Beside a Narrow Stream (8 page)

He was in for the high jump. And deserved it. Never before had he let his personal life interfere with the job.

‘If you can think of anything at all that might help, please phone,’ Hillary said, handing her a standard card with the HQ phone number and her own extension listed.

Denise Collier took it with a moue of distaste, then showed them to the door. It was closed behind them before they’d even reached the garden gate.

‘Next time we go into an interview, Constable, turn off your phone. Yes?’ Hillary said sharply.

Keith swallowed hard. ‘Sorry, guv. I normally do. I don’t know why I forgot this time.’

Hillary glanced at him as they walked back to the car. He looked distinctly miserable. ‘I’ve noticed you seem a bit distracted lately,’ she said, not so much a question, as an opportunity for him to talk.

Keith ducked his head and said nothing.

Hillary sighed, and dug into her handbag for the keys. ‘You can drive, Constable. But keep your mind on the road, please.’

Keith slid behind the driver’s wheel feeling about two inches tall, and knowing he had no one to blame but himself. It was only when he’d started to drive back to Kidlington that he felt suddenly anxious. Before, he’d thrust the contents of the phone call to the back of his mind, wanting only to get his lover off the line. But now he wondered. What was the ‘
something
awful’ that had happened? Dammit, he didn’t need any more hassles in life. Not now!

He was careful to drive at a sedate fifty miles an hour all the way back to HQ.

Back in the open-plan office, Hillary found the desks empty. Frank Ross had apparently been in, and, finding the boss gone, had quickly taken the opportunity to nip back out again, leaving behind only a pile of badly-typed notes on his
activities
of yesterday, and a hand-written scribble that he was following up on a lead.

Yeah, right. At the nearest betting shop, Hillary supposed. She sighed and crumpled up the note and tossed it into the bin. She scowled at Gemma Fordham’s empty desk, got on the phone and dialled her number.

‘Fordham,’ the voice that answered sounded as if it was suffering from a bad cold. Only someone who actually knew the DS would know it was her normal speaking voice.

‘DI Greene. Where are you?’

‘Kidlington, guv, talking to another Ale and Arty member. Want me to come in?’

‘When you’ve finished. Then I want you to concentrate on Denise Collier for me. You know who she is, right?’

‘I read the murder book last night before I left, guv. She’s the lead Barrington dug up, yeah? One of the vic’s women?’

‘Right. I’ve just finished talking to her, and I got a definite whiff of instability from her. Do a bit of deep digging. Find out why her marriage failed, talk to the hubby, past lovers, you know the drill. She’s the clinging, possessive type. I wouldn’t be surprised if there hadn’t been some trouble somewhere. We know she’s not got form, so it never came to our notice, but even so.’

‘Think she did some stalking?’ Gemma cut straight to the chase.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me. Find out who her GP is, see if she has any history of mental trouble as well. The doctor probably won’t want to tell you, so lean on him or her, stress the murder inquiry angle, and if you still get no luck, see if you can find out via the back door.’ Hillary knew there was always more than one way to skin a cat, especially for a clever and resourceful girl like Gemma Fordham.

‘Right, guv,’ Gemma said, unfazed, and Hillary hung up.

Slipping her phone back into her pocket, Gemma smiled at the middle-aged man perched on the edge of his sofa. And Gerald Heydon, 52, semi-retired boat-builder, gazed back at her, all but drooling.

‘So you sculpt in wood,’ Gemma said. ‘That’s how you came to hear about Ale and Arty?’

‘That’s right. Sure I can’t interest you in a class of merlot, Sergeant Fordham. It’s a vintage year. One glass won’t hurt, I’m sure.’

Gemma smiled and let him pour her a glass.

It was, after all, a very good year.

Back at HQ, Hillary watched Keith Barrington glance at his watch for the fifth time in the last half hour, and wondered what was biting him. Whatever it was, she hoped he’d get it sorted out soon. He was driving her crackers.

‘Why don’t you get off to the canteen, Keith,’ she said, a shade impatiently. ‘Take an early lunch break. I’ll hold the fort down here.’

To her surprise, Barrington looked almost stricken. ‘No, it’s all right, guv. I mean, I’m not hungry yet,’ he glanced at the wall clock desperately. It was barely twelve fifteen. ‘But if you want to get off and have a bite yourself …’

Hillary slowly leaned back in her chair and narrowed her eyes. Keith Barrington flushed.

‘Lunch date, Constable?’

‘Only a quick one, guv. I need to see someone. Afriend. He’s in a bit of trouble.’

Hillary blinked. ‘Our kind of trouble?’ she asked sharply. Keith Barrington was already here on sufferance, and with one big black mark against him. The last thing he needed was to be mixed up with people on the wrong side of the law!

‘Oh shit, no, guv,’ Keith said, spontaneously, and truthfully. ‘Nothing like that.’

Hillary instantly believed him, and relaxed, but when his eyes drifted away from hers oh-so-casually, she also knew that something was definitely eating him.

She deliberately let the silence lengthen.

Keith fiddled with his pen, fighting the urge to confide in her. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Hillary Greene would be sympathetic. Nor did he fear her being judgmental or, even worse, antagonistic. But he’d always kept some things secret, instinct telling him to do so, and he didn’t feel happy breaking the habit of a lifetime now.

‘All right, constable,’ Hillary said at last. ‘I’ll be in the canteen if you need me.’

She was just about to rise, when her phone rang. She grabbed the receiver. ‘DI Greene.’

‘Hillary. I hear from my assistant that you’re breathing down our neck?’

Hillary smiled, recognizing the voice instantly. ‘Sorry Steven, didn’t mean to. I just need to know what that note on Sutton’s body was all about. I take it it’s dried out by now?’

‘It has. I was about to photocopy it and send it over when I got your message. You want me to read it out over the phone?’

‘Might as well. Unless it’s particularly sensitive?’ she said cautiously.

‘No, I don’t think so. Nor is it pornographic, so we wouldn’t be corrupting any delicate little ears that are listening in that shouldn’t be.’

Hillary laughed, knowing the lines in and out of HQ were as secure as they could be, in this IT age. ‘Fine, go ahead then.’

‘OK. The paper is bog standard note paper, can be purchased at any W.H. Smith’s in the country. The ink,
likewise
, the pen used just your average biro.’

Hillary sighed. It didn’t sound promising so far.

‘I take it you want me to send it on to the handwriting boffins?’ Doc Partridge asked, just for form’s sake.

‘Yes, please,’ Hillary agreed. Usually, experts could gather all sorts of information from a handwriting specimen. Whether the author was right- or left-handed, male or female,
sometimes
even age, and occasionally, from the language used, punctuation, and so on, details as to the writer’s education or even birthplace.

‘Hmmm. Don’t know how much joy they’ll get, though,’ the doctor warned. ‘The immersion in water didn’t help any. But at least it’s legible. Got a pen?’

Hillary, her own biro hovering over her notebook, nodded. ‘Shoot.’

‘OK. First line –
Wayne darling
– no comma. Second line –
We have to talk. The worst has happened.
Third and fourth lines –
Meet me at our special place by the stream, I’ll try to be there by eight
. Fifth line,
I love you. I trust you.
And it’s signed,
Annie
.’

Hillary scribbled furiously.

‘Oh, and the name “Annie” is ringed in a big heart.’

Hillary looked across at Keith. ‘Go through the files. See if we have any suspects or witnesses by the name Annie. Include anyone called Anne, Ann, or Anna. Make that Hannah, as well.’

‘Right, guv.’

‘Sounds like someone was desperate,’ Steven Partridge’s voice sounded again in her ear, and Hillary turned her
attention
back to the pathologist.

‘Hmm. I wonder what “the worst” was?’ she mused.

‘Pregnant?’ Steven guessed. ‘That’s what women usually mean by it.’

‘Or the husband’s found out,’ Hillary said dryly.

Steven Partridge laughed. ‘Or that,’ he agreed, and after a few more pleasantries, rang off.

Hillary put the phone down thoughtfully and filled Barrington in.

So, their victim had been going to the stream to meet someone. Obviously, they’d met there before if it was their ‘special place’. And it made sense as a rendezvous point – it was quiet and out the way, somewhere where they couldn’t possibly be overheard, and some serious talking could take place. At eight o’clock at night, it wouldn’t yet have started to get dark.

So did they now have the killer’s name? Had Annie, whoever she was, lured him there not to talk, but to kill? Or had someone else come instead? If this Annie had a jealous lover or husband, could the message have been somehow intercepted? Or had it even come from Annie at all? No, that wouldn’t work. Presumably, Wayne Sutton would have known her handwriting. Unless someone had forged it.
Perhaps Annie had been forced to write it, or maybe she’d deliberately set him up?

‘No one called Ann, Anne, Annie, or any other derivative has so far come up in our enquiries, guv,’ Keith Barrington’s excited voice interrupted her musings. ‘Denise Collier’s second name is Angelique, though.’

‘That’s stretching it,’ Hillary said. ‘OK. Well, make sure everyone on the enquiry is on the alert for that name. If they come across anyone at all of that name, even remotely connected to Wayne Sutton, I want to know about it. And remind everyone that Annie might well be a nickname, and not a given Christian name at all.’

‘Right, guv.’

Hillary nodded, and rose slowly to her feet. ‘Right. I’m going to snatch a quick bite. I’ll be in the canteen if I’m wanted.’ She grabbed her purse from her bag and headed for the exit.

Keith watched her go and glanced at his watch. She’d be back before one, easy. After that he could nip off. He looked up as he sensed a shadow moving over him, and smiled as Gemma Fordham took her place behind her desk.

Quickly, he filled her in on the message found on the victim’s body. Gemma quickly checked her own notes, but was sure that the name hadn’t been mentioned in any of her inquiries. She was right.

‘Why don’t you go downstairs and tell the desk sergeant that if anybody named Annie calls in, he’s to make sure the guv comes down straight away?’ she suggested, flicking her notebook shut. ‘We don’t want to miss her, if she does decide to come in, because of some communications balls-up.’

Barrington gave her a quick look, but shrugged and
obligingly
got up. A phone call would have done it, in his opinion, but perhaps she was just being extra careful. And he knew what it was like to be the new guy. You could get almost
paranoid
about messing up.

Gemma watched the constable go, and the moment he was through the door, pulled her own chair away from her desk and towards Hillary’s. She’d seen Hillary’s bag, beside her chair, the moment she’d sat down, and knew she’d never get another chance like this one.

Opening her own bag, she drew out a large, flat tin. After a quick glance around to make sure that no one was watching, she reached down, unzipped Hillary’s bag, and fished inside. Hillary’s large bunch of keys was easy to find, and she quickly sorted through them, dismissing the car keys, and taking a guess as to the one she wanted. She knew, for instance, that Hillary Greene lived on a canal boat, and that the key to a padlock was probably more likely to get her access to Hillary’s home than, say, the more conventional Yale key.

Heart pounding, she opened the tin and quickly pressed the key, front and back, into the wax inside, to make two clear impressions. Then, palms just a little damp, she snapped the tin box shut, returned the keys, and zipped her boss’s bag back up, careful to leave it in exactly the same position on the floor as it had been in before.

She knew that Hillary Green would notice if it had been moved.

When she straightened up and looked around, she could tell that nobody had noticed her manoeuvre. Her face a little flushed in triumph and relief, she pushed her chair back to her own desk, and logged on to her computer.

A small smile played around her lips.

H
illary opted for the mushroom risotto and the fruit salad, and found a quiet table by one of the windows. Since she was so early, the canteen was largely deserted, but she knew it would get busy soon, and ate quickly.

Outside, nesting blackbirds hunted for insect food for their chicks, flitting about the trees and the bushes among the hard landscaping. Petals from multi-blossoming trees drifted by in the breeze like fragrant pastel snowflakes, and already she could see a mirage-like shimmer of what looked like rippling water, rising off the white concrete pavements and black tarmac.

But her thoughts were far from appreciating the beauty of spring, and firmly settled around the mysterious Annie. Why hadn’t they come across her name before? It wasn’t as if Wayne Sutton had been particularly discreet about his lifestyle. There was something hole-in-the-corner about the whole set-up that sat uneasily with her image of the free-living, free-spirited, couldn’t-care-less artist. After a moment’s thought, she reached for her mobile and phoned his parents, Davey Sutton answering, his voice still hoarse from the summer flu.

‘Hello? If this is a reporter, I’ve told you lot before, no comment.’

‘Hello, Mr Sutton, it’s Hillary Greene,’ she said quickly, and heard a sharply indrawn breath.

‘News?’ he whispered the word, as if afraid someone might overhear. She knew what he was asking, of course, and felt instantly guilty. She knew it was ridiculous to feel that way, but whenever she talked to the loved ones of a murder victim when the perpetrator had yet to be caught, she always felt personally responsible for the lack of a result.

‘Of sorts, Mr Sutton, but there’s been no arrest as yet. I wanted to know if the name Annie meant anything to you? Perhaps your son had a friend of that name?’ She wasn’t sure how much his parents knew about their son’s gigolo lifestyle, or what they were prepared to acknowledge if they did know, so she asked the question delicately.

Davey Sutton was silent for a moment, then said quietly, ‘No, I can’t say it means anything to me. Hold on a minute while I ask his mother. She’s more likely to know about stuff like that.’

She heard the phone going down, and absently forked the last few pieces of rice and mushrooms into her mouth. She was wiping her lips on a paper napkin when he came back on the line.

‘His mother says no. Is it important?’

‘It could be, Mr Sutton, yes.’

‘You have to understand, our Wayne was a good-looking lad. And he had a way with the ladies. He was young too, and not really settled down. His mother and me, well, we hoped that Monica Freeman might take him in hand. A girl about his own age. But, well, we know Wayne liked to romance women, Detective. His mother seemed to find out about all his ladies, one way or another, and she’s sure there wasn’t any Annie.’

Damn, Hillary thought. ‘All right, Mr Sutton, and thank you. Your family liaison officer has been keeping you updated on the inquiry, I hope?’

‘Oh, yeah, she’s been lovely.’ He coughed hoarsely into the phone, and cleared his throat. ‘You will let us know, won’t you, when you get our boy’s killer?’ The hope in his voice made her own throat close up, and Hillary coughed herself.

‘Yes, Mr Sutton, I will,’ she said softly, and hung up. She sighed and reached for her fruit salad, but her appetite was suddenly gone. She was still pushing tinned pineapple chunks around her dish, when she realized someone had come up to her table. She looked up to see a young, fresh-faced constable she vaguely recognized, hovering a few feet away, waiting to be noticed.

‘Yes?’

‘Ma’am. PC Thorndike. I was on house-to-house on the Sutton inquiry, ma’am. Thing is, I’ve only just finished talking to the last of the stop-outs, and thought I should report something direct to you, seeing as you’re here, like, ma’am.’

Hillary nodded. The ‘stop-outs’ were those who always seemed to be out whenever you called at the house to get a statement, and often you couldn’t nail them down for three or even four days. Obviously Thorndike had been snatching an early lunch like herself, and instead of going through Gemma or Barrington, had taken the opportunity to approach her direct. Which boded well.

‘Something interesting, Constable?’ she asked with a smile.

‘Might be, ma’am. My stop-out was a seventy-two-year-old lady who’d been visiting her daughter for a few days. She lives opposite the row of cottages that border the farm track, where we initially approached the crime scene, ma’am?’

Hillary nodded, knowing where he meant.

‘She told me that on the day of the murder, late afternoon “about teatime” is how she put it, she noticed a sports car parked up near the farmer’s gate. It was still there, she thought, an hour later, but was gone before the evening news finished.’

Hillary frowned. Too early, she thought instantly. For an old woman of her mother’s generation, teatime could be anytime between four and five-thirty. And the evening news finished around seven. If their victim was meeting Annie at eight, the car had been and gone by then. Of course, Doc Partridge’s official
time of death was anywhere between six and midnight. Perhaps she was pinning too much emphasis on the Annie note. And she had no way of knowing for sure that Wayne Sutton had died around eight o’clock.

‘Could she describe the car?’ Hillary asked, and the young man’s face screwed up.

‘’Fraid not, ma’am. She wasn’t much interested in cars. I tried to talk her through it, but all she could say for sure was that it was …’ he checked his notes, ‘a “real go-er, one of them old sporty things, low to the ground, that make a lot of noise”. She thought it might be dark-green, or maybe blue or black in colour.’

Hillary nodded. ‘All right, thank you, Constable. Be sure to give one of my team your written report when it’s ready.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Hillary pushed her plate away and picked up her purse, walking downstairs thoughtfully. When she got halfway down the stairs, she noticed Keith Barrington coming out of the main office, and wondered what his lunch date was all about. So far, he hadn’t come in late again, so that was OK, but she’d be watching him. He’d put in a good, solid, six months, and she didn’t want him backsliding now.

As she walked across the office, she noticed Gemma Fordham, sitting with her back to her, typing into her computer. Then the sergeant glanced around, caught Hillary’s look, and something in the way her shoulder blades tightened, made the hairs on the back of Hillary’s neck rise.

She’s been up to something.

The thought so strong, it was almost like a voice in her head.

She walked slowly to her desk and sat down. It was no good to keep on telling herself that she was just being paranoid. And there was little use in putting it down to a personality clash, or even repressed jealousy either. Hillary, over the years, had come to trust her instincts.

She sighed heavily. There was always something.

She reached down for her bag and opened it up, slipping her purse inside. As she did so, she smelt Gemma’s perfume. Faint. But not coming from where Gemma was sitting, by her desk. But right under her nose.

From her bag.

Hillary slowly put her bag away, and pulled her chair up to her desk. Her eyes were bland as they met Gemma’s. ‘A possible lead. One of the constables doing house-to-house found a witness who saw some kind of sports car parked by the access gate to the meadow where our vic was found. She lives in one of those cottages overlooking the farm track. I want you to get some basic pictures of different sports car types and take them over to her, see if you can get at least some sort of a match. We need to trace that car. If necessary, get back on the radio to make an appeal for whoever owned it, and was parked there that day, to come forward.’

‘Right, guv.’ Gemma turned back to the computer, got on to the net, and before long, Hillary saw several photographs being disgorged from the printer.

Next, Hillary picked up her phone and chased up the path labs. The DNA from the strand of hair found on the vic, and the skin traces found on the stone anchoring the paper heart to Wayne Sutton’s chest would be available no earlier than in three days’ time. Hillary tried to get it bumped up the queue, but hers was not the only top-priority murder case on the list. She’d just have to wait her turn.

She hung up in an ever-worsening mood, wondering what the public would think if they realized that, contrary to what popular forensic science-based television programmes would have you believe, you couldn’t get instant answers at the touch of a computer button.

‘Guv, I thought I’d run a check on our list of suspects.’ Gemma said. ‘Only Tommy Eaverson owns and drives what I’d call a real sports car. A nineteen-seventies GB GT.’

‘What colour?’

‘Bottle-green.’

Hillary grunted. ‘Make sure the witness sees an example when you see her.’

‘I’ll go now, guv. Got the number of her house?’

‘Ask PC Thorndike.’

‘Guv.’

Hillary watched the tall, elegant blonde woman grab her stuff and go, and Hillary slowly leaned back in her chair. The woman had been rifling in her bag, she was sure of it. But why? What had she hoped to find? She doubted, somehow, that Gemma Fordham was some sort of kleptomaniac or sneak thief. Just what the hell was she going to do about her new DS? Until she could figure out what she was up to, it was no good going to Mel. Oh, as a pal, he’d probably transfer her, if Hillary really cut up rough about it, but it wouldn’t make her popular. Besides, after six months without a DS, she couldn’t really afford to have her team reduced to just herself and Barrington again. (Ross didn’t count.) And with a murder case in full swing, she needed all the competent help she could get. On the other hand, it felt as if she was sitting on a ticking bomb. What the hell was Gemma Fordham after?

Gemma found the little house without any difficulty. Nestled within a small set of 1930s-built, council house semis, it was standing the test of time far better than most of today’s modern builds probably would, she suspected.

Miss Phillipa S. Grant lived in the third house, with a clear view of the farm track leading to the meadow where Wayne Sutton’s body had been found. As she walked up to the door, the blonde sergeant noticed that the kitchen window did indeed overlook the road. So the old girl could well have noticed a car parked opposite, when she was making and eating her tea. So far, her statement rang true.

When she answered the door, Gemma smiled at a woman nearly as tall as herself, but even thinner, with a long swathe of
iron-grey hair held up and back in a somewhat messy bun. Her pale-blue eyes looked washed out, but alert, and when Gemma showed her her ID, she smiled but sighed.

‘Best come in then. But I warn you, I told that young lad all I know.’

Gemma murmured soothingly that she was sure that she had, and wasn’t surprised when she was led into a small, obviously little-used front room that overlooked a rugged and overgrown garden.

‘I just wanted to show you some pictures, Miss Grant.’ Gemma sat down on the wooden, hard-backed chair shown to her, and laid out the first photograph on the table set between them. The old lady put on a pair of glasses and looked at the glossy print in almost comical surprise.

‘It’s a car,’ she said, baffled. She might just as well have said ‘it’s a UFO’. Obviously, she’d been expecting mug-shots, or something along those lines.

‘Yes, Miss Grant,’ Gemma explained patiently. ‘You saw a car parked just across the road, on the thirtieth of April. The same night that a young man was killed over there. Does this car look anything like the one you remember seeing?’ The top picture was of a 1995 Maserati in dark-blue.

‘Oh no. No, like I said, it was a
classic
car. Low down on the ground. Must have been draughty to ride in it, I can tell you.’

‘Draughty? You mean it had an open top,’ Gemma said, craftily selecting a picture of a convertible. ‘Like this?’

Phillipa Grant looked at the picture of a Lotus and sighed testily. ‘No, no, dear. It’s like I told that young man, it was a really
old
sports car. You know, like something the Great Gatsby would drive.’

Gemma smiled tightly. ‘Something from the 1930s then,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘A classic. Like an old Morgan?’

Phillipa Grant blinked. Gemma sighed, thanked her, and took her leave.

Hillary was feeling restless. With Barrington still sorting out whatever was bugging him, and with Ross AWOLas usual, she didn’t even have anyone to bounce ideas around with. Until the DNA results came back, there was little forensic evidence that needed checking out, so that left talking to people.

Not that Hillary had any objections to that. She was quite good at listening. She grabbed the list of the Ale and Arty Club and picked a ‘stop-out’ at random, seeing that a certain Ms Felicity Wilson had been out both times that Barrington had called on her. She lived not far away, in the village of Yarnton, and worked at the big garden centre there. Figuring that Wilson was more likely to be at work than at home at this time of day, she drove straight to the sprawling centre, and had to hunt around for a parking space. What with the glorious weather, and with spring all around, the place was packed.

She tried the woman at the till first, who called a supervisor, who informed her that ‘Flick’ was working in the insect house that day. Like most garden centres, Yarnton had diversified, and sold not only begonias, but whole conservatories, daisies and the ceramic pots to go with them, daffs and hamsters, petunias and cat carriers. And, in the insect house, lizards, parrots, cockroaches, snakes and spiders. And rabbits. Who mostly eyed the snakes with worried, twitching noses.

Flick Wilson was a thirty-something, rounded woman, with a pink face courtesy of the heat, and surprised eyes.

‘Police? Good grief, what did I do?’

Hillary smiled. ‘Nothing, I hope Ms Wilson. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Wayne Sutton.’

‘Wayne? Why, what’s he done now?’ she laughed. She had thin, mousy-brown hair, which kept sticking to her damp cheeks, making her constantly push it away and tuck it behind her ears. She shot Hillary a slightly nervous look. ‘I know he’s a bit of a bad boy, but surely he hasn’t done anything that
you
would be interested in.’ She opened up a glass-fronted cage and threw some dead grasshoppers inside. Hillary tried not to
watch as a corn snake slithered out of hiding and glided forward.