The next morning, a hot shower didn’t wash away the grime Kelly felt inside her brain. She changed into sports kit she kept at Ted’s for walking, and used the make-up she carried in her work bag. She nursed a sore head. Ted cooked her eggs and bacon, which helped a bit. And she’d had thirteen missed calls from Johnny.
By the time Ted dropped her off at Eden House, the incident room had received dozens of calls in response to the photos released by the press department. On the one hand, a man in a suit and shiny leather shoes walking around the lakes was an anomaly easy to spot, but on the other, the general public always became dramatic when an appeal was launched. She knew she had to handle sightings with care. And they were dealing with a potential window of a whole week, when Victor could have been spotted at any time, and in any location, across the national park.
Johnny had called twice more when she’d been in the car with Ted, but despite Ted’s raised eyebrows, she’d ignored him. She knew avoiding him was worse, but she couldn’t face him. Not now. Not in the middle of a murder investigation.
She replied once, by text, from her office, asking after Lizzie.
‘She misses you,’ came the reply, and Kelly felt anger at the blatant emotional blackmail. She also felt a pang of pure guilt, and that, she guessed, was the point. What mother wouldn’t feel rubbish for putting her work before her baby? And Johnny was using it to distract her from what he’d done. She rolled her eyes and made her third coffee. He’d also reminded her that it was Saturday and this infuriated her even more.
‘Brief at eleven?’ She asked Kate, who’d joined her in the staff kitchen.
‘Sure. I’ll get the team together. You okay?’
‘I slept at Dad’s last night.’
‘Still angry at Johnny?’
Kelly ripped open a new box of coffee pods and the cardboard tore in her hands. A couple dropped onto the floor.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Kate said.
Kelly sighed and leant against the worktop.
‘Why is everything so much more complicated with a child? If it was just me, Kate, I’d walk.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. The pressure to be a certain way and keep things together like some kind of model family is crushing my head.’
‘It took me twenty-three years of marriage to find that out. Until I got up enough courage to give the finger to expectation.’
Kelly smiled and Kate put an arm around her shoulder.
‘Do you wish you’d have left Derek earlier?’ Kelly asked.
‘Definitely. Our generation are programmed to be independent lionesses, but at the same time adhere to the gender stereotypes of the age. It’s exhausting. We’re Amazonians and Mother Marys all at the same time.’
Kelly laughed at the analogy but appreciated the seriousness of the comparison. Kate was right. She felt obliged to hold everything together, not because it was right but because they were brainwashed as women into thinking that the alternative was wrong.
‘You should know in this job that the ideal family doesn’t exist. If you decide to split up for good, Lizzie will survive. It’s ok to do what you must, to keep sane. Don’t go mad for two decades like me. I’m still getting over the guilt. The girls ask me why it took so long to leave. Millie told me last week she knew we were never going to last. It’s humbling, and a bloody sodding waste of time. By the way, I’m not trying to sway you, but Millie is fed up with college, she’s thinking of leaving to nanny full time.’
Kelly took the information on board.
‘You’d think the number of lives I poke around in I’d have learnt something by now,’ Kelly said.
‘Not the case at all, it’s called hope, most of us suffer from the affliction. There are no obvious symptoms, just a never-ending self-flagellation of lingering around situations that have already turned to rat shit.’
‘On that note,’ Kelly said. ‘Did you see the report on Victor’s car?’
‘Yes, I did. Clean as a whistle, not even a bottle of water or a sweet wrapper in there.’
‘I’ve never met a man like that.’
‘Me neither.’
They picked up the spilt coffee pods and walked to the incident room together with their mugs.
Fin sat at a table, ready with a writing pad, looking as fresh as green grass.
‘Morning, Fin,’ Kelly said.
‘Morning Ladies. I did some extra work on the nursing home residents buried by Victor last night,’ he said.
‘And?’ Kelly asked.
‘Each one, apart from Prudence and Ethel, had lived in the nursing home less than a year, and each had no next of kin. They bequeathed the nursing home their entire estates.’
Kelly stopped in her tracks, as did Kate. They stared at him.
‘I won’t even ask how you found that out. Is it possible Victor and Beryl were on the take, and there was a third party involved?’ Kelly asked the question to herself as much as to her two colleagues.
The others joined them, and Kelly prepared for the brief.
Ted had agreed to send over the death certificates and registrar’s notes on the deaths she’d queried, and she had to go over them before eleven. Today, she fancied staying in the incident room with everyone else, as if that would keep her safe from any further stress. The large TV screen on the wall, which had local news on loop most of the day, loomed over them and the footage was filled with images of Victor’s abandoned car, and library videos of Dale & Sons’ funerals. It was morbid stuff, but even Kelly had to admit that it was fascinating to watch. The media was continuing to promote Victor as a local celeb, and that might aid their investigation.
Fin ran his hand through his dark hair and gathered papers into a pile. ‘I have to say, this case reminds me of one we had in Manchester a couple of years back.’
‘Really, how?’ Kelly turned her attention back to him as the others settled in their seats.
‘It’s got all the hallmarks of embezzlement of the elderly residents of the nursing home, and if Victor was in as deep as we suspect, then he could have made enemies out of a relative we don’t know about.’
Kelly nodded. ‘Makes sense. We just need to prove it. The murder was planned. The note, the hasty treatment for sepsis, or that’s what we suspect.’
‘I’m thinking a male. It would have taken a fair amount of strength to lob him off that quarry lip.’
‘And knowledge of the area, and that it’s quiet most of the time,’ Kelly added.
‘If Victor was up to his eyeballs in fraud, then it’s likely that his business partner knew too,’ Fin added.
Kelly nodded. They were disturbed by her phone. She answered it and excused herself, first checking that it wasn’t Johnny. It was her father. She went into the foyer.
‘Hi Dad. Thanks for breakfast, I feel more alive now,’ she said.
‘Anytime, it was nice having someone to look after. I’ve just got off the phone from the registrar, and we discussed a few interesting things together.’
‘Go on,’ she said. He had her full attention.
‘He recalled the case I was telling you about last night.’
‘I’m all ears, I’ve got a few minutes before I have to brief my team, fire away.’
‘These things stand out because the paperwork has got to be so tight, there are a thousand tick boxes that need approving for each death. Nursing homes are a little different in that they normally come through their on-call GP, who they rely on when they have a resident pass away. It happens more frequently in that setting as you can imagine,’ he said.
‘Of course.’ She couldn’t help feeling that Ted felt responsible for any errors Victor might have made.
‘Her name was Constance Thorngill. She was seventy-five years old. The registrar was more than a little concerned when I phoned her. These are official documents. Well, we discussed it and agreed that we’d done everything as per protocol. However, I retrieved the paperwork, and I pulled the certificates for all the deaths at the home in the last five years for you. They’re all signed by the same GP, until I queried it two years ago over Ms Thorngill’s death. Then it was changed and that is the GP they’ve used ever since.’
‘Right, I think I’m following. Have you spoken to the GP?’
Kelly glanced over to Fin, who she could see was watching her through the glass. He held her stare. He’d picked up on the same scent as her father and it stirred in her familiar rousing sentiments of the battle during a serious investigation. He thought like she did.
‘That’s my problem. I’m sending over the files for you. I’ve checked. I tried to get contact details for both GPs and I hit a wall. They’re not on the medical register. Well, they were, but one died in 1976 and the other in 1977.’
‘How can that be possible?’
‘Well, I blame modern computers taking over everything, it was different when everything had to be logged by hand. The names are almost identical, and so apparently that was the problem, they were entered wrongly on the register. But, and this is my worry, how did they get through the system in the first place. There are four deaths signed off by Doctor A Gentle, and five by Doctor A Gentel, after I queried the first. There is an A Genter registered, but the other two, like I said, have been dead for forty-five years.’
‘Wait a minute, are you telling me that there have been nine deaths at the home all signed off by doctors who died forty-five years ago?’
‘Yes.’
Kelly could tell by his tone that he was embarrassed, but also puzzled. She knew this meant he could get into a lot of trouble for his oversight, if indeed it wasn’t a mere mix up, but it didn’t sound like it. His usually controlled demeanour had deserted him, she could tell by his voice.
‘How is that possible?’
‘I honestly have no idea but as coroner I must open an investigation into it and get some answers. I’m hoping there is a straightforward explanation. I’ve been on the phone all morning since you left. I don’t want to worry you. This is my oversight. It’s serious, Kelly.’
‘What sort of straightforward explanation?’
‘That it was a paperwork error, and the GP who signed off on all nine deaths is in fact Doctor A Genter, who is indeed registered. But I can’t get hold of her. I’ve left messages.’
‘Is she local?’
‘Her details record her as practising in Kendal. But that’s not what worries me.’
‘There’s more?’
‘If it was the same GP, you’d expect the signatures to be the same. They’re not. Take a look at the files I’ve sent over for you. Meanwhile, I’m reporting Dale & Sons to the national association of funeral directors, however, the governing body is voluntary so If they’ve done anything against their code of practice, they may receive a fine, at most.’
‘Dale & Sons?’ Kelly’s stomach felt heavy. ‘They handled all of these deaths?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thanks, Dad, speak soon.’
Kelly ended the call and walked back into the incident room, and approached Fin.
‘That was the coroner. He’s questioning some of the death certs from fatalities at the nursing home. How many did you look up?’
Fin searched his notes and counted them.
‘I’ve got eight.’
‘He’s got nine.’
‘Dan, did you manage to trace the wills of those deceased at Morningside Nursing Home?’
‘Working on it. A few of the solicitors were willing to comply with a simple request from us but three of them require a court order.’
‘Fair enough. I think I have enough to get that done.’
He peered up at her. ‘Really?’
She walked to the white board and wrote several bullet points, then explained what her father had told her over the phone, asking Fin to embellish it with his own research. He was a pro, and everybody listened. Dan whistled. It was a sobering possibility.
She linked her toughpad to the white board and opened the email from Ted. Nine names stared back at them, in separate files.
‘Let’s have a look, then, shall we?’
She opened the first and read the details of the death certificate out loud.
‘Cause of death, old age, further explained as CVD, coverall for a dicky heart. Look at the signature. Doctor A Gentle died in 1976. So, we’re potentially looking at identity fraud to commit clinical and financial fraud.’
She let it sink in and opened the other links. The next certificate was for Constance Thorngill. The next was for Philippa Biden. The one after that was Prudence Morningside.
‘If I was a betting man, I wouldn’t be taking a punt on surviving Morningside Nursing Home,’ Dan quipped.
Kelly felt sick.
She found the file on Ethel Farrow, who was Victor’s mother-in-law, then a lady called Brenda Shaw.
‘None of the certificates are signed by A Genter, the only local GP registered officially on the medical register with a name close to that of the signatures, according to the coroner.’
Silence.
‘I’ve got another banger for you all, I got sidetracked by this new information. We’ve now got a murder inquiry on our hands,’ Kelly announced. ‘The coroner has confirmed that Victor would not have been physically able to jump off anything due to advanced sepsis. So, he was pushed. It’s highly likely that wherever he was in the week prior to his death holds the key to finding his killer. A few motives are emerging, but they’re complicated and unclear so far.
‘The likelihood of this being a stranger murder is fading by the minute. I want to know where Victor Walmsley was all week. Whoever wrote his suicide note likely killed him. That’s our key. He vanished for seven days straight without a trace, but there will be one and we need to find it. We’ve been given nine extra officers on this so I’m tasking them with interviewing the quarry staff, setting up road checks to and from Great Mell Fell, as well as finding out what went on in the area in the past few weeks. Climbers, walkers, holidaymakers, events, fairs and labourers at the two farms all need to be interviewed and checked out. His car was clean, and you know that’s a red flag, forensics are processing it because whoever drove it to Great Mell Fell, it wasn’t Victor. They must have left something behind.’
‘The fact is that Dale & Sons buried at least nine nursing home residents from the Morningside home, in the last five years, and it appears that the official paperwork registering their deaths is questionable. My first query is who signed these documents, because the presiding GP didn’t exist at the time of death. And my second question is who was covering for who? Morningside Nursing Home or Dale & Sons? I want everybody on this today, until we get answers. Dan, you said we have a couple of the wills to hand?’
Dan nodded. ‘Three, boss.’
‘Right, my priority is to secure court orders for the others. By the end of play today, I want to know who benefitted from these residents’ deaths. Fin has already started work on this, Dan, work together. The coroner has emphasised the seriousness of this. Submitting incorrect information onto a death certificate is a serious criminal offence. Heads will roll. I want to know if Victor knew about this and, if he did, if it relates to his death.’
‘I’ve already started a spreadsheet, boss,’ Fin said.
She noticed that he’d stopped writing and was looking at her, with his hands in his pockets. She could only describe his gaze as one of trust mixed with admiration, and it made her feel as though she was blushing, but, damn, it felt good.
‘Gloria Morningside told me that Beryl isn’t a registered nurse. Kate, I want you on that. A medical professional staging a suicide would know that it’d be picked up at autopsy.’
‘If an autopsy was necessary.’
‘A qualified nurse would know that. Right, let’s get to work. I think it’s time we formally interviewed both Irene Walmsley and Beryl Morningside.’