Cambridge Blue (31 page)

‘Why would I?’ And what sounded like indignation in Bryn’s voice could have been panic.

Goodhew slowed his pace slightly. ‘What are you afraid of, Bryn?’

‘The only person you knew connected to Lorna was Victoria Nugent. So—’ Goodhew halted abruptly and spun round to face Bryn. ‘Are you afraid that she’s the victim or afraid of having the police on your back?’

‘It is Victoria then?’

‘That’s right.’ Breaking news of a death should have prompted more sympathy, but Goodhew felt strangely detached. ‘But why were you looking for me?’

‘I told you.’

‘No, why me? Why not call the station, or ask the PC at the cordon or, come to that, wait for the
Cambridge News
like the rest of the general public?

Bryn scowled. ‘I just thought you’d tell me.’

‘So you thought I’d treat you differently?’

‘Gary, what’s your problem?’ Bryn held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’m sorry you’ve got a bit of an issue here. The bottom line is, you did tell me, so you did treat me differently.’

This time it was Bryn who started walking away. Goodhew watched him tramp towards the corner before catching up. He launched straight in. ‘Including Colin Willis, we now have three deaths and, as far as I can tell, you are the only person who knew all of them, so you’re right in the middle of this.’

‘I’m not in the middle,’ Bryn argued. ‘I just look like I am.’

‘OK, so when did you last see Victoria Nugent?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know? Not last night then?’

Bryn shook his head.

Goodhew persisted. ‘Did you see her last night?’

‘No.’ It sounded as though Bryn was testing out the word at first, and he must have thought that it sounded all right, because he immediately repeated it again with more confidence. ‘I didn’t see her,’ he added for good measure.

Anger surged through Goodhew. All at once, it punched him squarely in the gut. He grabbed at Bryn’s shoulder, spinning him around into a shop entrance. ‘Do I have gullible stamped on my forehead or something?’ he growled.

Bryn paled. ‘What are you on about?’

‘You’re a liar.’

‘I didn’t see her.’

‘I know, for a fact, you were the last person to be with her.’ There was no way they were about to debate this and he rammed it home with a prod of his finger. ‘I
know
you were with her at Lorna’s flat, too. Do you really think that we wouldn’t have the place under surveillance?’

Bryn groaned. ‘Who else knows?’

‘Let’s just say that depends on how soon the swab results come back from the forensics lab.’

Bryn took a couple of seconds to digest this comment, acknowledging its impact by groaning again. Goodhew reached forward and hauled him out of the doorway. Bryn half walked and was half dragged around the corner into Petty Cury’s pedestrianized arcade and through the newly unlocked doors of a sandwich shop. A surly woman in a cheerful gingham apron was too busy wiping the work surfaces to even look in their direction. The long glass counter was still empty, so it was just as well that they had no desire to place an order.

Apart from the counter, the place had a token table and two chairs. They both sat down on opposite sides. Bryn spoke first. ‘What happens now?’ he whispered.

‘I need to take you in, and you have to make a statement.’

‘So why are we here?’

‘I want to ask you some questions of my own.’

‘Off the record?’

‘You’re just telling me first. And I wouldn’t be economical with the truth if I were you, it has a way of coming out in the end.’

‘That’s what my mother always says.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s what I think too.’

Bryn shrugged. ‘OK then.’

‘You made out you barely knew Victoria, and said there was nothing going on between you and Lorna. Why lie?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You had sex with both of them.’

‘But there wasn’t anything else going on.’

Goodhew rapped the table with his knuckles. ‘Hello! Most people call that more than nothing.’

‘Why? If we’d only gone to the same gym or restaurant, now and again, then it would be fine to say there was nothing important. We just happened to . . . you know . . . that was all.’

‘Just happened to? And how did you just happen to break and enter into Lorna Spence’s flat?’

‘Victoria had a key, and she said she’d lost something.’

‘The diary?’

Bryn shook his head in dismay. ‘What don’t you know, eh?’

‘At the moment, I’d say everything that matters. She called you first, I assume?’

Bryn nodded. ‘Yeah, she phoned me yesterday, said she wanted to meet up. I didn’t mind, actually.’ Bryn pulled an apologetic face. ‘I did fancy her, she looked just like August off last year’s calendar. It was still pinned up by the kettle until recently.’

‘Then you met her and threw it out?’ Goodhew replied sarcastically.

‘No, I met her and moved it next to the phone.’

‘This is a murder.’

‘I know, I know, and I’m sorry but I was just being honest.’

Goodhew interrupted him. ‘OK. When did you decide to go to Lorna’s?’

‘Victoria suggested it as soon as I saw her again. She said she had a key and we’d be in and out in a minute. I didn’t like it, but she argued that it wasn’t a crime scene any more, and we weren’t breaking in. I thought that made sense, until we got there. Then I knew, straight away, that we were doing something we shouldn’t.’

With only minor prompting, Bryn described everything Goodhew already knew.

‘So,’ Bryn concluded, ‘even I can see that the diary was invented, which means she wanted me there for some other reason.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know the answer.’

‘It’s common knowledge that Lorna and Victoria fell out, but supposedly over a man. You’re the only one I can find who has slept with both of them, but you are also the only person who disputes this theory.’

‘So?’

‘So, it’s my theory that, whatever they fought over, it wasn’t a lover. I think Victoria tried to make you think there was jealousy between them, after all, as a diversion from the real reason.’

‘Hey!’ The voice belonged to the surly woman with the gingham apron. They both looked up. She had her hands on her hips. ‘This isn’t a bus shelter. Are you ordering or not?’

It was a not, Goodhew decided. He jerked his head towards the door. ‘I’m going to walk you to Parkside station.’

Bryn liked to think he could take things in his stride – tackle new obstacles running – roll with the punches. Fine in theory, but the last twenty-four hours had demonstrated that his everyday life hadn’t, up until now, been very challenging. It had been hours since his Zodiac had ground to a halt, but it was only as he and Gary stepped back out into Petty Cury that his world finally stopped spinning. And it felt better that way.

‘I’m sorry I lied,’ he said and retrieved his mobile from his pocket. He hoped that sharing it with Gary might keep the brakes fully engaged. ‘I had a text from her last night.’

‘From Victoria?’

‘It arrived while I was waiting to be towed, but I was too pissed off to look at it until I’d got the car safely back.’ Bryn opened the message, but couldn’t bring himself to read it again.

He passed the phone to Gary.

‘You didn’t take it seriously?’ Gary asked.

‘I didn’t know what to make of it. I never thought it really meant she was, you know . . .’

‘Dead?’

‘Yep.’ Bryn tried to push the thought away. He wanted to ask how she’d died but, at the same time, he guessed he didn’t really want to find out. So he shoved his hands into his pockets and stayed quiet.

‘I suppose your trip down the M11 is your only alibi?’

‘Won’t that do?’

‘It depends on the precise timings.’

Bryn felt his stomach make an uneasy shift. ‘I wouldn’t hurt anyone.’

‘I want to believe you.’ Gary smiled, but Bryn wasn’t too blind to see the melancholy behind it.

‘Sure, and I want you to. And I also want the patron saint of panel-beaters to pop the dent out of my Zodiac’s wing, but things like that only happen when you make them.’

‘You mean, you make your own luck?’

‘Exactly.’ Bryn said it with more bravado than he felt.

Gary seemed to be thinking things over. ‘What was supposed to be in Victoria’s diary?’

‘She called it “intimate” and said it would be humiliating if anyone else read it.’

‘And you believed her?’

‘Why not? She wasn’t very inhibited, I’m sure she did some wild stuff in the past.’

‘But she didn’t seem the apologetic type. I can’t imagine her feeling humiliated by exposure.’

They were within a couple of hundred yards of the police station and Bryn was aware that he was now walking more slowly. He didn’t want to sit in some soulless interview room sharing the details of his last twenty-four hours with a complete stranger.

‘Anyway,’ Gary pointed ahead, ‘we’re here now and it doesn’t matter about the diary. I was more interested in your reasons for believing her. And I think you’ve been very gullible.’

That comment stung and Bryn suddenly felt indignant. ‘No, remember she worked with Richard and Alice Moran on a day-to-day basis. I can understand she would have felt humiliated if it had all come out. Most normal people would find that situation pretty kinky.’

Gary scowled. ‘What are you on about?’ Just then his mobile rang, but he made no move to answer it.

Bryn hesitated, then replied, just as Gary reached into his jacket after all.

FORTY

Bryn’s most recent words echoed something else Goodhew had heard, but he just couldn’t place what it was. He struggled to retrieve the memory, but it was wedged on the edge of his subconscious.

And his mobile was still ringing. He wanted to ignore it, but knew he would find it too distracting. He finally answered, planning to promise to ring the caller back. But the voice at the other end was Mel’s, and his intended words caught in his throat just long enough for her to start to deliver the message.

She sounded awkward, or maybe he imagined she did. ‘You have an urgent message from a woman. It’s personal, she said, and made me promise to pass it on straight away.’ She paused. ‘OK?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘She wants you to ring her on her mobile about a horse called Suze.’

He waited for more, but there wasn’t any. ‘That’s it?’

‘What else were you expecting, something about a boy named Sue?’

‘What?’

‘The song? Oh, never mind.’ She sounded embarrassed now. ‘I was being silly. Sorry.’

‘OK, fine. I’ll call her.’ He knew he sounded brusque, but he couldn’t help it. ‘I’m just about to drop off Bryn O’Brien at the station. Ring DI Marks immediately and let him know.’

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and concentrated on Bryn. ‘Did you just say something about “Victoria and the dad”?’

Bryn managed a combination of shrugging, nodding and looking apprehensive. ‘Victoria was going out with old man Moran till he died. You didn’t know?’

‘No one mentioned it. So what else do you know about them?’

‘Nothing except that he was rich and she was gorgeous. I think it was what’s called mutually beneficial.’

‘Right. You sure?’

‘Ask the Morans.’

Goodhew nodded, still fighting for that elusive memory. ‘And what did you say just before that?’

‘No idea.’

‘Come on, I said you’d been pretty gullible, and you said . . .’

‘Oh yeah, yeah, I was just saying that working with the Morans would make any sexy stuff between her and the dad more embarrassing, especially as her best mate was shagging his son.’

Goodhew snapped his fingers as he finally got it. ‘No, you didn’t say “sexy”. You said “kinky”.’

‘And?’

Goodhew tapped Bryn’s arm. ‘And we’ve been loitering outside for too long. Time to get in and help us with our enquiries.’

FORTY-ONE

Goodhew accompanied Bryn as far as the main entrance, confident that Bryn wasn’t stupid enough to abscond through the rear door.

He then rang Mel again. ‘One more thing,’ he said without preamble. ‘Marks has the Joanne Reed case notes in his office. I’ll be back shortly, so please get them ready and I’ll grab them on my way past.’

‘OK,’ she said.

‘It’s urgent,’ he added.

‘Fine,’ she replied, probably thinking he was lazy for not doing it himself. He thought he probably was. He had nothing else to add, so he just hung up. Now he’d be arrogant, as well as lazy.

He was still standing at the top of the steps leading into Parkside station as he rang Jackie Moran’s mobile. Looking towards the city centre as he put the phone to his ear, he noticed that her RAV4 was parked in the nearest of the metered bays to his right. He could make out the shape of someone sitting in the driver’s seat, but he couldn’t tell if it was Jackie Moran herself. But then, as the phone began to ring, he saw her step on to the pavement in the same instant as he heard her voice. ‘Thanks for phoning me,’ she said.

‘Stay there,’ he said and hung up.

Today she was wearing navy-blue jodhpurs and a dark-green pullover, making him wonder how often she dressed for anywhere but a visit to the stables. She had a large manila envelope pressed to her chest with her arms wrapped around it, like high school girls held their books in 1950s teen movies.

Two things had altered, though. Firstly she was dogless and secondly, even from a distance, he could see a marked change in her body language. She stood on the path with feet planted squarely and, as he came closer, he saw she had a resolute expression to match her stance.

‘Why the coded message?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t want to be fobbed off with anyone else,’ she replied.

‘Look, it all depends what you’re going to say, but I can’t promise that I will be allowed to deal with it.’

‘I’ve made a decision, and now all I want is some moral support. I think I can trust you?’

‘Sure, but . . .’

She took a deep breath. ‘Don’t spoil it. I want support, not an accomplice.’

‘All I was about to say is that my authority is practically zero. I’m still a junior officer.’