Daisy in Chains (14 page)

I do not envy my colleague who takes on his case.

PROPERTY OF AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE. Ref: 544/45.2 Hamish Wolfe.

THE WORLD SEEMS
to be slowly choking on snow cloud by the time Pete pulls up outside Maggie’s house. The taller rooftops seem blurred. Chimneys and aerials have all but disappeared. The sky is the colour of unwashed bed sheets.

Two hours have passed since his meeting with Latimer. Not wanting to arrive ill-briefed, he’d found the report on the system.

Mrs Hubble of 78 High Street, directly across the road from Maggie’s house, had spotted a dark-clad figure moving around in Maggie’s garden. She wasn’t entirely certain, but thought perhaps the time was around 10.50 p.m., which would be around the time he’d put Maggie back in her car in Market Square, Wells and told her to drive safely.

At about the time he was having one last cigarette (the pub didn’t allow him to smoke indoors) the dark figure had completed an entire circuit of the house and Mrs Hubble had assumed it was probably Maggie herself. The arrival of Maggie’s car twenty minutes later had convinced her otherwise, but she hadn’t done anything about it.

Only at two in the morning, when all the lights had suddenly gone on in Maggie’s house, waking Mrs Hubble up, because she was a light sleeper and her bedroom faced the road, did she think to call the police. She reported seeing someone dressed in dark clothes slipping away down the street.

The attending constable had spoken to Maggie on the front doorstep. She’d assured him that nothing had disturbed her, and that all the doors were locked and bolted. She declined his offer to come in and look around but had promised to double-check everything herself before going back to bed. The officer had wished her goodnight, taken a brief look around outside, and driven away.

Pete walks past the gate and up the drive. The back garden is still in the grip of a hard frost. There are lots of tall, thick shrubs, box hedging, misshapen yew trees. Lots of hiding places. Even in daylight.

She appears a few seconds after he’s knocked on the back door. Slim blue jeans, those big, fluffy slippers, an oversized, knitted sweater, white with black snowflakes. No make-up. Hair in a high ponytail, eyes bluer than he’s seen them yet. Also a bit damp, and pink around the edges.

‘I was wondering when you’d show up,’ she tells him, as she heads inside.

Pete tugs off his coat and hangs it over the back of the first chair he comes to in the kitchen. ‘Are you spending time with me to pump me about the Wolfe case?’ he asks.

She practically springs into her usual chair. ‘You make it sound like we’re dating. We had dinner. I paid for my own food.’

‘You insisted.’

‘We’re not dating.’

‘What happened here last night?’

‘Which are you worried about – me or your career?’

He leans against the table. He’s not ready to sit down yet. He doesn’t want to look relaxed. ‘You. My career can look after itself.’

She blinks. ‘And I can’t?’

‘What happened? And do I have to make my own coffee? It’s frigging freezing out.’

She glares, but gets up anyway, crossing to the kettle and filling it. ‘My neighbour, who has form when it comes to calling the police out unnecessarily, had a bad dream, saw my lights on and was on the phone before she’d woken up properly. I imagine she feels silly right now. Or maybe not; people have a remarkable ability for self-justification.’

‘You were up at two in the morning?’

‘Often. I don’t sleep well.’

The smell of roast coffee beans fills the room.

‘Anything out of the ordinary that you saw?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘Anything disturbed? Missing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Anything left behind?’

Blue eyes narrow. ‘Like what?’

He turns to the bookshelf behind her chair that mainly holds
cookery and gardening books. ‘Like an origami rose, for example?’ He points to the small, paper rose he’d spotted the moment he walked in. ‘That thing’s got Wolfe written all over it.’

She turns her back on him, completely forgetting he can see her reflection in the window. ‘Now you’re being fanciful.’

‘I’ve seen him make them. He even made me one once. Told me it was a pansy.’

‘Maybe I made it myself.’

‘Fine.’ By the side of her chair is a notepad. ‘May I?’ Without waiting for permission, he tears out a page. She turns at the sound. He holds it out. ‘Make me a pansy.’

She doesn’t move.

‘Daffodil? Tulip? Something simple?’

She turns her back again. When she picks up both mugs her hands are shaking. He says nothing but, using a pen, he pushes the paper rose around on the shelf to look at it properly. Pink. Perfectly formed. A little creased, where it might have been squeezed in someone’s pocket. A smear of dirt on one of the petals.

A rose. For Maggie Rose.

‘The rose was in my kitchen this morning,’ she says. ‘I’d already received one via his mother, so obviously I thought of him when I found this.’

He waits.

‘I was working last night, after I got back. I thought I heard someone come in. I hadn’t locked the back door at that point.’

‘Maggie, if you’re going to associate with—’

‘I know, I know. I searched the house, pretty freaked out, I don’t mind admitting, but there was no one here. I locked the door and went to bed. It was probably some time after midnight, not as late as 1 a.m.’

‘Mrs Nosy across the road called the police at 2 a.m.,’ Pete says. ‘Claiming to have seen someone leaving your garden.’

‘She may well have done. Something woke me up then and I noticed the security lights were on. I told the officer who knocked on the door that I was fine, but first thing this morning I noticed something.’

‘The rose?’

Her eyes go briefly to the rose then back to him. ‘No. I noticed that
the chairs around this table weren’t pushed right under. They always are, every time I leave the room. They were last night before I went to bed. This morning they’d been moved. And the back door was unlocked.’

Pete looks at the back door, then back at the table as though measuring the distance. ‘So where was the rose?’

She bends down, indicating that he should do the same. They face each other beneath the table. ‘This is going to look weird,’ she warns him, before squeezing herself into the narrow space between the tabletop and the chair seats. Pushed together, the seats form a platform. She lies on it, curled in a foetal position, looking at him.

‘I think I’m supposed to turn my back and count to ten first,’ he says.

‘This is where he hid. This is where he was while I was searching the house. I might have glanced under the table. I didn’t look here. He came in, while I was still working and hid here. Sometime later, probably at around 2 a.m. when Mrs Hubble claims to have seen someone, he left the house.’

She pushes herself backwards, drops to the floor and stands up again. The exertion has made her face pinker than normal. ‘The rose was on the floor underneath one of the chairs,’ she says.

He gives an audible sigh of annoyance. ‘Why am I only hearing this now?’

‘It’s a paper rose, Pete, and I need the police to take me seriously. It’s difficult enough persuading you guys to cooperate as it is. I’m sure you’d love to be able to write me off as a loon.’

Well, she has a point. ‘Got a freezer bag?’

She brings him the bag, he uses it to pick up and contain the rose. When it’s safely in his pocket, he asks her: ‘Maggie, are you telling me everything?’

Email

From: Denise Prince, consulting psychiatrist

To: HM Director of Public Prosecutions, FAO Stephen Bachelor

Cc: DC Pete Weston, Avon and Somerset Police

Date: 12.6.2014

I regret that, following my recent meeting with Hamish Wolfe at Wandsworth Prison, where he is currently being held on remand, I am unable to proceed further with this assignment.

I have prepared no report. The exchange between us, such as it was, simply didn’t lend itself to any formal record.

If I might be allowed a recommendation: any further attempt to draw a psychiatric profile of Hamish Wolfe should probably be attempted by a man.

PROPERTY OF AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE. Ref: 544/45.2 Hamish Wolfe.

THE A39 IS
blocked by a white van that has skidded on ice and overturned and Pete has to take the back road past the Avalon Marshes. The day has been darkening since he left Maggie’s house, the clouds falling lower, fooling the wildlife that dusk is coming sooner than usual. As Pete nears the reed beds where hundreds of thousands of starlings bed down for the night, a dense cloud looms in the sky ahead of him. Darker than the snow clouds, its particles dancing like a giant dust storm, this is a Hitchcockian scene of beautiful menace. The daily murmuration of the starlings.

‘Has she told you everything, do you think?’ Latimer’s voice over the phone startles him. For a second, Pete had forgotten he’d just called his boss.

‘Hard to know for sure. She wasn’t keen on me looking round. I think she’s got someone else living there and doesn’t want to admit it, for some reason.’

The dark cloud shoots up high above him and Pete half expects the heavens to open up and admit the river of birds.

Latimer says, ‘What’s happening about the intruder last night?’

‘Well, that’s another thing. She admitted it’s not the first time someone’s been on her property at night. She saw someone hanging around a few nights ago. Presumably that time, they couldn’t get in.’

‘Well, she works with some dodgy people. If you play with fire . . .’

‘I’ve arranged for the crime scene team to stop by, but a trespass with nothing stolen isn’t a high priority. Maggie promised me she’d change the locks today and be extra careful about security in future.’

‘So, she’s going to go and see him, you think? Wolfe, I’m talking about now.’

‘She is. She seems to think that, if she meets him once, finds nothing to even get the ball rolling, then that will be the end of it. She’ll have done all his little support team can ask for and they’ll leave her alone.’

‘They don’t just want her to meet him, though,’ Latimer says, ‘they want her to get him out of prison.’

The road straightens and Pete is able to pick up some speed. ‘As she says herself, Wolfe hasn’t asked her to take his case. She’s only had one letter from him, and all he did in that was thank her for saving his dog.’

‘Come again?’

‘Long story. Look, you’re getting very faint. Ley lines must be getting in the way. I’ll see you later.’

PSYCHIATRIC REPORT INTO HAMISH WOLFE

PREPARED BY RICHARD RIDELL

I was appointed to carry out a psychiatric assessment on Hamish Wolfe in August 2014, some three weeks before his trial was due to start. To say I felt a little underprepared would be an understatement – I’d barely had a chance to read the case file – but I had confidence in my ability to judge whether or not Hamish Wolfe was fit to stand trial.

Having heard a great deal about Hamish Wolfe’s good looks, I was curious to see if the man in real life lived up to the legend that was rapidly growing up around him in the traditional and social media. My first impression was that being remanded in custody for several months hasn’t improved his appearance. He is a tall man, but he had the look of someone who’d lost a lot of weight, quite quickly. His skin had a pallor that would have concerned me, had I been his GP; his eyes were bloodshot and his hands were showing a propensity to shake when he wasn’t actively controlling them. There was a swelling under his right eye and around his mouth, and he moved very carefully, as though in some pain.

I began, as is customary, by explaining the parameters and purpose of the interview. He made no verbal response, but immediately began work on his new origami shape (I’d been prepared for this by reading Dr Okonjo’s report). Again
following the normal practice, I began by asking him questions about his family situation and early years. Much to my surprise (I was mentally preparing myself for the same silent treatment that Dr Okonjo had been subjected to) he spoke immediately, if not courteously. He told me that I could acquire all the information I needed from the files and that he had no intention of talking about his childhood.

(At this point, I’d like to borrow a trick from Dr Okonjo and insert an extract of the transcript.)

HAMISH WOLFE: I’d like you to apologize to Dr Okonjo for me, would you mind doing that?

DR RIDELL: Of course. But might I ask why you feel the need to apologize to Dr Okonjo?

HAMISH WOLFE: I was very rude to her. She didn’t deserve that. Tell her I regret it, please.

DR RIDELL: Why do you think you were rude to her?

HAMISH WOLFE: I was angry. I took it out on her. I shouldn’t have done.

DR RIDELL: Why were you angry?

HAMISH WOLFE: Have a look at my situation, Dick. I’m sure you can work it out.

(For the record, I had not given Hamish Wolfe permission to address me by my Christian name, nor a derivative of it, but I chose to let that pass.)

DR RIDELL: Do you often lash out, verbally, when you’re angry?

HAMISH WOLFE: Don’t we all?

DR RIDELL: Have you ever hurt someone physically, when you’ve been angry?

HAMISH WOLFE: (grinning) How do you think I got these bruises?

DR RIDELL: What makes you angry?

HAMISH WOLFE: Twats. Stupid questions.

DR RIDELL: Are you angry now?

HAMISH WOLFE: (lifting his wrists to show me the chains tethering him to the table) Don’t worry, Dick. I can’t reach you from here. And the muppets outside will come charging in if I so much as flutter my eyelashes too vigorously.