Kith and Kill (17 page)

Not two in one family, Amos thought to himself.

“What did you watch?” he asked.

“That’s quite enough,” Esther said, her voice rising. “I’ve lost three brothers. If you want to know about my viewing habits you can do it at the police station in front of my solicitor.”

It really was happening for a second time. Esther showed them to the door abruptly, just as her sister Mary had done.

Ruth was no more sparing in her time and information. They caught her at school towards the end of the lunch break and she explained forcefully that she really couldn’t take any more time off from lessons. She had the A level class in the first afternoon period and there was much work to be done to get them up to her usual standard.

“You know about Luke?” Amos asked.

Ruth nodded.

“I have to ask you where you were last night,” Amos said.

“I was at home, marking,” Ruth answered belligerently. “Marking essays to hand back to my next class, if I ever get to it.”

“Was anyone with you?”

“No. Ken was at a reunion for his old university mates. Which suited me fine as I could get on with my marking – you know, the marking I’m supposed to be handing back in five minutes from now.”

“Did he ring you at any time in the evening?”

“No, he knew not to. By the time his event was over it would be late and I would be in bed, conked out.”

“What about your daughters?”

“They’ve gone back to university to help with Freshers’ week. They ring once a week if I’m lucky.”

“Did you speak to anyone at all in the course of the evening? Did anyone see you?”

“No, and I really am getting fed up of you insinuating that a member of the family is responsible for what has happened. Other people were in the pub when Matthew was poisoned. Luke was in the city centre when he was attacked. Anyone could have done it.”

With that, Ruth made her excuses and stormed off to her class of underachieving sixth-formers, leaving the two officers alone in the staff room.

“And yet, and yet,” Swift said thoughtfully. “It’s hard to see how anyone other than a member of the family could have poisoned Mark. Or are we missing something?”

“It doesn’t help that none of the family we’ve talked to so far have cast iron alibis for when Luke was killed. Of the three sisters, Mary lives alone, Esther’s husband was out that evening and Ruth just about had chance to do it and finish her marking, assuming she did indeed do any last night. No doubt if pressed she could produce some marking that she really did earlier in the day or even the previous evening.

“We can’t rule out Agnes, either, or her two children for that matter. And Beth and her daughter Enid only have each other for alibis and I haven’t had chance yet to test out how sound they are. Whoever killed Luke picked the worst possible evening from our point of view.”

“But Agnes couldn’t have washed out the decanter and refilled it,” Swift protested. “She was at the hospital. If we’re talking about this being the same killer for all three murders, surely her husband’s death is the one that takes her out of the reckoning.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Amos said deliberately. “Supposing she had no compunction about killing Mark because he knocked her about from time to time. She could have contacted Caroline using the payphone at the hospital and asked her to do it. Risky, I know, to involve another person but Caroline could have been prepared to protect her mother, especially if she knew her father was a wife-beater. She had the best chance of emptying the decanter and refilling it.”

Chapter 33

“Drugs link to brothers’ deaths” screamed the headline in the first edition of the Lincolnshire Echo.

The story was by-lined Sheila Burns and it was an odd mixture of well-informed reporting and speculation that would have bordered on libellous had the three brothers still been alive.

It stated that first Matthew and then his brother Mark Wilson had died within days from ketamine poisoning and now a third brother had been brutally murdered in a part of the city where drug dealing took place after dark.

The story went onto explain that ketamine was used by vets but was being introduced into teenage parties as an alternative to amphetamine. It was not yet widely used and was practically unknown in Lincolnshire but “experts” said knowledge was spreading. Ketamine was particularly dangerous as it was easy to overdose, when the outcome was likely to be fatal.

Burns had sailed pretty close to the wind, mentioning that the Wilson brothers had a sister who was a vet and adding that family members were key suspects as they had the opportunity to administer the ketamine whereas it would be difficult for an outsider to do so. There was a lightly veiled hint that Luke Wilson could have been dealing in drugs and that was why he was murdered.

Amos took a sharp intake of breath. Normally he knew when Burns was coming up with a real humdinger of a story because she would have asked him for a quote or for confirmation. Indeed, he had himself been the source of some of her best stories. It was a good arrangement that worked well to mutual benefit but this time the relationship had broken down. Amos had received no advance warning.

A summons from on high was surely inevitable. This was a disaster. Stamping out drug taking among the young was the subject of Chief Constable Sir Robert Fletcher’s current campaign, into which as always he was pouring his heart and soul.

Amos wandered down the corridor to the toilet, playing for a few precious seconds to get his thoughts together. To his dismay, Sir Robert emerged from the lift.

“Amos,” he thundered. “What’s all this about ketamine? What on earth is the stuff anyway?”

Fletcher had apparently forgotten that DC Susan Smith had told him about it only days earlier.

Amos opened his mouth to reply then hesitated. This was not the Chief Constable’s style. For all his faults, Sir Robert had the sense to confine his most severe tellings off to his own office rather than damage morale by scolding a member of the Lincolnshire Constabulary in public.

“I’ve never heard of it and I take it you haven’t either,” Fletcher thundered on. “Where’s this Banks woman or whatever she’s called got this from?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Amos replied, careful not to correct Fletcher’s mistake over the reporter’s name or to admit that he had indeed heard of ketamine. “Certainly not from me and I don’t believe from any of my officers.”

“I should hope not indeed. We can well do without this nonsense. I want to know where this reporter got her information from. Find out.”

“I’ll get onto it right away, Sir,” Amos responded with what he hoped was sufficient enthusiasm without overdoing it enough to arouse the Chief Constable’s suspicions. Fletcher swept out of the front door of Lincolnshire police headquarters, apparently mollified.

Amos had not the least intention of diverting his efforts from a murder inquiry into conducting a witch-hunt when there was not the slightest chance of a successful outcome. Burns would never reveal a source, especially so in this case.

Amos had steered her away from the big story earlier in the investigation in the hope that he could solve the crime before the drugs angle leaked out; if word had come from within police HQ, no member of CID would confess to such an indiscretion once word spread that Sir Robert was on the warpath.

What was exercising Amos’s mind was not the source of information for Burns but the fact that the Chief Constable had not once mentioned his anti-drugs campaign. It was clearly on the wane. Amos recognised the signs that he was moving onto the next big thing.

With a bit of luck Sir Robert would be so busy formulating his next campaign that this misfortune would be forgotten – provided Amos found the killer or killers soon.

Chapter 34

The phone rang on Juliet Swift’s desk. Her face fell as the unmistakable voice of her boyfriend Jason boomed out of the receiver.

Swift tried to cover up the earpiece to deaden the sound but Jason was shouting down the line, so it was not bearable to keep the phone pressed close to her ear. Amos and Rodgers could both hear the shouting and could actually make out a few words, although for the most part it sounded to them like an incoherent gabble.

Swift kept saying “Calm down, Jason” but to no avail. Finally there was the sound of the phone being slammed down at the other end, followed by the buzz of the dialling tone. Swift sat there in embarrassed silence.

It was not so bad having Amos hear Jason ranting. He had heard it all before, sometimes actually in the office when Swift’s boyfriend had appeared unexpectedly at the front counter. To have Emma Rodgers, a lower ranking officer, witness Swift’s “domestic” was unbearable.

Rodgers pretended not to have listened, which in a way made things worse because she could hardly have missed the rant.

Amos caught Swift’s eye and raised his eyebrows.

“Jason,” Swift said, as if that was not blindingly obvious. “He’s got the car today because he had a job interview to get to. He’s got back to a pub in Cherry Willingham where he’s drowning his sorrows after making a mess of the interview.”

“And he wants you to drive him home,” Amos spoke what Swift was too ashamed to say herself.

“Tell you what, we’re about done for the day. Why don’t I drive you down to the pub, we’ll have a drink with him to calm him down and I’ll drive you home. You can pick up the car tomorrow morning.”

He brushed aside Swift’s protestations.

“I already know he blames me for you working long unsociable hours,” Amos pointed out. “At least we can get this one over with well away from the office.”

On the way out they met Detective Constable Susan Smith coming in to start her night shift. She was on the early side and was relieved to catch Amos before he left.

“I’ve had another phone call from Jane Wilson at home just before I left for work,” she said. “The family are having a meeting tomorrow morning at Esther’s house at 10 o’clock. She’s not bothered about anyone going with her this time but I can do if you want.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Susan,” Amos said. “Not after you’ve put in a night’s work.”

Although it was comparatively early, late afternoon rather than early evening, Jason was already over the limit by the time Amos and Swift arrived at the pub, which was less than four miles from police HQ on the other side of the A158 main road to Skegness.

The two detectives were spared the usual recriminations they got from him, however.

After Amos bought himself a half of shandy and Juliet and Jason a pint of lager each, Jason was going on about a joke he’d just been told by a recently departed fellow drinker.

“There was this Methodist minister who had three sons,” Jason began.

“They all came with their wives to visit him as he lay on his deathbed and he said, like, he knew why they’d come because they wanted his money. Not that he’d got much to leave them anyway because he was a Methodist minister.

“They don’t earn a lot,” Jason explained.

“Jason, please just get on with it,” Swift said in exasperation, “then we can drink up and go home.”

“Well of course, that’s why they were there,” Jason resumed without appearing to notice Swift’s exhortation. “They were each hoping they would get whatever little there was in the kitty.

“Unfortunately for them, he summoned up all his remaining strength and turned to the eldest. He said: ‘I gave you a good education and you had a good job but you squandered it all on gambling. You lost your job and your house because of it. Why, even your wife’s called Bet.’

“Then he turned on his second son. ‘You needn’t smirk. You got the same education and start in life but you squandered it all on booze. You’ve thrown away everything as well – job, home, the lot. Why even your wife is called Sherry.’

“At this point, the youngest son gets up and says to his wife: ‘Come on Fanny, I’m not staying here to be insulted’.”

Jason fell about laughing at his own joke. Swift looked in horror at Amos. She knew how prudish he was. Mercifully, the detective inspector was looking transfixed at the bar. Perhaps he had not listened to the joke or at least was pretending he hadn’t.

Swift followed his gaze. A tartily dressed woman with excessive make-up was buying a double gin and tonic and a ticket for the pub raffle. Was Amos not quite the paragon of virtue he so often seemed to be?

Amos suddenly snapped out of his reverie. He looked at Jason’s beer glass, the contents of which were disappearing rapidly down Jason’s throat. Swift was only half way through hers.

“Drink up, Juliet, and let’s get home,” Amos said.

Anxious to extract her tipsy boyfriend from the pub before he could order another round, she took a quick mouthful of lager and stood up.

“Come on Jason,” she said. “You’re always complaining we hardly ever get a night at home together. You can tell me all about the job interview.”

Chapter 35

It was not DC Susan Smith who attended the meeting of the remaining members of the Wilson family at Esther’s home next morning. It was Detective Inspector Paul Amos himself, accompanied by Detective Sergeant Juliet Swift.

They parked their unmarked car at the top of the road and watched family members arrive from their vantage point. Jane and Beth arrived together in Jane’s car with Enid; then Ruth and Ken drove up and parked; Agnes, the only one trimmed out in black was next; Mary plodded along from the bus stop, the only one on public transport.

“Time for the gunfight at OK Corral,” Amos said to Swift. “As you know, I don’t normally go in for amateur dramatics but I think that this way we have the best chance that our murderer will come clean. I think we have enough for a conviction but a little cooperation from our target will help enormously.”

Amos rang the bell and he and Swift heard Esther’s voice say: “Who on earth can that be? Everyone’s already here.”

There was a silence as she came to the door.