Fifty-One

Andy Carstairs and Giash Chakrabati were having a frustrating afternoon. One by one, they had interviewed the supervisors at the Sutton Bridge de Vries plant. Each interview had followed the same pattern. Andy had introduced Giash, offered the supervisor concerned water or tea (which were always declined) and said that the police had had a tip-off that the girl who had been murdered had had an association with the plant. He’d agreed with Giash that he couldn’t reveal more without running the risk of putting Dulcie Wharton in serious danger.

Each interview had been more or less a duplicate of its predecessor. The supervisors were less truculent than they’d been when he’d first met them. He thought that each in his or her own way was making some kind of a stab at courtesy. Nevertheless, his questions were clearly being stone-walled. The supervisors were united in being adamant that they could not recognise the girl from the photographs they’d seen, the least distressing of which he’d asked them to look at again. They were certain she had not worked at the Sutton Bridge plant. If she had, they would all have recognised her. Because shift patterns changed regularly, they all knew all of the staff.

Andy had asked Giash to observe the interviews. It was, of course, prudent for him to have another police officer present, but he had another reason. He wanted Giash to look out for two things: signs that the supervisors had been briefed to tell the same story and any evidence that he could detect that one or more individuals was either lying or showing signs of nervousness. He had a quick debrief with Giash between each interview.

“I think they’ve been quite clever if they’ve agreed beforehand on what to say,” said Giash after the sixth interview. “They’ve all given you the same information, but they haven’t put it in the same words. Some of them have volunteered extra stuff, like telling you about the shift patterns. And the only one who seems nervous is Eric Saunders. But he’s got a pronounced nervous tic, so it’s probably just how he behaves, anyway.”

Andy nodded.

“I agree with you. We’ll see what happens when Dulcie Wharton comes in. I don’t know whether I should be worried that we haven’t seen her yet. It may just be coincidence that she’s one of the last. Or maybe she’s held back until the end deliberately. We haven’t seen either of the two female supervisors yet, come to think about it. I’ll get Verity to send in the next one. It’s bound to be one of them now.”

Miss Nugent had allocated the first aid room to the police for the interviews. Verity and the waiting supervisors were in the canteen. It hadn’t originally been his intention, but after the first interview Andy had decided to send them back to the canteen afterwards, as well. He didn’t want them out on the shop floor talking about his visit just yet.

Verity texted: Last one now.

That was strange, thought Andy. There must be two interviews left to go, the ones with the two female supervisors. Perhaps Verity meant the last one after this one?

There was a brief rap at the door before Molly Cartwright entered. Andy had marked her down as a hard case on their first meeting. One look at her face convinced him that he’d been right. A large, unattractive woman, she came in hatchet-jawed and unsmiling.

“Mrs Cartwright, thank you for co-operating with us again. Please take a seat. This is PC Chakrabati.”

Molly Cartwright met Giash’s eye boldly before she gave him the briefest of nods. Giash had met her type before, though not often. She was barely bothering to conceal her dislike of his race. No doubt she thought of him as a ‘Paki’ and beneath her contempt. She looked away and took the seat that Andy offered her.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you,” she said, as if he’d affronted her.

“Well, if you want water, there’s some on the table. Please help yourself.”

She barely acknowledged the offer. Andy produced the photograph.

“Mrs Cartwright, do you remember that when I first came here it was to investigate the murder of the girl in this photograph?”

He held it in front of her. She didn’t take it from him.

“Of course I do, yes.”

“Have you had any further ideas about who the girl might be? Has anything jogged your memory? You’ll remember that unfortunately some of the photos I showed you were quite unpleasant. I saw you looking over Dulcie’s shoulder at them. You must have been thinking about them since.”

“Can’t say I’ve thought about them a lot,” Molly Cartwright said. She sat back in the chair and folded her arms, then unfolded them again, perhaps sensing that Andy would interpret the gesture as aggressive. “I might of been more troubled if I’d of known her. But as I told you – as we all told you – she didn’t come from here.” She met Andy’s eye with an unblinking stare. She was lying, he thought. But he’d have a hell of a job on to break her story. He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He’d try a different tack with her from what he’d used with the others.

“Mrs Cartwright,” he said, “you’ll remember that your colleague, Dulcie Wharton, seemed to be a lot more upset by the photographs than the rest of you. Do you know why that was?”

Molly Cartwright fidgeted in her chair. It took her a while to reply.

“You’d have to ask her that. She’s not at work today, though.”

Giash’s head jerked up. He looked pointedly at Andy and frowned. Andy didn’t need the cue. The alarm bells were already ringing loudly in his head.

“Oh? Do you know why that is?”

Molly Cartwright shrugged.

“She’s off sick, I think.”

“Well, Mrs Cartwright, if you can’t help me any further, I’d like you to accompany me back to the canteen now, please.”

“Why’s that? You haven’t ‘accompanied’ (she put on an affected voice) anyone else there.”

“No, but yours is the last interview and I’d like to see you all together now.”

“Back up?” Giash mouthed at him as they left the room. Andy raised his thumb.

“PC Chakrabati,” he said to Giash out loud, “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind finding Miss Nugent and asking her to join us as well. And ask her for Dulcie Wharton’s address, will you?” Andy was trying to sound as casual as possible, but he sensed that the woman beside him was feeling his fear. He wondered if she was afraid, too. He turned to look at her, but the hatchet face betrayed nothing.

 

Tim responded immediately to Giash Chakrabati’s call. Its urgency didn’t surprise him – he’d had an uneasy feeling about Dulcie Wharton ever since their conversation had been so abruptly curtailed. He was extremely worried now. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sent Andy to Sutton Bridge. If he’d responded in the wrong way, he knew that it could have put Dulcie in danger. She’d certainly been at work when she’d rung him that morning.

After some prevarication (stuff about data protection which the HR manager herself must have known was nonsense, given the circumstances), Giash had succeeded in worming Dulcie’s address out of Miss Nugent and texted it to Tim. Tim rang Spalding, asked them to send a squad car to join him at Dulcie’s home and got them to arrange with Boston for immediate back-up at the Sutton Bridge plant. He called Ricky MacFadyen and told him to get to Laurieston House as soon as possible. He rang Jean Rook, who was still at Laurieston, to ask her to remain with Kevan de Vries and, on being passed to de Vries, told him that they must stay inside the house until Ricky arrived and not to let anyone except him inside. Although privately he thought that the possibility was slight, he told de Vries that he and his son could both be in danger if they didn’t do as he said. To his surprise, he seemed alarmed and thought, if that were so, he would be unlikely to disobey. Not for the first time, Tim wondered exactly how far his involvement in Sentance’s activities had gone. When he asked to be passed back to Jean Rook, he found that she seemed pleased, probably because she’d been asked not to let de Vries out of her sight. She also gave further proof of her renowned presence of mind.

“What about Mrs Briggs?” she asked.

Tim had forgotten about Jackie Briggs. He had never doubted his original impression of her, that she was a pleasant, straightforward woman married to a bastard – a view endorsed by Juliet. But Jackie was now the wife of a man on the run and had always demonstrated unswerving loyalty to her husband. He didn’t know whether she could be trusted not to help Harry if he made a secret reappearance to ask for her help.

“Is she still there?”

“No, I think she’s gone home. As you know, she’s worried about her husband. She may be trying to reach him. She said she’d come back later, before Archie wakes up.”

“She can reach him from there, can’t she?”

“She doesn’t have a mobile. You know what she’s like. She won’t want to take liberties by using Kevan’s landline.”

“Could you call her and ask her to come back and stay there with you? I don’t think she’s at risk, but I’d rather not take any chances. Try not to alarm her.”

“All right,” said Jean.

“I doubt if she’ll be able to reach Harry Briggs on his mobile. We’ve tried the number and it appears to have been switched off. But if she does ask to use the phone, could you try to dissuade her until DC MacFadyen is there?”

“Yes,” said Jean, “Although I must say I hardly expected to find myself in loco custodis.”

Tim grinned inwardly. He was almost relieved that she’d got some of her bite back.

“Thank you. I must go. Remember, wait for DC MacFadyen.”

 

Tim raced along the A17, hoping that a local patrol car wouldn’t try to stop him for speeding. The address that he’d been given was Flat 2a, Nene Meadows. The satnav told him that the location was not far from the main road through the town, close to the river and a pub called the Nene Meadows Hotel. He’d travelled the seventeen miles from Sutterton in just under twelve minutes. As he drew into the kerb next to a small and unassuming block of flats, he saw a police squad car in his mirror. If it had come all the way from Spalding, it must have been travelling at a similar speed to his.

He jumped out of his car. The two PCs in the squad car also hopped out and walked briskly towards him. He saw immediately that one of them was Gary Cooper. He didn’t know the other – presumably it was Cooper’s new sidekick. He was glad to see Cooper – it would save a lot of unnecessary explanation.

“DI Yates,” said Gary Cooper, “this is PC Brian Smith. We’ve been asked to meet you at this address. Is it a disturbance?”

“No,” said Tim. He looked across at the block of flats. Quiet as the grave, he thought, and shuddered inwardly. Definitely no disturbance in evidence. “A witness in the de Vries case lives here – or rather I should say a potential witness. Her name is Dulcie Wharton. She made a call this morning that was cut short. She was at her place of work at the time, but wasn’t there this afternoon. I’m concerned for her safety. If she has come to harm, I’ve reason to think that the people who’ve harmed her are ruthless. They’re almost certainly responsible for the death of the girl whose body was found at Sandringham. So we need to be careful.”

There were no gardens to the flats, not even a shrub or a tree. The three-storey building rose up from a small tarmacked car park. The entrance was on the right-hand side, a sturdy-looking door with a porch-style canopy over it. Tim tried the door. As he’d expected, it did not yield. A pad for swiping electronic cards was affixed to the wall under a row of bells.

Tim pressed the bell marked ‘2a’. He could just hear it ringing, deep within the building. There was no response. He waited a few moments, then pressed it again. Nothing. There were six flats in the building altogether. Tim systematically pressed all the bells, one by one. He could get no answer from any of them.

“Do you think they saw us coming and they just want to keep out of the way?” said PC Smith.

“Possible, but doubtful,” said Gary Cooper. “Somehow, you can always tell when people are at home. This place looks shut up. I guess that everyone’s at work.”

“I think you may be right about the others,” said Tim. “But we know that Mrs Wharton isn’t at work. Let’s just hope that she’s out on an errand or something.”

Tim was debating whether to force the door when he turned to see an elderly woman plodding purposefully towards him. She had a plaid shopping trolley in tow. Her feet were splayed and her legs bowed as if by childhood rickets, but she was moving quite fast. She wore a heavy green coat that fell in a bell shape from the shoulder. It was deeply pleated at the back. Tim remembered that his grandmother had such a garment – a ‘swagger coat’, he believed it was called. This woman must have owned it for the past sixty years at least.

She stopped immediately in front of him, making an uncomfortable invasion upon his personal space. When he first noticed her, he thought that he recognised the type: anxious to help and nosey about what was going on. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

“What do you want?” she demanded, peering up into his face and fixing him with hostile steel-grey eyes. “We don’t want no cops round here.”

Tim tried to turn on the charm.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m DI Tim Yates, of the South Lincs Police. Do you live here?”

“What if I do?”

“We’re trying to contact one of your neighbours. Mrs Dulcie Wharton. Do you know her?”

“I might do. Why?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Me name’s Elsie.”

“Right. Thank you. Elsie, we want to speak to Mrs Wharton and we can’t raise her. Have you spoken to her today?”

“No, but I saw her leave for work this morning. That’s where she’ll be now. Works at de Vries.”

“Thank you. I know she was at work this morning, but she’s not there now. She reported sick. That’s why we’re concerned.”

The old woman looked yet more suspicious.

“Go chasing after everyone who goes home poorly, do you?”

Gary Cooper stepped forward.

“Look, Elsie, love, we’ve got reason to be worried about her. Do us a favour, will you, and just let us in?”

“Who might you be?”

“I’m PC Cooper. Gary Cooper.”

Elsie let out a short burst of cracked laughter.

“Go on with you! You’re a caution. Now I don’t believe any of you are who you say you are. You’d better clear off before I call the real police.”

Tim and Gary Cooper both produced their identity cards.

“Well, I never. Well, all right, I’ll let you in. But just this once, mind. The landlord’s warned us about strangers hanging about.”

She produced her swipe card and flicked it deftly across the metal pad. The door clicked. She pushed it open. Tim and the two PCs followed her in.

“Me flat’s just here,” she said in an exaggerated whisper, indicating the first door they came to. “She’s upstairs. Don’t say it was me let you in, will you?”

She brushed past them, dragging the tartan trolley after her. She unlocked the door she’d indicated and disappeared beyond it.

Tim waited until she’d gone before he ran up the stairs. The two PCs followed him. He knocked gently on the door of Flat 2a and waited. He rapped a little louder. Still there was no reply.

“We’re going to have to force the door,” he said. He and Gary Cooper took a few steps back and ran at the door, bracing their shoulders to take the impact. The door was made of cheap pine and began to yield after the first blow. Another run at it caused it to swing open brokenly.

The flats had probably been built within the last ten years, but, inside, Dulcie Wharton’s existed in a time warp. Into the tiny hall had been squeezed a Victorian hat and umbrella stand. A matching oval mahogany-framed mirror had been hung above it. There was barely room there for the three police officers. The door into the living room was open. Tim tapped on it lightly and went in, the others following him. The room was neat but gloomy. A huge mahogany sideboard, ornately but hideously decorated with scrolls and carved fruits, was jammed against one side of the fireplace. On the other side was another ugly piece of furniture which he believed was called a chiffonier. A massive dark red moquette sofa had been planted squarely in front of the mock-flame gas fire. It was piled with cushions worked in multi-coloured tapestry wool, painstakingly done but, to Tim’s eyes, hideous. A small rectangular coffee table had been placed between the sofa and the window. It was probably the only item in the room that had been manufactured since the Second World War. A half-empty mug of coffee was standing on one of the dried-flower coasters that had been placed on the table’s surface at accurate intervals from each other.

“Christ!” said Gary Cooper. “This stuff must have belonged to her Mum and Dad.”

Tim put his forefinger to his lips to indicate that they shouldn’t speak.

“Mrs Wharton?” he said. “Anyone at home? We’re police officers; there’s no need to be alarmed.”

It was obvious that there would be no reply. He’d just felt obliged to call out as a courtesy. He hoped against hope they’d find the flat was empty. He was only too aware of the likely alternative scenario.

The flat had a curious design. The other door in the living room was close to the window. Tim opened it to reveal a small kitchenette, its surfaces all immaculate, all utensils apparently in their place. He touched the electric kettle briefly with the back of his hand. It was still warm.

He hadn’t noticed a second door in the hall, but realised there must be one. He retraced his steps. There were no windows there, but when he approached the hall from the living-room the other door was obvious. Tim drew on a pair of latex gloves. He took a deep breath and wrenched it open.

Dulcie Wharton was lying on her back on the bed. Her body was twisted unnaturally – her legs were curled into the foetal position, but her blank face gazed up at the ceiling. She was still wearing her shocking pink de Vries Industries overall. Tim hastened across to the bed to check her pulse, but he had known the moment he saw her that she was dead.

“Call for an ambulance!” he said to Gary, who was peering over his shoulder. “Get this flat cordoned off as a crime scene. I want interviews set up with all the other tenants. And I’d better give Professor Salkeld another call.”