Twenty minutes later, the Toyota turned left at a signpost for Houghton-le-Spring. Moments after that, she pulled into an ordinary street that had recently become a crime scene. Jenny Tait’s terraced house was already secure, taped off to keep the public out, with a uniform guarding the gate, a crowd of onlookers close by. Avoiding Gormley’s smug expression, Daniels got out of the car and shook hands with Detective Superintendent Ronald Naylor of neighbouring Durham Constabulary who’d come out of the crime scene to greet her.
‘Ron.’
‘Kate.’ Naylor swept his arm out, drawing her attention to a glut of police vehicles parked along the kerb. The insignia on the cars didn’t match. His tone was friendly. ‘Bit of a Mexican stand-off, wouldn’t you agree?’
Daniels was a little embarrassed. ‘Hank said it wasn’t our patch, but the control room was having none of it.’
‘Nasty business . . .’ Naylor looked past her to the Toyota. He held up a thumb to Gormley, who nodded back and settled down in his seat for a nap. ‘We don’t get many of these round here. I’ve got no witnesses, no motive, no bloody idea where to begin.’
Daniels nodded. ‘Sounds familiar.’
‘Consider yourself stood down, Kate. Call you later?’
‘Yeah, do that.’ She was about to walk away when Naylor spoke again:
‘If you come across any bodies with a prayer card stuffed in their mouths, give us a call, eh?’
Daniels felt the colour drain from her face as the image of Father Simon clutching a prayer card flashed to the forefront of her mind. ‘Does a priest count?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Remember the double murder last Christmas Eve at St Camillus church?’
Naylor nodded. ‘How could I forget?’
‘The priest with a bullet in his chest was holding a prayer card.’
Naylor bit his lip. ‘Yeah well, he would be, wouldn’t he? Tools of the trade and all that. You’d expect—’
‘Keep me informed, Ron. I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘You serious?’
‘Very.’
Daniels got back in the car and sat for a while, scanning the faces of the crowd behind the police tape, wondering if a killer could be among them. She drove away, hoping against hope that Naylor’s case might somehow be linked to her unsolved double murder, the one still giving her nightmares. What if the prayer card on Father Simon’s body was a clue to his killer’s identity and not merely a ‘tool of the trade’? She made a mental note to call Naylor when he’d finished at the crime scene.
Gormley hadn’t picked up on her excitement. He was sitting quietly, studying the list Carmichael had supplied earlier. ‘Know a woman called Felicity Wood?’ he said, looking up.
‘Should I?’
‘She’s a brief at Graham & Abercrombie.’
‘Don’t think so. Why?’
‘According to this list, she was sitting with Martin and Stephens at the dinner.’
‘Was she now?’
‘I know the name,’ Gormley said. ‘I just can’t place it.’
Daniels made a right turn and then a left out of the housing estate and put her foot down, heading back towards Newcastle along a winding country road that cut its way through lush green countryside, hedged on either side by drystone walls. In parts, the stones had fallen away, exposing open pasture that seemed to go on and on. A canopy of bare branches met above the centre of the road, creating a strobe effect as she drove beneath it.
She slowed behind a caravan of vehicles: a farm tractor spewing mud from gigantic tyres; a single-decker with only one passenger on board; an impatient driver of a blue transit van who chanced his arm by straying from the kerb trying to overtake – irritating Daniels, who was bringing up the rear. She wondered if the maniac ever stopped to consider his own mortality as he put oncoming traffic in danger.
‘Jesus!’ Gormley said.
Daniels took her eyes off the road a moment to glance at him. ‘What?’
‘I knew I’d come across her name before!’
‘The brief?’
Gormley grinned. ‘She’s a resident of Court Mews.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yep, saw her name on the action list this morning.’
‘Then maybe we should pay her a visit.’
Daniels switched on her blue light, indicating her intention to pull out . . .