Deadly Wishes (Detective Zoe Finch Book 1)

by Rachel McLean

  “More like oppressive. Who’d want to live like this?”

  “Shush. Mrs Jackson might still be here.”

  Connie’s eyes widened. “Are those Diebenkorns?” She stepped towards one of the matching paintings Zoe had looked at last time. She raised a hand and let her fingers float in front of the painting, not quite touching it. “Wow.”

  “You know art?”

  “My little brother does. He wants to study modern art. American stuff. That’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to find in a house like this.”

  “Are they worth a lot?”

  “No idea. But I can ask him. I’ll turn my flash off.”

  Connie held up her phone and took a photo of each of the paintings.

  “Maybe the missing one was one of his too,” suggested Zoe.

  “Maybe. But there’s more. Different artists. Up there, on the stairs. This place is a treasure trove.” Connie shook her head. “How does a copper afford all this?”

  Zoe lowered her voice. “An Assistant Chief Constable earns a lot more than an DC.”

  “Still.” Connie shook herself out as if remembering why she was here. “Sorry. The video room.”

  “Of course. It’s through here.”

  Zoe led her through a doorway between the staircase and the front door. The room behind was average sized, similar to Zoe’s living room. The walls were magnolia and there was a smell of dust on electrical equipment. A desk with computer equipment and monitors sat against the longest wall.

  Connie rubbed her hands together. “This is more like it.”

  “I’ll need to find out if we’ve been given passwords.”

  “It’s just a CCTV system. Leave it with me.”

  “Right. Shout me if you find anything.”

  “In this house?”

  “Fair enough. Phone me.” Zoe waved her phone and stuffed it back in her jeans pocket. “Good luck.”

  Connie nodded, her eyes on the central monitor. She’d gone.

  Zoe went back to the kitchen. PC Bright had returned.

  “You don’t sleep either,” Zoe said.

  The constable jumped. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. You gave me a surprise. Double shift. They tell me I’ve built up a rapport with Margaret. Mrs Jackson, I mean.”

  “Good for you. She still here?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. We can’t budge her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In her bedroom. Having a lie down.”

  “She’ll be needing that. You get yourself a bit of rest too. One of those cuppas they keep shoving at us. D’you know what’s up these stairs?” Zoe pointed to a staircase thorough a door leading off the kitchen. The door had been closed last night and it hadn’t occurred to her the house might have a second staircase.

  “Down is the cellar. Up is a storage room, and a bathroom. We’ve been using it for the team. Hope that’s OK.”

  “Fine with me. I’ll just make a visit myself, if there’s no one up there already.”

  “No, ma’am. No one there.”

  “Good.” Zoe slid past her and pushed the door open. Beyond it, two staircases led off a tiny vestibule. One up, one down. She peered into the darkness of the cellar for a moment, wondering if it led to an exit they hadn’t spotted. One for later. Then she made her way up the other flight.

  At the top were two doors, both warped as if the paint had been stripped by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Paint peeled off the walls and the room smelled damp.

  She pushed the first door open. A bathroom, basic and unloved but clean. The only thing in there apart from the plumbing was a bottle of handwash on the sink.

  The other door led to an eaves room filled with boxes. Zoe scanned them and felt her heart pick up pace. It had been a room of boxes just like this, albeit in a much more modern location, that had blown open the Canary case.

  But wasn’t this a simple art theft gone wrong? At worst, a domestic? How helpful would paperwork be?

  If nothing else, it would tell her about those paintings. There might be receipts. The Jacksons seemed the kind of couple who’d keep records on paper and not a computer.

  She stepped in and reached for the top box on the first pile.

  As she opened it, she caught movement behind the rows of boxes. She straightened. A figure was bent in the corner.

  “Hello? Are you from the Forensics team?”

  The figure turned, startled. A woman.

  “Mrs Jackson?”

  The woman stood, hitting her head on the low ceiling.

  “Hello. Sorry. Shouldn’t I be here?”

  Zoe peered past her to see another doorway. Did it lead to the rest of the house, or had Margaret slipped up here when the kitchen was empty?

  “Not really, no. We might need to look through these files.”

  The woman backed away from the boxes. “Yes. Yes, he archived things up here.”

  Zoe took a step forward, keeping her head low.

  “Is there something you were looking for?” she asked. “Something that might help us?”

  “No. Not really.”

  Zoe took another step. “Are you alright, Mrs Jackson?”

  The woman dipped a little, as if she might faint. Zoe put out a hand but didn’t make contact.

  “D’you need help? Can I find someone to get you back to your room?”

  “I’m fine. It’s not here anyway.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Nothing.” Mrs Jackson waved a hand across the room. Her nails had been bitten and the blood was gone. She’d put on some makeup, inexpertly. It didn’t hide the fact that her eyes were so sunken Zoe felt like she might fall into them. “Help yourself.”

  “Please, let me help you. Which way did you come?”

  “I came through the kitchen, of course. Only way.” She gestured behind her. “There used to be a way through here, but Bryn had it bricked up years ago. Said it didn’t feel secure.”

  Zoe pushed herself against the wall as the ACC’s wife shuffled past her. She smelled of Imperial Leather, making Zoe think of her mum. She still hadn’t replied to those texts. Wasn’t planning to.

  “You sure I can’t help?” Zoe asked.

  Margaret sniffed as she descended the narrow stairs. “I’m fine. Thank you. You’re very kind.”

  Zoe watched her open the door at the bottom. This woman’s husband had just been killed in a brutal attack, and she was creeping around the house looking for documents. Why?

  She turned back to the room. Would she find something here? Or had Margaret already taken it?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Margaret was surprised to find David Randle waiting in the kitchen. First that female detective, creeping up on her like that. Now David. This was her own house, so why did she feel like a prisoner?

  “David.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Margaret, how are you?”

  She pulled away. “I’ve been hearing those words a lot today.”

  He nodded. “I’m the Senior Investigating Officer. We’ll find this bastard for you.”

  Of course you are, she thought. He would want to control this.

  “That’s reassuring,” she said.

  He smiled, letting go of her hand. She fought the urge to wipe it on her trouser leg.

  “You want to interview me,” she said.

  He adopted a look of contrition. “I know you talked to DI Finch last night.”

  “She’s back here already. Do you let them sleep?”

  “Not right now, we don’t. No one in Force CID will rest until Bryn’s killer is brought to justice.”

  She sighed. David always had been one for big speeches and grand gestures. Like Bryn’s puppy, he was. The two of them were always off somewhere together. If it wasn’t work, it was golf, or the Conservative Club. She only wished David could retire too, to keep Bryn company.

  She put out a hand to catch herself on the table. For a moment, she’d forgotten.

  She swallowed.
She had to plan the funeral. They would want to put on some kind of police affair, with uniforms and speeches.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.” For thirty years he’d been the centre of her world. Every waking moment had been focused on him. Supporting his career, raising his children. Pacifying him.

  Last night, she’d taken her eye off the ball. She’d been tired – an ear infection – and she hadn’t behaved in the way he liked. And they’d argued in the car. What was the last thing she’d said to him?

  She slid into a chair. “Do we have to do this now?”

  David sat next to her. “We do, I’m afraid. We should have done it hours ago, really. Time is important.”

  She nodded, her eyes sliding upwards behind her lashes. She just had to talk to David, and then she could go back to bed.

  He looked around. Two uniformed PCs were standing in the corner. A man in a protective suit walked in and spoke to them, then left.

  “Not here,” David said. “We need somewhere more private.”

  “The lounge.”

  He looked into her eyes in a way she imagined was calculated to convey concern. He lifted his hand and raised a finger: wait.

  He approached the man in the suit. They spoke in low voices, then David came back to her. He put his hand out so she could take it and be pulled up. Like an invalid.

  “We’ve got the all-clear,” he said. “They don’t need access to the lounge anymore. I’ll need to include my colleague, though. Procedure.”

  Margaret nodded. Procedure. For a horrible moment she imagined Bryn watching over them, sitting in judgement of the way they were handling this crime scene, this enquiry. Would he approve? Or would he be muttering at them the way he had in front of the TV?

  She followed David into the lounge. One of the windows had been opened a crack making it less stuffy here than in the kitchen. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the lilies on the mantelpiece.

  Lilies. She should get rid of those. Too clichéd.

  David sat on the long sofa and gestured for her to sit next to him. She sat on the two-seater instead. Another man entered and took a seat next to David. He was someone she didn’t recognise, slim and handsome with striking blue eyes and almost shaved hair. She blinked at him.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  He wiped a hand on his trouser leg and held it forward. “My name is DI Carl Whaley, ma’am. I’m relatively new to West Midlands CID. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  She ignored that hand. “You weren’t at the party.”

  He bit his lower lip. “I never met your husband, so it didn’t feel…”

  “Appropriate.”

  “Exactly. I regret it now, of course.”

  Of course. Why should this man, twenty-five years younger than her husband and never clapped eyes on him, feel regret for not being at that godawful party? If she could have skipped it, she would.

  Margaret felt her stomach dip. If she’d stayed home, Bryn might not be dead.

  She clenched her fists, focusing on her breathing. She didn’t like them seeing her like this. Not the new DI and especially not David. She blew out a long breath and looked up at them, pushing brightness into her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. It hits me from time to time.”

  “Of course it does.” David’s eyes were crinkling. He would be grieving too. She should be nicer to him.

  She could hear voices in the hall; something about DNA. She stared at the two detectives, waiting for them to start. She wanted this over.

  “Please,” she said. “Ask your questions. I want to rest.”

  DI Whaley looked at David. David opened his notebook.

  “Mrs Jackson,” he said. “Margaret. We’re interviewing you because you were the last person to see your husband alive, and you told emergency services that you found his body.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Of course not."

  “I don't need a lawyer?”

  “No, Margaret. I promise. It's fine.”

  She shifted in her seat.

  “Thank you. Now, I know you’ve done this before, and I apologise, but can you run though what happened when you arrived home from the party?”

  She scraped through her memory of the previous night, hardly believing that it had been such a short time ago.

  “We got home around half past eleven. I went into the kitchen, where I poured Bryn a drink. He took it into his study and I headed up to bed.”

  “Did you go straight to bed?”

  “Well, no. I spent a few moments looking at Bryn's door.”

  “His door?”

  “To his study. I wondered what would happen if I went in.”

  “What would normally happen if you went in there?”

  She felt a chill. “I don't know, because I never did go in. That was Bryn’s space.”

  “I see. So did you go in there last night?”

  “Not at that point, no. I planned on heading up to bed but I had to close the back gate.”

  “It was open?”

  “Bryn heard it banging.”

  “Was this before or after he went into his study?”

  Her mind felt like sludge. “Before.”

  “So, you went out to the garden before heading upstairs.”

  “Yes. I suppose I did. Sorry.”

  “It's alright. I know this is hard.”

  Margaret nodded.

  “Did you go into the garden alone?"

  “Yes.” Like always.

  “You weren't worried about doing that?”

  Her headache was starting again. “Why would I be? It’s my garden.”

  “But the back gate was open, you’d heard it banging. You weren’t worried there might be an intruder?”

  “That gate is broken. I’m used to going out there to lock it.”

  “Did you see anyone in the garden while you were out there?”

  “No.”

  “No movement or shadows? No other noises, apart from the gate?”

  “Maybe… No. I didn’t hear anything. The rain was quite loud. I shut the gate, then hurried inside.”

  “And when you came inside, was your husband still in his study?”

  “Yes. The door was closed.”

  “What did you do then?”

  She bit down on her lip. “I went to bed.”

  David leaned back. He rested his pen, a Parker ballpoint, on his pad.

  “At what point did you realise that Bryn had been attacked?”

  She narrowed her eyes. She wished the other man would say something, that Margaret and Bryn would be replaced by Mrs Jackson and Mr Jackson. It was bad enough that they’d taken over her house.

  “After I’d gone up to bed,” she said. “I heard something, a banging noise.”

  “Coming from downstairs?” David sat forwards.

  She nodded. She pulled at her fingernails again, a habit she detested in herself.

  “Did you go straight down to investigate?”

  “I called him.”

  “You called your husband?”

  “I called out his name. Maybe he was coming upstairs. He’d been drinking.”

  “Was there any reply?”

  “No. That’s when I decided to go downstairs.”

  “So you went downstairs, and…”

  She tugged harder at her thumbnail. She felt both hot and cold. “The study door was open.”

  “Could you see your husband inside?”

  She nodded. She wiped a tear away and lifted her head to look him in the eye. “Yes.”

  “Where was he?” David’s voice had dropped so low she could barely hear him. Next to him, DI Whaley’s eyes were on her. He hadn’t spoken once.

  “On the desk.” A sniff. “I’m sorry. I can’t…”

  David slid from the sofa onto the floor between them. He held out his hand, but she didn’t take it. Behind him, DI Whaley shrank back, his eyes darting to his senior officer and back to her. Th
is was a man who wouldn’t miss anything.

  “What did you do, Margaret?” David asked, looking up at her.

  She closed her eyes. “I tried to save him, David. I tried, but I couldn’t save him.”

  She bit her bottom lip. Hold it together. She pulled herself upright, meeting David’s eye. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sifting through files took Zoe to a place where her head could stop buzzing. Normal detective work: examining crime scenes, analysing evidence, interviewing suspects, that was all well and good. But when Zoe looked at documents, she entered a zone. One where her mind cleared and her thoughts could flow.

  She’d already worked through half of the boxes. Five of them sat against the wall behind her, each sifted through and discarded. Zoe knew that evidence could be found in the tiniest detail, but there was nothing here yet. Bank statements going back years, even a box full of pay slips from before they’d gone digital. Insurance documents, birth certificates. The kind of thing you’d expect in the house of a couple as organised as the Jacksons seemed.

  She found nothing recent – that would all be in the study. She wondered how often Jackson archived files up here. The boxes were sorted by type, not date. He’d have been adding to them all the time.

  If he was the one doing it. Even with the pay slips and driving documents, there was a chance Mrs Jackson would be responsible.

  In which case, what had she been looking for earlier?

  Zoe pictured Margaret, turning as she’d entered the room. She hadn’t been holding anything, and hadn’t made any sudden movement. She’d looked disappointed. That she hadn’t found something, or that she’d been interrupted?

  Zoe opened another box. The room was stuffy, the tiny roof window probably didn’t open. And if she tried, God knew what she’d disturb.

  She snapped a photo of the box she’d just finished with and started on the next one. The paper felt soft through her thin gloves.

  This box was no different from all the rest. Receipts and guarantees, home improvement paperwork going back decades. She made a mental note to check how long the Jacksons had owned this place. If there was a mortgage.

  She reached the back of the box and was about to close the lid when something under the neat files inside caught her eye. It was a faded red, curling at the corner.