‘Michael Mortimer of six, Drovers Lane, Castle Farthing,’ he answered, with a glare.
‘We are making enquiries about the death of Annie Symons, resident at number two. I know you’ve already been spoken to, but I need to ask you a number of additional questions,’ stated Falconer. ‘How well did you know the deceased?’ he continued.
‘I only knew her to nod to,’ he replied, not giving any additional information.
‘Did you ever enter her house for any reason?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever meet her socially?’
‘No.’
‘Did you see her in the local pub on any occasion?’
‘Probably. The old biddy in the shop says she was a part-time barmaid there, but I’ve no memories of actually seeing her working there. So that had better be a no, then, as I can’t place her behind the bar.’
Falconer sighed. As usual, they were getting nowhere fast. ‘Did you ever bump into Ms Symons in the local shop?’
‘Nope.’
After intense questioning for another fifteen minutes, it seemed that Mr Mortimer had seen Annie Symons leaving her house once or twice, but that had been the extent of his acquaintance with her.
‘You said you didn’t know her when I called round,’ cut in Tomlinson, with some ire.
‘That’s because I didn’t. I hardly think seeing her outside her front door and nodding to her was knowing her in any way,’ Mortimer snapped back. ‘That doesn’t exactly count as bosom buddies, does it?’
Falconer could not carry on without some grounds, and decided to let Mr Mortimer go for the time being, moving to the next interview with his DC to talk to Mr Perkins.
The usual preliminaries taken care of with the tape, Falconer began, ‘We’re following up the previous enquiries made by DC Tomlinson here when he called on you at home, Mr Perkins. Do you have anything to add to that?’
‘Absolutely nothing. I told your monkey here that I just said good day to my neighbour if I saw her in the garden, but I didn’t know her beyond that. And I must say I object to being brought in here to be questioned on tape for something I know absolutely nothing about.’ Perkins was visibly riled.
‘You’re not under caution, Mr Perkins. Although we’re taping the interview, it’s only for our records. Now, did you ever go into number two, Ms Symons’ home, for any reason?’
‘Absolutely not. Why should I be in the house of someone I barely know from Adam?’
‘Did you ever do any work for Ms Symons?’
‘She was only renting,’ he replied with a grin of having got one over on them.
‘Did you ever see Ms Symons when she was working in The Fisherman’s Flies?’ asked the inspector.
‘Now, this is getting ridiculous. No comment,’ replied the man, exasperating both officers.
‘Did you ever go out with her?’
‘I didn’t know her.’
‘Did you ever bump into her in the local shop?’
‘No.’
And this was the tenor of the rest of the interview, leaving both the inspector and the DC absolutely exasperated. ‘Well that did us a lot of good, didn’t it,’ stated Tomlinson, grinding his teeth in frustration.
‘Right, let’s sum this all up.’ Falconer addressed his newly expanded murder team in the station’s meeting room, which was the only space, apart from the conference room, big enough to hold them all. Apart from the three usual detectives, there were half a dozen DCs recruited from other forces to help with the volume of investigation of such an expanding case. ‘It started with Carmichael, or rather his dogs, finding the body of Annie Symons in Castle Farthing woods.’
‘Then there was Melanie Saunders, whose body was uncovered at The Manse,’ added Tomlinson, almost defrosted.
‘Not forgetting our most recently identified corpse, Marilyn Slade, who was uncovered in Ford Hollow,’ the inspector chipped in.
‘And we had Fanny Anstruther missing,’ interjected Carmichael.
‘Who turned out to be a red herring in all of this,’ continued Falconer happily.
‘And we’ve had Suzie Doidge missing all along.’ It was Carmichael’s turn again.
‘And Bonnie Fletcher from Shepford St Bernard,’ added Falconer.
‘We’ve also got Natalie Jones, who’s only just gone missing,’ finished Tomlinson again, with a grin, his spirits fully recovered, having been allowed to help with the interviews, unproductive though they were. ‘I think we’ve got it.’
‘It’s a bit grim, isn’t it, sir?’ commented Carmichael.
‘Absolutely frightful, and now we may have a body at the Mill in Stoney Cross,’ agreed Falconer. ‘The search party for Natalie Jones is underway, and we will put a team over at the Mill tomorrow to find out if there’s anything else in the septic tank. We’d better attend as well, Carmichael.’
‘But –’ Carmichael started, with unease and a roiling stomach.
‘But me, no buts, Sergeant. We’re going, and that’s it.’
Tomlinson grinned.
‘But … we’re not exactly burdened with stunning suspects, are we?’ Concluded the inspector with a rueful face. So many deaths and disappearances, and there were no obvious murderers. Then again, there’d been no obvious victims before these poor women’s bodies started coming to light, and some of them had been missing quite a long time. He just hoped it wasn’t going to be one of those unsolved mysteries with which police life is plagued.
‘We’ve got Colin Bridger, the owner of number two Drovers Lane.’ Tomlinson began to sum up the suspect situation, feeling he had more skin in the case than Carmichael, due to the latter’s recent absence. ‘If we find Suzie Doidge, we’ve got Timothy Driscoll. We’ve got those two iffy builders Perkins and Mortimer that we just interviewed, and we’ve got Old Man George Covington.’
‘Not exactly rich pickings then, are they, Constable,’ said the inspector wryly. ‘Carmichael, I want you to organise our new DCs to undertake background searches on all of our suspects, with particular reference to the pub that the Covingtons used to run in London and the girl Mrs Covington said had disappeared.’
There was a moment’s silence as the original trio contemplated their lack of progress. All they seemed to be good at was collecting corpses. Then the silence was broken by an undeterred Carmichael speaking in a stage whisper. ‘Will you come with me to visit Kerry and the babies on the way home, sir? You can come as well, if you like, Tomlinson.’
‘I’ll leave it be, Sarge. I don’t really know her. Yet.’
‘I’d be delighted to, Carmichael.’ Falconer had no formal arrangement with Honey for that evening, and he was still in a ridiculously cheery mood after what had been happening in his life over the last forty-eight hours.
Falconer dismissed his team to address the various tasks they had been allotted.
Chapter Fourteen
Kerry was waiting for them in a chair by her bed and took them to the nursery, where the twins were being kept under observation for a lot of the time. ‘They should be let out and put by my bed soon,’ she informed them. ‘They each have to get to just over two kilos and then we can all go home. I don’t really want to leave without them. Can I take them to the ward for a little while?’ she asked the nursery nurse on duty, who nodded her head in approval.
Falconer took one crib and Carmichael the other, and they walked slowly back to Kerry’s appointed place on the maternity ward. ‘They’re being absolute darlings,’ she told them. ‘I can have them by me for a few hours a day, and they hardly ever cry. I hope they’re going to be as good as Harriet was.’
‘Have you thought of any names yet?’ asked her husband.
‘Persephone and Apollo,’ replied Kerry with an absolutely straight face, leaving Carmichael looking astounded at these outrageous suggestions.
‘You can’t mean that?’ the sergeant exploded with outrage.
‘I’m just taking a leaf out of your mother’s book,’ she said with a smile, the
n added, ‘but the names are growing on me. And would you care to tell us both what your siblings are called?’ Her eyes twinkled at this leading question.
Carmichael took the bait like a starving fish. ‘Well, there’s Romeo,’ he began. ‘Then there’s Hamlet and Mercutio. We’ve got the girls next, Juliet and Imogen – same as Tomlinson’s girlfriend, I never thought about that before – and, of course, baby Harry.’
‘And what’s your middle name, Davey?’
‘Orsino,’ he replied very slowly, suddenly realising how he had been reeled in.
And can you think of anything better than my suggestions?’
Carmichael looked blank before suggesting, ‘John and Mary?’
‘You’d better be wearing black then, my dearest!’ retorted Kerry with due gravity.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because it’ll be over my dead body.’
‘I see. Then I’d better leave it to you. I can get used to anything if you ask me to.’
‘They’re definitely growing on me,’ said Kerry musingly before Falconer broke in by clearing his throat, and then they all took turns in holding the babies for a while. Carmichael was rock-steady, and cooed at them like the natural that he was. Falconer was a bit more pussy-footed, and held them as if they were made of fine porcelain, and he was liable to drop them. He considered that he would have been more comfortable holding a live shell.
After a reasonable amount of time they rose to go, and on the way out, Carmichael shared a joke with the inspector. ‘Did you hear about the magician who couldn’t pull a rabbit out of his hat?’ he asked, a big grin on his face.
‘No. Tell me.’
‘He pulled a hare out of his bum instead,’ replied the sergeant, then looked a bit confused, ‘although I don’t quite get it. I like hares, with their long ears, but the boys told me it was hysterically funny.’
Falconer smothered a smile. ‘And you got that from the boys?’
‘I did. Did you want to hear another one?’
‘If I must,’ answered the inspector.
‘Why are pirates called pirates?’
‘I don’t know, Sergeant. Why are pirates called pirates?’
‘Because they are.’
‘I think you’ll find that “it’s because they arrr”.’
‘I don’t get that one either.’
‘I’ll explain them to you one day when you’re old enough to understand.’
‘Thank you, sir, although I’m sure I could work them out, given time. Jokes were easier in my day.’
‘Nice bright boys.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The search party went out again at first light, scouring the countryside round Market Darley for any signs of Natalie Jones.
Falconer and Carmichael met at the station, then drove over in the Boxster to the Mill in Stoney Cross to meet the team who were going to trawl the septic tank. Araminta Wingfield-Heyes and Sadie Palister joined them in the garden as the team arrived.
‘When did you last have this emptied, Miss Wingfield-Heyes?’ asked the inspector.
‘Oh, not for ages, although I did have some drain work done, but it’s over a year ago now. I’m here on my own and apparently it’s a pretty large tank, so it doesn’t need doing very often. I’ve arranged for the shit truck to pay a visit after you have finished so that I know I’m starting from scratch. The thought of body parts in my cesspit is very unsettling.’
‘I’m sure it is, but we have to make sure that it’s not just a spare hand that’s been thrown down there no matter how ghoulish that sounds.’
‘We’re ready to take the top off, sir,’ announced one of the team members, and leant down to do so. The big metal cover took a lot of heaving off, but it finally gave way, and a noxious aroma began to pervade the garden.
Carmichael, holding his nose, went over to have a look, suffering from insatiable curiosity, but what he saw was obviously not to his liking, for first he sprayed up his breakfast on to the grass, then he upped feet and laid himself out flat on the lawn.
‘You must excuse my sergeant, everybody. He has a weak stomach and is prone to pass out at the slightest thing, or so it would seem.’
‘Is that why he’s got a bandage on his head? I didn’t like to ask before,’ said Minty.
‘His wife’s just given birth to twins, and he decided to watch the births.’
‘And he did that when she was in labour?’
‘Twice,’ replied Falconer, kneeling beside his partner and slapping at his cheeks to bring him round. ‘In fact, with the sort of luck he’s been having, I’m surprised he didn’t try to land on the metal top. I think I’d better get him out of here.’
‘You can take him inside if you want.’
‘That would be a good idea, then I can come back out here again and see what’s brought up – apart from the sergeant’s bacon and eggs, that is.’
Having left Carmichael to have a nice lie down on a couch, the inspector went back into the garden to find that various things had floated to the top of the flotsam and jetsam in the tank, apart from the obvious. When he’d ascertained that there were more remains inside, he went in and took his sergeant back to his car so that they could return to the station and open another file.
‘Any bets on who this one is?’ he asked, as he folded Carmichael into the passenger seat.
‘I suppose it would be too much to ask for it to be Suzie Doidge,’ he replied groggily.
‘Probably. In the meantime, how about we help the search party and take Natalie’s photo into all the pubs in the town and see if any of the landlords recognise her. Not every landlord’s like George Covington in keeping up with the news.’
‘Good idea, sir.’
Before the inspector had even had the chance to settle his cheeks in his chair, however, he was called back up to Chivers’ office. ‘Have you not got this sorted yet?’ the superintendent asked in exasperation.
‘It’s still early days, considering how many bodies there now are. We’ve just got back from Stoney Cross after seeing body parts pulled out of a septic tank.’
‘How disgusting.’ The superintendent made a little moue of distaste. ‘Are you trying to tell me there’s yet another body?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, you need to get your finger out, Inspector. There needs to be a resolution to this. People are getting frightened to go out at night, and I’ve got the national press on my back,’ he moaned, ‘in case you hadn’t noticed the scrum outside the station.’
He then immediately cheered up by adding, ‘In fact, I’m going on television again this evening to see if I can jog people’s memories and give the viewing public an update.’ This last piece of news he almost purred, and Falconer could see the hefty feed his ego had had on the fact that he would again have his face plastered across screens all over the country. ‘This is turning into a pretty nasty but important case. If you can solve it, it’ll be a feather in my, er, your cap.’
Falconer suppressed a smile at this slip, and just agreed. It was the only way to get out of the office: when the man was so taken with his own importance that he’d forgotten that he wanted to give the inspector a bollocking.
When he got back to the office, he found Carmichael waiting for him, but there was no sign of Tomlinson.
‘He’s left a note, sir.’
‘Where is he?’
‘It looks like he had the same idea as you. He’s gone off with a printed list of pubs in Market Darley, and he’s going to start the end that Natalie Jones lived. He’s left a suggestion that we should go out and start the other end, and that we would all probably bump into each other in the middle. He says to call him on his mobile if you agree. Damned cheek, leaving a note telling you what to do.’
‘That’s quite all right, Carmichael. It was a good initiative.’
‘But I thought the Uniforms had checked all the pubs.’
‘They will have, but you know how unforthcoming publicans can
be when someone in uniform turns up. We might get a bit more cooperation.’
For most of the afternoon they had no luck; then, in the Royal Oak, the tide turned. The manager had not been on duty when the uniformed boys had come in, but on being shown the photograph, he stared for a moment, then said he did recognise her. He had a good memory for faces. ‘She was in here with a small gang of girls. They were drinking tequila slammers at a terrific rate. Then they started to get a bit rowdy and I had to ask them to calm down.
‘They did for a while, but they ended up singing ‘Y Viva España’ at a terrific volume and, eventually, I asked them to leave. That would’ve been about ten thirty.’
‘How many more of them were there?’
‘There were about five altogether.’
‘And you’re sure this girl was one of them?’
‘Absolutely. In fact, she was the lippiest one of the lot.’
‘Did you pick up anything about their plans for after the pub?’
‘Most of what they were saying was drivel and giggling, so no, I didn’t.’
‘That sounds very out of character, from what her mother told us.’
‘If you ask me, most young women have one personality for home, and quite another one for when they’re out with their friends, drinking.’
The man was very wise. ‘Come on, Carmichael. Let’s go visit Mrs Jones and ask her who Natalie’s friends were. She said she was a very shy girl, but that might not be the absolute truth, and she must have some.’
At the Joneses’ house, the mother of the missing girl admitted that Natalie went out very occasionally with some old school friends and assumed that was what she’d done on the night she’d disappeared. ‘But I still can’t get her on her mobile, and I don’t know any of her friends’ numbers. They would all be on her mobile which I don’t have, and I can’t get into her Facebook account. It’s password protected,’ she informed them, dissolving into tears again, but proving that someone had at least put her right on the correct name for the internet site.
‘May I send one of my officers round to collect her computer? I’m sure one of our electronic whizzes can crack the password, and that should help us a lot.’
Shadows and Sins (The Falconer Files Book 13) Page 14