Songbird

by Peter Grainger

  ‘Can I ask why you want to know that?’

  Reeve had a practised and professional smile when required.

  ‘It’s of no importance, Barry. I’m sure they were close but they’re quite different characters, aren’t they? Sometimes it helps us if we understand the relationships of people who’ve been taken from us in such a cruel way.’

  He said, ‘Michaela’s a steady sort, Michelle is, well, not so much. They’d have words but I don’t think they ever really argued. I never saw that. Michaela speaks her mind but she used to calm things down, if anything. Michelle can be a bit up and down, and you don’t always find out why. She’s not one for sitting down and talking things over with a cup of tea…’

  He looked down at the empty mugs and asked whether they’d like another one. It felt almost unkind to refuse but Reeve did so, saying they’d go into the town and call at the salon where Michelle had worked. Was there anyone in particular they should speak to about Michelle?

  Barry Simms said, ‘Well, Gavin, he was her deputy manager. I expect he’ll be cut up about all this…’

  Serena kept her eyes fixed firmly on the front door as Simms saw them out of the house. She missed Smith as much as anyone but just occasionally there were times when you were grateful he wasn’t here. Gavin the hairdresser and deputy manager of Vicky’s salon would be feeling cut up about all this… Dear God, what would he have said to that?

  This time the car was so hot they had to stand outside it for a while. Reeve found a tissue in her bag and wiped her face, and Serena asked if she’d rather be a passenger and let her detective constable take the wheel. Alison Reeve agreed and handed over the keys, the first time she had ever done so.

  Biscot Road was baking in the sunshine, like the rest of the country. It had been relentless for two months now, and during the middle of the day, streets were often empty of people, like this one now. There were no trees to offer green shade, and there was no prospect of a cloud in the sky, which was an odd colour, more brassy than blue. Alison Reeve took a last, still slightly puzzled look at number seventy-three, and then said, ‘They say that in another fifty years the Mediterranean will be uninhabitable.’

  Once inside, Serena made ready to start the Audi, thinking that this was nice compared to her ageing Astra. Reeve said, ‘Why the question about children?’

  ‘Just making conversation, ma’am?’

  ‘No, you weren’t. That won’t do.’

  Serena turned the key and the engine started first time – the Astra disliked hot-starting. Probably the immobiliser beginning to fail, the mechanic had said, that’ll be about £250 plus VAT…

  She said, ‘In the magazines on the bedside table there was a brochure for an IVF clinic. The private sort, not the NHS.’

  Reeve looked duly surprised.

  ‘Oh, right… She wasn’t, obviously. That’s not something Robinson would have missed.’ But she still paused there and waited for Serena to respond.

  ‘No, he didn’t miss it. It’s an automatic test for all females. She wasn’t.’

  ‘And Barry Simms never mentioned it, even though you gave him the opportunity. He sounded like if they ever intended to, they’d stopped trying years ago. That’s a bit odd, then.’

  The air conditioning had kicked in now, and it worked really well. Serena turned one of the vents so it blew up into her face.

  Reeve said, ‘Do you want to know something else a bit odd? Michelle and I were the same age.’

  ‘With respect, ma’am, that isn’t very odd. You and about four hundred thousand other women I’d say, and that’s just in the UK. In the whole world, prob-’

  ‘I hadn’t finished. We also share the same birthday.’

  Serena looked at her boss then, catching her unawares and seeing something fleeting on the edge of her expression, before it disappeared – something apprehensive, maybe even afraid. Then the professional woman was talking again, making light of it.

  ‘It’s true, the sixteenth of June. My dad always used to complain because he couldn’t go fishing on the first day of the season! I don’t think he meant it.’

  One could see how that might feel a bit strange, though. A woman of the same age who shared your birthday, who was another career woman, at least according to her husband, and now you were investigating her murder. Add to that late thirties, the ticking clock and so on, plus what Reeve had told her in the office a couple of days ago, and it was no wonder Reeve looked a little unnerved just for a second or two.

  ‘Anyway, detective constable, if you sit there for much longer, we’re both going to need our hair cutting by the time we arrive at this salon. Let’s go and meet Gavin. Did you notice what Barry Simms said about him?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I couldn’t.’

  She pulled away, noticing that the outside temperature was showing as 33C. Reeve turned up the air conditioning a couple of notches, and said, ‘And do you know what tomorrow is?’

  Serena thought, God, not another hugely important, coincidental personal anniversary in your lives – I’m not sure I can take another one, ma’am.

  Reeve went on, ‘Tomorrow is the seventh day. It’s alright, I’ve not become an Adventist. If Michelle Simms was killed last Thursday night, tomorrow is seven days. One week.’

  Murder cases have their own chronologies of significance. The first is twenty-four hours. Certain kinds of evidence are evanescent and disappear within that time frame, but sometimes an arrest can be made within it – if it can, almost invariably such an arrest results in a successful conviction.

  The next invisible marker is one week. Again, if an arrest is made before that expires, it often proves to be a good one. You won’t usually have forensics back by then, which means the arrest was made on other grounds – you have an eyewitness, CCTV footage which the suspect cannot explain or even a confession that sounds genuine. In the case of Michelle Simms, none of the above were now likely to apply.

  After the week has expired, everyone realises they are in for the longer haul. Lab-work and forensics take on a greater significance, and the detectives are going to be spending a lot more time at their screens, working through lists of every description. The process of elimination has begun in earnest.

  Serena said, ‘Maybe DI Terek and Chris Waters came up with something this morning, ma’am.’

  ‘Donnelly? No, they don’t think so. That was the message I got at Barry Simms’. There’s another witness to check out concerning his movements but they haven’t flagged him up. They’re on the way back to Lake now.’

  Serena glanced at the satnav and made a right turn – they should be at the salon in another ten minutes or so. Reeve checked her phone again and then said, ‘So if I go all quiet on you, it’s nothing personal. I’ll be thinking about tomorrow morning’s briefing.’

  Serena said, ‘I think today had been useful, though. You know what he used to say – “To catch your killer, study the victim.” We’ve learned a lot about Michelle Simms today.’

  But Reeve had already fallen silent.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Good morning, detective sergeant.’

  ‘Good morning, detective constable.’

  The incident room had been filling up for the past few minutes, with more than twenty officers now present, but there was still an empty seat next to Waters, and Serena took it. She was wearing jeans with fashionable holes in the knees, and a yellow T shirt; he hadn’t spoken to Terek yet but thought Serena had probably guessed correctly that this was likely to be a day in a stuffy office rather than another one in the great, sun-baked outdoors. As far as he knew, no more interviews were planned but the briefing would tell them more. He looked down at his blue Chinos and white, open-necked shirt and thought he’d made the right choice as well. DI Terek would be wearing a suit, of course, and while the whole clothing thing might appear trivial, it wasn’t – it had come to stand for somethi
ng deeper, something to do with attitudes to the job, to other people and to hierarchies. It would make an interesting academic study: The Relationship Between Office Wear And Inter-personal Re-

  ‘You don’t fancy William Donnelly for it, then?’

  Serena’s gaze was travelling around the room as she spoke, and no doubt she wasn’t missing very much.

  Waters said, ‘No. He’s a bit of a strange character – they’re an odd couple, really. But his convictions don’t line up with Michelle Simms at all, and unless he was putting on a convincing performance, I doubt whether he could have physically carried it out. We’ll check on the timings he gave us but I don’t think it’ll go anywhere.’

  Serena didn’t always carry a handbag with her but she had one this morning. She’d put it down on the floor between them and it had fallen open. On top of the jumble of contents was a foil sheet of contraceptive pills. He recognised them immediately because it was the same brand Janey had been using for the past year. When he looked up, Serena was looking at him looking into her handbag, and this was embarrassing, though the whole business had been entirely accidental. It was surely only a matter of seconds before the barbed comment, but instead she said, ‘An odd couple? I think we can top that with the Simms. If you can picture Scary Spice living with Mr Bean, you’re heading in the right direction.’

  DCI Reeve was in the room now, accompanied, inevitably, by Detective Chief Superintendent Allen. Another promotion. How was that possible? What did he actually do all day but get in the way of more junior officers trying to solve crimes and bring about convictions? Waters stopped that train of thought. Over time we all become our fathers and mothers, that’s a sort of natural process, but surely we don’t all become our first detective sergeant as well?

  Waters said, ‘I got some of that from Terek yesterday. He told me the two sisters lived different lives in Luton. One has a big house and plenty of money and the other doesn’t. Didn’t … And Graham Fletcher had been in touch with Michelle the day she died? Why didn’t we hear about that earlier?’

  Serena said, ‘I’d guess there’s some messy family stuff lurking beneath the surface. We should get some of her phone data today. That’s where I’ve been, chasing the provider again, in case you thought I’d just breezed in. They’re bastards compared to most of the other companies. I reckon we’ll only get the metadata.’

  She leaned towards him and whispered, ‘I don’t envy Reeve this one. Not only has she got Allen, look who’s about to join us.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Cara Freeman was in the doorway, talking to someone out in the corridor; it was plain she was on her way to this briefing.

  Waters said, ‘Oh, your other manager. Is she here to make a bid for the case? And are you actually here as a double agent?’

  It was a peculiar situation. Freeman ran the squad that was in everything but name the county’s new murder unit, and Serena was one of the officers who could be seconded to it at short notice and for indeterminate periods. Freeman and Alison Reeve held the same rank, and as no criteria had ever been made public as to which cases would go to the specialist murder team, there were uncertainties and potential rivalries in the air every time a killing such as that of Michelle Simms occurred. It was unsatisfactory and likely to lead to conflict, which was why Smith had been of the opinion that Allen had deliberately engineered the situation. Waters knew his erstwhile sergeant had had some lengthy and significant conversations with Cara Freeman in the final weeks before his retirement, though he’d never been told what those were about. Finally, and most ominously for Alison Reeve, Waters knew that Smith, in the professional sense at least, had rated Freeman highly.

  Serena didn’t get a chance to respond because Reeve was on her feet now.

  ‘Good morning, everyone. Thank you for getting here ahead of time…’

  At the sound of the voice, Cara Freeman ended her conversation and came into the room, followed by Detective Inspector Terek. Waters kept looking steadily at Reeve but knew he was getting did-you-see-that glances from Serena Butler on his left.

  DCI Reeve said, ‘I’m going to keep this brief and just give you all a heads-up as to where we are with this investigation. Thanks to DI Terek, the database is already full of useful material, and you need to find time this morning to familiarise yourselves with it. I’m referring to the initial pathology report, the scene-of-crime photographs and, later this morning, the first info from the victim’s mobile phone.’

  There was a glance in Serena’s direction and a nod in return.

  ‘We won’t get anything from the labs until next week, if then, but I know Chief Superintendent Allen has already leaned on them to expedite the DNA screening results for the men who were tested at the caravan park.’

  Allen also nodded at the mention of his own name, as if to say, yes, I’m a busy man but that was the least I could do as you’re all plainly struggling with this one.

  ‘Later today you’ll also have write-ups from the interviews that DI Terek and I conducted yesterday. William Donnelly remains on our radar but only on the edge of it now, to be honest. We have a couple more checks to do there. DC Butler and I filled in some background on Michelle Simms, and we now know she was in contact with another family member on the Thursday, via her phone. The metadata I mentioned will give us a timeline for that.’

  Freeman had taken a seat among the other officers and was paying close attention, whereas Terek was standing at the front behind Reeve, like an extra on stage or like one of the many officials that line up behind anyone making a statement about anything that has happened in American public life. And then, as he watched her, Waters saw that Freeman was making notes too, in a small book or on a pad. He couldn’t see enough to say which but it was the first time he had seen her working in that way.

  ‘We’re desperately short of CCTV on this one,’ continued Reeve, ‘and that’s made me realise how much we’ve come to depend on it. We’ve discovered that the owners of the house on the beach road are on holiday in Switzerland, and that they’re expected back next week some time, but the camera isn’t well-positioned for our purposes. Still, we have someone at Hunston who’s checking every day for some sign of life at the house.’

  Detective Sergeant John Wilson put up a hand and Reeve nodded him in.

  ‘There must be something in PACE to justify forced entry at some point, ma’am. ’S a bloody murder case, after all.’

  There were murmurs of support from those seated around Wilson but Waters was still watching Cara Freeman. Her gaze went from Wilson to Reeve and then back to whatever she was writing but there had been a slight shaking of her head.

  Reeve said, ‘There might, John, but we’re nowhere near that yet. I guarantee, though, that if anyone has to force an entry, it will be you…’

  There was some laughter, which Wilson took in good part. It would take an experienced officer not to wilt while being questioned about that in Crown Court; these days there is as much focus on how evidence has been obtained as on what the evidence actually contributes to a case.

  Reeve had kept her word – this was a short briefing.

  ‘We still have plenty to do, no-one is going to be sitting around. There’s a long list, far too long, of offenders in the county who need to be eliminated from this one, and I’ve said to DI Terek that is now our priority. Second, we don’t know where Michelle went when she left the social club. It’s a ten-minute walk into the town along the beach road. Did she go that way? There will still be hundreds of people in the area to whom we haven’t shown that photograph. If one of them says they saw her that night, we have a new lead. This means one team will be going out again today to work on their tans.’

  Usually there would be some competition to get into that team but the prospect didn’t seem to appeal so much. It was weeks now since Waters had heard anyone say we shouldn’t complain about hot summers.

  ‘Finally,’ said Reeve, ‘I’ll share with you something about this case that’s botherin
g me now. When you read the pathology report, you’ll see that Dr Robinson is as definite as he ever is about anything that Michelle Simms was not a victim of rape. He goes further – he could find no evidence she was the victim of a sexual assault. We need lab results to confirm this but…

  ‘I know some of you have already talked about this. Examine the photos. She looks as if she has been sexually assaulted – those of you who’ve worked on similar cases will agree with that. We’re fairly sure her body was placed where it was found after she had been killed. So, did someone arrange the body in that way, to look as if she had been sexually assaulted? And if that’s the case, then why? What were they covering up? What was the real motive?’

  This time Waters could see DCI Freeman nodding as she made more notes. He didn’t know whether she was officially on this investigation but she had plainly considered the question of motive already – as had he since Dr Robinson first said he wasn’t sure this was a sexually-motivated attack. A case is like a coin. Spin it any number of times, it doesn’t matter which side is facing up, motive or opportunity; without the other one to complete it, you don’t have a coin and you don’t have a case.

  With the briefing ending the way it did, someone not so long ago would have said to their team “Answers on a postcard, please!” Now the room was clearing, there were some empty chairs nearby and Richard Ford made his way across to join them. This was Waters’ team until Murray returned in a couple of weeks, but he refrained from trying to sound like DC – he had refused to do that from the beginning of his time in charge, and going his own way seemed to be working. He was about to say they should wait here until he had spoken to the DI, but then Terek was on his way over. The suit was an odd shade of brown this morning.

  ‘Good morning, everyone. I’m sending John’s team out into Wells this morning as you were out and about yesterday. Can you all take a batch of the local candidates and start working through them, getting it down to a shortlist for closer examination? I’m going to do the follow-up on William Donnelly. Serena, DCI Reeve tells me you’ve been chasing the phone data. Is that right?’