The Collared Collection (29 page)

She scanned the office and wrote a list, in no particular order:

Bernard; probably too old, although physically a possibility if he didn’t stoop. Highly unlikely.

Simon; too fat.

George; ditto (and too old?)

Tinker/Harry; too short (and too young?)

Elizabeth; physically possible, but had herself fallen victim to BM. Maybe twice, if she counted the deer episode.

Susan; also physically possible. Paris alibi to be confirmed. If that was disproved, could she have disguised herself as a male to hire the car that shunted Ginny?

Doris; yeah, right.

May; ditto.

Ronan; too short and fat.

The security guards were contracted to Montague’s by an outside firm and it was rare to have the same guys for any length of time. Callie decided to omit them from her list for the time being – unless she got really desperate. That was it for the office – not very hopeful, and Susan remained the only (however unlikely) candidate.

Who else was there? Well, obviously David, but she could give him a watertight alibi for the time of Ginny’s death. Mike was, apart from anything else, black and therefore a non-starter – and he was having dinner with them when the note was left on David’s car. Robert Wyatt was definitely a suspect, if only because he gave her the creeps. He and Eloise moved into her street just before Dee died – an unhappy coincidence, or something more ominous? With her Marilyn Monroe figure, Eloise was out of the frame – her bust had to be 40DD if it was an inch. At least she’d never drown, with all that ballast – nor could she ever morph into a stick insect by pouring herself into tightest, slimming black, even with the benefit of magic knickers and bra.

Sally had found out something of significance – why else would she have been killed? The police had no DNA, no fingerprints, no decipherable CCTV footage … even the reports of Callie’s death and Thomas’s accident on his bicycle had been phoned in by ‘a member of the public’, on both occasions giving the androgynous name Chris Jones – and the staff reporters who took the calls only ‘thought’ it was a male they’d spoken to, when asked to recall their conversations. What angle had Sally been working on, she wondered? And why hadn’t she shared her knowledge with her colleagues? Perhaps she suspected one of them … or simply didn’t want to share the glory of solving the mystery? She was, after all, highly ambitious, toying with the notion of that degree in Criminology. Maybe she planned to be the first female Commissioner of the Met. Whatever she’d unearthed, it got her killed. Poor Sally … she wasn’t all bad.

Skimming the words on her pad, she realised she had enough strands and loose ends to knit herself a pair of Fair Isle socks.

‘That’s a bit smart!’ Callie poked her head through the passenger window. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me sitting on that spanking new leather upholstery?’

David grinned. ‘You
could
run behind …’

That, she ignored. ‘I like the colour. Henry Ford would approve.’

‘Well, if I didn’t go for black, I’d have had to wait even longer. These M5 Tourers are the cars to be seen in, I’ll have you know. Are you going to get in?’

She sat in the passenger seat. ‘Mmm … very nice, very comfy, very big, and
very
slightly pimp-mobile. Shame you didn’t go for tinted windows.’

He shook his head. ‘They’re so last year – I thought I’d splash out on an executive car with plenty of room for the family. I made a healthy profit when Michelle and I sold the marital home – plus I have the insurance cheque from my old car.’

‘But you don’t have an executive family …’ She looked around the sumptuous interior. ‘I suppose I should think about getting a new old banger.’

‘You’ll be able to afford something decent, if you hang on.’

‘I suppose … I thought it would save you having to run me everywhere.’

‘Callie, that’s not a problem, and at least that way I know you’re safe. I thought we agreed?’

They sat, wedged in rush hour traffic. She’d quickly tired of David extolling the virtues of his new Beemer. As far as she was concerned, if it had four wheels and an engine that worked, it was a great motor. ‘So … are you going to tell me Dee’s previous name, or do I have to beat it out of you?’ she asked.

He was looking ahead when he answered, ‘I almost forgot, it was Christine Jones. Mean anything to you?’

She felt the revelation should have been accompanied by a fanfare at least. ‘No … I don’t think it does, except the person who contacted the paper was called Chris Jones. But he was a man … probably.’

‘We have nothing on record – trouble is, they’re both pretty common names.’

‘Mmm, Christine Jones doesn’t really ring any bells,’ she pondered for a moment, ‘Do you think it’s possible that Balaclava Man – assuming it was him who used the name when speaking to the newspaper – was dropping us a hint … perhaps he’s tiring of police ineptitude, making him expend valuable time and energy killing and maiming, when all he really wants to do is sit at home and catalogue his stamp collection? Obviously, he’s a psychopath – don’t they always harbour a secret desire to get caught, or is that some other brand of loony?’

‘Too much TV, Callie – how many times do I have to tell you?’

When the traffic started to crawl forward, she amused herself for a while watching David drive – he’d regressed to a three-year-old pig in shit, and she fully expected him to start making ‘brum, brum’ noises. The novelty quickly faded and she asked, ‘Why didn’t you want to tell me the name over the telephone?’

‘Because I’m convinced that someone in either your office or mine is involved somehow. I’ve no idea who or why, but our murderer has far too much information. He’s not flying blind.’

‘O-K … Do you have any inkling at all why Sally was killed?’

‘Nope – except she was obviously onto something and Balaclava Man got rattled, so he decided to silence her before she had a chance to spread the word. She didn’t confide in anyone she worked with, and she seems to have been conducting a one-woman crime bust.’

‘Don’t mock – she obviously got a lot closer to the truth than anyone else.’

A wry smile quivered on his lips, ‘True.’

Chapter Forty-five

Unusually, she and Elizabeth were alone in the office. Callie took a coffee over to her desk, as an entrée to the proposal she was about to pitch. ‘Here you go, Elizabeth.’

She took the mug. ‘Thanks. Where is everyone? It’s very quiet for a Tuesday morning.’

‘Oh, they’re all over the place. Ronan is taking his time collecting some case papers from the CPS, George and Harry are in court, Simon has gone to interview a client in the Scrubs, and Susan is up in Birmingham.’

‘And Bernard?’

‘I’m not sure, he said he was just popping out but didn’t volunteer where.’

With a flourish, Elizabeth signed the document in front of her and blotted the ink before folding several sheets into an envelope. ‘Any worthwhile developments?’ she asked.

Callie told her Dee’s previous name.

‘I’ll pass that on to Keith when I next see him,’ she smiled. ‘How are you feeling today? You look a little better.’

‘Oh, I’ll live – I expect it’s just this whole awful business getting on top of me.’

‘That’s hardly surprising. Shall we do lunch today? Might take your mind off things.’

The thought of food didn’t appeal to her stomach at all, ‘Actually, I was going to ask if you fancy a little trip out? A bit of freelance detecting?’

She perked up, looking intrigued. ‘Do tell, sounds very cloak and dagger.’

‘I’ve still got Susan’s spare key – how about we do a spot of illegal searching?’

‘You still have suspicions that she could be Balaclava Man?’

‘I do, yes. What was it Sherlock Holmes said? Something along the lines of when you’ve eliminated all the possibilities, whatever you are left with must be the solution, no matter how off the wall it seems?’

She grinned. ‘I’m not sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used quite those words, but yes, that was more or less his conclusion.’

‘Every time I run through the facts, Susan comes out as number one on the Most Likely Suspect List, no matter how I juggle the scant information at my disposal.’

‘But what about her Paris trip? Surely that lets her off the hook?’

‘I’m convinced that’s a false alibi – don’t ask me why, just a gut feeling.’ And her gut was very sore indeed … ‘It would be easy to arrange and David hasn’t exactly pulled his finger out, checking her story – says it’s not very high on his long list of priorities.’

‘I see … and so you are keen to find out for yourself?’

‘Yes, we could be back here within two or three hours, easily. What do you say?’

She grabbed her bag. ‘Lead the way.’

‘Hang about – let me just turn on the answer machine. Bernard is bound to be back shortly.’

‘You’re the boss.’

She scrawled a note and left it on his desk.

Their feet seemed to make a terrible racket crunching on the gravel as they approached Susan’s house. Callie noted there was no sign of Sally’s blood, then glanced furtively up and down the road, before unlocking the door.

‘This is terribly exciting, isn’t it?’ Elizabeth whispered, touching her eye patch with nervous, shaking fingers.

‘Let’s just hope we don’t get caught,’ she replied, also in a whisper.

Once inside, Elizabeth suggested, ‘Shall I take the upstairs?’

‘OK, give me a shout if you find anything interesting.’

The way her partner in crime crept up the stairs, she should have been wearing a striped jersey, carrying a bag marked ‘Swag’, Callie mused.

‘Will do!’ She looked so much like St John when she sniggered.

Where to start? Susan’s study, she decided. The walls were fitted from floor to ceiling with wooden bookshelves that were filled with some very eclectic reading material, though the majority were law books bound in leather. She considered taking each book out and flapping the pages to reveal hidden contents, like in all the best detective stories, but talked herself out of it as she’d be there all day. She couldn’t shake the sinister feeling that she was being watched and made an effort to speed up.

The computer on Susan’s desk was, of course, turned off and Callie didn’t fancy her chances of correctly guessing the password from a few zillion possibilities – instead, she started to pull open desk drawers. As she rummaged around the second drawer, a sudden wave of extreme nausea knocked her for six. She sat back heavily in the carver chair, telling herself now was not the time for a guilt vomit. She hoped she was only imagining that the abdominal pain was intensifying and shifting to the right. Talk about inconvenient.

The bottom drawer was locked. She tried the shallow centre one, which didn’t budge. But when she felt underneath, she found a key taped there, just waiting for her to help herself and burglarise the place. Bingo. The bottom drawer slid open to reveal a passport, driving licence, and other official documentation, none of them in the name of Susan Williams. Feeling dizzy, she looked around the room again … on top of the desk were several photographs of Susan with two older people, whom she took to be her parents. Ditto other surfaces, but nowhere was there a picture of a male who could have been her brother, Peter. Very curious, she felt, when they appeared to be so close.

She needed to get out of there – she had no idea what it all meant and she was disappointed not to find a freshly-laundered balaclava abandoned in full view, but her instinct for self-preservation had kicked in hard and she had to take heed. She staggered toward the study door, holding onto anything that would keep her upright. In a strained voice she called for Elizabeth.

When she appeared at the top of the stairs, her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Callie! What’s wrong? Dear God, you look like death!’ She ran down.

‘Thanks – help me get outside, please.’

‘Put your arm round my shoulders. You’re sweating like a porker.’

At that moment, Callie doubled up with pain so intense she wanted to scream. Elizabeth practically carried her down the garden path and along the pavement, where she sat on a garden wall and lay Callie over her lap in a whimpering heap, while they waited for the ambulance she had summoned to arrive.

All Callie could think about was that she had somehow been poisoned by Balaclava Man and would surely die.

Chapter Forty-six

‘Don’t try to talk, get some rest.’ David stroked her forehead, ‘Everything’s alright.’

She didn’t feel alright at all, ‘What happened?’ she mouthed.

‘You’ve had your appendix removed and in the nick of time. It was about to burst. Why didn’t you tell me you were in such pain?’

She felt too woozy and weak to answer him; she managed a faint smile before her eyes closed. When she opened them again, she was alone in the single room. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, her head was thumping, and the rest of her body felt as though she’d been hit by and squashed asunder by something hugely substantial. There was no window, so she had no idea what the time was – or day, for that matter. Drifting in and out of sleep, she was vaguely aware of a nurse coming in to check her pulse on two occasions, possibly three.

The next time she opened her eyes, a male cleaner was entering the room, dragging his bucket and mop on wheels. Good, she thought, death to MRSA. Her eyelids had fluttered south again when she felt the side of the mattress dip … she thought David must be back. She smiled, but it lasted only until she realised the person perched on her bed was not David. She immediately panicked and fear shot through her body, jangling every single nerve ending. She tried to sit up, but his hands pushed her firmly back down to the pillow. Her foggy mind raced with impractical notions of pressing a panic button (if there was one) or summoning help by any other means possible, which included jumping out of bed and running, no matter how much that would hurt. The tubes attached to her arm would just have to go along for the ride.

She accepted there was no escape … Was this it, then? Balaclava Man had caught up with her at last. And – dammit – she didn’t even recognise him. She felt strangely deflated and very cheated, wondering who would tell Alex and Sam she’d died.