Stop Dead (27 page)

It took her twenty-eight minutes to take all her cutlery out of the drawer, wash and dry it, and replace it tidily in the drawer. Each knife, fork and spoon was stacked tidily in its own compartment, lined up with the rest of the set. It was an uncomplicated part of her daily routine, and necessary. Germs could find their way through the smallest cracks. People picked up all sorts of nasty diseases by eating with cutlery that wasn’t clean. As a teenager she had refused to eat out. Even at home she wouldn’t touch metal knives and forks, throwing the plastic ones away after one use. Once it occurred to her that she should wash plastic knives and forks before they came in contact with her food, there seemed no point in wasting money on plastic cutlery. So she had to be satisfied with washing all her cutlery regularly. At first she had carried out the task at least five times a day, just to be sure, but she had managed to reduce this to twice a day, along with brushing her teeth. It was important not to let these daily chores take over her life. There were other demands on her time that were equally important.

She finished washing her cutlery and consulted her list. Usually she knew what to do without checking, but her mind wasn’t feeling very sharp this morning. It was her day for wiping the paintwork, which she did once a week. It helped keep her mind quiet if everything was clean. She went into the bedroom and sat down for a moment, overwhelmed with tiredness. While she sat, immobile, something stirred right on the periphery of her vision. It was barely a movement, more like a faint twitch of an eyelash but in that still room any activity was impossible to ignore. She folded her damp cloth neatly and hung it on the side of the plastic bucket before standing up and walking across to the window. A tiny creature was wriggling across the window sill. She leaned forward to look at it more closely. It was a round grey speck. As she watched, the mite uncurled and curled up again, to progress slowly across the sill, looking like a minute caterpillar or the larva of a tiny fly. To her surprise, she noticed a second insect, then a third. She fetched a chair and sat beside the window, watching, counting the tiny creatures as they appeared. Small enough to crawl through invisible cracks, they seemed to appear from nowhere, in growing numbers. She counted twelve of them while she sat there in silence, transfixed by the only living creatures visible in the place apart from her. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

There was something devastating about their minute crawl into the light. To them one wall must seem like an entire universe. If they only knew what else lay out there, beyond their wit to understand, they would never crawl out of the cracks in the woodwork to make their slow journey across the painted window sill. Had they travelled across it before, or were these pioneers, searching for a new life? Either way, it made no difference. She fetched her cloth and wiped them away. This was her domain. She wouldn’t brook any intrusion, however small. Having given the sill and its surrounds a thorough scrub, until some of the paintwork flaked away, she rinsed the cloth, changed the water in the bucket, and prepared to start again. The paintwork still had to be washed down before she could relax. While she worked, she glanced over at the window sill from time to time, checking to see if any more little grubs had surfaced. None did.

When she had finished cleaning she went straight out to buy insect spray. The assistant in the supermarket wasn’t helpful when she asked which spray could be guaranteed to eliminate her infestation.

‘This should do the trick,’ was all he would say. ‘Without knowing what the insects are, it’s impossible to offer any guarantee. But there shouldn’t be a problem.’

She felt like screaming at him, because there already was a problem: there were bugs in her bedroom. Having read all the instructions, she settled on six different sprays, between them claiming to kill all flying and crawling bugs. The insecticides might not be healthy, but at least she knew what she was dealing with. She glanced down the list of contents: Permethrin, Tetramethrin, Cypermethrin, Imiprothrin. She had no idea what any of them were, but they sounded toxic. They all warned that they must be used in a well ventilated area. Of course they would say that, thinking they were being clever. Opening the window would entice more insects to fly in, so she would end up having to buy even more of their products. It was hard to believe most people were stupid enough to fall for that. She saw through it straight away.

She considered trying the insecticides one at a time to discover which worked best. The drawback with that plan was that the sixth one might be the most effective at eliminating her particular infestation, and it would take her nearly a week to reach it. There was no guarantee any of the sprays would work for the bugs she had found earlier in which case she would have to contact the pest control people who would tramp through her bedroom in their outdoor shoes, spreading dirt and germs. Rather than risk that, she decided to spray all six insecticides around the window sill and hope at least one of them worked. Clutching the cans, she went into the bedroom. There were no insects in sight. That made her nervous because she knew they were waiting, out of sight, until she was in bed. As soon as she lay down, they would come back. And when they did, they would hurt her. Unless she stopped them.

G
eraldine was only five minutes away from home. Tired and dispirited, all she wanted to do was get in, kick her shoes off, put her feet up and watch some rubbish on television. When she heard the shrilling of her phone she had a horrible presentiment that another body had been discovered. The thought made her feel slightly nauseous. She desperately hoped she was wrong as she drove on, doing her best to ignore the fact that her phone was ringing. Nothing could be so urgent it wouldn’t wait for five minutes, but knowing someone was trying to contact her spoiled her anticipation of reaching home at the end of a frustrating day and relaxing with a glass of wine. Closing her front door she went into the living room, reluctantly fished her phone out of her bag and sat on the sofa. She resisted pouring herself a glass before she had found out who had called. Allowing herself to relax would be tempting fate.

It was a pleasant surprise to see the name on the display. Detective Inspector Ted Carter had acted as Geraldine’s mentor in Kent when she had been training for promotion to inspector. He had been consistently helpful, an unusually attentive listener. She leaned back on the sofa and was just wondering if it was too late to return Ted’s call when he phoned again.

‘Geraldine!’

He sounded genuinely pleased to hear her voice and she couldn’t help smiling.

‘I thought you must be working. How have you been? I hear you’re in London now! Is it all bright lights and excitement there?’

Geraldine felt a stab of guilt. Ted was one of the people she had intended to keep in touch with because she genuinely liked him, but time and circumstances had dictated otherwise. Although it worked both ways, he had more of an excuse not to have been in touch as he had family commitments in addition to work.

‘So how are you keeping?’

Hearing his familiar voice reminded Geraldine how keen she had been, how hopeful about the future when she was first promoted, as though there was nothing she couldn’t achieve. The reality had turned out to be very different.

The initial exchange of greetings over, he explained the reason for his call. He wanted to invite her to his retirement party.

‘I daresay you’re too busy to come along but –’

‘No,’ Geraldine interrupted him. ‘I’ll make the time. It’ll be great to see everyone again. Who else is going to be there?’

Ted mentioned some names. A few were unfamiliar but she recognised most of them from her time spent working on the Kent constabulary.

‘And Kathryn said she’ll come,’ he finished, a hint of triumph in his voice. ‘I know she’ll be pleased to see you too.’

Geraldine smiled on hearing the name of her former detective chief inspector. When she had first worked for Kathryn Gordon, Geraldine had found the older woman intimidating. Only when the senior officer had fallen ill had the two women begun to form a personal friendship. Geraldine felt another stab of guilt when she remembered her promise to keep in touch with Kathryn when she had retired.

‘So you’re in the Met now,’ Ted said. ‘I always knew you’d do well.’

Hearing the smile in his voice, Geraldine tried to ignore the pressure of expectation his words engendered. It was gratifying to know that other people had faith in her ability, but she was afraid of letting everyone down. She almost launched into a diatribe about the disastrous case she was currently working on, getting nowhere as they investigated a growing body count. Nothing made sense. But there was no point concerning him with the details. He would only tell her to hang on, they’d get a result in the end. What else could he say? Only the same useless platitudes she would offer him if it was the other way round. Her problems were of no consequence to an older colleague on the point of retiring.

‘I’ll put the date in my diary straight away,’ she said cheerily.

‘We’re meeting about eight but it’s an informal gathering, no speeches and all that, so just come along when you can. You won’t miss anything if you’re not there on the dot.’

That was what everyone said,
no speeches, no presentations, no fuss
. She would insist on that herself when the time came and her wishes would be ignored, just as Ted’s colleagues would take no notice of his request that nothing be said on the occasion of his retirement after a lifetime on the force.

‘Sounds perfect.’

It would certainly be good to see Ted and Kathryn again. She expected to see her former sergeant, Ian, there as well although Ted hadn’t mentioned his name. Geraldine could count the number of people she had felt close to in her life on the fingers of one hand. Ian Peterson was one of them. They had worked together on a number of cases and she still missed working with him. The call ended, Geraldine went into the kitchen to fix herself something to eat.

Talking to Ted had reminded her how readily she had once trusted her instincts about people. Somehow the more experienced she became, the less confident she felt. Sitting down to eat in front of the television, she found her attention wandering from one of her favourite comedy shows; intermittently she was aware of the audience roaring with laughter but she missed the jokes as she reviewed her gut feeling about the suspects in her current case.

She had never believed Guy had killed Henshaw, let alone Corless, and now they knew Guy was out of the frame. Amy and Amanda Corless seemed equally unlikely to have killed each other’s husbands. Even if it had been credible to begin with, Sam’s desperate suggestion that the two women might be jointly culpable, acting out a pact to despatch their husbands, was completely discredited by the discovery of old Bradshaw’s body. Not only had Geraldine doubted that either of the women were in any way involved in the murders, she hadn’t thought any of the suspects guilty yet. How much time and energy they would have saved if the investigation had simply followed her hunches. But so far her instincts had merely rejected all the suspects they had come up with. Even she couldn’t home in on an unknown killer.

She felt in her bag for her diary. The retirement do was exactly one week away. She hoped it wasn’t too optimistic to trust they would have made some progress with her current case before she met up with her old colleagues again. The way the investigation was going, they were more likely to discover another victim than the killer.

G
eraldine didn’t completely disapprove of her young sergeant’s fecund imagination, although Sam’s latest theory was particularly far-fetched. Nevertheless, Geraldine had to agree it was feasible. She had seen too much not to admit that if something was possible it didn’t really matter how improbable it might seem. When an investigation seemed to be going nowhere, any idea was welcome. Geraldine nodded at Sam to indicate she was listening as she continued to outline her latest theory, warming to her narrative as she spoke.

‘So what I was thinking is, let’s say Patrick was having it off with Desiree and George found out.’

Sam sat forward in her chair, her short blonde hair falling forward to form an irregular fringe above her eyes. Geraldine couldn’t help smiling at the young sergeant’s enthusiasm.

‘You make it sound like a soap. This isn’t
Eastenders
, Sam.’

Geraldine laughed but Sam didn’t join in.

‘No, but think about it for a moment,’ the sergeant insisted earnestly, undeterred by Geraldine’s amusement.

‘Patrick and Desiree must have known each other, mustn’t they? At the very least they must have met. They can’t not have known each other.’

‘OK, I get it, Patrick Henshaw knew Desiree. They knew each other. So what? Where is this going, Sam?’

Geraldine glanced over at her screen, rapidly losing interest in Sam’s idea which seemed to be nothing but gossip.

‘Well, what if George found out that Patrick was having an affair with Desiree and killed him? George would’ve had plenty of opportunity, plus there’s the added inducement of getting his hands on the entire proceeds of the restaurant which would’ve come in very handy. He might have been considering getting rid of his partner for a while, only not in any serious way, and then the sexual jealousy pushed him into doing it. Well? What do you think? It makes sense, doesn’t it? Sexual jealousy can be a powerful drive.’

Geraldine nodded, thinking about Corless’s gambling debts. His creditors might well be the kind of people who wouldn’t hesitate to resort to threats. There was a strong possibility he was being pressurised to settle up, and didn’t have the money. Sole ownership of a lucrative business would have been an attractive prospect to someone in his financial straits.

‘George might have gone to Patrick asking for help and been refused – or – well, there could be any number of other reasons why George might have resented Patrick. It’s hardly unheard of for business partners to fall out. The affair with Desiree might have been the last straw, and it would explain the injuries we saw on Patrick’s body as well. This was a personal attack motivated by cupidity and sexual jealousy.’