A Room Swept White (6 page)

Simon had missed some of that. He was still thinking about what Sam had said to him. ‘Better to focus on it and
dismiss
it?’ he said behind his clenched fist so that Proust wouldn’t notice. ‘Why are the Yardleys less likely to have a shooter than this dark-haired man we can’t find?’

Sam didn’t sigh, but he looked as if he wanted to. He shook his head to indicate that he wasn’t going to risk answering. It occurred to Simon that Sam might find it a damn sight easier to work with the Snowman than he did at present if he didn’t also have to work with Simon.

Stand in the corner. Face the wall
. Simon considered drawing attention to the symbolism – a teacher punishing a child – then decided against it. Today was one of those days when everyone would disagree with him whatever he said. And he would disagree with the world, as he so often did. A stranger murder? No. Proust was wrong. Collective police responsibility for Helen Yardley’s death because eleven out of twelve civilian jurors voted to send her to prison for murder?
Fuck off
.

‘Where are we with fingerprints and swabbing?’ Proust asked.

DS Klair Williamson stood up. ‘Fingerprints – no matches with any on our database. Lots belonging to friends and family, quite a few sets unidentified, but that’s only to be
expected. We’ve swabbed everybody for forensic evidence of weapon discharge and got nothing so far.’

‘Predictable,’ said Proust. ‘Gunpowder residue perishes easily. If our killer knows that, he’ll have had a thorough wash. All the same, I’m sure I don’t need to tell any of you that it would be a grave mistake to drop this angle prematurely. Do your utmost to preserve every possible forensic opportunity. Keep up the swabbing until I say otherwise, and make a note of the names of anyone who gives you an argument about it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Williamson.

‘We also want the names of any unsavouries who have raised their heads above the parapet, so keep going through emails, letters, anything you can find – to JIPAC or to Helen Yardley personally. Our killer could have been unknown to her but obsessed with her.’

Simon heard grunts of agreement; people seemed to like this idea. He didn’t. Why was no one pointing out the obvious? It wasn’t the simple either-or of someone close to the victim versus total stranger, not in this case. There was a third possibility. Surely he wasn’t the only one it had occurred to.

‘Moving on, then, to the most inexplicable aspect of this killing,’ said the Snowman. ‘The card protruding from Helen Yardley’s skirt pocket.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the picture on the board. ‘Her fingerprints are on it, as well as another set we can’t identify. It’s likely the killer put it in the pocket after he shot her and left the top half visible to draw our attention. Also likely is that the sixteen numbers on the card, arranged as they are in four rows of four, have some meaning for the killer. Any new ideas on this – from anyone?’

All over the room, heads were shaking.

‘Right, well, we’ll wait to hear back from Bramshill and GCHQ.’

There was a general groan and mutters of ‘waste of time’.

‘What about seeing if there’s anybody in the Maths department of a university who knows anything about codes?’ Proust suggested. ‘And I mean a proper university, not a former polytechnic or an accredited branch of Pizza Hut.’

The reaction to his suggestion was disproportionately enthusiastic. Simon wondered how many tyrants questioned the rapture with which their every utterance was received. The sixteen numbers had been going round in his head all day: 2, 1, 4, 9 . . . Or maybe it was 21, 49, or perhaps you were supposed to start at the bottom and read backwards: 0, 2, 6 . . .

‘As a last resort, there’s always the press,’ said Proust. ‘We let them print the sixteen numbers and see what happens.’

‘We’d have every loony in the Culver Valley ringing in, saying they’d got the numbers off an extra-terrestrial’s lottery ticket,’ said Colin Sellers.

Proust smiled. A few people risked laughing. Simon pushed down a rising swell of anger. Any sign that the inspector might be enjoying even the briefest moment of happiness made him want to do damage to somebody. Luckily, such signs were rare.

‘What about a profiler?’ someone called out.
Someone else who doesn’t think the Snowman deserves a lighthearted moment and knows how to put a stop to it
.

Simon waited for Proust to breathe frost, but, surprisingly, he said, ‘If we make no progress on the card in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll be asking for a profiler to be brought in. In the meantime, while we wait for the code teams at Bramshill and GCHQ to get back to us, we do the dull legwork: which
retailers supply this kind of card? What sort of pen does the ink come from?
Well
?’ he roared suddenly. A collective shudder rippled through the room.

‘Sir, we’re still pursuing that,’ said the unfortunate DC from Silsford who’d been tasked to find out. ‘I’ll chase it up.’

‘You do that, detective. I want two hundred and fifty per cent effort from all of you. And don’t forget your ABC. Let’s hear it, DC Gibbs.’

‘Assume nothing, believe nobody, check everything,’ Chris Gibbs muttered, his face colouring. Simon was the one the Snowman usually nominated to make a tit of himself in front of a crowd. Why had he been spared this time?

‘Our mystery caller at 9 Bengeo Street might turn out to be a false lead, so let’s make sure he’s not our only lead,’ said Proust. ‘As someone’s already pointed out, we could be looking for a female. I want brains switched on and fully serviced round the clock. I don’t need to tell you all why this case matters more than any you’ve worked before.’

‘Don’t you?’ Simon murmured. Beside him, Sam was nodding. And yet the thing that marked out Helen Yardley as different from other murder victims had barely been mentioned, not this morning and not now.

‘It’s been forty-eight hours,’ said the Snowman. ‘If we don’t get a result soon, they’ll cut this squad in half, and that’ll just be for starters. You’ll all be going back to your own nicks – something I’m sure at least those of you from Rawndesley are keen to avoid. All right, that’s it for today. DS Kombothekra, DC Waterhouse – my office.’

Simon was in no mood to wait and see what Proust wanted. ‘How come you’re happy to ditch the “assume nothing” part
when it comes to the gun?’ he asked, as soon as he’d slammed the door behind him. This time Sam did sigh. ‘Why’s Helen or Paul Yardley less likely to own an M9 Beretta than this dark-haired man we can’t find?’

‘Sergeant Kombothekra, explain to DC Waterhouse why a killer is more likely than his victim to bring a gun to the party.’

‘The Yardleys fought to keep their only surviving child, and they lost. Think about what that must have meant to them. You’ve got a daughter . . .’

‘Mention her name, Waterhouse, and I’ll yank your tongue out by the root. My daughter has nothing to do with this.’

You ought to hear what Colin Sellers has said about her over the years, what he’d like to do to which bits of her
. Simon tried again. ‘Paige Yardley lives less than two miles from Bengeo Street, with new parents who’ve changed her name and won’t let her birth family anywhere near her. If I was Helen or Paul Yardley in that situation – someone stole my kid and, to add insult to injury, the law was on their side – I might get myself a shooter. If I’d had to stand in court and watch helplessly as my wife got two life sentences for crimes I was sure she hadn’t committed—’

‘You’ve made your point,’ said Proust.

‘I’ve made part of my point, and I’ll make the rest of it now: Helen Yardley spent nine years behind bars. If she wasn’t guilty, revenge might have been on her mind once she got out. And even if—’

‘Enough!’

Simon ducked as something flew past his head. Proust’s ‘World’s Greatest Grandad’ mug hit the corner of the filing cabinet and smashed. Sam bent to pick up the pieces. ‘Leave
that!’ the Snowman bellowed. ‘Open the top drawer of the cabinet. There are two copies of Helen Yardley’s book in there. Take one for yourself and give one to Waterhouse.’

The only way Simon could keep his mouth shut was by vowing to do what he should have done years ago and put in an official complaint. He’d do it first thing tomorrow morning. Proust would come back at him with counter-accusations of disrespect, sarcasm, disobedience.
True, true, true
. No one would speak up for Simon apart from Charlie, and she’d only do it because of her personal feelings for him, not because she would disagree with Proust’s portrayal of him as every line manager’s nightmare.

Sam handed him a copy of
Nothing But Love
by Helen Yardley and Gaynor Mundy. Simon had interviewed Mundy earlier today. She’d told him Helen had written most of the book herself and been a dream to work with. The cover was white, with a picture of a pair of knitted baby bootees at its centre. Curls of yellow paper protruded from the sides of several pages: Post-it strips. Simon glanced at Sam’s copy and saw that it was the same.

‘Let’s start again,’ said the Snowman, loading each word with a hefty dollop of patience in the face of provocation.
Not asking for another chance; bestowing one with self-conscious generosity
. ‘I called the two of you in here because you’re my best detectives – personality disorders notwithstanding, Waterhouse. I need to know that I can count on you.’

‘You can, sir,’ said Sam.

‘Count on us to do what?’ Simon asked. He could only occasionally manage a ‘sir’. Less and less often these days.

‘I want you both to read that book,’ said Proust. ‘I’ve read it, and I don’t think there’s anything in it that adds to what
we know already, but you might spot something I missed. The sections I’ve marked are the parts where I’m mentioned by name. I arrested Helen Yardley three days after the death of her second child, and charged her with the murders of both her children. I gave evidence at her trial. I was a DS at the time. Superintendent Barrow was my DI.’

Not looking at Sam, not reacting at all, took all Simon’s willpower.

‘As far as I’m concerned, nobody working this murder needs to read the book apart from the two of you. At the briefing tomorrow morning, I intend to tell everyone about my . . . involvement. However irrelevant it is to the business at hand, I’d like it to be out in the open.’

Irrelevant? Was he joking? Testing them?

‘I won’t be mentioning the role played by Superintendent Barrow, whose name does not feature in the book.’

Had Barrow told Proust to leave his name out of it? Had the two of them been arguing behind the scenes about what to reveal and what to withhold? The Snowman had never bothered to conceal his hatred for Barrow, but it had blended so seamlessly, over the years, with his antipathy for everyone else he knew that Simon had never questioned it or wondered about its origins.

‘Ordinarily, as I’m sure you’re aware, any officer who charged someone with murder as a DS would not then lead the investigation into the murder of that same person as a DI. The Chief Constable, the Assistant Chief Constable and Superintendent Barrow didn’t want me as SIO on Helen Yardley’s murder. And yet here I am – SIO on Helen Yardley’s murder. Go ahead, Waterhouse. You look as if you have a question.’

‘Am I getting the wrong end of the stick, or are you implying that Barrow, the Chief and the Assistant Chief don’t want it known that they were instrumental in sending Helen Yardley to prison?’ Simon stopped short of asking Proust if he’d threatened to go public about their role in an extremely visible miscarriage of justice if they assigned the investigation into Helen Yardley’s murder to any DI but him.

‘The Chief and the Assistant Chief weren’t involved,’ said Proust. ‘Though as Superintendent Barrow’s superior officers, they have his best interests at heart, as well as the best interests of Culver Valley Police Service.’

Sam Kombothekra cleared his throat, but said nothing.

‘So . . .’ Simon began.

‘In so far as your hypothesis applied to Superintendent Barrow, Waterhouse, I
would say
, to borrow a phrase from Sergeant Leckenby, that your purchase on the stick needs no lateral adjustment.’

‘What . . .? Oh.’ Simon got it, just in time to avoid making an idiot of himself.

‘Will you both read the book?’ Proust asked. ‘It’s not an order. I’m asking you as a favour to me personally.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Sam.

Simon had ordered
Nothing But Love
from Amazon this morning, after talking to Gaynor Mundy. He would read his own copy when it arrived, because he wanted to – nothing to do with being asked.
A favour
. He’d have preferred it to be an order. Friends asked favours; the Snowman was no friend.

‘Tomorrow morning I want the two of you standing on either side of me for the briefing and tasking, so get in early,’ said Proust, more relaxed now that the meeting seemed to be going his way. ‘I want everybody to see that I have your
full support when I announce that from now on, anyone who makes a remark along the lines of “No smoke without fire” or “Just because they let her out doesn’t mean she was innocent” will be formally disciplined, no matter where and in what circumstances that remark is made – as somebody’s idea of a joke, under the influence of alcohol. Any bobby who so much as whispers the words in his bedroom in the middle of the night, with his head buried in his duvet – he’ll rue the day. From now on, you two are my eyes and ears. You hear any comments like that, you report them to me, whether the commentator is your closest friend or someone you hardly know. You pick up on any bad attitudes, I want to hear about them.’

Simon couldn’t believe Sam was nodding.

‘I know I can count on your support, and I’m grateful for it,’ said Proust curtly. ‘Waterhouse, any other points you want to raise, now I’ve said my piece?’

There was plenty more Simon could have said – had been planning to say – about where he thought the investigation was going wrong, but until he’d had a chance to think about what he’d just heard, he didn’t want to say another word in the Snowman’s presence.
Count on nothing, shithead
.