Snarl

by Celina Grace

  Momentarily, the bloodied drawing room of the Dorseys’ house recurred to Kate.

  “No,” she said, after a moment. “There have been worse.”

  Their next destination was Royal Wootten Bassett, the scene of so many sad homecomings of soldiers who’d paid the ultimate price for the service of their country. As Theo drove along the main street, Kate remembered the crowds who turned out to line the pavements, the solemn onlookers, the tearstained faces of the grieving families. Had Guy Wade’s experiences in the army turned him from patriot to misanthropist, or did his apparent hatred of the human race go deeper than that?

  Guy Wade’s once commanding officer, Peter Wentworth, was a distinguished looking man of about fifty, still with a thick head of hair scarcely touched by grey, except at the temples. He reminded Kate a little of Anderton, except without the latter’s unceasing energy. Captain Wentworth had a clipped but calm manner, and courteously offered them both refreshments before they got down to business.

  “Guy Thomas Wade,” said the captain. “Yes, I remember him. He was a troubled man.”

  “Really?”

  “He came from a very lowly background. Born the wrong side of the blanket, no real father figure. Rackety kind of childhood. I only know this second-hand, of course, from his fellow soldiers.”

  Kate tried not to resent the words used. She’d been ‘born on the wrong side of the blanket’, stupid term. She’d had a rackety kind of childhood. We can’t all have a privileged upbringing, mate.

  The captain went on speaking. “I often see it in the ranks,” he said. “Plenty of men and women join the forces because they’re looking for order and stability, and the comfort of having someone else tell you what to do.”

  Again, Kate was pierced by his words. It was true. Why else had she wanted to be a police officer? Catching the bad guys, of course, that was the conscious reason. But the unconscious one was to bring more order to the chaos of life. She remembered her first week at Hendon, settling in with her dorm-mates. She even remembered the first night there; lying in a strange bed in a strange room, in a building filled with strangers. She should have been homesick – instead, she remembered feeling an overwhelming relief. She remembered Stuart at Olbeck’s dinner table, head down, clutching his glass. That’s why I joined the force…

  She brought herself back to the present with an effort. Theo had obviously just asked a question and the captain was frowning.

  “There were – incidents,” he said. “There were several fights, both with other soldiers and with civilians. It culminated, as you know doubt know, in a discharge from the services.”

  Kate recalled the notes of the case. “He was involved in the serious beating of an Iraqi citizen, who later died from his injuries,” she said. “So, he was court-martialled?”

  Captain Wentworth looked uncomfortable. “No. No, it never actually came to that. There was a lack of evidence – one of the key witnesses’ testimony was very unreliable. The family of the victim eventually dropped the charges.”

  “Why?”

  Captain Wentworth sat back in his chair, one thumb running along the edge of his jaw. “Let’s just say that they probably didn’t want too much close attention paid to their… situation. The victim was – well, let’s just say he was a person of interest to our side.”

  Theo looked puzzled. Kate felt like giving him a poke in the ribs.

  “They were insurgents?” she asked and watched Theo’s face clear.

  “Possibly.”

  “Was it—” Kate looked down at the notes on her lap. “What was Guy Wade’s motive for the attack? Did he have one?”

  Incredibly, Captain Wentworth chuckled, a single dry cough of a laugh. Then he cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I actually remember what Wade said, after we’d arrested him. He said he did it because the victim had been flogging his donkey.”

  For a moment, Kate thought that was some kind of sexual euphemism. Then she realised it was the literal truth. Guy Wade had killed a man for being cruel to an animal. She and Theo exchanged a glance.

  “One more thing, captain. Did Wade ever work in bomb disposal, or with explosives in any way?”

  “No. No, not that I’m aware. We do, of course, have such units in each of our battalions, and it’s possible that Wade had some friends or contacts in those units. He was a fairly quick learner. He was a violent, troubled man, like I said, but he wasn’t without intelligence.”

  *

  “So, what do you think?” Kate asked as they made their way back to the car.

  Theo glanced over at her. “Sounds like our guy, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does. So now we just have to find him.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Those were Anderton’s sentiments when they arrived back at the station for the debrief.

  “I need Stuart back here,” he said. “Things are moving quickly, now. Someone go and get him in – pretend to arrest him, if you have to.”

  There were a few grins at this and Kate could see that several people quite fancied the novelty of ‘arresting’ one of their colleagues. Let’s hope we never have to do it for real, she thought.

  “Anyone got anything else to add?”

  Something had been nagging at Kate, something to do with the whiteboards. As she swept her gaze along them, it snagged on whatever had been nudging her. Someone, Anderton probably, had drawn a couple of pound signs and circled them, right by the crime scene pictures of the Dorsey house. She raised her hand.

  “Sir, I’d like to go and interview Alexander Hargreaves. I’ve got several questions for him.”

  “Fine. Do that. Take someone with you.”

  “I’m fine—”

  “No buts, DS Redman.” Kate fought down an angry blush. Patronising git. “I’m not having my officers wandering around that isolated spot without back-up.”

  “I’ll come,” said Theo, helpfully. Kate tried to look grateful.

  At least this time Kate could insist on driving, as she’d been there once before and Theo hadn’t. Her radio station had been tuned to Classic FM, which came on automatically when she started the engine but she turned it off rather pointedly.

  “Cor,” Theo said as they drew up beside the lakeside house. “Nice gaff. I’d love something like this.”

  Kate made an agreeing noise as she parked the car. Theo was craning to see out of the windows, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sunlight.

  “I think I saw this on Grand Designs, once. I love that show. I’m going to have a place like this, one day.”

  “Really?” asked Kate, trying not to sound too surprised – or too cynical. She thought of pointing out to Theo that even if he rose to become Chief Superintendent, the likelihood of him being able to afford a multi-million pound house was nothing but a faint, distant dream; but why stamp on the poor bloke’s aspirations?

  Once they were out of the car, Kate once again became aware of the sense of isolation. It was a warmer, sunnier day than the time she and Anderton had visited, but there was still a pressing sense of solitude as they stood in the driveway. She could hear the faint lap of the lake waters against the posts of the jetty. The pine trees stood by the lakeside like needled sentinels. A car that Kate vaguely recognised as the large BMW that had been parked here on their previous visit was parked inside the open garage.

  “Looks like he’s home,” she said, and Theo nodded.

  But no one answered their knocks on the door and rings of the doorbell. After five minutes, Kate gestured to Theo and they began to walk around the decking that ran along the back of the house. Theo exclaimed over the view.

  “I know, it’s nice but—” Kate began and then stopped dead.

  The long wall of glass at the back of the house was currently in shadow, and the interior of the house was clearly visible. Kate’s heart leapt into her throat. Within the dim interior, she could see a figure, slumped in one of the armchairs around the glass coffee table, and there was a dark stain on
the fluffy white rug on the slate floor. She clutched Theo’s arm.

  “Oh, fuck,” said Theo, taking it in. “Shit. Is it him?”

  “Alex Hargreaves? I think so.” Kate pressed her hands up against the glass, trying to see as much as she could through the twin barriers of glass and low light. “Oh my god. Theo, we’ve got to get in.”

  “I know.” Theo sounded as shaken as she was. She knew what he was thinking – was this another murder? “I’m going to call it in right now, and then we’ll get that door down.”

  They ran back around to the front of the house, Theo already talking to Dispatch. After he’d hung up, he tried Anderton, terminating the call with a curse when he obviously got his voicemail. Kate was already calling Olbeck.

  “Oh, Lord,” said Olbeck. Kate pressed the phone to her ear, grimacing – he sounded like he was walking down a wind tunnel. “I’m just leaving the office – I’ll be there as quick as I can. Are you okay?”

  “Fine, we’re fine. Just worried about what we’re going to find.”

  “Maybe you should wait ‘til the patrol get there.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Kate, trying to keep the impatience from her voice. “Can you get hold of Anderton?”

  “He’s with the Chief. I’ll grab him as soon as he’s done.”

  Kate didn’t have faith that the two of them would be able to break the front door down, despite Theo’s youth and strength. If he’d had any sense at all, Hargreaves would have built himself an impregnable fortress. But, primed with adrenaline, it only took three shoulder charges before the frame splintered and a gap appeared. Theo kicked the door fully open in just thirty seconds.

  Kate braced herself for the peal of an alarm, but there was nothing. After the splintering and crashing of the door break, the silence rolled back in. Kate found herself holding her breath. She was a little ashamed that she let Theo go in first, although he would have probably stopped her if she’d tried to be the one to take the lead. As it was, he held out a protective arm as she stepped forward, which she found simultaneously touching and annoying.

  As they stepped over the threshold, Kate was assailed with fear. This was stupid, we’re not armed, we have no idea who might be here… Over their quick, high breathing, she caught the faint sound of sirens and relaxed a little. Theo edged forward, Kate following him closely, until they were standing in the huge, atrium-like space in the centre of the house.

  As soon as she saw the body, Kate felt her fear dissipate. Alex Hargreaves sat in one of the leather chairs, his head rolled forward onto his chest, his eyes closed. Both arms were loose at his sides, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to above the elbow. Blood had run from the wounds in his wrists and pooled on the floor beneath him. In front of him, on the glass coffee table, was an empty bottle of whisky, the dregs of which were dried into a sticky amber film in the bottom of a glass. There was a square yellow Post-It note stuck to the glass of the table, with an object placed on top of it. Kate and Theo edged closer. The scrawled writing on the note said the simplest and saddest goodbye of all. I’m sorry. The small object was a memory stick. Kate looked closer. Balled-up pieces of pink paper were scattered around Hargreaves’ feet and she remembered seeing the same kind of paper bobbing in the lake outside on her previous visit. She leant a little closer, trying to see them in more detail.

  “What are those?” she whispered to Theo. It felt wrong to speak in a normal tone.

  Theo bent forward to take a closer look. “Not sure,” he said after a moment. “Nothing sinister. I think they’re betting slips.”

  “Oh.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. There was no jagged undercurrent of fear left in the room, no taint of horror as at the Dorsey crime scene. There was nothing, simply absence. Kate and Theo kept looking, standing side by side and staying quiet, as the sound of sirens became louder and eventually they heard the crunch of tires over the gravel outside.

  *

  The bank of whiteboards in the Incident room had grown. Two days after the discovery of Hargreaves’ body, Kate and Olbeck stood in front of it, looking at the photographs from the victim’s house. There was something even sadder in the juxtaposition of Hargreaves’ slumped body, drained white, against the luxurious backdrop of the house itself, with its expensive furnishings and dramatic artwork. Kate looked more closely at a close-up shot of the suicide note. Something about it reminded her of the jagged letters written in blood on the wall of the dining room at the Dorsey crime scene. The handwriting and the meaning were completely different but, like the other, it was a message. But a message to whom?

  The door crashed open and Anderton bowled through with a laptop in his arms, the lead trailing behind him like the ribbon on a kite.

  “Morning, team. Can someone help me get this set up?”

  Once the equipment was sorted out, the police officers arranged themselves around the room in a way that they could all see the projection screen. Anderton opened a file on the laptop and adjusted it on the screen. It was an Excel spreadsheet, filled side to side with a mass of (to Kate) impenetrable numbers.

  “Know what this is?” asked Anderton.

  Olbeck raised his hand. “I’m hazarding a guess that it’s something to do with MedGen’s accounts.”

  “You hazard right. We’ve had the analysts go through the files which were on the memory stick left by Hargreaves at his suicide. I’m not expecting you lot to understand this – you’re not accountants, thank God – but you can possibly hazard another guess at why Hargreaves left this for us, or someone, to find.”

  Kate scanned the spreadsheets, frowning. The numbers still didn’t make much sense, but she could guess what Anderton was inferring.

  “He was embezzling funds,” she said, quietly. “That’s why Jack Dorsey was worried about money. Remember, Sarah Brennan said he’d been talking about getting the auditors in, to look at the accounts, or something like that?”

  Anderton nodded. “Quite right, Kate. It turns out Alex Hargreaves not only had expensive tastes in houses and clothes and artwork, he also had quite a gambling addiction. Had accounts with all the bookies in Abbeyford, the respectable ones as well as the not-quite-so respectable ones. So he needed money and, as one of the directors of MedGen, he had access to a lot.”

  Kate found herself nodding in dawning comprehension. She remembered the trip to MedGen with Theo, how they’d been talking about betting and horse-racing in the waiting room. Theo holding the Racing Times magazine and Hargreaves coming in, noticing it, his face briefly registering a flicker of emotion. She remembered the bobbing pink betting slips in the lake by Hargreaves’ house.

  Olbeck rubbed his chin. “So, Hargreaves was taking the money, Dorsey found out about it – or was on the verge of finding out about it. So that meant… what? Did Hargreaves have to stop him?”

  Theo was flipping the case notes back and forth. “Hargreaves has a rock-solid alibi for the night of Dorsey’s death, guv,” he said. “A pub full of people have confirmed that he was there for most of the evening.”

  “Yes, thank you for that illuminating fact, Theo,” said Anderton. “I’m quite aware of that.”

  “He would make sure he had a rock-solid alibi if he was going to pay someone to do his dirty work for him,” Kate said impatiently.

  There was a moment’s silence, broken by the door to the office opening. They all turned to see Stuart making his way towards them. He was dressed in his activist gear, in stark contrast to how Kate had last seen him, although he looked as tired as he had that evening at Olbeck and Jeff’s house. He raised a hand in slightly self-conscious welcome as he joined them at the whiteboards. “All right, everyone?”

  “Glad you could join us,” said Anderton. “I hear the patrol had a fun time dragging you in for questioning.”

  Stuart grinned. “I didn’t resist arrest, if that’s what you’re saying, sir.”

  “Not at all. Come into my office for a moment, I just want a quick
word.”

  The tension in the team was broken as Anderton and Stuart left the room. Kate continued to run her eyes over the photographs and the files on screen, wondering whether she’d missed anything important. Theo took the files back to his desk and began to read through them, muttering something under his breath. Rav and Jane went to stock up on coffee.

  Kate was still standing there, unsure of what to do next, when Stuart appeared at her shoulder. “All right?” he said amiably.

  She smiled up at him in greeting. It was funny, but since that odd little moment at the dinner party last week, she didn’t have that same sense of irritation and annoyance around him as she used to do.

  “These the Hargreaves photos?”

  Kate nodded. Stuart moved along the row slowly, looking at each in turn.

  Kate, having seen all of the sad images that she wanted to see, looked around the room. Theo still had his head bent over the file – she could imagine that patronising little comment of Anderton’s had smarted and he was trying to find something in the file to help him regain a little ground. She sympathised. She thought about going to get a cup of tea and turned back to Stuart to ask him if he wanted one. “Fancy a c—”

  One look at his face stopped her sentence in mid-flow. He was staring intently at the photographs and his face was literally draining of colour before her eyes, as if a plug had been pulled somewhere in his throat and all the blood were running away down the plughole. She had a sudden, horrifying flashback to last summer, watching Gerry suffer the heart attack that put him in Intensive Care; here in front of her was the same greyish pallor, the same stare of utter shock and dread. She took an involuntary step towards him.

  “Stuart…”

  “Where are the toilets?” he asked, in a faint, faraway voice.

  Surely he knew? She told him and he turned at once and walked quickly to the door, holding himself stiffly, as if he were hurt and trying not to show it. Kate watched the office door swing closed behind him, one hand up to her mouth. What on Earth…?