Making A Killing (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 2) (17 page)

‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Romney said to the gathering, ‘
DS Marsh is of the opinion that we mustn’t automatically assume the two murders are related, even though reason, crime statistics, circumstances and logic would strongly suggest that they are.’ Marsh didn’t thank the DI for that. ‘So, the sixty-four-thousand dollar question is, are they?’

Falkner spoke up from the rear.
‘Given the connection between the two and the timings, we have to favour that as an idea. We don’t get that many murders on our patch, as you all know. I for one don’t believe in coincidence.’

‘I agree, sir,’ said Romney. ‘It’s logical. Smart told me
he’d been receiving anonymous phone-calls threatening violence. He also told me he didn’t know Emerson other than by reputation. He could have been lying. I think we need to dig deeper to see if there is a connection between them. DS Wilkie can pursue that. I’m sure DS Marsh would like to concentrate her efforts on following up her alternative theory and I’ll focus on what we have and have yet to find out about Emerson.’

‘What about this Lillian West’s husband?’ said Falkner.

‘She claims he has no idea of what she’s been up to. He is also eighty-four and according to an independent witness and the wife not physically capable of carrying out such an attack.’

‘Have you checked that?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Falkner nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘You’re quiet, Grimes,’ said Romney. ‘Anything to add?’

After a long moment Grimes said, ‘Do we know whether Phillip Emerson had been involved in any other violent deaths prior to his own?’

Romney echoed the rest of the team’s thoughts, bar one, when he said, ‘What makes you ask that?’

*

With CID once again quiet, Romney went for a final look at the whiteboard in the briefing room before leaving to meet Julie Carpenter. He was as surprised to find Marsh there as she was when he walked in.

‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’ he said

‘Something’s bothering me about this. Something is missing.’

‘The killer?’

‘Or killers. I don’t know what it is? Not yet. Where will we look if the CD turns out to be a dead end?’

‘Emerson’s family. His business interests. Lillian West’s husband. He has a motive. Even if he couldn’t do it himself, he could always
have paid someone. We’ll have to spread our net. We don’t have the manpower to go chasing every possibility simultaneously.’

‘If the CD proves to be at the core of it, what would Duncan Smart have to do with that?’

‘I hope we’ll find that out.’

‘And I still have my doubts about Lillian West’s story
– that she wanted the CD to protect people. She said they were her friends. We should check that out. I wouldn’t take that woman’s word for anything.’

‘Make some calls in the morning. Phone this lot.’ Romney indicated the faces on the whiteboard. ‘Ask them how friendly they were with her. I’ll ask the two who I’ve yet to speak to.

‘I’m walking down into the town. Meeting Julie for a drink and something to eat. Would you like to join us?’

‘Thanks, but I’ve got a date with a fridge that’s been defrosting all day. I’ll walk with you though if you’re heading
that way. I saw something today that I think, as a book collector, you might be very interested to hear about.’

Some months before
, Marsh and Romney had taken mutual pleasure in discussing their shared interest of crime fiction over a pub-meal that had almost cost Romney his new relationship with Julie Carpenter. Since then the two women, thrown together in an impromptu wake and with the misunderstanding behind them, had been able to relax and enjoy each other’s company on the odd occasion.

While Marsh was an avid reader of the crime-fiction genre, with a couple of shelves in her small flat given over to crumpled paperbacks stained with red wine and bath water, Romney’s interest was in the first printings of the first editions. To him condition was everything. When he finally finished the renovation project that was his current home
, he promised Marsh a visit and viewing of his collection displayed in all its protected-dust-jacketed glory instead of boxed as it was now.

*

Going home, DS Wilkie was in a far better mood than he had been for days. Finally, he was back and involved in some proper police work: hunting murderers rather than mentally disturbed car vandals. The relief revitalized him. He stopped at a petrol station and bought flowers for his wife. He had been neglecting her, preoccupied with the misery of his stagnant position and the curse of the nutcase. She’d been putting up with a lot. And he was going out again that night. A resolve had enveloped him: his determination to catch the crazy. He allowed himself another brief glimpse of a successful ‘resisted’ arrest and the professional appreciation that would follow and it made him smile. Dover wasn’t so big that The Fucking Parking Medal Fucker wouldn’t cross his path sooner or later.

***

10

Waiting in the cool early morning air on his driveway for Julie Carpenter, his ride to work, to appear, Romney couldn’t ignore the blot on the landscape that was his useless vehicle. The inconvenience of being without his car had gone from mild irritation to aggravated frustration. Perhaps it was simply a flat battery. Maybe he had left something on overnight. If maintenance couldn’t get someone out to it today, he’d borrow a battery charger from them. It would be something to try.

*

Marsh, as usual, was first to arrive in CID. A large brown envelope sat on her desk. She opened it to reveal a hard copy, sent by Phillip Emerson’s phone service provider, of the dead man’s current month’s call record up until the moment it abruptly terminated. She made coffee and sat down to go through it. She didn’t want to find a link between Emerson and Duncan Smart because that would explode her theory that they didn’t know each other and damage her belief in her copper’s intuition, something which she had great faith in.

A scan of calls and texts made and received didn’t reveal Smart’s number and she slowly released a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. That was a good start. When she examined the record for the evening of Emerson’s death what she did discover brought a smile to her face as she reached out distractedly to answer the ringing phone on her desk. The smile faded quickly as her attention turned completely to the information she was receiving.

*

Romney came in through the office doors fifteen minutes later wearing a grim expression. He made straight for Marsh’s desk. ‘Organised a car?’ She nodded. ‘Let’s talk as we go then.’

Wilkie, tie in hand, unshaven and looking drawn and tired after another fruitless, chilly and exhausting night on surveillance, was arriving as they were on their way out. He stood aside to let them pass.

‘You’re late,’ said Romney. Wilkie silently cursed his luck for running into the DI and the bitch together. ‘Those two other golfers are coming in this morning. If I’m not back
, you’ll have to deal with them. You heard me yesterday. You know what we’re after from them. Any questions?’

‘No
, sir.’

‘Good.’ Romney took a moment to study the Sergeant. ‘Are you unwell. You look awful.’

‘I might be coming down with something,’ lied Wilkie.

‘A shave wouldn’t hurt you either.’

Wilkie reddened and disappeared inside the building. Only then did he turn to watch Romney and Marsh get into a squad car – which accelerated quickly away – with what he realised was a twinge of envy.

*

‘Are we sure it’s him?’ said Romney.

‘Doesn’t seem to be any doubt.’

‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Why would he do it?’ The question was as rhetorical as it was to be answered.

‘Why do they ever?’ said Marsh. She was struggling with the shock of the news as much as she was with the implications for the case.

‘A guilty conscience?’ said Romney. ‘Surely not that Spain business?’

Marsh didn’t know what to say to him about it.
She sensed in Romney’s tone a mixture of anger at the man they were going to see and guilt at what he, Romney, might have been a part of driving him to.

‘I received a copy of Emerson’s phone records this morning. He made two calls to Lillian West on the night he was murdered. One of them was very late.’

‘They were shagging. There were bound to be calls between them.’

‘But the last, late one, it could be that he told her where he was, or what he was doing, or where he was going. There might be something she could tell us to help with our enquiries. Why didn’t she mention it when we
spoke to her?’

‘Because we didn’t ask her, she’d say. You saw what she’s like. Didn’t she mention it when you had your drink with her?’

‘No. Nothing.’

‘Well, follow it up if you think it’s worthwhile.’ Romney’s disinterested tone communicated the distraction of his own deliberations to her. She said no more about it as they were driven at speed the rest of the way, each preoccupied with their own thoughts.

*

They had no need of a guide to lead them around the White Cliffs Golf Club anymore. Their recent visits had equipped them well for that. For the second time in a week they were there to investigate a sudden death.

Bill Thatcher, the head green-keeper, was not someone Romney particularly wanted to see on his return, but approaching the pro-shop from the car park he noticed him loitering in a closed group like some ghoulish carrion feeder waiting to move in and pick a carcass clean when appetites of the bigger interests had been satisfied.

Romney and Marsh passed the group of club members and employees out to gratify their morbid interests without a word or a glance in their direction. A uniformed policeman guarding the entrance to the shop stood aside to let them pass.

Disturbingly, Elliot Masters dressed immaculately in colour-coordinated golfing attire, was still hanging by the neck from the metal girder he had apparently attached himself to before kicking away the chair that now lay on its side beneath him. He swung gently in a draught from the thin rope that served as his umbilical cord to death. With a grimace Marsh averted her eyes from the distorted and brightly coloured swollen features of a man who she had only known briefly, but as jolly. The abiding memory, which would haunt her dark sleepless nights ahead would be of his over-sized almost black tongue protruding abnormally far out of his mouth.

Romney wanted to bark at so
meone: what was he still doing up there? But he knew that he couldn’t be cut down until both the pathologist and the SOCO had done their work, neither of which was in evidence yet. He made a disappointing cursory sweep for a suicide note. Then spoke roughly to the constable on the door, ‘Who discovered him?’

‘His assistant, sir. Found him when he opened up this morning.’

‘Where is he?’

The officer indicated a young man sitting on a plastic patio chair smoking. There were two dog-ends on the turf beneath him and he stubbed out the third as Romney approached.
Recognising Romney from a previous visit, he got to his feet. He looked a teenager still and frightened and Romney pitied him for what he had witnessed and how it might stay with him. Romney tried to put the boy at ease with a sympathetic look.

‘You know who I am?’ The boy nodded. Romney sensed he might be about to cry. ‘Sit down,’ he said. The boy sat. ‘You found him?’ The boy nodded again, not trusting himself to speak, perhaps. ‘I’m sorry for that. I do just need to ask you, did you touch anything? Did he leave a note that you saw?’

The boy shook his lowered head briefly and Romney saw a dislodged tear land on his neatly pressed golfing trousers. Romney thought about patting him on the shoulder, but given the audience refrained from such an intimate gesture. He thanked the youth, although he doubted whether he was really listening to him, and signalled to Marsh to join him away from the crowd.

‘What a fucking mess. I hate suicides. Selfish bastards. What about the people they leave behind? And who is it has to tell their nearest and dearest what they didn’t have the guts to tell them themselves? Us. Right, come on. Nothing more for us here. Let’s go and tell his widow that life with her just wasn’t interesting enough for him.’

Romney was about to wonder out loud whether he had kids when he noticed a woman running from the car park in their direction. With a sinking, certain intuition, he knew she was Elliot Masters’ wife.

With the advent of the mobile-
phone bad news travelled faster than consoling police officers could ever hope to do and there never seemed to be a shortage of untrained ignorant volunteers wanting to make the life-destroying call to unwitting, unsuspecting and unsupported relatives. Too many people just didn’t think further than their boast that they had been the first to tell so-and-so their nearest and dearest was dead.