Killing a Stranger (15 page)

Jodie was waiting for them inside. ‘Ooh, look at you. You look great, love.'

‘I probably look like a drowned rat.' Naomi shook her hair free of snow.

‘And who's your friend?'

‘This is Harry Jones. Harry, meet Jodie. Jodie, Harry. Oh, it's a bit warmer in here.'

‘Harry, is it? I thought you were with that copper.'

‘I am. Harry's a friend, a good friend. We've known one another for a long time.'

‘Well, happy to meet you, love. Now, what was it you wanted?'

They sat down and ordered coffee. Naomi rummaged in her bag and found the photograph. ‘You know him?'

She heard Jodie crinkle the paper and lay it flat on the table. ‘Him,' Jodie said. ‘That bloke that got himself killed. We've already had the locals asking about him.'

‘Did you recognize him, Jodie?'

‘God, love, you know I'm up front about what I do. Like I told them, I don't know him, don't know that any of the girls recognized him either.'

‘No, I believe not, but I know you can ask in places we can't. It's important, Jo. Can you do me a favour and pass these out, get back to me if there's any gossip.'

‘Surely. I can ask. I can't promise anything, though. Now, you tell me about yourself and how you're doing.'

‘Is she um …'

‘A professional lady? Yes. She's a dancer, or she was, then she got into management in a manner of speaking.'

‘You mean she …'

‘I mean she sets up dates with escorts. All very high class, runs her business out of a dress shop on Broad Street and, what I've heard, knows how to charge. Her girl's make a good living.'

‘You condone it?'

‘I like Jodie, she plays it straight. Someone works for her they see the money they earn. Jodie takes commission, she doesn't take the lot.'

‘I still don't think it's right,' Harry protested. He shivered. ‘It's snowing even harder. I'm not looking forward to the drive back. Does Alec know about her?'

‘I expect Alec's arrested her as many times as I have,' Naomi said. ‘She was on our patch before she moved up to Pinsent.'

‘Oh, I see.'

‘No, you don't, Harry,' Naomi laughed. ‘No reason why you should.'

‘Oh, but I want to.' He held the door open and helped her into the car before running around to the other side. ‘I want to understand. You know, I've led a very sheltered life, I think.'

‘You have a teenage son and you still manage to say that? Harry you amaze me.'

Harry chuckled then he said more seriously, ‘What does this have to do with the Adam Hensel business?'

‘Mmm, maybe nothing. Alec told me that after the murder a woman phoned in and said he used prostitutes in Pinsent. The intelligence was followed up, but nothing came of it. It could have been just a malicious call, of course.'

‘People do that?'

‘Oh, happens all the time. Some people feel this overwhelming need to be involved, so they call in with false information or, sometimes, it's genuine information but nothing to do with the case.'

‘I've heard that people confess. To things they didn't do, that is.'

‘It happens.'

‘And you think this was more than a malicious call?'

‘Let's say, I'm curious.'

‘You know what curiosity did.'

‘So I'm told. The thing is, you see, Alec's hands are tied. So far as his Superintendent is concerned, the case is well, not closed exactly, but as good as. It's solved, in as far as they're pretty certain Rob did the deed. Poking around at the edges isn't going to bring either Rob or Adam Hensel back.'

‘So, you thought you'd do your bit.'

‘So I thought I'd use what investigative talent I still have …'

‘What considerable talent you have.'

‘Thank you. What considerable talent I have, to do my own poking around the edges. Besides, I know as well as you do what not knowing can do. It eats you up inside and from what I've seen of Clara she deserves better than that. So, for that matter do Patrick and his friends.'

Harry nodded. ‘I'll second that,' he said with feeling. ‘Naomi, if there's anything I can do. You only have to let me know.'

E
rnst stood in the hallway of his son's flat not wanting to go further inside and yet knowing that he must. No one had wanted to enter the flat since he died, but the pressure was now on to put it on the market and get rid. Ernst wanted to look around before his daughter and son-in-law came in to clear the place of any personal effects. There was talk about bringing in one of the local house clearance firms to do the job; no one wanted to empty Adam's flat. To do so was the final acknowledgement that he would not be coming back.

He didn't know what he was looking for or if he'd recognize that significant something should he see it, but Ernst felt he had to try. Alec's suggestion that Adam may have set up the meeting that led to his death was one that made sense. Maybe Ernst would have reached that conclusion on his own, in time, but it had shocked him to be confronted by it. Shocked him more to realize how reasonable an assumption it was.

What had happened after Jennifer had told Adam about Rob? Had he spoken to the boy? Had he tried to find out about him? And why drink so much before the meeting? Was it Dutch courage or was it simply that he didn't see Rob as a threat?

Ernst figured that if the evidence for any of this existed, it would be in the flat. Adam's personal effects had been returned to him and Ernst had gone though them again today but there was nothing exceptional. Adam's wallet, with cards and money, his mobile phone – the numbers were all ones Ernst expected to be there – a few coins, his keys, a shopping list and a couple of till receipts. Normal things. Unremarkable items.

The hall was tidy and empty but for a small table; a Victorian plant stand, actually, Ernst noted, on which Adam sat the phone. The shelf beneath held directories and a small green book in which he had written telephone numbers. Again, only family, friends, work colleagues. Adam had been meticulous enough to state which was which. He had always been organized, finicky even, Ernst thought. Even as a little boy his toy shelves had been organized according to type of toy, or colour, or shape, whatever his present mood might be. Elizabeth piled her possessions into a big chest and could never find anything. It was a common theme of childhood arguments that Elizabeth couldn't find her pencils and wanted to borrow his. Or that she left their paints with the colours all muddied. Or that his books came back with the corners turned down when she borrowed them. In the end, Ernst had told Beth that she must use only her own things and that if she didn't leave Adam's toys alone, he would give him a padlock for his door to keep her out. He never did and Elizabeth never really ceased to annoy her brother with her messy ways. They simply grew up and their interests differed and Adam's possessions held less appeal.

Ernst left the hall and wandered through the first door into the living room. Here there was the impression that Adam had just stepped out for a moment and would soon be home. A newspaper lay on the coffee table, folded and placed square with the corner. The tidiness of the room marred only by the soft fall of dust which now covered every surface, something Adam would not have permitted.

Ernst opened the sideboard drawers, the cupboards, rifled quickly and carefully through the bills and letters, the stacked plates and china cups. He recognized the remnants of a dinner service he and Lisle had bought not long after their marriage. He hadn't even noticed it was missing, and that Adam had it safe both irritated and yet pleased him. Adam's computer stood on an oak table Ernst had given him. It had come from the family home and, when he'd moved to a smaller place after Lisle's death, Adam had asked if he could have this and a few other pieces for the flat.

It took Ernst a moment or so to find the on button, finally discovering it on the back of the tower unit and not at all where he expected it to be. Typical, somehow, for Adam to be different and just a little difficult. He waited for it to fire up, thinking how like this process was to turning on his old valve radio. He could go and make a cup of tea while it did its thing. He recalled Adam saying that this was an old machine and he should think about updating it, but, as he only used it for the odd letter and to do his accounts, anything more sophisticated seemed a waste. Ernst sat down and clicked the mouse on ‘My Documents'. Somewhat to his surprise, a blue screen appeared with instructions to input the password.

‘Password?' Ernst was taken aback. ‘What on earth did he have to protect with a password?'

He closed the window and tried ‘my computer' got the same response. The blue screen again with the password prompt.

Ernst stared at the offending screen, puzzled and irritated. What password would his son use? How many chances would he get? He had a vague memory of Jennifer saying that you got three tries before the machine locked up. She'd been criticizing a television programme they were watching, hadn't she?

Reluctantly Ernst closed the whole thing down wondering who he could ask about password protection. Would Jennifer know what to do? Ernst wasn't sure anyway that he should involve her.

Feeling like an intruder he searched the kitchen and bedroom. There were papers and letters in the bedside cabinet on the right hand side of the bed but nothing that related obviously to his quest. The left hand cabinet was empty.

Would he even know if something was out of place? Would he be aware of it if he found something relating to Rob?'

Ernst honestly didn't know. He glanced again at the empty cabinet. Suzanna, he thought, his son's ex-wife. It was really nothing to do with her any more but she had lived here and she might, just might be able to see what he could not. She had obviously still cared enough to have come to the funeral. Should he ask her to help him now?

He couldn't recall her number but, hadn't he seen it in the green book. Ernst hurried though to the hall. Yes, it was there and, to his amusement, Adam had written next to it the abbreviation ‘ex' as though he might be able to forget just who she was. The amusement was tempered with regret. His son had always been a bit of an odd ball, he thought, but for all that – or perhaps because of it – Ernst loved him deeply and missed him so much it hurt. It hurt more when he thought of the last time they had met, a few days before Adam died. They hadn't argued or even been in conflict, but they hadn't really talked either. They had, instead, exchanged just the surface information about their respective lives. The how are you, fine thank you sort of interchange that might have passed between acquaintances and not close kin.

E
rnst arrived at his daughter's house and walked into the middle of a row. It didn't take a genius to work out that Jennifer had told them about Rob. Her timing, Ernst thought, left something to be desired. He'd told her he would tackle the subject with Beth sometime over the next few days, but that he would do so gently. He could well imagine that Jennifer, having practised by revealing her secret to him and then elaborated on the disclosure at the meeting with Clara and the others, would most likely have blurted the whole thing without preliminaries. Or, worse still, in revenge or response to some disagreement with her mother.

Aiden opened the front door when Ernst rang the bell – the volume of the dispute, if not the words, had been audible in the drive-way. He took one look at Ernst and then gestured at the room beyond from which the sound of furious female voices issued.

‘You sort it,' he said. ‘I've said my piece, now I'm off down the pub.'

He grabbed his coat from the peg and strode off into the dusk. Ernst wondered if he could join him without the women of the house noticing, but that seemed cowardly, particularly as he, it could be said, had conspired with his granddaughter in some respects.

Instead, he closed the front door, took a deep breath and crossed the expanse of Victorian tiled hall.

The evidence of Beth's rage seemed to extend to the very roots of her short blonde hair. She crackled with fury, face flushed, eyes blazing with it. The static charge of her anger lifting the tresses from her head and the fibres of her mohair sweater.

Jennifer, no less incensed, faced her mother and screamed across the six inches of distance between them. At first, so concentrated was the sound of pure rage that Ernst failed to make out the words, then, as he focused, the battle lines began to coalesce

‘I've done nothing wrong!' Jennifer screeched.

‘Nothing! Colluded. Deceived. You're no daughter of mine. Get out of my house. Just get out of my sight.'

So, it had gone that far. ‘Beth, Beth,' Ernst cried. ‘Be calm. This will do no good.'

She hadn't registered him until then, but both women turned now and Ernst felt himself physically lashed by the wave of bitterness. Beth's because he had kept her in the dark. Jennifer's, less forceful – she'd not had her mother's experience – but generated by her resentment that he had not been there when she had to face her mother with this truth. The fact that she and not Ernst had picked the instant of revelation an irrelevance.

‘You! Just what the hell did you think you were doing? Jen I can almost forgive. She's a child, but you!'

‘Beth, calm down. No one has done anything …'

‘Not done anything? She
knew
Adam's killer and she didn't say a bloody word. Not a bloody word and then you, instead of telling me about her little liaison, you go behind my back and see that woman. That woman. For all I know,
he
could be the father of the little bastard she's carrying. Now wouldn't that be just perfect.'

‘Beth. Enough.'

She stopped in her tracks and drew herself up and in, her father's command cutting through the weight of years. It might have calmed then, but Jennifer was not so adept at recognizing the moment.