Gemma could still faintly smell the bitterness of burnt orange on her fingers the next morning as she keyed in the request for information on Meredith Vincent from the General Registry. The last thing she’d seen before leaving for work was a row of empty sterilised jars, still waiting to be filled. They were like some sort of metaphor for her life – the marmalade she spent much of her free weekend making had never set and had to be flushed down the toilet. Why did work always seem easier than the rest of her life? It was a relief to be back at her desk – less so when Mavis strode in, however, his trousers slightly too tight around the crotch, his clean-shaven face like a cross-looking Action Man.
‘Morning, Mark,’ she said. ‘Nice weekend?’
‘PM results are in on both vics,’ he replied, staring at a polystyrene ceiling tile over her desk as if it was about to reveal some sort of profound secret. ‘Tell the team there’s a briefing for ten a.m., please. Lincoln’s coming in as SIO. This is an MIT investigation now.’
‘What, so they were dead before going in the water? Both of them? No!’
‘I’ll tell you in the meeting.’
He marched past her desk and on to the coffee machine. Gemma’s thoughts whirled – a maelstrom, with Meredith Vincent in the eye of the storm. What were the chances of two people close to the woman – both in terms of geography and their relationships – being murdered then dumped in water within a week of each other? This surely made Meredith a prime suspect; yet she had no motive, no beef with either victim and both were her good friends. She hadn’t had any sort of breakdown or psychiatric problems, to their knowledge.
Could someone be trying to get at Meredith? The thought seemed preposterous. A respectable, fifty-something gift-shop manager didn’t have those sorts of enemies.
A world-famous household name pop star, however, could easily have crossed someone at some point in her career – and they still didn’t know what had caused Meredith’s sudden withdrawal from the public eye. She’d been wondering if it was something to do with the hole in her hand that Meredith wouldn’t discuss. Gemma made a mental note to look into this further. And Meredith herself seemed worried, albeit more about Paula Allerton than herself. She’d rung Gemma a couple of days before to report that a statue outside the Allertons’ house had been vandalised, and that Paula had told her she thought someone had been creeping around there the night before.
An hour later the conference room was packed – Gemma had sent out a blanket email. Emad sidled in at the last moment with another newish PC – Damian someone – and took a seat at the back. When she flashed him a brief grin, she noticed the sheepish, pleased expression that crossed his face. He was such a sweetheart.
Mavis and DI Lincoln stood at the front, next to a board on which were pinned photographs of Andrea Horvath and Ralph Allerton, pre- and post-mortem.
‘Right. Morning everyone,’ Detective Superintendent Lincoln began. He was a tall, handsome, chisel-jawed man with wavy blond hair and just the right amount of darker stubble, but he had an unfortunate voice and a weird way of coughing, where he flung back his head and coughed into the back of his hand with short staccato barks. This looked very melodramatic, like a speeded-up swooning Victorian heroine. He did it so often it had to be a sort of tic, and this, plus the nasal voice, instantly cancelled out much of the sex appeal of his appearance. Gemma could tell, though, that Mavis still felt threatened in his proximity.
‘I’m now the SIO on this, so, for those who don’t know the details, I’ll fill you in. Thursday, fourteenth of June, PCs Khan and Jackman here were called to Minstead House, where the shop manager, Meredith Vincent, had been on her lunch break by the pond and had found Ralph Allerton’s body in the pond. He’d been reported as a misper the previous Thursday after not returning from work. Two days later, Ms Vincent was also at the scene of discovery of a second body: Andrea Horvath, a Hungarian national who’d lived in the UK for ten years. She worked as a hairdresser off her boat at the Wey Wharf, next to Meredith Vincent’s twin brother’s boat. Meredith had been staying with her twin, Pete, the night before and found Andrea’s body in the water when she left for a run in the morning. We’ve now had PM results in on both vics, which has ruled out accidental deaths, definitely on Allerton, who’d been strangled, and probably on Andrea Horvath, who suffered a blow to the head before she went into the river. It’s possible that she banged her head and fell in, but unlikely – the severity of the blow and shape of the wound indicates something like a baseball bat. Seems a bit of a coincidence that Ms Vincent finds two bodies in the same week, wouldn’t you agree?’
Nods from around the room.
‘So obviously she’s the primary focus of our investigations. Her brother’s the alibi for both occasions, and there are no motives for either death – vics were her friends – and she seems genuinely distraught. But we need to look at both twins, check out their relationships with the deceased.’
Gemma put up her hand.
‘Yes? You’re DC McMeekin, correct?’
Lincoln did the weird coughing thing, so Gemma nodded and waited till he’d finished barking. ‘Sir, I’m wondering if someone is after Meredith herself, trying to hurt her. I think there’s something she’s not telling us, maybe from years ago. You know she was the lead singer in the band Cohen? They were big in the eighties and nineties.’
This information elicited a ripple of excited murmurs from around the room, particularly from the personnel who were in the forty-plus age bracket.
‘Davis did mention this, yes,’ Lincoln said, scratching his ear. ‘But I’m not sure that—’
Gemma interrupted him. ‘She was really freaked out when Mark – DS Davis recognised her.’ Flustered that she’d spoken over him, she rushed on: ‘And she’s got this massive scar – well, hole thing, really – on the back of her hand that she’s very cagey about. She just says she doesn’t like to talk about it and clams up. I Googled Cohen, and it turns out she quit the band really suddenly in’ – she consulted her notes – ‘ninety-five. When they were at the height of their success. She seems scared, and paranoid. I was wondering…’
Mavis was shooting daggers at her, presumably thinking that it should have been him who imparted this information. She gritted her teeth, hoping that the blush she could feel sweeping across her face wasn’t too obvious to everybody else. She willed her voice to stay firm as she continued:
‘…I was wondering if I could go and be her FLO for a few days? Partly because she’s in a state; she lives in this isolated cottage in the grounds of Minstead House, and I’m worried, if someone’s trying to target her, she could be next. But also so I can really get to know her better. Like, why is she working in a gift shop and renting a tiny cottage? She must have made a fortune during her time with the band. She might tell me whatever it is she doesn’t want us to know…?’
Lincoln coughed again, and Mavis pressed his lips together in a tight line of disapproval. Gemma stared at her hands, willing them to agree so that she didn’t look like a complete twat in front of everybody. It had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, to get herself involved in the investigation, but it wasn’t normal to assign Family Liaison Officers to anyone outside of family members of the victims.
‘Are you an experienced FLO?’ Lincoln scrutinised her, his head on one side.
‘Yes, boss. I’ve had more than twenty placements over the past five years. I’ve already met Meredith. I’m sure I could establish a good rapport with her. I know it’s not standard procedure to stay over, but under the circumstances I think it would be a good idea…?’
She didn’t dare to look around to see the scowl she knew would be on Mavis’s face at this. Meredith hadn’t warmed to him at that first interview, and he’d acted as if it was a personal affront ever since. And now she was suggesting that she broke official FLO protocols.
‘She’s got her brother. Why doesn’t he go and stay with her?’ said Mavis. ‘And surely she’s working during the day. What are you going to do, hang around her shop all day?’
Gemma stood her ground. ‘She told me she’s taking a few days off – compassionate leave. Her brother’s working – got some big commission to finish apparently, so he’ll be holed up in his workshop in Minstead Village. Just think how much intel I could get out of her if she’s at home alone for a few days. She trusts me, I know she does. She said before she’d only talk to me.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lincoln. ‘But first can you look at all the CCTV available from the day Ralph Allerton vanished? Let’s see if that throws anything up.’
Gemma had to avert her eyes in order not to throw Mavis a smug look. ‘Already done, boss. He’s not seen on camera coming down from his office that afternoon, but the cameras are only on the main staircase and external doors. He must have used the back staircase, the one the servants would have used, but Meredith Vincent said that wasn’t unusual – staff often use that one when the house is closed to the public. Cameras also picked up Meredith’s brother arriving on his bike at around eight-forty p.m., which tallies with her statement.’
‘What about interviews with all the staff working that day? Did anybody see Allerton leave?’
‘We haven’t done any other interviews yet. Of course we’d have done them straight away,’ Mavis said defensively, ‘if we’d known it was going to be a crime scene.’
If you’d realised it was a crime scene, you twat, thought Gemma, somewhat unfairly. There had been no reason at first to suspect that Allerton’s death was anything other than an accident.
‘So now that we know it is,’ said Lincoln, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, ‘I suggest you get back over there and do a search around the pond. Please tell me the pond was cordoned off in the golden hour?’
Mavis nodded, chastened. ‘Of course, boss. PC Khan here closed down the scene when he got there.’
Emad had opened his mouth to agree, nodding furiously, but Lincoln spoke first.
‘Well, that’s something at least. Get a team down there to do a thorough search of the area surrounding the pond again. If he was dumped, there should be footprints, tyre tracks, something. He was a big guy; he can’t have been that easy to transport. Mark, you go back and speak to the wife, tell her about these new developments.’
At the mention of tyre tracks, Gemma caught Emad glaring in an uncharacteristically confrontational way at Damian, who was studiously avoiding his eye. ‘There were wheelbarrow tracks,’ Emad blurted. ‘Deep ones, leading to the pond.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you put them in your report, then?’ Lincoln’s brows furrowed with irritation as he stabbed with a thick finger at the printout of Emad and Damian’s report about the scene.
Poor Emad, thought Gemma. His expression had reverted to its default one of humility, and it took her straight back to their schooldays, how cowed he looked when the teacher asked him a question he couldn’t answer.
‘It’s an area that the house’s gardeners go through a lot – the pond lies between the greenhouses and the vegetable gardens. But surely Allerton wouldn’t have fitted into a wheelbarrow?’ she said.
‘He could have done,’ Lincoln said grimly. ‘If he was already dead, and the person or people wheeling him were strong enough to lift him into it.’
‘Right,’ said Gemma. ‘We’ll talk to all the gardeners, see who was around that night. Emad, can you make a start on that?’
Emad nodded, opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Gemma smiled encouragingly at him, and Lincoln spotted it. ‘Was there something else, Emad?’
‘It might be nothing, sir,’ he said reluctantly, his voice barely audible over the judder of the elderly aircon unit, ‘but I was thinking: you mentioned that Meredith’s twin arrived at eight-fortyish on the night Allerton went missing. She said that she and Pete were going out for a drink but then decided against it. I was just wondering why he would have cycled all the way up to Minstead House? I mean, why didn’t she just meet him in the pub, if they’d intended to go out? The nearest pub’s the Ship in Minstead Village. No reason for him to go up to the house first. And she said he was “picking her up” for a drink, but he arrived on his bike. I don’t think he even has a car, does he?’
Gemma was about to agree, but Mavis jumped in: ‘I’m sure that’s no big deal, Emad. They probably hadn’t decided whether to go out or stay in, that’s all, so they’d agreed he’d come up to her and then they’d see how they felt.’
Chastened, Emad looked down, not meeting anybody’s eyes. Gemma made a mental note to congratulate him later for thinking of it. It was a good point. Why wouldn’t Pete have just gone to meet Meredith at the pub? The Ship was only up the road from Pete’s boat. It didn’t make sense. She would pay Meredith another visit and ask her.