The Backs (2013) (30 page)

‘Somewhere on the Gogs. Plenty of cars drove straight past me. One foot was so swollen, I couldn’t even keep my shoe on, so I was up there barefoot and all these drivers saw me. I got offered a lift in the end but, fuck it, you’d never think that so many people would just drive on by. That driver took me all the way to East Road, so I suppose I was luckier than I might have been.’

‘When did you hear about Paul Marshall’s death?’

‘Pretty much about the same time as everyone else, except I saw the picture of his burnt-out car in the
Cambridge News
, and its location too. That was before they’d released his name, but I already guessed who it might be. Part of me hoped it was, anyway.’

‘And the other part of you?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t want to become someone who wishes other people dead, no matter what they do.’

Goodhew nodded to himself; he understood that outlook. ‘Paul Marshall was tortured. We don’t know why, but the two most likely reasons would be either to extract information or exact revenge. All along I’ve felt you somehow hold the key. It can’t be a coincidence that he was tortured right at the spot where you were dumped.’

‘No one knows what happened. Not the details.’

‘But someone knows something.’

‘I cancelled seeing the other men on my list. I apologized and suggested they went back on to the website and booked with someone else.’ She smiled at what she’d just said. ‘Customer service is a better career than servicing customers. That could be my slogan.’ She looked embarrassed, at once. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t very funny.’

‘Morgue humour. It’s a good sign.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely. Check it out. So tell me exactly what you said, and to whom.’

‘Nothing, actually. I just told my clients I was leaving the area, and so was finishing. I even cancelled my account on the website. I don’t know if someone complained, because the website emailed me back and asked my reason. I just told them I was giving up.’

‘Not moving away?’

‘No. I didn’t want the landlord assuming that I was going to leave. There are so many other students looking for rooms this close to town.’

Goodhew scanned down through his notes, even though he already knew the answer wasn’t there. ‘What does your landlord have to do with the escort service?’

‘It’s through him that I found out about it.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

‘I couldn’t bring blokes back to a houseful of other students and, like I said before, most of the men were married. They won’t all be ready to pay for a room, on top of paying the escort – especially if they’re paranoid about the CCTV cameras that are always fitted in those places. Andrew usually has an unoccupied house to spare somewhere, so he lets the girls use its rooms.’

‘For a fee?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Who pays?’

‘If I wanted use of the room, I paid. I booked through the website. I took a premium listing for the day I wanted a room, and then they would send back the details of whichever one I could use.’

‘But who is
they?’
A note of frustration slipped into his voice, and he immediately regretted it. ‘Who is your landlord and who runs this website, Andie?’

‘His name’s Andrew Dalton.
He
could be behind the website too, for all I know. He has an office above one of the takeaways in Milton Road. I’m sorry, but I didn’t realize it was important information.’

‘Andie, I really appreciate how frank you’ve been. And brave.’

‘It’s my first better day since. That’s all. I know you don’t switch off trauma. I’m just having a pause before the rest of it hits me. And I need to do everything I can to get back on track before then. Now, if it’s OK, I think I’d like to phone my mum.’

PC Kelly Wilkes then swapped places with Goodhew. ‘Andie would like to phone her family now,’ he explained. ‘She’ll need a doctor too.’

‘Don’t worry, Gary. The doctor’s on the way and I’ll keep a close eye on her meanwhile.’ He was glad Kelly would be taking care of Andie; she would never be the judgemental type of woman that Andie most feared. ‘Go see Marks,’ Kelly whispered. ‘He’s through there.’ She nodded her head towards the room adjacent to the interview room. Goodhew knew then that Marks had been observing the interview.

Goodhew pushed the door open gently. ‘Sir?’

‘Carmel Marshall gave us Andie’s first name and approximate address, but I came back here to find I didn’t need to discover the rest. Here you were already. Nice interview, Gary.’

‘Thanks.’

‘She’s a strong witness, and it’s such a pity Marshall’s too deceased to be charged.’ It was clearly meant as a quip, but it was obvious that the last thing on Marks’s mind was smiling. ‘Sit down. There’s a problem.’

On the table in front of him Marks had written ‘Andrew Dalton’ in the centre of his notepad, with the
Andrew
above the
Dalton.
The letters were uniform and sharply drawn, as though the name had been written very slowly.

‘It makes perfect sense,’ he continued, ‘because some students will always get out of their depth. And, once they start struggling, plenty will go on paying for their phones and everything else to do with their social life, before they pay their rent and bills. A sharp landlord will be in a good position to exploit that.’ Marks retraced the letters A and D with his pen. ‘Young’s gone to check, just in case it’s a coincidence.’

‘What?’

‘How are you with coincidence, Gary?’

‘Uncomfortable.’

‘OK, so would it be a coincidence that there are two separate business premises in Milton Road run by two different Andrew Daltons?’

‘Yes, but maybe not so huge if they’re, say, father and son, or if it’s a common name for that part of town.’

‘What if I said they were both businesses renting property to students, and both located over food outlets?’ Marks tilted his head slightly and looked hard at Goodhew.

‘Then I’d be surprised if they weren’t connected. I’d guess that either it’s the same business or two businesses owned by the same Andrew Dalton.’

‘I am similarly skeptical, Gary. Therefore I think DC Young will come back at any moment to tell us that it’s just one man and one address.’

Goodhew studied Marks as he tried to rewind the last few sentences. He then shook his head. ‘Sir, I feel like I’ve missed the first five minutes of
Wallander
and now I can’t catch up. I don’t have a clue how another Andrew Dalton has come into the picture.’

Marks tutted. ‘Go and find Young, then maybe we’ll know where this is going.’

Goodhew pulled open the door and stepped out into the corridor. He’d only taken a few steps before Young himself came into view at the far end.

‘What did you find?’ Goodhew asked.

‘He’s the same man: one Andrew Dalton, one address, two business names.’ He carried a folded sheet of paper. ‘Here’s the detail.’

Behind him the door reopened. ‘Let’s have it, then, Gary,’ Marks said, before Goodhew even had a chance to unfold the paper. They returned to the room and their seats but, to Goodhew’s surprise, checking out the sheet of paper wasn’t Marks’s priority. He didn’t say anything further until he had his pen poised over the name written on the notepad.

‘Remember Lesley Bough?’ the DI began.

‘Of course.’

‘Remember how she met Mary Osborne?’

‘Sure. Through the employment agency Mary ran.’ Goodhew stopped and his mouth formed a silent ‘O’. ‘The same place where Mary Osborne met Greg Jackson.’

‘Yes, Lesley was almost correct in her explanation of the agency’s name. Mary ran it with her friend Karen.’ Marks wrote down ‘Karen’ above Andrew Dalton’s name, and ‘Mary Osborne’ beneath it, emphasizing with his pen the K of Karen and the O of Osborne.

‘Paul Marshall’s murder and Mary Osborne’s are linked?’ It was Goodhew’s rhetorical question, but Marks unfolded the paper for confirmation,

‘Just the two businesses: A.D. Property and KADO Employment. In addition there’s the escort agency, which isn’t listed here. I’m therefore guessing that
Student Services
is probably unregistered. I’ll make sure it’s passed on to Revenue and Customs, too.’

Marks had jumped further down the line, thinking of ways to shut down
Student Services
and wield an axe blow against the Daltons that would be hefty enough to prevent them from restarting that enterprise under another name.

But seeing the name KADO appear on the page had sent Goodhew’s thoughts in a different direction. The coincidence wasn’t just that two murders were linked by one business, when that business served the relatively small city of Cambridge. Paths crossed here, and re-crossed – physically as well as metaphorically.

When he’d been a kid, looking down from his grandfather’s library, he’d come to the conclusion that everybody in Cambridge must have crossed Parker’s Piece at least once. It wasn’t improbable that occasionally, two approaching people would recognize one another. This case was like that, up to a point, except there weren’t only two people involved here and the coincidence of the timings seemed to count for everything.

He hated coincidence. He now considered the odds.

Could it be just a coincidence that Jimmy Barnes, Genevieve’s husband, had asked to meet Goodhew so soon after Marshall’s murder? Or a coincidence that Jane’s arrest had been just a day before that? Or that Andie was linked to Mary Osborne by one route, and to Marshall by another?

Goodhew often drew spider diagrams to help him think. He’d start them at the centre and work outwards, but he had no idea where the centre of this one lay. Facts now floated aimlessly, no longer anchored together in the way he’d imagined.

He closed his eyes and tried to draw links between the various strands. It was impossible to picture it all without drawing it. He opened them to find that Marks had finished speaking, and Goodhew had no idea what he’d just said.

‘Is it just one big case?’ Goodhew wondered.

‘I don’t know. I need to think it through.’ Marks rose to his feet. ‘Tie up the paperwork with Andie Seagrove. I’ve already called for the on-call doctor, then make sure she’s seen by everyone who needs to see her. She mentioned her mother, but does she have any other family?’

‘Yes, definitely
both
parents.’

‘Good. She’ll be needing plenty of support. After that, go home and get some sleep. But, if you happen to lie awake, then tell me if something strikes you.’

Michael Kincaide sat at his desk, lists of figures and copies of bank statements lying in front of him. Chasing figures bored the crap out of him but he also knew that, if he concentrated, he was pretty good at spotting funds where they shouldn’t be. Today they looked as meaningless as wingdings or hieroglyphics.

He rested his elbows on the table and then his chin on one cupped palm, as he tried to figure out the exact moment the week had turned sour. Before then he’d been filled with so much anticipation that he hadn’t imagined anything could totally dampen it. Even the first mention of the Becca Osborne case barely bothered him. He doubted that any officer could make it through his career without taking a risk or two, and there was no reason to think that, in his own case, it should catch up with him when it never had yet.

Even Jane Osborne’s appearance hadn’t bothered him; she knew nothing, after all. At some point, though, the idea that his career might unravel had started to grow in his mind. And by the time they’d visited Jackson, it had grown enough to be as distracting as having another person in the room.

He’d stood on the pavement outside Jackson’s house and realized that being at the heart of this investigation had to be the safest place to be. Now he slapped his hand down on the paperwork and told himself to concentrate.

He went to fetch some coffee, then came back with a new focus on the figures.
Follow the money.
Just like it seemed to be the law of politics, it was often also the law of crime. Some of the banks hadn’t provided all the financial details that were required, so he decided to ease himself back into the right mindset by chasing the missing ones.

Those banks frustrated the hell out of him, but he pulled the receiver from the handset and tapped out the first number. As his call was placed into a lengthy sequence of automated options and call queuing, he checked off the information so far received.

In fairness the bank had already provided the necessary details of Gerry and Mary Osborne’s joint accounts up to the time of their divorce, and the bank accounts she’d subsequently transferred her money to. He could see there the proceeds from Gerry buying out her half of the house, and that money subsequently sitting in her current account. Then the balance gradually fell as she’d begun to withdraw it in modest parcels of cash, right up until the day she was supposed to have departed the UK.

What he now wanted was quick results on the long-winded process of tracking down any new accounts that she might have opened since, either in her own name, or as Lesley Bough, or under another name entirely.

After twenty minutes of rising frustration he felt as though he was hitting nothing but a succession of dead-ends. Surely a
murder
investigation ought to have enough significance to outrank the Data Protection Act. All he’d had so far were junior administrators who’d been trained to ram those three words into one and use them to bat his requests back at him.

DataProtectionAct.

Followed up by:
Sorry, I do understand, but you’ll have to put it in writing.

‘If you can’t help me, then put me through to your manager.’

The current call was being fielded by an insipid-voiced woman who was dumb and undoubtedly blonde.

‘I haven’t asked for personal information,’ he repeated with forced patience. ‘I’ve asked for advice on how to speed up the information request you’ve already received from us.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, as I just explained, my role is to speak to existing customers only.’
No one really sounded that pleasant.
‘And unfortunately you don’t currently have an account with us. Would you like me to put you through to our new business section, sir?’