No Place to Die (13 page)

He had been home all weekend. It felt wrong, but Roger had made it clear that Lockyer only had three options: in his office going over cold-cases, in therapy or at home. Jane’s little chat with their SIO hadn’t helped, either. Lockyer needed the Hungerford case. He needed the focus, but Jane had seen to it that he was shut out. What he couldn’t figure out was why. Roger had told him he wasn’t authorized to be ‘on-scene’ until he was satisfied that Lockyer could be trusted. The more he thought about it, the more angry Lockyer felt. Without the job he was blind, bumbling about, trying to function like normal people. His years with the Met had worked the ‘normal’ right out of him. His non-work friends thought his job began and ended with a body, fascinated by the gory details, but there was so much more to it than that. Every death was like a pebble dropped into a lake with no shoreline. The ripples kept going.

His phone was ringing in the kitchen. He walked through, picked it up and glanced at the screen. It was Megan.

‘Hi, honey,’ he said, turning and leaning his back against the kitchen counter. He ran his free hand through his hair. It was more out of control than usual, standing up at odd angles. If he didn’t get it cut soon, either the fashion police would arrest him or Animal Control would mistake him for a Yeti and he’d end up in a science lab being prodded by people in white coats. The thought of white coats made him smile. How apt, given his current situation.

‘Hey, Dad. How’s it going?’ Her voice had a sing-song quality that always reminded him of when she was younger. He was still trying to get to grips with recognizing her as an adult. Her nineteenth birthday had been at the beginning of the month. ‘You’re at home this weekend, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I’m home.’ His daughter knew that he was being reintroduced to his caseload gradually, but he had told her that it was his choice. She didn’t need to know everything. She would just worry and would be over here every five minutes to check he was all right.

‘Your garden could do with some TLC,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go down to B&Q and get some pots, or whatever, cheer the place up?’ The thought of going to a garden centre filled him with more dread than a hundred cold-cases. ‘I could come over and give you a hand, if you like? I don’t have much planned this afternoon. Was just gonna sit in the garden and soak up some rays.’

‘Thanks, Megs, but I’ll be fine. I’m just heading out for a run, and then I’ve got some work to do.’

‘Okay. Are you around tomorrow at all?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got a study week, so I thought I’d go and see Uncle Bobby. We could go together. If you fancy it?’

Under normal circumstances Monday mornings were hectic. But all Lockyer had to look forward to was more cold-cases and a counselling session in the afternoon. No contest. ‘That sounds great,’ he said and meant it. After the Stevens case he had promised himself that Bobby and Megan would be a priority in his life. He had seen Bobby every other day, if not every day, and Megan had stayed over on a number of occasions now. He had even shifted his home office around and had bought a single bed off eBay. ‘Why don’t you come over tonight, if you’re free? We can watch a movie – you can stay over.’ He waited for her to reply, hoping for a yes.

‘Okay, yeah. That sounds nice,’ she said.

‘Great. We can have a takeaway tonight, and I’ll cook us up something special for brekkie before we head over to Bobby’s in the morning?’ He turned and opened the cupboards above the counter. ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got Hollandaise in here somewhere.’ His eye settled on the posh-looking jar. A leftover from the Christmas hamper that Roger and his wife had given him. ‘Yep. Got it. I’ll get some muffins on my run, and I’ll do us eggs Benedict. How does that sound?’

‘Sounds good to me. My favourite,’ she said, making a smacking sound with her lips. ‘I’ve got some bits and bobs to finish off at home tonight, so is about eight okay?’

‘Absolutely. See you later on, hon.’ He hung up the phone after they had said their goodbyes. He had something to look forward to. He walked through to his bedroom and over to the chest of drawers. He took out some shorts and a T-shirt and changed. Within five minutes he was pulling on his trainers at the front door. A run would help. He needed to clear his head.

28th April
–
Monday

Jane stood at the water cooler and filled a small plastic cup, its ridged edges slippery beneath her fingers. She drank it in one, refilled it and walked back across the office to her desk, passing Franks and Whitemore. She nodded to Whitemore. He returned the gesture before refocusing on his computer screen. He was new to the team. New to Jane. He had transferred from the flying squad, a division of Serious and Organized Crime. She didn’t know much about him or his background, but so far she was impressed. He was thorough and enthusiastic.

She turned and looked over her shoulder as Franks’s throaty laugh echoed around the office. He was talking on the phone, his eyes shining with tears. If there was humour to be found – however bleak the situation – Franks found it. Lockyer had tried and failed to rein him in, and for that Jane was grateful. Office banter made a difficult day bearable. Like Whitemore, Franks had moved over to the murder squad from S&OC – Drugs division. It was a well-respected unit, despite the fact that they were fighting a losing battle with south-east London’s drug problem. As soon as one faction was shut down, another four popped up to replace it. Franks turned and saw Jane looking at him. He made a funny face and winked at her. She returned his goofy grin before sitting down, the partition around her desk cutting her off from the rest of the office.

She was knackered, after spending most of the previous night going over her conversation with Sue. They had talked for two hours straight. To anyone else, Sue would have appeared to have been candid about her marriage to Mark, but Jane had known the couple for a long time and a doubt was nagging at her, blurring her focus. It was like a whisper lost at the end of every sentence, a truth not quite told. It didn’t make any sense. Sue was an ex-copper. What was she holding back? Jane sighed and looked down at her scribbled notes. She picked up one of the pages of A4 and started reading. Sue and Mark had been to see a counsellor in the first year after his retirement. They had been told to work on their communication, as a couple and as a family, and Mark had been advised to get a hobby. It sounded laughable to Jane: quit the force, start knitting and all your worries would be over. She knew it was never that simple for anyone, especially someone in Mark’s position. A bit of woodwork or gardening wasn’t going to fill his days in the same way the job had done. Jane dreaded the day she retired. She had no idea how she would function without the routine. She pushed her fringe off her forehead.

From what Sue had said, it sounded to Jane as if Mark had suffered a nervous breakdown: days in bed, not eating, his moods swinging between sullen and aggressive. Sue believed the counselling had helped, but Jane wondered if Mark felt the same. She picked up her pen and circled the paragraph and wrote ‘f/u’ in the margin next to it – ‘follow up’. It would be difficult. The counsellor wouldn’t hand over their notes, or discuss Mark and Sue’s sessions, without a subpoena. Jane doubted, given what she had so far, that she would get one.

She logged into her computer and checked through her emails. Her eyes kept drifting down to the papers spread out on her desk; a name that Sue had mentioned kept catching her eye.

Amelia Reynolds.

It was one of the cases Jane had highlighted last week: a possible stress trigger for her all-but-abandoned suicide theory. She tapped her pen on her teeth and looked up at the ceiling tiles. Amelia was the daughter of a friend of Mark and Sue’s. In fact, now that she thought about it, Mark must have fought pretty hard to get the case, given his personal involvement. The case had never been solved, and Mark, according to Sue, had never forgiven himself. Sue said he had nightmares about it at the time.

It wasn’t unusual for a case to impact on the subconscious. She had had her own share of sleepless nights about the Stevens case. She still did. The dream was the same every time. She would wake up in bed, frightened. She would try to turn on her beside light, but it wouldn’t come on. She would stumble around the house, trying every light switch, without success. She would get to the kitchen and open the fridge. The internal light would come on and she would feel a wave of relief until she realized what she was looking at. Every shelf was empty, but in the door, standing alone, was a baby’s bottle filled to the brim with blood. She shuddered. Even thinking about it now made her mouth go dry. She forced herself to keep reading. She picked up a red pen and circled the paragraph about the Reynolds case and put ‘CH’ in the margin. She wanted to review the full case history.

She spent the next hour going through her scribbled notes, circling each detail and giving it a letter or shorthand note. Either Chris or Aaron could type them up and add the follow-ups to the Action list. Both were due in at five. By the time she finished it was already three o’clock. Whitemore had gone and Franks looked as if he was getting ready to do the same. She craned her neck to look over at the briefing room. DI Ayres’s team had been called in an hour ago to deal with a suspicious death near Brockwell Park. Their voices were muffled by the wall of glass separating them from the rest of the open-plan office. They would be here for the rest of the day. So would she, at this rate. She had been due a day off. No such luck.

Penny had dropped off a list of Maggie’s tutors and classmates, each with a brief biography. Jane took the folder out of her in-tray and scanned through the names, flicking through to Lebowski. The information on him was a bit more extensive, at Jane’s request. She was loath to trust the call-in’s suggestion that he and Maggie were having a relationship but, with the post-mortem evidence, it was her best lead. The first caller hadn’t given a name. The second, an Oliver Hanson, had given a partial address, but had then been cut off. He was due to call back. She clicked into her computer and added Hanson’s name to the Action list. He would need to be contacted and his information verified.

She read through the basics. Victor Lebowski was thirty-nine years old, Caucasian, five foot eleven. Divorced, living alone in a flat in Greenwich – a flat he owned. His ex-wife, Emily Loxton, lived in Dulwich Village with their two children, Poppy and Petra, seven and ten years old respectively. He had been a tutor at Greenwich University for nine years. He taught psychology to undergraduates, but also cognitive and applied psychology to the MA and PhD students. There were no records of any complaints about him by either students or other tutors. Jane was interviewing the head of psychology in the morning. It would be interesting to see how Lebowski was viewed by the teaching staff. From his employment records, he appeared to be a model teacher. The achievement statistics relating to his classes were above average. He was in charge of three PhD students, and currently had ten on the Masters course. He didn’t have a criminal record. He had never been cautioned. As far as Jane could tell, he hadn’t so much as got a speeding ticket. A model citizen. No one was
that
good, were they? She was a detective sergeant, but she still had three points on her licence for speeding.

The ticking of the clock in the middle of the office seemed to increase in volume with each hour that passed. She pored over the details of students and teachers alike. There were no red flags. On paper they all looked the same. Normal, law-abiding individuals. No one who fitted the profile of Maggie’s killer. Phil had stressed that the suspect was motivated and organized. There was a suggestion that this was an ongoing pattern of behaviour. Not necessarily that other girls had been murdered, but that the suspect – whoever he was – would have a pattern of obsessive behaviour in their past. But none of the names on Jane’s list stood out. The phone on her desk started to ring. She picked up the handset. ‘Detective Bennett,’ she said, looking over at the clock. It was six-thirty. She had forgotten to call home.

‘Good afternoon, Detective. I’m sorry to trouble you. I had intended to leave a message, but the switchboard operator said you were in the office, so I asked to be put through. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ His voice was soft. There was a crackle at the end of his sentences, like waves kicking up pebbles on a beach. It was soothing.

‘How can I help you?’ she asked.

‘I wanted to speak with you about Maggie Hungerford.’

A pen was in her hand before he could finish speaking. ‘Can I ask your name?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I assumed the officer who connected me would have given it to you.’ Jane closed her eyes. She could listen to this guy talk all day and all night. It was like listening to a combination of David Attenborough and Anthony Hopkins. ‘I taught Maggie,’ he said, the crackle in his voice tickling Jane’s ear. A shiver started working its way down her back. ‘My name is Victor – Victor Lebowski.’

The shiver stopped. Jane opened her eyes. The model citizen.

29th April – Tuesday

Jane stood in Lockyer’s office with her back against the door. He had been ranting for the past five minutes. Given the volume of his voice, she guessed he had taken the weekend to wind himself up in order to give her the full force of his displeasure. She couldn’t blame him. He was essentially off active duty because of her.

‘Who did you think would benefit from this?’ he asked, not waiting for an answer. ‘You? Me? Your career?’ She decided silence was the best option. She couldn’t defend herself. For the most part she agreed with him. ‘Wasted time – that’s all you’ve achieved.’ A lump started to form in her throat. She thought for a second she might cry, but then she realized it was her own anger surfacing. She wanted to tell him exactly what she thought, but if she started she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop. ‘Well?’ he said, slumping into his chair.