by Roz Watkins
‘We’ll end up having to go for misadventure, unless any of the friends and relations come up with anything.’
‘But she scrawled GR in the mud.’
‘Maybe she fell,’ I said. ‘And she attributed it to the curse. How are we doing for alibis from the suspects in Peter’s murder?’
‘Working on it. Sebastian’s been let out – obviously that one wasn’t going to stick. Both Felix and Edward have alibis for when we think the casket was placed, albeit only from their wives.’
‘I’m not convinced. Felix’s wife is scared of him. And Edward’s wife’s a 1950s throwback who’d probably lie for him if he asked her to.’
‘Well, we’ve found some interesting stuff on Peter. He seems to have been less of a dull dork that we thought.’ Jai crossed his legs and bounced his upper foot. I could see why Craig got irritated if he had to put up with this all the time.
‘Did we think he was a dull dork?’
Jai wrinkled his nose. ‘Yeah, a patent attorney. I did, a bit. One of my dad’s friends was one, and if he’d been killed, you’d have had to ask how they could tell. Seriously.’
‘Okay, Dorothy Parker, what had Peter been up to?’
‘He was accessing the Dark Web.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Well, these things aren’t exactly transparent. He was going via TOR, you know, like Google but it keeps your identity anonymous. He seems to have been on the Silk Road 2 website, which is shut down now, and some other similar ones – Evolution and Agora.’
‘Really? Can we see what he bought?’
‘It’s not that easy. You don’t get a nice email confirmation, and you can’t exactly use PayPal.’
‘But what? Drugs?’
‘Well, you can buy a Kalashnikov or arrange a hit man, but in view of what else we’ve discovered, yes, I suspect he’d been buying drugs.’
‘Interesting.’ I shuffled in my uncomfortable chair. I had a monstrous bruise on my hip which was bashing against the chair’s plastic arm. ‘He must have been technically savvy to use the secret search engines and everything, mustn’t he?’
‘Well, we already knew he was clever and technical, and it’s not that hard. Craig even managed to get on it the other day. But there’s more. Those drugs in his drawer – they can’t identify one of them at all. They reckon it’s new or experimental.’
‘It could have been something from a client.’ My mind flipped to pregnant Kate. How would she feel about Peter taking an unlicensed drug? If indeed he was taking it. Did she know?
‘And the other one was called…’ Jai looked at his notes. ‘Aripiprazole. Sold under the Trade Mark ABILIFY. It’s an anti-psychotic. Used for…’ He held his notes closer to his face. ‘The treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, tic disorders, and irritability associated with autism. I’ve asked the lab to have another look at his bloods.’
‘But surely someone would have mentioned it, if he was psychotic?’
‘His doctor knows nothing about it. Never saw him. But we’ve no suggestion he was dealing drugs, and the quantities in his drawer were small. Subject to confirmation from the lab, it does look like he was taking them himself.’
‘Kate said he thought medication was for the feeble-minded.’
‘Well, it looks like he changed his mind on that one, if he’d been taking both this ABILIFY thing and some dodgy, unknown drug as well. And look at this. I printed off an email exchange he had with someone who I think must be his client Lisa Bell.’ Jai shoved a piece of paper over the desk at me. ‘But note they’re using their gmail accounts, not their work accounts.’
[email protected]: Peter, Just to let you know there are safety concerns with PK-634. Trials are on hold.
[email protected]: What safety concerns?
[email protected]: Can’t say. But ALL those taking it must stop.
[email protected]: Assume patent application going ahead for now?
[email protected]: Yes.
[email protected]: Okay, so I still need more samples.
[email protected]: Like I said, ALL those taking it must stop.
[email protected]: And like I said, I NEED more samples.
‘He wouldn’t need samples for a patent application,’ Jai said.
‘So, he could have been taking this drug – getting it from Lisa Bell?’ I’d known there was something dodgy about her, from the moment she’d elbowed me aside on that first morning. ‘Maybe she wasn’t having an affair with Peter, but she was supplying him illegally with untested drugs.’
‘Maybe,’ Jai said. ‘I’d say that was the implication. And he didn’t seem willing to stop.’
‘Could he have threatened to expose her if she stopped supplying him? Could she have killed him to shut him up? It seems a bit extreme. I mean, I know drug companies have the morals of alley cats, but…’ I put my coffee mug down with a bang. ‘Unless this was part of a bigger cover-up. She’d been supplying other people illegally and maybe people got ill and it all started to get very serious and she wanted to keep it secret.’
‘And Peter could have told Beth? To get a lawyer’s view? Anyway, I’ve asked Lisa Bell to come in.’ Jai looked at his watch. ‘In half an hour. Shall we see her together?’
‘Sounds good.’ I looked again at Jai’s print-out. ‘Oh, and Kate’s pregnant. Which suggests to me she didn’t know he was taking the experimental drugs.’
‘Yeah, and if she knew he was on them, why would he keep them in his desk at work?’
I started making handwritten notes. ‘Okay, so we’ve got someone who, a year ago, was successful in a challenging job and who thought drugs were for sissies. And who, by the time he died, was taking experimental drugs, buying more drugs off the internet, smoking cannabis, drinking secretly, acting depressed, making cock-ups at work, not sleeping well…’
‘What the hell happened to him?’
‘Could he have developed bipolar or schizophrenia? You know the permanent health insurance policy he had through the company – that’s for if you get ill and can’t work, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘When did they take it out, and did it cover mental health issues?’
‘Gimme that.’ Jai twisted my screen around to face him and grabbed the keyboard. He tapped for a few moments, sucking on his lower lip.
‘Well, it looks like they already had life insurance but they added permanent health earlier this year. I’d need to look into it some more. The small print on these things is a nightmare.’
‘Yeah, would you check if it covers mental health?’
It occurred to me that there was someone I wanted to see after Lisa Bell. Someone I suspected might be an expert on illegal drugs and mental health problems, and who might even know what had happened on that roof in Cambridge all those years ago.
*
Lisa Bell tried to shift her chair forward, before realising it was attached to the floor. She huffed and stuck her elbows on the table. Obviously not used to chairs being regarded as potential weapons.
‘Why have you brought me here?’ she said. ‘I’m just one of Peter’s clients. I don’t know anything about his death.’
‘We’re just making a few enquiries about his work,’ I said in a friendly tone.
She gave me a wary look. ‘Oh.’
Jai smiled at her – so much better than I could have done, so warm I could feel it even though I wasn’t looking at him. ‘Just to find out what was going on in his life,’ he said.
She relaxed. ‘Okay.’
I sent Jai a silent signal to keep going.
‘We’ve been told his work quality went down in recent months,’ he said. ‘You’d found him slower with his work recently, hadn’t you?’
‘A bit, yes.’
‘That must have been frustrating.’
‘Well, maybe a little.’
‘So, we heard you were working on a patent application for a drug PK-634.’
‘And Peter had samples of this drug?’
She raised her chin a little – almost a nod but not quite.
‘But there were some safety concerns about the drug, weren’t there?’
Jai’s charm could only do so much. She was as still as a heron watching fish, and said nothing.
I smiled at her, and jumped in. ‘So naturally you told him to stop taking the drug.’
She flicked her gaze to me and hesitated a moment too long. ‘What? He wasn’t taking it. He wanted samples of it for the patent application.’
‘But he didn’t have samples of the other drugs you were patenting.’ This was a guess.
Again, a few too many milliseconds. ‘No, but…’
Giving her no time to think, I said, ‘You were giving him unlicensed drugs in return for free patent work, weren’t you? Did he threaten to expose you when you asked him to stop taking the drugs?’
She shook her head. ‘No! This is crazy.’
‘Who else have you been supplying with unlicensed drugs?’
‘No one. I just did what my patent attorney asked.’ Her eyes flicked from side to side as if she was looking for a way out. ‘We’re struggling with your alibi for Sunday night,’ I said.
‘Watching TV alone.’
A flash of confusion on her face. She hadn’t been expecting that.
‘And the fact that you’re lying about other things,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately it makes us suspicious. Whether you supplied him unlicensed drugs, that’s not our area. But in our experience, people who lie about one thing… we have to wonder about them. Did Peter become inconvenient?’
Lisa blinked a few times, and shook her head. ‘I didn’t know he was going to take them…’
‘You turned a blind eye?’
‘Okay! I guessed he was taking the drugs. I let it go, and he reduced his charges. But I didn’t kill him.’
‘What was the drug for?’
‘Movement disorders.’
‘Was he ill?’
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘But what did you suspect?’
‘I wondered if he had the early signs of schizophrenia.’
Chapter 27
I drove to the less salubrious side of Eldercliffe. Brick terraces lined the narrow roads, and bin liners lay in piles in the doorways. Escaped drinks cans shone in the glow of the street lamps, and an occasional boarded-up house was decorated with graffiti of the non-Banksy variety. Despite the apparent poverty, the residents clearly all had cars – albeit some of them on bricks – because there was nowhere to park. I breathed in and drove through a tiny gap between rusting Ford Escorts, praying I wouldn’t have to attempt to parallel park in front of a gang of feral youths. In the end, I turned round, drove back towards the leafier part of town, left the car and returned on foot.
A tiny sign identified the hostel. I pushed open a thick fire door and tripped up a step to stumble into a reception area which smelt of damp, just like home. A fluorescent light buzzed overhead and cast a clinical white light over a chipboard desk, behind which sat a young woman sporting pink hair and multiple piercings.
‘Oh, mind the step.’ Did she realise I’d already fallen over the step, or had it not yet happened in her brain?
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Sebastian.’
She wore a badge saying Shannon. She looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘It’s a bit late in the day. Are you his social worker?’ Why was I always being mistaken for a social worker?
‘Police, but don’t worry, he’s done nothing wrong. I just—’
She jumped up, with surprising sprightliness, popping out from behind the grey desk and standing as if to barricade the door leading into the rest of the hostel. ‘Police. How can we help? They’re a bit nervous of police here.’
‘I just need to find Sebastian.’
‘They frightened him the other day.’
I sighed. Bloody Craig. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ I said. ‘I’ll be nice to him. I only need a quick word.’
Her manner softened. ‘He’s really not here.’ She moved towards me as if trying to edge me out of the building. ‘He left. He never stays long.’
I stood my ground, passively, and she moved away and leant against the desk. Her T-shirt stretched tight over a waist which bulged over her jeans as if she’d been dropped into them from a great height.
‘Does he often pop in and out then?’ I asked.
‘He’s been coming here for years. But he doesn’t usually sleep here. He’ll be looking for somewhere to bed down now, I expect.’
‘Why doesn’t he sleep here?’ It was a cold night.
‘He likes to be in the open, away from other people.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘He’s a nice lad.’
I leant against the wall and looked at her with my softest and most un-threatening expression, the one I used with nervous cats, hoping she’d continue.
‘He has problems,’ she said. ‘Gets paranoid. That’s another reason he won’t stay here. He thinks people are looking at him through the showers.’
‘Is he schizophrenic?’
‘I’m not sure if he’s been diagnosed. We’re always trying to get him to go to the doctor, get some medication, but he won’t.’
‘Does he take drugs?’
‘Not the hard stuff, as far as I know. Cannabis, of course, if anyone’s offering.’ She seemed to remember who she was talking to. ‘Not that we tolerate that here, of course.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Do you know where he’ll be staying tonight?’
She gave me a suspicious look. ‘You want to find him tonight?’
I nodded.
‘He’s a good lad,’ she said. ‘Not a bad one.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I promise I’ll be nice to him. Buy him some sausages.’
She lifted her chin.
‘It’s not about him,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t done anything wrong. I just think he may know something important.’
‘To do with that dead man in the quarry? Or the woman?’
‘Kind of indirectly. I know he wasn’t involved.’
She looked at me as if weighing me up. ‘Well, you could try the old railway bridge. And he does love his sausages. There’s a café round the corner.’
She grabbed a dog-eared A to Z from a shelf by her head and pointed out a bridge only half a mile or so away. To my relief, she showed me on the map instead of giving me incomprehensible instructions involving pubs I’d never been to.
I thanked her and slipped out before she could ask any more questions, tripping down the step this time. Why couldn’t I learn from my mistakes?
I decided to walk the half mile to the railway bridge, despite the foul weather and my aching bones. It felt right to walk when I knew Sebastian would be sleeping rough. Of course I should have phoned and asked someone to accompany me, but Sebastian would almost certainly be panicked into silence by two of us. Besides, I was wearing my Dr Martens boots – what harm could possibly come to me?
The pavement was narrow and the living rooms of the houses only arms-length away. I heard the muffled bass beat of music and saw the flickering of TV screens behind curtains as I walked past. I had a feeling of unease, like cold fingers on the back of my neck. I told myself it was just the blue glow from the TVs – horror movie lighting – but decided to avoid the maze of alleyways which was the quickest way to the railway bridge.
A flash of movement caught my eye, and I gasped. A tabby cat shot out from a passage between houses and I released my breath. I needed to calm the hell down. I contemplated turning back, giving up on the idea of talking to Sebastian. It’s not as if information gleaned in an informal conversation with a mentally ill drug addict would be admissible in court. But I had a feeling Sebastian knew a piece of the puzzle. And if he told me the facts, I could find other ways
to prove them.
I wrapped my coat tighter around me, wishing I’d brought a hat. A lone beer can skittered across the pavement, and the wind shook the trees above. It was a miserable night to sleep rough.
After about fifteen minutes, I reached the side road which led to the railway bridge. It was deserted apart from a few parked cars, and a shiver went through me. I steeled myself, walked to the top of a steep set of steps leading to the area under the bridge, and peered into the darkness. Something was scuffling down there. Either Sebastian or a family of rats.
My chest tightened at the sight of the steps plunging down away from me, only dimly visible in the orange light. I put my foot on the first step and eased myself down, then stopped to listen. There was definitely something under there. I carried on, step by step, looking at my feet and fighting my vertigo.
At the bottom, I gazed into the gloom. The ground underfoot was sandy, and a sharp urine smell hung in the air. A few old McDonald’s bags wafted in the breeze, but there was none of the paraphernalia of homelessness I’d seen under the notorious Manchester bridges. A street lamp cast its sodium glow into the entrance, and my breath swirled yellow. I walked further into the dark under the bridge.
Something caught my eye. A man shifted from the inky black middle area towards the far side, which was lit by another street lamp. His ragged hair reflected the light. He turned to face me and I recognised him from the mug shots I’d seen.
‘Sebastian!’
He walked away from me.
‘Sebastian, it’s about Peter Hamilton.’
He quickened his pace and broke into a jog.
I shouted at his retreating back. ‘I need you to help me find who killed him. I’ll buy you sausages!’
He slowed to a walk, but didn’t turn around.
‘There’s a café up the road. It does all day breakfasts. I’ll buy you one. I’ll buy you two.’ My shouts echoed from the curved roof.
Sebastian turned and stood while I walked very slowly and smoothly towards him.
‘Poor Peter,’ he said.
‘Poor Peter,’ I repeated.
He held a thin carrier bag and wore a huge coat. He looked tiny in the shadows, his body angled as if ready to dash away. I stood next to him in silence. Finally, he dropped his shoulders and lost the feel of a man on starting blocks.
