“Still am. Did you know them?” A mental crossing of the fingers.
“Not personally. We moved here several months after the fire. But my predecessor often spoke of them.”
“We’re keen to trace surviving family members.”
“Yes. Dad mentioned that. Alan Protheroe would be the best person to speak to.”
Oz jotted down the name. “Where can I find him?”
“They’re in Bath. He’s retired. Got a pen?”
It was a tough call. The flat was ideal for surveillance: top-floor front, unrestricted views of the street. The place wouldn’t be appearing in Ideal Home any time soon, but who’d be looking at the interior décor? Bev flushed the toilet, washed her hands, leaned on the sink, gazed in the mirror. OK, here’s the deal: it’s too good to pass up; tell Tom the score, then get him the hell out of there.
Marlow glanced up from sorting a pile of post as she entered the sitting room. An envelope drifted from his fingers as she passed. She knelt to retrieve it but he was already there, face almost touching hers. Had he choreographed the encounter? It was hardly subtle. Neither were the slightly parted lips. The eyes were less easy to read but she reckoned ‘smouldering’ came close.
“Oops!” She backed away, laughing.
“Ditto.” He laughed too. Maybe she’d misinterpreted. “Do you want to take a pew?” he said. “I shan’t be a tick.”
“No rush.” She moved to the window, scanned the street again. Yep. It’d be spot on. “Tom, can I ask a favour?”
Marlow listened with interest, asked the odd question. He was happy to help but she sensed his doubts. Bev shrugged. “I know it’s a long shot but it’s all we’ve got.”
He rubbed a hand along his chin, then gave that half-smile. “You’ve got a deal.”
“Deal?”
He held his hand out to seal it. “You can use the place as long as you want, if I can take you out again.”
That she could manage. “You’re on.”
Alan Protheroe liked the sound of his own voice. It was growing on Oz, too; he’d listened to it for almost ten minutes. The old buffer had gone round more houses than a rent collector. Oz suppressed another sigh. “To get back to the Collisons, sir?”
“Good people, very good people.” There it was again. A pronouncement followed by a nervous giggle, a cross between a whinny and a guffaw.
“In what respect, sir?”
Protheroe clearly needed a few seconds to think about that. Oz fiddled with a paper clip; at least it was warmer now he was back at the nick.
“Always willing helpers. Church funds. Parish activities.” Again the curious laugh.
“They had a daughter. Sara. Did you know her?”
This time the pause was so long, Oz began to think they’d been disconnected. “Sad. Very sad.”
Blood. Stone. “What can you tell me about her?”
Oz strained his ears. Was that hum coming from the old man? “Can you tell me what happened, sir?”
“Hold on a moment, there’s a good chap.” A senior moment, presumably.
Oz waited, caught the odd word from a muffled conversation.
“Eileen Protheroe. Can I help?” A woman’s voice: clipped, authoritative. Oz pictured Joan Bakewell but realised that was probably wishful thinking. He ran through it all again. After an initial pause, Eileen Protheroe turned out to be as direct as her husband was divergent. “Sara Collison was a tortured soul. Whether that was anything to do with her being adopted, who knows?’
Hallelujah. Oz flicked the clip bin-wards, grabbed a pen.
“What I do know is that she broke Hannah’s heart. They were both at their wits’ ends. Sara rebelled from an early age. She ran away, lived on the streets, almost died from a drug overdose.”
“Almost?”
“The hospital pulled her through. George and Hannah took her back. Lavished love and money on her all over again. It didn’t last. As soon as she was fit, she took off. Five years later they buried her.”
“Another overdose?”
Oz waited for her to elaborate. “I don’t know the details. It all happened long before they moved to the parish.”
Oz frowned. This was quality, but how come no one else had breathed a word? “Do you mind my asking how you know all this, Mrs Protheroe?”
The pause was minimal. “Neither Hannah nor I could have children of our own. It was an abiding sadness and it brought us together. George was away a lot building up the business. Hannah was painfully shy with most people but we became close. We confided in each other. Unlike the Collisons, we never went down the adoption path. Though given how Alan is now…” Oz caught the Alzheimer’s drift, didn’t comment.
“Do you know who the birth mother was?”
“No idea. We never discussed it.” Rapid answer but it held the ring of truth.
“Does the name Sophia Carrington mean anything to you?”
“Should it?” Again he didn’t think she was lying or withholding information. Not when she’d been so candid and up-front.
“Tell me, Mrs Protheroe, did Sara have children?” It was the big one. Oz held his breath.
The answer came after a long pause. “There was a child, yes. A son. Simon. He was about five when his mother died. He’d be in his early twenties now.”
“So where is he?” Bev asked.
“Don’t know. He moves about a lot. I’ve traced an address in Worcester.” Oz was on the line bringing Bev up to speed. She’d been static for a couple of hours. Wentworth Close had less life than some brands of yoghurt. She’d clocked two dog-walkers, an ageing hippy and a couple of teenagers pushing prams. Next door’s bonfire had been the hottest item around until Oz’s revelations.
“And you can’t get a fix on him in Birmingham?”
“Nothing.”
Not surprising. It didn’t cost a fortune to change your name and if it did, Simon Collison probably had one. George and Hannah’s inheritance was a box they’d still to tick but it wasn’t unreasonable to assume he’d got the lot. She sucked on her pen, blew imaginary smoke. “So it’s odds-on this Simon Collison and Jake whoever-he-is are one and the same?” Changing persona to fit the bill. Or fuck The Bill. A cert too he was the Simon who’d called Maude Taylor. Hadn’t even bothered with a fake name. Why bother if he assumed she was only some senile old biddy?
“Works for me,” said Oz. “And the timing’s spot on.”
She watched absently as next door chucked more rubbish on the bonfire. “The Worcester guys are definitely in position?” An element of surprise was all they had. It was crucial Collison didn’t know they were on to him.
“Watching brief,” Oz said.
She ran it through her head again. Sophia Carrington has a baby who’s adopted by George and Hannah. Sara goes off the rails, has a kid of her own: Simon Collison. Sara dies twenty years ago and Simon’s brought up by his adoptive grandparents. Five years after the fire that killed them, he unleashes a series of attacks on old women, culminating in Sophia Carrington’s murder.
She rubbed her temple, hoped the niggling pain wouldn’t develop into a full-blown headache. “Why, Oz? Why kill his own grandmother?”
Unless he didn’t realise who she was? Sophia had gone to massive lengths to hide Sara’s birth. As far as they could tell, contact had ceased more than thirty years ago. “Oz. What if he didn’t know she was his grandmother? What if Simon or Jake or whatever his sodding name is had no idea he was related to Sophia Carrington? What if he went after her because of what she did, not who she was?”
The ready answer suggested he’d been there already. “Doesn’t explain the others, Bev. We’ve been down the doctor-stroke-patient route before.”
She sighed. The pen was no substitute for a baccy; she needed a smoke. Wreaths of the stuff drifted listlessly from the bonfire next door. She watched it swirl like lazy fog. Christ, if it got any worse she wouldn’t be able to see the other side of the street.
She froze, thoughts racin
g. “It does, you know.” She paused, thinking it through. “It does explain the others – if they were a smokescreen.” A diversion. Like the tip-offs.
“Eye-off-the-ball job?”
The snort was classic. “Except it was never on in the first place.”
Oz gave a low whistle. “How callous would you have to be?”
To attack old women at random to conceal not just the intended murder victim but the genuine motive?
“I’m heading back, mate.” She’d already gathered her bits. “See you soon as.” There was no point hanging round. Jake wasn’t going to show now, maybe he never was. As for Simon Collison, there were a million checks to run. He might be unaware that the woman he’d killed was his grandmother; Bev was still in the dark as to why.
When she knew, she’d bury the bastard.
33
Essence of bonfire with a hint of Silk Cut permeated the interior of the MG. Bev pulled a face and wound down the window. Her glance fell on Jake’s picture, still partially obscured by the untouched edibles on the passenger seat. She squinted, trying to imagine the little shit minus the spikes and piercings. Should have an idea soon enough. Oz was on the case, trying among other things to track down a visual.
Traffic was light, pewter clouds heavy with threatened rain. She slipped a Van Morrison into the CD player, helped him out with a few bars of Brown-Eyed Girl.
“Shit.” She’d overshot Tom Marlow’s place. By the time she’d reversed and parked up, he was on the doorstep. Judging by the coat over his shoulders, he was on his way out. “Not stopping,” she smiled, handing him the keys. “Thanks a million.”
“That was quick.” He looked surprised. “All over?”
“Bar the shouting.”
“That’s good.” He must have seen her expression. “Isn’t it?”
’Course it was. Especially if she was the one hauling Collison’s sorry ass into custody. She so wanted to see the look on DI Shields’s face. “Sure is.”
He slipped the keys into his pocket. “I was nipping into town but I could rustle up a latte if you like.”
She remembered it from the first visit, latte to die for. Bummer; she was pressed for time. “Got to crack on or I’d be in like a shot.” Another pressing matter was the flask full of Fine Blend she’d already quaffed. This was getting to be a habit. “But can I just nip to the loo?”
*
Still at Highgate, Oz checked his watch, fingers tapping an urgent beat on the desk. He made a grab for the phone, changed his mind, sent a text instead, wishing he could see Bev’s face when she read it. Armed with a name and a specific timeframe, he’d run a fresh check with the Guildford papers. Keeping an ear cocked for the fax, he now reread the printed articles.
Back then the local weekly had gone big on the drugs angle. Sara Collison had died from a heroin overdose, her emaciated body found in a graveyard in Surrey. There was a bunch of statistics and a warning about the dangers of drug abuse. Oz had struggled to make sense of it – until the final paragraph.
Ms Collison had recently been discharged from hospital. A spokesman at the Guildford Royal Infirmary refused to comment.
He wandered to the window. Still no sign of Bev’s MG. He wanted her take on it, but the fact was: Sara Collison had been a patient in the Surrey hospital where Sophia Carrington had been a doctor. It had taken two phone calls to establish that link. But what was a raddled heroin addict doing in Maternity?
Oz’d had no joy tracking down anyone who’d been round at the time. There were still blanks and he was busking, but he reckoned Sara Collison had been pregnant for a second time. Given there was no record of a birth, presumably she’d lost it. The euphemism covered a couple of possibles: abortion or miscarriage.
The niggling pain was now a throbbing headache. Bev splashed water over her face, stroked her temples. The makeshift massage didn’t work. She sat on the loo seat and delved in her bag: Polos, matches, pen. The paracetamol was at the bottom. Natch. Four should do the trick. She wiped her mouth, looked round for a bin to chuck the strip. She raised an eyebrow at the condoms and gel already in there. Tom had clearly been entertaining a ladyfriend. She was heading for the door when a glint from the floor caught her eye.
She knelt for a closer look. A cufflink was trapped between the edge of the tiles and the skirting board. She broke another nail teasing it out, but knowing Tom, it had cost an arm and a leg. Mind, he didn’t strike her as Cufflink Man.
He wasn’t.
She rose slowly, eyes narrowed. It was a silver stud. The kind kids wore if they couldn’t afford piercings, or they hadn’t got the bottle for the real thing. She touched the back. The glue was still tacky. She turned it over, rolling it in her palm. She’d seen one before: its identical twin. She pictured it now, nestling on her bedside table.
The lost earring her mum had found. But not an earring. Not lost. Not by Bev or Sadie anyway. Dropped by Jake during the attack on her gran.
She perched on the edge of the bath. Chill, Bev. Think it through. What did it mean? Was it possible Jake had been inside Tom’s house? She dismissed the thought with a snort. For fuck’s sake, it didn’t have to be Jake’s. It could be anyone’s.
“Fuck’s sake.” Oz chucked his pen across the desk. Moseley to Highgate was twelve minutes max. He’d kill her if she’d stopped for a drink.
“OK, mate?” Darren New looked up hopefully, any distraction from report-writing welcome.
Oz nodded a no problem. But there was. There were countless loose ends to chase and Bev was AWOL. He knew she had little time for follow-up and phone-bashing. Even so, they were supposed to be splitting this stuff.
Daz was wolfing a second pork pie, vestiges of the first still scattered across the desktop and keyboard. Oz shook his head, made his way over to the fax again. About time.
He frowned. The sender’s name meant nothing. Mind, he’d put so many irons in the fire he felt like a blacksmith. The address made more sense: Clunes House in Shropshire. Collison’s school. Hallelujah. He waited impatiently as the picture gradually appeared, thought for a heartbeat the school had cocked up. The surly schoolboy, eyes almost hidden under a dark fringe, couldn’t be Simon Collison. Oz snatched the sheet of paper, swore under his breath. He’d seen the features before, but never with a scowl. They’d always been set in a smarmy smile.
Bev twirled the stud between thumb and forefinger, her thoughts focused elsewhere. The idea was so off the wall she couldn’t get her head round it. If Collison and Jake were one and the same – could Collison also be masquerading as Tom Marlow? She almost laughed out loud, yet it made twisted sense. Collison – as Marlow – had given them the original tip-off. It would mean the whole Marlow/Jake thing was yet another distraction. Christ. How cocky was that?
She ticked off comparisons. Both were roughly the same height, build and age. As for the spiked hair, the make-up, the piercings – they were cosmetic. Literally. A peek in the bathroom cabinet confirmed it; the hair-gel she’d seen in the bin wasn’t some woman’s, but Marlow’s. Everything about him was skin-deep.
Skin. That reminded her of something. Of course. Sadie’s crime novel, Beneath The Skin. That’s where they should have been looking.
She grabbed her mobile, ignored the missed calls, bashed out an urgent message to Oz. If she was right, she needed back-up. If she was right, they’d been played a blinder. If she was right, Sophia Carrington’s killer was waiting downstairs.
Oz took the stairs three at a time. Was Bev still at Wentworth Close? He tried her number again. Pick up, for fuck’s sake. He flung the mobile on the passenger seat. It was raining in sheets, the wipers could barely cope; the inside of the windscreen was fogged. He dashed a hand across, but only added sweat to smear. What if she’d already left? He glanced at the clock on the dash. Forty minutes since they’d last spoken. If she wasn’t there, he’d check out Marlow’s place. If no joy there, he’d have no option but to call it in.
He mouthed a silent prayer as he turne
d into the Close. Cars and vans were double-parked, no gaps. He eased the speed, anxious not to miss the MG. He did a three-point-turn, drove back even more slowly. He needn’t have bothered. It wasn’t there.
“Sure I can’t get you a coffee?” Marlow’s coat was draped over the back of a chair. He was flicking through one of the Sunday supplements; it looked like the Observer.
Bev mirrored his smile. “Why not?” She watched him leave the room. Try as she might, it was impossible to imagine Tom Marlow as a piece of scummy street life. She’d never seen him with a hair out of place, let alone a head of spikes.
“Doing anything later?” His voice carried through from the kitchen. She tried matching its nonchalance.
“Grabbing an early night, I hope.” There was no proof. A silver stud and a tube of gel wouldn’t get past the prosecution service, let alone stand up in court. She prowled a circuit of the room, keeping her ears pricked for noises off. Come on, God. Give me a break: bloodstained balaclava, dripping knife. Yeah, right. “How about you? Anything lined up?”
“Business meeting. No peace for the wicked…
“Coffee smells great.” Keep him sweet. The slightest inkling she was on to something and it’d make pear-shaped look perfect. She slipped a hand into the pocket of Marlow’s coat and gasped. Not quite a signed confession. But getting there.
It was the post from Wentworth Close, every envelope addressed to Simon Collison. The toe-rag did have a pad in the city. By using it for surveillance, she’d virtually handed him a copy of her movements.
“Milk. No sugar. Right?”
She raised her voice. “You got it.”
Her mobile beeped a message. Oz. Her personal fast-response unit. A faint smile morphed into a frown. His words didn’t make sense and why no reference to back-up? She reread the text and began to get the picture. sara collison heroin overdose. abortion/ miscarriage prior to death. Tweaking a few mental knobs brought another blurred edge into sharper focus. It looked like a motive to her.
As for the cavalry, Oz wouldn’t have pissed round with another message, he’d have hit the road pronto. She’d bide her time, play it by the book. They’d take Marlow in for questioning, establish a hundred per cent he was the killer. Priority now was to make sure he didn’t pick up on her thinking.
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