The Cedar Face: DI Jewell book 3 (DI Elizabeth Jewell) (10 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The reception area at Park
Road police station reminded Elizabeth of a chaotic doctor's
surgery.

What the bloody hell is going on? She thought
, as she squeezed through the crowd of Grasmere Academy pupils
causing mayhem.

She heard them all firing questions at Tom
, the Desk Sergeant. 'How long will this take?' 'We all
have stuff to do.' 'The police are useless.'

Other insults
echoed around the room as Elizabeth remembered it was coming
up to exam time or mocks, as they were referred
to in her day. The poor sods had come in
not realising Park Road police station wasn't big enough
to accommodate this many in one sitting. For a moment
, Elizabeth wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation
.

Tom shouted over to her. 'This is nuts, who decided
on this method?'

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. 'Take a guess
.'

Tom murmured quietly. 'Yeats I suppose.'

Elizabeth nodded. 'Maybe this
is how it's done in Belfast.'

She manoeuvered out
of the throng and was on her way upstairs when
an attractive dark haired woman stopped her. 'Do you work
here?'

'Have you come to make a statement?' Elizabeth replied
.

'I'm Jackie Kilmartin, head of art at Grasmere. This
morning, uniformed officers were asking staff and students to voluntarily
come here and make a statement. Surely the pupils should
have been interviewed at home with their parents present?'

'I
'm afraid I can't comment on this decision,' Elizabeth
answered.

‘I really can't stay any longer. I've
been here an hour.'

Where was Yeats and why had
he allowed this madness? Elizabeth thought. 'Give me a couple
of minutes and I'll come back to you.'

Elizabeth
went behind the desk. The phone hadn't stopped ringing
since she'd arrived. 'Tom, unlock the vending machine and
give these people a drink. I know you've got
a spare key squirreled away.'

'I'm not sure where
I hid it.'

'Don't expect me to fall for
that. See to the kids first. It might keep them
occupied until I find Yeats. I'll mind the phone
while you do it.'

Tom nodded and disappeared into a
back room where Elizabeth knew he kept Park Road's
duplicate keys. She answered two calls and placated two sets
of neighbours complaining about loud music coming from a house
next to the railway station. Tom returned, opened the machine
and found himself surrounded. Elizabeth watched him as he handed
out the freebies. It reminded her of a foreign aid
worker distributing food to starving refugees. Within minutes, an eerie
calm descended on the shabby reception area.

She scoured the
room for Jackie Kilmartin but couldn't see her. Impatient
to confront Yeats, she stomped up the stairs and entered
his office without knocking. He glanced up at her and
pointed to a chair then went back to studying his
computer. Instead of sitting down, she positioned herself directly in
front of him and placed her palms on the edge
of his desk. Daly's presence hung in the air
and the thought of never seeing him again filled her
with dread.

'What do you want now Jewell? You can
see I'm busy.'

'Not nearly as busy as Tom
is downstairs. Reception's heaving. Whatever possessed you to suggest
everyone came here?'

She expected him to throw her out
, but he surprised her by answering. 'I was very specific
. Eldridge was instructed to make appointments.'

'This isn't a
dentist's,' Elizabeth said.

'Processing this lot in one day
made sense. We're back to the target word again
. Does it mean anything to you?'

Elizabeth ignored his question
. If she embarked on a debate about targets, they'd
be here for hours. 'Tell me, just who is going
to interview them all? Why don't we ask the
canteen staff and the cleaners to help out?'

'I suggest
that if you've nothing better to do then sort
it out yourself. Before you go, I believe you were
at the CPS this morning. I'd like an update
.'

Elizabeth gave him a précis of her meeting, emphasising the
forensic examination of the suspect's accounts.

Yeats was complimentary
for once. 'Good work. I'm in the middle of
a crucial review report. I'll be down as soon
as I'm finished. In the mean time perhaps you
could interview Ms Kilmartin. She's asked for a female
officer. Tom informed me she didn't want a man
to interrogate her. Those were her exact words.'

'I was
about to visit a firm of accountants in Montpelier. I
also need a couple of crime scene techs to go
back to the Faraday warehouse for a final check.'

'Organise
Ms Kilmartin first. As head of the art department, she
's our first priority. Most of those kids only came
here to escape revising for their exams.'

So no empathy
directed at the Grasmere students, why wasn't she surprised
? Since his arrival at Park Road, his arrogance seemed to
be getting worse. He expected other people to treat him
with respect, but wasn't prepared to reciprocate. From the
beginning it was a matter of pride, defending her position
and that of her colleagues against someone who didn't
give a shit about anyone. Now that he had a
prime suspect, she expected him to bulldoze his way through
the Wilson case.

Elizabeth took stock. For all she disliked
Yeats intensely, maybe it was in her best interests to
co-operate from now on. If there was any chance
of changing the status quo, she was going to have
to work at it. Not continually bitch about the situation
. Due to the constant disruptions, morale was at an all
time low. They all needed a stable period.

'I believe
the students came here because they respected Keith Wilson. Some
of them are visibly upset about his death. They're
also scared because we haven't caught his killer.'

Yeats
moved closer, too close. For the first time Elizabeth became
fully aware of his height and strength. As she backed
away he tried to narrow the gap, his voice and
body language threatening. 'I'm trying to work and you
still bang on about trivialities while Ms Kilmartin is waiting
to impart important information about Wilson. Don't keep her
waiting.'

She steadied her breathing before speaking. 'Does this mean
I'm back on the case?'

Yeats checked his watch
. 'Unfortunately, I've no choice. Start by recruiting anyone capable
of taking statements. As for the CPS suggestions, find someone
else to follow that up.'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Elizabeth found Patterson
moving into his minute office space. She told him about
Yeats's change of mind and asked him to organise
the interviews while she dealt with Kilmartin.

The head of
Grasmere's art department was heading for the main exit
when Elizabeth caught up with her. Rather than subject the
woman to one of the miserable interview rooms she suggested
they walk to Montpelier. At Wetheralls wine bar Elizabeth chose
an outside table and went inside to place the order
.

When she got back, Jackie Kilmartin took out her cigarettes
and offered one to Elizabeth. 'I shouldn't,' she said
, but took one anyway.

'That was badly organised,' Jackie said
.' I thought the police usually kept everything under control.'

Elizabeth
took a drag from her cigarette. 'I'm not defending
our reputation but we have had problems. We got a
new boss in March who operates differently to his predecessor
.'

'Is he the tall Irish bloke?'

Elizabeth nodded and sipped
her coffee.' I don't mean to intrude but I
sense you're bothered about something.'

Jackie wiped away a
tear.

'Were you close to Wilson?'

Jackie shook her head
.

'No romantic involvement? I meant with you working together, it
sometimes happens.'

'He wasn't my type. Our relationship was
actually quite bad. He'd worked at Grasmere longer than
I had. When the post for the head of art
came up, I applied for it knowing Keith wanted it
badly. Now I feel so guilty about the way I
treated him. He wasn't a bad person, he had
some strange ideas but he was patient with the kids
, he was a good teacher. He was devastated when he
lost out to me. I came along and took away
his last opportunity for promotion.'

'It happens,' Elizabeth stated. 'You
got the job because you were the right person. I
wouldn't dwell on it too much.'

Jackie wiped away
another tear. 'Can we get on?'

'This isn't a
formal statement, more of a chat. We can do the
formal stuff later. I thought it was better to get
you away from your students. My boss says you have
important information about Wilson.'

Jackie fiddled with her bag then
stubbed out her cigarette only to light another. 'Keith collected
unusual art. He had many interests, being an art teacher
you would expect that, but he was obsessive about his
collection. He was a competent artist himself but not a
commercially viable one. He believed in painting for spiritual release
. We had plenty of arguments about art and career choices
in the art world. Keith wouldn't accept students needed
commercial talents to get anywhere. He believed you were born
an artist and no amount of teaching turned you into
one. I think differently. Those who choose to follow the
fine art path without any talent have no chance of
doing well.'

Elizabeth needed to steer Jackie back on track
. 'So what's this information?'

Jackie's hand shook as
she picked up her coffee. 'It all started after I
invited Jacob Morven to Grasmere.'

Over the years Elizabeth had
learned how to interpret witness statements. Whether it helped solve
crimes was another matter but in the field of forensic
linguistics recent progress had helped officers identify individuals who consistently
lied. Elizabeth was no expert, but had learned from experience
. Studying body language wasn't a difficult science. If Jackie
lied to her, she would know.

'Towards the end of
the six weeks project on First Nations art everyone who
took part had to do a five minute presentation about
their work. Keith asked me if he could talk to
them afterwards as he had something to show us. He
seemed excited and upbeat, which was unusual for him. He
brought in a box and made a performance about opening
it and unwrapping what was inside. To me the object
looked very unremarkable, a wooden mask with no eyeholes. Jade
Harper made a big fuss about it, telling the rest
of them how she'd seen a similar one in
a museum during her trip to the North West area
of British Columbia. She's a girl who likes to
take centre stage, and boasted that she knew exactly where
the mask originated from and how old it was. To
be honest the rest of the students were fascinated and
waited for Jade and Keith to tell them more, but
he just clammed up and put the mask back in
the box. Then the subject came up as to whether
the mask was valuable. Keith wasn't going to answer
but the kids pressured him. He admitted he didn't
know which I thought was strange. Keith liked to brag
when he had a captive audience so I assumed the
mask was worthless apart from any intrinsic value. Jade kept
badgering him, insisting it was worth quite a lot, which
made me wonder how she really knew. Then Keith started
to bang on about how his life was about to
change and how he would give up teaching and bugger
off. We all thought he was talking nonsense until he
hinted it was to do with Morven. I suspected he
was lying because he didn't even know the man
. Anyway, it all blew over until the day before Morven
's talk. Jade came to my office and told me
the mask was very rare and I should make sure
Keith had it valued. I asked her how she knew
and she explained she'd seen a similar one on
the internet, listed in one of Sotheby's auctions in
New York. Someone had paid almost two million dollars for
it. I should have spoken to Keith straightaway, but didn
't and that's why I feel guilty.'

Elizabeth paused
before answering, hoping to strike the right balance. 'You shouldn
't feel guilty. There was nothing you could have done
to prevent his death.'

'You don't understand,' she said
. 'I believe Keith did show the mask to Morven, and
Morven killed him for it.'