‘It should be.’ Lucy smiled. ‘It cost an arm and a leg.’
‘Where? Do you mind me asking?’
Lucy gave a brief shake of the head. ‘Brackleys. They were terrific, did the whole package for us.’
Somehow Millie wasn’t surprised. People came from far and wide to the exclusive department store in Birmingham’s city centre. It lent further weight to Mariner’s comment.
‘The food was a particular nightmare,’ Lucy was saying. ‘Will’s lactose intolerant, but they were so creative with the menus.’
‘How long have you been married?’ Millie asked.
‘Six months.’
Wow, Millie thought, a lot could change in six months. The radiant bride in the photograph was a far cry from the pale, gaunt figure curled into the armchair across from her, although the right make-up could do wonders. ‘I got married just over a year ago,’ she said, pleased to find some common ground.
Lucy’s face brightened too, sharing in the coincidence. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ she said, though, to Millie’s ears, the enthusiasm seemed a little forced.
‘He’s a good-looking bloke, your husband,’ Millie said, replacing the picture and stating only what was an obvious truth.
‘I know, I still can’t believe it really. I’m so lucky.’ She didn’t sound lucky. ‘Do you want to see the other pictures? ’ She was out of her seat and retrieving a big white album from the shelf before Millie had time to reply. But, in addition to satisfying Millie’s natural curiosity, it would also help her to get some idea of Lucy’s friends.
Lucy came over and sat beside Millie on the sofa. Judging by the number of guests and their dress, the wedding had clearly been a big occasion.
‘Where did you have it?’ Millie asked.
‘The Wolverton,’ said Lucy. ‘Do you know it?’
Millie didn’t, but she could see that it was quite a place. They got to the group photos. ‘So who are all these?’ As Lucy went through the names it was clear that the majority were her friends and family. ‘Not many from Will’s side,’ Millie commented lightly.
‘No, but he didn’t seem to mind. His mum and dad, that’s them there -’ she pointed to a couple beside her in the picture ‘- and the guys in the band of course. But he was cool with that. It was a long way for his folks to come, and after years of being on the road he isn’t that close to them any more. His friends and family these days are the band.’
‘And you,’ Millie added.
‘Yes, of course. And me.’
‘How did you and Will meet?’
‘He turned up at the aerobics class I used to go to with Julie-Ann. I assumed he would be interested in her, she’s much prettier than me. See, this is her, next to Tamsin.’ Lucy indicated one of the bridesmaids. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Will asked me out.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Well, it wasn’t so much “out” as to a gig, where he was working,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But he took care of me and apart from when he was on stage it was like a date. I broke my first rule that night; never have sex on the -’ She broke off, glancing apologetically at Millie. ‘Sorry, you probably don’t want to know that.’ Millie brushed away the apology. ‘Antiquated rule anyway,’ Lucy went on. ‘How many people stick to that these days? Actually, I couldn’t help myself. It turned me on just to be sitting next to him, and he knew it. I’ve never felt that way with any man I’ve been out with before. I usually go for quiet intellectual types. Oh, God, listen to me, prattling on.’
‘And you’re enjoying married life,’ Millie reiterated, wanting to give Lucy the opportunity to disclose anything that wasn’t so good.
‘It was great, until all this started.’ But she still couldn’t muster much enthusiasm.
‘What does Will think?’
‘Between you and me? I’m not sure if he believes me.’ She drifted off for a moment. ‘Was your marriage . . .?’
‘Arranged?’ Millie offered.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t make assumptions.’
‘No, it’s fine. I always swore I’d never go down that route, but then my parents introduced me to Suliman and I really liked him. We ended up having the full traditional Asian wedding, but it was brilliant.’ Millie turned back to the wedding photos. ‘You said Julie-Ann is your best friend?’
‘Yes, we do a lot together - or at least we used to before I got married.’ As she spoke Lucy gazed down at the rings on her left hand, stretching out her fingers to straighten them.
There was some deep reflection going on there, but good or bad Millie couldn’t tell. She wondered how Julie-Ann felt about the marriage. ‘I’ll need her details,’ Millie said.
‘Why?’ It startled Lucy out of her thoughts.
‘It’s just routine,’ Millie said casually. ‘We talk to friends and acquaintances. In fact, is there anyone else you can think of who might be able to help?’
There were not many. Apart from her mother and work colleagues, Lucy didn’t appear to have a rampant social life. It was a stark contrast with Millie. Since she’d married she’d never been out so much. But maybe Lucy and Will got all they needed from each other. Millie knew plenty of other couples who were like that.
Suddenly, Lucy turned to her. ‘Listen, I don’t know if this is allowed, but I’d love to see your wedding photos sometime.’
Millie smiled. ‘I’m sure we can manage that.’
Mariner came back into the lounge, his survey of the property complete. ‘Have you ever thought about having a burglar alarm?’ he asked Lucy.
She shook her head. ‘It crossed my mind, but I’d be concerned about it going off all the time and disturbing the neighbours.’
It was the reaction of many people these days and Mariner was, if anything, inclined to agree. ‘Well, a couple of security lights front and back wouldn’t hurt, but, otherwise, as you’d expect with a building this new, you’re pretty secure. As long as you remember to lock the door behind you and keep the ground-floor windows closed, you’ll be quite safe in here. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Thank you.’ She seemed to genuinely take comfort from the simple reassurance.
Mariner’s phone rang. It was Tony Knox. ‘We need to get back,’ he said.
Millie stood up and Lucy took the drained coffee cup from her. She saw them out into the hall.
‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Millie said. ‘There’s a good chance that once whoever is doing this learns that we are involved it will be enough to make them stop, but if you get any further incidents it’s important that you log them; date, time and exactly what happened, so that if we eventually get to court we have some specific evidence.’
‘What about tapping my phone?’
Millie grimaced. ‘It’s not actually as easy as it looks on TV,’ she said. ‘And we don’t have that level of resourcing at this stage.’
‘It’s not serious enough,’ Lucy said. Stated so blandly, it sounded mean.
‘But we are taking this seriously,’ Millie added quickly. ‘The two things are not the same.’
‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I guess I was just hoping you’d wave a magic wand.’
Millie pulled a face. ‘Sorry, they’re not part of the kit!’
‘Thanks for your time, anyway.’
‘Sure,’ said Millie. ‘We’ll keep in touch.’
Reversing out of the drive, Mariner had to manoeuvre carefully to avoid a silver Honda, parked on the road, opposite Lucy’s drive. With substantial parking bays, there seemed no need to park it there, but perhaps it was a visitor.
‘How did you get on?’ Mariner asked, as they drove back up the main road towards Granville Lane. Back at the station he’d have to complete a risk assessment, and was beginning to try to weigh up how serious this was.
‘I’m not sure,’ Millie said. ‘Lucy’s certainly anxious about something. She’s a pale shadow of what she was on her wedding day, and something must be causing it. The phone calls are clearly real.’
‘You handled the phone tapping pretty deftly, well done,’ Mariner said.
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s a tough one, because she’s right, of course, a phone tap would soon clear it up. But if we offered that service to everyone who’s made this kind of complaint in the last couple of months we’d have spent the annual budget.’
‘This is most likely someone who knows her, isn’t it?’ said Millie.
‘It usually is,’ Mariner agreed. ‘It would help to think about people Lucy has come into contact with at and away from work. Anyone she talked about?’
‘Away from work it doesn’t sound as if she sees anyone much, so that should be easy,’ said Millie. ‘Her husband is interesting. They’ve only been married six months and his background is a bit hazy.’ They drove in silence for a few minutes. ‘Is it me, boss, or is stalking on the increase?’
‘That and road rage. Thanks to people like Jemima Murdoch, it’s definitely reported more in the media, but it probably is on the increase too, because these days, with mobile phones and the Internet, it’s so easy to do. We’re all being stalked to some degree by the thousands of CCTV cameras around. And at the same time we’re moving towards a blame and revenge culture, which provides the right person with the motive and the justification.’
Signalling, Mariner pulled into the Granville Lane compound. ‘You seem to have established a good rapport with Lucy Jarrett,’ he said. ‘How would you feel about taking the lead on this?’
It would be the first time he’d given her this responsibility, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her visibly grow into it. ‘I’d really like that, sir,’ she said, beaming.
‘You need to keep me and the rest of the team informed though, and if at any point -’ Mariner placed a deliberate stress on those two words ‘- you feel out of your depth, you involve me, do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I mean it; no heroics. So, are you clear on what strategy you’re going to adopt?’
‘There are a couple of other leads to follow up; friends I can go and talk to. Also I’d like to find out more about the husband. Lucy said herself that she never gets the calls when he’s at home. They haven’t been married long and it seems to me that Lucy has made some compromises for him. She also more or less said that he chose her over her friend, Julie-Ann. According to Lucy, Julie-Ann is prettier, though it wasn’t the case on the wedding day and I doubt it’s true - her self-esteem is at rock bottom.’
‘I wonder what Julie-Ann’s financial status is?’ Mariner mused. ‘Lucy’s clearly loaded.’
‘Yeah, it did make me wonder what hubby brought to the union.’
‘So, money and sex - our old favourites bob to the surface again.’
‘Can’t get enough of them,’ said Millie. ‘I’ll go and talk to the mother and the best friend first, and see what they have to say.’
Mariner nodded agreement. ‘Then maybe I’ll come with you to talk to the husband when he gets home.’
Millie was still grinning from ear to ear when they got out of the car. Mariner’s mobile pinged again, the arrival of a text; Stephanie once more, disappointed that he hadn’t called yet.
‘Another text from your admirer?’ joked Millie. ‘Maybe you’re getting a stalker of your own, sir.’
‘She’s got a night off and wants to meet up,’ Mariner said absently.
‘Do you want me to go round and keep Kat company?’
‘No, it’s fine. I don’t want to go anyway. She was all right in bed but she wasn’t scintillating company.’ Mariner caught Millie’s expression and blushed hotly. That was rather more detail than he’d intended sharing with his detective constable. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to -’
‘’S all right sir.’ Millie was struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Our little secret.’
Mariner did wonder for a fleeting second what it said about him; that he would rather spend his evening with his twenty-year-old charge than a woman his own age, but, if Millie thought it odd, she kept it to herself.
She’d made great strides, Millie, since she’d first joined the team. Only recently promoted to CID, so far she’d proven to be a thoroughly reliable officer, who could be trusted absolutely. Lucy Jarrett would be in safe hands.
CHAPTER FOUR
Just as well really, because DS Tony Knox was waiting for Mariner at the top of the stairs, dressed as always in casual civvies, the detective’s unofficial uniform of chinos and leather jacket.
‘What’s the excitement?’ Mariner asked.
Knox shrugged. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Sharp wants you and me in her office.’ He did a double-take. ‘Don’t look at me, boss. I’ve done nothing.’
In deference to her status, DCI Sharp’s office was one of the bigger ones, but was pretty crowded by the time Knox and Mariner had squeezed in. The DCI had been joined by a couple of officers from uniform, one of whom was a giant. Mariner recognised and nodded a greeting to Sergeant Gordon Powell, but, to his knowledge, he’d not met the young black PC who dwarfed Powell. They were standing beside Sharp’s desk with hands clasped and heads bowed, as if waiting for a prayer meeting to begin.
‘What’s up?’ Mariner asked.
‘You know Sergeant Powell? And this is PC Ralph Solomon,’ Sharp said. ‘We want you to have a look at these.’
As she spoke, Powell spread out some 10×8 crime-scene photographs on the desk.
Over the years Mariner had naturally seen his share of shocking and gruesome deaths, and this was another to add to the list. But while those that he’d witnessed to date involved copious amounts of blood, and/or body parts arranged in a way that had never been intended, this one was different. The victim, a woman, had met with a violent and obscene death. That much could be seen in the paroxysm of pain and fear that had contorted her features even after the life had ebbed away. Her mouth, shaped in a crooked ‘o’, was an unnaturally dark crimson and her hands were at her throat. Radiating out from the beautifully manicured fingertips and up towards her chin were angry red, vertical lacerations. The frayed ends of a fine thread were grasped between the fingers of her left hand, and there was a scattering of what looked like small pellets around her head, spread out like a halo. In fact, the whole tableau had the look of a religious painting.
The unusual feature was that, while the death had clearly been a violent one, there was not a drop of blood to be seen, and from what could be ascertained from the dozen or so multi-angled photographs, aside from the scratches on her neck, her body was unmarked. Mariner’s first thought was heart attack; severe pains in the chest, the inability to breathe and fear that she was going to suffocate to death. He stood transfixed by one particular full-face shot. It was the eyes, always the eyes. He glanced up. The other three were waiting for him and Knox to process what they saw.
‘Nina Silvero,’ Powell offered, although that wasn’t the information Mariner needed right then. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but then it was pretty exotic. ‘A sixty-one-year-old widow, lived alone, taught dance classes, although she was due to retire soon.’
‘Heart attack?’ ventured Knox, though as he said it Mariner knew that it was wrong.
‘Sulphuric acid,’ said the sergeant calmly. ‘She drank it. According to the pathologist, it would have burned through the lining in her throat first of all, then, on the descent into her body, the heat would have radiated out and slowly cooked her internal organs.’
Mariner gulped back the bile that had suddenly heaved up into his own throat.
‘Fucking hell,’ murmured Knox, beside him.
‘Croghan said she would have died in agony.’
‘That much I can see,’ said Mariner.
‘It was the smell.’ For the first time the young constable spoke up, though his comment wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. He was thinking aloud, reliving his horrific discovery.
‘What was?’ his sergeant asked.
‘It was what I noticed first when I went into the house - i
t was like the smell of burning meat,’ Solomon said.
This time they all visibly balked.
‘Our first thought was suicide,’ the sergeant added.
Mariner looked up at him. ‘But you’ve changed your mind.’ He had a sudden unwelcome flashback to several years before, a suburban house and an apparent suicide that had changed his life for ever.
‘The stepdaughter tells us she wasn’t suicidal.’
‘Families always say they’re not suicidal,’ said Knox reasonably.
The sergeant placed another photograph on the desk. This time it was a still life of a collection of items on a table-top; a bunch of flowers, wrapped and awaiting a vase; a grey plastic bottle of the kind that might contain detergent; a Chardonnay bottle and a single wine glass. He pointed to the detergent bottle. ‘This is what killed her. It’s industrial-strength drain fluid, according to the label.’
‘And this stuff would be easy to get hold of?’ Mariner asked.
‘Looks as if it’s the kind of thing you can pick up at any number of DIY stores locally. As you can see, though, only one wine glass, and the wine bottle is empty,’ he said. ‘The stepdaughter also tells us that Mrs Silvero wasn’t a drinker. She wouldn’t drink alone, and she certainly wouldn’t drink a whole bottle herself.’
‘Unless she was plucking up the courage to switch to the other bottle,’ Mariner said, feeling as though he was stating the obvious. ‘People do deviate from their habits -’
‘- and kids don’t always know what their parents get up to,’ added Knox. He spoke from bitter experience. Estranged from his wife for three years now, Mariner knew it grieved his sergeant that he hardly ever saw either of his grown-up children.
‘We also found this.’ With a flourish that suggested he’d saved the best till last, Powell handed Mariner a poly pocket that contained a document. It was a letter headed with the crest of Buckingham Palace, informing Nina Silvero that she had recently been a recipient of the MBE. The date suggested that it had arrived only a few weeks previously. ‘It seemed to me like a weird way to celebrate,’ Powell observed.
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