Killer Plan (26 page)

69

Geraldine was
going through
everything, step by step, checking and cross checking. So far she had failed to put the fragments of information they had gathered together in the right order, missing a vital lead. She wasn’t optimistic as she drove back to the old people’s home where Eve’s aunt lived, to double check Eve’s alibi. All the same, someone had lied to them. She couldn’t take anyone’s word at face value. The London roads seemed to be more congested every day, but at last she reached her destination. The exterior of the brick nursing home was unprepossessing, but well-maintained. Inside there was a pleasant atmosphere. The manager saw Geraldine through the window and recognised her straight away.

‘You’re here to see Jane Arkwright, aren’t you?’ she asked with a bright smile as she came out of her office into the foyer. ‘You won’t go upsetting her, will you? She’s very frail.’

Geraldine reassured her without giving away the reason for her visit.

‘She’s not been getting into mischief, has she?’

The manager laughed, but there was a slight edge to her voice.

Lowering her voice confidentially, Geraldine explained that she was interested in tracing the movements of Jane’s niece on the evening of her visit to the home.

‘May I ask what this is about? This isn’t the first time you’ve been here asking questions, and we don’t want to go upsetting our residents. Is Jane’s niece suspected of being involved in some trouble? Nothing illegal, I hope. Only we have a duty of care…’

‘I’m afraid the reason for the investigation is confidential. All I can tell you is that we’re looking into the movements of a number of people, and at this stage we’re simply eliminating possible suspects. In fact,’ she added firmly, ‘Jane’s niece is voluntarily helping us with our enquiries. I’m afraid I really can’t tell you any more than that.’

After remonstrating half-heartedly about being busy, the manager took Geraldine into a small office. The visitors’ records confirmed that Eve had visited her aunt on the evening of Nick’s murder. She had arrived at seven and left just before ten.

‘We don’t usually have visitors staying so late. The residents get tired,’ the manager said.

The timing of Eve’s visit was certainly convenient, given that Nick had been killed between eight and nine that evening.

‘Did she usually stay so late when she visited?’

The manager frowned. ‘Her visits have tended to be on and off, in the long term. She’ll visit fairly regularly for about six months, then we won’t see her for a while, and then she starts coming again. She made some excuse about not being able to drive for a while but, to be honest, it’s not unusual for visitors to be unreliable.’ She sighed. ‘It would help the residents so much if visitors would be more consistent, but you can’t make people turn up regularly. Everyone leads such busy lives these days.’

Geraldine gave a sympathetic nod, thinking guiltily how rarely she made time to visit her sister.

Once she had agreed to co-operate, the manager became quite chatty.

‘We see a lot like that. Family members who rarely visit frequently suffer a sudden attack of guilt – often brought on by the prospect of an imminent inheritance,’ she added in an undertone.

Geraldine enquired about Eve’s other recent visits. Although she had been hoping to hear the date of Dave Robinson’s murder, she was nevertheless shocked when she heard it in the list the manager read out. After arranging for scans of the entries in the visitors’ book to be emailed to her, Geraldine went to speak to Jane Arkwright. A question was beginning to form in Geraldine’s mind about Eve, but she had to be sure her theory stacked up before taking it to Reg. He might be reluctant to accept that the killer they were hunting for was his dead colleague’s widow.

This time the manager didn’t escort her to Jane’s room.

‘You know the way. It’s along the corridor to your left, four doors along. You’ll see her name.’

‘Thank you.’

The old woman was seated in exactly the same position as she had occupied on Geraldine’s previous visit. Ensconced in an upholstered armchair, with her feet resting on a foot stool, she barely stirred when Geraldine entered. Gazing around the impersonal decor and furnishings, Geraldine could understand why someone might prefer to sit gazing out of the window all day, even though the view wasn’t spectacular. Through the window, a narrow path was visible. It ran between a tall hedgerow and a small patch of mown grass. A reasonably fit adult could sprint along the path in a few minutes. By skirting the hedge, they might reach the street without being seen from Jane’s room.

Seeming to notice Geraldine for the first time, Jane looked up and smiled vaguely at her.

‘Do I know you?’

Eve’s aunt was unlikely to be much help as a witness. Mumbling reassuring platitudes without really knowing what she was looking for, Geraldine went over to the window. The sill was low, the single pane of glass quite large. With a quick jerk of the handle, she pulled the window wide open. It would be easy enough to climb out of it. For a moment she was lost in a mental image of Eve straddling the window sill before vanishing into the darkness outside.

Jane’s querulous voice recalled Geraldine to the present.

‘There’s a bit of a draught. I don’t like to have the window open. It’s not safe to leave it open. What if someone gets in?’

The old lady sat watching with a worried expression as Geraldine closed the window.

Back in the office, Geraldine thanked the manager and said she was leaving.

‘Well, if there’s anything else we can help you with, just give me a call.’

Geraldine spoke in as casual a tone as she could manage. ‘There is one more thing. What kind of security do you have in the ground floor rooms?’

‘I’m not sure what kind of security you mean,’ the manager replied, at once on her guard. ‘We have a burglar alarm, as well as smoke alarms, and alarm cords in every room. Our residents are perfectly safe here. We had an outstanding inspection report…’

‘The burglar alarm is on at night, presumably?’

‘Every night.’

‘But what about during the day? What’s to stop residents walking out?’

‘There’s always someone on duty here, keeping an eye on the exit. I’m really not sure…’

‘Someone could leave through a window?’

The manager laughed. ‘Most of our residents can barely walk through the door. I can’t see any of them climbing out of a window!’ She laughed again, genuinely amused.

Geraldine didn’t stop to explain that she hadn’t been thinking about a resident leaving the building unseen.

70

As she drove to
Nick’s house, Geraldine tried to make sense of the recent events. Uppermost in her mind was the missing boy. Brian appeared to be on the level, and Caroline’s accusation sounded implausible. There seemed to be no reason why Brian should have randomly kidnapped Ed. Yet there was evidently something connecting the two former classmates. They both admitted to having met by chance, just before Dave’s death. Still puzzling over it, she drew up outside Eve’s house
.
Only a couple of weeks ago it had been Nick’s house. Every day, Geraldine’s grief grew sharper. Usually she coped with any personal problems by immersing herself in work. Now, whenever she sat in her office, his empty desk beside her was a constant reminder of his absence. Even without that she would have found it impossible to stop thinking about him, since she was involved in the investigation into his murder.

Several times she had considered telling the detective chief inspector that she wanted to step down. Before taking the case on, she had been confident she could cope. She had been desperate to hunt for Nick’s killer. By the time she had realised that the case was too personal for her to manage in a detached manner, it was too late to withdraw. She would have had to admit the truth about her relationship with Nick, exposing herself as a liar as well as promiscuous. Her reputation would never recover. She had to leave Reg ignorant about her emotional involvement with Nick. As far as he was concerned, they had been no more to each other than colleagues who had established friendly relations after a difficult start. They hadn’t known one another for long. She had no choice but to tough it out and see the case through to its conclusion, however difficult it was for her.

Identifying a killer who had claimed more than one victim was always urgent. This time it was even worse than usual. Until the case was over, it was impossible to drive out the memory of her night with Nick. It haunted her waking thoughts and plagued her dreams. Once she woke in the morning expecting to see him lying in bed beside her. Returning to reality was painful. Her colleagues were all in various states of shock over what had happened to Nick. No one paid any attention to the signs of exhaustion Geraldine saw when she glanced in the mirror.

Geraldine had never seen Nick’s house while he had lived there. Now her curiosity was like an uncomfortable itch. She wanted to see where he had worked at home, where he had relaxed in the evenings, and where he had eaten. She was desperate to know whether he had lied about no longer sharing a bedroom with his wife. She tried to concentrate on Eve, who reiterated her account of where she had been on the evening of Nick’s murder.

‘How often did you visit your aunt?’

Eve looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Not as often as I should,’ she admitted.

‘And how long did you usually stay?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t time my visits.’ She paused. ‘It just depended on how she was feeling.’

‘And how was she feeling on that evening in particular?’

‘Fine. Now if that’s all, there’s really nothing more I can tell you. I’d like to help you, but I can’t.’

Remembering the window in Jane Arkwright’s room, Geraldine considered the possibility that Eve was guilty. She looked fairly fit. She could easily have climbed out through the window without anyone knowing, run to her car, driven home to kill Nick, and returned to the old people’s home without being seen. Her aunt was too confused to notice what had happened. It would have been risky, but it was possible.

‘Did you kill your husband?’

Eve’s cheeks flushed dark red. Her eyes brightened with suppressed outrage.

‘I can’t believe you’re asking me that. You do know who my husband was?’ She stood up, her voice quivering with indignation. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? My husband was an inspector. I don’t think Reg is going to be very impressed when he hears what you’ve been here accusing me of.’

‘I’m just doing my job, Mrs Williams. We need to eliminate you from the enquiry. The quicker we can get through this, the sooner I’ll be off.’

‘Eliminate me by accusing me of murdering my own husband,’ Eve muttered, but she sat down again. ‘I’ve told you where I was. You can go there and check.’

Geraldine didn’t say that she had done just that, and her visit hadn’t helped Eve’s case. She leaned forward in her chair. ‘Help me out here, Mrs Williams – Eve. I’ll be frank with you, we’re all at sea. Why would anyone have wanted to kill Nick?’

Eve shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Haven’t got the faintest idea. That’s your job, isn’t it, to find his killer? One of the criminals he arrested, I suppose.’

‘Have you ever met a man called Dave Robinson? Or his wife, Caroline?’

‘That’s the victim of another attack, isn’t it? Do you think the murders are linked?’

‘Have you ever met him or his wife?’

‘No. I’d never heard the name until Reg mentioned it, and of course it’s been all over the news. The papers are saying there’s a serial killer, but why target a police officer and then some plumber or electrician?’

She sounded genuinely baffled. Geraldine tried one more time.

‘You must have known your husband was unfaithful.’

Eve stared straight at her, unblinking. ‘Was he? That’s an extremely nasty rumour to go spreading around about a man who can’t answer for himself.’

‘It’s more than a rumour. How did it make you feel?’

‘Your opinion of my husband is of no interest to me. It’s not your place to spread gossip and lies. I don’t want to hear it. For the purposes of your elimination process, I didn’t kill my husband in a jealous rage. Why would I have done? He wasn’t unfaithful. We were happily married. I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill that other man; in fact, I’m sorry to disappoint you if you’ve got it into your head that I’m a serial killer, but I haven’t killed anyone. Now, get out of my house.’

Geraldine wanted to ask her why she had lied about Nick staying out the night before he was killed, but there was no point. She could only challenge Eve by admitting how she herself knew Nick hadn’t been home that night. Even if she established Nick’s whereabouts, Eve would claim ignorance. She could easily say she had fallen asleep and not realised he hadn’t been home that night
.
Or she might accuse Geraldine of lying, and complain about her. Geraldine turned to a different line of enquiry.

‘A ten-year-old boy has disappeared.’

‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it has nothing to do with me. I’d like you to leave.’

There was no reason for Geraldine to stay. If Eve was innocent as she claimed, then she would be quite within her rights to report Geraldine for inappropriate conduct, knowing that Reg would listen sympathetically to her. She could dress it up as harassment or something. But Geraldine couldn’t shake off the suspicion that Eve was guilty of killing Nick. Her alibi gave it away. That, and the fact that she lied about Nick’s infidelity. She had to have known about it. But Geraldine couldn’t accuse Eve of lying without admitting her own relations with Nick. She wasn’t sure if it was worth the risk. Not for the first time, she bitterly regretted the night she had spent with Nick.

71

Geraldine wasn’t on
duty on Sunday but she drove to the office to discuss her theory with Reg, judging it better to approach him face to face. He wasn’t in a good mood. Nevertheless, she broached the subject of her suspicions concerning Eve Williams. Reg listened without interrupting, a strained expression on his face.

‘You think she’s guilty because she has an alibi?’ he repeated, a quizzical frown on his face.

‘I checked her alibi. It doesn’t stack up.’

‘Well, alibis aren’t always watertight. Plenty of innocent people don’t have alibis at all. A dodgy alibi means nothing. It’s certainly not evidence of guilt.’

‘Eve’s visits to her aunt were often infrequent, but she went there five times in three weeks, and two of her visits were at the times Dave and Nick were murdered. It can’t be coincidence…’

‘Well, it can be, and it clearly is. Coincidences are not as rare as you might think.’

‘Plus we know she lies.’

‘Indeed?’ He raised his eyebrows.

Ignoring the menace in his tone, Geraldine ploughed on. ‘Eve insists Nick was faithful to her.’

‘And for all we know he was.’

‘He wasn’t.’

‘You mustn’t believe all the tittle tattle you hear around the station.’

Geraldine bit her lip.

‘You do realise what you’re accusing her of?’ he asked.

‘I realise I’m suggesting that Nick’s wife may have killed two men, including Nick.’

Her voice wobbled at the end of the statement. Reg looked at her thoughtfully. She thought he was about to say something, but he appeared to think better of it.

‘You really think she climbed out of the window of the home where her aunt is living, drove all the way to Finchley, and West Hampstead, on two separate occasions, killed two men, on two occasions, and drove back to her aunt’s home, all without anyone seeing her?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. When stated so baldly, the idea sounded unlikely. ‘All I’m saying is that it’s feasible. Not only would it have been physically possible, but she went to the home on both evenings, providing herself with an alibi for the times of both murders, although she hadn’t previously visited her aunt that often.’

Reg frowned. ‘Well, I can see why you might find that suggestive,’ he conceded.

Expecting strident opposition to her suggestion, Geraldine was relieved.

‘We need to proceed carefully,’ he warned her. ‘Officers higher up the chain than me knew Nick, and would have known his wife too. Have you mentioned this to anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’

Geraldine suppressed a flicker of unease, wondering whether Reg was actually giving any credence to her theory. He might be putting on a show of taking her seriously when he was really only concerned to keep her quiet. She waited for him to tell her to leave it to him, but he didn’t.

‘Look into it if you must, Geraldine, but be discreet. And don’t mention it to anyone else, least of all to Eve herself.’

Geraldine nodded. Her head was spinning. She decided it might be best not to admit that she had already as good as accused Eve to her face of murdering Nick. What she really needed was a break from the investigation. It was so hard to tell whether her suspicion of Eve was based on professional instinct, or personal resentment.

Leaving the police station, she set off on the drive to Kent, to visit her sister. Every few weeks, Celia liked to make a Sunday roast with all the trimmings. It made for a pleasant family get together. Geraldine couldn’t always make it, but she tried to go there once in a while.

‘I know you’re busy,’ Celia complained, prompting Geraldine to promise to take her niece out for the day as soon as she could.

‘No, let’s make it a weekend.’

Geraldine responded with her own stock response to Celia’s habitual grouse. ‘I promise I’ll take her out for the day as soon as this investigation’s finished. No, let’s make it a weekend. I’ll take her to the coast. She’d like that. Somewhere nice. Bournemouth or Brighton or somewhere.’

Celia grinned, caught up in Geraldine’s transient excitement. A weekend at the seaside with her niece would be fun, and Chloe would certainly remember it.

‘You promise?’ Celia repeated.

‘I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘Don’t say that, please,’ Celia pleaded, with a mock shudder.

Geraldine laughed. She was forever reassuring her sister that being a detective inspector was nowhere near as dangerous as it appeared on detective series on the television.

‘Are you going to stay a detective all your life? Can’t you at least tell them you need more time off?’

Geraldine squirmed. ‘It doesn’t work like that. If I’m on a case, I have to be there. I have no choice.’

She didn’t add that more often than not it was her own decision to work overtime. When someone had been murdered, investigating their unlawful death took priority for Geraldine over every other possible consideration.

‘If there’s someone walking around who’s committed a murder, they have to be arrested and locked up. It’s not just a question of justice, retribution and all that, but we have to protect everyone else. Otherwise the streets wouldn’t be safe for anyone. Killers would rule society.’

‘As opposed to politicians? How can you tell the difference?’

They both laughed.

‘It’s my job to catch killers, not politicians,’ Geraldine insisted firmly, but she was smiling.

Celia took her for a stroll around the garden while Chloe was on the phone to a friend.

‘All we’ve done is talk about me,’ Geraldine said. ‘What about you? How are you feeling?’

‘Excited, scared, and sick!’

‘But everything’s all right?’

‘Everything’s fine. We want to call the baby after mum, if it’s a girl.’

Geraldine smiled. Celia was so predictable. ‘I think that’s a lovely idea.’

‘Oh good. Only I didn’t want to use mum’s name without checking you were OK with it.’

‘Of course I am. It was nice of you to ask, but this is your child we’re talking about. Anyway, I’m fine with whatever you want to do.’

‘Thank you.’

Geraldine smiled. ‘Don’t start going all weepy on me just because you’re pregnant.’

Celia laughed, her eyes shimmering with tears.

‘I said don’t,’ Geraldine repeated with mock severity.

Admiring Celia’s swelling belly, she wondered what she would have done if she had fallen pregnant after her one night with Nick. She shook her head as though to bat the thought away.

‘What about you?’ Celia asked. ‘How are you, I mean really?’

‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Another lie.

Before Celia could respond, Chloe came running out of the house. ‘Mum! Mum! Stephanie says I can go to her house after school tomorrow.’ She ran up and flung her arms around her mother. ‘Please let me go.’

Without warning, Geraldine thought of Ed. She felt as though she had been hit in the guts.