It was a five-minute drive to the hospital, and Harri used the time to tell Sabih what she’d learned from Margery Allen.
“Must have been grim,” he said as they entered the hospital canteen. “To see someone actually jump like that. And he said, ‘They’re going to think I murdered her’? What a thing to say.”
Harri nodded while scanning the large second-story room. There was a long buffet of congealing food, fridges full of fizzy drinks, a few worried-looking couples talking quietly over cups of tea, a man with a young girl whose right arm was in a cast, and, over at a table by the run of windows a lone doctor in blue scrubs. Harri had met Kelly Jackson once before, but Sabih knew her better, and she wanted her former partner’s warrant card and easy charm in case Kelly had read the newspapers and wasn’t inclined to talk to a disgraced former police officer.
Kelly saw them and waved. She was blond and had a figure that used to torment Sabih. Harri had told him she wasn’t interested in his horny musings about how hot Kelly was, and he hadn’t broached the subject again, but she saw from his expression that his desire hadn’t waned. He was eyeing Kelly like a lion slavering over a baby antelope. Harri shook her head, but if Kelly knew what was on Sabih’s mind, she gave no hint of it.
“Detectives,” she said, standing to shake their hands. She had a broad Potteries accent and a folksy smile.
“I’m not—” Harri began.
“It’s good to see you, Kel,” Sabih interrupted. Perhaps he wasn’t all that drunk. Kelly wasn’t aware Harri had left the force, and Sabih’s knowing look suggested he saw little point in enlightening her. “Thanks for squeezing us in.”
“My shift just ended,” she replied as they sat. “Tea? Coffee?”
“No thanks,” Harri replied, and Sabih shook his head.
“What can I do for you?”
“We’re investigating the death of Elizabeth Asha,” Harri said. “Sab says you treated her.”
“Yes. Poor woman. I felt sorry for the whole family. It was so sad.” Kelly bowed her head and shook it slowly.
“And her body is missing?” Harri went on. She felt Sabih shift in his seat and glanced at him to see a momentary frown.
Kelly sighed. “We just don’t know what happened.”
“When did her body go missing?” Harri asked.
“The night she died.”
“Was her husband here?”
“Yes. He and Ben Elmys, their friend, were in the room when Beth died. I was with them. Her body disappeared after we left, before the orderlies came to remove it.”
“When was this?” Harri asked.
“Four or five months ago,” Kelly replied. “I think she died in April.”
A few months after their last date. He’d said their breakup was linked to his friend’s illness. Had Beth’s condition deteriorated while Harri and Ben had been seeing each other? Maybe that was why he’d broken things off? Perhaps he’d been knocked by her illness? But why didn’t he tell Harri?
“You said the body disappeared after you, Ben, and David left. Were they with you the whole time?” Sabih asked.
“For a while, but then they went,” Kelly replied.
“Could they have taken the body?” Sabih suggested.
Kelly smiled uncertainly. “You’re kidding. Why? What for?”
“Could they?” Sabih pressed.
“I suppose.” She hesitated. “But I’ve seen a lot of distraught, grieving families, and these two men loved that woman. They’d never have done anything untoward. She meant a lot to both of them.”
Harri hoped Kelly was right. She couldn’t believe the man she’d dated was capable of such a thing, but she had to be sure.
“Is there a camera system?” she asked, looking around the canteen. She caught sight of a couple of CCTV cameras hanging from the walls.
“Yes, but they say the one outside Beth’s room malfunctioned the night she died.”
Harri and Sabih exchanged a glance, and she saw the gleam in her former partner’s eye.
This is a case.
She’d started the investigation, but now she didn’t want it to be a case. She didn’t want to know Ben wasn’t the man she thought he was. Even if he didn’t love her, she still loved him, and she didn’t want to discover a love so pure had been birthed by a twisted man.
“We’d like to take a look,” Sabih said.
“I can put you in touch with hospital security,” Kelly replied.
Harri thought back to her conversation with Dr. Abiola and how she’d reacted to the suggestion Beth might have been exposed to a toxin.
“Can lymphoma be caused deliberately?” Harri asked.
“I suppose so,” Kelly replied. “Certain substances are capable of triggering it. Are you suggesting… no… Why would anyone want to do that?”
Harri looked at Sabih. They knew from bitter experience there were dozens of possible motives, but they left Kelly’s question hanging.
Sabih bounced out of the hospital, his arms animated, his fingers clicking in time to an imagined beat. She hadn’t seen him so lively since the night he’d been attacked near the railway tracks. The night her life had been ruined. The night his had been saved. She was happy for her old partner and pleased to have played a part in breathing life back into him.
“Why didn’t you tell me her body went missing?” he asked.
“Dramatic effect,” Harri replied. She couldn’t help but be uplifted by his mood. “I wasn’t sure lymphoma could be caused deliberately, so I didn’t want to—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sabih interrupted. “Don’t give me that. You could Google that. You were just stringing me along, but now here we are. We’ve got a lot of missing pieces but it looks like there’s cause for interest at least.”
“Right,” Harri said. “Why else would someone steal a body?”
“Organ harvesting,” Sabih joked darkly. “To conceal the cause of death, of course. I bet Ben Elmys had access to the kind of toxins Kelly mentioned. The husband probably did too.”
“True,” Harri acknowledged as they made their way back to her car, but she didn’t like how this was shaping up. She’d had these thoughts in the abstract when she’d been convinced something or someone would come along and tell her she was unhinged and that her suspicions were unfounded because Ben Elmys was a good man.
“He kills her and then, overwhelmed by guilt, takes his own life,” Sabih said. “Or the two of them conspired and the husband couldn’t cope with what they’d done and jumped.” He was getting excited. “You fancy a drive out to Leek?”
“Now? What about your poker night?”
“How am I going to focus on cards, knowing there might be an unsolved murder with my name on it?”
Harri wasn’t so upset she didn’t want credit. This might be her way back onto the force. She shot him a disapproving glance.
“Our names,” he corrected himself. “Our names on it.”