‘Was the farm left equally to Paul and Chloe?’ asks Tony.
‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘We’ve had a copy of the will. Douglas and Linda left everything to each other but, in the event of them both dying, the house and the share of the firm are left to Paul and Chloe.’
‘The shares must be worth something,’ says Judy. ‘Cambridge Bioresearch seemed to be a thriving business.’
‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘Maybe you should go back and talk to the director again. What was her name? Something Italian?’
‘Claudia Albertini,’ says Judy. ‘And she’s Swiss.’
‘Check to see if Paul and Chloe had any dealings with the firm that we don’t know about,’ says Nelson. ‘We know that Chloe did work experience there, but it might be interesting if either of them paid attention to the company accounts, for example.’
‘Are they serious suspects then?’ says Tony. He’s sitting up very straight, notebook and reusable coffee mug in front of him. Nelson can tell he’s enjoying every minute.
‘Everyone’s a suspect,’ says Nelson. ‘We’ve taken Chloe and Paul’s fingerprints – officially to eliminate them from the scene – and it will be interesting to see where they crop up around the house. And there’s no denying that they do have a motive, whether it’s money or revenge for childhood ill-treatment.’
‘Neither of them has an alibi,’ says Judy. ‘Both claim to have been alone in their respective houses on the night of their parents’ deaths.’
‘We need to talk to them again,’ says Nelson. ‘And I’ve also heard something suspicious about two of the Night Hawks, David Brown and Troy Evans.’ He tells them the conversation that Ruth overheard. He watches Judy and Tanya when he says Ruth’s name but neither of them reacts. Judy is writing in her notebook and Tanya has her intense ‘super sleuth’ face on.
‘We can’t say who gave us this information,’ says Nelson. ‘But I think it’s worth talking to these characters again. Tony, you talk to Troy. He might respond to another youngster.’
‘I’m twenty-five,’ says Tony, sounding hurt.
‘Exactly,’ says Nelson.
‘I think I’ve found another link,’ says Judy. ‘Bryan Walker – one of the Night Hawks who was there the other night – taught at the same school as Linda Noakes. He’s got no connection to Black Dog Farm that I can see but it’s a bit of a coincidence.’
‘It is indeed,’ says Nelson. ‘Maybe we’ve been thinking too much about Douglas and ignoring Linda.’
‘Sounds as if everyone did that when they were alive too,’ says Judy.
‘Go and see this Bryan Walker again, Judy,’ says Nelson. ‘See what he can tell us about Linda. But for today let’s concentrate on Neil Topham and Chloe Noakes. And I think I’ll have a little chat with David Brown.’
He’s looking forward to it.
‘It’s Sunday,’ says Neil Topham, as Tanya approaches. And Neil is engaged in that most Sunday-ish of activities, washing his car. He’s making a proper job of it, with hose and sponges and a portable hoover for the inside. When she was young, Tanya’s father used to give her two pounds for washing his car, but she can’t imagine that the two spoilt teenagers she glimpsed last time are so easily bought.
‘I’ve just got a few questions,’ says Tanya. ‘Is there somewhere private that we can talk?’
Neil shoots her a look that could be irritation or could be fear.
‘It’s not a good time,’ he says. ‘Alison’s cooking lunch.’
A traditional family. Mummy cooking Sunday roast, Daddy washing the car. It’s like a Ladybird book, or a David Lynch film. Something sinister anyway.
‘It’ll only take a few minutes,’ says Tanya.
Neil leads her into the house, past the kitchen, which is wafting rather wonderful roast beef vapours, and into a study bristling with technology. Tanya sits between the wide screen TV and the drum deck. Neil takes what looks like a gaming chair with lumbar support for those long hours at Grand Theft Auto.
‘Mr Topham,’ says Tanya. ‘What exactly was your relationship with Chloe Noakes?’
One look at his face is enough.
‘It’s not what you think,’ says Chloe Noakes.
Judy knows better than to react to this. They are sitting in Chloe’s quayside apartment in King’s Lynn. Water reflections ripple on the ceiling.
‘I’d left school,’ says Chloe. ‘There was nothing illegal about it. We didn’t get together until the summer after A levels.’
This doesn’t change the fact that Neil Topham was married with two children and had, just a few months earlier, been one of Chloe’s teachers. But Judy stays quiet.
‘He was so different from my other boyfriends,’ says Chloe. ‘They were schoolboys, all spotty and jealous. Neil was cool. Or so he seemed to me.’
‘How long did your relationship continue?’ asks Judy.
‘Just for that summer,’ says Chloe. ‘It petered out when I went to university in Manchester.’
‘Did you stay in touch?’ asks Judy.
‘Not really. We didn’t have WhatsApp and all that stuff then.’
But you had email, thinks Judy, and Facebook. Plenty of ways to maintain an illicit relationship. She should know. She remembers how, when she was married to Darren, her heart used to jump when she saw a text or an email from Cathbad. And Cathbad has since told her that he used to gaze for hours at the Google Maps image of Judy and Darren’s house.
‘You didn’t mention this relationship when we asked you about Neil Topham before,’ says Judy.
‘Of course not!’ says Chloe. ‘Paul was there. He didn’t know anything about it.’
Judy wouldn’t be too sure about that. After all, Laura Nelson knew and she was five years younger and at a different school. These things get out. She wonders if the rumours had anything to do with Neil’s early retirement from teaching. All the same, she thinks it’s interesting that Chloe still wants the affair kept from her brother.
‘Have you seen Neil recently?’ she asks.
‘No,’ says Chloe. ‘He’s happy with his wife and two point four kids.’
There’s definitely some bitterness there, thinks Judy. She decides to push a little further.
‘Neil Topham was near Black Dog Farm the night your parents were killed,’ she says.
‘He had an alibi,’ says Chloe. ‘He was with Alan White.’
Judy thinks of something the boss said once. Who needs alibis? Guilty people.
Nelson is not sure what he’s expecting when he drives into Stiffkey looking for David Brown’s house. A mansion? A slum? But what he finds is a tiny, terraced cottage, flint-faced with a low tiled roof. The front gate leads into a sunny patio and there sits Brown himself, reading the Observer, and a blonde girl, about Katie’s age, busy with a sketchbook.
Nelson had known about the daughter but the sight of her brings him up short. Brown looks up from his paper.
‘DCI Nelson,’ he says. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Can I have a quick word?’ says Nelson.
David Brown stands up. Nelson is conscious of the unusual sensation of feeling slightly in the wrong. David Brown is enjoying a quiet morning with his daughter. There’s no real reason why Nelson’s questions can’t wait until Monday. Brown is looking very belligerent. He’s also slightly taller than Nelson, which doesn’t happen often.
‘No, you can’t have a word,’ says Brown, moving towards him. ‘This is police harassment.’
‘I’m conducting a murder inquiry,’ says Nelson, not budging. The girl looks up at the word ‘murder’ which, again, makes him feel a little guilty.
‘I’m not talking to you without my lawyer present,’ says Brown. And he goes back to his chair and picks up his paper, shaking it with a flourish.
There’s nothing Nelson can do but retreat. When he loo
ks back Brown is hidden behind the Observer but the girl gives him a timid, tentative wave.
Chapter 28
When Ruth gets into work on Monday, she finds some interesting emails waiting for her: the results of the carbon-14 and isotope tests on the Blakeney Point skeleton. The C14 dating puts the bones between three thousand five hundred and four thousand years old. Ruth smiles when she thinks how unsatisfactory Nelson would find this margin but radiocarbon dating can be skewed by all sorts of things, including solar flares and sunspots. The important thing is that these results place the skeleton firmly in the Bronze Age. Even more interesting is the isotope analysis which seems to show that the bones belonged to someone who grew up somewhere in central Europe.
She must tell David. This fits with his Beaker invader theory. She forwards the emails and, a few minutes later, a dark shape appears in the glass panel of her door. It’s only at this moment that Ruth remembers her call to Nelson on Saturday, after the seal trip. At the time she had told herself that Nelson needed to know about the conversation on the boat. Now she feels like a traitor. Will her suspicions have been enough to send Nelson to David’s door? If so, she hopes he kept her name out of it.
‘David,’ she says, with unnecessary heartiness. ‘Did you see the lab results?’
‘Yes,’ he says, with his lopsided grin. ‘I told you that he was a Beaker.’
‘They think he was a he too,’ says Ruth. The lab had examined five points on the head and come to the conclusion that the skeleton was eighty per cent likely to be male. But Ruth had already made up her own mind about this. From the long bones, pelvis and shape of the skull, she is sure that their skeleton is a man and a tall, handsome one at that.
‘It’s interesting too that he was found with weapons around him,’ she says. ‘That’s unusual for a Bronze Age burial. I wonder if Cathbad was right about him being someone high status like a king or a priest.’
‘Is Cathbad an archaeologist?’ This is said with a definite edge. Hostile energy again.
‘He studied archaeology,’ she says. ‘He’s actually very knowledgeable. Have you looked at the isotope analysis?’
‘Strontium isotope levels point to him being from as far east as Poland,’ says David. ‘Incredible to think that he had travelled all this way.’
‘Only to die on a Norfolk beach,’ says Ruth. She thinks of her feelings when she first saw the body of the young man discovered by the Night Hawks. That was when they had thought he was an ‘illegal immigrant’, to use Nelson’s words. How sad, she’d thought, to come all these miles in search of a better life, only to end up lying dead on foreign sand. She thinks the same about their Bronze Age man.
‘We should give him a name,’ says David. ‘What about Erik?’
‘No!’ says Ruth, too sharply. Does David know about her association with Erik Anderssen? It wouldn’t be too hard to discover that he’d been her tutor at Southampton.
‘Erik is too much of a Viking name,’ she says now. ‘What about something Polish? Stanislaw?’
‘Stan for short,’ says David. ‘Have you told your friend Nelson about the test results?’
‘No,’ says Ruth, wary again. ‘Why?’
‘I thought he might be interested, seeing as he was there when we discovered Stan,’ says David. Ruth thinks how having a name changes everything. As Kate said, the bones used to be a person and now that person is called Stan.
David adds, in what seems to be an elaborately casual tone, ‘You know, he came to see me yesterday.’
‘Who?’ says Ruth. Though she can guess.
‘DCI Nelson. He came barging in just when I was sitting in the front garden with Maja. He was very aggressive. Had the cheek to say he was conducting a murder inquiry.’
‘Well, he is, I suppose.’
‘I said I wouldn’t talk to him without my lawyer.’
Ruth can’t imagine that this went down well with Nelson.
‘Did he say what he wanted specifically?’ she asks.
‘No,’ says David. He fiddles with his phone for a few minutes before asking, ‘Do you know what’s going on with the investigation?’
‘No,’ says Ruth, meeting his eyes squarely. ‘I’ve no idea. I’m not involved in the investigation at all. You probably know more than I do.’ Because you were there when the body was found, she adds silently. Because you have something you want to hide from the police.
‘Is Nelson always so charmless?’
‘People usually describe him as tough but fair.’
‘Do they? Well I think he’s trying to frame me for something. I get the distinct impression that DCI Nelson dislikes me.’
‘Why would he dislike you?’
‘Because I work with you. Because we’re becoming friends.’
Is this what’s happening? Are they becoming friends? Ruth hopes that she’s not blushing.
‘Nelson’s Kate’s dad, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ says Ruth. She’s damned if she’d going to explain further. ‘But Nelson’s very professional. He wouldn’t let his private feelings get in the way of an investigation.’
‘If you say so,’ says David. He sounds unconvinced and Ruth is relieved when, after a few minutes’ chat about Stan, David stalks away to prepare for a lecture.
Judy is, once again, at the offices of Cambridge Bioresearch. This time Claudia Albertini is not quite so gracious.
‘I’m rather busy,’ is the first thing she says. They are in Claudia’s office with the tasteful Alpine scenes. Claudia has her discreet laptop in front of her and now she taps at it as if to show how little time she’s got to spare.
‘It won’t take long,’ says Judy. ‘We’ve had a copy of Douglas Noakes’s will. He left everything to his wife but, because she died too, everything goes to Paul and Chloe, including the shares in this company.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ says Claudia.
‘Can you tell me how much those shares are worth?’
‘It’s hard to tell,’ says Claudia. ‘Our products go through a rigorous, costly, and time-consuming testing process before potentially obtaining approval from NICE. This means that investors may wait for years before knowing whether a drug under development will pay off.’
‘But potentially they could be worth quite a lot.’
‘Potentially, yes.’
‘Do you think Paul and Chloe were aware of this? Did either of them ever show any interest in the company accounts, for example?’
‘None of the family ever showed any interest in the accounts,’ says Claudia. ‘Even Douglas. It was hard enough to get him to attend shareholders’ meetings. He was only interested in the research for its own sake.’
She says this like it’s a bad thing.
‘Douglas wanted knowledge and he wanted power,’ Claudia goes on. ‘He wasn’t really interested in what our research could do for people. Or in whether we made money.’
Chloe had said something similar when Tanya interviewed her, Judy seems to remember. She wishes she had the notes in front of her. She thinks of Black Dog Farm. It certainly doesn’t seem like the home of someone who cared about money or possessions.
‘Dr Albertini,’ she says. ‘We’ve found evidence that suggests that Dr Noakes was performing illegal drugs trials. Did you ever suspect that this was going on?’
She has the satisfaction of seeing real shock flicker across the scientist’s composed features.
‘Illegal drugs trials?’ What do you mean?’
‘Dr Noakes was conducting drugs trials at his home. We suspect that at least one of these trials might have gone wrong, resulting in a man’s death.’
Now Claudia puts her hand to her mouth. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘You said that Douglas Noakes wanted knowledge and power. Can you think of any reason why he would have been conducting these unofficial tests?�
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Claudia is silent for a minute, her fingers playing a scale on the edge of her desk.
‘We did have a conversation once about bio-hacking,’ she says.
‘Bio-hacking?’ repeats Judy. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s when people inject themselves with untested gene therapies, genes to prevent cell death or boost muscle growth, for example. There are even bio-hacking conferences in the States, where people get together to experiment on themselves. The aims are very lofty – to cure disease, prevent aging, that sort of thing – but it’s incredibly dangerous. The participants have no training in medicine or genetic engineering. I said how foolish it was but Douglas said maybe this was the only way to make progress. He always got very impatient waiting for approval for tests.’
‘And you think that’s what he might have been doing at Black Dog Farm? Injecting people with untested drugs?’
‘I’ve no idea. It’s just a theory. Hard to imagine that Douglas could be so foolhardy but, then again, I’m coming to the conclusion that I never really knew him very well.’
Nobody really knew Douglas Noakes, Judy thinks. Except, perhaps, his wife. And now she’s dead too.
‘Have you had any contact with Paul and Chloe Noakes recently?’ she asks. ‘Have either of them visited the offices?’
‘I told you,’ says Claudia, with a return to her haughty manner. ‘I haven’t seen either of them for years.’
‘Do you mind if I look through your visitors’ book?’
‘Be my guest,’ says Claudia. ‘My secretary will show it to you downstairs.’
In the bland reception area, Judy rifles through the pages of the visitors’ book. Drugs rep, drugs rep, someone to mend the photocopier, drugs rep. Ah, this is more interesting.
Monday 16th September. David Brown. University of North Norfolk.
‘David Brown?’ says Nelson. ‘Now that is interesting. I knew the bastard was dodgy. We should bring him in for questioning.’
The Night Hawks Page 20
