The Dead Dog Day (18 page)

Cora glanced at the man, who did indeed look extremely pale, and then turned away quickly to conceal her giggles.

‘Crikey. Only on
Morning Live
, eh!' she snorted.

She looked at her watch. ‘Damn, it's half eight. I need to get going – I'm going upstairs to grab my stuff, presume I can tell Sam she'll need another 8.40?'

‘She already knows, don't worry. Don't think this poor man will be in any fit state to talk healing when he gets out of there …'

Still giggling, Cora made her way back up to the newsroom. She'd had to come down to London in the early hours yet again to do a quick turn on the sofa talking about the latest unemployment figures, and as usual she was exhausted. It was, however, weariness tempered with some excitement, because last night Benjamin had called to say he HAD to see her again and would join her this evening, no matter where in the country she happened to be.

‘Ooooh.' Cora hugged herself as the lift travelled up to the seventh floor. She was still amazed by how much she liked him, as well as being incredibly flattered that he seemed so keen on her.

Already fantasising about tonight, she wandered dreamily into the newsroom and went to gather her bag, coat and phone from Christina's desk where she'd dumped them earlier.

The young producer was in a huddle with two of the runners and jumped when Cora appeared at her side.

‘Oh, Cora, thank goodness. I thought you were Alice for a minute.'

‘Ooh, why, are you talking about her? What's the gossip then?'

‘Oh, nothing really. She's just been such a
cow
recently. Honestly, since Jeanette died I reckon Alice is trying to take over as Queen Bitch. She's so rude to all of us, even ruder than she used to be. She's unbearable, seriously, Cora.'

‘Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that. Ignore her. She's just an attention-seeker. I've got to go – see you soon, keep smiling!'

‘Bye, Cora. Get some sleep, you look knackered.' Christina paused and pointed to the copy of yesterday's
Mirror
on her desk.

‘Oh – and Benjamin Boland! Nice one, Cora. Very nice!'

The three girls giggled and Cora grinned soppily. There was no getting away from it, her new relationship was public property. Too happy to care, she bounced out of the room and headed for home.

Down at the other end of the newsroom Adam Bradberry, who'd popped in for another chat with TV Centre's security officers, had also spotted the
Mirror
picture.

‘I thought she'd have more taste, really,' he thought, then put the paper down, wondering why he felt slightly disconcerted. He had a few minutes to kill before Bob, the security guard who'd found Jeanette's body, was due on duty, so he wandered into the late editor's still-empty office and stood at the window, gazing down at the ground below.

‘What happened here?' he murmured. ‘What the hell happened, and why is it taking me so long to figure it out?'

It was a solid motive that was really eluding the investigation team. Although Jeanette, it seemed, had been universally disliked professionally, there seemed to be nobody in her life with a strong enough reason to want to kill her. Her father had died some years ago, she got on well with her mother, and she even had a decent circle of friends outside work, who all said she was very different socially to how she was perceived in the TV industry. A bit of a sweetie, a couple of them had even said.

‘She was just a tough boss who wasn't that popular with her colleagues,' Adam thought, as he looked again at the spot where her sprawled body had lain. ‘Nothing very unusual in that. Who hated her enough to want to get rid of her?'

He turned as he heard a loud sniff behind him. Alice Lomas was standing in the doorway, a tear running down her perfectly powdered cheek.

‘Hello. You OK?'

‘Fine. Just … yes, I'm fine. Just – Jeanette, you know. Sorry.'

She turned sharply and scurried away, shapely bottom straining against her tight blue wool dress. Adam watched her for a minute, then checked himself and looked at his watch. Time to do some work.

26

Wednesday 17
^th
January

For once Cora was awake before her alarm. A sleeping Benjamin's arm thrown across her, her long legs entwined in his muscular ones, she smiled into the darkness of her Wolverhampton hotel room as she watched the clock tick towards 4 a.m.

‘I feel happy,' she whispered to nobody. ‘Really, really happy!'

True to his word, Benjamin had driven up from London last night after she'd phoned to tell him she was being sent to the Midlands. The assignment had been pretty grim – tasked with filming a story about the teenage yobs terrorising a housing estate, Cora, Nathan, and Rodney had at one stage had to take refuge in their locked car as the youths rampaged around them.

How blissful then, to return to the hotel just after 9 p.m. to find Benjamin already there, a room service trolley with chilled white wine, Irish soda bread, and smoked salmon parked in the bedroom, and the bathtub filling up with hot, scented water.

They'd fallen on each other like ravenous tigers, the food forgotten. Two hours later, they'd surfaced and sipped Sauvignon Blanc as they snuggled together on the big bed, telling each other their life stories. Now, as Cora reached out to shut off the alarm seconds before it started buzzing, she calculated she'd probably only had about two hours' sleep.

‘And I don't care,' she said softly, and bent to drop a light kiss on Benjamin's tanned shoulder.

He stirred, opened one eye and smiled sleepily. ‘Morning, gorgeous. You leaving me already?' His early morning voice was husky.

‘Sorry. But I'll be off air at 8.30 and back here by 9, if you care to wait for me?'

Benjamin reached up and pulled her face down towards his. ‘Just try and stop me,' he murmured.

It was closer to nine o'clock that evening when the day suddenly improved for Jeanette Kendrick's murder investigation team.

‘Boss – can you come over for a minute? I think we've finally bloody got him!'

Adam looked up. Gary, slightly pink around the earlobes, waved at him from across the room. Karen, nervously biting her lip, hovered next to the monitor they'd been using to trawl through CCTV footage from the streets near TV Centre.

‘Really? Ouch, dammit.' Adam nearly tripped over an overflowing wastepaper bin in his hurry to cross the room. ‘You'll make my day if you have. Come on – put me out of my misery.'

‘OK. So, to recap, Edson left the television building at approximately 7.40 a.m., should have been heading out west to go home but then we spotted his van at that garage on Southwark Bridge Road at 8.20, right?' Gary's words tumbled into each other in his haste to tell the story.

‘Yes, yes. And when I questioned him he just said he'd gone to see a friend before going home and hadn't thought to mention it. So?'

Karen put a calming hand on Gary's shoulder and hit play on the control pad.

‘Look, boss – here.' She pointed at the grainy image. ‘We tracked his van, spotted it at various points on the ANPR cameras but nowhere really relevant. Until we found this. That's his van. It's not very clear, because it's almost out of range of the CCTV camera on the corner of that street, but we've enhanced the number plate so we're certain.' She hit pause and looked round at Adam.

‘OK, I believe you – and the time on the screen is 0750. So, what, about ten minutes after he left TV Centre? So where is he – what street is that?'

Karen took a deep breath. ‘It's Ditchley Street. It's small and there's nothing much there, but boss – it's two minutes' walk from TV Centre. And look.' She hit play again.

On the screen, a figure emerged from the van, paused for a minute as if looking around, and then walked quickly away.

‘He's got a bag, look – over his shoulder. And he's walked off in the direction of TV Centre.'

Adam leaned forward, his heart beginning to pound slightly.

Gary took over again. ‘And if we fast forward about twenty minutes – look. It's 0810, and he's back. Hops in to the van, still with that bag, and drives off. Probably to that garage we saw him at, the timing is right.'

‘Sooo – he leaves TV Centre in a foul temper. Parks up the van in this little – Ditchley Street did you say? Grabs a bag with – what? Gloves? Some sort of disguise? Walks the two minutes back to TV Centre, gets back up to the seventh floor via the stairs, wanders into Kendrick's office without anyone noticing – they all know he was around that morning for his disciplinary so nobody would bat an eyelid – kills her, walks out again, and back to the van. All in twenty minutes. Then heads to that petrol garage, it's probably the nearest one if he was low on fuel, and then off he goes. It's doable, isn't it?'

‘We're going to go out and check the timings now – park up and do the walk ourselves, up into the office and back again, just in case we're wrong. But yes, I think it's doable. He did it, boss, I'm sure he did.'

‘OK. Good work, guys. Brilliant work. Do the checks tonight, and if you're sure as you can be, we'll nab him first thing in the morning.'

Gary and Karen grinned at each other. Adam smiled at them, then wandered thoughtfully back to his desk. It sounded right, it looked right. But did it feel right? He wanted it to, but he wasn't entirely sure. And at the moment, he couldn't put his finger on why.

27

Thursday 18
^th
January

If the residents of a certain Midlands street were trying to have a lie-in on this Thursday morning, they were out of luck. The howls of laughter coming from the satellite truck parked halfway along it were currently so loud it was amazing nobody had called the local council's noise abatement team.

‘A hooker? Wow, Scott, your luck's changed hasn't it?'

Nathan, grinning widely, thumped Scott on the back as Rodney wiped tears of delight from under his little glasses. Cora joined in, delighted that everyone was in as good a mood as she was this morning. Since Benjamin Boland came into her life things had definitely looked up.

Scott pushed Nathan away good-humouredly. ‘Yes, a friggin' prossie! There I am, minding my own business, sitting in the truck having a cuppa and she knocks on the window. And when I said no thanks, she got all offended! Demanded to know what I was doing sitting here at 4 a.m. if I didn't want business! I mean, how was I to know it was smack in the middle of a sodding red light district – thanks for the warning, Cora!'

‘I didn't know either! They're not labelled on the map, you know!'

The boys laughed again.

They were on location in Birmingham this morning, broadcasting from a newsagent's that had been the victim of an armed robbery last weekend. Remarkably, seventy-eight-year-old proprietor Asha Gupta had managed to beat the would-be robber off with a broom handle. Snug in the truck between hits, and sipping the delicious hot chocolate Mrs Gupta had just brought out to them on a tray, Cora gazed contentedly out of the slightly steamy window as the boys carried on teasing Scott. It was so good to hear him laughing – maybe whatever had been bothering him had been sorted out at last and they could get back to normal. He certainly seemed happier today.

Outside, the early morning traffic was starting to build, moving slowly past the once elegant redbrick Victorian terraces, the paint around their bay windows now cracked and dirty, the brickwork stained. The prostitutes had gone now, home to sleep off the night, and instead bleary-eyed people were emerging from their homes, walking briskly towards bus stops, dragging recalcitrant children with trailing schoolbags, reclaiming their streets and starting their morning.

‘Nothing in the papers about old bitch-face's murder at all the past few days,' Rodney mumbled through a mouthful of Jaffa Cake. He flicked through the last few pages of
The Sun
, threw it onto the pile in the corner and picked up the
Mail
.

‘Not surprised. I knew that would happen. I've been nagging Adam Bradberry for news every day and he's had nothing for me,' Cora sighed. ‘Looks like they've hit a dead end, eh?'

She turned to look at Scott just in time to see a flash of irritation cross his face. ‘Sorry, Scott, I know you've had just about enough of Jeanette. Let's change the subject, OK?'

‘S'alright, don't worry,' Scott muttered. He grabbed a pen from the pot on the side and reached for
The Times
. ‘I'm going to do the crossword – see if I can finish it by the time you lot come off air.'

Cora, Rodney and Nathan exchanged surreptitious glances. Touchy, touchy, thought Cora. Hmmm. Maybe he's not feeling better after all. She took another sip of her drink and leaned back wearily in her seat, eyes returning to the street outside. At the door of her shop just across the road Mrs Gupta, her beautiful, peacock blue silk sari worn rather incongruously with a tatty, thick, navy cardigan, was chatting excitedly to three younger women, snippets of the conversation floating through the chilly air.

‘We saw you – on the telly! You're famous!'

‘Ah now … have to do it again in half an hour. Lovely they are though, the crew. Treating me really nice … come in, come in, it's cold!'

The group disappeared through the shop door just as a police car pulled up outside. Cora watched idly as two officers got out, straightening their jackets. Then she sat up, suddenly aware of something.

‘Hey, look, Nath. That's a Met Police car. Bit out of its patch, isn't it?'

‘Oh yeah!' Nathan leaned across her to peer out of the window. ‘Wonder what … hang on. They're coming over …'

Cora put her mug down carefully on the dashboard. They all looked at each other, three of them puzzled, Scott suddenly pale.

‘Scott – what is it? Are you OK?'