by Will North
“What?”
“Permit you.”
Ronan blinked. Twice. She liked that she’d confused him.
“Now attend to your other customers and let me eat in peace.”
Thirty-One
CALUM ARRIVED EARLY Saturday morning. He set up a cork board in the Bodmin incident room, tacked two enlarged fingerprint images on the board, and stood back. He loved his work. He was both the collector and protector of crime scene evidence and he considered it a high honor…an honor conferred, though unwillingly, by the victims of the crimes whom he served. He was a devotee of the principle first articulated by Edmond Locard, the early twentieth century French forensic pioneer: “Every contact leaves a trace.”
He’d found another trace, and this one was definitive.
“Admiring your handiwork, Calum?”
He spun around and found Morgan grinning at him. It had just gone nine.
“If no one else does, I guess I must.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Everyone admires you, though it’s a mystery to me.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“Anytime. What have you got?”
“Patience, Morgan. We await the rest of the team.”
Moments later Terry Bates arrived, looking much the worse for wear: puffy eyes, her ginger hair barely brushed out but arranged to hide the bruise on the left side of her head.
“Hard night?” Morgan teased. She wondered what Bates had been up to.
“Is there coffee?” Bates asked.
“Is there?” Calum crowed. “You are in the presence of this establishment’s coffee-making expert. No damnable boiled tea here!”
“Oh good: Calum West, our barista. Have you also a cup in which to pour it?”
“I’ll have one too, Calum, as long as you are up,” Penwarren said as he crossed the room to the windows. The morning was gray and wan. Fingers of mist crept across the fields beyond like stealthy invaders. He smiled. Fog in the morning meant a sunny day to come. The changeable weather soothed him.
Novak entered next. Morgan thought the white shirt beneath his constable’s uniform needed pressing. His tie was ill-knotted. There was a slight puffiness beneath his eyes as well. She shook her head: How the young believe the old cannot see. Unless she was a crap detective, Bates and Novak had spent the night together. To her surprise, this notion made her happy.
“Right then, Calum, you called this meeting,” Penwarren said taking his coffee. “What have you got?”
“May I just ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to regard closely the two images I have posted on this cork board?”
“Oh come on, Calum, what the hell is it?”
“You are just no fun, Morgan.”
“Calum?” Penwarren said as he lowered his lanky frame into a seat at the table.
“All right, all right. These are enlarged images of two sets of fingerprints. One sample is Rhys-Jones’s, which we took at Camborne. The other is the one found on the sitting room wall of Mary Trevean’s house, just above shoulder height. A perfect match, all five digits. Without question, he was in her house.”
“Yes, okay genius, but when?” Morgan asked.
“I’m just evidence, Morgan; you’re investigation. But I will say the print is fresh.”
“If Rhys-Jones was nothing more than a cottage renter, what was he doing in Trevean’s house?” Penwarren asked.
“Paying his weekly rent?” Morgan suggested.
“Most people pay by bank card these days,” Terry said.
“Location, people, location,” Calum said. “Why was his right hand pressed up high on her sitting room wall?”
Morgan considered. “Maybe she invited him in for a visit. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe they were chatting and he just leaned against the wall.”
Penwarren’s mobile vibrated in his jacket pocket. “Pardon me for a moment, please.”
He stood and listened, pacing. Penwarren seemed incapable of being still for long.
“Okay. Thank you. I mean that. I appreciate the effort and I’ll let Exeter know about your help.”
They watched him. He turned.
“The hair follicle matches Rhys-Jones’s DNA, which, I suggest, leads us back to Trevega House. And also to Dr. White, who may be able to help us sort him out. On the basis of this evidence, however, and assuming the CPS’s agreement, we can now consider Rhys-Jones as a suspect in the malicious events at Trevega. We have evidence he was present at or near the bullock killing, though admittedly, not that he caused it. We have a partial print on the leg trap that injured the dog. I don’t see how we will ever ascertain the culprit in the brake line cutting. And I am particularly concerned about the attack on young Lee, for which we have no evidence and likely never will. That was a sly act, almost perfectly executed.”
“And still the CPS can’t charge him?”
“No, not yet. The evidence is not yet strong enough. Look, I am fully aware that I am closely connected with the people at Trevega House, perhaps too closely. And for that I have appreciated your patience. But no one has been murdered at Trevega. Our priority is still Mary Trevean. The wall print tells us he was in her house. When? Why? That’s your task, Morgan. The Trevega evidence, however serious, is incidental. The wall print is the starting point.”
“Got it, boss.”
He smiled and nodded. “If anyone can break him, Morgan, it’s you.”
“Would that be in the way of a compliment?”
He turned back toward the windows. “No. Admiration.”
MORGAN SAT OPPOSITE Rhys-Jones again in the interview room. Penwarren watched the monitor in the viewing room with Derek Martin. Terry stood next to them.
Instead of looking at Jeremy directly, Morgan stared over his head at the opposite wall, as if gathering her thoughts. She knew her silence would make Jeremy uncomfortable. Jeremy liked to talk. Jeremy liked to show off. So, she waited.
“Was there some reason for this visit, Inspector?” he finally asked.
She smiled, dropped her gaze, and looked at her thick folder, opening to the front page.
“There was and is, Jeremy. While you have been luxuriating here at Her Majesty’s expense, our people have been busy.
“So?’
Morgan found it curious that he could remain distant from the situation in which he found himself, as if he lived a separate life from which this moment was merely a temporary interruption.
“So, this question: were you recently in a field below Trevega House, close by the coast path?”
“Of course not; I was staying far to the south, in Boswednack.”
“Boswednack. Yes, in one of the late Mary Trevean’s cottages. And since when is roughly two miles far?”
She tilted her head to the right and regarded him. “So, if, as you say, you were never in this particular field, the one just above Carn Naun Point, the one where a bullock was butchered, how would you explain that our scene of crimes people found evidence of your DNA there?”
Rhys-Jones blinked, just the once: “Mistake. Obviously.”
“Ah, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? You see DNA doesn’t lie.”
“Where the hell is my solicitor?”
“We’re just chatting, Jeremy, exploring a few issues. But your solicitor should be here shortly. Moira Hennessy, she’s called. Public Defense Service. So just now we are simply trying to clarify the situation in which your DNA might have been found in that field below Trevega House. Care to explain? You needn’t until she arrives, of course. But I’m just curious. As I understand it, the Trevega estate has belonged to your family for generations. You spent many years there as a boy and you later lived there with your former wife. But then your father—your late father—dispossessed you of that property and gave it to her.”
Jeremy flared: “She doesn’t belong there! She’s not even family. I wanted kids from her when we lived there, but she produced nothing!”
“You make her sound like a brood hen.”
He ignored
the comment. It wasn’t even clear to Morgan he even understood the insult.
“So, you began beating her, yes?”
His head jerked sideways, as if ducking a blow: “Once, in a fit.”
Morgan looked at her file again. “Funny you should say so, because the transcript from your divorce hearing notes several incidents. Do you deny them?”
“That hearing was a farce; my father rigged it. I never had a chance.”
“Excuse me for asking, Jeremy, but did you deserve a chance? And if that assault was just a one-off, something that only happened between you and your wife, why did you also have to flee Italy?”
“I already told you; that was all about her.”
“Is that also a lie, like your claim that you only beat your wife once? Because it doesn’t square with her complaint against you in Milan.”
Rhys-Jones glared but did not respond.
Morgan had been leaning across the table between them, crowding him. Now, she sat back.
“While you were renting your cottage from Mary Trevean, did you ever have occasion to visit her at her home?”
“I was just a tenant.”
The interview room door opened and a constable let in a young woman in a black two-piece suit, pale blue blouse beneath. Her sleek brown hair was cropped almost as short as Morgan’s but lay close to her skull like a helmet. Her eyes matched her blouse: the color of arctic ice.
Morgan ignored the interruption. “I must congratulate you on that skillfully evasive answer, Jeremy, but you see, we’ve found a handprint, yours, shoulder high on a wall in Mary Trevean’s sitting room. Any thoughts of how it got there?”
“I would not answer that if I were you, Mr. Rhys-Jones.”
Morgan rose and extended her hand. “Ms. Hennessy, thank you for coming. This is your client, Jeremy Rhys-Jones, already a person of interest in some nasty events at his ex-wife’s home but also in the murder of a Mrs. Mary Trevean.”
“I have read the file, Inspector. I’d like a word,” she said, gesturing to the door.
In the corridor, Hennessy squared her shoulders and got right into Morgan’s face: “I was briefly in the viewing room. You are a very skilled interviewer, just skirting the edge of actual interrogation. But as I see it, you have no evidence that this man had anything to do with the murder of Mary Trevean, except that he was once in her house. Have I got that right?”
Morgan stood her ground. “We await further evidence.”
“Fine. Until such time as you have it, and thereafter, you will speak to him only with me present. Are we clear?”
Morgan smiled. She liked the tough young woman immediately.
“Yes, we are clear. I’m relieved you’re here, actually; you have your work cut out for you.”
A quick frown from Hennessy: “So I gather…”
Thirty-Two
“HOW ARE YOU faring, Nicola?”
“About as well as you, I suspect, sir.”
It was Sunday morning. Nicola and Arthur Penwarren sat at the long table in the Trevega House kitchen, cups of tea going cold before them. He put a hand atop hers. She covered it with her other hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Might we stop the ‘sir?’” he said. “I’m just Arthur. I was very fond of Michael. We were closer than you’d ever guess, and from long ago, beginning during my days at Scotland Yard. Consequently, now that he is gone I am also concerned about his family.”
Nicola nodded. “Thank you. That’s very kind. I didn’t know you two went back that far…”
Penwarren smiled and shook his head: “That’s a story for another time, perhaps. I’m more concerned about the now. How’s Lee taking all of this?”
“Not well. She barely knew him but she’s so sensitive about others. Once she got over the surprise of his coming here she was practically glued to his side. And he adored her from the start. It was something to see. She’d never had close grandparents and maybe, to him, she was also like a granddaughter.” Nicola smiled: “They’d have made a formidable pair, those two.”
“Where is she now? Working with Andrew and Jamie?”
“No, since Michael died she just walks the cliffs with Randi. The men miss her. She’s apparently remarkable at working with stone, something about her ‘spatial sense,’ Andrew says. She’ll be with them again soon, I’m sure. Just needs time. So many deaths in her young life already. It’s like whenever she thinks life is nearly safe the earth opens up beneath her again.
“This morning as she and the dog left, she said something strange: ‘At least we’re safe now.’ Then she was off. She’s a mystery sometimes.”
“No, she’s got it right. There have been no more incidents, have there?”
“No.”
“That’s because Jeremy is in custody. We have bits of evidence that place him near the spot where the bullock was killed and at the leg hold trap that injured Randi. I’m sorry to say that we also have a print of his hand in an odd spot in Mary Trevean’s house.”
“Good Lord…”
“Hang on: it only means that at some point he was in her house, perhaps for perfectly innocent reasons.”
Nicola looked at the table top and shook her head. “He’s mad, you know…”
“He seems perfectly cogent when we interview him.”
“Oh yes. But he’s not. Something in him is broken. One night when we lived together here he got stumbling drunk and wandered through the house calling for Caprice, his mother. Spent that night in the room that once was hers. It wasn’t the only time.”
Penwarren looked away. “Yes. Caprice.”
Nicola looked at him, her eyebrows pinched, but said nothing.
“Would you please tell me if there is anything I can do for you, even just helping with arrangements?”
“I think we’re okay, sir…Arthur…apart from the shock that Michael’s actually gone. He was tired when he came here that afternoon…no, deflated, like an old balloon. He was a small man with a big presence. But that day he was almost shrunken. He was here, sitting right where you are, enjoying a glass of red wine. Then he was gone.”
Penwarren said nothing. He thought if he said something he would reveal too much about himself. He nodded.
“But to answer your question, it would be lovely if you could attend the memorial service. It will be at St. Senara’s in Zennor late next week. The vicar knew him; Michael was a generous supporter, had the bells rehung, for example. There will be a little reception at the Tinners Arms afterward.”
“Will there also be a funeral and burial?”
“No. In his will he asked to be cremated and his ashes scattered across the gardens here at Trevega.” A tear slid down her left cheek. She brushed it away.
“It’s so hard,” she whispered. “Life without him, without Dad. And I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to be buried next to his late wife in London.”
Penwarren stared at the wall opposite, remembering Caprice.
“I suspect he wanted to be close to you, Nicola. And in time that will be a comfort. I will be at the church, of course. I suspect it will be very crowded. The Tinners as well. He was much loved hereabouts. You’d better prepare for it.”
ON HIS WAY north again, Penwarren stopped at St. Ives, and even though it was late Sunday, he found Constable Novak in his upstairs office. He was alone, bent over his laptop. When Penwarren appeared, he stood, as if at attention.
Penwarren smiled. “At ease, Constable. Please sit. I can’t stay long but I should like a word with you.”
Novak’s heart sank.
“Sir?”
“First thing tomorrow, I’m recommending to Exeter that you be advanced to detective constable. Your obvious skills are wasted here. We need you. And by ‘we’ I mean the MCIT group with whom you’ve been working. When your training is complete, I’m bypassing any local posting and demanding that you work directly with our people in Bodmin. You’ll be working under Morgan Davies.”
Novak eyes widened.
Penwarren smiled. “I know. She’s a hard one. But she is also the best there is. You’ll survive. And learn a lot.”
Novak cleared his throat. “Thank you…Sir.”
“You can relocate to the Bodmin area?”
“Yes. I live alone.”
Penwarren nodded and turned toward the stairs. “I doubt that will last long. Good day, Adam,” he said as he descended.
Adam sat for a minute, taking it in. Then he punched Terry’s number into his mobile.
MORGAN SAT ON the small balcony of her new home sipping a vodka tonic and watching cloud shadows race across the bracken-covered face of Brown Willy, the castellated granite summit to her north. There was jazz on her CD player, an old Brubeck Quartet album. Inside, she heard her mobile ring.
“Christ, it’s bloody Sunday afternoon!” she cursed. She ran and followed the ring to the nightstand beside her bed.
“What?” It was her usual cordial phone greeting.
She listened for a few moments then said: “Right. I can’t say that’s welcome news but I’ll let Penwarren know and have him call an MCIT meeting for tomorrow morning. Will you be there? Good. Can you make it by nine? Great. I’ll let Calum know, too. Thank you.”
Morgan walked back to her balcony and downed the rest of her vodka tonic.
“Bloody hell!” she shouted to the ancient hills before her.
Thirty-Three
“DO YOU JUST like to make my life difficult, Jennifer?” Morgan said, placing an affectionate hand on the forensic pathologist’s shoulder as she sat next to her Monday morning. Calum West and Terry Bates also were seated at the round table at the Bodmin incident room. DCI Penwarren sat opposite them and nodded to Dr. Duncan, the talented blond pathologist whom he sometimes wished were older…or himself younger. He was not alone in the force in admiring her, both as a professional and as a woman.
“I’ve read your report, Jennifer, but why don’t you give it to us directly.”
“Right. As you know, I discovered trace evidence on the cushion we suspect was used to suffocate Mary Trevean—a terrifying way to die, by the way. But it was too faint for our Truro lab to analyze. We sent it off to consulting specialists in Bristol whom headquarters in Exeter have under contract. They are extremely busy and the DNA analysis has taken far longer than I’d hoped. But we have it now.”