Concrete Evidence by Conrad Jones Page A

her just yet. “You were telling me who her friends were?”
    “Pardon?”
    “Her friends?”
    “Oh yes,” Beth snapped back to reality. “Please forgive me. A senior moment that’s all.”
    “You have suffered a nasty shock, Beth but it would really help me if you could tell me their names.”
    Beth nodded and smiled but it was a sad smile. “That will not be a very long list, Inspector. As I said, she didn’t have many friends at all.” She wiped another tear away. “Her best friend is, was, oh dear,” she sobbed. There was a long pause as she closed her eyes and composed herself. “Jackie Webb. She lives in a flat near Sefton Park. She told me that they were going out to town on Saturday night.” Her eyes widened and she looked at Annie in the eyes. “Do you think that might be Jackie in there?”
    Annie swerved the question. “Do you have an address and a number for her?”
    “Yes,” Beth stammered. “I have her business card here. A few years back she set herself up as a mobile beauty therapist, doing permanent mascara, lip liners and the like.” She fumbled in her handbag, which Annie noticed was a hand stitched designer Vuitton. “Here it is.”    
    “Was she blond?”
    “Yes, most of the time. She had a jet black phase but it didn’t last long,” she half smiled. “Was the victim blond?”
    Annie didn’t want to answer that question. Luckily the sound of ambulance sirens arriving rescued her. “I’ll need to talk to you again soon but for now, we need to get you to hospital and get that head wound stitched.”
    “Do you think Jayne’s alive?” she asked quietly. “I mean in your mind, do you believe there’s any hope?”
    “There’s always hope, Beth.”
    “Not always, we both know that.” Beth seemed to shrink in on herself. She looked frail, shattered and vulnerable. “This is a violent world that we live in. sometimes there is no hope at all.” She touched Annie’s hand. “Find her for me, Inspector. I want my daughter home.” She swallowed hard. “Even if she is,” she couldn’t bring herself to say the word, “You know what I mean?”
    “Yes,” Annie nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ll do my best,” Annie squeezed her hand and opened the door, desperate to escape the woman’s grief. She climbed out of the Audi and took a deep gulp of smoke tainted air before walking over to Stirling who was talking to a CSI. He saw her approaching and broke off from his conversation. “Anything?” Annie asked.
    “Nothing yet, they’re still searching the neighbouring gardens, bins etc,” he shrugged. “Early days yet, Guv. Did you get anything from the mother?”
    “I got the name, address and phone number of Jayne’s best friend, Jackie Webb. She said that Jackie is who Jayne had planned to go out with. Apparently, she’s a blond.”  
    “Oh dear.”
    “Oh dear indeed. Get uniform to her house just to check. She works for herself and she’s mobile so if her vehicle is parked up and there’s no answer, we’ve found our victim.”
    “You said she was mobile, mobile what?” Stirling frowned.
    “Beautician apparently.”
    “In which case if she is missing she’ll have a lot of disappointed customers leaving angry messages on her phone,” he said. “I’ll get her phone records and check her inbox. It could speed things up.”
    “Good thinking,” Annie looked around as they spoke. “Where’s Kathy?”
    “She’s gone back to the lab to get started on what they had bagged.” Stirling pointed to the growing group of press reporters. “Are we going public to see if we can trace where they went on Saturday night?”
    Annie bit her bottom lip and watched the group. Some were chatting, some squabbling. The BBC camera crew were jostling for the best position to film the fire. “Last resort,” she decided. “Let’s get pictures of them both distributed around the city centre. Two girls out on a Saturday night, they’ll have been wherever still has