And None Shall Sleep (25 page)

She was no longer dressed in mourning but in a scarlet miniskirt and lots of gold jewellery.

She met Joanna's eyes boldly.

‘I feel I ought to congratulate you, Miss Wilde,' Joanna said smoothly, ‘on your excellent fortune. Now can we go somewhere private, please, to talk?'

The blonde's eyes flickered and suddenly she looked younger, less sure of herself. And Joanna wondered how big a part Daddy had played in her luck. She led the two officers to a small ante room.

‘Tell me, how much do you think your inheritance is worth?'

“I don't know. I really haven't a clue.' Her innocent eyes met Joanna's. ‘I didn't think ... Not for a moment. It was a complete surprise.'

‘I'm sure.' The girl pouted. Sticky red lips dropped. From beauty to the grotesque in one swift move. Joanna watched her curiously. Glamour, not beauty, had been this girl's calling card. She was not a natural. She would need that money.

The girl blinked. ‘Mrs Selkirk ...' she began.

‘Ah yes, Mrs Selkirk,' Joanna said. ‘I don't think she's very pleased with you.'

Mike spoke from behind her. ‘Says you were having it off with her husband.'

The girl was quick to defend her honour. ‘No,' she protested. ‘No, absolutely not. We never did.'

‘Just a little harmless flirtation?' Joanna ploughed on ruthlessly. ‘Titillation?'

‘You've no right to say that.' Rufus Wilde was standing in the doorway, wearing a threatening solicitor's hard face. If you're insinuating ...'

‘I'm just curious,' Joanna said, ‘about why Jonathan Selkirk left all his money to your daughter.' She was past caring about people's feelings. ‘What was she giving him that was worth so much?'

‘I don't like your tone, Inspector.' Wilde's eyes narrowed. ‘He was fond of her. We were far more of a family to him than ever his own were. He liked my daughter.'

‘Liked?' Mike's jaw squared. ‘I like lots of people,' he said. ‘I wouldn't dream of leaving them my money.'

Joanna cleared her throat. ‘You see, Mr and Miss Wilde.' And again she was reminded of the game of Happy Families. Mr and Miss Wilde. But they wouldn't be cast as solicitors, would they? ‘Selkirk leaving all his money to you is an anomaly,' she paused, ‘if you were no more to each other than friends. After all, this is a double murder we are investigating.'

Father looked at daughter. ‘Did you know Mr Selkirk was intending to leave his money to you?'

She shook her head and couldn't resist a swift glance at her father. For what? – approval?

He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

‘And where were you both the morning of last Tuesday?'

‘Here,' they answered swiftly in unison.

Rufus Wilde cleared his throat. ‘With Jonathan in hospital we had a lot of extra work here,' he explained. ‘Someone had to manage the business.'

‘Ah yes,' Joanna said. ‘The business.' She watched Rufus Wilde carefully. ‘The business currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Tell me, Mr Wilde, as a solicitor. If Mrs Selkirk were to contest her husband's will, would she stand a chance of winning the case?'

He cleared his throat. ‘My daughter had considered making some sort of a settlement...' he began.

‘To shut her up?' Joanna said sharply. ‘Just answer the question, please.'

‘Under current law,' the solicitor began, ‘a person's will is carried out, unless it can be proved he or she was of unsound mind when making out the will.'

Joanna derived some satisfaction from the fact that Rufus Wilde was patently uncomfortable. Good. It suited him.

‘And was he?' Mike asked brusquely. Wilde stared at them. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again.

‘I see,' Joanna said pleasantly. ‘The three monkeys – see, hear, say nothing. But we both know, don't we, Mr Wilde? Selkirk was not of unsound mind when he made that will and you know it will be contested in a court of law, don't you?'

Wilde nodded.

‘A wife can surely claim half, can't she? So any sum you gave Sheila Selkirk would be a token – nothing else – something to try to keep her away from the courts.' Joanna thought for a minute, her brain working overtime. ‘And of course your daughter, I presume, is an employee of Selkirk & Wilde rather than a partner. And as such could not be liable for the firm's debts of corruption. Neat trick,' she said blandly. ‘Provided Jonathan Selkirk's assets were not seized by the SFO.'

‘Now look here.' Wilde was rattled now. Joanna could not suppress a quick, triumphant grin at Mike. ‘Jonathan was entitled to leave his money wherever he liked,' Rufus Wilde said. ‘He chose to leave it to my daughter, someone he had grown very fond of in the course of his work.'

The blonde was blinking rapidly, her head turning from one to the other in an attempt to follow the conversation. ‘When was the will dated, Mr Wilde?'

‘Last month,' Wilde said a little less confidently.

‘I see. Well, thank you very much. You've been a great help.'

‘Is that all?' Wilde demanded. ‘I've got a business to run.'

‘Yes, that's all.' But she couldn't resist a Parthian shot. ‘Good luck with the SFO,' she said. ‘I've heard they like to cook their pound of flesh before they eat it.' She didn't even look back to see what effect her words had had but left the doors swinging behind her.

She felt good.

They headed back to the station.

Joanna settled behind her desk and spoke to Mike and Dawn Critchlow. ‘I've plenty of ideas now,' she said. ‘I'd just like one more detail. Have we got the forensic report on the letter sent to Wilde the morning he died?'

He handed it to her. ‘Arrived this morning,' he said. ‘Confirmed it was done on a different machine from the original letters. That's the official verdict.'

‘Good,' Joanna smiled. ‘I was hoping it would be.'

She had both their attentions now. ‘The boys have done a bit of probing into Justin Selkirk's financial affairs. He sold his house six months ago.'

‘Negative equity,' Mike muttered, but Dawn had something up her sleeve.

‘That isn't true,' she said. ‘He sold the house for thirty- eight thousand pounds. His mortgage was only thirty.' Joanna gaped. ‘But ...' She was conjuring up the sordid, cramped interior of the caravan.

‘You tell me,' Dawn said, ‘but according to Constable Phil Scott there aren't eight thousand pounds in his bank account now.'

‘Well, well, well.' Mike looked pleased. ‘Looks like we have someone wriggling in the bag'

Joanna shot him a warning glance.

Dawn hesitated before pulling something out from behind her back. ‘There's something else you should see. I saw it at the local newsagent's.'

She dropped a magazine on the desk. A woman's magazine with a photograph on the front of a pretty, laughing child. Slashed across the picture was a caption. Rowena Carter, five years old, another child killed by a drunk driver. And underneath in smaller black letters was added,
And he got away with it – or did he? Read inside for full story.

Joanna looked up. ‘So that's where the picture of Rowena Carter had disappeared to. I was wondering.'

She opened the magazine. The article bore Ann Carter's name at the bottom, a picture of her tearful face, her husband's arms wrapped around her. Joanna read through the article twice. There was a certain tone to it, gloating, malicious but less vindictive than she would have imagined. At the end was a picture of Selkirk and a brief description of the events at Gallows Wood. The last sentence contained the predictable words, ‘just desserts'.

Joanna flicked to the front of the magazine. It had come out that day. Thoughtfully she passed it to Mike. He read it without comment. She stood up, unhooked her coat from the back of the chair, draped it round her shoulders. She was getting quite adept at coping with the plaster cast. It had become less of an encumbrance as the days had moved on.

‘So we've got the answer to at least one of our questions,' she said. ‘That's where the photograph went. Funny, isn't it?' she said. ‘That first day we met them it was already written on the wall, as it were.' Neither Korpanski nor Dawn had the faintest idea what Joanna was talking about.

She stared at them. ‘You don't see, do you? Come on, Korpanski, I should buy you lunch. As a chauffeur you haven't been bad.'

They were almost through the door when the telephone rang. She was in two minds whether to pick it up. Her conscience won.

‘Am I speaking to Detective Inspector Piercy?'

‘You are, Mr Prince.'

His voice was strong and steady. People had their own ways of dealing with grief. ‘We feel we must speak up for our daughter,' he began. ‘The newspapers are making suggestions.'

Joanna didn't even try to apologize for the tabloids' excesses. The reporters were an intelligent pack, on the whole, and they had scented blood the moment Yolande's death had been made public. They had soon started speculating with their talent for making suppositions sound like facts.

‘She wouldn't have done it,' he said. ‘We knew our daughter extremely well. She was protective towards anyone in her care, no matter what their past was. She didn't discriminate.'

Joanna's instinct was to discount a fond father's assessment of his daughter's character, but there was no emotion behind his statement. This was a statement of fact.

Mr Prince spoke again. ‘I suggest, Inspector,' he said quietly, ‘that you stop blaming my daughter for the abduction of Mr Selkirk and look instead at the other nurses on duty that night. My daughter,' he said with dignity, ‘has been made a scapegoat.'

‘So what do you think, Mike?' Joanna had relayed the conversation to Mike. Her desk was littered with the contents of all the files connected with the case. Her computer screen was switched on. She had finished leafing through all the statements.

Mike's square face was pensive.

‘If Yolande's father is right it would put the case under a different light, wouldn't it?'

He nodded slowly.

She leaned forward, her elbow making a dent in the cover of the magazine. ‘I think we're getting closer. Let's visit Emily Place and see if we can get an answer to our second question. Then we'll do a bit of talking.'

Mike stood up, towering over her. ‘We've nearly got them,' she said.

His eyebrows almost met in the middle. ‘Proof?'

‘We'll play one off against the other. There won't be any trust between them, only fear.'

Emily Place looked quiet and dull in the middle of the day. No one was there. There was no sign of life at all.

Except at number fourteen.

Andy Carter was painting an upstairs windowframe. He saw them from the top of the ladder. ‘Bloody hell, aren't you done with us yet?' he exclaimed.

‘Just two more questions, Mr Carter.'

He stepped down the ladder, made no attempt to invite them inside.

‘You've raked it all up,' he said resentfully. ‘Ann hasn't had a wink of sleep since you first came.'

‘We didn't rake it up,' Joanna said quietly. ‘We weren't the ones to shoot Selkirk. Once he'd been shot we had no option but to pursue our investigations until we found the perpetrator. Understand?'

Carter blinked. ‘I suppose you're only doing your job. What was it you wanted to know?'

‘How did you know Selkirk had been forced to kneel before he was shot?'

Carter looked rattled. His eyes bounced from Joanna to Mike and back to Joanna again.

‘Come on, Carter,' Mike urged.

Carter pressed his lips together.

‘Then we'll have to take you down to the station for further questioning.'

‘No, no. I have to be here. Ann'll go mad if I aren't here when she gets home.' The two officers waited and finally Carter relented. ‘I've got a mate,' he said. ‘He sometimes wanders up those woods. He saw him, lying on his side, his hands tied behind his back.'

Joanna let out a long sigh. Another piece of the puzzle had slipped into place.

‘Your mate's name wouldn't happen to be Holloway, would it?'

‘I can't tell you that,' Carter was defensive, ‘but it's the truth.' He turned his back on them. But Joanna waited until the penny dropped and Carter turned around again. ‘And the other question?'

‘I suppose in the last five years you've bought yourselves a new word processor?'

A sharp indrawn breath was the only sign that Carter had heard. ‘Leave us alone.'

‘Where is your wife, Mr Carter?'

‘Where do you think? She's at work.'

It was an extraordinary sight, the bright, fluorescent green coat, the huge lollipop, STOP, Children Crossing. They watched her for a few minutes, painfully aware of what she was doing.

A crowd of children gathered at the side of the road. Ann Carter waited. A car approached, slowly. She waited ... another approached, gathered speed, determined not to be halted.

The car hurtled towards her. Herding the children back on to the pavement, she stepped boldly out. The car screeched to a stop. Two fingers appeared over the driving wheel.

Ann Carter smiled.

The children crossed.

They met her back on the pavement.

She frowned. ‘Why have you come here?'

Joanna said nothing but watched her steadily.

The woman's eyes slid away from the two officers and towards the traffic belting along the road and the waiting clusters of mothers and children. ‘I should go to them,' she said.

Joanna put a hand on her arm. ‘I think you should come with us.'

Mike radioed in for a constable to cover the crossing and they drove Ann Carter to the station. She neither argued nor complained. Neither, they noticed, did she ask them to ring her husband. While he had worried about her returning from work to an empty house she had no thought for him. As they watched the thin, tense face they both knew her mind was still with her daughter.