That evening Adam wasn’t as pleased as he should have been to see his partner home at a reasonable time. He’d got halfway through a pile of marking with some other stuff to do afterwards, and he wanted to shift the majority of it so he could enjoy the weekend. Robin would understand—in the same way as Adam understood his job pressures—but it would still be a shame they wouldn’t be able to spend more of the evening just chilling. Time together was always at a premium, and the continued presence of Anderson made relaxation a challenge, even on occasions such as this when he’d taken himself to the pub after work.
“How goes it?” Adam asked after they’d shared a welcome-home kiss.
“Not sacked yet.” Robin slumped into a chair.
“As bad as that?”
“Nah. At least I could make a positive report to Cowdrey when he touched base this afternoon. Looks like there may be something worth pursuing in that fakes element.” Robin sat up again. “Which means that if you have any ideas about joining the detectorists, I suggest you wait until we’ve cleared this case up.”
“You think one of them might be involved? Don’t answer if it’s all under wraps. I can take a hint. Oof!” The arrival of Campbell, bashing against Adam’s legs before he made a dash for Robin, set some of the books flying. Picking them up, he admired once again the way the two most important characters in his life seemed besotted with one another.
“Don’t worry. I don’t even tell this lad my secrets.” Robin stroked the dog’s ears. “And no, I don’t at present think one of them is involved, but this case is so incestuous I can’t be sure. So can you put any interest on hold, please.”
“After last night, I can’t imagine many things I’d like to do less than attend another meeting. They made the governing body at Lindenshaw look like Morecambe and Wise.” He laid the marking to one side; it could wait an hour or two. “Any luck with Agnew?”
“Yes. In spades. I’ve got the team following up the fraudulent artefacts industry. I’m trying to keep as objective as possible, but there’s one bloke in particular I’d love to pin it on.”
“What’s he done to rub you up the wrong way?”
“Just been generally smarmy.” Robin, still caressing Campbell, shut his eyes. “This bloody case is driving me bananas. I’ve told all the team to get a decent rest tonight, and we’ll come to it fresh tomorrow. I need a definitive answer on how big a window we’ve got for that body being put into the ground. We’ve been focussing around the time Becky Bairstow went off, but if we can push the envelope back a couple of months or so, we might have another chance at an ID.”
“Sounds good.”
“It does. First sniff we’ve had of somebody being threatened, anyway. Except that although said person may have been reported missing at around the right time, they appear to be alive and well.” Robin took Campbell’s face in his hands, addressing him as though he were a crucial witness. “How do you pretend someone’s still alive if they’re dead?”
“That dog may be a genius, but he can’t answer that one. It doesn’t involve food, for one thing.” Adam watched the pair with continued pleasure. “It would be almost impossible if they were impersonating somebody outright and in the flesh. Anybody who turned up at Culdover saying they were me would be seen through straight away.”
“Ah, but she’s supposedly off travelling. All the contact is on social media—at least with friends—and nobody’s cried foul.”
Adam stroked his chin. “Pretending to be somebody else on social media would be easy enough, if you’d got hold of—I’m assuming we’re talking about your victim—her passwords. Some people use the same one for everything, so if you’d even got one of them, Bob would be your uncle. Then you reset the whole lot to make yourself a secure little cyber shell.”
Robin sat forwards again, temporarily ignoring Campbell’s demands for more petting. “Yeah. I guess if you had access to their main email account, then you could probably reset any passwords you didn’t know. Play the ‘forgot my details’ card.”
“True. The murderer could pretend the victim was still alive for long enough to muddy the waters. Assuming you could explain why she’s not appearing in person. That would be the stumbling block.”
“She’s said to be travelling.” Robin’s eyebrow shot up. “Which sounds highly suspicious to me.”
“Like that Bairstow woman was?”
“Exactly. Too much of a coincidence. Although there’s a bigger difficulty to overcome. The pictures she’s been posting of herself.” Robin addressed the dog again. “Let’s see if your ‘dad’ can come up with an answer to that.”
“Hmm.” Adam drummed on the pile of schoolbooks. “Okay, what if somebody got access to her photo files as well? On Dropbox or whatever? You could use those.”
“Wouldn’t somebody spot that the pictures weren’t new?”
“Maybe nobody had seen them before. What if the impersonator also nicked a camera with a mass of pictures on that your victim hadn’t yet shared?” Adam warmed to his theme. “If you post a snap with a comment like ‘Cocktail time in Amsterdam,’ other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to spot that it had been taken in a bar in Bradford. Not if it was generic enough.”
“Your dad’s clever, isn’t he?” Robin sought Campbell’s agreement, which came in the form of a lick to his face. “And there’s always a chance people would soon get bored with holiday snaps and skim over them. Could it work?”
“It’s possible. People are really gullible online. We warn the children about internet safety all the time, telling them that the people they’re communicating with may not be who they say they are.” Adam shuddered at the thought of some of the cases they’d heard about in training sessions, where horrible old men had pretended to be teenagers to lure their victims. “And then the credulous adults quite happily accept everything they’re told at face value and fall for a—what do you call it?—catphishing scam.”
“Something like that.” Robin, staring into the distance, obviously considering some element of the case Adam wasn’t yet privy to, had gone into thinking mode.
“Dinner?”
Campbell’s reaction—a bolt for the door—struck a sharp contrast with Robin’s. “Um? Sorry?”
“Dinner?”
“Please.”
Adam moved into the kitchen, then busied himself with a couple of ready meals to bung into the microwave as Robin appeared in the doorway. “Thanks for that,” he said, nodding at Adam’s culinary efforts. “I’ve been worse than useless on the domestic front these last few days.”
“You can make it up to me. Once you solve the case, straight back onto being chief cook and bottle washer.” Adam got out plates and cutlery, then laid them in a neat but welcoming manner on the breakfast bar.
“If I ever solve this bloody case.” Robin slumped onto one of the kitchen stools. “This catphishing lark. Why would anybody bother to do it?”
“To get money, for a start, like most other cybercrime. Create a sob story and set up an appeal. You know, ‘We’re in the USA and we have a major medical emergency. We can’t afford to pay, so please donate to my PayPal.’” Adam waved a fork as though conducting an orchestra. “Like I said, the same adults who warn children to be careful fall for it and fork out.”
“Okay. Is it always about making money?”
“Probably not. I guess some people do it to get emotional support. Lots of hugs and kisses and fuss. Like Campbell when he feels he’s being ignored.” Adam had another couple of minutes before the stuff in the microwave needed attending to. Enough time to rub his lover’s shoulders. “Is this what you think is happening with your ‘travelling but not travelling’ woman?”
“Could be, although it seems far-fetched.” Robin leaned back into the massage. “And that’s very good, by the way.”
“Thank you.” Adam worked on a tensed-up muscle. “Although why would your murderer—and no, I’m not mind reading, simply applying a bit of logic—pretend the dead woman was
still alive? Especially when they put the body somewhere it was always going to turn up?”
“That, Sherlock, is the big question.” A loud ping had Adam glancing at the microwave and Robin grabbing for his phone. “Sod it, what now?”
Time to go into “prepare to change all plans” mode, although if the news was really bad, it would probably have come in a call, not a message. “What’s up?” Adam asked when his partner laid the phone down. “You’re looking distinctly smug.”
“That was a text from Sarah. She’s been doing some extra homework on Pippa Palmer. That’s the woman we were just discussing.”
“The one you thought might be being impersonated online?”
“The very same.” The self-satisfied grin Robin was obviously trying to restrain broke out fully. “Sarah’s been studying her social media profile, and it seems our Pippa’s quite camera shy. She says she’ll explain more at the team briefing tomorrow, but the gist of it is that there are not any pictures—pre-travel or current—that give a clear view of her face.”
Another ping indicated that dinner was ready. As Adam filled the plates, he pointed out, “That’s not unusual. Lots of people don’t want to have a recognisable picture online, for all sorts of legitimate reasons. And that would be a boon to anyone trying to pass themselves off as her.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Robin—appetite evidently whetted by this welcome piece of news—set about helping himself to dinner. “Now I need to work out a subtle way of identifying whether the dead woman is Pippa Palmer without either spooking her family or making a right tit of myself.”
“You can do it!” Adam did an impression of the worst kind of motivational speaker. “Failure is all in the mind.”
“Pfft.” Robin pretended to stab him with his fork. “Yeah, I can do that. I just wish I could solve the other problem as easily.” He pointed the fork in the direction of the spare bedroom. “The unwanted lodger.”
“That sounds like a Sherlock Holmes case. Maybe we’ll have to end up murdering Stuart. Surely there’s a simple, undetectable method for disposing of annoying sergeants?”
“Steady on. I don’t want to be investigating you. Not in that way, anyhow.” Robin smirked.
“No smut in front of delicate young ears.” Adam jerked his thumb towards Campbell, who was far more interested in cleaning his tail than any romantic talk. He got to hear plenty of it, and as it didn’t concern food, it wasn’t likely to be of importance. “How long do you think Stuart is going to be here?”
“God knows.” Robin groaned. “I feel sorry for the bloke, and I don’t want to just kick him out on the streets, but he can’t stay here forever. Can he?”
The question had been asked with a bleakness Adam rarely heard in his lover’s voice, unless he was referring to the bullying which had blighted his childhood. Adam reached across the breakfast bar and squeezed Robin’s hand, giving him a reassuring smile, although he didn’t feel reassured himself. It could be so easy to slip into a routine whereby Anderson became a paying guest, always chipping into the domestic pot and always looking for other accommodation but never quite finding it. “We won’t let that happen. I’ll have a word with him this weekend. To hell with Helen’s swearing me to silence. We’ve got to do something.”
Robin forced a smile. He looked desperately weary, bags forming under his eyes; the fine crows’ feet round them only appeared when he was in the midst of a difficult case. They gave him an air of gravitas, which had its attractions, but Adam would rather not see them there. Robin was hot stuff, anyway, even covered in mud and dripping with sweat from when he’d been digging the garden.
“Maybe we should get the pair of them in a room,” Robin suggested, “and knock their heads together until they see sense?”
“While I’d usually applaud that kind of idea, the vibes I got off that conversation with Helen stick the tin lid on it. I wouldn’t put Helen past knocking our heads together instead.” Adam eyed his dinner bleakly, appetite waning.
“Eat up. You can’t mark books on an empty stomach.” Robin returned the hand squeeze. “We’ll find a way to solve the problem. We’ve faced worse.”
“And in this very kitchen, in your case.”
The best that could be said for Anderson was that he didn’t brandish any deadly weapons, although if Adam broke the vow of silence he’d made, he wasn’t sure the same was going to be said of Helen.
Next morning, the team briefing was buzzing, despite it being a Saturday and the usual weekend leisure activities having to go on hold. There was plenty to get their teeth into: fakes, threats of prosecution, an inkling of a chance that Pippa Palmer was being impersonated online. Surely there had to be a key lead amongst those?
Her picture, such as it was—a face almost entirely hidden under the shadow from a large-brimmed black hat—had been put up on the incident board, but they were trying to source a better one. The forensic department had been asked about dates, and they had confirmed that the dead woman could have been killed even as much as ten months previously.
There was plenty to do: Ben and Alison were detailed to talk to Warnock, who’d come back to the Culdover area just the day before, or so he said, while Sarah and the other constable, Fraser, were set the task of working out how they could quietly check if the body might be Pippa Palmer. Robin emphasised that they couldn’t risk egg on their faces twice over, going to the media with another possible identification only for her to turn up on their doorstep. He and Pru were off to see the Culdover version of Mata Hari.
Becky Bairstow had wanted to meet the police in a café in Normanton, twenty miles the other side of Kinechester. That was where Jerry’s parents lived; she’d explained that she was staying with them until she got police permission to fly back to Germany. Robin refused to agree to that arrangement, although he did deign to meet her at the local police station, even if it meant a bit of a hike for him; the witness had to understand that the ante had been upped.
Ms. Bairstow was late arriving and appeared flustered, searching her handbag for her keys and then finding them in her pocket. Normally, Robin would have settled a witness with a cup of tea, but this time he resisted—being disturbed might allow a chink in her armour to appear.
He began with the usual introductions, thanks for her seeing them again, and an explanation that they’d be recording what she said this time. She took a long appraisal of the setup, asking what exactly would be involved, although—to Robin’s surprise—she refused the offer of legal representation. He’d already primed the duty solicitor, just in case she was needed, but Becky Bairstow appeared determined to face this situation alone.
Robin voiced his gratitude at her cooperation, then explained that the case had moved on since last they spoke.
“For example, you and Charlie Howarth were seen late at night at the Culford villa site.” That was stretching the truth, but by the slight flinch on the witness’s face, it had hit home.
“Seen by whom?”
“I’m not prepared to divulge that at present. What were you doing?”
“What does he say we were doing?” Becky was evidently regaining her composure.
“Again, I’m not divulging that. I want to hear your side of the story.”
The witness glanced at Pru, then back to Robin. “We were having an affair. It was a convenient place to meet.”
“Is that the truth?” Pru almost spat the question out. “Or is it just what Howarth asked you to say?”
“Why should I lie? Why should he lie?”
“You’re staying with Jerry’s family?”
The change of questioner—and Robin’s change of tack—took the witness by surprise. “Yes. Is there a problem with that?”
“Not that we can see. It’s odd that you didn’t stay at your own parents’ house.”
“I told you, I’m orph—”
“No, you’re not. You asked us what reason you should have to lie about Howarth; we’d suggest you’re a habitual liar.”
/> Becky raised her hands. “All right, you’ve got me on that point. My parents are still alive. They live in Inverness—got relocated with Dad’s work—so it’s too far to be staying up there and being at your beck and call.”
Pru ignored the sidestepping. “So, we’re back to why you keep telling us lies. And we’re quite happy to sit here until you decide to tell us the truth.”
Becky slumped back in her seat. “About my parents? Or about Howarth?”
“Both.”
“Hm. Maybe it is time we stopped pussyfooting around.” Becky, glancing at the recording equipment, was clearly quite relieved.
“I appreciate your cooperation.” Robin nodded. “Will you tell us what you and Charlie Howarth were actually doing at Culford out of hours?”
“Operating a business. As I suppose you already know.”
“A legitimate business?” Pru took up the questioning as Robin sat back to observe the witness. The Becky Bairstow who’d swanned into Abbotston police station had been immaculately turned out and wonderfully self-assured. This version was less well-groomed and carried an air of hesitancy. Something had obviously spooked her. She eyed Pru, then Robin, and finally the recording equipment once more before answering.
“Have you had any complaints made against us?”
“Just answer the question. Was it legitimate?”
There seemed to be an ounce or two of fight left. “We sold honestly sourced artefacts. Things people had turned up legally. We were simply a means by which those things could reach an appreciative market.”
Robin resisted making a snide comment about how it sounded like she was suggesting they provided a public service. “What about the fake artefacts?”
“Fakes?” Her innocent expression took in nobody.
“Yes. The recently manufactured items you were passing off as old.” Robin waited for an answer; they’d take as long as necessary to winkle the truth out of this particular shell.
Two Feet Under (Lindenshaw Mysteries Book 3) Page 16