‘Agreed,’ Amos replied. ‘Or three even. We are surely assuming,’ he added quickly as Swift raised her eyebrows to query his meaning ‘that Rita is also dead and has been for the past 15 years, like her brother if that’s who it was. It is also reasonable, though not definite, to believe that the same person killed both victims 15 years ago.
‘The question is, whatever could have been the motive? There’s just nothing within the files, or among what Winchester told me, to throw any light on that.’
Swift nodded. Winchester seemed to have been obsessed with Rita’s disappearance as being a missing person and it was some time after the event, when it was really too late, that he even began to consider the possibility that she had disappeared because she was killed.
‘The trail had gone cold,’ Swift said. ‘Winchester knew, as we all do, that the first few hours are crucial and to be fair to him it was a week before he became involved. But he never really followed up by interviewing the people who knew her to establish a motive for anyone to kill her.’
‘I think Winchester was convinced that if she was murdered it was a random killing in Cambridge and not on his patch,’ Amos said. ‘Perhaps that was his way of convincing himself that it wasn’t his fault that he failed to solve the case.
‘But I think he genuinely hoped against hope that one day a living human being would turn up, not a corpse. Now we have a corpse and it’s not even the right one.’
Swift said: ‘I guess that Rita is almost certainly dead and that she died on the way or soon after reaching Cambridge, before she had even got back to her flat there.
‘So the murderer lies low until the fuss dies down, probably waits until John is back in Lincoln and then kills him and disposes of the body where he hopes no-one will ever find it, well away from the scene of the murder. On that basis, any motive must involve both of them.’
‘Unless,’ Amos interrupted, ‘the motive was solely about Rita. It’s only later that John realizes who the killer is, confronts him and pays with his own life. The second motive would therefore be entirely unconnected to the first.’
Chapter 25
Amos got up early next morning, taking care not to disturb his sleeping wife. She was used to his early morning starts, and late night finishes for that matter, when a big case was on and had learnt to sleep through her husband’s comings and goings.
Down in the kitchen, after a cursory wash and shave in the downstairs cloakroom where he could minimize the noise, Amos switched on the electric kettle, poured a cupful of porridge oats into a pan followed by two cupfuls of milk and switched on the gas hob. He stirred the porridge thoroughly.
By now the kettle was almost boiling and there was just time to pop a teabag into a beaker. The timing of this routine was based on Mrs Amos filling the kettle the night before despite the fact that there were only two of them in the house and half the water was boiled unnecessarily at a cost on the electricity bill.
Amos had pointed this out on several occasions to his wife, who simply ignored him.
On muesli days he poured half the water away because the routine worked better. On porridge days the timing was spot on, except that porridge for two when Mrs Amos was awake involved having the gas higher to speed up the process.
Amos returned to the stove to stir the porridge again, then crossed to the cupboard over the kettle to pull out the tin of syrup which he carried over to the stove along with a cereal bowl just in time to catch the porridge at the right consistency.
Once the porridge was in the bowl and a circle of syrup deposited on top, the tea was now nicely brewed to medium strength. By the time that Amos had carried the beaker to the waste bin and extracted the teabag with his fingers, poured in milk and returned the milk carton to the fridge, the porridge had cooled to eatable temperature.
Amos found the routine immensely satisfying and he could always get his thoughts for the day in order as he did it. This was as close to superstition as he got.
He stared at the clock as he ate standing in the kitchen. Amos was anxious to leave home in good time to drive to the street where Rita and Irwin had spent their last (as far as he knew) weekend together and to trace, as far as possible, Rita’s route from there to Cambridge.
There was always plenty of space to park near Sincil Bank except on match days and there were no parking restrictions.
Arriving at the start of his journey, Amos set off on foot at 8.40am at what he estimated was an average walking pace. The young couple had been in good time so they would not have been rushing.
The walk zigzagging through the grid of side streets to the High Street saw Amos at the level crossing with several minutes to spare before the train was due to leave for Peterborough.
This time, though, the crossing barrier remained up. Amos crossed the tracks and waited a couple of minutes to allow for the delay that Irwin had reported in his statement then sauntered round the corner to the station entrance and onto the platform to catch the train.
As on the morning 15 years earlier, the train arrived in Peterborough only marginally late and in good time for Amos to transfer to his Cambridge connection. There was no scope here for kidnapping. Peterborough station was fairly busy. This was an important rail junction, especially since the closure of the old Peterborough East station had left this, formerly Peterborough North, as the only mainline station in town.
There were enough people moving to and fro to discourage anyone from grabbing and dragging away a young woman in the hope of being unnoticed. If anything, the station would have been busier 15 years earlier as the spread of the omnipresent automobile had continued to make inroads into rail travel in the intervening years, Amos reckoned.
Likewise, at Cambridge station, Amos emerged with a fair scattering of other passengers. Clutching his instructions, he followed the route to Rita Randall’s digs. It took him diagonally away from his ultimate destination at the university, past the youth hostel and between the cricket ground and the cemetery until he crossed inside the ring road.
There were still enough people around to make kidnapping extremely difficult if not impossible. Of course, Amos realized, it might have been less busy 15 years ago but probably not, at least not significantly so. Everything between Sincil Bank and the digs was just too commonplace.
Porridge, Amos’s mother had assured him so often, would set him up for the rest of the day with slow-release energy. What she had not reckoned on was the need for the mid-morning fix, a mug of coffee as a stimulant.
Amos wandered into an empty café on his way to the university buildings near the river where Martine Brown worked and ordered his fix. He passed the time reading a copy of the local newspaper left on one of the tables but found nothing of interest in the goings on in a city that was quite foreign to him.
Although he has was reasonably intellectual, he had not gone to any university, let alone one as prestigious as Cambridge. University education was not for the working class. It took you out of your depth, out of the way of life where you felt comfortable, his parents, friends and neighbours all believed.
It was too late now to disagree, as Harry Randall and his two children had. The idea that ordinary boys should know their place had been superseded by ambition. The belief that it was a waste of time and expense educating girls had lingered on for much longer, though not, apparently, in the Randall household. Rita must have been very intelligent indeed to have broken through the barrier, and in a science subject at that.
Chapter 26
Amos looked at his watch. There was time for a stroll along the river before meeting Martine Brown, time to reflect and gather his thoughts. He didn’t have a specific list of questions. It was more important just to get a feel of what she thought and her impressions of Rita and where her life was going at the time she disappeared.
Martine Brown was now plump and looked distinctly middle aged, quite unlike the rather glamorous photograph of a sylph-like young woman that accompanied her statement in the police f
ile. It hadn’t dawned on Amos that she would have changed so much but, after all, it had been 15 years.
Brown, Amos discovered while chatting to the receptionist after arriving a polite five minutes early, had made a name for herself in her chosen field, the sort of name that Rita Randall might well have made for herself. So much so that Brown kept her maiden name through marriage and two pregnancies.
‘Tell me about Rita,’ Amos said simply. ‘It may help.’
Brown took him at his word.
‘She was great fun and a great friend. I know I’m biased but we weren’t just flatmates, we were pals. Our courses overlapped so we saw each other at college quite a bit, we often had lunch together in the refec – the university refectory – we went swimming, we played tennis.’
‘I wasn’t good at making friends, not in the way that Rita was. She took me under her wing, helped me to enjoy life, gave me a confidence in myself that came naturally to her. She was very popular, and that’s saying something considering the appalling prejudice at Cambridge towards women. It could be tough going but she took it all in her stride.’
‘Did she have boyfriends, or any one in particular,’ Amos asked.
‘No-one special,’ Brown responded. ‘Most of the boys here were too scared to take on a woman of equal intellect. It scared them witless. We were all very immature back then, although we all thought we were so sophisticated and worldly wise. The boys came mainly from boys only schools and didn’t really know much about girls.’
‘In any case, she had a boyfriend back home in Lincolnshire,’ Amos said.
Brown looked genuinely puzzled.
‘I don’t think so,’ she answered. ‘I don’t think she saw much of boys back home. Her father didn’t approve, she told me. They were a distraction and he wanted Rita to go out and conquer the world. You couldn’t blame him. He had a child prodigy on his hands and he didn’t want her to squander the chance. He knew how tough it was for a girl back then.’
‘I meant Bradley Irwin,’ Amos insisted. ‘The boy she stayed with the weekend before she disappeared.’
Puzzlement turned to astonishment in Brown’s eyes.
‘Brad?’ she asked. ‘Bradley Irwin? They were just friends. Good friends, yes, but no more than that. She never slept with him. She told me herself. I know Brad was sweet on her but he knew it was going nowhere romantically. I met him once in our first term. He came up to Cambridge and stayed at the flat but he slept on the sofa in the lounge. Then she never allowed him to come again. Rita was way out of his league. Oh, he was a nice enough bloke and not bad looking but he couldn’t keep up a conversation. Rita wasn’t an intellectual snob but she kept him away from her fellow students most of the time while he was here because she was afraid he would show her up. It was hard enough competing with male students in such a male dominated environment without giving them free ammunition.’
‘So you didn’t know that Rita and Irwin were supposed to be getting engaged?’
‘Engaged?’ Brown fell backwards into her chair at the mention of the word. ‘You’re joking. You ARE joking aren’t you? Well, that’s a turn up for the books. I never suspected. Rita certainly put on a good act. But it does put a new light on things. I suppose you know Irwin cleared off without trace soon after Rita. If they were planning to elope together they certainly wouldn’t have wanted her dad to find out. The indifference must have been a façade to put us all off the scent. It sure succeeded as far as I was concerned.’
‘Did Rita have any enemies?’ Amos inquired. ‘Anyone who could just conceivably have wished her harm. Don’t worry about fingering an innocent person, it’s so long after the event now.’
‘I honestly couldn’t think of anyone at the time, and I thought hard enough about it. The police kept pestering me with the same questions, but I could not, and still cannot, think of anyone who hated her so much. I’m not saying there weren’t people who didn’t like her. No-one is universally adored and there was a lot of jealousy because she was a very brainy girl. But no, she did not have enemies, not to that extent.’
‘How did she seem when she went off for that weekend?’
‘To be honest, she was a bit agitated. A bit keyed up. She said there was something she had to do and it had to be that weekend. I pressed her about it but she wouldn’t budge. She said she would tell me all about it on Monday. I shall never find out what it was,’ Brown concluded with a sad shake of her head. Tears welled in her eyes and Amos judged it discreet to thank her for her time and make a hasty exit.
Chapter 27
Amos took the direct route back to the station. He preferred to walk rather than take a taxi – it wasn’t far, he was in good time for his return train and he wanted to think. What had Rita Randall done that weekend and had it led to her disappearance?
He had, however, resolved very little in his mind by the time he reached Lincoln Central. Rita had intended speaking to her flatmate on the Monday, though not necessarily face to face. She might have intended to tell Martine Brown her news by telephone or letter. What had prevented her not only from returning to Cambridge but also from contacting her close friend?
It had to be something dire. Was she really planning to run away with Bradley Irwin and start a new life where no-one could get at her or had something worse befallen her? He could not be sure. All possibilities had to be kept open, especially as it was still not clear whether this had anything to do with the two bodies lying in the mortuary.
The inspector picked up his car, giving thanks to the god he had long since abandoned for the fact that it had not been vandalized, and drove back to the police station. As he came up the passageway from the rear door that led from the station car park he could hear a hubbub in the front office and the sound of a familiar voice. It was Jason, Juliet Swift’s boyfriend, on one of his periodic lacrimose visits.
At least I don’t have to deal with this after a trying day, Amos thought to himself - at least, it hadn’t been a trying day until now.
Amos strode up to the front desk and extracted Jason as speedily as possible. The hunky, lovelorn rugby union player followed the inspector meekly but unsteadily, sobbing as they went.
To reach Amos’s office it was necessary to pass the team in their open plan area but mercifully Detective Sergeant Swift was not there and the others looked away or shuffled through papers on their desks, pretending not to notice.
Jason collapsed onto a chair without bidding as Amos closed the door of his office and he slumped over the desk as Amos walked round it and sat in the chair on the opposite side.
‘Why do you make her work so hard?’ Jason demanded, thumping the desk so suddenly and violently that Amos jumped visibly. ‘I love her so much, so much’ – here the young man was convulsed again with sobs – ‘and you keep her from me …’
‘Jason,’ Amos interrupted softly, ‘She is her own woman. She does valuable work willingly for the community and you should be proud of her. Look, we’re finishing early tonight so you can walk her home in just a few minutes.’
These sentiments, not least the gentle tone in which they were delivered, had the desired effect of calming Jason but this achievement was broken within seconds. Swift’s absence from the outer room had been only temporary and, discovering that Amos had returned, the love of Jason’s life came bursting into the room.
‘They told me you were …’ she began before spotting Jason, who was initially screened by the door as she pushed it open. Clearly no-one had dared to tell her that her boyfriend was having one of his periodic tearful rants and she had expected to find only the inspector in his room.
‘Jason, what the hell are you doing here?’ she thundered. ‘I told you never, ever, to come to my work again. I really can do without this. I shall come home as soon as I am ready. Now get back to the flat and clean it up. You can get the meal ready when you’ve done that. Go on, get out.’
She spoke with such vehemence that the local rugby star slunk meekly out of Amos’s office.
Swift watched him with eyes blazing as he made his way, head down, through the room and out of the far door towards the front office. No further sounds emanated from him as he went.
‘Sorry about that sir,’ Swift said as she recovered her composure within a second of Jason disappearing from their view.
Amos waved aside her apology. He had been shocked by the strength of Swift’s reaction to the embarrassing appearance of her boyfriend and had no desire to discuss the incident further.
‘Let me tell you about my day and then you tell me about yours,’ he said. ‘And then we’ll call it a day and consider our next move after a good night’s sleep.’
Amos recounted his journey to Cambridge and his interview with Martine Brown but he sensed that Swift was paying only scant attention. When he finished he discovered why: his sergeant had news of her own.
‘We’ve tracked down Irwin’s sister. She’s married now and living under her married name but she still lives here in the area,’ Swift told Amos proudly. ‘She took a bit of finding but we know it’s her.’
‘Excellent work,’ Amos readily conceded. ‘We can’t know of course whether she has anything to do with either murder but every piece we put into the jigsaw helps us to construct the full picture. You and I will go to see her first thing tomorrow morning.’
Chapter 28
Gemma Irwin proved more of a problem than Amos had expected. There was no difficulty in finding her at her home in Waddington, a pleasant enough drive down the A607 towards Grantham.
She was now known as Gemma Gordon, was married to a successful businessman who spent much of his time in London and enjoyed a leisurely existence in a detached house in a quiet road.
Nor was she particularly elusive. The previous evening she had agreed to meet them at 9am that morning readily enough. The difficulty was that in the intervening hours she had decided she should talk only in the presence of her solicitor, and she did not announce this change of heart until Amos and Swift arrived on a wasted errand.
Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series) Page 10
