The Collared Collection (19 page)

‘Hi, Susan. Did you finally manage to meet up with your brother?’ said Callie.

‘Bloody traffic is appalling this morning, I wish I’d got the train in,’ Susan grumbled as she shrugged out of her suit jacket.

She hadn’t noticed any congestion, courtesy of those flashing blue lights.

‘Sorry, Callie, I didn’t mean to ignore you – yes, I did, thanks. He’s not the most reliable person I know, but then he is a man. Say no more. Now, I’ve got an eleven o’clock for which I’m totally unprepared, so you’ll have to excuse me.’ She stalked off to the quiet of the interview lounge where she could work in peace.

‘Morning, Simon,’ Callie called.

He waved on his way to the coffee machine, almost colliding with Elizabeth when she stormed through the door with a face like thunder. No one greeted her, knowing full well they’d get their head bitten off – they’d learned from past experience she’d take a while to calm down, and then be almost human again.

By mid-afternoon, most of the barristers were out and there was an atmosphere of calm efficiency in the office. Except that Ronan was going out of his way to pointedly ignore her – she could live with that, as it meant she could get on with her work without petty interruption.

Her telephone rang – an outside call. ‘Montague and Brewer,’ she chirped. ‘Callie Ashton speaking, how may I help you?’ There was a long silence, ‘Hello?’ she repeated, drumming her fingernails on the desk. She was about to hang up, when a maniacal cackle hurt her ear. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, feeling stupid and unsure what to do – though conceded that to anyone with half a functioning brain cell, it might be obvious she should end the call.

An eerie, hoarse voice – which could have been male or female, though she’d opt for male – sang her name in two notes, ‘Caaa-llie…’ sounding like an audition tape for a D horror flick … Still she didn’t slam the phone down, hoping to claim her prize as Dumbest Dingbat of the Year. ‘Oh Caaa-llie … better order yourself a coffin too. You’ll be needing it very soon.’

She’d never before appreciated the significance of the saying ‘blood runs cold’. She gulped hard and tried to find a voice that sounded un-phased.

‘Who are you? What do you want?’

Bernard had noticed her twittering and approached her desk, looking concerned. In a TV detective series, some bright spark in the office would be tracing the call and the baddie would be unmasked in the nick of time. Callie, however, was a victim of police budget balancing and fully expendable – or so it seemed to her, as she sat there shaking, feeling totally vulnerable and exposed to danger.

She hadn’t really expected an answer to her question, but the voice said, ‘I am the ghost of Christmas past – unhappily, you don’t have a future.’ There was a click and the receiver buzzed in her ear.

Bernard laid his hand on her shoulder, asking, ‘Whatever is it, Callie? You’re white as a sheet. Has something happened to one of the boys?’

‘It’s nothing, Bernard,’ she lied. ‘Some crank, that’s all … probably got the wrong number. Please don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’

Nevertheless, he scurried off to fetch her a glass of water, while she bashed 1471. The number – predictably – was withheld. At that moment, Ronan waltzed back into the room, presumably from the toilet, looking very pleased with himself. Briefly, she wondered … then discounted the notion as ridiculous.

Her phone rang again, another outside call. She snatched up the handset and spat into it, ‘You’re wasting your time, dick brain!’ Fortunately, something made her stop there.

‘Callie? What’s wrong?’

She went for bright and breezy, ‘Oh, David … sorry, err … an awkward customer … nothing to concern you.’ She knew her voice sounded very peculiar, just hoped he didn’t latch onto that. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’

Bernard stood in front of her, proffering a plastic cup of water and shaking his head in disbelief. She ignored him – she’d justify her Pinocchio act later. Somehow.

‘We’ve had a possible development – or at least a move in the right direction – regarding Giles Symonds. I thought I might pick you up a little earlier than we arranged? Then we could go for a drink and I’ll tell you all about it – as much as I’ve been able to dig up so far, that is.’

‘Sounds good, what time?’

‘Is five too early?’

‘Nope, perfect – see you then.’ She knew she always overdid the nonchalance bit when she was trying to pretend to herself and others that everything was fine and dandy.

Chapter Thirty-one

David collected her bang on time and they drove off into the sunset in a rather inferior, noisy Ford that had seen better days – and lots of them. They happened upon a perky little bistro with tables outside and bagged themselves one. Not that they had much competition. The carafe of house wine they risked had not so much a bouquet as a stench, although it would have come in jolly handy for cleaning up corroded padlocks.

When he sipped, David pulled a face resembling an Edvard Munch pose. ‘Blimey, that’s a bit rough – for once I’m glad I’m driving and can only have a glass or two,’ he moaned.

‘Nonsense, it’ll put hairs on your palms. Come on, stop beating about the bush and tell me what you’ve found out about Giles – don’t keep me in suspenders.’

He struck a lascivious pose and she punched his arm, harder than she meant to. His bottom lip jutted. ‘Ouch!’

‘Then behave.’

‘Can I help it if women in power suits turn me on? Especially ones with short, tight skirts – and if I imagine them wearing stockings underneath …’ He stroked his hand along her thigh and a tremble of delight hurtled down her spine on roller skates.

‘You’re depraved.’ She removed the hand, but entwined her fingers with his.

‘I do try.’

‘You haven’t got me here under false pretences, have you?’

He tried to look hurt, put on a camp voice, ‘I’ll have you know I’m not that kind of policeman.’ He took another sip of wine, which – as if to prove its potency – stained his lips red. ‘OK, there’s not much to tell so far, but I’m quietly confident we may have stumbled onto a fruitful line of inquiry; it’s certainly intriguing so far.’ He looked at her and smiled – she would have had sex with him there and then if he’d asked her.

Dragging her mind back to the point, she said, ‘I’m all ears …’

He spluttered, ‘I’m not going to say a word!’

She scowled.

‘OK, I’ll be serious … cast your mind back to when Dee was killed …’ She nodded. It didn’t take much casting – the tragic memory was never too far from her thoughts.

‘Family Liaison went to the school to collect the children, Sarah and Tom …’

‘Thomas. He’s always called Thomas.’ An image of the Troll Sally Stephens flashed through her mind; she’d made the same mistake. ‘Go on.’

‘Thomas then. Well, Liaison had been informed by the school that there was an alternative contact number, but no address, on file in case of emergencies. Mr and Mrs Smith, would you believe?’

‘Someone has to be.’

‘When she couldn’t get a connection on the number supplied, the officer assigned to the case didn’t think any more of it, just assumed it was out of date information.’

‘Fair enough …’

‘But when we did finally track down Giles, the strong arm boys arrived, pulled rank, and sent Kathy from Family Liaison away with a flea in her ear. It was only an off the cuff remark to one of my team, who has a particularly nit-picking mind, that gave us a nudge in the right direction. Bottom line is, after much tedious trawling through records, we’ve found that Giles Symonds changed his name from Geoffrey Smith a little over two decades ago.’

‘That’s handy – he didn’t have to throw out the monogrammed underpants and towels.’

He smirked. ‘So, a history of Giles can only be traced back twenty or so years, during which time he’d done absolutely nothing bad, not even landed a parking ticket. No wonder we couldn’t find any background on him, like where he went to school. It’s all very mysterious, though – access to his records is denied and his Smith file is sealed, which smacks of one of the funny departments being involved. Because of the children, even now he’s dead we need a High Court Order to examine those files and they are notoriously difficult to obtain – even a murder investigation doesn’t cut it.’

‘Wow! What would? Could it be Witness Protection or something like that?’ Her imagination ran riot – she may have been living next door to a criminal mastermind turned supergrass, in blissful ignorance. Yeah, right, she told herself – about as likely as Ronan being a paramilitary sleeper.

‘That’s a possibility, but normally a condition of that type of protection is that all contact with family members ceases. Giles was apparently still in touch with his mum and dad. We managed to trace them by putting the squeeze on someone Mike used to work with, who does a nice line in computer hacking. But there’s a permanent embargo on questioning them and they have panic buttons all over the house hooked up to the local cop shop, just in case anyone gets too nosy. One thing I do know for sure is it’s going to be one hell of a battle finding out what’s going on – or indeed what went on in the past.’

‘Are Sarah and Thomas staying with their grandparents?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘Apparently not.’

Nothing seemed to sit right. ‘Giles never really struck me as your typical Mr Big.’

He treated her to another smirk, ‘And what exactly does one of those look like?’

‘Oh you know – loud, expensive shiny suits, overfed, chomping on a big fat cigar. Plus they are guarded around the clock by gorillas with facial scars, crew cuts, several chins, and no necks.’

He chuckled. ‘I’ve told you before, you watch far too much TV.’

‘Isn’t it strange though, that Dee was killed like she was and Giles just got knocked on the head? She was probably an innocent bystander to whatever he was involved with – perhaps someone, ergo Balaclava Man, wanted to put the frighteners on him?’

‘That would do it, I imagine – your wife being brutally murdered is something of a wake-up call. But then the fact that he only got a whack on the head doesn’t make sense; we must remember it was the heart attack that killed him.’

‘It would if – as I suggested before – Balaclava Man returned to the house, searching for something … he was disturbed by Giles and so clobbered him, but wanted him alive so that he could reveal the whereabouts of whatever he was looking for. He didn’t mean for Giles to die until he had what he wanted.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind as a theory, Callie, but I’m not convinced … it’s a bit thin.’

‘Please yourself. Anything else?’

‘We’ve still no information at all on Dee, but we may be in with a chance, now we know that Giles changed identities – perhaps she did the same. What doesn’t smell good is that we seem to be dealing with an amateur here. The attacks, even Ginny’s crash, were very hit and miss, not an exact science – leaving huge margins for error. We’re not talking about things that have been meticulously planned.’

‘I’ve thought about that too.’ She remembered being pushed from the towpath, when Susan had – thank goodness – come to her rescue. She would have hurt herself landing on the rocks, but she wouldn’t have died. Even if she had somehow ended up in the water, it would be too shallow for her to drown. Of course, she’d probably end up glowing a fetching luminous yellow from all the pollution, but she wouldn’t die. It was on par with a thoughtless schoolboy prank. And as for setting his BMW ablaze – she really couldn’t see what anyone would achieve by doing that, except perhaps feel a malicious sense of satisfaction. Despite discovering Giles’ alter ego, they didn’t seem to be much further forward.

Going on the quality of the wine they were struggling to drink, they declined an offer of the menu and decided to eat elsewhere.

David scratched his chin. ‘Another thing, which may or may not be connected to the case …’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Smiths have reported several acts of vandalism to their local police over the last week or so – yesterday, a paper bag full of dog poo was left on the doorstep and set alight. Whoever left it there – and it could just have been kids – rang the doorbell and ran off. When Mr Smith opened the door, he gave in to instinct and tried to stamp it out.’

‘Oh, Jeez! What a dirty trick!’

He laughed. ‘Quite literally. They’ve had windows broken by stones too, that sort of thing. And someone ran a sharp instrument down the side of their new car; pure, wanton damage.’

‘I wonder if they’ve simply caught the attention of neighbourhood yobs, maybe they took one of them to task for unsocial behaviour – or whether it’s something more sinister and Balaclava Man is involved?’

‘No way of knowing at this stage. Listen, I’m starving – shall we find somewhere to eat?’

She whispered in his ear, ‘I want you for dinner – I’ll buy you a Big Mac on the way home.’ They were out of there in seconds and didn’t leave a tip.

Chapter Thirty-two

On Wednesday morning, Callie sat with Elizabeth Lyon-Smith in the hushed reception area of Flanagan’s Funeral Directors, flicking through a hefty brochure of casket designs. Middle-aged assistant Brenda lurked behind an incongruously large modern desk, inspecting her crimson talons, whilst waiting patiently to answer any queries they might have, or to assist them in their choice. Callie noted that prices had increased considerably in the two years since her mother had died. Quite a racket, this dying business, she thought; she made up her mind to leave precise instructions that her own burial should involve a black plastic bag and a hole in the garden – though hopefully not in the foreseeable future.

Something made her keep glancing furtively at Brenda, to ensure the beatific expression she had glued to her face didn’t slip – she pegged it as a cross between compassion and piety, with a trace element of smug, and wondered if she’d trained for the job at Funeral Director’s Assistant School. If so, she’d most likely graduated with honours. Her platinum blonde hair, showing a swathe of dark roots either side of the parting, was another fascination, sculpted into a dated fifties style and held in place with so much hairspray it would shatter bones if anyone tried to pat her on the head.