Cut Short (12 page)

  'Swindon want to know if you want them to look out for him?'

  Carter decided there was no point. They would make contact with Lakeland before long. 'Just keep trying his mother's phone. They have to turn up there sooner or later.'

  The DC finally got hold of Robert Lakeland's mother. 'She says he took her out for tea after the hospital appointment.'

  'Put him on,' Carter said, reaching for the phone.

  'He's not there any more, sir. He dropped her off and left straight away.'

  Carter nodded. 'We'll wait till he gets home then. At least he's on his way. I don't suppose he'll talk to us while he's driving. Leave a message on his mobile and on his answerphone at home, if he's got one. Tell him to call us as soon as he gets in, it doesn't matter how late. Say it's routine, but we need to hear from him straight away.'

  When Robert Lakeland phoned the station at seven on Friday evening, DS Black had already left for the night. Carter picked up his keys.

  'Want to come along?' Geraldine heard him ask Peterson. The sergeant hesitated. 'You don't have to if you don't want to,' Carter said. 'It's not a problem.'

  'Of course I want to come.' Peterson sounded vexed. 'I'll just call my girlfriend.'

  'If you've got plans, I don't need you …' Carter began but Peterson was already on the phone. Geraldine tried not to listen.

  'I'm going to be late again … Yes, as soon as I can … I told you, I'll be back when I can … You'll just have to manage without me … I can't promise but it shouldn't be long …' He moved out of earshot.

  'Coming?' Carter asked.

  Peterson nodded, frowning. 'Look, Bev, I've got to go.' He hung up. Geraldine observed his long face thoughtfully out of the corner of her eye.

  Robert Lakeland was a small, bald, energetic man in his late forties. He opened the door straight away and ushered them in.

  'Good evening, Mr Lakeland. I'm Detective Inspector Carter and this is Detective Sergeant Peterson.'

  'Yes, come in. I've been expecting you.' He bustled around them. 'I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I'm afraid my mother's not a well woman, Inspector. As an only child it falls on me to take care of her. I'm trying to move her closer, but it's not easy. Since they moved me here from Swindon it's been very difficult. Very difficult.' He sat down. 'Now, Inspector, what's this all about? It's not this fuss about my dog again, is it? Only—' Carter interrupted him to explain they were investigating the death of Angela Waters.

  'Ah yes, I read about that in the papers. A dreadful business. Right here in Woolsmarsh too!' he added, as though that somehow made the crime worse. He was shocked to learn that the victim had been John Drew's girlfriend. 'My goodness. I had no idea. I knew he had a girl but she never came to the showroom.'

  'You've never met her?'

  Lakeland shook his head. 'My God, poor Johnny. What a terrible thing to happen.'

  Carter leaned forward. Peterson sat, notebook and pencil at the ready.

  'Mr Lakeland, it's very important you answer accurately. If you can't be precise as to times, say so. Were you at the Honda showroom last Wednesday morning?'

  'Wednesday morning? Yes, I believe so.' He sounded uncertain.

  'Are you sure?'

  'I'm always there all week or sometimes till midday Thursday when I drive over to Head Office in Swindon. This week was a Swindon week.'

  'Can you tell us,' Carter paused and took a deep breath, aware how much hung on Lakeland's next syllable, 'was John Drew at work on Wednesday morning?'

  'John? He's always there.' Lakeland's eyes flittered nervously from Carter to Peterson, busy writing.

  'Are you sure he was there all Wednesday morning?'

  'He's in every morning. Never misses. I've got a good sales team, Inspector. They don't mess about. That's why we're one of the most successful Honda—'

  'Could John Drew have left the showroom at any time on Wednesday morning?' Carter interrupted.

  'I'd need to double check the book to see if he was out on a test drive.'

  'We checked. He wasn't. Could he have left the showroom for any other reason?'

  'There wouldn't be any other reason.'

  'Are you sure?' Carter pressed him.

  A flicker of annoyance crossed Robert Lakeland's face. 'Inspector, I'm not going to be pushed into saying something that's not true. If John Drew left the showroom on Wednesday morning, I presume that would make him a suspect. I take it that's what you're driving at. If that was the case, why would I want to protect him?'

  'Can you be sure he didn't go out?' Peterson added his voice to the interrogation.

  'I run a tight ship, Inspector,' Lakeland blustered, but he squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. 'My staff don't leave the premises without good reason. If they go off site, I know about it. And they have every reason to stay. They're not going to sell cars anywhere else.' Lakeland rubbed a chubby hand backwards and forwards across his mouth and tried to smile.

  Carter leaned forward and spoke quietly. 'Mr Lakeland, we need to eliminate John Drew from our enquiries. Are you able to confirm his whereabouts on Wednesday morning or not? It's a simple enough question. I need a definite answer from you, an answer you'd be prepared to swear to in court, if necessary.' Lakeland crumpled suddenly, like a balloon deflating. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  'I can't say,' he admitted. 'I was called away. My mother had a relapse. It happens more and more often. I'm at my wit's end with her.'

  'Thank you, Mr Lakeland, you've been very helpful.' With the usual request that Lakeland contact them if he thought of anything else, the two detectives left.

'Which leaves Drew in the frame,' Peterson concluded as he told Geraldine about the interview with Lakeland.

  She nodded uneasily. 'Just because Drew's vicious doesn't make him a murderer. No one saw him leave work that morning and, in any case, what about Heather Spencer's statement?'

  Peterson groaned. 'It's getting us nowhere, that's for sure. She's given us a lead of sorts, but who is this mysterious man she happened to see in the park?'

  'It's not much to go on,' Geraldine admitted, but the killer was out there somewhere. She hoped he'd been motivated by hatred or jealousy. If he was driven by darker impulses, Angela Waters might not be his only victim. She saw her own apprehension reflected in Peterson's eyes and an uneasy silence fell between them.

22

Celia

At the briefing they went over what they'd learned so far. It wasn't much. They had pieced together the last hours of Angela Waters' life. They knew where the attack had taken place, and had painstakingly reconstructed the sequence of actions at the scene. Geraldine had gone over it again and again until she could see it playing in her mind like a film. But the soundtrack was missing.

  It was frustrating that they knew so little about the man Heather Spencer had seen in the park. After all their efforts, they were no closer to finding him. Kathryn Gordon had put a large red question mark by Heather Spencer's name.

  'I see the DCI's not crossing Drew off the list,' Geraldine muttered to Peterson.

  'He was violent,' Peterson whispered back. The briefing was about to begin.

  'Let's hope it jogs someone's memory,' Kathryn Gordon said. They had enough to make a reconstruction on the television worthwhile. 'And there's the e-fit in the papers,' she added.

  'D'you think there's enough in that image for anyone to recognise him?' someone asked.

  'It's a shame the teacher didn't get a better look at him,' Kathryn Gordon replied tersely.

  'Not easy when you just walk past someone in the park. Specially these days,' someone else said.

  'True.' A line appeared between Kathryn Gordon's heavy brows. 'John Drew's still in the picture, but we need to keep up a wider search. We can't overlook any possibility. It could be a previous boyfriend who's never been in any trouble before.' She looked around the tense faces gathered in the room and smiled suddenly. 'Whoever it is, we're going to catch him, make no mistake. We've got a good team together here, and we'll crack this case. We'll find him.' Geraldine felt her spirits lift as the DCI finished speaking and left the room. She squeezed back between the desks to type up her report.

  'Fancy a pint?' Geraldine asked later as she passed Peterson in the corridor.

  He shook his head. 'Best be going straight home,' he said and she felt unexpectedly let down.

  Geraldine gazed at her copy of the picture that had appeared in the morning papers. It was little more than an artist's impression. There was no point in speculation, but it was infuriating to feel they might be close to a description of the killer, and yet no closer to discovering his identity.

  'How about that, Mrs Spencer? Is that more like it?' the E-Fit Officer had asked the teacher.

  'Um … maybe …'

  'How about if we lengthen the nose? Or shorten it? We can make it wider?'

  'I'm sorry, I really can't remember his nose at all.' All they knew was that he had a scar on his top lip, but that could be enough. Geraldine scanned the faces of men she drove past in the street. Once the picture appeared in the paper he was bound to hide his scar but by then it might be too late. Someone might have phoned in with a positive identification. She imagined discovering a previous boyfriend of Angela Waters had just such a scar.

  'So if you couldn't have her, you made sure no one else could,' she said in her imaginary interview with a faceless suspect who crumbled and confessed.

  When she arrived home, her phone was flashing to indicate there was a message. Her sister's number came up on the call screen.

  'It's me. How are things? Call me back when you've got a moment. You haven't forgotten it's Chloe's birthday party this Sunday? She's six! I can hardly believe it. Speak soon.' It wasn't clear if her sister was reminding her to send a present, or inviting her to the party. Geraldine wondered whether to go. She hadn't seen her sister for weeks.

  While Geraldine devoted her life to strangers, trying to either protect them or lock them up, Celia was equally busy transporting her daughter to endless ballet, swimming, and tennis lessons. In her spare time, she did voluntary work in a local charity shop. Geraldine tried not to envy her sister for living the conventional married life Geraldine had once planned to enjoy with Mark, although she now knew she would never have left the force.

  She'd been surprised when Celia had once confessed to feeling jealous of Geraldine's career. 'It must be great to feel you're doing something useful and important.'

  'And bringing up a child isn't useful and important?' Geraldine had tried not to sound bitter.

  'Is something the matter?' Her sister had looked concerned. 'You are happy in your work, aren't you?'

  'Of course I am. It's just funny that we're envious of each other. I never realised.'

  Celia had smiled, gazing through the window at her daughter, playing in the garden. 'I wouldn't change places, though. Not for anything.'

  'Me neither.'

  If Geraldine had been less caught up in the investigation, she would have sent her niece a birthday present. If she'd even remembered to post a card, she might have got away with it. As it was, she fibbed when she returned Celia's call.

  'Of course I haven't forgotten Chloe's birthday. I haven't sent her present because I was planning to bring it round in person, but I'm in the middle of—'

  'Of course Auntie Gerry remembered your birthday. She's coming to your party,' Celia's voice shouted away from the phone.

  'Hurray!' a child's voice shrilled faintly in the back ground. It was one of the rare moments when Geraldine would gladly have traded places with her sister. In any case, she hadn't seen Celia for weeks and Chloe's birthday was an ideal occasion for a visit.

  When she left home, a driving rain intermittently blurred her windscreen. Her hair was damp and the bottoms of her jeans were wet from the short trip between her back door and the car. She'd been so immersed in the investigation, it felt strange to be driving in the opposite direction to Woolsmarsh, as though she was travelling away from her life. She turned on the radio. For days, she'd been thinking of nothing but Angela Waters, Johnny Drew, and the mysterious man with a scar. When she'd been assessed in post during her year as acting inspector, Carter had advised her to pace herself. But what he considered a sensible schedule seemed half-hearted to Geraldine.

  'Don't forget, you don't get paid overtime any more,' he'd reminded her with a smile. They both knew that wasn't the point. Geraldine tried to explain her compulsion to throw herself into work. It was only way she could keep everything fresh in her mind. She rarely missed a discrepancy between witness statements. In her previous station, she'd earned a reputation for her recall of detail.

  'Did one of the witnesses say they saw him in the pub at seven fifteen?' a colleague would enquire, and the answer was always the same: 'Ask Geraldine.' Her memory hadn't failed her yet. It was the way she liked to work, engrossed in the case to the exclusion of everything else. Mark had resented taking second place until she returned to what he called 'real life'. Since Mark had left her, there was no other life but as long as she was working, Geraldine could forget the void.

  The radio music played on, but Geraldine barely noticed. She stared at the dark road ahead and thought about Angela Waters' pale face, her skinny torso and raw hands. The further she drove, the more drained she felt. For days the adrenaline of work had been keeping exhaustion at bay and now a wave of tiredness threatened to overwhelm her. She stopped a few times and stepped out of the car. The cold air revived her. When she arrived, a bevy of expensive cars were parked outside Celia's house and she had to leave her car round the corner and run back in the rain, clutching Chloe's tissue-wrapped present beneath her coat.