‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ came Turpin’s muffled voice as he peered into the wardrobe. ‘Why, though?’
‘Well, her mum and dad told us that she was planning to take a year out to travel. I mean, okay, she was working to save for it, but what if she found out something about someone and decided that was a quicker way to boost her funds?’
‘I’m not ruling out anything at the moment, Jan.’
She mumbled an agreement under her breath, and then closed the drawer and dropped to her hands and knees, peering under the bed.
The sheets had been pulled away from the mattress by the police search team that had attended the family home the previous week, and the carpet under the bed only yielded a hair grip and a one pound coin.
She frowned, spotting a bulge in the lining of the divan near the foot of the bed and stretched out her hand.
Her fingers touched tape, the sort used by electricians, and she scratched at the edges with her nail. One end broke loose, then the other before a large flat object fell to the floor.
‘Got you.’
She stretched further, got a better grip on the large hardback notebook and then pulled it towards her.
Rising to her feet, she began to flick through the heavy pages, and then blinked in wonder.
‘Mark?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Come over here.’
‘What’ve you got?’ said Turpin, wandering over.
‘A sketchbook. Wendy and Trevor never said Jessica was an artist, did they?’ She turned the page, running her eyes over the pencilled outlines of buildings, flowers, and sweeping landscapes. Here and there, the teenager had captured people in their day-to-day lives – a rough sketch of Noah Collins polishing glasses at the bar of the Farriers Arms as he gazed into space, students gathered in a break-out area outside the college, and strangers sitting at tables in a café.
‘These are good,’ said Turpin. ‘I wonder why she wasn’t studying art at college?’
‘Maybe this was her way of relaxing, and she didn’t want to turn it into something she had to do…’ She broke off, frowned, and then emitted a gasp. She flipped back two pages, and pointed at the drawing. ‘Look. This one of Noah, polishing the glasses. Look at the background.’
He took the sketchbook and held it closer to his face, frowning. ‘What about it?’
‘The clock on the wall. It says half past twelve, right?’
‘Yes.’ He glanced sideways. ‘What about it?’
‘She’s drawn the wall calendar underneath it as well. When we were speaking to Noah the other day, I saw he has a habit of crossing out the days.’
‘So she drew this on a Monday.’
‘Exactly. But what if she drew it at half past midnight, not at lunchtime?’
‘There are people at the bar.’
Jan smiled. ‘Right, I know. They’re all drawn in profile, too – so she was sat off to one side of them, out of sight perhaps, or they weren’t taking any notice of her. Recognise him?’
‘That’s White.’ Turpin lowered the sketchbook, frowning.
‘We’ve been looking for some notes, a diary, anything that she might’ve written down to record what might’ve been bothering her – a reason for the college grades to slip recently,’ said Jan, taking the drawings from him and holding it up. ‘What if she drew what she saw instead? Who would think of looking for a sketchbook if she then made sure she never took it to the pub after this particular night?’
She flipped through the pages. ‘I think she drew this five months ago, realised what she had, and then got into the habit of coming home from work every Monday night when these people were in the pub and drew what she could remember. Look, this one shows the calendar date two months later, but it’s half eleven and she’s shown someone talking to Noah at the bar. Whoever it is has got his face turned away from her though. This is daytime, I think – she’s hinted at light coming through the window off to the right of the bar, see?’
‘Noah looks angry.’
‘He does, doesn’t he? This next one, one month later. That’s got to be White at the bar again, and this time she’s showing the time as one o’clock. Noah looks tired.’
Turpin took back the sketchbook and paced the carpet.
Jan managed a smile, knowing he had caught up with the thoughts going around in her head. ‘The pub is the key to all of this, isn’t it?’
He held up the notebook to Jan. ‘The fact she was keeping her sketchbook here in her room, and not in her bag, I think she knew she was in danger.’
‘Yes. But she did it anyway.’
‘The question is – why? What did she see going on there?’
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jan walked through the door to the incident room an hour later, having telephoned Ewan Kennedy on the way back from the Marleys’ home.
He hovered at the open door to his office as she shrugged off her coat and fished her notebook from her bag, along with the sketchbook retrieved from Jessica’s bedroom.
Turpin wandered over to where the DI stood, the two men conversing in low voices for a moment, before Kennedy nodded and then raised his voice.
‘Briefing, everyone.’
‘Everything okay?’ she said to Turpin as he pulled across a chair for her near the front of the room.
‘Yes. Apparently Caroline and Alex have had some results, too. We’re getting closer, Jan.’
They fell silent as Kennedy started the meeting.
‘We have a lot to go through,’ he said, ‘so we’re going to work through all the information you’ve been gathering as carefully as possible. If any of you hear something during this briefing that gives you cause for concern, or you want clarification, then speak up. Got that?’
A murmur of agreement filled the room, falling to silence after a few seconds.
Jan tensed as she waited, wondering if her colleagues’ discoveries about Nigel White’s finances would put paid to what she and Turpin had found.
Alex walked over to where Kennedy stood at the DI’s signal, and cleared his throat.
‘Just to clarify for anyone who didn’t attend yesterday’s briefing, we were tasked with finding out if White had an active gambling habit. We’ve established that he only has the one bank saved to his laptop – the one with the building society – and he appears to use that for the gambling site we’re aware of, plus the day-to-day stuff. Most of that is covered by what he’s been earning from MacKenzie Adams.’ He paused. ‘However, we’ve gone through the apps on his phone that Jasper’s lot found in the cottage, and he does have a further account with an internet-only bank.’
‘How was he funding it?’ said Kennedy.
‘Cash payments, paid into a post office in north Abingdon,’ said Alex. ‘They’re not regular, but they’re large. A couple of thousand at a time. And, we’ve managed to find a link to that account with two gambling apps on his phone.’
‘What about call logs?’ said Turpin.
‘They’d all been cleared,’ said Caroline. ‘I’ve passed it on to digital forensics so they can try to access anything we can’t see, but it could be weeks before we hear from them.’
A collective groan filled the room before Kennedy held up his hand. ‘Have you managed to trace where the cash is coming from?’
Alex shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, his eyes downcast. ‘Not yet.’
‘Well, that’s good work so far.’ The DI pointed to two uniformed officers at the periphery of the gathered team. ‘I want you both to assist Alex and Caroline in tracing where that cash came from, all right?’
‘Guv.’
‘Right, next – has anyone heard from Jasper’s handwriting expert yet?’
Tom Wilcox raised his hand. ‘He says he should have something for us by late Monday, guv.’
‘Make sure he does. Mark – do you want to get up here and give us an update about your morning?’
Turpin picked up the glass of water beside him, took a gulp and then
crossed the room to where Jan sat, and took the sketchbook from her with a wink.
‘Okay, so we spoke to Wendy Marley, who said that Jessica had never mentioned to her any issues about being threatened or feeling frightened. She allowed us to search Jessica’s room, and Jan found this.’ He paused, pulled on some protective gloves and then pulled the sketchbook from its protective wrapping. He opened it up to the drawings they’d found, and then continued to talk as he circled the room, allowing each team member to peer at the teenager’s work. ‘Notice how in these drawings, Jessica has always captured the date and time. We think she must have done these when she got back from working at the Farriers Arms every Monday night. You can recognise Noah Collins and Nigel White, but I don’t recognise anyone else – especially this tall bloke who’s standing next to White in this one here.’
‘We think that scene took place during the day,’ said Jan. ‘The timing is out of place compared with the others, but Jessica must have thought it was important enough to draw because of whoever that man is.’
‘And perhaps Jessica’s killer found out she was keeping a record of whatever is going on here in the pub, and decided to put an end to it,’ said Turpin.
‘Maybe this unidentified person in Jessica’s drawings was the man who was paying White,’ said Alex, as Turpin returned to the front of the room and shoved the sketchbook back into the protective bag.
‘Get that into evidence, Mark,’ said Kennedy. ‘It’s reasonable to assume, based on what you’ve all found, that White was working for someone else on the side. Our job now is to establish whether that person is responsible for White’s death and faking his suicide note.’
‘Guv, what if the killer didn’t place the note on White’s body?’ said Jan.
A hushed silence filled the room, the change in tone almost deafening to her ears. A blush crept across her cheeks, but she maintained eye contact with Kennedy.
He blinked, and then gestured for her to join him at the front of the room.
‘Speak up, so everyone at the back can hear you,’ he said. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, we assumed at first that White wrote that note and tucked it into his back pocket before hanging himself,’ she said, her voice gaining in confidence as she settled into her explanation. ‘Now that’s changed because we know from Gillian’s report that somebody else strangled him, and Alex and Caroline have worked out that someone was paying White in cash for something. But what if the person who wrote the suicide note wasn’t the same person who killed Nigel White? What if the killer didn’t know anything about the note?’
Kennedy exhaled. ‘So, White receives a note from someone who says, “I’m sorry, it’s my fault she’s dead”, he pockets it, and then at some point opens the door to whoever killed him.’
‘Exactly, guv. Maybe we’re interpreting the message the wrong way.’
‘Well if neither White nor his killer wrote the note, who did?’ said Caroline.
‘Guv?’ said Turpin, his tone urgent. ‘We need to formally interview Morgan Drake now and find out if he has any connection to White, and whether he knows what’s going on in those drawings. He owns the Farriers Arms, after all. We can’t put it off any longer. We know he tried to speak to Jessica at the petrol station, and we’re not convinced it was about a job offer.’
‘Maybe he’s the killer,’ said Alex. ‘It’s his pub, like you say. Maybe he wanted to keep whatever is going on in there a secret.’
Kennedy crossed his arms, and stared at the floor. When he spoke, his voice was a growl.
‘Bring him in for questioning. And make sure he’s got legal representation. He’s going to need it.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
Morgan Drake had elected to drive himself to the police station upon finding out he was required for formal questioning, his sleek sports car following a liveried patrol vehicle through the gates into the parking area at the rear of the Abingdon complex.
Two floors above, Jan let the plastic Venetian blinds snap back into place across the window. ‘Did you see what he’s wearing?’
‘Jeans, and what looks like a very expensive tweed jacket over a white shirt.’
‘I’ve seen that jacket before. Back in a minute.’
He waited, checking his watch, while his colleague rushed back to her desk. A familiar tightness clutched his chest, a sense that he was close, so close, to finding out what had happened to Jessica, and yet––
‘Okay, I’m ready. Are you all right? You were miles away there.’
‘Just going through what I want to ask him, wondering if there’s anything we’ve missed,’ he said.
‘Well, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. Kennedy seems happy with the way you want to run the interview.’ Jan jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘We should head downstairs. His solicitor arrived fifteen minutes ago, so they’ll be ready for us.’
Mark buttoned up his jacket as he followed her between the desks and out into the corridor. ‘Who’s representing him?’
‘Bernard Peters.’
‘Have you dealt with him before?’
She nodded, switching her phone to silent before leading the way downstairs. ‘A while ago. A bit abrupt, but fair. There are worse.’
‘Everything ready in the interview room?’
‘Tom has set up a laptop with the footage we requested, plus I’ve brought Jessica’s sketchbook in case we need it for reference. I think that’s all we need, isn’t it?’
‘I hope so – it’s all we’ve got.’
He didn’t hear Jan’s response over the squeaky hinges of the door at the bottom of the stairs, but it sounded noncommittal.
Mark didn’t blame her – the whole investigation left him feeling like he was running blind, and he hated the fact they hadn’t had a significant breakthrough since Jessica’s body had been discovered.
They waited while the custody suite sergeant took a telephone call. Eventually, he ended it and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
‘Room three,’ he said. ‘Drake and his solicitor were shown in ten minutes ago.’
‘Thanks, Tom,’ said Mark.
When he entered the room behind Jan, he found Drake sitting next to his solicitor, head bowed as he listened to murmured instructions from the man.
Both looked up as Mark shut the door and crossed to the table, and he noticed how the solicitor’s jaw clenched before he dropped his gaze and pulled a fountain pen from his jacket pocket.
Once satisfied the recording equipment was working, Jan provided Drake with a formal caution and introduced the parties present, then asked the financier to confirm his full name and address.
‘Morgan Owen Drake. The Paddocks, Hazelthorpe, Oxfordshire.’
‘Thank you, Mr Drake,’ said Mark. ‘How long have you lived there?’
‘Since 2017.’
‘And where did you live before that?’
‘Surrey.’
‘For the record, could you tell us what you do for a living?’
‘I’m a financial consultant, working for a large mergers and acquisitions firm in the City.’
‘Do you have any other business interests or investments?’
Mark watched as the man settled back in his seat and dropped his hands into his lap.
‘Yes. I own the Farriers Arms in Harton Wick, and I own another pub just outside Chelmsford. I also own three houses.’
‘Where were you between the hours of nine-thirty Monday night and seven o’clock on the morning Jessica’s body was found?’ said Jan.
‘I told you – I was at home with my wife and daughter. My mother-in-law and her latest husband were having dinner with us. After they left, we went to bed. I cooked breakfast for them the next morning,’ said Drake. ‘I’ve already provided a statement to that effect. You can ask my wife.’
‘And she’ll confirm those timings, will she?’
‘Of course she will.’
Mark reached out and opened one of the manila folde
rs beside Jan’s elbow, thrusting a photograph across the table at Drake.
‘Did you kill Nigel White?’
The solicitor recoiled at the sight of the dead man.
Mark had selected a photograph taken by Jasper’s team before the body had been lowered to the ground, and Drake’s face turned grey before he cleared his throat.
‘I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.’
‘It was meant to look like suicide, Mr Drake. Except it turns out that someone strangled Nigel first, then strung him up to make it look like he killed himself. You’re a big man. I reckon you could’ve hefted him up there on your own without much trouble – or did you have help from someone?’
‘It wasn’t me!’
‘Detective,’ said the solicitor, straightening in his seat, ‘unless you have some evidence to suggest my client was somehow involved in these deaths, you’ve provided nothing except speculative and spurious claims.’
‘Speculative? All right then, perhaps your client can explain why he went to the petrol station to talk to Jessica, but then changed his mind?’
‘I told you before – I wanted to talk to her about a job offer,’ said Drake. ‘I was passing by, and thought I’d mention it to her.’
‘A bit bold, planning to talk to her about a new job in front of her colleagues,’ said Jan. ‘Why would you do that?’
Drake leaned back in his seat. ‘I realised my error in judgement – that’s why I left.’
‘And did you speak to her about this job offer at all?’ said Mark.
‘No. I didn’t get a chance, because someone killed her.’
‘Why not just speak to her at the Farriers Arms if you wanted to offer her a job?’ said Jan. ‘After all, you knew she worked there.’
The financier gave a half-hearted shrug. ‘I didn’t know when I was going to be next in there.’
‘It’s only a few miles from your house,’ said Mark.
Drake said nothing.
Jan reached under the manila folders and extracted an evidence bag, pulling on gloves before opening it and extracting Jessica’s sketchbook. ‘For the purposes of the recording, I’m showing Mr Drake the sketchbook found in Jessica Marley’s bedroom.’
Her Final Hour Page 21
