Daisy in Chains

by Sharon Bolton

‘I can’t put police resources into this,’ he says, knowing that, actually, there is a good chance Latimer will agree.

  ‘Didn’t think so. Just you and me, then?’

  He almost laughs. ‘No. Just you. That computer is slowly rusting under ten fathoms of seawater and I am not wasting any of my—’

  ‘Another beer?’

  His glass is empty. He hasn’t realized quite how quickly he is drinking. ‘Thanks, and that’s my limit, or I’ll be phoning for a cab. You’re reaching, Maggie. Even if Wolfe didn’t tip it over the back of a fishing boat, this is a wild guess. It could be in a hay-barn, his granny’s attic, the equipment store at his old surgery…’

  ‘It’s nowhere that can be traced to him. And it’s nowhere it can be found by accident. The killer, who is not Hamish, paid for a safe environment and protection. He took the lease out sometime early in 2013, round about the time he first made contact with Jessie, Chloe and Myrtle. All we have to do is contact the letting agents for these estates and ask about modest, single units that have been occupied since 2013. It will be easier for you. I’ll have to use a bit of subterfuge, but it won’t be the first time.’

  ‘Before I waste another second thinking about this, please convince me this computer is not slowly making its way out into the Atlantic Ocean?’

  ‘If Hamish is the cyber-stalker, he didn’t have a chance. You’d picked him up for questioning before he knew you were on to him. He was charged almost immediately and not granted bail. He could not have hidden or destroyed the computer.’

  Annoyingly, that does make sense.

  ‘And if it wasn’t Hamish, the real killer will have destroyed it by now.’

  ‘Unless he’s planning to resume business.’

  Pete laughs. ‘It’s two years since Myrtle was killed.’

  ‘He’s biding his time. He knows if he acts too quickly, the game’s up. He also knows he might have to change his methods a bit. Find somewhere else to leave the bodies, maybe.’

  ‘This is fantasy-land. Hamish Wolfe is our killer and that stew smells fantastic.’

  She gets up and pulls on oven gloves. ‘Would you fold the map up? Carefully, we’ll be needing it.’

  As she bends to the oven, he puts the map away.

  ‘So are you here for Christmas?’ he says. ‘Got family coming?’

  She smiles as though she knows he’s fishing. ‘I don’t have a family. And Christmas is when I get most of my work done. I’ll probably have Hamish’s case cracked by the new year.’

  She puts a casserole dish on top of the Aga and takes plates from a second oven. ‘There’s a list on the dresser behind you,’ she tells him.

  He turns around. The list is typewritten. Industrial estates. Beside each name are the contact details of a letting agent.

  ‘Not sure what you want me to do with this.’ He puts it back on the dresser.

  ‘You know exactly what I want you to do with it. Phone the letting agents. Ask the questions. Produce a second list of possibilities and consult with me.’

  ‘Since when did I become your unpaid gofer?’

  She says, ‘Are we just haggling about money now?’

  ‘No. No money. No dogsbodying. I’m not doing it.’ Even as he speaks he reflects that, come mid morning tomorrow, after he’s filled Latimer in, he could easily be doing it.

  ‘No big deal. I’ll get through them all myself. Shall I let you know when I’m ready to start viewing? We’re probably talking after Christmas now, of course.’

  The new idea makes him smile. ‘That’s why you need me onside with this. Anything you find won’t be admissible. You need me to carry out an official search.’

  The house phone starts ringing. At first Maggie looks up, startled, telling him she doesn’t normally receive phone calls at this hour. Before she can pick up, the answerphone kicks in. They both recognize the voice instantly. Deep, educated but bruised, somehow, and with a faint hint of the West Country.

  ‘Maggie, it’s Hamish. I need you to pick up right now.’

  Chapter 53

  ‘MAGGIE, PICK UP. Pete, I know you’re there. Come on, you both need to hear this.’

  Maggie feels her face drain. ‘He’s messing with us. Leave it.’

  ‘Pete, I have less than four minutes to make this call, I’ve jumped a queue of a dozen other guys and I really don’t want to dwell on what that’s going to cost me. Now fucking well pick up.’

  Pete stands, grabs the phone and switches on the loudspeaker. ‘What do you want, Wolfe?’

  Wolfe says, ‘My cellmate just got back from computer class. There is a Facebook page you need to look at. Search for Hamish Wolfe. Come on, do it.’

  Maggie spins her laptop around and types in the password.

  ‘It’s a community page,’ Wolfe is saying. ‘That support group my mother belongs to set it up. Someone posted about Maggie being appointed my lawyer and the abuse is piling up.’

  ‘Hardly a first,’ Maggie opens up Facebook. ‘It happens every time I take on a new client.’

  ‘Yeah, well, when was the last time someone posted your address and a photograph of your house on there?’

  ‘Shit.’ Pete comes to join her at the table.

  The page appears, showing the usual pictures of Hamish looking like a Hollywood actor hired to play a serial killer. There is a series of posts from the public and, right at the top, a photograph of Maggie under the headline Top Lawyer Takes on Wolfe Case.

  ‘Where did they get that photograph? No one has my photograph.’ It is a snapshot. Maggie can’t place the location. Her face is half in profile but her hair is unmistakable, both the colour and length it is now. This picture is less than a year old.

  ‘I haven’t seen it yet.’ Wolfe is still on the line. ‘But I understand there’s another group called Vengeance for Myrtle. Started by Myrtle Reid’s stepfather and a couple of her brothers. Their aim is to get me castrated and blinded while they come up with something that will really teach me a lesson. From what Phil tells me, Vengeance for Myrtle published Maggie’s address on this page and they claim they have her phone number too. They’ve been posting threats all evening. My group are taking them down and blocking the trolls as soon as posts appear but the one with her address was shared several times before anyone spotted it. The information’s out there. Yeah, OK, mate, I’m coming. Just back off, will you? Fucking—!’

  There is the sound of slamming, a breathless grunt. Maggie grabs the phone from Pete. ‘Hamish?’

  The line has gone dead.

  Somewhere in the room is the pinging sound of a text message being received.

  Pete takes the receiver from her and replaces it. ‘He can look after himself. Go and lock the back door, check the others and then it would be really great if we could eat.’ He nods at her laptop screen. ‘I’ll have a look through this.’

  It doesn’t take Maggie long to check security on her house. When she’s done, she carries the casserole dish to the table. Without looking up, Pete moves the laptop to free up a mat and she wonders at his ability to always be in the right place at the right time, to know what is needed and to do it, without being asked.

  She cannot imagine this man being in the way. Or ever being irritated by his presence.

  ‘We see this sort of thing all the time.’ He is flicking down the screen, reading some posts, dismissing others with hardly a glance. She leans across so that she can see them too.

  Kenneth Kill Boy declares his intention of throwing firebombs through Maggie’s windows this very night. Sten-Man plans to get a few friends together, break in and rape her up the arse, see how she likes what that bastard Wolfe did to other women. Both men know her address. Seconds after the posts appear they are deleted, someone is managing the page, but the damage has been done. Her safety has been compromised.

  Pete closes down the laptop as another text arrives in a phone’s inbox somewhere. ‘Your address being out there is something we have to take seriously.’

  ‘I
suppose.’

  ‘I can have uniform swing by here more often over the next few days and nights. I might even get someone outside tonight. Long term though—’

  ‘Please do nothing. I’m not worried. I may get a few unpleasant parcels in the mail. Nothing I can’t deal with.’

  ‘Maybe you should go home for Christmas after all.’

  ‘This is my home. I have no other.’ This is something she has known for years, its sadness never struck her before.

  ‘I’m sure the Crown can find you a room. Even if just for tonight.’

  She picks up a fork. ‘Please eat. And everything is fine. I get abuse from time to time. It’s inevitable in my line of work. I make enemies and social media gives them a voice.’

  She’s not sure she’s convinced him. She’s wondering what to say next, when a third pinging sounds. She gets up and reaches her mobile before the message fades.

  ‘Anything we need to worry about?’ She hears Pete’s voice from a distance. She turns. ‘My agent,’ she lies, because she needs time to think. ‘Routine stuff.’

  Still puzzled, Pete forks a cube of lamb into his mouth, tears off bread and dips it into the gravy. He is hungry. She is not. It is getting increasingly difficult to put food of any kind into her mouth and her physical presence is lessened by the day. As the line on the bathroom scales creeps ever lower, so she has a sense of there being less of her. There may come a time when she ceases to exist altogether, when she melts away, like ice in a glass, like a stock cube slowly dissolving in gravy, like a rainbow when the sun shines a little stronger, and maybe that will be no bad thing.

  ‘Maggie. Maggie! Are you OK? Let me see those texts.’

  ‘They’re private.’ Her fork spears something that sends purple juice across the white plate and on to the table. Her fork goes down. She can’t do this.

  Pete has found a handkerchief – she forgot napkins – and is wiping the sauce from the tabletop. ‘Who is sending you texts?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shakes her head. There is no point in even discussing it. This man cannot help her. ‘I don’t recognize the number.’

  ‘Wolfe? Does he have your number?’

  ‘He can’t text me. He doesn’t have a mobile phone.’

  ‘He’s not supposed to have one. Lots of prisoners do.’

  Pete gets up, still chewing, and comes around behind her. He picks up her phone and then resumes both his seat and his meal, but the phone is by his side, out of her reach. He can’t access the texts, the phone is passcode protected, but if another comes in, he may see it before it fades.

  She has to get a hold of herself. ‘Pete, I wanted to ask you about that homeless couple, Odi and Broon. I need to talk to Odi. Can you put me in touch with any homeless charities who might be able to help?’

  ‘I can probably tell you where she is right now.’

  ‘She’s in custody?’

  ‘I wish she were. Given the temperature outside, she probably does too, but we can’t arrest people for having nowhere else to go.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  ‘Porticoed entrance to the Town Hall in Wells. They’ve both been sleeping there the last few nights.’

  ‘They’re sleeping in the square?’ She thinks back to Market Square in Wells, to the Regency Town Hall. ‘That entrance is open to the elements on three sides, it isn’t possible.’

  ‘You do understand what’s meant by the term, homeless, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll come with you when you go. See if I can find her.’

  Ping.

  Too fast for her, he picks up the phone but his eyesight isn’t good enough to focus on the small type. She sees him frown, hold it further away, a flicker of frustration as the message fades. Then he taps on the keypad and she watches in disbelief as the menu appears.

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘Four. Nine. Seven. Seven. Most people use birthdays as their key codes. You’re a cautious type, Maggie, you wouldn’t use anything as obvious as your own birthday. Nor would you keep the same one all the time. I’m guessing you change codes on your phone every time you take on a new case. Four nine seven seven is Hamish Wolfe’s birth date. Now, let’s see…’

  His eyebrows grow closer. He holds the phone a little further from his eyes. ‘He loves me.’ He glances up. ‘That’s the same thing that was written underneath this table. You’re getting text messages from the person who broke into your house. Why the hell wouldn’t you tell me that?’

  She’s telling him now. Or rather, he’s dragging the information out of her. She thinks about the words that were scrawled on the underside of the table they are sitting at, and fights back a temptation to crawl beneath it, to check they haven’t mysteriously reappeared.

  ‘Have you had them before today?’

  ‘No.’ She can see he doesn’t believe her. ‘No.’

  His eyes go back to the phone. He needs reading glasses, is too vain to admit it. His hesitation gives her a split second to think.

  ‘He loves me.’ Pete reads out the first message again and moves on to the second. ‘He loves me not. Then we’ve got He loves me again. Hang on, this is—’

  ‘A game lovers play with daisies. They count the petals, pulling them off one by one.’

  ‘If there’s an odd number, it’s good, an even number and he loves her not?’ he tries.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘When you had that break-in, did whoever it was have access to your phone?’

  ‘I sometimes leave it downstairs, but it’s passcode protected.’

  She sees his raised eyebrows, his slightly pitying look. He got through her phone’s passcode in an instant. Someone else could have done exactly the same thing. ‘I’ve been an idiot,’ she says.

  He doesn’t argue. ‘Please tell me you changed the locks,’ he says.

  She nods. ‘And improved them. No one’s getting in here again.’

  ‘All the same, it might be time to bring that Sirocco Silverwood character in for a chat. If you still think she’s the most likely candidate?’

  ‘She’s the only one I’ve met who’s claimed undying love for Hamish.’

  ‘It does seem odd, though, that anyone from the Wolfe Pack would threaten you. They might all be an apple short of a barrel of scrumpy, but if they’re genuine, it’s very much in their interest to keep you on side.’

  ‘Maybe they aren’t all. Don’t killers like to stay close to the investigation? They enjoy being at the centre of things, all the time having a big secret.’

  ‘Anyone you suspect, apart from Sirocco?’

  ‘How can I say? I spent very little time with them. They all looked pretty weird to me.’

  ‘Says the lady with blue hair.’

  Ping.

  They both jump. He gets to the phone first. He looks at the screen and pulls a face. He hands it over.

  ‘Dental appointment reminder for tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

  She’s had enough. She stands up. ‘I need to get out of here. You can stay and finish your dinner, or you can come with me. Your call.’

  Chapter 54

  ‘THEY’RE NOT THERE,’ Pete calls across Market Square as Maggie is getting out of her car. ‘Their stuff’s all there. They’re probably in a pub somewhere, although I don’t think they’re exactly welcome in most of them.’

  Maggie looks round at the smart shops, the medieval buildings, the soft golden glow of the cathedral tower.

  ‘If you’re still determined to talk to them tonight,’ Pete says, ‘come inside and wait an hour or so. I can do coffee, or we can sit in the bar downstairs.’

  ‘I’m going to have a wander round,’ she tells him. ‘If I don’t find them, I’ll come and find you. Fair enough?’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he says.

  So very gallant. Always determined to do the right thing. A born police officer.

  ‘Odi won’t talk to me if she sees me with the police. You know that. I’ll phone you in half an
hour, I promise.’

  He gives up and turns back to the pub. Ignoring the main entrance, he disappears around the side, into a private car park.

  Maggie pulls the collar of her coat a little tighter and walks away from the main part of the town, towards the cathedral. The homeless are not welcome in pubs, there are no official shelters in the town, but the church will rarely turn away the needy.

  She finds them in the nave, towards the rear, as far from the door as they can sit. To Maggie, it feels cold in the cathedral, but all things are relative and shelter of any kind must be welcome to those who have none they can call their own. Broon has removed his hat, out of respect to his surroundings, but his shabby red coat is as she remembers it. His hair is thick, salt-and-pepper grey, in need of washing. Odi’s multi-badged cap is still on her head. She sits close to Broon, the two of them sharing body warmth.

  The cathedral will close in less than ten minutes. Already, its staff are asking people to leave, their tone low and regretful. So sorry to lose you, but only for now. Do come back again soon.

  Maggie sinks into the shadows outside the west door and waits, listening to the chatter as a group of Japanese visitors leave, followed by an American family, then a middle-aged couple from Yorkshire.

  Broon and Odi are the last, as she knew they would be, and unlike all those who left before, there is no sense of purpose to their movements. They hover on the steps before descending carefully, like elderly people who have learned to fear stairs. Neither notice her as they step out of the lee of the building into the full force of the cold air. Odi is clutching a supermarket carrier bag.

  Maggie expects them to make their way out into the main part of town, where lights offer a glimpse of cheerfulness and the narrow streets some shelter from the elements. Instead they go through the dark archway and Maggie slips along in their wake. They turn again immediately, away from the town, through a second dark tunnel towards the Bishop’s Palace and Maggie loses sight of them.

  The square is almost empty now. No one wants to linger on such a night. Through the windows of the Crown she can see people who are warm and fed, among friends. She sends a smile up to the man she has no way of knowing is watching her, and follows Broon and Odi.