Fatal Connection (7 page)

Considering her partner’s fragile state, Lexi did not make a cutting comment about his choice of meatballs for lunch. In The Hungry Human, she watched him eating them without his usual relish. ‘So, your grandma almost threw you out the house?’

‘Sort of. She needs some time and space on her own and she said she was fed up of me moping around. Said Dad would want me to get on with it.’ Troy smiled weakly. ‘She’s not a ghost any more.’

‘Sorry?’

‘She looked like a ghost on Friday and yesterday. She looks more like Gran today, even though she’s putting on a show of strength for me.’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Lexi said, ‘but I guess I know what you mean.’

‘She’s trying to battle through, so I should as well.’ Troy drank some blueberry juice. ‘Has your spreadsheet joined the dots yet? You’d better bring me up to speed.’

‘The chief offered me a new partner. Huh. Know what I said?’

‘No.’

‘Yeah. That’s exactly what I said. I said no. I don’t know what came over me. I told them I’d only work with you.’ She shrugged. ‘I must be crazy. I said I’d wait for you because no one’s in immediate danger – as far as we know.’

The deep-fried spiders had been placed on her plate so that they appeared to be chasing each other in an endless circle. The legs of each tarantula were crunchy but the abdomen oozed bitter brown goo.

‘You’ll have carried on with the forensics, though.’

‘Yeah. The Switcher squirrel squatters first. They picked up some mercury for sure, but a fully grown major would have to eat about ten of them to get a lethal dose.’

‘Maybe the last lot had ten times more, so one in a pie would be enough.’

‘But ten times more would kill a squirrel pretty quickly. I’m not ruling it out, but it’d have to run back to the farm and get slaughtered before the mercury finished it off.’

‘Okay. It’s south of certain but it’s still our best shot – unless you’re about to tell me something that beats it.’

‘Tight End Crime Central reported in on Jon Drago Five. They’ve been through medical records and asked around. No evidence of any of his contacts getting ill – not with symptoms of poisoning anyway. And they’ve drawn a blank with him running a black market in mercury.’

Troy tried to stay focused. ‘I need something positive to make me feel better.’

Lexi smiled and tucked into another tarantula, making him wait. Then she said, ‘We’ve done the isotope analysis on that hair. We can’t use the result in court, but it’s interesting.’ To turn up the tension yet more, she took a few seconds to drink some wine. ‘Whoever it belongs to, they’ve been eating and drinking way up north. The hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios match very well. Easily within error limits.’

‘You mean the person who probably ripped the pages out of Keaton’s diary could live in Loose End or Tight End?’

She nodded. ‘Or other places up there.’

‘That’s another reason to get a DNA sample from Jon Drago Five.’

‘The locals have already done it.’

‘And?’

‘You said you only wanted positive results to make you feel better.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. It doesn’t match the hair.’

Troy groaned. ‘We’re back in the starting blocks.’

‘Not quite. We know we want to speak to a northern outer with mercury-coloured hair and probably brown eyes. Okay,’ Lexi said, ‘it’s not superprecise, but it’s something.’

‘True.’ He wasn’t in the mood for arguing or ribbing her about forensic science, spreadsheets or anything else.

‘All we need is a way forward,’ said Lexi.

Troy wasn’t really in the mood for working out a way forward either, but he did his best. ‘The squirrels are still leading the pack, so we should email Alyssa Bending’s, Miley Quist’s and Richard Featherstone’s families. Did they like squirrel pie – or something else
with squirrel in it? Keaton Hathaway’s more of an unknown quantity. Let’s find out where he shopped. Did he buy squirrel meat? If that gives us four positives, it could be our connection.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Lexi volunteered. ‘The next best link is Jon Drago Five and Mercury Splash. We know Alyssa went to the band’s home territory – she could have bumped into him – and we know the band went to Miley’s and Keaton’s towns.’

‘We need to figure out if Richard’s done anything to give us the complete set.’

‘Then there’s the Tight End area. The north. Alyssa went to the fish breeding centre and the Doom Merchant in Tight End. And we know someone from the same area – not Jon Drago Five – handled Keaton’s diary.’

‘So, have Miley and Richard got a link to the north?’

‘Good questions,’ Lexi said. ‘How do we find the answers?’

‘I don’t know about Miley,’ Troy replied. ‘She’s tricky. But Richard went to art and craft fairs. If there’s someone who organizes them up north, I guess we want to speak to him or her.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

The responses to Lexi’s messages about squirrel meat soon arrived. Richard Featherstone’s wife was first.
It was Richard’s favourite food. Or so he told me.
Next, Miley’s father replied.
Miley ate anything – usually in a hurry. Squirrel disappeared as quick as any other meal put in front of her.
Mr Bending also sent a message.
Alyssa was keen on squirrel stew.

Half an hour later, a police officer in Pickling answered Lexi’s request for information on Keaton Hathaway’s shopping habits. She read the report and then said to Troy, ‘We’ve got records from a
supermarket about what Keaton bought and, yes, it includes two lots of squirrel meat in the last three weeks.’

‘That’s a full house, then,’ Troy replied.

‘Yes. My spreadsheet’s flashing
squirrel meat
at me. It thinks that’s the fatal connection. But we can’t put squirrels on trial.’

‘Corporate manslaughter, isn’t it?’

‘By squirrels?’ Lexi said with a grin.

‘No. By corporations.’

‘Switcher or the squirrel farm?’

‘Possibly both. They’ve been north of untidy.’

‘Huh. We’ve got no proof they’re responsible for the deaths – and no way of getting it, as far as I can see. Even if we found out all four victims ate squirrel from the Pickling farm, the poisoned meat’s long since gone.’

Troy nodded and sighed. ‘The defence would say it’s a coincidence and we’ve got nothing definite to pin on them.’

‘That’s that, then.’

Troy was not the sort to give in, but he felt inclined to agree. Right now, he didn’t have the grit to put up a fight.

‘These art and craft fairs up north,’ Lexi said. ‘Most of them are organized by an arts group. I’ve contacted
the secretary and he’s given me a number for the man who runs a monthly fair in Loose End. Horatio Vines. You might want to speak to him.’

‘Yes,’ Troy replied, without his normal enthusiasm.

They soon set up a video call and, after introducing himself, Troy asked, ‘When was the last art and craft show in Loose End?’

‘Now that’s simple,’ Horatio answered in a pompous accent. ‘On the morning of Sunday the twenty-seventh of April.’

‘What sort of art and crafts are on display?’

‘Jewellery’s very popular. Especially gold.’ He fingered a gold pin on the lapel of his formal jacket. ‘Painting, wood-turning, children’s toys, home-made food, clothing and bag making. That’s not an exclusive list, but it covers the majority of my exhibitors.’

‘Was a man called Richard Featherstone there?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know the names of the visitors, of course, but there wasn’t a stall-holder of that name.’

‘I’m putting up a picture of Richard Featherstone. Does that help?’

‘Now that’s different. I do recognize him, yes. Absolutely. He came to the fair and asked to see me. That’s definitely the gentleman concerned. He
told me he was a craftsman but didn’t have anything to display. Instead, he asked me to put out a few business cards advertising … what he did.’

‘Furniture-making?’

‘Yes, that’s it. I don’t have any of his cards left to verify that, but he certainly made furniture.’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘It was just the two of us when he talked to me.’

‘I’m putting three more photos on-screen. Were any of these people with him?’

‘Well, now you mention it …’

Troy sat bolt upright. ‘What?’

‘Yes,’ Horatio Vines said. ‘I saw him with her. The middle photo.’

‘Alyssa Bending.’

‘Her name doesn’t mean anything to me, but the picture has stirred a memory. After he spoke to me, I’m fairly sure I saw him strolling around the other stalls with that lady.’

Troy glanced at Lexi before replying, ‘How did they seem? Like an established couple – or two people who’d just met?’

‘Now that I’m not sure. But, if I recall, they seemed … close.’

‘Thanks. That’s very helpful.’

‘Can I ask the nature of your enquiry?’

Troy smiled faintly. ‘It’d be best if you didn’t.’ He ended the call and faced his partner. ‘If he’s right,’ Troy said, ‘we’ve just turned a corner.’

‘If you mean it’s a new twist, yeah, I agree.’ She shook her head and then smiled mischievously. ‘Doesn’t sound like a fishing expedition to me.’

‘No. But if Richard and Alyssa were having an affair, it explains what they did with their phones. And why.’

‘Does it?’

‘They would’ve called each other or texted, arranging their get-togethers. There’d be a record of it on their mobiles. I guess they both decided to hide it from their families when they got sick, not wanting to stir up even more hurt. They took their secret to the grave. Richard wiped his and Alyssa …’

‘Yes?’

‘Imagine you’re sick,’ Troy said. ‘The only thing you can do is lie on a bed or struggle to the bathroom now and again. You want to get rid of your phone to save your family from knowing what you’ve been up to. What do you do?’

‘Okay. I’m onto it,’ Lexi replied.

‘Onto what?’

‘The water authority.’

Troy nodded. ‘You agree, then. She’d have flushed it down the toilet.’

‘If they find it in the sewer, I’ll ask Terabyte to see if he can get any data out of it.’

Wincing, Troy said, ‘As long as you don’t give it to me, I don’t mind.’

‘His sense of smell is less than yours. And he’ll know how to clean it up without ruining it.’

‘If it’s not already ruined.’

‘Right. We’ve placed two of our victims up near Loose End and Tight End before they became ill. Probably together. Keaton Hathaway’s got a connection to the same area through the hair stuck on his last diary. Perhaps he went up there as well. But what about Miley?’

Troy shrugged. ‘Her father said she’d been swimming. That’s not much to go on. Hang on …’

‘What?’

‘He saw her washing her swimming costume, but that’s not all. He said she cleaned mud off her trainers.’

Lexi jumped up. ‘Let’s go. And hope she wasn’t too thorough. I want some of that mud.’

Back in the laboratory, Lexi extracted a small amount of caked soil from deep in the tread of Miley Quist’s
trainers. She examined it under a microscope, logging in particular the quartz grains and other minerals.

When she’d finished, she looked up at Troy and smiled. ‘You won’t find this combination of minerals anywhere around Shepford,’ she told him. Consulting a database of soil types, she added, ‘But you would in the north.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Could it only have come from there?’

‘Realistically, yes. There are a couple of other similar mixes in other places, but they’re outside the error limits. I can’t be a hundred-per-cent certain, though. If I’m analysing layers of mud from different places she’s been to, that’d blur the result. We need supporting evidence.’ She hesitated. ‘But I’m thinking about that. I can put it in for organic analysis and I’m wondering about doing a DNA profile on it. That’d identify any soil bacteria and fungi. Maybe that would narrow it down a bit more.’

‘Good idea.’

‘We’ll see.’

Troy sighed. ‘I just wish we had more of a handle on Keaton Hathaway’s travels.’

‘The team looked into all the obvious stuff.’ Lexi shrugged helplessly. ‘No tickets or anything useful.’

‘I’m sure I’m missing something.’

‘You’ve been distracted. Probably still distracted.’

Troy wasn’t going to admit it, but his partner was right. After years without his dad, Troy might have been on the verge of accepting him back into his life when a pest and an electric cable intervened. What he got was a shell of a father. And for less than two hours. Not a single word. Not a single reaction. Nothing. Troy felt cheated. Now, he needed the investigation to push resentment to the back of his mind, to occupy his troubled brain. But sometimes it failed and the image of his dying father and distressed grandmother slipped without warning into his head.

Unconvincingly, he said, ‘I’m fine. When a case gets its tentacles around you, it’s hard to escape.’

‘You’re a sucker for a wacky series of murders,’ Lexi replied.

Troy put his forehead in his hands and groaned. When he looked up again, after a few seconds, he said, ‘Alyssa Bending was in Tight End on Friday the twenty-fifth and in Loose End on the morning of Sunday the twenty-seventh. Richard was probably with her as well. So, where did they go exactly? What did they do and where did they stay?’

‘I’ve already checked all the lodgings in the area.
Alyssa wasn’t booked in at any of them.’

‘What about camping? What if they just put a tent up in a field? Maybe they wanted a get-away-from-it-all, back-to-nature weekend.’

‘In that case …’ She shrugged. ‘We could go back and take a look.’

‘Okay. But not yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s something I’ve got to do here in the morning.’

‘Oh?’

‘Something very important.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Mark the next stage of my dad’s journey.’

‘You mean his funeral,’ said Lexi.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a short journey.’

Troy disagreed. ‘Believing in something beyond life helps. That way, death’s not the end. There’s the hope of a meeting of souls afterwards. Maybe we can make it up to each other.’

‘That’s sweet, but …’ For once, Lexi decided not to pursue the topic. ‘We go north afterwards, then?’

‘Yes.’