The ambulance came and took Juliet to the Peterborough City Hospital. Tim offered to accompany her, but she indicated she’d prefer Verity. Tim knew Juliet well enough to understand that she wanted to leave him free to get on with the case. He didn’t try to argue with her.
Susie Fovargue was cut free of the plastic ties and handcuffed. She was taken to Spalding police station and detained in one of the cells.
Using the keys and barcodes and other practical knowledge supplied by Josh Marriott and Nathan Buckland, members of the armed response unit had helped Tim to search and secure the buildings at Silverdale Farm. They were obliged to break into the farmhouse itself – Marriott did not have keys to it – and searched it, but, as Juliet and Tim had both surmised, it was deserted.
Tim called Superintendent Thornton and gave him a brief update. With similar – and uncharacteristic – brevity, the Superintendent told him of Fovargue’s disappearance.
Four members of the response unit stayed to guard the crime scene until South Lincs Police could take over. Tim knew they must deploy SOCOs as soon as possible to examine and analyse the contents of the cesspit. He hoped Patti Gardner would be spared its horrors but knew this was unlikely: she’d already helped with the Fossdyke murders so she’d be the logical choice to lead the SOCOs at Silverdale Farm.
Tim himself drove Josh Marriott and Nathan Buckland to the station. Both were subdued, but Marriott seemed stunned by what he’d witnessed. Tim led them to an interview room and arranged for them to be supplied with water and hot drinks while he went for a quick debriefing with Superintendent Thornton. He was carrying the folder Susie Fovargue had flung at him.
The Superintendent was in an unforgiving frame of mind. Like the mother of a child who’s frightened her by wandering off, his relief that Tim was safe was mixed with anger at his impetuous behaviour.
‘There’s no excuse for the way you acted, Yates, you do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir, but…’
‘No buts. It’s because of you that Armstrong’s been injured. And you could both have been killed.’
‘I know that, sir.’ This time Tim didn’t try to retaliate. Thornton had hit him where it hurt hardest. He knew he’d always blame himself for Juliet’s injury. He hoped to God she wouldn’t be permanently disfigured.
‘Is there any word from the hospital?’
‘Not yet. I’ve asked them to call me. I’m pretty certain she’ll need an operation.’
Even the Superintendent, whose strong suit was not emotional intelligence, couldn’t fail to see how stricken Tim felt. He decided to be magnanimous.
‘Well, we’ll leave it at that for the moment. I can’t make any guarantees, you understand. Disciplinary action may have to be taken. Armstrong herself may press for compensation, though arguably neither of you was following good working practice.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Not Juliet, he thought. She wouldn’t sue the police force.
‘Do you believe Mrs Fovargue’s assertion that she and her husband are joint murderers?’
‘I have no reason not to believe her. We’ll know more when Forensics have examined the stuff in that cesspit. And when we’ve worked through the contents of this.’
Tim placed the folder on the Superintendent’s desk. He was reluctantly impressed when the Superintendent drew on a pair of latex gloves.
‘No doubt your prints are all over it already, Yates, but we won’t add mine as well. There are probably some more interesting daubs on it than yours, so let’s try to preserve them. This is extraordinary,’ he added, as he turned the cover and pulled out the first sheaf of papers. He skim-read the Free Press account of Smythe’s murder and the print-out from the website. ‘Is it really the true record of a series of murders?’
‘Innocent people have been known to confess to being serial killers, from some warped notion that it’s glamorous, I suppose. But I think we’ll find the people named in here once owned the trophies in that cesspit. With a bit of luck, there’ll be some DNA evidence as well, or, as you’ve pointed out, fingerprints. Even without them, I think we’ve got a watertight case against the Fovargues – if it transpires it really was both of them.’
‘Smythe’s murder is the first to appear here. Does that mean he was their last victim?’
‘We need time to work through the folder properly, but I think they’re filed in reverse chronological order, like accounts. Susie Fovargue was – is – an accountant.’
‘Do you think that means they haven’t killed Martha Johnson? Or simply that they hadn’t opened a file on her?’
‘According to Susie, Fovargue killed Martha Johnson without consulting her. That was what made her flip – the fact that he did it on his own, when all their previous murders had been planned and shared together.’
‘But that doesn’t add up, does it, Yates? You saw the man when he was in here. I don’t think he was putting on the distress he felt at Johnson’s disappearance. In fact, now I look back on it, I’d say it was more than ordinary distress – more as if he were afraid of something. That his wife had killed Johnson, perhaps?’
‘You’ve got a point there,’ said Tim. ‘But that doesn’t explain why Susie opened up the cesspit. I think she did it because she believed Fovargue had killed Martha Johnson and hidden something of hers in there. She may even have thought he’d put the body in it. And Fovargue had got over his hysterics by the time he was preparing for the Lincoln show. Perhaps by then he knew what had happened to Martha?’
‘Perhaps. Or perhaps he’d calmed down because he knew she was dead. Perhaps he’d been worried that Johnson would expose them – and that was why he was distressed when he came to see me. He took matters into his own hands and sorted out the threat.’
‘I certainly think Martha was on to something,’ said Tim. ‘There’s evidence the news clippings were originally stored in the accounts files – they mainly contained receipts for fuel and other vehicle expenses. I think Susie – or Fovargue – moved them into this folder because Martha went looking into the accounts files, which strictly speaking were none of her business, and found something that made her suspicious. One of the clippings was left in the accounts files – Juliet and Katrin found it when they were working through them last night.’
‘You’re beginning to lose me now, Yates. You’ll have to put all of this in a report so we can consider the implications properly. The point I’m trying to get at now is whether I should scale down the search for Martha Johnson or not. It seems to me there’s a chance she’s still alive, even if it’s a remote one. Should we keep on with the full-scale search for at least another day?’
‘I’d certainly prefer to do that.’ Tim tried not to show his surprise: it was unlike Thornton to miss an opportunity to save police money. Perhaps Martha Johnson was still alive.
‘Now,’ said the Superintendent, standing up and looking businesslike. ‘I’ve asked Michael Robinson to have Aaron Buckland brought here for questioning. Do you want to do it, or shall I?’
‘Aaron Buckland?’ said Tim. ‘Why do we want to question him?’
‘Oh, did we forget to tell you, Yates? After Fovargue did his bunk, Buckland showed up and tried to steal Fovargue’s vehicle – a damn big truck, from what I hear. Some of Michael’s team caught up with him with commendable speed and arrested him.’
‘Christ,’ said Tim, his mind whirring with possibilities. ‘That is a turn-up for the book. And, God, we’ll have to be careful. We’ve got Nathan Buckland here to give a statement about how he helped arrest Susie Fovargue and now Aaron Buckland under arrest for vehicle theft. I suppose it was theft – Fovargue didn’t ask him to take it?’
‘What do you think, Yates? According to Carstairs, Aaron Buckland’s the person who assaulted Fovargue yesterday evening. He’d hardly invite the man to borrow his lorry after that, would he?’
Tim’s mind whirred faster. His reply was directed to the Superintendent, but in reality he was talking to himself.
‘So he has a grudge against Fovargue, if it was Buckland who hit Fovargue yesterday – and we think Monday’s attacker was the same bloke. If it was Buckland, Ricky should be able to recognise him.’
‘Right, well, I’ll leave you to it,’ said the Superintendent. ‘Let me know if you need me when Buckland gets here. By the way, Yates…’ Tim noted the change in tone and gave his boss his full attention.
‘…I don’t remember authorising you to ask Katrin for the information she gathered on this case?’
It was a parting shot. The Superintendent sat down at his desk again and, still wearing the latex gloves, began to work through the file in earnest. Tim understood that he had been dismissed.