The Detective's Daughter (26 page)

‘Yes.’

‘Monday, the twenty-second of June 2009 at three p.m.’

‘He retired on the Friday of that week.’

Jack sniffed. ‘It must be when he copied it.’

‘He would have had to give a reason.’

‘Says here that he was going to see the man who found the body: a Charles Jenkins.’ Jack was matter of fact.

Stella typed the name into Google, adding ‘Rokesmith’ to narrow the search.

‘Jenkins died in 2010 aged eighty-five, he’d had Alzheimer’s for fifteen years.’ She pointed at her screen. ‘Says he never got over finding her and took early retirement. Odd that Terry bothered talking to him. Kate was dead when he found her.’

‘Jenkins might have lied. If you were a murderer, wouldn’t a great way to deflect suspicion be to pretend you found the corpse of the victim you’d just killed?’

‘Too much of a risk.’ Stella wished the theory hadn’t come to Jack so easily.

‘Anyway, Jenkins was only Terry’s excuse to see the files. He could have written anything, he was the boss, no one questioned him.’

‘He stuck to the rules,’ Stella snapped. Jack was right; she had been granted respect and leeway because of Terry. Cashman had trusted her: a trust that was misplaced; she would not help the police. Terry had been working alone: the rules he stuck to were his own. She did not say this.

Jack returned to the sofa and flopped down, scrutinizing the list. ‘It was accessed in December 1992. Someone reported a blue Ford Anglia on the North End Road in Fulham. “The vehicle was registered to a sixty-four-year-old spinster resident in Munster Road. Miss Joan Fellows. She had bought a 1967 model second-hand in 1975 and in 1981 was deputy head at a primary school off the Fulham Road.” So what?’

‘That’s the computer doing it’s job: it is matching it with a blue car, possibly a Ford Anglia, seen by a witness.’ Stella rifled through her notes. ‘Mrs Hammond, aged seventy-four, coming out of Black Lion Lane that day. She was on the Great West Road going to the Broadway, so it was a glimpse. Might have been nothing, but it can’t be eliminated until someone comes forward. The fact that no one has, despite the publicity, makes it likely to be suspicious. Hugh Rokesmith drove a blue car.’

‘So?’

‘It’s clear Rokesmith did it.’

‘Boring!’ Jack jabbed at the plastic on the sofa. ‘You’ve made up your mind. Why go on?’

‘I was thinking the same thing.’

‘Wasn’t that why the police failed? Deciding the guy was guilty and forcing everything to fit their theory.’ He sniffed. ‘What about having an open mind?’

‘There’s no mystery. It’s obvious he did it, motive, opportunity, means…’

‘Motive? What did he gain? The police had nothing: he wasn’t even on bail.’ He poked at the plastic again. ‘This is no fun, you’re not doing it properly.’

‘He remained a suspect. It says so.’ Stella waved her notes. ‘They had no evidence. His mother was his alibi; naturally she was protecting him. Hugh Rokesmith had a high-flying career, building bridges all over the world, all that was in jeopardy. She perjured herself to save her son’s career.’

‘His work dried up, and it’s impossible to be in two places at once. The police got that right, yet still you think him guilty.’

‘He left at ten thirty, what was he doing for forty-five minutes?’ She batted at the box of tissues.

‘Like it says here: sitting by Kew Bridge doing calculations in peace. He was a busy man, he rarely got time to himself.’

‘We only have his word for that, no one saw him.’ Terry knew Rokesmith had got away with it. ‘I have a client in Strand on the Green; it takes a minimum of fifteen minutes to get there. Half an hour to plan a bridge? I don’t think so!’

It had taken her slightly less time to drive between the two points but she would not give Jack’s theory that Rokesmith was innocent ammunition; he was taking over.

‘Maybe you’d like to explain why you broke into Mrs Ramsay’s house.’

‘I didn’t.’ Jack sucked ruminatively on the arm of his glasses and perused other papers. ‘She was my friend. More than that really.’ He looked up. ‘By the way, why do we think you didn’t murder Isabel?’

‘What did I have to gain? I’ve lost a client. I will have to tell the police about you.’

‘Can we stop? You have no time for your dad’s army and you’d have to explain why you
purloined
valuable evidence. What do they call it… obstructing officers…?’

‘… in the execution of their duty.’

‘
Exactement!
’ He put on a French accent and twirled his spectacles happily. ‘Like me – like Terry – you prefer to work alone.’ He shuffled the papers and Stella caught a trace of Terry’s aftershave. ‘You’ve changed the habit of a lifetime letting me help and we’ll only succeed if we approach it like a, well, like a clean slate. Don’t be high-horsey!’

Stella covered up a yawn. Over the last days she had slept little more than eight hours and hardly recognized herself. Her previous self would not have given the time of day to Jack, let alone allowed him into her flat. Terry’s death had thrown everything up in the air.

‘You have the mind of a forensic scientist. Like a detective you will leave no stone unturned.’ Jack closed the cigarette case with a snap. ‘Don’t squander that with blinkered thinking.’

Harmon was right; she had made up her mind. Jackie said Stella jumped to conclusions. Her mother accused Terry of shutting his ears to any other point of view.

‘What mind have you got?’

I have the mind of a murderer
.

Her mobile rang and without meaning to she answered.

‘Hello there, Stella. How are you on this Arctic Friday?’

She could not place the voice.

‘It’s Ivan Challoner. I do hope I’m not disturbing you.’ His tone was intimate, the voice so close he could have been in the next room.

‘I’m in a meeting, but it’s fine, unless you’re ringing to say I need another filling.’

‘Your teeth are perfect! I hadn’t thought of cleaners having meetings.’ Paul would have made this sound patronising.

Stella stepped into the passage. ‘You’re not with patients?’ Ivan was easy to talk to. Trailing towards the front door, she felt a coil of excitement.

‘In a moment. The only promise I made to myself as a student that I have kept is not to work on Mondays or at the weekend. I’ll be quick to let you get back: would you join me for dinner on Monday?’

Stella agreed to meet him at a French restaurant by Kew station. Unlike Paul’s first suggestion of a burger, nothing in Challoner’s manner implied it was a date. If he had been flirtatious she might not have accepted his invitation.

She returned to the room, her mood lighter, where she found the sight of Jack Harmon, leafing through her notes, his wire-framed glasses perched on his nose peculiarly reassuring.

‘You lie with impunity,’ he murmured.

‘You should not be eavesdropping. Besides, I am in a meeting.’

He turned a page. ‘I’m thinking it would be wise not to tell anyone about this, including your new man.’

‘I wasn’t planning to and Ivan Challoner is a client, as you know.’

Jack snatched off his glasses, an action that reminded Stella of Terry. ‘Perhaps don’t let that man – Paul – get wind of it. He was totally in the thrall of the green-eyed monster.’

‘I won’t see him again.’

‘Like I said, he won’t give up on you that easily.’ Jack flapped the sheet he was reading. ‘Isabel Ramsay was the last person to see Katherine Rokesmith alive. It’s a coincidence her being your client and your dad’s star witness. He never mentioned her to you? Did you seek her out?’

Stella did not admit that, despite reading the notes, until Cashman told her, she had not realized that Mrs Ramsay was so important a witness.

‘Of course not. Her daughter contacted us initially; Mrs Ramsay was dead set against a cleaner. I never talked to Terry about work, his or mine. And if you were close, how come she didn’t tell you?’

‘She did,’ he replied simply. ‘Read this.’ He pushed a slip of newspaper towards her.

It was dated Monday, 21 May 2007. Stella had missed it.

MURDERED KATE HUSBAND DIES

Hugh Rokesmith (65) lost his battle with lung cancer in Scarborough General Hospital yesterday. The civil engineer saw his career designing bridges and viaducts, predominantly in South-East Asia, dwindle after the murder of his wife in July 1981, almost twenty-seven years ago. Kate Rokesmith was found dead by the River Thames on the day that Diana, Princess of Wales, also destined to die young, rehearsed her marriage to Charles. Questioned by detectives, Mr Rokesmith, who in a BBC interview claimed he was ‘utterly devastated’, stated he was at his mother’s birthday lunch two miles from where Kate’s body was found. The couple’s son, Jonathan (pictured left), who as a four-year-old may have witnessed his mum’s death, is said to have visited his dying father in hospital. Believed to live in Sydney, Australia, he has refused to comment on his mother’s murder, which a police spokesman has described as ‘still an open case’.

‘They are guarding against the son doing them for libel or they’d come right out and say Rokesmith did it. I found a website in the States that said a previously normal man is more likely to kill his wife if he finds out she’s having an affair, especially if she was younger than him and good-looking. I’ve written it somewhere.’ Stella picked up her notes. ‘An affair can be the last straw.’

‘What makes you think Katherine Rokesmith was having an affair?’

‘I’m guessing. Like you said, keeping an open mind.’

‘Let’s stick to facts. For example, did you know that a bunch of flowers is always by Katherine’s grave?’

The way Jack referred to Kate as ‘Katherine’ was getting on Stella’s nerves, it made Kate distant and unreachable.

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s here. Terry’s put it in the margin of his report. It must be recent, he could not have known at the time.

Stella looked closer and, sure enough, there were the words with a date three weeks before Terry’s death scrawled beside them. ‘Flowers by grave, check.’ She had read them before but had made little of it; flowers were often by graves, it was no big deal.

‘Who’s putting them there?’ Jack asked.

‘All we need to do is keep a watch on the grave.’

‘They appear at odd times with no apparent pattern.’

‘Have there been any since the husband died?’

‘I’m presuming so, if you go by the date of Terry’s marginalia.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything. It may not be the killer, it’s more likely to be a cranky well-wisher. I clean for plenty of those.’ Stella stopped. Harmon had not answered her question. How did he know that the flowers were
always
there? Her mobile telephone rang and this time Stella checked the number; although unfamiliar she risked it: ‘Hello?’

‘Gina Cross. The police in their wisdom say my mother had an aneurism. She was not murdered. My husband says I should sue, but it’s paperwork and bother. So back to Plan A. I want your Platinum package as I see it includes outbuildings and attics. I want you to get going right away. Can you do that?’

‘I can send a team there now, we’ll go into the weekend.’ Stella signalled to Jack to put on his coat. Languidly he slid two more newly made cigarettes off the glass table top into his case.

‘I don’t want to pay double time.’

‘You won’t,’ Stella replied.

The buzzer went as they were leaving. Stella brought up the video and Paul’s contorted face filled the screen, his mouth moving – with the intercom off they couldn’t hear him – like a bloated fish pressing up to the glass of an aquarium.

‘Is there another way out?’ Jack was businesslike.

‘Only the stairs which come out in the lobby.’

‘A basement?’

‘It will be locked.’

‘Let’s not make that an obstacle.’ He shouldered his way through to the stairwell.

Less trouble had been taken in constructing the stairs and, racing down the eight short flights, their feet clattered on cheap tiles. At the ground floor they ducked below the window in the lobby door to avoid Paul seeing them and then took the last steps to the basement.

Jack tried the lever handle on a metal-plated door, but as Stella had anticipated it was locked. He groped under the alcove beneath the stairs and extracted a key dangling from a chain; he turned the key in the lock. When he depressed the handle again, it still did not move.

‘Lift it?’ Stella suggested.

He cranked it up forty-five degrees and the door gave way with a grinding shriek, tracing a rust-coloured curve in the stone. Stella stooped and rubbed it with her forefinger but it made no difference; it would need a stringent agent and could not be done by hand.

Jack removed the key and made the chain a bracelet around his wrist.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We might need it again.’

They were blasted by a fuggy heat when they went in and the dull hum that was ever present in the lobby grew loud. It came from a generator from which sprouted tentacles of pipes, some bare, others swaddled in silver; they were in the building’s engine room. In the centre stood the lift housing with a door giving into the shaft. A grubby notice tucked into a plastic folder listed the date of the last service: five months ago. Judging by fluff and dust coating the pipes, Stella doubted anyone had been down here since. When she moved in she had suggested that the basement be included on the cleaning rota – she knew the value of cleaning what is rarely seen – her request was ignored.

Jack had disappeared. She walked around the lift and found another door. He was already halfway down a breeze-block-lined passage. After twenty yards it turned to the left and stretched ahead to a dead end. Stella fumbled with her anorak and did up the zip; the temperature had dropped considerably.

Recessed into the wall on the right was another door; when she reached him, Jack was unwrapping the key chain from his wrist. He turned the key and cautiously pushed the door. They were confronted by a blast of icy air and dazzled by the glare of snow. An icicle had formed over the doorway, a sharp blade pointing downward; they stepped to the side and found themselves in the garage compound. They crept to the corner of the flats.