Fifty-Two

The tense silence that had descended upon the canteen as soon as Andy had escorted Molly Cartwright through the door had lasted more than twenty minutes. Andy had expected the supervisors and Miss Nugent to be hostile and even, perhaps, aggressive, when he’d insisted on detaining them, but they’d merely seated themselves in two adjacent groups at the shabby tables and stared either at their feet or into space. No-one spoke. It was difficult to try to gauge their mood: panic, resignation, defiance? It could have been any or all of these. The strangest thing about them was that they seemed to act as one: whatever their attitude was, it appeared to be shared by them all. There was no attempt to break ranks, no indication that one of them was itching to get away from the others.

Verity and Giash had stationed themselves at the two exits. Like Andy, they were obviously finding the situation oppressive. Probably, also like him, they were desperate for the back-up team to arrive or for someone to issue further instructions, so that they could be released from this odd vacuum.

Andy was relieved when he finally received a text from Tim. I need to speak to you. Call me when you are alone. Glad to have a legitimate pretext for leaving the room, Andy escaped through Verity’s exit – he acknowledged her wry smile as she opened the door for him – and walked several feet down the corridor, until he was certain that he was out of earshot of the canteen. He checked the offices to his right and left. Both were empty.

Tim was as brief as possible.

“We’ve just found Dulcie Wharton dead in her flat. She probably died within the last two hours. Almost certainly murdered. I haven’t had a chance to interview the neighbours yet – most of them are apparently out at work. No obvious suspect, unless you count Sentance. It could have been him, I suppose, though I think it’s unlikely. Are you holding all the supervisors in the same place?”

“Yes. In the canteen.”

“Is there a chance that it could have been any of them?”

“Doubtful, but not impossible. It depends on the exact time of her death. We were kept waiting a long time before Miss Nugent let us see them.”

“Did she give you a reason?”

“She said it was ‘a little staffing difficulty’.”

“We’re going to have to find out exactly what she meant by that. I take it that back-up has yet to arrive?”

“PC Chakrabati, PC Tandy and I are still here on our own.”

“How did the supervisor interviews go?”

“They were reasonably polite, but none of them claimed to know anything that could help us. Even though I knew nothing about Dulcie Wharton’s death, I was convinced they were hiding something. But they’re going to be difficult to break and, as Giash says, they’re being quite clever about it. They may all be singing from the same hymn sheet, but their statements aren’t clones of each other.”

“What’s their general attitude now that they’ve been detained?”

“Sullen, but not obstructive.”

“Well, we’ll have more opportunity to put the screws on now. When back-up arrives, I want them all to be brought in for questioning. Get them taken to Spalding nick as soon as you can.”

“All of them?”

“What do you think? You say that they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. Unless they’re all innocent, which neither you nor I believes, that must mean that they’re all guilty. Exactly of what, though, is what we have to find out.”