A Bleeding of Innocents

by Jo Bannister

  Shapiro sighed. ‘What’s your next move?’

  ‘I want to talk to the people at the nursing home where she worked. Get some idea what kind of a woman she was, what kind of a marriage it was. She’d been there four years, she should have made some friends. They’ll know things about her that even her husband can’t tell us.’

  ‘You mean, won’t tell us.’

  ‘No, things he doesn’t know himself. When women work together they share their secrets.’ She smiled. ‘They talk. Sometimes they talk about things they wouldn’t discuss with their nearest and dearest. If her marriage was in trouble, if she was in debt, if she had a bit on the side, they’d know before Page would.’

  Shapiro was looking bemused. ‘I never thought of a manfriend as being a bit on the side.’

  Liz grinned.

  The phone on Shapiro’s desk rang. As he answered it she went to get up but he waved her back to her chair. His brow furrowed. ‘What, now? Did you tell him I’m busy? How does he look? Oh, you’d better send him up.’ He put the phone down, leaned back and gave Liz a wry smile. ‘You’re about to meet Detective Sergeant Donovan, who should have his feet up but is apparently convinced we can’t manage without him.’

  When Shapiro called him in and he stopped just inside the door, plainly surprised to see his chief had company, Liz’s powerful first impression was of a streak of darkness in the corner of the room. The height of him, the thinness, the dark clothes, black hair and olive skin bled together to create a three-dimensional shadow. His eyes narrowed warily.

  Shapiro introduced them much as he might have introduced oxygen to a flame – cautiously, at arm’s length. Then he sat back to watch the result.

  Liz stood up but did not offer her hand, judging that Donovan would be reluctant to take it. ‘I’m sorry about Alan Clarke. He was a good copper. He was a good man.’

  ‘You knew him?’ Donovan’s voice was low, rising a shade on the interrogative.

  ‘Not well, but enough to know he’ll be hard to replace.’

  ‘That’s the truth.’ The way he said it, looking her up and down and clearly finding her wanting, was just the safe side of objectionable.

  But Liz could bear his resentment. He was a young man, the range and depth of his experience must necessarily be limited. This could be the first time he’d lost a close colleague. He’d been hurt and was still hurting. He would find it hard to accept whoever was sent as DI Clarke’s replacement. For now she could afford to be a little tolerant.

  Donovan hadn’t been in the station since the night he and Clarke went to meet his informant behind the gasworks. So he hadn’t heard the rumour that Castlemere CID was getting a female inspector. The first he knew was when he opened Shapiro’s door and there she was, a tall woman in her late thirties with a calm, squarish face and a lot of fair hair pushed up out of the way. She was wearing fawn slacks with well-made brogues and a burgundy tweed jacket: not the Oxfam look favoured by most male detectives but not Vogue either. The shoes had walked too many miles, the tweed had gathered a little moss as she brushed by a tree, and there was a damp spot on one knee where she’d got down to look closely at something on the ground. Probably with a magnifying glass, Donovan thought derisively.

  In all honesty, Divisional Headquarters could not have pleased Sergeant Donovan, whoever they had sent to make up the numbers in Castlemere. He stood watching her truculently from under lowered lids and thinking the lunatics had taken over the asylum if HQ thought Alan Clarke could be replaced by a blonde bimbo with a degree in computer science.

  As he got used to the idea, however, he began to see certain advantages. Inevitably a woman would do things differently – spend more time behind her desk probably, tell him what she wanted and let him get on with it. That suited him. He was a loner by nature: the closeness of his relationship with Clarke had been something unique in his experience, something he had no wish to try and recreate with someone else. Alan Clarke and Cal Donovan: at their best they’d been unstoppable, the terror of the criminal classes of Castlemere. While it lasted it had been like being on a permanent high.

  But he’d paid for it in the end. Rather, Clarke had. The man should have known better. He knew Donovan was bad luck: always had been, things happened round him, not through any fault of his but just because he was there. Clarke thought he’d beaten the jinx but it got him in the end. Now the powers-that-be thought a Barbie doll a suitable successor.

  ‘Donovan, what are you doing here?’ Shapiro said wearily.

  ‘I heard about the shooting. I thought you’d be short-handed.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted the Chief Inspector, ‘well, it could have come at a better time. But you’re not fit to work.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ But Liz noticed the surreptitious easing of his weight against the door-frame.

  ‘How’s the head?’

  ‘It’s fine. It ached for a couple of days but it’s all right now. I want to get back to work.’

  ‘Well,’ Shapiro said doubtfully, ‘Inspector Graham’s new to Castlemere – she could use someone who’s familiar with the place. She’s handling the Page murder.’

  The sergeant’s eyes flicked wide. A note of alarm sounded in his voice. ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got a case – what Alan and I were working on, and what happened to him because of it. Sir.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Shapiro with absolute certainty. ‘I’m sorry, Donovan, it’s not on. You’re too close to it. And if it comes to trial you’ll be a witness. You’ll be more credible if you weren’t in on the investigation.’

  Donovan looked as if he’d been kicked in the face by someone on his own team. ‘But—’

  ‘I’m not arguing with you, Sergeant. I doubt if you should be working at all but we’re stretched and I can use you. But understand this. If you report for work you’ll be on Inspector Graham’s enquiry, not mine.’

  Liz watching discreetly, saw disappointment and anger in his eyes in the moment before he dropped them. She said quietly, ‘The sooner we wrap up the Page case, the more resources we can devote to finding DI Clarke’s killer.’

  Shapiro waited for a response. When none was forthcoming he said tetchily, ‘Well? Are you reporting for duty or not?’

  To his credit Donovan didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course I am. I said so.’ There was surprise along with the resentment in his voice, and he waited longer than usual before adding, ‘Sir.’

  Shapiro sighed and his shoulders slumped. Liz thought he was relieved not to have had more of a battle. ‘All right. Good. Have you seen the doctor yet?’

  Donovan shook his head negligently. ‘No point disturbing him on a Sunday. I’ll see him through the week sometime.’

  The ghost of a smile was beginning to tug at the corners of Shapiro’s mouth. ‘By which time, presumably, you’ll be feeling even more fine.’

  ‘I hope so,’ agreed Donovan fervently.

  ‘Get out of here,’ said Shapiro. As Donovan went he shouted after him, ‘One proviso. Until you’ve seen him, stay off that bloody bike!’

  Liz got up too. ‘I’ll go and see the people at the nursing home. I’ll send Donovan to the airfield where Page works.’ She twitched a grin. ‘See if pilots and mechanics gossip together as much as nurses.’

  Shapiro eyed her askance. ‘As in: “Guess what I’m going to do tonight, fellers? – murder the wife”?’

  Liz shook her head. ‘More as in: “Why’s Page going round so po-faced these days? – anybody’d think his wife was having it off with an air-traffic controller.”’

  She collected the address of the nursing home, found out where Rosedale Avenue was, and went out to the car park. She had to walk crabwise to avoid seeing Donovan ride out on his motorcycle.

  Like Donovan, Sister Kim had heard the news on the radio. Her almond eyes and the saffron-tinted skin round them were red with crying. But she had recovered her composure by the time Liz arrived. They went to the office where they could talk without interruption.

  ‘I’m trying t
o find Matron,’ she murmured. ‘But she went away for the weekend too and I’m not sure where. Unless she hears on the radio and calls in.…’

  ‘I’m sure you can tell me everything I need to know,’ Liz assured her. ‘Probably more than Matron could. I imagine Kerry talked to you about her private life more than to Matron.’

  The Chinese girl gave a demure smile. ‘You know Matron then?’

  Liz smiled too and shook her head. ‘I doubt if people become matrons by discussing man trouble round the coffee machine and that’s the kind of thing I need to hear about Kerry. What worried her, what made her happy. How she was getting on with her husband. If she was frightened at all. The things you confide to friends rather than discussing with employers. You worked with Kerry for – how long?’

  ‘Four years,’ said Kim, ‘I came here soon after she did.’

  ‘Then you’ve known her longer than her husband has. I doubt if anyone knows more about her than you do.’

  The Sister inclined her head with its little lace cap pinned to the coils of black silk hair. ‘I will of course help all I can.’

  There were no specific questions Liz needed answers to. She wanted a picture of Kerry Page and her marriage. She let Sister Kim talk for as long as she would about whatever occurred to her, and when she ran out of things to say set her off again with a well-judged prompt.

  She reported, word for word, the last conversation they’d had before Kerry went off to her weekend cottage. It reinforced what Kim had believed all along: that her colleague was happy with her marriage, that she enjoyed her young husband physically and also liked his company, that she had left for her weekend in the country with no shadows on her horizon, that she didn’t know she was in any danger and the last thing to cross her mind before a 12-bore cartridge rendered it unfit for further use would have been utter amazement.

  ‘You don’t think,’ hesitated Sister Kim, ‘it had anything to do with her work here?’

  ‘I don’t know what it was to do with yet,’ said Liz. ‘I’d have thought it unlikely. Why, do you think it could be?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said the nurse hurriedly, ‘I can’t imagine that it was. Our patients are sometimes disturbed and often frustrated, it’s not unknown for them to threaten us. But half an hour later they don’t remember, and if they did they’re not fit enough to do anything about it. It’s not possible that anyone followed her from here to her cottage in order to kill her.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Liz said carefully, ‘people who work in medical facilities find themselves approached for drugs. I’m sure you’ve come across this yourself.’

  A quick dip of the black silk head. ‘I have heard of it.’

  ‘Is it possible that Mrs Page was taking drugs from here?’

  Kim shook her head decisively. ‘No. We are most careful with drugs, anything taken would be missed. Also, Sister Page was not a foolish young nurse who might do such a thing without thinking of the consequences. She did not use drugs herself, I am sure of it. And I do not believe she would supply them to anyone else. Also.…’ She stopped then, with a little sideways smile at the detective.

  ‘Also?’

  ‘Is there much demand among addicts for heart pills and enemas?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard,’ Liz admitted with a grin. ‘Is that all you use here?’

  ‘Not quite. We have sedatives and sleeping pills, and routine medications for various conditions. But we can’t treat seriously ill patients, they’re transferred to hospital, so we have no use for powerful drugs. We’d disappoint a junkie.’

  Liz nodded. ‘They won’t be queueing up with their hypodermics at the ready, will they? I don’t suppose Kerry had much contact with – I don’t know – the general hospital maybe?’

  ‘Castle General is where she did her training, she knew many people on the staff. But I don’t think she saw much of them after she left. I think she was not very happy there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a different sort of work to here – more pressure, more formality, and it’s harder to specialize in the things that interest you.’

  ‘Geriatrics? It’s not the most glamorous branch of the profession: I’d have thought nurses who wanted to work with old people would get every encouragement.’

  ‘Inspector,’ Kim said gently, ‘there are no glamorous branches of nursing. But you’re right: nurses don’t have to fight to do geriatrics. Of course, a private nursing home generally pays better. That’s probably why she came here.’

  Liz had gone to the Rosedale Nursing Home hoping for an insight into the Pages’life that would begin to explain what happened in the car park on the Castlemere Levels. When she left, though, the darkness seemed deeper than ever. It struck her as a little odd that Kerry Page had lost touch with former colleagues when they all still lived in the same town. But she’d married since she knew them, the shape of her life had changed. She had better things to do than see people she used to work with. The Pages lived like everyone else; better than some because they had two good wages but essentially it was a picture of domestic normality. Kerry Page had a worthy if mundane job and a happy if unremarkable marriage. The only unexpected thing she ever did was having her head blown off.

  Chapter Five

  Beech trees lined the road to the airfield. A blink of autumn sun washed the copper leaves with light. Flame-like, they flickered in the breeze of his passing. At least, Donovan thought they were flickering. If he was wrong about that then Shapiro was right and he shouldn’t be riding the bike yet.

  Actually the ride in the sunshine and the fresh air was doing him good. His head felt clearer than at any time since the – incident. Shapiro insisted on calling it that in the hope that it might have been an accident. Donovan knew better. He’d been there. True, his memory was hazy and nothing he could recall labelled it indelibly as murder. But he had been round stupid men and drunken men, and he had been round killers, and he knew the difference. He knew the difference between a car out of control and one controlled very precisely in order to crush men’s lives out against a brick wall.

  All he had seen of the man who had hit them was a pair of feet. But he knew from the way they walked, from the way one rolled him over – because it was quicker and easier than crouching over him and less likely to result in blood on his clothes – that there was nothing random, nothing careless, about what had happened. The man had walked back to see if the job was done. Donovan owed his life to the fact that an apprentice painter and his girl had done all they could think to do in the back of a van reeking of turpentine and wanted a take-away before the Chinese chip shop shut.

  Now the clean air pouring through his visor blew away some of the black rage and other garbage that had been stuffing his head and he was finally getting the thing into perspective. He was sorry to be off the case but what Shapiro said made sense. And Shapiro, if cautious, was a good detective. If there was a way of having Clarke’s killer he would have him; if he was a pro it would be obvious then. And Shapiro would have to listen to Donovan’s theory as to who sent him and why.

  In the mean time Donovan was better working on something than nothing and the Kerry Page case was indisputably murder. He had half expected to come back from sick-leave to find ten years’ worth of files on his desk with a note from Shapiro to up-date them. He’d already decided he’d walk if that happened.

  The sign on the road welcomed him to Castlemere Airport, a pretentious description of one runway, one hangar, a windsock, and a caravan posing as air-traffic control. Castle Air Services was the only business using the field regularly. Starting with an RAF-surplus DC3 Joe Tulliver spent ten years ferrying mixed freight round Europe for marginal profits before realizing that the way to make money was to specialize in low-weight, high-value cargoes. Like people.

  With the motorways filling up people were looking for a better way to cover long distances. Businessmen, racegoers, hospitals needing urgent supplies, and factories waiting for spare parts prov
ided him with a thriving trade. By the time David Page joined the firm in the late eighties Tulliver was running a four-seater, an eight-seater, a light freighter, and a helicopter. His turn-over wouldn’t have matched British Airways’but then neither would his problems.

  Tulliver’s office was a corner of the hangar glassed in so that the telephone didn’t have to compete with engine tests. An expansive Yorkshireman with a high pain threshold as far as checked jackets were concerned, Tulliver met Donovan at the hangar door. For a moment the detective was impressed by his courtesy; then he realized the man was watching his Skyvan taking off. When the boxy little freighter was a dwindling speck against the vast sky over the Levels they went inside.

  ‘Bad business,’ grunted Tulliver. He dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk, kicked another towards Donovan. ‘How’s the lad taking it?’

  ‘About how you’d expect,’ Donovan said, carefully noncommittal. ‘Know him well, do you?’

  ‘I’ve known David for fifteen years.’ Tulliver spoke slowly. ‘He used to ride out here on his bike after school: just to watch at first, then I gave him odd jobs to do. He got his private pilot’s licence when he was eighteen or nineteen. Then he was coming out here after work – he had a job in the bank, spent most of his pay flying. When he got his licence up-graded I took him on. That’s about three years ago.’ He sighed. ‘It was a mistake. Don’t misunderstand me, he’s a good pilot, when I’ve had enough of this business I’d like to see David running it. But I used to make a packet out of hiring him the Cessna. Now he gets all the flying he wants and I have to pay him.’