Kate gathered the magazines, dropped them on the table, and sat down, leaving Jimmy to fend for himself. “I need you to take a look at something for me and tell me if it’s yours or if you know what it’s for.” She looked at Leah closely. Her blonde hair needed a good wash. The dirt and grease had made it stick to her head in stringy strands that fell to her shoulders. The room’s odour was testament to her unwashed state, and Kate tried valiantly to avoid wrinkling her nose.
“What?”
Kate held out the evidence bag. “Do you know what this is?”
Leah took it and Kate noticed the track marks on the inside of her elbow and forearm.
“It’s a key.” Ally sniggered.
Kate closed her eyes briefly. “I know that. We found this key in Connie’s house, but we can’t locate what it locked. Do you recognise it? Is it yours?” she asked Leah.
“No.” Leah held it out to Kate.
“Mind if I take a look?” Ally asked.
Kate glanced over at Jimmy, standing close to the door. He gave a tiny shrug. If she hadn’t been looking right at him, she wouldn’t have seen it. “Sure.” Kate waved the key in Ally’s direction. This was the first time she’d seen the woman not covered in bulky overalls, sweaters, a massive coat, and a hat that had hidden more of her face than was on show.
She took the time Ally used to study the key to study her. She had strong-looking hands and equally strong features. Her jaw was on the square side, lips wide and full. Her nose was straight but had a small bump about halfway up, no doubt the result of a break at some point. Her salt-and-pepper hair was short, but cut in a flattering no-fuss style that complemented her angular jaw and prominent cheekbones. Grey eyes looked keenly intelligent and wary at the same time. She was attractive, Kate could see that, but Ally had a reputation that seemed out of proportion. Perhaps it was unjustified after all, and gave the locals something to talk about. Ally cocked her head to one side as she examined the key from all sides.
“It’s a boat key,” she said. “I see keys like this all the time down at the harbour.” She fished a set of keys from her pocket. “Even got one of my own.” She tossed the small bunch to Kate. “See?”
Kate did. The key was almost an exact replica of the key on Ally’s keyring. There were obvious differences in the cuts on the blade and the head had a red plastic cover over it. She looked at Leah. “Did Connie have a boat?”
“No.” She scratched at her arms as she perched on the edge of the sofa. “She didn’t sail.”
Exactly what Gina had told them. Kate frowned. Why would a woman who didn’t sail have a key for a boat hung up with all her other important keys? “Do you have a boat, Leah?”
Leah shook her head. “I don’t like the water. I went out on a boat with Ally once.”
“Yeah, and all she did was throw up,” Ally added. She laughed, but there seemed something forced about it to Kate, like she was trying to make funny something that really wasn’t. Having suffered on a ferry crossing to Ireland once, Kate was well aware of how little humour there was to be found in seasickness.
“Sorry to hear that.” She retrieved the key from Ally. “Thank you both for your help.”
Ally let Kate and Jimmy out the door, and they both remained silent until they had closed the car doors.
“Did you see those track marks on her arm?”
“Yes.” Kate pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled. “Hey, Stella, I need you to focus on that serial number on the key. It’s a boat key. That should help narrow down the search.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks.” She hung up and started the engine, then drove towards the harbour to turn around. The boats were all docked at the quay, the keels sitting in the soft, muddy bottom that only filled with water as the high tide approached. Lobster pots were stacked high on land, and the steel cables clattered against the masts.
“What do you think’s going on there?” He pointed to the house they’d just left.
“What do you mean?”
“Between them two. Do you think they’re a couple?”
Kate laughed. “No.”
Jimmy looked at her curiously. “How do you know?”
“Trust me, Jimmy, I know. Ally’s not interested in Leah one little bit. Even if she wasn’t a junkie who’s about as broken as I’ve seen, Ally’s not interested in women.”
“How do you know?”
Kate shook her head. “I know.”
“Ah, I get it.” He smiled more than a little smug, and turned to look out of the window as Kate pulled onto the main road.
“What do you get?” Kate asked.
“It’s one of them gaydar things, right?”
“Seriously? You’re going there, Jimmy?” She wondered if he’d have the guts to ask.
“My sister’s a lesbian. She and her girlfriend have been together for three years now. We go out sometimes and she’ll point out this person or that person. Giving me pointers.” He chuckled. “I still can’t spot when someone’s gay or not.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Jimmy.” She smiled at him. “I think you’re doing all right.”
He grinned back at her. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really.” Kate turned on to one of the back roads.
“Where are we going now?”
“Mission of mercy.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.” She gunned the engine and watched his face pale. Just a little. Just enough to keep him from asking any more questions.
CHAPTER 12
“You sure you want to do this?” Wild asked as he led Kate down a corridor at Kings Lynn’s police station.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“She’s been, well, temperamental.”
“Meaning?”
“We’ve had to put her in a cage because she started chewing on the desk legs. Now,” he said and pushed open the door, “she won’t stop barking.”
The barking was deep, loud, and obviously distressed. “Are you surprised?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, she doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t know what’s going on, and she’s being ignored.” She shrugged and knelt down to open the cage. “Not to mention what she went through the other day.” She pulled open the door and held out her hand for the dog to sniff. The barking stopped and the dog backed up against the far end of the cage, tail tucked between her legs, ears down. Everything about her posture screamed submission and fear. Kate just sat back on her heels and waited, hand extended. Slowly the dog inched forward and sniffed her fingers. Then she backed up a little and whined.
“It’s okay, pup. You’re fine.” She kept waiting, watching, as the dog slowly approached again and took a longer sniff before crawling closer. Kate slowly stroked her face, the top of her head, and scratched gently around her ears, smiling as the dog relaxed a little more and stepped out of the cage to her. She glared up at Wild and growled low in her throat. Kate chuckled. “I don’t think she liked you putting her in there, Sergeant.”
“Apparently not.” He backed away a step and the dog immediately relaxed and seemed to lean into Kate’s touch. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a friend, though.”
“She’s got nothing bad to associate with me. Just good stuff. I’m taking her out of the cage she doesn’t like.” She continued to stroke the dappled grey fur and whisper nonsense to the frightened animal. “Do you have a lead for her?”
“Erm, no. The collar and lead she was wearing are evidence now, Detective.”
“Right. Well, have you got anything I can use temporarily?”
“I can probably find you a bit of rope.”
“Christ.” She rolled her eyes. “Do me a favour, will you?”
“What?”
“Go out front and find my car. Jimmy Powers is in there.” She tossed her car keys at him. “Tell him to go to the pet shop and get a collar and lead for a collie. I’ll pay him back later.”
He grinned. “Rig
ht-o.”
“And tell him to bring my car back in one piece.”
Wild laughed. “Will do.”
The dog lay down next to her and rested her head over Kate’s thigh, staring at the door, eyes flicking from one moving figure to the next. Kate could feel the tension thrumming through every muscle in Merlin’s body, she trembled as she remained on high alert.
“Is there a back door with a yard or something?” she asked one of the passing officers.
“That way,” the young man said, pointing to a door at the end of the room. “Smoker’s shed out there.”
“Right. Thanks.” She patted the dog’s head. “Well, it’s better than nothing. Let’s see if you need to go.” She stood up and took a step towards the door, the dog was right on her heels. The “smoker’s shed” was definitely an apt description. There must have been so many people inside that the fumes from the toxic little sticks were trying to escape through every gap they could find in the cheap pine box that offered shelter from the rain. Just. The yard was about six feet wide and ten feet long, plus the shed at the end that ran the width of the yard. It wasn’t much, but it seemed that Merlin had quickly become accustomed to this being her outside space while at the police station. She sniffed around and seemed happy enough exploring.
Kate watched her while she thought about the case. She hoped Stella had managed to find some information on that boat key by the time she got back to Hunstanton. If not, she had no idea where to go next with this case. All leads seemed to lead nowhere, and she was guessing at who the killer was. Wild joined her after a few minutes.
“Well, I can’t say the lad looked happy. But I think it was fear of damaging your car rather than anything else.” He chuckled. “Shouldn’t be long.”
“Thanks.” She smiled when the dog returned to her side, growled at Wild, and leaned against her leg, head almost reaching Kate’s hip. “Anything on the camera?”
“I’ve got the computer guys trying to pull some images off the SD card. It was badly damaged but they think they’ve got some whizz-bang, shit-hot software that can do magic with it, so we’ll see. They said tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
“And the actual camera? Can you tell what kind of weapon was used or anything from it?”
“I’ve got a few ideas, but it’s pretty tough to put this all together. I’m meeting with Dr. Anderson and one of these tech guys later this afternoon to see if we can work up a realistic scenario as to what happened.”
“Care to share your ideas?”
“Well, to get anywhere, I have to make a few assumptions. That’s where I want to collaborate with Anderson and this guy in tech, Grimshaw. If I assume she was on the bank walking the dog and taking pictures, it would make sense and fit with her usual routine. Correct?”
“Based on all witnesses, friends, and even those who didn’t like her, yes. That’s a very logical assumption,” Kate said.
“It also stands to reason that she’d be facing the harbour to take pictures. It’s far more picturesque than the other direction. And the sunrise, even though it was behind her, would be colouring the sky. Reasonable?”
Kate nodded.
“So, based on that, we can start to work up where it most likely was that the shot was fired from.”
“Excellent. What about the type of weapon?”
“I found a few slivers of metal that didn’t belong to the camera embedded inside. They’re being analysed now, and I’ll know more when we get the results tomorrow.”
“Anything?”
“Well, it was definitely high powered. Not shot at close range, and given that the tide was in, I’d say maybe the best part of three to four hundred yards. It was a spring tide so the whole marsh nearby was flooded. The nearest land mass big enough to support human weight for long enough to take that shot would be at least that far away.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“So you’re talking a sniper rifle, from long range.”
“Around a quarter of a mile away.”
“That kind of shot takes skill.”
“And knowledge, and patience, and it is not something that happens by accident.”
“So the killer was waiting out on the marsh somewhere with what?”
“Like I said, I’m waiting for the report, but if I’m right, the round was a 7.62 by 51 millimetre NATO round, which is pretty standard for a lot of European sniper rifles. I’ll get you a list of potential guns, but this isn’t a common weapon around here. The farmers around here carry .22s and double-barrel shotguns for hunting and shooting vermin. This is a big, powerful weapon that is designed to do nothing but kill things from a long, long way away. The kind of person who can make that shot is someone who has been around guns for a long time. Someone who’s spent a lot of time practicing to become that good.”
“Maybe a member at a gun club?”
Wild smiled. “Maybe, indeed.” He handed her a piece of paper.
“List of gun clubs close to Brandale Staithe, by any chance?”
He chuckled. “Guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks and gave you the fancy title.”
She laughed with him and lifted the page in his direction. “Thank you.”
“A pleasure. I gotta tell you, I’m enjoying this case.”
She cocked an eyebrow in his direction, not entirely sure she had heard him correctly.
“I know it’s not the right thing to say, and it’s a damn shame a woman was killed, but every now and then, you need a case like this to get you fired up. To put the old brain matter to the test. You know what I mean?”
She did, but she liked to think that that was something she gave to every case. Not just the interesting ones, or the ones with special victims. She nodded anyway. No sense in alienating a colleague that was proving to be quite resourceful and full of information.
“So are you going to keep the animal?”
Kate cast her eyes down to where the dog sat at her side. “See how it goes. Supposed to be a temporary thing. The rescue place is looking for a permanent home for her.”
He grunted and looked at his watch. “Gotta go. I’m meeting with Anderson and Grimshaw in twenty minutes.”
“I look forward to hearing about the results.”
He nodded and pushed the door open behind them. A high-powered sniper rifle. She recalled Leah’s shaking hands and her inability to light her own cigarette, and felt her certainty in the woman’s innocence solidify. Even if Leah owned such a rifle, had waited out on the marsh to take the shot, Kate seriously doubted that she would have been able to hit a double-decker bus at that distance, never mind the camera lens held to the face of the target. Nah, she wasn’t buying that one. So who did that leave? Rupert Sands? He was the only one who didn’t seem to have an alibi. There was certainly a gun culture going on there. Just because they didn’t have a sniper rifle on display didn’t mean he didn’t have one somewhere else. Was he callous enough to commit that kind of crime? Or was it just plain greed?
What motivated a killer to commit this kind of crime? It was remote, impersonal, as if it hadn’t anything to do with the people involved. It was just business. It was almost transactional. A means to an end. But what end? Connie’s intention of closing down the campsite would have affected many of the business owners in the village. Yes, Rupert Sands would be affected—the loss of amenities in the village would eventually work its way down to affecting his holiday home business, but he was by no means the only one. Others would be affected worse than he. Perhaps not in the amount of lost revenue, but simply because they could afford to lose so much less than Rupert Sands could. The rich would lose money, the poor would lose their entire livelihoods. Businesses would go bankrupt, individuals would lose their jobs, their incomes, and maybe, as a result, their homes. Their security. Was that enough to make them kill?
People had killed for a lot less.
Or did it come down to some sort of maniacal temper tantrum? I can’t have it so I’
ll stop you having it too? Was a grown man capable of such a feat of stubborn stupidity? Specifically, was Rupert Sands capable of it? He was certainly stubborn. He’d demonstrated a temper, he didn’t like being questioned, and given what she’d seen and heard, he seemed to have a problem with women having power or authority over him.
Kate didn’t like him. She doubted many people did. But did that mean he was a killer? A bully, maybe. But bullies are usually too cowardly to put themselves on the line the way a murderer would have to.
“I just got black because I didn’t know what colour you’d prefer.” Jimmy slapped a scrunched-up plastic bag against her arm, distracting her from her musings.
“That’s great, thanks.” She fished the dog collar from the bag and used her teeth to break off the plastic tag. She squatted down and fitted the collar around the dog’s neck, who in turn rewarded her with a long, pink tongue up the length of her face. Jimmy laughed as she wiped her face and buckled the collar in place. Merlin’s jaw hung open a little, her tongue lolling to the right in a satisfied doggy grin. Kate clipped the lead in place and walked out of the station, Merlin at her side, and Jimmy trotting behind them.
* * *
Once Merlin was settled in the back seat of the car, Kate handed the sheet of paper to Jimmy. “Do you know where any of those are?”
He looked at the page in his hand. “The first one’s just a couple of miles away.”
“Direct me.”
“Sure. Turn left out of the car park and then left again at the lights.” She followed his directions for the next five minutes and pulled up at the first gun club on Wild’s list.
“So what’re we doing here, boss?” he asked.
“We’re going to see who could make an amazing shot at this club and if any of those names are on our suspect list.”
“How amazing a shot?”
“Pinpoint accurate at about a quarter of a mile.”
Jimmy whistled.
“Does that qualify as amazing?”
“Yup. And then some.” He followed her out of the car and laughed. Merlin jumped out and followed at Kate’s heels despite her not having hold of her lead.
Collide-O-Scope (Norfolk Coast Investigation Stories Book 1) Page 11