by Diane Janes
Part of the trouble was that he had never liked the brother and he knew that whatever Jude might say to the contrary, the brother didn’t like him, either. There was a watchfulness about Robin Thackeray, which had always made him feel uncomfortable. It was partly guilty conscience, he supposed. When you’ve deliberately made someone the target of your affections, for less than straightforward, honourable reasons, it’s only natural to wonder whether the big brother can see right through you. In Robin Thackeray’s case, though, it went a bit further than that. Mark had sometimes caught Robin Thackeray looking at his sister with an air of possession which went above and beyond a comfortable norm. He would go so far as to describe it as faintly creepy. So much so, in fact, that if Mark had not needed Jude Thackeray as much as he did, the brother’s manner might have actively put him off. OK, the guy must have felt that he had let his sister down, in failing to protect her from the bloke who had almost gone on to murder her, but even so, the way Robin watched Jude, the way he seemed to be forever hanging around – the whole thing was a bit heavy.
He was also worried that the brother exerted a dangerous level of influence on her. Mark had a nasty suspicion that Rob might advise his sister about financial matters. She trusted her brother implicitly and probably ran any big decisions by him. Then again, the brother wouldn’t be with them on their honeymoon and that was when he, Mark, was going to hit her with the story he had ready prepared, for why he needed an immediate, short-term loan.
He had been particularly worried about financing an appropriate kind of honeymoon, but even this potential problem had been unexpectedly resolved, when she had spontaneously suggested that they go to her place in Cornwall. Up until then, he hadn’t been aware that she had a place in Cornwall (some days things just got better and better) but when he tried to find out a bit more about it, she had revealed very little, saying that it was ‘only a cottage’ and ‘miles from anywhere’. He had noticed in the past how dismissive the wealthy often were about their pads in the country, downplaying their spacious seaside retreats, Victorian rectories and premises little short of a stately home, as if they were taking you to spend a weekend in a mere shack.
‘We can laze around and be completely on our own,’ she had added and he had made a mental note to ensure that there was plenty of champagne, since he didn’t want to have to rely on her making the right decisions, while intoxicated with happiness alone.
It was all working out far, far more easily than he could have expected. He felt exuberant enough to shout or sing. The face in the mirror grinned back at him. ‘It’s all but in the bag,’ he told his reflection out loud.
Just then his mobile went into its distinctive combination of a train whistle, accompanied by galloping horses’ hooves. He took it from his pocket and saw that it was Chaz. Good. Chaz calling back so soon after receiving news of the engagement must mean that he was about to climb down a bit.
‘Hi.’ Mark was conscious of a cheerful note in his voice; a quality which was normally absent when he knew that it was Chaz on the line.
‘I’ve spoken with my friend.’ There was something in Chaz’s voice that chilled Mark immediately. ‘When I appraised him of your forthcoming nuptials, he asked me to pass on his congratulations and to tell you that the sum owing has now doubled.’
‘What?’
‘I should imagine you will be well able to pay – once you become Mr Jude Thackeray.’
‘But why? Why has it doubled? A fair rate of interest – that’s what you told me.’
Chaz gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘“From each according to his ability to pay, to each according to his needs.” Karl Marx, old boy. You’re going to have access to considerable means, if what the papers have said about Ms Thackeray is correct.’
For a moment Mark couldn’t summon up any words at all. Eventually he spluttered out, ‘But that’s not fair.’
‘Since when did that alter anything?’
‘I won’t pay it. No more than what we agreed.’
‘Oh, I think you will, Marky, my lad. Because you’ve handed the Big Fellow a prime bargaining chip, don’t you see? If you fail to come up with what my friend asks for, when he asks for it, he’ll be having a word with Ms Thackeray’s brother. He’s very interested in you. Remember he’s been asking questions. We don’t want him hearing any wrong answers, before you’ve got a ring on her finger – or afterwards, if it comes to that – do we now?’
EIGHTEEN
‘How’s it going?’
The two detectives simultaneously looked up from their deliberations to find Graham Ling framed in the doorway.
‘Nothing new so far, I’m afraid.’ Peter Betts tried not to sound as downhearted as he felt. At the outset he had genuinely believed that something might come out of all these hours spent poring over the files, but so far nothing much had emerged apart from an inappropriate proposition, which he was trying to forget about.
By contrast, Hannah seemed positively perky. ‘We’re building up a good overall picture,’ she said. ‘There’s still a fair chance that something will shake loose. I thought you were going to be tied up with the Bradley case all week.’
‘So did I,’ Ling said rather grimly. ‘But old Badger Bradley’s got a good barrister – Hickson,’ he added, in response to an enquiring look from his colleagues. ‘Bugger’s got the trial stopped on a technicality. Don’t worry,’ he added as Betts swore expressively, ‘we’ll get him at the retrial. Softly, softly and all that.’
‘I was wondering,’ Peter said, ‘whether it would be worth going back to Jude Thackeray, one more time. To see if she remembers anything else.’
‘If she thought of something, surely she would let us know,’ Hannah demurred.
‘Maybe we’re not asking her the right questions.’
Graham Ling sounded irritated as he said, ‘We asked her every bloody question under the sun. She talked for hours and hours, but we essentially never got anything more from her than the bare bones she’d given us in the first twenty-four hours after it happened.’
Peter could picture the scene clearly. Jude Thackeray in a hospital bed. (Private nursing home, of course.) She had suffered no major physical injuries, but the doctor wanted to keep her in as a precaution, so the interviewing officers had stationed themselves at the bedside, and Jude had been only too willing to talk; her story spilling out, with her sometimes becoming tearful, sometimes physically trembling, sometimes just shaking her head at ‘how gullible’ she had been.
‘One idea we’ve come up with,’ Hannah said. ‘Maybe we should get the low-down on all the vehicles which travelled on the ferries sailing out of Harwich in the twenty-four hours or so after our man torched the van.’
Ling shook his head. ‘That would encompass hundreds of vehicles. If you can show me something definite that says he left the country on one of those ferries, or better still provide a vehicle reg to check against their records, I’ll give the go-ahead. Otherwise it’s a definite negative on speculative wild goose chases. You’ve got a couple more days. After that, I want you back to normal duties. I’m not sanctioning a trip out of area to question the victim again either, unless you can offer me something better than a hunch that she might have something else to say. It’s strictly a desk-based review. No jollies and no field trips.’ He laughed as the younger man’s head shot up.
Peter felt himself redden as the boss caught his eye. Dear God, did everyone know everything?
When he was sure that Ling was out of earshot, he hissed at his colleague, ‘Did you tell anyone about going out to the scene?’
‘Of course not. Why?’
‘The Old Man seems to know about it. You heard him just now.’
‘Saying what? I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘When he made that crack about field trips. He looked straight at me and laughed.’
‘So? He thinks you’re after having a nice little away day to wherever Jude Thackeray is currently residing, with petrol claimed and lu
nch on expenses.’
‘Look me in the eye and swear to me that you didn’t tell anyone about what happened the other night.’
‘Point one, nothing happened. Point two, I am hardly going to broadcast to everyone that I threw myself at you and you turned me down. Point three, if I ever get wind of the slightest hint that you have shared the circumstances of this humiliating rejection with anyone, I will retaliate with a story from which your reputation as a stud will never recover. Point Four, I am still free tonight, in the event that you want to reconsider your original answer.’
He couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘Deadly. I need to check out the rumours.’
‘What rumours?’
‘Didn’t you know that your sexual prowess is the talk of the constabulary?’
‘No, it isn’t.’ He grew abruptly serious again. ‘Pack it in, McMahon.’ He knew that he didn’t have a reputation. He couldn’t decide how far the joke went and how much she was in earnest about wanting to sleep with him, but whichever way round, they should stop talking about it. It was his own fault for bringing it up, because when he stopped to think about it properly, there was no doubt that she was right about the cause of Ling’s remark – not least because he knew that the boss would not be in the least bit amused by the idea of his officers propositioning one another in local lay-bys, or snogging in the underground car park. However much the modern police force went along with personal relationships between its employees, so far as Old Lingo was concerned, it got in the way of work and nothing should ever be allowed to do that.
‘Do I take it then, that I’m washing my hair tonight – alone?’
‘I mean it, McMahon. Pack it in.’
There was a long pause. He had spoken far more sharply than was normally acceptable when addressing a colleague.
When she spoke again, she sounded strained, as if she might be fighting back tears. He pretended not to notice. It was her own fault for taking a bad joke too far. Another couple of days, as the Old Man had said. After that they could return to working with the rest of the team and with a bit of luck he could swing things to avoid being one-to-one with her again.
‘He’s obviously very plausible, our man.’ Hannah had begun to straighten a paperclip, keeping her eyes focussed on the slender strand of metal in her fingers, while speaking slowly and carefully, as if weighing every word. ‘He was with Jude Thackeray the whole of that last day before he attacked her, and yet she claims that she never noticed anything out of the ordinary about him at all. That means he didn’t get obviously strung up, or nervous, even though he must have known what he was going to do.’
‘Exactly.’ Peter seized on her words, grateful that they were back to concentrating on the case. ‘He’d laid his plans, gained her confidence. It wasn’t some random, unpremeditated attack. This was what he’d been planning all along.’
‘Of course, we have to allow for the possibility that she’s particularly bad at picking up danger signals.’
‘She didn’t strike me as being dumb.’
‘Nor me. So let’s go through it, step by step. It’s fairly late when things eventually kick off. At least eleven o’clock, she thought, by the time they were getting undressed, ready for bed.’
Peter nodded. ‘She reckons they’d drunk at least one bottle of wine between them, that evening, but of course he was smart enough to be sure that everything went out with the recycling and the bin-men next day. That’s attention to detail – planning your attack to coincide with a fortnightly refuse collection.’
‘So they’re getting undressed, maybe helping each other out of their clothes …’
Peter glanced up suspiciously, but Hannah – who had discarded her redundant paperclip – was shuffling through various items of paperwork which were spread around her laptop and continued without pause, ‘She’s down to her bra and knickers, when he comes up behind her, grabs her hands and secures them with a cable tie. Standard white plastic – easily obtained via hundreds of retail and online outlets. Apparently she’s too surprised to put up much resistance, and says she doesn’t realize what he’s doing until it’s too late.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘Do you reckon that she didn’t want to own up to a bit of bondage?’
‘No. She was asked and she said they’d never gone in for anything like that.’
‘But she also said that initially she thought he was playing some kind of a game with her.’
‘OK, maybe they’d played around before. I don’t see that it really matters. What she says here …’ He paused to check. ‘… Is that she was startled and a bit uneasy, but not actually scared. She thought it was some sort of joke, and for the first moment or two she didn’t take it seriously, not even when he initially made her lie down on the bed, and asked her for her pin numbers.’
‘Because during dirty sex, boyfriends ask you for your pin numbers all the time,’ Hannah commented sarcastically.
‘She never even saw where he got the cable tie from,’ Peter went on. ‘She thinks it must have been in his jeans pocket, but she wasn’t really sure.’
‘Then he asks her for the pin numbers again and she gets scared and tells him to untie her, which of course he doesn’t. Instead he starts to threaten her, saying that he’s going to hurt her if she doesn’t co-operate. At this point, she’s face down on the bed, but in the mirror, she can see him dragging the belt out of his trousers – the irony being that it’s a leather one which she herself had brought him back from Spain, as a present, a few days before. Does that indicate anything?’ Hannah paused, assuming a thoughtful expression.
‘Only that he’s an evil bastard.’
‘Right. So she decides that he means business and tells him the pin number, which is the same for all three of her cards. He repeats it, she confirms it. Then he asks for the combination of the safe at the family house in Colchester, at which point she panics, because she can’t remember it. She tries to tell him that she doesn’t know it. She says that only Robin knows it, but Laddo isn’t convinced. He tells her that he remembers her opening it once, while they were at the house without Robin, and she realizes that she did and therefore that he knows she’s lying.’
‘It’s then that he yells at her and starts to strike her with the belt.’ Peter paused again, while he checked for confirmation of the details. ‘Evidence of at least seven or eight blows still apparent three days later, according to the medical report.’
‘That’s not really very many.’
‘Jesus, Hannah. How many times do you want him to have hit her? I should think it would feel like more than enough.’
‘That’s not what I’m getting at. Our man is dangerous, but he’s not into violence for violence’s sake. Yes, he clobbers her with a leather belt, hard enough to leave bruises, but he’s doing it as a means to an end. He stops when she gives him the combination of the safe. If he was into it, he wouldn’t have stopped. Compared with a lot of victims, she actually got off quite lightly. Think of all the people we’ve seen who’ve been put through the mincer, with their faces black and blue, broken ribs. He hardly touched her face, didn’t actually break any bones. Yes, he’s hurt her pretty badly in this initial attack, and there’s another one still to come, but he doesn’t torture her. He’s not getting off on it. He beats her because it’s a way of making her give up information, that’s all.’
‘Well, so long as that’s all, we can afford to be dismissive about it.’
‘I’m not being dismissive, I’m being objective. It’s a pity you never have been – entirely objective – where Jude Thackeray’s concerned. I bet you wouldn’t have turned her down.’
The comment found its mark. ‘DS McMahon, I swear if you make just one more reference to what you suggested to me the other evening, I will make a formal complaint to Ling. Stop messing with me and get on with the case.’
Hannah flashed him an angry look, but he stared her out. A couple more days he thought. Only a couple more days and after th
at I’ll manage to find a reason for not working closely with her again. Ever.
When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to break the silence, he said, ‘Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we? He’s struck her, at least half a dozen times …’
Hannah accepted the prompt. ‘She says she was screaming her head off, although she knew that there was absolutely no chance of anyone hearing her.’
‘And she was panicking, because she couldn’t remember the combination of the safe, and couldn’t remember where she’d put a note of the number.’
‘Right. So she made up a number – yelled it out, just to stop him from hurting her.’
‘Which works, though it’s obviously a risky game to play in the long run.’
‘He writes the number down, drags her off the bed and makes her go downstairs, where he forces her into the cupboard off the kitchen, which was once some sort of larder. You know,’ Hannah broke off, ‘it has always surprised me that the cupboard was empty, ready and waiting for her. Who has an empty cupboard in their house? My cupboards are all stuffed to capacity. Open any of them and something is liable to fall out on top of you.’
‘The place was very tidy,’ Peter said. ‘I guess there was no need for a larder, in a fully fitted kitchen, with a big fridge freezer. She only used it as a weekend place, so they didn’t keep much in, I suppose.’
‘Right. Not like those of us who have to manage with just one property to keep all our stuff in. Anyway … he also gags her, before putting her in there. He shuts the door and somehow jams it shut. She isn’t sure how and after a while she tries to push against the door, and even shoulder charges it, but she can’t make it budge.’
‘Some of the bruises on her upper arms are consistent with this.’ Peter was again consulting the medical report.