by Anne Penketh
“This means we can charge Mercer with harassment without violence,” said Clayton. “It’s small beer compared to the other accusations against him, but if Romano is still willing to press charges, I reckon we can secure a conviction. I never thought we’d find out who was behind those letters.”
“Neither did I,” Mandy said. “I mean, they were postmarked in Norwich but that doesn’t necessarily mean the sender lives here, does it?”
“That’s right. We struck lucky,” said Clayton. Under his breath he muttered, “About bloody time.”
“I was looking into background cases, actually, and came up with one in Holt,” she said. “The letters warned pensioners to leave their homes. There’d been fifteen letters sent over the course of a year.”
“And what did the culprit get?”
“He got off with a warning,” she said.
* * *
Clayton and Julie sat in the interview room facing Mercer and his lawyer.
Clayton again informed Mercer that he was being interviewed under caution. This elicited no visible reaction.
Clayton glanced across the table at the solicitor. She’d allowed herself a dash of colour today, with a pink blouse worn under her grey jacket. This is what we’re up against. Mercer had hired one of the country’s most reputable law firms and was doubtless expecting to throw money at his problem until it went away.
He frowned and opened a file with one hand, aware that his sling was attracting interest.
“Mr Fiske-Mercer, we’ve found your online order for two hundred and fifty tramadol tablets, which you claimed to have obtained with a prescription. Have you anything to say?”
Mercer said nothing.
“Mr Fiske-Mercer?” Clayton repeated.
“No.” The solicitor wrote something down in her notebook.
“Now let us return to the morning after Kristina Manning’s party,” said Clayton. “Could you tell us exactly where you were that morning? I’m talking about the fourteenth of October, a Sunday.”
“I was in Cley, walking Bandit,” said Mercer.
“And can anyone confirm that for us?”
“I was alone. As you know, it’s a remote spot.” Mercer’s manner was polite but only just. Clayton couldn’t help feeling that he was sneering at them.
“And yet Mark Braithwaite tells us that you accompanied him to see Kristina Manning that morning. You can’t have been in two places at once.”
“Well, he’s wrong,” Mercer said.
“Fast forward to the afternoon when Steve Carter was found murdered. Again, Mark Braithwaite insists that both of you went to the house and killed him.”
Mercer glanced at his solicitor before saying, “No comment.”
Julie looked at Clayton, who nodded, before asking, “Mr Fiske-Mercer, we’re also wondering why you decided to send anonymous letters to Massimo Romano, the NFO conductor.”
“Why do you think it was me?” Mercer said. At least he wasn’t flat out denying it.
“Because the envelopes were printed on your printer,” Julie replied.
Clayton wondered how Mercer would respond. He remained silent, frowning. What was going through his mind?
Clayton had another try. “I ask you again, what made you send these letters to Mr Romano?”
Mercer raised his eyes. Looking across the table, he stared both detectives in the eye and repeated his mantra, “No comment.”
Clayton struggled to keep calm. “Mr Fiske-Mercer, you are under arrest for harassment,” he said and repeated the caution.
He got to his feet. “I think we can wrap up for now.”
* * *
Bullard rushed over to Clayton’s desk. “Easton has changed his story!” he announced, practically at the top of his voice.
“Any idea why?” said Clayton.
“Well, he knows about the charges against Braithwaite, and he may have heard about the other suspect and realised it’s his mate, Mercer. So I presume it’s got something to do with rats and sinking ships.”
“That’s good. So what did you get, Dave?” Clayton motioned to him to sit down.
“He’s dropped Mercer in it where his alibi for the eighteenth of October, the day of the attack on Proctor, is concerned. That was easy, actually, because I’d checked with the library and they said Easton had been working that afternoon. So he couldn’t have been in Cley.”
“God, what are these people on?” said Clayton. “Didn’t they think we’d check with his employer?”
Bullard grinned. “Not only that, guv, he confirmed that Mercer regularly supplied drugs to Lauren Garner. And to several other NFO players.”
“Good. So we can get him on dealing now. What else?”
“That’s it. Isn’t that enough?” said Bullard.
“Good work. Thanks.” Clayton turned back to his computer and was about to pick up the phone to call Bligh when it rang. She was calling him.
“Can you come up, Sam?” she asked. “We’ve got the results from the lab.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Clayton and Julie entered the interview room where Mercer and the solicitor, whose name was Cox, were waiting. Clayton sighed. Here we go again. This is getting to be like Groundhog Day.
Except that this time, Bligh was standing in a corner.
He put a new tape in the recorder and reminded Mercer that he was being interviewed under caution. He then, rather nervously, introduced Bligh.
“Mr Fiske-Mercer, are you sure that Jake Easton was with you in Cley on the afternoon of the eighteenth of October, when two people attacked Mike Proctor at his home?” Clayton asked.
“Yes, he was, as I recall,” said Mercer, narrowing his eyes. Did he suspect they had something?
“Because Mr Easton was actually working at the library that afternoon. Mr Easton has also confirmed statements from other members of the Norwich Festival Orchestra who have told us that you were supplying Class A drugs to Lauren Garner and Kristina Manning, among others.”
“They’re lying,” said Mercer. He turned to his solicitor, shaking his head vigorously.
“I would remind you that persuading someone to provide a false statement is an offence, Mr Fiske-Mercer,” said Julie. He glowered at her from across the table.
Clayton moved on. “Could you explain how a hair belonging to Kristina Manning was found on a navy fleece belonging to you?”
Mercer pursed his lips. “I’ve no idea.”
“We understand you weren’t especially close friends. Or were you?”
“No, not particularly.”
“So, why don’t you tell us what happened when you and Mark Braithwaite went to her flat that morning?”
Mercer gave a sigh. Was it out of impatience, irritation or an admission of guilt? “No comment,” he said.
His solicitor wrote something in one of her files and then looked up.
“If you’re trying to suggest that a hair on a fleece amounts to evidence that my client murdered Kristina Manning, I would hope that you have something more convincing than that to present in court,” she said.
“Indeed we do,” said Clayton. “In fact, Mr Mercer, fibre found in your Prius is a match with the T-shirt she was wearing on the morning she was killed. We also have a shaft of hair from the murder scene at Kristina Manning’s house, which we believe can be traced to you. Furthermore, our pathologists have confirmed that a separate fibre sample in your car corresponds to a pillow found in Steve Carter’s flat.”
Clayton waited for a reaction. None came.
“Do you have anything to say, Mr Fiske-Mercer?”
Mercer looked shell-shocked. He glanced at his solicitor before quietly saying, “No.”
Bligh stepped forward. “Lloyd Christian Fiske-Mercer, you are under arrest on suspicion of two counts of murder. I am also arresting you for assault, manslaughter by gross negligence and supplying Class A drugs.”
Ignoring Mercer’s venomous stare, Clayton stood up and removed the tape.
&n
bsp; Chapter Thirty-nine
“Game over,” said a beaming Julie.
“You think?” said Clayton, joining her in the corridor outside the interview room. “Come on, let’s get a coffee and talk this over.”
Julie followed him into the canteen, where she picked up a scone with a cup of tea. He ordered a latte and they moved to their usual quiet corner near a potted plant that was in dire need of watering. There were few people in the cafeteria at that time in the afternoon.
“What’s up, guv?” she asked. Her scone crumbled in her hand as she buttered it.
“I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve still not cracked this case,” he said. “I mean, we’ve got the facts but, as Bligh would say, what’s the narrative? What’s the story, Julie? I can understand why Kristina and Alex Parker got it, and Steve Carter too. But what about Proctor? And Romano? Why the vendetta against them?”
“You mean, you don’t think Mercer’s our man?” she said.
“I don’t know what I mean. He’s not helping us, though, is he?”
“Do you think he’s protecting someone then?” The scone fell to pieces.
Clayton stirred his coffee slowly. The only sound in the canteen was the occasional whirring of the coffee machine.
“I hadn’t thought of that. But let’s try and get more on Mercer. I mean, did you ever get in touch with the uncle? Could you go back to his dad?”
“Leave it with me,” she said. “Actually, there was something his father said to me that I put into the system. It’s just come back to me. He made some comment about Mercer having inherited his mother’s genes. I didn’t think any more about it, but I checked in ‘Who’s Who’ and it says that Lord Fiske-Mercer’s first wife died.”
“OK, well, see what you can dig up. In the meantime, I’ll go back to one-handed typing,” he said.
She laughed. “Are you OK?”
“I’ll survive. How’s your scone?” He pronounced it the northern way, with a long ‘o.’
“You mean my scone?” she said, the southern way, and smiling.
“Now don’t you go all posh on me,” he said, getting to his feet.
* * *
Clayton was clearing his desk, crumpling papers and throwing them into the rubbish bin, when Julie came over.
“You’re here late,” he said. “Hadn’t you better head off?”
“I know. The babysitter will be getting annoyed. But I might have something,” she said.
“Take a pew, Julie,” he said, motioning to the chair beside him.
She opened her notebook. “Right, well, it turns out that the uncle who owns the cottage is a guy called Burridge. Adam Burridge. He’s the brother of Lord Fiske-Mercer’s first wife who died. The one I told you about.”
“OK. What else? Did you get hold of Fiske-Mercer?”
“Yes. He told me that his wife committed suicide about three years ago. That’s when his son turned to drugs and dropped out of university. He gave me this big speech about trying to get him back on the straight and narrow, but that Mercer was an adult and responsible for his own life, blah blah blah.”
“Well, he obviously didn’t try hard enough,” said Clayton. “I mean, if his mother committed suicide that’s a big deal, isn’t it? Do you know what happened?”
“He says she drank herself to death. She was an alcoholic.”
Clayton was doodling in his notebook as he listened. He drew a big black circle.
“Anyway, we already know that Mercer’s a druggie, so I’m not sure where that gets us,” he said.
“No, but I’ve tracked down the uncle to a place in Cley. I called him.”
Clayton sat up expectantly. “And?”
“He says he can’t help.”
Clayton slumped back into his chair, crumpled a sheet of paper and chucked it into the bin.
Then he had a thought. “What did you say his name was? Adam Burridge?”
She nodded.
Clayton took out his phone. He knew exactly who to call.
Chapter Forty
Clayton settled into his usual seat in the corner of the Alex. He didn’t have long to wait before Luke Martin appeared.
“Good work,” said the reporter, dropping a plastic bag onto the floor. “The good citizens of Norwich can sleep safely in their beds again.”
His gaze reached Clayton’s sling. “So what happened to you? Whodunnit?”
“Oh, just a stupid fall. Bloody inconvenient,” Clayton said. There was a moment’s reverent silence while each of them took a swig of his ale.
“Cheers,” said Martin and raised his pint.
“Aye,” said Clayton. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You OK?”
“Busy, thanks to your lot,” said Martin. An ancient electric heater sent waves of heat wafting across their table. Martin unwound his scarf and opened his jacket.
He fixed Clayton with a stare. “Your team’s doing well, aren’t they?”
“Can you believe it?” said Clayton, uncertain of whether this referred to work or play. “Pep’s a genius! Do you fancy a bet on your team? Do you reckon they’ll get promoted?”
“I’m not that stupid,” said Martin with a grin. “I’m not putting money on the Canaries or Leeds. Could be either.”
“Yeah.”
Each man took another long swig of ale and the conversation stalled into silence. Clayton looked around and noticed the bar area was beginning to get crowded. He sensed that Martin must be wondering why he’d got in touch. It was time to stop the football talk.
“Luke, I want to pick your brains a bit about these murders.”
“It usually works the other way round, doesn’t it?”
Clayton smiled. “Well, I suspect there’s more to this case than meets the eye. We’ve still got some loose ends to wrap up.”
“How so? I thought you’d nailed Braithwaite and Mercer for the murders.”
“For the murders, yes, I think so, although Mercer has discovered that there are many different ways of saying ‘No comment.’ He could practically put it to music.” Clayton shook his head. “But what about Proctor and Romano? What’s the motive there?”
“You mean the anonymous letters? Yes, that surprised me too,” said Martin. “But they were traced to a printer at Mercer’s cottage, weren’t they?”
“Yeah,” said Clayton. He’d just had a thought. “But the cottage is owned by his uncle.”
He stared at Martin, realising that the journalist had had the same thought.
“And who’s the uncle?” asked Martin, leaning forward.
“Adam Burridge. Heard of him? He lives in Cley.”
Martin took a long swig and stared into space. “The name’s familiar,” he said, and lapsed into silence. Clayton waited. He began to feel the adrenalin mounting.
“Unless I’m mistaken, Adam Burridge had some sort of connection to the NFO,” Martin said eventually.
“What?”
“Yes, that’s it. This is going back a few years now, but I remember the orchestra treasurer left under a cloud. I’m sure it was Burridge. As I recall, he was accused of cooking the books.”
“You mean fraud?” Clayton asked.
“Yes, but they didn’t report it to the police. They must have dealt with it internally. Proctor was conductor at the time.”
Clayton could feel his heart pounding underneath his heavy jacket. This was all starting to make sense. “What else do you remember?” he asked.
“Only that he made himself scarce after that. He moved to Cley. I guess that once word got out, his reputation was shattered. He was a professional accountant.”
“Thanks, Luke,” said Clayton. “I’d better go. Uncle Adam is going to get a visit.”
“Let me know what happens,” said Martin. “You owe me one,” he added, indicating his half-finished pint.
“You’ll be the first to know. I promise,” said Clayton.
* * *
Clayton walked slowly along Unthank Road. Half-formed though
ts swirled around his brain, making him oblivious to where he was going. He suddenly came to and found himself walking along his old street.
Moments later, he was knocking on Melissa’s door. She switched on the porch light, and he could see her peering at him through the stained-glass pattern before opening the door. She was dressed in jeans and a dark sweater.
“Hi, Sam, come in. I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.
He stepped inside and gave her a hug, rubbing her back with his good arm. “I know. Sorry, love,” he said.
“I’ve just had a bite,” she said. “Do you want something? A drink?” The smell of something delicious and savoury wafted from the kitchen.
“I can’t stop, I’m afraid. We’re still wrapping up the case.”
“Really? You said you’d arrested the pair of them for murder.” She put on a bad American accent. “DI Clayton always gets his man.”
He grinned. “It’s not quite as simple as that,” he said. “In fact, I was on my way home and I just thought that you might have heard about a disgruntled accountant who’s got a grudge against Proctor and hates the NFO.”
“My!” she said. “A disgruntled accountant?” She looked as if she was trying not to laugh.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“Why don’t you ask Proctor?”
“I will. But I wondered whether you knew anything, or had heard something on the grapevine, since you’re so plugged in.”
“What’s the name?”
“Adam Burridge. He used to be the orchestra treasurer, apparently.”
“Burridge? Never heard of him. Mind you, I wouldn’t necessarily know the name of the NFO treasurer, what with being in the choir. Listen, are you sure you’re not stopping?”
He realised they were still standing in the hall. He checked his watch. It was gone eight p.m.
“No, I must go. Anyway, not to worry.” He turned to the door.
“Wait a sec,” she said. “I don’t know if this is the same thing, but come to think of it, I do remember hearing about a scandal. But it was before I joined the choir. Does that sound right?”