No Escape

by Hilary Norman

  ‘What kind of way?’ Keenan asked. ‘Divorce?’

  ‘Divorce might not have been a clean enough break,’ the solicitor said. ‘Too long a process, too great a risk of Patston losing his temper, becoming violent, any number of times along the way.’

  ‘She could have applied for an injunction,’ Shipley said.

  ‘Of course,’ Allbeury said, ‘though I’m not sure if she would have been up to coping with all that would have entailed.’ Allbeury paused. ‘In any case, as you know, violent men don’t always heed injunctions.’

  ‘Why didn’t she report him?’ Keenan asked.

  ‘Fear,’ Allbeury replied simply.

  ‘How did you come to hear about Joanne Patston?’ Shipley asked. ‘Another anonymous tip-off?’

  ‘Yes,’ Allbeury replied. ‘Though not a letter, this time.’ He looked straight at Keenan as he told the small lie. ‘A telephone call.’

  ‘Untraceable, I suppose?’ Shipley said.

  ‘I didn’t attempt to trace the source of the call,’ Allbeury said. ‘I was more interested in the subject.’

  ‘Joanne Patston,’ Keenan said.

  ‘And the risk to her daughter,’ Allbeury said.

  ‘Why didn’t you report that risk?’ Shipley asked.

  ‘I wanted Mrs Patston to feel she could trust me,’ he answered. ‘Calling social services or the police might simply have made her life, and the child’s, harder.’

  ‘And did she trust you?’ Keenan asked.

  ‘I believe she was coming round to thinking that she could.’

  ‘Yet you never saw her again?’ Shipley’s question.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’ Keenan asked.

  ‘Not after the meeting in the library,’ Allbeury said.

  ‘What about Michael Novak?’ Shipley asked.

  ‘I believe he spoke to her twice after the meeting,’ Allbeury replied.

  ‘About?’ Keenan again.

  ‘She was making up her mind,’ the solicitor said.

  ‘What about?’ Shipley asked.

  ‘About whether she wanted me to help her leave the marriage.’

  ‘You still haven’t told us,’ Keenan said, ‘what kind of way out you were suggesting, Mr Allbeury.’

  ‘I was waiting for her answer.’

  ‘You must have had something in mind,’ Shipley said.

  ‘Of course,’ Allbeury agreed.

  ‘Which was?’ Keenan pushed, still politely.

  Allbeury was silent for a moment. ‘If Mrs Patston had told me she wanted to go,’ he said, at last, slowly, ‘I would have done all I could to enable her to take her daughter to a place where they would have felt secure.’

  ‘Long-term?’ Keenan asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Allbeury answered. ‘Nothing else would have helped her feel safe.’

  ‘But you were still waiting for her final response?’ Keenan asked.

  ‘When Mike Novak told me she was dead,’ Allbeury said.

  He took them into his blue study, invited both detectives to look over his shoulder as he brought up the diary on his PC and scrolled back to the twentieth of February, the day of Lynne Bolsover’s disappearance and killing.

  ‘If essential,’ Allbeury said, ‘both those morning appointments could be verified.’

  ‘Not the one in the afternoon?’ Shipley asked, standing on his left side.

  ‘It was with a client who appreciates confidentiality and is, at present, overseas.’ He looked up at her. ‘I was under the impression that John Bolsover was in Belmarsh awaiting trial for his wife’s murder.’

  ‘He is,’ she said.

  Allbeury returned his attention to his diary, scrolled on eight months to October, then glanced up at Keenan, standing to the right of his chair.

  ‘Monday,’ Keenan said. ‘The seventh.’

  ‘The office.’ Allbeury leaned back for them to see. ‘Allbeury, Lerman, Wren in Bedford Row.’ He looked at Keenan again. ‘If you’re going to check, Detective Inspector, I would appreciate discretion.’

  ‘Goes without saying, sir,’ Keenan said.

  ‘Were you there all day?’ Shipley asked.

  Allbeury looked back at her, and half smiled. ‘I had a great deal to attend to on Monday. One of the juniors fetched me a sandwich – I don’t know where from, but it was thick-cut ham with relish and very good.’

  ‘You seem very lighthearted,’ Shipley said, ‘considering you said you were wretched about these two deaths.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Allbeury said. ‘I suppose I’m not accustomed to being asked for alibis, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘You’ve been very helpful, Mr Allbeury,’ Jim Keenan said.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I think so,’ Keenan said.

  Allbeury stood up. ‘If you do need anything further, don’t hesitate to call.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Shipley said.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Keenan said.

  ‘Not quite the whole story, obviously,’ he said as they rode down in the gleaming lift.

  ‘Lying through his teeth,’ Shipley said, looking up at the camera.

  ‘More a case of gentle evasion, I’d say,’ Keenan said. ‘Probably reluctance to have his affairs looked at too closely, rather than anything to do with the killings.’

  ‘Did you like him?’ Shipley sounded curious.

  The doors opened, and they walked out through the marbled lobby, past the doorman and out onto the riverside walk. A stiff, chilly wind was blowing off the river.

  ‘I didn’t dislike him,’ Keenan replied. ‘Certainly not as much as you clearly do.’

  ‘It’s not just him,’ Shipley said. ‘It’s the whole set-up I don’t trust.’ She turned with him away from St Saviour’s Dock and Butler’s Wharf, into the side road where they’d left their cars. ‘Novak out there, maybe – I don’t know – pimping for the guy in the tower.’ She shook her head. ‘I certainly don’t believe in coincidences.’

  ‘Yet they do happen.’ Keenan fished in his coat pocket for his keys. ‘And logically, if Allbeury wanted to kill anyone, it would have been the husbands.’

  ‘Maybe—’ Shipley retrieved her keys from her shoulder bag ‘—he despises women he sees as too weak to stand up for themselves.’

  ‘Maybe he does,’ Keenan said.

  They came to her old Mini first. ‘You don’t really believe that though, do you?’

  ‘Not really.’ The wind billowed his coat. ‘As I’ve already told you, my team’s money’s on Patston.’

  Shipley ground the heel of her right shoe into the pavement.

  ‘Sorry,’ Keenan said.

  ‘Could I see the pathologist’s report on Joanne?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘I’ll fax it to you tomorrow.’

  ‘Not going back to your office now?’

  Keenan smiled again. ‘I’ll fax it when I get back.’

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Christopher, staying overnight in Holland Park again, could not get the computer incursion at the Beauchamp out of his head.

  Lizzie’s uncharacteristic snappishness earlier on the phone had exacerbated his anxiety. He was beginning to wonder, in fact, if Lizzie herself, or some sharp-practising lawyer, might have been behind the hacking – if that was the right word for it – possibly trying to gather grounds for divorce.

  More grounds, he reminded himself – the thought making him no happier – since surely she already had more than enough.

  All the same, the idea that she – normally so straight from the shoulder – might be doing something so underhand, was making him very upset and, indeed, quite angry.

  He poured himself a very large malt whisky.

  Nothing in those files to help her in a divorce, he was sure of that. Just more evidence, really, of the loving husband taking care of his wife.

  And he was a loving, if not completely ideal, husband.

  And a perfect father.

  Christopher took a large swa
llow of whisky, and shuddered.

  The notion of Lizzie even thinking about divorce made him ill.

  Chapter Seventy

  By nine that evening, Shipley was home, eating KFC drumsticks and drinking Coke – she’d had a couple of beers with Jackson and Gregory after work, and if she had any more, she mightn’t be able to make sense of the reports on the coffee table in front of her.

  Jim Keenan, true to his word, had faxed not only the pathologist’s report on Joanne Patston’s death, but also the scene-of-crime report.

  ‘For your evening’s entertainment,’ Shipley muttered.

  She wiped her greasy hands and picked up the new report, having pretty much committed Dr Patel’s to memory.

  Reading did little to boost her spirits, not that she’d expected anything glaringly useful. A mention of the skin that had been found beneath Joanne Patston’s fingernails having been her own, which Shipley knew must have dashed a few hopes in Theydon Bois. And more differences than similarities between the two killings. Joanne Patston had been full of tranquillizers, but toxicology on Lynne Bolsover had shown no drugs in her system. Lynne’s body had shown signs of past beatings; no such indications on Joanne Patston. If the rock and rag found by young Kylie Bolsover in their garage had, as she’d always personally believed, been planted – presumably by the killer – they hadn’t, at least as yet, delivered the same blow to Tony Patston.

  ‘Okay,’ Shipley said softly, a few minutes later.

  There was, after all, one quite striking similarity.

  Stephanie Patel had reported that the first blow inflicted on Bolsover would have been enough to kill her, and according to Dr Collins, Joanne Patston’s first stab wound would have finished her too. Yet in both cases, the killers had gone on striking: twice more in the first instance, three more wounds in the second.

  Not exactly a pattern, but something.

  She made a note, then mulled over the other, weaker, parallels between the cases. The husbands, obviously, both allegedly violent, though Patston’s aggressions apparently directed at the child rather than his wife. No overtly sexual element to either attack.

  She turned to the crime scene report, and found another possibly significant detail from the Patston crime scene report that tallied with her recollection of the older case. Both bodies had been poorly concealed.

  ‘Which means what?’ she murmured, and drained the rest of her Coke.

  That the person who’d killed them had wanted them found? Or that they’d been unable to bury the bodies properly for some reason.

  Or maybe that was simply another coincidence. Maybe both killers had just been nervous of passers-by happening on the scene.

  No more parallels presenting themselves.

  Except, of course, Allbeury and Novak.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Sandra had been wondering – in between the endless cups of tea, and taking care of Irina, and talking to Karen Dean, to whom, just now, she found it easier to talk than her son-in-law or any of the well-meaning friends who called – why Tony now seemed so set against talking to anyone about Irina’s adoption, when he had, at the outset, been so proud of it.

  It kept creeping back into her mind, she kept on brooding over it, perhaps because it was one way of trying to keep her mind off Joanne, because not thinking about her was the only way to keep sane, to keep going for Irina’s sake.

  And then, suddenly, Sandra knew why, and once she had seen it, she couldn’t understand why she had never done so before.

  For the longest time, when they’d first tried to adopt, Tony and Joanne hadn’t been able to make the system work for them, and then, out of nowhere, they’d found a way and after that, in a matter of months, Irina had been theirs.

  She waited until her granddaughter was asleep and Dean was in the kitchen making spaghetti for their dinner, to go in search of Tony.

  He was in the garage, doing something under the bonnet of his car.

  ‘Dinner ready?’ he asked, seeing her coming through the side door.

  ‘Soon.’ Sandra closed the door behind her, drew a breath and plunged straight in. ‘Tony, I’ve worked out why you’ve been so odd with the police and not wanting to talk about the adoption or even go on TV.’

  He straightened up, his face a mask. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It wasn’t legal, was it?’ Her voice was hushed. ‘Getting Irina.’

  ‘Sandra—’

  ‘I just wish you and Joanne had told me,’ she said, having to get it out. ‘I’d have understood – how could you think I wouldn’t? I’d have helped, done anything—’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Tony hissed, cutting her off, ‘keep your voice down.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sandra said. ‘Karen’s cooking and Irina’s asleep, and I am keeping my voice down, and that’s just what I’m trying to tell you. You can trust me, Tony. I’d never do anything to—’

  ‘Bloody hell, Sandra, just shut up about it.’ Tony slammed down the bonnet, cheeks red. ‘If you want to help, just keep it to yourself and don’t talk about it. God knows I’ve lived to regret the whole bloody thing.’

  Sandra stared at him. ‘Not having Irina, surely?’

  ‘No, of course not having her, and if you’d just shut up and listen for once.’ His eyes were desperate. ‘Don’t you understand, it’s all going round and round in my head, and I don’t know what to do.’ He turned on the last word, slapped both hands on the roof of the car. ‘I’m beginning to think it might be better to tell them about Irina, because it’s got to be a sodding sight better getting done for illegal adoption than for murder, hasn’t it?’

  Speechless, his mother-in-law went on staring at his back, and in the silence Tony felt the stare and turned around, his own expression horrified.

  ‘You don’t think, for one second, that I did that to Joanne?’

  ‘No,’ Sandra said. ‘Of course not, it isn’t that.’ And it was true, she didn’t believe he could have done it, not that. ‘But don’t you realize that if you tell them the truth about Irina, they might take her away?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Tony said.

  ‘Don’t you care?’ Sandra asked, disbelieving.

  ‘Won’t make much difference to me, will it,’ he answered, ‘if I get life for killing her mother?’

  The side door opened again, and Karen Dean popped her head around it.

  ‘Pasta’s ready,’ she told them. ‘If you are.’

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Shipley got to Theydon Bois early on Thursday morning hoping for the chance of another chat with Keenan.

  He’d got in just ten minutes after her, holding a bag containing a jam doughnut and a capuccino.

  ‘Would have got two of each,’ he said as they walked up the stairs together, ‘if I’d known you were coming.’

  ‘Sorry to land on you like this,’ Shipley said.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Keenan said.

  She waited till they were in his office, taking in the framed photos of a dark-haired woman she assumed to be his wife and three children photographed at various ages, none much seeming to resemble the thin, worn-looking DI, while he put the breakfast on his desk and hung up his raincoat.

  ‘Yours?’ She felt a swift, surprising prick of envy.

  Keenan nodded, smiled. ‘Afraid I’m not gentleman enough to give you my capuccino, but I’ll fetch you a cup of machine stuff if you want it.’

  ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

  Keenan removed the plastic lid from his coffee cup, drank a little, then wiped the trace of froth from his top lip. ‘You compared the reports?’

  ‘I did.’ She ran efficiently through her own analysis.

  Keenan listened attentively, waited till she was finished, then compressed his lips for a second before speaking. ‘I think – I hope – I’m an open-minded copper, DI Shipley.’

  ‘Helen,’ she said. ‘But?’

  ‘But everything, so far, in my case, still points to Patston.’<
br />
  ‘With no signs of violence at the home or garage, and the crime scene being miles away? And the fact that Joanne really did go out when he said she did, left Irina with her grandma, also like he said?’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she didn’t see Patston later,’ Keenan said. ‘Drop by at the garage, or meet him for lunch. She had her passport with her – maybe he said he was going to book them a holiday.’

  ‘You’re reaching,’ Shipley said.

  ‘I know,’ Keenan said.

  One of the phones on his desk rang and he picked up, listened for several seconds, scribbling a few notes on a pad, thanked the person at the other end and put the phone down.

  ‘Joanne’s GP prescribed diazepam for her several months ago,’ he told Shipley. ‘And since there are no pills at home now, she either finished them some time back, or threw them out – or maybe Patston slipped them in her morning cuppa or juice.’ He glanced down at the notepad. ‘We’ve got a librarian and another woman at South Chingford Library who both remember Joanne being there a few weeks ago talking to a man while her daughter looked at books.’

  ‘Allbeury?’ Shipley said.

  ‘Middle-aged, well-dressed, dark hair, greying.’ Keenan smiled. ‘Corroborates his story.’

  ‘I still don’t trust him.’

  ‘I’ve had a good look at him since yesterday afternoon, as you’ve undoubtedly done before me. The man’s squeaky clean.’

  ‘At the very least,’ Shipley said, ‘I don’t trust his motivations.’

  ‘People’s motivations for all kinds of things often seem strange to others. Doesn’t make them deranged, or evil killers.’ Keenan shrugged. ‘Maybe Robin Allbeury really does like helping women, no strings attached.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Shipley said dubiously.

  Keenan unwrapped his doughnut, laid it on top of its paper bag.

  Shipley took the hint. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

  ‘Mind a word of advice from a bloke who’s been around a while?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, standing up.

  ‘Hunches have their uses,’ he said. ‘I believe in them, always have. But they’re only useful so long as we don’t let them become obsessions.’