by Frank Smith
‘You’re in a boiler suit.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I told him he didn’t know the half of it, and you were—’
‘Oh, Neil, you didn’t!’ Grace looked horrified as she started to get up, then shook her head when she saw the grin on his face. ‘You had better not have if you value your life,’ she warned.
‘So what’s Charlie’s chief analyst doing here scrambling about on hands and knees?’ he asked.
‘Cliff was here taking pictures first thing this morning, but most of our people are over in Tenborough at the scene of a warehouse robbery that went wrong last night. So I’m it for the moment.’
‘Find anything useful?’
‘Hard to say what is and what isn’t, but I’m bagging anything that looks promising. Are you looking for anything in particular?’
‘Yes, I am. I’d like to know, if Susan Chase fell backwards and hit her head on that fourth step from the bottom of the stairs, how she managed to end up on the floor at the bottom? It would have made more sense to me if she’d been found part way up the stairs.’
‘Perhaps she managed to push herself to her feet, then tumbled the rest of the way?’
Paget shook his head. ‘I doubt that,’ he said. ‘It’s a bad fracture and she’s still unconscious.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Grace pointed out. ‘There are documented cases of people who have carried on as if nothing had happened after severe blows to the head, only to collapse later.’
Paget squatted down to examine the iron steps. ‘It’s possible,’ he agreed, ‘but I saw the pictures of the wound this morning, and I don’t think she fell against this step. I think her injury was caused by the same weapon that killed Laura Holbrook, and so does Starkie.’
‘You think all this was staged?’
‘I can’t prove it, at least not yet, but I don’t think it was an accident.’
Grace studied the marks on the carpet. ‘According to what you told me last night, or should I say this morning, and the way it’s drawn out here, one of the crutches was broken, and Susan was lying on top of one of the pieces, so it would seem we are supposed to believe that, either it broke and caused her to fall, or she slipped and it broke when she went down. But if the whole thing was staged, it might explain this.’ Grace led Paget under the curve of the staircase and pointed upward. ‘I found splinters from the broken crutch caught between the fifth step and the side support, and several more on the floor below the steps.
‘Now, let’s say that Susan was higher up the staircase than we thought – it doesn’t matter in this case whether she was going up or coming down – and her crutch became wedged between the steps and broke. If she fell from there, there is no way she could have ended up where she was found, because the spiral is too tight. Unless, of course, she tumbled around the curve, but then she would be pretty banged up by the time she got to the bottom. Was she badly bruised?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. The surgeon didn’t mention it.’
‘So, how did the splinters get here?’ Grace asked rhetorically. ‘A wooden crutch is not that easy to break. But if someone wanted to break one deliberately, all they would have to do is jam it between the back of these two steps, put their weight on the lower end of the crutch, and you have all the leverage necessary to snap the thing in two. I didn’t know if it meant anything at the time, but I photographed it and bagged the splinters just in case.’
Paget nodded slowly. ‘Then Mrs Marshall may not have been imagining things when she said she thought she saw someone in the shadows back here when she first entered the shop. Someone who slipped out of the back door in such a hurry that they didn’t have time to close it properly. Which may be why he or she didn’t have time to study the scene to make sure it looked right before they left – or to make sure that Susan was dead!’
‘Bit of a hold-up on the warrants,’ Ormside told Paget later that day. ‘The super phoned down to say he’s being questioned about why we need to go into the Johnson house and shop, since no one in those premises is suspected of a crime. I went over it with him about the dogs, and I think I was able to satisfy him, but it doesn’t look as if we’ll be getting all three warrants until the end of the day. Do you still want to have the teams ready to go when they do arrive? It will mean a hell of a lot of overtime, and I very much doubt if the super will authorize it.’
Paget shook his head. ‘We’d never get authorization for the overtime, so you can tell everyone to stand down. I don’t think Goodwin will be going anywhere, so we’ll go in after she’s left for work tomorrow morning.’
Thirty-Two
Thursday, March 26
Much of the morning briefing session was taken up with the forthcoming execution of the search warrants, and the assignment of people to each location. Len Ormside – much to his surprise and consternation – was the designated leader of the team that would be searching the shop and living quarters in Bishop’s Gate, while Tregalles would head the team searching Peggy Goodwin’s flat in Caledonia Street.
Paget would wait until he’d heard back from the first two teams before leading his team into the Micro-Engineering Labs building to search Peggy Goodwin’s office, and bring her in for questioning.
‘So let’s make sure that no one is allowed to let her know what is happening until we get there,’ he concluded, ‘and that applies particularly to Mr and Mrs Johnson. No phone calls in or out for them until we bring Goodwin in. You all know what we’re looking for, so make sure you remember the rules, because I want everything to be done by the book. No short cuts. Any questions? Right, then, you’ll be leaving here in fifteen minutes.’
‘I haven’t seen Molly this morning,’ Tregalles said, looking around. ‘Whose team is she on?’
‘She’s away today,’ Ormside told him. ‘She’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘A day off in the middle of the week when we’re just about to wrap this up?’ Tregalles said. ‘How did she wangle that? Bit of pull with the boss, was it, since she seems to be the flavour of the month?’
‘That’s right,’ Ormside said. ‘Same as was done for you when you sat your sergeant’s exam.’
‘Molly’s taking the sergeant’s exam?’ Tregalles spluttered. ‘She never said anything about that to me.’
‘Nor anyone else,’ said Ormside. ‘I had to know, of course, and so did Paget in order to assess her field experience and readiness for the practical aspects of the position if she passes the exam. Molly said she didn’t want anyone else to know in case she found she wasn’t ready for it. But she’s been studying hard, and I’m sure she’ll do well.’
Tregalles blew out his cheeks. ‘So that’s what’s been going on,’ he said. ‘You might have told me, Len. I mean you must admit it did look a bit odd, and I couldn’t help wondering why the boss kept taking her with him.’
‘Thought he’d gone off you in favour of Molly, did you?’
‘’Course not!’ Tregalles could feel his face reddening. Ormside had come just a little too close to the truth for comfort. ‘It’s just that I don’t see why you couldn’t have at least given me a hint.’
‘I told you why. Molly asked me not to tell anyone, and I could see she was a little nervous about being under Paget’s eagle eye, so I agreed. And I don’t see why you’re making such a big thing out of it, Tregalles.’
‘I’m not.’ The denial sounded feeble even to him. ‘It’s just that it took me by surprise, that’s all.’ Now that he knew what had been going on, he felt more than a little foolish about the way he’d allowed his imagination to run wild. Audrey had told him he was being silly, and she’d been right, and all he wanted to do now was drop the subject.
‘Anyway, got to get the team together,’ he said briskly, glad of any excuse to get away from the grizzled sergeant’s probing eyes, while silently damning the man for keeping him in the dark. And enjoying it, he thought angrily. Well, chalk one up for the crafty old devil. There would be other days.
&nbs
p; Muttering that it wouldn’t do the reputation of the place a lot of good when people saw the police going through the place, the manager of the block of flats in Caledonia Street examined the search warrant closely before using his pass-key to open the door to Peggy Goodwin’s flat.
‘Just be thankful we’re not in uniform,’ Tregalles told him, and while the others went inside, he accompanied the manager back to his own flat, where he questioned him about Peggy Goodwin.
The manager’s name was Lewis Corbett. He was a lean, middle-aged, wolfish-looking man with piercing eyes, and dyed black hair combed straight back. He’d been the manager there for almost ten years, he said, and claimed there wasn’t much he didn’t know about his tenants. His flat was on the ground floor next to the front entrance, where he could watch the comings and goings of the tenants from his front window.
‘That’s why I have my table where it is,’ he explained. ‘I have all my meals there. They’re a pretty good lot, by and large, but I like to keep a friendly eye on them, so to speak.’
‘What about Miss Goodwin?’ Tregalles asked. ‘What can you tell me about her?’
‘Ah, now, there’s a close one,’ he said. ‘Working all the time, she is, so I don’t see much of her as a rule. Hardly ever goes out again once she’s home. Why? What’s she done?’
Tregalles didn’t answer. Instead, he went to the window to take a look for himself. ‘There must be a back door,’ he observed. ‘Aren’t there lock-up garages at the back of the building?’
‘That’s right, but that back door is an emergency exit only. It’s on the door in big letters plain as day. You can go out that way, but you can’t come back in. It’s a matter of security. That’s why it’s alarmed. See?’ He pointed to a light on the wall just inside his own door. ‘That light blinks when the door is open, and there’s an alarm bell – well, more like a buzzer, really – in the stairwell. I’d know if anyone tried to use it – which they do the odd time if they have something big or heavy to bring in or take out – but that’s all right as long as they let me know so I can turn the alarm off.’
‘When was the last time that happened?’ Tregalles asked.
Corbett thought back. ‘Can’t remember, exactly,’ he said. ‘I think it was around Christmas last year when number seventeen had a new bed delivered. The road was dug up out front for work on the water mains, so they had to bring it in the back.’
‘Let’s take a look at the door,’ Tregalles said.
‘Can if you want,’ said Corbett, ‘but there’s not much to see.’
Corbett led the way to the back of the building and stopped in front of a heavy metal door. ‘There, see?’ he said. ‘Emergency Exit. You just push down on the bar and it opens.’ He demonstrated as he spoke, pushing hard on the bar. ‘Heavy brute,’ he muttered as the door swung open.
Tregalles didn’t reply. He was listening, head on one side. ‘Didn’t you say an alarm goes off when you open the door?’ he asked.
Corbett’s heavy brows drew together in a frown as he closed the door and opened it again. ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘Never done that before. Bit of dirt in the contacts, I expect.’
‘When did you last check if it was working?’ the sergeant asked.
‘It’s been a while,’ the man hedged. ‘I mean it’s not the sort of thing you do, is it? We’ve never had any trouble with it before.’
‘How long ago is “a while”?’
The man screwed up his face, looked up at the mechanism at the top of the door, then shrugged. ‘Probably not since number seventeen used it,’ he admitted.
Tregalles nodded. ‘I think we should take a closer look and find out exactly why that alarm isn’t working,’ he said. ‘Because we may find that the light in your flat isn’t going on either, which could mean that you wouldn’t know if anyone has been in or out of here recently.’
Tregalles placed his hands against the door and pushed. It was, as Corbett said, a heavy door, spring loaded for automatic closing. He pushed harder.
‘You have to use the bar . . .’ Corbett began, then frowned as the door opened.
Tregalles pushed it wider, then stepped outside. ‘Someone has taped the latch so it doesn’t catch when the door is shut,’ he said. ‘And I suspect there is more than a bit of dirt between those contacts. In other words, Mr Corbett, anyone can come and go through here whenever they please without fear of being caught.’
The sign in the window said Closed. In fact none of the shops in Bishop’s Gate opened until ten o’clock, so there were very few people about when Ormside led the team down the narrow passageway between the shop and the one next door to the back door of Mrs Johnson’s card and gift shop.
He was still somewhat bemused as to why he was there at all, in spite of Paget’s explanation. ‘Goodwin’s mother is in a wheelchair,’ he’d said, ‘and this is going to come as quite a shock to her, so I’d like someone who is closer to her age to lead in this case. Do you have a problem with that, Len?’
‘Well, no,’ he’d said, but the normally unflappable sergeant suddenly felt nervous; he hadn’t been on active duty on the streets in years, preferring to sit in what he thought of as the centre of the web, controlling and directing operations from there. He’d tried to make a joke of it. ‘I know we’re short-staffed, but I don’t think we’re quite that desperate yet, are we, sir?’
‘Look, Len,’ Paget said patiently, ‘we are going to have to tell her that her daughter is about to be arrested for two cold-blooded murders and possibly three. The woman is going to be devastated, and I don’t know how her health is. She may even be frail, so I want someone there who understands that and will make allowances – at least up to a point.’
Ormside took a deep breath and knocked on the back door.
The man who opened the door was about sixty. Solidly built, he had a lean and weathered face, a receding hairline and a short beard. ‘Yes,’ he said in answer to Ormside’s formal question, his name was Arthur Johnson, but his expression turned from one of mild curiosity to one of disbelief as Ormside told him who he was and why they were there.
‘You want to do what?’ Johnson demanded. ‘You’re really serious? You want to search this place? Why? What do you think is going on here? I think you’ve come to the wrong house, mate.’ He stepped back and began to close the door.
Ormside braced his foot against the door. ‘There is no mistake, Mr Johnson,’ he said. ‘We have reason to believe that we will find evidence here that will assist us with our enquiries into the death of Laura and Simon Holbrook. Now, please stand aside. I don’t want to have to arrest you for obstruction.’
‘What’s going on there, Arthur?’ A woman in a wheelchair came into sight behind the man. ‘Who are these people? What do they want?’
‘It’s the police, love, and they say they have a warrant to search the house and shop. Something to do with Peg’s boss and his wife being killed. I don’t understand it at all. What’s our house got to do with them two murders?’
Ormside moved forward, forcing Johnson to step back and allowing the rest of the team to move in and fan out through the rooms.
‘You can’t just come in here like that!’ the woman screamed. ‘This is our house; our shop. You can’t go through!’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Johnson, but I’m afraid we can,’ Ormside told her. ‘It’s not that we believe that you or your husband have done anything wrong, but I’m afraid the same can’t be said for your daughter. We will be taking away every bit of clothing she may have left here, as well as anything belonging to her we deem relevant. I also need to look at the records of all the dogs you have kept here over the past three months. The breed, the dates they were here in your care, and the names and addresses of every owner.’
‘I’ve never heard such a load of rubbish in my . . .’ the woman began, but her words were cut off by the sound of several dogs barking at once. ‘There, now! See what they’ve done? They’ve gone and upset the dogs.’ She swung the wheelchair
around and started toward the door, but Ormside grabbed the chair and swung it around so the woman was facing him.
‘Look, Mrs Johnson,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t like this any more than you do, but this is a legal search, and unpleasant as it may be, it will be much easier on everyone if you will just let us do our job.’
‘And what if I don’t?’ she snapped.
Ormside sighed deeply as he looked down at her. ‘Then I’m afraid my instructions are to take you and your husband into custody and down to Charter Lane for further questioning to find out what it is you have to hide.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
Ormside shrugged. ‘I would prefer not to,’ he admitted, ‘but I will if necessary.’
‘Arthur?’ She turned to her husband for support. ‘Can’t you do something to convince these people that they’re barking up the wrong tree?’
‘I don’t think so, love,’ he said quietly. ‘I think the sergeant’s right; there’s no use fighting them. They have a warrant, so they’ll get what they want whether we like it or not.’
Mrs Johnson threw up her hands. ‘Useless!’ she said bitterly. ‘Might as well talk to the wall for all the good it does me to talk to you. That’s my Peggy they’re talking about. My daughter, in case it’s slipped your mind. If I weren’t stuck in this bloody chair . . .’ She was shaking with rage as she turned on Ormside.
So much for the woman being frail, the sergeant thought.
‘You’ll find nothing!’ she told him. ‘Nothing! And you’re all mad if you think Peg had anything to do with those deaths.’ She glared at Ormside. ‘Where is she now?’
‘Being taken into custody,’ Ormside told her.
‘You’ll be sorry for this,’ the woman warned. ‘Peggy’s done nothing wrong.’
‘In that case she’ll be released,’ Ormside said. The sergeant saw hope flare in her eyes. ‘But I think it might be best if you don’t count too heavily on that,’ he added, not unkindly. ‘I’m afraid the evidence against her is very strong indeed.’