‘You’d better tell me everything that’s been happening while I’ve been out of it.’
So for the next couple of hours she did, taking him through the investigation step by step. He said little as she spoke, as if soaking it all in. At times his eyes closed and she thought he’d fallen asleep, but when she paused he’d murmur a question and she’d resume.
Finally Suzanne came back and put a stop to it.
‘Don’t worry, Kathy,’ Brock said as she got up to leave. ‘We’ll sort it out.’ He really sounded eager, as if, having returned from the dead, the prospect of a battle ahead was invigorating. But all Kathy could feel was defeat.
TWENTY-FIVE
O ver the following days Kathy withdrew. She occupied herself with swimming, cleaning and repainting her flat, taking long walks and going to the movies. She wanted to avoid analysing what had happened, but the world outside kept intruding, forcing her to confront it. For a start there were the newspapers, and radio and TV coverage, which she could hardly avoid, especially the Sunday papers which were full of the story. There was general respect for the Hadden-Vanes’ confession, which was seen as brave and a welcome change from the hypocrisy that usually surrounded MP sex scandals in the UK. There was also much rehashing of the Russian question, and of the police investigation. There were even a few photographs of Kathy herself.
Then there was her friend Nicole Palmer, who worked in police records for the National Identification Service and whose partner was an MPS detective, and who told her of the rumours and opinions that were circulating within the force. There was general agreement that the higher echelons had failed to support Kathy as they should, and that breaking up the team was a disgrace. Kathy would have taken more comfort from this if she hadn’t felt that Sharpe and his bosses were justified in the way they’d reacted.
Kathy also had calls from several team members-Dot, Pip and Bren-all anxious to know how she was coping, and letting her know where they had been posted. Most surprising was a call from Zack, who told her that they’d decided to keep him on at Queen Anne’s Gate to manage the new computers. He offered to keep her informed of developments.
John Greenslade also called, several times, before she finally rang him back.
‘Kathy! I’m so glad you’ve rung. I’ve been worried about you. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, John, thanks. How are you?’
‘Terrible. I’m feeling very guilty.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It was all my fault, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t cast doubt on the letter to The Times, you wouldn’t have turned your attention to the MP, and none of this would have happened.’
‘There was a lot more to it than that, John.’
‘All the same… I’d feel happier if I could talk it through with you, face to face. Would you do that? For an ex- consultant?’
She laughed. ‘From an ex-detective.’
‘They haven’t kicked you out, have they?’
‘Not yet. The resignation letter’s in my bag.’
‘You mustn’t do that, Kathy! Please, let’s talk it through.’
So in the end she agreed to meet him one day for lunch. But not yet. She wasn’t ready for it yet.
She also met with Brock each day. Suzanne had now been away from her business for almost a month, and was having to spend time in Battle, commuting back up to London each evening to visit him in hospital. Kathy usually called in each morning, and after discussing whatever had come up of interest in the papers they might play a few hands of gin rummy, or a game of chess. But Kathy had brought him his laptop and copied her flash drive case records onto it, and inevitably his attention would stray back to the larger and more interesting puzzle of the murders in Chelsea.
One day he seemed particularly preoccupied, and finally said, ‘The whole investigation relies on one premise: that Peebles mistook Nancy Haynes for Marta Moszynski. But if that’s not true, nothing else makes sense, does it?’
‘No.’ Kathy felt a familiar reluctance to go over it all again, and picked up the pack of cards and began shuffling.
‘How did you feel about that idea, when it was first suggested?’
‘I didn’t like it. I’d seen photographs of Nancy and I’d met Marta, and I didn’t see much resemblance.’
‘Me neither.’
‘But we never met Nancy in the flesh. Maybe the photographs were flattering. Maybe she was more stooped in her everyday posture, when she wasn’t posing for the camera.’
‘There must be some way to pin that down. Computer simulations? A reconstruction?’
‘Well, it’s not our problem now, is it?’
Brock looked at the cards she’d dealt him and played out the hand, then scratched his chin. ‘I’ve been thinking about Harry Peebles.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. He ordered a pizza delivery on his first night at Ferncroft Close, on the Wednesday, and again on the Thursday, but nothing after that.’
‘So what?’
‘Then I had a look at his record. His manslaughter charge was based on a vicious assault with a hammer. He battered the man to a pulp-literally-and claimed self-defence. The year before he’s believed to have thrown a teenager out of the tenth-floor window of a tenement block, but the sole witness disappeared and the police had to drop the case. And before that there was a string of assault incidents, all very violent and bloody.’
‘Yes?’ Kathy couldn’t see what he was getting at.
‘All his victims have been physically mangled, Kathy. He likes to crush them, like throwing Nancy under a bus.’
‘Okay.’
‘But there’s no record of him using a knife, and if he did I’m guessing he’d make a terrible mess with it. He has no finesse. Three precise, surgical stabs to the heart is not his style at all.’
‘Maybe he was told to do it that way, by someone who didn’t want Moszynski disfigured.’
‘Well, that’s a thought. Then there’s Peebles’ autopsy report. Sundeep is very wary of specifying the exact time of death, isn’t he? That’s when I collapsed, wasn’t it, when we were discussing that with him, and reading between the lines, I’d say he’s still not entirely happy with our later time, of Sunday night, after Moszynski’s murder.’
‘He doesn’t rule it out. The room temperature makes it difficult.’
‘I know, but still, I’ve always found Sundeep’s instincts to be worth paying attention to.’
Kathy sighed inwardly. What was he trying to do, take the whole investigation apart from the beginning again? The thought made her feel physically ill. She looked up and saw him regarding her with a faintly worried frown.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just mulling things over. You’re not still nursing that resignation letter, are you? Yes, you are, I can tell. Well, burn it. I forbid you to send it.’
She gave a snort of amusement.
‘I mean it.’ He picked up the pack of cards. ‘I wonder what Chivers is up to?’
Kathy said, ‘I could find out if you really want to know,’ and she told him about Zack.
So when she got home she rang Zack’s number at Queen Anne’s Gate. He sounded cautious, speaking so quietly she could hardly hear. ‘You calling on your own phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get yourself a prepaid and ring me tonight after seven. I’ll give you my private number.’
She did as he asked, and when they spoke that evening she said, ‘You’re being very careful, Zack.’
‘Got to be, Kathy. Chivers is very hot on security. We don’t want him going through the phone records and seeing your number on the list again.’
Then he brought her up to date. Everyone involved in the case was being reinterviewed, every camera re-examined, every phone record cross-matched. A fraud squad was working through Freddie Clarke’s records. Two officers had been sent out to the Bahamas to speak to Shaka and two more to Scotland to track down Peebles’ movements after he got out of prison.
‘Sounds thorough,’ Kathy said.
‘Oh, it is. The super is nothing if not thorough. He demands a perfect job.’