Deadly Motive

by DS Butler

  She told Mackinnon she didn’t mind if he went home to sort things out. They could show Ruby Wei the footage tomorrow, after DCI Brookbank had given them the go-ahead. It was a long shot anyway.

  She waved away his explanations and told him not to worry. It would be stupid to travel back to London, only to have to turn around when he got there and travel back home to Oxford.

  As she wouldn’t make it back to the station for the evening briefing, Mackinnon dropped Charlotte off near the university.

  She asked a geeky student where she could get a drink and he pointed her in the direction of the biochemistry tower. She headed to the sixties-style building. It had a grey exterior that looked dull in the fading light. The tallest building in the area, it stood out for all the wrong reasons.

  She managed to walk through the reception and towards the lifts without interference from security and saw a sign for a cafe on the tenth floor. Inside the lift, she pressed the button for the tenth floor but nothing happened. Impatiently, she jabbed it twice in quick succession.

  An elderly, academic fellow in a tweed jacket entered the lift and peered at her before swiping a purple card with yellow writing through a slot below the panel of buttons. Then he pressed the button for the tenth floor and the doors shut.

  “Forgot your card, eh?”

  “Um, yes.” Charlotte avoided eye contact as the lift travelled upward.

  “I’m always forgetting mine. Damned nuisance, these cards.”

  After she finished her tea, Charlotte walked across to the university parks, enjoying the weak warmth of the fading sun. University groundsmen were cutting the grass on sit-down mowers and the smell reminded her of summer.

  Sir Jim’s reaction to their visit had been very odd. She could understand he didn’t want his department to be caught up in the bad publicity of a poisoning case, but why did he not tell them about the graffiti on the night of the break-in? Surely he could see the two incidents could be related. If his secretary hadn’t mentioned it, they may have missed that lead entirely, although HOLMES should have linked the two incidents because the break-in and graffiti would have been logged by Thames Valley Police.

  She decided to walk to the train station, rather than get a taxi, as it wasn’t far. She walked back the way she had come, along the side of the chemistry building.

  She slowed her pace as she drew level with the spot where the graffiti had been. She tilted her head to the side, but in the low light, it was impossible to make out. They really had cleaned the wall thoroughly.

  “Can you still see it?” a voice said from behind her left shoulder, causing her to jump.

  Charlotte turned and faced the man she had just seen on the security footage at the police station.

  The graffiti artist.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  He said, a little louder, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wondered if you could still make out what it said.” He nodded at the wall.

  Charlotte forced herself to turn from him. She faced the faded patch on the wall where the graffiti had been and tried to control her reaction.

  She shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

  Her voice sounded reedy and scared.

  She didn’t look back at him but stared at the wall, her breath fast and shallow. Her fingers closed around the mobile phone in her pocket.

  It was a full minute before she dared to turn around.

  He was gone.

  She jogged up to the entrance of the building and scanned the area, but she couldn’t see him.

  Why hadn’t she done something? Why did she just let him go? But she knew why: because she was scared, too scared to do her job.

  43

  Mackinnon let himself into the house from the side door that led directly into the kitchen.

  Chloe’s youngest daughter, Katy, sat at the table with school books in front of her, holding an oversized pink pen with some kind of monstrous feather decoration attached to it.

  “Did you have a good day at school?” Mackinnon asked, leaning down to look at what she was writing. “That looks complicated.”

  “School was all right,” she said with a shrug and covered the work with her arm.

  Mackinnon put his keys on the kitchen table. She obviously didn’t want him looking at what she was writing. She didn’t want him to be part of anything.

  Maybe it was best to back off, to stop trying so hard, but that just wasn’t his nature. He looked over her shoulder at the open book in front of her. “Homework?”

  “Maths,” she said, pulling a face.

  Mackinnon opened the fridge and pulled out a can of lager. He opened it and took a long drink.

  “Where’s your mum?” he asked.

  Katy shrugged again. “Upstairs, I think.” She rolled her eyes and Mackinnon knew what that meant. Chloe and Sarah had argued again. That’s what the phone call had been about. He looked at his watch; it was only six thirty, but he was starving.

  “Hungry?”

  Again the shrug. “I had some cereal when I got in.”

  Mackinnon opened the freezer, looking for something easy to cook. Something he could just shove in the oven. There wasn’t anything. He turned his attention to the food cupboard, found a tin of beans and held them up. “Beans on toast all right?”

  “Jack?” Katy drew out his name, so he had a fair idea what was coming next. She was going to ask him to persuade Chloe about something - an advance on her pocket money or getting a puppy. He had to be careful. He wanted to get on with Chloe’s daughters, but he knew he better be on his guard when there was an ulterior motive for their friendliness.

  “There is going to be a school skiing trip next year. Can you ask Mum if I can go?” she asked.

  “How much does it cost?” Mackinnon said, struggling with the tin opener.

  “Nothing yet, but we need to reserve my place, as places are strictly first come, first served,” she said, obviously repeating what she had been told by her teacher.

  “I think your mum has already said she doesn’t think we can afford it at the moment, sweetheart. Maybe you could go next year?”

  Mackinnon was having issues with the tin opener. He had only managed to get half the lid cut through, and as he was trying to cut through the other side, the orange sauce was leaking, spilling on the kitchen counter.

  “But this is for next year, Jack. Otherwise I’ll have to wait for two years! You’re making a mess,” she said, eyeing the orange splodges on the counter in a disapproving way.

  “It’s this thing,” he said, waving the can opener. “It’s rubbish.”

  “Mum uses the other one. It works much better,” she said, walking over to the drawer next to the sink to find the other opener.

  “We have two?”

  “Only one that works.”

  “So why do we keep this one as well? Oh, never mind.” Mackinnon shook his head and took the other, working, tin opener from Katy’s hand.

  Once the beans were finally opened and warming on the stove, Mackinnon gave Katy instructions to keep an eye on them and the toast, and then he headed upstairs.

  Chloe sat in Sarah’s bedroom, on the edge of the bed, facing away from him.

  “Chloe?” he said.

  She turned, gave him a faint smile and stood up. He could see her eyes were red. She’d been crying again.

  “I’m doing beans on toast. Come on, they’re nearly ready.”

  She followed him from the room and Katy shouted up from downstairs. “Jack, toast’s burning.”

  Mackinnon took the last few steps two at a time and made it to the kitchen just as the smoke alarm sounded.

  In a normal family, this would have been a time for great hilarity, all the females ganging up on him, taking the piss. Jack can’t even cook toast without burning it, ha-ha. But Chloe just sank down into a chair and Katy looked up at him accusingly.

  Mackinnon shut the kitchen door to stop the smoke getting to the alarm at the bottom of the stairs,
opened the window and wafted a tea towel around, to get rid of the smoke.

  “It’s all right, we’ve got more bread.” He stuck another four slices in the toaster and threw the four incinerated slices in the bin.

  Katy packed up her school books and put them back in her bag.

  “It’s tomorrow night,” Katy said, twirling the pink fluffy pen in her fingers.

  “What is?” Mackinnon asked, looking at the toaster suspiciously.

  “The meeting about the school trip.”

  Chloe turned to face Katy. “I told you already. No.”

  “But it is just a meeting; you don’t have to pay anything yet.” The pitch of Katy’s voice rose, turning into a whine.

  Chloe slapped her hand on the table. “No.”

  The toaster popped up and Mackinnon started to butter the first slice.

  “It isn’t fair. Sarah was allowed to go when she was my age,” Katy said as she folded her arms and stuck her lower lip out, so that she looked closer to four than fourteen.

  Mackinnon poured some beans over a slice of toast and put the plate on the table for Katy. “You can always go on the next trip,” he said.

  “But all my friends are going on this one.” She was fully into whine mode now.

  Chloe cringed. “Will you stop whinging? I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

  Katy rubbed her eyes.

  “Why are you being so selfish? Do you think we should all go without, just so you can go on a nice skiing trip?” Chloe said, reaching for her handbag.

  Katy’s chin started to tremble. Mackinnon put the pan of beans back on the hob and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on; sit down, we’ll have something to eat.”

  Chloe reached inside her handbag, rifling through it for her cigarettes. She’d started smoking regularly again, since the weekend.

  “Go upstairs, Katy,” Chloe said.

  “But my dinner.”

  “Take it with you.”

  “But I’m not allowed to.”

  “Just take it!”

  Katy picked up her plate, marched upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.

  Chloe sat at the table, her mouth fixed into a thin line. She sucked on the cigarette, taking a long hard drag, her cheeks hollow and gaunt. Mackinnon put a plate of beans on toast in front of her and then brought his own to the table and sat opposite her.

  She pushed the plate away. “Sarah stormed out this afternoon. She came back after school. We had an almighty row, about her smoking.” She looked at the cigarette in her own hand.

  Mackinnon nodded. This was dangerous ground. No matter what he said, he was bound to be wrong.

  Chloe took another puff from her cigarette. “And then Katy thinks that today is the perfect time to whine about a school skiing trip.”

  Mackinnon picked up his knife and fork. “She’s fourteen. She thinks the world revolves around her. Most kids do at that age.”

  “It would help if you were around a bit more. How are you going to bond with the girls if you’re never here?”

  “I had to go in. It’s a big case. Could be important career-wise.”

  “Maybe you should think about transferring.”

  Mackinnon shook his head and took a mouthful of toast and beans.

  “You’re hardly ever here. It is no wonder the girls don’t feel comfortable around you.”

  Mackinnon put down his knife and fork. “They don’t feel comfortable around me?”

  “They don’t see you enough for that.”

  “I thought it was the best way. To give them time to get used to me. I don’t want to barge into their lives, trying to be their dad. I just want them to...” Mackinnon’s voice cracked.

  Jesus, he sounded pathetic.

  He pushed himself up from the table and walked out of the kitchen.

  “Going out again, are you, Jack?” Chloe called after him.

  He picked up his jacket and walked out the front door.

  44

  On the journey back to London, Charlotte debated whether to order pizza or Chinese food for dinner. She wouldn’t get home before nine and couldn’t be bothered to go shopping.

  She rang her Nan from the train, and on the spur of the moment, said she would call in on her way home.

  When she opened the front door to her Nan’s flat, the smell of something wonderful cooking wafted over her. Following the smell, she walked through to find her Nan in the kitchen.

  “That smells so good,” Charlotte said, crouching down and looking into the oven at a pie with a crisp, golden brown lid.

  “You know I like to have someone to cook for,” Nan said.

  “You didn’t wait for me to eat, did you? It is nine o’clock.”

  But Nan didn’t answer the question. She ushered Charlotte away from the oven so she could lift out the pie. Charlotte watched as she bent stiffly at the hip and leaned down.

  Steak pie with gravy - Charlotte’s favourite.

  The pie dish was a heavy, old-fashioned pan and Nan’s hands trembled under the weight. Charlotte grabbed a tea towel to help, but Nan managed to put the pie on the kitchen counter.

  “Are your hands still giving you jip, Nan?”

  “They have been fine all day. It is just every now and then they get the shakes.” Lips pursed, she looked down at her hands. “It is just getting older, I suppose. Same reason I can’t open jam jars anymore.”

  “Well, let me serve it up then and drain the vegetables,” Charlotte said.

  Nan tutted and brushed her off. “I’m not an invalid, yet.”

  As she went to wash up for dinner, Charlotte remembered years passed when she had stayed with her nan. Once, when she was fifteen, she fell out with her parents, and turned up on Nan’s doorstep. She had stayed for the rest of the school year.

  She still loved coming here. There were no questions, like the ones fired at her when she visited her parents. “Are you still on those tablets?” “How was the counselling session?” and the very worst one: “How do you really feel?”

  Nan had always seemed invincible, but she was getting older and her shaking hands worried Charlotte. She decided to persuade Nan to visit her GP.

  After dinner, Charlotte lounged on the sofa, feeling absolutely stuffed and watched the soaps that Nan had recorded for her. She smiled at the running commentary from Nan. “Now that would never happen in real life,” “Unbelievable, will you look at the state of that?” and “I told you he was going to do that.”

  For the first time since she had seen the graffiti artist earlier, she felt herself relax.

  In the middle of Coronation Street, an advert break came on for Cadbury’s chocolate, but the thought of eating anything else tonight made Charlotte feel queasy. She got to her feet to make another cup of tea and felt the waistband of her trousers as she walked to the kitchen. Definitely tighter. She would have to ease up on the snacks during the day if she kept eating Nan’s cooking.

  When she returned with the tea, the advert break was still on. She set the teas down on the coffee table and reached for the remote to fast forward the rest of the adverts. An advert for a purple and yellow Sainsbury’s Nectar points card sped across the screen.

  When Coronation Street came back on, she pressed play on the remote. For the next fifteen minutes, she wasn’t really paying any attention to the woman on the TV screeching over her husband’s affair. She was thinking about the Sainsbury’s Nectar card, and why it reminded her of something she had seen earlier that day.

  45

  When Dr. O’Connor caught up with Ruby Wei, she was bundled up in her wool coat and scarf, preparing to head home.

  “Ruby, I’m glad I caught you before you left. Do you have time for a quick word?”

  Ruby kept one hand one the door handle and looked out through the glass at the darkness. “I need to get home.”

  “I’ll walk with you. We can talk on the way.”

  “I’m walking to the bus stop at the Radcliffe Infirmary. I don’t t
hink that is on your way, Dr. O’Connor.”

  O’Connor smiled. “No, you’re right it isn’t. But I’ll walk with you anyway, if you don’t mind?”

  Ruby couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse so she nodded and agreed to wait while O’Connor went to fetch his coat.

  While she waited, she stood in front of the glass wall of the research building and looked out into the quad. It was such a strange building to work in, full of contradictions. With its transparent glass walls, you could watch people working in the labs all day long. Nothing was hidden from sight.

  But the outward transparency was deceptive. The building might be transparent, but the people who worked inside were not.

  Ruby glanced at her watch; she would miss her bus if O’Connor didn’t hurry. Then she saw him and watched as he passed through the security doors and entered the atrium. Ruby swiped her access card through the metallic box on the edge of the main door to release the lock. They both exited the building and O’Connor pulled the door shut firmly behind them, taking no chances tonight.

  Although O’Connor kept looking across at Ruby, neither of them spoke until they had passed through the quad and were walking along South Parks Road.

  “I’ll get straight to the point, Ruby. After talking things through with Alex, I would like to offer you a position in the team for next year,” O’Connor said.

  Ruby carried on walking and looked across at O’Connor. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t going to get excited only to have the job taken away from her again.

  “Of course, I will keep Alex on as well. To start with, it will just be the three of us working on the project. Some of the funding money has come through now, so we should start thinking of the equipment and supplies we are going to need. I just hope this police investigation doesn’t complicate things too much.” O’Connor sighed, and Ruby watched the fog of his breath travel upward and disappear into the night.

  “You don’t seem very pleased. Have you already made alternative arrangements for next year?” O’Connor asked.

  Ruby shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. “No, but the past week has taught me not to rely on verbal offers of employment.”