by Faith Martin
Besides, everyone who had spoken of Mia had said they found her odd, so perhaps she hadn’t changed so much after all.
‘You told DI Weston that you were in your flat all that day when Michael died, working on some notes?’ she said mildly.
‘Yes. I was working on my first book.’
‘Was it published?’
‘Yes.’ Again there was no sense of satisfaction, no hint of pride or joy in her achievement. Simply a bare statement of fact.
‘And nobody saw you at home that day?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t speak to anyone? A neighbour? A friend?’
‘No. I was working. I like it quiet when I work.’
Again, her hazel eyes moved beyond Hillary, fastening onto something, but this time Hillary was wise to this and didn’t turn around to see what it was. If there was a rare marsh tit or a hare doing cartwheels behind her or dancing a can-can, then so be it.
‘You must have been devastated when you found out that Michael was dead,’ she said, somewhat brutally, but wasn’t in the least surprised when Mia de Salle only said calmly, ‘Yes.’
All right, Hillary thought. Time to change the direction of attack.
‘It’s been ten years now. Do you have a current partner?’
At this, Mia turned her hazel gaze back to Hillary. And did she hesitate — just a fraction — before answering? Hillary wasn’t sure.
‘There’s another man in my life, yes.’
‘Do you mind telling me who?’
‘I can’t see how that can have anything to do with Michael’s case,’ she said, not unreasonably, but for the first time actually challenging her and showing at least some spark of animation.
It was about time, Hillary thought grimly.
‘Do you know anyone who had any reason to hurt Michael?’ she shot out. Well, you never knew, Hillary told herself. Sometimes a wild card could turn up trumps.
‘I have no idea why Michael’s dead,’ Mia de Salle said flatly. Which was, Hillary thought, a slightly odd way of putting it.
But even though she asked more and more questions, try as she might, Hillary couldn’t get the woman to offer any personal insights into either the dead man, or who might have killed him, or why.
‘Bloody hell, guv,’ Claire gulped later, as they were walking away. ‘I’ve got goosebumps all over.’
‘You think she’s our killer then?’ Hillary asked, lips twitching slightly.
‘I think she’s definitely got enough bats in her belfry,’ Claire said vehemently. ‘A whole bloody colony of them, in fact!’
Privately Hillary agreed with her. But all she said, mildly, was, ‘Since she’s a zoologist, do you suppose they’re a rare and endangered species?’
At this, Claire couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Early the next morning, Jason Morley looked about him cautiously before slipping around the corner and walking down a short alleyway. He wasn’t often in this part of the city, and although a ‘friend of a friend’ had given him good directions, even so, he felt unsure and a little uneasy.
He’d be glad when he’d done what he needed to do and got back to his place. It was odd, for although he’d been in foreign parts, where men with guns and booby-traps had definitely been trying to kill him, he felt more alone and vulnerable now than he had then.
Perhaps that was because in the army he’d never been alone, but had his mates to watch his back. Or perhaps because, in the army, his actions had been sanctioned. Right or wrong, he felt happy about what he was doing. Whereas now, he was uncomfortably aware that he was about to break the law. And if he was caught, he, and more importantly his family, would suffer the shame of him being branded a criminal.
For a moment, Jason had to bite back a grim but genuine guffaw of laughter. Wouldn’t it be a laugh if it was his old mate Gareth who arrested him? Of course, he knew it couldn’t possibly work out that way. Gareth wasn’t a proper copper, but only a civilian working for them. Still, Jason found the thought of it rather amusing.
After a few moments the good humour left him as abruptly as it had come, and the usual pall of dull despair seeped back. He straightened up, looked around and, as his instructions had assured him, saw the ‘pea-green’ paint of a back door. It was, he’d been told, the back door to a betting shop.
He gave a mental nod of recognition then glanced at his watch and waited patiently until it was exactly a quarter past seven. He then tapped on the back door three times, waited and — feeling a bit foolish and rather like some character from a cheesy spy film — tapped three times again.
The door opened at once and a surprisingly short man, barely five feet tall, looked him up and down from the doorway. He was perhaps Jason’s own age, with short brown hair and eyes of almost exactly the same colour, set in a surprisingly nondescript but friendly face.
He wasn’t what Jason had been expecting somehow.
‘Yeah?’ he asked casually. He was wearing denim jeans and a grey sweatshirt bearing a logo of some long-ago pop band, now faded into obscurity.
‘I’m Jimbo’s mate,’ Jason said.
‘Huh. And how is Jimbo?’
‘As annoying as ever,’ Jason said with a slight twist to his lips. ‘Still whinging, and still always on the cadge.’
The man in the doorway gave a brief smile, acknowledging the truth of this assessment, then glanced quickly up and down the deserted alleyway, before stepping back. ‘Come on in then.’
Jason, with just a slightly elevated heart rate, stepped into a small, somewhat smelly kitchen. With lime-green linoleum on the floor, standalone stove and units, and tiny lemon Formica worktops, it looked as if it belonged in a 1970s sitcom.
‘So, what you after?’ the other man said cagily.
‘Handgun.’
Jason saw the other man’s eyes narrow slightly, and felt the brown eyes quickly run over him. Was he afraid he was wearing a wire? What was he supposed to do, Jason wondered. Strip off? Again, Jason felt slightly ridiculous. And although his heart rate was still operating a little above normal — after all, he was in unknown territory — he wasn’t feeling particularly scared.
Apart from anything else, he knew he could take on this pipsqueak with no trouble, if he started to cut up rough. He’d also been careful to keep the door behind him, so if sudden reinforcements appeared he had his exit ready and could always just leg it.
Besides, he had a knife up his sleeve. He wasn’t that stupid. He was carrying a nice tidy sum of cash on him and, although he trusted the ‘friend of a friend’, in this day and age you never knew what scammers were out and about.
‘Seen enough?’ Jason asked sourly. ‘You got something for me, or what?’
The other man seemed to suddenly make his mind up that he was OK, and grunted. He then walked over to the sink and opened the cutlery drawer. From it, he brought out a small, old black revolver.
Jason automatically tensed, but the man was already opening it, to reveal that it wasn’t loaded.
‘That thing belongs in a museum,’ Jason grumbled in disgust.
The other man shrugged. ‘It still works, that’s the point. And it’s clean.’
Jason’s lips twisted. By ‘clean’ he supposed that his companion meant that it hadn’t been used on any ‘job’ and so wasn’t of interest to the police, because it was certainly in dire need of some maintenance. And actual cleaning.
‘You were told the price, yeah?’
Jason nodded and patted his back pocket reassuringly. ‘Bullets are extra I take it?’
The other man smiled. ‘Naturally. You want some brushes and gun oil?’
Jason sighed heavily. ‘Extra, no doubt.’
‘Don’t grow on trees, do they?’
Jason suspected he was probably being ripped off. But what did it really matter, in the circumstances? ‘Fine.’
With mutual caution on both sides, money and gun were exchanged, and a few minutes later
Jason was walking quickly back down the alley, carefully checking that nobody followed him from the shop.
Nobody did.
The business had been simple and easy after all, with no complications. Just as he liked it. The right-hand pocket of his windbreaker now weighed down more heavily than his left. But who was there to see? Or care?
He caught the next bus back to Bicester, and sat morosely watching the morning rush-hour traffic streaming past him. At least going from the city and back into the suburbs, the bus was going against the flow.
He was feeling just slightly guilty and ashamed of himself. But not enough to change his course.
It was a pity about Gareth though, Jason thought wearily. But that was life, wasn’t it? And of all people, Gareth Proctor was well aware of just how shitty and unfair life could be.
* * *
Three months ago
Superintendent Ross Trenchard looked up as DI Robin Farrell knocked on his door and walked in. He looked wary, as well he might, the superintendent thought. But what he had to say surely wouldn’t come as much of a surprise to the DI.
‘All right, Robin?’
‘Sir,’ Farrell said smartly.
‘Sit down then, you’re making the place look untidy,’ the superintendent said tersely. Since he didn’t have either the time or the inclination to soft-soap things for his officers, he got straight to the point. ‘The Newley and Kirklees cases,’ he began, checking the paperwork in front of them. ‘We’re going to have to power them down, Robin.’
He saw the younger man flush resentfully and immediately open his mouth to argue his case. The superintendent expected nothing less, of course, since nobody liked to fail in any murder case, let alone a double murder. For a start, it didn’t look good on the CV, but, to be fair, most officers cared more about getting results for friends and family than in boosting their own status.
And he’d think much less of his DI if he simply shrugged and let it slide without fighting his corner. Nevertheless, before the younger man could say a word, he lifted a hand and cut him short. ‘You can’t really be surprised, Robin. It’s been three months, and let’s face it, you have very little to go on, and during the last week, hardly any progress has been made.’
‘Sir, I . . .’
‘I’m not taking a swipe at you; I know how bloody difficult this case has been. I also know that nobody’s talking. You’ve got no witnesses to either crime — or at least, none that are willing to come forward. Forensics at either site have very little to go on — just a footprint cast of a size ten sneaker, of a brand that sells by the millions, in the front garden at the Kirklees crime scene. But no DNA, no fingerprints, no fibres worth their salt. You’ve been hitting dead-ends everywhere you turn — sometimes you just don’t get the breaks. We’ve all been there, so don’t take it personally.’
‘Sir, we know—’
‘No CCTV footage worth a damn — only a list as long as the M1 of cars that were seen in the area of either murder site. And you’ve not managed to link any of the car owners to either victim,’ he swept on, giving his junior officer no chance to rally.
‘But we know it’s Spence, sir,’ Robin finally managed to cut in his superintendent’s catalogue of woes, his voice tight with frustration and indignation. ‘It has to be.’
At this, his superior officer smiled grimly. ‘I know how you feel, Robin,’ he said, sitting back a little in his chair and regarding his DI with a not unkindly eye. ‘And you may well be right, at that,’ he conceded.
‘I am right, sir,’ Robin insisted stubbornly.
At this, the superintendent sighed. ‘You don’t think you might be getting a case of tunnel vision on this case, do you, Robin?’ he asked lightly. He’d seen it before, of course. The SIO becoming so convinced that he had the answer that he pursued that one idea to the exclusion of all else.
He didn’t really think that was the case here though, to be fair. In fact, he’d always agreed that Robin Farrell’s contention that Larry Spence was behind the killings was probably the right one. But it didn’t hurt to make sure.
‘No, sir,’ Robin said, through slightly gritted teeth. ‘We’ve followed up all possible leads and followed them wherever they might have taken us, and kept our initial investigations deliberately broad, as you know. But we couldn’t find any personal reasons for either attack. Newley’s family were all genuinely cut up about his death. His wife was in pieces. Even his neighbours, who all thought he ran a genuine antiques shop, had nothing but good words to say about the little scrote. We could find no whiff of anyone with a private or personal grudge against him anywhere. And he had no form for violence, so it was unlikely that he got rough with some “customer” with attitude. And as for Kirklees, we had almost the exact opposite problem with him. He was an only child and both his parents are deceased. No wife, no kids. He’s a loner with no real friends, who came here from the Smoke and didn’t exactly surround himself with buddies. The cautious sod never got close enough to anyone to give them a personal motive to kill him. He didn’t even have a regular girlfriend, since he preferred the company of prostitutes, so there’s not even the chance of a woman scorned in the picture anywhere. Only Spence makes sense in both cases.’
He paused for breath, giving his superintendent the opportunity to hold up his hands again. ‘OK, Robin, OK. I’m not saying I disagree with the direction you’ve taken, but it’s not producing any results, is it?’
At this mild — but damnably true — criticism, Robin sighed heavily. ‘That’s no big surprise though, sir, is it, with all due respect,’ he said bitterly. ‘No one’s going to grass on Spence, are they? They know they’d end up floating face down in the Cherwell if they did.’
Trenchard snorted in agreement. This was true enough.
Over a year ago now, the city’s main criminal kingpin had been put away due to the late Chief-Superintendent Steven Crayle’s diligent investigation, creating a vacuum at the top. A vacuum that Larry Spence had been only too happy and quick to fill.
Born and bred on home turf, Spence had begun by taking over the pitiful remnants of the old empire and sucking them into the burgeoning bosom of his own. He’d then set about systematically ‘acquiring’ other gangs, each with their various and specific criminal areas of expertise, until now he could be found behind most — if not all — of the city’s nefarious activities.
‘Oh yes, I agree that Spence has to be our prime suspect,’ he concurred heavily.
‘He hated Kirklees like poison, we’ve got plenty of anecdotal evidence of that,’ Robin said eagerly. ‘Kirklees coming up from London and muscling in on his territory really ticked him off. Hit him where it hurt, in his pride. He’s been threatening to do something about him for some time. And it fits with his way of doing things too. Nobble the head of whatever gang he’s after in no uncertain terms, which puts the wind up the rest of ’em, bringing them nicely in line. And since Kirklees kicked the bucket, guess who’s taken over his particular line of business?’
‘Yes, yes, Spence,’ Trenchard admitted testily. ‘But does Newley really fit the pattern?’ the superintendent put in. ‘Newley was strictly a one-man band, with a poxy shop, doing some small-time fencing. Hardly a jewel in anyone’s crown, was he?’
‘True enough, but Spence has taken over Newley’s shop too. We got confirmation of that a couple of weeks ago,’ Robin said stubbornly. ‘His widow was “persuaded” to sell to one of his lieutenants at a very reasonable price, poor cow.’
‘Even so, why didn’t Spence simply lean on him?’ the superintendent pointed out. ‘Newley was an old man, and a realist. If Spence really had been interested in hoovering up even the smallest of small fry, he knew that all he had to do was make it clear which way the wind was blowing, and Newley would have been scared stiff! He’d have had enough sense to sell out low and take up an allotment in his retirement. He’d never have had the balls to stand up to someone like Spence, and Spence knew it. Why do something so drastic as killi
ng him? It was bound to bring unwanted attention on him, and not even Spence goes around willy-nilly, knocking off people unnecessarily.’
Even though he knew his superior officer had a point — and it wasn’t one that he hadn’t also considered himself — Robin was still convinced he’d called this one right.
‘Perhaps Spence told one of his goons to lean on the old man, and it got out of hand?’ he proffered sullenly.
The superintendent still wasn’t convinced. ‘But the MO for both Newley and Kirklees doesn’t exactly shout “enforcer”, does it? Why the taser, for instance? That smacks of someone who needed it to incapacitate his victim first. But Spence could have sent in half a dozen heavies at a time, and they could have overwhelmed their victim in a flash. Especially an old guy like Newley. And let’s not forget, blows to the head with an as-yet-unidentified object killed both men. Hasn’t Spence’s known preference for dispatch always been a long, sharp knife? Administered either in the back, or straight through the heart from the front?’
Robin shifted in his chair. ‘Perhaps that’s just the point, sir? Spence wanted to mix it up a bit this time in order to divert suspicion?’ he argued stubbornly. ‘Or maybe he’s just got a new man in his heavy squad who likes to bash people over the head? All these thugs have their own favourite ways of going about things.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not. We can discuss the ins and outs all day, Robin, but it doesn’t change the facts,’ Trenchard said firmly. ‘It’s been three months now, and I’m afraid the investigation is getting bogged down. You’ve got no new leads, and the case is in a rut. I’m sorry, but as you know, we simply can’t afford to keep it running at the level it is. We don’t have the officers, and we sure as hell don’t have the budget. Oh, I’m not saying shelve it altogether,’ he added, as once more the DI looked about to argue. ‘Just put it on the backburner. I’ve been getting pressure from above for a while now to cut back on it. You know what it’s like.’
He felt guilty having to pull the rug from under his junior officer, but Farrell would just have to learn to live with it. As did they all.