Chimera (14 page)

Kate picked it up with gloved fingers and took it back through to Olbeck.

“Look at this.”

He glanced at it and then back at Kate, enquiringly.

“It’s probably nothing,” said Kate “But Jacob Arlen gave me a card for this company when I asked him where I could find his cleaner. She’s someone we still need a statement from.”

“Right,” said Olbeck, not sounding very convinced. “It probably is nothing, like you say.”

“I know, but I’d like to look into it, just in case. If the Arlens and Julian Fellowes shared a cleaner, then that’s a link between the two cases.”

“Fine with me.” Olbeck’s attention was clearly elsewhere. “I’m trying to find out what’s missing. This looks like a guy who was interested in gadgets, right? I can’t see anything around here that looks expensive, except for the TV. Let me talk to that neighbour…”

Muttering to himself, he left the room. Kate could have told him he was too late – several minutes ago she’d looked out the window and seen a white-faced middle-aged woman being shepherded into a patrol car - but she let him go. Kate’s eyes went to the dining room table. Several empty glasses there… she looked back at the pathetic chubby corpse of Adrian Fellows and thought back to the first person she’d seen at the station wanting to report a robbery, that sad little man who’d changed his mind and scurried off. Who was out there, targeting lonely single men? Was there really any connection to the overdose deaths that had been occurring, or was that just something that Kate’s mind was insisting was the case? Kate rubbed her eyes. After the emotional turmoil of the last few days, it was difficult to stay focused on work. She was exhausted. I really do need a holiday, she thought, and vowed that on the completion or winding down of these cases, she would book one immediately. Somewhere hot and sunny and vacuous, where Kate would have to do nothing more taxing than lie on a sun lounger and drink mocktails.

Cheered by the thought, she went to find Olbeck. He was in the one of the bedrooms upstairs, conferring with one of the uniformed officers, who turned out to be Sergeant Bill Osbourne. Bill raised a large, hairy hand in greeting when he saw Kate approaching.

“Bill’s just been telling me that everything valuable is gone,” Olbeck said as Kate joined them. “Everything valuable that you could carry away by hand.”

“So you think they came on foot?” asked Kate.

Olbeck nodded. “Would fit in with our theory that whoever these people are, they’re meeting up with their victims for an ostensibly social purpose.”

Kate raised her eyebrows. “Like a date?”

“Mmm. Might be a ‘chance’ meeting though, if they’re targeting men they think would be likely to invite them home.” Olbeck made speech marks in the air with his forefingers.

Kate tried to force her tired brain to think. “I suppose we should see if this Fellowes was on any dating sites, then. Might be a lead there.”

“You’ll have a job, lass,” rumbled Bill Osbourne. “They’ve taken his laptop, iPad and tablet.”

“I’ll put the analysts onto it,” said Kate, undaunted. “They might be able to find something.”

“Okay, good start,” said Olbeck. “We’ll have the PM results in the next few days which should give us more to go on.”

Kate remembered something. She caught Bill Osbourne’s arm. “Bill, have the pathology labs been in touch with you about your case – those two dead drug addicts – Pete and Wayne Thingy?”

Osbourne frowned. “Not that I’m aware. Why?”

Quickly Kate explained, with Olbeck chipping in. Bill Osbourne’s phlegmatic face was incapable of showing extreme emotion but he did look unsettled. “Now, there’s a thing,” he said, once they’d finished. “Contaminated heroin, eh? Nasty.”

Kate warned him not to mention it to anyone else. “There’ll be a press conference about it any time now, once the info’s been primed for the media. But I—” she glanced at Olbeck, “I mean,
we
wondered whether you’d had any more overdoses since we’ve seen you last?”

Osbourne frowned again, thinking. “Aye. Aye, we have had one, actually. Totally non-suspicious, another known addict. Last week.”

Kate opened her mouth to ask and then shut it again, looking again at Olbeck. He was her superior, after all.

He caught the glance and acknowledged it with a tilt of his head. “Could you send me the PM report and anything else you’ve got on it, Bill? We’ll get the labs to run those specific tests to see if it’s connected. It’ll all help with making a case against whoever is distributing this batch.”

“Aye, I’ll do that. No problem.”

They conferred for a few more minutes before Kate and Olbeck took their leave. They did a last sweep of the house, sidestepping the white-coated SOCOs and technicians and took a last look at the body; a stretcher and body bag had been laid on the floor in front of the sofa, ready to receive its sad cargo. Kate and Olbeck said goodbye to Doctor Stanton, who was too absorbed in his work to reach his usual level of sniffiness with Kate. He actually sounded rather absentmindedly amiable, which made Kate feel quite cheerful as they left the house, despite the surroundings and the exhaustion which was dragging at her.

She leant her head against the back of the car seat as they drove away and fought not to close her eyes. It reminded her of Theo, as they’d driven back from interviewing all of Trixie Arlen’s friends, and that in turn reminded her of confronting Jacob Arlen at his office. She struggled back up to a sitting position. “What happened with Arlen? Did he recant his previous statement?”

Olbeck gave a short laugh. “Not that I heard. His lawyer advised him to say no comment to everything and that’s exactly what he did.”

“Did you do the interview?”

“No. Anderton and Theo took it.”

“Really?” Kate bit back the sharp retort she wanted to make, struggled a little and then temptation overcame her. “What, Anderton actually did some work? You
do
surprise me.”

Olbeck glanced at her, surprised. “What is it with you at the moment? You’re falling out with everybody.”

Kate opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Oh, nothing,” she said lamely, after a moment. She wanted to tell Olbeck why, in Anderton’s case, she had a personal vendetta against him but decided not to. There was time enough to come clean in the future – she didn’t want to rock the fragile equilibrium of the friendship she and Mark had managed to salvage after their row.

“So, we’ve arrested Arlen, then?” she asked, after a short period of silence.

Olbeck raised one shoulder in a kind of shrug. “I’m not sure. That was under discussion when I got the call about this case.”

“Okay. Well we’ll know soon enough, I suppose,” said Kate, and this time she put her head back against the headrest again and closed her eyes. She was asleep in moments.

Chapter Nineteen

The next day saw Kate, refreshed after the best night’s sleep she’d had in weeks, jumping in the shower at the sprightly hour of six-thirty am without even a muttered protest. She let the hot water ease the night stiffness from her shoulders and thought about her day ahead.

Priority one was to try and track down the mysterious cleaner or cleaning company that was the only known link between the Arlen and the Fellowes crime scenes. Kate twisted the shower control to ‘off’ and stepped out, reaching for her towel. For a moment, she was assailed by doubt. Was it a lead worth pursuing? Really? There were a hundred other things she could be doing. Should she drop into the office and see if she could sit in when Arlen was interviewed that morning? Jacob Arlen had been formally arrested the day before and the team were going all out to try and get to the bottom of where he had actually been on the night of Trixie Arlen’s death. They’d pulled his mobile phone records and the Arlens’ bank statements, to see if there was suspicious movement on either of them, but nothing had come up as yet. Perhaps I should try and sit in on that, Kate thought, fingers slipping as she buttoned her shirt in haste. But then, Anderton and Theo had that covered, and she wasn’t sure how happy they would be with her if she tried to muscle in at this late stage.

She needed to check with Doctor Telling to see if any other overdose deaths had been attributable to the heroin contaminated with Sulatenil. She needed to check with the analysts to see if there had been a noticeable spike in deaths due to drug use over the past month. When was Anderton planning to do the press conference? Today? Kate pulled on her trousers and zipped them up. God, this was overwhelming, too much to do and not enough time or head space to do it. Think of the holiday, she told herself fervently as she pulled on her shoes and coat. Think of the holiday.

Before she left the house, she tried calling the Home Angels number, to see if she could make herself an appointment with the manager of the firm, but the number just rang and rang until Kate finally hung up. She Googled the name of the firm on her phone but nothing came up in the search results except for the same phone number she’d just tried to call. There was an address on the card that looked to be a unit on one of the industrial sites on the south side of Abbeyford. Kate locked up the house and got into her car, pondering. After a moment’s consideration, she keyed the postcode of the business address into her sat nav and turned on the engine.

The satellite guidance system took her to a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Arbuthon Green. Kate drove slowly along the narrow road that led to the address on the business card, which turned out to be a small modern building of maroon brick and white plastic cladding. There were no cars parked on the small forecourt at the front and no lights could be seen behind the plastic blinds at the window. Kate parked the car and got out. There was no answer to her knocks at the door. She tried the handle, just on the off chance, but it was locked. She knocked again, just for luck, but still no one answered. She tried calling the number again and she could faintly hear the telephone ringing inside the office but no one picked up her call.

Well, that was a wasted journey. Kate drove back to the station, trying the number once more just after she locked up her car. No answer. Kate mentally shrugged and made her way to the office.

“Morning,” she said to Theo, who was looking through what looked like CCTV pictures. He gave her a vague wave in response. “Is Anderton still interviewing Jacob Arlen?”

Theo finally looked up. He looked tired, his handsome brown eyes ringed with shadow. “Yeah, he’s still at it. We’ve only got to the end of the day.”

Kate nodded in acknowledgement. Once she’d ascertained the interview room number, she made her way there, peeking through the peephole. She could just see the edge of Anderton’s shoulder and beyond him, across the table, Jacob Arlen, who looked exhausted. Kate felt a pang of pity for him, which she quickly suppressed. She hesitated, knowing that this might not be a good time to interrupt the interview, but when might she get the chance again? She bit her lip and knocked.

All three men looked surprised to see her. “Sir,” she said, for the benefit of Arlen, “Could I have a quick word?”

She meant it for Olbeck but Anderton himself got up and accompanied her outside.

“What’s up?” he asked, adding, “Haven’t seen you in ages.”

He was standing closer to her than he had been for weeks and Kate was disconcerted at the sheer physical response she felt at his nearness. Goddammit, why did she have to find him so attractive? When was she going to get over him?

Trying to keep her mind on the job, she explained as quickly as she could. Anderton raised his eyebrows but made no comment. Instead, he opened the door to the interview room and ushered her inside.

She seated herself next to Olbeck, who obligingly budged his chair over for her. Jacob Arlen looked at her with a frown.

“I’ve got a very quick question for you, Mr. Arlen,” Kate said.

Arlen sighed a long suffering sigh. “No comment.”

Kate persisted. “I’m trying to track down someone who might be very important to this case. Could you tell me all you know about your cleaner, Rosa?”

Clearly, whatever Arlen had been expecting Kate to ask, it hadn’t been this. “Rosa?” he asked, cautiously. “What do you mean?”

“I’m trying to find her,” explained Kate. “But I’m having a lot of trouble. There’s no answer at the agency number and I’ve got no other way of contacting her.”

Arlen glanced at his solicitor, an urbane, white-haired man rather like him in looks. The solicitor nodded slightly.

Arlen turned back to Kate. “Well, I can’t help you, I’m afraid. I’ve got no other contact number for her. Trixie dealt with all of that kind of thing.”

“But you have seen her?” asked Kate. “Rosa? You could describe her?”

Arlen looked confused. “Yes, I did meet her, a couple of times, at the house. But I don’t
know
her…”

“That’s fine,” said Kate. “Could you just tell me what she looks like?”

Arlen almost shrugged. “I can’t remember exactly – she was dark, long dark hair. Very thin. Young, probably not more than twenty-five.”

Kate nodded encouragingly but clearly Arlen had reached the limit of his descriptive powers. “I’m afraid that’s all I can remember,” he finished.

“Is she English?” Kate asked.

Arlen looked confused. “English? No – no, I don’t think she is. Polish or Czech, or something like that. She had quite a strong accent.”

Kate nodded. “There’s nothing else you can tell me about her? You don’t know where she lived or anything like that?”

“No,” Arlen said. “I don’t know anything more about her. She just cleaned our house.” This time he looked at Olbeck and Anderton, as if seeking an explanation for Kate’s sudden appearance. They stared back at him, impassive, and Kate felt a rush of gratitude to both of them.

“You don’t know if she was married?” she persisted.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Arlen said with distaste. “I really didn’t know her at all well. I don’t believe I ever spoke to her.”

Clearly that was all he was going to give her. Kate believed him when he said he didn’t know anything more. Obviously, to a man like him, a cleaner was so lowly as to be almost beneath his notice. Kate was just grateful that he’d even noticed Rosa at all. She thanked him, nodded to Olbeck and Anderton, and left the room, feeling Arlen staring after her as she closed the door behind her.

She made her way back up to the reception area of the station, walking quite slowly as she thought about his response. As it was, she was almost bowled over as a woman came rushing into the station, in a flurry of windswept hair and a cloud of perfume.

It was Kyla Mellors. She gazed around her in what looked like panic, saw Kate and rushed over to her. “Is Jacob here? I heard you’d arrested him – where is he?”

“Calm down, Mrs. Mellors,” Kate said, bringing a soothing tone to the fore. She took Kyla by one slender arm and steered her towards some chairs over by the far wall. “How can I help?”

Kyla looked near tears. “I heard you arrested Jacob. Is it true? It can’t be true!”

Kate hesitated before answering. “Yes, Mr. Arlen is currently helping us with our enquiries.”

The tears spilled over and ran down Kyla’s cheeks. “Is it to do with Trixie’s death?” she gasped. “Are you thinking that he had something to do with that?”

“I can’t comment on that, Mrs.—”

“Because he didn’t,” said Kyla, vehemently. “He absolutely couldn’t have. It’s impossible.”

Kate leaned forward a little. “Do you want to amend your statement, Mrs. Mellors?”

Kyla bit her lip and brushed the tears from her face. She glanced around the station and then spoke in a low tone. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

Kate took her to one of the nicer interview rooms and gestured to the one fairly comfortable chair. Kyla seated herself. She had the air of a woman bracing herself for a necessary but unpleasant ordeal. Kate propped herself against the desk and raised her eyebrows in an encouraging way, although she was beginning to have an inkling of what it was that Kyla was about to tell her.

Kyla took a deep breath. “Jacob wasn’t anywhere near Trixie the night she died because – because he was with me.”

Although Kate half-admired her for coming clean, she wouldn’t be human without the opportunity to have one little, very little dig. “By ‘with you’ I assume you mean…”

Kyla was sitting very upright. A tumble of words practically fell from her mouth. “Yes, with me as in we’re having an affair. He stayed the night with me and left very early in the morning.” As soon as she’d finished her sentence, she fell back into her seat, as if all the strength had left her muscles. After a moment, she said in a shaky voice, “My God, it’s such a relief to finally come clean. I didn’t think it would be such a relief.” She sat forward then and put her face in her hands.

Kate cleared her throat. “How long have you and Mr. Arlen been sexually involved?”

Kyla sat up again. She looked tearful but in control of herself. “About eighteen months. It was wrong, I know it was wrong but…”

“Does your husband know?” Kate asked after Kyla’s voice faded away at the end of her sentence.

Kyla shook her head. “No. No, he doesn’t. I’m going to tell him though. Today, I’m going to tell him today. I’m going to leave him. I can’t be such – such a coward any longer.”

Despite herself, Kate pitied her. “Did Trixie know?”

Again, Kyla shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think Jacob would have told her.” She hesitated and then said in a subdued voice, “They didn’t really communicate much. He said that she…with Trixie, it was all surface and nothing underneath.” Her eyes met Kate’s and she flushed. “All right, I know that’s the biggest cliché in the world – ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’. All I can say is that I believed him. I believed Jacob. I
do
believe him.”

Kate nodded. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Mrs. Mellors?”

Kyla looked confused. “About – about the affair?”

“Well…” Kate wasn’t exactly sure what she was asking herself. She hesitated and then asked, “What was Trixie like?
Really
like?”

She was hoping that Kyla Mellor’s newfound candour would give her some information that perhaps she hadn’t had before. But Kyla simply shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? You were friends, weren’t you?”

“We thought we were friends. Well, I guess Trixie thought we were friends.” Kyla looked down at her hands, at the no-doubt wildly expensive engagement and wedding ring on her left hand. “I wasn’t much of a friend to her, was I?” Before Kate could say anything, she looked up at her. “I mean, I really didn’t
know
her. It was like Jacob said, all surface. She was nice and friendly and easy to like, but I didn’t ever
know
her. She never, ever let me in. Perhaps that’s what made it easy,
easier
, to – to do what I did.”

Kate shifted a little on the hard edge of the table. “Did you ever take drugs with Trixie?”

Kyla looked shocked. “No. I told you. Never. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Did you know that Trixie took drugs?”

Kyla’s gaze dropped again. “I only know what Jacob told me. He told me about six months ago, that he’d caught her using heroin. Just the once. She swore it was a one-off, apparently.”

“Do you think he believed that?”

“I don’t think so. We talked about it a couple of times. He said at one point he was thinking about putting a camera in the house, to keep an eye on what she did. I was a bit shocked and I think that put him off the idea. I don’t think he ever did it.”

Something else that Anderton and Theo could ask their suspect. Except, he wasn’t a suspect anymore, was he? Kate found that she believed every word Kyla was telling her. Adulterer he might be, but it looked like Jacob Arlen was nothing more than that.

“Thanks for telling me this, Mrs. Mellors,” said Kate. Kyla nodded. She looked worn out but heartily relieved still. “It’s a shame you couldn’t have been more honest with us at the start of this investigation. You do realise you could be charged with perverting the course of justice?”