Caroline took a few minutes to collect her thoughts by the coffee machine before heading back to the incident room and convening a team briefing. She could tell from the way Aidan and Sara looked at her that Dexter had already told them the interview had been a disaster. One of the downsides to a small team was that bad news travelled quickly.
‘Okay,’ she said, raising her voice to make it clear the briefing had begun. ‘Dexter and I have just conducted another interview with Amie Tanner following the discovery that a previous boyfriend of hers, Russell Speakman, died under suspicious circumstances just over fifteen years ago. It would be fair to say it didn’t go brilliantly. I think for now we need to take a step back, keep our powder dry and await more concrete evidence. It’ll be there, one way or the other. We’re still waiting for forensics, are we, Aidan?’
‘Yep. Due to hear back shortly, but nothing of note yet.’
Caroline looked at him as he spoke. She could tell something wasn’t quite right. He seemed vacant somehow. ‘Okay, let me know the second we hear anything back. In the meantime, I want to make it clear that Amie and Gavin Tanner are still of great interest to us. He’s been her alibi twice when people close to her have died under suspicious circumstances. And yes, that’s all it is for now. Circumstantial. And that’s exactly why we keep digging. Sara, you’ve done brilliantly uncovering what you have so far, so keep on that. We need to look especially at what happened to her dad. We know he died quite young. Is there anyone else? Any other ex-boyfriends, friends, colleagues, contacts? Let’s trace as much of her life as we can and speak to as many people as we can. Circumstantial evidence won’t help us in court, but it could lead us towards some hard, solid evidence which will.’
‘On that,’ Sara said, flicking to the right page in her notebook, ‘I don’t think we’re going to find anything suspicious when it comes to her dad’s death. He’d been ill for some time and died in a hospice. And by all accounts her dad doted on her and he was the most important thing in her life, so my instinct is we’re on dodgy ground with that one.’
‘Alright. As I say, we’ll keep digging anyway. Carefully and respectfully. Dex, can you chip in and see what else we can uncover about the death of Russell Speakman? I want to review the full coroner’s report. Transcripts from the hearing, if we can. Find out who the coroner was, who did the post-mortem, who investigated the incident. I want to speak to them all. It’s entirely possible there are methods available now which weren’t fifteen years ago, and that we might be able to get some answers. If it was accidental, fine. If more than a few people had suspicions otherwise, that’s going to need investigating.’
‘Cool,’ Dexter said, nodding. ‘I’ll get onto that. Should all be fairly simple to find out.’
‘Great. Now listen, everyone. You’re doing brilliantly. I know we’re understaffed and under-resourced, but you’re pulling out all the stops and going well beyond what’s expected, and I can’t ask much more than that. We’ve not had EMSOU on the phone trying to take over the case and even the Chief Super’s been quiet, so let’s crack on and make sure things stay that way, alright? The last thing we need now is for bureaucracy to get in the way.’