A fine drizzle created a mist in the gloom beyond the light that pooled from the open door to the cottage owned by MacKenzie Adams, turning an already miserable scene into one of desolation and despair.
Off to one side, in separate patrol cars, Paul Hitchens and Will Brennan sat on the back seats and provided their statements to a pair of police constables who took their time, noting every utterance the two men made.
The horse trainer had been and gone, his top lip curling at Mark as he’d informed MacKenzie that he wouldn’t be allowed into the property until it had been processed by the CSI team and released by the police.
He’d taken off in his four-by-four ten minutes ago, shaking his head, and Mark realised as he reread the man’s statement that his gruff demeanour served only to hide his shock at the death of a long-serving employee he had grown to depend on.
One of the ambulance staff pushed himself away from the side of the vehicle, walked around to the back and slammed shut the doors before returning to the driver’s seat and starting the engine.
Mark sighed – Gillian had been running late through no fault of her own, and in the circumstances, they’d elected to wait for the Home Office pathologist to certify White’s death, especially given the ongoing police investigation.
‘What are the chances?’ said Gillian as she paused beside him and pulled a paper mask away from her face. ‘Brennan finding White, I mean.’
Mark wrinkled his nose. ‘Have you done the paperwork?’
‘Yes. They’ll move him as soon as Jasper gives us the go-ahead.’
On cue, the bright flash from a photographer’s camera strobed off the hallway walls of the cottage, blinding Mark for a moment.
He blinked to clear his vision, and then turned at the sound of a vehicle splashing along the pot-holed lane towards them.
‘That’ll be West,’ he said.
‘I’ll let you get on. It’s been a harsh start to the winter, so we’re busier than usual this week but I’ll do my best to schedule the post mortem before the weekend.’
‘Thanks, Gillian.’
She murmured a farewell before making her way towards her car, pausing to remove the rest of her protective clothing and shoving it in a biohazard bin provided by the CSI team.
Jan held up her hand to the pathologist and then hurried over to where he stood, her hair catching in the breeze and a harried expression on her face.
‘Did you have dinner?’
She shook her head. ‘We were dishing up when you phoned.’
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s okay. Wouldn’t miss this for the world, right?’ The attempt at humour didn’t reach her eyes as she peered at the open door to the property. ‘What’s the latest?’
Mark gestured to the two jockeys who were now being chaperoned into one patrol car. ‘Brennan found him. They were both out on the gallops late, then at the stables clearing up afterwards before Adams sent him up here to find White. Apparently he was expected to take part in a telephone conference call with one of the owners.’
‘Where are those two staying tonight?’
‘MacKenzie Adams said there are camp beds stored in the canteen building down at the yard, so one of the uniforms is driving them down there. They’ll have to make do until we can let them back here.’
‘That’s if they want to move back in, I suppose.’ Jan jerked her chin at the CSI exiting the cottage. ‘What happened to White?’
‘It looks like he hanged himself from the stair bannister.’
‘Looks like?’
Mark shrugged. ‘There’s a suicide note. We won’t know more until Gillian’s done the post mortem. Jasper’s been busy with his team, so I’m just waiting until he’s got a moment and he can show us.’
‘And that moment has arrived,’ said the tall CSI who approached them. He pulled down his mask and winked. ‘Evening, Jan.’
‘You’re a bit happy, for someone working a crime scene,’ she said.
‘Overtime. What’s not to like?’ He held out a sheet of paper that had been placed into an evidence bag. ‘We’ve managed to take some fingerprints off this, which we’ll send through for analysis in due course. Did Gillian say when she’ll do the PM?’
‘As soon as possible,’ said Mark.
‘She reckons he didn’t break his neck on the way down. It was strangulation that finished him off.’ Jasper shivered. ‘Nasty, when it doesn’t go to plan for them.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s my fault she’s dead,’ said Mark, running his finger under the words scrawled across the page.
‘Mystery solved, then,’ said Jasper, and tugged away his mask.
‘Was this found on his body?’
‘Yes, in the right back pocket of his jeans – and we found some notes he’d jotted down in the margin of a newspaper upstairs. Just as well he wrote that suicide note in capital letters, because his normal handwriting is appalling.’
‘We’ll get the two samples sent off to our handwriting analyst, just to make sure,’ said Jan.
‘Okay. We found an envelope of cash in his bedside table as well. Four hundred quid. Your lot asked Brennan and Hitchens about it, but they say they don’t know where he got it from. MacKenzie pays them by electronic transfer.’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘Off for analysis. We’ve finished here, and we’ve left everything bagged up where we found it before it gets passed to your lot to go into evidence, so if you want to take a look while I speak to the blokes from the coroner’s office, you can. No need to suit up.’
‘Thanks.’ Mark passed the note to Jan. ‘What do you think?’
‘A bit convenient, isn’t it?’ she said, tilting the page until it caught the light from the ambulance as it passed behind them on its way to the dirt track down to the yard. ‘Anyway, if he did kill her, what was his motive?’
‘Come on, let’s go and have a look around.’
He traipsed across the stony driveway to the cottage, standing to one side as two men from the coroner’s office manhandled a stretcher into the hallway, and then following them inside.
‘Jesus.’
Jan’s words echoed his thoughts as he paused on the threshold and took in the broken figure of Nigel White dangling from a leather horse bridle that had been tied around the top balustrade.
The man’s eyes bulged from their sockets while his head tilted towards his shoulder at an unnatural angle. Dark stains covered the inside legs of his jeans, a stench of stale urine cloying the enclosed space.
Mark stepped sideways as one of the men took the stairs and began to loosen the knot while his colleague took the weight of White’s body. He gestured to Jan to follow him into the living room.
A dull glow emanated from the wood burning stove, any remnant heat driven away by the biting cold that was seeping into the room between the twisted and warped window frames and the front door.
He wondered how desperate for stardom he would have to be before succumbing to such decrepit living conditions, and then reminded himself that Hitchens and Brennan were fifteen years younger than him and fitter, and the cottage was at least warmer than the training areas and racecourses they frequented.
As for White, he had seemed resigned to living in the house all the while he worked for MacKenzie, and had given no indication when they had interviewed him at the yard on Saturday that his thoughts might turn to suicide.
‘Which bedroom was his?’ said Jan, as she ran her fingers over the back of the armchair, her top lip curling before she wiped her hand on the back of her trousers.
‘The larger one at the back, according to Will.’ Mark raised his eyebrows at a dull thud from the hallway. ‘Sounds like we’ll be able to take a look now.’
Casting his gaze aside from the two men manhandling White’s body into a protective bag in the middle of the hallway, he climbed the stairs, keeping his hands in his pockets as he eyed the dark powder covering the bannister, evidence of Jasper and his colleagues’ progress through the cot
tage.
He passed the first door, and called over his shoulder. ‘That’s Brennan’s. Hitchens’ room is behind us, next to the bathroom. This is White’s, according to their statements.’
Pushing open the door, he took a moment before entering the bedroom, letting his eyes wander over the spartan conditions.
An unmade single bed took up the length of the far wall, a green duvet cast to one side exposing a rumpled sheet and pillow. Beside it, a lamp sat on a low wooden square table next to which a well-thumbed paperback had been placed, a bookmark a quarter of the way through the pages. An overflowing ashtray perched on the edge closest to the bed, four butts curling amongst the grey-coloured dust.
To the left of where he stood, a wooden wardrobe teetered unsteadily on the uneven floorboards, one of the double doors open and exposing a selection of clothing that dangled from cheap plastic hangers.
‘Anything?’ said Jan over his shoulder.
He stepped inside and beckoned her to follow. ‘Jasper’s already passed a laptop to the uniforms downstairs to go into evidence. They found it under the mattress.’
‘Odd place to keep a laptop. What about a mobile phone?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘You’d have thought he’d have had that in his jeans pocket, or at least left it lying around here.’ Jan’s forehead creased as she moved to the wardrobe and peered inside. ‘Did they try to access the laptop?’
‘Didn’t have to – it was already switched on when they found it, just in sleep mode. No password necessary.’
She paused in her examination of White’s clothing choices. ‘What sort of man puts his laptop under the mattress if it’s still switched on? I mean, I can understand it from a security point of view if he didn’t want the other two using it, but––’
‘Exactly my thought.’
‘What was on it?’
‘The usual apps that come with a laptop out of the box these days. He’d left it open on a website about poker tips.’
‘Cards?’
‘Yes.’
Jan paused next to the bedside table, then turned to face him, her expression earnest. ‘Maybe he was hiding the laptop because he was interrupted. Maybe whoever interrupted him wasn’t meant to know about the gambling.’
‘It was only poker tips. That doesn’t make him a gambler per se.’
‘No, but if someone like MacKenzie Adams saw that, he’d think the worst, wouldn’t he? The last thing a racehorse trainer would want is a member of staff with a gambling problem. Who knows where that might lead?’
Mark grunted under his breath, conceding the point. ‘Motive?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Seems extreme, doesn’t it?’
‘And if that was the case, what’s the connection to Jessica? She’d only recently started working for Adams, according to everyone we’ve spoken to.’
‘He was a bit dismissive of her, wasn’t he? White, I mean.’
‘I got the impression when we spoke to him that he thought she was a waste of space, not a threat.’
Jan blew out her cheeks and raised her hands. ‘Well, I don’t know then.’
Battening down his frustration at the turn of events, Mark led the way out of the room and back down the stairs to the hallway where the cold milky gaze of Nigel White stared up at him from the body bag before it was zipped closed.
He had a feeling it would be some time before he forgot the dead man’s accusatory eyes.
Chapter Forty
Showered, dressed, and blinking back tiredness after only six hours’ sleep since leaving MacKenzie Adams’ stables in the early hours, Mark stumbled into the incident room as the scheduled morning briefing was due to start.
Jan held up a cup of coffee in salute as he chucked his backpack under his desk, stifling a yawn before picking up her desk phone and redirecting a call through to another investigation team.
She replaced the phone and snapped her fingers at him as he began to log in. ‘Don’t get comfortable – the guv wants us out straight away to interview Adams. Caroline and Alex are already on their way over there to re-interview Brennan and Hitchens when they get back from exercising the horses this morning.’
‘What about the briefing?’
‘He says he’ll do it when we get back.’
‘All right. Ready when you are.’
In reply, she pushed back her chair and held up a set of car keys. ‘Best we get you a coffee on the way. I’ll stop at the petrol station down the road.’
Fifteen minutes later, slightly less groggy and clutching a steaming takeout cup containing the sort of coffee only a desperate man would drink, Mark squinted against the bright sunlight streaming through the windscreen while Jan powered the car away from the urban sprawl towards the Berkshire Downs.
‘Any more thoughts about Nigel White?’ he said.
‘Yes, hence the bags under my eyes this morning. I still don’t see him as a threat to Jessica, but until the handwriting expert raises any doubts, or we receive evidence to the contrary, what option does his death leave us with but to accept he was guilty of killing her?’
‘I want to be sure, too,’ he said, grimacing as he sampled the coffee and then vowing to throw the rest in the nearest waste bin. ‘I was surprised at Adams’ reaction last night. Compared with the way he acted when Jessica was found on the gallops last week, he seemed genuinely shocked by White’s death.’
‘Where do you think the cash came from?’
‘No idea – let’s hope the fingerprint results tell us something.’
Jan swung the car through the open gates and into the horse trainer’s yard a few minutes later, and parked next to an off-white vehicle Mark recognised from the police station pool car park.
Off to the right, nearer to the stable block, a bright-red van with the livery of a local blacksmith emblazoned down the side had been parked haphazardly next to a pair of stable lads who watched the detectives’ arrival with interest.
Alex McClellan emerged from the low-slung building used as a canteen and raised his hand in greeting as they walked towards the farmhouse.
‘How’s it going?’ said Mark, pausing at the front door.
‘We’d just finished the interviews when you pulled up. Thought you’d better know – Adams is in a foul mood this morning.’
‘I suppose too much publicity can be a bad thing,’ said Jan, an edge of smugness in her voice. ‘Poor dear.’
‘What did the two jockeys have to say for themselves?’ said Mark.
‘They’ve both reiterated their statements taken by uniform last night,’ said Alex. ‘They were out until late afternoon exercising horses that are going to be racing this Thursday. Sounds like Brennan’s going to be riding in a race next Tuesday for Adams.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, they stayed down here in the yard until nearly six o’clock, polishing tack and the like. Adams came to find them, and asked if either of them had seen White around because he was late for a telephone conference call with an owner. When they said no, Adams told Brennan to go up to the cottage to find him. When he got there, he phoned back to the farmhouse to tell him he’d found White hanging from the stair balustrade.’
‘Wait,’ said Jan. ‘He said he phoned the farmhouse first? Why didn’t he dial triple nine?’
‘He told us he could tell there was nothing he could do for White, and panicked,’ said Alex. ‘The emergency call was made by Adams – Caroline got a copy of the recording emailed to her phone while I was finishing the interview with Hitchens.’
‘Where is Adams now?’ said Mark.
Alex pointed over his shoulder. ‘We left him in his office. He said he was busy, but that you should head on in when you got here.’
‘All right, thanks. We’ll see you later.’
Mark sensed the horse trainer’s reluctance to talk as he walked into the man’s office and waited near the door to be summoned.
Adams had his back to the room and his hands clasped behind his back as he stared ou
t at the row of stables and the yard busy with horses being shod by the local farrier. His shoulders heaved as a loud sigh escaped his lips, and then he glanced over his shoulder.
‘I’ve known White for over a decade,’ he said. ‘I never would have guessed him to be a murderer.’
‘Do you mind if we have a word?’ said Mark. ‘I’d like to ask a few questions as part of our ongoing investigation.’
‘Into Nigel’s suicide, or the girl’s death?’
‘Both.’
Adams pointed to the two seats opposite his desk, then dropped into his leather chair and held his head in his hands for a moment. ‘What a nightmare.’
Mark said nothing, and waited while Jan retrieved her notebook from her handbag and then crossed her legs, settling in for the conversation ahead.
‘He was a brilliant jockey, you know,’ said Adams eventually. He raised his head, a faint smile crossing his features. ‘And he was one of the few who understood the business side of things.’
‘Is that how he ended up working for you?’
‘Yes. I told the policeman that when they were taking my statement last night. He had a nasty fall a few years ago, and couldn’t risk racing again for fear of breaking his spine. Having him working here in the yard instead was a natural progression – for both of us.’ Adams shook his head, the smile fading. ‘He was one of the few people I trusted.’
‘What was his relationship with Jessica Marley like?’
‘There was no relationship as far as I know. Jessica only started working here three, four weeks ago now, and Nigel was the one who gave her jobs to do around the yard. I realised she was only after a bit of work experience to put on her résumé, and she wasn’t expecting to get paid much so it worked out fine for both of us.’
‘Are you aware of any altercations between the two of them?’
‘No, but then I left the day-to-day running of the yard to Nigel. I certainly didn’t hear about any arguments, and she never came to me to complain about him. I’d have been surprised if she did – like I said, I’ve known him for years, and I trusted him.’
‘What happened yesterday?’ said Mark. ‘Was he working down here in the yard all afternoon?’
Her Final Hour Page 17
