Tiger Blood (DS Webber Mystery Book 2)

by Penny Grubb

  As she paused Webber bit back on a verbal prompt, wanting to see where she would go with this. He wondered how often she’d taken out these memories and if she’d ever inspected them closely. Could she see the way she’d imposed her own values on to the rest of them? By her reckoning avoiding university was Pamela’s downfall and a reason for Michael Drake to hate his first wife.

  ‘And Edie went off the rails,’ she went on. ‘She missed out entirely, ended up with some sort of degree, but such a waste.’

  Webber was aware from Ahmed’s background enquiries that Edith Stevenson held a first class honours degree from York University. He made a small adjustment to his view of China Kowalski. It wasn’t a university degree that was her key to life, it was Oxbridge or nothing.

  ‘You said six of you talked about it. Who was the sixth?’

  * * *

  Tilly Brown, Ahmed thought suddenly, giving himself a mental kick. He was sleepwalking through this interview the way others had sleepwalked through interviews in Dorset three decades ago. They’d let a murder slip past. He mustn’t let himself miss the perpetrator.

  He looked down at his notes. They gave an outline, a summary of Joyce Yeatman’s knowledge about the quintets. She’d known Pamela Morgan but had only a passing acquaintance with Michael Drake and Edith Stevenson. When he’d mentioned China Kowalski she’d closed her eyes in thought, saying eventually that yes, she remembered her from her husband’s funeral. ‘A tiny woman,’ she’d said. ‘Very neat.’

  It was Edith Stevenson he really wanted to know about, but he and Suzie had talked this through. Joyce had claimed barely to know her. Ahmed would let her think he’d accepted what she said for now, but he would be back pecking away at the topic from different directions. If she wasn’t being straight with him, he would find out.

  ‘What can you tell me about Tilly Brown?’ he said.

  ‘Tilly Brown?’ She looked surprised. ‘To be honest I wouldn’t even have remembered the name if I hadn’t heard it again recently.’ She smiled as she reached forward for her drink. ‘One of Gary’s old teachers, a Mr Meyer, he talked about Gary and his friends to Melinda Webber. Tilly Brown was one of the ones he mentioned, and yes the name rang a bell from years ago; someone Gary had mentioned but I’m sure I never met her.’

  Ahmed briefly closed his eyes. In the middle of this speech, Joyce had raised her cup to her lips and sipped at her tea. It had had the effect of muffling her words. She might have said Melinda Webber or Martyn Webber. Inwardly he sighed. What he really meant was that he had an excuse to think she’d said the latter and not the former. These were complications he could do without.

  ‘What did your husband tell you about Tilly Brown?’

  * * *

  ‘Tilly Brown!’ China Kowalski repeated the name and treated Webber to a second smile, this one wider and more open than the first. Then her expression clouded. ‘Have you found her? Did anyone find out what happened to her?’

  ‘Sorry, no.’ He shook his head. The image shimmered in his mind of that night at the gravel pits, the realisation they were standing on old graves. He was glad the two bodies had been male. It would have been terrible to have to tell her they had an unidentified body that might be her old friend. ‘What do you think happened to her?’ he asked.

  ‘We had all sorts of theories,’ she told him. ‘I think we spent that summer talking about nothing else. Gary made up a tale about her running off with an Indian prince, going across the ocean in a jewelled boat to rule a faraway kingdom. That was the version I wanted to believe.’ She laughed without warmth. ‘Michael was the realist, said she was dead. He was like a broken record. If she was alive, she’d let us know. She’d run out on her family, but she wouldn’t desert us. I thought he was being overdramatic at the time, but looking back now, I know he was right. She came to York to die.’

  ‘Came to York to die?’

  ‘I don’t mean she meant to die, but she must have. They didn’t find her in Dorset, did they?’

  ‘No one found anything anywhere,’ Webber pointed out.

  She is dead though, isn’t she?’ She turned her gaze on Webber.

  ‘We can’t know that for sure,’ he said.

  ‘No word for all these years? I think we can. Gary said she went off on a boat with someone, probably not a jewelled one, and fell overboard or was she pushed? If she’d fallen in the sea close to shore, her body would have washed up. Though, Edie–’

  She stopped abruptly. Webber tensed, waiting. Her eyes were unfocussed looking back on a past she didn’t like to remember. ‘Edie?’ he prompted gently. ‘What did Edie do?’

  ‘Uh … well, we were all full of bizarre theories. The police came and talked to us all, wanting to know what contact we’d had with her after they moved away. I’d forgotten … never thought about it before, but …’ She gave him a poor attempt at a carefree smile. ‘Unfortunate coincidence. It’s odd what comes back to you when you start to think about it. There can’t be anything to it.’ She stared down at her hands. Webber knew that if she’d been less tired, given more thought to what she was saying before she said it, she would probably have filtered out whatever she’d remembered about Edith Stevenson, but it was clear she would tell him now so he waited.

  When she spoke, she made an effort to inject a casual tone, but behind it Webber detected something close to fear.

  ‘Edie said that Tilly had probably been eaten by tigers.’

  Chapter 38

  Ahmed pushed his way through the doors. The acknowledgements he received and returned were muted, a nod to a new day that was too dark and too cold to deserve either a ‘good’ or a ‘morning’. He was deliberately early. His gaze raked the corridors and offices to see who had arrived before him. No sign of Davis or Webber. He let out a sigh of relief that was tempered by there being no sign of Suzie either.

  She had rung him the previous afternoon just as he’d emerged from his interview with Joyce Yeatman. She’d been in a hurry, asking, ‘Anything new? Anything that won’t keep?’

  He’d said, ‘Bits. Nothing much.’

  ‘Cover for me,’ she’d said, ‘if I’m late back.’

  Davis had asked after her ten minutes later. Ahmed had given him a half-formed sentence around the words ‘delay’ and ‘Christmas traffic’ which Davis, his attention elsewhere, had accepted. Ahmed had then buried himself in writing up his notes and following the few new lines that Joyce Yeatman had provided, while dreading the order for an update that was bound to come at some point. The more that time moved on, the more likely it became that it would be Webber bursting in to hear the latest. He wouldn’t be fobbed off with half a story.

  But the afternoon grew chaotic. People were in and out. No sign of Suzie and she wasn’t answering her phone. Webber himself had disappeared at zero notice disrupting several people’s schedules. Ahmed found that he, Suzie, and their cold case fell so far down the list that Davis never came back to him, and by the time Webber returned, Davis was gone and Ahmed was finishing up. Webber put his head round the door but clearly assumed whoever he was looking for had gone home. Ahmed felt relief but was also annoyed with Suzie. Keeping his head down meant he’d had to keep well off Davis’s radar and hadn’t been able to catch up with what had been happening in the hunt for Tom’s killer.

  Given that her ‘if I’m late back’ had become a complete nonappearance, Suzie would surely have the sense to arrive early this morning. He glanced at the clock. People would be piling in soon. Where was she? He clicked her number into his phone.

  ‘Ayaan, what’s up?’

  ‘Where are you? Where were you? I thought you’d be in early.’

  ‘I’m on my way. Was there any bother yesterday?’

  ‘No one noticed. It was chaos what with one thing and another. I fobbed them off with a traffic delay.’

  ‘Good man. Sit tight and keep shtum. You won’t believe what I’ve got. I’ll be with you in five.’ Her voice sounded animated with an underlying excitement,
but before he could frame a question the line went dead.

  He paused long enough for a couple of deep breaths and then called the hospital. Both the Drakes had been discharged. Michael yesterday afternoon, his wife in the evening. Cradling his phone in the still quiet office, he punched in the Drakes’ home number. Like yesterday it rang for a long time, but eventually a voice answered him. It was snappy and heavy with tiredness.

  ‘Hello Michael. It’s DC Ahmed. How are you?’

  ‘Oh … uh … Yeah, sorry. Not been up long.’

  It sounded to Ahmed as though Michael Drake had just woken from a deep sleep; he didn’t think he’d been up at all, never mind not for long. ‘And how’s your wife?’ He put on a deliberately breezy tone.

  ‘Yes, fine. She left the hospital last night. She’s not here. She’s with a friend.’

  Ahmed remembered the venom of Tiffany’s suicide note. ‘But she’s OK now, is she?’

  ‘How should I know?’ snapped Michael. ‘Uh … sorry, I mean yes, as far as I know. They didn’t allow her any visitors; they didn’t even let your lot in to talk to her. I haven’t seen her since … since … But you’re the last person I should get annoyed with. If you hadn’t … well, anyway. I won’t say I’m happy about it. She’s gone to the friend she was with the first time.’

  ‘What first time?’

  ‘The first time she got ill. I know, I know, you’ll tell me it’s coincidence and I shouldn’t say these things just because I don’t like the woman.’

  Ahmed hadn’t been going to say anything close to that. ‘What exactly is the matter with Tiffany?’ he asked.

  ‘They don’t know. They’ve never pinned it down. We’ve had batteries of tests done.’ Michael sounded exhausted now.

  ‘Who’s the friend she’s gone to stay with?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that. She’d kill me for sure.’ Ahmed heard genuine worry in the man’s voice.

  ‘It’s not Edith Stevenson, is it?’

  Michael’s tone relaxed as he laughed. ‘Why on earth would it be Edie? She and Tiff don’t get on.’

  Ahmed noted that he hadn’t actually said no, but wasn’t sure there was anything to read into it. ‘But Miss Stevenson was there yesterday. Wasn’t it Tiffany she’d called in to see?’

  ‘Are you sure it was Edie?’ Michael sounded puzzled.

  ‘Pretty sure, yes.’ Ahmed crossed his fingers to neutralise the lie. The fleeting visitor hadn’t been one of the paramedics but he’d been coming round to the idea it might have been a neighbour.

  ‘Well, I’ve no idea, unless she’d heard that Tiff had … um … had heard what had happened. We’d spoken on the phone in the morning; she knew I’d be out.’

  Footsteps reverberated from the corridor with a swell of voices. People were crowding in out of the cold. Ahmed looked up and saw Suzie. She caught his eye and winked, putting her finger to her lips telling him to keep the secret she hadn’t yet relinquished.

  As he ended his call and gathered both thoughts and paperwork together, Michael Drake’s voice echoed. We’d spoken on the phone in the morning; she knew I’d be out.

  * * *

  The pace quickened during the morning. There was none of the usual jockeying between Davis’s team for position at the radiator, no lazy huddling into overcoats and yawning over files. And it wasn’t Davis’s presence that animated them. He hadn’t yet crossed their threshold. He and several others had been closeted in Webber’s office since they’d arrived. Ahmed glanced over heads towards the corridor. He could see people milling about. Things were moving. There was an energy about the place that he hadn’t seen before. Yesterday afternoon’s activity must have borne fruit and now they were about to discuss it, to debrief everyone.

  He found himself holding his breath as Davis entered, an unmistakable spring in his step. Ahmed wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Davis move faster than a relaxed stroll, but he was striding as he cut a path to the warm end of the room.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ Suzie murmured in his ear, looking the question at him.

  He gave a brief shrug. ‘It’s from yesterday,’ he told her. ‘No idea what.’

  They both turned to listen as Davis began to speak.

  ‘You two,’ he began. ‘Suzie and Ayaan. Martyn wants a word.’ He tipped his thumb in the direction of Webber’s office. ‘Go on. Look sharp!’

  Ahmed felt his jaw drop. This wasn’t fair. Suzie had been caught out, whatever she’d been up to, and they were about to get bollocked for it. He wanted to plead with Davis to let him stay and listen to the briefing. This wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t known anything about it. Suzie would back him up, but by the time they’d sat through Webber ranting on about it, it would be too late. He closed his mouth and pulled himself to his feet. There was no succinct way to say anything that would do any good. He hung behind Suzie as they left the room dragging his feet with rapidly diminishing hope that Davis would say something significant while he was still in earshot.

  Webber was on the phone and scribbling figures on to a notepad as they reached his open doorway. He waved them inside, pointing Suzie towards a chair. Ahmed saw irritation and impatience in every line of his body. He supposed Suzie was invited to sit because she was pregnant. She would be ordered to her feet when Webber was ready to deliver his reprimand. He tried to catch her eye but she stared stonily ahead of her.

  ‘Sit down, Ayaan,’ Webber barked suddenly taking Ahmed by surprise. The handset was back on its rest. He pulled out a chair and perched at its edge.

  ‘China Kowalski.’ Webber looked from one to the other of them.

  Ahmed glanced at Suzie. She looked as mystified as he felt. ‘Um … yes … she’s one of the ones … one of the school friends … Robert Morgan. She’s somewhere on a research trip … works in Malaysia.’

  ‘She’s been on Easter Island,’ Webber said. ‘And on her way back home yesterday she called in here.’

  ‘Here?’ Ahmed’s stare met Suzie’s. The conversation had taken a surreal turn.

  ‘Not here,’ Webber amended. ‘The other side of town. I went over to see her. She didn’t have long before her flight out.’

  Ahmed digested this. Remembering the annoyance of the people disrupted by Webber’s sudden disappearance he wanted to say, Why you? But as he formed the question he realised there hadn’t been anyone else, no one who knew anything about the case, anyway. He’d been with Joyce Yeatman, Suzie had gone for her hospital appointment and everyone else was out. ‘Did she have anything?’

  ‘I don’t know if she came with the intention of passing on something specific. I’m inclined to think she must have done. It’s one hell of a journey. She flew via Santiago, Lima and Amsterdam to get here, the best part of two days travelling, and another 24 hours journey ahead of her when she left. She was tired beyond exhaustion, completely on autopilot. I just kept her talking. She knows a lot about the key players from back then. Hopefully there’s something useful in all of it.’

  ‘Why couldn’t she just have rung you?’ from Suzie.

  Webber shrugged. ‘She’s a very intense woman. I think she wanted to see someone face to face to make sure she was taken seriously. You know that she spoke to Don Farrar, the Chief Super’s father, back in May. She got Brad Tippet’s son to engineer a meeting. She knew Brad from school. They were both supposed to stay under the radar but Don Farrar recognised the family likeness in the young Tippet.’

  ‘Brad Tippet claimed not to know about this meeting, didn’t he?’ Ahmed asked. It was one of the loose ends that flapped around Tippet for all his watertight 30-year-old alibi.

  ‘I’m inclined to believe that,’ said Webber. ‘He looked genuinely shocked when I told him. What do you think? You’ve been through all the notes.’

  Ahmed did a mental recap of the files. It was two weeks since Webber had interviewed Tippet. ‘I haven’t spoken to Brad Tippet myself,’ he said, ‘and this is speculation but I wonder if it was a bit of a wake-up call for him.
He’s conducted a kind of low-level stalking of the Chief Super for the past three decades. It’s how his son knew Farrar senior’s movements. Maybe he realised just how much he’d pulled in his family over the years. Why did China Kowalski go to the son, not to Brad?’

  ‘Chance. She rang and got the son. He agreed to help her.’

  ‘And Pamela Morgan?’ Ahmed said. ‘Does she have anything? I mean why the insistence it wasn’t suicide?’

  Webber shook his head. ‘She and Pamela were obviously close at school. China disapproved of the match with Robert Morgan. I think she’s just held on to some idealised version of Pamela as someone who would never kill herself. In her own way she’s become as obsessed as Tippet is with John Farrar. She knew the woman as a school friend but beyond adolescence they didn’t really keep in touch. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that the Pamela Morgan who killed herself was a completely different person from the Pamela Quinliven she used to know.’

  ‘But she still insists it wasn’t suicide?’

  Webber nodded. ‘Nothing I could say made a dent. She was adamant there must have been foul play.’

  ‘And yet she waited 15 years to speak up,’ said Suzie.

  Webber leant back in his chair and rested his hands behind his head. ‘And yet she waited 15 years,’ he repeated. ‘Something got to her earlier this year but I couldn’t get it out of her. She told me she’d been … unsettled was the word she used, she’d been unsettled for years, right back from when Robert Morgan died.’

  Ahmed gave Suzie a quick glance which she returned. She’d got away with yesterday’s escapade whatever it was.

  ‘Do you mean she had her doubts about that being accidental?’

  ‘That’s not what she said. It wasn’t as concrete a concern as that. At Morgan’s funeral someone told her that Pamela was pleased he’d died. That it saved her the hassle of an expensive divorce.’

  ‘Was she saying Pamela had engineered his death?’

  ‘Kowalski’s a very clever woman,’ Webber said, ‘but she doesn’t have much emotional intelligence … no empathy. Everything’s judged rigidly by her own standards. She said Pamela’s grief had looked genuine to her but could have been remorse or guilt for wishing him dead. She certainly wasn’t saying Pamela was involved. She still has Pamela on a pedestal like they all seem to. She was critical of Michael Drake, thought he wasn’t as sympathetic towards Pamela as he should have been, Edith Stevenson too.’