Snarl (9 page)

Hargreaves gave her an incredulous look.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “We were threatened
all the time
. We never opened any of our post, it all went through Security and was X-rayed. We’ve both got unregistered numbers, both careful… but – I don’t know – until that car bomb, it never felt very real, if you know what I mean. Just a load of animal rights nutters and old biddies. We never actually felt like they’d actually do us any harm.”

“Both you and Mr Dorsey live in extremely isolated conditions,” said Anderton, in a neutral tone. “For people who were worried about security
, that does strike me as rather strange.”

Hargreaves half laughed.
“Really?” he asked. “It makes perfect sense to me. It did to Jack. Hide yourself away and you won’t be bothered. We’ve both got serious security systems, I mean, really top notch ones.”

Kate and Anderton exchanged glances.

“That didn’t seem to do Mr Dorsey much good, in the end,” Anderton said eventually.

Hargreaves winced again and dropped his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what happened there. Jack had a security guard, for God’s sake—”

“Who is also dead,” Anderton
went on, remorselessly.

“I don’t know,” repeated Hargreaves. He was shaking his head from side to side
, as if to clear his thoughts. “I don’t know how it could have happened.”

They left him pouring another glass of whiskey while they took a short walk around the outside of the house, ostensibly to check on his own security arrangements. Kate and Anderton stood side by side on the decking looking over the surface of the lake, its waters ruffled into a multitude of little wavelets by the wind. It was beautiful, undeniably
, but there was something lonely, something almost sinister in the landscape, empty of any sign of human activity. Kate thought of being here in the dark, alone, with the night pressing heavily against that great expanse of glass and almost shivered. The lapping of the water against the pillars of the decking was almost hypnotic. Kate found herself staring at a bobble of floating litter trapped against one of the pillars; several screwed up balls of pink paper, a crumpled plastic bag and an empty juice bottle. She focused her eyes on the up and down movement as her mind ticked over what they’d just heard.

“Let’s check his alibi on the way back,” said Anderton. “We might have a spot of lunch there
, if the food is as good as Hargreaves says it is. What do you think?”

They easily found the pub in the village. Part of it was obviously the original building, probably dating back to Tudor times
, judging from the broad black beams that ran through the walls, and when they entered it, the pitted stone floor and low ceilings. The windows were mullioned and small. A larger, modern extension had been built onto it, to house the restaurant. Kate had expected Anderton to quiz the staff about Alex Hargreaves’ presence on the night of the murder, but he shook his head when she asked and directed her to a table.

“Let’s eat
, first,” he said, with a grin. “I get nervous when I have my food prepared by someone who knows I’m a copper. You never know when they might hold a grudge.”

Kate smiled. They found a table by the fireplace which held a vase of silk flowers. Kate relaxed back into her easy chair. Looking around, she realised that this was exactly the sort of place she liked to eat: comfortable, quietly decorated, people dressed casually, talking and laughing without much reserve. The waitress was a large young woman
, with a cheerful face and spiky blonde pigtails. A secondary thought followed the first; she really didn’t much like the formal restaurants she went to with Andrew – all those hovering, deferential, attentive waiters, the hush that fell over the room that seemed to muffle any attempt at a normal conversation. She was always worried about spilling something on the white linen tablecloths. Kate looked across at Anderton who was reading a menu and commenting enthusiastically on various dishes. Shit, this really did feel like a date. She dragged her own attention back to the menu, her appetite deserting her.

“So,” said Anderton, once their food had arrived and they were eating
; Kate without much enthusiasm. “How’s it feel to be back at work?”

Kate chewed, giving herself time to formulate an appropriate answer. “Fine.”

“You’re not finding it a bit much? Straight back into a serious murder investigation?”

“No,” Kate
said, a bit annoyed. She was getting a bit tired of being treated like some fragile, porcelain doll. “I don’t find it a problem at all.”

“Okay. Just asking.”

“Sorry,” said Kate. “It’s just – oh, I don’t know – I get a bit fed up of all this solicitousness.”

“I thought you’d be glad people cared,” said Anderton.

Their eyes met across the table and Kate was transported back to that one night, a year before, instantly. Damn it, when was she going to get over that? The worst thing was that she could see Anderton was thinking along much the same lines.

There was a moment of loaded silence. Kate was very aware that they were eating in a pub that offered accommodation as well. We could do it, she thought. We could book a room here
, just for the night, and stay a few hours. No one would know. She felt giddy with the possibility, almost faint with the longing. I just need to say it and he’ll agree.

Oddly, it was the thought of Olbeck’s face
, if he ever found out, that stopped her. She pictured his shock, her shame and embarrassment… Andrew’s face came into her mind a few moments later and then, of course, she was swamped by guilt at him not being the first thing that stopped her.

She stood up abruptly. “Want another drink?”

Anderton indicated their half full glasses. “What’s wrong with yours?”

Kate blinked and sat down again. “Oh. Yes. Sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

He sounded merely concerned. Perhaps she’d imagined that look in his eyes. Thank God she hadn’t done anything about it. Kate realised something – that there couldn’t be any more of these cosy little meals together. Not alone. She wouldn’t always be able to be strong.

The plump waitress came to see if they wanted anything else and Kate could have kissed her. Anderton replied in the negative to her enquiry, but then followed it up with “But you could help us with something else, if you don’t mind.”

Anderton pulled a print out of Alex
ander Hargreaves’ headshot from the MedGen website and held it out.

“Can you tell me if you know this man?”

“Alex?” said the waitress. “Seriously, are you, like, joking? He’s in here all the time.”

“You definitely recognise him?”

“Oh yeah. He’s often in here to eat and play the fruit machines.”

“Was he here last Thursday night? The ninth of May?”

The waitress narrowed her eyes in suspicion, which then widened as Anderton showed her his warrant card. “Oh,” she said. “Right. Yeah. Yeah, he was here then.”

“Do you know what time he left?”

“Not sure. Quite late. Sometimes he stays behind for a bit, after we close up. It’s like a private party,” she added, hastily, as if they were going to arrest her for breaking the licensing laws.

Anderton nodded.
“You have CCTV here?” he asked.

The waitress looked positively scared now.
“Yeah, we do. Above the front door.”

“Could we perhaps speak to the manager?” asked Kate, smiling reassuringly. “What’s his name?”

“Tim,” the waitress said, one finger up to her pierced lip. “Tim Jones. I’ll go and get him, shall I?”

She hurried off before they could speak. Anderton gave a tiny shrug and turned his attention back to his plate. Kate stared after the girl for a moment. The ring in the waitress’s lip had reminded her of someone.

“How’s Stuart getting on?”

A
nderton looked up in surprise. “Stuart? Fine, as far as I know. We’ll pull him in for a debrief soon, but he’s been reporting in regularly.”

“Hmm.”

Anderton finished the last mouthful on his plate and pushed it away from him with a satisfied sigh. “You don’t like him, do you?”

Kate half-laughed.
“I don’t even know him.”

“Well,” said Anderton. “We none of us really know him. I know he’s good at his job
, and that’s exactly the sort of person I needed.”

Kate placed her knife and fork together neatly in the centre of her plate.
“Who is he, really?” she asked.

Anderton met her gaze steadily.
“SO15, Kate. You know that, I don’t need to spell it out.”

“Why? Why go that far?”

“I had to, Kate. We’re out of our depth, here. I need someone on the inside and my team aren’t – you people aren’t trained for it and you’re too well known around here. I needed an outsider, someone with experience.” He pushed his chair back a little and added “Someone who knows what he’s doing.”

Kate smoothed back her hair.
“We were out of our depth last year,” she said. “You said that. We still got a solve.”

“
You
got a solve,” said Anderton. “No one’s forgetting that.”

Kate forcibly restrained her hand from reaching around to rub her back. She saw Anderton’s eyes flick downward at the sudden, stilled movement of her hand and was sure he knew exactly what she was trying to stop herself doing.

“I’m fine,” she hissed suddenly, as if he’d just told her the opposite.

“I—
”Anderton began, but they were interrupted by arrival of the manager of the pub; a tall, gangly young man with anxious eyebrows.

Tim Jones looked barely out of his teens but he grasped what they wanted with speed. After leading them to a viewing room
, which reminded Kate a little of the one at Jack Dorsey’s house, they could see for themselves a grainy black and white image of Alex Hargreaves entering the pub at eight thirty five pm on the ninth of May and leaving it again, slightly unsteadily, at one forty one am that night.

“Well,” said Kate as they drove away. “He’s out. What now?”

“Dorsey’s PM is tomorrow. We need to interview Harriet Larsen and I need an update from the hospital, see if our Madeline is still holding on.”

“I’ll do Harriet,” offered Kate.

“Good, okay. Take Theo with you.”

“Okay,” Kate
said, suppressing a groan. She looked at Anderton’s profile. That moment of weakness back in the pub dining room seemed even more like madness to her now. She pulled out her mobile and texted Andrew;
miss you, shall I come round to yours tonight?
She signed it off with three kisses.

Chapter Twelve

Stuart put Angie’s drink down in front of her on the scarred top of the pub table. She was busying texting someone on her phone and was so intent on the task that she barely looked up.

“’Thanks, Mike,’” Stuart
said ironically when she finally slipped the phone into her pocket.

“Thanks,” Angie said, not rising to the bait. She took a deep swallow of the whiskey and said nothing more.

Stuart sipped his pint. This was the first time he and Angie had been out together, to a pub of her choice. Stuart didn’t think much of it – it was scruffy, down-at-heel, with a variety of rough looking men congregating at the bar. Angie didn’t seem to notice the squalor. She sipped her drink, looking out the grimy window by the table, her eyes fixed on something that Stuart couldn’t see. Again, she was dressed only in black and white.

“Don’t you ever wear any colours?” asked Stuart, if nothing else but to break the silence.

Angie seemed to come back to life. She turned to face him, smiling. “Why do you ask?”

“I only ever see you wearing black and white clothes. Is it deliberate, or—
”

“Yes, I suppose you could say it’s deliberate,” said Angie, slowly, as if she’d not considered the matter before. She tapped the side of her head. “All the colour’s up here, you see. It’s all there and it only comes out in my work.”

Stuart didn’t know why but he felt awkward when she mentioned anything to do with art. It was pretentious, that was why; it was something that felt phony, unreal. Listen to yourself, he chided himself. Who are you to talk about being false?

He felt impatient – at her, at himself. He was supposed to be on a case, he was supposed to be gathering information. Instead he was sat here
, in a shit pub, with someone who wasn’t even really part of the scene he was supposed to be investigating. And if he was just going to sit here in silence with Angie, with her occasionally waffling nonsense about ‘art’, then he’d quite frankly rather be in bed with her, not talking…

He stamped down on his impatience.

“Where did you grow up?” he asked, leaning forward and taking her hand. She had small hands, unvarnished nails edged with occasional rainbow rims of paint.

Angie looked at him. Some indefinable emotion passed over her face in a flicker too quick to gauge.
“Guildford,” she said briefly.

“I know it,” said Stuart. “Do you
r parents still live there?”

“They don’t live there.”

“But—”

“I said that’s where I grew up. That’s not where my parents lived.”

“So,” said Stuart, confused. “What are you say—”

“I grew up in care,” said Angie. She withdrew her hand from his.

“Well,” said Stuart in a hearty tone that even he despised. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There’s plenty wrong with that,” said Angie. “My mother died when I was little and when I was ten, my father remarried. My stepmother hated me and my father took her side.”

“Oh,” said Stuart. “That must have been hard.” He felt like hitting his forehead sharply. What a stupid thing to say…

“Yes,” said Angie remotely. She swallowed the rest of her drink.

“Want another?”

“Yes.”

Stuart went to the bar and got another couple of drinks. When he got back to the table, Angie had gone.

Flabbergasted, he stood for a moment with the drinks in his hands. Then he spotted her through the grimy window. She was pacing up and down, talking on her mobile. The walls were too thick and the wind outside was too strong for him to hear what she was saying. As he watched, still clutching his glasses, she ended the call and turned back to the door of the pub. Quickly, he sat down at the table.

She sat down again without comment, picked up her fresh drink and drained it in three gulps. She didn’t thank him.

“Are you all right?” asked Stuart.

She gave him a brief, chilly smile. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve got to go. See you later.”

“Wait—
” Stuart said, but his only answer was the pub door banging shut behind her. He sat there for a while, finishing his own drink. What on Earth was that all about? This is stupid, he told himself. Why are you even bothering with her? He tossed the last remaining mouthful of his drink back and jumped up. Sod her, then. It was time to get back to work.

*

Madeline Dorsey continued to cling to life. Kate had phoned the hospital before she went to see Harriet Larsen. The prognosis remained the same but, for now, she was alive. Kate swung the car into the car park of the hotel that Harriet was staying in, one of the nicest ones in Abbeyford. She’d called round for Theo but he’d already taken off to re-interview the security guard at the MedGen facility. Kate supposed she should be feeling aggrieved, rather than relieved.

Kate walked into the foyer of the hotel. As old and stately as it looked on the outside, the inside was almost aggressively modern in décor
, with a lot of leather, glass and chrome in evidence. Kate was briefly reminded of Alex Hargreaves’ house. She found Harriet Larsen in one of the sitting rooms, at the back of the hotel, where a long glassed-in enclosure got the best of the morning sunlight. It was a peaceful place, with comfortable chairs dotted about low tables, gentle jazz music playing on some kind of sound system and a view of the lovely gardens through the conservatory windows. Harriet Larsen sat alone in one of the chairs by the window, an untouched cup of coffee steaming beside her on the table. She was looking out the window but Kate would have sworn she saw nothing of the beauty there.

She greeted Kate with a ghost of a smile and a colourless 'hello'.

"How’s your sister?" asked Kate, sitting down opposite Harriet.

Harriet shrugged.
"She's holding on. There's no change... she's not better but she's not worse. The kids wanted me to take them to see her yesterday but... I didn't think it was right, they would have been so distressed..." She trailed off, her blank gaze returning to the garden.

"Are the children still at school?"

"No, they're with Jack's parents. I don't know whether that's the best thing - they're all so distressed - I don't know, maybe it's good that they can all be together? They were always close to their grandparents—"

Harriet's voice shook into silence. She put a hand up to her face, pinching either side of her nose.
"I don't know what to do," she said after a moment and Kate heard simple bewilderment in her tone.

Did they ever think, these perpetrators, of the utter devastation their actions left behind? Did they ever think about the people left to pick up the pieces? Of course they don't, Kate, you idiot, she chided herself. The surge of anger she felt was welcome, it was that which propelled her to become a detective in the first place.

She brought herself back to the task in hand. "Can I get you some more coffee, Harriet?" she asked, seeing that the cup already on the table had cooled.

Harriet shook her head.
"No, thanks. I can't seem to eat or drink anything at the moment, it just makes me feel ill."

"Of course," said Kate, in a sympathetic tone. "Try and eat something though, won't you? Otherwise you really will get ill."

Harriet gave her another pale smile. "Was there something you wanted?" she asked.

Kate became
brusque. "Yes, there is. I need you to tell me about Jack and Madeline. I know it's going to distress you, but I'm afraid it's too important to wait."

Harriet sat up a little in her chair.
"What do you mean? Tell you
what
about Jack and Maddy?"

Kate pulled out her notebook.
"I need to know about their relationship. Their marriage. Did they get on? Was it a good marriage?"

A small white dent had appeared on either side of Harriet's narrow nose.
"A good marriage?" she said, tightly. "What the hell has any of that got to do with this... this awful thing?"

Seeing Harriet bristle, Kate
held up a placating hand. "It's background we need," she said. "We need to know everything we can about the - the victims of the crime. Often that's more important than the information we get about the perpetrator. Do you understand?"

Harriet still had that pinched look of fury on her face.
"No. No I don't understand. I don't know why you need to know all the gory details of someone's private business when it's perfectly obvious that this is someone who's come from outside the house, a stranger, some psychopath. What the hell does it matter whether Jack and Maddy got on? Why does that make any difference at all?"

"So, they didn't get on
, then?" asked Kate.

"I didn't say that!"

"You mentioned 'gory details'. Where there any?"

"I didn't say anything of the kind," snapped Harriet. She pushed her chair back,
preparing to get up.

"Harriet," Kate
said, in a tone that was such that the other woman froze in a half crouch. "Please sit down."

Slowly, glaring at Kate, Harriet lowered herself back into her chair.

"Now," said Kate calmly. "I know you're upset. I know you're functioning under an enormous amount of stress. I can sympathise with that. But the longer you push me away and storm off in high dudgeon, the further and further away we get from catching whoever attacked your sister. Who
killed
your brother-in-law. I'm assuming you don't want that, no matter how much you don't want us digging into your sister's marriage and relationships."

Harriet remained silent for a moment, sitting rigidly upright. Then she blew out her cheeks and slumped back into the chair. Tears ran from the corners of her eyes. Kate guessed that their confrontation had just drained what little emotional energy Harriet had had left and while she felt for her, she was glad that the severity of the situation had been recognised.

After a moment, Harriet wiped her face and sat up again. She leant forward and took a sip of the cold coffee, grimacing. "There's not that much to tell," she said, in a low voice. "Nothing too scandalous, I mean. The weird thing is that Jack and Maddy were always a bit of an odd couple. Jack was always so clever, I mean really intellectual and Maddy - well, she wasn't stupid, not at all, but academia was never her thing. She was always more about having fun, if you see what I mean, although don't get me wrong, she's no ditsy airhead, not at all."

"They met at university?"

"Yes. I'm sure I mentioned that before. Anyway, they got together at uni and stayed together. Got married in... when was it? 2002 and had Alicia a year later. Harry was born in... um... 2005."

Kate was busy scribbling.
"Would you say it was a happy marriage?" she asked, looking up to gauge Harriet's reaction. The other woman half smiled.

"Yes. Yes, it was. It wasn't perfect, of course. What marriage is?"

“Well,” said Kate, “I’m sure you’re right.”

There was a minute of silence broken only by the scratching of Kate’s pen on her notepad. Then she looked up.
“And?”

Harriet looked at her, warily.
“What do you mean?”

“I said, ‘and’? What are you keeping back?”

“What—”

“All you’ve told me is that Jack and Madeline had a good, uneventful
, happy marriage. If that’s the case, why get so defensive with me when I start asking about it?”

“I – I didn’t—
”

Kate raised an eyebrow and Harriet collapsed back into her chair again, throwing up her hands.
“All right,” she almost shouted. Then she sat forward, propping her forehead on her hands. “Jack – he – last summer—” She took a deep breath and said “Last summer, they did go through a bit of a rough patch. Okay?”

She clammed up and Kate raised her eyebrows again.
“You’ll have to be a bit more specific, Harriet.”

Harriet bit her lip but the anger had gone out of her face. She looked sad.
“All right. Jack – he had an affair. Last summer.”

“Can you tell me anything more than that?”

Harriet pushed her hair back from her face. “I don’t think it went on for long. Maybe a couple of months. Maddy – she knew something was up for a while before she found out, but she just thought Jack was really stressed out, about the business.”

“So, she did find out?”

“He told her. Apparently he and his lady friend decided that they couldn’t live with themselves, broke it off and then Jack told Maddy.” Harriet’s tone was scathing. “Why he couldn’t keep it to himself and spare her the pain, I don’t know.”

“Perhaps he wanted to make a fresh start?”

Harriet snorted. “Yes, maybe. Or maybe he knew he’d get found out eventually and thought he’d better make sure she heard it from him, rather than from anyone else?”

“Like whom?”

Harriet sat back again. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking aloud, really.”

“Who did Jack have the affair with?”

Harriet had a lock of hair between her fingers and was twirling it between her finger tips, as if examining it for split ends. Displacement activity – Kate did the same when under pressure.