Watching from the Dark

by Lodge, Gytha

  And then there was the tip-off about Piers Lough. It was suddenly a great deal more likely that Felix had learned of this through sources he shouldn’t have been using. A former colleague was one option, if Felix knew someone on the force who was willing to run a risk for him. The other option was that Felix still had access to the Brighton database. And this idea made Jonah feel distinctly uneasy.

  While mulling this over, he pinged an email over to DCS Wilkinson asking for the psych reports and the case files for the event that tipped Felix Solomon over the edge. He was unlikely to get a response until Monday, but it was another thing crossed off the list. And then he rose and went to talk to O’Malley.

  He didn’t get particularly far. Lightman glanced up and said, “Have you got a minute, sir?”

  As Jonah approached, Lightman angled his screen so that they could both see it.

  “This is the camera at the bottom of Latterworth Road. It’s the junction you’d pass if you were heading from the direction of town to Zoe’s flat.”

  “OK,” Jonah said.

  “This is ten forty-nine P.M. onward. So a few minutes before the probable time of the murder.”

  The frozen black-and-white image of a T-junction jumped to life as Lightman pressed the Play button. There was a jogger halfway across the screen. Male and powerful-looking. Jonah watched the build and the face, trying to set it alongside the suspects they’d seen so far, but it didn’t match any of them. He was too big for either Aidan Poole or Victor Varos.

  “Keep watching,” Lightman said as the junction grew quiet again.

  At just after ten-fifty, a man appeared on-screen wearing a tracksuit and cap, his walk made off-kilter by a large sports kit on his back. None of his face was visible, and for some reason, watching him, Jonah felt like he knew that. A few steps later, he put his hand up to the cap, as if checking that the brim was covering him, and Lightman paused the video.

  Jonah felt a sensation of cold make its way up his spine. Everything about the figure shouted wrongness. The covered face, the apparent awareness of the camera, the hurrying walk. And he’d been walking toward Zoe’s flat just over ten minutes before someone may have let themselves in and killed her.

  “Does he appear again?” Jonah asked.

  “Not on this camera,” Lightman said, fast-forwarding. The sped-up footage captured a couple walking comically quickly away from town at eleven. Lightman slowed it down to normal speed as they left the frame. The only figures to come back toward town were a frumpy-looking woman in a fur coat and a man walking his dog.

  “There’s nobody from eleven-thirteen until eleven-thirty,” Lightman said, “and then a girl on a bike and another elderly man. I’ve scanned through up until midnight and there’s no sign of him coming back.”

  “Check the other video feed, the one from the car park,” Jonah said. “See if he makes it as far as the block of flats.”

  “Will do.”

  “If it looks like he went as far as the flats, we’ll need to look at tracing him back to wherever he came from. Which will mean more CCTV.” And, he thought in frustration, more time spent waiting for it to come through.

  “You think it’s definitely a he?” Lightman asked.

  Jonah hesitated. “It’s pretty hard to tell under the cap. It’s a fairly male walk, but I think they know they’re being observed, so that could be faked. I’m not positive on height, but definitely taller than Angeline Judd. Do we know how tall Maeve Silver is?”

  “Not hugely tall,” O’Malley called over. “Maybe an inch or so shorter than I am.”

  “So she might be big enough,” Jonah said.

  Lightman rewound the video, his expression thoughtful. “If it turns out they went toward Zoe’s flat, I’ll look into getting a height estimate.”

  Jonah left him to it, and went to start off another line of inquiry.

  “So, Domnall,” he began, “you know how you’re supposed to be on the blackmail case…”

  “Ah, I was, so,” O’Malley said, lifting his hands off his keyboard. “I’m only helping out Ben here for a few.”

  Jonah laughed. “I wasn’t about to tell you to get back on it. It was more whether you fancied extending your investigations to a related incident.”

  O’Malley gave him a shrewd gaze. “This wouldn’t by any chance be a related incident that has a direct bearing on your murder case, would it?”

  “It could be,” Jonah agreed. He leaned on the empty desk across the aisle from O’Malley. “Zoe’s landlord turns out to be a former DCI from Brighton, which Juliette worked out and I totally failed to clock.”

  “Felix Solomon?” Lightman asked from beyond O’Malley. “Oh. Well, I suppose that makes sense.”

  “It does and it doesn’t,” Jonah said. “If he’s a former copper, then I’m concerned about where he’s getting his information.”

  “Ah, and now I see the blackmail link,” O’Malley said with a grin. “You want me to work out whether he’s finding information out that he shouldn’t be able to through a clever bit of hacking.”

  “Yes, I do,” Jonah said. “And you’d need to be looking at the Brighton database…”

  O’Malley gave a low laugh. “Jesus. You didn’t say you wanted me to do hacking…”

  “I’m hoping that’s not necessary,” Jonah said, offering a small smile of his own. “And if it is, of course I wouldn’t suggest it…”

  “Leave it with me,” O’Malley replied, and then he added, “I think I’m going to need someone more technical.” He held up a hand. “You can leave that with me, too.”

  * * *

  —

  BY THE TIME Maeve Silver arrived at the station, Lightman had confirmed that their figure in the cap had passed the other camera in the car park for the flats. He or she had been on the right side of the road to reach the door to Zoe’s flat, so it was quite possible that they had gone inside.

  Lightman had also spent some time getting reference points for the individual’s height, a difficult thing to do, but it was helped by having a range of other individuals on the camera to compare it to.

  “I’d put the bottom range at five-eight,” Lightman told him. “Could be anything up to six-two.”

  “That doesn’t rule out anyone except Angeline, by the sounds of it,” Jonah muttered. “I’ll see if we get anything out of Maeve Silver on the subject.”

  Maeve arrived at reception shortly afterward, and Jonah went to show her up. She had, he thought, the look of someone who was barely holding it together. Her eyes were overly bright, and every time Jonah spoke to her, she would nod with excessive enthusiasm and say, “Sure. Sure,” then tuck a curl behind her ear, only for it to fall forward again.

  He noticed that she was also wearing a crucifix on a chain beneath her light-blue shirt. Which probably meant she was a fairly committed Christian, given that she was only in her twenties.

  Jonah let her into the interview room, and saw her brighten as Lightman sat opposite her. It was the standard reaction from most women, and quite a number of men.

  With the tape rolling, Jonah began gently. “A death like this can be a huge shock,” he started. “We understand that it’ll be difficult to talk about. But could you tell us when you last saw Zoe?”

  Maeve nodded, and folded her hands in her lap before she started. “We were all together on Wednesday night. We met for food at La Mejican. You know it? It was me and Angeline, and Victor and Zoe. So we were together. I haven’t…didn’t see her after that.”

  “So you had no contact from her on the Thursday?”

  “No.” Maeve shook her head. “That’s not unusual. We’ll often talk every few days if we’re both busy.”

  “And no knowledge of her movements?” Jonah added.

  “No, I’m afraid not. I know Angeline was going to see her, but….” She shrugged, an
d then sniffed and rubbed the back of her hand to each eye briefly. “I thought about dropping in, yesterday, while I was cycling past, but there were police everywhere. I thought it was probably someone else’s flat. I wanted to believe it was, you know? But then when I tried to call her, there was nothing.” She gave a short, teary laugh. “I was there trying to tell myself, you know…that it was just a coincidence. But then I went to see Victor and he said she’d not shown up for work, and I knew. I knew something awful had happened.”

  Maeve was shaking as she pulled a handkerchief out and blew her nose. She looked as cut up as Angeline Judd had, but seemed unwilling to give in to the feeling.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She gave Jonah a watery smile. “You need to ask questions.”

  “That’s all right,” he said as kindly as he could. “It’s not an easy time. We can give you a minute if you like.”

  “No, you’re OK. Go on.”

  Lightman rose silently and went to fetch a cup of water from the dispenser in the corner. He filled it and handed it to her in silence.

  “Thank you,” Maeve said, smiling again.

  “Were you anywhere near Zoe’s flat on the Thursday evening?” Jonah asked, watching for any change in expression. Maeve’s eyes followed Lightman as he sat down once again, but there was no other visible reaction. No sign of stress.

  “Ah, no. I had a ladies’ supper.” As Jonah gave her a querying look, she explained, “It’s a church thing. Where the girls all get together and eat. We alternate. Girls one week, boys the next. You know.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “Ahhh…sevenish? I was a bit late, if I’m honest.” She gave Lightman a brief, self-deprecating smile, and then looked back at Jonah. “I guess I was there until, like…nine-thirty? Something like that. And then I went home.”

  “How did Zoe seem the night before?” Jonah asked. “The Wednesday?”

  “She seemed fine,” Maeve said. “I mean, she’d not really been herself since she and Aidan broke up the last time. She was pretty messed up about it all.”

  “Do you think her mental health had suffered?” Jonah asked.

  “Yeah,” Maeve said. “No question. I think it was a bit fragile before. She’d suddenly lost all this weight, and the eye-makeup thing went from an occasional going-out to all the time.”

  “Sorry,” Jonah said. “Eye makeup?”

  “Oh, I guess…She loved to do this elaborate stuff. Incredible colors and designs, like swirls of black or gold, and rhinestones stuck on. It was more like a painting. Kind of using her face as art, like.”

  Jonah nodded slowly. “And you think the increase in that was due to…insecurity? About Aidan?”

  “Well, I don’t know. It was just a theory.” Maeve looked a little uncomfortable. “It was just that the eye paint always seemed to me like a way of…I guess of diverting attention. It was noticeable and people always commented on it. I figure it’s easy to hide behind that stuff, right? And then when it looked like Aidan might still be closer to his wife than she’d thought, she got a bit obsessive. She had to look perfect all the time, and not just when she saw him.”

  “Did she have other worries about Aidan?” Jonah asked. “About his fidelity to her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Maeve said. She went momentarily pink, which Jonah found interesting. “Having a wife was plenty.”

  “He never…tried to flirt with you?”

  “Ah, no, of course not,” she replied. And she really blushed this time, and looked at her hands instead of at Jonah or Lightman. “He wanted me to be on his side, was all.” And then she said quickly, “Angeline says Zoe and Aidan had got back together.” She lifted her eyes to Jonah’s face. “Do you think that was recent? I didn’t realize.”

  “It seems to have been fairly recent, yes,” Jonah agreed.

  “God,” Maeve said. She pulled another tissue out and fiddled with it, her eyes on the crumpled folds. “I felt like she was hiding something. Isn’t it awful that she didn’t tell any of us? Even me, when I was the one person who didn’t tell her to chuck him?”

  “So there wasn’t anything unhealthy in their relationship, as far as you were concerned?” Jonah asked.

  “No,” Maeve said with a shake of her head. “I mean, I don’t think it’s ever great to cheat. But if you take out hiding from her for a long time that he hadn’t started divorce proceedings, then he treated her really well. He did all these nice things for her, and made her feel looked after.” Maeve glanced at Lightman, almost in appeal. “Zoe was always the one helping everyone else, and it was so nice seeing her getting something back, you know? And they always just seemed to have so much fun. He’s so different from all those awful needy dickheads she’d dated in the past.”

  The insulting term made Jonah smile in spite of himself. Maeve clearly wasn’t above judging people harshly, Christian or no. “What about when they broke up?” he went on. “There’s some suggestion he started harassing her.”

  “Ah, I don’t think it was harassment,” Maeve said, flushing again. “I felt for him, actually. He wanted to explain himself and try and make things right. And then she moved away. I think when she thought it was really over she was devastated, and she didn’t want to see anything that reminded her of him. Not the house, not him, and not even us for a little while.”

  Jonah watched her pick at the tissue again. “Why did they break up?”

  “Well, the first time, it was because Aidan had been on holiday with his wife, and Victor found out…”

  “Victor found out?”

  “He saw on Facebook. Aidan had hidden some posts from Zoe but Victor could see them. I think Aidan must have forgotten he’d added him, or not realized it was him. Victor calls himself some weird gamer name on there.”

  “Do you think he had a vested interest in the breakup of their relationship?” Jonah asked quietly.

  “Ah, you mean…is he in love with her?” Maeve sighed. “Yes, he is. And I guess he also wants what’s best for her. But he’s not violent, you know. I mean, he has a temper, but it’s…a flash in the pan. A brief mood, and then it’s gone.”

  “And Zoe definitely wasn’t interested in him? Nothing ever happened between them?”

  “No,” Maeve said quietly. “And nothing ever will now. Poor Victor.”

  * * *

  —

  HANSON DUMPED HER bag on her chair and peeled off Sheens’s soaking-wet jacket. It was a good thing it had been long on her. Her thighs were mercifully dry, even if her lower legs were sodden.

  “That’s it,” she told O’Malley. “I’m not going out there again. You or Ben can do anything else while I drink tea and huddle in front of a heater somewhere.”

  “I’m not even supposed to be working,” O’Malley countered.

  “So why are you?” Hanson fired back with a grin.

  “I’m a victim,” O’Malley said with a sigh.

  “Are they in with Maeve Silver?” she asked, jerking her head toward the interview suite.

  “Yeah, the Christian friend.”

  “Is she?”

  “I’d say very,” O’Malley intoned. “She’s got a crucifix and an air of constantly trying to be nice in the face of terrible temptation not to be.”

  “One of those,” Hanson said, and sat down as close to the radiator as she could while still being able to reach her desktop. The chief spilled out of the interview suite with Ben Lightman a moment later, accompanied by a curly-haired girl who must have been Maeve. She looked like she’d been emotional recently, Hanson thought, but at the moment she was smiling and laughing at something Ben had said.

  Hanson couldn’t help rolling her eyes. Why was there always this queue of adoring women just waiting for him to fall for them? A pretty face wasn’t everything.

  The DCI left them to it and came over to her
desk. “You were dead right on Felix Solomon,” he said quietly. “He used to be a DCI in Brighton. Early retirement with PTSD. I’ve requested the details.”

  “Oh, great!” Hanson said, trying not to seem too pleased.

  “I’ve got O’Malley looking at whether he’s been accessing police data he shouldn’t be able to see,” the chief added.

  “So I’ve got you to blame,” O’Malley said, looking up at her.

  “I had another thought on Felix Solomon,” Hanson said. “If he’s in the habit of using his landlord’s keys inappropriately, maybe his former tenant might have had the same experience. I could ask for her details.”

  “That’s not a bad thought,” the DCI said. He glanced at the wall clock. “Victor Varos is in next.”

  “Might you want a charming young constable in the interview with you?” Hanson asked.

  Sheens grinned at her. “You’re on.”

  “Thanks, Chief,” Hanson said, opening up the database to grab Felix Solomon’s number.

  She tried not to feel too pleased at being chosen once again. She knew it wasn’t about talent. The DCI chose his fellow interviewer purely on the basis of who would help him the most. It didn’t matter how well you’d done in the last interview or whether it felt like it was your turn. If you didn’t get picked, you didn’t get picked. But she supposed, as her English teacher had liked to say, he wasn’t running a bloody democracy.

  * * *

  —

  “AM I A suspect?” Victor asked, the moment Jonah reached for the tape recorder.

  “We’re not treating anyone as a suspect at this time,” Jonah said soothingly. “We try to record interviews with people connected to the victim in case we miss something at the time that is crucial. Having tapes and then a transcript means we can review and get it right. Nothing more.”