A Narrow Margin of Error (12 page)

Cold cases were annoying because there was little chance of the status quo changing through sheer momentum. Working a current case, you never knew when the phone might ring with new information coming in from forensics, or the uniforms doing house to house. You had the option of choices: going to the press with an appeal for information, for instance, or maybe staging a reconstruction in the hope of jogging someone’s memory. And you had the added bonus of pressure – both on yourself, and on the perp. Pressure, she knew, was a sometimes badly needed spur to egg on the SIO in charge to up their game. Likewise, it put
pressure
on the guilty. They dreaded the ring of the telephone, and jumped at the peal of the doorbell. Not knowing how the
investigation
was going but fearing the worst very often did a copper’s job for them, so that when you got around to questioning them,
you could tell by the state of their nerves that you were on to a winner.

But there was none of that with a cold case. In a cold case, all sense of urgency and pressure had evaporated. And time had a way of making everyone feel safe. Motivation was never
something
that needed to be cultivated on a current case.

Hillary sighed and closed the murder book with a snap. All she could do was plug on, re-covering old, cold ground, and trying to keep her mind focused.

Her admirer, and the growing absurdity of her situation with regards to her relationship with Steven Crayle, were distractions that she could really do without right now.

She got up, grabbed her bag, and stepped across the corridor. Jimmy was nowhere in sight, but Sam Pickles looked up
hopefully
as she stuck her head through the doorway.

‘Marcie Franks?’ she said, her voice making it a question.

‘Down in the Smoke, guv.’

Hillary sighed. She was not a big fan of London, which
probably
put her in the minority. ‘Does the budget stretch to letting the train take the strain?’

Sam grinned. ‘Doubt it, guv, but I don’t mind driving.’

Hillary smiled grimly. ‘Just as well, Sam,’ she said. ‘Grab your keys.’

Luckily, the rather sci-fi-looking laboratory where Marcie Franks worked as a researcher was on the right side of London for them, so they only got lost twice. The nearest car park gobbled up coins like it was expecting a famine, and even though paying for the privilege, they still had to park at the top of a multi-storey sans roof. Luckily, the weather was still mild and sunny.

‘What exactly does this company of hers – Futech Corps, is it? – do?’ Hillary asked curiously, as they walked to the lifts and rode down in graffiti-decorated elegance.

‘All sorts, guv. Mostly stuff for the beauty industry, whatever that means.’

‘Perfume, face paint and moisturizers, I expect,’ Hillary said. She herself seldom wore perfume and had never yet resorted to anti-wrinkle cream. Come to think of it, she went shopping for make-up about once in a blue moon as well. Whoever paid Marcie Franks’s salary, they certainly didn’t get rich on what Hillary Greene spent on their products.

‘No medical research at all?’ she asked curiously, thinking of the designer drug angle. What had her pal in Narcotics said? Oxford was rife with chemistry and biochemistry graduates coming up with ways to pay their tuition fees?

‘Marcie Franks was reading biochemistry, right?’ she asked.

‘Yes. But she was one of those who did a double degree. She also has a second in chemistry. And later a third degree in
physiological
sciences from Cambridge.’

‘Hmm. Sounds like a bit of a perpetual student to me,’ Hillary mused. ‘Either that, or she had a specific reason for wanting to hang around universities for a while.’

‘Guv?’

‘Never mind. Just thinking out loud. So, apart from moving to London and getting a high-paying job in the beauty industry, just what else has she been up to? Married? Kids?’

‘No. She bought a nice flat in a swanky area though, three years ago, when the prices began to fall. Now they’re starting to rise a bit again, she’s probably sitting on a gold mine.’

‘So she’s financially savvy as well as having brains,’ Hillary mused. ‘The two don’t always go hand in hand,’ she pontificated, as they walked the busy streets of the nation’s capital towards the high-rise modern monstrosity where Futech Corps hung its corporate hat.

Inside, the reception foyer was all glass bricks and modern sculpture, with a large board on one wall listing the businesses within. Futech Corps had the entire fourth floor to itself.

‘Nice,’ Hillary mused a few moments later, as the lift disgorged them into a gold, black and turquoise-accented room. Large posters of beautiful women wearing black lipstick, or glow-
in-the-dark
mascara or whatever, lined the walls. A large vase of white gladioli sat on a reception desk, where another beautiful woman rose to greet them.

She looked politely puzzled.

Hillary held out her ID.

She looked even more puzzled. ‘You have an appointment, Mrs Greene?’

Hillary sighed. ‘We’d like to speak to one of your researchers, Dr Marcie Franks?’

The woman sat back down and tapped a few keys on her keyboard. ‘Doctor Franks is currently working in lab fifteen. I’ll call ahead and let them know to expect you. It may take a little while – I’m not sure what the protocols are for Dr Franks’s work.’

Hillary thanked her and listened to the directions they were given. When they’d turned the first of many corridors, into what would be one of many other corridors, Sam muttered a trifle uneasily, ‘Protocols? You mean like wearing suits with helmets, like spacemen? Doors that have inner doors and vacuum-cleaned what-not? There aren’t any superbugs being grown in here, are there, guv?’

‘I doubt it. Not unless freckle remover has been designated a bio hazard,’ Hillary said sardonically. ‘Relax. They’re more worried about industrial espionage than Ebola in this place, take my word for it.’

Sam grinned, and began to relax.

Even so, Marcie Franks took twenty-five minutes to find them in a small waiting-room where they’d been parked by the guardian of laboratory fifteen, a fifty-something woman who’d been wearing more make-up on her face than Hillary would have applied in a month.

‘Jennifer said you were the police?’ Marcie Franks said, coming into the small, gold-and-white-painted room, decorated with slightly smaller posters of women’s painted nails. She was wearing the requisite white lab coat, over black trousers.

Hillary once again showed her ID.

Marcie Franks was about five feet ten, skinny and had very long brown hair currently tied up and back in a chignon. She had wide, brown, rather bovine eyes and wore not a scrap of
makeup
. She checked both Hillary’s and Sam’s cards thoroughly. ‘So you’re civilians, not actually police officers?’ she clarified sharply.

‘Yes. We work for the Crime Review Team – we take a new look at cold cases.’

‘Ah.’ Marcie took a seat in one of the gold velour-clad chairs. ‘This is about Rowan, then.’

‘Yes.’

‘New evidence has come to light?’

‘I’m afraid I really can’t discuss that, Miss Franks,’ Hillary said.

‘Doctor or Ms.’

‘Ms Franks. What can you tell me about Rowan?’

Marcie Franks glanced at her watch and frowned. ‘You want to do this now? I mean, I’m at work. I thought you were here to make an appointment or something.’

‘We can always do this at Thames Valley Police Station, Ms Franks,’ Hillary said smoothly. ‘I just thought it would make your life easier if we came to you, and made this interview more of a personal chat. But some people prefer to stick to formalities.’

For a moment, Hillary wondered if Ms Franks was going to call her bluff. She was very well aware that she did, in fact, have no powers whatsoever to ask Marcie Franks to go to Kidlington HQ for a formal interview.

‘Well, I can’t be too long,’ the other woman said reluctantly.

‘I could always have a word with your supervisor, Ms Franks, and explain the situation,’ Hillary offered mildly.

A low, dull flush suddenly swept across Marcie Franks’s thin face. ‘I don’t have a supervisor, Mrs Greene,’ she responded stiffly. ‘I’m head of my department.’

Hillary smiled. ‘Perfect. Then you can dictate your own hours?’

Marcie smiled. Or rather, she showed her teeth. ‘
Touché
, Mrs Greene.’ She managed an unconvincing laugh before briskly admitting defeat and finally settling down to business. ‘So,
Rowan. What can I tell you about him? Well, he was an
undiscerning
, randy little shit, to be frank. He got by on charm and luck.’

‘You didn’t like him?’ Hillary said, making it a question.

Marcie sighed. ‘Yes and no. I didn’t not like him. He was
basically
harmless, but he could be very annoying.’

‘He tried to come on to you? Made a pest of himself?’

‘Not likely. He knew it wouldn’t wash with me. But he did … well, pester a friend of mine. A close friend.’

‘His name, please?’

‘Her name was Sally Jenkins,’ Marcie said flatly.

Hillary nodded. ‘You and she were close? This was around the time that Rowan was killed?’

‘Yes. She was reading jurisprudence at St Ed’s. She was going to go into chambers in Cambridge when she’d graduated. Her family heads a firm of solicitors there – has done for generations.’

‘It was serious between you?’

‘We were going to set up home together in Cambridge,’ Marcie admitted, before her eyes narrowed. ‘It didn’t quite work out that way, as it happens,’ she added tightly.

‘Because of Rowan?’

‘Not exactly. But he certainly didn’t help matters.’

‘He pestered her, you said.’

‘Yes.’

‘How exactly?’ Hillary pressed.

‘Oh, you had to know Rowan to understand that. He found us a challenge, you see. Two lesbians, we were a bit like a red rag to a bull. He wanted to ‘see what it was like’ to bed us. Of course, I gave him a flea in his ear,’ – she showed her teeth again – ‘or rather, to be more accurate, a well-placed knee in the groin. So he turned his attention to Sally. She, alas, was more vulnerable,’ she said with a sigh, looking down at her spread hands.

Hillary noticed that her nails had a distinct lack of varnish on them. Whatever they paid her, Dr Franks, or Ms Franks, didn’t seem inclined to spend her salary on the company products.

‘Vulnerable? In what way?’ Hillary asked, pricking up her ears.

‘She was more conventional. Her family sort-of knew about her leanings, but were hoping she’d grow out of it – like it was some sort of phase she was going through. And Sally wanted to please them, obviously.’ Marcie Franks gave another unconvincing laugh. ‘Don’t get me wrong – we were happy together, but I was always aware that she found it much harder to cope with the lifestyle than I did. If anyone ever gave me grief, I simply gave it right back to them in spades,’ Marcie said, her voice as hard as the nails on the posters around them now. ‘But Sally felt each and every slur and took the prejudice personally. It made life for her very difficult and much harder than it needed to be.’

‘She was thin-skinned, in fact?’ Hillary said quietly.

‘Yes. And Rowan didn’t help matters any – always playing on that and trying to undermine her. Sally hadn’t really had a boyfriend before, and Rowan kept promising her that it was better with men, that he’d show her, and all that guff. And of course, Sally wanted to believe it. Like her parents, I think she was half-hoping he might ‘cure’ her.’

Hillary nodded. There wasn’t really any delicate way to ask what she had to ask next, so she simply got it over with.

‘And did she sleep with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Marcie admitted frankly. ‘I don’t think she did. But it made things between us tense, as you can imagine. In the end, she couldn’t even visit me at Ma Landau’s without Rowan trying on the charm. So I always had to go to her digs. She had housemates who were very carefully politically correct about our relationship, which in some ways was even more trying than
out-and-out
gay bashing.’

‘Not a very good environment for romance, then,’ Hillary said drily.

This time, Marcie’s smile was a little more sincere. ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t ideal.’

Now Hillary could make sense of Marcie Franks’s rather
overachieving
academic career. After graduating from Oxford, she’d
gone to Cambridge more as a way to follow her love, than to do another degree – which had probably turned out to be an
unnecessary
one.

Had it been worthwhile? Or had Sally Jenkins’s parents tried to put a stop to their relationship? Or had Sally herself decided to call it quits?

‘Are you still together?’

‘Hardly. I’ve been living with my partner Jane Dailey for nearly five years now. She’s an interior designer.’

‘It sounds to me like you had a reason for wanting to see Rowan Thompson dead, Ms Franks. And I know from reading the original notes that you never mentioned any of this to DI Gorman – the inspector in charge of the case at the time.’

‘I wouldn’t have told that insensitive clod anything,’ Marcie Franks shot back defensively, another dull, ugly flush suffusing her face. ‘And I’d hardly call that sufficient grounds for murder, Mrs Greene. Rowan was a nuisance and a pest, but that’s all.’

Hillary let that hang in the air for a moment, then decided to let it pass.

‘What can you remember about the morning Rowan died?’

‘I met Darla on the stairs that morning, and we had a quick word. I think Barry Hargreaves came down and left around the same time. As far as I knew, Rowan was still in bed. He always was a late riser. Both he and Dwayne were lazy sods. I went to my college, did some last-minute work, did a bit of shopping, and was, I think, the last one back at the house. By which point, the police were there. And before you ask, no, I didn’t see anyone suspicious hanging around; no, I never knew of any enemies Rowan might have had, and no, I don’t know who killed him.’

Hillary showed her own teeth. ‘Thank you for your time, Ms Franks. We may need to speak to you again.’