She didn’t give me time to explain before she continued, ‘Let me answer that for you, if you are not up to task, then tell me now and I shall reassign the investigation to someone who feels the case is within their capabilities.’
She gave me an icy glare. I just wished it did something to cool the room down. She then picked up her phone and demanded Grey join us. We waited it out. Both silent. She’d made her point, I didn’t think she was expecting me to wade into this with her.
As soon as he arrived, shirt collar looking loose around his neck, Catherine erupted again. Grey paused where he was, obviously unsure what he was walking into. I didn’t have the words to get into this with her. I’d had my own meltdown; I wasn’t prepared to share in hers. I gave her the silence to blow off some steam.
‘Bloody hell, Anthony, we need a strong team on this, with strong leadership. Do we really think this is the right case for Hannah to be running?’
Several more beads of sweat slithered down the same path as the first, collecting in a damp patch in the waistband of my trousers. No amount of fidgeting was going to stop this happening. I could barely focus on Catherine’s words for the discomfort of her office.
Grey looked at me. ‘I think she can cope. We’ve given her the resources. No one could have predicted the public order problems we’ve seen erupt this past few days. This would have happened, whomever was running this case.’
He was supporting me. Grey was actually backing me up to Catherine. This was a first.
She didn’t look pleased.
‘And you, Hannah, do you think this is the right case for you before the inquest is heard in full and then finalised?’
Grey had actually backed me up.
‘I don’t think any job is the right one, because that means someone has died,’ I leaned forward in my chair, ‘but I do think it’s an investigation I am wholly capable of leading.’
She pursed her lips. ‘I’m getting a lot of pressure from the Chief on this one. The cost to the force has gone up prohibitively with the need for Mutual Aid assistance and the surge in negative publicity for the county does not please him, especially when it’s crime related. He’s not happy. Not happy at all.’
I wished she’d opened another window. The hair at my scalp clung to my head. I wanted out of there. ‘Well, I can’t speak for the chief’s mood, Ma’am, but I can speak for my own and that of my team, and we are good. We’re determined and we’re putting in the hours we need to. The extra staff that have been provided are fitting in well and are being utilised. And I think we may have a pretty good lead going this morning.’
Both Catherine and Grey gave me a questioning look.
‘I’ll know more when I get back to the incident room,’ I clarified, ‘but we’re requesting the list of patients prescribed digoxin who are actually deceased.’
‘What?’ Her tone was incredulous.
‘I was thinking about it – and what if the poisoner is not the person who is being prescribed digoxin or a distributor who has accidentally put digoxin out as something more innocuous, but a family member or friend of a deceased patient? I mean, why would you be using your own medicine? The very medicine that is keeping you alive? This makes more sense. A family member with digoxin left over.’
‘That does make sense. Good move, Hannah. Do some work on it and let me know as soon as you have results.’
Martin had no trouble getting the updated HEAD list with the deceased patients on it. There were only three patients who had previously been taking digoxin who had died in the short time frame we were looking at, which made our job a whole lot easier. If this was the right track. It was a long shot but it was a lot more than we’d had to go on than at any other point during the investigation.
We shared the three names out and the intelligence tasks involved and discovered that one of the families of the patients had actually taken the left-over medication in to the pharmacy to be disposed of after their death. That left two patients with medication still in the hands of grieving family members.
I sent Ross and Martin to visit the GP surgeries of the two remaining patients and they came back with some surprising results. Though patient confidentiality still existed for patients who were dead, the GP of one of the patients in particular felt that in the current circumstances, it was necessary to share certain information with us and for us to use that information as we saw fit within our investigation. And having the awareness of the situation that we now did, thanks to the GP, I felt for what we were about to do.
I realised we’d been looking in the wrong place all along.
101
Aaron and I stood in front of the white uPVC door and waited to see if anyone would answer. The search team was parked up in a van a couple of doors down. We didn’t want to spook anyone here. If we were right, which I believed we were, then this couple, though responsible for utter carnage, had been through quite enough. Rampaging through their front door was not going to resolve the issues we had and I had no intention of screwing up as I had done last year.
I believed we were at the correct address, but I wasn’t taking chances with this so I’d sent Martin and Ross and another search team to the other address to cover our bases.
Aaron was quiet, hands firmly in his trouser pockets. He wasn’t expecting trouble either.
How did I resolve this with him? He’d taken me into his confidence but in the most awkward of circumstances. With, I imagine, little way out. I didn’t want him to be in distress and definitely not with me.
The door opened.
The woman stood before me was pale and slender. Her skin tight to her face.
‘Mrs Knight?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can we come in please?’ I held up my warrant card so she could see it. ‘We need to speak with you and your husband and it’s better if we don’t do it on your doorstep.’
The woman sighed. Not annoyance. Or fear. More resignation. Had she expected this day?
We followed her in to a living room that was clean but lacking. In what exactly, I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
‘Is Mr Knight at home? This conversation needs to involve both of you.’
‘No, he’s not.’ She seated herself on one of the two chairs in the room and indicated with a hand for us to do the same. ‘Can I ask why you’re here?’
‘Before I answer any questions,’ I took the other chair and Aaron took up position on the two-seater sofa, ‘can I ask you about your daughter, Emma?’
She sucked in a breath and her hand went up to her mouth.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Knight, we need to talk about this. We are aware of your loss and don’t want to be insensitive but we need to ask where her medications are, the ones she was taking for her heart failure?’
She nodded and stood.
‘This way. I’ll show you.’
We walked through to a large square airy kitchen. A circular family table was placed in the centre of the room. Connie Knight opened an upper level cupboard door and started moving mugs, boxes of paracetamol, ibuprofen and antacid. She moved them from one side of the cupboard to the other and back again. Her arm movements became more and more frantic.
‘Mrs Knight?’
She turned around.
A single tear slipped down her face.
‘It’s not here.’
102
The tears kept falling silently. Aaron fiddled with his tie; a sign I was now beginning to understand. So many things were slipping into place.
‘Connie,’ I looked at her, at her soundless distress. ‘Can I call you Connie?’
She nodded.
‘We need to know where your husband is. Where has Isaac gone?’
One hand gripped tight hold of the kitchen worktop. Her skin, taut and white over her knuckles.
‘He left. You’ve only just missed him,’ her voice was barely a whisper. She didn’t ask why we needed to speak to him. The tears told me all I needed to know. They kept falling. A silent tr
ail of her agony.
‘Where? Where has he gone? It’s important we get to him as quickly as possible.’
‘He has an allotment. The one on Bessell Lane at the other side of Stapleford. He spends a lot of time there. I don’t see much of him. He says he’s going there. We hurt each other with our grief. He goes to the allotment so he doesn’t have to face me.’ Her fingers gripped harder.
‘And the drugs?’ Aaron asked.
She nodded and tears fell from her face to the floor. ‘Yes. If he’s taken them. Then yes.’
103
We were too far away and too many lives had already been lost for me to be precious about who got to Isaac Knight first, so I phoned Ross and told him and Martin, as they were closer, to get to the allotment and we’d meet them there.
The support van started up and pulled off behind us. Getting off this housing estate wasn’t going to be a problem but we’d seen how snarled the traffic was on the main roads as we drove in. People were trying to get home from work now. It had taken us several hours to get the list, make the enquiries and get the search warrant.
Aaron was quiet behind the wheel. Focused.
‘I’m sorry, Aaron.’
‘Don’t be.’ He didn’t flinch.
‘But I am.’ I hated myself sometimes. ‘I lashed out and it was wrong. I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Derby Road was slow going. Painful.
‘But it does. I rely on you and you know that – and I repay you how? By shouting at you in the corridor.’
Silence.
‘I didn’t mean to put you in a place where you felt you didn’t have a choice but to make that disclosure.’
‘I know you didn’t.’
Dammit. I wanted a conversation. To be let off, I suppose.
‘Do they know?’
‘Who know, what?’ His focus was firmly on the road and progressing as quickly as he could to our destination.
‘Work. About … about the Asperger’s.’
‘Yes, I disclosed it on my application form, then went through the rest of the application process and passed it in the same way as any other person.’
‘Okay.’
‘I just choose not to keep telling every single set of supervisors every time I changed department within the organisation, Hannah.’
‘I get that. Again, I’m sorry I put you in that position.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I won’t.’
‘Okay.’
I picked up my phone to call Ross to see if they were there yet. He’d had it rough. I was worried about how this was going to turn out. It was a volatile and sensitive situation. Was Ross really the right person for this job? To be talking to the poison killer? I’d been supportive as I should be, but that didn’t mean I thought he was in quite the right place yet. He had Martin with him, though.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘For?’
‘Telling me.’
I pressed Ross’s number. There was no answer.
104
It was warm outside, but inside the confines of the small, dark shed it was cooler. He liked that about the allotment. The coolness it offered in the face of blazing heat, as well as the obvious privacy. The weather report said that it would be dry and sunny all week. Another week for him to spend his time here. It had been a long time since he used the allotment for the purpose it was intended. He couldn’t remember the last time he had planted or tended a vegetable or green salad. Many people came to their allotments for time out as well as for growing, but time out was all he came for now.
The knock on the wooden door made him jump. No one came here. Connie didn’t visit and he gave her no reason to. He hadn’t spoken to his allotment neighbours in such a long time, other than a passing ‘good morning’. Before he lost Emma, at weekends they would sit outside and drink whiskey out of old jars until late in the day and wander home after a good day planting and putting the world to rights. But now, he wouldn’t know who would be knocking on his small part of the world. Isaac didn’t move, his thoughts lost in the past.
Then a voice broke through.
‘Mr Knight, it’s the police, can you open up please so we can have a word?’
So this was it, then.
Isaac had never wanted it to go this far. He hadn’t wanted that small girl to die. He didn’t want the city to crumble and break. He simply wanted people to notice his girl was gone and to pay attention as to why, to do something about it.
What would happen to him now?
His hands shook in his lap where he was seated.
He never wanted this hell to break loose.
‘Mr Knight? We really need you to open the door. It’d be much better if we could come in and talk to you, rather than talk to you through the door where others might hear your business.’
Isaac Knight stood and opened the door.
105
There were two men standing in front of him. One younger than the other. Both looked very serious. They asked to come in and he moved aside so they could enter. The shed might have been small but there was room to move as he kept it tidy. Underneath the running kitchen worktop was a cupboard where he was storing all Em’s leftover medications.
Two three-legged stools fit neatly into the space and propped in the far corner were his spade, fork and trowel.
They looked at him a moment and he looked back. The time had come.
Then the older of the two men broke the silence. He introduced them, though Isaac instantly forgot their names as his mind whirled with the mental overload of what he’d done and what was to come. The older officer then told him that officers had been to his house. That they’d spoken to Connie.
His Connie.
His darling, Connie.
His wife. The woman he loved. The woman he had pushed away for so long. Police turning up at their door because of him. How do you cope with more pain when you already have more than the world should ever throw at a person? How does one deal with the grief when a child has been so savagely taken from you – slowly and painfully?
The older one spoke again, breaking through the fog and pain of swirling thoughts. He said they were looking for something and that Connie found it wasn’t where she expected it to be, became upset and directed them here. Maybe Isaac could help?
His mind stuck on the words that she had become upset. He had done this to her. How could he have not known this would have hurt her?
A small voice emerged from Isaac. ‘She has been grieving so much. She lost so much. I never wanted to cause her any pain.’
106
David cleaned out the bucket and tidied it away into the cupboard. Mrs Rudyard wasn’t well today and had vomited all over herself and the floor in the dining hall, much to the shock and disgust of some of the others. They were a funny old bunch. Set in their ways. Crotchety and bad tempered at times, but he loved working here. He’d cleaned up the floor and chatted to the residents to calm them down while Cressida had taken Mrs Rudyard back to her room to get cleaned up.
He wasn’t worried about her. She was old now, ninety-two years of age and still going strong. But they would keep an eye on her.
He opened her door and found her sitting up in her chair. A spot of colour, one on each cheek, glowing on her face. He adored this woman. Nothing ever stopped her. He fully expected her to get her letter from the Queen and he’d be here to open it with her. She smiled that cheeky smile at him as he walked in.
‘So, David, did I upset Vernon and Pauline just now? I can imagine their faces.’ Mrs Rudyard laughed, which changed into a cough.
‘Hey, take it easy.’ David sat in the other chair. ‘You did get a few tuts and funny looks as you were leaving, but you also had some concerned looks, Lois. Give them some credit, you have some friends out there.’
She made a shooing motion with her hand. ‘I know, I know. I’m fine. It must have been something I ate this morning. I
feel better now it’s out. I’m going to sit in here for a little while and listen to my audiobook before I come out to the rec room. Okay?’
‘Okay. You want me to pass you your CD player from the bedside table?’
‘Yes please, David.’
He handed her the small machine. ‘What’re you listening to?’
‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.’
‘Any good?’
‘Yes. You should read more, young man.’
He laughed. ‘I read plenty, Lois.’
‘I don’t mean the sports pages.’
‘You’ll convert me one day, but I spend so many hours here I don’t have much time left. I do enjoy hearing about the stories through you, so let me know all about The Caged Birds when you’re done.’
‘Okay.’ She put her skeletal hand over his. ‘Thank you, David. You make this place so much more bearable.’
He smiled down at her and patted her hand with his free one. ‘You know you’re my favourite and you’re the person who makes working here a complete pleasure.’ He stood and moved towards the door.
‘Press the buzzer when you want help to come back out to the rec room.’
107
They asked him if he had any medications in the shed that he wanted to hand over before they did a search of the entire area. Shed and allotment.
Isaac only took a moment to think about his answer. He had been thinking of nothing else but the consequences of his actions the past few days, even if he hadn’t considered this particular scenario. He knew what the right thing to do was.
He sat with a thud down on the stool he had recently vacated. It was cooler now, the air in the allotment shed chilling the plastic seat. He welcomed the freshness. It was starting to feel stuffy and claustrophobic in this space, where the single strip light overhead cast a weird amber sheen on everything in the wooden hut.
The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series) Page 44