by Paula Daly
Noel puffed out his cheeks, shaking his head at the same time. ‘Well, I can tell you right now, Roger didn’t murder Karen. I’m surprised he had it in him to have an affair, to be honest.’
Joanne had visited Roger Nicholls at the solicitor’s office where he worked. When asked if he would mind providing a DNA sample, ‘Just so we can rule you out of our inquiries…’ he’d come over all cold and clammy, with shortness of breath, and Joanne had to fetch him a glass of water. He ended up crying into a tissue, explaining afterwards how he’d made such a terrible mess of everything. Joanne had managed to calm him down, and he was ever so grateful. So grateful for her discretion, he said. Then he went on to tell her that his son had applied to Oxford.
Joanne had hoped that Noel Bloom would be able to acquaint her with Karen’s other extramarital affairs but, judging by his reaction to her relationship with Roger, she suspected not. He was still smiling and shaking his head when their food arrived, saying, ‘Karen and Roger, eh? Pia can’t know, or she’d have his head.’
‘Oh, she knows. She opted to keep it quiet, though, so maybe best not to bring it up if you come across either of them.’
Noel tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially before telling Joanne she was very adept at finding out all sorts of hidden information.
‘Wonder what you’ll discover about me,’ he said.
‘I wonder,’ she replied flatly.
Joanne also wondered about Russell Wallbank.
Was he, as she suspected, Karen Bloom’s long-lost boyfriend and father of Ewan?
After agreeing to meet with Noel Bloom for a drink, Joanne had called the number in Hastings which had flagged up on the Blooms’ phone records.
‘Beachcomber Guest House?’ a voice had said. She sounded young, maybe early twenties, and she spoke the words as though posing a question, as though she wasn’t entirely sure where she was and was seeking verification from the caller.
‘This is Detective Sergeant Joanne Aspinall, and I’m after some information. I wonder if you can help.’
Deathly silence.
‘Are you still there?’ Joanne asked.
‘Hmm-mm.’
‘A call was placed from your number, from…what did you say the establishment was called again?’
‘Beachcomber Guest House.’
‘Yes. Two calls were placed from the Beachcomber around ten – no, make that twelve – days ago to an address in Windermere.’
‘Windermere?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s north, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘The lake, right?’
‘You’ve got it,’ Joanne said. ‘I’m trying to find out who made that call. I don’t suppose you have any idea?’
‘None at all.’
‘Okay,’ Joanne said, thinking this was going to be harder than she had anticipated. ‘Are you a receptionist at the Beachcomber?’
The girl laughed. ‘I do a bit of everything.’
‘Do the guests have access to the hotel phone?’
‘Not usually. They all have mobiles.’
‘So it would have been a member of staff?’
‘I suppose. Why do you need to know anyway?’
‘We’re conducting an investigation.’ She didn’t say into what. ‘Do you have a member of staff working there, a male, between the ages of, say, forty-five and fifty-five?’
‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Not here.’
‘Anyone who used to work there?’
‘Don’t think so…’ She paused, and Joanne could almost hear the cogs turning in her brain. ‘Hang on. Yes, actually, thinking about it now, we did have a kitchen porter around that age, but he took off.’
‘When?’
‘Maybe the week before last. I can’t be exact because I was in Ibiza—’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Russell Wallbank.’
‘Do you have a number for him? An address?’
‘I can get them. Might take me a few minutes.’
‘I can wait. As a matter of interest, what did you make of him? What kind of guy was Russell?’
‘Jealous fucker,’ she said. ‘ ’Scuse my language.’
‘That’s okay. Jealous about who?’
‘He had a girlfriend. I don’t know her…Siobhan, Sinéad, Sian…one of those. He’d slam the pots around all day if she looked at anyone else. I’ve been out with a guy like that, so I know the type. They’re trouble.’
Joanne agreed with her. Jealous fuckers were trouble.
They did, however, make excellent suspects.
Joanne looked at Noel now and said, ‘Does the name Russell Wallbank mean anything to you?’
Noel looked blank.
‘He called your house and had a conversation with someone for over five minutes. You’re sure Karen never mentioned it? Never mentioned his name?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe. We had a lot of nonsense callers for a while.’
‘I think there’s a chance Russell Wallbank may be Ewan’s father,’ Joanne said carefully. ‘At the moment, it’s still a long shot, but I’m trying to track him down, nonetheless. I think it’s a line of inquiry worth pursuing.’
Before she’d left work, Joanne fed Wallbank’s name into the Police National Database and had found two Russell Wallbanks with a history of criminal activity in the Sussex area. One interested her particularly, since his crimes fell into the categories of domestic violence and aggravated assault (under the influence of alcohol) against a woman. The last known address for this particular Wallbank was a staff house for a large hotel at Bexhill-on-Sea, but when Joanne inquired she was told he’d left there the previous year.
‘So you think he saw Karen on the news and called her?’ Noel asked.
Joanne nodded. ‘She clearly wanted to keep Ewan’s father out of her life for good. She didn’t discuss him with anyone. She must have had good reason for that. When Brontë disappeared, perhaps he saw Karen make that statement and tracked her down. It wouldn’t be hard to do.’
‘And he came here and killed her? Why?’
‘Nursing old wounds, perhaps. She did disappear with his child, after all.’
‘Perhaps,’ he replied, but Joanne could see he didn’t buy it.
‘Someone killed her, Noel,’ she said. ‘And if that person wasn’t you—’
‘I know it wasn’t me.’
‘Then who was it?’
Noel shrugged non-committally.
Joanne put down her drink.
After a moment she said, ‘Noel, do you even want to know who did this to your wife?’
41
Tuesday, 27 October
All things considered, Karen’s murder had been timed pretty well. Brontë and Verity were off school for the half-term break and, if Karen had died a few weeks, or even a few days, later, Noel would have had the problem of childcare. As it turned out, it was expected he’d take some time away from the surgery to be with the family after Karen died. The problem was what to do with them. This was normally Karen’s domain. He didn’t often schedule time off from work to coincide with the girls’ holidays, except during the summer, so he wasn’t sure how to fill the days. And it was starting to dawn on him that future childcare was something he’d not given enough thought to. Granted, Verity could watch her sister for the odd hour here and there, but he couldn’t expect her to do it full-time. She was sixteen. She had a life of her own. And was it even legal to leave a sixteen-year-old in charge of a minor for extended periods?
He’d told the girls they could go anywhere they liked. Do anything they wanted. He was about to say the same to Ewan but, in a peculiar turnaround, Ewan surprised him by returning home with a job interview lined up.
‘Really?’ Noel said, stunned.
‘Really,’ replied Ewan. ‘At Dale’s place. Thought I might try gardening, to see if I like it.’
‘I think that’s a splendid idea.’
Noel suppressed the urge to tak
e things any further, stopping himself from doing that typical parent thing: talking about Ewan’s potential and might he think of training to become a landscape architect further down the line? For now, a job – any job – was welcome. He did quietly wonder if Ewan’s sudden interest in horticulture stemmed from a desire to cultivate his own weed but, again, he didn’t let it cloud the moment.
‘Splendid,’ Noel said again. ‘Anything I can do to help, just ask.’
And so it was that he found himself on the M6, heading south in thick traffic, en route to the Trafford Centre. Ewan was in the passenger seat; the two girls were in the back (Dale was working). Noel had never been to the Trafford Centre before. He’d never been forced into a day’s shopping in Manchester, and he’d certainly never had the desire to suggest it himself. But now that they’d made the decision that this was what they ought to do with the day, he was quietly looking forward to the experience. To them all being out and about together. Ewan wanted to buy a pair of steel-toe-capped boots; Verity wanted new jeans, new tops, new underwear, new anything he was prepared to buy her; and Brontë said she would like to visit the Build-a-Bear shop. Ewan was oddly charmed by the teddy-bear idea, and offered to chaperone Brontë while Noel escorted Verity around with his credit card. It was to be an expensive day, but Noel had never thrown money at his children in an attempt to cheer them up and thought it was high time he started. Everyone else seemed to be doing it.
They arrived at eleven and the place was already heaving. They were forced to leave the car just about as far away as it was possible to get from the entrance. Noel mumbled that it was probably wise to park near the exit to allow a swift getaway. Once inside, though, he realized why he’d never been before. It was as if all the slow-witted, lumpen people on earth had been rounded up and deposited in one place and instructed to get under Noel’s feet.
It was dreadful. And as Noel understood it, shopping was now the nation’s favourite pastime. Britain was most certainly on the decline, he thought. And it wasn’t as if Noel never went out, but living in Windermere tended to give you a distorted perspective of society. Elderly men were fit and wiry and wore suits on a weekday. Teenagers were polite, on the whole. Pedestrians said hello to strangers in the street. Motorists were considerate to their fellow road users: You go. No, you go first, dear. The only time Noel came into contact with the general population was at airports. And so the Trafford Centre came as quite a shock: great swathes of people moving so slowly they were almost in reverse, each one a picture of ill health, with the athletic capability of a professional darts player. Noel couldn’t bear it. He handed Verity his credit card and told her he’d meet her outside Zara in forty-five minutes. He would browse the selection of plasma TVs at Currys, along with all the other dads who had lost the will.
Which was exactly where he should have stayed.
But there was a family of undesirables crowded around the particular model he was interested in and so he made his way to the ground floor. Before he knew it, he was in Calvin Klein, buying underwear. Karen had always bought his underwear, and he’d happily worn whatever turned up inside his top drawer without being overly interested in the garments. And yet, now, suddenly, he was. He bought six pairs of Superior trunks in neutral shades: Err on the side of safety, he thought. He was too embarrassed to ask about the difference between those and Bold or Air and decided Superior sounded, well, superior.
He was vaguely aware of a fellow shopper lurking a little too close for comfort, but he didn’t think anything of it and had quite a nice conversation with a cheerful young sales assistant from Utah. She told him she was living with her extended family for a year, as she wanted to be a writer and needed to ‘see life’.
‘I can’t imagine you see much life in here,’ Noel commented, and she said, ‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’
Noel left the shop feeling strangely buoyed by his purchases. So much so that he thought about adding a few other things to his wardrobe (a new winter coat? skinny jeans?), when his attention was caught by the shop opposite. Ann Summers.
Not really thinking, he moved towards the entrance, almost in a trance. In the window stood a mannequin wearing a red basque and – here was the thing that amused him – a blindfold. It was all very Fifty Shades.
Would Joanne Aspinall wear a blindfold? he wondered.
He gazed at the mannequin. She wore a dark wig. He thought of Joanne’s hair. She had good hair.
With the exception of Karen, Noel had always gone for brunettes. Sometimes, a redhead. He left the blondes to his friends. He’d be in a bar and a busty, made-up blonde would walk in and every man in the room would make a beeline for her, and Noel would think, Go for it, fools. Then he’d sit back, in the smug knowledge that he’d have the pick of the brunettes, now that the competition had its attention firmly elsewhere.
Joanne had thick, shiny, dark hair, the kind he liked to smooth away from a woman’s face, the kind he liked to feel against his own skin.
He tried to imagine what a life with Joanne Aspinall would look like. Would she want to give up work and play house, as both Jennifer and Karen had? He suspected not. He couldn’t envisage her parting with her warrant card. He reckoned she’d had the thing spot-welded to her wrist.
He also liked that about her – the fact that she didn’t just have a job but a vocation. As it was with Noel, the job was more than just a job. You signed up for life. Well, you used to do, anyway. GPs were scarpering off to Australia at an alarming rate for better pay, better hours, better weather.
Lost in pleasant contemplation, Noel didn’t realize at first that he was being spoken to.
‘Dr Bloom,’ he heard vaguely. Then, more insistent: ‘Dr Bloom, over here!’
The voice was coming from over his right shoulder.
He turned around, smiling a little. ‘Just a couple more, if you don’t mind, doctor,’ the man said.
It was the same guy who’d been skulking around the Calvin Klein shop, and it was only now that Noel realized he was holding a camera. He was holding a camera, and he was pointing it straight at Noel.
‘Why do you want to photograph me?’ Noel asked, bewildered.
‘You’re Karen Bloom’s husband?’ the photographer asked, not making eye contact, still snapping away.
‘Yes, but—’
Then the photographer raised his hand to bid Noel goodbye.
‘Very much obliged, Dr Bloom.’
And he was gone.
42
JOANNE SPENT THE morning trying to track down Russell Wallbank, without success, and now the lab was on the phone wanting to talk to her.
‘Good news,’ the voice said. ‘The blood sample was viable. We have a DNA profile. Now, do you want the bad news?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘It matches none of the samples that were collected from the potential suspects. And I’ve run it through the DNA database, and…the donor’s not on there. Which means—’
‘Which means I have nothing,’ Joanne said.
Because most crimes are committed by repeat offenders, Joanne had felt certain that the killer’s DNA would already be on the database. Everyone convicted of a crime in the UK has their DNA profile stored indefinitely. So if Karen’s killer wasn’t on there, it meant he was a first-time offender. And she had absolutely no idea who he was.
She had not expected this. She had really not expected this. It was almost unheard of for a person to go from law abider to murderer without any steps in between.
Joanne rang off and rubbed her face with her hands. Back to the drawing board.
From the angle of the stab wound on Karen’s neck, it was thought the killer was right-handed. She’d been stabbed from behind, the forensic pathologist thought, which placed the killer in the back seat of the car. Nine out of ten people are right-handed. So now Joanne had narrowed down her search to ninety per cent of the population. Great.
Noel Bloom was right-handed. Had he had the means, motive and opportunity to kill his wif
e? Theoretically, Joanne supposed he did. But she could do sod all about it, because she didn’t have one scrap of physical evidence, not one eye-witness statement to place Noel at the scene. Joanne wasn’t exactly sure whether she was relieved about this or not.
‘Fuck,’ she said out loud, and she turned to Oliver Black.
‘Don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m all out of ideas as well.’
Short of anything better to do, Joanne grabbed her bag from beneath the desk, telling Oliver to ‘Sit tight.’
She told him she’d be back within the hour.
—
DCI McAleese had his chemo at the same time each fortnight at Helme Chase Hospital in Kendal. Joanne had accompanied him twice before to lend moral support because, apart from his daughter, he didn’t have any family in the area. Not that he wanted any support, but sometimes she missed him and it seemed as good a place as any to pay him a visit. Pete was on a low dose, he said. It wasn’t wreaking havoc on his body, he said. But today he looked shrunken and ashen, and Joanne wished he would let her do more. He was still insistent, though, that he wanted to go this alone, so when she walked in he greeted her with ‘I told you I don’t need you here, Joanne.’
And so she said, ‘Relax.’ She told him she could do with some help with the case. ‘I don’t know what I’m missing.’
‘You’re probably missing nothing,’ he replied. ‘How’s Pat Gilmore doing anyway? She a better DI than me?’
‘She’s more cheerful. That makes for a nice change.’
‘What about your new partner? DS Black?’
‘Oliver? Oh, he’s working out pretty well. I like him.’
‘You like him like him?’
‘He’s married, Pete. And no, I don’t like him that way. Tell me, how’s the treatment going?’ and Pete waved away her concern with his free hand, as if to say, Fine, fine.
‘You look a little tired.’
‘I look a little fucked, you mean.’
‘A bit,’ she admitted.
‘Well, I’m not, apparently.’ He rested his eyes on Joanne and said, ‘We are very pleased with your response to the treatment, Mr McAleese,’ mimicking his oncologist, Joanne assumed.
