Thanet gave her a beaming smile, ‘I think I just might have solved the case.’
‘Really?’ She leant across, put a congratulatory hand on his arm. ‘Darling, that’s terrific!’
‘Well, don’t let’s get too excited, just in case I’m wrong. There are various things I’ll need to confirm, before I’m sure.’
‘So who …?’
‘Sorry, love. I daren’t give hostages to fortune. Ask me again tonight.’
‘Daddy! You’re up early!’ Usually Bridget was down before him in the morning.
He smiled up at her as she came to kiss his cheek. ‘Some of us have work to do.’
‘You won’t have to work tomorrow, Dad, will you?’
He put on a blank expression. ‘Tomorrow? What’s happening tomorrow?’
‘Daddy! It’s the comp …’ She saw his face and stopped. ‘Oh, really!’
He got up. ‘Don’t worry, poppet. Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away from the Black Swan tomorrow morning. Your mother and I will be sitting there beaming rays of encouragement and moral support in your direction. None of the other parents will be able to compete, will they, darling?’
Joan laughed. ‘Of course not.’
At the office Lineham was sitting hunched at his desk, staring dejectedly at a single sheet of paper. Thanet’s stomach clenched as he realised what must have happened. The sergeant had failed to get through to the Selection Board.
There was no point in avoiding the issue. ‘It’s come, then.’
Lineham nodded speechlessly.
‘And no luck?’
A shake of the head.
Thanet crossed and put his hand on Lineham’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Mike, I really am. But you mustn’t be too disheartened. Only a third of those who passed the exams would have got through, you know that.’
‘Some consolation! That still leaves me in the two-thirds who’ll never make it. I suppose I was a fool to think I could.’
‘Oh, come on, Mike. Cheer up. Maybe next time …’
Lineham shook his head. ‘Oh no, there won’t be a next time, I can assure you of that.’
‘Why not? The trouble is, Mike, that this has come at a bad time for you, just after Louise has had the baby and you’re both tired and on edge from lack of sleep.’ Not to mention worried sick that your mother is going to come and live practically next door and start causing trouble right, left and centre. ‘Just look at you! Bags under the eyes, pasty as an uncooked doughnut … In another month or two you’ll feel quite differently about it, you’ll see.’
Lineham shook his head again, vehemently. ‘No, I’ve learned my lesson, believe me.’
It was, Thanet knew, the right decision. If Lineham hadn’t even managed to get as far as the Selection Board, there was little chance that he would ever get through the even more rigorous Promotion Board. He felt desperately sorry for the sergeant and angry with Louise who was, he was sure, responsible for this fiasco. He wondered how she would react, when she heard.
‘Have you told Louise yet?’
A despondent shake of the head. ‘No.’
Thanet gestured towards the phone. ‘I should get it over with.’
Tactfully, he withdrew while his sergeant made the call.
‘Meanwhile,’ he said when he went back into the office, deliberately ignoring Lineham’s set face, ‘I’ve got to admit that from a purely selfish point of view it’s a relief that I’m not going to lose the best sergeant I’ve ever had. I didn’t say this before, Mike, for obvious reasons, but I was really dreading having to get used to working with someone else. At the beginning of this case, when you were over at Coddington, I felt as though I was working with my hands tied behind my back.’
Thanet was not normally given to making sentimental speeches, but it was the best he could do, to restore just a little the sergeant’s battered ego. And it had, in fact, helped, by the look of it. Lineham was looking marginally less gloomy.
‘And talking of the case …’ Thanet went on.
‘What?’ For the first time this morning Lineham looked at him properly, took in Thanet’s air of suppressed excitement. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve cracked it?’
Thanet held up crossed fingers. ‘With any luck.’
Thanet had anticipated a look of eager enquiry, but instead Lineham merely looked depressed again.
‘What’s the matter, Mike?’
‘I suppose that that alone should have told me I was aiming too high.’
‘What?’
‘The fact that I’ve never yet got there before you.’
‘You almost have, on several occasions.’
‘Precisely. Almost, but not quite. The story of my life.’
Thanet could see that if he didn’t do something fairly drastic the sergeant would allow himself to sink into a slough of self-pity which would help no one, least of all himself.
‘Mike,’ he said sharply. ‘No one could be sorrier than I am that you’ve had this disappointment, but I would remind you that we have got work to do.’
Briefly, Lineham compressed his lips and looked hurt, then he shook his head as if to clear it of the preoccupations of the last half an hour and muttered, ‘Sorry, sir … You were saying you think you might have cracked it.’
‘I was.’
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Aren’t you going to enlighten me?’
The sergeant was beginning to look more his usual self, Thanet was pleased to see.
‘Not yet, I’m afraid. No, don’t groan, Mike. You’ll hear soon enough. In fact, I can’t wait to hear what you think …’
‘But sir …’
Thanet shook his head. ‘No, Mike. I want your opinion, but I’m not saying another word until I’ve confirmed one or two points. So come on, the quicker we get through them the sooner you’ll hear what I’ve come up with.’
Lineham gave a resigned shrug.
‘Now, first of all, can you tell me what happened about the lad CI Hines brought in for questioning? Did he get a confession?’
‘No. He had to let him go. Wasn’t too pleased, I gather.’ Lineham grinned at the understatement. ‘But the word is he’s still swearing he’ll get him, sooner or later. He’s taken away a whole lot of his clothes, for analysis.’
‘And the jacket? Did forensic come up with anything to link it definitely with the murder of Mrs Jackson?’
‘I don’t know, sir. But what’s this got to do with Steven Long?’
Thanet waved a hand. ‘Patience, Mike. All in good time. Find out for me, will you?’
While Lineham made the phone call Thanet reread the PM report, nodding with satisfaction. Yes, it was as he thought …
Lineham put the phone down. ‘Yes, sir. A couple of hairs, caught around the left-hand cuff button, and traces of her face powder in the crease of the cuff opening.’
‘Good. Excellent. Right, now I’d like you to go and have a word with Mrs Bence. This is important, which is why I want you to go yourself. If you remember, she saw Steve going out as she came in, around a quarter to seven on the night he was killed. Ask her if Steve was carrying anything.’
‘What, for example?’
Thanet shook his head. ‘I don’t want ideas put into her head. Just say “anything”.’
‘Right.’ Lineham hesitated. ‘What are you going to be doing, sir?’
‘Don’t worry, Mike, I’m not going to get up to anything dramatic, like making an arrest, while you’re out of the way. I told you, there are various things I’ve got to check. With any luck, by the time you get back, I’ll be finished. What’s more, I wouldn’t mind betting that by then you’ll have worked it out for yourself.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ grumbled Lineham, as he left.
As soon as he had gone Thanet consulted his list of queries, then reached for the telephone. First, he rang Sturrenden General Hospital. This piece of information was really crucial to the case he had built up and his stomach churned wit
h anxiety while he was passed from one department to another. At last he found the right person and put his question. Again, there was a long wait, and he found he was gripping the receiver so tightly his fingers were aching. Deliberately, consciously, he relaxed. Please let them come up with the right answer.
‘Hullo?’
‘Yes?’ Thanet’s voice was hoarse with tension.
‘Sorry I took so long. The records took a bit of finding.’
‘But you’ve got them?’
‘Yes. Shall I read what they say?’
‘Please.’
He listened, holding his breath. Then relief flooded through him. ‘Could you repeat that?’
Again, he listened. No, there had been no mistake. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’
‘Not at all,’ said the voice, bewildered. ‘Only too pleased to help.’
Thanet replaced the receiver and sat staring into space. He would have liked to get up and dance for joy. Instead, he looked up the number of the hairdressing salon where Caroline Gilbert worked, the girl Geoff had taken out on the night of the murder.
‘Miss Gilbert?’
‘Yes.’ The voice was fresh and young.
‘We’ve not actually met, but my name is Thanet, Detective Inspector Thanet of Sturrenden CID. I’m in charge of the enquiry into the death of Mr Steven Long. There are one or two questions I’d like to put to you, if I may.’
‘I told the other policeman, there was no way Geoff could have been involved. He …’
‘No, you misunderstand me. I wanted to ask you about Sunday.’
‘Sunday?’ Caroline Gilbert sounded bewildered.
‘Yes. I understand you went out with Mr Geoffrey Hunt on Sunday evening, as well as on Tuesday?’
‘Well … Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, Sunday was my first date with him.’
‘Would you mind telling me what you did?’
‘Well … I don’t see why not … Geoff picked me up at my place. We were going out for a drink. He hadn’t told me before, but it was his birthday, and when I got into the car he said he hoped I wouldn’t mind if he just dropped a present in at his twin brother’s place in Hamilton Road. He had the parcel ready in the car with him, gift-wrapped.’
Thanet’s scalp prickled with excitement.
‘Did he tell you what the present was?’
‘Well, I said it was an exciting-looking parcel, and he said it was a leather jacket he’d bought when he was on holiday in Wales. He’d got it for himself, really, but it was new, he’d only worn it once. His brother happened to see it and really went overboard for it, so Geoff decided to give it to him for his birthday.’
‘Did you see his brother open the parcel?’
‘No. I didn’t go up to the flat with Geoff. He said he wouldn’t be long, and he wasn’t.’
Thanet put his last question to her and rang off, well satisfied.
When Lineham arrived back, he was out of breath.
‘I didn’t tell you to run all the way there and back, Mike.’
Lineham shook his head and collapsed into his chair, panting. ‘It suddenly dawned on me, sir.’
‘Told you it would,’ said Thanet smugly.
‘Oh no, not our case, not who killed Steven Long … The other one.’
‘Mrs Jackson, you mean.’
Lineham nodded ‘That’s why you were on about the jacket. It was Steve’s jacket, wasn’t it? It was Steve who killed her. I’ve been working it all out, on the way back.’
‘I’m ninety-nine per cent certain of it. I gather you hit the jackpot with Mrs Bence. What did she say?’
‘Steve was carrying a plastic bag. Blue. It was pretty full, bulging, in fact, so much so that the top edges didn’t meet. A pretty sharp old bird, isn’t she?’
‘What did she see?’
‘Enough. She’s prepared to swear that the top item in Steve’s carrier was made of grey leather.’
Thanet nodded with satisfaction. ‘You’ll be interested to hear that I rang Miss Gilbert while you were out.’ Thanet repeated the gist of the conversation.
‘So Hunt bought the jacket in Wales!’ said Lineham. ‘Of course. The red dragon …’
‘Precisely.’
‘That just about wraps it up then, doesn’t it?’ said Lineham excitedly. ‘It all fits. On Sunday evening, his birthday, Steve goes around to see Sharon, is thrown out by Howells, and told in no uncertain terms never to show his face there again. He feels fed up, and decides to console himself with a few drinks. He has too many and ends up feeling very sorry for himself, so he decides to go to Chris’s house, as it’s usually to Chris he turns for sympathy. But the Mays have guests and Steve doesn’t exactly endear himself to them by being sick all over their carpet, so Chris throws him out.
‘Steve goes home, and hasn’t been there long when Geoff arrives, plus present, the nice new grey leather jacket with a red dragon on the back that Steve had fancied so much when he saw Geoff wearing it. Quite likely, Steve asks Geoff if they could go for a jar together, to celebrate their birthday, but Geoff has got himself a new girl and doesn’t want Steve along, playing gooseberry, especially as Steve is still sozzled and might not make too good an impression.
‘So, when Geoff has gone, Steve is all alone again. He can’t stand it. It’s his birthday, he should be out there enjoying himself. So he puts on his new jacket and drives out to the Fox and Hounds at Coddington, hoping perhaps to pick someone up. He does. Marge Jackson. He’s too drunk to see past the make-up and they go off in the car together.’ Lineham paused.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, now, what went wrong, why he shoved her out of the car, but my guess is that at that point he may have had no idea she was so badly injured and so he would have got the shock of his life when some time on Monday, either on the radio or TV, he hears she’s dead and the police are treating the case as murder.
‘So on Monday night he stays holed up indoors, frantically trying to work out if there was anything to connect him with Marge’s death. He may or may not have wondered if anyone had noticed the jacket, while he was with her. It is pretty striking, after all.
‘Anyway, by Tuesday he was beginning to feel a bit safer, so after work he went to see Sharon, taking her a present, the gold bracelet he might well have intended giving her on Sunday, if Howells had been out. But Sharon refused to let him stay more than a few minutes and he went straight home afterwards, arriving in time to see the TVS news on Coast to Coast. There, to his horror, he sees an item about the murder of Marge Jackson, describing his jacket and saying the police want to interview its owner. He decides there’s only one thing to do, dump it, and that’s precisely what he does, in the skip where Quarry found it.’
‘And then?’
‘He’s still feeling a bit shaken, so he decides he’ll go and try to make it up with Chris, apologise for Sunday night. But Chris refuses to let him in, so …’
‘So?’
‘So he went home and got himself killed,’ finished Lineham lamely. He sighed, shook his head. ‘That’s where we come unstuck, isn’t it?’ He thought for a moment and added, a wide grin spreading across his face, ‘I’ll tell you what though, sir.’
‘What?’
‘Chief Inspector Hines won’t half be mad, that we got there first.’
‘True,’ said Thanet. The thought afforded him considerable satisfaction.
‘He’ll say that the moment we realised there was a possible connection between the two cases, we ought to have been in touch with him.’
‘But it’s all happened so quickly, hasn’t it, Mike? All we were doing was going quietly along pursuing our own enquiries when, bingo! Suddenly it dawned on us …’
‘That we’d solved his case for him!’ finished Lineham solemnly.
‘Exactly. Now, no one could blame us for that, could they?’
‘Certainly not, sir.’
The two men grinned at each other.
‘All the same,’ said T
hanet, ‘I’d hate to go to him too soon and have him prove that all this is merely a product of my “convoluted mind”, as he put it. There’s just one more piece of evidence I’d like to have, first.’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘We ought to talk to Geoff Hunt again, make sure we haven’t jumped to conclusions about the jacket.’
‘Mr Hines’ll say we ought to inform him now, and let him talk to Mr Hunt.’
Thanet’s eyes opened wide in mock innocence. ‘But we’re merely being conscientious and checking our facts before laying them in front of Chief Inspector Hines. I’m sure he wouldn’t want us to present him with a lot of half-baked notions, now would he?’
Lineham grinned. ‘Certainly not, sir. We’re going now?’
‘Shortly. I’ve made an appointment for eleven thirty. But before we do, there’s something you ought to know.’
As he talked, Thanet was gratified to see Lineham’s eyes stretch wide, his mouth drop open in astonishment.
TWENTY
Geoffrey Hunt’s arrangements for his move were obviously running smoothly. A furniture van painted with the sign R. W. BECKETT, AUCTIONEER AND VALUER stood in the drive, and as Thanet and Lineham parked beside it two men carrying a large wardrobe almost as easily as if it were an empty cardboard box emerged from the open front door. The van was already half-full.
Hunt was in the hall, talking to a third man.
‘I’m afraid we haven’t come at a very convenient time,’ said Thanet.
Hunt waved a hand. ‘Not to worry. It’s all under control. Everything’s labelled. We’ll go into the sitting room, we won’t be disturbed in there. I’ll see you later, then,’ he said to the foreman.
The big room looked like a saleroom itself. Furniture and rolls of carpet were piled up all around the edges and apart from a small area in front of the hearth most of the floorspace was taken up with packing cases, cardboard boxes and the thousand and one small objects considered by the civilised world to be an essential part of everyday life. It was obvious that in order to simplify today’s operation Hunt had gathered together in here most of the stuff he had decided to keep.
‘Sorry about the chaos,’ he said, ‘but it can’t be helped.’
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