‘He’s the only other person who could have put the bag in the car. I’m assuming he left it for me on purpose, otherwise he’d have told you about it at the pub. I was hardly going to miss it. I only had to open the back door.’
‘Why would he do that, do you think?’
‘Fear?’ she suggested. ‘He was terrified when I identified Atkins’s mobile . . . wanted to abandon the whole idea of reporting it because he thought he’d be first in the firing line. I imagine he feels the same about being associated with Harry Peel.’ She paused. ‘I’ve been wondering why he didn’t dump the bag as a matter of fact. He could have distanced himself immediately if he’d left it for someone else to find.’
‘Or thrown it in the Thames and got rid of it altogether?’
Jackson nodded. ‘That, too. I don’t say I’m happy to be landed with the responsibility, but he deserves some credit for doing the right thing . . . even if it was in a roundabout way.’
‘He told us he walked around for twenty-four hours before he put the bag in your car. Is that a likely time-frame?’
She frowned. ‘Have you questioned him already?’
‘Briefly. It’s a significant find, Dr Jackson.’
‘That’s no excuse to badger a sick man.’
‘I agree,’ said Jones with a blatant disregard for truth, ‘which is why we kept the questions to a minimum. When did you leave him yesterday?’
‘Midday.’
‘And you’re sure he had the bag with him when you met up again this evening?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘He said something in it belongs to him. Have you any idea what that might be?’
Jackson shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen all the contents. I backed off as soon as I spotted Harry Peel’s phone. Is there a wallet? Maybe that belongs to Charles.’
Jones shook his head. ‘I didn’t get the impression he’d added anything to the contents. I think whatever he was referring to was already there.’ He glanced at Beale who’d just joined them. ‘Would you agree?’
The inspector nodded. ‘He seemed to think you’d be spooked by one of the objects. He says it belongs to him.’
Jackson looked surprised. ‘Surely he’d be more worried about your reactions.’
‘He was answering a question from the superintendent about why he’d kept you in the dark. He said he’d been working round to telling you.’
‘The stun gun might have spooked me,’ she admitted. ‘I’d question the motives of any man who carried one of those little bastards. Can you think of an easier way to overpower a woman than to have her twitching on the ground for fifteen seconds, unable to defend herself?’
Jones nodded. ‘We’re interested in the stun gun,’ he agreed. ‘The other objects are a wooden club – we think a Zulu knobkerrie
– two mobile phones – one of which would appear to be Harry Peel’s – a packet of baby wipes and some throat lozenges. Might any of those belong to the lieutenant? Did he say anything that might have given you a clue?’
Jackson looked from one to the other. ‘He said he’d left some African artefacts in his ex’s flat,’ she said slowly, describing how Acland had gone to look through Jen’s window. ‘I’ve been wondering about it ever since I found the knobkerrie. Do you think he was checking to see if his was still there? If he could spot it in her room, it would mean that one –’ she nodded towards the car – ‘had nothing to do with him.’
Jones looked sceptical. ‘What makes you think he wasn’t setting you up to repeat a convenient lie? It sounds like smoke and mirrors to me. How many knobkerries are there in London? Wouldn’t he have recognized his own as soon as he saw it?’
‘It wouldn’t stop him checking. I’d have checked if I’d found something I thought was mine next to a mobile with Harry Peel’s name on it.’
‘Or you’d have spent twenty-four hours working out a story. The lieutenant’s not a fool. If he says he left a knobkerrie in Ms Morley’s flat – backed by your interpretations of his actions – and she says he didn’t, then we’re no further forward.’
Jackson eyed him curiously. ‘I’m obviously way off-beam here. I thought this was Ben Russell’s bag, the one that Charles said Chalky nicked.’
Jones spread his hands in a gesture of bafflement. ‘We’re as confused as you, Dr Jackson. For all we know, the bag has always been in Lieutenant Acland’s possession.’
She studied him for a moment. ‘No,’ she said with sudden conviction. ‘You wouldn’t know it existed but for Charles. First he told you Chalky had taken it . . . then he left it for me to find. Why would he keep drawing attention to it if it ties him to Harry Peel?’
‘Smoke and mirrors,’ said Beale, echoing his boss’s earlier statement. ‘Unless you noticed the bag yourself last Friday – which you say you didn’t – we’ve only Charles’s word that it was ever in your boot. He’s accused both Ben and Chalky of handling it, but the only way we’ll know if he was telling the truth is if we find their fingerprints or DNA on any of the objects. If we don’t –’ he shrugged – ‘if we only find Charles’s – he’ll be able to claim they got there when he searched the bag yesterday.’
It was Jackson’s turn to look sceptical. ‘If that’s the way your mind works, I’m not surprised he wanted me to turn the stuff in. He didn’t have to do it at all . . . He could have dumped the lot and walked away from the responsibility.’ She searched their faces. ‘Why tempt fate if he’s guilty? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘He enjoys taking risks,’ said Jones thoughtfully. ‘He’s obsessed with chance, feels there should be meaning in random events.’
‘You would be, too, if you’d lost your eye, your career and your crew in an indiscriminate explosion that was aimed at the first vehicle that passed a particular point,’ said Jackson bluntly. ‘He understands malign fate extremely well . . . probably because he’s suffered quite a lot of it in the last few months.’
Jones eyed her curiously. ‘Why have you changed your mind, Doctor? You looked close to washing your hands of Charles earlier . . . and DC Khan said you were blowing a gasket when he spoke to you on the phone.’
‘The wonders of modern technology,’ she said, opening her phone again and scrolling through her menu before turning the screen to the superintendent. ‘This isn’t Chalky. The face is too thin . . . and the beard and hair too grey. I’d describe this man as a goatee-wearing professor type. Chalky was more of a grizzly bear . . . wild beard with a square, heavy-featured face. I’ve told DC Khan I’ll confirm it formally by looking at the body later, but I guarantee this isn’t the man I saw in the alleyway.’
‘It was dark,’ Jones reminded her.
‘He was a passenger in my car for twenty minutes. Even if I hadn’t had a good look at him when he climbed in beside me, I had a clear view of his profile during the journey. Chalky’s nose was broken. This guy’s isn’t.’
Ahmed Khan had already passed this information to Jones. ‘I hadn’t realized you were so worried about what the lieutenant might have done to Chalky,’ he murmured. ‘You obviously think Charles is capable of violence.’
Jackson tucked the mobile into her pocket. ‘I know he is,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I saw what he did to you at the station, and to Rashid in the pub . . . but he didn’t kill either of you, and the only weapons he used were his hands.’ She placed a meaty elbow on the top of the pillar box and stared towards her car. ‘Why are you so interested in the stun gun?’
‘For the same reason you gave. That particular model packs a million volts. Anyone touched by it would be unable to defend himself for two or three minutes . . . possibly longer. They’re illegal in this country, so it must have been smuggled in from abroad . . . which may well rule out Ben and Chalky.’
‘Meaning it’s Charles’s?’