As she and Dexter arrived back at the office, Caroline felt even more confused than she had previously. The initial conversations with a bereaved family tended to go one of two ways. They’d either reveal information that led them closer to identifying their killer, or they’d throw more spanners in the works and open up even more avenues of possibility than there’d been previously. When it came to Clive Thornton, though, they seemed to have moved no further in either direction.
However they looked at it, it made no sense. As a man of good standing and with an impressive record of charity and voluntary work, there seemed to be no reason why anyone should want him dead. The longer the conversation had gone on, the more Caroline had felt herself coming round to his daughter’s suggestion that this had been a case of mistaken identity, and that Clive had simply been caught in the crossfire. But the more she thought about it, the less that made sense.
Clive Thornton’s murder had been undeniably deliberate. Multiple head trauma was a pretty horrendous way to kill someone, and you had to want them dead. For Clive to have been led or dragged over to the judge’s chair and restrained before he was beaten would’ve given ample opportunity for a case of mistaken identity to reveal itself. The only possibility Caroline could see was that the killer had been a hired hitman of some sort, and that Clive’s protestations of innocence would have fallen on deaf ears. But even that theory had its drawbacks. Apart from the fact that the idea seemed a million miles away from Rutland, would a hired hitman have got things so wrong? And why would they have killed him in the way they did? Why not something easier, simpler, less symbolic? From Caroline’s experience working in London, those sorts of hits tended to involve drive-by shootings, house fires and beatings in alleyways.
Whichever way Caroline looked at it, it made very little sense. It was a perfect example as to why detectives were trained not to come up with their own theories and design the search for evidence to fit them. Instead, the evidence must always be used to reveal the truth. Of course, each officer on a case would still have their own personal theories about what had happened. That was just human nature and psychology, and there’d be no stopping that. The key was not to let it cloud one’s judgement or change the shape of an investigation.
She parked her thoughts to one side as she knocked on the door of Chief Superintendent Derek Arnold’s office. She’d enjoyed a positive if unpredictable relationship with her superior officer since she’d arrived in Rutland, and had gradually formed the impression that Arnold was a spiritual ally. In practice, he could only be as helpful as the unseen forces above him, but over time he’d led Caroline to believe that he was at least on her side rather than theirs, and that he felt as hamstrung by budget cuts and unnecessary paperwork and procedure as she did.
As she sat down across the desk from him, she watched as he put his now-empty coffee mug back down and wiped his upper lip with his forefinger.
‘So. Here we are again,’ he said, with a wry smile. ‘England’s safest county. For now. Then again, being the smallest county does help somewhat. I don’t think I’d like to see the murder rate per head of population over the last couple of years.’
‘Nor me, sir,’ Caroline replied. ‘Although, from memory, I don’t think we could have done much to prevent any of them, so we can only judge success based on our charge rate.’
Arnold raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Very clever. I like your style. But listen, you know you don’t need to justify anything to me. I’ve been pushing hard for extra resources for you. And I’ve already spoken to the powers-that-be and primed them about allocating additional support for Operation Titan. You let me know what you need, and we’ll make sure you get it as quickly as possible.’
‘Thank you,’ Caroline said, feeling supported but not yet reassured. She’d spent enough years in the job to have experienced plenty of lip service and over-confident promises. ‘That’ll be very helpful. Invaluable, in fact. But we really do need that extra DC. Support staff are all well and good, but there’s no replacement for a decent detective.’
‘I know,’ Arnold said, leaning back in his chair. ‘And that’s been a much tougher nut to crack. With national funding as it is, we’re all being told we need to “find efficiency savings”. That’s politician talk for “get rid of people and make the others do more work”. We’re having to fight tooth and nail to keep officers and replace the ones who leave, never mind trying to justify increasing staff numbers. But we’ve got an iron in the fire.’
‘Okay,’ Caroline replied, becoming ever more confused. ‘And can I ask what that is?’
‘Let’s just say our friends over at EMSOU aren’t quite the rogues we make them out to be.’
EMSOU — the East Midlands Special Operations Unit — was the regional unit tasked with tackling serious and violent crimes on behalf of local forces. Under Caroline’s leadership, Rutland had managed to wrest back local control over these cases — a situation that was heavily dependent on their continued success.
Caroline raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ve managed to get someone to transfer over?’
‘Mmmm. Secondment, technically,’ Arnold said, cocking his head and avoiding her gaze. ‘But that’s just the foot in the door. We’ll be looking to make it a permanent transfer. If all goes well, and if we can show we’re not only in greater need but that the secondment is helping everybody, I see no reason why we won’t be able to make it permanent.’
If only it were up to you, Caroline thought. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’ll be really useful. Do we have any idea of timescales?’
‘Imminently,’ Arnold said, with his characteristic talent of somehow managing to avoid committing to anything specific. ‘I’ve already made them aware of Operation Titan, and fortunately for us they’re going through a nice Q period at the moment. I know you’ve heard it all before, but I’m confident you will have an extra detective on this case very soon.’
Caroline nodded, aware that this was the closest thing she was going to get to an assurance. ‘That’s great to hear, sir,’ she replied. ‘You’ll let me know when you hear more?’
‘You’ll be the first person I call. Keep your phone on you.’
Caroline left the Chief Superintendent’s office feeling more reassured than she’d expected, confident that a new member of staff on the major incident team would make a huge difference to their chances of identifying and apprehending Clive Thornton’s killer.
As she got back to her office, Aidan intercepted her.
‘Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but DS Antoine’s stepped out for a moment. I just wondered, did Susan Thornton mention anything about a burglary? I don’t recall anything from the notes.’
‘Burglary? No, she didn’t. What burglary?’
‘At their home. It popped up on the PNC when I was running the routine checks. Clive and Susan Thornton were burgled three weeks ago.’