Several hours later, Angela entered her home in Richmond. Closing the front door behind her, she kicked off her shoes and stood for a few moments in the hallway. Angie loved this moment of the day. Bright evening sunlight streamed in through the glass panels above the front door, sparkling everywhere it landed, giving an added shining welcome to the house. She could hear Patrick pottering about in the kitchen just a few yards away. He was usually home before her, and she gave thanks to be married to a man who loved to cook. Through the door she could hear the faint sound of a CD playing. Patrick liked cooking to music. It inspired him. The Three Tenors tonight.
She pushed open the kitchen door.
“Evening, sweetheart,” he said without looking round. Angela moved nearer and put her arms round him from behind. Holding aloft a peeled onion in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other he wriggled round in her grip, a wide grin of welcome on his face; they kissed. A moment later he drew back and looked down at her. She grinned up at him happily and buried her face in his shoulder. It amazed her that after two and a half years of marriage his smile could still cause her heart to flip.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“I was thinking how glad I am that I’ve got a flipping heart.”
He laughed; they’d had this conversation before. “I’m very glad about that too, darling. I must say, I thought you would come in all preoccupied with today’s events.” Angela raised her eyes to his face. “I didn’t take the initial call but I heard all about it, obviously,” he said. “Was it very traumatic, finding your first love dead this morning?”
Angela moved over and perched herself on a high stool just out of the way of cooking operations. She gave a rueful smile. “Not traumatic as such. But it was sad all the same. He was such a big part of my growing-up years. And do you know, Pads, he looked so damned healthy and vibrant lying there.”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “Yes, I know what you mean.” He was silent for a while as he finished chopping the onion and poured some oil into a pan. “Did you catch any of the news bulletins?” he asked once the onions were sizzling gently.
“No,” she answered. “Well, only an early one as I was coming away from the club.”
“Hmm. By the midday news broadcast there’d been a positive identification from his wife. So they announced his death and gave a brief summary of his career – you know how they do – and there was a minute’s silence at the opening of the tournament.”
“Oh, that’s a nice gesture,” Angie responded. “I didn’t catch any of the bulletins today. I just got stuck into some paperwork. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to clear my desk while I had the chance. I suspect this might be murder and I’ll be on the case. At least I hope I will be,” she finished, unable to keep a note of chagrin out of her voice.
He shot her a puzzled look. “Why wouldn’t you be, Detective Inspector Costello?”
“Call me paranoid, but D.C.I. Stanway rang me this morning and said he would go to the post-mortem tomorrow. So I immediately thought I might not get to run this investigation – he’d be breathing down my neck all the time…” Angela’s voice tailed off.
“Well, he is in overall charge, sweetheart.”
“I know.”
“If anything goes wrong, it’s his head on the block.”
“I know.”
“You’re paranoid.”
Angela laughed. “Yeah, I know that too.”
“McKenzie is the pathologist on tomorrow and he’s an old pal of Stanway, so I expect he actually wants the opportunity for a bit of a chinwag. You’ll be heading up the investigation, no question.”
“I didn’t know McKenzie and Stanway were pals. Sounds like you’ve got inside knowledge. Is there anything else you’re not telling me, Mr Coroner’s Officer?”
He spread his hands. “I know nutzing. The PM will be first thing in the morning so all speculation is suspended for the time being. But I was at the public mortuary when the body was brought in along with the details of how he had been found.” Angela nodded and a comfortable silence ensued between them while Patrick gave his attention to his mixture in the big copper frying pan. As the onion gradually became translucent and started to brown, he added garlic and ginger. “We had a tricky moment when Una Belic came in to ID the body,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Oh? Really?”
“Yes, the viewing room wasn’t quite ready, so they asked me to show her to the waiting room and then fetch her when things had been set up.”
“Oh right. What’s she like?”
“Seems a nice lady; well turned out. She had two kids with her – teenagers – a boy and a girl. I presume they were her and Petar’s children.”
Angela nodded. “Yeah, probably; they have three altogether but I think there’s a bit of a gap between them and the youngest.”
“Right.” Patrick added a selection of spices to the pan. “Anyway, I explained the situation to them and left them to it for a bit. When I went back about ten minutes later, somebody else was in there and, my goodness, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.”
“Who was this other person?”
“Well, I didn’t know at first but she looked familiar. She was as thin as a rake and she was wearing the shortest skirt I think I’ve ever seen. Her gestures were kind of jerky and her face was just the tiniest bit haggard, and I couldn’t for the life of me think where I knew her from. It turns out she was Petar’s girlfriend, Lavinia Bannister, though she called herself his partner. And then, of course, I knew that I’d seen her in the papers.”
“Yes,” said Angela. “And she’s forever in the glossies.”
“Hmm, I’m not surprised,” answered Patrick, getting a packet of prawns from the fridge and adding them to the pan. “I must say, that airbrushing stuff does wonders, doesn’t it? Anyway, she was demanding to know why she hadn’t been called in officially to ID him. She kept casting these glances across at Mrs Belic and the two kids. They kept their cool admirably, though – Mrs Belic and the kids, that is.”
“What an awful situation. What happened?”
“Well, I explained to Ms Bannister that Mrs Belic had been called in because, as his wife, she was next of kin and we needed a positive identification. She got a bit hysterical then and starting shouting that she was his partner, she’d been with him for the past two years and she should be the one to ID Petar, and she carried on in that vein for a while. She was quite hyper, really. I was very impressed with Mrs Belic, though. She kept absolutely calm and suggested they both view the body; one after the other. Long story short, La Bannister seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to win so she calmed down a bit once separate viewings had been suggested, and that’s what they did. Mind you, Ms Bannister was holding fast to what she must think should be her place in the scheme of things, because when she came out of the viewing room she made a point of going over to John Marshall, who was handling the identification, and saying, ‘Yes, that’s him.’”
“Good grief.”
“You’re not kidding. But I must admit I did feel a bit sorry for her.” Patrick scooped some rice from a sieve where it had been draining and added it in with the other ingredients.
“Biryani?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, goody. So why did you feel sorry for her?”
“Well, if I had to choose between those two particular ladies I know which one I would opt for, but this Lavinia Bannister is kind of left out in the cold. The proper protocol means that we have to refer to the wife. Which is what’s happening. Una Belic is contacting the various family members and setting the funeral in motion – once the body’s released, that is. And I expect it’s she who’ll eventually take his property, as soon as forensics has finished with it.” He looked at her. “His property, by the way, didn’t include his mobile phone or car keys. Did the SOCO team find them anywhere near the scene?”
“I don’t believe they did but I’m not absolutely certain of anything at the moment. Odd, though, if they’re missing.”
“Police work is full of oddities. Right, Mrs Costello, I’ve just got to add the water and simmer for about twenty minutes and we’re all set.” He pulled two trays from the side of the fridge in readiness and smiled at her. “Dinner in front of the telly for the next couple of weeks, I think, don’t you?”
“You betcha,” grinned Angela.
Patrick always left for work before Angela and she was touched, the following morning, to see that he had popped out to get a couple of tabloids to accompany their usual newspaper and had left all three by her breakfast plate. She went through them as she sipped her first cup of coffee. The heavy broadsheet that they normally took gave a restrained account of the death on the front page but didn’t make it the leading story, directing readers to the obituary column for a resumé of Petar’s life and career.
The tabloids, however, were doing what they did best. Petar Belic Dead at Wimbledon and Champ Belic Dead on Court were the headlines and they both put as much spin as they could on the sparse information they had been given about the finding of the body. A great deal of space on the inside pages was given over to Petar’s life story and a rundown of his most famous victories. Some enterprising photographer had managed to get Una Belic and Lavinia Bannister into the same frame as they left the public mortuary at the same time. Una and her two eldest children had kept their heads down and turned away from the camera but Lavinia, getting into a taxi a few yards away, was shown full-faced and tearful.
Another photograph of Lavinia accompanied an interview with her in both papers. She talked about how shocked and devastated she was. The grieving partner of Petar Belic, publicist Lavinia Bannister, sat in her luxury Holland Park flat wondering how she was going to face the future without her soulmate. “I’m distraught. He was everything to me,” she told our reporter, her eyes filling with the tears which have hardly stopped flowing since the tragic news was first broken to her. “I’ve got an extremely important business lunch today and I really don’t know how I’m going to cope. But I have to be strong for Petar. I owe it to him. I know he would want me to be brave and carry on.” Angela looked again at the photograph. This one hadn’t been airbrushed: Bannister looked convincingly haggard.
She flicked over to the back pages. Her television viewing of the previous evening had already shown her that Stewart Bickerstaff and Philip Turnbull had both won their first-round matches. Their faces gazed at her from the sports section. By the time they had both come off court, the news of Petar’s death was official and a statement had come in very soon afterwards from Stewart: I dedicate this victory to the memory of my friend, mentor and coach, Petar Belic, who was found dead so tragically this morning. Petar, wherever you are, this one’s for you.
She continued her trawl through the papers and was just finishing her second cup of coffee when her mobile rang, Patrick’s name on the display.
“Morning, Paddy,” she said. “Thanks for the extra papers.”
“My pleasure, sweetheart; I knew you’d want something a bit more lurid than normal this morning.”
“Yes, indeed. Has he had his PM yet? Have you got any news for me?”
“Well, yes and no. The PM wasn’t able to establish a cause of death, so we’ve got to wait for the results of toxicology and histology screening. However, the body has a puncture mark, as if from a syringe of some sort, in the back of his neck.”
“The back of his neck?”
“Yes. A very strange place if you’re injecting yourself but all too plausible if being injected by someone else. It’s bruised as well, which indicates that whoever gave the injection wasn’t very experienced at it.”
“Gotcha.”
“So, given the facts, how the body was found, the puncture mark and the lack of obvious cause, the whole case has now been upgraded and gained what you might call a forensic urgency. The blood and other tests will be rushed through but you know as much about forensic turnaround times as I do, and we probably won’t have any results for a few days. Anyway, my darling, we are looking at what is now, officially, a suspicious death.”
Angela swallowed and was silent.
“Are you still there, Angie?”
“What? Oh yes. I’m just thinking about this puncture mark. Were there any other signs of a struggle? I mean, there didn’t seem to be from what I could tell when I was looking at the body, but….”
“The report doesn’t mention any.”
“But you don’t just sit there quietly while somebody injects you with a lethal substance and…”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, my darling.”
“OK… yes. You’re right; we don’t know if the puncture mark had anything to do with his death.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’ll take a couple more deep breaths and go in to the office.”
“That’s the ticket.”
“I’m glad I cleared my desk yesterday.”
“You were wise to do so.”
Angela wasted no time in finishing her breakfast and getting in to work. She hadn’t been there long when she received the call she knew would come, summoning her to the detective chief inspector’s office.
As she entered, D.C.I. Stanway swung round from the window where he had been watering his beloved miniature roses. His round face lit up in a smile, which Angela knew from experience was not the signal to relax.
“Ah, Angela; do sit down! You know why I’ve asked you to come.”
“Yes, sir. Well, I presume it’s about the death of Petar Belic at Wimbledon.”
“You presume correctly.”
Stanway put the watering can down on the floor behind his desk and sat up, looking at her, his hands steepled in front of him. Angela was expecting him to launch into procedural details and instructions but was taken aback by his next words. “This is the most awful shame, Angie.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve dealt with many suspicious deaths, as you can imagine, but there’s something about this one that touches a chord; such a fine player in his day and a credit to the game.”
“I had no idea you were a follower of tennis, sir.”
A small smile appeared around the corners of Stanway’s mouth. “Not just a follower, Angie. I was county standard at one time. I had a killer of a forehand drive, even though I say it myself.” He patted his all-too-visible paunch. “Those were the days.”
“Indeed,” agreed Angela, not knowing what else to say. She was having a little difficulty with the image of the chief, young and slim and dressed in white shorts. “You’re right though, sir. Petar Belic was a credit to the game, by all accounts.”
“Yes… yes.” Stanway gave himself a little shake. “To business; have you seen the pathologist’s report yet?”
“Not yet, sir, but Patrick rang me and gave me the gist.”
“Ah yes, of course. The gist being?” You had to sing for your supper with Stanway.
“No obvious cause of death as yet, but a bruised puncture mark on the back of the neck, sir.”
“So what do we make of this, Angie, hmm?”
“Well, the injection of a lethal substance is my first guess, sir, possibly administered by someone not used to handling needles. But we won’t know for sure until we have the histology and toxicology results.”
Stanway nodded and looked at her for a long moment. “OK, Angela,” he said eventually. “This is where you get your wings. Are you ready for this?”
She caught her breath as a flash of either panic or elation shot through her, and let her stomach settle before replying.
“I am, sir.”
Stanway smiled. “OK, you know what to do; get on with it. You can have Wainwright and Driver, and a couple of D.C.s. I’m very mindful of what a high-profile case this will be, but I haven’t got any other sergeants available at the moment.”
“Not to worry, sir; we’ll manage.” What a bummer, she thought to herself, but I hope I know better than to get promotion one day and whinge about staffing levels the next.
“Good-oh. You can have that new man Houseman with you as well. At least he’s got a pleasant location for his first outing with us. Keep me updated throughout and if you feel you’re getting tangled up, let me know.”
Angela stood up. You always knew when an interview was at an end with Stanway.
“I will. Thank you, sir.”
She was back in her own office before she allowed herself to exhale.