A Shred of Evidence (23 page)

“Well, it could just—” Tom began.

“And the neighbours saw his car coming from the other direction,” she added. “Down Larch Avenue, from the school. Their statement is available to investigating officers, if they care to look at the case-files now and then.”

Lloyd grinned. “That’s my girl,” he said. “Theory demolisher to the gentry, Tom—you didn’t stand a chance. And the fact is that there is no evidence that Cochrane was having an affair with Natalia, and there is no evidence that he killed her, therefore I don’t want you concentrating on him until there is, all right?”

“Guv,” sighed Tom, and left.

“Was that discouraging enough?” Judy asked.

“It should have done the trick,” said Lloyd.

“No new thoughts from you?”

“No,” he said. “Inspired guesses come from information received, and we have so far received very little real information at all.”

But it should start coming in today, thought Judy, now that all the appeals and enquiries would be sinking in, getting round. Now that the lab would have completed its work on Natalie’s clothes and all the rest of it.

It didn’t seem possible that no one had seen anything, particularly if Tom was right and a third party had been involved. The boy, or whatever, must have run away. Didn’t anyone see that?

“I don’t suppose you’ve come up with an answer to the little puzzle, have you?” Lloyd asked.

“The shoes?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why they were left down there, unless …” She hesitated before she said what she could imagine, because she didn’t want to. “Unless he was going to keep them, and changed his mind,” she said quietly.

Lloyd sighed. “That means you still think there’s a possibility of other victims,” he said. “That we’ve got a potential serial killer who was thinking of starting a collection.”

She nodded. “If Freddie’s right about how it might have happened, then it sounds psychopathic to me,” she said.

“
If
Freddie’s right,” said Lloyd. “But theories, as you’ve just demonstrated, always come to grief.”

Judy hoped so. “But I think Freddie’s right about the underwear,” she said. “If she had consented, we would be talking about a quickie, out in the open, remember, with someone else about—someone known to Natalie, someone who could get her into trouble if she caught her. She wasn’t likely to be peeling things off one by one.”

“But that’s an assumption,” Lloyd said. “You’re always telling me that you can’t base logical thought on assumptions. Granted, it seems unlikely in the circumstances, but we don’t know that she didn’t. Let’s just regard that as another little puzzle for the moment, along with the shoes.” He paused.
“And Cochrane’s missing twenty minutes,” he said. “And Mrs. Cochrane’s lack of interest in how her film ended.”

“I can do that one,” said Judy. “She didn’t watch it.”

Lloyd’s face fell. “Oh,” he said.

“Her headmaster came and asked her to go in to work early next morning,” said Judy. “When he left, she remembered that the dog hadn’t been out.” She smiled. “Have I just jumped on a theory that hadn’t even been voiced?” she asked.

Lloyd smiled too. “Not really,” he said. “It was just Finch’s insistence that she isn’t being entirely open with us. I thought perhaps she had something to hide. Of course, we only have her word for it that that was how she spent the evening.”

“And the headmaster’s,” said Judy. “I spoke to him on the telephone yesterday evening. He confirmed that he called on Mrs. Cochrane at about ten past eight, and stayed for about an hour and a half, discussing the wording of a letter he was sending out to the parents.”

“Why?” said Lloyd.

Judy frowned. “I think it had something to do with the uniforms,” she said. “He’s a bit long-winded.”

“No. I mean why did you seek confirmation?”

“Because I know what Tom means. She
was
evasive about her husband teaching at Natalie’s school. It
did
take her too long to tell us that she’d seen Natalie alive. And she was really startled to discover that he hadn’t got home at ten,” she said. “Not just because he’s never late—it was more as though she knew that he
must
have been home by then.”

Lloyd tipped his chair back. “You wondered if Tom’s first and second theories could be combined?” he said. “If Cochrane had killed Natalia earlier—say nine-thirty—gone home, told his wife … 
Then
they would have had time to concoct an alibi.”

“Well, I …”

“But instead of staying in the house, Cochrane went to fetch his car from the school, in case its presence raised any awkward questions about his movements. The neighbours saw him bringing it back, and pop goes the alibi?” He nodded. “Not bad,” he said approvingly, letting the chair down.

Sometimes she knew why living with him would be a mistake.

“Cochrane would hardly be so eager to have a blood test, if that were the case,” he said. “Would he?” He smiled magnanimously at her. “But I can see why you were pursuing it.”

“I never said I thought any such—” Judy began indignantly.

“Pity the headmaster had to spoil it, really,” Lloyd went on, blithely ignoring her. “But I don’t think Natalia wrote those letters,” he said.

“
You
don’t think—” Judy gave up, mid-sentence. Lloyd was winding her up, and she wasn’t going to let him do it to her. “No,” she said. “Neither do I.”

“Which brings us back to someone jumping out at her while Mrs. Cochrane was in the woods with Sherlock,” said Lloyd. “And I don’t care for that theory at all.”

“But you did say there was a possibility of his doing it again, didn’t you?” Judy asked quickly. “When you spoke to the
Courier
?”

“I said we had to bear it in mind, yes. And made all the right noises about women not putting themselves at risk.” He stood up as Sandwell arrived back from his refreshment break. “But I have every intention of getting him before he claps eyes on another solitary female,” he said grimly. “So let’s go to work and do that.”

Hannah didn’t seem to have come back to school today, thought Kim, looking at the small group of people who always met up before going into school. Julie, Claire, a couple of others. No Hannah.

And no Natalie. She wondered when the pain would go, when she would stop expecting to see her round the next corner, when it would stop hurting just to think of her. She had never been close to anyone else who had died suddenly, never mind like that, never mind so young.

She and Natalie had had fallings out, and arguments, but they had always been together. Always in the same class, the same form. It was, she thought, a little bit like being widowed
must be. Two-thirds of her life had had Natalie in it, and now she was gone.

Only people didn’t think of it like that. Her mum knew, but other people didn’t, not really. They would ask her questions, because she was Natalie’s best friend, and they wanted to know what she had been like. They weren’t being deliberately insensitive; they just didn’t think.

What
had
she been like? Much too daring for Kim, really, though Kim had tried hard to keep up. Natalie had always been the first to do anything. Trying to smoke, which neither of them had taken to, for instance. Drinking alcohol, which they did do sometimes, but not much. Natalie had even taken one of some capsules that the boys had got hold of when they were in the first year at secondary school, but Kim hadn’t done that. It turned out that they were cold capsules, so she hadn’t come to any harm. Kim had never told anyone that.

She didn’t think Natalie had tried anything else, but if she had, she hadn’t told Kim. She doubted that she had, because Natalie had been the first to grow up, too, in every way. Except in the boob department, Kim thought, with a sad smile. She had outstripped Natalie there by the time she was thirteen.

She began to cry, then. She hadn’t cried, not until now. And she couldn’t, not here, with all these people. She blinked away the tears, pretended that the sun was in her eyes.

Natalie had had boyfriends first, of course, and had lost her virginity before her fourteenth birthday. She had sworn Kim to secrecy then, and said that she hadn’t liked it. Another little smile, as Kim thought about that. It had grown on her, presumably, because there had been several boys since, and Kim doubted if too many of them had been refused. When Natalie had told her about this married man, Kim had despaired of her.

Her eyes grew wide, the tears gone with the jolt of the memory. Oh, my God. What had she done? She had forgotten, completely forgotten. She had been too upset, too shocked to think straight. They had arrested Colin Cochrane, and it was all her fault, and now …

And now, Colin Cochrane was walking in the gate. He looked pale, and it was odd to see him walking in rather than
driving up in his flash car. He didn’t have a tracksuit on, which was even more unusual, and he didn’t have any kit with him, but he was there.

He wasn’t under arrest. Kim almost fainted with relief.

The DI had been looking rather pleased with herself this morning, Tom had fancied.

Possibly because she had done a demolition job on his nice new theory, but in all probability her rosy glow was for a much earthier reason than that. Lloyd was looking quite chipper too.

The lab had continued the theory-busting, with a negative report on Cochrane’s clothes. But they had added that the killer’s clothes would be unlikely to have had blood on them, anyway. Any blood was likely to have been confined to the hands of her assailant, it had added. Lady Macbeth, thought Tom, darkly.

Natalie’s own clothes had a tale to tell, though. Foreign fibres: two different sorts, and a small piece of black cotton, probably from a button. A dark brown human hair that didn’t belong to Natalie. A dog hair that almost certainly belonged to Sherlock. It pointed out, smugly, Tom felt, that tracksuits didn’t have buttons, and that none of these traces came from Cochrane’s clothing. One set of fibres was grey polyester-wool, one white cotton.

But Freddie’s report suggested that the killer needn’t have come into close bodily contact with Natalie, so his theory still survived. Just.

It was, however, becoming much more likely that Mrs. Cochrane was telling the truth, and that some nutter had chanced on Natalie while Mrs. Cochrane was in the wood; she really had seen Natalie alive and found her dead.

“I’ve checked out Natalie’s computer, Sarge,” said the computer whizz-kid he had sent. “She doesn’t have a word processing program on it, and anyway she’s got a dot matrix printer. That letter was done on an inkjet.”

It was a conspiracy. His perfectly good theory was being blitzed out of existence. “What about the school?” Tom said sharply. “Don’t they have computers?”

“All schools do, I think.”

“Then get over there! See if she could have had access to a word processor with an inkjet printer, and check its files out if you find one.”

“Right, Sarge,” he said, turning away. “I get all the exciting jobs,” he muttered.

Tom followed him out into the corridor, and called him back. “We are investigating the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl,” he said, his voice low, as he quietly manoeuvred the constable into a corner. “If you find that boring, you’re in the wrong job, mate. All right?”

“Sorry, Sarge,” he said, offended.

“If those letters are in the files of any word processing program in this town, we need to find them,” Tom said. “So shift yourself, because you’re the only bugger we’ve got round here that can look for them fast enough.”

“Sarge.” He moved with a great deal more enthusiasm this time.

“Trouble?” said Judy as she came out of her office.

“No, ma’am,” said Tom. “Just motivating the staff.”

She smiled. “What did the staff have to say?” she asked.

“Natalie didn’t use her own computer if she did do those letters,” said Tom. “We’re checking out the school computers. How are you getting on with English teachers?”

“I’m not,” said Judy. “The previous one has emigrated to Canada, would you believe? The school thinks it must have samples of Natalie’s English Language work somewhere, but so far all they can offer us is the general assessment of her work that says damn all about her grammar and punctuation.”

Tom grinned. “Well, I expect the DCI could have told you that,” he said.

“They’re operating under a new system, is one excuse. They’ve only been back two days is another, and I’ve even been told that they’ve had a murder to contend with.”

“No! Really?” said Tom, then thought about the problem. “What about her geography teacher?” he said. “Or history? Some subject that she had to write about?”

“Brilliant,” Judy said. “I’ll try that.”

“Except that you think it’s a waste of time,” said Tom.

“Yes,” she said, with a sigh. “I really don’t think Natalie wrote those letters, and your staff seems to agree with me.”

“I think I’m being worn down by the weight of evidence,” said Tom. “Do you think Cochrane knows who did write them?” he asked. “And isn’t saying? He’s mixed up with someone else, and thinks that he’s damned if he says so and damned if he doesn’t?”

“He could be,” Judy said. “If the letters are true, then he’d be in big trouble.”

“But not as big as murder,” said Tom, with a sigh. “And he does get pretty weird mail.” He was reluctant to let go of his theory, but the facts really didn’t seem to fit it. “They might just be fan letters, of sorts, I suppose,” he said, and grinned. “Do
you
fancy him, ma’am?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I haven’t even seen the man.”

“You must have seen him on the telly,” said Tom.

“No. Everyone keeps telling me he’s famous, but I don’t know him from Adam.”

“But he’s in everything. You can’t turn the telly on without him popping up. What sort of things do you watch?”

She smiled. “I see a lot of old films,” she said.

“He’s not in them.”

She went back into her office, and Tom walked back to the murder room, where Lloyd was just putting down the phone.

“We’re going to nail this one, Tom,” he said. “We’ve got prints from Natalia’s shoes. The thumb and two fingers of someone’s right hand—not Natalia’s.”