Curiosity won out. ‘I’m Louisa Leps, yes, can I help you?’
‘My name is Garda Peter Andrews. I’m a policeman,’ he explained, showing her his card. ‘I’m based in the Garda station in Foxrock and I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.’ He waited a moment for a reaction and when he got none he continued, ‘May I come in?’
She stepped back, without replying, and waved him in, indicating the living room where she offered him a seat. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked and at his headshake she sat in a seat opposite.
Andrews began. ‘We were talking to the owner of the Vegetable Shop in Foxrock village. Mr Beans says he bought some vegetables from you. Is that correct, Ms Leps?
Lulled by Andrews’ unthreatening demeanour and by the seeming innocence of the question, Louisa Leps nodded.
‘Can you tell me about them?’
She nodded again. ‘It was some Manihot Esculenta my mother gave me before I left Guyana. She gives it to me to remind me of home. I don’t have the heart to tell her I hate the stuff. Always have done, only ever ate it to keep her happy. Usually, soon as I come home into the bin it goes and good riddance. But I was buying some vegetables one day and mentioned it to Bernie. He said he’d be interested in buying it the next time I brought some back, that some of his clients liked unusual foods, you know, to try different things. Exotic, Bernie called them.’ She shrugged. ‘They’re not so at home. Cheap food. But he was willing to pay me for them so...’ She shrugged again. ‘I’m saving to go home permanently, so every little helps.’
‘How much did you give him?’
‘Ten roots. He gave me five pounds for it. It was a fair price, I think.’ She began to feel a little nervous and shuffled in her seat. ‘Why are you asking about it, I don’t understand.’
‘Are you aware it is illegal to bring vegetables into the country without a licence, Ms Leps?’
A worried frown appeared on her brow and she gave a nervous laugh. ‘It was a gift from my mother, one I didn’t want. It’s not illegal to give away a gift.’
‘Didn’t you see the signs in the airport? It’s amazing you were never stopped. It is illegal to bring vegetables into the country like that,’ Andrews said patiently. ‘Especially,’ he added, ‘a vegetable that is poisonous.’
Her frown deepened. ‘What are you saying? Manihot Esculenta is not poisonous; I don’t like the taste but it is not poisonous.’
Andrews looked at her. There was no guile on her face, he thought. Did she really not know? ‘How do you prepare it, Ms Leps, do you know?’
Irritated now, she replied crisply. ‘Of course I know, I am not stupid. This is the bitter not the sweet variety so it is a bit more of a fuss. You have to grate it and soak in water for a few days, changing the water every day, and then it must be very well cooked.’
‘And you gave these instructions to Mr Beans, did you?’ he asked, knowing in advance what the answer would be.
Her head shake sent black curls bouncing. ‘No, there was no need. I asked him, he said he knew how to prepare it. Brushed me off, actually, when I started to tell him.’
‘You didn’t point out that it is poisonous unless it is cooked properly, did you? Andrews persisted.
‘Poisonous?’ Louisa Leps asked quizzically, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, it’s not poisonous. My family eat it all the time. You are making a mistake, I think.’
Yes, thought Andrews, understanding now. Her family ate it all the time and wouldn’t dream of eating it without the grating, soaking and water change that was essential preparation, without ever questioning why these preparations were done. They would as soon as eat it without preparation as he would eat raw potato.
All this for a miserable five quid, Andrews thought sadly and then broke the news to the woman, ‘It is very poisonous when eaten uncooked, though, Ms Leps and unfortunately, a man died from doing so.’
She paled and gasped. ‘But I asked him, I asked him. He said he knew.’
Andrews nodded. ‘Unfortunately, there may be charges brought for your part in supplying the vegetable, Ms Leps. For the moment, you must remain available for questioning if needed, understood?’
She nodded and then said shakily, ‘I didn’t mean...’and faltered to a stop.
Andrews stood and looked down on her. ‘People rarely do,’ he said kindly and took his leave.
Luisa Leps stayed sitting a long time. All for five pounds, she thought bitterly, the foundation of her house in Georgetown suddenly looking very shaky.
10
Four O’clock and most of the team were perched on desks or slouched in chairs waiting for the meeting to start, their voices melding into a loud hum; information being shared and dissected; gossip being made and disseminated. A case board had been set up with a photo of their victim, Gerard Roberts, in central position. It dominated the room and possibly should have set the tone.
But the focus of interest for most of those present was Sergeant Clark’s strained back and the conjecture as to how the strain occurred was colourful and wildly, even slanderously, speculative. Sergeant Clark managed to lower the tone even in his absence.
West and Andrews, returning at the same time, had to shout to be heard over the hoots of raucous laughter as the speculation became more and more defamatory.
‘Ok, ok,’ Andrews tried again, making pat-on-the-head motions with his hands.
West took a quicker way of getting attention. He slapped the photo of Gerard Roberts loudly with the palm of his hand and asked the ensuing silence, ‘Who killed this man?’
All attention now focused on the case board. West took another photo from his file and pinned it beside the other. It graphically showed Gerard Roberts’ death throes and drew a collective indrawn breath from the assembled team.
‘Whoever did, must have hated him,’ West continued quietly, ‘he did not die painlessly or quickly.’ He waited a beat while they considered his remark.
‘To have hated him that much, they must have known him pretty well, mustn’t they?’ Jarvis asked.
‘To hate someone that much, they must have had a good reason. We should be able to find out what that reason is, shouldn’t we?’ Garda Edwards suggested.
West nodded, pleased with their quick take. ‘Good point, both of you. Problem is we can’t find anyone to say a bad word against this guy.’ He briefly filled them in on his interview with Paul McMahon. ‘So, no money problems, no personal problems, no mistress lurking in the background. Ergo no motive. Yet, dead he is.’ He paced the floor in front of the team tossing a pen from hand to hand. He tossed it toward Andrews who caught it deftly and taking his cue, summarised his meeting with Louisa Leps.
‘It was just as our Mr Beans said, she had been given the vegetables as a parting gift from her mother, hated them and was only too willing to sell them to him for the paltry sum of five pounds. She insists she was unaware there was any problem but then, in Guyana they are always cooked in a particular way so there wouldn’t be a problem. She did ask Mr Beans if he knew how to prepare them and he said he did, so she thought no more of it. She confirmed that there were ten roots in total which also gels with what he said.’
With a quick flick of his wrist, Andrews threw the pen to Edwards who fumbled and dropped it, sending it skittering under the desk from whence he fished it covered in dust bunnies. He wiped it uncaringly on the sleeve of his jacket, leaving a trail of dust and hair, before filling the team in on his fruitless canvassing of Gerard Roberts’ assumed journey on the day he died.
‘We followed the route his wife said he normally took. But there are so many cyclists that it was impossible for anyone to remember one particular person. We took photos of what he looked like, a description of what he was wearing. But, although a few said, maybe. No-one was sure’
‘Concentrate on the roads between the Vegetable Shop and his house. Try and find anyone who saw him coming back. We need to find out where he was for that missing thirty minutes.’
> Edwards nodded.
‘Baxter, what about Gerard Roberts’ financial status?’ West asked, moving on, eager to get some positive feedback from their days trawling.
It wasn’t going to happen though. He could tell from the tired, downward slump of Seamus Baxter’s shoulders. Nothing was as enervating as getting nowhere, as debilitating as searching and finding nothing; and equally, nothing was as regenerating as finding some crucial link, some focus. It was his job to keep them going when they felt themselves floundering.
Baxter gave his account; it didn’t take long or add anything to their knowledge. ‘Just as his partner said, Sergeant. His finances are in impeccable order, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing shady. Some money invested but nothing radical or unusual. He was obviously big into transparency – every i was dotted and t crossed.’
‘The transparency wasn’t a clever act?’West asked. He’d seen enough shiny apples with a rotten core to be easily deceived.
‘No, sir!’ Baxter said emphatically. ‘It did cross my mind when I saw his accounts first, but I checked and double checked, he wasn’t hiding anything, I’d swear to it. His wife has a current account several hundred quid in credit. Both kids have credit cards and both of them are in credit. This was a very financially secure family.’
‘Ok, so we can probably rule out money as a motive,’ West said with a frown. He searched through a file in front of him and pulled out a sheet of paper which he pinned to the case board under the photo of Gerard Roberts. ‘Sergeant Blunt was kind enough to find this map for me.’ With a marker, he put an x where The Vegetable Shop stood and another x where the Roberts’ house stood.
‘Mr Beans said Roberts’ always went there first to collect his veg and then went for a cycle.’ He drew a line indicating the route he would have taken. ‘We know he stopped outside the shop to speak to our mysterious lady and then continued his ride. We know he didn’t get the manihot esculenta...’ he was interrupted by a whoop as he pronounced the vegetable’s name. ‘Manihot esculenta,’ he repeated, ‘you’ll all be able to pronounce it as clearly when you’ve said it a thousand times. We know he had to have gotten it from her but we also know he didn’t get it from her then.’
Baxter interrupted, raising a hand. ‘How do we know she didn’t give it to him there and then?
‘The shop assistant says that Roberts was speaking to her before he cycled away. It was then that the woman went into the shop and bought the rest. She wouldn’t be the most reliable of witnesses,’ he continued ignoring a snort from Andrews, ‘but we found the peelings of only one vegetable in the Roberts’ bin. The one he bought. He didn’t cook it properly, didn’t do the grating and soaking that is essential. But he did cook it and it probably wouldn’t have killed him. He’d be in a fairly sorry state but he certainly wouldn’t have ended up like that,’ West pointed to the photo on the board.
‘Someone else,’ he continued, ‘had to have peeled and grated the remainder of the vegetable and given it back to him, and this he ate or maybe drank, raw. Another piece of proof that Roberts didn’t grate the vegetable himself came from the forensic people. They’ve tested the grater found at the Roberts, it definitely wasn’t the one used and his wife swears he never uses the liquidiser. So,’ he said, walking across the room, ‘it means that Roberts had to have met the woman later. She had to have gone somewhere and peeled and grated nine roots, put them in some sort of container which we have still to identify, and then she gave them to him.’
He pointed back to the map. ‘Roberts would probably have used this route to Marley Park after the Vegetable Shop,’ he continued the line along the route, ‘and he would have returned to his home along this road.’ His line ended back on the x that was the Roberts’ home.
‘What if,’ Jarvis asked hesitatingly, ‘he didn’t go to Marley Park at all? He was out thirty minutes longer than usual, what if the woman asked him to go somewhere else and he did and that’s where he got the grated mani...vegetable thing?’
They all looked at the map.
‘The shop is what...a ten minute cycle from the house? So we’re talking about a thirty-five minute cycle, approximately, in any direction from the shop.’ West looked at his team. How far can you cycle in thirty-five minutes, remembering Roberts was an experienced cyclist with a very slick bike?’
‘I’ve cycled a bit; I’d guess around eight, maybe nine miles,’ Baxter offered.
West looked carefully at the map and then, tentatively, drew a circle in pencil with the shop as a central point. With a collective groan they realised it took in the whole of Foxrock.
‘Well that buggers up the weekend,’ Andrews said with a glare at Jarvis
‘Ok,’ West said. ‘Jarvis has made a very good point. We’ll need to canvas the area, see if we can put Roberts anywhere. We really need to find this mysterious blonde so if we can place him somewhere it might give us somewhere to look for her. Jarvis, since it was your idea you can run with it. Take Baxter, and Edwards you join them when you have finished the shop to home roads.’ He waited for the nods of agreement from the men and continued. ‘You’re not going to get it all done tonight so two of you finish it tomorrow. Jarvis, it’s your idea, you decide who, ok?’
Jarvis nodded.
‘I’ll be celebrating young Petey Andrews’ fifth birthday in Bang Bangs! tomorrow with Andrews, here. We’ll be there from two till four so we’d prefer not to be interrupted unless absolutely necessary, ok?’
Jarvis, Edwards and Baxter nodded obligingly, each of them in turn having difficulty in picturing the debonair sergeant with a gang of five year olds.
West was having much the same problem. He had been sorely tempted to use Jarvis’ idea to squeeze out of his commitment. Wasn’t organising the damn thing enough?
The grin on Peter Andrews’ face told him it wasn’t and he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, ignore it. He’d go to Bang Bangs and he would smile, and nobody would know from his face that it was the last place on earth he wished to be.
The arrival into the detective’s room of a harassed-looking Garda Foley gave his thoughts a new direction to drift and he waved him into his office and into a chair where the young detective collapsed rather than sat.
‘It’s not going too well,’ Foley began.
‘Fill me in, Declan, and we’ll see where to go from there.’ West replied calmly.
‘I checked into Mrs Lee’s finances and her daughter’s finances. Nothing untoward there. Daughter is married to a very successful architect, a very wealthy, successful architect. So there is no financial incentive for frightening the old dear to death.
‘I canvassed the neighbours. Nobody saw anyone suspicious or behaving in a suspicious manner. It’s a very quiet, peaceful area. A stranger would stand out. Mrs Lee hasn’t fallen out with anyone, hasn’t met anyone new recently, and hasn’t been anywhere recently where she could have come across someone who would have done such a thing. She is an inoffensive lady, minds her own business, potters about the village with a walking stick. I’ve questioned everyone I can think of, called on a couple of locals who have been in trouble a few times and nobody knows anything. I can’t think of anything else to do!’ He ended on a plaintive note with a weary shake of his head.
It was a strange case, West thought as he reviewed the details. ‘Have a word with local estate agents, Declan. See if anyone has shown an interest in buying a house in the village, maybe someone is desperate enough to frighten an old lady into leaving. It’s long shot,’ he added seeing the doubtful look on the younger man’s face, ‘but one worth checking out.
‘Then, I’m afraid you’re going to have to put it into storage.’ West held his hand up to stop the argument he saw poised on the young detectives lips, ‘I know, I know! You’d like to get it cleared up but you have done everything you could. If the estate agents don’t throw up anything you will have exhausted every possibility and you have to move on. Nothing was stolen, no-body was injured; we can’t spend more man-hours on this.�
� He watched the play of emotions on the other man and sympathised. It was never easy to let a case go, there was always the lingering guilt that you could have done one more thing. But time was a constraint and there were other cases that needed looking at.
Declan Foley nodded and started to rise, hesitating to add, ‘Those Offer people have been very supportive, Sergeant, they’ve sat with Mrs Lee when the daughter has had to go away. I thought I might ask them to keep their eyes open and report any suspicious activity. That’s ok, isn’t it?’
West nodded and watched him leave before leaning back in his chair and groaning. If he had to hear one more comment, good or bad, about Offer he would scream. The group was firmly linked in his mind with Kelly Johnson and he didn’t need the constant reminder. If only he had something substantial to go on in the Roberts’ case it would give him something to think about. Without that outlet his choices were Kelly Johnson or the exciting prospect of a party for a five year old.
11
Saturday dawned , a glorious autumnal day harking more to the summer it was leaving than to the winter it reluctantly faced. West woke with equal reluctance and groaned. Please, please ring, he pleaded to the silent phone by his bed. It didn’t listen. It never did. It rang when he was exhausted and desperately in need of a sleep but now, now when he sorely needed it to, the damn thing just sat there, silent.
Throwing back the bedclothes he headed for the shower, and stayed there for a long time letting the hot water cascade over his head and shoulders. A firm believer in the restorative positive power of water, he always felt particularly re-energised after a shower. Something to do with positive ions, he’d read somewhere. His mood was certainly more positive afterwards. He towelled dry, pulled on boxers, jeans and t-shirt and headed to the kitchen for breakfast, checking Tyler’s food on the way. Despite his newfound energy and determination to be positive about the up-coming party he heaved a weighty sigh of relief when the phone rang and he heard Jarvis on the line.
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