“No problem, ma’am. Couple of things. We have no warrant.”
“Strong suspicion. It’s enough.”
“What am I looking for?”
“I won’t tell you, Paul. Just see what you find.”
“Okay, ma’am. If I have to arrest her, it’ll be on suspicion of what?”
“Murder.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam’s call left Drake in a bad mood.
As always, he had risen early, showered and shaved, dressed for the day, and enjoyed a first cup of tea at the window table in his room, savouring the view across the upper reaches of the town and out to sea.
His laptop stood open in front of him, the preliminary report for Iris Mullins only part complete, and he ignored it, enjoying instead the spectacular scene outside. The town was coming alive with traffic, September sunshine shone through occasional gaps in the cloud, sparkling from the surface of the sea, and he was quite content to be here.
He had been in Landshaven for four days, and his mood had lifted, albeit only slightly. Despite his reservations concerning Iris Mullins’ motives in asking him to look into Rachel Jenner, he would rather be here than mooching around his father’s farmhouse. He had not yet fully reconciled his differences with Sam but at least they were singing from the same hymn sheet most of the time. He had the feeling that like him, she was beginning to have doubts about Rachel’s guilt, and he knew Sam well enough to know that she would leave no stone unturned.
More importantly, moving to Landshaven distanced him from his morbid thoughts on Becky’s terrible death and its aftermath. He had other things to occupy his mind.
Her call as he was finishing breakfast put an end to his improved frame of mind.
On both sides of the conversation, the tones were curt, not exactly angry or irritated, but business-like, and they degenerated into irritation only when she refused to explain her demand.
Something had obviously happened, and from her words, he gathered that she believed he might be involved. Either that, or Iris Mullins had learned something and decided that it would be better to get him away from Landshaven.
The latter, he thought as he put on a tie, was unlikely. If Iris suspected him of anything, or wanted him out of the way, she would have called personally, and spoken to Sam and Trentham later.
Outside, the day was fresh, the air tingling with the first hint of autumn crispness, but at least the intermittent rain of the previous day had stopped. The overhead cloud was broken and staccato, some of it a dark grey with patches of blue showing through the breaks. He was a summer person, but Becky had always loved the spring and autumn months.
Making his steady way down towards the town centre, mingling with the early morning traffic, he deliberately forced thoughts of Becky to the back of his mind, concentrated on the twin problems of Rachel Jenner and Samantha Feyer.
Without solid evidence, he could do little about the former, and on the face of it, there wasn’t much he could do about Sam. Progress would require a thaw on both sides, and he was still smarting from the way she had (compulsorily) abandoned him back in the spring. Even so, he recognised that the first move towards repairing the damage had to come from him, but be that as it may, it would require a degree of receptiveness on her part, a willingness to accept his overtures that would change the present truce into something approaching friendship.
He walked into the police station a little after half past nine and Sergeant Enright directed him straight to the fifth floor. A couple of minutes later, he knocked on Trentham’s door, and without waiting for an invitation, stepped in.
The chief superintendent had obviously just arrived himself, and was busy with the coffee pot. Sam sat in one of the visitor chairs, scanning her smartphone, and as Drake approached, he realised she was skimming through text messages.
Trentham settled into his seat. “Ah. Good morning, Wesley. Would you like some coffee?”
“Morning, Sam, Neville, and thank you, but no.”
As he took the offered chair, Sam looked up from her phone, and nodded a silent greeting. Putting away the phone, she asked, “Where were you last night?”
“You know where I was. I told you on the phone. I was at my hotel, I was there all night, and before you ask, there is no one who can corroborate that. Now will you tell me what this is about?”
Trentham took control. “I’d like you to watch this video recording, but before you do, I must tell you, it’s violent and potentially distressing.”
Drake said nothing. He merely nodded. Whatever the video contained, it could not be more violent or abhorrent than the sight which greeted him the day he stepped into his house to find his partner murdered.
Trentham turned his TFT monitor so that both Sam and Drake could see it. He picked up the video menu, and double clicked the appropriate thumbnail. As the video began to play, the chief superintendent enlarged the display to full screen.
It was Alex Walston. The video was a close-up showing his full face, and a section of stone wall immediately behind him. There was no way of knowing whether it had been taken during the day or night, but Drake guessed the latter. The wall was (he believed) part of the castle ruins, and this kind of filming would have been impossible during the day when the place was awash with tourists.
Walston had obviously been beaten, but not badly. There were bruises about his cheeks and his eyes were wide, stark with fear, and reflected in the pupils was a brilliant, white light, which confirmed Drake’s suspicion that the video had been filmed at night.
“My name is Alex Walston.”
When he spoke, his voice was trembling, shaky, uncertain, and he had to swallow frequently to continue speaking.
“I… I murdered Bar… Barbara Shawforth four years ago, and planted ev… evidence to implicate Rachel J-Jenner. Barbara was threatening to tell her husband and my… my wife of our affair, and that would have… would have threatened my contracts for main-maintaining Marc Shawforth’s private, business and pol… political websites.”
There was a brief pause while he swallowed to lubricate his vocal chords.
“Rachel… Rachel and I were having an affair, and when questioned by the pol-police, I lied, denied… denied it. During our affair, I secured a k-key for her house, as she was at the police station, being quest… questioned, I entered her house, poured some of Barbara’s bl-blood on a blouse and planted… planted it in Rachel’s wardrobe.”
Tears began dwelling in his eyes, and he looked past the camera lens.
“There. Is… is that good enough for… for you?”
Whoever was behind the camera did not answer. The terror in Walston’s eyes increased.
“NO.”
There came the crack of a pistol. The bullet smashed into his chest, and tore through his heart, leaving behind a growing bloodstain. His head rocked back against the wall. He sat still, eyes wide open, staring, pleading, dead.
Drake looked away. “I’ve seen enough.”
Trentham stopped the video, returned the monitor to its normal position, and sat back in his chair, studying Drake’s white features. “Are you all right, Wesley?”
Drake sucked in a deep breath and made an effort to shut down the mental images forcing themselves upon him. “I’m fine. A glass of water if possible.”
Sam left her seat, crossed to the sideboard, where she poured iced water from a carafe. She returned to her seat and handed the glass to him.
Drake nodded his thanks, and drank. When he felt a little better, he placed the glass on the table between the two chairs, and concentrated on her. “Do you seriously think I had anything to do with that?”
“It was a possibility. You appear to have already decided that Rachel Jenner is innocent, what better way to proving that than to force a confession from Alex Walston?”
He grimaced. “You’re wrong on so many counts. I have not decided that Rachel Jenner is innocent. And how could I get to Alex Walston? I didn’t even know what he looked like
until just now. Finally, do you seriously imagine I can do that to another human being?”
Sam regained her composure. “What kind of an answer do you think I’d get if I asked The Anagramist?”
“Fuck off.”
Drake did not mean to say it. The words were at the front of his mind, and burst out before he could stop them. Trentham was shocked, and Sam’s eyes widened.
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” He drank another mouthful of water, and took a deep breath to calm himself. “Where did you get that video?”
“It was from a memory stick left on my doormat first thing this morning. In an envelope, naturally. No stamp, no address. It had obviously been pushed through the letterbox.”
Drake laughed harshly. “And you think I did it? For Christ’s sake, I don’t know where you live.”
Sam raised her hands and let them fall into her lap. She made no effort to answer his last charge, but went on, “I’ve had the envelope and the memory stick dusted for prints, and both are clean.”
In an effort to suppress his revulsion at the memory of Walston’s demise, Drake took another swallow of water. “Have you found him? Walston, I mean?”
Sam nodded. “I sent Frank and a team up to the castle. If you look carefully at the video, it’s obvious that it happened up there. They found him on the inside of the North wall. He was anchored to the wall. Rope around his neck stopping his head moving too far left or right, hands bound behind his back, feet tied, a single bullet hole in his chest.”
“And your first thought – after me, of course – is Rachel Jenner.”
“She’s in an interview room. We’ve brought her in on suspicion. I’m waiting for Hayley Killeen to turn up so I can question her.” Her voice became more accusing. “Whenever we’ve spoken over the last couple of days, you’ve insisted that the most likely suspect is not Rachel, but Walston. It just seemed to me that—”
Drake cut her off. “That I was confirming the suspicion by forcing him to confess and then blowing him away. Thank you very much for your confidence.” Once again he made an effort to calm down, and then addressed both. “You’re police officers, so you don’t need to me to tell you that his confession is worthless. It was obviously made under duress, and it wouldn’t add a single penny to Rachel’s compensation. But if you think she did it, you’re miles away.”
Trentham, obviously unwilling to leave the talking to Sam, steepled his fingers. Drake found the habit irritating. Why didn’t the man just get on with whatever he had to say?
“She is the logical perpetrator. The Court of Appeal’s decision did not quash her conviction, and she’s eager to ensure that the blame is placed elsewhere. Who else could it be?”
Drake was not impressed. “I can think of several people. John Jenner for one, Hayley Killeen for another.”
“Two people I thought of too,” Sam said. “But Neville disagrees.”
Drake raised his eyebrows at the chief superintendent.
Trentham was adamant. “I’ve known John Jenner for a good number of years. I appreciate his unswerving loyalty to Rachel, his firm belief that she was always innocent, but for all his brash approach, he is a thoroughly honest police officer. He would not resort to murder to ensure his wife’s acquittal. The same can be said of Hayley Killeen. She’s been a thorn in our side for a long time, but she is scrupulously honest.”
Drake would not have it. “Closed minds based on previous experience are no use. Let’s take matters step-by-step. First, suppose Alex Walston really was the guilty party.”
Once more Trentham shook his head. “Impossible. You’ve seen the file, and we saw the video evidence. Walston was seen getting out of his car on the harbour car park at about ten minutes to three. He made his way across the road up to Harbour Passage to the Bellevue. He was seen returning by the same route at about twenty minutes to four. We know for certain that he and Barbara Shawforth had sex, and yet, as the traffic cameras show, he was not covered in blood. If he had battered her to death, there would have been traces on him, and they would have been discernible.”
Drake disagreed. “He gets to the room a couple of minutes to three, he has her reamed by ten past, battered to death by quarter past, takes a quick shower, and he could be out of the room and back at his car by twenty to four. No, I’m sorry, but he had time. If that was not the case, if he really was innocent, then your next likely suspect would indeed be Rachel Jenner. But I don’t think it was her because as I hinted to Sam, I don’t believe Rachel is guilty. But even if she is, killing Walston now doesn’t make any sense. Her conviction has been put aside, she will claim compensation. Why would she do something so stupid?”
“She’s irrational.” Trentham’s opinion was delivered more in hope than conviction.
“Not to me, she isn’t. She made perfect sense when I spoke to her.” Drake got to his feet. “I need some air. Am I permitted to observe the interrogation?”
Trentham and Sam exchanged glances.
“I have no objection as long as Chief Inspector Feyer doesn’t.”
She acquiesced. “No problem. Do you need to speak to her afterwards?”
“No. I asked all the questions of her I needed to. I’ll see you in a little while.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ten minutes later, when she rose to leave Trentham’s office, Sam cast a glance through the windows overlooking the bay, but she was not interested in the wider view. Instead she looked closer to home, at the building’s rear car park.
In an effort to create some kind of refuge from the hurly-burly of day-to-day police work, a bench was installed at the far end; somewhere officers could sit for a few minutes, enjoy a cigarette, take in the splendour of the seafront and the open waters beyond. Drake was there, sat alone, staring out over the North Sea.
A rush of guilt ran through her. She saw his reaction to Walston’s unexpected demise, and she misinterpreted it. She thought it was breakfast threatening to reappear in the face of such cold-blooded violence. Only now did she understand.
She took the lift to the ground floor, and instead of turning left for the front exit, she turned right, made her way out to the car park, and as she exited the building, her mobile rang. Frank Barker.
“Frank?”
“We’re just about finished up here, Sam. It’s down to forensics now.”
“You’re on point. I’m up to my neck in other matters, all of which I have to attend to, but I need you back here for interrogating Jenner, and Killeen is due in by half past ten.”
“Roger, dodger. I’ll be on my way back in ten minutes.”
There was an early, autumnal chill about the air, powered by a fresh onshore breeze. As she made her way across the car park, she shivered. Why hadn’t she called back to the office and collected her coat?
With only a two-bar safety rail beyond it, the bench offered no respite from the incoming weather. Far out to sea, the sun shone through gaps in the cloud, but cast its warmth on the sea not the town.
Drake sat towards one end of the bench, and barely acknowledged her arrival with a sharp, sideways glance, before concentrating once more on the view before them. She realised at once, that whatever he was looking at was not reality, but an internal image.
“Becky?”
He took a moment to respond. “What?”
“I should have realised. The video. It reminded you of Becky, didn’t it?”
“It did.”
There was no emotion in his words. It was a simple statement of fact.
“I’m sorry. It never occurred to me. It should have done.”
“Why? You didn’t see her. You only saw the photographs.” He let out a long sigh. “It was there, in Walston’s eyes. The shock, the disbelief… the pleading. The begging for help. I wasn’t there to help her and I should have been. After the Anagramist missed me, it was the obvious move. I should have anticipated it.”
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but it’s as much use as a chocolate firegu
ard.” Sam moved closer to him. “I was with my father at the hospital on the day he died. Heart condition. He wasn’t expected to live for longer than another day or two. In the end, he lasted only a few hours. His eyes were wide open when he passed away, and I saw him frowning, as if he was asking, ‘what’s happening to me’? For weeks afterwards I asked myself, why wasn’t I there earlier. If I had been, I could have saved him. It’s nonsense of course. Nothing could have saved him. Five years before, he’d refused the surgery which might have extended his life, and by the time he died he was too weak for the operation. I know it’s not quite the same situation as yours, but the principle is the same. We blame ourselves. It’s a natural part of grief. Not something I should have to tell you.”
“Different circumstances. If I had been there, I could have saved her. I could have had him days before you and I finally got him.”
Now Sam sighed. “That’s not true, Wes, and you know it. If you had been there, he wouldn’t have come anywhere near either of you. Instead, he would have murdered someone else. All right, so that might have made it less personal for you, and Becky would still have been alive, but you couldn’t spend the rest of your life manacled to her to ensure her safety. At some time, you would have been separated, going about your individual business, and he would have struck. I’m sorry to be so brutal, but that is the simple truth. The moment he missed you, Becky became a target, and he would have caught up with her eventually.”
Sam half turned, reached out and took his hand.
“I understand most of what you’re going through, and it’s a pity I wasn’t there to help for longer. It’s time to put this silly feud behind us. I’m willing to do whatever I can while you’re here to help you. It may not be much, but it’s all I have to offer.”
He squeezed the hand. “Perhaps that’s more than I deserve.”
“How long have you been like this?”
“Ever since the afternoon she died. Like your father, it doesn’t go away. It’ll stay with me for the rest of my life.” He concentrated closely on her bare arms. “You’re cold.” He removed his jacket and handed it to her.
The Frame - from the author of the Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) series (A Feyer and Drake Mystery Book 2) Page 14