Class Murder

by Leigh Russell

  10

  Misjudging the bottleneck she would encounter around the centre of York, Geraldine reached the Major Incident Room that afternoon with only seconds to spare. Everyone else was already there. Even though Geraldine wasn’t late, Eileen raised her eyebrows when she entered, as though to make sure she knew her arrival had been noted. Geraldine felt herself squirming. She couldn’t remember feeling so insecure at work since she had been a young constable.

  Geraldine didn’t understand the detective chief inspector’s attitude. Eileen must be aware that until recently Geraldine had been an experienced inspector. To begin with Geraldine had thought Eileen couldn’t mind that much about her demotion or she wouldn’t have accepted her on the team. She was beginning to wonder if Eileen’s hand had been forced. Perhaps the detective chief inspector had expected Geraldine to be more grateful to her for allowing her to relocate to York when she had to leave London. It would have been nice to clear the air, but Geraldine wasn’t sure how to approach her senior officer, and she was afraid of making matters worse.

  ‘Now, Geraldine,’ Eileen said with an air of exaggerated patience, as though she had been waiting for her to arrive. ‘You spoke to Stephanie’s ex?’

  Geraldine nodded. She had prepared for this. It was some years since she had been nervous reporting to a meeting of her colleagues. She could feel tension in her neck and shoulders as she cleared her throat and began to speak. Her anxiety about Eileen proved justified, as the detective chief inspector challenged her report on Tony Palmer.

  ‘You had the impression he was telling you the truth?’ she repeated coldly.

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ Geraldine replied, remembering just in time that she was no longer in the Met where all officers were addressed by their first names.

  ‘Did he have an alibi for the time of the murder?’

  ‘His current girlfriend said he was at home with her.’

  ‘Hardly a reliable witness,’ someone else commented.

  ‘I think she was telling the truth,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘They could be in it together,’ Naomi suggested.

  ‘In it together or else she’d agreed to vouch for his alibi,’ Eileen agreed.

  ‘I’ll have CCTV checked,’ Geraldine said, concealing her irritation at hearing her views so readily dismissed. ‘But I hardly see what motive they could have for coming all the way to York to kill her…’

  A chorus of voices chimed in with different suggestions. Geraldine glanced at Ian, who was listening in silence. Apart from Geraldine, everyone appeared to agree with Eileen that Tony was the most likely suspect. Although Geraldine still believed he was innocent, she wasn’t sufficiently confident in her assumption to repeat it. She could be wrong, and once she established a reputation for poor judgement, it might be difficult to change that perception among her new colleagues. So she kept quiet, fretting inwardly at her cowardice in failing to speak out in defence of her own opinion.

  ‘Let’s see what the lab tests show,’ Eileen said briskly, referring to the traces of skin found under the dead girl’s nail.

  After the meeting, Geraldine set a team to check traffic records on the streets in and around Uppermill, as well as passengers leaving and arriving at local railway stations, for the twenty-four hours before and after the time of the murder. She also had any CCTV cameras close to Stephanie’s flat checked. Any evidence that Tony had travelled to or from York that day would disprove his alibi. In the meantime, she continued to research the dead girl’s past, hunting for any clues to the identity of a violent ex-boyfriend. By the end of the day neither she nor the team had made any progress. It was early days, and there was no cause for despondency, but she couldn’t help feeling impatient, convinced they were pursuing a pointless line of enquiry.

  Geraldine was pleased when she spotted Ian leaving the police station. She ran out and had almost caught up with him as he reached the car park. She called out to him. Looking back, he stopped and waited for her. At the warmth in his smile, Geraldine felt the tension in her neck begin to relax, and when he suggested going for a drink, she agreed at once. They walked down to the street, turning right as they left the police compound to go to a nearby pub. The place was old-fashioned and slightly run-down but comfortable enough, in addition to which Ian assured her they could get a decent beer there. Geraldine wasn’t bothered about that. She just wanted some friendly company for the evening.

  She sat down at a table in a poorly lit corner. The pub was pleasantly warm and she took off her jacket and slung it over her chair while Ian went up to the bar. Watching him from across the room, she recognised a couple of constables chatting with the landlord. Unsociably, she hoped their colleagues wouldn’t want to come over and join her and Ian. He appeared to exchange a few pleasantries with them, and share a joke with the landlord while he was being served but, to Geraldine’s relief, the other two officers remained seated at the bar when Ian came over to where she was sitting. They drank in silence for a few minutes before they both started talking at the same time. Geraldine asked Ian what he made of the case, while he enquired about her first impressions of York. It was strange, making polite conversation about the town, almost as though she was talking to a stranger, when they had known one another for so long and had worked together so closely in the past.

  She felt an unexpectedly sharp sense of loss, recalling how pleased she had been to see Ian on the rare occasions they had met up throughout the entire time they had been living two hundred miles apart. She had thought they had developed a genuine close friendship. Now they were working together again, she was beginning to suspect that she had built up unrealistic expectations about her relationship with her former sergeant.

  ‘York seems very nice,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure it’ll grow on me.’

  ‘Yes, it didn’t take me long to settle here. It’s a great place to live. I’d choose York over London any day, mainly because of the people. It’s much easier to feel lonely in London. They’re a friendly lot up here, and you’ll soon feel at home with the rest of the team.’

  Geraldine avoided enquiring about his estranged wife for fear of upsetting him, but of course he hadn’t been on his own when he had moved to York, and that must have made a difference. Instead she shifted the conversation around to their colleagues.

  ‘What about Eileen?’ she asked, lowering her voice. ‘What’s she like?’

  He took a drink while he considered his answer. ‘She can be tough,’ he admitted, ‘but she gets the job done. I have to say, I do like working with her. She’s the sort of DCI where you feel you know where you stand.’

  Geraldine wondered if he had ever used those words about her.

  ‘And it’s great finally being an inspector…’ he broke off, embarrassed. ‘Sorry, that was crass of me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ Geraldine replied cheerily. ‘I’m happy to still be on the job at all.’

  She hoped he wouldn’t see through her fake smile, but he wasn’t even looking at her. He was gazing towards the bar, his hand raised in greeting. Looking round, Geraldine saw Naomi grinning back at him. A moment later the constable came over to their table.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked, pulling a chair over and sitting down. ‘So, how are you liking York, Geraldine?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Geraldine replied, returning Naomi’s smile.

  ‘Yes, I like it here. There’s always something going on.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘Well, I’d best be off,’ Geraldine said, pushing her chair back and standing up. ‘I’ve still got some unpacking to do.’

  And just like that, her evening with Ian came to an end. As she walked back to the police station for her car, she remembered Ian saying it was difficult to feel lonely in York. She wished she could agree with him. Driving home, she questioned whether she had made the right decision. Instead of accepting a demotion to serg
eant and relocating to York, she could have quit the force altogether and found something else to do for the rest of her life, but she had never really considered that. The trouble was, she couldn’t think of anything else she wanted to do. After years of experience on the job, she was fit for nothing but her chosen career. She tried not to feel miserable about Ian, but she couldn’t kid herself that she wasn’t disappointed. She was glad no one else had known about her inflated expectations. Clearly she had misjudged their relationship, because Ian didn’t seem to care that he had been joined by his former inspector. Geraldine had been a fool to think he would greet her with the open arms of friendship.

  11

  The following morning Ian greeted Geraldine as she arrived at the police station.

  ‘How did you get on with your unpacking? Get much done?’

  ‘What? Oh, not really.’ She smiled, pleased that he had remembered her parting comment from the previous day. ‘Did you have a good evening?’

  ‘Yes, it was all very nice. We had another beer and then went for a curry. You should have stuck around.’

  ‘Thanks, another time.’

  Geraldine smiled at the invitation, but she had an uneasy feeling Ian found her old and boring compared to Naomi, the cheerful young constable who would no doubt soon be promoted to sergeant, equalling Geraldine’s rank.

  ‘Cheer up,’ Ian said, with a flash of his old sensitivity. ‘Are you all right?’ His gentle blue eyes gazed into her own dark ones. ‘You look a bit down in the dumps. Problems with your sister? She’s not using again?’

  She shook her head, touched by his concern. ‘As far as I know she’s OK.’

  ‘As far as you know? Don’t tell me she doesn’t keep in touch with you, after all you’ve done for her? If you hadn’t stepped in to save her, the addiction would probably have finished her off by now, if her dealer hadn’t got to her first. Not many people would do what you did for her. She could at least be grateful.’

  ‘It’s not that. She’s just so far away, and I’ve been busy… it’s OK, but you know,’ she sighed. ‘It’s not always easy.’

  ‘Plus, next to death and divorce, moving is supposed to be the most stressful thing, isn’t it? Or was that changing job?’ Ian said. ‘Anyway, you’ve done both. You’ve had a lot of change to cope with lately.’

  ‘Change is always hard,’ Naomi chipped in, stopping to join them in the corridor.

  Seeing her stand beside Ian in a manner almost proprietorial, Geraldine wondered if there was something going on between her two colleagues. She recalled how Ian had been a magnet for the young female constables when they had worked together previously. Resolving to be circumspect in what she said about Naomi, she smiled at her. She hoped the constable hadn’t heard Ian saying that Geraldine’s twin sister was a recovering heroin addict.

  ‘Exactly,’ she replied. ‘I was just saying to Ian that it’s not always easy relocating. But it’s not a problem. I’ll soon get myself sorted. There’s just so much to do all the time.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. What’s important is to focus on what needs to be done,’ Naomi replied.

  ‘Quite right. Let’s not stand around nattering. Time to get on,’ another voice chimed in.

  Eileen had appeared from around the corner in the corridor. Clearly she had overheard Naomi’s final remark, and possibly Geraldine’s preceding comment as well. Geraldine wondered if Naomi had noticed Eileen’s approach and had spoken up intending to be overheard. Such toadying might be predictable in an ambitious colleague. It was perhaps unfair to criticise Naomi for trying to impress her senior officers. In her own way, Geraldine had done the same, but she had sought to impress her colleagues by being effective at what she did, not by talking about how to go about it.

  She suppressed a sigh at the thought that it didn’t matter very much what Eileen thought of her. Promotion was no longer a possibility for her. She would remain a sergeant until she retired. Naomi might well be an inspector before that happened, if not a detective chief inspector. But her colleague’s progress had no bearing on her own career. On the positive side, she still had a job to do. Without her work, her life would be empty. That hadn’t changed. She made her way to her desk, telling herself she had spent enough time feeling sorry for herself. It was time to throw off her despondency and focus on her work. Sitting at her desk, she reviewed the situation so far before going to talk to the team which had been tracking Tony Palmer’s movements on the evening of Stephanie’s murder.

  Two officers had been checking CCTV in the area. One was a burly middle-aged man. His colleague on the job was a small, neat, young woman. Andy shook his head when Geraldine enquired whether they had discovered anything.

  ‘It looks as though he was at home all evening,’ Daisy agreed, nodding. ‘Unless he went out the back way. But he didn’t drive to York and he wasn’t on any train back to York that evening.’

  Geraldine thanked them and left them still looking through film, but she didn’t expect them to find any new information that might implicate Tony in Stephanie’s murder.

  ‘If he really was at home the evening of the murder, we’re back to square one,’ Ian said, when Geraldine went to see him.

  He was seated in his own office. Although it was very small, he didn’t share it with anyone else. There wasn’t enough room for two desks in there. Geraldine would have liked to reminisce about the days when he had worked as her sergeant, before their roles had been reversed, but this was not the time for nostalgia.

  ‘What about the other two possibilities?’ he asked.

  Geraldine shook her head.

  ‘Geraldine’s been looking into Stephanie’s exes, and drawn a complete blank,’ Ian said when Eileen gathered the team together in the Major Incident Room.

  Naomi turned to Geraldine. ‘Never mind, it was worth a try. The obvious answer often turns out to be accurate, so you had to spend time looking into her ex-boyfriends.’

  Geraldine felt herself bristle at her young colleague’s patronising tone. Telling herself Naomi was just trying to be nice, she hid her irritation as she answered.

  ‘Ashley told us Stephanie had a violent ex so it was necessary to follow this up.’

  Momentarily vexed for feeling the need to defend herself, she was nevertheless relieved when Eileen agreed with her.

  She was still following up Stephanie’s other ex-boyfriends when Ian stopped by her desk to ask if she was going to the pub for a quick drink.

  ‘Or just a coffee?’ he added.

  She shook her head. ‘I want to get this finished and then, to be honest, I’ve still got some things to sort out in the flat. I thought I’d get it all done by now, but this case came up so soon after I arrived that I haven’t had much time to myself. I’ve hardly had any time off since this came up.’

  Naomi overheard her. ‘You don’t have to work at weekends, you know.’

  Ian looked as though he was about to say something, but he appeared to think better of it. Geraldine wondered if Naomi knew that she and Ian had worked together in the past. He knew how focused she became once they were investigating a murder. He used to be the same. Looking at him now, Geraldine felt uneasy. She had been blaming her sense of dislocation and the stress of moving for their strained relations, but she was beginning to suspect that Ian was the one who had changed.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Driving home she told herself that she had no reason to feel miserable. Her recent dejection had just been a reaction to the challenge of moving. More important than her personal problems was the knowledge that a young girl had been violently killed and so far her murderer was evading capture. He could be a complete stranger to the police, or they might have already questioned him. Either way, they had so far failed to identify him. It was a pity the DNA profile they had from the scene of the crime was incomplete, but it was better than
nothing. Sooner or later, they would track him down. Meanwhile, someone prepared to commit so brutal a murder could be a danger to the public. Instead of going straight home, as she had intended, she took a different route. Her dinner could wait. Right now finding Stephanie’s killer took priority over everything else.

  12

  Peter kept his hood up at the station in York. The carriage was half empty. Finding a seat, he sat with his shoulders hunched and his head lowered, trying not to draw attention to himself. As the train hurtled through the darkness he glanced around furtively to check if anyone was watching him. As far as he could tell, no one there resembled the man who had been following him all evening, although it was impossible to be sure, since he had never seen his stalker’s face. Nowhere felt safe. Out and about travelling, he felt as though everyone was watching him. Afraid that other people would consider his fears groundless, he hadn’t mentioned his suspicions to anyone. His friends would think he was being needlessly paranoid, or worse. He could hardly blame anyone else for being sceptical when his own initial reaction had been to laugh at the idea that he was being stalked.

  At first he had barely noticed the man who was following him. After a while it had struck him as odd that the man kept appearing, seemingly hanging about on Peter’s street. Still, he had thought little of it, until the man had turned up outside his workplace. The idea that he was being stalked was ludicrous. The reality was terrifying.

  Reaching his local station, he hurried out to his car. As he was driving home a fine sleet began to fall, droplets flickering across the beam from his headlights. He didn’t think anyone was following him. It wasn’t until he was climbing out of the car that he saw the now familiar figure, hat pulled down over his eyes, scarf pulled up around his chin, long black coat reaching down below his knees, standing motionless on the other side of the road. The orange glow from a street lamp fell across the side of his dark hat so that he looked more than ever like a photograph of an actor in an old film: a spy or a private investigator. Peter couldn’t tell if the man had followed him all the way home from York, or had been waiting for him at Greenfield station. He was hardly likely to have been standing outside in the freezing cold all day.