Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (44 page)

Time was passing. And the murder was not solved.

‘It is of course possible that your scrap of cloth didn’t come from the killer at all,’ Terry said, after a while. ‘It could have come from the Crockey Hill farmer, or one of his workers.’

‘We could have checked, and eliminated them,’ Jane said. ‘This way, we just don’t know.’

‘No. Well, the only thing to do is plug on with what we do know, that’s all.’

They had checked everything obvious. The house had been extensively fingerprinted and searched for suspicious fibres and DNA, without significant result, so far. The pathologist’s report on the body was complete and it had been released for burial. Alison Grey’s neighbours had all been interviewed. Her computer had been analysed and her emails read. All her email correspondents had been contacted, as had her family and friends who attended her funeral. And her phone bills had been checked. This, to Terry, was the other promising line of enquiry.

‘Whoever killed her, took her mobile,’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Why, we don’t know. But she had it earlier that day. We know that, because she rang this number.’

‘The one T-mobile say they can’t trace?’

‘Yes, because it’s a pay-as-you go phone. No name, no account, no way of tracing who it belongs to. I’ve tried ringing it, but it’s always switched off.’

‘Perhaps he took it, and then dumped it in a ditch somewhere,’ Jane suggested.

‘Quite possibly. But the question is, who was she ringing?’ He pulled a sheaf of papers from a file. They were Alison Grey’s mobile phone accounts. Down each page, one number was highlighted in yellow. ‘It’s the only number that’s unaccounted for,’ Terry said. ‘She rang or texted it, or it rang her, thirty-six times in the last three months. Sometimes two or three times a day, other times not for a week.’ He got up and walked to the display board, where a map was festooned with coloured pins. ‘And whoever he is, this phantom caller, he gets about. Assuming it’s a he, which I do.’

‘What about the texts? Haven’t they retrieved them yet? That should tell us something.’

‘No. They’re working on it, they say. Some sort of glitch on the server, apparently. So in the meantime all they can tell us is where the calls were made from.’ He tapped his hand against the map. ‘Quite a few - including the last one - from York, several from Pocklington, three from Scarborough, and a scattering all over the country. A couple from London, and one from Cambridge as well. What does that tell us?’

‘A travelling salesman, maybe?’ Jane suggested.

‘Yes, but selling what? Schoolbooks, computer paper? That’s about all this woman needed.’

‘She probably wasn’t buying anything from him, if he was her lover,’ Jane said. ‘You think that’s who it was, don’t you, sir?’

‘Yes. The lad in the big black car - the one that might have been an Audi, a BMW, a Mercedes, or any combination of the three. How I wish we had a nosy neighbour in this case. These people in Crockey Hill didn’t see anything.’

‘The curious thing,’ Jane said slowly. ‘Is that he had a big posh car like that, and then used a cheap pay-as-you-go-phone.’ She smiled. ‘You’re a man, sir, why do you think he did that?’

‘Probably so that calls from her wouldn’t show up on his normal phone bill. So his wife wouldn’t find them and ask questions, most likely.’ Terry grunted. ‘Not my problem, sergeant, as you well know. The only man who definitely did visit her is her landlord, Michael Parker. But he’s got an alibi for the night she died. He was in Scarborough, working with builders on a barn conversion project. I’ve been out to check. They confirm it.’

‘What, he was with them all night, was he, sir?’

‘Until nearly ten, yes, I checked. There was some sort of crisis on with the barn. They had a big pow-wow - electricians, plumbers, builders, the whole team. Then he went into town with his foreman for fish and chips. They ate it on the beach and he drove home about eleven, the man says.’

‘That pretty much lets him off, then doesn’t it? He couldn’t have been back in York before what - quarter to twelve at the earliest. What did the pathologist say about the time of death?’

‘Anywhere between eight in the evening and one in the morning, he thought. She couldn’t be more precise than that. So it’s not impossible. He could have driven to her house on the way home.’

‘And killed her there, after a long day at work? It’s not likely, sir, is it? Most men would drive home to bed.’

‘Most men don’t murder their mistresses.’

Jane met Terry’s eyes dispassionately. He looked stubborn, she thought, excited, with a slight flush on his face as though he knew what he was saying was unlikely but was determined to pursue it nonetheless. But then perhaps that was what she saw in his face because that was her opinion about him already. He was convinced Alison had been murdered by her lover, even though, in Jane’s view, most of the evidence pointed the other way.

‘We don’t know she was his mistress,’ she said neutrally. ‘That phone number, it might belong to someone else. It’s not his mobile, is it, so far as we know?’

‘No. I checked with his secretary and the builders. He has a mobile with a different number. It doesn’t crop up on Alison’s phone bill.’

‘There you are then. If the prepaid phone did belong to her mystery lover, it wasn’t him. It belonged to another guy.’

‘Someone who didn’t leave any fingerprints or DNA in her house,’ Terry said stubbornly. ‘Michael Parker’s are all over it.’

‘It’s his house - he’s the landlord. Anyhow, there are six other fingerprints we haven’t identified. Any one of them could be the lad who owns this phone.’ Jane shook her head. ‘You may be right sir, it
could
be him. All I’m saying is we’d be straining the evidence to breaking point to say it was. And we have two other suspects we have to eliminate first. Peter Barton, and the driver of the red Nissan. Unless they’re the same person. Either way, that scrap of cloth would have helped us find out.’

Jane leafed through a pile of papers on her desk and pulled out a two page report. ‘Anyway, sir, look at this. I’ve had the forensic report on the burnt out Nissan they found in Leeds. It was a red Primera, like I told you, and the dates all fit. It was found smouldering on Saturday 3rd December, the same day we found Alison’s body, remember, and it was probably stolen a couple of days before. Most of it was just a heap of ash, but I asked FSS to examine any traces of mud they could find, especially under the wheel arches, and compare it with a sample from the gateway in Crockey Hill. The mud was pretty deep there, so I thought it was worth a try.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘They found some, yes. Pretty well-cooked mud, but mud all the same. They don’t say it’s a perfect match - I guess that would be too much to ask - but they did find strong similarities. There’s a list here, look, on page two. Their conclusion is that the mud found on the vehicle is entirely consistent with the sample from the gateway. So ...’ She passed him the report triumphantly. ‘Put that together with the dates, and the fact that the first two letters of the number plate are XB, which is all the farmer could remember, and I think we’ve found our vehicle.’

Terry skimmed the report, then looked up. ‘We’ve found a vehicle that
could
be the one the farmer saw, ok. But how far does that take us? Who’s to say it wasn’t nicked by a couple of joyriders who fancied a trip to York that evening? And who never went nearer the house than a couple of hundred yards across a field?’

‘There were wisps of straw in the hall. Which could have come from the carrot field.’

‘Or from our constables, blundering in through the window. If you’d found wisps of straw in the car, now ...’

‘They were burnt. Obviously.’

‘If they were there in the first place.’ Terry handed the report back to Jane. ‘Good try, sergeant. It may mean something, it may not. What we do know is that Peter Barton doesn’t drive and apparently shows no interest in cars ...’

‘That could always change, sir.’

‘Unlikely, if he’s shown no interest so far. And it seems equally unlikely that Alison Grey’s lover was in the habit of nicking clapped out Primeras in order to pay her a visit. Though if the Primera driver did kill her, that would be a good reason for torching it, I agree.’

‘So we’re not much further forward, that’s what you’re saying?’

‘Looks like it.’ Terry strolled across the room, drumming his fingers on the pinboard with the fading photos of the crime scene. ‘What we do know is she was murdered, in a particularly bizarre fashion, by someone who seems to have wanted it to look like suicide ...’

‘Or wanted to humiliate her ...’

‘Or possibly both, yes. Which would suggest that her killer knew her.’

‘Unless he was a misogynistic pervert like Peter Barton. A twisted maniac who hated all women, and who’d tried to attack several already.’

Terry sighed. ‘We also know that she had a boyfriend. Someone she phoned and texted regularly on a prepaid phone, who probably used her shower, and those condoms we found in her bedroom.’

‘So if he was her boyfriend, why would he suddenly kill her? In such a weird sadistic way - beating her with a cane while she hangs in front of the mirror?’

‘That can’t be how it happened,’ Terry said. ‘Think of the scene in the hall. If she was hanged facing the mirror as you say, she’d have had her back to the staircase. And her hands taped behind her as well. He couldn’t have whipped her there.’

‘So what? You’re saying he whipped her earlier? Or when she was dead?’

‘Not when she was dead. The blood would have stopped flowing, the bruises wouldn’t have come out.’

Jane thought about this for a moment. ‘But remember, the pathologist said she’d just had a bath; that’s why she was so clean. And naked too. So, if he didn’t undress her, because she’d just got out of the bath, and those marks on her buttocks weren’t inflicted when she was hanging there in the hall, then ...’

‘Maybe she was caned earlier in the evening,’ Terry said. ‘Then she got in the bath, to comfort herself perhaps, and he hanged her afterwards.’

‘The same guy? He lets her have a bath, then hangs her? Why?’

‘I don’t know why. Maybe he had a rush of temper, maybe he planned to kill her all along. I’m just saying this is how it could have happened.’

Jane shook her head, decisively. ‘No. I mean, surely if that happened, you’d think the woman would be anxious, wouldn’t you? If her lover was planning to kill her - and this doesn’t look like a spontaneous killing, does it, it’s too weird for that - then surely she’d pick up some vibes. She’d be worried, nervous, especially if he’d whipped her already. I can’t see her feeling relaxed enough to lie in a bubble bath while he was prowling around outside. He’d have to be a really smooth, two-faced bastard to persuade her to do that, wouldn’t he?’

‘Which is why we should find him, soon,’ Terry said. ‘Before he finds some other woman, and treats her the same way.’

48. Student Memories

S
ARAH’S WORK as a barrister alternated between periods of extreme pressure and relative idleness. When her fraud trial was over, she found herself dealing with a succession of bail applications and petty thefts, which took little effort and less time. Leaving court at lunchtime one Friday, she rang Michael to suggest they eat in her house that night.

‘I’ll cook,’ she said. ‘It’s about time I returned the favour. All you have to do is come over on time, before it’s burnt to a frazzle.’

He laughed. ‘That’s an order then, is it, Mrs Newby? Seven sharp, on pain of death?’

‘Yes, it is. This is a one time offer, you understand. My meals are a rarity, not to be missed.’

‘I’ll be there. I wouldn’t dare disobey.’

‘If you do, you’ll regret it.’

She clicked off the phone, smiling at their banter. She wondered if he - and she - would regret it anyway, whenever he arrived. She was no great shakes as a cook, and had a theory that the ingredients of most meals burnt themselves or remained raw on purpose, just to show up her incompetence. Well, things would have to go better today. She’d ride to Sainsbury’s on her way home, take what she needed in the pannier bags. She had time, and for once in her life she actually felt like cooking. Perhaps this relationship with Michael would last after all.

The meal - coq au vin - was not difficult but Sarah was determined to get it right. Michael was a gourmet, she knew. She’d seen enough of his behaviour in restaurants to know how critical he was, and she remembered how upset he’d been about his own failed soufflé. She doubted he’d be rude to her if she got it wrong, but she was hoping for praise, not politeness. In the kitchen, however, she had a crisis of confidence. She’d cooked this before, but never without a recipe book propped reassuringly in front of her.

All her own cookbooks were in storage. Anxiously, she hunted around on the shelves and in the cupboards. Surely Michael must have cookbooks too? She’d seen him with one in his hand, hadn’t she? But there were none in the kitchen - just clean cupboards, pristine surfaces, tidy shelves. No books.

So where did he keep them? In the windmill, perhaps. But that was locked and he wasn’t at home. She crossed the hallway to the room he’d used as a study. It was a moderately large room, still cluttered with much of his stuff. There was an old desk too big to fit in the windmill, a battered filing cabinet, an old leather armchair, and bookshelves all along two walls, from floor to ceiling. She’d only been in here a couple of times. It was the only part of her house he’d kept for himself; his inner sanctum, as he’d once referred to it, and it certainly looked like that - a traditional man’s study, with drab colours, subdued lighting, and a decanter of whisky with cut-class tumblers on the end of one shelf. But he did use it; a set of architect’s drawings were spread over the litter of papers on the desk, and the waste basket was full. Some of the books, with leather bindings, looked as if they’d been bought by the yard for effect, but there were paperbacks too, magazines about building, and two shelves of books about property law and surveying which looked well used.

Sarah started hunting for cookbooks. At first she couldn’t see any, then she saw one on a shelf behind a chair stacked with files and papers. She pulled it out, but it was vegetarian cooking, not what she needed. There were several others nearby, untidily jumbled together. As she pulled out a book on French country cooking, a looseleaf file slid to the floor by her feet. She checked the book’s index, found coq au vin, and tucked it under her arm. Then she bent down for the file, which had fallen open by her feet. She glanced at it briefly as she picked it up. It seemed to be full of newspaper cuttings, some loose, some in plastic pockets. She was about to close it when she saw a name she recognized.