Snarl (8 page)

Harriet sobbed harder. Kate said, slightly more firmly. “Do you understand?”

After a moment, there was a bob of the head. Then Harriet raised her tear-stained face. “Yes, I understand,” she said, hoarsely. “What – what do you want to know?”

“Well,
” said Kate. “Let’s start at the beginning. You’re Madeline’s sister, right? Older or younger?”

“I’m the oldest. Madeline’s two years younger than I am.”

“Do you have any other siblings?”

“No. It’s just us.”

“What about your parents?”

Harriet gave another gasping breath
that was almost a sob. “Mum died about ten years ago. Oh, thank God she’s been spared this, thank God… she couldn’t have coped. Dad lives overseas. I’ve spoken to him, he knows… he’s trying to get a flight over here—”

“Where does he live?”

“Denmark. Copenhagen. He’s half Danish, you see, and after Mum died he went back to live there.”

Kate nodded, thinking that explained the sisters’ fairness and height. “Did you grow up there?”

Harriet shook that long fair mane of hair again. “No, no we always lived in England. Up North, actually, near Harrogate.”

“Where did Madeline meet Jack?”

A little colour was coming back into Harriet’s face. She sat up a little. “University. They met at Oxford. Madeline was doing English and Jack was doing something very scientific. Particle physics, or something like that. Well, maybe not physics. I never actually understood it and he tried to explain it to me about three times.” Harriet was almost smiling. Then memory obviously returned and her face fell apart again. She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe he’s dead, I can’t
believe
it. Who would have hurt him? Everyone liked him…”

Her voice was dissolving. Kate said quickly, “So Madeline and Jack met at Oxford. That’s where Jack met his business partner too, isn’t it?”

“Alex? Yes, that’s right.” Harriet cleared her throat. “They were in the same halls in the first year, had the rooms next to one another.” Something seemed to strike her and she turned to Kate, wide-eyed. “God –
Alex
– has anyone told him? Does he know? He’ll be devastated, he was Jack’s best friend…”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Kate, patting Harriet’s arm. “We’ll keep everyone informed
, as well as we can. So you’ve known Jack and Alex since they were at university?”

Harriet nodded. She took a deep
breath. “Yes, we’ve all known each other a long time. Almost like family, you know?” She was on the verge of saying more when they were interrupted by the appearance of an exhausted looking doctor. Harriet jumped up, her face grey.

“Is she – oh my
god, is she—”

“Madeline’s in a critical condition, Ms
Larsen, but we’ve done what we can for her.” The doctor looked at Kate with raised eyebrows and she introduced herself quickly, flashing her card. He gave it a cursory glance and then turned his attention back to Harriet. “As I was saying, she’s as stable as she can possibly be at the moment. I won’t pretend to you that her condition is not very serious, very serious indeed, but at the moment, she’s holding on.”

Harriet sat back down on the plastic chair abruptly.  She looked up at the doctor, her face working, hope and despair battling it out for control of her features.
“Will she – will she live?”

The doctor half smiled. “She’s doing as well as she can
, Ms Larsen. You must – you must prepare yourself, though. I simply can’t give you that reassurance at this time. I’m sorry.”

Harriet dropped her head, nodding minutely. Kate caught the doctor’s arm as he was turning away.

“A quick word?” She drew him a little away from Harriet. “I have to ask you to restrict access to Mrs Dorsey,” she said. “No admittance to anyone apart from medical staff, okay?”

“Naturally,” snapped the doctor. He was a grey-haired man of about fifty and he looked rather outraged, as if Kate
were trying to tell him his job. “That goes without saying, Officer. “

“Fine,” said Kate. “I’ll have a uniformed officer here when I leave.”

“As you wish. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

Kate watched him walk back into the ICU. Then she returned to Harriet, who wa
s staring blankly at the floor. “Let me get you a cup of tea, Harriet,” she said. “And you can carry on with what you were telling me.”

Chapter Eleven

“Morning, team,” Anderton said the next morning, crashing through the door in his usual ebullient fashion. Kate, Olbeck, Theo, Rav and Jane were ranged around the office, talking amongst themselves. Kate, noticing the empty chair that stood at her old desk, wondered what Stuart was doing and whether he was making any progress. For a moment, she considered what it must be like to work under cover. Having to pretend to be someone else, day in and day out. I’d be a natural at it, she thought, with a wry inner grin. That’s what I’ve been doing since the start of my career.

Her thought process was derailed by Anderton slapping another crime scene photograph on the whiteboard. It was a hugely magnified shot of the word left written in blood at the scene. Kate read it again, remembering the room and the heavy, wet scent of blood in the air.
Killer
. She wondered what Anderton had to say.

“Firstly,” he began, hoisting himself onto the edge of a spare desk. “You’ll be glad to know that Madeline Dorsey continues to hang on. She’s still in intensive care and she’s in an incredibly bad way. I don’t think we’ll be taking any witness statements from her any time soon
, but she
is
still alive, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Kate, you spoke to her sister at the hospital, didn’t you? Anything there we should know about?”

Kate pushed her fringe back from her face.
“Her name’s Harriet Larsen and she’s the older sister by two years. No other siblings, their mother is dead and their father lives abroad in Denmark. He’s been informed and I think he’s probably already in the country, by now. Harriet’s known Jack Dorsey and Alexander Hargreaves since they – Jack and Madeline – met at Oxford, over twenty years ago. She was too distressed to tell me much more than that, but as far as she was aware, the Dorseys had a good relationship. She wasn’t aware of anything out of the ordinary, in terms of strange visitors, odd happenings, etcetera etcetera, but she doesn’t live locally, she’s London-based and she hadn’t seen her sister for a couple of months.”

Anderton nodded. “Did she say they were close? Did they talk a lot? Would Madeline have confided in her?”

Kate shrugged. “I’m going back to talk to her again, later today. Hope to get a bit deeper this time.”

“Okay, good.” Anderton jumped from the desk and began pacing in front of the whiteboards. “Now, we’re still waiting on a lot of the forensics and the PM on Dorsey won’t take place until tomorrow. I think your beau might be doing that, Kate.” He grinned
, as did Theo and Olbeck. Kate tried to smile, but was conscious of a spurt of something much like humiliation. Why did Anderton think it was such a bloody big joke that she had a boyfriend? “Anyway, Mark, can you pop along and see what’s what when that goes ahead?”

Olbeck nodded. Anderton reached the wall and turned on his heel to retrace his steps. “Kate, I want you to come with me while I go and see young Mister Hargreaves. I want his alibi checked.”

He raised a hand. “Standard procedure, people. Don’t go jumping to conclusions. The same goes for Harriet Larsen, Madeline’s father, the cleaner, and any other staff in the house.” Anderton came to a halt and a brief silence fell. “I’m not sure about this one,” he said quietly. There was an odd, loaded hush in the room. Every eye was fixed upon him. “There’s a few too many undercurrents here for my liking. Is this another terrorist attack? Or is there something else going on? I don’t know. And I know you lot don’t know, but that’s what we have to find out. I know we can do it. I know
you
can do it.”

Kate was suddenly conscious that she was sitting up straighter, shoulders back, like a soldier on parade. How did Anderton
do
that? Look at us all, she thought, watching the others. We’d go into battle for him. I know I would.

Anderton clapped his hands together and the sharp noise broke the spell. He crooked his finger at Kate and she nodded and jumped up, grabbing her coat and bag. She gave Olbeck a wave and then followed her boss from the room.

It wasn’t until she was sitting in the passenger seat next to Anderton that she realised that, essentially, this was the first time she and he had been alone together since… well, since that night. Immediately, memories and images recurred and she fumbled with the seatbelt, keeping her head down while she clicked it into place to hide the blush that wanted to surface on her face. Then she smoothed her hair back and sat up, in control of herself again.

“Well, Kate,” Anderton
said as he accelerated away from the station. “Here we are. How are you feeling?”

He couldn’t know what she’d just been thinking of, could he? Was he remembering the same
thing? Kate coughed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m back in the swing of it
, now.”

“Well, it’s certainly back in the deep end, isn’t it?”

“You’re not wrong. Still, I may as well start as I mean to go on.”

Anderton smiled. They waited to join the traffic on the dual carriageway.
 

It was a day of oddly contrasting weather; brilliant sunshine one moment, spitting rain and scudding grey clouds the next. The car windscreen wipers went on, then off, then on again. By the time they reached the driveway that led to Hargreaves
’ house, the grey clouds had closed completely overhead, the sky like a dingy flannel blanket that sagged ominously with oncoming rain. The driveway led through pine woods, the trees in regimented lines, obviously an old plantation. Now and again, Kate could see patches of sandy heath in the distance with the spiky shapes of the gorse bushes and the softer outline of heather. The road plunged back into the dimness of the pine forest again, wound gently through the trees, and eventually came out in front of a large and unusual looking house. Part of it looked much older than the other, a square stone building that had been absorbed into a much more modern construction of wooden frames, cedar cladding and large glass windows. The windows ran in a long, unbroken line of glass that stretched around the side of the house, and onto a large wooden jetty and decking area which skirted the edge of a lake.

It looked deserted
, although a silver BMW was parked near the front door. Kate and Anderton got out of their own car. The wind gusted through the pine trees on the edge of the shore and Kate could hear the faint lapping of water against the jetty. Overhead came the shrill shriek of some sort of bird of prey. These were the only sounds she could hear and she was reminded of arriving at Jack Dorsey’s house on the day after the murder – how silent it had been. For a moment, she felt a ridiculous jump of panic. Were they going to open the front door to find Alex Hargreaves’ body, face down in a pool of blood or stabbed so viciously he was unrecognisable?

She told herself not to be so stupid
, but she could see Anderton was a little uneasy, too. He glanced towards the silent house, with its blank, shuttered look.

“They like their out of the way retreats,” he murmured. “Look at it. You couldn’t be much more isolated.”

“I know,” said Kate. “I guess if you can afford it…”

“What I don’t understand is—
” Anderton began, and then they both started a little as the front door swung open. For a moment, the doorway showed only blackness and then the tall figure of Alexander Hargreaves moved into the light. He was wearing dark glasses and his expression could not be discerned. After a minute glance at one another, Kate and Anderton approached him.

“I know why you’ve come,” he said in a flat voice.

“You’ve been informed of the death of Jack Dorsey?” Anderton said and Hargreaves winced.

“The people who broke it to me the first time were a bit more tactful,” he said, but in the same flat voice,
with no real heat in the reproachful words. He turned away from them and walked back into the house, almost plodding, leaving the door open behind him. Kate and Anderton followed him through the doorway and Kate shut the door behind them.

The interior of the house was large
and airy, the wooden beams supporting the roof used as an architectural feature. The floor was tiled in slate, the furniture uncompromisingly modern. There was a lot of leather and glass about, and quite a variety of modern art. Kate’s eye was caught by a sculpture that looked like an elongated robot, all twisted silver limbs and square protrusions. Then she noticed a framed painting on the far wall which looked like, and quite possibly was, a genuine Jackson Pollock.

Hargreaves had slumped down on one of the large leather couches. On the glass table in front of him was a square cut-crystal glass
, half full of an amber-coloured liquid.

“I don’t suppose either of you want a drink,” he said, a statement more than a question. Kate and Anderton confirmed his
presumption with a shake of their heads. He gave the ghost of a nod and went on, “Well, I’m sure you won’t mind if I have one. I need one, by God.”

“This must be very distressing for you—
” Anderton began and was interrupted by Hargreaves’ gasp, a half sob that shook his rigid shoulders. He put a hand up to his mouth, as if holding himself back from retching. As Kate watched, tears began to slide out from under his dark glasses and, a few moments later, Hargreaves removed them, throwing them down on the table next to his whiskey glass. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.

“I can’t take it in,” he said after a moment, in a ragged voice. He rubbed the tears away from his face. “I never thought
… Jack – and Madeline too… I can’t – I can’t bear it…”

Kate cleared her throat, glan
ced at Anderton for permission. “Mrs Dorsey is still alive,” she said quietly.

Hargreaves head snapped up. A variety of emotions chased themselves over his face
. “Is that true?” he breathed, as if talking louder would draw a negative response from Kate. “Seriously? She’s still alive?”

Kate nodded. Anderton said “She’s alive but she’s still extremely ill. There’s a good chance that she won’t make it. I’m sorry.”

Hargreaves’ eyes filled with tears again and he dropped his head into his hands. “Why would you say that?” he muttered. “Why give me that hope and then take it away again?”

“She’s doing as well as she can, sir,” said Kate, feeling a wrench of pity. “The doctors are doing all they can do. Her sister and father are with her.”

Hargreaves raised his head again. “Harriet’s here? I must call her – she must be devastated, poor girl. They were close…”

There was a moment’s silence. After another glance from Anderton, Kate leant forward a little. “We’d like to talk to you about Jack and Madeline, if we may, sir. You might be able to give us some more information that could be very valuable.”

“Me?” Hargreaves rubbed his face again. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

You were only his friend and partner for twenty years, thought Kate impatiently. If you can’t tell us anything, then we’re really in trouble.

Anderton had clearly been thinking the same thing. He said, with a slight edge to his voice, “The first thing you can tell us, sir, is where you were between the hours of eleven pm and two am on the night of Thursday the ninth of May.”

Hargreaves blinked his sore-looking eyelids rapidly.
“You want to know where I was that – that night? Why, for God’s sake? You can’t seriously suspect me of killing my friend?”

His tone was verging on panic-stricken. An
derton raised a placatory hand. “Standard procedure, sir. We ask everyone. It’s a process of elimination, nothing more.”

Hargrea
ves continued to blink rapidly. “I was – I was – where the hell was I?” He still sounded panicky. “I’m sorry, my nerves are shot to pieces… that’s right, I was at the pub. In the village.” Relief flooded his voice. “There’s a good gastro-pub in the village, I eat there quite a lot. I was there most of the night, ran into a few buddies, played some pool after dinner. The Haverton Arms, in the village.”

“I see,” said Kate, writing down the name. “And what time did you leave?”

“Late… I don’t know exactly. It’s got a late licence. I don’t know – maybe one o’clock? One thirty?”

“Did you drive there?”

“I never drive there,” said Hargreaves, in a virtuous tone. “Always want a drink, you see, and it’s not too far. I can cut back across my land.”

“Were you alone?”

“Yes.” Now he sounded offended. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything
, sir. Do you have a partner? A wife?”

“I’m divorced,” said Hargreaves heavily. “Not that I can see the relevance of that to this situation. I got divorced about five years ago and I’ve been fancy-free and single ever since.”

“You’ve known Jack Dorsey a good few years, isn’t that right?” Anderton asked.

Hargreaves nodded. He reached out, picked up his drink with one hand and his dark glasses with the other. He took a sip of whiskey and swung the glasses by their arm.

“Jack and I met at university,” he said. “Oxford. We had rooms side by side and somehow we just – well, we just clicked, really. Chalk and cheese, you know – don’t know why we clicked but we did…” He trailed off into silence.

Kate took up the questions.
“Had you or Mr Dorsey ever received any threats?” she asked. “Any direct threats, or even implied ones? By letter, or email or in person?”