‘Gather round,’ Dan O’Reilly called, walking into the Folly parish hall, once again their makeshift squad room. ‘Make it fast, if you please!’
Stewed coffee vied with fried radiator dust and damp woolen uniforms for ‘smell of the day’. The windows, cranked open a measly half-inch, had lost any battle with the coating of hot air and thick, grimy steam that painted the glass. More falling snow closed away the scene outside, but they all knew it was as cold as hell wasn’t, and sleet was starting to strafe the land.
Bill Lamb ducked around Dan to put a steaming mug of his personal brew on the nearest table. ‘There you go, guv. The real stuff.’
Groans of envy went up as the other detectives in the room dragged folding chairs to make a half circle in front of Dan. All except newly minted Detective Constable Jillian Miller, just off the beat and into civvies. Miller managed to wear a beguiling smile – and fresh lipstick – and was perched on a desk with her long legs crossed.
Dan had a lot on his mind, more than he could stuff away for later consumption, but he made a mental note to make sure Jillian Miller didn’t become any kind of a problem in the department and that her new status was not allowed to make her feel more powerful than she was.
‘Anything from Harding and Trafford?’
‘They called in earlier,’ Miller said, heel swinging. ‘They’re at the Hill estate and they aren’t ready to leave, or they weren’t then. Said they had some information and they’d bring it in. Apparently, they didn’t think they could trust me with it.’
Dan nodded and made no response. The usual barrier of whiteboards and screens had been erected across the hall but there were too few pieces of useful information on the boards.
‘Where are the pictures of Lance Pullinger and Darla Crowley?’ He and Lamb had decided not to divulge the possibility that these two had used the same name for reasons still awaiting final explanation.
Detective Constable ‘Longlegs’ Liberty all but levitated from his chair and hurried to shuffle through folders spread across a trestle table. Straight blond hair stood up at his crown while soft brown eyes missed nothing and kept him looking perpetually young. The leather jacket and blue jeans he favored added to the twenty-something misfit appearance. He pulled out photos of the two deceased victims and put them on a board.
‘Good for you,’ Dan said. ‘There should be a chart of the Hill development near Winchcombe with Arson’s comments and information for the house in Winchcombe where the first victim was found.’
‘Second,’ Miller sang out.
‘Darla Crowley died first,’ Dan said flatly. ‘The post-mortem reports are in and confirm this.’
Longlegs was already sliding out maps and charts. Tall, slim and with the look of a man who didn’t eat enough, Liberty was an asset who covered bases before most of the crew knew they needed covering. But he steadfastly avoided the sergeant’s exam and insisted he’d risen as far as he needed to go – to Dan’s puzzled irritation. Dan never intended to give up on dragging some ambition to climb the ladder of advancement out of Liberty.
Fifteen minutes on and the whiteboards, although not crowded, took on the expected case-in-progress appearance. Dan started using markers to connect elements, slashing lines quickly from photos to other photos and from charts to maps.
‘The burns on Crowley were definitely made by cigarettes?’ Jillian Miller asked. ‘How do they know that?’
‘They know it from comparing them to photos of other established cigarette burns and because forensics – and the police surgeon – have seen hundreds of them.’ Sometimes he thought Jillian talked just to hear her own voice. When he felt more charitable, he classified her as intelligent but over-eager.
Bill Lamb put his empty coffee mug down. ‘You want to go through anything we got from house-to-house, guv?’
‘Yes. I take it we’re talking about Winchcombe.’
Detective Constable Ashton, young, dark and eager, raised a hand. ‘It’s not easy along the street there. Most of the people we spoke to are shopkeepers and they might as well have got together to decide what to say. If they saw anyone coming or going from the house in question they either didn’t take any notice or thought it was people working on the place. A couple remember Darla Crowley but didn’t know her or anything remarkable about her. Not one of them recalled seeing Lance Pullinger.’
Dan passed the marker from hand to hand. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Do the canvas again.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Pullinger could have been cautious enough to limit his visits to after dark. Let’s find out how the neighborhood changes at night. And we need to take a good look at alternate entrances to the building. We know there’s one from the back via an access road from Castle Street and from the yard behind for deliveries from when there was a shop on the ground floor. Find out how easy it is to get in and out from that yard. I’m expecting that it’s very easy. Supposedly the sale of the shop floor is still not finalized. It was being sold separately from the rest of the house. That doesn’t have to mean you can’t get in that way.’
‘I’ll get on it,’ Detective Constable Ashton volunteered.
‘Good. Daily, you go with him. See if anyone remembers any vehicles parking repeatedly. Either at the back or in front.’
A commotion on the other side of the screens silenced them. Bill Lamb raised his eyebrows and Dan held up a silencing hand. A raised, garbled voice could be heard over all the noise.
Dan went around a hanging whiteboard and between the screens. He was confronted by one of his constables dodging back and forth to stop a brawny man from getting past him. Tightly curled dark hair, sharply memorable features and a hard-muscled body beneath a navy-blue pea coat and jeans made for a man not easy to forget – or to underestimate as an opponent if he ever chose that course.
‘OK, OK, OK,’ Dan said, loudly enough to be heard but without shouting. ‘What’s the problem here?’
‘You O’Reilly?’ the man asked in a London accent.
‘Chief Inspector Dan O’Reilly,’ he responded.
‘Yeah. It’s you I’m looking for, then. They said you would know where my wife is.’
Dan could feel the officers behind the screens holding their breath, listening hard and willing themselves not to interrupt. If he’d wanted their help he’d have let them know.
‘Who told you to come here?’ Dan asked. He didn’t believe any police officer would send this man.
‘Look,’ the fellow said through his teeth, ‘you don’t get to ask me any questions, I—’
‘Who sent you here?’ Dan felt his constable move a step closer. ‘Come on, man. Speak up. I’ll help you if I can, but be straight with me first.’
The man narrowed very dark eyes. ‘A woman, if it matters. I don’t know who she was. She came out of the back of that row of cottages in Winchcombe in a hurry and she wouldn’t tell me what she was doing there. Cheeky bitch. None of my business, she said. It was the cottage where Darla was living.’ He flexed his hands, opening and closing his fingers, turning the tips white. ‘I can tell you she ran away. The snow didn’t slow her down. A wiry one, she was. Had on one of those ski hats that only show the eyes and mouth. I think it was blue but I don’t take notice of things like that. I followed her as far as the front of the buildings but it was too busy for me to stop her from leaving. She’d have kicked up—’
‘All right, all right, I’ve got the picture.’ What woman could have been in Winchcombe poking around the crime scene?
‘Now I think of it, the hat could have been red.’
Dan made a mental note that the hat was probably blue. ‘Take a seat over there.’ He pointed out a row of seats against the front wall of the building and took out his notebook and pen. ‘What’s your name? What’s your wife’s name? Where did you last see her, and how long ago was that?’
‘I’ve been away. I work the cruise lines – a decky. Haven’t seen her in months and she stopped writing or calling – or picking up when I called her – but I know she’s alive and well because she’s cashed the checks I sent her.’ He sneered. ‘She would. Women. I’m Vince Crowley and she’s Darla Crowley.’