Never to Dead to Talk (Detective Inspector Burgess Series)

by Middleton, Deborah

  “While I have you on the line, do you know of a girl called Irina Tymoshenko?”

  “No. Never heard of her.”

  “Could she be someone Mr. Alexeev employed?”

  “I’ll have to ask Personnel and get back to you on that.” She did not sound enthusiastic.

  “Thank you.”

  As he hung up the phone, he noted that a fresh e-mail had come in from the Bermuda police. He quickly opened the attachment to find a passport photograph of a man in his mid-thirties. His name was given as Boris Vasiliev. Khitarov fed the details into the missing persons’ database and then, on a hunch, dialled Alexeev’s office and asked for his personal assistant.

  “Sorry to bother you but does the name Boris Vasiliev ring any bells?”

  “Oh yes. It does sound familiar. Let me check with Personnel… no, wait. I know. I think he was the man that Director Alexeev hired to oversee the running of his homes in Bermuda and London. Yes, that’s right. Now I remember.”

  “Can you describe him to me?”

  “I only met him once when he came for interview. I seem to remember he was quite tall, dark-haired. He came from Vladivostok. I remember we talked about that while he was waiting to see the director. Nice guy, probably early thirties. He was excited about the interview and the opportunity of travelling abroad, if he got the job. He spoke good English too. The director commented on that and I think that’s what tipped the scales as far as getting him the job.”

  “Thank you. You have been most helpful.”

  Khitarov felt for the first time that finally he had some nuggets of information he might be able to pass along to the police in Bermuda. It pleased him that, for once, he could contribute something, instead of merely receiving information from that island’s police force.

  His telephone rang again and this time a lady introduced herself as the head of personnel from Alexeev’s company. She was sorry but she had nobody on file by the name of Irina Tymoshenko or anyone who matched her description. The conversation had served to burst his incipient bubble of hope. He reminded himself that at least now people from Alexeev’s company were talking to him. That, in itself, was a step forward.

  He lit another cigarette, aware he was smoking too much and renewing his vow to shake the habit… next month. As he exhaled, his eyes caught his computer screen and he noted an e-mail from the Missing Persons’ Department. Opening it eagerly, he digested its contents. Immediately a frisson of ice-cold fear coursed down his spine. This case was going to get ugly, very ugly indeed.

  CHAPTER 33

  Jan Du Bois was never happier than when she could get her teeth into a puzzling case. She had hit the ground running and was over at the Russian’s house in Point Shares, comparing police photographs from Pamela’s files with the actual crime scene. She took more close-ups of blood spatter on the walls and floor of the kitchen and cut out samples of the bloodstained carpet. She wondered when the analysis of the bullet that killed Mrs. Bambase would come back from the laboratory. She also hunted through the kitchen, garage and garden shed for the weapon with which Mr. Bambase’s throat had been cut. The more she examined the crime scene, the more curious she became.

  Why had the house only been ransacked in the living room and office? Why were the other rooms intact? It had to be a premeditated crime. The perpetrators had brought their own weapons... and they obviously needed information they thought Mr. Bambase could provide, otherwise why torture him? Jan found she had more questions than answers and took out her tape recorder and began to voice her thoughts. Carefully, she picked her way amongst the debris in the living room. If they were looking for something, why had they broken the china figurines? Anger? Frustration? She observed the water mark on the office wall where the vase of flowers had been thrown. Taking a close-up shot of the spatter, she then took out a tape measure and measured from the centre of the stain to the floor. This way, she reckoned she could figure out how tall the perpetrator had been and where he had stood when he threw it. Wait a minute. Could this have been a woman? Don’t automatically assume that only men can be violent. Keep an open mind. Jan knew she must be careful not to assume anything. Let her mathematics and trigonometry calculations guide her as to heights and trajectories.

  The way the droplets of blood were tapered on the floor in the family room and on the mahogany wood surrounding the cream carpet told her already that Mrs. Bambase had been walking out of the family room and into the living room when she had been shot from behind. Was the husband already dead or not? What did you see, Mrs. Bambase?

  She would go over the autopsy reports of all four victims. In Jan’s experience, you were never too dead to talk.

  Outside, she jumped into the shallow trench that had served as the twin graves of the two other victims. Were these earlier murders connected to the latest ones? That was a question she would like answered. So far, there was no evidence to connect the two. She had four victims, each of whom had died violently: asphyxiation, strangulation, bullet to the head and cut throat; four different modus operandi. Could there have been four different murderers? She looked around at the burial site but nothing caught her attention. There was nothing much left for her to do here, so she packed her bag, resembling a tool kit and made her way to the police car. Next, she would go to the Flood’s home and see if there was anything there that could enlighten her as to what had transpired in the lawyer’s home office. From what she had heard of the case so far, she was sure there was some connection to the murders at Alexeev’s residence; curious how these crimes took place in the same upscale neighborhood. Yes, there had to be a connection and she wanted to find it. She was excited. She had not been on the island twenty four hours and she was already in the thick of two intriguing crimes; if, indeed, the Flood case was murder. Burgess seemed to think the wife had done it. Let’s see what the evidence reveals. Deep in thought, she allowed the police driver to take her to the next house. I need to book a driving test… and soon. I can’t be going to crime scenes on a rented moped when there’s no one available to drive me. She was not looking forward to taking the test. She had heard from other expatriates how brutal that experience could be.

  CHAPTER 34

  At the station, Mrs. Flood and her lawyer sat in an interview room. It was plainly furnished with a metal desk bolted to the floor and a chair for each of its occupants. On a side table rested the police tape recorder. Burgess and De Souza sat opposite, quietly observing her. Mrs. Flood’s appearance, as always, was regal. She wore cream-coloured pants of an excellent cut, a matching cream turtleneck and a long tailored cardigan in the latest style. Large Roberto Cavalli sunglasses anchored her bleached blonde hair. This time her neck was unadorned and she held her hands rigidly in her lap. She looked like a film star and she knew it.

  Pamela gave her a long, admiring look through the viewing glass. “She exudes wealth from every pore, don’t you think?” She glanced sideways at Skinner, who had left his beloved computers to come watch. It had been a long time since he had observed an interview and he was looking forward to it. He found he had butterflies in his stomach in anticipation of the scene to come.

  “She surely does. She’s a handsome woman.”

  “A handsome, murdering woman, you mean.” Pamela tossed her head, obviously still needing a little more time to forgive Mrs. Flood her apparent lies.

  They both watched and listened tensely as Burgess turned on the tape and went through the formalities. It took a few minutes and then the interview began in earnest.

  “Mrs. Flood, for the benefit of the tape, could you please describe what happened the night of your husband’s death?”

  With a steady, tightly controlled voice, she began, “I noticed he had not gone to bed and, when I went to look for him, I found him in his study.”

  “What time was this?” Burgess matched her tone.

  “Around three o’clock in the morning.”

  “Mrs. Flood, isn’t it true that you and your husband share separate bedroo
ms?”

  Flushing, she looked down and quietly replied, “Yes.”

  “Well, what made you realize your husband had not come, excuse me, not gone to bed?”

  “I’m not sure. All I know is that something must have woken me up.”

  “Something woke you up. Why did you not tell us this before?”

  “You never asked and, quite honestly, I had not thought about it until now.”

  Burgess made a show of putting this new information down in his black notebook. It allowed him a moment to think. This might be significant. Could she now claim that somebody else had been in the house? There had been no evidence of a break-in.

  He decided to change tack. “Mrs. Flood, are you diabetic?”

  “Why, yes, I am. What has that got to do with anything?” He looked sideways at her lawyer, who decided to jump in, eager to be seen to earn his fee.

  “Does this have any relevance to the case?” he queried.

  “Yes, we believe that it does and this will become clearer as we go on.” Burgess cleared his throat.

  The lawyer nodded to his client to remain calm.

  “Mrs. Flood, do you need to inject yourself?” Burgess continued with the questions, to which he already knew the answers, in an effort to establish where she could be lying.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you use the syringe or pen-style needles?”

  “Well, my shot comes in two parts. One is the vial of fluid and the other is the needle itself. I just pop them together and then insert the needle at a slight angle and pump down slowly until the insulin tube is empty. I think mine is the old-fashioned style but I’m so used to it that I prefer it. I do have a pen, though, for my sugar measurement.”

  “How does that work?”

  “The pen is really a needle. You stab your finger with it. It feels a little like an insect bite. Then you squeeze out a couple of drops of blood onto litmus paper. This then goes into my minicomputer that gives me a reading on my blood sugar. This way, I can tell whether I might need more than one of my daily shots.”

  “So, normally, you would have one shot a day?”

  “Yes. I can’t remember the last time when I needed more than one.”

  “And how many injections are prescribed at one go?”

  “I get thirty vials to last me the month.”

  “Where do you inject yourself?”

  “I always use my upper thigh. You can inject into the fatty area of the stomach but just the thought of that makes me nauseous.”

  “Do you inject intramuscularly, intravenously or subcutaneously?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean by all of that. I just inject it into my upper thigh.”

  “Would you ever inject yourself in your upper arm?”

  “No, I’ve always been taught to use my leg.”

  “Mrs. Flood, have you ever injected anyone else with insulin or any other drug?”

  “What? No, never! Why?”

  “Your husband was found with insulin in his system.”

  She blanched. “What? You can’t be serious? He’d never inject himself. I don’t think he’d even know how.”

  Pamela looked across at Skinner. “I don’t think she’s faking this. She looks absolutely shocked and the color has even drained from her face. Look at her lips, they’re almost blue. Not even a professional could act that well.” For the first time, Pamela began to have doubts… but if Mrs. Flood had not killed her husband, who had?

  Burgess, for his part, digested the information. The feeling persisted that he was missing something. There was something awry in this case and, as yet, he could not put his finger on it. He glanced over at De Souza, who had remained calmly watching Mrs. Flood’s every mannerism. Nervously, Mrs. Flood’s hand wandered to her neck to finger her absent strand of pearls. Immediately, she realized they were not there and tried to camouflage her action.

  He continued his questioning. “Mrs. Flood, you told us that you do not have access to your husband’s safe.”

  “That’s correct.”

  De Souza calmly chimed in with his bombshell. “We have reason to believe that you have not been honest with us about that.”

  “What? I don’t understand.” Her eyes had an unfocused look.

  “Where are the pearls you were wearing when Detective Inspector Burgess interviewed you for the first time?” De Souza’s voice was menacing as he took over the questioning.

  “I appear to have mislaid them. I simply can’t find them. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “Are you telling us that between the time you were first interviewed and today, you have not had sight of your pearl necklace?”

  “That’s right but I have been so upset and had so many visitors that I just thought I must have misplaced it. I’ve been so… distracted.”

  De Souza decided this was not good enough and to go for the jugular. “Mrs. Flood, what would you say if I told you we found your necklace inside your husband’s safe, along with some other documents and his will?”

  “That’s impossible. That simply cannot be. I do not have the keys to the safe. My husband always kept them with him on his key chain.”

  “Then you could have had access to them to make a copy.”

  “Yes but I don’t know the combination.” The poor woman was ashen. She looked beseechingly at her lawyer. “You need to use a key and a combination to open it.”

  The lawyer drew himself up in his chair. “C’mon, guys. Where are you going with this? Anybody could have made a copy of the keys and Mr. Flood could have told someone about the combination or kept it on his computer somewhere. People can hack into computers.”

  Burgess did not like the way the interview was going. He decided to try one more thing.

  “Does the name Clarissa Lightbourne mean anything to you?”

  “Clarissa? Yes. She’s my husband’s secretary. Why?”

  “Were you aware that your husband had left a substantial amount of money to her in his will?”

  “What? No. I’ve seen the will. He has left everything to me and our children, with some money going to his favorite charities.”

  “When did he make that will?”

  “A couple of years ago.”

  “Were you aware that he made a new will three months ago?”

  “No.” This time her voice was barely audible. Her eyes glistened with the onset of tears. She appeared crumpled within herself, all the bravado gone. Burgess was looking at a broken woman. He felt like a scoundrel.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Flood. We will need a list of all your visitors since we last interviewed you and an accounting of every vial you have used since you bought your latest prescription. Officer Pamela Zuill will accompany you home and you can give that information to her. You may go now. Interview terminated at six thirty three pm.”

  De Souza and he rose and stood aside as Mrs. Flood, head down, left the room. Her lawyer flashed them a look like cold leftovers. “You’ll regret this,” he said.

  CHAPTER 35

  Archie had been out canvassing the body shops regarding the flashy bike seen parked in Point Shares. So far, he had little to go on. He wondered if they would get lucky with the public, now that the description was in the Bermuda Gazette and Johnny McCabe had mentioned it in his update on the case on the radio that morning. More likely, whoever it belonged to would ditch it or store it somewhere until the heat died down. He fervently hoped they could find the bike and the people who had killed the Bambases. That had been a gratuitously violent crime against two ordinary civilians and he felt bad about it. He had not been back at his desk long when his cell phone rang.

  “Hey, Van. How’s it goin’?”

  “Um good, bro’. Um callin’ about that conversation we had yesterday.” He paused to let that sink in.

  “Okay. Great. Just which conversation are you referring to? You still wanna get yourself a Triumph?”

  “Hell, no, Archie. Um talkin’ about that bike with the flames painted on de gas tank.”<
br />
  Archie’s pulse quickened. “You got anything on that?”

  “May have. My brother has a shop on Ewing Street. Apparently, there’re some boys - he pronounced it ‘byes’ - that ‘sit off’ (using the Bermudian expression) on the wall across from his shop around five o’clock or so.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Who can say but he told me he’s sure that one of them has a black bike, lots of chrome with flames on it. Sound like it could be your guy?”

  “Sure, sounds promising. This is great. Thanks, Van. I’ll check it out… and tell your brother I owe him one.”

  “Hell with that, bro’.” Archie heard Van’s throaty chuckle. “You owe me one and I’ll be sure and collect.”

  “I’m not gonna sleep at nights worrying about that!” Archie put down the phone with the feeling in the pit of his stomach that this piece of information was going to come through for them. Sometimes you just had a sixth sense about things. He could not wait to tell Burgess when he got out of his interview. In the meantime, he needed to find someone to go with him to stake out the Ewing Street wall in time for the arrival of the wallsitters. Just at that moment, Pamela and Skinner came back in. He wasted no time in telling them his news.