Irrefutable Evidence: A Crime Thriller (25 page)

“Not at all, dear. It’s nice to talk to you again.”

After a further exchange of niceties, Grace said she could hear Languid scratching at the door. Jennifer thanked her for her time and rang off.

“That was a tall tale,” laughed Derek. “Why did you call her?”

“She’d told me that Diana, as she knows Freneton, had learned about car maintenance from her father. I wanted to confirm it was true rather than a line with no substance that Freneton was spinning to her. Now I know not only that it’s true, but also that she will have had the knowledge to bump off her father.”

Derek shrugged. “Do you want me to arrest her on suspicion of murdering him?”

“No, of course not, but it all fits, don’t you see?”

Another shrug from Derek. “S’pose so. I mean, she could’ve. When was that?”

“Nineteen ninety-one.”

“And when did she join the force?”

“In ninety-eight, at the age of twenty-three. Graduate entry, like me, but she was fast-tracked, unlike me. She was smart, determined, physically capable, good at all the unarmed combat stuff.”

“Did you check up on anything prior to 2007?”

“I checked for similar cases to those five back as far as 1999 and found nothing. Mind you, the farther back you go, the harder it is without access to the police computers.”

Derek smiled knowingly. “So is that what you want me to do?”

Jennifer shook her head sharply. “Absolutely not. You mustn’t start accessing the files; all sorts of sirens might go off. No, as I told you, Henry is the only one of the five alleged culprits we know of who is still alive. I’m wondering if Freneton had a hand in that. If she did, then Henry is in real danger.”

“But I can’t go to McPherson and tell him that you think Henry’s life’s at risk,” protested Derek. “He’ll throw me out of his office. And even with the credit card thing and this Taverner person, and the other one — Doughthey — there’s all the forensic evidence and the CCTV.”

“I’ve been looking at the CCTV again,” said Jennifer. “Henry’s solicitor has copies, obviously, although I swore I wouldn’t say that I’d seen them, their being sub judice. Anyway, the thing is, I don’t reckon it’s Henry on the CCTV; it’s someone trying to copy him. I don’t know, it’s the way the person is walking.”

Derek laughed. “Sounds like wishful thinking to me.”

“Just as identifying him was from what we, the police, wanted to see,” countered Jennifer.

“Whatever, Jennifer, it still isn’t strong.”

“I know, we need something else and I might have come up with it. I spoke to a friendly forensic scientist who reckons there could be some mileage in examining the inside of Henry’s clothing, the pullover in particular. The trouble is that the request should, ideally, come from the police.”

Derek wasn’t so sure. “Ideally, perhaps, but not necessarily. The defence can request for it to be done either by or in the presence of their own expert, so long as they are willing to pay.”

Jennifer picked up her wine, took a sip and put it down.

“Yes, but it would still be better coming from the police. Look, I’ve told Charles Keithley everything and he’s agreed not to proceed until he knows whether anyone in the police is going to take it seriously. If they don’t, he’ll blow the whistle. The problem with that is that Freneton will almost inevitably get to hear about it and start covering her tracks. I’m already worried that she might have some contact with Grace Taverner, even though that’s not actually due for several months. Who currently are Freneton’s least favourite people in the SCF?”

“Ha! Take your pick!” snorted Derek. “Nobody actually likes her but she gets results. And, as you know, her organisational skills are impressive. She’s clearly on her way to the top. But having said that, I’ve also heard that even the ACC avoids her.”

Jennifer sighed, suddenly feeling the enormity of the problem.

“In order for this to be taken seriously, Derek, we do need the support of someone in authority, and therefore someone who ideally is senior to Freneton.”

Derek was shocked. “You mean the DCS! I’m not sure I’d trust him.”

“No, nor am I. And I certainly couldn’t go to him directly. In fact, I don’t think he’d even agree to see me.”

“Of course you couldn’t, but neither could I.”

“But would you be willing to break the ice with one of the others? Try to sell it to McPherson or Hurst; get them on board?”

Derek grinned at her. “Fell into that, didn’t I? But yes, I could give it a whirl. McPherson likes you, as does Hurst. We could all see he was hopping when your resignation was more or less forced.”

Jennifer reached out and touched Derek’s arm. “Thanks, Derek. You’re a true friend. But what I am concerned about is that they understand that although you are telling them, it’s on my behalf and you are in the clear, that you’ve not helped me or broken any rules. They must know that I’ve done everything off my own bat, all with info that is already available or that I got from Henry’s solicitor. It’s all legit and not come from police sources via you or anyone else.”

Derek was still smiling. “You worry too much, Jen. But, hey, what about the bit on the phone just now where you were pretending to work for a bank. Slightly bending the truth, eh?”

Jennifer tossed her head. “I’m no longer a police officer. I can pretend to be anyone I want. And anyway, I don’t know what you mean. Grace Taverner’s an old lady; she must have misheard me.”

“Yeah,” grinned Derek, “exactly like I did. But seriously, Jen, thinking about it all and with what you’ve told me this evening, you don’t have to ask me to jump on board and talk to the DI. I have a duty to report it to my senior officers.”

C
hapter 29

D
erek Thyme was sprinting to Olympic stardom in the final of the two hundred metres when the runner immediately behind him grabbed him by the shoulder and started shaking it.

“Derek. Derek! Wake up, for Christ’s sake! You’ve got to get to the office, remember?”

He was having a hard time registering anything, let alone actually remembering. He stretched and realised he must be on a sofa. He turned his head in the direction of the voice and instantly regretted it as a succession of mortar bombs exploded in his brain. He groaned, turned his face into the sofa and tried to blank out the pain. He wanted to go back to the race.

“Derek!”

With a great deal of effort, he swung his legs round and sat up, his head spinning.

“God, that was a mistake,” he grunted. He looked up and saw Jennifer’s face beginning to focus in front of him.

Memories of the previous evening slowly started to crystallise as she thrust a glass of water into his hands.

“Drink this, you soak. Do you know how much wine you got through last night?”

“I don’t remember you holding back either,” he spluttered as he gulped down the water.

What was filtering unbidden into his memory now was an image of Jennifer insisting that he’d had too much to drink, that he couldn’t drive, that he must stay the night. He’d looked hopefully into her eyes but the wrong light was on. All she’d done was toss him a duvet and point to the sofa.

“What time is it?”

“Seven. I’ve been up for half an hour making you copies of everything in the files.”

“Seven! I never get up this early. Why—”

“P’raps that’s why you’re known as Justin. I reckoned you wouldn’t want to go to work in those clothes, given you slept in them. So you need to go home, shower and change.”

“Are you my mother?”

“Just looking after your best interests. And mine. You’ve got an important meeting to set up this morning. You need to look as if you’re on the same planet as everyone else. Do you want some more water? Coffee?”

Derek winced again as he shook his head. “I’d best be getting home. Don’t want to be late.”

He pointed to the second box file that had materialised on the coffee table. “That mine?”

“Yes,” said Jennifer as she picked it up and thrust it into his arms.

“I’ll call you,” he said, heading for the door.

She heard his feet thumping down the stairs and the front door being yanked open. Then a yell a moment before the door slammed shut.

“Thanks, mum!”

Jennifer paced the floor impatiently for an hour, and then when she was sick of that, she went for a run and a bike ride followed by another hour of pacing. But Derek didn’t ring. By lunchtime she was checking her watch every ten minutes, by three o’clock, every five. She read and re-read everything in the files, knowing that was the material Derek would be showing to … whom? The DI? The DCI? Maybe he’d got as far as the DCS. Christ, why didn’t he ring? Had Freneton intercepted him? Read the files? Jesus, she was stupid to have let him go with all that information. If Freneton got hold of it, she’d be round to see Jennifer, wanting to destroy everything, wanting to kill her. She checked and re-checked the front door, making sure the three bolts were in place. The only weapons she had were kitchen knives. She should buy a baseball bat. Bit late now. What was she thinking? She was trained in unarmed combat. Christ, so was Freneton! And she had a reputation for not holding back.

At six she turned on the television to watch the news. Had the body of a black policeman been found in the Nottingham area? Glued to the set, she didn’t hear the car draw up outside and so when the buzzer sounded, she jumped about two feet in the air. She grabbed the entry phone set, dropped it, and, as she grabbed at it again, pressed the door release by mistake. Shit!

“Who is it?” she yelled.

“It’s me, Jen. The door won’t open. What’s happening?”

“Are you alone?”

“What? Of course I’m alone.”

“Go back to your car; let me see you.”

“Are you on the red wine again, Jen?”

“Do it!”

She ran to the balcony doors, pulled one open and darted to the railing. Down in the road she could see Derek leaning against the bonnet of his car, waving one arm casually at her and grinning.

Jennifer slid back the bolts and pulled open the front door, then she leaned back against the wall, her arms folded protectively across her chest as Derek walked in and closed the door behind him.

“Why so spooked, Jen?” he said, still grinning his idiot grin.

She dropped her eyes and shook her head. “You didn’t call.”

“Come here.”

She looked up and saw his outstretched arms.

“You need a hug, Cotton.”

“I do,” she whispered as she pressed her head against his chest.

“Sorry,” she said as they sat on the sofa. “I don’t know what came over me. I was imagining all sorts of things.”

“You were right to,” he said, his voice suddenly menacing. He half closed his eyes and pinched the skin below his jaw with the thumb and index finger of both hands, as if he were about to peel off his face.

“Derek is dead in a ditch. I’m really Olivia Freneton in disguise.”

“Idiot!” she said, punching him on the arm.

“Ouch! I’m arresting you for assaulting a police officer.”

“Shut up and tell me what happened.”

He shrugged. “I can’t do both.”

“Derek!”

He sat back and took a deep breath, suddenly serious.

“I’ll tell you what, Cotton, have you created some waves. Shit hitting the fan would be the understatement of the year. It was more like an entire sewage treatment plant venting its load.”

“Skip the scatological prose and cut to the chase, Thyme.”

“OK. I got in soon after nine; all smart, clean and shipshape, although the head was still giving me trouble. McPherson was in his office looking grumpy as usual, so I knocked on the door and asked if I could see him, said it was confidential. He gave me one of his looks and pointed to a chair. I closed his door and started to explain, but it came out a bit garbled. However, he must have picked up on how serious it was because after about a minute he told me to shut up and wait. Then he walked out of the room. I was shitting myself; I thought he’d gone to get Freneton even though at that stage I hadn’t even mentioned her name.

“But he hadn’t. He came straight back and told me to go with him. We marched into Hurst’s office and McPherson closed the door behind us. You can see through the glass partition, as you know, but Freneton was nowhere around, which was a relief. Didn’t want her barging in.

“Anyway I explained what you’d found in more or less the order you told me. I said you’d found four other cases, found the names on the guest lists and emphasised, ’cause you’d told me to, that you’d done it all. I told them I’d wanted to help but you wouldn’t let me.”

“You shouldn’t have said that, Derek; they could hold it against you.”

“I think they took it the right way,” he said, shrugging. “Anyway, when I got to the bit with the photographs of the Ice Queen, they both nearly had coronaries. Then Hurst went white while McPherson grabbed the files and started to read them all. Hurst picked up on that and wanted them too. They were like kids, almost snatching things out of each other’s hands. I had to intervene to make sure they had covered all the info. I told them it would be better if I summarised it all before they read over it, so that they had a broad picture. You would have been proud of me, Jen, they just sat back and took it. ‘You’re right, Thyme,’ Hurst said to me. ‘Bullet point the lot.’ So I did.”

Jennifer touched Derek’s arm and grinned. “Well done, partner, I wish I’d been there.”

“Yeah, well, I’d expect them to take it from you, you seem to be able to wind them round your little finger, but it was a new experience for me. Felt good.

“Anyway, once I’d gone through everything, you know, the credit card thing, Freneton’s history with Amelia Grace Taverner, her postings, and of course, the point about all the other blokes convicted of the murders being dead — that stopped them in their tracks too—”

“So it should.”

“Yeah. Anyway, once I’d covered it all, Hurst said they’d need to discuss it and that I wasn’t to say anything to anyone. I think that was the hardest part ’cause when I went back into the squad room, everyone wanted to know the score. They’d seen me go into McPherson’s office and then Hurst’s, and now they could see Hurst and McPherson tossing the papers around and waving their arms. They were at it for ages. Twice a WPC knocked on Hurst’s door for something, first one and then another ten minutes later. He bawled at them both to get out and stay out.”

“So how long did this go on for?” asked Jennifer.

“Like I said. Ages. I reckon it was nearly lunchtime. I was getting worried because the lads wouldn’t let it go. One after the other they kept dropping by my desk for a chat. I’ve never been so popular. Then someone had the bright idea of a pub lunch with a couple of those young civi research girls, the pretty ones. I reckon they thought they’d distract me into saying something. Fortunately, McPherson appeared at the right moment and called me back into Hurst’s office. We were there for another half an hour while they asked me more about various bits you’d told me. Some of it I could help with but most of it will need your input.”

“When do they want that?”

“I’ll tell you in a mo. They booted me out again and they both went off to the DCS’s office where there was a repeat performance of the whole morning’s dramatics, only even noisier — you know what Hawkins is like when he gets wound up. I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying, of course, because the office door was closed, and I couldn’t see anything ’cause Hawkins’ office has walls, not glass, but there was certainly a lot of ranting and raving. It was funny, when the lads got back from the pub, one or other of them would keep finding excuses to pop along the corridor to see if they could pick anything up. The DCS’s secretary was getting totally pissed off, since she’s the barrier between him and the human race. Her mood got even worse when she also tried to go into his office and got a bawling out for interrupting him in a meeting.”

“What about Freneton?” asked Jennifer. “Where was she when all these high dramatics were going on?”

“Fortunately, she was out for the day. Over at county headquarters, I think. But she’ll be back tomorrow, so that will be interesting.”

“Do you know if they’re running with it? I’ll need to know so that I can brief Charles Keithley. Although he’s trying to remain calm, I know he can’t wait to get something moving. Every day Henry is inside is a day too many for Charles, not to say Henry, of course.”

“Yeah, I can sympathise. You must feel the same, Jen.”

She smiled at him. “I do, but at least now I think there’s some hope.”

When Derek didn’t smile back, Jennifer registered it immediately.

“Don’t you agree?”

“Up to a point, yes, but there’s still a way to go. However, the outcome of today is that Hawkins has set up a confidential team comprising the three of them: him, Hurst and McPherson, and me, although Hawkins said that he will probably bring in a couple of outsiders to help me. I’m really just their gofer at the moment.”

“It’s going to be difficult keeping Freneton out of the loop,” said Jennifer. “Her antennae are hypersensitive.”

“Yes, they know that. McPherson told me that the DCS is hoping that they can get something quickly to either implicate her more strongly, or exonerate her, in which case it would all go away.”

Jennifer shook her head. “Don’t you believe it. Charles won’t let this drop and neither will I. We want Henry off the hook.”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Derek. “I don’t think there’s much doubt in their minds that Henry has been set up. The biggest thing for them is getting their heads round the fact that Freneton’s involved. It’s a big deal, Jen, as you know. The fallout will be horrendous. I’m sure the DCS can already feel a noose of blame tightening round his neck.”

“What do they need from me?”

“Obviously they want to see you, but most definitely not in the nick. The DCS and Hurst were adamant about that; they don’t want you anywhere near the place. You bumping into Freneton could be a disaster. She’s not stupid and if she gets to thinking that you’re onto something, she might start taking matters into her own hands.”

“Why do you think I was so spooked today? I was running exactly that sort of scenario through my head.”

Derek’s eyes found hers. He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.

“I … I can stay, if you like. If you’re worried.”

Jennifer took his hand. “Thanks, that’s sweet, but I’d feel guilty if you spent another night on that sofa.”

“Doesn’t have to be the sofa,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

She put a hand on his cheek. “I don’t think I’d be … I mean, I’m extremely preoccupied. Look, it’s a tempting idea, but … I’m not quite ready.”