‘And do you believe him?’
‘Not any more. I think I may know how to crack him, Gaffer, but I need to catch him unawares, even more than you did. Can you leave it to me?’
He stirred extra sugar into his drinking chocolate. ‘Don’t see why not.’ He looked at his watch. ‘What say we give him five more minutes – just long enough to go over his gardening alibi again – and then you pounce?’
She sipped her mineral water, wrinkling her nose as a bubble tickled. ‘No. I’ve got to do that when I run him home. But I’ll tell you what, Gaffer, I think we’re going to have to talk to him again anyway. That Edna business. And the death of her father. There’s something that adds up to more than four, if you see what I mean. A medical student. A brutal father. A heart attack. A sudden disappearance. What do you make that?’
‘Nearer five than four, that’s what I’d make it. Five being unnatural death. Shit! All I wanted was a nice, straightforward domestic so I could wrap it up and go on my hols in peace.’
Kate brought the car to a gentle halt in front of Mrs Barr’s house. To her alarm there were lights on in two of the upper rooms.
‘A timer device,’ Max said, laconically.
She turned to him. ‘I’m sorry to be putting you through all this grief about Edna. But she could be a suspect, you see.’
‘Even less likely than me,’ he said bitterly.
‘Quite. But don’t let my boss hear me say that.’ She got out of the car with him. ‘Another lovely evening.’
He peered at his watch under the streetlight. ‘I had hoped to see Mrs Hamilton.’ He left the implicit rebuke hanging in the air.
‘Tomorrow might be better – she’s still very poorly.’
‘She’d want to see me – to hear about Edward.’
‘Of course.’ She set off up his drive, just like a young man seeing his date home. ‘What are your plans for this weekend?’ All very calm, comradely even. And she banked on his returning too to their easier conversations.
‘If I can’t start on my world tour,’ he said, managing a smile, ‘I shall stay in the garden. Time enough when the autumn comes to work on clearing the house. And you? Will you be seeing a young man?’
‘Oh no,’ she said, feeling a complete louse, ‘I’m off to Portugal this weekend.’
‘Portugal?’
‘Yes. To the Algarve. Any messages for your old friend Mr Horowitz? It’s him I’m going to see.’
Lying had never been Kate’s favourite technique, but she hoped it would be justified on this occasion. Ideally, Max would have pre-empted her next sentence with a swift confession. As it was, she thought she might have to wait till the following morning. Perhaps even a last minute call as she was about to board a plane. That is, of course, if a plane journey materialised. All he had done, however, was to wish her a pleasant journey.
Nearly home now. Chaos outside Edgbaston cricket ground: God, not an accident! No. Supporters pouring from the ground after a day-night game. From their faces, the local team – what did they call themselves? The Bears? – might have won. She’d never quite got the hang of cricket, perhaps because it was supposed to be a three-dimensional game of chess, another game she’d never mastered. She wondered idly if Max would pass Lord Tebbit’s cricket test for immigrants, who, according to the Noble Lord, could only be considered truly integrated when they supported England, not their country of origin, in test matches. Certainly Lizzie’s fancy pretence of a commission rogatoire wouldn’t pass any test; there was something inherently displeasing about using a spoof to catch a forgery, not to mention the probable fall-out when the ploy was discovered. Not, of course, that it would be Lizzie who carried the can, not if what Dave Allen said were true.
Despite her horror of grassing, she was deeply tempted to phone Rod and lay the whole thing before him. He wouldn’t mind being phoned even at this time of night; nearly eleven. Her stomach sank: that was more than could be said of Graham. Had he tried to reach her tonight? Not on her mobile, that was for sure. And no, not on her answerphone either. Damn him, didn’t he know how much she needed to hear his voice? Three words – I love you – would be enough. She’d make them enough. Would have to make them enough.
Just as she’d have to make the sad contents of her fridge enough. Bread sandwich seemed to be top of the menu. What about turning out for a last minute take-away balti or fish and chips?
Altogether too much effort.
Sardines on toast: that was a possibility, if only there were sardines, which there were not. The heel of cheese was no better worth than a trip to the wormery. Heavens, there was a woman in her eighties out in Selly Oak Hospital who cared enough for herself to make not just biscuits but langue de chat biscuits for herself. And here she was, hale and hearty and not capable of knocking the most elementary snack together. Kate reached for the whisky.
And put it back again. Popping bread into the toaster, she reached for a pencil and paper. Tomorrow’s shopping list would be a revelation.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kate was contemplating what Aunt Cassie would no doubt have condemned at the ultimate dereliction of housekeeping duty – a breakfast McMuffin on the way into work – when the phone rang: Dave Allen was calling a breakfast meeting of the squad.
She was greeted by wonderful smells: Dave had organised two piles of sandwiches, bacon and sausage. ‘Staff morale,’ he muttered as an aside.
He reported to the group what he and Kate had managed to extract from Cornfield; then others reported on their progress so far. Zain Khan’s was the most interesting: he’d managed, as he modestly said, to decipher some of Mrs Duncton’s file. Apart from her varicose veins and her irritable bowels, what had caused her some concern was the state of her husband’s health.
‘Time and again we get her saying he’s moody – there’s even a hint or two he may have knocked her about. Still no path report. Bastards are busy. Kate, you and Jane to my office, please, soon as you’ve fed your faces.’
Which was quite an urgent order from Dave.
The flipchart was already in position, with Rod writing something on the bottom of the Ken Barr sheet. What he was adding was a large £ sign, followed by a couple of others and three question marks.
‘That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? The budget’s already overstretched (when will the public learn we can’t afford for them to go on killing each other?); we’re pushing everything we can out from the centre; more bobbies on the beat; better clear-up figures. And now what may or not have been a murder a generation ago. Dave, what are your feelings?’
‘I’d rather hear what the two wenches who’ve talked to the brother have to say. Jane?’
More brownie points for him.
‘He’s bloody rich. Loaded. I’ve never seen a house like his without having to pay a fiver to get in. But that doesn’t mean as how he had to kill his old man to get it. Kate was saying he had this legacy provided he changed his name.’
‘But then he said he’d changed it after some medical scandal, didn’t he?’
‘And he had his bag packed to take him abroad. Now, if he was a medic, wouldn’t he have access to drugs? He could slip his dad a few, make it look like natural causes.’ Her face fell. ‘Except he was in Nottingham at the time.’
‘No reason why he shouldn’t have given them to his sister and got her to do the dirty,’ Kate said. ‘And then Max Cornfield was there to get her out of the country. However,’ she added, more soberly, ‘we haven’t checked his medical records, assuming they still exist, or the evidence presented to the inquest.’
‘Which may indicate that Barr had a long-standing condition and was simply a heart attack waiting to happen,’ Dave concluded for them. ‘Tell you what, Gaffer, why don’t we get Jane here to sort out the historical stuff, as it were, while Kate goes back to Fraud and sorts out the will business.’
Even as she nodded her agreement, Kate’s stomach sank. Back to Fraud meant back to Lizzie. Back to the dubious comm
ission rogatoire. And back to the constant bad temper and barrage of innuendo.
‘Come on, our kid,’ Jane said, putting a hand on Kate’s shoulder, ‘you look as if you’ve lost half a crown and found a rusty button.’
‘I never did like paperwork,’ Kate said, managing a pale smile.
‘But you’ve nearly finished, and the more you’ve done, the glummer you’ve got. You come down the canteen: you could do with a breather, by the looks of things.’
Kate’s smile was more positive. ‘That’d be great. My shout.’
Jane dug in her purse. ‘It may have to be an’ all – I’m clean out till I’ve been to the hole in the wall. Funny,’ she continued, as they fell into step, ‘the ways this job changes your life. Like forgetting to buy milk or pick up the dry-cleaning or whatever. Makes a difference if you’ve got a good boss, of course. I mean, Dave works the socks off us when we’ve got a panic on, but he does understand about breathing time – like those trips to the pub you were so sniffy about.’
‘I was wrong there. Freely admit it. I wish I could stay in this squad, to be honest.’
‘But you’re a high-flyer!’
‘It’s all very well flying high, but you never know what you’re going to land in, do you? Sometimes it’s a nice spot like this, others it’s a shit-heap.’
‘You reckon Fraud’s a shit-heap, do you?’ Jane asked, pushing open the canteen door.
‘I didn’t say that at all,’ Kate laughed. Hell! Why did Jane have to raise her voice at that point? Talk about walls and bloody ears! ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Well, why do you want to stay with us, then? Coffee, please.’
‘Less paperwork,’ she said. ‘And trials that don’t go on for years, and evidence the jury can understand, and a proper sentence for the scrote at the end of it all. For God’s sake, we see people who’ve ruined more lives than a serial killer ending up with just a couple of years in the library of an open prison. Nick a car radio in Handsworth, you get six months. Nick millions of pounds no one can actually see, and you may even get off scot-free if the jury can’t follow the rows of figures.’
Jane snorted. ‘Careful how you get down.’
‘Get—? Oh, off my soap-box, you mean. Sorry. How about sitting over there, away from the TV?’ She paid for the drinks and headed towards an isolated table.
‘Thing is,’ Jane said, sitting down, ‘they say that that Dl’s a bugger to work with. King, whatever her name is,’ she added, in another stage whisper. Damn Dudley and its carrying voices.
‘Come on, Jane, being a woman in the service is tough enough without other women bitching about you. We’re all in the same spot – bikes or dykes, whatever. Now, what are you up to this weekend?’ This loyalty was getting to be a strain.
‘Looking at houses, that’s me and my boyfriend. Party tomorrow night. If this weather holds, we’re off to Wales on Sunday. What about yourself?’
Kate could have kicked herself: this was going to be a worse topic of conversation than the last. ‘If a phone call I’ve got to make back in Fraud comes up with the answer I’m expecting, I may have to fly out to Portugal. Or Germany. Otherwise there’s something at the NEC I might go to.’ And suddenly her heart lifted. No, she wasn’t going to have a weekend entirely on her own, after all. But it sank again. Rod would be the last person Graham would want her to spend time with. A terrible though struck her: she might not tell him.
‘It’s all right,’ Derek greeted her, ‘you can breathe freely. ‘Lizzie’s not in. Some meeting somewhere. So we’re not sure whether she’ll be back or not.’
Kate slung her bag on to her desk. On impulse she phoned the hospital for news about Mrs Hamilton. She was conscious and might be moved from Intensive Care the following day. But family visitors were all that would be allowed for a few more days.
‘Her neighbour’s very keen to see her,’ Kate said neutrally. ‘The one who brought her in and who’s looking after her dog.’
‘We’ll have to see,’ said the voice. ‘As I told him when he phoned.’
One phone call seemed to lead to another. She found herself dialling Leon Horowitz.
‘I need to talk to you in more detail about the will you witnessed,’ she said. ‘Will you be at home early next week?’
‘What sort of detail?’
‘Just the order in which things happened,’ she said. ‘I’ll be accompanied by a colleague from the Portuguese police, of course, so your statement will have legal validity. So you will be there next week?’
‘It’s hard to say,’ he began.
‘Oh, Mr Horowitz, the sooner this is done the better. After all, Mr Cornfield won’t be able to claim his legacy till all formalities are complete.’ She gave him her number. ‘I’ll be flying out specially,’ she added, ‘so if you do have any last minute changes of plan, I’d be very grateful if you let me know.’
Then a similar call to Mr Steiner. And another to the travel agency the police used. Yes, it looked as if she’d be jetting round Europe. Suddenly she was tired of not knowing – she wanted to pounce.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was love, wasn’t it? It was definitely love that filled Rod’s eyes. Not for her, not at this moment, anyway. But for something he’d run to earth after long, hot hours searching at the Antiques Fair at the NEC. Kate had never seen so much old or beautiful – sometimes old and beautiful – stuff gathered together in one place. It was almost as if the National Trust were having a car-boot sale. At last, hot and thirsty, they were about to call a halt for lunch when they saw it – Kate first, as it happened. A Ruskin vase, the cousin of the one used to smash Mrs Duncton’s skull. It was certainly very lovely, a comfortable, almost peasant-ish shape, but sleek and sophisticated, and obviously infinitely desirable. But it wasn’t, as far as Kate was concerned, as lovely as the weapon had been. Too much red, not enough purple. It cost roughly what Rod had valued the murder weapon at.
‘Far too much of an extravagance,’ he said firmly.
But he could hardly tear himself from it.
‘Why don’t we just walk along this aisle and then come back?’ Kate asked quietly. ‘If it’s still here, you should have it. If it isn’t, it wasn’t meant.’
‘Is that the logic,’ he asked, ‘you employ when you’re at work?’
‘Are you supposed to use logic? I thought it was all intuition and creativity; especially the paperwork. Anyway, we agreed: the first one to talk shop would pay for drinks.’
They exchanged a grin, neither the sort full of sexual challenge or promise, nor the easy one of long-standing friends. Something in between.
‘On the other hand,’ she said, catching his backward glance, and deciding to take a risk, ‘now that work has been mentioned, with the sort of salary you must be on, why the hell shouldn’t you indulge yourself? Go on, while it’s still there!’
He turned, but stopped: ‘If I do, will you – if you see something you fancy?’
It was the only way to put him out of his misery. She nodded, dawdling behind as he headed back to the stall, already fishing for his wallet.
‘Now for something for you,’ he declared, leaving the dealer to pack his vase. ‘A real hard look for that furniture.’
Most of what they’d seen so far had been much too grand for her front room, which was, after all, homely to the point of small. Too grand and too old: however much she was attracted to Georgian or Regency furniture – and she found she was, deeply, despite the price tags – she knew that she ought to have late, unpretentious Victorian.
‘Does it make sense to get chairs before choosing a table?’
‘If they’re those chairs there, yes.’ He pointed to a set of four, whose upholstery happened to tone with her carpet. ‘Pretty little balloon backs. Nice to get four like that. Six would cost you an arm and a leg.’
‘But I need six.’
‘You could get carvers for the head and the foot. Come on, how many sets of six have you seen so far?’
‘Plenty, but none in my insurance company’s price range!’
They celebrated their purchases – they’d collect everything when they were ready to leave – with a sandwich lunch. Kate would never have imagined Rod doing anything so human as peeling the halves apart and peering with disdain at the contents, clustered as if for company’s sake, at the centre and never venturing near the edges. But then, she’d never have imagined him buying that vase. What she did suspect was that he wanted to buy her something. He kept drifting towards jewellery counters; she drifted, with at least equal purpose, away. No. No intimate gifts. It was bad enough being here and enjoying his company without having thought about Graham for three or four hours. Once having thought about him, however, she couldn’t get him out of her mind: what would he have made of an event like this? His home decor had been unobtrusive to the point of bland: she’d blamed his wife for that, but perhaps, compared with Rod’s, weren’t his clothes a little on the ordinary side? But what was style, when he was the man she loved?
The funny thing was, when Rod had unpacked her chairs and driven away, she’d almost have liked to call him back to suggest a meal together. Nothing special, but …
No. It was best as it was. Wasn’t it?
But Saturday night, that was, always had been, the worst night to spend on your own. Thank goodness, she thought, her face in a wry smile, for Aunt Cassie.
‘Flying? You mean flying? In a plane?’ Aunt Cassie clutched both her wrists in panic. The grip was firmer than Kate would have expected.
Kate was about to crack some joke about not having any wings when she looked more closely at the old woman’s face. There was real fear there, real panic. ‘It’s safe, Cassie,’ she said. ‘Quite safe. Honestly.’
‘Quite safe? All those people dying in China last week and you’re telling me it’s safe?’
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