A Narrow Margin of Error (21 page)

‘It’s possible that she did,’ Hillary pointed out. ‘If she broke it off with the boss, he’d hardly be likely to give her much of a
reference
. I take it she never gave notice, just like Judith?’

‘No,’ Steven confirmed heavily. ‘Nor did she collect the salary due to her. I’ve got Handley trying to find any trace of her, and I’ve asked him to try and cover the areas you couldn’t manage on your own on the Judith Yelland case. He’s promised a report as soon as he can. In the meantime—’

‘We wait,’ Hillary said heavily. ‘If Meg Vickary has started again somewhere else, we’ll find out about it.’

‘I’m going to have to get a case file and preliminary review together and take it to Donleavy some time today. Tomorrow at the latest,’ Steven pointed out.

‘I know. If I ask him to let us have a shot at it – after all, the MisPers are cold cases – will you back me up?’ she asked him quietly.

Steven looked at her in silence for a moment, at war with himself. On the one hand, it was shaping up to be a juicy case. Two missing women, maybe murder victims, and who knew how many more might be in the offing? Solving a serial killing that nobody even knew existed, and a cold-case one at that, was the sort of result that got officers noticed. And promoted.

On the other hand, the thought of Hillary actively turning the tables on her stalker by pursuing him as an on-going case, and putting herself in the firing line in the process, made him break out in a cold sweat.

‘I don’t want anything to happen to you,’ he said.

Hillary smiled. ‘That’s not an answer.’

Steven smiled back. ‘No, it’s not, is it?’ He tapped his fingers on the table top and thought for a while. Then he nodded. ‘I’ll back you up, as long as it’s clear I’m SIO and we get more bodies on the ground to cover your arse.’ He gave her a suddenly wicked smile. ‘It’s such a delightfully shaped arse, I don’t suppose we’ll go short of volunteers. Mind you, Donleavy almost certainly won’t go for it, so don’t get your hopes up.’

Hillary nodded. The commander certainly wouldn’t like it, she knew. ‘You leave Donleavy to me,’ she said flatly.

‘What are you going to do?’ Steven asked, intrigued. He’d never quite understood the nature of the relationship that
obviously
existed between Donleavy and Hillary.

Hillary glanced at her watch.

‘Well, right now, I’m going to review the Thompson file and go and interview more witnesses.’

Steven took the hint and gave a wry smile. ‘OK. Keep me posted – on everything.’

‘I will,’ she promised.

She made herself a mug of coffee from his private stash, and kissed him hard and quick on the lips before she left. He looked satisfactorily both stunned and gratified by the unexpected assault.

Back in her office, she dragged her mind away from wooden crosses and forced herself to concentrate on the dead student.

On re-reading the murder book, she decided the Dwayne Cox situation could do with a second airing. She’d sensed at the time that something had been a little off about the good doctor. And since she had nothing better to do, she might as well rattle his cage and see what happened.

In the office, Jimmy looked at her a shade guiltily. He knew by now that she’d been told about his behind-her-back surveillance operation, and she smiled a ‘hello’ at him to show that there were no hard feelings.

With resignation her eyes alighted on Vivienne, who was sitting at her desk, of all things, actually buffing her nails. In all her years on the job, Hillary had never actually caught any female officer doing that particular chore.

‘Vivienne, if I can tear you away from your work, would you like to pull the names of some of Dwayne Cox’s ex-girlfriends, and we’ll go and have a chat with them?’

Vivienne sighed and complied. Since hearing about the rumours about Hillary Greene and Steven Crayle, Hillary was definitely not her favourite person. She simply couldn’t
understand
what the sexy super saw in Hillary. I mean, she had to be years older than him. Ugh!

Still, Hillary was her boss. So, with a few taps of her
immaculately
manicured nails on the keyboard, she managed to find two women who were still currently resident in Oxford.

‘They’ll do,’ Hillary said, smiling as Vivienne shot her a dirty look.

A
ngela Pryce worked in a branch of a nationwide branded coffee shop in Summertown. She was a tall, stick-thin brunette, dressed in dark-brown slacks, and wore a T-shirt bearing the coffee shop’s logo. According to what little they knew of her, she’d never married, never run foul of the law, and was
cohabitant
with a man called Nathan Farrow, who worked in a car plant in Cowley.

Hillary and Vivienne took a corner table out of the way, with a pair of high stools settled around it, and after a quick perusal of the long list of drink options on the menu, decided on simple lattes.

Of the three waitresses and one waiter, the ex-girlfriend of Dwayne Cox was easy to spot. She had dyed red streaks into her long hair, and wore a multitude of gold chains around her
somewhat
scrawny neck. Although she could only be in her early thirties, Hillary, if she’d had to guess, would have put her closer to her forties. She had that tired, washed out, world-weary look of the middle-aged, but then Hillary wasn’t altogether surprised. She doubted that the woman was working what amounted to a dead-end and busy job in the café for fun.

Just as she was thinking this, the pseudo-redhead spotted them and walked over.

‘Miss Pryce?’ Hillary asked. The waitress looked surprised, as well she might, since she wasn’t wearing a name-tag on her
T-shirt
, and she obviously didn’t know Hillary from Adam. Or Eve.

‘Angie. What can I get you?’ She probably asked the question automatically, and Hillary wondered if she did it in her sleep.

Hillary gave their orders, then showed her ID. Angela Pryce looked at first surprised and then wary.

‘What’s the CRT, then?’ she asked, casting a quick look back towards the counter, obviously hoping that her boss hadn’t seen the flash of the official ID.

‘We work cold cases. We’re currently taking another look at the Rowan Thompson murder. You were seeing a housemate of his around that time – Dwayne Cox?’

Angie’s slightly worried look instantly cleared. ‘Oh, yeah. Dwayne. Right. Gorky name, I always thought. Now there’s a blast from the past, all right. But, come on, you don’t think Dwayne did it, do you?’ she half-laughed, half-frowned. ‘’Cause that’s giving me the creeps, I can tell you.’

‘It’s just routine, Miss Pryce,’ Hillary assured her, somewhat less than truthfully.

‘Call me Angie. Hang on, let me get your orders, or I’ll get it in the neck from Phil. I’ll be back in a sec.’

Before Hillary could warn her that she’d need a few minutes of her time, she was gone. Beside her, Vivienne glanced around and cast the waiter a quick look. The lad looked to be in his late teens, early twenties, Hillary noted, and was a typical student trying to stretch the student loan by doing some part-time work. And although he was fairly good-looking, and caught Vivienne’s scrutiny and returned it with an interested smile of his own, Hillary could see that the younger girl wasn’t interested.

‘Not your type, huh?’ she asked, trying to be friendly, when Vivienne turned a cold shoulder his way.

‘Not really. Besides, I’ve started seeing someone,’ Vivienne acknowledged flatly.

Hillary smiled encouragingly. At least she’d stopped mooning over Steven, which would please him. ‘Oh? Someone nice?’ she fished.

‘On the job,’ Vivienne said, feeling pleased at being able to use
some jargon at last. She’d heard someone say that on an American cop show recently, and was glad she’d remembered it. ‘He’s really buff, actually. Got muscles out to here,’ she said, making a graphic gesture with her hands.

Hillary nodded, not really interested. Just then, Angie came back with their coffees.

‘So, what can you tell me about Dwayne?’ Hillary asked quickly, before she could just deposit them on the table and skedaddle.

‘Oh, he was all right. Bit full of himself, but then, a lot of them are. They get into Oxford and think they’re it.’ Angie shrugged one thin shoulder, and glanced across towards the counter again. But her boss was busy taking money from a large family of Japanese tourists, and wasn’t paying his staff much attention yet.

‘I’m surprised you went out with him, then, if that’s how you feel about it,’ Hillary said drily.

Angie grinned. ‘Yeah, well, I was younger and a lot more stupid then, wasn’t I? Besides, Dwayne was good-looking. You seen him recently? What’s he doing? Please tell me he’s gone to seed and is working in Tesco’s.’

Hillary grinned back. ‘Sorry, he’s working as a therapist in a posh clinic and is as handsome and smooth as ever.’

Angie grimaced and sighed. ‘I thought as much. Wish I could have kept a hold of him, but it was never on the cards. We went about together for a month or so, then he went on to someone younger and prettier. But that was Dwayne,’ she finished on a philosophical note.

‘Did you ever meet Rowan, the boy who was murdered?’ Hillary went on hopefully.

‘Might have done. I remember reading about it – but Dwayne and I had finished by then, so probably not.’

‘So you don’t know how Dwayne took it?’ Hillary asked
regretfully
.

‘Nope. But knowing Dwayne, I don’t suppose it did any lasting damage.’ Then, catching her raised-eyebrow look, smiled grimly.
‘I sound like a right sour bitch, don’t I? And, to be fair, I think he was genuinely a mate of his. Dwayne always talked about him like they got on well, and all that. But, honestly, Dwayne was all about number one. He was determined to get a good degree, a good job, and a rich wife, in that order. He had, like, this life plan, and that was all that mattered to him.’

‘He was ambitious?’ Hillary clarified. Yes, that tallied with her memories of the slick operator she’d met at the clinic.

‘Oh, yeah. Desperate for the good life, like the rest of us,’ Angela confirmed with a snort. ‘His mum and dad were only ordinary, like mine. But he was always determined to hang out with those who had money or class. And he liked to buy the best, no matter what it was. Food, clothes, the latest gadget. I suppose he felt he needed it, if he was going around with the sons of
newspaper
magnates and the other blue-nosed lot.’

Hillary nodded. ‘And did he fit in with them? The elite, I mean?’

Angela smiled, somewhat whimsically. ‘Oh, yeah. Funny thing, really, but he fitted in like he’d been born to it. That is, whenever we’d come across them, you know, the “in crowd”,’ here Angela made little comma movements with her hooked fingers, ‘they’d always be pleased to see him. I could tell by their posh accents that they were well up there, and I half-expected them to look down their posh noses at us. But they never did. They always invited us to join them, and seemed to be glad Dwayne was there.’

Hillary nodded thoughtfully. Yes. And she had a good idea why. ‘He took you to some nice places? He always had plenty of money, I suppose?’ she asked craftily.

‘Dwayne was always loaded. Not that he took me to Claridges or anything.’ Angie laughed. ‘In fact, we met some of the poshest people in the biggest dives. You know, how the well-off like to slum it?’

Hillary did.

‘It always made me mad, that. Here I was, genuinely as poor as
mouse droppings, and I wanted to go to the good places and live it up. And there they were, money to burn, and they wanted to hang out in dives. Stupid, if you ask me.’

Hillary smiled. ‘Human nature, I’m afraid. The grass is always greener, and all that.’

‘Yeah, I suppose. Look, I’ve gotta get back to work,’ Angie said, noticing that the man who’d finished serving behind the counter was now staring at them.

‘OK, Angie, thanks,’ Hillary said, and took a sip of her coffee. The waitress nodded and resumed waiting on the other tables.

‘So, what do you make of that?’ Hillary asked Vivienne, who shrugged.

‘It seemed like a waste of time to me,’ Vivienne said grumpily. ‘She never even met the murder victim.’

‘But what she had to say about Dwayne was suggestive, wasn’t it?’ Hillary pressed, urging the girl to think.

‘I dunno. She didn’t like it that she was just a short-term fling. But then, if this Dwayne guy was good-looking and out to make a name for himself, she’s hardly the sort of girl he’d hook himself permanently to, is she?’ Vivienne said scornfully, giving Angie Pryce a dismissive glance.

Hillary sighed.

‘She told us that Dwayne always seemed to have money,’ she pointed out patiently. ‘Now, think about it. If you’re going to join the service, you have to cultivate a questioning mind. Never believe anything you’re told unless you can confirm it to your own satisfaction. And always ask the who, how, when and why of it. Take this interview, for instance. How could a student, bogged down by loans, and coming from a strictly working-class background, always be loaded with money?’

Vivienne looked up over her coffee and thought about it
reluctantly
.

‘Either he was having it off with ugly women for cash, or it was drugs, I suppose.’

Hillary nodded and smiled. ‘OK. It’s possible Dwayne was a
male pro – he had the looks for it – but given the fact that Angie told us that the posh people always seemed glad to see him, and accepted him willingly into their golden circle…. What does that say?’

‘That he was more likely their drug supplier,’ Vivienne said promptly. ‘Big deal. I expect there’s always plenty of them around Oxford.’

‘Yes,’ Hillary agreed, fighting back the urge to take the surly girl by the shoulders and shake some of the apathy out of her. ‘But our murder victim Rowan had traces of an unspecified drug in his system when he died. And Dwayne Cox was one of his housemates.’

‘But even if Dwayne did keep Rowan supplied with a high whenever he wanted one, he didn’t die of a drugs overdose, did he?’ Vivienne pointed out in triumph.

‘No. But it might yet be relevant. Suppose they had a falling out and Rowan threatened to shop Dwayne to the cops?’

‘That would be a motive, all right,’ Vivienne conceded. She took a sip of her coffee as Hillary withdrew her mobile from her bag. ‘Who’re you calling?’ she asked, showing some genuine interest at last.

‘I have a pal in Narcotics. He asked me to keep him informed if I came across anything he could use,’ Hillary explained.

‘But that was all years ago,’ Vivienne protested. ‘I told you, when I first contacted the Drugs Squad, they told me it was nothing doing. It was all too long ago and vague for them to give a rat’s arse.’

Hillary sighed again and began to press the digits. ‘Think about it, Vivienne: where does Dwayne Cox work now?’

‘Some fancy clinic. A relaxation place, or some such, for rich twits who want to chill out— Oh,’ she added, in sudden realization.

‘Exactly,’ Hillary said succinctly. ‘He’s a doctor, with an eye to the main chance, who likes to make money, and one, moreover, who has regular access to a stream of rich people who want to “chill out”.’

‘You think he’s a Dr Feelgood?’ Vivienne said, nodding her head and stirring some more sugar into her coffee.

‘Almost certainly. Once a drug pusher, always a drug pusher.’ Hillary offered the maxim for what it was worth. Which, in Vivienne’s case, probably wasn’t much.

She keyed in the number of her mate and listened to the phone connect. When he answered, she gave him a brief, quiet update on what she had, careful not to be overheard in the busy shop. Vivienne half-listened and half-watched the waiter who was giving her some more interested smiles.

He was all right, Vivienne supposed, but he was hardly in Tom’s class.

When she’d first met Tom she’d been impressed by his pecs, but little else. He wasn’t as old as she liked her men, or as powerful. He was certainly no Steven Crayle, for instance. He lacked the super’s stunning good looks and polish.

But since that initial meeting in the cafeteria he’d taken her out once or twice, and he’d sort-of grown on her. He wasn’t so young that he was daft, like a lot of the uniforms his age. And his green eyes were really sexy as hell. Funnily enough, he hadn’t seriously come on to her yet. Not that she’d mind getting more up close and personal, but it was up to him to make the first move.

And the fact that he hadn’t done so yet was beginning to intrigue her. Was it possible, in this day and age, that he was a gentleman? That he was a genuine romantic, who wanted to do things the old-fashioned way? If so, he was the first one Vivienne had ever come across.

With some reluctance, Vivienne turned her attention back to what her boss was doing.

‘So if you keep an eye on the clinic, and trace his source, you could get a nice little coup out of it,’ Hillary was saying. ‘And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a Dr Marcie Franks wasn’t involved in it somewhere. I have an idea she was probably his fixer when he was up at Oxford. … What? … Yes, a biochemist. And I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t have continued their trade
once they’d both graduated. A quick background check on her finances will soon tell you whether or not she’s living above her means.’

Hillary smiled at something the other guy said, and Vivienne drained her mug. She still couldn’t for the life of her see what Steven Crayle saw in Hillary Greene. Not when he could have had her. She was years younger, and much hotter.

Still, he’d lost his chance. She wasn’t the sort to hang around and pine forever. Somehow she’d have to invite Tom down to the office and show him off. Make Steven understand he was not the only fish in the sea. Who knew, if he got jealous enough, she might even give him a second chance.

After all, this fling he was having with wrinkly Hillary couldn’t last for long, could it?

‘And I’m sure your guv’nor would be well pleased shutting up operations on a swanky outfit like that place,’ Hillary was still chatting into the phone. ‘I don’t know a copper alive who doesn’t like to see the complacent middle classes come a cropper. You’ll be on his Christmas card list for a couple of years at least.’ Hillary laughed, listened some more, said, ‘No trouble. Don’t forget, you owe me,’ and hung up.

Then the younger girl felt Hillary’s sherry-coloured eyes on her and felt herself instinctively sit up a bit straighter and pay
attention
. ‘You’ll discover that it pays to give out and call in favours from as many friends and sources within the service as you can find,’ she said. ‘It’s how the system works. And remember, you’re here to take the villains down. Whether you do it yourself, or can help out a mate to do it, it makes no difference in the end.’