock it in the boot of the car with mine to remove temptation.'

Abi was astounded. No one had ever surprised her like this before, and Sarah seemed to instinctively know what she needed and when. She walked toward her, switched her mobile off and handed it over, and as soon as Sarah had locked the car Abi took her in her arms and kissed her deeply, right there in the car park.

'Thanks Babe, love you.'

'Good, cos I love you too. Now come on, lets get checked in and start to relax.'

They were shown into their room by a young woman who obviously found it quite interesting and a bit embarrassing that the only suite with a four poster bed had been booked by two women, as opposed to their twin rooms that usually got booked by the walking groups that they usually catered for, and she giggled as she handed their key over.

Sarah and Abi burst into fits of laughter as the room door shut, finding the young girl's naivety hysterical. They were clinging onto each other as their laughter started to subside and as they looked into each other's eyes it was as if someone had flicked a switch. Now they were no longer laughing and a burning hunger was apparent on both faces.

Abi wrapped her arms around Sarah's waist and pulled her close, kissing her deeply and passionately.

'I don't know how to thank you for this Babe.' She murmured into Sarah's neck, sending shivers down her spine 'No one has ever done anything like this for me before.'

'That's because no-one has loved you like I do before' Sarah responded huskily, her heart rate starting to elevate in anticipation and at the feel of Abi's breath on her neck and the hands that were now caressing her back under her leather jacket. 'but I can think of several ways for you to thank me if you really want to.'

The tone of her voice told Abi exactly what those methods of thanks could be and she pushed Sarah's jacket off her shoulders and down her arms until it fell to the floor.

Abi continued to kiss Sarah's neck until she had to stop to ease her tee shirt over her head, at which point she resumed and continued down to her breasts as she released them from her bra, alternating between nipples while her hands ran down Sarah's back to grasp those firm arse cheeks nestled in tight denim.

Sarah was in heaven at the gentle licks, kisses and caresses being used to tease her and she tangled her fingers into Abi's hair as she descended lower, kissing over her abdomen and belly.

Soon Abi was kneeling in front of Sarah, her tongue playing in her belly button as she undid the jeans that were in the way of her ultimate goal. Her fingers tugging at the button fly and peeling them down and off her legs along with Sarah's panties, releasing the aroma of her heightening passion.

Abi ran her fingers lightly up the insides of Sarah's legs from her ankles to her thighs, causing goose bumps to break out on the smooth skin and when she flicked her tongue out to tease Sarah's clit her knees buckled, causing her to use Abi's shoulders as support.

Abi grinned up at her lover from between her legs, loving the look she was causing on her face -- her pupils dilated and her face and neck flushed with desire.

'Want to lie down Babe?' and she manoeuvred Sarah around until the backs of her legs hit the bed and she could lay down, her splayed legs hanging over the edge of the bed & exposing her fully to Abi's tongue.

Abi delighted in the feel of Sarah's shaved pussy - smooth and slippery with her desire, as she ran her tongue around the puffy lips, causing a deep growl to emanate from her lovers throat.

Abi lifted Sarah's legs over her shoulders and placed her mouth firmly where it was needed, running her flattened tongue the length of her slit and up to her clit, making Sarah's hips jerk with every sweep, until her juices were flowing copiously. Whilst still licking she inserted a finger into Sarah's wanting pussy, drawing it out and smearing the fluid around her puckered rose and repeated the process until it was so well lubricated that the finger slipped easily into her tight arse to the first knuckle.

Sarah was moaning loudly by now, her head thrashing from side to side and her hands grasping handfuls of the covers so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.

As Abi inserted her finger into Sarah's arse fully and started to pump in and out, she clasped her clit between her lips and sucked, massaging the exposed nub with her tongue as she did so.

This was too much for Sarah to stand and much as she wanted this feeling to go on for ever she was tilted over the edge into an earth shattering orgasm, gripping Abi's head between her thighs as she tensed and flexed and sending her nectar gushing into her waiting mouth.

Abi untangled herself from Sarah's legs and lay down next to her on the bed, caressing her tummy as her chest heaved with the exertion, lightly kissing her eyes, nose and chin before claiming her lips.

It wasn't until Sarah turned over to snuggle against Abi that she realised that Abi was still fully dressed and started tugging at her clothes.

'We've got 4 night here right?' laughed Abi as she fought to stop Sarah undoing her buttons.

'Yep. With no contact with the real world unless we invite it.'

'And I'm assuming this place has a restaurant downstairs?'

'Oh yeah, it's one awards for it's cuisine.'

'Good then take me downstairs and feed me woman, then you can have me for dessert!'