‘Shit!’ muttered Oakley, bending down to retrieve the papers Anderson had dropped as she fled. ‘She didn’t get these to the mortuary. They’re James Paxton’s dental records. And as the owners of nine Orchard Street are represented by Urvine and Brotherton, we may have a connection.’
‘The Paxton who screwed over Mark Butterworth?’ asked Jeeves. ‘I heard he was missing.’
He glanced nervously over his shoulder towards the closed door of the interview room into which Davis had hauled Wright. No one could hear the specifics, but her voice was an angry monologue – the sergeant wasn’t being allowed to get a word in edgeways. Jeeves exchanged a glance with Franklin, unsettled. Oakley was more concerned with the dental records. He beckoned to Merrick.
‘Take these to Grossman – and watch him while he looks at them. He’s getting forgetful, and I don’t want him telling us he’s done it when he hasn’t. I’m going to Urvine and Brotherton.’
‘Wait, Guv.’ Merrick caught his arm before he could leave. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the cleaning lady, Gail Langham. She says the keys were on the table on the Tuesday morning, as agreed with Kovac, and he’d cleaned out all his stuff and left the place clean and tidy. She also claims there was no dead body on the kitchen floor. She still has the keys, and intended to bring them back to Jessop now that he has returned and the office is open again.’
‘Did you ask why she didn’t come forward and tell us all this earlier?’ asked Oakley testily.
‘She was waiting for us to contact her, and is surprised it’s taken so long.’
‘Get her statement after you’ve seen to the dental records,’ said Oakley tiredly, the idiosyncrasies of the general public never failing to amaze him. ‘And get the keys Kovac left, too.’
‘Why?’ asked Merrick. ‘If he left the keys and took his belongings with him, it means he’s gone home and we’re looking at a different identity for our corpse.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Oakley. ‘What’s to say that he didn’t cut himself a new set of keys and come back after the cleaner had gone? Besides, there might be fingerprints on them that we can use. And get on to the university, as well. Check that Jessop really did send the keys to Kovac there.’
‘I’ll do that,’ offered Davis, who had finally emerged from the interview room. Her lips were compressed into a hard, thin line, and Jeeves and Franklin made themselves scarce, afraid that some of Wright’s tongue-lashing might fall on them. ‘After I’ve seen to a female officer who’s been unnecessarily distressed.’
‘It’s a shame,’ said Oakley. ‘But she needs to be less sensitive.’
‘Just because you’re immune to his charms doesn’t mean we all are,’ retorted Davis sharply. ‘He’d have upset me, too, going on like that in front of everyone. I’d better find something for her to do, because otherwise Wright will be even harder on her now.’
Oakley was grateful that Davis was dealing with Anderson, as he was keen to follow up on the leads that had suddenly materialized. Without further ado, he left New Bridewell and walked to the offices of Urvine and Brotherton on Queen Square. Their offices comprised a terrace of three Georgian houses that had been knocked into one. The rooms were large with high, carved ceilings, and there was an elegant chandelier in the waiting room. He sat in a plush leather armchair while he waited for Brotherton to see him, taking the opportunity to collect his thoughts.
Anderson’s distress preyed on his mind, and he knew he’d been wrong to commandeer her without clearing it with Wright. It was true that he outranked the sergeant, but it would have been polite to ask his permission. The fault being his, he was disgusted that Wright had taken his anger out on Anderson. He’d have to make it up to her somehow. She wasn’t right for CID, but there were other departments that might be glad of a quietly intelligent woman.
Meanwhile, what was he to make of the morning’s events and discoveries? The anonymous note he’d received had gained significance now there was a connection between the murder scene and the law firm that represented Yorke. He’d have to call Solihull to see if they’d found DNA, fingerprints or other trace evidence on the thing, although he suspected it was still lying in its envelope, untouched.
His mind wandered to Maureen Paxton. Why did she think the body was her son? Was there something she wasn’t telling them? And what about Kovac in light of what Jessop had said? Was he camping with his family, oblivious to the stir his absence was causing? Had he returned to the house, intending to sneak a few nights without paying rent, or because he thought he had left something behind, and had died for it? And what of the brother in the secret police? Had Kovac brought some foreign operation to Oakley’s patch?
His reverie was interrupted by Brotherton, who marched into the waiting room looking at his watch. He was immaculately dressed as always, although there was a bitterness to his suave exterior that had not been there previously. He carried a stack of files to show he was busy.
‘Five minutes,’ he said rudely, dropping the files on the table with an authoritative thud. ‘Fridays are always busy for us.’
‘And us, so I’ll be brief,’ said Oakley, equally brusque. ‘First, have you had any news from James Paxton?’
‘None. Next question.’
‘Does anyone on your staff have any idea where he might have gone?’
‘Not as far as I am aware.’
‘Do you mind if I ask them again?’
‘If you must.’
At this rate they’d be done in one minute, not five, thought Oakley wryly. ‘I understand your company represents the owners of nine Orchard Street. May I have their name and address?’
‘Certainly not. That would break client confidentiality.’
Oakley put his notebook away. ‘I’ll return with a warrant at six o’clock, Mr Brotherton. This is a murder enquiry, and you hold information that may be relevant. If you’re not here, I shall send a car to collect you from your home.’
Brotherton sighed irritably. ‘Very well. Give me a moment.’
He was gone for more than fifteen minutes, and Oakley was on the verge of going to see what was happening when the door opened and Tim Hillier came in. He shook Oakley’s hand.
‘Mr Brotherton asked me to give you this,’ he said, passing over a piece of paper with a scribbled name and address.
‘Too busy to do it himself, is he?’ asked Oakley, a little sourly.
Hillier had the grace to flush. ‘He was called away to an urgent phone call.’
Oakley took the opportunity to quiz the junior partner. ‘He said no one’s heard from Paxton since Tuesday the thirty-first of July. Is that true?’
Hillier nodded. ‘There’ve been rumours about where he is – I told you about them. But we’ve not had a postcard.’
‘Where do you think he is?’
‘I really don’t have the faintest idea. Giles Farnaby reckons he saw James going into a gay bar that evening, but even if James is gay I don’t see him disappearing because of it. Personally, I don’t believe Giles. I think he made it up. And even if he didn’t, and he really did go inside, I doubt he was there long enough to see much. A dark-haired man in a suit.’ He gestured to his own attire. ‘How many of those are there in Bristol?’
Oakley supposed he would have to question Farnaby again. ‘Now, about Orchard Street. What do you know about the owners?’
‘Mr and Mrs George Harton. He works in oil. We did the conveyancing when they bought the property. The oil industry’s a bit uncertain, and the Hartons aren’t sure when they might come back, so James recommended that they lease it short term, so they won’t have to wait long before retaking possession.’
‘James dealt with it? I thought he was a criminal lawyer.’
‘He represented Mr Harton on a drink-driving charge a couple of years ago. I suppose the family asked for him when they bought the house. Giles did the actual work, but James saw them, and recommended Academic Accommodations.’
‘Do you have other clients who rent their houses through this particular agency?’
‘A few. I can’t tell you how many exactly, but I could look it up if it’s important.’
‘Thank you. Does Billy Yorke have any houses leased through Academic Accommodations?’
‘Billy Yorke?’ asked Hillier, startled. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. He does own property, but he’s not the kind of person who’d use Academic Accommodations. Their tenants come through the university, you see, and scholars aren’t usually wealthy, although they do tend to be respectable. In other words, they’re low risk but low return.’
Oakley nodded to the files that Brotherton had dropped on the table and forgotten to take with him. ‘The letter on top of that pile – the one on Avon and Somerset Constabulary notepaper – appears to be in my writing. Yet I’ve never sent anything to Urvine and Brotherton, so what do you think it’s doing here?’
It took a lot to pull myself together after the incident with Wright. DI Davis was sweet, and said she’d ask Superintendent Taylor for a temporary transfer to CID, to help with the Orchard Street case. But that was the last thing I wanted – it was bad enough getting involved with the murder on an occasional basis; I didn’t think I could stand doing it all day. Also, I didn’t want everyone to think that Wright had driven me out, and for him to start telling people he’d got rid of me because I was no good. I told her thanks, but no thanks. She seemed surprised, but was understanding when I explained – the second reason, obviously, not the first.
Wright was coolly hostile when I walked into the radio room an hour later and told Jeeves that I was ready to go out on patrol. Jeeves needed someone to see Mrs Vinson at the hospital, and I left without even looking at Wright. I could feel his eyes on me as I went, though, and I was sure he’d be talking about me as soon as I was out of earshot. It occurred to me that I should double back and catch him at it, but I didn’t have the strength to take him on again. Loathsome man!
I tried to put him from my mind while I watched Emma Vinson struggling for breath. She was weaker and frailer than before, and I wondered how much longer she would cling to life. How could James have contemplated defending the louts who’d done this to her? And how could he have expected me to live with myself if he had forced me to play a part in seeing the bastards acquitted? They deserved everything the law could throw at them, and I hoped with all my heart that Oakley would see the whole lot sent down.
Oakley had used Brotherton’s lengthy disappearance to look inside the files he’d left, of course. He was a policeman, after all, and curious by nature. There were several of them, all pertaining to clients of Paxton. There was one on Orchard Street detailing its purchase by the Hartons, complete with printouts of emails between Bristol and Saudi Arabia. The Hartons had only looked at the property once, and Paxton had purchased it on their behalf.
More intriguing was the thicker, fatter file concerning Noble, and Oakley was bemused to find in it several memos from him to Clare Davis, reports of the surveillance on Noble’s sheds, and even a shift rota, giving details of officers’ availability for court.
A cold horror gripped him. Someone had copied documents from the police file – documents that should certainly not be with Urvine and Brotherton. Was this how Paxton had learned about Butterworth’s Blunder? There was someone at New Bridewell whose first loyalty was not to his fellow officers.
But who? Wright, who had spread the rumour about Butterworth in the first place? With a few drinks inside him, and a personable lawyer playing to the man’s vanity, who knew what the sergeant might do? But for all his faults, Oakley couldn’t see Wright passing police files to lawyers.
He’d studied the documents carefully. They weren’t photocopies, but printouts of photos taken on a mobile phone – he could tell by the date in the lower right-hand corner. They’d been taken on the thirtieth of March at 4.10 p.m. He decided to check if Wright had been on duty then.
Then Hillier had come in and he’d been obliged to pretend he’d only just happened to notice the memo from him lying brazenly on the top of the pile. Or had Brotherton left them there deliberately, wanting him to know that Paxton had engaged in underhand tactics – tactics that the old, respectable company certainly wouldn’t condone?
‘Your clerks probably sent them by mistake,’ said Hillier, although he seemed as bemused as Oakley as to how they should come to be there. ‘It’s what happens when we have a system that’s drowning in paperwork.’
‘A clerk “accidentally” took photographs of police memos?’ asked Oakley archly.
‘I suppose it is unlikely,’ conceded Hillier reluctantly.
Oakley pulled some evidence bags from his pocket. ‘Would you mind if I took them?’
‘Why?’ asked Hillier suspiciously. ‘Surely you already have them?’
‘Yes, but I’d like these as well.’
‘Very well, but only if I take a photocopy first,’ said Hillier. He indicated the machine in the corner.
Evidence bags in hand, Oakley prepared to leave, but Hillier caught his arm, glancing around in a way that could only be described as furtive.
‘James is a real wally, and you won’t find many here who like him. He’s too ambitious, and we hate the way he sucks up to Brotherton. He’ll get sacked when he comes back. It’s already started to go a bit wrong for him.’ He stopped and gnawed his lip. ‘He’s bent some rules.’
‘What rules?’
Hillier nodded to the evidence bags. ‘Well, that’s the latest unpleasant surprise: God knows how he got them. Brotherton was never happy with the Noble case. He was delighted when we won, of course, but he didn’t like the notion that James might’ve obtained the information underhandedly. Perhaps he was aware of the memos. I heard him say he was uneasy about the whole thing, though I don’t know the details.’
He should have been, thought Oakley as Hillier escorted him to the door. Someone was just coming in. It was Giles Farnaby, dressed in a suit and tie rather than the jogging pants he’d worn at his home in Bath. In smarter clothes, he looked familiar, and Oakley struggled to think of where he’d seen him before. In court, perhaps?
‘How is your grandmother, Giles?’ asked Hillier. ‘You shouldn’t work if you need more time.’
Recognition came in a blinding flash. Farnaby was related to Emma Vinson, and Oakley had seen him at the hospital. No wonder Farnaby hated Paxton! It was not about losing out on a promotion – Paxton was representing the man who’d hurt his grandmother.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were related to one of Yorke’s victims?’ Oakley asked him before he could follow Hillier down the hall.
Farnaby scowled. ‘And have you accuse me of making Paxton disappear? Yeah, right!’
Oakley regarded him coolly. ‘And did you make him disappear?’
Farnaby sneered. ‘No. But he’s a bastard, and if anyone can get Yorke off it’ll be him.’
‘By resorting to illegal practices?
Farnaby’s laugh was harsh. ‘Of course! How else could he get such fabulous results? When you have imagination and a bit of criminal flair, you can go a long way in this business. That Noble stunt was a prime example.’
‘I know,’ said Oakley softly, thinking of his dead friend.
‘He persuaded – or perhaps blackmailed – some plod to tell him about an attempt to tamper with police evidence. Brotherton said that was unethical, as the wrongdoing had been discovered and put right. He thought James had perverted the course of justice.’
‘Brotherton didn’t want Paxton to use the evidence he got from his police informer?’
‘He suggested James win by using more conventional means. James said he intended to win, full stop. I think he was going to pull a similar stunt with Yorke.’
‘How?’
Farnaby stared at a sparrow that had perched on the railings. ‘He was certain he’d get Yorke out on bail, but I’d read the file and I thought the police had a pretty solid case. I couldn’t understand why he was so confident. There was no way Yorke was getting bail.’
‘He didn’t,’ Oakley pointed out.
‘Because James wasn’t there. If he had been, I suspect Yorke would be out. Brotherton told me that Yorke was livid when James failed to appear, and he’d expected Brotherton to get him out, just like James had promised to do. James even bet fifty quid on it. He’s a mean bastard, so he must have been sure of winning.’
Oakley thought about the note he’d received, suggesting that he explore Yorke and ‘false confessions’. He frowned. False confessions? Had Paxton aimed to create reasons for mistrials when genuine ones did not exist?
‘He was up to something,’ Farnaby went on bitterly. ‘I wish I’d known what. It wouldn’t have pleased Brotherton if he’d pulled another Noble quite so soon. We’re a respectable firm, and we don’t want a reputation for dragging shabby rabbits out of our hats.’
‘That depends. You might if it attracts more clients.’
Farnaby stared at him. ‘Of course! He was trying to attract more powerful criminals who’d want to be represented by him and no one else! He planned to make himself indispensable, so Urvine and Brotherton would have to promote him again. Bastard!’
Oakley studied him thoughtfully. It was obvious that Farnaby loathed Paxton with a passion, but was his hatred strong enough to lead him to harm his dodgy colleague?
‘Do you want the bad news or the worse news?’ asked Evans gloomily when Oakley returned. He and Merrick were drinking tea in the incident room, sorting through piles of paper. Davis was working in the corner. ‘Or the strange news?’
‘Strange,’ replied Oakley, sitting at a computer and beginning to trawl through his emails.
‘I borrowed the keys Kovac left for the cleaner and they don’t fit. That suggests he left like he said he would, but then he came back, where either he was killed or he killed someone else.’
‘So we’re back to where we started,’ said Oakley, frustrated. ‘We still don’t know whether it’s Kovac or someone else in the mortuary.’
‘Well, it’s not James Paxton.’ Merrick sounded disappointed. ‘That’s one of our pieces of bad news: the dental records came back negative.’
‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ muttered Oakley, thinking that let Farnaby off the hook. ‘Is Grossman certain?’
‘Paxton’s records list a missing premolar, but our corpse has it,’ replied Merrick. ‘It took him all of ten seconds to eliminate Paxton on the basis of that. He says if the records had listed a premolar as present, but it was missing on the corpse, then that would be different, as teeth fall out. But he said a premolar gone was a premolar gone, and they don’t re-grow.’
‘What if the dentist made a mistake? Crossed off the wrong tooth?’
‘I asked that. Extremely unlikely, apparently.’
‘I’d have liked the corpse to have been Paxton,’ sighed Evans. ‘I phoned his mum and told her the sad news.’ Oakley looked at him sharply, and he raised his hands in the air. ‘Nicely. I was very sympathetic and kind.’
‘Can we trust Grossman?’ asked Oakley. ‘He did the P.M. on Mark, but keeps forgetting – he’s mentioned him twice to me as if he thinks he’s still alive.’
‘Is that so surprising?’ asked Evans. ‘Think about how many corpses he sees in a year. He can’t remember them all.’
‘No, but Mark should have been different,’ insisted Oakley. ‘He should remember him. And I want a second opinion about the dental charts. Just to be sure.’
‘You won’t get one, Neel,’ said Davis, looking up from her work. ‘Taylor’s already grumbling about you sending that anonymous note to FSS. He says it’s a waste of resources. He’s not going to authorise another pathologist just because Grossman has got a bit forgetful. Especially as its just to placate the dreaded Maureen Paxton.’
‘What’s the other bad news?’ asked Oakley, suspecting she was right.
‘Wright’s put in a complaint against you,’ said Evans. ‘He says you undermined him by poaching his officers.’
Oakley started to laugh. ‘You’re joking!’
‘I wouldn’t joke about Wright,’ said Evans in disgust. ‘He’s complained about you, too, ma’am, and he’s put Anderson on report.’
Davis’ face was dark with anger. ‘The bastard has outman-oeuvred me! I haven’t had time to submit my own report yet, and he’s effectively made sure that I can’t, because now it’ll look like sour grapes.’
‘I don’t have time for this rubbish,’ muttered Oakley. ‘Doesn’t the man have a job to do?’ He sat up straight and helped himself to a mouthful of Evans’ tea. ‘Right. Let’s review where we’ve got today. A lot has come in, and we need to think through it.’
‘Well, the body’s still unidentified,’ said Evans. ‘And we’ve had no luck tracing Kovac in Albania.’
‘It’s odd,’ said Oakley. ‘After being so certain it wasn’t, I was actually beginning to think it might be Paxton. He deals with the Orchard Street house while the owners are away, he goes missing at the right time, and that anonymous note said we should look at Yorke for the murder – Yorke is Paxton’s client.’
‘But Yorke was in prison when the murder took place,’ Evans pointed out.
‘He’s got friends and family,’ said Oakley. He told them what he’d learned at Urvine and Brotherton, and about Farnaby’s suspicions. ‘The leaked documents were nothing – just the usual junk that gets shoved into any file. But Paxton somehow got them – and it seems reasonable to conclude that whoever gave them to him also told him about Mark.’
‘So,’ concluded Davis, ‘we’ve got the anonymous note accusing Yorke of murder and “false confessions”, and we’ve got Paxton operating in an underhand manner. We’ve also got Paxton associated with the house where the murder took place.’
‘So Paxton killed Kovac?’ mused Evans. ‘Then buggered off.’
‘No,’ said Davis. ‘I’m sure Kovac is our killer. First, he left duff keys behind so he could return later. Second, he cleaned the house with bleach, according to FSS. Men aren’t naturally hygienic, so he must’ve had a reason for such diligence.’
‘To save his deposit,’ said Oakley practically. ‘If he’d left the place like a pig sty, he’d lose it – and it represents a lot of nice clothes for his family. And anyway, what’s this about men being unhygienic? I’ll have you know that my house is spotless.’
‘So’s mine,’ added Merrick sourly.
‘All right.’ Davis raised her hands in the air. ‘I concede the point about the clean house. But there’s still the keys to think about. Also, I’ve been learning more about nanotechnology, and I think it might make Kovac rich one day. Patenting some process might see him and his family in clover for the rest of their lives. Perhaps he killed to protect his research. Plus there’s the fact that he may have psychological problems over what he went through in Macedonia.’
‘Then who did he kill?’ asked Oakley. ‘If Kovac is our murderer, who’s the body?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said impatiently. ‘But Kovac is a more plausible culprit than Paxton.’
‘True – if Paxton was the killer, he wouldn’t have disappeared,’ said Merrick. ‘He’d be here, brazening it out. I looked to see if we had his fingerprints on record, but of course we don’t. The body’s fingerprints are in the kitchen and the sitting room …’
‘But not upstairs,’ mused Oakley thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t that odd? Kovac was there for three weeks, so he’d have gone into the bedrooms.’
‘But the house was scrubbed down,’ said Evans. ‘And we know our body and its killer came in after the cleaner had been, or she’d have seen it. But all this doesn’t rule Kovac out – especially if he used his keys to come back later.’
‘I gave his photo to the press today,’ said Davis. ‘That should flush him out if he’s hiding somewhere.’
‘What’s happening with the black plastic enquiry?’ asked Oakley. ‘And the duct tape?’
‘What a waste of time!’ said Merrick despondently. ‘There are partials all over both, but Solihull is too busy to work on them. All they’ll say for now is that the tape had collected some fine white dust. Lots of it.’
‘You mean drugs?’ asked Oakley.
‘No – FSS thinks that strips were cut then stuck to a wall, so they’d be ready to use on the body. I do the same when I wrap Christmas presents: cut strips and stick them on the table, so I can just grab one without having to let go of the paper. Our boy hacked strips of tape – four of them – got the body rolled, and then took the pieces as he needed them. Sticky patches on the wall seem to bear this out.’
‘Door-to-door?’ asked Oakley.
‘A big, fat nothing,’ said Merrick glumly.
‘We got the report on the insects though,’ said Evans. ‘Time of death has been narrowed to between the night of Monday the thirtieth of July and the morning of Thursday the second of August. It’s been more difficult than usual, because of the heat. So we’re no better off there, either. We can take the cleaner’s evidence and say the body wasn’t in the house when she left on Tuesday morning, so we’re left with a time of death between ten a.m. on Tuesday and, say, ten a.m. on Thursday.’
‘It certainly fits with Paxton’s disappearance,’ mused Merrick.
‘Yes, but the dental records don’t,’ said Davis. ‘So that’s that with Paxton. We need to drop him before we waste any more time. What about the anonymous note?’
‘The report came back today,’ said Merrick, rummaging in a pile. ‘They rushed it through for you, Guv. Unfortunately, the news isn’t good – no fingerprints, fibres, or saliva on the envelope. They say the writer probably wore gloves, and the paper is cheap, mass-produced stuff that we’ll never trace in a million years.’
‘Come on, Dave,’ said Evans, laughing. ‘Tell him the good stuff, too. There was no saliva on the envelope, but there was a trace of it on the stamp. The writer obviously stuck down the envelope with water, then forgot himself at the post office, and licked it without thinking.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Oakley.
‘Not really,’ disagreed Merrick. ‘He left very few cells behind, and FSS doesn’t know whether there’s enough to be of use. The heat hasn’t helped, either, because it degrades the DNA. So the saliva may help, but it may not.’
‘Let’s keep this to ourselves,’ said Oakley. ‘It would be a pity to get everyone excited about it if it then it turns out to be nothing. If there’s good news then it’ll be a nice surprise, and if it’s bad news no one needs to know.’
‘What did Jinic tell you about the Albanian secret police?’ Evans asked Davis. ‘Could Kovac have been killed by them? It would explain why they’re so damned slow in sending us information.’
‘Albania does have a secret police force but they’re no longer very effective. Jinic doesn’t think they’d have the funds to commit murder on foreign soil.’
‘He could be wrong,’ said Evans.
‘He could,’ she agreed. ‘But I don’t think so. Albania is a poor country and Kovac’s visa was due to run out anyway. Why put themselves to the expense of a foreign raid when they could kill him in Tirana? No, this has nothing to do with the secret police.’
‘Well, I’ve had enough for today,’ said Oakley, standing. ‘I’m going home.’
‘I’ve got a lead, Guv!’ Evans’ face was flushed with excitement as he waved a piece of paper. ‘It’s from someone who lives in Cornwallis Crescent. That’s some way away from Orchard Street, and we’ve just found out about it, because we’ve extended our house-to-house enquiries.’
‘Well?’ asked Oakley, when his sergeant paused.
‘You remember Mrs Greaves telling us she saw a woman wearing a headscarf walking quickly down the road on the night of the murder? Well, someone else saw her, too.’
‘And?’ pressed Oakley. ‘Does the witness know her?’
‘No,’ said Evans, ‘but he saw her.’
Oakley took the statement from him and scanned through it quickly, trying not to let his face register his disappointment. The witness told them nothing Mrs Greaves hadn’t already mentioned, although he was able to say that the time had been 10.10 p.m. because of a football game he’d been watching in the pub. Apparently his dog had disgraced itself in some way, and he’d been asked to leave before the game was over. He’d missed a crucial goal while he’d hurried home, so could be very exact about the time.
‘The dog went wild when she walked past apparently,’ Evans added. ‘Mr Jacobs had a hard time quieting it down.’
‘So it says here,’ said Oakley. He pushed the paper back across the desk to his sergeant and laced his fingers behind his head. ‘Where do you think this takes us?’
‘It means a woman was walking very purposefully around the streets near where the murder took place – and possibly just after the murder took place – obviously in disguise. I think she could be the killer. Or he.’
‘He?’
‘If the scarf was a disguise, this figure might have been a man dressed as a woman. Why not? It’d be a good way to hide yourself.’
‘All right. Greaves and Jacobs clearly saw the same person, so look into it. Get a picture drawn up and show it around to see if anyone else noticed her – or him. Show it at the local shops, and see if they know anyone who dresses like that. Show it to Mrs Paxton, and see if she knows whether any of her son’s acquaintances had a liking for scarves.’
Evans nodded enthusiastically. ‘Right you are, Guv.’
It was hard to get dressed and head for work that Saturday. I was on early shift and left my house at twenty past five to be in the station for ten to six. As I walked in posters of Marko Kovac greeted me, stuck up in the reception area and the briefing room. He was a nice-looking man, with dark hair and green eyes with long eyelashes. Still, at least the poster didn’t say ‘wanted for murder’ on it.
I’d spent the previous evening working on my second anonymous note, using the pen, paper and envelopes I’d used for the first one. I was just as careful as I’d been then, donning gloves to write, and hoovering the table clear of tell-tale fibres. I’d heard about Oakley’s visit to James’ work, so it was important that I got the team looking back to thinking that Kovac was the body. I’d written:
IT WAS YORKE’S GOONS WHAT DONE FOR KOVACH. IT WAS FOR DRUGS. I SEEN IT ALL.
My mother had called as I was finishing, so I’d had to shove it into the envelope more quickly than I’d have liked, but at least it was done. Rather than risk the post again, I simply dropped it straight into the station’s letterbox on my way in, using the cuff of my sleeve to avoid touching it with my fingers.
I had a pleasant surprise when the morning briefing began: it was Wright’s day off. His presence was still heavy around me, though. People were going out of their way to be nice, and I wondered if they’d be doing it if he was there, watching to see who was ‘on my side’.
Someone had to guard the murder scene at Orchard Street, and I wasn’t surprised to find that Wright had pencilled me in to do it. The other sergeant, Rick Jones, gave an apologetic smile, but didn’t have the balls to change it. It was stupid, he said – the night shift had been busy, and hadn’t had a man to spare for the task. It had been left unprotected all night, but CID still wanted someone on it that morning. It didn’t make sense, he said. But I was still stuck with it.
Jeeves arranged a lift and promised he’d get a car to fetch me at ten so I could have a break. He told me that Oakley planned to come by later so I’d have company for a while, adding that Neel was a good bloke. I pointed out, rather tartly, that it was that particular ‘good bloke’ who’d landed me in trouble the previous day. Jeeves feigned a sudden interest in his work, so he wouldn’t have to get into that particular can of worms.
I arrived at the house and stood in the garden. A huge lorry was at the far end of the road, trying to do a U-turn and making a total pig’s ear of it. Why something that size had elected to tackle such a narrow collection of streets was beyond me. God only knew if it would ever manage to extricate itself.
For no real reason, other than that it was there, I pushed the front door, and was startled to find that whoever had been there last had forgotten to lock it. I glanced at my watch. Quarter past six – it had obviously been left unsecured all night. With no one on duty anyone could have walked in. I stuck my head around the door and heard someone moving about. I was reaching for my radio to call for assistance when a figure appeared.
‘Sarge!’ I exclaimed in astonishment.
‘What’re you doing here so early?’ he demanded, consulting his watch. ‘It’s only five past six.’
‘It’s quarter past,’ I said, bemused. He ducked inside the sitting room, and I followed. What was he doing?
‘Get out!’ he hissed. ‘Mind your own business. You’re in enough trouble without messing around in here. Go outside and do your job, woman.’
‘I am doing my job,’ I objected, watching him drop to his hands and knees and concentrate on the floor. ‘I’m guarding the house from people who shouldn’t be here.’
‘Fuck off!’ he snarled. ‘I got things to do. Someone’s got to do a bit of coppering around here. We’ve not got anywhere with women and Pakis in charge, so I’m giving the investigation a bit of a boost. I don’t want my station branded as not being able to solve a simple murder – and if my meddling lands Oakley and Davis in the shit, then so much the better. Now get the fuck out, and mind your own business.’
He really was a nasty piece of work, I thought in distaste, as my fingers closed around another of the rocks on the mantelpiece. Like James, he was so arrogant and sure of himself that he didn’t even bother to watch as he fiddled with whatever he was doing on the floor.
The rock made a thumping sound when it landed, quite different than with James. When I’d hit him, his skull had sounded like an egg smashing on a stone floor. Wright’s bones must have been thicker, or perhaps the stone was lighter, because it didn’t sound the same at all. For a moment, nothing happened, then Wright flopped to one side. He looked up at me, but I didn’t meet his eyes. I hit him again, as hard as I could. The first blow had been on the top of the skull. The second got him on the side of his head, and blood started to flow from his temple.
Without another sound, Wright slumped down and went limp. I felt for a pulse in his neck, but there wasn’t one. His nasty little eyes were half open, and it might have been my imagination, but there did seem to be a rather startled expression on his pudgy face.
Superintendent Taylor was exasperated with the slow pace of the investigation, and suspected the team had been following too many iffy leads. So when he collected the post and found another anonymous letter, he screwed up the cheap paper in a gesture of annoyance and tossed it into the bin. He was irked with Oakley for taking the last one seriously when he’d expressly ordered against it, and he wasn’t having more of his budget squandered on useless tests.
He turned to the next piece of post and saw that a thick fair hair had settled across it. Where had that come from? Impatiently, he flicked it away and grabbed the envelope beneath.