One Bad Turn by Emma Salisbury

to have her taken rather than her leave them of her own accord.
    Coupland remained still, ‘It would appear that way.’
    ‘No…’ Pete got to his feet with such speed Coupland thought he was rushing to be sick, instead he started pacing around the room. ‘She can’t be dead, she can’t be. She was going to meet friends.’
    ‘Did you give her a lift to the station?’
    Pete nodded, ‘She couldn’t walk in the daft shoes she was wearing. She’d arranged for her mother to come stay yesterday afternoon to help out, so at least I didn’t need to disturb the twins while I drove her to the station and I could leave for work on time in the morning.’
    ‘A train ticket was found in Maria’s bag going to Oxford Road.’
    ‘She was meeting the girls outside the theatre, then going back to Helen’s place afterwards. They probably don’t have our home number, or mine for that matter,’ Pete added, ‘which is why no one called me when she didn’t show.’ It didn’t explain why there was no missed call on Maria’s mobile from this Helen or one of the other girls, concerned she hadn’t turned up, but Coupland would gnaw away at that later. A shrill cry came from the baby monitor, followed by another, slightly higher pitched cry, a beat out of step with the other. The door leading to the kitchen opened and Pete’s mother in law hurried up the stairs. ‘I told Maria we were too young to have kids,’ he scowled, ‘told her we should have a few more holidays under our belt, a better car,’ he looked dolefully at the people carrier parked on the driveway. ‘Now look what’s happened,’ he said as his dead wife’s mother appeared in the doorway shell shocked, a baby straddling each hip.

Chapter 6
    On Coupland’s return to the station he found a scrawled message from DC Turnbull on his desk . Boss wants to see you . Coupland didn’t bother sitting down, went straight through to Mallender’s office, stopping only for a vending machine coffee on the way. Mallender would want to get a measure of Maria Wellbeck before he ran the briefing.
    Was there anyone who would want to harm her?
    What was her family set up like, domestic issues, any person of interest emerging?
    Two dead bodies in a week was Christmas come early for the press. They couldn’t afford to look like their trousers were down by their ankles. He knocked on Mallender’s door, went in without waiting for a reply. Mallender was tapping on his keyboard; he glanced up as Coupland entered the room, leaned back in his chair as though grateful for the interruption.
    ‘How was it?’ he asked.
    Coupland sat in the only other chair and pulled a face. ‘A young mum setting off on a rare night out with women from her anti-natal group. Left behind twins and a husband who doesn’t know what day of the week it is.’ He didn’t need to say any more, Mallender had suffered his own loss during childhood, it had made him guarded, though every now and then he’d let Coupland in.
    ‘Anything not stack up?’
    Coupland’s mouth turned down at the corners, ‘Not from the hubby’s perspective, as far as he was concerned she was staying with a mate, which is why he opened the door to us completely oblivious, poor bugger. I’ll head out after the briefing to visit her friend though, a Helen Dalton. Maria didn’t arrive like they’d arranged and the woman didn’t call to check she was OK. Not normal, is it?’
    Mallender shook his head.
    ‘I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of the husband-’
    ‘-in case the friend was covering for her-’
    ‘Exactly, though to be honest I can’t see her traipsing off to meet another fella, by the sound of it she was too knackered and stressed looking after two babies and a hubby whose lifestyle doesn’t seem to have changed one little bit.’
    ‘It has now,’ Mallender said gravely.
     
    Incident room briefing, Friday morning
    The briefing was short and to the point. Due to the time the body was found