MURDER IS SKIN DEEP

by M. G. Cole

  “And your friend, Jenny…” he made a pretence as forgetting her surname.

  “Laverty.”

  “You took her directly to the train station.” Rebecca nodded. “Only Eurostar have no passengers registered by that name.”

  Rebecca didn’t flinch. “She must have used her maiden name on her passport.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “I’ve only known her by her married name.”

  “Interesting. And how does using her maiden name affect her first name? Y’see, there was only one Jenny, or Jen or Jennifer, registered as a passenger all day. I’m as surprised as you. It is quite a common name. And that Jenny went to Disneyland with her husband and two children.”

  Garrick loved how thorough Fanta had been in drilling down into the details. She even knew which hotel they were staying at. And she had gone further.

  “And CCTV doesn’t show you dropping her off at the station.” He spread his hands. “I’m confused.”

  To her credit, Rebecca’s smirk only slightly drifted into mild irritation. “I didn’t drop her at the station. I dropped her near the Outlet centre. She wanted to pick up a few things before she left.”

  The Designer Outlet was an elliptical complex of about seventy stores, selling mostly out of season fashions at low prices. From a distance, the rooftop looked like a line of tents and always put Garrick in mind of an enormous circus. It was a popular destination for tourists and local bargain hunters alike.

  “I see. Shopping?” He waited for Rebecca to confirm with a single nod. “Carrying those two big holdalls filled with her belongings?”

  “If she was smart, she would have put them in storage.”

  “So, after saying goodbye, she went shopping, then failed to get on the train. A train which she didn’t have a ticket for?”

  “I’m not her mother. Maybe she had a change of heart. Maybe she lied to me.” She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table. “What else can I tell you? She was in a relationship she wanted to get out of. I never met him, and I don’t know his name.” She shrugged, end of story.

  Garrick was impressed she was keeping her cool.

  “Maybe. Lies have a way of tripping people up.” He let her fidget in silence, then toyed with the mug of matcha tea he had brought with him. “Humour me. You had no visitors at the house.”

  Forensics reported a few indicators of other people, but as a rental that was to be expected. They had jokingly commented that it should get an extra star on its TripAdvisor rating, because it had been so thoroughly cleaned. But one thing hadn’t been.

  “There were two cups in the sink.”

  Garrick paused. Rebecca’s lips parted, but then she had second thoughts on whatever she had been about to say.

  “One had lipstick marks that match you. The other had normal lip marks, but it wasn’t you. Who was it?”

  Rebecca folded her arms. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  It was a woman, that much he knew. Otherwise they were drawing a blank on anybody with a previous criminal record.

  “I think it’s your non-existent guest.”

  “That cup was dirty when I found it in the cupboard. In fact, there were several plates and a knife that hadn’t been washed properly. I was livid. When you rent accommodation at that standard, you expect it to be hygienic.”

  The smirk had returned. Garrick knew she was lying. With the obsessive level of cleanliness they had found, he doubted a few dirty cups would have survived unnoticed. Finally, he passed her a photograph of the Colt pistol.

  “Does this look familiar? It’s old I know, but…”

  She gave it a cursory glance. “Why should it? I hate guns.” After a pause she added, “How long do you expect me to be in here? My flight home leaves tomorrow.”

  Garrick didn’t dignify her with an answer. Something had just occurred to him.

  “Cast your mind back to your argument with Mr Kline-Watson.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. “I have told you all I remember. I wanted to find Hoy. I wanted to screw my ex-husband over. And if there was a law against that, then you would be arresting over half the women in the country.”

  “Did you know what Mark Kline-Watson did before opening his gallery in Rye?”

  Rebecca licked her lips. He hesitated, unsure where he was going. “No.”

  Garrick flashed a shark-like smile. “I do.”

  He had told Chib to drop everything and drive him into London. He had explained little and spent most of the journey silently piecing together strands of information. They arrived in Camden, and Chib again found a free parking space where she could charge the car. She caught Garrick’s look.

  “You’re seriously tempted to get one of these, aren’t you, sir?”

  “What? And join the twenty-first century driving a yogurt pot on wheels? Perish the thought.”

  They rang Terri Cordy’s doorbell, but she didn’t answer, so they found a window seat in a Starbucks across from the street and waited. Chib ordered a large mocha, while Garrick was content with a small green tea and a blueberry muffin that was far too big to be healthy. He outlined his thinking.

  “I can’t persuade Fraser to reveal Hoy’s identity. He still hasn’t returned the questions I gave him, and they’ve seen one another recently. Rebecca told me she thinks they met while he was seeing Terri. Terri put Fraser in touch with Mark Kline-Watson. They the two most lively to have met Hoy.”

  “But he didn’t know Hoy’s identity.”

  “That’s what he told Rebecca. Let’s face it, why would he give anything away when she came charging in? Fraser told me Mark was demanding a bigger percentage, and he had big business debts.”

  “Fraser refused to budge.”

  “I don’t blame him. But it also means Mark K-W really didn’t know Hoy or he would have gone to him directly.”

  “Only Fraser knows.”

  Garrick pointed at Terri’s flat above the betting shop. “So does she, whether or not she is conscious of it. If Mark didn’t get them together, then Rebecca is right, and she did. We just need to jog her memory.”

  It was fifty minutes later, and after another coffee for Chib, when Terri returned to her apartment, carrying her baby in a papoose. They gave her five minutes so she could settle the child down before they crossed the street and rang the bell.

  Terri was not pleased to see them, and it took Garrick two attempts to persuade her to let them inside.

  “I’ve only just got Ethan to sleep,” she said, ushering them to the sofa.

  Garrick glanced around, noticing most of the baby’s belongings were now packed in cardboard boxes. A MacBook Pro laptop was open on the coffee table. She quickly closed the screen.

  “We want to talk to you about Mark Kline-Watson.” Terri’s eyes darted around the room before she bobbed her head. “You remember him?”

  “Of course,” she sighed. “He ran a second-hand shop in Islington. He focused on artwork that came from people wanting to get rid of it. He occasionally displayed work from new artists too, but to be honest, the shop was a bit of a dive. More a collection of bric-a-brac.”

  “Can you describe your relationship?”

  “I was studying art. He was selling it. Sort of. I noticed a few new paintings that I thought were quite good, so we got talking and became friends.”

  “Do you remember any names of those artists?” Terri shook her head. “And you two were just casual friends?”

  Terri self-consciously combed a strand of hair around her ear and looked offended.

  “Do you mean was I shagging him?” she snapped.

  Garrick shrugged. “I merely want to establish how it was between you.”

  Her tone was suddenly cold. “We were friends. Did Derek put you up to this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She stood and paced the room. “From the moment I introduced them, Derek accused us of having an affair. No, not ‘us’, just me. He
wouldn’t say anything to Mark’s face. Oh, no. He didn’t want to upset him. But upsetting me was fine.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Because he’s a control freak! Derek Fraser has always been a manipulative bastard, but I didn’t see that until I got pregnant. Then he started asking if it was Mark’s.”

  Garrick tried to reconcile Fraser’s claims that he had given Mark a slightly bigger percentage to help him out, to Terri’s accusations that he once thought Mark had been sleeping with her behind his back.

  “Forgive me for asking, but Mark isn’t the father.”

  “I never slept with him!” she said, staring out of the window, visibly upset.

  With a single look, Chib berated Garrick for his heavy-handed approach. He scratched his nose, feeling embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry to have asked, but we need everything to be clear.” He silently mouthed to Chib to continue the interview, then he stood. “May I use your bathroom?”

  She didn’t look at him. “Down the hall on the left.”

  Garrick walked past the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, through which he could see a cot and a couple of cardboard packing boxes inside. He found the shabby bathroom and relieved himself. He could hear Chib and Terri quietly talking in the living room. From the sound of it, Terri seemed much more at ease talking to her. Garrick regretted his direct questions. He hadn’t meant to upset her, and it was an unwelcome reminder that the newer generation of cops were a much more tactile understanding breed. He’d always been critical of the emotionless policing of the eighties and nineties, now he was finding himself falling foul of similar criticisms. Maybe each generation of officers was becoming more understanding and gentler. He chuckled to himself. God help the ones coming in after Chib. They’d probably be so soft they’d want to hold counselling sessions with their suspects, just to make sure they didn’t upset a murderer’s feelings.

  He zipped up his fly and flushed the toilet. Squirting the last dregs of soap from a plastic dispenser, he quickly washed his hands… then he noticed something draped over the radiator.

  “Bloody hell…”

  He took a quick photograph of it before hurrying back to join the women. He paused in the hallway to read a message from Fanta. She had details on Mark Kline-Watson’s old shop in Islington. He glanced into the bedroom next to him as he heard the baby gurgle. He nudged the door a little wider until he could see movement in the cot. The lad was sleeping and gently rocking his legs back and forth. Garrick wasn’t one to fawn over babies, but it made him chuckle.

  Now he could see the packing boxes in the room were filled with clothes that had been hastily thrown in without care. He spotted a black holdall bag in the corner. Just like the ones he had seen Rebecca Ellis put into her car. They were common enough, but the coincidence rankled him.

  It brought with it questions he hadn’t considered. Had Rebecca and Terri seen one another recently? Fraser’s affair with Terri was the reason for their divorce, so why would they? Was there some truth in Rebecca’s statement about trying to help a friend leave her partner? Terri was clearly packing in a hurry and had been dismayed to see the police on her doorstep; then again, most people were. But if that was the case, why had Rebecca lied about her friend’s identity?

  He had a theory about that. One he was eager to share with Chib.

  Garrick casually strode into the living room as Terri was reiterating how hard it was being a single parent.

  “Well, thank you for your time, Terri. But please call us if you remember anything else about Mr Kline-Watson.”

  “I’m sure I won’t.”

  He tapped the top of a packing box. “Leaving soon?”

  “As fast as possible out of this dive.”

  “Moving in with a boyfriend?”

  She shot him a black look. “I don’t have one. Unless you consider that med student who won’t leave me alone. I don’t want him following me.”

  “Who is he?” asked Chib.

  Terri shook her head. “A bloke from Canterbury. One of a string of bad mistakes.” She cast a finger across the boxes. “That’s all going into storage.” She stopped herself from elaborating. “Then Ethan and I will find somewhere better than here. Anywhere, really.”

  They left Terri just as the baby woke and began to cry. It wasn’t until they were several yards away that Chib spoke up.

  “That was a brand-new laptop.”

  “I noticed. She was a little hostile over Mark K-W, I thought.”

  “You were a bit… clumsy, sir. Sorry.”

  Garrick waved a finger at her. “Don’t you ever apologise for telling me your thoughts, Chib. Especially when you’re right. Still, I’m not the dinosaur you think I am.”

  “I didn’t mean–”

  “Fanta discovered more about K-W’s business in Islington. It’s a Wine Bar now. But she found an archived website with some of the bric-a-crap he was selling. Artwork, furniture, a few antique odds and ends.” She had sent the weblink from the Wayback Machine, an online archive that attempted to capture the history of the internet by making snapshots of the ever-changing websites. They reach her car and as she unplugged it, he held up his phone so she could see. “It seems the people of Islington had more taste than he did. He barely sold anything. But amongst the junk is something interesting. He sold antique firearms.”

  By law, old weapons had to be made safe before they could be sold on to the public. The modern methods employed rendered the weapons so useless that it would be easier building a gun from scratch than repairing it. However, the Colt had been deactivated before the laws were tightened. Deactivation was achieved by drilling out the barrel and blocking it with a pin. It took a lot of effort to reactivate it, but it had the advantage of making the weapon almost untraceable.

  He held the screen closer so Chib could see the image he had selected. It was a familiar-looking Colt pistol.

  “Oh, wow. Could it be the same one?”

  “They’re trying to find that out. But what are the odds? What forensics can confirm is that the Colt we found had been deactivated around the same time. I’m betting it was the same weapon.”

  “So the odds mean Oscar Benjamin and Mark knew one another.”

  “Fraser and Rebecca connect them. They moved in the same circles, so it would be improbable that they’d never met. What if Mark was so desperate to pay off his debts when he was offered money for some untraceable weapons that he may have lying around?”

  They leaned on the Nissan’s roof as they rallied the possibilities back and forth.

  Chib nodded, seeing a plethora of connections opening. “If Rebecca knew what Oscar was planning, then it makes sense she would go to Mark if she was desperate to find him. She had no interest in finding out who Hoy is. That’s just a smoke screen.”

  Garrick held up a cautionary finger. “Perhaps that was the case, but this whole Hoy fever has whipped up from nowhere. Prior to the body in Fraser’s living room, the world didn’t care.”

  Chib ruminated on that. They opened the car doors and sat inside. The display panels silently came to life, and Chib set the satnav for the police station.

  “Did you see what was on her laptop screen?” he asked.

  “No. She was rather keen to close it.”

  “It was a passport application.”

  Chib was surprised. “That’s what she means by wanting to leave.”

  “And,” he jerked a thumb at himself, “this old Detective Rex may have figured out the question everybody is asking?” He flicked through the images on his phone and showed it to Chib.

  “Why are you showing me a naff bathroom? If you’re asking me to help with your DIY…”

  “It’s not my bathroom. It’s Terri’s. Look.”

  She stared and zoomed in on the damp towel draped across the radiator. Then she gasped. It was stained with multicoloured paint that had faded when it was washed and left to dry.

  Garrick couldn’t stop smiling. “How much doe
s it change things if we have uncovered the identity of our phantom artist?”

  23

  “We have to release Rebecca Ellis tomorrow morning,” Drury growled over the phone. “And by the afternoon, I imagine she’ll be holding a press conference to turn this entire investigation against us.”

  “Maybe it would be better if we release her now, ma’am,” said Chib into her car’s hands-free.

  Drury was in a tetchy mood. Garrick had learned to deal with it over the years, so he winced when Chib spoke up. She still had a lot to learn.

  “How the hell does that help?” snapped Drury.

  “She could lead us to Oscar Benjamin.”

  “If that was the case, she would have done that already. I’ve seen her type before. If you pepper the lies with enough truth, it becomes almost impossible to tell which is which. I don’t trust her. As soon as she’s out, she’ll be on a flight home, and my money is Benjamin is already out of the country.”

  Garrick had been mulling over similar thoughts. These days, dealing with European police forces was more cumbersome that it had been, but that was down to paperwork. The flesh and blood officers at both ends were still keen to help one another. Still, it would protract the case.

  He finished the call as quickly as he could. Chib looked sullen. “Don’t let her get under your skin. She’s a dragon. But there are plenty of times it’s handy to have a dragon watching your back.”

  “She hates my ideas.”

  “She’s probably peeved that she didn’t think of them herself. You know better than me what it’s like being a woman on the force. Let’s face it, she didn’t get there by being a team player. She got there through sheer bloody-mindedness. I’m under no illusion that this is the height of my career, no matter how bloody-minded I am.”

  I’m probably past that, he thought miserably. Leaving Camden riding high and feeling they had made some important links, his mood had crashed back to earth when he listened to a voicemail from Dr Rajasekar, confirming that a slot for his next MRI scan was available straight away. He deleted the message and felt nervous at the prospect, remembering his therapist’s comment that ignorance is bliss. When had she said? Tomorrow? He made a quick note on his calendar. The message had made him feel drained. Drury’s rant had merely stripped the icing from his cake.