The Shadows of Justice (20 page)

He pointed to the window. The view looked out across the plaza and to the multi-storey car park from which Annette had jumped.

Such was the emotion in Parkinson’s voice, it was an effort not to try to comfort him. Adam attempted a few, well-worn introductory remarks; that this interview was a matter of routine, nothing to worry about. But they made no headway into easing the man’s unhappiness.

“The main point we need answered, Mr Parkinson,” said Adam, when he had reached the end of his patience – a process which seldom took long, “Is what you were doing at around four o’clock this morning?”

The question came as a surprise. “What I was doing?”

“What and where, in fact.”

“I was in bed, of course. Asleep.”

“At home?”

“Err, yes. At home. Where else would I be?”

“Alone?”

“Yes. Alone. As I said, Kate’s on her way to visit Chris. Chief Inspector, why do you ask?”

Adam said nothing, just raised his eyebrows knowingly. It was another detective’s look.

“Oh!” exclaimed Parkinson faintly, tugging at a sideburn. “It’s about that explosion, isn’t it? You think I—”

“Not think, Mr Parkinson, but we have to check.”

“I – I don’t know what to say. Am I a… a…” He found the word difficult and it took time to form. “Am I a suspect?”

“It’s purely routine. But you’ll appreciate with what you said after you delivered the verdict it suggests you might have a motive.”

Parkinson stared out at the courthouse as if it were a mortal enemy, perhaps even Hades itself, situated across the concrete of the plaza rather than the River Styx.

“I didn’t want any of this,” he lamented. “I’ve always been just an ordinary man, living an ordinary life. That was the first… well, unusual thing that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t ask for it and, to be frank, I didn’t like it and I didn’t want it. The other jurors elected me foreman because – well, because I wore a tie. And my position, too.”

He pointed to a nameplate on the desk. It said
Deputy Assistant Director, Parks
. Dan bowed his head to stifle a sudden urge to giggle.

Adam had decided he’d heard enough. He began thanking Parkinson for his time, in a rather abrupt manner.

“Just one further thing,” Dan interrupted, before they exited this bastion of supreme executive power. “Did all of the jury think the Edwards were guilty?”

“Oh yes,” came the emphatic reply. “That was the view of every one of us. But we also all agreed we didn’t have the evidence to convict them.”

“So whose idea was the ‘Not Proven’ verdict?”

For the first time, Parkinson looked less persecuted, and even a little proud. “That was mine. I thought it was a fitting way to get across what we really believed, so that at least a semblance of justice could be done.” He nodded hard to underline the point.
“I was determined the Edwards should suffer at least some kind of punishment, absolutely set upon it.”

Homely Terrace had come to resemble a building site. Tipper lorries rumbled back and forth, laden with dusty rubble, the penetrating beep of their reversing alerts filling the narrow street. A swarm of workmen attacked the pile of debris where the Edwards’ home had stood.

The forensic investigations had been concluded and the house was being demolished. It was a merciful end. There was little left to save and the authorities had reached a speedy and sensible decision. Even the faceless planners and their beloved birds’ nests of bureaucracy had soon resolved the question – who would want to live in such a notorious place?

It would suffer the same fate as others which had housed murderers or hosted their crimes. A terrace that had stood intact for more than a hundred years would shrink a little, a whispered book of stories rising where the masonry had fallen. It would become one of the tales of the city, another urban memory.

At the back of the ruins, shielded as best they could from the noise, stood Adam, Claire, Katrina, Dan and the fire investigator. The message that he had some important findings to pass on proved accurate in all but one respect. The assumption of a junior detective that the person known as Indy was a man.

“Stephanie Sarnden,” she introduced herself. “Or Indy, as most people call me.”

No one else was going to ask, but curiosity was a vice Dan could rarely resist. “Because Indiana is where you born?”

“Go back a bit further. Nine months in fact, and the parents’ honeymoon.”

Dan had come to notice a common feature of women in the enduringly male-dominated emergency services: they could often become more laddish than the lads. It was something from which Claire never suffered. That, he had once proudly thought to himself, was a credit to the strength of her character.

Less happily, such fortitude was currently exhibiting itself in Claire positioning herself as far from him as possible, and continuing to treat Dan as a mere disturbance of the air. She hadn’t once looked over despite his attempts to offer a winning smile.

The day was growing warmer, the sun rising to its zenith in the sky. Indy unbunched her strawy hair, shook it down and took off her jacket to reveal a fine figure. She was in her mid-thirties, with a cute, freckled face and full lips, a combination which was only highlighted by the fine powder of the dust streaking her face.

Naturally, Claire chose that moment to finally look at Dan. He, in turn decided a deep study of the remains of the house would be more appropriate than any surveying of the charms of Indy. As he looked away he noticed Katrina had been watching him too.

Sometimes in life, all you can do is sigh.

“Let me get your theory straight,” Indy said, when she’d mopped the residue of the building site from her face. “Someone breaks in, turns on the gas cooker, gets back out, waits and then sets off a car alarm. One of the Edwards switches on a light to see what’s going on and ignites their own funeral pyre.”

“That’s our best guess,” Adam replied.

“It’s plausible. But if it’s right, your killer’s been even more methodical than you suspected.”

She delved into the depths of a sizeable black plastic tool box and held out an evidence bag. Inside were the remains of an old fashioned light bulb, the kind beloved of the British until the European Union intervened. The glass was cracked and a patch of the protective sphere missing.

“So?” Katrina said. “It probably got smashed in the explosion?”

“I don’t think so. The damage would be far worse. This is too precise. I reckon your killer did their research. This is the light from the hallway, outside the Edwards’ bedrooms.”

Adam’s brow grew as furrowed as a farmer’s field. He was an appreciator of science in that it could tell him who had committed a crime, but a long way from being a comprehender. “Which tells us what?”

“The person you’re hunting knew about gas explosions. They wanted to maximise the chances of it all going off in a big blast. So they tampered with the bulb by chipping away some of the glass. The exposed filament would arc briefly at a very high temperature – more than enough to ignite the gas and cause a hell of a bang.”

“It looks like your theory is holding up,” Adam said to Dan, a little begrudgingly.

“And there’s something else to back it up,” Indy added.

Like a magician with a top hat, she reached once more into the box, but this time produced a sheaf of papers. It was a manual on fire investigation and the properties of natural gas.

For an explosion, there had to be a specific amount of gas in the atmosphere of a house. Between about five and fifteen per cent, according to the scientific papers which Indy brandished. Below five and there was insufficient gas, above and there wasn’t enough oxygen for detonation. She also cited some research on how fast gas can spread around a house, depending upon its age, ventilation, the number of open doors and the source of the gas.

“And that’s easily accessible information?” Claire asked.

“The research is all online.”

And now, amidst the noise of the lorries, the shifting of rubble, the beat of a radio and the shouts of the workmen, in this little group of five there was only silence. All eyes were turned inwards, and all were seeing the same images.

The killer’s rage as the Edwards were acquitted. The growing fury at Annette’s death. The resolution upon vengeance.

A quick reconnaissance of the Edwards’ house. Some calculations. A wait until the early hours. Breaking in to the house and setting the gas running. Checking the level of ventilation. Perhaps opening a door or two to increase it. Cracking the light bulb, just to be sure. Slipping back out, waiting, setting off the car alarm.

And then hearing the blast a couple of minutes later as the new-found murderer headed for home.

***

It was only the arrival of a waving, shouting Nigel that reminded Dan of his day job. The time was half past twelve and the lunchtime news on air in an hour. He received a hasty set of instructions from Adam about what could be broadcast and jogged over to the satellite van.

The report was easy to cut, as was often the way with the strongest of stories. Dan used the pictures they had filmed in the darkness of the early hours to talk about what happened. He included snatches of interviews with people in the street describing the power of the blast. There was also a clip of Adam, being as diplomatic as ever, saying a revenge attack was one of the police’s foremost lines of inquiry.

The time sped on to ten past one. Dan stepped down from the van, straight into Indy.

“Do you mind if I have a quick look?” she asked. “I find TV fascinating.”

“Really?” He replied, unsurprised to suddenly be sporting his best smile. “I usually find it baffling.”

Loud was busy laying down the last pictures, so Nigel gave her a quick tour. It was too complex for Dan, with its oscilloscopes, satellite frequency locator and the rest of the equipment. It might as well have been science fiction, but she nodded knowledgably.

The lecture was in its final stages when a fizzing, rushing pop from the top of the van interrupted. The antenna on the satellite dish was ablaze, a run of flames dancing an orange path.

“Fire in the hold!” Loud yelled. He grabbed an extinguisher, unleashed a cloud of white powder and the flames died.

“What was it?” Dan asked.

“Waveguide,” the engineer muttered. “It’s shorted out. Bloody cheap rubbish.”

“What does it do?”

“What do you think? It guides the waves, dum dum. The poor electromagnetic ones that have to carry your ugly mug up to the satellite.”

“Can you fix it? Are we going to be ok for the broadcast?”

“No chance.”

Dan vented a few creative profanities. They were the lead story, and an important one at that. Fail to appear and Lizzie would undergo spontaneous human combustion.

“How long to the studios from here?” Dan asked Nigel.

“Seven or eight minutes.”

“And the report’s cut?”

“Yeah,” grunted Loud. “It’s just not going anywhere.”

“There’s just time. Set up the camera.”

Without hesitation Nigel did, looking back on the rubble of the house. Dan took his position and tried to fix a few words in his head.

“Recording,” Nigel said.

“This lunchtime, the police have named the woman who was injured when she was caught in the explosion. She’s Amy Ailing, who’s 19 and from Plymouth. She’s in hospital. Her parents are at her bedside. Dan Groves,
Wessex Tonight
, Plymouth.”

Loud held out the memory card that contained the story. Nigel grabbed it, jumped into his car and headed off.

“He should get to the studios by 1.25,” Dan said to himself. “Take five minutes to add that piece to camera to the end and it’ll still make the lead story – hopefully.”

He leaned back against the van, took a deep breath and stared up at the calming expanse of blue sky.

“Bloody hell,” Indy commented. “Is it always like this?”

“No,” Dan replied, with feeling. “This is one of the more straightforward days.”

***

It was a lesson hard learnt. Investigations were not all as authors would have them; not endless action, excitement and a glamorous tearing around in pursuit of suspects. There could be periods that Dan had come to think of as
treading water
. And this afternoon, however irritating, was fated to be one.

“Just wait, will you?” Adam snapped in reply to Dan’s petulant question about what was going to happen next.

“I don’t like waiting.”

“Funnily enough I’d noticed that, what with being a detective and all. But on this occasion you’ll have to.”

They were still at Homely Terrace, but had retreated to an incident control van at the end of the street. It was the only way to escape the noise and dust. With all the radio and CCTV equipment, it was a dark and cramped space. Blessed as he was with impressive stature, Adam was forced to adopt a permanent stoop.

Claire had returned to Charles Cross to coordinate inquiries and Indy had left for her next assignment, a suspicious fire in a cottage on the beautiful Roseland peninsula in Cornwall. No one was hurt, but the fine old building had been destroyed. Young arsonists were suspected.

Here, the afternoon would be taken up with the dull routine of checks. The Eggheads were currently working on Templar’s computer, and would also examine Ivy’s, to see if the men’s internet activities could provide them with alibis.

Templar was already looking less of a suspect. He’d made a phone call to his bank around the time of the explosion, it being one of the 24 hour variety. The exact details were still being verified as the bank would take a couple of hours to retrieve the recording from its data storage system.

Katrina’s investigations revealed that Roger Newman was certainly at home for some of last night. Several witnesses had seen him in the local pub where he sat alone, drank a succession of strong beers, picked at a meal and spurned any offers of company. He was also seen returning to his house. A kindly neighbour had kept an eye on him, but that only accounted for his time until around half past eleven.

After that, Newman said he simply stayed in. He tried to sleep, but couldn’t. He sat up, watching a film, but couldn’t follow it.
He tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. Eventually, he sought comfort in the whisky bottle and, by his account, became more and more drunk.

Newman had no recollection of time, but insisted he hadn’t left his house. As to an alibi, he claimed that at several points he became so distraught that he sobbed, shouted and screamed and even threw pots and pans at the walls.

Detectives had been sent to talk to Newman’s neighbours, to ask if they had heard a disturbance. The findings would be known later this afternoon, as would the results of the Eggheads’ work. But for now, the only option was waiting.

“I do have an idea,” Dan said airily, and explained.

“And it’s nothing to do with making a good story?” Adam asked, wryly.

“It could help the inquiry,” Dan replied, as neutrally as possible.

“I’ll see how things go with some straightforward investigating before we resort to the shadowlands of your devious imagination.”

A phone call from the Deputy Chief Constable hadn’t helped in improving Adam’s fractious mood. There was the usual helpful pointing out that the case was a very high profile one. The eyes of the world were, apparently, set upon Greater Wessex Police,
waiting for the perpetrator to be revealed.

This particular missive from on high, familiar as much of it was, contained a surprise. A film company had been in contact. They wanted to begin work on an epic, designed to capture the
natural drama and pathos
of the story of the Edwards and the Newmans. Some well-known actors had already been lined up to play the parts in what was being billed as “a tearful tragedy – a Shakespearean story of modern times.”

For senior officers, concerned with the standing of Greater Wessex Police, only one ending was acceptable. The heroic cops must arrest the villain and the forces of justice emerge triumphant. It would duly be appreciated if Adam could get a move on and clear up the case as soon as possible. All of which left the detective with a throbbing neck and a disgruntled scowl.