by Celina Grace
“Did she have any history of depression? Any kind of mental illness?”
The scowl grew deeper. “No. Nothing like that. Karyn was always boringly sane.”
The contempt was there, or was it anger? Did he care that his wife had died? Was he glad? Kate was beginning to feel more and more uneasy around him. She decided to stop pussyfooting around and asked him directly why he and Karyn had split up.
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “We just drifted apart, that’s all. We didn’t have much in common anyway, and I suppose we just came to the conclusion that we were better off apart.”
He looked directly at Kate as he said this but somehow, she knew he was lying. Or, if not lying, leaving out a significant portion of the truth. She hesitated, wondering whether to dig deeper. Then she decided not to. She did have one final question for him.
“Can I ask where you were on Thursday the twenty-eighth of December, around midday, sir?”
Tom Denver didn’t ask her why she was asking that. He stared stonily at her and answered. “I was at work.”
“Where do you work, sir?”
“At Reed Publishing.” Kate knew it – it was one of the largest employers in the town. “I’m an accountant.”
Kate thanked him and scribbled down her notes. It would be easy enough to check whether Tom Denver had actually been in the office that day. She dotted the full stop at the end of her sentence and capped her pen. Was he actually under suspicion? Everyone’s under suspicion, Kate. Tom Denver was still clearly very angry at his wife for some reason. Just for leaving? But that didn’t necessarily mean he’d killed her. If she had been killed…. With difficulty, Kate stopped herself from sighing out loud.
*
She drove back to the office feeling frustrated. It was turning out to be one of those cases: muddled, obstructed, full of feelings she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Much like your relationship with Anderton, said the little gremlin who sporadically piped up with unhelpful mental comments. Kate gritted her teeth and pressed the accelerator down harder.
Chapter Seven
Kate was rubbing her eyes and yawning over her desk the next morning when Rav slapped down a folder in front of her face and made her jump.
“A good morning’s always nice,” she said grumpily, picking it up.
“Did you have a late night or something?” Rav looked far too chipper for Kate’s liking. Dry January was clearly paying off. “Anyway, thought you’d want to see this.”
“What is it?”
“We had someone call in yesterday, one of the Whites’ neighbours. They reported seeing Karyn Denver leaving the White’s house very late on Boxing Day, looking distressed. It’s probably nothing but I thought you’d like to have a read.”
That woke Kate up. She thanked Rav, who positively jogged back to his desk, and opened the folder to read.
The neighbour, who had asked to remain anonymous, had said pretty much what Rav had just told her. That Karyn Denver had been observed leaving the home of Louise and Paul White at about 1am on the morning of the 27th of December. The report mentioned that Karyn had seemed visibly upset and distressed and had walked quickly off down the road, clutching her handbag and a second, larger bag. Nobody had followed her and it seemed the White house remained dark and with no signs of a disturbance. The neighbour hadn’t thought much of it until the report of the finding of Karyn’s body had made the local news.
Kate read it through once more and frowned. Then she got up and fetched the witness statement from Alan Abercrombie, the dog walker who had apparently overheard an argument in Blackdown Woods on the day of Karyn’s death. She read through it again, more slowly this time. There was little to go on. Abercrombie had been too far away to overhear what was said, or even if the voices belonged to a man or a woman – or both – but he had definitely heard raised, angry voices and a minute or two later, what he’d thought was a scream. “I listened hard after that for a few moments but heard nothing. It was getting cold and so I decided to go home.” Kate read through to the end of the paragraph, her eyes focusing on one particular sentence. “I did think I saw a man on the opposite side of the gorge walking quickly in the opposite direction. He had on a red and black coat which caught my eye, but it was literally just for a moment before he went behind the trees and out of sight.”
Kate sat back. The two pieces of information were so thin, so little to go on, but… But… After a moment, she pulled up details of Paul White, noting down his workplace and Googling the number. She’d been meaning to interview him for a while, and this would probably be a good time. She’d call into Reed Publishing too, on the way, and find out whether Tom Denver had actually been in the office at the time of his wife’s death.
It was still cold when Kate made her way to the car park, but nowhere near as frosty as it had been. As Kate unlocked the driver-side door, her eye Was caught by something heartening, the early green spikes of what looked like snowdrops, poking out from the mud on the verge. Spring was hopefully just around the corner…
*
Reed Publishing was nearer to the police station than Paul White’s workplace. Kate parked in the spacious visitor car park and made her way to the reception area. She ascertained from the helpful, if slightly alarmed, receptionist who Tom Denver’s supervisor was and was quickly ensconced in their office. It was perhaps fortunate that because of the time of year, things were less busy than they could have been.
“Oh, yes, Tom was here on the twenty-eighth. I must admit I was slightly surprised, because he normally takes that Christmas week off but he didn’t this year.” Norman Frankl, Denver’s boss, was a portly, cheerful looking middle-aged man. “Yes, he was definitely here.”
“For the whole day?” Kate scribbled busily in her notebook.
“Well, I suppose so. I didn’t exactly have him under observation.” Frankl twinkled at her from behind his thick glasses. “With the building being what it is, we’re not exactly open plan.” Kate could appreciate that; the Reed Publishing company being located in an old, renovated building, full of wood panelling and wall beams. “But he was definitely here. I saw him to say goodbye to at the end of the day.”
“Right. Thank you.” Kate stood up, wondering whether it was worth asking her next question. “Could you just show me where his office is, exactly?”
“Of course, my dear. I’ll take you there myself.” Frankl courteously indicated the door of his office and stood back to let Kate go first. “He’s not actually there, you know, today. Poor man, we’ve given him compassionate leave for a fortnight.”
Kate nodded. “You were aware that he and his wife had actually separated before she died?”
Frankl looked faintly shocked. “Had they? No – no, I had no idea. But Tom’s very reserved, you know. Keeps things close to his chest. He never used to talk about his private life.”
Frankl led Kate along a bewildering series of corridors and small, rickety staircases before indicating a small room tucked away at the end of a dark passage. “Here you go.”
Kate thanked him and took a look inside. It was cramped but neat, with a modern desk and chair rather starkly contrasting with the almost medieval surroundings of the actual building. More pertinently, it wasn’t overlooked and had only one small window, which looked out onto the wall of the opposite building. Kate stood for a moment, thinking. Could Tom Denver have slipped out, that day? Crept out to track down his wife on her run in Blackdown Forest? Kate remembered that seething undercurrent of anger that she’d sensed running through him at both their meetings. She pondered for a moment longer and then turned towards the door. Then she froze. Hanging on the back of the door was a man’s jacket, black with a red collar.
Norman Frankl was still babbling on about Tom and the way the office had clubbed together to send flowers and if he could help in any more ways, then he’d be happy to. Kate g
ave him a professional smile, held a hand up as a visual brake to his verbal diarrhoea, and told him she’d seen all she needed to see and would be in touch if anything else came up.
Striding out to her car, Kate pondered her next move. Okay, so the victim’s husband had a similar coat to the one seen by the only witness to the crime. But did that actually mean anything? So had probably hundreds, if not thousands, of people in this town. Kate reached her car and flung herself into the driver’s seat, reaching for her notebook. Coat, she scribbled. Worth impounding? Check CCTV around building to see if Denver ever left on the 28th.
The trouble was, as Kate knew full well, that none of the evidence was solid enough to even risk an arrest warrant, let alone a charge. And where was the motive? Okay, so the Denvers had split up, but that didn’t normally warrant a murder charge. Frustrated, Kate threw her notebook over on the passenger seat with her gloves, handbag and coat and started the engine.
She heard her mobile phone start ringing as she negotiated her way across Abbeyford to Paul White’s workplace but didn’t have time to pull over to answer it. She knew it was probably Anderton – he’d taken to ringing her during the day, not for anything in particular but just for a chat. Kate sympathised – she knew he was probably a bit lonely stuck at home, not to mention the fact that a man of Anderton’s energy and intellect didn’t take kindly to boredom – but it was getting more and more difficult to find the time to talk to him. I’ll phone him later, she promised herself, trying to concentrate on the sat nav’s directions.
Chapter Eight
Paul White’s place of work could not have been in greater contrast to that of Thomas Denver’s. The office buildings containing the solicitors’ practice of Chipstead, Denham and White were almost brand new; built of angular cream-coloured stone, black cladding and some rather startling but undeniably effective strips of copper. Their burnished hue reflected the struggling rays of the sun, which were just creeping out from behind the cloud.
Kate had rung ahead, if only by ten minutes, to ascertain that Paul White would be in the office. She was quickly shown through to where he was located, and he opened the door to her himself, shaking hands courteously. For all that, Kate could sense an undercurrent of anxiety in his slightly too casual small talk, just a tiny thrum underneath the superficial normality. But that was actually quite normal when interviewing people who didn’t have a lot to do with the police in day-to-day life. It didn’t necessarily mean he was hiding something. As Kate sat down, she took a surreptitious look at the back of his office door but the only coat there was a dark-grey, pinstriped suit jacket, matching the trousers Paul White was currently wearing.
“Where was I?” Paul White sounded almost shocked to be asked. “On the day – I presume that was the day Karyn – well, died?”
Kate smiled neutrally. “If you could just let me know, sir, where you were from half eleven am on the twenty-eighth of December last year?”
Paul White frowned. “Well, um – it was Christmas week, wasn’t it? So I took the week off, I normally do – spend time with the family and all that. So, um, I would have been at home.”
“I see. What were you doing at that particular time, Mr White?”
Paul White was looking slightly more relaxed now. “Oh, gosh. Half eleven on a holiday day? Probably just watching TV, something like that.”
“Did you go out at all that day?”
Paul White looked hard at her and then smiled. “No. No, I don’t think so. I didn’t have any reason to go out, and I like relaxing at home.”
“Was your wife at home?”
The hunted look came back, if only briefly. “Louise? Yes, of course she was. She was doing a big declutter of the whole house in time for New Year.”
Kate nodded. Was there actually any point to this? What did she have to go on, apart from a vague feeling that something wasn’t quite right?
She cleared her throat. “We have a witness statement that says they saw Karyn Denver leave your house at one am on Boxing Day – so, actually, on the twenty-seventh but very early – in a distressed state. Can you tell me anything about that?”
Paul White stared at her. “What?”
Kate met his gaze calmly and repeated her question. Paul White blinked and then said, somewhat reluctantly, “Well, she had been upset, a bit, earlier in the evening. Both Louise and I were trying to help, you know, calm her down. I think the situation with Tom had been getting at her and you know what Christmas is like. But I didn’t think she’d actually left. Not that night.”
“Really?” Kate looked down at her notes and then up again. “You didn’t notice that she wasn’t there in the morning.”
Paul’s face cleared. “Oh, no, we didn’t actually, because she’d already said she’d have to leave early, she had some sort of appointment the next day.”
“What was this appointment?”
Paul White shrugged. “I’ve no idea, sorry. She didn’t go into details. But she said it was first thing so she’d slip out early in the morning without disturbing us.” He rubbed a finger along his jaw and added, “This is just an impression – I don’t know – just an inkling that she might have been going to see a divorce lawyer. But I really don’t know.”
Kate pressed him for more details, but he continued to repeat that he knew nothing else, that Karyn Denver had been distressed earlier but that both he and Louise had succeeded in calming her down and that they’d all gone to bed at the usual time. He stressed again that Karyn had told them she’d had an early morning appointment and they hadn’t expected to see her in the morning.
At length, Kate knew she’d got everything from Paul White that she was likely to get. It seemed straightforward enough but… Kate was thinking hard as she took leave of Paul White and headed back to her car. What was this mysterious appointment of Karyn’s on the 27th December? If, in fact, it had actually existed? Had she actually left at one am? that morning and, if so, why? What exactly had she been upset about? Paul White had been vague, saying that Louise had done most of the comforting, and he’d merely made hot drinks before retiring and leaving the women to it.
Kate drove to the White’s house, taking a chance that Louise would be in. In fact, she was, looking calmer but no less unhappy. She led Kate into the sitting room and offered tea.
“I still can’t really believe it,” Louise said, bringing in two steaming mugs and handing one to Kate. “I mean, I know it’s happened, I mean logically I know it’s happened, but I still can’t really believe it.” Her voice had that same note of bewilderment that Kate had heard so many other times when talking to the recently bereaved.
“That’s very normal,” Kate said sympathetically. She sipped her tea with gratitude – breakfast seemed a long time ago. “It’s a curve, and you have to move through the stages. It’s just incredibly hard, and I do know how you feel.”
Louise pressed her lips together and her eyes grew glassy. “I just miss her so much. We spent so much time together and now—” She broke off, blinking hard and raising her own mug to her lips.
Kate allowed her a moment and then began. “I’m just trying to build up a picture of what happened on the twenty-eighth of December, Mrs White. I’m sure you can understand how valuable that is to us in this kind of investigation.”
Louise nodded. “I can. I’ve been obsessing over it myself, you know, going over and over and over it... I suppose just seeing if I can get my head around it, what happened.” She looked pleadingly at Kate, who nodded reassuringly.
“Again, Mrs White, that’s completely normal. Once you’ve been through the trauma of a bereavement, it’s completely normal to try and piece things all together again and again. I suppose it’s the brain’s way of trying to process it.” Kate put her tea mug down to pick up her pen. “I’ve spoken to your husband, who tells me that Karyn was upset the night before she left here. So, Boxing Day. Is that right?”
Louise stared at her for a moment blankly and then her face cleared. “Oh – oh, yes, she was, a bit. You know I’d said before she was a bit down generally, because of Tom and, well, her marriage falling apart, really. That’s enough to get anyone down, let alone with Christmas thrown in as well.” She paused for a breath and Kate nodded encouragingly. “Well, we’d all had a bit to drink on Boxing Day, and we were watching TV – there was that really good BBC adaptation of that Agatha Christie book on – we both loved Agatha Christie – anyway, and Karyn just started crying.” Kate saw Louise’s own eyes fill with sympathetic tears. “We didn’t really talk much about it, I could see she didn’t want to. I mean, I tried, but she just didn’t want to. So I just gave her a hug, and Paul made her a hot drink and well, that was it, really.”
Kate was busy writing all this down. She looked up from her notepad. “And you don’t know why she left in the middle of the night?”
Louise’s eyes widened. “Left in the middle of the night?” She looked astonished. “Did she?”
“Yes, apparently,” said Kate. “One of your neighbours saw her going down the street at about one am.”
Louise looked even more astonished and then tearful. “Oh – I thought she left really early in the morning. She’d said she had an appointment and she would go early so as not to disturb us. Oh, God, she must have been feeling even worse than she let on—” Her voice wobbled and she stopped speaking, pressing her fingers to her mouth.
“You don’t know what this appointment was, I suppose?” Kate asked.
Louise shook her head slowly. A tear rolled down one cheek and she brushed it off almost angrily. “No. No, she wouldn’t say. I didn’t want to push her. To be honest, I was pretty tired and a bit drunk myself by then, so I just wanted to go to bed. Oh, I should have listened—” She broke off and then spoke again. “I wonder – I wonder if she was going back to Tom? You know, whether she thought she’d made a mistake, or that she wanted to see him or – or, I don’t know—” She looked across at Kate, smiling painfully. “I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I’m just really upset.”