Aitken made a note.
“Is there anything else that makes you suspect him?”
She shook her head then said, “I know what my husband was and wasn’t capable of, and murder … no … I will never believe that. But Paul Evans? Perhaps.”
“How’s your son handling it? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Mrs Nixon looked stony-faced then licked her lips. She finally said, “Where are my manners? Can I get you a drink Constable?”
“No thank you, I’ve not long since had one.”
“You don't mind if I fix myself one do you? I won’t be long.”
“Of course.”
Mrs Nixon got up and disappeared through a door off the living room. There was a faint noise of water whooshing, a click then some clunking.
Those pictures in the living room were seductive and Aitken got up to take a closer look. As she did, she kept one eye on the sleeping retriever; yesterday’s encounter had tainted her with an irrational fear she hoped would fade with time.
She picked up and studied each photograph. In each, Mr and Mrs Nixon were all smiles, but in some the boy had a neutral face. Nothing extraordinary; young boys are notoriously difficult when it comes to faking smiles for the camera. But there was something, a coldness in his expression, something beyond stubbornness, particularly in the most recent photographs.
She had a framed photograph in hand as Mrs Nixon walked back in. “He’s a handsome lad. Is your son at school Mrs Nixon?”
She hesitated, then answered with her back to Aitken as she returned to the conservatory with mug in hand, “Yes. Why?”
They sat back down. “How’s he coping? It must be really tough on him.”
“Is that really relevant?”
“It might be.”
“I don’t see how.”
Aitken took a deep breath, and nibbled on the inside of her lip, deliberating on whether to reveal her hand.
“I have a suspicion that the motivation for Fallon’s murder might have been revenge.”
“Revenge for what?” asked Mrs Nixon.
“What I’m going to tell you should remain confidential. We’re being entirely discreet, no details will be leaked to the press … and I must insist on the same level of discretion from yourself.”
“Of course. What is it?” Her brow gathered as she rubbed her thigh’s denim.
“We know that Sebastian Fallon had abused a local boy a number of years ago.”
“Oh, no that’s terrible. And you think the boy … what … grew up and decided to take revenge?”
“It’s possible. But we’ve not found any evidence that he was there the night Fallon died.”
“Would I know him, this boy?”
“Possibly, but I hope you’ll understand our keeping his identity a secret.”
“Of course, of course. So you think that someone else found out and killed him for it?”
“I think your husband knew about it.”
“That’s impossible. If he had such a concern, he’d have discussed it with me. We’d have decided on a course of action, together.”
“Well, as you said, he was a private man. Mrs Nixon, I’m really sorry to have to do this, but I’m going to have to caution you at this point, because I’m going to ask you a question, and it’s possible you might incriminate yourself.”
“Caution away, I’ve got nothing to hide.”
And Aitken did, finishing with, “Do you understand your rights as I’ve read them to you?”
“Of course I do … now what do you want to ask me?”
Aitken pocketed her phone and extracted a pad of forms from her leather folder.
“Do you have any knowledge of your husband ever having befriended or met a boy for indecent or sexual purposes?”
Mrs Nixon’s voice rose an octave, “Of course not. How dare you … how dare you come in here, into my home, and accuse my husband of such a thing?”
“I’m not accusing. I’m asking you a question about your knowledge on the issue.”
“The issue! What proof do you have? You can’t just go around making acc-”
Aitken slid across the table an A4 sized blow-up of one of the pictures they’d found at Fallon’s. The picture was the least disturbing they’d found, but the essence of the scene was clear. The Dalgliesh boy’s face had been redacted with black ink. Mrs Nixon picked it up. The fire in her eyes reduced to fading embers.
She studied the picture then finally dropped it onto the glass table between them. She looked like she’d just discovered the world was about to end. “There must be some mistake.”
As Aitken took notes, she said, “No mistake.”
Neither of them noticed Mrs Nixon’s son appear in the doorway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It was the day of the audit. Charlotte opened the pharmacy at seven-thirty, an hour earlier than usual. Everything was going to be as good as it could be. She cleaned places which usually went unnoticed; behind blinds; under the computer’s hard drive; underneath the register (she’d grimaced at the accumulated dust and hair). There was a feeling in her stomach, all the while, that reminded her of the only time she’d been sent to the headmaster at school. It was a lurching feeling of unknowable consequences.
Mr Peterson, the paragon of an auditor, arrived promptly at eight-thirty. He wore a grey sombre suit with double breast and carried a black leather briefcase with rubbed, faded corners. He adjusted the position of his circular gold-rimmed glasses and introduced himself without a smile. Charlotte, in freshly ironed white overalls, took his cold hand and smiled. She was without make-up today, not wanting to appear vain or frivolous. She remembered something she’d once read on Facebook: the word ‘auditor’ in dictionary style, with a definition reading, ‘Someone who walks onto the battlefield once the fighting is over and bayonets the wounded.’ She’d giggled at the time. Today was going to be entirely without humour.
She secured him a shallow desk to work at and gave him access to the stock control system. He refused tea, preferring to sip water. He flitted all morning between his laptop and the pharmacy’s desktop computer. Meanwhile, the pharmacy had been busy and Charlotte was grateful to see every friendly, appreciative customer who turned up, reinforcing the image of a well-run, well-used pharmacy. She followed protocol to the letter, making a show of clearly explaining dosages and checking each customer’s address, making sure Mr Peterson overheard. She doubted he’d noted her fastidiousness though, transfixed as he was by his laptop screen; surely the cause of his slight hunchback.
After a precise half-hour lunch break which he took God knows where, he returned and spent the afternoon with a clipboard, meticulously completing a physical inventory of bottles and boxes of tablets. He’d worked around every stock location. How the hell could someone do something so dull for a living?
He finished around four-thirty, but hung around apparently purposeless until Charlotte had turned the door’s sign so that the word ‘closed’ faced outwards. As soon as that was done he said, “Mrs Torrence, may I have a word?”
“Certainly.”
“She joined him by his laptop.”
“Can you explain this?” He pointed to the screen, which listed the discrepancies he’d found. The marijuana was the fourth on the list, and of course drew her eyes first. But what Mr Peterson seemed focussed on were the lines above, particularly the quantities which he tapped with his Parker fountain pen’s blunt edge. Large doses, dozens of bottles of Scopolamine, thousands of packets of Mescaline and Ketamine were unaccounted for.
CHAPTER FORTY
Aitken and Daniel were making their way to Daniel’s study.
“Did her son see the photograph?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He wasn’t given time to. Mrs Nixon ushered me out of the house, quite upset, before I had time to ask her anything further. I think we should bring her in for questioning.”
He paused, momentari
ly still, before opening the study door. “Let’s think carefully about that.”
“Wow … I didn’t know you played guitar.” Aitken was looking up at Daniel’s Les Paul, hanging from the mount. ‘Is that real? What year … no … let me guess … ’67, no ’68.”
“Right second time.”
“Oh she’s beautiful.” She placed her palm near its sunburst finish. “Can I?”
“Sure, go ahead.” Her palm gingerly touched the guitar’s polished surface as though she expected it to radiate something.
“Do you play?” asked Daniel.
“A little.”
“Want to give it a go?”
“Can I? But later. This evening perhaps … I don’t want to get distracted, I could lose hours.”
“I know what you mean. Here, take a look at this instead.”
He motioned towards his map which was tacked to the wall above his amplifier. The UK looked caged underneath regular squares, ruled in red ink. In a few of the squares were crosses, written with thick blue felt pen. Most of the squares were blank, a few with one cross. Then, standing out, were five crosses in one square on the outskirts of Chester, and two in the square where Blaine would have been if the place had been significant enough to be labelled.
“What do the crosses represent?”
“Each is a murder-suicide. We’ve got five years of data. They said we could get more, if we wanted.”
“Did you run it through that fish model you were talking about?” He must have looked puzzled. “Fish. You know, poisson. French for fish isn’t it?”
“It is … and I did.”
“What did it tell you?”
“Just confirmed what the picture says. Before I say any more, what do you make of it?” asked Daniel.
“They’re pretty rare.”
“Yep, eighteen in five years. Struck me as low too.”
“Perhaps the classification has been ropey.”
“Maybe … anything else?”
She leant over his amplifier to get a better look. “Five in one square looks a little odd. But the two we’re looking at don't seem particularly unusual.”
“That’s where the model comes in.”
“How so?”
On a cheap veneered desk, sat his laptop. He lifted the lid which lit up the screen and hit the key marked with a sun, brightening the display. “Look at this.” He was pointing towards a bar chart with a high bar on the left, under the label ‘0’. “This is the number of areas with no murder-suicides in the last five years. Eighty-six in total.” He pointed to the adjacent bar. “This is the number of areas with only one incident.” There were eleven. His finger moved along. “Then here’s our two in Blaine. Then no squares with three incidents, none with four, then this five. You see the shape of this curve.” He ran his finger over the top of each bar, highlighting the two humps. “Well … compare this to the distribution we should see.” He pressed control and y, and another set of bars appeared, mingled amongst the others. The new bars looked smooth, no humps. “The patterns don’t match.”
“And the conclusion?”
“Well, the number with zero or one incident match what’s expected, almost perfectly. But, with this low average, two would be an extremely unlikely event and five, virtually impossible.”
“When you say extremely unlikely?”
“There’s a half of one per cent chance that our two incidents are isolated. Slim, but not impossible.”
“The likelihood that the five events in and around Chester are random and unrelated?”
“One in a hundred thousand.”
A long silence. Aitken broke it, “I guess our local investigation might not be so local after all.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Charlotte’s dining table was full of takeout pizza boxes. Their lids overlapped. Kerry and Luke fought to get their preferred slices.
“Hey, that’s not fair,” said Luke. “You took the piece with all the pepperoni on. Look at the others, they’re practically bare.”
“Tough luck, you should have moved quicker. Anyway, there’s loads of others … have a slice of cheese pizza.”
“I don’t want a cheese one, I want pepperoni. Mu-um, Kerry’s stealing all the good pizza.”
“Anyone want a drink?” asked Charlotte in a flat tone, heading for the fridge, completely unaware of what was erupting around her. She poured them diet Pepsi, spilling some down the side of Kerry’s glass. She handed them out.
“Mum, it’s dripping everywhere. Mum?”
Charlotte was back at the fridge, “Yes … what … yes, sorry dear.” She poured a sizeable glass of sauvignon blanc and stood by the sink, staring out the window. She stayed there a few minutes before Kerry asked, “Mum, is everything okay?”
“Mmmm?”
“I said is everything okay?”
“Yes dear.”
But things were far from okay. She had two weeks of sweating to do as she waited for the full, official report from the GPC. Then there would be hearings, perhaps solicitors, who knew. Over the next few days she’d have to do some research into how best to defend her corner. Not tonight though. Tonight she was going to obliterate this shitty day with the assistance of New Zealand’s finest marlborough.
Once the kids were in bed, and she was halfway to drunk, Charlotte called Daniel and asked him to come over. This time without Aitken.
They took the same position on the sofa they’d taken the night of their one and - so far - only sexual encounter. Tonight, sex was about as far off the agenda as badger baiting.
Charlotte was rocking slightly, her knees tight together, her hands squeezing her thighs. “Christ, how could we be so far out? The quantities were enormous. Perhaps I messed up booking the stock in, or maybe they’ll check the shipment quantities, and find the mistake at the central warehouse or the hub. It can’t be me, it can’t be.”
Daniel reached out, putting a hand on hers. This failed to slow her rocking. “Slow down, slow down. What was the discrepancy?” asked Daniel, who hadn’t even taken off his jacket.
“Five product lines in total, including some drugs you really wouldn’t want in the wrong hands.”
“What drugs?”
“Scopolamine, Mescaline and Ketamine.”
“I’ve heard of Ketamine. Not the other two.”
“Scopolamine’s often prescribed for motion sickness. Mescaline, is used to treat alcoholism and depression. Ketamine’s a pain reliever and sedative. Oh …” She stopped rocking and turned to him, “… they found the marijuana discrepancy too. But I’m not so worried about that now.”
“How come?”
“Because the quantities are insignificant compared to the other drugs. Plus the consequences of Mescaline and Ketamine being taken without medical oversight, are,” She shook her head and looked down at her lap again, “… well … don’t bear thinking about.”
“So … you might be right … the mistake might be in shipment. But, let’s just play a few scenarios out. If the mistake was made at the pharmacy-”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know, but let’s just say it was. Who has access to those drugs?”
“Just myself and River. The delivery is checked off in the back room before it gets to the shelves. We take it in turns to book them in, occasionally checking each other’s work as a precaution.”
Daniel slipped out of his leather jacket and draped it over the arm of the sofa. “So this River. What do you know of him?”
“Like I said, the mistake can’t be at the pharmacy.”
“I know, but just humour me. Tell me about him?”
“Nice guy, lives on his own, I think he may be secretly gay; looks after himself so well and never seems to have a girlfriend. Moved into Blaine in two thousand and one I think. Works hard, always on time, the customers like him. He wants to qualify as a pharmacist. Sweet lad, talks about his mother a lot. She lives in Argentina or is it Venezuela? Anyway, what else is there to know?”
“Is that where he moved from?”
“Not sure.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
“Oh there is. There always is with you Daniel. What’s ticking over in your mind?”
“I’ll tell you, but first. What would be the effect on someone if they took all three drugs.”
“Hard to say, depends on the dosage. It’s not a combination you’d prescribe.”
“Come on, best guess. You took all three, what might happen to you?”
“Well Ketamine’s the most potent. It induces a trance-like state in sufficient quantities. Mescaline does the opposite, more or less, it’s supposed to pick you up. Scopolamine has a stabilising effect.”
“Would a combination of the three make you suggestible?”
“I suppose it could. Where are you going with this Daniel?”
“If I was a betting man, I’d wager a few quid that we’ll find a combination of those three drugs in Leon Jackson’s system. Probably in Anthony Nixon’s too.”
Deep lines in Charlotte’s forehead smoothed and her expression morphed into one off wide-eyed panic.
“Daniel, I don’t like where you’re going with this. Are you telling me that stock discrepancies are the least of my worries, that I could be investigated in connection with four murders?”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
No matter what Daniel said, he couldn’t shake the thought from Charlotte’s head that she could be held accountable for the murders of Hewitt, Jackson, Nixon and Fallon. He’d told her it was just his speculation about the drugs, that these hadn’t, as yet, been found; that he was wrong to worry her needlessly; that there probably would be a discrepancy at the suppliers; that even if they found those drugs in Jackson’s and Nixon’s blood samples, someone could have stolen these without River or Charlotte’s knowledge. Impotent words. By the time he left to rejoin Aitken, she was encouraging him to leave, saying she needed an early night. He didn’t buy it. She wouldn’t be doing any sleeping. He was right.
Prepared to Die Page 16