Innocent Blood (29 page)

‘How old was she when he left her?’

‘Oh, couldn’t have been more than sixteen. They mature early there and marry young.’

So Maidment had engaged in sex with a minor and fathered a child by her, then bought his way out of trouble. Cooper felt the sick betrayal we all do when a hero turns out to be a weak human after all.

‘Did his English wife ever find out?’

‘No! Never. What happens on a posting remains out there, trust me. You’ve got to understand, he was very popular and most of us had some sort of secret or other we were only too happy to leave behind. I’m only telling you now so that you realise just how unlikely it is that he was involved in the Hill boy’s death.’

Maybe, Cooper thought, but a weakness for sex and a secret like that, and perhaps others accumulated over the years, would make him an easy man to blackmail. He took his leave of Jacob, assuring the man that his revelations would only need to come out in extreme circumstances and would remain confidential in the meantime.

There was a lot for him to digest, and it wasn’t just the apple pie. Nightingale was going to be delighted. She’d known there was something fishy about Maidment, had done from the moment she met him. Woman’s instinct? Maybe she had sensed his sexual appetite and been put off by it. Whatever, she’d been right and he was looking forward to telling her so. As he drove away it occurred to him that he was still thinking of Nightingale as in charge of the Maidment case, not Fenwick.

When Fenwick had taken over, Cooper had been relieved – not that he resented Nightingale being given more responsibility, of course not, more that it felt
right
for the SIO to be a man the team would respect. But Fenwick had been clever; he’d given her the room to assume responsibility while making it clear that anyone who objected would have to deal with him and, to be fair to the lass, she’d done a bloody good job. He smiled as he put his foot down so that he could make good time and share the news.

Instead of enjoying the moment of arrests as the Choir Boy investigation came to a head, Fenwick was trying to persuade the Forensic Laboratory that there was something they could identify from the Well Wisher’s letters that would help to trace him or her. Tom, the head of the lab, was sympathetic but resistant to the idea of performing yet more tests.

‘They’ve told us all they’re going to, Andrew. The letters are virtually sterile – not even the most painstaking analysis has given us anything beyond confirmation that they were written on mass-produced stationery using an HP printer and ink that are sold in thousands of outlets across the UK; the envelopes have been sent to the fingerprint unit but quite honestly I think they’re wasting their time because the sender is too smart to leave a trace. And the book has nothing hidden inside it – no secret messages that we could detect in the margin – and you already know from the fingerprint team that Paul held it at some time.’

‘I know; I just hoped there might be something more.’ He sounded despondent.

To cheer him up Tom said, ‘I tell you what, we’ll give priority to the samples we’ve just received from Louise Nightingale if that helps.’

Fenwick was too experienced to let his surprise show but as soon as he broke the connection he speed-dialled her number, was put straight through and asked her what she’d found. Nightingale explained about her interview with the Anchors and being taken to the field where Oliver had seen the car burning on the night Paul disappeared.

‘I’m thinking that it could have been Taylor’s car; it would explain why there was no trace of it after Anchor saw it.’

‘So you decided to collect soil samples after all this time?’ Fenwick was torn between disbelief and admiration.

‘Well, no, not exactly.’

She told him about the cigarettes and blood, sounding nervous, as if waiting for him to scoff. He remained silent.

‘It’s probably nothing, of course, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that there’d been recent news coverage about Paul I probably wouldn’t have done it but—’

‘You don’t need to make excuses. You thought maybe the killer had returned to the scene just to make sure all traces had vanished. It is totally illogical but we’ve known murderers do more stupid things.’

‘Exactly.’ He could hear her relief. ‘There’s something else too.’

He could hear a note of triumph in her voice.

‘Bob Cooper’s just been in to see me. He thinks he’s discovered Maidment’s guilty secret.’

Nightingale gave him the story about the major’s first family.

‘Plenty of grounds for blackmail there,’ Fenwick observed. ‘What are you going to do with the info?’

‘Nothing immediately. Maidment’s where we want him; we already suspected that he was hiding something and now we know that he might have been forced to do so or risk being exposed as a bigamist. His wife might be dead but I doubt his son would welcome being called a bastard. Frankly I’ve never bought the idea that his silence was all to do with honour and protecting the regiment; protecting his reputation more like. If I confront him I’m not sure what reaction I’ll get. I sense that his silence has become habit after all these years. He’s convinced himself that he’s done nothing seriously wrong and until we can give him hard facts to show he’s involved in a murder we’ll get nothing from him.’

‘You could be right. Why not give Cooper another crack at finding out who he’s covering for?’

‘That’s what I’ve got him doing now. He’s cross checking the list of Maidment’s friends and acquaintances against the people who were interviewed when Malcolm and Paul disappeared.’

‘What about trying to find other potential victims of abuse?’

‘Already in hand. Robin is re-interviewing school friends but has nothing so far. I’ve had an idea though.’

‘Go on.’

‘How about a press conference, appealing for abuse victims to come forward?’

‘That’s a big step.’

It was one he’d already considered and dismissed until they had firmer information against which to judge what the people claiming to have been abused would say. Inevitably, among the potentially genuine victims would be the delusional, the mentally ill and the hoaxers. It would consume enormous resources to screen each one carefully, particularly as not all his detectives were trained to handle the work. It required great skill to gain the confidence of an abuse victim, extract and then evaluate their statements, and he would need to borrow trained interviewers from outside Sussex to handle the workload.

Fenwick told Nightingale he’d consider the idea. The other reason for delaying a public appeal was that it might be the only possibility to flush out more information about the Well-Wisher. He was sketching out what a press statement might contain and the best way to handle the briefing when his desk and mobile phones rang simultaneously.

‘Fenwick,’ he said holding one to either ear.

‘We’re in! Everything we could need is here.’

‘He’s dead!’

‘What? Alison, hold on, Clive’s on the other line. Who’s dead, Clive?’

‘Ball.’

Fenwick closed his eyes in dismay but forced his voice to be calm.

‘Alison, call me back in ten minutes.’ He replaced the receiver on his desk phone.

‘Go on, Clive. How did he die?’

‘It’s not obvious from the body. There’s an almost full bottle of whisky and a glass beside him but no pills so it doesn’t look like suicide.’

‘What type of whisky was he drinking?’

‘What? Er… I… Hang on, I’ll find out.’ Fenwick could hear him calling out what he obviously thought a bizarre question, then his reply, ‘Oban twelve-year old single malt.’

‘Very nice but not his normal tipple. We know from weeks of surveillance that he bought Bells – and plenty of it.’

‘How the heck did you remember that?’ Clive asked, before realising that if Fenwick knew such detail then he would certainly expect the officers actually involved in watching Ball to remember it. He went on quickly. ‘The doc’s on his way, so are SOCO. I called them straight away.’

‘And the scene is sealed?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m coming over as soon as I’ve spoken to the ACC. In the meantime you can find out from the team on duty yesterday where and how they lost him. I want chapter and verse.’

His call with the ACC was brief; he couldn’t hide his disappointment but Harper-Brown was surprisingly supportive.

‘God knows, Andrew, you’ve achieved more than anyone else could have done. Don’t beat yourself up that Ball chose to die on you.’

‘Unless it was murder.’ Fenwick told him how the dead man had given them the slip the previous afternoon.

‘But he was seen fit and well returning to his flat and was there until the body was discovered.’

‘Even so, I’ll only be satisfied that there’s no connection to his disappearance when the autopsy confirms natural causes.’

Alison called him on his mobile as he was leaving and he told her about Ball.

‘How did he die? Is it murder?’

‘I’m on my way to find out.’

Clive was grim-faced when he met Fenwick outside Ball’s flat.

‘You are going to be seriously pissed off,’ he warned, before telling Fenwick how sergeant Welsh had let Ball slip away from him just after lunch on Sunday. He had been tailing him in his car, completely routine, when Ball had suddenly done an illegal U-turn before heading down a one-way street the wrong way.

‘Had he clocked the tail, do you think?’

‘Welsh swears not, says he was several cars back and until that point the surveillance had been routine.’

‘Hmm, unlikely but supposing for a moment he’s right, why would Ball suddenly take off like that?’

‘A precaution, just in case?’ Clive volunteered.

‘Exactly, which means he was going to meet someone or do something very important. I wonder if that led to his death.’

‘The doc’s inside now. Maybe he can tell us something.’

Fenwick had recognised Pendlebury’s car double parked in front of the flats. He was one of the best pathologists in Sussex, the very best in Fenwick’s opinion, and he stepped up to the crime tape hopefully.

‘My lucky day!’ he called over it. ‘How did they drag you away from your lab, Doc?’

‘You make me sound like Frankenstein.’

‘I wouldn’t use that brain if I were you. Any thoughts on time of death?’

‘You know me better than that. The skin’s cold and clammy, there’s no rigor in the neck and it’s resolving in the body. All that suggests he died eighteen to twenty-four hours ago but the room is warm and closed so I could be out by up to four hours. Lividity is fixed and the pattern suggests he died where he’s sat. I’ve finished with him – you can move him now.’ Pendlebury raised himself from his knees and took off his gloves.

Fenwick followed him to his car, a beaten-up estate that looked as if it should be put out of its misery.

‘Can you tell me anything at all?’

‘I’m not being difficult but honestly, no. I doubt it’s alcohol poisoning – unless he’d been drinking heavily before – because there’s too much of the whisky left in the bottle for that. It could be a natural death – heart attack, cerebral haemorrhage, embolism, or it could be suicide – alcohol plus some sort of drugs. Were any found by the body?’

‘No. Might it be murder?’

‘No obvious wounds. Poison’s a possibility. Is he a likely victim?’

‘We think he knows some very nasty criminals and we were about to arrest him.’

‘Then I’ll ask for the tox screens to be run urgently.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate it. Call me anytime.’

‘You won’t be attending the autopsy? I can do it straight away if it’s urgent.’

‘It is, and thanks again but Clive Kettering can join you; it’ll be good for him and I’ve got other things to do.’

Nightingale was relieved to hear from Clive that he was going to be late; could they postpone dinner? She was busy reading Cooper’s interview notes, trying to find in them something that would tell them whom Maidment was protecting. She knew from Fenwick that he was no closer to finding the Well-Wisher and she wanted to escape any more media embarrassment.

Cooper had made good progress cross-checking the people interviewed in 1982 after Paul disappeared with the list of the major’s army acquaintances. She put her head into the CID room and asked him to join her so that they could discuss what he’d found out.

‘There was more overlap than I’d expected,’ he told her. ‘A few of them also knew Taylor so they’ll get top priority tomorrow. There are nine men in Sussex who were in the army at the same time, knew Maidment and Taylor. All of them were interviewed when Taylor became a suspect and I saw some of them only last week so they’ll not exactly be overjoyed to see me.’

Nightingale scanned the list of names he gave her:

Adrian Bush

Alex Cotton

Richard Edwards*

Vernon Jones

Ernest Knight

Patrick Murray

Ben Thompson

Zach Smart*

*interviewed already

None of them rang a bell.

‘So what’s next?’ she asked him.

‘See them again. I’m particularly keen to visit Smart because he promised to come in and make statement and hasn’t, and he knew Paul. Thompson has been elusive as well. How about you? Enjoying yourself?’

‘Yes. It feels good to be in charge. What are they saying about it out there?’

Cooper shrugged and looked a little uncomfortable.

‘Go on.’

‘Most of them are OK – jury’s out until you’ve finished; they’ll work for you, do a decent job.’

‘And the others?’

‘The usual bigoted pigs you’ve been used to handling for years. Don’t worry about them.’

‘Funnily enough, I’m not,’ she said, meaning it. ‘As long as they do their job and obey orders they can think what they like. And if they don’t.’ She paused and smiled. It was a wicked smile. ‘If they don’t I’m going to quite enjoy putting them straight.’

‘Good for you. Just make sure I’m around to see it; I wouldn’t want to miss the show. Best get back to it then.’ He made to leave.

‘Oh, Bob,’ she said, just before he reached the door, ‘if you’ve got a bet on with Dave McPherson, you’d better make sure it’s placed the right way. I wouldn’t want you to lose any money.’