02 Blue Murder (4 page)

“
I see. Very well, I’ll have
a woman PC escort Ms. Wardle to the Yard. Set up a private
interview—”

“
That’s
just the tip of the iceberg,” Deaver cut across him. “A snout at
the
Daily Mirror
tells me mobile phone pictures of Trevor Parsons, dead with an
axe in his skull, have been transmitted to his editor-in-chief.
Tomorrow morning they run in full color. Care to imagine the media
firestorm after Mummy and Daddy see their son on page one, lying in
a pool of his own blood and piss?”

Hetheridge bit back a protest. It was
useless pointing out that anything witnesses did before the police
arrived was not the fault of the Metropolitan Police Service, much
less New Scotland Yard. Somehow the instant 999 was engaged, the
Met became responsible for every eventuality that followed, right
or wrong.

“
Let’s hope the photos are
low quality, without much detail.”

“
Doesn’t
matter.” Deaver heaved a sigh of mordant triumph. “The
Daily Mirror
knows
perfectly well who lives next door to the Wardle house. They’ll
flog this horse for a month or more. At least until a pop star
overdoses or an MP is caught buggering a farm animal. Please
God.”

Hetheridge felt as if he’d lost the thread.
“Michael. Why is the Wardles’ next-door neighbor relevant?”

“
Because he’s Sir Duncan
Godington.”

Hetheridge drew in his breath. For a moment
he couldn’t speak at all. But when he did, he kept his voice level.
Unlike the assistant commissioner, Hetheridge didn’t believe in
signaling his frustrations, either by tone or expression.
Particularly when the situation was grave. “Which house?”

“
Sixteen
Burnaby.”

Hetheridge turned it over in his mind,
weighing every reasonable course of action. Then he chose.

“
Never fear, Michael. Leave
this to me. I’m sending the majority of partygoers to the Yard at
once, so if you’ll designate a unit to take preliminary statements,
I’d be grateful. In the meantime, I’ll interview the two key
witnesses on-scene. I’ll ring back once I’ve signed the scene over
to the FSS.”

“
I presume one of those key
witnesses is Ms. Wardle. Do you think that’s wise, Tony? Courting a
formal complaint?”

“
I have a folder full to
bursting with them,” Hetheridge said truthfully. “You know as well
as I do—it takes at least forty-eight hours to emotionally process
a loved one’s demise. If Ms. Wardle is already complaining about
being shut in with her boyfriend’s corpse—if she wants to escape
the body rather than be near it—her reaction is atypical enough to
be worth my time. Not in a sterile interview room but here, within
sight and scent of where the crimes took place.”

“
And the other
witness?”

“
Ms. Sloane.” Hetheridge
couldn’t stop himself from pacing, piles of brittle leaves
crunching with every step. “She discovered the first victim’s body
and possibly lied about the circumstances. I need to interview her
before she has time to compose herself.”

“
Fine. But you do understand
what the proximity of Godington means to your team?” Assistant
Commissioner Deaver asked.

“
I do.”

“
Good. Because it would
seriously displease me to see a conviction sidestepped or
overturned because of blind loyalty on your part, Tony.”

Hetheridge pressed his lips together,
letting the remark pass. He knew himself to be a loyal man. But his
loyalty was never blind, though he occasionally envied those who
were capable of following only their hearts.

“
I’ll keep my head, sir.
That much I can assure you.”

“
Good.” Deaver rang
off.

Tucking away his mobile, Hetheridge walked
back to where Kate and Bhar waited. “DS Bhar—change of plans. I now
require you to organize the relocation of the party guests, with
the exception of Ms. Wardle and Ms. Sloane, to the Yard. Be certain
none are permitted access to mobiles or the Web. Act as liaison to
solicitors and family members. Be polite,” he emphasized, letting
the directive hang between them, “and take a break for sleep when
necessary. But as soon as possible, I want a list of those
witnesses who merit a second interview. Tomorrow I’ll have a
research project for you, once you’re rested enough to begin.”

“
Research?” Bhar looked
mutinous.

Moving close to the younger man, Hetheridge
whispered in his ear. When he stepped back, he saw his detective
sergeant’s expression transform from disappointed to startled—and
from startled into stone.

“
Of course,” Bhar muttered,
refusing to meet Hetheridge’s eyes. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Without a backward glance, he hurried away.

Hetheridge pretended not to notice. “DS
Wakefield?”

“
Guv?”

“
Division of labor. Please
coordinate with PC Kincaid. Tour the scene and conduct Ms. Sloane’s
preliminary interview. I’ll handle Ms. Wardle.”

“
But what about DS Bhar? Why
send him to do scut work?”

Hetheridge lifted an eyebrow. It was beyond
cheeky of Kate to pose such a question. Did she have any notion how
it affected him, to be questioned—challenged—after more than thirty
years of authority within the Yard? The strange current of
excitement her rebellious nature produced?

Studying Kate’s face, Hetheridge decided she
did. If not intellectually, then viscerally, on some deep primal
level. And one fine day, to co-opt Kate’s phrase, he’d answer in
kind. Not intellectually, but physically.

“
DS Bhar is already on the
case. I suggest you follow his example,” Hetheridge snapped,
enjoying the look of surprise as he dismissed her, turning to the
nearest uniformed PC. “Please escort me to Ms. Wardle.”

Chapter Four

D
etective Sergeant Kate Wakefield followed PC Kincaid into the
Wardle house, using the entry designated for deliveries, service
technicians and maids. It didn’t strike her as undignified. In
well-bred English households, police always entered through the
back door.

That back door opened into the Wardle family
mudroom. It was a stark white rectangle, unadorned except for macks
hung haphazardly on pegs, a line of Wellies in various sizes and an
umbrella stand. Dutifully, Kate glanced about, finding nothing to
flag for the FSS. Strange that people who led such antiseptically
clean lives used a “mudroom” to prevent the spread of the world’s
inevitable filth. In the very worst parts of Britain, family
dwellings opened directly into the front lounge. In those places, a
bit of tracked-in mud was the least of anyone’s worries.

After the Wardles’ mudroom came the
Edwardian scullery, now converted into a pantry. Kate was startled
to find the shelves stocked with so many of her favorite brands.
Prawn crisps. McVitie Digestive biscuits. Mr. Kipling cakes. Beef
jerky, tinned beans, Marmite spread ...

Having been assigned to Hetheridge’s team
for only a short time, Kate was still gobsmacked by the occasional
parallel between herself and the impossibly posh types her guv
investigated. Well—not just investigated. Belonged to. By any
yardstick he, too, was impossibly posh. And that was a truth Kate
had difficulty processing.

Surely he isn’t really one
of them
, Kate told herself.
Not in the ways that count.

Hetheridge was her guv, yes, but she could
forgive him that. Despite numerous rocky relationships with
authority figures over the years, Kate genuinely respected
Hetheridge as her chief. He was a policeman first, a detective
second and a bureaucrat only a very distant third. Furthermore,
Hetheridge was something those “authority figures” from her
childhood had never been—a man worthy of the term.

Raised by females, some of them miserable
examples, and viewing males only from afar, Kate had once doubted
the existence of worthwhile men. Hetheridge, Bhar and others from
her police training had taught her differently. These days, Kate
accepted the reality of good, trustworthy males as a matter of
course. But warmth and respect for Chief Superintendent Hetheridge
wasn’t at issue. Every junior detective idolized his or her guv to
some degree. Yet Kate found herself preferring Hetheridge when he
wasn’t her guv. When he let slip the mask of authority. And she
suspected Hetheridge revealed those rare glimpses of the authentic
Tony to Kate and Kate alone.

“
Detective? What is it?” PC
Kincaid asked.

Kate realized she was staring at a jar of
Marmite spread like it was a signed confession. “Nothing. Lead on,”
she said, trying to sound as unruffled as Hetheridge when a
subordinate caught him wool-gathering. If the guv never perspired
in public, neither would she.

Beyond the pantry was the Wardles’ kitchen,
spotless and fitted up with all the “mod cons,” as Kate’s mum liked
to say. The white-tiled floor shone like glass; the white walls
looked as clean as if they’d been scrubbed mere hours before.
Equally immaculate was the stainless steel refrigerator, except for
one faint smear near the handle.

Kate moved closer to the granite
countertops. The area near the fridge was bare except for a
sprinkling of crumbs and a second smear so faint, she had to squint
to assure herself it was real.

“
Just a tick,” she called to
PC Kincaid.

Pulling on blue latex-free gloves, Kate
opened the fridge. Aware she was under general orders not to
photograph any facet of the crime scene, Kate nevertheless used her
smartphone to document the fridge’s interior. Photos captured via
personal handhelds fell into an investigative gray zone. Bedeviled
by the ubiquity of image-manipulating software like Photoshop, the
Met frowned on phone snapshots; introducing them into evidence
could torpedo a case. But Kate didn’t intend on showing these
pictures around. They were simply a new way to catalogue a scene,
quicker and often superior to her haphazard written notes.

Most of the fridge, like the kitchen, was
clean and boring. Kate snapped pictures of yogurt, milk, orange
juice and strawberry jam. On the second shelf, someone had pushed
aside a bagful of veg to make room for two open bottles of Stella
Artois. Pink lipstick marked the rim of one. Kate photographed
them.

Beside the open beer bottles sat a messy
sandwich. Sliced meat and cheese piled high between slabs of rye
bread; mustard and mayonnaise seeped out one side. Reexamining the
smears on refrigerator panel and countertop, Kate decided they were
a combination of those two condiments. Someone had stashed the
sandwich and beers, then hastily tidied up, leaving behind only
faint traces.

Y not pour out the
Stellas? Xpecting the owners 2 reclaim them?
Kate texted to herself. It was her new method of taking
incidental notes; she would type them up in the Queen’s English the
next day. It beat her old habit of struggling with a stylus to
access her phone’s clunky word processing program.

Nothing else about the kitchen struck Kate
as worth flagging, so she followed PC Kincaid into a small dining
room originally meant for the servants. In the days before
labor-saving devices like washing machines and vacuum cleaners, a
staff of at least twelve had been required to maintain a townhouse
the size of 14 Burnaby. Those maids and footmen had needed a place
to eat—preferably behind a green baize door so the sight of
servants at rest didn’t put the gentlefolk off their own food.
Here, that iconic green door had been replaced by a tasteful oak
version. And judging from the modern décor—gilt-flecked wallpaper,
an antique sideboard and an array of family photos—the Wardles had
claimed the former servants’ chamber for their own use.

Not so much as a dust mote
out of place
, Kate thought. Turning to PC
Kincaid she asked, “I thought there was a party on. Is the whole
house this spotless?”

“
God no. Mostly it looks
like a bomb went off,” he laughed. “Vomit on the walls, pig snacks
ground into the carpet and fag burns everywhere. To hear the guests
tell it, all that damage happened before the murders.”

Kitchen + dining nook
apparently out of bounds to guests,
Kate
texted to herself. She was about to pass into the next room when
she caught sight of something metallic lying on the Turkish
rug.

“
What do you make of it?”
she asked PC Kincaid, pointing at the object resting just beside a
table leg. It was a metal ball with a seam in the middle but no
visible hinge. A short length of chain was curled beneath
it.

“
My girlfriend has one of
those. Lip balm inside,” the constable said. “The ball unscrews
into two pieces.”

“
Yeah. Well. Make sure the
FSS bags it.”

Kate followed PC Kincaid down a narrow
passageway that wrapped around the back stairs, depositing them
into the townhouse’s enormous front parlor. Done up in soft pinks
and creamy yellows, the room was dominated by bookshelves covering
an entire wall. More than half empty, the alcoves were artfully
sprinkled with a few picture books devoted to fashion, fine dining
and travel. Kate also spied dried flowers, framed miniatures
and—just off-center—an empty space. The alcove’s recessed light
shone on nothing, as jarring as a missing tooth in an otherwise
bright smile.

Kate took in the rest of the room. A red
garter belt dangled from a lampshade. Soda cans, empty crisp
packets and beer bottles were scattered everywhere. The coffee
table was covered with crushed cigarette butts and soiled napkins.
To one side, Kate spied a steel straw and a trail of white
dust.