A Reason to Kill (6 page)

Mac peered out of the dirty window, gazed down into the street. The funeral ambulance had arrived but scientific support had gone. Across the street a uniformed officer continued with his questions. Mac glanced sideways, towards the top end of the street, and wondered if he would, after all, be the one to tell Rina or if her antennae would be twitching even now.

The room was a little brighter now and Mac finished his search. Drawers had been pulled out here as they had downstairs but the ransack here was tidy in comparison. Drawers had been placed on the floor, their contents rifled, but not tipped out. Mac stooped to look. There was little to see – a box of matches, a paperback romance, a photograph. He looked more closely at the picture of the young couple, smartly dressed and gazing out with confidence at the camera. He turned it over. Written on the back in a tidy hand were the words
Trip to Edinburgh
. He remembered what Mrs Freer had told him about their travels.

‘Honeymoon?' he wondered aloud. She had been a pretty woman. Mac closed his eyes to block the unbidden image of the body downstairs.

He checked the wardrobe. Old clothes, mostly male. A couple of winter coats and a pair of shoes. The drawers in the chest beside the window were empty. Mac noted that, apart from the top one, they had not even been pulled out. The dust was largely undisturbed.

Two searchers, Mac thought. Two people. One angry and vindictive and the second whose heart was not fully in it.
Find the second
, Mac thought. Find the second and they would break the case. The other one would tough it out. He might boast though.

Mac made his slow way downstairs and joined Eden in the living room. The photographer was finishing up, recording where the body had lain. Mac studied the blood stains, frowned.

‘She fell on her right side first,' he said. ‘Then was rolled on to her left?'

Eden nodded. ‘That's the way I read it, and the scene co-ordinator suspects the same. Maybe he knocked her down, left her to bleed long enough for that patch to form, then he either rolled her or …'

Mac shook his head. ‘If he'd rolled her, the two blood pools would be closer. He picked her up, hit her in the face and dropped her down again. She fell on her left side and that's how we found her.'

Eden nodded, his jaw working as though he chewed on this new insight. Mac was surprised at how detached he now felt. He had switched into survival mode. He knew, for now anyway, that he would be all right; he could do this.

‘Bastard.' Eden spat the word.

Mac didn't feel any need to reply.

M
idday found Mac back at Rina's door.

‘I saw the police cars,' she said. ‘I knew you'd come. ‘It's Mrs Freer, isn't it?'

Mac nodded.

‘Come inside.' She led him not through to the kitchen this time, but into a small side room. ‘Sit down,' she said, pointing to a comfortable armchair set on one side of the fireplace. Mac sat, Rina took the other chair. ‘They were after the gun, I suppose.' She sounded resigned, weary.

‘Nothing seems to have been taken,' he confirmed. ‘It's hard to tell, the place is a mess, but we don't think there's anything missing.'

‘And, of course, the gun wasn't there.'

‘Mrs Martin, I had to have it checked out.' Mac was angry with himself and that anger transmitted in his voice.

Rina waved it and him aside. ‘I don't imagine it would have made much difference anyway,' she said. ‘It wasn't as if she could have used it and I don't suppose it would have stopped them doing … what did they do to her?'

‘She's dead,' Mac said shortly.

‘How?' Rina wasn't letting him off that easy.

Mac sighed, seeing in his mind's eye the bloody mess that had once been a face. ‘Someone beat her around the head and face,' he said. ‘There's no way she could have defended herself.'

Rina absorbed that silently and Mac wondered what it was about this woman that encouraged him to tell her so much.

‘So, what now?' Rina asked finally. She got up from the chair and poured bottled water into an electric kettle. She set it to boil, glancing at him to ask if he'd prefer tea or coffee.

‘Coffee, please.'

‘I'm afraid it's only instant. Will that do?'

‘Just now, anything will do,' Mac said. He watched as she unscrewed the jar, spooned the granules into two mugs, added sugar. He heard someone go past in the hall, pause by the door and then move on.

‘They don't disturb me when the door is closed,' she said. She poured the water, added milk which she took from a tiny fridge beneath the shelf that supported the kettle and mugs, and set their drinks on a little table between the chairs.

‘This is your sanctuary, then?' Mac smiled at his own choice of words. It sounded a little pretentious, but Rina nodded.

‘We all need a space to call our own,' she said. ‘I'm very fond of my curious little family and I've known most of them for more years than I care to count, but we all need a place to think and sit and ignore the world.'

Mac thought about his lonely little flat. He understood what she meant but his problem was that he had little else but space to think. He leaned forward to collect his coffee mug. ‘You think of your residents as family, then.'

‘In a manner of speaking.' Rina's mouth twitched. ‘And as with all families, I am often irritated and affectionate in equal measure.'

Mac laughed but it occurred to him that he really wouldn't know. He didn't have what you'd call family, just people he was distantly related to. ‘You all worked together?' he asked.

‘At one time or another. We all performed on the same circuit. All except Tim, of course. He's far too young to remember
our
glory days.'

‘So how come …?'

‘He's living here with all the old codgers? Oh, Tim is old in spirit if not in years, though, given time and the right breaks, he might rejuvenate.'

Mac frowned, puzzled. ‘Is he any good?' he asked.

‘As Marvello or Stupendo?' Rina laughed. ‘Oh, very good, technically. The trouble is he hasn't a clue when it comes to performance, at least not with the audience he usually gets. I've told him many a time to sack his agent, sign up for the cruise liners where at least he'll get to do an adult show.'

‘Adult?' Mac was momentarily flummoxed. Was there such a thing as pornographic magic?

Rina peered at him over the rim of her mug. ‘As opposed to children,' she said sternly as she lowered it. ‘He makes a bloody awful clown.'

‘Ah,' Mac said, feeling himself firmly put in his place.

‘And so, what now? Are you likely to catch this bastard?'

Mac blinked. Mrs Martin coming that close to swearing somehow disturbed him. He nodded. ‘We'll catch him. Or them.'

‘Them? Any reason to believe it was a “them”?'

‘Mrs Martin …'

‘Rina.'

‘Rina, this is an active investigation and I can't …'

‘Come off it, man. I'm hardly going to talk about it outside of this room, am I? Oh, I might discuss things with Tim, but not the others. Is there any reason to believe it was more than one person?'

Mac hesitated, then sighed. ‘The night of the attempted burglary,' he began. ‘When I talked to Mrs Freer, she was sure that the intruders were only young – thirteen, fourteen, not older. Do you think—?'

‘That she had enough marbles to make that sort of judgement? What do you think?'

‘She seemed lucid. Mostly,' Mac said.

‘And you think these two came back?'

‘I've no way of knowing.'

Rina sighed. ‘I didn't ask you what you knew; I asked you what you thought. What
I
think is that it's unlikely. She'd scared them off once; why would they come back?'

Mac nodded. ‘It's possible they bought a new batch of courage at the local off-licence,' he said. ‘Or rather, that they got someone else to buy it for them.'

‘It's possible. And if not?'

‘Kids talk,' Mac said. ‘They boast or they tell tales, or they drop hints – to other kids, not to parents or anyone who might do anything about it but …'

‘And this would be too good a story to keep
stumm
about.' Rina sounded as though she approved of his reasoning and Mac felt unaccountably pleased. Mentally, he shook himself.

‘And the “more than one” aspect?'

‘I don't know. The downstairs room was torn about, the search was untidy and … violent. Whoever it was, they slashed the cushions, hacked at the sofa. Upstairs, whoever had gone into the bedroom had been almost careful. Disturbed stuff as little as possible. There were still layers of dust with not so much as a handprint.'

‘So, two then. A thug and a follower. You'll find a fair few of those round here and not just among the younger generation.'

‘I think you'll find them anywhere,' Mac said. ‘It's a fairly common formation.'

‘Leaders, followers and those that get out of the way,' Rina declared.

‘Sorry?' She had lost Mac now.

‘Society,' Rina said. ‘It's made up of leaders, followers and most of the rest of us, those that get out of the way and keep their heads down.'

Mac didn't think whoever invented the saying had quite that interpretation in mind.

‘Who was it said that all it took for evil to prosper was for good men to stay silent?' She shrugged. ‘I don't recall the exact quote, but you get my meaning.'

‘I think so, yes.' He smiled. ‘But I don't see you as a woman who gets out of the way.'

‘Never have,' she said. ‘I don't suppose I ever will. Not till the day they put me in my box.' She smiled wryly. ‘I don't suppose I've even been much of a follower either, but that's another story. What do you do now?'

‘House to house, further interviews with the neighbours; we pull in anyone with a record for violence or burglary, we sift what we've got and hope something emerges.'

‘And forensics?'

‘SOCO are still at the scene, though Mrs Freer has been taken away. With luck there'll be prints.'

‘And, of course, there will have been transfer.'

Mac raised an eyebrow.

‘Locard's theory. I did my research, remember? The notion that we always take something away and leave something behind. If the search was as untidy and the attack as violent as you say, then there'll be blood and fibres. It's possible she even managed to mark the bastard.'

‘It's possible. We'll know more after the post-mortem.' Mac was suddenly weary. ‘My sergeant sees you as a major repository of local knowledge. Did Mrs Freer mention anyone or anything she might have had trouble with?'

Rina shook her head. ‘She didn't
see
anyone to have trouble with them. Never went out, never opened her door to anyone unless she knew them. Kept her doors and windows locked. I managed to coax her out into that bit of a garden when the weather was warm enough, but she'd only sit out if I was there. “Outside” had become a frightful and frightening place but the fear was general, not specific. You should try the neighbours, though. The Robinsons, three doors down. I know they had some trouble with kids on motorbikes, she told me about it – Mrs Freer, that was, not Nora Robinson. She wouldn't give me the time of day, never mind engage in conversation.'

‘But she talked to Mrs Freer?'

Rina's head shake was rapid and assertive. ‘No, no, Mrs Robinson was part of the great “outside”. No, she heard them in the street, arguing with the kids. They ride their bikes over on that wasteland by the sheds. There's a footpath comes through just down from the Robinsons and the kids used it to get back on to the road. Dangerous, of course – we all complained – but the Robinsons took it personally.'

‘Thanks,' Mac said. It was the second time he'd heard about kids and bikes by the sheds. Reluctantly he hauled himself out of the rather too comfortable chair. ‘I'd best be off.'

‘I'll see you out.'

‘Oh, one other thing, nothing to do with Mrs Freer. A couple of nights now I've seen lights round by Marlborough Head. Would that be fishermen?'

Rina frowned. ‘Not close in by the head, no. Boats do go out late, but the rocks round by the point … not a good place to be at night.'

‘Thanks again.' Mac nodded. ‘Probably nothing.'
Probably just a man with too much time on his hands, staring out of the window when he should be finding something better to do. Like looking for a more permanent place to live.

G
eorge Parker hated the school bus. He hated the barging and the pushing and the shouts of the other kids. He loathed the way the driver yelled at them all from behind his protective screen and clearly thought they were all tarred with the same brush, as George's Nan would have said. George wanted to tell him he was different, not a trouble maker, but he figured the driver wouldn't really care anyhow. Most of all George hated the fact that his best friend Paul was off school and that someone else was bound to make a point of sitting down beside him.

‘Kissed any girls lately, Georgie Porgie?' Dwayne Regis's taunt was a usual one and one of the milder that George had to endure.

Heard it before, Dwayne
, George thought, but he said nothing. He pulled his bag from the seat just before Dwayne crashed down upon it. It could have been worse, George reflected. On his own Dwayne was mostly harmless. Dwayne liked to hang out with the older kids on the Jubilee. George and the others on the bus were just a passing amusement.

‘So, have you?' Dwayne persisted.

‘Have I what?'

‘Kissed any girls?'

George glanced sidelong at him. Dwayne was grinning. No change there; Dwayne was always grinning. He grinned inanely in response to the teacher's questions, triumphantly when he managed to scare one of the younger kids, and stubbornly when hauled up in front of the Head, which for Dwayne was a far too common occurrence for it to be a threat any longer.