HER HUSBAND’S KILLER an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists
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For a moment, Ruth seemed furious, then she sighed and raised her hands in surrender. ‘Helen’s right, I’m not much good with the minutiae of cybertechnology. Academic life isn’t nearly so cosseted and woolly as you might think, Inspector. These days it’s about fulfilling quotas of one sort or another, a side effect of the Research Assessment Exercise we’ve just undergone. Staff have to justify their existence by pointing to recent research of national, or preferably international importance, but they also have to find ways of bringing money into the department. Then there’s the increased teaching load to cope with. Lecturers don’t always have time to do their own research, so they put their doctoral students under incredible pressure to come up with something they wouldn’t be ashamed to put their name to. Of course, the same pressures mean that they don’t have time to supervise the students properly, so sometimes mistakes are made which aren’t noticed, and occasionally — more times than I’d care to think too deeply about — results are fudged.’
‘You discovered that John Ellis was “fudging” his results?’ Nelson asked.
‘The dream put me onto it — counting so many pearls and then giving Ed a different number. Lies, you see. They trip you up, unless you’re damn good at it. Ellis was disorganized, a bloody disaster when it came to collecting reliable data. Computers are remarkable machines — give them something reasonable to work with, say a quarter of your results, and they can manufacture a whole new set on a random basis, fill in the blanks. You can even write in a variation about the mean that fits in with the statistical evidence. Saves all the hassle of doing the reps.’
‘Reps?’ Nelson cut in.
‘Replications — repeats of the experiment to check your first set of results wasn’t just a fluke. But most fiddlers — Ellis included — just leave out the odd result that doesn’t quite fit with the trend, or which might make their statistical significance less than impressive. That way their graphs turn out as nice straight lines or curves instead of dog-legs or something resembling a temperature chart. Ellis had dropped a few inconvenient points from his graphs, and to be frank, I don’t think he had the skill to do even that the job properly.’
Nelson stared fixedly at a point somewhere over Ruth’s left shoulder, then he nodded to himself. ‘Miss Chambers says the panel was a formality. He would have been dismissed from the department immediately.’
‘Well,’ Ruth said, running her fingers through her hair, ‘On this occasion it gives me no gratification to be proved right. None at all.’
‘If that’s how you feel, why report him?’ Nelson demanded.
Ruth’s eyes widened in shock. ‘I’m a scientist. I search for truth — I’m sorry if that sounds callow, unworldly, but it’s how I feel. What Ellis did discredits the whole scientific community. His research was bullshit, and I have to put up with enough of that from my peers without sanctioning the lies of a second-rate doctoral student. Anyway, if he’d published, the statisticians would’ve punched a hole the size of Antarctica through his data. And, there were other considerations: the reputation of the university would have suffered; thirty per cent job losses might’ve become fifty per cent. I didn’t want that on my conscience.’
‘Very public-spirited of you, Dr Marks,’ Nelson said.
‘Didn’t think altruism was a part of my biological make-up, did you, Inspector?’ Ruth said with a twisted smile. ‘Well, you’d be surprised.’
‘You seem to be saying that the argument between Ellis and Prof Wilkinson was about Ellis fiddling his results,’ Hackett said, ‘And yet there is no record of a complaint against him in Wilkinson’s computer files.’
‘I thought you’d seen the shop entry in Ed’s Apocalypse file.’
Hackett remembered the list of academics in the file, each with a recommendation next to their name — the file that Helen Wilkinson had admitted to altering so that her colleagues got the happy endings they wanted from the departmental restructuring. The word ‘SHOP’ had been written next to Ellis’s name, and given the professor’s vindictive nature, they had assumed the obvious. But a member of the Senate had explained that it was a harmless acronym for a regular check on doctoral students. ‘Senate House Overview of Progress,’ he said aloud.
Ruth stared, her eyebrows raised. ‘Sergeant, I’m astonished — I thought you police were a bunch of cynics!’
Hackett saw laughter brimming in her eyes. He took a breath, shook his head and exhaled. If it wasn’t so bloody tragic, it’d be funny.
‘Our original assessment was correct,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Ruth said. ‘No acronym. Just plain, old-fashioned slang. Edward was going to shop the silly little sod. His mistake was letting Ellis know that.’
Nelson snorted. ‘Didn’t you say postgraduate students rated somewhere below an amoeba, Dr Marks? Why would Professor Wilkinson be interested in the petty cheating of a student who wasn’t even under his supervision?’
‘I think what I actually said was that he ranked just above, but you’re right, most professors would have neither the time, nor the interest in the students not directly under their aegis. But Edward, you must remember, liked to control people.’ A small puff exploded from her lips. ‘People, Events, Policy. Edward’s version of a PEP — and he got a good return on his equity — look how far he’d risen in a relatively short period of time. Edward was also something of a sadist. He was probably just toying with the poor sod, but he didn’t bank on Ellis’s instability.’ She laughed. ‘The value of investments can go down as well as up. I can understand why Ellis would want to kill Edward, but I really can’t say why he’d kill himself, unless he thought he couldn’t live with the shame of fucking up his research so publicly. After all, as far as your murder investigation goes, he was virtually in the clear. It isn’t as if you’d made a great deal of progress with the case prior to his suicide, had you?’
A thoughtful silence settled on the three, and Nelson, exchanging a glance with Hackett, rose to leave. He placed his coffee mug on the floor beside the sofa and straightened up. Perhaps it was the harshness of the light, or perhaps it was simply that he hadn’t slept for a day and a night. Whatever the reason, Hackett saw beyond Nelson, the hardened practitioner of the law, not above bullying, cajoling, or deceit to achieve a result, to the lonely, unhappy and ageing man bewildered by the changes imposed on him by the emphasis on work quotas and lack of funding, equal opportunities and political correctness.
‘The photographs,’ Ruth said.
Hackett turned to her. He got the impression that Dr Marks had blurted this out, that she was, for once, uncertain of her ground, but he had been so absorbed in analysing Nelson that he had missed her facial expression. ‘Where on earth did you get hold of them?’ she finished.
‘A journalist.’
‘Press? I thought those bloody vultures had all flown. Picking over the bones of some other tragedy.’
‘He’s local — from the Chester Recorder,’ Nelson said flashing her a look of — of what? Hackett wondered. Aggression, certainly. But was there also resentment? ‘Ellis tried to kill the “vulture” who took these pictures.’ Nelson went on.
She stared hard at him. ‘Tried to?’
‘Torched his flat.’ Nelson’s eyes blazed suddenly as if with some reflection of the inferno.
‘But we recovered the pictures,’ Hackett said.
‘How? I mean, if John set fire to the flat—’
‘Molyneux had sent the pictures by computer fax. Scanned them into his computer and then zipped them along the information superhighway to the Recorder.’ Molyneux’s boss, Jeff Townley, had brought the photographs personally, as soon as he found them on his return to the office in the morning. ‘That’s how we found Ellis so soon. If it hadn’t been for the photographs, the body might’ve been undiscovered for days.’
‘As I said,’ Ruth observed dryly, ‘Computers are remarkable machines.’ She frowned suddenly, chewing at the inside of her cheek. ‘The photographer?’
As they left, clumping down the grey stairs unaccompanied, Hackett said, ‘I can see why Ellis’d want to kill the prof, and it makes sense he’d have a go at Helen if he thought she’d dropped him in it with the Senate. But I don’t understand why he’d bash the photographer over the head and try to destroy the photographs when he intended going home for booze and barbs.’ He sensed a watchfulness in Nelson and murmured, ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘For what?’ Nelson turned viciously on him and they stood at the foot of the stairs, locked in another duel of egos.
Hackett shrugged. ‘Nowt.’
Hackett glared at him for a few seconds before continuing down the stairs.
‘It certainly looks like Ellis planned to go home and top himself,’ Nelson said, picking up where Hackett had left off.
Transgression forgiven, Hackett thought, relieved.
‘So why would he give a monkey’s backside if he’d been snapped in the act?’ Nelson finished.
‘Doesn’t make an awful lot of sense,’ Hackett agreed.
They lingered a few moments longer outside Ruth’s house in a pool of rare warm sunshine. ‘My feeling is, Ellis’s trick with the mouse and the attack on Molyneux are unconnected.’
Hackett was less certain. He thought they were connected, though indirectly.
* * *
Hackett stopped off at the Countess of Chester hospital on his way home; Nelson had sent him to get a couple of hours’ kip, but he couldn’t rest until he had seen the young photographer. He checked his watch as he went in: Nelson would want him back at headquarters by mid-afternoon, but he hoped the house would be empty so that he could shower and get a couple of hours’ rest. He needed to talk to Sheila about Daniel’s continuing rebellion, but he also needed sleep, and right now that would have to take priority.
Molyneux was in the intensive care unit. A WPC had been posted outside the glass-fronted ward, with strict instructions to check and verify the identity of anyone entering. She duly scrutinized Hackett’s warrant card but waived the formality of a phone call to headquarters.
‘No need, sir. Saw you on telly with DI Nelson.’
Hackett stepped into the antiseptic air of the high-dependency unit. The nursing staff moved about quietly, checking adjusting the bewildering complexity of digital instruments, occasionally exchanging a word or two with the exhausted, silent figures seated next to most of the beds, afraid to leave, determined that if their mother or husband or child was to die, they would not die alone. There was no rush, no panic, even the lighting was subdued; the atmosphere was one of quiet efficiency. There were five patients in all, and Hackett quickly found Molyneux. He had a visitor. Hackett recognized him immediately as Jeff Townley, the editor of the Chester Recorder. He had turned up at Molyneux’s flat when one of his reporters, sent to cover the story of the fire, telephoned him and told him who the victim was.
Townley looked pale and tired. He had a heavy growth of stubble on his chin and looked uncomfortable with it. He held a packet of cigarettes in his hand as though he had been distracted in the act of taking one out of the pack. A blood vessel throbbed in his temple and he gave the impression that he was both angry and upset.
‘Any news?’ Hackett asked.
Townley gave him a bleak smile. ‘They say it looks worse than it actually is.’ His eyes roved over the respirator tube, the drips and monitor wires, attached to the lean frame of the Irishman. ‘Let’s hope they’re right.’ He sighed. ‘He’s going to be so pissed off when he sees they’ve shaved off his hair.’ Then, wincing at his own clumsy attempt at humour, he hurried on: ‘They’ve sedated him because they’re worried about him moving — the skull fracture could—’ He stopped. ‘I should never have allowed him to take on that bloody assignment!’ His voice caught and he coughed. ‘They say the next few days will be crucial.’
‘His parents?’
‘They’ll be here by early evening.’
They listened to the click and hiss of the respirator for some minutes without speaking and Hackett offered up a silent prayer.
‘Did you come just to see the lad, or was there something you wanted to ask me?’
‘You mentioned an assignment. Did you have reason to believe it could be dangerous?’
‘Bloody Ellis!’
‘We went to his flat,’ Hackett started to explain.
‘I know,’ Townley said. ‘It’s my job to know. Overdose.’ He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t help Dermot though, does it?’ He glanced apologetically at Molyneux before saying, ‘He’ll hate me for betraying a trust, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘To be honest I was more worried it’d be a waste of time. He’d had a tip from one of your lot.’
‘Police?’
Townley nodded.
‘Did he mention a name?’
‘No, but I could check with the news team — see if he mentioned her to anyone.’
‘Her?’
‘He was quite specific about that. D’you want me to . . . ?’
‘I’d be grateful.’ Hackett waited a few moments, then, registering Townley’s hesitation and guessing its cause, he said, ‘You go ahead. I’ll watch him till you get back.’ Townley had a cigarette in his mouth even before he had left the unit.
During his brief vigil Hackett had an opportunity to reflect on the events of the previous night. Something had been bothering him, some detail, teasing at the edges of consciousness and now, as he watched the steady rise and fall of the respirator and the fluctuating count of Dermot’s pulse on the digital readout, the feeling became more tangible and it framed itself as Nelson’s question:
Why would Ellis take the trouble to try and cover up his sick prank on Dr Wilkinson? Presumably he had killed himself, as Ruth had suggested, because of his imminent exposure as a cheat and an incompetent, but hiding the fact that he had put the butchered mouse in Helen’s fridge would not have saved him from the humiliation of being dismissed from the university. In fact, it made more sense that he would want her to know who had left the box. Was this mendacity in the doctoral student force of habit, something that had become so much a part of his life that he didn’t know when to stop? Or was it possible that someone had set Ellis up? After all, leaving the dissected mouse in Helen’s fridge didn’t make him a murderer. It did, however, suggest a deeply unpleasant mind, and that might lead a plodding copper to think Ellis capable of more than this single, spiteful act.
He continued watching the rise and fall of Molyneux’s chest, mechanically induced, an imitation of life and, in his depressed frame of mind, an intimation of impending death. Townley returned, breaking in on these morbid thoughts. His telephone conversation had proved unproductive. ‘A woman, as I thought. A detective constable — that’s all he’d said.’
Hackett groaned inwardly. Nelson would make of this an opportunity for griping about the unreliability of women detectives. ‘We’ll investigate from our end.’ There weren’t that many to choose from, so the task wouldn’t be all that difficult.
He scuffed down the hospital corridors deep in thought. Where were Helen Wilkinson and Mick Tuttle between eleven p.m. and twelve thirty the previous night? They said they had taken the scenic route back to Helen’s house, but could just as easily have taken a taxi to Dermot’s flat, hit him over the head, and torched the place. Had they been wrong to rule Helen out?
A blast of cold air and icy rain roused Hackett from his reverie. He found himself outside the hospital, with his car on the far side of the car park, and in it, his overcoat. He turned up his jacket collar and made a run for it. If Ellis really had left cakes, either Helen or Tuttle were perfectly capable of performing the dissection on the mouse and switching it for Ellis’s offering — although he had to admit, Dr Wilkinson did look pretty sick afterwards . . . But why would she draw attention back to herself just when pressure was beginning to ease off? Of course, she might’ve looked sick because she’d just got back from beating a man senseless
and then setting his flat alight. In which case, the mouse was a suitable diversion to make her seem the victim instead of the aggressor. There again, was it really feasible that Ellis had popped into Dr Wilkinson’s with a box of cakes and then went off to top himself? And where had he got the keys from? None had been found in his flat, and yet he’d let himself into Helen’s house. So, either he’d stolen and then dumped them, or he’d been loaned a set, which meant Helen, or someone close to her, was in on it.
He sat in the car for several minutes, gripping the steering wheel in concentration, and dripping rainwater. Why would Helen attack Dermot Molyneux in the first place? Why not let him use the photographs of Ellis in the next issue of the Recorder, alongside the bizarre story of the dissected mouse? Perhaps Dermot had got more than he bargained for — but who else had he photographed? Helen? Tuttle? Or both of them? What the hell had they been up to?
And what about Clara Ainsley? They had an admission that she had seen Professor Wilkinson at home at around the time of the murder. Might she have gone back to the house to recover some evidence? What if Molyneux had photographed her? But this was pure speculation — Molyneux had computer-faxed two photographs, not three, and they had both been of Ellis. He fervently hoped Jem Tact would be able to work one of his miracles on Molyneux’s computer.
* * *
Ruth picked at the chips on her plate. The refectory was noisy with lunchtime traffic; the same disparate mixture of foreign visitors, lecturers, technicians and doctoral students as before, although the students this week were Japanese, and they were quieter and more polite than the previous week’s visitors. Ruth looked on with amusement at the dismayed expression on some of the faces as they picked at the greasy mound of fish and chips on their plates. ‘I tell you, the chef is a sadist,’ she remarked.
‘What?’
Helen was finishing her far healthier choice of soup and a roll and looking down at her own plate, Ruth shoved it from her, disgusted.
‘I just can’t get that bloody animal out of my head. I mean is that how it is for you? Is that what it’s like, constantly thinking of the blood and that poor mangled . . .’