‘There was nothing I could do. He ran right past me.’ The receptionist was twenty-something, five foot nothing and delicately built. She scrubbed her eyes with a soggy tissue and looked up at me piteously. ‘If I’d known, I’d never have let him in.’
That went without saying, I thought. ‘Just talk me through it again. You said he rang the bell.’
‘Yes. He was just out there.’ She stared in the general direction of the glass door that was the office’s only line of defence against a threat they hadn’t anticipated. Mitchford Bexley was a small solicitors’ firm housed in a narrow Georgian house on a quiet street behind Gray’s Inn. Everything about it spoke of quiet wealth and good taste.
Everything except the bloody footprints on the pearl-grey carpet and the red-brown smears along the edge of the glass door. It stood open so a crime scene technician could photograph the marks on the door. I had left Derwent upstairs, standing over the slight, huddled figure of Diana Bexley, the 48-year-old solicitor who had given her surname to the firm she co-founded. Her designer suit had looked a lot better before it was saturated with blood from a deep stab wound in her chest and shallower injuries to her hands and forearms. She had put up a fight, and lost. Even in death, her face was beautiful: high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, her pale lips parted to show white, even teeth.
‘He was dressed like a courier. I thought he was a courier. He was holding an envelope and he gave me a thumbs-up through the door.’ The receptionist blinked. ‘They’re supposed to take their helmets off but a lot of them don’t. I didn’t think it was strange, you know? It was normal. And then it wasn’t.’
Understatement of the year.
‘Does that camera work?’ I pointed up to where it blinked in the corner.
‘It’s motion activated. It records to my computer.’
‘I’ll need to see the footage. And if there are any other cameras in the building I’d like to see what they recorded too.’
‘The one at the back of the building isn’t working.’ She sniffled. ‘I only noticed it this morning. I was going to get it fixed. But it’s just a yard out there. A couple of us use it for smoking. Anyway, he didn’t go near that area.’
And when I watched the CCTV, I saw she was right. He had entered the building at twenty-three minutes past eleven and left four minutes later, before anyone had time to react, but after Diana Bexley’s last breath had left her body. He had moved straight through the hall towards the stairs, not looking left or right, heading for Diana’s office, a large room at the front of the building. ‘Do you think he had been here before? A client, maybe?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him. But he was in leathers. He just looked like a courier.’
‘So you said.’ I said it gently, though. I knew the receptionist felt guilty about the part she had played in the tragedy. ‘Did you know Mrs Bexley well?’
‘Not well. She wasn’t the sort of person who was chatty.’ She brightened. ‘She got me a card for my birthday, though.’
‘How many people work here?’
‘Eight. Two partners, two associates, three assistants, me. Mrs Bexley had the whole first floor for her office. The next two floors are shared between the associates and assistants. Mr Mitchford is right at the top on his own.’
‘Does the firm handle anything controversial? Any cases that might involve organised crime or sensitive subjects?’
‘No. It’s mainly commercial stuff. Licensing. I don’t really understand it. I’ve only been working here for six months.’
‘I presume Mrs Bexley was married.’
‘She’s divorced.’ That made sense: the dead woman had worn a big, showy aquamarine on her right hand but nothing on her left. ‘She lives on her own in Chelsea. It’s a gorgeous flat. She had it all done up. Antiques and everything. Lots of books. I never went there myself but Stephen did.’
I ran my pen down the list of staff members. ‘Stephen Hawkson? A paralegal?’
She nodded. ‘He got on well with Mrs Bexley, I think. They worked together a lot.’
‘He’s very efficient.’ The comment came from behind me where an ashen-faced man in a close-fitting dark suit was standing.
‘Mr Mitchford,’ the receptionist breathed reverently. ‘Are you all right? Can I get you a glass of water? A cup of tea?’
He waved the suggestions away. He was bald, with deep-set dark eyes and a hawkish look. I noticed the signifiers of wealth – the tailored suit in an undoubtedly expensive fabric that had creased rather badly, the silk tie, the handmade shoes.
‘Paul Mitchford.’ He held out his hand with a flash of metal from the heavy Rolex he wore on his right wrist. All the better to show it off, I thought, even if an allergy to the metal had raised a welt on his skin. What did that matter when you were impressing people with your wealth?
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Maeve Kerrigan.’
‘Thank you for coming so quickly.’
‘It’s my job.’
He nodded. ‘Of course. Of course. This is just such a shock to us all.’
‘You were Mrs Bexley’s partner.’
‘In business. Not in life.’ The hollows under his cheekbones deepened a fraction. ‘We worked together for fifteen years. I admired her so much. She was a wonderful colleague. Humbling. A remarkable woman. She studied for her law degree in her spare time, you know, after she got divorced. She came up the hard way. Everything she had was down to hard work and a little bit of good luck.’
Luck that had evidently run out this morning.
‘Did you see what happened?’
‘No. I was in my office. It’s on the top floor, away from everyone else.’ He gestured vaguely. ‘When I’m working I shut my door and listen to music through some very effective headphones. I find it helps with my concentration. I didn’t hear or see anything at all. I didn’t know it had happened until it was all over. I came downstairs and found them all gathered around her. But it was too late.’
‘Was Mrs Bexley worried about anything? Was she behaving as normal?’
‘She was the same as ever. Absolutely committed to the business. A total professional.’ For an instant I saw his eyes go dark with pain. ‘I have no idea how we’re going to manage without her.’
Stephen Hawkson was tall, fair and not quite handsome: his chin a fraction too long, his forehead too broad. He had small, close-set eyes that were fixed on the wall behind me rather than my face as he explained he had spent a lot of time with Mrs Bexley – Diana. In fact, he had been in a relationship with her, although it wasn’t commonly known in the office. They had kept it quiet, at her request.
‘Did you live with her?’
‘No. I share a house in Hackney with some friends.’ He swallowed. ‘She didn’t like coming to stay with me. We always spent time together at her place.’
‘She was a lot older than you, wasn’t she?’ Derwent was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, his expression remote. Anyone might have thought he didn’t care about this case. Anyone might have been wrong. Experience had taught me that the more distant he seemed, the more he really did mind. ‘Sixteen years is a hell of an age gap.’
‘I never noticed it. She was beautiful.’ Hawkson’s throat worked convulsively. ‘She never made a big deal out of being older and I never mentioned it.’
‘How long had you been together?’ I asked.
‘Two years.’
‘And you still hadn’t moved in?’ Derwent again.
‘I didn’t – she didn’t ask me to.’ He dropped his head. ‘She didn’t want anything conventional. Marriage, you know. She’d done it before, she said, and it was a mistake.’
‘Did she have children?’
‘No.’
‘Family?’
‘Her parents died when she was a teenager. She had a brother but he lives in Canada, I think.’
‘So you must have been important to her,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem that way, to be honest with you. I was useful to her. Discreet. She didn’t want to date. She didn’t even want to be seen in public with me. No meals out, no concerts, no hand-holding.’
‘How did it start?’
‘She invited me to her flat one night. I thought it was for work but she asked me if I minded if she seduced me.’ A smile that transformed his face for an instant: yes, I could see he might be attractive when he wasn’t frozen with grief. ‘And it went on from there. She warned me not to tell anyone at work, or talk about her to my friends. But I hoped she would change. I took her to Paris last weekend, as a surprise, and she was so different. So loving. She kissed me on the Pont Neuf and I told her I loved her. She seemed happy. She told me she wanted to travel. To change her life completely. I thought she was just saying it, though.’ He shook his head, his expression bleak. ‘I knew it would end one day, but not like this.’
‘Where were you between 11.20 and 11.40 this morning?’ I asked.
‘In a meeting. We have a weekly meeting – not the partners, the rest of us – from eleven to twelve. Everyone talks about what they’re working on.’ He looked down. ‘I can’t even remember what I said this morning. It all seems irrelevant now.’
‘So you were there with your colleagues when Mrs Bexley was attacked.’ I wasn’t trying to catch him out. It was a routine, double-checking question.
‘I—’ Stephen Hawkson checked himself, his face flushing red. ‘I – well, I had stepped out. I was there for most of the meeting.’
‘When exactly did you step out, and for how long?’ Derwent demanded.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe … after about ten minutes. I wasn’t feeling well. I had stomach cramps. I went to the bathroom and – well, I had to go. Diarrhoea.’
‘How long were you out of the meeting?’
‘I didn’t make it back. I heard shouting but I wasn’t in a position to leave the bathroom, without going into too much detail. By the time I came out, she was dead. I wanted to hold her but they wouldn’t let me go into the room. Paul – Mr Mitchford – stopped me. Oh God, I don’t have an alibi.’ He looked pleadingly from me to Derwent. ‘That hadn’t even occurred to me when I said I was in the meeting. I wasn’t trying to mislead you. I just didn’t think about why you wanted to know where I was. But I couldn’t have hurt her, ever. I loved her.’
‘You probably think people mostly kill each other because of hatred.’ Derwent leaned forward, getting uncomfortably close to Hawkson’s face. ‘Wrong. In my experience, it’s love that brings out the killer in people. That and money. But mainly love.’
‘What sort of a world do you live in?’ Stephen seemed to be on the verge of tears.
‘The real one.’ Derwent straightened up, towering over him. ‘We’re going to need to take your clothes.’
Derwent drove to the flat in Chelsea. I sat beside him, the dead woman’s keys in an evidence bag on my knee. It was always the small details of a person’s life that caught me – the keys they carried every day and would never use again, the letters they had intended to post, the voicemail they would never pick up.
‘What are you thinking about this one?’ I asked as we turned into the long street of white porticoed mansions that were divided into luxurious apartments.
‘She was targeted. No doubt about it. He went straight past other offices – and he could have killed the receptionist or the secretary he met in the hall. He wanted to kill her.’
‘No one knew if she’d had any threats.’
‘She kept them to herself if she did.’ Derwent glanced at me. ‘What did you make of Loverboy?’
‘He seemed sincere.’
‘He’s the sensitive type.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ I said, and Derwent snorted, which annoyed me enough to make me add, ‘It’s better than bottling up your feelings and pretending they don’t exist.’
‘Is that aimed at me?’
‘Does it sound like you?’
A muscle flickered in Derwent’s jaw but he concentrated on manoeuvring the car into a tiny space. I leaned forward to look at Diana Bexley’s building, wondering which set of tall windows belonged to her flat.
‘Well, why did she want to keep him a secret?’
I shrugged. ‘Because it wasn’t professional of her to sleep with a junior member of staff? Because she wanted to keep her private life out of the office? Any number of reasons.’
‘She was beautiful, accomplished, wealthy. She could have had her pick of men. Why him?’
‘He wasn’t a typical alpha male. She could make the rules. Dominate him.’
‘In my experience, women like that want to be submissive.’
I would never break Derwent of his oversharing habit. ‘Is that so?’ I said with what I hoped was conversation-ending lack of interest.
‘It’s just something I’ve noticed.’ He switched the engine off and I scrambled to get out of the car. Derwent slammed his door and looked at me across the roof. ‘The more successful they are in their careers, the more they want someone to take charge in the bedroom. They spend all day being ballbreakers. They want to come home to someone who won’t let them get away with it.’
‘Absolute horseshit.’
‘Just accept I know more about this than you do.’
‘Of course. What would I know?’ I walked up the steps of the building, aware that Derwent was on my heels.
‘Unless I’m misjudging you, I’ve slept with a lot more women than you have, and I can tell you the more powerful and successful a woman is, the more she likes her men to … make the running.’
I slid the keys out of the bag and sorted through them, looking for the key to the main door. A Banham lock, I thought with intense concentration designed to drown out Derwent. That should be easy to pick out of the bunch; it would have its own branded key—
‘The point is, they don’t want to have to make any decisions.’ His voice was low and so soft that I felt it in the pit of my stomach rather than hearing it. His mouth was close enough to my ear that I could almost imagine his lips grazed my skin. ‘They just want to surrender to what they’re feeling. They don’t want to think about whether it’s a good idea or not.’
Remember to breathe. My knees trembled and I closed my eyes, just for a second. He hooked the keys out of my hand before I could pull myself together enough to put up any resistance, then reached past me to unlock the door. The metal-on-metal sound from the key turning in the lock scraped across my nerves.
‘Wake up, Kerrigan.’ A shove in the small of my back propelled me across the threshold. ‘Get a move on.’
I stalked up the stairs, furious with him and the fact that his stupid little trick had worked on me for a moment, and even more furious that he’d known it and if he hadn’t known it, the flush in my cheeks would give it away …
He was, of course, grinning when we reached Diana Bexley’s front door and I had to face him. I gave him a look.
‘Oh, cheer up. I was only joking.’
‘I should thank you. I haven’t put anything in my sexual harassment file for ages.’
He chuckled, then switched back to serious again as he scanned the door. Time to get back to work, I thought, and was relieved. I knew why he had done it: a diversion to take his mind off the violence and terror that had ended Diana Bexley’s life. A way of distancing himself from his emotions so cool concentration could take over when it was required.
‘No sign of anyone having been here.’ I was pulling on gloves as I said it.
‘Safe enough for us to go in.’ He unlocked the door and pushed it open, wary. The door swung back against the wall and we edged inside the flat, scanning the rooms for signs of a threat. The flat wasn’t large but it was lovely and carefully put together: well-chosen antique furniture, a hint of character in the jewel-toned upholstery and the books that lined the sitting room and the scattering of gilt-framed paintings. Derwent made straight for the desk by the window and I turned my attention to a proper search of the rest of the place. There was a tiny kitchen and a bedroom with a vast, hotel-luxurious bed. The bathroom was marble-lined. The towels that hung on the chrome rail were still damp. The whole room smelled of roses threaded with something more complicated. I traced the scent to a silver-topped bottle by the sink: Jo Malone Velvet Rose & Oud cologne. It was sweet but not straightforward – a sophisticated choice made by a woman who took care over every aspect of her life. I stood where she had stood that morning, feeling like an interloper. She had set the bottle back down never imagining that the next hand to touch it would belong to a stranger. Diana Bexley would never look at herself in the heated mirror again, would never smooth Crème de la Mer moisturiser into her skin, would never weigh herself on the high-tech scales near the door. I never got used to the shock of it: the absolute and abrupt interruption of a life because someone had decided it should end. Diana Bexley had deserved more than that, I thought, and headed to the bedroom.
Derwent appeared in the doorway while I was working my way through the wardrobe. ‘Anything interesting?’
‘A lot of suits. What about you?’
‘Nothing.’ He moved around the room, restless. ‘Neat, isn’t it? No dirty clothes lying around. No clutter. Even the bins are empty.’
‘She was very organised.’ I shrugged. ‘If I had a flat like this, even I might manage to keep it tidy. Do the washing up, take out the bins, that sort of thing. Not like now.’
Derwent whipped around, stiff with outrage. ‘Kerrigan, if you turn my place into a shithole I’ll—’ He broke off when he saw I was laughing. ‘Oh, very funny.’
‘Call it payback for humping me on the doorstep.’
‘There was no humping.’ He smirked. ‘The humping was all in your mind.’
And I had given myself away, I realised too late. I cleared my throat. ‘It’s very neat and tidy but I assume she had a cleaner.’
‘Not every day. Not every morning.’
‘Maybe she was obsessive about tidiness. So are you. Do you know what else I haven’t found?’ I crossed to the bedside table and started going through the drawers. ‘Any trace of Stephen Hawkson. Not even a toothbrush.’
‘Do you think he was lying about them being in a relationship?’
‘Why would he lie?’
‘Attention? Or maybe it was always his fantasy and now he’s convinced himself it really happened. She’s not around to contradict it.’
‘We should be able to find out if they really went to Paris.’
Derwent nodded. ‘I’ll put it on the list. He didn’t have an alibi either.’
‘No. The murder happened between 11.23 and 11.27 and he was out of the meeting from about ten past eleven. If he managed to get in and out of the building unobserved, he could have done it.’
Derwent sat on the bed and pulled open the drawer of the other table. ‘This place is weird. It’s nicely put together but there’s nothing personal. No photographs, no letters. No sense of the victim’s private life. It’s like her office. Like anyone could walk through here and learn nothing about her.’
‘Maybe that was just how she was.’
‘Everyone has a private life,’ Derwent said. ‘Everyone has things they want to keep to themselves.’
Before I could answer there was a creak from the hall. I looked at Derwent. ‘Did you shut the front door?’
He shook his head. I stepped softly across to the bedroom door and peered around it.
‘I’m calling the police.’ The voice was loud, male and outraged. I lowered my threat level and my shoulders, which had been around my ears.
‘We are the police.’ I stepped into the hall, holding up my warrant card so he could see it.
‘Oh. Well, that’s different.’ He was a large man in a headache-inducing blue-and-orange striped silk shirt. It was unbuttoned far enough that I could see rather a lot of silver chest hair. He looked sleek and expensive and very concerned. ‘But what are you doing here? Has there been another burglary?’
‘Another?’ I noticed the poker he was holding. ‘Could you put that down please?’
‘Darling Diana was burgled last month.’ He propped the poker up beside the front door. ‘She was so upset about it.’
Derwent spoke from behind me. ‘Was anything taken?’
‘Oh, hello.’ The man beamed at him. ‘Are you a policeman too?’
‘Detective Inspector Josh Derwent.’
‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Josh. I’m Michael. Michael Fry. I live just upstairs.’ Michael Fry was staring at him as if he wanted to lick him, something that wouldn’t bother Derwent at all. For someone so determinedly heterosexual, he took male admiration in his stride. It was all ego-fodder, I reflected, and resigned myself to being ignored.
‘Thanks for coming down, Michael,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?’
‘Of course not.’ Not if you’re doing the asking was heavily implied in Michael’s tone. ‘But if it wasn’t a burglary, what are you doing here? Is Diana here?’
‘No.’
‘She’s probably at work. She works so hard. Of course, that’s why I was so pleased when she said she was going to quit.’
‘When did she say that?’
‘She’s been saying it since the burglary. Life is too short to be miserable, that’s what she says.’
‘I was under the impression she loves her job,’ I said.
‘She used to. She lived for it. But then she stopped enjoying it. She’s very discreet, Diana, but she did say it was a personality problem and it wasn’t going to be resolved easily. She’s rather excited at the thought of leaving. She says it will be wonderful to be free.’ He sighed. ‘Listen to me going on. You can just ask her about it.’
The deafening silence from behind me told me that Derwent wasn’t going to break the news to Mr Fry. I did it as gently as I could, and steered him to an armchair when he needed to sit down and sob.
Once he had recovered, he told us everything he knew about his neighbour with very little prompting. After half an hour, I excused myself to make some phone calls from the privacy of the car. Derwent let himself out of the building just as I finished.
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘Well what?’
‘Did you make it out unscathed?’
‘Of course. And if I ever want financial advice, Michael’s going to sort me out. What did you find out?’
‘I spoke to the officer who investigated the burglary. Diana was really shaken by it. The intruder didn’t take anything – at least, nothing of value. He left cash, a computer, an expensive camera, some jewellery. The officer asked her if it could be someone she knew and she burst into tears.’
‘That doesn’t fit in with her image.’
‘Indeed not.’
‘Did she mention anyone in particular who worried her?’
‘No. The officer went so far as to track down her ex-husband, Calvin Bexley. He denied all knowledge of it. They weren’t in touch, he said. She cut off contact with him after they divorced.’
‘Maybe she was hiding Stephen because her ex was paying her alimony.’
‘Nope. She didn’t look for it when they split up. She just wanted to get away from him. And it was after the split that she started studying law. She didn’t want any support from him and he didn’t earn any from her.’
‘Is he bitter?’
‘The officer said not. He has a wife, two kids. Diana left him in 1998. That’s a long time to hold a grudge.’
‘Another lifetime,’ Derwent said.
‘You’d think.’
‘Any history of domestic violence?’
‘None that I could find. But that might only mean it wasn’t reported.’
Derwent chewed his lip. ‘Where does this dicksplash live now?’
‘Haringey. I’ve already asked if the locals can try to locate Mr Bexley. I’d be very interested to know where he was between nine and noon today.’
As I said it, my phone rang.
‘DS Kerrigan.’ I listened for a minute. ‘Right. On our way.’
‘Haringey?’ Derwent was already starting the car.
‘No. Back to the crime scene. They’ve found a set of motorbike leathers in a bag a couple of streets away.’
‘DNA.’ Derwent whistled. ‘Happy days.’
Kev Cox’s van was parked in a narrow alleyway. We pulled in behind it and he raised his hand in a mournful salute.
‘What’s up with him? He should be celebrating,’ Derwent said.
‘Something’s wrong.’ I got out. ‘What’s up?’
‘Smell that. Don’t get too close and don’t touch it.’ He stepped out of the way so I could see a sports bag on the ground, unzipped. A bitter chemical smell wafted out of it.
‘What’s that?’
‘Sodium hydroxide, largely. This is drain cleaner, oven cleaner – something like that. Everything inside the bag was saturated.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Derwent said. ‘What about the bag itself?’
‘Same story. We might get something off the outside but it’s brand new. If I had to guess it was wrapped in plastic until the killer used it.’
‘Where was it?’
‘Just beside those bins. I’ve been through them. Nothing of interest to us. Office rubbish.’
‘Where is the Mitchford Bexley office from here?’ I was scanning the buildings on either side of the alley. They were a jumble of windows and extensions, the untidy hinterland of the impeccable streets on the other side of the buildings. The walls of the alley were high and I couldn’t see any cameras. Terrible for witnesses; ideal for a murderer in a hurry.
‘That’s the back of it down there, with the metal fire escape. It’s about two minutes that way, if you’re strolling.’ Kev pointed. ‘Less if you’re running, obviously.’
‘Let’s have a look,’ I said. ‘Maybe he dropped something.’
‘I’ve got a team checking all the drains between here and there. We’re still looking for a knife, aren’t we? And the container for whatever he poured into the bag.’
‘Indeed we are.’ I set off and Derwent jogged after me.
‘Wait for me.’
‘Walk faster.’
‘What’s the rush?’
‘Just an idea, that’s all.’ I was trying to keep my bearings, standing on tiptoe to see the back of the Mitchford Bexley building. I stopped suddenly enough that Derwent collided with me and stepped back with a growl. ‘This gate. This must lead in to the yard at the back of the building.’
‘So? Our guy went in and out of the front.’
‘Yeah. He did.’ I was looking up, at the fire escape. It was the fixed sort, spiral stairs rather than ladders, with a platform at each of the four floors.
‘Kerrigan, you know I hate it when you go monosyllabic.’
‘Did you meet Paul Mitchford?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What did you make of him?’
Derwent shrugged. ‘He was all right. A bit shaken. He told me how much he admired Diana Bexley.’
‘So it seemed. Anything else?’
‘He doesn’t wear a wedding ring.’
‘No. But he does wear a great big watch.’ I turned to Kev Cox, who had caught up with us. ‘What would happen if you got sodium hydroxide on your skin?’
‘Not much if you washed it off straightaway. Any prolonged contact would cause redness, blistering – a burn, basically.’
‘Got him,’ I said softly.
‘Go on.’ Derwent folded his arms; he was as hard to persuade as any juror.
‘I noticed Paul Mitchford had a mark under his watch. I thought it was because the metal was irritating his skin, but it could have been the chemicals, couldn’t it? If he got splashed and he didn’t notice or didn’t wash it off well enough because it was under the strap.’
‘Or it could be an allergy.’
‘I can swab his hands,’ Kev said. ‘And the watch. It’s metal, you said? We’ll get something from between the links if there’s anything to find.’
‘How did he get out of the office without being seen?’ Derwent asked.
‘The back way. The receptionist said the CCTV camera at the rear of the building was out of order. He’d shut himself away, as was his habit. He must have climbed out of the window to go down the back stairs. The receptionist said the yard was used for smoking but everyone apart from the partners was supposed to be in a meeting – there was no danger of him running into anyone except Diana, as far as he knew.’
‘That applies just as much to Stephen Hawkson.’
‘Yes, it does, but Mitchford—’
‘You just didn’t like him.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I said.
‘You liked Hawkson so you don’t want it to have been him, but it’s more likely to have been her lover than her business partner. Hawkson fits the bill. He was out of the meeting for long enough to do all this, if he didn’t really have the shits. He could have got out of the bathroom window, come down here, changed, re-entered the building in disguise, killed Diana, changed back and returned to the building in time to act stunned and appalled. He got there after Mitchford – remember, he said it was Mitchford who stopped him from going into the room. Cradling her in his arms would have been a good way of covering himself in blood and knackering the forensic evidence.’
‘But he didn’t get to do it.’
‘Only because Mitchford stopped him.’
‘Which ensured that everyone remembered Mitchford was there. He was one of the last people to arrive at the scene of the crime, though. He had been holed up in his office since nine – he had much more time to prepare for murder. In the chaos, maybe no one noticed he came up from outside, not down from his office.’
‘Okay. Either of them could have done it. But why would Mitchford kill her?’
‘Because he was in love with her. The first thing he said to me was that he was her business partner, but not her life partner. That’s not something most people would say, especially in the circumstances. Diana warned Stephen Hawkson not to talk about their relationship at work. She only let him kiss her in public in a foreign country, where she was suddenly relaxed and happy. She kept anything personal out of her flat – there wasn’t a trace of Stephen in the entire place. Someone burgled her flat and didn’t take anything of value – someone was watching her. She wanted to leave Mitchford Bexley – she hinted at that to Stephen and she told Michael Fry straight out that she’d had enough. It was a personality problem but one she couldn’t solve – so it had to be someone she couldn’t fire. The only person who was equal to her in status was Paul Mitchford. If she was bothered by Stephen, he’d never have kept his job.’
‘Or she couldn’t fire him because they’d had an ill-advised affair and he’d take her to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.’
‘She’d have found a way. Diana Bexley was intelligent and resourceful. If she’d been able to end this peacefully, she would have. Why would she willingly leave the business she founded? She was young enough that she hadn’t burned out. She was successful and well respected. It would be a huge sacrifice to walk away from it. But it makes sense if she needed to escape the obsessive attentions of her partner. They both worked hard on making the business a success but it was a trap and Diana only realised it too late.’
‘Do you think he broke in to her flat?’ Derwent asked.
‘It would make sense. It wasn’t a normal burglary. Maybe that was what made her decide she wanted to leave. And he wouldn’t let her go.’ I looked up at the windows of Paul Mitchford’s office. ‘She must have been so scared.’
‘Of someone. Someone who imagined they were in a relationship. Someone who had a detailed fantasy about the life they led together that no one else apparently knew about.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘Let’s take a closer look at Paul Mitchford and his arm.’
We walked back into the building through the open front door, and as we entered a scream from upstairs made me stop dead.
‘Oh my God.’ The receptionist stood up so fast her chair tipped over. ‘What was that?’
Another cry filled the building with jagged noise – a cry that had me scrabbling for my radio even as I sprinted after Derwent, who was taking the stairs three at a time. The first floor flashed past, and the second, where I ignored the figures that had gathered in the doorways there and on the third floor, until we reached the tiny hallway right at the top of the building where we could go no further. The single door was closed. Derwent rattled the handle and pounded on the wood.
‘Police. Open this door.’
A groan sounded frighteningly close and loud.
‘Mitchford? Open up.’ Derwent took a step back, which was as far as he could get, and hit the door shoulder first with as much force as he could muster. It didn’t even rattle. ‘Fuck.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘No, I’m fucking not.’ He was clutching his shoulder. ‘It must be reinforced.’
‘Help me, please. I’m bleeding. Oh God, there’s so much blood.’ The voice was muffled through the wood.
‘That’s Stephen Hawkson,’ I said and Derwent nodded.
‘Hang on, mate.’ He knelt down beside the door. ‘We’re on our way. Just hold on for me.’
I turned and ran down the stairs to the next floor. ‘Fire escape?’
A girl in a cardigan pointed at the high window. I shoved the sash up and ducked out, looking up. A rattle from above echoed the noise I’d made.
‘Mr Mitchford? Stay where you are.’ I went up two steps, trying to see him. ‘Show me your hands, Mr Mitchford.’
‘I left the knife on my desk.’ His voice was remarkably matter-of-fact. Two bloody hands stuck out over the railing so I could see them. ‘You’re in no danger.’
I went up another step. ‘Stay where you are,’ I said again.
‘I don’t think so.’ As his face came into view I saw that he was looking far too excited, his eyes wild. ‘I just killed someone.’
Shit. With my luck he was going to confess to everything and none of it would be usable in court unless he was under caution. ‘Mr Mitchford, I am arresting you for the murder of Diana Bexley. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence—’
‘I know all of that.’ He looked away from me as I doggedly continued with the words I could have said in my sleep.
When I’d finished, I said, ‘Mr Mitchford, I’m going to come up the steps, all right?’
‘If you come any closer I’ll throw myself down.’ He gripped the railing at the top.
‘Mr Mitchford, please.’
‘I mean it.’ He put one foot on the bottom railing and levered himself up so he was sitting on the edge.
A hand gripped my ankle and I almost screamed. Derwent looked up at me, his face strained. ‘Paramedics are here. We can’t get into Mitchford’s office. I’ve got the fire brigade on the way.’
‘Mr Mitchford, I’m going to ask you to you go back inside. I’m going to come with you. We’re going to unlock the door, okay, and then we’re going to go down the stairs together.’
‘Not going to happen.’ He was still staring at the horizon. ‘If you ask me to go inside again, I’ll jump.’
‘You don’t have to do this. You can talk to us. Talk to me.’ I hesitated, then carried on. ‘I know you loved Diana.’
‘You don’t know anything.’
‘Well, tell me about it. Help me to understand.’
‘She betrayed me. She betrayed my trust. She wanted to leave the firm. Leave me. I made her what she was. I gave her the chance to make something of herself. She was a grubby little girl with bad teeth and cheap shoes when I met her. Without me, she’d have been nothing.’
‘You helped her.’
‘I created her. I shaped her into the perfect woman. I paid for her to have her teeth fixed, I paid for her to go to the best hairstylists, I paid for her to dress the part. Appearances matter. You have to look right to be successful.’
‘What did you want in return?’
He shrugged, irritated. ‘What I was entitled to. Some respect. A little affection. A little gratitude.’
‘Diana didn’t owe you anything. She made herself what she was.’
‘You sound just like her. But she knew the truth of it. She knew she was a fraud. She knew that without me, she’d have been working in some grimy suburban solicitors’ firm, doing conveyancing and probate – not excelling. I made the difference between good enough and being exceptional.’
‘Why did you help her?’
‘She was everything I ever wanted. She owed me a chance to show her how much I loved her. But when I finally told her how I felt, she just wanted to be friends.’ His face darkened. ‘That bitch. She took everything and gave me nothing. And then she told me she was leaving the partnership. Leaving me.’
There was a sound halfway between a gasp and a groan from the room behind him.
‘Is that Stephen?’
He nodded.
‘He’s still alive, Paul. He needs help.’
‘I don’t care about him. He’s irrelevant.’
‘He hasn’t done anything wrong.’ I was gambling on Mitchford not knowing about Stephen’s relationship with Diana.
‘I wasn’t going to kill him. He found the knife in my office.’ Mitchford shrugged. ‘We fought. I won. I’m a winner, you see. I don’t know how to lose. I never give in. I told Diana that. I told her I’d never give up. I told her she’d never get away from me and I was right.’
I stood on that fire escape and I tried to coax Paul Mitchford into giving in. I stayed there for over an hour as the firefighters and police struggled to open the reinforced office door and Stephen Hawkson bled slowly to death, as out of reach as if he was on the dark side of the moon. And Derwent sat with Stephen, on the other side of the door, listening to him die.
I talked to Mitchford until my throat was raw, until I was swaying with fatigue, until a proper negotiator arrived and took over from me. I hauled myself up to where Derwent sat on the floor beside the still-locked door, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He didn’t look up when I stopped beside him.
‘Go away.’
‘Josh—’
‘No. Go.’
I went. I trailed down to the street, where I dredged up some words to explain what had happened to every senior officer who was there. It was a disaster, they said. It was a situation that should never have occurred. The logic was cast-iron: any death that happened while police officers were involved was a death that shouldn’t have happened, so it had to be our fault, somehow. There would be an investigation and we would be cleared of any wrongdoing but, just in case, they were voicing their disapproval, loud and clear.
The negotiator talked to Mitchford for another hour, as the sun slid below the crowded London skyline and the sky faded to darkness. Then Mitchford jumped anyway, onto the cold unforgiving concrete four storeys down.
I put music on when I got home: the most cheerful, bass-heavy music I could find. It was loud enough to vibrate the glass in the windows but the neighbours didn’t complain. Maybe they were used to it. Maybe that was how Derwent had drowned out the noises he couldn’t forget. I sang in the shower and stayed in it for much longer than normal, knowing I was hiding. Eventually I got out and pulled on comfort clothing: a giant sweatshirt and leggings. I made an omelette and concentrated on it so hard I managed not to burn it or leave it runny in the middle. I grabbed a bag of salad from the fridge and poured myself a glass of wine. My plan was a night in front of the TV and then bed, and a good night’s sleep, just as if I’d had a normal day at work.
I headed to the sitting room with the plate in one hand, my glass in the other and the corner of the bag of salad gripped between my teeth, and of the three things I carried it was, inevitably, the wine I dropped when I saw Derwent sitting on the sofa.
‘What the fuck?’ I said when I had put everything else down. ‘Did you let yourself in?’
He nodded and I felt my mood swerve towards dangerous.
‘You can’t do that, you know. You can’t just walk in here even if you do have keys.’
‘Then you should put the chain on.’
‘I shouldn’t have to. What are you doing here?’
‘Welfare check.’
‘What?’
‘I wanted to make sure you were okay. After today.’
‘Hold on.’ I went to get a tea towel for the wine that was soaking into the carpet. When I came back, I snapped off the music. The silence was loud. ‘I’m fine. Or I was.’
‘Sorry.’ He watched me scrub the carpet.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Really?’ I sat back on my heels. ‘Because you’re watching me do a shitty job of cleaning this up and you haven’t said anything.’
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, after I’d given up expecting him to answer: ‘I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘I know.’
‘He said he didn’t want to live without her. He said there was no point if she was gone. He loved her so much.’
‘Did it remind you of Melissa?’ I asked tentatively, and got a glare in return.
‘No. Of course not.’
He got to his feet and prowled around the room, back and forth. There was something about the way he moved that was a little off.
‘Did you go to the pub after work?’
‘Just for a few.’ He stopped to rub his face with his hands, his back turned to me and I watched him sway.
Oh God. A lot more than a few, I guessed. I’d thought the smell of alcohol was from the wine I’d spilled. I stood up, edging towards my bag. ‘Listen, why don’t you head home? I can get you a cab.’
‘I don’t want to go home.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to take this home. I don’t want to tell Melissa what happened and I don’t want to lie.’ He swung around and almost fell over. ‘She’ll ask me what I did today and I don’t want to tell her I listened to a man die and couldn’t do anything to help him. Christ …’ He unleashed a kick that connected with the living room wall so hard the plaster came away, leaving a substantial hole. He bent over, walking in a tiny circle. ‘Oh, shit. I think I broke my toe.’
‘You idiot.’ I took him by the hand and helped him to sit down on the floor, and with my other hand I snapped my handcuffs on his wrist. Before he focused on it I hooked the other side of the cuffs to the radiator pipe.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You can stay there until you’ve calmed down and sobered up.’ I was checking his pockets briskly, locating his phone and his keys. ‘And you’re lucky that’s all I’m doing. You’ve come here uninvited and damaged the property and I’m still not sure why.’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘You should have been worried about yourself.’
‘Sorry.’ He looked up at me with puppy-dog eyes. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’
‘I wouldn’t mind but the landlord is a total wanker. He’s not going to be happy about that hole.’
‘Yeah, all right, Maeve.’ He rattled the cuffs. ‘You’ve made your point. Let me go.’
‘Nope.’ I stood up. ‘I’m going to make you a cup of tea, and you’re going to drink it, and eat something, and then I’m calling you a cab and unlocking the cuffs. Then you’re going home.’
‘What am I going to tell Melissa?’
‘You’ll think of something.’ I left him sitting there and took my own sweet time making his tea. I was still angry, but it faded away. I knew he wanted to protect Melissa from the worst of the job but now and then you had to take something home with you. She needed to understand that. She needed to understand him. She needed to know he had stayed with Stephen until the very end, that he had listened to his last words and comforted him as best he could. That was who he was, and it was to his credit, I thought. I had tried my hardest to talk Mitchford down, and it had taken its toll, but there were times it was harder to listen than to talk.
By the time I came back with the tea and a vast ham sandwich, Derwent was asleep. I threw a blanket over him and left the handcuff key on the carpet where he could reach it, and then I went to bed.
In the morning the hole in the wall was still there, but Derwent was long gone.