The front door opened, and a young woman stepped out wrestling a buggy down the flight of steps to the pavement. The rain had gone now and the wind was stiffening from the south-west. Racing clouds. Broken sunshine. Sudden bubbles of warmth. Nice. The woman parked the buggy and went back into the house, returning moments later with a baby. Lizzie judged it to be one, maybe one and a half, suddenly realising that this must be the Polish girl who lived in the flat above Jimmy’s. It was her partner, a huge guy called Tadeusz, who’d saved Jimmy’s life last year when he’d been ambushed by a prime suspect determined to settle a debt or two.
The woman was having trouble with the buggy, trying to open it while juggling the baby from arm to arm. Lizzie crossed the road and offered to help. The mother was pretty, a big open face, jeans and T-shirt, good English. Lizzie held the baby while she set up the buggy. The baby gazed up at her as Lizzie rocked it in her arms.
‘What’s Polish for “You’re beautiful”?’ she asked.
‘You know we’re from Poland?’ The girl was staring at her, surprised.
‘I do, yes.’ Lizzie nodded up at the third-floor flat. ‘I’m Jimmy’s wife. My name’s Lizzie.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. We’re not together, of course. You’d know that.’
The girl said nothing. She took the baby and strapped it into the buggy. Then she stood upright again and extended a hand.
‘My name’s Klaudia,’ she said.
‘And the baby?’
‘Kasia.’ She smiled. ‘Jimmy’s a good man, a good friend. Kasia loves him. They take her for walks at the weekend sometimes. To give us a little time together.’
‘They?’
‘Jimmy …’ she laughed and then touched Lizzie lightly on the arm, a gesture of apology ‘… and his girlfriend.’
‘Sure.’ Lizzie returned the smile. ‘You’re going for a walk now?’
‘Yes. Not long, but yes.’
‘Mind if I come?’
‘Of course.’ Klaudia bumped the buggy off the pavement and pointed towards a path beyond the greensward. ‘The beach is down there.’
Golding drove Suttle back to Exmouth to pick up his Impreza. He pressed Suttle again on the source of the information that had taken them to Tania Maguire, but Suttle didn’t budge. Old media contact. Solid as a rock. Wanted to return a favour.
‘Call it karma,’ he said to Golding. ‘Call it what you like. Either way it’s turning out just fine.’
‘You think they did Reilly?’
‘I think they’ve got a lot of questions to answer.’
Back in Chapel Road Suttle stepped out of the car. He’d pick up a suit at home and then drive straight back to the MIR. It was just gone midday. Houghton had called the interview teams dealing with Russell and Maguire for a full brief at two o’clock. She wanted Suttle and Golding in Torquay to monitor the interview with Russell. Based on what little she knew, her money was on Russell to break first.
Golding nodded and drove on down the road. Suttle walked to his Impreza, passing number 49. The SOC van was still parked outside and there was a uniformed officer on the door, but so far he’d heard no word from the CSM. He was tempted to look in but knew that time was tight.
On the Beacon he parked at the back and limped slowly up the stairs. His leg had stiffened now and the throbbing was worse. Getting out of the trackie bottoms was awkward, and he had to sit on the bed to shake them off. He doused his face in the bathroom, avoiding the mirror, and then sorted himself another suit. In the big living room, knotting his tie, he paused for a moment by the window. Nailing Russell so quickly had been a big win, but the implications made him feel deeply uncomfortable. He’d never liked being in debt to anyone, least of all his estranged wife.
He thought about last night, about the texts she’d sent since, about the weird YouTube clip with the piano concerto, about the photo of Dean Russell in the pub. He knew he had to get a statement from the witness Lizzie had cornered, Frances Bevan. He knew he had to regularise the file, tidy up the audit trail, try somehow to airbrush Lizzie out of the inquiry. And he knew as well that no way could any of this ever get back to Oona. Last night had been a huge mistake. It would never happen again. He wanted to wind his life back twenty-four hours and start all over. What a twat.
He gazed out at the view then became aware of two figures bumping a buggy across the grass towards the house. One of them was Klaudia from upstairs. The other was Lizzie. She was looking up at him, framed in the window. She was waving.
He checked his watch: 12.26. He headed for the door, took the stairs faster than his leg wanted to allow him.
Lizzie met him on the pavement. ‘How bad is it?’ She was looking at his leg.
‘It’s OK. It’s fine.’
‘It didn’t look that way.’
‘When?’
‘When they put you in the ambulance.’
‘You were there?’
‘Yeah. How else would I have ended up in the pub?’
Of course she was there, Suttle thought. Russell must have turned up afterwards, cruised on by, led her straight to the Powder Monkey.
He tried to shoot Klaudia a smile. ‘Give us a moment?’
He took Lizzie by the arm and walked her down the pavement.
‘This is getting out of control,’ he said.
‘Do I hear the words thank you?’
‘You do. Of course you do. But I need a favour.’
‘Another one?’
‘Don’t fuck about. This Frances Bevan, where does she live?’
‘You don’t believe the stuff I gave you?’
‘I have to statement her. You know that.’
‘Of course. She lives in Lympstone.’
‘House? Street? Number?’
Lizzie looked away. She was smiling. ‘The scene of the crime,’ she said. ‘The place where it happened. Bentner’s place.’
‘What about it?’
‘I’d like the address.’
‘Why would you want that?’
‘None of your business.’
‘You can find it yourself. He’s in the phone book.’
‘So is Frances Bevan.’
‘Wrong. I just checked. This is urgent, Lizzie. I haven’t got much fucking time.’
‘Sure.’ The smile was wider. ‘It’s a small village. Do the reporter thing. Ask around.’
He held her gaze for a long moment. In spite of everything he had a sneaking regard for this new woman in his life. The leather jacket, he thought. And the sheer height of the ceiling above them when she’d straddled him last night.
‘The terrace on the Strand,’ he said. ‘End house. Number 4.’
‘Thank you.’ She reached up and kissed him on the lips. ‘Number 35 Edinburgh Crescent. Give her my regards.’
Suttle was at Lympstone within ten minutes. He knocked three times on Frances Bevan’s door and was on the point of giving up when it finally opened. She examined his warrant card with visible misgivings and finally let him in. He explained that he was a friend of Ms Hodson’s as well as a policeman, and the mention of Lizzie’s name warmed the atmosphere a degree or two. She’d been thinking a great deal about the conversation she’d had with the young lady and on reflection she rather thought she’d said too much. Would any of this ever get back to Betty?
The question startled Suttle.
‘I was under the impression that Betty was dead.’
‘She is. But that’s not the point. One has an obligation to the dead as well as to the living. I’d like to think we’ll stay friends.’
Suttle assured her this was more than possible. He led her briskly through the headlines he’d plucked from Lizzie’s account of their conversation: how much Betty had been suffering, how she’d got in touch with Harriet Reilly, how she’d been abandoned by her only child, and how she’d changed her will before Harriet brought her suffering to an end. The account filled a page and a half. Suttle left the statement undated, and with a degree of obvio
us reluctance Frances signed it.
Back in the Impreza Suttle checked his watch: 13.35. He’d make the briefing meet with the interview teams. Just.
Parking in Lympstone was a nightmare. Lizzie finally settled for a vehicle bay at the halt that served as a station and walked back down the hill to the village centre. Past the pub, a lane took her down to the slip that gave access to the tiny harbour.
It was high tide, the water lapping against the footings of the riverside houses. Gulls and terns soared on the strengthening wind, and the hills across the estuary were mottled with the racing clouds. Dinghies and bigger yachts bobbed at their moorings, and further out, beyond the buoyed channel, she could just make out five stick figures in a rowing quad, sculling downstream on the first of the ebb. The splash of the red hull against the brownness of the water told her that the quad had come from Exmouth. That was me once, she thought.
She turned to study the terrace of houses that looked out across the water. Bentner’s was the one at the end. Next door a line of coloured flags stirred in the wind, reds and yellows and blues. There was no way she could access the properties from here at high tide and so she walked back, skirting the water. There was no sign of any kind of police presence at Bentner’s property, and she imagined the SOC team would have gone by now. It was a small house, and a couple of days should have been ample time to give it the full treatment. The front door badly needed a coat of paint.
She rang the bell. Waited. Rang it again. Stooped to the letter box, pushing it open. At once she could smell the chemicals the SOC guys had used. She called Bentner’s name, just in case. She had no idea what made this man tick, but disappearing from the face of the earth for nearly a week had won her respect. Maybe he’d come back under cover of darkness. Maybe, even now, he was upstairs in bed, a fugitive in the one place no one would ever bother looking.
Nothing. She stepped back, wondering about the next-door neighbour. These were old houses, probably thrown up for fishermen. The sound insulation would be rubbish. She knocked on the door. Knocked a second time. Again no response. The letter box was bigger, wider, deeper. She pushed it open and peered inside. The hall was dark but the light through the letter-box slot fell on a pile of letters scattered on the rug inside the door. Dr Gemma Caton, BA, MA, PhD. Two of the letters came from the University of Exeter.
‘Where you to?’ Rough voice. Male. Very Devon.
Lizzie stood up, shading her eyes against the sun. He was in his fifties, maybe older, stooped, nut-brown face, greying stubble. Dark blue beanie, jeans and a baggy old sweater. Splashes of white paint on the jeans and a hole in the sweater where an elbow had gone through. A riverside life fraying at the edges.
‘I’m a reporter,’ Lizzie said. ‘Maybe you can help?’
‘Yeah, and maybe I can’t. What gives you the right to poke around other people’s business?’
‘I’m trying to find a man called Alois Bentner.’
‘So’s half the bloody world. What’s he to you?’
‘Nothing. Yet.’
‘Come to help him out, have you? Only that man’s in the shit.’
‘So everyone says.’
‘And you know different? Is that it?’
‘I know nothing. Which is why I’m here.’
The answer seemed to pacify him. He shuffled back, wiped his face with the back of his hand.
‘Do you know Mr Bentner?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Met him a couple of times, just like everyone else. Know him? No one knows him. Least of all now.’ He glanced at Bentner’s house. ‘Talk to my son. He kept that place together.’
‘What’s your son’s name?’
‘Gerry.’
‘Gerry what?’
‘Just Gerry.’
‘So what does he do? Gerry?’
‘What doesn’t he do, more like.’ A wheezy bark of laughter. ‘Carpentry, plumbing, electrics. No certificates, mind, but Gerry always does his best by Mr Bentner. Cheap too, which is just as well. That man counts his pennies, believe me.’
He talked about Bentner for a while, telling Lizzie how mean he was, except when it came to his bar bills.
‘You mean the pub?’
‘The shop down the road. Hundreds of quid across the counter for booze since he came down here. Must be. Talk to them. Talk to Doris.’
‘Doris?’
‘Runs the place.’
‘Thanks.’ Lizzie nodded down at the letter box. ‘And what about Gemma Caton?’
‘Nuts.’
‘Nuts?’
‘Talk to Gerry. He knows.’
Nineteen
THURSDAY, 12 JUNE 2014, 14.07
The interview briefing at Middlemoor started late. The abortive hunt for Alois Bentner seemed to have taken the wind out of Det-Supt Nandy’s sails. DI Houghton had launched a search of all letter boxes on Dartmoor, but so far the teams had found nothing. She’d also secured RIPA warrants on two phone lines – Sheila Forshaw’s and Nikki Drew’s – but since Bentner had been in touch with Forshaw there’d been no word from him on either.
Buzzard had also checked out the other two Met Office employees with the initials ND but had drawn a blank on both names. Neither had known Alois Bentner and both had cast-iron alibis for the weekend of Reilly’s death.
Not good. As the days went by Nandy had become more and more convinced that Bentner had either gone abroad using a false passport, or that the man was dead. His ancient Skoda, meanwhile, had been trucked back to Exeter and forensically searched, yielding nothing worthwhile.
Suttle wanted to know about the SOC take on Bentner’s premises. What had the scene told them?
Nandy looked at Carole Houghton. The SOC file had arrived this morning and she’d had time to go through it.
‘We’re looking at two key issues,’ she said. ‘Getting in and getting out. There’s no sign of forced entry. Reilly may have been in the property already with whoever killed her. She may have opened the door to them, or they may have had a key. Putting this report together with the post-mortem we’re thinking she was probably killed late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. We also think the disembowelling happened after she was clinically dead.’
This was news to Suttle. So how did the woman die?
‘She was beaten around the face and head and then suffocated. We’re also thinking she was killed in situ. Probably smothered with one of the pillows. There was less blood from the disembowelling than you might expect because she was dead before it happened. Whoever did it wouldn’t have been covered in the stuff. Which made getting out all the easier.’
‘No blood on the stairs?’ This from Golding.
‘None.’
‘Downstairs?’
‘Nothing.’
They were talking in a briefing room attached to the MIR. Nandy had been canny in his choice of detectives for the Dean Russell interviews. Rosie Tremayne was a seasoned interviewer with a memory schooled for retaining the smallest details. Face to face she could be disarmingly sympathetic, but Suttle always remembered one rueful suspect down for a manslaughter charge. ‘I trusted that Tremayne woman,’ he said, ‘and she turned me over.’
Rosie’s partner was a newcomer to Major Crimes, a DC from Penzance called Colin Myers, even younger than Golding. He had the face of an eighteen-year-old and the voice of a choirboy, and there was no way a man like Dean Russell wouldn’t regard him as a pushover. Underestimate either of these detectives, thought Suttle, and you’d be in serious trouble.
Nandy asked Suttle to deliver the intelligence that had led to this morning’s arrests. Suttle told them about Dean’s mother, Betty, and the circumstances surrounding her death. The news that she’d opted for assisted dying brought a frown to Tremayne’s face. She was the wife of a Church of England vicar. Assisted dying, as far as she was concerned, was within touching distance of suicide. In her world this stuff mattered.
‘It’s too late to do her for that, Rosie.’ This from Nandy. ‘She’s home free.’
Nandy shot Suttle a look.
Suttle remembered Lizzie in the restaurant describing Betty’s final weeks. ‘She was in great pain, Rosie,’ he said. ‘The initiative came from her.’
‘We’re sure about that?’
‘According to her best friend, yes. It’s down there in the statement. There’s a photocopy in your file.’ Suttle wondered whether to talk about Ralph and Jeff, two other witnesses to Reilly’s work at the bedside of the dying, but decided against it. The less that Lizzie’s work figured in Buzzard, the better.
Myers wanted to know more about Frances Bevan. Was she to any degree a benefactor from the change of wills?
‘No.’
‘She was left nothing at all?’
‘Not that I know of. I’ve got a call in to Betty’s solicitor. She’s yet to come back.’ It was a lie but a small one; Suttle had yet to make contact.
‘So how did you find this witness?’ The question came from Rosie Tremayne.
‘Through a journalist I know. He’s working up a piece on assisted dying.’
‘But why come to us? To you?’
‘Because he was worried about Bevan. Russell frightens her. She thinks he’s dangerous. In fact she thinks he’s off his head. She doesn’t want him knocking on her door. Ever.’
‘So she talked to the journalist?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he talked to you?’
‘Of course. We go back a while. It’s a trust thing.’
‘Are we allowed to know who he is?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
The bluntness of Suttle’s answer raised eyebrows around the room. Suttle was aware of Golding watching his every move. He knows, he thought. He’s bloody sussed it.
Nandy, to Suttle’s relief, came to the rescue.
‘Your call, son,’ he grunted, ‘but don’t make a habit of it.’
The briefing continued. Both Nandy and Houghton recognised that the two interviewing detectives would be facing an uphill battle with Tania Maguire. According to the Custody Sergeant at Heavitree she was going to press assault charges against Suttle and wanted a further million quid for the loss of her precious dog. The woman was clearly out of her tree, and whatever she said had to be treated with a great deal of caution, but there might be the odd evidential nugget in among all the rubbish. Key to everything, Nandy insisted, was the timeline. Russell and Maguire were offering mirror alibis, relying on each other’s words, but a couple this volatile might be easy to wind up.
The Order of Things Page 13