The Maggie Murders (13 page)

 His bosses had already outlined
the expense of re-opening part of the recently mothballed local police station
to him and so he felt an expensive diversion into the world of science fiction
would be as welcome as a fart in a space shuttle. At the moment it was
irrelevant anyway, as he had neither fingerprints, nor anything else which
might have evidence of the killer’s blood or saliva on it that this new test
might show, even if it was ever accepted by the courts.

Well for now he’d settle on
having Hawkins bringing in the glamorous widow for questioning. With any luck
Hawkins would be wrong about this murder being connected and it would turn out
to be a plain, old domestic after all. It couldn’t have been easy for the wife
suddenly finding she had gone from being married to an action man, to a cripple
overnight. Perhaps she had just snapped, or else she was doing the dirty on him
and he found out? Either way, at least motives like this made sense and didn’t
take a degree in science to work out! Getting up he wondered if there was a
toilet in the fast food place he could use?

****

In Exeter, Dent was becoming
almost as excited as Britain’s speculators by the paperwork in front of him. It
may not have had figures on it outlining vast potential profits; however he
felt it contained data that might enable him to invest in his very own futures
market.  The last four years had already yielded a considerable rise in his
personal stock and if he invested the information in front of him wisely, he
was sure further dividends would follow.

Having worked his way up from
being an Assistant Chief Constable to becoming the Deputy Chief Constable of
the largest police force in England (geographically speaking) he had been
beginning to speculate when the once coveted title of Deputy might finally
become replaced by Acting, before there was nothing in front of the words Chief
Constable. Given the amount of time Sir Robert seemed to be indisposed (station
gossip held out that it was his prostate) Dent felt that he was running the
show anyway. Most of the big decisions were his and only rubber stamped by the
Chief. In fact any decisions made by Sir Robert recently had been invariably
contrary and sometimes downright damaging. Letting that wog run the Kellow case
for one; there might have been a result if people had listened to him. Still,
at least Dent had been able to clean up the mess they’d made in appointing
Sobers.

Spilsbury’s report outlining a
possible link between the two Exmouth murders might just as well have been the
goose that laid the golden egg for Dent. Big murder cases were few and far
between on the South-West peninsula and something like this could well get the
nationals interested – particularly if there was a serial killer at large. If
Dent’s lips hadn’t been so dry, they would have watered at this moment.

Calling for a second cup of
coffee, he reclined in his chair and began planning his briefing for the press.
If he could be seen to be in charge of this investigation, then all the credit
amassed would surely lead to his need for that larger office upstairs sooner,
rather than later. If things went wrong, well then it might still be useful to
have Sir Robert around, but with an experienced London copper like Spilsbury leading
the inquiry, then he couldn’t see them failing to get a result this time.

Sitting up in his chair, he
reached for the intercom and buzzed his PA. It was time to call Delia and get
her to set the VCR to tape the news bulletins that evening. His wife might even
get that holiday home in Provence she wanted if all went to plan.

‘You weren’t at home.’

The statement was simple enough,
but the answer would be revealing thought Jane. Not being at home in the
morning, afternoon, or evening might have a ready number of lies to explain a
possible absence, but not being at home in the early hours of the morning as
your husband burnt to death would take something a little more creative.

This was why Constance Baker was
now sitting opposite them in the interview room, a duty solicitor at her side. 
They’d put compassion to one side and their suspicions on maximum when she’d
arrived home after it had already been declared a crime scene.

‘I was at work.’

The lie was so obvious it was
hardly worth Jane’s time in pulling it apart.

‘On Fridays, you work as a
classroom assistant at the local primary school. A school which doesn’t open
until 8.00am on most days and which on Friday was opening even later owing to
it being used as a polling station the day before.’

‘My other work.’

‘You also help out organising
charity events with a children’s organisation in Exeter according to your
neighbours. Are you expecting us to believe they needed you there between the
hours of midnight and two a.m. on Friday 12th June; the day your husband was
murdered?’

Connie flinched. Jane waited.
Silence was often the best tactic when you had a suspect on the run and the
beautiful, expensively dressed brunette in front of her certainly counted as a
suspect.

Connie dabbed at her mascara, as
her earlier self-possession appeared ready to leave her.

‘There’s only one job I know of
where a woman dresses to the nines and is out all night,’ Spilsbury
interjected, as he pushed a cigarette across the table.

Jane watched as Connie took the
bait.

‘Are you calling me a whore?’

Connie’s earlier composure had
deserted her. A mixture of emotions played themselves out on a face which
earlier had been a mask of grief.

Jane watched as the duty
solicitor tried to cope with the warrior woman beside him; the fury in the
Jaeger dress though was too much for the brown suited, sweating lawyer who
ineffectually tried to calm his client, whilst failing to upbraid the smug
Spilsbury.

The interview was going to plan;
Jane offered a way out for Connie, or at least another wrong turning to
destabilise her.

‘Perhaps you were with a friend?’

‘If you mean by that was I
fucking someone, yes I fucking well was!’

It was now Jane who found herself
wrong footed. On a daily basis she heard far worse in the police canteen; however
this was like hearing the Queen swearing and did not square with her idea of
the beautiful, intelligent woman who faced her across the table.

‘And may we know the name of this
lover?’ Spilsbury enquired sweetly.

‘He wasn’t my lover; he was a
fuck, a casual fuck as my husband died!’ Connie spat back.

Even Spilsbury seemed to have
been taken aback by that and her solicitor seemed to have found one of his
doodles more absorbing than the scene in front of him.

****

As Tim served up fish fingers and
chips for her and the kids, Jane caught herself wondering what it would be like
to have a lover. She’d had her chances. From the day she had joined up
colleagues had been cracking on to her. Usually she laughed it off, sometimes
it got to her and occasionally it flattered her. She knew some girls who had it
let it get to them and had left the force, or put in a complaint (which never
seemed to achieve more than them being transferred) and some who gave as good
as they got.

Her wedding ring gave her some
defence, though it seemed to up the badinage. Though there were still a few who
hadn’t quite got out of the habit of assuming she was a dyke, but making
Sergeant had helped put most of the overt wise crackers in their place.
Sometimes though the intensity of the work and the feeling that not even the
most intimate outsider could really understand what she did had placed her in
situations where the lure of a good looking colleague and the chance of some
extra- curricular fun had been hard to resist.

Saturnine Carl Roberts had almost
been her undoing. They’d spent six months working together on investigating a
spate of violent burglaries in and around Exeter. Within moments of meeting
they’d been firing off the mutual insults which so often conceal an attraction
between would be lovers.  After a few days she’d found herself just using the
case as an excuse to make more time to work with him. As he was married and
also had children, Jane had willed herself to believe there was no danger, but
as she discovered their shared love for the same food, books and films, she
found herself falling ever more deeply for him. Trying not to be alone with him
had become futile; resisting the urge to respond when he brushed against her
had become almost impossible.

Knowing her reputation as being a
bit of a lightweight when it came to drinking, the only precaution she’d taken
was always to insist on soft drinks on the increasing number of times she found
herself discussing their case notes in early evening pubs and bars. She had a
fairly good idea that a few glasses of white wine would have been enough to
turn a platonic friendship into a full blown affair. Of course this had just
given Carl more ammunition to tease her with, but given that he liked a drink
and she was more than willing to do the driving she managed to maintain her
equilibrium until the night of Nina’s Hen-do.

She thought it was supposed to
have been a girls’ only night and was off her head on Bacardi and coke when the
stags from Nina’s fiancé’s do arrived at the same club; among them was Carl.
With half the station there the danger and possible embarrassment of the
situation was very clear to her and she’d tried to slip away whilst he bought
drinks at the bar. Unfortunately, her need to visit the toilet and to recover
her coat, delayed her progress – though she wondered sometimes if her faffing
around for her cloak room ticket until he appeared in the reception area of the
club was not quite unrelated.

Feeling that she shouldn’t fight
against her destiny, she’d let him accompany her outside. Only when she felt
they were probably out of sight of any colleagues had she given in to her
desperate need to kiss him.

Of course she’d told Tim
straightaway, well as soon as she was sober and they’d laughed it off as a
drunken escapade. He’d even made up some story about fancying the girl at the
Cash ‘n’ Carry to make her feel better.  Though she hadn’t told him how Carl’s
hand had slid between her legs when he’d manoeuvred her up against the wall.
She’d also avoided articulating the half formed thought that she probably would
have let him, if she hadn’t puked her guts out…

Sometimes she felt guilty; other
times she wondered what it would have been like?

‘Mum?’

Jane’s reverie was broken by her
daughter.

‘You’re not turning into one of
those mothers smashed out of their minds on tranquilisers, are you?’

‘No. Just thinking about a case.’

‘Well remember to “Just Say No!”
if you are turning into a junkie, Mum.’

Jane smiled at Jenny as she
passed her the water glass. The sight of her daughter and the return to
domestic chaos was enough to remind her of why she was glad to be happily
trapped in family life. Even Leo’s nascent teenage tantrums could be cute at
times, the petulant curl of his lip reminiscent of her own arguments with her
mother.

With her children in bed and Tim
washing up, Jane reclined on the sofa with a mug of peppermint tea and
considered why Connie Baker had got under her skin. Connie’s story had for a
fleeting moment connected with Jane’s own darker desires, though in Connie’s circumstances
Jane could not see herself doing the same.

 Jane knew if she did take a
lover, and for a moment the face of Kevin Summers, the fresh faced rookie from
work flittered deliciously through her mind, she’d never stop loving Tim. He
might be developing a paunch and have a dreadful taste in music; however the
thought of losing him was unbearable. She wondered if it could be possible to
divorce something as simple as sex from long term love? Although the word
divorce, was probably not the most apposite one to be thinking about in
relation to this. If she had followed it up with Carl would she have regretted
it? Would she have been able to tell Tim? She felt he would probably have
forgiven her, but could she have forgiven herself? Whatever the drawbacks of
her current domestic arrangements, there was no way on earth she wanted to lose
them.

Maybe sexer would be a better
word than lover, but she had a feeling she didn’t possess Connie’s calm ability
to be so dispassionate about sex. And Connie hadn’t had kids to think about…
For a moment her thoughts were diverted by wondering if the coving over the
patio doors might need re-painting, before her thoughts returned to Connie.
Ultimately, she didn’t think Connie was a bad woman, though the fact she could
understand her had unsettled her. She knew her new boss disagreed; Spilsbury
would probably have happily thrown the first stone if given the chance.

During the interview she could
tell the DCI was unsympathetic to her story. Connie and Calum might not quite have
had the ring of Romeo and Juliet and yet it seemed they had been equally
star-crossed. She had been the Cheltenham educated solicitor’s daughter, whilst
he had been her all action bit of rough; however they had risked all for love.
Parental approval had been cut off and she was fortunate that she’d already
received the benefits of her trust fund. If Calum had been an officer they
might have approved, but marrying someone who didn’t even have a commission
wouldn’t go down well in their circles. Her husband might have served with
distinction in Northern Ireland, yet unfortunately this did not make up for
leaving school at sixteen and having a father who was an unemployed welder.

Ironically, it had been sex which
had been the glue to keep them together at first. By the end of the interview,
Jane had felt she had gained a greater knowledge of sex than any amount of
Lovers’ Guides could tell her. She half wondered if it was the guilt making
Connie hymn their coupling and at other times wondered if she was doing it to
make her feel small. And what on earth was the perineum?

They’d only been married for two
years when Calum had been sent to the Falklands and been emasculated. ‘The
fucking Argies blew his cock off!’ was how Connie had put it. Jane could still
recall how Spilsbury had flinched at this.  It seemed her husband had been at
Bluff Cove on a landing craft when it was hit by Argentinean bombs. Whilst most
of the journalists had focussed on the Welsh Guards who had been lost on the
Sir Galahad, he had become one of the unreported casualties that day. According
to Connie, he was described in reports of the incident as being ‘lucky’ to have
survived.  Jane wondered what had happened to the unlucky ones?

Connie‘s next assertion that the
idea for her having sex with other men had come from her husband had been
another instance in the interrogation where she feared for Spilsbury’s rising
blood pressure. She’d explained how their rows and arguments had been
increasing. The more she tried to care for him, the more he resented her.  He
preferred ‘crippled’ to ‘disabled’; said it described him better. Apparently
he’d been so fearful that she would leave him, or have an affair to satisfy her
unfulfilled needs that he had suggested she look for a lover. Jane had believed
her when she had asserted that she had never wanted to do this, but had only
done so because her husband had implored her to – though she could tell
Spilsbury thought she was lying.

Connie’s first lover had been a
tourist she’d picked up in a local night spot. She’d made herself up to look a
million dollars and then been taken to a cheap hotel where they’d done it in a
single bed.  She explained to them that she’d felt guilty and disappointed and
yet her husband had demanded she describe the encounter for his own voyeuristic
pleasure. At first she said she’d been reluctant, yet as it seemed to excite
him, she had acquiesced. By this point in the interview Jane had been convinced
that one of the pulsing veins on her boss’ neck was going to burst…

Emboldened by this and beginning
to take some pleasure in these acts, Connie explained how she’d taken a more
regular lover from her previous school where she had also worked as a classroom
assistant, before breaking that one off when her husband feared she was getting
‘feelings’ for the teacher she was seeing.

She’d then gone round the clubs
and pubs of nearby Exeter, picking up tourists and married men on a near weekly
basis until she got bored of how sordid it made her feel. She’d told Calum she
was still doing it, but spent most of her evenings drinking a bottle of wine,
before crashing out at a cheap hotel. Her stories for Calum became ever more
entertaining and fanciful, just as her nights became ever more lonely and
miserable.

Eventually, she got into a
relationship with the Director of the Charity she worked for. She was reluctant
to give his name, as he had a wife and kids, but Jane soon persuaded her to
name John Howard as her lover of the last few months.

Yet, he hadn’t been the man she’d
been with on the night of the murder.

A friend of hers from the
Children’s Charity, Clare (she was unsure of the surname), had persuaded her to
go out for a few drinks on election night. They’d arranged to meet at the
lounge bar of the Royal Standard Hotel on the Front, but Clare hadn’t shown up.
Instead there had been a good looking, younger man there who had been exactly
her type: dark, muscular and intense, she hadn’t objected when he suggested
finishing their drinks in his room.