Separated at Death (The Lakeland Murders) (14 page)

‘Why was that?’

‘I suppose I realised that there was just no point dwelling on what had happened, and trying to work out why my wife preferred someone else, because it wouldn’t make any difference if I did know, and I never could anyway. Half decent marriages don’t just crumble when someone else comes along, it takes time, thousands of tiny reasons. And of course it takes two as well. So if you want a bit of advice I’d be inclined to avoid any off-duty sleuthing into your wife’s affairs, or should I say affair?’

Hall looked straight ahead, and kept on walking.

They found a cafe, ordered coffee and bacon rolls, then walked up Beast Banks, skirted round the housing estate where Hamilton lived, and he pointed out where it was as they passed.

‘I remember this estate going up in the eighties’ commented Hamilton, ‘just before the last big financial crash. We wondered who was going to buy them, but of course it was great for business, because they all needed new furniture. That was probably the last time that I could honestly say that the business was really expanding. It bought my wife a couple of new sports cars before we had the kids, anyway.’

‘Has Kendal changed so much?’

‘Massively. When I was a kid there weren’t many offcomers, especially retired folk like we have now. Without being funny I don’t think many folk lived long enough after they’d retired to move up here from the industrial towns. Then, in the eighties, things started to change, and over the last twenty years we’ve seen lots of older people moving in. The big hospital opening was the best thing that had happened to us in years, because it was like having a good school, it acted as a magnet for older people. But I’m not sure what’s here for the young ones now, and I always expected my kids to have to move away. Do you?’

‘I’ve never really thought about it, but I suppose so. But it’s less of an issue for me because I’m not Kendal born and raised.’

‘But you’d like to stay?’

‘Well I certainly intend to finish my service in Kendal. I’ve missed the boat in terms of promotion already, but that was my choice. I wanted the kids to have stability as they were growing up, and there are plenty of worse places to live if you’re a copper. Someone once told me that they’d heard Kendal called ‘the graveyard of ambition’, and it was years before I knew what they meant.’

‘And after you retire?’

‘Who knows? I think I’ll try to get through the divorce, get the kids safely away to university, then have a rethink. I did have a few ideas of things that me and my wife could do together, but they’re not going to happen now.’

They walked on in silence again, towards the covered viewing point that everyone called the mushroom because of its distinctive shape on the skyline, and then Hall found himself speaking. ‘I’ve spent half my life making plans, even though someone in my job should know better. I suppose it’s in the genes, or maybe something that we just inherit from our own parents. Perhaps they just lived in more certain times.’

They walked the rest of the way without saying much at all, shook hands at their cars and went their separate ways. Hall played the stereo loud as he drove home, and decided that he’d just go into work for a couple of hours. He knew that his phone would have rung if there’d been a development, but perhaps someone had missed something. The thought made him edgy.

‘You’re in early because you need your overtime signing, are you Ray?’

‘Holidays in the sun don’t pay for themselves Sarge. No, I’m off as of the end of the shift for a week, and since we’re going abroad the boss said it was OK. So I’ve just been pulling everything together. Do you want to go through it all?’

‘Just give me the summary Ray.’

‘Well, I did what the boss asked and I talked to everyone caught on CCTV after Amy drove by. Total waste of time. One said that she almost drove into a big car that pulled out in front of her from the side of the road at the top of Beast Banks, but that was all. None of them saw Amy park her car, or turn off onto Queen’s Road.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘That’s it Sarge. I’ll send you an email with the status of the rest of my follow-ups, and you can divvy them up as you like. I won’t be sorry to get away from this case for a few days, I can tell you.’

Mann took the bait. He was curious.

‘Why’s that then Ray?’

‘It’s posh people, they make me nervous. You know where you are with our usual low-lifes. They fall out with each other, get up to all sorts, then one grasses up the other to us. We nick that lot, they blame the others, so we nick them too. By the time it’s come to court their kids are shacked up together and they’ve no idea what they said in their statements. But at least you know where you stand. They just say what’s in their heads that second. But this lot are different. They’re careful, they’ve got too much to lose. They think about the future, about the implications of what they say and do. They don’t even swear at us. It’s not natural Sarge.’

‘Ray, you do know your pension is index-linked?’

‘You bet I do sarge. I got a projection just last month actually.’

‘Well that makes you middle class in my book. And where are you going on your holidays then?’

‘Spain.’

‘Whereabouts? The Costa? High rise just handy for the English bars?’

‘Not a chance sarge. A little village near Granada. Lovely place, especially off season.’

‘Stop it Ray, you’ll be telling me about the olive oil and the sweet little man who cleans out the pool next. I told you, we’re all middle-class now, even you. And I started out as a squaddie with no qualifications, and look at me now. One day I might even get the key to the senior officers’ khazi.’

Fortunately, it was Jane Francis rather than the Super who walked in as Mann was speaking.  ‘Bring us back a rafia donkey’ called out Mann, and Dixon flicked him the Vs as he left.

‘What’s new Jane?’

‘Not much Sarge. The techies took a look at John Hamilton’s laptop, and he wasn’t online between 6pm and after 11pm, and as he said he did use the online telephone directory later on.’

‘So we haven’t got him online anytime around Amy’s death. Anything else?’

‘He browsed a fair bit of porn, they’re going through it now. They’ll have a full report tomorrow.’

‘Anything we should be concerned about?’

‘It’s not my area Sarge. I’ve got a print out of the URLs if you want them.’ she grinned. ‘They might mean something to you Sarge.’

‘You cheeky mare. No, I’ll wait for the report I think. So what’s your work plan for today?’

‘I’m just about to start on John Hamilton’s emails. I’ve only just started, but they mainly seem to be about settees. Can’t see any about pouffes though.’

‘Very droll Jane. That’s top of the bill material, that is. Or it was in 1974.’

One option would be to steal from Wayne, and it wouldn’t be difficult. He was an addict, and he was lazy. But Ryan quickly excluded that option, for two reasons. First, he didn’t want to involve anyone else, and he still couldn’t see himself actually hurting Wayne if it came to it. Second, and more importantly, would Wayne have enough gear or cash to get Adam’s attention? Ryan doubted  that.

So how about appealing to Adam’s greed? Ryan thought that might be difficult too. Realistically Adam would know the local market too well, so if he pretended to be a new player in town he’d probably be rumbled.

Ryan was taking a shower when it came to him. He was answering his bail the next day, so what if he told Wayne that the cops had found something else in the car? Adam was local, he was sure, but he probably had little or no record. So what if Ryan told Wayne that the cops were hinting that they were looking at someone higher up the tree than him? Might that get Adam’s attention?

Ryan dressed, walked to the corner shop and bought a couple of carrier bags full of food. There was sod all in the house, and his brother had school in the morning.

‘So did you get anything useful out of John Hamilton?’ asked Mann.

‘Nothing we didn’t already know. Obviously we didn’t discuss the case, but my impression is that he’s a genuinely grief-stricken parent. I don’t think there’s a chance he’s involved. But is there anything on his laptop that calls me a liar?’

‘Not so far boss. But I’ve been a bit delayed today. I just got started on his emails and the Super called in, asking if we’d had a second-opinion on the time of death. And we had, so it can’t just us who have been at work today, the consulting pathologist has been at it too. There’s lots of graphs and tables, but essentially he’s saying that there’s effectively no chance that Amy died before 8.30pm, and only a very small chance that it was before 8.45pm. Under 5% in fact.’

‘And what conclusion do you draw from that, as a former scientist?’

‘Probably not what you want to hear boss, but two things. First, this means there’s no chance of getting Ryan charged, let alone convicted. But on the bright side, it also means that he was the second to last person to see Amy alive, not the first to see her dead. He’s definitely not our killer.’

‘Yes, I agree that there’s value in having such a definitive view, so we can eliminate Ryan as a suspect.’

‘So we’re back to the immediate family’ said Mann.

‘Yes, as of tomorrow that’s where we focus all our efforts. And that does have to include John Hamilton, or was he online between 8 and 10pm on Wednesday?’

‘He wasn’t’ said Mann. ‘We’re happy with the mum’s alibi, and of the immediate family that leaves her new husband and his brother. The brother was back at home by 8.30pm, and Ray Dixon checked his alibi. It’s in his email; the wife confirmed it.’

‘Did he do it in person, or on the phone?’ asked Hall.

‘I don’t think his notes say. Do you want me to call him? They won’t have left on their holidays yet.’

‘No, that’s all right. What’s the story on Amanda’s new husband?’

‘Played squash at 7.30pm, that’s confirmed, finished at half eight, had a drink with his playing partner until about 9pm, and was home by 9.30pm. Wife confirms, and the other player does too. It’s only a fifteen minute drive to Staveley, so it’s pretty unlikely that he could be our man.’

‘He could have driven past the woods on the way home though’ said Mann.

‘He did, but says he didn’t see anything. Certainly not his step-daughter.’

‘The times could fit though’ said Hall, ‘but I suppose there’s nothing in Preston’s background file that could interest us. Is he in financial trouble?’

‘What if he is?’ asked Mann. ‘How could that be a motive for killing Amy?’

‘Just thinking about his general state of mind. Clutching at straws I suppose. But we do need to take a good look at him. Can you grab the background file and let’s go through it together, if you can both spare ten minutes.’

Even with Hall’s limited knowledge it was soon clear that Preston had a poor recent financial record. He was overdrawn, credit cards maxed out, and his small property company was barely solvent.

His ex-wife had been interviewed, and though she was obviously still very angry with Preston over his affair with Amanda she didn’t go as far as to say he’d ever been violent towards her, or anyone else as far as she knew. People he worked with said he was a nice lad, but seemed a bit out of his depth these days. One had suggested that he might even be seeing another woman, but there was no confirmation of that. And absolutely nothing suggested that Robert Preston had a sexual interest in young girls.

‘What are we missing here?’ asked Hall when Jane had closed the file. ‘I just can’t see anything in Amy’s life, other than Ryan Wilson, that could give us any kind of motive. And Ryan is not our killer. I know it’s the pits, but we’re going to have to get into every single aspect of this poor kid’s life now.’

‘How about Preston then?’ asked Mann.

‘Let’s talk about it in the morning, shall we? Who knows, maybe something will happen and actually move this enquiry forward at last. But I’m not holding my breath.’

Mann got up, and headed back to his desk, but Jane stayed.