by Kate Medina
‘What? What the hell are you talking about?’
Marilyn spelled it out. ‘Have you been giving people lifts to make a bit of extra money on the side? Cash in hand, easy money.’
‘No, I haven’t. I’ve been applying for jobs and travelling around the country going to interviews. Endless interviews.’ The expression on his face was stricken.
Marilyn nodded. Despite Lewin’s losses – of his job and his wife – he had no patience with or sympathy for this man. ‘Did you murder your wife, Mr Lewin?’
‘What? No. No. I loved Denise. I loved her.’
His knotted hands were clasped tightly together on the table top. Marilyn wondered what Jessie Flynn would make of them. Were they an indication of angst, or of more lies?
He felt the weight of his iPhone in his suit pocket, still maddeningly silent. DC Cara was due to telephone imminently with information as to whether Lewin had at least told the truth about his visit to a small garage in East Meon. Crossing his arms over his chest, he settled back to wait for Cara’s call, eyeballing Lewin across the table, enjoying watching him squirm.
69
A man in a black turban sat on a high stool behind the cash till, reading The Times newspaper. On the chest of his navy V-neck jumper was pinned a yellow button badge that read: ‘Don’t freak, I’m a Sikh’. He grinned when he noticed Cara’s eyes flash down to the badge.
‘Some of my customers are a bit, how would one say? Stick-in-the-mud? Old-school? They see this face and the only name that pops into their heads is Osama Bin Laden. The badge is to reassure, and it’s a conversation starter. It’s boring here on my own, sixteen hours a day.’
Cara nodded. He wasn’t interested in engaging with anyone’s conversation starter. He was here to gather information as expediently as possible, then leave, perhaps grab a quick twenty minutes’ kip in a layby on the way back to the office. He held up his warrant card.
‘Darren Cara, Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes.’
The man extended his hand. ‘Gurpreet Sidhu. Nice to meet you, Officer Cara.’
‘Detective,’ Cara said, taking Sidhu’s hand, tiredness lending his tone more edge than he’d meant.
Sidhu’s smile was without edge. ‘Pardon me for the mistake, Detective. Now how can I help you?’
‘Were you working on Thursday night?’
Sidhu nodded. ‘I own the garage. I work all day and every night apart from Wednesday afternoon and Sundays when I pay my cousin to run the garage.’
‘What time do you close?’
‘Midnight.’
‘I’m interested in the period between around ten p.m. and closing time.’
‘It was quiet on Thursday night.’
Cara wondered if it was ever anything but quiet. ‘I’m interested in a man who would have been driving a small dark blue hatchback, an Audi A3. He said that he filled up here at around eleven-thirty p.m.’
‘He did.’
‘At that time?’
Sidhu shrugged. ‘I’m not sure as to the exact time, but it was definitely during the home run.’
‘The home run?’
‘The last hour. I restock the shelves, clean the shop floor, tot up the takings for the day, that kind of thing. I was probably halfway through the home run when he came in. Big, square jaw, dark spiky hair, late thirties or early forties.’
‘You have a good memory.’
Sidhu smiled. ‘I do have a good memory. And I also remember because he came in directly after another customer, a lady, one of my regulars. And because he stopped on the way out.’
‘Stopped?’
‘Yes, halfway to the door.’ Sliding off his high chair, Sidhu leant over the counter and pointed at a spot on the worn blue vinyl floor. ‘About there, level with the crisps. He froze.’
‘For how long?’
‘Twenty seconds or so.’
‘It’s not long. Odd that you noticed it.’
Sidhu tilted his head sagely. ‘Ah, yes, but he dropped his car keys also.’
‘While he was standing there?’
‘Yes. They fell from his hand when he froze and he didn’t bend to pick them up. He was staring at the rack of newspapers. Just standing, totally motionless, and staring.’
Turning, Cara surveyed the cramped petrol station shop. There was a rack of newspapers on the wall, four metres away, which would be shielded by the door when it was opened. He certainly hadn’t noticed the newspapers when he’d entered.
‘I asked him if he was OK,’ Sidhu said.
‘And?’
‘He didn’t answer and so I flipped up my counter and picked up his car keys, held them out to him. But he didn’t notice that I was even there. He was staring at the newspapers and he was in shock, I would say, very much in shock.’
‘What happened next?’
‘I touched his shoulder and he leapt right out of his skin. It was only then that he seemed to realize I had been standing next to him.’
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘He said “There’s been an … another murder.” Just like that, in a stuttering sort of a way.’
‘Was that all he said?’
Sidhu nodded. ‘I replied with something like, “Yes, they’re terrible, aren’t they?” but he didn’t respond. He seemed suddenly very agitated. He snatched his car keys from my outstretched hand, yanked the door open, ran to his car and drove off.’
‘Quickly?’
‘Across the road.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘He screeched out of the forecourt, but then I saw him stop, just down the road, twenty metres.’
‘How long was he stopped for?’
‘Five minutes or so. He was talking on his mobile phone.’
‘How could you tell?’
‘It’s pitch-black out there at night. I saw the glow from his mobile through his back windscreen.’
Cara nodded. ‘And then what did he do?’
Sidhu lifted his shoulders. ‘He screeched off again, very fast.’
Cara waved his hand towards the window. ‘East?’
‘Yes, east.’
70
Marilyn lowered his mobile from his ear and re-entered the interview room. Workman and Lewin were sitting in silence, the latter shock-faced and red-eyed.
‘It seems as if you are unlikely to be guilty of murder, Mr Lewin.’
A balloon of pent-up tension exhaled from Lewin’s lungs. He unclasped his knotted fingers. ‘I told you. I did tell you.’
Marilyn raised one of his hands, cutting Lewin off. ‘And if you had told the truth in the first place, you would have saved yourself and us a lot of trouble.’
‘Can I go now?’ He half-rose from his seat. ‘I want to get back to the hospital.’
Marilyn waited a beat, eyeballing him across the table, before shaking his head. ‘No, you cannot go. I used the term “unlikely” for a good reason. You are still, by no means, off the hook and when you do finally leave this interview room and return to the hospital, it will be in the company of a police officer who will stick with you like a pungent smell until this case is solved. Now, please sit back down, Mr Lewin, I have more questions.’
Lewin hesitated, hovering.
‘Sit,’ Marilyn snapped. ‘Who killed your wife, Mr Lewin?’ he asked, when Lewin was seated, his hands once again locked tightly together on the table top in front of him.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you do.’
‘I don’t. I really don’t.’
Marilyn leant forward, planting his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers.
‘Dr Jessie Flynn, the clinical psychologist you met yesterday, is sure that these murders are personal – driven by some personal connection between the victims.’
‘My wife had no connection to either of the couples who were murdered.’
‘Dr Flynn also believes that the personal connection relates to the men and not to the women, as the men appear to be the primary victims.�
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Lewin shook his head firmly. ‘I don’t know anything.’
‘But you know them. Hugo Fuller and Daniel Whitehead.’
‘What? No. No.’
‘Are you interested in helping us find the man who murdered your wife?’
He slumped back in the chair like a sulky teenager. ‘Of course I am, but I told you that I don’t know who murdered Denise.’
‘I stepped outside a moment ago to speak with my DC. He confirmed that you were at the petrol station in East Meon, filling up your car when you said you were, and that you made the emergency telephone call from the roadside outside the petrol station.’
‘I told you that I was. You should have believed me.’
Marilyn raised an eyebrow. ‘It is gratifying to know that not everything you told us yesterday was a lie. Though, at a stretch, you could still have finished your Wiltshire meeting at seven-thirty p.m., driven back to Chichester, murdered your wife, kidnapped your son and been at that petrol station in East Meon at around half-past eleven.’ He raised his hand again, cutting off Lewin’s burgeoning protest. ‘However, the garage owner did say that you stopped in the middle of the store – dropped your car keys and froze, was the way he described it. Can you tell me what you saw that made you freeze?’
‘I didn’t freeze.’
‘Did you drop your car keys?’
‘Not that I recall.’
Marilyn sighed wearily. ‘I’m reaching the end of my tether with you, Mr Lewin.’
Workman leant forward. Good cop, bad cop. Marilyn was more than happy to leave her to it. He was too tired to play word games with a lying little toerag like Lewin and he was one stretched-taut thread away from snapping, lunging across the table, grabbing Lewin by the collar and shaking the truth out of him.
‘You saw the newspaper headlines, didn’t you, Mr Lewin?’ Workman asked, in a soft voice.
Lewin shook his head mulishly.
‘You saw the headlines alerting you to the fact that Daniel and Eleanor Whitehead had been tortured and murdered and you realized then that whoever had killed them would, most likely, come after you and your wife. Perhaps you had dismissed the Fullers’ murders as a one-off, related to Hugo’s less-than-savoury choice of business,’ she pressed. ‘But once the Whiteheads were murdered, you made the connection.’
Another shake, but with significantly less conviction that the first. Perhaps what Marilyn had said was getting through to Lewin: that if he admitted he’d seen the headlines, realized that Denise was in danger, he would be off the hook for her murder – and the murders of the Fullers and Whiteheads – himself.
‘You do realize that you are busy hanging yourself, don’t you, Mr Lewin?’ Marilyn cut in. ‘The only reason that I suspect you didn’t murder the Fullers, the Whiteheads and your wife is because the garage owner—’ He glanced down at his notes. ‘A Mr Sidhu, testified that you were genuinely shocked and disturbed when you saw the newspaper headlines.’
Lewin stared hard at the table top, in silence.
‘What are you hiding, Mr Lewin?’ Marilyn shouted, slamming both hands flat on the table top.
‘Nothing.’ A strangled denial.
‘I don’t bloody believe you.’
71
Callan bounced two wheels of his Golf up on the kerb, cut the engine and looked across, unsmiling. ‘I can’t be late for this appointment.’
Pulling his hand from the steering wheel, Jessie pressed it to her lips. ‘I know and I’ll be quick.’
Except for its position, in the middle of a village, overlooking the A24 and cricket green beyond, rather than buried in the midst of a dense, dark forest, Eunice Hargreaves’ cottage was straight out of Hansel and Gretel with its steeply pitched, hand-moulded clay-tiled roof, lead-latticed windows and flintstone walls. Picture postcard, but when Jessie stepped through the wrought-iron gate, she saw that the beds in the narrow front garden were a disorder of rotting plants, weeds pushing up through the cracks between the path’s paving stones, and the windows were opaque with dirt. There was a lamp post directly outside the gate – the post that Lupo had been tied to, she presumed.
Her knock was answered after a couple of minutes by a very elderly lady, bent as a wind-blown shrub, sparse clumps of goslings-fluff grey hair the first glimpse Jessie had of her. A grey jumper and skirt that matched her hair and her feet were jammed into sheepskin house slippers.
‘My name is Dr Jessica Flynn,’ Jessie said, ducking a little so that Eunice Hargreaves could see her face. ‘I work with Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes.’ Fishing out one of DI Simmons’ business cards, which she had purloined from the stack on his desk a couple of days earlier, in case she needed to prove her legitimacy at any point (hers were still at the printer’s) she proffered it, hoping the card would be sufficient to gain her an audience. Eunice’s cloudy blue eyes studied the five-millimetre-tall embossed black letters that Jessie was sure she couldn’t read. ‘I have a few questions about the Siberian husky you found tied to the lamp post on Sunday morning.’
Eunice tilted her head, so that she could eyeball Jessie directly, and her brows knitted together in irritation. ‘Sunday morning?’ she snapped. ‘It was the middle of the night.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry about that.’
‘Well, it’s not your fault, is it? You’d better come in, if you have some questions.’
Leaning heavily on her stick, Eunice led Jessie down the hallway, into a kitchen-diner at the back of the cottage. Dark oak kitchen units lined two walls, a small round wooden table and four wooden spindle chairs occupied one corner, and a reclining reading chair was set in front of the window, so that its occupier could look out over the back garden. It reminded Jessie of Ahmose’s reading chair by the fire, and that thought goaded her with the realization that she hadn’t seen him since this case had greedily absorbed all her waking hours, apart from briefly this morning when she and Callan had dropped Lupo off to be babysat for the day. She needed to spend some quality time with him soon; she couldn’t neglect him, her adopted family, just because of work.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, dear?’
Jessie didn’t want a cup of tea and Callan had his appointment to make, but seeing Eunice Hargreaves’ hopeful expression, remembering the weeds on the path and the grime on the windows, reminded her of how isolated Ahmose would be if she didn’t live next door, and of a bleak memory from a year ago, the pin-sharp old lady locked in that soulless flat above the shops, nothing to live for but her hope. They still had three hours until Callan’s appointment and Frimley Park Hospital was, at most, two hours’ drive from here. Plenty of time.
‘I’d love a cup of tea, thank you. Can I make it?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, dear, that would be lovely. The teapot, cups and teabags are in the cupboard above the sink and the milk is in the fridge. I like mine strong, but milky. I’m very particular, I’m afraid.’ She hobbled over to the reading chair and lowered herself into it stage by painful stage, one diaphanous hand gripping the arm of the chair like an eagle’s claw, the other her stick.
‘Pull up one of the kitchen chairs, dear,’ Eunice said, when Jessie had made two cups of tea and set them on the side table next to the reading chair. ‘You had some questions, about that husky I saw tied up outside.’
Jessie nodded. ‘He’s called Lupo.’
Eunice pressed her hands together. ‘Lupo – wolf in Latin. What a perfect name. They brought him to the door when they’d untied him, those two lovely police-dog men, so that I could give him a pat. He was huge and magnificent looking, but ever so gentle. I watched a documentary filmed in Canada a few weeks ago and he reminded me of a timber wolf, took me right back there when I first saw him …’
Jessie sipped her tea while Eunice talked, resisting the urge to glance at her watch.
‘You told the police-dog team that you were woken by Lupo barking in the street, that you then got out of bed and saw him from your bedroom window,’ she asked, when Eunice had finished.<
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Eunice nodded. ‘I did see him from my bedroom window.’
‘Because you’d been woken by his barking?’
‘Huskies rarely bark, dear. They’re not bred as guard dogs.’
‘Perhaps he was barking because he was cold and trying to get attention?’ Jessie pressed. She needed a definitive answer.
Eunice regarded her with a look pitched between pity and disdain. ‘Huskies can withstand temperatures of minus sixty degrees centigrade, Dr Flynn.’
‘So, he wasn’t barking?’
‘I suppose that you don’t get much time to watch television, do you, dear, not with your demanding job?’
‘No, I don’t.’ Jessie mentally added ‘TV’ and ‘slob’ to her ‘to-do’ list’ for when this case was solved, before Marilyn came knocking again – if he ever did come knocking again after the spectacular lack of contribution she felt she’d made.
‘Well, I spend most of my time watching television, animal documentaries especially. David Attenborough’s voice really is quite sublime, don’t you think?’
Jessie smiled. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘I watched a documentary about an extreme dog sled race across the Yukon Peninsula in Canada and that documentary on wolves I mentioned. The camera crew spent two years living in the Canadian Rockies with the wolves, can you imagine, and their footage was quite spectacular.’
Jessie spun her wrist and glanced surreptitiously at her watch. It was twenty-five minutes since she’d lifted her hand to knock on Eunice’s front door. Callan was stressed enough about his appointment without her keeping him waiting. Unconsciously, she raised a hand, heard Eunice’s flow falter.
‘I’m ever so sorry. It’s living on my own, you see—’
‘It’s fine,’ Jessie said, heat infusing her face, angry at herself for that unconscious physical display of her impatience. The lack of sleep was catching up with her. ‘I’d love to listen, but my boyfriend drove me here and he has a hospital appointment soon.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Whenever I get a chance to talk I just talk and talk. Ask your questions, dear.’