Cambridge Blue (32 page)

‘Determination outranks rank, you know.’

Goodhew gave a short laugh. ‘Everyone’s a philosopher today. Let’s sit down somewhere, and you can show me what’s in the envelope, and then I’ll either take a statement or stay with you while you repeat it to my superior. Is that suitably supportive?’

‘Absolutely.’ She started to walk towards Parkside station. ‘I think I may as well talk to you inside, as I don’t think this will be quick.’

Mel must have seen him arrive because she was already waiting with Joanne Reed’s case notes. She silently passed them over and he thanked her. He tried to make eye contact, too, but she just turned away again.

Two rooms further along the corridor from Mel’s desk was an unoccupied office containing nothing but two chairs and a small desk, but with a large window overlooking the rear car park. Goodhew decided that it was the ideal place and the window clinched it.

The rear of the desk was set against the wall and they sat along the other side, facing each other. ‘Before we go any further,’ Goodhew began, ‘I need to know something about Joanne Reed.’

Jackie looked towards the ceiling as if trying to recall where she’d heard that name. ‘The girl that disappeared from university?’ She was trying to sound vague or surprised, or both. In fact, she managed neither.

‘Did you know her?’ Goodhew asked.

‘No.’ The answer was of the not-up-for-debate-definitely-not type. He didn’t believe her, but decided to move on. His folder lay on his lap, Jackie’s envelope tantalizingly close to him on the desktop.

‘OK then,’ he said. ‘Fire away.’

‘I’ve heard about the new murder.’

‘What do you know, exactly?’

‘That there’s a connection to Lorna.’ Colour briefly flushed her cheeks, and then was gone. ‘Is it Victoria?’

Goodhew gave a small nod. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know her too well, but . . .’ Her sentence drifted into silence. ‘I’ve realized it’s time to talk to you, because I killed Colin Willis.’ She put her hand on the envelope, not to pass it over, more to hold on to it. ‘Your tests would have shown that the dog fur was Bridy’s in any case.’

‘So why not tell us at the time?’

Jackie turned her face away, and seemed to be frowning at the desktop. Her expression remained unchanged through several minutes, even when she looked up again. ‘I was still trying to understand it all,’ she said. ‘I thought it was over, so I didn’t realize that there was any urgency. Then, with this other death, I knew I was wrong.’

Goodhew suspected that her earlier show of confidence had been brought on by nothing more than the decision to act. Since entering the room, her skin had lost its former colour and her expression had changed into the sluggishness of perpetual shock. He wanted her to keep talking so that her resolve to tell all didn’t diminish. ‘How well did you know Willis?’

‘I didn’t. I’d seen him hanging around on the footpath beside the river several times. I only noticed him in the first place because his presence there made me feel slightly uncomfortable. But you know, by the time he attacked me, I’d convinced myself that I was being paranoid. I walked past him and he suddenly grabbed my throat.’ As if to illustrate it, she put her hand to her own throat. She closed her eyes as she recounted the attack. By the time she had described Colin Willis’ body disappearing into the Cam, she was still clenching her own neck and breathing hard.

Goodhew reached forward and gently pulled her hand away. She opened her eyes and gulped in just enough air to calm herself. When she spoke again she sounded hoarse. ‘I’m not sorry I killed him, because I don’t think I had any choice. But I’m sorry I didn’t call for help. I know I should have made a statement at the time. I still have nightmares about it. I have nightmares about everything. And I’ve regretted it so many times. I know I should have told you at the time you took those fur samples from Bridy.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘For the same reason I slid his body into the river.’

‘I thought that was on impulse?’

‘It was . . . when I saw the knife I realized that he’d been planning to kill me. It didn’t seem at all random, then, but like someone had put him up to it, and that’s what I couldn’t deal with. And I thought if I came forward, no one would believe me. In that moment I thought that, just by getting rid of him, I wouldn’t have to face up to the truth that someone, probably someone I know, actually wanted me dead.’

‘Like who?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jackie bit one side of her bottom lip and stared at him.

Goodhew felt as though she was weighing him up, having second thoughts about telling him this. ‘But you have some information, you say?’

Her gaze moved away from him and fixed itself on the envelope. For the first time, tears welled in her eyes. ‘I’ve had it for weeks.’ She passed him the envelope. ‘But I didn’t know it would lead to all of this.’

‘You had it before Lorna died?’

She nodded.

‘And when she was murdered, you still didn’t think you needed to come forward?’

Again colour rose in her cheeks but, this time, spread with enough intensity to reach her temples. ‘I didn’t think there was a connection. I just thought . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe that she was the victim of a random attack.’

‘Until you heard that there had been another death?’ He slid his hand into the envelope. It was the kind that had gusseted sides and had been slightly puffed out, and looked fat enough to contain a sheaf of papers, so he was surprised to find only one sheet.

She nodded again and rubbed her face with the heel of her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

He laid the page on to the table in front of him. It was A5 size, and made from a flimsy cream paper, the sort that can sound like a crisp hundred decibels when it’s the only sound in an empty room. It had been written on by a dark-blue ball-point pen. The handwriting was angular and erratic, and had been applied with sufficient force to cause the imprint of the words subsequently written on the back of the page to interfere with reading the words on the front.

‘Do you recognize the writing?’

‘Read it,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll see.’

It started mid-sentence:

so drained. All these successive entries of ‘nothing to note, nothing to note’. I watched the hare and ignored the tortoise.

Alice was full of anger today. It is the same cold temper that she’s always had, but today was the first time I’ve noticed it directed at her own sister. I should have known, her love for Richard . . . Jealousy is a dark and irrational beast.

I have been obsessively documenting one scenario, thinking that I can contain the problem when, in reality, I may have given free rein to the genuine demon. Only circumstance, and not my intervention, has stopped further deaths occurring.

When I face God, I hope he forgives me, I have been so selfish.

Then there was a small gap before the writing continued.

Despite yesterday’s low, I have made the decision to continue this journal. I love them all, regardless of any flaws. I believe I have been right, and wrong, in equal measures.

Of course, I’m just as scared for Jackie as I’ve always been, but I will speak to Alice, because I’m sure she would never harm her own sister.

Goodhew read it twice. There were no dates and no clue to the author’s identity. ‘Your father?’ he guessed.

She nodded. ‘He was a compulsive list scribbler, one of those people that seemed unable to think without a pen in his hand.’

‘And this was the only page you’ve seen?’

‘Yes. I don’t know what it was torn out of either.’

‘How did you get it?’

‘I found it at the farm the day Colin Willis tried to kill me. I suppose I was in shock, but I still had to go over and see to the horses. It was in the stable, the one with the bales where we sat. I took Suze out for a couple of hours, and found it when I returned.’

‘You think someone deliberately left it while you were out with her?’

Jackie’s left elbow was resting on the table, and her left palm was propping up her head at the temple. He wondered whether her brain was starting to hurt. His certainly was.

‘It may have been there already, I really don’t know.’

‘What does he mean by further deaths? It implies someone had already died.’

She blew out a long, slow sigh. ‘I don’t understand that bit.’

‘OK. Are you saying that you think Alice may have hired Colin Willis?’

She dropped her hand away from her face and sounded surprised. ‘No, of course not. That’s not what I meant. The note implies that she hates me, and it’s true we’re not close, but I think it was just left there to frame her. If I
had
been killed, it would have been found there, and she would have been investigated, wouldn’t she?’

‘Undoubtedly, so the next question is who could have taken it from your father?’

Her eyes opened wider. ‘I don’t know about any casual visitors, but I’d say the main suspectswould have been the three of us—’

‘You, Richard and Alice?’

‘Yes, and Victoria.’

‘So you knew that your father dated Victoria?’

‘Of course. It was common knowledge.’ He saw a glint of amusement spring on to her face. ‘They even went out together
in public.
’

‘You never mentioned Victoria and your father.’

‘Because you were investigating Lorna’s background then – why would I?’

‘So how did you feel about her?’

‘In what way?’

‘She was only about your age and having an affair with your dad, wasn’t that weird?’

‘No, I barely knew her. In any case, my father would just have told me to mind my own business.’

‘And what about Richard and Alice? They actually worked with her.’

She shrugged. ‘I doubt they were much bothered – but even if they were, Richard’s never had my father’s ear so he couldn’t have influenced anything, and Alice would have kept her thoughts to herself.

‘It’s only because I was so much younger than them that it was different for me. They’ve always had each other, so they wouldn’t care about what he was doing. It affected me the most, but Dad made the rules in our house and we stuck to them.’

FORTY-TWO

Grey areas were always the most difficult to navigate, and as soon as Goodhew had finished talking to Jackie Moran, he found himself in the middle of one, because he didn’t know what to do with her next. He wasn’t about to sit with her until Marks returned, but he didn’t want to leave her alone either. Arresting her didn’t seem appropriate, but considering that she’d just admitted to killing a man, perhaps it was. In the end, he spotted PC Kelly Wilkes arriving back in the car park. As soon as she’d locked her vehicle he tapped loudly on the glass, and when she saw him at the window she pointed at him and signalled to him to stay. By the time she arrived in the corridor, she had her mobile phone in her hand and was brandishing it in his direction like it was on stun mode. Meanwhile, she sliced her other hand backwards and forwards across her throat.

‘You’re dead,’ she whispered, then spoke louder: ‘DI Marks is on the phone.’ She slapped the phone into his palm.

Goodhew guided her through the door to Jackie. ‘Look after her till I get back,’ he said, then shut the door behind him and tentatively raised the phone to his ear. ‘Sir?’

‘You deliberately walked away from me. You were openly insubordinate in front of my team and in public’ His voice was icy. ‘Furthermore, you then refuse to respond to your mobile.’

‘It was turned off.’ Goodhew bit his lip; there was no point in saying anything to excuse himself, he knew from Marks’ tone that he’d gone far too far this time.

‘Go back to your desk, sit there and don’t move a muscle until I arrive. I might not get back for quite some time. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good, because if those ants in your pants take you anywhere at all, I’m going to be treating it as gross misconduct. Where’s Wilkes?’

‘With Jackie Moran, sir. I was just about to ring you.’ Goodhew brought his boss fully up to date, and only hoped that news of the progress made with her and Bryn O’Brien would defuse the worst of his anger.

Goodhew apologized to PC Wilkes for having her keep Jackie Moran company, then returned to his desk with a coffee in one hand and Joanne Reed’s case notes in the other. Even with the challenge of sitting still, he had plenty to do and began searching for the reference to anything that could be construed as ‘kinky’. It didn’t take him long, and in fact he wondered how he’d missed it the first time round, but on the second page of the inventory of items found at her flat were listed the contents of her wardrobe. Item 6 – S and M whip.

One person’s kinky was another person’s bland, but to him there was nothing else on the list that seemed any racier than her lacy knickers. Whoever had picked that description for the item had clearly enjoyed one lad’s mag too many the night before.

He switched on his PC, then drained his coffee cup and wandered off for a refill. When Marks had ordered him not to move a muscle he was sure that he hadn’t meant it literally.

By the time he returned, it had completed booting up, and the hard disk was now silent after chugging through its endless stream of security programs. It always seemed so much more efficient when he didn’t watch it: if only Marks would accept the same excuse from him. Goodhew went straight on to the Internet, ignoring his new emails, and to Google where he typed in
Dr Moran Cambridge.
The usual long list appeared, headed by a link to eBay, where it seemed items on both ‘doctors’ and Cambridge were popular. One day he would investigate an effective way to use a search engine, but for now expert scrollbar control was his limit. At the bottom of the first page, the word ‘obituary’ jumped out. He double-clicked and in milliseconds he was viewing a recent photograph of Dr Alex Moran, Cambridge – physician, father, and founder of the Excelsior Clinic.

Goodhew stared thoughtfully at the photo, and the face in the photo stared back enigmatically. It would be fair, Goodhew decided, to describe him as a man in his late fifties. He right-clicked the photo and selected copy, then pasted the picture into a newly created email. He added only his own mobile number, and the words ‘Call me if this is the man.’