* * *
The tall male figure, walking down her drive, might have alarmed her, had she not already seen and recognized his car.
‘What are you doing here, Pete?’ She finds a key, fits it into the lock.
He reaches the bottom of the drive but keeps his distance. ‘Where have you been? You shouldn’t be going out on your own in the dark. Not while that Facebook crap is going on.’
‘I’ve been to the square in Wells. I left some flowers in the Town Hall entrance. Again, what are you doing here?’
Slowly, he draws nearer. ‘Making sure you’re OK.’
She opens the door and turns. On the step, she is almost his height. ‘I’m OK. But you can’t just come round here. It’s a conflict of interest. You must see that.’
His eyes seem darker than she remembers them. ‘Did Latimer talk to you?’ he asks.
‘He did, actually, a few hours after Odi and Broon were killed, but it was hardly necessary. I’m working to get Hamish out of prison, you have a vested interest in keeping him where he is. If there’s ever another court case, our being friends could jeopardize it. We can’t be friends any more.’
‘Is that all we were, friends?’
She knows exactly what he’s asking her and also that she owes him something more than a curt dismissal.
‘I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, but the timing didn’t work. I’m sorry, Pete.’ She turns away before she can weaken.
You’ll regret that, says the voice that welcomes her home.
Chapter 68
‘ARE YOU GOING to be writing all night?’
Phil is pacing again. He has spent the day doing it, stopping every ten minutes or so to smoke a cigarette. The air in the cell is thick with fumes and Wolfe thinks, not for the first time, that there is a good chance that if he ever does leave this place alive, he will be riddled with lung cancer.
He looks up. ‘Nope, I’m nearly done.’ There is another half-hour until lights out. ‘Want to play cards?’
The two of them often play poker when they are locked up. Wolfe learned the game from his cellmate, but soon outstripped him. Roughly 60 per cent of the time, he lets Phil win.
Phil stops at the door and looks out. ‘It’s doing my head in,’ he complains.
Wolfe has been at Parkhurst long enough to know that, of the three hundred and sixty-five days that make up the prison year, Christmas Day is by far the hardest to get through.
On Christmas Day, everyone is thinking about what their families are doing without them. Christmas Day is when the missing and the loneliness tip the scales and come down hard on the unbearable side.
Visitors are not allowed on Christmas Day. Prisoners can neither send nor receive gifts from outside. The queue for the telephone is less good-natured than usual. Squabbles are more or less continual. The suicide rate in UK prisons peaks over Christmas.
‘Didn’t even get to talk to Sal,’ Phil moans. ‘Who you writing to, anyway? Your mum again?’
He comes close, as though he might be about to peer over Wolfe’s shoulder. Wolfe signs his name at the bottom and folds the single sheet of paper in two.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ he says.
Chapter 69
HMP Isle of Wight – Parkhurst
Clissold Road
Newport
My darling,
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me … a sigh, that spoke of sadness, and longing, and constancy.
On the second day … a hand, a fingernail’s width from mine, always.
On the third day … a fairytale, in which she is the princess in the tower, and I the knight who must rescue her.
On the fourth day … a glimpse of black lace, as delicate as cobweb on a winter’s morning.
On the fifth day … the story of her first love, and the assurance that I am her last.
On the sixth day … a letter, on ivory parchment, on which she has squeezed the essence of her heart.
On the seventh day … a row of burning kisses, from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine.
On the eighth day … a heart, beating in time with my own as we lie together in the rose dawn.
On the ninth day … a promise, that she will be mine, ever true.
On the tenth day … forgiveness, for all that is past.
On the eleventh day … the full force of her rage, that she and I are kept apart by those who are beneath us.
On the twelfth day … a plan, of brilliant, shining simplicity.
All the gifts I ever want from you, my love. Happy Christmas,
Hamish
Chapter 70
THIS MORNING, three days after Christmas, Wolfe looks tired. He is freshly shaved and the faint smell of soap he’s brought into the interview room suggests he’s washed, but his skin looks pale, the lines on his temples deeper, and there are purple smudges running diagonally from the corner of his eyes to the centre of his cheeks. He is yawning as he’s led into the interview room and tries, unsuccessfully, to stifle it.
‘Sorry. Bad night.’ He holds his hands out to be uncuffed. ‘Did you have a good Christmas?’
She hasn’t come to exchange social pleasantries. ‘Did you know Pete Weston before he arrested you?’
The door closes behind the guard and they are alone. Wolfe sinks into the other chair and unfolds his long, lazy grin. ‘I was wondering when you’d work that one out.’
Today, his self-possession is annoying. A man in his position has no business being smug. ‘I have quite enough exercising my brain, thank you, without your withholding information.’
The amusement leaves his mouth, not his eyes.
‘How?’ she asks. ‘How did you know him?’
‘First answer me this. Is he trying to get close to you? Personally, I mean.’
‘He’s asked me much the same thing about you.’
Wolfe looks around, at the small, square, dull room, empty apart from the table and chairs. ‘He has a little more room to manoeuvre than I do.’
‘Yes, I think he’s interested. But he’s not long gone through a bad break-up. I think he’s vulnerable to any half-decent woman who’ll talk to him right now.’
Somewhere, not too far away, is the sound of someone yelling. It has an authoritative ring about it, she thinks it’s probably a guard.
‘Are you pretending to like him to get information? Because if you are, I’m fine with it.’
‘Maybe I’m not pretending. Maybe I do like him.’
Wolfe laughs, and this line of conversation has gone far enough.
‘How do you know him?’
Now he looks almost bored. ‘Perfectly commonplace circumstances. We played football for Keynsham Athletic first team for three seasons. I played left midfield, he was centre back. Sports teams usually socialize after matches, so I got to know him.’
Wolfe and Weston had practically been mates. That made a massive difference. ‘He should have told me that,’ she admits.
‘Of course he should. Sports teams. Shared changing rooms. Skin and hair left lying around on towels. The opportunities to collect someone else’s DNA are multitude. All he had to do was find a towel the same as mine and swap them.’
He has been building up to this for some time, she realizes now. Waiting for the right moment.
‘Daisy the Dalmatian went to matches with me sometimes. Lots of the guys used to pet her.’
Daisy’s hairs on one of the bodies. How easy would it be, to run a hand over a friendly dog’s head and then later, when you were alone, to look down at the short, fine, black and white hairs on the sleeve of your coat?
‘We gave each other lifts to away matches. I can’t specifically remember Pete being in my car, but it has to be a possibility.’
The car carpet fibres, also found on Jessie’s body. Can I stick my bag in your boot, Hamish?
‘Hold on, wait a minute. He wouldn’t be allowed to work on the case if you and he were friends. He’d have been taken off it
immediately.’
Hamish gives her a slow, single nod. ‘Which is exactly what happened. After the arrest, he took a back seat while all the evidence was gathered and sorted. I’m sure he was still involved, but he and I didn’t come into contact. I didn’t see him from the night of the arrest to my first day in court. A woman called Liz Nuttall took the lead on interviewing me.’
‘Could he have got into your house?’ She says it without thinking, because this is nonsense.
‘Somebody did. Somebody accessed my computer and borrowed my car.’
At the end of the corridor a heavy metal door slams shut. Footsteps are heard hurrying towards them.
‘Did this come up at the time? I can’t remember seeing anything on the file.’
‘Of course I mentioned it. But the reaction I got was the same one you’re about to give me.’
‘Why?’
‘Exactly. What possible motive could Weston have for wanting to frame me?’
Actually, that was the easy bit. ‘He was panicking. The case was going nowhere. He needed an arrest. Because of everything you’d just told me, he homed in on his football team and, for reasons that are probably only apparent to him, you fitted the bill.’
Wolfe nods at her to go on, like a school teacher guiding a slow pupil. ‘And the problem with that theory is…’
‘Too risky. Once the killer struck again, it would be obvious he’d arrested the wrong man.’
‘Unless…?’
Unless, Pete himself is the kill—
‘That’s ridiculous. Why on earth would—’
Wolfe lifts up his hands. ‘Why would I? Why would anyone?’
The footsteps in the corridor slow and then stop. There is a brief conversation between the guard outside and the newcomer. Then a new pair of eyes peer in at them.
‘You have a history with fat women.’ Maggie doesn’t look up. She is used to prison guards coming to gawp at her.
Wolfe, who hasn’t turned around, waits until he hears the window in the door closing again. ‘My ex-fiancée is one of the skinniest women you’ll ever meet. Ask my mother for photographs of me with Nancy, who I was seeing for nearly five years before I met Claire. She’d be drowned by size twelve clothes. I like my women lean.’
‘Daisy?’
Again, that closed, reluctant look on his face when Daisy Baron’s name comes up. ‘Daisy was the exception. I fell in love with Daisy in spite of how she looked, not because of it. Had we carried on seeing each other, I’d probably have been on at her to slim down a bit, like the jerk I was in those days.’
‘You never told her that, did you?’
‘What, that I wanted her to lose weight? Christ, no. You didn’t mess with Daisy. I’d have been a bit more—’
‘That you were in love with her. You never told her that.’
That look again. Closed. Sad. Secret. ‘No. I should have done. Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently.’
There is more noise outside.
‘Maggie?’
‘Sorry. This racket is distracting. Is there something going on outside?’
‘Something will be kicking off somewhere. It happens. Don’t worry. The cons can’t get down here without keys. You may have to wait a while before they let you out.’
There is movement on the floor above them as well and she is being too easily distracted. ‘Where were we?’
‘I was giving you the best alternative suspect you could hope for and you were worryingly unmoved by it.’
She makes herself focus. ‘OK, I get that Pete could have framed you, and I get that it could just have been a combination of circumstance and chance that he chose you out of the whole football team, but what you haven’t told me is why Pete killed three women. Especially given that he’s killed no others in the two years since you were arrested.’
‘None that you know of.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Maybe he got a bit cleverer. Maybe he targeted women who weren’t so easily missed. Lot of homeless women in and around Bristol. Maybe he got better at hiding the bodies as well.’
‘And what was his motive?’
‘Ah, glad you mentioned it. Has he told you when his marriage broke up?’
She has to think about that. ‘Not specifically. Long enough for him to have moved out, not long enough for the divorce to be close to finalizing.’
‘He found out Annabelle was shagging one of his colleagues in January 2013, six months before Jessie disappeared. Two months before the Facebook conversation with the fictional Harry began. The whole team knew about it, Maggie. Pete wears his heart on his sleeve. Especially when he’s had a few.’
Is that true? She remembers Pete’s outburst at the police station about his daughter. His coming round to her house half drunk on Christmas Day. ‘Lots of marriages break up. Especially police marriages.’
‘True, but this was a nasty one. He lost his wife, his daughter, his home, and he has to see the bloke who took them away every day and he has to call him sir. That kind of shit would mess with anyone’s head.’
It would, wouldn’t it? ‘I still don’t—’
‘I’ve got a theory on how the bodies got into the caves, by the way. Are you interested?’
She holds up her hands in mock despair. ‘Oh, please.’
‘Everyone more or less believes the girls must have gone into the caves voluntarily, while they were still alive. Agreed?’
‘Because it would be next to impossible to carry dead bodies that size up the gorge cliffs and into caves?’
Wolfe points an index finger at her. ‘Exactly. But only if the bodies were moved as fresh corpses.’
She is conscious of her body tensing up. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I don’t think the bodies were taken to the caves until some time after the girls died. I think they were kept somewhere and left to decompose.’
He stops, lets her think about it. She nods for him to go on.
‘Body tissue breaks down very quickly,’ he says. ‘Especially in summer, or in hot rooms. Insect activity starts to eat away at flesh, at the same time the internal decomposition kicks in. Give it a few months, and you’d be left with not much more than skin and bones.’
‘Which anyone could bundle into a big bag and carry to the caves quite easily.’
He leans back, stretches his legs. ‘And if that’s the way it was done, I’m in the clear, because I was taken into custody days after Myrtle went missing. Her body was still quite sizeable when I was taken out of the picture.’
‘If we can prove that—’
‘If you can prove that, Maggie Rose, I will be forever in your debt.’
There is a look in his eye that she doesn’t want to dwell upon. ‘I can look at the pathology reports again. See if there’s anything at all that would fit that theory.’
‘Thank you. And let’s get back to Detective Pete. Odi may have recognized him. She may have been too frightened to say something because who would take the word of a homeless woman against that of a…’ He pauses, waiting for her to finish his sentence.
‘Of a detective sergeant.’
‘Once she’d said something, once she’d accused him, it would have been all over for her. A detective, especially a senior one, could track her down. She’d be looking over her shoulder the rest of her life. What would have frightened Odi more than knowing the killer she’d witnessed was a police officer?’
‘If this is true, her death is my fault. I’m the one who told Pete Weston about Odi and the possible sighting at Rill Cavern.’
‘Weston lives a hundred yards away from where Odi and Broon were killed. He knew they were there, knew they’d spoken to you. His windows probably overlook that Town Hall entrance. He could have sat quietly in his room for hours, waiting for his chance.’
She has no idea which of the Crown windows is Pete’s. It could easily overlook the Town Hall.
‘And if he left any trace behind, well,
he was first detective on the scene, there’d been a bit of accidental site contamination. Maggie, do you really believe the murders of Odi and Broon were coincidence?’
She doesn’t. Of course, she doesn’t. ‘Hamish, I know how desperate you are for another credible suspect – and I really think you could be on to something with the decomposition idea – but I know this man—’
‘I’d tell you to ask him for a photograph of his wife, but if I’m right, that could be a dangerous thing to do. You should try and see her, though, discreetly.’
The door opens.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Miss Rose. We’re having some trouble on the wing. We need to get Hamish back to his cell.’
Hamish stands as the officers move to handcuff him.
‘Find a photograph of Weston’s wife, Maggie, will you do that?’
‘Why, what on—’
‘You need to look at Annabelle.’
Chapter 71
Email
Sent via the emailaprisoner service
From: Maggie Rose
To: Hamish Wolfe
Date: 28.12.2015
OK, I’ve had a look at Annabelle Weston. I found her on Facebook. Her privacy settings are tight but there is a publicly available photograph. She’s a little overweight, I grant you, but really?
I don’t see it, to be honest, but we can keep it in the armoury. I’m going to be on the road for the next few days, looking up a few of your old college friends. I’ll keep you posted, of course. Take care of yourself.
M
Chapter 72
Email
From: Avon and Somerset Police, Detective Sergeant Peter Weston
To: Maggie Rose
Date: 29.12.2015
Dear Maggie,
Sorry about Xmas Day. Probably is a good idea if we give each other some space. Just until you stop flogging the dead horse that is Hamish Wolfe, then I’d love to take you out to dinner. LOL as the youngsters say! ☺
I’m going to be out of circulation for a few days. DCI Latimer is on at me to ‘tie up every loophole in the Wolfe case’. The poor lamb is seriously rattled (be flattered). I don’t share his anxiety, obvs, but I’m going to have to do something to keep his blood pressure at manageable levels.
Daisy in Chains Page 23