Delayed & Denied (10 page)

‘I told you. I was here, all evening.’

Ian Mann reached over, took his tea, and had a sip.

‘Look, Phil, we want to help you if we can. But if you say anything to us now that turns out to be untrue then you’ll be in a lot of bother. Over the next few days this whole place is going to be flooded with cops, checking every word you say. Flooded, mate. So think on, yeah? Were you out last night?’

‘Aye, I was, but just for half an hour.’

‘OK, and where did you go?’

‘I popped into a few of the pubs and bars in town.’

‘Blimey, you must drink fast, mate.’

‘I wasn’t drinking. I was looking for Jenny.’

‘And did you find her?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Are you quite sure of that?’

‘I just said.’

‘But you’ve told me two lies already, haven’t you? And make no mistake, you don’t want to tell any more, you really don’t. Because I’ll tell you one thing, Phil, and it’s that someone did find your wife last night, one way or another, and that person killed her. Now, if it was you, do yourself a huge favour and tell us now. It will be taken into account, I promise you of that.’

Jane put her hand on Mann’s arm, but he shook it off. She was too surprised to say anything before Mann spoke again.

‘Look, mate, it’s totally understandable. I understand. She was having an affair, yeah? You just wanted to talk to her, to get things straightened out. So you met in the graveyard, and things got a bit out of hand. That’s how it happened, isn’t it?’

‘No, no, I told you. I didn’t kill Jenny. You’ve got this all wrong. I know how it must look, but it wasn’t me.’

This time, when Jane’s hand came down on Mann’s arm, it gripped hard, and he was left in no doubt that she wanted him to shut up.

‘We’re not interested in how things look or don’t look’, she said quietly, ‘and no-one is accusing you of anything, Mr. Smith. I’m in charge of this investigation, and let me make one thing very clear. We will investigate this case thoroughly and professionally, and no assumptions will be made at this or any other stage. Not just about you, but about your late wife as well. As of now it is too soon to draw any conclusions whatsoever, but we would like your permission to search these premises and your vehicle. We’ll also need to remove your phone and any computers.’

‘But…’

Jane smiled slightly. Why were all men the same?

‘And don’t you worry about a bit of porn, sir. I very much doubt that there’ll be anything on your computer that DS Mann here hasn’t seen before. And I’ll let you into a little trade secret, shall I? We only begin to get suspicious about the contents of a man’s computer if we don’t find that he’s been looking at the odd bit of porn. As I tell my own partner, it’s only natural.’

Mann spluttered at that, then followed Jane to her feet.

‘You are a tit, Ian’ she said, when they outside and well away from the house.

‘I’m sorry, Jane, but we both know that he’s guilty. Twenty four hours from now he’ll be in the nick being charged, you mark my words.’

Jane was just starting to reply when she held up her hand, and said, ‘Pat Williamson?’ to a woman who was half-walking, half running along the pavement towards them.

‘Aye. You the police?’

‘That’s right. I’m DI Jane Francis, and this is DS Ian Mann.’

‘Can I speak to the bloke in charge, love?’

Mann smiled.

‘That would be me,’ said Jane. ‘Do you want to have a quick word with Mr. Smith, and then we can have a chat?’

‘You haven’t nicked him then?’

‘No. Should we have?’

‘Christ, no. He’d never touch Jenny. I just thought that you lot usually nicked the husband, on the off-chance, like.’

Jane smiled. ‘Tell you what, why not have a quick word with Mr. Smith, and we’ll see you back at the Incident Unit. You can’t miss it, it’s parked right in front of the church.’

It was a hot afternoon now, and the sandwiches that had been delivered were already dry and curling at the edges. That didn’t stop Jane from eating three of them, in between impromptu meetings and phone calls. Even Ian Mann, who normally only ate raw fruit and veg at work, tucked into a couple, and was still chewing when Pat Williamson was shown in by the uniformed PC who was stationed outside. Jane moved quickly towards her, and ushered her back outside. She certainly didn’t want the woman seeing or overhearing anything.

The whole graveyard was cordoned off, but a few locals were still looking over the wall towards them, so Jane led Pat round to the back of the trailer, with Mann just a step or two behind her.

‘Would you like a chair?’ she asked, and when Pat said no they all stood in the shade of the truck, although Jane had to speak up over the sound of the nearby mobile generator.

‘Mr. Smith tells us that his wife had been staying with you, Jenny.’

‘Aye, that’s right.’

The answer was unequivocal enough, but it still sounded uncertain somehow. Jane was determined to show Mann how it was really done, so she just smiled encouragingly at Jenny, and waited.

‘Well, she’d been coming back to mine eventually, like.’

‘Each night? Has she been back late every night, Pat?’

‘Well, let me think. She’s been with me since last week, and she came back late on Friday and Saturday. I was asleep, anyway.’

‘Do you know who she was with?’

‘No. Not my business, was it? Look, love, it wasn’t Phil who killed her.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘He’d never do that. He loved her.’

‘It’s often the motive for murder, is that, I’m afraid.’

‘Not real love. He worshipped her. I was always jealous, in a way.’

‘Are you married, Pat?’

‘Was. He ran off with some little tart from St. Bees, the bastard.’

Jane nodded in a way that she hoped would suggest that she was in much the same situation herself.

‘She must have talked about who she was seeing, Pat. You probably knew this person, didn’t you?’

‘Who says it was just one? Jenny never stopped going on about how she met Phil when they were both at school, before we had the internet, and that’s she’d never…’

‘Had an opportunity to meet other people?’

‘Play the field, I was going to say. But, aye, that’s it, like.’

‘So do you know who any of these men are, or who they might be? You don’t have to be certain, but any help that you can give us now would be greatly appreciated. You might even give us the piece of information that leads to the person who murdered Jenny being caught. Think about that.’

‘All right. I think that Tom Ferguson was one, but there were more. Two or three more, I think.’

‘OK, and had this been going on for long? Since before she moved out of the marital home, I mean.’

Pat gave Jane the kind of look that used to be called old-fashioned.

‘Aye, I expect so, don’t you?’

‘All right. And how long are we talking? Weeks? Months?’

Jenny shrugged. ‘A while, certainly. But there’s a way of finding out far more than I could ever tell you, like.’

‘We’re already looking at Jenny’s phone records, and her email, social media, all that. It’s just routine, these days.’

‘But what about my computer? She’s been using it for weeks, see. She said that Phil was looking at her history on the one at home. Can’t say I blame him, mind.’

Jane looked at Ian Mann. ‘Tell you what, Pat,’ she said. ‘DS Mann here will take you home now, and if it’s all right he’ll uplift your computer, and bring it back for analysis.’

‘But I need it. How long will it be?’

‘Not long, and I’m sure that we can arrange a replacement to help you out while it’s away, OK? It would be a massive help to us finding who killed your friend, love.’

‘Aye, go on then.’

‘Good. Now, before you go, is there anything else that you can tell us that might help?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know, anything at all. We’ll need to talk to you again in much more detail, as we build a timeline for Jenny over the past little while, but is there anything about the past few days that strikes you as odd, or significant?’

‘No, not really. But, like I say, don’t waste your time on Phil. He didn’t kill Jenny.’

Twenty minutes later Pat’s computer was being driven back to force HQ in Penrith, and Jane had the brightest member of the tech team standing by to start work on it. Ian had gone back out to help with the door to door, and Jane quickly texted Andy to say that she didn’t know what time she’d be home. He didn’t reply, and for once she didn’t even give the possible reason a moment’s thought. But then it wasn’t exactly a matter of life or death. Finding a decent source of coffee for Sandy Smith, on the other hand, undoubtedly was, because she’d already given a young WPC a terrible ear-bashing for daring to offer her a plastic cup full of ‘sewer shit’. And from that outburst Jane inferred, correctly, that Sandy and her team didn’t have much to contribute to the investigation.

‘Fuck all, so far’ said Sandy, when Jane had promised her a decent coffee and a couple of hob-nobs from the Chief’s private stash back at force HQ. Sandy drove them to Penrith in her van, and Jane clung onto the Jesus handle most of the way. She had no idea how Sandy managed to keep the thing on the road, so she tried to concentrate on what Sandy was telling her, rather than be a witness to the chaos that they simply had to be leaving in their wake.

‘I saw the preliminary PM results just now’ said Sandy. ‘Manual strangulation, and they’re now saying between ten and midnight last night. Body wasn’t moved
post mortem
, that’s for definite, and no defence wounds. No recent sexual activity, and the initial blood work shows a high level of blood alcohol. They’re working on the stomach now, but she’d eaten earlier that evening.’

‘Yes, with her friend Pat.’

‘The last supper, eh?’

‘She will have had a lot of lasts, without even knowing it, over the last few days.’

‘Aye, well, it’s probably the best way. My mum held on for months, and we’d run out of things to say weeks before the end. We both just sat there, wishing it was over.’

Sandy overtook a lorry, then swerved violently back into her own lane. ‘Wanker’, she shouted at the driver who was coming the other way, and who had flashed his lights at her.

‘How about the scene?’ asked Jane, ‘anything to interest us there?’

‘No, not so far. So either your man was very lucky, or he was good at the job, like.’

‘Our man?’

‘Bound to be, love.’

Jane didn’t bother asking Sandy to elaborate, and in any case she was probably right, since the stats fully reflected Sandy’s prejudices, in this case at least.

‘How about the clothing?’

‘Give us a bloody chance, Jane. I’ve got everyone on it. They’re all still hard at it in Whitehaven, the town that time forgot, aren’t they?’

‘How about Tonto, I’ve not seen him about, have I?’

‘No, that’s right. But he’s one of the ones who’s on notice that his job’s at risk. I just can’t risk people in that situation on jobs like this.’

‘Shit, Tonto? You’ll be the only one left soon, Sandy.’

‘They’re right stupid bastards, the bosses. I’ve got no clue what they’re bloody thinking, if anything. But one thing I do know, the husband’s place is clean. And I don’t mean too clean, either. His car’s the same, apparently. We’ll know more about the clothing tomorrow, like I say, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I had young Christina do the initial scan and she didn’t spot anything, and that kid’s got eyes like a bloody hawk. Shame she’s for the chop and all, like.’

‘I thought you were keeping people in that situation off this one?’ Jane thought about the apparent contradiction for a moment, and then answered her own question. ‘Oh, she doesn’t know yet, does she?’

‘That’s right, love. It was on my list for today, but then this came up. To tell the truth I’d rather pull a month old stiff out of a bloody sewer pipe than have to talk to her, but what can I bloody do? They only told me I could be involved in choosing who gets the chop, the bastards, so I told them to go fuck themselves, and make up their own minds. Tossers.’

Jane could sense a rant coming on, which strongly implied further acceleration, if the van was even capable of going any faster, which had to be a moot point. But she didn’t want to risk encouraging it. ‘So you’re thinking we might end up with no useful forensics?’

‘Aye, it’s looking possible, maybe even likely. Like I say, our man is either very skilful, or very lucky. Or maybe you’re just looking at the wrong people at present, and in the wrong places.’

‘True enough, Sandy. But you’re thinking that this might not be our man’s first kill, are you?’

Sandy braked hard, then threw the van into a left hander, and Jane felt the seatbelt digging hard into her shoulder.

‘Sorry’, said Sandy, laughing, ‘that bend didn’t use to be so bloody tight. But aye, I suppose this might not be your man’s first rodeo, as they say.’

Jane was feeling properly nauseous by the time Sandy had screeched to a standstill in one of the disabled bays in the car park at Police HQ. And although they’d left Whitehaven an hour after the computer, which had been driven in a marked car with its lights off, they were only twenty minutes behind it. So Joe, the raggle-taggle tech who’d been entrusted with the job, had barely been at it for fifteen minutes when they walked into his lab. Jane went to track down a coffee for Sandy, and water for herself and Joe, and when she returned they were both looking intently at the screen.

‘Bingo,’ Sandy said. ‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she was a right goer, was your victim.’

Jane put the drinks down, and joined the others at the screen.

‘I’ve found the email account that the victim created just over three months ago,’ said Joe, ‘and she had regular contact with three men, as far as I can see so far.’

‘Can you identify them?’

‘Yes, should be able to. She called them Tom, Matt and Jack.’

‘The Tom may be Tom Ferguson. Tell me about her last day or so of online activity. Any meetings set up, anything like that?’