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DC Gibbons arrived at Thomas Telford house at five past ten. Went to the door and pressed fifty. Karen’s metallic voice appeared to one side of the door. ‘Hello?’ she croaked.
‘Hi there.’
‘Come on up,’ and the door sprang open.
Up in the flat Karen whispered, ‘Do you fancy a beer?’ opening the fridge and demonstrating the well packed shiny green cans.
‘Nah, rather have a coffee.’
She rather liked that. She’d always considered Gibbons to be some kind of boorish lager lout. She set the coffee machine burbling and told him to go through to the lounge area.
‘How do you like it?’ she said, straining what remained of her voice.
‘Milk, dash of shug-shug.’
She brought the mug in and set it on the coffee table, and sat on the two-seater sofa. He was sitting in the chair by the window. The curtains or blinds or whatever she had, were still wide open, and he could see the headlights of cars dashing along the inner ring road, and occasionally heard the sound of a honking impatient driver or the beep-borp of an ambulance. The sodium light glistened on the damp road and bounced off the contrasting flat and still waters of the canal. It was a peaceful picture. It was a nice place to live. Gibbons couldn’t wait to have a gaff like it.
‘So,’ she said, still struggling to get out her words. ‘How goes it?’
‘Yeah, good, Walter thinks we might make an arrest tomorrow.’
‘Yeah? Really?’
‘Yeah, that address you gave him, came up with a weird couple, Sam and Samantha Holloway. Walter thinks they are one and the same person, away today, back tomorrow apparently; we’re going in early doors to the flat next door. When they, or he or she, or it, comes home, we’ll be waiting.’
‘Christ I hope so. That’s a relief, I can tell you. Have we been inside their place yet?’
‘Nope, search warrant all ready, being turned over tomorrow.’
‘It was Walter who put me on to it,’ she said.
‘Yeah, how?’
‘He figured out it was someone with a major grudge. Holloway was the one that stuck out. Obvious really when you think about it.’
‘It’s always obvious afterwards.’
‘Yeah, suppose so, I vaguely remember this guy, coming to the station three or four times, demanding that we investigate a suicide further, his girlfriend apparently. I never saw him myself, just remember the desk sergeant going on and on about this bloody nuisance who kept coming back. He was boring the life out of him.’
She coughed and tried to clear her throat. Perhaps she shouldn’t be talking at all, thought Gibbons, and then he said, ‘So he thought, this guy, that the suicide was murder?’
‘Must have done.’
‘And could it have been?’
‘Nah, several witnesses said she jumped in front of the train, middle of the morning. No doubt.’
‘Bloody way to go.’
‘Terrible way. The station was unusually crammed at the time.’
‘All pressed up against one another?’
‘Yep, probably.’
‘So someone behind could have given her the slightest of nudges, just enough to send her over the edge, and I suppose it was possible no one saw it.’
‘Maybe. We’ll never know now.’
‘So his girlfriend is killed, accident, murder or suicide, we don’t know which, and he broods about it for quite a while, and then decides to go on a murdering spree. Does that sound right to you?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. Looks like something must have sent him or her over the edge. Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.’
‘I bloody hope so; this case has gone on long enough.’
‘You can say that again,’ she said, reaching forward for her ice-cold cranberry juice she was sipping to ease her throat.
‘What do we know about the dead girlfriend?’ asked Gibbons.
‘Not much. Bit of a high flyer. Worked in some chemical company down on the Cheshire-Shropshire border, from what I recall.’
‘And what did the guy do?’
‘Don’t know, no idea, don’t think we ever knew. Did you find out anything yesterday?’
‘Jenny was telling me the old lady living next door said he was a writer; and a very successful one too. Apparently he’d just won a million dollar contract in the States.’
‘Do you believe that?’
Gibbons pulled a face. ‘Seems a bit far fetched to me, perhaps he’s a Walter Mitty type guy.’
‘Yeah, that rings true. Hopefully we’ll find out tomorrow.’
Gibbons sipped the coffee.
‘There’s something that’s worrying me,’ she said. ‘Something doesn’t fit. It’s why I asked you over.’
‘Yeah, like what?’
‘He tried to murder me, right?’
Gibbons drained his drink and said, ‘Yep, he did.’
‘Well, he now knows he didn’t succeed, doesn’t he?’
‘He does if he watches the telly.’
‘Bound to, these people always get off on the publicity.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘That he might come back, try again. Come here, maybe.’
‘No, he can’t. Does he know where you live?’
‘Hope not, but we all know with the bloody Internet you can always find out where anyone lives if you try hard enough.’
‘Don’t worry about it. This time tomorrow he’ll be behind bars.’
‘Yeah, but he’s not yet, is he? I don’t want to be alone. Could you stay over tonight? Sleep in the spare room? I’d feel a lot safer.’
Gibbons pulled a happy face. ‘Sure if that’s what you want.’
‘It is; thanks. I appreciate it.’