Under a Silent Moon: A Novel (20 page)

After all, it had been undoubtedly the worst week of his whole life.

As he settled into the warm coziness of a true bout of self-pity, he was interrupted by a porter, helpfully wearing a name badge which proclaimed him to be
RON
, who roughly took hold of the gurney.

“You all right there, mate?” Ron asked cheerily. “Where to? CCU? Right-o.”

Passing the nurses’ station, Brian’s load was added to by Sister Nolan, who dumped his notes, files, and charts on the bed, then gave his arm an affectionate pat. “Good luck,” she said softly, as Ron wheeled the bed through the ward doors.

Good luck? Brian thought. Am I going to need it for the CCU? Or does she just think I’m going to die after all?

10:02

Buchanan had kept her waiting, of course, but she’d expected that. It was a control thing. He liked her to be sitting down in his office, trying not to nose around the room, trying not to fidget, so that she would have to stand when he entered, like a schoolgirl in the headmaster’s office.

“Good morning, sir,” she’d said as he finally blustered in, standing up while holding on to all the loose bits of paper she’d been scanning, waiting for his appearance.

“Ah—how’s it going? Progress?”

“As you know, we’re in the process of getting a statement from Flora Maitland. Meanwhile, we’ve got search teams all over Hermitage Farm, so with a bit of luck we’ll find something we can put to her in interview. For the time being, we need to establish her movements on the night Polly died, since the cellsite data from Polly’s mobile seems to indicate that she visited Flora at home that night.”

“What about the—er—suicide?”

Barbara Fletcher-Norman: the only person Lou could legitimately identify as a suspect, and she was lying on a big metal tray in Adele Francis’s mortuary.

“We’ve got several strong lines of inquiry. Her husband, Brian, is looking promising—at least for further information. He told his daughter that he was having an affair with Polly Leuchars. And we have forensics linking Mrs. Fletcher-Norman to the murder scene.”

“Hmm.” Buchanan was reclining slightly in his big leather chair, which dwarfed him. “So you think the wife killed Polly out of jealousy and then went to the quarry to commit suicide?”

“That does seem the most likely explanation at the moment.”

There was a pause. Buchanan was skimming through his emails. Come on, Lou thought. Some of us have work to do.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Lou hesitated. Although she trusted her instincts, she never liked to share them with other people until she had good solid evidence to back it up.

“I think there’s a lot more to it than that. And we still need to establish whether Nigel Maitland has anything to do with it.”

Another pause. Something he’d read on his PC was making him chuckle.

“Sir? Was there anything else?”

He gave a short cough and returned his attention to her. “No, no. Just checking how things are going. Got everything you need? Resources?”

“For now, we’re managing. As long as I don’t start losing staff to other ops.”

“I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

Of course, he was still doing her favors and making sure she knew it, Lou thought as she hurried back to the MIR. It didn’t feel right, the way he oversaw her investigation and granted her things she needed to run it as though he was her Lord and Master granting her largesse. At some point she was sure he would start asking for some sort of favor in return. She’d heard from Sarah Singer, a DCI who’d gone to the Met last year, that Buchanan had taken more than his fair share of credit for her investigations when they’d got a good result.

The MIR felt warm and more than a little stuffy by the time she finally made it, two coffees and a Kit Kat from the vending machine balanced on top of her stack of paperwork.

Jason was on the phone when she passed his desk. She gave him a smile, indicated the second coffee with a nod of her head, and he nodded back. She went on into her office and sat down.

Already on her desk was another pile of information reports, witness statements, and charts. Jason was working on a new network chart indicating the various people involved in the case and their relationships to each other.

She looked up at the knock on the door, felt her heart lift slightly as she gave him a wave to come in. He didn’t waste time with a greeting.

“I’ve got some news. Well, three things.”

“Go on,” Lou said, although he hadn’t paused.

“Firstly, Jane got the medical history for Barbara Fletcher-Norman. Suicide attempt in September, not a serious one, but she was on antidepressants when she died.”

“Well,” Lou said, “that puts a different slant on things.”

“Secondly, Mandy just took a call from the hospital. Brian’s been transferred to a regular ward.”

“And the third thing?”

“Not such good news. The search team went into Hayselden Barn this morning. Taryn Lewis was there, playing with her dad’s mobile phone.”

“Shit! I thought the Barn was supposed to be sealed off.”

“Brian gave her a key, asked her to check the post. Nobody thought about that one.”

“What’s happened to the phone?”

“The search team bagged it and took it straight to Computer Crime for download. Let’s hope they haven’t got too much of a backlog.”

“Where’s the DI?” asked Lou.

“He went out after the briefing,” Jason said.

“Thanks, Jason. The coffee and the Kit Kat’s for you,” she said.

Something was going on with Hamilton. He had always been a bit of a risk taker, it was one of the things she’d liked about him, but that—whatever it was—last night in the car park, that was something completely different. It was like he’d crossed the line into reckless. And she had crossed a line, too: from being still attracted to him, despite his behavior, into a nagging concern for his welfare. He had been a little drunk. Maybe that explained it, but it still felt like something was wrong.

10:17

For a moment she stood waiting at the access door to the ICU, looking through the glass, past the posters encouraging healthy living, avoiding drunk driving, and advertising self-help groups, to where the bed Brian had previously occupied was being made by two health care assistants.

Taryn hadn’t rung the bell yet, to gain access.

Maybe he had died in the night. She considered how this made her feel, searched for something, but found nothing. She turned to go.

There was to be no escape, though. Sister Nolan was coming toward her, wearing a thick wool coat buttoned up to the neck.

“Ah, you’ll be disappointed now if you’re looking for your dad,” she said, her voice loud in the quiet corridor. “He’s been moved down to Stuart Ward. Ground floor. Much better this morning, he was. All right?”

Taryn tried to arrange her face into an expression of gratitude and relief. Back on the main corridor, which connected the different wings of the hospital, the traffic was unrelenting, porters pushing people on beds, relatives carrying magazines and Sainsbury’s carrier bags. Further down, past the maternity wards, mothers-to-be going for walks to try and encourage labor, leaning against the wall every so often as another contraction hit. Oh yes, whatever you were here for was done entirely in public these days.

At last Taryn located Stuart Ward. It was far from peaceful, a world away from the ICU, with a constant flow of people coming and going. The nurses’ station was unoccupied, so Taryn consulted a huge whiteboard that listed everyone on the ward—who their consultant was, and what they were in for. Everything from “appendix” to “hip replacement”—and there he was: Brian Fletcher-Norman, Bay 3, coronary.

He looked so miserable that Taryn felt a curious rush of both pity and joyous revenge.

“Tabby. Good to see you.” He was still wearing that hospital gown, she noted, one of those ones that opens at the back so everyone can see your arse if you need to go somewhere. Good job I didn’t find any pajamas, she thought. But then she noted the bathrobe she’d brought last night, slung over the chair next to the bed. She moved it and sat down.

“They moved you, then,” she began.

“Ah, that’s my daughter. Mistress of the Bleeding Obvious.”

She pressed her lips together tightly.

He must have seen her expression and remembered that he needed her, because he said quietly, “Sorry. Been a tough morning.”

“Right,” she said.

He was twisted awkwardly in the bed, trying to turn to see her. It would have been better for her to sit on the edge of his bed, but she didn’t want to get any closer to him.

“Did you get hold of her?” he asked quickly.

In the bed to Taryn’s left, an old man was fast asleep, snoring like an elderly pig, wheezing and rasping. The curtain was pulled slightly across, but she took a quick peek behind it. The man’s mouth had fallen open, revealing pale gums. On the lap trolley next to the bed, a plate of congealing shepherd’s pie lay untouched. As she watched, a fly buzzed past and settled on it.

“Taryn. Did you phone her?” His voice had a sharp edge to it.

The more he spoke to her like that, the less inclined she was to be helpful. “Nice here, isn’t it, Dad? I thought you were better off upstairs, myself.”

“They were going to put me in the coronary care ward, but they didn’t have enough beds. This is the ‘leftovers’ ward. Fucking unbelievable.”

“Mmm. I expect you’ll be glad to go home, won’t you?”

Brian stared straight ahead at the curtains around the opposite bed. If they’d been opened, Brian might have had a chance to see a bit of window. “Apparently they want to keep me in for a bit.”

“Jolly good thing, too,” Taryn said brightly.

He shot her an evil look. “How do you work that one out?”

“Well, at least the police will go easy on you while you’re in here.”

He looked away again, concentrating on the curtains. “What do the police have to do with anything? And keep your voice down.”

Taryn relaxed a bit more, leaning back into the armchair. Although the bay was bright enough, there was a distinct smell of something—urine, probably. A bag of it was hanging below the curtain, attached to the bed next door. “I should imagine they’re just desperate to talk to you. Your lover and your wife, both dead on the same night? Good Lord.”

“For your information,” he growled, his cheeks reddening, “they’ve already seen me. They know I had nothing to do with Polly’s death, for Christ’s sake.”

“But you didn’t tell them Polly was your lover, did you?”

Slow realization crossed his face. “You told them?”

She shrugged, wondering if he could tell just how much she was loving every minute of this conversation.

He was so angry he couldn’t look at her anymore, but his cheeks were pale now. “Did you phone her?” he asked again, quietly.

“Yes, I did.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing much. I just told her where you were, and she said thanks. That’s all.”

“Did you bring the phone with you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, firstly, you didn’t ask for it. And secondly, the police took it and put it into an evidence bag.”

“What?”

“They turned up at the Barn while I was there. They’ve got a search warrant. Or something. I didn’t really look. After all, it’s not my house, is it?”

The snoring stopped abruptly. Taryn waited for it to resume. A minute passed, during which she’d been wondering if she should go and find someone, but then the bed creaked and it resumed as a low, throaty rumble.

“Polly’s death,” Taryn said.

“What?”

“You said you had nothing to do with Polly’s death. Does that mean you had something to do with Barbara’s?”

“Are you stupid? Of course I didn’t. She killed herself, didn’t she? Isn’t it obvious?”

Taryn stood up to go, buttoned up her jacket, fished around inside her bag for her car keys. She’d had entirely enough of being called stupid.

“Are you going? What about—look, Taryn, can’t you go and buy me some pajamas? From M&S?”

Her heart was as cold as her voice, when it came. “I don’t think I’ll have the time.”

On the way out, thinking about how she could make Flora feel better, Taryn just missed the striking woman who was making her way to the Stuart Ward. They passed in the corridor, each entirely unaware of the other, Suzanne having never been shown a picture of Taryn, and Taryn having no knowledge of what her father’s lover looked like.

11:37

“Stop,” said Ali, pulling out of the police station car park into the traffic. “Tell me that again, bit by bit.”

Jane Phelps had started off the conversation by passing on the news from Sam Hollands about Brian’s daughter, and Ali had been only half listening. Now, though, something Jane said had dragged him back to full awareness.

A rustle of Jane’s notebook as she consulted what she’d scribbled earlier, the phone receiver tucked behind her ear. “Taryn Lewis said her father had told her that he had been Polly’s lover, but wasn’t anymore. And that he had a new lover, a woman called Suzanne. He asked Taryn to phone her to tell her about his heart attack. No mention of whether she also had to tell her about poor old Barbara, but there you go.”

“Good Lord,” Ali muttered. “It’s all going on in Morden, isn’t it? So that’s why she was at the Barn this morning, phoning this Suzanne?”

Jane shrugged. “I guess so.”

Silence fell for a moment while Ali waited at the traffic lights. “How do you want to play this?”

“By ear. He should be on the mend if they’ve moved him to a regular ward, so I think he’s up for a few more robust questions. But we really need to get him on his own, so it depends how private the ward is.”

Not nearly private enough, was Ali’s first thought when they found their way to Stuart Ward. The curtains around Brian’s bed were partly drawn, so it was only when Jane pulled them slightly aside that she got a view of Brian’s bare back as he sat on the edge of the bed, his feet dangling a few inches above the polished vinyl floor. He looked around sharply. “What the—?”

Jane apologized but held her ground. “Sorry to intrude, sir. How are you feeling?”