Fault Lines

by Natasha Cooper

  I’m glad she’s dead, Sandra thought. Glad. Her teeth were clamped together, making her jaw hurt, but she didn’t dare open them to let out any of the words that were gushing up. Then she saw that Michael was crying.

  He just stood there like a six-year-old, with tears pouring down his handsome face, in public, making them both look ridiculous.

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ she said, and turned away. Her skis got tangled with each other and she fell heavily on her right hip. Trying to get up, she fell again, this time with her face in the snow. She hadn’t realised how sharp it could be, like a cheese-grater rasping the skin off her face.

  Later, when she was back in their room at the hotel, looking at the big bed where she’d thought they might make love again, she knew she never wanted to have anything to do with him ever again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There was another fat brown envelope waiting for Trish on Friday evening. Only the possibility that it might contain some explanation – or a hint of who had sent it – forced her fingers under the flap. The paper seemed thicker than before and she had to wrench through it, bruising her knuckles as she tore it.

  WOMAN CHAINED TO PIPE IN ABANDONED HOUSE The naked body of a woman was found by police today after reports of a disturbance last night. She was so thin she must have been starved for several weeks, and she had been beaten. The wound that killed her was a slit wrist. She bled to death over many hours. On her chest…

  Trish was not prepared to read any more. She glanced at the rest of the cuttings for just long enough to see that they were all about the same case.

  She felt hated. Whoever he was, he wasn’t sending the cuttings to give her useful information that might lead to Kara’s killer: he wanted her terrified. That was clear enough. But it was the only thing that was. She knew she needed help.

  George would have given it to her without question if she had asked him, but she couldn’t do that. She’d bollocked him for giving her orders and telling her how to run her life. She couldn’t go whimpering to him now, wanting protection, just because she’d been scared. She had to tough this one out without him.

  Her hands felt so clumsy and swollen that she was surprised to see them still as thin as usual when she reached above her desk for the phone book. They worked well enough and she soon had the number for the main Kingsford police station. The phone rang and rang. Things began to move more quickly once she’d got through and said she had some information on the Huggate murder.

  ‘Incident room, DC Lyalt,’ said a pleasant female voice, a moment later. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘My name’s Trish Maguire. I’m a barrister. I don’t want to bother you with something that may be irrelevant, but I…’

  ‘If you have any information that may relate to Kara Huggate’s death, please give it to me. It doesn’t matter if it turns out not to be important.’

  ‘Look, it’s just that Kara was a friend of mine and she was due to give evidence in one of my cases. Two of your colleagues came to talk to me the morning after she died.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Have you remembered something you wanted to tell them? Would you like to speak to one of them now?’

  ‘No,’ Trish said urgently. ‘No. You’ll do fine. I told them everything about that when they came to chambers. This is something different. I just wanted to explain the background.’

  ‘I see. Carry on.’

  ‘I’ve been down in Kingsford, asking a few questions – because I needed to know more about what’s going on than I can read in the papers – and …’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ This time the pleasant voice was much harder. ‘And what did you discover?’

  ‘Very little. I’ll tell you in a minute. That’s not why I’m ringing. Please listen.’

  ‘I am listening.’

  Trish blinked and tried to sound as professional and sensible as she was. ‘Since my trip to Kingsford I’ve had two envelopes stuck through my door, full of press cuttings about murders of women. Not Kara, but other women. I’ve tried to believe that there’s no connection, but I can’t.’

  ‘Ah. I see. Yes. You’d better tell me exactly what it is you’ve been sent.’

  Trish described the contents of the two envelopes in minute detail.

  ‘Right,’ said DC Lyalt. ‘I’ve got all that. Now, who did you talk to in Kingston, and what did you say to them?’

  Blair Collons, thought Trish. How much can I say? Oh, Kara, if only you hadn’t landed me with this impossible responsibility.

  ‘Ms Maguire?’

  Trish pulled herself together and told DC Lyalt everything that Mrs Davidson had said about the prowler in Kara’s garden, adding that she assumed he must be someone Kara had encountered through her job and explaining everything she’d worked out about Kara’s need to help people. That was as far as Trish could go.

  ‘Yes, we know all about the prowler,’ said DC Lyalt, ‘Who else did you see in Kingsford?’

  Trish went on more happily to describe her visit to Drakeshill’s Used Cars.

  ‘And why exactly did you go there?’

  ‘Because I’d heard gossip that the owner is known to be violent and that he might have had some connection with Kara and with Kingsford Council, which, after all, was her employer. I couldn’t find any evidence of such a connection, and I must admit that I’d never personally heard her speak about him.’

  ‘Who told you that they knew each other?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Trish knew the statement must sound as weak as it was, but she couldn’t help that.

  ‘I see.’ DC Lyalt sounded as though she had picked up a pretty good idea of what Trish was thinking. ‘You were quite right to phone. We’ll need to see the cuttings you’ve been sent and the envelopes they came in, and I’m sure my guv’nor would like to talk to you. There may be things you knew about Kara Huggate that will help us. Could you get down to the incident room?’

  ‘Yes. Tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know whether he’ll be able to see you tonight. I’ll have to let you know. Where are you based?’

  ‘Southwark,’ Trish said and gave her mobile number.

  ‘Thank you. Either Chief Inspector Femur or I will get back to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, don’t handle the envelopes or cuttings any more than you need to and take care.’

  ‘OK. But I’m afraid I have touched most of the cuttings already, if it’s prints you’re thinking of.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘Look, if your chief could see me tonight, I’ll come straight away. The sooner the better, from my point of view.’

  ‘He’s very busy, but I’m sure he’ll see you as soon as he can. Before you go, do you happen to know the name of Kara Huggate’s boyfriend? Not Jed Thomplon, I mean, the new one.’

  ‘No,’ Trish said, surprised. ‘Although she did tell me that there was someone. She said, I think, that there were complications. Practical complications, were the words I remember. But she also said she thought it was going to work out.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask her his name?’

  ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t. The first I heard of him was in a letter she wrote to me just before she died.’

  ‘Ah. Too bad. Well, someone will get back to you as soon as possible.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And, Ms Maguire, thank you for calling. You were quite right to do so.’

  I hope so, thought Trish, as she replaced her receiver.

  But what am I to do about Collons? I can’t leave it much longer.

  Eventually she decided that when she went to Kingsford to talk to DC Lyalt’s guv’nor she would drop in on Blair Collons first, as though she were casually passing through, and somehow persuade him to go with her to the incident room. They had to know about him; she couldn’t betray him and still keep faith with Kara; he would have to give himself up. That was all there was to it.

  With the phone so near, Trish couldn’t resist trying George’s number, but there was no answer, not even from the machine. H
e had never switched it off in all the time she’d known him. He must be furious.

  Trying not to mind too much, she made herself an omelette and ate it in front of the television, watching a video because there were no programmes she wanted to see. It seemed odd, wrong in some way to be alone like this. Usually, she rather enjoyed the evenings when he was doing something on his own. They gave her a chance to catch up with herself. But this was different.

  When it was time to go to bed, she went round the flat checking the locks on all the windows and the front door, trying not to feel quite so abandoned.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sergeant Spinel was playing it very cool. Femur thought he looked like a man acutely aware of danger but determined not to show it. So far they had been covering what Spinel could remember about the Kingsford Rapist’s first known victim, and whether he might have inadvertently passed on any details of the scene to an outsider. He didn’t think it likely, but the whole case was so long ago that he couldn’t say for sure.

  Caroline Lyalt had already established with the woman herself that Spinel had interviewed her soon after she’d been seen by the doctor on the night of the rape, and that she’d told him everything that had happened to her. At first she hadn’t liked Spinel, Caroline reported, but after a bit she’d warmed to him. She appreciated the way he’d been so angry with the rapist, she said.

  Some of the other officers, even some of the women, had been lovely and sympathetic, but they hadn’t seemed to feel much either way about the man who’d attacked her. Spinel, Constable Spinel he’d been then, had let her see his fury and told her how he’d wanted to beat the man to a pulp. She’d liked that. It was how she’d felt. She thought she’d probably told him exactly what had happened, but he was police, so that was all right, wasn’t it?

  Remembering most of Caroline’s almost verbatim report, Femur listened to Spinel’s account of the various interviews he had conducted at the time, always watching for unnecessary slickness, over-elaboration, or any other sign of discomfort.

  ‘So why did you switch to the drugs squad?’ Femur asked casually, when they had covered everything Spinel had said to, and heard from or about, the Kingsford Rapist’s first victim.

  Spinel stuck out his lower lip like a child thinking up a new story to tell and shrugged his big shoulders. The oversized leather jacket he wore looked expensive; not the sort that came by mail order or from the wrong end of Oxford Street. To be fair, it could’ve been a present from his rich wife.

  He was sitting with his legs spread on the chair opposite Femur’s desk, doing his best to dominate the room. Not that it was necessary. In comparison, Femur knew himself to be a mingy physical specimen, barely five eleven in his socks and as grey and wrinkled as an old elephant, too broken down to challenge the younger bulls.

  ‘Mainly because we didn’t get a result on the rapist,’ Spinel said with a grudge in his voice. ‘I found I couldn’t take it, not after what he’d done to that poor little bitch. Someone out there knows who he is, has known all along, but you don’t get snouts for that sort of crime. At least, I couldn’t, nor any of the rest of the squad. I thought I’d rather work with crimes people will talk about.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Yeah. Over in the drugs squad, I can pick up a smalltime dealer and lean on him to give me the dirt on the bigger ones, and do something that makes a difference in the end.’ Spinel shrugged again, but he looked more honest and a scrap less unlikeable. Take it or leave it, said his body language. Believe me or don’t: I don’t care.

  ‘And you do make a difference, from what I hear.’ Femur forced a sycophantic note of admiration into his voice. Spinel spread his legs a little further apart and thrust his crotch forward. Femur suppressed a comment on the lines of, yes, I can see it’s bigger than mine. Instead he said, ‘Tell me, have any of your snouts said anything to you about Kara Huggate or her death?’

  ‘No more than the bloke in the pub. I mean, why would they? That’s what I mean: you don’t get people talking about those sort of crimes. They’re too frightening, too upsetting, maybe. Dangerous. I don’t know.’

  ‘There’s been the suggestion of a drugs connection in the killing.’

  Spinel didn’t move. He didn’t blink. But there was a change in the atmosphere. Femur felt it as a slight chill, a withdrawal of attention, like the effect of someone going to sleep beside you. Suddenly they’re not there any more: you’re on your own. Like death, really.

  Bingo! he thought.

  ‘What kind of connection?’

  Spinel slowly crossed his legs, all casual, so that he didn’t look too defensive. He must have been on courses: the sort about projecting yourself and management by mimicry. Femur hadn’t, but he’d read about them and decided they were a right load of cock.

  ‘We’re not sure yet. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’ He smiled again, hoping he didn’t look as fake as he felt. ‘An expert.’

  ‘All I know about her and drugs is she had these unrealistic ideas about what we could do with classroom dealers. But I told you all that last time you had me over here.’ A hint of irritation in Spinel’s smooth voice with its faint Essex twang made Femur nod.

  ‘Right. What I – Yes, what is it?’ he asked irritably, as the door opened and Caroline Lyalt looked in.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Guv. I’ve just had a call from a friend of Huggate who’s got some potentially useful information. I thought you ought to know straight away.’

  ‘Will you excuse me a moment, Sergeant?’ Femur didn’t wait for an answer, but followed Caroline out into the main incident room, furious that she’d interrupted just when he was getting somewhere. ‘This had better be good. What is it?’

  He saw she’d registered his tone but she didn’t bridle or apologise, just gave him her answer as direct as ever. ‘Trish Maguire. She’s the barrister that Evans and Watkins were interviewing when we first got here. It seems that Huggate was more than just her witness, they were friends. And now she’s being harassed with bundles of newspaper cuttings about murdered women and she thinks it might have some connection with Huggate because she’s been down here in Kingsford recently, asking questions.’

  Femur ground his teeth. That was all he needed. Some lawyer who fancied herself as Miss Bloody Marple. They’d checked out John Bract, the defendant in the case Maguire had been running, and he’d come out clean. That should’ve been the end of Maguire as far as the case was concerned. Bloody women.

  ‘I said you’d probably like to talk to her and would ring her either tonight or first thing in the morning,’ said Caroline calmly.

  ‘I don’t suppose you thought of asking Maguire about S.’

  ‘Well, I did, actually, Guv. But she doesn’t know his name.’

  Femur let his taut shoulders go. He shouldn’t have doubted Cally. She always came through. Still it was a pity she’d chosen to do it just then.

  ‘Although she did confirm there was someone new in Huggate’s life. Apparently there were some practical problems involved, but Huggate thought they were being sorted.’

  ‘Sounds like a married man to me,’ Femur said, jerking his head back towards his own office. ‘It’s all stacking up around Spinel, isn’t it? I’d better get back to him.’

  ‘But, sir,’ Caroline said with unusual formality. ‘Maguire’s being harassed. Like I said, someone’s sending her – anonymously – newspaper cuttings about particularly unpleasant murders of women. I think we ought to do something about it.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Talk to her and follow up some of the people she interviewed when she came down here. She went to Church Lane to talk to the neighbours, heard the story about the man in Huggate’s garden. It sounds as though it could be more important than we thought.’

  ‘Tony’s already dealt with that and established that the witness isn’t reliable and couldn’t remember whether she’d seen him in the garden on the actual night of the murder or a week earlier. I’ll talk
to him again when I’ve finished with Spinel to double check, but if there was anything there he’d have got it. He’s no fool.’

  To his amazement Caroline raised her eyebrows. It was as near as she’d ever got to making a comment about Blacker. What the hell was happening to everyone in this case? It was fast becoming one of the worst he’d known.

  ‘Right, if you’ve got the time and nothing better to do, you can have another go at the witness yourself, but talk to Tony first. I don’t want you treading on his toes.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ She turned away then added over her shoulder, ‘Don’t forget Maguire, will you, sir?’

  Femur gritted his teeth. It must be the actress, he thought, making her so tetchy and naggy. She’s not herself.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, as he sat down in front of Spinel again. He decided to give the man a chance to relax, then hit him with the real suspicions again. That sometimes did the trick. ‘It’s beginning to look as though the murder might have had nothing to do with Kingsford after all. Did Huggate ever tell you about a man called John Bract?’

  Spinel uncrossed his legs again and the muscles beside his mouth softened. Good. ‘Not that I remember. Why would she? Who is he?’

  ‘He’s the manager of a children’s home who was up in court on some kind of brutality allegation. Huggate was going to give evidence against him so he could’ve wanted to shut her up. Hangover from her old job. I thought she might’ve told you because it all blew up around the time you were meeting her on a weekly basis.’

  ‘Sounds possible to me.’

  ‘And me. You knew her better than most other people in Kingsford, didn’t you?’

  ‘Can’t say I did, sir. We had our three meetings before Christmas, and in the end she accepted what I’d said all along, that we were already on the case of her schoolboy dealer and that harassing me on the phone wasn’t doing anyone any good. She left me alone after that.’