But For The Grace: A DC Smith Investigation Page 8

  Maggie Henderson thought again about what she had in mind, and then she went ahead with it anyway.

  “Do you fancy a drink after work? We could talk this through then, and just push on with the interviews now. It might save time.”

  Smith leaned back in the plastic chair until it was on two legs.

  “Well… Thanks but by the time I get round to eating something, it’s already late. The old digestion can’t take a lot of disruption now. It’s OK for you young things, all this gallivanting.”

  Maggie was thirty seven and counting.

  “If you don’t want a drink, we could get something to eat. That bistro near the station is decent – save you cooking when you get home. Assuming that you do cook for yourself when you get home…”

  She could see that he was considering it.

  “John has a late one, DC. A bit of company would be nice.”

  “Go on, then.”

  “Good. What did you make of Rita?”

  “A bit over-gunned for her job, I’d say. I don’t get that, but she seemed straight enough in the end. We need to check Joan’s finances from the family end, and we need to ask about the will, but I don’t see how anyone here could get access to any money, and that pretty much eliminates one obvious motive. We know she wasn’t in work at all that Saturday, so not much in the way of opportunity. Apart from the ending-the-suffering thing as a possible motive… And the lady in finance wouldn’t be top of my list for that. She’d need a partner in crime to carry it out.”

  Maggie was smiling, as if he had said something amusing. When he asked for an explanation, she told him to pick up Irene Miller’s folder and read out her home address. When he had done so, she handed him Rita’s folder open at the page she had selected. He looked at it for a moment before the penny dropped.

  “Well, bugger me! What made you look at that?”

  “Feminine intuition?”

  “I don’t usually go along with that, but in this case…”

  “She could just be a lodger.”

  “Which one? We don’t know who owns the house. But you think they’re…?”

  “An item? I’d put a tenner on it. It didn’t occur to you?”

  Smith shook his head and looked at the addresses again to be absolutely sure.

  “No. To be honest, I get a bit flustered by all that, my mind goes sort of fuzzy like when someone pulls the aerial out of the TV.”

  Maggie was laughing at his awkwardness, which she knew was only partly an act, while remembering that he had led teams working in vice and drugs; it seemed incongruous but somehow touching.

  “Does it make any difference?”

  “A little. If two witnesses are in a relationship, I bear it in mind. They have a motive then for not being entirely open, for protecting someone else. But I don’t fancy either of them on what we’ve got at the moment. When I say ‘fancy’, I don’t mean – just because they – you know what I mean, so stop taking the mickey!”

  “Let’s talk about it tonight, when you’ve had time to calm down and get over the shock. Who’s next?”

  “Margaret Reed, shift supervisor. When did you stop being a Margaret, by the way?”

  She was heading for the door, to send for the next interviewee.

  “I never started.”

  The senior staff had been told that the police were making discreet inquiries into Joan Riley’s death because some test results had been unexpected – that was all. Margaret Reed showed no curiosity whatsoever about that, but Smith soon had the impression that Margaret Reed had rarely, if ever, been curious about anything in her fifty or so years. She was a large, rectangular sort of woman whose hair was a little too blonde and whose eyes were a little too pale and close together for comfort. She sat across the desk from them and gave the sense of being immovable in every way, so dense that she might have been placed there by mechanical means.

  Yes, she had been on duty that night, from eighteen hundred hours. Yes, she had spoken briefly to Joan; she could not remember what was said but she would have noticed if anything had been amiss.

  “Anything?” said Smith.

  “Yes. As people’s powers diminish, they cling increasingly to routines. Routine is the key to running an ordered and stable environment. Nothing was out of the ordinary that evening. I would have noticed.”

  “But something out of the ordinary did happen, Mrs Reed.”

  “Not in my presence.”

  When pushed, not the most straightforward of tasks, she thought that it must have been close to seven o’clock, or nineteen hundred hours, when she last saw Joan. She was sitting on her bed. No, no-one else was in there at that point. After that, she, Mrs Reed (Smith wondered briefly and sympathetically about Mr Reed – there was a wedding ring), had returned to her office and worked on the week’s records, as she did every Saturday evening. At just after twenty one hundred hours the alarm on her pager sounded and she went onto the corridor to see what had happened.

  Maggie had taken over the interview; Smith glanced at Mrs Reed occasionally, wrote something into his notebook once and studied the darkening afternoon outside through the window.

  “When you arrived at Mrs Riley’s room, who was there?”

  “Kayleigh Greene and Kipras Kazl – Kazlaus…”

  She pulled a face of irritation, presumably at her inability to pronounce the name.

  “What were they doing?”

  “They were standing there, waiting for help. There was nothing else they could do. Mrs Riley was obviously dead.”

  “Sitting in her chair.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was she when you saw her at seven?”

  “On her bed. I believe that you wrote that down when you last asked me.”

  Smith looked away from the window.

  “Mrs Reed. Would most people here say that you are good at your job?”

  “I believe that they would.”

  “So is my colleague.”

  The woman bridled and glared at Smith who held her gaze until she looked away.

  “Were any of the residents present in the corridor as this was happening? Was anyone taking an interest?”

  She hesitated and made a show of recalling the events.

  “There are often people wandering about – it’s what some of them do. But I don’t think any had realized what was happening at that point. I don’t recall anyone in particular.”

  “And what kind of a person was Joan Riley, Mrs Reed?”

  “I don’t see the relevance of that sort of question. As a supervisor, my role is to keep a profess-”

  Smith said, “I don’t expect you to see the relevance of all our questions, Mrs Reed. But I would like you to try and answer them, nonetheless. As a professional.”

  If anything, the woman had grown larger since the interview had started – she now looked as if she might burst as a result of some inexplicable inner pressure.

  “Mrs Riley was not a troublesome resident.”

  “Not someone that you got to know well, I assume.”

  “As I was trying to say earlier, it is important to keep some professional distance.”

  Maggie said, “Did she have friends amongst the others on the first floor?”

  “Oh yes. She was part of a group that kept each other company every afternoon.”

  “The Famous Five?”

  She was surprised when Smith said that, and only nodded an answer.

  “Perhaps you’d be good enough to give us the names of that group. If we can focus on Joan’s closest acquaintances, it might mean less disruption for everyone else.”

  “Nancy Bishop, Martin Collins and Mr Greenwood are the ones who remain.”

  “I assume that’s Mr Ralph Greenwood whom I met in the social room this afternoon?”

  Again the pale stare narrowed onto the face of the small and rather undistinguished-looking detective; for someone who had only been in the building for a couple of hours, he seemed to have made himself surpris
ingly familiar with what went on there.

  “Yes, it would be.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Reed. We might need to talk to you again but we will avoid it if at all possible. What with you being as busy as you are…”

  When she had gone, Smith pulled across Maggie’s notes and copied the names into his book, while she got up and switched on the overhead fluorescent strip. The office had grown gloomy during the last interview and outside in the car park the yellow sodium security lights had switched themselves on.

  “I think it was Mrs Reed’s warm personality that got her to where she is today, Maggie.”

  “Agreed. And I think she was beginning to take a real shine to you. Who is this ‘Mr Greenwood’? Him she does not like, and she didn’t try to hide it, professional distance or not.”

  “Having met both, I can sort of see why they might not get on. I’ll introduce you tomorrow, and see whose side you’re on. Let’s make a list for the morning and sod off back to the station. I need to ask Ma’am a bit more about her meeting with the family yesterday – and I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

  Chapter Seven

  “John? Six deaths in the past year. Is that a lot?”

  “I don’t know. In a randomly selected fifty people from the general population it would be – but what’s the average age in there? Eighty?”

  Waters thought about it.

  “I could probably find out. There must be a statistical algorithm for it. What do you think?”

  John Murray didn’t think about it for long.

  “No, just copy out the names and give them to DC.”

  He watched as Waters highlighted parts of the screen in front of him, and then the printer in the corner began chattering away to itself.

  “I suppose I could email this to him, be quicker.”

  “No, it wouldn’t, because then you’d have to find him to tell him to check his email. And then you’d have to explain to him again how to do it. Best to give him a piece of paper.”

  Waters had settled in quickly, not just in this room today but into the station and its way of life. DC had rated him from the start; John Murray, naturally cautious and taciturn, had reserved his judgement but he could see it now. They had got through the first lot of information requests almost too quickly once there were two of them on the case, but when DC and Maggie called in and asked for criminal record checks on the whole staff list, they suddenly had something to get going with tomorrow. He stood up to stretch his legs and smiled to himself – the boy was on the home page of the Office of National Statistics.

  “Chris – I’ve got a late duty. You can clear off whenever, go and see that young lady.”

  Waters nodded vaguely, preoccupied, and Murray wondered again what would have happened that night if he had not been caught up in the traffic jam that prevented him from getting to DC and Petar Subic. He too would have stood his ground against Hamilton’s heavies, and he would not have taken the hit on the nose, but the outcome might have been worse. It’s the little things that decide our fate in the end.

  “Thanks, John, but Clare’s off at a training course this week. Might as well get on with some of this new stuff.”

  “Up to you – DC and Maggie have already clocked off and gone to get something to eat.”

  He could see Waters’ attention come away from the screen. After a minute or two, the younger man said, “Have they known each other long?”

  Murray laughed and said, “If you mean, am I bothered, not in the slightest!”

  Waters coloured up and Murray relented.

  “A good few years, she knew him before I did. We’ve all been together on plenty of cases. I reckon she’s in safe hands, Chris.”

  Waters swivelled his chair round.

  “Do you know much about his time in the army?”

  “Only what he’s told me himself.”

  “When we arrested Petar Subic, it was almost like Captain Hamilton knew him, knew DC. It was pretty weird, some of what he said.”

  “They’d never met before the case but – well, from what I can make out, they had some stuff in common, service stuff. Nothing much to that.”

  Waters was still thinking it over, and Murray sat back and waited, showing that he was not trying to avoid questions; whatever it was must matter to Waters or he would not be asking.

  “Hamilton said that they had come after DC – who were ‘they’ exactly? I mean, if it’s private I’m sorry I asked, but…”

  “Don’t know for certain but I’ve always assumed that it was the Provisional IRA or some splinter of it.”

  “What happened?”

  “The first time they booby-trapped his car. The army was called in and they closed half the town where he lived for a day. This was before he came to live in Lake.”

  “The first time? It happened again?”

  “The second time they sent a girl. DC dealt with that himself.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know the details – I never asked.”

  It was a lot to take in. Waters half-swivelled back to the screen and then changed his mind.

  “Do you know why? What he’d done to cause all that?”

  “Again, no details, but I always thought it must be the same thing that makes him good at this. You must have noticed it already. He has a way of not seeming to be a policeman, a detective, even when people have just been told that he is. If he was as good at not being a soldier, or seeming not to be, he must have been pretty effective undercover. When they found out, it rattled a lot of cages, I suppose.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s no different to what he would tell you himself. Apart from the last bits.”

  “Do you think he has any ideas about what happened at Rosemary House yet?”

  “God knows. But he’ll be talking to people and putting them into lists – unlikely, maybe, probably. He likes lists.”

  “Until he gets to impossible and definitely? ‘Whatever remains, however unlikely…’?”

  Murray thought about that and then said, “I’m not sure there’ll be an impossible list this early in the game.”

  “Maggie, you wouldn’t believe it. My social life is a hectic whirl – this is the second time I’ve eaten out in three days. I’ve got women I hardly know leaving me calling cards and women I’ve never heard of phoning me up.”

  He took another forkful of the rigatoni and shook his head as if things were so serious he would have to take steps to slow himself down. Maggie Henderson smiled and ate a little more of the aubergine in tomato sauce. Smith had ordered for them both, pronouncing the names of the dishes in a convincing Italian accent, much to the pleasure of the waiter. She had teased him about it as they waited for the starters and he had been quite forthcoming – more so than usual, making her even more certain that something was on his mind. He had told her that when he was in Belfast he had gone out with an Irish-Italian girl; from the way in which he talked about it, it must have been something more than a casual thing. He had spent time with the girl’s family and learned the accent if not very much of the language.

  “What happened?” she had asked.

  “Irish-Italian in Belfast, and me in the army? It wasn’t likely to work out in the long-run, was it? But she was a lovely girl.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Catriona.”

  They ate in silence for a minute or two.

  “And then you met Sheila.”

  “Not exactly. We sort of knew each other before, right back to sixth-form days. Used to wave at each other from passing buses and wonder, that kind of thing. We lost touch when I joined up. And then, when I came back for good, out of the service, she was one of the first people I met, and, well, everything was different.”

  “One of those meant-to-be things.”

  “Yes.”

  After all this time, the mention of her name could still affect him. Maggie felt sad for him and envious at the same time – was there anyone out there, in her own roman
tic past, who would still react like that at the sound of her name? A selfish thought, she told herself, thinking about John back at the station, good, honest, dependable John Murray who had been something of a salvation for her when they finally teamed up, more than four years ago now.

  She was about to mention the case as it was the supposed reason for having this meal when Smith said unexpectedly, “And as well as being pestered by ladies, people keep offering me jobs.”

  When she inquired, he told her about both opportunities. She had never worked with Dougie Waters but remembered him, and knew that he had been a DI on the Andretti case when Smith himself was running it as DCI. DC told her the details as they had been put to him by Dougie, and she was unable to read how he felt about the offer. The Serious Crimes work he seemed to have dismissed already. She asked him why.

  “Well, it’s partly an age thing. Sorry to bang on about that but me and Charlie Hills are the granddads now, aren’t we? As a young man, it’s the dream job, getting into an elite squad, chasing the serious villains all over the country. But I’ve sort of done it, worn the T shirt they say, don’t they? Do I really need to be spending nights in cheap hotels or boarding houses to keep the costs down, and stepping on the toes of the local boys who were often onto something already? There’s a lot of resentment when these squads come barging in. I reckon I’m happier just being of the local boys being resentful!”

  “And the other thing? What about leaving the force?”

  He wasn’t ready to talk about that in the same way, and Maggie concluded that this was because he was considering it more seriously.

  She said, “I can’t imagine Kings Lake without you.”

  “Yes – but can you imagine me without Kings Lake?”

  It was a serious question. She realized then that there was perhaps no-one else to whom he could ask it, not now. He had sisters but they lived far to the south and he never mentioned them. He was an uncle but she did not know how many times or whether he ever saw those children. His parents were both long dead. Who else was there, apart from his few friends at work?

  “DC, this might sound weird but I’d like time to think about that.”