by Oliver Tidy
‘Like you said, sir, I can only hope not. And he didn’t strike me as the sort who’d relish prison. What’s this other business you want to talk to me about?’
‘Let’s wait until I’ve got a pint in front of me.’
***
53
They were in The White Horse. It was warm and dry. Outside it was pouring and cold. A nice fire burned in the grate. Romney had his pint and Marsh had a large white wine.
Marsh said, ‘Have you heard anything more from Maureen?’
Romney swallowed his mouthful, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and said, ‘I went to see her Friday afternoon. She’s a wreck. Poor cow. Her mum and dad were there. At least I could get some sense out of the old man.’
‘Any news on what they plan to do with Peter and when?’
‘Burial. Connaught cemetery. They want somewhere close with a plot that Maureen and the kids can visit.’
‘I understand that.’
‘They’re letting the police deal with the arrangements – Peter died on duty after all. How are you coping with it?’
Marsh shook her head sadly and sighed. ‘Sometimes, when I think about him being gone, I feel like bursting into tears. And others it’s like I’ve already accepted it and moved on. It helped knowing that he was living on borrowed time. It’s made it easier. Do you think he knew?’
‘I’ve no idea. If I had to guess, I’d say that I don’t think he did. He certainly never gave any indication of it.’
‘Maybe, if that’s the case, it’s better that way. For him, I mean. Living his life in ignorance and then...’ she clicked her fingers, ‘... gone. Doesn’t make it any easier for those he’s left behind, though.’
They sipped their drinks in silent contemplation for a minute. The fire crackled and the hubbub of the pub rose and fell.
Romney said, ‘I’ve been thinking about Amy Coker.’
‘Me too,’ said Marsh. ‘And from what you told me about the things she said in her interview, I’m sure we’re not the only ones.’
Romney allowed himself a little laugh. ‘No. Probably our dear leader has been thinking of little else. She has a right to be worried if what Amy Coker claims is true, although she did put jam on it for the tape. And that’s what’s been bothering me.’
‘In what way?’
‘She was so... almost rehearsed in her comments. There was a calculated quality about them.’
‘Did Superintendent Vine agree?’
‘I think she was a little more concerned with the damage everything that came out of Amy Coker’s mouth was doing to her reputation and chances of promotion. It got me wondering about just how spontaneous her visit to Deal and dispatching of Doctor Clavell really was.’
Marsh’s drink stopped midway to her mouth. ‘You think it was premeditated? If it was then that would mean...’
‘That it was all part of some preconceived master plan.’
Marsh put her drink down untouched. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting that she’s used us, manipulated everything from the beginning?’
‘I wonder about it. I have to. It’s my job.’ He smiled.
Marsh blew out her cheeks, picked up her drink and took a mouthful. She said, ‘That would make her either very, very clever, very, very lucky or us very, very predictable.’
‘Or maybe a bit of all three.’
‘But if it was premeditated from the beginning then... you mean the tapes in her father’s flat?’
‘Before that even. You know why I was at Sammy Coker’s funeral?’
‘You were friends.’
‘I had a phone call notifying me of the date and time and inviting me to attend. I have no idea who that was but it was a woman. It could have been Amy Coker.’
Marsh looked dubious. ‘I don’t suppose it was a recorded message was it?’
Romney shook his head and grinned. ‘No such luck. Not that it would prove anything.’
‘So what would prove your suspicions?’
Romney reached into his inside jacket pocket and laid the two photocopies he’d obtained from Mrs Bauer on the table between them. Marsh picked them up and read them while Romney quietly supped.
‘Where did you get these from?’
‘I don’t usually like to name my sources.’
‘The woman at the hospice. What’s her name?’
‘Mrs Bauer.’
‘Does she know why you wanted these?’
‘Not specifically.’
Marsh looked at them again. ‘So Sammy Coker got the burns to his fingers the night that Natassa Bam visited him. You think she burned his fingers deliberately? What for?’
‘The same reason she signed in as Natassa Bam.’
‘Which was?’
Romney looked to be preparing himself for a little speech that he hadn’t spent enough time trying to get straight. ‘Firstly, I freely admit that perhaps I’m just reading a little too much into things. Please, bear with me. Why would she sign in under that name for a start? It’s obvious that when we started checking Sammy’s visitors an unfamiliar and strange name like that would attract our attention. And from there it would only be a couple of clicks of the mouse to find out the real identity of the person behind it.’
Swallowing some wine, Marsh said, ‘But why would we start checking his visitors in the first place?’
‘Because we are the police. More than that: because Amy Coker had done such a good job of revving up the local press and dropping me in it through them that she’d know I’d need to do something about clearing my name and the easiest and most effective way for me to do that would be to clear Sammy’s. It would also have been pretty obvious given my history with the man that I’d have struggled to accept Sammy’s guilt over the accusations.’
Marsh frowned. She couldn’t remember Romney proving initially particularly stubborn over accepting Sammy Coker’s guilt. In public at least.
‘And if I was going to have a crack at clearing Sammy Coker’s name then I’d need to address the “evidence”...’ There were those speech marks again, ‘...that was sullying his memory: namely those tapes. I’d have had to look at how those tapes could have got into his flat with his prints on them, assuming they hadn’t been there when Sammy lived there.’
Marsh was now frowning quite severely. ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. Why would she want that? Any of it?’
‘Come at it from this way: let’s assume that all that stuff about Doctor Clavell implanting her with false memories is true. All the history that followed between Sammy and his daughter is true. Up until the time she discovers something that leads her to start having doubts about her “memories”. Maybe she hears something about the man who has been treating her, something about a false memory scandal. Maybe in time she comes to believe that she has been a victim, not of child sex-abuse but of malpractice. Maybe she didn’t feel that she could ever heal the rift between her and Sammy. Maybe she couldn’t face trying. Maybe she focussed her anger on Clavell. Maybe she hatched a plan that when Sammy died she’d set in train a series of events that would give her a great legal defence when she exacted her revenge on the man that ruined her life: not her father, but her therapist.’
‘That’s a lot of maybes.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’
Marsh sipped her drink and collected her thoughts. ‘If that’s all true, why was she trying to portray her dead father as a paedophile, why would she plant the tapes in his flat?’
‘So that she had reason to involve the police – me, specifically. This all hinges on getting me involved.’
‘She certainly managed that.’
‘I’m feeling a bit used.’
‘If you’re right then her revelations to the local press were something of a masterstroke.’
‘She certainly got the publicity she would need to motivate further enquiries from the police.’
‘From you,’ said Marsh.
‘All right, from me. She was using us and the local rag. She knew that
with what little evidence there was – we weren’t going to find any more because there wasn’t any more – and with Sammy dead we probably wouldn’t be falling over ourselves to make in-depth enquiries.’
‘She read us right with that.’
‘Come on, it didn’t take much seeing the way things would turn out. She needed to motivate us.’
‘Good old self-interest, eh?’
‘Exactly. When I think back to how she was with me when I visited her at her home that all makes a bit more sense. Again, it could have been calculated behaviour.’
‘She’s actually sounding more than a little devious. A bit of a criminal mastermind, perhaps.’
Romney said, ‘It could certainly be argued that she gave it her all. A hell of a performance.’
‘What was the point of scalding Sammy’s fingers prior to getting his prints on the tapes?’
‘That’s the clever bit. So that good police work would eventually prove that the tapes had been planted in his flat. The prints are dated by the evidence of the trauma. Didn’t you say that? I’ll remind you that he never went back to his flat after he was admitted to the hospice. In a very perverse and complicated way, Amy Coker wanted proof available that her father was not a paedophile.’
‘It’s very confusing.’
‘Something of a tangled web.’
‘How could she count on good police work like that?’
‘By having the local press insinuate that I’m a lynchpin in a paedophile ring. She’d have to know that would motivate me to find the truth of things, even if I didn’t do it simply to defend Sammy’s memory.’
‘Back to that good old self-interest.’
‘Works every time.’
‘Why not just kill Doctor Clavell quietly at a time and place of her choosing? How many years has it been?’
‘I’ve been wondering about that, too. We’d need to know when she found out about him. Maybe she only found out recently.’
‘If she found out about him. Assuming your reasoning is correct. And we don’t actually know for a certainty that he did implant her with false memories.’
Romney made a face.
Marsh said, ‘Just playing Devil’s advocate.’
Romney said, ‘Maybe she didn’t want the risks attached. If she’d killed him differently and been caught, depending on the circumstances, she might have faced a murder charge and a lengthy spell inside. Now she’s created all this publicity and public sympathy for herself through the local press, only to be told by the chief of Dover police station, no less, that actually it was all lies and her therapist was to blame. How long do you think she’ll get? She might not go to prison at all if she can get her version of events believed in a court of law. On paper, hers is a clear-cut case of diminished responsibility.’
Marsh thought about this. She said, ‘It’s a hell of a gamble.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Assuming you’re right and she’s manufactured everything, how could she have known that Superintendent Vine would make her little speech about Clavell and FMS, thereby giving her a green light to kill and perhaps get away with it?’
‘She couldn’t, of course. But when you take into account the way things were panning out because of her artful cunning, maybe she didn’t need to hear it from the station chief. Maybe she just needed to hear it from anywhere or suddenly “discover” it online or something when she’s been pointed in that general direction. Maybe Boudicca getting all sympathetic was a bonus she couldn’t have hoped for.’
‘If the way you’re describing it is correct,’ said Marsh, still obviously doubtful.
‘Who knows what other plans she might have had to prompt the revelations? It was her who told us about Clavell, right? Prompted him as a line of investigation?’
‘Yes to the bit about her telling us about Clavell, and it could be argued that in doing so she was providing us with a line of investigation,’ said Marsh. ‘Although that does seem a bit tenuous to me.’
Romney said, ‘So what do you think?’ It was a genuine and sincere question.
After a suitable pause, during which Marsh gulped another mouthful of house white, she said, ‘It’s certainly an interesting theory.’
A little exasperated at the temperature of Marsh’s response, Romney tapped the sheets of paper on the table between them and said, ‘What about these?’
Marsh thought again. ‘She was counting on you exonerating her father by using this as proof that he couldn’t have handled the tapes at home. She must know a bit about police work. And you.’
‘Neither point is far-fetched.’
‘True. So ultimately what she wanted was an excuse to kill the man who she held responsible for ruining the life she could have had with her father – not to mention the impact on her life those false memories would have given her – without it looking premeditated.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she also wanted her father completely cleared of any suspicion of being a child-molester.’
‘In a very roundabout and strange way, she has also achieved that.’
Marsh finished her drink. ‘It’s... pretty fantastic, sir.’
‘But?’
‘But... how about I get us another drink and we’ll go over it again?’
Romney poured the remains of his pint down his throat and handed her his glass.
Marsh said, ‘Should you, if you’re driving?’
‘I’m sure uniform could sort me out a ride home. I quite fancy a couple more. And the food is always good in here. Don’t worry, you don’t have to stay longer than one more just to keep me company.’
‘I’m getting a bit peckish myself, actually,’ she said. ‘And as Justin’s not around this weekend...’
***
54
Romney arrived at the station on Monday morning to see that Superintendent Vine’s car was already there. That was unusual.
He thought about forgoing his trip to the café opposite for his usual take-away coffee and breakfast but decided, based on previous experience, that to miss his early morning caffeine intake would not be wise. Besides, a few minutes’ delay wouldn’t hurt what he had to say to the station chief.
With his coffee and pastry in his stomach and his rubbish in the bin, he telephoned upstairs. Boudicca’s secretary asked him to wait while she consulted with her boss. Romney was put through.
‘Good morning, Tom.’
‘Morning, ma’am.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘Wondered if you had a couple of minutes.’
‘Good news?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘In that case, come up when you’re ready. I could do with some.’
Just for fun, Romney winked at the gatekeeper as he breezed past her. Her face coloured slightly before she quickly returned her gaze to her computer monitor. It made Romney smile. Just before he got to Superintendent Vine’s closed office door, he stopped, turned around and went back to the woman at the desk.
‘Why don’t we ever say hello?’ he said. ‘You know: good morning, lovely weather we’re having, how are you today?’
The gatekeeper flushed a deeper shade. Behind her glasses, her eyes widened as though she feared for her safety. She said, ‘I didn’t think you liked me.’
Romney felt bad. He said, ‘Well, I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression. I can be a bit gruff sometimes. A bit preoccupied, especially when I have to come up here.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll try to be a bit nicer in future.’
Tentatively, as though she suspected him of having fun with her, she half-smiled back. Her hand came up to her cheek and she reddened again.
‘She’s expecting me,’ he said and walked away amused.
He tapped on the door and went in.
The station chief looked like someone who’d spent the weekend with toothache: tired and troubled. Romney hoped what he had to say might cheer her up a bit.
Boudicca indicated that he should sit and said, �
�What can I do for you, Tom?’
‘Maybe it’s what I can do for you, ma’am,’ said Romney.
His cryptic and rather cheeky response got Vine’s eyebrows working.
‘Hear me out on this, would you?’
Superintendent Vine put her pen down, sat back in her chair and laced her fingers on the desktop.
When Romney finished retelling the theory that he’d shared with Marsh the day before, and spent time since refining, he found Vine to be looking at him with unconcealed interest. At least that’s what he thought her intense stare, her raised eyebrows, her slightly open mouth and her rapt attention signified.
Like Marsh, Vine wanted to hear it again. Romney wondered if it was a woman thing. He was about to launch into a repeat performance when Boudicca stopped him and said, ‘Let’s have a coffee, shall we?’ Without waiting for an answer, she buzzed through to the woman outside and placed her order.
Romney only interrupted himself to offer his thanks for the coffee when it arrived. He noticed that the woman smiled back at him and reddened. Romney realised that she flushed quicker than his eco-friendly downstairs toilet.
When Romney came to the end of his retelling, Vine stood and walked to the window. She had her back to him. He took the opportunity to down the remains of his coffee as he waited for her reaction.
After a long moment, she turned to face him. She was frowning and it did little to encourage him that his theory had been well received. And then her features softened and she half-smiled at him.
She said, ‘Tom, that is all very interesting. I do have a few questions, though.’
‘I thought you might.
Vine touched mostly on the same points that Marsh had covered in the pub the previous day. Romney was able to deal with them more confidently, not just because he’d already had a dress rehearsal with Marsh but also because he’d been worrying away at the details since. Vine’s enthusiasm seemed significantly advanced by the time she’d exhausted her queries. Romney was feeling quite smug and he still had his trump card to play.
Leaning back in her chair once more, Boudicca, once again, entwined her fingers on the desktop. She breathed out through her nose and said, ‘It really is an interesting theory. If you’re right, then Ms Coker has made fools out of the lot of us. And the Dover Post. Maybe more than fools. After what she said for the tape on Friday...’ Boudicca did not feel inclined to finish that thought. Perhaps, thought Romney, the memory was too raw. She said, ‘I suppose the sixty-four-thousand dollar question is: what can we do about proving it?’