by Emily Selby
'Something to blackmail him? Like what?'
'Well, Mr McBride admitted that Amanda indeed discovered some of his little financial tricks and had the evidence on that piece of paper. So, he didn't mention it in case we decided to look for it.'
'But you've found those inaccuracies anyway, haven't you?'
Jack nodded. 'Thanks to you.'
'Was he going to give her more money?'
'Not on Friday. He didn't have any. He told her he would love to help her, but he didn't have any cash on him and she laughed. She said that she knew he must have had cash because she'd seen some people paying in cash. So, he panicked even more, and stated he didn't know anything about it and that he was going to check if, indeed, there were any inaccuracies in the books. And he offered to meet with her on Monday morning, once the pandemonium with the boiler was over.'
'Yes, it was a crazy morning,' Katie agreed. 'Did she threaten him?' Katie asked, hoping the memory of her friend would be untarnished.
'Not at that stage. According to Mr McBride, Amanda just emphasised her difficult financial position, and asked him to consider her plea over the weekend.'
'So, what really happened when he met Amanda on Monday morning?'
'She repeated her request for money. He tried a counter attack. He told her about the false driving licence and the out-of-date passport. He was hoping this would improve his bargaining position, but she just shrugged and told him that she would report him to Inland Revenue. That was the part of the argument Mr Rychter overheard.'
Katie twisted her mouth. This wasn’t entirely fair play on Amanda's part...
'That must have sent him over the edge,' Katie said.
'I bet it did. Having said that,' Jack paused, and a playful smile danced on his lips. 'I think he was more scared of his wife's reaction than a potential visit from the taxman.'
'What?'
'Mrs McBride is a formidable woman. She would keep the Devil on the straight and narrow. You should have seen her face when she heard his story,' Jack explained.
'Good on you, Mrs McBride,' Katie murmured to herself. 'How much did Amanda want?'
'He offered her a bonus worth her monthly salary, but she told him it wouldn't be enough.'
'Cheeky thing,' Katie gasped.
'Or desperate. If indeed, she was trying to find money to pay the blackmailers, or to buy plane tickets to run away, if my new interpretation of Hamish's letter is correct.'
'So, you know what I found?'
'Yes, Chris made sure I saw it. It's a great find, thanks, Katie,' he added.
'Does the complete letter change the direction of your investigation?' she asked anxiously. With the new information on McBride's side of the story emerging, the landscape shifted again. However reluctant she was, she would probably need to reshuffle her list of suspects. 'Was Hamish blackmailing Amanda, you think?'
'It's a definite a possibility, and it would fit with the evidence we've found so far. And if the photo refers to something important, then your friend might have had some good reasons to be desperate to get away.'
Katie released a breath she'd been holding long enough to make her dizzy. 'How did the Monday meeting between Mr McBride and Amanda end?' she asked. Maybe with more information she could make sense of things.
'This is where it gets even more interesting,' Jack said and took a long swing from his cup. 'McBride managed to collect some cash over the weekend - about a thousand pounds. He offered it to her, but she said it wasn't enough. He had some old travellers' cheques and foreign currency at home, which he couldn't cash at the weekend. So, after the meeting with Amanda, he drove to the bank. He returned just before 1 pm and went upstairs, to his office to get all the money. This is when he discovered the cabinet he kept Abercrombie's gun in was opened and the gun was missing.'
'Did the gun go missing that morning?'
'He can't tell. Abercrombie brought it on Friday morning. It was meant to be a weekend loan, as they both insist. But McBride can't remember when he last saw the gun.'
'The loan was illegal, wasn't it?' Katie checked.
'Yes. They are both facing charges for that. But back to our case. McBride says he was stunned by his discovery and didn't know what to do. He looked for the gun for a while and thinking about calling the police. In the end, he just sat in his office, trying to calm down until he heard the noise and the ruckus downstairs.'
Katie considered the timing. 'Have you checked with the bank?'
'Yes. He was served at 12.25 pm, just before the lunch break.'
'Plenty of time to return to the hotel, get the gun, ask Amanda to meet him in the linen room and...' her voice broke.
'That's right. He says he didn't do it.'
Katie looked away, the tugging in her stomach started again. It all made sense, yet, there was something not quite right there.
'Do you believe him?' she asked quietly, still looking away.
'You know me. I don't do believing, trusting and so on. I look for evidence.'
Evidence - that's right!
She turned her head and looked at him. Jack's face was furrowed, his lips pressed into a pale line.
'What's your evidence?'
Now, he looked away.
'Fair enough, McBride had the motive, means and opportunity to kill her,' he said. 'There was a lot at stake in his personal and professional life. Plus, the affair might have derailed his political plans. But his wife, however furious she is, insists he is not a murdering type. We also need to remember that this death appeared as a suicide, which takes some planning and smarts. I don't think your boss has enough of either to make this happen. Sorry for being so judgmental.'
'I agree,' Katie said. Jack had just hit the nail on the head. She couldn't picture Mr McBride being the brains behind this faked suicide. 'We're left with Hamish and his jerky friend, then?'
'Yes. The man’s name is Adam Smith,' Jack said and chuckled. 'And by the way, they should be on their best behaviour, because they've just left jail.'
Katie put her hand on her hips. 'You have some extra information on them, when did you get it?'
'The email arrived in the middle of the night, as they do. But I only checked it after I finished with the McBrides.'
'Whoa ... we get nothing for days, and then a flood of information...' Katie blew out a breath. 'What were they jailed for?'
'Fraud. A tax evasion scheme.'
Katie blinked. A comment made by Amanda popped in her mind. 'That's interesting... Was Amanda involved in any way?'
'No idea, New Zealand police didn't mention anyone else. They have no records on her. Why would you suspect her?'
'The comment she made about teaching Mr McBride how to cook books. Just wondering.'
Jack cocked his head. 'A bit of a shot in the dark. Definitely on the hunch side,' he said, 'but I think it’s worth exploring.'
Katie's cheeks burned. She turned her head away. He caught her making up hypothesis without evidence again!
'How long did they spend in jail?' she asked, keen to shift the focus.
'Just over two years each.'
'That's a long time.'
'They stole a lot of money.'
'What did they do?'
'They'd been buying old houses, renovating them and selling.'
'Flipping houses?'
'Yes. But avoiding tax by pretending to live in them, and using some other clever strategies.'
'She could have been involved,' Katie said, once again, reshuffling the pieces of the puzzle in her mind. This was beginning to look like the most complicated puzzle ever. 'Didn't her mother mention Amanda hadn't lived with her?' Katie closed her eyes in hope it would help her recall the morning’s conversation.
'Not that I know of,' Jack said.
'Yes, she did. When she talked to me this morning. Oh!' Katie flung her hand to her mouth. 'I forgot to tell you about it.'
Jack drew his eyebrows. 'Do it now,' he said calmly.
Katie reported the phone call from this morn
ing.
'You're right, bother!' Jack moaned when she finished. He rubbed his face with his hands. 'I need to rethink everything.'
She watched him stand by the filing cabinet, an empty cup in his hand, breathing regularly for a couple of minutes in silence.
'More coffee?' she offered when the silence became intolerable. What was going on through his head?
'I'm already pretty wound up,' he replied absent-mindedly, and added, 'We have to take stock of the information collected.'
'Agreed,' she said. 'I'll get my notebook. I haven't updated my timeline or hypotheses since Tuesday.' She reached for her handbag. 'When did Amanda leave New Zealand?' she asked, rummaging through its contents.
'According to her passport, in April 2015. She and Waldi got married at Christmas that year.'
'So, she left New Zealand before their little scheme was discovered,' Katie said, suppressing a sigh of relief. She couldn't think her friend could have been involved in some serious illegal activity. Okay, Amanda was a survivor, a street-wise kid who had to fight for herself. Little lies, and gentle suggestions were in her repertoire, but swindling?
'Got it, let's organise our thoughts,' Katie announced opening her notebook on the page with her most recent scribbles.
Jack strode to the desk and pulled up two chairs.
'Let's have a look at what you've got here.'
28
Conscious that Chris could walk in at any point, Katie positioned her chair at a discrete distance from Jack and opened her notebook.
'This is what I've got,' she said, moving away just an inch.
He leant on his elbow, reaching out for the notebook with his free hand. His fingertips touched her hand, sending a warm tingling up her arm.
'Do you mind?' he said, looking into her eyes.
'Mind what?' she said, her voice coming out a little hoarser than she intended. 'You touching me, or you having a closer look at my notes?'
His hand covered hers in a quick move. The warm tingling spread through her chest. He glanced at the door and lowered his head.
'I thought we've covered the first issue extensively before,' he whispered into her ear.
'We have, with the emphasis on covered,' she replied sticking her tongue out at him. 'You can have the notebook, too,' she added, watching the door from the corner of her eye.
Jack took the notebook from her hand and slide his index finger along her entries.
'This is a good account, but we'd need to update the timeline,' he said. 'Friday - I think we can assume that she received the letter from Hamish on Friday.'
'Because of the envelope Mr McBride saw?' Katie asked.
'Yes, but mainly because her behaviour seemed to have changed from Friday onwards.'
'She got the letter, felt frightened and decided to run away,' Katie said slowly, reviewing the new information and adding it to the old. 'Now, if we assume the letter was an attempt to blackmail her into whatever it is Hamish wanted, Amanda going through her things and covering her tracks makes sense.'
'That's exactly my line of thinking.'
'What about the search she did on the computer in the lobby?' Katie remembered.
Jack shook his head. 'Still no connection, and to be honest, I'm not yet convinced it was her who looked up the articles about New Zealand Amphetamine-cooking industry. It could have been Hamish. He was there on Friday, wasn't he?'
'No, it was Saturday morning,' Katie corrected. 'It must have been Amanda then.'
Jack scrunched his nose. 'Yes, unless Hamish Williams was at the hotel also on Friday, too.'
'I didn't see him,' Katie replied, pushing aside the urge to explore her favourite theory. No matter how much she wanted the strange chap to be found guilty of Amanda's murder, she had to give him a fair chance. And that included the way she thought about this case and him. 'There were crowds and a lot of commotion that day, though. I could have missed him.'
Jack listened to her in silence. 'By the way, I've got their fingerprints from the Down Under. I've sent them to our lab to compare with those we found on the letter.'
Katie moaned. 'It never rains, but it pours. Do you also feel we haven't got enough time to consider all the evidence?'
'Definitely,' he replied and sighed. 'I'd better check my emails then. Because if there is a match...' he said, standing up. He crossed to his laptop.
'Then what?' Katie asked. A rattling of the keys filled the silence.
'Yep, the results are back,' Jack said grimly. 'They are a match. By the way, I somehow missed the report that the partial print found on Amanda's window is likely to belong to the same person who handled the letter before Amanda.'
Katie sprang to her feet and hurried to his desk. 'Which one of them is this then? Hamish or Adam?'
'Hamish Williams,' Jack replied, still staring at the screen. 'I've got to talk to them,' he added.
Katie's heart flipped.
'Can I come with you?'
He took a long, deep breath and released it slowly. He reached up and touched her face. 'I'm afraid not. Sorry, Katie. But this has a potential to get quite nasty.'
A lump grew in her throat. She wanted to yell that this was not fair, but, of course, he was right. 'Don't go by yourself, take Chris with you,' she croaked.
'That’s my plan,' he replied, looking into her eyes.
She set her jaw. 'Are you saying it because you care about me, or because I'm not a proper police officer,' she blurted and immediately regretted it. She could guess his reply.
He tensed. 'You know I- I... care about you a lot. And I can't stand the thought of putting you into a potentially dangerous situation. I would feel like that even if you were a fully trained, special operations officer.' He cupped her chin. His face relaxed, his pupils widened. He opened his mouth. 'I-I...' He bit his lower lip.
Katie gulped.
'I've got to go,' he said suddenly and left the room.
Her heart stopped for a second and then hammered against her ribcage. Her cheeks were burning. What was that supposed to mean? Was he about to say that-? Katie inhaled sharply, pushing the air into her tightened lungs.
And then breath-out. Slow-ly.
She repeated the breathing exercises a few more times, until her body was under control again. They'd been dating happily for a few months now, but neither had said the "L-word" yet. And she was too overwhelmed by this puzzling case to even consider this might have been the moment.
Even though, at the furthest depth of her mind, she did think it was.
She needed to focus on the other message in Jack's statement. However much they let her help with the investigations, she was not a real police officer. She was just a clerk. The bitter taste of resentment and regret about dropping out of the law course all those years ago filled her mouth. Katie rolled her shoulders back and forth a number of times. Maybe this was the sign for her to make up her mind about the Newcastle vs Manchester matter and bite the bullet.
Both bullets - the professional and personal one.
Determined to prove her worth, despite being "just a clerk," Katie sat back, staring at her opened notebook. Should she update her timeline, or should she wait for the news from the camper park?
She read through her timeline. The Friday conversation between McBride and Amanda needed updating, as did the crucial argument on Monday. Katie grabbed the pen and scribbled "Corrections" underneath the final entry and added a few lines to summarize the events as recently presented by Jack. But what about Waldi's involvement? She shouldn't exclude him yet, despite her and Zuza's feelings he was incapable of murder.
She looked at the results. There was too much to correct. People had been lying and hiding relevant details. New evidence had been emerging at a breath-taking speed. She had to capture her thoughts on who had the motive, the opportunity and the means.
Katie turned to a fresh page and wrote, "List of suspects" at the top. Underneath, she wrote:
"Mr McBride: Motive - to protect his personal and profe
ssional reputation, avoid tax office trouble and pursue his political ambitions. Means - he borrowed a gun, although it was illegal, taking a huge risk, which meant he might have been desperate. But he probably didn't have the brains to arrange it all to look like a suicide. He probably had enough cold blood to carry such a thing out. Opportunity - the time between his return from the bank and when the shot was fired; he could easily have arranged another rendezvous with Amanda."
Yeah, that was a nice, concise summary.
"Waldi Rychter: Motive - to protect his personal and professional reputation and avoid charges if his involvement into falsifying Amanda's HR records and the results of her language test was exposed. Against this: Amanda stood to lose as well if it happened. Means - he had spent some time around the hotel that day and could have stolen the gun from McBride's office, assuming he knew it was there and how to get there, (note: Amanda might have told him). Did he have what it takes to stage the murder as a suicide? Not sure, but he is smart, although he seems to be genuinely upset by her death and lacking in cold blood needed to execute this plan. Opportunity - plenty; he knew about the linen storage room and how to access it from the back."
Okay, this was getting clearer and more complicated at the same time. What about Hamish then?
"Hamish Williams: Motive", she wrote and paused. What motive could Hamish have for killing her? It looked as though he tried to blackmail her, but what for? To force her to return to him? Get money? Was she involved in his tax-avoidance scheme? Maybe she was the one who denounced him to the New Zealand authorities and this was Hamish's revenge?
That last thought seemed plausible. Amanda hadn’t been caught. She had been trying to escape and hide. She was terrified when he reappeared in her life. But why would he want to meet with her, if he wanted her dead?
Katie straightened her back and shook her head. What? She'd just thought that, hadn't she? That looked like the case: lure her to meet with him, kill and make it look like a suicide! Amanda must have sensed this, and hence the hints hidden in the origami and passed onto Katie. Hamish’s record suggested he definitely had the guts to conceive and go ahead with such a plan. Although, it sounded a little stretched, theoretically speaking, Hamish and his friend had been around Sunnyvale for some time and could have figured out that Mr McBride had a gun in his office. As for Amanda’s suicide note - he could have easily forced her to write it. It all fit again.