Chapter 58

Superintendent Thornton was in a strange mood as he set in train a nationwide search for Margie Pocklington. He’d agreed with Juliet that, given the circumstances in which the clothes were discovered, it was too risky to assume that Margie (or her body, but he wasn’t going to be the first to suggest that) was being held locally. He was recognising belatedly the wisdom of not jumping to conclusions: it was going to be tricky to extricate himself from the predicament he’d landed himself in by assuming too precipitately that Ayesha Verma had been the victim of an honour killing, and, worse, giving Tim Yates permission to go gallivanting off to India even after the Superintendent himself had begun to harbour serious doubts about that particular line of enquiry. Yates could have interviewed the Verma fiancé by video link, for God’s sake. As it was, they’d probably wasted valuable time and equally valuable public money by barking up the wrong tree. He hoped that Yates and Armstrong hadn’t been too specific when voicing their suspicions to the Vermas. The last thing he wanted to be landed with was some kind of racial prejudice enquiry.

He’d decided, and Juliet had agreed, that they wouldn’t disclose the discovery of the clothes just yet. To do so would be playing into the perpetrator’s hands and it would be giving far too much away if they were to announce that they thought Margie’s disappearance was linked to Ayesha’s. He didn’t want the Press to start voicing that idea just yet, even though they were bound to jump to that conclusion eventually and would probably question him about it at the press conference he’d agreed to later in the day.

He ordered CCTV footage to be checked at the most likely stations: Peterborough, London King’s Cross, Nottingham, Leicester. A similar initiative had drawn a blank after the disappearance of Ayesha Verma, but it was important to show willing and there was always the chance they might strike lucky this time.

Once all police forces had been alerted and Margie’s description and photograph circulated, he turned his attention to the evidence they had gathered already. Patti Gardner was summoned to carry out forensic tests on the clothes. Juliet and Nancy were told to type up the interviews that had taken place with Liz and Gerald Pocklington. He doubted that either would be of much use, but he was determined to do everything by the book this time.

“What’s Katrin Yates doing today?” he demanded peremptorily of Juliet as she handed over a print copy of her report. “Is this one of her working days?”

“Yes, sir,” said Juliet. “She’s been talking to a couple of victims of domestic abuse – women whose families would have almost certainly have killed them ‘for honour’ if they hadn’t managed to escape.”

“That’s a bit of a waste of time, isn’t it? We don’t think it is an honour killing now, do we?”

“No, sir,” said Juliet patiently. “But if you remember, you asked her to do some background work on honour killings, see if the profile fitted the Verma case.”

“Did I? Well, it would have been more useful if she’d come to her conclusions before Yates left for India, wouldn’t it? Anyway, that can’t be helped. Call her now and tell her to waste no more time on it. I want her here, now. She can do some background checks on Gerald Pocklington and see if there’s anything we should know about him. And Liz Pocklington, for that matter. And call in Chakrabati and Tandy. I want them to make door-to-door enquiries in the High Bridge area: perhaps someone else saw your mystery man last night. Pity you didn’t apprehend him, wasn’t it?”

Juliet’s heart sank. She’d been thinking the same thing herself.

“Yes, sir. I thought he was just a fly-tipper. It seemed more important to interview Mrs Pocklington at the time. Besides, I’d have needed back-up and he’d have gone by the time they arrived.”

“Yes, well, you weren’t able to interview the Pocklington woman until this morning anyway, were you?” the Superintendent retaliated tetchily, ignoring Juliet’s latter observation.

“Steady on,” said Nancy. “She’s not a clairvoyant.”

Juliet held her breath for a moment, but when she dared to look at Thornton she realised he seemed quite pleased by the rebuke.

“That’s what we need, a bit of spirit around here,” he said sotto voce, almost to himself. “Now,” – in a louder voice, to Juliet – “what are the chances of picking up your friend the fly-tipper on CCTV? Is there any in that part of the town?”

“Some of the shops are fitted with CCTV cameras, but I don’t know if any of them point towards the river. I’ll check.”

“Good. And when you’ve done that and got Katrin Yates and Chakrabati and Tandy back at the station, perhaps you could take that scarf to show to Mrs Verma. Or do you think that Gardner will want to sprinkle her potions on it first?”

“I doubt if she’s going to find much evidence on the clothes now they’ve been in the river all night, but it’s probably best to give her the chance to find out.”

“Agreed. Well, you can wait for a bit, then, and brief Katrin when she gets here. You might like to get on with writing a press briefing for me.”