Det Annie Macpherson 01 - Primed By The Past

by Speake, Barbara Fagan

  ‘Fine sir.’ Although Franconi asked, the red wine appeared only seconds later along with olives and a basket of bread.

  Once Franconi had downed his first mouthful, he said, ‘Now where was I?’

  ‘The two women having been best friends,’ Annie prompted, still wondering where the story was leading.

  Franconi continued the story. Annie was sipping her wine slowly, while she listened and nodded at the appropriate times. She didn’t want to become tipsy in front of the boss. On Franconi’s say so the exchange could come to a premature end and she was conscious that the two-week review hadn’t happened yet. The matter of Angela Goodman had distracted them. She was glad she’d already cleared the air with Franconi about discussing the case. She knew it would be far better to go over things with Bronski there. Besides, she didn’t want Bronski to think that she was going behind his back, even though she’d no way of knowing, when they parted a few hours earlier, that she would be sharing an evening with Franconi. If this couple hadn’t had some connection to England, she was sure she wouldn’t be sitting where she was. But now, she couldn’t lose track of the story Franconi was telling.

  Ten minutes later, the olives were nearly gone and Franconi had talked through two pieces of bread so far and Annie still didn’t know if the murderer had been caught. She was just about to ask a question when she realised that Franconi had spotted his guests.

  Franconi got up from his seat and Annie turned to see him hugging a very attractive blond woman and then shaking hands with an equally attractive man. Annie’s guess was that they were in their mid to late thirties; the woman probably a few years younger than the guy.

  ‘Christine James, Michael Turner, this is Annie Macpherson, our exchange detective from Stockport.’ By now Annie had also eased herself out of the booth, unsure who would want to sit where. Christine gave her a warm hug and Annie instantly took to her. Michael kissed her on the cheek before Christine motioned Annie back into the booth and then sat beside her. Michael took the seat opposite, next to Franconi.

  ‘So I see Captain, you don’t intend to drive home.’ Annie could see that Christine and Franconi had some sort of love-hate relationship and Annie smiled to herself. She wasn’t the only female who reacted to Franconi like that and she made a mental note to try and talk to Christine on her own, get more of the low down on her boss.

  ‘They keep my car for me overnight, and if I need them to, they’ll even drop it back to my house in the morning. We’re old paesans, you know that.’ Franconi had taken Christine and Michael to the restaurant before. Franconi caught the eye of the waiter, who poured two more glasses of wine and put a second bottle on the table.

  ‘To your health.’ Franconi spent the next few minutes talking to Annie about his favourite dishes from the menu, complete with details of how each was prepared and served. Christine and Michael only half listened and Annie sensed they’d been through this routine before. Annie had to smile at Franconi’s efforts – typical Americans, think people from Britain don’t know much about food. There was a small deli in Withington, near Annie’s flat that had the best Italian ingredients. After all, Italy was a lot closer to Britain than the USA. Still, she feigned interest so as not to upset him. It was obvious that he loved describing the food of his ancestors although Annie doubted he’d ever been to Italy himself.

  With the orders taken, more olives and bread arrived to keep them occupied. As the three of them became engrossed in conversation, Annie’s eyes wandered across the restaurant to the table of ten people nearby. They’d come in a few minutes earlier and the waiters had rearranged the tables to accommodate the party. One part of the group was talking animatedly but it was a woman near the end of the table who caught Annie’s attention. Everyone around her was talking. She was the only one sipping her wine, on her own, no one paying her any heed. It was obviously a family group. Was she the unwanted one? Annie knew how it felt to be forgotten. Andrew, he had pride of place in their childhood household. Yet how could she be jealous of a boy, now a man, with Down’s Syndrome? That was too selfish to contemplate.

  She looked around the room. No one there knew that she was taking each of them in and trying to work out their stories. That was what being a detective was all about, wasn’t it? Maybe Andrew was the reason for Paul. For once, Annie wanted to be special, have some of the attention. But that was sick, surely. Being jealous of a big brother with a severe learning disability who couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces, whose speech wasn’t intelligible to anyone who hadn’t met him before, who at times forgot he needed the toilet and wet himself, and wasn’t even embarrassed. No, being jealous of Andrew was pathetic. Then nearly going through with a wedding just to feel special. Annie Macpherson, she thought, you are seriously screwed-up.

  Franconi interrupted her ruminations. Time for Annie to tune back in. ‘So tonight it’s celebration time, thanks to the two of you and your testimony at the trial, alongside my brilliant detective work.’

  ‘Not forgetting the forensic evidence and the alibis that didn’t stand up as I recall,’ Michael added pointedly.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, OK Turner, but tonight we’re all here and that bastard, even with the best lawyers money could buy, is starting a life sentence for murder, grievous bodily harm and false imprisonment.’ Franconi was about to raise his glass for a toast, but somehow Annie sensed that Christine wasn’t in such a celebratory mood.

  ‘But not for sentencing a woman to a homeless life because of him, not for all the hurt he caused to Maria Moretto’s family or the humiliation he’s brought to his own family.’ Christine was clearly still angry and Michael reached across and took her hand. It was a very touching gesture and Annie was moved by it.

  Franconi put his glass back down on the table momentarily. ‘Hey, I’m no fan of lawyers, but the prosecutor went for what they could prove and did a good job. Even if some of the stuff we knew he’d done wasn’t admissible, we got him on the big counts. So, I reckon we need a toast to justice for Maria.’ The other three all raised their glasses with him.

  ‘Annie, you probably think we’re rude, talking about something you don’t know anything about.’ Michael Turner still had his glass partly raised as he turned to look at her. Annie could instantly see the attraction of Turner. It was those eyes.

  ‘I was just starting to fill Annie in about how the two of you led us to the identification of Maria,’ said Franconi.

  Between the three of them, Annie heard the rest of the story, noting that Michael and Franconi were perfunctory, sticking mainly to the facts, while any emotional context came from Christine.

  ‘At least the Morettos felt that justice had been done and I take comfort in that.’ As Christine finished with that statement, the main courses arrived and the conversation turned to lighter things. Annie heard about how Michael and Christine met, how Michael now divided his time between staying with her in England and carrying on his security business in Westford. Plans were advancing for Christine to leave England and return to live with Michael in Westford, where she was born, but that was still months off. Annie sensed that there was more to the background, which wasn’t being said but she didn’t pry. In her experience, people shared what they wanted to when they were ready.

  When the coffee arrived at the end of the meal, Annie stirred hers and then put the spoon in, and poured the cream over the back of the spoon allowing the cream to settle on top. Only Christine was used to this European way of pouring cream and she smiled at Annie, who again was transfixed by the next table. ‘What’s more precious than time?’ one of the five men had asked. But the conversation from the table was too muffled for Annie to hear the reply. Soon after, the forgotten woman glanced over at her and smiled. Was there some mutual recognition, a shared loneliness?

  Annie knew she had to stop this introspection. She didn’t want to be one of those people who were lonely even in a cr
owd. As she tried to refocus on the conversation, she spotted two people at another table. Hardly a word had been spoken, both embarrassed by the silence between them. She almost wanted to go over to them, shake them and say, ‘treasure what you have.’ But then she realised that they could be what she and Paul might have become – two people with nothing to say to one another. When? In five years, or ten years? And what would she be like: feeling lonely in a crowded room, trying to be polite, but scared – scared to have his kids, knowing it wasn’t going to last and not wanting complications, while at the same time Paul struggling to understand what was going on? At least she’d spared them all of that.

  Annie was relieved when eventually the ‘forgotten’ woman ended up engaged in a deep conversation with the man next to her. It didn’t matter who the man was, at least she was involved, at last.

  Back home, after being dropped off by Michael and Christine’s taxicab, Annie fell into bed, exhausted from the day and the food and wine. She needed her sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day.

  8

  Carol Wojinski tiptoed around the bedroom, trying not to wake her husband. The bedroom was at the back of the house, bordering on to the woods, so there was not much natural light. She didn’t really need it. As always, her clothes were laid out on the chair in the corner of the room, and she was used to dressing in the dark. Sometimes in the middle of winter, she wondered what it would be like to be blind and the very thought of it frightened her, especially the idea of not being able to see Gus’s face again. She never tired of looking at her husband, his rugged features belying the gentleness of his character. When he found her staring at him, he would wink – letting her know that he was on to her – a signal between them that always felt precious.

  Gus rarely woke with the sound of the shower and she knew from his breathing now that he was still deeply asleep. Smiling at his tousled hair, she remembered how it was the night before when they’d settled into bed together – five years and not one night apart. Long may it continue, she thought, as she fastened the last button of her blouse and quietly shut the door.

  Over the last couple of weeks there had been a few moments of disquiet, the feeling that she was being watched, followed even. But she’d put it all down to her imagination running away with itself, as it had some months ago. She’d purposely avoided talking it through with Gus, knowing that it would unsettle him and just make him worry.

  The warmth of the summer air hit her as she came out of the house. There was no breeze to provide any relief. The routine was always the same: she used the remote control to open the automatic garage door at the side of the house. Then, in the car, the radio went on, but low at first so as not to disturb any neighbours. Reversing out, she paused to trigger the garage door shut.

  ‘Take care today, as the temperature is set to hit 90 degrees. Don’t leave any pets in your car. This is an announcement on behalf of the Animal Protection League.’

  Carol smiled. Who would be so stupid as to leave a dog in a car with the windows closed? But you never know, perhaps one dog’s life would be saved today because of the radio announcement, so who was she to complain? The announcer continued by saying that today’s temperature was going to be the hottest of the week so far.

  Right now, the humidity hadn’t built up and that was a relief. Carol Wojinski hated feeling sweaty and her fingers moved automatically to the car’s air conditioning setting. This was the best time of her day, the long drive to work made easier by the lack of traffic at this time of the morning. The town centre would be crowded soon enough and there were always people wanting to nip into her bookshop on their way into work. There were three or four orders to get ready for the early birds, but there would be plenty of time to do those and get the coffee maker on, before she opened the shop’s blinds.

  Talking to herself as usual, just above the voice of the man on the radio, Carol rehearsed what she needed to do as soon as she got into work. ‘Now, I mustn’t forget to switch the alarm off properly. No one would believe I’ve had the bookshop for six years, the way I still breeze in, flick the coffeemaker on and forget all about the alarm. Today I must be systematic. There’s a lot to do.’

  Glancing in her rear view mirror, she suddenly noticed the car behind. The driver, his face partly obscured by a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, was starting to tailgate her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said loudly, panic starting to rise as she tried to accelerate away. But the car matched her speed. Cursing the driver, she tried to think how to take avoiding action. There was a blind bend just up ahead, so she didn’t dare move into the oncoming lane, or she’d risk killing someone, and probably herself as well, in a head on collision. Despite the air conditioning, her hands were getting clammy and the steering wheel felt slippery.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she screamed, as the pursuing car approached at an alarming speed. Her whole body jolted as the car took the full impact of the collision. With the car slithering sideways on screeching tyres, she frantically tried to steer clear of the edge of the road and away from the ravine. In that last instant, she caught a glimpse of the driver. It was the eyes she recognised.

  The gully was steep and the VW Beetle rolled over several times before finally hitting the bottom. Within seconds it burst into flames, but it would be a few more minutes before the plume of smoke would rise high enough to be seen from the road. The other driver braked just in time, skilfully swerving to avoid the same fate as his victim. He checked his rear view mirror and scanned the road ahead. As expected, there was no one around. Within seconds, his pulse rate returned to normal. So far, everything was going to plan, but there was still a lot to do.

  Carefully, he reversed his car, so that it was nearly parallel to where the VW had gone off the road. Parking, he got out, grabbing a backpack from the passenger seat and unlocked the boot. The racing bike had fitted in perfectly. Propping it up now against a tree, he lost no time in repositioning the car at the exact spot where the VW had gone over, easing it right to the edge. Sweat was now pouring down his face. Stepping out carefully from the precariously balanced car, he walked around to the back. Inside the cycling gloves, his hands were also sweating, but it wasn’t much of an effort to push the car the last few inches, allowing gravity to take over. Momentarily mesmerised by the smoke and flames from the two cars, he allowed himself a few seconds to admire what he had done. A wide smile broke out on his face.

  It would look very suspicious if he were to be found there now, so he had to sublimate his desire to linger over his handiwork. As the smoke and flames billowed further into the morning sky, he mounted the bike and coasted down the steep hill into town, nodding almost imperceptivity to Carol Wojinski’s bookshop as he passed it. During his next hour of cycling, he reviewed his morning’s work, concluding that it was as near to perfection as you could get.

  9

  Annie was first in, wanting to catch up on her notes and ensure everything was in order for the formal report back to Franconi. As she poured herself a coffee, she wondered whether the Captain would mention anything about last night. He’d stayed for a nightcap with his ‘paesans’ after she, Michael and Christine had gone outside to wait for the taxi. Would Bronski think it should have been him at the meal? After all, she’d learned last night that he had been involved in the investigation, although he hadn’t appeared in the witness box. Franconi had been the lead investigator, so he had taken the stand. Franconi could show off in front of her, but Bronski would already have known the whole story. Stirring her coffee now, she decided to play it by ear and let Franconi mention it, if that’s what he wanted to do.

  Reading over her notes from the file, a mental picture of Jim Moorcroft and Jackie Winters emerged; sitting quietly outside the operating room, while a friend of theirs was fighting for her life. If they hadn’t let themselves into Angela Goodman’s house, concerned that she wasn’t answering
her doorbell and was expecting them, who knows how long she would have clung on to life?

  It became clear in the interview that Jim Moorcroft had known Angela for a number of years and all three were work colleagues at Westford Capitol Insurance. Angela was a Team Leader and both Jim Moorcroft and Jackie Winters were underwriters in her section. Jackie had known Angela for just over two years. Originally Jackie had been a lodger in Jim’s house, but they’d developed a relationship and were now partners.

  Angela had spent the night of the attack at their house having a meal and Jim had dropped her home. The time he reported tallied with the neighbours’ reports of a car and loud music. He admitted that he always played his CDs loudly and hadn’t really considered the neighbours. Jim also insisted he had gone straight back to their house after dropping Angela off, although Jackie admitted that she’d been asleep and never heard him come in. Their stories seemed genuine enough and Annie and Bronski hadn’t seen any need to get them to come down to the station. They could always be interviewed again if necessary. They also filled in details of their discovery of Angela. Annie remembered how Jackie Winters had cringed when she recalled Angela’s almost lifeless form upstairs in the bedroom.

  Annie next turned to her notes from the hospital. The doctors were not holding out much hope when she and Bronski interviewed them yesterday, following the surgery. Last night, just before Franconi picked her up, she’d heard a brief piece on the news about the attack. Obviously, one of the neighbours must have sought their fifteen minutes of fame. This morning, there was also a brief follow up on the radio. Annie decided that she would ring the hospital to verify the details in the news item. Better to have all the facts ready for Franconi.