Jarvis Fleet arrived punctually at the train station, and MacAdams had no trouble picking him out. Gray suit, fresh pressed; close-clipped hair, brush mustache, impeccable posture. He’d been a Royal Air Force officer under Cora’s father Alexander Clapham (Air Commodore, by the time he passed some years ago). He was carrying an overnight bag.
“Do you have a forensic team on-site?” he asked after a firm handshake and greeting.
“Of course. They have been going over both the murder scene and Sid’s flat since yesterday morning.” Sid’s flat was a boxy little place by the station, barely an efficiency. It was disquietingly empty, and it didn’t take long to get through it.
“Good.” Fleet checked his watch, then retugged his cuffs in place. “I would like to see the cottage first. We can drop my case at the local inn when convenient.”
“When—convenient,” MacAdams repeated. He’d sent Green back to Selkirk and now regretted it; somehow he’d just become Fleet’s chauffeur.
“It can wait until this evening, of course.” Fleet gave a stiff bow of his head. “There is quite a lot of ground to cover first, I know. You can give me the details as you drive.”
So now MacAdams was also some sort of debriefing secretary? The details were rather sparse, and MacAdams in no mood for flourish. Fleet took them in with brief nods, as though checking off some internal list. Everything he asked was perfectly, coldly rational in a book-by-the-letter sense. The Scotland Yard turn, essentially.
“You were in Met Police,” MacAdams ventured when they pulled into the estate’s hill-bound drive. “How did you end up in York of all places?”
“I took early retirement from the Yard,” Fleet said placidly. MacAdams dodged a sideways glance at him; grizzled, yes. But he didn’t look out of his fifties. “I decided to transfer my skills to a place in my home county.”
“London to York is a bit of a step down, isn’t it?”
“It’s a beautiful town.” Fleet smiled slightly beneath the mustache. “Cora tells me you lived there, yourself, once.”
Fleet had the story wrong—or Cora did—or the Fates were simply against MacAdams in inconceivable ways. He’d never lived there. His ex-in-laws lived there. In fact, his ex-wife now lived there. And he found it a pricey, self-important tourist trap of a place, but decided on silent assent as he parked the car.
Inside the cottage, things looked much as before—which weren’t lovely to start. MacAdams pointed to the floor next to the yellow, lint-pilled sofa.
“The bleeding was internal, not even a spill on the rug—which they took for testing, anyway. Possible shoe fibers,” MacAdams added hastily. A uniformed assistant nodded in his direction.
“We’re just about through, sir.”
“Find anything?” MacAdams asked. She gave him a thin-lipped smile.
“Found everything, sir. Lots of different prints.”
It was going to be a mess of paperwork. They had found hairs on the sheets that weren’t Sid’s—prints that weren’t Sid’s—leftover toiletry items that on analysis also weren’t his. He turned to Fleet, who was turning slowly in place.
“Rental,” he said. “Any number of people may have been through here.”
“Have you checked for a register?” Fleet asked. MacAdams stared.
“A guest book? Of course we have, and no, nothing.” MacAdams watched Fleet with growing impatience. “You’ll want to see the body, surely.”
“In time,” was the enigmatic response. Fleet had begun to walk the room. When he reached the sofa, he tugged up both trousers and squatted low, his face nearly touching the floor’s uneven surface.
“There are marks from a rubber sole,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me there was a rug here?”
MacAdams found himself dropping to one knee and looking askance in the light. There did appear to be a smudge. And not from their paper booties. He hadn’t seen it there before. But then, he hadn’t been on his knees looking for it.
“Maybe someone forgot to suit up,” he said, trying to think back to their initial discovery. Fleet got to his feet.
“Curious,” he said. “And no other papers to be found here?”
“Papers? What are you looking for?” MacAdams asked. It was past noon already; they still had to see Struthers so Fleet could have a look at the actual entry wounds.
“If you haven’t found a guest register, perhaps there’s a reason.”
MacAdams felt his masseter muscles locking tight.
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a reason,” he agreed. “The reason is that it doesn’t exist. Sid Randles wasn’t exactly a tidy bookkeeper.”
“And yet, you tell me there are multiple sets of prints and DNA. Someone was staying here, however itinerant.” Fleet performed a full quarter turn on his heel, as if for military drill. “This does not have the appearance of a holiday let. But that doesn’t mean he hadn’t used it for other purposes.”
“Meaning what?” MacAdams asked. He had assumed that Sid merely treated it as his personal home away most of the time, probably for an occasional bender with Ricky Robson and company. Fleet straightened back to his ruler-stiff posture. The look on his face had remained cordial.
“Has it not occurred to you that Sid might be involved in drug trafficking?”
MacAdams sucked air: Oh-my-fucking-God, as if that isn’t the first assumption of any modern detective.
“Yes. It has occurred,” he insisted quietly. “We’ve not found so much as a bag of weed here or his flat—and he’s never had prior for it. And yes, before you ask, we brought the proper equipment to look for traces. There isn’t any reason for you to do a more thorough search for the same things.”
The infuriating half smile remained.
“All the same,” Fleet said, “I’m here to help.”
It took less than twenty minutes to get back to the station—an almost entirely silent trip. They had come, finally, to view the body, which wasn’t getting any fresher. MacAdams did not want to repeat the examination, but couldn’t very well stand outside the door and let Fleet take command. The man had been nothing but infuriatingly courteous, but MacAdams felt like a list was being drawn up of all the ways he had violated exactitudes. Fleet wanted to see the estate house; MacAdams hadn’t yet procured the keys from Rupert Selkirk. He wanted to go to Sid’s flat and be “thorough” there, too, and suggested everything should have been left in situ rather than boxed and brought to the station. Yes, possibly things were more lax in Abington CID than Scotland Yard. Maybe MacAdams himself was a bit lax. But it was hardly London, was it? Or York, for that matter. MacAdams could still recognize most people by sight, and a good number by name. He’d grown up with half of them.
“James,” Struthers was saying, “did you know that a little derringer like that can’t fire without a recock?”
“I wasn’t aware,” MacAdams admitted dryly. He also hadn’t been listening all that intently. He brought himself closer to the slab, its occupant, and Fleet, who was leaning very close to the wounds.
“It means the first shot felled him,” Fleet said in his measured cadence, “and the other two were fired while the killer stood above him.”
“But there weren’t any powder marks—” MacAdams began. Fleet raised his hand.
“If I may?” he asked. “That model is very small. It wouldn’t leave powder burn unless the barrel nearly touched the cloth. The shooter would have aimed from directly above him while he lay on the floor.”
“And he would have had to recock for each shot?” MacAdams asked. Fleet turned to look him in the eye.
“Correct.”
MacAdams held his hand up, finger and thumb, as though aiming at a body below him.
“Shot him twice more in the back, even as he lay bleeding out. That’s not self-defense, that’s hatred in action.” He paused. “And yet, they shared a drink first.”
“About that,” Struthers interrupted. “His blood alcohol level suggests drinks, plural. In addition to the few he’d had before getting kicked out of Red Lion by Tula Byrne.”
“Who is that?” Fleet asked. It was MacAdams turn to wave him away.
“How affected would Sid have been? Had enough to impair judgment, or perhaps not recognize the danger he was in?” he asked Struthers.
“I doubt it. Sid’s liver suggests he was a regular drinker,” Struthers frowned. “We have no way of knowing how full the whisky bottle was at the start, and both parties were drinking, but I’d guess Sid would have been more or less alert and in his right mind.”
Complete consciousness was a mixed blessing, under the circumstances, MacAdams supposed. But assuming the killer had been drinking, too, perhaps liquid courage raised the stakes on an argument.
“It could have been a flash of anger in the moment,” he said aloud. “But whoever it was brought a gun. Premeditation.”
“Yes,” Fleet said simply. He rolled off the silicon gloves, inverting them along the way. “I asked earlier. Who is Tula Byrne? You say she threw him out of a pub the night he was murdered?”
MacAdams didn’t quite stifle the exasperated sigh.
“Tula is the innkeeper. It’s her job to throw people out if they get disorderly—thank you, Struthers.”
“Certainly. It was a pleasure to meet you, Detective Fleet.”
“Call me Jarvis, please.” Fleet shook his hand. MacAdams was already partway through the door. The last thing he needed was the forensic team turning into the man’s fan club.
“MacAdams,” Fleet said, coming abreast of him with his sharp, measured stride. “I do understand your position. No one likes another DCI on their beat. You don’t want me here, and I don’t blame you for that.”
They’d arrived at the car, and MacAdams felt his fingers clutch hard around the keys.
“But—?”
“Very perceptive.” Fleet’s smile didn’t fade. “But you have bias in this case.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“And I beg yours, detective. You have already failed to consider those you know well as suspects. Tula Byrne, for one. And what do you know about the American woman who found him? You are too close to the actors in this little drama.” Fleet said these words almost without inflection, but MacAdams could feel the heat rising up the back of his neck.
“You think so, do you?”
“Cora Clapham thinks so,” said Fleet—and MacAdams threw himself into the front seat of the sedan and slammed the door shut. Which was a wholly useless gesture, since he needed to give Fleet a ride back to the inn. Fleet climbed into the passenger seat, proper as ever.
“You’re angry,” he said. And for some reason the sheer obviousness of the statement took the wind out of him. MacAdams sighed.
“You want to interview Tula and Jo Jones? You’re going to be staying at the Red Lion with them. Do your worst.”
It was Friday night and MacAdams was home alone. Mann City would be on the telly; he browsed to the channel and picked up Motorcycle Mechanics, which still came regularly (despite the fact he hadn’t worked on the BMW in his garage for at least three years). He proceeded to unthaw a microwavable entrée and open a brown ale. This, he told himself, was free living. The joke had long gone out of it; more of a mantra to mediocrity, now. His dinner had just dinged when the doorbell rang. He opened it with beer in hand.
“Sheila?”
“In the flesh,” Green said when he invited her in. “Hope you don’t mind the house call. I wondered how it went with your Yard detective.”
“He would like us to be more thorough.”
“Ah fuck’s sake.” Green shrugged out of her coat, which had been peppered with light raindrops. MacAdams hung it on the back of a chair.
“He’s probably interviewing Jo and Tula and half the other occupants of the Red Lion right now,” he added. Green barked a laugh.
“You know Sid’s exes are gonna be there, too. Arriving tomorrow, I think. Ever meet them?”
“No. Heard plenty from Sid. Mostly not to his credit.”
Green nodded, then leaned forward on her knees, hands dangling. It was her get-real pose.
“OK, now give me the dirt. What’s the detective really like? He’s from Scotland Yard and Cora seems pretty smitten.”
MacAdams sat on the arm of his sofa. He was not, himself, smitten. But he could see why the Chief might be. Jarvis Fleet in his pressed suit, straight tie, military turning radius, internal rule book. Fleet who also discovered a footprint that shouldn’t have been there, and who had shed real light on the murderer through his assessment of shots fired.
“Infuriatingly perfect,” he said.
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed at his neck; he’d been clamped down tight all day. “I don’t want him on the case—but...”
“But we might need him?” Green finished. MacAdams gave that real consideration.
“Need is too strong a word. We can use him, though. What did you get from Selkirk?” he asked.
“About Sid? He confirmed a sort of basic contract for maintenance and gardening. Apparently, he let the cottage in lieu of payment.”
“Why in lieu of?”
“Sid got to keep any money he made off rentals,” Green explained. “Selkirk figured he’d work harder to keep it up that way. And, if you want my opinion, he probably figured Sid was gonna do shit under the table anyhow, might as well make him responsible for the whole mess.”
MacAdams knew from his own occasional employ of Sid that this made excellent sense. But it also meant Selkirk knew about Sid’s less-than-wholly-legal methods. Green went on.
“Anyway, there wasn’t much money to be paying anyone. The American woman wasn’t lying—the estate’s in debt. Unless she’s made of cash, I don’t think she’ll be setting up as lady of the manor anytime soon.” She stood up, stretched, and retrieved her coat. “Look, boss, you gotta stop with the microwavey meals, right?”
“Rachel worrying about me again?” MacAdams asked with a laugh.
“She’s a nutritionist. It’s her job.” Green slung the coat over her shoulder. “If you don’t watch out, she’ll start making me bring you packed lunches.”
MacAdams could very well believe this; Rachel wasn’t maternal or anything of that order. But she hated the way police people ate. Bad food at bad hours, too much caffeine.
“Tell her I was making a pot roast when you came, and I won’t mention your regular order of curried chips.”
“Blackmail,” Green said, wagging a finger. MacAdams got the door.
“Whatever works,” he said. She chuckled on the way down his drive, a dark silhouette against the streetlamp. MacAdams leaned a moment in his own doorway. The night had turned milder than the day, part of spring’s uncertain welcome. He did not want to be in the incident room on a Saturday. He wanted to go for a walk with the dog he didn’t have (but kept meaning to get) and have a pint somewhere with real food and the general hum of humans. Murders were damned inconvenient. MacAdams shut the door; he didn’t have to like Fleet, he reminded himself. He just had to figure out how to use him to catch a killer.