by Faith Martin
‘Yes, sir,’ Robin finally muttered resentfully.
‘All right. You’ve been given that domestic in Banbury, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, prioritize that then.’
It was an order, and Robin Farrell heard it loud and clear. He got up stiffly from the chair. ‘Yes, sir. Is that all?’
‘Yes,’ Superintendent Trenchard said, and he watched the younger man stalk stiffly from the room.
He sighed heavily when the door shut — not too quietly — behind him, and glanced out of the window. He knew how Farrell felt of course. He could remember only too well how much he had hated it when, as a young DI himself, he hadn’t been able to pursue a case as much as he’d wanted to.
Running a weary hand over his face, Trenchard turned to the latest budget figures, silently cursing all bean-counters everywhere. Within a few minutes, the deaths of Newley and Kirklees slipped from his mind.
* * *
Fuming, and back at his desk, DI Robin Farrell had to give his team the news that the double-murder investigation was being powered down. He’d built up a good team in the last three months, and though, like him, they’d seen the writing on the wall, they too were bitterly disappointed.
But even as Robin began to pack away files, he knew he wasn’t going to let this one go. After all, the super had said he didn’t have to shelve it altogether, right? So he’d continue to work it, whenever he had a spare moment. Hell, he’d even do unpaid overtime and work on it whenever he had a free weekend, if he had to.
The truth was, Larry Spence had got under his skin. Whenever questioned, he’d stuck to ‘no comment’ and forced Robin to deal with his smart-arse, super-polite solicitor. His bland smile and elaborately patient attitude had only rubbed it in how clearly he believed himself to be untouchable. That self-satisfied air he had, the way he genuinely never felt even a hint of concern, as if he knew, just knew, that Robin would never be able to pin the deaths on him, ate away at the DI like acid.
As far as Robin was concerned, no one should think it was safe to thumb their nose at him and the law — and certainly not the likes of Larry Spence.
Which made DI Robin Farrell utterly determined to bring the murders home to the cocky swine.
One way or another, he was going to get Spence. No matter what it took.
* * *
At about the same time that Jason Morley was sitting on the bus and watching the morning rush-hour traffic stream past him, Mia de Salle was sitting at the breakfast bar in her small but detached cottage, eating yoghurt and muesli.
From her window, she could just get a glimpse of part of the grounds of Blenheim Palace, the Duke of Marlborough’s huge stately home.
She’d been living here for a few years now, having grown tired of Oxford’s constant noise and pollution, and preferring the surroundings of a more genteel location. And the very desirable Cotswold stone cottage, set in the outer edges of the very desirable town of Woodstock, suited her perfectly. She adored the thick walls, the wooden window seat, and the sense of being cocooned in a different era.
She’d always thought that she should have been born in Victorian times, when life seemed so much more epic and grand, and when things meant so much more than they did now, when Darwin was just challenging the Church, and discoveries of all kinds were there to be made by anyone with an adventurous spirit and the determination to succeed.
She was a great fan of the Brontë sisters and their writings, especially Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and identified strongly with Cathy. Free-spirited, unconventional, greedy, oh-so-alive-and-in-love Cathy! Within the covers of books, Mia could live vicariously in a way that she couldn’t in the drab confines of the modern world.
Looking out of her window now at the passing cars and the dreary, everyday blandness of modern life, she felt that familiar ache, that constant mourning at the lack of romance and the loss of the Gothic. Where, in this day and age, was the magic? Here, computers, dull, pedantic, soulless machines now ruled the world.
It was one of the main reasons why she’d thought Michael Beck had been her soulmate. He too had a deep and abiding love of history, and the romance of times past. He had understood her in a way nobody else ever had. Ever since her late teens, she had been searching for her Heathcliff, or even her Dracula — someone, anyone, who stood out from the usual humdrum run of lacklustre twenty-first century humanity.
And then, in her mid-twenties, when she’d all but given up, she found Michael.
Oh, true, in the end, like so many of literature’s great heroes, he’d been found flawed and wanting, letting her down because of some malaise in his psyche, some weakness in his soul that wouldn’t allow him to love her as wildly as she’d loved him.
But even that, even the heartbreak and the betrayal had, in its own way, been glorious! At least she’d felt alive, as if she existed, as if she felt! Even if it was only heartbreak and pain, it had been something.
She sighed heavily, and walking to the sink, automatically washed out her now empty bowl and left it to drain. Soon she’d have to go in to work, and do all the things that were required of her.
Michael had found it odd, at first, that she’d been studying sciences, given her real passions. But nature, as she’d explained to him, was timeless and magnificent and worthy of her attention as well. How often did it feature in poetry, art, literature or music? And what was happening to it now? The man-made plagues of technology, overpopulation and pollution were killing even that. Soon there would be nothing beautiful left in the world. No wild orchids, no magnificent bears, no tigers stalking through the hot summer grass . . .
Mia stood for a moment, looking at the vase of beautiful golden daffodils that she’d set in her kitchen window. She always bought cut flowers for herself — fresh, every week. She liked to spend her money freely, but only on things that mattered to her.
The cottage, for instance, which wasn’t large but had been built in the late 1790s, suited her admirably. The beams, the inglenook fireplace, the bulging plastered walls. Michael would have loved it here.
She sighed and turned away, gathering her coat and handbag together and heading for the front door.
As she walked to her car, she wondered if she’d see that woman who worked for the police again — Hillary Greene. She hoped not. Mia hadn’t liked her. There was something . . . knowing . . . in her eyes and her manner. Something strong. A very clever woman herself, Mia knew when she met another very clever person, and usually she felt drawn to them. As she had with Michael.
But not this time.
Perhaps it was because Hillary Greene had wanted to know all about Michael, Mia thought, climbing in behind the wheel of her Mercedes. And Michael belonged to her. Still. Always. Only to her — even though she now had a new love.
For a minute or so, Mia sat in her car, staring blankly ahead. Of course, even the Victorians had had to acknowledge the dominion of death. If only she was Catherine Earnshaw, Mia thought sadly. If only she could conquer death. Only, of course, it would have to be the other way around, wouldn’t it? This time, Michael’s ghost should have come back to seek her out.
How many nights had she sat, in the dark, hoping that he would do just that? Listening, straining her eyes and her ears for any sign.
But nothing.
And, eventually, even she had had to accept her loss, and to look for another.
Mia smiled gently to herself now, thinking of that other. Who would have expected that the answer to her prayers could possibly lay with him? Him of all people? He was not a classic Brontë hero, was he? No Mr Rochester, certainly. But he had loved Michael too, in his way. More importantly, he had been privileged to spend such precious and momentous moments with Michael — such final, intimate moments, moments that she would have given her soul to have been able to share.
But she had not understood what had been happening until it was too late.
And now she must continue to be patient and pragmatic,
like one of the characters in one of Jane Austen’s works.
But Mia knew that she was beginning to lose patience recently. How long would it take before he too succumbed to the inevitable and accepted their joint destiny? He was resisting it so far, but that would have to change soon.
Mia de Salle gave a small, grim little shrug, and started her car. She had done her duty — she had pined faithfully for her lost love, and she had waited patiently and for so many years for his replacement to make the first move — as the man should.
But not even her patience was infinite.
The police opening Michael’s case again had to be a sign of some kind, didn’t it? That things were moving once again. A sign that it was time for her to become the catalyst once more in her own love story.
With a serene smile, she sent her sleek car out into the road, feeling more content now that she knew what she must do.
CHAPTER NINE
As Mia de Salle set off for work, Hillary Greene sat beside Claire as she drove them south towards Hampshire and a small market town about ten miles from the coast. It was to this rather nice spot that Dr Timothy Durning had finally settled, working as a private tutor to Oxbridge wannabes.
The sun was shining on and off, and Claire was feeling happy to be out of the office for most of the day. She chatted about her children, her ‘better half’, the cost of living and the state of her current diet. Hillary, used to her pleasant chatter, let it all flow over her with just the occasional murmur here and there to show willing, and mostly mused on her case so far.
Or rather, the lack of a case so far! As far as she could see, they had unearthed nothing new, let alone earth-shattering, in Michael Beck’s case. Gareth had informed her before she set off from the office that the Becks had confirmed that none of their son’s cameras had been missing. Which seemed to rule out the idea that he might have been taking some of his wildlife photographs on the day of his death, and been surprised by his killer out in the fields somewhere. It was looking less and less like an opportunist killing.
That, coupled with the fact that his means of transport — his bicycle — had never been recovered, seemed to bolster the theory that he had gone missing either in Oxford, or on his way to or from Oxford. Had he met up with someone somewhere on the road? If so, the original investigation had never found CCTV footage of it, and nobody had come forward to say they’d seen anything odd — like two people struggling on the side of the road.
Mind you, Hillary reminded herself, the first part of his journey, from Woodeaton towards Headington, did take him down a fairly lonely stretch of isolated rural road, apart from the rat-run during rush hours, which saw plenty of traffic on that stretch then. Which didn’t mean much either way, since Michael had set off from his parents’ house a good hour after the morning rush would have passed.
It was possible he’d been snatched, she supposed. Had someone forced him off the road and bundled him and his bicycle into their car? The post mortem had not showed any signs that he’d been hit by a motorcar — but he might have been forced to run off the road onto the grass, which wouldn’t necessarily have left any bruises. But then what? Surely he would have put up a fight? He was a young, relatively fit man; he wouldn’t have been forced into a car easily. Unless there was more than one killer involved. One to hold him, one to hit him over the head with whatever the instrument used had been, and two of them to sling him and his bike into a capacious boot.
And just what was that blunt instrument? Forensics had tried many comparisons with all sorts of things, but nothing had quite seemed to fit. Could it have been a specialist tool of some kind? Something fairly unique, something the killer needed for their trade, say, or something the killer might habitually carry with him?
The trouble with that scenario was, of course, that until they found out who the killer was, they might not find out what he or she had used to hit Michael Beck over the head. But speculation of that sort was useless, especially since the killer had in all likelihood long disposed of the murder weapon anyway. Only an idiot would keep the murder weapon on their own premises.
Hillary sighed. Claire, realizing that she’d lost her audience, fiddled with the radio until she found a station playing mainly 80s tunes. Hillary hastily blanked the noise out. She liked 1960s pop, but was not a fan of the New Romantics.
As the miles passed by, Hillary continued to let her mind roam freely, reviewing the case and their slim leads. Nothing that the dead boy’s parents had said had rung any particular alarm bells for her. Kevin Philpott, the best friend, hadn’t seemed to have anything new to add to the pot either. Which left her with everybody’s favourite candidate for the crime — the creepy girlfriend.
As they pulled up at a set of temporary traffic lights at some road works, a newly arrived chiff-chaff sang in a nearby tree and Hillary reflected on Mia de Salle and the interview at the nature reserve.
She could certainly see now just why so many people had failed to warm to Michael Beck’s choice of lover. But she could well see how Mia would have appealed to Michael if she’d saved all her energy for him, and him alone. Apart from anything else, he’d have been flattered. And everyone she’d talked to so far had confirmed that her interest in him was whole-hearted to the point of being unhealthy.
And yet, after a while, surely such single-minded devotion would become a burden rather than a pleasure? And when someone like Dr de Salle was rejected, she’d feel it to the very core of her. When you made just one thing or one person your whole world, loss of that one thing or person left you far more vulnerable and devastated than if you had other things to fall back on.
But did any of that necessarily make her more likely to be a killer than anyone else? Hillary wasn’t so sure, tempting though it might be to assume so. Oh, she could certainly see that Mia was someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Who would watch and maybe even stalk her lover, in the hopes of winning him back. But she didn’t know enough about mental illness — always supposing Mia was mentally ill in the first place — to feel comfortable casting her as the prime suspect simply on the basis that she didn’t act like everyone else.
For all Hillary knew, the woman might be excessively shy. Or have some sort of personality disorder that had nothing to do with violence or unpredictable behaviour. It was one thing to cavalierly say ‘oh she’s not playing with a full deck of cards’ and quite another to assume that that made her capable of murder.
On the other hand, there was nothing to say it didn’t.
Hillary leaned her head back on the seat as Claire sang along with somebody who didn’t want a prayer said for them now, but to save it for the morning after, and sighed again. Eyes closed, she let the warming spring sunshine coming in through the windscreen play across her face, and turned her thoughts from the past to the immediate future, and contemplated instead the business at hand. The interview with the man Michael Beck had accused of molesting him.
Of all the people in Michael Beck’s life, only two could be said to have a ‘proper’ motive for killing him. Mia, out of some twisted love/hate obsession, or Dr Timothy Durning, out of revenge for a career lost and a reputation ruined.
For the next few hours, she had to put everything else aside, and concentrate on the upcoming interview.
‘Durning never married, right?’ she said, still with her head back and her eyes closed.
At this, Claire instantly turned off the radio, and keeping her eyes on the road said, ‘No, guv. He was forty-one at the time, and so is fifty-one now and still single.’
Hillary nodded. ‘His background is relatively well-heeled and middle-class?’ She already knew this, but sometimes bouncing things around with someone else brought into focus something that she’d otherwise miss.
‘Yup. He’s got only one sibling, an older brother, now living in Australia. Married with four kids,’ Claire confirmed. ‘Both parents now deceased. They divvied the family inheritance equally between their two sons though. They didn’t leave
them a massive fortune, as such, but I still wouldn’t have minded my share of it!’
‘Hmmm,’ Hillary mused. So either they were open-minded about their youngest son’s sexuality, or they hadn’t known — or guessed — that he was gay.
‘I suppose that’s how come he can just about afford to live in a nice town in Hampshire on whatever he can earn giving private tuition,’ Claire added. ‘A private income. Nice for some, innit?’
Hillary smiled, but wondered if Timothy Durning saw it in that light. Did he miss university life? The hustle and bustle, all that communicating with bright young minds and youthful ideologies. Going from a vibrant city like Bristol to a smaller backwater town — no matter how picturesque it probably was — might not have been how he saw the rest of his life playing out.
Had he resented Michael Beck enough to watch and wait for his chance to kill him? Presumably he must have had some feelings for the young man — by Michael’s own admission, he’d been his favourite teacher. Which suggested friendship had existed between them, as well as (on the older man’s part) physical attraction.
And she knew all about how attraction or affection could quickly turn to hate and rage. Some people — and Hillary had met her share — simply couldn’t take rejection — or being thwarted. Some people never seemed to grow up, and could experience rages and tantrums that should have been left behind in childhood. But it was useless speculating about such things until she’d had a chance to meet the man and assess him for herself.
She sighed again and opened her eyes. ‘Fancy stopping for a pub meal after we’ve talked to the good doctor. My treat?’
Claire grinned. ‘Are limes green?’
‘What about the diet?’ she teased.
‘What diet?’
* * *
The market town they entered an hour later had everything going for it that a tourist board could wish for. An attractive stone bridge spanning a wide but shallow river, an old Norman church, a photographically appealing high street with a mixture of half-timbered buildings and local stone, and a statue of some bloke who had done something noteworthy at some point in the last three hundred years. Hanging baskets outside several inns and pubs had been newly planted with vibrant spring colours, and daffodils lined the grass verges. In short, it was the kind of place that was either the stuff of dreams, or of nightmares, depending on your point of view.
