A Dog's Life (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 4) (30 page)

Romney nodded once and Grimes withdrew. ‘Well, ma’am?’

They stared levelly into each other’s eyes for several long seconds before Superintendent Vine said, ‘Let’s go and see what they’ve found, shall we, Inspector Romney?’

Marsh and Grimes were standing in the corridor outside Mrs Allen’s room looking in through the open door. Both straightened up when they saw who Romney had brought along with him.

‘What have we got?’ said Romney.

‘They’ve found blood on the wall behind the unit there.’ Marsh gestured towards a small wooden cupboard on wheels. ‘And there’s a stain on the carpet under it. They think it’s blood someone has tried to clean up and hide.’

‘It’s something.’ Romney called through to the technicians. ‘What’s the soonest you can let us know whether this matches the blood of the dead woman from down the hall from last Saturday?’

‘Tomorrow morning,’ someone answered.

‘I need it sooner,’ said Romney. He turned to Marsh, ‘Any luck with their mobile phones yet?’

‘No mobile phone was recovered from Stephanie Lather’s home, sir.’

‘How come?’

‘Either she lost it or it was taken by someone,’ said Marsh, trying not to sound as though that was too easy a question. ‘Rachael Sparrow’s should be back at the nick in the evidence room. I’m going to check that out as soon as we get back.’

Romney nodded and thought. Then he said, ‘We’re done here. I want everyone back in the CID meeting room and ready in an hour.’ He turned and walked away without another word.

Superintendent Vine waited a few seconds more. To Marsh she looked like someone burdened with appalling knowledge. Vine looked across and caught Joy’s eye. She didn’t smile. With a serious look fixed to her features she wheeled about and left, also without speaking.

‘What do you reckon, Sarge? Lovers’ tiff?’ said Grimes, and Marsh, despite her fears for her DI’s position, had to smile at him.

***

22

Marsh, Grimes and Harmer were the first to dribble into CID’s meeting room. The space had an atmosphere of gloomy melancholy when Romney pushed his way in only five minutes late. ‘Blimey, who died?’ he said, removing his coat and making himself comfortable and then he looked up at Joy and said, ‘Shit. Sorry.’ Marsh smiled wearily back. ‘Superintendent Vine will be joining us,’ said Romney. And as if she had been waiting for her introduction she appeared in the outer office, strode across the flooring and let herself in to the small room.

Romney had positioned himself at one end of the rectangular table. Not to be outdone, Superintendent Vine took the vacant chair at the other.

‘Right,’ said Romney. ‘Let’s talk about our most recent murder first, shall we? Rachael Sparrow. Contrary to how things initially seemed it looks very much like Stephanie Lather did not kill her sister and then go home and do away with herself in a fit of remorse. It’s my opinion that the literary agent, Sandra Allen, is responsible for both deaths.’

‘What grounds to you have to suspect her, Tom?’ said Superintendent Vine.

The use of DI Romney’s first name jerked Marsh’s head up, encouraged Grimes to snap the pencil he’d been bending and made Romney stare at her dumbly for a long, uncomfortable moment before saying quite respectfully, ‘I’m coming to that, ma’am, if you’ll bear with me. For one thing the brutal slaying of one sister by the other made no sense – and then for Stephanie to return home and commit suicide just made things more unbelievable. So we started doing what we’re paid for. Sandra Allen claims she had no idea Stephanie had left the hotel. Indeed, when the body of Rachael Sparrow was first discovered in Stephanie’s rooms, Allen encouraged us all to believe that the dead woman was Stephanie. But we now know that Allen
had
been made aware of Stephanie’s earlier departure by an employee of the hotel so Allen had to have known that the body was not Stephanie. Why lie?

‘Rachael Sparrow’s clothing was covered in dog hairs that perfectly match the hair of Sandra Allen’s shih-tzu. According to Sandra Allen’s statement, which DS Marsh and I took this morning, Mrs Allen didn’t even know Stephanie Lather had a sister. She claims the dog never entered Stephanie Lather’s rooms and that she’d never set eyes on Rachael Sparrow before seeing her lying dead on the floor in the hotel.

‘There’s something else: Stephanie Lather died from drowning after ingesting a cocktail of booze and Temazepam. We know she drank, but there is no medical record of her ever having been prescribed drugs to help her sleep. Sandra Allen claims she gave Stephanie the drugs because Stephanie had been complaining of insomnia. Sandra Allen showed us her own supply of the drug. The dog also died from an overdose of Temazepam. I have someone checking to see what I know will be true – namely that the Temazepam that killed the dog is part of the same batch that helped kill Stephanie Lather. We’re also checking to see what quantity the dog was given. It couldn’t have helped itself to the drugs because Mrs Allen was good enough to show DS Marsh and me that her sleeping pills come in a bottle with a childproof lock on the cap. So it must have been given them. Why? Because Sandra Allen had to leave the dog in the hotel for several hours while she drove up to where Stephanie lived, get herself invited in as a concerned friend and then drug her up to the eyeballs so she could drown her, very conveniently leaving behind the hotel room key and the statue she’d used to smash Rachael Sparrow’s brains in  –after pressing Stephanie Lather’s fingerprints neatly all over them, naturally.

‘She told us on Saturday that the dog couldn’t be left for more than a short time without making a fuss and she couldn’t afford to have the hotel investigate a curious incident of a howling dog in the night-time only to find its owner absent. Bang would have gone her alibi, such as it was. She then phoned me, probably while she was admiring her handiwork in Stephanie’s bathroom, acting all concerned, drove back to the Dover Marina Hotel, snuck in while the wedding disco was in full swing and discovered that the dose of Temazepam she’d given the dog to shut it up had been too much for it and she’d killed it. Any questions so far?’

‘Can you prove any of this?’ said Vine.

‘We can prove she received a note that Stephanie had left the hotel and that she then knew her room was empty. I’m counting on forensics doing the rest.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s my belief that Rachael Sparrow and Sandra Allen bumped into each other, probably in the corridor outside Sandra Allen’s and Stephanie Lather’s rooms. I think they had words. Somehow Rachael Sparrow ended up inside Sandra Allen’s room and that is where she was killed.’

‘But why? What would be Sandra Allen’s motive? She said she didn’t even know Stephanie had a sister.’

‘That might be true or it might not. I’m not even sure that it matters. If she wasn’t aware of it before, I’d bet she found out then. As to why she died, maybe we should find out how she died first.’

‘I don’t understand. And I think you’re missing something.’

Romney smiled nicely. ‘What would that be, ma’am?’

‘Wasn’t Rachael Sparrow bludgeoned to death with an ornament from Stephanie Lather’s room? How did Sandra Allen manage to kill her with that in her own room?’

‘I think what a fresh look at the forensic evidence is going to tell us is that Rachael Sparrow was not killed with that artefact. I think that when Allen had killed her, deliberately or not, she panicked, dragged her body along to Stephanie’s room and covered up the fatal blow by administering a few more with the ornament, which she removed along with the key and left for us to find at Stephanie Lather’s home.’

‘She took a hell of a risk then. What if Stephanie
had
come back? What if Stephanie had not gone home to an empty house?’

‘Agreed. She took a big risk. But she’d murdered someone. After that everything’s a risk. You can’t take a bigger risk than that. I don’t think it was premeditated. But she would have known that Stephanie’s home would have been empty of others for the night – she was supposed to be staying at the hotel with Allen for Saturday night. And she knew all about Stephanie’s fondness for the mother’s ruin. She told us that herself. It wouldn’t have taken much working out that if Stephanie was slinking off home distraught after the mauling she’d got in the morning from a heckling element of the crowd and the massive disappointment of her ruined book launch that she’d turn to the sauce for comfort. Drunks always do.’ Grimes snapped another pencil, which made everyone look in his direction. ‘Are you going to keep doing that?’ said Romney.

‘Sorry, gov.’

‘Mrs Allen must have driven up to Stephanie’s and back again. Peter, I want you to get in touch with every authority in between and including here and there. See if she broke any driving laws on her trip. There’s a slim chance of that. I want all the available CCTV
footage from the Dover Marina Hotel looked at again.’

‘Right, gov.’

‘And there are still people from the hotel who need speaking to. Find them and get it done.

‘Right. That’s part one. Here’s part two. Jimmy Savage did not kill John Stafford.’

More than one of those listening to him thought he looked a little too pleased about that statement for a policeman who had provided evidence and witnesses that contributed to Jimmy Savage’s current state of incarceration.

Vine piped up. ‘Leaving aside the fact that you should not be involved in any way with any investigation into that business, what makes you so sure now that the man you helped to convict is innocent?’

‘Because I know who did kill him.’

The small room was suddenly far too quiet to contain five adults, all awake.

‘Do you think you could you stop being quite so mysterious and start sharing what you so obviously want to?’ said Vine, putting into words so precisely what everyone else was thinking.

Romney smiled down the table. ‘Last night I was having a quiet drink in The Flotilla when I was approached by a local booze-hound who was a good friend of Bernie Stark. He has asked me to keep his name out of it but it wouldn’t matter anyway because, as you’ll soon understand, his information and assertions are all based on hearsay and quite inadmissible.’

‘If that’s the case, why share them with us?’

‘Because I believe what he told me and it will explain a few things. There’s no possible benefit for this man to lie to me.

‘Jimmy Savage was convicted of the murder of John Stafford not only by the testimony of an eye witness, Bernie Stark, but also because of forensic evidence that was recovered. John Stafford’s blood was on Jimmy Savage’s trousers. When we went to arrest Jimmy Savage after Bernie’s declaration that he actually saw Jimmy assault Stafford and leave him for dead, Jimmy was still wearing the clothes he’d been out in. He was quite pissed too. We had a job to subdue him as I remember.’

‘So who did kill John Stafford?’ said Grimes.

‘Bernie Stark.’ Romney looked to enjoy the confusion and puzzlement that this disclosure created. ‘Apparently, Bernie had seen Stafford and Savage fighting in the street. Nothing much. A couple of blows exchanged. Savage had walked away and left Stafford alive. Beaten but alive. Stafford was one of the town’s bullies and when he had a drink in him he was quite a handful and nasty with it. Anyone from the time will tell you that. So, Bernie watches them scrap. Sees Savage walk away and Stafford dazed on the ground and Bernie sees an opportunity he’s been waiting for for far too long: a chance to get even with Stafford for something he’d done to Bernie a few months before.’ Romney turned to Grimes. ‘You remember how big John Stafford was?’

Grimes nodded. ‘Brick outhouse.’

‘Exactly. And we’ve all seen the stature of Bernie Stark. Bernie couldn’t have punched his way out of a wet paper bag. He was never going to take his physical revenge on Stafford in a fair fight. But, according to my source, seeing Stafford scrabbling around on his hands and knees pissed and dazed was too much of an opportunity for Bernie to pass up. He came out of the shadows, looked up and down the high street and introduced one of his metal toecaps to Stafford’s head. Apparently, he died instantly. Pathologist’s report showed a weakness of the skull in the area he was kicked. When he realised he’d killed him, Bernie ran into the nearest pub and raised the alarm. When the police turned up he told them about seeing Savage and Stafford scrapping. Savage gets picked up and what with Bernie’s statement, the forensic evidence and Savage’s aggressive intoxicated state he gets nicked and ultimately convicted. All that for two pints of lager and a packet of crisps.’

‘You don’t seem particularly remorseful that you were responsible for the incarceration of an innocent man, Inspector,’ said Vine.

‘With respect, ma’am, Jimmy Savage was many things, but innocent was not one of them. As I told you, Jimmy Savage was and probably still is a thieving, bullying scrote. When he was a resident of this town he specialised in housebreaking. And he could be violent with it. He targeted the elderly, mainly. Yes, it looks like he was not guilty of the manslaughter charge he’s currently serving time for but the forensic evidence and the eye witness account that convicted him are not anything for CID to reproach ourselves over. We were lied to and Bernie Stark was convincing. To be honest, in the end, even Jimmy Savage wasn’t sure whether he’d killed Stafford, he was so drunk. And while as a serving and concerned police officer miscarriages of justice do generally bother me, I won’t be losing any sleep over a conviction that keeps the likes of Jimmy Savage off our streets. If you like, I could get out the station scrapbook and show you some of the photographs of frightened and frail pensioners he knocked about for their savings – although I should warn you, most of them look like over-ripe fruit.’