by Oliver Tidy
‘Still. Do me a favour will you? Arrange a female PC to come and sit with her for a bit.’
Grimes retraced the path, whistling tunelessly, as Marsh reflected on her stumbling rather than flying start to leading her first murder enquiry.
It seemed an age before Marsh heard the chain being slid back and Mrs Michael’s front door opened to admit her.
‘Where’s the fat one?’ said the old woman.
‘He’s talking to your neighbours.’
‘Good. I didn’t like the look of him. I don’t like fat people. Greedy buggers.’
‘Did you phone the station?’
‘No. I can’t find the phone book. But seeing as you haven’t run off, I suppose you must be who you say you are. Come in if you’re coming.’
Marsh entered the dark and gloomy hallway and Mrs Michaels closed the door behind her, replacing the chain. The all too familiar smells of an old person’s home wafted up to greet her reminding her of her grandmother’s house, a place where the recesses were left to stagnate and windows were never opened. Musty fabrics, old furniture and the odours of an old person’s traditional diet combined to create a sad and slightly nauseating scent.
Mrs Michaels led Marsh through to the sitting room where she surprised the policewoman by offering her tea and biscuits. Marsh realised then why she had been kept waiting so long: the old woman had been preparing to receive her. A small antique gate-leg table stood between two uncomfortable looking armchairs. On top of this sat a tray with a matching tea pot, cups and saucers and a plate of plain biscuits. Marsh was touched by the gesture.
Marsh stared at the wall of bookshelves. ‘My boss would love this room. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many books in one place outside of a library, or a bookshop.’
The woman’s tone softened a little. ‘My late husband was a great collector. Always touring the sale rooms and the second-hand shops looking for a bargain.’
Marsh moved closer and ran her eye along the colourful array of spines of the dust jackets. ‘There’s a lot of crime fiction. Is that what he liked?’
‘I suppose so. I never look at them myself. With my eyes reading isn’t a pleasure.’
Marsh heard the rattling of the tea things behind her as Mrs Michaels played mother.
‘May I?’ said Marsh, indicating a particular title.
‘If you like. You’ll be the first in years to have held it. Are your hands clean?’
Marsh smiled at the old woman and nodded. Gently, she slid the book out. Even though she was a paperback girl herself and unschooled in the finer aspects of book collecting, she appreciated holding a fine copy of a book from a bygone era. ‘This is in amazing condition,’ she said. ‘Still got the old price on it as well. Shillings and pence are well before my time.’ Instinctively she brought the book to her face and inhaled the odour of decades.
‘My husband used to do that. Can’t stand the smell myself.’
Marsh breathed it deeply. ‘I think it’s wonderful.’
‘It’s why the curtains are never open,’ said the old woman. ‘Arthur said that the sun was a great enemy of the book. Made me promise to keep them out of it. Even when he was dying he was thinking about them. We never had children. I suppose he saw books as a substitute. I don’t think he could have thought more of children if we had had any.’
Carefully, Marsh replaced the book and sat down opposite her.
‘Listen to me, boring you with that stuff. Do you take sugar?’
Marsh shook her head. ‘How long has your husband been gone?’
‘Twenty one years. He was a bit older than me.’
‘Blimey. And you’ve kept this room like this all that time?’
The woman smiled for the first time. ‘It’s not just this room, dearie. There are three other rooms with more books than this.’
‘What?’ Marsh started laughing and the woman, although she seemed reluctant at first, putting her hand over her mouth, couldn’t help but join in.
*
‘There you are, Sarge,’ said Grimes. ‘I was making plans to storm the place. Thought she must be holding you hostage. How did you escape?’
Marsh had returned to Duncan Smart’s to find Grimes loitering around the place. ‘She was fine after you left. Tea and biscuits.’
‘All right for some. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. She see anything?’
Marsh smiled and nodded. ‘You get anything?’
‘Nah. No one wanted to talk to me.’
‘Mrs Michaels said she saw someone, a man she thinks because of his size and the way he moved, hanging around outside two days ago. She says she noticed him particularly because he wasn’t going anywhere, or doing anything.’
‘That’s hardly damning evidence is it?’
‘I haven’t finished, yet. She said she saw him throw something that he’d been drinking out of into the bushes in her front garden. When he’d gone and she felt it was safe, she went out and collected it and put it in her bin. She can’t stand litter. Her bin doesn’t get emptied for another two days.’ Marsh held up a plastic bag with one soft-drink can in it.
Grimes didn’t look impressed. ‘I don’t think that he was killed with that.’
Marsh rolled her eyes. ‘Nor do I, but it’s probably got the man’s prints on it.’
Grimes registered the implication and remained unenthusiastic. ‘Probably just some nutty care in the community vagrant.’
Marsh gave up.
*
On his way back to the station, Romney had given some thought to how Wilkie would react to the news that Marsh had effectively, and obviously to anyone who had even a vague understanding of these things, been handed charge of a murder investigation while he, the senior sergeant, continued to be left out in the cold with a car vandalism case. Romney wondered if Wilkie’s computer problems wouldn’t turn out to be a blessing in disguise – he seemed to have a lot on his plate when he last saw him. In the end he decided to throw Wilkie a bone and take him with him for his interviews with the three other golf club trustees that Lane had identified.
His holiday departure date surfaced in his thinking and he swore quietly at how the latest development could impact on it. Two murders, neither of which looked like being solved anytime soon, were not what he would have wanted hanging over him in the last few days before he took off for the sun. He didn’t want to think of the decisions and repercussions that lay in wait if he didn’t clear them up quickly.
*
Romney was sitting alone at a table in the station canteen wolfing down a quick sandwich when he saw Wilkie approaching. The appetite that had driven him to eat there against his better judgement, all but evaporated at the prospect of the meeting. Wilkie was carrying a tray laden with food and drink and Romney had little choice but to invite him to join him.
Wilkie accepted the invitation and organised his meal. ‘I hear that we have another murder on our hands, sir.’
‘Yes, stabbing in Deal. It’s the man who found the body on the golf course. It’s highly likely that the two deaths are related.’ He added this last sentence to imply that given the presumed relationship between the two murders they would effectively be part of one investigation. His investigation.
‘Of course,’ said Wilkie. ‘Well, if you need an extra detective...’ He left the sentence unfinished. And then he added with forced good humour, ‘You know, sir, we don’t get many murders to be solved and the excitement would break up some of the monotony.’
‘Everything we do is important, Brian.’
‘I agree, of course, sir. It’s just that murders are different.’
Romney couldn’t help but feel some pity for the man opposite him, even though he realised that he didn’t particularly like him. ‘Actually, I need you to come out with me this afternoon on a couple of interviews I have to make relevant to the Emerson murder. We have some information on possible suspects. If, that is, you don’t have too much on your plate with your technical difficulti
es.’
Wilkie’s face was transformed. The tired and harassed look was replaced with a mixture of gratitude and eagerness. ‘No, that would be great, sir. I could do with a break from the office. What about DS Marsh?’
‘I’ve left her doing some house to house and clearing up over at Deal with Grimes.’ Romney felt a sudden twinge of annoyance with himself for his cowardice in not being brutally honest with Wilkie. And then tempered this by trying to convince himself that perhaps a large part of his job was ensuring that the department ran as smoothly as possible. If being a little economical with the truth kept people happy then maybe it was to be practised. It seemed to have the desired effect on Wilkie, who perked up noticeably and didn’t appear to read into the situation anything about Marsh leapfrogging him in responsibility.
*
Marsh insisted that Grimes find some sort of waterproof barrier to go between her clothing and the dark stain on the front seat before she would contemplate getting into his car. She refused to ride in the back like royalty. He found something in the boot.
To Marsh’s relief, the ride back to the station with Grimes proved to be a much more sedate affair than her traumatic journey away from it. For this she was grateful. It allowed her an opportunity to concentrate on aspects of the new case instead of how she might be about to die. Until, that was, Grimes insisted on exploring and sharing his own theory for how Duncan Smart managed to die in his kitchen, thereby distracting Marsh from her own train of thought, which found no connection to anything Grimes was suggesting.
In a desperate attempt to shut him up and trump some of his wilder ideas, she said, ‘Of course, it’s possible that this has little to do with human intervention.’
‘What do you mean?’
At least she had his attention. ‘You believe in fate, destiny, superstition and that sort of thing, don’t you? The idea that there are powerful supernatural forces controlling us that we can do nothing about?’
She knew he did, having had to suffer the details of his bewildering and unscientific belief system some weeks previously sat in his car keeping watch on a warehouse. Grimes was seriously superstitious. He didn’t walk under ladders, shied away from black cats, carried a lucky charm, avoided stepping on cracks and kept away from salt cellars. He harboured an unreasonable and irrational fear of what he referred to as the ‘unexplainable’, something that Marsh, as a believer in science, reason and logic, found comical as well as baffling. Marsh remembered he had used the sequence of mysterious and untimely deaths of Howard Carter and his team after they had violated the tomb of Tutankhamen, as some sort of spurious evidence to support one of his wacky theories.
When Grimes answered, a cautious tone was evident, as though he suspected he was about to be made fun of. ‘Yes.’
‘There is another explanation for what’s happening here.’ He was listening. ‘Maybe what we’re witnessing is the start of one of those unexplainable paranormal patterns: a phenomenon. A curse. You know, like that Tutankhamen lot.’
‘You’ve lost me, Sarge.’
‘Who found Emerson’s dead body? Smart. And now he himself has met a violent death. It might be worth finding out if Phillip Emerson had discovered a dead body recently. I’ll tell you one thing though: I wouldn’t want to have been the one to have found the dead body of Smart. Not with that kind of jinx hanging over it.’ That quietened him.
*
In light of the recent developments, Romney held a team meeting late that afternoon. The whiteboard had been updated to include new images, notes of progress and the death of Duncan Smart – a clear indicator that Romney, for one, was linking the two deaths. All the officers present sat well apart from each other. Falkner by dint of his senior rank, Marsh and Wilkie because of their mutual animosity and Grimes appeared to be unusually subdued and preoccupied. It was not a sight to boost the confidence of the man in charge of two murder investigations.
Romney started with something that everyone knew. ‘We now have two murders. Our big question is: are they related? We’ll come to that in a minute. Duncan Smart,’ he indicated a photograph of the dead man slumped against kitchen cupboards, like a dozing drunk at the end of a party, ‘was found stabbed to death in his kitchen. Time of death is estimated at sometime yesterday afternoon.
‘Regarding the Emerson murder, we have been pursuing lines of enquiry around a CD of sensitive images that it appears Emerson had not only orchestrated, but was planning to use for blackmailing trustees of the golf club to favour some proposals he was tabling about property the club owned. It seems he had designs on it for himself, although we don’t know what these were. We’ve now spoken to all four of the trustees and not one of them has suggested that Emerson had applied anything other than gentle pressure on them to support him. None of them had seen the images before we spread them before them. All claimed to have known nothing of their existence. All of them have plenty to lose should they become public.
‘There were eight men away on the golfing break. All were members of the White Cliffs Golf Club. The four trustees,’ Romney named them and pointed to images of them taken from the CD and now displayed behind him, ‘the golf club professional,’ he indicated Masters, ‘Emerson and two others who we still have to interview.’ More faces to look at. ‘The other two men will be spoken to tomorrow.
‘We also have a Mrs Lillian West involved. She is a married woman who had been having an affair with Emerson for some time. Emerson rented a love nest on the sea-front, apparently, specifically for their liaisons. She has come into the frame because DS Marsh caught her leaving the flat with a CD under the impression that it was the one containing the sensitive images.’ Marsh felt a strong urge to look over at Wilkie’s reaction to this but controlled herself. No good could come of it. ‘She claims that she didn’t want it falling into the hands of someone who might be tempted to exploit it. She also claims that Emerson told her he was intending to blackmail the men here, if they didn’t cooperate with him, and that she didn’t approve.’ The DI looked about the little group giving them time for any questions. When none came, he said, ‘Right, Sergeant Marsh, perhaps you could give us a brief resume of the Deal end of things.’
Marsh stood and walked to the front. ‘Subject to official confirmation, Duncan Smart was killed by a single stab wound to the stomach. No likely murder weapon was recovered from the scene. The next-door neighbour, his aunt in fact, noticed a man hanging around in front of their houses two days ago. We weren’t able to find any other witnesses to this. This man made an impression on the aunt, a Mrs Michaels, because, in her words, ‘he seemed so out of place.’ He discarded a soft-drink can into her front garden. It’s now with forensics for finger printing. Duncan Smart died with his mobile phone in his hand. I brought that back to the station and powered it up. The last call he made was to someone entered into his phone as Dot. The phone-call lasted seconds. It’s possible it was dialled but not picked up. Maybe it went to answer phone. The time of the call corresponds roughly to the time of his death. A search of his home revealed no evidence of robbery being a motive. I did find paperwork relating to his recent divorce. His ex-wife’s Christian name is Dorothy. So far we’ve found no obvious link between Smart and Emerson.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Romney said to the gathering, ‘DS Marsh is of the opinion that we mustn’t automatically assume the two murders are related, even though reason, crime statistics, circumstances and logic would strongly suggest that they are.’ Marsh didn’t thank the DI for that. ‘So, the sixty-four-thousand dollar question is, are they?’
Falkner spoke up from the rear. ‘Given the connection between the two and the timings, we have to favour that as an idea. We don’t get that many murders on our patch, as you all know. I for one don’t believe in coincidence.’
‘I agree, sir,’ said Romney. ‘It’s logical. Smart told me he’d been receiving anonymous phone-calls threatening violence. He also told me he didn’t know Emerson other than by reputation. He could have b
een lying. I think we need to dig deeper to see if there is a connection between them. DS Wilkie can pursue that. I’m sure DS Marsh would like to concentrate her efforts on following up her alternative theory and I’ll focus on what we have and have yet to find out about Emerson.’
‘What about this Lillian West’s husband?’ said Falkner.
‘She claims he has no idea of what she’s been up to. He is also eighty-four and according to an independent witness and the wife not physically capable of carrying out such an attack.’
‘Have you checked that?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Falkner nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘You’re quiet, Grimes,’ said Romney. ‘Anything to add?’
After a long moment Grimes said, ‘Do we know whether Phillip Emerson had been involved in any other violent deaths prior to his own?’
Romney echoed the rest of the team’s thoughts, bar one, when he said, ‘What makes you ask that?’
*
With CID once again quiet, Romney went for a final look at the whiteboard in the briefing room before leaving to meet Julie Carpenter. He was as surprised to find Marsh there as she was when he walked in.
‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’ he said
‘Something’s bothering me about this. Something is missing.’
‘The killer?’
‘Or killers. I don’t know what it is? Not yet. Where will we look if the CD turns out to be a dead end?’
‘Emerson’s family. His business interests. Lillian West’s husband. He has a motive. Even if he couldn’t do it himself, he could always have paid someone. We’ll have to spread our net. We don’t have the manpower to go chasing every possibility simultaneously.’
‘If the CD proves to be at the core of it, what would Duncan Smart have to do with that?’
‘I hope we’ll find that out.’
‘And I still have my doubts about Lillian West’s story – that she wanted the CD to protect people. She said they were her friends. We should check that out. I wouldn’t take that woman’s word for anything.’
