THE JAGGED LINE

by Carolyn Mahony

  Her thoughts were preoccupied all the way to the hospital. As she stepped out of the lift into the intensive care unit she took a breath and headed for her father’s room. But at the door she came to an abrupt halt.

  It was empty.

  Her first terrifying thought that he was dead was quickly crushed. They’d have rung if that was the case. Maybe he’s regained consciousness.

  She spun round on her feet just as the doctor they’d spoken to the previous day reached her.

  ‘Miss Cartwright–’

  ‘Where’s my father?’

  ‘I’m so sorry. We phoned your mother and she said she’d call you.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m afraid your father passed away very suddenly, quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘No…’

  The ground seemed to shift beneath her feet. She was hardly aware of the hand on her arm, leading her gently into a side room.

  ‘Come through into here and sit down. It’s a shock, I know.’

  In the room, Kirsty turned to him in bemusement. ‘But you said he was fine this morning. What happened? We’d have stayed with him if we’d thought there was any chance of ...’

  ‘We don’t know for sure. There’ll be a post-mortem to find out, but more than likely it was related to his brain injury. I’m afraid it happened so quickly there was no time to call you in. I’m sorry.’

  Kirsty sank down into a chair and buried her head in her hands, hot tears springing to her eyes. She was never going to see him again – never get the chance to tell him how much she loved him.

  ‘Ah, here’s Emma,’ the doctor said, looking up as the door opened to reveal the duty nurse.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but Mr Hayes in bed 3 is having breathing difficulties.’

  ‘I’ll see to it. Can you stay with Miss Cartwright? Maybe see if she’d like a cup of tea or something?’

  He turned back to Kirsty. ‘I’m sorry to dash off, but do feel free to give me a call at anytime if there’s anything you want to ask.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll leave you in Emma’s safe hands now.’

  She watched as he swiftly exited the room and couldn’t help wondering if Mr Hayes was about to end up the same way as her father.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, my love,’ Emma said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Please do accept our condolences. Can I get you anything?’

  Kirsty shook her head. All she wanted was to see her father and go home.

  ‘It’s come as a shock, I know,’ the nurse said gently, ‘but do at least take some comfort from the fact that your dad didn’t suffer. It was very quick.’

  ‘That’s what the doctor said.’

  ‘Well, it’s true. And I know it doesn’t make it easier for the ones left behind, but for the person involved…’

  Kirsty couldn’t reply. It was too soon to be able to take comfort from that. She sat in a state of numbed shock for several minutes, unable to process the fact that her father was gone. But gradually the reality sank in, and as it did, she found herself rising shakily from her seat.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Of course. We’ve moved him to another room.’

  ‘Did my mum say if she was coming in?’

  ‘She said she’d rather not.’

  Kirsty followed the nurse slowly into a room across the corridor, not sure what to expect, but knowing she needed to do this.

  She sat down on the hard-backed visitors’ chair and braced herself to look at him. He was lying on his back, eyes closed, with a sheet drawn up to just below his chin. It was a strange sensation, knowing that he looked exactly as he had that morning, yet realising that the essence of him had gone. But he looked peaceful, and for that she was grateful.

  She covered his hand with hers. It felt cold in her grasp but she squeezed it tightly as if she could instil some warmth into it, knowing it would be the last physical contact she’d ever have with her beloved father. ‘I’ll make sure they catch the person who did this, Dad,’ she vowed fiercely. ‘I promise.’

  She sat there for what felt like an age, wishing she’d never found out what she had, so that her memories of him could be the simple, untainted ones of a man much loved and now missed enormously by his family. But the reality was he hadn’t been quite as straightforward and untainted as she’d believed, and now, somehow, she needed to unravel that and come to terms with it. What he’d done hadn’t stopped her loving him, but it had rocked her faith in him.

  She stood up and deliberately didn’t look around her. This wasn’t how she wanted to remember him, not in this stark, clinical room with a cotton sheet draped up to his chin.

  She left the room and found the nurse waiting for her outside.

  ‘Thanks for everything. I know you did your best by him. I think I’ll get back to my mum now. What happens next? Do we need to do anything?’

  ‘We’ve already spoken to your brother about the post-mortem and that will go ahead possibly Monday or Tuesday next week. After that, once the release papers have been issued, the funeral directors that you’ve chosen will come and collect your father and take him back to their chapel of rest while the funeral arrangements are sorted. Someone will also need to come up in the next day or so to collect his belongings.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss. We did everything we could to revive him, but…’

  Kirsty nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  Twenty-five minutes later she swung into her parents’ drive in Brookmans Park. There was another car parked next to her mother’s that she didn’t recognise. She let herself in and followed the sound of voices. In the lounge she found her mother, her brother and a man she’d never seen before.

  Her distraught eyes met her mother’s, and the next thing they were in each other’s arms, clinging to each other tightly.

  ‘I tried to call you – to stop you.’

  ‘I know. It must have gone straight to answerphone. I only picked up your message as I was leaving the hospital.’

  Her mother drew back. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How … did he look?’

  ‘The same as he looked this morning. And peaceful.’

  Her mother drew a shuddering breath and nodded. Then she turned to the man in the room.

  ‘This is Detective Sergeant Briscombe. He’s come to ask us a few questions about the accident yesterday.’

  ‘It’s obviously not a good time. I can come back,’ Harry said.

  ‘No.’ Sylvia Cartwright’s voice was unusually firm. ‘Let’s do this now and get it out of the way. We’re going to be tied up the next couple of weeks. There’ll be a lot to do.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s not very good news. No one’s come forward admitting to the accident and there was only one witness, who didn’t see anything in detail. We’ve put up an Accident board, though, and may get a response to that, and we have a team carrying out door-to-door investigations.’

  ‘Someone must have seen something, surely?’ Kirsty said. ‘How can an accident like that happen and no one see it?’

  ‘People don’t always realise the value of being a witness and it was in a relatively quiet road. There’s a good chance when they see the Accident board that someone will come forward, but until they do it’s difficult for us to get hard facts. It was a residential area so we’ll be continuing our door-to-door next week and checking for any CCTV nearby – that could also be a valuable source of information if we can pick up images of a car that fits the bill.’

  He turned to Robbie. ‘This is probably a bit of a long shot but is there any chance at all that there could be a link between your father’s death and that of Paul Copeland, do you think?’

  Her brother looked shocked. ‘No. I’m sure not.’

  ‘Who’s Paul Copeland?’ Kirsty asked.

  Robbie looked at her. ‘One of our tenants who died earlier this week.’

  ‘He was murdered,’ Harry corrected.
/>   ‘Oh my God,’ Kirsty’s mother gasped, her fingers flying to her mouth.

  ‘Mum, I’m sure there’s no link,’ Robbie said quickly. ‘The guy was just a tenant – he had nothing to do with Dad.’

  ‘Well, obviously it’s a line of enquiry we’ll need to bear in mind until we can exclude it,’ Harry said cautiously, closing his notebook. ‘The fact that the driver of the car that hit your father didn’t stop makes it more complicated than a straightforward road accident unfortunately.’

  He looked at Sylvia Cartwright. ‘I’ll take myself off now, Mrs Cartwright. I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll do our best to catch whoever did this.’

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ Kirsty said.

  On the doorstep she looked at him. ‘What are your chances of finding the person responsible?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘That’s not an easy one. It depends if anyone comes forward to say they saw something. But we’ll give it our best shot, I promise you that.’

  She watched as he made his way to his car and climbed in. There was a reassuring air about him that she found herself clinging onto. She couldn’t bear to even consider the possibility that they might never find out who killed her father, or the exact details of what had happened.

  Harry parked his car and walked briskly into the police station, taking the steps two at a time to the second floor. When he got to DCI Murray’s office it was empty.

  ‘They’re all in the incident room,’ someone volunteered. ‘He said to join them when you got back.’

  The room had most of the team in it and as Harry slipped quietly in and sat on a desk at the back, he studied the evidence and pictures on the board.

  ‘So … two incidents on our patch which may or may not be connected,’ Murray was saying. ‘One is definitely murder, the other at the very least unlawful hit-and-run. At this moment in time there doesn’t appear to be any link connecting the two incidents, apart from the fact that the two victims knew each other.’

  ‘Also that Paul Copeland did some work for Cartwrights,’ Beth interjected.

  ‘Quite right. Good point. Speak to Cartwrights and get a list of the jobs he’s done for them over the last year, can you?’

  Murray added another connecting line to the two names and wrote the word decorating on it, then studied what they’d got.

  ‘Now you know me, I don’t do coincidence unless the facts are irrefutable – so I think we need to keep an open mind, but certainly don’t – at this stage – indicate to the press that we think there’s even a possibility the two cases might be related. I think the Cartwrights could do without the extra interest that line of enquiry would attract. Anything you can add, Harry, from your interview with Mrs Cartwright?’

  ‘Only that Dominic Cartwright died a couple of hours ago, so we’re looking at a second death now. No CCTV on the residential road where it happened – but we’re checking the cameras on the main road to see if they picked up any dark cars turning onto it from that road around the same time.’

  ‘So, in summary, we’ve got Paul Copeland murdered some time Monday night, kept somewhere for a few hours – possibly the boot of a car or a building – and then dumped in a very visible location in the early hours of Tuesday morning. That could have been deliberate – as a warning to others, maybe – or it could have been because the person who killed him was in a hurry and didn’t have time to dispose of the body properly. He’d recently been released from prison after serving a sentence for dangerous driving. His victim’s husband’s alibi has yet to be checked out. What’s happening about that?’

  ‘He said he was at the Black Boar in Potters Bar. I thought I’d check the pub out tonight, see if the landlord remembers him,’ Beth volunteered.

  ‘I’ll come with you if like,’ Harry said. ‘Two heads and all that.’

  Murray tapped the other photo. ‘Here we have Dominic Cartwright, respectable businessman, hit by a car yesterday after meeting a client for a house viewing in Hadley Wood. We have one witness who was walking down the other side of the road, a Mrs Taylor, but she says it all happened so quickly she didn’t really see it. The only thing she could say with any certainty was that it was a dark-coloured car, possibly black or blue. Have we interviewed the client Cartwright was seeing yet?’

  ‘Officers on the scene conducted an initial interview,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll probably go and see them myself on Monday. I’ve arranged to visit Cartwrights office tomorrow morning to look at Dominic Cartwright’s appointments diary – see if there’s anything useful in there.’

  ‘Okay, well I’ll leave that lot with you. Geoff, I’d like you to carry on with the door-to-doors in Myton Road – make sure you speak to anyone who was out that we’ve missed. Find out if anyone saw Paul Copeland leaving his flat Monday morning, and if so, what time. Also, if he returned to his flat at any point. We need to establish his exact movements on Monday before whoever it was got to him.’

  He tapped one of the photos showing Paul Copeland’s body lying on the ground. ‘Forensics have shown that he died from a single stab wound to the stomach, but he’d also been beaten up pretty badly – probably on two separate occasions. There was evidence of older bruising as well as the more recent extensive damage that had been done. No trace of the knife yet, but there’s a picture here of the type of weapon that was used, and they picked up footprints of two different sets of shoes around the immediate area where the body was found. Obviously, if we can find the knife or a match to the shoes, that would be significant. Right … that’s all for now. If anyone digs up anything new, let me know. Harry and Beth, come to my office and fill me in on what you’ve found out this morning.’

  Harry waited for Beth to join him before they exited the room together. ‘Anything significant your end?’ he asked, as they headed in the direction of Murray’s office.

  ‘Not really. The wife seemed nice – and brave. It must be awful being stuck in your house in a wheelchair every day. Makes you appreciate what you’ve got. The husband was pleasant enough as well. They both seemed shocked to hear Paul Copeland was dead and not surprisingly, neither of them were that upset about it.’ She shrugged. ‘Can’t really blame them. What about you? How did you get on with the Cartwrights?’

  ‘It wasn’t the best of times to call – they’d literally just heard he hadn’t made it. But I met the whole family, which was useful, and if anyone suspected the two deaths might be linked, they weren’t letting on.’

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘Well, you met the son Robbie. His sister Kirsty’s younger than him – mid-twenties probably? She’s just come back from a stint in France and was out of the country at the time of both incidents. They’re obviously close as a family and the son seemed very protective of the mother when I first got there, as did Kirsty when she arrived. But I didn’t get anything useful out of any of them.’

  They’d arrived outside Murray’s office and, with a brief tap, Harry opened the door. Inside, Murray fiddled with some papers on his desk while Harry and Beth filled him in.

  ‘I’ve got an appointment with upstairs in half an hour to update them,’ he said when they’d finished. ‘So nothing new to offer them, then?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like. It takes time.’

  ‘Try telling that to the Super. Still, I’ve more or less caught up with the backlog here, so I can give you more of a hand now hopefully. When are you planning on checking the pub out?’

  Beth checked her watch. ‘I thought I’d do it on my way home. Are you still up for it?’ she asked, turning to Harry.

  ‘Sure thing. The sooner we can get some of these alibis tied up, the better.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘What’ll you have?’ Harry asked Beth, casting a quick glance around the inside of the pub as he did so. What it lacked in aesthetic charm it made up for in warmth, as the large coal fire burned merrily away in the hearth. Yet there was hardly anyone there, considering it was a Friday night.

  �
�Doesn’t normally pick up until about half-eight or nine,’ the landlord said, handing Beth her Diet Coke and Harry his half-pint. ‘If you come back then you won’t recognise the place.’

  ‘Do you remember this man from Monday night?’ Harry asked, pulling out the photo of Ken Lazard. ‘Probably on his own. Would have come in about half-eight?’

  The man studied the photo and shook his head. ‘Nah. Can’t say I do, but, as I say, things pick up around that time so I’d be hard pushed to notice him. What’s he done?’

  ‘Nothing that we’re aware of. We just want to ask him a couple of questions. If we leave the photo with you – any chance you can ask around with your regulars? Just in case any of them remember seeing him?’

  ‘Sure.’ The man tucked the photo in his pocket. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Beth said, as they headed for a table by the fire.

  ‘What’s he like, this Ken Lazard?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Seemed okay. Works in a care home. You’ve got to be quite a nice sort of guy to do that, right? Not the sort of job I could do, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Horses for courses – a lot of people would say that about our job.’

  Beth grinned. ‘You’re into all that, aren’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sayings. Horses for courses, two heads are better than one … dah dah dah. I like it. I see it as part of you and your little ways now.’

  Harry looked horrified. ‘God forbid.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘That’s what comes of being brought up by your grandparents, I guess. It’s inevitable I’m going to sound like an oldie sometimes.’

  ‘Anyway … going back to Ken Lazard. He seemed alright. And I feel he genuinely loves his wife.’

  ‘Which would give him a strong reason to avenge the person who put her in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Yup.’ Beth sat thoughtfully for a while. ‘Come on, drink up. I’ve got an idea. I think we should give something else a try.’