Detective Mike Croft Series Box Set

by Jane Adams

  John Tynan nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And David?’

  ‘He’s made a statement. Until we know the time and cause of death there’s nothing more to be done.’

  The screech of the kettle’s whistle tore into the quiet of the kitchen. John lifted it from the stove and switched off the gas. He turned away from them as he poured water into the large brown pot, stretched the absurd woollen cosy over the top and shook it gently as though that might speed up the process. Mike could see that for all his calm his hands were shaking and his lips were bloodless.

  ‘She was one of the last, you see,’ John said with quiet resignation. ‘Mine was not a job that made for socializing. Well, you know all about that. Grace kept in touch with people but when she died, well, I wasn’t much good at it. Theo was one of the last of our mutual friends. People we’d both grown up with. It’s a shock. She was so much . . . alive.’

  He took a deep breath and straightened up, began arranging cups on the tray and sugar and milk. His hands shook a little and he was showing his age far more than usual.

  ‘And what about David,’ he asked. ‘Where has he gone now? Presumably not back to the house?’

  ‘No, we’ve got a cordon round the house until cause of death’s certain. As I understand it he’s gone to a hotel for the night. There’s another thing, though. Our people arrived practically on his heels. Suspected break-in at the same address. Neighbours’d seen a teenage boy running away, climbing over that back wall and into the garden of the house behind.’

  ‘Any connection with Theo’s death?’ Maria asked.

  Mike shook his head. ‘There’s no evidence of a break-in. No disturbance that we could see. Of course, we can’t be certain there was nothing missing.’

  ‘You’ll have David to check later on.’

  Mike nodded, flexing his shoulders in an effort to clear some of the exhaustion from his body. He was very tired, but his mind was jumping and he knew he would be unlikely to sleep.

  ‘Did you know they were lovers, John?’

  ‘What, Theo and David?’ He paused, poured the tea with a much steadier hand. ‘I didn’t know. Not for certain, but I did wonder. And if that’s true, then I’m glad. I know that David made her very happy and if they were more than friends, well, all I can say is good for them.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  7.30 a.m.

  Jake held the cup to the young man’s lips and told him to drink. His victim was whimpering now, pleading hysterically to be released, so frantic that he could hardly swallow. He choked on the water as Jake tipped the cup too fast, coughing and spluttering with the liquid pouring back out of his mouth and through his nose. Jake moved aside to protect his clothes, frowning slightly.

  ‘Now, drink,’ he repeated, tipping the cup again. The blond man managed to swallow this time, gulping convulsively. ‘Don’t want you dying on me quite yet,’ Jake told him. ‘Not quite yet.’

  He moved out of camera shot, setting the cup down. The man was still blindfolded, but for the sake of the film, Jake had covered his own face. He wore a black ski mask and combat gear. A knife in his belt and an AK47 replica propped against the wall. This one would probably end up as just one brief sequence in the finished film, but Jake liked to participate from time to time, bit parts that extended his enjoyment of the make-believe. There was enough genuine footage around, available dirt cheap if you knew where to find it, for him not to be too worried about providing major scenes and he often doubted that his buyers would know the difference anyway.

  He returned to the bed and checked the bindings around the wrists and ankles. The tips of the fingers were cold and slightly blue, but not enough to cause immediate concern, and the ankles were puffy either side of the bindings. He took the knife from the sheath at his belt and laid it coldly against the blond man’s throat.

  ‘Can you feel this?’ he asked.

  No reply.

  Jake pressed the point harder, just drawing blood. ‘I said, can you feel this?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I can feel it. I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to die . . .’

  9.15 a.m.

  The bell rang as he pushed the door of the small artist’s supply shop and the girl looked up from the counter.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Phillips, not your usual day, is it? I’ll tell Freda you’re here.’

  Jake Bowen smiled at her. ‘No, I don’t usually make calls at the weekend, but I was passing and it’s going to be a couple of weeks before I’m this way again.’

  The girl nodded and went into the back of the shop to tell the owner that John Phillips had arrived. Jake put his briefcase down on the counter and began to sort out the supply catalogues Freda Hurst had requested. She was hoping to expand, was in the process of buying the shop next door and planned to add photographic and darkroom equipment to her stock. John Phillips, her usual rep, was all in favour.

  Freda came through from the back of the shop, her face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘Thanks for calling in,’ she said. ‘I hope it’s not put you out?’

  ‘Not at all, glad to help.’ He placed the catalogues on the counter. ‘Just give me a ring if you need advice.’

  ‘OK, will do.’ She was holding a newspaper in her hand and waved it at him. ‘Dreadful business,’ she said, pointing to the front page and the updated report of the attack in Aston Park.

  Jake nodded sympathetically. ‘It won’t be long before they get him though, he’s getting too cocky for himself if you ask me.’

  Jake had seen the report earlier and he meant what he said. Back in his car he glanced at his own copy of the paper. So the prat was sending letters to the police now, was he? Jake shook his head. Amateur, he thought.

  10.30 a.m.

  Max Harriman had Saturday off. He lay in bed late, propped against the pillows, smoking a cigarette. He was as individual in this as he was in all things; cigarettes were an indulgence he allowed only before he took his morning shower. Max might like to smoke, but the stale smell of it on hair and clothes was something he found intolerable.

  On the wall opposite the bed were pinned a series of images. They were nothing if not eclectic. There was a centrefold, the staple marks carefully smoothed away so as not to spoil the look of the woman’s skin. Her name, according to the title at the top, was Marianne — though Max knew different . . .

  Next to that was a picture cut from a full-page advert in a magazine. The blonde woman with the perfect smile and the blood-red lips gazing out at him. And positioned above them both, pictures taken with a motor wind of a teenage girl. Her blonde hair flying loose as she ran.

  There were others too, of places Max had lived and people he had known. Obsessions he’d once had that had played themselves out on a much bigger screen than a mere still camera could embrace. An historic catalogue of Max Harriman’s life and work.

  The other one had taken those pictures for him, the ones of the young girl he’d liked so much and been torn away from before his time. Jake was good like that, he never said a word, just provided the images for Max’s fantasies. Gave him the title and then watched him run with the story. Time to time, he’d even used the raw material Max could provide. Max was proud of that.

  Max drew deeply on the cigarette. It was his third that morning, chain-smoked. He would allow himself one more. Then shower and dress and begin his day properly.

  He was proud of his sense of discipline. It was important to be ordered, in most things at least; Jake had taught him that.

  But even Jake broke loose sometimes from his strictly self-imposed rules. The first two girls here in Norwich, for instance, they had been his. The fourth one too, but the others had belonged to Max.

  A tribute to the master one might say.

  Max smiled, shook his last cigarette from the package and lit it from the butt of the last.

  Chapter Fifteen

  11 a.m.

  Mike had been so certain that Theo’s death was a tragic accident that he had not even called in to
chase up the post-mortem.

  He was well aware that, regardless of what TV dramas liked to portray, anything short of a dead cert killing had to wait in line with the other routine body count: the cot deaths, the sudden heart attacks, the collapses and the suicides and the unidentified. Theo’s death would be lodged somewhere on this list and wait until someone could get around to dealing with it.

  It was with deep surprise, therefore, that he took the call, standing in John’s hallway in the middle of what he’d hoped would be a peaceful morning.

  ‘I put her on the list for my students to take a look at,’ the pathologist was saying. ‘I like to give them a little variety and this was a good one. I’d got a couple of them doing preliminary exams and when they told me what they’d found I was certain they must be mistaken.’

  ‘I thought you’d decided it was probably asphyxia?’ Mike questioned, acutely aware of John’s hovering presence in the background.

  ‘That’s right, but this is slightly off kilter. There’s evidence of minute conjunctival haemorrhage. I’ve brought her to the top of my list, Mike, but from the early indicators, your lady was smothered.’

  ‘The haemorrhage you found, it’s not consistent with asphyxia caused by vomiting?’

  ‘If there’s vomit in the lungs then, yes, it’s possible. Drowning on your own puke when you’re blind drunk isn’t that uncommon, as you well know, but it doesn’t normally lead to the kind of pressure needed to rupture blood vessels in the eyes. It’s more consistent with what we’d expect to find in strangulation or, as I think we’ve got here, smothering.’

  Mike listened a while longer, thinking of the way Theo’s body had been positioned. The bottle on the floor and the scattered cushions . . . Blood alcohol had been found at 275mg per 100ml of blood. Enough to cause unconsciousness, Mike thought. Theo was very, very drunk. Killing her would have been easy.

  He put the phone down and turned to face John. He didn’t need to say a word.

  ‘She was murdered, wasn’t she?’

  ‘We can’t be certain yet.’

  ‘You’ll be bringing David in for questioning again?’

  ‘When we get confirmation, yes.’

  John nodded slowly. ‘And the boy seen running away?’

  ‘We’ve no news yet. I don’t know, John, he could be completely unconnected.’

  John Tynan took a deep breath and shook his head. ‘I know you have a job to do but go easy on David.’

  ‘I’ll treat him the way I’d treat anyone else.’

  ‘I know, I know. But I can’t believe he’s involved in this. I believe he loved her.’

  Mike nodded. ‘The number of killings committed by strangers is pretty small, John. You’re as much aware of that as I am. You didn’t even know the pair of them were lovers until I told you. We still don’t know that’s true. Who can tell what their relationship was really like?’

  ‘I saw them together. I knew Theo well.’

  ‘But not David Martin. About him you know next to nothing. A few meetings when he showed you what he wanted you to see.’

  ‘I’m not a fool!’

  ‘No, no, you’re not. But you are a friend.’ He paused. ‘Theo’s dead, John. We don’t know for certain that we’re looking at murder, but if we are, I’m going to find out who and why, and there’s no more that I can say.’

  11.10 a.m.

  Maria was catching up with the morning news when Mike came in to say he’d have to go. He explained quickly about the phone call.

  ‘How’s John taking it?’

  ‘How do you think?’

  Maria smiled. ‘You’re going to watch the PM?’

  ‘Yes, I was wondering . . .’

  Maria took the car keys out of her bag and handed them to him. ‘We’re going to book a day off, Mr Detective Inspector Croft, and we are going to take that junk heap of an estate car and see who’s stupid enough to give you a trade in on it.’

  She turned the local paper towards him. ‘Have you seen this? Oh, and there’s a piece on Theo’s death on page two.’

  Mike took the paper from her. ‘Yes,’ he said. I’ve already read it.’ He skimmed the front page again. Tom Andrews had played it very fair, he thought, though Superintendent Flint hadn’t seen it that way. Mike had spoken to him on the phone earlier while Maria had still been catching up on sleep. ‘Flint was not amused,’ he said. ‘Thinks all journalists should be operating under a D notice or kept to reporting on village fetes.’ He read out loud from the sections of the letters Tom Andrews had published.

  There will be others.

  The police will never find me.

  I can run rings around them.

  I don’t even have to try.

  ‘Your man believes in short sharp sentences,’ Maria commented.

  ‘Hmm, and that’s not all, he lays them out like poetry, you know, double-spaced, each sentence on a new line . . .’ Mike frowned, reminding himself of what Tom Andrews hadn’t yet been told. As he now knew there were two attackers, which one was responsible for the sending of the letters, and why? The thought came fleetingly that the author of the letters might be deliberately taunting the other man. Hoping to goad him into further action. He turned back to Maria, bending to kiss her goodbye, enjoying the way she smelt, fresh from the bath. Marry me, he thought, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he asked, ‘And what does this say to your keen psychiatrist’s brain then, Dr Lucas?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, taking back the paper, ‘I should say, Inspector Croft, that what you have here is a bit of a nutter.’

  2 p.m.

  Charlie Morrow had long ago given up worrying about paid overtime, or weekends. The truth was, he didn’t have a great deal else to fill his time. He had no family — a brief and broken marriage without children. Few friends outside the workplace — and there were those who would argue he had fewer in it. So, to find him working overtime on a Saturday was not so unusual.

  Rain lashed at his office windows. December rain falling from a heavy sky. The office lights were on in an effort to offset the grey, but, somehow the yellow cast only made the room, with its threadbare green carpet and stained white walls, an even gloomier place.

  Charlie Morrow sighed and put down the address book he had been studying. He’d worked his way through, so far, from A to E — including D for dentist — phoning through the list. Giving out a standard spiel. Introducing himself and his business and explaining who he was trying to trace. So far, the Thompson sisters were the last people who claimed contact with Marion O’Donnel. Idly, Charlie Morrow played with the scenario that the sisters might have done away with the young woman themselves. He could just picture the headlines:

  ‘Thompson Twins in Inferno Murder’, see himself arresting two twittering, grey-haired old ladies for a brutal killing.

  Then he stopped laughing and got up, stretching. He was hungry and humour didn’t work on an empty stomach.

  He eased himself back into his jacket. It seemed to be going the way of all others and getting too small again. And, he thought, glaring out of the window, it was still bloody raining. Maybe that was the problem with his jacket, too often wet, it was obviously shrinking.

  He packed the evidence bags away into his drawer and locked it. Dragged his green, waxed cotton raincoat off the hook and put it on, another button coming off between his fingers as he tried to fasten it.

  Swearing to himself, Charlie Morrow dumped the button in his pocket along with the other junk, and went out to brave the rain.

  6 p.m.

  Outside, it was still raining. Charlie Morrow had reached T in Marion’s address book. One thing he had learnt about Marion: she had an odd way of ordering her phone numbers. They weren’t listed in any form or order that Charlie Morrow could figure out.

  OK, he could understand D for dentist instead of the man’s name, and GP for doctor was reasonable, but more often than not people seemed to be listed under their first name instead of their last, or according to some other r
eference he could only guess at.

  He looked up the first entry under T and dialled the code and then the number. The phone was picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you can help me. My name is Charles Morrow and I’m a detective inspector with the Devizes police. That’s Devizes in Wiltshire,’ he added, realizing that he had no idea which part of the country he was calling. ‘I’m trying to contact someone I believe may be at this number. Someone called Theo Howard.’

  7.30 p.m.

  By the time Mike arrived back at John Tynan’s house he was very tired. The post-mortem on Theo’s body had brought surprises and now, Mike realized, they were dealing with a whole new ball game. Driving through the twisting country roads back to the cottage, his mind played with the facts.

  Fact number one, Theo Howard had been murdered. Fragments of blue fibre had been found in her mouth and nose and even the upper part of her lungs. The fibres matched the blue cushions on the sofa. The one on the floor next to the empty bottle had been stained with vomit.

  Someone had killed Theo Howard by pressing the blue cushion over her nose and mouth and holding it there. Mike could imagine the final struggle for breath. Drawing only the soft, airless fabric into her nose and mouth.

  Would she have known what was happening to her? Mike hoped not. The amount of alcohol she had consumed would have made it very easy for the killer.

  Easy for Theo too, he hoped.

  Fact number two had taken everyone by surprise. It seemed that, murdered or not, Theo could have expected little more time on this earth. She had a massive and malignant tumour behind the posterior lobe of her liver. Her body was riddled with secondary infection. Theo had been dying.

  He had returned to her house looking for medication. There had been none.

  He had chosen not to bring David Martin in for questioning that night. The evidence against him was, at best, circumstantial and, besides, Mike felt that if he didn’t get some rest soon he’d be sleeping on his feet.