by Lisa Cutts
I got ready for a long night of note-taking as Marilyn began to tell me her story in more detail. To begin with, I let her talk and I made notes, scribbling furiously to keep up with her. I covered somewhere in the region of twenty pages of A4 in my notebook, marking in the margin where I needed to ask her questions. I didn’t want to interrupt her any more than was strictly necessary. She looked far off into the distance on a number of occasions but mostly she told her tale with little emotion, other than the odd rueful smile. Wingsy and Charles had disappeared back into the kitchen and had at long last put the kettle on. Food I was able to go without, under protest, but not tea.
Charles brought in the tea. He stayed and poured it in silence, allowing his wife to talk. Even when he offered me my drink, he held the sugar bowl out rather than speak and interrupt his wife’s narrative. When I shook my head at his offering, he replaced the bowl and left the room without uttering one word. So he wasn’t quite the idiot I’d thought on our arrival. I was even beginning to find the sound of the water fairly soothing. But then, I was tired, and the lack of food had lowered my resistance.
When Marilyn had finished at last, I went over my notes and asked some questions to either fill in gaps in her account or to make certain I had completely understood her. I then began the laborious task of transferring the notes into a statement. It was going to take time and it was very late. The thought flicked through my brain that I could return the following day with her statement typed, ready for her to read and sign. I weighed up whether this was a good idea or not. It was unlikely she’d collapse and be rushed to hospital by ambulance like Tommy, but I didn’t want to risk that by morning something else would have got in the way.
The statement taken, I asked one last question about Joe Bring’s half-brother.
‘What does Liam do for a job, Marilyn?’
Her reluctance to show her feelings vanished. Her face lit up as she said, ‘He owns his own business. It’s doing very well. He’s recently expanded and taken on new premises. He’s in security – burglar alarms, that kind of thing.’
I left it there.
As we packed up our paperwork, Marilyn told us that they would be visiting Tommy Ross first thing. We said our goodbyes and set off back to Riverstone. Wingsy offered to drive and I was happy to let him; I was shattered. I thought that the best thing was for me to get home and get some sleep. Before I succumbed to exhaustion, though, I wanted to discuss how the last few hours had gone. Wingsy hadn’t heard everything Marilyn had told me, and I certainly had no idea what he’d discussed with Charles Fitzhubert in the kitchen.
‘What do you think, Wings, about Malcolm Bring being told by Martin Withey that Marilyn was pregnant?’
I saw his shoulders shrug up and down in the dark of the car and he replied, ‘My money’s on Charles Fitzhubert telling him.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘What exactly would he have to gain from it all?’
‘Well, Marilyn, of course. It seemed that, as well as the dinners she mentioned with Rumbly, she also went to a couple of functions and got herself noticed. I also explained to Charles before we began to write,’ said Wingsy, ‘that the declaration at the top of the statement clearly points out that lying in his statement may well end up with him getting arrested. It seemed to cause him a few memory problems when it came to anything regarding Rumbly’s and Marilyn’s “casual dating”.’
‘Do you think she had any reason to lie to me about there being no sexual relationship between her and Rumbly?’ I asked. ‘She seemed genuine, and she did admit to stealing from him. She could get charged with theft, but she’ll never face a conviction for sleeping with him.’
‘I don’t know, but I think we need to speak to Harry and Ian Hammond about what we do next. They’re going to have to decide if we arrest Leonard Rumbly yet or wait. The priority is going to be the shooting of Patrick Hudson, not a Cold Case investigation fifty years old, especially with so little at the moment against Rumbly for it. There’s an overlap between the two, but a recent murder will always win.’
I understood very clearly what he was trying to tell me. We were going to have to try very hard to convince the DI that the arrest of Leonard Rumbly was worthy of immediate pursuit.
52
We drove back to Riverstone, tired yet elated by what we’d learnt. We stopped on the way to grab a sandwich that neither of us enjoyed, but we needed food, a break, and some space to call our other halves. Bill didn’t sound too worried that I was going to be late but did remind me that I’d only been back at work a short while and wasn’t supposed to be charging all over the country and working sixteen-hour days. No one seemed to have done very much to discourage me.
Eventually, we made it back to the yard, cleared the rubbish out of the car and carried the paperwork up to the Cold Case office. I logged on to the computer to the noise of Wingsy grumbling about Jim having taken his pens and his mousemat and what he was going to say to him in the morning. I was only half listening, as I wanted to check my emails and send one to Harry warning him that I might be in later than my duty time the next day. I knew he wouldn’t mind me coming in an hour late, as long as I let him know.
The sound of Wingsy muttering about his stolen stationery was getting to me, as I was trying to read one of my emails and couldn’t concentrate. When I could take no more, I said, ‘Wind your neck in about your bloody highlighter. Go and get another one from the stationery cupboard.’
When Wingsy came back with armfuls of notepads and pens, I said, ‘Let’s call it a day, and when we get in tomorrow we can run everything we’ve got so far past Harry.’
‘Good idea,’ said Wingsy.
We shut up the office for the evening and signed out in the diary, letting the control room know we’d gone off duty, to prevent any phone calls in the middle of the night checking where we were.
As I pulled up on the driveway of Bill’s house, I could see that he was still awake. The flicker of the television screen illuminated the living room and momentarily silhouetted my boyfriend as he sat in his armchair. I liked this. I really liked coming home to him at the end of the day. I sat in my car, leaning forward against the steering wheel, quietly savouring the moment and the stillness of the neighbourhood at one o’clock in the morning. Then I accidentally pressed the horn and saw Bill jump out of his seat to peer out of the window. I hurried from the car to the front door, deliberately avoiding looking at the neighbours’ twitching curtains.
Bill saw my car through the window and disappeared from view on his way towards the front door. He let me in and I stood for a moment or two at the bottom of the stairs, glad to be home. I’d spent my day in A&E and two vastly different homes. It had been, as a detective constable’s days often were, weird and unpredictable. Now I was back in familiar, cosy surroundings and I couldn’t be happier about it.
‘You look pleased to be home. Or is it the thought of wine?’ said Bill, pausing to kiss me before disappearing towards the kitchen. It was a warm and lingering kiss, making me feel even better about walking through the door than I could have hoped.
‘Bit of both really, but I’ll pass on the wine tonight. Think I’ll put the kettle on.’ I had followed Bill into the kitchen and saw him pause with the wine bottle in his hand, concern creasing his face. ‘I’ve got an early start tomorrow and think a cuppa’s a better idea at the moment.’ Actually, this wasn’t true, but I couldn’t get out of my mind the image of Tommy’s ashen face as he lay on his lonely bed, fighting to breathe. I supposed so much alcohol was bound to take a toll after such a long time. I thought that I’d expand my life expectancy by one more day through my abstinence.
While I filled the kettle and Bill got the cups from the cupboard, he asked me how my day had been. I began to tell him about Tommy Ross and why we’d gone back to his house, although I left out the part about the chicken doner. We took our tea into the semi-darkness of the living room, settled back, and I asked Bill about his own day.
I watched him take
a slurp of his hot drink, before he replied, ‘Stopped a car. It turned out to be stolen and I spent most of the morning booking the prisoner into custody and completing the paperwork.’ He then told me about his afternoon spent searching a house following a stabbing in the victim’s front garden. Take out the part about CSIs searching premises and bloodstained clothing, and this was a normal domestic scene. I had never felt so comfortable in a relationship with someone.
I sipped at the rest of my drink, not even minding that it didn’t contain anything stronger than caffeine, and allowed myself to enjoy being home.
My reverie was interrupted by Bill setting his cup on the table.
‘There was something I wanted to speak to you about, actually,’ he said.
‘And not work-related?’
He shook his head. That was a shame. I could handle that.
‘I’ve been thinking… Neither of us has lots of money to spare, and you never know what unexpected expenses are around the corner.’
‘You want me to move out?’
‘No, no, of course I don’t. I’m thinking about your parents and the money you give them.’
I put my own cup down and went in the direction of the kitchen. I still wasn’t in search of wine; I just wanted to get out of the room and avoid cross words.
Bill followed me. ‘Nina, we need to talk about this.’
I had reached the sink so I turned and faced him. I crossed my arms and waited.
He took a deep breath and said, ‘How about we offer them a compromise? We’ll give them a fixed amount every month but less than you already give them – ’
I opened my mouth to say something but Bill carried on talking.
‘Your sister – ’
My mouth was very much closed now. Lips pursed.
‘She’s a part of your family. And I know so little of her and…’ He picked up my hand and took a deep breath. ‘And when you’re ready, if you want to, how about you tell me some more about her?’
‘I’d like that,’ I said. ‘I’d really like that.’
53
Following a restless night, I got ready for work feeling as if I’d hardly slept at all. Bill was on a rest day so I kissed the top of his head and left him snoring away in bed.
The email I had sent Harry told him to call me if he needed me in urgently, otherwise I would be in a bit later. I knew he’d understand that the last few days had taken it out of me. I had expected to return to work and within a couple of days everything would be back to normal. That didn’t feel as though it was happening. I didn’t want to make too much fuss about how I was struggling, though, for fear they’d send me somewhere really dull. Admittedly my last murder investigation hadn’t gone as smoothly as it should have done, but, despite all the personal problems it had brought with it, it had also produced one of the best rushes I’d ever known – the buzz, the thrill, the excitement of trying to catch a killer. I couldn’t imagine taking another person’s life or standing by and doing nothing to save one, but playing a part in a team that existed for the sole purpose of detecting murders and putting those responsible in prison was second to nothing.
Still feeling torn between wanting to go back home to bed and feeling myself settling into the Cold Case investigation, I walked into the office.
Jim Sullivan and Jemma Russell both looked up, but only Jemma acknowledged me. ‘Morning, Nin. Harry and Wings are in the conference room. Said when you get here, can you go up and join them?’
‘Cheers, Jem,’ I said, leaving my bag and jacket behind but grabbing my notebook. I set off up the stairs and was pleased that the one flight was a little less of a struggle than it had been a couple of days earlier.
I walked into the conference room, to find Wingsy and Harry sitting next to each other, heads bent together, engrossed in conversation. A messy spread of papers littered a large portion of the table. I could tell from several feet away that it was the file of the 1964 Wickerstead Valley train crash. It was looking distinctly as though the investigation was now being upgraded to a priority. The reason for that had to be the new evidence Wingsy and I had uncovered. I felt the tiredness ebb away and once again I was ready to throw myself back into the job in front of me.
Wingsy looked up and winked at me. Harry pulled out the chair next to me and pushed a cup of tea in my direction. I took the plastic lid off, opened my notebook and joined in. I expected some stick from Harry about not being able to get myself out of bed in the mornings but he didn’t say a thing. I had forgotten that not only was he a formidable detective, he also knew when one of his members of staff needed to be cut a little slack. I knew he wouldn’t make a habit of it, but I liked to think that part of the reason I was sent to Cold Case was because Harry would keep an eye on me.
‘Wingsy was filling me in on the details of last night with the Fitzhuberts,’ he said, Marilyn’s statement in front of him. ‘Seems like you two had a very eventful day yesterday.’
‘You could say that,’ I replied. ‘I know that we’re supposed to be looking at the 1964 incident, but it’s bleeding into other areas.’ I held my right hand up and counting on my fingers, said, ‘Firstly, we have Leonard Rumbly’s suspected involvement in that. Secondly, we have his family’s connections to the heroin overdoses, and thirdly… well, that’s about it.’
Harry was staring at me. I felt stupid with my hand up, so I put it down.
He glanced at the closed door and said, ‘There’s intelligence coming in. Janice Freeman wants to talk to us this afternoon. She’s coming here. We have this room all day. We need to be in a position to present to her everything we’ve got so far about the Rumblys, particularly Leonard.’
‘What’s she got to do with our investigation?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t she the SIO on Patrick Hudson’s shooting? Her team’s nothing to do with this.’
‘Niall Rumbly was sharing a cell with Patrick before he was released from prison, remember?’ said Wingsy.
‘Yes, but he wasn’t involved in the shooting, though. He was still locked up at the time,’ I said.
‘The evidence against Richard Hudson was always a bit on the thin side,’ said Harry, taking a sip from his own tea. ‘He was swabbed for gunshot residue – that was negative. He was the one who called the police, and the warrant on his home address didn’t turn up anything untoward. He certainly didn’t have a gun or ammunition. Janice Freeman’s team have been very busy carrying out other enquiries and it would seem that the phone work and ANPR have turned up some very interesting stuff.’ He paused. ‘The black Polo that you and Wingsy saw outside the gold shop on the Noël Coward estate was in the area where Patrick was shot at the relevant time. When the three of them got lifted for handling stolen goods, their phones were downloaded and one of them had made several calls either side of the shooting.’ He paused once more. ‘And the number called was Andy Rumbly’s landline.’
54
By the time Harry had finished speaking, I was open-mouthed. Wingsy didn’t look as surprised as me, so he might well already have received the news. Apart from loving this update, I was secretly pleased it was Andy and not Leonard Rumbly’s landline the calls had been made to. I knew only too well that they might regret their decision to let me near the shooting once it came to light that Leonard Rumbly’s grandson was sharing a cell with Hudson, our shooting victim. Had we known at the time that we could link someone at the scene of the shooting straight to Andy Rumbly’s home address, we might have taken a different approach, and Clint Stirling and Janice Freeman probably wouldn’t have asked me to become involved in the first place. Still, now I was involved and with three more to arrest, I was banking on the shortage of staff to keep me well and truly in the thick of it.
Harry looked at his watch.
‘We have about three hours to get whatever we have into a clear and concise format for the DCI. I’m not handing them the train crash, Nina. That’s yours. We’re going to have to work out a way of separating them. I know now that our job won’t be dealt wi
th before a current murder investigation but that’s the way it goes. When she gets here, we’ll talk about the logistics and when we nick Rumbly senior.’
Before we got to work on the hours of paperwork before us, I made a phone call to the hospital to check on Tommy Ross. His condition had changed little overnight but he had had two visitors that morning. The nurse I spoke to didn’t know their names but told me that, even though it was outside visiting hours, they had been allowed to see him as they were named as his next of kin.
Perhaps it was the tight timescale I had before DCI Freeman arrived, wanting to know what we had on Leonard Rumbly, but I found it was the first time since my return to work that I wasn’t constantly distracted. My concentration had improved and I felt as though we were getting somewhere. Wingsy and I worked in comfortable silence, only interrupting each other’s thoughts to check facts or ask if the other wanted a cup of tea. At last, we were as content as we could be with our information, and waited for the SIO’s arrival.
Harry rejoined us with Freeman and the four of us sat around the table in the conference room, talking through the options for Leonard Rumbly’s arrest and how it would go ahead. Freeman began by explaining what enquiries had been carried out already.
‘The DC here on the nick who dealt with the three from outside the gold shop for handling stolen goods downloaded their phones and realised that one of them, Philip Peters, had made a number of calls either side of the time of Patrick Hudson’s shooting. He contacted the Major Incident Room and passed the information on. In the meantime, we’d already carried out ANPR enquiries around the scene of the shooting. The black Polo had come up, but it was on false plates so we couldn’t locate it or the driver. There were a few other vehicles around at the time so it was one of many and not a particular priority. That was until you put it together with the driver of the Polo making a number of calls at the time of the murder. Oh, and there’s this.’ She pulled an ANPR photograph from her notebook and pushed it across the table to the three of us.
