by Adam Croft
‘Only in your spare time, alright? We’re a small team, Dex. We need to stay focused. You’ve got to keep your head in the game here and work on the lines of inquiry we’ve already got open. We can’t have too many different leads or we’ll lose focus and the right one’ll be gone.’
‘Gotcha. Mum’s the word.’
‘Thanks, Dex. Oh, by the way, I’ll be late in tomorrow. Got an appointment first thing. Can you keep an eye on things and get the ball rolling for a court order for the library CCTV? We’ll need to move on that quickly if nothing comes in by the end of the day.’
‘Acting Detective Inspector Antoine. Got a nice ring to it.’
Caroline laughed. ‘Yeah. Well don’t get too attached to it, will you?’
38
The next morning, Caroline pulled her car into the now-familiar car park and turned off the engine. It wasn’t a place she enjoyed visiting, but she hoped today could signal that it wouldn’t be necessary to make too many more visits.
She walked over to the pay and display machine, bought a ticket and put it on her dashboard, before locking her car and walking into the main building.
A little over twenty minutes later, she was sitting in a comfortable chair inside the brightly-lit consulting room of Mr Pankash Anand, the man who’d come to know her more intimately than her own husband over recent months.
‘How have you been getting on?’ he asked her, his kind face and gentle smile immediately putting her at ease, as it always did.
‘Okay, I think.’
‘Any side effects? Dizziness? Vomiting?’
Caroline shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. I’ve been fine.’
‘Alright, good. Well, as you know, we did some scans last week to try and get a better idea of how things are progressing and to see where we go from here. The upshot of it is that there has been some progress, but not quite as much as we’d like. We’ve seen some shrinkage of the tumour, but it really is pretty minimal. To be honest, if we continued with the treatment as is, at best I’d predict little to no change over the coming months, with the distinct possibility that it could potentially grow or spread further, which of course is what we want to avoid.’
Caroline swallowed. ‘Right. What does that mean?’
‘Well, there’s no real way of knowing what damage the cancer could be doing to your ovaries in the long run. But, to be honest, the same could be said of the treatment. As things stand it’s been quite targeted. We’d hoped the paraplatin on its own would be enough, but I think now we need to think longer term. There are two potential routes here. We could look at a more generalised chemotherapy, which of course has its own worries and side effects. We’d be talking hair loss, more extreme nausea, exhaustion. Chemotherapy attacks all fast-growing cells, even the healthy ones. The other option, and if we go down this route we’ll need to move fast, is the surgical option. In my opinion, the tumour is small enough to operate on, but it’s marginal. We’d need to operate quickly, because if it were to grow any more, we’d need to go down the heavy chemotherapy route anyway to shrink the tumour enough to get it to an operable state again. Does that make sense?’
‘Yeah. I think so. To be honest, I’m struggling with the exhaustion as it is. What would the surgical route mean?’
‘It’d be an overnight stay, at the least. Antibiotics, potentially intravenous steroids.’
‘Would I be left with a scar?’
‘There would be a surgical scar, yes. We’d go in through the abdominal wall. But that route isn’t risk-free, either. I have to tell you there is a chance we’d have to take out the uterus or Fallopian tubes if there’s a chance the cancer has spread, or if it’s deemed safest to do so.’
The thought sent shockwaves through Caroline. She and Mark had never intended to have more children, but the prospect of having the possibility taken away from her was heartbreaking. More than that, in that instant it made her feel less of a woman.
But there was no denying further, heavier chemotherapy wasn’t an option either. She’d been fortunate with the paraplatin. As a targeted treatment, it meant she’d had no hair loss or outward physical signs of cancer. She’d had the usual vomiting and exhaustion — not that she’d admitted that to the consultant. Now, there was nowhere left to run. She either went down the intense chemotherapy route with all that entailed, or she opted for surgery and the scars she’d be left with for life — with that as the best possible outcome of that particular option.
She leaned back in her chair and contemplated what life was going to become. Either way, she had to face up to it. She was going to need to tell Mark. It would affect her work, her home life, her relationships. There was no way out of it. No way of hiding it. Not anymore.
39
Caroline headed into work, glad to be able to dive into something which would take her mind off the appointment she’d just had.
Almost as soon as she arrived, Sara Henshaw updated her on what she’d missed.
‘Good news and bad news,’ she said. ‘CCTV came in from the library just after you left yesterday. I’ve gone through it all, but there’s no-one of interest at all, at least not around the time the email was sent.’
‘No Patrick Walsh?’
‘No. No-one on our list of suspects. No-one I recognised at all. I asked the library for anyone who used the computer terminals within two hours of the time the email was sent, but no-one had. It was a pretty quiet day by all accounts. So either the person who sent it isn’t the person who killed Roger, or they’re someone we haven’t met or spoken to yet.’
‘Or they accessed the library’s wifi from outside the building.’
‘Or that. There’s external CCTV on the corner of Burley Road, which covers the roundabout area. I don’t think it’s going to be much use, though.’
‘So what are our options?’
Sara sighed. ‘Difficult to say. I need to speak to the tech guys and see if there’s a way it could’ve been done remotely. Leave it with me.’
Caroline thanked Sara, feeling once again as if they’d hit a brick wall. Every time there was the possibility of a lead or a breakthrough, it seemed as though something else pulled the rug from under their feet.
Barely a few seconds after Sara left, there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
‘Got something for you,’ Aidan said. ‘Phone records for Patrick Walsh. Could potentially be good news, but there’s a caveat.’
‘Go on.’
‘Okay. On the night Roger Clifton was murdered, Walsh definitely wasn’t at home. Based on cell site data, if he had his phone on him, he wasn’t even in Oakham. But coverage is patchy, so we can’t pin him down exactly. There’s actually a pretty wide area he could’ve been in — nearly ten kilometres across — but guess what’s right near the centre of it?’
‘Please tell me the answer is Normanton Church.’
Aidan passed her a sheet of A4 paper, on which a map was printed, showing the overlay of the cell site data. Every mobile phone constantly pings nearby cell towers to maintain a reception, and most are connected to multiple towers at once. Each tower doesn’t know where that mobile phone is, but it does know its distance. By knowing a phone was a specific distance from multiple different masts, it was possible to narrow its location down to within a few feet in some areas of the country. In Rutland, however, where cell masts were few and far between, it was a very different matter.
‘Jesus Christ. That’s amazing, Aidan,’ Caroline said, confirming her hopes that Normanton Church sat nicely in the middle of the area in which Patrick Walsh’s phone was known to have been.
‘It is, but it’s nowhere near enough. There are a million and one other places inside that patch where he could’ve been. It still doesn’t place him at Normanton.’
‘It doesn’t, but it’s a bloody good start. It’s another step closer, without a doubt.’
‘Certainly doesn’t take him out of the picture just yet.’
‘It’s
more than that. This might even be enough to bring him in and start to pick holes in his story.’
‘Perhaps. I’m not so sure. I think we need something more concrete before we bring him in. We don’t want him wriggling off. And if it’s not him, we’re up shit creek without a paddle. The guy’s virtually a celebrity.’
Although she could see the sense in what Aidan was saying, Caroline had been sure since the moment she set eyes on Patrick Walsh that he was her man. So far, nothing had dissuaded her from that notion. On the contrary, every time they unpicked another piece of information, it seemed to lead them one step closer to him. There was nothing conclusive, but to Caroline that was only a sign that Patrick Walsh had covered his footprints well. To get any closer, they needed to put him in the spotlight, find the holes in his defence and pick it apart until he had no choice but to tell them what had happened.
‘I hear what you’re saying, Aidan, but I’ve made a decision. Arrest Walsh on suspicion of murder. Bring him in.’
40
Although there were many questions Caroline wanted to ask Patrick Walsh, some of them would have to wait.
The process of the formal police interview under caution was always much the same, regardless of the suspect. The first interview was designed to elicit the basic facts, regardless of what they already knew to be true. The idea was to give the suspect enough rope to hang themselves with. Even if they knew damn well where they’d been at the moment the crime was committed, it was far more advantageous to ask them where they were than to tell them. The second interview could then be used to reveal the evidence which would prove they’d lied in their first interview. At this point, the pressure would be applied in the hope of the suspect admitting the truth under the pressure of growing and overwhelming evidence.
She chose to conduct the interview herself, with Dexter sitting alongside her. Walsh had opted to attend the interview on his own, without a solicitor or legal representation. This was something many suspects did, presumably in an attempt to give the impression that they had nothing to hide. In reality, it did the complete opposite. An innocent person arrested for murder doesn’t try to wriggle out of it on their own; they immediately call a solicitor and seek the best legal advice possible to clear their name. Walsh’s approach smacked of arrogance, and Caroline didn’t like it one bit.
Walsh sailed through the first interview, claiming he was at home at the time Roger Clifton was murdered — something they now knew to be untrue. He also claimed he had no intimate connection with Alice Clifton, and knew the family only through their involvement with Empingham Methodist Church. Caroline had seen with her own eyes that this was also a lie.
Having left him to stew for an hour or two before interviewing him the first time, Caroline was tickled when Walsh presumed he was then free to go. She’d taken great delight in disabusing him of that notion, telling him they’d need to interview him again later in the day, then escorting him back to his cell.
Although the clock wasn’t strictly on their side, and they only had twenty-four hours from booking him in until they had to either charge or release him, Caroline was a fan of using it to her advantage. Winding the clock down meant Walsh would either get increasingly annoyed and frustrated or — perhaps even better — would gain a false sense of confidence, presuming the police were struggling. Knowing Walsh’s arrogant personality, Caroline was willing to put money on the latter.
The team had been busy collating further evidence, looking for proof that he’d sent Roger Clifton the death threat by email, and were attempting to make forensic links. Walsh’d had his DNA taken on being booked into custody, and Caroline had been frantically awaiting results of a link. She knew it was unlikely they’d come back in time, but waiting had the added benefit of leaving him to stew in his cell for a little while longer.
By the time Walsh’s second interview rolled around, it was approaching midnight. Chief Superintendent Derek Arnold had hung around until just past ten, keen to keep abreast of the situation. After all, murder didn’t often visit Rutland. But even he had given in to the call of home, leaving only Caroline, Dexter, Sara and Aidan in the office.
Caroline and Dexter sat down in the interview room, trying to look more awake and alert than Walsh, who’d had nothing to do but sleep in his cell for the past few hours, and hoped their fixes of black coffee and Haribo Tangfastics would keep them going long enough. With Walsh’s custody clock running out late the next morning, they could be in for a long ride yet.
‘So, Patrick. You told us you were at home on the night Roger Clifton was murdered, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ Walsh said, a little less certain than he had sounded earlier.
‘Okay. We’ve got mobile phone cell site data which shows the approximate area your phone was in at the time. Do you want to change your answer based on that?’
At this point, most suspects tended to try to wriggle out of it by claiming they’d lost their phone or had left it somewhere accidentally. Proof of their mobile phone’s location wasn’t the same as proof of their location.
Walsh swallowed and sat back in his chair, folding his arms. He glanced off to the side, as if trying to concoct a story in his head.
‘No comment.’
It was another common belief that no-commenting one’s way through an interview would somehow absolve them of guilt. On the contrary, when cases reached court, judges tended to look unfavourably on uncooperative defendants.
‘Okay, let’s try something else,’ Caroline said. ‘You told us in your first interview that you had no real connection or relationship with any of the Clifton family, and that you knew them only through the church. Do you want to change anything there?’
Walsh shook his head. ‘No.’
‘I’d like you to take a look at this photo.’ Caroline passed Walsh a printout of the photo she’d taken of him and Alice Clifton outside Orbis. ‘Do you recognise the people in this photo?’
Walsh’s jaw tensed. ‘No comment.’
‘Is the male you?’
‘No comment.’
‘I think it looks quite a lot like you.’
‘No comment.’
‘In fact, I think it is you. Do you recognise the female?’
‘No. No comment.’
‘I hate to burst your bubble, Patrick, but that is a comment. Is the female Alice Clifton?’ Walsh didn’t answer. ‘That’s you and Alice Clifton, isn’t it, Patrick? What are you both doing in this picture?’ Although it was blindingly obvious what they were doing, Caroline was keen to lead him into answering, as opposed to putting everything in front of him at once. ‘Are you and Alice Clifton in a relationship? How long has that relationship been going on? Did you kill Roger Clifton because you wanted to be with his wife?’
‘No. I didn’t kill Roger.’
This was the first time Patrick had explicitly denied his involvement in the murder. Caroline pushed harder.
‘It looks to me a lot like you did. Here you are, captured on camera, kissing Alice Clifton. Your phone indicates you were in the vicinity of Normanton Church at the time her husband was murdered. It’s not looking great, is it?’
‘I wasn’t in Normanton. I was in Empingham.’
There was silence in the interview room for a second or two. Caroline glanced down at the cell site map she’d been given, and sensed Dexter doing the same. It was true. The highlighted area showing the possible locations of Patrick’s phone did include Empingham. Walsh knew they had cell site data, but he hadn’t seen the map so would have had no way of knowing how wide the radius was. He had no way of knowing it included Empingham. It would have been one hell of a gamble on his part, so Caroline’s assumption had to be that he was telling the truth.
‘Empingham? Why’s that?’
Walsh let out a huge sigh. ‘I was with Alice.’
‘Alice Clifton?’
‘Yes.’
‘What for?’
Walsh looked up and made eye contact with Caroline. ‘W
hat do you think?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘Put it this way: I stayed overnight.’
‘With a friend you vaguely knew from church?’ Walsh didn’t answer. ‘Or is there a bit more to it than that?’
‘You know damn well there is.’
‘I know nothing until you tell me, Patrick. And from where I’m sitting it seems like a very good idea for you to start telling me, because right now you’re on the verge of being charged with the murder of Roger Clifton.’
He looked at Caroline again. ‘I didn’t kill Roger. End of.’
‘No, it’s not “end of”. This is very much the beginning. If you want anything ended, you’ll need to tell us everything.’
Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he answered.
‘I’m saying nothing. I want a lawyer.’
41
Caroline left the interview room feeling more frustrated than ever. She was almost certain she’d been on the verge of getting a confession out of Patrick Walsh, but now that seemed a million miles away.
Part of her felt worried at having let the custody clock run down so far. They were now more than halfway through, and she’d been left in the position of trying to get hold of a duty solicitor at gone midnight. She privately wondered whether that had been Walsh’s plan all along. But then why admit the affair? None of it made any sense to her. She was tired. Knackered. Very little was going to make sense when her mind was like this.
She wondered if she might be able to grab an hour’s kip somewhere — in her office, perhaps. She didn’t do well with naps. She tended to wake up rattier than before, but it was the only option she had. There was no way she was going to get home before lunchtime. There was always a good chance, too, the custody clock could be extended if her superiors agreed a little more time was needed. It was an option that was only available in the most serious of cases, and there weren’t many more serious than murder.
