The Dead Dog Day (9 page)

‘Yes, definitely. There were signs of a struggle inside the office near the window – a vase knocked off, other bits and pieces. I mean, I suppose she could have knocked stuff over if she was jumping out, but there was other evidence of foul play too. It says here, look – small linear contusions on both arms. Grab marks, basically. Bruising. She'd tried to fight somebody off. And bruises also across the front of her thighs, probably from her legs being bashed on the windowsill. If she'd jumped by herself, those bruises wouldn't be there. Also, there was a sticky substance on her face, consistent with her mouth being taped over at some point before she died. No sign of the tape though. Bit weird – maybe the killer wanted to shut her up for a bit but then ripped it off again before shoving her out? Anyway, somebody helped her out of the window, no doubt about it.'

‘And the security guard saw nothing amiss on his rounds, did he? But the victim managed to speak those couple of words to him before she died. “Chris. Chris.” Any luck with finding anyone else of that name? Friends, family, workmates?' Adam looked around the room.

There was a general negative murmur.

‘Forensics then. Very little, but we have some fibres on her body that definitely didn't come from her own clothing. Black, wool. Like you'd get from a black jumper, or gloves. Some caught in her fingernails, as if she was trying to cling on to someone to save herself, poor woman. But a black top, or jumper – hardly unusual in Britain in winter, eh?'

Gary looked glum. ‘Exactly. And could easily be stuffed in a bag afterwards too, so it's not going to help us much trying to track down everyone who was wearing black that day. Which incidentally, was about seventy per cent of the people in the building. What is it about media types and black? Anyway, nothing else, forensic-wise, apart from the tape residue which appears to come from a standard roll of duct tape, available anywhere. No sweat, saliva, fingerprints, nothing. Bloody annoying.'

Adam sighed. ‘A forensically aware killer then, maybe. Or somebody who just got lucky. OK. So. CCTV. No CCTV in Kendrick's office or in the newsroom itself. Good shots from the front of the building of people coming in early for work, but no solid reason to suspect any of them at the moment. We still haven't identified that lurker have we?'

Again, a murmured ‘no' from the group.

‘Also CCTV from the rear entrance and the east side of the building. Again, nothing much of interest, except the trickle of people coming in and out as you'd expect. But for some reason, the bloody CCTV cameras covering the west side, where Kendrick's office is, were conveniently not working. Coincidence or design?'

‘Bleeding coincidence,' said Gary. ‘Fairly sure of that, anyway. Apparently it had been playing up for a while, according to security. Sod's Law. There aren't any main entrance doors on that side though, just fire doors and delivery areas. But it means we have no shots of her actually coming down. And no shots of anyone who might have entered or left the building via any of the doors on that side. The CCTV footage from further up and down the street has been checked too and there's no sign of anything suspicious. A few people wandering along the road in the minutes after it happened, but just looks like people heading to work. And of course, we have no reason to think the killer left the building. Could have just gone back to his duties once he'd shoved her out. Got to be a cool customer, given he did the deed just feet away from a roomful of people.'

He cleared his throat and flicked through his notes again.

‘House to house enquiries – well, mainly office to office in that area – turned up sod all as well. Most of the offices with a line of sight to the TV building were still empty at 8 a.m., bit of a slow-down in the run-up to Christmas, and the few staff we did find who
were
already in didn't see anything. Well, they wouldn't would they, unless they were staring out the window at the right time? And, of course, even though it was eight o'clock, it's still almost dark at that time in December. It was just a few days before the twenty-first, the shortest day of the year. Also, the window the victim was pushed out of is positioned at the back of the building, so it wouldn't have been easy to spot her coming out even if anyone
did
happen to glance that way at the right time. And the river runs behind the building, but there's a big wall, so no chance of anyone viewing anything from that side at all.'

Adam perched on the corner of the nearest desk, scratched his blond head and sighed.

Gary continued. ‘Of course, we
do
have CCTV from the reception area and the three lifts inside the studio building. But there aren't any in the emergency stairwells, so it's feasible that if somebody with murder in mind did come in from outside, they could have used the stairs to get up to the seventh floor. We're going through all the CCTV frame by frame, but it's a big job – huge, busy building, hundreds of people arriving for work between about 3 a.m. and the time of the murder. They start early in TV land, it seems. And as we have no idea who or what we're looking for, I'm not sure how valuable it's going to be, unless we spot anyone obviously acting weird. All we have is loads of probably perfectly innocent people wandering about – impossible to know which one is a killer.'

Adam nodded. The DC was right. Simply looking at people entering, leaving and walking around the building wasn't going to get them very far unless they could find somebody who actually had a reason for wanting Jeanette Kendrick dead, and prove they were in the newsroom that morning.

Gary was pointing to a photo of Jeanette's office.

‘Now, normally those high office windows are sealed – you know, for Health and Safety? But this woman – well, from all accounts, what she wanted, she got. And she was a bit of a fresh air freak, so she'd had them unsealed so she could open them whenever she wanted.'

‘A decision that cost her her life.' Adam shook his head. ‘And that, I presume, was common knowledge, certainly among the staff?'

Gary nodded. ‘Yes, that's coming through in all the interviews we've done so far. They all knew about it. Anyway – other potential witnesses. There were some window cleaners working that day but they didn't start until about 8.30 – it was still dark until quite late of course, being December, as I said earlier. Sunrise was – let me see – 8.04 a.m. that day. So they're no good – I've checked, none of them got there before about 8.20. And there doesn't seem to have been anyone else around. No deliveries till later on, apart from newspapers which came in much earlier, around 2 a.m. The sides of the building aren't well lit anyway, and on a freezing cold morning, when it was still so dark … seems like nobody else saw her coming down.'

Adam frowned. ‘Right, let's move inside. The office is right at the far back corner of the newsroom.' He stopped to study the photographs pinned to the board.

‘Two external walls, both with windows as it's a corner office, and two internal glass walls, but the blinds were down. So as long as somebody was able to slip in and out without anyone noticing – which is quite possible in that place, I've spent enough time there this week to know it's crazy in there while the programme's on air – then it's an easy job. Even if she'd screamed, there's so much noise going on I doubt anyone would have heard it.'

Gary agreed. ‘Nobody heard a thing. There are TVs and radios on everywhere, and a lot of people work in headphones. If she did scream or shout, it went unnoticed. And it seems her mouth had been taped up at some point, remember.'

Adam stood up and moved closer to the board.

‘Suspects so far then. We still need to rule out Mr or Mrs Lurker from outside the building – definitely weird behaviour there. I can't understand how it's taking so long to get an ID.'

Detective Constable Karen Lloyd, a small, dark-haired woman in a white shirt, raised her hand. ‘I'm working on that – it's mainly because it's impossible to make out the face, so we're trying to at least find out where the coat might be from. Not proving easy though. It's not clear enough. And no joy at all from all the telly airings.'

‘Thanks, Karen. Then there's this young producer, Christina, who had a massive row with the deceased a few hours before. The “Chris” thing clearly works, but sadly I'm fairly sure we can rule her out at this stage – she's on CCTV at 7.59 down in the reception area, which would only have given her a minute at most to commit the crime and get down there. From seven floors up that's a tall order. And I just don't see her doing it. By all accounts, there was no love lost between her and her boss, but …'

Gary interrupted. ‘And she's tiny. I'd be amazed if she'd had the strength, you know?'

Karen spoke again. ‘Yes, but you never know – anger can make people do terrible things – it's like they get superhuman powers from somewhere. Remember that young girl in Ealing last year? Took out her twenty-stone boyfriend.'

A few of the other officers nodded.

‘OK, fair enough. But the timing is still wrong. I'm not convinced. I'm ruling her out for now. Who else?'

‘Well – almost everyone really!' Gary laughed. ‘The woman wasn't exactly popular. We're looking into her background – she seems to have pissed off pretty much everyone she worked with, but we need to find out if there's anyone out there she's pissed off enough to want to top her. No reports of any recent big arguments or anything, though, and she hadn't had any threats from anyone, or certainly none that we can find at this stage.'

He consulted his notes. ‘We're obviously looking at her partner too, as in civil partner. Clancy Carter, another media hotshot, but by all accounts not doing so well as her lover. We're looking at a jealousy angle there maybe? Although by all accounts they were pretty happy. You never know though. And the “Chris” thing sort of works again.'

He pointed to a picture of Clancy on the whiteboard. ‘It's a bit tenuous, but Kendrick called her “Chrissy” sometimes. Some sort of nickname.'

‘And we know she dropped Kendrick off earlier that morning,' said Adam. ‘She says she dropped her outside, and that stands up on CCTV, but did she come back later? Slip in through one of those side doors somehow? Or bundle up in a hat and scarf and sneak back in through Reception?'

Gary nodded. ‘Maybe. It's a much easier job in summer, isn't it, when we can see their faces! We should get through all that CCTV by the end of the weekend. It'll be a bit clearer then. Although we've obviously spoken to Carter – she claims she was back home and had gone back to bed at 8 a.m., though there's nobody to verify that.'

Adam rubbed his nose. ‘So that's where we are. A woman everyone hated, killed right under the noses of about sixty people. With the exception of the few who were actually on air at the time, or down on the studio level, any one of the others
could
have done it – and nobody saw or heard a thing. Either that, or everyone's taken a vow of silence. No decent suspects, no leads. Great. Just great. Happy bloody Christmas, guys.'

And feeling more despairing than he had in a long time, he slouched off to the coffee machine. It was going to be a long night.

Meanwhile, the person who had caused Jeanette's demise was feeling anything but despondent. Almost a week, and nothing. Nobody had a clue. Sipping from a cold glass of white wine, the killer gazed out of the window into the darkness of the early evening and smiled. So, a nice Christmas, and then time to formulate a plan. Number two might not be quite so easy.

12

Sunday 24
^th
December

Cora was on her hands and knees, scrubbing a filthy bathroom floor. Suddenly the door burst open and a wild-eyed man in a grubby grey nightshirt staggered in, whimpering and clutching his stomach. Ignoring her, he hitched up his gown and flung himself onto the toilet with a groan. Cora looked up, aghast.

‘What – what are you doing? I'm cleaning in here – you can't …'

‘Have to … have to … no choice … incurable diarrhoea … totally incurable …' gasped the man, and a loud splatter resounded from the toilet bowl.

Cora recoiled and banged into her bucket, sloshing stinking water over her knees. Then she jumped as behind her, she heard a familiar chuckle. A shirtless Benjamin Boland was leaning on the doorframe, looking down at her, tanned, muscular arms folded across his smooth, bare chest, laughing and laughing …

TRRRINNNGGG! TRRRINNNGGG!

Cora snapped into consciousness and bashed the alarm clock, which was flashing ‘9.00' at her. She was panting slightly, and even in the darkness of her bedroom she could feel that she was blushing. How mortifying! She was even dreaming about it now. Shaking her head to wipe out the vision of Benjamin Boland's smug face, she snapped the light on and clambered out of bed, suddenly aware that it was Christmas Eve and she wasn't exactly organised.

After a quick shower and hurried breakfast, she shrugged on her sheepskin coat and a pair of brown leather gloves and headed out. It was another bright, crisp day and Cora's spirits lifted as she took her favourite shortcut across the park to Cheltenham town centre. A Jack Russell in a green plaid coat yapped frantically as he scampered across the grass after a ball, and in the play area a little boy in a yellow Puffa jacket, face barely visible under the huge hood, screamed with excitement as he flew higher and higher on the swings.

As she reached the pavement on the far side of the park, a doll's house bedecked with fairy lights caught Cora's eye in the window of the old-fashioned toyshop on the corner and, despite herself, she got that old familiar rush of pleasure. She loved Christmas, and she would be damned if she was going to let Justin, Jeanette, or Benjamin bloody Boland spoil it for her. The bell jangled overhead as she pushed the door open, and the warm fug enveloped her like a comfort blanket. After fifteen happy minutes of browsing she emerged clutching a bagful of goodies – a gorgeous little, hand-made wooden train set for her godson Elliot (Nicole had quite enough revolting coloured plastic in her house – Cora refused to add to it) and, for Rosie's two, an exquisitely dressed, baby doll for five-year-old Ava, and a drawing set for the already artistic little Alexander. She paused by the door to cross the three names off her list and, across the street, the Salvation Army brass band suddenly struck up, the opening bars of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas' floating across the heads of the harried shoppers like a soothing breeze.