The DCI Isaac Cook Thriller Series: Books 1 -3

by Phillip Strang

  ‘The romance ended?’

  ‘There was a complication.’

  ‘A child?’

  ‘People just didn’t think about the risk of pregnancy. Assumed it wouldn’t happen to them.’

  ‘What did the father do?’

  ‘Married me quickly in Gretna Green, and then told his father, the Lord.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Paid my father to hush it up. I spent six months hidden from the world in a convent. Once it was born, it was taken from me.’

  ‘And what became of the child?’

  ‘For many years, I never knew.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘One year ago.’

  ‘Did you contact the child?’

  ‘No. It was such a long time ago; I didn’t feel any connection.’

  ‘Is the child the reason these murders have occurred? The reason you are frightened?’

  ‘When I found out who the child was.’

  ‘Who is this child?’

  ‘If you know, you are at risk.’

  ‘What about the father?’

  ‘He doesn’t want it known who the child is.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to him?’

  ‘I tried, but he hung the phone up on me.’

  Isaac could see it was going to be a long day. He still had Christy Nichols to deal with, as well as Jess, who was anxious to see him.

  The search for Linda Harris had been abandoned. Angus MacTavish had contacted him with the news that she had been assigned overseas. Isaac accepted the truth. There still remained the issue as to who had killed Richard Williams, the assumption that Linda Harris had come in the front door, while the assassin had gone out the back. If it had not been Linda, surely they would have reported the dead body rather than leave it to Farhan and Wendy to find.

  Linda Harris, now clearly identified as MI5, would not have wanted to report the murder. That may well have warranted a closer inspection into her background.

  Farhan phoned for some food to be delivered from a restaurant down the road. It was only pizzas – Marjorie Frobisher complained.

  The interview resumed at two in the afternoon. Farhan asked the first question. ‘Does your husband know about the child?’

  ‘No. I never told him.’

  ‘Is he safe?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Those who want to silence me will not harm him.’

  ‘Are you convinced that your life is in danger?’

  ‘They killed Richard, didn’t they?’

  ‘Why would they do that? Why not you?’

  ‘You couldn’t find me, neither could they.’

  ‘That’s true, but now you’re visible.’

  ‘I couldn’t disappear forever. I’d rather be dead than continue to live as a hermit.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Was I what?’

  ‘Living as a hermit.’

  ‘Almost. Before I went to Malvern, a remote place up north.’

  ‘Yours.’

  ‘It belonged to my father. A fishing shack, nothing else. Nobody knew about it, not even Richard Williams.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘His protection, not that it did him much good. He still ended up dead.’

  ‘You’re safe here,’ Isaac said.

  The woman made a disparaging gesture, shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m not safe here. If they want me dead, they’ll find a way.’

  ‘The police are protecting you now.’

  ‘And the police could be called away, told to turn a blind eye.’

  ‘Why would we do that?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘National security.’

  ‘Who is this child? I need to know.’

  ‘Ask Angus MacTavish. He’ll tell you.’

  The statement came as a surprise. MacTavish had always been suspect, but he was now directly implicated. Isaac needed to contact his boss.

  Isaac wrapped up the interview, stating that he needed to take advice. She had not been willing to make any more comments, after revealing MacTavish as a key person.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ Isaac said as he put on his coat.

  ‘If I’m still here.’

  ‘Farhan will stay.’

  It had been the night that Farhan had intended to meet up with Aisha. He had no alternative, but to comply. He hoped Aisha would understand.

  ***

  Isaac’s initial reaction to Marjorie Frobisher’s comment was to ask to meet his boss, but he realised this was not the most important issue.

  One murder investigation had to be wrapped up. Eileen Kerr, Christy Nichol’s legal representative, was in the building and acting on advice from her client, she would be the sole person with the woman at the interview.

  Farhan would normally have been with Isaac in the interview room, but he was out protecting Marjorie Frobisher. Wendy was delegated in his place.

  Their boss chose to observe through a one-way window into the interview room – a room that was pleasant enough under normal circumstances, dreary under any other. The accused was led in, a policewoman accompanying her. Wendy felt sorry for her but did not let it show.

  Christy Nichols was very pale, her head bent, avoiding eye contact. Her legal representative, Eileen Kerr, touched her on the arm in a gesture of reassurance and friendship.

  ‘Could you please state your name.’ Isaac had started the recording, both video and audio.

  ‘Christy Marigold Nichols.’

  ‘You are charged with the murder of Charles Sutherland.’

  ‘I did not kill him. I hated him, but not enough to kill him.’

  ‘Charles Sutherland died due to ingesting a lethal dose of arsenic.’

  ‘I did not give it to him.’

  ‘But you knew about the effects of arsenic. Is that correct?’

  ‘Why would I know that?’

  Wendy, on a prearranged cue from Isaac, spoke. ‘Your father died of arsenic poisoning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you know of the effects of arsenic?’ Isaac took over again.

  ‘He used it for rat killer.’

  ‘You were questioned at the time of his death?’

  ‘We all were.’

  Wendy spoke again. ‘I visited the village where you lived. I saw a woman at the house.’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘Your relationship with your mother?’

  ‘There is no relationship.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Isaac asked. ‘Because of the death of your father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘She never protected me from him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He beat us and…’

  ‘Did he abuse you?’

  ‘Sometimes. When he was drunk.’

  ‘And that was often? Isaac asked. Eileen Kerr asked for an adjournment. Isaac refused.

  ‘This abuse?’ Wendy asked. ‘We need to know.’

  ‘He used to touch me.’

  ‘Sexual intercourse?’ Isaac had to ask.

  ‘No. He wanted to touch me. He wanted me to touch him.’

  ‘And you did?’

  ‘If I didn’t, he would beat me.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘She let him.’

  ‘She was there?’

  ‘No, but she could have told someone, done something.’

  ‘Why didn’t you report it?’

  ‘I was scared. If no one believed me, he would have beat me more.’

  Wendy started to choke up. She had heard the story before when she had been looking for missing children. How many times, the father abusing the pretty daughter? How many times had the child been returned to the parents, their accusations dismissed? One child had been returned against her will. She had ended up dead, had hanged herself with a length of rope in her bathroom at home. Wendy, in her darkest moments, thought back to that girl.

  Isaac had one question to a
sk, a crucial question, but it would have to wait. The accused was in no condition to continue. Her legal support argued for an adjournment. He had no option but to comply. The interview was to resume in sixty minutes.

  Isaac met his boss in the adjoining room.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘What are you trying to make her admit to? The murder of her father or Charles Sutherland?’

  ‘Either, both.’

  ‘Fine. Play it carefully. The father, she could get off on a technicality. It’s an old case, recorded as death by misadventure. Proving that will not be so easy.’

  ‘I realise that. I just need to break her denial.’

  ‘Pretty woman. A shame, really.’

  ‘Pretty, as you say, but we’re here to solve a murder.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  Isaac was still anxious to discuss the other matter; his boss, not so keen.

  ‘MacTavish?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Wrap this up, and then we’ll discuss it. Marjorie Frobisher’s comment complicates the situation.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘How did she know Angus MacTavish? He’s not indicated this before.’

  ‘Maybe he’s not met her. Maybe someone else did.’

  ‘Wrap Sutherland’s murder up. We’ll discuss MacTavish later.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Isaac knew it was the best he could expect.

  ***

  Christy Nichols looked composed when she returned to the interview room. Isaac went through the formal restarting of the interview. Richard Goddard watched from outside. Wendy said little.

  ‘It is evident,’ Isaac stated calmly,’ that you are aware of the effects of arsenic poisoning. Will you admit to that?’

  ‘I knew my father used it to kill rats.’

  ‘Did you hate your father?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Miss Nichols, please answer the question.’

  ‘I hated him for what he did to me, what he made me do.’

  ‘Enough to kill him?’

  ‘I wished him dead.’

  ‘You had the means and the knowledge.’

  Eileen Kerr spoke, ‘You are attempting to force my client to admit to a crime that the police have officially declared closed – death by misadventure.’

  Isaac was careful how he proceeded. ‘Charles Sutherland made Miss Nichols, by her own admission, commit an act that her father had made her do. My purpose is to establish whether the level of hate she felt for Sutherland was the same as she felt for her father.’

  ‘I hated Sutherland. He brought back all those memories. Memories I had suppressed.’

  ‘Memories so vivid that you saw your father standing there, not Charles Sutherland.’

  ‘Yes. Of course I did.’

  ‘And knowing this, you determined to kill him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am putting it to you that you went back to his room, acted amorously, and ensured he drank the poison.’

  ‘That’s not true. You’re trying to make me say it.’

  Wendy felt that Isaac had overstepped the mark, but he had told her to keep quiet. Eileen Kerr wanted to speak, but could not, insistent as Isaac was on maintaining the pressure.

  There was only one flaw that he could see. Where had she procured the arsenic? He decided to proceed. He was certain she was guilty. The issue of the arsenic would resolve itself later.

  ‘Miss Nichols. You had the motive and the knowledge, and you are the only person with a sufficiently strong motive. You are guilty. Your continual denial will only worsen the case against you.’

  ‘Are you saying I killed my father as well?’

  ‘Did you? We can always reopen that case.’

  ‘He was a bastard.’

  ‘Who was?

  ‘My father.’

  ‘Is that why you killed him?’

  Isaac had seen it before. The moment where the accused decides to ease their conscience.

  ‘That was an accident. I saw him do it.’

  ‘It gave you the idea.’

  ‘The man was obnoxious. He made me swallow it.’

  ‘Which man?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Sutherland.’ A one-word reply.

  ‘Is that when you decided to kill him?’

  ‘Not then. Later.’

  ‘Why later?’

  ‘I had to get some arsenic.’

  ‘You had some?’

  ‘At my apartment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It reminded me of what killed my father,’ she said. Isaac could see a plea of diminished responsibility.

  ‘Christy Marigold Nichols. Are you admitting to the murder of Charles Sutherland?’

  ‘I’m glad I did it. Yes, I killed him, the horrible man.’

  Eileen Kerr sat back on her chair, her arms folded. Wendy held a handkerchief to her eyes to conceal the tears welling up. Isaac, who should have been feeling a degree of smugness, satisfaction on a job well done, felt neither.

  Richard Goddard was delighted, congratulated Isaac on his good police work. Isaac accepted the congratulations.

  Sometime after, once the written statement had been dealt with, and Christy Nichols had been returned to her cell, Isaac came back to Marjorie Frobisher’s comment.

  Chapter 39

  ‘What about Marjorie Frobisher?’ Isaac asked in the comfort of Richard Goddard’s office.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Her relationship to Angus MacTavish.’

  ‘She mentioned his name. What does it mean?’ The detective superintendent asked.

  ‘I don’t know what it means. She has dangled the carrot in front of us. Do we take it?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Confront MacTavish.’

  ‘And if he denies it?’

  ‘We’ll cross that hurdle when we come to it.’

  ‘Is there anyone we can trust?’

  ‘Nobody.’ Isaac saw the truth in his senior’s question. Who could be trusted? Marjorie Frobisher? Angus MacTavish? To Isaac, there was no clear road forward, only possibilities, lies, and more lies. He knew that he would need to make decisions that could solve the case or not – his career he saw as barely viable. Whatever happened, it appeared as if he would be on the wrong side of someone or something. If Angus MacTavish was hiding something, how to get him to open up? And what about Linda Harris? He had slept with her. Did she murder Williams, and then stage the open back door at his house?

  Isaac remembered that there was one other issue to consider – Sally Jenkins. She had been murdered, and on the face of it by someone she knew. Someone who had not sexually violated her. If it was someone she knew, it could only be Richard Williams. If it was female, then Linda Harris.

  Isaac could not see Williams as the murdering type, but then he didn’t envisage Linda Harris in that role either. All his years of policing, training, and profiling and still he got it wrong. It concerned him that he still made mistakes. Mistakes that had resulted in deaths in the past. But what of the future? Would Marjorie Frobisher be another one if he acted inappropriately?

  Only one man knew the answers. Isaac decided that he needed to see MacTavish, and if his boss was unwilling, he would go on his own.

  ***

  Marjorie Frobisher anxiously paced around the cottage. Farhan kept to one side, letting her rant and rave. The situation was tense. She couldn’t stay in the cottage; she couldn’t leave.

  Farhan realised that she was a difficult woman. His wife idolised her, or, at least, the character she portrayed. He wondered how his wife would react if she saw the reality. Would she be able to separate the actor from the person or would she be disillusioned? It was a moot point. He knew that he had to do something to calm their key witness down. If she left, how long would she remain alive? Both he and Isaac were convinced her life was at risk. If she stayed, would she keep hitting the bottle of vodka? Either it’s death by assassin or death by alcoholic poisoning,
he thought.

  There was nothing in her records that indicated abuse of alcohol, but Farhan thought that it was another fact about the woman that had been carefully concealed.

  ‘You need to stay. It’s just too dangerous out there,’ Farhan had said.

  Sober, she had agreed. Now, he was not so certain. She was not there charged with any crime; she was free to come and go as she pleased.

  He contacted Isaac for advice. ‘She’s difficult.’

  ‘She must stay.’ Isaac said, not entirely focussed on his DI’s concerns. He had made the decision to phone MacTavish direct.

  MacTavish’s first action, after agreeing to Isaac’s request, was to phone Richard Goddard. He was in Isaac’s office within five minutes.

  ‘What right have you to contact MacTavish?’

  ‘What option did I have?’

  ‘It was my call.’

  ‘I agree, but your position is on the line. I’m expendable; you’re not,’ Isaac said.

  ‘You’re no more expendable than I am, but you don’t know who or what you’re dealing with. ‘MacTavish is the government whip. He’s got the dirt on everyone.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  ‘Everyone of importance. He’s known all along.’

  ‘You’ve known this?’ Isaac asked, surprised at this revelation.

  ‘I’ve always suspected it. Marjorie Frobisher’s statement confirms it.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘We go and see MacTavish.’

  ‘Someone has to tell us something. Who do you suggest?’

  ‘MacTavish, if he’ll talk. The woman, if he doesn’t.’

  ‘I don’t like this. I’m meant to be a policeman. This is out of my league.’

  ‘And mine.’

  ‘And what about Marjorie Frobisher?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Tell DI Ahmed to restrain her by force if he has to.’

  ‘She won’t like it.’

  ‘What do I care. Three people are dead as a direct result of her great secret. What she wants is of little concern. I’ll not have her death on my conscience,’ Detective Superintendent Goddard said.

  ***

  Life out at the production lot had returned to a semblance of normality. The soap opera was to continue, murders or no murders – the ratings and the revenues decreed it.