Dead in the Water (17 page)

“I rather enjoyed the service last week. I thought I would try it again.”

Margaret Wilby made a noise that indicated she didn’t believe him for a second. She inclined her head. “Goodbye, Mr Mullen.”

Mullen sipped at his coffee. He tried not to care but he was beginning to feel distinctly unwelcome. So when a teenage girl came up and asked him with immaculate politeness if he would be willing to sponsor her on a fun run, he agreed without asking what the cause was and pulled a ten-pound note out of his pocket.

“I’m not doing the run until two weeks’ time,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied and wrote his details down on her sheet. “I trust you.”

“You’re the private detective, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Have you found out what happened to Chris?”

Mullen completed his signature and straightened up. It was hard to know how to respond to such directness. He might not believe in God, but he did believe in being honest. “He drowned in the river down towards Sandford.”

“I know
that
.” There was disappointment in her voice. She was clearly expecting a lot more detail. “People say he got drunk and fell in.”

Mullen nodded, but didn’t comment.

“I think that’s rubbish. He didn’t drink. He told us.”

Mullen felt a flickering of interest.

“Who is ‘us’?”

“Our youth group. We meet on Sunday evenings. Diana brought him along the other week to talk to us. She thought it would be good for us to hear his story from his own lips. There are so many down-and-outs on the streets in Oxford and we all tend to ignore them.”

Alice — that was the name on her sponsor sheet — spoke with frightening clarity and certainty. “I mean, what should I do if I see them begging in the Cornmarket? Should I give them money? Should I go and buy them a sandwich? Should I just walk on by like most people do? I could pray for them of course, but is that enough?”

Mullen was impressed. He wished he had all the answers. He wished that at her age he had had all the questions too. “Personally, I wouldn’t give them money. Maybe buy them a sandwich?”

“I prefer to support the charities which help them,” she said decisively. “Diana agrees. Chris agreed too.”

Mullen studied Alice. How old was she? Fourteen maybe, going on twenty-four. He changed tack. “So how did Chris come to be sleeping rough in Oxford? Did he tell you his story?”

“He did and he didn’t. He said there were a lot of things in his past that he wasn’t proud of and preferred not to talk about. What he did say was that he didn’t have a very happy childhood and that he was sent away to boarding school and hated it.”

“He didn’t say what school?”

“No.”

“Did he talk about his family?”

“Not really. His parents were killed in a car crash, but that was all he said about them.”

“Did he say where he came from? Or if he used to do a job?”

Alice frowned. For the first time, she seemed uncertain. “He was rather evasive about the details.”

“Or when and why he came to Oxford?”

“He said he came here because he thought Oxford in the summer would be a rather fine place to be.” Alice smiled, remembering. “Those were his exact words. Then he winked.”

“Winked? At you?”

“At our youth worker, Rose!” She rolled her eyes. “I think he fancied Rose. And she liked him.”

“Lots of people seem to have liked him.” Mullen left the statement hanging in the air, hoping Alice might say something else, preferably something indiscreet which would clarify the confusion he felt when he tried to imagine Chris as a person. Chris the elusive, as hard to pin down as a dragonfly.

Alice shrugged. “Thanks for the sponsorship!” And she turned away.

The church was emptying. Mullen watched Alice approach an old lady dressed in purple, but his brain barely registered this because it was too busy sifting the details of their conversation. Chris was rather evasive about detail. That was what the girl had said. If that was the case — and everything he had learnt so far pointed to that being so — the question was: why? What had Chris got to hide?

Mullen downed the last of his coffee and returned the cup to the hatch. He moved towards the exit. The Reverend Downey was talking to yet another member of her congregation. Mullen was relieved. He had had enough. He just wanted to slip unobtrusively out of church and escape back home.

“Doug!” It seemed that the Reverend didn’t let members of her congregation sidle past her without a firm handshake and exchange of greetings. “How nice to see you here again! We must be doing something right!” She laughed and took his hand, leaning closer as she did so. “I gather you’ve been talking to Kevin,” she said in a low whisper. “I trust you haven’t been jumping to any wild conclusions?” Her fingers tightened their grip. “You should read the epistle of James. It cautions us all about the dangers of idle gossip.” Her fingernails dug into the back of his hand. Then she released her hold and smiled. “See you next Sunday, I hope.”

* * *

Mullen exited the church with a sigh, but there was little relief outside. The relative cool of the church was exchanged for the heat of another scorching day. There was no protection from the blazing light of the sun either and as he lifted his right hand against it he glimpsed two figures standing dark and still a couple of metres in front of him.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mr Mullen.”

He recognised the sarcastic voice of Dorkin immediately, just as he recognised the bulky outline of DS Fargo. He felt a jolt of anxiety. He didn’t need Sherlock Holmesian powers to deduce that something was very wrong.

“A little bird told us you’d be at church,” Dorkin continued. “Didn’t really believe it, but what do you know?” Dorkin was enjoying the moment.

A thought flashed across Mullen’s brain: who was the little bird? But then it was gone and Dorkin was saying something else. “I’d like a little chat with you, Mullen, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s Sunday,” Mullen said, stating the obvious.

“Normally it’s my day off too,” came the reply. Dorkin had dropped the sarcasm. “But I have here a search warrant,” he said. “For The Cedars, Foxcombe Road, Boars Hill.” He thrust a piece of paper at Mullen. “Would you like to read it?”

Mullen was suddenly conscious that there were several members of the St Mark’s congregation standing around, watching with fascination. Rose Wilby and Derek Stanley were both standing on the far side of the road. They must have left shortly before he had and had turned to watch the drama unfold. Mullen tried to ignore them. He glanced at the search warrant in his hand. He made no attempt to read it in detail. He hadn’t ever seen one before, but it could hardly be a fake. Dorkin wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that, especially with so many curious bystanders as witnesses. He handed it back to him. “So what now?”

‘What now?’ involved Mullen handing over his house keys to Dorkin, who passed them over to a pair of uniformed officers standing in the shade of one of the poplar trees which stood in ranks along the front of the church.

‘What now?’ involved Mullen himself being driven to the police station and then having to wait for nearly two hours before a solicitor could be found.

‘What now?’ involved Mullen in doing a lot of thinking.

* * *

Mullen’s solicitor introduced herself as Althea Potter. She was brisk and a little off-hand. She was dressed in white slacks and pale pink blouse. Her blonde bob of hair was still wet and she smelt of chlorine. She looked like a woman who had just had her weekend rudely interrupted.

She asked Mullen a series of questions, made a note of his answers on her notepad and then went to the door. There was a uniformed constable outside. “Tell Inspector Dorkin we are ready,” she said. “And would you mind getting us both a cup of tea. I would also point out that my client hasn’t had lunch either.”

Twenty minutes passed before Dorkin appeared with Fargo. Mullen tried not to give way to his feelings of irritation. No doubt this delaying was a deliberate tactic by Dorkin, but if so the constable who brought in not just cups of tea but also sandwiches was not party to it. Mullen was starting to feel human again.

Fargo did the preliminaries. Then he fell silent and waited for Dorkin who again embarked on a game of silence as he leafed through the folder of papers lying on the table in front of him.

“What the heck is this all about?” Mullen said. Althea Potter touched his arm with her hand, but he had no intention of lying there and being trampled.

Dorkin looked across at him, a jackal-smile on his face. “I’ve got something to show you,” he said.

Fargo conjured up with a flourish a thin large-format book out of the pile of paperwork in front of him and placed it in front of Mullen. Mullen didn’t have to fake surprise. He had never seen the book in his life, as far as he was aware.

“Art isn’t my thing,” he said.

“What about photography?”

Fargo did his conjuror act again and placed three photographs on the table. “Do you recognise these?”

Mullen nodded. “Of course. I took them. When I was working for Janice Atkinson.”

“And who are the people in them?”

“Paul Atkinson and Becca Baines.”

“Good. That was easy wasn’t it? So you took these photos and gave them to Janice?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give her printed copies like these or did you give her digital copies?”

Mullen picked up each photo in turn, examining the back.

“These are some of the prints I gave her. There’s a number in pencil on the back. That was me. I kept the digital files myself.”

“A couple of nights ago, a woman died in a house fire. These photographs were found inside this book under her body.”

For the first time, Mullen felt a surge of panic. “Who was she?”

Dorkin didn’t reply.

The room was surprisingly cool, but Mullen could feel the sweat on his forehead. “Jesus, it wasn’t Becca, was it?” Dorkin was eyeing him steadily.

There was a hiss of anger from Mullen’s right. “Stop messing about, Inspector.” Althea Potter, hitherto silent, stabbed her pen onto her notepad. “My client has come here willingly. He has agreed to cooperate with your investigations. But if you persist, I will advise him to withdraw that cooperation.”

Dorkin’s face twitched. “The dead woman was a Doreen Rankin. She worked for Paul Atkinson.”

Mullen tried to think. So did that mean Janice had shown her husband the photographs? If so, how come Doreen had got them? Was she another lover?

He looked up. Dorkin was shifting in his seat and asking him another question.

“Why did you think that the dead woman might be Becca Baines?”

Mullen tried to think. “I don’t know. The photo I suppose. You said it was a woman . . .” He tailed off. When the hell had he last seen Becca? His brain was porridge.

“Are you and Becca lovers?”

“There’s no need to answer that,” Althea Potter intervened.

Mullen shrugged. “I’ll answer it if the Inspector will answer one of my questions. Was the fire an accident or was it arson?”

Dorkin returned his stare. Then he answered. “The circumstances which gave rise to the fire are uncertain.”

Mullen smiled back. “And the relationship between myself and Becca Baines is also uncertain.”

“Do you have any other questions for my client?” Althea Potter was clearly impatient to rescue what was left of her Sunday.

Dorkin turned to Fargo and nodded. Fargo removed the book and photographs from the table and delved again into his pile of paperwork. This time he produced a see-through evidence bag and placed it in front of Mullen.

“Do you recognise this?”

Mullen picked it up, studied the pills inside the bag and then replaced it on the table. “No.”

“For the record, we found them inside the Cedars, Foxcombe Road, Boars Hill.”

“They must be the professor’s.”

“We’ll check that out.”

“What is in the bag?” Althea Potter’s manner betrayed the fact that she was getting increasingly irritated by every sentence that passed Dorkin’s lips.

“Rohypnol.”

“And what is the relevance of finding rohypnol in my client’s place of residence?”

Dorkin shrugged. “It may not be relevant. I just wanted to check it out.”

“Check it out?” Althea Potter spat the words back at Dorkin one at a time as if they were some unexpectedly sour berries. She had had enough. She began to gather up her papers. “I think my client has answered quite enough questions for now. Unless, of course, you are going to charge him with a crime?”

Mullen should have kept his mouth shut. He knew that even as he opened it. But sometimes common sense makes no sense. “Janice Atkinson had rohypnol in her bloodstream when she died,” he announced.

Dorkin, Fargo and Potter all stared at him.

“As did Chris, who was found floating face down in the river.”

They were all still staring. In silence.

“And just for the record,” Mullen concluded, “I know because the pathologist Charles Speight told me.”