‘So technically he had time to go home, kill his wife and get back to the meeting. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’
‘It is, sir, just about. But I understand from DS Cumba that there would have been a lot of blood.’
Keith was right, but Niall Strachan was a smart guy and perfectly capable of equipping himself with some slip-on coveralls to protect his clothes.
‘We need to seize his car, Keith. Full DNA check, the lot. If he killed her, he wouldn’t have had much time to dispose of whatever he was wearing. He could have dumped something on his way back into town, but not without leaving a trace in the boot or on the back seat. And start checking CCTV and ANPR on the A580. He didn’t have a lot of time, so the East Lancs Road would be the obvious route.’
Tom hung up. Maybe there was nothing complex about this murder at all. Maybe it was just another case of uxoricide – the killing of a wife. An ugly word for a dreadful crime.
22
‘Tom! Excellent timing,’ Amy Sanders said as Tom appeared at the mortuary. She put her head on one side and looked at him. ‘You don’t like this, do you?’
‘Not especially. I know it has to be done, but even after all these years I struggle to ignore the thought that less than twenty-four hours ago, the woman lying on your table was walking around, eating, drinking, laughing, crying. On the other hand, seeing her like this is what drives me to find out who killed her.’
‘Why do you think I do this job? A post-mortem can tell you so much about what happened.’
She was right, but it didn’t make him like it any better. ‘I realise you’ve not started yet, but do you have anything you can tell me?’
‘I can provide a reasonably accurate time of death, but I bet Jumbo’s already given you his best guess, hasn’t he? He likes to do everyone else’s job,’ Amy said with a grunt. ‘He’s bloody amazing at his own, so I grin and bear it.’
‘Don’t worry. His wisdom’s not confined to your area of expertise. He’ll be here soon, so let’s see if he’s right.’
At that moment the door opened and in walked the man himself, along with a small Asian girl Tom knew to be the exhibits officer.
‘Tom, Amy,’ Jumbo said, his face serious. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’ He hated post-mortems as much as Tom did.
‘I think you were about to talk to me about time of death, Amy?’ Tom said.
The pathologist tried and failed to hide a smile, and Jumbo grinned, clearly guessing they had been talking about him.
‘I arrived just after seven thirty a.m.,’ Amy said, ‘and based on the usual factors – body temperature in relation to air temperature, degree of rigor mortis and so on – I would say she died some time around midnight, maybe up to thirty minutes later. She was killed where she was found – the body hadn’t been moved.’
Amy walked across to where Genevieve’s body lay on the autopsy table.
‘If you look here, you can see her hair is matted with blood. She was hit with a heavy object, which didn’t kill her – or at least not immediately because she pumped out a lot of blood from the stabbings. But it was probably enough to slow her down, stop her fighting.’
‘We haven’t found whatever was used to knock her out, but we’re going further into the fields on either side of the Loopline,’ Jumbo said.
Amy pointed to the puncture wounds in her abdomen. ‘Two deep, penetrating wounds. What I find interesting is that the knife went in, but instead of being pulled straight back out again, it appears to have been twisted. That maximises the damage caused, but I’m not sure how many people would know that. I’ve also tested the angle of the blade. Our victim was a tall woman, a fraction under six feet – 181 centimetres – and she was wearing high heels. I think whoever stabbed her was shorter. The blade was angled upwards, although that’s to be expected if the hand was thrust up from waist height. But it seems a more acute angle.’
Jumbo spoke to the exhibits officer, who produced a plastic bag containing the knife they had found in the culvert.
‘It’s been checked and printed, so it’s okay to touch.’
Tom looked at it again. It was a kitchen knife with a long thin blade. There was nothing special about it, as far as he could see, but given the blade he wasn’t surprised it had been lethal. He knew from past post-mortems that a knife usually had to penetrate quite a long way to hit a vital organ or artery.
Tom listened as Amy talked through the visible injuries, and then she was ready to make the first incision. He focused on her words, rather on what was happening on the table in front of him.
Ten minutes into the examination, Tom’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
‘I’m sorry, I need to take this,’ he said, seeing it was Becky. He stepped away from the table to speak to her.
‘Tom, we’ve got the list of pass codes from Martha Porter’s computer and managed to get into Genevieve’s phone. She received a message at eleven fifty.’
Tom could feel his pulse speed up, and he could hear from Becky’s tone that she was excited at the breakthrough.
‘Saying?’
‘The most important bit was asking Genevieve to come outside. I’ll read it.’
‘Save it. I’m coming back. Who was it from?’
‘We don’t know – at least, not yet. A name didn’t come up on the screen – only a number – so not someone in her contacts list. But we’re tracking it now. I assumed you’d want to be here. Keith’s heading to the mortuary to deputise for you. Is that okay?’
It was more than okay, but Tom didn’t want to say so.
‘It’s fine. As soon as he arrives, I’ll head back. By then we should know who sent it.’
‘Unless it was a burner,’ Becky said.
‘Let’s hope not. I’ll see you shortly.’
Tom hung up. Now they could really get cracking.
‘Sorry, Amy, Jumbo – I’ll have to leave you to it, I’m afraid. I’ll stay until DI Sims gets here, and he can take over from me.’
Jumbo grinned. ‘I bet you got Becky to call you on some fake emergency or other, didn’t you?’
‘As if,’ Tom said, returning the smile but unable to hide his relief.
23
As Tom walked through the door of the incident room, he immediately felt the buzz. Everyone was moving with a sense of urgency, and an animated Becky was speaking to someone on the phone. She looked up as Tom walked in and lifted her hand, signalling him to come over to her desk.
‘You’re sure about this?’ he heard her say. ‘Sorry, yes, of course you’re sure. DCI Douglas has just walked in. I’ll brief him and we’ll get back to you. Thanks, Ted – much appreciated.’
She hung up and raised wide eyes to Tom. ‘You’ve only been gone about an hour, and so much has happened that I don’t know where to start.’
‘The phone?’
‘Yes. Let’s start there. The tech team accessed the folder on Martha Porter’s computer with the list of phones and passwords, including Genevieve’s. They opened the phone and checked for messages, and as we thought, she was contacted via iMessage by another iPhone. The message said’ – Becky glanced at her computer screen – ‘“Last week you begged me to tell you what I know, and I refused. But I’ve changed my mind. I’ll give you what you want if you give me what I want – and you know what that is. He’s mine – not yours. I’m outside, down the path to the Loopline. If you want answers, come and find me.”’
Her eyes went back to Tom’s.
‘We need to dissect each of those phrases, but for now do we have any clue who left the message?’ he asked.
‘That’s what Ted was telling me. The phone used to message her is registered to XO-Tech, but he’s gone through the list on Martha’s computer, and it’s not allocated to anyone. It’s a spare.’
‘At least it’s not a bloody burner, so we have somewhere to start. A bugger it wasn’t assigned, though.’
‘I know. I’ve asked Spencer Johansson if there’s any way he can chec
k who might have had access to it. They control the apps on those phones, Tom. If someone has it in their pocket, surely they’ll be able to track it? This has to be our murderer.’
‘We can justify cell siting, too. I’ll speak to Philippa.’
Tom didn’t relish the thought of a conversation with his boss, Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley, until he had some more information. She was very results driven, as she had to be, but she had a tendency to expect the unachievable.
‘Moving on,’ Becky said, ‘we’ve pulled the email messages from the thumb drive that Niall gave us, and Ted has married them up with an email account in Martha’s name, but not her office email address. She had a Gmail account, but it was difficult to find on her computer. There was nothing in her browser history, and it was only by doing some serious rooting around that Ted found it.’
‘And the content of the messages?’
‘Basically, Martha was saying she could offer Niall much more than Genevieve, who she described as a sponger. She progressed from that to saying she knew everything about the business, and she was in an excellent position to help him, as his partner in every meaning of the word. Vague threats wrapped up to sound like she was offering him something special.’
Tom blew out a long, slow breath. ‘Is it possible she saw Genevieve as the only thing standing between her and Niall?’
‘Not from what he said. He told us he avoided being behind closed doors with her, so she must have known he wasn’t keen.’
‘Are people always logical about these things, though? Was there anything else of interest on Genevieve’s phone?’
‘Ted’s going to print out the lot, so we can go through it. We’ll check her movements too, from Niall’s tracker. But this seemed a priority. Rob’s on his way back from talking to some of Genevieve’s friends, who had apparently already convened to discuss the demise of their friend. They were in a wine bar overlooking the canal and seemed to have been there a while. He’ll fill us in when he gets back.’
‘Give me a shout as soon as he gets here. In the meantime, I’ll go and brave the lioness’s den!’
‘So that’s where we’re up to,’ Tom said, having filled Philippa Stanley in on everything that had happened in the last thirteen hours. He leaned back in his chair and waited, knowing she would have something to say.
Despite his occasional flippant remarks about his boss, Tom had huge respect for her, and she had dug him out of a few holes in the past. Their relationship was always tinged with reminders of when she was his probationer many years ago, although since then she had leapfrogged him in rank. He was happy with that. He wouldn’t have had her job if they had quadrupled his salary.
Philippa was tapping her pen on the clean blotter in front of her. There was never a thing out of place on her desk, and she looked as immaculate as ever in her smart dark suit and white blouse. Tom had sometimes wondered how Philippa’s chin-length brunette bob always managed to look identical. It never seemed to be in need of a trim, but on the other hand, she never had that just-been-to-the-hairdresser look.
‘I’m happy to authorise the cell siting,’ she said finally. ‘The evidence suggests that whoever has that phone is either the murderer or was the last person to see Genevieve Strachan alive. I take it the victim didn’t reply to the message?’
‘No. Nothing. Its content was apparently enough to persuade her to go out to meet her killer.’ Tom referred to his phone, displaying a copy of the message that Becky had forwarded. ‘“Last week you begged me to tell you what I know.” We don’t know what that refers to, but we do know that Genevieve was seen arguing with Martha Porter last week. No one seems to know what it was about. She could have simply wanted Martha to tell her where Niall was, as I understand he was out at the time. It goes on to say, “He’s mine – not yours.” The easy conclusion to leap to is that this is somehow related to the emails from Martha Porter, trying to entice Niall away from Genevieve, but I don’t think we should make that assumption.’
‘Why not?’ Philippa asked. Tom was certain she knew the answer as well as he did but was testing his logic.
‘Martha apparently made a pass at Niall and then subsequently sent him some emails saying she was the right partner for him. She also suggested she knew things about him that made her valuable. But it’s equally feasible that Niall had a lover – not just someone who fancied her chances, as Martha allegedly did. He had a private staircase from his office to the street, and Spencer Johansson made some remark about him using it when he didn’t want people to know where he was going. He suggested this was to do with the business, but…’
‘Okay. No assumptions. I agree. There are two priorities, as far as I can see. Find Martha Porter and either establish her as a credible suspect or eliminate her from the enquiry, and second, find out who has the phone that was used to message Genevieve. I can help with the latter by getting a trace on the phone. But what are you doing about Martha Porter?’
‘DI Sims knows more about this, but he’s not here at the moment. He took over from me at the PM this afternoon – it seemed more important that I got back.’
Philippa raised her eyebrows. She had known Tom a long time, but she said nothing and waited for him to continue.
‘He’s been trying to find some background on Porter, but until we saw those emails, we didn’t consider her hugely important. She was just a member of staff who either left because she had somewhere else she needed to be, or she’d freaked out that someone she knew had been murdered. That was it. So other than seizing her computer to check for passwords, we didn’t consider any other action was necessary.’
‘And now?’
‘She fancied the boss. Is that any reason to kill, do you think?’
‘You tell me, Tom. A fair number of the females here – and possibly even the males – have gone into a flutter over you in the past. Have you ever felt that they would kill to get you?’
Tom laughed. ‘I think you’re exaggerating, Philippa. And thanks for mentioning “the past” as if I could no longer be of any possible interest. Seriously, though, we’re doing what we can to find Porter, even though I would have thought there’d need to be a much deeper motive for murder. She’d have to be a bit of a psycho to believe a man who had just lost his wife would fall into her arms.’
Philippa gave him a look. ‘She wouldn’t be the first. And anyway, it might not be so simple. Did he ever respond to her emails?’
‘Not as far as we know, but he has the technical savvy to obliterate any trace if he had. I know what you’re thinking: did he really reject her, or are they lovers and was this a pact to get rid of the wife?’
‘And?’
‘Very possibly. We’re heading back to XO-Tech soon, and I’ll talk to the staff again – let’s see what the gossips have to say.’
As Tom finished speaking, Philippa was already picking up her phone, clearly indicating the meeting was at an end. Tom stood up to leave. She was issuing instructions before he reached the door.
24
There’s blood everywhere. It’s on my T-shirt, on my hands, under my nails. The body is on the ground, one hand stretched out as if she’s trying to grab my ankle, and I take a step back into the mud.
I stare at the knife in my hand as a voice whispers in my ear, ‘You did the right thing.’
She isn’t moving. Her eyes are open, staring. Not at me – they’re staring at nothing.
How has it come to this? What have I done?
The voice comes again, still a whisper, but urgent, pressing. ‘You need to go. Run!’
I pause for a moment longer, then I’m running along the deserted path. I can hear water and I realise I’m still holding the knife. I throw it as hard as I can, and hear it clatter on the stones. It didn’t go very far, but I can’t stop now. I run and run, sobs choking me.
All my life I’ve been forced to confront the worst of myself. But I never thought I was capable of this.
25
MARTHA
‘Mummy?’ The frightened voice of Alfie wakes me, and I roll towards him on the bed, for a moment unsure of where I am. ‘You were shouting,’ he says, his lip quivering.
I shake myself awake. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. It was just a bad dream. How are you feeling now?’
I’d dosed Alfie with medicine as soon as we got back from the chemist to try to bring his temperature down and lain down with him. I must have drifted off.
‘Not as horrid now, I don’t think,’ he says.
I reach out a hand to feel his skin, and although it’s warm, it no longer feels feverish. I, on the other hand, have sweat running between my breasts, and my hair is sticking damply to the back of my neck. But this isn’t a fever. It’s the dream. I push it to the back of my mind.
I’ve decided that the strain of being here, so close to home, is too great for either of us, so we’re going to move on tomorrow – a day earlier than my original plan. I feel too vulnerable here. I hadn’t thought it would be like this; I thought I would feel safe. I don’t.
The man in the car freaked me out. I’m sure he was only flirting, but it’s the reason I’ve moved so many times, always scared that someone would recognise me. I know the word will have been spread far and wide that I’m missing, and I never know when I might be seen, my presence reported back. I set myself a rule that the maximum time in one place would be a year, but Alfie is so happy at school, and I feel guilty about repeatedly disrupting his life, so it’s been two years this time. He’s a trusting, sociable child, and I don’t want to knock that out of him.
I wish I had a better idea of what was happening with the investigation into Genevieve’s murder. All I have is Elise’s exaggerated posts, guaranteed to put her in the spotlight. Nevertheless, I can’t resist quickly checking on her Facebook page to see what else she’s had to say.
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