SHADOW OVER THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of suspense (12 page)

‘Sorry but this is urgent,’ he snapped. ‘I need to know if you ever recall ringing Martin Durham’s oncology clinic personally.’

The woman went silent for a while, then in a considerably softer voice said, ‘Now you come to mention it, there was never any need to. They always contacted me, either by phone, or by mail.’ She paused. ‘What’s this all about, Sergeant Easter?’

‘I wish I knew, Doctor. Really I do.’ He thanked her and hung up. Bad mood or not, it was time to see the DI.

* * *

‘Never heard of him! There has to be some mistake.’

‘The administrator was adamant. I think we really need to find out a lot more about your neighbour, don’t you?’ said Joseph.

Nikki felt the muscles in her neck tense. It seemed as if her fears about Martin were about to be realised.

For a while she said nothing, as thoughts madly careered about in her head, then she looked down at the heap of paperwork on her desk. ‘This isn’t going to help either.’ She tapped her finger on the files. ‘The sudden death statistics that we were working on?’ She gave Joseph a wry smile. ‘It’s all right, I’m not skiving off the murder investigation. It’s just that the super is still being hounded for bloody figures, and I needed something to occupy my mind while I was waiting for Cat and her crew to get back.’ She sorted out two reports and handed them across to Joseph. ‘I was getting them into some form of order, and I saw a name I recognised. When I looked further, I started to feel twitchy. Look at these and tell me what you think.’

She sat back and observed him while he studied the papers. This was not the Joseph who had first come to Greenborough. That man had been calm, quietly sure of himself and completely in control. The Joseph who sat opposite her now looked drawn and preoccupied. He seemed as if his mind was in constant debate over something, and if she didn’t know him better she would have said he was frightened.

After a while he looked up. ‘I see what you mean, ma’am. But two other cases of suicide in very stable, apparently happy people, doesn’t mean much, does it?’

Nikki shrugged. ‘These are just basic summaries, no autopsies, or any other reports. I think we should check them out. Both caused something of a stir at the time, I do remember that.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘I’d hate to think we missed something, and that bad things were happening to good people.’

She took the paper from him, stared at it, then dredged what she could remember from her memory. ‘Amelia Reed. Age fifty-one. Bit of a local hero, in as much as she rescued and cared for stray and ill-treated animals. She drowned in her bath. No history of mental illness. There were questions as to whether it was suicide or accidental death. There were some other questions too, but I can’t recall what they were. I do know an open verdict was returned.’

Joseph nodded thoughtfully. ‘And the other one?’

‘Paul Cousins, age fifty-two. Seen running towards the railway lines as if all the hounds of hell were pursuing him, only it wasn’t hounds that caught up with him, it was the 9.45 from Peterborough. The day before he’d become a grandfather for the first time.’

‘Running as if pursued,’ said Joseph thoughtfully, ‘Surely that’s a similar scenario to Martin? And are these recent cases?’

‘Within the last twelve months.’

‘Maybe I should get someone to pull the full reports just in case there are any more factors that could connect them?’ Joseph rubbed hard on his chin. ‘Although frankly I think we may be wasting precious time.’

‘Maybe, but this still has to be done.’ She jabbed her finger at the statistics, ‘I’ve no intentions of leaving the super in the brown and sticky stuff.’ Nikki exhaled loudly. ‘And I
know w
e have a violent killer out there, and he
has
to be caught. But there is something very wrong with Martin’s death too, and if someone is inducing innocent people to kill themselves, then this other assassin is just as bad and equally as deadly.’

‘Maybe we should hand it over to another team,’ said Joseph dubiously

‘And which case would you hand over, Joseph?’ Nikki looked at him steadily. ‘One seems to be connected to you, and the other to me.’

Joseph looked directly into her eyes but did not answer.

‘Not easy is it? And although no way would I expect you to explain everything about your past to another team, I feel that I owe Martin to find out who did this to him.’ She abruptly stood up and began to pace the office. ‘You see I think I may have done him a disservice, unintentionally, that is.’

‘Maybe I shouldn’t ask this . . . ?’ Joseph turned his head slightly to one side. ‘And I know he was practically old enough to be your father, but was there more to your relationship than just being neighbours?’

A while ago, Nikki would have thought nothing of throwing him out of the office, but now she just shook her head, and handed him the photo of Martin, Hannah and herself. ‘No never. But I think maybe I missed the signs.’

He stared at the picture. ‘That he cared for you?’

‘Mm. I think I was so wrapped up in my own life, my own problems, that I never saw it. That, and as you so delicately mentioned, he was such a lot older than me. I never even considered the possibility.’

‘And are you basing that supposition purely on this,’ Joseph passed the photo back.

‘No. There’s something else.’ She drew in a long breath and stared at the picture. ‘You know how long my daughter’s been in hospital, don’t you? Well, someone has been sending her a small bunch of freesias. Same day, every week, without fail. This is the first time for over a year when there have been no flowers.’

‘And you think Martin sent them?’

‘Who else? It certainly wasn’t her father,’ she said bitterly. ‘That bastard visited once, then rang me and said it was all too traumatic and flew back to the States. We haven’t seen him since.’

‘You’ve tried to find out who sent them?’

‘Oh yes. But they used a town florist and paid cash, via an envelope through the door. No name and no card attached.’

‘It’s certainly odd, but it sounds like something that will never be explained.’

‘Probably not. I certainly can’t ask him now, can I?’

‘So what do we do about the two investigations?’

‘We juggle them. The super has provided a lot of back up to help with Chris Forbes’ murder enquiry, so I suggest you and I delegate as much of the leg work that we possibly can, and meantime we keep digging up all we can about Martin, and these other suspect suicides.
And
we need to see Martin’s sister again. I’m damn sure she knows something that she wasn’t prepared to tell us last time.’

Joseph nodded, and Nikki could see a flicker of relief in his eyes. Not that she believed it would last for long. Even if their killer was not Sweet, he seemed to be doing a good job in remaining unidentified, which kept Joseph in a permanent state of agitation. And that helped no one.

‘If it helps, I’ll stay on tonight and try to crunch some numbers for the super. Before all this blew up, I’d thought of a way to get a better overall view, cross forces. See what criteria they use, and how they arrive at their figures.’

Nikki hated to say ‘yes’ when Joseph looked so exhausted, but she had the feeling that he wouldn’t rest even if he did go home. There was far too much on his mind. ‘If you could, just a couple of hours would be great.’ She flopped back down in her chair. ‘I’ll stay too, and I’ll send out for a Chinese, if you like?’

‘Suits me, ma’am. Mrs Blakely has threatened a corned beef hash tonight and I’m not too sure I could stomach it.’

‘Mm, doesn’t sound quite your thing, Joseph.’

He threw her a small smile. ‘Oh I’m fine with hash generally, but I happened to see the sell-by date on the tin of corned beef. That’s what’s worrying me.’

‘Ah, right. Chinese it is then.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cat Cullen and the others arrived back just after six. There was little to report, and nothing that would help their identification of Snaz.

‘I can’t believe how sodding thick some people are!’ she grumbled. ‘No one could give us hair colour, no distinguishing marks or tattoos, no label wear or designer clothing, and no name, other than some of them heard Chris call him Snaz.’

‘And since the murder he has conveniently disappeared,’ added Niall, unbuckling his heavy equipment belt.

Nikki remained impassive, she had expected little else. ‘Okay, well you guys get home, grab some sleep and be back early.’ She looked across at the big figure of Dave Harris, who still sat hunched over his computer, doggedly thumping on the keyboard. ‘And that includes you, Dave.’

‘Right you are, ma’am. I’m pretty well finished here.’ He double clicked the mouse and a printer whirred into life. ‘Everything I can find on Amelia Reed and Paul Cousins.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘And there’s quite a bit.’

Nikki took the information from him and went to her office. She had already tried to get hold of Elizabeth Durham, and been greeted by an answerphone. She had left a message asking her to get in touch as a matter of some urgency.

Now, as Joseph was flicking through reams of figures on the computer screen, there was little left for her to do but to tackle Dave’s reports.

She sat back and began to thumb through them. Dave had been his usual thorough self, and even printed off local newspaper articles on the deaths. As she began to read, the stories flooded back to her.

Two deaths that had shocked their nearest and dearest to the core.

Paul Cousins’ horrific method of dying had left several pasty-faced officers searching the railway line for missing internal organs, and his wife requiring long-term psychiatric treatment. Like Martin, he had no money worries, but Paul was surrounded by a close family, and the coming of the first grandchild had apparently been a total joy.

Nikki skimmed down the press cuttings, and words like disbelief, impossible, and bombshell kept reoccurring. The same words that she could use in relation to Martin.

There were similar descriptions regarding Amelia Reed, although the circumstances regarding her death were far more obscure. Did she black-out? Was she held under? Or did she drown herself? Every aspect was hacked around for weeks in the papers. As a woman, she seemed full of fire and had a real passion for helping animals. She was someone who had been known to take on gangs of badger baiters, and on one occasion, before the fox-hunting ban, a full complement of scarlet-coated huntsmen. She had climbed over walls, fences and barbed wire to rescue ill-treated dogs and various forms of livestock, and was thanked by receiving several broken bones and a criminal record.

Not exactly a scaredy-cat, were you, Amelia? thought Nikki.

She turned to another account, read it, then frowned and read it again. A neighbour had reported hearing Amelia remonstrate loudly with someone about an hour before she died, but on investigation there was no indication of anyone else ever being in the house. This was backed up by the fact that one of her dogs, a faithful and possessive Jack Russell, never barked at all during what had seemed like a heated argument.

Nikki quickly checked against the police statements, and found the name of the neighbour. She ran her finger down the details and stopped at the telephone number. This had happened a year ago, but there was a good chance that the person still lived there.

She picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Mr Matthews? Excellent! Now I’m sorry to ring like this, but I was wondering . . .’ Nikki explained that they were reviewing the case and needed his help. They talked for a while, then she thanked him and hung up. She could be wrong, but her gut feeling said otherwise. She grabbed the rest of the notes and hunted through for the PM results.

‘Damn!’ she swore out loud. Then she went over it again. There was a considerable amount of medication in her blood, but no mention of any abnormally high doses of an hallucinogen. She stared at the list of drugs, but apart from a water tablet, they meant nothing to her. She cursed again.

From Mr Matthew’s description of what he had heard, Nikki could have sworn that Amelia was not arguing, but having a bad trip, shouting at demons. That would have answered the problem of no one else having been seen, and the dog not barking. But why didn’t the drug show up in her blood? Maybe it was a Rohypnol type? One that did not stay in the system for long. She pushed the file to one side. That could be it, but she needed Professor Rory Wilkinson to confirm it.

Nikki’s hand hung over the phone, then she stopped. Best to check out the PM on Paul Cousins first.

She scanned the report, but could find nothing from toxicology. With a small snort of irritation, she went through it again. Everything else was there, except the tox screen. ‘Shit!’ The one report she really needed had vanished into the wonderful never-never land of Gone Missing.

‘Food’s here, ma’am.’ Joseph’s voice calmed her somewhat. ‘Shall I bring it in?’

Nikki stood up. ‘No, I’ll come out there. I’m just about to start dusting the ceiling with these old reports.’

‘Sorry about that. I’m not doing too badly actually.’ He set out several foil food trays on his desk and pulled the lids off. ‘Smells good.’ He passed her a fork. ‘I don’t think the super has too much to worry about with these statistics, you know. Whoever compiled them in the first place should be shot. On closer examination, they’ve omitted to take into consideration a lot of regional variables and I suspect that part of it is compiled by estimates based on out of date trends, so to be honest I . . .’

‘Joseph. Speak English. And pass the soy sauce, please.’ She took the sachet from him and tore it open. ‘What you are saying is that the survey is crap, is that right?’

‘You do have a remarkable way with words, ma’am. But in a nutshell, yes.’

‘And you can prove that statement?’

‘I should be able to. In fact, given a little longer I can probably produce some pretty convincing data.’

‘Just enough to get the superintendent off the hook will do nicely.’ Nikki eased her fork into some Singapore noodles and transferred them to her plate. ‘You know what is really scary about this?’

‘What the noodles?’

Nikki threw him a hopeless look. ‘No, wally, the stats. If we hadn’t been asked to look at them, we’d never have seen these other suspect cases.’

‘And are they suspect?’ asked Joseph, taking a bite out of a spring roll.

‘I’d stake my pension on the fact that there’s more to both of them than met the eye of the coroner.’

‘That
is
scary.’

‘And if we’re right, will we find more?’ said Nikki quietly.

‘Let’s sort these first, shall we?’

Before Nikki could answer, Joseph’s phone rang. He flipped it open, stared at it for a while, then closed it again. As he did, his brighter mood seemed to fade.

‘Bryony?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Bryony.’ He pushed some food around his plate, but didn’t eat anything.

‘You think you might be putting her in danger, don’t you?’

Joseph laid his fork down. ‘I need proof about Billy Sweet. Without it, I’m in limbo. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her, would it?’ Nikki wondered why she was encouraging him.

‘I suppose I should. I hate to keep ignoring her calls. After all, I did give her my number.’

Nikki felt a hint of something she didn’t understand; something that she certainly wasn’t going to start analysing right now. ‘Yes. You’re a lot of things, Joseph Easter, but you’re not rude. So ring back and apologise.’

‘Okay, I’ll do it when we’ve eaten.’

‘Do it now.’

‘I need to eat.’

‘Then microwave it later. Go phone Bryony.’

* * *

She watched him as she ate, and although she couldn’t hear the conversation, his body language spoke volumes. Whoever Bryony was, he enjoyed her company, and from the expression on his face, she understood that the woman had forgiven his uncharacteristic bad manners.

Nikki threw away the empty cartons and her paper plate, returned to her office and wondered where that relationship was going to go.

She walked around her desk and sat down. Whatever, it wasn’t her business, but this case was. And she needed to move it forward. She left a message on Rory Wilkinson’s voicemail, and wondered what to do next. Elizabeth Durham was the obvious next stop, but she’d have to wait until the woman rang her.

She looked through the window in her office door and saw Joseph back at his desk, typing with one hand, and eating cooling sweet-and-sour with the other. She smiled. She should be glad for him, pleased that he had found someone. And she was. Of course she was.

With a small shake of her head, Nikki turned back to the reports and began to read.

* * *

It was almost an hour later when Joseph knocked on her door.

‘I’m going to make a move, ma’am, if that’s alright? I’ve set up a regional fact sheet. It’ll take a bit longer to collate all the relevant figures, but I’ve got a lot of information to hand from various agencies.’ He grinned at her. ‘We could get a gold star from the super,
if
I get it right.’

‘That’s great. Good work, Joseph. Now go meet your lady.’

She wasn’t sure if it was the light, but she thought she saw a reddish hue creep up his neck.

‘It’s just a drink. Give me a chance to explain how difficult it is when there’s an enquiry running.’ He looked a little like a teenager trying to explain himself. ‘I’m going to try to put things on hold until . . .’ he shrugged.

‘I know. Until you have that proof that you are looking for.’ She really did feel like his mother, and she didn’t like that feeling. ‘Now shut up and bugger off. I’ve got work to do.’

* * *

Bryony had suggested a small bar down by the river, and as it was not a regular hang-out place for policemen, he readily agreed.

She had looked hauntingly beautiful when he saw her, and he had felt a strange sadness sweep over him, because he knew that his job could prevent this relationship from ever coming to anything.

They had talked for a couple of hours, and finally Joseph confessed that he was involved in the murder enquiry that was on the whole town’s lips, and that he may have to take a rain check until it was over. And then he told her that even if they did see each other, it was no picnic dating a copper. He would make arrangements, then have to cancel at the last minute. He would not get to ring her when he promised to, and sometimes he may have to work long into the night and not see her at all.

And she had simply smiled and said surely that was par for the course. If she wanted nine to five, she’d date a banker.

The only thing he didn’t tell her was that he feared for her safety.

Around eleven, he called a cab and waited in the bar with her until it arrived.

‘Sort your case out quickly, Joseph,’ she slipped her arm through his. ‘I’ve got plans for us.’

‘I like the sound of that,’ he whispered. ‘And I may have one or two of my own.’

‘Good. I like variety.’ She laughed softly, then looked up as taxi cab drew up outside. ‘Looks like this is me. Can I drop you off?’

‘No, thanks. I like to walk, and it’s in the opposite direction.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to squeeze into the back with me?’

Joseph would have loved nothing better, but knew it was far too dangerous, for several different reasons, and all he could lamely say was, ‘Soon, I promise.’

This time he kissed her. And for a moment, everything was fine in his world. As fine as it got, until he opened his eyes, and on the far side of the street he saw Billy Sweet.

‘Joseph? What . . . ? Oh God, not again!’ Bryony pulled herself away from him and spun around. ‘Where?’ she asked urgently.

‘He’s . . . he was right there.’ He pointed towards the wall that ran along the river bank. ‘Right there.’

‘Then come on!’

To his horror, Bryony sprinted away from him and ran across the road. ‘No!’ He roared. ‘Leave him!’

Bryony faltered, then turned and looked back at him appealingly. ‘We can’t let him get away with this Joseph, whoever he is, he can’t keeping stalking you.’

‘No, Bryony! He could be dangerous!’ He ran across to where she stood, and put his arms tightly around her. ‘At least you saw him this time.’

There was a short pause, then she said, ‘Of course I did, just fleetingly. I think he went over the wall and along that towpath that runs under the bridge.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘No. It’s too dark.’

‘And he was wearing a blasted hoody,’ he whispered.

‘Look, lady, do you want to go home or not? The clock’s still ticking you know.’

Joseph waved to the taxi driver. ‘She’s just coming.’ He turned back to Bryony. ‘Text or ring me when you get home, okay? Just to let me know you’re safe.’

She pulled her jacket around her. ‘I was just going to say the same thing to you.’ Her lovely face screwed up into an expression of deep concern. ‘Is he something to do with your case?’