Road Closed

by Leigh Russell

  ‘She works in IT,’ Peterson said and the neighbour frowned.

  ‘Did they seem happy together?’ Geraldine asked.

  The neighbour just shrugged. ‘You know.’

  ‘That was a waste of time,’ the sergeant grumbled as they made their way back to the road.

  ‘At least she didn’t let her imagination run away with her,’ Geraldine replied. ‘Come on, let’s see if the other side have more to say.’ She tried to control the impatience in her voice.

  ‘She’s just here till she gets herself sorted,’ Jane Pettifer explained as she led the way across a wide hallway. ‘She didn’t seem to have anywhere else to go. My husband brought her in,’ she added over her shoulder as though Sophie Cliff was an abandoned kitten they had found on their doorstep. ‘She’s in the TV room.’

  Jane Pettifer ushered them into a sumptuously furnished living room. Sophie Cliff was leaning forward in an armchair, head down, her thin arms wrapped around her chest. She looked very different to the passionate woman Geraldine had seen at the morgue.

  ‘Mrs Cliff?’ Geraldine said gently. ‘Sophie?’ The other woman raised her head. Her eyes barely registered Geraldine. Her lips, prim in the photo, hung slack. She looked like a stroke victim. Grief or guilt, Geraldine wondered.

  ‘She won’t speak. We’ve called the doctor,’ Mrs Pettifer said. ‘He should be here soon.’

  Geraldine tried not to frown. Once the doctor arrived, he would probably prescribe a sedative and the opportunity to question Sophie Cliff would be snatched away for another day. There was no time for sympathy.

  Geraldine sat down opposite Sophie Cliff. Behind her the sergeant spoke softly to Mrs Pettifer. Geraldine waited. A large flat screen television hung on the wall to one side. It had been muted. The screen was flashing with advertisements on the periphery of Geraldine’s vision. Beside it on a low table, a huge vase of lilies filled the air with their heavy scent. Geraldine fiercely dismissed the memory of her mother’s funeral.

  Three large armchairs and a matching settee covered in a velvety red fabric stood in a semi-circle around the television. This probably wasn’t even the main living room. Geraldine recalled the Cliffs’ skeletal black kitchen, metal shreds of an extractor fan hanging from the scorched ceiling, the air choking with sooty dust and the foul stench of smoke. It was hard to imagine Sophie Cliff and the figure in the mortuary sitting together in a well furnished living room of their own, relaxing in front of the television.

  Mrs Pettifer was hesitating. ‘I called the doctor. He’s on his way.’ She looked from Geraldine to the sergeant who was holding the door open for her. Peterson ushered her from the room and closed the door.

  Geraldine waited for the sergeant to sit down and take out his note book before she leaned forward and spoke gently. ‘Mrs Cliff?’ No response. ‘Sophie? I’m sorry about Tom.’ Hearing her husband’s name, Sophie Cliff raised her eyes to look straight at Geraldine through the thick lenses of her glasses. Having caught her attention, Geraldine tried a direct question. ‘Mrs Cliff, do you know who left the gas on in your house last night?’ Sophie Cliff didn’t answer. Geraldine took a different tack. ‘Mrs Cliff, Sophie, your husband died in a fire caused by a gas explosion. We want to find out how it happened. We want to know why Tom died.’ Sophie Cliff moaned softly. She began to rock backwards and forwards on the armchair. ‘For the record, can you tell me if you turned the gas on in your kitchen last night, for any reason?’ Geraldine insisted. Sophie Cliff didn’t answer.

  ‘You work in IT?’ Geraldine asked. Silence. ‘Can you tell me why you were called out last night?’ Sophie Cliff looked blankly at Geraldine. ‘Were you called out to work last night?’ Geraldine asked. Silence. Geraldine adopted a conversational tone. She leaned back slightly in her chair. ‘We know it’s nothing unusual for you to be called out at night. It must be very difficult for you. I sympathise. I know it’s hard driving when you’ve just woken up. Do you have a routine on such occasions? I know I do. I expect you make yourself a cup of coffee before you go out, to wake yourself up before driving?’

  ‘Where’s Tom?’ Sophie Cliff’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  Geraldine sighed. Dealing with grieving people was the worst part of her job. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie, your husband died in the fire.’

  ‘He wasn’t burned.’

  ‘No. He was overcome by smoke. He’s dead, Sophie. Tom’s dead.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Her voice rose in panic. ‘What are they doing to him?’

  ‘He’s still in the mortuary. Do you remember? You saw him there. You identified him. You’ll be able to make the funeral arrangements as soon as we know what happened.’

  ‘I want to see him. I want him back.’

  ‘Yes, you’ll be able to see him. You’ll have him back soon, Mrs Cliff.’

  ‘I want him to come home.’ The last word drew out into a wail. Sophie Cliff started shaking. Geraldine struggled against feeling pity for her. Time was pressing. The first few hours in any investigation were crucial. She had to consider the possibility that Thomas Cliff had been murdered.

  ‘Sophie, please concentrate. This could be important. We know the explosion was caused by a gas tap left on in your kitchen overnight. We need to find out how that happened. Did you go in your kitchen before you went out last night? Think carefully.’ She paused. Surely the woman wasn’t too far gone to realise the significance of what Geraldine was saying.

  ‘I went out. I didn’t want to wake Tom. I had to get to work as quickly as possible. I drove…’ Sophie Cliff gave a start and turned to Geraldine, her face suddenly alive. ‘I know who did it. I saw him.’

  ‘Was your husband up in the night?’

  ‘No. I was quiet. I never woke him up.’ Her features changed, suffused with tenderness. She was almost attractive. ‘He was sleeping like a baby. But I saw someone.’ Her face grew taut again. ‘As I was leaving last night.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know who he was. But I’d recognise him anywhere. I’d know his eyes.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ Geraldine was aware of the sergeant, pen poised, staring at Sophie Cliff. ‘Who did you see? Where was he?’ Geraldine felt an impulse to seize the dazed woman by the shoulders and shake her. She gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

  ‘As I was driving out of the house, I saw a man. I don’t know who he was. I’d never seen him before. I’d know if I had. I’d recognise that face. He just appeared from nowhere in front of the car. I could see him clearly in the headlights. I nearly ran him over. He just appeared from nowhere and ran right across the drive in front of me. He had horrible eyes, kind of bursting out of his face. I had to swerve to avoid him. I slammed my foot on the brake and skidded into the hedge.’ She stood up, suddenly agitated. If she was fabricating the story to protect herself, it was a convincing act. ‘It was him, wasn’t it? He started the fire.’ She was trembling and her voice rose.

  ‘Sit down, Mrs Cliff. We’ve found nothing to suggest a third party was involved.’ Geraldine glanced at the sergeant who was busy taking notes. ‘Can you think of anyone with a grudge against you or your husband?’

  ‘No. There was no one. Only us. There was only us.’

  ‘The fire started inside the house, in your kitchen. There’s no evidence of arson, nothing to suggest a third party was involved.’ Watching the widow’s face, Geraldine felt uneasy. There was something odd about Sophie Cliff’s reluctance to look at her directly, as though afraid her eyes might reveal too much. And people had been murdered for a lot less than a million pounds.

  13

  Interviews

  On the way to Sophie Cliff’s workplace, Geraldine and Peterson went over what they knew about Sophie. They agreed there was something strange about her, but there was nothing to implicate her in her husband’s death.

  ‘She never once looked at me, not directly,’ Geraldine remarked. ‘She could be painfully shy. It might’ve been the shock. But she made me fe
el as though I wasn’t there. She looked right past me. Never once engaged with me while we were talking. It was the same when she went to view the body. I felt…’ she struggled to find the right word. ‘There’s something – cold – about her. Detached. Like she’s living on the other side of a glass wall.’

  ‘It could be grief shutting her off.’

  ‘It’s not just now. They didn’t socialise with the neighbours,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  ‘Perhaps she’s one of those people who isn’t comfortable around people?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘She inherits the house,’ Peterson added after a pause.

  ‘But if that’s what she wanted, why would she risk destroying the property in the process of getting her hands on it?’

  ‘Insurance?’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘Unless she’s totally insane – which we can’t rule out – however you look at it, setting up a gas explosion has to be a very dodgy way to plan a murder. It’s dangerous and unpredictable. There’s so much could go wrong, and the chances of success are slim. And she would have been risking her own life too. I can’t believe this was a deliberate murder. Arson maybe, but it can’t be a premeditated murder. Can it? It doesn’t make any sense, gov.’

  ‘There’s no rule book where murder’s concerned.’

  It took them just over half an hour to reach Sophie Cliff’s work place. At night the journey would have taken about twenty minutes. She worked in an unprepossessing building on an industrial estate on the East side of the town. From outside it resembled an airport hangar. The interior was smart and conventional, with light powder blue walls and floor covered in matching carpet tiles. A young woman sat behind a curved pine desk, studying her computer screen.

  She looked up as they entered. ‘Can I help you?’

  Geraldine held out her warrant card. ‘We’d like to speak to your IT manager, please.’

  ‘Certainly, madam. Would you like to take a seat, while I give him a call?’ She flicked a button on her switchboard. ‘Mr Corrigan, can you come to reception, please?’ A moment later, she picked up her phone. Her finger nails gleamed scarlet in the halogen lighting. ‘Yes sir. But there are two visitors to see you, sir… Yes, sir… But sir… It’s the police, sir… Yes, sir.’ She hung up and turned to Geraldine. ‘Mr Corrigan will be with you directly, madam.’

  The manager arrived after about ten minutes. ‘I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. We’re desperately short staffed and my back up operator has gone down with the flu. Would you believe it? Typical. How can I help you?’

  Geraldine stood up. ‘We’d like a word with you in private.’ Mr Corrigan hesitated. ‘If it’s not convenient to talk here, you can accompany us back to Harchester police station. It’s only about half an hour’s drive from here. But we’re as keen as you are not to waste any time. We’d appreciate your co-operation.’ Without a word, Mr Corrigan turned and led the way through two sets of swing doors and along a hushed powder blue corridor.

  ‘We can talk in my office,’ he explained over his shoulder as they followed him to a door labelled Edward Corrigan. ‘Please, take a seat.’ He sat behind a large wooden desk, where he swivelled gently from side to side on a leather chair as Geraldine spoke.

  ‘Mr Corrigan, we’d like to begin by confirming Sophie Cliff’s movements last night.’

  He nodded. ‘I heard about the fire. Terrible, just terrible. Is her husband going to be all right? He was in the house, wasn’t he, when it happened?’

  ‘Mr Cliff died in the fire. Did you know him?’

  ‘Never met him, I’m afraid.’

  ‘He worked here.’

  ‘A lot of people work here, Inspector. He worked on the admin side, I think. Our paths don’t often cross. I may have been in the same room as him, but I wouldn’t recognise him. We’re a large organisation… But this is simply terrible. What a horrible way to go. And they’d not been married long.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m sorry to hurry you, Inspector, but our systems operation has to be my top priority. We have banks dependent on our print runs, and hospitals. The penalties are prohibitive if we overrun. So I’d be grateful if we could keep this brief, with minimum disruption to my staff. We’ve already lost Sophie – I don’t suppose you have any idea when she might be able to come back to work?’

  Mr Corrigan confirmed that Sophie had been called into work on Friday night. She had been contacted at two twenty, and had arrived at the office at two fifty-five.

  ‘Would it have taken her thirty five minutes to get to work at that time of night?’ Peterson asked.

  ‘She had to get dressed,’ Geraldine pointed out. Sophie’s phone had registered an incoming call at two twenty from a withheld number. Corrigan’s confirmation saved them having to trace the call. He told them it was a regular occurrence but there was no way Sophie could have known in advance if she was going to be summoned on any particular night. Her contract stated how often she had to be on call but often she could fix problems remotely without leaving home. She had to go into the office about once a month, on average.

  Corrigan was unable to give a view on whether the Cliff’s marriage was a happy one.

  ‘I assume they were happy,’ he said. ‘They’d only been married about a year or maybe two. But it’s not something I discuss with my colleagues. We don’t have time to sit around gossiping, even if we wanted to.’

  ‘Did you ever see her looking miserable?’

  ‘Only when the system crashed.’

  Geraldine spent the rest of the afternoon ploughing through reports, but they had been given the gist of the case at the morning briefing. Her afternoon reading material merely corroborated what she already knew. She read through it conscientiously, alert for some detail that didn’t fit, but nothing struck her as out of place.

  It was dark outside by the time she left. A heavy rain was falling as she crossed the car park. She shivered and walked faster. Damp and disgruntled, she pulled out into the street and caught sight of Peterson disappearing into the pub across the road. She was tempted to join him but was suddenly too tired to make the effort.

  It was half past eight by the time she reached home. She threw her coat on the hall chair, shuffled into her slippers and hurried into the bedroom where the light on her answer phone was flashing. Her spirits lifted when she heard Craig’s voice but he was calling to cancel their date for Sunday. ‘I don’t think I can make it back in time tomorrow after all. Can we make it Monday instead? I’ll assume that’s all right unless you call.’

  Geraldine wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a small glass of red wine. Then she sat down by the phone in her living room and hesitated. There was no reason for her to ring Craig. If he didn’t answer and she left a message he might see the missed call and think she couldn’t see him on Monday. She glanced at her watch. It was twenty to nine. She went back to the kitchen and refreshed her glass.

  Tired, and with no immediate task to distract her, Geraldine thought about her mother. When their parents divorced, Celia had been the one to comfort her, leaving Geraldine feeling excluded, as usual, from the family circle. When Celia had married and given birth to a daughter of her own, she had grown even closer to her mother. Geraldine meanwhile, single and childless, had thrown herself into her career. On occasional visits home, she had been faintly shocked to observe the intimacy that had developed between her mother and her sister, and had felt even more isolated from them. With her mother’s death, Geraldine wondered if she and Celia might forge a stronger relationship. She hoped her sister would want that too. She picked up the phone.

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘It’s Geraldine. Celia’s sister. Who’s that?’

  ‘Babysitter.’

  Geraldine went in the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, she was startled to see how haggard she looked: beneath straggly black hair her eyes were like empty holes, bored into a pallid face. She had spent so long around
corpses she was beginning to look like one. An uncharacteristic wave of self-pity threatened to overwhelm her. Resolutely, she set her wine glass down on the table, opened her briefcase, and pulled out her laptop. At least she had her work.

  14

  Plan

  When Cal had offered to put him up, Ray had jumped at the opportunity. It was better than staying at the hostel. He could learn a lot from Cal. There wasn’t a lock Cal couldn’t open. He could tell if a house was worth breaking into just by looking at it. He only had to walk past and he’d know. He was clever like that.

  ‘How’d you do it, Cal? How do you know?’

  ‘See what wheels are in the drive,’ Cal answered, as though it was obvious. ‘And watch the people when they go in and out. Check out what they’re wearing, especially their shoes. Shoes are a dead giveaway. And whatever you do, don’t touch a house with kids. Chances are a lot of equipment’s stashed in the kid’s bedroom where, let’s face it, the brat’s only got to wake up and you’ve landed yourself right in it. Mate of mine was sent down as a nonce for being picked up in some kid’s room. Gadgets, that’s what he was after, not some poxy kid.’ He spat on the pavement. ‘Kid wakes up and there’s Donny, in his bedroom. What a carry on that was. Mother screaming, father yelling, and the kid was only waving a cricket bat in Donny’s face. That bloody kid damn near had his eye out and for that the poor sod was put on the sex register before he could open his gob.’ He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Once they’ve got hold of you, no one listens.’

  Ray nodded his head wisely. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’

  ‘Steer clear of kids,’ Cal repeated. ‘They’re the devil.’

  Cal knew everything there was to know. ‘Done more jobs than you had hot dinners,’ he liked to boast, ‘and never been caught, not since I was a teenager.’ He had done a stretch inside before he reached twenty, same as Ray. It gave them something in common.