Lost Hours

by Alex Walters

‘It was all about Wentworth’s latest business dealings. He reckoned she was trying to take on some new and much bigger contracts. Also that there might be some dodgy money behind some of the proposed growth. Both factors that he thought would be worth our consideration. Sheena was certain he’d wanted her to pass the info on to me.’

  ‘So much easier than just picking up the phone and calling us.’

  ‘That wasn’t really Chalmers’ way, accordingly to Sheena. He preferred a more oblique approach. He presumably thought we’d be more inclined to take it seriously if it came with Sheena’s endorsement.’

  ‘I take it you’re looking at all that, then?’

  ‘Of course.’ She paused, recognising that she’d just implicitly acknowledged her own continuing leadership of the investigation. She steeled herself for one more attempt on Jennings’ conscience. ‘But my point is that I’m too close to it. I can’t oversee an interview with Sheena, even if only as a witness.’

  ‘I realise that, but there’s nothing else I can do.’ He hesitated and she could see he was thinking. ‘Okay, what about this? I can take on the SIO role officially, but I want you to carry on running it all. I can do the media conferences and all the stuff like that, as long as…’

  ‘As long as I do the grunt stuff. That’s clear enough. Seriously, I don’t mind that. I hate the media stuff anyway. You’re much better at all that. But do you think that’ll work? It still only needs one reporter to join the dots between me and Sheena.’

  ‘I’ll do my utmost to keep you out of the glare of publicity.’

  So you can hog it all to yourself, Annie thought. But she was being unfair. Jennings was right. This was a high-profile case with every potential to go pear-shaped. If it did, Jennings might still find a way to fade away into the background and ensure she was the one left carrying the can. Even so, he’d be taking a risk by tying himself so visibly to the investigation.

  ‘Or is it that you don’t think you’re up to this one?’ Jennings added.

  Now that, Annie thought, was more typical Jennings. He’d never been averse to a bit of emotional blackmail. ‘No, Stuart, that’s not what I think. I’m only too keen to continue. You were the one who raised the concerns about my involvement in the first place.’

  ‘I know. And I’ll add a note to the file to that effect summarising this conversation. So it’s clear we’re aware of the issues and we’ve thought carefully about how to address them. But that we’ve come to the conclusion your expertise and experience are needed on such a major case. After all, your star’s in the ascendant after your success in the Robin Kennedy case. Our focus has to be on public safety and getting a result, not what’s just in our own personal best interests.’ He smiled, his face a picture of innocence.

  She had to give Jennings his due. He could be quite shameless at times. Somehow he’d succeeded in retaining the moral high ground, while taking every step to ensure his own backside was well covered. That was the stuff Chief Officers were made of. No doubt he’d go far.

  She felt wrong-footed by the outcome of this exchange. As a police officer and a detective, all her instincts were to stay involved, to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion. That was what she wanted. But at Jennings’ prompting she’d persuaded herself it would be in everyone’s interest if she stepped aside, and she’d geared himself up overnight to do just that. Now she’d found herself talked, if not actively coerced, into staying put, simply because everyone else saw the job as a hospital pass and Jennings had been left with no other choice. It didn’t exactly feel like a vote of confidence. ‘If you say so, Stuart. Doesn’t sound like I’ve much option.’

  He shrugged, clearly not prepared to engage in further debate. ‘So, now we’ve sorted that, what’s your theory on Chalmers?’

  ‘I’m not sure I have one,’ Annie said. ‘It makes no sense on the face of it. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill Chalmers, let alone dump his body at Wentworth’s.’

  ‘And we’re aware of no strong link between Chalmers and Wentworth?’

  ‘Only that Chalmers is the regional rep for the union involved in the Matlock dispute. She reckoned she’d had a few professional run-ins with him over the years, particularly in some of their public sector contracts. But nothing much more than occasionally sitting on opposite sides of a negotiating table. He apparently called her to assure her that the union hadn’t been involved in the damage to the car in Matlock. That was the last time she spoke to him.’

  ‘This would be a hell of a way to resolve an industrial dispute.’

  ‘I’m going to do some digging into Chalmers’ background, but on the face of it he seems an unlikely candidate for this kind of murder.’

  ‘It’s always the quiet ones,’ Jennings said. ‘I assume there’s no doubt in your mind that the two murders are linked?’

  ‘There’s always doubt. Maybe it was just coincidence. Maybe whoever killed Chalmers had just read about Wentworth losing her son and thought that leaving her with another dead body would be a laugh. Anything’s possible. But it doesn’t seem likely.’

  ‘What have we got otherwise? Anything new?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ In the light of their preceding exchange, Annie felt little need to sugar-coat the state of the investigation. There was plenty going on, but little sign yet of anything substantive emerging. ‘We’ve found nothing suspicious in any of the camera footage we’ve obtained from the surrounding area at the time of Justin Wentworth’s death, but we’re still following up on the various vehicles that have been identified during the relevant timeframe. We’re interviewing all of Michelle Wentworth’s business associates and competitors over recent years, including those on the list she gave us. There’s a fair amount of bad blood for a variety of reasons but we’ve found no one who’d seem to have sufficient motive to do something like this. I know murder doesn’t always require much of a motive, but none of them seems like a likely candidate. There are a few we’ll be looking at further, but I’m not hopeful that that’s where the answer lies.’ She was ticking off the various lines of enquiry on her fingers as she spoke. ‘We’re in the process of tracking down as many as we can of the past employees who’ve had a significant grievance about the way they were treated by Wentworth’s companies. It seems to be quite a list, so for the moment we’re focusing on those who’ve tried to take her to employment tribunal or been involved in significant industrial action. We’ve obtained data from Wentworth’s people about cases where they’ve settled out of court, or cases that were dropped, for whatever reason, before they went to tribunal. Again, there’s a lot of ill-will out there. My gut feeling is that feels like more fertile ground than the business types.’

  ‘Really? I’d have expected some of the business types to be pretty ruthless.’

  ‘I’m sure some of them are, but they also tend to be pragmatic. Their attitude generally seems to be that you win some and you lose some. If they get screwed over, they put it behind them and make sure that next time they’re the ones doing the screwing. As it were.’

  ‘Very graphically expressed.’

  ‘That’s not to say there might not be some exceptions. But I think they’re generally a different breed from some of the ex-employees. Not least because they can afford to be. If they lose a business deal, it’s not usually the end of the world. Whereas some of the ex-employees we’ve spoken to really do seem to have had their lives destroyed by Wentworth’s business practices. People who’ve lost jobs and not been able to find employment since. People who’ve only been able to find precarious gig economy stuff. Couples who split up because of financial troubles. People who developed serious mental health problems. You name it.’

  ‘Sounds grim.’

  ‘I imagine Michelle Wentworth would say they’re just collateral damage. The price that has to be paid in the name of efficiency and so on.’ Annie shrugged. ‘I don’t feel qualified to comment. I’m not a businesswoman. And, unlike Sheena, I’m not a politician. I’m just looking a
t it as a detective. And it’s not difficult to imagine some of these people being desperate enough to want to commit a murder.’

  ‘What about the people involved in this dispute in Matlock? That seems to have become pretty heated. And there’s the Chalmers link.’

  ‘I’m liaising with Jack Connell on that.’ DI Jack Connell was the officer in charge of the investigation into the damaging of the car. The case would normally have been relatively low-key but its status had been raised because of Roger Pallance’s interview in the Evening Telegraph and the potential link with the Wentworth case. Connell was just a few years off retirement and was seen as a safe, if uninspiring, pair of hands. In Annie’s experience, he enjoyed playing the part of the cynical old-school cop, but she’d always found him easy enough to work with. ‘I’ve been talking to him anyway about identifying who the various players are on the picket line, but that’s probably increased in priority after Chalmers’ death.’

  ‘Definitely,’ Jennings said. ‘I was even half-considering rolling that investigation into yours, but we’ve still no strong reason to believe the two cases are directly linked.’

  Annie wondered whether, in considering merging the two cases, Jennings had toyed with the possibility of putting Connell in overall charge. Probably not, she thought. Connell was generally respected, but the general view was that he was winding down to his retirement. He wouldn’t have been keen to take on a large-scale inquiry, particularly one that might risk ending his career on a sour note. Equally, she couldn’t imagine Jennings would have wanted someone with Connell’s air of world-weary cynicism fronting up this inquiry. ‘Jack’s pretty easy-going,’ she said. ‘I’ll make sure we’re in close contact over this.’

  She could tell that, as always, Jennings’ mind was already moving on to his next meeting. ‘Right, Stuart, I’d better get on. You joining the morning briefing today?’

  ‘I’ll try and make it for the end. Promised I’d give the ACC a quick brief on where we’re up to with the case. With as positive spin as I can manage.’

  The last sentence sounded like an implied rebuke. ‘We’ll get there, Stuart. It’s the same as ever. We just need one breakthrough.’

  ‘You’d better get one, then. Keep me posted.’

  He was already picking up the phone. The signal of dismissal was unmistakeable. Annie gathered her papers and made her way back to her own desk, trying as ever to control her irritation at Jennings’ inability to follow the usual rules of civilised human interaction.

  Zoe was already at her desk, working her way through some case files. She looked up as Annie returned. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘It was Jennings. How do you think?’

  ‘Are you still on the case?’

  ‘It seems so, for all his reservations. Apparently, we’ve given full consideration to the possible risk of a conflict of interest, but it’s felt that on reflection a case of this importance requires leadership of a type that only someone with my experience can supply.’

  ‘Is that really what he said?’

  ‘It’s what he’s going to say if he’s challenged. The reality is that everyone else seems to see this case as a sure-fire route to career self-destruction. No one else wanted to take it on, so I’m afraid you’re still stuck with me.’

  ‘I’m fine with that. I was dreading some of the names that he might have brought over.’

  ‘Glad to hear I’m not the worst, anyway. What’s new?’

  ‘Couple of things. First is that we’ve had a preliminary report back from the pathologist on Justin Wentworth. Most of it’s as we expected. No surprises on cause of death and so on. It seems that the first blow to his temple was delivered from the front, so Wentworth must have been facing the killer. There were more blows, apparently delivered more randomly, but the conclusion is that Wentworth was probably on the floor by then.’

  ‘The killer carried on hitting him after he’d fallen? I suppose that’s not a surprise, but it’s a shock to hear it. Suggests they wanted to make sure he was dead.’

  ‘Quite possibly because if the first blow came from the front the killer knew he could be identified.’

  ‘Yes, that’s interesting in itself,’ Annie said. ‘Suggests Wentworth could have been talking to the killer, and was taken by surprise. Though that raises the question of how you conceal a hefty blunt weapon.’

  ‘Not too difficult, I suppose, particularly if the killing is premeditated. Report suggests it was something metallic and heavy, but not particularly large. The nature of the wound suggests something probably only two or three centimetres wide, like a hammer or a steel spanner. You could wrap it in something or put it in some kind of bag. Or even just conceal it behind you, for a few minutes, at least.’

  ‘Which then leads to the question of why Wentworth went out there, and what he was doing with the killer. Was he confronting him? Was he talking to him? Did he know the killer?’

  ‘We’ve no reason to think he was expecting to see anyone,’ Annie pointed out. ‘He only went into the house because his mother sent him to refill their drinks. But you’re right. Something took him out there. Even if he’d answered the front door bell, something must then have taken him out of the house.’

  ‘The second point the pathologist raised,’ Zoe said, ‘is that they found traces of various Class A drugs, including heroin and cocaine, in Wentworth’s body.’

  Annie gave a low whistle. ‘Well, that certainly seems to contradict his mother’s suggestion that he was a quiet innocent clean-living young man who barely left his room.’

  ‘She might not have known. Parents often don’t. Know things about their children, I mean.’

  ‘Or she knew but didn’t want us to know. Or she suspected, but was happy to leave it to us to find out for ourselves. Strikes me that it might be worth finding out a bit more about young Justin’s private life. We’ve already got someone looking into his university life, but this suggests we should move that up the priority list. He was at Nottingham, wasn’t he?’

  ‘One of the Nottingham unis, yes. Can’t remember which off the top of my head.’

  ‘Can you take on that one, Zo? Try and talk to his Director of Studies, tutor or whoever else is likely to be able to give us some insights into his life there. See if we can get names of any friends or others who might be able to tell us something useful.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. The other thing was that Jack Connell was on the phone.’

  ‘Talk of the devil. What was he after?’

  ‘He’d just been informed about Chalmers’ death. Said he wanted an urgent chat.’

  ‘Fair enough. I was just about to ring him to ask for the same thing.’ Annie glanced at her watch. ‘Okay, let’s do a quick morning briefing with the team, or at least as many of them as aren’t already out doing something useful. Then we can get on with the real stuff.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Jack.’

  Connell was reading a copy of the Daily Mail, which he smoothly folded up and dropped into a drawer as Annie entered his office. She wasn’t sure whether Connell’s office was one of the privileges of long service, or whether Connell had simply always been in here and no one had had the heart or the will to remove him. Either way, he occupied a small, self-contained individual office tucked away in a corner of the oldest part of the site. She wondered whether people sometimes simply forgot Connell was there, enabling him to get on with reading his newspaper without interruption. ‘Oh, aye, come in, lass. Welcome to my parlour. Sit yourself down and make yourself at home.’ He gestured towards a kettle and mugs on a side table. ‘You want a brew?’

  She wasn’t sure if he was inviting her to make it. ‘Just had one, Jack. But help yourself.’

  He held up his half-full mug. ‘Ahead of the game. Never knowingly under-caffeinated.’ He took a sip, as if to demonstrate the concept. ‘I hear poor Keith Chalmers has popped his clogs.’

  ‘Had his clogs popped for him, more to the point.’ Annie sat herself
next to Connell’s desk. The office was chaotic, with various piles of paperwork and files scattered around. She wondered what passed for a filing system in here. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Ah, well. Now there’s a story, which I’ll come back to in a minute. But I’d spoken to him just a day or two ago about the Matlock thing.’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘Pretty much as you’d expect. A bit wary. Concerned about the impact on the union’s reputation, not to mention their ability to continue the industrial action. Absolutely adamant that the stuff with the car was nothing to do with the union. Which, in fairness, I don’t imagine it was.’

  ‘Did he have any idea who might have done it?’

  ‘He reckoned not. There were one or two younger ones on the picket line who’d been more vociferous, but he didn’t think they were likely to have done anything as serious as that.’ He shrugged. ‘I think he might have been underestimating his own members’ stupidity.’

  ‘You’ve got names for the people on the picket line?’

  ‘Most of them. We’ve been interviewing the more promising ones so far. It’s what you’d expect, though. Nobody admits to any knowledge of it. Some of them have conspiracy theories. That it was done by the company to discredit the strike, or by some third party for the same reason. It’s possible, I guess. Even Chalmers seemed to worry they’d been infiltrated. I don’t know. I’m always inclined to go for the more straightforward explanation until there’s evidence otherwise.’

  ‘So one of the strikers?’

  ‘Or someone acting on their behalf, maybe. I suspect we may have difficulty getting to the bottom of it, to be honest. There’s no useful forensic evidence. No witnesses. No CCTV. As long as everyone continues to deny all knowledge, we may not make progress.’ He sounded as if this prospect didn’t trouble him unduly.

  ‘What about Chalmers’ death?’ Annie said. ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘Not usually a dangerous occupation, trade union rep. Not dangerous in that way, anyhow. But Chalmers did have an interesting reputation.’