Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery)

by Leigh Russell

  He smiled, admiring his own deftness in getting out of trouble.

  ‘And? What did he say?’

  ‘He told me it’s worth a lot. A good few thousand, he reckoned. So I thought to myself, when am I ever gonna get anything like that for my girl? You know I always been good to you.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘It’s special,’ he pressed on. ‘Only the best is good enough for my girl, that’s what I thought. It’s a real rock. It’s what you deserve.’

  ‘It didn’t cost you a penny.’

  ‘I could’ve sold it and kept the dosh, but I wanted to give it to you. You’re worth more than any amount of dosh to me.’

  She looked dubious, then she fluttered her hand in front of his face. The diamond sparkled. Different colours seemed to shine from it, mesmerising. It might be really valuable, worth far more than he could ever afford.

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased. Of course, if you don’t want it –’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Of course I want it. Anyway, it’s mine now, ain’t it?’

  He considered, while she waved her hand in front of his face. The diamond glowed at him with a seductive inner fire. She was right. Bloody hell. It could be worth thousands. He had to get it back. Seeing the ring sit loosely on her finger, he had a brain wave.

  ‘It don’t look right. It’s too big. It might fit on your index finger.’

  She fell for it at once. ‘No way. It goes on this finger. It’s an engagement ring, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll have to get it fixed then, so it fits proper, like it was made for you. You don’t want it falling off because it don’t fit.’

  ‘You want me to give it back to you?’

  ‘Just till I get it made so it fits proper.’

  ‘But we’d still be engaged?’

  ‘If you want. Yes, yes, of course,’ he changed his answer quickly, seeing her expression darken. ‘That don’t make no difference. Come on, give it here so I can get it fixed proper. You wouldn’t know where to take it. You can’t trust a stranger with a rock like that. Rip you off as soon as look at you. Any old jeweller’s going to replace a real diamond with a shit bit of glass, and you won’t even know.’

  ‘This is a real diamond, ain’t it, Lenny?’

  ‘Only the best for my girl, that’s what I said. Look, I’ll take it to a geezer I know and he’ll sort it just like that, no questions asked. You’ll have it back in no time.’

  ‘How do I know I can trust you not to nick it off me?’

  ‘What you talking about, you daft cow? I gave it you in the first place. It’s worth a fucking fortune and that’s what you’re worth to me.’

  She couldn’t argue with that. Reverently she slipped it off her finger and replaced it in the box. Pocketing it, he suppressed a grin. He had plans of his own for her new trinket. He was going to clean up, and she would never know.

  4

  ENTERING HER OFFICE, Geraldine was surprised to see someone occupying the desk that had belonged to her former colleague, Nick. No one living knew that she had been involved in a brief affair with him before he had been murdered. She braced herself to be civil to the man now sitting in Nick’s place, on his chair, at his desk, fingers moving swiftly over the keyboard that had felt Nick’s touch.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Her new colleague spun round then sprang to his feet, one hand extended in greeting. Fighting to control her distress, she was aware of laughter creases around blue eyes that smiled a welcome. He was young and fair haired. With candid eyes, straight nose, slightly sunken cheeks and a neat pointed chin, he was charismatic rather than good looking. He gave an impression of energy, a physical dynamism that she couldn’t help finding attractive.

  ‘Neil Roberts,’ he said as he shook her hand firmly. ‘You must be Geraldine.’

  They sat down and chatted briefly. Neil was also a detective inspector, and recently promoted to the Met from Surrey.

  ‘I’m really excited to be in London,’ he added with boyish enthusiasm.

  Geraldine couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘You’re on this new case, aren’t you? The mugging.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m on standby right now, so if there’s anything I can do –’

  Geraldine turned away, momentarily overcome. Nick had made the same offer once.

  ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled. ‘And now, I need to crack on. I’ve got to go and tell the wife.’

  David Lester had lived with his wife near West Acton station, straight through on the underground from Central London. Laura was considerably younger than him, and they had only been married for two years. They had no children. Aware that the traffic could be slow moving, Geraldine decided to take the underground. If there were delays, at least she would be able to work on the train. Arriving in West Acton, she walked along a street of small black and white houses. With a wide, leafy central reservation running along the centre of the road, it was an attractive estate. She turned off into a side street and found the house she was looking for, a small end of terrace cottage. A plump blonde woman came to the door. She looked about thirty. For a moment Geraldine wondered if she was David Lester’s daughter.

  ‘Are you related to David Lester?’

  ‘He’s my husband.’

  ‘May I come in?’

  On learning who Geraldine was, the young woman fired a series of questions at her.

  ‘What do you want? What’s this about? Has something happened to David? He didn’t come home last night. Where is he? What’s happened? Is he in trouble? He’s in trouble, isn’t he? Where is he?’

  Geraldine urged Laura to invite her in. ‘It would be better if you sat down.’

  The other woman’s face grew pale, as though she understood what was coming, but she persisted with her aggressive questions. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  At last they went inside. Laura sat down on a pink leather sofa. Geraldine perched on a matching armchair and glanced around the room. On a mantelpiece above a boxed-in fireplace she saw what she was looking for: a photograph of the dead man with one arm around the woman who sat facing her.

  ‘Mrs Lester,’ she began softly. ‘I’m really sorry to bring you some bad news.’

  She remembered hearing about the death of her own adoptive mother, and the initial feeling of disbelief that had protected her. In those first moments, being the bearer of terrible news was worse than receiving it. Only later would reality hit, once the shock had subsided.

  ‘I’m afraid we have reason to believe your husband, David, has been the victim of a fatal mugging.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand. He didn’t come home last night – or at least, he wasn’t home when I went to bed, but they were going out for a meal because someone was leaving, so I knew he’d be late. That’s all. He must have come home in the early hours of the morning, and gone out again before I woke up. It’s nothing more than that. I’m sorry for your trouble but you’ve got this all wrong. You’ve made a big mistake. I never even reported him missing.’ She gave a high-pitched laugh. ‘You ask David, he’ll tell you, I’m the worrier. If there’s anything wrong, I’m always the first to suspect it, but he’s fine, I know he is. He knows how to take care of himself. He always takes care of me. I’m the one –’

  She stopped talking abruptly and burst into tears. Geraldine gave her a moment before asking if there was anyone who could come round.

  Laura shook her head. ‘I want David, I want David.’

  As gently as she could, Geraldine told the distraught woman what had happened. Laura cried and shook her head. All at once she raised a tear-stained face.

  ‘Mugged?’ she repeated. ‘You said he was mugged?’

  ‘It appears that way. We need you to identify the body to be sure it is your husband.’

  The newly bereaved widow nodded her head.

  ‘Laura, I know this is difficult, but there are certain questions I need to ask you. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted your husband dead?
’

  ‘You said he was mugged.’

  ‘That’s what we think, but we have to consider every possibility.’

  Ignoring Geraldine’s question, Laura wanted to know what had been stolen.

  ‘We don’t know. We assume his wallet was stolen as he had no money or phone on his person, only a set of keys and an Oyster card.’

  ‘What about my ring? Did he have my ring? You need to check his pockets. It’ll be in a box.’

  Geraldine sat forward. ‘What ring?’

  ‘He was taking my engagement ring to London to get it resized. I told him not to take it all the way up there. He could have lost it, or… he said he was going to try and get to the jewellers yesterday to take it in, but he rang when he finished work and said he hadn’t had time to get there but he said he’d take it in today. That’s why he was mugged, wasn’t it? My ring, my ring. It was my engagement ring.’

  Laura broke down in tears, ostensibly more distraught at the loss of her engagement ring than the death of her husband. Geraldine waited a moment for her to regain control of herself. The theft of the ring could be significant.

  ‘Laura, listen to me. I need you to tell me about your ring.’

  ‘It was my engagement ring.’

  ‘Do you know how much it was worth?’

  Laura looked up, nodding. ‘It was one point seven carat, a nearly perfect brilliant cut white solitaire set in white gold.’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘What would that be worth? Do you know?’

  ‘I can get the insurance certificate.’

  The ring had been insured for fourteen thousand pounds. Even if it could be sold for half its replacement value, it came to a tidy sum.

  ‘Did the ring have any distinguishing features?’

  ‘What do you mean? It was a ring, an engagement ring.’

  ‘It wasn’t engraved or scratched?’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean. No, nothing like that.’

  ‘Did anyone else know your husband had your ring on him?’

  ‘He said he wasn’t going to tell anyone at work. He wasn’t an idiot. Not that he didn’t trust his colleagues. He’d been there for years. But still, you can’t be too careful.’

  Laura covered her face in her hands and began to sob again. Watching her heaving shoulders, Geraldine was shaken with helpless fury. Death was always dreadful, an unnatural death harder to accept than the result of illness or even accident; casual murder in the course of a mugging must be almost unbearable.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she muttered, embarrassed by the inadequacy of her words.

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever get it back,’ Laura sobbed.

  Geraldine attributed Laura’s preoccupation with her stolen jewellery to displacement. It was disturbing to believe she could be more upset about the loss of her ring than her husband. Yet Geraldine knew she couldn’t rule out the possibility that the weeping widow in front of her might be responsible for her husband’s death.

  5

  LEAVING THE VICTIM’S family home, Geraldine drove to the mortuary. When Sam offered to meet her there, Geraldine said the sergeant would be more usefully employed supervising the team checking CCTV near the crime scene. It was an unspoken secret between them that Sam was queasy around cadavers.The pathologist, Miles Fellowes, was waiting for her when she walked in. Hazel eyes crinkled in a smile, he held up his bloody gloved hands in a welcoming gesture. After they exchanged greetings, she turned her attention to the body. Nearly bald and developing a paunch, David must once have been a good-looking man. Clean shaven, with a large straight nose and thin lips, Geraldine had seen in photographs that his closed eyes were dark and attractive. The original chiselled outline of his lower jaw was easy to see above his double chin. Below rounded shoulders his arms looked muscular, and his legs were toned. He had the appearance of a middle-aged man who ate well and worked out regularly or played a lot of recreational sport.

  ‘He looked after himself,’ Miles said, confirming Geraldine’s initial impression of the dead man. ‘He looks flabby, but he has impressive muscle tone, and he was in good condition, physically. There’s not a lot wrong with him, in fact – apart from being dead,’ he added with a grin.

  ‘I wonder if he knew what was happening?’

  ‘There are no defence wounds. It looks as though he collapsed at once. He was pretty drunk.’

  In some ways it wasn’t a bad way to go. A quick death, in his prime.

  ‘You said he was drunk?’

  ‘Yes. He’d eaten a good meal about an hour before he died. Steak, chips, some sort of gooey trifle, all washed down with at least one bottle of red wine, and a generous shot of brandy.’

  The bullet had been removed. A bloodless hole showed clearly in the centre of the dead man’s chest. Miles laughed when Geraldine said the entry wound looked too small to have been the cause of so much trauma.

  ‘The bullet slipped neatly between his ribs just at the right spot and pierced his heart, and pouf!’

  ‘Was it just the one shot?’

  ‘He was hit once, right in the chest, with a Smith and Wesson. I’m no ballistics expert. You probably know more about the gun than I do. But I can show you exactly where one of the bullets ended up.’

  Geraldine nodded. ‘Other bullets were found at the scene, fired from the same gun. Do you think this could have been a lucky hit in a random round of shots?’

  ‘Not very lucky for him,’ Miles replied, with a lopsided grin. ‘We’ve stripped him of a lambswool jumper and a shirt which have gone off to the forensic lab.’

  ‘And I seem to remember he was wearing dark trousers?’

  ‘You’ve got a good memory for details.’

  ‘That’s my job, to notice things.’

  Miles nodded. ‘Smart navy trousers. Anyway, as I was saying, the bullet reached his heart and he was dead, almost instantaneously.’

  ‘I thought it took four minutes for a person to die.’

  ‘Technically, yes. But this wound was going to be fatal, four minutes or no four minutes. My guess is our fellow here lost consciousness almost immediately, from the shock, and then, you’re right, it took four minutes for all vital signs to cease.’

  ‘Could he have been resuscitated? I mean, if he’d been given medical attention straight away? What if his attacker had tried to stop the bleeding and called for an ambulance?’

  ‘Even if a paramedic team had reached him straight away, I don’t think he could have been saved. His heart was too badly damaged. The bullet went through the left ventricle and severed the root of the aorta.’

  ‘Was there anything to suggest his attacker tried to stop the bleeding?’

  ‘Any bruising around the wound, you mean? No. Nothing at all. But like I said, he was as good as dead once the bullet entered his heart. Even if he had received medical attention straight away, there was too much damage to his heart for him to recover.’

  ‘But his attacker wouldn’t have known that. Whoever attacked him ran off leaving him to bleed to death, without even trying to save his life.’ She paused, staring at the dead man. ‘It’s possible this was a premeditated murder, planned to look like a mugging that went wrong.’

  Miles shrugged. ‘It’s beyond my remit to indulge in that kind of speculation.’

  ‘But it’s possible?’

  ‘Not my job, Geraldine. All I can tell you is that he was shot in the chest and the bullet reached his heart –’

  ‘What’re the chances of that?’

  Miles gazed at her, his hazel eyes momentarily troubled. ‘I wish I could answer that. I wish I could answer all your questions – but then of course you’d be out of a job.’

  He grinned again and she smiled back, although he couldn’t see her mouth behind her mask.

  By the time Geraldine finished writing up her report and left her office it was quite late, so she stopped for a takeaway on her way home. Sitting at her kitchen table, she paused, remembering how she had sat in the same place the previous n
ight. In the urgency of the opening stages of a new investigation she had forgotten about her personal loss. A warm comforting aroma of chips and vinegar rose from the greasy paper on her plate, but she no longer felt hungry. Grief for her dead colleague overcame her and she wept for him, and for all the victims whose killers she had pursued. She had investigated so many murders. She remembered them all.

  6

  AT HALF PAST nine the following morning, Laura came to the mortuary to formally identify the body. It wasn’t necessary for Geraldine to be there in person, but she wanted to observe the young widow’s reaction to the sight of her dead husband. Geraldine met Laura in the visitors’ room. Her fluffy black coat looked brand new, as did her patent leather shoes. Geraldine wondered if she had bought them after learning about her husband’s death. There hadn’t been much time.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Geraldine asked.

  The widow dabbed at her heavily made-up eyes with a tissue, and nodded without speaking.

  ‘Would you like another minute?’

  ‘No.’ Laura’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  She stood up, her face pale, her lips trembling. With a pang, Geraldine remembered she was not yet thirty, very young to be facing this personal tragedy.

  ‘Is there someone who could pick you up afterwards? You might not want to be on your own…?’

  Everything Geraldine said to this young woman felt crass. Since Nick’s death, she was realising for the first time how inadequate all her words of intended comfort were. Whoever took Laura home, the house would still be empty. Nothing could bring her husband back.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Laura whispered.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Geraldine led her into the small chapel where David was laid out. His face was unmarked. Apart from his extreme pallor, he looked much the same as he must have looked in life.

  ‘Poor lamb,’ Laura whispered tearfully.

  Geraldine was surprised to hear the young woman use a maternal term of endearment about a man legally old enough to be her father. It questioned the assumptions Geraldine had made about the marital relationship. Geraldine had imagined David had been a father figure to Laura. Perhaps the opposite had been the case, and Laura had been the adult in the relationship. Geraldine knew Laura was his personal assistant. She would have taken care of his arrangements, and looked after his interests at work. One word had challenged Geraldine’s impression of their relationship.