The Murder Wall

by Mari Hannah

  Daniels paid the bill and led Gormley from the café. Her revelation about Jo’s past was the only topic of conversation as they crossed the road to the station. Gormley was uncharacteristically subdued, probably weighing up how she would handle things if the shit hit the fan further down the line. She reassured him she’d take full responsibility should that happen. No way would he be implicated in any breach of protocol. ‘You happy with that?’ she asked as they passed through reception and made their way along the corridor to the incident room.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Fine! Whatever you want. It’s your funeral, not mine. Why should I give a shit when you don’t?’ He stopped at the door to the incident room and took a long deep breath, clearly pissed off. Then, finally, he let the matter drop. ‘Want me to put some pressure on the Home Office? They might know where Jo is.’

  ‘It’s worth a try, but do it quickly. I want her found and I need to nail the sequence of events from the time Stephens left his apartment to the time of his death. Maybe he met someone either before or after he left the Weston. If he did, someone out there must’ve seen something.’

  ‘And if it was Jo he met?’

  ‘We’ll deal with that if and when it arises.’

  Gormley could see his boss was troubled. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  Daniels nodded. ‘Monica claims she and Stephens hadn’t had sex for a fortnight.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘That’s what she said. Someone had sex with him though, didn’t they?’

  ‘You think it was Jo?’

  ‘Not likely, given their history.’

  ‘But not impossible?’

  Daniels felt a knot of tension settle in her neck. ‘I really don’t know what to think.’

  A couple of hours and several phone calls later, Daniels was alone in her office when there was a knock at the door. Robson entered with Carmichael and Gormley in tow: a delegation, if ever she saw one. Good news, Daniels hoped. Both men sat down, inviting Carmichael to go first. ‘Fitzgerald’s list from the Weston.’ She handed over an A4 sheet and stood back, waiting for a response.

  Daniels gave the list the once-over, wondering why it was taking three of them to present this to her. There must be something else. ‘Terrific, Lisa. Get on to that, will you?’ She handed the list back. ‘Talk to door security. See if they kept a record of who actually turned up, as opposed to who was invited.’

  Carmichael was way ahead of her. ‘Already have. As guests arrived, somebody checked their names against the seating plan. I’ve been working my way through it. I’m pretty sure of where everyone was sitting.’

  ‘Unless they all played musical chairs,’ Daniels said.

  It was a gentle lesson never to take things at face value.

  Carmichael was embarrassed. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  Daniels gave a considerate smile. ‘Do what you can, right away.’

  She waited for Carmichael to leave, but it soon became apparent that she wasn’t going anywhere. The young DC shared a brief but knowing look with Gormley. Noticing the exchange, Daniels wondered what was holding her back. From the look of her, Carmichael was about to throw a spanner in the works. She took a deep breath, darting a second look at Gormley. He winked at her and nodded towards Daniels.

  ‘OK, this must be good,’ Daniels said. ‘Something else I need to know?’

  The hiatus provided her with an opportunity to take in Gormley’s self-satisfied grin. Robson stretched his arms above his head and yawned, too tired to notice. He’d been up half the night and looked as if he was feeling it. He sat with his mouth open, waiting for Carmichael to speak.

  ‘Stephens was sat with the Assistant Chief Constable,’ Carmichael said, eventually.

  You could have heard a pin drop as Daniels scanned the faces of each detective in turn.

  ‘She’s good, no?’ Gormley said.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, looking extremely proud of his underling, taking none of the credit for himself. It was so like him not to rain on her parade. As a young officer, Carmichael needed all the praise and encouragement she could get in order to progress to the next level. Daniels was pleased to see Hank Gormley back on form.

  ‘There’s more . . .’ Carmichael sat down, clearly on a roll. ‘ACC Martin is no longer in the area. His secretary told me he rang in early this morning and took leave at short notice. He’s scarpered to his holiday home up north. It took a while to track him down, but I got there eventually.’ She grinned at Gormley. ‘He’s none too pleased with Hank.’

  Daniels shifted her gaze. ‘You spoke to him?’

  Gormley nodded. But before he could open his mouth, Carmichael was off again.

  ‘I found out that Stephens made generous donations to Kidney Research, sending his cheques directly to the Chairman. He insisted on anonymity, apparently. As far as the organization is concerned, he was quite an important guest.’

  ‘Great!’ Daniels glanced at the ceiling. ‘A high-profile victim and a senior officer withholding evidence. Can it get any worse?’

  Carmichael gave a little nod. ‘Yeah, it can. Martin is the Chairman.’

  ‘Which he failed to mention when questioned . . .’ Gormley was paraphrasing the police caution and clearly enjoying himself at the ACC’s expense. ‘Something that we all very much hope he may later rely on in court.’

  Carmichael and Robson both laughed.

  ‘Unbelievable!’ Daniels began thinking out loud. ‘If Martin is so well connected to Stephens, then why keep silent about it? What the hell is he up to?’

  ‘Maybe he’s on the hey-diddle-diddle,’ Gormley offered.

  ‘Not funny, Hank. But I take your point. Get hold of the charity’s books.’

  Everyone stopped talking as Bright entered the room. ‘Kate, there’s been another shooting, a woman this time. I’m tied up. Can you deal?’

  Daniels nodded. He handed her the details and left.

  25

  Twenty minutes later, the Toyota turned left at a signpost for Houghton-le-Spring. Moments after that, she pulled into an ordinary street that had recently become a crime scene. Jenny Tait’s terraced house was already secure, taped off to keep the public out, with a uniform guarding the gate, a crowd of onlookers close by. Avoiding Gormley’s smug expression, Daniels got out of the car and shook hands with Detective Superintendent Ronald Naylor of neighbouring Durham Constabulary who’d come out of the crime scene to greet her.

  ‘Ron.’

  ‘Kate.’ Naylor swept his arm out, drawing her attention to a glut of police vehicles parked along the kerb. The insignia on the cars didn’t match. His tone was friendly. ‘Bit of a Mexican stand-off, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Daniels was a little embarrassed. ‘Hank said it wasn’t our patch, but the control room was having none of it.’

  ‘Nasty business . . .’ Naylor looked past her to the Toyota. He held up a thumb to Gormley, who nodded back and settled down in his seat for a nap. ‘We don’t get many of these round here. I’ve got no witnesses, no motive, no bloody idea where to begin.’

  Daniels nodded. ‘Sounds familiar.’

  ‘Consider yourself stood down, Kate. Call you later?’

  ‘Yeah, do that.’ She was about to walk away when Naylor spoke again:

  ‘If you come across any bodies with a prayer card stuffed in their mouths, give us a call, eh?’

  Daniels felt the colour drain from her face as the image of Father Simon clutching a prayer card flashed to the forefront of her mind. ‘Does a priest count?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Remember the double murder last Christmas Eve at St Camillus church?’

  Naylor nodded. ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘The priest with a bullet in his chest was holding a prayer card.’

  Naylor bit his lip. ‘Yeah well, he would be, wouldn’t he? Tools of the trade and all that. You’d expect—’
/>   ‘Keep me informed, Ron. I don’t believe in coincidences.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘Very.’

  Daniels got back in the car and sat for a while, scanning the faces of the crowd behind the police tape, wondering if a killer could be among them. She drove away, hoping against hope that Naylor’s case might somehow be linked to her unsolved double murder, the one still giving her nightmares. What if the prayer card on Father Simon’s body was a clue to his killer’s identity and not merely a ‘tool of the trade’? She made a mental note to call Naylor when he’d finished at the crime scene.

  Gormley hadn’t picked up on her excitement. He was sitting quietly, studying the list Carmichael had supplied earlier. ‘Know a woman called Felicity Wood?’ he said, looking up.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘She’s a brief at Graham & Abercrombie.’

  ‘Don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘According to this list, she was sitting with Martin and Stephens at the dinner.’

  ‘Was she now?’

  ‘I know the name,’ Gormley said. ‘I just can’t place it.’

  Daniels made a right turn and then a left out of the housing estate and put her foot down, heading back towards Newcastle along a winding country road that cut its way through lush green countryside, hedged on either side by drystone walls. In parts, the stones had fallen away, exposing open pasture that seemed to go on and on. A canopy of bare branches met above the centre of the road, creating a strobe effect as she drove beneath it.

  She slowed behind a caravan of vehicles: a farm tractor spewing mud from gigantic tyres; a single-decker with only one passenger on board; an impatient driver of a blue transit van who chanced his arm by straying from the kerb trying to overtake – irritating Daniels, who was bringing up the rear. She wondered if the maniac ever stopped to consider his own mortality as he put oncoming traffic in danger.

  ‘Jesus!’ Gormley said.

  Daniels took her eyes off the road a moment to glance at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I knew I’d come across her name before!’

  ‘The brief?’

  Gormley grinned. ‘She’s a resident of Court Mews.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yep, saw her name on the action list this morning.’

  ‘Then maybe we should pay her a visit.’

  Daniels switched on her blue light, indicating her intention to pull out . . .

  26

  Felicity Wood was a power dresser with a superior attitude. She had on a pair of well-cut navy trousers, an off-white silk blouse and a pair of calf-skin, high-heeled, fuck-me boots, sharply pointed at the toe. Her outfit screamed a hefty salary, as did her lovely apartment. The view across the Tyne from the picture window was identical to that from the crime scene on the floor below. A small table in front of it bore the remains of a light lunch, set for only one person Daniels observed.

  ‘Please sit down.’ Wood picked up her wine glass. ‘Would you like to join me?’

  ‘Not for me, thanks.’ Daniels hadn’t come to get cosy. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your day off, but I’d like to know about your relationship with Alan Stephens.’

  ‘We’re . . . we were, neighbours.’

  ‘Nothing more? You were his guest at dinner on Thursday night, were you not?’

  ‘My firm contributes to many fund-raisers, DCI Daniels.’

  ‘Is that what the ACC advised you to say?’

  Wood bristled. Daniels had clearly hit a nerve. ‘If you have a point to make to the ACC, I’d be grateful if you’d make it to him.’

  ‘It’ll be my pleasure.’ Daniels noted the woman’s anxiety as she forced a smile and reached forward to pick up the wine bottle and refill her glass. ‘Forgive me for being so blunt, Ms Wood, but did you have sex with Alan Stephens on the night he died?’

  ‘That’s impertinent!’

  ‘It’s also a question that requires an answer.’

  ‘Then no – not that it’s any of your business.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  Wood took a sip of her wine, meeting Daniels’ gaze over the top of her glass. ‘I think I’d have remembered.’

  ‘Any chance you’d volunteer a sample of DNA?’

  ‘Am I being arrested?’ Wood said, with a smug raise of the eyebrow. Daniels had nothing on her and she knew it. ‘Then there’s your answer.’

  ‘When you returned home from the Weston, you didn’t see or hear anything unusual?’

  ‘As it happens, I did. A loud bang . . . sometime around midnight. It seemed to come from inside rather than outside the building.’

  ‘Did you investigate?’

  ‘Do I look stupid?’

  ‘You didn’t think it worth mentioning before now?’

  Wood lifted her glass, took another sip of wine and moistened her lips. ‘I couldn’t swear to it. It was Bonfire Night. It was noisy.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you for your time . . .’ Daniels reached into her pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it over. ‘If you think of anything else, I’d appreciate a call.’

  She left the building and found Gormley leaning on the Toyota, which was parked on double yellow lines right outside Court Mews. When he saw her approaching, he binned his cigarette on the pavement and ground it out with his foot. Daniels glared at him, picked it up and handed it back.

  ‘You speak to Wood?’ he said.

  ‘For what good it did – smarmy, self-opinionated cow.’

  ‘So you liked her a lot.’

  ‘And she’s lying. Luckily for us, she’s not very good at it.’

  Gormley checked his fag end for burning embers and then put it in his pocket.

  They got in the car.

  ‘Let’s swing past Jo’s house one more time,’ Daniels said.

  27

  They parked right outside Jo’s house. As they did so, the curtains of the house next door inched open and an elderly lady peeped out from within. Daniels noticed a Neighbourhood Watch sticker in the window.

  They got out of the car and made their way to Jo’s front door. Gormley pressed the bell and stepped back. They waited . . . and when there was no reply Daniels pointed to the adjoining property.

  ‘Let’s try next door,’ she said.

  The elderly lady they’d seen at the window opened the door with the chain still secured. She was a fine-looking woman, around eighty years old: extremely alert with steely eyes and curly, cotton wool hair.

  ‘Mrs Collins?’ Daniels held up ID. ‘May we have a word?’

  The chain came off. ‘Yes, yes. You people did that already. I’m old, not stupid. I know who you are.’

  Daniels smiled.

  The woman showed them into her living room and sat down in a high-backed chair. Daniels asked how well she knew her neighbour, Jo Soulsby. Mrs Collins told her not very well at all. The last time she’d seen Jo, she was getting out of a taxi in the small hours of Friday the sixth of November.

  A matter of hours after the fatal shooting.

  The fact that nobody had seen her since had Daniels wondering why.

  ‘Can you be more precise on time?’

  Mrs Collins thought about this before answering. ‘Around one forty-five in the morning . . . I’d been listening to the Night Shift programme on radio, you see. Then I read for a while – an old P.D. James novel, Death of an Expert Witness; I’d bought it the day before at a jumble sale – so I do know how late it was.’

  Gormley and Daniels smiled at one another, tickled by the programme title. Neither had heard of it – they were too busy with the real thing – but both had read the book.

  ‘A fan of our colleague Commander Adam Dalgliesh, are you?’ Gormley asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Mrs Collins said. ‘A real gentleman, just like my late husband.’

  Daniels pushed on. ‘Was Ms Soulsby alone?’

  Mrs Collins nodded. ‘I don’t sleep well since my Jack died. I heard a car pull up and saw her getting out of a taxi. That’s the
last time I saw her. Is everything all right next door?’

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Gormley said.

  They thanked Mrs Collins for the information and headed back to the murder incident room, stopping at Dene’s Deli on Jesmond Road to collect something decent to eat – the best sandwiches around, as far as Daniels was concerned.

  Back at the office, they grabbed a coffee and got stuck into their lunch: Daniels’ Italian salami and organic sundried tomato and the ‘special’ Gormley had chosen, ‘Last Mango in Paris’: creamy crab, tuna and mango chutney. They’d just finished eating when Brown stuck his head round the door. Gormley had asked him to trace Jo through her employers, but his efforts had so far drawn a blank. The Home Office official he’d spoken to point-blank refused to give out any details without first speaking to someone in authority.

  ‘Understandable, I suppose,’ Daniels said. ‘Given the nature of her work, they’re entitled to be cagey. She has to deal with some evil bastards. No doubt one or two might pay handsomely for her details.’

  ‘Doesn’t give him the right to treat me like a prat.’

  ‘Did he?’ Daniels took in Brown’s nod. ‘Well, we’ll see about that.’

  Just then, her phone rang.

  ‘This’ll be him now, I bet,’ Brown said. ‘I gave him your extension number.’

  Daniels picked up. ‘Murder Investigation Team.’

  The Home Office official didn’t ask who she was or bother to introduce himself, just demanded to know why the police were sniffing round one of their own. What was it Jo Soulsby had done? Did Daniels know she was a professional of high standing in her field? There were issues of Data Protection to consider . . . blah, blah. Daniels shook her head and raised her eyes to the ceiling, letting Brown and Gormley know that it was indeed the Home Office, holding the receiver half a yard from her ear as the man continued his tirade. He was speaking so loudly, they could hear every word.