The Whole Truth
Page 15
‘I’ll let you know how it goes.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ she says quickly. And then, after a pause, ‘But do pop in if you’re passing the Iffley Road.’
When he puts down the phone a few moments later Asante is smiling.
* * *
‘OK,’ says Baxter, leaning back in his chair and looking up at Quinn. ‘I’ve done a sweep of all the CCTV around Walton Well bridge but I’ve got bugger all to show for it.’
Quinn frowns. ‘I don’t believe it – there must be something –’
Baxter makes a face. ‘Nope. The nearest cameras are on Walton Street. He could easily have got to the bridge and out without passing either of ’em.’
Quinn’s still frowning. ‘You’re absolutely sure there are no cameras on the actual bridge?’
Baxter takes a heavy breath. ‘I do know what I’m doing, you know.’
‘What about Shrivenham Close?’
Baxter shakes his head. ‘Nearest footage is from the ring-road roundabout. I gave up counting the number of dark saloons when I got past sixty. Without a make and model we’re sunk before we start. And that’s assuming he actually went in that direction. There are at least a dozen other ways he could have gone.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ mutters Quinn. ‘No need to rub it in.’
* * *
‘Mr Cleland?’
‘Yes, what do you want?’
The man on the step is wearing a pair of white tailored shorts and a bright-pink striped shirt. The shirt is untucked. Behind him, the building looms, florid, immaculately maintained, and rather larger than strictly necessary. If there was ever a contest for Owner Most Like His House, this bloke would walk it.
Asante holds out his warrant card. ‘DC Anthony Asante,’ he says in his best public-school voice, making sure to pronounce the ‘h’. He finds it helps, in OX2.
The man frowns. ‘Oh yes?’ He glances quickly down the drive and looks relieved to find the Range Rover is still there. ‘What is it?’
‘May I come in? It’s a little complicated.’
The man hesitates, looking Asante up and down, but evidently decides it’s safe to allow him on the premises. It’s probably the Burberry tie. That tends to help too.
The sitting room reminds Asante of his parents’ house in Holland Park. Expensive furniture, framed antique prints, coffee-table books. But there’s an ease about his parents’ place, a naturalness, that he doesn’t sense here. He looks around, trying to figure out why. Perhaps it’s the too-many decanters (Three perhaps, but five? Who needs five?) or the fact that all the prints seem to show people killing things; or perhaps it’s just that everything is a little too tidy, a little too arranged. He can’t picture a kid in here. Out in the garden, there’s a woman sitting under an umbrella on what Cleland no doubt refers to as the ‘terrace’.
‘Is that your wife?’
Cleland frowns again. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘Perhaps she could join us? It would save me saying everything twice.’
Cleland’s frown deepens but he doesn’t say anything, just goes over to the French doors.
‘Marianne – come in here for a minute.’
The woman is wearing a turquoise bikini under a white wrap. She has the same prosperous, well-preserved look as her husband, but she’s insect-thin, and he senses a dry brittleness under the make-up and the expensively cut-and-coloured hair. Cleland is standing in the centre of the room now, hands in pockets, filling the space.
‘So what’s this about?’ he says.
‘I believe you’re a client of the council adoption service?’
The woman’s eyes widen and she slides a look at her husband.
‘That’s confidential,’ he says. ‘And none of your bloody business.’
‘I can assure you I know nothing at all about your application, Mr Cleland, or your circumstances. I just know that you were in their offices recently.’
Marianne Cleland sits forward; everything about her seems tentative. ‘If it’s about –’
‘Let me handle this,’ says Cleland. His chin lifts a little. ‘Yes, we were there a couple of weeks ago. Whole operation is a bloody shitshow. You’d think they’d be crying out for people like us, wouldn’t you?’
Asante keeps his expression neutral. ‘What sort of people would that be, sir?’
Cleland flings an arm round. ‘Well, look at this place. What kid in his right mind wouldn’t want what we’ve got to offer?’
Asante opts to take out his notebook by way of response. ‘I believe you saw Ms Smith, is that right?’
Cleland looks irritated. ‘Why bother asking when you clearly know the answer already?’
‘I just need to get things straight, sir. It was Ms Smith, yes?’
‘She was our case worker,’ says the woman. ‘She’s very nice –’
‘Effing incompetent, just like the rest of them,’ snaps Cleland. ‘Look, has there been some sort of complaint or what?’
Asante shakes his head. ‘No, sir. Ms Smith has made no complaint –’
‘Well then –’
‘Ms Smith has been killed.’
The woman gives a little gasp, but even in that moment, her eyes go first to her husband.
Cleland stares at Asante, his face flushing. ‘If you’re bloody suggesting –’
‘I’m suggesting nothing,’ says Asante. ‘I’m asking questions. It’s what happens in a murder inquiry.’
The word drops like an incendiary.
‘Look,’ says Cleland, ‘I don’t know what the hell happened to that woman but we had nothing to do with it. People like us – we don’t go around killing people. Even when –’ He stops, looks away, purses his mouth.
‘Even when?’ says Asante evenly.
Cleland takes a breath. ‘OK, look, you obviously know we had words. It’s why you’re here, right? Well, yes, we did. I don’t have a problem admitting that. She told us we’d been turned down. That we weren’t –’ he hooks his fingers in the air – ‘suitable. Probably didn’t tick enough bleeding-heart liberal boxes, did we. Too rich, too posh, too bloody white.’ He checks himself, reddens, then runs a hand through his hair. ‘I was upset, OK? Annoyed. Anyone would have been, in my position.’
Quite possibly, thinks Asante, but not everyone would have reacted the way you did.
‘Did you see or contact Ms Smith after that meeting?’ he says.
Cleland’s flush deepens. ‘I may have sent her an email – in the heat of the moment. You know how it is –’
‘So that’s a yes?’
Cleland nods.
‘Did you go to the office? Try to talk to her in any way?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘I spoke to a couple of Ms Smith’s colleagues earlier, and they said you were seen outside the offices a few days after your last meeting.’ He flicks back through his notes. ‘Around five p.m. on June 25th, to be precise.’
Cleland blinks a couple of times. ‘I was shopping. There’s a halfway-decent wine merchant’s a few doors further down.’
Asante nods. ‘So there’ll be a record? At the store?’
‘No. I didn’t actually buy anything. Not on that occasion.’
Asante makes a note, and takes his time doing it.
‘So you weren’t hoping to see Ms Smith? Perhaps try to catch her when she left the office at the end of the day?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Or perhaps you thought it would be more discreet to go round to her house? See if you could persuade her to change her mind?’
‘Of course not,’ he blusters. ‘For a start, I’ve no bloody idea where she lives.’
The woman sits forward. ‘And in any case, Hugh would never –’
‘I told you,’ says Cleland, not looking at her, ‘let me handle this.’
‘Where were you last night, Mr Cleland?’
Cleland opens his mouth, then closes it again. ‘Last night?’
Asante nods, pen poised.
‘That’s right,’ says his wife. ‘You went out in the car.’
Asante frowns. ‘I thought you said you went for a run.’
‘I did,’ says Cleland. ‘I run at Shotover.’
Asante makes a note, his face thoughtful. Shotover must be five or six miles from here, which makes it an odd choice, given Cleland has the University Parks practically on his doorstep and doesn’t look like he’d manage much more than a sedate circuit even of that. But proximity might have had nothing to do with it: Shotover Country Park is no more than ten minutes from Smith’s address in Shrivenham Close. An address Cleland claims he doesn’t know.
But the man at her door was wearing running gear.
* * *
Fawley’s door is shut and it takes Quinn a minute to remember that he had the CPS coming in this afternoon. The Fisher case. Though that seems like very old news now.
The CPS lawyer is a woman. Fifties, thick-set. Short grey hair, glasses. She looks like she doesn’t take prisoners. Or shit.
‘Sorry to bother you – we’re about to have a quick meeting about the Smith investigation. The parents have formally ID’d her, and it looks like we may have a suspect too – a bloke she had a row with at work. She turned him and his wife down as potential adopters and let’s just say he didn’t take it very well. A bit too “entitled”, if you catch my drift.’
The CPS lawyer looks up and sighs.
Fawley nods. ‘OK, good work.’
Quinn hovers a moment, then gestures back towards the squad room. ‘You sure you don’t want to –?’
Fawley shakes his head. ‘You seem to have it covered. Just keep me posted.’
* * *
* * *
‘So we have a definite sighting of Cleland near her office on June 25th, and a man at her door wearing running gear the night she disappeared.’
Quinn is up at the whiteboard, writing furiously. He turns. ‘What else?’
‘The adoption service don’t give out staff numbers or addresses,’ says Asante, ‘so if Cleland did go round there that night, he must have found out where she lived some other way.’
Quinn considers. ‘Electoral roll?’
Baxter looks up, taps briefly on his keyboard, and then makes a face. ‘Well, yeah, she’s there, but it’s only as “E. Smith”. There are bloody dozens of ’em.’
Quinn considers. ‘He could have followed her home. That sighting – it was near the end of the day, right?’
‘Ye-es,’ says Asante, clearly unconvinced, ‘but Smith’s neighbour said she let the man in. Would she really invite Cleland into her home? She knew what he was like – he’d threatened her, sent that shitty email –’
Baxter shrugs. ‘Maybe he said he’d come to apologize? Blokes like him, they can turn on the charm –’
‘I still don’t think she’d have let him in,’ says Somer firmly. ‘I wouldn’t even have opened the bloody door.’
‘But it’s not impossible, is it?’ persists Baxter. ‘Say he convinced her he came in peace. She offers him a drink, they sit down to talk, but then she says something that pisses him off – tells him she’s not prepared to change her decision. He gets angry – he’s a big bloke and she’s ten stone soaking wet –’
Quinn nods. ‘Yeah, I can see that. I can even see him killing her. But the rape? That’s a stretch.’
Baxter frowns. But Quinn’s right. It doesn’t fit.
‘On the other hand,’ says Quinn, ‘I could definitely see him panicking afterwards and trying to make it look like suicide.’
He goes back to the board, taps on the map. ‘And Walton Well bridge is pretty much in a direct line from Smith’s flat to Cleland’s pile on Lechlade Road.’
‘We can check ANPR,’ says Baxter, reaching for his keyboard again. ‘At least we know what we’re looking for now. That Range Rover is hardly incognito.’
‘Check whether the Clelands have a second car,’ says Asante, looking across. ‘The neighbour said she saw an ordinary dark-coloured saloon, not a big flashy tank.’
Ev gets up and goes over to the board. There’s a picture of Cleland taken from his company’s website. He’s wearing a suit and tie; he looks hefty and confident. She turns. ‘Mrs Singh said the bloke at the door looked a bit like Quinn, remember? Well, Cleland doesn’t look anything like Quinn.’
Quinn gives a wry smile. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Somer looks to Asante. ‘Cleland’s about the same height, though, right?’
Asante nods. ‘Near enough. But he’s at least a stone heavier.’
Somer frowns. ‘Well, it looks to me like Cleland’s carrying most of that extra weight in his gut. And Mrs Singh only saw him from behind.’
They stare at the picture. The silence lengthens, but it’s Baxter who eventually voices what they’re all thinking.
‘It could have been him.’
‘OK,’ says Quinn, with the beginnings of a smile. ‘Let’s bring him in.’
* * *
Caleb Morgan’s bedsit is on the lower ground floor of one of the few North Oxford houses still divided into student lets. A nicer address than Ev was expecting, until she remembers who his mother is. The reception she gets, on the other hand, is pretty much exactly what she expected.
‘Oh, just piss off, will you?’ he says, making to close the door. ‘Freya told me all about you harassing her, making me out to be some sort of bloody domestic abuser. I’ve got nothing to say to you.’
Everett takes a step forward. ‘You’re not doing yourself any favours, Caleb. We know it was you.’
‘What? What are you accusing me of now?’ he says acidly. ‘The Rwandan genocide? 9/11? No wait – the grassy knoll – it has to be the grassy knoll.’
She doesn’t rise to it. ‘It’s about that story on Twitter.’
He frowns. ‘What story?’
‘You know exactly which one. The one about Marina.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You’re not the only one round here who knows a bit about IT, Caleb. We traced that story all the way back to the original tweet. The account that posted had only been set up earlier that same day. It was in the name “JosephAndrews2018”.’
He gives her a studiously blank look. ‘Means absolutely bloody nothing to me.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, well, that little twist didn’t come from you, did it? It came from Freya.’
His eyes flicker and he looks away.
‘She does English, right? Joseph Andrews – it’s an eighteenth-century novel about a sexual predator. Only this time it’s the other way round. A woman in a position of authority who preys on a much younger man. Just like you and Marina.’ She gives him a disdainful look. ‘I bet you thought we’d be way too thick to work that one out, didn’t you? Just your bad luck one of my colleagues did English too.’
He returns her look, contempt for contempt. ‘Talk about tenuous. If that’s what passes for detection at Thames Valley Police –’
‘It’s not just the name. Whoever set up that account knew what they were doing – they knew how to stay under the radar.’ She shrugs. ‘Child’s play, right? For someone like you?’
He snorts. ‘You people – do you seriously think I want people knowing what she did to me?’
‘No, I don’t think you do. But as you well know, there was no mention of your name – not on that post, not on the subsequent tweets – not anywhere. Just all those coded references to a female member of university staff that anyone with half a brain can work out in five minutes.’
‘So what are you doing about it? Because if you’re looking for a leak, someone in CID is a fuck sight more likely, if you ask me –’
Behind him, somewhere in the flat, there’s a muffled sound. Not much more than a creak, but enough to suggest he’s not alone. Freya, thinks Ev. Freya’s with him.
He starts to
close the door. ‘If you’ve got anything else you want to say to me, talk to my lawyers. And for the avoidance of doubt, if my name does get out, now or at any time in the future, you’ll be hearing from them.’
* * *
‘Get your sodding hands off me – how dare you – you’ll be hearing from my bloody lawyer –’
Bringing Cleland in was never going to be pretty, but things take an ugly turn when he flatly refuses to come voluntarily and they have to arrest him. There’s an unseemly scuffle on his doorstep, witnessed with gleeful disbelief by a cluster of students from the college further along the road, and Asante ends up with an elbow in the face.
‘Just as well we came mob-handed,’ says Quinn, as Baxter manhandles Cleland down the drive. A couple of the students are taking pictures now and Cleland shouts abuse at them before being shunted indecorously into the car. ‘Still, look on the bright side. No probs getting his prints and DNA now.’ He holds up a pair of shorts and a grubby white T-shirt, both sealed in evidence bags. ‘Or his dirty washing.’
‘True,’ says Asante, rubbing his jaw. ‘On the other hand, I bet that lawyer of his is seriously arsey.’
* * *
Oxford Mail online
Tuesday 10 July 2018 Last updated at 15:45
BREAKING: Fears grow for safety of Headington woman
By Richard Yates
With no reported sightings of her since she left work on Monday, friends and neighbours of a Headington woman are becoming increasingly concerned that something may have happened to her. Residents of Shrivenham Close have reported intensive house-to-house questioning by officers of Thames Valley Police CID, and the arrival of a forensics team, leading to fears that the woman, who has not yet been named, may have come to harm.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Do you live in Shrivenham Close or have information about this story? Email me at richard.yates@ox-mailnews.co.uk
* * *
‘Easy does it, sir.’
The petty humiliations of fingerprinting and DNA samples have done little to improve Hugh Cleland’s mood. But Sergeant Woods can match him, pound for pound, and he’s handled far too many obstreperous drunks to be fazed by a man in magenta trousers. Cleland is still shouting and shoving when Woods clangs the cell door shut and turns to Quinn.