by Celina Grace
“Oh, well done. Here, you come and give it to Harry. And the lollipop. If all else fails, try bribery.”
They went back into the back room, where Harry hadn’t moved a muscle. “Here you go, sweetheart,” said Olbeck, ushering Kate forward with the precious Tato. “Here he is.”
There was so much love in his voice that Kate found herself blinking back unexpected tears. Smiling, she held Tato out to Harry and waited patiently for him to take his toy.
Chapter Five
It was Chloe who took the call a few days later. She, Kate, Rav and Theo were all in the office, beginning the laborious task of wading through the mountains of paperwork, evidence and forensic reports that littered their desks.
The telephone ringing in the background was just another noise at first. It wasn’t until Chloe picked up the receiver and answered, rather absently, before tensing and asking the caller to repeat themselves, that the others picked up on the fact that another serious crime had been discovered.
Kate, Rav and Theo listened to Chloe’s terse responses, watching her rapidly scribble down the salient facts. Kate tried to read what was being written upside down but it was hopeless. Chloe’s handwriting was bad enough at the best of times, let alone when viewed from the wrong angle.
Eventually, Chloe replaced the receiver and looked up to a row of expectant faces.
“Well?” demanded Theo.
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Well, what do you think?”
“Murder,” Rav said succinctly.
“Got it in one. Young woman, over in Arbuthon Green, found this morning by her boyfriend.”
“How nice,” said Kate. “Do they have a cause of death yet?”
“Looks like strangulation, apparently.” Chloe pushed her chair away the desk. “I’ll just go and run it past mein Führer and see who she wants on it.”
Kate found herself hoping quite strongly that, for once, Nicola might throw a bone her way. She was finding herself frustrated with the Roland Barry case. They didn’t seem to be getting anywhere; not in motive, not in suspects, and not even in establishing any of the dead man’s relationships. Kate, from the benefit of years of experience, suspected that the Barry case might be one of those unsatisfying jobs which were never concluded. Not every case was solved; she knew that to her cost. Perhaps this new case might be more…rewarding was perhaps the wrong word to use about a situation that had violently cost someone her life, but that was how Kate felt. She walked back to her desk, superstitiously crossing her fingers that Chloe would come back from Nicola Weaver’s office with good news.
**
She didn’t have to wait long. Chloe returned after five minutes looking neutral.
“Well?” asked Kate, trying not to sound too eager.
“She wants you to go. She wants me and Theo to debrief her on where we’re at with the Barry case.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “No doubt just an excuse to bitch about how we’re not getting anywhere.”
“Well, it makes no sense that she’s sending me away then,” joked Kate.
Chloe grinned reluctantly. “It’s probably part of some nefarious plot we haven’t worked out yet.”
Kate squeezed her arm. “Good luck, bird. I’ll take Rav with me, if he’s free.”
“Details are on my desk.” Chloe gave her a half-hearted wave as she trailed back to her desk.
As it transpired, Rav was tied up with an interview, so Kate left him a note and sent him an email as back-up, asking him to join her at the scene when he was able. She drove away from the station feeling light-hearted. Even the thought she was going to view another murder scene couldn’t dampen her spirits. It was another lovely autumn day; the air was sharp and crisp, and golden sunlight illuminated the vivid colour of the leaves like a slowly burning bonfire.
She’d just reached the fringes of Arbuthon Green when her mobile phone rang. It was Anderton. She pulled into a bus stop and answered it.
“Hey, you,” was his opening line.
“Hello. I can’t talk for long, I’m just on my way to a case—”
Although she’d tried to sound breezy and matter-of-fact, she couldn’t help the fact that Anderton sounded a little bit…huffy. “Oh, fine, fine. I’m sure you’ve got lots of important things to do.”
“Don’t be like that,” Kate said awkwardly. “What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem. I just thought it might be nice if we, you know, spent some time together? For a change?”
Kate bit back what she wanted to say, which was that Anderton should know damn well how all-encompassing a murder case could be. Two murder cases, as it appeared they now had. Not that he would know that. Even as she thought, Kate felt the first qualm. Abbeyford had had its tragedies and its crimes, that was for sure, but murder itself was fairly unusual. Two murder cases, almost in as many days? Bad luck or something else?
“Kate?” She realised she’d gone silent for so long that Anderton was starting to sound a little worried.
“I’m here. Sorry.”
“Oh, look, I can tell you’re up to your eyes in it. Just give me a ring later, if you get a moment.”
“Okay,” Kate said absently, still thinking about the case. She heard Anderton snort as he hung up and felt a momentary surge of guilt. She was on the verge of ringing him back when the blast of a bus horn came from behind her, and she jumped and mouthed a guilty ‘sorry’ at the scowling face of the bus driver.
**
Arbuthon Green had been one of the poorer areas of the affluent town. The second murder of Kate’s career in Abbeyford had been discovered there. Years later, it was slowly gentrifying; the rubbish and the graffiti had mostly disappeared, and although the houses were still shabby and run down, here and there you could see that they had been bought by people who cared about outward appearances. Some had been renovated entirely. They looked smart enough but somehow uneasy, as if the houses themselves were aware of how unconvincing the veneer of respectability actually was.
The address Kate was seeking was in a 1960s block of flats set back from the main road and with a car park at the back of the building. Discarded plastic bags and empty crisp packets swirled about Kate’s legs as she locked the car. The windows of the building had a blind look, obscured as they were by blinds and grubby net curtains.
The scene of crime officers had obviously been there for some time, and the small flat on the third floor of the building felt crammed with white-suited people. Kate ducked under the crime scene tape at the door after showing her credentials. The uniform on the door had directed her to the living room in a very respectful tone. “It’s the first on the left down the corridor, Detective Inspector.” Unreasonable as it might be, Kate still got a small thrill from hearing her new title. The flat was warm and stuffy; too many bodies—living ones—and not enough air.
Kate found the doorway of the living room, where the body was located. She braced herself as she took her first look, but it was nothing as bad as the abattoir someone had made of Roland Barry’s front room. It’s different, she thought, feeling the knot of tension she’d been carrying around loosen in the pit of her stomach.
The body of the young woman lay on the floor, feet towards the door, head towards the one window of the room. She was dressed in a pair of black, stretchy yoga-pants, a loose pink sweatshirt on her upper half. Blonde hair covered her face, stiffened here and there with dried blood. She was slim and muscular, her feet bare, toenails painted in chipped pink varnish. The doctor bending over the body was Ivor Gatkiss, one of the regular team from the pathology labs. He greeted Kate in his usual pleasant, shy manner.
“Anything yet, Ivor?” Kate knew she was pushing her luck but it was always worth asking.
“Not much, yet, Kate. Give me half an hour or so and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Rightio.” Kate knelt down carefully near the body, looking at it closely. The woman wasn’t as young as Kate had first placed her, misled by the slimness and fitness. Close up, Kate could see
the lines on her face, half-hidden under messy hair. Forties, perhaps, rather than the twenty-something that Kate had first thought.
The boyfriend had discovered the body and would have to be interviewed, perhaps under caution. Was he still there? Kate knew as well as any officer that the most likely suspect in a murder case such as this—in the victim’s own home, no sign of a break-in or intruder—were the closest relatives and loved ones of the deceased. Depressing, but there you go… Kate clambered back to her feet, suppressing a middle-aged groan, and moved towards the window, trying not to get in the way of all the white-suited forensic experts.
The room itself was decorated in a rather uninspiring fashion. It was comfortable enough, but shabby, messy and cluttered. Kate had the impression that the woman—what was her name? She hadn’t even found that out yet—hadn’t been particularly well off. The furniture was cheap flat-pack stuff, or obvious hand-me-downs from richer acquaintances. There was a small bookcase in the corner, and Kate went to examine the titles. You could sometimes tell a lot about a person by their taste in books. Mind you, she’d once caught Chloe reading a Mills and Boon romance on her lunch break, so what did that say?
Kate smiled at the memory, and of Chloe’s rather too emphatic protests that she’d just found it ‘lying around’, and knelt on the floor by the bookcase. There was a small, rather uninspiring collection of fiction. The majority of the titles were non-fiction, with a distinctly New Age bent. Books on essential oils, aromatherapy, life-coaching, yoga. Several well-known self-help books. Kate couldn’t very well start a full-scale search of the flat just yet, but it was useful just to get a feel for the kind of person the deceased woman had been.
There were few photographs on display. One of a family group, taken some time back in the eighties, if the clothes were anything to go by. Kate presumed that the teenage girl in the photograph, surrounded by what looked like her parents and slightly older brother, was the woman in the flat. What was her name? Kate looked around and saw, with pleasure, that Rav was coming into the room, looking rather wet, his black hair dewed all over.
He didn’t greet her immediately, concentrating, like the good officer that he was, on the body. Kate walked over. “Raining out, is it, Rav?”
“Cats and dogs,” he said absently, staring at Doctor Gatkiss and the body. “Anything yet?”
“Not yet. Here, come out of the way.” Kate drew him back towards the corridor. “I was going to see if the boyfriend’s still here. This sounds ridiculous, but I don’t even have the name of the vic yet.”
“Here, I can help.” Rav withdrew his notebook from his pocket with a flourish. “She’s Amanda Jane Callihan. Forty-three years old, lives alone, works as a yoga teacher.”
That explained the woman’s toned physique, thought Kate. She left Rav to observe Doctor Gatkiss’s patient ministrations and made her way to the kitchen. It took about five seconds to find it; the flat was not large.
The boyfriend was still there and was being comforted by one of the uniformed officers. ‘Boyfriend’ was a bit of a mis-nomer; this man was clearly in his late forties or early fifties, balding at the temples with something of a paunch which strained against his sweatshirt. For all that, he was not unattractive. He wore that stunned look that Kate was fairly familiar with in this situation. It was very hard to fake that level of shock and surprise, and she made a mental note in his favour that he may not have had anything to do with his girlfriend’s death.
“This is Dermot McGuigan,” said the officer standing beside him. Dermot sat on the only chair in the tiny galley kitchen, a tall stool that looked too spindly to bear his weight. He wasn’t crying—yet—but Kate had a feeling tears were only a few moments away. She introduced herself, showed her credentials, and added the usual words of condolence. Dermot didn’t look as though he’d heard any of it.
“Mr McGuigan? Are you all right to talk with me for a minute?”
She could see him making a huge effort to pull himself together. “Yes. Sorry. Yes, I will.”
“I understand you were Ms Callihan’s partner? How long have you been together?”
Dermot brushed his eyes. “Um, not long. Maybe six months or so.”
“Can you tell me a bit about Amanda? We’d really like to get a sort of picture of her as a person. I understand she was a yoga teacher?”
“Yeah. She did a bit of aromatherapy as well, but it was mostly yoga. I dunno… It’s not really my scene, but she was really into it, all that kind of alternative stuff…” He trailed off, staring into space.
“Did she have any family?”
“No. No, she didn’t have any kids.”
“Sorry, Mr McGuigan, I mean, did she have parents? Siblings?”
Dermot rubbed his eyes again. He looked suddenly not so much grief-stricken, as tired. “Oh, right. Sorry. Her mum and dad were dead. She had a sister, I think, but she don’t live here, in England I mean. I think she’s in Scotland. Not sure.”
Kate scribbled a note. That would have to be looked into. “Did she seem worried about anything, Mr McGuigan? Did she ever mention anyone who’d been threatening her?”
At this last question, Dermot McGuigan gave a dry sob, putting one hand up to his mouth. Kate waited patiently. After a long moment, he shook his head. “No. There was nothing. Nobody. She never told me nothing like that.”
Kate was beginning to think that this was a waste of her time. She’d be better off tracking down Amanda Callihan’s sister.
She gently drew the interview with Dermot McGuigan to a close and left him in the capable hands of the victim liaison officer. They would arrange for his statement back at Abbeyford Station. Kate walked back through to the living room, where Rav was waiting for Doctor Gatkiss to finish his work.
As Kate stepped through the doorway, she felt a jump of—of something. Unease? Suspicion? Something had snagged her intuition. Not in a big way, more the gentle poke of a finger. She stopped dead and stood for a moment, staring ahead. What had it been?
“What’s up?” asked Rav, who’d seen her abrupt halt.
“Not sure.” Kate put her hands on her hips and swivelled her gaze about the room. Nothing jumped out at her. “There was something as I walked in… Something…”
She trailed off, not sure what she was saying. Rav kept silent. Kate looked at the room again, looked at the body and blew out her cheeks, frustrated. Whatever subconscious flag had been raised was gone.
“No good?”
“No.” Kate huffed a sigh, knowing how her mind worked. Whatever she’d noticed or realised might come back, but when? And what if it didn’t?
“Don’t worry about it,” soothed Rav.
“I won’t.” Kate put the matter to the back of her mind and joined him, both of them waiting for Doctor Gatkiss to finish and tell them anything he’d found out.
Chapter Six
Late as she had been in leaving work that evening, Kate texted her neighbour to ask her to feed Merlin and headed straight for Anderton’s cottage. She had a feeling she would be pushing her luck to head home again without seeing her partner. That thought made her smile a little because, to Kate, Olbeck had always been her ‘partner’—well, until he got promoted. Kate added another item to her mental to-do list (which never seemed to grow any shorter): ring Mark and Jeff. That would have to wait until tomorrow, though.
The roads to Anderton’s rural cottage were very narrow. Kate, used to them by now, hummed to herself as she drove along. Another thought jumped, unbidden, into her head. Could she see herself living here? Did she want to be quite so cut off from the town? Whilst the village in which Anderton lived was picture-postcard pretty, its only amenities were a pub and a tiny convenience store that doubled as the post office. Decent restaurants, cinemas, bars and leisure centres were miles away in Abbeyford.
Should she and Anderton even move in together at all? He hasn’t asked you yet, Kate. But should she be waiting for an invitation? She was a modern woman; it wasn’t beyond her to a
sk him. Pondering the thought, she wondered whether he would consider moving in with her and Merlin. That was the trouble with partnering up rather later in life, thought Kate. One of you, if you were lucky enough to own your own house, would be giving up something you’d probably spent years working to achieve.
And besides all this, did she actually want to live with Anderton? She liked her house, her own space, her routines. She’d spent a lot of time and effort on making her home a comfortable and attractive place to live and it would be a wrench—much more than a wrench—to have to leave it. And didn’t someone say domesticity was the death of romance? Kate puffed out her breath in a sigh as she swung into the driveway of Anderton’s house. All this musing would have to wait. She was probably jumping ahead of herself by miles, anyway.
Shaking off her recent thoughts, Kate locked the car and made her way to the door. Before she could fit her key into the lock, it was opened for her.
“About time,” Anderton said. It was still a slight shock to see him dressed in something that wasn’t a suit.
“Nice to see you too,” Kate said, grinning and holding her face up for a kiss. “I’ve been flat out all day.”
“And now you’re going to be flat out all night.” With those words, Anderton swept her up in his arms. Kate shrieked.
Laughing, Anderton heaved her over to the stairs, put one foot on the bottom tread and clearly thought better of it. “How about the sofa, instead?”
Kate was laughing too hard to answer. This was the Anderton of old, returned; ebullient, lustful and strong. Even so, he was puffing quite hard by the time he deposited her—dumped, may have been a better word—on the leather sofa. Kate’s breath was becoming shorter already.
After all the amusement of the past few minutes, the tempo changed abruptly. Anderton kissed her slowly, taking his time, holding her face with tenderness in the way he knew she loved. They undressed minimally, taking off only what was necessary, keeping their hands on one another as if to keep the connection between them unbroken.
