Tiger Blood (DS Webber Mystery Book 2)

by Penny Grubb

  As he stood up, there was a flurry of sound from the window. Rain battered down as though someone had opened a sluice gate. As quickly as it had crashed down, it eased off, the wind gusted taking the brunt of the storm in a new direction. Ready with a hard glare should anyone appear, he pulled the door closed and returned to his desk where he opened the coroner’s report and began to read.

  It was familiar in style, a dry formal account of events that had turned lives upside down, but with an odd feel to it. It was 20 years old. He kept tripping on phrasing and structure that jarred. It would have been done differently had it happened last week. Yeatman had left a note for his wife. Unlike the Pamela Morgan file this one gave the full text. It wasn’t long and was oddly impersonal for a husband to his wife in these circumstances.

  It’s one of those risks where you know just what’s at stake, the house, the car, everything you’ve worked for in hock for years to come, but there’s no big reward without high risk and the potential reward on this one is big. Just no way out bar a bottle of pills.

  Yeatman hadn’t taken pills; he’d crashed his car. His impression, from what Melinda had said, was that Joyce Yeatman was comfortably set up. Had her husband really left her in a financial black hole two decades ago?

  Looking up, Webber found his gaze locked with Davis’s the other side of the glass. Davis peered in, respecting the closed door but making sure he was seen. Webber signalled him inside. It struck him he could give Davis the detail of his interview with Meyer, let him pass it on.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, good. Forensics and door-to-door coming together nicely to give us a second-by-second account of Trent … well, more or less. But you know all that.’

  Webber nodded. They’d been on to the anomalies in Trent’s death soon enough to throw resources at tracking his final minutes.

  ‘And we’re building a useful picture around Jenkinson’s last days,’ Davis added. ‘Plus a possible lead on the bigger crime syndicate. There’s a Scandinavian link, a Norwegian connection. We’re wading through treacle with it but we’ve two names who look like possibles. One goes by Boots Boy and the other’s Streetwise. I say names but I don’t know if anyone has more than those handles. We’re waiting on Europol. What we’re seeing is the contacts being built, possibly rebuilt, as the mentoring scheme came to an end. Maybe our mystery man’s one of them, maybe not. The images just won’t enhance to anything very clear. But anyway, the Chief Super’s talking to some of his contacts.’

  Boots Boy and Streetwise? Webber nodded. ‘One of those handles sounds familiar … had a mention in a briefing.’

  Davis shook his head. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell with me.’

  Webber screwed up his eyes, but the memory hovered tantalisingly out of reach. ‘I’ll get on to the Chief Super,’ he said. ‘I was probably with him.’ There was nowhere else he could have heard the names where Davis hadn’t also been present, yet all his recent dealings with Farrar had been fraught enough that they lay sharp in his mind. ‘And the mystery man?’ he asked. ‘Killer or not, we’ve some scores to settle with this guy on the traffic chaos front.’

  ‘Too right.’ Davis nodded. ‘But that’s not what I wanted to see you about. I thought you’d better have a heads-up on Ayaan Ahmed. He’s been doing a bit of freelancing on Jenkinson.’

  Webber gave a tut of annoyance as he listened to Davis’s account of the film footage Ahmed had shown him, and smiled at Davis’s creative use of the audio files. He recalled the shock with which he’d first realised how easily his brain could be persuaded it had heard voices. ‘And have you convinced him?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Davis tipped his head in a yes-and-no gesture. ‘Suzie’ll keep him in line. I just thought you ought to know.’

  ‘And you’re sure he’s wrong?’

  ‘If I’m honest, I could see where he was coming from. It’s an odd walk. But it’s not the same person. Have a look, it’s been uploaded.’ He indicated Webber’s computer.

  Davis came round the desk to stand beside Webber as they watched the images. Webber felt a bolt of surprise. He too could see where Ahmed was coming from, it was the weird walk he’d tried to imitate for Farrar. Why would she walk like that? Had she felt the whisky bottle slipping from her grasp? Would she have continued that way if she’d had to walk the length of the car park? He turned his attention to the original footage, the fuzzy image of the mystery man. There were pointers other than the walk, things that could be measured, proportions that couldn’t be disguised.

  He’d seen a lot of these things over the years and his gut told him that these were two different people. It was just the coincidence of the oddball gait that jarred. Of course it wasn’t possible to be sure on a visual check. He looked up at Davis who seemed to read his thoughts.

  ‘Call me paranoid,’ he said, ‘but I’ve asked an analyst to have a look, only let’s not tell Ayaan.’

  Webber smiled. ‘Speaking of which, let me tell you about Mr Meyer. His info will fill a few gaps. Background stuff but it might keep them out of trouble.’ He waved Davis to a chair as he spoke. ‘Useful to put the various players into context. I didn’t put him on tape but I had detailed notes taken. They can have a dig through those as they want but these are the headlines …’

  Headlines that happened not to mention Melinda. Webber took in a breath. Melinda was in the notes; he hadn’t tried to hide anything. As he went to speak, a burst of laughter sounded from the corridor. Davis turned in his seat. A bustle of activity went by trailing a line of glittery tinsel.

  ‘God, only ten days to Christmas,’ Davis muttered. ‘We’re due at the in-laws this year. Any overtime going?’

  Webber gave him a raised-eyebrows look. ‘Get in the queue.’ He paused on a mental image of Melinda’s parents where he, Mel and Sam would be staying for the festive season. Her father, tall, imposing, able to shrink anyone with a glance. To date he’d approved of his daughter’s choice of spouse, never felt the need to belittle him though Webber always felt that he had the power if he chose to use it. He would find himself in the crosshairs this year for sure.

  ‘Meyer.’ He returned to the matter in hand. ‘He taught Robert Morgan’s wife, the whole group of them. He remembers them well.’

  It had begun to dawn on Webber before he’d talked to Meyer, that everyone who had encountered this group remembered them well, partly for their remarkable academic potential, in the end realised only by China Kowalski, and mainly for the magnetic personality of Pamela Morgan – Quinliven as she was then. Everyone loved Pamela. Even after all these years they could take the limelight at alumni events or open days if one of them turned up. Webber had come away with the impression they’d been the highlight of Meyer’s career, perhaps of his life.

  ‘Tilly Brown and the quintets,’ he told Davis. ‘Meyer doesn’t know who gave them the handle but he said it was a volatile group that ruled the roost. The girls were the bright sparks, Tilly Brown, China Kowalski and Pamela Morgan spent their whole school career vying for the academic top spots, way out ahead of anyone else. Brown was top dog. Her gimmick was a rocking horse. She used to bring bits and pieces of it to school, saddlebags, bridle and such. Meyer said one of the biggest rows he ever witnessed was when someone broke Tilly Brown’s rocking horse saddle. Edith Stevenson was the quiet one. Happy to be anonymous in a crowd but hated the spotlight. He said the group wouldn’t have stuck together if Tilly Brown hadn’t left. There was too much animosity between her and the others. Oh, and it was Pamela Morgan, Quinliven back then, who was nicknamed Quinny, not Quintina Tippet, but only the quintets were allowed to use the name.’

  Davis frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘He didn’t know. According to Meyer it was Michael Drake and Pamela who held the group together after Tilly left.’

  Meyer had laughed as he’d talked about them. ‘Michael wasn’t as pushy as Tilly,’ he had told Webber. ‘Didn’t stand a chance while she was around, none of them did. I don’t know what it
was about Michael, but he made them a more cohesive unit.’

  Davis asked, ‘Did they keep in touch as a group when they left school?’

  ‘Not really.’ Webber shook his head. It was the same question he’d asked Meyer.

  Meyer had said, ‘They started out with big ambitions. They were going to Oxbridge, all six of them together. They didn’t much mind if it was Oxford or Cambridge. Gary and China made it to Cambridge, did very well. Pamela had a place too but she went off travelling instead. Edith went to York I think.’

  This much had been on record. It had been the detail of the relationships Webber had wanted.

  Meyer had needed no prompting. ‘Me and a colleague had a bit of a side bet on,’ he’d said to Webber. ‘We used to try to spot the forthcoming nuptials. Would it be Michael or Gary for Pamela? They were both devoted to her of course … well, everyone was devoted to Pamela. She was special, and she might have landed with either of them. We didn’t think Edith would marry at all unless someone popped up out of the blue and swept her off her feet, she liked her own company too much, hated the limelight, but happy to direct from behind the scenes. Except that then Tina Tippet of all people came out of left field and married Michael. No one saw that coming. Do you know, all I remember about Brad and Tina Tippet from schooldays comes from her marrying Michael Drake. If she hadn’t, they’d have been just another brother and sister in the rump of nonentities that went through the mill.’

  ‘There was bad feeling between Brad Tippet and Michael Drake,’ Webber had prompted.

  ‘Oh yes, he saw Michael as taking his place in the family firm. I knew their father. He despaired of Brad. He was glad to have Michael on board. But Brad never stopped needling Michael.’

  ‘Brad Tippet once accused Drake of stealing his car.’ Webber had dropped the comment in, curious to see if it would chime with Meyer’s memories.

  The man in front of him had laughed. ‘More than once, I’m sure. It was Tina. She used to borrow it. I suspect Michael did take it a time or two, with Tina’s keys, but I told Brad not to show he minded, then they’d stop doing it. They always brought it back before he needed it. But then Tina died of course.’ Meyer’s face had clouded. ‘Far too young. She’d been ill a good while. I don’t think they ever got to the bottom of it. And that certainly showed the naysayers. Young Michael was devastated, had to be sedated at one point I remember before he did himself harm.’

  ‘Did you keep up with the rest of them? How about Gary Yeatman?’

  ‘Gary married someone he met at University. I think he was pleased to get away from the group. I remember him in trouble once, trying to blame Michael. He told me he didn’t like Michael always being in charge.’ Meyer had laughed. ‘I can’t remember what it was about now, but I remember saying to him, “It was your idea Gary, not Michael’s,” and he had to take his medicine, but I’m glad he settled down. He was a steady lad, Gary Yeatman. China and Tilly were the real high-flyers. I don’t believe China ever married.’

  ‘And Pamela’s marriage to Robert Morgan,’ Webber had asked, watching for Meyer’s reaction, ‘was that on the rebound?’

  Meyer had given him a speculative look. ‘I wondered that at the time. She could have done better than the Canadian, I always thought so. I was at their wedding, you know. All the quintets were there, and Tina Tippet … Drake by then. Not all, of course. They sent Tilly an invitation … the family thought it was in very poor taste, but the quintets were resolute, it was what she would have wanted wherever she was. When that group stood together, they were an immovable wall.’

  Webber related the bones of the conversation to Davis, adding, ‘That photograph of the group of five, Meyer was adamant it was taken earlier than it was dated. He was convincing, recognised the school hall in the background, said it was at an end of year prize giving and it would have been Tilly Brown on the end of the line.’

  ‘Did he know Will Jones?’ Davis asked.

  ‘No,’ said Webber, getting to his feet. ‘He didn’t rule out having known a boy of that name but said if he’d been attached to the quintets he’d have remembered him. Right, I need to be elsewhere. We’ll catch this up in the morning if need be.’

  As he stood up, Davis said, ‘So not Will Jones cut off the photo then?’

  ‘Apparently not. Meyer said he might have a copy, said he has a box full of old school photos. He’s going to see what he can find.’

  Davis’s brow creased to a frown. ‘Yeatman’s wife got it wrong then. Which begs the question why did Gary Yeatman cut Tilly Brown out of the photo?’

  Webber pulled on his coat. ‘Got it wrong or lied about it,’ he murmured before turning and heading for the exit.

  Chapter 33

  ‘We have a timeline for Arthur Trent.’

  Harsh morning sunlight leached colour from the room. The windows nearest the trees displayed a criss-cross of streaks where the night’s storm had made cat-o’-nine-tails of the branches, leaving the glass frosted. Every reflective surface flashed a blinding spotlight. People huddled into jackets, rubbed their arms, clutched polystyrene cups for warmth more than caffeine. A buzz of conversation died as DI Davis dropped the words into the general bustle of preparation for the morning briefing.

  Webber stayed at the edge of the space, leaning on an empty desk, watching. Everyone knew some of the detail, they’d been working at it for days, but only he and Davis had the full picture.

  ‘Parts of it we can pin down for definite,’ Davis continued. ‘Other bits we can back up with strong circumstantial. And some of it’s speculation based on lack of viable alternatives, so pick holes in it.’ He turned to an enlarged map showing the stretch of road where Trent’s mangled car had been recovered.

  Webber raised his head to look across at Suzie and Ahmed, sitting together at the periphery. Ahmed’s mouth hung slightly open as his unblinking stare locked on to Davis’s briefing. It was OK for him to hear about this side of the Jenkinson enquiry. Suzie’s attention was maybe 20 percent on Davis and the rest on a case file that she flicked through, occasionally reaching forward to scribble a note. She was probably putting the final polish on their strategy for Joyce Yeatman. Things had worked out well. She’d been waiting for Webber first thing, saying she didn’t want to do the interview, didn’t want any contact with the woman. She’d got it in her head that Joyce and Melinda were close friends; she’d been defensive expecting him to fight against her. He hadn’t. He’d listened to get the gist and then faked reluctance in letting her hand it on to Ahmed, inwardly heaving a sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted was for Suzie to get her teeth into Mel’s involvement with the case.

  He glanced out of the window. Bare branches waved languidly in the cold air. The atmosphere was crisp as though everything had been swept clean in the night. It felt like a new beginning. He was free from Suzie’s dagger-sharp glare for the time being. Mel too was pleased with him, both for picking up the shopping she’d ordered and for arriving home with the contents of Gary Yeatman’s suicide note. They’d talked late into the evening reconstructing the lives and loves of a gang of 1960s school friends.

  ‘The car stopped here.’ Davis tapped the map at a junction two streets away from the crash site. ‘Trent was in the front passenger seat unconscious but not dead. He was pulled across behind the wheel, finished off with a needle under his thumbnail. The car was driven from the passenger seat at least as far as this point here …’ – tap – ‘Then it drove along from here … ‘ – tap – ‘… down to the crash site, here … ‘ – tap – ‘… where he was in the vehicle on his own.’

  Davis looked around inviting comment. Webber knew exactly which parts of the scenario were backed up by evidence and which by speculation, and listened with interest to hear who homed in where.

  Questions and comments focused initially on where and when the car had held two passengers or one.

  ‘Forensics and toxicology can’t be 100 percent,’ said Davis, ‘but they’ve done some pretty clever stuff
with the injuries, modelling when death occurred in relation to them.’

  ‘From what you said, we’re talking minutes … seconds even. How sure can they be?’

  ‘We’d have difficulty standing some of these timings up in court,’ Davis admitted, ‘but I want to leave this room confident we all know what happened, where to focus to find what we need.’

  ‘Does this mean re-analysing some of the stuff where we came up blank?’ That from the officer sitting beside Ahmed. Webber assumed he’d fed him the question and supposed he was thinking about Jenkinson’s flat.

  ‘It’s the boffins who’ve put this lot together. It’s up to us to get the real evidence. We have no lab result to say that Trent didn’t inject himself and then wrap himself round that tree. No trace of anyone else in the front of that car.’

  ‘So how do we know there was?’

  ‘Scraps of witnesses. It was the small hours. We’ve a gang of girls doing the midnight feast thing on a sleepover; a young couple up with a sick child; a shift worker going home, half asleep but he was first on the scene. The kids’ stories are all over the place, but they saw something. The couple with the sick baby only took note because they thought it was the doctor’s car, but it gives us a time. The shift worker was pretty much on autopilot; better on what he didn’t see than what he did. Their statements would all be shredded in a courtroom but they give us a location and a time where the car stopped.’

  Webber smiled to himself. The more they shone their spotlight on the crime scene, the more it told them.

  ‘Did the lab come up with anything at all about who else had been in the car?’ someone asked.

  ‘Signs of Trent’s family and a couple of mates he routinely gave lifts to. We’ve checked them all and eliminated them. There was someone else there that night taking pains to leave no trace. One of the kids described a … what was it … space zombie or something. Man in forensic overalls basically.’