“Did he have any enemies you know of, Maisie?”
“No, not really. No one specific. Although Roger thought someone might be after him.”
“He did? After him how?”
“He’d had a few accidents lately. Or near misses, that is. He thought it might be related to a series of articles he was doing on gang activity.”
“Gang activity?” I asked doubtfully. “In Newbury?”
“Well, he was trying to find a link. There have been reports lately. Some of them have connections as far as Reading. Teenage street gangs have been on the rise, of course.”
“Yes, maybe so in Manchester or Birmingham, but…”
“Well, it was just a theory he had. He’d done some articles on it and thought maybe someone was trying to shut him up. He was even keeping a journal of the incidents.”
I must have looked skeptical, because she shrugged. “It could have all been coincidence. To be honest I wasn’t a very good girlfriend. I tuned him out a lot of the time.”
“What kind of incidents? Has anything happened recently? Fights or arguments with anyone?”
She hesitated a moment and then said, “No.” But she turned her head and wouldn’t look at me.
“Maisie? You’re sure nothing out of the ordinary has happened recently?”
I pressed her a little, because I had a feeling she wasn’t telling me everything.
She bit her lip and sighed. “Just those things I told you about. The near accidents. Coming out of his apartment a while back, he slipped on something slick at the top of his steps, and injured his wrist trying to hold onto the bannister rail. He caught himself, but he could have broken his neck.”
“Were you there when this happened?”
“No, I had just left, he told me at the time, but I never noticed any slick spots or that someone had spilled anything. I’d have warned him if I had.”
“Of course. Did he report it to anyone?”
“No, he wouldn’t. Said it was probably an accident, but he still started writing it all down in his journal or diary. He said he wanted to make a note of the date and times—because of his training as a journalist.”
“Where is that journal?”
She shrugged. “In his flat, I think. But that’s not all. His gas oven pilot light blew out in his old stove once when I came over to cook for him too. I arrived after he got home from work and he was in the shower. I called him to light the pilot for me, as I was getting things ready and because his lighter was always tricky. He went to restart the oven and it caught up with a whoosh, giving him some minor burns on his face and hands.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“I know. And then a week or so later, the brakes inexplicably failed on his car on his way home from the pub. He’d been to see me, but he never told me about what happened until later. He managed to stop the car and called a garage. But I’ve been worried about it, and he wouldn’t let me tell anyone, not even Garrett. He said he thought he was just having a run of really bad luck.”
She turned toward me and there were tears in her eyes. “But what if someone—one of these teenage gangs—was trying to hurt him all along and now they’ve finally succeeded? And I never told anyone! I feel so guilty, because I should have told Garrett anyway, despite what he said.”
“You can’t second guess yourself like this. Roger should have reported these things, not you. And it may be just coincidence, Maisie. Let’s talk to Garrett about all this. I’ll call him and ask him to meet us tonight over at my place. Will you come and talk to him?”
“Yes, of course.”
We both heard a car pull up in the driveway then, and Maisie gave me a look and went to the window to look out. She turned to me with a stricken expression. “It may be too late for that Petronella. It’s Detective Wainwright. And he has two constables with him. I think they may be here to arrest me.”
Chapter Six
Garrett
I wouldn’t have said I was avoiding Ella exactly, but as Thursday approached I had managed to work either early or late for three days with no good reason, other than I still hadn’t come up with a way of explaining who Anna was, and the longer I didn’t explain it, the harder it was getting. I had texted Anna to say I was coming, and she had immediately asked me to come on Saturday and go to the after party, mentioning two or three friends that I knew. In particular, Ian, who was one of their production assistants and married to Anna’s best friend, Sergei, one of the second soloists. From what I’d witnessed of Sergei’s tantrums, Ian deserved a medal. I told Anna that Saturday was out of the question because I had promised to take Nan somewhere—I’d lied, but there was no way I was going to a party with Anna--but I could make Thursday. I knew Anna wouldn’t stay for very long after the performance, because she had both an evening and an afternoon gig on Friday.
“I’m curious,” Ella said as she got in the Jeep. We were going to take the train from Basingstoke, as finding somewhere to park in London was impossible, and then catch the subway to Covent Garden. Ella assured me she did this all the time, so I took her at her word and didn’t mind getting teased for saying subway instead of calling it the tube. “How it is you know any ballet dancers at all when your nan tells me you’re not a fan?”
I took a breath and glanced quickly at Ella just in time to see her eyes twinkle in mirth before she looked out of the window, and I chuckled. “Nan told you my ex, Anna, was a ballet dancer, right?”
“She might have mentioned it,” Ella confirmed.
“And did she tell you that I am not interested in rekindling any sort of relationship with her?” Ella shook her head. “I will admit it will be good to see Ian. He’s a production assistant for the company and a really great guy. Ian and I have spent quite a few hours commiserating with each other when his husband Sergei and Anna were both impossible to live with after something went wrong.”
Actually, now I came to think of it, Anna could be impossible to live with when things were going right.
After we parked and got on the train, Ella was quiet for a few minutes, staring out the window before she looked up at me.
“I don’t want you thinking you have to take me to this performance, you know. I’m a big girl, Garrett. I’m happy you’re seeing your friends. It must be hard not to have any contact with anyone from America.”
“I don’t think that,” I said. “I wanted your company.”
Though she was right, of course. I did miss my work buddies, but I was making new friends, and I was happy.
And speaking of new friends, naturally, the subject of Maisie getting arrested reared its head again. It was practically all we’d been talking about since it happened. And for once, not being allowed to be involved with the case meant I could talk about it a bit more. The conversation started again about halfway through the trip.
“Do they know if it was even murder yet?” Ella asked.
“That’s what they’re charging her with. It’s not like the States, where there are various degrees of murder. Like first degree murder, which involves premeditation and second degree, which doesn’t and so on. In the UK, you don’t have those different grades. Murder is murder. Forensics testing found small amounts of blood and tissue from the victim in the front seat of Maisie’s car, leading Wainwright to think he was hit by some blunt object and placed inside her vehicle. That’s what made him arrest her.”
“Right. Maisie—who weighs about nine stone, while Roger was more like thirteen. Besides that, Maisie was with us inside the pub the whole time after Roger left. Then when she went outside, Lily was with her. Lily can testify to that. We heard Maisie’s car come back down the road when she returned, and she was only gone ten minutes. When did she have time?”
Garrett shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll take all that into consideration.”
“What kind of blunt object do they think he was hit with?”
“Something like a tire iron. Luckily, hers showed no traces of anything, which is one reason the
crown court granted her bail. The evidence is all circumstantial at this point. Personally, I think it’s weak and Wainwright jumped the gun, but that’s what he does. Tom told me we need to be patient and let the court handle this. She has a good lawyer…”
“Solicitor.”
“Yes, solicitor. And Tom said they’ll take a long, hard look at the circumstances, witnesses, possible motive, et cetera.”
“Which makes sense,” Ella agreed. “Even if it is putting the cart before the horse.”
I grinned. “Don’t mention horses and carts.” We’d had a memorable day a few months before, when I had been conned into sitting on a huge tank of a horse that had decided to bolt and dump me. I always seemed to get volunteered for things by Ella. Morris dancing, baby contest judging, and local battle re-enactments were all highly dangerous activities, as far as I was concerned, while Ella seemed to think I’d enjoy them. Or so she claimed.
“I’m worried about Maisie. You should have seen her face when that Sergeant Wainwright and his officers came to arrest her. I thought she would faint.”
“Tell me what they said again.” Not that she hadn’t told me a million times, but she’d been so worried and distracted since Maisie’s arrest. Nan had told me she needed to vent, and since we had nothing but time on this train ride, I thought it might help.
“You mean, after that odious man said, ‘Maisie Wickham, you’re under arrest for the murder of Roger Battersley?’ I’m afraid I don’t remember his exact words after that. I know she looked like she was about to faint. He told her what her rights were, and then they put those restraints on her wrists and took her to their car. Wainwright told me to stand back, but I ignored him and gave her a hug. I told her I’d call her dad to meet her at the police station. Thank goodness, she was granted bail until her court date.”
“Yeah, about you ignoring Wainwright…I know how you feel about him. I’m not a fan myself, but don’t underestimate him or disregard his orders. I don’t want you to get in trouble, or any more involved in this thing than you already are.”
“But how can I not get involved, Garrett? Maisie is one of my best friends.”
“I know. I like her too, but she has a solicitor, and he and her dad are taking care of things.”
Ella snorted. “Yes, but they took her passport away, and she still has to report to the police once a week until her trial. How long do you think that will be?”
“It’s the Crown Court, and they’re busy, so it could be weeks. Maybe months. And if she doesn’t comply, she can be arrested again and taken to prison to await her trial.”
“You think she was lucky to get bail, don’t you?
“It’s a serious charge. But she’s not a flight risk or a repeat offender. More than likely, if she does everything they’ve told her to do, they’ll continue her bail until the trial.”
“Or until they find out who really did this. Because it wasn’t Maisie.”
“Yes,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Until then.”
She gave me a slight smile then and sighed. “She told me Roger had been having a string of accidents.”
“Such as?” I prompted. This was news to me.
“He slipped down his steps at his apartment, because there was something slippery on there barely minutes after she had gone down them herself without any problem. Then there was the gas oven that got left on when she went to cook dinner for him, and he nearly burned off his eyebrows, and then his car brakes failed.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Some people were naturally clumsy, and some people were “drama llamas” who exaggerated everything. I wondered if Roger was one of those people.
“And,” Ella continued after chewing her lip for a second, “Maisie says he thought someone was out to get him. Something about a street gang that had connections as far as Reading, and he was onto something. He thought he was being warned for asking too many questions.” Ella’s eyes were round, and I stifled a sigh.
“Ella, I doubt if intimidation tactics are any different here than they are in the States, but in the real world, no one in a gang breaks into an apartment to leave on a gas stove or slicks up a flight of steps, to make it look like an accident.” Which was obviously something else entirely.
“Meaning what?” Ella asked curiously.
“If bad guys were threatening him, they would be much more likely to beat him up or torch his car. Not stage a small domestic accident. They would want him to notice the intimidation after all. And they’d want to appear serious, not ridiculous. Does Maisie know these things actually happened?” It sounded like someone just wanting attention.
Ella nodded. “Definitely. Maisie had just left the apartment when he almost slipped but didn’t notice anything. She was actually there when the oven wouldn’t light, and she asked Roger to fix it. She felt terrible about it. And then the brakes went out as he was driving home from the pub, and Maisie said she’d only just been out to the car for something but didn’t see anyone around.”
I let that information settle and wondered if Ella knew what she had said. Maisie had been on the scene or close by for each of these “accidents.”
“Has Maisie told anyone about this?”
“I don’t know, but she says Roger was writing everything down. She joked he had a little black book he was making notes in, just in case something ever happened—” Ella clamped her lips closed obviously realizing what this meant. She heaved a sigh. “You mean it looks bad, because she was there when every incident happened, and he wrote it all down.”
“If they happened like he said.” I pointed out.
“Maisie would never do something like that,” Ella said after another few minutes.
“I agree it’s unlikely.” I didn’t point out that didn’t make it look any better for Maisie, because people did a lot of dumb things, and the fact of the matter was no one knew if they were capable of murder until it happened. If the job had taught me one thing, it was never to be surprised at the things people did, or why they did them. If you tried to assign reasoning to people’s actions, you would never be able to do the job. I had an old sergeant whose favorite saying was. “We don’t get paid to ask why they did it, just to prove if they did it or not.”
I didn’t say any of that though, because Ella was worried enough.
I tried to change the subject then, because though I hadn’t been looking forward to this thing at all, now that Ella knew Anna was there and she had no problem with it, I was prepared to enjoy the evening. I wasn’t a fan of ballet, but I was happy to be spending this much time with Ella when dead bodies weren’t popping up.
Of course, she might just not have cared if Anna was there, because she wasn’t that into me. This had seemed so much easier at home. Not that I had dated a lot before Anna, I’d just gone out in a crowd with the cops I was friendly with. It just made everything more complicated with Ella being so close to Nan and living next door. If we dated, and it went south, I was going to be in trouble all the way around. I decided to put it out of my mind for now and just enjoy the evening.
The theater was nice. We even got a stroll through London. I would have preferred a little longer to do some sightseeing, but as I lived here now, I guessed I could take my time. Maybe we could come back again in the not too distant future.
As shows went, at just over two hours including two breaks, this was reasonably short. I remembered when Anna was in Swan Lake, and each show lasted three hours. I had the evening timed to perfection, including a light dinner beforehand and a quick drink with Ian and probably Anna afterwards. A quick drink was the reason I had insisted on Thursday and not Saturday. I’d been to some after parties with the dancers before, and trust me, Ian and I argued all the time that the reason they were so light on their feet were the “hollow’ legs they filled with booze when a season had finished.
I never drank except when I was with my fellow cops in one of their houses, or with good friends like I had been on my birthday. The thing
was, cops were packing all the time. And at the moment each city, each state, even federal law was back and forth over cops carrying while off duty. It seemed to change every day, so I generally provided rides for Anna’s friends at whatever the time of day or night it was, as a safety measure.
Of course I wasn’t carrying now. It had taken months before I didn’t feel like I had something “missing.” And I was torn. I was good with a gun. If I hadn’t liked to see a case all the way to the end, I’d have been very tempted to join the Special Weapons and Tactics Unit—SWAT—and I would certainly qualify. I’d just felt like coming in all guns blazing and then leaving straight afterward left everything so unfinished. I liked to see a case through from the initial crime to hopefully throwing away the key to some cell if the crime required it.
We called at the box office before we went to the Balconies Restaurant where I had a table booked and was astonished—and uncomfortable—to find both our tickets had been comped. I hoped Ian had arranged that and not Anna, but Ella was thrilled. She leaned in. “I’m going to be able to buy a glass of champagne now without taking out a second mortgage.”
She could have had a truck full right at that moment, but I didn’t know how to tell her.
Half an hour later, I was feeling really pleased with myself. Ella was sipping her first glass of ‘bubbly’ and I was tucking into a steak. Since the tickets were free, I might as well blow the budget on the food, and it was really good food. Ella had gotten trout and something…apparently she was a “pesco-vegetarian,” which was a branch of vegetarianism, so she could eat fish. I was trying my best not to behave like some sort of caveman, but why her dinner was double the cost per square inch than mine, I had no clue. At least I felt like I was actually getting something substantial.
About twenty minutes before all the bells or buzzers sounded, we were finishing our meal. Ella told me they did a kind of early warning thing to get people to their seats, but they had that sort of thing back home in some of the more fancy places Anna had appeared at too, so I already knew and was trained. I was doing my best to get the server to get me the check. Ella had gone to find the restroom, and if I had any hope of visiting mine, I needed to get the check paid. Apparently, once the performance started you weren’t allowed in—no exceptions.
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