No Place to Die (27 page)

‘Oh yes,’ she said, settling in the armchair across from him. ‘You have to have the right levels to create the perfect ambience.’ She smiled as she bent down and picked up her own glass. She took a sip, although she was tempted to down it in one.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, Jane, but you don’t look . . . great,’ he said, tossing the magazine onto the sofa next to him.

She nodded and raised her glass. ‘I know. I caught sight of my reflection earlier.’ She opened her mouth in mock-horror. ‘A frightening sight. Feel free not to look at me.’

Lockyer laughed and rested his head on the back of the sofa. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ He smiled. ‘I spoke to Roger before I left the office.’

‘Oh, great. What did he have to say? Am I fired yet?’ For one crazy moment she hoped he would say yes. At least then she could go to bed and sleep until all of the weariness left her body.

‘No. You’re still his golden girl,’ he said, yawning. ‘He’s just worried about you . . . the department. It’s his job.’

‘A job I wouldn’t want for all the tea in China,’ she said, taking another swig of her wine. ‘I hate office bureaucracy. I can’t imagine having to answer to as many people as he does.’

‘That’s why he gets paid the big bucks,’ Lockyer said, rocking forward and picking up the wine bottle in one smooth motion. ‘More?’ he asked, holding the bottle out to her.

‘Yes,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘Fill ’er up.’ They sat in silence for several minutes before she asked, ‘What did he say then?’

Lockyer seemed to hesitate before he spoke. ‘He’s been looking at the Amelia Reynolds case. More specifically, at Mark’s handling of it.’

‘Really?’

‘Roger was the one who authorized the arrest of Lebowski, Jane. He wants to get him just as much as you do. As much as we do, I mean. He’s got to think about the department, and the damage Lebowski’s lawyer could do, if we put a foot wrong.’

‘So?’ she said, folding her legs underneath her. ‘He hasn’t said anything to me.’

‘He said you need to be careful,’ Lockyer replied, raising his eyebrows. ‘I told him you were trying to come at it from a different angle, but I didn’t go into details.’

‘Thanks, Mike,’ she said. ‘I could do with a bit of breathing space.’

‘And you’ll have it,’ he said, putting his feet up on the coffee table. ‘Do you mind?’

She waved away his request. ‘Of course, make yourself at home. Have you eaten?’

‘No. You?’

‘Not yet. I was thinking about ordering a pizza. Do you fancy sharing?’ Lockyer looked at his watch. ‘Only if you’ve got time,’ she added.

‘Go on then. I’m starving.’

‘Pepperoni all right with you?’ she asked, reaching for her phone. He nodded and slumped back in the chair. She called through their order. She was still thinking about her father. She had sent him a text when she got home to tell him she loved him. He had replied with a ‘You too’ and two kisses.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’ Lockyer asked when she came off the phone.

‘Nothing,’ she said, wiping away a tear. ‘I’m just knackered. It’s catching up with me.’

‘Jane,’ he said, sitting forward in his chair. ‘I thought we were going to be honest with each other from now on?’

She looked over at him, debating how much she could say without breaking down. Who else was she going to tell? She had at least a dozen unread emails from friends sitting in her in-box. She doubted any of them would be in the mood to listen to her woes when she had not even bothered to reply to their messages. ‘My father had a stroke. Only a minor one, a TIA. I checked online. It’s not life-threatening. The docs just have to make sure he doesn’t have a full stroke.’

‘When did this happen?’ Lockyer asked, moving to the coffee table so that he was sitting right in front of her.

She sighed. ‘My mother said it probably happened in the last month, but she wasn’t sure. They’re waiting on a load of test results. I only found out today.’ It felt odd talking about her father like this. It felt odd thinking about him being ill. Jane’s thoughts were usually preoccupied with her mother, and the delicate nature of their relationship. Her father was the stable one. He played golf, went drinking with his buddies, played the piano, listened to opera, ate dinner – and that was about it. Everything felt out of kilter.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Locker asked.

She couldn’t help laughing.

‘What?’ He sounded almost hurt.

‘Sorry. I’m just finding this new “sensitive” you a bit hard to deal with, sir.’ She smiled and drained her glass.

Lockyer gave her knee a shove, stood and returned to his place on the sofa. ‘You’re not the only one,’ he said. ‘I was perfectly happy before. Before that occupational-health woman got her hooks into me.’

‘Is it helping?’ she asked, nervous to see if he would actually talk about himself.

He turned his mouth down at the corners. ‘I don’t know. My daughter’s happier, I know that much. After what happened, I struggled to . . . ’ He seemed to be searching for the right words, but Jane wondered if, in fact, it was the feelings he was searching for. ‘I couldn’t talk about it. Megan said I was shutting her out.’ He laughed. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many times I heard the exact same thing from Clara, when we were married.’ Jane realized she was holding her breath. Lockyer never talked like this. It was a new side to him. It was unnerving, but it felt good to be trusted. ‘Things are getting better. We spend time as a family – as much as the job allows. You know how it is. Bobby loves Megs. He’s responded to her, come out of his shell. He’s like a different guy when she’s there.’ He shook his head. ‘If I hadn’t been so “emotionally retarded”, as my daughter calls it, she could have grown up with an uncle, rather than an absent father.’

‘You thought you were protecting your brother,’ she offered. ‘It’s not easy.’

‘Maybe,’ he said, looking at the dregs in his empty glass. He took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I’m going to open another bottle and we can go back to talking about you. Nice diversionary tactic, by the way.’ He winked at her.

‘Let’s talk about the case. I’m sick of talking about “feelings”.’

‘You and me both,’ he said, leaving the room.

The doorbell chimed. ‘Pizza’s here,’ she called. ‘Can you bring through a couple of plates and grab the kitchen roll. It’s next to the kettle.’

‘Got it.’

Jane picked up her purse and went to the door. She paid the delivery man and carried the large pizza box back into the lounge. The smell made her stomach rumble. Most days she wanted to forget about work, but not tonight. Tonight she needed it.

Jane handed Lockyer another piece of kitchen roll. ‘You missed a bit,’ she said, pointing to his chin. She picked up the pizza box. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘Sounds good,’ he said, wiping his mouth. He looked at his watch. ‘And we need to get on and talk about the case, if you still want to? I need to head off in about an hour.’

‘No problem,’ she said, pulling open the lounge door with her foot. ‘It won’t take long.’ She padded into the kitchen, put the pizza box in with the cardboard recycling and washed her hands. There was so much to tell him that she wasn’t sure where to start. She flicked on the kettle and took two mugs out of the cupboard. As she made their coffees she tried to give some order to her thoughts. She walked back through to the lounge carrying their drinks. She handed Lockyer his, before sitting down herself, cradling the hot mug in two hands.

‘Come on then,’ Lockyer said. ‘Let’s have it.’

She looked up at the ceiling. ‘Bear with me if this is a bit jumbled. I’m knackered.’

‘Who isn’t?’ he asked, taking a sip of his coffee. He rested his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Chris passed on some information about Mark today that isn’t great,’ she said. ‘It looks like he was cold-calling Lebowski.’ Lockyer opened his eyes, tilted his head and looked at her. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, ‘but Chris checked the phone records and there are over two hundred calls to Lebowski.’

Lockyer put his hand over his eyes. ‘You’re right. That’s not great.’

‘There’s also a possibility that he passed on Lebowski’s contact info to someone else,’ she said. ‘Gary Reynolds – Amelia Reynolds’s father. Mark stopped calling Lebowski three years ago, but then Gary Reynolds seems to have taken over in the last two years, most notably in the last twelve months.’

‘What the hell was Mark thinking?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘That’s part of the problem.’

‘To say the least,’ Lockyer replied, opening his eyes long enough to take a drink of his coffee. ‘Lebowski hasn’t said anything about this?’

‘No,’ Jane said. ‘There’s no way he would have brought it up, because it would have meant talking about Amelia.’

‘What have you got on Gary Reynolds?’

‘I did a quick search before I left the office. It looks like he and his wife split up after Amelia was killed. He changed jobs, moved to north London, Islington. I think he might have a drinking problem. He’s been arrested for drunk-and-disorderly twice in the last six months. No charges, though.’

‘Are you going to speak to him?’ Lockyer asked.

‘Well, that’s the thing. Everything I have on Gary Reynolds relates to the death of his daughter and the investigation. Roger said there can’t be any crossover between the Reynolds and Hungerford cases. If Whitaker found out, she could revert to the original complaint about Mark: claim that Lewisham nick has it in for Lebowski.’ She leaned forward and put her mug on the coffee table. She pressed her fingers to her eyelids.

‘He’s right,’ Lockyer said.

‘I know,’ she said, looking at him. ‘The link is weak at the moment, but I’m hoping to change that.’

‘How?’

‘There are a couple of possibilities,’ she said. ‘One of the callers to the incident number, naming Lebowski as Maggie’s boyfriend, gave a bogus name and address. I’ve asked Chris to find out if we can get a trace on the number.’

‘You think it might be Reynolds?’ Lockyer asked, resuming his position with his head resting on the back of the sofa, his eyes closed.

‘If he believes Lebowski was involved in his daughter’s death, but got away with it, then he wouldn’t want that to happen again, would he?’ Jane said. ‘Whatever the reason, if it was Gary, then I have a direct link to the Hungerford case. Roger would have to let me question the guy. It wouldn’t be anything to do with the Amelia Reynolds case, not initially anyway. I would simply be following up on a lead. The fact that the two would inevitably overlap is happenstance.’

Lockyer started laughing. ‘You’ve put some thought into that excuse. Nice.’

‘I’ve not thought about much else,’ she said. Which might explain how she had missed her father having a TIA. ‘But that works, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, kind of. But, Jane,’ he said, covering his eyes with both hands now, ‘if Gary Reynolds has contact info for Lebowski, knows where he works, et cetera, why make phone calls? If I thought the man who murdered my daughter was walking around, breathing free air, I think I’d do more than call him.’

‘I thought the same,’ she said, ‘I can’t explain that.’

‘Mmm, okay,’ Lockyer said. ‘What else?’

‘Mort,’ she said, knowing the reaction she was going to get.

He threw his hands up in the air. ‘Jane, do you not think you’ve got quite enough to be getting on with. What’s the obsession with Mort?’

‘It’s not an obsession,’ she said, unable to hide her irritation. ‘I’m looking at as many angles as I can find. There has to be a way in somewhere. For Lebowski to come away this clean, it’s feasible that he had help.’

‘Are you still on the weird-experiments vein?’

Jane took a deep breath. She hated not having the answers. ‘Yes and no. Do you remember what Mort said when we met him?’

‘I’ve tried to block it out,’ he said. ‘Which part?’

‘Him wanting to talk to us about Maggie’s death . . . that it would help his research,’ she said, trying to gauge his reaction. When he nodded she kept going. ‘I’ve asked Mort to come into the station for a follow-up interview.’

‘Go on,’ Lockyer said, his eyebrows inching higher as she spoke.

‘I never asked him about his thesis. It never occurred to me to ask Lebowski, either.’

‘Right,’ he said.

‘Mort claims not to know Lebowski – no more than in passing. What if that’s not true?’

Lockyer screwed up his face. ‘Hang on, hang on. Are you suggesting this is some kind of master-and-apprentice thing?’

Jane’s shoulders sagged as he spoke. It sounded ludicrous. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Shit, I don’t know.’ Every time she felt she was making some headway, it felt as if reality slapped her back down again. ‘There’s something about Mort. I just want to see if I can rattle him. If there’s nothing, then there’s nothing. I’ll drop it, I swear . . . But I need to speak to him before I can.’

‘Okay,’ Lockyer said, holding his hands up. ‘No harm in trying. I assume you want me there with you?’

‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ she said. ‘He’s coming in tomorrow morning.’

‘Saturday?’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘You’re keen.’

‘I offered him an appointment on Monday, but he said he wanted to get it over with,’ she replied. Lockyer nodded, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Do you think I’m nuts?’ she asked.

‘That’s a leading question,’ Lockyer said, laughing. ‘I’m not prepared to answer that at this time. However, I will help you question Mort. I have one request.’

‘What?’ she asked.

‘I want to be there when you tell Roger.’

‘I’m glad this amuses you.’

‘Something has to,’ Lockyer said. ‘Given the amount of shit your case is buried under at the moment, I think hysteria is the only option.’

3rd May – Saturday

Lockyer could see that Terry Mort, despite his desire to ‘get it over with’, was none too pleased with being called into the police station. At the university he had been confident, arrogant and psychotic. Now, sitting here in the interview room, he looked nervous, younger somehow. ‘DS Bennett will be along in a moment, Terry,’ he said. ‘She was just getting some files together.’