Murder in Containment: A Doyle and Acton Mystery

by Anne Cleeland

  Munoz gave her a wicked glance. “Amazing.”

  “Oh—oh, I see; matters have progressed so quickly?”

  “So far, so good,” the other girl replied in a neutral tone that—much to her distress—didn’t fool Doyle for a second.

  “Well, you’ve got to be a bit careful, Munoz; there’s always a chance that he’s tryin’ to winkle out your secrets.”

  “I don’t think so—he never discusses work.” She paused. “He likes to watch me sketch.”

  Worse and worse, thought Doyle in horror; she’s smitten; and I’m not seeing wretched Savoie a wretched moment too soon.

  Habib appeared, willing to latch on to any excuse to speak to Munoz. “What is this? We speak of suspect sketches?”

  “Amazing sketches,” Munoz confirmed with a glance at Doyle.

  “More like sketchy sketches,” Doyle countered crossly.

  “Who is the suspect?” asked Habib, who was clearly at sea.

  Munoz retorted, “I’ll tell you who’s suspect; Chelsea’s entire back line.”

  Doyle understood this to be a reference to football, which meant she’d have nothing to contribute. Thank all the available saints that Acton was not a football enthusiast—although if he were, she’d probably have to pretend an interest, to humor him. After all, he humored her all the time—when he wasn’t secretly meeting with enemies of the state, that was.

  “The Chelsea team will play Man U next week; perhaps I can acquire tickets.”

  Doyle nearly fell over in surprise; Habib appeared to be asking the fair Munoz out on a date, and rather than await the certain snub, Doyle was desperate enough to help him clutch at this straw. “That sounds grand, Munoz; you can see whose team is the better.”

  Surprisingly, Munoz did not carve out Habib’s heart on the spot, but instead slid a malicious glance toward Doyle. “My sister can get tickets through the council; we can all go.”

  Doyle had to admire this deft handling of the tricky situation; it was never wise to scorn a superior officer—as well she knew, having decided that marrying one was easier.

  Munoz then asked with a hint of steel, “You’ll come too, won’t you Doyle?”

  But Doyle was not one to buckle under duress. “Not I; I’m to avoid crowds, in my condition.” This was actually true, but for other reasons; it was always difficult for someone like her to be in amongst a group of people who were emanating a wide variety of strong emotions.

  To avoid Munoz’s angry glare, she hastily asked, “How can she get tickets—does your sister know someone on the council?” The council was the Health Professions Council, and—come to think of it—the council had figured prominently in Doyle’s cases lately. There’d been a murdered pedophile amongst its members, and the missing prison matron was pretending she was affiliated with the council. And Moran—she drew her brows together—Moran had been on the council’s board, according to his obituary.

  Munoz informed her, “Elena is doing an internship there. She’s working on immigration issues.”

  Doyle thought this over, her scalp prickling; Acton famously didn’t believe in coincidences. “Has she noticed anythin’—I don’t know—odd over there?”

  Both Munoz and Habib looked at Doyle in surprise, and Munoz shrugged. “Nothing other than the usual problems in dealing with wealthy do-gooders. There are factions that butt heads, of course.”

  “Can your sister certainly obtain tickets?” Habib was impatient with this work-talk, and wanted to get back to the outing-with-Munoz-talk. “I will be pleased to purchase them, if necessary.”

  With a palpable lack of enthusiasm, Munoz replied, “No, Elena can get the tickets, and what’s more, they’ll be good seats—I’ll put her on it.”

  “I’ll be off,” said Doyle, as she checked her mobile for the time. “Keep me posted about Chelsea’s back line.”

  “DS Doyle, perhaps you are forgetting that there is a sensitivity training scheduled for lunch,” Habib reminded her, gently remonstrating.

  “Oh—oh, well I have one of those classes that teaches you about childbirth,” Doyle improvised. “La-something.” She paused, thinking about it. “Lamorse.”

  “Oh, then by all means,” said Habib, beaming. “Best of luck.”

  As Munoz shot her a darkling look, Doyle made her escape.

  26

  Doyle wound her scarf around the collar of her coat as she walked through the lobby, thinking about the coming interview with Mrs. Moran. Ex-wives, along with ex-girlfriends, were a detective’s best friends, but a widow—one would think—would be very defensive about her late husband’s reputation. Perhaps a peek into their bank records wouldn’t be out of line; she’d see if Acton had already done so.

  The desk sergeant called out a greeting, and she smiled in response, as she came to the lobby doors; the man had been a big fan ever since the bridge-jumping incident, and she was reminded of the dead SOCO, who thought she was going to be a hero, like Doyle. She must have caught wind of the Wexton Prison corruption ring, somehow, and was working to expose it—hence she was killed, to put a stop to her investigation. And since the SOCO had written Mrs. Moran’s mobile number on her note pad as one of her last earthly actions, it placed a different light on the forthcoming interview—the SOCO may have been trying to contact the widow to discover what she knew about her husband’s activities, or the widow may even have been involved in the SOCO’s murder; best to keep an open mind. Doyle wondered how she’d manage to raise the subject of the murdered SOCO in the context of the vigilante murders, but decided—as she always did—that things seemed to work best when she didn’t have any particular plan. She was an intuitive creature, and plans—like thinking—were overrated.

  She’d dutifully rung up the driving service, but upon emerging onto the front pavement, she was treated to the welcome sight of Acton in the Range Rover, waiting for her at the curb.

  Smiling with delight, she slid into the car, and wondered what had prompted this unlooked-for visitation. “What a nice surprise, Michael.”

  “Do you mind if I come along?”

  “Do I have the lead?” she teased, as he pulled away from the curb. Technically, vehicles were not allowed to wait in front of the building, but the PC on duty had managed to hover at the far end of the perimeter, so as not to officially notice that a DCI was breaking the rules.

  “You do, Detective Sergeant.” He gave her his half-smile, but she was not fooled, and wondered what had prompted this sudden desire to join her. Perhaps Savoie had told him that she’d called him, although this seemed unlikely; Savoie was not what one would call a gabbler.

  But she was soon to find out Acton’s reason, as he glanced at her, and lifted a shoulder in an apologetic gesture. “I believe Trenton has been twigged.”

  She smiled to show there were no hard feelings. “He wouldn’t have been, Michael, but you were a little over-concerned about Williams, and so I put two and two together.”

  Acton’s brows drew together. “Williams should not browbeat you.”

  “Well, you won’t browbeat me,” she pointed out fairly. “He fills in whenever it is necessary that I be browbeaten.”

  He reached to put a conciliatory hand on her leg “I am sorry I didn’t tell you about Trenton.”

  Covering his hand with her own, she assured him, “No; I’m sorry I was such a baby about Mathis that you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

  “It is only temporary,” he soothed. “So I don’t go mad.”

  “Well, we can’t have that,” she replied, and carefully did not meet his eye.

  Apparently satisfied that she wasn’t going to start throwing things at him, her husband then moved on to the next topic. “I’ve taken a look at Dr. Harding’s mobile phone records, and there were two calls that originated in the cell tower area near Trestles. Originating accounts are unknown, so it was probably two disposable mobiles.”

  “Saints,” she exclaimed, although she really wasn’t very surprised. “Someone over at Tr
estles convinced the good doctor to warn me off, then?”

  “So it would seem.”

  She shrugged in mock-resignation. “Could be any one of a hundred.”

  He smiled in grim acknowledgement. “I imagine the field is a bit narrower.”

  This was, of course, true because it went without saying that Dr. Harding was not going to do such a thing without plenty of filthy lucre crossing his palm, and Doyle would bet her eyeteeth that it was either Acton’s mother, or his nasty heir. Or a combination of both, as it was hard to image the dowager knowing what a disposable mobile was, let alone deigning to go somewhere, and purchase one.

  Aloud, she offered, “Perhaps it’s just Grady, tryin’ to save you from eternal damnation.” Grady was the stableman at the estate, an Irishman from Ulster, who was none too happy that the new baroness was Roman Catholic, and thus the next thing to Satan himself.

  “I may have to make a visit.”

  “All right, Michael; do I come along, to do a little listenin’?” She was pleased with herself for sounding as though this plan of action was amenable to her. Not only was his estate a nest of vipers, it was inhabited by ghostly ancestors who made a habit of plaguing her, since she was the only one who could see them. She’d never want to admit it to Acton, but the incumbent baroness didn’t particularly enjoy visiting Trestles, which was a drawback, all and all.

  “Let me think it over. Since the psychiatrist’s plot came to naught, it is not a pressing priority, just now.”

  “How are those more pressin’ priorities, by the way? Is Zao namin’ names?” When one player cracked, usually the others were eager to tell their own tales in exchange for a more lenient sentence; it was a classic police technique, being as the prosecutors were never as interested in the foot soldiers as they were in the higher-ups.

  “We’re keeping it very quiet, but Zao got his marching orders from the prison’s medical examiner.”

  She raised her brows at this. “The medical examiner at the prison morgue? I suppose that’s handy; he can say whatever he wants about a prisoner’s death, and no one’s goin’ to be very interested, in the first place. How does the matron fit in, then—she’s his accomplice?”

  “Her role remains unclear; she worked on the women’s side, and so may have been a go-between.”

  They’d stopped in front of the office building, and as Acton came ʼround to open her car door, Doyle asked, “Did they find anythin’ at the rubbish site—any of the SOCO’s photographic equipment?”

  “Yes, but unfortunately, no photographs or negatives.”

  She raised her face, thinking about this. “She may have been an annoyance, Michael, but she was a good SOCO. If there were incriminatin’ photographs, she’d have a duplicate set, hidden away somewhere. The EO has gone through all her things, right?”

  He nodded. “He’s found nothing of interest. Unless there is a blind security box somewhere, but then we’d be looking for an unaccounted-for key, and we haven’t found one.”

  “No,” said Doyle, thinking of the SOCO’s cluttered flat. “She wasn’t the type to be that organized; I doubt she had a security box.”

  Any further speculation was cut off by their arrival at the accounting offices, where they were escorted into a well-appointed conference room. In a short time, Mrs. Moran entered and was shown to be an attractive woman nearing sixty; brisk and businesslike, and wearing an expensive scarf arrayed over her shoulders. As they shook hands over introductions, the woman said, “Chief Inspector, I am honored. This must be a matter of importance.”

  Acton bowed his head. “More a matter of delicacy, I’m afraid.”

  The woman nodded as though she’d expected this. “Sebastian, I suppose. The chickens have finally come home to roost. Will you be seated?”

  A bit taken aback, Doyle remembered that she was supposed to take the lead, and asked, “Which chickens are those, ma’am?”

  The woman regarded them for a moment, as she clasped her hands before her on the table. Faith, thought Doyle; she’s a nasty mixture of bitterness and—and satisfaction, or something; as though she’s rather pleased we’re here.

  “My husband was unfaithful, and what was worse, he was indiscreet. But God forbid that his reputation suffer for it, so I believe he was being manipulated by the other—here she twisted her mouth in distaste—the other libertines, at the Crown Court.”

  As Acton was listening without comment, Doyle took a guess at what “libertines” meant, and ventured, “Do you believe your husband was bein’ blackmailed, then?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t necessarily call it blackmail; he was a willing participant, after all.” She paused. “He was in over his head, though, and he knew it—he drank himself to death as a result.” This said without a flicker of remorse.

  A bit daunted by the woman’s serene coldness, Doyle asked, “Can you tell us what sort of manipulation was involved—what was the purpose?”

  “They’d let the female suspects go free—for a price.” She paused, pressing her lips into a thin line. “Disgusting—to parlay such an advantage.”

  Resisting the urge to ask why the woman herself hadn’t come forward, if the practice was so disgusting, Doyle instead asked, “D’you know who was involved, on the judicial side?”

  “No,” the woman responded immediately.

  This was not true, and Doyle brushed her hair off her forehead, in a signal to Acton. She’s a wily one, thought Doyle; she doesn’t want to be a witness after the fact, or be charged with obstruction of justice, depending on how much she knows. “Can you remember any particular case, or any particular suspect Mr. Moran may have mentioned? Anythin’ to help us get a startin’ point on this?”

  It appeared that this was something the witness was willing to disclose, which she did with ill-concealed relish. “There was the trollop at his chambers—it all turned out very well for her.”

  Oh-oh, thought Doyle in dismay. “And which trollop was that, ma’am?”

  “Percy, his junior.” She paused for a moment, and then could not contain her bitterness. “There is no fool like an old fool.”

  27

  While she processed this disquieting piece of information, Doyle was aware, for reasons that she could not explain, that this was not news to Acton. “So his junior was given the job after—after offerin’ sexual favors?”

  The woman looked at her in surprise. “No, the criminal charges against her were dismissed in exchange for sexual favors. Then I suppose she was offered the job, in exchange for more of the same.” She paused. “She’s still at it, I understand. Judge Whitteside is the latest name I’ve heard.”

  Poor Thomas, thought Doyle in acute dismay, but then rallied, as she reminded herself that DI Williams needn’t ever hear this sordid piece of news.

  Acton, who’d remained silent thus far, interrupted to ask in a mild tone, “Were you worried—because your husband was drinking so much—that this scandal might come to light?”

  But the witness could see where this was headed, and only smiled thinly. “Did I kill him, you mean? No. I was going to divorce him, instead. I was not going to be a laughingstock, as a result of this tawdry scheme. I’d already consulted with a solicitor.”

  Doyle could feel Acton’s gaze rest on her for a moment, to ascertain that the woman was telling the truth, which she was. Doggedly, Doyle tried to gain the woman’s cooperation by appealing to her sense of justice. “Are you certain you can’t remember any other cases your late husband may have mentioned? This type of thing may still be ongoin’, and we must put a stop to it.”

  “I wish I could help,” the woman replied in an even tone, and Doyle lowered her head, whilst brushing her hair off her forehead.

  Acton then spoke. “A woman from the CID—a forensic photographer—had your mobile number on a notepad in her flat. Do you know why this was?”

  A bit surprised by the change in topic, the witness answered readily, “Yes. I’d hired her to follow Sebastian around and take some sn
aps—the solicitor said it would helpful with the divorce.”

  Acton said bluntly, “She’s been murdered.”

  For the first time, the woman’s cool assurance seemed shaken, and she looked from one to the other in surprised alarm. “Murdered? How?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. You were unaware of this?”

  “I’d no idea. Why—that poor girl.”

  Again, Acton glanced at Doyle but again, the witness told the truth. Doyle continued, “Had she given you any photographs, ma’am?”

  “No; no, in fact, I’ve been trying to ring her up, because I hadn’t heard from her, lately.”

  Doyle then checked her notes, and was reminded to ask, “Was there anything unusual about your husband’s death?”

  Still distracted by the news of the SOCO’s murder, the woman frowned at her. “I’m not certain what you mean.”

  Doyle paused, but Acton made no comment, so she explained, “Are you certain he died of natural causes? Was there anythin’ that raised a question in your mind?”

  Again, the woman looked from one to the other in surprise. “He suffered from cirrhosis, and a variety of other ailments, due to his drinking. I had no indication there was any foul play. Why? Is there some question?”

  Acton said, “Not at present.” He then rose, indicating the interview was at an end. “If you remember anything of consequence, please contact us immediately. In the meantime, it would probably be best to speak of this to no one. Indeed, it may be dangerous to do so.”

  “Not a word,” she assured him. “I shouldn’t admit it to you, but his death was an enormous relief to me, and I’ve closed that book.”

  As Doyle accompanied Acton back to the car, she thought over the interview, and what the witness had revealed. “I think—all in all—that I prefer my witness from this morning, Michael; the one who just straight-out took a fire jack to her husband.”

  “Mrs. Moran was a bit cold.”

  “As a stone,” Doyle agreed.

  As they settled into the car, he observed, “Did you notice that it did not occur to her to link the SOCO’s death to the corruption ring?”