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The Good Teacher: A gripping thriller from the Kindle top ten bestselling author of ‘The Perfect Neighbours’
Rachel Sargeant


Some people deserve to be taught a lesson…



A gripping thriller with a shocking twist, from the Top Ten Kindle bestselling author of The Perfect Neighbours. This riveting story about a murdered teacher is perfect for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR.



Even the good have to die.

A beloved teacher is murdered and left in a ditch beside a country lane. His wife is found beaten and gagged in their suburban home.



Even the best schools have secrets.

New detective Pippa Adams learns that the teacher ran a homework club for vulnerable pupils. But what did he really teach them?



Even the perfect family has something to hide.

When Pippa scratches the surface of the school community, she meets families who’ve learned a shattering lesson. And finally uncovers the good teacher’s darkest secrets…



Previously published as LONG TIME WAITING, now fully updated.









The Good Teacher

RACHEL SARGEANT







A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)




Copyright (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


KillerReads

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain as Long Time Waiting by Robert Hale Ltd 2010

This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Rachel Sargeant 2010

Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com/)

Rachel Sargeant asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008327224

Version: 2018-10-23


Table of Contents

Cover (#u60fb22fb-cd2c-53de-b3b4-7c0110130c89)

Title Page (#u66b3f7d2-21d3-5fa8-84fa-6bda8827ab34)

Copyright (#ubf8cfe73-2600-5194-a12f-8bd0a57a58fe)

Chapter 1 (#u786130e1-77c9-58b3-9c61-527153ec7ffe)

Chapter 2 (#u0e960fd2-81c4-5c42-bc58-c03050bbc9c5)

Chapter 3 (#uf3a09df1-80ee-5794-a76f-507fc6d5817c)

Chapter 4 (#u82d9d44e-7204-55ce-89b6-6800251e17f7)

Chapter 5 (#u67a6f9bf-f0b5-5b78-8048-a44e875af4cc)

Chapter 6 (#u6658323d-279f-50ab-84ad-b729f35f3852)

Chapter 7 (#ub2300378-718b-54ad-9f8b-acf268eebe9d)



Chapter 8 (#ub1b7b30d-c233-5629-b566-0d292d506f83)



Chapter 9 (#ud2d00441-0a67-50fa-bfaa-a66202109780)



Chapter 10 (#u97c65c5d-1e00-5c7e-a2fc-3f160e85d064)



Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)



Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)



Loved The Good Teacher? Enjoy the New Psychological Thriller From Rachel Sargeant… (#litres_trial_promo)



About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)



About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter 1 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


Her back aches like hell. She tries for the hundredth time to read her watch but can’t see her wrist, no matter how far she cranes her neck. The hot metal handcuffs cut into her arm and send pain searing up to her shoulder. It might be broken, but fractures are worse than this; she knows that. Her body has taken a pummelling but the bruises will heal.

She shifts her buttocks, peeling the thick pyjama trousers from her clammy thighs. She’s in the lounge on a kitchen chair, old with paint splatters, the remnants of previous decorating forays. White speckles from several ceilings, large splodges of powder-blue bathroom sheen, and buttercup, pink and cherry from the nursery project. Happy days long gone. She’s never had to sit for so long in this chair. She usually perches on its hard edge long enough to force down a couple of cream crackers and a cup of camomile tea. Even the leisurely Sunday breakfasts are a thing of the past.

Reg Kenny weaves across the lane, taking care not to stray off the tarmac. Not that it would matter much – although the thick grass verge is soaked in dew, the ground below is rock hard. As he pedals, he feels sweat on his forehead. It’s going to be another scorcher. Doreen doesn’t know what she’s missing and he isn’t going to tell her. His early morning cycle rides are his only escape from the infernal woman. And besides he has his little detour ahead of him. He pedals faster at the thought of what lies ahead and breathes harder, taking in the country freshness.

The chance to freewheel downhill fuels his good humour. The riotous hedgerows rushing by, the morning birds in full voice, the warm air on his face. And the sun glinting through the trees that line the road – his road – through Martle Top, the one little bit of countryside between Penbury and the motorway. The car parked in the lay-by annoyed him earlier. The thoughtlessness of some people: radio blaring, passenger door wide open, driver probably stopped for a pee in the ditch. Just as well Reg didn’t see him. He’d have given him a piece of his mind. Still, he’s nearly there now. His stomach flutters and there’s a delicious prickle through his shoulders. He’s like this every time. The first few days he thought it was guilt, but he knows now it’s the thrill of anticipation.

Raging thirst replaces the hunger pangs. Her forehead throbs and it’s hard to swallow. She tries not to panic.

If only the curtains were open a crack, the postman might have spotted her through the window and called the police. After the sharp thwack of the letterbox, she heard his “This Is Me”whistling fade away down the gravel path. She tried to call out but, with the tape over her mouth, she only managed a pathetic humming sound that had no hope of reaching the man chirping off into the warm June morning. She hates those curtains now, garish with the broad daylight behind them. Their peach colour makes the room loud and stuffy, hurting her eyes and aggravating her headache. A clashing backdrop for the vase of dark red roses on the table, their pungent perfume tainting what precious clean air she has left. A familiar wave of nausea threatens, but she fights it off.

Reg chains his bike to the railings and walks briskly into the Little Chef. Why should he feel guilty?

Doreen’s fault. She shouldn’t have withdrawn her services. A grown man has his needs.

The chain digs into her ribcage whenever she arches her back, forcing her to slump into the seat. The carriage clock ticks behind her. Oh for a clock that chimes. At least she’d be able to count off the hours. She daren’t rock round to face the mantelpiece. If she topples over, she’ll bang her already-raw face into the hard floor. And it isn’t just herself to think about. She has to keep pain to a minimum; she might have to wait all day.

To deaden the ache in her neck, she rests her heavy arms on the chair and moves her knees apart, easing the pressure on the handcuffs around her ankles. But now it’s even harder to hold her bladder, so she squeezes her legs together again. If she wants to avoid wetting herself, she’ll have to accept the intermittent burning sensation up her calves.

Reg swings his leg over the saddle and sets off home replete. He deserved his cooked breakfast. That puny porridge Doreen serves up since he retired wouldn’t keep a toddler fed.

He gets off his bike again. The hill’s getting steeper. He used to be able to cycle up it. Better not tell Doreen. She’ll say he’s past it. Men of his age can’t expect to do so much. Stupid woman.

“It’s just gone five past eight on Mids FM and on the line now is Carole in Briggham. Hi, Carole,” a radio shouts, polluting Reg’s country air. That bloody car in the lay-by is still there. No driver or passenger about. What on earth are they playing at? A crude thought creeps into Reg’s mind and he smiles. He pushes the bike across the road, quickening his pace.

He peers through the open passenger door. Well, there’s no one at it on the back seat. Hardly surprising. That shrieking radio would put anyone off. Reg lays his bike in the long grass. They must be in the ditch or the field beyond. You’ve got to admire their stamina. They’ve been down there longer than it’s taken him to ravish his Olympic Breakfast with extra mushrooms. With the stealth of a marine commando, he moves towards the ditch. Perhaps he’ll share this one with Doreen. It might put her in the mood for some how’s your fath—

“Father God in Heaven,”he gasps and stands stock-still, the taste of bile mounting in his mouth. His eyes fix on the glint of metal and the shiny patch of red seeping through the grass. In the next instant, stomach heaving, he’s back on his bike, tackling the rest of the hill from the saddle.

The milkman came at about 6.30 a.m. – at least she assumes it was 6.30 a.m. because that’s when he always comes. His chinking of bottles is often the first sound she hears on waking. This morning, frozen by the enormity of her situation, she didn’t think to call out to him until she heard the clanking, whirring sounds of his aged milk float dying away as it left. Hers is the only house in the street that still has milk delivered.

The final spin of the washing machine behind the closed kitchen door filled the silence after that. Then time became vast and empty until the whistling postman. The mail usually arrives before 8 a.m. despite changes at the Post Office, so that must make it about 9 a.m. now.

There’s a distant crunching outside. More steps follow and grow louder as they trip their way up the gravel. It must be Linda. Of course, it’s nine o’clock. Linda and Dean will have dropped the children off at school and then come to pick her up, as arranged. She pictures Linda teetering up the path, her broad feet forced into tiny sandals.

In the background a car engine rumbles. She’s amazed that she can hear it above her hammering heart. Dean will be waiting in the car. She hears a light tapping on the front door glass. Linda’s false fingernails. She forms the words “Linda, help” at the back of her mouth, trying to force them through the heavy adhesive that clamps her jaws together.

“Gaby, are you in there?” Linda’s voice invades the house through the opened letterbox. “Are you going to let me in?”

With all her might, she gulps out one more “Help”. The sound reverberates in her ears and, for a moment, she thinks it’s reached the front door. The letterbox snaps shut and footsteps move around the house towards the lounge window. She rocks against the chains, causing two of the chair legs to lift and then slam down with a muffled thud on the carpet.

“Dean, she must have forgotten.” Linda’s voice is directed away from the house. “I’ve put their milk in the bushes otherwise it’ll be honking in this heat.” Linda’s jerky steps return past the front door and recede down the path, the sound of gravel scattering in their wake.

Gaby struggles to catch her breath as a car door closes and the car speeds away. Tears prick her eyes. Her best hope of rescue will be joining the Penbury ring road without her. Crying makes her head throb, but she weeps on. The fight flowing out of her.

Reg – ice-numb now despite the heat – tries to lean his bike against the potting shed but it slips, clattering to the ground. The noise brings Doreen to the back door.

“Where the heck have you been all this time?” She squints at him. “You look peaky, a bit like your porridge looked before I chucked it. I suppose you want me to get you something else now?”

“Whisky,” Reg gasps.

What time is it now? Exhaustion giving way to panic again. How long can she survive without a drink? It’s been hours and her lips feel like crumbling plaster. Gaby makes another effort to calm down by breathing in through her nose and letting the air slowly reach her lungs. She clutches at any passing thought to occupy her aching mind. The letters on the doormat. She likes getting letters, even if most are mailshots. Her thoughts wander to the postman. She blinks back tears again, regretting that she’s never really looked at him before and wondering whether there’ll ever be another chance.

A car pulls up outside the gate. The engine stops and a door slams. Heavy shoes trudge along the gravel accompanied by faint crackling voices like a radio. She breathes in sharply, preparing to hum out as before, but this time ready for disappointment.

“Yes, sarge. If there’s no reply, we’ll force entry,” a calm voice says on the other side of the front door.

Gaby’s breathing quickens and she can hardly believe her ears. She’s in some other world, unable to move. Seized by terror, suddenly afraid to end her familiar incarceration after so many hours. But then her survival instinct takes hold and she presses against the chains, rocking back and forth, willing herself closer to the window. After hearing three sharp knocks at the door, she crashes to the carpet. Shattering pain spreads across the side of her face. Everything numbs and darkness comes.




Chapter 2 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


I scramble up the metal staircase inside the south entrance to Penbury Police HQ. Late. Should have taken the car instead of waiting for the bus, but I was flustered enough without getting behind a hot, sticky steering wheel. I try taking the steps two at a time, but the thick woollen tights drag on my knees. Unseasonal legs, and slow, but ladder-free at least. I tried my best with my mother’s honey blush tights, but the minute I tore open the packet and the two bits of beige nylon flopped down, I knew they were designed for an underfed tenyearold. And that was before their accident.

I up my pace and clamp my shoulder bag to my side – my one act of rebellion against Mum’s restyling efforts.

“Now all you need is a briefcase,” she trilled at the end of our shopping session.

“But I have to be approachable, Mum – a friendly face serving the whole community.”

“Really, Pippa, darling, you sound like that rather grand lady officer they keep interviewing on the local news.”

I swelled with pride when Mum made that comparison. I haven’t met Superintendent Chattan yet, but I’ll settle for having half the poise the woman exudes in her television appearances.

At the top of the stairs I slow down, trying to get my breathing under control. My bag’s heavy, too much fodder inside. Pink lipstick from Mum, change for the bus home, tissues, sweets, apples, the Penbury CID Induction Pack and a small handmade card in joined-up writing: Good Luck, Sis. Love Jamie.

Rushing along the narrow corridor past the glass-panelled general office, I tell myself I’m not all that late, but I catch sight of four heads already barricaded behind high in-trays and jumbles of phone consoles and computer screens. I break into a trot and wonder which workstation mine will be. What if my new colleagues don’t rate me? Being late on day one isn’t the best way to win them over. They might not speak to me – I hate silences. Hopefully I’ll be out on the road most of the time.

I touch the buttons on my jacket. Too formal? Another idea of my mother’s. Now you don’t have to wear that ghastly uniform anymore. After trouble with toothpaste spatters, I had to change out of her pink lace blouse selection into a royal blue T-shirt, an old favourite. It looks good with the jacket – so long as I don’t undo the buttons to reveal its full glory. If the weather forecast is anything to go by, I’ll have to boil.

Through the chipped double doors, across the stairwell and into the corridor beyond, I reach a line of varnished wooden doors, each bearing a nameplate. I stop before the first one: Detective Inspector Liz Bagley. I re-check my jacket buttons.

I’m about to knock when the door flies open and two unsmiling figures appear. One I recognize as Mike Matthews, the sergeant from my interview panel. But it’s the woman with him who seems more familiar. A mass of dark hair, toned face and full red lips. DI Bagley or Cher?

“You’re late, DC Adams,” she says. A small woman, she has to tilt her head to meet my eye. Her black curls quiver. The fierce northern accent is pure Rottweiler.

“I’m sorry, I …” I wrack my brain for a plausible explanation that doesn’t involve Colgate or laddered tights. “I, ma’am, well, I …”

Bagley steps through the door and forces me aside, barking her orders at high speed. “There’s been a murder and an assault. Almost certainly connected. You go with DS Matthews. He’s your supervising officer. He’s meeting Forensics at the assault scene.”

She breezes past, short strides, high boots, dancing gingham skirt, and stops at the far end of the corridor to lob Matthews an afterthought. “I’ll be on Martle Top, but try and manage without me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he calls. When the wired-glass fire doors bang shut behind her, he mutters, “Ride ’em, cowboy.”

I grin but Matthews’s face hardens. “The car’s in the yard,” he says and sets off. I rush after him.

We reach the car and he manoeuvres it out of a tight space and is soon moving at speed along the street outside the police station. He hasn’t spoken since the corridor and gives no indication of remembering me from the interview. At the time, he didn’t make much of an impression on me either. His questions were about simple textbook scenarios. I’d been awestruck by the other interviewer, DCI James Hendersen, a booming bear of a man determined to trick me with a heavy cross-examination. Matthews appeared meek in comparison.

As DS Matthews drives through the drab industrial part of town, I study him out of the corner of my eye: smart trousers, crisp, short-sleeved shirt and tie. Most of the young detectives I’ve met who made the move from PC to DC swap one uniform for another, namely jeans and a leather jacket. He must have a “dress to impress” mother like mine, or maybe he has a wife.

After a while, I break the silence. “Where are we going?”

“To the attempted kidnap scene.”

“Oh, right. Good,” I say, trying to sound on the ball. When Matthews doesn’t elaborate, I add, “Where is that exactly?”

“A house in Southside.” He touches the brake to give the car in front time to turn off.

“Who’s been kidnapped?” I ask. “Is it a siege situation?”

“I don’t think we’d put you through a siege on day one.”

I feel myself reddening and the silence returns. He seemed innocuous at the interview. What little I can remember of him was of someone sympathetic, about my age, on my side. Perhaps he isn’t as young as I first thought. There’s a slight furrowing on his forehead as he concentrates on the driving but the rest of his face is line-free. In his late twenties? Five years my senior at most. He’s clean-shaven – the sort of man Mum would approve of, except for the haircut, if you can call it that. Wild Afro extends as far as his shirt collar. It puts me in mind of my father’s photographs of touring Jamaican musicians in his early days with the Midlandia Symphonic. Odd that Matthews takes care over the rest of his appearance but has hair left over from the 1970s.

He turns the steering wheel to take a left and catches me looking. I cover my embarrassment by asking another question. “Have the kidnappers been arrested?”

“They tied up a Mrs Gaby Brock in her own home and scarpered. Uniform found her.” He moves out past a parked car.

“Who reported it?” I ask, gaining confidence. I seem to have persuaded him to brief me about the case.

“No one.” He flicks the indicator and turns left again, yanking down the sun visor against the head-on sunlight. We’re in a residential district – rows of tight terraces with postage-stamp front gardens.

“How did we know to look for her?” I choose the word “we” carefully. I can’t bring myself to say “uniform”, not ready to detach myself from my former colleagues.

“Because her husband was found murdered this morning in a ditch at Martle Top, close to his own car, by a pensioner on his bicycle. Stabbed in the chest. Knife by the body.” He looks at me, apparently hoping for some sign of revulsion.

He’s read me right. As my stomach muscles clench, I make a desperate attempt at humour. “It sounds like an Agatha Christie to me.”

I realize my mistake even before all the words are out. Matthews takes his eyes off the road and looks me full in the face. “You what?”

My mouth still not shut, more words tumble out. “In many of her novels, the murderer sets up the scene. You can tell—”

Matthews touches the brakes, nudging us both against our seat belts. “Agatha Christie. Now I’ve heard everything. Don’t tell me I’m working with Miss Marple for the next six months,” he says, not smiling.

“It was a joke.” Don’t detectives have a sense of humour? I’m suddenly homesick for the camaraderie of uniform. Getting through the day with easy banter and Sergeant Conway treating us like favourite nieces and nephews.

Matthews puts the car into gear and continues at a slower pace. We enter a leafy residential area that I recognize as Southside, so named when the town was little more than a village. These days it would be more aptly called Eastside, the town having sprawled out below it.

“This isn’t a joke,” he says angrily. “Know the facts before you laugh about it. These are real-life victims. Gaby Brock was found lying on the floor, shackled to a chair in her own lounge. There was a chain round her legs and across her chest. Her wrists were handcuffed to the chair legs. The keys for the padlocks were in the pocket of the pyjamas she was wearing when uniform got there. And before you get any other fanciful ideas, she couldn’t have snapped the cuffs shut on her own arms and then pocketed the keys.”

“Has the victim been able to say anything?” I try to make my voice sound brisk and efficient.

“They were asleep when two men burst in, gave them both a beating, made her husband tie her up and then dragged him out of the house. It appears they took him to Martle Top in his own car and knifed him. Sounds like drugs to me. Shades of the Easter Day shooting in Briggham.”

I’ve heard of the Briggham case. It’s said to have all the hallmarks of a gangland contract. I feel a twinge of excitement at the thought of what this new case might involve, but decide against quipping to Matthews that he needs to know his facts before judging it to be drugs-related. Somehow I don’t think he’d see the funny side.

He switches off the engine as we pull up across a driveway in a short road of newish detached houses, their dull frontages enhanced by conifers and flowering shrubs. Several hydrangeas are in full bloom at the house in front of us. Someone has stuck a pint of milk under one. But what sets this house apart from its neighbours is the blue and white Police Do Not Cross tape all round its perimeter and a police officer, whom I don’t know, standing outside the open front door. When she sees Matthews, she lets us step under the tape without question.

From the doorstep we can see that the house is alive with scenes of crime staff in their white forensic suits, looking through waste bins, checking drawers, and examining carpets with an E-vac. One of the forensic scientists in the hallway looks up and raises his hand in a latex glove. “Long time, no see, Mike.”

“Hello, Dave,” DS Matthews calls as he slips on his forensic suit. “Didn’t expect to be working with you again. I thought your team had moved to Briggham.”

“We have. Got put on to this job by the ACC himself.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Matthews replies.

“It does me. I’d expected separate teams here and at Martle Top to avoid crosscontamination, but not the cavalry.”

“Depends who the senior investigating officer is,” Matthews says.

“Who?”

“Liz Bagley.”

Dave grins. “Is it true what they say about her?”

“What do you think?” Matthews replies. “She’s persuaded the assistant chief constable to cough up the staff, hasn’t she?”

“Inspector Bagley?” Dave leers. “Expect a Shagley more like.”

Both men laugh but stop when they remember I’m there. Matthews glowers at me and I brace myself for another tongue-lashing, but he just asks me to put on coveralls and check on progress upstairs.

Once suited up, I enter the house and walk up the narrow, carpeted staircase. The bathroom is at the top of the stairs, tidy and ordinary. Apart from a plastic cup on the washbasin containing two toothbrushes and a tube of paste, and two dry towels hanging over the bath, the bathroom suite is clean and free of clutter. I lift the lid on the wicker laundry basket even though the kidnappers are unlikely to have stopped off to do the washing. The basket is about a third full of what looks like pale tops and white underwear – quite unlike the overflowing colour riot of my linen bin. I let the lid fall and turn to the wall-mounted cabinet. Inside is a neat arrangement of cut-price shampoo, shaving foam and razor, full-coverage foundation, concealer and a powder compact. The only person I’ve known with such an immaculate bathroom cabinet (but without the make-up) is my father after he left my mother and before he married Joanne. I close the cabinet and head into a bedroom.




Chapter 3 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


Across town Bartholomew Hedges climbs down his ladder. He can’t work. He tells himself it’s the heat, but knows it isn’t. The fair weather is his friend, kind for completing the exterior paintwork. The Lord shines the sun on him. He should be getting on; the customer has started asking questions. Bartholomew can’t blame the dormer roof for much longer.

As he replaces his brush in the paint can, some of the white undercoat slops onto the patio. He scoops it back in with his palette knife and removes the rest of the stain with white spirit. He sprinkles more spirit on his hands and wipes them down with the rag from the pocket of his shorts.

His fingers aren’t clean, but pale like a white man’s. He needs a wash down with soap and water. But he doesn’t want to go into the house as the customer’s wife is at home. She might ask him why he’s stopped again.

He sits on the edge of the patio. The step down to the lawn is low and his paint-flecked knees come up high in front of him. The grass is yellow, even though he’s seen the owners using a sprinkler every evening. He’s heard them talking of having it re-turfed – as soon as the decorating’s finished. He sighs. Perhaps he should tell them that God will replenish their lawn long before Hedges House Painting Services retouches their eaves.

He’s surprised they gave him the contract at all. He knows the man didn’t want to and he can’t blame him. As far as he was concerned Bartholomew had already proved himself unreliable. In February he’d been due to start on their dining room – a big job to take off the Anaglypta wall covering, cross line it and paint over in mushroom gold. Bartholomew had to cancel at two weeks’ notice when he couldn’t find his steam stripper. It would have taken a month of God’s sacred Sundays to scrape off Anaglypta without a steamer.

The machine disappeared from the back of his van one night, but there’d been no sign of a break-in. Had he forgotten to lock the van? Convincing himself that it was his own foolish mistake, he hadn’t gone to the police or contacted his insurance company. Back then, the possibility that someone else could get hold of the van key hadn’t crossed his mind. Bartholomew wipes his chin with his forearm and wonders whether that suspicion had been in his head all along but he’d chosen to ignore it. February? Were the signs already there?

He shuffles along the patio edge to his toolbox. Underneath his Thermos flask of Cherry Tango is his Bible, wrapped in a plastic bag. He longs to take it out, ask it the questions, and seek solace. But he can’t touch it until he’s washed his hands.

The same passage comes into his mind. It’s been there almost constantly for three weeks now. Proverbs 10: 1: “A wise son makes his father proud of him; a foolish one brings his mother grief.” The words have been pressing against his brain ever since he saw his own son, Saul, being … doing …

He shivers. The fear comes back and he thinks of Job 20: 16: “What the evil man swallows is like poison.” Is Saul evil? Every day he prays for a sign, for the Lord to reassure him. Bartholomew needs to know that the evil lies elsewhere, not in a boy like Saul. Again and again he’s asked Saul why he did it. Saul says it’s like falling into cotton wool. It lets him find a warm and happy place that he wants to keep going back to. Where did Bartholomew go wrong? He’s found comfort from a life of faith. Why hasn’t Saul found it there, too?

A scenes of crime officer dusts a bedside locker while another hunts through drawers. I look at the unmade double bed that the Brocks must have been dragged from in the night. The room’s simply furnished – a large pine wardrobe and matching dressing table – again tidy, no lipsticks or perfume bottles in sight.

The second bedroom looks like an advert for an office suppliers. A black swivel chair slots underneath a desk as if it’s never been used. Even the few sheets of printed papers on top lie in a perfect pile. A plastic dust sheet covers the computer. The blotting pad looks fresh and a single ballpoint pokes out of a pen-tidy. The only incongruous item is a birdcage, complete with a bell and a seed hopper, under the desk. Two forensic officers come in behind me, so I leave them to begin a detailed search.

Whereas the rest of the upstairs appears sterile, the third bedroom is a surprise. Three walls are bright yellow and the fourth displays a magnificent hand-painted circus scene. Trapeze artists fly across the red and white striped backdrop of the big top. Clowns juggle silver hoops and two white horses rear up at each other. It must have taken someone days to complete. In the middle of the room is a large cot with a clown motif mattress, but no bedding. The drawers of the nappy changing unit next to it are empty.

I go downstairs, psyching myself up for the next round with Matthews.

He’s on his mobile, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “No, ma’am, nothing of interest so far. They’ve bagged up a few bits and pieces.”

I wander into the kitchen. Dave, the forensic scientist, kneels at the opened back door, scraping at a broken pane of glass. I look beyond him into the garden. Typical new-estate small, the paved patio is surrounded on three sides by conifers.

Two familiar figures come round the side of the house and I smile in relief. “Anything interesting?” I call.

“Hi, Pippa, good to see you. Nothing out here,” PC John Whitton says, coming towards the doorstep. “But Forensics pulled some clothes out of the washing machine. They want to check whether anyone’s tried to wash away evidence.”

“Unlikely though,” PC Kieran Clarke says. “It’s a towel and a few men’s shirts and trousers, probably the husband’s. We won’t find any bloodstains. All his blood is spread across Martle Top.” He gives a half-hearted chuckle.

“The relief’s missing you already,” John says. “So how are you getting on in CID?”

The thought of my day so far makes my insides clench but I manage a breezy “Fine”. Trying not to sound desperate, I say how glad I am to see them again and go back through the kitchen.

The lounge curtains, closed when the police broke in, are now pushed back to let maximum daylight onto the crime scene. With the light comes the fire of a midsummer day. My hand goes to undo my jacket but the protective suit is in the way. Apart from the pungent smell of forensic chemicals sprinkled into the carpet, the room is orderly. Matching cushions on the sofa and paperbacks on the small bookcase. Red roses on the coffee table and a cheap carriage clock on the mantelpiece, but otherwise no ornaments or photos.

My own small lounge has every available space crammed with photos: old ones of Mum and Dad in the same frame; one of Dad’s wedding to Joanne and several of their son, Jamie, from newborn to the current cheeky eight-year-old. But no photos in this house, no clues to the occupants.

I kneel over the kitchen chair in the middle of the room and get a whiff of the oily scent left by the fingerprint experts. Hard to know what colour the chair is under its dosing of white powder. A pale wood, perhaps, and there are several paint spots, evidence that the chair has been a makeshift decorating ladder before its latest incarnation as a prison for Gaby Brock. Some of the spots are summer yellow and partly obscured by splodges of blue. The circus room with its yellow walls probably wasn’t the most recent project.

On the bookcase, two shelves of light romances mingle with classic horror, and another shelf of paperback textbooks. Understanding Shakespeare; Yoga Postures; Towards the National Curriculum; Modern Grammar; Advanced Yoga. Which books belonged to the husband and what will the wife do with them now?

Dave, the forensics officer, puts his head around the door. “Tell Mike Matthews I’m off. I’ll have my initial report ready this afternoon.”

“Ok, I’ll tell him. It was nice meeting you,” I say.

Dave grins. “You too, Agatha”. Then he’s gone.

My cheeks burn. Matthews must have told him about my failed Agatha Christie joke. It wasn’t that funny, was it?

PC Kieran Clarke appears at the door. “Mike Matthews wants us to make a start on the house-to-house enquiries. Find out if anyone saw Brock’s Mondeo leaving in the middle of the night.” He pauses to give his face time to break into a smirk. “So you’d better hurry up, Agatha.”

There’s more danger that her Jimmy Choo heels will pierce the forensic overshoes and sink into the melting tarmac of the Martle Top road than they will bury themselves in the dried-out grass verge, but force of habit makes DI Liz Bagley tiptoe to the edge of the ditch. She shouts across to the kneeling figure of SOCO Steve Chisholm.

“Anything?”

He stands up. “Not much. There are some tyre tracks on the grass over there.” He looks towards a patch of ground a few feet ahead. “From a bicycle, I think. The grass is flattened as if someone’s laid a bike down.”

“That fits. The man who found the body was on a bike. Where’s Dr Spicer?”

Chisholm points to the white incident tent a few metres behind him. “In there with the victim.” He folds his arms, a half-smile hovering over his mouth.

In that moment Liz hates him. Clockwise Chisholm might be the station’s resident anorak, with his hand semipermanently stuck up the back of a computer, but he’s astute enough to realize that, to get to the tent, she’ll have to cross the ditch. Its banks could harbour a few wet spots despite the heatwave. She isn’t going arse over tits for anyone.

“Get me a plank,” she says.

“I’ll call DC Holtom.”

“Not that sort of plank.”

Chisholm grins. “I meant he’s got the bridge.”

“Tell him to be quick,” she says, cursing herself for not bringing her wellies. She took them out of the car caked in mud weeks before, but forgot to put them back.

DC Holtom comes over with a duckboard. She steps across the ditch, placing one foot deliberately in front of the other. Her expression hardens against the curious gazes of Chisholm and Holtom. No way is she giving them the satisfaction of seeing her slip.

At least DS Mike Matthews isn’t here. He’d enjoy watching her walk the plank. The man is dire. So polite and correct, apart from his outsize broomstick hair. “Yes, ma’am, certainly ma’am. If you want me to, ma’am.” But behind the plodding reliability, Liz has the feeling he’s waiting for her to fall flat on her face. It’s a good thing he’ll be preoccupied from now on with supervising DC Adams. He’ll be too busy keeping that towering toddler on her feet to trip up his detective inspector.

Matthews and DCI Hendersen did the interviews for the vacancy, so it’s their fault they’ve ended up with a girl trainee. Lads are much easier to knock the corners off. They’re a bit wet behind the iPhone, but they know who’s boss. Women, on the other hand, make loose cannons.

Liz complained to John Wise about it, of course. That’s lover’s perks. But Assistant Chief Constable Wise was non-committal. There was no suggestion, on his part anyway, of wading into Hendersen’s office and pulling rank.

And the upshot is DC Pippa Adams. An overgrown cheerleader, all pink cheeks and ponytail. Detective material? Unlikely. Time will tell.

As Liz steps off the duckboard, she goes down on her ankle but rights herself despite the pain. With all the dignity she can muster, she heads into the incident tent.




Chapter 4 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


“I didn’t think you’d catch up with me this quickly,” a woman’s voice says through the polished brass letterbox. The door opens a fraction and the voice continues, “Can I ring Stuart – that’s Mr Perkins, my husband – before you take me in? I’m allowed one phone call, aren’t I?”

A pair of hunted green eyes appear and I wonder what crime I’ve stumbled into. Isn’t that how we caught the Briggham killer – routine enquiries into another case? I glance up the road, but my colleagues are nowhere in sight, each having allocated themselves a different avenue on the Southside estate for the house-to-house. I knocked at the first house in a cul-de-sac that runs off the road behind the Brocks’ house.

“I suppose you’ll want to come in while I’m on the phone so I don’t abscond,” the woman says. She opens the door wide.

I step over the threshold. Should I call for backup? After a shaky start on my first day are things about to get even rockier?

“I must be in a lot of trouble if they’ve sent a CID officer,” the woman says. She leads me into the lounge. What villainy could have taken place in a room where paisley pink curtains match the sofa cushions?

“What do you think will happen to me? I know it’s not much of an excuse, but I would like to say in my defence that I only saw it was back this morning.”

“Back this morning?” I ask, trying to disguise my bewilderment. The woman is chatty. I’ll feed her enough rope, get her to confess to whatever it is she’s done and make an arrest. Maybe even redeem myself in DS Matthews’s eyes.

“It was propped against the front wall. I swear it wasn’t there yesterday. And Stuart walked up and down the avenue before we spoke to your officers on Wednesday. There was no sign of it. I know we shouldn’t have kept it in the front garden. The way other people let their children stay out till all hours. It’s asking for trouble in this day and age.”

“Is it?” I ask.

“They’ll take anything if it’s not nailed down, even a tatty old thing like that. Except they didn’t take it because it’s back now. But I swear it wasn’t there yesterday, not since Wednesday.”

“A tatty old thing?”

“I’d had it since college.” She waves a hand at the mantelpiece, which displays two graduation photographs. One is of a youth with wispy hair reaching to his oversized collar and big tie. Stuart? The other is of a young woman with sparkling green eyes and a magnificent smile, lavishly framed by lipstick. I study Mrs Perkins’s tired, pale features. She must be in her late thirties but carries herself as if in middle age. She resembles an Afghan hound with messy, permed hair over her ears. Loose grey cords and a baggy cardigan conceal long limbs. Has a guilty conscience tarnished her former radiance?

“And you spoke to us on Wednesday?” I ask, trying to make a jigsaw out of the pieces the woman is giving me.

“We both came down to the station to make a statement, give a description. We didn’t mean to waste anybody’s time.”

“You wasted our time?” I begin to think she’s wasting mine.

“Are you going to charge me? We thought it had gone. It never occurred to us it would come back.”

I give up. “What came back?”

“My bicycle, of course.” Mrs Perkins raises her voice an octave but returns to deferential tones to explain that she and her husband had reported her bicycle stolen from their front garden on Wednesday but that it reappeared this morning. “I was going to phone you. I didn’t want the police force out looking for it any longer than necessary. I know wasting police time is a serious offence. I’ll just phone Stuart, or should I phone a solicitor?”

My eyes move back and forth between the woman and her graduation photograph. Intelligence manifests itself in so many ways. I reassure Mrs Perkins that the Brigghamshire Constabulary won’t be taking any further action on this occasion. Doubtless my fellow officers will be delighted that Mrs Perkins’s property has been returned safe and sound. Mrs Perkins launches into a torrent of thanks. When she pauses for air, I explain the real reason for my visit and find myself accepting an offer of a cup of tea.

“Not to worry. Thanks for your help anyway,” DS Mike Matthews says outside number 23. He puts away his notebook. All of them wise monkeys. No one saw or heard anything, and they aren’t saying much either. Not even: would you like to come in out of the heat and have a drink, officer.

Chance would be a fine thing.

“Have another piece of chocolate cake,” Mrs Perkins offers. “It’s lovely to see a young woman enjoying her food. I’m afraid with this talk of murder, I’ve rather lost my appetite.”

I hastily swallow. “Quite. Did you see anyone in the avenue during last night?”

Mrs Perkins shakes her head. “We’re heavy sleepers. Perhaps if we weren’t, we’d have seen what happened to my bicycle.”

“Maybe you saw something before you went to bed. A car, perhaps, a Ford Mondeo?” I’m anxious to steer the conversation away from the bicycle.

“I’ve got an awful feeling we’ve met the victim. I don’t think I’ve seen him round here, but there’s a chap we see up at the allotments now and again that matches the man you’ve described. Big, scruffy. Stuart says he’d lose a bit of weight if he put his back into it. His plot’s a mess. Not like Stuart’s. He’s up there every evening. We grow all our own veg.”

She smiles at his graduation photo, no doubt proud that a man in a psychedelic tie could evolve into one with green fingers. “Things taste much better when you grow them yourself. All those additives these days send children into orbit. Give them a home-grown diet and they’re good as gold,” Mrs Perkins continues. “We’re doing runner beans this time. It makes a change from courgettes. I’ve still got tubs of puree in the freezer from last year. I’ll give you some to take home. Let me put the kettle on again.”

Matthews puts a tick against number 27. It always amazes him how many people are at home during the day. Only three doors didn’t answer. He hasn’t found out anything from the others, but at least he can cross them off. Someone must have seen something. Two men forcing another man into his own car and then driving off intent on murder. It’s hardly a routine occurrence, not on Southside. On the Danescott estate, maybe, but not round here.

He goes back to the car. Perhaps the uniforms or Agatha will have had more luck. Agatha. He screws up his face and clenches his fists. Agatha. He’s only just met her, and yet … He’s worked with junior DCs before, so why does this one wind him up so much?

“Is that the time,” I say, standing up.

“I’ll get your courgette puree,” Mrs Perkins says. “Time does fly. The children will be coming out of school soon.”

Despite the risk of venturing into what must be another pet subject for Mrs Perkins, I can’t resist asking another question. “How old are your children?”

The hunted look returns to the woman’s eyes. “I don’t have any of my own. I meant the children in general would be coming out of school. Stuart and I haven’t been blessed.” She stops speaking, her eyes watering. I feel bad and sit down again to coax Mrs Perkins back to the happier topic of her vegetables.

“One, Agatha! Just one!” The blood pulses visibly through the veins in Matthews’s neck, and he grips the steering wheel. “We covered half the estate, while you interviewed one householder. So what did you get, a full confession? A request for several previous capital offences to be taken into consideration?”

I stare blindly out of the window. All I see is misery. “It’s people like that who spot things,” I offer without conviction. “And the lady seemed unhappy. She needed someone to talk to.”

“Tell her to phone the Samaritans. If I spend much more time with you, I’ll be needing them myself.”




Chapter 5 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


I follow Matthews into the main entrance of Penbury General Hospital. Glad of the wide corridors, I keep my distance. He isn’t about to play the caring supervisor and whisper words of reassurance en route to the mortuary. He wants me to squirm and his wish might well be granted. Thinking about the post-mortem I attended three years ago during police training still brings me out in a sweat. I’ll have to draw on the skills I learnt in my performing arts degree to appear in control.

When we reach the mortuary anteroom, I drop my bag alongside DS Matthews’s brown briefcase. I put on a gown, fumble with the plastic overshoes and take a deep breath as Matthews pushes open the wide swing doors into the main lab.

The smell triggers a kaleidoscope of memories. I’m back in Matron’s room at school. I only went there twice, both times to escort a sick friend, but there’s no forgetting the stench of disinfectant designed to terrify any virus into submission. The mortuary shares not only the same fragrance but also, bizarrely, the same cosy warmth. At the training post-mortem, all the police cadets on my intake remarked on the unexpected heat of a morgue.

I rub my dripping forehead and decide that Penbury’s mortuary needs better air conditioning. The stuffy room isn’t much bigger than Matron’s office, but there’s an ominously empty space in the centre.

A masked and gowned man sits at a computer screen, making notes on a clipboard. He stands up to greet us. “Ah, Mike Matthews and …?” He looks from Matthews to me.

“I’m DC Adams,” I explain.

“Charles Spicer, pathologist. What’s your first name, DC Adams?”

“She’s called Agatha,” Matthews says.

“Actually, Pippa,” I say coolly, not about to show him how rattled I am by the nickname. I’m grateful for the distraction of Bagley’s arrival.

“Good. Everyone’s here,” Bagley says, shuffling through the door in the plastic overshoes. “Can we make a start.” It’s a command, not a request.

Dr Spicer rolls his eyes but says nothing. He presses the button on the intercom next to his computer. Before I have time to rehearse my reaction, the wide double doors at the far end of the room fly open and two young men dressed in white tunics push in a trolley bed containing the lifeless body of a man. They line the trolley up parallel with the doctor’s desk and leave through the doors.

My stomach lurches and I’m glad I declined a second slice of Mrs Perkins’s cake. I study the coveralls on my shoes, but like a bystander at a traffic accident, can’t resist a morbid peek at the horror. A crisp green cloth covers most of the corpse, but has been turned down to show his waxen head. A large head, made even larger by the crop of tangled hair and the dense stubble that frames it. He looks like Moses.

“Have you already stripped him?” Bagley asks and there’s no mistaking the accusation in her voice.

Dr Spicer peers at her above the silver frames of his spectacles, much as a kindly uncle might view a cheeky child. “If you recall, he was only wearing boxer shorts when we found him. You saw the body for yourself. If a body is clothed when found, we remove the clothes after it has been photographed. After twenty years in the profession, I have not chosen today to deviate from this practice.”

He makes his point in amiable tones but Bagley’s face takes on a darker tan below her face mask.

“Glad to hear it,” she says quietly.

I take little interest in this battle of wills; I’ve got my own struggle. I try to imagine I’m standing outside the scene. If I can escape, I might be able to keep my emotions at bay. I force myself to look at the large feet resting in a wide V at the other end of the sheet. They’re broad and strong, load-bearing. Tufts of dark hair protrude from short, thick toes. The toenails, crusty and yellowing, are long and misshapen. I think of the living man getting by in ill-fitting shoes. At least he’s now free of that irritation. I stifle a sigh.

“According to the photo driving licence found in the car in the lay-by, this is Carl Edward Brock,” Dr Spicer says, checking his clipboard. “I still require a formal ID.”

He directs this comment at DS Matthews who jots something down in the notebook that’s poised in his steady hands. I envy his professional neutrality.

“It is the body of a white male, aged between thirty and forty. The driving licence says thirty-six. He’s six feet tall, of large build, a bit overweight.”

“Can you give me a time of death?” Bagley asks.

“It was a warm night. He’d been dead at least two hours when I examined him on Martle Top. I’d say it was between midnight and seven this morning. A detailed PM should give a more precise time. Cause of death would appear to be a single stab wound to the heart.”

“Is there any sign of a struggle?” It’s Matthews who speaks.

“None whatsoever. No defensive injuries and no apparent scratches or bruising. Death seems to have occurred swiftly but I’ll need to do the PM to be sure.”

“Any sign of sexual activity?” Inspector Bagley hammers out her question.

Dr Spicer gives the inspector another avuncular gaze. “We’ve already established he’s ‘boxer short intactus’ so you’ll have to wait a little longer for that one. There is an older injury to the right knuckles. I’d say it occurred several hours before death. He banged his fist against something sharp. However, cause of death seems to be one thrusting action up through the ribcage.”

I keep looking at the doctor’s face, not at the descriptive movements he makes with his hands. My nails dig into my sticky palms. And this isn’t even the full PM. I force my eyes onto the ivory face and try to think of him as the corpse, the victim, the case, but he’s still Carl Brock, a human being. The darkly shadowed eyelids will never again open to scan the books on his bookcase. The unshaven jaw won’t need the razor from the tidy bathroom cabinet. The stiffening shoulders, fleshy and wide, will never again share the warmth of the double bed.

“It’s a boat-shaped wound, suggesting a knife with one sharp edge. And long,” Dr Spicer says.

“We found a blood-covered kitchen knife close by the body,” Bagley replies. “Could it have been suicide?”

“Not with that angle of penetration.”

“Can you tell us anything about the killer?”

“You won’t find the assailant soaked in the victim’s blood, a few spatters at most. There was little external bleeding. He haemorrhaged internally.”

I swallow hard and concentrate on the doctor’s face.

“Man or woman?” Matthews asks.

“Hard to tell. The blow was strong and quick. It’s a clean incision and it seems to have taken the victim by surprise.”

“So we are looking for someone big and powerfully built,” Bagley concludes.

“The height of the killer is difficult to gauge. The attack apparently took place on the side of a ditch. The victim may have been standing on lower ground. With a sharp knife, the attacker would have needed little force. Even a woman could have managed it if that was how they were standing. Once the knife had penetrated the skin, it would’ve been like stabbing a water melon.”

“When will you do the full PM?”

“Tomorrow at eleven but we need a formal ID before that. Even when we’ve stitched them up, the deceased never look the same after we’ve had the hacksaw to them. The bereaved don’t like to see that.”

Queasiness wraps itself around me like a tight woollen blanket.

“We’ll get the wife to do it when we know what state she’s in,” Bagley says.

“The police surgeon examined her about an hour ago,” Dr Spicer says.

“Do you mean Dr Tarnovski?”

“Of course.”

There’s a pause as Dr Spicer and DI Bagley exchange a glance.

Dr Spicer resumes his briefing. “Apparently she’s being treated for shock. Mild concussion, badly beaten up. Black eyes, cracked cheekbone. Fresh bruising to the arms and legs consistent with being chained and handcuffed.” He looks at Bagley again and adds, “No sign of sexual assault.”

“Is she fit to interview?”

“You’ll have to check with Dr Tarnovski. She’s suffered a major trauma. Her own ordeal was bad enough and now she has to cope with her husband’s murder.”

“Of course, doctor. I realize that. DC Adams and I will be back for the full PM tomorrow.”

My heart drops like a stone.

Dr Tarnovski sits at his desk and scrutinizes the lines of text. His eyes linger over every weight and schedule as he crosschecks them against the recesses of his encyclopaedic memory. He’ll find a match, an absolute, however long it takes. He just needs to locate The Evidence. He takes a sip from the plastic cup by his hand, smacking his lips together and rubbing away the taste. With The Evidence, he could make his predictions and test his hypothesis. His elbow nudges a half-eaten curry tray, relic of another late night at the office. His methodology deserves perseverance. It will reap its own rewards – soon.

What time is it now? He lifts his sleeve in an automatic gesture, forgetting that his wrist is bare. A temporary setback. He reaches across the paper-strewn desk to the old transistor radio. It crackles weakly as he turns the dial. If only he hadn’t been called out to that assault victim, Gaby somebody. At least the examination was straightforward. She’d had a good beating but not life-threatening. It’s up to her if she chooses not to take the sedatives and sleeping tablets he suggested. Another ill-informed hippy isn’t his problem. She can always try her own GP for some alternative therapy.

He ponders for the nth time why he remains a police surgeon, calculating an exponential rise in his job dissatisfaction. Of course the profession has its value. Its contribution is not without merit. Someone has to treat traumatized victims and assess prisoners keen to feign illness.

He’s a strategist, a mathematician, a man of reason – and speculation. It’s a case of horses for courses. The creases in his face deepen into a grin. He marvels at his gift for irony. Police duties take him away from his real work, although he has to admit that the income is useful. The allowance and expenses – thank the Lord for travel claims and a DCI who doesn’t probe them.

Only Mary probes. In the early years of their marriage, he tried to explain the nature of his empirical investigations. But she isn’t a scientist. He has no time to listen to her weakminded debates and to counter her abstract reasoning. He’s taken the pragmatic line and concealed his research, continuing in secret to build the necessary experience to achieve results.

He scans the page again. He must have missed it. He drains his cup. His head begins to ache but he forces the print back into focus. Suddenly, there’s The Evidence. Yes, The Evidence, but are the conditions viable? He snatches up a page of formulae and scribbles in the numerical values. The first equation balances. Now to manipulate the figures on the second one. Adrenaline starts its familiar stampede around his body. One more test needed, then it will be irrefutable. He roots through a pile of charts and diagrams and retrieves some graph paper. Hand shaking, he plots the data and joins the crosses. There it is, a straight line. Better than he’d dared hope. Perfect positive correlation. It’s incontrovertible. After so many challenges – not sacrifices, as Mary called them – here is the eureka moment.

With his eyes fixed on the newsprint, his right hand opens his top drawer and his left dials the sacred number.

It takes an age to be answered. Such impudence. He has an urgent theory to verify.

At last. “The name is Tarnovski. I have an account.” He takes the whisky bottle out of the drawer and refills the cup.

“What limit?… I can’t hold. There isn’t time.”

During the silence on the phone line, he strains to make sense of the buzzing sounds from his radio.

“I see. And you can’t override it? I’m a long-standing account holder … Well, of all the nerve. Wait a minute …” Another confounded woman who doesn’t understand the science.He slides open the top drawer again and removes a debit card from underneath a second, empty, bottle. It slips in his clammy fingers.

“It’s the eleven thirty at Lingfield. I want to place …” He hesitates as another, weaker, force tugs against his resolve: Sara’s gap-year fund. But he’ll be more than able to replenish it. And retrieve his wristwatch from the pawnbrokers. A statistician of his standing doesn’t miscalculate.

“I want to place £800 on number five, The Evidence.” He drains his cup again. It’s an absolute constant, a dead cert.




Chapter 6 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


Still feeling flushed after the meeting in the mortuary, I take off my jacket and clutch it to my stomach as I follow DI Bagley into the interview room. Gaby Brock sits at the table holding a plastic beaker. She looks like a battered baby. The forensic suit she’s been dressed in is way too big and she stares out of her swollen face with wide eyes. She seems unaware of our arrival and equally oblivious to the arm around her shoulder. It belongs to the large, sobbing woman beside her. The woman looks up as we sit down opposite. I drop my jacket over the chair.

“Thank you for coming in at this difficult time, Mrs Brock. We’re sorry for your loss. I’m DI Bagley. This is DC Adams.”

“I’m Linda Parry,” the large woman says, “Gaby’s sister-in-law, Carl’s sister.” She swallows hard.

Bagley ignores her. “I need to ask some questions about this morning. Are you up to it, Mrs Brock?”

Gaby Brock blinks her doe eyes.

Bagley seems to take this as a yes and presses on. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Gaby’s pale mouth remains closed for a moment, apparently still frozen by her ordeal. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft and pretty – like honey. It doesn’t seem right for a voice like that to come out of such a damaged face.

“We were asleep in bed,” she says. “Two men burst in and dragged us downstairs. One of them punched me in the face and I fell. The other grabbed my arms and pulled me up again.”

“Can you describe these men?”

She blinks again as if searching the images in her head for the faces of her attackers. “They were black,” she whispers eventually, “and big.”

“How old were they?”

This time her pause is so long that Linda Parry squeezes her shoulder and prompts, “Come on, Gaby, love. You can do it.”

I see Gaby wince. The shoulder squeeze must have hurt. It’s a stark reminder that, although the face pummelling is there for all to see, there are other injuries hidden under the forensic suit.

“Well, Mrs Brock? How old were your attackers? Teenagers? Twenties? Thirties? Older?” Impatience steals into Bagley’s voice.

Gaby’s hand tightens on the empty plastic cup. Somehow she’s managed to consume an entire outpouring from the interview suite coffee machine. The trauma must have affected her taste buds.

Gaby’s answer rolls out at the same hesitant pace as her previous ones. “They weren’t kids, but I don’t know how old.”

Bagley studies the woman’s face, weighing up her reliability as a witness. “What were they wearing?”

“I couldn’t see. It was dark.”

“You mean they didn’t turn the lights on?” she asks, more irritation creeping in.

How long ago did the DI attend the Dealing with the Traumatized Victim course, I wonder. Do they offer refreshers?

Gaby shakes her head slowly. “They shone torches in our faces. And I was too scared to look at them.”

“Did you see their hair? Was it long or short?”

“They wore hats. Woollen ones.”

“Balaclavas?”

“No, I don’t think so, but I couldn’t see. I’m not sure.”

“Did they say anything?”

Gaby Brock blinks again and her sweet voice cracks. “They told Carl to get a chair and chain me to it. One punched me on the shoulder and I fell back into the chair.”

Linda lets out a sigh and tightens her arm around Gaby. I turn away, not wanting to see Gaby Brock flinch again.

DI Bagley ignores Linda once more. “Did you notice any kind of an accent?”

There’s another pause as Gaby considers her answer. “I think one was local and one was sort of West Indian.”

“And they brought the chains with them?”

Gaby’s body tenses as if reliving the memory. “They brought metal chains and handcuffs. They made Carl tighten the chains around me and handcuff my arms to the chair. They gave him the keys and told him to put them in my pocket.” She taps her chest to indicate the spot where her pyjama pocket had been. “Then they took Carl away.” Her words are faint and slow.

Her eyes are watery, empty. Victim’s eyes. Victim … Still living, still breathing but a victim nonetheless … No one could know how that felt except another victim … The hairs on my arms bristle but I won’t go there. I concentrate on the interview.

A thought comes to me but I’m not sure of my role. Does Bagley want me to remain the silent trainee or should I take part in the interview?

“Did they say anything else?” Bagley asks.

Gaby Brock takes a deep breath. “They said to Carl, ‘You need a lesson of your own, teacher’.”

“He was an English teacher at Swan Academy and a damned good one,” Linda explains. She pats Gaby’s hand. “Everyone liked him, even the kids.”

I think of the literature textbooks on the Brocks’ bookcase.

“And the kidnappers definitely called him ‘teacher’?” Bagley asks.

Gaby lowers her head, too weary even to nod. My heart races. Dare I ask my question?

“Would you recognize the men again?” Bagley continues.

“Maybe but – I don’t know – it was dark. The torchlight in my face … I couldn’t see …”

As the woman’s voice tails off, I expect Bagley to fill the silence. When she doesn’t, my question pops out.

“How did your husband cut his hand and get the bruising? Was it during the assault?”

Bagley’s jaw tightens at my interruption but she looks at Gaby Brock, waiting for the answer.

“His hand?” Gaby’s eyes glaze over and she seems to retreat into her private thoughts. “I don’t know. I don’t think he tried to fight them off. How could he? He might have done something to his hand at school, but it hardly matters now that he’s …” Gaby shakes her head. Her right cheek is black, and a purple blotch, visible through her thin fringe, spreads from her left temple across her forehead into her hairline.

Bagley lets out a small, defeated sigh. “That’s all we’re going to ask you at the moment. I want you to look through some images later to see if we can identify your attackers but for now you can leave the station. Where can we find you?”

“She’s staying with me,” Linda says. “I’m not having her go back to that house.”

“Good. I can’t let you go home anyway, Mrs Brock. It’s a crime scene. We’ll be doing an appeal to the public, so it would help if we had a recent photo of your husband. If you tell me where to look, I’ll send an officer into your house to get one.”

“Photo,” Gaby echoes as if she’s never heard the word before. I cast my mind over the barren walls and tables of the Brocks’ lounge. Photography does seem to have been an alien concept to the couple.

Linda Parry comes to her sister-in-law’s rescue, offering to provide something from one of her own family photo albums. DI Bagley closes the interview with a cursory “thank you” and stands up.

I follow her to the door and look back at the two women. “Goodbye,” I say. “It was nice to meet … I’m sorry for … Goodbye.”

DI Bagley speeds along the corridor. “I want you to join DS Matthews in Forensics. See what they’ve got so far. Good question, by the way, well done, but no need to be overfamiliar with the witnesses. This is a murder inquiry.”

“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” I say to the back of the gingham skirt as it disappears through the door at the end of the corridor. I can’t help grinning to myself. I’ve asked my first question in CID and, despite it coming out in a gabble, the inspector was impressed. Not that the answer told us anything. The cut hand is still a mystery. Dr Spicer has already said there’s no other sign of a struggle, so Gaby’s vague suggestion of an injury at school simply confirms that it didn’t happen during the attack at the house. At least both sources are consistent, making it likely that Gaby Brock is telling the truth. I all but tap dance along the corridor. Things are looking up.

“DC Adams,” a voice booms behind me. “Hoped I’d catch up with you. Everything going well, is it?”

I spin round to see the advancing hulk of Detective Chief Inspector Hendersen, the chairman of my interview panel. So huge in his tweed jacket that I think he must have at least two more on under it. He moves at quite a speed for a man of bulk, jowls flapping. A rhino charge? Or a Saint Bernard dog?

“Very well, sir, thank you,” I manage.

The DCI catches up but doesn’t speak again. The silence unnerves me and I fill it with basic facts about the case. The longer he remains mute, the more disjointed my explanation becomes. While my mouth moves, my brain wills him to talk. His eyes are boring a hole in my middle. The dreadful realization dawns that I’ve left my jacket on the chair in the interview room. I’m standing in front of a senior officer exposed in my royal blue T-shirt.

DCI Hendersen’s gaze takes in every letter of the sparkling silver Boogie Babe motif before moving on to the Barbie girl below it. After what seems like an age, he resumes his military bellow. “Jolly good work so far, DC Adams, but remember this is a police station not a night club. CID is the plain-clothes branch. How would it be if I pitched up in my pyjamas?”

My eyes hit the ground in search of a gaping hole to swallow me up, royal blue T-shirt and all.

“Carry on, detective constable, carry on.” He strides past me, muttering to himself, “And they expect us to take them seriously.”




Chapter 7 (#u2bec3efb-e8c0-535f-a95d-96edf07e89b2)


After retrieving my jacket, I join Matthews in Forensics. Blood pounds in my cheeks. How could I have undermined my credibility with the DCI on my first morning in the job?

Matthews is sitting with a man who has the same air of scientific inquisitiveness as Dave, the forensics officer I met at the Brocks’ house.

The man grins. “I’m Steve Chisholm. You must be Agatha. I’ve been hearing all about you.”

Same appearance and same sense of humour. Thanks again, DS Matthews.

The room is a jumble of desks, each with its own spaghetti tangle of telephone and computer cables. Two or three small, heavy-duty suitcases of forensic equipment lie on the floor. I wheel a swivel chair over and sit on the edge, trying to slide my back down to their level. I daren’t touch the handle to alter its height. Landing spread-eagled on the floor is the only indignity the day has so far spared me, but I still have the afternoon to endure.

Evidence bags litter Chisholm’s desk. Matthews has his notebook open.

“Steve’s going through the forensics for both crime scenes,” he explains. “Dave’s team has scarpered back to Briggham.”

“Did you know that it’s the fifth fatal stabbing in Brigghamshire this year, but only the second kidnap?” Steve says. “Quite a puzzle for you. Good job you can call on forensic science.” He points at two large see-through bags. One contains a heavy metal chain and the other holds a set of handcuffs. “We got these from the lads at the Southside crime scene. We’ve only found one set of fingerprints.”

“Anyone we know?” Matthews asks.

“Definitely not the wife’s. So, if she did handle the chains, she would’ve been wearing gloves.” Steve grimaces. “But there were no gloves anywhere near the lounge where she was found.”

“She says the assailants got her husband to chain her up.”

“We’ll get the prints off your corpse. If they match the prints on the cuffs and chains that would fit with her account.”

Matthews holds up a bag containing two small keys.

“We got a partial on one of those,” Steve says, taking the bag. “The prints were smudged.” He shrugs. “Not unusual on something like this.”

“I take it they do fit the cuffs?”

“One key for the cuffs, one for the padlock on the chains. It was a pretty sick joke, putting the keys to unlock them in the pocket of her pyjamas – these pyjamas.” He lifts another bag. “Mrs Brock was wearing them when we found her.”

DS Matthews takes the bag, looks at it and passes it to me. The pyjamas, folded with the top pocket visible, are like something I’d buy in Marks & Spencer. Paisley pattern, lemon and white winceyette. I have a pair like them for winter.

“And that’s about it,” Steve says, retrieving the pyjamas. “We couldn’t find anything in the bedroom. There were a couple of bits of rubbish on the lounge carpet. This piece of cotton thread and a fragment of toilet tissue.” He points at the relevant bags on the desk. “The other thing of significance might be this.” He passes round a small bag containing a single black hair. “It’s hair uprooted from a human head, probably IC3. We’re working on the DNA, so if you find your suspects we may have evidence which places one of them at the house.”

“Let’s have the DNA as soon as you’ve got it,” DS Matthews says. “The chances are they’ve both got previous.”

Steve nods, closes the file on the desk, and slides it to one side. He pulls another manila folder towards him. “Moving on to the murder scene at Martle Top. The boys are taking the car apart as we speak. Lots of prints everywhere, especially on the steering wheel, which match the prints on the handcuffs. So probably the husband’s.” He flips the new file open. “Also a few of the wife’s prints, as you’d expect in the family car. But there’s at least one other set. The boys are looking for DNA.”

“What about this?” DS Matthews points at the bag containing a large knife, the blade partially obscured by dried crusts of blood.

“No prints on the handle. That would be too easy. We’ve taken a blood sample to match to the victim. A foregone conclusion, I’d say.” He lifts a bag containing a large pair of black and white trainers. “We also found these shoes in the footwell of the driver’s seat. We think they belonged to the victim. I’ll confirm this as soon as I can.”

“Brock was barefoot when we found him,” Matthews says. “If they’re his, he was probably wearing them on the way to Martle Top and took them off before he got out of the car or was dragged out. But why would two brutal killers get into his house, pull him out of bed and then let him stop to collect his trainers?” He rubs his chin and pauses. “Or did he always keep them in the car?”

“You tell me, Mike. You’re the detective. But if they wanted him to drive the car, they might have let him put something on his feet.”

Despite the run-in with Hendersen, I have a residue of confidence left over from the interview with DI Bagley. I interrupt. “Was anything else found in the ditch near the body?”

“Yes, Agatha.” Steve points to three bulging plastic sacks at the back of the desk. “All the usual crap you find in an English country hedgerow these days. It’s all bagged and labelled. I’ve got to go through it, but I doubt that any of the fag ends, condoms and cola cans will lead to a major breakthrough.”

Squashed down to foolish, I remain quiet for the rest of the meeting.

“You can go home now, Agatha. Catch up on your bedtime reading,” Matthews says as we make our way downstairs.

“I don’t mind staying on.”

“You go home and psyche yourself up for what you’ve got to do tomorrow.”

I dread he’ll mention the post-mortem, but he has another task in store.

“First thing you’re taking the grieving widow to identify her husband and then bringing her back here to view some mugshots. The inspector thinks it requires the softly, softly approach of a woman constable. Best not stay up all night with Hercule Poirot. We want you looking fresher than the corpse.”




Chapter 8 (#ulink_bd03ea7e-7af7-5a2b-9a92-c3929a0e32a9)


Zelda’s eye goes straight to the towering figure exercising at the barre. Her heart skips. The prodigal has returned – for the second time. She takes in the shiny blonde hair scooped into a ponytail and the baggy blue T-shirt that matches the friendly eyes. And the woollen legwarmers, of course – so old-fashioned and yet so becoming on Pippa Adams.

“Just join the end of the line, Pippa. We’re starting with ‘Happy Feet’,” she says, offhand, doing her utmost to her hide her delight at seeing Pippa back in class. She hasn’t been in a lesson for over three months – ever since Zelda mentioned doing a veterans’ number at the summer show. She’d misread the look of horror on Pippa’s face, putting her reluctance down to false modesty. “You’ve still got it, you know. Three years pounding the beat hasn’t made you completely flat-footed.”

“I’ve retired from performing,” Pippa had replied, and now Zelda hates herself for frightening her away. She had thought that time had put a safe distance between Pippa and her unknown demon. But how wrong she’d been. Pippa stopped attending the class after Zelda mentioned the summer show. She still comes to the studio sometimes but after-hours and she dances alone. Zelda has never talked about the show again or Pippa’s absence from class, too nervous of opening the old wound. But tonight, for whatever reason, she’s back in a dance class.

Zelda sets the iPhone in the speaker and looks along the line of dancers, all poised with their backs to her. Her gaze lingers on Pippa. She knows her statuesque presence will dominate this line-up as it has every other one for almost twenty years. Tears prick her eyes as her thoughts turn for the thousandth time to what might have been. What should have been. Until three years ago.

Zelda has been Pippa’s dance teacher since she was five. She seemed an unlikely ballet dancer at first – big for her age even then, thighs chubby in white nylon tights, her round face as pink as her ill-fitting leotard. But Zelda spotted the child’s innate sense of rhythm and ability to interpret the music. She looked beyond Pippa’s sturdy build and saw that special sparkle. She coached Pippa to the position of lead junior, tutored her in the holidays during her boarding school years, encouraged her dance degree and finally recommended her for her first professional role on a national tour with Marcos Productions.

Never before or since has she used a friendship to further a student’s career. But she went all out for Pippa, calling in a favour from her old flame, Barry Marcos. He wasn’t at all keen to see Pippa because of her height, but Zelda badgered him until he finally agreed to go through the motions of an audition. Zelda knew he still didn’t intend to take her on, so she set to work on Pippa. Her coaching, always thorough, became intensive. Hour upon hour of time steps, line after line of Suzy Qs, shuffle to shuffle of Buffalos, Zelda hammered out her demands like an overzealous drill sergeant. Pippa, the eager recruit, responded with pinpoint precision.

They both made sacrifices. She knew Pippa missed her brother’s fifth birthday party and incurred the not inconsiderable wrath of her young stepmother. For her part, Zelda cancelled two summer workshops to concentrate on Pippa. The loss of earnings and dent in her reputation seemed worth it. There was no doubt of their ultimate synergy: the expert coach teasing out the best performance and the talented pupil always willing to give it.

And Barry Marcos was so impressed that he not only accepted Pippa but also rearranged his chorus line to give her a solo spot. All of Zelda’s efforts seemed to have paid off until Pippa walked out on the opening night of her first professional show and rushed headlong into the police force. After all Zelda had done to get her the job, the betrayal ripped at her insides and she didn’t even know the reason. She still can’t believe it was down to acute stage fright, as Pippa’s mother suggested whenever the two met to mourn the loss of their golden girl.

“I’m so sorry I’ve let you down,” is all Pippa ever says if Zelda broaches the subject. Zelda has stopped asking. It’s like the most terrible bereavement. For Zelda, knowing that Pippa would never again perform on stage was like being left with only the photographs of a departed loved one. They drifted into a distant teacher/pupil relationship and things settled down until Zelda was stupid enough to mention the summer show. Now with her mouth firmly shut, she watches Pippa heel-toe smoothly over the dance floor, grateful for the third chance her reappearance offers.

I kick high. After the day I’ve had, staying in with a book, as Sergeant Sarcasm suggested, is the last thing I want. I needed to get out and do something I’m good at, but I didn’t want to practise alone tonight. I wanted to belong again, to be part of a dance troupe to get the companionship I used to love.

It’s great to be back, even in this improvers’ tap class. I owe it to Zelda to keep a low profile. By joining the advanced group I might force her to mention the summer show and neither of us wants that conversation again. I’ve caused Zelda enough hurt over the years. Besides, in this class, I don’t have to concentrate too hard on arms and legs. I can let my ears take the rhythm and my mind is free to wander.

As I grapevine my way across the studio, my thoughts turn to Gaby Brock. How must she be feeling – wrenched from her bed in the dead of night, beaten up and chained to a chair in her own home while her husband suffered an even worse fate? I miss a step as my insides drop. Gaby Brock has been through an ordeal. Ordeal, agony, trauma, nightmare – whatever they want to call it, I know how every single one of those words feels. Gaby Brock’s pain lasted several hours, which seemed like they’d never end, like time had stopped and there was no way out, no one else there except you and … My heart rate rockets and I miss another step.

I pull back from the precipice of my past and keep my thoughts on the case. What went through Gaby Brock’s mind as she sat bound and gagged in the darkness? She must have waited in complete dread of the brutal kidnappers returning. What kind of monsters abducted Carl Brock but let him bring his shoes with him? Matthews thinks it’s drugs. Was Carl Brock, schoolteacher, leading a double life: public servant by day, drug dealer by night? First rule of detection: know your victim. DI Bagley will get us digging into his past. Maybe we’ll find out he led a blameless existence. Then what will be the motive? A bungled kidnap, perhaps; the killers hoping to extort money from the Brocks. But what kind of money would a schoolteacher have?

DI Bagley seems battle hardened enough to find the men who did it, and so does DS Matthews – ready for a long fight, knowing the rules of engagement, but with a complete disregard for those on his own side. Is he as brusque with the other detective constables, or has he singled me out for special attention? I seem destined to be his whipping boy just as he appeared to be Bagley’s. Maybe, he doesn’t like women. I can see how spending time with DI Bagley might colour his view of the opposite sex.

The dance routine switches to a series of single time steps. With every shuffle, hop,step, I hear Matthews: Ag A Tha. A nickname on day one. It took three weeks for one to ferment at police college but that was worse: Lady Double-Barrel.

It was my fault then, too. I joined the police force as Philippa Woodford Adams. That was the name on my birth certificate and it had been unremarkable at boarding school. But the name and my private school accent nearly led to an early exit from the police course. The jokes and pranks from the other recruits became less funny and more merciless, but I dug in. No way would I give up. Never again would I cower or sob or beg. Police officers took control. They stood firm and stopped bad things, bad people. I needed that.

So I stuck it out and found a new use for my drama skills. By the end of the course I’d flattened my vowels and beaten my diphthongs into neutrality. I didn’t try for a regional accent. It wasn’t like the theatre where an actor learnt and repeated the same lines every night for the duration of the play. This had to be for my entire police career. Sounding more BBC than Berkeley Ball was enough to get me off the hit list by the time I joined my first police station. I also took the precaution of consigning “Woodford” to the “Middle Name(s)” box on my staff form. Thus I became Pippa Adams and fitted in.

Now I’m depressingly visible again. The only way to re-establish my anonymity will be to prove myself a good detective. That’ll mean sticking close to the disagreeable DS Matthews. He already seems to have worked out a motive. His suggestion of a drugs connection is no doubt based on experience. He’s probably met one or both of the murderers on a previous case.

“Line up everyone.” Zelda breaks into my thoughts. “Take your positions for the show number.” I sit down at the side and see the expectation in Zelda’s face change to resignation.




Chapter 9 (#ulink_0e78ee53-014c-527d-92a5-a21b87a67783)


It’s like walking through treacle, trying to shorten my stride to match Gaby’s. I tell myself to feel more compassion; the woman has been beaten to a pulp, walking must be painful. Linda Parry, who flanks Gaby’s other side, is struggling with her heels on the vinyl floor of the hospital. No doubt she’s grateful for the plodding pace.

Maybe there’s a chance that the formal identification process, the follow-up paperwork and then the trip to the station to view mugshots will make me miss the 11 a.m. post-mortem. I’m clutching at straws.

The atmosphere in the glazed corridor is stifling. Glad I ignored Mum’s advice and opted for bare legs. If it’s good enough for DI Bagley, I can get away with it too.

“Sorry it’s such a long walk,” I say. “This place is worse than the police station. Corridors everywhere and they all look alike. I forget where I am sometimes.”

Linda smiles, but Gaby seems not to hear.

When we reach the door to the viewing area, Linda cuts through my chatter. “You don’t have to do this, Gaby. I can go on my own.”

Gaby glances wearily at her sister-in-law. “I’m fine,” she says and pushes open the door.

A blue curtain is drawn across a large window. When I press a button on the wall, a hand appears around the curtain and pulls it back to expose another room. In the centre is a table draped by a cream sheet, with the contours of a body visible. The scene reminds me of the chapel of rest where I last saw my grandfather, except that this room lacks the yellow lilies and burning candles. Instead, several harsh fluorescent ceiling tubes light the space.

The attendant turns down the sheet to reveal Carl Brock’s head and shoulders. The morticians have taken great care to comb his hair and tidy his chin.

“Oh, my God.” Linda presses her hands against the window, sobbing.

Gaby Brock also steps nearer. Her eyes burn through the glass into the closed lids of the corpse. “Yes, this was my husband, Carl Brock.”

The vivid black and purple bruises around her eyes and across her forehead make it hard to gauge her reaction. Her eyes linger over his face, studying all his features. Despite the circumstances, she carries her battered body with poise, arms by her sides. Is she indifferent to her husband’s death? Or enveloped in a grim and silent grief?

Linda’s sobs become louder.

“Would you like to go to the hospital chapel for a few minutes, before we do the paperwork?” I ask, glancing at my watch, still lots of time until my date with post-mortem destiny.

Gaby shakes her head. “Better get it all over with.”

When we arrive at the police station, the sergeant handling the ID photos says that he can manage without me and I’m free to report to DI Bagley for the post-mortem. He suggests Linda get a coffee while Gaby goes through the photographs.

“I’ll show you where the canteen is, Mrs Parry,” I say, grasping the opportunity to delay my return to Bagley.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say, handing Linda a steaming polystyrene cup and sitting down opposite.

Linda peers into the coffee. “We weren’t that close, but it’s still a shock to see him lying there.”

She rests her open fingers against her throat. I note the gesture. If only I could remember what I’ve been taught about body language.

“It’s awful to think that Gaby was inside, all tied up when we called round,” Linda says, close to tears.

“You called round? What time was that?” I try to keep the eagerness out of my voice. And the smugness. This is news. DI Bagley was so intent on grilling Gaby Brock yesterday that she ignored Linda Parry.

“We dropped the kids at school and called on Gaby at about nine. We were supposed to be taking her to the Monday market. I thought she’d forgotten and gone out, although she doesn’t go out much.”

My excitement fades; the kidnappers would have been long gone by 9 a.m. Whether Bagley knows about it or not, it’s highly unlikely that Linda’s visit to the Brocks’ house will have a bearing on the case.

“Did you hear or see anything near the house?” I ask, but it’s hardly worth asking.

Linda shakes her head. “Only their milk on the doorstep. I moved it into the shade.”

“Will your sister-in-law be all right? I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet. She’s very quiet.”

“Gaby always is. That’s her way. She was the same when Pipkin died.”

“Who’s Pipkin?” I ask. Maybe getting some background information on the family will give a lead.

“Her pet cockatiel. He died a couple of months ago. Mangy old thing. First his tail feathers went black and then he started pulling them out of his chest. He was practically bald before he finally fell off his perch. Gaby adored that stupid bird. It became her world after she lost the baby.” She fishes a soggy tissue out of her handbag and blows her nose. I wait for her to continue and hope she will without prompting. I need to know, but am reluctant to probe into the obvious tragedy.

“She had a miscarriage last year. Didn’t say much then either. Didn’t even cry. Carl took a week off school to look after her. He wouldn’t even let me visit so she had complete rest. When I did see her, she was quiet. Didn’t want to talk about it.” She cups her drink and blows on the surface. “After another week she picked herself up and carried on as if nothing had happened. Threw herself into her yoga. Not classes though; she said it was more restful to use tapes at home. I expect she’ll return to it now.”

My eyes moisten. At least the books on yoga on the Brocks’ bookcase will be read again. I’m about to give Linda’s hand a sympathetic squeeze but pull back when I remember Bagley’s earlier rebuke about being overfamiliar.

“How long were Gaby and Carl married?”

“Two years. A whirlwind romance. She was a classroom assistant at the school where he works. They got married soon after they met.”

“Does she still work there?”

“She gave up work after they married.” She takes a sip of coffee and wraps her arms around herself. “They hoped to start a family.”

“Did Carl like being a teacher?”

“He loved it. He thought he could make a difference. Especially to the ones everyone else had written off as the no-hopers.” Her fingers touch her throat again, and she breaks into loud sobs.

Grief. I remember: an open hand to the chest means the woman is grieving despite saying she wasn’t close to her brother. Ditching Bagley’s instructions, I pull my chair around, lean a consoling arm around Linda’s shoulder and let her cry. I catch sight of my watch and sigh; acres of time to spare.




Chapter 10 (#ulink_5ac13a85-8d7c-5499-87a0-b14a79ae8935)


“You can skip the post-mortem,” DS Matthews says when I return to the general office.

“Has it been postponed?” It’s bound to be his idea of a joke and next he’ll tell me I have to go to it after all.

“The DI is doing it on her own. She wants you to see some real CID work.” He slips his jacket over his shoulders. “The desk sergeant says Gaby Brock picked out one of the mugshots. It’s Samuel McKenzie.”

I recognize the name. “Isn’t he a suspected drug dealer?”

“He’s a knowndealer, Agatha. Dealing, running a brothel, illegal gambling, blackmail. A regular pillar of the community. We’re off to the Dynamite Club to rattle his cage.”

“The night club?” I’ve made a fair few drunk and disorderly arrests outside. “Will it be open at this time of day?”

“Calling it a night club is like saying the Danescott Kebab House is a gourmet restaurant. The Dynamite is little more than a strip joint. The sort of facilities McKenzie offers have a steady supply of punters twenty-four seven. It’s supposed to be members only before six, but McKenzie wouldn’t let a little thing like the licensing laws get in his way.”

As expected, Matthews drives in silence along the endless rows of industrial units and warehouses. This time I make no attempt at conversation. Don’t want to give him more ammunition. I intend to limit his weaponry to the Agatha tag.

The silence gives me a chance to mull over the events of the morning. The chat with Linda Parry answered a few questions. Poor Gaby, how could so much tragedy attach itself to one person? The Brocks’ circus-themed room was intended for the baby they lost, and the cage in the study was for the recently departed pet cockatiel. Pipkin is the kind of daft name I might have given one of my teddy bears, if they weren’t named after Christie characters.

And Linda Parry displays her sorrow whereas Gaby Brock conceals hers. I remember how Mum and I clung to each other, wailing long and loud, when my grandfather died. I can’t imagine keeping grief to myself. Other emotions – terror, rage, despair – I can hold those, but not grief.

We turn right into Minster Meadow, the dual carriageway that forms the eastern approach to Penbury town centre. It’s bordered by elegant town houses, many displaying discreet Bed and Breakfast notices. Two pubs stand on either side of the road like a pair of bookends. Hanging baskets with patriotic displays of salvia, alyssum and lobelia front them both, while banners proclaim their respective commitments to family menus and Sky Sports.

Matthews slows down as Minster Meadow narrows to two lanes and becomes dwarfed by the minster itself. The 800-year-old walls stand solid and clean on velvety green lawns. No errant daisies or incipient clover here, thanks to the Briggham diocese grounds maintenance team. Although I see the minster as an ancient monument rather than a place of worship, I rarely visit. Crossing its slavishly swept threshold is like trying to penetrate a precious jewel. I’ve no business defiling its stone-carved floor with my size eight deck shoes. I content myself with frequent trips to the adjoining refectory for spaghetti bolognaise followed by apple crumble and custard.

Beyond the minster is a parade of shops. I make out a hardware store, a bank and a sandwich bar. Across a side road is a high-wire fence around a school playground. Swan Academy. No unauthorized entry.

We drive over the East Bridge, built fifty years earlier to span the River Penn. At this time of year its vast stone arches seem ostentatious for the grubby stream of water trickling below. However, by October, heavy rains in the Welsh mountains will swell the river and hide its banks. They currently stand naked and filthy. Another week of drought and they’ll reveal the river’s insides: rusted pushchairs, buckled bicycle frames, fleshless mattresses.

The town centre proper begins after the bridge. There’s a multi-storey car park, an antique shop, two estate agents, a health food shop, three pubs – without hanging baskets – and any number of shoe shops. And then, on the right-hand side, is the Dynamite Club.

Matthews pulls into the deliveries bay in front of the club. “We ought to be able to arrest him just for that.” He shakes his head at a neon sign that promises Live Music




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