Saxon (9 page)

‘Barbara told me about all the “happenings” in her life,’ Marks went on. ‘When I say “happenings”, you have to understand that this was a term she used to describe her sexual encounters. I’m not sure why. They weren’t only with women, you know, she was bisexual.’ Marks paused again for effect, clearly anticipating a response of some kind. But Saxon and Parker were skilled in maintaining deadpan expressions, even when something as unexpected as this came to light. There had been no sign at the house of any interest in men.

Slightly disappointed, Marks continued. ‘The prescription was for a sexually transmitted disease. She was very sexually active and picked up infections quite frequently,’ he said, very matter-of-fact about the conversation now, and speaking at normal speed, much to Saxon’s relief. ‘Let me put it this way,
Commander, some people join murder mystery weekends for their entertainment, others stay at home and watch television, I suppose. But Barbara Jenner didn’t. It seemed to me that she travelled around with the sole purpose of picking up women. Or men,’ he mused, ‘depending on how she felt at the time, I suppose. More women than men, as far as I can remember’.

He looked at the two policemen, but neither spoke. Saxon raised his eyebrows, inviting further comment. Marks was more than happy to oblige. ‘Another point worth mentioning,’ he continued, ‘Poppy had no idea about what was going on. Babs wanted it that way. Like most of us, I imagine, she always wanted someone to go home to. It certainly seemed to me that one of her priorities was not to hurt Poppy in any way whatsoever. It didn’t stop her running around, of course, but she went to some lengths to cover her tracks. I think she loved Poppy, you know, really loved her. But she couldn’t resist the excitement of new conquests. As I have already said, male or female, it didn’t really matter to her.’

Saxon sat in silence for a few moments while Parker made notes. Then he said, ‘Dr Marks, can you give me the names of any of the people Barbara Jenner had “happenings” with?’

‘No, I most certainly cannot.’ His manner was suddenly querulous and he very upright in his chair. ‘I never met any of them, so I can’t tell you any more about it than that. Even if Barbara had actually mentioned a name, I would be very reluctant to disclose it. She may not have been telling me the truth. People don’t always, you know, even to their Doctors, he said, as if this were almost beyond belief, perhaps even bordering on a sin. ‘Maybe there’s an address book somewhere. You’ll have to look. I’m afraid I really can’t help you with that one. We didn’t know each other quite that well, you understand.’ He stood up, agitated. ‘Not apart from the amateur dramatics, that is. My wife and I didn’t socialise with them, of course. No.’

Marks was anxiously looking at his watch as he spoke, and
suggested that they might like to come back later when he had more time.

Saxon rose to his feet and walked to the door, turned and said, ‘No, Dr Marks, next time you come to my office and talk to me. We’ll need a formal statement. I appreciate the information you’ve given us. We will talk again. I’m sure you’ll no doubt remember more as you give the subject further thought.’

Outside his surgery, an elderly man was waiting to see the doctor. He looked startled as he saw the two policemen.

As Saxon and Parker left the health centre, the graceless dragon accompanied them to the door, anxious no doubt to show that her earlier demeanour was reserved merely for common sick people. She held it open for them politely enough, but they felt her hot breath licking the back of their necks as they walked back towards the Discovery. They shuddered in unison but with a shared moment of amusement rather than any real discomfort. Parker was thinking he would tell his wife about Mrs Grace. Saxon was thinking he would tell no one, but that it was exactly the kind of story that once upon a time would have amused Emma.

‘What do you think, sir?’ Parker interrupted Saxon’s brief moment of nostalgia.

‘I think, Parker, that Dr bloody Marks is obnoxious and pompous, and I can’t stand pompous bastards. But on the other hand, he’s given us some useful stuff today. But I’m sure he’s holding something back. First, he tells us that he’s known Barbara Jenner for years, describing her as an old friend. Then later when we probed a bit, he started to disown her – saying that he didn’t really know her that well. Now, call me suspicious, but he knows more than he’s letting on. I want Surveillance and Technical Intelligence to watch him for a few days. We’ve got to find out more about Ms Jenner’s secret life. It’s a new direction for us to pursue I suppose.’

‘However much she kept things secret from her partner,’
agreed Parker, ‘she must have something somewhere that’ll give us a link to these people she meets for “happenings” or whatever.’

‘Sounds a bit 60s or 70s, doesn’t it’, laughed Saxon. ‘She wasn’t that old, was she. Maybe she was a bit nostalgic for the good old days of music, love and flowers, and the decades before the world discovered that there was after all a price to pay for free love.’

‘My mum said the same thing, boss. Said that the whole AIDS thing was retribution for all that sleeping around that people did when she was young.’

‘So she didn’t buy the view that we got it from monkeys in Africa and that it worked its way into the human population and then spread around the world?’ Saxon asked with a smile.

‘Nah,’ Parker answered without hesitation. ‘My mum doesn’t hold with monkeys having anything much to do with human beings, and certainly not having sex with them.’

They got back into the car.

Thursday, May 16, Hazel Lane, Sewel Mill, 10.15AM

In the light of what Doctor Marks had just given them, Saxon decided to search Anvil Wood House one more time. Maybe the voices of the recently dead could give him a few pointers in the right direction. He was sure that if Babs had secret sexual “happenings” with multiple partners, then there was a good chance that she would not have kept their details such as phone numbers in her head.

There had to be an address book.
Please let there be a book
. He was driving slowly down Hazel Lane towards the house when he became aware of another car behind them, revving loudly and using his horn…The driver beeped loudly again. Parker turned round in his seat to look.

‘Not sure what he thinks he’s going to achieve by that,’ he observed.

‘Perhaps you should ask him, Parker.’ Saxon stopped the Discovery, provoking a prolonged blast on the horn of the Land Rover behind.

Parker was back in less than five minutes, smiling broadly.

‘Name of Pike, boss. Andy Pike. He’s their neighbour, lives up the road in the next house. I told him we’d be along to see him later.’

Saxon started the engine.

‘Apparently he was in something of a rush to get back home, some kind of agricultural emergency,’ Parker went on. ‘But he reluctantly apologised for his behaviour when I flashed my warrant card. Hoped we’d understand, what with all the stress of the last twenty-four hours or so.’

As they pulled away, Saxon looked in his rear-view mirror but he couldn’t make out the driver at all. The old Land Rover was making no attempt yet to move. ‘I can hardly wait to meet the gentleman in more congenial circumstances,’ he said.

They turned into Anvil Wood House, hoping to uncover something, anything, that would tell them whether or not there was a link between the first three killings and those of Babs Jenner and Poppy Field.

Thursday, May 16, The Speckled Cat, Brighton, 10.55AM

Bill Singleton was opening up for the day. The pub did great business at lunchtimes with the office workers and shoppers. In the evenings, it was one of the favourite haunts of the gay population, who referred to it affectionately as the Spotted Pussy.

Thursdays were always good. It was as if people were getting wired for the weekend. He liked the fact that although it was predominantly gay, the Speckled Cat still attracted a fair number of straight clients. Bill had his theories about this.

Well, we all like a little walk on the wild side from time to time. It takes all sorts and I wouldn’t have it any other way
.

His only priority was to keep it clean. He saw that as vital for
the continuing success of his operation. By that, he meant no drugs and no prostitution, or at least not overtly. Not easy to achieve, but so far there hadn’t been any major problems.

Thursday, May 16, Anvil Wood House, 11.00AM

The forensics team had finished their scraping and vacuuming and were in the process of shifting equipment from the house to a small fleet of white vans.

Saxon waited in his Land Rover until they were finished. He listened to the police radio, impassively taking in all the minor, although probably to the people involved, major, incidents happening in their lives.

The last member of the forensics team walked over to Saxon and handed him the keys to the house and told him the cleaners would be along in an hour or so.

Of course, less upsetting for any next of kin if the bloodstains were removed.

Once inside the house he headed straight for Babs’ office,
the room of a thousand secrets
, he thought to himself. Or rather, hoped. He was working on the idea that if there were an address book, then it wouldn’t be hidden in the desk, that’s the first place someone would look. No, Poppy could have gone in to tidy up and accidentally found it, the way people accidentally find things when they are really looking – being nosy. It had to be somewhere else. But where would she have put it?

The office was large and filled with clutter. The certificates and photographs that lined the walls showed Babs to be a keen show jumper in her earlier years. Saxon knew that SOCO would have checked behind each one for a wall safe. But he took a look anyway. Nothing.

In the corner of the room there stood a small sofa. He sat on it to lower the level of the springs inside and then plunged his hand down around the back and sides. Apart for some small change, a hairgrip, and a tube of lipstick, there was nothing of a
crime-solving nature. Frustration finally won the day and Saxon resorted to his questions and answers technique, where he would ask himself questions out loud, and come up with an answer as fast as he could. Sometimes this produced positive results, and sometimes it was just plain embarrassing.

‘Right, Paul, you’re in a room. It’s your room, your office, but your other half is going to be in and out of it from time to time. Now, you’ve got secrets, serious secrets, which are earth-shattering. Or they would be, if your partner were to find out about them.’ He was sweeping the room with his eyes as he berated himself. ‘Having your partner find those secrets will change your life and turn it into hell. So where the fuck are you going to hide these hideous bloody secrets?’

Immediately he replied to himself, loudly. ‘Under the fucking floor, where else, you idiot?’

‘But where under the floor, there’s a bloody great carpet covering it?’

‘In the corner, you plonker, so it’s easy to access.’

Feeling suddenly energised by this exchange with himself and the ideas it had generated, he examined each corner of the carpet. In a few seconds, he found the spot under the front window. When he lifted that corner of the carpet, it was instantly obvious that the spikes on the gripper strip had been flattened with a hammer to make it easy to lift. The floorboard was cut to make a small square trapdoor. And there it was in all its glory, the book of secrets, waiting to be liberated. Now they could come out to play.

Elated by his discovery, but just a bit pissed off that the SOCO guys hadn’t found it earlier, Saxon placed the book in a plastic bag and was about to leave when a thought struck him. The telephone, had anyone checked the telephone?

He picked it up and dialled 1471. According to the logged time, there had been a call at 11PM last night, the night following the murders. Saxon figured the two officers guarding the house
would not have heard the phone from their car with the police radio crackling away. There had been a caller, but they had withheld their number.

Two pieces of good luck in a row would’ve been too much to hope for.

Thursday, May 16, Pike’s Smallholding, Hazel Lane
,
2.00PM

Pike was sweating again and his hands trembled as he made another cup of coffee. He was trying to reduce the stress in his life, not increase it. Stress was bad for his karma. He could’ve kicked himself for that little encounter with the police this morning. But he kicked Lurch again instead and took satisfaction in the fact that the dog yelped and ran to hide.

He sat down, nursing the mug of coffee and rocked gently in his chair. He wondered, not for the first time, if he was going slowly mad. What with the six-foot rabbit, last night. And then he thought of the sheep. His stomach churned uncomfortably at the memory and his grip on the coffee mug tightened.

Once or twice a month, Pike would go lamping on the farm that backed up to his land. This involved driving around the fields in his old Land Rover, vintage 1963, with a powerful lamp fixed to the roof above the driver. The lamp would be swept around the edge of the field and, if there were a rabbit, its eyes would show up like cats’ eyes on a road. The silencer attached to his .22 rifle ensured the rabbits wouldn’t run off if he missed, as the noise it made was just a dull click. He usually managed up to half a dozen rabbits per lamping expedition, a couple to keep and one or two to pass on for a bit of loose change.

But lamping, or even the thought of lamping, brought him out in a cold sweat. One night, a few years ago, Pike had made a mistake. And it had been a huge and embarrassing mistake. He had accidentally assassinated a sheep. It was a good shot, at least 250 yards, straight between the eyes, nothing wrong with his
aim, but it was very definitely the wrong target.

Pike thought of burying the evidence and saying nothing. After all, nobody had seen him. But since the farmer whose land he was clearing of rabbits had proudly told him about “the best seventy-five Kent ewes” he had ever owned, Pike decided to come clean and reluctantly told the farmer. It was probably the hardest thing he had ever had to endure in his fifty years. The shame was almost unbearable. Surprisingly though, the farmer didn’t really mind; the price of sheep had dropped to an all-time low, and anyway Pike kept the rabbit population down to an acceptable level on the farm. One assassinated sheep in thirty years was excusable. And the sheep didn’t suffer. However, if there were a scale of lamper’s mistakes, this would have been a good fifteen out of ten.