23 Cold Cases (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 5)

by Patrick C Walsh

  Mac awoke in stages. It took him an age to get his eyes focussed so that he could read the time on the clock. It was four thirty. He looked at the window and could see light at the edges of the curtains so he knew it must be four thirty in the afternoon. He saw the door soundlessly open and Amrit’s head pop around.

  ‘Ah, awake at last,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good sleep?’

  ‘Yes, I think I did,’ he replied.

  He did a quick audit of his body and realised that the pain levels had dropped considerably.

  ‘There must be some magic in those needles,’ Mac said with a smile. ‘Thanks Amrit, really thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure Mac. Now Kate and Tommy rang while you were asleep and said they’d call around five thirty. Is that okay?’

  ‘That‘ll be fine. I could kill an orange juice though.’

  ‘I’ll get you one and I take it that a coffee and a quick bacon sandwich wouldn’t be refused?’

  Mac answered with the widest of smiles.

  He still couldn’t get over it though. One minute there he was writhing in pain and a few needles later he was sleeping like a baby. Amrit brought a tray with a plate, a glass and two cups. She sat and had a cup of coffee while she watched him eat.

  ‘So how does it work then, the acupuncture?’ he asked just before he took a big bite from the sandwich.

  ‘Well the Chinese say that inserting the needles alters the flow of Qi or life force but we think that what it really does is encourage your body to produce its own natural pain killers, something called endorphins. Although I have to admit that a lot of people are still quite sceptical about it and think that it’s just the placebo affect at work.’

  ‘I’ve heard about that,’ Mac said. ‘Didn’t they give people sugar pills and found that in some instances they worked?’

  ‘Yes that’s right but so long as it works do you really care?’

  ‘God no, it definitely did something, that was the best sleep I’ve had in ages. Anyway it’s nice to know that I’ve got something I can fall back on when it gets really bad, just knowing that will help too.’

  Mac and Amrit’s discussions were halted by the door bell ringing.

  ‘That will be your colleagues. Are you ready for them?’ Amrit asked.

  ‘I am now,’ Mac replied with a grin.

  Amrit ushered Kate and Tommy inside and informed them that she’d just made a pot of coffee.

  ‘Oh yes please Amrit, we haven’t had anything for ages,’ Tommy replied.

  After they’d seated themselves Mac asked, ‘Okay so what have we learnt today?’

  ‘Well we went to see Dr. Whyte first but he didn’t have anything new to add to what he’d told us before,’ Kate replied. ‘We asked him why he specifically chose the Al-Faran Clinic for Ashley and he said it was desperation really. After the shock of finding her nearly dead from an overdose he asked around his colleagues to see if anyone knew of a good rehab clinic. He confirmed that it was Dr. Rowan who told him that the Al-Faran Clinic had a very good record and that every patient was treated with discretion.’

  That word ‘discretion’ again. Then again he supposed that if it was his daughter he wouldn’t want the world to know about it either.

  ‘How did he react when he learnt that we were re-opening the case?’ Mac asked.

  Kate gave it some thought.

  ‘I don’t think he was totally happy about it. I could sense that he wanted whoever had killed his daughter to be caught but I think he also feared that there’d be a cost attached. He mentioned that his business had suffered because of the murder.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll bet it did,’ Mac said. ‘Did you ask him about Leah?’

  ‘Yes and we got a pretty abrupt answer. He said that he had nothing to do with her any more. She was living in one of his houses but, apart from that, he didn’t support her in anyway.’

  Mac wondered what had happened to cause such a rift between father and daughter.

  ‘Okay, so what about this Dr. Rowan then?’

  ‘We managed to get a few minutes with him in between his appointments. He has a private practice in the centre of the town, quite busy from what we could see. He confirmed that he recommended the clinic to Dr. Whyte. He said that he’d had three of his patients attend the clinic, all for cocaine addiction, and he felt that it had done them a lot of good even though he admitted a little later that one of them had recently gone back on drugs.’

  ‘Back on cocaine?’ Mac asked.

  ‘No, heroin actually.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he gave you any names?’ Mac asked hopefully.

  Kate shook her head, ‘No chance.’

  ‘What’s he like this Dr. Rowan?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Mid forties, tall, thin, very well-dressed, likes to look down his nose at people. He seemed to know what he was doing though,’ Kate replied.

  ‘Kate had us wait outside for a while to see what type of people went in,’ Tommy said. ‘From what we saw I’d safely say that his patients had money to burn.’

  Mac glanced over at Kate. That’s exactly what he’d have done. They were interrupted by the arrival of coffee.

  ‘I’ll be off now Mac if that’s okay,’ Amrit said.

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow and don’t forget your needles just in case.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Amrit said waving goodbye to Kate and Tommy.

  ‘Sorry where were we?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Dr. Rowan but there’s not much more to say about him. Next we went to see Leah Whyte,’ Kate said. ‘Her father gave us her number. I think it would be safe to say that she didn’t look happy to see us.’

  ‘Why was that?’ Mac asked.

  Kate shrugged and glanced over at Tommy.

  ‘I agree with Kate that Leah didn’t exactly look thrilled that the case was being re-opened,’ Tommy said. ‘She avoided eye contact and, for the most part, just gave us ‘yes/no’ answers.’

  ‘I’d like to dig a bit deeper there,’ Kate said.

  Again that glint of determination in her eye.

  ‘Agreed, that comment from her father about Ashley being the stronger one implied that Leah was weak in some way. It might be worthwhile seeing if you can find out what he meant by that,’ Mac said.

  ‘Will do. We also tried to find Trina Derbyshere but she’s not at her last known address. We asked Leah but she just shrugged her shoulders and said that Trina had disappeared, apparently none of her friends know where she’s gone,’ Kate said. ‘We should also have the court order early tomorrow so we’ll call on Dr. Al-Faran as soon as it’s ready.’

  ‘That should be an interesting experience,’ Mac said. ‘Have we got all of Trina Derbyshere’s information in the file?’

  ‘Perhaps not the one you’ve got but it’s all on here,’ Kate said as she gave him a memory stick.

  Mac took it with gratitude. He’d found that working with an incomplete case file was more than annoying.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll see if Martin Selby can dig up anything on her, you never know.’

  ‘So we’ve got Leah Whyte to follow up on and Dr. Al-Faran to visit tomorrow, anything else we should be doing?’ Kate asked.

  ‘There was another of Ashley’s friends who gave a statement, Adeline Smyth-Stortford. What did you think of her?’ Mac asked.

  Kate had to think.

  ‘Oh yes, Adeline said that she and Ashley went to school together but she also said that she hadn’t seen much of Ashley since she’d come back from university. Why are you interested in her?’

  ‘This, I found it this morning when I couldn’t sleep. I Googled every name I could find in the file,’ Mac said as he turned the laptop around so Kate and Tommy could see the screen.

  It was an article from the BBC News website dated a few months before Ashley’s murder –

  Reality television presenter Naomi Cadogan today admitted that the leaked stories about her having been in a rehab clinic for the past few weeks were true. She said that she had gone
into a spiral of depression after breaking up with her actor boyfriend Adam Westerley. She said that the rest had done her good and that she was now looking forward to the next series of ‘Dancing Dates in the Jungle’. She thanked her family and especially her cousin Adeline Smyth-Stortford for helping her through this difficult period.’

  Next to the article there was a photo of the TV presenter hugging a young woman.

  Kate smiled.

  ‘Yes that’s definitely Adeline alright. So now we probably know who at least one of Dr. Al-Faran’s patients was,’ she said.

  ‘Well I’d guess that Miss Smyth-Stortford might have known about the Al-Faran clinic through Ashley. Who knows perhaps she even went there herself. Do you think it’s worth following up?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Absolutely, thinking back Miss Smyth-Stortford seemed to very careful with what she said when we interviewed her. She absolutely denied any knowledge of Ashley’s drug taking. I think another interview wouldn’t do any harm.’

  ‘So in the meantime I’ll go through the case file again and I’ll let you know if Martin comes up with anything,’ Mac said. ‘Meet up same time tomorrow then?’

  Tommy dropped Kate back at the train station. Five minutes later he was back.

  ‘I might as well go and get dinner started,’ Tommy said, ‘it’ll take a while to cook.’

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ Mac asked with an expectant smile.

  ‘Linguine with chicken and olives in a tomato sauce. I like to do the sauce for at least two hours so I’d better get cracking.’

  Mac was mentally licking his lips at Tommy’s description of dinner as he asked, ‘Before you go tell me what you made of Kate today. Did you get on okay?’

  ‘Yes, I think we got on really well actually. She discussed everything with me and asked me what I thought which, if I’m honest, reminded me of you. There was something else too.’

  Mac was interested.

  Tommy continued, ‘When she’s interviewing someone she’s not just listening to what they say, she also pays a lot of attention to what they’re doing, you know their body language. You do that too.’

  ‘So you’re looking forward to working with her?’

  ‘Yes I am. I think it’ll be interesting.’

  Mac could only agree.

  ‘By the way what was all that about needles? Tommy asked. ‘Is Amrit giving you pain killing injections or something?’

  ‘No acupuncture. I must admit that it was a long shot as far as I was concerned but it seemed to have done me some good.’

  ‘If it works don’t knock it,’ Tommy said with a smile.

  ‘Exactly my feelings too.’

  He let Tommy get on with the dinner while he re-loaded the case file. He couldn’t help noticing that the new file was nearly ten percent bigger than the old one. He’d have to read it all again to make sure that he up to date. He would have cursed DCI Ibbotson if it wasn’t for the fact that he was looking forward to it so much.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mac was surprised that, after sleeping most of the day before, he slept quite well again that night and woke up just after six. The first thing he did was to fire up his laptop and send off an email to Martin asking him if he could find out anything about Trina Derbyshere. He hesitated and, before he pressed the ‘send’ button, he also inserted Leah Whyte’s name and details.

  You never know, he thought.

  The door opened and Bridget’s face appeared.

  ‘Oh, you’re up!’ she said giving her father a bright smile. ‘We’re off in a minute, Tommy’s driving me to the station. Is there anything I can get you before I go?’

  ‘Just some orange juice, Amrit will be here soon and I can wait until she comes for anything else.’

  Bridget returned a few minutes later with a travel mug full of cold orange juice which Mac gratefully accepted.

  ‘You seem to be getting on well then, you and Amrit I mean,’ Bridget said.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s better than I could have hoped for. When you first said that you were getting me a nurse I kept picturing Nurse Ratched out of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ in my head but thankfully Amrit’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Okay, I just thought I’d ask,’ Bridget said as she stood up.

  ‘There is something though. Do you think she might be interested in a longer term job? Not full-time like this, perhaps a few days a week?’

  Bridget sat down again.

  ‘You know I was thinking along the same lines myself but I didn’t want to you think that I was pushing her on you.’

  ‘So you’ll ask her then?’

  Bridget nodded, ‘Absolutely. It would make me feel so much better knowing you had some help.’

  ‘Thanks love. While I’ve been lying here I’ve realised just how useless I am around the house, how useless I am without your mother.’

  Bridget reached out and held her father’s hand.

  ‘Poor Amrit’s been cleaning the whole house from top to bottom when all she’s supposed to be doing is looking after me,’ Mac continued. ‘I’ve realised that I’m going to need some help, even when I’m up and about, and we seem to rub along together okay.’

  ‘I’ll ask her and let you know. I think it’s a really good idea though and if Amrit can’t do it we can always get someone else.’

  Mac prayed that Amrit would agree. He still had that picture of Nurse Ratched in his head.

  Tommy came in and said hello and goodbye in almost the same breath. He was meeting Kate at the police station and if the court order had arrived they were going to go straight to the clinic to see Dr. Al-Faran.

  Mac wished him luck.

  After he heard the front door close he snuggled down, opened up the new case file and dove in.

  Kate hadn’t slept so well. She’d had a restless night plagued by dreams. Her ex-husband was in most of them which she supposed qualified them as nightmares.

  Giving up on sleep she glanced over at the clock. It was nearly six. She got up and sat on the side of the bed for a few minutes thinking about the dreams. It was over four months now since they’d split up and she’d gotten the decree nisi just a few days ago. She guessed that was why she’d started dreaming about him again.

  In all the dreams he was with another woman, doing things. She could never see the woman’s face or exactly what they were doing but she knew what they were up to. After all it was only the truth, he’d slept with just about every available woman in the station and even some of her own friends. Of course she’d been the last to find out.

  It had been so humiliating and yet Neil had admitted everything when she’d confronted him. That had surprised her. She thought he’d try to slither his way out of it like he always had before.

  Of course she’d had to ask him why but as soon as the words had left her lips she wished that she hadn’t. She had the feeling that she wouldn’t like the answer. She was right, she didn’t. He’d looked straight at her and she could see real pain in his eyes.

  He said, ‘You don’t love me Kate. You’ve never loved me and, the worst of it is, I don’t know how to make you love me.’

  As she sat on the bed staring at the beige wall of her rented flat she had to admit that he was right. Perhaps it had been down to her after all.

  She’d liked him when they first met. They’d worked together on some burglaries and he was handsome and fun to be with. Had she mistaken this for love? She realised now that she’d never felt that fierce love that you read about in books or see on the cinema screen, the love that transcended reason, the love that you’d die for. She’d always thought it was a fiction and that life wasn’t really like that. She’d met someone nice and she’d decided that he’d do and that was about it.

  Yet in the end he couldn’t settle for anything less and, deep down, she knew he was probably right.

  She looked at the clock again. It was now six fifteen. She stood up and shook herself, shaking away the dreams and all thoughts of her ex-husband
too. She was alone and this was the way it was going to be. It didn’t frighten her as much as it had when she was younger. There are worse things than being alone.

  At least that’s what she told herself.

  She was so glad to be in the station and away from all her sad ruminations that she had a smile on her face as she walked in.

  ‘You’re looking happy today,’ Tommy said.

  ‘Am I?’ she asked in some surprise.

  She quickly recovered the situation.

  ‘It’s because we’re going to have a lucky day today, I can feel it,’ she lied.

  ‘I hope you’re right. It would be nice to take something back to Mac this evening,’ Tommy replied.

  Kate looked at Tommy. He reminded her of Magnus, her younger brother. He was probably the only person in the world she was close to.

  ‘You really like Mac, don’t you?’ she asked.

  Tommy looked up at her and replied a little sheepishly, ‘Yes, yes I do. After all he’s a great investigator, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’ve had a look at some of the cases that he’s been involved with and I couldn’t disagree with you about that. There’s more to it than that though, isn’t there?’

  She looked closely at Tommy who had the sudden feeling that he was being interrogated.

  ‘Well, I suppose I look up to him, I’d like to be a bit like him if I was being honest,’ Tommy said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘I take it that you never got on with your own father then?’ Kate asked, her eyes never leaving Tommy’s face.

  ‘I don’t really remember him that well, he died when I was young.’

  Tommy’s words suddenly brought Kate back to reality and she looked away. What in God’s name had she been doing?

  ‘Can I ask you a question Kate?’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied.

  ‘Has anyone ever told you that you can be a bit scary sometimes?’

  Kate gave him a sad smile.

  ‘Many times Tommy, many times.’

  She put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done that, it was none of my business.’