Murder Club (17 page)

Bible Steve was swivelling his head like an audience member at Wimbledon.

‘Of course,’ said Laura, feeling the colour rise into
her
cheeks a little. ‘I meant a painkiller.’

‘Who are you? Who are you all?’ Bible Steve cried.

‘I’m Sergeant Dave Matthews,’ said the policeman. ‘Don’t you remember me, Bible?’

‘Don’t call me that! And no I don’t remember you.’ His gaze flicked from person to person, coming to stop as he stared at Laura.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. Laura looked away. ‘Who am I?’ he said in a hoarse whisper.

Geoffrey Hunt sat in the snug that lay just off the kitchen. They called it a snug, a small affectation, but one that amused them. A smallish lounge, but cosy, with an open log fire opposite a comfortable sofa and a wide arched opening to the kitchen beyond. On the left was a pair of leaded-light windows that looked out to the front garden.

There were logs burning in the firedog and the crackle and spit of the flames seemed to add to the festive decorations that bedecked the walls and beams overhead. There were more than a hundred Christmas cards displayed. In the corner stood a small tree: a six-foot-high Norwegian Blue. Patricia always insisted on a Norwegian Blue, as it didn’t shed needles into every nook and cranny, and take a month to clean up after Twelfth Night when it was carried into the garden. Geoffrey usually laughed and made a joke about the old
Monty Python
sketch featuring a Norwegian Blue parrot, but this year he hadn’t laughed when he made the joke, and neither had his wife. They were saying things to each other but half the time they weren’t really listening. He supposed a lot of old couples got like that. They didn’t really need language to
communicate
their thoughts, their feelings. In the background the radio was playing some classical Christmas carol. Geoffrey always had the radio on. Hated the television. Always had. Patricia occasionally insisted they watch some programme or other, but it never held his attention. He’d rather listen to his record collection or read a good book. Not that he had done that recently either.

He took out his handkerchief and coughed into it, then coughed again uncontrollably.

Patricia came through from the kitchen where she had been making a hot-drink remedy and waited for him to stop. After a moment or two Geoffrey wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt and smiled gratefully to her as she handed him the steaming mug.

‘Thanks, darling.’

‘Your cold does seem to be getting worse, Geoffrey.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I’m worried about you, that’s all. What with your asthma.’

‘Like I say, I’m fine. I’ve got my sprays and my inhalers.’

The classical music finished on the radio and the presenter announced that the news would be following the adverts.

Patricia crossed over to the small, occasional table where the radio stood and turned it off.

‘I was listening to that, darling,’ Geoffrey said.

‘I know you were, but we need to talk.’

‘I wanted to catch the news!’

‘Later, Geoffrey, this is important.’

‘What is it?’

Patricia sat down next to him. ‘You know we were always talking about moving away. To Spain. To Barcelona.’

‘A pipe-dream. We’re too old now.’

‘Rubbish! But we are getting older. There is no denying that, and this climate here does nothing for your lungs.’

‘What’s put this in your mind all of a sudden?’

‘It’s your chest, and this damned cold. And now there’s this snow and goodness knows when it will end.’

‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind.’

‘That’s all very well for Shelley, darling, but he didn’t live in Queen’s Park.’

‘Well we can certainly think about it. Turn the radio back on.’

‘But that’s all we ever do, Geoffrey.
Think
about it, let’s seize the horn right now, today!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been on the computer …’

‘Again!’

‘Yes, and I’ve found some really cheap flights to Barcelona.’

‘For when?’

‘For tomorrow, Geoffrey. Why don’t we go and spend Christmas in Spain and see what we think?’

Geoffrey coughed into his handkerchief again. ‘I know what I think?’

‘What’s that?’

‘I think you’ve finally lost your marbles,’ he said. ‘And we’ve no chance of making a quick sale, what with the housing market as it is. Let’s wait till the market picks up and then we’ll talk about it.’

‘It might be too late by then.’

‘There’s nothing to connect us, Patricia. Nobody will know who he is now, even if he does turn up.’

Patricia nodded, close to tears. ‘I just worry about what’s to become of us.’

Geoffrey took her hand and patted it. ‘I promised you I’d take care of everything, didn’t I?’

She nodded, blinking back the tears. ‘Yes.’

‘And I will, darling,’ he said, his eyes suddenly clear and focused. ‘I will!’

JACK DELANEY PARKED
his car at the Harrow School theatre. Built in 1994, the Ryan Theatre had cost more than four million pounds, and was worth more than many professional theatres. Then again, the school charged pupils thirty grand a year to attend. Getting on for a quarter of a million pounds for their time at school, and with approximately 850 pupils in attendance, they could pretty much afford it. Pretty much afford anything! Most of the land and the buildings on the Hill were owned by the school. They had invented the game of squash and Harrow’s old-boy honours list contained eight former prime ministers, amongst many other luminaries.

Delaney was not surprised, therefore, as he slammed shut the passenger door of his battered old Saab, to see an outraged figure with curly hair strolling from the theatre towards him.

‘You can’t park there!’ the man said.

‘And you’d be?’ replied Delaney.

‘I’d be the technical manager. And this is school property.’

‘We won’t be long,’ said Sally Cartwright, smiling sweetly at him. ‘We’ve got a quick meeting at The Castle.’

The technical manager looked across at her and beamed. ‘Good choice,’ he said. ‘Take as long as you like. Tell them I sent you.’

‘Cheers,’ she said and walked out of the car park with Delaney. ‘See, sir, didn’t even have to flash my warrant card.’

‘Not your warrant card, no, Sally,’ said Delaney.

‘Sir!’ Sally replied in mock-outrage.

They walked up to the main road and down towards The Castle. ‘They do a nice drop of ale here apparently, Sally.’

‘Bit early for me, boss.’

Delaney looked at his watch. ‘Past lunchtime, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe a cheese and onion roll.’

They turned right out of the car park and walked downhill on West Street a few yards to the pub. Loud singing was coming from the larger of the two bars, and Delaney figured that Tony Hamilton would have gone into the smaller one. He figured right. There were a few regulars drinking pints of London Pride and scowling at the noise emanating from next door. Delaney wasn’t sure if it was an office party that had started early or was finishing late. The school had closed a while back for the holidays, but there was a pantomime running in the theatre and plenty of people still living on the hill.

Delaney used to come to the pub in the old days, when he walked the beat in the area. It was usually a lively pub on a Friday back then, at any time of the year, as he recalled.

‘Second Fuller’s pub I’ve been into today,’ he said to Tony Hamilton as he steered Sally to the bar.

‘What’s it to be, then?’ said the detective inspector, taking a sip from a tall glass of what looked suspiciously like Coca-Cola to Delaney.

‘I’ll have a pint of Guinness.’

‘And the lovely detective constable?’

‘The lovely detective constable will have a soda water and lime. She’s driving.’

‘Yes and the lovely detective constable can speak for herself as well, sir.’

‘At least we all agree she’s lovely,’ said Hamilton and Delaney groaned.

‘Dear God, do you not have a Saturday job selling cheese in the market?’ he said.

Hamilton pulled a stool out for Sally to sit on and gestured the barman over. ‘Pint of Guinness please.’ He looked enquiringly at Sally.

‘I’ll have a soda and lime, and a cheese and onion roll, if they have one?’

The barman grunted, indicating that they had, and set about pouring Delaney’s pint.

‘So what did you learn from the woman?’ asked Delaney.

‘She wasn’t exactly keen to talk.’

‘You think she was lying?’

‘I don’t know. Did you show her the photo?’

Delaney shrugged. ‘I don’t think I did.’

‘Well there you go then. She’s lying. Lying about something anyway. Not about being raped and slashed with a knife. Not about that.’

‘No, she wasn’t lying about that,’ agreed Sally Cartwright.

‘So someone got to her?’ said DI Hamilton.

‘Yeah.’

‘She’s put her house on the market. Suddenly. And she’s put it on cheap.’

‘Can’t blame her for wanting to leave the area.’

‘No.’

‘Specially if she knew that Michael Robinson was moving back in.’

‘Which she would know, when she decided to make that statement in court.’

‘Exactly.’ Delaney took a pull on his pint of Guinness and placed the glass down. ‘I want you to go to Northwick Park Hospital this afternoon, Sally.’

‘Why?’

‘Michael Robinson is a sick fuck. But he has a friend, one assumes.’

‘A partner-in-crime.’

‘Yeah, someone has put the frighteners on Stephanie Hewson, is my guess. Maybe he has put the frighteners on other women. Maybe he has hurt other women. Check the records, see if there have been any women in with knife injuries over the last few years.’

‘We’d have known if something similar had happened before, sir.’

‘No we wouldn’t. Not necessarily. How many women who are raped come forward do you reckon, Sally?’

‘We can’t know for sure.’

‘We do know it is a great deal more who don’t come forward than do,’ agreed Tony Hamilton.

‘With six per cent conviction rates, I’m not too surprised, are you?’

Hamilton shook his head. ‘We’re just the ratcatchers, that’s all. Other people’s job to decide what to do with them.’

Sally looked at Delaney. ‘That’s your expression, isn’t it, sir?’

Delaney ignored her. ‘The thing is a woman might not report a rape, but she would have to report a knife assault.’

‘Unless she claimed it was self-harming.’

‘Self-harmers don’t slash themselves across the belly, Constable.’

‘Some might.’

Delaney drained his Guinness and stood up. ‘Can you give her a lift to Northwick Park?’

DI Hamilton considered for a moment, then smiled at Sally. ‘I’d be delighted.’

‘Where are you going, sir?’

‘Just a little call to make and then I have to go and see the vicar.’

‘Sorting out the wedding?’ said Sally with an innocent expression.

‘Just give me my car keys and save your wit for someone who might appreciate it.’

He nodded at Hamilton who couldn’t see him, and Sally rolled her eyes.

‘Don’t get up to anything I wouldn’t,’ Delaney said as he headed out the door.

Hamilton took a sip of his drink. ‘Just you and me then.’

‘What’s going to happen to Jack?’

‘Not a lot, I should imagine.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be investigating him?’

‘I’m interviewing you, aren’t I?’

‘Is that what you’re doing?’

‘Yeah, I’m the good cop. It’s my technique.’

‘All charm?’

‘Is it working?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’

‘It was destroyed in one.’

‘So you think he showed her the photo?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past him, but he doesn’t think he did. And that’s good enough for me.’

‘I don’t think he did either.’

‘So what are we going to do about it?’

‘Prove him innocent.’

‘Good.’

‘And then, maybe dinner? Do you like Chinese?’

Sally finished her drink, then stood up. ‘Still not working.’

DI Hamilton stood up and jangled his keys. ‘Northwick Park then?’

‘Sounds as good a plan as any!’

Sally walked to the door and Hamilton watched her for a moment then grinned and followed her out.

STEPHANIE HEWSON HESITATED
for a moment before slamming the door shut. Delaney took that moment to hold his hands up in an
I surrender
gesture.

‘I’m not here to give you a hard time, Stephanie.’

‘What are you here for then?’

‘To help.’

‘You’d help me by leaving me alone.’

‘Is that what they said?’

‘Who?’

‘Someone has threatened you, I know that much.’

‘You don’t know anything at all.’

‘I know Michael Robinson was the man who hurt you.’

‘He didn’t just hurt me. He raped me and sliced me like a carcass of meat.’

‘And I am going to make him pay for what he did.’

‘You can do what you like, as long as it is not at my expense.’

Delaney took a card out of his pocket. ‘I know nothing I say can make up to you for what has happened. The truth is there is never the kind of justice that that man deserves.’

Stephanie Hewson looked at the detective standing
on
her doorstep, some of her anger evaporating. ‘I have to protect myself.’

‘I know,’ said Delaney and then nodded sadly. ‘Take my card. It has my mobile number on it. Call me any time, day or night. I promise I’ll be there for you.’

‘I’m not going to change my statement.’

‘I’m not asking you to. I know why you did it, and that’s all that’s important to me.’

Stephanie looked down at the card Delaney was holding out.

‘Take it, Stephanie. Please,’ he said. ‘I can’t promise you that the Metropolitan Police force will do everything in its power to bring Michael Robinson down. But I do promise you
I
will. It was personal to me when I was assigned the case in the first place. I wasn’t functioning properly then. I was borderline alcoholic.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I want you to understand. My wife was killed and it was partly my fault. I didn’t pull the trigger on the shotgun, but I put her in harm’s way. I blamed myself and I couldn’t deal with that, so I drank. My eye was off the ball. We should have had a stronger case against Robinson. What we had was circumstantial and it mainly came down to your identification in the end.’