A Matter of Trust (20 page)

‘Yes, Sir,' Lisle said again.

Jim looked around the room. It bore the usual signs of any major incident room—a curious mixture of make do, and top-notch administrative work. In his time, he'd seen incident rooms set up in mills, theatres, church halls, even, once, in a sewerage plant. The idea was to stay as close to the scene of the crime as you could, space permitting. It was also a lot cheaper.

This room was a real prize, as far as such rooms went. Big, well ventilated and heated, and with adequate lighting. The room was
lined
with corkboards that bore information on all the latest results. Pictures from the crime lab, reports on alibi times, messages, little dots of yellow reminder paper, and many, many other bits and pieces. One desk was piled high with phones. Over in the corner, a WPC was hunched over a computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard. Uniformed men came and went, eating and drinking on the run, the room buzzing to the low-voiced backdrop of mumbled conversations. No doubt about it, this was a big operation. Jim was a bit surprised someone higher up the ladder hadn't stepped in before now.

Then he thought of all the possible ramifications of the case. Whoever was in charge would take a serious dent in their career prospects if they didn't solve it. And then there was the ever-present possibility of standing on some high up's toes. No, Jim grinned to himself, on second thoughts, perhaps it wasn't so surprising they'd left Lisle to run with the ball. Those who were opposed to him, (and in the upper echelons there were a few old-fashioned coppers who still were) were no doubt hoping he'd fall flat on his face. Whilst those who were in his camp had obviously decided that this was just the sort of high-profile case that could earn him his Chief Insepctorship.

If he could just pull it off.

Jim felt his shoulders tense. They were well
into
the third day, and still no break. They still hadn't found the murder weapon. And although there was a sniff of a possible motive it was going to be very hard proving it. And apart from Dr Callum Fielding, they had no outstanding suspect.

Whichever way you looked at it, it was not looking good, and the pressure was on.

Lisle sighed, said a final ‘Yes, Sir,' and hung up.

Jim glanced at him sympathetically. ‘Fire from on high?'

Lisle grunted noncommittally. He was not the kind of man who passed his problems on to those working under him.

‘Let's recap. Autopsy clear cut but of no particular use. Forensics?'

Jim handed over a large folder. ‘You've already read all the relevant bits. The trouble is, the killer didn't get anywhere near the victim. You can fire a bolt from almost as far away as a gun, apparently. So there's no fibres from clothes, no fingerprints of course. Nothing.'

Lisle sighed. Wasn't that the truth? In a hand-to-hand situation, a criminal left all sorts of goodies for them to find. Hair follicles, with DNA nicely packaged at the end for testing. Blood, saliva, bite marks, you name it. But the area around Sir Vivian had been as barren as a desert.

‘On the other hand,' Jim said with a more
up-beat
note, ‘we've finally finished collating our interviews with the party goers for that night.'

‘At last!'

Jim grimaced. ‘It's not so easy to track down, interview and compare over a hundred witnesses and their statements.'

‘I know. I know, quit griping,' Lisle said with a grin. ‘Just give me the relevant bits. Who do we have who
could
have done it?'

*           *           *

‘Naismith. Rosemary. A very popular lady by all accounts. She was absent for about half an hour during the party after the sit-down Dinner. But, from what my various sources tell me, she's more likely to have been snogging some erstwhile suitor in one of the broom cupboards than anything else. She's a notorious flirt, and a bit of a man eater.'

His sergeant went on to list about ten others, including an Emeritus Professor of Classics, a local businessman who had deep pockets and an ambitious son, a timid and rather well-known poet, and a local GP. All were pillars of the community, and none, naturally, harboured a secret criminal history.

Lisle grimaced. ‘A rather motley bunch, aren't they? What kind of dirt have you managed to dig up any of the other prizewinning wannabes? If we're right, and Sir
Vivian
had found a skeleton in someone's cupboard, we should be able to rattle its bones a bit.'

Jim sighed. ‘Nothing doing. Dr Ngabe is extremely well-respected. Several people have mentioned how hard-working she is. That's something of a rarity around here, I'm coming to think. Same goes for the others. The American contender is agitating to go back to the States, by the way. Apparently she has a long-standing commitment to lecture at Harvard and she's not happy. If you ask me, she's got a man over there—I can't see all this angst having to do with missing a few dates in the lecture halls.'

‘Cynic,' Lisle grunted. ‘And Naismith? She's in the frame—she have any interesting little quirks we should know about?'

‘Nothing academic so far. She seems to be a pretty bog-standard sort of Don. No, all her juicy bits and pieces seem love-related. She's had some very strange partners over the years. Including somebody our friends over in CID were interested in.'

‘Oh?' Lisle leaned forward.

Jim grinned and tossed his superior the file. Lisle read it with interest, but with no great hope. Apparently, some years ago, Dr Rosemary Naismith had had a live-in love affair with a Middle-East freedom fighter. No doubt he had terrorist connections, and had eventually been deported. Interesting,
but
hardly relevant. Sir Vivian had definitely hinted at some scholarship scandal before he'd been killed. He doubted the old man would have regarded anyone's love life as any of his business, no matter how risqué it might be. He sighed and tossed it to one side.

‘What have we got on the victim?'

‘Nothing. Semi-retired, no financial mess, can't even find an ex-mistress. No bad debts, nothing that smells even slighty off. Another paragon of virtue with not an enemy in the world.'

‘My, my, we're just rolling along, aren't we?' Lisle said grimly. ‘No murder weapon, no forensics, no witnesses, not much motive. Anything I missed?'

Jim paled slightly. ‘Don't worry, sir. We'll get there. Something will break.'

Lisle wasn't so sure. He got up and grabbed his coat. ‘Get those damned computers working. Hook up to the internet. See if you can get a line on that damned compound bow the experts reckon must have been used. He or she might have bought it online. And check the archery clubs or any internet games that have archery as a main theme. Perhaps our killer is a computer freak and we can track him down that way.'

‘Right.'

‘And re-interview Ollenback, Ngabe and Naismith. I want to know where they were during the time Sir Vivian died. Don't let up
on
them. Drag them down to the station if they look like playing it cute. And I want their statements in black and white and witnessed. Rattle a few cages. See if someone breaks.'

‘Right.'

‘And get me an appointment with our Lord St John James.'

‘Right.'

Lisle was at the door now.

‘Where'll you be?' Jim yelled above the hub-hub.

‘I'll be back by six,' Lisle yelled back, unhelpfully.

He got into the car and drove towards Holywell. All the way over he told himself he was only following up a lead. As he parked and locked the car he told himself that, when you got to a dead end, you smashed a way through. As he mounted the steps and knocked at her door he reminded himself it was time he got some straight answers.

But when she opened the door, and looked at him with those big green eyes, he knew damned well he'd just spent fifteen minutes lying to himself.

It did not put him in a good mood.

‘I want to speak to you, Miss Aldernay,' he said grimly, pushing open the door and forcing her to take a step back.

Nesta felt her heart leap. She swallowed hastily, and shut the door carefully behind him. Ever since first setting eyes on this man, she'd
known,
somehow, that she'd encountered, for the first time in her life, something inevitable. Something beyond her control, maybe even beyond psychological explanation. Something primal, and instinctive and utterly desirable.

She was very conscious of the quietness of the house. All the other tenants were at work, and at this hour, even her landlady was out shopping. ‘Inspector Jarvis,' she managed to say drolly. ‘How nice. Do come in.'

‘None of that!' Lisle snapped, walking to the middle of the room, ramming his hands into his pockets, and turning to face her. ‘Ever since we met, you've lied to me, distracted me, given me half-truths, and generally been a right royal pain in my neck. Now, I want some straight answers. Got it?' he thrust his chin out aggressively.

Nesta moved slowly over to the sofa. Her knees were weak, and her heart was pumping so much adrenaline through her body she needed to sit down. He looked so angry, and was all but pulsating with masculine energy. All her life, she'd played it according to the rules. Study. Go to college. Get her degree. Map out her career. Men had always been placed in a similar neat little box. Except this one. This one made his own space in her life, whether she wanted him there or not.

He watched her move to the sofa. She moved like a cat, he thought. All graceful indolence. She was wearing one of those
deceptively
simple ‘granny-type' dresses. All demure tiny blue and red flowers, against a creamy backdrop. Simple shoulder straps. Almost no cut to it at all, just a straight swathe of material that fell modestly to just below her knees. Nothing about it should have been alluring or provocative, but it was, damn it. It was!

Her hair, he saw, had just been newly washed. It gleamed and glowed like it had a fiery life all of its own. As she moved, the demure dress hinted at the roundness of her breasts, moved across her hips, clung, briefly, to the movements of her legs. And then she folded herself down onto the sofa. Her eyes, somehow, had become greener. Softer.

‘I've tracked down the men and women on that Dinner date list you gave me,' Lisle began grimly, but with that curious note of happiness that Jim Neill had spotted earlier. ‘They confirm that you were at the Trout that night.'

‘Were you surprised?' she asked mockingly. Now why, she thought, had she said that? Even she could hear the taunting and deliberately provocative tone in her voice. Where the hell had it come from? What did she think she was doing? Playing with this man was like poking a tiger with a stick.

Utter madness!

Except, some part of her
did
seem to know what she was doing. Some private, female, allbut ignored part of her that was now coming
into
its own. It was unusual. The psychologist in her couldn't help but be fascinated by her own behaviour. But she also knew, deep down, that it was dangerous. Taunting this man was so dangerous.

Lisle dragged in a ragged breath. ‘Don't play games with me, Miss Aldernay,' he warned through gritted teeth. ‘I'm just not in the mood for it.' His voice had the warning growl of a wolf in it.

Nesta felt herself flush. But it was not the heat of shame that was making her pale skin glow. It was something else altogether.

He was wearing a long black raincoat, and underneath, she could clearly see his rumpled white shirt and black trousers. He looked as if he hadn't slept in a week. There was a dark shadow of growth on his chin. His hair was tousled, untamed, like the look in his eyes.

All her life, she'd been used to so-called, civilised men. Fellow students, like herself, who could talk for hours and hours about the most convoluted and dull academic point. She'd always thought they were her ‘type', those intellectual men of her own age. Men with their careers to forge, idealistic, liberated, careful men. People who thought just like herself.

Now, looking at this furious policeman, she wondered what the hell she'd been thinking of. Not one of her erstwhile suitors back at Durham had a tenth of this man's character.
Not
one of them knew what life was really about. This man, she knew instinctively, could teach her more in a day than she'd learned in a year in the classroom.

She swallowed hard. Tried to control her body. Tried to remember what love could do to you. And suddenly realised that she couldn't even bring to mind the face of the man she'd thought she'd once loved. Couldn't even remember his name . . .

What was happening to her? She shouldn't be this far gone. Not so soon. She didn't even know this man. Didn't even know if he was married, had children. Didn't know his background, or his ambitions, or . . . She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. She swallowed hard. She tried to get her breathing under control.

As if aware of the sudden heat and tension in the room, Lisle shrugged off his raincoat. Underneath, she saw that he'd long since discarded his tie, and the shirt was even more disreputable than she'd thought. A coffee stain trailed a biege path down the right hand side of his chest, and had gone unnoticed. Sartorial elegance, she could see, didn't hold a high place on his list of priorities.

‘Now. According to them, you didn't leave Wolvercote until nearly 1.00 o'clock in the morning.' Which meant that the old man had been killed long before, and she was now, at last, truly and fully off the suspect list.

‘Really?'
Nesta said vaguely. ‘I didn't think it was as late as that.'

‘Well it was!' Lisle snapped, furious. ‘And if you'd paid more attention, I would have known that you were in the free and clear long before now!' he almost shouted, goaded to the point of total exasperation.

Nesta dragged her eyes away from the coffee stain, and the outline of his hard male nipple beneath it, and lifted her eyes to his. There was a puzzled look in them. ‘I'd have thought you wouldn't be this angry about it,' she said quietly. ‘Wasn't I a prime suspect? Aren't you happy to eliminate one more dead end?'