‘Mrs Russell!’ The administrator, who had been making her way from her office to try to locate the senior tutor, looked at the man looming in front of her.
‘You haven’t come to see me, have you?’ she said defensively.
‘No,’ Fox said, noting the alarm in her voice.
‘That’s just as well,’ she said quickly, ‘because I am very busy at the moment.’
‘I need to speak to Joseph Tull,’ Fox said mildly. ‘Perhaps you can track him down for me?’
‘It’s not very convenient, coming at this time of the morning,’ the administrator replied acidly, her poise recovered.
‘To be quite frank with you, I don’t actually care how convenient it is for him or indeed for you,’ Fox retorted. He had no intention of being pushed around, especially in a place like this. ‘I need to speak to him, and I need to speak to him now. And I need a room to do it in.’
‘I see,’ she replied. ‘In that case, I suppose you’d better use my office.’
She turned briskly on her heel, and without any further word led him back down the corridor from where he had seen her come, and ushered him through a door to the left. ‘If you wait here, I’ll go and see if I can find Tull.’
The task of tracking down Joseph Tull cannot, in the event, have been too difficult for Sarah Russell, because he appeared in the doorway little more than a minute later.
‘What is it?’ He spoke with an accent and arrogance that immediately pressed several of Fox’s buttons.
‘Well, I’m not here to enrol as a student, that’s for sure.’
‘I’m not sure they’d let you in. They are rather fussy.’
‘So am I.’
‘And it costs a packet.’
Fox said nothing back. He didn’t like Joseph, but he knew from experience that he had to avoid getting sucked in if he was going to keep control of the interview. And besides, it was as plain as a pikestaff that Joseph was a clever little shit who’d always have a smart-arse answer up his sleeve. He went and sat down at the desk, gestured Joseph towards another chair, and waited for him to subside into it. Only then did he speak.
‘The night your mother was killed, you were at a party. In Southfield Road as I recall. I need a list of people who can verify that you were there.’
Joseph put his hand to his head and pushed back the hair that had flopped across his face. ‘That could be a problem,’ he said.
‘Why?’
Again the hand pushed at his hair, which had already fallen back across his face. ‘Because I didn’t go to it.’
‘So you lied.’
‘I had to. Because I had told my father that that was where I was going.’
‘So where were you, and what were you doing?’
‘I just went out. To the pub.’
‘Which pub?’
‘In town. Does it matter which one?’
‘Of course it bloody matters. Which pub?’
‘The Three Goats Heads, in St Michael’s Street. But only for a while.’
‘And is there anyone who can verify any of this? Because from where I sit, you’ve got an alibi that’s worth bugger all.’
‘My mate Hugo. Hugo Horsefield.’
‘Just him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And is Hugo Horsefield a pupil of Cornforth College, too?’
Joseph Tull said nothing at first. He chewed his lower lip, and looked apprehensively across at Fox, as if weighing up his options. Eventually he replied.
‘He used to be.’
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’
‘He got expelled, two weeks ago.’
‘Did he now! And why was that?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
Fox smiled. He’d got the measure of this arrogant prick. ‘Drugs, was it?’
Holden had just sat down with her pistachio ice cream and Americano coffee when Fox walked in. ‘Treat yourself, Sergeant,’ she said cheerfully.
‘No thanks,’ he replied, sitting down opposite her. ‘Not ice cream weather, in my book.’
She made a face, and took a bite out of hers.
‘Master Tull’s alibi has gone AWOL,’ he said.
‘AWOL? In what sense?’
‘In the sense that he wasn’t at that party he claimed to have been at. He went out to score some drugs, and his only witness for the evening is a guy who has just been thrown out of Cornforth for selling coke to the other students.’
Holden took a lick of her ice cream as she considered this information. ‘So he had the opportunity. What about the motive? Killing your mother is pretty extreme. Drugs I can believe, but.…’
But Fox had had time to consider this, and had his reasoning ready. ‘Suppose he hadn’t got enough money. Suppose he was desperate for a fix, so he went to meet her after her lecture, got into an argument, and when she refused him money he stabbed her.’
‘It’s possible,’ Holden admitted, ‘but it’s all speculation. What exactly do we know about him to support that idea?’
Fox made a face. He knew it was speculation, but as a theory he felt it wasn’t a bad one, so to hear Holden dismiss it so casually was irritating. God, she could be a pain up the arse at times. He had just blown a suspect’s alibi wide open, and her reaction was to play devil’s advocate. Thank you, ma’am!
‘We know he takes drugs,’ Fox said. ‘And we know he can lie.’
Holden took another lick, but made no comment. Fox wished that he had had something now. A woman had sat down behind Holden in his direct eye line. She had a round face, frizzy hair and oval glasses that made her look rather academic, and she had in her hand a cornet of dark-brown ice cream. He wondered how old she was – maybe mid-thirties he reckoned – and then his eyes drifted from the ice cream to her left hand and he suddenly realized that he was looking to see if she had a wedding ring. She didn’t, not that that necessarily meant anything nowadays.
‘Is there someone you know over there, Sergeant?’ Holden’s words broke into his brief introspection, and he shook his head in answer.
‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘Do you want to know about Lucy Tull’s alibi?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Because I find it disconcerting, in fact bloody rude, when you stare over my shoulder to check out the talent.’
Fox bowed his head slightly, as if in apology. ‘So what did you fmd out about her?’ he asked dutifully.
‘Well, she was probably at the hospital till maybe 8.45 p.m. At least that’s what she wrote in the visitor’s book, and Mrs Drabble supports that sort of timing. But even so I reckon she could have made it to St Clement’s in time to kill her stepmother. So time isn’t an issue. I rang Oxford Cabs. She was picked up from here by a private hire car just after 10.00 p.m. So the key question is, was she here in the intervening period, as she claims?’
‘You’ve asked, presumably?’
‘Of course. But no joy. The manager can’t remember. He says he thinks he’s seen her in here from time to time, but there were a lot of people that night escaping the rain. And the two Poles who were working that night with him have just gone back to Krakow for a month.’
‘Great!’ Fox looked around the room, his eyes methodically scanning the four walls. ‘No CCTV?’
‘No.’
‘So she’s not got an alibi either.’
‘And neither has her father.’
Fox laughed, remembering again the photo of Jack Smith, naked and startled. ‘Well, the good doctor has certainly got motive. But maybe we’re missing the obvious suspect. A druggie desperate for a fix, who saw her with her fancy bag, followed her into the car park, and stabbed her when she refused to hand it over.’
Holden said nothing. She was remembering the driving rain that night, and imagining Maria Tull walking as fast as her heels would allow down the St Clement’s pavement, maybe even breaking into a trot as she hurried to reach the shelter of her car. She would have turned right, in
to the alleyway, then across the car park towards her car, parked in the far right corner. Had the killer been waiting for her, someone who knew her and knew her movements that night, and knew that sooner or later she would return to her car? Or had some random addict seen her in the street and followed, or been hanging around in the car park and decided she looked good for cash. If only the CCTV had been working, they might have got some hard evidence to go on. As it was, they had only hunches. She shrugged – temporarily resigned to the impossibility of knowing – took another lick of her ice cream, and glanced across at her companion. ‘You really should take a chance one day, Sergeant, and try one of these. You might find you actually like it.’
When you’re lying on your back, your mouth jammed wide open and your upper lip and left-hand cheek stuffed tight with cotton wool, it is hard to engage in any sort of conversation, let alone a meaningful one. That fact, however, did not deter Geraldine Payne, BDS, as she leant over her first patient of that afternoon, Dr Karen Pointer. The conversation, in reality more of a monologue, had begun with the hectoring tones which many a patient of the good dentist would have recognized.
‘Now what did you have for lunch, Karen? A sandwich, I can see. Beef maybe?’ It hadn’t been beef, it had been roasted vegetables and humus, consumed messily in the car as she drove to her appointment, but that wasn’t the point. And in any case, no answer was expected or required. But the dentist had located detritus that the pathologist’s perfunctory brushing of her teeth had failed to dislodge, and the matter could not be allowed to go past without comment. The dentist followed up a few seconds later with a well-practised click of the tongue. ‘Really, Karen! What are we going to do with you? At this rate, by the time you hit fifty, I’ll be measuring you for dentures.’
The pathologist still made no comment, though she did wince with pain as the dentist reinforced her point by digging deeper with her instrument of torture. ‘Don’t you ever floss your teeth, Karen?’ she asked in a tone which combined professional disapproval and personal disgust. Karen Pointer said nothing, in fact could say nothing in her current situation. Instead she focused her eyes beyond the dentist’s face, on a children’s mobile of prehistoric dinosaurs, and willed the session to be over.
‘All right, you can have a spit now.’
Pointer pushed herself up, leant over the white bowl immediately to her left, and expelled the debris that had accumulated in her mouth. ‘Sorry,’ she said feebly, ‘I must be your worst patient.’
Geraldine laughed, not entirely unkindly. ‘It’s people like you that keep me in business, Karen.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ Karen replied, lying submissively back into her chair.
Geraldine leant over her again, and peered intently at her handiwork. ‘Anyway,’ she said, as she began a far from gentle flossing operation, ‘you must tell me about you. About your love life. Because I’ve been hearing some rumours, and I was wondering if there could possibly be a shred of truth in any of them.’
Karen said nothing. Geraldine and her were more than dentist and patient. They had known each other several years, largely as a result of their sexual orientation. They had not been lovers, but they moved in overlapping circles, shared friends, and bumped into each other from time to time. Karen wondered what exactly it was that Geraldine had heard. She couldn’t know about Susan and her, surely? Susan would hardly have started talking about it openly. They had admittedly been for a walk along the river the night before, but that was hardly compromising. More likely Geraldine had heard rumours, and she was just digging, saying something outrageous to see what response it provoked. That was just the sort of thing she would do.
When the flossing was over, Geraldine straightened up, but remained standing over her captive audience. ‘Well, spill the beans. It’s the least you can do!’
‘I wasn’t aware there were any beans to spill.’
‘Oh come, come! Alittle bird told me you were in Chilswell Road the other night.’
‘Really?’ She tried to sound genuinely surprised.
‘How is Inspector Susan?’
‘Thank you for doing my teeth,’ Karen replied.
Geraldine gave a grunt, apparently abandoning her inquisition, and pressed a lever which caused the chair to return her patient to a sitting position. Karen stood up, glad that that line of conversation had ended.
‘I met her myself this morning. Went to the police station, in fact, and gave her the benefit of my opinion. I expect she’ll want to tell you all about it tonight.’
‘We try not to talk shop,’ Karen said defensively, and then immediately regretted it.
‘We!’ She laughed. ‘So my little bird was right.’
‘It’s early days,’ Karen replied quickly.
‘Well, tell her to hurry up and find my bloody painting, won’t you, dear. Otherwise the two of you might be dropping off my Christmas card list.’
Karen smiled despite her best intentions. There was something about Geraldine that it was hard not to like, a sharpness of tongue and determination to get what she wanted that she almost admired. Mind you, she didn’t recall ever having received a Christmas card from Geraldine, but that thought didn’t make her feel any better at all. The fact was Geraldine wasn’t someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of.
There was a knock on the door, but the person responsible for it had no intention of waiting for a reply. ‘Hi!’ a voice said.
Sarah Russell looked up from her laptop. She was reviewing the budgeted figures against the actuals for the term so far, and the last thing she wanted was to be interrupted. ‘Oh,’ she said, when she saw who it was. But there was not even the tiniest crumb of welcome in her voice. ‘I’m busy.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
She looked down again, maintaining the pretence of being preoccupied with more important and interesting things. ‘What is it you want?’ She spoke with an irritation and sharpness that her colleagues and friends would have recognized as being absolutely normal, but buried somewhere within the layers of her voice was a frisson of anxiety that was by no means typical.
Her visitor looked at her with a smile. ‘I need some more money.’
Reluctantly, Sarah Russell looked up again and considered her visitor. She had known this might come. She had talked about it with Geraldine, and they had discussed how best to handle any subsequent demands, but even so she found herself unwilling to concede. It wasn’t so much the money. She could afford it. It was more the principle of it. She didn’t like being pushed about. And besides, if she said yes, it would just happen again, wouldn’t it? And again. But if she said no, what then? Was it a bluff? That was the big question.
‘How much?’
Negotiate. That’s what they had decided she should do. As long as the demands weren’t too large, it was tolerable, because soon she would be able to say to hell with you. But right now, that would be too risky.
‘Four hundred.’
Sarah Russell rubbed her nose as she considered this. It wasn’t outrageous, but it was a hundred more than last time. Which meant that next time – for there would be a next time, she had no doubt – it might be five hundred or even more. ‘I can let you have two hundred. But that’s it. That’s an end of it. No more, ever.’
‘No it fucking isn’t! I decide when it ends. Not you!’
Sarah said nothing. She didn’t want to make things worse, but she was damned if she was going to lie down and roll over. She continued to stare at her unwelcome visitor, her face an emotionless mask (or so she hoped). She knew her position was weak, but she was damned if she was going to concede more ground than she had to.
‘I’ll call here tomorrow morning.’ Her visitor had turned back towards the door, and had taken hold of the handle. ‘Have it ready. Three hundred pounds.’
Sarah nodded briefly, and continued to watch until the door had slammed noisily shut. Three hundred pounds. No worse than last time. That was a pretty good result, she reckoned, as she returned t
o her spreadsheet.
Jack Smith heard nothing when the front door clicked shut, nothing when feet padded softly across the bare floorboards of the hall, and nothing when the kitchen door, which stood a few centimetres ajar, swung open. He didn’t even hear the unoiled upper hinge, for its squeak was swamped by the cacophony which his hammer drill was generating. Only as he retracted the drill bit from the wall and eased his finger off the trigger did something – maybe a change in the light, maybe a sixth sense, maybe mere chance – cause him to swing round and see his unexpected visitor.
‘Jesus! You made me jump.’
A laugh. ‘I thought I might find you here.’
‘You could have warned me, rather than sneaking up like that.’
A mocking gasp. ‘Oh, it’s less fun that way.’
‘I’m not interested in your warped idea of fun. Just next time, don’t bloody well creep up on me.’
‘Don’t worry, Jack, I won’t.’
‘Anyway, what is it you want?’
Jack’s visitor stepped closer to him, but he had already turned away, to place his drill on the workbench. Which is why he was only infinitesimally aware of the flash of polished metal in his visitor’s hand. His mouth opened slightly, revealing teeth yellowed by nicotine and neglect, and he gave a low grunt. And then slowly, almost in slow motion, he dropped gently on to his knees, as if overwhelmed by an all-consuming need to pray.
‘You see,’ the familiar figure was saying, by way of explanation, ‘there won’t be a next time.’ This was, strictly speaking, accurate, but unnecessary. For Jack was already dead, and so completely incapable of hearing or comprehending anything. And presumably of praying too.
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