Murder Club (25 page)

‘Just as well, in my case,’ said the older woman, expanding her chest so that Tony Hamilton didn’t miss her point.

‘Need the support?’ said Emma, keeping the smile hovering on her lips.

Marjorie Johnson laughed. ‘No, dear, I was thinking more of the fire-hazard risks.’

She walked back to the sofa, swaying her broad hips like Mae West on steroids, and sat down. ‘Please make yourself comfortable,’ she said, gesturing to the two armchairs opposite.

Emma and Tony sat down. Emma put her glass,
untouched,
on the sherry table beside her chair. Tony took a small sip of his. ‘Very nice.’

‘Not too weak?’

‘No, it’s certainly not that.’

‘Do you think we could discuss your husband now, Mrs Johnson? We have driven a long way.’

‘Yes, and in such awful conditions. I can’t think what was so important. My husband has been dead for a year or so, you know.’

‘I am sorry if this is painful for you,’ replied DI Halliday without any hint of sarcasm in her voice. ‘But there are some matters that have arisen.’

‘What kind of matters?’

DI Hamilton reached into his coat pocket and handed a card over to Mrs Johnson. ‘Does this mean anything to you?’ he asked.

‘It’s a tarot card.’

‘Yes.’

‘Major Arcana.’

‘You know about the tarot?’ asked DI Hamilton, surprised.

‘Oh yes, Inspector,’ Marjorie said, giving the words a seductive lilt. ‘I am very much in touch with my spiritual side. The Hanged Man, a significant symbol.’

‘What sort of significance?’ asked Emma Halliday.

‘It is all down to interpretation, of course. The cards are like notes or chords in a piece of music. You need to put them together for a proper reading.’

‘So what does this one mean?’ prompted Hamilton.

‘A good question.’ She gave him a look a schoolteacher might give a particularly bright pupil. ‘A very good question.’

‘Which is why I asked you what the significance is.’ Emma could do little to hide her growing irritation with the woman.

‘I am afraid I don’t know, my dear. I have a lady come in and give readings once a month in the pub. It’s quite an attraction. I like to have different special nights each week.’

‘And what has any of this to do with your husband?’ interrupted DI Halliday. ‘Did he organise the tarot nights?’

‘Goodness me no. Andrew never came up with any good ideas. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.’ She held the card up. ‘What has this got to do with Andrew?’

‘We were hoping you might be able to tell us.’

‘You have completely lost me.’

‘The card was found on your dead husband’s body when it was recovered, Mrs Johnson. It was in his pocket.’

‘This one?’

‘One like it. I bought another deck of cards,’ explained Tony Hamilton.

‘Did you not recover your husband’s things?’

‘They told me there was nothing of value on him. The clothes were obviously ruined. I just told them to dispose of them. His body was transported up here and it was cremated. I didn’t look at him. I’m a bit squeamish about that kind of thing.’

‘Did you love your husband, Mrs Johnson?’ asked Emma.

‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’

‘It’s just you do seem, shall we say, a little dispassionate about all this.’

‘It was over a year ago. My husband decided to jump in front of a train for whatever reason. Am I to wear sackcloth and ashes for the rest of my life?’

‘Do you know of anyone who may have wanted to harm your husband?’ DI Hamilton interjected, trying to calm the waters.

Marjorie Johnson looked at him, her smile gone and any hint of flirtation a distant memory. ‘Okay, why don’t you tell me what exactly is going on here?’

‘We think your husband was murdered,’ said Emma Halliday bluntly.

JACK DELANEY AND
Sally Cartwright were standing in the registrar’s office, talking with her as she typed up some notes into her computer.

‘He’s okay to be interviewed now?’

The consultant stopped typing and swivelled her chair to face them. ‘Yes. But try not to agitate him too much.’

‘He still can’t remember who assaulted him?’ asked Sally Cartwright.

The petite woman shook her head. ‘It’s entirely possible he never will.’

‘But he does have a clear idea of the woman he claims to have murdered?’ asked Delaney.

‘Do you know who she is?’

‘Maybe.’ Delaney read from his notebook. ‘Early twenties, blonde hair, blue eyes, waif-like.’

Dr Lily Crabbe rose to her feet, picked her stethoscope up from her desk and swung it around her neck.

‘A bit like her,’ said DC Cartwright, holding out a photograph.

The registrar took it. ‘Who is this?’

‘A young homeless girl. She hasn’t been seen at the shelter she normally uses. And the last time she was
there,
she was with Bible Steve. They don’t take men at the hostel and so they left. She hasn’t been seen since.’

‘You don’t think he really has killed her then?’ said the registrar.

‘Nothing much surprises me any more,’ said Delaney. ‘Not in this city.’

Bible Steve was sitting up in bed. His breathing was laboured but he seemed calmer. His eyes were still bloodshot. Tired and haunted.

Delaney sat on the chair next to him as DC Sally Cartwright and the registrar stood at the base of his bed.

‘You were have been on the streets for a large number of years. When you first turned up in London, you were disorientated, confused. You didn’t know who you were, or where you were. You had complete amnesia.’

Bible Steve nodded.

‘You were brought into one of the shelters by the homeless unit. You couldn’t remember your name, but they gave you one. Steven Collins. It’s what you have been known by since. But on the street they call you Bible Steve.’

The man nodded again.

‘Is it okay if I call you Steve?’

The older man shrugged wearily.

Delaney held up a picture of the young woman. ‘This is Kathy Simmons. She is a homeless person like you. She is registered at the Saint Catherine’s shelter in the West End. She has been in prison and on and off the streets since she was fifteen years old.’

Bible Steve looked at the picture but didn’t say anything.

‘You said earlier that you had killed someone. That you remembered it.’

Bible Steve blinked and gazed at Delaney. ‘I can still see it. There are lights and she is lying there. Blonde hair, young. Too young to die and there is blood everywhere. My hands awash with it. And I am holding something in my hands.’ His eyes started flicking nervously from side to side. ‘She’s dead. It’s too late! You can’t do anything. So much blood. I can hear her pleading, begging for help.’ He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘I should have died. What use am I? I’m an old, useless man. Coughing blood. I know what that means, I’ve seen it on the streets.’

‘Is this the girl?’ Delaney showed him the photo.

‘It should have been me. It should have been me!’

Delaney held the photo closer. ‘Is this the girl, Steve?’

The homeless man shook his head and whimpered.

‘Open your eyes, please. Look at the photo.’

Bible Steve did so, but stared at the ceiling.

‘Is this the woman, Steve?’ Delaney asked again.

The homeless man finally looked at the photograph.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not!’ Then he leant across and vomited bright, red blood over Delaney’s shoes.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR TONY
Hamilton sat happily on a stool tucked into the corner of the bar. He had a pint of Abbot in front of him, which the barmaid, who had just come on duty, cheerfully informed him was a very popular, Suffolk ale. He took an appreciative sip.

‘Maybe I’ll become a convert,’ he said to the barmaid, a red-headed twenty-something-year-old with a blaze of curly hair and a spray of freckles across her nose. Her green eyes sparkled and she winked at the DI.

‘Did I not tell you so?’

‘With that accent and that colouring I am guessing you’re not Welsh?’ he replied.

The barmaid laughed. ‘Not unless the Red Dragon invaded Cork in 1990 and someone forgot to tell me ma.’

‘You a Cork lass, are you?’

‘The city itself top of the bottle, as we call it.’

‘I know a guy from there. He’s a right miserable git sometimes.’

‘Good-looking though, I’ll bet.’

Tony flashed her a grin. ‘Depends who else is in the room.’

‘All the best-looking people come from Munster, you know.’

‘That a fact?’

‘Oh yeah. Born in the shadow of the Shandon Bell, me.’

‘I guess that makes you an official corker?’

The red-haired woman laughed loudly. Emma Halliday came in, shaking the thick snow from her hair.

‘Don’t you ever give it a rest, Hamilton?’

‘Use it or lose it, isn’t that what they say? How did you get on?’

‘Signal cut in and out, but they’ve closed the A134 and a lorry has jack-knifed on the M11 southbound.’

DI Hamilton got serious quickly. ‘Which means?’

‘Which means you’d better order me a large glass of that mulled wine they’ve got sitting in the pot over there.’

Hamilton gestured to the barmaid. ‘Can we get a large glass of mulled wine for Nanook here, please?’

‘So this has been a wasted journey.’ Emma Halliday sat on a stool next to him.

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘All we’ve learned is that Andrew Johnson didn’t have any enemies, as far as his wife was concerned. He was a pillar of the local community. And she obviously hated his guts.’

‘Enough to do something about it?’

‘Her alibi checks out. I phoned the hospital where she was hosting a charity dinner. She was nowhere near London when Andrew Johnson did the hop, skip and a jump to Oblivion Central.’

‘She could have contracted it out.’

‘What’s the motive? Not money. We already know that, the money in the relationship all came from her.’

‘Maybe she was tired of bankrolling him.’

‘There’s something she’s not telling us.’

DI Halliday picked up the glass of mulled wine that the barmaid had poured for her. ‘What do I owe you?’ she asked.

‘I’ve started a tab,’ said Tony Hamilton.

Jack Delaney sat staring at his laptop in the CID room back at White City Police Station. He sipped at his mug of tea. It was stone cold, but he drank some of it anyway.

DC Sally Cartwright came over, holding some pieces of paper.

‘What have you got for me, Sally?’

‘Someone who liked pretty young girls. Schoolgirls. Fifteen years old. Susan Nixon and Caroline Lewis.’

‘We’ve got names?’

‘We have.’

‘And who was it taking such a keen interest in them?’

‘The Reverend Geoffrey Hunt.’

‘The plot thickens.’

‘The girls were part of a drama group attached to the church. They were in a play to be performed at Christmas in the Church Hall. Apparently the vicar didn’t just get his own knickers in a twist.’

‘He assaulted them?’

‘Apparently.’

‘And we know this, how?’

‘The person who succeeded him in the vicarage. We finally tracked him down.’

‘The other missionary?’

‘That’s him. Out in the People’s Democratic Republic of the Congo.’

‘So what did our missionary friend have to say?’

‘At the time he was asked to take over, he remembered there was a bit of a scandal. The parents of the two girls had contacted the parish bishop making formal complaints about Reverend Hunt.’

‘Were the complaints investigated? If the police were involved then we should have had records, and there weren’t any. We checked.’

‘I know we did. The complaints from the girls were dropped. No approaches to the police were made.’

‘So what happened? Why the volte face?’

‘It seems the complaints were dropped when Geoffrey Hunt agreed to retire. There could have been a lot more, of course. Girls, I mean. Some who didn’t come forward.’

‘And we still don’t have a missing person, apart from the reverend’s brother, and Forensics have confirmed that our John Doe in the shallow grave isn’t him.’

‘So where is he?’

‘That might just be the question, Sally.’ Jack Delaney stood up and put on his black leather jacket.

‘You going to be warm enough in that, sir?’ asked the young detective constable.

‘What, are you my mother now?’

‘Someone has to keep an eye on you.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says Kate Walker, sir.’

Delaney grunted and tossed her his car keys. ‘You can drive.’

DANNY VINE WAS
off duty and heading down Edgware Road on his pushbike. The snow was driving into his face and he had to blink continually to see where he was going. There was still a solid gridlock of traffic running all the way from the Harrow Road onwards.

The recession might be continuing. But not on Oxford Street this Christmas. Danny was on his way to Selfridges. He wanted to buy something nice for Sally Cartwright. He didn’t expect to get anything in return. He figured that boat had pretty much sailed. And he wasn’t aboard. He didn’t blame her for not wanting to strike up a work-based relationship after what had happened to her. If he’d had his way, he would have done exactly what Jack Delaney did to the creep who attacked Sally and wipe him off the face of the earth. But Delaney beat him to it. And you could see the gratitude in her eyes whenever Sally looked at him.

Danny darted in and out of the stationary cars, wishing he had half of the Irishman’s luck. But the past was the past and, like his mother always said, sometimes you have to put the cork back in the bottle and forget about it. He had always assumed that the funny expressions she came up with were phrases lost
in
translation from her original Jamaican roots. Nowadays he was convinced that she just made them up. ‘When the polar bear he shiver, then the whole world be cold,’ was another one of hers. As Danny felt the snowflakes sticking to his cheeks, he reckoned she might be right. So he was going to Selfridges to buy a bottle of Sally’s favourite perfume. It was going to cost him an arm and a leg but he figured she deserved it. A smile was good enough for him. He was picturing her face opening the present, when a woman ran straight out into the road and he crashed into her.