Road Closed (30 page)

‘I’ll wait here, if that’s all right with you.’ She walked away and leaned against the wall, waiting as the white coated figures conducted their painstaking scrutiny. She knew she wouldn’t be able to relax at the station.

After half an hour, one of the team called out. ‘Over here, sir.’ Geraldine started forward. One of the team was shining a bright light on the underside of a back tyre. Geraldine walked round and squinted at it.

‘Is it blood?’ she asked as one of the men took a sample from the inner side of the tyre tread.

‘Looks like blood. We’ll need to confirm it. Why don’t you get off now and we’ll let you know the results as soon as.’

Geraldine returned to the station.

‘Any news?’ Peterson asked her as she hurried through the Incident Room.

‘Maybe, nothing confirmed yet.’

‘Well?’

‘SOCOs think they’ve found a trace of blood on the back tyre of the Honda. They’re testing it now and will send over their findings as soon as they can.’ She waited at her desk, unable to focus on reading reports. At last her phone rang. The blood was human. It would take a while to match the DNA, but the blood type matched Maggie Palmer’s.

SOCOs were all over the car checking the boot, the seats and flooring, crawling over every millimetre of it, inside and out.

James Ryder called the team together to bring everyone up to speed with the new developments. ‘If they can find a cigarette butt, all our troubles will be over.’ He tried to speak lightly, but his voice was taut. The tension in the Incident Room was almost tangible. Everyone spoke in hushed voices, as though making too much noise would interfere with the work of SOCOs in the workshop.

It was seven o’clock by the time Geraldine reached home to discover six missed calls on her phone, all from Hannah. Nothing from Celia. Her relief at Celia’s silence had soured with disappointment. It seemed their shared past had meant nothing to her adopted sister. In the meantime, there was Hannah. Geraldine fortified herself with a glass of chilled white wine before she picked up the phone.

‘At last,’ Hannah said. ‘Well? What happened? What did he say?’ There was a pause. ‘What did he say?’ she repeated, sounding slightly hysterical.

‘I’m thinking. All right. I went in and he asked me what I wanted. He didn’t ask after you, just ‘What do you want?’, like that.’ She took a sip of her wine. ‘I told him I’m worried about you, said you were very upset and he ought to talk to you.’

‘And? What did he say?’

‘He said he just needed some space. He’s tired, and that’s all. He said he’d talk to you when he was ready and it was between the two of you and nothing to do with me. Which is fair enough,’ she added recklessly. ‘I mean, I don’t know what you expected me to say.’

Hannah let out a wail. ‘I told you. You were supposed to make him realise he can’t just walk out like that.’

‘He said he needs some time to think. Maybe you should just give him a bit of space. He’ll come back when he’s ready.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

‘I’m sure he will, Hannah. Why wouldn’t he? I’m sure it’ll work out fine in the end.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Hannah moaned. ‘But what about the children? What happens to them if he doesn’t come back? What happens then?’

‘Then you’ll just have to cope,’ Geraldine replied. She regretted her harsh words as soon as she had spoken. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah, I just don’t know what you expect me to do. I can’t make Jeremy do what you want. I have no influence over him at all. Now I really have to get back to work.’

‘Your precious work,’ Hannah snapped and hung up. Geraldine hesitated, uncertain what she could say to make Hannah feel better. She decided to give her friend time to calm down before calling her back. She pulled a report out of her bag, poured herself another glass of wine, and was just setting to work when the phone rang. With a sigh, Geraldine put down her file and prepared to listen to Hannah.

It was nearly midnight when she was finally able to settle down to her reading. There had to be some indication of intent in Callum Martin’s statements, some slip that might help to crack the case. But if there was, she didn’t find it. They still couldn’t establish who had been driving the car that had run over Maggie Palmer.

Three times.

54

Hospital

Geraldine called in at the hospital on her way to work on Friday morning. The corridor was quiet, apart from an irritating hum from the lights. Geraldine approached the desk and waited until the nurse finished on the phone before showing her warrant card.

The nurse pointed her in the direction of Barker’s room. ‘Just for a minute, Inspector. The doctor said you mustn’t disturb him. In any case, he’s due his medication shortly. The doctor will be doing her rounds soon. You’ve just got time to catch him before she gets here.’

A young constable standing in the corridor opened the door and Geraldine saw that Barker was in a room on his own. One of his eyes was still hidden by bandages that swathed his head. The other was closed.

Geraldine approached the bed. ‘Raymond Barker.’

He gave a faint groan. One bloodshot eye stared up at her with a flicker of recognition. ‘I seen,’ he croaked. His hoarse voice was barely audible. ‘I seen.’ Geraldine took another step forward. A faint whiff of burning mingled with the strong smell of disinfectant. Barker’s pale eye glared watery.

‘You saw who did this?’ she prompted him.

Behind her a nurse entered the room. ‘Doctor’s here on her morning rounds.’

‘No,’ Barker rasped. He tried to move his head and groaned again. ‘I saw.’

‘Time’s up, Inspector,’ the nurse interrupted. ‘Raymond needs his rest.’ She adjusted the drip and his eye closed.

‘I saw,’ he mumbled but his speech was slurred.

‘Who did you see?’ Geraldine asked urgently. ‘Was it Callum Martin?’

‘Inspector,’ the nurse interrupted.

‘Not him,’ Barker whispered. Geraldine leaned over the bed to hear. ‘Not him.’ His lips quivered but he made no sound.

‘Was it a man or a woman you saw?’ The lips didn’t move. ‘Mr Barker, Ray, blink if it was a man.’ He didn’t respond.

The nurse turned to Geraldine and gestured for her to leave the room. ‘The doctor’s on her way.’

‘When will I be able to speak to him again?’

‘That’s for the doctor to decide. Anyway, the patient’s very confused at the moment. You won’t get much sense out of him.’

‘But –’

‘I’m afraid he’s going to be heavily sedated for a few days. He’s not likely to be coherent for a while. Shock, compounded by medication.’

‘How long until I can talk to him again?’

The nurse shrugged. ‘I’m sure the hospital will be in touch.’ She took Geraldine by the arm and ushered her out of the room. In the corridor, the young PC was chatting to a nurse. He stopped talking and straightened up as Geraldine passed.

‘Call me as soon as he wakes up.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

The briefing was about to begin as Geraldine arrived at the station.

Ryder broke off what he was saying and looked expectantly at her. ‘I was just saying you were at the hospital questioning Barker.’

Geraldine looked around the assembled faces. ‘Barker told me he saw his attacker this time,’ she began. The room was hushed. Footsteps echoed along the corridor outside. ‘But that’s about all he did say.’ A barely audible groan seemed to rise from the floor. ‘He was so heavily drugged he could
barely speak. I asked him if it was Callum Martin who attacked him and he denied it. He tried to say something else, but I’m not sure what.’

‘I hope he’ll have something to say about Callum Martin when he’s able to make a statement. In the meantime I’ve arranged frogmen to search the canal near where Cartwright’s glasses were found.’ The DCI paused. It was five days since the old man had disappeared. ‘What about Sophie Cliff?’ Ryder tapped Barker’s picture on the Incident Board as he spoke. ‘Sophie Cliff blames Barker for Thomas Cliff’s death and when we fail to bring him to justice, as she sees it, she takes matters into her own hands and goes after Barker herself.’

‘She’s got an alibi,’ Geraldine reminded them. ‘We’ve had confirmation from every taxi firm and car hire company in the South East. Unless she borrowed a car from someone she knew, there’s no way she could’ve done the journey in time. Not on Saturday or Monday.’

‘What about friends? Could someone have given her a lift? Lent her a car?’

‘We’ve been asking around, her work colleagues, her mother-in-law, local CID have interviewed her parents again. Nothing. But there’s something funny about it, isn’t there? Why did she go to Sandmouth just then?’

‘She probably needed to get away,’ Polly piped up. ‘Perhaps it all got too much for her, losing her husband like that.’

‘Perhaps she hitchhiked?’ Bennett suggested. They were clutching at straws.

‘Too unreliable,’ someone else answered. ‘Not with such a tight schedule. And in any case, no one hitchhikes these days.’

The DCI shook his head. ‘Too many bloody convenient alibis,’ he said, not for the first time. He sounded angry. ‘Forget Sophie Cliff for the moment. She wasn’t involved in the hit and run –’

‘As far as we know,’ Geraldine pointed out.

The DCI ignored the interruption. ‘Is there a connection between the attacks on Barker and Maggie Palmer’s murder?’

‘Someone’s lying,’ Geraldine said.

‘Barker, Martin, Sophie Cliff, they could all be lying, the whole bloody lot of them,’ Peterson added.

‘What about the girlfriend?’ someone asked. ‘She’s a woman.’

‘Just about,’ Bennett interjected.

‘Brenda?’ the DCI frowned. ‘She was there in the house –’

‘She’s a complete fruit cake,’ Peterson took over. ‘If you ask me, she’d be capable of anything. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

‘Let’s talk to her again. If Martin’s trying to cover his tracks, he could well have used Brenda as his accomplice. He kills the market trader who might be able to lead us to them. He attacks Barker on the way home from the pub, and when that fails, he gets Brenda to set fire to the house.’

‘With her in it. She was upstairs when the fire started. If she was responsible, surely even she would have had the sense to leave the house, not go upstairs where she could well have burned to death,’ Geraldine pointed out. ‘We can try talking to her, sir, but it’s almost impossible to get any sense out of her.’

The DCI frowned. ‘OK, you can find out your schedules from the duty sergeant. I don’t need to remind you we need to work fast on this, and we need to be thorough. Someone has made two unsuccessful attempts on Raymond Barker’s life. Whoever it is, they might try again. We’ve got round the clock surveillance on Barker while he’s in hospital, but he’s not going to be there forever. Let’s sort this mess out before he’s discharged.’

No one spoke. They all knew the longer the case dragged on, the less chance they would have of finding Barker’s assailant. And they were looking for someone intent on murder.

PART 5

‘then
must
you
speak
Of
one
that
loved
not
wisely
but
too
well’

Othello
-
William Shakespeare

55

Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon looked very different without its mask of tawdry glamour. Curtains that appeared plush under red lamps showed threadbare in the light of day. The floor was streaked with a grimy concoction of cigarette ash and spilt booze. Small chairs stood in disarray where they had been left in the early hours of the morning beside tables littered with empty bottles and dirty glasses.

‘Don’t they clear up?’ the sergeant asked. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. As if in answer to his question, a hunched woman appeared with a mop and bucket. She set them down with a clatter. Whipping a jay cloth from her overalls, she began scooping empty bottles and cans into a black bin liner, and smearing the tables with her rag.

‘Sod those bloody girls.’ She hobbled over to the bar for a tray. ‘Never clean up their crap. Not my job to clear the glasses.’ She eyed Geraldine and Peterson suspiciously. ‘What’s your game then?’ She turned her back on them without waiting for an answer and busied herself filling the tray with dirty glasses, muttering as she shuffled between the tables.

‘We’re looking for Bronxy,’ Geraldine announced. The cleaner ignored her. Geraldine nodded towards the back of the room. Peterson followed her to the office. Geraldine rapped once and turned the handle. The door opened.

Bronxy was sitting at her desk.

‘We’d like to speak to Callum Martin. We’ll speak to him alone.’

Bronxy smiled. ‘I know, Inspector. You people don’t like witnesses.’

‘Just normal procedure.’

‘When it suits you.’

Geraldine had spent the best part of a day researching Bronxy’s past, looking for something to help them persuade Bronxy to retract the alibi she had given Callum Martin. Reluctantly, Geraldine had admitted defeat. It could take years to penetrate the smokescreen of aliases and false leads.