by LJ Ross
CHAPTER 14
A late morning deluge had left clear, cornflower-blue skies in its wake. The sun beat down on Ryan’s back through his office window at Police Headquarters and gave his hair a blue-black shine. The tie he’d worn earlier was draped across the back of his chair and he’d rolled his sleeves up to reveal lightly tanned arms, from Sunday morning spent down by the riverbank. It seemed a lifetime ago that he and Phillips had whiled away their time chatting about this and that, debating politics and arguing about the merits of football versus rugby as they soaked up the beauty of the countryside.
That was then.
Now, his eyes were trained on his computer screen as he watched the CCTV footage of John Dobbs’ altercation with Isobel Harris at Fenwick. He’d seen it several times before but found himself drawn to it again as he went back over the girl’s movements leading up to her death. The footage was slightly grainy and in black and white, but he could make everything out clearly enough. At twelve-seventeen on 19th June, the CCTV captured a man of average height and build entering the beauty hall. He might have been anybody; a father, a brother, an estate agent or a civil servant. There was nothing to set him apart from the rest. John Dobbs didn’t need to find his bearings; Ryan watched him move directly to the far corner where Isobel Harris worked on the Lola counter. He was clutching an enormous bouquet of flowers in his hands—red roses—and the overhead lights bounced off the top of his balding head.
Less than ten seconds later, another camera captured Dobbs’ profile as he made his way down the aisle and, finally, a third camera trained above the Lola counter caught Dobbs full in the face as he shuffled up to greet the object of his desire.
Although there was no sound, Ryan could read the body language very easily.
It began innocently enough, with Dobbs smiling and presenting his bouquet to Isobel. The angle of the camera only captured the top of her dark head, but she shook it and held up her hands to wave him away, stepping back from the counter and turning to her friend, Amaya, presumably calling out for help to move Dobbs along.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed on the screen as he watched Dobbs’ face change from an unthreatening, middle-aged man to something else entirely. There was menace there, he thought, and Isobel had felt it.
Dobbs walked quickly around the counter to invade her space, this time forcing her to take the flowers. Ryan knew from the statements given by Amaya and the security guard that Dobbs had been wild, shouting at Isobel to take the flowers and be grateful.
“Ungrateful bitch! I came all the way here to give you these! You’re just like all the rest!”
He’d made a grab for Isobel’s arm and at that point, a security guard waded in. Ryan watched the burly man in a black suit appear at a run, speaking into his lapel, before clamping an arm around Dobbs and dragging him away. Another guard came from the opposite direction to help remove him.
The last of the footage showed Isobel in Amaya’s arms. A couple of passing customers stopped to pat her back and congratulate themselves on witnessing the drama. It would make for something to talk about over the dinner table, wouldn’t it?
Ryan sat back in his chair and thought again that there were very few innocent people in the world.
“Mac? Got a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
Ryan walked across to MacKenzie’s desk and picked up a stray biro, fiddling with it as he spoke.
“I’ve just been reviewing the footage we have from Fenwick again,” he told her. “I know that Dobbs had a history of depression, a couple of pops on his sheet for drunk and disorderly, but I still don’t understand why that would lead a man to suicide. If he was innocent, he would have defended himself rather than running like that. Wouldn’t he?”
MacKenzie tapped a finger against her lips.
“Aye, right enough. To be honest, he was a bit of a sad case,” she said. “The dating profile he set up is something else.” She tapped a few buttons and brought up the file containing his LoveLife profile. “Check out the picture, for starters.”
The image showed a man somewhere in his late thirties, movie-star handsome.
“Must be a stock image he found online,” Ryan said. “Happens often enough.”
“According to this, he’s a surgeon,” she continued. “’World-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon looking for brunettes who like an older man with means, for friendship, romance and maybe more.’”
MacKenzie pulled a face.
“Isobel probably read that and thought he was Prince Charming. Amaya said she’d actually met someone at A&E who fit the bill, or close enough. Poor kid.”
Ryan said nothing, but thought of a lonely girl without a family and resolved to be more grateful for his own, even if they did turn up on his doorstep unannounced.
He reminded himself to let Natalie know he’d be late getting home and was irritated at the need to be answerable to anybody.
He shrugged it off.
“People see what they want to see,” he murmured, then remembered that the dead man had a family too. “Who spoke to Dobbs’ mother?”
“Gregson took care of it personally, in case she decided to start making noises about police harassment. Said she was a bit eccentric.”
It was a cynical ploy but, apparently, it had worked. It was one of the many reasons why Gregson was ideally suited to his position and why Ryan would never aspire to it.
“It’s time we paid Mrs Dobbs a visit,” he decided.
“He’s not our prime suspect any longer,” MacKenzie said. “Shouldn’t we concentrate on the others?”
“It’s a loose end, Mac, and I don’t like loose ends. Besides, if he’s not a suspect, that makes him a victim. He worked at the hospital and there might be something she can tell us about that, or about the people he worked with. We owe his mother some time, if only to eliminate her son from our enquiries.”
* * *
Across town, Phillips and Lowerson sat on the edge of a brown PVC leather sofa in Will Cooper’s living room. His housemate and sometime girlfriend had retreated to her room and out of the firing line, having failed to perform her role as an effective decoy.
“Right, lad. Why don’t you start by explaining why you’ve been telling porky pies and hiding in your bedroom?”
“I wasn’t hiding,” Cooper muttered. “I just didn’t want to talk to anyone.”
Phillips pursed his lips. Could be that the boy was grieving for his mother. Or could be he was hiding something.
“Alright, why don’t you tell us why you’ve been suspended from the university?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Look, son. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, under caution, down at the station. Which is it to be?”
“I know my rights.”
“Good, glad to hear your mum rubbed off on you somewhere,” Phillips shot back, deliberately reminding him why they were all there. “Now, you can sit here wasting time we don’t have, or you can give us the answers we need so we can be on our way and find the bloke who really killed her. From where I’m sitting, it’s hard not to draw what we might call ‘adverse inferences’ from the fact you keep telling us so many lies.”
“I haven’t lied.”
“Oh, but you have,” Phillips said. “How about the one where you told us you hadn’t seen your mum in a couple of weeks? We’ve got an eyewitness who says otherwise. They say you visited your mum the very night before she died.”
Cooper shifted in his seat but remained silent.
“Then, how about the one where you said you needed to hurry back to the university or you’d miss a lecture? You haven’t set foot in the dental hospital for over a month. I’d like to know why.”
“Like I said, it’s none of your business.”
Phillips pointed a stubby finger squarely at Cooper’s face.
“Mind yourself, Will. We’re not your enemies but you’re going the right way about changing that.”
Cooper sank back into his chair an
d crossed his legs, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Phillips gave him a genial smile.
“Jack, do me a favour, would you? Put a quick call through to DS Flynn in the Drugs Squad.”
Cooper sat bolt upright.
“Tell him I’ve got a strong suspicion the occupant here is in possession of drugs. He should get a couple of his officers over here, pronto.”
Lowerson pulled out his phone.
“Wait. You can’t do that.”
“Oh, no? Watch me,” Lowerson said, and began keying in the number.
“Just a minute. Maybe—maybe we can talk.”
There was a slight sheen of sweat on Cooper’s forehead and a distinct edge of panic had crept into his voice.
Lowerson paused, waiting for Phillips to make the final call. When his sergeant gave a tiny shake of his head, he returned the phone to his pocket.
For now.
“Alright, Will. You want to tell us something?”
“I-I got into a bit of trouble at the hospital,” he stammered, showing the first signs of stress either of them had seen. “They accused me of lifting drugs from the pharmacy and selling them on the campus. Nothing’s been proven,” he said, forcefully. “They’re investigating it all now, speaking to people, I guess. Anyway, they rang my mum when it all kicked off.”
“And she wasn’t very happy about it?”
“Understatement of the century,” Cooper said, running both hands through his hair in an agitated gesture. “Look, they don’t have a leg to stand on. I didn’t do it.”
Phillips looked into the man’s eyes and felt the same disappointment Sharon must have felt, because every instinct told him that Will Cooper was lying. Again.
“You’re the injured party, then,” Lowerson said, in bored tones. “Let’s get back to your mum. Did you see her the night before she died?”
Cooper looked away and then back again.
“Yes. Alright, yes, I did. Look, there was a huge argument. All I wanted her to do was write a letter to my supervisor to say I’d been with her some of the times they’re saying I was on campus. She wouldn’t, and we had a few words about it. That’s all.”
“You mean, she refused to falsify a statement?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Cooper mumbled. “I’m her son. She should have helped me out.”
“And now she’s dead,” Phillips said, laconically. “Don’t you think that’s more important?”
Cooper looked at his hands and then ran them through his hair again, looking lost.
“Of course it is,” he said quietly. “It—I guess, it doesn’t feel real, yet, y’ know? I keep thinking she’s going to call and tell me to get my act together.”
Unexpectedly, his eyes filled with tears.
“The last thing I said to her… it was awful. Terrible. I can’t get it out of my head.”
“What was it?”
But Cooper only shook his head and used the sleeve of his shirt to swipe at his eyes.
“I go to sleep thinking about it, and I wake up thinking about it. I’ll never forgive myself, knowing that she died thinking I hated her.”
Phillips let him gather himself together again before asking another question.
“What time did you leave her house, Will?”
Cooper raised tired, tear-stained eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe around ten, ten-fifteen? I needed to get back here to—I just needed to get back.”
“Okay, Will. We appreciate your time,” Phillips stood up to leave and Lowerson followed suit. “I want you to think carefully about what you’re doing, think about whether it would have made your mother proud. When you’re ready to do the right thing, you know where we are.”
Cooper sucked in a shaky breath and nodded, not looking at either of them.
“We’ll let ourselves out. Thank Petra for the water.”
CHAPTER 15
Frances Dobbs lived in the scenic commuter village of Wylam, ten miles west of Newcastle. Aside from its convenient location, the village laid claim to being the birthplace of George Stephenson, the nineteenth-century engineer known as the ‘Father of Railways’.
“This is the place,” MacKenzie said, as they pulled up alongside a large, stone-built cottage with trailing wisteria.
Ryan peered through the window. In cases such as these, he expected to find John Dobbs’ ageing mother struggling to make ends meet, heavily reliant on her son. It would go some way to explaining Dobbs’ inability to socialise with members of the opposite sex; it was all there, in the criminology textbooks.
When Frances opened the door, he found his suspicions partly confirmed. Dobbs’ mother moved with extreme difficulty, leaning on a polished walking stick carved in the shape of a totem pole. She was hard of hearing and, they came to realise, in the early stages of dementia.
“Who?”
“DCI RYAN AND DI MACKENZIE, MRS DOBBS. FROM NORTHUMBRIA CID.”
“Alright, alright. No need to shout at me,” she muttered. “Come in.”
They followed her slow progress along a dim passageway decorated in the style of thirty years ago, packed to the rafters with objets d’art and what Ryan’s mother might have called ‘collectibles’.
They found themselves in a room that smelled heavily of cats and spotted an overflowing litter tray tucked behind one of the frayed chesterfield sofas. Overall, it spoke of faded grandeur and the ravages of old age.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said.
They perched on the extreme edge of a sofa.
“Mrs Dobbs, I understand one of my colleagues, DCS Gregson, has already been in touch—”
“What? Speak up a bit.”
Ryan took a deep breath.
“DCS GREGSON HAS ALREADY BEEN IN TOUCH?”
“Yes, yes. Nice man, very smart-looking. Good with the cats.”
Ryan looked away, stifling the urge to laugh.
“WE’RE VERY SORRY ABOUT JOHN,” he began again.
Frances turned away to call one of the cats across to her.
“Here, Mabel. Here, sweetie.”
A bundle of fur the size of a small horse bolted across the room. Its fur was matted, and Ryan didn’t like to think when it had last seen a flea treatment.
“John didn’t like the cats,” Frances muttered, stroking its fur with one arthritic hand. “He never liked them.”
“We understand John lived here with you,” MacKenzie said.
“Yes, he always stayed. Never wanted to leave me alone. I don’t suppose he’ll be coming back now, though.”
Ryan envied MacKenzie’s ability to be heard without raising her voice but began to worry about Frances Dobbs’ capacity to give a statement. There was more here than grief or shock, neither of which seemed very evident.
“No, Mrs Dobbs, he won’t be coming back.”
“What’s that?”
Ryan took another deep breath.
“JOHN WON’T BE COMING BACK.”
Her hand stilled on the cat’s fur and then started up again as she cooed to it, murmuring endearments.
“Did John ever mention anybody special, Frances?” MacKenzie asked.
“How d’ you mean, love?”
Once again, Ryan was agog.
“Like a girl, or maybe a special friend at work?”
“No. Well, he was a very busy man. My John worked very long hours, so he didn’t have time to mess around with girls.”
Ryan frowned. As far as he was aware, John Dobbs had worked part-time as a healthcare assistant, hardly the kind of hours she seemed to be suggesting.
MacKenzie had the same thought.
“Did John enjoy his work, Frances?”
“He used to tell me about all the patients who’d written to him, thanking him for saving their lives. He was a miracle worker, my son. A genius.”
Ryan leaned forward, speaking clearly so she could lip-read.
“Remind me, Frances, what did John do for a living?”
“He was a surgeon,” she
said proudly. “Look at all those certificates.”
She gestured to one of the walls and they looked up to find a wall full of fake certificates, all framed.
Ryan and MacKenzie looked at each other and nodded. They couldn’t continue without another person present to look after Mrs Dobbs’ interests, if not her mental wellbeing.
“Thank you very much, Frances. We’ll come back and visit you another time, if we may.”
“Any time, dear.”
But as they were leaving, Ryan hesitated.
“Mrs Dobbs, would you mind if we looked at John’s room?”
She began to fret.
“Oh, I don’t think you want to do that. It’s… it’s not very—well, it’s very untidy.”
“We don’t mind.”
“No, you can’t. I don’t want you to see.”
“See what, Mrs Dobbs?” MacKenzie asked, very gently.
The old woman clutched her stick and shook her head in agitation.
“All those women. All those women he’s got up there.”
Ryan looked at MacKenzie, who read the message in his eyes.
“Come on, Mrs Dobbs. Why don’t we sit down and you can tell me what your cats are called?”
“Yes, alright, dear.”
Ryan waited until they were back inside the living room before heading upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. A quick search led him past a room full of bric-a-brac and an ancient bathroom until he found the room that had been John’s domain.
It was like stepping into another world.
An expensive desktop computer dominated one wall, complete with cameras, microphones and other add-on devices. A heavy-duty printer was tucked beneath the desk alongside several unopened packets of paper.
Ryan spent a few minutes conducting a search and tried accessing the computer but found it password protected.
What did Frances mean? Where were, ‘all those women’?
He returned to the living room and shook his head when MacKenzie looked across at him. Equally puzzled, she turned back to the woman who was sitting quietly beside her, talking to her animals as if they were human.
“There, Boxer. No, don’t claw Mummy. That’s not nice.”
“Frances? What did you mean when you said John had women in his bedroom?”
