Cold Justice

by Lee Weeks

‘Cornwall? You’re sure, not Bristol, not Exeter?’

  ‘I’m a hundred per cent sure. I go down there all the time. My mum’s from there.’

  They thanked Rex and walked towards the Cutty Sark pub on the corner. Willis ordered a Coke.

  ‘A large white wine, please,’ Carter ordered. ‘Something decent.’

  They picked up their drinks and went to a table. Willis placed a black, mock-crocodile, zip-up file on the table. Carter picked it up between finger and thumb, swinging it gingerly in the air.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I found it in the Incident Room. Just by my desk, no one claimed it.’

  ‘Yeah – you know why, Eb? There’s a bin at the end of your desk, isn’t there? Have you sprayed it – sanitized it?’

  She rolled her eyes and ignored Carter’s scathing looks.

  ‘It’s fine. Must have been Jeanie’s, I think.’

  Carter was taking a drink and nearly choked. ‘Don’t, for Christ’s sake, let Jeanie hear you say that. Jeanie has some taste – she would not be seen dead with a skanky file. Believe me. You ought to take a look at your habits. Good detectives are methodical types, not messy.’ Carter reached for his hand sanitizer and squirted some in his hand, then left it on the table with a push in her direction. Willis looked at him incredulously. He held his hands up. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all. Don’t pick things out of bins. You don’t know where they’ve been.’ He pushed the hand gel further towards her. She rolled her eyes but did it anyway.

  ‘Can I get on with showing you what’s been found?’ she asked.

  ‘Go for it.’

  Willis opened her iPad.

  ‘Here’s the footage,’ she said as she turned the screen towards him so he could see it run. Carter watched the last of the funeral-goers leaving the chapel. ‘We’ve looked into nearly everyone on the list of people at the funeral,’ Willis said as Carter watched the screen. ‘We concentrated on the Cornwall lot because the politicians seemed unlikely. We found a few with records: kerb-crawling, GBH, a bit of robbery. But basically the village keeps itself very clean. One of the Cornish mourners was a retired police officer who used to run the station at Penhal until it closed. He still lives in the area. His name is Michael Raymonds. This is Raymonds again, here.’ She pointed to the slick-haired man standing at the church entrance talking to Toby. Willis pulled out a service photo of Raymonds from the early 1990s.

  ‘He hasn’t changed his style much,’ Carter remarked as he looked at it. ‘Just that now he has to dye his hair black. That’ll be me one day; probably not, think I’ll go for the silver fox look instead.’

  ‘If I rewind that, guv,’ Willis did it as she said it, ‘have a look at Toby’s face when he first catches sight of Raymonds.’

  ‘I see,’ said Carter, looking at the screen. ‘He can’t take his eyes off him, and Raymonds is all smiles by the look of it. He even takes hold of Toby’s hand.’

  ‘Yeah, and really keeps hold of it,’ said Willis. ‘Almost looks to me like Toby’s scared,’ she added.

  ‘What’s Raymonds saying, can we make it out?’ asked Carter.

  ‘I got someone to lip-read. It starts with sympathies about Toby’s loss but then he leans in and says something else; as he pulls back he says: “Something something, you need to start answering my calls.” ’

  ‘Look at Toby’s face – he is definitely trying to sort out something in his head,’ said Carter.

  ‘He doesn’t answer but then Raymonds says: “Something . . . something . . . things need clarifying. A great offer . . .” That’s where we lose it. It can’t be lip-read when he’s covering his mouth with his hand,’ concluded Willis.

  ‘Toby looks really flustered by it.’ Carter sat back and took a drink.

  ‘Yeah – I’m not sure if he hears it properly, or understands what it means – he doesn’t make a verbal response. Lauren comes into shot. Raymonds has to pull away from Toby. Notice – Raymonds didn’t talk to her.’

  ‘It looks like she’s busy placating Samuel, who’s obviously had enough. Anyone else get close?’

  ‘No, not that I can see.’

  ‘Toby was scared, felt threatened. Let’s get hold of Raymonds and talk to him.’

  ‘Do you want me to ring him?’ asked Willis.

  ‘No, we’ll drive down. We need a better view of what Jeremy Forbes-Wright was to the community anyway.’ Carter studied the film again. He peered closely at the screen and paused it mid-frame, looking at the striking man. ‘Do we know his connection to Jeremy Forbes-Wright?’

  ‘No. We don’t know that any of the people who came up from Cornwall are directly connected. Only the man who acts as the holiday letting agent. That’s about as near as we can get. He’s called Stokes.’

  ‘And we need to re-examine all the CCTV footage of Toby on his walk; see if we can spot any of these mourners. The man at the museum said he heard Cornish accents yesterday. Any sign of our mysterious woman?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Any news about the snowflake suit?’

  ‘No signs of blood. The bag it was found in is a Tesco carrier bag – there’s a small Tesco Metro here on the other side of the park. Robbo’s looking at the CCTV now.’

  ‘So someone got him out of his outfit as fast as possible and into new clothes. Is there a public toilet in the park?’ asked Carter.

  ‘There are a few. We’ll get the CCTV.’

  ‘I suppose if they had a buggy waiting they could have changed him anywhere on the park, there’s a lot of tree cover. We need officers asking questions of anyone who crosses the park and see if there is any mobile phone footage that could be useful.

  What were the impressions from the statements taken from the staff at the Observatory?’

  ‘That Toby is a loner. He is well thought of, quiet. Very keen on his work.’

  ‘Does he socialize at all?’

  ‘Yes, with his workmate Gareth Turnbill, who phoned him before the walk.’

  Carter looked at his phone as it vibrated on silent on the table top. He raised his eyes to Willis as he answered the call.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Can you talk?’ Bowie asked.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I’ve had a call from the Home Secretary regarding Jeremy Forbes-Wright. I started asking questions about his reasons for deciding not to run for the Kent constituency and was warned off. The Home Secretary said that Jeremy had debts and liked a lavish lifestyle. He wasn’t keen to relocate to Kent. He would have had to sell his house in Cornwall to do it. So he decided that wasn’t an option and withdrew his candidacy a week before he killed himself.’

  ‘Is this something to concern us?’

  ‘The phone call came pretty quickly from the Home Secretary. Even so, it may have nothing to do with Samuel’s disappearance. But he was a high-profile man, he had debts and people would assume he had money. Maybe someone’s been a bit hasty in taking Samuel before the house in Cornwall is sold.’

  ‘What do you want to do about it? Willis and I were thinking we should talk to the people who came up from Cornwall for the funeral. We could take a look at his house down there?’

  ‘Absolutely. Get it searched, low-key. I don’t want my arse roasted and I don’t want a feeding-frenzy from the press.’

  ‘Are you going to request more information from the Home Secretary?’ asked Carter.

  ‘Is the Pope a Catholic? We’ll discuss later. What time can you get to me?’

  ‘We have a couple of jobs to attend to, then I’ll be over.’

  ‘I’ll be at the bar.’ Bowie rang off.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Okay.’ Carter drank up the last of his wine. ‘We ready to pay a visit to Toby’s workmate? We have a lot to get through this evening and the boss wants to see me.’

  ‘Ready.’ Willis did up her jacket, packed up her case and followed Carter outside onto the cobbled street.

  ‘Christ . . .’ Carter pulled up his collar and tucked his chi
n into his scarf as the bitter wind hit him. ‘You need to get a proper coat for this weather, Eb. That thing you’re wearing’s seen better days.’

  ‘It’s fine, guv. Honestly.’ She rolled her eyes.

  They reached the black BMW. Willis got into the passenger seat and Carter started the engine. Before pulling out he picked out a tissue from the compartment between the seats. He handed it across to Willis, who hadn’t managed to stop sniffing since they’d met. Carter knew there was no point in telling her she needed to wrap up warmer. She was a hardy animal. She might not think she felt the cold but her nose dripped like a tap.

  ‘Thanks.’ She took it and gave one wipe of the nose, then stuffed the tissue into her pocket and sniffed loudly again. The gap in Ebony’s social etiquette was too big to fill and yet it didn’t amount to anything in real terms. She ate off her knife. She ate with her fingers. She piled ketchup on everything.

  ‘There it is, guv.’

  They pulled up across the street from the house and walked towards the neat front garden, split by a path running down the centre.

  ‘This area costs a fortune to live in,’ said Willis. ‘You can see the new money along here.’

  ‘Whereas this place looks like it’s been a while since it saw a paintbrush. Looks like it has probably been in the family a long time. The front garden has that look of someone older’s planting,’ mused Carter.

  ‘How do you know one plant from another?’

  ‘My mum loves her garden. She’s always working on colour schemes,’ answered Carter. ‘We took her to Chelsea Flower Show last year – she loved it. This wouldn’t be risky enough for her. There’s a lot of variegated shrubs, bark; this is a low-maintenance garden.’

  Carter knocked on the door. A woman in her late sixties answered.

  Carter showed his badge. ‘Mrs Turnbill?’ She nodded, looking from one officer to the other. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Dan Carter, this is Detective Constable Willis. Is Gareth in? Could we have a word with him, please?’

  ‘Gareth?’

  ‘Yes, nothing to worry about, it’s just about where he works.’

  ‘It’s closed today.’

  ‘Yes, we know, we are part of the investigation surrounding it.’ Carter smiled again. ‘Gareth?’ Willis took a step closer to the door to give Mrs Turnbill a hint.

  ‘Yes, please, come in.’ She stood out of the way for them to pass.

  ‘Thank you.’ Carter wiped his feet on the mat. ‘Would you like us to take our shoes off?’

  ‘God, no! We’ve got stone floors – your feet’ll freeze. Follow me.’

  Willis was almost disappointed – it must have been one of the rare times she’d ever managed to find matching socks. She lived in a shared house where they didn’t have luxuries like a dishwasher or a washing machine. She took her laundry to the laundrette to be service-washed if she didn’t have time to do it herself – she gave it to the woman who smiled a lot but didn’t speak any English. She never seemed to get it all back. Somewhere out there were a lot of her socks.

  Mrs Turnbill led them down towards a kitchen at the back of the house. The place hadn’t been redecorated for at least fifty years. There were 1950s-style cabinets in the kitchen that were now very sought-after. But it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time either. The only warmth was coming from an Aga.

  ‘Mrs Turnbill – Gareth’s your son, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. A late gift from God.’ She was obviously used to being confused with his grandmother. She smiled. ‘I’ll just fetch him – he’s outside. He spends nearly all his time in the shed.’ She left them in the kitchen as she went out through an ancient conservatory, which was dark and cold; thin, pale spider plants hung down from overcrammed hanging baskets. She opened a door that was just out of sight. Willis took a look around the corner and came back to Carter.

  ‘It’s impossible to see outside,’ she said. ‘It’s dark as a cow’s guts out there. Funny time to go to the garden.’

  ‘A man and his shed. One of those essential relationships.’ Carter took a step nearer to the Aga. ‘I’d love one of these.’ He was just about to say something else when they heard voices and the sound of the conservatory door.

  Gareth and his mother came back in. Gareth didn’t make eye contact. He was a flush-faced young man, who looked more fifteen than nineteen. When he did look up it was with a nervous smile. He had a large flat section of hair down the centre of his head, sweeping down over his eyes. The sides of his head were shaven.

  ‘Hello.’ Carter smiled. ‘You have a man shed out there, do you?’

  Gareth looked embarrassed. ‘I have my music collection.’

  ‘Isn’t it freezing out there?’ Carter asked.

  His mother laughed. ‘Goodness me, not in the shed he’s got. He’s got one of those with a wood burner and goodness knows what else in it. It’s warmer than this old house.’ Carter could well believe it. Gareth smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Gareth . . . we’ve been working out Toby Forbes-Wright’s movements yesterday and, of course, you know what has happened to Toby and his son Samuel? We are pretty sure that you were the last person to see Samuel.’

  ‘Oh.’ He avoided looking at his mum. She was looking at him curiously. ‘I gave a statement.’

  ‘Yes, we appreciate it. We would like you to run through things again with us, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Mrs Turnbill went to lean on the Aga facing her son, along with the detectives. Willis got out her notebook, checked and said, ‘In your statement you said that Toby came to see you in the gift shop at . . .?’

  ‘At four I looked at the clock to see how long it would be before I could shut up shop.’

  ‘And did you see Samuel then?’ asked Carter.

  ‘Yes, I saw him; he was asleep.’

  ‘He didn’t wake up at all while you and Toby were talking?’

  ‘No.’ Gareth’s hair flopped down over his eyes as he shook his head nonchalantly.

  ‘And what did Toby and you talk about, do you remember?’ asked Carter.

  ‘We chatted about the new exhibit, about the photo gallery. Toby’s amazing new photos. We talked about the new shop, the stuff on sale.’

  ‘Toby and you worked together in the shop sometimes?’

  ‘Yes, occasionally. Mainly, I work in the café or the shop. Toby maintains the exhibits. He does the technical things. He’s the clever one,’ Gareth giggled.

  ‘What time did you finish yesterday?’

  ‘At five thirty.’

  ‘Dead on?’

  ‘Yes. We close the Astronomy Centre at five. I just have to make sure it’s all ready for the next day.’

  ‘And when you left work where did you go?’

  ‘I came straight home.’

  Carter looked at Mrs Turnbill beside him. ‘Mrs Turnbill, were you in then?’

  ‘Yes, I must have been. I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, I was here trying to keep warm upstairs.’

  Carter turned to Gareth. ‘I hear you and Toby get on very well? Is that right?’

  ‘I suppose. Yes, we do.’ Gareth blushed.

  ‘You see each other outside work?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ He glanced towards his mother, who was staring and smiling.

  ‘Have you met Toby, Mrs Turnbill?’

  ‘Toby? Yes, I have. A lovely young man. I didn’t know he had a child though.’

  ‘And a wife,’ added Carter.

  ‘A wife?’ Mrs Turnbill glanced at her son.

  ‘Toby comes round here a lot, does he?’ Carter asked.

  ‘Once or twice a week.’ Mrs Turnbill was starting to prickle. Carter could see her mind working, wondering what she should say and what she definitely shouldn’t.

  ‘When was the last time he came round?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ She shook her head as she thought. ‘Not sure, really.’ She turned to her son. ‘When was it now?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’

  ‘So, can y
ou tell us, Gareth, when Toby was about to leave yesterday, what were you doing? Where were you when he said goodbye?’

  ‘I was standing behind the counter.’

  ‘What did Toby say, do you remember?’

  ‘He just said, “See you soon.” ’

  ‘And then you saw him leave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it the first time you’d ever seen Samuel?’

  ‘It may have been; I can’t remember.’

  ‘Did he say anything about the fact he was on his own with Samuel that day?’

  ‘He said he’d been to his dad’s funeral. He said he needed some fresh air. He wanted to get back to work but he was taking a few days off to sort out his father’s things.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Toby’s father?’ Gareth shook his head. ‘Did Toby ever talk about him?’ Gareth shrugged and left his shoulders in the air. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Just that he didn’t really know him. That he didn’t feel right going through his father’s things when he didn’t know him.’

  ‘Did you go with him to his father’s flat?’

  Gareth nodded. ‘He asked me to.’

  ‘Did you have to help Toby do anything there, look for anything while you were in the flat? What did you do in there?’

  ‘I just waited for Toby. I looked through his dad’s music collection. He had a lot of stuff I’d never heard of.’

  ‘How long were you there with Toby?’

  ‘About an hour or two.’

  ‘And did Toby find what he was looking for?’

  ‘I’m not sure he had anything in mind.’

  ‘Did he leave with anything?’

  ‘Just a backpack with a few things in it.’

  ‘Okay, thanks, Gareth. You’ve been a lot of help. I don’t expect we’ll need to bother you again, but just in case you remember anything you think might help us . . .’ He handed Gareth a card. ‘And please don’t leave the area for now.’

  Carter and Willis walked across the street to the car. Willis opened her notebook on the way.

  ‘Before you look at that,’ Carter said, ‘what do you think of young Gareth? Gay?’ he suggested as he got into the driver’s seat. Willis got in the car, closed the door and buckled up her belt. She didn’t answer as she thought for a minute. He started up the engine and switched on the lights.