Making A Killing (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 2) (27 page)

‘He is the personal physician of a man who, I am assured by his wife, is physically incapable of harming a fly. I’d like to know if it’s true or not.’

‘Why don’t you call him yourself?’

Romney snorted and winced. ‘Come on, can you imagine how he’d confuse me with all that jargon? Medic to medic he might even be tempted to tell the truth.’

‘Who ripped your world up?’ chided the pathologist gently. ‘Anyway, aren’t you forgetting about patient-doctor confidentiality?’

‘The wife has spoken to him. I’m confident she’ll
have convinced him to shoot straight with us.’

‘All right. No problem for me.’ Romney made himself comfortable in one of the chairs across from the medical man. ‘I’ll do it now then, shall I?’ said the pathologist.

‘I was hoping you would.’ Romney picked up and flicked through a glossy medical journal as the pathologist went through the performance of introduction, re-acquaintance, catching up and then into the reason for his call. He questioned and listened, chuckled and gasped, doodled and tutted, thanked his peer and rang off with easy promises of a drink when next their paths crossed.

Romney threw the copy of Medical Monthly back on to the pile. ‘I hope your call was more interesting than that.’

‘If he’s a suspect you’re going to be disappointed. I’m afraid your Mr West is indeed a sick old man. Has been for some time. In my learned friend’s professional opinion, he is certainly incapable of strenuous physical activity. Heart, kidney and respiratory problems, and not long for this world,’ said the pathologist. Romney looked disappointed, but not surprised. He had believed Lillian West the first time she’d told him. ‘Felix doesn’t like the wife. She’s quite a bit younger than the old man – a gold-digger, apparently. Felix may have been a little indiscreet with me. He always did like to gossip. He says she’s just waiting for him to expire in order that she can inherit.’ This wasn’t news to Romney. ‘He also says that the old man was under no illusions about her motives for marrying him and that he safeguarded his wealth by stipulating in a pre-nuptial agreement that if she’s caught in another man’s arms while he is still alive, whatever his state of health, she gets absolutely nothing.’

‘How romantic.’

‘As I remember, aren’t you rather fond of quoting some character called Dutch Schultz? Something about the world being a whore-house?’

‘I might have to revise that,’ said Romn
ey. ‘Nut-house would be more accurate. If you ask me, we’re living in one giant asylum.’

*

A message on Romney’s desk confirmed that the paint from the driver he had taken from the pro-shop that morning was a match for paint flakes discovered in Phillip Emerson’s broken head. He called Marsh in and shared the news with her.

‘So, given that the range of injuries caused aren’t all consistent with blows from one weapon, it’s likely the other clubs were used in the assault,’ said Marsh.

‘That’s reasonable. What else does it tell us?’

Marsh chewed her pencil for a think. ‘If Emerson was beaten to death with the clubs that came from the pro-shop then either Lillian West is lying and never delivered them as she claims, or she did and Emerson never received them, or he did but never gave them, or Emerson did receive them and gave them to his son. It also
seems more likely we are looking for more than one assailant.’

‘I think we need to have another word with William Emerson, don’t you?’ said Romney.

‘I think we could really do with finding those clubs,’ said Marsh.

***

15

They found William Emerson at home. His mother was also there. She showed them into the kitchen and asked them to wait while she fetched her son. She had aged in the past week. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her skin had the look of someone who wasn’t sleeping. Her shoulders sagged under the weight of responsibility or worry, uncertainty or secrets.

William Emerson, scruffy and untidy, could have been wearing the same T-shirt of five days ago. It might not have been washed. He showed little change at all in his bearing, but then the only other time Romney had seen him was the day he had received news of his father’s murder. It wasn’t much to compare him with.

The four of them arranged themselves around the big farmhouse table. Mrs Emerson did not offer refreshments. As a protective mother, a single parent now, she had no intention of leaving her son alone with the police. Romney would rather she had.

‘How are you bearing up?’ he asked.

‘We’re fine,’ said Mrs Emerson, but her delivery lacked conviction. That the presence of the police made her nervous was clear.

‘We’re trying to get a better idea of Mr Emerson’s movements leading up to the night of his death. What can either of you tell us? Work back from the night in question.’

‘As I told you on your previous visit, Inspector, he wasn’t here at all the night he was killed. He left home in the morning to go to work. I never saw him again. He’d spent the previous night here. It was William’s birthday and we ate out together.’

‘Just the three of you?’

William said, ‘No, my girlfriend was there too.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘The Italian restaurant in the high-street.’

‘So, neither of you saw him again after the following morning. Is that right?’ They nodded in unison. ‘Did either of you speak to him during the day?’ They both shook their heads adding to the impression that this had not been a close family. ‘How did Mr Emerson seem on the night you were out together?’

‘His normal self: loud, confident, extravagant,’ said the widow.

‘No indication that he may have had something on his mind?’

‘No. Nothing.’

‘You say he didn’t come home at all the night he died, and that happened often?’

‘There were nights he didn’t come home,’ said Mrs Emerson, ‘but then he treated the place more like a hotel than a home, so it was nothing unusual.’

‘Do you know where he was when he didn’t?’

Mrs Emerson smiled thinly. ‘I do now. Of course, I had my suspicions. William and I have had a frank chat. I told you the last time you called, Inspector, something of the arrangement that existed between Phillip and me. I had to suspect there might have been other women. I thank my husband that he kept that from me. I don’t bear him a grudge for it either. He was a man.’

Whatever that was supposed to mean, thought Romney.

Mrs Emerson’s reasonableness, as a woman whose husband was cheating on her, regardless of their ‘arrangement’, struck both officers as extraordinary.

‘Is there anything either of you can tell us that might help in finding whoever killed him? Anything that might have occurred to you now the dust has settled, so to spea
k?’

Again they shook their heads. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. Naturally, we want to see whoever did this brought to justice, but we don’t know anything more than we’ve told you.’

Romney gave his best impression of being at a dead end and got to his feet, a signal that the formalities were finished with. ‘Eighteenth was it, William?’

‘Yes.’

‘A big one. What did your father get you?’

William Emerson smiled at the memory. ‘You could always count on my father to buy the most inappropriate gifts. I’m off to university in a couple of months. He bought me golf clubs. I haven’t played in years. I lost interest in golf a long time ago.’

‘Have you got them?’

‘No, I told him to return them and give me the money instead. I’d buy something useful.’

‘So you don’t have them now. Do you know where they are?’

‘Why do you want to know, Inspector?’ said Mrs Emerson. ‘Why are they important?’

‘Do you know where they are?’ persisted Romney.

‘No,’ said William. ‘He put them back in his car. He wasn’t cross about it. I wasn’t cross about it. We laughed about it. He said he’d send them back.’

‘Inspector?’ said Mrs Emerson.

‘It’s possible your husband was killed with them, Mrs Emerson. We need to find them. They aren’t in his vehicle now. They have disappeared.’

*

Romney added the finishing touches to the incident board, bringing the information, as they understood it, up to date while Marsh and Grimes looked on offering suggestions. Where the image
of one dead man had stood alone there were now three: Emerson, Smart – by flimsy association – and Masters. Marsh had argued that Smart’s image should be removed being as his death was proven to be nothing to do with the enquiry. Romney said it should stay, simply by dint of the fact that he was the man who’d found Emerson. There was nothing either to tie Masters’ apparent suicide with Emerson’s murder, but again a tenuous link – Romney was no great believer in coincidence – kept his face and details on the board. Other names were scrawled, circled and joined with coloured arrows to jottings: Lillian West, William Emerson, Emerson’s wife, the men from the golfing break in Spain. New information went in a different colour: the likelihood that the golf clubs taken from the pro-shop were the ones that killed Emerson; the trail, as far as it went, of how the clubs came to be present at the scene; information of the
Spain, 2011
, CD and other smaller, but possibly no less important or irrelevant, gobbets of information. By the time he had finished, the board was a lot busier than it had been five days before and they had no idea whether they were any closer to catching the killer or killers.

Superintendent Falkner entered and took his usual seat at the back. He had lost some of his shine as the Wilkie incident had cast a shameful shadow over his station bringing with it the unwanted spotlight of public and media attention. He bid the gathering a good afternoon and sat.

‘Where are we then, Tom? I don’t suppose you’re going to give me some more good news and promise me an imminent arrest are you?’

Romney looked sorry that he couldn’t. ‘Not yet, sir, but I’m confident that the net is closing.’

‘Really? Who’s in it?’

‘I hope that we’ll know that soon.’

‘Bit murky, eh?’

For the next few minutes Romney indicated the updates, additions, and associations, getting it clear in the heads of those directly involved, as well as providing his
senior officer with a comprehensive picture of where they were. Despite all this extra intelligence, he was mindful that Falkner would have preferred a simple, short list of suspects; preferably one holding, if not a smoking gun, then a bloody driver.

‘
Emerson was killed with the clubs from the pro-shop?’ said Falkner.

‘It looks like it, although, until we find them we can’t be certain, of course.’

‘And the last time the clubs were seen was the day before he was killed? They were in his car?’

‘According to the family, yes.’

‘But Emerson’s vehicle was not found at the scene.’

‘Correct.

‘So how did Emerson and the clubs get to the golf course in the middle of the night?’

Seeing where Falkner was taking the suggestions
, Romney said, ‘It looks as though he drove himself there. It’s difficult to imagine another scenario that would see the clubs and the victim being in the same place.’

‘Then
it follows that his vehicle was removed from the scene after he was killed and driven back to where it was found: Waterloo Crescent. And whoever that was must have known about the significance of the address. Who does that give us?’

‘As far as we know
, the son and the lover, but, of course, there could be others.’

‘Maybe he didn’t arrive at the golf course alone.’

‘It’s possible. It’s hard to imagine he was there by accident. Either he was meeting someone or he had someone with him and that’s where they went.’

‘An odd choice for either option, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes. Whichever it is, in that case, it seems safe to say that Emerson provided the murderer or murderers with the means with which to kill him.’

‘It also suggests that the killing was not premeditated.’

‘Yes, but not necessarily. It’s a good time and place for a murder. Maybe whoever he was there with did intend to kill him, but Emerson just provided them with a different means to the one they already had.’

That hung in the air for a long moment before Falkner spoke again. ‘He was pretty drunk, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘People do stupid things when they’re drunk.’

Romney tapped the board-marker against his teeth and said, ‘What are we missing?’

‘Three things: the murder weapons, a motive and a suspect,’ said Grimes unnecessarily.

Romney didn’t thank him for his input. Instead he said, ‘Going back to his car turning up at Waterloo Crescent; if the murderer returned it there then how would they have gone on to wherever they needed to be?’

‘Taxi,’ said Marsh.

‘Or their own vehicle was already there,’ said Falkner.

‘Or they walked home. Lillian West’s home is within walking distance,’ said Grimes.

‘So is the Emerson house for that matter,’ said Romney. ‘After what they did to Phillip Emerson whoever it was would have probably been a bit of a mess themselves. You don’t go beating someone’s head to a pulp and not get something on yourself. Maybe leave something of yourself behind.’ Romney indicated the photograph of the thread of red fabric that had been recovered from deep inside Emerson’s head. ‘Whoever it was left something. This doesn’t belong to anything at the scene, but it’s no good to us without something to link it to.’

Romney and Falkner batted a few thoughts around before Falkner said, ‘Where do you go from here?’

‘Grimes, in the morning speak to all the taxi firms in the town. See if anyone has a record of a pick-up for that time of night anywhere near Waterloo Crescent.’

‘What about Lillian West?’ said Marsh.

‘Her name keeps cropping up but could she do that? And what’s her motive?’

‘Her husband then?’ said Falkner.

Romney shook his head. ‘Too infirm, besides there is no indication he even knew about them.’

‘Family, then?’ said Grimes.

‘Again, there’s no obvious motive and again, I can’t see either of them doing something like that. The attack suggests a level of passion and hate that neither of them strike me as harbouring for the dead man. If he’d been killed by indifference then they’d be tying for the top spot for prime suspect.’

‘What about Elliot Masters? Any idea why he committed suicide?’ said Falkner.

‘He didn’t leave a note. I’m waiting on the autopsy report before we speak to the widow. We need to chase that up.’ With a look he gave Marsh the job. 

*

Marsh spoke to pathology. The report on Elliot Masters’ death had been completed that afternoon and would come across to them in the morning. It would tell them he had died from hanging and that there was no suggestion of the hand of a third party. The report would also show he had very low blood sugar levels.

‘So?’ said
Marsh.

‘For a normal person
, it wouldn’t have been much of a problem. The body would have dealt with it. For a diabetic, it would have been disastrous,’ said the voice on the end of the phone.

‘Elliot Masters was a diabetic?’

‘Type one.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘As bad as it gets.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He’s covered in puncture wounds from where he would inject himself.’

‘So he wasn’t taking care of himself?’

‘Not then he wasn’t.’

There was a little delay while Marsh took this in and processed it. ‘So, would such a low level of sugar in his blood have proved fatal?’

‘If it wasn’t balanced with a rapid intake of sugar and carbohydrates, he’d have gone into a coma and, if he’d not been found, he’d have died, eventually.’

‘He’d have been aware of that outcome?’

‘It would be harder to imagine, as a long-time sufferer, that he wouldn’t have been.’

‘So
why hang himself?’ said Marsh, thinking that Masters had maybe tried to commit suicide by ignoring his medical condition and allowing nature to take its course.

‘No idea. Belt and braces, perhaps? Once he’d decided on a course of action, he may have wanted to be sure about how it was going to end. He may have worried that letti
ng his body suffer a hypoglycaemic episode wouldn’t have proved fatal – maybe he was afraid of being found before he expired naturally – and then he may have been saved but left with some rather unpleasant repercussions.’

‘Such as?’

‘Brain damage is not unheard of.’ After another brief pause the voice said, ‘There is something a little odd about this if suicide isn’t extraordinary enough for you.’

‘Go on.’

‘Have you ever seen someone suffering from a screamer?’

‘A what?’

‘Sorry. A screamer. It’s how my father used to describe his physical and mental state when his blood sugar levels were low. It’s very similar to being drunk. Coordination, reason, actions, it all becomes skewed. The most rational and respectable person can be reduced to shouting and swearing and reeling all over the place.’

‘And?’

‘And, with the low blood sugar of Elliot Masters, it certainly wouldn’t have been easy for him to think himself through, let alone coordinate, his own hanging. Of course, the balance for that argument is that diabetics, when they’re suffering such episodes aren’t able to think logically. Maybe that’s why he hanged himself, because he was not in his right mind.’

*

Romney had his hand on the doorknob of his office to leave when his desk phone rang. He hesitated, swore under his breath and returned to pick it up. He identified himself.

Simon Draper said, ‘I’m calling about the golf clubs
you asked me to find out about.’

‘Yes, thank you
, Simon. Don’t worry about that now. We’ve found out who they were for, but thanks for your efforts.’