23
‘Unfortunately, ’ West told the assembled team at the next morning’s early briefing, ‘any fingerprints that were on the paper were smudged beyond recovery. The page is a standard jotter page – the forensic guys say they may be able to match the page to the jotter if we find it.’
Edwards who was reading the note, snorted. ‘Needles in haystacks springs to mind.’
West nodded. ‘I agree it’s a very long shot and I don’t propose we waste any time chasing it up. I just want you to be aware of the fact. Add it to the information we have about the grater and liquidiser. Keep them in the back of your mind.’
‘What’s that?’ Jarvis asked, looking puzzled.
Andrews looked at him severely. ‘You’re supposed to read the information on the board, Jarvis. The lab rats say if we find a grater or liquidiser they may be able to find a trace of the manihot stuff and match it to what was found in Gerard Roberts’ stomach.’
‘It’s difficult to read the board,’ Jarvis argued, annoyed at being pulled up in front of Edwards. ‘It’s way too small, all the reports are on top of one another.’
West saw his point. He had been asking for months for a bigger board or preferably a second one. ‘Can you chase up requisitions again,’ he asked Andrews, ‘Tell them we need either a bigger board or another one. Jarvis does have a point.’
‘I’ll requisition one again. But you know what they’ll say.’
‘Fine. I’ll buy another one myself,’ West snapped. ‘Now let’s concentrate on solving one of our cases, eh?’
There was silence in the room, Edwards and Jarvis exchanged glances. A couple of uniformed gardai raised their eyes to Heaven. Foley shuffled his feet and looked down. Baxter, as usual looked bored but as that was his default facial expression it was hard to know what he was thinking.
West, didn’t care, he paced the floor ignoring them. He was frustrated. Annoyed with himself for being so; worse, for letting it show. That wasn’t the way to lead an investigation. Or maybe it was the way others did, but it wasn’t the way he operated. At least, not usually.
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, a calming technique he had promoted to others, so many times. Used himself at times like this. He thought he was being subtle about it, would have been horrified to know that, of the five detectives present, three knew the signs and were themselves being subtle with their sighs of relief.
‘So what do we have?’ he asked now, his voice even, controlled. ‘Or, more to the point, what don’t we have?’
‘Motive,’ Foley said, from the back of the room.
‘Motive,’ West agreed, ‘Gerard Roberts is dead. All evidence points to an unknown woman having provided the poisonous drink that was responsible. And yet not only can we not find this woman we don’t have a shred of information pointing toward a motive.’
Jarvis, sat forward as if going to speak and then obviously thought better of it, shrank back down in his seat, self-deflated.
West was still pacing but Andrew, propping up a wall noticed, ‘If you have something, Jarvis, spit it out. It can’t be as dumb as some of the ideas we’ve come up with.’
Jarvis waved the copy of the Roberts’ letter. ‘I’ve read this. It’s just...’ he hesitated, ‘...maybe the woman didn’t know...maybe she was just being nice and friendly in making this drink for Roberts. Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe that’s why we can’t find a motive.’
Edwards turned to him, joined in with, ‘Or maybe the death was an accident. Maybe she just wanted to make him sick, cause some trouble for the family?’
‘But then we’re back to motive.’
Edwards shrugged.
West wiped a weary hand over his face. ‘We need to find this woman. We now think, based on the note, that she might be an older woman. Get back out there. I want every shop, coffee-shop, supermarket and pub in Foxrock canvassed.’ He nodded at the two uniformed gardai, ‘We have a little help today. Make it work. Most of these places have regular clientele. And before any of you say what you’re thinking, I know it’s a long shot. I know the vague description of a blonde, older lady who speaks funny may not get any hits. But we have to run with what we’ve got. Ok?’
There were a few shrugs but no vocal dissent. This was the way the work went. No epiphanies, no lightning bolts from the blue. Just the long hard trudge of mundane questioning, hoping against all odds for the slightest sliver of success.
‘You don’t really think we’re going to get her this way, do you?’ Andrews asked after the rest of the team had left in dribs and drabs, the lack of speed in their departure highlighting to West and Andrews exactly what they thought of the idea.
Frustration writ clearly on his face, West shook his head. ‘Sadly, no. I don’t. I’ll admit, it’s a serious attack of straw-clutching. But, at least we will be seen to be out doing something and that’s important.
‘To be honest, Pete, I just can’t think of anything else to do.’
24
Perhaps it wasn’t an epiphany or lightning bolt. But it was like the brightness of a light-bulb switching on that woke West at three the next morning, a moments confusion when the early morning darkness jarred with the light that had dawned.
He had come home weary from a day that had gone absolutely nowhere. He was out of ideas, frustrated, irritable. A sense that he was missing something nagged. That just-on-the-edge-of-tongue sensation that wouldn’t go away. A brief hello and cursory pat on the head was all he could spare for Tyler who bugged big brown eyes at him but with animal instincts larger than his size, retreated to his own bed near his automatic feeders rather than curling up on the sofa beside his adopted owner.
West, unaware of Tyler’s quick read of his mood, dropped a slim folder onto the sofa. It hardly made a sound, West thought, remembering other files he had brought home, the satisfying splat as they landed on the sofa. Taking off his jacket he draped it over the back of a chair and undoing his tie and top button he sat heavily.
It was nice just to sit for a moment, head resting back, eyes focused on the ceiling and he wished he could just stay this way. Maybe have a couple of beers, a whiskey chaser, just chill and forget about everything. His long fingers rested on the file beside him. After a few minutes they began to tap its cover and with a groan West forgot about beer and whiskey chasers and picked it up.
He read over everything again, every word of every report. It didn’t take long. The bare bones of the case. Various reports. The list of people known to Roberts, their alibis. And when he closed the file he sat back and frowned. Again, the sense that there was something he was overlooking, nagged. What was it?
Whatever it was it hovered irritatingly out of reach. He let his head rest back again, went over the day, flickered over conversations, situations. There was something. ‘Damned if I know what it is,’ he said, annoyed with himself, irritated by the sensation.
He was hungry but knew there was nothing in the fridge to eat. There were bananas, of course. Smiling, he went and grabbed a couple, peeled and munched them, tossed the skins into the bin. Then, dinner done, he went to an old oak cabinet he’d got for a song at a car-boot sale several years before. In the light from the lamp he’d been reading by, its patina glowed, the polish of hand over decades. He’d had it for several months before deciding it was perfect as a drinks cabinet, filling its shelves with a collection of expensive whiskeys. But that was in his law days when he could afford such indulgences. Nowadays it held Jameson, and the odd bottle of more luxurious stuff given as a gift and used sparingly.
He poured a generous Jameson and, switching on the television, sat and listened to the news, sipping the whiskey slowly. Not too slowly, he noticed, the news over and the glass empty. ‘I shouldn’t,’ he muttered, even as he stood and refilled his glass. The second went down as smoothly as the first and a mellow, warm feeling took over. Whatever it was he was trying to remember, he certainly wouldn’t remember it now, he thought grateful for the mental release. Eyes h
eavy, brain dulled, he took himself to bed, dropping clothes on the floor, falling into bed and sleep without another thought.
It took that complete shutdown for those niggling pieces of information to emerge from the glut of information, facts and figures that cluttered up his brain. And in that quiet time, just before dawn, they consolidated and woke him with that brief if blinding flash of light.
He lay for a moment, eyes wide open, adjusting to the solid darkness of his room. For the first few days after he had moved in he didn’t have any curtains and the over bright street-light outside drove him so crazy he had wanted to vandalise it. Heavy curtains with blackout lining had solved that problem providing the cocoon of darkness he needed to sleep.
He lay now, trying to make sense of the idea that had pinged and woke him.
Could it be that simple?
Surely not.
It was a tenuous link at best, he argued, taking the Devil’s advocate side. ‘But it is a link. Damn it, it’s the only link.’ His voice firm, sounding louder in the thick darkness.
It was something Edwards had said today. That was the memory that tantalised. It triggered a memory of something Andrews had said when young Jake went missing and returned unharmed, and a similar remark that Foley had made when that poor old soul Mrs Lee had her house broken into and nothing damaged or stolen.
Edwards, Andrews and Foley had all made remarks to the effect that it looked like someone had deliberately set out just to cause trouble. And if the manihot esculenta had been better cooked, Gerard Roberts may have had some mild form of paralysis, would probably have been very sick, definitely hospitalised. But not dead. But perhaps the woman who bought the manihot esculenta wasn’t aware it was a different type, wasn’t aware it could kill.
And if Roberts hadn’t died, it would just have been another troublesome case. Another motiveless case. Except it wasn’t. That was the light bulb moment. There was a motive for each of these cases. They all caused an element of trouble – they all needed the services of Offer.
Once West had switched that light on it wouldn’t go off. It all made sense now. This group appears, doesn’t make much inroad, is deemed surplus to requirement, dismissed by all and sundry. And then suddenly within the space of several days they become indispensable. It had all been orchestrated.
‘It makes sense,’ West murmured. ‘Orchestrated. But by whom?’ And then in the way one idea will often trigger another, he sat bold upright, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, of course. She speaks with a foreign accent. Pat’s lady who speaks funny. Viveka Larsson.’
Throwing back the duvet, West almost leapt from the bed, energised for the first time in days. He was right. Dammit, he was right. Now he just needed to put it together. Proof, not conjecture. He pulled back the heavy curtains, saw that the dawn had put out the streetlight, stood looking, his breath held, as an urban fox moved with quick, light steps down the centre of the road. He released his breath on a half-laugh, the window fogging before him. ‘Walk straight down the middle, keep your eyes and ears open. Got it. That’s the way to go.’
He’d allowed himself to become befuddled with this case. But now he knew why. That subconscious feeling that all was not as it appeared. He’d never have thought of linking the three cases. And now. Well, now he knew.
It was still too early to start but he was too wired to go back to sleep. Naked, he barefooted downstairs, started a pot of coffee brewing. Tyler, sensing an improved mood, pattered over for some attention and was rewarded by being scooped up, fussed over for a few minutes before being plopped down before his food bowls, and wonders of wonders soon smelt his favourite food, starting to eat as it was spooned from the tin despite West imploring him to wait a minute.
Soon the kitchen was filled with both the gurgling and the scent of good coffee He drank the first mug of strong coffee, still naked, leaning against the counter, staring into space. His brain was spinning, planning, organising. He checked the wall clock. Five. Time for a long shower. He drained the mug, left it on the counter for later and headed upstairs.
The house had originally been a four-bedroomed house with a small upstairs bathroom. West had the smallest bedroom made into a spacious bathroom and changed the original bathroom into an ensuite room for his bedroom. He had bought the best he could afford, a large shower with a powerful pump. A deep bath with a broad rim where you could balance a glass of wine while you soaked. The wash-hand basin was hand-made, a beautifully carved piece of glass with a subtle concave and discreet taps operated by a sensor.
West loved the bathroom, only used his ensuite when his sister came to stay. If he were having a bad day he would stand beneath the powerful spray of the shower, the water cascading over his head, the positive energy of the flowing water chasing away the blues. Better than any drug. Almost as good as a neat whiskey. And on a good day it woke him up, washed away the sleep, readied him for whatever might come. He had time this morning so he stood under the water a long time before squirting shower gel into his hand, the fresh smell of lemon filling the cubicle.
Getting out, dripping water everywhere, he grabbed a towel from the pile his housekeeper left folded so neatly every Friday, dried himself roughly, ran the towel through his hair and then dropped the towel into the laundry basket.
Ten minutes later he was dressed, his dark grey suit complemented by a shirt a shade lighter, and a burgundy tie with a faint grey pattern. His hair was brushed severely back but once dry it would fall artfully forward just as his hairdresser had intended. He wasn’t a vain man, good dress sense came naturally. He’d had the money to spend on clothes when he was in law, expensive clothes, made to last. His mother added to his wardrobe. Birthdays and Christmas, regular as clockwork, some new item of clothing would appear. He wore them because they were there, that and the fact his mother had extremely good taste and the money to indulge it. He neither noticed not cared when his housekeeper, Beth, removed items she considered past their sell by date, nor would he have noticed or cared if he had seen the same worn item on her husband or her forever-growing-out-of-his-clothes eldest son.
Another mug of coffee and he was ready to go. He would startle the night shift, he thought with a smile, dumping the mug in the sink, filling it with water. He’d wash it later despite continuous requests from the marvellous Beth to leave them for her. He wasn’t the tidiest man in the world but a slob, he most definitely was not.
As guessed, he was met by startled glances when he arrived in the station at six thirty. He ignored the relaxed uniform code, the vague whiff of cigarette smoke, the general air of untidiness he knew would be quickly sorted over the next hour leaving no trace for the beady, all-seeing eye of Sergeant Blunt.
It took him thirty minutes to gather the files and information he wanted. He needed to display it carefully. In his office, he regarded the murder board with disfavour. Of course, he hadn’t got around to buying another, not that he had the slightest idea where to buy a damn board anyway. Requisitions were such a pain in the ass, he thought. Going back into the general office he looked around for inspiration.
Notices had gone out to everyone after the station had been redecorated last year. The use of Blutac, Cellotape or any generic form of the same were now strictly forbidden. So far, the walls had remained pristine.
One of the walls of the general office had windows, two had doors but one was a big clear space. Perfect, West thought with a shrug. If they won’t provide what we want, we have to improvise. It took fifteen minutes and the large packet of Blutac he found, in the third drawer he looked in, to fix all the relevant data on the wall. The three cases, the information set up parallel, the pattern was there. It still amazed him after all his years doing the job, the wonder when it all came together. The right piece of the jigsaw puzzle just clicking into place. Now all they had to do was find the proof.
He made a pot of coffee and drank a mug while he perused the wall, swearing, yet again, he’d bring some decent coffee in to replace this cheap, and very nast
y, rubbish that masqueraded as coffee. Then he proceeded to drain the mug and refill it, sipping the next more slowly. He moved two pieces of information around, trying to make the pattern that was obvious to him, look clearer.
He thought it would work better if he called Mother Morrison down to see it. Then he remembered with a grimace, wasn’t the inspector a patron, of sorts, of this Larsson woman. He’d certainly promoted the use of Offer, and by all accounts had been extremely friendly and helpful to the woman. ‘Damn,’ he muttered, he didn’t need the added complication. Standing back, he played Devil’s advocate for a few moments, picking holes in his theory. Lack of motive connected all three. A mystery blonde woman connected the murder and abduction but there was no mention of a woman attached to the home invasion. At a stretch he could connect the home invasion and abduction in that nobody was really harmed. Ok, Mrs Lee was terrified...but nothing was stolen or damaged. And as for young Jake, he’d appeared to have had a great afternoon out.
And Roberts? West shook his head. An accident, he surmised. A little knowledge used badly with disastrous consequences. Roberts, unfortunately, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It happened.
A rattle and clatter announced the first of his team to turn up and West turned to see Andrews framed in the doorway, the look of surprise on his face turning to wonderment when he saw West’s wall.
‘Mother Morrison is going to have a head-fit,’ he said, dropping his jacket carelessly on the back of a chair.
‘I’m sure it’s him who tells requisitions to cut back on supplies. They wouldn’t give us another damn board, would they? And I needed to put this information together. What do you think?’
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