Killing Me Softly (24 page)

‘It's not as simple as that, Miss Nelson,' Jenny said, looking up.

There was another silence.

Carmody said, ‘I noticed a shotgun propped up in the conservatory.'

‘It's my father's, he takes pots at the squirrels and the magpies that pinch food from his bird-feeder. He never hits anything, just scares them off.'

‘What about you, Miss Nelson? Do you shoot?'

‘No, Sergeant, I don't. Not birds, or vermin. Not even Timothy Wishart.'

The investigation appeared to have reached a temporary impasse; Mayo felt the team deserved a break, and overtime figures being what they were, only the necessary few were kept working over the weekend.

Abigail contemplated the logjam of papers that confronted her when she opened her office door on Monday morning, pointing at her like some accusing finger of fate. A thing the general public didn't appreciate when they complained of lack of progress in a murder inquiry was that other criminals didn't take a holiday, out of respect; their activities still went on, all demanding that some time, at least, be allotted to them. She'd become adept at sorting the wheat from the chaff, those which clamoured for immediate attention from those which could sit in the in-tray. She was feeling mopey and sad about her own personal circumstances, missing Ben like hell and angry with herself for allowing it, and the only antidote she knew was work, even when she didn't feel like it. Work left no time for introspection, and it didn't now.

She was soon deeply immersed in the details of a fire-raiser who had apparently had a grudge against comprehensive schools, then with an inquiry over a house very nearly demolished by a gas explosion, whose owners were claiming that thieves had looted what was left of their possessions. How low could you get, they were asking? The one she picked up next made that look like one for the birds: a child, a boy of eleven, had just died from solvent abuse. A first timer, he'd over-used an aerosol can which had literally frozen his throat muscles.

This was a bloody awful job, sometimes.

It was while she was telling herself that railing at it got you nowhere that the call from the hospital came. Nick had died without regaining consciousness.

All impetus drained from her. She sat at her desk with her head in her hands, numb with shock and sorrow, unprepared, though she'd been expecting it. She wished she could cry, but the tears formed into a hard knot in her throat as images of the first weeks of their love affair, before it had all gone sour, of the gradually increasing guilt, the feelings of grubbiness that had overtaken her and in the end forced her to cut loose, swam through her mind. Images of Roz, doubly bereaved, followed, and wouldn't be dismissed.

After a while the telephone roused her. She took a big swallow from the coffee that had grown cold on her desk, then dealt with the call, which necessitated several follow-ons. Fifteen minutes later, when she put the phone down, she was calm. She sat thinking for a moment, looking at the subconscious doodles she'd made while telephoning. A previously blank page had got itself covered with jotted names, facts, queries, all of them factors in the Wishart case. She stared at the random scribblings, seeking connections, drawing lines between them until she had a spidergram of balloons and boxes with arrows and loops leading from one to the other. Somehow, if she fiddled with it long enough, the names and facts should shuffle themselves around until a coherent pattern emerged. That was the theory, anyway.

She put her pencil down, linked her hands behind her head, watched the pigeons and thought about Marianne Pardoe, the only one who didn't seem to fit in anywhere, unable to forget the tears coursing down the leathery cheeks. She looked again at her scribblings.

At the moment, what she had was Tim Wishart, at the centre of the web – who, according to Roz, had been involved in some shady business, about which he'd paid Nick to keep his mouth shut. A nice little fiddle that was turning out to be, though still being investigated: Wishart funnelling suspect monies into the system via Pardoe, buying imaginary shares in Neptune Holdings, borrowing it back at a laughable rate to pay off his debts.

She could understand now Nick's reluctance to make his own inquiries about Roz's disappearance. The backhanders from Wishart had stopped when he'd left the force, if not before, or so he'd told Roz, but what he knew must always have presented a threat to Wishart.

If Roz had never gone to work for Miller's Wife, there might have been a different story to tell, but she had, and for her own safety, Nick had been forced to tell her the truth about his previous involvement with Wishart. He'd urged her to leave before Wishart found out who she was and saw her as a threat to whatever dodgy activity he was up to. Which indicated that he'd still been carrying on with it at that time, and probably was until his death.

She looked for a long time at the link between Wishart and his Thursday night visitor – X, in her doodles. The moment Nick had started asking questions about X, his death warrant had been sealed.

And she thought back to when she'd spoken to Amy, and the impression she'd had that the girl was keeping something back.

Amy wasn't to know that it was no coincidence that the detective inspector should pull up behind her and offer her a lift as she got off the school bus.

Abigail had waited in a side lane until the bus hove into view. She followed it as it trundled along the narrow, winding road and drew up at the bus stop at the end of Clacks Mill Lane. She saw Amy get off, wave to someone on the bus and set off down the lane. She followed and as she drew level with the girl, burdened with her bulging school bag and a violin case, slid the window down. ‘I was just coming along to your house. Want a lift with your gear? Hop in, then.'

‘Oh, hi!' Amy hopped in and sat with her school bag at her feet, her violin across her knees, awkwardly pulling her seat belt across. ‘You should've come later if you want to see my mother. She's back at work. I think it's too soon, but she needs to have something else to think about,' she said, sounding like a concerned parent.

‘I was told your grandfather would be here.' Abigail didn't say that it was Amy she needed to talk to, and that she'd deliberately chosen this particular time, when she'd learned Sam would be present, since Amy was under the age when she could have questioned her, alone.

‘He's been here every day since ... He says he doesn't want us to be on our own, but we have to be, sometime, don't we?'

‘Perhaps not just yet, though. And maybe he's feeling down, too.'

‘Not Gramps! He didn't like Daddy much, in fact I don't think he's sorry he's dead.' Another very adult perception, stated without emotion, as though it were a fact of life for which no one was to blame. ‘He's sorry for
us,
that's all. But he doesn't need to make a fuss.'

‘Maybe he has a point, though.'

‘What do you mean? You think somebody is going to come and shoot us, as well?' Suddenly, behind the coolness, a dart of fear showed. She was just a rather scared girl, after all.

‘Unlikely, Amy. But it's not good to be alone just now.'

Abigail suddenly felt she was speaking for herself too, as, briefly, unbidden, Ben sprang to mind. Ben, who wouldn't be around much any more to take the pressure off with his good humour and common sense, or to make love to her after some sordid case, so that the world seemed normal and good, after all ... Oh blast, why had
that
crisis come at this particular point in her life? When she was up to the eyes in an investigation in which she now had a very personal stake, never mind what she'd said to Mayo? One thing at a time she could have coped with, the two together ... I don't need this, she thought.

Amy went upstairs to discard her school uniform the moment they got in, only taking a second or two to show Abigail into the kitchen where her grandfather was. ‘Look who's here, Gramps,' she announced, planting a kiss on his cheek before flying upstairs.

Sam was preparing food, sautéing mushrooms, garlic and onions. ‘The kids are always like starving hyenas when they get in from school, especially Richie, so they eat straight away.' He threw a shrewd glance at Abigail as he added tomatoes, basil and pine nuts. ‘Why don't you join us? You look as though you could do with a break, young lady.'

Abigail was tempted. She realized her last meal had been breakfast, and that had been only a cup of coffee. Supper the night before had been a toasted sandwich. She hesitated only briefly, but why not? ‘Well, if you're sure there's enough? It smells wonderful.' Her mouth was already watering.

‘You're very welcome, though I warn you, it's vegetarian, because of Amy. She's going through that phase, but I don't object to a meatless meal, and Richie eats anything that's going.' He dumped what looked like enough pasta for ten into boiling water, put another plate into the oven of the slow-burning stove to warm, and began to grate cheese. ‘He should be here in a few minutes, we shan't have long to wait. Before he does, before Amy comes down, tell me what you've found out.'

She was only too aware how little there was to tell. The events uppermost in her mind – Nick's death, Barbie's disappearance – were not ones likely to bring him any comfort, even had she felt able to speak about them yet. She took refuge in police-speak, and told him they were continuing with inquiries. He glanced sharply at her, but said nothing more, and at that moment, Amy came back in and began to set the table.

In figure-hugging jeans and her big sweater, she was at once less young and more vulnerable. She kept glancing sideways at Abigail as if expecting to be interrogated at any moment. But Abigail was waiting to talk to her until after they'd eaten. The front door opened and banged shut. ‘That's Richie,' Amy said, quick with relief.

If Richie was surprised to see who the other guest at table was he didn't show it. When the meal was ready, he fell on it with a gusto Abigail felt like emulating. ‘This is very good,' she told Sam appreciatively.

‘If Mum ever needs somebody to take over at Miller's Wife, Gramps is the man,' Richie said, with a grin that revealed the likeable lad he was. He seemed to have lost his former truculence, although, like Amy, he cast wary glances at her from time to time.

Abigail waited until she'd cleared her plate before asking, ‘Can we go over what you told me again, Amy? About the man who came here on Thursday night to see your father.'

‘I told you everything I knew.' Amy had made a poor attempt at her meal, and was now poking her fork about in what was left of the congealing food.

‘I was wondering if maybe you'd remembered anything more, anything that might help us to find him.'

The girl sat hunched on a kitchen stool, her legs entwined around the supports like a contortionist. She put her fork down and began to play with the ring on her middle finger instead, gazing at it with deep concentration.

‘Amy?'

‘Well, I'm not sure, but I
might've
remembered where I'd seen him before.'

Ah. When anyone finally admitted they
might
have remembered, it meant they surely had. ‘Where was that?'

‘When I saw him in the study, I thought maybe I'd seen him before, but he looked kind of different. Then I remembered. I'm sorry I didn't say, but I thought he'd come to tell Daddy –' She broke off and looked at her brother, who was concentrating fiercely on mopping up the last drops of sauce with a piece of bread. ‘Is it OK, Rich?'

‘I can't stop you,' he mumbled, without looking up.

‘Well, then. I thought he'd come to tell about Richie, and I didn't want to get Rich into trouble,' said Amy, in her reproving, carrying little voice. Then she burst out, ‘Did he kill my father?'

‘It's possible. And that he killed someone else, or helped to.'

She recoiled as if someone had slapped her across the face, and her eyes became huge. She looked like a little girl again who desperately wanted her daddy. Sam said, ‘All right, m'duck, take it easy.'

‘Please explain what you mean,' Abigail said. ‘Start right at the beginning. Or you can tell me, Rich.'

‘She started it, she can carry on,' Richie said gracelessly. ‘OK, I'm sorry, Amy, sorry, but –'

‘Oh, shut up, Rich!'

It took further encouragement, but at last, Amy made a halting start. ‘A couple of weeks ago, I saw this man. Talking to Richie, up by the market. The gang I was with said he was bad news, he was a pusher, you know, he was selling stuff ... they said you can get anything you want from him, you know? I told Richie he was out of his mind, messing with things like that, but he wouldn't listen.'

Richie suddenly pushed his empty plate away, and now he was as pale as Amy. ‘It wasn't me he'd been getting stuff for, you plankhead!' he shouted. ‘It was for Nicola Blake. I told him to leave her alone, or I'd go to the police. He didn't like that and he – he asked me where I thought
he
was getting it from. I told him I'd no idea and I didn't bloody care. But he told me, anyway.'

His voice came out in a harsh croak. ‘He said it was my dad, my dad was supplying hard drugs. I didn't believe him.' He jumped up from the table and threw himself into the basket chair by the Aga, burying his head in the cushion, thumping it with his fist. ‘It's not true! Dad wouldn't do that, he wouldn't be such a wanker –'

Oh, but it was more than likely, Abigail thought, recalling the blown-up photo of
Nancy Norton's
crew: Pardoe, Wishart...! She felt as Giotto must have done when he drew his perfect circle. It was beautiful. For a few moments, anyway, before questions began to make the circle look pear-shaped.

Sam was looking thunderstruck at this latest evidence of his son-in-law's depravity, of his own grandchildren's alarming familiarity with the adolescent world of drug-taking he read about in the newspapers. Abigail was sorry for him. It was always a shock to relatives to find out how much their children knew about the big, dark world outside.