Still Waters

by Judith Cutler

  ‘You might want to tell us where.’

  ‘If I were a mind-reader perhaps I would. As it is, you’ll have to tell me.’

  ‘I’m still waiting for an answer, Mr Barnes.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to wait till kingdom come.’ He got to his feet in an easy movement.

  Fran was desperate to dive to the rescue, but wanted Sue to have one more chance to redeem herself. It didn’t take long to realise that she waited in vain.

  ‘Mr Barnes, you might as well sit down again, you know,’ Fran said. ‘From what I know of HMP Lewes, this is one of the better rooms, and believe it or not we’re better company than some of your colleagues.’

  ‘Not much to boast about, Inspector, when most of the inmates are illiterate drug users whose only occupations seem to be self-abuse or buggery.’

  ‘I told you, it’s Det—’

  Fran overrode her. ‘Quite, Mr Barnes.’ She allowed her voice to become conversational. ‘You’ve put your finger on a major problem with the present prison system. I wish you could have a word with our beloved leaders, most of whom clearly haven’t spent so much as a day in a nick, let alone weeks, months and years. How have you kept your sanity?’

  ‘Believe it or not, Inspector, by staying angry. The system has deprived me not only of my career but also of my ambition. I wanted to put something back into society. To make a difference. I was standing for the town council. I don’t see me getting so much as a nomination when I get out, do you? And no amount of your playing around trying to get me to tell you the whereabouts of a woman I emphatically did not kill is going to help that.’

  Fran nodded. ‘Very well. Let me come straight out with the information. Mrs Roper’s body was found in a covered reservoir. She had been strangled and trussed to a beam inside the reservoir roof. To have put her there you would need to know about diving – swimming at the very least – and to have no mean physique. However kind one wants to be to Ken Roper, one can’t imagine his being able to string her up that way. You were always perceived as his accomplice, and I have to tell you that in my view you’d be capable of lifting Janine and—’

  ‘Of course I was capable of lifting the poor woman. I gave evidence that I had carried her upstairs to my bedroom. She had a severe migraine and couldn’t see to walk. Your colleagues, not surprisingly, found her DNA on my clothes and on my bedclothes. Their deduction was that I had helped kill her.’

  ‘And the deduction of the jury,’ Sue put in.

  ‘As you were kind enough to observe, Constable, I’m a scientist, and, believe me, people are taken in by anything a man in a white coat tells them. Even if they know he’s an actor in a white coat, they still get taken in.’

  ‘And you’re trying to take me in now.’

  He snorted. ‘The philosopher said, All men are liars. He was a man. Therefore he was lying. Therefore all men tell the truth. Surely, Constable, you can do better than that.’

  Fran said, ‘Well, you’ve given us a lesson in logic, Mr Barnes. How about giving us your unprejudiced opinions of Janine and her untimely death?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ He settled down in the manner of a man about to share a chinwag over a pint.

  Fran mirrored him, though Sue still sat aloof. ‘Janine first. Make me see the living woman,’ Fran urged.

  ‘She and Ken were the mistakes in each other’s lives. Oh, Ken will tell you how happy they were—’

  ‘He has,’ Fran agreed. ‘Why are you telling me different?’

  ‘One of your colleagues’ insinuations was that because Ken and I were friends and enjoyed sailing we were in a gay relationship. We were not. We were friends from our schooldays, and liked sailing. That was it. I had my own private life, which involved all sorts of things Ken had no interest in. Alas, he did not have a life, private or otherwise. And then, God help him, he got the idea that he could meet his heart’s desire on the Internet. Janine was on the rebound, I suspect, and he had never fancied himself in love before. Because it was undeniably cheaper for them to live together, they chose to do so. Janine even had her big white dress day. But to their friends – and I really liked the woman, don’t get me wrong – the marriage was hollow. Six months of living with Ken and she was bored out of her not very large skull – any fool could see that. She fed Ken a stream of lies about having to work late at school – as if she were a teacher, for God’s sake! – and went off and did…whatever she did. She didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask, for everyone’s sake. I reasoned that what the eye didn’t see, the heart didn’t grieve over.’

  ‘Surely you had a duty to tell your friend that his wife was two-timing him!’ Sue declared.

  ‘If I’d known, yes, perhaps I would have had a duty. I took great care not to know. If Ken had ever told me he was unhappy, then I would have had a duty. But he was genuinely happier than I’d ever known him, so proud of his lovely wife.’

  ‘Was she lovely? In appearance, I mean,’ Fran asked, hoping her question would drown the sound of Sue’s derisive snort.

  ‘She could be, no doubt about it. One of Ken’s gifts to her was a portrait. The sitter goes along to some photographic studio with several changes of clothing. A make-up artist transforms her. She’s photographed in a variety of poses and outfits. The result is a soft-focus fraud which costs the buyer far more than it’s worth. Anyway, Janine looked very good indeed in her photograph.’

  Fran leant forward, stroking her chin. ‘The funny thing is, Ken, we’ve never come across any photo like that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have, not unless you’ve had access to my house.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Fran was forced to admit.

  It was, of course, a serious omission, one he was quick to seize on, shaking his head in ironic sadness. ‘I’d have thought you’d be more thorough than that. But I suppose you’ve been focusing on Ken.’

  She tried to regroup. ‘So what will I find at your house, Maurice?’

  ‘You do these searches yourself? Don’t you delegate?’ Then he looked meaningfully at Sue. ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘Tell me what to look for when I go. Janine’s portrait apart.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know why I should have it?’

  ‘If you want to tell me I’m more than happy to listen. But I shall make up my own mind, remember.’

  ‘It upset Ken to see her tricked out with such glamour.’

  ‘Come, now—’

  ‘He liked his wife as he saw her every day,’ he insisted. ‘Loved her. He was a simple soul – still is, I should imagine. And it suited me to have the photo on my wall.’

  ‘Was she your beard, Maurice?’

  He acknowledged the term with a lift of one eyebrow. ‘Oh, I’m not gay. The funny thing is I believe I’m asexual. I’ve never had the privilege – or perhaps the opposite, though the antonym escapes me for the moment – of a grand passion. And curiously Janine’s portrait kept predatory people of both sexes at bay. I stress I was fond of the girl, in a strictly fraternal way. I liked her as if I were her brother, Constable,’ he enunciated very slowly.

  ‘Don’t try to patronise my colleague, please, Mr Barnes,’ Fran said crisply. ‘And while we’re at it, I’m a detective chief superintendent, not an inspector. But please call me Ms Harman.’

  ‘They are sending in the heavy guns!’ he mocked.

  ‘We’ve got them – we might as well use them. Now, what do you think Janine got up to when she wasn’t with Ken?’

  ‘I can only speculate. Janine was the opposite to me, Ms Harman. Oversexed, I would say. And basically, Ken wasn’t delivering. And I suspect she took risks. And drugs. Hence her insomnia.’

  ‘And she took these drugs where?’

  ‘Clubs? But she was a bit old to go to discos, and there were times I wondered…there were times I saw someone looking remarkably like her – oh, she was dressed up to the nines and heavily made up – picking up delegates to conferences in hotels in the area.’

  ‘Might she have looked lik
e this, Mr Barnes?’ Fran fanned the doctored photos on the table.

  With a slight, sad laugh he touched one. ‘This is remarkably similar to how she looks in the portrait in my living room.’

  Fran made a little rewinding gesture. ‘You imply she was a part-time prostitute. What did she do with the money she earned?’

  ‘I would say she probably spent some on drugs. The rest – who knows?’

  ‘And where would she keep the glamorous clothes and wigs?’

  He spread his hands. ‘I could scarcely ask her, could I? Certainly, before you ask, not in my apartment. And although she must have had some women friends, I never heard her allude to them – certainly never met them.’

  ‘How long before her death did you see her apparently picking up men?’

  ‘Six months? After that, I had no sightings. I reckoned that she had found herself, to use an old-fashioned phrase, a fancy-man. Find the man, find the clothes?’ He stood, not overtly stretching, certainly not displaying, but very much a man in control of himself and – now – the situation. ‘If you need to see me again, I will cooperate in any way I can. I would like to see poor little Janine’s killer rotting in jail – preferably for life.’ As he raised his hand to knock for the prison officer to take him away, he added with a charming smile and a slight bow, ‘Actually, Ms Harman, I’ve been teasing you. I only rented my apartment. All my belongings have been packed away and put in storage. Every last book, every last CD. But at least they’ll be safe for when I come out.’ He paused. ‘If you want to see them my solicitor will furnish you with the details of the self-storage warehouse. But promise me one thing. There’s valuable antique china and glass in the packing cases. Don’t let a plod get his – or her – hands on them.’ Very carefully he did not glance at Sue.

  Sue Hall took Fran’s few but pithy observations about her interview style very badly, and Fran suspected she’d spent long minutes in the ladies’ loo bathing her eyes and applying fresh make-up. The best way, Fran decided, to repair her dented ego would be for her to take the lead during the afternoon’s briefing session. Suspecting the girl would get the jitters if she had an advance warning, Fran simply told the group that Sue would do the business. And she did it very well, after a rocky start.

  ‘So you two believe the guy?’ Dan Coveney asked.

  ‘’Fraid so. He’s cocky, likes long words – I should imagine he put the jury’s back up,’ Sue said, though she had the sense not to add that she spoke from experience.

  ‘Well,’ Coveney continued, ‘that fits in rather with our other hope – the diving gear stowed in Roper’s locker at the yacht club. The DNA on it, to be precise. There’s loads of Roper’s, as you’d expect. And that of several so far unidentified people. But of Janine’s and indeed Barnes’ there is none. And no, I’m not joking,’ he snarled to a couple of lads at the back. ‘So just as it looks as if we’re getting closer, it all slips away again.’

  ‘Like a mirage in the desert,’ Sue muttered, surprising Fran.

  ‘So we’re back in the desert without a camel,’ Fran summed up. ‘We had great hopes that Dale Drury – Dave Henson and Joanne Pearce’s serial killer – might have done the biz for us. But he swears he didn’t, and, bar making him take a polygraph test, I tend to believe him. If I were a juror, I’d certainly have let Roper and Barnes walk, and I’m certain the Appeal Court will now. So where do we go from here?’ It was a genuine, not a rhetorical question. ‘What have the local door-to-doors thrown up?’

  Dan Coveney spread his hands. ‘Not a lot. Any bank holiday weekend there’s a lot of activity on the roads. Even when people live in the countryside, and there’s a lot of that round Lenham, they tend to hunt for another bit of countryside. Or the seaside. Whatever. The result is that very few locals were around anyway, and no one registered anything unusual. Except one guy – blind as a bat, I’d have thought – was out exercising his dog and swears he saw a guy parked up in a lay-by in tears.’

  ‘He’s sure?’

  ‘That’s the trouble, guv. He isn’t. It could have been last year, or the year before that or the year before that – you get the picture. Imagine what defence counsel would make of him. Assuming he’s still alive by the time a trial comes round.’ He was as downbeat as if he were announcing an outbreak of avian flu in the next office. Was that why he irritated Iona Harris so much?

  ‘Of course, it’s always possible that he’ll lead us to such conclusive evidence that we wouldn’t need him as a witness,’ Fran said crisply. ‘Who’s good and patient with old-stagers? Sue, how do you get on with your granddad? OK? Tell you what, why don’t you see if young Tom’s got a spare hour when this briefing’s over? He’s good with old folk, too.’ In fact, he’d be far better than Sue herself, but there was no need to tell anyone that.

  It seemed that nil returns were to be the order of the day thereafter. It was time to inject some more pace. Once a team stopped believing in itself, the painstaking routine work would become deadly.

  ‘Dan, has Iona come back yet with any reports on the tests she must have run?’

  He shook a miserable head. ‘Do you want me to have a quiet word with the young lady?’

  ‘I’ll have a loud one, thanks, Dan. Come on – nil carborundum illegitimi, as my first desk sergeant used to say. Don’t let the buggers grind you down,’ she translated loosely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘Why not go and talk to this Dr Harris in person?’ Pat asked, dropping into Fran’s office with a pile of paperwork for checking and signature. ‘It’s lovely out there now – all those clouds seem to have lifted and a bit of sun does us all good. And nothing beats a woman-to-woman talk without a helpful man around. I’ll tell Mark’s secretary you’re nipping out. And I’ll tell Mr Gates’ secretary you’re out following a vital lead.’

  Fran shook her head emphatically. ‘Tell her I’m at a top-level meeting – that’ll impress Gates far more.’

  Once on the road, however, she asked herself what she was doing, wasting time, not to mention all that fuel, when an email or a phone call would have done just as well. She was being stupid and irresponsible – but she wasn’t going to turn back.

  Dr Harris was obviously surprised to see her, as she might well be.

  ‘I was just passing,’ Fran lied, ‘so I thought I’d pop in to see if you’ve got any test results for me.’

  ‘The Lady in the Lake case.’ Harris’s sneer was audible. ‘Cliché it may be, but maybe the media will elicit a response from the public,’ Fran parried. ‘And we need all the help we can get, don’t we? Hence I’m here now – time is of the essence, and all that.’

  ‘I was just going to check today’s emails,’ Harris said.

  Fran had to stop herself pointing out that it was nearly four, a time most people thought was a little late for a first scan. ‘Please, go ahead.’

  Harris seemed to take what remained of the day. And certainly she had a huge incoming mail. But at last she pointed. ‘There we are. They’ve been very quick.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘That vaginal swab – did I mention I was taking one, although I didn’t expect to get anything? She’d had recent sexual activity, and they’ve actually got some DNA. No record of it on file, unfortunately, so that doesn’t get us any further forward.

  ‘Traces of cannabis in her blood. And cocaine. There was too much tissue damage to her nostrils for me to remark on that when I examined her,’ Harris added defensively.

  ‘Of course. Anything else I should know?’

  ‘Nope. Nothing I didn’t put in my report.’

  ‘Which I’ve not received yet.’

  Harris started. ‘I sent it through as soon as I’d completed it.’

  ‘To me?’

  Eyes heavenwards, Harris checked her sent mails. ‘Sorry. God knows what I was doing. I sent it to Mr Coveney, copied to DI Webb. Who the hell’s he? Ah, the bloke who was interested in Alec Minton.’

  ‘Finger trouble,’ Fran said lightly, add
ing or love, under her breath. ‘So long as someone in the team’s got it, that’s fine.’

  But Harris had already found another screen; her printer whispered into action and the report emerged even more quickly than Fran’s printer would have managed.

  ‘Thanks. Speaking of Minton, has anyone been along to organise a facial reconstruction yet?’

  ‘Here? No, should they have been?’

  Fran nodded. ‘As long as he’s in your morgue, where else would they go?’

  ‘Good point.’

  To hell with the morgue smell, to hell with the fact she’d already seen the photos. ‘While I’m here, I’d like a look at him, please. No, I’m not joking.’ As Harris held the door open for her, she added, ‘Have you put Minton’s DNA on file yet? Because I rather think it’s vital it should be. And I’d like a crossmatch with that found on Janine.’

  ‘You’re joking! An old guy like him,’ Harris said dismissively.

  Fran waited until they were both looking down on the body before she said, ‘As old guys go, I’d say he was doing pretty well, wouldn’t you? And three years ago, he might have been doing even better. You said he had no major illnesses. Any minor ones? Anything that might have made him subject to great fits of fury?’

  ‘No. Not that I can remember. Do you want me to email you the report on him too?’ She managed a sudden smile. ‘With the hard bits in lay person’s language?’

  Fran felt an awful pun coming on. Dared she risk it? ‘Speaking of hard bits, would you be able to tell if a man were impotent? That would make him lose his temper in a sexual situation, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘There’s too much damage to the genitals for me to tell you that. He landed with considerable force on a concrete bollard or something similar. In any case, you’d be better looking between his ears, surely, Fran. That’s the origin of most impotence.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your theory is that this guy got involved in a sexual situation with Janine down there,’ she pointed at another drawer, as casually as if it were a neighbour’s house, ‘couldn’t perform, and killed her in a frustrated rage.’