Fault Lines (36 page)

‘Nothing at all. He’s been a witness for us; very helpful; I just need to get in to his flat quickly.’

‘I can let you in to the front door, but I haven’t got a key to his flat. None of us have. He doesn’t mix much.’

‘Right. Well, if you could open this door. That would be very helpful. As soon as you can.’

She got the door open and stood aside to let Femur go first. He ran. Luckily the baby’s wails rose to a pitch that no one could ignore and she muttered an apology and disappeared up the main staircase. Femur fished in his pocket for a credit card.

He slid it between the door and the jamb and felt the Yale move back.

But the door wouldn’t budge. Shit. There were no other keyholes in the door itself. Collons must have bolted it from the inside.

‘Steve! Quick.’

But neither of them could kick the door down. The bolts must be the security type; well installed, too.

‘Back to the garden, Steve. Break a window.’

This time there were no passers-by to make a fuss as Owler efficiently broke one half of the big casement window and knocked out the loose glass with his arm. Femur thrust him aside and climbed over the sill, grazing his hand and wrenching his shoulder. The curtain blew back in his face and he forced it away, pulling out two of the hooks and tearing the thin material.

It was much too late. He’d known that all along, but he’d had to try. With the sound of the ambulance siren in his ears, he saw that the slumped body, crouched and hanging from the door handle, was way beyond anyone’s help. From the eyebrows down, the face was deep purple and there was a trickle of dried blood making a wobbly line from the mouth to the chin. Blair Collons must have died hours earlier.

Femur was aware of Steve Owler standing behind him, trying to say something. He shook his head and held up a hand to ward off the words. He didn’t want questions or sympathy. This was his fault.

He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, but he didn’t touch the body. It looked like a straightforward suicide, but it might not have been and he didn’t want to wreck any evidence.

There weren’t any bruises on the face or neck, just the almost horizontal ligature at the base of the dark-purple stain under the skin. And there were no marks on the hands that he could see.

‘You’d better cancel the ambulance,’ he said drearily to Steve. ‘And get hold of the police surgeon instead.’

‘Too late, Guv.’ Owler’s voice was gentle. ‘The paramedics are here. I’ll go and have a word.’

Femur nodded and turned away from the body to look for a letter. The first thing he saw, as Owler went to unbolt the door, was a pile of creased photographs on the writing desk near the window. They looked as though they had been ripped apart and later carefully mended with Sellotape. Stirring the pile with his gloved finger, he saw that they were all of Kara. He shook his head. Beside the photographs were some women’s underclothes, stained with what looked like tea leaves and orange peel. So Collons was what he’d always assumed. But it didn’t make it any better. He turned away, disgust and sympathy fighting each other.

Then he saw the letter. It was propped on the mantelpiece and marked: ‘Kara’.

Femur knew he should have left it for the SOCOs, but he couldn’t. Still wearing the latex gloves, he opened the envelope. The single sheet inside was covered with neat black writing, just three words repeated over and over again: ‘Kara, I’m sorry. Kara, I’m sorry. Kara, I’m sorry.’

‘I’ve been worried about Barry Spinel and that poor Kara Huggate for months,’ Drakeshill said, with a confiding air that didn’t convince Femur one little bit. ‘I didn’t want to say anything, but ever since she was found, my conscience has been nagging at me. All along I’ve wanted to come in and talk to you lot, even though I’ve got no evidence. But it’s the suspicion, Mr Femur. You can’t think what it’s been like. I tried to hold out – I mean, he’s been a friend for years – but I can’t. Not any longer. You’ve got to know about Spinel and why he wanted that poor woman dead. At first he –’

‘Stop there,’ Femur said. ‘When’s “at first”?’

Drakeshill shut his eyes and frowned, pursing his fat little lips. He looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. ‘Three months ago? Four? I can’t remember.’

‘OK. So what did Spinel do – or say – that worried you?’

‘He fancied that poor woman.’ Drakeshill suddenly forgot about looking tormented and grinned as though he couldn’t help himself. ‘We’ve always had different tastes in women, Barry and me. I like ’em younger and foxier, but he’s always gone for the teacher-type. Mad. Anyway, he had the hots for this one. I shouldn’t talk like that about her, now she’s dead, but you’ve got to understand, see. Barry kept making up reasons to meet her, pretended she had information on drug dealers for him to arrest so’s he had an excuse to see her again and call round at her cottage.’

Drakeshill’s grin turned into a brief, barking laugh. Femur battled to keep his own lips smiling. His teeth were grinding against each other like the mills of God. He knew this story of Drakeshill’s was some kind of scam. He knew it was Drakeshill who had given the order for Kara’s death, but finding the evidence wasn’t going to be easy. And stories like this would only add to his problems. He wanted, more than anything he’d wanted in a long, long time, to get Drakeshill, and Spinel with him.

Femur had no illusions about the Job, but every time he came across a bent officer he hated him – or her. And Spinel was one of the worst he’d come across. Even though Femur was sure Spinel hadn’t been the prime mover in what had been done to Kara, he’d had a hand in it. At the very least he’d procured the crucial photograph of the Kingsford Rapist’s first dead victim, and he’d almost certainly given Chompie a map of Kara’s cottage and probably a good deal else.

‘And?’ Femur said, still pretending to share Drakeshill’s crass amusement at the thought of Spinel fancying Kara Huggate.

‘Well, she wouldn’t have none of him, would she?’ Drakeshill settled his paunch over his belt and leaned forward. ‘So after a bit he changed his tune, stopped making excuses to see her and stopped telling me how great she was. Suddenly she’d turned into a frigid bitch who was giving him grief. I knew he was angry, but I never thought he’d go this far.’

To Femur’s astonished rage, Drakeshill stopped grinning and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket so that he could mop his eyes. ‘And I never thought he’d corrupt one of my lads like he’s done Chompie.’ Drakeshill even produced a kind of sob.

Oh, please, thought Femur, in disgust.

‘I know Chompie’s no angel, but he’d never have done something like this without being pushed into it.’ Drakeshill took the handkerchief away at last and Femur saw that he’d managed to make his eyes red.

This was a man who was going to work a jury like an expert, Femur told himself. Drakeshill was obviously prepared to sacrifice Spinel, Chompie and probably everyone else to keep himself out of it and
he
hadn’t been stupid or arrogant enough to leave his fingerprints on any of the physical evidence.

‘This’ll sound mad,’ Drakeshill said, still sniffing and gazing at Femur as though he were a kindly uncle, ‘but it’s going to be harder for me to forgive Barry Spinel for what he did to young Chompie than for the poor woman’s death.’ He shrugged his fat shoulders and sniffed. Then he wiped his nose on the back of his hairy hand. Femur nearly gagged. ‘But, then, I never knew her, and he was like a son to me. They all are, you know, Mr Femur. My lads. They’ve all had their problems and I know they’ve done things they shouldn’t, but treated right they come good in the end. Over and over again I’ve seen it. And now this. I tell you, it’s enough to make a man …’ He whimpered again and mopped his eyes.

He can’t think I’m falling for this load of tripe, Femur thought, while he said briskly, ‘Right. Tony, will you finish up in here? Get a signed statement with all the details and any shred of evidence Drakeshill can offer.’

Tony Blacker, who had been staring at Drakeshill as though he was a Martian, shut his mouth. He was still explaining Femur’s departure to the tape recorder as Femur shut the door behind him.

Two hours later, Femur nodded to Caroline Lyalt. She’d better ask the next question. He felt as though he was on the point of banging someone’s head against the wall, probably his own.

‘So, Sergeant Spinel,’ Caroline said, still smiling, ‘once more for the tape. You never had any sexual interest in Kara Huggate, despite what your friend Martin Drakeshill has alleged, both in a taped interview and in his signed statement. Is that right?’

‘Of course it is. How often do I have to tell you? I can’t think what he’s playing at.’ Spinel was clearly furious, whether because Drakeshill was trying to pin all the blame for Kara’s death on him or whether because of the sexual insult, Femur wasn’t sure.

‘And he’s not a friend. He’s a snout, for Christ’s sake. No one who knew me would think I could ever fancy an old bag like Kara Huggate. He’s living in a world of his own, these days. None of his information’s been any good to me for months. I should have axed him.’

‘If you had,’ Femur said, with wholly deceptive mildness. ‘Kara Huggate might still be alive, mightn’t she?’

‘I had nothing to do with her death.’

‘Oh, come on! You can’t expect us to believe that with your prints all over the photo of the Kingsford Rapist’s victim.’

‘No, listen, sir, you don’t understand.’

‘Too right, Sergeant Spinel. So give me enough to make me understand.’

‘I never thought they were going to kill her. Christ! You can’t believe I’d let myself be involved in anything like that?’

‘So, what did you think?’

‘That they were trying to scare her off. I understood that Chompie was going to dress up like the Kingsford Rapist and crash about in her cottage, perhaps even give her a bit of a slapping and terrify her into leaving Kingsford. That’s all.’

‘Leave aside what that says about your brains,’ Femur said, aware of the rage that was heating up inside Caroline’s slim body, ‘and tell me why Drakeshill was so anxious to frighten Kara Huggate. What did he think she could do to him, a lone social worker?’

‘I’ve never been quite sure, sir.’ Spinel was spitting out the words. ‘But she’d riled him from the start. He’d been picking up rumours from his mechanics that she’d been talking all over Kingsford about how she was going to get to the bottom of whoever it was putting all the drugs into local schools. She’d find out who it was then use all her influence to have him sent down for the longest possible stretch.’

‘And who was he?’ Caroline asked, so that they could have the admission on tape.

‘Drakeshill, of course. But you knew that.’

‘Sure. But we like to have it all clear.’

Spinel muttered something Femur couldn’t catch. He didn’t need to know what it was: the feeling behind it was obvious enough.

‘Even so,’ he said, ‘I can’t see that kind of provocation being enough for what he had done to Kara Huggate. Are you trying to make me believe Drakeshill also thought Chompie was just going to slap her? That the assault and murder were part of some kind of private enterprise of Chompie’s?’

‘Well, they could’ve been, couldn’t they?’

‘If that’s the story you’re planning to tell in court, I’m even more worried about your brains. You’d never have given Chompie a photograph of the Kingsford Rapist’s body if you’d thought he was just going to give Kara a slapping. You knew all along what they were planning. You’re in it up to your neck. Drakeshill’s trying to make you take the rap for it. I know he was the one who gave the order. You might as well save yourself a bit of bother and tell us why.’

Spinel shrugged. The ghost of his old cockiness still hovered around him, but at last he looked what he was: a grounded bully, a fundamentally weak man who’d enjoyed terrorising other people and now didn’t know where to put himself or what to do.

‘It looked like it was something personal,’ he said sulkily, ‘but I could never understand why she pissed him off that much. Then when she started to go after Napton, I found out Drakeshill thought she had more information on him than she’d let on at first. He thought she was going to pick off his people one by one and then get to him.’

‘That makes her sound powerful.’ Femur was puzzled. ‘No one else has suggested anything like it.’

‘Drakeshill thought she was.’ Spinel shrugged again. ‘He wouldn’t listen. I talked to her over and over again a few months back, probing for whatever she had on him, and there wasn’t anything. She was an angry woman, and she hated drugs, but that was all. She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know he had the monopoly in Kingsford. She didn’t know shit. I told him that, but he didn’t believe me. And I still think it was just coincidence she got on to Napton. But Drakeshill wouldn’t wear it. He decided she was just a front for someone else, someone who really did know the whole story, maybe someone who wanted to take over his empire here. So he wanted her dead, for herself because she riled him and for whoever was behind her as a lesson to keep out of Kingsford. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Except that you were prepared to help him. You know, Spinel, if there’s one thing I hate it’s a bent copper. But a copper who’s prepared to go along with murder is something else again. You’re going down, my son.’

‘So long as I take Drakeshill with me, I don’t fucking care,’ Spinel said, through his teeth.

‘Right. Then let’s get down to it. D’you want a brief now, just to get all the formalities sorted so that Drakeshill can’t wriggle out of this one?’

‘OK.’ The big shoulders shrugged up the leather jacket again. ‘But not Bletchley.’

‘Right.’ Femur turned to Caroline with the first real pleasure of the investigation stretching his face into a smile. ‘Get on to it, will you, Cally? And send for some tea for us all while you’re about it. We’ve got work to do.’

There wasn’t much room in the church of St Michael and All Angels when Trish and George walked through the door only two minutes before Kara’s memorial service was due to start. Every pew they could see was full. Heads turned at the sound of their late arrival. Trish caught sight of Darlie, looking tearful and very fragile in her short black skirt and sweater. Just in front of her was a pewful of police officers in uniform. There was an extraordinary range of dress, from the scruffiest of jeans to formal black suits and even one or two hats. There was an almost cheerful buzz of conversation, as though the congregation was waiting for a wedding or, at least, an ordinary service.