The Stranger You Know (33 page)

‘I’ve never been more serious. And Andy Bradbury agrees with me.’

‘That should be your first clue that you’re completely wrong,’ I said, my voice pure ice. ‘Bradbury is a moron.’

‘And how does he know about it, anyway?’ Godley asked.

‘I told him.’

‘You did
what
?’

‘He’s put in a lot of time on this investigation and he deserved to have the full picture. It was wrong to keep something back, especially when it could be the most important element in the case.’

‘Does no one listen to me any more?’ Godley was livid. ‘I ordered you to keep it to yourself, Una. You’re as bad as Derwent.’

‘That’s grossly unfair. I felt you were exhibiting an unusual lack of judgement and I stepped in.’

‘Look, keep it down,’ I said, noticing that the conversation was attracting some interest from the SOCOs working in the hall. Pierce’s ears were flapping.

‘This discussion is not over,’ Godley said. ‘But I am not going to talk about it over this poor woman’s body.’ He glared at Burt. ‘You need to reconsider your tone, too.’

‘I’m just saying what I think.’

‘I noticed.’

‘What are the differences between this murder and the others?’ I asked, partly to keep the peace but also because I really wanted to know. ‘He cut her hair but threw it on top of her. He didn’t arrange the body. He beat her. He killed her quickly. What else?’

‘He put her clothes in the bath and poured bleach on them.’

Now that Burt mentioned it, I noticed a strong chemical smell. I looked around at the room. It was smeared with fingerprint powder that had highlighted swirls and sweeps and smears and smudges but no actual fingerprints. ‘Did he wipe the place down?’

Kev Cox answered me, leaning in from the hall. ‘He cleaned up in here, the hall and the kitchen. Didn’t bother with her bedroom upstairs, which suggests he wasn’t in there, except to get her clothes. The bathroom is like an operating theatre – spotless.’

‘What does this say to you?’ Godley asked, looking at me.

‘Damage control. He must have been scared she was going to give the game away. This one wasn’t about living out his fantasies. He wanted her dead.’ I stared at Una Burt. ‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the same killer as for the other three.’

‘This is a pale imitation of the others.’

‘He likes to control the women and the crime scenes,’ I pointed out. ‘He likes to use minimal violence. There’s something almost artistic about the way he leaves the bodies. Now, if Deena challenged him – if she argued, or fought with him, or if he wasn’t prepared as he wanted to be for her death – he might have killed her differently. I think he sees it as an honour to be selected by him. She didn’t deserve the treatment the other victims got. She betrayed his trust.’

‘He probably didn’t know about her phone call to Elaine. He might have thought he could come here and kill her before she spoke to anyone,’ Godley said.

Burt looked stubborn. ‘It was someone acting on Josh Derwent’s behalf.’

‘Who? Who would?’

‘A friend. Someone he met through work – someone he arrested, maybe.’

‘Because that’s the best way to make friends.’ I turned to Godley. ‘This is insane. Isn’t it?’

‘I respect Una’s opinion,’ Godley said slowly. ‘I don’t agree with her, but I’m not writing it off just yet. I can’t be sure my objectivity isn’t affected by my friendship with Josh.’

Lack of sleep was making me slow-witted. I felt as if I was lost in a fog. ‘Derwent was in hospital. How would he arrange for this mythical person to come and kill Deena for him?’

‘He wasn’t unconscious. He had his phone. I’m going to get a list of all the calls from and to that number over the last twenty-four hours, and all the calls to and from his hospital room, and I’m going to prove that Derwent was able to make contact with someone who, for love or money, was prepared to kill at his request. He could have briefed them over the phone – not in detail, maybe, which explains the differences.’ She looked at Godley. ‘You’ve known him for a long time. You know he’s capable of killing. He did it in the army. He shot people—’

‘That’s different,’ I objected.

‘Yes, it is.’ She didn’t even turn her head. ‘He doesn’t have a girlfriend. He lives alone. Who knows what’s in his flat? We need to get a search warrant while he’s still in hospital and go through it.’

I snapped. ‘Okay, first of all, I’ve been in his flat recently and I doubt there’s anything to find. Do you really think if he was a killer Derwent wouldn’t have the sense to keep everything relating to that in a different location? A storage unit or a lock-up garage? He’s seen enough practical examples of what not to do, hasn’t he? And anyway, he’s not going to be in hospital for long. He might be out already. Do you really want to tell him you think he’s a killer?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Godley said. ‘Una, this needs to stay between us for now. If you’re right, I want Josh to think he’s free and clear. We’ll check his phone and bank accounts and get surveillance on him.’

‘What about the other investigators?’

‘We’ll have a conference with them in the next couple of hours. Set it up. I don’t mind talking to them behind closed doors because it’s worth considering every possibility, but I don’t want you talking to Bradbury or anyone else about it when I’m not there. Not a word.’ He turned to me. ‘Maeve, I know you don’t agree with this approach to the investigation. I’m not going to insist you come to the conference. You have other work to do on this case, don’t you? Leads from the Orpen interview to run down.’

I struggled to think. It all seemed very remote and irrelevant. I knew I was being moved sideways so I didn’t get in the way and I would have resented it if I’d been able to muster enough energy.

‘There were some phone calls I should make,’ I said. ‘But shouldn’t I be at the conference?’

‘Better not.’ In a flash I realised that he was thinking the same way as Una Burt: I couldn’t be trusted. ‘This goes double for you. Not a word about Josh’s potential involvement, to him or anyone else.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ I said, wounded.

‘He’s very persuasive. He’s manipulated you quite a bit over the course of this investigation, hasn’t he? You’ve even been in his flat and what you were doing there I don’t want to know, but I hope it was personal rather than relating to this investigation.’

‘I’m not
sleeping
with him, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time you slept with a colleague.’ The words seemed to come out despite his best efforts not to say them.

‘I would
never
—’

‘It’s none of my business.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed in you, Maeve. You’ve done the exact opposite of what you were told to do, because of Josh.’

‘I just wanted to find out the truth,’ I whispered. ‘I did what had to be done.’

‘You did what you wanted. You went against specific orders and the consequences of that have yet to be seen.’ Godley looked down at Deena’s body. ‘If you’d handled things differently, Derwent wouldn’t have been with you yesterday to get his face all over the news. Whether he is responsible for this death or not, it seems clear that his sudden elevation to public notice is likely to be the reason Deena is dead.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Even so. I can’t take the risk of letting you remain involved with this end of the investigation. You might as well follow up the leads on the cold case, but report back to Harry Maitland. Brief him when you get to the office. I’ll get him to read your notes. He can take over from you.’

‘If you don’t trust me, you shouldn’t have me on your team,’ I said, because I had to.

‘If you leave it will be your choice.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know why everyone finds it so hard to follow orders, but we’re standing beside proof that it’s important to do so.’

Una Burt was watching me intently, her expression showing that she agreed with Godley.

The thing was, I couldn’t say he was wrong. I had done the opposite of what I’d been told. I had let Derwent order me around. And somehow I’d set off the chain of events that had led to Deena’s death.

My vision blurred as I turned away, stumbling to the door. Crying at work for the second time in twenty-four hours. That was really the sort of thing that shouldn’t become a habit, I thought, trying to distract myself.

I held myself together while I took off the crime-scene coveralls, even chatting with Pierce about his plans for the weekend. I walked out to a darkening sky as the rain closed in. The wind cut through my clothes, making me shiver. One of the police vans was getting ready to leave and I begged a lift, flipping up my coat collar as I sat in a seat near the back, out of reach of the cameras.

A young female PC leaned across the aisle. ‘Aren’t you the detective who was shot at yesterday?’

I shook my head and sort of smiled at her to take the sting out of it. It was technically true – Lee Grimes hadn’t shot at me. She blushed, knowing that she was right but too polite to persist.

‘Leave her be. She doesn’t want to talk about it.’ I could hear the whisper from where I was sitting, but I affected not to. They were right, I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to make sense of the chaotic thoughts that were spiralling around my head. I wanted to work out what was bothering me about what I’d heard in the previous days. I wanted to prove Una Burt wrong and prove Derwent wasn’t involved. I wanted to make Godley eat his words.

Most of all, I wanted to stop feeling like I’d blundered, time and time again, because I hadn’t the least idea how to make it right.

Chapter 26

By the time I got to the office I was in control of myself. I found Maitland, who looked wary when he saw me. Godley had been in touch, apparently, to tell him to expect me, and to familiarise him with Derwent’s background. I was miserably conscious that he would have warned Maitland I might be emotional. He needn’t have worried. I was icily calm as I ran through the details of the Angela Poole murder and told him what I was planning to do next. He made absolutely no fuss about letting me make followup inquiries before I handed the lot over to him, though I was prepared for a fight. He was a good police officer and I trusted him to do his job well, but this was my case and my investigation and I had questions that I needed to ask, by myself.

‘Sure. Of course. That’s fine.’ Maitland ran a hand up and down his shirt front, fiddling with the buttons. ‘Tell me what you find out, obviously, and then maybe we can have a final handover in an hour.’
At which time you will be out of this case for ever and I will be taking your place, but I don’t have to tell you that’s what’s going on because you know
.

‘One hour,’ I repeated, and headed for my desk. I could work to a deadline, if I had to. And it didn’t look as if I was being given any choice. So I had an hour to find someone who was not Derwent but seemed to be pretending to be Derwent.

Or someone who was following Derwent, killing the women he tried to help.

Or Derwent.

Which I was not going to think about because it was impossible. I picked up the phone.

My first calls were to all the care homes I could find in Bromley, working through them in search of a resident named Charles or Charlie Poole. It took five tries before I struck gold at the Tall Pines Care Home. The woman who answered the phone was Eastern European and had a strong accent but her speech was fluent, rapid even.

‘Charlie? Yes, he is here. You are a relative?’

I explained who I was and that I wanted to come and see him.’

‘Oh dear. This is not a problem, you understand, for us, but for you. Charlie is a long-term sufferer from dementia. He is not capable of conversation. He is not even able to say yes or no.’

‘If I showed him some pictures—’

‘No. The only thing he responds to is music and only sometimes. We do try, but …’ The shrug travelled down the telephone line.

‘Does he get many visitors?’

‘His son, sometimes. He comes to sit with him.’

‘Does Charlie still recognise him?’

‘Not for a year or more.’

Poor Shane. I thanked her for talking to me and she sighed.

‘I have great respect for the residents in our home but I feel sometimes that they are just waiting, waiting, waiting. The ones like Charlie – they are the ones death forgot. It makes me sad.’

I thanked her and said goodbye. She’d been helpful, but if there was a spate of sudden deaths at Tall Pines, I knew where I’d start the investigation.

The next person on my list was Claire Naylor, now back at work and not pleased to be phoned. She became even frostier when I asked her why she’d given Shane an alibi for his sister’s death.

‘I don’t remember. We must have been together.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said quietly. ‘You told me you found out Angela was dead when Shane rang your house at four in the morning and woke everyone up. You were in bed, asleep.’

She didn’t answer and I wished I could see her face.

‘Shane told me he was out with some mates smoking weed before he came home and found the police were already there. You wouldn’t happen to know who the friends were, would you?’

‘No.’

‘You told me you liked smoking weed, didn’t you? But you weren’t there that night.’

No answer. I waited, and as so often, silence did my job for me. She sighed, irritated, and I heard a door close, cutting off the background noise from the shop.

‘All right. I said he was with me. What’s the big deal?’

‘It was a murder case and you lied.’

‘Only because he was terrified of the policeman.’

‘Lionel Orpen?’

‘Him. He’d been giving Vinny a shocking time – he’d got it into his head that Vinny might have killed her. Only he absolutely didn’t and there was no evidence. He thought he could get Vinny to confess if he leaned on him hard enough, but there was no way that was going to happen. Vinny had too much spirit.’ She sounded proud of her brother, and a little sad.

‘So Shane was scared.’

‘Yes. Especially since he’d been doing drugs that night. I mean, it was nothing. It was just some weed. In ordinary circumstances the police wouldn’t have bothered with it but Orpen was looking for an angle all the time. He was starting to look beyond Vinny and he’d have got to Shane sooner or later. Shane was bricking it.’