Like This, for Ever (39 page)

A puzzled frown. ‘My hands?’ Gilly Green was looking down at them herself now. They were slim, well-shaped, the nails painted a pale pink.

Dana held out her own hands, expectantly. Gilly stood up and, rather nervously, held her hands out for Dana’s inspection. Dana looked at the palms, then turned them over to see the backs. ‘Where was the scar?’ she asked her. ‘I’d have thought it might still be there.’

‘What scar?’

‘You cut yourself on the boat,’ Dana said, keeping up the pretence of looking at the other woman’s hands. ‘A bad cut, from what I’ve been told. You lost a lot of blood. I’d have thought there’d be some trace of it still. But there’s nothing I can see.’

‘I don’t remember cutting myself,’ Gilly said, hesitantly.

Dana felt a surge of excitement. This was a part of their story they hadn’t thought to agree on and it wasn’t matching up. She’d argued all along that a woman had to be involved. A woman and a man, working together. ‘Really? Not on the boat?’ she said. ‘Because we’ve been told that the blood we found is yours. If it’s not, we’ll know very quickly and then it really won’t look good for either of you.’

Gilly closed her eyes and sighed. She didn’t look nearly as frightened as Dana would have liked. ‘Stewart told you I cut myself ?’ she said.

‘Did you not?’

‘He was being delicate, Detective Inspector. The blood you found is almost certainly mine. But I didn’t cut myself.’

‘So what happened?’

Gilly’s small mouth twisted. ‘It wasn’t the most convenient time of the month for intimacy to take place,’ she said, looking slightly defiant. ‘But when your time together is limited, you tend not to be too particular. And it was Valentine’s Day. The sheets were a mess, Stewart had to take them home to wash them. I thought I’d cleaned the floor. Apparently not.’

Damn. All too feasible. And all too easily provable. If the blood turned out to be Gilly Green’s, they had nothing.

‘Do you have children, Mrs Green?’

A startled look. Then a shake of the head.

‘Then why the subterfuge? If you’ve met someone else, why can’t you just move on? Stewart Roberts isn’t married.’

Blue eyes glinted. ‘I do want to move on. And I want to be with Stewart. But leaving Daniel at the moment feels impossibly callous. We did have a son, you see. We lost him to meningitis just over two years ago. He was ten.’

‘What do you think, Ma’am? Misguided woman in love or coldblooded killer?’

Dana ran her hands across her face. ‘Can’t call it either way,’ she said.

The two officers were outside the Greens’ home. Before leaving for Lewisham police station to be interviewed formally, Mrs Green had given Dana permission to conduct a search of the house. Not having to wait for a warrant would save them valuable time. On the other hand, her cooperation almost certainly meant she didn’t believe there was anything to be found.

‘She looked guilty when we told her Barney was missing,’ said Mizon.

‘You think so? I thought she looked scared. I think she could be fond of him.’

‘So neither Mr nor Mrs Green are where they should be on Tuesday and Thursday evenings,’ said Mizon.

‘They can’t be working together,’ said Dana. ‘Mrs Green can be alibied by Mr Roberts.’

‘She and Roberts could be, though.’

Dana nodded. ‘We need to find something on that boat. A hair, a fingerprint, something. Anything.’

It was approaching midnight by the time Dana got to the lock-up yard that led to the houseboat community. She showed her ID to the constable at the gate and made her way gingerly across rubbish-strewn concrete and then down the steel ladder to the boats.

‘Oh, feel free,’ muttered a voice from the cockpit of the first boat she stepped down on to.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Sir,’ she replied, making her way around the
bow of the boat, the way she’d seen Mark do several times in the past. ‘It’s more polite,’ he’d explained once. ‘Sort of like walking around the edge of someone’s garden rather than directly through their living room.’

‘Evening, DI Tulloch,’ the chief SOCO greeted her when she’d climbed down into the cabin of the yellow yacht.

She made herself smile. ‘Please tell me you have something.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s a bit of a love nest,’ he replied. ‘Certainly some evidence of sexual activity. Including a half-full packet of condoms in a cupboard in the heads. We’ve also got wine, candles, some nice glasses, olives.’

Dana looked round the cabin, surprised. She’d imagined it narrow, low and cramped, fitted out with plastic seats and hard edges. Instead, the main saloon was high enough even for the men to stand upright, and panelled in a warm-coloured wood – cherry or walnut. The wall-lamps were mock Edwardian, sumptuous and gleaming in the harsh lights the forensic team had brought on board. The chart table looked like a gentleman’s desk and the bookshelf above it held copies of Dickens, Trollope and Austen, instead of the maps and pilot books it had been built for. The upholstery was dark-red leather, and ornate brass handles shone everywhere. The cabin felt like the private study of an old London club.

To one side of the saloon was a fold-out dining table, which looked easily big enough to strap a young boy to, but …

‘If five boys had their throats cut in here, the place would be swimming with blood, wouldn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Even a good clean-up would leave traces.’

‘It would,’ the SOCO agreed. ‘Mind you, we’re finding traces of detergent and disinfectant, which would suggest recent cleaning. Another thing of interest is several small patches on the ceiling where the varnish on the wood has peeled away.’

Dana looked up to where police marking tape indicated the sites the SOCO was referring to. She could see nothing.

‘The sort of mark Sellotape leaves behind when it’s pulled off,’ the SOCO explained. ‘Could be nothing. Or it could be where he stuck up clear plastic sheeting to stop the blood staining the walls and ceiling.’

‘Which?’ said Dana. ‘I need to know which.’

The SOCO pulled an
I understand, but there’s a limit to my powers
face. ‘Tomorrow we can have the boat lifted and moved to where we can look at it properly,’ he said. ‘If a lot of blood has been washed away, there’ll be traces in the bilges, even if the cabin itself is clean.’

Tomorrow was no good to her. Tomorrow Huck could be lying dead on a beach somewhere. Dana’s phone started ringing again and she stepped back on deck to take the call. It was Anderson, calling from Lewisham.

‘Good news, Boss. You might want to get back here pronto.’

Funny, how you could be so keyed up that the expectation of good news felt as difficult to deal with as the bad. ‘What’s happened?’ Dana demanded, hardly daring to hope that Huck had been found.

‘We picked up Dan Green in the pub. The one several of the circuit trainers told us he might be in. Guess what we found tucked into the inner pocket of his gym bag?’

‘What?’

‘Huck’s mobile phone. Cheeky sod was carrying Huck’s phone with him.’

Dana looked up and closed her eyes; the fine drops of rain felt like starlight on her face. Oh God, they were close, they were going to find him. Just as long as he was still …

‘Are you sure? Are you sure it’s Huck’s?’

‘Definitely. It has his mum’s number programmed in, his dad’s, his best mate’s. Even yours.’

‘I’m on my way. Has anyone talked to him yet?’

‘Not yet. And Gayle found a fleece sweater in the Greens’ house. In one of the drawers in the bedroom. Black, J. Crew. Just like those fibres we found on Oliver Kennedy.’

Dana took a massive breath to clear her head and gave Anderson instructions to get the preliminaries in order: the background checks that would establish whether Green had any history with the police; details of property he owned; of relatives in and around the capital. As she climbed from one damp deck to the next she told herself that Green was a well-known sports coach. All the dead boys had played football or rugby and Green was involved with both. The boys might all have known him from football fixtures they’d taken part
in. They wouldn’t know him well, but he would have been a familiar enough figure for them not to feel threatened if he approached them. And he’d lost a son of exactly the same age as the dead boys.

Dana got back to her car, put the blue light on top and set off towards Lewisham. And when the tiny voice at the back of her head tried to remind her that she’d never believed the killer to be a man, she ignored it.

‘I HAVE NO
idea how it got there,’ said Dan Green. ‘It doesn’t really matter how many times you ask me, I can’t give you a different answer.’

‘Your fingerprints are on it,’ Dana reminded him, which, strictly, was a moot point. A partial print had been found on the phone that appeared to be a match for Green’s right index finger. It would never hold up in court, but, so far, they hadn’t revealed how flimsy a piece of evidence it was.

‘I keep my keys in that pocket. It’s quite likely I touched the phone when I put them in or pulled them out. Look, my bag was on the touchline for over an hour while we were training. I didn’t have my eye on it the whole time. Anyone could have slipped something in it.’

Green was a good-looking man, but not, Dana had noticed with interest, at all similar to Stewart Roberts. Taller, younger, more muscular, with thick, dark hair, bright enough but hardly Brain of Britain. This man was an athlete, not an academic. When she’d first entered the interview room, she’d glanced down at his feet. Even in trainers they looked larger than average. Size eleven or twelve, at a guess. Bigger than the wellington boots that had left the prints on the beaches. And that was panic rearing its head again, wasn’t it? Because something about this just didn’t feel—

‘Who took the register tonight?’ asked Dana.

‘James did,’ said Green, referring to his assistant coach. ‘I was there when he did it.’

‘So you knew Huck hadn’t turned up?’

‘I knew he hadn’t answered the register.’

‘You didn’t see him?’

‘No, I don’t remember seeing him at all tonight.’

‘You didn’t think to phone his mother when he didn’t show up?’

Green sighed. ‘In hindsight, I really wish I had. But up to five kids don’t show most weeks. Usually because something unexpected has cropped up at home, or they just don’t feel up to it. I can’t chase ’em all up.’

‘Some of the children there tonight say they saw Huck at the beginning of the session.’

‘So I understand. I didn’t.’

‘How can a child be there one minute and not the next?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Did you talk to him at the beginning of training?’

‘No, I didn’t see him.’

‘Did you ask him to wait for you in your car for a few minutes?’

‘No, I didn’t see him.’

‘If Huck has been in your car recently, we’ll find evidence.’

‘Huck has never been in my car.’

‘Your wife believes you go to circuit training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings after football training. That isn’t strictly true, is it?’

‘I used to believe my wife stayed home and did her marking on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Turns out that’s not strictly true.’

‘What do you mean?’

Green shrugged. He wasn’t going to be shaken easily. Time to turn up the heat a bit.

‘Are you referring to the fact that your wife is having an affair with Stewart Roberts?’ said Dana.

Green exhaled loudly through his nose. ‘Is that who it is?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I wondered why she always took such an interest in Barney.’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘I knew it was happening with someone. I guess the details aren’t that important.’

Green’s sallow skin had paled and his eyes had narrowed. He might be feigning nonchalance but she was getting to him. She reached down into her case and pulled out the silver-framed photograph Gayle had found in his house. His reaction was immediate.

‘How dare you touch that!’

Dana pretended to study the ten-year-old boy in the photograph. It had been taken at school and showed him wearing a maroon sweater and a maroon and black striped tie. Benjamin Green had looked a lot like his father.

‘I’d say the dead boys look very like your son, Mr Green,’ she said, knowing she was on dodgy ground. Benjamin had been darker haired and more sallow of skin than the victims. ‘Is that how you choose them?’

Green gave her a look of pure contempt and closed his eyes. She watched him breathe in and out three times.

‘For the benefit of the tape, the suspect is refusing to answer the question,’ said Anderson, after twenty seconds had gone by. Green’s eyes shot open.

‘For the benefit of the tape,’ he said, ‘the suspect thinks you are a bunch of incompetent halfwits.’

‘We can make your life very difficult if you don’t cooperate, Mr Green,’ said Dana.

‘Detective Inspector, my son is dead and my wife – who I still love, by the way – is about to leave me. Trust me when I say that you and your friends don’t even come on to my radar screen.’

‘We could always leave him in a cell with Mark for half an hour,’ said Anderson, when they left the interview room ten minutes later. ‘He’d be singing after five minutes.’

‘I don’t doubt it, but he still couldn’t tell us anything. It isn’t him, Neil.’

Anderson gave a heavy sigh. ‘Boss, Huck’s phone was in his bag. Fingerprints. Black fleece.’

‘Did you see his feet? Bloody enormous. There’s no way he could squeeze into size-ten wellingtons. Or leave shallow, slightly wobbly prints in the mud. And would a killer as careful as we’ve continually told ourselves this one is leave his latest victim’s phone in his bag for
anyone to find? If Green were guilty, he’d have been expecting us to talk to him. He would have got rid of the phone.’

‘So how did it get in his bag?’

‘My best guess? Huck dropped it in the changing room – he’s always leaving it lying around – and one of the other boys picked it up and dropped it in the coach’s bag for safe-keeping.’

‘So what – are we back to Mrs Green and her shag bunny? Because I can’t believe none of the three are involved.’

‘Mrs Green and her shag bunny, as you so charmingly call him, alibi each other. We need actual evidence on the boat or in one of their houses to pin it on them. And while we’re looking for it, Huck is out there.’