A Bleeding of Innocents (5 page)

‘My God, you
do
believe he did it!'

‘No, I don't,' she insisted. ‘I believe he could have, and that's how. If I can find the coat or the gun, or pin a lie on him, or come up with some kind of a motive, then maybe I'll begin to think it was him. But so far it could have happened just as he said. The only fingerprints we have are his and Kerry's, but he never said the man touched the car and even if he did he was probably wearing gloves. The grass in front of the car shows someone was there but there's no clear impression, it could have been either Page or this mystery gunman. I'm sorry, Frank, we're going to be walking both sides of the street for a while yet.'

Shapiro sighed. ‘What's your next move?'

‘I want to talk to the people at the nursing home where she worked. Get some idea what kind of a woman she was, what kind of a marriage it was. She'd been there four years, she should have made some friends. They'll know things about her that even her husband can't tell us.'

‘You mean,
won't
tell us.'

‘No, things he doesn't know himself. When women work together they share their secrets.' She smiled. ‘They talk. Sometimes they talk about things they wouldn't discuss with their nearest and dearest. If her marriage was in trouble, if she was in debt, if she had a bit on the side, they'd know before Page would.'

Shapiro was looking bemused. ‘I never thought of a manfriend as being a bit on the side.'

Liz grinned.

The phone on Shapiro's desk rang. As he answered it she went to get up but he waved her back to her chair. His brow furrowed. ‘What, now? Did you tell him I'm busy? How does he look? Oh, you'd better send him up.' He put the phone down, leaned back and gave Liz a wry smile. ‘You're about to meet Detective Sergeant Donovan, who should have his feet up but is apparently convinced we can't manage without him.'

When Shapiro called him in and he stopped just inside the door, plainly surprised to see his chief had company, Liz's powerful first impression was of a streak of darkness in the corner of the room. The height of him, the thinness, the dark clothes, black hair and olive skin bled together to create a three-dimensional shadow. His eyes narrowed warily.

Shapiro introduced them much as he might have introduced oxygen to a flame – cautiously, at arm's length. Then he sat back to watch the result.

Liz stood up but did not offer her hand, judging that Donovan would be reluctant to take it. ‘I'm sorry about Alan Clarke. He was a good copper. He was a good man.'

‘You knew him?' Donovan's voice was low, rising a shade on the interrogative.

‘Not well, but enough to know he'll be hard to replace.'

‘That's the truth.' The way he said it, looking her up and down and clearly finding her wanting, was just the safe side of objectionable.

But Liz could bear his resentment. He was a young man, the range and depth of his experience must necessarily be limited. This could be the first time he'd lost a close colleague. He'd been hurt and was still hurting. He would find it hard to accept whoever was sent as DI Clarke's replacement. For now she could afford to be a little tolerant.

Donovan hadn't been in the station since the night he and Clarke went to meet his informant behind the gasworks. So he hadn't heard the rumour that Castlemere CID was getting a female inspector. The first he knew was when he opened Shapiro's door and there she was, a tall woman in her late thirties with a calm, squarish face and a lot of fair hair pushed up out of the way. She was wearing fawn slacks with well-made brogues and a burgundy tweed jacket: not the Oxfam look favoured by most male detectives but not
Vogue
either. The shoes had walked too many miles, the tweed had gathered a little moss as she brushed by a tree, and there was a damp spot on one knee where she'd got down to look closely at something on the ground. Probably with a magnifying glass, Donovan thought derisively.

In all honesty, Divisional Headquarters could not have pleased Sergeant Donovan, whoever they had sent to make up the numbers in Castlemere. He stood watching her truculently from under lowered lids and thinking the lunatics had taken over the asylum if HQ thought Alan Clarke could be replaced by a blonde bimbo with a degree in computer science.

As he got used to the idea, however, he began to see certain advantages. Inevitably a woman would do things differently – spend more time behind her desk probably, tell him what she wanted and let him get on with it. That suited him. He was a loner by nature: the closeness of his relationship with Clarke had been something unique in his experience, something he had no wish to try and recreate with someone else. Alan Clarke and Cal Donovan: at their best they'd been unstoppable, the terror of the criminal classes of Castlemere. While it lasted it had been like being on a permanent high.

But he'd paid for it in the end. Rather, Clarke had. The man should have known better. He knew Donovan was bad luck: always had been, things happened round him, not through any fault of his but just because he was there. Clarke thought he'd beaten the jinx but it got him in the end. Now the powers-that-be thought a Barbie doll a suitable successor.

‘Donovan, what are you doing here?' Shapiro said wearily.

‘I heard about the shooting. I thought you'd be short-handed.'

‘Yes,' admitted the Chief Inspector, ‘well, it could have come at a better time. But you're not fit to work.'

‘I'm fine.' But Liz noticed the surreptitious easing of his weight against the door-frame.

‘How's the head?'

‘It's fine. It ached for a couple of days but it's all right now. I want to get back to work.'

‘Well,' Shapiro said doubtfully, ‘Inspector Graham's new to Castlemere – she could use someone who's familiar with the place. She's handling the Page murder.'

The sergeant's eyes flicked wide. A note of alarm sounded in his voice. ‘Wait a minute, I've got a case – what Alan and I were working on, and what happened to him because of it. Sir.'

‘Oh no,' said Shapiro with absolute certainty. ‘I'm sorry, Donovan, it's not on. You're too close to it. And if it comes to trial you'll be a witness. You'll be more credible if you weren't in on the investigation.'

Donovan looked as if he'd been kicked in the face by someone on his own team. ‘But—'

‘I'm not arguing with you, Sergeant. I doubt if you should be working at all but we're stretched and I can use you. But understand this. If you report for work you'll be on Inspector Graham's enquiry, not mine.'

Liz watching discreetly, saw disappointment and anger in his eyes in the moment before he dropped them. She said quietly, ‘The sooner we wrap up the Page case, the more resources we can devote to finding DI Clarke's killer.'

Shapiro waited for a response. When none was forthcoming he said tetchily, ‘Well? Are you reporting for duty or not?'

To his credit Donovan didn't hesitate. ‘Of course I am. I said so.' There was surprise along with the resentment in his voice, and he waited longer than usual before adding, ‘Sir.'

Shapiro sighed and his shoulders slumped. Liz thought he was relieved not to have had more of a battle. ‘All right. Good. Have you seen the doctor yet?'

Donovan shook his head negligently. ‘No point disturbing him on a Sunday. I'll see him through the week sometime.'

The ghost of a smile was beginning to tug at the corners of Shapiro's mouth. ‘By which time, presumably, you'll be feeling even more fine.'

‘I hope so,' agreed Donovan fervently.

‘Get out of here,' said Shapiro. As Donovan went he shouted after him, ‘One proviso. Until you've seen him, stay off that bloody bike!'

Liz got up too. ‘I'll go and see the people at the nursing home. I'll send Donovan to the airfield where Page works.' She twitched a grin. ‘See if pilots and mechanics gossip together as much as nurses.'

Shapiro eyed her askance. ‘As in: “Guess what I'm going to do tonight, fellers? – murder the wife”?'

Liz shook her head. ‘More as in: “Why's Page going round so po-faced these days? – anybody'd think his wife was having it off with an air-traffic controller.”'

She collected the address of the nursing home, found out where Rosedale Avenue was, and went out to the car park. She had to walk crabwise to avoid seeing Donovan ride out on his motorcycle.

Like Donovan, Sister Kim had heard the news on the radio. Her almond eyes and the saffron-tinted skin round them were red with crying. But she had recovered her composure by the time Liz arrived. They went to the office where they could talk without interruption.

‘I'm trying to find Matron,' she murmured. ‘But she went away for the weekend too and I'm not sure where. Unless she hears on the radio and calls in.…'

‘I'm sure you can tell me everything I need to know,' Liz assured her. ‘Probably more than Matron could. I imagine Kerry talked to you about her private life more than to Matron.'

The Chinese girl gave a demure smile. ‘You know Matron then?'

Liz smiled too and shook her head. ‘I doubt if people become matrons by discussing man trouble round the coffee machine and that's the kind of thing I need to hear about Kerry. What worried her, what made her happy. How she was getting on with her husband. If she was frightened at all. The things you confide to friends rather than discussing with employers. You worked with Kerry for – how long?'

‘Four years,' said Kim, ‘I came here soon after she did.'

‘Then you've known her longer than her husband has. I doubt if anyone knows more about her than you do.'

The Sister inclined her head with its little lace cap pinned to the coils of black silk hair. ‘I will of course help all I can.'

There were no specific questions Liz needed answers to. She wanted a picture of Kerry Page and her marriage. She let Sister Kim talk for as long as she would about whatever occurred to her, and when she ran out of things to say set her off again with a well-judged prompt.

She reported, word for word, the last conversation they'd had before Kerry went off to her weekend cottage. It reinforced what Kim had believed all along: that her colleague was happy with her marriage, that she enjoyed her young husband physically and also liked his company, that she had left for her weekend in the country with no shadows on her horizon, that she didn't know she was in any danger and the last thing to cross her mind before a 12-bore cartridge rendered it unfit for further use would have been utter amazement.

‘You don't think,' hesitated Sister Kim, ‘it had anything to do with her work here?'

‘I don't know what it was to do with yet,' said Liz. ‘I'd have thought it unlikely. Why, do you think it could be?'

‘Oh, no,' said the nurse hurriedly, ‘I can't imagine that it was. Our patients are sometimes disturbed and often frustrated, it's not unknown for them to threaten us. But half an hour later they don't remember, and if they did they're not fit enough to do anything about it. It's not possible that anyone followed her from here to her cottage in order to kill her.'

‘Sometimes,' Liz said carefully, ‘people who work in medical facilities find themselves approached for drugs. I'm sure you've come across this yourself.'

A quick dip of the black silk head. ‘I have heard of it.'

‘Is it possible that Mrs Page was taking drugs from here?'

Kim shook her head decisively. ‘No. We are most careful with drugs, anything taken would be missed. Also, Sister Page was not a foolish young nurse who might do such a thing without thinking of the consequences. She did not use drugs herself, I am sure of it. And I do not believe she would supply them to anyone else. Also.…' She stopped then, with a little sideways smile at the detective.

‘Also?'

‘Is there much demand among addicts for heart pills and enemas?'

‘Not that I've heard,' Liz admitted with a grin. ‘Is that all you use here?'

‘Not quite. We have sedatives and sleeping pills, and routine medications for various conditions. But we can't treat seriously ill patients, they're transferred to hospital, so we have no use for powerful drugs. We'd disappoint a junkie.'

Liz nodded. ‘They won't be queueing up with their hypodermics at the ready, will they? I don't suppose Kerry had much contact with – I don't know – the general hospital maybe?'

‘Castle General is where she did her training, she knew many people on the staff. But I don't think she saw much of them after she left. I think she was not very happy there.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know. It's a different sort of work to here – more pressure, more formality, and it's harder to specialize in the things that interest you.'

‘Geriatrics? It's not the most glamorous branch of the profession: I'd have thought nurses who wanted to work with old people would get every encouragement.'

‘Inspector,' Kim said gently, ‘there are no glamorous branches of nursing. But you're right: nurses don't have to fight to do geriatrics. Of course, a private nursing home generally pays better. That's probably why she came here.'

Liz had gone to the Rosedale Nursing Home hoping for an insight into the Pages'life that would begin to explain what happened in the car park on the Castlemere Levels. When she left, though, the darkness seemed deeper than ever. It struck her as a little odd that Kerry Page had lost touch with former colleagues when they all still lived in the same town. But she'd married since she knew them, the shape of her life had changed. She had better things to do than see people she used to work with. The Pages lived like everyone else; better than some because they had two good wages but essentially it was a picture of domestic normality. Kerry Page had a worthy if mundane job and a happy if unremarkable marriage. The only unexpected thing she ever did was having her head blown off.