Dead in the Water (18 page)

* * *

For a few marvellous seconds, Mullen had been more pleased with himself than he could possibly have imagined. Dorkin’s face, contorted in disbelief, was a joy to behold. But after the high comes the low. And by the time Althea Potter had given him several pieces of her mind and then departed in a swirl of anger, Mullen was realising that what he had said hadn’t been very clever at all. He was also realising that for the second time he was stuck in the Cowley police station a long way from his car, which he had left in what was fast becoming his personal parking space in South Oxford. It would take him an hour or so to walk, he reckoned, as he pushed his way out through the exit doors.

“Hi!”

Rose Wilby was standing a few metres away, leaning against the metal railings and holding a cigarette. She dropped it hastily and ground it out with her foot.

“Bad habit. Don’t tell my mother.”

Mullen stood still. He felt awkward, unsure of his own thoughts and feelings. “Mum’s the word,” he replied, because he didn’t trust himself to say anything more real.

“Would you like a lift?”

He nodded.

She advanced towards him. “Good.” Then, to his surprise, she put her arms round him and held him for several seconds. “Sorry,” she said finally, releasing him.

She drove him back to South Oxford in silence. Only when she had pulled up opposite his Peugeot in Lincoln Road did she speak again.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He wondered what she meant by ‘it.’ Becca? Being questioned by the police? “Not here,” he said.

“Shall we go to your house?”

“The police are searching it.”

“Ah.” She nodded. She didn’t sound surprised that the police were combing his house. Mullen tried to read her face for signs, but he drew a blank.

“My flat, then,” she said finally. “Follow me. I can give you a visitor’s permit to park in the street.”

* * *

Rose’s flat was a modern one-bedroom spacious affair with a balcony overlooking the river. Expensive for a youth worker, Mullen imagined. In fact way above her salary scale. Not that he had any informed knowledge of what church youth workers were paid, but he doubted it covered the cost of renting a flat in this part of Oxford, let alone buying one. You are what you do. Someone had said that to him once. He wasn’t sure who, but it had stayed with him. Now that he had set himself up as a private investigator, he was realising how true it was. All of a sudden he was looking at everyone he encountered with jaundiced, analytical eyes, searching for things that didn’t fit. Even Rose Wilby was coming under his baleful gaze. It was possible that Margaret Wilby had bought the flat for her, even though the mother-daughter relationship wasn’t the best he had ever encountered. Or had Rose inherited money from her father? A father hadn’t ever been mentioned. Had he died or walked out on them? Mullen caught himself glancing around for family photographs, but there were none in the main living space. If Rose had any, he supposed she must keep them in her bedroom.

Rose had been busying herself at the kitchen end of the living space, getting them each a cold drink.

“Homemade lemonade,” she announced. “With lots of ice.”

They sat down opposite each other at the dining table, hiding from the sun. Mullen took a sip, nodded appreciatively and started to talk. She was a good listener, alert and attentive, saving any questions until he had finished. Even then, she didn’t say anything at first. Instead she stood up and drew the long curtains half-way across the balcony windows, shutting out more of the light. Then she moved back and sat down again.

“Tell me about rohypnol.”

“It is prescribed to people with sleeping problems. It’s a powerful drug and when combined with alcohol causes people to get extremely unsteady and black out. It is popularly known as a date-rape drug. People use it because afterwards victims often have no clear memory of what happened to them.”

“How horrible.”

Mullen sipped at his drink. It was horrible. Rose was right. But could she really be so innocent as to not know about the drug at her age?

“And they found some where you live.”

“It’s not mine.”

“You could have found it. And you could have used it.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s what the police will think, isn’t it?” Rose said all this in a matter-of-fact way. “That you might have found it and given it to Chris and Janice before you killed them.”

“But I didn’t.” Mullen suddenly felt defensive. He had thought Rose was on his side, but here she was making a case against him. “Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course.” She stretched out her hand and for a second allowed it to rest on his. “But it doesn’t look good, Doug.”

This time Mullen took another, slower pull at his lemonade.

“Do you have alibis that someone else can confirm?”

Mullen shook his head. It was something he had thought about too.

“It was you who found Chris, wasn’t it? That won’t look good either. And you took those photographs for Janice and then she was killed.”

“Hell, I know that.” He didn’t mean to snap, but it was hard not to. “Don’t you think I feel guilty about her? If I hadn’t gone snooping for her, she wouldn’t have come looking for me in the Iffley Road and she would still be alive.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Doug.” Rose sounded like her mother. “We need to make a plan and we need to get on with it before the police come knocking on your door again.”

* * *

“You’re the detective. Don’t you have a prime suspect?” Rose had just made them a second glass of lemonade with plenty of ice. It was ridiculously hot in the flat, even with the balcony doors pulled wide open. “I mean, the prime suspects for Janice must be her husband or her husband’s lover. Paul or Becca. Or both, of course.”

“But why would they kill Chris?” Mullen was talking as much to himself as to Rose.

“How can you be sure Chris was murdered?”

“The rohypnol.”

“Maybe someone just gave it to him. Maybe he thought it was some other drug. He took it, had a drink and then fell into the river. That’s the simple answer isn’t it?”

“Why did you and Janice hire me in the first place?”

Rose shrugged. “Because we liked him.”

“That’s it?”

“We felt we owed him.”

“Owed him what?”

“Not to be forgotten. Not to be ignored just because he was a drifter, a man with no place in society and no fixed abode.”

“What about everyone else at St Mark’s?”

“A few people agreed. Mostly women. However, I suspect that the majority of people in the church thought we should just leave it to the police.”

“And was there anyone who was actively hostile to your plans? Anyone who tried to dissuade you?”

Rose frowned. Not for the first time Mullen realised he found her rather attractive. She wasn’t a conventional beauty, but then he had never been drawn to conventional beauties.

“The vicar of course. Diana didn’t like Chris. She hid it well. She was perfectly nice to him, but . . .” Rose paused, allowing Mullen to interrupt.

“But she was worried about the effect he was having on her congregation? On people like Janice and yourself?”

“I guess so.”

“Anyone else apart from Diana?”

“My mother.” Rose laughed at the thought. “She definitely didn’t like the way Chris flirted with me.”

“Why not?”

“Being nice to him in church was one thing. But any sort of relationship would have been quite another thing in my mother’s book.”

“And did you respond to any of his flirtations?”

There was a slight pause before she answered his question. “No.”

Mullen considered this for a few seconds before moving on. “So when you came and told me you wanted me to stop the investigation, who put you up to it?”

“Diana and my mother essentially. But Janice had got cold feet too. That was what we talked about the last time I spoke to her. She and Rachel Speight waited behind at the end of the youth group. They said they wanted to offer me some ‘good Christian advice.’”

“That was it? Did none of the men offer you ‘good Christian advice?’”

Rose frowned again, as if that was something she had not considered before. “There was Derek Stanley of course. Wherever my mother goes, he follows in her footsteps. But in my experience, men are less keen to hand out free advice.”

“Tell me about Derek.”

“What is there to know? He was here at St Mark’s when my mother and I came ten years ago.”

“Does he have any family?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“He had a sister, didn’t he? Lived in Hungerford. She committed suicide.”

Rose opened her eyes wide. “Gosh. You are well informed.”

“She was in Hungerford the day Michael Ryan ran amok and killed fourteen people. According to Derek, she was lucky not to be killed herself. Exactly one year later she hanged herself.”

She stood up and walked over to the balcony windows, staring out across the river. Mullen studied her profile and was struck by her nose, long and slightly upturned at the end, suggesting an arrogance that was at odds with what he knew of her character. She turned towards him. “How on earth did you get Derek to tell you that?”

“I guess it was the fact that when Chris first came to St Mark’s, he was dressed in camouflage fatigues. I asked him about Chris when I met him in church and that was the memory it sparked in him. Michael Ryan and Chris both dressed in army gear.”

Rose returned to the table and sat down. “So what are you going to do now? I’d like to help if I can.”

Mullen scratched hard at his head. He wasn’t sure why, but his scalp had become very itchy. Residue from the bandaging he supposed.

“There’s one thing you can do for me,” he said. “You can ring Paul Atkinson and tell him you need to see him urgently.”

“Paul?” Rose was clearly surprised by Mullen’s change of direction. “You don’t think that Paul . . . ?”

She tailed off, unable to voice in full what Mullen’s request might imply.

“I don’t at the moment know of any connections between Paul and Chris, but if anyone were to draw up a list of suspects for the death of Janice, then Paul would be at or near the top.”

“As would Becca, surely?”

Mullen said nothing. He knew Rose was right, but it wasn’t Becca he was interested in right this moment. He could access Becca himself. In Paul’s case, he needed help. “Paul avoided me in church this morning. He doesn’t like me. I understand that. But I need to ask him questions. So I want you to arrange a meeting without mentioning that I will be there too.”

The meeting proved remarkably easy to arrange. Rose rang Paul Atkinson from her mobile. He picked up almost immediately and when she said how she really needed to talk to him about Chris, he agreed without any further questioning. But as they discussed when and where to meet, Mullen was barely listening. For the suspicious invisible gremlin which sometimes lurked on his shoulder had materialised and started to whisper into his ear. Did you notice, the gremlin said, that the lovely Rose has Paul Atkinson’s phone number stored on her phone? What is
that
all about? The gremlin had plenty more to say. Rose is jealous of Becca Baines and Becca Baines was having an affair with Paul Atkinson — you haven’t forgotten that, Doug? But now Becca Baines has been chumming up to you, Doug, even though it was you who put the kibosh on her fun with Paul. And, the gremlin continued, just in case Doug had missed the point, this is not the first time Rose has rung Paul Atkinson mobile to mobile. Put all that in your pipe and smoke it, Doug, the gremlin concluded triumphantly. Afterwards, you can tell me what you make of it.

And Mullen really didn’t know what to make of it all. What he did know, however, was that he had to do
something
if he wanted to get to the bottom of the two deaths. Or should that be three deaths? It was the gremlin again. What about Doreen Rankin? I am not saying that her death is necessarily suspicious, but why, Doug, did the police question you about it? Was it merely because of the photographs they found? Or did they suspect foul play? Mullen’s response was that the police didn’t quiz him for an alibi; so the likelihood was that the woman’s death was just an unfortunate accident. Maybe she fell asleep halfway through a cigarette? Or after lighting a candle? Accidents happen. Why would there be anything intrinsically suspicious about a house fire, unless — the thought hit Mullen like a clapper in a church bell — Doreen Rankin’s remains happened to contain traces of rohypnol.

“Is everything OK?” Rose was looking at him with that frown of hers.

“Yes,” he said. “You did a good job with Paul.” He stood up and drained what was left of his lemonade. “Where are we meeting him?”

“At my mother’s.”

* * *

Mullen’s mobile beeped a second time. It was lying on the table in front of him. His immediate impulse was to pick it up. He hardly ever got text messages. Janice had been the exception. She had sent him a text per day at first, checking on how he was getting on with the job. The frequency of the texts had increased, at first gradually and then exponentially. They had changed in content and tone too, becoming more personal and more desperate. He didn’t think he had received any texts from anyone since Janice’s death.