An Eye for an Eye (Detective Kate Young)

by Carol Wyer

He rubbed his daughter’s back gently, as if she were a child. She pulled away from him and faced Kate once more. Two thin ribbons of sooty mascara had stained her cheeks.

  ‘Is there anything else you can think of that would help us, Mrs Corby?’

  Fiona swallowed hard and shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea who would want to kill him.’

  ‘Could it have been a burglar?’ Bradley looked Kate square in the eye.

  ‘We’re still looking into that possibility, although it doesn’t appear so. Mr Corby was still wearing his wedding ring and watch, and his wallet was on the kitchen top with credit cards in place. Maybe when Mrs Corby feels able, she’ll look to see if anything is missing.’

  Fiona ran the tip of her forefinger under her eyes to clean away any smudges. ‘The most valuable items were stored in a safety-deposit box at the bank. Alex didn’t like to keep the pricey items in the house. There’s a safe in our bedroom wardrobe containing some foreign currency and documents. I can give you the combination.’

  Morgan once again took note. When he was done, Fiona looked at her father with dewy eyes. He put a hand on her shoulder but spoke to Kate. ‘Is there anything else? If not, I think we’d like some time to be alone. The boys haven’t yet fully understood the enormity of what’s happened and—’ His voice faltered.

  Kate rose. ‘Of course. Please accept my condolences again.’

  He nodded mutely and steered Kate and Morgan towards the front door. They passed the sitting room; the door was slightly ajar and Kate could make out the sounds of a television. No doubt the boys were inside with their grandmother. At least they’d be in loving hands and helped through this tragedy.

  Bradley opened the door. Kate thanked him again and was about to move away from the step when he edged closer to her. He lowered his voice. ‘For what it’s worth, I think he was a self-centred man who didn’t truly appreciate what he had. He loved his business far more than his family, and if he’d got his priorities right, he’d be here today.’ He shook his head. ‘She’ll never get over this, you know?’ He turned away and was swallowed into the dark hallway.

  Morgan’s mouth turned downwards. ‘He was definitely not Alex’s biggest fan.’

  Kate was about to agree when her phone rang.

  It was Emma. ‘Ervin says he hasn’t come across an envelope or contract.’

  ‘We’re about to head over to the house. How are you getting on?’

  ‘It seems Alex ran the business single-handedly, so he’s the only director on the books – managing director, to be more precise. He uses external services for his accounts and legal advice: Mark Swinton, an independent accountant, and Digby Poole, a lawyer and partner in his own practice, Babcock & Poole. I spoke to a couple of Alex’s salespeople. They’re both shocked and appalled by what’s happened and neither had a bad word to say about him. To quote them, “He was a great guy.”’

  Lisa had told them Alex was often wound up. The sales staff either saw a different side to Alex or were being economical with the truth. ‘Did their alibis check out?’

  ‘Yes. Both of them were at work all day. I’ve been assured their fellow colleagues will confirm that, given they share the same open-plan office. I’m still checking through everyone’s whereabouts.’

  ‘Alex can’t have got where he has in business without ruffling some feathers, so keep digging. Also, can you run a quick check on Bradley Chapman, Alex’s father-in-law? And, if you get five minutes, see if anyone at Brown’s Café in Lichfield can remember Bradley being there lunchtime yesterday.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it. I asked the tech team to go through CCTV and surveillance camera footage to save us some time, and we have a list of registrations for vehicles in the vicinity between 10.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. and footage captured by the camera on the B5013. I still need to contact those vehicle owners. And just so you know, Alex’s accountant, Mark Swinton, will be coming into the station later.’

  ‘Good work. Any idea what time he’ll be there?’

  ‘Once he finishes his appointments, so not for an hour or so.’

  ‘I’d like to have a word with him. Can you ask him to wait there if we’re not back by then?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Kate rang off and told Morgan what she’d learnt. ‘Who do we believe? Any, or all of them?’

  The investigation couldn’t be reliant on hearsay or people’s opinions. What was required was hard evidence and, to date, they had none.

  ‘My gut feeling is that no one we’ve spoken to so far harbours the sort of deep-seated anger required to murder somebody in this way and to pluck out his eye,’ said Morgan. ‘Whoever did this was either furious with Alex, or was attempting to extract some important information from him through torture.’

  Kate couldn’t fault his logic or hunch, but assumptions sometimes led to poor policing, and mistakes could be made. Such as the one she’d made on the train with Dickson. ‘I’m with you. However, much as I’d like to eliminate these people, we have to stick to procedure, so we’ll have to go through all the motions to make sure they’re not involved.’

  Morgan cursed as a tractor, filling the entire lane, forced their car hard against thorny branches that raked at the paintwork. Kate gritted her teeth at the shrill rasping, like fingernails down a blackboard. The vehicle rumbled past, its driver perched high above in his cabin, unaware of the dark look Morgan gave him.

  Rain pattered on the windscreen, tiny feet dancing a repetitive rhythm against the glass. Ahead, amassed clouds, their burgeoning plumes sweeping across the melancholic canvas of the sky, were reflected in the angry, gunmetal waters of Blithfield Reservoir. The wiper blades swiped stickily at the spray on the screen, each movement accompanied by a squeal.

  As they cleared the waters and climbed towards Lea Lane, Emma rang back. ‘I’ve got some info on Bradley Chapman.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Kate, turning on the speaker.

  ‘He was in the SAS for fourteen years, from 1982 to 1996. His younger brother, Jack Chapman, is currently serving five years in Winson Green prison for GBH. He glassed a barman and caused serious injury to his face. Jack’s also got past convictions for car theft and possession of drugs. However, Bradley is squeaky clean. Immediately after leaving the SAS, he became a security guard for ERC construction company in Stafford, and then set up his own driving school ten years ago. Oh, and he’s a member at Krav Maga Elite, Stafford.’

  ‘What’s Krav Maga?’ asked Kate.

  ‘It means “contact combat” in Hebrew. It’s a mixture of martial arts, combat techniques and self-defence. It was originally taught to the Israeli army. I’ve never tried it myself but there’s a guy at my brother’s gym who teaches it and I’ve seen them go through their moves. It’s hard-core stuff – physically and mentally. All I can say is, Bradley must be tough to be practising it.’

  ‘He’d have no trouble overcoming Alex, then,’ said Morgan.

  ‘None whatsoever,’ Emma replied.

  ‘That doesn’t make him a murderer,’ cautioned Kate.

  ‘But Krav Maga! Sounds to me like he was still putting himself through serious paces to stay in shape. Action-fit,’ Morgan added.

  Kate couldn’t disagree, but they couldn’t assume he was capable of murder because he was an ex-SAS soldier who was into martial arts.

  Emma had more news. ‘I also rang and emailed a photo of Bradley to the barista who was on duty at Brown’s Café yesterday. He didn’t recognise Bradley or remember serving him, but said it had been busy, and he doesn’t have a great memory for faces.’

  ‘That’s strange. I’d say Bradley looks pretty distinctive,’ said Kate. In fact, he stood out with his thick white hair, rugged face and physique. Surely the barista would have noticed him even if it was busy at the café. Or was she reading too much into this?

  ‘Well, either the barista is crap at recognising faces, or Bradley was lying,’ said Emma.

  ‘Would you ask the tech team to run through the camera footage on the road fr
om Abbots Bromley to Lichfield for us? See what time his car passed any points.’

  ‘Already put in a request.’

  ‘Good work. We’ll have to see what they come up with.’ A vague prickling in Kate’s scalp accompanied her words. Bradley loved his daughter and grandsons and had a clear dislike of his son-in-law. In Kate’s experience, love and hate were two powerful reasons for people to commit murder.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FRIDAY, 4 JUNE – EVENING

  No sooner had they turned into Lea Lane than the clouds parted and the sun reappeared, bringing light and colour back into the day. Minute smoke signals of steam lifted from the road as warmth condensed the rainfall. They arrived at Alex’s house and passed through the open colossal wooden gates and crunched over yellow stones that sparkled like topaz in the bright light. This was the only way in and out of the property and, with dense leylandii hedging surrounding it, it was unlikely the killer came in any other way. Morgan drew up beside Ervin’s Volkswagen Beetle convertible.

  The house was a converted eighteenth-century timber-framed barn. To Kate, the whole place resembled a swanky hotel or a spa, with its private laid-to-lawn gardens and immaculate flowerbeds, and views over a paddock in which two horses grazed peacefully, oblivious to what was going on at the house. She half-expected a peacock to strut up to the entrance, or a porter to rush out, demanding to take her luggage. She could never imagine living in such palatial quarters. Morgan must have felt the same. He sniffed loudly as he clambered out of the car and surveyed the grounds before collecting his protective clothing from the boot. Kate joined him and together they suited up, slipping on the obligatory latex gloves, mask and plastic overshoes before showing their ID to the officer on the door and heading inside.

  ‘Hi, Kate.’ Ervin was standing inside what Kate could only describe as a magnificent entrance, with richly patterned rugs on a marble floor, bronze statues in every corner and a wide staircase that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a BBC period drama. An ornate carved table stood to the left of the hallway, next to a statue of a ballet dancer, her leg lifted at an impossible angle. Navy eyes and a chestnut-brown fringe were all that was visible of the officer on her knees there, dusting for prints.

  Kate lifted a hand in greeting before joining Ervin. He spread his arms wide. ‘This is going to take far longer than we initially imagined. It’s an absolutely humongous house – fifteen rooms in total if you include the bathrooms – and we have to examine them all. Come on, I’ll show you where Alex was killed.’

  Morgan, momentarily distracted by a gleaming eight-tier chandelier containing rod-shaped LED lights, brought up the rear. ‘And they only have one cleaner to work two days a week! I’d have thought you’d need an army of people for this place.’

  ‘I’m sure they don’t use all the rooms on a regular basis,’ said Ervin. ‘Some are purely for entertaining purposes. This way.’

  Kate and Morgan followed him into a dining room, where various markers had been set on surfaces, reminders of what had been taken away for further examination. The investigators had finished in here and the apple, knife and plate had disappeared, to be replaced with small flags noting their positions. Alex’s body had also been removed, but to Kate’s heightened senses the room still smelt of death and terror – stagnant remains of blood and sweat that had permeated the chair in front of her; the one where Alex had been held captive and tortured.

  Blood sprayed on the doors to the first-class carriage. Muffled pleading and squeals of fear over the rumbling of the train as it races on, urgently, to its destination. The gunman is passing through the train carriage, mowing down everyone there, one by one. His body turns to the left. A businessman, heading home from a meeting, is next to fall.

  Kate’s fingers curled automatically around the foil packet in her pocket, but she let go of it quickly and banished the image from her mind, focusing instead on the room. The person who’d designed it had gone for a Victorian Gothic look: silver-grey wallpaper and dark grey velvet curtains that hung at white-framed French windows; candle-holder lights suspended from a cream ceiling; a large black-and-white painting of a man’s face; a deep mahogany table shining like polished glass on which sat a pair of identical heavy silver candelabras. Ten chairs, each with black-and-white tapestry fabric backs and grey cushioned seats, had been placed in perfect symmetry around the table, apart from one, pulled away to face the window. The deep reddish-brown stains on the cushions indicated Alex had been bound to this very chair.

  She brought to mind the picture of Alex with his head tilted back, mouth open. The apple, knife and plate would have been to his right as he sat here, unable to attract any help or to escape. She envisaged the murderer’s unhurried actions as they released pieces of fruit into Alex’s open mouth, tugging at his hair to ensure he kept his head back. Maybe they even stood behind Alex as they pulled, and had looked out at the same scene as their dying victim. What sort of person would act this way? Was what she could see relevant? She searched for clues as to why Alex had been positioned here: a lawn, a flowerbed of tall white lilies; a flower associated with death. Had Alex’s killer wanted him to see them and make that connection? Kate could not be certain. Beyond the garden, the reservoir shimmered in the distance, a gigantic, moody body of water. Maybe that was what they’d wanted him to stare at as he died.

  ‘Why did they move the chair here to face the garden?’ she asked.

  Ervin looked out. ‘I can’t help you. All I see is a nice garden and a spectacular view.’

  Maybe it was as simple as that. The killer had let Alex observe the beauty of what he was about to lose for ever.

  ‘The killer was well prepared,’ she said at last. ‘They knew Alex was alone.’

  There was something about the entire scenario that niggled at her. Alex had been placed in front of the window, bound hand and foot before being subjected to torture, yet he hadn’t resisted. ‘Harvey didn’t find any defence wounds on Alex’s body. He remained submissive throughout, even when he was choking to death, and that surprises me. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t fight back.’

  Morgan had been listening intently. ‘There might have been two assailants. He’s more likely to have complied if one of them held a gun to his head or threatened him in some other way.’

  ‘That’s a valid point.’ Kate gave a thoughtful nod. ‘The only other thing I could come up with was that he was drugged and that rendered him unable to react. Otherwise, even if he didn’t struggle against his bonds, he would instinctively react when whatever was used to pry open his mouth was inserted, or when he knew he was choking. Ervin, have you any idea what the assailant used for that?’

  ‘We haven’t come across anything that fits the bill.’

  ‘Whatever it was, it was used to torture him,’ said Kate.

  Morgan continued to stare towards the water, an endless sea from where he stood. ‘But why?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘Information? Something to do with his business. Or a code, or password.’

  ‘Safe combination?’ suggested Morgan.

  Ervin shook his head. ‘Nobody’s touched the safe other than Alex.’

  ‘Maybe they forced him to open it and then tied him up,’ said Morgan.

  It was another theory that couldn’t be dismissed. ‘Morgan, give Ervin the safe combination, will you?’ said Kate. ‘Fiona said there ought to be only foreign currency and some documents in there, nothing of value.’

  ‘We’ll check it out, photograph whatever is in there, and then you can run it past the victim’s family on the off-chance they spot something’s missing.’

  ‘Thanks. So what else can you tell us?’

  Ervin waved his arms like a tour guide pointing out important attractions. ‘It’s a spotless room. Nothing on the chest of drawers, or on the picture frames. I suspect it’s been recently cleaned.’

  ‘By the killer?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a murderer has cleaned up after themselves,’ he repli
ed.

  ‘Are there no prints at all?’

  ‘A couple of partials on the backs of chairs and a couple on the door to this room, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I highly suspect they belong to members of the family.’

  ‘Ervin. We found this.’ The officer who’d been dusting in the hall had appeared.

  ‘Thanks, Charlie, where was it?’

  ‘Hall. Stuck behind a radiator.’

  ‘I didn’t spot any radiators in the hall,’ said Kate.

  ‘There’s an antique table in front of it,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Ah.’

  The envelope was addressed to Alex at Corby International and was postmarked India. Kate took it from Ervin, opened it and read the contents. It was the contract.

  ‘Could you see if any of the prints on this letter and contract match any inside this house?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Kate checked her watch. She’d wanted to talk to Alex’s accountant, but this was more important: the find meant that Lisa had come inside the house, despite what she’d said earlier. ‘I hate to cut and run, but we need to speak again to the woman who found his body.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll crack on with the safe,’ Ervin said, and rolled his eyes at the unintended pun.

  ‘Thanks for all your input.’

  He gave her a sharp salute and beetled away. She tramped back outside, where she peeled off her gloves and dropped them into the disposal unit. Morgan mirrored her movements. She tugged at her paper suit, shimmying it over her shoulders and down to the floor, and looked up at him. ‘Lisa Handsworth lied to us. She went inside the house.’

  ‘How did the contract end up behind a radiator?’

  ‘No idea, but I can be sure of one thing – she spun us a story. Come on. Let’s get to the bottom of this.’

  Kate balled her suit, added it to the gloves and overshoes and marched back to the car. They’d made headway and had a suspect in the frame.

  The desire to redeem herself burned deep inside, but it was tempered with caution. She’d made a mistake on the train with Dickson, and she wasn’t going to make another. She needed to gather the facts and evidence before she could be certain Lisa had anything to do with Alex’s murder.