A Narrow Victory

by Faith Martin

  His voice turned businesslike again. ‘It’s a bit of a sod, actually. Hardly any decent leads, too many suspects with not enough meat on their bones, and the forensics is a nightmare. It’s hardly a surprise the SIO at the time couldn’t close it.’

  Hillary snorted, feeling a sense of relief as she found herself once more on familiar ground. ‘So what’s new? You only ever give me the stuff nobody else would touch with a bargepole.’

  ‘Oh. You noticed.’

  Hillary Greene was still smiling appreciatively over that snippy little rejoinder when she left the office, the precious file clutched to her chest.

  Once the door was shut behind her, however, Detective Superintendent Steven Crayle leaned slowly back in his chair and sat perfectly still. For several minutes, he was lost deep in thought.

  Then he gave a small sigh, a barely perceptible nod, and reached for the next file in his in-tray.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When she got back to the communal office, Jimmy and Sam had already left to follow up on their burglary cases, so Hillary took Jimmy’s seat and put the file on the desk.

  Zoe watched her alertly, looking a bit like an eager terrier at a rabbit hole. When she’d been interviewed for the job, Marcus Donleavy had made it clear that, if she was serious about joining the police, she needed to learn the ropes, and in that respect Hillary Greene was definitely the best one to watch.

  So Zoe intended to do just that.

  She’d always considered herself to be a good judge of character, and the commander had mightily impressed Zoe. So the fact that the commander clearly rated the ex DI so highly was enough for her.

  Besides, she’d done some research on Hillary Greene for herself, and what she’d learned had been an eye-opener. The disastrous marriage was intriguing, but it was the success rate that Greene had maintained over the years that had really caught Zoe’s attention. Plus, she’d never met someone who’d been given a medal for bravery before, and right now she had to fight back to absurd instinct to ask her if it had hurt to get shot.

  Of course it must have bloody hurt. Zoe gave herself a mental head slap as she watched Hillary Greene take a seat and drop a dusty file on the desk top.

  Her new boss certainly had a poker face because Zoe couldn’t even begin to guess what she was thinking. She’d been a little disappointed on her first day at Thames Valley Police HQ to find that the investigative driving force behind the team was away on annual leave. She’d wanted to get started! But she had to acknowledge that it had at least given her time to find her feet and suss out the lay of the land before things really kicked off.

  She was beginning to think that she’d need to be well up on her game in order to keep in the ex DI’s good books. You didn’t need to have much about you to see that she wasn’t going to tolerate sloppy work. And any woman with a conviction rate like hers deserved respect with a capital ‘R’.

  Steven Crayle, the sexy super, was clearly the man who held it all together and was the only one with the power to make an actual arrest. And it hadn’t taken Zoe long to realize that Jimmy Jessop, wrinkly or not, firmly held the reigns (for the moment anyway) as the guv’s right-hand man. And while Sammy Pickles was a nice enough lad, and had already been in CRT for a while, she didn’t really regard him as much competition.

  Her fellow tyro, however, Zoe had to admit, had her a bit stumped.

  She’d Googled Jake Barnes, of course, the moment she learnt they’d be working together, which had only served to confirm the jaw-dropping truth. He really was filthy rich, single and had applied to work in CRT. On their first meeting, when they’d done the usual get-to-know-you thing, she’d thought he’d been pulling her leg.

  Zoe had expected to have some inkling by now as to why a man like Jake wanted to be a cop, but so far it eluded her. With his money he could travel the world, dabble in Hollywood producing films, sail a yacht, go into racehorse breeding, learn to play polo or indulge in any number of the things that the idle rich found time to do.

  Not that she’d let the enigma that was the Boy Wonder worry her now. She had far bigger things on her mind.

  Hillary Greene was finally back – the woman who’d put away more murderers than anyone else. And, unless Zoe was totally off her game, it was now her turn to get up close and personal with a murder case at last.

  Zoe was suddenly aware that Hillary Greene was watching her with a somewhat wry smile playing on her lips, and she grinned back. Busted! OK, so the boss had guessed that she was eager to go. No point in denying it.

  ‘Guv. That our first case?’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘A murder?’ Zoe pressed, fingers crossed.

  ‘It is.’ Hillary glanced casually across at Jake Barnes as she spoke, and found him watching her with level, assessing eyes.

  If it was now clear why Zoe Turnbull was here, it was far harder to read the expression on the Boy Wonder’s face. Whilst Zoe was clearly in love with the idea of solving crimes, and had probably watched far too many crime shows on television when she was a kid, Jake Barnes, she could have sworn, felt far less excited at the prospect of taking on his first serious case.

  It had been made clear to both of them that, as civilians, their powers were strictly limited. Also, that they would be closely monitored at all times by either Hillary herself, Jimmy or Steven. Even so, she had expected them both to feel a certain sense of kudos at a moment like this. They’d hardly have been human otherwise. But Jake seemed…. What? She could see by a certain amount of tension in his shoulders that she had his undivided attention but there was none of Zoe’s eagerness in his body language. If anything, he seemed more … resolute? More determined to do well, as if Hillary was a professor who was about to set him an important assignment.

  It was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was about him that bothered her so much.

  Hillary sighed. It was early days yet. Besides, what did she really expect from this pair? Maybe Zoe’s gung-ho attitude would harden into a more realistic acceptance of what police work was really all about; in which case she might make a decent enough officer when she’d gone through training and been given a few years’ experience on the beat. Or (and which was sadly far more likely) her enthusiasm would simply flare up and then die when she got bored. And then she’d move on.

  So perhaps Jake Barnes’ more careful interest was the better bet for the future. Once she’d found out just what he was up to, that is.

  ‘Right then, I’ve just been handed this by Superintendent Crayle.’ She reached in and separated the paperwork into two halves and handed them each a fistful. ‘Make five photocopies. I’m going to arrange for the rest of the evidence to be bought up from storage. When I get back, we’ll read through it together and then we’ll make a start.’

  Zoe was a little surprised to be given such a mundane task but quickly set to, nabbing first dibs on the sole photocopying machine in the office. Jake grinned and said he’d wander down to the computer rooms to find a machine there, and Hillary did what she’d said she’d do, and took a walk down into the vaults.

  There she spent a pleasant ten minutes chatting with the records officer, and after handing over her new case file number arranged for the boxes to make their way to the main office. She then detoured to her own cupboard space to make a decent mug of coffee, before returning with it to the communal office where she found her new recruits reading in silence.

  It was already nearly lunchtime but she doubted that anyone would be stopping to eat.

  Hillary took one of the photocopies for herself then sat down with a gentle sigh, experiencing that vaguely pleasant sensation she always got when starting on a new case. Years of experience with paperwork had allowed her to fine tune the skill of quickly sifting the salient points from the mountains of routine information, and would, she knew, allow her to grasp the essentials of the case long before either Zoe or Jake.

  For the first time, she looked at the name on the file.

  The
murder victim was one Felix Edward Olliphant. He’d been thirty-two years old at the time of his death, which had occurred either in the dying hours of 1999 or in the first hour of the brand new millennium, according to the pathologist.

  Hillary, knowing the sense of humour that abounded in the mortuary, could well bet that the poor medico had had his leg endlessly pulled by his colleagues about not being able to place time of death down to the nearest millennium.

  She quickly skimmed the hard-to-understand medical language, and boiled it down into simple English.

  Felix Olliphant had been found stabbed to death in a spare bedroom of the house where he’d been attending a New Year’s Eve costume party. From the crime scene photos, the house had clearly been large, and a quick check of the relevant pages told her that it had been owned by a wealthy divorcee. The bedroom in question had obviously been designated as the one where the guests deposited their coats, hats, gloves and scarves, for his body had been almost hidden by a mound of outer garments.

  The senior investigating officer – or SIO – in charge of the case, one DI Ian Varney, had theorized that the killer had deliberately heaped the coats around him before the attack, in order to keep any blood spatters from getting on to his or her own clothes. Certainly, they hadn’t been able to find any signs of bloodstains on the guests that they had questioned, but then, as Varney had pointed out, the killer could well have left the party before the body was discovered.

  He wasn’t even able to say with any confidence that they’d been able to track down all the guests either, since the party was a costume party and that inevitably led to confusion. There had been, for instance, either three or four Elvis Presleys, according to which witness you talked to. They had found only two, and the other or others couldn’t be traced. To make matters worse, the guest list was extremely fluid, as the hostess had invited all and sundry to bring friends. Consequently, friends of friends had come and gone, known to some and not to others, and could have looked like anyone or anything from a giant stuffed teddy to Marilyn Monroe.

  Just the thought of trying to make a decent witness list from that mayhem gave Hillary a giant headache.

  A blood-alcohol test had come back showing that Felix Olliphant, probably in common with a lot of the people at the party, had been extremely drunk, of the falling-down, unable-to-walk variety. No doubt a lot of people at the party had been in a similar state, which meant memories would have been hazy at best.

  Hillary herself had attended a New Year’s Eve party that night, and she could vividly remember the frenetic, drunken revelry that the countdown to midnight, and not only a brand new year or a brand new century but a brand new millennium, had wrought in the people surrounding her.

  She could well see why a killer might find it the ideal time to strike. And why the SIO in charge had an uphill battle to fight, right from the very get-go.

  DI Varney had hypothesized that one of two things might have happened. A well-meaning friend might have helped Felix to the bedroom and left him there to sleep it off, and the killer had either seen what had happened or later discovered Felix alone and incapacitated, and had decided more or less on the spur of the moment to kill him.

  Or the killer had been responsible for taking Felix into the bedroom with the express intention of killing him.

  Either way, it had been a clever idea to heap the coats over the prone man before parting them just enough to get a hand through and stab him a number of times in the chest.

  The pathologist had stated that the weapon used had been very sharp and narrow, and even speculated that a knife may have been deliberately honed and sharpened specifically for the job. Which would definitely smack of premeditation.

  Or it was just possible that the killer had, perhaps unexpectedly, found a suitable weapon somewhere in the house, realized that his victim was lying in a drunken stupor, and taken the opportunity to kill?

  Hillary, on reading through Varney’s reports, thought it unlikely that it had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Mainly because nobody at the party had come forward to admit to helping Felix into the bedroom in order to sleep off his excesses.

  True, people were often not willing to come forward in circumstances such as these. Even the most innocent of people sometimes got too scared to own up to their actions when they found themselves in the middle of a murder inquiry. Nowadays, sadly, miscarriages of justice happened often enough to give people pause to think. So Hillary could well see why even a good friend of the man might not be willing to bring himself to police attention.

  It was also possible, of course, that any friends of Felix’s who might have helped him to the bedroom could themselves have been very drunk as well, and simply not have remembered the incident.

  It was something to bear in mind. Always supposing that he hadn’t managed to stumble his way there on his own, of course.

  Also, Hillary didn’t much like the pathologist’s description of the murder weapon. True, it was only educated guesswork on his part, but from the pictures of the incision even Hillary could see that it was unlikely that a common-or-garden steak knife, or the kind you’d find in the average kitchen, would have fit the bill.

  And indeed, the hostess of the party, the unlikely named Querida Phelps, had been adamant that no such thin-bladed sharp knife belonged in her kitchen. According to her interviews, she was not much of a cook and her kitchen rarely got used. And as such, collecting fancy equipment – including a large and esoteric range of knives – was never going to be a top priority for her.

  No, to her mind, the killer had come prepared.

  Hillary got up and refilled her now empty mug, using the instant coffee that Jimmy preferred. She took a sip, glanced at her watch, and returned to her chair thoughtfully.

  ‘So, anything in particular strike you as interesting?’ Hillary asked, looking first at Zoe.

  ‘Wasn’t it all rather risky, guv?’ Zoe asked tentatively. She hated to look like a fool, and, after being so keen to start, had found herself floundering a bit in the morass of information. Worse, now that the great woman herself had asked her a question, she wasn’t sure, exactly, what was required of her.

  ‘I mean, don’t most people get killed in lonely, out-of-the-way spots? Or in their own home? To kill someone, to stab them, when a hundred people were dancing and partying just a few feet away … I dunno. It strikes me as really … weird.’

  She shuddered.

  Hillary nodded gently. ‘But the house, according to DI Varney, was a big place, with lots of rooms. The noise would have been tremendous. Even if the victim had been conscious and had managed to call out, who’d have heard him? Even if they didn’t have loud music playing in all the rooms, the noise of that many people just talking would have been deafening.’ She sighed. ‘And don’t ever discount human nature. Even if somebody had heard a bit of a struggle, or some strange noises, is it likely that they’d have even investigated? Supposing they were sober, and in the mood to actually care what was happening, wouldn’t they think it more likely that something of a love spat was going on and be inclined to keep well out of it?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Zoe agreed. ‘When you put it like that, the killer didn’t really stand that much of a chance of getting caught, did he? Not unless the victim fought back and got in a few blows of his own. He might have managed to get away and find help then.’

  ‘The pathologist doesn’t think that was the case though,’ Jake Barnes put in. ‘There were no defensive wounds on his hands or arms, so they reckon he was just lying there. Asleep.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘At least the poor sod never knew much about it.’

  ‘Where was his girlfriend?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘Around,’ Hillary said dryly. ‘According to her statement, she danced a lot, drank a fair bit, and didn’t realize he was missing until she couldn’t find him for the countdown to midnight.’

  ‘Very careless of her,’ Zoe said. ‘And why were they there anyway? I mean, at that particular p
arty?’

  ‘The victim and his business partner owned an interior decorating company, and they had just recently revamped the whole house for this Mrs Phelps woman,’ Hillary said. ‘That’s why she invited Felix and Greer Ryanson, the other half of Olligree Interiors to the party – the girlfriend came along as Felix’s guest, I suppose.’

  Hillary stretched and took another sip from her mug. ‘From the scene of crime photos the bulk of the party was taking place downstairs, spilling out into the conservatory and on to the patio and the indoor pool area. Upstairs, there were—’ She quickly checked the notes ‘—eight bedrooms, including the one where Felix was found. Even if we take it for granted that one or two of the other rooms had been … commandeered, shall we say, by the odd amorous couple or two, the killer wouldn’t necessarily have been running that much risk in killing Felix the way he did.’

  ‘And even if he had been seen leaving the area, anyone noticing him might have thought he was just coming out of a loo, I suppose,’ Zoe conceded.

  ‘Or her,’ Hillary corrected mildly, and when Zoe looked at her blankly Hillary smiled. ‘Don’t automatically assume that the killer is a male. Statistically, of course, it’s more likely, but if you read the medical report again, you’ll see that the pathologist concluded that it wouldn’t have taken any great strength for the killer to stab Mr Olliphant. A woman could have done it.’

  Jake Barnes checked the file as well. ‘He was stabbed five times in the chest – twice the blade slid along his ribs, not doing much damage. But on three occasions the blade penetrated the chest cavity. Two of these blows managed to puncture his heart, which would have resulted in death within minutes.’

  ‘Which suggests what?’ Hillary prompted him.

  Jake looked up at her, his grey-green eyes narrowing thoughtfully. ‘Well – the killer wanted to make sure he or she got the job done, I suppose. But it wasn’t really what you might call frenzied either, was it? I mean, I don’t think the killer could have been feeling out-of-control rage or anything.’