The Order of Things (30 page)

‘Meaning Jimmy?’

‘Of course. We’re cops. We’re rough as fuck, and some women love that, but I’m betting you’re not one of them.’

Lizzie didn’t answer. She wanted Golding gone. She wanted to pick up where she’d left off. She wanted to be a proper journalist again.

‘Tell Jimmy no hard feelings, yeah?’ She nodded at the door. ‘And tell him thank you for last night.’

Suttle was contemplating another Stella when Golding rang.

‘I’m outside, skip. Let me in?’

Suttle went downstairs. Golding was trying to shelter from the rain driving in from the sea. Suttle led him back upstairs, fetched two tinnies from the fridge.

Golding pulled the tab on the Stella, avoiding Suttle’s gaze.

‘Tell me about Lizzie, skip.’

‘You sound like a cop.’

‘Don’t fuck around. Just tell me.’ At last he looked up. ‘You’ve been giving her one. Am I right?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘She did.’

‘When?’

‘This evening. Is it true?’

‘It is. And it’s two, if she’s counting.’

‘Whose idea?’

‘Hers to begin with. Then …’ he shrugged ‘… mine.’

‘So why did you do it?’

‘Fuck knows. It seemed right at the time.’

‘
Right
? Her name’s Oona, skip, if you’ve forgotten.’

‘I know, I know.’ Suttle tried to calm him down. He didn’t want this. ‘You know someone for that length of time, you don’t see them for a while, then – bang – they’re suddenly back in your face. We’re paid to be curious, right? We’re paid to be nosy, to find out stuff. That’s the way it was.’

‘You’re telling me this was some kind of fishing expedition? You’re telling me it was
job-related
?’

‘That’s the way it felt. She came on to me. She gave me some good intel, stuff that checked out, and then she suggested we went back to her place. What’s a bloke supposed to do? You want the truth? It was like fucking a stranger.’

‘That makes it worse. Why fuck a stranger when you’ve got a woman like Oona?’

‘This is you asking? Golden Bollocks? Shagmeister extraordinaire?’

‘Yeah but I’m brain-dead and selfish and never see further than the end of my dick. Ask Oona.’

‘I have.’

‘And?’

‘She agreed.’

‘Does she miss me at all?’

‘Yeah, big time. Some nights she was convinced you’d been shagging two women. Different clubs. Different flats. Other nights she wondered why you bothered to come home at all. Plus you never even bothered to cover your arse.’

‘You’re right. I didn’t. And that’s why she was right to kick me out. You’re not like that, skip. This thing’s eating you up. I can tell. You’ve had a dip or two with your ex-missus, and something tells me she’s clever enough to have kept you on the line.’

‘There is no line. It’s finished. It’s over.’

‘Wrong. She wants more.’

‘Who says?’

‘Me.’

‘How come?’

‘Because she loves you.’

Suttle got up. Rain was lashing at the window, the trees beyond the fence groaning in the wind. Suttle wanted Golding to promise that none of this would ever get back to Oona but he was too proud to ask. He needed a change of subject. Fast.

‘So what do you think?’ He turned back into the room.

‘I think you’ve been a twat.’

‘I meant about Bentner.’

‘You’re changing the subject.’

‘I am. Do you mind?’

Golding shrugged and then gave the question some thought. Late afternoon, with the rain setting in, DI Houghton had dispatched
Buzzard
DCs to statement the rough sleepers on the cliff top. All three of them had separately confirmed that Bentner had spent most of the weekend on the cliffs. Generous guy. Good company. Proper thirst on him. They said that Geordie John had bailed out of Exmouth for the time being and was rumoured to have moved down the coast to Dawlish. There was good safe camping in some of the tiny coves beside the railway line. Tomorrow more DCs would nail him down, but already Golding guessed that he’d confirm what they knew already. That Alois Bentner hadn’t been anywhere near Lympstone when Harriet Reilly met her death.

‘Well?’ Suttle was still waiting for an answer.

‘I think it’s unlikely, skip.’

‘Unlikely doesn’t cut it. Yes or no.’

‘No.’

‘Excellent.’ Suttle grinned and extended a hand. ‘You owe me twenty quid.’

Thirty-Three

W
EDNESDAY, 18
J
UNE 2014, 10.22

It was Luke Golding who got finally got through to Gemma Caton’s London friend.

‘Michala Haas?’

Golding introduced himself. He said he’d been trying to make contact for days. He understood Ms Haas had been away.

‘That’s true.’

‘We believe you’re a friend of Gemma Caton.’

‘I am.’

‘We need to talk. Are you back in London?’

‘No. I’m in Exeter.’

Golding laughed. Wednesdays, for whatever reason, were normally crap. Nice to have an interview fall into his lap. The voice sounded light, perfect English but definitely a foreign accent. He visualised Gemma Caton, a mountain of a woman, the way she’d burst into the Custody Suite at Heavitree. This, he sensed, would be someone similar. Maybe they had a relationship.

‘You know Heavitree police station?’

‘I can find it.’

‘Two o’clock this afternoon? Is that good for you?’

Lizzie was at the kitchen table, gazing at her laptop, reviewing her options. Her investigative website didn’t belong to the world of deadlines. Working in the print media, she’d always been aware of the ticking clock, of the gun to her head, of the presses downstairs waiting for her to reach for her keyboard and fire off yet more copy.
Bespoken
wasn’t like that. Working in the virtual world, she could take her time, gather her material, choose her moment and only upload to the Internet when the time felt exactly right.

But how did what she’d found out relate to
Buzzard
? To the corpse of a GP who may have paid for the deaths of others with her own life? Who’d been brave enough to risk her job and maybe even a prison sentence in the name of compassion? So far, to the irritation of her ex-husband and his superiors, Lizzie had somehow stolen a march on the official inquiry. But where, exactly, had that taken her? And what on earth was she supposed to do next?

Yesterday’s conversation with Michala had taken the story a great deal further. In Jimmy’s shoes she’d now be looking hard at the tangle of relationships in the adjoining waterfront houses. Bentner and Harriet. Bentner and Gemma Caton. And now Michala and Kelly Willmott and a death withheld that might have proved Harriet Reilly’s undoing. Lizzie would never have imagined someone sane being able to commit so savage a murder. But now she’d spent time with Gemma Caton, seen the woman in action, she sensed she was probably capable of anything.

She bent to her laptop, played with an idea or two, tried to get a fresh fix on the material she’d acquired, the interviews she’d done, the lives she’d tapped into. Then she was struck by another thought, on reflection all too obvious. No way was she a detective. Neither was she some half-arsed PI. What she was looking at was a story. And to do it justice she had to rely on a different set of talents.

She reached for her mobile and checked the time. Mid-morning was normally perfect for a lengthy chat to her agent but when she got through Muriel said she was up to her eyes.

‘Anything urgent?’ she asked.

‘Nothing that can’t wait. I’ll try again later.’

Suttle took the call from Exmouth police station. It was Kenny, the DC who’d arrested Dean Russell in the Powder Monkey and delivered him to
Buzzard.
He had another Exmouth regular waiting in the interview room down the corridor.

‘Like who?’

‘His name’s Clark. You won’t know him. Serial burglar. Specialises in country properties. Not bad when the mood takes him. He wants a word.’

‘With us?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

Kenny explained the guy had been following the Bentner saga. He’d turned over Reilly’s cottage a while back and returned for second helpings about ten days ago. One o’clock in the morning.

‘And?’

‘You’d better come and talk to him. I can’t do it justice.’

Suttle was in Exmouth within the hour.
Buzzard
’s hold on Bentner was about to expire, but Suttle managed to convince Houghton to apply for a twelve-hour extension. When she enquired what kind of case she was supposed to make to the duty superintendent, Suttle said they were looking at new evidence.

‘So what’s the strength?’

‘I dunno, boss. Just trust me?’

Trevor Clark turned out to be a thin fifty-something with nicotine fingers and a deeply retro affection for greasy denim jackets. His runners were brand new – Nike Air – but his jeans had seen better days. He refused Suttle’s proffered hand and said he wanted another coffee. Kenny went outside to the machine. Suttle took the chair across the table.

‘You’re here voluntarily, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So what’s this about?’

Clark said he badly needed a smoke. He had three roll-ups in a neat line on the table. Suttle told him to forget it. Interview first. Then they might stop for a break.

Clark shrugged. Suttle waited. Then Clark leaned forward over the table. He said he lived in Exeter, made a living doing bad things, famous for it.

‘I know,’ Suttle said. ‘I checked.’

‘It’s tough just now. Hard. Harder than you guys would ever believe.’

‘So what happened? Just tell me.’

‘I was out and about a couple of weeks back. Just minding my own business. Nothing heavy.’

‘And?’

‘There’s a field behind the cottage where that doctor lives. The one who got killed. I’d screwed her place before, done time for it, but there was another one down the lane. Easy.’

This property was a bungalow. Suttle asked for a description. It matched the Weatheralls’ place perfectly. Greenhouse in the back garden. Extension around the side. Gnomes in the gloom.

‘Any good?’

‘Crap. Yappy dog. Fucking nightmare.’

Fleur, thought Suttle, remembering the spaniel nestling in Weatherall’s lap.

‘So what did you do?’

‘I climbed back out. Back into the field. Because I was there I thought I’d take a look at the cottage, Reilly’s place. The lights were still on downstairs, but these days that means nothing. People go away and leave the lights on a time switch. Radios too. When there’s no cars out front that can be a giveaway.’

‘The place was empty?’

‘No way. She was there. The doctor.’

‘How did you know it was her?’

‘I saw her in court when I went down. She gave evidence against me.’

‘It was definitely the same woman?’

‘Yeah, for sure.’

‘And?’

‘There was a bloke there too. His photo’s been in the
Echo
since,
on telly, everywhere. The one who works at the Met Office. There was a huge fight. The man was pissed, falling around, pathetic. He was throwing stuff at her – glasses, a bottle, whatever he could find. He never hit her. She wasn’t, like, in any danger.’

‘How close were you?’

‘Close enough.’

‘Could you hear what they were saying?’

‘Yeah. More or less.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I got the drift. She’d been away somewhere, maybe on holiday. The way he saw it she’d been with some other fella. He said she was a slag. He was crazy. He was out of his head.’

‘And what was she saying?’

‘She wasn’t having it. She just turned it round on him. Told him it was all his fault. Told him to fuck off back to wherever he lived. Told him he had to make his mind up.’

‘Make his mind up how?’

‘I dunno. I got the impression this was a relationship thing.’

‘You mean someone else was involved?’

‘Might have been. I dunno. She wasn’t pissed at all. Just really upset.’

‘So how did it end?’

‘It didn’t. I left them to it.’

‘Why?’

‘It turned out there were horses in the field. I’m a city boy. Horses scare me shitless.’

‘But they were still fighting when you left?’

‘Yeah.’

Suttle nodded. This explained the broken glass and the wine stains, he thought, barely concealed evidence of a ruck that had got out of hand. He checked the exact date with Clark and warned him that he’d need a formal statement plus a positive ID on Alois Bentner.

‘Is that his name?’

‘Yes.’ Suttle was struck by another thought. ‘Why have you come forward like this? Why bother?’

Clark was reaching for one of the roll-ups. He had a lighter in his other hand.

‘That lady was a doctor,’ he said. ‘She looked after my mum when she was really poorly. Did a fantastic job.’

‘Your mum’s better now?’

‘No chance. She had cancer. Sweet it was. She was at home. Lovely death, according to my dad. She just drifted away.’

Thirty-Four

W
EDNESDAY, 18
J
UNE 2014, 14.17

Michala was late turning up at Heavitree police station. Golding was about to phone her when the Custody Sergeant put his head around the door of the interview room.

‘Danish lady? Name of Haas?’

‘The very same.’

‘Lucky you.’

Moments later the door opened properly. Expecting a continental version of Gemma Caton, Golding found himself looking at a waif-like blonde. Tight jeans. Tense smile. Extremely pretty.

He asked her to sit down, offered his warrant card. She said no to coffee. Why had she been asked to attend?

Golding briefly explained about
Buzzard
. The word murder didn’t appear to come as a surprise.

‘You were there?’ Golding asked. ‘Next door? That night?’

‘No.’

‘So where were you?’

‘I have a flat in London. You know Streatham Hill?’

‘Never had the pleasure.’

‘That’s where we were.’

‘We?’

‘Myself and Gemma. She’s my landlady in Lympstone. She owns the house next to Mr Bentner. The house where I live. We were up in Streatham all weekend.’