by Robert Innes
“He told me he loved me,” Sonia murmured, tears forming in her eyes. “He said we could be together.”
“When did he say that?”
“When I visited him,” Sonia mumbled.
Blake nodded. “According to his prison visitor file, the only person who’s been to see Thomas Frost in the past few years has been his son, Simon. Except, as it turns out, Simon Frost now lives abroad. He moved to Australia only a year after his father went to prison. He lives Down Under with a new life. So, who was going to visit him in his son’s place?”
Sonia threw herself down on the sofa with her head in her hands. “He got me in touch with some of his contacts,” she said quietly. “They got me a false ID card so I could masquerade as his relative. I applied for a visiting order, told them that there had been a typo on their system and that Thomas didn’t have a son called Simon, he had a daughter called Simone. Just one letter out. It seemed like such a harmless thing to do so we could meet and be together.” She sighed and smiled, staring out in front of her. “That first time we saw each other was everything I hoped it would be and more. I just wish I’d been able to touch him. We couldn’t obviously, because of the glass.”
Blake walked across the room and sat next to her on the sofa. “And then he worked his magic on you, and convinced you that Kerry had to die.”
Sonia looked at Blake, a sliver of shame on her face. “I did like Kerry, but you said yourself how in love you are with your partner. You’d kill for him, that’s exactly what you said.”
Blake had never regretted his own words more. “Jamie was just perfect for you, wasn’t he? And he knows absolutely nothing about Thomas Frost, but I bet Frost knows all about him, right? The pair of you planned this to the letter. But it was a sick plan, Sonia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a murder so callous as the one you committed when you killed Kerry.”
He stood up and looked into the bedroom again. “A whole room where you could hide a murder weapon. And forensics searched from top to bottom, believe me. But why on earth would they look in the lampshade? Because that crash that we heard wasn’t Kerry being killed was it?”
Sonia looked down at the floor, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“It was Kerry collapsing. I would never have worked it out, until Jamie mentioned that Kerry couldn’t go to the same bars as him because of the lights. There are different forms of epilepsy, but what only a few people seemed to know was that Kerry suffered from photosensitive epilepsy. And you used that to kill her.”
Sonia put her head in her hands. “It meant that she couldn’t know what I was doing to her. I don’t think I could have gone through with it if she’d been fully aware.”
“You mentioned that you used to be a technician at one of the bars in town,” Blake continued, looking at her with disgust and disbelief. “So you know how to set up disco lights and how to alter the intensity of the bulb. When you changed the light bulb in her bedroom that night, you didn’t use one of Clayton Apartment’s bulbs that infamously never worked. You used one you’d made yourself. One you’d be able to activate and control from outside the flat. I’m guessing on one of those small remote control things that you get for fibrotic lights?
“You knew she was waking up at eight. Us hearing the alarm through the door was your cue. You gave me some rubbish about her using the shower so that I’d be far enough away to give you just enough time to do what you needed to do. Once the alarm had gone off, you activated the bulb. The flashing and intensity of it was so severe that she must have collapsed and start fitting straight away, hence the crash we heard. Once we ran inside, idiot that I am, I let you persuade me to check in the bathroom first which gave you enough time to run in the bedroom and strangle her, made a lot easier by the fact that she was incapacitated, and the last thing you’re supposed to do with someone having a seizure or a fit is restrict them. It’s on any first aid course. Then you switched the light off just as I ran in and as far as I’m concerned she had been strangled by some phantom that was able to get in before either of us had got there.
“And of course your murder weapon disappeared as soon as you’d let go of it. Straight back onto your waist. A long piece of elastic that keeps the keys to the apartment attached to you at all times. I walk in and you release it from round her neck. One throttled victim, and not a murder weapon to be seen.”
Sonia remained silent for a few moments, then she looked up at Blake and gave him a small smile. “Thomas said you were clever. I think you were half the reason why he wanted to do all this. To get one over on the man who locked him up.”
“Which would explain why you felt the need to post that poster on my door after you’d followed me home,” Blake added. “The speed you drove back here before I could reach must have been amazing, so much so that you ran a guy off the road. Still, what did other people’s lives matter so long as you kept yourself out of the limelight? Jamie couldn’t have been more useful to you if he had been under Frost’s control himself, with him going around threatening Kerry and beating Marcus black and blue. All you had to do to make him look doubly capable of killing Kerry was to just whack Marcus hard enough to finish him off. The finger of blame would then go directly to Jamie.”
As Blake put the handcuffs on her wrists and read her rights, Sonia looked around the apartment, apparently trying to take in the normal surroundings around her before she was taken away.
“Just one question you never answered, Blake,” she said, looking up at him.
“What’s that?”
“Do you think I’ll ever find love? True love?”
Blake looked down at her in pity and led her down the corridor. “Who knows, Sonia? Maybe one day someone will write to you.”
When Blake arrived back at the station, Sonia was put in a cell, though he made sure it was one as far away from Jamie as possible. He walked into the meeting room where the rest of the team were waiting for him.
“So, we weren’t kidding when we said it happened right under your nose?” Gardiner called pompously.
Blake ignored him, instead turning to Patil and Mattison. “How are you two?”
They looked at each other, cautiously but happily. “We’re good, Sir.” Patil said. “We’re going to have a long chat tonight about the future.”
“But, we’re in a good place,” Mattison added, before glancing at Patil. “Aren’t we?”
She nodded and kissed him on the cheek.
At that moment, Inspector Royale entered the room. He looked distracted, and a little confused.
“You alright, Sir?” Blake asked him.
Royale turned to him, a slightly vacant expression on his face. “Hmm? Yes, yes. Well done. I’ve just got a bit of a headache, that’s all. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Blake watched him walk unsteadily into his office and was just about to follow him in when Mandy Darnwood poked her head round the door. “DS Harte? You have a visitor.”
Blake smiled happily as Harrison entered. “Sorry if I’m interrupting,” he said, waving at the others.
“Not at all, in fact, I could not be happier to see you,” Blake said, wrapping his arms around him. “How goes the moving in?”
“Oh, congratulations!” Patil said. “You never said, Sir!”
“Work and relationships don’t mix, Mini. Present company excluded of course.”
“It’s going alright,” Harrison said. “I didn’t know whether you were finished or not, I thought we could have some dinner out?”
“Sounds good to me,” Blake said. “We need to have a long conversation too. Except ours concerns goats. And sheds. And huge padlocks.”
There was a little ripple of laughter around the room as Harrison looked up at Blake in mock outrage.
“I’ll just finish up here,” Blake told Harrison. “Let me just give these documents to the Inspector and I should be right with you.”
He picked up the papers from his desk and strolled towards Royale’s office, knocking on the door a
s he entered. Royale’s chair was spun round and facing the window. “Sir, can you check these through?” Blake asked him. “I need to just –” But immediately Blake knew something was wrong. He threw the documents down on the desk and spun the chair round. “Sir?”
The sight awaiting him made him recoil in horror. Royale’s face had dropped on one side, his eyes closed. His body appeared limp and lifeless. He had had a stroke.
“Call an ambulance!” Blake yelled into the meeting room. As pandemonium broke out, Blake checked to see if Royale was breathing and whether there was a pulse. He could feel nothing. Moving him onto the floor, he immediately began CPR as he heard Darnwood on the phone behind him.
But by the time the paramedics had arrived, there was still no response from Royale. Though they wheeled him out on the stretcher, performing the chest pumps all the way, Blake could sense it was too late. They followed the paramedics to the door and watched as Royale was quickly loaded into the ambulance and was driven away. The siren wailed loudly, echoing around the village, the residents of which who were soon to discover that their numbers had been lessened by one.
The funeral was the most beautiful Blake could remember. He had only been to one other funeral for a policeman, which had also been a great occasion, but the camaraderie amongst the people of Harmschapel had moved him so much that by the time the huge procession, which seemed to contain almost everybody in the village, had been led out of St Abra’s church, Blake had been in tears.
Harrison gripped Blake’s hand as they all walked back to the station together. “That was a really nice speech you made in there. I’m proud of you.”
Blake had been called upon to give a eulogy for Royale on behalf of the station and had taken the time to point out all his attributes that had made him such as delight to work under. Blake’s life had greatly improved since moving to Harmschapel and he had always partly held Royale in acclaim for that. He just wished he had had the chance to say it.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Patil said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “What happens at the station now?”
“What do you mean?” Blake asked.
“Will you be promoted, Sir?” Mattison asked, linking arms with Patil. “Seems like the obvious thing to do, what with you being second in command.”
“It doesn’t quite work like that, Mattison,” boomed Gardiner. “They’ll need to do internal interviews. Make sure they speak to all the people that would be right for the job.” He adjusted his tie, causing Mattison to laugh out loud.
“You? You think they’ll make you Inspector of the station?”
“Hey, Matti,” Blake said, tapping him on the arm. “There’s no reason why Michael could not make Inspector. No reason at all.” He exchanged a meaningful look with Harrison, implying that the day Gardiner was put in charge of the station was the day he would resign.
As they arrived at the station, Harrison kissed Blake goodbye and walked home. He had now officially moved in and the only thing left to do was to complete the shed for Betty. Blake had a quietly optimistic feeling that she was even starting to get used to him, by which she had not tried to head butt him for the last two days.
When they entered the station, they found Darnwood stood at the desk looking pensive. “How was the service?” she asked delicately.
“Beautiful,” Blake replied. “We sent the old boy out in style.”
There was a murmuring of agreement around the other officers.
“Good,” Darnwood said, glancing at the meeting room. “We’ve got a visitor.”
They all exchanged glances and hurried to the meeting room. It appeared empty, but as they all walked in, a man appeared in the doorway of Royale’s office. He was very tall, almost skeletal looking, with silver stemmed spectacles on the edge of his thin nose. If Blake had not have known better, he would have confused the man for a ballet dancer, but the uniform he was wearing left no mistake as to who this stranger was to be.
“Ah,” he said sharply as they all gathered. “Glad you could all make it.”
“We’ve been to a funeral,” Blake replied, eyeing him cautiously. “May I ask who you are?”
The man picked up an inspector’s hat from the desk and placed it smartly on top of his head. “Angel. Inspector Jacob Angel. I shall be taking over from Inspector Royale after his sad passing.” The man could not have sounded less grieved if he had tried. “I assume you’re all back on duty now? Carry on. Detective Sergeant Harte, is it?”
Blake stared at him, agog. Already, the apparent difference between Royale and Angel’s personas were staggering. “Yes?”
“Yes, Sir,” Angel corrected. “Don’t let that happen again, incidentally, but I’d like to see you in my office when you have a moment.” He held the office door open, apparently to indicate that the ‘moment’ was to be immediately.
Blake and the other officers all exchanged horrified looks. It seemed things in Harmschapel station were about to change.
THE END
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Other Blake Harte Mystery Books By Robert Innes
Untouchable (Out now)
Confessional (Out now)
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