The PC opened and shut his mouth and glanced appealingly over Cox’s shoulder. She heard Harrington clear his throat.
Oh, here we go …
‘The thing is, inspector, we decided not to bring forensics in on this one.’ Harrington, moving past her, patted the young copper on the shoulder. ‘Thank you, constable. On you go.’ Turned to Cox. His expression gave nothing away. Either he’s a hell of a poker player, Cox thought, or he’s as clueless as I am.
‘It seems pretty open-and-shut,’ he said calmly. ‘William Radley killed himself. No need to waste scarce resources and call out overstretched personnel on a –’
‘Whose decision was this?’
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘I – this was my call.’
‘I’d ask you what exactly you’re trying to achieve here, Mr Harrington,’ she said acidly. ‘But it’s clear to me that we’ve wasted enough time here already. I’m overruling you.’ Turned away before he could answer. Called back the young PC – told him to bring in a full SOCO team, ASAP.
‘And while you’re at it,’ she added, pulling out a business card and handing it to him, ‘get in touch with this guy, Don DiMacedo at Quantum Data. Don’t let him fob you off – I don’t care if he says he’s busy, tell him to call DI Cox as a matter of urgency.’
The PC hurried off. Cox lowered herself on to the bottom step. Ran a hand through her hair, blew out a breath.
‘Well, that’s me told,’ muttered Harrington, a little coldly.
He moved away, sauntering hands in pockets through to the kitchen. She heard him call to someone to fetch him a cup of coffee.
Hell, maybe it was a suicide, she thought. Maybe Bill Radley had more going on than we know. Maybe he really did just wake up today and think: That’s it, I’m done.
God knows, everyone had rough mornings – mornings when the world is just too much to handle.
Or is that just me?
She stood, smoothing her suit trousers. Whatever – she was a copper, after all. What kind of copper walks away from a dead body on the say-so of a pen-pusher from the MoJ?
And it wasn’t as though she had nothing to go on. She made her way outside, into the garden. There was someone she needed to speak to.
The uniformed sergeant to whom Harrington had been speaking was sitting on a garden bench, reading through her notes. She looked up as Cox approached. Recognized her – stowed her notebook, got to her feet.
‘Ma’am.’
‘Sergeant – Adeola, right?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘DI Cox, CID. You should know that SOCO are on their way, sergeant – let me know if our friend from Whitehall gives you any trouble. And for God’s sake, get him a pair of latex gloves and some bags for his feet.’
‘Will do, ma’am.’
‘Harrington said it was a neighbour that called in the body?’
‘That’s right, ma’am.’ Adeola snapped open her notebook. ‘A Mr Jefferies. Number 54. Reportedly saw the body and dialled 999.’
‘And asked for the police? Not an ambulance?’
‘I thought that was funny myself, ma’am. But I guess Mr Radley being who he was, Mr Jefferies thought the police ought to know.’ She shrugged. ‘People make bad decisions in emergencies.’
‘Okay. We’ll come back to that. Now – has anyone talked to the cleaner.’
A blank look.
‘What cleaner, ma’am?’
‘There’s not a speck of dust on that ground floor, sergeant. Kitchen surfaces gleaming, floors swept, wastebins emptied.’
‘Maybe he just enjoyed housework. Some retired men do.’
‘Yes, but it’s a different story upstairs. Clean enough, I suppose – but not a professional job. Mug of tea by the bed, bathroom in need of a scrub.’
‘But no one’s mentioned a cleaner, ma’am.’
‘I don’t suppose anyone’s asked. Who was first on the scene?’
‘I responded to the 999 call. But Mr Harrington was already here when I arrived.’
Cox nodded thoughtfully.
‘Okay. Look, I could be wrong – but have someone look through his papers, call the local agencies. I say there was someone here this morning – someone who only did half a job, because halfway through they came across Bill Radley lying in the back garden with his head caved in.’
‘Then why didn’t they phone it in? Why did they just leave?’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out, sergeant.’ She turned at the sound of footsteps: Harrington, striding towards them across the lawn. A bit pink-faced.
‘Still here, inspector?’
‘Very much so.’ She gave him a hard smile. ‘Just so you’re in the loop, Mr Harrington: I’m about to order a door-to-door, three streets in each direction. Sergeant Adeola, I want full statements – and I mean full – from anyone who’s seen or heard anything, anything at all, that might help us. Keep me posted. I’m going to have a talk with this Mr Jefferies.’
Harrington made an impatient grimace.
‘I’m sure this officer has many more important things to be dealing with,’ he said. ‘Honestly, inspector, don’t you think this is overkill for a straightforward suicide?’
‘It would be, for a straightforward suicide,’ Cox nodded. ‘Now what I need you to do, Mr Harrington, if you can, is put a blackout on this. No press, no media of any kind, nothing on or off the record – total lockdown.’
‘Look, inspector, if you’re trying to make a point –’
‘I’m not trying to make a point.’ Cox cut him off bluntly. ‘I’m telling you this isn’t suicide, straightforward or otherwise. I’m telling you we’re dealing with a murder.’
3
A hedged passageway between two houses a few doors down from the Radley place led through to a quiet, unmarked back-road. As she crossed the road towards number 54 – the address she’d been given for Mr Jefferies – she tried to figure out the sightlines. There was a high, solid-looking fence at the bottom of Radley’s garden; a thick holly-bush rose behind the fence, further cutting off the view. As far as she could see, the only vantage-point from which this Mr Jefferies might be able to see into Radley’s garden would be a small skylight in the roof. Even then, she thought, you’d have to crane your neck till you were practically out on the roof-tiles. And what could be happening in an old man’s back garden to make anyone so desperate for a glimpse of it?
There was no car in the driveway of number 54. The curtains were pulled. No lights on that she could see. She paused at the bottom of the cracked concrete driveway, thinking through her strategy. All guns blazing? Or the diplomatic approach?
It’d depend, she knew, on who answered her knock – on what kind of man appeared at the door of number 54.
If anyone did.
She reached for the latch of the gate – but then pulled away sharply, jumping backwards in alarm as the dented front wing of a red Renault veered up the kerb with a juddering wheeze. The driver’s door flew open – before she knew it, Cox was up on her toes, ready for a fight.
Then she clocked the guy’s face.
‘Hello, Kerry,’ he said.
He banged the car door shut behind him.
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘Well, it’s lovely to see you, too.’
Greg Wilson – or, as it said on his business cards, ‘Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Wilson’. A mistake she’d made, a long time ago.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
He smiled awkwardly, leaned on the rust-pocked bonnet of the little car.
‘Doing my job,’ he shrugged.
‘You’re not helping, Greg.’
‘Can you tell me what’s going on? Off the record, if you like. I saw the SOCO van just arrive.’
‘Short answer: no.’
‘Help me out, Kerry. Seems like a big deal. SOCO, CID – a detective inspector, no less.’
‘No comment. Let me spell that for you. En, oh, space, see, oh –’
‘I’ve got a job to do too, Kerry.’ He said it like it was an apology. Then he gave her a shrewd look. ‘Doesn’t Bill Radley live around here somewhere? The old Met chief – what was he, AC? Something to do with him? Cold case?’
She shook her head. There was no telling this guy. Tenacious, hard to shake off – she remembered that from their last encounter.
‘What part of “no comment” don’t you understand, Greg?’
‘Whose house is this? You were just about to go and knock at the door, weren’t you? Well, don’t let me stop you.’
He leaned again on his car, crossed his ankles.
‘You have to leave now.’ She gave him a dry look. ‘Don’t make me run you in.’
‘Aw, come on. For what? Asking questions?’
‘This car, if that’s what you’re calling it, is illegally parked. And if that’s all that’s wrong with it I’m Dame Judi Dench. MOT all in order, Greg?’ She booted a tyre thoughtfully. ‘Brake-lights all working? Emissions under the legal limit?’
Wilson was already climbing back into the driver’s seat, shaking his head with a rueful smile, as she added: ‘I can have Traffic here in five minutes. Now get the hell out of my sight.’
The murky cloud of exhaust fumes that belched from the car as Wilson took off almost choked her. Over the crunch of gears she heard him call: ‘Good luck at the inquiry, Kerry – look after yourself.’
Focus, DI Cox, she told herself. Focus.
It was too late. She knew that. But she called anyway.
‘Hello?’
‘Aidan – it’s me.’
A sigh.
‘It’s gone nine. He’s in bed.’
‘I – I know. Of course, I knew he would be. I just – just wanted to say sorry to him. To you, as well.’
‘I’m not waking him up.’ Aidan’s tone was unforgiving. ‘I’m not waking him up just so’s you can upset him with another half-arsed apology. Another promise you won’t keep.’
‘How was he?’
‘You know him. Tries not to let it show.’ A snort of bitter laughter. ‘You’ve taught him well. But it hurts him, Kerry – you know it does.’
‘I do know.’
‘You should have called earlier.’
‘I should, I know. I wanted to, I really did. But –’
‘I know, I know. You were saving the bloody world, just like always. And now where are you? You’re on your sofa in your poky flat in Shepherd’s Bush, you’re knackered and stressed, you’ve probably just poured yourself a half-pint of Pinot’ – she glanced guiltily down at the glass in her hand – ‘and you’re feeling sorry for yourself. I don’t blame you, Kerry. I’d be the same, if I were you.’ Aidan paused, sighed. ‘You should have called earlier,’ he said again.
‘I really couldn’t. I was –’
‘Busy, yes, I know.’
‘This was important, Aidan.’
Instantly she knew she’d used the wrong word.
‘Important?’
‘I mean –’
‘And Matthew’s not important? Your son, your six-year-old fucking son? Jesus Christ, Kerry. I’ve never begrudged you your career, you know that, but – Jesus.’
‘I don’t do this job for the good of my bloody health, you know.’
‘I know that. But there are people out there with good jobs, Kerry, good, well-paying, demanding jobs, who can get through a day at the zoo with their kids without having to run off halfway through to give a burglar an ASBO, or whatever it was this time. Who can sit through a whole school play. Who somehow, Kerry, manage to pick their toddlers up from nursery on time – instead of leaving them waiting in floods of tears for the best part of two bloody hours.’
‘That was a long time ago, Aidan,’ she said defensively. ‘And it was a one-off.’
A soft, hard-edged laugh was his only answer.
Then he said: ‘Did I tell you what Matthew told his teacher at school the other day?’
‘Yes. You did.’
‘Then I’m going to tell you again. Maybe eventually it’ll sink in.’
‘Aidan, you don’t have to …’
‘The teacher,’ he went on remorselessly, ‘was asking all the kids what their New Year Resolutions were. I expect they all said the usual stuff: to stop picking their noses, to play for Spurs, that sort of thing. Then, when it was Matthew’s turn, and Miss Holloway asked him what his New Year Resolution was, he said: to see my mum every weekend.’
Aidan’s voice was getting thick with emotion. Cox wondered if he’d been drinking. Would she blame him if he had?
‘Aidan, I know –’
‘As if it was his fault that you’re not around. Do you see that? Does that register with you? He thinks it’s his fault.’
She bit her lip.
When Aidan spoke again it was in a more normal tone of voice: still bitter, still pissed-off, but in control.
‘Next weekend,’ he said. ‘Next Saturday. You’re seeing Matthew. Got that? Just before Twelfth Night. You know, when Christmas is over, and we all stop having such a wonderful, wonderful time.’
He hung up the phone.
DCI Pete Naysmith had definitely been drinking.
Cox had stayed on the sofa after talking with Aidan; finished her wine, watched some terrible TV, leafed through the newspaper. Most of all she’d turned over the afternoon’s events in her mind: the pillock from the Department of Justice, the mysterious missing cleaner, Greg bloody Wilson and the lifeless, broken body of ‘call-me-Bill’ Radley.
It was a mess, but that was okay; every CID case was a mess, at least to begin with. Sometimes you made sense of it, sometimes you didn’t – that was the job.
But this was different. Harrington made her uneasy; Wilson made her suspicious.
And now here was Naysmith, calling her up at 10.30 on Boxing Day night.
She switched off the television, tried to pay attention.
‘– piecing together Radnor’s last movements,’ he was saying. There was an audible slur to his voice.
Naysmith being back on the booze wasn’t going to help them at the inquiry, Cox thought darkly.
‘It’s Radley, guv. William Radley.’
‘Yes, him. We’re … we’re building up a picture, Cox. He didn’t do very much, this Radley, or anyway not much that we know about. We do know from his appointment book that he went out for lunch on Christmas Day …’
‘Christmas Day.’
‘Yes, exactly, Christmas Day, of course. Only we don’t know who he went with, unless he went by himself, the sad old bastard, and we know he didn’t exactly push the boat out because he only went to a shitty little Greek place on Ealing Broadway.’
‘Olympus Grill. I know the one.’
‘Well, you can look into that in the morning. We’re piecing it together, Cox, piece by piece. D’you follow me? Piece by piece.’
‘Yes, guv.’
A pause, a long pause. The noise of Naysmith taking a drink, a swallow – and then more silence.
‘Guv? You okay?’
‘Still here, Cox, still here.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Yes. Still here.’
She bit the bullet.
‘Something on your mind, guv?’
A gurgling laugh, without any humour in it.
‘You can read me like a fucking book, Cox, can’t you?’ True enough. The DCI had a lot of strengths, Cox knew – but subtlety wasn’t one of them.
‘What is it?’
‘Harrington.’
Oh, hell.
‘The MoJ guy?’
‘So he says. He came to see me, Cox. This evening. He’s very insistent, Cox, about this feller Radnor, Radley I mean – he’s very keen, okay, on the idea that this was a suicide after all. And I know you have your own theories, Cox, and you know you have my full support, you know that – but this Radnor, it turns out, Harrington says, had debts, massive debts – so there you are, there’s your motive for him topping himself. What d’you say, Cox? Adds up a bit better now, doesn�
�t it? What d’you say?’
Cox hesitated. Felt faintly sick.
‘What did you say, guv, when he brought this up?’
‘I stuck up for you! Of course I did. Not going to let some bloody wonk from Whitehall push my officer around. But –’
‘He talked you round, right?’
She wouldn’t have dared speak so bitterly if the DCI had been sober. But he was a long way from sober.
‘He mentioned the inquiry,’ Naysmith said heavily.
Her nausea spiked, an upsurge of bile burning the back of her throat. She swallowed hard.
‘What did he say?’
‘The inquiry, Cox. He knew all about it.’
She wanted to shake him by his shoulders, slap him across the face.
‘What did he say, guv? What exactly?’
‘He said he wasn’t sure that getting bogged down in a wild goose chase over Radnor would show you in the best light, he said. With the inquiry and all that.’
‘He threatened me?’
‘Now, Cox, now come on, I didn’t say that –’
‘I’ve been threatened before, guv, and it sounded a lot like that. Be a shame if you were to have a nasty accident. How unfortunate if someone were to leak this to the press. Come on, guv, you’ve heard this heavy-mob stuff a thousand times.’
‘This Harrington bloke didn’t strike me as a leg-breaker.’
Cox could have screamed with exasperation.
‘Guv, we don’t know the first bloody thing about Sam Harrington.’
‘All right, Cox. All right.’ He took another drink – a long one. ‘We’ll – we’ll talk about this tomorrow. We’ll see where we are tomorrow, and we’ll talk about it all once we know where we are.’
And once you’ve sobered up.
He was a good copper, Pete Naysmith, Cox knew. Good copper, good boss, good man. He’d been through a hard time, this last year or two. Maybe he’d handled it the wrong way, but hell, what was the right way?
Go easy, she told herself.
‘All right, guv. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, after I’ve been to the Olympus.’
‘To the what? Yeah, okay. Call me tomorrow. Goodnight, Cox.’
‘Night, guv.’
Twelve Deaths of Christmas Page 3
