The Burden of Doubt (2 page)

As Detective Chief Superintendent in the Homicide and Major Enquiry team Damian Finch was responsible for the work of three stations on the north-west side of Bradford. Swift knew that his workload was heavy, and that he was required to spend a good deal of his time in meetings, where the discussion of budgets and finance would no doubt form the lion’s share of the agenda. He guessed him to be in his early fifties, but already his hair was greying at the temples and beneath his coolly professional exterior he sensed an air of harassment.

Resuming his place behind his desk, Finch placed his china mug beside the laptop and began to speak; his delivery slowly and carefully enunciated as though the acuity of the hearing and comprehension of his subordinates might be in doubt. ‘The body of a woman has been found in the sitting-room of her house. She’s suffered stab wounds. The uniform response team believe she’s Mrs Moira Farrell, a consultant anaesthetist at the Wharfedale Hospital. Her husband is a professor at the Leeds Medical school. Orthopaedics.’

‘High-powered duo,’ Doug volunteered in his gentle measured tones.

Finch didn’t like to be interrupted. He shot the ageing constable a sharp glance look, decided he was harmless and pressed on. ‘We’re going to be under the spotlight,’ he said. ‘I would draw your attention to a case last year in south division where a regrettable mistake was made in charging the wrong suspect, a well-respected doctor.’

Swift recalled the case well. A keen, newly appointed DI had built a powerful case against a sixty-year-old GP on the verge of retirement, accusing her of unlawfully ‘assisting’ the death of a seventy-year-old man who had left his entire estate to her. The case had gone to court, where the defence lawyer had pulled a previously ignored rabbit out of the hat, namely an embittered stepchild who had got wind of the will change and promptly set about taking revenge by murdering the old man himself and cleverly setting up the doctor as he did so. The rabbit had been transfixed in the glare of the defence lawyer’s piercing spotlight. The case had collapsed.

The lawyers in the Crown Prosecution Service had been furious to have ended up with egg on their faces. And after the hounded doctor had cracked under the strain and died of a stroke, the medical fraternity had been up in arms.

He could appreciate Finch’s concern. If you were superintendent you had to take due account of the status of the victim, and you had little choice but to regard those of high or sensitive status (whether that was social, racial or financial) as having priority over the rest. Which was one of the reasons why he, himself, had no wish to climb any further up the police status ladder.

‘Has Professor Farrell been informed?’ Swift enquired.

‘We haven’t been able to contact him.’ Finch paused. ‘His secretary said he was attending a conference in Lancaster. We’ve checked on it and it appears he’s arrived and registered but he couldn’t immediately be located. And, by the way, his name’s Patel – I gather Moira Farrell worked under her maiden name.’

There was a short silence as each member of the team made their own evaluation of the reasons for a woman declining to take their husband’s name.

‘We’ll follow up and make contact with Patel,’ Swift told his boss. ‘Are there any children to inform?’

Finch shook his head. ‘No children as far as I’m aware, but Moira Farrell’s mother lives locally. She’s been informed by uniform but I’d like her seen as soon as possible.’

Swift set about draining the last of his coffee, already steeling himself for the inevitable visit to the crime scene.

‘I’m ready to authorize as much manpower as you need on this one,’ Finch told Swift, his tone crisp. ‘I haven’t had an unsolved murder case in three years.’

‘It was either beautifully judged, or a lucky strike.’ Tanya Blake, pathologist, sat back on her heels and observed the corpse with an expression which mingled professional conjecture with a hefty dash of human sympathy for a life cut short. ‘A direct hit to the carotid artery. Just one hit, as far as I can tell.’ She paused. ‘That’s all it takes, of course.’

Swift nodded. He had every confidence in Blake’s judgement. She had invariably got things right on the other cases they had worked on together. Not only was she young, bright, and well on top of her chosen work, she had that streak of intuition that made her a valuable member of the investigative team.

He looked down at the dead woman sitting in a chair, the front of her body slumped against her writing desk and lapped in a great pool of blood. He imagined the ‘hit’, one plunge into the white skin of the neck, a great plume of fresh, warm blood arcing out into the air. A myriad droplets speckling the atmosphere like summer drizzle.

As Tanya worked, a police cameraman was capturing every angle of the body on film. Swift sometimes wondered what that job must be like, constantly recording scenes of carnage. Maybe police photographers comforted themselves with dreams of being future film-makers, biding their time whilst waiting for the call from Hollywood.

‘From the look of her she was a healthy woman in her prime.’ Blake commented. ‘But then, you never know what you’ll find until you get your corpse on the slab.’ All this said in matter-
of-fact
tones with a lacing of black humour, prompting Swift to wonder if there was any truth in the general view held by the police that pathologists truly appreciated sectioning up dead bodies. Looking around he noticed one or two smudgy marks at the edge of the shiny red pool. They didn’t look too promising, but maybe forensics could work their magic and get something useful from them.

‘Any sign of the weapon?’ he asked Tanya.

‘Not so far.’

‘What might it have been?’

‘Something slim and pointed, I’d say. A very sharp skewer maybe, or precision scissors. There were probably both of those kind of items available in the house. Plenty of kitchens harbour potentially vicious weapons. And, as a doctor, she’d have access to any number of lethal instruments.’ Blake gestured towards the battered Gladstone bag she always carried with her.

‘At home?’ Swift asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘Items from work sometimes find their way home from time to time,’ Blake observed, with a dry smile. ‘And usually return to where they belong.’ She reached out a hand and touched a strand of the dead woman’s hair. It was long, thick and black with a springy, natural-looking curl to it. ‘A very striking woman,’ she murmured. ‘At least she would have been when she was alive. Which would have been between five and six hours ago.’

‘Right, so she was killed around six this morning?’

‘That’s what the temperature reading suggests.’ Blake tilted her head, allowing a shiny streak of hair to fall over one cheek. ‘Looks like your killer’s an early bird.’

‘Or a very late night owl.’

Laura was sitting in the kitchen, talking with one of the women who had discovered Moira Farrell’s body. The woman had given her name as Pat Bainbridge. She was forty-nine years old and had been working for the
Merry Maids
domestic cleaning agency for six years.

Her partner, Meg Miller, had complained of nausea and dizziness after seeing the crime scene and had temporarily retired to the conservatory to lie down on the sofa. But Pat seemed more stoical, her manner conveying a mixture of shock at the murder of her employer and a despairing glumness at the increasingly wicked ways of an unsatisfactory world. Laura had made her a mug of strong coffee and expressed sympathetic acceptance of her wish to smoke.

While Pat lit up a new cigarette, Laura reviewed the notes she
had made so far, reminding herself that according to Pat the cleaning team had found the house door open when they arrived. That nothing in the house seemed to have been disturbed as far as Pat could tell. That Mrs Farrell had seemed her usual self on the last occasion they had seen her on the previous Friday.

‘So you and your partner, Meg, visit twice a week to clean the house,’ Laura said.

‘Three times. Monday, Wednesday, Friday.’ Pat drew on her cigarette. Her hand was still shaking with distress.

‘And how long do you stay?’

‘Three hours.’

‘At each session?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s eighteen hours altogether,’ Laura stated.

‘Uh huh. It’s a big house,’ Pat said, as though needing to defend the time she and her partner spent in the Farrell household. ‘And in addition to the cleaning we change the beds and do all the laundry and ironing.’ She ran a hand through her
mahogany-tinted
hair and tapped ash into a screw-top lid she had produced from her bag to serve as an ashtray. ‘And we do all the clearing up, an’all,’ she said, nodding towards the kitchen sink which was crammed with dirty plates and crockery.

How the other half live, Laura thought, conjuring up a picture of her mother who refused to have a dish washer and diligently washed the pots and cutlery before polishing them to gleaming brilliance with a tea cloth.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Pat said. ‘We do most of what needs to be done. She’s a busy woman Mrs Farrell.’ She balanced the glowing end of her cigarette on the edge of the tray and rested her chin into her hand. ‘Was,’ she said, with heavy regret.

‘I get the impression you admired her,’ Laura commented.

Pat considered. ‘Yes, I did. She worked hard – and she was a decent sort.’

‘A good employer?’

‘Yeah, no side to her, not air’s and graces.’ Pat considered. ‘Always made sure there was coffee and biscuits on hand. Said
we had to sit down and have a proper break. Some women just bring you a glass of fruit juice or whatever while you’re cleaning the lav.’

‘Really.’ Laura’s curiosity was aroused, not yet being familiar with the world of the rich and their servants. She never ceased to be grateful that she’d joined the police and got herself the opportunity to see the world. Not in the geographical sense like sailors joining the navy, but in the human and social sense. In the police you had an entrée into the houses of all kinds of people you’d probably never meet face to face in a social setting.

‘Oh yeah. Some employers are the pits. But Mrs Farrell was like … well, interested in us – as people, not just the poor beggars who push the vacuum.’ Pat picked up her cigarette and pulled on it with a thoughtful expression.

Laura waited.

‘I can’t think anyone would want to kill her. Just can’t imagine it. It must have been one of these nutcases roaming around, targeting women on their own. They’re always telling you crime isn’t on the increase, but it must be. There’ve been so many stories of pensioners and vulnerable folks living alone set about by young thugs, or people let out from places for the mentally ill. And it’s happening locally, you know. I don’t watch
Look North
any more, it sickens me what goes on. Scares me too.’ Pat let out a sigh and shot Laura a glance of faint challenge.

Laura gave a non-committal nod. ‘But Mrs Farrell wasn’t on her own, was she? I mean she was living here with her husband.’

Pat frowned. ‘Yes. But he obviously wasn’t around this morning, was he?’

‘Do we know that?’

‘Well, no. I suppose we don’t. But he was often here when we arrived for work. They seemed to be an OK couple together. I mean you never really know how people are in private, do you? But Mrs Farrell and Professor Patel seemed to rub along all right as far as I could tell.’ She looked at the quietly attentive detective constable. ‘God! I’m jabbering on, aren’t I? And you’re just waiting for me to spill the beans.’

‘What beans, Mrs Bainbridge?’

Pat went so far as to produce a smile, albeit a grim one. ‘None.’ She pressed her lips together as though buttoning them up.

There was the sound of sighing and rustling beyond in the conservatory. A few moments later Pat’s partner Meg reappeared in the kitchen. She was a small, skinny woman with wispy fair hair. She sat down unsteadily on a chair with the air of someone who has just woken from a drugged sleep.

‘Are you feeling better?’ Laura enquired.

Meg grimaced. ‘To tell the truth, no. Pretty rough, in fact.’ She glanced towards the hallway. ‘Is she still in there? Mrs Farrell?’

Laura nodded in confirmation.

Meg looked at her partner, her face grim with tragedy. ‘I’m giving my notice in after this. I’ll never be able to walk into another place without wondering … what I’m going to see.’ She wrapped her arms around her chest and made an alarming retching noise.

Laura jumped up and filled a glass with water at the sink. ‘Here.’

Meg took a sip. The liquid refreshment seemed to bring a new alertness. ‘Are me and Pat suspects?’ she shot at Laura.

‘We’ll need your help in answering some further questions, Mrs Miller,’ Laura said.

Meg scowled. ‘It’s bad news, isn’t it, when you find a body? Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Pat placed a hand on her partner’s arm. ‘Look, love, we both know we didn’t kill Mrs Farrell. We were just the ones who found her. And the police are talking to us to find out as much as they can. We’re witnesses, I suppose.’ She glanced at Laura, a light of importance in her eyes.

‘Well, I’m not up to talking to anyone at the moment,’ Meg said. ‘I’m going to ring my husband and ask him to come and pick me up.’

‘We’ll take you home, Mrs Miller,’ Laura said with gentle firmness. ‘When DCI Swift has had a chance to speak to you.’

Meg rounded on her partner. ‘See! They
are
treating us as
suspects. And I was hoping to get home early today.’ Her tone had turned whining and sulky.

‘You’ll be home soon enough,’ Pat soothed. ‘And you’ll change your mind about giving your notice in. We’re a great team, you and me. We have a lot of laughs, don’t we? And this is just a
once-in
-a-lifetime thing.’

‘A bit final for Mrs Farrell, though,’ Meg observed grimly – a woman who knew how to have the last word.

Two hours later and Swift had set off back to the station having left Laura and Doug Wilson at the crime scene, in the hope that Professor Patel might arrive home and that they would have the chance to speak to him.