A Killing Karma (18 page)

Max Fallon,
perhaps in order to live up to his would-be reputation as a favourite of
celebrities, drove a silver Porsche with a personalized registration.

‘At least it
should be easy to spot on the CCTV tapes,’ was Catt's comment.

The nightclub
visit hadn't been the waste of time that Casey had expected. But if the CCTV
footage failed to come up trumps they would, in the lack of any other evidence
to connect Fallon to the crime, have to pursue their inquiries elsewhere.

Once they had
left King's nightclub and returned to the station car park, they headed their
separate ways — Catt off on a ‘hot’ date and Casey home to Rachel.

She'd made a
casserole, she told him when he arrived home, rather to his surprise, after
he'd kissed her hello. In her lack of domesticity, he had often thought that
Rachel would fit right in with Moon, Star and the commune lifestyle, which was
why he usually made sure to have a hot meal in the police canteen. She had a
touch of the Bohemian about her. Perhaps it was because she led such a gypsy
existence with her music and the orchestra. However, grateful for the hot meal
to quieten the hunger pangs, he spooned out a generous portion of the casserole
and returned to the living room with his steaming plate.

‘So how are
your two investigations progressing?’ Rachel asked from the depths of the
settee, where she lay stretched out like a cat.

‘My murders
are going as well as can be expected,’ he told her solemnly, ‘which is pretty
poorly.’

‘That bad,
huh?’

‘That bad. We
seem to be getting nowhere with our official inquiry, at least.’ He paused.
‘Well, I suppose that's not strictly true. There are a number of possibilities
with that one. As for the murders at the commune, it seems the late DaisyMay
might well have been a tad over-friendly with Kris Callender.’'

‘What? They
were having an affair, you mean?’

Casey waited
till he had swallowed another mouthful of casserole before he replied. ‘It's a
possibility, seeing as those at the commune are so into making love and not war
— though, according to Moon, war's been breaking out all over lately. Anyway,
the possibility that DaisyMay and Callender were sleeping together means it
might not be her partner's baby she was carrying.’

‘Interesting.’

'I thought so.
Which is why I suggested that Catt put the idea of blood or DNA tests to his
tame policeman so he could pass the idea on to his boss. DNA would be the
clincher; it's the only way we'll find out just whose baby DaisyMay was
carrying. Though contradictory to that theory, I have to wonder from Dylan's
protective behaviour towards her whether he suspected a thing. At least,
according to Moon, Catt's policeman friend has managed to persuade his
superiors that DNA tests are necessary. It could save a lot of time and
suspicions.’

‘Only if Dylan,
DaisyMay's partner, knew she was carrying another man's child, and you said
there's no evidence for that.’

‘True. In
fact, given his solicitous behaviour right up to her death, all the evidence
points the other way.’ Casey finished his meal and put the bowl on the table. ‘That
was delicious. I was ready for it.’ He pushed his plate away from him and
leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes as he did so. ‘Without the DNA evidence,
there's apparently little else to point to the guilty party. Though, seeing as
the dogs didn't start to bark anywhere around the time DaisyMay must have been
killed, the commune's marked preference for a guilty outsider is unlikely to
hold water. It seems her murderer has to be one of the commune members. As to
Kris Callender's murder, the perpetrator is anyone's guess. Not only did it
happen weeks ago, but he seems to have spent his time putting everyone's backs up,
so the field's wide open.

‘It's
surprising really that we haven't got a chief suspect, given what a slapdash,
drugged-up lot they are in that commune. You'd have expected the murderer or
murderers — though I can't believe there are two of them in such a small
community — to be careless about leaving clues to their identity behind. But
whoever killed the pair was smart enough not to contaminate the scene of
DaisyMay's murder. It's too late, of course, to check out any such traces from
Kris Callender's murder as he's been in the ground for around two months if not
longer — they're not terribly precise on dates at the commune.’ He paused. ‘By
the way, I meant to ask you — how did your rehearsal go?’

'I thought it
went well, but Mr Baton Man clearly didn't agree with me. He threw a massive
hissy fit and made us work later that anticipated. Lucky I put the casserole in
the slow cooker before I went out.’ She sat up straight ‘But I don't want to
talk about him. I have enough of him all day without allowing him to dominate
my free time as well. In fact —' she swung herself off the settee in one lithe
movement — ‘I'm for bed.’ She reached the door and gave him a come hither look.
‘What about you?’

Casey needed
no second invitation.

It was raining
when Casey got up the next morning; a veritable downpour. Summer hadn't lasted
long in spite of the weathermen's optimistic predictions. He could hear the
rain hammering against the window as he got dressed.

He made coffee
and brought both cups upstairs. It was Rachel's day off and Casey asked her
what she was going to do with it.

 'I thought I
might try some more retail therapy and spend some of your hard-earned salary.’

‘Just as well
one of us is a good earner,’ Casey smiled. As an orchestral musician, Rachel
didn't earn good money; for her the labour was for love rather than filthy
lucre. 'I certainly never seem to get time for shopping.’

‘All the more
for me, then.’

Casey finished
his coffee, kissed Rachel goodbye and ran through the downpour to his car.

As the questioning
of the staff and the trickle of early customers at Max Fallon's' nightclub had
yielded little to go on, Casey knew they would have to dig deeper. It was a
shame they still had no results, he mused, as he stared down at the latest
reports that had come in. He had to outline the progress on the case to
Superintendent Brown-Smith later. Unless Catt's re-watching of the CCTV tapes
bore fruit he didn't know what he could tell him, though he supposed he should
be grateful that, unlike in his previous case, the victims weren't Asian.
Brown-Smith was so politically-correct he always preferred his suspected
criminals to be white; it confirmed his prejudices. And as he remembered his
last telephone conversation with Moon, Casey could only imagine how hot his superintendent's
prejudice would run if they were officially investigating the deaths at the
commune. He supposed he should be grateful for small mercies.

Moon had told
him the murders had, in their wake, brought an atmosphere you could cut with a
knife. Several of the commune had taken to barring their bedroom doors at
night. And not just the commune women: Scott ‘Mackenzie’ Johnson and Randy
Matthews had, by Moon's account, taken similar precautions.

‘Willow Tree,’
his mother had pleaded, ‘hurry up and find the killer before the commune is
destroyed. Star and me are too old to start over somewhere else.’

He had assured
her he was trying. ‘But it's a bit difficult attempting to solve a case, as I'm
doing, at one remove.’ Especially when he was receiving so little help from the
commune members themselves. He paused, not sure he really wanted an answer to
the question he had felt forced to ask several times already, but he posed it
anyway. ‘How's Star bearing up?’

‘He's all
right. Nothing much affects him. Not now he's getting his normal ration of
sleep, anyway. He's as laid-back as ever, but then he's never been one of
life's worriers, though I was anxious he'd blurt something out to the cops.’

‘He didn't
though?’ Casey broke in urgently. ‘You said he hadn't.’

‘No. But it
was a close run thing. You know how out of it he can get. At such times he'll
tell anybody anything. I had to sit beside him and keep pinching him when he
was questioned.’

‘Surely the
police questioned him alone?’

Moon laughed.
‘They tried to. But all they got was monosyllables. In the end they admitted
defeat and allowed me in to prompt him — not that they got much more sense out
of him then — something I made sure of, as you can imagine, hon.'

The court case
was scheduled for later that afternoon and Casey could only hope his father
maintained this Sphinx-like silence. He'd be on tenterhooks till it was over.
It wasn't even as if he could attend in case someone recognized him. He'd just
have to rely on Moon's report afterwards — always assuming their brief managed
to get bail for the pair…

Casey glanced
at his watch and sighed. He still had a lot to do before he could set off for
the Fens and the commune to see how the court case had gone and, now they'd had
time to let the consequences sink in, to find out how the murders had affected
them all after they'd been questioned by a Crown Prosecution Service barrister.

Catt came into
the office. ‘I've worked my way through two of the CCTV tapes,’ he told Casey.
‘I'll try the rest when we get back.’

Casey nodded.
Soon after, he and Catt were on their way to see the Merediths again.

So far,
several of Oliver's lovers and their partners had signally failed to provide
alibis worthy of the name. And the Merediths were no better in this regard than
the Garretts or Max Fallon and Carole Brown.

Once they were
admitted to the Merediths' expensive detached home and seated in the living
room, Casey became aware of a simmering atmosphere. Had Roger Meredith
succeeded in getting the truth from his wife about her infidelity? Had she
admitted it after their visit in response to her husband's probing? Or had he
discovered it prior to Oliver's murder and concealed the knowledge, only now,
after Casey and Catt's previous visit, letting his suspicions surface?

'I think it's
safe to say, Mr and Mrs Meredith,’ Casey began, ‘that neither of you has an
alibi for the night Mr Oliver was murdered.’

‘No. That's
true enough,’ Meredith blithely confirmed. ‘Though why you think we need alibis
is beyond me. I barely knew the man and he was nothing more than a sometime
acquaintance of my wife. Isn't that so, Amanda?’

Amanda gave a
brief nod.

Casey stared
at Meredith. Meredith stared back as if daring Casey to contradict him. But he
got the strongest feeling that Roger Meredith had known that Gus Oliver was
rather more than a ‘sometime acquaintance’ of Amanda's. He wondered if Oliver
had also passed gonorrhoea on to her. It seemed a distinct possibility. Had
she, in turn, passed it on to her husband? Or had she or one of the other harem
members been the one to pass the disease on to Oliver? If Meredith hadn't been
playing away himself, he, like Max Fallon, would know his wife had been
unfaithful as soon as he had his symptoms checked out. No wonder, if so, that
the atmosphere felt so tense. Such a betrayal would stick in the craw of
anyone.

According to
what the Merediths had told them so far, they had both been at home at the
relevant times — Mrs Meredith watching television in the first-floor living
room and her husband working in his study at the top of the house. Either could
have sneaked out without the other being aware of it. It would, of course, have
been taking a chance, but presumably they were each sufficiently familiar with
the other's habits and routines and would know when the other was settled for
several hours.

Amanda
Meredith was more voluptuous than either Carole Brown or Sarah Garrett. She
also struck Casey as being, beneath her frilly femininity, far tougher than
either of the other two women.

Roger Meredith
was rangy and lean and looked to keep himself very fit. He was good-looking in
a sharp-faced way and dressed expensively and well. It was clear he was a man
with more than his share of pride. How must he and the other harem
husbands/boyfriends have felt when, in Fallon's case, and if in that of the
other men, they had discovered their partners' infidelity? Casey guessed
Meredith, for one, wouldn't sit back and take it. He also guessed he would find
it hard, if not impossible, to forgive. He would want revenge on someone.
Though whether that someone was his wife or Gus Oliver was something they had
still to discover.

‘Are you sure
that neither of you went out that evening?’ he asked.

Meredith
answered with a sharpness that equalled his angular features. 'I told you, we
were both at home all evening.’

Casey thought
it would be worth questioning the neighbours again. He'd do that in any case,
as part of the normal house-to-house routine. But this time, to judge from the
shiftiness of Roger Meredith's gaze, he thought he might just get something
useful. Maybe there was a lonely old woman in their street who had nothing
better to do with her time than watch the neighbours' comings and goings.

But, for now,
it was clear they would get nothing more out of the pair but pleas of
innocence, which, for all Casey knew, might even be true.

Back in the
car on the way to the station, he and Catt discussed the case.