by Graham Smith
With O’Dowd seated opposite them across Suzy’s kitchen table, Beth looked for a way to instigate the interview that wouldn’t be antagonistic.
‘Thanks for agreeing to speak to us again. We know this is a very traumatic time for you.’
‘I’ll do whatever I can to make sure justice is delivered.’
The statement from Peter was an ambiguous one. There were many examples of when criminals got cocky and talked themselves into trouble by thinking they were far cleverer than they were.
‘For Angus’s sake?’
‘Justice won’t help him now. It might give my sister some closure though. And my nieces when they are old enough to understand.’
‘So you believe in justice then?’ As the words came from her mouth Beth wondered if she’d made a mistake.
‘Of course I do. Whoever killed Angus should be punished.’ He gave a sly smile. ‘I’m not talking about an eye for an eye or anything biblical. I’m talking about someone paying for their actions. About the police sending a killer to jail. About the rule of law standing firm in the face of adversity. Wasn’t it Einstein who said that for every action there is a reaction? That’s what I mean by justice.’
O’Dowd cleared her throat with a noise similar to that of a pump running dry. ‘Actually it was Sir Isaac Newton, and the quote is, “to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction”.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it?’ Peter gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘Still means we both want Angus’s killer locked up, don’t it?’
‘We certainly do.’ Beth felt it was time to apply a little pressure as Peter was way too cocksure. ‘Though, we’re not sure you have the same thing in mind.’
‘What do you mean?’
Behind the belligerence of his tone, Beth detected a hint of fear. Perfect, she had planted doubts in his mind, now it was time to water them. There was already enough organic fertiliser in his head to make them grow.
‘We’ve taken a look at your record, haven’t we, DI O’Dowd?’
‘Indeed we have. Made for very interesting reading. At the risk of boring you with statistics, the national average of male murder victims who knew their killer is 52 per cent. I’ll admit that at 68 per cent, it’s higher for women than men, but it’s still a large enough number to make us consider the family as suspects. Now, those are national figures, so what they don’t take into account are regional variations and individual victim demographics. However, I’ve been a copper in Cumbria for the best part of thirty years, the last twenty as a detective, and I have to tell you, we don’t have the same gang-related violence that other parts of the country have to deal with. You’re a Cumbrian yourself, so I need hardly tell you that we don’t suffer any terrorist attacks. These things affect the national figures, but not the Cumbrian ones. So I’d say our realistic percentage is somewhere north of 65. So, bearing all that in mind, can you imagine my response when I found out the victim’s brother-in-law has twice been arrested for fighting, and received a suspended sentence for ABH over a third incident? Not only that, but one of my team informed me that this suspect was also furious with the victim for an alleged act of infidelity. Let me tell you, Peter, with all the evidence that’s pointing at you right now, I expect to be home in time for Antiques Roadshow.’
Cockiness returned, not just to Peter’s face, but also his posture. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. But I didn’t kill him. And those fights you mentioned, and the ABH? They happened a long time ago. I’ve grown up, matured. Mind, I’m not quite mature enough to watch Antiques Roadshow.’
Beth winced at his implied put-down of O’Dowd. Yet the explosion she was expecting from her boss never materialised. Instead there was a calm indifference. It took Beth a moment or two to realise there was no way O’Dowd would let herself rise to the bait, and that whatever insults came her way would have to be met with the same lack of anger.
‘Leopards. Revenge. Jealous.’ When Beth saw two pairs of eyes looking her way she ordered her thoughts into proper sentences. ‘Leopards don’t change their spots; you were a fighter then and we think you’re a fighter now. We think you killed Angus as an act of revenge for what he did with the other woman. We think you were jealous of him. He was taller than you, better looking, more successful.’
‘Shall I save us all a lot of time?’ Peter laid his mobile on the table. ‘If you really thought I killed him, you’d have arrested me by now. We’d be having this conversation in a formal interview room with a tape recorder. We’re not. Therefore you’re on a fishing expedition and you haven’t baited your hook.’ He pointed at his mobile, which lay on the table beside a packet of cigarettes. ‘If you check my emails, you’ll see I was staying at the Rose Villa in Cornwall for the last week. Call them and verify it. I think the receptionist was called Joan or June, something like that. I spoke to her every morning and night. You might also want to check the GPS positioning of my phone. It will also show you I was in Cornwall. As a final piece of proof, call the number for James Haskett. He’s the man I was working for. As a shopfitter. Working nights. For ten days solid.’
Peter sat back in his chair and folded his arms. The smug expression on his face was unnecessary, but he let it sit there anyway.
Beth didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of her looking to O’Dowd for advice, so she reached for his phone.
O’Dowd got there first. She thumbed the device and checked the emails. Next she got Haskett’s number from the phone and wrote it down. ‘What’s your number?’
With his number jotted under Haskett’s on her notepad O’Dowd slid the phone back to Peter.
‘I can see why you suspected me. But I have outgrown all that nonsense. I didn’t kill Angus. I’ll admit I thought he was a waste of space, but to kill him?’ Peter shook his head and gestured towards the living room. ‘No way. I didn’t like him, but my sister and her daughters loved him. Killing Angus would hurt them far more than him.’
‘We’ll see.’
O’Dowd stood and stomped her way out of the room leaving Beth to trail after her.
Eighteen
The interview with Peter hadn’t given them anything new to go on and, as a result of this, O’Dowd’s fractious temper had snapped and crackled all afternoon.
The timber panel had been dusted for prints and the report had identified seventeen different fingerprints on the front and none on the back. All seventeen had been run through the IDENT1 database but none had been recognised. More tellingly, the post and its crossed member had also been checked but had been found to be devoid of any fingerprints. This suggested to Beth that the killer had worn gloves. She hadn’t expected to get a result so simply, as the murder had obviously been carried out with fore-planning, but every possible lead had to be followed up.
What Beth wanted most of all was to deliver justice to victims and their families. To do that, she needed to learn from the best minds, osmose their investigative techniques and understand their thinking.
She’d done well to get into FMIT, and while the greater wages and influence which came with promotion were attractive, the last thing she wanted to do was climb the career ladder to the point where she became a desk-bound administrator.
For Beth, the thrill of police work lay in catching out suspects in the interview room, chasing down leads and evidence to build a case that was sure to lead to a guilty verdict and, most of all, the puzzle. All her life she’d enjoyed challenging her brain and as a copper she got paid to solve puzzles. The big difference now was that the ones she solved would do a lot more than just give her a sense of satisfaction, they’d bring justice.
Beth was so driven that she’d signed up for the police on the morning of her eighteenth birthday. Her boyfriend at the time hadn’t agreed with her decision and had sulked at the thought of her not being at his beck and call due to shift work and time spent away on training courses. The relationship was only a few months old, and when Beth had told him it was over, he’d accepted her decision with grace. It wasn’t
that she didn’t care about him, she just knew that she could never love someone who didn’t support her chosen career and understand her need to become a police officer. For her it was all about righting wrongs and delivering the closure only justice can bring.
He’d tried pushing her towards the modelling work she’d been offered. None of it had been too glamorous, but until she’d turned eighteen, she’d supported her waitressing income by modelling clothes for budget clothing stores and she had been offered the chance of turning it into a professional career. Looking back with hindsight, she realised that he’d wanted a model girlfriend he could brag about, rather than a police-officer girlfriend he could be proud of.
As much as it had flattered Beth to have been considered pretty, model material, the downside of that life was that she’d had to watch every bite, that as she turned eighteen the offers of work had taken on a different, more seedy nature and that in her experience the modelling world was largely populated by people Beth found shallow and bitchy. With only a couple of exceptions, every person she’d met on a modelling shoot was looking to advance their career; if others got trampled, then so be it.
Leaving that world behind was a decision Beth had never regretted.
That her looks had been taken from her when she became a victim of violent crime during her training was an irony she’d never shake off.
She had made sure the glassing had the minimum impact on her training. After she’d been discharged from the hospital, she’d had a week cloistered in her bedroom until the isolation bored her rigid. She went back to training the moment the doctors said she was fit to return and had spent her nights catching up on the work she’d missed.
It had been a distraction; a way of focussing her mind on something other than the pain and the fact that she would carry scars on her face until the day she died.
Nineteen
Beth and Unthank exchanged a surprised glance when O’Dowd suggested they head off to their respective homes at just nine o’clock. Beth was prepared to work long into the night, but she wasn’t going to disobey her DI in her first week in FMIT.
She’d called her mother to warn her that she wouldn’t be round for her tea. Her mother always did a Sunday roast, and her chicken dinners had been the thing Beth had missed the most since leaving home. Whenever her shift pattern allowed, she made sure she was sitting in her usual seat at the kitchen table by five to five at the latest.
‘Are you sure, ma’am?’ Beth noted that even as she was speaking, Unthank was up on his feet shrugging his jacket on. As always, he just wanted to be with his girlfriend.
‘You might as well get an early night tonight. Before you go though, Paul, I want you to get onto the RAF and the MOD tomorrow. I want the names of everyone who stayed there. Don’t take no for an answer, regardless of what they say.’
‘Ma’am.’
Beth only just stopped herself from raising a hand. ‘What do you want me to do, boss?’
‘You were keen to get the post-mortem results. I want you to be at Cumberland Infirmary for half seven to attend. Once that’s done, come back here with DS Thompson and start getting me the names of the kids who were evacuated to Arthuret Hall.’
‘Of course.’ Beth tilted her head to one side. ‘Ma’am?’
‘What is it?’
‘DS Thompson, ma’am.’ Beth was careful to show the appropriate respect and choose her words with care. ‘Where was he this afternoon? I thought it would have been all hands to the pumps.’
O’Dowd gave Beth an enigmatic look and then pushed the office door closed so they could speak privately. Beth was afraid she’d overstepped the mark and was about to get one of O’Dowd’s infamous swearings.
‘He went to see his wife.’ A hand lifted to forestall comments. ‘He was never supposed to be on shift today, so he took his daughters to see their mother. She has what they call early-onset Alzheimer’s and is living in a care home. The last time he took the girls to see her, she didn’t recognise them. So, as well as losing his wife, he’s nursing a pair of teenagers through their grief at losing their mother. She’s there in body, but her spirit has been stolen. He’s agreed with the girls that this is the last time he’ll take them to see her, unless they want to return of course. All three of them are having their hearts broken and he’s got to be strong and look after his girls.’ O’Dowd’s sigh was filled with pity and frustration. ‘Only Paul and I know about it at the station, and I’m only telling you because you’re part of the team. Keep it to yourself, ignore his jibes and don’t give him reason to vent at you, because if you do, he’s likely to go too far because of the pressure he’s under. And before you ask, yes, I have suggested he takes some time off or that he applies for a less stressful position. He thanked me for my concern and told me not to worry about him. Bloody men, eh?’
O’Dowd left the room.
* * *
Rather than going home, Beth gave her limbs a stretch then sat back into her usual seat. She lifted first one leg then the other and put her crossed feet on the desk.
With her chair tilted back she stared upwards. After a moment or two, her thoughts extended away from the watermarks on the ceiling and onto Thompson. When O’Dowd had spoken about him, she’d got the feeling the DI was unburdening herself as well as covering for Thompson.
Beth could understand that, the human psyche has its limits. Every person in the world had a different snapping point; some would fly into a rage at the slightest thing while others would bottle emotions until hate had festered to the point their mind was overloaded. When that point was reached, an explosion of volcanic proportions may ensue. Rhetoric every bit as corrosive as lava would erupt from the person as they vented their anger and frustration.
Some people didn’t have the luxury of venting, either in daily rages or through the weight of multiple months and years of accumulation. These people were the truly strong ones. They kept things to themselves long after they should have raged, internalised their problems long after they should have been shared.
Nobody knew these peoples’ secrets, for they did not share them. Instead they hid them behind a smile as false as the Mona Lisa’s, as they absorbed the stresses of others. They accepted the burdens weighing down on the shoulders of friends and family members, their strength admired, remarked upon, but also taken for granted, until one day, it’s no longer there. The day the strength goes is the day the person breaks under the weight of all the pressures.
Now, thinking about Thompson and his ways, she could imagine the turmoil of his mind, understand his world and appreciate his sacrifice. He wasn’t the kind of man she thought would be comfortable talking about his feelings. She guessed that he was more likely to bottle things up than overshare. For him, release would come in the form of eight pints and a curry with mates, or an hour and a half spent cheering for eleven millionaires while simultaneously insulting eleven others. Perhaps she was wrong and he painted or wrote poetry in his spare time, but there would be precious little of that anyway. He was filling the role of mother and father for his daughters as well as holding down a stressful job. Coupled with the grief he was bound to be feeling at losing his wife, to what was, at best, limbo, the pressure must be tearing at the fabric of his soul.
That he was still doing his job told Beth that behind his bluster and general obnoxiousness, Thompson was a good man, that he was someone who cared about putting criminals behind bars. You didn’t apply to join FMIT if you weren’t driven by something more than a pay cheque. Whether it was justice, the righting of wrongs or empathy for the victims that drove him, it didn’t matter. So long as he was in his current post, he was part of a team that made a difference.
O’Dowd had said that she’d offered him a transfer. Yet, despite everything that was happening at home, he’d turned her down and stayed in FMIT. To Beth, the man’s professional dedication said as much about him as the way he was looking after his wife and daughters.
Beth took her feet back down from the tab
le and walked round to Thompson’s side. On the left-hand side was a picture of a woman and two girls. All three were smiling, sticking out their tongues as they dafted about for the picture. It was a typical family portrait, clearly taken on a day filled with laughter. It spoke of happier times.
Beth wondered whether its presence would end up comforting or mocking Thompson, as she made sure she put it back in the exact spot where she’d found it.
Twenty
As she parked outside Cumberland Infirmary, Beth took a moment to compose herself. The growling of her stomach had little to do with the breakfast she’d foregone. She was dreading the forthcoming experience; sleep hadn’t come until the early hours as her mind had thrown her mental images of Angus Keane being dissected by Dr Hewson.
Sited where it was, off Newtown Road, in Carlisle, the hospital was well above the areas of the border city which had been affected by the floods of 2005 and 2015. It was a modern building and the main atrium always reminded Beth of an airport more than a hospital.
Rather than the front entrance, today she’d be entering the back way and would remain in the bowels of the building where the mortuary, laboratory and pathology rooms were.
The hospital backed onto farmland that fell away down to the River Eden, but Beth couldn’t distract herself from dark thoughts by admiring the view due to the raised embankments which ringed the rear of the building.
Beth left two breakfast bars on the passenger seat of her car in the hope she’d still have an appetite after the post-mortem, and got out of the car. As she walked towards the entrance, Thompson’s car pulled into a parking space nearby. When he climbed out, he didn’t look as though he’d had any sleep at all.
As a professional courtesy and, if she was honest with herself, as a way to delay entering the hospital, she waited for him by the door as the beginnings of a rain shower pattered onto her head and shoulders. Thompson appeared and gave her a nod of greeting, and they went in together. His stride was a little slower than usual, which made Beth wonder if it was fatigue or reluctance that was impeding his progress.